A Fool's Gambit

I was visiting my friend in Tampa the other weekend, and I was sitting out on his front porch at 1 am, alternately reading Don Quixote and looking at the stars, when the man living across the street opened his front door, stepped onto his porch and said, in a firm, matter-of-fact voice, "My name is Henry Stephen Cotter, and I am the antichrist." He then went back inside and closed his door.

My friend is looking to move.

I've been visiting my parents in Northwest Washington this past week. I got my first filling ever today. I met my 16 year old niece for the first time. I bicycled around on the San Juan Islands. The blackberry bushes are in bloom, emitting a fragrance, sweet and earthy, that reminds me where home is, no matter where I travel. I've spent time with old friends, rediscovered a place where people, if not are, then at least try to be what I imagine humankind is capable of being.

What follows happened two hours ago. It may ruin the suspense, but I'll let you in on a secret. I'm still alive.

I had parked near the river, in order to take a walk down to its edge. The sun had set nearly an hour before, but in late June, there is still light on the horizon until after eleven at night this far north. I sat in the car listening to the last few minutes of a piece on NPR about the music of the spheres, as arranged by a geology professor from a local college. A car pulled up next to me by the levee. The man driving it got out, went to his trunk, and fished around for a few seconds where I couldn't see him. He closed the trunk while putting something in the pocket of his coat, which had elastic at the sleeves and bottom, and was in a color of green which fashion had left behind twenty years ago. In the twilight, I couldn't make out the man's appearance, but I imagined he looked like Joe Lo Truglio. He got back in the front seat of his car. As the piece I was listening to ended on the radio, he got out and walked to the top of the levee. I was hoping to explore the stretch of river alone, but undaunted, I headed up the levee and gave him a howyadoin as I walked by, heading upriver. He walked behind me, in the same direction, but slower than me.

This place along the river has a small and rather open wood between the levee and the river bank, but a few hundred feet further upriver, it becomes an grassy field. I walked to the center of field and cut across the the river, trying to enjoy the twilight, but distracted by the man, who followed me to the point where I stopped, walked a few feet past me, and stopped. I began to wonder what he had gotten from the trunk of his car. I became a little nervous. Four thoughts on this man's intentions came to me. They are, in the order of likelihood I assigned them at the time:

Option 1: He's looking for sex. Perhaps I've stumbled upon the local equivalent of the storied 'rest stop' where gay people go to hook up for one night stands.

Option 2: He's a serial killer. He's pondering whether I would make a good victim, and if the setting is right for him to get away.

Option 3: Option 1 and Option 2 combined.

Option 4: He's just a lonely guy without a good grasp of social ettiquette.

I walked a few feet downriver, towards the woods. He followed behind. I stopped after about ten yards to contemplate a passage through the blackberry bushes to the water's edge. He continued past me, then stopped a few yards away. Option 4 began to fade from my mind. I forgot to keep my heart beating, just for a second. I walked upriver, away from him a couple dozen yards, and stopped. He walked towards me, and passed me again. I waited a minute or two, in case this show of bravery in the face of his obvious intentions to cause me bodily harm would lead him to believe I was a poor choice of target. He did not move. Either he was undeterred, or he took this as a sign that I was contemplating Option 1. I walked moderately briskly to the woods, looking back once. He was following me. Around a bend in the dirt path, I spotted the smallest break in the bushes by the river, and ducked in quietly, opting for a compromise between all out flight, which my primitive brain urged on me, and staying to enjoy the beautiful evening, which my logical brain tried to convince me was safe. I moved almost silently along a winding, overgrown path, stooping to avoid rustling the branches, which were at chest level. I accidentally cracked a few small twigs just before reaching the edge of the river. I crouched down low and hoped he hadn't heard that.

I looked out over the river and tried to enjoy the lights of the town in the fading twilight. The spot was only a couple of feet wide, and hugged the edge, barely giving me room to crouch on the damp sand bank. Meanwhile, my ears were pricked up by every small sound. Was that a bird on a branch, or is he coming down the path? Was that the rustle of wind in the leaves, or nylon on nylon? I watched the water swirl by, and contemplated how far I would have to swim in the river, the freezing cold runoff from glacial melt, before I could fetch up at some safe place and make for safety. I hoped that Option 1 was right, but had to admit that Option 2 was almost a foregone conclusion at this point. Just sodomy, I said to myself. Please, just sodomy.

My heartbeat was too loud. Why was it so loud? What kind of evolutionary imperative would ruin a perfectly good sense just when I needed it most? I breathed deeply and quietly to calm myself. Then I heard the crack of twigs, and turned around to see him moving through the brush, fumbling his way in the falling darkness toward my spot on the bank.

He stopped next to me, standing. My heart stopped. He was two feet away. "Pretty spot," he said.

"Sure is." I looked out at the city lights a half a mile off. I could make it. I would have to swim quietly so he couldn't track me easily. I stuggled to breathe in a way that would come off as normal to him. That way, I reasoned, if he thinks I'm off guard and tries something, it will be a surprise to him that I'm ready for it.

"Do you come here often?"

"I haven't been here in at least ten years." Good answer. That way, he'll know I didn't intend to walk into the woods looking for a sexual encounter. I kept my eyes on the river, convinced that if I turned my head, I would be looking at a gun, a knife, or a penis. The far bank was prettier than any of those.

I crouched, and he stood, both in silence. A minute later, I hazarded a glance behind me. He was standing there with his hands in his pants pockets. His zipper was up. For the moment. Another minute of silence.

"So, you just want to enjoy this spot alone, or..."

"Pretty much." I replied.

"Sure." He said, and walked slowly back out of the bushes.

My heart beat. I breathed deeply, but still as quietly as I could. Five minutes later, I crept out of the bushes on my hands and the balls of my feet, avoiding the offending twigs. I found a smaller overgrown path in the bushes, and followed it so that I could come out at a different point than he might be expecting, if he was still waiting for me. I found a small area with a blanket that hadn't been used in months, an old coat, a greeting card with an angel on the cover, and a few pieces of mail, in their opened envelopes tucked away under a log. I wondered if this was where he lived, or if this was where he took care of all his victims. Or maybe he knew nothing about this little transient camp. I could see that someone had written a note in the greeting card, but it was too dark to read it by now. I moved on over a pair of men's underwear turned tan with grime. At the edge of the bushes, I waited for a few minutes, my eyes searching in the darkness for the silhouette of a man, my ears straining over the babbling of the river for footsteps. Finally, I walked quickly along the trail up to the levee, doing a complete turn every few seconds to make sure he wouldn't get the jump on me. When I came over the top of the levee, his car was gone.

So, I just finished reading The Grapes of Wrath (hereafter TGoW) by Steinbeck, and I was struck with the possibility that the writers of Little Miss Sunshine (hereafter LMS) might have had that classic work in mind when they wrote the script for the movie. In support I offer the following coinciding plot points and themes:

1. In the beginning of each, one member of the family comes back from being locked up - Frank (played by Steve Carrell) in LMS, and Tom in TGoW. Of course, Frank is returning from an asylum after trying to kill himself, drunk with emotion; Tom is returning from prison after killing a man in a bar fight, drunk with liquor. Different but same.

2. Both families take a voyage in a rickety old vehicle to California in search of a dream. The vehicle breaks down along the way, and a poor financial situation demands they deal with the inconveniences and do the cheap fix. Same but same.

3. The men in TGoW believe they'll get good jobs and make good money. Richard (Greg Kinnear) in LMS hopes to sell his self-help book and fall into good money. Close enough.

4. Along the way, Grampa dies. Same.

5. With a corpse in the car, they're stopped by the police, who want to inspect the vehicle. In LMS, it's Grampa's body, they're stopped by a cop car, and get out of it because he doesn't notice the body because of some porno mags. In TGoW, it's Grandma's body, they're stopped at the agriculture inspection point, and they get out by playing that she's just sick. Too close to call.

6. They are both confronted with too high of an expense to bury a body. In LMS, they just steal off with the corpse. In TGoW, they bury Grampa illegally, and have to have Grandma buried as a pauper. Different but same.

Additionally, there's some fundamental similarity between the way that Olive's routine in the LMS pageant shows off the ridiculous inhumanity of the whole proceeding, and how Steinbeck's telling of the migrants' story demonstrates the inhumanity of that era in California. But maybe I'm grasping at straws there.

And, to top it off, the family in LMS is surnamed Hoover - as in President Hoover, as in Hooverville.

This whole analysis has been either aided or hindered by the fact that I only saw Little Miss Sunshine once, and it was quite a while ago. So maybe I've got some stuff a little wrong, or I missed some stuff that would have fit nicely.

Let me know.

Hey all. I'm in Key West. I'm officially living on my Cape Dory 27. While I'm selling it. I'm buying a Cape Dory 33. Much better. In the meantime, I'm enjoying being jobless and sleeping on the boat, getting her all prettied up for whoever her new owner will be. Could it be you? Who knows? Maybe!

Anyway, internet access is a hassle, so we'll see how often I keep this updated. I'll see about pictures and stories of being here in Key West, FL, around 24º33'N 81º44'W. Or thereabouts. I haven't turned on the GPS yet to get an exact location.

Okey-dokey.

So, last Wednesday I got Lasik. Now, I can see. That's pretty cool. The healing process is a little drawn out. I'll be putting drops in my eyes for months. But it's really nice to be able to see things without glasses or contacts to worry about. My primary concern was losing my glasses overboard. Now I don't have to worry about that. So that's one less thing.