“Love: an Epic History”
By Fiver
Part one:
“The Monument”
The winter had been long; a thousand years long but the winds had ripped away the snow that covered the great glacier as it moved almost imperceptibly over what would, much later be known as “the land of sweet waters” and sometime after that; the state of Michigan. A pale, younger sun had been out for some months, melting the ice in layers and at noon, the sunlight shown down, penetrating several square yards of the top most ice and reflecting off a layer of crystal snow preserved some forty feet below which rendered the area between almost perfectly transparent. Two figures could be seen clearly incased in the pale blue green crystal depths. A man and woman, naked, embracing with legs entwined, still looking into each others eyes. Bonded together by the tribal shaman only a week before; they had been swimming together when a freak storm caught them both without warning. The same storm had frozen great, Woolley Mammoths as they ate on the plains, their trunks still clutching the succulent grasses; stopped half way to their open mouths. Both were dead before they knew what was happening. This was plain to be seen by the expressions on their faces as the sunlight danced around them for the first time in millennia. Joy. Joy with purity unrecognizable by modern Homo sapiens. Perfect ecstasy frozen in ice. The first monument to human love; erected by fate, dedicated by irony and witnessed by none.
Part two: The Beetle
Five millennia passed and the great glaciers had long since receded leaving rolling barrows and deep, spring fed lakes in their wake. The land was divided by lush forests of pine and birch to the north and prairie to the south. A tiny beetle sat motionless on a flat rock hidden in the tall prairie grass. It was male, barely three millimeters in length with a black body and legs and an almost perfectly hemispherical shell colored a bright red. The beetle was a sub species of Coccinellidae which were common to the area but the beetle itself was now as uncommon as possible. It felt the sun on its back, the breeze, which lifted its shell just slightly rustling the wings underneath and loneliness so deep that it was almost on a genetic level. It knew with a powerful certainty that it was the last of its kind. Far to the south in an area of grasslands that would later become northwestern Ohio, there had once been millions of red shelled Coccinellidae. They were benevolent as far as predators go, leaving no mark upon the land and preying only on other insects that did. They were driven by a homing instinct which brought them back each year to the same windswept veldt where they would feast on aphid, sawfly larva and paper wasps and lay their eggs on the stalks of tall grass. This instinct had sealed their doom as huge brush fires that spanned hundreds of miles engulfed the veldt wiping out the nurseries and killing all who lived there save one. The beetle had been chasing an umbrella wasp for miles before subduing it and upon returning had been blasted by the stifling heat of the fires and pushed upward, high into the thermals which had born it away, far to the north. It sat now, without movement or purpose. The meaning of its existence had been procreation, every aspect of its life leading it to the act of mating before surrendering itself to death. The beetle had come home and begun to feast, building up its strength for the mass mating at the end of September but it had not found a mate and now it was miles away in a place that smelled strange and inhospitable. It was the last of its kind, it had not mated and so its life was over. It was alone in a way that few living things ever are…All it could do was wait for death. The beetle had fallen into a state of near trance, so it did not notice when the other beetle arrived. She had noticed the tiny shock of red in the center of the flat rock as she flew overhead and had come to investigate. The beetle, finally catching her scent, stirred and turned to look at her. She was also a sub species of Coccinellidae and looked very like the red shelled beetle save that her shell was jet black. The beetle knew instinctively that she was not his species and therefore made no move to couple or even communicate but only stared listlessly back for a while before turning away to return to its fugue state . The other beetle could sense the red shell’s resignation and somehow it moved her. She carefully approached and peered into the red shell’s eyes while making overtures with her tiny feelers. She touched and stroked his face and mandibles, a gesture unheard of for a female of his species without the proper courtship rituals. She moved closer and exuded her pheromone to entice him and he reacted in spite of himself. The beetle did not understand at first. He was finished, without purpose or hope of one. He was utterly alone. Why was she courting him? What did she hope to gain? …and then the scent of her was clearing his thoughts and stirring something deeper than the instincts that had brought him back to the mating grounds year after year. He was alone in the world but she had noticed him. He was the last of his kind and utterly different from her but she wanted him. She could be with any of a million of her own kind but she was offering herself to him. The beetle lifted a feeler and touched her tiny face, met her gaze and knew that what she offered him was not pity, she offered him something he had never imagined; something completely new and unique. She offered him herself and life and a new purpose …and for that, he loved her.
The next year as the black shelled Coccinellidae arrived at their mating grounds they found in their midst, several beetles that were very different but who’s scent was familiar enough to accept without incident. These beetles had bright red shells dotted with black spots.
Part three: “The Rabbit”
As the centuries passed, the wind and rain slowly eroded the soil around the flat stone where the beetle had landed to reveal a large white limestone boulder amidst a series of smaller boulders forming a shallow gully. A rabbit was huddled in a small depression at its base. The rabbit was a doe and closer to a hare in physiology but none the less a direct ancestor of what would one day be a North American Cottontail. Her fur was matted, her feet bloody and her breathing shallow but steady. She was completely spent having endured a journey that few rabbits would ever consider. She had come from a forested area to the south east of where she had finally collapsed. She had left after losing everything she had, following no instinct that she understood but only a light in her mind that had led her here. She had been part of a warren that lived on the constant edge of survival, for there were many predators in the forest where she was born. She had been feeding with her mate, a large buck who had won her by defeating three other bucks when she had come of age. He was very attentive and protective of her; So much so that when he caught the wolverine’s scent before she had, he stamped a warning which had cost him his life. She had frozen where she was in the supernatural way that rabbits can, becoming so still that they cannot be distinguished from their surroundings and listened as the brutish predator had set upon her mate who fought frantically. She heard his growling and snarling climb higher in pitch until he was screaming. When it was over and she was certain the menace had gone, she made her way cautiously back toward the nest where her litter of ten kittens were hidden only to find a young fox digging them out as she approached. She had already birthed three litters in her short lifetime and had protected them often. She drove off a corn snake that had been big enough to crush her in its endless coils. She had killed a full grown crow as it attempted to raid her nest…but this was a fox, and small as it was, she knew she was no match for it. Instinct had overcome her and she had sat motionless, downwind and watched as the fox, with no more regard than a domestic dog standing at a bowl of kibble, ate her children one by one. She did not look away or try to move off but listened to their tiny squeals and felt their horror and pain. It was all she could do for them; so she endured until it was over. The fox licked the blood of her kittens off its crooked lips, defecated on what was left of the nest and trotted off without a backward glance.
Rabbits run. It goes beyond instinct for them. They live and die running. They never question it, never second guess it; never doubt it. When they aren't eating, sleeping, mating or digging, they are either waiting or running. If a situation arises that is too much to bare, they run. They do not consider fighting, or cowardice or the opinion of any other creature on the planet...They simply run and never look back. Every rabbit knows instinctively that looking back is fatal. The doe ran. She ran out of the forest and on to the plains and kept running. She stopped only to evade a predator. She ate only enough to keep running. She had run for days, weeks perhaps when she found the limestone boulder and collapsed. When she had caught what was left of her breath, she had dragged herself into a depression in the rock and huddled there, eyes closed, waiting for a long sleep. Only short fitful ones had come and she grew even wearier.
The buck had noticed the rabbit huddled in the limestone grotto as he came over the ridge of the gully looking for early coltsfoot or chervil. He had immediately started scenting for disease. If he smelled any, he would drive the rabbit off for the sake of his warren’s health but all he could make out was the feint sent of blood from the doe’s raw feet. As he moved closer he could smell dirt and exhaustion. He knew from her scent that the rabbit was a doe not yet ovulating. He could smell distance and adrenalin and pain as well but what was most profound was the subtle yet permeating scent of deep seated grief. He made his way to her cautiously and, after sniffing for several minutes touched her nose delicately with his own. When she did not respond he considered leaving her but the grief hanging in the air about her had touched him deeply and he could not move away. So, he lay down beside her, feet tucked under as rabbits often do insulating her between his own body and the wall of the grotto where she lay huddled. After a while she was warm and slept; if a little fitfully. He stayed with her through the night and in the morning when she stirred and then stretched and then yawned and finally shaken herself thoroughly, he led her slowly, for her feet were very tender, to a field of tall dandelions which she began to nibble steadily. As she ate, he began to clean her. He cleaned the dirt from her face and long, slender ears, groomed the fleas from her matted pelt and licked her raw feet until she could walk without difficulty. When she had eaten her fill, he led her back to his warren amidst several limestone boulders half buried in the earth. The rabbits had dug in between the boulders and created a series of scrapes and runs that were well hidden and easily defended. The landscape carried sound and scent well so there was always advanced warning for predators or inclement weather and the rabbits here had flourished. The other does in the warren ran up to the new doe, who smelled of loss and horror. Some of them began to growl nervously but the buck stamped and cuffed at them until they withdrew. He stayed by her side for days until the other rabbits knew scent and accepted her. During that time, the doe began to return to herself. Memory for a rabbit is like a physical sense, perhaps even a form of time travel. A rabbit’s memory does not come at any distance from it and is perceived much more as a part of the moment. The doe, eyes closed; struggled with her memories and always when she opened them, the buck was there; sometimes nose to nose with her. It took a year for her to come into heat again but when she did, the buck was there for her; always patient, always attentive. She bore him seven litters and their children were strong and clever and happy. She lived for five years, far longer than most rabbits and the buck was always with her. He never strayed more than three feet from her during their entire lives accept once when he had scented a coltsfoot over the ridge near the white limestone boulder and, it being his favorite had hopped off for a moment to happily rip it from the ground and chew it slowly. He had come back to find the does body resting peacefully where he had found her so many years ago. He lay beside her and stayed there until the same long sleep took him off to where she waited for him.
Part four: “The Couple”
Several thousand years later; the white limestone boulder had been worn down by the weather and was no bigger than a man. It had most recently been adorned with a bronze plaque dedicated to the women’s auxiliary. Some yards away from it, a man and woman sat at a picnic table in a small meadow just outside of a visitor center located at a rest stop on Interstate 69 in south central Michigan. Although they had only just met, they were a couple. Although they were both in their late forties, their demeanor was that of a much younger couple. Although it was the end of their first trip together, they knew it was the beginning of a life together.
They had met only virtually and knew each other through Face Book and Gmail and Skype but after a short while they knew each other beyond any boundaries, as though they were the same person. The man was from Michigan, the woman from Ohio. Both were committed to others but were loveless where they were; Prisoners of obligation and resignation. Both longed to escape and find themselves again. It was the woman who suggested they do it together and the man, who held a good road trip as the best thing in life, had agreed without hesitation. She came for him on a Monday morning and let him drive to Toledo where neither had friends or family. They walked together hand in hand, stole kisses in doorways and talked of nothing and everything. They asked local strangers where to find good restaurants, they watched the sun set in a parking lot and pretended to be married when they booked a room for the night. Once inside they nibbled leftovers, gave each other presents and finally without words, they undressed each other and shared their final secrets. They left the lights on and worshipped each other all night; often so overcome that they shed tears. In the morning, the man made a pot of coffee and brought a cup to the woman who had beamed at him because no one had ever done such a thing for her in her lifetime. The man beamed back because it was nothing for him and he relished idea of taking care of her. Too soon they were up and dressed. Too soon where they out of the hotel and back in the car. Too soon they were on the way back to Michigan. They had spoken very little that morning; not because they had run out of things to say or were morose about parting but because they were happy like they had never been before and there were no words to convey it and no need to do so had there been. The trip had been effortless and thrilling and perfect. It was as though the universe had laid everything that they wanted or needed reverently at their feet so when they began to see road signs for the man’s hometown, they had pulled into a rest stop that seemed to appear in just the right place. The woman had gone in the visitors center to use the bathroom while the man smoked his last cigarette, finding it too fitting that the pack he’d bought before leaving had lasted him the whole trip. He looked over to see the woman beckoning him from inside, had crushed out his smoke and gone to her side. She held his hand and led him to the rear of the center and pointed out into a little clearing with a picnic table. Just beyond that was a trail marked “Dog Walk” where two rabbits were nibbling at a dandelion that had gone to seed. They watched each other, the couple and the rabbits and it felt to them like the best of omens. They walked together then, out to the picnic table and sat with their arms around one another. Although it was early October, the day was summer perfect and dazzling bright. Throngs of ladybugs flew through the air and lit on their cloths and faces and the rabbits, who had moved off a bit, still peered at them from the undergrowth a few yards away. The woman took photos of secret things; the empty cigarette box in the trash; a ladybug on the man’s cheek and they both sat and marveled at the feeling they had. A deep knowing that the moment was theirs, that they belonged together and that they belonged here at this moment. Each felt the same without words to express it. Each knew that out of every wonderful thing that had happened; this was the moment together that they would always remember. A moment and a place that seemed to have been waiting for them, that belonged to them alone. A perfect understanding; an unspoken promise that although it was the end of their first trip together, it was the beginning of a life together.
Sunday, September 29, 2013
Saturday, September 21, 2013
Spindrift
Spindrift is a place that exists in southwest Michigan. It might resemble any number of very small Michigan towns. It has a wide main street, approximately three blocks of which is lined with Brownstones and storefronts built around the turn of the 20th century. Main Street is surrounded by a grid-like maze of white sidewalk broken by shady streets studded with saltboxes and colonials and outright gingerbread houses. The outlying neighborhoods are surrounded by dense jungle ravines and gullies, scrubby thickets and cool wooded glades snaked with deer runs and creeks. All of this is surrounded by the patchwork landscapes of American agriculture.
Spindrift has no telephone area code, no postal zip code or voting district. Its charter is not on file in the state capitol, no date of founding can be seen on any building corner stone or plaque, and it cannot be found on any Michigan map or county atlas made by Rand McNally Corporation, Universal Maps Incorporated or even the National Geographic Society. A curious few have found sporadic reference to the name and the vicinity in the journals of Titus Bronson and Pierre Marquette. The name can also be found on certain very early printed maps of the territory issued to explorers and early settlers heading westward from Fort Detroit in the first decades of the 19th century.
No one living in any of the near-by towns will say that they have ever heard of Spindrift, yet tales are told quietly in backyards and at dinner tables as well as flea markets, fruit stands and roadhouses all over the south-western counties. Some do not know it by name, only by a feeling they have when the wind blows the right way, others will tell you the name rings a bell but it’s more deja vu than direction.
The occasional weary traveler will amble into Spindrift, usually very late at night when falling asleep at the wheel or finding a main road is a concern. The stop will be brief but always oddly memorable. It is only long after the fact, however, that the power of the experience becomes apparent. Months or years later some mnemonic will tickle a memory and someone will say;
“You know, the best piece of pie I’ve ever eaten in my life was in a club car diner in this weird little town in Michigan.”
Or;
“Once I had this extraordinary conversation about Buddhist cosmology with an 80-year-old guy at an all-night coffee shop in Michigan. I was going to Chicago and I wound up on the back roads with a flat and of course, no spare. A tow-truck from this little town just happened by and what was the name of that place?”
It was always in Spindrift. What is perhaps most peculiar is that if the traveler ever gets back to that neck of the woods, they will look for a time, spurred on by the memory, only to stop in Plainwell, or Paw Paw, hoping to find the diner or the coffee house. The places are never there, or stranger still, they are but they don’t look at all like they had when you ate that great piece of pie or made that phone call. Sometimes the building is there but it’s been closed for 30 years.
There are places in Spindrift that exist or once existed elsewhere in Michigan. On Main Street is a movie palace that once held court in Kalamazoo. There is a Church of the Brethren from Saugatuck, an Art Deco Savings and Loan from Battle Creek, a haberdashery from Nichols Arcade in Ann Arbor, all gone from their erstwhile communities, all can be found in Spindrift and what’s more, they have always been there.
The residents of Spindrift are like any other people in Michigan except that they seem more complete somehow, almost as though they are archetypes of a sort. They seem familiar in that nagging way and you would swear that you have met them before or even had known them to some extent like a waitress or mailman or desk clerk you had dealt with regularly years and years ago but whom had become as lost to memory as any abandoned routine. The people of Spindrift have all been born, will live their lives and die there. All save a precious few who seldom if ever return.
An invitation to Spindrift is very rare but there is little chance of finding the place without one. Spindrift is a place in southwest Michigan that is very hard to find. It cannot be found by simply knowing where to look because in fact, Spindrift is a place in southwest Michigan that isn’t really there.
Spindrift has no telephone area code, no postal zip code or voting district. Its charter is not on file in the state capitol, no date of founding can be seen on any building corner stone or plaque, and it cannot be found on any Michigan map or county atlas made by Rand McNally Corporation, Universal Maps Incorporated or even the National Geographic Society. A curious few have found sporadic reference to the name and the vicinity in the journals of Titus Bronson and Pierre Marquette. The name can also be found on certain very early printed maps of the territory issued to explorers and early settlers heading westward from Fort Detroit in the first decades of the 19th century.
No one living in any of the near-by towns will say that they have ever heard of Spindrift, yet tales are told quietly in backyards and at dinner tables as well as flea markets, fruit stands and roadhouses all over the south-western counties. Some do not know it by name, only by a feeling they have when the wind blows the right way, others will tell you the name rings a bell but it’s more deja vu than direction.
The occasional weary traveler will amble into Spindrift, usually very late at night when falling asleep at the wheel or finding a main road is a concern. The stop will be brief but always oddly memorable. It is only long after the fact, however, that the power of the experience becomes apparent. Months or years later some mnemonic will tickle a memory and someone will say;
“You know, the best piece of pie I’ve ever eaten in my life was in a club car diner in this weird little town in Michigan.”
Or;
“Once I had this extraordinary conversation about Buddhist cosmology with an 80-year-old guy at an all-night coffee shop in Michigan. I was going to Chicago and I wound up on the back roads with a flat and of course, no spare. A tow-truck from this little town just happened by and what was the name of that place?”
It was always in Spindrift. What is perhaps most peculiar is that if the traveler ever gets back to that neck of the woods, they will look for a time, spurred on by the memory, only to stop in Plainwell, or Paw Paw, hoping to find the diner or the coffee house. The places are never there, or stranger still, they are but they don’t look at all like they had when you ate that great piece of pie or made that phone call. Sometimes the building is there but it’s been closed for 30 years.
There are places in Spindrift that exist or once existed elsewhere in Michigan. On Main Street is a movie palace that once held court in Kalamazoo. There is a Church of the Brethren from Saugatuck, an Art Deco Savings and Loan from Battle Creek, a haberdashery from Nichols Arcade in Ann Arbor, all gone from their erstwhile communities, all can be found in Spindrift and what’s more, they have always been there.
The residents of Spindrift are like any other people in Michigan except that they seem more complete somehow, almost as though they are archetypes of a sort. They seem familiar in that nagging way and you would swear that you have met them before or even had known them to some extent like a waitress or mailman or desk clerk you had dealt with regularly years and years ago but whom had become as lost to memory as any abandoned routine. The people of Spindrift have all been born, will live their lives and die there. All save a precious few who seldom if ever return.
An invitation to Spindrift is very rare but there is little chance of finding the place without one. Spindrift is a place in southwest Michigan that is very hard to find. It cannot be found by simply knowing where to look because in fact, Spindrift is a place in southwest Michigan that isn’t really there.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
"Hey Buddy!" from a novel by Fiver
“Hey Buddy!”
“What’cha want, birdbath?”
Buddy didn’t bother to look down. His name wasn’t really Buddy, but when he’d first come to the orchard, old man Gundy could never remember his name and rather than admit it he had just said “Hey buddy…” Now Buddy, who didn’t care much for his real name anyway, had this favorite aunt who used to tell him about TV when she was growing up in the 50’s in Detroit. Her favorite show was Soupy Sales and whenever he would get a pie in the face, someone off stage would yell “Hey Buddy," Soupy would turn to look and POW! Soupy called all the kids at home birdbaths for some reason and after the third or fourth time old man Gundy had said “Hey buddy,” it seemed like a pie in the face was what he deserved for not admitting he couldn’t remember Buddy’s real name. Old man Gundy was quite a bit older than his favorite aunt, so buddy hadn’t expect him to understand but the first time he’d responded to “Hey buddy” with “What’cha want, birdbath?” Old man Gundy had stood looking at him with a frown like an old, rusted horseshoe and then laughed and laughed… “I’ll be damned!” He’d said and been so tickled that he’d explained the whole joke to every one they had run into that day. That had clinched the deal for Buddy and he decided to stay and work permanently at Gundy’s fruit farm when the old man offered.
Mrs.Gundy had been very distant at first. She had thought Buddy was odd and a little too quiet. He could tell that made her nervous, which made him nervous so he was always kind of clumsy around her. He would always see her looking at him suspiciously out of the corner of his eye and was ready to thank the old man for all he’d done for him and move on… until the day the old man had told him to help her with the canning and the tiny rabbit had poked it’s head out of his shirt pocket and sniffed at her delicately. “What’re you doing with that little rabbit, Tom?” (Mrs. Gundy always remembered his real name) Buddy had looked down and smiled, gently rubbed the fur between the rabbit’s ears and said “Keeping him warm” She looked at him so long and deeply that he felt like he had to start talking, which was pretty unusual for Buddy. “I found him just sitting in the driveway in the rain…and…Well, there’s a Red-tail that lives out back of the north poll barn. …I just… Well, I figured he could stay with me until he was big enough to keep away from the crows.” He could feel her watching him but could not look back at her to save his life…”Do you know what to do for him?” She asked softly… “Oh, sure…” he’d said as casually as he could and darting a quick glance at her eyes, which he could not hold. “He’s old enough to eat on his own…you can tell because he’s got his star, here on his forehead, see? I’ve been feeding him dandelions that I got soaking in a pail so he gets plenty of water and keeping him right here with me so he stays warm and doesn’t catch cold…I call him Pip…till he finds his own name and…” He’d been looking at the rabbit the whole time and when he finally met her gaze, he was almost startled by her expression. She looked like she’d been watching something struggling for life. Her eyes were very shiny. As difficult as it had been to make eye contact, it was at least as difficult to look away now. “…its okay I keep him, isn’t it? …Just until he’s got a chance on his own…” She’d looked at him for a long time and then tilted her head almost imperceptibly, reached up and smoothed the spiky hair away from his forehead. The feel of her brief touch on his skin had sent a shiver through his whole body as hardly anyone had ever touched him in his whole life and his eyes had glazed over a bit and his mouth had dropped open. She had sensed his reaction and dropped the hand to rest on the side of his face, gently stroking his cheek with her thumb a few times. “Yes, Tom. That’s fine. You do what you can for him.” She had smiled so sweetly at him that that his face had gone all hot and red, little Pip had burrowed back into the cotton balls in his shirt pocket to escape the heat and he’d prayed to God almighty that the tears welling in his eyes didn’t spill down his cheeks.
The Gundy’s thought the way Buddy’s mind worked was ingenious and since that let him get away with being “different”, that was fine with him. For Buddy it was enough that it was tolerated. He had long come to except that he was not just different but likely very different. The way he thought about things was, from his own observations, not at all the way most people did. He’d learned very early on that the more different you were, the more people noticed you and picked on you, or worse yet tried to help you; so he had learned to be quiet and keep to himself. It seemed like most people thought he was an idiot but it was not that he couldn’t speak clearly or follow directions or read or write, it was just that he didn’t like to because he had trouble with it. The doctors had called it Dyslexia, his Father had called it Satan and his mother had called it no excuse. Whatever it really was, it set him apart from everybody else. Buddy had learned to adjust. Whenever being who he was had denied him something or put him in a bad situation, buddy had adjusted until the situation was tolerable. That’s all it had to be; just tolerable. He had come to think of that as his greatest quality. Old man Gundy liked to go on about what an Einstein he was with machinery and Mrs. Gundy just loved his way with animals but for Buddy those things were just who he was and you can’t ever help being who you are, good or bad, right or wrong. It was his ability to adapt that he was proud of. If an older boy had told him he had to find another way home from school, he adapted. It didn’t matter that it took him a half hour longer to walk home, what was important was that he got home. When his teachers told him that he had to go to a special class, he had adapted. He’d gone there every day, past all the other kids, who’d looked at him funny even before, and listened to the teachers talk to him like he was a baby and sat next to kids who couldn’t think straight. He’d done what he was told and escaped into his head and it was tolerable. When his parents told him he had to work for a living, he had adapted and found a job doing chores on a pig farm. What was important was that things had always worked out and that was because he could adapt. Adapting was not just rolling along with things. It was also keeping yourself safe, like not speaking if you can nod, or keeping the truth to yourself, or going somewhere no one can see to cry. People didn’t like to be burdened with such things and that was Buddy’s strong suit. He had learned to adapt and not be a burden on others.
To be continued...
“What’cha want, birdbath?”
Buddy didn’t bother to look down. His name wasn’t really Buddy, but when he’d first come to the orchard, old man Gundy could never remember his name and rather than admit it he had just said “Hey buddy…” Now Buddy, who didn’t care much for his real name anyway, had this favorite aunt who used to tell him about TV when she was growing up in the 50’s in Detroit. Her favorite show was Soupy Sales and whenever he would get a pie in the face, someone off stage would yell “Hey Buddy," Soupy would turn to look and POW! Soupy called all the kids at home birdbaths for some reason and after the third or fourth time old man Gundy had said “Hey buddy,” it seemed like a pie in the face was what he deserved for not admitting he couldn’t remember Buddy’s real name. Old man Gundy was quite a bit older than his favorite aunt, so buddy hadn’t expect him to understand but the first time he’d responded to “Hey buddy” with “What’cha want, birdbath?” Old man Gundy had stood looking at him with a frown like an old, rusted horseshoe and then laughed and laughed… “I’ll be damned!” He’d said and been so tickled that he’d explained the whole joke to every one they had run into that day. That had clinched the deal for Buddy and he decided to stay and work permanently at Gundy’s fruit farm when the old man offered.
Mrs.Gundy had been very distant at first. She had thought Buddy was odd and a little too quiet. He could tell that made her nervous, which made him nervous so he was always kind of clumsy around her. He would always see her looking at him suspiciously out of the corner of his eye and was ready to thank the old man for all he’d done for him and move on… until the day the old man had told him to help her with the canning and the tiny rabbit had poked it’s head out of his shirt pocket and sniffed at her delicately. “What’re you doing with that little rabbit, Tom?” (Mrs. Gundy always remembered his real name) Buddy had looked down and smiled, gently rubbed the fur between the rabbit’s ears and said “Keeping him warm” She looked at him so long and deeply that he felt like he had to start talking, which was pretty unusual for Buddy. “I found him just sitting in the driveway in the rain…and…Well, there’s a Red-tail that lives out back of the north poll barn. …I just… Well, I figured he could stay with me until he was big enough to keep away from the crows.” He could feel her watching him but could not look back at her to save his life…”Do you know what to do for him?” She asked softly… “Oh, sure…” he’d said as casually as he could and darting a quick glance at her eyes, which he could not hold. “He’s old enough to eat on his own…you can tell because he’s got his star, here on his forehead, see? I’ve been feeding him dandelions that I got soaking in a pail so he gets plenty of water and keeping him right here with me so he stays warm and doesn’t catch cold…I call him Pip…till he finds his own name and…” He’d been looking at the rabbit the whole time and when he finally met her gaze, he was almost startled by her expression. She looked like she’d been watching something struggling for life. Her eyes were very shiny. As difficult as it had been to make eye contact, it was at least as difficult to look away now. “…its okay I keep him, isn’t it? …Just until he’s got a chance on his own…” She’d looked at him for a long time and then tilted her head almost imperceptibly, reached up and smoothed the spiky hair away from his forehead. The feel of her brief touch on his skin had sent a shiver through his whole body as hardly anyone had ever touched him in his whole life and his eyes had glazed over a bit and his mouth had dropped open. She had sensed his reaction and dropped the hand to rest on the side of his face, gently stroking his cheek with her thumb a few times. “Yes, Tom. That’s fine. You do what you can for him.” She had smiled so sweetly at him that that his face had gone all hot and red, little Pip had burrowed back into the cotton balls in his shirt pocket to escape the heat and he’d prayed to God almighty that the tears welling in his eyes didn’t spill down his cheeks.
The Gundy’s thought the way Buddy’s mind worked was ingenious and since that let him get away with being “different”, that was fine with him. For Buddy it was enough that it was tolerated. He had long come to except that he was not just different but likely very different. The way he thought about things was, from his own observations, not at all the way most people did. He’d learned very early on that the more different you were, the more people noticed you and picked on you, or worse yet tried to help you; so he had learned to be quiet and keep to himself. It seemed like most people thought he was an idiot but it was not that he couldn’t speak clearly or follow directions or read or write, it was just that he didn’t like to because he had trouble with it. The doctors had called it Dyslexia, his Father had called it Satan and his mother had called it no excuse. Whatever it really was, it set him apart from everybody else. Buddy had learned to adjust. Whenever being who he was had denied him something or put him in a bad situation, buddy had adjusted until the situation was tolerable. That’s all it had to be; just tolerable. He had come to think of that as his greatest quality. Old man Gundy liked to go on about what an Einstein he was with machinery and Mrs. Gundy just loved his way with animals but for Buddy those things were just who he was and you can’t ever help being who you are, good or bad, right or wrong. It was his ability to adapt that he was proud of. If an older boy had told him he had to find another way home from school, he adapted. It didn’t matter that it took him a half hour longer to walk home, what was important was that he got home. When his teachers told him that he had to go to a special class, he had adapted. He’d gone there every day, past all the other kids, who’d looked at him funny even before, and listened to the teachers talk to him like he was a baby and sat next to kids who couldn’t think straight. He’d done what he was told and escaped into his head and it was tolerable. When his parents told him he had to work for a living, he had adapted and found a job doing chores on a pig farm. What was important was that things had always worked out and that was because he could adapt. Adapting was not just rolling along with things. It was also keeping yourself safe, like not speaking if you can nod, or keeping the truth to yourself, or going somewhere no one can see to cry. People didn’t like to be burdened with such things and that was Buddy’s strong suit. He had learned to adapt and not be a burden on others.
To be continued...
Sunday, March 21, 2010
"The Sleeping Bear's Dream" From A novel by Fiver
THE LEGEND OF THE SLEEPING BEAR
Long ago, in the land that is today Wisconsin, Mother Bear and her two cubs were driven into Lake Michigan by a raging forest fire. The cubs swam strongly but the distance and the water proved too much for them. They fell further and further behind and ultimately slipped beneath the waves. When Mother Bear reached the Michigan shore, she climbed to the top of a bluff and peered back across the water, searching in vain for her cubs. For many days she sat, her sadness growing until the Great Spirit saw her and took pity on her plight. He raised North and South Manitou Islands to mark the place where her cubs had vanished and laid a slumber upon Mother Bear. She sleeps there still.
- Ojibwa Indian Legend
There were many native peoples who made Michigan their home, among them the Huron, the Miami, the Sioux and even the great Iroquois nation ventured there at one period in time. It is the Anicinàpe peoples however that have the oldest and most consistent claim. Of those far ranging peoples there were three principal tribes that inhabited Michigan from the time when the French first made contact in the 1600's to the present. They are the Ojibwa, the Odawa and the Bode'wadmi (known to the white man as the Chippewa, the Ottawa, and the Potawatomi). The latter two are thought to have split off from the Ojibwa but their customs are similar and their language is essentially the same. These tribes refer to themselves as the Anishnabek (pronounced neshnabe'k)
There is an obscure Anishnabek legend that is connected with the Ojibwa tale of the great sleeping bear. It is largely unknown because it refers briefly to the “Good Red Road” and the “Good Blue Road”, which are terms used in the “sweet medicine” teachings and therefore indicative of story told by tribal shaman.
Unlike other shared legends, there is little or no variation in the content of this tale from tribe to tribe.
“WINSI TE'TE'PE' KWEGUIN” - E'MBAT MKO YABWE'
(“White Caps” - The Sleeping Bear’s Dream)
It is said that when the Great Spirit first laid the sleep on Mother bear after her cubs had perished, he had only intended that she do so until her grief had left her. As she lay deep within her powerful slumber near the shores of the great waters, she knew peace and began to dream.
She dreamed of a wheel of stars that spun in the night sky. As she watched the slowly turning stars, glowing like white embers in the blackness, Mother Bear began to hear a pounding sound almost like the waves on the shore where she lay sleeping. The sound grew louder until she saw that the wheel was the outline a huge drum that beat slowly like the rhythm a great heart. This rhythm was strong and seemed to call to her so Mother Bear stood up within her dream and began to walk towards the drum, her great head swinging from side to side as if she were in a dance. Soon, each beat of the rhythm became a footstep on her journey and as she traveled closer and closer, she could see that the drum was really an island in the darkness. As she climbed up onto the shore and stood upon the pure white sand, Mother Bear looked down upon her great paws and became awake within her dream.
In this place she was safe from fire and knew no fear. Here she could not feel the loss of her cubs and knew no grief. In this place she found her center and knew her own power. Because this power was so great and because her slumber had come from the Great Spirit, the sleeping bear’s dream opened like a flower in the morning sun and became a place in the world. Because it was also a dream it was different from all other places. Many things seen only in dreams could be seen there. Many things only done in dreams could be done there and because it was Mother Bear’s special place of power, the medicine was always strong and good.
The Great Spirit saw this new place and Mother Bear moving through it and went to ask her what had happened. “What is this place, Mother bear?” he asked “-and what are you doing here?” Mother bear replied, “This is my place, Grandfather. I have always been here.” Great Spirit only smiled for he understood what had happened and knew that if he told Mother Bear that she was asleep and dreaming she would surely awaken, this new and beautiful place would fade like smoke from a dying fire and she would return to her grief and pain. He knew also that a place this powerful could set many dark beings loose upon the world and would need to be protected, so he sent Rabbit to tell all of the other animals to gather in the center of the new place.
When all the animals had gathered together, Great Spirit told them to do a special medicine dance. He showed them the sacred "two step" and taught them a special song and when all of the animals were dancing together and singing with one voice, the Great Spirit went to the shores of the sweet waters. There he took the froth from the tips of the waves and returned to the circle. When he knew the medicine was at it's strongest, he poured the froth over the circle, which raised a thick mist higher than the tallest tree and hid the place of the sleeping bear’s dream from the rest of the world. The Great Spirit looked down upon the animals with pride and said "Grandchildren, you have done well. For your reward you may all return to this place and be safe. You may come here and make your own medicine whenever you have need."
“Grandfather?” asked the animals. “We have hidden this dream so well, how will we find our way back?” The Great Spirit thought for a moment and told them "I will make two roads. One will be red like river clay and the other will be blue like the deep, sweet waters. These roads will only cross each other here in this place so this too shall be hidden. As long as you stay on one road or the other, you can always find you way back. When you smell the mists of the great waters but you are far from the shore, then you will know you are near. The place of the sleeping bear’s dream is called WInsi Te'te'pe' kweguin which means, “white caps” like the ones Great spirit used to make the mists that hide it.
To ensure that WInsi Te’te’pe' kweguin would remain in existence the great spirit decreed that Mother bear would sleep forever. Eventually the sands covered her slumbering body and became great dunes on the northern shores of Lake Michigan. To this day it is still a sacred place of power and Mother Bear's spirit can always be felt there. It is said she stirred in her sleep when the white man first came here. A wise man knows to walk lightly at Sleeping Bear dunes.
There are many legends from many nations concerning WInsi Te’te’pe' kweguin. Some say that this is how "Spirit Animals came into being. Some say that “White Buffalo Woman” was born in WInsi Te'te'pe' kweguin and took the first “Medicine Pipe” from the hand of the Great Spirit in the center of the sacred circle there. Some say it was the pattern for the first “Medicine shield.” Many say it can only be seen in visions and the only way to travel there is by the “Sundance” or the “Sacred Sweat.” Others say that this place is real but the way is hidden, that it lies at the end of the “Trickster” medicine path and that only a "contrary" could survive the journey.
All say only a wise man or a cunning warrior can find it and that few have done so.
There are several points of interest concerning this tale (as told to the author by a Potawatomi Shaman), most notably that in the sweet medicine teachings the good red road and the good blue road cannot meet because they both run north to south in parallel (Some even claim that they are the same road). Further research into the teachings reveals very little save for a somewhat obscure parable concerning the good red road, which makes some subtle reference to the treacherous and unpredictable “Trickster Medicine path” (the way of the “Contrary”). It is as follows:
“A traveler who believes that the good red road runs only north and south will not see this road when it runs east to west. Only a Contrary can walk a crooked road."
Also of note is a recent translation of the Algonquin language by Dr. Rita “Standing Otter” Jameson of the Harvard Linguistics department. The Algonquin are part of the Anicinàpe peoples and their language is similar to Ojibwa. The Term WInsi Te'te'pe' kweguin which was thought to mean literally “White from the tops of waves” hence “White Caps” is actually closer to the meaning of “mist that floats on the churning water” which is more in keeping with the tale as it is told. Ergo, instead of “White Caps” a better term might be “Spindrift.”
Long ago, in the land that is today Wisconsin, Mother Bear and her two cubs were driven into Lake Michigan by a raging forest fire. The cubs swam strongly but the distance and the water proved too much for them. They fell further and further behind and ultimately slipped beneath the waves. When Mother Bear reached the Michigan shore, she climbed to the top of a bluff and peered back across the water, searching in vain for her cubs. For many days she sat, her sadness growing until the Great Spirit saw her and took pity on her plight. He raised North and South Manitou Islands to mark the place where her cubs had vanished and laid a slumber upon Mother Bear. She sleeps there still.
- Ojibwa Indian Legend
There were many native peoples who made Michigan their home, among them the Huron, the Miami, the Sioux and even the great Iroquois nation ventured there at one period in time. It is the Anicinàpe peoples however that have the oldest and most consistent claim. Of those far ranging peoples there were three principal tribes that inhabited Michigan from the time when the French first made contact in the 1600's to the present. They are the Ojibwa, the Odawa and the Bode'wadmi (known to the white man as the Chippewa, the Ottawa, and the Potawatomi). The latter two are thought to have split off from the Ojibwa but their customs are similar and their language is essentially the same. These tribes refer to themselves as the Anishnabek (pronounced neshnabe'k)
There is an obscure Anishnabek legend that is connected with the Ojibwa tale of the great sleeping bear. It is largely unknown because it refers briefly to the “Good Red Road” and the “Good Blue Road”, which are terms used in the “sweet medicine” teachings and therefore indicative of story told by tribal shaman.
Unlike other shared legends, there is little or no variation in the content of this tale from tribe to tribe.
“WINSI TE'TE'PE' KWEGUIN” - E'MBAT MKO YABWE'
(“White Caps” - The Sleeping Bear’s Dream)
It is said that when the Great Spirit first laid the sleep on Mother bear after her cubs had perished, he had only intended that she do so until her grief had left her. As she lay deep within her powerful slumber near the shores of the great waters, she knew peace and began to dream.
She dreamed of a wheel of stars that spun in the night sky. As she watched the slowly turning stars, glowing like white embers in the blackness, Mother Bear began to hear a pounding sound almost like the waves on the shore where she lay sleeping. The sound grew louder until she saw that the wheel was the outline a huge drum that beat slowly like the rhythm a great heart. This rhythm was strong and seemed to call to her so Mother Bear stood up within her dream and began to walk towards the drum, her great head swinging from side to side as if she were in a dance. Soon, each beat of the rhythm became a footstep on her journey and as she traveled closer and closer, she could see that the drum was really an island in the darkness. As she climbed up onto the shore and stood upon the pure white sand, Mother Bear looked down upon her great paws and became awake within her dream.
In this place she was safe from fire and knew no fear. Here she could not feel the loss of her cubs and knew no grief. In this place she found her center and knew her own power. Because this power was so great and because her slumber had come from the Great Spirit, the sleeping bear’s dream opened like a flower in the morning sun and became a place in the world. Because it was also a dream it was different from all other places. Many things seen only in dreams could be seen there. Many things only done in dreams could be done there and because it was Mother Bear’s special place of power, the medicine was always strong and good.
The Great Spirit saw this new place and Mother Bear moving through it and went to ask her what had happened. “What is this place, Mother bear?” he asked “-and what are you doing here?” Mother bear replied, “This is my place, Grandfather. I have always been here.” Great Spirit only smiled for he understood what had happened and knew that if he told Mother Bear that she was asleep and dreaming she would surely awaken, this new and beautiful place would fade like smoke from a dying fire and she would return to her grief and pain. He knew also that a place this powerful could set many dark beings loose upon the world and would need to be protected, so he sent Rabbit to tell all of the other animals to gather in the center of the new place.
When all the animals had gathered together, Great Spirit told them to do a special medicine dance. He showed them the sacred "two step" and taught them a special song and when all of the animals were dancing together and singing with one voice, the Great Spirit went to the shores of the sweet waters. There he took the froth from the tips of the waves and returned to the circle. When he knew the medicine was at it's strongest, he poured the froth over the circle, which raised a thick mist higher than the tallest tree and hid the place of the sleeping bear’s dream from the rest of the world. The Great Spirit looked down upon the animals with pride and said "Grandchildren, you have done well. For your reward you may all return to this place and be safe. You may come here and make your own medicine whenever you have need."
“Grandfather?” asked the animals. “We have hidden this dream so well, how will we find our way back?” The Great Spirit thought for a moment and told them "I will make two roads. One will be red like river clay and the other will be blue like the deep, sweet waters. These roads will only cross each other here in this place so this too shall be hidden. As long as you stay on one road or the other, you can always find you way back. When you smell the mists of the great waters but you are far from the shore, then you will know you are near. The place of the sleeping bear’s dream is called WInsi Te'te'pe' kweguin which means, “white caps” like the ones Great spirit used to make the mists that hide it.
To ensure that WInsi Te’te’pe' kweguin would remain in existence the great spirit decreed that Mother bear would sleep forever. Eventually the sands covered her slumbering body and became great dunes on the northern shores of Lake Michigan. To this day it is still a sacred place of power and Mother Bear's spirit can always be felt there. It is said she stirred in her sleep when the white man first came here. A wise man knows to walk lightly at Sleeping Bear dunes.
There are many legends from many nations concerning WInsi Te’te’pe' kweguin. Some say that this is how "Spirit Animals came into being. Some say that “White Buffalo Woman” was born in WInsi Te'te'pe' kweguin and took the first “Medicine Pipe” from the hand of the Great Spirit in the center of the sacred circle there. Some say it was the pattern for the first “Medicine shield.” Many say it can only be seen in visions and the only way to travel there is by the “Sundance” or the “Sacred Sweat.” Others say that this place is real but the way is hidden, that it lies at the end of the “Trickster” medicine path and that only a "contrary" could survive the journey.
All say only a wise man or a cunning warrior can find it and that few have done so.
There are several points of interest concerning this tale (as told to the author by a Potawatomi Shaman), most notably that in the sweet medicine teachings the good red road and the good blue road cannot meet because they both run north to south in parallel (Some even claim that they are the same road). Further research into the teachings reveals very little save for a somewhat obscure parable concerning the good red road, which makes some subtle reference to the treacherous and unpredictable “Trickster Medicine path” (the way of the “Contrary”). It is as follows:
“A traveler who believes that the good red road runs only north and south will not see this road when it runs east to west. Only a Contrary can walk a crooked road."
Also of note is a recent translation of the Algonquin language by Dr. Rita “Standing Otter” Jameson of the Harvard Linguistics department. The Algonquin are part of the Anicinàpe peoples and their language is similar to Ojibwa. The Term WInsi Te'te'pe' kweguin which was thought to mean literally “White from the tops of waves” hence “White Caps” is actually closer to the meaning of “mist that floats on the churning water” which is more in keeping with the tale as it is told. Ergo, instead of “White Caps” a better term might be “Spindrift.”
Friday, February 26, 2010
"Thunderstorm" from a Novel by Fiver
A Thunderstorm is brewing. You can smell it here in Spindrift while it’s still two states away. In the late morning when the freshness starts to fade you can tell the first big one of the season is on its way. The humidity rises slowly, almost imperceptibly at first and then everything starts slowing down, like glycerin in water, as though the world is thickening.
Long about 1pm the barometric pressure drops so low that thin plate glass windows bow outwards. "Yummy" O’Toole stops watching "Lost in Space" long enough to listen to his windows creak. He never opens them, not since Brother dropped Punkin out of the upstairs window when he was five. Yummy listens and wonders if they’re going to open anyway. He doesn’t know that he’s remembering about Punkin using something other than his memory.
The sky has turned a dull shade of slate, light brown or gray and you can’t tell the difference because there is no point of reference. It’s so subtle that Auntie Ardell can’t remember when it changed from the brilliant azure ocean into the dusty looking void. Just as if God had washed the clay of creation off his hands and clouded up that pure rinse water. She thinks of Dante and Milton as she puts her cane out in front of her. Her last name is Weatheral and she muses that it’s a good name for today. She doesn’t know that the name goes back 1500 years to an old woman who was given it because she was doing just exactly what Aunt Ardell is doing today.
Over on Long-bridge Street, Jimmy McCoy is tossing a glass pop bottle in the air so that it flips end over end, and catching it by the neck as it falls. He’s been doing this for the last 3 hours, ever since he found it right where he’d left it the day before, pressed into the soft, black earth behind Mrs. Lancaster’s rose bushes. He had been surprised to find it there because he’d forgotten all about it in the way only a kid can… Utterly, as though it had never existed. He’d plucked it out, admired the perfect bottle shaped depression it left behind in the dirt and then sat in the sweet‑smelling darkness of the bushes, turning it over and over like a relic. The memory of the grape pop it had once contained was so vivid he could taste it. He’d screwed the metal cap back on the empty bottle very tightly on the previous morning and he could see yesterday’s air inside. It looked thinner and cooler than today’s air and the difference in pressure and temperature made the outside of the bottle sweat and its weight seem funny. He’d started tossing it in the air. He felt very protective of the yesterday world he’d managed to preserve, but he couldn’t help himself. The urge to throw destiny in motion and keep chance alive seemed to move him like wind from the coming storm. He began getting good at tossing and catching more elaborately, like a gunfighter twirling pistols. He began daring himself with each toss, binding mystical evocations of fate. If he caught this toss, he’d get a new bike, if he missed, he’d break his arm. Always, he caught the bottle.
It’s 1:15 now. The rewards keep getting bigger and the dares, more grave as he wanders on into the afternoon, walking to meet the storm halfway, until finally he has to bet it all. "If I catch it" he thinks, "I’ll find a million bucks on the ground. If I drop it" He hesitates, because to say it out loud is to admit that some part of him truly believes it will happen. On some level he must believe it will happen or the game wouldn’t be any fun. "If I drop it…I’ll die within the week."
He looks inside the bottle at the cooler, brighter world of yesterday, whispers, "I love you." with a sincerity that would have frightened his mother, and throws everything up in the air and into the waiting, colorless sky. Jimmy watches it tumble end over end in slow motion, yesterday helpless inside, heading straight for him, an easy catch, a baby could do it… but at the last moment he steps out of the way. He steps out of the way, because the truth that flickers into his mind at the last fraction of a second is obvious and inescapable.... the bottle must break. It’s the only way to get inside it. Unscrewing the cap would let yesterday seep out slowly like smoke out of the end of a cannon, fading away into nothing. He needs to break the bottle and release that grape‑flavored moment. The consequences don’t matter.
When the bottle strikes the pavement on Long-bridge Street, it makes a sound like a heavy light bulb bursting. The glass on the sides seems to vaporize, leaving only the thick bottom and metal cap, still screwed onto the shattered neck, both lying in a perfectly symmetrical spray of glitter on the street. The impact blasts the lottery ticket worth a million dollars that Dr. Wiemer had dropped the night before into a sewer grating. Jimmy doesn’t notice that, only the explosion. The catharsis was good, but it’s over now and he feels a little sad and guilty about yesterday smashed into a zillion pieces. Then he brightens, "only a game", he thinks, "A wicked game." He doesn’t know that nearly microscopic shards of bacteria‑ridden glass are making their way into the flesh of his ankles and delivering into his bloodstream a very rare virus that dissolves flesh.
It’s around 2 now, and a thick, muggy quiet has descended. Sounds take on a dull underwater quality. Monty Jansen and Ronnie Houston stop hammering on the railing of the tree house where they are planning to spend most of the summer, and strain to hear the soft rumble of distant thunder, but there isn’t any. Monty rubs the spot on his arm where the bruise is rising before he starts pounding again. Ronnie had to haul off and hit him to let him know he was serious when he told him to stop telling that story about old Riley’s ghost haunting the abandoned garage next to Miller’s ravine. Monty was always telling ghost stories and most of the time it was kind of fun, but today, what with the weather feeling all weird and everything, it was giving Ronnie the creeps. After Monty started going into detail about Riley’s ghastly after-life appearance, Ronnie’d about had enough and told him to knock it off. Monty had got this gleam in his eye and started to talk about how every one thinks that Riley had run off to South America to get away from the tax man but actually his wife had gunned him down for cheating on her, cut him up with a circle saw and buried him in a suit case behind the garage and then torched the place. That’s when Ronnie had socked him. They had been working in silence ever since. They don’t know that even though Monty thinks he made the whole thing up, every word is gospel and Ronnie got so bothered because, not so deep down, he knows its true as well.
The sky is starting to get dark now and its taking on a funny greenish tint. Gramma Pratt stops digging at her prize tomato plants that she’s been trying to grow all of her life, and wonders if there just might be a tornado warning on the radio. She thinks there must be a watch on for certain. She looks down at the sparse, scrubby vines tied to stakes with bailing twine and sighs. They aren’t really "prize" plants in the sense of winning anything but they’re special to gramma Pratt. Her mother brought them over from the old country and grew them for the whole town. Mamma had a way with her special tomatoes but Gramma Pratt just can’t seem to get them up and coming. She keeps trying ‘cause it’s all she’s really got left of her mamma. It’d be the only special thing she’d have at all if it weren’t for her secret. “Won’t be long now” she thinks as she stabs the soft earth with her spade. “Just about 8 weeks or so ‘til it happens again.” Gramma Pratt has a secret. A sacred, inexplicable secret that she’s kept since she was a little girl. Every 1st of August, going as far back as she can remember she wakes to find delicate butterflies of a shape and color she’s never seen anywhere else, crowding in her window like living stained glass. It’s always just after dawn when the sun is starting to shine on her eastern window. When she walks out into the yard, wearing nothing but her cotton nightgown the beautiful butterflies swarm about her, hovering and darting like a thousand humming birds that light on her face and outstretched arms. She waves her arms and giggles and feels blessed and loved and utterly benevolent as the fragile things whirl about her. She’s been performing this ritual for sixty-six years and she’s never told a soul. Gramma Pratt looks down and sours. She’s been battling them ugly green worms with the black tiger stripes that prit‑ near wipe her out every year and she’s finally got the upper hand with the gruesome little buggers. She thinks maybe she just might stand a snowballs chance at the county fair this year and squashes another one. She wants to keep going but that sky is looking pretty bad and she wonders if she shouldn’t run to the store or get in now, before the whole sky falls on her.
Gramma Pratt doesn’t know that her butterflies, which are actually an un-cataloged subspecies of Sphinx moth begin their brief lives in her garden because it contains the only nourishment capable of supporting their unique and delicate biology. A single, somewhat rare species of tomato plant.
The sky is close now, compressing the hot atmosphere and adding to the already high gravity. Spindrift braces itself. Sun umbrellas and awnings close up like folding canvas wings. Lawn mowers shut down one by one until the muted, two‑stroke growl that runs like a constant harmony above the full melody of summer, drops off to unnerving silence. Dogs and cats make their way to porches, back patios and under bushes to sit and wait in wise reverence. Even the insects have dug in, not a fly can be seen. The whole town waits in the thickening silence, braced against what feels like a whopper, the kind of storm that really knows how to make an entrance and will definitely leave its mark…
But it doesn’t happen…
No deafening, Doppler shifted thunder claps. No flickering plasma tapestries of lightning. No torrents of chill water dropping out of the sky all at once to slap the hot pavement. No sultry wind sailing the petrichor scent of wet asphalt like paper airplanes. No storm at all, not a single drop of rain. Something else happens instead, something that the town will hardly notice at first.
A lone figure wearing a black leather motorcycle jacket appears at the edge of town, walking with a fast, determined stride, pausing at the "Now Entering Spindrift" sign just long enough to add an extra digit to the Population number.
__________________
Long about 1pm the barometric pressure drops so low that thin plate glass windows bow outwards. "Yummy" O’Toole stops watching "Lost in Space" long enough to listen to his windows creak. He never opens them, not since Brother dropped Punkin out of the upstairs window when he was five. Yummy listens and wonders if they’re going to open anyway. He doesn’t know that he’s remembering about Punkin using something other than his memory.
The sky has turned a dull shade of slate, light brown or gray and you can’t tell the difference because there is no point of reference. It’s so subtle that Auntie Ardell can’t remember when it changed from the brilliant azure ocean into the dusty looking void. Just as if God had washed the clay of creation off his hands and clouded up that pure rinse water. She thinks of Dante and Milton as she puts her cane out in front of her. Her last name is Weatheral and she muses that it’s a good name for today. She doesn’t know that the name goes back 1500 years to an old woman who was given it because she was doing just exactly what Aunt Ardell is doing today.
Over on Long-bridge Street, Jimmy McCoy is tossing a glass pop bottle in the air so that it flips end over end, and catching it by the neck as it falls. He’s been doing this for the last 3 hours, ever since he found it right where he’d left it the day before, pressed into the soft, black earth behind Mrs. Lancaster’s rose bushes. He had been surprised to find it there because he’d forgotten all about it in the way only a kid can… Utterly, as though it had never existed. He’d plucked it out, admired the perfect bottle shaped depression it left behind in the dirt and then sat in the sweet‑smelling darkness of the bushes, turning it over and over like a relic. The memory of the grape pop it had once contained was so vivid he could taste it. He’d screwed the metal cap back on the empty bottle very tightly on the previous morning and he could see yesterday’s air inside. It looked thinner and cooler than today’s air and the difference in pressure and temperature made the outside of the bottle sweat and its weight seem funny. He’d started tossing it in the air. He felt very protective of the yesterday world he’d managed to preserve, but he couldn’t help himself. The urge to throw destiny in motion and keep chance alive seemed to move him like wind from the coming storm. He began getting good at tossing and catching more elaborately, like a gunfighter twirling pistols. He began daring himself with each toss, binding mystical evocations of fate. If he caught this toss, he’d get a new bike, if he missed, he’d break his arm. Always, he caught the bottle.
It’s 1:15 now. The rewards keep getting bigger and the dares, more grave as he wanders on into the afternoon, walking to meet the storm halfway, until finally he has to bet it all. "If I catch it" he thinks, "I’ll find a million bucks on the ground. If I drop it" He hesitates, because to say it out loud is to admit that some part of him truly believes it will happen. On some level he must believe it will happen or the game wouldn’t be any fun. "If I drop it…I’ll die within the week."
He looks inside the bottle at the cooler, brighter world of yesterday, whispers, "I love you." with a sincerity that would have frightened his mother, and throws everything up in the air and into the waiting, colorless sky. Jimmy watches it tumble end over end in slow motion, yesterday helpless inside, heading straight for him, an easy catch, a baby could do it… but at the last moment he steps out of the way. He steps out of the way, because the truth that flickers into his mind at the last fraction of a second is obvious and inescapable.... the bottle must break. It’s the only way to get inside it. Unscrewing the cap would let yesterday seep out slowly like smoke out of the end of a cannon, fading away into nothing. He needs to break the bottle and release that grape‑flavored moment. The consequences don’t matter.
When the bottle strikes the pavement on Long-bridge Street, it makes a sound like a heavy light bulb bursting. The glass on the sides seems to vaporize, leaving only the thick bottom and metal cap, still screwed onto the shattered neck, both lying in a perfectly symmetrical spray of glitter on the street. The impact blasts the lottery ticket worth a million dollars that Dr. Wiemer had dropped the night before into a sewer grating. Jimmy doesn’t notice that, only the explosion. The catharsis was good, but it’s over now and he feels a little sad and guilty about yesterday smashed into a zillion pieces. Then he brightens, "only a game", he thinks, "A wicked game." He doesn’t know that nearly microscopic shards of bacteria‑ridden glass are making their way into the flesh of his ankles and delivering into his bloodstream a very rare virus that dissolves flesh.
It’s around 2 now, and a thick, muggy quiet has descended. Sounds take on a dull underwater quality. Monty Jansen and Ronnie Houston stop hammering on the railing of the tree house where they are planning to spend most of the summer, and strain to hear the soft rumble of distant thunder, but there isn’t any. Monty rubs the spot on his arm where the bruise is rising before he starts pounding again. Ronnie had to haul off and hit him to let him know he was serious when he told him to stop telling that story about old Riley’s ghost haunting the abandoned garage next to Miller’s ravine. Monty was always telling ghost stories and most of the time it was kind of fun, but today, what with the weather feeling all weird and everything, it was giving Ronnie the creeps. After Monty started going into detail about Riley’s ghastly after-life appearance, Ronnie’d about had enough and told him to knock it off. Monty had got this gleam in his eye and started to talk about how every one thinks that Riley had run off to South America to get away from the tax man but actually his wife had gunned him down for cheating on her, cut him up with a circle saw and buried him in a suit case behind the garage and then torched the place. That’s when Ronnie had socked him. They had been working in silence ever since. They don’t know that even though Monty thinks he made the whole thing up, every word is gospel and Ronnie got so bothered because, not so deep down, he knows its true as well.
The sky is starting to get dark now and its taking on a funny greenish tint. Gramma Pratt stops digging at her prize tomato plants that she’s been trying to grow all of her life, and wonders if there just might be a tornado warning on the radio. She thinks there must be a watch on for certain. She looks down at the sparse, scrubby vines tied to stakes with bailing twine and sighs. They aren’t really "prize" plants in the sense of winning anything but they’re special to gramma Pratt. Her mother brought them over from the old country and grew them for the whole town. Mamma had a way with her special tomatoes but Gramma Pratt just can’t seem to get them up and coming. She keeps trying ‘cause it’s all she’s really got left of her mamma. It’d be the only special thing she’d have at all if it weren’t for her secret. “Won’t be long now” she thinks as she stabs the soft earth with her spade. “Just about 8 weeks or so ‘til it happens again.” Gramma Pratt has a secret. A sacred, inexplicable secret that she’s kept since she was a little girl. Every 1st of August, going as far back as she can remember she wakes to find delicate butterflies of a shape and color she’s never seen anywhere else, crowding in her window like living stained glass. It’s always just after dawn when the sun is starting to shine on her eastern window. When she walks out into the yard, wearing nothing but her cotton nightgown the beautiful butterflies swarm about her, hovering and darting like a thousand humming birds that light on her face and outstretched arms. She waves her arms and giggles and feels blessed and loved and utterly benevolent as the fragile things whirl about her. She’s been performing this ritual for sixty-six years and she’s never told a soul. Gramma Pratt looks down and sours. She’s been battling them ugly green worms with the black tiger stripes that prit‑ near wipe her out every year and she’s finally got the upper hand with the gruesome little buggers. She thinks maybe she just might stand a snowballs chance at the county fair this year and squashes another one. She wants to keep going but that sky is looking pretty bad and she wonders if she shouldn’t run to the store or get in now, before the whole sky falls on her.
Gramma Pratt doesn’t know that her butterflies, which are actually an un-cataloged subspecies of Sphinx moth begin their brief lives in her garden because it contains the only nourishment capable of supporting their unique and delicate biology. A single, somewhat rare species of tomato plant.
The sky is close now, compressing the hot atmosphere and adding to the already high gravity. Spindrift braces itself. Sun umbrellas and awnings close up like folding canvas wings. Lawn mowers shut down one by one until the muted, two‑stroke growl that runs like a constant harmony above the full melody of summer, drops off to unnerving silence. Dogs and cats make their way to porches, back patios and under bushes to sit and wait in wise reverence. Even the insects have dug in, not a fly can be seen. The whole town waits in the thickening silence, braced against what feels like a whopper, the kind of storm that really knows how to make an entrance and will definitely leave its mark…
But it doesn’t happen…
No deafening, Doppler shifted thunder claps. No flickering plasma tapestries of lightning. No torrents of chill water dropping out of the sky all at once to slap the hot pavement. No sultry wind sailing the petrichor scent of wet asphalt like paper airplanes. No storm at all, not a single drop of rain. Something else happens instead, something that the town will hardly notice at first.
A lone figure wearing a black leather motorcycle jacket appears at the edge of town, walking with a fast, determined stride, pausing at the "Now Entering Spindrift" sign just long enough to add an extra digit to the Population number.
__________________
"June" from a Novel by Fiver
June rolls over in Michigan.
It rolls luxuriant, like a cat rolls over in its sleep; warm and comfortable and good-natured.
April is a month of broken promises in Michigan – in like a lion, out like a Grizzly Bear. A day can start out in the upper 60’s and degenerate to snow by sunset. May is a frenzy of growth and quickening if the weather is good and the insects are in a benevolent mood and if you happen to be outdoors at the very moment that it happens, but June…June rolls over. It rolls sultry, like a tumbleweed of emerald stems and blossoms and leaves, all at the ecstatic peek of their cycles. It rolls thick, like the slow, symmetrical curl of a great chlorophyll wave that sweeps over the whole state from wrist to thumb to outstretched northern fingertips, sinking into the black earth and germinating every seed. It rolls the Sun into the center of the great blue lens that is the tree lined Michigan sky to shrink shadows down to nothing, warms the carapace of winter turtles and transform highways into mirrors.
June blooms tropical in Michigan.
The days are dazzling tapestries of fresh, equatorial greens; heavy Celtic tangles woven loose with Lilac and Dandelion and evening Primrose. The air is warm and sweet with the fragrant jumble of rich earth, running water and thriving, deciduous life. Music floats out of windows opened for the first time since September to mingle with the complex melody of birdsong, the subtle ring of insects, the growling whine of power mowers and the distant, breathy sound of traffic on nearby highways.
The evenings are cool and mild, dappled with wild strawberries, citronella and the clumsy, metallic buzz of June bugs bumping on screen doors. A whole month of late moments made for walking to the store or listening to jazz or talking softly. The last of the sunlight slips into colored glass and mica lampshades and things are in the background of the day. If you are lucky enough to fall in love in June, it will be in the evening.
The nights are star lit jungles scented with Dogwood, Russian olive and wild Dill weed. The trees thatch over a roof of shady leaves that sculpt moonbeams into luminous stems that seem to come up from the ground rather than shine down from above. Black and yellow garters dart under thickets of Meadowsweet hunting Night crawlers and early Crickets who whisper tales to each other among the Jemmycups.
Deer’s eyes glow like Christmas lights as they make their way through fields of Borage , tidying up their runs as they go and the flora billows from the side of every back road like grounded viridian clouds, lush and animated as they are caught in the headlights of passing cars.
June reigned as Ezie Fitz walked the Red Arrow.
He felt no doubt, no regret- no fatigue. He felt only the road, the direction and joy.
He was going home.
It rolls luxuriant, like a cat rolls over in its sleep; warm and comfortable and good-natured.
April is a month of broken promises in Michigan – in like a lion, out like a Grizzly Bear. A day can start out in the upper 60’s and degenerate to snow by sunset. May is a frenzy of growth and quickening if the weather is good and the insects are in a benevolent mood and if you happen to be outdoors at the very moment that it happens, but June…June rolls over. It rolls sultry, like a tumbleweed of emerald stems and blossoms and leaves, all at the ecstatic peek of their cycles. It rolls thick, like the slow, symmetrical curl of a great chlorophyll wave that sweeps over the whole state from wrist to thumb to outstretched northern fingertips, sinking into the black earth and germinating every seed. It rolls the Sun into the center of the great blue lens that is the tree lined Michigan sky to shrink shadows down to nothing, warms the carapace of winter turtles and transform highways into mirrors.
June blooms tropical in Michigan.
The days are dazzling tapestries of fresh, equatorial greens; heavy Celtic tangles woven loose with Lilac and Dandelion and evening Primrose. The air is warm and sweet with the fragrant jumble of rich earth, running water and thriving, deciduous life. Music floats out of windows opened for the first time since September to mingle with the complex melody of birdsong, the subtle ring of insects, the growling whine of power mowers and the distant, breathy sound of traffic on nearby highways.
The evenings are cool and mild, dappled with wild strawberries, citronella and the clumsy, metallic buzz of June bugs bumping on screen doors. A whole month of late moments made for walking to the store or listening to jazz or talking softly. The last of the sunlight slips into colored glass and mica lampshades and things are in the background of the day. If you are lucky enough to fall in love in June, it will be in the evening.
The nights are star lit jungles scented with Dogwood, Russian olive and wild Dill weed. The trees thatch over a roof of shady leaves that sculpt moonbeams into luminous stems that seem to come up from the ground rather than shine down from above. Black and yellow garters dart under thickets of Meadowsweet hunting Night crawlers and early Crickets who whisper tales to each other among the Jemmycups.
Deer’s eyes glow like Christmas lights as they make their way through fields of Borage , tidying up their runs as they go and the flora billows from the side of every back road like grounded viridian clouds, lush and animated as they are caught in the headlights of passing cars.
June reigned as Ezie Fitz walked the Red Arrow.
He felt no doubt, no regret- no fatigue. He felt only the road, the direction and joy.
He was going home.
“Tea Pot Dome.” from a Novel by Fiver
There exists a nebulous area located on the Red Arrow Memorial Highway as it runs east to west between Kalamazoo and Watervaliet identified only by a single unremarkable road sign stating simply and cryptically;
Contrary to popular opinion, folklore or the laws of logic in general, this place was not named for the topography of the area or for the famous scandal that occurred during the Harding administration around the turn of the 20th century. The Teapot Dome was actually given its name by the first white man who settled near there and by others passing through who witnessed the same phenomenon.
Lyman Porter owned a farm at what would later become the western outskirts of the hamlet of Paw Paw. He would make regular trips to the rounded blister of scrub sticking up a mile or so down the old Indian road to gather seasoned cords of Dogwood and Siberian Elm for his hearth. He had seen many things of a curious nature there... such like the Potowatami doing strange, silent dances in the grassy meadows; the crickets and cicadas beating unfamiliar rhythms as they whirled. They would take no notice of him as he watched, making him feel garish and insubstantial as a ghost. Sometimes he would find small puddles of marsh water that seemed to glow in the deep thickets and reflect a stormy sky, even on a cloudless day and he often came across odd, flattened out tracts of weeds when hunting squirrel or rabbit there. They were like the depressions deer make when they birth in the fields, save that they were sometimes as big as an acre.
Strange as these things were, more perplexing and most unnerving of all, were the objects he often saw there. They looked like weightless, wheel turned pottery and when Lyman Porter beheld them, his mind would reel and he would become addled and childish as though he were dreaming. Sometimes they would hover and seem to float gently down below the tree line with the movement of Oak leaves on a calm autumn day. At other times, they would hover and dart, just as a Humming bird might at a jumble of honeysuckle. Yet other times, they seemed to be peering at him from on high and he could feel the goose flesh prickling on his arms and neck. They were always skyward, so he could never be sure if they were quite small and very close to him or quite large and very far away. They always looked the same, like polished silver in the daytime and luminous like foxfire in the gloom.
He had never spoken aloud of them to anyone for fear of being shunned as a fool and a lunatic. Then one day a troupe of smithies and potters, who were heading back to the Kalamazoo townstead after a week of fishing at great Lake of Michigan, stopped by to water their ponies and pay their respects. A youngster by the name of Murphy had said almost casually that he had seen what he thought was a flock of ring-necked geese flying in a V toward the southeast until he noticed they had no wings and looked more like flying pebbles. Lyman, who had already fixed the objects in his mind, with the shape of the lid for the silver teakettle he'd bought for his Ila - God rest her sweet soul - at Fort Detroit before heading west, blurted out, "That’s them flying tea pot domes. They're out there all the time."
There had immediately descended a period of profound silence and blank stares, which lasted so long that Lyman Porter began to feel he might be wise to load his Springfield. This hard quiet was broken by laughter of such a robust nature and of such a lengthy duration that Lyman had to join the din in spite of himself.
Other settlers heading west saw the domes and the name caught on. The more synonymous the peculiar title became with the area over the slow march of passing decades, the more its origin faded until, at last, only the name remains. There exists a nebulous area located on the Red Arrow Memorial Highway as it runs east to west between Kalamazoo and Watervaliet identified only by a single unremarkable road sign stating simply and cryptically;
No one knows why even though such things are seen there still.
“Tea Pot Dome.”
Contrary to popular opinion, folklore or the laws of logic in general, this place was not named for the topography of the area or for the famous scandal that occurred during the Harding administration around the turn of the 20th century. The Teapot Dome was actually given its name by the first white man who settled near there and by others passing through who witnessed the same phenomenon.
Lyman Porter owned a farm at what would later become the western outskirts of the hamlet of Paw Paw. He would make regular trips to the rounded blister of scrub sticking up a mile or so down the old Indian road to gather seasoned cords of Dogwood and Siberian Elm for his hearth. He had seen many things of a curious nature there... such like the Potowatami doing strange, silent dances in the grassy meadows; the crickets and cicadas beating unfamiliar rhythms as they whirled. They would take no notice of him as he watched, making him feel garish and insubstantial as a ghost. Sometimes he would find small puddles of marsh water that seemed to glow in the deep thickets and reflect a stormy sky, even on a cloudless day and he often came across odd, flattened out tracts of weeds when hunting squirrel or rabbit there. They were like the depressions deer make when they birth in the fields, save that they were sometimes as big as an acre.
Strange as these things were, more perplexing and most unnerving of all, were the objects he often saw there. They looked like weightless, wheel turned pottery and when Lyman Porter beheld them, his mind would reel and he would become addled and childish as though he were dreaming. Sometimes they would hover and seem to float gently down below the tree line with the movement of Oak leaves on a calm autumn day. At other times, they would hover and dart, just as a Humming bird might at a jumble of honeysuckle. Yet other times, they seemed to be peering at him from on high and he could feel the goose flesh prickling on his arms and neck. They were always skyward, so he could never be sure if they were quite small and very close to him or quite large and very far away. They always looked the same, like polished silver in the daytime and luminous like foxfire in the gloom.
He had never spoken aloud of them to anyone for fear of being shunned as a fool and a lunatic. Then one day a troupe of smithies and potters, who were heading back to the Kalamazoo townstead after a week of fishing at great Lake of Michigan, stopped by to water their ponies and pay their respects. A youngster by the name of Murphy had said almost casually that he had seen what he thought was a flock of ring-necked geese flying in a V toward the southeast until he noticed they had no wings and looked more like flying pebbles. Lyman, who had already fixed the objects in his mind, with the shape of the lid for the silver teakettle he'd bought for his Ila - God rest her sweet soul - at Fort Detroit before heading west, blurted out, "That’s them flying tea pot domes. They're out there all the time."
There had immediately descended a period of profound silence and blank stares, which lasted so long that Lyman Porter began to feel he might be wise to load his Springfield. This hard quiet was broken by laughter of such a robust nature and of such a lengthy duration that Lyman had to join the din in spite of himself.
Other settlers heading west saw the domes and the name caught on. The more synonymous the peculiar title became with the area over the slow march of passing decades, the more its origin faded until, at last, only the name remains. There exists a nebulous area located on the Red Arrow Memorial Highway as it runs east to west between Kalamazoo and Watervaliet identified only by a single unremarkable road sign stating simply and cryptically;
“Tea Pot Dome.”
No one knows why even though such things are seen there still.
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