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Red Lines
by Jesse Graves
Leaving Knoxville in late August, I pass them
on the road beside the close-cut field,
a half-dozen whispery thin local boys
piled into the bed of a pick-up truck,
the work of summer jobs finished—
tobacco leaves strung up in barn lofts to dry,
hay bales twined and rolled under tarp.
I would like that feeling again of muscles
drawn tight as fencing wire, pounding
like an electric surge under the skin.
I suppose they’re headed home for dinner,
to sit across from their silent fathers
and glimpse the end of farming season—
6:00 A.M. shifts at Marlock, days spent
riveting brass hinges onto cabinet frames,
gluing particle board to the backs of mirrors.
For months after my first year of college
I spent mornings suckering tobacco plants
and evenings looking for an apartment
in town, an alternative to those blistering days.
I hated the endless measurement of it,
pain equal to production, every hour given
its weight and count and dollar figure.
When these boys get up from empty plates
they know where to look for one another,
heading down Highway 33, or 25E,
toward Jim’s Place, or Opal’s,
pool tables, beer on draft, various troubles.
They get to be drinking men early,
load into the chamber of the fastest car
revving the engine until it red lines
and the tires slick down from squalling.
They are more fortunate than some:
design of history working as it does,
the young men gain a sense of destiny.
Some will die in hideous crashes—
or worse, kill others and live.
But most survive these times and come
away with their inheritance,
a story of when the wheels left pavement
and God alone knows how I held on.
November 24, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 48
© 2004 Metro Pulse
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