Mists of Morton

30 January 2014

By K. A. Erickson

All rights reserved

Low-lying clouds drift up from the valley. They cover up hillside clearcuts, obscure plumes from the mills and plywood factories; the desolation of stumps, farmlands, shuttered businesses along Main. Cars with disability placards on the dash line the street.

Folk songs play over the speakers at a coffeehouse and deli as I sketch the facade of the theatre across the street. Now playing, Walk With Dinosaurs. In the back room of a coffeehouse are shelves of books, a lending library for a town without a physical one. Someday, they say. Today, take your pick, romance novels, overprints, or perhaps a murder mystery by someone you've never heard of.

After finishing my coffee I drive to another part of town. There a murder of crows rifles through the garbage in the back of a 4 X 4 pickup truck parked outside the Morton Market. Caw, caw, caw, caw! The crows broadcast their findings. They are unconcerned about human intervention as they peruse the contents in the cold rain.

Inside the store seniors shuffle down the aisles filling their basket with sundries. A few stoop to pick up a copy of The East County Journal on a lower shelf. Seventy-five cents for eight to twelve pages plus advertisements. The current issue highlights high school sports teams, the Mossyrock Vikings and Morton-White Pass Timberwolves, an upcoming play, and the Morton town council approving money for summer tourism. “Thanks for shopping with us today ...”

Noon arrives. The coffeehouse has only soup and sandwiches. A faded neon sign attached to a building alongside US Highway 12 blinks “EAT”. “EAT” has a selection of burgers, fries, ice cream shakes, the soup of the day. “Do you want your onions, cooked or raw?” a worker behind the counter asks.

“EAT” sits next to a gas station where a hunched elderly man in the grocery ten minutes ago is now filling up after going inside to purchase a lottery ticket. A car pulls up and a built 30-year-old who would in the past have worked in the timber industry hops out and runs inside the gas-station-food-mart to get a box of chicken wings. The way he's dressed, he likely works at a customer-service job.

As customers in the dining area of “EAT” wait for their orders to arrive I overhear a conversation one table away. It is about kids and getting services out in this area. One has to drive to places in either direction. Her ex-boyfriend is in prison for hitting people with a 2x4. A string of bad relationships, it seems. She is thankful for the fatherly figure sitting across from her for agreeing to meet. It has been awhile. She has a lot to say but only one hour for lunch before going back to work.

Two high-schoolers have stolen off campus to get lunch at the food mart. The woman at the table recognizes one of them, her boy. With him is a girl with a dress that shows leg … lots of leg.. A silver-haired woman inside “EAT” remarks, “That's too much leg for a day like today.”

The skies brighten. The rain lets up. Through pockets of blue sky sunlight illuminates a town of grey.