nick hedtke
Parade
I open fire on the grouse in the grass. They have that look on their faces. Like they aren’t ready to be shot. You should see my face. I’m biting my lips. I think I drew blood on my lips. I know I drew blood on the birds. I’m so focused on their destruction there isn’t any meat left. I’ll come up with a story to tell her. Even I’m mad about it. I lay and keep laying. Malnourished in the grass. Death on my mind. Looking at the sun straight until night comes.
I can’t see what I hold but I know it’s made of hickory. Mary Jo learned how to make these when she was little. Woven baskets. She learned how to sew too. Wool dresses that are river navy. Always there holding onto her and always will be. Her dresses don’t have stripes, but they are her uniform. The armor she wears through Parade. The basket is floating in front of me, in my hands but floating because of the dark. I have hickory in mind. The lights altogether all out.
When I wake up, Mary Jo is walking through the berry patch. I can see my way out of here. Before I get myself into trouble, I should see my way out of here. The creek is full of bricks that I use to get across the water. I am a barbarian walking Roman. There isn’t any glory left in town, except for these bricks. Covered in moss and dirty water.
I pull back the real leaves obscuring the fake leaves from hunting season. Through them is the shack I built with scrap wood Mary Jo gets free from winter work, and pieces of garbage that fall down 20 or 30 feet from the highway above.
The shack is full of moss because it’s been a wet summer. Windy and wet. I hang everything I own on a nail and sit on the stool I fished out of the creek. The stool is the throne for my kingdom. I call the shack my kingdom.
Frog songs filter in through the poorly placed boards. Placed when I was feeling lazy and not the master of myself. I like hearing their sound. Maybe it’s mating season, or one of the other frogs died. They’re either fucking or mourning a loss. I’m either fucking or mourning a loss when I sit in my silence. Never fucked or been fucked or seen someone die. But living teaches wild imagination. That’s how I leave.
Parade is so flat that you can see everything in front of you. It’s all there to see. You have to go under the highway and walk across the bricks to find something hidden. That’s where the gossip of the town is written in graffiti. The place I go to smoke things I take from Mary Jo when she gets back from work and lays her body down.
Mary Jo’s mom grew up in Yankton, over on the Missouri River. When Mary Jo was my age, she told her a story about a man in a diving bell. People came to Yankton to take pictures, and all the locals gathered trying to get their faces on the newspaper. Back when there wasn’t all the excitement there is now.
They crowded around to watch him surface. He came out of the water like a fish or some other creature. She said he looked like an alien. They came to see the bubbles of water on his face. On the face of the man in the diving bell. She said they dreamt themselves all the way to the bottom. They looked for a way to leave. But when I swim in the creek, the bubbles on my face underwater, I try to keep myself upright. I want nothing.
Eagle Butte is where all the kids from nowhere get sent to school. I used to take a bus there before I got my horse. I named her Promise. In the summers, Mary Jo rides her into Eagle Butte because she picks up a summer job. I have to wait until Mary Jo gets home from work at night to see her. When it’s so dark on the way to the barn, and I touch her face. Like she’s floating in front of me. Like she’s made of hickory.
I remember the sky is a painting when we’re riding. I don’t mean it cliche, I mean the sky is a painting. There’s nothing to hide. The only painting in Parade is the sky, except for the graffiti under the highway. Those letters that don’t look like letters because of style.
Parade got hit by a tornado when Mary Jo was young. That’s what took the school down in Parade and left the bricks in the creek. Mary Jo didn’t tell me, that bum did. The one who comes down here too. He comes down for fishing and to tell his story. I usually don’t even move. I just sit there. For some reason I lifted the leaves this time. I got addicted to his words. To his tornado story. He said the tornado originated in Promise, a town about 45 miles away. I named my horse Promise because I went there with Mary Jo once and we had a good time. The bum told some boring stories, but this wasn’t one of them. Through the leaves I could see him meeting his myth. It looked like he was dancing when he said:
You know, I used to go to school here. The school was right next to the creek. But I only made it to the 1st day of 9th grade. That morning when I was walking, I saw a tornado on the horizon, which isn’t the best place to see a tornado. As I watched it run through flat ass Parade, I became mesmerized by that tornado. The dance it does, like a hero of the plains. Breaking up the monotony for a little while. I started walking into the field through all the corn, and I got so hallucinated or whatever you call it that I fell down to the ground. The corn was ready for harvest, and I was wearing blue plaid. I’m letting you know the details so you can picture it better for yourself. Even though my eyes were closed, and I was in the dirt, plants underneath and on top of me, I still saw that tornado in my mind. I couldn’t look away. When I woke out of that daze, I got up and walked toward the school. I saw the tornado had taken it down, so I turned around and kept on walking. I’ve been coming back here every day for the past 30 years. That tornado was my dreams, but then it took them away. It left me behind, and now I live in the woods.
During his speech I had the leaves down. He didn’t even know I was there. He was good at talking to nobody and the garbage in the water. But I was there. I lifted up the leaves that day. I invited him inside.
He was wearing blue plaid, the same shirt from his story, and one of the three colors I’d seen him wear. I wondered where he changes into the other colors. If the leaves hide him like they hide me. He lives in the woods on the other side of the highway. I don’t go over there much, but I see him walking down the trail sometimes. That’s where I saw him while I was riding Promise last year in late summer, when summer jobs end. I was going so fast I couldn’t tell you if what I saw was red, blue or green. While he told his story I had the leaves covering me. I wasn’t in the best mood. I can’t remember why, probably something with Mary Jo. All we have is each other. That means we hurt each other.
He looked funny sitting there. The light that comes through the 2-liter bottles I used for the roof (Grape soda bottles, stained a little from the soda) shined onto his face, making it purple. I realized I’d never seen his face before. He always faced the creek, and his caveman hair obstructed the rest of him. He was too big for my shack, even though he was skinny. He settled in, adjusting himself on a milk crate that had fallen off of a truck at some point. I offered him half of my ketchup sandwich and he took it. We both ate and wondered. Looking around for some words. We knew we had time for food and that it was important. We were nearly finished eating when I looked over at him, in that purple light, and said:
I was going to keep the leaves over me today, I wasn’t trying for any public language, but something about this tornado you’re talking about, how it haunts you, I feel connected to that. Every day I come down to this place and walk the bricks. I call this shack my kingdom. I never knew why the bricks were in the creek. I figured they always had been. I know this tornado haunts you. It’s the reason you live in the woods. I think it haunts me too, even though I only know about it because you told me. I might be stupid talking, but does that make sense?
The sandwich was good. I could tell by how focused he was on it. Even during my rant, he held the sandwich above himself like the circus. He licked each of his fingers up and down and sucked on them too. When he was finished, he stared at me in silence for two solid minutes before he said:
Boy, there are two ways out of this town. You can keep riding into Eagle Butte and get yourself an education, but that isn’t the only way out of here. There is another way. When that tornado comes back you gotta stay focused, you gotta let it take you away from here, up and into the sky. I should’ve kept true to myself, but I was a kid caught up in the moment, really starstruck by the moment. I saw stars when I looked at it, the whole thing made me a looney tune. I think I still am a looney tune. Everything feels like a movie. That tornado was my star. My one true love. I’ll never understand how I let go. When that tornado comes back, run up and climb the tower. You won’t have to live in the woods. You can wear plaid in heaven.
His face was so purple I thought he was going to explode, but then I remembered the color came from the Grape soda bottles, that’s why he didn’t explode. I rode home that night. This was early May, so I still had Promise for a few more weeks. There wasn’t a moon that night. I was riding straight into the sky. I remember seeing Mary Jo’s face in the stars, she looked like some other creature. That night I was riding so fast I saw the house in a blur, but I kept going. My dumbass has always been a dumbass. I kept riding through Parade and rode all the way to Eagle Butte. Then I threw my hat in the dirt and just left it there.
The house is dark as I walk into the yard, but I see light coming through the cracks in the barn. I’m used to this walk at night. I’ve done it so many times. I remember where the rocks are. The earth is cool on bare feet. The wind is moving through the grass like special effects. I take a berry from the bush as I walk by and eat it slowly. Really savoring the moment more than anything else.
When I get to the barn, I can see Promise’s shadow on the wall. Mary Jo is sitting on some hay holding a lantern. The wind is blowing her hair around. I sit down next to her, tired from the walk back. I don’t say anything. We sit for a few minutes, lame in the light. The sound of grasshoppers is the backdrop. Promise with her eyes closed. Her head swaying to the sound, her body remembering the movement of riding, her and I riding and I hear Mary Jo’s voice say:
She is a good horse. You picked a good horse, you know that? We could’ve had any one of those quarter horses Rick was offering, but you picked her.
I picked Promise after Rick made his money in North Dakota. A few years back. It is weird to be given something you end up loving. To become a living creature. Rick is a piece of shit, but he gave me the thing I love most in this world. Besides Mary Jo. I’m stuck there staring for a while. I’m not sure why I freeze, but I catch myself and say:
Have you ever thought about leaving? I’ve been to three places in my life. Parade. Eagle Butte. And Promise. They are my Bermuda Triangle. Mary Jo, I want to get out of here. My dreams have been taking me away. Those good ones. I’m on a tropical island. Everyone has a smile. Nobody has missing teeth. They’re all so beautiful. They don’t work summer jobs. They have their kingdom there, and it’s like heaven. They have a place on earth that’s like heaven.
This whole time she has been looking at Promise, but after I speak, after she hears my words, she looks me in the eyes. We just look each other in the eyes. I guess life is fair. Here in the light. It has been a while since we’ve done this. It feels good looking at someone you love after you’ve both been mad. After you’ve said words that hurt. I’ve been training myself to savor the moment, so I savor it, and Mary Jo says:
I had the chance once before you were born, when I was working at the mall in Timber Lake, at one of those kiosks selling perfume. Right outside of the mall is the lake. They built the mall out of glass so you can look at the water while you shop. I’m not sure why but something came over me that day. I walked out of the mall and left the kiosk behind. I walked up to the lake and kept walking. I had full clothes on. This was early May. When the water got up to my neck, I looked back to the shore. I saw a figure covered in flowers. When I looked at her, her face zoomed close up. 100x. The whole thing felt like a movie. The look on her face told me I had to go back. It wasn’t my time to leave. It probably never will be. I think she was some kind of angel. I don’t know if that makes sense, if that was what you were asking?
To be honest, I don’t know what she is talking about. It doesn’t make sense. But it doesn’t have to. That isn’t the point. We walk out of the barn together. Now the wind is all grown up. The red is blue and green. Mary Jo is holding onto the lantern making shadows. They overwhelm me and I am dancing. I am crying. The tower.
reality shows 