The Classic Crusade of Corbin Cobbs

by Michael Ciardi

Perhaps no other environment I had thus far visited in my travels appeared as thoroughly majestic as the one I now strode upon. The mountainous region in front of me sprouted from the earth like pyramids suffused in a lavender sheen. I whittled a path through this pristine landscape, bounding over tree roots as thick as felled timber. A canopy of deciduous trees blazed with autumnal fire, igniting the interior thickets more splendidly than an artist’s rendition. White birch and pine trees competed for space on inclines, foraging a pathway to deeper pockets of unblemished vegetation. A fragrance of evergreen and sweet maple perfumed the air, making every step into the clusters of underbrush a pure delight to my senses.

  During my progression, this foliage became so dense that I had to squeeze between the brambly arms of wooded plants and witch hazel. Before long, the earth’s craggy recesses blocked even the widest wedges of sunlight. But farther along in my expedition, the forest opened to glens encrusted with a network of wild grapevines. Far beneath my footsteps, in a gorge glistening with sapphire hues, a serpentine strip of water cascaded between the valleys like a silver locomotive. I then came upon another body of foaming water within ten paces from the first evidence of a river. This portion of land was strewn with boulders of various sizes and shapes. If I wanted to continue my journey forward, I had to crisscross these stones like a bullfrog leaping onto lily pads. Although I slid and stumbled over these slick surfaces, I managed to succeed in each subsequent jump.

  Halfway through this challenge, I paused and listened to a family of unseen birds twittering in unison alongside the waterway’s natural rhythm. I sensed a tranquility surging within me that was as refreshing as spring sunlight. Before I resumed my course, a murder of crows flitted from the wood’s canvas. I then turned in my stance to witness that I hadn’t been the sole dweller in this rustic realm.

  Another man emerged on the same portion of stones that I trod upon. He stood, or rather slumped, on a boulder at the center of this ravine. His garb was of another time, but this didn’t startle me at this stage in my passage. The breeches he sported looked tattered and smudged with earthy hues. At times, when the sunlight angled directly upon his apple-shaped frame, he blended into the surroundings as stealthily as a chameleon. The man’s beard unfurled across a rotund belly, coiled and frayed to a shade duplicating the rocks he pounced over with the agility of a one-legged grasshopper. I imagined that this matted cyclone of hair served as a symbol of this fellow’s general malaise. I couldn’t yet define his facial features, but his grizzled beard hinted to a ripened age, although perhaps not nearly as ancient as his attire.

  As I hiked closer, I noticed him toting a rusted firelock from America’s pre-revolutionary days. I showed no evidence of fear at this observation, for the crumbling fowling piece was better suited for a museum rather than a wilderness outing. If he even managed to aim the relic’s worm-eaten stock in my direction it would’ve most likely disintegrated in his grasp. Besides, this oldster was more inclined to lending his time to whistling for a lost companion than exerting any energy to discover the motivations of my company.

  The codger’s call proved piercing enough to rouse a few partridges and squirrels from the brushwood, but produced no such creature to allay his confusion. “Wolf!” he hollered. “C’mon ol’ boy, where have you run off to now?” He was so purposeful in his quest to reclaim his friend that he seemed oblivious to my advance across the rocks. After a moment of reflection, I determined the whereabouts of my present location. I now plodded between the sylvan passageways slightly apart from Appalachian trails. More particularly, I rambled in the shadow of the Kaatskills’ violet plateaus. And the river that unfurled like a flood of mercury through a cavernous canyon could have only merited its distinctiveness from its discoverer, Henry Hudson.

  If these observations were precise, then the doddering man in front of me was none other than the well-rested Rip Van Winkle. Here was a fellow who epitomized the aloof temperament of a commonly kept man. This forest had become his refuge from the shrill sound of reality, and men of a similar station and ilk envied him from across the centuries. He stared quizzically at me, while adjusting his sugarloaf hat so that its floppy brim hid his eyes from the sun’s intermittent rays. Rip’s faithful canine, however, would not answer his master’s call. As loyal as any dog might’ve been lauded, and Wolf certainly earned such an accolade, twenty years was far too long for any animal to wait for its owner to awaken from a nap.

  As it was with all my previous visitations, our initial encounter caused a bit of awkwardness to unreel between us. Rip smudged his eyeballs with the palms of his fists, almost as if trying to pry the flecks of sleep crusted in the corners of his eyes. Perhaps he rated me as nothing more permanent than a premonition from the liquor he quaffed on the previous night. But the flagon he imbibed from had no relevance to my ability to observe him. When the silence became too distracting for either of us, I announced my name for his consideration.

  Rip’s natural disposition, of course, was exceedingly too mellow for him to even bother grappling with the rusted firelock. Upon hearing my name, he simply stroked at his whiskers as if delayed by a philosophical notion. “You at yonder,” he finally called forth. “Did you say your name was Cobbs?”

  “I did,” was my reply.

  Rip then maneuvered his fingers up to his nose and scratched it as if he had developed a scent for itinerant characters schlepping through this wooded sanctuary. But my demeanor provided the oldster with no evidence of hostility; if anything, I might’ve appeared as equally perplexed in his judgment.

  “How long have you been wandering about these hills?” Rip questioned. Despite his present quandary, his voice still sounded as innocuous as a dove’s coo.

  “I just arrived a short time ago,” I announced.

  Rip furrowed his brow, and his bushy eyebrows narrowed to a single pelt of gray hair. If I didn’t know otherwise, I might’ve presumed a ferret scurried from beneath his hat and settled atop his forehead. His inquisitive glare held no trace of malice, however, and so I felt at ease with our present conversation.

  “Did you happen to see my poor Wolf during your jaunt? He seems to have abandoned the hand that feeds him.”

  It would’ve pained me to inform old Rip that his devoted dog had most likely vanished from this region many years before he awakened from his protracted snooze. In this instance it was simply easier to respond by shaking my head from east to west. This gesture satisfied him briefly, but several peculiarities in regard to my appearance caused his mind to overflow with assumptions as if a levy gave way within his brain.

  “You have no whiskers,” he observed. “Therefore, it is unlikely that you’re acquainted with the crew of gentlemen from the previous night. But for my own contentment, have you ever guzzled purple liquor from a flagon or sported with ninepin?”

  “I haven’t, sir,” I responded.

  If Rip interpreted my concise statements as disingenuous, he lacked the proper countenance to display it. I hardly managed to contain my amusement as he clasped his hands on either side of his head and acted as though he might’ve popped his noggin from his own shoulders if he had the vigor to do so.

  “In the past I’ve taken my fair portion of drafts from flagons,” he confessed, “but I have nothing to compare to my latest binge. It seems as though I’ve slept through an entire evening and sunrise. How will I ever explain my tardiness to Dame Van Winkle?”

  I understood and pitied Rip’s predicament. After all, in all his years of marriage to his tyrannical wife, he never managed to pacify the contempt she unleashed upon him. In order to alleviate his concern, I almost felt compelled to explain that he’d never have to cower in the presence of her furious tirades again. But, as a matter of principal to my earlier pledge, I couldn’t alter the circumstances of Rip’s journey to satisfy my yearnings. Instead, I offered him empathy for the situation that resulted in his retreat from the village.

  “I’m guessing every man who travels through these thick
ets has someone waiting for him at home that he’d rather not confront,” I said solemnly.

  “As true as that fact may be,” Rip added, “let it be known, now and forever, that no Dutchman alive or dead has ambled as much as I along these foothills.” For his pure amusement and perhaps mine, Rip performed a little jig atop the stone where he stood. But even this minor show of animation almost caused the unbalanced man to plunge headlong into the spring water percolating beside the rocks. After he saved himself from this blunder, we both laughed hardily at his silliness. Rip’s buoyant mood only endured a few seconds longer before a more tenuous matter strained his expression.

  “One thing I do know,” Rip insisted, “if Dame keeps to her habit of hurling dishes in my direction, then we’ll be eating our victuals from our laps before autumn’s end.”

  “May I ask you something, sir, and I hope you’re not offended by the question?” I said. “You seem to know who you are and have settled into customs that provide a degree of happiness, at least for yourself. But, because of your lackadaisical habits, your wife is as prickly as a sewing needle in your backside, and let’s you know it by whatever means necessary. If this is an accurate description of your marriage, as we know it is, why do you keep going back to her for more punishment?”

  Rip pondered my inquiry with as much consideration as he ever lent to any plight. He then shrugged his rounded shoulders and rolled his eyes as he had demonstrated a thousand times before my arrival. His ocher-colored eyes suddenly looked as hollow as the deepest chasm within the Kaatskill’s crevices. He required a few seconds to formulate some plausibility to his actions.

  “I have no excuse to explain my routine other than to note that all the married men I have ever met survive under similar ordinances from their wives. But I will also admit that the termagant inhabiting my home has no competitor to her callousness.”

  “Can this be the truth?” I thought aloud, nearly gasping at the prospect that every man had the tolerance and aloof temperament of Rip Van Winkle. My curiosity lured me further into this line of chatter. “Are the married fellows in your village all obedient to their wives’ whims?” I asked next.

  Rip stalled before responding so that he appeared to deliberate my concern. “I can’t declare that they all obey,” he finally stated, “but I will say that they’re all expected to. On the upside, our town’s patriarch, Nicholas Veddar, has claimed that those who remain diligent to their wives’ demands escape the pitch of banshee screams on rare occasions. But, alas, I’ve never been inclined to flourish like the weeds that some say occupy my farmland.”

  “Then you readily admit that you’re a lazy man?”

  “In fairness, I’ve exhausted a goodly number of excuses when trading a day’s wage for a hook and string. But I never expected that my idleness would have such a dismal effect on the feminine kind.”

  “Do you think you tolerate your wife’s ridicule because you’ve earned her wraith?”

  “It’s likely Dame Van Winkle wouldn’t argue with such logic,” Rip chuckled. He then looked at me more critically and said, “I’m ready to presume that you’re not a man of connubial status.”

  “Really? I didn’t wish to come across that way,” I said. “As a matter of fact, I’ve been married for the better part of two decades.”

  “Earnestly? And you still refuse to relinquish the button on your breeches?”

  “Until recently, I believed I had an equal partnership with my wife.”

  Rip let an uproarious laugh fly from his tongue that soared as majestically as the eagle spiraling above us. His cackle’s reverberation scattered the crows congregating in the trees beside us, too. Henry Hudson and his Half-moon crew couldn’t have hurled a bowling ball through this valley with a more deafening clangor.

  “I can’t attest to know your business more than a trifle, Cobbs,” said Rip. “But if you believe the bunk you’ve just spouted, then I’d say you had swilled an amount of liquor from the keg bearer’s flagon that heartily surpassed my own.”

  “What I mean, sir, is that my wife and I normally share all the major decisions.”

  “It’s convenient that you think as much,” Rip countered. “But since you now occupy the same space as I, it’s more than probable that you’re no closer to getting out of the woods here than you are at home.”

  Rip’s trite status as a henpecked husband hadn’t quieted his formidable wit. But I presumed that many of the gentlemen who frequented taverns and strayed too far from the porches to which they were psychologically tethered spoke just as courageously when not within earshot of their wives’ yoke. As for me, I didn’t yet see the relevance of my connection to the oldster until we sat side-by-side on a flat precipice overlooking the mighty Hudson. With the river’s vibrations churning beneath us, my consternation became more apparent.

  “Why are you here, Cobbs?” Rip asked me plainly.

  “I’m not sure. Maybe I’ve come to discover the reasons why I’ve failed to secure my wife’s interest in me.”

  “Why do you set such lofty expectations upon yourself?”

  “Shouldn’t every man?”

  A mischievous twinkle flared in the center of Rip’s eyes as he tilted his head up toward the azure sky. It then occurred to me that he wasn’t just a simpleton who slept away the last twenty years of his life.

  “Does your wife see you as a provider?” he asked pointedly.

  “Well, to some degree, I believe she does. Again, I think we’re equally prepared to support one another.”

  “Very well,” Rip huffed, “let semantics conceal the point.”

  “I’m being as clear as possible,” I returned. “My wife and I always worked together to achieve our goals.”

  “It’s more than the physical restrictions of height that disallows men and women to look at one another in the eyes evenly. Between the puffs of his tobacco pipe, Nicholas Veddar once conveyed to me that a man must never use his physical advantages to expose his wife’s frailties. But, as I will heartily vouch, there is no social penalty for a woman’s mistreatment of her husband.”

  “We’re not from the same village,” I said. “In my town, the relations between men and women are much different.”

  “Then your men folk must all have fresh consciences when relaying your shortcomings.”

  “Well, we still don’t like to admit to those,” I conceded.

  “Ay, sir, but be assured that your wife does not resist the instinct to transfer them, if not directly to your face, then to a neighbor across the way.”

  “What are you trying to tell me, Rip?”

  “Just because your wife doesn’t mention her unhappiness to you doesn’t mean that she refrains from telling everyone else.”

  “Well, how do you explain your own situation?”

  “Me? I’m rather fortunate,” he replied with conviction.

  “But your wife belittles you on a daily basis. How does that make you feel lucky?”

  “Since Dame Van Winkle can be nothing but a villainous shrew, I take no blame or responsibility in the formation of her character. Because she’s an eternally disgruntled woman, I don’t burn my lamp oil trying to allay her true nature. So you see, Cobbs, living beside a terrain such as this has its peaks and perks. In fact, had I not experienced random urges to eat and make merry with my neighbors, I might never find cause to abandon this woodland.”

  Despite the undercurrents of selfishness saturating Rip’s tone, his deliverance from society’s expectations was as rejuvenating as the crisp mountain water. After examining my own habits more attentively, I recognized the similarities that brought us together. Rip found his refuge while reclined on a grassy knoll, while my own safe haven existed alongside Lake Endelman’s bucolic backdrop.

  “If given the chance,” I asked, “would you be perfectly content to give up everything and start anew?”

  Rip winced fretfully as if he swallowed a saucer full of moonshine. He then said, “If I wasn’t bound to make the same mi
stakes twice over again I’d probably want another crack at it.”

  “Even if it meant you had to forget all the people currently connected to you?”

  “I’d keep my children as they are, especially my daughter, Judith, and Wolf has always provided me with good company. I might even preserve my acquaintances with Brom Dutcher and the schoolmaster Van Bummel.”

  “And what about your wife—the mother of your children?”

  Rip became silent for a moment as he combed his fingers through the matted clumps in his beard. He then shrugged his shoulders like an insipid child and bowed his chin as if stricken by an epiphany.

  “Does it make me a malicious buzzard if I wished to rid myself of Dame Van Winkle for the rest of my living years?” His eyes then scanned the heavens again, concentrating on the sole eagle in flight. “Some of us fly better in solitude,” he mused. “But as it is in any bird’s nature, it’s much harder to flee a nest when the worms come looking for you.”

  “I don’t believe any man really wants to be alone,” I stated emphatically.

  “Perhaps not, Cobbs, but every man requires a spell of shuteye beneath a shade tree now and then. The fellows in town say the years pass us by too quickly, but I say that they’re all not really worth remembering anyway.”

  Who was I to argue with a man who didn’t yet know how close he was to living his own wish? Had we a flagon to sip from, Rip and I might’ve lolled atop the forest’s interior for the remainder of this fine day, while trading enough yarns to make all the knitters in New York envious of our exchange. It dawned upon me that Rip Van Winkle never pretended to be anything more or less than what he openly revealed to others. Perhaps he was at peace with his reputation as a loafer, and served as a symbol to all the disenchanted dreamers who followed no conventional direction in life.

  Too many of my own years were squandered on someone else’s definition of success. Certainly, I neglected an essential part of my imagination that fueled creativity. I wondered how many of the people I knew had unwittingly permitted twenty years to slip invisibly through their hands. Were they truly content to know that the next day in their lives would’ve likely unwound just as the one before it? How many Rip Van Winkles wandered the boulevards and byways of small towns? I was almost too afraid to deliberate the answer.

  I watched Rip hobble down from the rocks toward his village on this morning to rediscover his past and future, realizing that sometimes the peal of thunder echoing in the distant hills was indeed a game of ninepin. But it was also a sort of remote heartbeat beckoning weary souls to the unmarked trails leading to a second chance at life’s simpler moments.

  Chapter 31

  10:01 A.M.