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Reading, Writing, Pondering: Big Life Themes, Literature, Contemporary/Historical Issues |
 Welcome to the 14th century, in a farflung outpost of the Holy Roman Empire, and a new Convent outpost of the terrrifically powerful Roman Catholic Church. Sound historically dull? Hopefully not so--for this is NOT an ordinary 14th Century Convent. Back after a six-year hiatus.... From NaNoWriMo historical Supernatural novels in Scotland, Michigan, South Alabama and historical horror in Standwood Station, GA-to the Phantom Northern Woods-to singlehandedly refighting the American Civil War-to exploring Social Justice and standing for First Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution-we deal out horror, Supernatural, Historical, fantasy, mystery, and more. We do not fear outspokeness. And always, always, always, We Do History. Find it here. We write it. We read it. We hold strong opinions. We orate. Meanwhile, whether we're writing or just reading, we love to rave about books and authors right here!  |
| Happy Easter! Today I count as an extraordinarily productive day. First, I had finished Act One of the Stage Play Obax and The Night-Riders yesterday. This morning, in an act extraordinarily unlike myself, I plotted Act Two in its entirety! Whoo-ee! Second, I wrote 8 pages on the play: and that was only Act Two, Scene One and Scene Two. Once again, I continue to astonish myself at the way writing this play has loosened my "creative tongue," and I am writing about processes and behaviours that I think about but have never expressed in writing. This play is turning out to be a very "political" endeavour, in that my true feelings about these eras are pouring forth. Third, I upended my entire thinking on the Novel Workshop's April Workshop, which is using Karen Wiesner's First Draft in 30 Days.I had been planning one Stage Play and two books in The Yoruba Series. Well this afternoon I decided that the Stage Play itself is going to become a novel. LOL. Fourth, this morning I found an article in the L.A.Times online that proves once again that "life imitates art," or perhaps that I am truly operating in the Zeitgeist. Eugene TerreBlanche, South African white supremacist and founder in the 1970's of the Afrikaner Resistance Movement, a paramilitary organization, was found murdered in his bed. Allegedly two young workers employed Part of his goals in founding the Movement in the 1970's were to establish three homelands for white settlers from which blacks would be barred. I found it intriguing that this occurred when it did; I have been researching slave rebellions in Haiti (Toussaint L'Ouverture, early 19th century) and Virginia (Nat Turner). Of course, the death of Eugene TerreBlanche is regrettable, as is the future imprisonment of his killers, but isn't it intriguing how once again, life imitates art. http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-safrica-terreblanche4-2010apr... Thanks once again for your attention, Gentle Readers1 May your week simply flow with Creativity! |
| Play: pages 7-14. Scene 2: eve of bloody Civil War Battle Nov. 1864 Scene 3: whipping of two slaves (one field hand, one elderly house slave) in Georgia cotton field by White Overseer First Draft in 30 Days Workshop: Setting Sketches. This is a bit of a toughie, requiring tons of research to come (I love it!) because I have settings in: Yoruba, West Africa, 1720 Aruba, Dutch Antilles, 1720-1750 Georgia, USA, 1750-1870 (and probably beyond into the 1930's) Wish I had not lost all my saved Internet research on Haitian history from when I was starting a novel on Dominque/future Louisiana late 18th-early 19th cent. |
| April is Script Frenzy Month at www.scriptfrenzy.org, brought to us by the creator of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). Never participated before, never thought I could, assumed it was only for screenwriting (movie and/or TV scripts). Not so: also includes stage plays, graphic novels, comic books, etc. So: I'm writing my FIRST EVER Stage Play:
Today wrote pages 1-6. Scene One: a lynching I'm also doing the Novel Workshop's April Workshop with author Ann Stewart, based on Karen Wiesner's First Draft in 30 Days, daily homework, learning to outline (also for me, the first time ever) Day 1: Character Sketches Both the stage play, and the two novels to come out of the current workshop, use a precis I wrote in Spring 2008. |
| Surpassed my MarNoWriMo goal today! and worked on learning to format a stage play, so I'll be ready to start the script on Thursday. Decided on some additional characters, and the initial setting (stage directions) also. today's free read: The Phantom Logging Operation Chapter 31 As I tumbled into bed, I recalled just before sleep that tomorrow-no, today-was Saturday, and I was expected for the entire weekend at Todd's Garage in Rennald, where the owner-Todd-had dozens of diesel machines lined up for me. Seemed to me that even included a combine, a job usually requiring several hours just by itself, so I would start on that first thing when I arrived. I set the clock for 6 AM, knowing I had to get at least a few hours' sleep, then collapsed into oblivion, where I remained until the alarm sounded. I rolled halfheartedly out of the covers, showered in cold water, too tired yet to imagine hot spray, dressed, and fixed a half-pot of coffee and a batch of biscuits at the wood stove. By the time they were baked and bagged, the twins had rolled in. Yes, apparently I had neglected to mention my weekend of work in Rennald, so I went out to the truck and explained. “Morning, boys. I forgot yesterday in all the flurry to tell you I've committed to a weekend's work for Mr. Todd at the Garage down in Rennald. I'm a diesel mechanic, you see, by training and trade. So I won't be here to work on the Nursery today or tomorrow.” Sam leaned across his brother Jackie, who was driving. “Well, Mr. Rory, couldn't we work on in your place, both days? We already brought up more lumber from Uncle's lumber yard, and nails and some extra tools too. Would you mind? We could be a big help.” I knew he meant they could make more money, but yes, he was correct: both boys had been an enormous help over the past two days. “But boys, I won't be here to fix meals-although here” (and I handed over the croker sack of fresh hot butter biscuits) you all can eat these I already fixed, and I'll get me somethin' at the diner when I get to Rennald. What about lunch though, and a privy? Oh! Y'all could use the outdoor privy up there on the hill-” immediately both glanced that way, but not quite, just from the corner of the eye, and shouted, “No!!” I didn't know how to respond to that, but something internally told me to accept it. The boys were afraid of something on that Hill. (Hill?) “Okay then, I'll tell you what. You all have seemed to prove to be trustworthy boys, so I'm gone leave my back door unlocked. There's an indoor privy, through the kitchen, into the living room, the bedroom's on the right, just go through their. Lemonade pitcher's full in the fridge. Ice is up at the icehouse. Just please don't try to use my wood stove, it's too temperamental. Maybe at lunch you ought to drive down to Rennald to the diner. Here-” and with that I handed over an extra $20 for lunch. “If I'm not back by quittin' time tonight, please stop by Todd's Garage in Rennald on your way home, instead of heading straight for Collins Junction, and I'll pay you then, and extra for working by yourselves today. If you decide to work tomorrow too, just let me know tonight, and I'll make sure to make up a couple of meals and store 'em for you. Okay?” Both boys agreed-Jackie was already on his third biscuit-and pulled their pickup out of the way so I could move my Merc down the drive. As I headed out, they were already busily unloading new lumber and tools, boxes of nails, and I saw they had remembered to bring a hand planer. The drive into Rennald was uneventful, though a wood-sided box truck passed me at the turn-off. It was headed East toward Knox-no driver again, but the passenger, the hard working fellow from last night, gave me a wide wave across the seat. I responded and considered myself lucky: it hadn't been Mr. Husk nor Ol' Stump-Head. At Todd's the combine waited, just as I had expected, and I set to work just as soon as I had picked up a coffee and a biscuit at the diner. I was already beginning to miss the batch I had made this morning to carry along, but I figured my subconscious had instructed me to make those biscuits up for the boys who would surely be arriving to work, since I had neglected-perhaps purposely?-not to tell them not to come today. Well, I could stop for lunch and have a quick meal at the diner; it wasn't like I was out on a farm somewhere and isolated from food. I was doing lucrative mechanic work, my Plant Nursery construction was proceeding this weekend even without my supervision and labor, so what after all did I need to complain about? Well, nothing. So I hushed my wayward thoughts and set to work diligently on the combine's exhaust and engine housing. The morning went smoothly, and as I finished the combine about 11 AM, I heard a semi engine roar, and glanced up to see the yellow tow truck I had seen a few days ago in Collins Junction, on Wednesday, from the upstairs window of the Attorney's office. That afternoon it had pulled a burnt shell of a box-container semi, and I had not seen its driver, but apparently that opportunity would soon be granted me, for as I peeked around the end of the combine and watched it hove into sight, I saw its right turn blinker on and knew it was heading into Todd's lot. Sure enough, it was: no room to turn into the apron in front of the bays because of the combine whose repair I had just completed, but Todd kept open a side lot adjacent, plus a vacant lot in the back he kept clear of weeds and debris, just for times like these. The tow truck pulled into that side lot, passing maybe six feet from me, so I had a good view of both the driver and of the logo on the side, which totally threw me for a loop. The white lettering, black-rimmed, on a lemon yellow door, read: “TESTAMENT Logging Corporation Towing Division Madison Mills” and a phone number below. The driver was my old buddy from the night's labor at the Greenhouse, the passenger of the wood-sided small farm-style truck I saw just this morning on Knox Road at the turn-off to Reynolds. So now I'd seen him twice in that truck, once as passenger in the semi log truck last night, and now driving for Testament's Towing Division (a mind-boggling topic in itself). He smiled and nodded, raised his left hand, and pulled on to the end of the side lot. Hmm-seemed I was making progress to friendship, or at least courtesy, among some of the local Spooks. I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not, so I went inside to call Todd, who was out on a tow job himself on a nearby farm, pulling in a tractor for me to repair. I got him on the two-way radio and told him I'd completed the combine; he could write up the bill when he came in and notify the owner. I also let him know a tow had just come in, and what the towed vehicle looked like. “I'm going to run over to Maizie's for a real quick lunch,” I told him. “My breakfast biscuits were handed over to Mr. Oakes' nephews this morning in partial exchange for a good day's work on my Plant Nursery.” Todd chuckled, told me to go ahead, but then interjected- “Oh, Rory, could you hold on just a minute and get the paperwork first, on that tow? I won't be back into town for another half-hour or so and I'm sure the boy wants to be gone by then.” “Boy”? Clearly bigotry was not confined to the Southlands. Obviously as well, Todd knew exactly what tow truck I meant and knew who would be driving it, so he was much more in tune with the local Testament pulse than was I. Of course, I had been here only three months, but still-according to that Attorney, my Daddy had been an important person in the eyes of Testament, and they were focused on my maintaining my three pieces of property and leasing them two of those. So shouldn't I be of some importance to them as well? What was wrong with me, thinking this kind of thoughts? This wasn't like me. I had always been a reserved, self-possessed type of person. Yes, I was devoted to my mother, and to my Daddy while he still lived, and I had loved my wife. Guess I still did, a little, even though she had left me high and dry for a fast-talking, fast-hand blackjack dealer from out Las Vegas way (where they never had the snow and ice we do here in The Northern Woods). But I had never been a pushy person, not in school, not in my work at Joe's Garage. I've said earlier on that I was content to work my job six days a week, have a beer on the back porch of the row duplex on Saturday eve, and go to Mass of a Sunday morning. I was happy enough with Leill, even though she kept on and on about how we should have more-better home, more clothes, nicer furnishings-how I needed a new and better-paying job, even though I made decent money and was content at Joe's. I guess if Mamma hadn't died of the bone cancer, and then a year later I married Leill, and she hadn't left me after only eight months, I might even have stayed on in that row duplex in Urbana, or moved back to Mamma's home in Champaign, and kept on with my job at Joe's Garage till I finally became just too old to mechanic. The point of all this cogitation, while I said good-bye and okay to Todd and hung the mike back on the two-way, was to remind myself that I had not ever been a man who tried to get his own way or to be somebody or something important. I had always been content to make my own way and to take life as it comes. But now, just as I felt impelled to begin on the Plant Nursery, as I felt it essential to construct the Greenhouse at night, on the charred foundation of an older, long-destroyed, homestead, suddenly I felt compelled to be a man of importance in the eyes of Testament Corporation. Now THAT certainly did not make any sense. I gave up on it again and walked around the combine and back past the side of the garage bay to look for the tow truck's driver. Well, he wasn't there. The wooden-sided farm truck had been unhooked and sat kind of askew in the side lot, the tow truck had disappeared. So where were the papers? And how soon could I get my lunch? I walked back up the front, crossed around the combine, and went into the office. As soon as I reached the door, I saw a stapled stack of papers sitting neatly on the blotter on the old scratched-up metal Army-surplus issue desk. Yes, “Testament Corporation/Towing Division” was clearly printed across the top, and at the end of the first paper was a scrawled and very unreadable signature. All right, then, that part of the business was taken care of; how I didn't know, since I had been right here in this office, only two feet away, talking on the two-way radio which Todd kept on the back shelf-and I had seen and heard no one come in. Then I had walked around the front of the building quickly to find the tow truck gone; so when did the driver walk into the office and leave the paperwork? Well, who cared-so I locked up the office, closed the service bay door and locked it (why I was so skittish today I didn't know) and headed down the street to Maizie's Eats, which served better food than the name would suggest. I sat at the counter and ordered a heaping breakfast platter: grits, eggs sunny side up, flapjack stack, but demurred at the biscuits. That was the one think I knew I could make better than Maizie's cook, Jake Gregory. I washed it all down with liberal cups of coffee, then stopped in to borrow the restroom, paid Maizie at the front counter, and headed on back to the Garage, where I found Todd just pulling in. He dropped the tractor he pulled at the side lot, in front of the old farm truck, and then drove around to the street, backing up to hook up the combine, which he would then tow back to the farm. I helped him with the hook-up, then he jumped out of the tow truck and came around to my side, wiping his forehead with a damp rag. “You get all the paperwork on that farm truck, Rory?” he asked me. “You know Testament is picky about everything being in order, paperwork-wise.” I assured him it was all signed and lying on his desk-even though I had known no such thing about Testament's paperwork “pickiness,” and asked what all the tractor needed. Turned out it required an engine overhaul, which would take me the rest of the day and into tomorrow. I handed him the keys to the combine, and he went on inside to write up its bill. I went out to look over the tractor myself, and to check out the old “farm” truck, for I could not begin to work on the tractor till he moved out the combine. Even then, I would not be able to get the tractor into the garage unless it would crank, until Todd returned with the tow truck to move it. When he came out, he assured me the tractor would crank sufficient for me to pull it over into the bay, but told me to first work on the farm truck the Testament Tow truck had brought in. I looked at him puzzled, and he turned away, mumbling, “Testament work ALWAYS comes first.” He climbed into the tow truck while I watched, then jumped back out and came back around the front of it, and told me, “Give me a minute and I'll pull the combine up the street a bit out of the way; then I'll unhook it and come around and get the farm truck and back it in to the bay for you. You can start on that first, Rory-please.” This whole time he would not look at me, but kept studying the pavement as if written there was the answer to the meaning of the Universe. I said, “sure, that'll be fine. Ican work on the tractor in the morning,” and he nodded and went off to pull the combine out of the way. I went into the service bay, after unlocking and opening its door, and began sorting and cleaning the tools I had already polished and put up when I'd finished the combine at 11 AM. While I did that, I heard Todd's tow pull around the block and up to the back of the side lot, and the chains when he locked on the hook to the old farm vehicle. I stood out of the way in the corner while he backed the truck in; I guessed the problem must be the motor and he had deliberately placed it so I would have the advantage of sunlight in working on it this afternoon. After he backed it in, I went up the hook and released it. Todd climbed out and said, “Rory, I'll bring the tractor around here to the side of the bay, just in case you get done with this truck.” I thanked him and asked him what the truck needed. He told me and I got on with the job. Feb. 19—Pretty clearly this was one of the farm trucks I had seen a few days ago, on that Tuesday of Horrors, toting pulp wood castoffs. Surely it could not have been the one driven by the burnt husk? Seemed to me that truck bed had been kind of burnt too, or was it only the hood and fenders? Well, I couldn't remember right now-something else had begun burrowing its way into my consciousness long about the time I started up work on this old truck pulled in by the Testament Tow Division. It was about my Mamma, what she had said to me in the hospital, about two weeks before the cancer took her away. She was still lucid then-the doctors had her on heavy doses of morphine, but only sufficient at that point to moderate the pain. A week later, she was more or less comatose most of the time, and gone a full week after that; but at the point I was remembering, she had been lucid and wanting to talk to me about something she claimed was very important to her and to me. It was a Tuesday, I remember that now, just like it was a Tuesday this week when the Horrors of Knox Road began; I listened carefully because this was my Mamma talking, and then I forgot about it pretty much until after she died-no, until after Leill had left me. I could have been content to stay on in the old row house duplex, working at Joe's Garage, but something came over me a couple of weeks after Leill ran off, something impelled me to go to Hazel, the elderly lady in whose carriage house I stored Mamma's furniture, clothing, and possessions, and endure afternoon tea charming her in order to sort through Mamma's desk drawers later. I shouldn't say “endure,” though; Hazel was a delightful old person, with decades of history stretching far before my birth, and she had befriended my Mamma and myself when we first moved to Champaign, when I was eleven. Hazel had been one of our first neighbors, and the first to welcome our little household, and Mamma and she had stayed close throughout the intervening 14 years before Mamma passed all too early-if not too sudden. Well, Miss Hazel was all too happy to let me examine Mamma's possessions in the carriage house, once I had shared her afternoon tea, and soon enough I found myself sorting through the stacks of furniture and cardboard containers of dishes and knick-knacks, to get to the middle of the building, where I had stored her desk. This was in early February of this very year. Leill had left me just the weekend before, and now on Tuesday Feb. 6, which was my early afternoon off from Joe's (since I worked all day on Saturdays), I had stopped in at Miss Hazel's thinking that maybe now, since I had new fresh grieving to do over the sudden and very unexpected loss of my marriage, it was time to start trying to coming to terms with the persistent grief I still carried over what I considered my Mamma's untimely demise. It took me maybe ten minutes to shift around all the boxes (Mamma did love her knick-knacks, and there were threee boxes of perfectly good clothes I really should have donated to Goodwill or Salvation Army shelter, but I just could not bring myself to sort through Mamma's clothes-well, just not yet. So once again I shunted them aside, stacked them carefully so as not to disturb the knick-knacks, and finally reached the desk, which Mamma had so carefully been certain to carry down from our home in Rennald, where we lived while Daddy worked for Testament Logging Corporation, often out of Madison Mills. Mamma had made close friends with several of the town ladies, including the pastor's wife of the First Baptist Church, so there was always someone around to keep watch over us on the times that Daddy had to travel away on Testament business-he was so valued as a Maintenance Manager and mechanic, Mamma always told me at those times, that Testament kept him hoppin'. So Mamma said. At any rate, I was now at the desk-Mamma's desk, which had been Daddy's before he up and enlisted in the Canadian Air Force right after them Huns had invaded Polusky in September of 1939, when I was only about 9 and a half. I was not even certain at this point for what I searched-but as I pulled over a half-empty box of file folders, I found in the box an empty manila folder, of the large size that divorce papers come in. I should know, I'd seen them just yesterday at my job, where summons had been served on me. Leill had run off on Saturday-my long day working at Joe's Garage-but she must have planned and filed in advance, for yesterday afternoon-Monday-a summons clerk showed up at the job and served me with divorce papers. I already knew she was gone-no one home when I arrived at 7 pm on Saturday evening-no clothes of hers, no toiletries, left in the house, and her pink fluffies everywhere were gone, even the pink daisy pot holder set-so the divorce papers weren't that unexpected, but I still didn't like receiving them there on the job. I didn't know where this empty envelope had appeared from; the rest of the box contained Mamma's Federal and State tax records from 1940's filing through 1955. Mamma had not worked as long as Daddy was still there with us; he made good money working for Testament Logging Corporation, or so Mamma always said-I know we were never without food, nor me without school clothes and the shoes I seemed to constantly grow out of. But when Daddy up and enlisted for War, and Mamma moved me to Champaign where she still had an aunt and cousins, she took a day job in a dry cleaners', enrolled me in school there, and took in laundry and seamstressing at night. Mamma was a hard-working woman, and still she kept a spotless home, took great care of me, and always cooked 3 meals a day plus my after-school afternoon snack. I pulled the box over next to me, set the empty envelope on top of the desk, and began pulling out the contents of the three drawers. I had in mind a particular set of papers-Mamma had told me in the hospital that they would be found in the wide center drawer-but I had now determined (somehow, unconsciously, unthinkingly) to leave Champaign-Urbana, to leave Southern Illinois, and to return to the land of my birth and early raising, the land of my parents and ancestors-Collingham County in the Northern Woods Territories. On that Tuesday afternoon as I sat beside her hospital bed, Mamma had interrupted her own conversation to turn to me and tell me, “Rory, when I'm gone-I want you to go home-go home to our land-and homestead there again. It's been too long, Rory, too long, without Calhouns on our land. Promise me, Rory, please-promise me you'll go home to our land-and stay. Please, Rory! Promise!” Mamma was becoming so overwrought at this point that I would have promised to pull down the Moon for her just to get her to calm. So of course I promised, at once; I was already promising before she continued to ask-it was as if she was so focused on the demand that she could not hear the result. I took both her hands in mine and squeezed them gently, moving around to meet her eyes, till she finally saw me and breathed more slowly. “Mamma, I promise. I will. I'll do whatever you ask me. But-do you mean go home to Rennald?” Wrong question! That clearly started her hysteria up again. “Not Rennald! To Euphonia, Rory, Euphonia! To Knox Road-on the old homstead. Rory-it's essential-you have got to return!” Back in February, as I packed up the contents of Mamma's desk inside the stifling dust motes of Miss Hazel's carriage house, I did not recall the full context of Mamma's conversation. I only remembered she had told me to go home to Knox Road-not to Rennald. But here on this May afternoon, this Saturday, my feet planted on top of the left-side front truck tire pair, leaning on the fender, hands and head deep into the engine repair, I remembered it all: the whole entire conversation, word by word, every statement, every question, every request, every name. I remembered now-Mamma had told me “Euphonia.” She had said, “Rory, go home to Euphonia.” I had told Attorney Squires I had never before heard that name, didn't know then if it was a place or a person, but I had never intentionally lied. Somehow my mind had blocked it out, and I truly had not remembered, until now, with my head stuck down inside the engine compartment of an old farm truck formerly driven by-no one?-and whose used-to-be passenger had pulled it in three hours earlier on a “Testament Logging Corporation-Towing Division” tow truck. Well, it all made me wonder-I think I had not stopped pondering since the very first event on Tuesday afternoon-the semi-log truck with no driver at all, only constantly shifting shadows-but I pondered even harder now. So Mamma insisted I return to “Euphonia” and homestead. Well, I was homesteading, and had been in the process of trying to since February; but where was “Euphonia”? I pulled loose the wrench I was using to turn the rusted plugs, continued leaning on the fender while I strived to wipe three layers of grease off my hands, then climbed down to the pavement and headed into the office. I'd take a chance that Attorney Squires would be in his office in Collins Junction, even though it was after all aturday afternoon and many professional people would take the weekend off. He just didn't look to me like some kind of high-living gentleman, and besides, I was beginning to think that employment for the Testament Corporation-or in his case, permanent retainer-pretty much entailed selling oneself into virtual slavery. Todd had an office phone attached to the wall, but I wasn't sure that Collins Junction was a local call, so I washed up in the restroom at the back of the office-scrubbed my hands till they burned-and went outside and around to the pay phone at the front corner of the station. I fished Attorney Squires' card out of my wallet-he had given me several as I left the other day-and dialed the office number. He had told me that day that his secretary was out-when he offered to fix us brandy himself-and sure enough, she must not have been in today either, because the man answered his own phone, on the first ring. “Attorney-at-Law Benton Squires-Estates and Civil Practice,” he intoned. “Sir, it's Rory Lewes, from-” “Yes, Mr. Lewes, I expected it would be you. What can I do you for?” This little flippancy really struck me oddly, coming from a professional man, but then I decided maybe I had just misheard-or misunderstood. “Sir, I'm sorry to be bothering you on a weekend-” “No matter, Mr. Lewes, no matter. What is your question?” “On Wednesday afternoon, when I was in your office, didn't you” “I asked you about Euphonia, yes-whether you knew of it, and if so, what you already knew?” Was this man an Attorney-or a Mesmerist? Clearly he must have read my mind or somehow anticipated my question! “Yes sir. And I told you at the time that I did not remember ever hearing of it, and did not know what or who it represented. But-some new information has come to light-and now I do remember hearing that name-in conjunction with our family land-my family's land. So now I need to know-what is it, where is it, or who is it?” A lengthy and serious pause ensued, but I could hear his raspy breathing. I didn't know if Attorney Squires was a smoker, but at that moment his respiratory sounds sure put me in mind of a gentleman down the hall from my Mamma, in the hospital, who was dying of lung cancer. Squires had that same raspy, can't quite-catch-my-breath, noise. I kept waiting, and about the moment I decided to hang up and try again on Monday, maybe in person, he finally spoke up. “Rory-Mr. Lewes- “Euphonia” is the name of the Calhoun Family estate-the ancestral homestead-and all the land that entails. It is not a continuous plat-rather there are several contiguous and adjacent sections, on one of which you now reside. Adjacent to that is land stretching back behind your new cabin, to the North, and additionally to the West, toward, but veering away from, the Village of Knox. “Euphonia” also includes land to the South of you, on the opposite side of Knox Road from the land you have believed to be yours-when you perceived your ownership to include only a smaller portion-and technically, then, Knox Road itself was constructed to cross your ancestral land. So even though the County of Collingham owns and operates Knox Road, by the right of Eminent Domain, the land below Knox Road is still yours, in a matter of legal right. “Now the matter of “Euphonia,” specifically, is that it is the proper name of the homestead, as well as of the entire area of Calhoun Family land. Oh, and I omitted to mention that the very most important of the Calhoun Lands lies in the very heart of (choking sound) The Big Forest-and it is that plot which is leased from you by Testament Logging Corporation, in perpetuity. “But the homestead called “Euphonia” specifically, is of course, the Ancestral Calhoun Family home-which burnt to the foundation on (deep breath) Sunday, May 29, 1932, when you yourself were 2 years old, and your family had just recently moved to a house inside the city limits of Rennald. The house which burnt, killing both your maternal grandparents, is the original “Euphonia,” and THAT house-is the charred ruins and foundation-on which you now have decided to construct your Greenhouse.” Feb. 20-Silence, then a sudden click, indicated the receiver had been replaced in the cradle. I guess my “two minutes,” or however much time Attorney Squires had allotted me, were now up. I had noticed during Wednesday's afternoon's meeting that he had even more trouble mouthing the words, “The Big Forest,” than I did thinking on the topic. Possibly that meant he knew much more information about the subject than I did, and knew more of which to fear. Hmm-that was not a pretty possibility. I hung up also, and returned to the old farm truck, after making a quick detour to Maizie's Diner for a hot coffee to go. I knew by that time of day the pot would be as black and hot as Louisiana Chicory coffee, about which my Daddy had written Mamma when he did a short spell of temporary duty at Fort Hood in Louisiana in 1940, before he shipped on overseas. Coffee from Maizie's at this time of afternoon wasn't sought out for taste, as the early morning coffee from 5 AM on was; this stuff worked for adrenaline rushes and keeping folks awake and alert, those who needed to concentrate on their business and not allow wandering thoughts about The Big Forest and deceased grandparents to interfere. That old sludge coffee sure did its trick; tasting like the diesel oil I had just drained out of the pan, it kept my taste buds and my mind occupied. I worked steadily on the old farm truck, changing plugs, cleaning pistons, draining and replacing oil and trans fluid-Todd would sure have a good bill out of this one, assuming he charged Testament, and they paid up on a timely basis. Periodically I checked my progress against the paperwork someone-I presumed the elusive tow driver-had dropped off on the desk, to ensure I had done all the work requested and required. When I finally finished, it was after 5 o'clock, but I wasn't through for the day. Todd paid me by the hour with a bonus for each job, he paid well, and I was the only diesel-trained mechanic in this area. There may well have been some down in Collins Junction, but if so I didn't know of them, and I assumed neither did Todd, as he had never mentioned any to me. I checked the truck's invoice one final time, then signed off on the work I had done, and drove the truck out into the street and around into the side lot adjacent to the big service bay, backing it in so that the tow could easily hook up and pull it away. I assumed Testament Tow Division would be coming for it, rather than Todd towing it out to them-wherever it was going. Or very possibly, someone would come along to drive it away, since it was now running just perfectly. I left a note on the seat stating the work was complete, and leaving the keys in the ignition, I headed back over to the apron to get the farm tractor. I figured no one would try to steal that old hunk anyway, and besides, I would be right there near it if someone tried. I pulled the tractor into the bay; although there was still plenty of light, I planned to work on it till I finished, and it would be dark in just a couple of hours. Then I thought better about the keys, went out to the truck and took them out. I left the completed notice on the seat, though, and laid the keys on top of the paperwork from the Testament Tow Division, still sitting on Todd's desk. Speaking of which, where was Todd? He had carried the combine out hours ago, and had not returned, nor had he called me on the two-way radio. As I turned away and started back out of the office, the radio in question let out a squawk, so I turned back to it and keyed the mike. “Yeah, Todd's Garage, help you?” “It's me, Rory! Jest wanted to let you know I'm through for the day, so will ya lock up when you're done? You finish the Testament job?” “Sure did-parked the truck in the side lot, keys are in here on the desk on top of the invoice, and I signed off on it.” “Good-I'm sure they'll pick it up tonight. Thanks for finishing it so fast.” “No problem. Went smoothly. Want me to put the keys back in the truck?” “No, no, just leave 'em with the paperwork, that's fine. I'll get a check from 'em on Monday-Testament pays good and they pay on time, unlike some of these farmers around here. That combine job? He'll probably pay me around the end of harvest, in the fall. “Oh, and Rory? Go ahead and count up your hours, when you finish, and pay yourself of the register. Jest leave me a note in the drawer to tell me how many hours so I can keep up on my bookwork, okay? I mean so I can tell Miz Sarah how much to deduct on the books,” he laughed. Guess Todd's Garage's bookkeeper also wasthe Toddley twins mother. “Will do, Todd, thanks. I'm starting on the farm tractor now.” “Ya don't have to do all that tonight, now.” “No, I told you I would finish these three jobs today: the combine, the old farm truck for Testament, and this tractor. It'll be all right. You gone have anything for me in the morning, Todd?” “Well, I kind of thought you'd have had enough with that combine and the tractor, especially with the Testament job coming in today. But now I guess not, unless Farmer Jerrell brought in his old pickup. If it's not parked behind the garage or in the back lot-it's a dusty old black Chevrolet, a '38, I think-then I guess I got nothing more for you to do tomorrow then, so jest take your Sunday off,” he chuckled, “but can you come in sometime Monday afternoon, say any time after 2 o'clock, and get your bonus for the Testament job? I'll pay you $500 for that 'un.” ($500 bonus for one job? I had not even done $500 worth of work on it, from the Garage's point of view! Testament must pay an awful high rate!) But I said nothing of my thoughts, only agreed to stop in on Monday about 3 PM. I decided then I would also pay yet one more visit to Mr. Attorney Squires after I saw Todd and picked up this extensive bonus pay. I said goodbye, disconnected, and went out of the office, leaving the keys where they lay on top of the paperwork, as Todd had requested. Then I went to work on the farm tractor with a vengeance, and by 8 PM it was finished. I didn't expect it would be picked up tonight, but just in the event, I drove it out of the bay and out front on the apron, and took its keys into the office and left them on the desk next to a note stating the work I had done, and my hours for that job. Then I counted up my total hours, subtracting my lunch time and coffee-run time in the afternoon, wrote out a note for Todd stating the total hours, the hours for each of today's three jobs, and the work I'd done on each. I counted up my pay on his old adding machine, just to check my arithmetic, and stapled the machine tape to my note. Then I paid myself out of the register, leaving my note under the drawer, and kept a copy for myself. Finally I locked up the office and headed around back to use the restroom before driving home to Knox Road. Inside, I heard the sudden roar of a truck engine start up and a vehicle pulling away. Now what? It wasn't the tractor-but I bet to myself it was the Testament farm truck I had labored over this afternoon. I finished up and headed out of the restroom and back to the front of the building. Sure enough, the old farm truck no longer sat where I had parked it in the side lot facing the street. Instead, it was pulling away into the distance, down at the end of the street, but not North toward Knox Road, rather Southbound. At the moment I couldn't remember where that direction led; then I realized that shortly after the last building on the opposite side, an abandoned former auto parts store, there was a turnoff to the left, leading to a road that went straight on to Collins Junction. I think the Toddley twins used that route when they drove up to my house; it reduced the long drive up from Collins Junction by a significant number of miles. I knew myself that taking the long away around, from Knox Road on down to the Junction, meant driving about 25 miles, one way. So presumably, the old truck would be heading on to the Junction, and not driving down to the city simply to turn around and head back North the long way round to Knox Road and on to The Big Forest-or so I hoped. Speaking of Knox Road (but not of The Big Forest), it was well past dark and time for me to be heading home. As it was, it'd be 9 o'clock before I arrived home, and I still had to think about cooking my supper meal, since I had worked on through dinner and ignored the cravings of my stomach. Lunch at 11 o'clock was not going to be enough to sustain me; I didn't require food as frequently as the twins, but I still needed to eat three squares a day. Sighing, I piled into the Merc and headed North away from the Garage. At least by finishing all three jobs today, I wouldn't need to drive down here tomorrow. Suddenly I remembered something; the old farm truck had driven away, yet I had locked the keys up on the desk in the Garage office. Wondering now if someone miscreant had come along and hot-wired, I threw the Merc into reverse and backed up alongside the pumps. (Todd's wasn't a full-service station, there was a regular gas station on the east side of town; but he kept two diesel pumps available for his farm customers, who were numerous enough to keep him in business, and well-provided for.) I hopped out again and went to the big window that fronted the office. Sure enough, the keys were gone, and a check lay atop the paperwork. So I got my keys back out of the Merc, unlocked the door, checked to make sure that really was a check and the keys really were not present (it was and they weren't) and then unlocked the register and used my handkerchief to pick up the check and the paperwork (now signed o ff again with that illegible scribble) and placed those under the cash drawer next to the note I had left for Todd with my hours and pay amount. I dropped the drawer back into place, closed and locked the register, went outside and locked the office behind me without looking back. I deliberately once again shut down my thoughts, and drove through the night back to Knox Road and on to my own house, which from the turnoff on to Knox Road was a scant five miles, and passed, it seemed, in no time. I was by now really too tired for a meal, but I knew my body needed food and that long before morning. Besides, I might be called upon for further construction on the Greenhouse tonight, though I really hoped not. I hoped that the fact that Sunday began at midnight would mean that construction would be postponed until midnight Monday. I was almost to the entrance onto Knox Road, when the old farm truck I had earlier today repaired roared by, driven by the former passenger who this morning drove the Testament Tow Division truck-and who last night worked with me on the Greenhouse-or worked with Clyde Jenks, rather. He raised his left arm in a wide wave, then headed on down the road, west toward Knox-and The Big Forest. I drove on up to the junction, which by now had developed a grade of its own, so that I had to climb a low hill to reach Knox Road (I had to wonder exactly when that had developed) and before I could reach it, I heard an engine belch loudly and a cloud of white smoke wafted toward me, preceding yet another old farm truck-this one having suffered some serious burn damage-amazing the wood sides still existed-no, the cab was burnt, the wood bed was intact. Oh no, I knew now who would be-my “old buddy,” Mr. Burnt Husk, who had singlehandedly put up the East wall of the Greenhouse last night while I finished the West wall and began on the South and tried studiously-and successfully-to avoid seeing him. Yep, here he come, a-grinnin' and a-wavin' across the seat, like we was best friends and bosom buddies. It was dark, at least, full night time now, and the Moon had not yet begun to peek above The Big Forest to the North, and since I was climbing up a low grade, his truck was above me, high-sided and with the windows high in the cab, so basically I got only a glimpse of a waving arm in a black long-sleeved shirt rolled up and curled-not his face (thankfully), just the charred hand and arm (Rory, isn't that sufficient? No supper needed now, thank you very kindly, said my stomach.) Somehow, and I sure didn't intend it consciously, my own left arm went out the open window and I gave back a big wave. As soon as he passed in front of me, headed East, I pulled out on to Knox Road and roared away myself. Over the sound of the slipstream just before I pulled out of sight around a curve, I heard his engine downshifting. Oh no oh no, he was not coming to have a friendly talk with me in my drive nor over supper-not if I could prevent it. I didn't like to drive fast on Knox Road and usually I never did-but on Tuesday afternoon I had speeded to outrun the thunderstorm and I did so now as well. Pulling into the drive, I started to park in front and run in, then I realized I had left the bolt on, so I backed into the driveway and raced to the back about as fast as Old Mr. Jenks had torn up my drive on Tuesday. Luckily the twins were long gone or I would likely have run over their truck. I skidded onto the back lawn, cut the motor, grabbed the keys, and did not even take time to roll up the window. I raced to the back door and unlocked it, stepped in, then got worried about snakes crawling in (or being dropped in) to the car seat, so I raced back out and rolled the window up. Good thing too, cause I had forgotten to turn off my headlights. No battery charge from a tow truck out this way! Would not have wanted to call one anyway, might have been Testament Tow Division. Into the house, slammed, locked, and bolted the back door, pulled the curtains shut on the three kitchen windows, then just stood stock still-and waited. About five minutes passed, then I heard an engine choking along in the road out front, and a husky, charred chuckle; then it passed on-and I fainted. |
Today's MarNoWriMo word count was 76716, which means tomorrow, on the penultimate day of the month, only three pages or so will reach the March goal of 77,500 words. Well, of course we won't be stopping there, Gentle Readers.  . I also decided on the definite working title for the April Script Frenzy Stage Play I'll be beginning on Thursday, and its format:Obax and The Night-Riders, a Stage Play in Three Acts, setting, Georgia-March 1870. Again, this is based on a character for whom I wrote a history, a future, and a precis in 2008. Took her two years to percolate to the surface.  Book Three of The Testament Logging Corporation Series has now completed Chapter Sixteen. I will continue it in the beginning of April. My daily routine will still be 2500 words. The remainder of that after each day's three pages of script are composed will of course be applied to the novel; Book Three, then Book Four; and I see at least two novels coming out of the characters from the 2008 precis on which I am forming April's stage play: her grandmother-Yoruba to Aruba, then Obax-Aruba to Georgia 1750. Today's free read. The Phantom Logging Operation continues: Chapter 29 Old Mr. Jenks averrred as to how it was time for him to leave; seems he had some errands to run down to Collins Junction (or “The Junction” as he termed it) and was planning to pick up a load for seed for Farmer Jennell while he was in the city. “Sure will be good when you get your Plant Nursery opened up and start in stockin' seed bags for us farmers,” he told me as he returned to his pickup. “It's a fur piece to drive down to The Junction just ever' time we run out of seed. Good business for you, a big help to us. Works out for everybody.” He turned back for a moment and I saw shadows shift across his eyes again; then they cleared, he nodded, lifted a half-hearted wave, climbed into his truck, and backed carefully down my drive. No hot-rodding this time, for sure. Too many witnesses, I suspected. I went back to work with the boys, and somehow, either time expanded, or we three speeded up and worked like angry demons, because by approach of nightfall we had the West wall. When we finished the final corner, I realized suddenly I had offered the boys no lunch since the snack we shared just before Mr. Jenks drove up; yet neither had these two constantly hungry growing boys thought to ask. I invited them to supper but they demurred, saying they needed to get on home before their Mamma went to worrying and called Uncle Oakes (Uncle Sam they called him) to go lookin' for 'em. Jackie did ask me, though: “Got any of them good biscuits left, Mr. Rory?” (/center) I agreed that I did, and loaded what was left of the morning's second batch in an empty flour sack and handed it over, apologizing for missing out on lunch. “That's okay, Mr. Rory,” said Sam, “we were working so fast and hard we didn't even notice lunchtime!” They were pleased with the day's pay (increased because of that extra hour or so we worked through the noon meal break) and hurried off down the drive, eager to get home and rest, I guess, before another day. Well, rest was for them; none for me. I had work to do yet this eve. I stopped into the cabin and put on a fresh pot of coffee, ate one remaining biscuit I had saved out from the sack I gave the boys, and the indoor privy; then I moved the percolator, got me a cup of coffee, and headed back outside. By the time I had drunk the coffee and picked up my hammer, the headlights of an old pickup appeared from the East on Knox Road and turned on into my drive. Right on time, old Mr. Jenks, just as I knew he would be. He'd left sufficient time for the boys to get on their way to Collins Junction before he'd left his land to come to mine, to help me start on the Greenhouse-a job we could do only at night. The old Chevy pulled up to the spot where I had intended my garage to go, and the engine cut off. When Mr. Jenks climbed down, saying “Jest call me Clyde, son, that's all right, at night,” I noticed his eyes had that starry shift again as when he had driven away earlier. Somehow now, in the cover of near-darkness, it didn't really bother me-or more likely, it was because something in me had changed. I felt now that, as long as I didn't have to encounter either last night's cypress-stump-head, or the charred husk driver of the wooden-box truck with the pulp wood castoffs, I could handle pretty much anything The Big Forest could toss at me. As I realized this, I understood also that now, at last, I knew-recognized-the Source of all these horrors. I still had no idea why the Source had chosen to target me, a man who had only lived in the area not even three full months-but I knew the identity of the Source, and I accepted it as a worthy, if sometimes sneaky, opponent. Chapter 30 Jenks and I headed toward the lumber stack and each grabbed as many boards as we could tote; he carried a surprising quantity for an older gentleman. Then we started through the pine copse when I smelled a whiff of char; no, not a whiff, it was stronger as I considered it. I glanced toward the drive and sure enough, approaching was the old wood-sided box truck, and obviously its lovely operator. Before I could speak or act, old Mr. Jenks (“jest call me Clyde, son”) released his right hand from its grasp on the lumber he carried, and waved it to the right and behind him, not either breaking his stride, nor shifting the load he carried. Suddenly the odor disappeared; when I looked back toward the drive, it was empty of all except my Merc and Mr. Jenks' old Chevrolet pickup. Clearly the old black man had some power in this region, power over The Big Forest too, power over at least some of its horrors. We set to laboring on the Greenhouse, and while we worked, it occurred to me that this was at least the third manifestation of my thoughts taking shape and form-last night the road had developed a 12 per cent grade from a 7 per cent (which shouldn't have existed at all) as I thought of it, and the driver of the stalled log truck had come knockin' on my door (old Stump-Head) after I thought about me being a good and skilled diesel mechanic who could likely help out (but not him-it) and just now, I had thought of Mr. Charred Husk and here he come. On the other hand, though, if he'd been comin' to help out and not simply to scare me senseless, I'd of almost been glad to see him. For some reason I was feeling an extreme urgency to complete this Greenhouse, much more so than what I felt about the Plant Nursery-this one HAD to be done and SOON-and the work just wasn't proceeding as fast as the Nursery construction. Sure, we only had two of us here at the charred Foundation, and one of us was really old. We sure could use some help. Just as I thought that, I pounded the last nails in on my board (because this would be a Greenhouse, we were raising the plank walls only to three feet and then would frame out a roof's perimeter. The roof itself and the walls from three feet high to seven or eight feet would be all clear plastic, protection from the rain but plenty sufficient to allow sunlight's rays to penetrate to the dear deserving plants I would be growing here, in this very special Greenhouse). (Back somewhere in my conscious mind, the thought registered that I was acting and thinking very oddly, but the compulsion to perform the work on the Greenhouse was so powerful that the still small voice quickly grew resigned and gave up trying to influence my behavior.) Just then yet another truck motor sounded out on the grade (the grade?) and a westbound logger, coming from the direction of The Big Forest, pulled up in the road and stopped opposite the cabin. There appeared to be no driver, though I could not tell for sure now that it was full dark, and at the Greenhouse foundations Mr. Jenks and I worked by the light of the fitful Moon, but the truck appeared to be the one I had seen a few short days ago, the afternoon I had planted perennials. Or perhaps this was the second truck? At any rate, I heard a door open and boot heels clump to the pavement; I tensed, but what walked around the front of the cab was a normal-appearing human (I hoped; I really hoped) with a dark green golfing cap, a dark green jacket, and stiff new blue jeans above scabby work boots. He wore heavy gardening gloves so I could not see his hands, but above the collar line at the throat and what little I could spot of his chin looked brown-not as dark as Mr. Jenks, who was clearly of African descent, but a person of color nonetheless. Then I remembered the passenger in the second truck on Tuesday; this must be him. Once he had crossed in front of the semi and reached the drive, the truck (still wihout a driver?) shifted back into gear and headed for the grade, downhill from his direction. (oh that pesky grade! Where none before existed) He said not a word, and Mr. Jenks neither spoke nor looked at him, but the new-man-reached for a board, a hammer appeared in his hand out of nowhere, and he set to work with a vengeance. Soon the work started to flow a little easier and move faster; I completed the West wall while Mr. Jenks and the new-man-worked on the South wall. So I started around to the back wall, on the North, and as I bent to reach another board from the lumber pile at the the end of my driveway (I had used all of what I had brought over in the first trip) I smelt that old familiar char again. Instead of panicking, screaming, running away, or doing anything else unmanly, I simply resumed loading my arms with lumber, straightened up and walked back toward the Greenhouse. Mr. Jenks and the new one were busy working their way along the South wall, the front of the Greenhouse. I proceeded to the back, along the West wall I had finished, and just as I dropped my pile of lumber, glanced up to see what was peeking around the Northwest corner at me: my old buddy, Mr. Charred Husk, grinning and brandishing a hammer-not at me, but at the West wall, which apparently he was constructing single-handedly, a darned good feat for a creature in the condition he found himself in (char flakes flicking off each time he moved were not an appealing sight). I gave up; I was tired of fighting the fear and opposing the horrors. I shrugged, sighed, nodded, gave a half-hearted wave, and resumed stacking the lumber properly; then picked up a 2 c 8 and set to work on the South wall at the Northeast corner. Hopefully, I considered, Mr. Husk would be finished with the West wall before I reached the Northwest corner, and would have disappeared back to his truck-or from wherever he had showed up tonight. A friendly guy he was proving to be, but not someone I'd invite to dinner or want to play a hand of poker with. By Moonset, I had finished about half of the back wall. The West wall was completed, and Mr. Jenks and his friend had finished about as far along the front wall as I had on the back one. I passed them and went along to the East wall, heart in mouth, and sure enough, that wall was complete and also ready for plastic, and no one else was there. So I had worried about that for nothing. By the time I walked back around to the front, after checking over Mr. Husk's excellent work, the extra one had disappeared, and Mr. Jenks was cleaning off his hammer with a rag he pulled from his back pocket. Nodding at me, he simply added, “See you tomorrow night, then, Rory; sleep well,” gave me an odd lazy grin, and walked back to his pickup, climbed in, and backed cautiously down the drive. (I realized then that both this time and this afternoon he had backed along the drive as if he was expecting ruts!) I was tired, but not exhausted as I would have expected to be after laboring for two long days and one night. Emotionally and mentally, I felt almost exhilarated. I went to the back of the Greenhouse and toted the remaining lumber back to the pile at the end of the drive and covered it gently with the tarp; I didn't want the boys questioning in the morning. Somehow I knew they would not notice either the absence of much of the lumber, nor the size of the building growing across the way, past the pine copse, on the new hill that rose gently from the east side of my drive. As I crossed the drive back toward the cabin, one of the box-sided trucks passed headed westbound toward Knox-or toward The Big Forest. It was not in very good shape either, belching white smoke and the carburetor coughing intermittently. The passenger was the dark one who had helped out tonight on the Greenhouse. He raised a limp right hand in a wave, without looking, I waved back, and the truck honked and proceeded on. Did this mean I was now accepted-at least by some of the horrors? Continuing on to the house, I remembered that now the truck had lettering on the door: “Monument Maintenance”-and the box frame had been stuffed to the brim with-tombstones. |
| Today's Writing brings me to 74,165 words for MarNoWriMo, with only three more days to go. My Goal of course was 77,500 words-2500 /day. So no problem there, Gentle Readers. Book Three of The Testament Logging Corporation Chronicles, Child Puppets of The Testament Logging Corporation: Children Who Kill has now been written through Chapter Eleven. Each book in the series I think has been more graphic-certainly Child Puppets deals with some very serious issues, aside from just the pure horror and evil entities. Today's free read: continuing from Book One of this series, The Phantom Logging Operation, the story that started it all: Chapter 26 I had been so certain in my heart that the prolonged and strenuous manual labor, coupled with devoting my every waking thought to accurately planning out the construction and the dimensions, would send me securely into sleep and at an early hour. But such proved a pipe dream. The new series of horrors began as I sat alone at the kitchen table, chowing down a quick dinner after dusk. I had fried up the two trout the butcher had saved for me the day before, which I had stored in the ice house since early yesterday afternoon. It would have made a tasty meal, if not for the sudden roar of a motor beside the cabin, and the sounds of mud clots splashing against the near wall. I leapt up and rushed out the back door, eschewing stopping at the window, and ran to the corner, looking up and down the drive in both directions. I still could hear the motor's roar, still hear the pound of mud against the wall closer to the drive, but no vehicle was visible, no ruts showed up in my newly smoothed drive, no mud splashes appeared on my cabin wall. Nothing to show for the sound, which disappeared as suddenly as it had arisen. I threw up my hands in stunned exasperation, and returned to my dinner. No longer was I hungry, but Mamma had taught me well “waste not, want not,” so I finished the last half of the second trout and got up to clean up my plate, wondering what would happen next, if anything at all. While I washed the dishes, I realized how gratified I was that I now had an indoor facility and did not have to cross my yard into the abandoned lot and walk the distance beyond the old ruins to the outdoor privy. I really was thankful to avoid that on this night of all nights, just as on two nights ago during that horrible unexpected thunderstorm. Dishes finished and stacked in the drain without event, I cleaned out the percolator and readied it for the morning, which would come early enough-especially if the twins arrived at the crack of dawn hunting a sturdy breakfast! As I briefly showered, over the cascading stream I once again thought I had heard a train whistle, and remembered the sound rippling through the distance as I ran the dishwater. I yanked the water faucets to off, but heard nothing-the whistle had dissipated immediately, just as while running the dishwater. I hurriedly finished my shower, toweled off, and headed for bed, where I fell asleep within seconds, it seemed. But a peaceful rest was not to be for me this night, any more than last night's spell. I must have been deep in sleep for a few hours when I suddenly startled awake, convinced a piercing train whistle had sounded in my ear. I opened my eyes to a dark bedroom, expecting the blazing single eye of a locomotive headlight, but nothing was amiss. I heard crickets, an owl hooting nearby, a night hawk's screech; that was all. Rolling over I checked the old alarm clock my Mamma had used for years: nearly midnight. I lay back down and closed my eyes, headed once more for a deep and restful sleep, and was nearly there when the night's peace was interrupted once again, this time by the unmistakable noise of a semi-truck's engine climbing a steep grade. Now as I mentioned in an earlier chapter, my part of the County is relatively flat. There are no grades-to the North beyond The confines of The Big Forest is a range of hills, but to the best of my knowledge, no roads there were open to truck traffic, and I could not have heard an engine from that extended distance anyway, not even in the quiet of the night. Yet the labored groan of a loaded semi sounded clear, and now in addition I could hear the rattle of chained logs as the semi's load shifted from side to side. Oh my, what had I encountered now?? Feb. 15: I rolled to the right to look out the west window, next to my bed. Empty countryside as far as the eye could see, nothing passed on the road to the west, toward Knox and The Big Forest. So I leaped out of bed and headed for the front window facing the south; still nothing, but that engine grind was that much clearer. I went on into the living room and peeked around the curtain at the picture window: here it came-faded red painted cab, older model, hauling a clearly overpacked load of shifting, rolling, bouncing logs-and these were packed all wrongly, for the crowns showed at both ends of the flatbed trailer. That is, instead of the logs being loaded all end to end, with the crowns at one end, at the back of the trailer, and the cut stump ends all together, towards the cab, this load resembled the wreck a child makes of his Tinker Toys, when he is tired and sleepy and needing his sleep but unwilling, and tosses them all askew and asunder. No wonder the log load reeled and rolled, like a batch of drunken sailors on leave from Great Lakes Naval Training Camp. For certain, that load was either going to begin slippin' loose, log by log, or that truck was going to flip on the grade-wait! Grade! What grade? Knox Road was smooth and flat from about 13 miles east of my cabin, where the road turned beside open farmland and meadow and headed south to Collins Junction, the County Seat, along past my cabin 12 more miles west to Knox, and beyond that about 2-3 miles distance to the eastern point of The Big Forest, which opened up like a light bulb from that point on, West and North, and where Knox Road ended. There was no grade; yet here in front of me, as I looked to the east, I saw-a grade. About 7 percent, I adjudged, but the immense overload on the flatbed made the difficulty on that engine probably more like 12 percent with a steel load. Certainly the grinding worsened each moment, till it seemed as if the pistons would knock themselves silly, bust loose, and fly on out of the engine, off into space just to gain some relief. But no, the raggedy old logging truck continued to climb the grade toward me (Grade?? my brain called) and by now I could see around the curve (Curve??) to the rear of the trailer, where black smoke belched out. Clearly not only the pistons were in need, but the oil situation as well. That truck surely could not run much longer, and I sure hope it didn't falter to a halt-right here in front of my land-right here in the road opposite my cabin—right within sight of my big picture window of which I stood so proud-and yes it did-exactly that. That steep grade had proved too much for it (What Grade??? insisted my mind) and the engine shook, rattled, belched, coughed-and died. To the east, behind the trailer, the grade had now mutated to about 12 per cent-steep-and the road on which the log truck had stopped had also raised, so that from my viewpoint standing at the edge of the window, my eyes were on a level with the cab's wheels, but I could not see inside. The passenger side faced me, and I saw no movement by the window-no surprise there, after the events of the last few days. (Rory, I said to myself, you're a skilled diesel man and a good one-if this were an ordinary situation you could go out there and offer to help out what you could. But this is no ordinary situation and you'd do best to just stay put, and go on back to sleep.) Already I had forgotten that just a moment before, when I thought about the grade being more like 12 per cent than 7, it had indeed changed into 12 per cent; and sure enough, just as I thought about how I would offer to try to help, if the circumstances outside had been normal, I heard the driver's door chunk, and heavy boots clomp down onto the asphalt. I could see under the cab to the other side, and I watched two boots hit the road, then turn toward the front of the cab, where they disappeared from my view. I knew I really, really, should not continue to stand in front of the picture window. Instead, I should drop the curtain and run back to my bedroom, locking its door behind me and cowering under the covers. Thinking of this, I checked immediately that the front door was locked and bolted, then raced to the back door and checked it too, and the three kitchen windows. All were fine. Back into the front room, I could hear the stomp of work boots hitting asphalt, then silence as the driver stepped up onto the grassy lawn. I halted, knowing once more that I needed to run for the bed and hide; but that would be just so childish, would it not? After all, I was a man (even though Leill's treatment of me made me feel more like a mouse or a worm) and men don't hide and cower and cringe. My Daddy faced down the Huns in the European Theater and I could face whatever this was. So I thought, until I pulled back the edge of the curtain once again and faced what approached my front door. A man from the boots up to the chest, two feet in dusty scuffed-up boots, two legs in faded dirty jeans, black belt, jean jacket over black t-shirt, soiled red bandanna tied around the neck. Oh, the neck! It was present, as it normally should be on any usual human being, but on the neck, where ought to be attached a head, with a face and eyes and mouth and ears and nose, sometimes hair-was not a head, but a-a stump, like a tree leaves after cutting, if the stump had been shorn of bark and then whittled at and smoothed and scraped until it resembled a cypress knob in the swamp, all beige and fibrous and rounded and horrifying- I dropped the curtain and sped for the bed, slamming and locking the bedroom door, and was in a flash up under the bed, no not under the covers, beneath the bed, reaching for the 12-gauge I kept there for emergencies or potential fall season deer hunting (though that was not likely for me), grabbed on to that grip like it was life's end for me, and shivered and shook to the pounding on my front door-the infernal, eternal pounding that seemed to go on and on to the end of life-though it probably lasted not more than a minute; then the silence, except for a swishing of boots dragging across the grass, then the clomp-clomp of boots on asphalt, silence again, then the clunk of a door. And incredibly, an engine fired, coughed, belched, backfired, belched again (I could taste the oily black smoke!) and labored off, grinding gears, misfiring pistons, chugging away and beyond-to where? Only one place I could think of-to The Big Forest, to the East. Yet I remained under the bed all of the remainder of the night-and in the morning, could not peel my fingers loose from the shotgun's grip for a very, very, long time. It was only later, on the verge of sleep, that I recalled the name I had seen scratched across the passenger door: Property of Testament Logging Corporation Madison Mills and written across the bottom of the metal frame of the log-bed trailer was the phrase “Murder Log.” Chapter 27 Naturally, by the time I pried loose my fingers in the morning, checked to make sure the shotgun wasn't still primed, and crawled out from my hiding place, the Toddley twins roared up the drive and parked behind the cabin. I figured they were as eager for breakfast and they were for manual labor and a hard day's pay, so I opened the back door and motioned them inside and to the table. “Put the coffee pot on boys, and fetch some butter out of the ice house, will you? Did you bring the flour? And I'll quick get a shower and be right out to fix you all some breakfast goods.” Well, I needed that coffee as much or more than I needed that shower, though a night of persistent fear-sweat meant the shower was an essential too. So I headed that way, dropping my soaked pajamas in the bedroom and made the water as hot as I could stand. Or that is what I told myself, imagining hot scalding steam and spray; without electricity, I had no use for a water heater, so most of my showers were lukewarm. Come this fall, though, it'd be icy showers, or either warming up pots of water on the stove to carry into the stall with me. The boys had returned by the time I dressed and brought more butter than necessary, but I just thanked them softly and fried up sausages and flapjacks. I wasn't hungry myself, but I could tell by their hound-dog imitations they wanted more of my butter biscuits, so I rustled up a couple of batches. The first one disappeared down their throats, as I knew it would, and I laid out the second batch to the side to cool, with a dry clean towel over top of it, just in case of the advent of a rare early summer fly. When we headed out back and started up the slope (the slope? When did that happen? Oh no!) I asked the boys to lift off the tarp from the stacked lumber they had brought up yesterday and begin pulling some boards over to the low frame we had constructed yesterday. I wanted to raise the walls and roof before I worried about putting in the floor, because no way did I have enough tarps to cover the floor in case of another storm, or even a light spring rain. So walls and roof first it would have to be. While they jogged to the lumber pile, I started around the corner of the building; what a relief! No grade in front of my cabin. Walking down to the end of the drive, I looked in both directions, west and then east. The road looked fine-that is, it looked like it always had since I had moved back up this way. Then from the east I heard an engine, exactly like the roar that had accompanied the destruction of my driveway during the storm. Yes, here from the direction of Knox came that old black Chevy, racing as it came into view, revving and speeding up, passing me in a blur, but the driver's head turned and leered at me-not a dead black man any more, but a grinning skull with a tight cap of gray kinks. Oh, how I had begun to hate my life! I turned and RAN up the driveway, and around to the lumber stack, where the boys informed me that the tarp had already been pulled off before they got to it-removed, folded into a square, laid neatly on the ground, its one corner tucked under the lumber so as not to blow away in a storm. This was just about-all too much. I just nodded and told them not to worry about it, we'd just get on with building. “At least I didn't lose the tarp in a wind!” So we began on the building and I showed them how to start, then, as if impelled by forces guiding my feet and mind, I headed around the pine copse on the far side of the driveway and into the land on the other side, toward the ruined homestead. This was property that belonged to me also, though I had not realized it when I first went to the County Tax Assessor's office to lay claim to the property that Mamma had left me. I refer here to the property on which I had built my cabin, and was beginning construction on my Plant Nursery. I thought all I owned was the land up to the pine copse on the east, next to where I put the drive, and a goodly distance west and north. When I walked into the Assessor's office, that information was all I knew. I had been up to the property looking it over before I drove back to the County Seat at Collins Junction to file claim and get the plat records. When I came out, I knew I owned vastly more land than what I had thought; and that was before I discovered the two additional pieces I now actually owned, according to Attorney Squires. Well, I might as well make use of all this expanded coverage, I thought, and as I crossed up the slight rise beyond the pine copse (where did that come from? This was all smooth, flat land yesterday and before!) I considered the placement of my Greenhouse. Yes, just ahead of me-there was the obvious and perfect spot-neatly installed atop the charred ruins of that old burnt farmhouse. Chapter 28 I vaguely remembered that yesterday I had decided to construct the Nursery's Greenhouse-an essential component if I was to grow my own plants as well as sell seed sacks, smaller seed packets, and plants ordered in from big-city nurseries such as Kenozsha and Madison Mills-against the East wall of the Nursery itself, running the length of that building from front to rear. That plan had made perfect sense to me yesterday, while the layout of the perimeters and deciding the size of the entire structure had gone so smoothly. The Toddley twins and I worked together like a three-horse draft team, and all was fine. Well, that was then and this was now, as my Daddy always said (repeated to me often by my Mamma) and now told me to get across to the next section of my property, past the pine copse, and over to the charred old ruins of that farmstead. I still didn't know what kind of home that had been-cabin, farmhouse, perhaps not that at all but a barn or woodshed-but then there was an outdoor privy, and surely that presence indicated a house? But all that didn't matter right now, nor did it matter whose home it had been, why it had burnt, when it had burnt, or anything at all, except that I walk that way and start pacing out the perimeter of the ruins! I was impelled-no I was compelled-to walk this side of the land, while the Toddley twins toiled away at whatever task I had set them to do-whatever that would have been. I no longer remembered, I no longer-not at this moment-particularly cared, my mind was suffused only with vagueness and one clear shining thought: I MUST walk the perimeter of the charred ruins because THAT would be the location on which I would construct my Greenhouse; THAT would be the foundation on which the Greenhouse would rest; THAT would be what was right. And no, I knew the Toddley twins, eager as they were for lucrative work, would not help me at all with this portion of the job; this one I would have to do all on my own, and without them being around. I decided that, and then, relieved, I turned and walked away, back to the slope (slope?) behind my cabin, where the two boys labored away on framing the west wall of the Plant Nursery. As I crossed through the pine copse and walked down its slope, one of the boys, Jackie, called out to me. “Is this lookin' right, Mr. Rory?” “Looks good, Jackie, hold on just one moment and I'll come over there and help you.” I walked into the house and poured three glasses of lukewarm lemonade, and piled up some of the morning's second batch of butter biscuits onto a china plate which I covered with a towel; then placed it all on one of Mamma's good serving trays and carried it out on outside. The boys, of course, were ecstatic, and more than ready to stop. A midmorning snack break was just as welcome to them at their age as was the evening's daily pay. While they ate and I sipped lemonade and stared through the pines at the adjacent section and thought about the Greenhouse and its compelling hold on me, we all heard a truck engine-a pickup-heading up the drive. I was startled that the boys also heard it and turned in that direction; but more startled when I saw the old black Chevrolet, and their welcoming smiles and waves. Sam stood up and brushed his hands on his jeans, but Jackie, waving, kept eating and made sure he retained possession of the biscuit plate. I simply stood as if paralyzed, watching the driver's door open and a slight, wiry, black man climb out onto the drive. I knew full well this was the same faded black Chevrolet pickup which had torn up my drive, the same one which had stopped to let the scrawny white hound cross the road near my cabin, the same one that had raced by my cabin this morning driven by a grinning skeleton. Yet here was a seemingly alive man, smiling wryly, aloof but courteous, waving and speaking to the boys, and asking me if he could approach and shake my hand. Speechless, I just nodded, and he walked up to me, shook (his hand felt alive enough, a little cool and dry) and introduced himself, or tried to but Jackie, the more verbal of the twins, interjected. “Mr. Rory, this here's Mr. Jenks, Mr. Clyde Jenks, he lives down at Guilford Hollow.” “That's right, sir, I live off out there way out in the country a far piece, out beyond Farmer Jennell's land.” “You've lost me now, sir, I'm pretty new here-I don't know where either of those places is.” “Oh,” Mr. Jenks said slyly, “you are not so new here as you think. Believe you have roots here-that sink way down into our soil. Anyways, Farmer Jennell's land is the piece you pass when you go out to the east end of Knox Road here (and he pointed back) where you turn South to head toward Collins Junction. Jennell farms all that land up and down that section of the County, near all the way to maybe 15 miles before the Junction. “Now, maybe you haven't noticed, but as you pass on East here beyond your own very extensive piece of land, on your left, which is to say the North, just a short pieced before you swing South toward the Junction, there be a tiny narrow little dirt road that ain't ought but mud in a rain-like the storm we had three days ago. “ The boys looked bewildered at this. Apparently that tremendous sudden rainstorm had been only a Knox Road phenomenon. But they had butter biscuits and lemonade to occupy them, and wisely realized that the more the grown-ups conversed, the longer would be their own break from labor, so they returned to the food and dug right in, no doubt well preparing their stomachs for a big lunch meal too. Mr. Clyde continued, “Well, down that lil' dirt road a fur piece is where I live, on a little plot of land about 50 acres that was left to me by my Grandpappy when he passed.” He looked down at the grass sadly: “it was meant to be my Pappy's, but he went on and went to that Europe War and he died on over there, in 1944.” “I'm very sorry,” I told him. “My Daddy died over there too, in 1941. It all was a tremendous waste of lives.” He nodded back at me, and added, “So that land came on to me when my Grandpappy passed, and I got to keep it up; it's family land, you know? Just like all this is yore family place too.” I was way past understanding any of this, but chose not to interrupt, so I just let Mr. Jenks talk on as he would-and he did seem to like to talk. Certainly he was a far nicer companion than he had seemed while dead, much less when skeletal this morning, and a portion of my mind insisted on wondering whether there were TWO old faded-black Chevrolet trucks driven by TWO old black gentlemen. Perhaps this friendly and polite Mr. Jenks had a twin, as the Toddley brothers were twins, but at the opposite end of the age continuum and of a different shade of pale. The old man was still talking when I tuned back in: “Been meanin' for a spell to get on over here and speak to you, Mr. Rory,” he told me. “Meant to come by and hep when you was puttin' up this cabin,” he gestured toward my home, “but right after you begun I had to go into hospital up Collins Junction way. Had a bad ticker near all my life, what took my Grandpappy too.” (Yes, I thought to myself, and I'm certain next you're going to tell me you didn't survive your heart operation, aren't you? I smirked mentally but tried to smooth my expression.} “'N then, I had to recuperate up at my home-and by the time I's able to get up and stirrin', wal, you was all done! But NOW I see that you'ah buildin' all over again, so now's I'M here to hep!” Well, this was an unexpected surprise. I squinted at him, considering how to respond, and noticed he looked down at the two boys. Before he could speak, they both jumped up, and Sam took the biscuit plate and the tray and all three lemonade glasses and ran into the house. Jackie headed back over to the construction and picked up one end of a 2 x 8 and his hammer. Sam came running back out with two full lemonade glasses, and handed one to Mr. Jenks and one to me. The old man thanked him, took a sip, and turned to me while Sam hurried over to life the other end of the 2 x 8 so they could nail it into place. At a good steady rate, we'd have that West wall erected by dusk. Edging a little closer, the old one whispered to me, “The boys are fine as far as they'll go. Use them to finish up THAT building,” and he pointed to the Nursery construction. “I'M here to help you,” (pointing across the copse of pines} “to build the GREENHOUSE.” He turned all the way around and looked to the East, as if peering through the pines to the old ruins, then muttered over his shoulder, “the boys won't work that. They won't cross that line of trees, no they won't, not none of them townspeople would. But I will-and I'll help. That Greenhouse-it needs building.” He turned back around and in his eyes I saw the grinning skeletal face from this morning, and the rip-roaring pickup tearing apart my driveway, and I knew-I had bit off more than I wanted to chew. |
| Still continuing The Phantom Logging Operation Chapter 25 Sooner than I could have expected, the perimeter lines had been laid out; twine marked off the nursery's dimensions, stakes stood proud at the corners, and I was ready to begin delineating the interior rooms and to decide in which corner to place the greenhouse. I knew I ought to have planned all this out in advance; yet I hadn't been long finished building the cabin, and constructing an indoor privy and small shower stall had proved particularly time-consuming. I had been glad that I had waited till the last minute on that, after the cabin's construction had been completed and I had the wood-stove in place, and had begun adding some furniture, a kitchen table, chairs, and bedstead first of all-then the privy. That had been left till last because I wasn't sure of my skills at plumbing; as the matter progressed, I proved to be able enough, but because of my anxiety and uncertainty, I proceeded slowly, rather like the tortoise of nursery rhyme fame than the hare. In the meantime I was fortunate to have the use of the outhouse located quite some distance beyond the ruins of the old farmhouse that stood on my property, to the North and some distance East of where I decided to build my own homestead. I had found the “necessary,” as it was termed in the old days, while hunting around the ruins, and immediately put it to use. Even on the really cold nights I ended up sleeping on the back seat of the Merc wrapped in my sleeping bag, I was glad that privy stood near-or near enough. That also meant I could take what time I needed to complete the cabin's indoor facilities, and just as well that was; I did acceptably well, but at one point nearly encountered an unexpected shower when my wrench slipped and stripped a pipe joint. Today none of that difficulty emerged, and the three of us worked in tandem like an off-number team of draft horses. The boys followed my lead and my directions as if they had been born to it, and by 11 o'clock we had not just the perimeter lines but the wood framing the perimeter-simply narrow boards pounded into the ground-in place and were ready for a quick lunch before spending what promised to be a very productive afternoon. While I rustled up flapjacks, sausages, and bacon biscuits at the wood stove, I had the boys wash up too, and informed them that since the day was going so well we would work on till almost dark, if that was not amiss with them. They agreed, telling me their mother did not expect them before dark, and that they would return the hand grader to their uncle when they returned that evening to Collins Junction, and make sure he marked off my rental. Then they found themselves too occupied with lunch to talk, and soon we were back out at the Nursery layout, and spent the afternoon placing the floor pattern. The next big job would be construction of the Greenhouse, which I had decided would be the entire East side of the structure, running from the North wall to the South front wall. It would look out over my future garage and woodshed, but I didn't think that would be a problem for the plants, nor would the farther vista of the old farmhouse ruins, scarcely visible through the copse of pines standing on the far side of my drive. When we finished at dusk, I gave the boys a bag of cooled biscuits to take along, suggesting they might if they could bring along another bag of flour in the morning, unless they arrived too early for the stores to be open. They took along Mr. Oakes' hand grader, but we had stacked all the tools and the remaining lumber under the tarp. In the morning they would bring up another load. I apologized that they found themselves doing all this cartage, but they assured me that they didn't mind at all-and I noticed their secret smiles when I paid them well for the day's work. Chapter 26 I had been so certain in my heart that the prolonged and strenuous manual labor, coupled with devoting my every waking thought to accurately planning out the construction and the dimensions, would send me securely into sleep and at an early hour. But such proved a pipe dream. The new series of horrors began as I sat alone at the kitchen table, chowing down a quick dinner after dusk. I had fried up the two trout the butcher had saved for me the day before, which I had stored in the ice house since early yesterday afternoon. It would have made a tasty meal, if not for the sudden roar of a motor beside the cabin, and the sounds of mud clots splashing against the near wall. I leapt up and rushed out the back door, eschewing stopping at the window, and ran to the corner, looking up and down the drive in both directions. I still could hear the motor's roar, still hear the pound of mud against the wall closer to the drive, but no vehicle was visible, no ruts showed up in my newly smoothed drive, no mud splashes appeared on my cabin wall. Nothing to show for the sound, which disappeared as suddenly as it had arisen. I threw up my hands in stunned exasperation, and returned to my dinner. No longer was I hungry, but Mamma had taught me well “waste not, want not,” so I finished the last half of the second trout and got up to clean up my plate, wondering what would happen next, if anything at all. While I washed the dishes, I realized how gratified I was that I now had an indoor facility and did not have to cross my yard into the abandoned lot and walk the distance beyond the old ruins to the outdoor privy. I really was thankful to avoid that on this night of all nights, just as on two nights ago during that horrible unexpected thunderstorm. Dishes finished and stacked in the drain without event, I cleaned out the percolator and readied it for the morning, which would come early enough-especially if the twins arrived at the crack of dawn hunting a sturdy breakfast! As I briefly showered, over the cascading stream I once again thought I had heard a train whistle, and remembered the sound rippling through the distance as I ran the dishwater. I yanked the water faucets to off, but heard nothing-the whistle had dissipated immediately, just as while running the dishwater. I hurriedly finished my shower, toweled off, and headed for bed, where I fell asleep within seconds, it seemed. But a peaceful rest was not to be for me this night, any more than last night's spell. I must have been deep in sleep for a few hours when I suddenly startled awake, convinced a piercing train whistle had sounded in my ear. I opened my eyes to a dark bedroom, expecting the blazing single eye of a locomotive headlight, but nothing was amiss. I heard crickets, an owl hooting nearby, a night hawk's screech; that was all. Rolling over I checked the old alarm clock my Mamma had used for years: nearly midnight. I lay back down and closed my eyes, headed once more for a deep and restful sleep, and was nearly there when the night's peace was interrupted once again, this time by the unmistakable noise of a semi-truck's engine climbing a steep grade. Now as I mentioned in an earlier chapter, my part of the County is relatively flat. There are no grades-to the North beyond The confines of The Big Forest is a range of hills, but to the best of my knowledge, no roads there were open to truck traffic, and I could not have heard an engine from that extended distance anyway, not even in the quiet of the night. Yet the labored groan of a loaded semi sounded clear, and now in addition I could hear the rattle of chained logs as the semi's load shifted from side to side. Oh my, what had I encountered now?? Feb. 15: I rolled to the right to look out the west window, next to my bed. Empty countryside as far as the eye could see, nothing passed on the road to the west, toward Knox and The Big Forest. So I leaped out of bed and headed for the front window facing the south; still nothing, but that engine grind was that much clearer. I went on into the living room and peeked around the curtain at the picture window: here it came-faded red painted cab, older model, hauling a clearly overpacked load of shifting, rolling, bouncing logs-and these were packed all wrongly, for the crowns showed at both ends of the flatbed trailer. That is, instead of the logs being loaded all end to end, with the crowns at one end, at the back of the trailer, and the cut stump ends all together, towards the cab, this load resembled the wreck a child makes of his Tinker Toys, when he is tired and sleepy and needing his sleep but unwilling, and tosses them all askew and asunder. No wonder the log load reeled and rolled, like a batch of drunken sailors on leave from Great Lakes Naval Training Camp. For certain, that load was either going to begin slippin' loose, log by log, or that truck was going to flip on the grade-wait! Grade! What grade? Knox Road was smooth and flat from about 13 miles east of my cabin, where the road turned beside open farmland and meadow and headed south to Collins Junction, the County Seat, along past my cabin 12 more miles west to Knox, and beyond that about 2-3 miles distance to the eastern point of The Big Forest, which opened up like a light bulb from that point on, West and North, and where Knox Road ended. There was no grade; yet here in front of me, as I looked to the east, I saw-a grade. About 7 percent, I adjudged, but the immense overload on the flatbed made the difficulty on that engine probably more like 12 percent with a steel load. Certainly the grinding worsened each moment, till it seemed as if the pistons would knock themselves silly, bust loose, and fly on out of the engine, off into space just to gain some relief. But no, the raggedy old logging truck continued to climb the grade toward me (Grade?? my brain called) and by now I could see around the curve (Curve??) to the rear of the trailer, where black smoke belched out. Clearly not only the pistons were in need, but the oil situation as well. That truck surely could not run much longer, and I sure hope it didn't falter to a halt-right here in front of my land-right here in the road opposite my cabin—right within sight of my big picture window of which I stood so proud-and yes it did-exactly that. That steep grade had proved too much for it (What Grade??? insisted my mind) and the engine shook, rattled, belched, coughed-and died. To the east, behind the trailer, the grade had now mutated to about 12 per cent-steep-and the road on which the log truck had stopped had also raised, so that from my viewpoint standing at the edge of the window, my eyes were on a level with the cab's wheels, but I could not see inside. The passenger side faced me, and I saw no movement by the window-no surprise there, after the events of the last few days. (Rory, I said to myself, you're a skilled diesel man and a good one-if this were an ordinary situation you could go out there and offer to help out what you could. But this is no ordinary situation and you'd do best to just stay put, and go on back to sleep.) Already I had forgotten that just a moment before, when I thought about the grade being more like 12 per cent than 7, it had indeed changed into 12 per cent; and sure enough, just as I thought about how I would offer to try to help, if the circumstances outside had been normal, I heard the driver's door chunk, and heavy boots clomp down onto the asphalt. I could see under the cab to the other side, and I watched two boots hit the road, then turn toward the front of the cab, where they disappeared from my view. I knew I really, really, should not continue to stand in front of the picture window. Instead, I should drop the curtain and run back to my bedroom, locking its door behind me and cowering under the covers. Thinking of this, I checked immediately that the front door was locked and bolted, then raced to the back door and checked it too, and the three kitchen windows. All were fine. Back into the front room, I could hear the stomp of work boots hitting asphalt, then silence as the driver stepped up onto the grassy lawn. I halted, knowing once more that I needed to run for the bed and hide; but that would be just so childish, would it not? After all, I was a man (even though Leill's treatment of me made me feel more like a mouse or a worm) and men don't hide and cower and cringe. My Daddy faced down the Huns in the European Theater and I could face whatever this was. So I thought, until I pulled back the edge of the curtain once again and faced what approached my front door. A man from the boots up to the chest, two feet in dusty scuffed-up boots, two legs in faded dirty jeans, black belt, jean jacket over black t-shirt, soiled red bandanna tied around the neck. Oh, the neck! It was present, as it normally should be on any usual human being, but on the neck, where ought to be attached a head, with a face and eyes and mouth and ears and nose, sometimes hair-was not a head, but a-a stump, like a tree leaves after cutting, if the stump had been shorn of bark and then whittled at and smoothed and scraped until it resembled a cypress knob in the swamp, all beige and fibrous and rounded and horrifying- I dropped the curtain and sped for the bed, slamming and locking the bedroom door, and was in a flash up under the bed, no not under the covers, beneath the bed, reaching for the 12-gauge I kept there for emergencies or potential fall season deer hunting (though that was not likely for me), grabbed on to that grip like it was life's end for me, and shivered and shook to the pounding on my front door-the infernal, eternal pounding that seemed to go on and on to the end of life-though it probably lasted not more than a minute; then the silence, except for a swishing of boots dragging across the grass, then the clomp-clomp of boots on asphalt, silence again, then the clunk of a door. And incredibly, an engine fired, coughed, belched, backfired, belched again (I could taste the oily black smoke!) and labored off, grinding gears, misfiring pistons, chugging away and beyond-to where? Only one place I could think of-to The Big Forest, to the East. Yet I remained under the bed all of the remainder of the night-and in the morning, could not peel my fingers loose from the shotgun's grip for a very, very, long time. It was only later, on the verge of sleep, that I recalled the name I had seen scratched across the passenger door: Property of Testament Logging Corporation Madison Mills and written across the bottom of the metal frame of the log-bed trailer was the phrase “Murder Log.” |
| March 26_free read _ 2769 word Announcement, Gentle Readers: I've been keeping this Blog going fairly regularly-on a daily basis-since mid-December 2009 or so. I've continued even this month-March-to post 500+ words a day, in keeping with “The Joy of Blogging”- and that has not been easy as all this month I've been penning 2500 words a day, often more, every day, for MarNoWriMo. A scant couple of weeks ago I determined that this is the Writing schedule I intend to keep-for life-2500+ daily on one or more novels. That could include editing, of course. However, in April I am introducing what is to me a completely new concept: April Script Frenzy. I've never written a script of any sort before, nor tried. Beginning April 1 I will be writing a stage play, based on a precis I wrote in 2007, intending to expand it into a novel. It may still be a novel-it may become a novel net month; but in the event, it will be incorporated into a stage play next month, this IN ADDITION TO the daily 2500 words on one or more novels! So as you can understand, Gentle Reader, there will not be time for breathing or sleeping or anything not directly related to either Script Frenzy nor daily 2500+ word count Novelling. Blogging will occur as and when I can. Everything else will be on hold as well, including my own Standwood's In-Depth Reviews. I honestly do not expect to have additional spare time. Today's free read: from The Phantom Logging Operation Chapter 22 I was a survivor. I had suffered the loss of my father when I was scarcely eleven, the loss of my mother to a particularly virulent disease, bone cancer, and now the loss of my wife to rejection, betrayal, and divorce-as she wished. I would not allow this next news-or any other of these startling and horrifying events-to break my spirit, sap my will, or take my life. I looked Attorney Squires full in the eye, and told him, “Just tell me it all.” He looked rather startled, but got up to get himself a second shot of brandy, not offering me one nor even considering it. Reseating himself, he quaffed the shot in one gulp and continued finally. “Mr. Lewes, your grandparents died simultaneously on the night of May 29, a Sunday- consequent to a house fire of unexplained ignition, excessive temperatures, and long duration. The home was already blazing merrily and nearly destroyed by the time the fire was noticed, due to the isolated location of the Calhoun homestead-some 12 miles eastward of Knox. Indeed, the fire was not fully put out until mid-morning on the Monday, and volunteer fire fighters-neighbors from Knox, Rennald, and the surrounding countryside-spotted sparks and occasional smoulders as late as into Tuesday morning, May 31. The bodies were not recovered until the following weekend, because the ashes were simply too hot for the fire fighters to brave. Finally, on Saturday June 4 (I then remembered this was three days past the date of the “rediscovery” of Rosa Luxemburg's corpse in 1919) the undertaker from Rennald was called out to The Big Forest, and he and two assistants were able to sort through the rubble and locate the remains, which were immediately placed in walnut caskets and carried immediately to the Calhoun Family cemetery, located to the east of the old homestead. During the ensuing pause, he stared down at his desk, but I knew his eyes were far away and his mind accompanying. I felt exactly the same way. My poor grandparents! And my poor mother, to have suffered so from grief-yet never to tell me so! I looked up at the Attorney, and realized he had aged two decades in the telling. Nearly I thought to feel sorry for him, then realized he had volunteered to tell, and surely this was information my right to possess! I said nothing-again-and continued to wait for him to compose himself, which this time he managed without the brandy. “I am very sorry for your loss, Mr. Lewes, and dreadfully sorry you have had to hear this from me. Now-shall we continue?” (as if I had suddenly interjected an interruption) “The property containing the Calhoun Family Cemetery and immediately to the rear of it, the land of 13,000 acres beyond the Cemetery-to its East, Northeast, and Southeast-is the plot known to you now, by virtue of your tax records, as Lot 1313-91a, b, and c. THAT is the property so essential to the continuance of Testament Logging Corporation. For this plot, and for the plot at Lot 1317-01 (formerly your parents' homestead in the vicinity of the Village of Knox) you receive annual lease payments (here he named an amount I deemed excessive, but much welcomed) and remittance of the annual tax liens on these two plats: that is, the taxes are billed to you, but paid in full, before your birthday each year, by Testament Logging Corporation's duly-authorized Attorney-of-Record-myself. “Additionally, Mr. Lewes” (here he reached into a desk drawer to his right and pulled out a manila envelope whose center portion quite bulged) “Testament pays you annual lease on these two plats, at your birthday, and those payments have accrued through February of this year. Here are those check stubs; the originals have all been deposited by me in the savings account for which you will find the bank book, the signature card, and all other pertinent contract records right inside this envelope.” “But-I never signed for a bank account!” “Of course not-but I did-and I am not only Attorney-of-Record, I am YOUR attorney, under the designs of your grandfather's expressed will and its codicil. Your grandfather signed the account in being originally, your father took over as designee-when he prepared to leave for the European Theater, he signed the power of attorney over to myself. And so here it stands.” Chapter 23- What was there to say to that? I stood, reached for the thick envelope, mumbled a “thank you, sir,” and left, closing the office door behind me. Loping down the stairs I deliberately kept my thoughts and emotions at bay. When I came through the downstairs doorway and crossed the Antique Shop, the shopkeeper did not appear, for which I was grateful. I climbed into the Merc, tossing the packet onto the seat atop the morning's mail collection and the envelope of Mamma's papers, where it seemed to rest content. Straightening up, I saw that both the Attorney and his downstairs companion, Mr. BookSeller, were peering out their front windows at me, frowning. I simply nodded an acknowledgement, and backed carefully out of the parking angle, after checking for potential oncoming deceased drivers, and headed back toward the Knox Highway. All the way to my driveway I managed to keep my thoughts in check, until I forgot about the rough ruts the old Chevy truck had dug yesterday afternoon and started bouncing along them on my way to the drive's end. A few “oofs” and gentle murmured curses and I decided 'twould be best to pull up behind the cabin, onto the lawn, so I parked the Merc and climbed out, leaving all the paperwork and mail for now on the front seat. I wanted nothing more than to throw myself on the bed and sleep for twelve hours without thinking, but that driveway cried out for attention, and I knew operating the hand grader would sufficiently occupy my attention to still my mind for a while. Repetitive work always had that effect on me, and maybe while repairing the drive my subconscious would toss up some useful solutions or advice. The work went more smoothly than I had expected, right up until the last twenty feet of the driveway, back behind the rear cabin wall. This, where the Chevy had seemed to dig in deeper and attempt a spin, was much worse. The grader stuck a time or two and I had to pull up hard on it. The second time that occurred, I inexplicably heard a piercing train whistle so loud and so clear a feeling of melancholy lonesomeness washed over me, the emotion I always felt when listening to ol' Hank Williams' “I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry.” I straightened up, dropped my hands off the grader handle, and with one hand covered my eyes, squinting into the distance, north across my land and then west, toward The Big Forest, whose eastern verge lay on my horizon of sight. No further sound occurred, other than the occasional hawk screech overhead and a few crows in the trees on the far side of the cabin, so I settled back down to finish the work. I would remember that long, lonesome, whistle, though, for that very night, that same sound-of longer duration and sounding much closer-would begin to haunt my sleep. Chapter 24 “I see, I spy, I see, I spy, I poke a needle in YOUR eye!” Gleeful child's laughter, skipping footsteps. “Hip, hop, skippity drop, hop, hip, slice your lip. Skip, stop, dice till you drop. Stop, skip, I cut your lip! Tee hee hee. I see, I spy, I stab your eye. I'm good, I'm great, I can't wait! You're dead, you die, I see, I spy, you burn, I churn, you turn, you spin on a spit. I see, I spy, I stab your eye.” Persistent skip-skip-stop of footsteps-crack my eyes open, blond ringlets bounce, black patent-leather shoes, dark blue dress, white sash belt, small child, what?? More taunting rhyme: “I see, I saw, I laugh, you cry, here's a needle in your eye-RORY!” I slammed up out of the nightmare just as her head began to turn, mind battling against the memory of a child of no more than perhaps 4? 7? playing at hopscotch, chanting a horrid series of nursery rhymes, and at the last moment, turning-turning toward me, and under the long fall of blond ringlets, an eye-my mind simply crashed on that, and I fell back on to the bed and into an abyss of sleep from which I did not awaken until approximately 10 o'clock the next morning, when an engine's choking off in the drive near the back door made me remember I had agreed to meet with Mr. Oakes' nephews this morning. I jumped out of bed and hurried to the back door, where I found the two boys in a junky old pickup. I waved them in, set on a pot of coffee, and waved them to the table, before I returned to the bedroom to dress. Remnants of strange dreams held me captive: dolls toting tools, curly blond ringlets flying merrily, eyes I must avoid-and keening, low-pitched, train whistles where no trains ever ran. What a night of dream-scapes I must have had. The edgings of a migraine worked a track around my temples, and I knew I must down several cups of coffee soon, as that always seemed to ease the headaches if I drank them early enough at the onset. I rushed through my bathing and dressing, and hurried out to the kitchen to pull the whistling percolator off the burner (oh, how that whistle reminded me-but of what? I only knew hearing it sent shivers down my spine, and my speed in moving it off the heat source was as much or more to stop the sound than it was because I needed that caffeine-in a hurry). The two boys waiting in the drive next to an old Ford pickup-Mr. Oakes' nephews, I guessed-stood patiently, talking quietly, breath misting in the early morning chill. I noticed their truck bed was loaded with tools, lumber, and hardware-oddly, because although I had discussed construction of my Plant Nursery with Mr. Oakes at the hardware more than once, and had told him to send his nephews up to help, I had not expected them the day after, nor loaded down with tools and lumber, ready to commence. Well, no matter-what's done is done, and as they were here and ready to work-and clearly my mind needed the distraction of rough and demanding physical labor-I would put them to good use and let the boys earn some money for laboring right along with me. I certainly would not send them away empty-handed, not after they had effectively brought the job to me. I opened the back door and called them in, suggesting a good hot breakfast would start the day off right. Being adolescent boys, I guessed they had run out of the house without waiting for the morning meal—probably the truck had been loaded after store hours the evening before, under Uncle Oakes' most capable supervision-so a good breakfast would set them aright, as my Mamma always said. Sure enough, each of the boys-turned out they were twins, Jackie and Saul, sons of Uncle Oakes' sister Sabreenah-was starving, so they said, as all adolescent boys are wont to be, a few hours after a meal. Their father had been killed in a logging accident on the Canadian side, and their mother supported the family as bookkeeper for her brother's hardware store, as well as for several other small businesses in Rennald and in Collins Junction. As I was later to learn, she kept the books for that odd Antique Store in Collins Junction, on the ground floor of the building housing Attorney Benton Squires; odd ducks both of them, BookSeller Deneasson, he of seven generations, and the Attorney. The twins were about to turn 17 in August, and were looking for steady summer work before their Senior year at high school began just before Labor Day. From their breakfast conversation, I had the impression that they hoped their work helping me construct the Plant Nursery would lead to both steady summer employment now, and also for the summer of next year, as they prepared for their adult lives. I wasn't planning for the Summer of 1958 just yet, but I already had set my intentions to remaining where I had “planted” myself (I chuckled to myself at this unintentional pun) and I surely intended to make a go of my nursery, a dream I had found growing in my soul for a couple of years now-ever since Mamma passed. I would plant my roots in the soil I now homesteaded, raise up a business, and continue on here until I too was planted-in the ground-eventually, I hoped, not soon. One good result of the mindless labor yesterday afternoon of grading the drive, and of the perilous sleep into which I had fallen close to dusk, meant I had had no time nor energy to consider either Mamma's packet of papers, the tax assessor's notice, nor the information and strange attitude of Attorney Benton Spears. Nor would I during the day today, as I planned to wear myself out again working steadily and diligently right alongside the boys. Their showing up to work, so early, and with a load of lumber and tools, I took to be a sign from the Universe that I needed to get on with the job at hand and start the construction of the Plant Nursery today-not a minute later than now. So I waved the boys back outside, sped through the breakfast dishes, downed one final cup of coffee, banked the wood stove, and headed on outside. I was pleased that I had managed to finish the driveway grading yesterday afternoon, and I informed the boys that they could return the hand grader to their uncle's when they left this evening. We unloaded their pickup and stacked all the lumber at the end of the drive, where I intended to build my garage; I wished now that I had already constructed that building, but beggars are never choosers, or we'd all ride horses, as Mamma used to exclaim. Instead I rooted around behind the wood pile, which sat beyond where the garage would go, and found an extra tarp I had purchased in Collins Junction when I first moved up this way, and laid it over the new lumber. Then I gave the boys each a roll of twine, and directed them to pound in stakes to hold the twine while I walked out the dimensions of the Nursery's perimeter, all without using surveying tools. At the time, I did not understand-but the process went so smoothly it seemed as if my hands and eyes were guided by something beyond my ken. |
| Robert Culp is dead at age 79, after hitting his head while walking near his home. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postmortem/ http://www.popeater.com/2010/03/24/robert-culp-dead-i-spy/ I planned to blog on some of the interesting new features I've been saving up this week and last, but it took me all day today to write my 2500 words. I just could not dredge up the bucket from the Creative well, in great contrast to the usual flow all this month. Youngest grandchild (nearly 16 months) has been ill with allergies for 11 days and I haven't felt like myself since Monday afternoon: not ill, not in pain, no aches, just not myself. Emotional issues too; probably why the writing did not flow well yesterday but was more like dredging the last drops from the well during a drought: interesting metaphor as I was writing about a drought in 1899. Today's Free Read: from The Phantom Logging Operation Chapter 20 Clearly Attorney Benton Squires and the Bookseller downstairs were quite a pair: both difficult, arrogant, elitist-both should have been Europeans. I liked neither one and would only be too glad not to have to deal with them. I remembered now how vain and stuck-up Leill's Vegas blackjack dealer was too-always with the “better than me” attitude going. I hadn't liked him either, and not only because he ran off with my wife. Wondering how long I would have to sit and wait till Squires decided, like a Pez toy, to dispense some information, one lozenge at a time, I elected to stir the pot. “Mr. Squires, I really must get on with my day. Would you please tell me all I need to know about my properties?” He finally looked at me then, both resignation and pity warring in his gaze. “Tell you 'all you need to know,' or tell you all?” I waved my hand in a wishy-washy motion to indecisiveness. “I don't know: am I ready to learn 'all'?” I inquired jestingly. That resignation mixed with pity slowly congealed into pure pity. “I don't know, Mr. Lewes-are you ready? Why don't we begin with the essentials, as you say you have 'promises to keep and miles to go before you sleep'?” I started to demur, till I realized he referred to the Robert Frost poem, “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.” So instead I just proferred a smile, and added, “By all means, please-just the essentials for now.” “All right then. Very simply put, Mr. Lewes, you are the only surviving son of a very important personage in the Testament Logging Corporation.” I just sat, stunned. Surely he didn't refer to Daddy? Mamma had never implied anything like this: yes, she told me often how Daddy was considered a valued employee-as a maintenance manager and jack-of-trades-and thus kept on throughout the Depression when many others had been laid off. But “a very important personage?” Whatever could Attorney Squires be indicating? As I pondered his strange words, the man patted his hand in the air, as if pacifying a stirring beast. “Your father, Mr. Lewes, was an integral component of the expansion and maintenance of the stability of the Testament Logging Corporation. Indeed, it is to his credit that Testament still continues its high status today.” This time, instead of his right hand patting the air a half-foot over the desk, his left hand waved a back-and-forth dance at me. From a man who at first could scarcely grant me his attention, Mr. Squires had mutated into a master of gesticulation-all since commencing to discuss the very corporation to whom he was on permanent retainer. “Mr. Edison Donald Lewes owned a plot of property essential to the continued stability of Testament Logging Corporation. He became owner of this property on the demise of his father-in-law, who had willed it to him knowing that he would use the lease payments from Testament to continue to provide for his wife, Maggethe, and their son-yourself, Mr. Lewes. Mr. Edison Lewes, of course, suffered an early and untimely, although not unexpected, demise” (oh, how I bristled at this) “on the fields of the European Theater of War, in May 1941.” By this point I was not really sure how much more I could take. I'm certain I had paled, if not actually lost all color entirely. “My secretary is away for the day, so I can't offer you coffee, but would you care to take a wee spot of brandy, not too much for the road?” I acceded, and he opened a door in the left side of the mahogany credenza which stood on the remainder of the wall not taken up by his desk. A crystal decanter-perhaps Baccarat-and two shot glasses (not brandy snifters, I noted-oh the education of those old films!) rested on the top shelf inside, and in a moment, one appeared in my hand. I didn't hesitate, didn't pause to sniff the bouquet, but tossed it off and set the shot glass on his desk. Of course he immediately whisked it up and replaced it in the credenza, after wrapping a linen napkin inside-I assume to indicate it needed to be cleaned-then shut the credenza door and returned to his seat, where he gently sniffed and lapped at his own brandy. “The particular plot of property to which I refer, Mr. Lewes, is known in County Assessment records as Lot 1313-91, in the township of Knox, County of Collingham. This is not the lot on which you currently reside, noted as Lot 2417-09, nor the property deeded to your parents at the time of their wedding by her father, Mr. Calhoun-Lot 1317-01. This Plot is not adjacent to the land on which your mother lived until her wedding, on which your maternal grandparents resided until their mutual demise; but, as with that particular plot, this plot in question-so essential to Testament Corporation-also had been held in the Calhoun lineage since time immemorial (or at least since the onset of European immigration into the Northern Woods Territories). Its boundaries begin just beyond the Calhoun family cemetery, and extend quite some distance beyond. This Plot is located-” {the pause that followed became so lengthy that I broke out in a sweat, beads popping out on my forehead, because I feared the outcome of it) “-in the Heart of The Big Forest.” Chapter 21 If I had thought the pause before that clause lengthy, it was naught in duration compared to the caesura which followed. I was astonished to learn that my own sainted mother had apparently grown up in The Big Forest; I knew that she and Dad, and later I also, lived on a small plot just outside the Forest, between it and Knox. Yes, we had a small copse of pines on our lot, and a few scattered oak, beech, and maple, but the region referred to as The Big Forest is a dense, primeval, almost impassable area, where the firs are so closely packed as to obscure the sunlight, and where the only ground cover is not grass, but a thick and scritching layer of pine needles. How do I know this, you ask; well, I did not know at this time, but I did have the unfortunate opportunity to discover all this much later. From what I had overheard Daddy say to Mamma as a child, and the little Mamma mentioned very infrequently later on, Testament Logging operated a logging component far to the eastern edge of The Big Forest, where the pines thinned out and plenty of other hardwood was both available and accessible. None was harvested on the west side, toward Knox-none. Or, once again, so I thought. Attorney Squires seemed disinclined to continue, so I glanced at my right wrist-where I no longer wore a watchband-and made as if to stand. He looked up then, and asked me to give him a moment. Acquiescing, I settled back into the seat and crossed one leg over the other while I continued to wait. Finally he recommenced. “While I do know a great deal about your lineage, history, and current property ownership, Mr. Lewes, there is still much I do not know about your own level of knowledge. Do you, for example, know about the deaths of your maternal grandparents?” I looked at him askance. “What I know is what my mother told me, when we left this area and moved down to Champaign-Illinois-after Daddy was killed in action on the European Front. She said that since both her parents were gone, without Daddy, we no longer had any ties to this region. But now that I think on it-that was odd, because she apparently bequeathed to me not just one, but three lots of property here-or rather, Daddy did, and they came to me upon her own death. Isn't that right, sir?” “You are correct in that assumption. Your father, Edison Lewes, had been employed by Testament Logging Corporation for quite some time before marrying Maggethe Calhoun. He was born in 1910, and began work with Testament at age fourteen, in 1924, so he had been with them six years before your birth. If he had continued with Testament, instead of going to the War in Europe-well, enough of that. If's and if only's solve nothing and no one.” “At any event-your maternal grandparents died together, on the same date-in May of 1932, three years after their daughter-your mother-married your father-to-be.” My face fell, I am certain. I was distraught, dismayed, and grieving for an event now a full twenty-eight years in the past, an event that occurred two years and three months past my birth in February 1930; but I intuited that worse news was waiting to be delivered-and of course, in this I was right. ^*^*^* |
| Marva Wright, New Orleans blues and soul vocalist, has died at age 62. Ms. Wright was a survivor of Katrina, RIP Marva Wright. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postmortem/ Today's free read: from The Phantom Logging Operation Chapter 19 “And how is it you know that, sir? Before the attorney could respond, a roar outside drew my attention-though not his-and I turned my gaze toward the front window, where a semi-tow truck was pulling away from the corner, dragging a severely-damaged container trailer, the box style. Or it had been box-style, before suffering its demise: the roof of the front end had completely caved in, and the entire front side was a charred wreck. I could observe all this very clearly because as I glanced outside, the front of the trailer, hooked to the tow truck's winch, was directly below me. Immediately I wondered, first, about the life-or-death condtion of the tow's driver; and second, about the status of the box trailer's tractor and driver. To have undergone that quantity and extent of damage, surely the semi had first rolled, then ignited, I thought. I hoped that its driver had been able to jump free; but considering recent sightings and events, what after all was the likelihood of that? For all I knew, the strong possibility existed that the deceased and charred former driver of the tractor-trailer now drove the tow truck! “IF I might have a moment of your attention!” the attorney rasped. I looked back to him and nodded an apology. “Sorry,” I mumbled. My throat seemed to have closed up. “Please-continue.” “I am, as you may be aware, Attorney-of-Record in the Northern Woods District for the Testament Logging Corporation. As such, I am privy to all the information on the properties you own. You are possessor of the extensive lot on Knox Road; you own two properties, not adjacent, west of Knox.” I held up a hand in demurral. “Wait, wait just a minute. What do you mean: YOU are privy to all my information because you are Attorney for a company that I thought died out twenty years past?” At what he seemed to interpret as my arrogance-or at least impudence- he released the file he had been perusing at my arrival, let the sheets rest on his wide desk, and folded his hands over them. “You are mistaken in a great many of your assumptions, sir. “ He began to tick off his points on his fingertips. “First of all, Testament Logging Corporation, to this date, is a thriving and very well-occupied concern. You need not worry about Testament Logging-nor any of its assigns nor subsidiaries- suffering bankruptcy, court receivership, nor any other sort of economic distress. Testament Logging Corporation is here to stay. It will remain long after you, or even I, have passed on to our greater rewards.” Why did I think I could suddenly scent the fragrance of brimstone? The old priss continued: “The continued existence of the Testament Logging Corporation is not, however, our concern today. Our business is to-validate- the ongoing continuance of your lease of property you own to Testament Corporation.” “How can I agree to-continue-leasing property about which I knew nothing, have not yet viewed, to a company I thought long defunct?” Attorney Squires really failed to appreciate my comments on the status of Testament. This time the smell of brimstone was distinct, pungent, and off-putting. I even thought I saw wisps of smoke or steam arise from the back of his collar, to either side of his flabby jowls and neck. I held up another cautionary hand. “Sir-Attorney Squires-please understand that I came into this office with only the beginning glimmerings of the notion that I own those two-extra-plots of property. Until I received the tax assessment this morning at my Post Office Box in Rennald, I thought I owned only the land on Knox Road which I am presently homesteading-and will continue to homestead in future. I am here solely in pursuit of information, not confrontation. This morning I also had a letter directing me to meet with you, from an attorney in Madison Mills-” “Carnathy. Layles Carnathy.” “Yes-addressed to my old home in Urbana-” “Illinois. I am afraid Layles is not always up-to-date with his information sources.” He polished a stray invisible speck of lint from his left lapel as he posited this. Chapter 20 Clearly Attorney Benton Squires and the Bookseller downstairs were quite a pair: both difficult, arrogant, elitist-both should have been Europeans. I liked neither one and would only be too glad not to have to deal with them. I remembered now how vain and stuck-up Leill's Vegas blackjack dealer was too-always with the “better than me” attitude going. I hadn't liked him either, and not only because he ran off with my wife. Wondering how long I would have to sit and wait till Squires decided, like a Pez toy, to dispense some information, one lozenge at a time, I elected to stir the pot. “Mr. Squires, I really must get on with my day. Would you please tell me all I need to know about my properties?” He finally looked at me then, both resignation and pity warring in his gaze. “Tell you 'all you need to know,' or tell you all?” I waved my hand in a wishy-washy motion to indecisiveness. “I don't know: am I ready to learn 'all'?” I inquired jestingly. That resignation mixed with pity slowly congealed into pure pity. “I don't know, Mr. Lewes-are you ready? Why don't we begin with the essentials, as you say you have 'promises to keep and miles to go before you sleep'?” I started to demur, till I realized he referred to the Robert Frost poem, “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.” So instead I just proferred a smile, and added, “By all means, please-just the essentials for now.” “All right then. Very simply put, Mr. Lewes, you are the only surviving son of a very important personage in the Testament Logging Corporation.” I just sat, stunned. Surely he didn't refer to Daddy? Mamma had never implied anything like this: yes, she told me often how Daddy was considered a valued employee-as a maintenance manager and jack-of-trades-and thus kept on throughout the Depression when many others had been laid off. But “a very important personage?” Whatever could Attorney Squires be indicating? As I pondered his strange words, the man patted his hand in the air, as if pacifying a stirring beast. “Your father, Mr. Lewes, was an integral component of the expansion and maintenance of the stability of the Testament Logging Corporation. Indeed, it is to his credit that Testament still continues its high status today.” This time, instead of his right hand patting the air a half-foot over the desk, his left hand waved a back-and-forth dance at me. From a man who at first could scarcely grant me his attention, Mr. Squires had mutated into a master of gesticulation-all since commencing to discuss the very corporation to whom he was on permanent retainer. “Mr. Edison Donald Lewes owned a plot of property essential to the continued stability of Testament Logging Corporation. He became owner of this property on the demise of his father-in-law, who had willed it to him knowing that he would use the lease payments from Testament to continue to provide for his wife, Maggethe, and their son-yourself, Mr. Lewes. Mr. Edison Lewes, of course, suffered an early and untimely, although not unexpected, demise” (oh, how I bristled at this) “on the fields of the European Theater of War, in May 1941.” By this point I was not really sure how much more I could take. I'm certain I had paled, if not actually lost all color entirely. “My secretary is away for the day, so I can't offer you coffee, but would you care to take a wee spot of brandy, not too much for the road?” I acceded, and he opened a door in the left side of the mahogany credenza which stood on the remainder of the wall not taken up by his desk. A crystal decanter-perhaps Baccarat-and two shot glasses (not brandy snifters, I noted-oh the education of those old films!) rested on the top shelf inside, and in a moment, one appeared in my hand. I didn't hesitate, didn't pause to sniff the bouquet, but tossed it off and set the shot glass on his desk. Of course he immediately whisked it up and replaced it in the credenza, after wrapping a linen napkin inside-I assume to indicate it needed to be cleaned-then shut the credenza door and returned to his seat, where he gently sniffed and lapped at his own brandy. “The particular plot of property to which I refer, Mr. Lewes, is known in County Assessment records as Lot 1313-91, in the township of Knox, County of Collingham. This is not the lot on which you currently reside, noted as Lot 2417-09, nor the property deeded to your parents at the time of their wedding by her father, Mr. Calhoun-Lot 1317-01. This Plot is not adjacent to the land on which your mother lived until her wedding, on which your maternal grandparents resided until their mutual demise; but, as with that particular plot, this plot in question-so essential to Testament Corporation-also had been held in the Calhoun lineage since time immemorial (or at least since the onset of European immigration into the Northern Woods Territories). Its boundaries begin just beyond the Calhoun family cemetery, and extend quite some distance beyond. This Plot is located-” {the pause that followed became so lengthy that I broke out in a sweat, beads popping out on my forehead, because I feared the outcome of it) “-in the Heart of The Big Forest.” |
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