For a short period of time, my dad and I lived across the state line in northwest Arkansas. We dubbed it the “Brown Recluse House.” Very little creativity went into the name, it just had a crap ton of brown recluses. We sat at the top of a proudly tall Ozarks incline on a slab concrete floor. The windows in my room fit loosely in their frames. Sitting atop the Ozarks during a thunderstorm will move your soul. It also rattled the ill-fitting windows and scared the hell out of me with every clap of thunder.
The gentleman who lived behind us trained police dogs. He was adamant that they were harmless. That was probably true, but the man was missing an arm. My fifteen year old brain wasn’t willing to believe his work and his arm situation were mutually exclusive. I never ventured that side of the house. The two mile dirt driveway and the deep ravines draping down the sides of it offered plenty of distractions from the spiders and dogs.
We often stopped at a rural gas station on the way home. They had a movie rental section. Truth be told, there were more options of barbeque sauce for the chicken in the fryers, but it was something. I don’t know how many times my poor father had to watch The Hobbit, but I certainly owe him for it. Rush Hour 2 and one of the Spiderman movies showed up frequently as well. We would occasionally drive down to Bella Vista and watch a new movie in the theater.
Neither one of us enjoyed being in that house. There’s an onion worth of layers to why we didn’t enjoy it. It was a lonely place. Life was tumultuous. I think we were both looking for something to hold still long enough to grab on to.
I became grateful for something that I also hated. Dad and I were able to figure a lot of things out together. We rode bikes around Pea Ridge National Battlefield weekly. We talked a lot. That house gave us the freedom to process and understand the hell that each had also been living in. We didn’t walk through the flames alone.
We didn’t live in Arkansas too long. We settled into a rental house in Cassville within a few months. The Cassville rental will remain one of my favorite homes I’ve lived in, one of my favorite Christmas mornings, and where I learned a lot of what would develop who I am today. I also got my first electric guitar there.
It’s my dads’ fault for the rock and roll, is what I’m really saying.
