Photo by Matthew Bornhorst on Unsplash

It stands twenty feet wide and ten feet tall, its body composed of hundreds of cobbled together stones. Most of the stones are stock gray, but some have gathered an orange-rust patina over the years as if these special stones were specifically aged in order to accent the day-glow majesty of each new petulant dawn. The two-sided base of the structure reaches up and meets in the middle, forming most of what could be a rounded letter ‘A’ with the support brace taken out in the middle. And if you were close enough – which you are thanks to this – you would hear a repeated and rhythmic mumbling, “grumpy east, grumpy east, grumpy east” which might sound to the untrained ear like “frumpy beast, frumpy beast, frumpy beast.” But it’s the former, plain as rain.

      The arch serves as the town welcome sign to Central Point, Oregon which was founded in 1889 with the arch coming along three years later in ‘92. For that long and then some the stone arch stood there solitary as they come, with new wooden ribbons or faux-bronze placards being added every generation or so, so that each grouping of folk could feel special in their own way, steadfast in their inarguable accomplishments regarding endurance and perseverance. When the highway came, they put the mouth of the concrete behemoth just over the right shoulder of the arch, thus cutting it even further off from the normal day to day comings and goings of the walkabouts with money in their pockets who the arch was made to welcome. No walkway poured around it fit with anachronistic gas lamps to woo would-be shoppers into all the stores that were never built, at least not near the arch. Further into town is where one finds fine establishments such as Henry’s Hardware (now Ace) or Lindie’s Pies and Such (now Denny’s) and all the other shops, some two miles south of the arch and the exit and entrance of the highways. So, with the city planned the way it was, the arch stands unmolested, decade after decade gathering bird shit, shit cleaned off twice a year by two ignored and nameless men in overalls, as if such a cleaning was a bygone celestial celebration no one cared about any longer and never would again. As if these men were not high priests.

That is until recently, now really, when the man with eyes made out of spilt milk and rum hidden behind ladies’ sunglasses with one lens popped out and replaced with duct tape and his skin the same sadhu color of the edges of a doused yet prematurely abandoned campfire they call 3Wall began taking up his abode within the comfortable confines of the arch. 3Wall, well-fitted in his colorful hand-knitted poncho of many frayed strands and high-cut volleyball shorts that ride up just beneath his manhood when he sits as the natives of this land once sat, saw what no one else without shelter seemed to see – with his cart and belongings rigged up against one opening of the arch it was as if he had three walls protecting him from all the boisterous incessancy surrounding him and one non-wall as a window out of which he could look out and see what, if anything, was good.

You can hear him now, what with us being so close yet invisible and all, can’t you? Can’t you hear him saw those very unsoggy logs?

“Grumpy east, grumpy east…” but that’s not all he says. He also likes to whisper about waves, all sorts of types and manner of waves, like the same ones you might think about if given enough time to mull it all over, hour after hour and day after day, and by all, I mean All, mind you, but you would murmur about waves too, oh, and what timing, for here he goes:

“Waves of grain and gradation, amber waves and white hot waves without hue, waves made by toddlers in pools and waves scooped into fat piles of mashed potatoes by large shot-out metal spoons, waves to ride and waves to let pass by, waves of boom and bust, waves made of the mascot-draped and screaming crowds, waves beckoning in and bidding goodbye, all the senseless waves of sound and heat and sight, infidel trickster waves coming but also not coming off the steaming but also not steaming asphalt, concrete or sand, waves off of rock and sand – trick works on both!, and waves of platoons so many boys in wave after wave sent off overseas by the wave of the hand of one pudgy man made of waves of fat, that kinda man, man so-called in name only with styled grey waves in his hair, and one could say this man a drop in the waves of men in suits taking waves of oaths for centuries to one office alone, as solitary as my own little cubicle from which I wave out to passersby in their cars, mostly children, and it’s mostly children who wave back which is why the stern nazarite waved them adults away when they tried to take the little children from him and his play for he said nay you must have the heart of the child to enter my oceanic kingdom, and how it all one way or another gets waved away someday, Jose everyone say, waves of solar flares or waves of floodwater, again, blah, or waves of robots come to steal our children like back in the good old days when robots were angels and thresholds dripped with blood and this all made sense, waves of angels from above and demons from below to fight it out on the plains of Armageddon, yes that name not an idea or event but a place to go and wave on your favorite eschatological team, yes Armageddon an arena not a happening, Armageddon the circus tent waving in the breeze but not the circus itself and oh what a circus it shall be…”

At least that’s what I hear, but what about you? It’s been so long since I’ve taken someone new to listen and look at the man in the arch, old 3Wall, who I can assure you is totally harmless because nothing has ever happened before, at least not that any of us have ever seen, with him I mean, I mean in the way of direct and intended harm to an onlooker, a looky-loo like you. In this way one might say he is like an unarrived earth-ender from above. And yet he is here.

You want to know more about this grumpy east business? Of course. It will be my pleasure. From what I can gather, 3Wall began his time as a beggar not long after he heard about, maybe even met and spent time with, a man named Jolly West. I’ve never bothered to do much digging on the matter, the name, but from the snippets I’ve gathered during my time taking people to see the arch and the man in the arch it seems clear that this man (if he existed) Jolly West personally harmed old 3Wall in some way. Can you imagine, Jolly West, of all the names of a person to harm you? What mother names her son Jolly, anyways? But whether you take the name to be fictitious or real, 3Wall is convinced that opposites are needed, that if Jolly West could just become Grumpy East, then maybe it would all look so much different, maybe it would all be so much better. Better for 3Wall, at least, from what I can gather, that is. All I know is that Jolly West sounds like a made-up name from a children’s book to me, and Grumpy East could make for one hell of a rock ‘n roll band’s name, am I right?

What’s that? Cool Ranch? Oh, no no, he’s not saying cool ranch, ha, although I’m sure he wouldn’t mind a bag of chips right now because who would mind that, but no no he is saying currents, currents, currents. Here, come in closer and listen, take heed, scorn not. 

“Currents underneath the current events of the day and who around is left who knows of the current event called the Davvyslob Pass Massacre? Nine or so college youths concurrently on their way to the snowy omen abode where the native flat noses say never to go – so off they disobey into the parts of things meant to be left alone and unknown, and why do they do this – just like city-building, because they can – no should about it, no wonder at why not, no undercurrent of respect for those who came before, so they go and never come back and what the rescue crew finds is a camera containing a final black and white photo of a deep wooded path where at the end stands a giant hairy standing monstrosity, a real beaut like the kind you see on stickers on the backs of Subarus driving by, and what of the youths who did not listen? – the rescue crew found their tongues ripped out of their mouths and rib cages crushed easily as popsicle stick houses and arms and legs ripped off the bodies and feet without shoes running through the snow at night pushed forward by nothing but the electrocurrent of terror, breaking news, this, a photo of the creature and the feats of strength and the undeniable horror movie deaths… but that was all in the unexamined past anyways, so many current events ago, so much currently going on who is to remember the Davvyslobbers pass incident not to mention this all occurred in dirty old Russia where currently we know all things are darkness and lies, iron curtained and blind, so of course a nonsense current event like this comes out of Russia, so why waste our time where currently we could all be doing something better, something fresh and new…but currently, come to think of it, it’s nobody’s fault that no one remembers the Davvyslobment of 1959 because there was so much more going on in those days up until now and it’s no one’s fault because our daddies and mommies were too busy finding all sorts of other kinds of faults – faults to fix in Europe and faults to find in Russia (our former ally and current foe, like in a book somewhere) and faults to find in our own borders and ranks and Jewish couples to burn in public and with those who sympathize with the color of war we find fault and go to war with, but all this fault without a pinch of salt and that’s how you get all these waves of cars roaring by, waves of emissions and waves of envy, one status onto another, and waves of horns and waves of lights flashing ensuring safety at all costs, and waves of costs requiring waves of revenue-making infractions created by the fancy new red-light machines all with currents soaring through them jumping and flicking and connecting one to another, yes waves of motorists saltless and faultfull, waves of conditions upon which and waves of faces pretending like they do not see me in my two walls made three, me here as salty as can be and up up up on my events both current and make believe, and who is there listening to me because I can feel your ears and touch your eye with my tongue the salt so bitter and yet so sweet and waves of sweet things to come (as long as each motorist currently is somehow satisfied by orphans of expectation alone) but when that is not enough one must ride a wave of doing, doing more doing faster, catch that green light, obey your master, but no one thinks anymore of the infamous and bone-rattling events of 1959 at the Davvyslob Pass because what would that really mean for all that goes on in front of my window? What if it were all real: Jolly West and the slobbering beast and all the waves of current events salted or not I watch wave by every day? What if everything we were told all came true… could you even stand it? And is that what was meant by the saying what good is salt if it loses its saltiness? Just like what good would a wave be if it did not have its wavy-ness and yes cannot forget what good would a current event be if it lost all currency of truth?“

Does he go on like this all the time? Well, how should I know? I only know about the times that I am here, bringing interested parties like yourself. For me to know would mean for me to be inside 3Wall, but my friend, jaunts like this are simply the best that we can do.

But it is almost nightfall. Can you feel dusk taking its rightful place in the hierarchy of the day? Do not worry, 3Wall is well-equipped with warmth and provisions. Some foodstuffs tucked away, like the bag of peanuts the woman who works the cash register at the Purple Parrot named Matty gives him from her meager home pantry. She at work looking at 3Wall standing before her meek and smelly, surrounded by cameras, often looks at the cash in her drawer and thinks of 3Wall and then thinks how it is not in any way her cash or her drawer, couldn’t be farther from her cash. She thinks of how her car is not her car until she pays it off and how by the time she pays it off, if ever, she will need to finance a different car with years left to pay off on its title, too. She thinks of how her nails are not her nails and how she cannot afford to keep changing them out once a month but also how she cannot stop. Why, she asks herself every once and awhile. Because I began, is the answer. Her bright purple polyester work shirt and hat are not hers, although the purple parrot plushy she was given for not missing a shift in a six-month period is. If she knew where it was. Her home is not hers, her studio apartment that, all on its own like magic, becomes more expensive every year while remaining completely unimproved and by definition worsening. The couch she sits and sleeps on has seven more payments on it, even though she could swear it had seven payments left on it last month. Her clothes she owns outright (kinda, on credit) but it's all worked out in a way that the clothes’ worth only really last half a year or so until it would be completely fashion-backwards and embarrassing to be seen out in them, making new clothes unbearably and immediately necessary. Sure, she owns the piercings in her ears and lip and the stud in her chin, but none of those give her the same sense of badass equity they used to and therefore will need to be replaced with another oft advertised look at some point, another look she cannot afford to pull off, that much she knows but not enough to not spend. Her time is owned by the Parrot, 40 hours of it at the job each week, 5 hours in commuting and 20 more in fretting over having to go back so soon, 65 hours of her week invariably devoted to the Parrot to earn money she absolutely does not own, each dollar and then some already spoken for by bill collectors that need money for “her” couch and apartment and car and gas and power and water and trash – all of this someone else’s but that’s why when she can give 3Wall that Ziploc bag of peanuts on the days he comes in she feels like she does actually own this bag of nuts, never more so as when she gives them away and she gets to see that several-tooth grin and take in that odor that has been bad so long it really doesn’t smell that bad anymore, kinda like rotting fetid fruit that begins to become an aroma akin to sweet bourbon, not garbage, and this exchange she has a few times a week with the man she feels as her own, as hers, as Matty’s and she can tell by something glimmering in the old man’s eyes that he knows he is doing her a favor as much as she is him, but neither of them say anything because they both understand that explaining something too much can only go and ruin what good there was left to share.