Staying Put

He had trouble staying in one place. He could create the illusion of a sedentary existence, but every four years or so he would pack his things and move, cutting ties and moving ahead to make a new life for himself. It worked well for the most part, choosing flawed lovers and menial jobs that allowed him to walk away and start from scratch. He could chase his dreams that way he said, but he never did, in fact he never even really tried.

He was like his mother, though he didn’t see that in himself. His mother came from another time when marriage and divorce was more the norm and co-habitation was still living in sin; At least in that part of the country, in the middle American small town part of the country where they always seemed to live.

He liked to travel, and by the time he was thirty had traveled more than his mother ever had. It made him feel worldly, and somehow like he’d escaped the past and all those stepfathers and half siblings and small towns where he was always the new kid at school. He could sit on a beach with a rum-punch coconut umbrella drink and think if they could only see him now.

He made friends easily but not permanently, choosing instead to keep people at a distance so they couldn’t make leaving harder then it already was. Some were always harder to leave then others of course. Some even slipped though his defenses becoming permanent and he would keep in sporadic contact with when he could, but no one close enough to make him stay.

He lived in the park for a while, renting out the thirty-five foot Spartan Royal that sits just off the highway behind the mini-mart. He had spent the summer working at Mt. Rainier in the kitchen of the lodge and since the work was seasonal, decided to stay within site of it for the winter. He’d also met a girl up there, but that only lasted long enough to keep him in town for a bit. Long enough to take her dog and move out of their place and into the park. I met him after he started working at the mill.

In the end, not even the mountain could keep him here. Nor could the warm summer evenings drinking beer and fishing on Commencement Bay or the rush of waves out on the coast. He lasted here for four years, same as everywhere he’d ever been. Same as the four years in Chicago or the four years in Kansas City. In the same way time moves or stands still, dissolving into one burst of freedom newer than the last.