Bill Qualls asked me to tell one of the anniversary stories. You would think he would learn to avoid me, wouldn’t you?
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8 or 9 years ago, Bill was in a quandary: he wanted to buy his wife something fantastic for their wedding anniversary coming up on May 30th, just a few days away. As always, procrastination kept whispering in his ear, convincing him to sit on the couch. Fearing he would have to face his wife with a handful of rolled up aluminum foil with two meadow flowers tucked inside or a card hastily bought at Wal-Greens, he called me, knowing I would be able to devise something interesting.
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I met Bill over near the I-49 exchange in Springdale, as it was convenient to both of us. We stopped and ate at Denny’s on the corner there to power up before shopping. As neither one of us enjoys shopping, it seemed reasonable to eat so much that we could barely move. As we sat in the last booth, looking out the window at traffic, drinking our 6th cup of coffee, the waitress stopped and asked if we were going to the gun and knife show nearby at the Holiday Inn Convention Center.
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Bill looked at me as if Christmas had just been dropped in his lap. “Why yes, yes we are going straight there!” he replied to the server, giving me a glint-eyed look that made me concerned for my personal safety. Bill well knew my tumultuous relationship and history with gun and knife shows. Several times I had narrowly escaped the wrath of angry gun owners as they realized I was mocking them. A couple of years previous, Bill had dragged me to the A.G. Russell knife shop off the interstate in Rogers. Things went so badly that we both imagined we could hear the irate customers throwing knifes at us as we hastily exited through the fire door on the highway-side of the building.
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As the waitress walked away, I said, “Now Bill, we have to get your wife something. I don’t think she wants a knife or a gun.”
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“What is it going to hurt? Just a few minutes of harmless browsing and you can keep your mouth shut for five minutes, can’t you?” I looked behind me to see if he was still talking to me, as he darned well knew that there was indeed a high likelihood of something bad happening and of me being unable to keep my trap shut. When we were together, I imagined that a bail bondsman should be aware of our location at all times.
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We paid the bill and drove my car the short distance down 48th street to the convention center. There were hundreds of cars already parked there and people milling about. I assume they were excitedly bragging about their shiny guns or something, or desperately wanting to shoot someone; just typical gun stuff.
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Without missing a beat, Bill looked at me as we walked across the parking lot and simply said, “Don’t.” In that single word, he communicated an entire vocabulary of instructions. It didn’t bother me that he assumed I was going to cause trouble.
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Once inside, we ambled along the dozens of kiosks and displays inside the expansive building. At the second long table, I walked up and said, “Hey, I was told there would be a shooting. Do I need to register or something?” The serious man standing to the left gazed at me as if I had just urinated on his boot. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bill quickly step back, turn and walk away. “Have a good morning, sir, and I sincerely hope you get to shoot someone very soon” I told the serious man as I moved along, calculating that I might be that person getting shot if I lingered.
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I came up behind Bill at the 5th display. He was standing in a small group, watching the table in front of him. From over his shoulder I asked the gentleman standing there holding some sort of large rifle, “Can I buy that even if I’m nutso? I really need a gun. I got some people who need to get got.” I then slightly ducked behind Bill. Every single face turned to see who had spoken – and every one of them was now suddenly looking directly at Bill, whose face was rapidly becoming redder than Santa’s work pants. I could hear Bill try not to breathe. Without a word he turned and walked away from me again. I, of course, was laughing.
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“You’re going to get shot, X.” Bill told me this as he suppressed a laugh.
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“Nonsense,” I told him. “All the guns are required to be unloaded and these old geezers can’t see well enough to throw a knife.” (But he had accidentally given me an idea.)
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At the next display, I went around to the end that had another table sitting perpendicular to it as Bill stopped at the closer end to look at a pistol on display under glass.
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“Hey Bill,” I hollered across the table, loud enough for everyone to hear. As at least 10 people looked up, as I held a rifle toward my face, peering deeply into the barrel as I pointed it. “Is this the end that the gun powder goes in? I can’t see it.” I peered intently inside the barrel.
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Several men near the display immediately then looked down toward Bill, who suddenly lost interest in the display pistol. He made a sound not dissimilar to that of a dog having its tail stepped on unexpectedly. One of the 3 men at the table snatched the rifle from my hands and angrily barked, “You can’t touch this!” Without missing a beat, I shouted, “OK, M.C. Hammer, keep your billowing pants on.” Even though Bill had just been thinking of beating me, he couldn’t help himself and laughed out loud at the M.C. Hammer reference.
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“Have you got all the nonsense out of your system now? Can we be normal for a few minutes? I think my better half really would like a beautiful knife, even if she keeps it in the bedside table.” He seemed like he had convinced himself that any wife in her right mind would want a knife in her bedroom, so who was I to argue?
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We skipped about half of the displays as we neared one which had a larger than expected area. A plank wall was behind it, with about ten feet of space. There was a single knife stuck in it, about five feet from the floor. There was a staggering assortment of knives along the table. Surprisingly, there was several which looked iridescent and caught my eye. I told Bill that one of those looked like a good pick. Eyeing me suspiciously, Bill turned and looked. Even he looked like he agreed. The $425 price tag attached to a few of them, however, knocked the air out of him. The display owner told Bill he would knock $50 off for his anniversary if he bought one.
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Seeing that he was hesitating, I asked him, “How will that look? You found the perfect knife but now you’re too cheap to get your soulmate one? I’ll let her know that when you get her a $4 card from the store.” I smiled wickedly at Bill, who was now stuck, as he well knew I would rat him out to his wife on their anniversary if there was any comedy potential to be had.
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I walked over toward the plank wall and told Bill, “Throw one at me and see if you can stick it in the wall. They don’t look like they’d be much protection in the bedroom.” I always liked to touch and interact with the displays, which bugged Bill constantly.
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At this point, time slowed down in my mind, especially as I relive the moment. I’m not really sure how much time actually elapsed. All I know is that afterwards, all the missing time seemed to rush forward all at once.
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As I reached up to casually pull the knife free from the plank wall, I heard two ‘bzzzz’ sounds, felt the air separate around me, and heard two loud ‘thunks’ as two separate knives impaled themselves into the wood wall as my hand clasped around the knife already stuck in there. I froze, turning my head slowly back towards Bill and the owner of the knife display.
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The owner was just sweeping both arms down and I realized that he had just thrown not one, but two knives at me and that the wood plank wall was in fact specifically there for that purpose. Both of the knives were impaled in the wall, one below my left arm and the other above. Being realistic, the first thought other than fear was one speculating how much the knife thrower’s insurance premiums must be.
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Bill howled with laughter. “You should see the look on your face!” he shrieked at me. “You look like Casper.”
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I think I stood there at least 5 full seconds, my left hand around the knife in the wall, my eyes locked on the iridescent handles of the two knives which had been thrown at me. By then, the knife owner was laughing too, as Bill doubled over and used the edge of the table to steady himself as he laughed until tears came into his eyes.
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So that is how it came to be that Bill’s wife has two beautiful knives in her night table. Bill only paid $100 for both, after the knife owner listened to Bill explain just how long he had been waiting for me, his blabbermouth know-it-all friend, to get a lesson about silence and not touching things that don’t belong to him.
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PS: The owner gave me the knife I was trying to pull from the wall, as a reminder to remember my audience in every situation.

Yesterday, Sunday, I wrote about an experience Dawn and I had late in the morning. It is here (and on yesterday’s Facebook for me), if you wish to read it and to better understand this post: https://xteri.me/…/a-sunday-moment-of-life-this-story-ends…/

Dawn and I went back to the cemetery about 4 hours later. Before we left the house, I casually joked, “He will be dead if he’s still there – the heat is incredible.” I couldn’t stop wondering who the man paying homage to the grave might be or who might be interred there. My casual joke wasn’t sincere as there could be no way anyone would stay out in the hot summer sun all day.

Dawn and I went outside to drive back to the cemetery. The inside of the car was sweltering and the pavement indicator told us it was 109 degrees in the driveway. We drove the short distance back to Friendship Cemetery and looped around the backside of the expanse of graves. My stomach dropped as we neared where we had seen the man cradling the grave earlier. The mountain bike was still parked in the same spot, a solitary witness to the Sunday evening heat, although it no longer had bags tied to the handlebars.

The idea that we were going to find the man lying dead in the shimmering green grass crystallized as a certainty in my mind.

The man was still there, although he was now lying under the shade of a very large monument near where we had first seen him, stretched out, his head propped up crazily atop the edge of the large monument now shielding his head from the sun. Not knowing if he was alive or dead in the incredible heat, I got out and walked up, despite Dawn’s objections. I had to KNOW. He was asleep, I determined, after cautiously approaching and fearing the heat had killed him. I watched him closely for several seconds before seeing his chest move slightly. We saw him before noon and the heat had only worsened as the earlier pastoral breezes had fled. He turned out to be much older and Hispanic as I approached him. I guessed he was in his mid-to-late 40s.

Even though I wasn’t certain he hadn’t suffered a heat stroke, I walked around to the grave he had been cradling earlier. The tombstone was low to the ground, decorated with coins, figurines and other moments. Expecting to find someone younger to be buried in the grave, I was shocked to see that the person so beloved by the gentleman cradling the grave died when she was 80. She died on my birthday in 2005. Based on the man’s apparent age, I surmised that the deceased was his mother.

Although I couldn’t rule out he had suffered a heat stroke, he moved a little as I got back in the car. I still felt possessed by a slight feeling of both dread and wonder. It was difficult to leave him there without talking to him; not just to discover the ‘why’ of it all and satisfy my own curiosity but also to ensure he was going to be okay. Logic won in that moment and I drove away, feeling as if a terrible opportunity to learn something had slipped away from my grasp.

When we returned home, I geared up my usual tools to uncover who Catalina was and who the man might have been lying at her grave, cradling it. Fairly quickly, I determined that the gentleman at the cemetery was Catalina’s son. Once I found out who he was, I stopped. I stopped not only because the amount of work involved for the next step would probably be large, but also because I decided that without speaking directly to the son, I would still be stuck in a purgatory of disinformation and speculation.

By using the information I found through research, I matched the time to the data on pictures I had on my birthday from 2005. Even though it isn’t directly relevant to the resolution of this story, the data in the pictures told me I was eating at a now-defunct eatery in Eureka Springs named Café Soleil at the time of Catalina’s death. The son paying homage to his deceased mother had also ridden several long miles on his mountain bike, across the city of Springdale, to spend the hot summer day remembering a life.

Now, at least, I know I could find him if I felt another overwhelming compulsion.

I also know that he survived the day yesterday, although I do wonder how often he visits his mother in that place and what motivates him to miss her so dearly.

(Several people inquired afterwards, knowing me well enough to know I would at least try to satisfy my curiosity enough to get past the day.)

Years ago, one of my many eccentricities was a love of randomly buying helium balloons, going to odd places, and releasing them. On some occasions, I would attach a message. (I have some interesting stories about some of these adventures, saved for a later misty October morning.) Mostly, though, I would simply watch in fascination as the laws of physics carried these orbs into the sky at varying speeds, against the seemingly infinite backdrop of ‘the great above.’ As childlike as finding delight in this might be, it is something that I still hold almost sacred all these decades later. Some of the allure undoubtedly is the unknown and mystery of how high and how far the balloons might reach, even as I become a pinpoint below it.

Today, Dawn and I went to buy one item at a discount store and instead walked out with $50 of miscellaneous treasures. The store had a vertical corral of whimsical balloons. I bought a minion-themed one. Even though Dawn kept guessing as to its purpose, I just kept offering ridiculous answers. Dawn is accustomed to my method, so she didn’t judo chop me across the neck as most people might have done.

We drove past the turnoff to our house and descended down the shaded and deep incline just outside the city limits of Springdale, where things get stranger looking as one traverses Friendship Road. Dawn wanted to know where we were going. Instead of answering her, I looped around and drove into the huge expanse named “Friendship Cemetery.” Dawn then speculated that my intent was to place the minion balloon as a surprise to some random grave. Granted, that is something I was certainly capable of, all the while imagining the reaction of whomever might drive up and see it.

We had the entire cemetery to ourselves, or so I thought, even though it was after 11:30 on a hot July Sunday morning. There was a slight Northerly breeze blowing and billowing underneath a spotty cover of clouds. Standing at the epicenter of this long cemetery, I imagined that it was as serene and peaceful setting that could be devised for such a day.

Dawn took my picture with the balloon as I bit off the streamer to add to its buoyancy. As I released the balloon, it rose against the backdrop of the bright summer sky. The silvery sheen of the balloon helped us to mark its trajectory as it made its solitary journey up and outward. Much to my surprise, even Dawn seemed to be enjoying the vision of the balloon, pirouetting and incrementally escaping our ability to discern its presence. To our mutual delight, we took turns laughing and noting how bad our eyesight seemed to be. After a few minutes, even the brilliance of the exterior of the balloon was defeated by the sheer distance it had conquered since I released it. I told Dawn a couple of my balloon stories from when I was younger and continuously prone toward antics of every variety.

It was a notable moment for me, having realized an accidental balloon provided such a delight to us.

As we drove around the back and turned to head back toward the entrance, something caught my eye and I said, “Look at that. There’s a bicycle in the middle of the road.” A mountain bike was parked facing us, plastic grocery sacks tied to the handlebars and blowing serenely with the wind. No one was in sight. The pastoral serenity of the huge vastness of the cemetery only strengthened the aura of unworldly effect. The bike was parked no more than 15 yards from we had initially stood out and released the balloon. I promise that it had not been there when we entered the cemetery or when I looked around as we watched the balloon rise. Dawn took a few pictures but unfortunately, none quite went wide enough to have captured the parked bike when we were enjoying ourselves.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up as I wondered where the rider was and how long he had been present. We looked around carefully as I inched up the path in the car. At that point, I was already even with the mountain bike, ghostly in its solitary stance. I spotted him first. A young gentleman was stretched out, curled up against a lower-profile headstone, feet facing North. I couldn’t see his face. Oddly, though, I could feel the manifest intimacy of his embrace with the tombstone. Only someone experiencing the unfathomable pain of loss would lie in the summer grass in such a place in such a way.

Dawn and I had inadvertently wandered into a very precious moment of pain in the mountain bike rider’s life. We hoped our display of fun and enthusiasm had not interfered with his very private expression of loss. It seemed as if the gentleman on the grass had been there forever, independent of our presence. I’m certain that his thoughts were swimming in the hereafter, so great was his memory of the person in the grave under his embrace.

I reluctantly drove away, fatally curious as to his story and to that of his loved one buried in a quiet grave in Friendship Cemetery. It must have been a worthy life and a formidable love. The researcher in me relishes the opportunity to discover the hidden story; the human in me dreads the plot of loss that I know underscores whatever I discover.

While I don’t know his story, I know that fate handed me a minion balloon for no other purpose than to cause me to wonder for many days as to whether all of us are creating moments in life that beg and beseech that someone will grieve our loss in such a way.

Meanwhile, the balloon which united us continues to soar away, oblivious to our thoughts, plans, and desires. It looks down on us all, shimmering. Please take a moment and look downward with it, imagining that your life will one bright summer morning be held in the same glorious way that the young man who journeyed on a bike to be with his loved one embraced his.

(From far enough away or high enough above, all that seems important to you will fade to fond remembrances and laughter. If you are lucky.)