We'd not long arrived in the state and after several days of rain we awoke to the sort of really thick fog from which patrons of horror films would expect a mummy to suddenly lurch through the French windows, intent on strangling those who desecrated its tomb with its spicy-scented bandages, assuming its parchment-skinned hands were not up to the task.
A quick glance outside revealed that much was concealed by the thick, coiled miasma draping the landscape with swirling wedding veils of white silk. When we went out for our morning walk, we found ourselves in an eerie world, one where sounds were muffled and the light had a strange quality to it. As we ambled along the narrow road up to the ridge overlooking the valley, what little could be seen faded from view as we moved forward in a world of clinging mist. If we glanced back, the tall grass verges and trees marking field boundaries soon disappeared behind a pale wall of vapour, and looking ahead we found ourselves advancing into a curtain of white that seemed to move with us, as if it was subtly shepherding us along the stony road.
We walked onwards and upwards. Numerous spider webs, little parachutes in the wet grass or decorating vines hanging in garlands from telephone lines, were heavy with droplets. Oddly suggestive rustlings came from the undergrowth along both sides of us, where tangles of blackberry bushes grew and rabbits could be counted by the dozen towards sunset most evenings. It was as if something was pacing us. A fox? We'd once seen one cutting through a half-mown field. Perhaps it was a bobcat on its way back to its den, possibly the handsome specimen seen crossing the track up there one time.
We finally reached the crest, where the oil-and-chipped road poises to take a breath before plunging dizzily down towards civilization. In better weather we could have observed six or seven mountains playing footsie with each other on the other side of the valley, but that morning we could hardly see into the nearest field. We stood for a while listening as the clammy quiet thought about departing. Birds began to tune up for their morning concert and somewhere close by a crow with a sore throat started to engage in his usual morning croaking duel with his rival across the way. We looked a little longer into milky nothingness, and then turned back along the foggy way, leaving the hidden heights to honeysuckle and dark aisles of firs and whatever creatures were moving in them. Our little pocket of visibility moved with us. We never reached the barrier of fog hanging across the road ahead, no matter how far we walked towards it.
The philosophical will, no doubt, find this odd effect a perfect metaphor for life.
We get snowed in out here in the countryside, at the end of a steep private
right-of-way beyond which lies the top of another drop and a narrow strip of
decayed macadam that plunges down to the state road through two hairpin
curves. The macadam drive catches the run-off from the mountain. In the
summer it's a creek, in the winter a glacier.
So we stock up in the autumn. A huge harvest of tinned goods. Most
importantly we make sure there's plenty of coffee. By spring we may be very
thin but at least we will be awake.
And, oh yes, cat treats. We mustn't forget those either.
But we can't stock up on mail or even forgo it for months on end. We would
just as soon conduct all our business electronically. Alas, there are those
who will insist on paper checks and contracts and even a few who refuse to
bill except the old-fashioned way. Then there are the junk mailers, the
purveyors of fliers for local stores, who take advantage of the box we
maintain out of necessity. (No, I do not need three tins of vegetables
for the price of two. We still have five dozen in stock.) When we reckon
the box must be stuffed to overflowing I call the taxi service.
Until recently, the last time I took a taxi was my last visit to New York
City more than fifteen years ago. During the years I lived in the city, when
I was going to school, I rarely used taxis. Subway fares matched my
budget better. I did, however, learn how to flag down a ride if I really needed
one.
My single visit to New York since then only lasted a few hours. A magazine
aimed at high school English students for which I'd done some freelance work
sent me to interview Nicole St. John, the author of numerous young adult
books ranging from mystery novels to histories. While Jane Yolen and Jeannie
Moos had been happy to do phone interviews (this being before the age of
email) Ms. St. John stood on her right to be interviewed in person, during
high tea at the Helmsley Palace.
The train pulled into Penn Station late. Taking the subway was out of the
question. I am not normally a very assertive sort of person, but it is
amazing what a whiff of those heady Manhattan exhaust fumes will do. My city
skills momentarily came back to me. I strode out of the station, barged
straight through tourists milling timidly on the sidewalk, stepped into the
street, grabbed the side mirror of the first Yellow Cab I saw, and wrestled
it to the curb.
The cabby obligingly made an illegal U-turn against eight lanes of onrushing
traffic and delivered me to the Palace dining room in plenty of time to
juggle tape recorder, pen, notebook, and cucumber sandwiches. Such small
sandwiches and biscuits for such a large room! The ceiling must have been
three stories high. The place was filled with the sound of unseen violins and
the loud conversation of diners whose clothes were obviously worth more than
my automobile. Should I have worn something other than jeans, running shoes,
and a leather jacket? Ms St. John fit in perfectly, dressed all in black,
including a black hat, black cape, and black cane with a gilded handle. There
was gilt everywhere. On the walls, ceiling and chairs, and the epaulettes of
the waiters who were dressed like the flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz.
I thought about all that as I waited for the taxi down by the road and
watched a big red rooster peck at the frozen gravel a foot from where I
stood.
See you then!
who invite you to visit their home page, hanging out on the virtual washing
line that is the web at http://home.epix.net/~maywrite/ There you'll discover
the usual suspects, including more personal essays, lists of author freebies
and mystery-related newsletters, Doom Cat (an interactive game written by
Eric), a jigsaw featuring the handsome cover of Five For Silver, and our
growing pages of links to free e-texts of classic and Golden Age mysteries,
ghost stories, and tales of the supernatural. There's also an Orphan
Scrivener archive, so don't say you weren't warned! Intrepid subscribers may
also wish to pop over to Eric's blog at http://www.journalscape.com/ericmayer/
ERIC'S BIT or TEA AT THE PALACE
I recently caught a taxi into town in order to empty our Post Office box.
AND FINALLY
In the second scene of Act III of King Lear, Shakespeare had the titular
character declare he did not tax the elements with unkindness. We hope our
subscribers feel the same way about the scribblers of this newsletter when
they are reminded the next Orphan Scrivener will flap into their in-boxes on
April 15th, the very day when American tax returns are due.
Mary R and Eric