"Git off 'im! Stay Back!"
Monday, August 13Ð
10:10 a.m.-
The bridge deck was in a continuous sideways topple, bringing forth vertigo. I was falling with it. Hundreds of feet below the Kettle River was waiting to receive me, languidly low, muddy sandbars smooth above the unruffled surface, murky shallows free of debris. The sun hit hard white, echoing off a swampy backwater. EZ laid where I'd asked her to, lolling across two railroad ties, back on solid ground.
I had driven past this trestle every time I entered or exited Sandstone. A quarter mile upstream it can be seen, impossibly high above the river, held up on spindly stilts disappearing down into forested rocky places. I'd seen this railroad bridge in early 1900's photos of the Sandstone quarry, looking much the same as now. A dangerous construction, abandoned and left to molder, luring brave teenagers to explore its peril.
I wanted to explore it, find where it began and ended at the east or the west.
East of the river and up out of the valley a gravel road heads north, parallel to the river, possibly past the old railroad grade, so I drove down there. No. The gravel ended at a hay field. An overgrown grassy path continued on, but sign postings requested I not trespass.
Turn around and seek out the west end from the neighborhood in town, along the forested quarry bluffs at the west side of the river. A street ends at a water tower and what once was a suggestion of park; a small iron frame fashioned for a pair of swings holds only one rusty chain. Deep shade, nice grassy campus ending abruptly at dense wooded acres, but no visible pathway breaking through toward the river.
Back east, down into the gorge and into Robinson Park, which was the site of eight sandstone quarries in the height of the time, thus the name of the town. A boat landing is there now, picnic tables, parking lot, no one's around. I aim the truck through a narrow opening between two steel posts, which in earlier years had been padlocked with a chain, preventing motorist's access.
EZ whines with excitement as I negotiate the road, between giant sandstone monoliths positioned to prevent cars from parking on the grass. I stop at a small display of historical photographs with informational texts attached to an arrangement of sandstone blocks, then continue.
Thin legs of the bridge occasionally peep through the canopy of leaves, larger, closer, soaring high to the top. Unbroken trees on our left show no pathway, no opening where the steep rocky sides would lead upward. The road narrows, brush "screeches" the truck on both sides. The bridge is nearly overhead when a gridwork of steel appears through branches and leaves. I park, EZ lunges free.
The trestle at this section is fastened to deep sandstone bedrock, interwoven with trees. Girders aim upward at a slight angle, steel webworks of reinforcing flat iron, V's criss-crossing each support. Rust holes lacy, water twinkling through, rivets furry with oxidation, lichen thriving, tenuous in appearance. We walked further, hoping for a place to ascend. None. We came to a large rocky cliff bottom, climbed over and under, dark openings gaping big enough for a man to fall through (or a four-legged dog to lose herself in), no bottom in sight. The road ended at a jumble of boulders. We turned around, walked back under the bridge, checking more carefully for a clue how to climb up. Into the truck and a slow searching idle back out.
11:30 a.m.-
The pathway appeared. Steep, rocky, likely. I parked and we climbed. Flat quarry walls fell vertically airy. I worried for EZ who is sensible, with four feet to my two, but she's been known to go rushing without forethought, paws paddling bare air before landing with a splash. She was already at the top when I summited, panting and impatient, "what took you so long?"
The bridge is not abandoned, nor are the tracks. Shiny steel rails curve toward it, then straighten away flat. Sitting on a rail, looking back, then across, it's hard to tell there's a deep chasm just ahead and a river weaving slowly below. EZ's halfway across; there is no railing or barrier to protect pedestrians from a fall, only a slim cable about waist high. She is standing on the edge staring down. Not wishing to startle her I quietly say, "C'mere." I voice it again more urgently as a gust of wind hits me and heads toward her. She hears, turns to look at me, and her fur bustles with the gust. I back away, she leaps toward me scratching, claws scrabbling old wood.
I tell her to lay down, then cautiously mount the high span. Ties are scattered with taconite pellets (the size of leguminous rabbit turds), mined and processed near Silver Bay on Lake Superior. The bridge deck has been recently maintained, concrete substructures and iron catwalk, rock fill.
Achieving the halfway point I grip the cable, lean over and spit. It's a guy thing, to marvel and ponder its fall from great height, imagining it was me. The descent takes a long time, disappearing before hitting the river. Evaporation, I guess.
Most people have a psycho-traumatic response to imagined injury or hearing of great injury to somebody else, or a vicarious fall. Mine blooms at the back of my thighs, a distinct location, a gripping tingle, difficult to tell if it's real or the mind's response, which in its own is real enough. My mother's is in her womb, a clenching grip she describes (although that may be residual response to my kicking all-hell to get out).
The back of my thighs were alive with sensation as I peered down through the catwalk grid, watching the tops of trees swaying below, creating the sensation of moving sideways.
I got off the bridge, walked back past the NO TRESPASSING sign, told EZ to "come" and lowered back down the rock ravine, skating drunkenly on marbly loose stones. EZ ran right down, and true to her name, turned and waited for me with a patient sunny smile.
Earlier I stopped at the municipal liquor store for a twelve pack of beer. The door was not locked at 9:02, so I went in. It's the only place to buy "strong beer," in Sandstone, which is the same beer available everywhere in Wisconsin. Grocery stores and convenience marts in Minnesota sell beer too, but it's a watered down version similar to "near beer," and the labels and cans are all printed, "contains no more than 3.2 percent alcohol." And all you can buy on Sundays in Minnesota is 3.2 beer--only after noon--when liquor stores, by derelict blue laws, must be shut the whole day.
Attached to the liquor store is a barroom. A lady comes out of the tavern door, greets me, "good morning," and asks what I'd like.
"What time do you open?"
"Nine o'clock."
"Ooo, I just made it. I'll have a twelve pack of Busch."
"Sure. Seven-fifty."
I claw through my wallet, pull out a five and two ones, give her a glance and say, "I don't suppose you'd be content with that?"
She gives me a look. I break into a grin, hold up a hand in contrition and assure her, "just kidding."
"I couldn't be sure, people here do it all the time. I tell them to bring in the rest next time they're in town."
That's why I am so fond of this small town.
1:35 p.m.-
The air is ambient today; neither hot nor cold. Subtle changes have crept into the land since I was last here in July. August is a time when spring and early summer have outgrown their impatient Saturday night dance; Sunday's day of rest soothes it all back into place. The roadside grasses and tree leaves are brown with gravel dust. Most of the show-off wildflowers have finished their bloom. Although black-eyed Susans and goldenrod splash dabbles of color. I noticed a clump of asters this morning, light lilac, tiny petals spraying out fireworks-like from diminutive heads. Portenders of fall.
I sectioned three birch felled back in the spring while EZ explored lazily then snoozed by the truck. Worked up a sweat. Changed into swim trunks, grabbed a towel, whiffed an inappropriate smell in the kitchen, attributing it to a leaky propane gas cylinder. Off to the lake five miles away along a dust-boiling road, forcing me to close the window; even then a fine sifting of dust covers everything in the cab. Approaching the boat landing I see two DNR trucks--one with a utility trailer attached, three middle aged men conferring and a college-age girl wielding a cordless DeWALT drill-driver, sinking screws into a new Good Neighbor privacy fence.
I stop and get out. A gas-engined generator is throttled up loud. They ignore us. I free EZ and she races over. The men seem to not notice her wagging or big-grinning sneezes. The girl pets her apathetically then returns to her screwdriver and short whiny bursts infused with effeminate curse blurts. EZ forages the bushes for leftover snacks, I sit on the dock and dangle my feet in the lake. Chill at first, then quickly warm. Sunfish hover, meander, nip at the toes. I wade in and submerge, scrub the face and scour the head, re-emerge.
It's just not the same. EZ's not interested in swimming, Caleb's not here. The air is cool, the sunfish are drab, and construction rat-a-tat drones on close at hand. What we had at one time will never again be the same. We can not repeat what once was, due largely to our memory expanding, characterizing, enhancing how "it" was back then.
I have cooled off. The bottle of cheap shampoo goes unused against EZ's stink. (I decided her stench had probably been radiating out of the wads of loose fur I'd vacuumed out of the truck earlier in the day; they had been shed prior to her bath last week. Uh huh.) Back to the cabin and a nap. EZ must stay alone in the main cabin. She is drippy and I don't want her transferring her wet to the bedding in the sleeper ... which is cool in the afternoon shade, breezes moving silently through. I read. Close the book, stick my feet down into the softness of the sleeping bag, and float ...
"THUMP-BUMP." The main cabin is troubled. Briefly. EZ has learned to nudge doors open with her snout, to let herself out. But not that door. The latch holds it clasped. After a few bumps all falls quiet and I sleep.
5:20-
I am brought fully awake by tumultuous rumbling in the main cabin, a loud now-familiar rasp of strange animal-cat, then immediate frenzied barking. I stick on my shoes and exit the sleeper at a full stark-naked gallop. I glimpse the bobcat vanishing from sight, away from the cabin through underbrush and ferns. I haven't a clue what catalyzed the fury as I slept, but EZ sure wanted out to go chase the intruder, to get at the dumb schlep. Now I am convinced that this cat is living under the cabin. A spray of Styrofoam insulation is scattered like a fan outside the northeast corner, a dead mouse lays freshly wrecked, and ten feet away the ground is scoured free of grass. EZ's bone has been plundered and put there too. (Maybe jealousy was the genesis of her racket.)
The first instinct is to board up the opening or tack hardware cloth across and bury it six inches in the ground. But what damage is it doing? Mice are being managed. Maybe after all, we need a beneficial Woods Cat.
5:55 p.m.-
The whole world is make-believe, nothing's as it seems. Lies are told as truth and multitudes sit down salved.
Into the truck I pack EZ and the cooler with beer, and a topped-off teacup. We aim toward Sandstone, full into the sinking sun, anxious for action away from the solitude of the cabin and phlegmatic old trees. First stop is Robinson Park where one car is parked. A dad and a son are critiquing boat ramp rules, the Mommy is spanking a girl about two. We get out of there fast. Then pull into Chris' Grocery where action is most likely. We back into a slot and watch the front door.
Shoppers walk in. They walk out.
We rush to the interstate. Circuiting through the Conoco pumps, I spy a gray car parked facing forward at the back of the lot. The driver is cheerlessly hunkered. A shiver runs through me to wonder what he's up to--maybe an illegal fireworks exchange. We make our escape as another car pulls in and slows to a stop in the back of the lot. Back to the Amoco station where this morning we'd watched a bus disgorge young travelers and old: a woman wearing a curvaceous plastic neck brace, mid-teens girls queuing by the bathroom door, old-teen boys slouching in bell-bottom jeans with tattered circus cuffs, an elderly man with a young lady on his arm, three black youths standing silently beneath the gas pump canopy. Some stood outside and smoked, others went inside, exiting with chips and soda. Driver, wearing a Greyhound tie and vest, rounded up his crew just as neck-brace woman hurried back out of the bus and disappeared inside the store. A couple of minutes later the door hissed shut, the bus raised a few inches at the entrance door corner and it drove away. I hadn't seen neck-brace climb back aboard.
But Amoco is quiet tonight. So, we hurry back downtown and circle a few blocks. Two boys whip across main street on bikes headed east, throwing off shards of low-glinting sun. Color splashes my peripheral vision down Elm St. on the right. I circle the block and pull up quick at the old Super Valu store parking lot.
Something big is happening tonight! A few gawkers are milling, examining an expansive display of motorsports machinery. There's a long rail dragster and a kiddy version high up on chrome stilts, go-carts (a ten-year-old girl is pouting in one) and drag-converted muscle cars from the late 1960's. There's even a souped-up coupe from the 30's.
I hurry up park and exit the truck, wander over to see what's going on. Browsers are speaking quietly. Young boys smooth their hands over twenty-four inch wide tires and metal-flake paint jobs. I meander, stop, eavesdropping shamefully. I haven't yet picked up a clue as to what is going on, even when an older lady stopped her Cadillac and demanded it of me. I shrugged. She parked in a haste of swaying Cadillac traits then hurried over waving flabby arms and shouting, "where's Leonard?" She finds him, they talk in furtive tones. I can't tell what about, but I hear, "are you a fan?" A minute or two later she flutters farewell and toodles over her shoulder "see you in Brainerd this weekend."
I
squeeze close up behind a deputy sheriff wearing a big gun. He's chatting
with a man wearing a white wild beard on a wispy-haired head. I wish not to
be too blatant in my listening, stealthing six ... four ... then three feet
away.
"You're here for the meeting?" a male voice startles me from behind.
Turning to the voice, "what meeting?"
"About the
park."
"I am? I was just passing by and saw this display and stopped to see."
"There's a meeting in a few minutes at the theater about building a motorsports track in Sandstone. Marvelous opportunity. A blessing to the community."
This man is decent, soft-spoken and good. I see a wristband imprinted "JESUS," then glance left to a dragster intake cowling and read "Racers for Christ" stenciled in unctuous deep purple paint.
It dawned bright and clear. Developers had targeted Sandstone for a dragstrip. They'd sent in the religious racing sect most likely to succeed in small town Minnesota. And tonight was the night! I began to notice how spotlessly scrubbed were the trailer workspaces. How pure the white paint inside them, how sensitive and guileless the endorsements plastered along the sides of the kiddy dragster. And that none of the sponsors was Hooters®. How wholesomely unthreatening was the throwback 1969 Chevelle Supersport SS with the hood open displaying faultless engine hygiene, and very large parts.
A developer's Xanadu this town of two thousand. The money in town goes only in circles now that the Land 'O Lakes creamery by the tracks has shut down. A citizenry accustomed to straight dealing, who believe what they're told, and "pay me next time you're in town."
7:15-
I enter the old movie house. It's now Midwest Country and schedules country music performances on weekends. The vine-entwined marquee out front promises, "Bobby Bare -- August 18." Hollywood is gone, but the agreeable mood has been retained.
Red carpeting, small lobby, walls lined with autographed publicity photos of country musicians. The auditorium doors are wedged open, so I go inside. Padded seats--about one in twenty occupied. Television lights wash the stage with whiteness. A man stands in a side aisle behind a small video tripod. A second remote camera aims down at the stage from giant loudspeaker boxes at the side of the stage. A four-foot wide flag, draped below the stage, is printed WVAL AM 800 Country Radio America. Draped high above the stage, a twenty-foot long banner is painted MIDWEST COUNTRY with a silhouetted bearded cowboy holding a guitar. On-stage a line of ten folding chairs faces the crowd, each more or less dourly occupied. A man at the left end, utilizing a presentation stand supporting a tiny 8 x 14 inch architect's dragstrip sketch, is explaining the proposition. Next to him sits a shave-headed man who looks like Uncle Fester Addams thoroughly chewing his gum. Beside him is Artie Johnson, who'd grown an apologetic pony tail. Next, a non-descript male did not move or blink or speak, then a portly guy in middle age, wearing a white dress shirt, red tie and paisley dress shorts.
There's a gap between the decorous chairs and a folding metal TV tray holding a plastic pitcher with half-a-dozen water glasses.
On the right is a young man in jeans and T-shirt and sneakers, the Mayor or some other City Official, responsible for distributing the microphone to Spokespersons on stage. Next to him is a show-stopping blonde woman wearing a flowing print sun-dress--swooping deep neckline, and dangly Chinese pagoda earrings. Then--wringing his hands--a man wearing bib overalls, a feed cap and a grouchy smirk. Next to last is a woman in her late twenties wearing a T-shirt drenched-wet across the top left, as though she'd recently reached up to a top pantry shelf and pulled down a bucket she had forgotten was full of fermenting pickles.
Slumped in a chair and last in the lineup is another male in his late twenties, legs stuck straight out and crossed at the ankles, staring at his toes, left elbow propped on an upright piano pushed against the wall.
The man with the Floor admits there will be an increase in traffic and noise but, "if w'ur real careful how to do this, if we keep the major developments, the industry, etcetra, outta' town close to the freeway, the big truck noise, etcetra, etcetra, etcetra and so forth, will be kept out of downtown."
A man from the audience walks to the floor microphone, introduces himself as an attorney for a landowner named Ramona Glinknee, and states that he and his client, "are opposed to the plan?" (His voice rises after "plan," but I assume he is unsure why.)
"The city and the developers are going to have a responsibility to the adjacent landowners under a nuisance theory that decreases the property values for residential properties. We want to know how the city and the developers are going to deal with this?"
"Two things obviously. That there is a real concern of ours as it is a concern of yur client's. Certainly we need to kee--we've talked before about buffer zones, trees, plantings, the way we've designed the track should mim-i-nize the sound." (Cough.) There are only so many things we can do on the site. But hey, we hear ya'. There are a couple of other things we could potentially talk about that would be appropriate tah talk about, like potable toilets ... ah, (clearing throat), um, but not in a public forum. The second thing is, is I want tah tell youse--and Jerry shared this with us, that when Jerry developed his bee-yoo-ti-ful site in Illi-noise, they had a couple of landowners who wanted to stay in 'dair homes. Dat was fine. Yeah. And I'll let him tell about 'dat and how it was worked out remarkable for 'dem people."
He stands, trips on an extension cord, leans over and pushes the microphone at the man with paisley shorts.
"Yah. Well-ah, several of them stayed in their, uh-ur-um, din't want to sell at the time we were doin' the development an', an'dah, wanted to hold off for a little higher dollar value in their property value (head tilts, hand gestures sympathetically), an'--an'dah, thus they elected to stay there ... I mean, don't get me wrong, I don't know ... as far as the-ah, er-um, sound effects, we created a ten-foot berm around the buildings that are dair'. We'll show you on pit'chures what we done. (He pats a briefcase beside his chair.) Buh-tah, we created a ten-foot berm with high-up trees on the top of the berm all the way around."
The first man grabs back the microphone.
"I don't think we have all the answers for youse this evening but I can give an illustration youse can go to this weekend to see how they're handling it. Brainerd has a national event this coming weekend and-dah ... if you've never been to the Brainerd raceway in Nisswa youse can see that right alongside the racetrack are-ah, not only commercial, but certainly borderline residential properties. And um, this is not something that is, um, been created somewhere else, we're not creating something new ... (bald man has his tongue in his cheek, Artie Johnson looks doleful), we want to work with youse and yur client to make it the best possible sit-chee-a-tion. And, it's gotta' work for everyone and we'll do what we can and we'll work hard to mim-i-nize that. That's the best answer I can give youse this evening."
Low-cut woman is nibbling her cuticle. Bald man is chewing hard at his gum. City Official is staring at a bug on the floor.
Attorney: "But I understand the adjacent airport annex property is the responsibility of the city too and what are they going to do about that?"
City Official: "Which property is that?"
"Ramona Glinknee's property."
City Official bobs his head affirmatively, grins sensibly: "Oh! Okay. I thought you were talking about a third piece." He tucks his feet deep under his chair.
"We also ... part of the purpose of this development--(swirling his hand, suffering for words)--process is we're hoping property values will actually go up rather than decline."
An elderly audience man guffaws.
"So we don't have a big fear for property values becoming worthless."
Attorney: "The property owners, under the law, have a right to quiet enjoyment of their property. I just want the city council to see that angle. Whether the property value increases because it might be good for a fast food restaurant or something else isn't relevant because the real issue here is that my client lived there and enjoyed her property before this development. I just want you to be aware of that. But I'm sure we'll all be in touch."
City Official: "I'm sure."
I wander into the foyer. A small folding table is draped with a hunter green table cloth. A sheet of paper invites participants to, "Please sign in." A stack of photocopied black-and-white racetrack drawings are there, along with a stack of printed half-sheets stating the rules of this meeting.
1. Please limit questions or comments to 3 -- 4 minutes.
2. When you speak, please identify yourself.
3. You can submit you're questions in righting prior to the meeting.
4. No comments will be allowed, which in the judgement of the moderator are of some personal nature, directed at an individual by name or inference. The priviledge of addresing the council will be ternimated if these guidelines are not followed.
I return to the auditorium, uncertain if comments are allowed. Rule 1 says they are, Rule 4 says not.
Ramona Glinknee is addressing the panel. "Of course I am concerned for my property and the wetland behind my house and the trees behind my house. You take those trees out and put 'chur park in there, or your campground in there, it's gonna' ruin it for me. And I will fight that!"
Paisley man: "Okay. And them are all real great questions. Thank you, M'am."
"First of all, these wetlands are pretty wetlands what we developed with lots of nice nature. I know that there are wetlands right up in here (pointing to the easel with its architectural drawing). We have a wetlands delineation report, that is a public report. An-dah, we have to do some further wetland reports, of course. We have to realize yur the closest person here and maybe we have to leave a larger wetland buffer zone, including that wetland. Um, we're not against working with youse and making this work for both parties. We wan'chew to know that. Um ... we certainly could have approached 'chew prior to this for potentially purchasing yur property. That's an option we can talk about."
A woman near tears, bearing a trembling worried voice approaches the microphone. "I know you've talked about noise pollution and fumes, rubber tires, and um everything like that, but I have a hard time liking you rolling over us and doing what you want."
First man: "Um, another good question. All I can tell you is this. We certainly have to, ah, adhere to all the current regulations and laws that exists in regards to pollution and rubber tires. I can tell you this as a statement. We will certainly obey all quality standards that the State of Minnesota, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, and the federal government has in regards to any chemicals or fumes or rubber tires, or monitoring that that's required of that to keep it within the allowable standards. And ah, we hope, in some ways, your quality of life goes up. In some minor ways there might be some mim-i-nal effect."
Snickers drift through the audience. Two men consult in whispers then leave their seats and head for the stage.
A young audience guy in a polo shirt enters the fray: 'I'd like to have a dragstrip right outside my back door. Yeah. That's right. I'm twenty years old and I'd love it. This is my vote to have it, right away!"
"He's a shill!" shouts someone at the back. Distraught voices louden to speak. I exit through the foyer and go outside. A scream erupts from the auditorium and stays erupted for a long spell. A water glass smashes. Male voices shout "Bastards," and "git off 'im, stay back!" Then I hear grunting, like wrestlers do on TV when they get serious. A piano tinkles high-octave notes and a castrato voice shrills, "Way down upon a Swanee River."
Back at the Super Valu parking lot, two young boys have dumped their bicycles. One is sitting in the dragster making engine noises with his lips. No supervision is evident. One boy asks, "what's this here lever do?"
Tuesday--
11:45 a.m.-
Went wild cutting up trees for the past hour. Used up four tanks of gas, but only a smidge of my zest. Decided to stop when the tank drained the last time and a cross-eyed bee, with long dangly legs and a dripping fat stinger, hovered close to my nose. The end of the log must be positioned near a nest. I didn't investigate, just left it for fall when the bees will have relocated to Costa Rica.
Noticed a tree laying prone off to the east, discovered at least three oaks I'd felled and forgotten last fall. Sectioned those up, promising to split chunks a bit later.
Horseflies have grown huge at this late stage of summer, veering and droning wildly past my ears, like high-revving engines zooming past at a motorcycle race. (One, dashing itself against an inside truck window, was an inch long.)
12:55
p.m.-
I was given a park
bench at work. Cast iron supports and hardwood seat slats, but disassembled
and weighty in a four-foot long box. One of the legs was busted in shipping,
so the works was categorized POLICY A and awarded to me. I called up a friend
who knew about welding. He took the injured limb, shimmed it and heated it
and gobbed it back together, my found treasure. So, to The Woods it was brought
and unloaded in the clearing, where it and I fought. I succeeded with assembly.
It leans mostly not at all--imperfections make memory--and smells sweetly
of Tung oil. It's imported this friend, all the way across the ocean from
China it arrived. It even has solid brass screws and black-painted thighs.
When finished I
sat. EZ looked up with appall for my not asking her up, nor apparent notion
of it at all. So I patted the slats, which means, "this is where I want
you, if you please." She put forth her front paws and tilted forward,
vibrating and hesitant. I reached down and lugged the rear end of her up,
she sat quivering with fret, facing the wrong way. I wrestled and adjusted
her around to my way of sitting, paw claws scratching. Gradually, over a few
minutes, she sank down, relaxed her head onto my lap and stopped fidgeting.
We inaugurated this new firepit bench, sitting upon it together. (Maybe her
fear, I realize the next day, were the two lion head armrests: true kingly
lions, cast up in earnest real iron, fierce eyes and great manes and two fearsome
noses.)
3:30 p.m.-
A swim trip to the lake. Sitting at the end of the dock drying in the sun, a fishing boat moved slowly toward me, four persons sitting like mannequins. A family, two girls and a Mom, Dad driving. Onward they came. EZ, sitting beside me, saw them coming and began rehearsing salutatory remarks. Motor idling, drifting, advancing, the distance narrowed. It became apparent they were intending to dock.
"Good afternoon," I said.
Silence. The girl in the bow appears as bored as her mates, gazing anywhere but here. I put EZ in an affectionate headlock. The boat slides alongside the dock. The motor shuts off. The man steps out, reaches down and takes up a rope, ties it, tells the girls to "get out." Fishing poles helter-scattered on the bluish boat carpet, no catches are visible. Nothing is happening but a great weighty shush.
Dad walks away. Mom--an emaciated lady in her mid-thirties sits reviewing her fingernails. EZ wants to be free. She and I are in a harrowing silent wrestle, trying with straight-face to contain her rapture from spilling onto them. The girls in their mid-teens stand politely but emphatically ready for release, nothing to do but wait. Mom, with wisps of bleached hair hanging straight down and one foot on a gunwale picks at a toe. The older girl, bosomy and pretty, starts to peel up her T-shirt. I startle and choke, viewing forbidden young flesh, then calm down, catching sight of a swim top appearing.
I realize I am usurping the end of the dock, so rise up and exit my claim, asking EZ to "heel." But the people are too alluring, the amusement too present. She can't help herself and skooches up to both girls for a pet. I retreat to the bench on shore to observe. The father returns, reversing a muscular Dodge truck, trailer squealing, gravel crunching. The boat is loaded, guided, jockeyed, then pushed from the rear with the help of the girls. The man stands on the narrow steel tongue, cigarette dangling, smoke obscuring his head. Mom stands by the side, one hand on the truck, another on her left waist, a hip-shot statue. EZ runs from one end to the next, on the dock, into the water and back, superintending the job. The truck pulls away, trailer draining water in a sandy dark trail.
The girls return to the lake, wrestling, giggling. Mom climbs onto the boat gunwale and resumes the work at her nails. The man putters inside.
5:00 p.m.-
I've been putting off digging a new outhouse hole. But the old one has become critically rounded. It's time. The biffy was built in the early 1960's, plywood panels on three sides with narrow screen openings across the tops and bottoms. The far side facing the forest was left open, where sudden intrusions were least likely. Fiberglass screening, weighted along the bottom, was hung across the open entrance side with an overlap down the middle to keep mosquitoes out. A masterful efficient design, airy enough to retain woodsy ambiance, accommodation against insects. Six feet square, but how much more space does one need to void urgent bowels? Inside, the original wooden high-backed parson's chair has grown rickety from years in the elements, but it still upholds those who transact business in there. The center was removed and outfitted with a genuine toilet seat with a lid (which served no purpose, but by default came attached to the whole). Last year it finally broke in half after several years growing cracks, which liked to pinch the backside of bare thighs. A year ago serendipity struck when, walking through the woods to the north of our acreage, I spied an abandoned outdoor potty pit with a web-less lawn chair and a still-intact toilet seat. I stole it and installed it here where it enjoys a new life. Around the inside legs of the chair Dad put in a splash guard, curved out of roofing material. Toilet paper rolls hang from a thick nail, put there in haste thirty-five years ago and never upgraded.
Outside, attached to an oak and visible from the cabin, a blue gallon bleach jug once served as an alert to show others if the potty was in use. A pulley was installed to the tree ten feet above ground and the bleach bottle was tied to a length of sash cord. Users pulled down on the rope, the jug raised and stayed high until one's work was completed, and the jug was lowered. A few uncomfortable words were shouted over the years when it was discovered someone had forgotten to lower the signal. All that remains of the mechanism these days is a gray frayed string and a pulley deepening into the tree.
The structure continues a slight northward tilt, but not menacingly. The lower 2x4 supports are sinking into the soil, but they were well-protected with Penta wood preservative, back when it was still legal to use. The screen drapes lost their effectiveness twenty-five years ago when they ripped and blew away in winter's winds. Shredded sections still hang from the top and one side, secured by rusty staples. The wall panels are intact, though gnawed thin by foraging porcupines. The roof is still there, thankfully enough. Though the plywood, never protected with tarpaper or asphalt roofing material, had begun to rot through in places until two years ago when I threw up some foraged old plywood and a layer or two of remnant rolled roofing. It quickly blew off and is still in a heap on the ground at the side.
Today the most pressing need is to dig a new hole. I'll re-secure the top next visit, before winter approaching.
I lift off the chair and set it outside, creaky and tremulous, joints raggy and parting. Next comes the Porta Potty, a blasphemous accommodation to an out-of-touch visitor. The small galvanized trash can is carried out. A strong defense against gnawing, it holds reinforcements of fresh toilet paper.
I set in to work. Digging is difficult, the roof is not high and the ground is hard, no moisture to soften. EZ snoozes nearby as the sun advances patterns and shadows across her aureate back. Sweat drains out of pores. EZ snores. I resent not buying ice-water earlier while passing the Store.
In fifteen minutes I'd made a good hole, twenty-four inches deep and eighteen inches wide. I cut a length of treated 2x4 in half, one chunk for the front, the other for the back. Then brought the chair in and set it onto it's new rest, checked it for stability. Took it back out, skimmed soil with the shovel, set a few shims in, set it all back in place.
There it now rests. I gaze down in and ponder the depths, imagining good relief feelings and low echoing thuds. An hour at the most, an easy good chore accomplished.
8:40 p.m.-
I have just returned from a spittle-slinging encounter with Axel, first, then Leon too. And I am relieved to know that resolute points of view still reign across the land. And that God is still in His heaven and that cows still say "moo," when their need is right too.
The mention of cows comes about here because Leon interrupted Axel and I in our conversation along the road ... how he's been working nine hours a day, but only getting paid for seven, since he spends, "two hours just driving around in the dump truck." Leon pulled up from the south in his pickup. Axel shrewdly noticed his approach, tottered to his own truck and moved it ahead so Leon could pull in behind. (I was parked safely in the ditch.) Leon stopped, and with technical hand signals I needn't have understood, recommended that Axel get out of the way so he could get in to do his work, "Goddamnit!" Axel shooed Pepper out of the driver's seat, got in and backed out. The rear end of the truck exhibited a remarkable slant.
"Only the mas'er spring works on the right side," he yelled, beer can bobbling above him on the roof of the cab.
Leon drove in and continued on down toward the cows. Axel followed in his truck, then parked back where he'd been.
I lowered the tailgate and let EZ out. She smiled at Axel and wove around his weavy gait. He resumed telling me why he wasn't out west, fighting wildfires this summer. "Gettin' good hours with Lanny. Just never got 'round to taking the physical or, org'nizing the fire gear, although it would only take a couple of days ... wel'lactually more like a day ... or an hour."
He offers me a beer, I thank but decline, my own teacup is still half full. He throws his empty into the back of his truck, then leans through a window for another.
The sound of yelling and horn honking erupts. It's roundup time. Leon is circling fast in the tall pasture grass, doing lariat roar-turns in his truck, chasing stampeding bellowing cows and shouting "COCKSUCKERS" above the un-mufflered motor. A big cow diverges back toward the north. Two little ones follow in Mama's course. Axel and I watch this display of raw power and cow-herding prowess, then three cows surge off to the right. Leon hollers and cuts a sharp turn. A bull veers more sharply and heads for Duluth.
Cows finally panic through a gate. Leon jumps out and runs to close it, then drives back out toward us, who are sitting on my truck tailgate watching. He pulls up to Axel's truck and turns off the motor, tumbles out of the cab with two beers and staggers over to us, launching a bellicose four-minute wet-chin harangue about, "west pash-ure," and, "what the hell," and, "dumb prick county officials who get fuckin' sik'ty-thousand to do nut'in' and do it all wrong!" Bombast is revved by swigs from a can. He hollers and denounces everything from a raving mad face, including gravel road binder which dried up and blew into his house down the way "because the county don't water the Goddamn shit." Axel blurts pithy rejoinders and murmurs assent, but they are of no account in Leon's extemporaneous dissent.
EZ and I stayed fifteen minutes. Pepper jumped through an open side window of Axel's truck and laid down on the seat. Leon peed into the weeds and onto his jeans. The sun lowered onto the trees in the west. Tall grass heads flamed gold. Axel "pssfted" opened another beer.
Leon asked when I'd come up?
"Sunday night."
He apologized for the late intrusion when he and Herb in their own separate trucks had driven past along The Woods road to see who was "going in there" in the dim of dusk.
"Saturday night Blinkens stole our wood Dad has piled by cowsgate. We wan'nud to see if they were back for the rest."
"How do you know who it was? How much did they take?"
"Fi' cord. I know it was them. Ever'body knows they're nothin' but thievin' white trash. You ever hear a big log truck loadin' up that shit down there, you just come get us. I'll take care of it. But don't try nothin' with them! I'll shoot out 'duh radiator just to git started."
I assured him I would and I wouldn't.
Axel got off the tailgate to light a cigarette. I seized the invitation to exit, hustled EZ back into the truck, slammed the gate closed, thanked but declined another beer from them both and drove home, head reeling with it all.
10:05-
Again an offensive odor in the kitchen, brief whiffs of something not right. But when I try to smell purposely what I thought was not good the odor fails to re-suffer my nose. And how do you discover, in the vast realm of possibility out here in the night, if the source is especially labor intensive down under the cabin, or something quite near and easily manhandled. I dip my head sniffing into the base cabinet. Then around the table trying to sense it again. I call EZ over, who's got a good nose for stink, and encourage her help. But what do you say, "hey, go snuffle under the sink?" (Anyway, her interpretation of bad smell is different than mine.) I wrinkle my nose to give her the idea. She goes straight to the bottle of shampoo and faints. I leave her to recover, pick up a kettle cover and knock over some tumblers. An array of gross gasses rise up quickly at me. A dead mouse in a trap near the napkin dispenser lays oozing dark fluid, on top of a map at the edge of the table.
Wednesday--
7:30 a.m.-
No trip has yet been made to the North Pool this year. Today is the day. It's overcast, temperature in the low fifties. I opt for the long way, east along the road to the boundary of the forty acres, then north and west along an access trail bordering our land that Herb bulldozed down ten years ago. EZ races ahead with enthusiasm, knowing this jaunt is for real. Although, frequently during our stays, a walk to the truck or a sky-gazing amble to the road, gives her the hope that a run is in the plan. She tears past, then stands in the middle of the road checking her watch, waiting to launch away, but they're sometimes false alarms.
Turning north and approaching Herb's cordwood, I immediately see that Leon was not exaggerating the quantity of wood stolen. Dead grass and lose bark litter a patch which, quite clearly, had been sheltered until quite recently. What's this? I stoop and reach down and pick up a fresh cigarette butt. Up near its filter is a strange symbol, and tiny printed words reading "Anwar El-al."
An Egyptian brand mark?, or maybe authentic Arabian. Where did this come from? Who smokes such an un-native label? A very good clue as to the villain who stole firewood, I place it away, intending to show Herb.
7:50 a.m.-
Ghost plane is flying over. This airplane has been heard--never directly overhead, but always away in the distance, as long as I can remember. It has never been seen, but not for lack of trying. Most times the sky is overcast. Two motors drone slowly, like a low warm-up idle. It sounds like a leftover World War II vintage bomber, unlike the modern jets regularly streaking to or from the Cities, red lights blinking high overhead in the night sky. Until the last couple of years Ghost Plane went over without much notice from me. But now its invisible random passages have become a noteworthy curiosity each time I hear it approach. A lost mail plane full of Postal Service letters from the fifties?
The North Pool sitting log is gone, pushed somewhere downstream by April's high water. Drat. All things must pass. Waterbugs sweel across the pool's surface. Difficult to tell if they're touching the water or lightly airborne, but for immediate explosive ripples behind, instantly dissipating as the bug propels forward. Water is low, what usually is high flowing rapids is now fully visible shallows. The river bottom is easily seen, silt-covered rock, shale shambles of stone, a rare disclosure, this river-bottom topography usually so hidden and secret. Small currents chuckling lightly.
Another cluster of waterbugs too numerous to count, swirls frenetically inside a small pool between two rocks, like a speeded-up film showing rush hour at Grand Central Station. EZ wades, pushing concentric circles out across the glassy water, ricocheting off the opposite shore, contending back and forth.
8:45-
Walking back through high underbrush and tall weeds I see EZ sitting, muzzling her chest. Burrs, and parasitic seed pods and prickers are stuck in her hair. Hundreds, and masses of hard work wedged in deep, some dangling in clusters like baubles from long bosom furs. I forget this late-summer condition every year, a big job of cleanup. I promise us next year I'll shear her short like a Chihuahua.