Sunday...November 23, 2003
I got to bed just a little after midnight last night. Sometime later Roadie came in, under the covers with cold damp paws and snuggled in between us like into his personal cave. Maybe he'd been living in a cave, a tight overhang on the river where we found him, and close covered places have come to mean comfort to him. The circumstances under which he joined our clan, his name could have been, "the leaf."
* ~ * ~ * Friday was to be our diet "cheat" day, a day looked forward to with drooling anticipation. Of course we cheat a little every day, or I would expect the willpower to depart long before the pounds did. But a whole day of fat-filled indulgences was a mouthwatering prospect we were happily planning out. We breakfasted on eggs, a platter of biscuits and sausage gravy, and decided to stop for fastfood double cheeseburgers somewhere along the way. Charlie had said he'd treat everyone to dinner in Lexington, and I hoped it wouldn't be anything healthy.
We planned to meet Charlie and the others at 5:30, prior to a 7 o'clock reading at Black Swan Books, but first th'Mr had a 3 o'clock radio interview in Louisville. Leaving home at noon (and finally, after stops for cigarettes, gas, a prescription fill, and a check deposit, clearing the city limits near 12:30) gave us plenty of time for cheeseburgers, the search for parking in a marginally familiar city, and the walk to the radio station. WFPL has been in a new location for the past five years and our contact there was justifiably proud of the station's new home. Brad gave us what he called the "nickle tour," and while th'Mr nodded admiration at massive soundboards I gaped at the black-painted pipework overhead. The precise bends and careful spacing were worth mentioning to the retired electrician at whose house we'd be spending that night.
Bill retired out of Orlando, the same local in which I started my apprenticeship. He spent a lot of years on the road, chasing the overtime, which means we've worked in the same cities (if in different years), for the same contractors, and know people in common. Th'Mr and I would never have met Bill except his wife found Bob's website and left a note in the guestbook. Soon Lorena joined the appalachian mailing list we're a part of, and the internet once again makes this small world smaller.
Supper at Ramsey's was all a cheating dieter could hope for. I had a bottle of Fosters with my vegetable hotbrown, and I couldn't begin to tell you what anyone else ate because the layer of mozzarella covering my plate had my complete attention.
From Ramsey's it's a short walk to Black Swan Books, a privately owned store in a renovated building on Maxwell. Its shelves run floor to ceiling in a random configuration, creating a maze rather than a series of rooms. A maze of mostly pre-owned books I could happily prowl for hours...
Sometimes you hold a reading and no-one comes to listen. Unfortunately this was the case on the 21st of November. We were a big enough crowd on our own to entertain ourselves and each other. Charles S read two of his novella-length poems, Bruce H gave us background on his first civil war book, and the book yet to come. Th'Mr outlined the plot of a novel he hopes to have in print this summer. It was an enjoyable evening, if it didn't go as planned.
We overnighted in Frankfort with our internet friends, wound down with bourbon and beer, slept, breakfasted, and were on our way home by noon. The truck, the older but more reliable of the two, acted like it was running on four cylinders instead of six, so we made a stop at WAP for sparkplugs, and decided to use the other vehicle until there was time to do maintenance on this one.
The plan had been to unwind, then get back on the road to meet an "old navy buddy," someone th'Mr hasn't seen in 20 years, in Huntington for dinner. But plans change, and Jan had left a message on the machine canceling.
The weather forecast called for rain, dropping temeratures, and possible snow flurries. I looked at our leaf-covered roof and clogged rain gutters, made a mental promise to deal with that before the snow came. But first the sparkplugs...
When I am at work and have a series of tasks I tend to do the hardest one first to get it out of the way. I've told people that this way the job keeps getting easier as I go along, and I thought this made sense, until an old-timer told me he does the easiest one first, because that way he's always doing the easiest one... I know if I'd started with the left rear plug, the one hidden between steering linkage and brake lines, I'd have thrown my wrench in frustration long before all six were changed out, but since the hardest one was also the only one left I did finish the job. I think my hair's grown about a foot since the last time I spent an hour under a car hood, it was in my way a lot. Th'Mr was splitting firewood against the coming of the flurries, but when I finished my task he suggested I wash my hands and we go for a test drive.
"Fine," I said. "Let's go to the dollar store and get you some windshield washer fluid.
The young girls in line ahead of me gaped at the motor smudges on my white T-shirt, at my bare feet in November.
When I got back to the truck the sun was spreading crimson streaks across the sky and th'Mr said, "we ought to get some beer and go to the Enex, watch the sun set."
"Oh, yeah! When?" "
"How about now?" he said.
The Enex cemetery is near the spot Carter and Lewis counties meet Rowan, high on a hilltop. The small family graveyard is isolated at the end of a gravel road, and it's a rare thing to meet anyone else up there. It's a good place to be when your mind craves quiet. As we bumped down increasingly narrower roads on our way north, he said, "look behind the seat, see if Shorty is still there."
"What?!" Sure enough, my traveling cat was curled on the jacket Bill had given me the night before, a lined blue windbreaker embroidered with the electrical union's emblem, and Orlando's local number.
* ~ * ~ * "Can you pick out these threads?" he'd asked me, indicating the "Bill" monogrammed on the upper left.
"Probably ...but if not I can always tell people that was my name before the operation."
* ~ * ~ *
Shorty grinned up at me from her nest. I've never met another cat that likes to ride, that I can trust not to jump when windows are down. On my birthday in 2002 we packed the dogs and a picnic lunch and drove up to the fire trails. Shorty came with us, and when we parked the truck to hike the last half mile she trotted along with the dogs, just another member of the pack.
Daylight was fading when we pulled onto the grounds of the Enex, the last streaks of red falling from the sky and the first stars coming out. Last February's ice storm did considerable damage to the hillside, and looking around I didn't see one tree that wasn't broken. Visibilty was good; to the north and several miles away is a spot slightly higher, another to the west, but everything else is below our altitude.
I opened the 12-pack, pulled out a bottle. "what kind of lighter do you have?"
"A bic."
"Let me see it." Using my thumb for a fulcrum, I popped the bottle cap off, handed him the beer. "I haven't done this in years." I grinned. "You said you'd never seen someone open a beer with a bic." I handed him back his lighter, twisting the cap off my beer.
Shorty finished investigating gravestones and jumped onto the tailgate with us. She stared at the trees to the south and we quieted as twigs snapped in that direction. Satisfied, the little cat jumped to the roof of the truck and focused on the woods to the north. I felt cold beer working it's magic as I named stars and constellations I'd named for him before. Full dark never came; a glow to the west showed us Morehead and another to the east incredibly must be Olive Hill. "I don't think there are enough lights in Olive Hill to make that big a glow," he said. "Maybe it's Grayson. Let's go home."
Just after crossing I-64, he made a right turn onto Big Perry firetrail. This was the night before the last day of gun season, and hunters were camped in every bend of the road. Most of them waved as we drove by. Shorty slept, curled, behind the seat.
* ~ * ~ *
