Chasing Fireflies

by Charles Martin

Despite my unanswered questions, where I came from and who I am, that hand on my shoulder spoke to a part of me few words ever reached. And to be honest, when my demons rose out of the past and reminded me that I’d been left on some street corner and that I wasn’t good enough even for my own parents, that hand told me otherwise.

From dead and rotting organisms to new life bubbling up through the muck, the marsh—like its history—is a daily continuum of death and resurrection.

Amidst their own opulence and the scarred backs on which it was built, somebody finally looked around and figured out that not only does slavery kill those you enslave, but it kills you, too.

If you can’t speak, then how do you laugh? And if you can’t laugh, then how do you cry?

This whole thing had just gone from bad to worse. I had done the one thing you never do to a kid like that. I’d offered false hope. His face told me that. And false hope is worse than no hope at all.

“Well . . . it don’t take a very big person to carry a grudge . . . so, forgive your enemies”—he chuckled—“it messes with their heads.”

Then they bowed their heads, but no words came. He tried several times, but couldn’t get them out. His hand trembled, tears dripped off his nose, and his shoulders shook one time. Finally she said, “Amen.” He pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped his face. Then he refolded it and slid it back into his pocket. It was the first time I’d ever seen a grown man cry.

When I get to this place in my thinking, where the anger burns and messes with my head and heart, I remember that life is not fair and was never promised to be so. But that does little good, and I still hate Uncle Jack.

most of the guys I work with don’t ever talk about the men in their lives—and when they do, it’s not to speak well of them.

said, “Unc, how can you see?” He looked around, shrugged, and said, “Don’t need to.” “Why?” He smiled and leaned over, whispering a secret. “’Cause I know where I’m going.”

have lived my entire life in a chasm between hope and hate, and the only man to climb down into it with me was Unc. And that’s enough.

But I was scared. I only did it ’cause up above me Uncle Willee held the rope.

Most days I wonder if I was just a mistake. Why did God make me? Am I really what the kids on the bus say I am? And I guess I get this look on my face, ’cause when I think that way Uncle Willee puts his hand on my shoulder, and I feel something like butterflies in my stomach. Uncle Willee says that’s hope.

And you’re right . . . the possibilities in that boy’s future may hurt us. May hurt a lot. But I’m no stranger to the rain.” He looked back at Sketch. “It’s the hurting that makes it right . . . makes it worth doing.” He sucked through his teeth and put his hat on. “’Sides . . . this ain’t my first rodeo. So let us do what we’re good at.”

“God does that. I don’t know why or how, but I’m pretty sure it’s not chance. It’s not some haphazard thing he does in his spare time.”

“And neither are you. So, if your mind is telling you that God slipped up and might have made one giant mistake when it comes to you, you remember the firefly’s butt.”

That’s something Unc was good at. He gave me his laughter and took my pain.

“If God can make a firefly’s butt light up like a star, then anything is possible. Anything.”

That’s when I decided to quit being stupid.

I’ve never seen Unc mad. It’s like all the bad stuff that happened to him poured into one side of his heart and fell out the other, flowing through the hole left by the death of his wife and son.

I’m no expert, but I know one thing about anger—it’s like alcohol. At some point, if you pour enough in there, it’s coming back up. You may think you’ve built up a tolerance, but the truth is this—no man, not even Unc, can bury it so deep that it doesn’t erupt at some point like Vesuvius and splatter your soul across the earth.

“My life has been real different than I thought. Ain’t turned out how I hoped . . . nor dreamt. But I’m not the only man in the world to get screwed by life. Lots are worse off than me. That’s life. You take the bad with the good. Rise up through it. Live in the midst of it. It’s the bad that lets you know how good the good really is. Don’t let the bad leave you thinking like there ain’t no good. There is, and lots of it, too.”

“Sometimes good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgment.”

Men spend their lives asking Who am I when the real question is Whose am I? I don’t think you can answer the first until you’ve settled the second.

Identity does not grow out of action until it has taken root in belonging. The orchid speech taught me that.

“Inside you is a thing worth putting on a pedestal—worth putting out there for all the world to see. That piece of rock might have been knocked around, roughed up a bit, considered scrap, and thrown on the trash pile . . . but that’s only because they don’t know what’s on the inside. They can’t see like Michelangelo. ’Cause if they could, they’d know that there’s something in there that’s just waiting to jump out. Like there is inside you. I’m sorry for the hammer and chisel. I wish life didn’t work that way.”

“Words that soak into your ears are whispered, not yelled.”

“Sooner or later, somebody somewhere is gonna have to trust that boy with something.” Unc looked through the jagged edges of the trailer window. “Becoming a man don’t happen overnight. It’s something that’s passed down. That boy’s behind. But he can catch up.”

“He said he gave up what he couldn’t keep to gain what he couldn’t lose.”

my professor said there are five ways of “knowing”: personal experience, revelation, empirical evidence, logic, and hearsay.

every day, no matter what I’d painted the day before, I got a new canvas, washed white. ’Cause each night the tide rolled in, scrubbed it clean, and receded, taking the stains with it. And in my dreams . . . I just stood on the beach

“’Tween now and whenever I get home, I’m gonna paint my canvas, and come sundown, I’ll lie down in the water, let the waves wash me clean, and leave the rest to God. .

after a lifetime of wondering, I finally knew the story of me. Love does that. It names the nameless and gives voice to the voiceless.