The Nearly Complete Works, Volume 3

by Donald Harington

  But one of Stay More’s better citizens, John Henry “Hank” Ingledew, whose chronicles may be found in several of the Stay More pitcher shows, will come home from the Second World War and set up just across the square from the Buffalo Theater a little shop, “Ingledew’s Television Service and Sales.” Nobody will blame Ingledew for the fact that the Buffalo Theater will go out of business. Actually, as Hoppy himself will be the first to observe, it will not be television that will kill the pitcher show. Indeed, it will be many years before the quality of color television shows can match and replace the quality of the pitcher show. Folks will not stop coming to the Buffalo just on account of their TV sets. They will, many if not most of them, have air-conditioning in their houses. And many if not most of the new houses will be built without front porches, because whatever it is that will make people not want to sit on the porch in the cool evening and visit with each other and swap old tales will also keep them from going into Jasper to watch the pitcher shows, even though Hoppy will have long since added to his repertoire of Hopalong Cassidy pitchers a wide range of other kinds of shows. Television will commence showing re-runs of all the Hopalong Cassidy shows, and a whole new generation of kids will grow up devoted to Hopalong Cassidy who will never have been inside a motion picture theater.

  So, in time, Hoppy will have to close the doors of the Buffalo Theater, which, eventually, some other folks will convert into a bakery, making all manner of tasty breads and pies and cakes and pastries and other confections.

  Hoppy will consider buying a little grocery store, but those too will be rendered obsolete by the supermarkets.

  The last time we will catch sight of Hoppy, and this will be only a glimpse, he and Sharline will be operating on the highway on the north edge of town a combination barbershop and video rental store, where you will be able to get yourself one of the best haircuts to be had in this whole county and, while you’re at it, load up for the weekend with several of the latest VHS videos and DVDS of all the latest Hollywood pitchers.

  Sometimes when business will be slow, Sharline will stand out front of the shop and blow an old bugle. If you will just slow down as you zip down the highway, you will be able to tell what that bugle is saying: something about pitcher shows and about a man and a woman.

  To My Kindred

  Movements

  Solo for Hair-Comb-and-Tissue

  Chapter one

  Chapter two

  Chapter three

  Chapter four

  Chapter five

  Chapter six

  Chapter seven

  Chapter eight

  Chapter nine

  Chapter ten

  Chapter eleven

  Chapter twelve

  Chapter thirteen

  Duet for Harmonica and French Horn

  Chapter fourteen

  Chapter fifteen

  Chapter sixteen

  Chapter seventeen

  Chapter eighteen

  Chapter nineteen

  Chapter twenty

  Chapter twenty-one

  Chapter twenty-two

  Chapter twenty-three

  Chapter twenty-four

  Chapter twenty-five

  Chapter twenty-six

  Trio for Harmonica, Hair-Comb-and-Tissue, and Hammered Dulcimer

  Chapter twenty-seven

  Chapter twenty-eight

  Chapter twenty-nine

  Chapter thirty

  Chapter thirty-one

  Chapter thirty-two

  Chapter thirty-three

  Solo For Hair-Comb-And-Tissue

  Men do not flee civilized society and commit themselves to the rough embrace of mother nature unless their distress is deep or their delusions are overpowering.

  —R.B. Blakney

  Introduction to the Tao Te Ching

  Chapter one

  The tissue or, not to mince the issue, toilet paper, is the sole luxury I permit myself, and that sparingly, using scarcely more at the nether aperture than at the higher, the bung than the maw, packing on my back, each semi-annual seven-mile hike back from the village, as many rolls as I can carry, and they being so downy light I can bear a half-year’s supply, six rolls to a cellophane package, twelve packages bound and tied and piled high above my shoulders in a heap like Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s load, although some loafers along the road are bound and obliged to make a crack or two I overhear: “That feller shore must bowel off ever hour on the hour,” or “Naw, it’s a durn sight cheaper than cigarette papers.” They don’t know me, nor do they realize that I use almost as much of the tissue at one opening as at the other. Children point and giggle, and call me The Giasticutus, which, I have learned, is a huge mythical bird of prey who carries off large articles on its back—when I hear that, I obligingly flap my elbows like wings and wish I could fly. Dogs bark, or they bark at least once, and if they bark twice it is tentative, hesitant—Ralph?—for my own dog has begun snarling at them in a low frequency foreign and mythical to them, because they, all of them, are hounds, bluetick, black and tan, redbone and mixed glut of mutts, and my dog is pure-bred German Shepherd, the only one of that breed, as far as I know, in the entire county. He has a name which I did not give to him, or, rather, which I gave to him out of remembrance of a friend’s dog of the same breed and name, long ago it seems, a thoroughly trite and stupefyingly common name which, having dubbed him with, I have rarely spoken. He is black and gray. I am tanned and gray, but on the winter trip of the semi-annual hikes to town, January 18th, my birthday (the summer trip is made July 18th), we both of us are sometimes all white with snow on the way in and back, snow camouflaging the tissue, and there are no loafers or children or dogs along the way to quip or point or bark.

  My comb, around which I fold the tissue, is clean, because I rarely use it, usually twice a year, before going to town. As a result, I still have a full head of hair, albeit fast graying, whereas I had expected by this age—forty-three—to have acquired my father’s smooth baldness of the forecrown. I am convinced that baldness comes from daily combing. A comb is meant for playing and I daily play mine, although the dog doesn’t appreciate it and leaves our bluff cavern to hide in the woods far out of earshot until I’m finished. I sit while playing; perhaps I sit altogether too much, which may account for my hemorrhoids, which in turn may account for half of my indulgence in toilet paper, since I cannot use leaves, sticks, moss, corncobs, and have no newspapers, let alone Sears or Wards catalogs, but it has been my routine, ever since I came here six years ago, to work one day out of the week and rest the other six, which is turning it around on God. I don’t recall what Thoreau’s habits were. But unlike him, I’m not trying to prove anything, or, if I once was, whatever it was, whenever, it has been proved long since in these six long years.

  Chapter two

  My withdrawal into this wilderness was not without premeditation, and it surprised no one who knew me at all well, but then no one knew me at all well, except my former wife, who, when I dared to phone her to tell her of my intention (one of her small sons by her second marriage answered the phone and passed it along to his father, the latter masking his surprise with uneasy politeness and asking me if I was certain I needed to talk to her), said, at last, “It’s what you always wanted to do, isn’t it?” and then asked, with a trace of her old solicitation or affection or simply duty, “Do you want me to write to you?” If she felt like it, I said, but not more than twice a year, on my birthday, the eighteenth of January (which she had always forgotten), and on our anniversary, the eighteenth of July (which I had always forgotten), but warned her that any answer to her letters would be six months late, because I intended to visit the post office only twice a year. “How frustrating,” she said. “In that case, let’s not make a timetable out of it. I’ll write you if ever, whenever, I have anything to say.” In these six years, I have had as many, maybe slightly more, letters from her, on heavy parchment bond which I can neither play on my comb nor wipe on my fundament, although I have tri
ed both. She and her children are fine. Her husband is undergoing treatment for some sort of neurological condition. They have moved from the city to a western suburb. They have moved from the western suburb to a northern suburb. Her husband’s condition is improving. She can’t imagine what my life is like! The boy is in the first grade, and the girl is in kindergarten. Don’t I ever get excruciatingly lonely? They have moved from the northern suburb to the country. The boy is having adjustment problems. What is my dog’s name? Don’t I ever talk to anybody except the dog? They are going to spend the summer in the cave region of a European country. What does a typical dinner of mine consist of? The trip to Europe was a disaster, they fought all the time, and now they have agreed to try living apart for a while. There is no one else in the picture on either side, as far as she knows, at least not on her side, she doesn’t know about his. She and the children have moved from the country back to the city, a five-room skylit apartment. She thinks of the caves she saw in Europe; they reminded her of me. (Actually I don’t live in a cave, simply a rock shelter, a stone grotto beneath a cliff, the cliff stones calico-colored, a spring branch [“run” in these parts] flowing year-round right through a corner of my cavern: perpetual plumbing.) No, she is not in the very least interested in paying me a visit, even out of curiosity. She couldn’t show me and my sanctum to her children, what would they think? And probably I’m filthy and ragged and never shave or comb or even brush my teeth. Well, she supposes she could leave the children with her mother, but she doesn’t think she wants to. And if she wanted to, how could she even find me? No. Yes, she will think about it. No. Yes, the possibility is always there. No. Yes, sometimes she catches herself remembering how I had been during the first couple of years of our marriage, what a nice person I had been, and so witty and intelligent, so basically decent and good…sometimes, in weak moments, she holds herself to blame for the collapse of our union. In weaker moments, she wonders what the children would be like if they were mine rather than her present husband’s. Sometimes, when she compares the me that I was with the him that he is…but no, she mustn’t ever compare me with him. By the way, she has learned, only yesterday in fact, that he has a girlfriend. Don’t I ever have any desire to return east? Even to visit? Farther along? Don’t I ever regret all that I gave up? And please don’t wait six months to answer.

  All that I gave up! Yes. But no, not her, she had already given me up. But yes, occasionally, with all the fortune of idleness that makes me a spendthrift with misgivings and self-doubts, I brood over having literally walked out on an estimable position: chief curator of New England’s largest privately endowed foundation for Americana research, author of numerous scholarly articles, pamphlets and monographs on the acquisition, restoration and preservation of antiquities, acknowledged pre-eminent expert on “vernacular” furniture and furnishings, those indigenous artifacts which escaped British influence, I was a familiar and commanding figure, in my tailored three-piece suits, to every auctioneer in the east, and all of those cool auctioneers were sensitive to my bid, a subtle wiggling of my protuberant ears, a trick I had learned in high school in this state’s capital city, where I grew up, or tried to, never growing beyond half a foot above five feet. My German Shepherd can wiggle his ears in the same fashion, although not as subtly, and now and again we will entertain each other, sitting on opposite sides of the miniature creek or little spring branch that riffles through our cavern, staring at one another and wiggling our ears, in unison or alternation, or one or the other ear at a time. Sometimes I keep tempo to the playing of my comb-and-tissue with the wiggling of my ears, but then of course he leaves. Often I wonder what he really thinks of me, if he thinks. He is devoted, and fearless, although virtually worthless as a sporting dog, unable to track a fox, tree a coon, retrieve quail or wild turkey, point or set or spring, and so fond of deer, especially fawns, that he refuses to accompany me on deer hunts, and will not eat venison. He likes horsemeat, though, and whenever someone’s old nag wanders off into the woods to die, he will quickly lead me to it, a jump ahead of the vultures, and I will carve it up and take it a hunk at a time home, while he guards the remainder, and I will cook it and salt it and preserve it in Indian fashion, Bluff-dweller fashion, enough to last him all winter. How unlike this business is to bidding upon and buying, and dating and provenancing the carved chests of the Connecticut River Valley.

  The valley we (and by “we” I am merely assuming, perhaps wrongly, that the dog has some appreciation for views) can see below us, here, far down below us with range after range of forested mountain rising beyond, is that of the headwaters of a wilderness river whose lower rapids are mobbed by canoeists and johnboaters but whose upper turnings are used only by fish and other aquatic life. There is a town down there, an abandoned village, lifeless. It did not produce, as far as I know, carved chests or other vernacular furniture, save perhaps a spindle-backed or ladder-backed chair with seats of local cane or rough woven oak splits. A crude dirt road thrashes about through the valley, but while I (we) can see several long squirms of that road from our cavern, I have never been able to spot the cavern from the road, although I (we) have walked or wambled the road often, and I have gazed up to run my eye carefully along the mountain’s cliff ridges and stony escarpments in search of the dark mouth of my ledge shelter. Nor can I see any occupied dwellings from my bluff-home, and very few from the road. My nearest known neighbor is three miles away down in the valley, and I do not know him well, although he claims we are distant cousins and indeed his family name is identical to my mother’s maiden name. Farther along that fluttering road is a cemetery where she is buried, and her father and mother, grandfather, grandmother, uncles, aunts, first cousins and last cousins, are buried. And mine. I was seventeen when I attended her funeral, my first visit to this country until the present time.

  Despite those family ties, and despite, too, having made my bluff home here for six years, I have yet to feel any deep roots in this country. I know every steep slope and hollow of this mountain like the palm of my hand, but unfortunately if I closed my eyes I could not begin to describe the hollow of my hand, and I have no faith in palmistry. I have learned the difference between a Black Gum tree and a Sweet Gum tree…but to what avail? The forest understory—my unlimited lawn—is a fairyland of wildflowers, but I have barely bothered to distinguish the Trillium from the MayApple. I have a collection of “pet rocks,” and if I had the slightest interest in paleontology I could devote the rest of my curtailed life to collecting and classifying the abundance of fossils beneath every waterfall (as a small gesture of domestication or orientation, I have troubled to give each waterfall a personal name, none so trite as Angel’s Hair or Bridal Veil, but rather: Grampaw’s Beard, Handkerchief, Indian Tears, Doily, Swansdown, Antimacassar, Spilt Milk, Tatting, Kleenex, Double Dandruff, Needlepoint, Taffeta, Onionskin, Voile, Cheesecloth, White Horse, Bathtowel, Kotex, Dimity, Bedsheet, Toilet Paper, and so on…it is beneath the latter, closest to my rock shelter, that I shower daily, winter and summer, the chill temperature of the water remaining constant year-round). But these things are of nature, and while not inanimate—the falls are always animated—they have nothing to do with humanity, except for my humanity, and I am therefore kithless and kinless (except for my distant nearest neighbor who claims to be my distant cousin, though while he is kin he is not kith), detached but not isolated—how can one be isolated in the arms of nature?—secluded but not retired—how can one not devise plenty to do to fill the long day?—solitary but not lonely—how can one be lonely if there is so much of, too much of, oneself constantly present?—with-drawn but not shut-in—how can one remain in a dark cavern when there are so many dark ravines to explore?—private but not secret—how can one avoid improvising this whole tune on one’s comb-and-tissue, for anyone to hear?—forsaking of the world but not of the earth—how can one fail to know the difference?—a recluse but not a hermit—how can one want to avoid all people?

  We are all of us recluses, to
the extent that, ever since we were drawn from the womb and laid upon a blanket to watch the world come near, we have waited to see what would happen to us, have wondered whose those other’s eyes are and how we appeared to them, have held our small breath to be touched, and twitched our ears to be spoken to, and wracked our little brains to learn what we should do, and how, and when, and sometimes why, and occasionally where. The whole earth itself is alone in the cosmos. Like me, it is so small. Oh, of course there comes an age when we are deluded into autonomy, and the bravest among us, just as Earth thinks itself the only globe alive, think themselves complete masters of their destinies (I must pause to drape a fresh stretch of tissue over my comb), but the most self-reliant individual still watches for the world to come near and waits to see what will happen and wonders how he appears in the other’s eyes. We are all recluses, waiting to be approached. The true hermit is simply he who is never approached. That I have never been approached in these six years does not make of me a hermit. (Oh, I was approached once, by a pair of Jehovah’s Witnesses, who somehow found my cavern and sold me a Watchtower, without in the least converting me to their beliefs.) I wouldn’t mind being approached. My dog, a good watchdog if not a sporting dog, would bark at the visitor, but I would bade him hush (the dog, not the visitor). My dog barks only at the rare black bear (Ursus americanus, our own national animal!) who comes sniffing around in a curious and not unfriendly manner. The bear, by the way, is not a gang animal flocking with his kith and kin; he prefers his own company, although just as we speak of a pride of lions or a gaggle of geese or a skulk of foxes, there is a word, sloth, for a pack of bears, but the only time I ever saw a sloth of bears, seven of them, they were drunk on wild apples that had fermented in their bellies, and were lolling about slothfully, empty-eyed and uncommunicative. I have never killed a bear. I had a stuffed bear when I was small. I am still small, but I have outgrown stuffed things.