The Kingdom Land (4 page)

He tried not to be too obvious with his stare, but
even that was ended when she left the next table and went behind
the bar. It was easy for Erik to escape in his mind with the
darkness of the bar. He lingered with the thoughts of the smell and
voice of Laura, but the more he thought the more he let his mind
wonder.

He thought of Aunt Mary, not because he wanted to,
but his mind got distracted with other thoughts. The dinner
conversation crept into the softness of Laura's image. He could
have gone to Fairfield like Mary suggested. He knew some people
there, people who could even be called friends. There, he could've
gone to one of the local hangouts for people his age. He could have
recalled old high school days and football, or indulged in small
talk. There would have been laughter and bragging in an attempt to
impress each other. There might even have been a chance to become
closer to some people who were not friends by title only. In a way,
that would have been nice, and it would have pleased Aunt Mary.
However, the more he thought, the more he knew the impossibility of
that dream. He just wasn't like those people.

Those people were part of Fairfield. Their lives were
as much of a fixture of the town as the buildings themselves. If by
the age of twenty-five a person hadn't left that town, he would
never leave. It was almost like a disease that held them there, no
matter how much they hated it.

He hated the town. He didn't respect its people for
their tenacity, rather he blamed them for why he hadn't left

A loud shout burst Erik's thoughts. “Laura, bring us
another pitcher, and then you can come sit on my lap.” A stocky fat
farmer was sounding off at the table next to Erik. Erik looked at
Laura and saw fear in her eyes.

“
Hurry up, girl. You don't want to
be rude with paying customers. I'm trying to drink more of your
boss's beer, and you know there's nothing like a nice warm girl to
heat up a man's thirst. Don't look at me like I'm some type of
dirt. Come over here.” She already had a pitcher for another table,
but took it to the farmer first. As she leaned to put the pitcher
on the table, the farmer grabbed her ass and yelled with
glee.

He didn't know what caused him to move. It might have
been the fear in Laura's eyes, or maybe the fact he'd just been
pulled from a dream taking him from this hated place. He didn't
think he simply reacted. He'd never been in a fight and he
certainly would never start one.

Erik didn't have a plan. His first step made him trip
on the table's leg and fall forward toward the farmer's table. The
big farmer pushed Laura aside, stood and grabbed Erik to keep him
from knocking over the pitcher of beer. His actions put Erik in
perfect position and he slammed his fist into the stomach of
enormous fat. He felt his knuckles bulge into the fat and then hit
a solid layer of muscle. ‘What the…!” was the farmer's only
reaction. He stepped back to get his bearings. Erik took the
further opportunity to land a blow to the farmer's face that
brought the sound of gritting teeth.

Erik knew that would be his last easy shot. The
farmer, who had now dropped his beer, jumped behind Erik and he
felt a fist hard against his kidney. The pain was so deep that it
drove his knee to the ground. Erik felt someone else pull him to
his feet, first by a firm grip on Erik's short hair, then by a
twisted arm. Erik knew he didn't have a hope. The fat farmer coming
towards him was snarling with his need for revenge. His punches
came hard and fast with Erik's only hope of passing out to void the
pain.

Finally another member of the table pulled the farmer
back. “You better stop before you kill the kid. He ain't worth the
trouble.” Erik fell limp to the floor.

Erik was in a haze but still saw Laura pick up the
$18.00 left on his table and shout, “Yeah, guys, the kid's sorry
and he wants to buy you a round of beer.”

Erik tried to stand, but he couldn't. The bar owner
and a farmer each took a leg and pulled him face down toward the
door. Erik felt the wetness of the broken beer bottles and a few
slivers of glass cut into his face. Someone stopped them just short
of the door.

He only saw her canvas shoes, but knew it was Laura's
voice, “I don't know what you're doing or who you think you are,
but I don't need anyone's help, and I sure won't ask it from a
loser like you even if I did.” She picked up his head by his hair
and looked straight into his eyes. “You're a loser. You understand?
You're a loser, and I hope I never see you again.”

Erik was thrown face first down the steps, hitting
three then rolling down the last one.

He crawled around the side of the building until
darkness covered him and unconsciousness seized him.

 

When he came to, he was lying on the ground. He
recognized the rough wood siding of the tavern and ascertained that
he was on the dark alley side of the bar, hidden in the shadows;
left there like a heap of garbage. He coughed up the dust from
which he had been lying face first in. Mud from the mixture of dust
and blood covered his tongue and the side of his face. As he got up
from the ground, his back screamed in protest, but he pulled
himself to the pickup, afraid that the border police might find him
and cause him deeper trouble. He was glad he had parked his pickup
away from any bright lights.

When he reached the pickup, Erik drove straight to
the rodeo grounds where he knew there would be an unlocked
restroom. His headlights shone on the “Whoop-Up Days” sign painted
on the side of the building. In the concrete restroom, the water
smarted as he attempted to clean a long cut across his cheekbone
and pulled out the remainder of what looked to be glass from a
broken bottle. The cut wasn't deep, but that was no consolation
right now. The pain was almost welcomed as atonement for his
stupidity. He could endure the cold water for only a short time.
Its effect and his bruised kidney combined to make him feel faint
again. A grab to the side of the chipped sink turned his knuckles
white but kept him upright. He looked at himself in the polished
tin mirror and saw his stupidity.

Afterward, he drove. He drove away from the town and
into the country, making no attempt to miss the chuckholes. Several
times the thick gravel caught his tires and attempted to drag him
to the ditch. He drove recklessly, not because of the effect of the
fight, but out of indifference. His head no longer had dreams or
even thoughts. He wasn't mad or sad or feeling pain or feeling
anything. He was as blank as the fields he worked every day.

Reality was all that was before his headlights. There
were no dreams or illusions. He had lived off dreams for years, and
now he knew there was nothing, only his foolishness. All week his
only hope to fight the boredom of the farm was Laura. He had put
all his hopes in a girl he had never even spoken with before
tonight.

What an idiot. If my only hope was
a barmaid that I haven't even the courage to ask for a date, I
really am pathetic.
He had lived in a
bunkhouse and thought his daydreams were enough. They were nothing.
He had nothing. No parents, no girlfriend, no plans on how to get
out of Fairfield. He was a dreamer and a bad one at that. The land
around him was reality, not his dreams. The fact that Laura was a
disappointment was no surprise.

“
I should have known this was
coming. What's new? It's happened before and it'll happen
again.”

Without a purpose in mind, Erik turned off the gravel
road to an even less traveled dirt road. The road went left into
the pastureland. This was land that was not fertile enough to be
tilled for crops, but instead it was left for a few head of cattle
to feed upon. At this point his mind wasn't registering landmarks
or location, he simply drove the pickup to nowhere. This road,
probably only used to move farm equipment and for land owners to
survey their fences, became even smaller. Soon it was not a road at
all, but mere traces of ruts that were not maintained by anyone but
the occasional passing vehicle.

The big sky of this land was without a moon or star
that evening. Erik kept driving. He had no idea where he was, but
he kept going. Finally the ruts turned into merely prairie grass
and Erik cut the motor of the pickup without disengaging the gears.
The pickup jerked forward with a few last gasps of the motor, and
then it came to a halt. As he turned off the headlights, there was
no hint of light or sound in the land. Erik was alone. This was not
a new feeling for him. At times it was a place he sought. Not this
evening. This evening the loneliness was not a feeling, but an
entity. It was something Erik could physically feel in the pit of
his stomach. He ached not from the blows of the fight, but the
presence of loneliness.

In the past he would have escaped into his dreams.
There were no dreams this night. There was Erik, in a pickup in the
middle of nowhere, not knowing where he was going and not knowing
how he let himself get to this place.

Since he couldn't dream, he thought of what was. He
remembered the conversation with Aunt Mary and her hopes for him.
He thought of that sunset and how it had made the land so
different. It was the same land he had worked each day, but the
sunset had changed the view to beauty. He thought of Aaron Hanson
and the talks he had with Erik. Aaron had talked about turning to
God and committing your life to Him. They were all conversations
that Erik took as religious pat answers. “Turn your life to God and
commit yourself to Him and He will give you new life,” had always
seemed too easy to Erik. Before, it seemed like just another way to
escape from what was real. Erik had his dreams. He didn't need
another escape. He didn't need another illusion, he needed answers.
There was no person to direct his question or provide the answers.
There was only him. This evening he had no one to turn to, no
dreams to escape to. He didn't bow his head as others did when they
prayed, but rather looked up through the dusty windshield at the
night's sky.

“
God, people tell me I need to
commit my life to you. I can't really say I know what that means,
but I know I haven't done it. I know You're real, but I haven't
ever really acknowledged You're real in my life. I want You. Maybe
I should say I need You. I realize I've been living a lie. I can't
get along by myself. Please forgive me for ignoring You for so
long. I do need You. I need to meet You here and to be held by You.
I need to be held by someone who loves me. I haven't done much with
my life but mess it up and turn my back on people who cared about
me. I don't want to turn my back on You anymore. Please, Lord, hold
me and touch me and help me get my life together.

“
God, I know You exist. I don't know
if You know I exist, but if You do… I need Your help. I don't have
any right to ask anything from You, and I know I've probably been
running from You. I don't know. I know I haven't wanted to face
You. I don't want to be left alone again. Please don't turn your
back on me. I know I've turned my back on You, but, Lord, don't do
the same to me. At this point I don't know anything, but I know I
need You. Please, please, please, touch me with Your life. I have
been told You care about every person. That You care about us so
much that You sent Your Son Jesus to save us. I need You. I have
nowhere else to go. I don't know what to do. I need You, please
hear me and touch me with Your arms.

“
I can't expect You to hear me. I
haven't done anything to make You want to hear me, but if You are
as big and as loving as they say, please touch me. It has been so
long since I have felt anyone hold me. I don't know if anyone ever
has. Please, please, hold me. I don't want to live in another
dream, but if You're really here, hold me. Send Your Son to me. I
want to know Jesus.”

Erik was silent. His eyes searched
the silent sky for a moment. Then he looked down. “Whom am I
talking to?” Erik asked himself, “
You'd
think I'd learned about empty hopes.”
He
suddenly burst into tears. There had been times in the past that a
single tear had come to Erik's eyes, but this was not a single
tear. Streams of tears flowed down his cheeks and through the cuts
of the previous beating. They were tears that would not stop. His
sobs became so heavy his whole body shook as if it were chilled by
a Montana winter's night.

And it continued. He cried and cried and sobbed, but
as he did it seemed as if his tears were cleansing him. That pain
within his stomach was gone. The entity of loneliness was not
present. He felt warm, comforted. Something had happened. Something
was different. He had been touched. He didn't know how, but he knew
he was different. He had seen that promise of what he could be, was
intended to be, within him. He had been touched not by a dream, but
by something much more real. He knew at that moment he had been
touched. God had touched him. He also knew this was not an
undefined entity. This was Christ who had died on the cross and
still lives.

Finally, he let go of the steering wheel and lay on
the seat. He quickly fell asleep after the long evening of the bar
fight and the fight within himself. His sleep carried no
dreams.

 

 

 

Chapter Four

 

 

A
s he woke,
the pain in his back from the cramped seat and previous fight
jolted throughout his body. He struggled to sit up in amidst the
tools and junk that covered the seat. The sun was just beginning to
envelop the land, but its heat couldn't yet be felt. His face felt
tight as he gingerly felt the scabs from the fight begin to form.
None of this was the center of his attention. Something else had
happened last night, and he was different.