Then Rancid Crabtree blew into my life like a breath of fresh air, although that simile is perhaps inappropriate. Among his other activities, Rancid was a trapper of skunks and other innocent creatures of the forest whose furs were bought by a rather creepy individual who passed through our county two or three times a winter. The story was told of Rancid that he had once done hand-to-hand combat with a live skunk, and the skunk had won, but depending on the direction of the wind, you couldn’t tell any difference in him. Up until then, I believe he wasn’t known as Rancid but as Clarence Crabtree, or something like that. It never seemed to me that Rancid smelled all that bad except maybe when he got wet on a hot day and you were standing too close to him.
Mostly, to me, Rancid smelled like freedom. He lived in a log cabin he had built himself, off in the woods at the foot of the mountains that reared up behind our farm. Although he would help neighbors with their haying or threshing, he would refuse to take money for his effort. As far as I knew, he had never held an actual job. It was considered impolite to mention the word “work” within his hearing. He told me that one time he had gotten too near an actual job, and it had put him in bed sick for three days, and he had never been that foolish again.
Rancid lived exactly the kind of life I planned for myself, and over the rest of my childhood years I studied him carefully.
In my opinion, Rancid knew everything worth knowing. He knew how to turn himself into a log or stump, for example, a talent you don’t come across much anymore. He would sit down out in the woods, and in a few seconds he would blend into the earth with huckleberry brush sprouting out of his head and wild mushrooms poking out of his legs. Pretty soon, squirrels and chipmunks would be scampering around on him looking into his pockets and up his nostrils and wondering where this old rotting stump had suddenly come from. Many were the times I saw chipmunks race over the top of him, just like in a Walt Disney film, except the chipmunks in the film never gagged.
Speaking of gagging, I recall the first time I ever ate any of Rancid’s homemade jerky. I was pedaling my bike past his cabin one day when he bellowed at me to stop.
“Ah want you to try this,” he said, as I dismounted. He dug into a greasy paper bag and pulled out a black, twisted object that looked like a dried mole or maybe something one might find in the vicinity of a small camel. A tremor of dread flowed through my taste buds.
“What is it?” I asked, hoping it wasn’t something intended for human consumption.
“Ain’t you ever seen jerky before?”
“Nope.”
“Wahl, this here is some b’ar jerky ah jist made. Ah made it the old way, smoked it over a willer fahr down by the crick.”
He started to hand me the dried mole, then suddenly jerked it back and held the thing up close to his eyes. “Danged bugs!” he growled, snapping a speck off the mole with a grimy finger. “Looks like ah made jerky out of some of them too. Har!”
Failing to share Rancid’s mirth over the fate of the bug, I sorted through my vast file of falsehoods in the hope of finding one that would demand my immediate departure. None came to mind. So I accepted the jerky, popping it into my mouth like, say, a piece of bear jerky dried and smoked over a willow fire. It lay like a time bomb on my tongue. I was afraid to disturb it.
“Wahl, whatcha thank?”
I smiled faintly. “Mmmm.”
“Ah thank so too. Funny thang, though, ah cain’t git the dog even to try it.”
Presently it became apparent that the dog was a creature of uncommon good sense. The dried mole, responding to the moist environment of my mouth, began to take on a life of its own. It began to swell. I gave a brief wave, leaped on my bike, and headed for home, hoping to be out of the sight of Rancid before I spit out the mole. I was surprised it just lay there in the dirt and didn’t race off into the brush. Many years later, when I was much older and knew better, I accepted from an old trapper another piece of bear jerky that had been smoked and dried over a willow fire. Bear jerky hadn’t improved one bit in all those years.
Rancid prided himself on his knowledge of wild foods. One day when we were climbing the mountain back of his cabin, he suddenly stooped and ripped some leaves off a plant. “Ever eat miner’s lettuce?” he asked, popping some in his mouth. He then made a terrible face and spit out the half-chewed leaves. “Wahl, this ain’t it! You remember what ah’m telling you now. Don’t never eat leaves thet look like these ones.”
Along with other such bits of woodcraft and nature lore, Rancid taught me just about everything I needed to know about fear of the dark. He was pretty sure evil spirits haunted certain parts of the woods, and he made a point of avoiding such after dark. Among his vast knowledge of nature lore was the belief that owls could communicate with us humans. Most of the things they had to say weren’t worth listening to, but if one said your name, you were in deep trouble. You were a goner. Even to this day, when an owl speaks, a shudder runs up my spine, just thinking about it. A friend of mine claims that when he was a little boy he heard an owl speak his name. He’s in his sixties now, and I still don’t want to break the bad news to him. Oddly, most of what I regard as Rancid’s nonsense has somehow taken up residence in the back of my mind.
Among a thousand other things Rancid taught me was to always be prepared. On the opening day of trout season one spring, he had promised to take me fishing. I arrived at his cabin at precisely 4:30 in the morning. He had told me if I was a minute late, he was leaving without me. Surprised not to find him sitting on his porch, fishing pole in hand, I gently pushed open the cabin door. There he was, still in his bunk, snoring loudly.
“Wake up, Rancid!” I yelled. “You said you would be ready and waiting and you aren’t even awake yet, let alone dressed!”
“Wha?” he said, his eyes popping open. “What you mean, ah ain’t even dressed?” He threw off the covers and walked out the door, fully clothed, right down to his boots.
“You sleep with all your clothes on?” I said.
“Why not?” he said. “Otherwise, you just got to put ’em back on in the morning.”
That’s advice I’ve always remembered. Even after all these years, my wife still says, “I hate the opening day of trout season!”
When I got to be seventeen, I went out and got a job and didn’t see much of Rancid after that, but I knew he was disappointed in me. Then I went to college and later went to work as a newspaper and television reporter. By then, I had a wife and four daughters and numerous pets and was tied down with other various kinds of employment. Suddenly, my writing took off and earned me a modest living, so I wasn’t tied down with a job anymore. My wife and I could live anywhere. The girls had gone off to college. All this time, I had nurtured the hope of someday becoming just as independent as Rancid Crabtree, living out in the woods and off the land and free as a bird.
So one day—my wife and I were about forty, as I recall— we bought ourselves a piece of land on a river, built a cabin there, and planted a huge garden and fruit trees and nut trees and berry bushes, and I cut our firewood out of the national forest and shot game and picked wild berries and mushrooms and caught fish out of the river. It was just like I had dreamed. Crabtree knew how to live, all right, even if he didn’t have electric lights and television and taxes to pay. Living free and wild takes a lot of work, though, and you get awfully tired. One winter, the snow on the island got so deep there wasn’t any more room in which to plow it. That’s when we moved back to town and bought ourselves a condo. Still, I have fond memories of living the fantasy, and friends of mine often say, “It sounds like a wonderful way to live. Will you ever go back to it?” I allow my face to take on a dreamlike expression, just for effect. Then I say, “Not in a million years!”
Christmas Shopping
M
y wife, Bun, told me the other day that I didn’t have to worry about my annual Christmas shopping venture to find her an appropriate gift. “Anyway, if I want something I’ll simply go out and buy it,” she said.
“Wonderful,” I said. “But surely there’s some little thing I could purchase for you, something to put under the tree.”
“Well, yes, there is,” she said. “Underwear.”
“No!” I screamed. “Not underwear! I hate the way all the clerks look at me as if I’m some kind of pervert strolling about through the lingerie department.”
Bun laughed. “You won’t have to be embarrassed shopping for this gift. It’s long underwear. The days are already turning cold, and I just think long underwear might be very nice, particularly when I’m out tidying up the yard on chilly days.”
Hmm, ladies’ long underwear, I thought. That doesn’t sound at all like something a pervert would be pawing through piles of pink dainties to find.
“Furthermore,” Bun went on, “ladies’ long underwear usually comes in two pieces, but I don’t need the top. I have lots of warm tops. Just buy the bottom.”
Perfect! I thought. A gentleman would never buy long underwear for his mistress, so there is no worry there. Furthermore, he wouldn’t buy only the bottoms. I could see no downside to buying the bottom piece of a pair of ladies’ long underwear.
Then Bun said, “Also, I tend to get a rash on my legs from wool underwear. So try to find something soft and creamy. And white. Get white! I don’t want something blazing red.”
“Certainly not,” I said. “White it is.”
A few days later, I found myself peering out over the vast lingerie department of a huge department store. It seemed to take up nearly half the second floor. I skirted around the outside edge of the department. From the huge pillars hung full-size pictures of nearly-naked young women. Every few feet I would feign a yawn and casually glance this way and that, as if searching for my spouse. Apparently, long underwear for women was not a big seller. At least, I didn’t see any on display. I saw only one man slowly making his way through the department, occasionally reaching out and rubbing a bit of pink flimsy material between his thumb and forefinger— clearly a pervert. On the other hand, there were a number of gentlemen like myself, patrolling the outer edge of the lingerie department, occasionally glancing over its vastness as if in search of a wife.
I had expected to see a display of long underwear, at which point I would dart over, snatch up a pair of bottoms, and rush back to the checkout counter. It only stood to reason that somewhere in that vastness of pink, a display of women’s long underwear would suddenly stand out like a beacon, but, alas, nothing. All I could do was find and ask the clerk at a checkout counter about the availability of such an item in the store or anywhere I might find such a thing.
The checkout lady was middle-aged with perfectly coiffed gray hair, and a pencil tucked behind her ear. She appeared to be the kind of no-nonsense salesperson I was hoping to find.
“Yes, may I help you, sir?” she said.
I cleared my throat and tried to look normal. “Do you by any chance have a white creamy bottom . . . ?” I began. She looked startled.
“Underwear!” I stammered. “A long underwear bottom. I’m looking for a pair of white long underwear but only the bottom part. For my wife. And she said she would like white and creamy, if I could find it.”
“Yes, sir,” the lady said, smiling. “I know exactly what you are looking for.” She waded off through the sea of pink and soon returned carrying a tube, the size three tennis balls fit in. How could I have missed it? On the outside of the tube was an illustration of a long underwear bottom. I was relieved, having half-expected the clerk to return with a store detective. She seemed quite accustomed to customers of my type, however, and said, “No wonder you couldn’t find it, sir. I don’t know why they put long underwear in tubes anyway. It says here on the side that it’s creamy and white.”
I paid and thanked her, perhaps a bit too profusely, and scurried away with my tube of long underwear bottoms.
Next Christmas I’ll just buy Bun a mink. I don’t know where I can buy one that’s house-broken, but it will be a lot easier than finding a lady’s long underwear bottom.
Who Ate My Shakespeare?
M
ost of our family pets over the years were illiterate, but we had one gerbil with a love for Shakespeare. During his many escapes from his cage, he ate halfway through a volume of Shakespeare’s plays. It did not improve him intellectually, as far as we could tell, but he clearly loved the old bard. Each time he got out, he sampled more of him.
During one of his escapes, he was on the lam for nearly a month. I don’t know how he survived, and clearly he wouldn’t have if I ever got my hands on him. My wife and I and our four young daughters lived in a ratty mobile home just off the campus of Washington State University, and I suspect one of the women folk smuggled bits of cheese and other goodies to the rodent. Not that he needed food. His last escape lasted for many weeks, during which time he gnawed away at most of my library, but seemed to favor Shakespeare over the lesser authors.
Wilson, the gerbil, was not our only pet rodent. Our menagerie also included hamsters and guinea pigs, as well as rabbits, two cats, and a dachshund, the latter going about with a worried look and complaining endlessly about his fellow pets.
The guinea pig was named Jack, after the president at the time, John F. Kennedy, because they had similar hairstyles, as I recall.
One morning I was sleeping late when I awakened to the cry, “Dad! Dad! Jack is loose!” I mulled this over in my mind. Was it bad news or good news? Then my wife rushed into the bedroom.
“Jack got out and is running down the alley! You’ve got to go catch him! Quick!”
Perhaps responding to the general panic, I leaped out of bed wearing only my boxer shorts, tore out of the house, and rushed to the alley. We were now living in the middle of a city with numerous police officers who regarded persons rushing about in their boxer shorts as real or potential criminals. I hurtled our back fence that had a hole through which the escapee had made his getaway.
Two houses down, I could see the miserable rodent ambling merrily on his way, pausing from time to time to take in the scenery or munch the blossom of a dandelion. Sensing that I was closing in on him, Jack suddenly darted under a backyard fence. I vaulted the fence and snatched him up. That was when I noticed an elderly lady lunging at me with her hand trowel, a frightened snarl growing on her face. She had been crouched down weeding her flower bed next to the fence and apparently was unaccustomed to strange men wearing only boxer shorts leaping into her yard. The strange man instantly leaped back over the fence and fled back down the alley, carrying the escaped rodent, which the elderly lady no doubt thought he was planning to eat.
I really have no excuse for my despicable action later that morning, other than that Jack’s escape and the violent old lady had put me in a terrible mood.
My wife said, “Oh, you get dressed and have some coffee, and I’ll fry you some shaggymanes for breakfast.”
For many years, Bun and I collected the delicious wild mushrooms each fall, chopped them up, and froze them in little containers as a special treat for ourselves. Still grumpy, I sat at the breakfast table awaiting the arrival of my mushrooms. Here I must mention that I have a friend who is an excellent poet. Income for poets being what it is, he also worked at the time as a night watchman at a warehouse. The job often left him with time on his hands during the night shift. He used it to write poems. The poems were often dark and dreary, reflecting his mood in the lonely, late hours of the night. I’ll call him Melvin. Mel had made a practice of showing up right after work each morning to read me his most recent poems. I would invite him to eat breakfast with me. He would say, “Oh, no. I don’t want to eat your breakfast.”
“Well, have a piece of toast anyway.”
“OK a piece of toast. Pass the jam.”
“Scrambled egg?”
“Oh, I guess. Are you done with the bacon?”
And so on. Nearly every morning we went through this ritual while Melvin read me his night’s output.
The poems
did not put me in a good mood. On this particular morning, I said, “Have some mushrooms, Mel.”
“Wow, mushrooms for breakfast,” he said. “Yeah, I’ll have some.”
I gave him a hefty serving. He sampled them tentatively and then dug in with gusto. “Man, these are really delicious. What kind are they?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I found them growing out in the backyard.”
His fork clattered against the empty plate. Without saying a word, he leaped to his feet and walked out the door. I didn’t see him again for six weeks. I’ve always wondered if he rushed off to an emergency room to have his stomach pumped or what, but I’ve never felt the urge to mention mushrooms to him again. It is best to avoid eating breakfast with a man who has just rushed down an alley in his under shorts to save a guinea pig and been attacked by a crazy old lady with a gardening trowel. It brings out the worst in him.
Romantic Moments
M
y wife, Bun, and I were watching a dumb old film on TV the other night, one of those films in which the man and woman spend about half the movie running and laughing through the rain and not so much as a single shot is fired the whole time and not one car goes up in a ball of flames and at the end they get married in a hot-air balloon and float off together into the sunset.
The Horse in My Garage and Other Stories Page 13
