WILLIAM FLAGG MAGEE
Eloquent Books
Copyright © 2010
All rights reserved – William Flagg Magee
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the permission, in writing, from the publisher.
Eloquent Books
An imprint of Strategic Book Group
P. O. Box 333
Durham, CT 06422
www.StrategicBookGroup.com
ISBN: 978-1-61204-160-5
Printed in the United States of America
Book Design: Judy Maenle
Acknowledgements
A Story of Change: The Beginning
The End is But the Beginning
Willows
As It Was and Still Is
Another Story within a Story
Joe Dean
An Elephant Hunter
The Funeral
John Began
Mummy Wounds, Daddy Wounds
The Rest of the Story
Circumstance and Opportunity
The Sun really Sets in the West
Death with Dignity
The author would like to thank Charlotte Emery for asking to see the rough draft of this manuscript. Her editorial eye and helpful questions were invaluable.
The author is thankful for those who preceded him in this earthly journey, and who have preceded him into Eternal Life: Thyrza Benson, Thyrza Flagg, Montague Flagg, Flora Grace Dean, Walter Magee, Richard Dean Magee, and those all who preceded them. They live on.
What one finds at some point is the desire to discover who one really is. People often become defined by their careers, illnesses, marriage(s), or escapades, and in the process of building this exterior facade, their interior life is ignored. One's interior life has to do with who one really is when all the careers, marriages, and escapades have been stripped away and one stands naked—naked within one's own self. St. John called it “naughting one's self,” as in stripping away all interior and exterior phoniness.
Authors like Morton Kelsey, Rollo May, and Micrea Elides suggest that by remythologizing one's life, one may discover the reality of who one really is, stripped, standing naked in front of one's self, looking at the real you. This means, according to these men, one lives one's life according to a myth. Rollo May's A Cry for Myth was the book Willy read that had had a profound effect. Morton Kelsey was a profound thinker, Episcopalian priest, Jungian analyst, author, lecturer, role model, and Willy's spiritual director, by chance and persistence. His correspondence with Kelsey was the spiritual glue that held him together during an extremely difficult period in his life. Willy hadn't a clue about “naughting,” but against good advice he stepped out to experience the shredding of all his self-designed imagery, both interior and exterior. Willy said he thought he could not get back to reality. He later learned that remythologizing was almost as unpleasant as St. John's Dark Night of the Soul. The good news is that the sun rises in the East.
John Benson, his oldest friend, watched as Willy's life was remythologized by the transformation of a relationship that for over half a century had caused untold suffering. What resulted from the suffering was the transformation of two torn, tortured lives. John Benson called it a “gift of God's grace.” He told some people the story of Willy's transforming experience and was asked by most of them to put it in writing. This is a story of that transformation.
Nurses had come and gone, and supper had come and thankfully stayed down. He refused any sedation to help him sleep. He breathed a quiet sigh of relief as the last interruption of the night disappeared. He then fantasized about what might happen when he was set free. He was, at that moment, delusional, and thought himself in another place and time.
Getting up from the bed, he went to a window that overlooked a meadow in a valley in the Great Basin and adjusted the shutters to let the evening's light into his room. He then went to a chair that looked reasonably comfortable and sat in it. He wiggled around to get settled, and when he became settled he sat still with his hands open in his lap. He closed his eyes, took several deep breaths, shook his arms, let his feet flop onto the floor, and began to meditate.
Quietly, breathlessly, he sank deeper into the consciousness of his subconscious mind. Doors opened, windows ushered in soft, cool breezes, and images slowly appeared. Thus begins the story within a story.
He walked through the willows, hearing the creek ahead of him. He could smell the water. Snaking the fishing pole carefully through the branches blocking his way, he swore silently. The grass was damp, and the dampness worked its way through the soles of his boots. The Prince Albert tobacco can in his hip pocket held the worms. Fish loved worms, and he wanted fish for dinner. When it came to fishing, he was a pragmatist. Friends talked animatedly about the purity of fly-fishing, but they'd never confronted the willows nor, did he think, they would like the slimy feel of a ball of worms as they fell out of the tobacco can. There was a little soil in the can to give the worms a homey feeling, but they always managed to entangle themselves into a slimy ball.
At last he saw the bend in the creek. There watercress and green reeds were growing along the bank. He knew if he let the hook, with worm attached, float under the vegetation, a fish would bite. Running some line off the reel, he held the pole under his right arm and deftly slipped the hook into and down the length of the worm. There was about eighteen inches of line between the sinker and the hook; just right. Transferring the pole into his right hand, he moved several yards above the spot where he hoped to catch a fish. Extending the pole over the creek, the line gently disappeared under the current, and the hook and worm made their way the designated spot. There was a sharp tug. He expertly set the hook and brought the fish ashore. Taking it off the hook, he firmly swatted its head against the heel of his boot and ran the end of a willow branch into the gills and out the fish's mouth. Turning back to the task at hand, the process was repeated several more times. He cleaned the fish. He moved upstream, and getting on his stomach, positioned himself so he could drink the cold, clear water that bubbled up from the springs that fed the steam. It was delicious. Splashing the cold water on his face he used his shirttail as a towel. He sat down and smoked a cigarette.
The fish natives to the creek were speckled, eight to ten inches long. The cold water was home to small fresh water shrimp and other insects making the fish's flesh pink. Rolled in seasoned flour and fried in butter, they were sweet and tender; a delicious meal accompanied by watercress salad and creamed corn. A meal fit for a king.
Walking out of the willows, his mouth watered as he thought of the dinner he would soon enjoy. He put the fish in the back of the pickup and headed home. He came to the road of decomposed granite. It crunched as he made his way toward the small rocky hill just below the Bull Field. The little rocky hill was next to the creek. He parked the pickup short of what his great-aunt called “nigger heads.” These were hardened clumps of mud that poked their heads up at unevenly spaced intervals and played hell with whatever wheeled vehicle drove over them. The base of the little hill was covered around the bottom with greasewood and higher up stands of rabbit brush. At the top of the hill were intriguingly arranged granite boulders that he always knew were home to innumerable rattle snakes. Over the years he had never seen any kind of snake, just dried skins left from shedding.
Behind him, the horse pasture drifted away into buck brush that led into a branch of the creek, taking water to the west side of the alfalfa field. Between the creek and the fence and below the buck brush, the ground gave way to salt grass and a landscape crusted with alkali and rabbit brush. He never really liked that part of the ranch. There was an ancient wooden gate that dragged the ground when it needed to be opened, and beyond it lay a vast sea of sagebrush and alkali stretching to the foothills. Beyond them lay the Toyiabe Range extending to the north. On hot summer days when the wind came up on “the flat,” dust devils danced across the landscape.
The pickup headed up the short slope, and he gazed across the pasture. The horses hadn't come down from the big corral, but the cattle grazed along the far fence line. The expensive and quite big Hereford bull stood off to the side, as if standing watch. The bull, her favorite son, was a specimen of genetic perfection. He was descended from Mark Donald on his father's side and an equally well-bred cow. His sons had been busy changing the shape, size, and value of the commercial herd. In short, he was a good investment. The cows liked him. In the distance, snow-topped Mt. Callahan stood in silent approval.