Hoj Notes

Unfamiliar birds have moved in to my backyard space. They are sleek and gray and remind me of cowbirds, medium size, bullet shape, menacing manner. They scoot aggressively along branches of the magnolia, along the wood fence-top and sneak into the cypress where they lie in wait. They may have a nest. Their song alternates between an original one-note scree repeated in couplets, and an unoriginal, multi-note discord of some merit but for the theft. It just sounds stolen. Their gray head, wings, and tail absorb more light than their breast. It’s this dual tone that reminds me of the cowbird – its brown body and bottle-fly blue head. They bully sparrows from the urn-shaped water feature, made of polyurethane, same gray color as the interloping birds. The fountain is less than what it seems. It has a stout, heavy appearance, stacks of rectangular mini-blocks, but it’s just a thin molded polyurethane shell, two pieces that screw together about a third of the way from the top. The fountain is so light, one would think a light gust capable of knocking it over, but it is surprisingly stable, anchored by a water supply tube running up its hollow middle, the spout fitting snugly at the top where water burbles up before spreading over the lip in meandering trickles, slow in streams here and there for algae to collect on the scalloped rectangles. The fountain reveals itself level when water cascades the whole body, like showering beneath an overhead spigot. Un-level, the algae collects where water moves slowest. The slime clings to the shell scallops and below on the smooth river rock at the fountain base. Close inspection reveals tiny arcs, like a bacterial colony seen under microscope. It looks like a birthing zone for the nematodes that the birds pick from the top of the fountain. Every June I take a brush to the slick urn and slimy rock and hold my breath. The bristles flick dirty water across my arms and legs. The smell of decay suggests my contamination by gassy microbe.

Beyond the fence where the gray birds track, a view of my neighbor’s two-car garage, dented in a lower right corner. Kyle drives a Subaru with a bumper sticker that reads, I knit so I don’t kill people. The left bay, Tony’s, is full of furniture and boxes. Like Cheryl and I, it’s just Tony and Kyle and their dog, Molly. Our paths cross walking our dogs. Cheryl noticed a change in Kyle, maybe six weeks ago. Cheryl said, “Her hair was razor-sharp. Lipstick. She may have had work done. She looked good.” Eighteen years in the neighborhood, I’ve never seen the two, Tony and Kyle, walk with one another. They take turns with the dog. More recently, say four weeks ago, Cheryl and I chatted up Tony. Tony’s weekend dog-walking shirts are flamboyant prints and color. This day, his shirt was splashed with bright reds and oranges in between black disc records. He asked about my summer, “I wish I could retire,” he said, “but they won’t let me.” Cheryl asked, “So what do you do in Las Vegas?” Cheryl knew Tony spoke at conferences. Tony said, “I’m in reverse-logistics. Returns. It wasn’t a thing twenty years ago. Now it is. I’m saving the big retailers money. And I’m saving landfills.” A week ago, Tony stopped Cheryl and I to tell us he and Kyle have divorced. “The paperwork just finalized. It was amicable,” he said, seeming resigned. Definitely sad but reining it in. “Kyle is moving back to Michigan. I can’t afford it here, so I’m moving back to Michigan too. If you know anyone looking, let us know. We’ll put a sign out front in July. I’ll let Kyle know I talked to you.” He said he’s not worried about his son, a long-haul trucker who lives out of his cab. “He was lucky, he got his job during COVID. He loves it.” Eighteen years ago, when we moved in, Tony and Kyle were already here. The dog they had before Molly growled if you got close. Molly is an improvement but can be temperamental too. The other day we nudged noses. I am one of those annoying people who thinks of themselves as dog whisperer. But I don’t brag. On two occasions, Molly hurdled a low spot in the fence of the neighborhood dog park, a feat you’d find hard to imagine if you saw Tony or Kyle snail-pacing Molly on their ten minute walks. Molly escaped and would not return. I was present for one escape and tried to help corral her. I had high hopes that she’d respond to me and return. Beyond the dog park fence is a retention pond that is bordered by thick, thorny vegetation that runs parallel to power lines. Molly roamed for over an hour, resisting capture amidst the tangle of brush and mucky pond. I scraped through thorns, thin lines of blood on my arms and legs. The nearest I could get was twenty feet. The dog seemed to find game trails and scoot along, enjoying the chase. She wasn’t a runner so much as a roamer, wanderer of the wood, following her nose, enjoying freedom. When she finally emerged on her own timeline, her legs and lower belly were evenly coated in mud. Tony said “Kyle will be so mad.” Molly’s coat is black and white, like a Holstein cow. Half-dipped in mud, she looked like a genetically engineered tri-tone creature. I thought I detected a skip in her gait. The fence has since been repaired, its height raised, no danger of Molly hurdling. On a number of occasions, I’ve heard Tony tell neighbors that since the fence is fixed, he might return with Molly. Kyle had once asked Cheryl, catching Cheryl in her Doobie Brothers t-shirt, “You like doobies?” Kyle and Tony displayed their front porch Halloween decor – two skeletons posed in rocking chairs – out for Thanksgiving and Christmas too, rotating the orange and green gourds the skeletons held in their laps out for red and green boxed gifts. I wonder who will move in next.

I don’t know why I remember the referee dressing me down. The play had been whistled dead. We stood under bright lights, a fall Friday night, the sky clear and black. Northeast Ohio, the air was cool, the grass real, hallowed ground beneath my cleats. Green earthy smears at hip and knee. Middle fingers taped to protect the ring finger, swollen, bruised and useless, jammed on a thrown football, an opponent’s helmet. My helmet was black, glossed from furniture polish and yellow merit stars, longish hair poking out the bottom. The band played with enthusiasm, my parents sat somewhere amid the bustling crowd, cheerleaders jumped and cajoled. My little brother, sophomore, stood on the sideline. My sister, likely beneath the grandstand with the other middle schoolers, would stand on the same ground in four year, homecoming queen. A concession stand sold popcorn and hotdogs in view from the field just beyond the far end zone beneath the scoreboard. The referee pulled his whistle from his mouth and stared through my facemask. I had played Little League baseball with his son seven years earlier. His son, also a football player, had graduated from my high school two years prior. The ref also had a daughter, a year or two older than his son. She’d babysat me and my brother and sister. She was pretty and wore a hairstyle similar to my mom’s, a short bob. We attended the same church. I knew where they lived, directly across the school where I attended kindergarten. Their garage door had a distinct star graphic, with one tail of the star elongated, evoking the star of Bethlehem if the star were to lie on its side. I remember the ref’s black ball cap, striped shirt, the look on his face. I stood in the uniform of the warrior, shoulder pads, wrist bands, socks pulled high. I spoke the language of the battle field. I may have been complaining about a call, “Jesus-effing-Christ, throw the flag!” Or maybe encouraging a teammate, “Nice effing hit!” Looking straight through my facemask, our family friend, community member, role model, Christian, lowered his whistle and said, “Watch your language.”

I stood amid heaping mounds of almond mix when, straight for me, lumbered a supersize male.  The bear appeared from deep forest like magic.  His beady eyes and loping nonchalance evoked equal measures grace and menace.  I was consumed, focused on focusing, that tiny green circle in my viewfinder aglow — my cue — shoot, shoot, shoot.  My best wildlife photo ever came years before, a moose sow and calf, in curious pose, tracked on a hike with my wife in Yellowstone.  The moose stood near a tree, the calf behind the sow, their heads turned my way. I caught and rendered the bark of the tree in the crispest of detail; the wary, intense moose staring me down, not so much. Photo op of a lifetime: blurry. This time would be different.

Cheryl was thirteen hundred miles away, likely nestled in bed, and yet, just like in Yellowstone, loud and insistent in my ear.

“Get back.  You’re too close.”

Bear of all size, snout, and hue grazed the Vince Shute Wildlife Sanctuary, three acres of trampled grass and odd boulder within the northern Minnesota boreal.  The bear count rose to well over a dozen at feeding — a honey-nut agglomerate lugged in orange, five-gallon pails by ecology grad students and troweled onto plywood platforms, rock slabs, and perch-worthy boulders — and fell to zero as the dew vanished, the feed consumed.  By mid-day, every last bear had receded back into the cool sleeve of the forest. 

“Did you not hear me?  I said you’re too close.”

His big head swayed, rotund body, side-lit needles of fur, prodigious paws padding across trampled grass, a sashay like some plus-size runway model.  An intimate moment through the lens. Mesmerizing. 

I snapped away, thinking, these could be good.  I lowered my camera.  Our shared path felt like bear path. Five bear-length rugs between us.  Time to move.  Time to move bear, what I’d actually thought.

Like a heron I stood, if herons waited on gator.  Eight workshop peers were oblivious, enthralled by their own bear folly. Our instructor preoccupied, taking his own pictures while alert to unattended backpacks subject to ursine larceny. A raised viewing platform ten feet above was closed to the general public.  Student interns strayed the grounds upending feed buckets, scooping up scat.

The space between us buzzed with dragonflies and charged air.  The gap closed — three bear-length rugs.  The forest collapsed.  A spark of panic.  A voice.

Run.

My body talking.

“Whatever you do, do not run,” Ernie had said.  The prior evening at the mandatory safety meeting, Ernie, our tall, volunteer workshop leader, straight from the West Virginia holler, was leaning on a t-shirt rack inside the Vince Shute Gift Shop.  Nine of us sat on metal folding chairs under fluorescent lights near a cash register.  In our laps rested clipboards and insurance waivers.  A cub plush toy in hand, Ernie said, “You run, it thinks play.  Black bear are curious, not aggressive.”  Ernie’s accent was lilting, his tone firm.  He had a way of making the obvious sound profound.  “Trust me,” squeezing the plush toy, as if revealing his fastball grip, “you do not want to play with a four hundred pound bear.”  I may have snorted. He tossed the toy at me as I was signing my waiver, bouncing it off my head.  Ernie cared about our safety, of course, but his alliance was clear — don’t be the fool.

Attacks were rare, I knew from research.  Not just research specific to this trip, but over the years, reading books, watching documentaries, listening to experienced sources — fellow hikers, park rangers, gift shop employees — try to quell my wife’s concerns; bears are more afraid of you, they dislike surprises. Alert them to your presence, wear bells.  Think big raccoons.  Attacks, though rare, were most likely instigated by habituated bears.  Oops.  There I stood, among a dozen highly habituated bears.  Ernie had whiffed on this factoid.  At least the mothers and cubs registered our presence, keeping their distance, watching from the wooded perimeter.  An audience with a taste for blood and nuts.

If my wife could see me now.

Finally, the training kicked in.  Hands low, palms out to show I bore no food, I retreated.  Slowly.  Just like Ernie taught amid the Yeti mugs and novelty socks.

And just like the forest taught, the bear kept coming.

The four hundred or so pounds of advancing appetite wasn’t even the biggest or scariest I’d seen.  Hades, named for his jet black coat and cross-hatch of pink scars on his face, was a walking nightmare.  Hades seemed to emerge not from cool deep forest, but scorched netherworld, where a demonic game of tic-tac-toe was memorialized on his snout.  My bear was black and tan, no scars, no tics, a handsome, stately bear.  Handsome didn’t warrant a nickname.

Before my trip, I’d told people my goal was to smell a bear.  I liked the reaction it got. What on earth compels you? It appealed to the rugged individualist I fancy myself.  Call me a suburban Natty Bumppo. My true goal was a frame-worthy photo. Preferably poster size.  An image I could point to and say, mine, I shot that, see, now I qualify for employment at National Geographic.  Hold my beer while I unsnap my many-pocketed khaki vest and regale you with the length of my telephoto.

Smelling a bear never actually occurred to me until I read Ian Frazier’s essay titled, Bear News.  He writes of tracking three bears in snow along a mountain side in Montana:

“The bear tracks took an even straighter path than a man would.  The big bear went through thick brush without breaking stride or putting its foot differently.  The smaller sets of tracks — cubs’, probably — went off on skidding tangents and curlicues but always returned to parallel the big set of tracks.  Of course, I was following the tracks not forward but back, in the direction they came from.  If these were grizzlies, I did not want to come upon a mother with cubs.  The time was late April, and I was hoping I might end up at the den the bears had just left; then I could stick my nose inside and find out what bears smell like.”  

After I had told enough people, I started believing it, thinking I’d like to cozy up near enough to smell a bear, just like Ian Frazier.  I’d forgotten the part about the den being empty.

As the bear closed, the last thing on my mind was its smell.

“Friend behind you,” a workshop peer would say, when, lowering my camera, I’d turn and find one, too close. Bears are quiet.   It was easy to see them as big dogs until wilderness sounds — cricket chirps, raven caws — were abruptly muted, disrupted by an aggravated bear. A frenzied lurch through brush, snapped twigs, cracked limbs, a large male would mow through vegetation and assert dominance by massive acceleration.  Relaxed bears captivate.  Agitated bears command all species’ attention.

I took shots of black bear in all coat colors: black and tan, chocolate stout, brown ale, golden pilsner.

This was my first vacation alone, excluding family visits to Ohio, in a quarter century. That my wife gave her blessing I am deeply grateful and still wondering what may have possessed her, the generosity and trust required on her part.

Alcohol possessed me. Alcohol had been commanding my attention for years before I realized, with my wife’s encouraging, and ultimately, insistence, that a change in habit was overdue and required for our marriage.

I had changed, in my way, swearing off daily consumption for years, yet indulging, mostly while visiting family and friends out of state.  Travel was my drinking loophole. The loophole expanded to include my wife traveling out of state while I stayed home. This went on for nearly a decade with diminishing returns.  Severing the final strands proved a challenge.  Drinking was part of my identity since I was sixteen. You can count on me for one last beer had devolved. I could no longer count on myself.

Alcohol had been advancing, an inexorable march, hibernating at times, only to emerge, fanged and hungry.   The day had arrived, nine months before the workshop, when alcohol pinned me to the mat. My wife, as referee, loud and insistent  — get help or get counted out — prompted my first AA meeting.

Anything but AA.  Share my feelings?  Admit weakness?  Hold hands in a circle of men in ill-fitting jeans and say the Our Father?  Shoot me now.  I thank the stars (or higher power, as AA frames it) my first visit wasn’t horrible.  If I’d known how every meeting begins — anyone here for their first meeting? — and then is tailored to the newb, I’d have turned and run.  I would have sat in my car in the parking lot the whole hour.  Who knows how long the charade.  Now, two years on, I go every Sunday morning.  I’d say it’s like church, but I put down the Bible about the age I picked up the bottle.  I stay the hour, sometimes share my story, but still, I duck out before the concluding Our Father.

The bear came close enough to scare me.  Sometimes I wonder, if I’d stood my ground, how close would danger have come?

There’s got to be a price for a misrepresented wish come true.  I could have tripped, been crushed under a black and tan pretty boy, his wild heart beating on mine, his hot breath, my last smell on earth.

But no, I kept stepping back, working my steps for longer than I expected necessary, when at last, the bear decided he’d made his point, and turned his attention elsewhere.

“Have you read it yet?” my wife asked.  A smidge of flour rouged her cheek, rubber mallet in hand. “It’s good,” she said, “you should read it.” She drove the mallet toward the raw lump of flesh on the countertop.  Blam!  Blam!  Blam!  The dog barked as she reached for the next plump breast. Blam!

She wanted me to read a short personal essay I’d written twenty-five years ago.  Her father had unearthed three of my old stories, paper print-outs.  I had wondered where they went. My electronic copies failed to survive computer upgrades, and I’d believed the pieces long lost to computer obsolescence.  Her dad wouldn’t have been the responsible party to save the hard copies.  His reading leans to capitalism, biographies of great men like Jack Welch, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffet.  Cheryl’s mom, prior to raising four beautiful, successful children, had taught grade school.  I think we shared a fondness for service in less lucrative sectors.  She’d kept them all these years, I like to imagine, in a round box with a print pattern and a fitted lid.

These essays of mine began as writing exercises, stepping stones on a path to something more serious, maybe, like science writing or adventure journalism.  These days, the stepping stones are submerged. My motive to write remains, not with some alternative, dream career in mind, but simply to clarify or deepen my eternally shallow thinking. But still, I was reluctant to read them.  It is difficult to return to an old piece without cringing, alert to melodrama or untruths, wanting to change this or that.  I’m judgmental, but not alone.  Here’s Neil Gorsuch, Supreme Court Justice, in an interview in the Aug 3-4 weekend WSJ regarding his own legal writing, specifically, drafting rulings:

Rather than re-read the old, I gave my wife the first paragraph of a piece I’d been reworking for months.  I was proud of the paragraph. Finally getting somewhere.  She wiped her hands on her apron, taking longer than expected.  The silence killing me. “Don’t read past the first paragraph,” I reminded her, “the rest isn’t ready.”

She returned my computer with flour fingerprints all over it and said, “It’s descriptive.”  She knows to start positive.

“But,” I said.  

She cracked an egg in a bowl, pointing her elbow at a quart bag of bread crumbs, “Hold that open,” she said,  “Don’t take this the wrong way.  Can I give constructive feedback?”

The question reminded me of my dentist, novocaine in hand, saying, You’ll feel a pinch.

Dropping a buttery chicken breast in the bag, she said, “Sometimes you try too hard.”

Ooh, more than a pinch.  When your only tool is a mallet, everything looks like fresh meat.

My stages of receiving criticism:  First stage, denial.  I dismiss her view, intent to conserve energy, move ahead, unchanged.  Second stage, reconsider.  A ray of light slips in, an egg pip emerges, could she have a point?  Third stage, acceptance.  Her past advice has never not been helpful.  Fourth stage, re-read with fresh perspective.  Consider the reader, pointedly this time.  My paragraph painted a scene, not much action, even that, slowed to snail’s pace, written with such fine-tooth description that only Proust, master of ten thousand words on the past smell of a French pastry, could love.  Fifth stage, re-write.

In the very same weekend WSJ, a few pages beyond the interview with Gorsuch, an article titled, Your Gen-Z Employee Isn’t Fooled by Your Compliment Sandwich.  This Gen-X husband wouldn’t be fooled either by a critique finishing on his wife’s positive note. Cheryl must have sensed this as well, not bothering to finish nicely.

“Seal it before you shake it,” Cheryl said, “Drop it in the dish.  Now it’s ready to bake.”

I have work to do, un-seasoning that paragraph.  Paring words is always a good idea, like sopping excess salt from meat. When critiquing one self, a remove of time helps. It’s been years since I’ve read my lost piece.  I’m ready. Sometimes the job requires it.

Traffic on I-35 was heavy for miles, trucks towing jet-skis, campers hauling canoes, bumpers belted with lawn chairs and coolers, kayaks and bikes. Outdoor enthusiasts raced north for the holiday, thinning just past a junction called Can of Worms connecting I-35 to US-53.  Finally a stretch of cruise control for my legs, a fresh posture for my back.  I’d upgraded from a Kia Soul or similar, at the time thinking I’d save a dime, cop a new identity — hip old dude.  The upgrade, your uncle’s Camry, was still in budget, leg room, low profile, and comfier, if still false, identity — hip replacement dude.  But I was glad for it.  I’d already stopped twice to tend my body:  lunch in Duluth, and two hours before that, Starbucks near the Minneapolis airport where I bought a coffee and croissant microwaved without my consent by a young Nordic blonde which was fine, I would’ve said yes.  I had placed my chocolate croissant on the car roof to ooze in its wrapper before stripping bare-chested in the parking lot.  The morning sun warmed my skin.  I was feeling California.  I buttoned up quickly and stuffed my undershirt in the console where I forgot it the next six days.  Heavy on camera equipment, light on clothing, the tee I could’ve used.  Where I was staying, there would be no towels. No door locks. And a breach or two, depending on how you count.

Cruising north of Duluth, I opened the window and sang to cooler air. The highway tunneled through a wilderness corridor, where for long, straight stretches I cruised, feeling like an Ojibwa arrow speeding through second-growth pine, birch, and aspen.  From lofty rolling crests, the dark green canopy sprawled like a rumpled carpet.  Deep blue lakes dotted the vernal like gems.  Crows and hawks soared.  I turned up the music.

I was full-throat into a halting, heartfelt singalong with the Replacements’ raspy Paul Westerburg,

Look me in the eye, then tell me, that I’m satisfied.  Are you satis-fied?

when the music dimmed, an incoming call from Virginia — a town of population 8400, where I knew not a soul. I declined the call.  A minute later, the music dimmed again.  I declined again, feeling a bit dissatisfied.

A reviewer on the band’s Wikipedia page wrote of the Replacements’ lead singer-songwriter, “Westerburg has the ability to make you feel you’re right there in the car with him, drinking from the same bottle.”

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Slick with mist, the back deck wraps to the side, where Gypsy stands tail up.  She’s looking toward the cabin’s front, while I take in the view. It’s New Years day, Blue Ridge, and dense warm clouds drift along the range, slivers of blue intrude the gloom.  Out front, a man in a raincoat walks an old dog on tacky dirt.  An Escalade toting a spear-like kayak rolls to a stop beside him.

The Escalade has the dog walker’s attention before he turns, spies me on the side deck, “Buddy, did you see a dog run through here?”  Turns out the dog walker lives nearby, a local, late 30s, but his youth, designer eyewear, and cuffed sweatpants don’t square with my image of local.  “Buddy” feels off too, but my social instincts kick in, I say, “One second,” and I go inside.

Earlier, Cheryl has told me a small, black and white dog chased a deer through the backyard.  She’s now in the kitchen, ripping a paper towel from a spool of wire shaped into a bear.  “Barked up a storm, but strange, the howling.  It sounded distressed.”  At the dining room table, my brother-in-law Steve adds, “That’s the sound hunting dogs make, all worked up.  Chased that deer right past the green house, up and over the mountain.”  Steve grew up with guns and dirt bikes. He sits near an artificial Christmas tree wedged in a corner decorated with bear ornaments.

I return outside and relay our sighting.  The hipster says thanks, points to the stuffed trash bag on our porch near the designer front door, an elaborate wood carving of a bear amidst leafy tree limbs, “I’d toss that if I were you.  Two bears seen in the area.”  He turns to the Escalade, and I wait for someone inside, the lost dog owners, to introduce themselves, but the Escalade window glides up as tires peel off wet dirt.  The young man walks his dog into the mist.

An hour later from the kitchen, Cheryl sees a different man out front, walking with a small dog and places her mug on a bear coaster.  She sticks her head out the designer door, “Excuse me.  Is that your dog?”  I hold Gypsy back.  I’m kneeling on a rug with a design border of tree limb and bear cub.

The man says, “Little guy just popped out of the woods, been following me since.”

He’s older, Merrell hikers, a t-shirt with the old Atlanta Braves logo.  We share the lost dog story, and Cheryl kneels beside the little guy, a beagle, while I go for treats and a leash.  The beagle is calm, barely lifting its head to receive a treat.  It’s coat is tricolor: dark brown, light brown, and cream, a nice sheen, tick-free.  It seems exhausted or resigned, no eye contact, clearly eager to go nowhere.  I’ve grown accustomed to my dog’s idolatry and face-licking and forgive the beagle’s lack of gratitude.

I read one of two phone numbers on the collar.  The first, an answering machine of a vet hospital in Blue Ridge.  Cheryl dials the second and says, “We have your dog.  We’re on Green Mountain Trail.”

Too soon to be the owner, a woman stops in a color and matte finish of Land Rover I’ve never seen.  Ball cap pulled low, black hair, she points a manicured nail out her window, “That’s a hunting dog right there.  Underweight.  See, its carriage?  Too small.  They starve ‘em.”

The beagle takes fewer treats than expected, but it isn’t that surprising, an appetite suppressed after exertion.  The dog seems alright.  The woman continues, “They hunt with them dogs.  Tomorrow, last day of the season.  Been living here year-round, four, no, five years now.  Two bucks visit me daily.”

***

Deer hunting with dogs is legal by permit in select Georgia counties on specified dates.

***

Cheryl says, “We just called the owners.  They’re on their way.”

“Keep the names off their collars.  Shame.  Hunt bear too.”

“Bear?”  Bears captivate Cheryl.  They captivate me too, but within the appeal for Cheryl lies a seed of fear.  I ruined a hike for her once, claiming a dog print in the snow was bear.  I may have convinced myself too, but she couldn’t shake the notion we were accompanied by unseen ursines.  We’ve only seen bear once in our lives, and that from a safely ensconced distance.

Our bear sighting came a few years ago.  On vacation in Jackson, Wyoming, I was driving a Chevy Suburban rental with a severely cracked windshield and unadjustable driver seat, stuck awkwardly close to the wheel.  Driving down mountain switchbacks, I pulled to the shoulder behind a parked car, a woman already out and waving, pointing to the woods.  Lucky for Cheryl, I’d parked perfectly for a vantage.  She trained binoculars on two cubs fifty feet away, clawing a downed tree, mama nearby.  “How do you focus these things?” Cheryl said.  “The round knob,” I said, fumbling with my camera lens.  “Wait,” she said, “there’s something in that log.  Grubs!  They’re pawing at grubs!”  My hands shaking, telephoto finally snapped in, I accompanied a small, growing crew of looky-loos deeper into the woods.  The bears ambled into the thicket.  I never got a clear shot, not even close. For all I witnessed, the black masses could have been bearskin-wrapped children, and yet, the fever was real. Cheryl sat with binoculars in her lap when I returned, warning me not to get too close.  To her or the bear family was unclear.

Aldo Leopold, famed conservationist, says we are all born hunters.

A man may not care for golf and still be human, but the man who does not like to see, hunt, photograph or otherwise outwit birds or animals is hardly normal. Babes do not tremble when they are shown a golf ball, but I should not like to own the boy whose hair does not lift his hat when he sees his first deer.

Aldo Leopold, Goose Music, A Sand County Almanac

Channeling the spirit and research perseverance of Jane Goodall, Cheryl confidently informs the woman in the Land Rover, “We’ve been coming here for years, never seen one bear.”

“Two,” the woman says.  “Each with triplets.  Not supposed to shoot the females with cubs.”

“People hunt bears?” Cheryl asks.

“Sure.  Eat ‘em.  Sell ‘em for parts.”

“Bear stew,” I say, rubbing the dog’s floppy ears.  I’m thinking of years ago, my dad’s venison stew, the venison roadkill my brother provided, hunting with the inertia of a 1973 Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser shortly after receiving his driver’s license.  My dad retrieved the carcass from a dark country road and had it butchered.  Ground deer was wrapped in our kitchen freezer for months.

“Stew.  Soup.  Starve them dogs.  That one, I’m telling you, undersized.  Keep the names off their collars.  You renting this place?  I know the owner, decorates her cabin with all that bear shit.  Got a bear cam out back, maybe she’ll share footage with you.”

Cheryl says, “That would be awesome.”

The woman snugs her cap, “Tomorrow, last day of hunting season.”

Every opinion from this woman, she repeats. Driving away she points, “Your trash.  Can your trash.”

***

Contraband wildlife comes in many forms: rhino horns, hippo teeth, sea turtle shells, elephant tusks.  Black bear populations are stable in Georgia, 5000 statewide, of which 4000 are estimated in the northern mountains, but declining in Asia.  It’s illegal in the US to sell bear paws, claws, gallbladders although bear claws are easy to purchase online.  Bear skins and heads can be legally removed and sold.

***

The Escalade with the kayak returns.  A woman exits the passenger side in electric blue running shorts and luminous shoes.  She waits as Cheryl crosses a grassy median with the beagle.  

Hands on hips, the woman stares at her dog and says, “Ruben.  What do you think you’re doing?  Where have you been?”

Her tone suggests more inconvenience than relief.  Her attention focuses on the dog which feels odd, no thank you or questions.  Later, I would wonder if she thought it suspicious, of all the people, we were the ones to locate her dog.  Could she have thought we had given harbor to her fugitive canine and had a change of heart?  But this clearly, my convolutions, the mind of someone who thinks he is doing wildlife a favor, watching from a three-story, 2000 square foot cabin in the woods where acorn-bearing oaks are felled for views, where cabins never existed five, ten, twenty years ago.

After the gentle scolding, she lifts Ruben into the rear seat, looks toward the woods, shakes her head, “We were all the way down by the lake.  Tried shocking him.  You seen his collar.”

***

I have as much experience training dogs as shooting guns, so I was surprised collars could be used that way, as a call to return.  I thought the hard plastic collar a GPS tracker. I’ve only recently learned from my neighbors, shocks can reduce “nuisance” behaviors, like running away or barking or leaping.

A neighbor recently suggested, “I can fix your problem”, the problem being, my dog on hind legs, paws on the kitchen counter licking the edges of my granite countertop.  I think he was joking.  His unloyal Husky ran at every unleashed chance, “Put a shock collar on him, cranked that thing up to five.  Dog took off, halfway down the street, when I zapped her.  Stopped in her tracks, spun around twice chasing her tail.  I called, ‘Come here!’  That dog looked at me and took off again.  I zapped her a second time.  She repeated her dance.  Threw that shock collar in the trash.”

I have little tolerance for yappy dogs.  I would hate to live nearby, feel for those who do, yet owner’s who apologize for dogs being dogs is, to me, like nuisance apologizing.  I should know, I nuisance apologize when my gregarious, thirty pounds of black silk greets a stranger with a leap as they turn away, small white paws tagging their butt.  She’s so cute, I don’t really mean it.

***

That distressed barking that Cheryl had heard from Ruben, was it the thrill of a worked-up hound, or the electrified anguish of a dog gone hunting?

The woman’s musculature and bony face give her the look of an ultra-marathoner.  She steps lightly into the Escalade.  Before shutting the door she makes eye contact for the first time, “My parents own the dog.  They live on the lake.” Not much, but it feels like an apology. I picture an old man in plaid reading a newspaper, trusty beagle curled at his slippered feet, rifle hanging in a glass cabinet.

***

Bear hunting has only been legal in Georgia since 1979.  Bear hunting with dogs is illegal in north Georgia except by permit in Wildlife Management Areas, Chattahoochee WMA, and Chestatee WMA. Blue Ridge has a WMA too, but I can’t tell if or when bear hunting is allowed.

On the deck later that night, Cheryl sees a knot in the nearest pine, about thirty feet up, asks, “Is that a bear cam, baby?”

In a five year old story in the Smoky Mountain News, a man was sentenced to twenty months in prison for bear poaching.  Part of the evidence used against him, he stole a government, DNR wildlife camera mounted on a tree.

The owner never reached out to share her bear cam footage and we didn’t ask.

January 1st, I wake and check my phone, expecting a text from my brother-in-law, Scott, a police officer, Georgia Bulldog fan, and American bulldog owner.  Scott likes to lean against his shiny patrol car in his driveway, oiling a gun belt under the sun, and ask, “So what exactly is a Buckeye?”  His tone, I imagine, the same he uses to ask, “Where exactly is your license and registration?” He’ll listen as your defense, or lack thereof, reflects back on you from his mirror shades.

He’s poking me, knows I’m an Ohio State Buckeye fan, but his question is not without merit. Scott is that flavor of cop: unafraid to ask questions, holds informed opinions, willing to hear yours, waits patiently to be persuaded. His reasoned equanimity exposes me and leads me to indigestion. What exactly is a buckeye, he says.  Ok, I’ll play.  I couldn’t identify a buckeye tree if you planted one in my backyard, which, I’m pretty sure, is his point, but it’s not about tree identification, is it?  This may be hard to swallow, but I think it’s about nuts.

Dog lovers might want to know if a Buckeye tree were planted in their backyard.

The American Kennel Club lists tree nuts – almonds, cashews, hazelnuts, macadamia, pecan, pine nuts, pistachios, and walnuts – and their impact on dogs.  None are recommended, high in fat, choke hazards, but the truly toxic are pecans and macadamia.  Macadamia, the worst.  Never feed your dog macadamia nuts.  They lead to vomiting and depression.

Buckeyes did not make the list, no one’s idea of a snack.  Buckeyes harbor a glycoside, toxic to all mammals.  Most mammals have learned to avoid buckeyes (by dying and failing to reproduce, leaving behind a stronger gene pool, one programmed with more discretionary tastes), except squirrels.  But even squirrels know to moderate. Squirrels have been observed to forego their nut love, perhaps intuiting a future indigestion, ceasing consumption half a nut in.

My dog Gypsy will eat most anything.  She’s stubborn, part-Husky.  She chases tree frogs and baby birds and collects acorns from the backyard to crack apart on the living room rug.  The acorn’s high tannins likely keep her from swallowing.

Bulldogs have sensitive stomachs, some breeds allergic to chicken.  Scott’s bulldog watches from the shade as Gypsy sprints around the pool at Scott’s summer parties.  Once, Scott was flipping and basting baby back ribs on his shiny new grill and asking me about buckeyes, when a chicken wing and sides slipped off our niece’s paper plate.  Gypsy pounced.  Ten minutes later, Gyps vomited, the wing intact in a moat of spinach dip and cheese cubes.

Bulldogs and Huskies do better with beef or lamb.  One sheep farmer online markets lamb products to dogs as a novel protein, the variety good for digestion.  The idea being, if a dog eats the same protein repeatedly, its body could find it difficult to break down, mistakenly treating as a toxin, developing a food allergy.

On the eve of New Years Eve in Blue Ridge, we ate at a restaurant called Black Sheep.  Back at the cabin, my nieces watched Gypsy.  Cheryl gave strict instructions.  “Do not let her out of your sight.  She will eat the pillows off the couch if you let her.”  Overkill, I thought, quietly moving the woven hemp drink coasters from the coffee table, ones I’d extracted from her jaw earlier in the day.

Steve ordered lamb.  Steve is a gourmand, the kind of guy who smokes his turkey as prelude to deep-frying. Lamb intrigues him, a novel protein. Lamb are sheep less than a year old.   I’d cleaned my bowl of creamy Cajun-style pasta and andouille sausage, after four cornbread biscuits (they were small) from the bread basket, and a starter of ahi tuna tacos, when Steve placed a blackened lamb shank in my bowl.  I tend to limit baby consumption to carrots and spinach, besides, I was stuffed.  At the site of charred lamb, I felt like Piper Perabo’s character, Summer Higgins on Yellowstone, a vegan held captive at the Dutton family dinner table.  Gator, their big-bellied ranch chef, presents the evening’s protein menu on three heaping platters: cow, hen, or dove.  I’m no vegan, but unlike Summer, I bit my tongue.  Summer, with the passion of a one-dimensional character, loosed her opinions upon the Duttons, subsequently trading bloody licks with an insulted Beth on the lawn.  The two thumped each other silly as the rest of the family passed platters, slapping plates with mashed potatoes infused with bacon grease.

I took up my knife.  It was less tender than expected, some work to carve and chew.  Lamb can be older than one year and still marketed as lamb in some states if the lamb retain their baby teeth.

I recently found a website for a farm that raises grass-fed sheep, one page full of arty, gourmet pictures and robust recipes for lamb parts.  It wasn’t always easy to distinguish the products meant for humans from those for dogs.

Lamb stew and lamb neck?  Dog.  Lamb pancreas?  Human.  Thymus glands?  Human.  Lamb trachea?  Dog.  On the human menu, you might consider Lamb Melt and Fries, respectively, lamb spleen and testicles.

On the recipe for Lamb Fries, “To help calm the flavor a bit, Chef recommends soaking in milk or brining them for a day or two before cooking.  After brining, the testicles can be smoked, and make a good addition to a cheese-plate or charcuterie platter.”

I nearly missed the big game on New Years Eve, the second of two big games broadcast on ESPN.  Michigan played TCU at 4:00pm, then Ohio State and Georgia at 8:00pm.  Cheryl booked a dog-friendly cabin for the holiday, five nights in Blue Ridge, Georgia, and invited her sister, Jeanne, husband Steve, and their two daughters.

Billions in China could care less, likewise our cabin.  Elyssa spent one night, Eve’s eve, with us before roadtripping to Athens to ring in ’23.  A junior at Oglethorpe, she plans to transfer to UGA her senior year.  Football no bearing, Elyssa is a film major, and her good friend attends.   Audrey is a high school senior, heart set on SCAD, Savannah College of Art and Design.  I’ve watched Audrey perform grand jetes in the school Nutcracker, but otherwise can’t recall a sporting interest.  Audrey stayed up for the ball drop.  Jeanne’s high-pressure, pharma sales job has her on the road a lot.  She read in bed.  Cheryl, who spent her frosh and sophomore years at UGA, couldn’t tell you who was playing or why.

Frankly, missing the game was my plan too, but old habits die hard.  My seventeen year-old self was interested, and so too my students, who’ve kept me in the loop.  So too, my twenty- and thirty-seven year-old selves.  At fifty-seven, I’d like to forego some past loves.  (Golf, check.  Mountain bike, check.  NFL on Sunday, check. Alcohol in Georgia, check.  No, check-ing. Alcohol in Ohio, really check-ing.)  No skin in the game, no Columbus, Ohio connection (last visit, college road trip circa ’85, a game of frisbee in the ‘Shoe), I am no fan of the pro-style sophistication, head coach salaries, or student-athlete cash for play.  Mostly, it’s the hours lost on dubious entertainment.

Earlier this fall, I’d watched Penn State play Ohio State.  At the time, the Bucks undefeated, quarterback a Heisman candidate who flung the ball like a toy over swaths of green to his favorite target, the gene-blessed namesake of Marvin Harrison, a former NFL standout, himself a favorite target of Peyton Manning, one of two NFL players my wife recognizes (crypto-shill Brady).

Contrast with Penn State’s off brand, discount quarterback — undersized, athletic enough, heart of a Nittany Lion —who had me quietly rooting for him.  Less swift than the scarlet-and-gray freaks in pursuit, he somehow kept escaping their relentless rush, a wild hare diving into a snowbank, outwitting the big-pawed lynx, disappearing briefly, to emerge from a winter landscape unscathed, whiskers twitching.  He kept converting third-and-longs, marching his team toward unlikely victory before finally succumbing, unable to escape the enemy of us all, fatigue.  A last scramble, a zig when he should’ve zagged, and, wham, a tree trunk of thigh was introduced to the kid’s helmet, bored straight through his ear hole.  Knocked woozy, the trainer’s shoulder aided the kid’s uneasy walk off the field.  Out from the blue concussion tent, he stood on the sidelines.  His eyes looked clear enough, cheeks rosy with the thrill of escape, it seemed to me.  The prey survived, helmet in hand, but only by opting out of the game.  Ohio State won.  I wished I’d never watched.

Steve was enthused for the big game.  An enthusiasm pressed into service by the mountain Direct TV package.  Who doesn’t opt in for ESPN?  The owner of our rental, whose tv screen size (mere 30 inches), was a missed clue.  After an hour of app-downloading, code entering, and cord connecting between Audrey’s laptop and television, Steve successfully streamed the game —to his phone.  The tv failed to connect.  On thinly padded deck chairs in front of a fire, we squinted at his phone propped by a cheese platter on a low table.  The last insult, one-third of the screen was afforded the big game’s live-stream announcers.

A tv camera was trained continuously, inexplicably on — not your typical, breezy in the booth, network-blazered duo — but a cabal of sideline prancers, five in all: designer-haircut, v-neck bulging, sport jacket flapping, cuffed-pant, bare-ankle ‘ballers of yore, all buff and hopping around like horny rabbits, howling, high-fiving, pontificating in baritones, “Oh no, hell naw, you simply cannot do that!” after players and coaches did exactly that.

By the fourth quarter, one announcer had migrated to a back end zone where he reached a meaty paw to snag an OSU field goal mid-air just after inching over the post.  Not that Steve and I had seen it.  The football was as visible as a puck on ice.  If I raised and lowered my readers just the right frequency, eyeballs steady, and stopped chewing my smoked gouda on rosemary cracker, I could make out tiny striped figurines raising their tiny striped arms after every OSU score.

The Bucks racked an eleven point lead in the fourth quarter and, despite my resistance, raised my spirits, just enough for me to text Anyone nervous? to Daniel and Scott, my two UGA-loving brothers-in-law.  Steve had egged me on, suggesting I be aggressive, strike while the iron’s hot.  The next play, UGA connected on a 70 yard touchdown pass, receiver running alone the whole way.

OSU recovered, but sure enough, the last two minutes, the lead changed, the Buckeyes fell, 42-41, but not before one last shot, their kicker lining up for a 50-yard field goal try.  The kicker secured his footing, like a hunter on holiday might secure his, bracing a rifle and aiming skyward, the sound a puncture wound, the blast signifying human celebration or just another frightened beast.  

The kick shanked miserably.

The big game clock ticked to zero, waning in sync with December.  An epic dawg hunt concluded without a kill.  Happy New Year.

250,000 Ukrainian refugees

Two of my students in 6th period physics speak Russian.   Sasha is a tall, full-figured loudmouth who dies her red hair maroon and runs food at the Mexican restaurant under new management (better now, but Cheryl still withholds approval: margaritas so-so, salsa no-go) within walking distance of our house.   Maxym sits behind Sasha.  He’s a dark, lanky stick in a rush to learn so he can deal cards and socialize.

One day, Max informed a skeptical class, “I can dance,” and proved it by grabbing Sasha by the elbows and — chin raised, stiff back — stepped her through the Viennese waltz.  The dance disallows lifts, but Max tried anyway.  He was charming enough, while failing, to get away with the claim “Sasha’s too big,” by quickly reframing Sasha-earthbound due to his musculature, “I’m weak, okay?”

To prove his point, he attempted to lift a slight, wiry kid, Henry, who is roughly half-Sasha.

Max approached Henry from behind and, to my surprise, Henry, the class smart-ass fascinated by magnets and free energy, was agreeable.  Henry calls me sir (due to a summer stint in military school), yet his respectful ways haven’t kept him from an upcoming appointment with the judge in juvenile court.  Last month he loaded a few friends into his Jeep Cherokee, left campus at lunch, and shot at pedestrians in my neighborhood with something called a splatter gun.  I had seen the grainy picture of Henry’s car — at publication, the Jeep’s owner was unidentified — in the police blotter section of the free local that lands on my doorstep once a week.  The article detailed the harm that splatter guns can pose.  Eye danger and deep bruising.  Max looped his arms under Henry’s, bent him back, and drug him by the heels until he yelped.

Max and Sasha speak fluid Russian though neither has an accent.  Max uses the f-word and Sasha scolds before letting fly herself, suggesting, out of respect to me, “Let’s swear in Russian.”  Max says in Ukraine that students aren’t allowed to curse but teachers are.  Sasha and Max practice Russian curses on each other giggling at the other’s pronunciation.

Sasha is first-generation who only recently claimed, “I’m not Russian.  My parents are.”

Max speaks Ukrainian too, the language similar, yet distinct to Russian, like French to Portugese.  He still has family in Ukraine.  Five years ago Max came to the US with his father.  He has not mentioned a mother.  Max’s seat has been empty the last two weeks.

500,000 refugees

About the time Max disappeared from 6th period, Aleksander entered 5th period.  Aleks is new to Milton, new to my study hall roster.  Strong Russian accent, he keeps his head down, loud music on his ear buds.  My study hall is twenty-five minutes, precedes a twenty-five minute lunch.  Seniors, a dozen or so, twenty-four listed on my roster, but half have scattered, finding better places to be.  It’s quiet, a treasured sanctuary in my day.  Sometimes too quiet.

When I hear tinny, grating sounds, I motion to the oblivious offender, moving my index finger in a circle (an anachronism, dating to my iPod days, and yet instantly understood) to lower the volume.  On Aleksander’s first day, as students filed out for lunch, a student volunteer entered to escort him to the cafeteria, presumably to sit with him.  The volunteer was drop-dead gorgeous.  Aleksander, reluctant to move, uncoiled like a snake in the shade.  He turned to the rear of class where two girls sat with their brown paper bags, removed his ear bud and said, “Is ok if I stay?”

A few, the independent, the lonely, the shy, the nerd, the goth, the goth nerd, the book nerd or rare band kid who finds the band room alternative too loud, forego the cafeteria for my room.  I eat my lunch at my desk.  I never see Aleks eat and am afraid to ask if he packs.  His black jeans hang loose on his slight frame.  His Vans are black and new and every day wears the same blue and red plaid shirt buttoned to the collar, skin as absent of pigment as you’d expect of someone from “about 500 kilometers south of Moscow.”

1 million refugees

The Donbas region is south of Moscow.  I don’t know what city Aleks is from, I’m concerned with overstepping, but he’s nineteen, more mature than his American peers, and has refugee status.  Donetsk is a city within the Russian controlled Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.  Google maps it 1000 km south of Moscow, or about 600 miles.  Closer than Atlanta to Cleveland, 15 hours by car, perhaps longer due to closed borders.  And tank traffic.  And indiscriminate shelling.

After three days of spare communication, Aleksander raised his head from the crook of his elbow and spoke, initiating conversation for the first time, “The guitar, is yours?”

The guitar cost me $400, a short-lived experiment of a nephew.  It has a nice sound.  It hangs behind my desk in a corner between the Pink Floyd and Kiss posters and a futuristic painting of a kaleidoscopic earth suspended beneath a guitar-wielding fish.

“Would you like to play?”

He mumbled, looked at the floor.  I removed it from the hook.

His face lifted as he stood, “I play. A little.”  At the lab table nearest my desk, he hunched over the guitar with intent.  I told him it needed tuning, but he didn’t acknowledge.  I returned to my computer screen.

I braced myself, wondering what I had done.

Click here for a post on my prior experience with study hall guitar practice

2 million refugees

I bit into my sandwich, swiss on sweetbread, and listened to Aleksander, my new Russian student in study hall, play the strings with a fine delicousy.  He warmed up awhile before a faint melody wafted through the room.

So, so you think you can tell

Heaven from hell?

Blue skies from pain?

Can you tell a green field

From a cold steel rail?

A smile from a veil?

Do you think you can tell?

Wish You Were Here, Pink Floyd, 1975

“Sounds good,” I said.

Head bowed, he let the guitar rest in his lap, hands flat on its body.  “The guitar.  It helps with my emotions.  Especially now, with everything.”

The bell rang.  He passed me the guitar.  I hung it back on the wall behind my desk, “Help yourself,” I said, “anytime.”

The next day, Aleks took his seat and didn’t look at me.  I stood, gestured over my shoulder.  

“Please,” he said.

Aleksander practiced a Metallica riff.  “I prefer electric.  Guitar is my passion.  I like aggressive.  Metalcore.  In Russia, metal not so popular.  My father introduced me to rock.  His favorite band is Pink Floyd.” 

“I saw Metallica in Atlanta a few years ago, before COVID.”

Aleks said, “Yes, they come to Moscow in 2019.  I missed them.  My sister still in Russia, she likes Green Day, music from the 90s.  She has boyfriend, a ring,” he held up the back of his hand,  “but she’s not married, she’s — hmm, the word — how do you say?”

“Engaged.”

“I take guitar class here at Milton.  I don’t like guitars in band room.  I like yours.  The strings are, hmm, I’m not fighting to play.”

“Better action,” I said.

“Yes, I used to practice three, four hours a day.  Now I have no guitar.  We have no money.”

3 million refugees

“Do you know Joel?” Joel played guitar in my study hall a year ago. I’d seen him recently in the hall.

Aleks shook his head, “I have no friends.  I am new.”  He played something I didn’t recognize.  “It’s very difficult.  I work on arpeggio.”  He pronounced the name of his favorite Russian musician, a collection of raspy, gurgled syllables I recognized no part of, then showed me his phone, a Russian rapper, Ivan Aleksandrovich Alekseyev, who goes by his stage name, “NoizeMC.  Very famous in my country.”

Per Wikipedia, NoizeMC performed in Lviv in 2014, a large Ukrainian city farthest west, near the border with Poland, about 500 miles from Krakow.  He played with a Ukrainian flag on stage and dedicated his set to all the victims of information warfare.  He is a classically trained guitarist and wrote a song called Lenin Has Risen.

“What age group does he appeal to?”

“All ages.  His music and lyrics are very important to Russians.  Political messages.”

Russia has sent tanks and missiles across the border toward Kyiv, Kharkiv, Mariupol, other eastern Ukrainian cities.

4 million refugees

The next day Aleks sat and initiated eye contact.  A first.  I motioned to the guitar.

“Please,” he said.

I asked, “Was that Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door?”

“Yes, Guns ’N Roses.”  He played pieces of different songs.

“What was that?”

“Hendrix.  All Along the Watchtower.”

“Bob Dylan songs,” I said.

“Yes, yes, of course,” he said.  “Dylan greatest songwriter ever.”  His tone, straddling the line between dismissal and agreement, reminded me of my colleague, the other physics teacher, Dr. Silvestrov, a phD in physics from the University of Moscow.

Aleks said, “I started three years ago.  Really, I play for two, how do you say?”

“Committed,” I said, “You started three years ago, but the last two, with serious intent.”

Aleks said “You have old strings.”

I picked up the package of light-gauge acoustic strings from the top of a filing cabinet underneath where the guitar hangs.  A gift last May from a student with California surfer looks who would play at the end of my AP environmental science class.  He also gifted me its strap, a cheery flower pattern, neon orange, yellow, and lime green hibiscus.

“I like the Japanese Yamaha.  I don’t own.  The Gibson I owned in Russia was Chinese.  A struggle to play.  The Japanese, better, don’t know how to say.”

“Feels right?”

“I really want a Gibson, American-made.  I can’t afford.  Maybe someday I buy Epiphone,” he showed me $800 Gibsons on his phone.  “Which color do you prefer?” Aleks asked me.

“I like the gold one, like Slash plays.”

“Yes, Guns ’N Roses came to Moscow in 2019.  Missed them too.”

Mama, put my guns in the ground

I can’t shoot them anymore

That long black cloud is comin’ down

I feel like I’m knockin’ on heaven’s door

Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, Bob Dylan, 1973

“Americans don’t understand Putin.  It is not because of geopolitical conflict.  Putin does it to look strong for his people.”  He looked at the floor and shook his head, “Russians are brainwashed by him.”

“Happens here too,” I said.  “Brainwashing by Trump propaganda.”

Aleksander said, “When Trump was elected, I was very young.  I don’t know him.  We don’t like his support for Putin.”

In 2016, Aleks would’ve been about twelve.  I took my guitar from him, the bell about to ring.  I played what I could of Wish You Were Here.

“My father’s all-time favorite song,” Aleksander said, “He plays it all the time.”

After a two week absence, Maxym has returned to physics class.

“What have I missed?

“A quiz. But I can excuse you from it.”

“No, no. I can take it.”

I couldn’t like this kid more. I asked “So how is everything?”

“It’s fine.  It’s good,” he shrugged, trying to dismiss, an edge of stoicism he couldn’t possibly contain, before adding off-handedly, “I have family living in bomb shelters now, so there’s that…”

A year ago, I had a study hall of sophomores and a similar situation — new foreign student enrolled in February — Joel, a quiet, small kid with jet-black, rock ‘n roll hair, from South America, my guess.  His country I’d guessed wrong, not realizing I’d accepted it as truth, until recently.  I had allowed Joel to practice with my guitar in study hall.  His idol, Dave Mustaine.  Our tastes overlapped at metal: Metallica, Priest, Megadeth.  Joel loved thrash, all-thrash, all the time, but he played it haltingly, a mind-numbing repetition, barely musical.  Joel was teaching himself how to make mistake-filled noise.  He practiced faster than the song, faster than Mustaine, a guitar virtuouso in a genre known for its lightning-quick attack.

Joel would pause, and if I guessed the song right, he’d say, “I think I’m getting it.”

Joel surprised me one day asking “Do you know Warrant?”  Far from thrash and its aggressive menace, its gritty, dirty jean image, Warrant barely cling to the label hard rock.  Warrant is less angry and bitter, more happy and tart; less grime, more white leather pant and jacket to match.  I keep Warrant under wraps from students and adults when asked for favorites.  It’s critically cool to like AC-DC and Zeppelin, but Warrant and Winger, Slaughter and Ratt, not so much.  I used to blare Warrant’s album, Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinkin’ Rich in my custom cassette player personally installed in my ’93 Ford Probe.  

Just for the record, let’s get the story straight

Me and Uncle Tom were fishin’, it was gettin’ pretty late

Out on a cypress limb above the wishin’ well

Where they say it got no bottom, say it take you down to Hell

Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Warrant, 1990

The bluesy acoustic intro to Uncle Tom’s Cabin is beyond me, but I can strum the chord progression to their song, Heaven.

Heaven isn’t too far away, closer to it everyday. 

The melody recognizable, anthemic vocals easy to sing.  Joel didn’t quite smile, but offered a nod as I played, impressed I think, not by my prowess, but that I knew the song.  Joel never played Warrant.  He never strummed chords. “I’m a lead guy,” he’d say.  

Joel would practice for a minute, snippets of metal melody briefly emerging only to vanish, fragile notes desperate for an ear, like the urgent chirps from a nest built too close to the house compressor, right before the compressor clangs and rattles on, overwhelming the delicate chirps cast for grub.

He plucked single notes: fast, faster, fastest, left-hand flying up and down the neck, excruciating, every single minute, all study hall long.  One day last year, I couldn’t take it anymore.  In an act of self-care, I suppose, I took my phone and recorded myself, a video closeup of my face’s contortions as Joel played Megadeth’s “Death Sells But Whose Buying?”  

The searing of the sinew

My body fights for air

The ripping of the tissue

My lungs begin to tear

Gravity’s got my bones

It pulls my flesh away

The steam finally dissipates

I make out my sweaty face

Angry again, angry again, angry again

Angry Again, Megadeth, 1993

Joel finally put down his pick — a glorious, drifting silence, an angel on wing reprieve — only to shake the blood back into his fingertips and say, “I think I’m getting it,” then returned to his instrument of torture to flay some more.  Last spring, after months of my tentative affirmations, I interrupted.

“Joel.  Stop.”

“Huh?”

“Has anyone ever told you, slow the hell down, when you practice?”

“Yeah,” he laughed, a rare look of thoughtfulness passed his face, “my dad.”  He held out his phone, a video of three dudes backlit in an attic playroom covering a Guns ’N Roses song.  It sounded amateurish, the kind of band I’d be a perfect fit.

“My dad playing bass.”

Joel foraged into his pocket and produced a quarter.  He drug the quarter slow and hard across the strings, an excruciating arpeggio, cupronickel on steel, a louder, brassier, even more abrasive sound.