Talked to the man known as Grant Justice only yesterday. We’re all old now and Grant is thinking it’s time to downsize. – JDW
July was perfect, August – supposed to be hot – was not.
Everybody says married men live longer than single men. Do you think it’s the nagging keeps married men here?
“You could have had a bimbo,” Hiawatha – apropos of absolutely not a fucking thing – said to me the other day. Another one of those times, she is having an argument with you. You not only don’t know about it, you are losing. And it’s probably all your own fault.
I’m thinking, ‘Hold it here. I could’ve had a bimbo?’ I used to have a bimbo. That didn’t work. But, “I could’ve had a bimbo?”
I don’t think I could’ve had a bimbo. I don’t think Hiawatha would’ve put up with it. Here she comes now, nobody’s bimbo.
Speaking of bimbos, we learned today Clinton has picked Albert Gore as his running mate. Whoopee.
Frankly, I have long fantasized all manners of sexual escapades with Al’s wife, Whipper Gore. It’s that holier-than-thou blonde plumpness that turns me on.
A moment in time being well lived.
Reduced as I am to the conditions of reality, I miss most about Grant, I think not the bowls of peanut M&M’s, not the 77″ TV set, not the chilled cans of beer in the second floor refrigerator. I guess I miss the man’s sense of shared experience. He was a buddy.
He is a buddy.
Something I need, something I’ve haven’t found. I remember apologizing early after hearing myself go on and on, rattling and prattling about this adventure and that adventure – suppose you cannot imagine – and this mishap, that mayhem and Hiawatha said that, my mom something else. And oh the dog and… I told Grant, I WAS LONELY.
Except for me, Hiawatha’s only friend in Florida was Jerry Seinfeld on Wednesday nights. Nobody remotely like us to be found in that old folks’ waiting-room. We just needed friends. All my life I have searched for the 11-year-old buddy I could share things with, who would understand what I was talking about. Those boys all gone now. All grown up. Whatever that means. Grant is still one of us. He’s still got the 11-year-old sensitivities. He’s not turning it on and off. That’s the way he is.
***
The Upper Peninsula. “U. P.” as it’s known to the natives.
We pass a sign: SNOWMOBILES ARE ALLOWED ON ALL ROADS. To give you some idea of what winter must be like around here.
Prime moose and elk territory. Very near to Wolf Lake. Which makes sense. Of course I was so determined to see a moose, I start fantasizing I see them at every fallen log. Horses kinda look like doe mooses. Mini-mooses without antlers.
I know why I’m more comfortable up here in part. Society has reached the point where I would rather take my chances with the bears. I’d rather take my dances with the wolves.
Canada looked scruffy compared to most of the Lower Forty-Eight. Obviously, many canucks are up there just trying to live, just trying to survive. They can’t afford to be like meat themselves. When they garden, it’s not decoratively, it’s for food to get them through the winter.
In Canada, you can tell it’s summer, they hang the wash on clotheslines. Sometimes in the front yard. Instead of flowers, they landscape with blue jeans and red flannel shirts.
Just saw a sign: BRUCE CROSSING.
It’s not what you think. It’s not where Bruces typically move back and forth across the road. Bruce Crossing is the name of a town in Michigan.
Just past the Salt Lick Inn, a timber wolf was recently hit by a car near here.
They’re around.
The road we’re on now is not maintained during the winter. They actually have stream beds built in the road, crossing the road at the bottom of the hills. Which makes for quite a shocking bounce the first couple of times before a stranger figures it out.
Merry Miler, Land Kayak.
MINNESOTA: WHERE NOTHING IS ALLOWED. THE LAND OF BATTERY-IN-WINTER STARTING COMPARISON TESTS.
Ann (no relation to Veronica) Lake, Minnesota. – Ann Lake and Ann River are named for an Ojibway woman who lived nearby. The lake itself is eight hundred acres of tepid green watercolor soup full of Walleye, Bluegills, catfish, Northern Pike and Black Crappie. It’s near Mora, if you want to check a map. Routes 6 and 47.
“Would you like to stay a week?,” Bob Chuck asked before Barker had even given it a thought.
“No,” Barker said, somewhat stunned. “I mean, yes. I hadn’t…”
“Queen and I’ll go back to the city, of course, but you’re free to stay the week.”
“Thank you,” Barker was moved. “Can I get you another beer, Bob?”
Camp Eldorado on Penniless Lane to The Next Best Thing on Indian Point. Ann Lakeside. Pulled into here Friday night, portal-to-portal, in 58:07. You will remember, Barker projected a distance of 1455 miles (actual length of trip? 1424) before suggesting to Hiawatha we could leave sometime earlier than – you remember – the same morning we were supposed to be here.
Our hosts, Bob & Queen Chuck, smoke Merits outdoors, on the screened-in porch at their own lakeside cabin. Which I imagine gets poco gnarly during ice-fishing season. They don’t use salt, but they eat Canadian bacon. Gave up caffeine, but they drink beer. Read many good books. And they don’t watch much television. They like to sit side-by-side and fish together quieting. Thinking thoughts and releasing the infrequent blind fish who accidentally bite into the hook.
Barker values these people. Queen said she liked him the first night, about two days sooner than most women this wise. She’s so cute the way she cooks as she reads one of her collection of fifty cookbooks.
She loves to watch Barker eat her grub.
“This would be real good soup,” Barker said, “if it was heated a little.”
“That’s gazpacho,” Queen said.
“He knew that,” Hiawatha offered without kicking his shin.
Bob is thirty-pounds heavier than he was in college and he’s wearing a stubbly white beard now. “I’ve never seen him before,” Barker said, “but he looks the same to me.”
Barker loved Bob Chuck the moment he saw him. “You’re one of us.”
He needed some new friends and now they have two more.
The Chucks arrived at their cabin, where Merry Miler awaited already, heavily weighed down with six packs of local Scandanavian brews. Like Corona. Grain Belt.
“I knew you were a lush” were Bob’s greeting words to Barker.
***
Barker and Hiawatha finally put behind them the seventy-foot heated indoor lap pool, the books, the sauna, the 77″ Misubitshi with LucasFilm Sensurround and satellite dish, the in-house video “store,” the photocopier, the queen-size bed, the pantry with the twenty-five boxes of Barker’s very favorite cereal brands, CATCH MY BREATH. The books. Imagine owning your own resort. And small town library. An edifice costing some two million dollars to create. And worth every penny.
“Stay as long as you like,” his buddy said. Ha!
Believe my words. I’ll miss the surreal hospitality of Grant Ju$tice. Having been jerked around more than a 14-year-old’s willie, I am bummed not to get the Dartmouth job; I’ll just assume something better is on its way. Grant has reached the top of the charts as far as men I am willing to spend time with.
What a lucky deal! His friendship is priceless to me. For a month, not quite long enough, a homeless artist became a millionaire. I know he is not made of money, to use an expression I’ve loved since I was I child. I know it cost him a pretty penny – another great phrase – or two to have us visit. Thank you. I managed to keep your expenses out of my conscious mind right up until the check arrived at Jesse’s the last night of our visit. I saw the bill was $52.96 and thought to myself, that’s two log coffee tables or four sets of glass banana boats or a hundred used paperbacks or…. One tank of gas in Canada. Barker learned all he needs to know about managing his money by watching Grant manage his. By the way, the wild dog started drinking again at Grant’s farm. Barker blames the dozens of free cold beers in the beer bar’s commercial cooler. Rolling Rock. Bud Dry. Cases of cans of Keystone left over from the contractors’ party.
“One hundred and sixty people,” Grant said, genuinely pleased at how well the house worked for entertaining. “The place just swallowed them up.”
“Like a womb,” Barker replied. “HA!”
All we were looking for was a dry spot to park the van. Camp Eldorado took some adjustment, and just when Hiawatha had achieved a symbiotic relationship with Obscene Abundance, it was time to go.
But not before Grant took us to dinner at Crazy Betsy’s. Elizabeth Spirit is the 41-year-old interior designer (NOT A DECORATOR!) to the stars. Like Grant and Aerosmith, for example. I must report, she’s not only insane, but really excellent. A field goal of a broad, and I mean that in the nicest way.
Anyway, one of her three homes is this perfect – she’s not done yet, but it’s already been featured in WE HAVE MONEY & YOU DON’T MAGAZINE – little log cabin on Lake Sunapee, across the water from Steve Tyler’s.
Daniel Boone builds a two-story house boat.
Right then, Barker said to Hiawatha, “I want a lake cabin in the woods.”
***
So, six days later, here we are. Behind the safety of screened windows. Thank god! There should be more statues to the guy who invented the screened-in porch. A commemorative stamp for sure. Mosquitos in Minnesota are a protected species, a mutant strain powered by small outboard motors. They just laugh at insecticides. Ha!
Look at them out there. Locals tell the story about the time four skeeters stuck themselves into a French Poodle (standard-size yet) from Minneapolis and lifted the curly pooch right off the ground. Hung the dog in a tree like a sausage. Invited some of their friends over for a barbecue. But, that’s another story.
Fifty eight hours and seven minutes. By my math, that’s, let’s see, that’s eight fingers into fours times, um, 1424 miles, twenty miles an hour. Wild Dog Elapsed Time.
Six days. Most of Barker’s wishes don’t usually come true this fast. So soon after Camp Eldorado.
Just when you think it’s safe to go play outside. In St. Stephen, Minnesota, a sixteen-month-old boy, Eli Sobania, was attacked while he was playing ball near a cornfield with his grandmother. The woman turned her back for the apocryphal just-an-instant and a skunk leaped out of the grass, knocked little Eli to the ground and jumped on top of him. The skunk bit the tot eight times on his face, back and stomach before the woman was able to pull devilish creature off her grandson and throw it about eight rows deep.
Don’t mean to complain, indoors there is four thousand square feet of knotty pine paneling. All hand chucked by the owners.
But Cabin de Chuck is not built of logs. And there’s is no lap pool. And, aargh, no hot tub. Otherwise… it’s perfect. No phone. Got my own motorboat. The interior is a symphony of tough-and-groove knotty pine paneling. Like a jigsaw puzzle of Lincoln logs. We take walks in the woods and make love in front of the fire.
“I think we’re talking second honeymoon here,” Barker grabbed Hiawatha from behind. He loved to do that.
Hiawatha is part Original American, so nobody sneaks up on her. Not unless she wants them to, she once told Barker.
“Excuse me,” Hiawatha said. Inevitably. “But I don’t seem to remember the first one.”
That person Moscowitz.
One early sunny moment we’re out for a walk. “Do you have to drink every day,” that person Hiawatha Moscowitz asked him, “just because it’s available?”
Next day. “I assume,” Bob Chuck assumes, “you know how to operate an outboard.” This was said after a cruise around the nearby wildlife management preserve.
“Oh, sure,” Barker lied, recalling the time his father had let him take the helm and he’d turned the dock of the Crab Basket on Lake Candlewood into a takeout-window. When he was only fifteen. “I used to do some boating with my old man when I was a kid.”
“Here,” Bob called his bluff, “take for a spin yourself. With that, he was out of the boat.
Barker looked at Hiawatha. “Do you want to come along?”
“No, thanks. I’ll just watch from the safety of the dock.”
Little does she know, Barker thought.
Okay, so he was a little hesitant. But moments later, he was zigging and zagging across his own wake at top speed. Docking needs work.
“There is always a body,” Michael Murphy tells us, “beyond our little body, arms to hold us, new eyes to see, a larger being waiting here closer than our physical skin. There is a deeper self that thrives on the craziness of this teeming world, that sees every breakdown as an opening to the original crazy shimmering dance…to the floating worlds all around.”
The next day I took Hiawatha for a boat ride. We went fishing without bait. Without poles even. Suddenly! I found myself thinking about doing this for a living, you know taking attractive single women on intimate wildlife tours. For big bucks. I imagine some of those worked-up environmental types still get all moist over a fellow nature lover with good bone structure. Fringe benefit. Ha!
We are skimming across Ann Lake, a single crack across its smooth pea-greenpane of a surface. The engine throbs through my right forearm arm as I head straight for an armada of baby ducks.
“Ranger Barker Ajax, Psycho Tour Guide,” I announce to the back of Hiawatha’s head. “Welcome aboard. Thank you for joining us today for this periodically exciting journey into the deepest recesses of our WalMart wildlife management area. A division of China, Inc. This park can only be reached by boat or the Interstate.
“We began our tour today by swamping some ducklings.” About then I made a huge hard turn almost tossing Hiawatha into the drink. “Sorry, folks, ya dunt offen get a chance to chase a six-foot heron with a injured wing like that’n big fellow over there.”
I headed directly at this extremely large wading creature a long ways off. I pushed the throttle flat-out and started screaming over the engine noise.
“Tomorrow, I’ll be killing many of the very creatures you’re oooing and ahhing at today. Not only is tomorrow my day off, it’s a state holiday here in Mississippi. That’s right. Wouldn’t miss it.
“Twas a choice, either that Doktor Martin Luther Coon’s birthday or Bambi Day. What was a man to do?
“Bambi Day. That’s when the Department of Fish and Game holds the annual Twenty-Four-Hour Fawn Derby.”
Not wanting to scare the big bird, I changed our direction before he was disturbed.
“Because this is such unusually cold weather this time, you won’t see any of the cougar, bison, Rocky Mountain goats, or Kodiak bears we often get to see on this very tour other times.
“Funny, isn’t it, how you’ll pay a wad of cash sometimes to observe the various flora and fauna in their natural habitat and the damn things never stick their heads out where you can see them.
“Which reminds me, y’all, if anybody sees a Waffle House,” right then Psycho Tour Guide spits, “give a holler, ya’hear.”
***
At Camp Eldorado, I learned the importance of a man building his own nest. Every wild dog needs a den he can go home to.
Barker Ajax gave me some observations to share with you. “One coach to another,” is the way Barker put it.
In no particular order…
CREATE YOUR OWN FAMILY.
BUILD ANOTHER HOME
IN THE NEXT DECADE.
GO FOR A PERSONAL RECORD
IN GOOD FORTUNE. GROW YOUR OWN
TO ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND.
PUT A FEW BUCKS INTO THE POOR.
BUY YOUR NEXT CAR
AT A YARD SALE.
Grant looked sadder than I thought he’d look when we stood by Merry Miler to say our goodbyes. He bent down to nuzzle The Black Gang. He gave Carla a kiss. I had never seen him express such emotion.
When I went to shake his hand, he grabbed me around the shoulders with his too big arms and pulled my head next to his. In a low voice, he spoke into my ear, “You can stay, you know.”
“I’ll believe that, but I have to go.” I spoke in a low voice into his ear. “Anything I can ever do to help you, anytime you need your beer drank or your clothes worn or your pool swum or your videos viewed or your lobsters eaten, anytime you need a house-sitter or on-premises security guard or a personal trainer or…
ANYWAY I CAN LEND A HAND
OR PULL YOU OUT OF A JAM
OR COVER YOUR BACK,
ANYTIME YOU DON’T KNOW
WHERE TO TURN
ANYTHING I CAN EVER DO TO HELP YOU
I WILL.
The Wild Dog has left the building.
Ha!
***
About this time the mail caught up to us. A buddy of mine wrote his girl friend had dumped him. For taking her house-hunting for a bachelor apartment.
What could he have been thinking?! When a boy bird says to a girl bird, “Hey, chick, let’s go look at some nests,” what do you think is going to happen? Why do men do that? What can they be thinking?
What does he think the woman is thinking? “Oh good, how loving.” No, wrong. What she’s probably thinking, “like I’m supposed to approve his choice of bachelor apartment.” Also wrong.
He’s just a guy. Been with the company so long they gave him a golden weed-eater last year. Wife got the house, the kids and half the pension. He’s staring down the lonely dark path of diminished expectations. Freedom’s only good when you have everything to lose.
He wants to feel better. I tell him, walking is a positive move. Exercise helps. Honest. Do whatever it takes to shed the chains of tobacco abuse. Think about this. When you start to bum smokes, maybe it’s a signal you’ve had enough to drink.
But, you say you start bumming after a couple of drinks.
Maybe it’s time to quit bumming. I bummed about, oh maybe, two thousand or so smokes from you; I speak with not a little expertise. Deservedly described as a moocher, hear my testimony. I didn’t stop smoking until I stopped bumming.
Make a deal with yourself. When you stop smoking, you can drink more.
You just won’t want to. Because the next quest, smart ass, is to get your drinking under control. Become your own hero. Here’s some ideas. Don’t get down on yourself. Avoid other smokers. Stay out of smoky places. You’ll smell better. Don’t smoke inside your new condo. No sex with smokers. Above all else, do not eat Italian food and drink red wine in any place named Mama Puta’s.
I shoot and miss. Ha!
***
Even Hiawatha is ready to concede my theory about animals changing their schedule after a long, hard rain might be right. It’s 12:55 Eastern time and 11:55 Central time which it will be about the time we get out of these woods.
So, keep your eyes open for a moose and a wolf.
Why aren’t mosquitoes and those killer black flys natural enemies of each other?
We’re out in the middle of nowhere and it’s one o’clock when I hear the noon whistle blow. There’s a logging operation somewhere behind the veil of trees along the road. Apparently, we are now in Central time. When the sun is directly overhead and you hear a whistle in the middle of the woods, it must be noon. Think I learned that at Scout summer camp.
REJECT THE BAD CHOICES. DON’T JUST SAY NO. WHEN YOU LOOK AT A MENU, YOU KNOW DAMN WELL BLUEBERRY PANCAKES ARE BOUND TO BE BETTER FOR YOU THAN A FOUR EGG SAUSAGE AND CHEESE OMELET. SAME DECISION-MAKING PROCESS WORKS IN THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. DO YOURSELF A FAVOR. REJECT THE OBVIOUSLY BAD CHOICES.
Rude English spoken here.
I didn’t notice at first – because they weren’t there – but there are no billboards in the Michigan woods.
We are going into the business district of downtown Ironwood on Highway M2. To see, as it’s billed, “The World’s Tallest Indian.” Ironwood, you can see how Hiawatha got the name confused with Silver City.
“You people turn your butts, I could go on.” Barker in downtown Ironwood.
The fog is so thick we can’t see The World’s Tallest Indian. We can hardly make out the signs pointing the way to The World’s Tallest Indian. You would think he’d stand out some.
Fifty-two feet high. Hiawatha weighs nine tons, all fiberglass. Erected June, 1964 by the Ironwood Chamber of Commerce. Of course.
The iron industry here was discovered by one James Wood. Hence, the name of the town. Why not Woodiron, you ask. Good question.
The woman at the World’s Tallest Indian does not know the words to the poem Hiawatha. She can’t recite those famous lines, the ones we all used to know but have long forgotten. You know, “By the shores of Gichee Kummee something something and so forth.” You get the drift. Remember that poem? She doesn’t know the story of Hiawatha. They don’t have any copies of the poem in the gift shoppe, although she meant to order some, and they don’t take American Express. No credit cards at all.
Just saw a sign: BEAR HABITAT NEXT 18 MILES.
Another sign: BEAR CROSSING 6 MILES.
“LIVE BAIT” appears to be a franchise in this part of the country.
Just pulled into Stryon, (Spelling?)Wisc. “A Place For All Seasons. A four-season vacation land. Home of the World Championship Snowmobile Water Skipping.” Which I am sure we all want to start doing. I have to write the chamber of Commerce here and find out more about this event.
By 4:30 p.m., the temperature rose to 68 degrees F.
“Pretend you’re not looking,” Hiawatha whispers “but, and don’t toy with me, please, Barker, is that sunshine?”
Hiawatha loves to race across the channels through the radio stations. Makes for some interesting listening.
“Which reminds me. Your dad is not going to be home for another two days, so that means extra chores.” Woman’s voice.
“My achey breaky heart.” Some cowboy gets that out.
“Right now, northbound, it’s stacked up on 494. It’s very heavy in St. Paul. Another accident at 94 and Marion street, moving eastbound. There’s lots of traffic and all that construction in downtown Minneapolis. Certainly you’ll find heavier traffic this afternoon.” Man’s voice.
Suddenly dawns on me what a cool thing it is to visit the Chucks at their lake resort rather than their downtown condo.
That’s why we rushed here. We could’ve taken our own sweet time, but that would’ve meant heading into the city. You gotta do what you gotta do. We wanted to stay at Grant’s house for the maximum time and we want to use the lake cabin. So we sat in the truck for three days.
It wasn’t too torturous.
Coming into the town of WOOD RIVER, we saw a couple of old people bent over at the waist. Like they were picking up something off the ground. Hiawatha says, I think there’s a problem with the water around here.
“I saw so many reasons I love this country.” Another cowboy singer.
“Dry pavement,” she pipes up. Perkily.
“There is standing water,” I reply, “but the dirt’s dry.”
“It must have warmed up ten degrees in the last ten miles.
“Nobody has their windshield wipers on coming at us.”
“It doesn’t look THAT clear.”
Bob Chuck is a city planner for a small town. More like a village planner. He probably planned for a nice weekend.
“It doesn’t matter what the clouds ahead are like, if you are in the sun,” I tell her. Sounding not unlike Steve McQueen, I thought.
“That’s so funny!” Hiawatha howls and bursts into laughter.
I continue nonplussed. “It’s not important that there are clouds,” I pause to restate my case, “it doesn’t matter the clouds ahead when you’re in the sun.”
She thinks I’m so full of bullshit she has to cover her mouth to keep from cracking up entirely.
Women are a breed apart.
We are now going out of our way twenty miles in either direction, coming and going, to visit a town called LUCK.
“Is that in Minnesota?” I ask. Not that I’m lost.
I don’t know what state we’re in, can’t tell you what day it is, couldn’t come within two hours of the correct daylight savings time, but I am not lost.
I am right here, headed for Luck.
Luck, Wisconsin. Right below Siren, Luck is not really out of our way, we decide.
In Luck, nightcrawlers are retailing for the standard dollar a dozen.
Some roadside latrines across these teeming united states of america are so foul, I am loath to unleash my peepee. Woof!
Mosquitos the size of your head. Hiawatha is sheltered under long pants. Nothing short of a nuclear attack is going to get rid of the bugs in this country. You are just kidding yourself if you think pesticide is the answer. They are waiting on the nozzle of the can, they are nibbling at the nozzle, like goats in a garden.
You could enclose the place entirely in mosquito netting. Maybe get that crazy Christo to do it, call it art. Get NEA funding. Sounds feasible.
Put in a new septic system. Indoor plumbing. Barn with a lap pool would look nice here. And a hot tub, of course. Screen the oxygen-rich trail to the river.
SIGN:“In the 1700’s and 1800’s, numerous french, British and American fur traders established outposts along the waterways in quest of control of the profitable fur trade.
“With the depletion of the beaver in 1830’s, an eighty year logging era began in the pineries along the river. Gov. Knowles State Forest was established in 1970. St. Croix National Scenic Riverway created in 1968 to provide protection for this valuable resource. The Northern States Power Company played a key role in the establishment of the national scenic riverway and the state forest by the donation of twenty-five thousand acres of land. Many thousand people each year enjoy the recreational opportunities provided on the riverway and state forest.”
No, the sign doesn’t identify the previous owner. Doesn’t say how the Power Company came to be donating all this land, doesn’t say how the Power Company came to own the property. It’s just a given, so to speak. I’ll bet they stole it. Went in there and said, “I am powerful. These woods are mine until somebody gets tough enough to take it from me.”
Which brings us to the government, The Real Power Company. You are just kidding yourself if you think the government is not out of control, careening into the Twenty-first century like a homeless garbage scow gone adrift.
The St. Clair river is gorgeous. It’s beautiful country still. “Can’t you imagine the Indians fighting over this land,” Hiawatha has been thinking. “They did for hundreds of years, you know.”
The Sioux. Those wild and crazy kind of savages, the Santee Sioux. And those bad boys of the Early Woods period, the dreaded Chippewa. Hundreds of years of drive-by tomahawking.
Until White Men Without Hearts showed up and put a four lane wagon trail through the middle of the hunting grounds.
Somewhere in Montana it came to me. Every time I see one of those signs says THIS FAMILY IS SUPPORTED BY TIMBER DOLLARS, it’s attached to some rundown single-wide trailer. If the timber industry had treated those people like it should’ve, loggers wouldn’t be living in shacks. Poor folks trying to hold onto something they don’t got and ain’t gonna get.
Keep your eye out for moose. Cross the St. Croix and you’re in Wisconsin. First road kill we see in Wisconsin is a cat. ‘Good sign’ thinks the dog in all of us.
Our hosts, Bob & Queen Chuck, smoke Merits outdoors, on the screened-in porch at their own lakeside cabin. Which I imagine gets poco gnarly during ice-fishing season. They don’t use salt, but they eat Canadian bacon. Gave up caffeine, but they drink beer. Read many good books. And they don’t watch much television.
They like to sit side-by-side and fish together quieting. Thinking thoughts and releasing the infrequent blind fish who accidentally bite into the hook.
Barker loves these people. Queen said she liked me about two days sooner than most women this wise. She’s so cute the way she cooks as she reads one of her fifty cookbooks. She loves to watch me eat her grub. Bob I loved the moment I saw him, he’s one of us. Barker said I needed some new friends and now we have two more.
The Chucks arrived at their cabin, where Merry Miler awaited already, heavily weighed down with six packs of local Scandinavian brews. Like Corona. “I knew you were a lush” were Bob’s greeting words to me.
So, I have been giving some thought to the concept of drug abuse, tobacco and alcohol especially. I don’t smoke and I don’t get drunk. I’m clear. If it was good for us, THE BAD GUYS wouldn’t be selling it. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a man who’s got his act together having a couple or few drinks. A couple of glasses of red wine every day might even be good for you. (By the way, Hiawatha Moscowitz, M.D., says smoking and using the Patch at the same time can lead to coronary problems. Which could lead to the Long Dirt Nap.)
Regarding excessive alcoholic intake, i.e., self-poisoning, I am convinced, there’s much to be said against losing your license, or crashing your nice car, getting your name printed in the obits cause you crossed over into the next lane. Leaving your daughter without a father. Never seeing your grandson. Worse yet, waking up unable to move any part of your body below the lips.
Bogart smoked, Bogart is dead. It’s just not cool. Enough about that sludge.
Barker Ajax and Hiawatha Moskowitz finally put behind them the seventy-foot heated indoor lap pool, the books, the sauna, the 77″ Misubitshi with LucasFilm Sensurround and satellite dish, the in-house video “store,” the photocopier, the queen-size bed, the pantry with the twenty-five boxes of Barker’s very favorite cereal brands, CATCH MY BREATH.
The books. A thousand boxes. “That’s not all of them, actually.”
Imagine owning your own resort. And small town library. An edifice costing some two million dollars to create. And worth every penny. “Stay as long as you like,” my buddy said. All I was looking for was a dry spot to park the van.
“A box a day.” That’s his answer to my question about his goals in life. He is still unpacking.
***
So, six days later, here we are. Behind the safety of screened windows. Thank god! Mosquitos in Minnesota are a protected species, a mutant strain powered by small outboard motors. They just laugh at BUGGOFF. Ha! Look at them out there. Nibbling on the nozzle of the spray can I threw down before diving indoors. Locals tell the story about the time four skeeters stuck themselves into a French Poodle (standard-size yet) from Minneapolis and lifted the curly pooch right off the ground. Hung the dog in a tree like a sausage. Invited some of their friends over for a barbecue. But, that’s another story.
Portal to portal in fifty eight hours and seven minutes. By my math, that’s, let’s see, that’s eight fingers into fours times, um, 1424 miles, twenty miles an hour. Wild Dog Elapsed Time.
Six days. Most of Barker’s wishes don’t usually come true this fast. So soon after Camp Eldorado.
Don’t mean to complain, but Cabin de Chuck is not built of logs. And there’s is no lap pool. And, aargh, no hot tub. Otherwise… it’s perfect. Got my own motorboat. The interior is a symphony of tough-and-groove knotty pine paneling. Like a jigsaw puzzle of Lincoln logs. We take walks in the woods and make love in front of the fire.
“I think we’re talking second honeymoon here,” Barker grabbed Hiawatha from behind. He loved to do that.
“Excuse me,” she said. Inevitably. “But I don’t seem to remember the first one.”
The Democratic Convention was pretty scary stuff. Led by Women Who Don’t Need Men. “I am pro-choice,” said the recovering alcoholic female politician who emceed the shindig, “and I’ll bust your head if you get in our way.”
So many women. Hiawatha wonders if maybe this is the Feminist Convention instead of the Democrats. One black woman from Illinois looked like that Geraldine, Flip Wilson in drag. Why not. Gopher from the Love Boat is in Congress. And don’t forget the old host of Twenty-Mules Team Presents, The Gipper himself.
We must not forget his efforts on our behalf.
Don’t get me started.
***
You might believe back in the day I never missed a Johnny & The Distractions concert. Never. Unless incapacitated or incarcerated.
Basically the same thing when you think about it.
Good soundtrack for my story.
That stain didn’t show up on the original photo. Thinking oatmeal or milkshake or toothpaste. Probably toothpaste.