Running Mule Hollow, fiction by Murray Dunlap

The roads in Mule Hol­low are long and wide, unfre­quent­ed by cars, and in sum­mer months, make for the per­fect place to run.  The sides of the road are flat, and a beat­en path thread­ing through wild flow­ers give safe asy­lum from the occa­sion­al log­ging truck. Beyond the path, cab­ins and deer-filled val­leys spread out like knit blan­kets, and beyond that, the sharp-crest­ed moun­tains hold on greed­i­ly to the last patch­es of win­ter snow. The moun­tains are big enough that no mat­ter how fast or how far you run, the view nev­er changes. Even when I run a twen­ty mile loop, cir­cum­nav­i­gat­ing Mule Hol­low entire­ly, the moun­tains stare down on me, unim­pressed and unmoved.

The town itself is small, about twen­ty thou­sand peo­ple, and the cen­ter of town, which I nev­er run through, is only a few blocks of sim­ple stores, a gas sta­tion and oblig­a­tory car wash, a gro­cery and piz­za par­lor. Most of the town works for the log­ging com­pa­ny, the ski resort, or dur­ing some hard win­ters, some com­mute fifty miles south to San Pieta for employ­ment. On the west side of town, there is an alter­na­tive liv­ing com­mu­ni­ty called Blessed Fields. The mem­bers have giv­en up all per­son­al pos­ses­sions and any desire for per­son­al gain, all for the sake of har­mo­nious com­mu­nal liv­ing. In order to sur­vive, Blessed Fields became self-suf­fi­cient.  They grow their own food, stitch their own cloth­ing, and run an herbal rem­e­dy shop in town.  It is com­mon knowl­edge that Blessed Fields mem­bers sup­port the med­i­c­i­nal use of mar­i­jua­na, and that they sell it covert­ly under the counter at their shop. No one in town cares enough to put up a fight and quite a few locals buy more than Gin­seng when they vis­it. In fact, I would be hard pressed to think of any of our young inhab­i­tants who didn’t take advan­tage of the Blessed Sys­tem, aside from me, as weed makes me nauseated.

Katie told me that when her father died, she had tak­en all of the photo’s she could find of him and made a num­ber of small col­lages. Then she had put each col­lage in a sep­a­rate sec­tion of a wood­en fold­ing screen. This way, she said, she could look at her father in dif­fer­ent lights, on dif­fer­ent days, with dif­fer­ent expres­sions, as if he were still around. Katie said that she had bought the screen with six places for pho­tographs because that was as close as she could find to sev­en days a week, and thus, she could wake up and say hel­lo to a new side of him every morn­ing. When I asked about the sev­enth day, she said that on Sun­days we slept late with hang­overs, and she would rather not see him like that anyway.

I usu­al­ly run in the late after­noons. I’m stiff and grog­gy with thick legs in the morn­ing, and I’ve sworn off the noon-day sun, so when I fin­ish work at 4:30 or 5:00,  ‑as a sculp­tor, this varies dai­ly- I lace up my Asics and stretch my legs across the long  coun­try roads of Mule Hol­low.  I try to run dif­fer­ent routes day to day; from the sandy shoul­dered east side roads along the grave­yard, to the pine and patchouli scent­ed grav­el west of town. Some days I run for six miles, some days ten, and some days twen­ty. I nev­er know, or care, how far or how long I’m going to run. I don’t wear a watch and I don’t dri­ve my route. Instead, I dou­ble knot my shoes, sun­screen my nose, and often car­ry music.  But I do not enter races and I nev­er keep track of time. Run­ning is the only place where I am free from stress and pres­sure and from all the noise in my head.

Katie also tells me that while she miss­es her father bad­ly, that there is a cer­tain puri­ty in the way things are now. She knows that he is not suf­fer­ing, that he is free of need, and she knows that they will nev­er fight again.  She tells me that she talked with her father before he died and they had put all of their dif­fer­ences aside, which I guess means that they had put me aside, but I don’t say that. She also says that she wish­es I could do the same with my father. Katie pulls her soft, mocha hair back and tells me she is ok with her father’s death. But I know Katie is a run­ner too. So when I see her com­ing up strong on the oppo­site side of the road with her brow crunched up and her hair black with sweat, and notice that she isn’t wear­ing a watch either, I know that exer­cise is the fur­thest thing from her mind.

I have epipha­nies when I run. Seri­ous­ly. Some­times I have small, unim­por­tant epipha­nies, like when I real­ized that the expres­sion for all intents and pur­pos­es, was not, in fact, for all inten­sive pur­pos­es as I had thought for most of my life. But there are times when I have the real thing. Life chang­ing real­iza­tions that come to me in an anaer­o­bic flash. Once dur­ing a fif­teen mil­er, I stopped run­ning entire­ly, put my hand to my head, and coughed and wheezed as I real­ized my father had cheat­ed on my moth­er with my 3^rd grade baby-sit­ter. It wasn’t that I had come across any new evi­dence; I had not spo­ken to any­one new or found any­thing, it was just that I had looked close­ly at a ten year old’s mem­o­ry with a thir­ty year old mind. Then there was the time that I real­ized my then-girl­friend was bulim­ic. The odd amount of time spent in the bath­room, the con­stant talk of caloric intake, fat grams, and meta­bol­ic process… Run­ning along the Blessed Fields veg­etable gar­den, it hit me like an aneurysm.

And so I run Mule Hol­low. In a cloud­ed daze of mem­o­ries and real­iza­tions. Like we all have –I sup­pose, but mine occur on the run. And it turns out, I run around Mule Hol­low, keep­ing the town just inside my path, but tus­sling the moun­tains to the out­er edge. And it may seem sense­less, but I am most at peace when I am out of oxy­gen and cir­cling our tiny moun­tain town in a for­ward lean.  It is that hour or two that I sort through the logis­tics of sculp­tures I am work­ing on, or invent new ones.   And in that same time, I recom­mit myself to art. The art of art. And my move­ments to stay clear of any 9 – 5.

And that brings us to the real sto­ry I hope to tell you here. That of Mule Hol­low, the town I call home, and that of Katie, who’s love I crave with a cocaine-like addic­tion.  Katie teach­es at the only ele­men­tary school in the Hol­low, and that includes the gift­ed chil­dren.  Once, Katie explained to me that smart kids are smart, but gift­ed kids have a way of think­ing that is just plain dif­fer­ent. Katie was a gift­ed child and her insights here amaze me.

As for my father, he died last sum­mer. Katie begs me to make amends, even now. She says to write a let­ter, dri­ve it to his grave, leave it with the birds.  She says the men­tal act of writ­ing fol­lowed by the phys­i­cal trou­ble of the road-trip and the psy­cho­log­i­cal sym­bol­ism of leav­ing it at his grave will do enough.  So I have packed our hybrid and am ready. I’ve asked Katie to join me, and she has agreed on the con­di­tion that we not make it a vaca­tion of any sort.

So we pack up, and are off. The dri­ve to Mon­trose isn’t bad. Just a long straight shot. Ten hours long. And why we can’t fly is not clear, except that Katie says I have to endure a strug­gle.  And strug­gle, I do. In mid-build of a sculp­ture that seems Calder-like, and almost whim­si­cal, I force myself to freeze the gen­e­sis of it and strive to make Katie hap­py. Like I said, Katie’s love is my cocaine, and most all of my move­ments cir­cum­scribe to her hap­pi­ness. I remind myself of this after 5 hours dri­ving on the road in a hybrid car that only seems hap­py at 60 miles an hour. Now, entire­ly worth it for the MPG’s, but plain sil­ly on the high­way. Maybe I just got a lemon?

As the high­way scrolls by, we dis­cuss an inci­dent at school.

“You know, I had a gift­ed child yes­ter­day who has William’s syn­drome , you know, I told you she is not able to dis­trust… Any­way, she told me that the clean-up man asked to see if she would lift up her shirt. So she did of course, but can you imag­ine? An eight year old with no breasts what­so­ev­er, and this jerk does that?  I can’t get over this and where it could have gone.”

“Holy smokes,” I say. “Real­ly?”

“Real­ly. I told our prin­ci­pal and she fired him. No discussion.”

“Good.”

“I hope this child learns.” Katie says as she leans back to stretch.

“Me too. It has to be the strangest way to grow up.” I dri­ve on in sin­cere disbelief.

“The odd thing is, there is real­ly noth­ing any­one can do.”

“Crazy.”

“So you and your father,” Katie begins. “I’m think­ing you can let go after you leave him that letter.”

“I pray,” I say as I pat my chest pock­et where the let­ter sits.

“Just be sure to acknowl­edge what you are doing as true com­mu­ni­ca­tion with him.”

“I’ll try. But I’m not sure I know how to speak to the dead.”

“Just know that he knows. That is all.” Katie stretch­es and looks out her win­dow as the Bay comes into sight.

“We must be close,” Katie yawns out.

“Yes, just ten more minutes.”

We do reach Mon­trose after a painful­ly long con­ver­sa­tion about how my father still holds pow­er over me, if I let him. Ten min­utes nev­er took so long. But we coast in and I show Katie the main drag, and where my Dad lived grow­ing up. Then we stop at Wintzell’s Oys­ter House for a bite before going to the graveyard.

“Fried oys­ters, huh?” Katie seems confused.

“See the sign? ‘Fried, Stewed, or Nude…’” I point to a draw­ing my high school sci­ence teacher made on the wall.

“Ugh.” Katie hasn’t learned to love the south. “So so, Ben. This place gives me the creeps.”

“Creeps or not, the food is ter­rif­ic!” I state with con­fi­dence. Although, I wish Katie had ordered seafood, not the spaghet­ti. I didn’t even know they had that here.

We fin­ish, and as it turns out, the spaghet­ti was great. As always, my oys­ters were excel­lent, and I am very relieved that our start to the grave­yard trip will begin right.  With full bel­lies and tired eyes, we plod on to the grave­yard. Now ful­ly night.

“Can’t we wait until morn­ing?” I ask.

“No, it will be bet­ter that you have strug­gled through the entire day. This makes it work bet­ter. You have to believe that you have earned this.”

“Hmmm. A ten hour dri­ve, an odd con­ver­sa­tion about a per­vert, a great meal, and this is sup­posed to help?” I scratch my head conspicuously.

“None of those specifics mat­ter. It is that you strug­gled to get here. And that you can leave your father in peace. You will sleep well tonight.”

“I hope you are right, my dear. But if those oys­ters give me gas, you won’t.” I smile wide.

“Oys­ters or none, you’ll sleep hard.” Katie squeezes my hand. “Come on, Ben.”

We make the grave­yard in moon­light. I take the let­ter from my chest pock­et. We walk in silence to my father’s grave. I open the let­ter, unfold the sheet of paper, and lie it on top of the tomb­stone.  A gust of wind catch­es it, and the let­ter floats over to the next grave, Craw­ford Filbone.

“Craw­ford here might not like what I have to say.”

“Hmmm. Just lie it on the soil of your father’s, don’t bal­ance it on top of the tombstone.”

“OK.” I unfold the paper again, and lay it on the soil. I use a stone to hold it in place. “How is this?”

“Per­fect. Now say what­ev­er is on your mind to him. I’ll be over by the car.” Katie walks slow­ly away.

“So Dad. Hiya there. Com­fy? I don’t what in the hell I’m doing, but if it makes Katie there hap­py, I’ll do it.” I look to Katie now at car-side and smile. “You have to let go of me Dad. At least, I’m hop­ing that’s what you’ll do. It’s been a year now. I miss you Dad. I miss your laugh. I miss hav­ing those din­ners.” I look over the grave search­ing for some­thing to talk about. “This is horse­shit, Dad. Absolute horse­shit.” I cross my arms and hope for a breeze. “OK bud­dy. Hope that did the trick. Or at least con­vince Katie.”

I uncross my arms and walk to the car.

“How did it feel?” Katie asks.

I con­sid­er my answer and the night ahead, “Peace­ful. It was very peaceful.”

“Oh good,” Katie says. “I’m so hap­py to hear you say that.”

“I felt clo­sure.” I say. “ Closure.”

“Well, hmmm, I’m not sure it works like that. But if you feel good, I’m happy.”

“I thought clo­sure is what we were after?” I ask.

“Well, clo­sure would be some­thing you felt in a few days or weeks, or months or years… Not right now. You are not fifty feet from his grave. You have to let this hap­pen. You can’t force it.”

“Oh. Ok. Then I feel how­ev­er a guy should feel fifty feet from his father’s grave.”

“You are not tak­ing this seri­ous­ly, Ben.” Katie folds her arms and sighs.

I raise my eye­brows, “What do you want to see?”

“I want you to FEEL this. No eye­brow rais­ing allowed.” Katie replies.

“I’m full and tired and would like to find a hotel to lie down,” I say.

“I hope you’ve seen enough to heal, Ben.” Katie says.

“Point any­where, and I will stare. I don’t know what I am sup­posed to do?”

“OK, to the hotel.” Katie rais­es her palms and turns to face the car.

We sleep fit­ful­ly and rise ear­ly, return­ing to the high­way. We talk lit­tle. Mid-after­noon, and we are already cross­ing into Mule Hollow.

“Learn any­thing?” Katie asks as I pull into our driveway.

“I learned not to be hon­est when you try to mess with my head. I learned to be as vague as pos­si­ble so that we can remain at peace. I learned a ten hour car ride is mis­er­able in our hybrid.”

“Real­ly? That’s all you can say?” Katie asks with­out wait­ing for an answer. She goes inside and shuts the door.

I unpack, stretch, and put on Asics. I’m out the door and run­ning just as the sun dips beneath the moun­tains. Katie has done the same. We leave head­ed in oppo­site direc­tions, which means we will cross paths in about six miles. As pre­dict­ed, after six miles, I see Katie’s mocha pony­tail and fur­rowed brow. Per her usu­al, she has no watch, and is so deep in this hyp­not­ic rit­u­al, bare­ly real­izes who I am.

“Katie, stop for a sec­ond. I’m sor­ry about how things went. I just wasn’t sure what I was sup­posed to do or how to feel.”

“I know Ben, I guess I just hoped it might come to you. I’m not real­ly sure what I expect­ed either.” Katie bends down to stretch her hamstrings.

I chuck­le and it hits me.  “You know Katie… You know what I have real­ized? I have the same laugh as my father. And I miss his laugh, but I guess if I have his laugh, then I act as the sec­ond com­ing of him. Or some­thing like that.”

“Woah, Ben.” Katie stands straight and smiles. “It has worked! You get it! My god am I hap­py to hear you say this!”

“Real­ly? Because we have the same laugh?” I silent­ly real­ize that the whim­sy of my new sculp­ture will ben­e­fit from all of this, after all.

“No, not that. It is that you real­ize you miss the man who made you, and know where you come from! I’m VERY hap­py we went! At last!” Katie gives me a high five that I am not sure how to react to. But, in the end, Katie is hap­py, and that is all that mat­ters. And as a bonus, I have sud­den moti­va­tion to fin­ish new work.

We turn and begin our jog home, but this time, we run side by side. I ask Katie if she expects the scene at school tomor­row to revolve around the inci­dent. She says yes, and looks over to me.

“He was fired and that ends it,” Katie reties her pony­tail. “But I know every­one will have gossip.”

“I’m just glad no one was hurt,” I say.

“The thing is, I saw the whole thing. I turned him in. If I had not of seen it, he would not be fired. And I know he hates me for it. I’m ner­vous he’ll come back for revenge.”

“Shit. I didn’t think of that. Maybe you should stay home for a few days. Let this all blow over?” I scratch my head.

“No,” Katie replies. “I need to go back and stand my ground. I know the prin­ci­pal will call in more secu­ri­ty.  There will always be peo­ple around.”

“Good. I don’t want you alone.”

“Me either. But I know I won’t be. And now that you are at peace, I can see you’ll be home sculpt­ing in vigor.”

“Yes, thank you for giv­ing this to me.” I length­en my stride and Katie stays with me, chug­ging our route as the sun­light flits about the moun­tain line.

“No, you gave it to your­self. I just had to nudge you in the right direction.”

“Thank you just the same,” I say.

“Ok, catch me if you can.” With that Katie speeds up into a near sprint and leaves me won­der­ing if I can, in fact, catch her. Run­ning full speed, I stare at Katie and grin, let­ting my father’s laugh come right out.

“I got her Dad,” I say. “I got her.”

 

Mur­ray Dunlap's work has appeared in about forty mag­a­zines and jour­nals. His sto­ries have been twice nom­i­nat­ed for the Push­cart Prize, as well as to Best New Amer­i­can Voic­es, and his first book, Alaba­ma, was a final­ist for the Mau­rice Prize in Fic­tion. He has just pub­lished a col­lec­tion of sto­ries called Bas­tard Blue. The extra­or­di­nary indi­vid­u­als Pam Hous­ton, Lau­ra Dave, Michael Knight, and Fred Ashe taught him the art of writing.