You're Not Lost if You Can Still See the Truck

by Bill Heavey

  The spinal disks, the doctor explains, are like jelly donuts. (I’m not sure why he’s using such a simplistic analogy, but I’m guessing it’s my plaid shirt.) The donuts’ outer layer encloses the jelly, which distributes the pressure when the spine is compressed. He gives me a you-with-me-so-far? look and I’m tempted to ask if he’d mind using cream-filled donuts instead, since those are my favorite. But I already dislike this man too much to joke with him.

  Besides, all I really want is the damn cure.

  But we’re not done with the donuts. They can dry up with age. They can also get squished and change shape. The jelly can bulge or even get pushed all the way through the donut wall. This is known as a herniated disk, which is a condition I happen to have. The good news is that it isn’t causing particular pain or I would have mentioned it by now. The bad news is that it’s complicated by what looks like chronic inflammation. And some arthritis.

  I am stunned. There must be some mistake. Over the years, I’ve become quite vain about staying fit, about still doing things many guys my age can’t, even as the odometer keeps turning. This is supposed to happen to guys who eat at the drive-through window and whose feet never leave the pavement, not to a guy who climbs trees and can lift and throw a sixteen-foot canoe onto a roof rack. Herniated disk? Arthritis? I know zip about arthritis and don’t want to. With my luck, it’ll turn out to be like strudel.

  I just sit there, suddenly terribly aware of my spine, the taken-for-granted tent pole from which the fabric of my body hangs. This magical chain of bones suddenly feels brittle and very, very vulnerable. I stare at my shoes. My eyes are blinking steadily, once per second. I’m vaguely aware of having just crossed into Indian country, to a place where all previous assumptions mean nothing. A faint feeling of terror uncoils in my stomach. I am afraid of the day I can’t use a climbing stand, hike up a mountain, or pull my weight in a group of men. I knew that day was coming, I just thought it was further off.

  The doctor wants me to do as little as possible for eight weeks to let the inflammation subside. Then we’d “reassess.” He’s telling me this on a late October day with a cold front moving in. A day on which I still intend to catch the evening hunt. “Not gonna happen, Doc,” I say softly. “You have a plan B?”

  He shrugs. “Do the least damage you can,” he says. Take anti-inflammatories. Try to minimize wear and tear on the spine. Don’t run. Do the core-strengthening exercises he’ll give me instead of lifting weights. Eat good food instead of junk. Pay attention to what my spine says. If it says something hurts, stop doing it.

  “I’m getting old, my spine’s compromised, and there aren’t any easy answers,” I say. “Do I have that right?” He nods and says to call him if my condition changes or I want to discuss this further.

  Fifty minutes later, harnessed, bow in hand, I tighten my stomach muscles as I bend to pick up my climber and shift it carefully onto my back. Something I’ve always counted on has been taken from me. But to focus on the loss is to double its power. Suddenly, my memory spits out whole lines of poetry I’d forgotten I even knew. They’re about Ulysses, old and at home after all his adventures, yet unable to rest. In the final lines of Tennyson’s poem, the old warrior contemplates taking his crew to sea once more:

  Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’

  We are not now that strength which in old days

  Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;

  One equal temper of heroic hearts,

  Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

  To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

  I hitch up my load, feeling the slight breeze on my face. Though much is taken, much abides. There are two hours of legal light left, and I’m heading into the woods.

  MAKING THE CUT

  As a frugal outdoorsman, my watchword has always been “If it looks stupid but it works, it’s not stupid.” I have cited this when using a sock as a coffee filter. I have quoted it when using a Frisbee as a serving dish, a dog bowl, and a bait bucket.

  Once, in a waterfowl blind, someone noticed a funny smell. I said that it was my feet. No, the fellow said, that flowery smell. My feet, I repeated. I had put antiperspirant on them—a fairly widely known trick—to keep them from sweating, because if your feet don’t sweat, the sweat can’t freeze. And if the only deodorant handy when packing for a trip is Yves Rocher Jardins du Monde Provençal Lavandin roll-on for women, well, that’s what you bring. So if it smells stupid but it works, it’s not stupid.

  Murphy’s Laws of Combat quotes the maxim, but its origin remains unknown. My favorite example came from a story in the Washington Post. Back in 1996, senior military and civilian officials were being shown a new thermal-imaging system at the Marine sniper school in Quantico, Virginia. The scopelike device, which could detect the human body at great distances, was considered unbeatable. As student snipers attempted to approach the machine and their binocular-wielding instructors, the scope would occasionally beep, unmasking another sniper.

  At a certain moment, a Marine gunnery sergeant nearby cleared his throat. All eyes swung to the shaved head and heavily tattooed arms of this upstart. The man was there to be seen, not heard. This was a breach in command. With exaggerated courtesy, attending officials invited the sergeant to speak. With all due respect, said the gunny, he could beat that machine. Sergeant Neil Morris was cordially invited to back up his claim. Off he trotted.

  “For the next hour or so the officials scanned the woods and brush,” read the Post account, “the device beeping each time it detected a student sniper in the meadow. Their confidence in the gizmo grew. But suddenly, a mound of dirt and weeds only 15 yards away rose up, with a rifle and an old brush-covered umbrella. From a rictus in a green and black face, Morris said simply: ‘You’re dead.’” A lone soldier using a $1.25 flea-market umbrella and some common sense had defeated a multimillion-dollar system designed by the defense industry’s best minds. Morris became a legendary sniper, serving five tours of duty and amassing twenty-four years’ experience in sniping and special operations. When he retired in 2001, he was the senior scout sniper in the Marines.

  On a cold windy day last winter, after driving seventy miles to hunt and forgetting my hat, I thought of Morris. Knowing I wouldn’t last ten minutes on stand without a hat, I reviewed the materials at hand for a field-expedient head covering. Road maps can be folded into a hat but not a warm one. An insulated coffee mug retains heat but is reluctant to assume a skull-conforming shape. Then, on the floor of the backseat I found a plush-toy golden retriever puppy. It was dirty and matted and smelled of old juice box, but its torso was about as long as my head. That it would look stupider than anything I’d done in a lifetime of stupid things was a given. But would it work? The hangtag specified stuffing of both polyester fiberfill and polypropylene pellets.

  Fiberfill is an excellent insulation. Polypropylene pellets, potentially less so.

  My first step was to amputate all four legs and seal the openings with the Gorilla tape I keep wrapped around my flashlight handle. Having used up the tape, I left the head on. Then I slit the seam up the dog’s stomach. The fiberfill looked great. The polypro pellets—very tiny, very hard—were packed in small mesh bags sewn to the sides of the dog like sacs of synthetic fish roe. These I removed, along with a scrap of paper bearing a UPC code. Then—this was more unnerving than I care to admit—a red satin heart fell out. Why would anyone put a heart in a plush toy? It’s not as if anyone but a psycho would cut one up. Finally, making very sure that I was alone, I slid the puppy onto my head. The sensation of warmth was instantaneous.

  I hunted the entire afternoon in relative comfort. I never drew my bow, but a doe and two offspring—perhaps drawn by the juice-box scent—did stop to sniff the air as they passed fifty yards downwind. As I drove home, I briefly considered writing Sergeant Morris a note thanking him for his exa
mple and describing my own efforts under difficult circumstances. In the end I decided to hold off. There are limits as to what a hero should have to bear for his country.

  CASTING A SPELL

  For the past six months I’ve been seeing a woman who is way out of my league, and it’s going so well I’m starting to wonder what she’s hiding from me. Recently Michelle and I decided to flee the toxic fog that envelops D.C.—generated by countless class presidents who left Bugscuffle for the nation’s capital, only to find that simple backstabbing takes you further in this town than a PhD in political science—for a weekend in West Virginia. We hoped to catch some cleaner air and maybe a few trout.

  My mood improved by the minute as I scoped out the purposeful, trouty-looking river paralleling the road. When we finally arrived at Smoke Hole Caverns & Log Cabins Resort, I thought we’d hit the Lotto. There, right in front of our little cabin, lay a pond full of soft-finned torpedoes. One trout was so big I wasn’t sure we could have fit it in the car’s trunk. We watched a woman throw fish pellets from a waterside vending machine. The water roiled like a washing machine set to its “stubborn stain/squashed rodent” cycle. Inside the cabin, we found warnings posted that any guest caught fishing for the robo-trout would be “ejected immediately without a refund.” In other words, no fishing before 10 p.m.

  In the meantime, we bought licenses, rigged spinning rods, and went to scope out the river. There we met an older man, obviously local, carrying a six-fish limit back to his truck. He was dressed in chest waders, with an old aluminum creel over one shoulder and a landing net snugged against his back. I noted his tackle: a six-foot spinning rod with a couple of split shot riding eight inches above a gold salmon-egg hook. He said the fish were hitting bait—salmon eggs, worms, or corn drifted along the bottom—as well as small Mepps and Blue Fox spinners in the faster water.

  A guy going out of his way to help obvious tourists like us wasn’t enough to reverse my view of humanity, but it did give me pause. Then he directed us to the very hole he’d been fishing. “Little pool fifty yards below the bridge there,” he said as he got into his truck. “Fulla trout.” He put it in gear. “If you can’t catch ’em there, you can’t catch ’em anywhere.” As he pulled away he gave me the faintest wink.

  My heart sank. I knew it was too good to be true. I suddenly felt like the last lobster in the tank at a Cantonese restaurant on Saturday night.

  “What’s wrong?” Michelle asked.

  “We just got jinxed,” I said.

  “What do you mean? He said it’s a good place.” She looked puzzled.

  “It’s code,” I explained. “You ever ask a stranger for directions and when he says, ‘You can’t miss it,’ you know that he really means you’ll never find it? It’s like that.”

  “You mean it’s voodoo?” she said. “Come on, think positive. Let’s give it a shot.”

  We did. We gave that and every other place we could find a shot. We tried salmon eggs, corn, and Gulp! Dough Trout Nuggets. We tried three sizes of spinners, in white and squirrel, with silver blades and gold blades. The next day we came back, fished those spots again, and fished a few new ones. There was one moment when I did have a trout on a Mepps for a few magical seconds. But the fish ran for heavy current and threw the hook almost before I knew it was on. Michelle reported a solid tap on her corn bait, but having never really fished before, she couldn’t be sure. She did show uncommon aptitude for coaxing her line free of snags, both above and below the water. But neither of us landed a single trout.

  In the end, despite ample opportunity, we didn’t even fish the stocked pond. “C’mon, let’s try it,” I urged late on our second night. “It’s not like we’re going to keep the fish.”

  “No,” she said. “If it turns out we can’t even catch one in there, I don’t know that I could stand it. Let’s just come back and fish the river another time. And not talk to anybody.”

  “Oh, all right,” I said, as if giving in. But what I really thought was how sensible this suggestion was. And rather than sour her on fishing, our failure seemed to have hardened her resolve. What’s more, the contemplation of a return trip implied that she hadn’t yet soured on me. I was suddenly struck yet again by the strangeness of the world’s unfolding. It was only by our blanking on the fish that I realized what a keeper girlfriend I had on the line. I gave her a kiss and said, “How did a guy like me end up with a babe like you?”

  “Damned if I know,” she murmured. It was too dark to see, but it sounded like she was smiling.

  CAULK THIS WAY

  Think of the best hunter you know, and I’ll bet a pack of Rage Titanium two-blade expandables that he started on small game. Squirrels taught him stealth. Rabbits schooled him in patience. When it comes to hunting, I’ve always defied conventional wisdom and blazed my own trail. It’s no different with small game. These days, I’m hunting ants.

  With the chamber open and empty, I step soundlessly out the back door. The weapon in my hands won’t ever make a “Top 50 Classic Caulk Guns” list. It’s strictly old-school: a cradle-type gun with a ratchet rod. Pitted with age, nicked from use, it predates models with a contoured trigger and spout-cutter hole in the handle. But this old gun will still lay a bead with the best of them, and it’s got something no dripless, smooth-rod gun ever will—a story. My father used it for fifty years. I pick it up and I’m eight years old again on a hot summer Saturday morning. From the depths of the house, my father’s voice rings out. “Betsy, I’m already late for my golf game. The damn bathtub looks just fine!” I smile and chamber the old man’s favorite load, a 10.1-fluid-ounce tube of Dap Acrylic Latex Caulk Plus Silicone, Crystal Clear, guaranteed for thirty-five years. I lance the seal with a box nail and cut the nozzle at a blunt 30 degrees—I’m not decorating a cake here—and squeeze the trigger. The ratchet croaks forward. Two more croaks and I feel a slight pressure. The next squeeze will push sealant for real. Beware the man with one caulk gun.

  As for the ants, they just showed up one day, as mysterious in their wanderings and numberless as caribou. Tackling a mountain of dishes, I had just caught sight of the kitchen counter when I surprised the colony in mid-orgy around some leftovers. The main event was a slice of pizza, its mozzarella translucent with age. The ants registered my presence as if they were one multitudinous, humming organism, but they panicked and fled singly, every insect for itself. An agitated ant can sprint eight hundred body lengths in a single minute. Unfortunately for them, I’m really big and had time to get off six or seven shots of the cleaner I had in hand. I don’t know what’s in Formula 409, but I will say this: Besides tackling the toughest kitchen messes while delivering a streak-free shine, the stuff is pure hell on ants.

  I strategized. I consulted. One friend actually recommended better housekeeping. “Simple,” he said. “No food for ants, no ants.” He is now an ex-friend. Another said the county extension agent, given a specimen ant, would identify it and recommend a species-specific remedy within three weeks. Nonstarter No. 2. It was a neighbor lady who put me straight: “Find the entry holes. Seal them.” Bingo.

  I was soon spending hours on hands and knees inspecting the crumbling sixty-year-old mortar between bricks for openings and found dozens. One looked like a live satellite feed of O’Hare Airport on Labor Day. At others, activity came in waves, as if ant cruise ships took turns docking here for the endless free buffet inside my house. I went through two tubes of caulk the first day.

  I learned to soften my gaze and use peripheral vision, which revealed more ants faster than central vision. I thought nothing of hugging the dirt and following one ant as it trod a groove of mortar around two sides of the house and disappeared into a dime-size fissure, which I promptly sealed. The feeling was euphoric and addictive, so I disciplined myself to hunt only mornings and evenings. (Twice—I admit it—I went out with a headlamp and caulked until first light.)

  When thin
gs suddenly went quiet, I knew better than to claim victory. They’d just gotten smarter. At last I found a highway on the brick side of the house’s lightning-rod cable. When I sealed that hole, the entire two-way column broke rank and ran like retirees who’d just had their Medicare yanked.

  And then it was over. The hordes were gone. I still hunt, still hug the ground to eyeball every vent and downspout, still soften my gaze to try to register movement.

  Occasionally I’ll find a lone scout, yards from his nearest kin, prospecting, hoping for a miracle portal.

  Ants have their specialized functions and this is his. But I’ve gotten to where I can read their gaits, and I can tell his heart isn’t in it. Some evenings, I return without even having primed my gun.

  Hunters who’ve bagged a particular animal after months or years sometimes report feelings of listlessness afterward. The challenge, not the trophy, is what they love. It’s the same with the ants and me. Strange as it sounds, I miss them. Yes, we were adversaries. But we also brought out the best in each other. Even now, I sometimes “forget” a slice of pizza on the counter for a couple of days, seeking that hunting high you only get chasing the smallest game.

  RASH WORDS

  It’s election season, when unemployed megalomaniacs go on TV pledging to restore civility to politics while noting that an opponent is “a flag-burning cross-dresser who bites the heads off baby cockatiels.” Meanwhile, no one is talking about the real threat: the killer poison ivy we are creating with global warming.