My First and Only Meeting with
Sherrod Symes’ Soul

by Barry Wade Simms

There was a bank in Roanoke a man planned to hold up, but it fell through. He didn’t have the pluck to pull it off. Half the night he’d been sitting on the edge of the mattress. Morn­ing sun burned into the bedroom highlighting the notebook on his thigh— his clumsy and foolish ideas scribbled on the sheets of paper.

His lady friend’s bare feet thumped on the hollow floor of the modular home. Cabinets opened and slammed shut in the kitchen. There was a quiet spell, then came her thin moan, and he knew she had shot the last of the smack into her vein. Rage grew inside his gut as he ripped the paper from the notebook and wadded it in his hand, tossing it to the floor. He snuffed his cigarette on the mattress, leaving a tiny black hole next to other black holes where he had done it so many times before. If only it was possible, he would have disappeared into one of the dark cavities—shrink himself and fall into another dimension that was completely different, completely better.

That mattress was something else. It seemed to try to hold him right there inside that bedroom, but he managed to stir himself from his fantasy and choose something to wear. The clothes were piled on top of a loveseat next to the bed. He chose inconspicuous attire just in case.

The woman in the kitchen sat on a stool, resting her fore­head on the table. Her arms were outstretched and lifeless by her head, palms up and open as if begging for alms. The TV on the countertop was tuned to a black and white movie. A ball­room couple danced across the sixteen-inch screen. He visited her in the kitchen and patted her thin and brittle hair, but she did not move. Needle tracks lay on her flesh like train rails to another state of consciousness. The man lifted her from the stool and carried her back to the bedroom where he placed her gently onto the mattress. He wanted to promise her that things were going to get better, that he would find her some help, but he was tired of the lies and the unfulfilled promises, to her and himself.

He treaded quietly out of the room, out of their home, and to the car in the driveway. It was a ’74 Chevelle, repainted dark green from its original blue, handed down to him from his parents when they retired to Newport News. It was a going away gift, and they were the ones going away, far away from him.

a a a

Most of the day was spent thinking and driving. He headed south and crossed the state line miles back and arrived at the outskirts of Mountain City, Tennessee. The sun was so hot it seemed to melt the sky on top of the small State Bank branch he was eyeing over. It was a much smaller job than the one he wanted to pull in Roanoke, and if things fell just right, he had a chance at a huge payday. There were three cars in the parking lot not including his. He had studied long enough to know that two of them belonged to the workers inside; the other one was a customer.

When he left home all those miles back, it was just sup­posed to be a drive to gather ideas, but it was about to turn into something else. His grey t-shirt clung to his sweaty lower back. He reached under the seat for the .32 pistol and checked the six cylinders. The gun made a slight bulge after it slid into the waistline of his jeans. He pushed the car door open, shut it, and walked toward the bank. A mother and young daughter passed him through the parking lot, the little girl twirled a lolli­pop in her mouth. He turned his head away from them so they couldn’t get a good look at his face.

His stomach arm-wrestled his heart inside his chest, the front entrance a step or two away. It was his first time, a virgin bank robber, but in some ways it came as natural as sex. He gripped the gun and whipped it from his waistband, kicked the door open, all in one movement.

There were only two tellers working inside the small bank-branch. He had guessed right. Both were surprised by the man who came in spieling profanity and threats. One managed to press a silent alarm before he climbed over the counter and smacked his pistol against her temple. The other froze, then followed orders to lie flat on the floor. He directed the teller on the ground to show him where the money was, and she pointed him to his prize. It looked like he was going to come away with at least three grand, maybe a little more. He jumped back over the counter, stumbling his way almost to the exit.

What he didn’t know was the woman whom he had passed in the parking lot a few minutes earlier, the one with her daughter, was a local deputy with a keen eye for strangers and a sense for trouble in that small mountain town. He was about to kick open the exit when the off-duty officer opened the door for him from outside. She had her firearm ready for action, but so did he. He popped off a shot hitting her in the shoulder, but she returned fire twice, both of her bullets hitting their mark. He didn’t go down.

Adrenaline forced him forward toward the deputy, grab­bing her arm and wresting her pistol from her hand. He slung her to the asphalt amid screams of the little girl who begged him not to hurt her mommy. In that instant he didn’t under­stand the part of himself that had done this and expected to hear sirens at any moment. A blood trail dripped from the bank to his car. It was then he realized he had dropped the money during the scuffle with the deputy. It was too late to go back. The Chevelle’s tires bit into the pavement squealing out of the parking lot onto the pastoral highway.

a a a

I had been waiting for this man, could see all the bad things he had done since he was sitting on that mattress back in Vir­ginia. It was playing out in my mind’s eye, for I had a gift for that sort of thing.

The man had lost much blood, and had also lost his direc­tion, driving deeper into isolation, taking side streets that led to a place he was always meant to be. His consciousness faded, and his foot eased off the accelerator. The car rolled ever so slowly to the side of the road into the ditch before coming to a halt. He stared through the windshield at me perhaps wonder­ing where this man, this apish-man that should’ve been extinct long ago, came from. I was asquat, balanced, on an old hick­ory trunk near the edge of the woods, leapt down and approached the idling car. His fading eyes looked at me, and at first it seemed I was someone he could have used.

I opened the passenger’s door and checked to see if his spirit had departed. It had, so I pulled him out from under the steering wheel. His blood smeared across the vinyl seat. The body slumped onto the door after I shut it.

I walked around the front of the car, clopped my muddy gaiters on one of the tires so as not to mess the floorboard and joined him inside.

“Looks like I’ll be driving from here,” I told him. He didn’t answer.

The engine revved, and the car spun rock and dirt out of the ditch and back onto the road. My passenger was a different kind of man now—a man who would be comfortable staked in a farmer’s cornfield scaring off crows, or more likely attracting them.

“So…where you going?” I asked.

His head teetered against the passenger’s window with the motion of the car. It seemed he had taken an oath of permanent silence.

The road became more curvaceous. It was one of those roads that went on forever and to nowhere. We passed by sad houses where people lived reclusive lives. But I knew I needed to get to our destination and the car out of sight before the law spotted us.

“Not much further,” I told him.

I thought I caught him eyeballing me from time to time, and he wasn’t certain his driver was fully human. His opaque eyes noted the hairs peeping out from underneath my earth brown vest. They were dark and abundant on my naked arms and chest. But he seemed to settle down some when we finally pulled off the road onto a disused tractor trail. It led to my lit­tle vagabond camp that I’d been living in the past few months. We rounded around and bumped over the rutted out trail that ran through a patch of woods until we came to the end.

“Well here it is,” I said. “I hope you’re the outdoorsy type because the stars are supposed to be in full bloom tonight.” I slapped the man’s thigh. “Might as well get out and introduce you to the homestead.”

On second thought, I left him in the car so I could go tidy up the place. Out of the few odds and ends I had collected was a cinderblock. It wasn’t the most comfortable but made a nice seat when I cooked and warmed myself by the campfires at night. I moved it closer to my bed, which was nothing more than three pallets teepeed together with a tarp thrown over them in case it rained. It was reasonable that he would need some back support since he was quite limber now, so I gath­ered several tree branches and placed them behind the cinder­block. That would have to do, for the sun overhead was still hot. I crawled inside my pallet-teepee, rested, and looked for­ward to the night ahead.

a a a

Fire, fire as if someone grabbed you and tried to burn his way inside your head.

That was what woke me from my nap while I was all asnooze. My eyes opened soon enough to catch a fleeting sight of a specter flitting by my head, into the trees.

“It’s a little crowded inside this body,” I said. “I don’t think you would like it in here anyway.”

Night had overtaken the campsite, and though it was still warm, I built a pyre. It comforted me, made my thoughts tran­quil, though there would be no funeral that night. A little com­pany seemed in order, so I returned to the car and carried the man over to the cinderblock, resting his bottom on it and lean­ing him back against the branches I had placed there earlier. I made sure not to put him too close to the fire. That didn’t seem like a good idea.

“Yeah, I know, it’s not the most comfortable,” I told him. “But I promise first-rate conversation. I suppose I should intro­duce myself. My name’s Pyrtle. And you are….”

His front and back jeans pockets were empty. “I know!” I returned to the car. The glove box contained the registration and his driver’s license. “Mr. Sherrod Symes. It’s nice to meet you, sir. You’re the first bank robber I’ve crossed paths with. Wow. Exciting.”

I crawled back into the teepee and brought forth an old Jackson Bell radio and car battery. I rigged it so I could play my favorite stations on special occasions but not too often because the battery was almost out of juice.

“I love bluegrass, and newgrass, and psychograss, and all kinds of grass. Don’t you? What kind of music do you like? Just name it, and we’ll tune it in.”

We settled on easy listening, and about that time Sherrod’s spritely soul wisped back into camp and bumped my arm.

“You like that?”

The soul floated overhead for a bit before gliding over to his corporeal form. It made great effort to reenter the flesh through the nose, the ears, and especially the eyes, but those windows no longer belonged to the soul. They were dead and rotting.

“I guess you haven’t figured out how I knew you were a bank robber. You think I have a blessing from God? I suppose I couldn’t have gotten it from anyone else.”

The soul was still struggling with every effort to get back inside its former body. “Well.” I tried to distract the soul. “I bet you’ve never met anyone like me.”

Sherrod’s spirit continued to ignore my words and was trying to unlock the door inside the body without any luck. It made me feel a little depressed.

a a a

The previous night proved a restless one, and after spend­ing more time together, the soul and I became friends. Maybe not friends but we at least gained a better understanding of each other. Following a long and sometimes confusing conver­sation, I loaded the body into the trunk and drove out of Mountain City before daybreak.

Sherrod’s car was a hot and a somewhat dangerous ride. Morning rain began to fall. It slicked the asphalt and cooled the air—a prayer answered. Road smells filtered through the vents. A downpour followed making it difficult for a patrolman to recognize the Chevelle—one more prayer answered.

“Everything all right back there?”

My passenger maintained his oath of silence; even his soul had gone silent. We crossed into Virginia and another hour into the drive we made it to the Grayson Highlands State Park exit. I wheeled the Chevelle in and parked underneath a pine tree. Heavy raindrops continued to drum the roof and hood of the car.

There was no plan for what I was about to do, and I didn’t ask Sherrod if he had one because, let’s face it, he was terrible at planning things. I got out of the car. My clothes were soaked almost instantly. I went to the trunk and knocked on it.

“Can you hear me in there? It’s time to go.”

I unlocked the trunk and hoisted Sherrod out, onto my shoulder.

“You might be surprised that you’re not the first dead body I’ve carried before…long story.”

Mount Rogers—the highest peak in Virginia. We took the Massie Gap trailhead, and thus began the long hike. The path diverged into another. A bewildered AT thru hiker huddled beneath his rain jacket. He locked his eyes onto me as if wit­nessing the mysterious large-foot man in the wilderness. I wasn’t sure if he had seen any of the blood stains on Sherrod’s clothes through the heavy rainfall, but I did not stop. I was driven onward along the mud-slicked course. My ragged clothes sagged from my body, my hair a wet tousle of yarny strings.

It was four miles from start to summit. We passed an unmanned park ranger’s shelter and headed for the final push toward the spur trail. Massive evergreens closed in around us. We were over five thousand feet above sea level when we reached the top, but I didn’t feel any closer to heaven, though I think that’s what Sherrod’s soul was hoping for. A distant view from here was naught. A spruce-fir forest dominated the land­scape.

There was a comfortable spot under one of the tall view-hogging firs. I plopped the body off of my shoulder and rested my back against the tree’s rough bark. My eyes closed, and I felt my favorite muscle thumping inside my chest.

“Why all the way up here?”

No response. I was alone in this forest. A peculiar steam hanged in the form of white bed sheets among the branches. There was a great emptiness here. I peeled my back from the tree bark, collected the body, and headed off-trail. Seclusion enveloped us the deeper we roved through the forest.

“This’ll have to do,” I said and laid Sherrod onto the ground. I didn’t have a shovel for a proper burial, so I scratched out a place as best I could with my bare hands, digging into the rain-soaked earth, and rested the body in that pathetic, shallow grave.

There wasn’t enough dirt to fully cover him, but I expected it wouldn’t be long before wild hogs, coyotes, or crows found him and had their way with the flesh and bones. It seemed too late to offer a prayer. Sherrod’s actions in life had done all the necessary speaking for themselves. I reckoned that was the same for us all.

When it was time, I hiked back to the trail, down to the spur and back to Rhododendron Gap where the distant view opened. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, and late morning sun singed the clouds. Light blue mountain ranges appeared in the extreme distance. Darker blue mountains were tiered ahead of them.

In the foreground, wild ponies grazed on newly wet grasses. An azure steam hovered about the untamed beasts in the grazing land. Sherrod’s soul was wisping about them with a purpose until it took the form of a forlorn man. The vaporous thing chose a mare, a flaxen-mane beauty with a long silky tail. It glided onto the pony’s back, circled, and faced me. There was a great void between us, yet I could make out all the shapes in detail. A misty finger pointed in a northeasterly direction.

a a a

I made my way off the mountain, awash and uncomfort­able, wondering if a park ranger had identified Sherrod’s car, maybe even called the police. Back on the highway was where I needed to be. Things seemed peaceful in the parking lot, and the Chevelle was where I had left it. For hours I risked travel­ing the roads of Virginia. The cerulean spirit appeared at times as a disheartened hitchhiker. It was a man unbelonging in this world.

The towns that followed were Independence, Galax, and Hillsville. Then there was Woolwine. I felt at home as I drove past Jack’s Creek covered bridge and felt a craving for some of the homegrown grapes.

The car seemed to take over the driving itself. My hands were merely on the wheel. I was taken on a short ride to another bridge called Bob White where the car slowed and gradually turned into the mouth of the boarded overpass. The engine went all asputter and died, stopping the car midway through. The Smith River flowed beneath the queen-post truss. The water burbled and tinkled quite clearly. The misty-man appeared through the other opening of the bridge, facing me. He wisped into the covered overpass and hovered above the windshield uncertain of what to do. I scooted to the passen­ger’s side so that he could take his rightful place. He seeped through the door-cracks and formed into a ghostly man next to me, foggy eyed, in the driver’s seat.

“You haven’t met the devil yet?” I asked him. His form con­tinuously changed in shades of blue.

The engine restarted, and the car moved backward out of the bridge. All of my simian-like body hair stood on end. We maneuvered down the road. It must’ve seemed odd to the motorists who passed us to see no apparent driver and me as a passenger. But only a few did pass us before we turned off onto a private drive. The modular home came into view, and the Chevelle rested its tired wheels.

It was hard to know what Sherrod’s lady friend would say when I told her everything that had happened. I lumbered up the steps onto the small porch and knocked on the door. A whole minute passed, but an answer never came. My spiritual sidekick squeezed through the cracks, unlocking the door from the inside.

The air indoors was treacherous, days old sweat and vomi­tus. Darkness saturated the living quarters. The only light squirmed through worn lace curtains over the windows. A withered figure was sunken into the couch, just inside the room. An infrequent tremble shook the quilt draped over the form, and I realized it had probably been at least two days since she had had a heroin hit. She was climaxing from withdrawal.

She gave no sign that she knew that I was in the room with her. I walked quietly, deeper into the home, careful not to dis­turb her. My eyes adjusted to the dark, and the wreckage inside became clearer. She had torn the place apart searching for a shot she had squirreled away for desperate times.

The old wad of notebook paper with Sherrod’s bank rob­bery plan written on it remained on the bedroom floor. The blanket and sheets were stripped clean from the mattress. There were the cigarette burns. Maybe now he could finally fit into one of those tiny black holes. It seemed that Sherrod’s soul had left for good. I hadn’t seen him since I first walked in.

I eased back to the living room where the woman was lying on the couch in a deep delirium. There didn’t seem to be anything else I could do. But that was when Sherrod’s soul drifted back in, over to the couch. He lifted the woman’s legs and gently settled them across his ghostly lap. He held and caressed her feet, but she didn’t move. Slight whimpers escaped her lips. Some privacy seemed appropriate, but the soul asked me not to leave. He wanted me to stay, not for him, but for her. Maybe it was his last attempt at atonement, and I didn’t want to let him down. Before he faded completely away for the last time, I took his place on the couch and held the woman’s legs on my lap. My worry then was what to tell her when she awoke.