There is no random, just streams and eddy’s carrying us afar, and if one looks about us, they’ll see we’re all just stars.

~ Chade, Starstuff

The Tender of Dreams used to stand at the end of the driveway, hands in his pockets, not saying a word, just waiting for me to call him up.  He’d have a hard time looking you in the eye, ‘on account of all the dreams’, he’d told me once, but if I looked up fast, I would catch him sometimes, before his eyes would shift away, staring at me.

“What are you doin’?” I’d ask.  The question of a child.  “Hungry?”

We’d go inside and I’d pull open the refrigerator, and then the two of us would stand there, staring into the cold.

“What’s that?” he asked once, pointing at a plate of leftover hamburgers.

“What do you mean?”

“That, right there.  What’s that?”

“Hamburgers,” I said.  “Don’t tell me you don’t know what hamburgers are.  Everyone knows what hamburgers are.”

Surely you’re aware that there are dreams all around you.

~ Brad Zellar, This Planet of Dreams

“A lot dream about them,” he said, his chin dropping down to rest on his chest.  “But I never really knew.  So those are the hamburgers.  How’d you get them?”

“What you mean, the hamburgers?  These are just some old hamburgers.  There aren’t any the hamburgers.  That doesn’t even make sense.”

“I wonder why so many dream about them then?” he asked, but I’m sure he wasn’t asking me.  I was ten.

“I wouldn’t know.  You want one?”

I watched then as the Tender of Dreams reached out and plucked one of the hamburgers from the plate, flipped it over to look at the bottom, which was covered in a layer of cold, white grease.  He studied it for a second, then reached out with it.  I thought he was going to put it back on the plate, but instead, he wiped the greasy bottom of the hamburger across my forehead.  I jumped back, but too late. 

“Gross!  What’d you do that for?” I’d always known the Tender of Dreams was odd, but he’d never done anything like that before.

“Puberty.”

“What?” I still held the plate of cold hamburgers between us, and I remember now worrying that he might reach down for another one.  I didn’t know what I’d do if he just starting attacking me with cold hamburger grease.  Part of the confusion of being ten, I guess.

“Puberty,” he said.  “No one dreams much about puberty.  You’d think they would, wouldn’t you?  More than hamburgers, anyway.”

“I can’t believe you wiped a hamburger on me.  Now my forehead’s all greasy.”

“Like puberty,” he said.  “Ironic, isn’t it?”

I didn’t know what to say, so I just put the hamburgers back in the refrigerator and closed the door.  “Let’s just go outside.  Maybe go down to the stream so I can wash this off.”

“There is no random, you know.  Just streams and eddy’s carrying us along.” I didn’t know what to say.  I was still thinking about the cold grease on my forehead.

“We’re all just stars,” the Tender of Dreams told me, “which people do dream about from time to time.  Still not as much as they dream of hamburgers though.  Odd, isn’t it?”

“Yes, that is odd,” I said, touching my fingers to my forehead.

I used to walk into town in those days, a three hour walk one-way if a I took my time, which I always did.  There’s no hurry when you’re walking, although I’ve heard others say different.  Doesn’t get the heart racing, they say, if you take your time.  Heart racing?  What’s walking and a racing heart have to do with one another?  That’s what I’d tell ‘em.  Walking’s just about one of the few things a person’s got that gives you a chance to slow down, let your mind rest a little.  Let your heart rest.  Hell, I know you wouldn’t think it to look at me, but my hearts been racing my whole life, and I needed those long walks into town, and it wasn’t just about getting groceries either.  Man’s gotta eat, sure, but he needs to walk so he can slow down from time to time and forget about the rest of it.  If forgetting is what you want to call it, ‘cause I hear tell that a person never forgets anything. 

You know about that, don’t you?  That business about never forgetting?  What I hear is that all this living we do gets trapped up there in our brains and there ain’t no getting it out, no matter what, excepting maybe a car wreck or stroke, or something like that, but the rest of the time it’s just up there, waiting on us.  Locked in there forever, they say, well, until they bury you anyway, then I don’t know what happens to it.  Myself, I don’t know what to make of it because I swear to God I can’t recall most of what’s happened to me.  You’d think a grown man would remember more, wouldn’t you?  Matter of fact, I’m probably wasting your time right now, trying to remember back that far.  Not sure I can do it.  I’m thinking it has something to do with all the walking I’ve done.  Maybe, I don’t know.

I didn’t always live out here, you know.  No, I used to live right there in town, well, along the south edge anyway, near what’s called Chestnut St. now, although then it weren’t really called anything.  More gravel patch then road.  The street I was on, I mean, not Chestnut, cause that was a proper street used to run clear through town, if you can believe that.  I couldn’t tell you why they changed it.  Maybe when the chestnuts blew down in ‘52 they just figured they’d change things up.  Made some folks mad, I can tell you that much.  Changin’ history, they said, just making a street disappear like that.  Well, not disappear, but end all sudden like that with no place to go.

Anyway, I had me a little place just down a piece from Dell’s.  You know the place?  I suppose not.  Ain’t nothing there now.  Didn’t last long after they changed Chestnut, I guess, although it weren’t that long ago they flattened it, so you might dig up some pictures somewhere back in town if you ask around.  I ain’t got any.  Never thought of taking any pictures, I guess.  Just sort of thought I ‘d remember the important stuff, although I can tell you now that that ain’t exactly working out, is it?  Well, they flattened Dell’s clear to the ground then dug the whole place up, claiming the ground was tainted on account of all the gas and oil and whatnot, which I’m sure it was.  Hell, no one knew any better back then, that’s just the way it was.  Weren’t no big deal to sit out along the curb and scrub down some dirty carburetor or broken down block with just a brush and a bucket of gasoline sitting there next to you.  You finished, you just dumped the whole business there at the curb and hosed it down.  Hell, people’d have a heart attack now if they saw something like that. 

I think that may be one of the things that finally drove me out here.  Watching people get themselves all worked up over nothin’, then them thinkin’ all I’ve got better to do is stand around and listen to them complain.  Hell, it ain’t like any of it’s new.  People been washing down their crap into the ground for as long as there’s been people, but now that a few of them’s gettin’ scared they expect a man to want to sit around and listen to ‘em complain.  I just finally got sick of it and moved myself out here where I wouldn’t have to hear any of it, although I’ll tell you, takes a long time for people’s complaining to leave a man’s head.  You think about it.  Go ahead, I bet you can hear someone complainin’ inside that head of yours right now, even though you’re clear out here thinking all you’re doin’ is sittin’ here listen’ to an old man tell stories.  But someone’s in there, someone besides you, and you hear ‘em, most of the time when you wished you couldn’t.  I’m right, ain’t I?  And hell, you’re just a young man, so just try to imagine what it’s like for an old fart like me.  I took me way too long to leave that town, that was my biggest mistake.  One of my regrets, you might say.

[A long, quiet pause here.  George stared at the ground for a bit, then got up from the kitchen table and poured himself another cup of coffee, asking me if I wanted some.  Strong and bitter, the coffee tasted like it been brewed a week ago, maybe longer.  I’d barely been able to get down half a cup, but I said yes, then George sat back down across the table from me.]

Ironic, isn’t it, me comin’ all the way out here to get away from people and all their complain’, only to end up sittin’ here at my own table doin’ the same to you?  And you recordin’ the whole business, no less.  [George chuckles a little to himself, then sips a little at his coffee, staring at me while he does.]

I’m sure you already know you ain’t the first to come out here wantin’ to talk to me, find out what I know.  What I can recall, anyway.  There’s been some others, but not that many on account of the long walk.  Kids’ll show up from time to time.  Kids ain’t afraid of walking, at least they didn’t used to be.  Not so much any more. 

Anyway, they’ll hide along the tree line out there, thinkin’ they’ll catch a glimpse of me, tauntin’ each other into sneakin’ up close, maybe touchin’ the cabin or stealin’ somethin’ off the porch, although you saw yourself there ain’t much to take.  You should hear some of the stories been made up over the years.  Some real whoppers, some of them, ‘bout me runnin’ around naked or livin’ off nothin’ but whiskey that I brew in a hidden cave off in the hills somewhere.  I kind of like the one I heard about me bein’ married to a black bear who sends me into town to buy honey.  [loud laugh] Hell, that might be my favorite, although I’m sure there’s a lot I ain’t heard. 

You could ask around town, if you want to hear more of those.  Maybe start down at Spit’s, that’s that tavern right there on Main.  Next to the hardware store.  Bound to get yourself some stories there.  Hell, most of the drunks sittin’ in there grew up sneakin’ out here as kids.  I can’t tell you their names, but I’d recognize their faces if I saw ‘em.  There’s some things about a boy that stay with him his whole life, get trapped there right in his face, even as he gets old.  You ever looked at someone and seen the boy in him?  Same thing with women.  You ever looked at some woman and seen just another old woman, been staring at her graying hair or maybe at her eyes that seem cloudier than you remember, and then something changes, maybe something gets said or someone laughs or she just remembers something inside her own head, and her eyes suddenly look over a certain way or maybe it’s the way she smiles or something, and right then you see her the way she was, years ago?  You see the young girl, still inside her, or the young woman or someone, but you see somethin’ other than an old woman standin’ there in front of you.  You see someone full of life.  Someone not afraid or tired or whatever it is life’s done to ‘em.  Well, same’s true about those drunks down at Spit’s, only now those boys are sneakin’ their peeks from a barstool, rather than from behind a tree.