Woodsmoke
A story about young life and a tunnel.
My mother had a gentleness only obtained by a life of hardship. Her love had hard lines, her expressions were pointed, but inside her was a care more tender than anything I had ever known. She would tell me long stories of her life, and the lessons she had learned from them. I only heard the stories, and yearned to make a few of my own. That, I think, is why I left.
The tunnel had walls of stone and a carpet of dirty water. We leaned against it for seating, huddled in its belly for warmth. The first time we found it we walked the whole length, well past the misty light that filtered at its end, running our hands on stone slick with moss and dreaming of the people who had found it last. We were free. Free in the way only youth can be. A life that still had mistakes to make. The second time we went to the tunnel May built a fire. I remember the musty darkness, and how her face danced in the glow of her lighter, the sloshing of gas cans. That fire was the first mark we left there, the first mark we had left anywhere.
Pretty soon we were spending each day stumbling down the roadside to get to it. That tunnel was the first house I ever owned. We had claimed it. Furnished it. We cooked memories on open flames and passed cheap booze with unsteady hands. The night air would be heavy with smoke, swirling about us as we sat and spoke and loved and wondered and complained. The first time I kissed May was in that tunnel. The firelight hugged us close and the embers stung our skin and we found each other. We stayed late that night, stumbled through the water on the way home.
My mother was furious when she found me. Soaked in mud, slipping along with ashes on my breath. She told me how stupid I was, how I could have died, how I should never go out alone like that. I tried to explain we were only having fun. Only living. She cursed under her breath and dragged me home. From risk to bitter safety. From May.
The next day I was woken up by pebbles cracking against my window. Dawn had carried May wandering to my home, beckoning me back out. I told her I couldn’t in hushed tones, kept telling her I couldn’t as I got my things together and snuck out the back door, whispering excuses as we walked back to our home. May had been dragging me along for years. Sneaking out to live our lives. “Stay away from that girl,” my mother would say.
Most of her speech was like that. Brief. “Don’t do that.” “My daughter will not wear that.” “Stupid girl!” She only spoke her stories in the quiet moments on the porch. She would sit out there for hours, reading books by cigarette light. If you caught her at just the right time you could slip past the usual walls and get to see her. One day as dusk dragged its bruised body across the sky she told me about her road trip. How when she was young she ran from home, ran away with a boy and drove and drove. Her mother had told her to not act so hastily, and she hadn’t listened, and she left to go see what she was missing. She would wheeze out a laugh and softly shake her head, look out past you at the dusk, and mumble how her mother was right. You could see the road in her eyes in those moments. The road and the memories. “He took me to many places. Beautiful,’’ she’d say.
Those moments of closeness didn’t last long. My mother grew guarded. Her daughter became a stranger with each day, as this girl grew to know her better and better. Maybe it made Mom upset, maybe it made her scared, maybe it just reminded her of herself. Either way she made her opinions known.
Get Pecan’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
Stay away from that girl.
When we got to the Tunnel it was as welcoming as ever. The light from the river danced on the walls and ceiling, a private aurora just for us. We looked up at the stone and imagined stars. We talked about all the places we’d go, the memories we’d make in the future. The bonfire crackled its response and the water bubbled against the walls, active members in our conversations. Our voices mixed with woodsmoke, carried us forward, out of our little tunnel. We stumbled through the underbrush and into our future.
May was an infectious dreamer. The first time I met her she told me she was going to see the world. We were younger then, knock-kneed youths with missing teeth and big plans. We were gonna get a car and drive all over, to those magic faraway places like Paris and Kentucky. We were gonna be somebodies. She would drag me by the hand all over town, and we spent the years finding every nook and cranny of the place. We would try each one on for size, going from old steel bridges to abandoned factories and old watchtowers, looking for a nest as the seasons passed us by. Nothing ever fit. Not until our tunnel.
Something about it hooked us the same way we were hooked to each other. I was hesitant at first, worried we’d be caught or that it was still in use. Everytime I heard the rumble of a car overhead I became convinced they had heard our laughter or the clinking of glass. But May knew right away what it was. It was home. She lit our fires and smuggled us food and drink, while I found old furniture lining the road and dragged it down so we’d have places to sit. To anyone else the place would be destitute. It was half submerged in muck, the walls smoothed by age. But May was right, it was ours, and I was dreaming right alongside her.
Over the weeks the tunnel transformed for us. We transformed for it too. Learned each other with an intimacy only allowed by time. Vulnerability. I could trace the whole layout, the paces it took to walk its green-brown belly, the way the wind blew and where to sit so the smoke flowed past you. The chips and markings left on its skin, little scars and birthmarks poured into stone. Old construction markers, faded paint. The scent of the damp leaves that piled around its mouth, mixing with the bonfire’s gray smoke; the taste of that smoke on your tongue. The little carvings in the surrounding wood that led you down to our home, markings from people I’d never meet, snapshots of highschool loves or adventurous youths. J+A with a heart, Jones was Here, Arrows and stars and smiley faces.
I learned May the same way. A small scar on her cheek, that looks like a dimple if she smiles. Her eyes look like a forest fire at night, lit by a lighter, the usual green parading with amber light. The way she sat laid out against the wall, whilst I tucked my legs under me. The little face she makes at beer she doesn’t quite like. What kind of jokes make her smile and what kinds make her laugh. We curled up like rodents in winter, huddled around our newfound comfort. Blowing gently and fanning the flames of living.
One night, curled up in our new den, May told me she never wanted to be stuck with ‘What-Ifs’. What If she had done this, or that, or gone here or gone there. When she was old she didn’t want to be boring. When she died, she didn’t want to find out she hadn’t lived. Cheeks flush with alcohol, eyes dancing with embers, I agreed with her. We decided that night we were going to be different, we were going to leave the town behind and find the pieces of ourselves we were looking for. The twilight as our witness we’d get there. No what-ifs.
And so we left.
Sometimes I wonder if it was the right choice. Looking back it’s easy to wonder. We did find pieces of ourselves as we went, scattered about our homes and friends and experiences. Not all are good memories, but all are beautiful. Little stories, good and bad, to tell on the porch. May talks about the tunnel sometimes, our first haven. The first of many. Our immature pacts and stifled laughs, our shared love. Childish freedom. We knew a lot less back then but, I think that’s what let us go. Let us stumble blindly and find what we were looking for. I think I’ll always wonder if staying would’ve been better, if avoiding the disappointment and ridicule would’ve been better, if being alone would’ve been better. But deep down I know May was right. She always is.
When I die, I don’t want to find out I haven’t lived.
