white trash grace
by sally duryea

“ In my hour of darkness, in my time of need, Oh Lord grant me wisdom, Oh Lord grant me speed” .

When the morning sun breached the dash, the rays fell across Sonny as she lay in the makeshift bed she had rigged atop the engine mount the night before. The prayer she had found was still on her mind. The words had been roughly etched into the side of the engine where Sonny had passed her hand looking for some sort of manufacturer signature. Her suspicions that she had found an original were confirmed by the lack of any defining marks. Nicking her finger on the prayer, Sonny knew she had found more.
She had fallen asleep to dream about boys and cars. Two boys in particular, standing over the engine she slept on now. When she woke up she knew she had stumbled onto a family legacy. The Duryea engine, the first gasoline engine, was put to the test by a couple of boys in a backwoods garage. The prayer on the boys' lips as they turned onto their personal fast lane through the center of town:"speed”.

At the far end of town, they would be cited for disturbing the cows. While those boys were busy outrunning the law in the only automobile, Ford got the assembly line, patents, and government contracts to make cars, cars, cars. The Duryea boys, barely able to put together one car, went on to win the first car race ever. Their design did not make it to the inroads of mass production, going instead into the individualized market of fire trucks and ambulances—vehicles intended for speed. A prayer come full circle. Sonny just closed her eyes knowing the prayer had found its way home. That is how she came to rest between a skylight to the stars and an engine built for speed, in a traveling coach that h The speedometer showed 100,000 miles. How much of that was air time, Sonny would never know. What she did know was that it must have been time that went by fast.

Spring was coming fast. The first balmy day found Sonny in her usual routine, walking under the maple, her hands move along the rough bark to the overhead limb. She presses her fingers to her lips and touches them to the worn shoe hanging from the branch. Passing them over the Nike symbol, “Just do it”. She sighs “Yes, yes , of course”, grabbing the feed bag she heads to the duck shed to let them out for the day. This morning they are in a frenzy to get to the pond. They scatter themselves across the surface like stones at a gypsy's table; the males are running to the females, the water churning with urgency. The message is clear to Sonny, “Just do it FAST” A lone frog leaps out of its winter hibernation as she steps away from the bank.

Sonny muses as she heads back to the trailer, “an extraordinary day”.
Since moving into the trailer every day has been just that way. From the very first day when she kicked the goat out and hauled it from the ditch behind the barn, the words Spartan Cadillac surfacing as the vines pulled away. The words had been painted decorously across the back, testimony to the day when the travel home was the cutting edge of simple form and absolute comfort—a gleaming silver tribute to the wonders of aluminum that could travel the roads or shoot for the stars. That day she was going for the stars. Well, one star. George Harrison had just died. Sonny had the trailer hauled to the line of demarcation. This is the line where the dish man assured her she could ream some reception through the mountains. Television was not on her mind that day—it was radio she wanted. It was easy tuning into the countdown of George's legacy. The music became background for the gutting of the trailer. A bonfire took care of most of the insides, all evidence of the previous occupant gone. By the end of the day the walls were freshly scrubbed and papered with six-pack cartons, the broken windows replaced with fresh air and sun. As the evening sun cast its final rays into the fire, Sonny set up her bunk on top of the engine. She had been cleaning off the last of the road dust when she found the prayer in the metal. That first night she rested on those words “Oh Lord grant me wisdom..”, looked to the stars, softly sang one more time for George, “My Sweet Lord” and drifted off to sleep, knowing she had found home.

That is how she knew things, just like that. So that is how she knew to get out the shingle and put it back on its hinges by the back stoop. Sonny knew Blue was coming to town. The shingle swayed in the wind....PRIVATE EYE.

Once again she pressed her hands to her lips, this time placing them committedly over her heart. The one-eyed Jack carved into the sign stared directly at her, the words PRIVATE EYE boldly proclaiming the depth of that gaze. Sonny walked on with the thought “Let it happen” , yet her lips motioned with a quiet will of their own “Lord have mercy”. The pirate had not surprised Sonny when Blue first hung the shingle by the door. She had known the piracy was coming, she knew it clear as the stars the day the pond turned blood red. It had always just been the moon. The midnight ducks would quack “What is the moon doing in the pond?” quack quack. That bit of lunacy being enough, Sonny was pretty taken back the night it turned all red. She wondered aloud “Who gave the moon a bloody eye?”

It did not take a crystal ball for Sonny to see that piracy was afoot and had made itself a permanent partner with the soulful one that waxed and waned beside it. Sonny stood on the bank that night and saw piracy and lunacy staring right back at her. Of course the moon did not have a bloody eye. The red light was just a beam that followed along the line of demarcation from the new cell tower across the valley to the bottom of the pond. It was just a warning light after all. And the one-eyed Jack was just a carved replica, a sign after all.

Those days were over. Sonny had heard Blue say those words over and over—those days were over—yet Sonny still wonders. She has always wondered about signs and things below the surface. She just walks on and again places her hand over her heart. The tattoo it covers is one sign she can’t ignore. “Let it happen” she says with an out loud boldness. “Let it be me.”

How George Harrison, the great red light and trash pickup all came to be part of an on-going conversation in Sonny's head has everything to do with the line of demarcation. The line runs along the western ridge of mountains where a slight dip allows for over flow, a spillway. Dishes look up to it, water lines run along it, geese fly through it, red lights hug it. At this place another line cuts across it, a zoning line. What Sonny sees there is that with one more extension the golf course community across the way will have zoned out all trailers in its view. This would include the Spartan. In exchange for her home, Sonny would get higher taxes and free trash pick up.

These days Sonny just looks to the dip in the hills towards the last bit of light from the setting sun and hears George singing, her boys laughing, Blue telling a story. She hears what she wants to hear. Blue would tease her that only white trash pray for things it doesn’t take much effort or imagination to have. So this time of day, as the sun ebbs away on its golden road and mass communication flows in on the great red road, Sonny comes around to say her white trash grace, figuring everything, including prayers, should have a choice which way to go. Sonny calls the line the Sunset Strip, sensing the potential for it becoming a miracle mile, where prayers mingle with TV ads and land Wal-mart at your back door, Gods' gift. As the last ray of light dips into the ridge it cast one sharp true beam up the cove, its shadow touching the ground like a foil ready to engage. The shadow knows. For centuries it has set on the long formation of rocks that lead single file to the eastern horizon, feeling along that great spine to know it does not end there. With the advent of aerial photography, it is possible to see the suggestion of organization in the stones. Due to the expansion of consciousness it is possible to see more. Sonny hears about the more at the feed store. The talk there is of spaceships that fly the gap these days. These folks tell Sonny they want to camp out on the hill above the pond to receive the alien communication. It is also possible to go to the local bookstore and read accounts of people who have hiked from what they call the head to the tail, similarly describing the foundation as a sleeping dragon. For Sonny it is a crossroads. It is where she goes at the end of the day to set her prayers free.

When Blue first encountered the alien devotees on the hill she immediately made it her business. A mass of humanity was just sitting there waiting for something. anything, to happen. Blue had no trouble making things happen and with these people it would be easy. They just needed something to look at, anything would do. So Blue had Sonny busy knotting sheets together and hoisting them up into the trees so they appeared like great sails. The signal watchers had their compasses set on the alien message coming from the sky, so they were a little perplexed to see the sails on the horizon. Their ship had definitely come though and all eyes were focused expectantly on those sheets. .. Now every night instead of staring at the stars in the sky, these folks are watching old classics on the big screen. Blue had gotten together an old projector and had pieced together a galaxy of the stars that could not be ignored. The group was definitely starry eyed by the time Blue approached them with the entertainment fee for sitting on the hill at night. Blue made business good. In fact business was so good that she just could not bring herself to mention the experiments being conducted by the neighbor in the shed at the base of the hill. If they ever found out those space ship vibes were coming from the little shed, Blue could lose her hilltop business. And Sonny would lose a little of the comfort she felt when—late at night—she would be hauling something to or from the trailer, and the voice of John Wayne would boom “Let me get that for you little lady”. . The next bit of business got going as soon as Blue had the CB radio up and running.

A bottle of champagne had been bought just for the occasion, and had been finished before the broadcast got started. It was a real trial and error process getting that first call out. They took turns being the speaker, the button pusher, or being the only one who could do it with a straight face. They finally called the signal in together. It was just as the sun went down that they did get the broadcast true. “Hello world, this is the watch tower, signing in with call letters W.T.” After a few moments they heard back” Hello Watch tower” and then they faded from the waves for the night. What a ride. . “We are on the road now!” Sonny mused. And they were. Every evening as the sun went down, Sonny would pick up the mike and push the green button. “This is W.T. signing in as the sun signs off.” Well, Sonny believed she was signing into God. It was like some radio shack ad had ridden in on the red road and had her convinced that she could pick up anything with the CB, including God, neglecting to even tell her about the truckers. ..... That first broadcast sign in was followed up by nothing more than Sonny’s sun down prayers. After the broadcast Blue just mentioned that it sounded like the W.T. stood for white trash to her. Which it was, and the truckers figured it out too, but it did not stop them from tuning into what became known as the white trash grace. Sometimes truckers would just pull off the road and listen in quiet. They were thinking, just like Sonny, that maybe the voice of God could be picked up over the citizen band. What they did not know was that Blue and Sonny were planning the broadcast of a lifetime. ... Sonny had the dish, antennas, and the light-up Mary all tuned for the moment. It was not so much like the truckers thought, that Sonny was listening to receive God. She was actually preparing to broadcast God . Blue was busy working out the final details of that broadcast, so she did not pay much mind to Sonny sending her prayers down the road. When Sonny was on a roll it was best just to let her be. Well it seems the W.T. vibe went on crackling on radios all along the sunset strip to where it emptied into the Gulf of Mexico. There was a pretty big following of the W.T. by the time Blue nodded that the time had come to turn the broadcast around, “Coming around. Watch for the boom!” were the words Blue opened with that night. Sonny gave her a suspicious look and realized she had been so busy listening to the road talk, that she ignored a cardinal rule with Blue. Pay attention when Blue leaves the engine running. Blue had the engine running alright. She had the original engine, purring in the Spartan, and Sonny thinking to herself, another fast getaway in the making. “OH Lord, grant me speed" were the final thoughts on Sonny's lips as she fell asleep that night.

It would not be the voice of God booming over the sound waves that night. .Sonny had found comfort in the burly voice of John Wayne, but , unlike the folks sitting in samahdi at the foot of Hollywood, she found it unsettling the way he would ride off into the sunset with some pretty little thing. So what about the worlds burdens. Were the wagons circled around them? Sonny could just imagine her bundle of life's drama stowed in the front of some saratoga waiting for the big man to come back. Blue had yet to find a reel that would redeem Mr. Wayne and boost Sonny's confidence. That cowboy would just ride off without a care in the world. .. Really the best that W.T. could offer was the little Skippy and her voice to shame the thrushes. Blue had been preparing Skippy ever since the video fiasco. Blue just knew that dog could win the American home video contest and earn her claim to fame. What she did not count on was Skippy's reluctance to be videotaped. That dog would not even hum for the camera. After hours of trying, Sonny found herself running the film as Blue held steak bits, commanding rather agitatedly , that Skippy “Speak!”. When Sonny gingerly mentioned that she had seen the neighbor boy do that one with his pit bull and was hardly a contender act for national TV , Blue had to agree. Skippy was just not going to make it to the big screen this way. .... For the W.T. broadcast, Blue had started a sundown sing-along and had Skippy so accustomed to bellowing out her songs , that when Sonny pushed the button to begin the broadcast, the pooch was too caught up to stop. Or she just preferred radio to cinema. Sonny had her own notion of why Skippy did not want to be photographed. She figured if the pooch was an angel, then she would not show up on the film. Skippy had spent enough time in freak shows through the years to grasp human natures’ tendency to delegate to circus side tents things not easily understood. The radio was perfect for Skippy because it was not about seeing. So the W.T. program had its voice of the angels crooning up and down the strip, riding shotgun with an ever growing audience. Each evening Blue would still dress Skippy in the leather vest and chaps she had gotten together for the video, so sure discovery was around the corner. What was around the bend was something far beyond anyone's ability to see.

NEXT MONTH: CHAPTER TWO