500 Acres and No Place to Hide

by Susan McCorkindale

  “Mine are clean!”

  “I’m wearing shorts. See?”

  “Only my stupid sister does that stuff.”

  “Or . . . or maybe you got caught, and your mom pitched a fit and took your iPod. And then you had to ride the bus next to some blabbermouth you couldn’t tune out because you tried to sneak out of the house in stinky jeans.”

  My new friends at Brumfield Elementary School65 dissolve into laughter, and it hits me: This is a great gig. The kids are cute and enthusiastic, and despite the fact that they clearly think I’m crazy,66 they’re also completely captivated. Or at least, they were. I need to quell the cleanversus-dirty debates raging around the room before things get dicey. And that means I need to make my point. Pronto.

  “So, guys. Guys!” I shout. “What’s the moral of the story?”

  “Clean clothes are overrated.”

  “So’s showering!”

  “Just do what I do. Wet your head, and your mom’ll think you’re clean!”

  Great. I haven’t cursed once and the principal’s still going to get complaints.

  “No, sillies. The point is this: Every single day, almost every single moment of the day, something happens in your life that’s worth writing about.” The chatter’s stopped, and they’re looking at me, and their faces say they might actually be weighing what I’m saying. “But the trick is, you have to pay attention. You have to be aware. Don’t just float along and let your life happen to you. Be conscious of the moment. Make note of it. This way, the next time you walk into your classroom and there’s some waaaayy too happy blond woman cheering you on to write about whatever you’d like, you’ll have a whole slew of stuff to pick from”

  Silence, and then a small voice.

  “So, um, are you going to write about us?” It’s my little pal in the pink tee.

  “You bet,” I reply, “soon as it’s just me and my notebook.”

  She tilts her head and gives me a shy smile. “But what are you going to say?”

  “That’s easy,” I begin. “I’m going to say—”

  “That the Ravens suck!”

  “No way. Redskins! That’s what I’m writing about!”

  “I think I’ll write about Aerosmith. Or Nickelback. I’m still deciding.”

  “Nickelback’s so lame!”

  “Maybe I’ll write about my nana’s new horse.”

  “I have my own horse. And my dad says I can show it next spring.”

  “My story’s about my dog. This morning? He brought me my backpack!”

  “Your dog’s so cool. Can I write about him, too?”

  And suddenly it was raining writing prompts. Pencils hit papers and the kids wrote and chatted and laughed and shared and asked a hundred questions, and I hopped from table to table reading their work and offering suggestions and encouragement, and by the time we had to wrap up, a case of Red Bull couldn’t revive this Energizer Bunny.

  Okay, that’s a lie. I was totally high from the whole experience. I loved it. I loved them. I wanted to come back the next day and do it again.

  I jumped in the car and called my mom. “You were right! Once they got started, they were unstoppable!” Then my dad. “I didn’t need a single prompt!” And finally my brother.

  “Hey, ye of little faith,” I said with a smile when he answered the phone. “What’re you doing?”

  He groaned. “I’m suffering through one of my students’ short stories.”

  “Not short enough, huh?” I laughed.

  “It’s called ‘Love in the Time of Facebook.’ ”

  Ouch. I felt the start of a sympathy headache. “True love?”

  “True crap.”

  Forget headache. Migraine was probably more like it. “You need to work with fifth graders.”

  “So that was today, huh?” I heard his pen click and his chair squeak. I could picture him, my enviably thin brother, sitting at his enormous,67 immaculate desk in front of his equally enormous computer monitor. He was smiling and warming up to tease me. I could tell. “Anybody survive my sister, the human Energizer Bunny?”

  “Yup. All of ’em. And not one of my budding authors wrote about Facebook.”

  “They’re probably more into MySpace.”

  “No lie, little brother. They wrote some funny stuff. In

  fact, I think my favorite was a tale of two hobos with a Food Network addiction” I could hear him laughing.

  “I think your favorite was the piece about you.”

  What the . . . ? “How’d you know they wrote about me?”

  “There’s one in every crowd.”

  “You’re just jealous. But okay, her piece was pretty great.”

  “Suz, doesn’t anybody down there know you’re certified to teach kickboxing, not kids?”

  “Shut up. I’m a writer. I’m local. I guess they thought it would be fun to invite me.” I pause. “And besides, that could change.”

  “The whole certification thing?” He was genuinely surprised.

  “Yeah. It’s crazy. All of a sudden, I’m doing all this coaching. Helping with the writing club at Cuy’s school, giving a workshop for a group of teens, and I guess about two weeks ago, one of Brumfield’s gifted and talented teachers asked me to come here. Pretty funny, considering I couldn’t even get into the G and T program when I was in school.”

  “I believe it had something to do with your considerable math skills.”

  “So I couldn’t add. I had no problem putting two words together!”

  “I’m not sure ‘screw you’ and ‘bite me’ were what the G and T folks were looking for.”

  We both laughed. “I guess the point is, I’m enjoying it.”

  “Well, that would make Mom really proud. And Dad, too.” He paused and I stayed mum. Not an easy move for the Energizer Bunny. “Suz? You there?”

  “Mmm-hmm,” I mumbled, as passive-aggressively as possible.

  “What? You’re waiting for me to say I’d be proud, too? You know I would.”

  What to do, what to do? Give in, or make him work for it? “You told me to talk up state schools.” I pout.

  “Great. The bunny’s gone and I’m stuck with Sensitive Suzy.”

  “Say it, and I’ll put the bunny back on.”

  “You know you have to pass a mental competency test to teach, right?”

  “And you know I can still take you, right?”

  “All kidding aside? You’d be great, Suz. You’re a natural.” He paused. “Just do me a favor, okay?”

  “Anything.”

  “Don’t miss your medication.”

  Ah, yes. There’s nothing like the loving support of one’s siblings.

  Chapter Nine

  THE LAND THE TAKEOUT TAXI FORGOT

  When we lived in New Jersey we had a wonderful little service called the Takeout Taxi. With one call I could order a burger with fries from Smith Brothers for Hemingway, penne marinara for me68 from La Piazza, and sweetand-sour chicken for the kids from Ivangie Tea House, and the Takeout Taxi would pick up at all three places and deliver the whole thing lock, stock, and two smoking egg rolls.

  Oh, how I loved the Takeout Taxi.

  My passion for the TOT, which is what we regulars called it, bordered on addiction. I knew its order takers well enough to ask after their families, and its delivery van was in our driveway so frequently my own family came to associate the smell of carbon monoxide with mealtime. 69

  I had the TOT number in my cell and on speed dial in the kitchen. And that’s saying something. Our phone system had just three programmable spots, and the other two were dedicated to my favorite wine store and salon. I would have given up a slot for something responsible, like the kids’ pediatrician, but he did a really bad job on my eyebrows.

  But back to the Takeout Taxi.

  Oh, how I miss the Takeout Taxi!

  Here in the hinterland we have no such animal. We have other animals that we raise, slaughter, and serve, but nothing like the Takeout Taxi. Hell, we don�
�t even have a pizzeria that’ll make the trek to the backcountry.70

  No, here at Nate’s Place I’m expected to cook. And you can expect to need a couple of Tums to chase whatever I make. Sure, I can open a box of macaroni and cheese and serve it with fish sticks, or pour a couple of jars of white clam sauce over linguine. I can even make a pretty good meat loaf (and heat up a ham when one shows up on my doorstep but not, as I’m sure you noticed, the brown-sugar-and-pineapple-juice glaze. Two ingredients, a bowl, and a spoon? Stop. I’m completely confused). But that’s only three dinners. What about the other four nights of the week? Oh, how I hunger for the Takeout Taxi.

  I guess I could crack open a cookbook. I have a collection of beautiful, hardcover tomes on my kitchen counter that’s done almost nothing but collect dust since the day I put it there. I say almost because sometimes I use the smaller ones to kill flies. And the larger ones I press into service as hot plates. Does it count that I use them to support dishes they didn’t help me make? I didn’t think so.

  They’re good cookbooks, too. I’ve got Betty Crocker and The Barefoot Contessa, two of Rachael Ray’s thirty-minute-meal deals, and one about cooking with kids, which always makes me wonder how Case and Cuy would taste (my guess: gritty). I even have The Joy of Cooking and something called All-time Family Favorites You Can Make in Minutes! My only problem with it is that I’m the “you” they’re referring to.

  Maybe I should open one of those books and try something. Not because I expect to discover a meal my family will a) like, or b) not make too much fun of me for attempting. 71 But because maybe I’ll be able to show Hem and my dear friend Jenn, one of these amazing women who bakes, makes her own curtains, and can diagnose and fix the mysterious pinging sound her car’s making without messing a single hair on her gorgeous curly head, once and for all that I can’t cook and therefore I can’t can.

  That’s right. The two of them want me to learn to can tomatoes. Why? Because Hem can’t learn to produce less produce.72 Every year he grows enough to keep every single Italian restaurant and pizzeria, from Hoboken to Sicily, in sauce for six months.

  I believe the conversation—well, part of the conversation, the most important part of the conversation for our purposes at this particular moment—went something like this.

  “Why can’t you just plant enough for the four of us?” I asked as Hem heaved two huge baskets of just-picked beefsteak tomatoes onto the kitchen table.

  “I can’t believe you’re complaining. Look at these! Learn to can and—Catch those, will ya?” Two of the firm, perfectly proportioned, baseball-size orbs tumbled toward me. I caught them, and gave a split-second thought to freezing both. You know, to show the plastic surgeon someday when I’ve saved enough pennies in my “Mommy’s Boob Job” jar.

  “Thanks,” Hem continued. “Like I was saying. Learn to can and we’ll never run out of homegrown tomatoes for tomato sauce.”

  “But you don’t like tomato sauce,” I said, placing both back in the basket. “You don’t eat tomato sauce. You always tell me it bothers your stomach.”

  “Sweet thing,” Jenn cooed, coming in behind Hem and plopping yet another filled-to-the-brim basket of tomatoes on the table. “You can use them for more than tomato sauce. You can use them to make . . .” She paused and thought for a moment. “Salsa! You like salsa, right?”

  “Yes, but he doesn’t like salsa,” I said, nodding my head in Hem’s direction. “And the kids don’t like salsa. And if I’m eating salsa, it means there are Tostitos involved, and if there are Tostitos involved, you can bet there are margaritas involved, and since I only drink margaritas with salt, you can bet, the next day, between the salsa and the chips and the tequila and the salt, I’ll be retaining, like, Lake Superior.”

  Jenn laughed. “Okay. So salsa’s not really an option.”

  I shook my head.

  “Well, you can always can them and then give them to your friends.”

  I flashed on those precious little pink-and-white-gingham-bordered labels that say things like MADE WITH LOVE IN MARY’S KITCHEN and practically started to cry. “I’ve got a better idea. How’s about I give the tomatoes to my friends and they can do the canning themselves?”

  In the end, that’s what I did; I gave the tomatoes to Jenn and she canned them. Only it turns out you don’t use cans for this little endeavor. You use Ball jars, which I heard as bell jars and thought, Oh, my God, isn’t that what Sylvia Plath used? It drove the poor woman to suicide! And you accuse me of exaggerating when I say cooking makes me want to kill myself.

  Right this second I’d really like to stick my head in the oven, but I’d have to share it with the Easy Chicken and Vegetables Pie I just put in. Easy, my ass. The only thing easy about it was reading the directions and selecting a tasty-looking specimen from Hem’s flock of meat birds.73 Where’d I get the recipe? From a cookbook I completely forgot I had, as I was using it as a decorative accessory in the dining room. I’ll have to find something else to act as a doorstop, but I’m not worried.

  My collection of Takeout Taxi menus just might work.

  Chapter Ten

  COCK-A-DOODLE SUE

  I knew this social networking stuff would come back to bite me. Here I sit, doing my best to “friend” and be “friended,” join cool if totally fabricated fan clubs like Capezio Can Keep Its Dancing: We’d Rather Be Drinking, and change my profile picture often enough so that my friends don’t get bored but not so often that I look like I’m fleeing the FBI, and what do I get?

  Outed by Facebook.

  I’d expect such behavior from LinkedIn or Twitter or maybe MySpace. But Facebook? I thought you liked my “Live and Let Drink” philosophy. And you certainly seemed to get a kick out of my “Born to Shop, Forced to Farm” funnies. Hell, you joined my new group, “Wine. It’s What’s for Dinner” in droves.

  Oh, I feel so betrayed!

  If you have any familiarity with Facebook—and, unless you’re still spinning forty-fives, talking on a princess phone, or curling your hair using jumbo-size cans of frozen orange juice, I’m betting you do—you know it’s all about the status update. You log in, write a few pithy, provocative words, hit “share,” and faster than you can say, “Ooh! A sale!” all your friends are treated to the most intimate and, if you’re me, occasionally mortifying details of your day.

  Thanks to the status update, there’s no longer any need to say, “Wish you were here.” Your friends are there. They’re there replying, “STOP!” the second your status changes to “At the salon, thinking ’bout bangs.” They’re egging you on with “do it!” moments after you make the mistake of posting from Nordstrom that you’re “trying to choose between the Choos . . . and the Choos, and wondering if I dare buy . . . both.” And they’re the first to declare you “smooth” when you confess to “rocking the big meeting with my hotshot marketing director stuff that I still so have, right up until the moment I reached into my purse for a pen. And pulled out a tampon.”

  And thanks to the status update, there’s no longer any delay in announcing the results of your most recent research studies. It’s a damn good thing, too. Your friends need to know, and they need to know now, that the new math is as simple as Snow + Escaped Cattle + Monday = Margaritas (frozen, with salt, especially if there’s no school and you don’t care if your wedding rings or your fat jeans fit till the fall equinox), and that after several weeks of testing and three trips to the ER for X-rays, you’ve proved your hypothesis that aerobics and merlot don’t mix. Though the high heels certainly didn’t help.

  In any case, it seems my status updates of late have gotten lots of attention. Not for their wit or descriptions of life here on the funny farm, or even because the Master Defecator continues to be my muse: “Awakened to the sound of Tug tinkling by the bed. Just what I always wanted: an indoor pool,” and, “This morning’s gift? Dog barf on the rug. My throat’s sore from screaming, but my feet have never felt so soft.”

  Nope. My short blurbs about whateve
r I’m thinking, doing, discovering, or dying from have been singled out for something I had no idea anyone would notice.

  The time they’re posted.

  What? Four in the morning’s not normal?

  In the last three days alone I’ve gotten at least a dozen comments and notes on my “wall” asking why I get up so early, what do I do “in the dark,” and the big question, what time do I pass out at night? The answer: nine o’clock if there’s no wine involved; eight o’clock if I’ve had a glass with dinner. Yes, it’s been a long, long time since I’ve made it much past the seven-o’clock Seinfeld rerun. And no, Hemingway doesn’t find it funny.

  I have to tell you, the “what do I do ‘in the dark’” question really cracked me up. For starters, I turn on a light. The last time I brewed coffee in the pitch-black, I made it with milk replacer. As I believe I’ve mentioned, it’s like baby formula for cows.74 Great if you like a cuppa joe that gets your gag reflex going. Since I don’t, I opt for a little illumination.

  My predisposition toward rising with the roosters set in sometime in middle school. I don’t know who I pissed off during puberty to be saddled with the same internal alarm clock as livestock, but Saint Peter and I are having a big old “come to Jesus” meeting when I get to the pearly gates. And I do hope Jesus will join us. It’s high time somebody called Him on the carpet for the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and the ankle-socks-with-clogs craze of 1976.

  Thirty-something years later, my morning routine remains much the same as when I had big hair and a mouthful of braces. I get up, brush my teeth, and slip on my exercise stuff. I make coffee—minus the milk replacer—guzzle it down, and force myself to go to my computer.75 There, I work out my angst. What angst, you ask? The ceaseless, unyielding, twenty-four/seven, three-hundred-and-sixty-five-days-a-year fear that I’ll never be funny again. That the last humorous bit, piece, or post I wrote will be the Last I Ever Write.