Des Moines County, Iowa

“Ch-ch-check this fucker out,” Martin the county sign worker said to me, sliding his greasy fingers across a hand-held roller ball mouse.  He squinted at a tiny computer screen in the middle of the cab, and I leaned over to take a closer look.  It was a satellite map of Des Moines County, from Burlington to Yarmouth, and every dusty dirt road in between.  “Find your huh-house,” Martin spit out with a smile, handing me the mouse and leaning back in his shock resistant chair.  And I did. 
           

I zoomed all the way in, close enough to see the tear in the passenger side fabric of my Jeep’s old soft top, suggesting that the photos were taken sometime recently.  I was admittedly impressed, and Martin could see it on my face, so he told me to “dick around” with it some more as we made our way down the back roads of the county.  I pretended to, but I didn’t know what I was looking for.  I just kept zooming in on silos and crop patterns that looked like UFO creations until eventually I stopped and started gazing out the window.  The green hills seemed to go on forever, but I knew that they did not.  I’ve always known that they did not.  Martin told me he had only left Iowa once, last summer for California, and I wonder if he ever thought they just went on forever, never ending, like a perpetual galaxy of crops.  I’m sure he, like myself, sometimes wishes they did.  I’ve always wished they did.
           

And in between the staggered stutters of Martin’s explanations, (an unfortunate thing to witness, although he keeps such a good humor about it,) I lolled in and out of conscious thought.  I saw the upturned silos from last summer’s gruesome flood, and they reminded me of beautifully tragic works of art.  The leaning silo of Yarmouth, I thought, but didn’t dare share it with Martin.  He was in the middle of a lengthy tirade over affirmative action that I had accidentally provoked, and I wouldn’t dream of trying to explain why I thought these shattered dreams were gorgeous.  It just wouldn’t make sense, and doesn’t make sense, in any and all forms.  Once after creating a lopsided barricade, I tried to tell him about “wabi-sabi,” the Japanese belief in beauty through the imperfect.  He told me to stop spouting off that Swahili shit.  And I did. 
           
I think back about that satellite imagery from Martin’s sign truck and all the things that fill up just our tiny nook of the world.  There are 99 counties in Iowa alone, well over 3,000 in the rest of the country, and God forbid I sit down and do the research through the world’s commonwealths and territories, boroughs or “parishes”.  That’s what Louisiana calls them, parishes, which I learned from an old black and white movie whose name escapes me as I babble.  Too many nights watching those old films. But focusing back on just our little patch of earth, it’s hard to fathom all the life stories that are being played out day by day, as I type, and as you sleep, and as we all pass each other through routine.  40,600 people, give or take a few well-fed farmers who die from high cholesterol, or a handful of drunk teenagers that navigated their way through a few bottles of Smirnoff and then end over end into a ditch.  And then a couple babies are popped out from time to time, little “Jacobs” or “Catherines” and a few cutesy names like “Willow” that will never make it in the real world with such a whimsical signature.  And what a shame.

CEO’s are not named Willow, Toby, or Hope.  Believe what you want to believe, from the creation of the universe to the meaning of life, but CEO’s are not named Willow, Toby, or Hope.

And just from our little cranny of the globe, a place that seems so boring and non-complex, we all know people that would put big city stories to shame.  Cheating husbands living in basements with barely legal girls, drunken public officials found in fast-food parking lots, and a number of shameless deviants whose names tend to slip our minds, so conveniently, just as we want to tell their tale to an outsider, a foreigner to this former boomtown, this well dug hole.  Someone is cheating on their partner at this moment.  Hell, maybe two or three.  Some high school kid is taking a swig of lightning in a barn down a worn out road.  And someone else, a lot of people, are plotting their way out.  There’s a number of options, really.  Some will choose finality. 

I drove through the Burger King drive-thru this evening and saw an old friend of mine in the rear view mirror.  I say friend out of pure folksy hospitality, when in reality, we merely shared space a time or two, and shot the breeze a few times more.  He was in a neck brace, sporting his trademark aviators, and his wife was slouched against the passenger side mirror.  He used to tell some of the craziest stories; his wife giving birth to a three foot tall man, or how he knifed his way out of a hospital room in the ‘80s.  Us kids never took him too seriously, but I think he believed what he was saying.  And for all I know, it may be true.  I’m sure every county in Iowa has a “Greasy Steve,” or a “Vince” that becomes the stuff of legend – pure mythology at times – but yet we think of them as our own.  Only our own.  And yet their stories rarely leave the boundaries of our chunk.

Sometimes I lie outside at night and just think about all the people I have met over the past few years.  Faces I’d like to greet, but realize quickly they don’t remember me at all.  Faces I’d like to meet, but realize quickly I’ll never see them again.  Some of those are the most haunting of all.  And at times it almost feels as though the moon is mocking our little county, coming round when it likes and leaving without so much as a goodbye, creating the sultry black sky I’ve driven under for many years now, with friends and strangers alike.  I think about what Martin does after work, and whether he really does try and pork his wife at the dinner table after every meal, or whether I’d just really like to believe that.  I tell myself I don’t, but for some reason it seems charming. 

And I think about all of us trying so hard to get out – future doctors and lawyers, writers and engineers – all with the simple goal of leaving this town, this county behind.  I, of course, am one of them.  It could be that mocking moon, but I strive to just get out, get free, and look around somewhere else for a while.  And I used to think we all felt that way, that deep longing to get out at whatever cost, but I’ve learned more over the past couple weeks than just how to disintegrate a deer.  Some people really love it here, and wouldn’t dream of being anywhere else.  “We were like the Beverly Hillbillies,” Martin told me of his trip to California.  “It’s just too different for me.”  And in Martin’s case, I can’t blame him.  Corn-fed, corn-bred, and proud to say so – as though he shouldn’t be.  I’ve lost a bit of smarm and gained a bit of respect for those with simple ambitions.  Pure ambitions – to live, to love, and to just get by, without the flash of higher ideals.  I honestly can’t blame them, and at times I envy the thought.  What are we truly living for: the pursuit of happiness or the pursuit of power, wealth, and greed?  It’s a larger topic than suitable for this county, which is why we’ll leave it alone.

So why do I want out?  I’ve got a lot between my ears that doesn’t sit well in this place.  I’ve lost a lot of my angst, and I’ve started leaning toward practicality.  My dreams just don’t fit inside this box.  Hell, it might just be a needed change of scenery. And yes, industry is down, and sometimes it seems the entire economic morale may sink into the depths of the muddy Mississippi, but there’s always something to be done.  If you like it here, don’t be ashamed.  You’re in good company, I’ve seen.  And most situations, like riverboat paddles, work in steady cycles.

Yes, Des Moines Country is truly a beautiful place if you’re looking for the right things.  A bit simple for some, but isn’t it always?  The 3^rd biggest harvest, next to corn or soy, is nearly always complaint.  But maybe you have a head full of notions that can’t be reached from these old roads.  A head full of notions that have been screaming for too long, and you’re afraid they’ll echo through the valleys.  I understand, I do.  I’m with you.

Or maybe the moon’s mocking you, too.