When I was eight years old,
We had Christmas at Uncle Jim's,
Who lived at the end of the lane
Just up the gravel road from Grandma's house.
Beneath the tree
That stood, full bodied, before the north window of the living room,
Surrounded by presents packed five boxes high,
A long, cardboard cylinder, wrapped in green paper,
Leaned against the wall.
"Benny," the tag read.
I didn't know what it was,
But when I popped open the end of that long tube
And stuck my hand in to feel what was inside,
Grabbing the long, hard handle of that wooden bat,
My heart began to beat with excitement.
I pulled,
And out she came,
Twenty-seven inches long,
"Louisville Slugger" burned into the ashen barrel,
White maple,
Varnished gloss.
Who knows how I spent the rest of that day,
Climbing haystacks in the barn,
Ducking under the electrified fence,
Chasing black cows in the frozen pasture?
By the end of the day, I'd forgotten about that bat,
Sleeping in the back of the wood-paneled Buick station wagon,
Where I with my brothers and sisters were packed in our winter coats,
Like marshmallows in a sardine can,
As dad drove down the highway to our home,
Ten miles from the farm.
As days and weeks turned into months and years,
The memory of that bat became much like a dream.
I remembered receiving it, I'm certain,
A gift from my Uncle Geoff.
But I could not remember where that bat had gone.
On trips out to the farm,
I looked in all the nooks and crannies,
Behind the rusty, green refrigerator in the breezeway
Where my grandmother kept a bag of bite-sized Snicker bars,
And dozens of dozens of eggs,
Stacked in cardboard and styrofoam cartons.
On my grandfather's tool bench,
Littered with darkened metal objects
Caked with grease dust,
There on the south end of the two-car garage
Where momma cats delivered their litters in the rafters.
Within a couple years,
Uncle Jim died in January,
An aneurism in the stomach.
He'd been hauling wood that morning, they said.
At the visitation,
I peered over the steel-grey casket
At his white, pointy nose,
And the long slits of his eyelids,
Pulled unnaturally shut.
Thin, purple lips,
Cold, icy skin,
Fingers that would not bend,
And the heavy aroma of Maybeline and roses.
I'd only seen one dead body before.
Jim's wife Helen had died a few years earlier.
I remember the coffin
And the hushed rooms of that tall, white mansion,
The incandescent lights,
The cold January air
Into which both their spirits silently slipped.
But I had been younger,
And did not comprehend death at Helen's passing
As well as I did at the end of my ninth year,
When Jim fell into the ground.
The auction followed,
And I watched strangers bid on wagonloads of dishes, tools, and knick knacks,
Jim and Helen had collected over eighty years.
Scythes, ratchets, hammers,
Glass elephants and corn dishes,
Leather straps, a lava lamp,
Pocket knives, old boots,
Quilts, pans, and silverware.
I ate a corndog slathered in mustard
My aunt bought me from a vendor
Who had set up his wagon
To feed swarthing crowds of avaricious faces
Who circled the wagons like hyenas,
Picking through the antiqued objects
Jim and Helen had left behind,
Estimating their value,
Whispering to their partners,
Summoning courage to part with the paper,
Collected from bank windows,
Folded crisply in their billfolds.
The farm became a place of memory,
As in my youthful mind began
A separation,
A first rip in clothes that were purchased off the rack
A twilight at the end of a beginning.
These were not things, but belongings:
Objects with attachments.
A wrench that was once his, now another's.
A dress that she wore to an anniversary,
Now pieced in a quilt that covers the bed of a couple,
Newlywed in Tulsa,
A gift from Aunt Marge,
A collector,
Repossessor.
These objects were Jim's,
And Helen's,
But, mine, too.
And my brothers' and sisters',
My mother's and father's,
My aunts's and uncle's,
My cousins'.
Our attachments were auctioned to the highest bidders,
These things,
No longer objects to construct a scaffolding of presence,
Here, Now,
But
There, Then.
My grandfather,
Bib overalls, a green Pioneer ballcap.
My grandmother,
Saladmaster pots and pans.
My search for that old bat became
A mapping of memory.
How many boxes explored in the attic?
Old letters bearing two-cent stamps,
A deed, scribed in fountain pen,
Ghosts, now, in my mind,
So many haunting the recesses,
Unwilling to be conjured.
Years later,
As I braved the Angus in the pasture,
Avoiding pies of fresh manure,
To explore the old, rusted tractors, threshers, and discs
Set outside the weathered, grey barn
Where the steers escaped the heat of the summer sun,
Flicking green-headed horseflies with their wiry, tufted tails,
I spied that Louisville Slugger,
Lying in the elevator of an old corn contraption
Where I must have laid it
Five Christmases past.
Grey and weathered from sun, rain, and snow,
I took it once more into my hand,
The handle rough and split,
The luster long gone.
But I took it to grandma,
Who revitalized it with brown stain and a coat of varnish,
And painted the letters B. A. on the bottom
In acrylic red
I kept it in my bedroom for a year or two,
Hanging from rack beside my bed.
Still, today, the bat is gone.
My brother borrowed it to hit baseballs with his friends,
And it was quickly broken,
Unable to perform as a bat,
Left outside too long.
It was not for hitting balls,
But for holding memories of that old farm,
My Uncle Jim,
And my father.
Which memory do I cherish more?
The ecstatic delight of an eight-year-old opening a gift on Christmas Day, 1985?
The hopeful rediscovery of prodigal object, lost and found?
The agony of disattachment, treasure lost in dust and ashes?
With what invisible weight does that bat bear down on me now?
Where are the people who hold these objects?
When will I find them again?
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