When I turned 25, in 1984, the world seemed to be in a serious state of decline. Iraq and Iran were locked into a war that seemed endless, and the violence and cruelty were absolute. Russia was entangled in Afghanistan. The world seemed to be dancing on the edge. Ronald Reagan had won his second term, and conservatives were in rapture. Inflation hovered around 4.3%, unemployment was over 7%, jobs were scarce, opportunities were rare, and things looked bleak. It was a rough time to be a young adult lacking talent, possessing few skills and armed with limited education.
It was a bad time to be a dropout. Which is what I was. I dropped out of school, I dropped out of an apprenticeship to a trade, I dropped out of the rat race; I was afraid of rats.
I found a job at a small liquor store, working 6:00 until midnight, 5 days a week. And I lived in a small apartment, with a roommate, who was the only signatory on the lease. It was within walking distance of my job. I didn’t have a car, or a driver’s license. I got paid in cash, so I didn’t have to have a bank account. To established society, I ceased to exist. I had perfected the role of “dropout.”
There was a huge cemetery a block from our apartment. It reached back to the 1800s, and was still actively accepting tenants. It was, and probably still is, beautiful. They kept the lawn mowed, edged, neat and orderly. It was watered routinely, and green and glorious. In an aging, poorer neighborhood it was a jewel of majestic opulence.
Sometimes, when I left work, I would get a quart of beer, and instead of heading straight home, I would walk over the graveyard. There were benches, but they seemed so obvious and were so easy to see from the street, I would walk to one of the huge trees that were scattered around the area, one in the back, and sit by a monument close to, but not under, the tree. Trees are wonderful creatures, filled with dignity and life, but sometimes, in the middle of the night, in a graveyard, it’s easy to see and hear, or imagine seeing and hearing, them reach to pull you closer. they are filled with insects, and the spiders that feed on them. Nature’s battles don’t adhere to shifts, they follow their own circadian rhythm.
On a peaceful night, though, with the lucidness offered by a quart of beer and a joint, the world looked so much more peaceful inside the ornate fences surrounding the graveyard. Traffic sounds were few and distant. Aromas of fertilizer and mulch, freshly mowed grass, and pine trees, would take you to a place where nothing else existed. Just me, sitting among the headstones, surrounded by friends who didn’t judge me for my lack of drive, didn’t care about my casual disregard for capitalism, and the clawed tentacles of greed gripping the nation.
I notice the stars shone brighter inside the fence. Bright, sparkling, and magic, they were all there for me. I wondered if there were clues about the future in the sky at night, if they did control the world and we were servants. For thousands of years, man has used the night sky for navigation and took solace in the belief that life was brutal and mean, due to the malevolence of the skies. Small comfort, but you take what you can get.
Over the span of a year or so, on random nights, I let the stars offer me insights into my past and my future; they explained life, and my place in it. Or at least they existed in the same place as I did, we were there for each other.
I took comfort knowing they were the same stars that guided people across the ages. How many people had looked at those same stars?
Eventually, the stars told me to find something new, someplace new. I moved away, a long ways away. I got married to a woman who saved me from graveyards and nocturnal emptiness. I found a job that would pay for a life, as long as my wife was willing to work, and she was; she was more willing to work than I was. Now I am retired, I’m engaged in a running battle of survival against the aging process, a fight I ‘m doomed to lose, eventually.
Everything is different, I’m a number in a file. But I still walk through cemeteries when I can and take comfort in the company of companions from across the years. And I still look to the night sky for advice. And it still gives me something. But, just like my youth, I’m not always sure what it is.
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