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I often pictured myself finally vacating those woods by the simplest and most heroic means: taking all my gear down to the river and loading it into a canoe. In my mind’s eye, it was always my old 17-foot Grumman, in which I first learned to paddle in 1976. If I shoved off at the height of spring flood, I could be out in the open lake in less than two hours. It would be cold of course, the trees would still be bare, and the whole thing would be insane without first scouting the river to its estuary—preferably by helicopter. But my desire to depart in a manly manner was very strong, and if I had had the money, and been granted the extra time, I just might have done it exactly that way. It would have been a joy. But such was not the end that came to be. The real Beginning of the End arrived one brilliant Saturday morning in December: the Crank, on cross-country skis no less, glided into view with surprising agility across the sunlit snow. I couldn’t have been more startled if I’d seen him slipping down the river on a mauve surfboard during Spring flood, hanging ten among the ice floes. We greeted each other with the customary civility of hereditary enemies, each hoping to demonstrate that he is not the barbarian at heart that he knows himself to be. But neither of us could conceal the underlying hostility that drew us together—the sole reason we found ourselves in each other’s company. I also think we were about equally annoyed by the irrationality of the dispute: I was not in his way at all, yet he felt somehow responsible for the consequences of my presence, and feared for the unknowable ramifications, should I prove to be a maniac after all. We exchanged some trivia, in the course of which he said that he regularly skied to his brother’s house during the winter, just for the exercise. But he had obviously swerved widely out of his way to reach my campsite. Soon he got around to the burden of his visitation: “WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU SLIP ON THE ICE AN’ FALL DOWN AN’ HIT YER HEAD AN’ KNOCK YERSELF OUT AN’ FREEZE T’ DEATH? MY INSURANCE DON’T COVER THAT KINDA THING! I NEVER DID GIVE YOU PERMISSION TO STAY HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE!” “I told your brother that I was here months ago, and he didn’t seem to mind at all. That constitutes tacit permission.”
“He knew I was here, and he never told me to leave. That’s tacit permission.” “He’s never told me about that!” “Well, I assumed that you knew… since you’re his brother….” “I’m tellin’ you he never told me about anything like that! I’m goin’ down right now an’ ask him….” After much more of the same, he skied off toward his brother’s house, where I suppose he browbeat the gentle soul yet again, as he had probably done at every family crisis for the last fifty years. In less than half an hour, he was back, barely controlling the rage he had lovingly fertilized, cultivated, weeded and harvested in that farm-bred, home-made mind of his. “YOU LIED TO ME!” he yelled, thrusting his ancient ski pole at me like a toy sword. “I ASKED HIM AND HE NEVER SAID YOU COULD STAY HERE!” |
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