WHAT'S WRONG, BABE?

It had been snowing off and on all afternoon, heavy at times, but as the sun went down it had tapered off to a flurry.

Except for a dark oval directly over the engine block a dusting of snow covered the hood of Robby Robtoy's pickup truck. The truck had been parked for fifteen minutes alongside of the Gas-N-Go on rt. 7 in St. Albans, but presently, it rumbled to life. The headlights came on. Its windshield wipers worked feverishly for a few seconds clearing a thin film of snow from the windshield. Then the truck pulled out of the parking lot and drove south toward the city. The man who had been working behind the counter came to the door and watched the truck pull away with a brooding expression on his face.

Robtoy turned off the radio and drove in silence as the truck made its way unhurriedly down the street.

After a while he turned left off of rt. 7 onto Brainerd Street. The street was steep and greasy with new snow. The tires spun at first, but then found traction and continued on without difficulty. About halfway up Brainerd the driver killed the headlights and turned left onto a small side street. Unlike the grand old victorian homes on Brainerd this street was lined with newer homes, small, one-story, pre-fab residences. The truck sputtered to a stop across the street from a nondescript house belonging to Candace Rushlow. Halloween decorations, from months before and possibly even from last year, still adorned the front of the house and yard.

Despite the relatively early hour, 9:00 pm, the lights were off in the house. "She probably has work in the morning," Robby mused to himself. Candace worked the early morning shift at the Fonda paper plate factory. In the driveway a red Ford Ranger pickup truck was pulled in tight behind Candace's White Nissan Altima. Snow covered both vehicles and there were no tire tracks coming or going in the virgin snow. They had been there for a while. Robby recognized the truck as belonging to Dillon Longway the owner of "The Spot" bar at the corner of Kingman and Federal Street.

After taking in the scene for a few minutes Robby's truck rumbled back to life and pulled away from the curb. As the truck turned left at the next intersection, back toward rt. 7, the truck's headlights came back on. From her bedroom window Candace watched the truck drive away. She had a look of concern, maybe even fear, on her face.

Dillon Longway watched her from the bed, "What's wrong, babe?"

THE PAPER MAN

One night in college I was sitting at my desk thinking longingly of my long-distance girlfriend, Sarah, when I heard a slight rustling sound behind me, and turning I laid my eyes for the first time on the little paper man.

The little paper man is a very knowing and sympathetic sort of person who visits the loneliest people in the midst of their misery. Perhaps they are imprisoned, or maybe homesick at summer camp or long-separated from those whom they love. Maybe you've been visited by the little paper man. If so, then you know what a kindly fellow he is.

He stood about six inches from the soles of his paper shoes to the top of his paper hat. In fact, every inch of him was made from a single piece of white, college-ruled paper. You know the sort- with faint blue lines, margins on the left-hand side and three holes punched along one edge. The little paper man could spiral his entire length like a tight needle so he could slide through a key hole and he could also flatten himself out so he could slip beneath a door. He could take the shape of a heart, flowers, the profile of a loved one or really just about anything. Mostly though he resembled a dapper little man in a white suit with faint blue pin stripes who made a distinct rustling sound as he moved, and whose voice sounded vaguely like the scratching of a pencil.

He begged me to lift him up onto the surface of my desk, which I was at first too frightened to do. Afraid of a paper man? Yes, if you are ever visited by something so unexpected as a paper man I expect you would also be a little cautious. However, as I already stated, the little paper man is a kindly soul, and after he explained himself I carefully lifted him up onto my desk. Being made of paper he cautioned me to be gentle as he was as frail and unsubstantial as...well...paper. I set him down on top of my desk and he set about kicking the clutter this way and that until he had cleared space enough for an 8 1/2 X 11 sheet of paper to lie flat. Then in a flash he simply unfolded himself into a crisp, clean sheet of college-ruled paper. There on the top line, in Sarah's unmistakeable handwriting, was written, "I love you! XOXOXO Sarah"

I stared at the paper for a few minutes, feeling quite overwhelmed and also a bit confused as to how I was supposed to respond. Then I heard a little voice which, as I mentioned before, resembled the thin scratchings of a pencil instructing me to take up a pen and write out a reply. I looked in vain for a mouth from which the voice may have come, but couldn't find one. As I put pen to paper and began writing out a response I heard the paper giggle as though it were being tickled. I wrote, "I love you too." and "This is strange, isn't it?," before signing my name.

After putting my pen down I watched in amazement as the paper wrippled like the disturbed surface of a tranquil pond before twisting and folding itself once more into the shape of a dapper little man in a pin stripe suit. He saluted me smartly and winked his eye before walking to the edge of the desk. He paused for a moment, gave me one last look over his shoulder, and then threw himself over the edge. However, no sooner did he jump then he transformed himself into the shape of a paper airplane that caught an upward draft off the radiator and floated out the window.

The center of the lake remained frozen over, but a swath of open water, maybe thirty feet wide, ran along the ragged shoreline. As I paddled north, away from the house, chunks of ice and patches of slush crashed against the row boat's bow and whispered along the boat's sides. The channel of open water eventually narrowed forcing me to turn around, but as I turned my boat I noticed an abandoned fishing shanty, about a hundred yards out, slowly tipping over as the underlying ice shifted. It landed with a splash and crash. A gaggle of alarmed Canada geese, which had been gathered a short distance away, labored into the air with much honking, and winged their way a mile or so further up the lake before coming back down on the ice. I smiled on the scene. You would have too.

THE BEE LADY

I saw the bee lady yesterday. I saw her as I stepped out along the way that leads toward your house. She was standing under the trees. You know the ones, with the bark peeling and the brown leaves clinging to their brittle twigs. That's where I saw her. She stood in their midst like it was she who was killing them. Bees swarmed about her, covering half of her face, going in and out of her mouth, nose and ears. She had no eyes, only holes, and honey dripped from the empty sockets like tears.

PAM, JILL AND CINDY

The infamous Pam, who everyone said was a gold digger, and a home-wrecker besides, had aimed her considerable charm at a stationary target- a married man whose wealth was already established. Jill, her sister, had focused her affections on a moving target.  As with all moving targets it was necessary for her to lead her quarry by a few years. She aimed not where he was when she first met him but where he would be someday. She rejected a score of suitors in college before settling on a man who was on track to become a doctor. Her investment would eventually pay off. Both Pam and Jill convinced themselves that they were in love with their husbands, but those who knew them well always wondered about the “richer or for poorer” part. Cindy, the youngest sister, was in love with the idea of her boyfriend, a pimply faced teenager whose twin passions were “getting high” and “getting some.” He was a blank slate upon which she projected all of her hopes and dreams. The yawning chasm between who he was in reality and the man she had created in her daydreams was vast and irreconcilable. She aimed at a mirage, but like her sisters she was convinced that she loved him- at least the him she saw.

MOONLIGHT PIE

Near the edges of a moonlit meadow, I envisage a long table set beneath the spreading boughs of an ancient oak. Besides the moon overhead the only light is a nearby bon fire and a lantern hanging from a branch. On the table are rows of pies and around the table are my friends. At each elbow is a tall glass of milk. Between mouthfuls of pie, we talk of many things, and laughter clinks and  tinkles across the meadow, like ice cubes against the sides of a glass.

The next day's agenda includes nothing more than exploring the creek and procuring more pies.

A CRUSHED RAT AND A BURIAL AT SEA

If you were to consult a map of the northeast you would find that Lake Champlain (located on the state line between NY and VT) is shaped a bit like a tadpole facing north. The lake is larger than most people realize, encompassing roughly 490 square miles. It is over one-hundred miles long, and at its widest point (near Burlington, VT) it is twelve miles from shore to shore. As you go south the lake tapers to a thin tadpole's tail, which winds serpentine through the low-lying hills, and resembling a river more than a lake.

Here's something interesting about Lake Champlain- When a strong wind blows out of the north it takes all of those miles of water to the north and pushes them down into the thin, tapering tadpole's tail. I have read that the water level can rise in the southern end of the lake by as much as four feet in such a scenario.

I have an aluminum row boat back there. One spring day I had pulled it out of the water onto the shore below the house. To avoid scuffing the boat on the rocky shore I used some driftwood logs as skids to pull the boat out. Then I left the boat rightside up and went up to the house. That night it started to storm. It was raining hard, really hard, and the wind was blowing out of the north, pushing and piling all of that water down into the narrow tadpole's tail. I decided to go check on my boat. I was worried that if the boat filled with water the added weight might cause the boat to roll along the driftwood logs and go right out into the lake. As I made my way down to the shore I could hear the waves crashing against the hull of the boat and that's when I was startled to realize that the lake had risen several feet. I had pulled the boat well away from the water's edge, but that north wind was threatening to claim it.

By the time I got down to the boat I was soaked, shivering and miserable. The boat was a third filled with water so I reasoned that if I kicked out the rear-most skid the water wouold flow back toward the stern and act as an anchor to keep the boat from slipping along the foremost skid. I should have flipped the boat over, but like I said I was feeling pretty cold and miserable, and that was going to take some effort. So I quickly kicked out the rear skid and the boat crashed down into the rocky shore.

The next morning when I came down in the sunshine to pour the water out of my boat I found a crushed rat underneath it. No doubt he was a migrant from one of the nearby dairy farms. He must have sought shelter from the storm under the boat and when I kicked out the skid the water-filled boat must have crashed down on top of him. Now, if you know me well, you know that I hold a special hatred/fear of rats. I grabbed a piece of flat driftwood and used it as a shovel to scoop up its body. Then I placed it in the boat as far away from where I would be sitting as possible before taking up the oars and paddling out toward the middle of the lake. My plan was to dump the rat into the water where it wouldn't be likely to wash back up on the shore beneath the house. (I didn't care if it washed up near somebody else's house though. I just wanted it away from mine.)  As I paddled along I stared at it's yellowing teeth, bared in a death grimmace, and imagined what would happen if it suddenly came to life and began running around the cramped confines of the boat. What if it was only stunned? That thought freaked me out. (I probably would have abandoned ship and swam for shore if such had occurred. I'm slightly phobic when it comes to rats.) So I stopped well short of the middle of the lake and dumped the rat, board and all, into the drink.

And thus conludes my story of the time I accidentally crushed a rat and gave it a burial at sea.

(I also wish there was more point to this story, but really you can't complain. After all, the BFZ is free.)

THE HARDER IT STORMED WITHOUT THE COZIER IT FELT WITHIN.

I remember a day a few weeks ago when it rained and rained. The mountains above us were socked-in, and as I looked out the window, mist rolled down their sides, blowing wraithlike through the pines, and hanging around everything like the hazy edges of an old memory. Thunder followed, clapping overhead with a suddenness that made me jump and which set the windows rattling. Sheets of cold raindrops sliced through the mist, wasting their energy against the shingles, before flowing off the roof and across the grounds. It rained and rained, sometimes drizzling and sometimes torrential, but in the house the fireplace was crackling and filled with a cheery treasure of glowing coals.

WEATHER

It has been nearly seven and a half years since we moved out to CA from Vermont. I was heartsick for a while. I missed it back there, but given enough time California will seduce anyone. I'm not sure I could leave now without enduring some nasty withdrawal symptoms. I understand "California Dreaming" by the Mamas and the Papas. Even so, occasionally something will trigger that internal compass that points to New England, and I will find myself pining for her all over again. Today is such a day. As I type, rain is running off the roof and thunder is rolling down off the mountains. That smell, that rainy day smell, is blowing in through the open door, and all I can think about is images from my days in New England. They come and go in my mind with that perfect economy that belongs to great poetry. I could describe them for you, but I'd likely miss the mark. The rain has conjured up my sleeping desire for Vermont, and I'm at a loss as to how to bed it back down again.Ah well.

HUMOR DOESN'T ALWAYS TRANSLATE

We are currently hosting a women's retreat here at Maranatha, which always makes me feel kinda funny because our staff is largely comprised of women, and when all the guests are women too I walk around camp feeling like I am the last man on planet earth. This weekend it's all women all the time, and last night as I came into the dining hall to welcome them on behlaf of the staff, I met a group of women who were seated near the door. They all greeted me, because most of them know me from previous retreats, and I said "You know...I just feel like I'm the ugliest lady at this retreat." Most of them laughed but some of them just looked at me with their heads cocked to one side like they either didn't get it or actually felt bad for me. I'm not sure what they thought of my joke. Sometimes humor just doesn't translate.

CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED

On my morning constitutionals I have encountered a homeless man on two of my last three outings. At least I assume he's homeless. Perhaps he's an eccentric millionaire who shuffles along the streets of Idyllwild in the predawn hours shouting at passersby and looking disheveled, dirty and slightly unhinged because those are just some of his eccentricities. Or perhaps he is one of those angels traveling incognito that we are told of in scripture. I really should be nicer to him just to cover my bases.

Anyway, on two of my last three outings as I struck out for my morning jog I have encountered this man. On the first occasion where our two paths intersected he called out to me with a very jolly laugh, "Oh-hoh! An Alaskan surfer I see!" I smiled politely, not having the slightest clue what he he could possibly mean by that comment, and continued on my way. Occasionally I would look over my shoulder to make sure he wasn't following me.

Then the next morning as I was pounding my way down Lower Pine Crest I noticed he was walking up the street on the opposite side. He saw me. I saw him. There was enough distance between us that we both had time to plan for the moment when we would pass each other. I am a firm believer in greeting fellow passersby so I waved hello, and called out "Top of the morning to you!" In response, he bellowed across the street, "YOUR FRIEND'S A FOOL! HE'S GOTTA DEATH WISH AND HE'S GONNA GET IT!" I nodded in receipt of his warning, and picked up the pace. Occasionally I would look over my shoulder to make sure he wasn't following me.

Of course, I don't know which friend of mine he was referring to. I am blessed to have so many, you see, that I can't be sure who he was talking about precisely. So, friends, consider yourselves forewarned. Perhaps one of you has a death wish, and you should know that you just might get what you wish for, which would be death of course.

Yesterday morning as I headed out for my run I was sharply disappointed that the man didn't make an appearance. I looked for him coming and going, but he failed to show. My disappointment is defnitely the most puzzling aspect of this whole story to me. Why would I be disappointed? Reason tells me I should feel relieved, but there it is, unmistakably disappointed. It was like opening a fortune cookie to find no fortune inside.

Poor fella.

If you kill the outboard and let your boat drift into a silent glide that parallels the shore you can almost imagine the place as it may have appeared in antiquity. I imagine dugouts pulled up onto the bank and half-naked savages taking their leisure under the trees. Perhaps even wigwams, with hides and birch bark sheets lashed to stout frames, were clustered along the shoreline.  In my mind’s eye the scene may have closely resembled an exhibit I once saw in a natural history museum. In the exhibit a canoe filled with braves hailed the shore where squaws were busily occupied scraping hides and gathering fire wood while naked children ran along the bank or stood knee-deep in the water waiting for the canoe to land. In the village the aged members of the tribe sat Indian-style near the front door of their lodges while industrious looking hunters mended equipment, or strode through the village intent on mysterious errands.

The woods round about are full of screaming savages. Intent on murder, they are. Heartless as demons, hungry and howling, they circle the defenses just beyond the tree-line in the eerie half-light. Thick as flies on a carcass. They are the hunter's hounds, and these walls and defenses, are like the refuge a bear might find up a tree. The hunter will follow the hounds. Then what?

HERE COME THE RAINS

Ron and Izzy's bank account was like a dried up lake bed on the African veldt. A wide, shallow depression covered with dry, parched, cracking mud, and at its lowest point a murky pool consisting of $5.15. The bills, which they kept next to the toaster in an old broken napkin holder, waited patiently for the payday rains like a vast herd of thirsty animals. Ron and Izzy's need for a new tube of toothpaste and an oil change also waited. The rains, which fell every other Friday, would fill the depression of their bank account to its very lip and all would enjoy a brief season of plenty. The lush grass of abundance would crowd its thirsty banks again.

Ron stared at Izzy across the kitchen table, "You wanna go out to that taco place Friday night?"

"Yeah, that'd be nice," said Izzy.

One morning several years ago I woke up feeling nauseous. Wearing nothing but my boxers, T-shirt, and a single flip-flop (No time to look for the second one!) I hurried outdoors. It was early in the morning, maybe 5:30 or so, and upon waking it became immediately clear to me that this episode was going to end with a violent splattering of my stomach contents- and that seemed right imminent! (If you ever find me wandering out of doors in my boxer shorts you may safely assume I am in the midst of some crisis. Exigent circumstances make such a flagrant disregard for social conventions permissibale to some extent. At least that's my theory.) Although I knew I would not be able to avoid the fight I could at least choose the location of the battle. I prefer to vomit outdoors. So I went outside and stood for a moment in the muddy dooryard collecting myself. As I stood there my mouth filled with saliva. I groaned. I grimmaced. Then the riot in my stomach threatened to spread to my esophagus and, wanting to spare my loved ones the sight, sound and smell of my wretching, I staggered out into the middle of the dirt road which ran in front of the house. There I surrendered my will to biological necessity and vomited.

It was violent but brief, and when it was all done I felt better. The storm inside had spent itself, and for the moment I felt normal. The cool breeze of the soft spring morning caressed my brow comforting me and the song birds sang their concern. Mud squished between the toes of my bare foot. I tramped back across the dooryard and leaned heavily against a parked car. A tractor motored slowly past. The farmer who had witnessed the whole thing from his vantage point atop the tractor's controls smiled broadly at me, tipped the brim of his baseball cap back with his thumb, and then humorously swerved his tractor wide of the mess I had made. He laughed sympathetically, shook his head, and yelled over the roar of the tractor, "That's a good way to start your day!" I forced a laugh, waved him off, and then went in search of my lost flip-flop. I would spend the better part of that day otudoors.

Do I cling to this miserable raft and be satisfied with what meager comfort and security it affords or do I jump ship and swim for a shore that I cannot see? Of course, I know the answer. So why do I ask the question? 'Cause I'm weak...frail...made of dust. That's why. What a figure I must cut gesturing and stammering as I pace back and forth on this raft that I loathe and staring out at a sea that I fear.

I SEE DEAD PEOPLE

As time passes, my memories from my brief tenure as a police officer have grown dim and kind of fuzzy around the edges. Names and streets elude me now. I'm glad that I committed some of these memories to the BFZ rock pile while they were still fresh in my mind. Some remain as yet undocumented outside of affidavits and incident reports. This I intend to remedy at some point. Unfortunately some memories are still horribly vivid though. Like the time I kicked in the door to an old woman's apartment and found her decaying remains in the back bedroom, or the half dozen suicides I responded to. There was also the S.I.D.S. death and "Pie-Dog's" car crash down on the lake road. That's to say nothing of the dozen or so "untimelies" that I was called upon to document for the state. With latex hands and a screaming heart I turned them over, undressed them and ran fingers through their hair, looking for wounds. I noted lividity, counted medications, and diagramed the scene. Every corpse is filed away mentally, catalogued in vivid, macabre detail. I can remember feeling a sort of tingly, light-headed sensation each time as I walked into the presence of a deceased human being.

I want to be macho and say they didn't bother me, but that's not true. They did. They still do. Worse than the corpses though were the walking dead- men and women who were trapped hopelessly in their self-destructive lifestyles. The walking dead haunt me. They were slaves of compulsion, caught up and born along in a current which would lead inexorably to their own destruction. Every time I dealt with them I would come away with just one question- How's it going to end? I wondered if they saw the trajectory of their lives as I did.

I'm not sure I could help them, but sometimes I want to try. I know Christ is the only answer to their problem.

The house at the end of the road, way back in the woods where the track became two thin lines in the trees, was the type of place where you never gave a thought about what you were wearing. It wasn’t until you went into town that you suddenly felt ashamed, like Adam and Eve when they discovered they were naked.

GIFTS FROM THE LAKE

The above photo is from my Mom's blog. These are the stairs that lead down from the lake house toward the water. At the bottom there is usually another portable set of stairs which drop another 4-5 feet down to the shore. The portable stairs have been pulled up in the above photo. The amazing thing is that right now you could use the landing at the bottom of this flight of stairs as a boat launch. Every spring the lake (Lake Champlain) rises dramatically as a result of snow-melt and rain, but this appears to be a banner year with lake levels rising far higher than I have ever seen. This has caused some headaches for my folks who live there seasonally, although nothing like those poor folks living in the Mississippi's flood zone. The biggest headache is that my folks haven't had water because the lake rose up high enough to compromise their spring house.

However, there is definitely a positive in all of this. As a boy, when the lake house belonged to my Grandma and Grandpa McCuen I used to love to roam the shore looking for treasures that had washed up in the spring. Over the years I found duck decoys, fishing lures, bobbers by the hundreds, toy boats, wooden signs, dock sections, etc... Once I even found a dollar bill deposited in the branches of a bush along the shore. Some of the greatest treasures though are not washed up trash. There are some pretty spectacularly shaped pieces of driftwood, and once I found an arrowhead that had been washed from an eroded bank by the lake's battering waves.

I think that this year's flooding can only mean that the lake will slip in and grab even more loot than in years past. This is going to be a great year for beach-combing! In the fall, people left real bonafide treasures  in places that they felt confident would be safe from the lake's fingers, and right now those treasures, big and small, are being driven along by the waves toward the shore beneath the house. By the middle of summer the lake will have receded enough that any enterprising soul could go for a walk and come back with gifts from the lake.

McDONALD'S IN THE MORNING

Is there any better way to begin a road trip than an early morning stop at McDonald's? I love pulling off the freeway just as the golden sun is cresting the hills and bringing the van to a stop beneath the arches. Outside of the van, the smell emanating from the fryers, pulled up through the exhaust hoods and vented out across the parking lot, harmonizes with the hum of the nearby freeway and the bright-eyed smiles on the kids' faces to form an irresistable siren song that beckons us in through the double doors.

If you've never been to a McDonald's early in the morning you could be forgiven for not knowing that it's a different breed of individual that you will find there than the slightly depressing lot who come around later in the day. These are not the lazy, foul-mannered, makers-of-bad-decisions that you may have encountered before at McDonald's. The people of the dawning day are a different crowd altogether. Early risers, working people, and the industrious fortify themselves with Egg McMuffins and coffee before heading out into another day. They are people of purpose. For such as these, a stop at McDonald's is the calm before the storm. They eat in a respectful, reverential silence before squaring their shoulders and heading out the door and into the breach. Retired couples who have buillt a McDonald's breakfast into their daily routine are also a frequent fixture. They sit across from each other talking quietly or sitting in an easy familiar silence. I find it all very pleasant.