CHISAGO
COUNTY PRESS 10/28/1993
SCRIBES
CORNER, page 6
THE
MEAN WITCH
By Jeff Smith
Carly struggled, but the
greasy ribbons of gut only writhed tighter about her wrists and ankles. The
bands were alive, a mindless sort of life imbued them by the wicked and
treacherous witch.
The witch turned towards
Carly and cackled. At the sound of her voice the leathery restraints trembled
and pulsated on Carly’s aching limbs.
She hissed, “Oh, you’ll know
pain my little one. Agony and pain.”
Carly sobbed and the witch
suddenly bloated up huge, so that she towered over the child. As Carly
whimpered the witch grew until the cave was nearly filled with her rancid bulk.
Her raspy voice thundered:
“And terror! Yes! Yes! Terror!.” She embraced herself and bellowed out cascades
of self-indulgent laughter, each peal echoing and reverberating through the
most remote and trackless reaches of that wretched cavern.
Carly began to cough and
instantly the witch was small again. Directly in front of Carly, she stooped
down and peered into Carly’s eyes. With eyebrows arched, and head cocked so
that Carly would be eye to eye with the witch’s good eye – not the gray and
mottled one – the witch belched a moist blast of cadaverous stench into Carly’s
face. Carly turned her head and shivered, crying now abjectly.
The witch, now aroused to
new heights, threw herself down upon the ground at Carly’s feet and began to
slink about on all fours purring and arching her back like a cat. Curious,
Carly paused amid her tears, for only an instant, and the witch roared causing
the little girl to again cower in her bonds.
The witch tittered and
sprang to her feet. Giving Carly a sinful wink, she screeched, “Time to eat!”
She pointed a crooked finger
at the wood stoked beneath a large suspended cauldron and, with a crack, fire
engulfed the fuel.
Menacingly she approached
Carly, the dancing flames casting thirsty shadows on her corrugated face. “You
know,” she quipped, “I feel like an appetizer, maybe I’ll start with your
tender little fingers!”
She rubbed her dry hands
together greedily and her cratered tongue darted across her bluish lips.
Now it must be told here
that Carly, in spite of her young age, had, through many hours of dedicated
practice, become quite an accomplished pianist.
Upon hearing the witch’s
reference to her fingers, Carly had been instantly filled with rage and
indignation. She stuck out her own little pink tongue and as she did she
noticed the bands loosen about her wrists.
Without hesitating she snarled
at the witch, “If you want my fingers, well here they are!!” and she poked the
witch in the good eye. (The bad one was just too gross.)
The witch shrieked and
stumbled back a step. The strands were now loose about her feet so Carly
fetched a might kick to the witch’s knee. It snapped like a twig and she collapsed
in agony.
No longer a prisoner to the
fear which all tyrants use to control their victims, Carly scooped up the witch
like a sack of old leaves and pitched her into the fire. There was a brief
flurry of movement, a tiny howl and then, except for a puff of putrid smoke,
the witch vaporized entirely.
It surprised Carly that a
monster of the witch’s stature could meet such a pathetic and anticlimactic
end.
She turned, snatched the
witch’s old broom and snapped it over her knee. She tossed it into the flames
where it popped and crackled in a rather ordinary way.
Carly shrugged and, gently brushing
her hands said, “Nobody messes with my fingers.”
The End
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
CHISAGO
COUNTY PRESS, 10/31/91
SCRIBE’S
CORNER, page 4
The Catacombs of Yucatan
By Jeffrey Smith
Richie had never meant to go
into that cave, but he had to now. His dog, Dusty, was down in there. He
stooped to light the lantern.
Nobody had been in there for
years. Nobody even went close to it anymore. Even the owner of this land now
lived in Florida and the old souvenir shop near the road was a pile of debris –
a victim of some forgotten and fierce summer thunderstorm.
Richie didn’t like this
place. None of the kids from around Black Hammer ever played or explored here.
It wasn’t their parents’ stern warning that kept them out – parental cautions
were often an invitation to forbidden pleasures.
No, what kept them away were
the things their parents didn’t say; troubled allusions and vague mutterings
about tourists, an entire family from Iowa, who were lost down there in the
1930’s, shortly after this attraction had opened. And, a whispered legend about
the young constable who, after searching in vain for that family, returned to
the surface as a white haired, bulging-eyed, gibbering idiot.
Even area farmers pastured
their sheep and other livestock away from the cave. There had been too many
lost animals over the years, probably victims of one of the yet to be
discovered sinkholes common to the Driftless Region.
It gave Richie the creeps
just to bicycle past this place and, when Dusty chased up that rabbit, it was
with a sense of dread that he wheeled down the fading track to the cave’s
entrance in their pursuit.
His hesitation had been
costly. For by the time he drew near he managed only a glimpse of Dusty wriggling
through a gap in the boards which had sealed the cave since that unfortunate
constable stumbled out there over 20 years before.
He heard Dusty’s excited
barking for several minutes it seemed. At fist, they boomed, and then echoed as
if there were a thousand Dusty’s down there. Eventually the sounds became tiny,
feeble, and then, disappeared altogether.
He had pried off boards,
creating an opening he could squeeze through. Shivering in the dark, he’d
called and called and hollered until he was hoarse. His voice ricocheted into
the depths and sometimes would boom back at him. It sounded frightened. He
would need a light.
After frantically pedaling
home, he had made off with his pa’s lantern. More of a challenge was obtaining
the matches. He had to appear nonchalant while his mother insisted he have some
cookies and milk. He finessed the matches when his mother went to the
clothesline.
Finally he was back and
breathless. The lantern sputtered and lit. Pausing outside, he considered the
cave. The entrance; with its few missing boards looking like toothless gaps in
a frown of unspeakable sorrow, sent a shudder through him. Richie was losing
courage.
But, Richie’s dog was his
best true friend. It was inconceivable when pa had let him keep Dusty. He knew
his pa would never enter the cave ‘for
just a dog” and would probably never let him get another. In any event, he was
sure to get a whipping if his father found out about his being in here.
He looked up at the
weathered, faded sign. He read it aloud, “The Catacombs of Yucatan,” and
wondered what in the dickens that could mean.
“If it was me lost in
there,” he vowed, “Dusty would come and get me.” He stepped inside.
Several yards ahead a mist
and rotting stairway descended into the depths of the cavern. Carefully, in the
flickering light of the lantern, he inched forward. Clutching the now flimsy
railing with his freehand, he tested every timber. It was painfully slow going.
Once, after many steps, he
craned his neck back to see the opening he had made in the entrance. Viewed
from below through this constricting tunnel it looked like a tiny blue sliver
of light and seemed impossibly distant.
Down he went, fighting
cloying spider webs and the cold. He reached the foot of the steps and followed
the narrow, slimy corridor forward. Onward and down, he stopped occasionally to
venture into side chambers with signs that identified them as “The Cathedral”
or “the Dungeon.”
Calling for Dusty, sometimes
his voice would boom out and reverberate, returning to him sounding taut and
hysterical. Other times, depending on the cave, his calls would sound puny and
muffled – as if the best he could squeeze out was a squeak.
Frightened and alone, he
plumbed the depths of that cave, He crept over spongy catwalks where, in the
blackness below, he could hear cascading water and again a long forgotten sign
would proclaim “Niagara of the North” or “Ghost Falls.”
He followed the ancient
knob-and –curl electrical wires, stung overhead to illuminate the god forsaken
hole for former paying customers.
He had lost hope by the time
the wiring curved up and out of sight, perhaps to a now corroded bank of
floodlights. He had reached the end of the line. A sagging railing surrounded
the platform from whish, as one final sign read, “The Catacombs of Yucatan’
could be viewed.
Holding his lantern aloft he
saw, in every direction, openings, fissures and tunnels, reaching out like
black tentacles.
He bellowed one last throat
torturing “ Dusteee!” Fragmented echoes returned and rebounded into a deathly
quiet.
A single whimper disturbed
the oppressive silence.
“Dusty!” Richie whirled and
plugged off the walkway, following the sound into a crevice to his left, Now
slipping though mud and clay, he could easily see tracks left by his big dog.
Following the trail, he
stooped through an opening into a cavern. With the lantern held overhead, he
viewed this new room with astonishment. The walls, as far up as his lantern
could illuminate, were swathed in webs. Huge, thick mats of webbing extended
everywhere and swirled upwards out of sight.
A slight movement caught his attention. There,
hopelessly bond in a tangle mass of web, was his dog. With sides heaving and
his snout covered with foam, the young animal was exhausted and spent from his
fruitless attempts at escaping from the sticky net.
Setting his lantern down,
Richie noticed something else. The floor in there was covered with a layer of
bones. Picked as clan as matchsticks, they provided a shifting and uneven
carpet underfoot.
Kneeling beside his friend,
he scratched an exposed ear. The dog whimpered again and managed a feeble was
of its tail, despite the binding webs.
“Hang on Dusty,” he said dragging out his knife, he began sawing at the
tough strands.
**********
Like some kind of sinister
telephone operator, the huge arthropod tended to a network of unimaginable
complexity and sophistication.
She was the last of her
kind. But what she lacked in family and kin, she made up for in size, cunning
and malevolence.
It was her unquenchable
appetite that had sustained her for these centuries. A hunger which consumed
her being and manifested itself in the utter devastation of any creature
unfortunate enough to invade her domain.
That same appetite, now
aroused, had alerted her to some remote disturbance in the system she had so
painstakingly constructed. Delicately she scampered to the side. Yes, here the
minute frequencies and vibrations were a bit more distinct. She traipsed
several miles to the east and down. Oh, it was far distant, but her instincts
told her is was definitely a matter requiring her immediate attention and it
felt as if damage was being done to her network.
Rage welled up inside her.
Fury and hunger spurred her. Bolting along her ancient thoroughfares, arcing
over blind escarpments and ripping along the side of chasms, she was a
belligerent wisp, a gossamer juggernaut.
**********
Nearly exhausted, he had
finally managed to free Dusty. Dusty was played out for sure, the way it
looked, and might need to be carried. But first, he’d have to saw his own his way out of the web – for
his own foot had become entangled in the sticky stuff while freeing Dusty.
While he worked he wondered
why there weren’t any spiders around, seeing how webs stretched out in every
direction. Just then Dusty growled, a deep menacing rumble from somewhere deep
and ancient inside the animal. Dusty was looking overhead and Ritchie,
following the dog’s pointed gaze, saw her descending as quietly and quickly as
a paratrooper commando from above.
Scrambling through the
shamble of bones, he chose a weapon: a stout blade – like club. )Actually it
was the femur form the father of that long-departed family form Mason City, who
had disappeared down here in 1937.) He
brandished it in front of himself.
Purposefully, without
hesitation, the spider advanced…..black and huge and hairy, easily the size of
a pony. It minced tis way across the scattered bones, airy like a ballerina.
Certain of her prey, she raised two legs like pinchers.
A grey shape lunged out the
gloom. Snapping and snarling it severed a leg from the spider as effortlessly
as if it was an articulated crystal stem.
Coiled and crouching, teeth
exposed in a vicious growl, Dusty leapt again towards the now unsteady creature.
This time , however, she was
prepared and caught him in midair and hurled him, thrashing, to the floor.
With one leg pinning the
whining dog below her, the spider slowly lowering herself towards his thrashing
dog. Richie desperately pummeled her and raked his club uselessly across her
back. Still, her scissoring, serrated jaws descended.
In a final act of despair,
Richie seized his pa’s lantern and hurled it at the spider. The lantern
shattered, gushed kerosene over the monster, setting it ablaze.
The creature twirled and
spun, canting onto its side and flailing its legs wildly. It reared up like a
bronco, now a pillar of flames, and flung itself against a sheet of web.
It ascended upwards then,
like a meteor, at an astonishing rate, each singular footfall igniting other
patches of the web. The ratcheting fireball disappeared into the upper reaches
of the cave leaving a path of fire in its wake.
The cavern was ablaze and
filling with choking smoke. Dusty was on his feet, wobbly, but at Richie’s
side. As Richie stooped to ecape the inferno he glimpsed a fluttering movement
near his foot.
The rabbit, wild eyes,
struggled in a wad of web. As the flames danced towards it, Richie grasped the
trembling mass, tore it free and, following Dusty, dove back through the
crevice.
Smoke soon obscured what
little light escaped through the openings behind them. Without the lantern,
Richie soon found himself in pitch darkness.
He soon lost his footing, as
well as his directions, and began crawling through the muck on the cave’s
floor. Thinking of the many catacombs, the rotting catwalks over chasms, and
the endless steps, Richie began to sob.
A familiar snout nuzzled
him. Grasping Dusty’s collar, his dog began to lead him to the surface.
It was an agonizing journey
in that total darkness, he bashed his head several times on overhanging rocks
and outcroppings. He stumbled on through, grasping both the rabbit and the
dog’s collar and Dusty never wavered.
Choking, they finally
reached the greasy stairway and the final grueling ascent. With their
protesting lungs burning form the thickening smoke, they finally clattered into
the boards which had sealed the cave entrance.
Squeezing through the gap he
had made, Richie realized it was night. He collapsed in the sweet fresh air beneath
a sky full of stars which burned with an intensity, the likes of which he’d
never again witness. Dusty was licking his face.
**********
Smoke continued to belch out
of the Catacombs of Yucatan for nearly six weeks that summer. Smoke filled
caves as distant as Harmony and Cherry Grove. Many undiscovered sinkholes were
revealed during that time due to the telltale wisps and smoked issued from
fissure in exposed rock on hillsides as far away as Hop Hollow, Peacock Ridge
and Cabbage Ridge. Even storm sewers in
downtown Caledonia had smoke curling up through their grates.
Water wells in the regions
were spoiled with a smoky taste for awhile. Indian Spring and other springs in
the area carried bits of soot and ash.
No one noticed a decline in
the number of lost livestock. The pattern had been too random and widespread.
What was noticeable,
however, was the demise of many mature trees in the area. It seems trees,
sometime an entire grove, would topple for no reason, exposing charred an
absent root systems.
The local residents were
fearful of volcanoes. A university
professor was summoned form his visit with relative near Brownsville down on
the Mississippi. He dispelled fears of volcanic activity.
However, he was reluctant to
enter the catacomb and pronounced the smoke’s appearance as being related to
“An unexplained phenomenon.”
A nearby evangelist seized
upon the smoke as a handy and visible example for the proximity of eternal
damnation by claiming is was generated by “The embers of hell itself.”
If Richie would’ve heard
that one, he might’ve agreed.
**********
Nearly 10 years after the
last of those subterranean fires had smoldered and died, Richard found himself
outside of a large institutional appearing building on the campus of the
Regional State Hospital.
For almost a decade he had
made very pointed, yet discreet interrogation of his parents, their friend and
other in his community. Upon
entering the building he was shown to a stooped old man. In the corner he sat
alone in a wicker wheelchair. Long hair, unkempt, grew to his shoulders. The
hair was, without exception, totally white.
After several unsuccessful
attempt at engaging the patient in conversation, Richard leaned over and
whispered into his ear: “I was down there, I saw it. I killed it.”
As he straightened up to
leave, the old man’s trembling hand shot out and grasped Richard’s arm.
Richard
looked down, there were a tears in the old constable’s eye.
The
End
SIX WEEKS
Martin pulled over. He was
sweating. Goddamn it was hot in the car. He fiddled with the wheel on the
center of the dash. The radio blasted to life, some Hispanic female shrieked
unintelligible lyrics over a pounding dance beat.
He fumbled with it, squinting.
Suddenly a cold blast of air blessed his face. He tried to turn on the dome
light and a disembodied voice said, “One half mile, take a right at the
signal.”
“Son of a bitch!” He almost took
out his gun. He was gonna shoot that son of a bitchin’ god damn spool in the
center of its unblinking eye.
Again he asked himself, “What’s so
bad about a switch? Huh? How about a goddamn knob.? Or a lever? What in THE
hell was so bad with that?” He was getting agitated. “Someday I’m gonna blow
that bitch right back to Bavaria.”
“And,” he added sourly, “If I had
the time, I’d go after the bastard who thought you were a good idea in the
first place.”
The voice repeated its directions.
He took a deep breath, no need to settle the score now. He had done it one
better already tonight. Just drove down the alley, right on cue, Trent Kelso
came around the corner of his garage lugging his recycling. He looked up. Did
he recognize the car? Probably. So what? He got the message. Right between the
eyes. He dropped like an anvil through ether. It made no difference to Martin
whether old Trent recognized him or not. Martin wasn’t out to gloat, just get
the job done.
He fished a little black leather
book out of the inside packet of his sport coat. He opened it and adjusted his
glasses. He crossed Trent Kelso off the list. He smiled briefly and then
frowned.
He recalled the day clearly, once
again. Had thought about it a lot over the last year. He had left the
dealership that day after a long lesson with the late Trent Kelso. He thought
of one more question and returned. Trent, good old Trent – he’d sold him his
last 3 BMW’s – had his back to him, was talking to the kid from the detail
shop. Martin paused when he heard his name mentioned., “The good Dr Goldberg,
can’t figure out his iDrive system,” he snorted, ( HE SNORTED!!! the bastard)
“Don’t think he ever will….I tell you Evan,
doctors are a car salesman’s dream, “ he took a long pull from his Coke,
“They aint as smart as they think they are.”
Martin slipped out of the dealership
with his face burning. He pulled out his little book and entered Trent’s name
there. The late Trent Kelso, BMW salesman of the month, eight times in 2004!
He got the idea for his little book one day at lunch when a drug detail man had idly mentioned adding a balky receptionist to his “Dying of Cancer List.”
“What’s that?” Martin had asked,
curious.
“Well”, the patronizing rep replied
out of the side of his mouth, “If one of you guys ever give me 3 months to
live, I’m gonna shoot all the people that were a pain in the ass to me.” He
laughed and Martin joined him. The first interesting thing a drug rep had ever
told him.
That night Martin had started his
own list. Over the years it had been a comfort to him.
He replaced the book and attempted
to turn off the dome. “Right at the next signal’ blurted out again, sounding
just a bit nervous to Martin’s ear.
He cruised through the city, picked
up his cell phone and dialed a number he had impressed into his brain. Always
do your homework. Just like with the now 3 eyed salesman of the month. It had
taken him just a week. Garbage night, Tuesday. Come home to the little lady,
take out the trash.
A young sounding female answered,
“Dr Friedman’s service.”
“Yes, this is Dr. Abe Weinstien at
Mount Sinai Myrtlewood E.D. I need to speak with Dr Friedman.”
Without pause the young lady said,
“Please give me your number and I’ll have him call you right away.”
“I’d rather have you put me through
to him,” he paused, “I have Pamella Anderson here in the ED and it is kind of
urgent…”
“I understand,” she replied with expert understanding. “Hold
the line.”
A few moments passed. Martin
practicing his best Abe Wienstien. So fortunate Ben was on call on a Tuesday
evening.
A voice came on the line, “Abe, how
are you? What can I do for you?”
Martin started, “Well, Ben, it’s probably nothing really,” he cleared his
throat. “I can most likely just patch her and have her come see you in the
morning but...just thought I’d run it by you…”
“What is it?” Ben asked
solicitously.
“Well Pamela Anderson, she is one
of your patients, right?”
“Certainly. What happened?’
“Well, she was doing something with
her nails, using an adhesive, Poison Control says its just a sort of jazzed up
super glue, well anyway, she got some in her eyes..”
Ben exclaimed, “Dear God!” A little
too emphatically, Martin noticed.
Martin smiled, tried to fake a
sigh, not convincingly, but it was lost anyway on Ben, “Yeah, I know, well I
got her under the slit lamp here and her corneas look like the craters on the
moon, I’d usually do the standard, you know, eye patches, a bead of antibiotic,
see you in the morning?”
“I know, but Abe, this could be
more serious than it appears, I’ll be right down.”
Martin was following Ben’s Mercedes
within ten minutes. At the first light he pulled up and motioned for Ben to
roll his window down. Ben recognized him, and did it, obviously surprised.
Martin looked up and down the empty boulevard and then shot him in the face.
The late opthalmologist slumped sideways and the Mercedes shot forward, engine
screaming it arced through the intersection , leapt over the distant curb and
plunged into the dark, a drop of God knows how far in this L.A. Canyon
neighborhood. Martin hung a left and heard a muffled thud. He noticed a faint
flash in the darkness behind.
He got home and crossed Ben’s name
off the list. The bastard. Had come up to Martin at the Foundation Gala,
swirled his martini and said, “Sorry about that lawsuit,” He extended his head
back and rolled it around in an act of physical nonchalance, hand plunged into
his side pocket, the son of a bitch, “I hope you don’t take it
personally...it’s only business Martin.”
Business? Business?! It had been
the talk of the office for a day or two, Martin just knew it, although no one
ever mentioned it to him. Martin that night had given him his best Oh Shucks
shrug and swirled his own drink. Some kind of tropical thing that made him want
to puke. He wanted to poke the little umbrella right into the eye of that
preening opthalmalogist.
Sue me about the outcome on your
daughter’s crooked toes? I worked like hell on those claws you call toes. All
the specialties and all the surgeons in the world would never make a silk purse
out of Ben Wiesman’s club footed, buck toothed, crosseyed, honknosed redheaded
daughter. Hell, even old Ben himself couldn’t straighten her eyes
out…completely. The late old Ben.
Martin crossed the foyer into the
dining room and then the kitchen. He listened to the usual messages and then,
his wife, sounding tired but happy. “We’re doing fine, honey, wish you were
here with us…only 6 weeks and we’ll all be together!”
He smiled at that. He thought of
them, all the way across the country. Spending time with her folks in Fort
Lauderdale. Six weeks.
“Six weeks” the consulting
oncologist had told him. Martin didn’t even have to ask. Martin had known. Even
a podiatrist knows something about cancer. No one ever gives a podiatrist
credit. He had sent his family off to Florida knowing it. Had read all the
books before he even visited his internist. The biopsy, according to the
oncologist, revealed, “An especially aggressive, rare form of gastric Ca, er,
ah , cancer. Very, rare Dr. Goldberg, I mean, Martin.”
It only had confirmed what Martin
had been suspecting for months now. The heartburn, the gnawing pain, the
dyspepsia, bloating, anorexia.
“Get your things in order,” the
oncologist had advised. Martin only half heard it. He was thinking about his
little black book.
Martin crossed the glittering
expanse of kitchen and headed for his bathroom. Instinctively he reached for
his antacids. He paused, funny, not much burn tonight, think I can get by
without ‘em.
For a change he was taking
deliberate action, taking control, for maybe the first time in his beleaguered
life and it felt good. Damn good, he mused. He gave himself a kind of giddy
thumbs up in the medicine chest mirror.
He pulled onto the searing black
asphalt of Vista Manor at 2 in the afternoon. He’d driven 130 miles into the
arid interior of southern California, past Joshua trees and miles of windmills
spinning electricity to the insatiable appetites back along the coast. He got
out of his car and nearly swooned in the shimmering heat. He looked around.
What vista? he thought as he looked around. Not unless you count the back side
of a strip mall as a vista. At least the front of the place had a manor façade,
big columns, fancy lights hanging in the
portico. Martin noted however, that extending in a V behind this manor mirage
there stretched rather ordinary, metal prefab arms, like some sort of high
output supercharged chicken hatchery.
He crossed the plush carpet to the
directory. Just like he learned on Google last night, there it was: Herbert
Clark. Mister Clark to a student like Martin. “Coach” to the ascendant jocks
who made high school such a misery.
Good old Herb Clark. Always anxious
to use Martin as an example. An example of how not to dribble, how not to
block, how not to throw a goddam softball, let alone catch it. With his
classmates laughing and the jocks sneering, the humiliation was complete.
Dribble a basketball? What?
Bouncing a ball and running at the same time? That was supposed to be valuable,
laudable, worthwhile? It looks ridiculous even when experts do it. The
cromagnon miscreants absolutely shivered with glee whenever “Coach” would
choose Martin to demonstrate something oh so important, like catching a
grounder. In his mitt. Mitt? Jesus Christ.
Room 188. He walked down a long
hallway approaching an intersection, not really comfortable with the smell in
there. Some kind of nurses station was at the cross roads ahead. He heard
voices, bits of laughter. The hallways were empty except for far in the
distance a lone stooped old women appeared to be ramming her wheelchair, again
and again, into an apparently locked exit.
Motion caught the corner of his
eye. An old man was poised on the pinnacle of a railing that ran along his bed.
Martin was about to shout but the old man pitched over the fence and landed on
a thin mat placed along his bed. Sounded like a bag of bones hitting floor. A
shrill alarm sounded ahead. So that’s what the mat was, Martin figured, an
alarm. Well, that’s good, attention will be drawn away from me with all that
racket.
He kept walking, trying to shake
the sound the old man’s impact had made. He recalled hearing a pro wrestler once
say in a radio tell-all interview that a good body slam doesn’t hurt when it is
just one “Smack!” on the mat, all the body parts hitting simultaneously. But
when there are multiple “Smacks!” it hurts. This particular slam had a sound to
it that, Martin figured, Coach Clark would’ve cherished as an example of how
not to do a body slam. His only regret would’ve been that Martin was not the
subject.
Still, ahead, no one materialized
into the hallway. No concerned nurses or aides. He walked past the station. No
one looked up. The alarm squalled but no one paid it any mind, no one paid
Martin any mind either. That’s good, he thought.
He paused outside 188. He strode
in. He was shocked to see what remained of the once tyrannical nemesis he had
known. A scrawny man laid, skeletal, on a rumpled bed.
It was him though. Could tell by
the crew cut. The bastard. Crew cut all white now, thin, but still a remnant
redneck exclamation point on an otherwise pathetic creature.
Martin was slightly taken aback.
Old Clark was decrepit. He would’ve turned around and walked out, feeling his
job would certainly be done for him, and soon, but, a flash caught his vision.
There it was. Hanging on the crummy little corkboard. A whistle. Silver, dull
and worn at the edges. Under it someone had pinned a recipe card with a loving
“Coach” neatly penciled on it. That did it.
Martin looked around. No one.
Herb’s roommate snored with a death rattle himself.
Martin said “Hey! Coach?”
The old man’s crusted eyes
fluttered. Martin Grabbed a pillow and pushed it down on coach’s face, hard, so
hard he could almost feel the bed frame. Coach’s hands did not lift off the
bed. Palms down, he did not struggle.
Martin did not care, he was taking
care of business. It didn’t matter to him a bit if Coach had recognized him,
fought him, felt pain or fear. Coach was just another name on a list.
Martin straightened his tie and
walked out, past the nurse station. The siren shrieked, a phone was ringing too.
He couldn’t resist looking at them in disbelief. No one raised an eye. They
continued with their banter. Martin understood. Shift change. One of them was
snapping her bubble gum. They would all have made his list, if he had someone
that he cared about in this wretched place.
He cast a glance into the room where
the old man had dashed to the floor. There was a dark smear of blood across the
mat/alarm. The old man had wormed his way under his bed. His skinny legs were
protruding and appeared to be jerking a spasm of some sort. Convulsion, Martin
concluded as he crossed the elegant
lobby. Idly he wondered, how are they gonna drag him out of there?
It was a long hot drive into the
sun. He got back home and headed for the medicine chest. Again he reached for
the Prilosec but, he was surprised, he didn’t need any. He felt hungry for a
change too. He shrugged. Palmed a few Tylenol’s for his headache.
He punched the answering machine,
“This is Dr. Reynolds. I need to see you.”
Martin wheeled into the gastroenterologist’s
shady lot. The palm trees made a nice border along the lane and secluded
parking lot. He wanted only to stop here today for a moment and thank Reynolds,
not so much to hear what he had to say. Dr. Reynolds was the only guy who just
went right to the biopsy, his fool internist wanted to rule out this and that
and order such and such a study, exam, or test. Tests? Dammit, Martin knew what
was wrong, he had suspected, hell, knew, from the start but…nobody listens to a
podiatrist. Treat him like a goddam child, explaining things ever so
painstakingly, like he was a moron.
Reynolds was different. Had this
place here. Did what Martin wanted, none of this screwing around chasing
expensive frivolities. He knew the message of last night meant that the oncologists
had probably contacted Reynolds again, offering some more false hope, a
possible excruciating procedure, a tedious treatment, or a clinical trial
perhaps, some new toxic potion they wanted to pour down him. No way, he had but
3 weeks left and had never felt so alive.
“These six weeks are what I was
born for!” He had exclaimed this morning, giving himself another thumbs up in
the bathroom mirror.
But he was resigned, the ride was coming to an
end. Today he’d screwed up. The problem was, this morning, tellers saw him.
Customers saw him. They heard the booms he supposed, even though he had a rag
over the muzzle. Witnesses now.
A certain officious little banker.
Late banker, well ventilated, who had, so many years ago, took Liselle’s and
his application fee and then, grinning all the time, told them they did not
qualify for a mortgage on that bungalow on Yucca Court.. A bungalow? On Yucca
Court?
He had to humble himself and ask
Liselle’s father for the down payment. Her dad had been kind when Martin had
told him about it, “Pricks like that, you gotta prove ya don’t need the money
before they’ll loan it to ya.”
But he didn’t loan Martin the money
either. “Bungalow’s not worth it.” Later Martin saw that both the banker and
his father in law were right, but the banker had grinned. He acted like he
thought he was cute or something. Well he’s cute, Martin thought, now with
about 3 new holes in his big bald forehead. Strange, Martin didn’t recall him
being bald before. Same guy though.
But all those screams in the bank
lobby this morning…
He sighed and got out of the car.
He was escorted into Dr. Reynold’s
plush office and not for the first time did Martin reflect on his own little
cubbyhole at the medical center.
“Cubbyhole.” That’s what Eli Roth
had laughed and called it when he came to meet Martin one day before golf.
Martin was irritated by that remark, coming from a damn lawyer. So irritated he
lost the round to Eli that afternoon. Never played with him again, imagine
losing to a fat plug like Roth. He made a mental note to add him to the list,
if he wasn’t there already.
Owen Reynolds entered his office
and shook Maritn’s hand. “Thank you for coming down this morning, Martin.” He
laughed a little and nodded reflectively, “Well, let’s see, I don’t know where
to begin.”
Martin thought back with
satisfaction on his productive morning. Sure, the banker will probably turn out
to be a bust, but he celebrated inside as he crossed off 2 other names from the
list before him.
First, a retired alderman. (He’d
declined to support Martin’s request for a garage setback variance.) He made
the mistake of jogging alone every morning. Just like clockwork.
Then the guy at the gun shop.
Martin smiled, profoundly gratified.
Smart ass. Just 3 weeks ago Martin had come in wanting to buy his gun.
The guy asked what kind. Martin had
never owned a gun before, he had no idea what kind. Martin had said, “I don’t
know, how about one of those little ones, like James Bond has?”
The guy was quiet for a minute,
studying Martin, looked like he might say something or laugh. “Walther PPK?
Sure I can sell you one of those.”
He turned and slid a drawer full of
different guns out from a cabinet behind him. With his back to Martin he said,
“I can sell you the gun, 007, but you’re gonna have to go down to the dime
store for the decoder ring and the license to kill.”
He turned to face Martin and his
smile evaporated.
A big guy at the end of the counter
must not have seen Martin’s expression because he slapped the counter top and
nearly choked on the meat stick he was gnawing on.
Martin whirled and glared at him.
The guy never noticed and he returned to the assembly of the shotgun or rifle
or whatever it was that he just moments before disassembled.
Martin took inventory of him. Big,
jowly redneck. Wearing cammo. It was almost time for Martin to laugh. Hell,
there wasn’t even so much as a green blade of grass around here for blocks, let
alone a leaf. Obviously the man sported the cammo just to be noticed. If he
would’ve craved a disguise in this neighborhood, he would’ve been better served
if his jacket were of a cinder block pattern with scattered spray paint
scrawlings all over it.
Both men would make Martin’s book,
the latter, as “Big fat cammo redneck..”
This morning “Gun shop guy” was not
smiling. Martin had came in, first customer of the day. The man looked up at
him, dimly recognizing him from somewhere, “What can I for do you?”
Martin beamed, “Got it.”
The man looked at him curiously,
tilted his head a bit, “What’s that?”
Martin slapped his hand on the counter just
like the “Big fat cammo redneck” had done about 3 weeks before.
Martin removed his hand and the man
looked down puzzled at the little black book there on the countertop . On the
front was printed “Glaxo” in gold letters.
The man looked up at Martin,
“What?” he said, shaking his head, confused.
“License to kill!” Martin yelled.
The man saw the little automatic in
Martin’s hand and quickly bent sideways as if reaching for the floor. Martin
shot him in the ear.
Martin wriggled up, clawed his way
over the top of the counter so he could look down at the man.. He was sprawled
there, motionless. Martin noticed the man had a little gun strapped to his leg,
above his ankle. Huh, so that’s what he was reaching for, Martin concluded, stupid
ass place to keep a gun, especially when you really needed one. His own expert
opinion on the man’s gunmanship startled him. Martin shook his head, he was
getting good at this gun business. He wished “Big fat cammo redneck” would’ve
walked in just then.
His attention was drawn back to Dr.
Reynolds, he heard something about biopsies. Reynolds was saying, “I pity the
poor doctor who is right now having a conversation with the patient whose
biopsy was switched with yours, Martin. As well as you can probably all too
well understand how that unfortunate patient must feel.”
Martin tried to focus, had he said
something about gastric reflux? GERD? He looked down, he blinked, rubbed his
eyes. Reynolds was facing the window, hands clasped behind his back, shaking
his head and laughing, “You’re a lucky man, Martin. You’ve been given a new
lease here.”
“What a mistake,” he continued,
marveling, “I trust you know how it is. Same biopsy, same symptoms. Similar
names, same pathologist, lab etc. it happens. I apologize for this. I only hope
this good news will erase the memory of what you’ve been going through these
last few weeks.” He added that last part, hopefully, defensively. Martin
thought about why. Because Martin might want to conduct business on him?
Nothing personal?
Well it was personal now. Somehow
there were 3 holes in Reynold’s back. It looked like it was sizzling in there,
smoke came out too. Then blood. Dr Reynolds was hurled against the window so
hard it cracked. Martin was surprised, he looked down at his hand. Yes, the gun
was there. He felt vaguely uneasy, Reynolds wasn’t on the list.
Somehow he was at his car. Sirens
were on the way, approaching. Just one more thing left to do now. He slammed the door.
The police surrounded the car and
waited. Dispatch had told them a caller from inside the doctor’s office had
reported seeing a muzzle flash from within the vehicle, heard a muffled report.
The cops could see Martin in there, he wasn’t moving. They finally approached
the car, slowly, weapons trained on the motionless shape inside. When they
finally flung open the car door they discovered that there was a bullet hole in
the center of Martin’s……dashboard.
Martin stared down at the paper the
screw had given him. It was from his attorney. Detached, he read it again:
I am informing you
that your wish has been granted. The mandatory appeals have been exhausted and
I shall field no further appeals on your behalf. As per your request all
possible delays and stays have been waived. I hope you know our firm gave your
defense our best efforts.
Execution, by
lethal injection, is scheduled for 12:01 AM, on third of November, next….
It went on about his family, estate
etc, just a bunch of talk. He looked up at the calendar over the Screw’s desk.
The third? Let’s see, from today that gives me, exactly…. six weeks.
He picked up his little black book.
He had been making very many revisions and additions to it. He considered the
law firm, no, they did their best. Who else did he know? The screws? The
bastards. But they were just doing their job, he only put the names in his book
of those who did him wrong of their own volition.
It made him feel good, this book.
He considered and then wrote in it again adding the names of a couple of the
cons who gang raped him in the Paint Shop. And how about that kid back in camp?
What was his name? The guy who put the Ex Lax in his cocoa?
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
CHISAGO
COUNTY PRESS 11/5/92
SCRIBES
CORNER, page 11
Beyond The Raspberry Patch
By Jeff Smith
These things all became fact
for me one day in Mr. Stanwyck’s berry patch. True, I’d never given them much
thought before that time but, everything became clear that morning, or rather,
things became less clear. I think.
You see, since that time
there has been, for me, no longer any distinct black or white, good or bad.
That morning I began to feel convinced that there are many shades in between,
and that what most folks think is good may be just a lighter tint of evil.
So, anyhow, I was about
eleven years old when Mr. Stanwyck brought me out to his berry patch that
summer morning. Ma and us kids relied
heavily on various odd jobs the well-to-do people around town would give us. It
was a good deal for them because we were hard workers and, I suspect, it helped
them feel less guilty about their own good fortunes.
My Stanwyck was a bigshot in
town. But he liked to come across as some kind of gentleman farmer or something
too. He liked to sport big cowboy hats, the boots, big belt buckle – the whole
westerner get-up. And although he never got his hands dirty, he preferred to
think of himself as a hobby farmer: he had well tended livestock, crops and
fancy farm machinery.
This was my second year
picking Mr. Stanwiyck’s berries. Actually they were for Mrs. Stanwyck, she was
a sort of homemaker wiz, winning ribbons for her preserves and writing cute
little cookbooks and all.
The patch was Mr. Stanwyck’s
“private stock.” Ever since he picked up this land through some forgotten
default, it had produced remarkable yields.
That morning, as we rode out
in his new pickup, he was taking, again, great pains in telling me how
important those berries were, and how they had to be picked just so, and how,
in a way, it was a great honor for me to be picking such special berries, in
such a special patch, for such special people.
He was wasting his air, you
know. By that time, I’d picked more berries in my life than he had ever seen.
And I would’ve taken the same care whether I was picking them for a king or a
bum like Stanwyck. I was beginning to realize, even then, the more important a
person is, or thinks he is, the more likely they are to believe their own baloney.
We got out to the patch and I
was following along, carrying the pails and mostly agreeing with Mr. Stanwyck
at the proper times, when he stopped suddenly.
“Well I’ll be!” He drawled,
he liked to use a southern kind of drawl, whenever he remembered to put out the
effort, even though he was from Michigan.
He as looking down and I
could see a dead crow, a big one, on the path.
“Well I’ll declare,” he said
as he squinted towards the berry patch, “Ever since that scarecrow was struck
by lightning, he must just be plain scaring these crows to death.”
I followed his gaze and saw
a large scarecrow sagging on its cross in the center of the berry patch. It did
look singed, and for just an instant, I thought I caught a whiff of smoke –
like the smell you get when an electric motor is overworked. It sent a chill
right through me.
“I just can’t believe it,”
he went on, more to himself now then to me, “I had Trevor out here with the
shotgun, paid him fifty cents a crow, cost me nearly forty dollars by the time
he lost interest in it, and now I’m finding twice as many dead crows.”
Fifty cents a crow! A small
fortune. I could just see Stanwyck’s son, the smirking little Trevor, turning
his nose up at a plum job like that.
I looked back down at the
crow. Its claws were pointed up as if it were pleading with the heavens, and
its head was face down with its beak buried in the dust. No matter what old
Stanwyck thought, that bird had not died of fright. He kicked the bird off the
path with his shiny boot. Soon, after further unnecessary instructions, Mr.
Stanwyck left me to my work.
It’s funny, but I never much
hated a task like berry picking. My mind would be off in its own imagination
somewhere while I watched my hands, like they were on T.V., doing the work.
As I was picking, something
in the plants snagged my shirt sleeve. I pulled my arm back and whatever was
caught on my shirt came along with it. Suddenly, returning rudely from my day
dreams, I saw the talons of another dead crow were tangled in my sleeve.
Frantically I flapped my arm in front of me. The crow came loose and spun
slowly though the air, with its head lolling about sickeningly, and struck me
across the face. Its body felt greasy and oddly empty – like a husk. I spit on
the ground and staggered about wiping my face and mouth and my shirtsleeves.
I thought I heard a sharp
laugh behind me and I whirled bout. There was nobody there, just the charred
scarecrow hanging in the haze. I shuddered and looked back down at the crow.
Maggots crawled out of its open beak.
My hands were trembling as I
returned to my work. I was scared and jumpy. Several times, thinking I heard
something in back of me, I’d twirl around and find just the deserted patch, butterflies
fluttering in the sun.
I had worked my way towards
the center of the patch and had begun to settle down when I heard a sharp
cracking sound in back of me. At that instant I had a glimpse of a quick
motion. Before I could even turn around, a large crow fell from the sky and
landed at my feet. It spasmed and died, its head twisted at an unnatural angle.
Screaming, I jumped
backwards and the scarecrow grabbed me. He wrapped his legs around my chest
and, by bending his knees, pulled me up off the ground. He hooked one sooty arm
across my chest and with the other arm across my throat, he began squeezing. I
fought as best I could, kicking and digging my elbows into him, but it was no
use. My air was being squeezed out of me and I couldn’t draw any in.
Through my coarse shirt the
scarecrows body felt stiff and, like the crow that had earlier slapped across
my face, he felt strangely hollow. His leather face was alongside my head and
he whispered, “Listen punk, ya wanna live don’t cha? Ya help old scarecrow out
and I’ll let ya go.”
His grip momentarily
tightened and he went on, “…now punk, you promise to help and I won’t hurt ya
no more…understand?”
He loosened his grip a bit
more and I gave him a weak nod.
“Now is it a promise I hear
or do ya die up here in my little embrace?”
I croaked a little “yes,” I
would help him, and for an instant he tightened his grip. Things began to grow
dim for me, and suddenly I began to feel peaceful and really didn’t care
anymore.
He threw me to the ground.
I lay there on my belly,
vomiting in the dust.
From above me the scarecrow
taunted, “Kid, c’mon kid. I didn’t hurt ya THAT bad. Ya wanna see pain? I’ll
show ya pain...”
Then his voice became
smoother, more soothing, “I’m sorry if I hurt ya, kid. I didn’t mean ta – I
just wanted ta get your attention is all. Now, c’mon, roll over an talk to me
kid. Please?”
Slowly I rolled over onto my
elbows. I was lying in his shadow, he was dark against the sun. His motions
were jerky and he kept craning his head back, attempting to look behind
himself, around the burnt post that suspended him, trying, it seemed, to look
into the woods whish rose up like a wall beyond the berry patch.
“Now,” he said, “That’s
better. I really do enjoy your companionship. It has been quite some times
since I had any intelligent company around here. But, if you must know the
truth, I am in a bit of a hurry, and, although I hate to bring this up, and I
trust you will forgive me, there is the small matter of, as you recall, the promise
you so recently made to me?”
As he continued a crow
swooped low overhead. His arm shot up and, without interrupting his
conversation, he plucked the bird from the sky. Grasping it by its head, he
swiftly twirled the bird’s body through a quick circle. There was an abrupt and
stifled squawk followed by a sudden snap. He tossed the body back over his
shoulder in the direction of the woods.
“Do I need to remind you of
what happens to little boys who fail to keep their promises?” he asked. Again,
nervously, he craned his neck around to look at the woods. I heard him answer himself, under his breath,
“They end up being scarecrows.”
Several crows were now
circling about the trees and he grabbed another one that came within range.
Snaring the head he gave its body a quick twirl. He tossed its body aside.
“Listen,” he said, “I can
tell you’re a hard worker. You wouldn’t believe how hard I’ve been working. All day in this miserable heat, my back aches so
hanging here, the crows don’t rest and….” He hung his head a bit and sobbed a
little, “You wouldn’t believe the nights.”
More crows were joining the
others and he snatched two more from the sky, one with each hand. He cranked
them impatiently.
Stabbing a gloved fingertip
towards me he roared. “Listen punk, ya promised. Now get me offa this blasted
tree!”
I jumped to my feet and,
before I knew what I was doing, I began untwisting the wires and the staples
that held him to the post.
In between pulling crows
from the sky, he’d hook an arm back and point with a ragged glove, “There’s
something in back there, I just can’t..…reach. Hurry!”
Now the sound of caws was
filling the air as more crows were taking wing above the woods. Nervously the
scarecrow kept craning his head backwards over my shoulder as I worked behind
him. A fevered automaton, he was furiously snatching crows from the air, mechanically
wringing them, and tossing their bodies aside.
Finally I undid the last
clasp of wire and the scarecrow collapsed to the ground as if he were a pile of
rags. I was about to poke at him with my shoe when he sprang up like one of
those creepy marionettes on T.V.
“Thanks, punk.” He grated to
me and began brushing himself off in a kind of dignified way.
He stooped then and grabbing
my shirt he pulled me up close.
“Listen punk,” he hissed
into my face, and in the deep shadow of his straw hat I could see his eyes and
they looked like the clinker coals my brother and I used for eyes on the
snowmen we’d build, “Never trust a crow, they watch, they see and they keep accounts.”
By now the air was filled
with the cawing of thousands of crows. The scarecrow took off running then, in
long, loose, loping, strides – each footfall sending up a puff of dust – and as
he ran he kept right on plucking crows from the sky.
He looked back over his
shoulder, a frantic glance. I turned and, following his gaze towards the woods,
I saw an angry black mass of hundreds and thousands of crows boiling up into
the air.
At last he lost his footing
and pitched forward. Then he began to crawl on all fours, as the black crow
bodies festered over him. He shrieked and I began to run towards him. Something
lit on my shoulder. A large crow perched there. It dug its claws and cocked its
head. I looked into its beady eyes.
I saw everything in those eyes
and I’ve never seen so far. My way of seeing was forever changed then. And
although I’ve paid attention and peered closely into the eyes of many a crow
since, the vision has never been the same.
When I eventually looked
back at the scarecrow I saw only a frenzied mound of crows. He arched up once,
trembled and, finally, collapsed.
Mr. Stanwyck found me sitting
on my empty bucket in the center of his devastated berry patch. If I had been
older, or wiser, I would’ve kept my mouth shut, but I told him everything.
Naturally, he was furious.
He not only thought I was lying, but thought I was crazy besides. He made it
rough on me ever after. You see when you wear the mark of someone as powerful
as Mr. Stanwyck, in a small town like that, well, you can’t outlive it.
Mrs. Stanwyck was so
concerned about me she led the charge to help me out. Eventually they put me in a hospital with
lots of other kids. You should have heard some of the ideas those kids had!
When I got back home again
things were, of course, never the same. It seems an element of trust was
somehow lacking.
One thing did not change,
though. It seems that for all those years, no matter where I went, there’d be
crows watching. They are everywhere: in the distance, along the road, or outside
the window. And how they talk.
Even in the dead of winter,
when I’d be shoveling snow, I’d look up and see them on those naked branches,
right out in the teeth of the wind. How do they survive?
It came as no surprise to me
when they discovered the bodies. Mr.
Stanwyck and his simpering son Trevor, found one morning, in the cab of
Trevor’s new pickup.
Of course the sheriff wasn’t
convinced that so much brutal injury could be caused by just driving into a
flock of crows.
Although I can name dozens
who could’ve had a motive, it seems the obvious suspect was apprehended.
And I can still hear the
crows, even through the skimpy windows in the block. And I see them perched upon
the wall when they walk me in the yard.
The crows keep telling me to
wait and see. Just watch and take account. Soon I’m going to get my own jolt
and then, who knows, maybe I’ll end up in your own garden or berry patch.
The
End
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx
THE
COACH AND EDDIE SACHS
by
Jeffrey B. Smith
Off turn three and again the nauseating feel as
his car 's rear end did a deadly fandango. Struggling through four he now
sensed Foyt had gained and this time would make his attempt early in the straight.
Now Eddie could not afford to lift that fraction. They both were driving beyond
the limits of their machinery and nearly beyond the limits of human
endurance.
Joe realized his father was now staring at him.
He had been rubbing his sore cheek as he thought back on his school day. His father seemed to be detecting his son’s
troubled thoughts and Joe didn’t really want to confess his shame.
This Driver’s Education was a nice sideline.
Especially when you had a cute girl like Debbie here chauffeuring you about.
Her daddy was the Ford Dealer in town, Roger Kent, and she needed more time
behind the wheel about as much as she needed another 3 inches on her heels.
And those heels seemed to be her biggest challenge today, learning to
drive without getting them stuck under
the pedals. Well, Johnny couldn’t help her with that problem.
Johnny was having a good time. A beautiful day,
the girl seemed to think he was funny, and he was riding in a brand new car.
This was his last student of the afternoon and his new golf spikes were in at
Heenan’s Sporting Goods in St. Cloud.
He looked over at Debbie. “How many lessons do
you have left?” he asked.
She snapped her gum. “Only one, next Saturday
morning.” She made it sound sad and seemed to bat those long eyelashes a bit.
“Well,” he allowed, “I think you could use a
little cloverleaf experience. Let’s go to St. Cloud.”
He leaned back in the seat and tugged at his
collar. Man, he could use a smoke. He never lit up with a student in the car
though. Not only was it against the rules, it didn’t look good. Except when he
was with one of his athletes. Then he could use it as a pulpit from which he
could admonish the young man on some of the negative aspects of smoking: the
cost, the burned holes in clothing and furniture, how some people seemed to
think it smelled bad and how it could rob others of their wind. Naturally
Johnny had never witnessed a decline in his wind but he could see how it could
affect others, especially those who were not “athletically inclined.”
Maybe he could grab a quick puff in Heenan’s
while she waited in the car. He popped a nitro instead. Johnny looked at the
bottle. He thought maybe old Hennig, the pharmacist, had sold him a stale
batch. It was funny with these things, some of them just didn’t have the same
pop.
He did seem to be using more of them lately.
Maybe he should go back to that doctor in Minneapolis, that Cardiopedist or
whatever he was. Kind of a smarty pants. “John,” he had said, (And it bugged
Johnny whenever someone called him “John”. It made him feel like he was a
kid..) “You got to cut back on the smoking and lose some of that weight.
Exercise regularly and take the medicine and you can better your odds for a
long and happy life.’
Well,
Johnny thought, I take my medicine and I’m smoking these new, safer cigarettes.
(Even though you have to suck mightily on them, at least they are a 100
millimeters long. Finally found a use for that stupid metric system.) And I’ll
be getting plenty of exercise now that golf’s starting up again. He made a
mental note to use the golfcart less this season.
As they drove past the golf course they saw
Lenny Jaye raking a trap. Johnny hung out the window and waved, blowing his whistle.
Lenny paused, leaning on his rake he laughed and shook his head.
Joe knelt behind the car in the dark. He
shivered. Even though it was May it was still cold in the dark of the night. He
tried to calm his breathing down as he listened. He was winded, he had ditched
his dirtbike about a mile down the road and ran the rest of the way. Little did
he know that at that moment nearly every cop in the county was very actively
engaged in quelling a brawl at a bar in Bowlus. He had walked his bike a mile
or more from the farm before he started it, he’d have to repeat that when he
returned home, not to mention the fact that he had just ran the mile or so from
where his dirtbike was lying in the weeds. He sighed, he was going to have to
cover this same ground tomorrow on his bicycle. In about 5 hours from now. He
didn’t think he’d get much sleep tonight.
He poked his head up over the trunk. Nobody in
sight, just an empty parking lot in the pools of light from the blue security
lamps. He stood up and there was nothing to be heard save for the faraway wail
of a train’s horn somewhere, maybe
rumbling through distant Royalton. He was thankful the powers that be
had decided to build the new school out in the country. Sneaking through town
would’ve been too disorienting for someone accustomed to the nighttime sounds
of the country.
He moved
around to the front of the car and again looked in every direction. Popping the hood he looked inside, he peered
into the dark and then lit his flashlight.
But Joe again punched the gas and shot the car
towards the next curve. The curves would become tighter now as the road drained
down to the bridge. The coach turned to the kid and said, “All right, all right
kid, what do you want, huh? Look, I giv..” and suddenly it felt as if Haystack
Calhoun was standing on Johnny’s throat.
He tugged at his collar. Gasping and clutching
he reached in his pocket for the nitros. His pants were tight, he fumbled with
the seatbelt and forced it open. He tried to jam a hand down his pocket.
Joe was now sweeping the car through the turns,
collecting a bit of oversteer with a flick of the wheel, and then again
accelerating to the next turn. Johnny, fumbling, unscrewed the tiny brown
bottle as the car pitched and the tires
shrieked. Grasping and trembling. Johnny tilted the bottle.
“Look out!” screamed Joe, again amazing himself
at how convincing it sounded, and he jabbed at the brakes. Johnny leapt,
tossing the bottle in the air. Again Joe was mashing the gas and the car was
arcing towards the upcoming curve.
Johnny pinched at a few of the remaining
tablets that he still clutched in his hand and poked them into his mouth. The
tablets were already melting. His palms, in fact his entire body, was now clad
in a sheen of cold perspiration. In lunatic terror he thought: melts in your
hands not in your mouth. He didn’t have enough spit to work the tablets under
his tongue.
The Superintendent of Schools, Stanley
Blackburn, turned to Joe and spoke, “Well Joe, I guess you’ll have to fix it.
Better wait until after Wally drops by to take a few pictures for the paper.
He’s on his way.”
The superintendent sighed and shook his head
sadly, “I just can’t understand it. Every year we go through this. What kind of
a misfit could do such a thing? I’d think that
sooner or later whoever is responsible for this, this, this defacement
would tire of it… or just grow up.”
Joe looked up, following the superintendent’s gaze. Above them the
sign that proudly announced this place as being Johnny Bartz Memorial Field had
been vandalized. The “t” had been repainted in a very professional way . It had
been replaced with an “f”. Last year the “tz’ had been replaced with an “fy”.
Joe shrugged in an indifferent way.
The superintendent turned and looked at the man standing there beside
him. He laid a hand on Joe’s shoulder and said,
“You of all people, having to fix this every year, it must be terribly
difficult for you.”
“Yeah, it is.” Joe looked down.
“I promise you Joe, next year we’ll catch this
culprit and that’ll put an end to it.” But
that vow had been made before and the criminal had always evaded capture.
Joe watched as Mr. Blackburn walked back to his
Park Avenue. He got in and drove off. Joe looked back up at the violated sign.
He admired his handiwork. Sometimes he would change the “B” to an “F”. He
admitted that there was a deep vein to be mined when it came to Johnny Bartz.
Lately he had restricted himself to just
painting though. One year he had cut off the supports for the sign, using the
school’s own torch on a foggy May night, and had not fully appreciated the
tension building in the steel as it twisted. It released with a deafening
“twang” and one of the legs missed his head by less than a foot. He had burnt
up the sign once too, but these more radical efforts always resulted in more
work for himself, patching it up or welding it up or whatever. He never did
mind the repainting. Next year he might use electric lights, Christmas lights
or something.
Soon Old Karbo pulled up in his rusty Cavalier.
He got to his feet and began fiddling with the adjustments on his camera. “Cops
find any clues?” he asked Joe.
“Guess not.” Joe replied, taking off his cap
and scratching his head.
“Well,” Karbo said, squinting up at the sign,
“This year I can print a picture at least. Some years this clown gets too
racy.”
“I guess I’ll go and get the paint and stuff. ”
Joe muttered as he shuffled towards the school’s tractor. He was thinking: I
know just where it’s at too.
He climbed onto the seat of the Cub Cadet. It
was a hydrostatic drive, much to the chagrin of Joe. He longed for the straight
stick on the school’s old Simplicity
garden tractor. (As he had loathed the switch to an automatic on the schoolbus
he drove.) Joe was convinced that on the
old Simplicity he could cover the same
ground faster than he could with the new hydrostatic. To Joe an automatic just
had no soul. But Leo Von Raschke was on the schoolboard and he had insisted the
district be up to date on the latest technology and the best place to get that
new technology was on the Cub Cadet available at Von Raschke’s Implement.
Joe waved to Wally and fired up the tractor. He
headed back towards the district shop to get the ladder and paints from where
he had left them on Friday night. He pushed on the lever and slid the throttle
open wide.
The tractor pawed at the turf and sprang
forward. Joe grasped the wheel and steeled himself for battle. It was 1970
and the legendary Parnelli Jones was
thundering back onto the track after his last pit stop. His Boss Mustang was ragged, its body rendered and stove in
from the intense jousting it had endured that day. But its heart was still pure
and strong. A Championship was at stake and somewhere on that roadcourse Mark
Donahue was waiting in a battered AMX.
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I met his eye and nodded. It was the sort of
statement a big brother makes that is actually a command but feels more like a
mutual consent.
I wondered what his reasons were
for keeping this silent. At first I thought it was the typical fisherman’s coy
code of secrecy, an already forming plan for him to return to these waters for
another secret conquest. I also suspected that perhaps he wanted to keep this
incredible event quiet because nobody would believe it anyway and the telling
of it would make us look like fools.
I never got a chance to ask him his
reason. Within 3 months his flame would flicker out on a rice paddy in some
weirdly alien place called Viet Nam.
It was the last day of our annual
vacation at Higgin’s Resort, (now Norway Point) on Pelican Lake, the big Pelican
Lake, the one at Orr. Danny and I were fishing Dutchman style. At least Danny
was fishing; I was just running the motor and enjoying time spent alone with my
spit polished big brother.
I call it Dutchman style fishing
because I have observed that most of the practitioners of this style of fishing
were indeed “Hollanders”, specifically my entire extended family. I certainly
would never lay claim to this type of fishing as an ethnic domain. I am sure
many others employ it and I noticed the style would propagate through the
resort as those “Crazy Dutchmen” would be the only ones tying up to the dock in
the evening with full stringers. It was not uncommon to see furtive cane poles
leaning up against many other cabins by the end of the week.
I suppose it wasn’t the most
sporting type of fishing. Often a fish would be hauled in caught by the tail or
the back of the head. Really it was more like harvesting fish, but when you had
a limited budget, limited time, and seemingly unlimited mouths to feed, it was
effective.
The accoutrements were simple: A
long bamboo cane pole, 45 pound test braided line, a huge spoon or buck tail, a
stout gaff, and a heavy stringer. And, in case you hooked a monster: a ball
peen hammer and a gunnysack. A big muskie, or even a huge northern pike, was a
formidable adversary inside a small boat. I recall my father handing me the
burlap once as he was about to land a muskie on Leech, “Louie, you cover his
head up with that sack now. He’ll think he’s hiding and it’ll quiet him down a
good bit….then you hand me that ballpeen.”
Danny and I were trolling that day
at the usual pace, one that nearly causes that big spoon to plane. Suddenly I
sensed him tense up. He’d had a strike. Instead of reacting with a jerk, he
reacted with the kind of discipline necessary to this type of fishing: allowing
his pole to slide back towards the stern. Following his line of sight, I turned
my head to the side and saw the huge swirl on the surface. Then came a
burnished flash, down deep, like submerged lightening. Danny’s pole was nearly
pointed straight back alongside me as we waited. The Scott Atwater screwed us
forward inexorably.
I was about to turn for another
pass when his line snapped taut and his bamboo pole was bent acutely. Now here
is where the heroic part of this sort of fishing is manifested. Knowing full
well there is probably a once in a lifetime fish down there; it is extremely
difficult not to haul back on that cane. Stalwart as ever, my brother let it
go.
That pole shot out over the surface
like a cruise missile and we were off on our own version of the Nantucket
sleigh ride. We followed that pole up and down the north shoreline. Sometimes
the fish, having found a hitherto unknown deep spot, would dive leaving just a
few inches of the butt above the surface, rotating there quietly, alongside our
boat. Then it would tear off again and so would we in its wake, the pole
looking like some type of liberated compass needle, quivering on a heading of
its own. Twice that fish took the entire pole under. That is no small feat if
you have ever tried to keep one totally submerged lengthwise. We would wait in
quiet panic, holding our breaths, fearing we would lose it.
But it was a calm day, the kind of
sultry, brassy, August doldrum “that drives pike wild.” Had there been seas
that day we would’ve never heard the “ploop” the pole made as its end finally
surfaced, this time directly astern. I peered, with more than a little
apprehension, over the transom. Slowly, gracefully, the entire pole emerged and
floated there mutely.
I nodded at my brother and pointed
down. He deftly joined me at the stern and leaning over, he gently grasped the
pole. Indicating to me with a tilt of his head, I clambered forward, amidships,
and got things ready. I pulled out the sack, hooked the hammer through an
oarlock and I hefted the mighty gaff. I stood there poised, one foot on the
seat, like a mad freshwater Ahab, coiling, focusing on my thrust and silently
breathing to myself, “Don’t let me screw this up.”
Danny maneuvered the line up
alongside. I brought the gaff back a fraction. Then came the coppery flash
again. Oh my God it’s big. I hope it is entirely spent. Danny edged it closer,
slowly, easy now, get ready. I took a
deep breath, this was it.
“No!” Danny shouted. I nearly did a
full pirouette and he grabbed my shoulder, steadying me. He pointed, “Look!”
It wasn’t a fish. It was a man.
Clearly it was not a fish. Danny’s line had been cut, probably sawed off by the
pointed triangular teeth exposed in the thing’s slash of a mouth as it sneered
or smiled or grimaced up at us. He held the line in one tiny claw-like hand at
his side. It appeared as if some sort of membrane had fused his arms to the
trunk of his body. Likewise, his legs
were conjoined. His feet were unnaturally long and flat and flexible, as if
they had never borne the weight of gravity but instead had been melded by the
forces of hydrodynamics.
He undulated in the water there,
panting a bit, the edge of that wide mouth just above the surface. His head,
and so his face, was like the blade of an axe. Through adaptation and necessity
his eyes had migrated more to the sides of his head and his nose was pointed so
it could just crease the surface for his respiration. Save for wisps on his
elongated skull and random remnants on his chest and genitals, he was nearly
totally hairless.
With what seemed like disgust he
let go of the line. He floated there awhile, slowly arcing back and forth.
Danny and I were speechless.
His eye arrested me and I could not
break its spell. Large and flat, nearly entirely iris with very little white at
all, the pupil was widely dilated and it was fixed on me.
I have heard it said that a human
cannot look an animal directly in the eye because a beast has no soul. I have
always thought that perhaps the reason some cannot look an animal in the eye is
because they have no soul themselves. I routinely look my dog in the eye and in
it I can see mirth, impatience, anger, determination, fear, a wide range of
identifiable emotions. There is a spirit there, if not a soul.
But there is something else there.
It is a rift I see. It is a mutual awareness that between our total
understandings there lies a cleft that cannot be breached. It is the boundary
between man awareness and animal awareness.
No such divide existed here between
that fishboy and I. His gaze bore down upon me heavily, carrying an intensity
and a depth of understanding that felt like physical weight. It was a look of
contempt and rage and despair, and maybe most of all, in the end, it was a look
of longing.
Curling, he lifted his head totally
out of the water. He regarded us, and then, startling us both, he uttered the
most plaintive cry imaginable. Clearly human in origin, its timbre was such
that gooseflesh blossomed on my skin and a gasp erupted from my throat. It was
the sound of an infant, hungry or otherwise in need of its mother’s affection.
But it was also a cry wrought by long unused and unpracticed vocal instruments,
a keening rasp that still haunts.
He circled the boat once, paused,
inspired a long whistling draught of air through his extended nose and then he
dove like a dart for the depths, leaving a whirl, a swirling eddy on the placid
surface, a perfect vortex in his wake.
A person would think that having
borne witness to such events, a fellow might return to them and often ponder
their significance. I suppose I did at first, but the traumas inflicted by the
learning of my brother’s death have somehow intruded upon most of my memories
prior to his departure for the war. And no memories are so deeply affected as
those surrounding the times spent together with Daniel. Those times are
cherished keepsakes. Although rare and beautiful, sometimes looking directly at
them can smite the heart’s eye. The handling of such rarified elements can levy
a toll that is often too extravagant to afford.
Yet sometimes a memory can come
crashing to the surface unbidden, like a muskellunge from the deep arrowing
towards an innocent duckling bobbing in the sun.
So why tonight, at this late hour,
do I permit myself the sweet discomfort of recalling that event of 33 years
ago? Why do I sit here, on the eve of my uncle Gerritt’s funeral, looking at
this grainy photo in an old psychology textbook?
In my defense I can honestly say my
brother’s tragic death prohibited me from making the connection I stumbled upon
tonight, a connection that would seem so obvious to anyone else. It was my
uncle Gerritt’s death, and me laying there awake tonight trying to learn what
his life had to teach me, that caused me to bolt upright with a dawning
comprehension. This revelation would lead me to shuffle down here to the
basement, beneath a swinging bulb, to an old carton and this dusty volume.
I was making my way back to the
cabin one night concerned about my 10:30PM curfew. I hated to leave my
playmates behind at the campfire on the point, but showing contempt for the rules
would surely merit consequences.
“You know Leo,” my uncle was saying
in that nearly incessant whine of his, “I don’t mind if you like to spook the
kids a little with that myth about the baby crying at Shelter Island…and some
of that other stuff.”
He paused, and after a quick look
at his brothers, he then damned the torpedoes and sailed on, “That kind of tall
tale is all in good fun, I suppose. But
I don’t think telling our children about the dead whore they found drifting out
there in that boat years ago would be the sort of thing I’d want them to hear.”
Gerritt raised his chin and
sniffed, “The wages of sin is death, that’s what I say.”
Nodding in self-affirmation he again peered
over Leo’s shoulder at his big brothers, as if to seek some type of consensus.
But they had suddenly became intensely absorbed with the cleaning of fish, as
if they were extracting priceless pearls from those fillets. My father cleared
his throat. Uncle Gerritt was the kid brother, the only one who had moved to
the city, and he always made the kind of noise you didn’t want to hear.
I had known Leo for as long as I could
remember and it was true that sometimes he would join us at the campfire, with
a bottle of Hamm’s, and tell us tales. Some of them were real beauties too: the
Goat Girl and her pyrotechnic ways, The Baby crying at Shelter Island, and of
course the one about Leveque’s Hand still scooting around out there on the
bottom of the lake. That one always got the kids to look uneasily over their
shoulders, and sometimes I would swim all afternoon without putting my feet on
the bottom, much.
But the familiar twinkle had left
Leo’s eyes now and his mouth twisted down as if he had tasted something offal.
He exhaled a billow of smoke that hung in the humid air like a hive in front of
his face. He fanned at it and looked down at the cigarette with disdain, as if
he was surprised to see it there between his fingers.
His eyes locked on my uncle’s and I
was thinking, “Oh boy, he’s finally gonna get it now, come on Leo let him have
it, give it to him for not letting us swim for 2 precious hours after we eat.”
Uncle Gerritt shook his head again,
quickly.
On every continent folk tales have
been identified which support similar myths. Whether it is tigers in SE Asia,
leopards in West Africa, or jaguars in South America that perform the nurturing,
the appeal of these legends seems to be universal among primitive societies.
Why do you think it might be important for aboriginal cultures to construct
these”…… And so on.
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CHISAGO
COUNTY PRESS, 10/26/89
SCRIBE’S
CORNER, pg. 1 – B Section
On
The Ice
by Jeffrey B. Smith
Leroy had felt like this,
exactly like this, once before. Though that was nearly 45 years ago and he
(deliberately) had not thought about it much since then, he was feeling the
same way now.
That time long ago, he’d
been lying in a foxhole in Germany. Like now it had been dark as death and just
as silent. And like now he’d had an overpowering urge to bolt -– to just flat-
out light–out. He had kept that desire at bay, 45 years ago, and morning had
come.
That is just what he
intended to do now. Wait it out. Morning will come, and there was no way he was
going to go out there on the ice tonight. Because, like in Germany, he sensed
there was nowhere to run – except to a certain death. At least now he was in
familiar, even comfortable, surroundings.
Again he stood up and
scratched a hole in the frost on the window pane. He squinted through towards
where Charlie had been fishing. Nothing had changed. Charlie’s lantern stood
there faithfully, still set upon an overturned bucket and still casting a
yellow circle on the ice. The other bucket, the one Charlie had been sitting
on, was still waiting for Charlie’s return.
But maybe something had
changed. The lantern’s light seemed to be diminishing, as if it were slowly
being strangled by the dark. And he could no longer discern that shape he had
seen before. It had been out there on the ice just beyond the fringe of lantern
light. Leroy had desperately attempted to explain that shape to himself, tried
to account for it somehow, but it was useless. And he refused to honor his
suspicions.
He put his cheek to the
glass, trying to see the shoreline. No lights.
Even out here, six miles on these mudflats, one could easily see the
highway traffic and lights on shore Now
there wasn’t a trace of even that big strobe beacon at Tiny’s where they
drove on. Even through crummy weather you cold see that baby. It reminded Leroy
of someone taking flashbulb pictures over and over again. It left stains on you
eyeballs if you looked at it directly and, he thought, it made the people
leaving the tavern, or just walking across the parking lot, look like they were
in one of those old-time flickery movies.
He craned a look up at the
sky and the stars were blotted out too. It was crystal clear when they had
driven on. It was like a huge dark fist was slowly clenching about him.
He looked towards Charlie’s
spot. Charlie rarely surrendered to the comforts of Leroy’s fishhouse. Only the
most adverse conditions could drive Charlie inside. And there were few nights
that would keep the two of them off the lake. Their movements were closely monitored
by other fisherman and, in some circles, Leroy and Charlie enjoyed an almost legendary
status.
A splintering crack came
slicing in from the far distance. One of those rending shifts in the living ice
that bear rifle out of the distance high pitched and then thunder by like a
hell-bound train. The kind that gives first-time fishermen the bug-eyed jitters
out here on the big lake. It ripped by Leroy’s fishhouse shattering and
receding into the silent stretches of that trackless slab.
“You old fool,” Leroy
muttered to himself.
He sat down heavily upon his
own upturned bucket and, from years of habit, scanned his lines. “No!” he
gasped. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly and clenched his fists upon his
thighs. He was NOT going to look down there again.
Really he had no lines left
to check. One line was a tangled mess at his feet. It had remained that way
since his last fish. A big eelpout, that one. He was finessing the hook out
when Jupe went crazy on him. Leroy always fiddled with hook removal, even on
the eelpouts, which had an inimitable way of swallowing a hook to the depths of
their loathsome souls.
Charlie, on the other hand,
had a different method. He’s step one boot on the fish’s tail while pulling on
the line. The, with his other huge sorrel, he’d stomp mightily upon the
midsection of the fish and his hook would appear (Along with just about
everything else that was inside the fish) on the ice.
“The oooonly way to fly!”
was his patented refrain after this maneuver, and Leroy would keep a secret
record of Charlie’s action by that familiar jingle.
Well, Jupe had gone crazy,
barking and feverishly scratching at the door while Leroy fumbled with that
disgusting eelpout. When he had freed his hook, he booted the door open and
Jupe charged out on the ice. He had looked over at Charlie’s spot and was about
to belt out his standard line, “Stackin’ ‘em up like cordwood!” (Indeed, there
was truth to that statement. If an aerial spy photograph could be taken of any
area the two of them had been working, it would reveal a patch of ice littered
with the remains of discarded rough fish fanning out in spokes from the holes
they had used.)
Leroy’s words had caught in
his throat, however. Charlie had vanished but it’s what happened to Jupe that
left Leroy mute. Old Jupe had shrieked, there was a crushing, crunching thump
and then all was silence and dark.
Leroy had turned in Jupe’s
direction but, except for this own shadow in the pale square of light spilling
through the open doorway, there was
nothing to be seen. Transfixed, eyes wide, ears ringing, he had stood there,
nostrils flaring tiny clouds of vapor into the still air.
The eelpout, still in his
grip, writhed suddenly and Leroy looked down at it with horror, as if it were
something that had materialized in his hand from some foreign and bizarre
dimension. He threw it down and retreated into the fishhouse.
Then too he had looked
automatically at the remaining line. He watched as the float toppled onto its
side like a felled redwood. When he later braved an inspection, he found the
line had been severed at a point just below the foot of the hole, at the bottom
level of the ice. He then had managed a look down into the hole and, even
though it was just a glance, he saw an ominous reddish glow down in the depths
below.
For a while he called for
both Charlie and Jupe. At first he felt slightly self-conscious of his own
voice hollering like a kid for his ma Then he began sounding more desperate and
helpless, so he quit.
He couldn’t guess how long
ago that had been. He leaned back against the damp wall. He needed to relax a
little. He had light, he had a full pig of gas out there and he was warm. He could
wait it out.
The walleye in the pail
below him gave one final flop. Leroy shot to his feet. Realizing the walleye,
he dropped back down to the bucket. Icy drops of sweat trickled down his sides,
so cold it made Leroy jump again. His heart was slamming against his chest.
After his breathing had
nearly returned to normal he heard a small tinkling sound form his fishing
hole. A thin, filamentary wire was poking through the skin of ice that was
forming on the surface. IT telescoped upwards for several inches and paused.
Leroy’s stove sputtered and went out.
A fish house gets cold very
quickly. After all, it’s just a plywood shack perched on an immense ice cube.
Instantly Leroy was on his knees fumbling with the valve and his lighter. He
couldn’t produce even a spark. He snatched at the wooden matches and they wouldn’t
light either. It didn’t matter much now anyway because the flow of gas had
dwindled to nothing.
He would have to make a run
for the pick-up. He stood and scratched at the frost on the window again. No
trace of Charlie’s lantern now; all was dark. The candles were flickering. He
reached for his choppers as the candles fizzled out. He grabbed his heavy steel
chisel instead. It was becoming noticeably colder in there now. Leroy paused at
the door.
“That’s it!’ he said and he
crashed thorough the door. He made about thee strides and they were on him,
encircling him. He could see them illuminated by the dim red glow leaking
though the ice. Their mouths moved with that same stupid rhythmic motion Leroy
had always despised. The largest one, their leader, was bigger than Leroy and clearly
a powerful creature. It was addressing Leroy.
It’s words formed in Leroy’s
mind and were delivered in Leroy’s very own voice. “We’ve been waiting, Leroy,”
it said, “We’ve been waiting to get you out on the ice.”
As Leroy went down something
else crossed his mind. Although this is not the exact thought it was roughly
the equivalent of, “Invasion of the Enemy Eelpouts?”
The next morning Runty found
their stiff bodies out there on the ice. A frozen geyser of viscera had jetted
out form the gaping , dislocated jaws of Leroy, Charlie and Jupiter.
Runty had come to plow the
road, a ritual he compulsively performed daily. He was one of Tiny’s sons. He
was “the simple one.” Although he would never qualify for a driver’s license,
he was a regular demon with a snowplow. He single handedly kept the resort and
its miles of toll roads on the lake open. Sometimes he’d have roads out there
that were four lanes wide. If the ice was right, and you wanted to, you could
dive 80 miles per hour on one of his thoroughfares.
That particular morning,
Runty told the deputy, “Looked like somethin’ stomped on ‘em.”
The End
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PUBLSHISHED
IN THE CHSIAGO COUNTY PRESS/June 9, 1988
SCRIBE’S
CORNER, page 3
The
One in the Woods
By JEFFREY B. SMITH
Already too may years ago, I
worked as an orderly in my hometown hospital. One morning I was delegated,
probably by some relieved and reprieved R.N., the duty of sanitizing an old
bachelor who had been brought in by the ambulance. (Mine was not a coveted task.
Once I pulled a similar hermit’s boot off and major portions of his gangrenous
toes and foot came with it. The stench was truly wretched.)
The old man, on this
particular morning, was in pretty bad shape. Not only was he suffering from
exposure, he was feverish, combative and his hygiene left a lot to be desired.
He also had two curiously parallel cuts, quite purulent, streaking across his
frail chest and abdomen.
First, I should explain a
bit about his region where the old man lived. It’s a genuine wilderness that
stretches, more of less, from southwest of Onamia near Hillman, eastwards
around the great lake Mille Lacs and the sweeps into a broad arc that nearly
reaches to Duluth. Sure there are few
miserable towns here and the, but except for a railroad track or two, a few
lonesome highways and maybe some tentative township roads, there’s nothing much
worthwhile up there.
Also this area seems,
judging from the patients we had, to have a disproportionate number of odd
characters eking out existences there.
For example, there was one
lady who was unquestionably psychotic. She would give detailed descriptions of
unfathomably unappealing events, such as canning summertime suckers, and then,
without warning, would break into the most moving Shakespearean soliloquy.
Quite unique. Meanwhile, her husband would be out in the parking lot stealing
employee block heater extension cords.
And there was one old man
who spoke with a great deal of authority and familiarity about Louis Sullivan
and Frank Lloyd Wright and yet, lived in an abandoned camper.
There was also, in that
area, squalid intermarried and incestuous families. Every once in awhile on
Main Street, you’d catch a glimpse of grim and pathetic mutant children packed
into again station wagons, peering out like overwrought aliens in derelict and
dilapidated spaceships. Disturbing, but tolerated – I guess it as just out of
everyone’s jurisdiction.
So it seemed that this area
was a sanctuary for those who were uncomfortable with the mainstream. Or
perhaps it was the other way around. At any rate, I was about to find out that
other things, not just eccentric or unacceptable people, found refuge out there
as well.
As I dabbed at he old man’s
wounds, I asked how he got them. Since he had been distant and mute, I was
surprised when this brought a response.
“The Mutamar,” he hissed.
“the what?” I asked,
stunned.
He became impatient, “The
Clacker! The Clacker!” He repeated urgently and then began opposing grubby and neglected
fingernail against his thumbnails, forcefully and frantically, CLICK, CLICK,
CLICK, CLICK, CLICK, CLICK.
The old man would say no
more, end even though I suspected he was disoriented, I was real interested. I
had consumed and catalogued many stories like it in the past.
Like the guy who once told
me of how a blue light hung and hovered below the railway trestle while he was
spearing pike at the river dam one night.
Or the time two different
and distinct fishermen, in the span of about two weeks, told me they would
never again venture out upon Mayhew Lake. Thy both mentioned “swirls and
things,” but their troubled expressions led me to think that this was more than
unexplained currents.
I have driven by Mayhew Lake
several times since and I admit I can’t ever quite get a clear view of it.
True, the roads are a distance from the lake, but there’s something about that
lake that’s unyielding; no matter what the weather conditions or the time of
day, its surface remains curiously impenetrable.
The next day, I went in to
see the old man again. I asked about “the creature” and he became quite
agitated.
“Little mind,” he sneered,
and stabbing a shaky finger towards me shrieked, “A foolish consistency, that’s
the Hobgoblin!” gobs of spit hung on his quivering jaw.
With that he curled up and turned
himself, slowly and painfully, towards the wall. He as chilling badly and I
noticed that his wounds were already necrotic, putrefied mounds of suppurating
flesh. I will always regret my juvenile invasion of his privacy – a shameful
intrusion. He died that night.
One November night, several
years later, my wife and I would make a visit to her sister. My sister-in-law
lived up in Onamia with her man, Ron. We brought our new baby along for their
approval.
After a largely obligatory
endorsement of our child, Ron began heading me towards the porch. He was always
restless around the house and had, clearly, other plans for the night. After
mumbling something about “checking our deer hunting spots,” we were headed for
the door.
We left them there adoring my
kid. I felt sheepish though, something to do with the knowing looks from the
women. See, we all knew what chaotic twists a night out with Ron could take.
None of us, however, could’ve imagined the twists this night held in store for
Ron and I.
Ron had himself a big V-8
Cherokee. He used it for “cash jobs,” like plowing snow. It sported a menacing
looking brush bar on the front, full time four wheel drive and huge all terrain
tires. Truly a righteous piece of American iron.
As we cruised out of the
cruelly intimate Onamia city limits, Ron hooked a big arm behind my seat and
snagged a twelve-pack of Red White and Blue up between us. So it would be a
night of “road drinkin’. At least we would be patriotic about it.”
The Marshall Tucker Band as
chugging on the 8-track and the twelve pack was half gone when we rumbled past
Koski’s Store. The fluorescents were still on in the store and the neons were
lit in the tavern. A row of used farm implements and a gas pump separated the
place from the blacktop. A few pickups and a flatbed were out front.
Koski’s Store always loomed
larger than life in my consciousness. A frontier outpost, a mythical place
where we heard, as children, that kids our own age drove around in pickups and,
rumor had it, around July Fourth you could buy fireworks. Later we’d hear that
juveniles, again our own age, could by beer there.
We had inflicted damage on
the remainder of that twelve-pack by the time we reached an area remote enough
to hold the promise of “deer sign.” I suspected this would probably mean
looking for the reflections of deer eyes in our headlights. This would then
somehow correlate with the number of deer available to be blasted to death on
some frigid morning later in the month.
Ron wheeled into a little
road, no more than a trail. It appeared to be an old logging trail, an outfit
form Milaca sporadically logged these regions, and soon we were scrambling over
branches, rocks and piles of slash.
He as getting into it too.
All pursuit of deer has now evaporated in the light of “doin’ some
four-wheelin’.” He was downshifting and lurching over what seemed to me,
insurmountable obstacles.
We were beyond the edge of
the logged area and gradually were arcing back towards it, when we heard the
unmistakable screech of a blowout. Our progress became instantly more strained
and we ground to a halt.
As you may have suspected,
Ron as an abusive guy. He was abuse to his equipment, his body, I suspect my
sister-in-law and most of al, to the English language. I always considered my
speech profane and usually felt quite accomplished in the swearing arena, but
Ron could often leave me humble.
Continued on page 4.
His
permutations and juxtapositions were beyond profanity. He had it propelled beyond
a science, beyond an art, you might say
he had plumbed an entirely new dimension.
With just such an original
oath, he fished a feeble flashlight out of the glove box and slid the lug
wrench out from under his seat. (I hate to even speculate just why he kept it there.)
The left rear hub had a jagged log spiked into it. The log, in turn, was jammed
against a couple of trees. The valve stem was mashed into oblivion. He
commandeered a hatchet, (I think he kept most of his possession in that truck0,
and began hacking away at the log.
I occupied myself with lowering
the spare, blindly. It’s dark up there in the woods on an overcast November
night. Beside no glow from the Twin Cities contaminating the sky, there’s also
no intrusion from those obscene blue yard lights. (“SECURITY LIGHTS” I head Ron
scoff once, “Best thing ever invented. You can see just what you want to rip
off. Hell, you can practically waltz right up to the gas barrel. And, it they
do come out, YOU can see THEM.”)
I lowered the pare and with
great difficulty, got the jack set and began hosing the vehicle into the air.
Ron slid off the flat and I lugged the spare over to him.
“Listen,” he whispered
hoarsely. In the frail light I could see his hands were trembling.
“I got a real bad feeling,”
he stammered and dropped the lug nuts.
“What are you talking ab-,”
but he cut me off. “Shut up! Listen!” he demanded.
I did.
It was still, not a whisper
of sound. It was as silent s ever could be conceived. A total and omnipresent
quiet. With it came to me an overpowering sense of dread. A crippling promise
of impending doo. There was no denying that we were on the brink of something.
Something dire.
“Let’s get that wheel on,” I
said, surprised at my own control.
Ron squatted down and lofted
the wheel onto the hub – a wheel that I could barely drag over to him – as I
groped around in the grass for the lug nuts. I think that’s when it began.
CLACK…CLACK…CLACK. It began
loudly and it remained at that same steady volume. And it was close too.
Then I realized, then I
knew.
“Ron, put those on! Quick,
I’ll hold the light.”
CLACK…CLACK…CLACK…CLACK.
I don’t think it was big,
maybe about as big as your mother. But it had mass, density, inertia…whatever
physicists want to call it. And what it lacked in size it made up for in
intensity. A pure undiluted aura of menace it projected, a complete
encompassing malevolence and rancor. Ron dropped the first nut I handed him and
he began fumbling in the dark for it.
“Here!” I passed him
another.
CALCK…CLACK…CLACK…CLACK.
It was not moving fast, but
its progress was undeniable. Brush and trees and branches were crackling as if
a locomotive was bearing down upon us in the woods. Its motion, not dramatic,
was inexorable. Relentless. Ron was fiddling with the tire iron.
“Finger ‘em!” I yelled and
poked another nut at him. I was doing a poor job at holding the light steady.
Watch
for the conclusion of “The One in the Woods” next week in Scribe’s Corner.
PUBLSHISHED
IN THE CHSIAGEO COUNTY PRESS/June 16, 1988
SCRIBE’S
CORNER, page 3
The
One in the Woods
By JEFFREY B. SMITH
Part II
of a two-part story.
Now the sound that was
really terrifying me was not coming from the atrocity in the woods behind us,
but instead, it was coming from Ron. He wasn’t really crying or whimpering. It
was more like bawling sobs with each rapid exhalation. It was a piriful and
tragic sound and ultimately more disquieting that the sound in the woods.
CLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACK.
It was deafening now.
We had three nuts fingered
onto the lugs and the behind us sounded like some crazed Geiger counter
approaching ground zero.
“Drive!”
I screamed and dropped the light. By the time I reached my door he had that V-8
fired up. Before I was in my seat, he was lunging the Jeep forward. It came off
the jack and there was a sickeningly shrill screech. I had my door shut but could
not get settled in my seat, the truck was pitching madly. I managed one last
look back and saw the flashlight shining up towards the branches and then
something dark blocked it from my view.
Now it was Ron’s time to
shine and it was a virtuoso performance. Craning forward over the steering
wheel, elbows out and jacking fiercely back and forth at the wheel, nearly braining me with the lug wrench he was still clutching. He dropped it with his
first upshift.
He punched a hole in that
crummy woods. By sheer dead reckoning, he somehow had us back on the trail.
Outrageous shuddering, opposite-lock powerslides and then, with full throttle
blast-offs, our headlights would be illuminating naked branches against a night
sky, this would be followed by full windshield vies of the ground coming up to
meet us. I swear I could see every pebble.
Like the tools, the tapes,
the empties and everything else that wasn’t bolted down, I was crashing about
that cabin. Once, after I had myself
strapped in, I witnessed my feet doing a mad fandango under the dash, totally
beyond my control.
Finally, with a series of
elegant fishtails, we were thundering down the township road. Bellowing into the
night, we’d swing through country crossroads and he’d be heel and toe braking,
downshifting and blipping the gas like he was driving a Countach.
I’ve seen, and taken part in
some great drives, but this display will always be outstanding It was powerful and
yet sensitive, majestic, awesome and inspired. It made me want to cheer and
weep. It was epic. I hope those who appreciate opera, ballet, or any form of
human achievement, may have just such a performance to cherish. The ride alone
would’ve made that night remarkable and we weren’t even done with the night –
yet.
When we made the county road
he stopped. Grabbing the lug wrench he said, “Gotta tighten those lugs.”
I joined him back here.
Given all the jouncing, all the adrenalin, and not to mention, all the beer, I
felt a powerful need for a different relief. He joined mat the roadside.
As we stood there by the
ditch he said, “It was real…wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, it was real.” I
agreed.
“The we both know it,” he
said, “and let’s not go telling anyone about this. I don’t think no one will
believe us and those that would, why hell, they won’t be the kinda folks we
want to hang around with anyway.”
I had to admit he was right.
Already, in my mind, I had begun organizing expeditions and preparing interview
but now, after hearing Ron, I began to picture those sleazy tabloids at the
check-out with their headline blaring things like, “I saw Elvis on a U.F. O.!”
or “We Feed Bigfoot!” – I decided to keep my mouth shut. Besides, Ron lived up
there.
Ron began to grieve for his
lost “spoker” wheel. He lamented the passing of the flashlight, hatchet, and
the jack especially, and vowed to retrieve them “come hunting season.”
We started back towards the
Jeep when he stopped, pointing to the tailgate he whined, “Look at that, would
ya?”
Two parallel scratches dug
across the end gate. Beginning near the center of the window, they swiped down
towards the bumper below the left rear tail light, they even etched into the
glass.
We had come that close.
“Geez, now I gotta get that
fixed too,“ he grumbled. Ron was
beginning to get annoyed.
We wheeled into the parking
log at Koski’s. A pickup and the flatbed remained. Silently we sat down at the
bar. The darkened store was through a big doorway to our right. I could see
murky rows of canned good, a row of boots on the floor and lined up like
terracotta soldiers, a rack of overalls. The air was stale, with a damp
subliminal Copenhagen undercurrent. The floor squeaked when anyone moved and an
A.M. radio was crackling out tinny polkas, trying desperately to pick up the
signal from Little Falls.
“Two beers please.” My voice
sounded distant, disconnected.
Koski brought the beer and
Ron stopped him.
“C’mon, don’t you got
anything stronger than this?” Ron smiled reassuringly and tossed a crumpled ten
on the bar. He had a peculiar talent for perceiving these things.
Koski eyed us for a few
seconds, shrugged and reached under the bar. He set a nearly-full fifth of Old
Log Cabin in front of us. He then snatched up the ten, stuffed in into his
shirt pocket, turned and went to rejoin he friend at the end of the bar. He snapped
off that irksome radio as he walked by it, the station was signing off in a
sheet of static.
“Looks like we’re havin’
pancakes tonight,” he muttered into my ear.
We drained the beers and
silently began drinking the warm Log Cabin from beer glasses. We stared at the
back bar with it’s rows of Unbreakable Combs, greasy Slim Jims, unfortunate
Blind Robins and the undisputed champion of barroom cuisine: Pickled Turkey gizzards.
In barroom wagers I’ve eaten
them; rubbery goiters bobbing in a bilious broth. (Come to think of it, barroom
wagers must constitute the majority of their sales.) They remind me of that
unlucky calf fetus in the jar at the back of Biology Class. You can almost catch
faint whiff of formaldehyde.
I had, for an instant, the
image of the toothless woman conspiratorially sharing with me her secret recipe
for canned suckers. I shuddered
A blazer pulled up at the
gas pump. The driver came In to pay for the gas.
“Hey Buck!” he said to
Koski, loud enough for everyone to hear, “Guess what, I just saw, a bear at the 4-H wayside! A good one too.”
Without missing a beat, in a
move that was pure Ron, he blurted, “Huh, you shoulda seen what we just seen
back there in the woods.”
I was stunned but had no time to respond because that big guy in the corner
was on his feet and snarling, “Why don’t you mind your own business…hippie?”
This guy was big malicious
looking brute. Imagine a hayseed, hirsute, maniacal Merlin Olson run amok.
Ron tensed and slowly and
deliberately turned around on his stool. He got to his feet and faced the man,
I noticed he was holding on to the bottle -
he never let go of the bottle when he was drinking in public.
Calm, almost serene, came
his reply, “I’ll decide just what business is……Hillbilly.”
Again silence. Again a
feeling of impending doom. A quiet with the peace. A stillness that promised
only damage.
Well. Blazer, he took a step
backwards, I was aware of Buck Koski slowly slipping his hand below the bar
while he began to edge towards the cash register The two men faced each other.
It seemed as if giant unseen levers were ratcheting already straining coils
inside each man and the next notch would explode the overwound mechanism,
releasing a fast reservoir of violent destructive energies.
Then came a sound. Not the
sound of destruction, but the sound of… salvation. A booming, clapped-out Chevy
Nova came slewing into he parking lot. The unmistakable thud of Deep Purple
could clearly be heard, sound to me, at that time, more like “Amazing Grace.”
I seized upon the minor
distraction. “Mister,” I began, my voice way to shrill, “I promise you that my
friend here and me didn’t see anything tonight and….if we did, I guarantee that
we have forgotten it.”
I didn’t know what he was
trying to hide; maybe a still, or a chop shop, or perhaps a pile of deer
carcasses whose previous inhabitants were now employed in someone’s “Homestyle
Sausage” at the local markets. Whatever it was, I felt it just couldn’t justify
consummating these preliminaries.
I continued, “I’ll be happy to buy a round if
we can just forge tit.”
Buck Koski slapped the bar,
“There’s a winner!” he beamed, hopefully. He began to filling a pitcher for the
big man.
Blazer mumbled something and
sidled out the door. Slopping beer over the sides, Koski brought he pitcher
over and set it on the guy’s table. The big man grunted and slumped down in his
chair.
The punks form the Nova, two scruffy guys and a forlorn, mousy
looking girl, came swaggering in.
“Hey, this guy’s buying
around!’ buck hollered to them They nodded vaguely at me and laid claim to a
freebee. That’s a pretty cut-rate way of
selling a few beers I though as I paid up.
We hung out there a respectable
amount of time, but I wanted to get out. Ron was visibly irritable. The punks
were slamming out a too-noisy game of pool and Merlin Olson, over there in the
corner, seemed uneasy. Finally, Ron grabbed the bottle and said, “Let’s go.” We
did.
As I climbed in to the Jeep
he said, “Hold on a minute,” and grabbed the lug wrench. Again a sinking feeling,
but he just squatted beside the Nova. Soon he tossed three lug nuts in to me
and started up the Jeep. He backed out and stopped behind the Nova.
“I forgot!” he slapped the
wheel, “I need a jack.” Leaving the engine idling and his door open, he stooped
over the Nova. He jammed the tire iron into the trunk and began prying
mightily. With a n abbreviated groan ad s shower of rust, the trunk yielded and
sprung open. He rummaged around for awhile and fished out a jack, a chain, and
a star wrench. He tossed them behind his seat and climbed in.
“Dirty hick bumpkins,” he
growled and we tore out of there.
Yeah, Ron could be pretty
disgusting. A redneck you might say. But it was just that antisocial flair that
made him interesting to be around, infrequently. We had some laughs.
We saw each other a few
times since that night, but never discussed it much. He never did repaint that
scratch on the tailgate and I was happy about that. He did replace the spoker
wheel, it never did match the others and I never asked why he didn’t retrieve
the original. He decided to go hunting down a Dalbo that year, something about
“corn fed deer,” as I recall.
Anyway, he “lit out” eventually,
in the direction of Gillette, I believe. Never heard form him again and, unless
he makes some sort of astounding conversion, I’m confident that I never will. I
hope he can find a refuge, somewhere, that can be comfortable with his
particular eccentricities.
So I do feel some guilt when
I read, or hear about someone, perhaps a hunter, disappearing or being lost up
there. I tell myself that strange things
can happen when you are off your stomping grounds. Although official
explanations claim the victim was unfamiliar with the region or inexperienced,
I suspect otherwise.
I also suspect something
else. Something that’s been nagging at me since that night. I believe that big
grizzled man at Koski’s was guarding more than just an illicit backwoods enterprise.
Call it coincidence, but I think it’s
thicker. You see that night, after the confrontation, he was edgy. And he had a particularly vexing habit of clicking his nail against the table.
The End
Jeffrey
B. Smith, 33, has lived in the Chisago Lakes Area for 10 years and currently
resides in Chisago City. He enjoys, ‘Hearing and telling stories, rock and roll
and above all, my wife, my son and my daughter.”
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CHISAGO
COUNTY PRESS
B
Section, page 1 – Thursday, October 27, 1988
The
Shafer Slosher
By JEFFREY B. SMITH
I had always wanted to
believe in ghosts. I’d enjoy hearing people tell of their experiences with
haunted houses, ghosts or even U.F.O.’s. But no matter how good the story, I’d
end up skeptical because of the storytellers themselves. They always seemed a
bit wigged-out, you know?
However, I now am certain
that perfectly sane people have experienced ‘unexplained phenomena.” It’s just
that we don’t like touting it around to the guys in the car pool or the crowd
at the tavern. To dwell on these experiences too much would invite doubt about
that very sanity. You see, for me, it wad a deep and intense personal
experience. It shook me and changed my perception of reality, and the
perception of myself.
Back in my hippie day I
rented a run-down farmhouse out there near Shafer. I waned a place where I
could raise some plants, play my guitars (loud) and generally do what I please.
It lasted about four days.
Back in my hippie days I
rented a run down farm house out there near Shafer. I wanted a place where I
could raise some plants, play my records (loud) and generally do what I
pleased. It lasted about 4 days.
One night, after working the
second shift at the plant, I settled into my chair for some late night T.V.
Before I had cracked open my beer I heard something upstairs. Although I had
been alone up there a few minutes before there was no denying that someone, or
something, was there now. A slow gritty, dusty kind of scraping sound was
coming from up there. As if a scaly
something of considerable bulk was sliding along the floor. The sound stopped
only to be followed by the familiar squeak of the bathtub taps being slowly
opened and then, the rush of water.
Maybe I should’ve run but I
was rooted. I sat rigid in my chair, my blind gaze was fixed on the T.V. but
all my senses were trained upon the sounds above my head. I would not leave the
familiar comfort of my chair to run out into the night. Nor was there any way I
would go up there and pull on that light.
The water kept running and
soon I could hear slapping-like splashing in the tub. As if something with
fins, or flippers, was beginning to frolic up there. Occasionally I’d hear
loud, large waves of water slop onto the floor. The slippery squeak of flesh
contacting the tub surface was followed by a gush of water spraying down above
me, as if something was wallowing in my tub. These deluges would be
interspersed with periods of gentle, rhythmic wave-like sloshing. And above all
this there were gross, sloppy, slobbering snorts and snuffles as if a giant
snorkel was siphoning.
Well, I never saw the author
of those sounds. I did not move from my chair. Not even when the water began
cascading down the steps and my socks became wet. Not even when my body was
shaking uncontrollably – and it wasn’t from the chill. No, I vaguely recall
ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS concluding to be followed by an old movie, something
about John Forsythe in a T.V. studio, I think. Then came a scratchy rendition
of THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER flowed by a shrill test pattern. Then an eternity
of static broken, finally, by that test pattern, and again, that pathetic version
of the national anthem. I didn’t even move when a goateed professor attempted
to teach me Latin. (That should’ve made anyone move out.) No, even though the
noises stopped towards morning, I didn’t get up until it was broad daylight and
High Downs was conducting CONCENTRATION. I stood right up and walked out to the
mailbox. My hand was aching, I looked down, my unopened beer can was dimpled
form my fingertips.
Well, I loaded up all mu
possessions, except for what I left in the bathroom, (I never even looked in
there – not even out of the corner of my eye.) and was out of there by sundown.
Walked right out on tow months rent.
I moved in with a buddy in
his trailer near Almelund – until his old lady kicked me out. It was nice to be
able to explain all the nighttime sounds I heard there in his trailer.
All in all, I’m proud of
myself. I sleep well. I’m not afraid of the dark. I don’t agonize over that
night. I accept it as just another unexplainable event in a lifetime that is
rarely defined by logic.
And
yet, when I come home at night from those rare second shifts and I shower
before bed, I still hesitate before sliding that shower curtain back.
The End
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