‘‘Sulphur Springs’ was undoubtedly founded based on the relatively simple and familiar formula:
UNPLEASANT + NATURAL = HEALTHY
Well known among the locals and around websites that offer the local experience, ‘Sulfur Springs’ is only really advertised by its distinct smell, which wafts through the forested surroundings and should, by all accounts, turn any intelligent creature on its heels. An unexpecting hiker might arrive at the trailhead thinking they misplaced a boiled egg in their pack but, nearer the springs, would be forced to assume the egg had swelled, rotted, and burst.
Still, there is a strong belief among some that ‘Sulphur Springs’ is a hidden tonic, that the wretched waters can strengthen the weak and cure the sickly. Tucked into a scenic alcove and bubbling at a mild 81 degrees Fahrenheit, it is nevertheless an acquired taste. Those who acquire it are evangelical and very, very few.’
A dip in ‘Sulphur Springs’ is the act of a desperate man, a man searching for a vitality he once, but no longer has. Even in town, where the smell of it lingers like thick but distant flatulence, I realize that, if there was any truth to the miracle of spring water, we’d all already smell like shit. The woman at the store, the woman who hands me a receipt for the swim trunks I purchase, the woman who may have lived near ‘Sulphur Springs’ all her life- she turns her nose up at me.
The old house has been gutted, its walls scraped bare, its innards strewn about the yard to rot. The door hangs off its hinges, cobwebs wriggle and tear like ragged gums. Even the rats have abandoned the old house, even the spiders. The old house is without life.
‘‘The Old House Bakery’ is a pleasant place to stop for coffee, a place for well-baked bread and quiet conversations. They serve an array of hot beverages and a rotating selection of cakes and pastries. Given a day’s notice, they are happy to accept special orders and offer reasonable quotes over the phone.
Located in a county rampant with methamphetamine abuse and petty crime, it is easy to overlook the darkened circle on a crime map, the circle that deepens red just as it closes in around ‘The Old House.’ There are murders, here, more murders in the half mile radius around the bakery than anywhere else in the state. As such, it may be prudent to ask whether ‘The Old House Bakery,’ which has seen no crime directly on its premises, is a haven or the bait of some sinister trap.’
The floor of the old house remembers a kitchen, the faded imprints of an oven, an industrial freezer. There are long, deep scrapes in the wood where chairs and tables once slid, oil stains on the ceiling and the gray apparitions of old hands on the glass. Cool air rushes in the back door and, finding it empty, rushes out the front again, pausing only to whip around the unzipped flaps of my jacket.
I wait for something to happen and, when the waiting gets too long, I piss in a room that was probably a bathroom once.
It is, while pissing, that I spot a silhouette in the trees outside, far enough away to be a shadow cast by the setting sun but standing at odds with the wind. Through the frosted glass of the once-bathroom it could be the size and shape of a person or, just as easily, the size and shape of some broken stump. When I check again from the once-kitchen there is nothing.
Just like that, as night begins to thicken, the thing that haunts the old house begins to haunt me. It taps on the windows and scratches at the walls. It pulls the front door from its remaining hinge and places it high up in a tree outside when I’m not looking. For a long period, for nearly three hours, it walks slowly back and forth across the roof. It seems to know what room I inhabit no matter my means of hiding.
I consider leaving many times but I remember the deep red circle around the old house and I stay put through the night.
Even after the thing leaves an old pair of empty boots on the porch.
Even after it covers the windows in mud so that it’s impossible to see outside.
Even after it begins to send crumpled sheets of paper through the old house on its airstream, a novel in wet, black symbols.
I leave cautiously long after the sun has risen and I step out of the door and off the porch and I’m so worried about the thing that I trip and fall on my fucking face in the dust and dirt.
There is something buried in front of the old house, an old iron knife exposed by the wind, caught up in the curled laces of my boots. It pulls from the ground, dull and heavy with rust.
Distracted by my find, I might have missed the thing that has emerged from the trees. There may be a person there, or something shaped like a person, but all I see of that hunched form is a great mass of rotting leaves and ancient pelts. It pays me no attention as it shambles past and struggles up the stairs to the old house. It disappears inside and, after a moment, I hear the wrenching of wood.
The old house shudders and lets out a great, dusty sigh.
I take a minute to replace the knife in the ground, considering the very slim chance that whatever kept the thing outside the old house might work in reverse to keep it in.
There is, at my feet, a great river of wax, emanating heat and a mixed perfume. It flows with the regal patience of molten rock, slow, careful, and heavy. I stand away from the thing, aware that the soft wax coast, thickened and scabby, might break through into the loose liquid underneath. Streaked and deep red, the undulations of the wax river evoke the same induced hypnosis as a smoldering fire. In that flow, I am lost, for a time.
‘At some point the world seemed to agree on a certain definition of a ‘wax museum.’ We agreed that it is not enough to describe the history of wax or the processes involved in its creation. It is necessary, at least to display wax statues. It is encouraged to include celebrities among the statues displayed. If these likenesses are not convincing, then they must be unconvincing enough to mock. If they are simply mediocre then the business will fail.
Because of our high standards there is no place quite like ‘The Tri-County Wax Museum.’ It disregards the historical narrative regarding wax museums and presents something altogether different and perhaps truer to what they, in the author’s opinion should be. Keep your mind open and your breath shallow and ‘The Tri-County Wax Museum’ will be an experience less-shitty than most.’
There is no railing, no careful attendant to guide my tour. As such I could, and do, spend the better part of an hour simply watching the great wax flow. Light purples emerge after half an hour, deepening, eventually, into blue and layering the coast. The complex housing this marvel is massive and stuffy, the air is slick, oily.
After nearly an hour I struggle to draw breath. I cough through a narrowed windpipe, cough squirming, molded strings of wax and phlegm. A flexi-layer of my esophagus dislodges, smelling like cranberries and nutmeg. My breathing improves but I understand it’s time to move on.
Further into the complex, upriver, as it were, there is a great wax waterfall and a molten rainbow lake. The sign there insists that the bubbling center is fed by a natural spring, a wax spring. A map highlights various American wax fields, details the machines necessary to tap them. There is nobody nearby to question about this. I scoff and look around the empty room, sure that none of the information makes any sense but unable to convey my disbelief.
Fuck if I know where wax comes from.
I start to cough again. My skin and clothes shine with a layer of the stuff.
Through a revolving door the air clears and I’m treated to a corridor of glass cases. Inside are the extinguished smatterings of old candles:
‘Hung at the Old North Church to Warn Paul Revere of the British (1775)’
‘Pooled at the Base of the Original Menorah (??)
‘Recovered from a Jack o’ Lantern, Salem, Massachusetts (1963)’
‘Burned on Michael Jackson’s 30th Birthday Cake (1988)’
There is no clear order to the cases and no overarching theme. These are pop-culture candles at best, mostly pilfered from celebrity situations or vivid, commonly taught historical moments. Each lends itself to an impressed widening of the eyes, a knowing nod of the head, but not much else. Not much else at all.
It would be impossible for an amateur to verify any of what ‘The Tri-County Wax Museum’ presents as truth.
I wonder if the stranger has been here and, generally, where he is now. I wonder if, after suffering these wracking coughs, he would choose to burn the place.
‘’Echo Cave State Park’ is most likely not a state park at all. It is not listed on any official website, for instance, and the advertising it has done seems only to exist in a 10 mile radius around the park itself, taking cues from children’s lemonade stands in regards to both spelling and sporadic placement. Down a dirt road and past several abandoned houses, you will find yourself questioning the validity of the site long before you reach it, a feeling the tour, at no point, attempts to alleviate.’
The weather has become mild: soft breezes, cool air, and sun. In the back of a pick-up I am almost cold.
Almost, but not quite.
Sprawled in the back with a clear sky overhead and the smooth length of the interstate unwinding behind me I almost feel like it could be a year ago, two years ago, when I was whole and healthy of body and mind. When I had my own truck and a place behind the wheel. Autumn by the Wayside flips wildly through its pages at my feet and it threatens to skitter away, to lift into the wind and scatter itself on the road. Despite the theatrics, it remains anchored to the truck.
It is a heavy book.
We pass a mile marker and I tap on the cab. The truck slows and finds a place to pull over. I say my thanks and my goodbye. I assure the driver that this is my stop, even though it doesn’t seem to be much of a place at all. I wave and begin to walk away.
“Don’t forget your book!” he calls out.
Right.
I heft it out of the back, flexing my bad arm. The pages curl around my fingers as I drop it to my side to wave again.
A heavy book.
The road to ‘Echo Cave’ isn’t terribly long and the weather is pleasant enough. Several plywood signs encourage me along the wooded drive, ticking down a mile and a half or so before pointing me to the right at a fork. There are only the ruins of houses along the way, piles of wood and stone that have collapsed under countless seasons of snowfall. When was the author here? Past a few trees the road widens and terminates into a dirt parking lot, half-populated. Beyond that is a small check-in booth.
Beyond that, the gaping entrance to ‘Echo Cave.’
It does not occur to me until I see it that there are no hills or reliefs friendly to a proper cave. ‘Echo’ simply opens into the ground, a paid-entry pit about 20’ across and surrounded by waiting families. A woman dressed in uniform blue is listing safety precautions to be taken upon entry. Looks like I’m just in time for a tour.
The woman and the crowd have already begun to descend when I join them with my ticket.
“Echo Cave was discovered by Beatrice Echo in the early 1800’s while she as she lead her horses to the river. I bet you thought it was named after the acoustics!”
There is a polite smattering of laughter, made ghostly by the stone walls. Our guide narrates the history of the Echoes as we pick our way down grated metal stairs, wet with the breath of the earth and shrouded in its shadows. Now I hear the concerned murmurs between partners, between parents and children. It’s one thing to stand at the mouth of a cave and another to enter it. There are whispered consolations, assurances that a place like this, no matter how scary, is safe. It’s a business, after all.
It’s a state park.
The stairs drop us at the bottom of the pit and our guide reiterates the differences between stalagmites and stalactites, reminding us not to touch either. We loosen as a group, staking out our own portion of the smoothed out hollow. Above us, far, far above, the bright day has been reduced to a small, white circle-
“Like a damn eye,” someone says, seeing me look up.
“Hm,” I reply, though I had been thinking the same thing.
“You don’t recognize me.”
It’s difficult to recognize anyone in the shadows, let alone this man who towers a full head over me. It’s not until I see his smile, which is the nearest facial feature, that I remember the missing teeth and the general posture of a man used to fighting. I step back and crush a baby stalactite under my boot.
Or, was it a stalagmite?
“You didn’t call.”
“I didn’t have a reason to,” I tell him.
“You look… bad.”
“What’s that-”
“You two?” the guide calls, “Please follow me and stay with the group.”
“Sorry, ma’am,” he says, waving cheerfully, “Caught up looking at these beautiful rock formations.”
The guide appears briefly confused by his unabashed sarcasm, but she lets it slide as we follow.
“Are you going to burn this place down too?” I whisper as we tail the group.
“Not everything burns.”
“Would you?”
“No,” he says, “This all seems… ingenuine at worst.”
“Then why are you here?”
“The book doesn’t exactly give everything away in the descriptions. I needed to make sure it wasn’t one of the contagious ones. Contagious like that plant of yours.”
“It died,” I tell him.
“Condolences.”
We squeeze our way down several halls, the stranger and I bringing up the rear. He folds his bulk gracefully, his shoulders barely brushing the cramped cavern walls. I follow his lead, keeping an eye to the back. Eventually we descend another staircase and gather in a small chamber.
“This section of the cavern is affectionately called the ‘Shoe Closet,’ any guesses why?”
Several people guess as the stranger skirts the group. I follow him, bumping into the others and apologizing under my breath. Occasionally his arm sneaks out to tap a wall but he never pauses long enough to listen. I catch up to him once he stops.
The guide has started some sort of countdown.
“What are you looking for?” I ask.
“Ten, nine, eight…”
“This place is marked by the eye. You saw it yourself.”
“Four, three…”
“I saw the entrance to the cave.”
“Hold my hand,” he says, “I don’t much like the dark.”
“One…”
The lights turn off and the darkness of ‘Echo Cave’ becomes absolute. There are little frightened noises all around us, the startle of a crowd expecting the surprise. Rough fingers snake between my own as the guide’s voice cuts through the murmuring:
“This may be the darkest dark you’ve ever seen. No light from above is able to penetrate this far into the earth.”
“Why are you afraid of the dark?” I ask, thinking of the thing at the rest stop.
The stranger tickles my palm and says nothing.
“Try waving your hand in front of your face,” the guide continues, “Careful not to hit anyone! Some of you may think you can make it out, maybe you see a little movement, but that’s only your mind. Your head knows there should be something there and it’s fooling your eyes.”
“You and I know better,” the stranger says, his lips very close to my ear, “Folks like us put a lot of stock into eyes.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He tickles my palm again.
The lights flash back on and I yank my arm away reflexively. The stranger does not appear particularly affected, though he cuts ahead of me as the group is syphoned down another narrow path.
“We’ll have to walk a ways to the ‘Sitting Room,’ named by Ms. Echo herself…”
My leg starts to ache as we descend further, the combined wear of the cold and the stairs on the weakened bone. I struggle to keep sight of the stranger ahead but cannot politely push past the people between us. I wonder if it really matters that I stay near him.
“Here we are!” the guide says, her voice excited as we enter a massive chamber.
I make my way toward the stranger, expecting he’ll avoid me, but see he’s gone back to tapping cave walls when the guide’s back is turned. The tour group as a whole has spread about and seems determined to ignore the continued narration.
“Find what you’re looking for?” I ask.
“Have you?”
“I’m not looking for anything,” I tell him, “If I can get through this tour it’s another place to tick off in the book.”
“Remind me why it’s important you see them all?” he asks, but we’re interrupted before I can reply.
“Sir, please don’t touch the cave walls. The oil from your skin is detrimental to crystal growth.”
“Sorry,” the stranger says, and he makes a show of stepping away while the guide still watches.
When the coast is clear he starts again.
“Is inhibiting crystal growth what you planned all along?”
“This place is just shitty, like I said.”
“So?”
“So I’m just looking for a faster way out,” he says, leaning close in to an alcove, “Stand here and look at the wall.”
I step closer and he grips me by the shoulders, taking care to position me just so. Up close he smells like gasoline- like a lit match.
“Now shine your cellphone light ahead.”
I turn on my phone and shine it at the wall. There are cracks there, some minor and some that stretch from the floor up into the darkness above.
“Watch,” he says, and he steps forward into the alcove.
He steps again, and again, moving impossibly far into wall. His body is hunched, his frame stunted, but only as though he were passing through a cramped passage. Each step he takes seems to push the far wall back, an optical illusion unfolding in jolts. The stranger smiles and the shadows emphasize the gaps in his broken mouth. By all accounts the man could be twenty feet down the impossible corridor.
“What are you doing?” the guide’s voice again. I turn and my light turns with me.
“Just getting a closer look,” I tell her, showing both my hands in mock surrender.
Squinting at my light, she nods and turns back to the others, satisfied that I haven’t taken cues from the stranger’s poor behavior.
The man and the corridor have disappeared in the absence of light. I look about the room, carefully checking the faces of every man, woman, and child present. I peer into the corners and discretely tap the walls but, when the tour moves forward, it becomes clear the stranger is no longer with us.
I think of him during our ascent, the eye of the cave widening to accept our exit. It would be fruitless to worry about a vanishing man but I wonder, as they draw a metal gate over the cave, if he will be all right down there in the dark.
I certainly wouldn’t be.
I call the number scrawled across my palm, the stranger’s inked tickling brought to light in the sun.
There is something about the American highway that breeds hyperbole. Everything is the ‘best’ or the ‘first’ or the ‘biggest,’ no citation necessary. I’ve eaten hundreds of the ‘best’ burgers and I can tell you they vary pretty distinctly in quality. The first U.S. ice cream parlor seems to exist in every state. The biggest coffee mug in the world, well, I guess I haven’t seen another one bigger.
They have me there.
‘The nation’s largest American flag remains relatively unvisited in comparison to our country’s better known patriotic sites. For that reason, it seems to appeal to a niche crowd, a crowd you might describe as hipster patriots- people who seek out the ‘truer’ essences of what it means to be American. At its most simple, this seems to be a reverence of small, historical relics- the personal objects of lesser known presidents, remnants of war, and obscure trivia- mirroring, in many ways, the Catholic idolization of saints. Layered on top of this is a strange game of one-upmanship that the author could only tolerate for several minutes before ceasing research altogether.
This aside, the flag is worth seeing if only for its enormity. The few employees are tight-lipped about the origins of the flag, about where and how it’s stored, and about the materials used make it. It is the author’s opinion that they simply do not know.’
If you’ve visited Mt. Rushmore you’ll know that the place isn’t exactly centrally located. You’ve got to drive quite a good distance from the nearest city (passing through smaller towns along the way) and even within the park you find yourself looking at the presidents from a long ways off. You putz around the gift shops and scoff at food prices and then you take off.
This flag place is much the same.
Located on the floor of a valley, a 90 minute drive and a very long walk from the nearest motel, the home of the largest American flag appears to be a small cement hut and a set of bleachers. I arrive to find a small group of people already waiting, bundled against an autumnal cold and making small talk. By the bleacher spacing I make out mostly singles and couples among them. One family, with a few small kids, seems to be the odd one out.
“One?” the man asks when I approach the ticket hut.
“One,” I say, “Where do you keep this thing if it’s so big?”
“Up over the hill,” he says, “We’ve got an unfurl scheduled every hour on the hour.”
I look at my watch and see it’s just a few minutes till 3:00pm.
“What happened to your arm?”
“What?”
“Your arm.”
“Car accident,” I tell him, trying to straighten my arm at my side.
“The rash.”
“Oh, uh, you know. The cast came off recently.”
He hands me my change and I try to give him a dirty look. Are we just commenting on outward appearances these days? What if I had been self-conscious? I see my face in the ticket counter glass and it looks as pleasant as ever, hardly conveying disapproval at all. I try again in the reflection.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” I say, checking my watch again and moving to the bleachers.
There isn’t much to this place, or else, maybe it’s the offseason. A vacant hot dog stand rusts on the edge of the woods and I see a dumpster, much too large for an operation this size. A squirrel scurries past my feet, carrying an empty bag of chips in its teeth. There is a mild breeze and the smell of pine.
There is enough room in the stands that I can sit alone comfortably and wait. Among the crowd I note a lot of patriotic undertones- little flag lapel pins, star spangled trims, and Liberty Bell earrings. There is no garish Americana here, nothing that speaks quite as loudly as Uncle Sam hats or aging eagle tattoos.
“And Garfield was the first president to use the phone.”
“Bell got the phone running in 1876 when Grant was in office.”
“Yeah, and Hayes was responsible for putting one in the White House, what are you talking about?”
My instinct is to tune these people out but I’m planning to ask one of them for a ride. I could walk, if I wanted, but it will get dark before I make my way back to civilization from here and it’s a hell of a lot easier getting a lift away from these places than it is to hitch a ride to them.
“I saw the Liberty Bell last year,” I tell the woman with the earrings, “Pretty amazing piece of history.”
“You didn’t fucking see the Liberty Bell,” she snarls, “It’s been in storage since 2013.”
She’s right, of course. I wasn’t anywhere near Philadelphia last year.
“Time must have gotten away from me…” I say, “Did you get your earrings there?”
“I made these.”
“When did you break them?” I joke, but by then she’s turned away.
I look down at my shoes.
It will probably be a long walk back.
“Jesus!” somebody exclaims.
I look up, up toward the valley wall, and I see something insane. A massive structure has begun to rise from the hillside, slowly blotting out the sky there. As it pulls forth, the hut’s little PA system cracks to life with the chords of the national anthem, confirming that this is indeed the show.
The flag is incomprehensible. It is thick enough that no light passes through and so, with the sun behind it, appears to be a great black lid drawing itself over the entirety of the valley. It would have to be miles long, I realize, just to get halfway across. Its shadow nears and some high-up gust of wind sends a ripple through the massive banner. The woman near me, the one with the bells, cries silently.
The crowd, as a whole, is falling apart. One man appears to have passed out, his partner desperately gripping his hand. The children have frozen, their attention divided between the flag itself and their parents fearful eyes. Several people have fled, have left the bleachers and turned their faces to the earth, refusing to look at the thing. They cover their eyes as the shadow engulfs us, cover their ears as the tinny notes of the anthem sneak through the air.
There is a distant sound like thunder, like fabric rent by a storm. I watch as a corner of the flag whips across the hillside, levelling trees and marking the ground with a swooped gash. There are patches all over the valley, I see now, places where the flag has accidentally touched down.
I join others in a cry of surprise as sunlight breaks back into the sky. The flag, keeping us in darkness for mere seconds, is relenting. It pulls back over the hill, a behemoth assimilated into the horizon.
Thick silence fills the places there once was music. A man nearby takes a deep, unsteady breath. Another laughs nervously, rubbing his eyes underneath the dark frames of his glasses. I smell a burning cigarette.
The silence remains on the ride back into town, in the passenger seat of an old car. The woman with the Liberty Bell earrings drives with a steady hand and unblinking eyes. The forest rushes by and I look at the dash. We’re traveling just five miles over the speed limit- always five miles over the speed limit. Civilization, when it greets us, seems thin and petty.
