The King Of The Walk By Harrison Kim
I look up and scan the way ahead. A weaving bicycle approaches down the ribbon of summer road. A young man rides up, sweating even in this early morning, stands there swaying a moment, then introduces himself as Brodie from Denver.
“Have you seen my gold chain?” he asks.
He wears expensive cycling road shorts and shoes that colour match. He takes a huge pull on his water bottle.
I am Thiebert, the wheeled coffin cart puller. Exercise helps my equilibrium. I haul my home ten thousand steps every day, harnessed up, hiking forth in sturdy boots across the nation. Today I’m sporting black swimwear and a crimson T-shirt along with my sturdy boots, my showing skin plastered with insect repellent and sunscreen. I had an out-of-body dream when I was twenty-eight, watched myself pulling my own casket across this land. In this dream, I ran with a perfect body, using my mercurial natural energy to travel over the Rocky Mountains, across the plains to the Atlantic shores. I moved smiling, alive, and powerful. At the centre of the dream I heard a woman’s voice. “Pull your coffin to me,” she called, “for always and forever.” That voice filled me with purpose. I hovered above my physical shell, watching the vision.
I often hear the woman calling, in the distant sound of airplanes, other times from the power lines or the thrum of car tires over the asphalt. Sometimes I put my ear to the road, to listen closer. There is no-one else but she and me, all else is distance and time and the objects in between.
I am more than two thirds across this particular journey towards the Atlantic, hauling my cart along the roads of Northern Ohio.
“I have not seen your gold chain,” I tell cyclist Brodie, but in fact it lies in the bottom of my coffin.
It could be his chain, it could be for my Love, I’ll decide sooner or later.
I noticed the gold shimmering at sunset at the side of the road. I tossed off my cart harness and ran towards it. It’s easier when your head faces down as you’re hauling your heavy load. I find a lot of things that way. “A gift,” I thought, “given to me by lady luck.” I snapped up that chain in one quick grasping movement, leaving only fast drying drops of sweat on the asphalt.
“My cycling buddy Eddie and I scrapped last night,” Brodie tells me. “He ripped the chain off my neck.”
“I believe Eddie’s camped in a field a few miles back,” I tell him. “He’s with a religious guy.”
By “a religious guy” I mean my voyageur compatriot Foster Cheadle, “The Peace Cross Man.” He hauls a seven-foot-high crucifix on his shoulders, his purpose to show and carry the weight of human sin, the callouses upon his shoulders clear evidence of that. What Foster and I have in common is movement, the need to cross the country under our own power.
Peace Cross Man sat in the field by Eddie’s tent when I passed this morning, reading passages from the Bible. I walked on. Foster has his mission, and I have mine.
“The sinner must find the truth for himself,” I yelled over at Foster.
He waved and kept on preaching.
I witnessed the two cyclists fight, last night, at the crossroads. They didn’t notice me in the field lounging under a plum tree, so intent in their fisticuffs, one tall and blonde, the other short and swarthy, swinging and slugging. I watched and ate plums, thanking providence, spitting out the pits.
Now I stand with Brodie. We’re both fidgeting. I do a few leg stretches. “Eddie and I get bored,” Brodie tells me, “pedalling every day. We drink a lot” he continues. “Eddie’s got a bad temper.” “You guys are engine people,” I tell him. “You need engines between your legs.” I squat down, trace new interlocking circles on my coffin cart and put the latest walking stats in. I ask Brodie “What is your mission, your meaning?” Brodie says “Right now, to find my gold chain.” “Why would a man take that on a cross-country bicycle trip?” I ask. He shrugs, “For good luck.” I turn my head from Brodie, and see another cyclist approaching from the distance. He’s moving very fast, short and stocky, outfitted in black spandex. He arrives alongside us in less than a minute.. He comes on like a bull. “It’s Eddie,” Brodie says. “I think he’s gone rogue.” He crosses to the other side of the road. Eddie doesn’t look at his partner. He wheels up directly to my cart. “Jesus, there’s a lot of wild men on this highway,” Eddie says. “I woke up to a guy with a seven-foot cross screaming verses from the Bible.” He leans his bike against the coffin. “What’s that contraption?” I answer clearly, rolling up my sleeves to the shoulder, to show my muscles. “Thiebert’s my name. I’m pulling this cart across the country.” Eddie rubs his hands through his thick black hair. He sets his bike in the ditch, walks over to the coffin. “That’s quite the walk,” he says. “Do you sleep in this box every night?” “Usually,” I tell him. “But I keep the lid open.” He looks into the coffin. “It’s lined with memory foam,” I tell him, and do a few jumping jacks. He steps back. “When you get to the East Coast, what are you gonna do?” “Maybe work there for the winter.” “What does that accomplish?” he asks. “You sure you don’t have a bottle in there? “Drink will send you down the road of illusion,” I tell him. I do a leg stretch. “My home is my sanctuary.” “What’s the purpose?” Eddie asks. “You need a goal, to make the world better. For example, I’m an engineer.” I drop down and do twenty quick clap-hands pushups. “I do it for love,” I say. Eddie steps back. “You’re a fit guy,” he says. “You got a girlfriend?” “I’m alone,” I tell him, “but I’m not lonely.” I pull my wide wallet out of my front apron, which hangs over my pants. I show him the photo I keep there. Eddie studies it. “She’s very good looking, but it’s a picture from a magazine, man.” “I walk towards her” I say, “She will meet me on the other side.” “You can’t fool me,” he says. “She’s life,” I tell him. “I live with death behind me, and every day I advance towards my love.” I gesture to my coffin-cart. “This is my living place, and my resting place. It reminds me that eventually I’m going to lose everything. Until then, I walk to live.” “You don’t have anybody real” Eddie says. “Isn’t that a bit like being dead?” “We call ourselves the voyageurs,” I tell him. My voice rises, and I feel my body rise up also, all 147 pounds of fit flesh. “There’s dozens of us, with our carts and crosses and backpacks, pushing our bodies back and forth across the nation. What matters is the right attitude. To keep going, to have discipline, to endure the pain and disappointment.” I’m talking faster and louder. I show him my muscles. “See these guns?” I tell him. “These guns pull my harness of purpose.”. “Take it easy,” he says, “I know. You’re a strong guy. You could have a busking gig with those pushups. Get a street act together.” “This cart weighs two hundred pounds when full,” I tell him. I roll up and do a handstand against the cart, then push my arms up and do five upside-down pushups. “If this was a prison, you’d be top man,” says Eddie. He calls across the road. “What do you think, Brodie?” “He’s the top man,” Brodie says. I dash to my coffin and dig my hand into the secret compartment, thrust out copies of news items from Idaho, Wyoming, from the Seattle Times. “Here’s some souvenirs for you,” I say. “Read about the acclaim and attention my journey has found.” Eddie leans forward, takes the articles one by one, puts a few down on his bike and opens the big one from the Times. “It says here you’re the “King of The Walk.” You’ve hiked twice across the States now, in both directions. That’s impressive. Nice smile,” he says, “in the photo.” I nod. Impressions can change in a second. I’ve given something to this cyclist, something he will remember. I must now give back to Brodie, to maintain the balance. I rummage in the coffin, haul out the gold chain. “I found this on the road,” I tell Brodie. “Take it back. It’s my gift to you.” I throw it over in his direction, it hits the ditch on the other side of the road. “May it bring you luck,” I say. “You said you hadn’t seen it,” says Brodie. “Take it,” says Eddie. “You might not have another chance.” Brodie picks up the chain, hangs it round his neck. He jumps on his bike and coasts down the hill. He looks back, lifts his arm, and I see the chain shining in the sun. “Are you coming, Eddie?” he yells. Eddie finishes folding the articles and placing them in his panniers. He makes sure the articles are smooth and fit where they won’t bend. “See you, crazy wise man,” he says. He takes off in the opposite direction from Brodie, pedalling with vigour up the slope ahead. Brodie turns around and pedals madly after him.
I walk a few miles, then pull into a rest stop to fix my harness. I move the coffin under a big oak, open the lid and climb inside to lie on my memory foam and stare up at the branches. I reflect on what Eddie said about living in a fantasy world.
In this life, love and dreams are elusive. All I can hope for is the ability to move towards them every day. Without a purpose, there is nothing. I’ve walked twice across the country and haven’t met Love, but I have lived my dream.
I take the fashion girl’s picture out of my front purse and hold it before my eyes. I see black hair and dark brows. “You are far away,” I tell the face. “In a two-dimension land.” I put my ear to the bottom of my coffin and listen, try to hear Love’s voice. I’ve walked three times across the country, and I’m still listening.
I see the top of a seven-foot-high cross enter the rest area. Foster Cheadle hauls in. I stick my head further out of the casket. “How’s your plot?” he asks. “For me the question is where,” I tell him. Foster pulls his cross in and leans it against the oak tree. He puts the brakes on the roller wheels. “Do you think you’d know Jesus if you met him?” I ask. “It’s all about the journey,” Foster laughs. “About carrying the weight of sin.” He stretches one arm across the other. Wrinkles crack round his eyes as he turns towards the sun. “Yeah, but after the journey, what happens?” I ask.
We sit together under the big oak, drinking from our water bottles. Foster hums, and beneath his voice I hear Love again. She’s caught up around us, in the zoom of traffic on the highway, in the buzzing of the power lines, in the singing space between myself and Foster. “You croon me encouragement,” I tell the Peace Cross Man. “I hear the inspiration.” “Move in its general direction” he grins.
I harness myself to the cart and pull out of the rest area. I wonder how engineer Eddie and Brodie are doing, moving their opposite directions.
“We all walk or ride these byways together,” I tell myself. “And there are many crossroads.”
In my life, I tried normal. My dream spun me away. I can’t be totally free in this body, but I’m moving it forward, walking for Love. The distance I’ve travelled stretches further, and the distance ahead decreases. Tonight, I’ll pass away into sleep and one day into nothingness. If Love comes before the end, I’ll awaken in her arms. If not, I’ll have travelled many roads hearing her call, and always, I’ll be pulling my cart towards my final destination, where my soul will rise to regard my body, and from there linger, remember every place it’s ever been and everyone it’s ever met. Then, I’ll let it all go, fall back one last time to my casket, the resting place that’s always behind me.
Harrison Kim writes out of Victoria, Canada. While stomping around Quebec, he actually met Elzear Duquette, a round-the-world coffin puller, the inspiration for the story. Harrison's tales have appeared in "Coffin Bell," "Hobart Pulp," "X Ray Lit Magazine," "Spank The Carp," "The Horror Zine," "Bewildering Stories," "Literally Stories," and others. His blogspot, with original music videos and publication history, may be found at https://harrisonkim1.blogspot.com/.
|
This author has enabled feedback from readers. Please feel free to contact him or her and provide comments. Scroll to the bottom of the page to do so.
|