Keep Out

From where I'm sitting and waiting for the light to change, I can only see parts of the old house on the corner. It looks empty and exhausted, like a derelict who has made a home on the wrong side of the railroad tracks.

The first story is barely visible for the un-mowed, un-watered grass and shrubs. A dozen or so elephant ears, as brownish and dispirited as the cracked and tired looking planters that hold them, are littered across the veranda. Weeds grow in and around the windows, advancing and encroaching on the second story with the patience of Job. Some have already met the low hanging tree limbs and embraced them, they wave gently and brush up against the discolored stucco walls and precariously attached shutters. The tiled roof is faded and peeling under a thick blanket of pinestraw and a lone squirrel perches on a gutter, bright eyed, alert, tail swishing. He seems to be waiting and watching, for what I can't imagine. The only thing missing is the half dozen loud, territorial and neglected dogs who once lived in the yard of this old relic and routinely terrorized delivery people, mail carriers and innocent passersby. After years of abuse, their predicament finally generated enough complaints that a rescue stepped in and convinced the owners to surrender them. No one appears willing to do the same for the old house and it fairly reeks of past glory and sadness.

I never heard what happened to the occupants and sometimes I wonder if they're still there. I pass the place several times a day, every day, and have never seen a single sign of life, not so much as a curtain has ever moved or a light been turned on. The three sides of iron fencing surrounding the property, even when the dogs were there, have always been shut and locked. All in all, everything about this old house says Keep Out but whether it's from misery and mean spiritedness or just a tragic blend of old age and loneliness, I'll probably never know.

When the light turns green, I turn down the side street and see that here the weeds have taken over even more forcefully.  Behind the gates of the driveway, I can see a pile of trash, randomly scattered by the wind and beginning to draw flies.  The rest of the backyard is pretty much a debris field of useless, rusted appliances stacked amid moldy plastic containers and the feeling of decay is palpable.  A couple of ragged and forlorn looking stray cats keep watch from the back steps and I can smell the stench of ammonia and rotting food.  I wonder that the neighbors haven't called the property standards board or the health department.

I drive on, leaving the old house in my rear view mirror until it disappears.

Inward & Upward

“You know,” my aftercare counselor says casually, “Sobriety changes things. And people. It's possible that you might not like who he becomes if he gets sober.”

“I don't think that's a bridge that's ever going to need crossing,” I tell him shortly.

Calvin shrugs and reminds me that when there's life, there's hope.

“This is his 4^th rehab, Cal,” I remind him, “I'm fresh out.”

He glances at the file, flips a page or two, frowns. Even with the windows opened, it's stuffy in the small office and the street noises are annoying. Everything annoys me these days, I think dismally, everything seems to be getting between me and peace of mind. This recovery thing isn't all it's cracked up to be.

“How long has been out,” Calvin asks, “Is he going to meetings?”

“Two weeks,” I say and pause to consider the second question. What I suspect, what I know, and what I can prove are all distinctly different things. “He says he is,” I say finally.

“You don't believe him?” my counselor persists.

Cal has kind eyes and he cares deeply about his clients and their troubled lives but he's not much for finesse. He likes to remind me that it's not my job to cure the man I married, that it's not within my control to change him, that caretaking has it's downside and it can be perilously close to enabling. I still remember our first session and how he listened to me cry and moan about living with a drunk, how long suffering and under-appreciated I felt, how I was at my wits end, how nothing I tried was working. His answer was to hand me a box of kleenex and ask where had I tied my white horse. The suggestion that I might be in the wrong had offended me then and now I was realizing that the old feelings of defeat, betrayal, and anger were back with a vengeance.

“No,” I confess, “Not for a second.”

He sighs, gives me his best professionally resigned look, but at least has the grace not to tell me that he warned me. Not that I needed warning, I think bitterly, after the third failed rehab, I'd learned the drill.

“You think he's still drinking,” he says flatly.

“I do,” I say tiredly, “And lying about it. Every day. Just like he always has.”

Saying it outloud ignites something in me and I can feel acid knots of rage beginning a slow crawl up my throat. I have an urge - a need - to scream, to fight, to break something or hurt someone. I swallow hard and beat back the desire to give way to helplessness and and the hysteria that will inevitably follow. I can't think of how to tell Calvin that I don't want to do this anymore, that I'm tired and defeated, worn out and worn down. I feel broken beyond repair and find myself wishing my husband dead.

How Calvin sees through this wall of self pity and stagnation is a mystery.

“Jeee-sus!” he says mildly, “That's pretty good. No Sarah Bernardt, but pretty good. Now, how about we skip the histrionics and self-pity and get back to basics. What are you doing about you?”

“You self righteous son of a bitch!” I snap, “Save your know-it-all, holier than thou lectures for the drunks upstairs! I don't need them!”

“No?” he snaps right back, “Because you're doing such a bang up job on your own? Or because you've gotten to like drowning in your own misery and playing the misunderstood heroine? You came to me for help, for Christ's sake, either take it or don't, but spare me the poor, pitiful me act! I don't need another victim! I've got a whole floor of them upstairs! Now for the last time,

what are you doing to help you?”

Every word he'd said was accurate and the urge to claw his eyes out fades. I sit back down and concentrate on breathing until I feel calm and ashamed enough to apologize. He waves it away and offers one of his own.

“This shit is hard,” he tells me.

“On all of us,” I agree.

Secrets of Shingle Creek

Shingle Creek Road was a place everyone knew of, very few talked about, and absolutely no one would ever admit to visiting. You'd find no gaily strung paper lanterns here, no sweet dance band music or pastel girls in taffeta dresses and silver slippers. Shingle Creek was a low place, a dark place, and its patrons had no regard for the outside world or its rules. They came in search of drugs and rotgut whiskey, cards and dice and back rooms with blacked out windows and used up women. No moonlight penetrated through the thick, low hanging trees and even the law left it alone. Any secrets Shingle Creek kept, it kept to itself.

But for the fact that our newest foster dog, a young and rambunctious Golden Retriever with an adventurous spirit had jumped the back fence and taken off like a shot after a trespassing deer, I'd never have found it at all. After a half hour of crashing and hacking my way through the dense woods, I was scratched, bleeding and bad tempered when I finally came upon the dog, hackles raised and barking non-stop at the ruined remains of what looked to be an abandoned farmhouse.

In the fading daylight, it wasn't much, just a deserted, mostly falling down wreck of a building, rotting in some places, fire damaged in others. Even so, there was something about it, some sense of foreboding. It felt vaguely threatening and I had an idea the dog sensed it as well. He kept to the edge of the clearing, defiantly growling, and when I took a tentative step forward, he snatched firmly at the hem of my blue jeans and tugged.

“Okay, already,” I told him a little impatiently, “You don't have to get rude about it.”

He let go - reluctantly - but then began anxiously pacing back and forth, his eyes darting between me and the old house, alternately whining and barking and looking more and more distressed. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck suddenly prickle and for a second or two, had the ridiculous notion that I was being watched.

“Damn fool dog,” I muttered, “Now you're giving me the creeps. C'mon, let's get out of here.”

As I reached to clip the lead to his collar, he bared his teeth and lunged past me, spinning me around with a sideswipe to the hip that unexpectedly knocked me to my knees. He let out with a long and eerily un-doglike howl and that's when I heard the voice, gravely and roughish but not menacing. At least, not much.

“This here's private property, girlie,” it said, “And trespassin's a good way to get yourself shot.”

I turned to see a man in overalls and work boots with a pistol strapped to his hip and a beer bottle in one hand, leaning casually against the door jamb. He tipped his cap and nodded and I felt a shiver - a minor one, to be sure, because the dog, now quiet, was sitting calmly at his feet - run up my spine. I sensed sterness but no menace.

“Dog ran off,” I offered truthfully, “I just followed him.”

“Figured,” he said, “But you'll be wantin' to head back now. We ain't much for company.” He shifted his weight and gestured with the beer bottle toward the remnants of a path I hadn't noticed. “Ain't much, but after awhile it passes for a road. Be some longer but easier'n through the woods. It'll take you out to the main highway.”

I managed to thank him and when I slapped my thigh, the dog trotted obediently to my side and we started for the rutted path.

“And girlie,” I heard from behind me, “I ain't expectin' to see you here again. You'll be wantin' to forget about bein' here in the altogether. Shingle Creek ain't no place for the likes of you or the dog. We clear?”

“As glass!” I called over my shoulder but the screen door had already slammed shut and the porch was empty and there was no one to hear.

The overgrown, rutted path did indeed turn into something that passed for a road but it took the better part of an hour before we reached the highway and I couldn't imagine trying to drive it after dark. On foot and whiskey'd up it seemed even less probable. It felt as if the woods might reach out and grab any unsuspecting passerby and I was foolishly glad for the company of the dog.

I took the Shingle Creek man's advice and never did tell anyone about that afternoon but I often thought about it and wondered how much of what the rumor mill ground out was fiction and how much might be reality.  A couple of winters later, I read about a couple of fishermen finding a body in Darkwater Lake, just a few miles from that lonely clearing where the dog and I had wound up.  There was a pistol strapped to his thigh, a pair of dice in a velvet pouch in his hip pocket and a moldy wad of cash tucked under his belt but no wallet or id.  He'd been badly beaten and then shot, the paper reported, and anyone with any information was asked to get in touch with the county sheriff's office.  After that, I wondered a whole lot less.

The Bridge Game

Reconcile Smith, as confirmed a bachelor as the island had ever had seen, and Mae Louise Nickerson, an unmarried lady and Uncle Shad's oldest girl, began courting in 1959. He was 34 and she had just turned a discreet and mostly uncelebrated 32. The courtship lasted for 24 years.

“I declare,” my grandmother remarked one afternoon at the weekly bridge game, “I don't see why she don't jist marry that man. They's been keepin' company since 'fore hens had feathers and they ain't getting' no younger. Two spades.”

“It's geographic,” Aunt Pearl said mildly, “Two hearts.”

“Ayuh,” Miz Clara nodded, “Ol' Rec's right partial to livin' in that old shack in the woods and Mae Louise don't like the idea of not livin' on the square. Three diamonds.”

“Pass,” Aunt Vi ventured timidly and all three women glared at her. “I heard tell he didn't ask her for the first 10 years,” she added with a shy kind of shrug and my grandmother gave her a skeptical look.

“Viola,” she said sharply, “Pass? Again?” But then she saw my delicate Aunt Vi - who had never wanted to learn bridge in the first place but was too fainthearted to say so - was about to cry and she softened and patted her hand lightly. “Never mind, dear, we'll manage,” she sighed, “I didn't mean to scold.” Vi brightened at once and the conversation returned to Reconcile and Mae Louise.

“Folks git set in their ways,” Aunt Pearl suggested, “A body gits used to livin' alone.”

“I 'spect so,” Miz Clara said, “Cain't be easy to make room for somebody else after more'n 50 years. Likely folks just git in each other's way.”

“Bein' married ain't no Sunday stroll,” my grandmother admitted as she scooped up the last trick with a victorious flourish. I suspected she was thinking of her own loutish, thug of a husband, “Mebbe they's better off.”

“Mebbe so,” Aunt Vi said, “But it be fearful to think so.”

Clara, the only one at the table still single and clearly irritated, lowered her bifocals and looked directly at each woman in turn. “This be one damn fool conversation for three married women to be havin,” she said snappishly, “It ain't nobody's business whether Mae Louise marries Reconcile or not and it don't matter how long it takes if'n she does or doesn't! Ain't a single one of you know the first thing about being an old maid spinster and I reckon we'd all be better off if folks jist tended their own gardens and their own bridge games!”

Nana laughed first although she tried mightily not to and soon Pearl and Vi joined in. All three women rocked in their seats and Clara really didn't have much choice. She blushed as red as a beet from Lily Small's vegetable patch and finally managed to mutter an apology. The bridge game was called on account of foolishness and the four old friends retired to the sunporch to eat hot buttered scones and drink iced tea laced liberally with gin.

To the delight of the entire village, Mae Louise Nickerson and Reconcile Smith married the following summer and set up housekeeping in a small cottage on a dirt road that overlooked the ocean. It was close enough to the square and far enough removed from the village that it satisfied them both and the last time I was home, they were still there, happily raising chickens for him and tea roses for her.

The Thank You Note

One fine summer afternoon while Nana was making a cream sauce for the haddock filets that had mysteriously appeared on the back porch that morning, there was a knock on the screen door.

“It's open!” she called distractedly.

“Afternoon, Miz Watson,” Jacob Sullivan said as he pushed the door open just enough to peek inside, “I was jist wonderin', ma'am, if you knew that Willie's on your roof.”

“Willie?” Nana demanded, “Roof? What in heaven's name you talkin' 'bout, Jacob Sullivan?”

“Well, I only mention it, ma'am, on account of he ain't what you'd call decent.” Jacob was blushing scalp to Adam's apple. “I'd be glad to fetch him down if'n you want but I was thinkin' if you was to have a towel or a tablecloth, it'd be a help.”

“Have you been drinkin', Jacob?” Nana asked suspiciously.

“No, ma'am!” the fisherman protested immediately and indignantly, “I surely ain't!”

My grandmother put aside her cream sauce, rinsed her hands in the kitchen sink and dried her hands on her apron.

“Jacob,” she said warningly as she followed him outside, “If this be somebody's idea of a joke.....”

“Oh, no, ma'am,” he assured her, “You kin see for your own self.”

Watching from behind the screen door, I saw her make her way across the warm grass to the gravel driveway. Jacob shaded his eyes and pointed and even from a distance, I could see her mouth drop open and her eyes widen. Much to my surprise, she let out a small scream and covered her face with her apron but being an eminently practical woman, recovered rapidly.

“Fetch me a bedsheet, child” she hollered at me, “One off the twin beds will do! Jacob, don't just stand there, bring the ladder from the woodshed and be quick about it! Willie! What the blue blazes do you think yer doin'! Don't move! You mind me, Willie! Don't move!”

Willie, I soon saw, was indeed placidly sitting on our roof, Indian style, with - fortuitiously - a basket of rocks in his lap. His private parts were shielded but his newly dyed green hair, sticking out at all angles like an electrified starfish, shone brightly in the afternoon sun. As Jacob started up the ladder with the bed sheet slung over his shoulder, Willie waved cheerfully. He surrendered his basket of rocks willingly and offered no resistance when Jacob wrapped him in the bedsheet and knotted it securely over his scrawny shoulders then slung him into a fireman's carry and began a careful, rung by rung descent. Once on the ground, Willie skedaddled, bedsheet and all, cackling and dancing madly down the front path toward the ditch. The next morning, Nana discovered the neatly folded bedsheet in a basket in the woodbox along with several intact and polished scallop shells, an empty pack of Export A's, and a ragged bouquet of weeds and wilted wildflowers held together with brightly colored string.

“It's a thank you note from Willie,” she told me with a smile, “Remember this, child, crazy don't mean you can't be polite.”