Nabraska Fields (a short story)

(Winter of 1967)




Omaha Bound


So, although in a sense Milwaukee (for the few minutes we spent there, and flew out of there in our 1961-Valient, I won’t miss the city at all), it wasn’t a good experience by far, the racial riots didn’t allow that, it was November of 1967, things were hot throughout the United States, in the white vs. black area.
Jerry was older by twelve-years than I, in actuality, this may have been his first escape out of Minnesota though; on the other hand I was nineteen-years old, and I had been to Seattle, North and South Dakota, and a few other places, and was thinking about San Francisco, but I wanted to visit Milwaukee.
In time, everything in time, I told myself. I am not sure why Jerry Hino and I picked out—of all places—to go to Omaha (other then it was on the map, and near Chicago), but I suppose it was a matter of elimination. When we had got to Madison, we were going to stay there, but it was so impoverished looking, and smelled bad from the stockyards, we hightailed it out of the city like two cats running from a bulldog. I suppose to an onlooker, we were like some unconscious unwanted creatures torn fiercely from the roots of the world (we were unshaven, and perhaps smelled bad ourselves, from the constant drinking of beer and sweating, in the car, as we drove aimlessly here and there, looking for a nest to roost in, by the likes of others—in addition, we were dirty, and untidy, we didn’t even know we were perhaps because we were half lit.
Jerry was escaping from a relationship, me, I was just trying to see the world, one step at a time. I perhaps thought I was like some Greek hero rushing off to Troy to battle with the Trojans. In time I would find my war in Vietnam, and go to Turkey, to the site of Troy, but today it was simply, a trip that started at St. Paul, Minnesota, and onto Milwaukee, and now out of Madison, Wisconsin; there we sat going down a highway,k peeing in an empty can, throwing it out the window, drinking another beer, refilling that, then all of a sudden Jerry says:
“Let’s flip a coin for where we go, Chicago or Omaha?”
It was a question, I suppose, but I simply pulled out a coin, and that was my answer, “Ok, I’ll flip,” I told Jerry, “heads we go to Chicago, and tails, onto that place here on the map called Omaha, matter-of-fact, what the heck is in Omaha?”
“You’re guess is as good as mine, but it has to be better than Madison—I hope!” said Jerry.
Oh well, we were too drunk to laugh, and too tired to think of another place besides those two locations, plus we didn’t have an abundance of money to be too selective.
“Well what is it?” asked Jerry.
“We are my friend, Omaha bound,” I said, and Jerry turned onto another highway, a few minutes later, and we were on our way.
It was Tuesday, and the highway was a mere empty road widening here and there, where construction was not, and we passed several small towns, a few taverns, we stopped at one to buy a six-pack of beer, and on our way we were—intact, blocked minded, sort of speaking.

It was the first week of November, and there really was no snow on the ground to speak of, although the ground was hardening, and the fields we passed were browning with the cold weather, and the crows and pheasants were out in the fields and the dogs the folks dropped off, out of their cars, the unwanted pets, they had bought for their children, and then had to watch and take care of because the children were too lazy, and they were to lazy to teach them not to be lazy, thus, dropped them off in the fields to did, to starve to death, who would be the wiser, perhaps the farmer will be kinder and pick the dogs and cats up, even though each farmer perhaps had twenty dogs now to feed from the irresponsible folks of the big city. And I looked at them running, some even after our car, hoping we’d stop I suppose, or perhaps their memory transposed our car into the car that they were thrown out of, thinking their owner had come back to save them. These were moments of gross and simple lusts of the people, forcible incarceration into idleness of the frozen fields of Nebraska; the newly bought dog pens, now thrown into the garbage so the kids do not get new ideas of getting another dog to feed and watch.
There was even a few deer in motion, shapes dashing across the highway, as if on an endurance run, passion and hope in their eyes, they too were on the hit list for the governments of the Midwest, too much overlapping, extended beyond their limits, that now they were drifting into the main cities, and bothering the noble people of the good State of Minnesota, yes indeed, these were the results of generations of deer, healthy, but in need of food. So the state hired hunters, killers to kill them all, vanish them from the city, this was their objective. Now they were in the Nebraska fields, like the dogs.
Anyhow, there was lots of room out here in the wild countryside, so I felt as we drove past fields that would produce corn, one after the other, almost hypnotised beneath the vast incredible and enduring land of growth of food. I had heard we fed half the world with our wheat and corn, and now I could see how. Every time I turned my head, it was empty fields, or straw bundled up for winter feeding of the farm animals. And then we got into the more condensed populist areas filled with watchful eyes and arrogance and less strays, new generations, and old ones sitting on benches waiting for buses, and asking each other unanswerable questions to pass the time of day away. We were going through Counsel Bluffs, a city next to Omaha, which was across a bridge, Counsel Bluffs being in Iowa, and Omaha, being in Nebraska. A new adventure was about to start.

Written: 5-24-2008 (see: “Milwaukee Bound,” and “Rathole in Omaha,” for the other two parts to this story)