rob mclennan
All I know about Tacoma, Washington
That’s the end of the story.
Richard Brautigan, Revenge of the Lawn
1.
She used to live in Lacey, a thirty minute drive to the south-west. The islands and inlets and straits are littered with names, some as old as the land itself. Most of those names, of course, altered or outright ignored once the colonists began to arrive.
A mist, from blue water. Every body a mist. Like calls out to like, weather calls for return. Can you see me now.
One night in 1964, Richard Brautigan told his daughter a bedtime story about a trout stream. The stream contained trout, but no fisherman. The rain, overflowed.
2.
When one thinks of the Pacific Northwest, one thinks of something quirky, left-wing. Peaceful, yet politically charged. One imagines a dream-scape. How long might you sit in your car, driving, during an average day? During a week? During a year?
There are lives on the verge of taking off, of taking flight. Of plummeting, exploding outright, or collapsing. Of canned radio, lives composed out of absolutes and old standards.
A lot of work for little meat. I once caught a tourist shop in the area that sold small plastic wind-up toy lobsters, wondering if whoever did their ordering knew or cared that these belonged on the opposite coast. Poised for lift-off.
3.
In early 2021, residents of the Belgian village of Erquelinnes discovered a local farmer had moved a stone, thus inadvertently altering the territorial boundaries between France and Belgium. The stone was marked with 1819, the year the dimensions were defined, following Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo. Seemingly annoyed by the marker in his tractor’s path, this particular farmer had dug up and moved the stone seven feet out of his way, inadvertently expanding Belgium, and violating the 1820 Treaty of Kortrijk.
Authorities on both sides were consulted. The rearranged ambit made international news. Local village mayors made light of it, although aware of the seriousness, if the marker weren’t returned to its designated spot. It was unclear if someone would attend to this, or if the farmer himself would be delegated. Either way, it was done, and thus an international crisis was averted.
There has been no further update on the farmer.
4.
The Governor of Washington State provides a press conference on the seasonal wildfires, reminding of the DNR fire dashboard, providing constant and up-to-date information.
All history is violent, some say. All timelines, colonial. What for thousands of years had been carefully and peacefully managed and maintained.
Locals cry: They took our breath.
5.
The City of Destiny, south of Seattle. There were old growth trees and the sparkles of light across Edward’s skin in those Twilight movies, but those films were set in Forks, a three-hour drive west. A bit closer to home, Vancouver’s Al Hendrix, not-yet father to Seattle-born Jimi, slipped south across a porous border to sign up for the army. As long as he was enlisting, the American government wasn’t looking too hard at his papers.
It was the ghost of Tacoma that Brautigan could not shake. Where Richard’s stepfather would take him trout fishing as a child. All streams lead to Tacoma, one might offer. All streams lead beyond.
rob mclennan
The author of more than thirty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, rob mclennan’s most recent titles include the poetry collection World’s End, (ARP Books, 2023), a suite of pandemic essays, essays in the face of uncertainties (Mansfield Press, 2022) and the anthology groundworks: the best of the third decade of above/ground press 2013-2023 (Invisible Publishing, 2023). His collection of short stories, On Beauty (University of Alberta Press) will appear in fall 2024