Gymnozeas -1- Walking on the Earth (Patreon)

Clark Thomas North liked to walk, and he was good at it. A small accomplishment, perhaps, but a matter of pride to the young man and one for which he had been highly praised in his army career. In the Army, they called walking, marching, but it was the same thing.

It was not a large exertion for Clark to march as much as forty miles with a sixty-pound pack and do it in less than ten hours with a long break for lunch and four short breaks to drink water and readjust his pack. This endeared him to sergeants.

In the Army, they call the job you do your MOS, and Clark’s primary MOS was listed as Infantry Rifleman. This suited him since it involved a lot of walking. The training to be an Infantry Rifleman required a shit-ton of walking, or marching in Army lingo. Clark loved it.

He certainly liked it better than his secondary MOS, which was Clerk/Typist. This involved hardly any walking at all, except to and from the file room, frequently, and out to the mail room twice a day. On his breaks, he was out the door of whatever office he was currently slaving over a hot typewriter in, and off on a walk.

Without a pack or rifle to carry, he could easily get a one-mile walk into a fifteen-minute break. And so he did, every day that it was not dropping thunderbolts from the sky or blowing snow in 12°F cold. On his 45-minute lunch breaks, he grabbed a sandwich and a water bottle and covered three miles. After his workday and his dinner, he went for a seven-mile stroll. Before breakfast, he usually broke his routine with a two-mile run to get his blood moving and his appetite ready.

He didn’t smoke, seldom drank even beer, showered regularly, and really lived for the four-day infantry training weeks every three months and the two-week infantry camp each year. In peacetime, there really was not much need for a full-time infantry rifleman, and so poor Clark spent most of his days typing reports and filing them in quintuplicate. (Which is five copies, each on a different color paper, and going into a different file, except for the fourth copy, on goldenrod, which was always trashed.)

It was a good life; first in Texas, where he got his clerk training, then briefly in Japan, a bit longer in Korea, a year in Germany and finally in New Jersey, where he got caught in the dreaded RIF. Reduction In Force. Congress, in its wisdom, had decided that a peacetime military did not need so many Clerk/Typists or, for that matter, Infantry Riflemen, and poor Clark was discharged at the end of August 1957, two months before his 22nd birthday.

To add insult to this grievous injury, the Army refused his attempt at re-enlistment. They didn’t want him anymore, even if he could, in the words of an admiring sergeant, “walk the legs off an Army mule.”

The job market in New Jersey at this time was not brisk, and Clark despaired of getting on with the US Post Office, his dream job, which had a six-month hiatus in hiring due to also having been caught up in the fitful wisdom of Congressional committees. The best he could hope for there was temporary hire for the holiday season and that not until November.

His military severance pay envelope had contained just less than two months’ salary, not a lot to live on but enough that Clark had time to find another job that involved a lot of walking. In early September 1957, Clark became a hobo.

What could be a better life for a man who loved to walk? It might even beat the Post Office for being a perfect fit. And it sure beat the Army with enforced periods of typing and filing and, sooner or later, a new RIF to take your joy away. Other than walking, shooting at things (he seldom hit his target, which is why he had never made corporal), clerking and typing, Clark had few, if any, discernible skills.

But he could put his hand to any sort of manual labor, like picking fruit, digging a plot for a garden, steeving the summer hay, or nailing on new boards for a fence. A meal, a place to sleep, and a dollar here and there met his needs, and he could walk all day, any day he pleased.

His pack consisted of what would fit in the pockets of his pants and his army field jacket, since luggage is anathema to a true hobo, lest he be taken for a bindlestiff. In just a few weeks, Clark had acquired the lingo, habits and demeanor of the Brothers of the Road. His hobo bros had also given him his “monica” or roadname as Souperman—for his first name, Clark, his wavy black hair, and his ability to walk without stopping.

“If you don’t stop, you won’t have time to be tired,” was his trademark saying.

The one un-hobolike thing he did (or did not, rather), was not riding the rails, flipping a freight, or possuming a passenger line. Too dangerous with modern, fast diesel trains, too likely to get in trouble with the bulls, and besides, he’d rather walk.

And so it was that, a few years later, Clark was walking by the Latterman Estate House while Philip Latterman lay wrapped in blankets in the glider on his front porch, willing himself to die, having chosen not to extend his preternaturally long life any further.

The fence needed repair, and the lawn wanted mowing, tasks Clark reckoned himself capable of, and the hobo sign he had found on the corner fence post (three circles arranged in a line) indicated that a respectful ‘bo could expect to be paid cash money for his labor.

The gate had another sign on it, a broad checkmark connected to a straight line, meaning that a handout or a meal could be expected, but one must be prepared to leave directly. That sign reminded Clark of his nearly forgotten high school math classes because it looked like nothing so much as the radical symbol for deriving square roots.

Clark paused at the gate long enough for anyone watching to have time to call to him, then took the initiative himself, calling out, “Halloo, the house.” He waited two whole minutes before calling again, “Halloo, the house. Have you any work for a traveling man?”

Clark had noticed the brown lumpy mass in the glider but had thought it likely to be a pile of gunnysacks or such like and was surprised when the mess of blankets rolled over, and an old man peered out at him. “Halloo, yourself,” the old man called out in a voice that sounded weak and infrequently used. “Do you know how to dig a grave?”

“Yes,” Clark replied. “Use a shovel to dig straight down, keeping the sides straight, and climb out before it gets too difficult to do so.”

The old man laughed a phlegmy chuckle. “You’ll do,” he said. “Come here, boy, I’ve need of a gravedigger but first another task.” Clark was hardly a boy, having turned 26 the previous autumn, but someone who looked as old as the man in the pile of brown rags could be forgiven for an unintended insult. From some perspectives, everyone else is young.

Clark came through the rickety gate and approached the house. He saw a man at the extreme end of old age, his skin paper thin and white, his eyes rheumy and clouded, his hair a memory, his face beaky, and his pose in the pile of blankets somehow reptilian, like a soft-shelled turtle.

As he got closer, the old man spoke. “Can you take me into town? I’ve need to get some papers signed and notarized.”

Clark blinked, surprised at the request. “I don’t have a car,” he pointed out.

The old man chuckled his broken laugh again. “Neither do I, or at least not one that runs.” He gestured, directing Clark’s attention to a corner of the lawn. “You’ll have to push me in that wheelbarrow.”

The old man was full of surprises. Clark considered. It was two miles on an asphalt road back to the nearest town that he had passed through less than half an hour before. It would probably take two hours or more pushing a barrow loaded with the old man suitably cushioned within. He’d have to be careful not to spill his load; the potential cargo looked about as fragile as a collection of glass flowers.

“I’ll pay you fifty dollars for the trip and another fifty for digging the grave,” the old man offered. That clinched the deal for Clark. He hadn’t had as much as $100 dollars in hand all at one time since mustering out of the army. His brief time digging graves in Missouri, he’d been paid $8 per grave, and that included filling back in and replacing sod after the final resident took possession.

“Half in advance?” Clark asked. The old man nodded and produced from somewhere in one gnarled old hand two twenties and a ten, as crumpled and stained as himself. He proffered the bills to Clark, saying as he did so, “I’m Phillip Latterman, by the way.”

Clark took the money and introduced himself, saying, “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Latterman. I’m Clark Thomas,” omitting his last name while smoothly concealed the cash in his canvas wallet, more or less out of habit. While most ‘bus are honest, there are enough around who are not to make anti-theft procedures necessary.

Politely, the old man looked away as Clark readjusted the fit of his clothing. That done, the young man moved to examine the wheelbarrow, determining that, yes, it was large enough and in good enough shape to be used in the manner suggested. “Not going to be the most comfortable of rides,” he warned.

The old man shrugged. “Comfort don’t matter much to me anymore. Just pad the barrow with these blankets, and I will nest like a baby bird in a bower.” They both smiled at that image, for the old man did resemble a baby bird in angularity, awkwardness and fragility.

Something else occurred to Clark. He had spent the previous night on the far edge of the nearby town, sleeping in an abandoned and derelict box van behind a defunct livery stable. What he remembered now was the name of the small settlement. He asked, “Is Latterman village named after you or your family, Mr. Latterman?”

“My great grandfather,” said the old man. “The first Phillip Latterman. My father was Arbyrd Latterman, who helped build the courthouse in town and died during the War.”

“The War?”

“The War Between the States,” the current Mr. Latterman explained, meaning what is called The Civil War in most of the country. “He was an infantry rifleman and took a neck wound at Shiloh that resulted in his death. I was there myself, as a drummer boy, and also was wounded, a “lucky wound” as they say, since it kept me out of the rest of the fighting.”

Clark blinked at least four times at this information. He didn’t comment that the Battle of Shiloh had been almost a hundred years before. Mr. Latterman’s apparent age could stretch to accommodate such a span of time. “I was also an infantry rifleman during my service,” he said.

“I might have guessed as much,” said the old man. “You have the look of one whose feet and legs have devoured miles and miles of just miles and miles for no purpose of your own.”

Clark nodded acknowledgment; he had seen his own face in mirrors many times. He glanced at the sky, which had that crystal clarity of a September morning near but not in the great eastern woods. “Weather should hold fine for our journey,” he commented.

The old man returned a nod. “Then let us commence. You need to take me to the law offices of Mr. Devon Shute, who will prepare and have notarized the documents I need accomplished before I begin my final journey.” He gestured at the nest of blankets on the glider seat.

And so they began, Clark on his greatest adventure, and Mr. Latterman on his last.