| In
search of a town called Liberty
By C. D Clawson
November 29, 2006 | There is a place
beyond the horizon, beyond my four walls, my roof and
the streets I drive everyday. It's a place that lays
hidden and forgotten to this world -- the last place
you'd expect to find adventure.
The summer before my freshman year
of college, I found myself on a road trip in my own
back yard. Jake, my best friend gave me a call after
a long week at work.
"Hey, Corey," he said. "You
wanna come over and help me finish that project?
My tired muscles pounded in protest.
"Umm," I hesitated. "The project, huh? I'll be
over in a sec."
Five minutes later I arrived, and
he was there at the door -- waiting -- camera in hand.
I signaled him to get in and we were off.
The word "Project" had special meaning
for us. It meant months of work, and in Jake's case,
it usually involved his trusty digital camcorder. We
reminisced over the last project.
"I could blackmail you over
that segment on chocolate addiction," he joked. "You'd
never be elected president."
That was probably the last thing
I was thinking of when I played a pastor warning against
the evils of chocolate. Lately, however, everything
in life (including our projects) had taken on a more
serious tone. Today, he needed some good nature shots,
and I knew just the place.
"So where are we off to?" he
asked.
"Have you ever been to Paradise?"
"Yeah. Once or twice."
We fell into distracted silence as
we watched the layers of suburbia slowly peeling away.
The houses seemed to shrink as they grew farther and
farther apart. The landscape turned crisp and green
with field after field of alfalfa and groves of spruce
trees. And slowly, the livestock began to outnumber
people.
"Avon?!" Jake coughed, reading
a sign in the distance. "So that's where they make the
cosmetics."
"Wait," I said, rolling my
eyes a bit. "You've lived here for how long and you've
never heard of Avon?"
"Well, it must not be very
big," he said as he shrugged his shoulders.
"Alright. Ya wanna see it?"
I didn't even need to ask. Neither one of us could resist
a last chance to be impulsive together.
"Let's go," he said.
The highway decayed from pavement
into a single bumpy lane. The rocks and potholes seemed
to shake every inch of my old Buick. Worried that we
might hit a sheep or a cow, we slowed down a bit. We
passed a quiet blue pond of ducks and geese eating and
swimming without a care. It was like one of those pastoral
paintings from 19th Century England of romantic hills
cut by whispering brooks -- except with pickup trucks.
The pavement ended, and we stopped.
"Well, I guess that's it. You
wanna get out and take some shots here?" I asked.
"Waaiiit. Do you see that over
there? Liberty?"
It was another sign, only this one
was small, and hand-painted. Was this a real place?
"Let's go," he said.
I just couldn't say no. The road
ahead was wild, rugged and inviting. To any reasonable
person, it wouldn't be a wise decision considering the
unhealthy state of my Buick. It hurt to go on, but it
would have hurt even more not to go on.
I hadn't seen Jake that excited for
a long time. His mind was racing as if they were searching
for the right glimpse amongst the scattered piece of
a jigsaw puzzle. As we curved around the hills avoiding
the sheep-sized potholes and the occasional grouse or
rabbit darting across the road, we left behind a dusty
trail in the air behind us.
"What do you suppose Liberty
is like?" he asked. "Some ghost town in the middle of
nowhere?"
"I've never heard of it, so
it must be something like that. But still, there must
be a good story behind it. Maybe a plague ran through
or something, and now the town's deserted."
"I don't know about that one."
"Alright, how about this one?
Maybe it's just a big secret. They've probably got an
international airport and some government experiments
there."
"That's better, but I still
think that it's some back-of-the-woods hillbilly hideout."
We stopped at a wooden bridge. The
Buick couldn't go any further.
"It looks like it's a hundred
years old," he said turning on his camera. "This is
the perfect spot."
We ambled our way through the bushes
and the tall grass searching for the best shots. In
a matter of minutes, he'd captured everything he could
ask for: the cool air coming off of the creek, fragrant
purple and red wildflowers amongst the sagebrush, and
four deer grazing off in the distance. Then, Jake's
eyes picked up one more thing.
"Come over here," he said from
the bridge. He was bending over to look at something.
"Just one last shot," he said.
As I approached, I realized that
it was a butterfly. It was a beautiful thing, even though
it was dying. It lay there on its back, on its sky-blue
wings slowly stretching its tiny black legs in and out,
in and out as if it were trying to get somewhere and
hadn't the sense to give up. I'd never seen him so concerned
about something he had no control over. We left it there
to pass on. Sure, it was the end of something beautiful.
Sure, it was sad, but its time was up.
"Off to Liberty then?"
"Off to Liberty."
We abandoned the car there and started
on foot. We climbed hill after hill, hoping to see Liberty
somewhere on the horizon.
NW
JP
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