"Boy, don't you know you can't get there from here?"
Booker was not interested in tired jokes. "I'll find it on my own."
The old farmer stepped away from Booker's car and slowly waved goodbye.
He drove another ten miles and still didn't see any signs of the road. Once again, he pulled over and consulted the worn, hand-drawn map. It's somewhere around here. He set out to search some more.
Another twenty miles found a tiny town with one gas station. The attendant hadn't heard of where he was going. Booker checked inside. A wall map from 1955 featured a vertical tear from the top, extending down several inches, right where his destination should be. Instead, it displayed a one-inch wide strip of concrete wall.
Booker observed a lone mechanic wrenching on a vehicle within the cluttered garage. "Do you know how to get to the Tandey farm?"
The mechanic dropped his tool and cursed aloud as it clanged and banged through the engine compartment to the floor. Their eyes met, but the twenty feet separating them stretched into an abyss of desolate silence.
Booker did not understand these Tennessee folks. Some were more friendly than any strangers back in Detroit. Others were as cold as any of the thugs he sometimes had to avoid. He impatiently turned toward his car.
The attendant pocketed his $3.00 for 10 gallons and advised, "Not everything 'round here is worth finding."
Booker drove a block and stopped at a sandwich shop. When he asked the cashier where the road was, she looked back to the kitchen and the cook came forward. "Never heard of it," while handing over the sandwich in a bag, suggesting the location of a good spot to eat.
Booker paused at the town's edge. Balanced on a rock, swapping his map and sandwich in turn, he once again verified the road's location: somewhere between the old farmer and his current position. He resigned himself to the idea that the map was wrong but decided to make a slower drive back looking for any signs of entry into the woods.
He took a break where the dirt shoulder widened enough to serve as a small parking area for two or three cars, although it was hard to imagine that many vehicles near each other on this lonesome stretch of highway. Once again, he checked the map, observing that he was in the correct area. He got out to stretch his legs and noticed a grown-over trail leading into the woods. He wasn't much of a hiker, but with the sun getting lower in the sky, poised right over that section of the woods, it seemed to beckon him to follow.
The trail was barely visible, a whisper of a path covered in years of fallen leaves and pine needles. Doubt gnawed at him, his initial curiosity replaced by a creeping sense of unease. Just as he was about to turn back, he emerged into a small clearing on a ridge, overlooking the vista representing his earliest memories as a child.
The house was gone, although the base of the chimney remained, with some of its bricks protruding from the ground in the immediate area.
His dad had warned Booker about visiting. "Your momma died there — well, you know — she was killed." His dad looked away. "It's only 'cause I took you fishin' that we here at all."
But after years of pestering him, he agreed to draw the map when Booker got out of the army.
When that day finally came, Booker sincerely thanked him and shook his hand for the first time. His dad replied with caution, "Maybe some can change. But hate — well, it grows deep roots."
by George Alger
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