Never Mind Where You Died, Elisha Pate

Hello Everybody,

Smokey Mountain Sunshine

“Say, are you related to Barry Pate?” asked the clerk at the car rental establishment in Asheville, North Carolina.

“I don’t know,” I told him. “But there’s a pretty good chance. My family used to live here, way back.”

It was true. In 1703, a Thoroughgood Pate ventured into the North Carolina territory. He’d been run out of Virginia for skipping out on various debts, ran to the hills and was probably the first Pate to enter North Carolina. Years later – in 1782 – another Thoroughgood Pate (my 7th great-grandfather, and probably the earlier Thoroughgood Pate’s grandson, though there is no direct record of the relation) stood trial in North Carolina for treason after the American Revolutionary War. Although he publicly supported revolution, he was suspected of having secret loyalist sympathies and of aiding the The Crown. He was found “not guilty” but forced to take a public oath to the newly birthed United States. So, the Pate’s do have a long history in North Carolina. However, not long after Thoroughgood took the oath, my direct bloodline moved out west, evolving into modest farmers in Alabama.

I would be driving from Asheville to San Antonio – through the Deep South. I loaded up the rental car with my belongings, and with my greatest ally and most dangerous enemy looking at me from the rearview mirror, I started the engine and steered toward the Smokey Mountains.

A crumbling street in the South.

I drove the rental car up and down and through the ancient mountains that morning. I avoided the interstates – stuck to the highways to get closer to the beauty and grandure around me. The haunted ancients hills were quiet and fog loosely clung to them, barely hiding their nakedness. The rivers raced down the ancient grooves carved in the mountains, creating frothing white rapids. I turned the radio off, I wanted to hear the silence of everything around me. It rained off and on, and the dark skies brought about a natural gloom that I can’t even recreate in my mind because what I saw was only meant to be seen then, in that moment. Then the view was to be longed for, forever. Hallowed, haunted longing. That is the Smokey Mountains.

That afternoon, I squiggled out of the Appalacian birth canal and was delivered into the northern Georgia foothills. There, I passed billboards advertising guns, billboards advertising God, billboards warning about teenage pregnancy. Over and over. I kept my eyes peeled for a billboard advertising all three at once, as Georgia passed me by. But nope, didn’t see one. Before I knew it, I was in Alabama.

Broke Down American Pacemaker

“Man, there’s all kinds a Pates in Alabama,” said my friend back in New York, Alabama Patrick – called so for obvious reasons. “Shit, where I lived, you couldn’t walk ten feet without bumping into a Pate.”

I kept watch as I drove, should a Pate run out of the woods and scurry across the road. But none did, and I didn’t ask anybody at the gas stations if any Pate’s were around. I had a limited time with the rental car, so I couldn’t do any deep investigating. Besides, I was content to know they were out there, bumping into all kinds of people.

There is a truth that is easy to understand when driving through the South. It is that Led Zeppelin really is the greatest rock and roll band. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones are lofted into their own mythic categories, they are institutions – but Led Zeppelin hovers just below heaven, in view of Man and their sound falls from the sky and runs like lightening through mortals’ bodies. Drive through the Deep South and keep the dial tuned to the two or three classic rock stations that are available. You will hear plenty of Zeppelin and experience their music in ways beyond the 6 senses. I am not f%$#ing kidding, they are the greatest rock and roll band. Plant, Bonzo, Jones and Page blend into some kind of many armed and footed creature – something like a sugared up cymbal pounding monkey crossed with a Druid priest then bred with an alien who crash landed in the Mississippi Delta – that plays the secret chords only heard in a morphine dream. I love the Stones, but Zeppelin pushed their sound through our dimension’s barriers. One more time, Led Zeppelin is THE greatest rock and roll band. South radio also decrees the Allman Brothers, Creedence Clearwater Revival and ZZ Top were true originals, too, and tells us that we should never forget Aerosmith, who rightfully deserves its place in rock legendom, for they flat out boogied in thier own nasty, sweaty way, at least until 1993. Listening to classic rock while driving through America is like earning a Masters Degree in Rock Criticism, but you’ll earn a Doctorate in it while driving through the Deep South.

The Greatest Rock and Roll Band

All the other radio stations seem to come in a little fuzzy in Dixie. So there’s really no other choice but to jam. Well, there is one more choice, and that’s to listen to the dozen or so religious stations. I took a break from The School of Rock to listen to one such station, as I wound my way through a secluded part of ‘Bama, off the interstate. The dj-preacher man said that the Bible’s New Testament is our proof that we’re supposed to work for a living. Hmm, well I don’t disagree, I believe in working for a living, let’s listen some more. “Let no man steal who can work with his own two hands.” Hmm, I agree with that too. “Our founding fathers lived by that testament” and it was their main focus to “create a nation of workers” and that “it is the Protestant ideals that our founding fathers brought to this country that has made USA number one.” He never mentioned anything about inherently wealthy landowners – like most of the founding fathers – not wanting to pay the high taxes or anything like that. Nope. “This country, this Protestant country was begat to be a nation of wage earners, and any help is welfare and welfare is anti-American.” By this point I’d forgotten I was listening to a religious channel.

I left Alabama without noticing. I was on a deeply secluded county road in Mississippi. The Deep South bestows another truth to the driver – the springtime there is completetly, utterly beautiful. Winding paths through lush green woods on easy rolling hills. The peace came in through the air-conditioner vents. My shoulders relaxed as I breathed in deep all that the city kills. The sun never hits you head on, just sneaks up to you and before you know it, there’s a bead of sweat on your brow. But so what, the cool shade will dry it right up.

Burned Out

Every now and then I would come to a little town, and see another truth – the Deep South is home to extreme poverty. On the outskirts of the towns, the poor – mostly black, but many whites – sat out on the porches of their crumbling homes that were little more than shanties. Then, the nicer houses came into view as you drove further into the town. Then, as I would drive out of a town, the shanties would appear again. A curious fact was that it was these crumbling houses that had “no tresspassing” signs posted on them, not the modern “plantation-deco” homes of the wealthier people. The poor people on the porches were either skinny or obese, with loose jaws and tangled eyes. The pale skin of the whites poked out of their shorts and shirts. Black or white, these poor people weren’t working. I guess they weren’t Protestant. I didn’t know how they could be Catholic, because there were no Catholic churches to be seen and needless to say, no synagogues either. And, though their blank stares could be mistaken for meditative gazes, I’d bet my firstborn they weren’t Buddhists. Maybe they were closer to Jesus than that dj-preacher – carpenters in a land where nobody’s building.

All throughout the South, I saw the white drifter. There he’d be, out in the middle of nowhere, two or three bags at his feet, waiting for Gadot. I tried hard to feel what that may be like. What if nobody went for it and picked me up? What then? There’s twenty miles of nowhere in both directions. How’d things end up this way for me? I’m sure that’s a hard question to answer, but if no one picks you up I guess you got the time to find answers to questions like that. I stopped trying to stand in the drifter’s footsteps when I realized I was just another driver in a car passing him by.

Mississippi River

In Vicksburg, Mississippi, I parked the car and walked around. Vicksburg is a pretty town on many rolling hills along the Mississippi River. 13 Pates where holed up there during the Siege of Vicksburg during the Civil War. They were all members of the Confederate Army, including my great-great-great-uncle Richmond Pate. The siege lasted from May to July of 1863, with the city ultimately falling to the Union Army. One Pate soldier, Elisha Pate, was killed during the siege. As I walked, I wondered where, exactly, Elisha took his last breath, wondered how he died. Did he die on the banks of the Mississippi, catching a bullet in the chest? Did he die instantly, or was his death slow and agonizing? I continued such thinking even after I was back in the car and driving out of town. Was he blown away during the shelling? Was it disease? At every red light, I tried to see back in time to find Elisha – watch him take his final breath and slump down. I wanted to be there the moment the ghost left his body, to see it float higher and higher until it joins that place the living can’t reach. On his dead face would be the expression of his last thought. How did things end up this way for me? Maybe that was the look. At a red light, I looked in the rearview mirror and saw three black men in an old dented work truck. They were laughing, sharing a carefree moment until the light turned green.

Jefferson Davis and his wife, looking on from the losing side of history.

I kept my eyes on the three black men as I rolled into the intersection. I, of course, didn’t know the fellows, but I’m willing to bet they were descended from slaves. They followed me up a hill then down the hill, these distant sons of men and women who were thought of as – and treated as – property. Their relatives were bought and sold, like the car I was driving, like the computer on which I wrote this blog. This computer is going to wear out someday, and I’m going to go to the store and get a new one, and never give this computer a second thought. I will not mourn it, bury it, or tell anyone I saw the ghost leave its body. Up a hill, down the hill. Property, just property. Up another hill. Property.

The three black men were no longer behind me when I reached the edge of town. There, I stopped wondering what the hell Elisha Pate might’ve thought when he died, and I decided to end this blog then. I’d planned to end this post by writing about Leon County in East Texas, where the Pates had nestled in for the last several generations. But nope. The blog would end just outside of Vicksburg. I crossed the Mississippi River into flat, flat Louisiana, my traveling companion right there in the rearview mirror, with a look of compassionate castigation. There we were, suspended over the Big Muddy – the culmination of patriots and traitors, loyalists and rebels, and of all the gods and devils. But none of that made me special, I was just a guy driving further into Louisiana. Poor, flat Louisiana was gazing across the river, wondering why Mississippi kept all those hills to herself.

A Crying Window in the South.

Be well…

It Doesn’t Stop Until It Stops For Good

Hello Everybody,

Dan and Januario…my traveling buddies.

Thursday morning, I hauled my backpack, laptop, guitar and toolbox to the sidewalk outside my apartment building and waited for my friend, Dan, and his son, Januario, to pick me up. My belongings were lined up on the curb like the poor targets of a firing squad and all I could think was That’s it? 37 years old and that’s what I own? There was a slight urge during my wait to ponder the decisions I’ve made in life – to ask a million “what ifs” – but the urge was replaced by a graceful and sudden peace as a new thought came in through an earhole, which was, Yeah, that’s it, and I’m totally fine with it.

When Dan and Januario drove up, I loaded my life into the rental car and we split town, bound for Asheville, North Carolina. Dan and his wife, Wren, owned a house in the mountains about 30 minutes outside of Asheville, which they rented. Old tenants were moving out and Dan and I were headed down to fix the place up for the new tenants who were moving in a couple of weeks hence. I’d been to the house several times, but the last time was five years ago. I was looking forward to seeing the place, seeing what’s changed, or stayed the same. Dan’s brother, Mikey, and his family lived in Asheville, too. I was looking forward to seeing them again.

We followed the 18-wheelers through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, crossed the Mason-Dixon line into Maryland, West Virginia flew by, and as we cruised into Virginia that heathen-littered Godless North was shrinking quick in the rear-view mirrow. We followed I-81 into the South, a Godful country should one take into account the giant white crosses that towered along the road – in front of giant Baptist churches. And the crosses kept comin’, a giant cross and giant Baptist church greeted us as we cruised into Bristol, Tennessee. We passed an even larger cathedrel – the Bristol Speedway, the NASCAR racetrack. It’s, of course, an open air establishment, so the exhaust won’t poison the fans, and so God can see all of his children watch the cars go round and round, singing in praise of the holy drivers.

Stone marking the Mason-Dixon line.

In just a few moments we were out of Tennessee and in North Carolina. Darkness had fallen. I-26 into Asheville is one heck of a piece of interstate that – when viewed from a helicopter – may look like a giant snake afflicted with palsey. We wound up, down and left to right, through the mountains that are most beautiful to gaze upon – in the daytime. At night, it may be compared to stumbling through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. I was driving, but I feared no evil. I was too tired. I steered the wheel as needed and we twisted and turned on the abrupt curbs and through Spacetime. I leaned like a race driver with each turn – sometimes believing it helped.

It was past midnight when we made it to Mikey’s. It was good to see him, but we simply said hello and good night and went to sleep in the entertainment room in the basement. Dan and little Januario got the bed, I got the couch. And that was that. I remember commenting to Dan that Mikey’d done a real nice jobe converting the basement. Five years ago, it was little more than a dungeon, resembling a dark place where nocturnal bad people might plot bad happenings. But what a difference five years makes.

We drove out to Dan’s house the next day. We drove up, up and onto the Blue Ridge, always in the shadow of Mount Pisgah, one of the highest peaks east of the Mississippi. Though it’d been some time, the area looked familiar. But many of the houses looked much nicer. They’d either been fixed up, or painted, a yard had been planted, or a garage was being built. Nice, cozy log cabins nestled on the sides of the mountains would peek out to see who was driving down the road, then quickly – shyly – hide behind the tall green trees. Houses that I remember were being fixed up five years ago now looked complete, content to be lived in by their owners. Other houses were in various states of repair, and renovation, and the owners were fine living in them, the way they were.

Build-as-you-go-and-live-free-of-debt-garage in the mountains.

“I guess people around here fix up their place when they can, or when they got the money,” said Dan.

“That’s the way to do it,” said Mikey. “A little bit everynow and then when you can afford it. That way you own everything. It’s your home, afterall, you’re gonna be there a while. Might as well take your time and not get into $150,000 worth of debt right at the beginning.”

Dan’s house was in good shape. No holes in the walls, weird stains, or broken windows. The previous tenants did neglect maintenance of the lawn mower, however, and its engine was probably frozen up beyond repair. The pathetic machine looked like a metal creature that had lost confidence in itself and so voluntarily stepped off of the food-chain and waited patiently for the scrap-iron predators. Its brand name was printed on the hood – a brand stamped to its metal hide that roughly translated into English as Planned Obsolescence. The chainsaw we brought with us wouldn’t start, either. Real quickly, the million things we’d planned to do dwindled into about five. Dan grabbed an axe, I grabbed a shovel, and we set about tackling those five things.

Those kids and their untarnished joy.

During the chopping and pulling of many, many thorny things, I heard the sound of children from all around. Five years, ago, Dan and Wren were only thinking about having a baby. Now, that thought was a blurry streak of flesh as four year old Januario ran passed trying to catch up with Mikey’s two sons (ages 7 and 10) and his step daughter (age 8). The kids ran, got tired and played, ran again, got tired and played again – over and over – partaking in that happiness that adults have so much difficult partaking in – the sheer joy of being alive.

Dan chopped down a tree. I cleared brush behind the house. I looked over the property and soon I was thinking that we could make it look just like it did five years ago. There would be no difference. We could go back in time in those mountains – go back and be our younger, crazier selves and live only for our own hedonistic concernes. Trim a few tree limbs here and there, repaint the house, and we it’s done – only five years but we can go back there with today’s wisdom and reshape – even if very subtly – those five years. We’d just have to remove all the mirrors. And never look at each other. And find a babysitter. And temporary illusions always crumble so brutally and abruptly that they leave a person with one hell of a bad karma hangover that leads the sufferer to the certainty that it’s ultimately better to accept the here and now head on, and accept every gray hair and sore knee and idiotic mistake and it’s even better to accept the fact that eating at Sonic with tired hungry kids is just gonna get loud. Because for all the kids’ pining and manipulative tears, in their eyes is that damn joy to be alive. You feel it radiating off them and hope to god they don’t trade that joy for any of the temporary illsusions that you did, along the way.

That evening, Mike fired up the grill on the back yard deck of the house he’s making a home of, one step at a time. Below the deck was the hot tub he’d installed a while back. Down at the end of the back yard was the tree house he built for the kids, and the adults. None of it off was on a payment plan. He owned what he built with his hands.

He cooked up a beef heart for dinner. Man, a lot of meat comes from a beef heart. I’d never eaten beef heart, or any heart, that I could remember. I didn’t really want to, either. I’m not big on eating the innards of animals. But Mike reminded me that the heart was a muscle.

“It’s like the strongest one, dude,” said Mikey. “You totally depend on it every minute of everyday. It never takes a break.”

The great rock-n-roller, Captain Beefheart. I bet he’d eat it.

It was enough to try a bite, at least. Turns out, beef heart has a lot of flavor, and I enjoyed it. I wouldn’t have if I didn’t put my fear of trying anything new aside. I guess that comes with age, because when the kids found out that it was heart meat they all shouted GROSS! and opted for hot dogs and chicken, instead. It’s funny how that works, it looked like regular meat. You’d never know it was the heart if no one told you.

Be well…