The first part of Barry Greenawalt’s Dirt moved through many years of American history, recounting the loss of Lenni Lenapi lands and the emigration of one Native American family westward. This second installment introduces the main story (starting about 30 years ago) and its protagonist, the inward and eccentric Darnell.

 

View the Prolouge to Dirt

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Chapter 1

There was a pile of dirt at the edge of his yard put there very long ago. Maybe it was put there by the state road crew when they blasted through the cut. Maybe it was geological but that didn’t seem logical.

For many years Darnell hadn’t paid any attention to the pile of dirt except to have a working knowledge of its presence. He mowed around it. He watched its shadow purple the yard. He remembered when he was little he loved to play on it-army or the Wright Brothers or sledding. He watched certain things happen to it. It would gully in the heavy rains. Now and again a new weed or wildflower would grow upon its surface. A delicate yellow blossom in the late summer. Small white stars in the early spring. Winter circles of small green lobes. Autumn goldenrod.

Actually without him ever suspecting, the pile of dirt was instructing him. There could be no doubt. The dirt had put Darnell into its plans. Or maybe Darnell had made a passing prayer for help and the dirt had heard him. Either way things had been set in motion.

 

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Chapter 2

Darnell did not have the respect of his neighbors. In fact his neighbors had little respect for anything. That was not unusual considering the way of the day: selfish materialism and low spirituality. Darnell was slow. Slow in terms like that was something to be ridiculed and ignored and laughed at. All were equally effective at making Darnell just about as meaningful as dirt.

Slow for Darnell was not low mental capabilities. That was not the issue with Darnell. Darnell had taken a path that was just hard for people to deal with. They could not for the life of them make sense out of what Darnell was doing with his life.

He was not someone who they hated. It wasn’t that. He wasn’t worth hating in their regard. But they couldn’t get at Darnell in the least. They sent harmful thoughts and feelings his way without effect. He was impervious. The neighbors were actually too stupid to think that way. But they knew that they weren’t getting to him and it certainly irritated the hell out of them. Darnell’s house was small and it sat nicely in the side of a hill just outside of town. The road to town was at Darnell’s house’s feet with an ample sloping yard between the two. Everyone passed this house. Darnell’s house. Daily.

Darnell wasn’t usually there during the day because of his job. Darnell Pines was a tradesman. He did small construction jobs so small that they were almost inconsequential. He would fix the soffit of an old farmhouse. He would patch the cement of a basement stairway. He had work everyday. He could even work on Sundays if he wanted. The way of his day permitted this opening for his employment. People were reluctant to do things to their own properties with their hands and Darnell’s hands were perfect for doing the work he was doing.

 

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Chapter 3

He hadn’t thought of making enough money to support a family. So he had no family. He worked as a fix it guy and that was enough for him. He just worked. That was his path. It mattered little to him. He smiled. He looked across the valley from the roofs while he worked and he loved the sunlight. He loved the colors of the fields as they were or as they changed. He listened to the animals living their lives. He had a lot of fun. And there was some kind of feeling that built in him as he watched and listened and worked. He was aroused by it all. It made him look for something. He would look. Sometimes he had a slight idea what it was he was after but he nonetheless kept looking. It was an excitement that he kept right beneath the surface of his body. But-that is another story. Eventually Leesa came into his life. She was the slight idea that had been aroused. She was the excitement his body had contained. They were a good pair. Their love was flowing and unusual. It bothered the shit out of everybody.

Leesa was so beautiful that she had trouble dealing directly with the people in town. Women had no trouble hating her. Men could scarcely believe their eyes and then believed even less what she made them think and feel. She had a hard time. People always said Leesa and Darnell. Saying Darnell and Leesa just didn’t make sense.

“Can you believe that house Leesa and Darnell live in?”

“I wonder when Leesa and Darnell are gonna have kids?”

“Do you ever see Leesa and Darnell doing anything other than smile?”

Stuff like that was said.

It made one wonder why she had a hard time. Darnell heard some lines by Bruce Cockburn on time on the stereo at his friend Donald’s house after Leesa had passed over:

And, yes, I believe there is beauty

Yes, I believe in truth

And in the seemingly infinite hunger

Of humans for destroying them both…

Those lines summed it up quite nicely about Leesa for him. He cried pretty much when he thought about those lines and about her.

 

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Chapter 4

One day Leesa got up and looked out of the small kitchen through the westward looking window and the horizon from the hillside was obscured with moisture. She thought the fog odd. She loved the weather as she loved Darnell and other important things in her world. She paused to try to see what it was about the fog that was odd. For an instant she could see Darnell off in his truck by the county line. For an instant she could see the sun painting the topside of the clouds. And then she was looking out the window again. But a strange mixed up feeling stayed with her as she went about her chores and got ready to leave for the quarry office where she worked.

Her skills at keeping the books straight and not letting any money go uncharged and uncollected made Leesa the angel of the quarry. And Harry Gruber knew that he was in desolate and dusty trouble without her. Yet Harry was a foolish slob. He kept things poorly in order in his bullish little mind. He blasted one day and then the next. He didn’t tell the truth to the lazy engineer many days so that he could pull more out of the quarry than was safe and necessary except to make a killing with a client for a quick delivery to new york city or baltimore. He was getting very rich in this time of over expansion. The thrill of the danger and the multitude of the reward made Harry one careless american businessman. Everybody loved him.

Sometimes Darnell would stop by the quarry to eat lunch with Leesa. Doing that would help Darnell untangle his mind especially if it was a difficult or confusing repair job he was doing. Needless to say Leesa’s love and beauty affected him like a catharsis. He would kiss her cheek and almost faint at the gorgeousness of the gray quarry dirt against her rosy tan skin the effect of that against her blanket of chestnut hair her golden eyes aflame in the middle of it all and the smell of her aroused blood beneath her soap scented skin. Of course Darnell could not put it this way to her but his feelings did.

He thought it was extremely strange when his Chevy pickup stalled just as it came over the hill that led to the quarry. He had to turn it over on the roll a few times before it started back up. But he was drifting down the hill anyway. As he turned into the quarry weight station he had to panic brake.

The weigh station was gone. There was dust and smoke and destruction. The quarry side had collapsed. Leesa was in the office when it dove to the deep deep bottom of the cliffs. Darnell almost jumped in after her. But something in the dust made him stop. For an instant he thought he saw Leesa painted in sunlight wiping the dirt from her cheek and kissing him back saying “You’ll really like the sandwich I made for you-peanut butter, banana, and honey.”

That stopped him from jumping. But it didn’t stop his heart from breaking-which is trite to say; there is just no better way of putting it.

The efforts to find the survivors were staggering. It was many days before there was a funeral for those who didn’t. Harry had lots of money to put the quarry back in order. He lost a lot of it in the clean up though. Harry had been at the golf pro shop buying some new clubs when the quarry fell. Darnell’s sense of poetic justice was somewhat satisfied just barely.

 

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Chapter 5

It was at Leesa’s funeral that Darnell began to realize how people felt about him and about Leesa and about how wrong most people were about everything. He really hadn’t noticed before.

There were thousands of people at the funeral. At least that was how it felt to Darnell. There was crying and carrying on like he had never seen before-ever. Leesa’s divorced parents stayed right by that casket. They hated each other (not really) but they loved the attention so they stayed there together. Darnell spent the viewing in his pick up truck trying to calm down Leesa’s dog Sparky. Sparky felt the loss of Leesa so badly that he could not stop howling unless Darnell patted his stomach and rubbed his shanks.

Darnell went back inside for the service. All the people there were zombies. Well not exactly zombies. They were more like maggots. Remember Darnell was very messed up. The women were all together and they looked terrified. The men were all together and they wouldn’t speak to Darnell. But they were all moving amongst each other like they were on top of rank meat. Which they were generally speaking.

Leesa’s sister cornered Darnell by the funeral director’s office. She was out of her mind with grief. Well anyway that is the way it appeared to Darnell. He felt sorry for her. She stood in front of Darnell aggressively with her husband Larry and was wringing her tissue in her upset hands. She didn’t say anything to Darnell but she wouldn’t let him pass when after about five minutes of looking straight into his eyes Darnell could not take it anymore and wanted to leave.

She finally blurted out “Where is she? Tell me!”

Darnell was nonplused. He thought for just a second and then said “Eating lunch.”

She let him pass.

What he realized about everybody that day was that they had no idea what his life with Leesa had been like or what it had meant to him and to Leesa. It was like he had observed when he was little. Everybody said something different about the same thing. It was that way this day. Everybody was looking at Leesa’s death through their own eyes only. They were pitying themselves. They were relieved maybe that something as beautiful as Leesa had died. It saved them the worry in their own lives. They could say “I will die that tragically. Everybody will be at my funeral like this. That is me they are burying today. I will be this missed.” But of course they didn’t know what it was they were missing. Darnell thought he knew. He was a little confused. But he thought that he had caught the meaning of Leesa’s life. He just had to wait and see. Remember he was slow. That was what everybody disliked about Darnell.

 

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Continue reading: Chapters 6 thru10