A Fine & Pleasant Misery

by Patrick McManus

  Nevertheless there are those persons, mostly under the age of ten, for whom the backyard at night is still wilderness--a Mt. Everest, North Pole, and Amazon all rolled up in a seventy-five-foot-square patch of lilacs and crabgrass.

  There are two distinct forms of Sleeping Out: With (Fred, John, etc.) and Alone. Both consist mainly of lying awake all night in the backyard.

  Otherwise they resemble each other about as much as hunting quail with a 12-gauge does shooting tigers with a blowgun.

  At about age seven I gained easy mastery over Sleeping Out With, even though my first attempt was marred by a monumental miscalculation. We decided to sleep out in his backyard rather than mine. By daylight, the two backyards were separated by about a quarter mile of countryside laced with barbed-wire fences. At night, the distance was upwards of ten miles, laced with barbed-wire fences and populated by scores of creatures not yet known to science. It should be noted that in the aftermath of the harrowing experience of that first night I could remember distinctly the features of several weird, hairy creatures that flitted past but could not recollect having passed through, over, or under a single barbed-wire fence.

  Vern, my camping buddy, and I had snuggled down into our foot-high pile of quilts, comic books, and assorted edibles and were well on our way to spending a pleasantly adventurous night under the stars. Then it got dark.

  Sometime between 9 P.M. and midnight, I became convinced that the forces of darkness were conspiring to terminate my existence. I emerged from beneath the quilts and prepared to hurl my body out into the abyss of night, informing Vern that I had suddenly recalled some urgent business at home that cried out for my immediate attention. He took the news badly, since he had no experience in Sleeping Out Alone and had no intention of gaining any until he was about forty-seven.

  His argument for my staying was fierce and brilliant, but it couldn't hold a candle to the pure, hard logic of a wavering screech which at that moment drifted out of the nearby woods. Neighbors said later that they noticed a terrible smell of burned rubber hanging on the air next day, but I think they were exaggerating. Melting the soles off a pair of tennis shoes just doesn't smell that bad.

  Sleeping Out With allows for a certain degree of sloppiness and haphazard good fellowship, but Alone is all serious business, fraught with craft, skill, and ritual. Some great writers have suggested that initiation into manhood has something to do with getting your first gun, deer, bear, drink of whiskey, or some other such first, but they are wrong. The true initiation into manhood consists of Sleeping Out Alone in your backyard for the very first time. You can almost always recognize a kid who has just completed this ritual. There will be a slight swagger to his gait, and a new firmness to his jaw and he will be old and wrinkled and have white hair.

  The first step in Sleeping Out Alone is to select just the right spot on which to spend the night. If it is too close to the house you will draw such taunts as, "Albert is spending the night on the back stoop."

  On the other hand, the sleeping spot should not be so far from the house that the distance cannot be covered in less than two seconds starting from a prone position.

  An imaginary straight line extends from the sleeping spot to the back door of the house. This line should be cleared of all obstacles: hoses, lawn chairs, tall blades of grass. If one has a dog, he should be tied or locked up well before night in order to prevent his slipping in under cover of darkness and surreptitiously depositing a new obstacle on the escape route.

  Dogs have also been known to fall asleep directly on the beeline, as it is sometimes called. Once while traveling at a high rate of speed, I collided with my old dog, Strange, under just such circumstances. The result was multiple bites on the legs, neck, head, and hindquarters, but after a good deal of rest and medication he managed to pull through.

  Choice of sleeping gear is largely a matter of preference. Most youngsters prefer to sleep with all their clothes on, although some find it more comfortable to wear only their underwear and shoes.

  Blankets on an old mattress have the advantage over sleeping bags of being easier to eject from in an emergency. Mummy-type sleeping bags should be avoided, since a stuck zipper may force one to run completely encased in the bag. While by no means impossible, running under such a handicap will cut one's speed nearly in half.

  Another hazard is that mothers have been known to faint and fathers to screech out strange obscenities at the sight of a mummy bag suddenly bounding into the house.

  On a youngster's first attempt at Sleeping Out Alone, the considerate family usually waits up and throws him a little welcoming party shortly before midnight. If the sleeper-out is unprepared for such a reception, he will probably enter the kitchen fully accelerated and wearing the expression of a person possessed of the knowledge that he is being closely pursued by something large and hairy. Under these circumstances it is best if the parents avoid leaping out of hiding places and yelling "Surprise!" The youngster will probably recover from the shock but the kitchen may not. In any case the parents will be creating some distasteful and unnecessary work for themselves.

  The eight-year-old who takes it upon himself to sleep alone in the backyard, nine times out of ten, harbors in his heart some hope of one day becoming a mountain man or maybe a cowboy. Everyone knows that the ability to sleep outside alone is a prerequisite for both professions.

  Also one may wish to squelch once and for all the suspicion among his peers and siblings that he is "chicken." There is nothing that so assaults a man's self-respect as to have an older sister spread the rumor around the neighborhood that her little brother has a gizzard.

  Thus the sleeper-out who suddenly decides that the better part of valor is to get the hell inside the house as quickly as possible may want to assume some sort of protective coloration, if for no other reason than to hide his ruffled feathers.

  The wise youngster, therefore, will decelerate abruptly at the back door, compose himself, and enter his abode with a bearing that exudes dignity, calmness, and self-assurance. He must then be prepared to undergo a certain amount of friendly but mischievous interrogation concerning the reasons for his premature return . Should he be so unsophisticated as to give his actual reasons, he is likely to receive some such response as, "Well, that's strange.

  I don't recall ever seeing a grizzly bear in the backyard before--a few mountain lion tracks among the azaleas maybe, but no grizzly bear."

  Consequently, it is best to have a few plausible answers worked out well in advance, such as, "I thought I smelled smoke and rushed in to wake the family," or, "I nearly forgot, but I'm expecting an important phone call this evening."

  The night that I Slept Out Alone successfully for the first time was probably typical for such undertakings, except it was rather long--about equal in length to the time required for the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. The only part of me that slept at all that night was my right hand, and that only because it was wrapped so tightly around a baseball bat. Several times, off in the distance, an ant coughed. The night dragged on. A pack of wolves circled my camp.

  Darkness embraced the earth. An ax murderer passed through the yard on his way to work. Where is the sun? I thought. It must be nearly dawn. A siren sounded faintly in a distant town. The ten o'clock curfew. I had been Sleeping Out Alone for forty-five minutes. I sniffed the air for smoke, hoping that the house might be burning down, and I could rush in and save the family. I was expecting an important telephone call, but we had no phone. Inside the house, I knew my sister, The Troll, lay awake, listening for the thunder of my footsteps on the porch. She was sorting and polishing her hoard of "chicken" phrases. I slouched back down into the saddle of my self and grimly rode against the night.

  Shooting the Chick-a- nout Narrows

  My love of rafting started in grade school and lasted up until I was thirty years old, or, to be more exact, until about fifteen seconds before my buddy Retch and I became the first persons to shoot the Chick-a-nout Narrows and live
.

  A teacher by the name of Miss Goosehart got me started on rafting. I was about ten at the time with an academic record that would make a turnip look like an overachiever. One day Miss Goosehart kept me after school and told me she was going to make me literate if it killed her.

  I said all right I'd do it if she promised not to tell my mother. What she wanted me to litter I had no idea, but I was too smart to let on.

  Miss Goosehart, her eyes filling with tears, apparently gave up on the idea of forcing me into a life of crime, and instead thrust a book into my hands. "Here," she said. "Read this as soon as you learn how."

  The book had pictures in it of this kid and a man floating a raft down a river. They had a little tent pitched on the raft, and a fishing line trailing behind in the water. You could tell from looking at their faces that the two of them were having themselves a fine time. I sounded out their names. H-u-c-k and J-i-m. Pretty soon I was overwhelmed by curiosity and started sounding out the first sentence in the book. I sounded faster and faster. By the time I had sounded out the first chapter I knew how to read.

  Miss Goosehart had hooked me on reading. It was a terrible thing to do to an innocent kid who wanted nothing more out of life than to fish and hunt and maybe run a trapline in the off season.

  By the time I had finished reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I already had a raft of my own built. A kid by the name of Harold helped me build it, but I was the brains behind the project. Since there weren't many logs to be found lying along the banks of Sand Creek, we used old cedar fenceposts. We tied the fenceposts into bundles with rope and baling wire, and then lashed the bundles of fenceposts to a couple of rotten planks. The raft was by no means as attractive as it might appear from this description, but I had little doubt that it would serve the purpose. The little doubt I did have moved me to offer some words of advice to Harold, particularly since Sand Creek was at flood stage and doing its best to wash out roads, bridges, pumphouses, and anything else that might offer it some amusement.

  "I bet this raft would hold ten people," I told Harold proudly.

  "I bet it would hold twenty people," Harold said.

  "You're probably right," I said. "But when we test it, I think only one of us should be on it."

  "Good idea," Harold said.

  "And," I said, "I think it would be best if you stand right in the center of the raft so you don't fall overboard when I shove it out into the current."

  "I bet it might not even hold one person," Harold said. "And I'm wearing my good pants. You go." Harold may not have been a great naval architect, but he wasn't dumb. Why hadn't I thought to wear my good pair of pants! There was nothing to do but make the test float myself. Gingerly I climbed aboard, making a mental note that the raft bobbed about a good deal and that the posts seemed to be spreading apart under my weight. These were not good signs, particularly since the raft was not yet in the water.

  Nevertheless, I decided to have a short float. Harold and I first tried christening the raft with a bottle of orange pop, but the bottle refused to break. Since there was every indication we might pound the raft apart before it did so, we drank the pop instead. Then I hopped aboard. Harold pushed the raft out into mid-current and I was on my way. From that moment on, Harold did not refer to his pants as his good pants. He called them his lucky pants.

  "How far you going?" Harold shouted.

  "Not far," I yelled back. "Just a mile or two."

  I must say that I have enjoyed few things in life as much as I did the first ten seconds of my ride on that raft. Then I perceived that the fenceposts were sinking under my feet. Not sinking fast, mind you, but rapidly enough to hold my interest. By the time I rounded the first bend, the raft was completely beneath the surface and the water was lapping at my ankles. Fortunately the raft stabilized at that point, and I continued drifting precariously along, my attention more or less equally divided between retaining some degree of dignity and looking for the first opportunity to disembark.

  The spectacle of my apparently standing on the surface of Sand Creek was not without its rewards. It stimulated a herd of milk cows to race wildly about their pasture in an amusing fashion, sent several dogs slinking for home with their tails between their legs, and brought the Petersons' hired hand to his knees, whether out of laughter, shock, or just reverence I never found out.

  Gossips later reported to my mother that I had been seen walking on water and, from observations of the final stage of my journey, floating down Sand Creek with a bundle of fenceposts under each arm. Mom was furious. She told the gossips I got in enough trouble without folks making up lies about me.

  Over the years I built up a couple dozen rafts, all of them vastly superior to that initial effort. My first rafting experience, however, taught me numerous lessons about naval architecture, the most important of which is that when the time comes for the test float to make sure that you are the only one of the crew wearing his good pants. In fact, I have noticed that even when a cost-plus aircraft carrier is launched the people responsible for it are standing around in the best clothes money can buy, and the reason is they started out their careers building fencepost rafts.

  Eventually I grew up, a fact that surprised many of our neighbors, some of whom lost good money betting against that likelihood. One of the problems of being a grownup was that I no longer had the time to build log rafts. It occurred to me one day that the next best thing would be a rubber raft. My search for such a raft led me ultimately back to my hometown and to an establishment I had frequented much as a kid-Grogan's War Surplus.

  When I emerged from the tunnel of jerry cans, ammo boxes, and landing nets that formed the entrance to the store, Henry P. Grogan, the proprietor, was hunched over a counter pasting little paper swastikas on some battered GI mess kits. I was glad to se he hadn't changed over the years, and was reminded of the longstanding business arrangement we had worked out between ourselves when I had frequented his store as a kid: Grogan would try to sell me every worthless, rotten, rusty piece of junk he couldn't peddle to anyone else. I would buy it. The arrangement seemed equitable enough at the time, and both of us were satisfied with it. Now, of course, I was no longer a kid still wet behind the ears. I chuckled to myself at the thought the old codger might even now try to pull a fast one on me.

  When he saw his former associate, Grogan's face erupted into a snaggletoothed grin. He swooped down upon me like a chicken hawk on a Rhode Island red.

  "How's business, Mr. Grogan?" I asked after he had extracted from me the history of my life since leaving home.

  "Not so good," he said, shaking his head. "it dropped off sharply about the time you went to college. Which reminds me, I'm running a special on some fine parachute harnesses if you're interested."

  "Afraid not," I said.

  "How about a gen-u-wine antique Nazi mess kit, then? just happened to come across one in the cellar."

  "No," I said. "I still have a dozen left over from the old days. What I am looking for is a surplus seven-man rubber life raft."

  Grogan's face clouded over. "Hell, boy, I ain't had one of them in a couple of years."

  "What!" I shouted in dismay. "You don't have one?" It was as if a door had slammed shut on an era, and I hadn't heard it. Never in my life had I gone to Grogan with money in my pocket that he didn't have what I wanted.

  "I don't rightly know where you could find one of them rafts anymore," Grogan said, scratching his head as though he too was confused by it all.

  "Maybe you could find a brand-new raft in one of the sporting goods stores."

  "No," I said. "I've priced them and they are too expensive. All I've managed to save up for a raft is fifty dollars. Well, it sure has been good talking to you again anyway, Mr. Grogan."

  "Fif ... fif ..." Grogan said, as if about to sneeze. "Ah, hold on there a minute, son, let me ponder this a spell." Then his face split into that old ambergris grin that once had shown down regularly upon my head like the sun at high noon. He scurr
ied out a back door and shortly returned, dragging behind him a greasy yellow amorphous mass.

  "What's that?" I asked.

  Grogan wiped his hands on his shirt. "This, my boy, is a gen-u-wine seven-man war-surplus rubber life raft I'd forgot. I spread it out over some old jeep transmissions in the yard a while back to weather a bit. Rubber life rafts like lots of sun and water, ya know. Don't know what suddenly made me remember it."

  "That doesn't look to me like it would hold seven men," I said.

  "The way the War Department figured these things," Grogan said, "was two men in the raft rowing and five men in the water holdin' on for dear life.

  That's why they calls it a life raft."

  Well, I was absolutely delighted. "How much?"