white trash grace: chapter three
by sally duryea

Like will find like and the one eyed Jack was no exception.

The characters seeking help through the private eye were a seedy lot with vague questions and darting eyes. This was not the usual crowd and Sonny kept her distance as Blue saw to them, or through them, as was the case.

Blue was not inclined to make judgements or hold onto any personal feelings she felt during these meetings, but this time she found herself being suspect of the souls asking her assistance. She felt strong resistance in them to open up, sensing something she was looking for was held secret deep in their hearts, beyond her sight. There is only one thing that Blue has a blind eye for and that is silver. A blind eye and insatiable love for silver. Blue could stand in a desert void of any markings and point out crystal fields that lay below the surface. She can bring a grown man to tears by revealing the truisms of his soul. She can communicate with lost things, but would stand totally perplexed before the neighbor boy trying to guess which of his clenched fists held a silver coin. It was, no doubt, the reason she quested so hard to find the precious metal through the years and centuries, in one guise or another. And she would find it. Lots of it. But not without hair-raising adventures across wild seas and foreign lands, risking life and limb living with the roughest of crews. So Blue was familiar with the crew that sat before her now. Familiar enough to know it was silver that brought them to her and it was silver they wanted from her. She had not told anyone about the silver, not even Sonny. Oh, Sonny knew all about her history of pirate raids in the long ago past, bank holdups in a west gone tame now, even her recent trips across the border to take advantage of deals that could yield her the feeling of abundance that only silver could give her. Years have gone by since those times, yet there was something in the way the one eyed Jack looked back at Sonny the day she put it back on its hinge that made her think Blue was back in the silver business again. It was no small business for Blue. It was big business. The motherload of business and Blue intended to be the only one who found it. She could feel it this time and it was the feeling that Blue had to hide from these shifty characters. She had taken a new tack altogether this time in her quest. In fact, she was not searching at all. She had lived a life of bringing things together, so she knew like will seek like. She figured the best way to reunite any two things was to let go and let the vibes find their way. She had a notion that to reacquaint herself with silver she was going to have to make it come to her. Which is exactly what was happening with the Joes sitting around her. They had all the instincts to find it, they did not have the blind eye. It proved her theory was working if the hounds were hot on her trail. For months now, Blue had been ingesting small daily doses of the metal, essentially becoming a magnet for the sort of characters she was attending. She figured she would soon have enough in her system to create a resonance with the motherload , and she would soon recognize the path to it as easily as a pup to its bitch.

Leaving Blue to her cronies, Sonny spent her days polishing her own silver dream. One of the most amazing qualities of aluminum is how well it cleans up. Sonny had been rubbing the Spartan to a mirrored finish when she saw two faces, other than hers, reflected back, each with their own silver lining. When she turned she found herself face to face with the boys, now men, that she had dreamed about that first night in the trailer. They had grown silver haired in the fifty years since they had their first turn with the engine that had become Sonny's bed post. Apparently, when Blue got the engine up and running, it had sent out a vibration those two had been tuned to for a very long time. It did not take them any time at all to follow the mechanical hum to its source. It took them even less time to load it onto the flatbed of their truck. What took them the longest was convincing Sonny of their plan. Sonny was just being sentimental, but she had been sleeping with that engine for so long, it did not seem right that as soon as it got its pistons warmed up that it was going out of her life. The plan, it turns out, had been in action since the day that particular bit of nuts and bolts had won the most spectacular event of racing the world had ever known. A monument to the mechanics of speed, the engine now faced an even greater challenge, one that time was running out for, so the boys were in a bit of a hurry to get it on the road. Promising Sonny to explain the whole story later, she watched them move out of the cove at a determined pace. The story did filter back to Sonny through postcards sent from all around the world. Cryptic messages would suggest they were in good stead, the challenge going as planned. Sonny kept the postcards under her mattress, filling the empty cavity where the engine once lived with journeys she could only imagine. Sonny liked sleeping on the worldly tales—it made her think that someday the hole in her heart would likewise fill with the journeys of her boy, who had left the world. For now there were no postcards from beyond. She did have the prayer though. The boys had, with slow and careful consideration, in spite of their hurry, carved fresh in the dash the words that she had been falling asleep to since moving into the Spartan. “In my hour of darkness, in my time of need....” As her fingers traced the letters she could only whisper to the open skylight...”I really want to see you.. Lord...I really want to be with you.” And she drifted off.

It was not long after the flatbed pulled out that an unfamiliar clattering caught Sonny's attention. Gypsies had arrived in the cove. The wagons flying flags with the colors of a freedom that Sonny could only imagine, their spirits high with a life she was determined to know.

The children, sensitive to natural movement, became another touchstone in Sonny's daily routine. Their very existence, the way they leapt from stone to stone, gathered herbs, attended the animals, and the songs they sang became a form of translation for Sonny, a way of understanding the changes she knew were taking place. The changes were happening all around her. Not just in her daily routines but in the very ground she walked on. Sonny had never known children to be so adaptable to the natural world and so free to express themselves with it. It surprised her when she discovered the difficulties they had communicating with the rest of the world. The behavior that Sonny saw as perfectly tuned to the earth's cycles was apparently viewed by their teachers as abhorrent to the norms the system was committed to maintaining. The clearest contrast between what was happening in their lives and what was expected of them came the day they were sent home from school for refusing to sit at their desks. They preferred, instead, to perch on the edge of the chairs with their arms tucked up behind their backs like baby dragons. The note from their teacher suggested that such posing was creating a disruptive influence in the classroom. From then on, in order to keep attending, it became routine for them to report to the principal's office, after getting off the bus , to sign a daily contract agreeing to leave the dragons off of school grounds. What the teachers had seen as posing, Sonny appreciated as a natural communication that centuries of living close to land had heightened in the children. They would become what they felt, those feelings being facts for Sonny. Watching them play, spreading their wings ,was akin to watching the ducks foraging furiously one day knowing the next would bring a storm. Observing the kids as they flew from rock to rock, Sonny could sense the awakening she had felt twitching in her soul. The prodigious youth were teaching her the language she needed to understand the changes. A language that would once again reunite the human race with a future. Every day as she let the ducks out, she would scan the horizon for the children, listening for their heart song, feeling the growing understanding in her own heart of a willing God.

NEXT MONTH: Chapter Four