JJ

Finally, Again

/ David Ferland / 5 Comments

JJ Triangle

Waiting for JJ at the Dollop Café. Lila, his girlfriend, and Carl, his best friend, are catching up. JJ is the only shared area in their friendship Venn. Meaning they only hang out when Lila and JJ are together. Except for that one time, of course.

Lila asked, “Still baking the bagels?”

“Yup,” Carl said. “Someone has to do it. They sell them here, in fact.”

“Oh yeah? Doing any writing?”

“Working on the novel.”

“Who isn’t?”

“I don’t know. Most people just blog. They blog about not writing their novel. And the pain of not writing their novel. And they don’t have time to write their novel.”

“You don’t have a blog?”

“I used to,” Carl said. “It was called BageLit. It was about bagels and literature.”

“Ummm.”

“I would start by describing a type of bagel, ingredients, and the finished product. Then compare it to a piece of literature. Usually a poem.”

“Such as?”

“Birches, by Robert Frost. That’s like a cinnamon raisin bagel toasted with butter. Comforting and nostalgic. Simple. Evocative of the way things ought to be. A reset after a tough spell.”

Lila looked at him, this rough-around-the-edges-bagel-baking-freak. “You always did march to your own drummer.”

“What are the options? The prevailing beat sucks.”

The waitress brought them that good Dollop Café dark roast and they fixed their coffee in silence.

Lila asked, “Did you ever tell him about that one time?”

“Did you?”

“No, it would just thicken the plot. He doesn’t need that.”

“No one needs that.”

“How do you think he’s doing?”

“Obviously better not drinking,” Carl said. “But…”

“But what?”

“He’s somehow more and less at the same time.”

Lila sighed. “I think I know what you mean.”

“I mean, it’s good, right. But something…creepy maybe? About him sober.”

“Shh, here he comes.”

JJ was coming toward them, moving through the tables, a man feeling good, in the flow. He reached the table and smiled down upon them.

“Worlds collide,” JJ said. “Finally.”

“Finally again,” said Carl.

“Yeah,” JJ said. “Finally again. But it’s different now.”

“That’s for sure,” said Lila.

“This is what’s important,” JJ said and took the seat next to Lila. “This is what I’m grateful for.”

JJ read the menu while Carl and Lila shared a look. “More and less at the same time,” their glance confirmed.  “Exactly.”

The waitress came back. “I think I’ll have a cinnamon raisin bagel,” JJ said and put the menu back in the stand. “Toasted with butter.”

White-tailed Deer

/ David Ferland / 2 Comments

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            It wasn’t the uphill, it was the downhill that was difficult on the icy parts of the trail. Gravity doesn’t help in these situations. JJ hiked carefully down the steep section between Sheep Mountain and the little valley below the ridge. An ashen gray sky, very close to the ground, and a couple inches of hard icy snow crunching underfoot. Seventeen degrees and the dead of winter.

JJ stopped and it was suddenly quiet without the crunching of his boots. There was a distant hum from the interstate on the far side of the mountain and then he heard, as if an echo of his own movement, crunching footsteps coming up from the valley below. A shape moving through the trees below, coming straight up the trail. JJ waited for him.

The man was intent on his climbing, trudging sure-footed at a good clip, and he only noticed JJ when about ten feet away. The man stopped, unsurprised. “White-tailed deer,” he said, gasping a little.

“What?”

“White-tailed deer. Back that way,” he said and pointed back down the trail. He was catching his breath. “Three of them. Ran up the rocks like it was nothing.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. And did you notice the winter trees. The bare branches reach for the sky like capillaries. Or blood vessels.   Without the leaves I mean. The silhouettes of the branches reach into the sky, yearning. And they get nothing. Not this time of year.”

“I do get the capillary thing. Not the yearning, though. They’re kind of beautiful.”

“Yeah. Kind of like a lot of these people everywhere, reaching for something that can’t be had. Reaching for the sky, but stuck in the ground. Beautiful but doomed to be stuck.”

“Isn’t that human nature?”

“It’s just nature. Some people are birds, soaring. Or song birds, perky and social. Some are burrowers, like possums, nocturnal. Many people are trees, rooted and stuck in place.”

“What are you?”

The man took off his hat and looked up at the sky. Mucus was frozen in his moustache and his sweaty head steamed in the cold. “I haven’t figured that out yet. Maybe I’ll never know.” He put his hat back on. “Which are you?”

JJ thought of Lila and not drinking anymore and the money he won. “I think I was a dying tree that’s turning into something else.”

“Yeah. Sometimes there’s magic at work. Alchemy.” He looked hard at JJ. “I’ve had a lot of time alone.”

“Ok.”

“Take care,” he said and continued trudging up the path. JJ noticed the spikes attached to the bottom of his boots, gripping the ice, giving traction.

“I want more traction,” JJ said to himself. “I’m no bird. But, I don’t want to be a tree stuck and reaching to an uncaring sky.” He thought of the white-tailed deer, bounding effortlessly up the hill. He had seen them up here as well, usually in the morning or near sunset. They were silent and watchful, ready to move, graceful, and always in a small group.

“I’m definitely a land animal,” he thought. He started back down the trail, careful of the icy spots, picking his way gingerly. “I’m no deer, though. That’s for sure.”

Honor Your Inner Stalin

/ David Ferland / 2 Comments

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New Year’s Eve day, pale sunshine and no snow. So, JJ and Carl hiked from the farmhouse to the top of the mountain.

“In 2015, I plan to honor my inner Stalin,” Carl said.

“That’s your resolution?”

“Yeah. I plan to honor all of me, the light and the dark.”

“Will that make you a better person?”

“I think so,” Carl said. “It will make me a more complete person. I think we repress the dark stuff and that’s where we get into trouble. It’s still in there and needs to be recognized.”

“But what about the genocide? And the Cold War paranoia?”

“Don’t you sometimes wish you had the power to wipe out certain people? Or populations? Aren’t you paranoid and suspicious?”

“All the time.”

“Well, there you go.”

JJ looked out over the town. They sat on a cliff above the valley and no leaves on the trees meant big views all around. Too many people and houses down there, even in this smallish city. Too many people burning fuels, making trash, fucking up the planet. Many just worthless parasites, taking up space.

“But,” JJ said. “You can’t just declare yourself and start the process. You need a plan.”

“I’m talking about my inner Stalin. The psychopath inside. I’m not going to hurt anybody. On purpose.”

“What the hell have you been reading?”

“Emerson. His big thing is that there’s Jesus in all of us. There’s Socrates in all of us. There’s a poet in all of us.”

“So, there’s a dictator in all of us, too.”

“Exactly.”

Some images of Stalin came into JJ’s mind. Uncle Joe at Yalta, sitting smug with a regal FDR and a fading Churchill. Military Stalin, pockmarked with that moustache, iron-willed and cruel, watching the tanks parade in Red Square. Hitler, with his fussiness and silly moustache seemed like a jester in comparison.

JJ said, “My resolution is to not live in comparison.”

“In comparison to what?”

“Other people. I’m sick of giving a shit what other people think.”

Silence, except for the distant and constant hum of cars on streets, cars on highways, and a few stray horns. “I didn’t think that was a problem for you,” Carl said. “You’re one of the oddest people I know.”

“There’s things I want to do. But I always talk myself out of them.”

“Such as?”

JJ looked out over the town and thought of taking a stand about something. A nameless dread about the Other was always with him and something or someone out there was to blame. Rich people? Religious fanatics? Patriots fans?

“Maybe I’ll start a Gulag,” JJ said.

“There you go. With my inner Stalin and your lottery money, we can make some changes around here.”

“Then you can have me shot after it’s up and running.”

“I’m way ahead of you, man.”
“Happy New Year, asshole.”

“Same to you,” said Carl. “And many more.”

 

 

Lila and JJ in the Fall, Part 2: A Close Call

/ David Ferland / 1 Comment

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Except for an increasing rain, the omens seemed to stay at bay. They ran, holding hands and laughing, from the car to the porch and entered the house.

“This is awkward,” JJ said.

“Just kiss me,” Lila said. So they kissed right there in the kitchen. So far, so good. They parted, hands held between their bodies.

“Come upstairs with me,” he said.

“Let me go to the bathroom first.” She pulled away and turned with a sassy skip, looking back at him over her shoulder as she walked down the hall.

When the bathroom door closed, JJ turned to lock the outside door and something caught his eye in the sloping field. There was a group of wild turkeys in the grass. A gaggle? A flock? They were strutting and pecking their way across the field, taking their time. This farm with no crops and no animals. It’s a farm of the world, JJ thought. It’s just here and the turkeys are here and this is the way it’s supposed to be. “And I’m here with Lila,” he thought. “Finally. And it’s all ok.”

To the right he heard, then saw, a car coming up the road. It slowed and turned into his driveway. A black BMW, like an adder entering a henhouse. Alarmed squawking in JJ’s brain.

“No. No. No.” He didn’t recognize the car but he knew who it was. “No,” he said again as he watched Betty, his sister, emerge from the driver’s seat. She deployed an umbrella and peered around at the barn, field, and house. An intruder in nature. The land itself seemed to grow still, aware of this foreigner, knowing that people from Away never brought glad tidings. Betty started walking toward the porch.

The sound had all sucked up into JJ’s head and he was frozen by her approach. A sense of being the prey shuddered his body back into movement. She hadn’t yet seen him yet. His hand was still on the lock bolt and he turned it, the click breaking the spell. He moved quickly away, down the hall, crouching, and pushed his way through the bathroom door.

Lila was rising from the toilet, pulling up her jeans. “JJ, what the…”

“Shhhh. She’s here!”

“Who?”

“Betty.” JJ jostled past to the little window and pulled the curtains together tight. The bathroom was only a WC, just a toilet and a sink. He shifted back to the bathroom door and latched the hook into the eyelet.

“JJ, really.”

“She’s here to ruin my life.”

Then came the knocking, four hard raps. He could picture her there, all consternation and intent. He quieted his breathing and waited.

“JJ,” Lila whispered.

“Shhh.”

Then, his sister’s voice, muffled but too close. “Jason!” For a moment he thought she was already in the house but, no. His mind was messing with him. They stayed quiet, waiting it out. JJ’s phone vibrated in his pocket. Caller id: “Betty (Satan)”. He refused the call. Four more hard raps on the door, a turning and shaking of the doorknob, (“Thank God I locked it”).  Silence for a moment, then steps retreating, car door chunking shut, the engine, tires on gravel, and an acceleration down the hill.

He realized he was clutching Lila’s hand. He was clutching her whole arm.

“Kiss me again,” Lila whispered. “She’s gone.”

“But she’ll be back,” he said. He looked at Lila’s wry smile, the twinkle in her eye, and realized she was amused, enjoying this. Then he kissed her, cowering in the little downstairs bathroom of the farmhouse he bought with his lottery winnings. He felt they were in a sanctuary, spared and chosen, the overlooked survivors of some freak disaster. A close call and very exciting

He pulled her closer and let his hands roam down to her waist and hips.  Her noticed her jeans were still unbuttoned from when he barged into the bathroom. He never wanted her more.

But a voice, insistent, in his head. “She’ll be back,” it said.

“Oh shut up,” he said out loud.

“What?”

“Come on,” he said and led her into the hallway and up the stairs.

Lila and JJ in the Fall with Apples

/ David Ferland / 3 Comments

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The orchard on Columbus Day, teeming with families. A school holiday. Cider and pie and apples. There was a bluegrass trio sawing away and some hippyish kids, unkempt and happy, watched over by their smug parents, dancing their little pagan dances. JJ and Lila, childless and unmarried, neither here nor there, wandered through with cups of strong coffee in paper cups. A grayish day but not too cold. Leaves, yellow, orange, and red, bright against the overcast sky, grass still green and the smell of fall everywhere. A good rich soulful smell, evocative of time passing, making up for the odor-free death-zone of winter to come. JJ’s favorite time of year.

JJ asked, “Ever think of having kids?”

Lila looked at him. “Sometimes I think it would be nice to already have them. But it takes two to tango.”

“Yeah. You’re talking about sex.”

“Do you want to talk about sex?”

JJ was thinking about sex, that’s for sure. As they walked through the orchard, he stole glances at Lila and tried to put out a certain vibe. Hungry, but not desperate. He tried to send out smoke signals, instead of flaming arrows meant to pierce a covered wagon of pioneers.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.

His heart did a leap and a twist. In all their on and off years, he had never wanted her more. They had come close almost a year ago. But a deer got impaled on an iron fence and that killed the moment.

“We came close last year,” he said.

“That’s what worries me. Some force is against us. Every time we try…”

“The deer was a freak thing.”

“Yeah, well, what about the other times? The fire in the old school bus? Or that hobo and the heart attack?”

“That wasn’t a hobo. That was Brad. And he survived.”

They both watched a tall man, dressed for an outing from an LL Bean catalog, devour an entire apple, core and all, in four bites. Then he did it again, with gusto, while watching his gypsy children dance to the fiddle.

Lila asked, “What do you think about people who eat the whole apple, core and all?”

“I think it’s arrogant. I think such people are unreliable.”

“You don’t think it shows a certain hunger, a devil-may-care attitude, taking life by the horns?”

“Apple eating is not bungee jumping. Show some fucking respect.”

Lila turned to him. “Do you have a certain hunger? Right now?”

He almost fainted. Mouth dry, he croaked out, “Yes. I have a certain hunger.”

“Then let me buy you an apple,” she said and turned away with a flash of hair, walking toward the stand. She looked back over her shoulder and beckoned with her eyes and he realized he was frozen on the spot, gawking at her jeans with those hips up in there. “Come on.”

They went to the bins of apples. Cortlands, empires, macs, and macouns. Lila picked out a large macoun and showed JJ. “How’s this one?”

She could’ve held up an apple the size of a radish and he would have said it was a good one. Lila picked another and went to pay. He stood and watched, entranced, holding back the worry, trying to outrun the tacklers of fate with a stiff-arm out behind. Things were headed in the right direction. He felt good in the world, more comfortable in his skin. There wasn’t the old morbid desperation to sabotage, to tear it all down. They were in the red zone, a touchdown within reach. He just had to cross the goal line.

Lila was back next to him. “Let’s get out of here,” she said. “Take me to your farm.”

No settling for a field goal this time. Four down territory. They had moved down the field with precision and flare. Fate was tired, hands on hips, gasping for air. What could possibly go wrong?