Stuck

For A

I got my arm stuck in one of the fold down seats at the Fabulous Fox tonight.

(facepalm)

Do you know about the Fox Theater?

You may have one in your town, but you don’t have ours.

The one on Peachtree St.

The one that was almost a parking lot.

Bless the fine folks who saved her.

Who saved her—

For me.

Anyway, I got stuck.

Arm clamped in that seat like I had stepped on a bear trap.

“I had a bad go of it,” as momma would say.

Don’t you just love that?

I know, I do.

It’s the classiest way possible of saying, “you poor bastard.”

M and A, and French, and I were sitting through intermission during the Sound of Music.

And well—my program slipped.

And like the good and dignified southern boy I am, I switched my gin and tonic from my left hand to my right (Gin and Ice on this night. Grateful nod to the heavy-handed bartender.) and reached down in the seat to retrieve it—

I got the program.

Of course I did.

And then that goddamn chair got me—

Clamped right down like the car door when it snags your finger in the driveway, off Kennesaw Ave.

And that searing pinch and throb.

And you scream.

And the tears come.

And you jerk it out.

And maybe there’s a little blood seeping from your cracked fingernail.

And your thumb is never the same.

And then years later some jack leg you end up marrying makes fun of your “toe thumb,” like daddy does momma.

“Psst. Psst. M,” I whispered.

“What?” she asked

She’d had a prosecco or two at this point.

“I’m stuck.”

“Oh God. He’s stuck. Trey’s stuck,” M said, slightly panicked and elbowing A.

“No, it’s all right,” I told her. “Here take this,” and I handed over my G&T in an awkward hunched over half kneeling position.

And you know what I thought—as I was pinned there, beneath the stars of the Fabulous Fox?

The theater where Nana and Aunt Nancy and Momma took us all our lives.

Where I was exposed to art. And culture. And a world beyond the tiny town that I love—maybe even more than I love the A.

(I won’t ruin the Fox for you—but go see it. Aunt Nancy would love that. I’d love it too.)

I thought to myself, Boy, here you are in this floor, just like that raccoon in “Where the Red Fern Grows.”

That book is one of those beautiful southern tragedies we’re so well known for.

Except this one actually highlights the tragedy.

We don’t always do that in the south (racism, segregation, hello?).

So much of southern heritage is glossin’ over things.

Just paintin’ over it like it never was.

Like white washin’ the fence on the street side.

The side folks can see.

Like the silent family dinners after you come out—

the loud of plates and utensils and chewing and quiet.

Like just tryin’ to move right.

To say right.

To be right.

Pretending that things are—

“just fine.”

That they flow like always have.

Like Ball Ground Creek babbling on under highway 372—

over the Appalachian sand, and the big flat rocks that kids stand on watchin’ bullfrogs—bulbous eyes watchin’ back—the water movin’ on, the way it always has and will long after I’ve sat here writtin’ about it.

The same way the Fox will still be here—

The same way the red ferns grow—

A story about a fern an angel planted is worth your time. Especially if you get to hear it the way I did, when Momma read it to us on the beach that summer—in the cool breeze of the afternoon sinking sun.

So, I sat there trapped.

Like that raccoon.

And it clicked.

Let it go.

You can hold on to that program—

like the raccoon holdin’ onto the shiny thing, in the hole in the log, with nails ‘round the edge.

And as long as you do, you’re trapped for the hunter.

I’m an expert at, “trapped.”

At lack.

At, you’re not worthy.

At, this is what you get.

But—

what if you just let it go?

What if you drop the program,

And move your hand,

And find your footing,

And push the seat up,

And breathe-in,

And exhale,

And stay calm,

And pull your hand out?

Trees do this best.

They let go every autumn.

They just drop it.

All of it.

But spring?

Well, that’s when they show us what it means to begin again.

That’s the cycle.

And that’s all right.

What if “stuck,” is just avoiding the decision to let go?

What if when you drop the program,

you can turn around

and see the show behind you—

with the sounds of larks, and geese, and brooks,

and music?

Hell, maybe there’s a G&T waiting for you.