More Lush than Rotting: Huckleberina Finn et al.

 Maybe I should have broken this into two entries... it's a novella. Oh, well! I hope you enjoy...

Summers in Utopia... as Ever, the Lake
Our memories never seem to move in nice, predictable paths. Our minds wander, like willful children determined to explore the forbidden territory beyond the next block. We will cross the street, open the drawer, even go into the woods alone. You’d think it would change once we become “grown ups,” but it doesn’t. We knock down the locked doors, sometimes seemingly against our own will.

I see the endless, island beach days -- white bright and singing throughout my childhood. And yet I see the inside of my father’s closet, smell his cologne. I feel the floor and ceiling nearly meeting at the back, where it narrows, floor reaching up, ceiling bending low. I am small enough to fit in the one safe spot, curled into a ball, silent, waiting.

I hear my brother's cries. I hear him call, “Jetty, run and hide!”

No one can find me here because I’m the smallest; but, like a bull, Jim has been distracted by the nearest moving object, Jack. I stare into the safe and fragrant dark, even now.

But then I blink, and I see the white pine boughs kissing The Lake. The water laughing with sparkles in wind-driven sunlight. I first learned the word “diaphanous” there. Until Mommy told me that word, I had none to describe what I saw.  So white-bright, it could blot out the darkness of "regular" life at home.  There were no dark corners in my summers; my soul danced bare, shining, and safe.

Who gets to spend summers in Utopia? I did. And it shines as brightly through fifty-eight summers, today.

Even Jimmy lost the darkness, had others to distract him.  Or perhaps, even he rediscovered innocence there, from time to time. I know that Jim never went to the Lake; only Jimmy.

***
When I was newly five, one July, I was really busy when Mom wanted to go home for our lunch break. It probably was only about 11:30 or so, but Mommy really didn't like the noonday sun. She'd take us home and, unless I stayed with Judy the way I normally did, I wouldn't get back to the beach until after 2:00. And this particular day, Jude was visiting relatives at some beach by the sea  somewhere.

I was building a sandcastle at the time and Jim and two of his girlfriends were helping me.  They were really helping,  not teasing--Jimmy never played with me and I liked it. Jack had been with other kids and wanted to go home, but I did not.

"Mom, I'll bring her home by 1:00, okay? Let her finish the castle."

Mom left her watch with him and we finished our castle. It was BEAUTIFUL, with two moats and a driftwood drawbridge. Jimmy and the others built a breakwater so the 1:00 Mount Washington cruise ship run would not ruin it with its waves. We left at 12:35 because he even accounted for my five-year-old legs vs his ten-year-old ones. I was missing a flip-flop.  Jimmy weighed late vs a lost shoe, and decided late was worse.

I was upset, but he said, "Oh, forget about that. Ma won't mind. You can't remember everything at five anyway."

We got to the top of the beach entrance and Jimmy stopped cold. They'd paved the road while we were playing. The new tar was steaming in the heat, and he looked at my tiny foot. At home, he would have relished watching me have to put my bare foot on the hot pavement, smiled at the pain, and then would have stopped just short of letting my feet blister.

Lake Jimmy? He simply said, "Well. I guess I better carry you, huh. I can't let that little foot burn."

I said, "I can walk. I'm big." But he laughed and grabbed me up onto his shoulders as if I were a twig. About halfway home, though, there was a grassy island for the stop sign at the bottom of the last hill, and he put me down. He was nervous because it was 1:00, and we were still ten minutes from home. I couldn't tell time, but I knew that the little hand was on the one and knew just enough.

My brother's face was bright red. "I'll hop on one foot for a while, Jimmy."

And I did. And I'd hop to a grassy yard, then walk a bit, and  hop. But after four yards, he stopped me, smiled, and simply picked me up and had me hook my legs around his waist, then jogged with me on his back.

Mom was waiting for us. Apparently, they had paved AFTER she got home. She'd driven up and over the island, so she had not seen the pavers go past. She took a look at my foot, at my brother, and she said, "Jetty, WHERE IS YOUR FLIP FLOP?"

She was kind of angry at me. But Jimmy put me down and rested his hand on my hair. "Ma, we're hungry. Come on, it's just a flip flop. She's little."

Mommy kissed him, shook her head at me, and we went in to lunch.

But that's how he was in the summer. Lake Jimmy. I loved summers and I loved him that day.

Utopia. I spent summers in Utopia.

***

 

Oh, the endless adventures, the magic of islands that turned to dragons and swept me to lands unknown. I watched fairies come to life. The giant Daddy Whales emerged beneath us, vaulting Judy and me into the sky, like baby dolphins. No, none of the rotting of our lives touched us at the Lake. I had Judy, and we all had communal parents, and tumbled about the Island like bear and wolf cubs.

There were family cookouts where all the station-wagoned families pooled food, love and nonsense. Evening games of Michigan Rummy in which my mom cleaned up. She would bid, staring with china doll, wide-open eyes around the table. Mrs. Claus with a dealer's visor and a mind like a computer. She’d stutter, feign innocence.  And clean up.

Jacky and I never could understand how everyone could be that dumb about her. She was smarter than anyone there, except maybe her best friend Phi. (Fee) Phi spoke seven languages and was a world-famous anthropologist. She stood fully six feet, an Amazon. Classic features and a Jane Russell body. Hair in a French twist. Every man on the beach just stared, slack mouthed when Phi went for a swim. She and my mother played intellectual leap frog with the Sunday Times crossword, seeing who would complete it in pen first.

The birthplace for myths, if one chose to conceive. Rich. The freedom. That’s the thing. I was absolutely free there. Judy and I would meet by 9:00 and be together until supper time. Sometimes we’d see each other after supper, too. Taking turns running the half mile between  our summer homes.

I never had to hide in the dark.

But the mind goes to the darkness anyway. I would dream images of dead mice in traps, feel a shove at the top of the stairs while safely tucked in bed, feel the blood on my legs, but will them away with the images of sun on water. The Lake taught me the art of forgetting. We learn to put it away, sometimes for years, these particular punctuation marks of pain, of terror too ugly to fix our gaze, too harsh for little hearts meant for fairyland and mythical battles where good always wins. My world had Medusa in the corners, and I learned the art of blindness. I learned the beauty of the sidelong glance, the ability to look away just before the monster appeared. Look away to the mountain that always steadied my gaze.

I ran to my spot by the bridge every morning before breakfast, starting when I was just seven, after first grade. I could walk down from the road, and sit on a rock, just hidden from view, and I would look off toward the Sandwich Mountains. They never changed; they  never mocked my fears, nor laughed at my dreams of greatness. My mountain never left me alone. I would watch until the sun was high enough to make the fairies come, then I knew I had to go home.

Usually that was about 7:30. And by my third or fourth day there, the monsters did not bother even trying to come back. And summer began for real.  I found the time and the room and the freedom to lock my closets and stuff the drawers full of whatever  I could not bear. It was very hard work, but I was tenacious. I filled my days with adventures with my pirate/Merry Band/vagabond friends. 

Maleness is not a prerequisite for a Mark Twain sort of summer.

It was the Season of Exile. The Reign of Terror of the Gang of Four: Judy, Marge, Geri and I were kicked out of, well, everywhere, pretty much. Pickle, Lily, Dinah, and... yes... I was Sewer. Those of you who know my last name, know it's a play on that. Judy and I felt we were kind of done in on that part, but, since we WERE the ring leaders, perhaps it was only fair.

Deep Sea Diving: Poisoning Our Parents

Pickle had lately discovered stuffed clams and had the idea that we could stuff mussels. We had also been mocking the t.v. show "Treasure Hunt" in which Lloyd Bridges deep sea dived every week and wrestled giant octopii, squids, terrorists, thieves, and sharks... and seemed to almost always narrowly escape a life-threatening case of something called "the bends." The best we could figure when we were littler was that they called it that because everyone was always bent over in agony and then they died. And it involved coming up for air too fast; you couldn't beat your air bubbles.

Lily required some assurance from our parents that diving off the raft for fresh water clams would not put us in mortal danger. Pickle and I were best at the diving anyway, having been tried by our fathers in the art of holding our breath and letting it out slowly.

We  probably collected fifty.   In the process, we found a couple of sunken ships and probably a billion dollars worth of doubloons. All in a day's work. I had just turned twelve, and Judy was due to turn. I was not keen on being a teenager ever, and was terrified of seventh grade, a new school and the great unknown. Fortunately, we four felt pretty much the same, except for Geri (Dinah). She was born boy-crazy, but she liked our games, too. That summer, especially.

Once we had the mussels, though, we realized that they needed cleaning, grinding and preparation. Pickle's Aunt Phi was a gourmet cook, so Pickle lifted one of her cookbooks for us to use, and absconded with the necessary spices. This was good, since we were headed for our kitchen. Grandma's cottage was the smallest place, but had the biggest kitchen. Her spices included salt, pepper, and... salt and pepper. Dad never met a seasoning he was comfortable with and Grandpa'd been no different.

We headed through the garage, slamming into the house with our six buckets of mussels and Grandma met us at the side door, barracading us from setting FOOT in the house until we'd cleaned the nasty things in the lake. That took us three hours. She was NOT easily satisfied; Dinah and Lily left before the job was done, with orders for us to call when the cooking began. Pickle and Sewer? My grandmother was not about to let us off.

Then we had to boil and open and gut and season and cook… we finished our works of art at 8 that night.  Phi and Pickle's  and Dinah's mothers were brave enough to try one and were violently ill for hours. On top of that, my grandmother’s kitchen was dripping in mussel juice. We spent the next morning scrubbing and were informed that her kitchen was off-limits, period. For life.


Hey, There, Little Red Riding Hood...
Another friend, Julie, was a year older. SHE got to take the enormous teak INBOARD boat out in the evening.  We'd tear through dinner, Pickle, Dinah, and I, and head for their place. Lily wasn't allowed, usually.  There is nothing like the sound of those old inboard motor boats. A comforting, low, gurgling sound. They rode low, smooth, and fast. Julie would take us flying out toward the Broads, the widest part of the lake. It was several miles, unobstructed by any of the Lakes couple of hundred islands. And usually, she'd cut the engine and we'd drift.


That night, we decided we would sing, or something approximating that. We lost track of the drifting, until we heard a little thunk, and the boat kissed THE WITCHES. The Witch Rocks, in July, barely broke the surface in the Broads. A nest of rocks there in the widest, deepest part of the Lake, they covered a surface of a a few hundred square yards, and were very clearly marked. But there we were, and Julie panicked.


Pickle and I grabbed the oars, and Dinah held a big old floodlight of a flashlight so we could push our way out of the mess. No harm done, but Julie still did not want to go home yet, so we anchored about halfway between her place and one of the islands straight across.


We sang, "OH. Sweet Pea. Wontcha dance with me. Wontcha, wontcha wontcha dance with Me-e-e-e." We were screaming byth etime we reached "Wontcha be my girl."  Unfortunately, we then  decided to follow with "She Loves You" and, finally, "Little Red Riding Hood."  When we howled, to our horror, we saw lights go on on Governor's Island AND the other Island and, through the last of the daylight, heard versions of

"SHUT THE HELL UP!"
"Knock it OFF!"

"STOP!"
"I'm GONNA THROW UP!"

Then a voice that sounded like a familiar bass... "HOME! NOW!"


It was my dad.  He was at Jude's house, which was not all that close to Julie's, we thought. Funny. When trouble hit, our names returned. We were cooked, parboiled, fried, and most definitely banned from Julie's boat. So was she. We were not allowed on a power boat ride through whole two weekends!


Betty Crocker, Redux...

So we moved on to blueberry muffins.  We snuck up to old Mr. D’s hill at about 6:00 a.m. about four days later, and began picking blueberries.  I mean, his property must have gone up a quarter mile to the house, and it was nothing but blueberries.  We picked really fast, and I don't think we laughed more than about four or five times at the retelling of my father's puns.  Mr. D. came barreling out at about 8 yelling at us and we took off.   He called us each by our name and told us that he would loose the dogs on us if we ever even walked BY his house again. Right.

I said to Pickle, "Yeah, like there's a law against walking? Like he could ever eat even a tenth of those berries or--"
I shut up because I heard barking then and we RAN all the way to the top of the beach road, where we quickly ducked into the bushes, just in case, and checked our stash.

Even after spilling about a quarter of them, when we combined our take, we realized we had enough berries to feed all our families! And I mean, after all, even we couldn't poison anyone with muffins.

Now Lily was one of eleven kids (no lie), I was one of four, and Pickle's family had Dinah's family AND Phi.  We’re talking serious numbers of muffins, but since all of our homes were entertainment centers, there were serious numbers of muffin tins as well. Lily’s house had two ovens, so that was our natural destination. We each robbed our respective cottages of all the muffin tins and set to work. Scratch muffins, so we had to cadge flour and eggs from each home, too.  We figured we'd be done before anyone noticed anything was done. How we thought that a couple dozen eggs, eight cups of milk and five pounds of flour, give or take would not be missed eludes me now. We were normally considered intelligent...

Furthermore, we didn’t ask. We took.  We were invincible.

We marched down the road with our haul, chanting, "Pickle. Lily. DinaaaahhhhSEWER!"

Lily's Mom had gone out with the three littlest kids to the library and store. She'd be gone forever. The older ones were working. And really, who cared about the two boys who were left? They went off on their bikes with candy bar bribes in their pockets. We would surprise everyone and all our sins would be forgiven.
 

Muffins. We wanted them to be generous sized, so we filled the cups accordingly. We couldn’t find liners, so we greased the cups. Have you ever greased twelve dozen muffin cups?  The last fifty or so don’t get as much.  When we carved out the centers of the muffins, about eighty were really very nearly presentable.  It took us two and a half hours to clean the tins, though. And there was a matter of batter drippings between stove and counter. Lily's dad was not pleased... And it turns out we used up the milk and, Jude's mom had planned on using the eggs for an angel food cake and...

After all of us were over our three-day grounding for taking stuff, we decided we’d had enough of domesticity.  

We're Bloody Buccaneers.. UGH. 
And Each a Murderous Crook... UGH.  (Adventure on the High Seas)
 It was time to explore the frontiers beyond the island, sail off to the distant shore. Or row.

Row to Timber Island, to be precise. How far could it be? And there were four of us. We’d just go on a calm morning. Leave a note that we’d be home after lunch. Hadn’t we all been taught to tip a boat and tread water for half an hour?  Pickle and I brought the food this time.  Veri-Thin® Pretzel sticks, white seedless grapes, eight cans of soda, half a package of Oreos® and some Viking® Doughnuts. (Those were the days of the Viking® Bakery delivery truck and the milkman, going to the laundromat, and grocery day and such. TV at the cottages was superfluous.)  Life was good.

A perfectly flat lake at 6:45, a large aluminum rowboat and we were gone.

It’s about a mile to Mark or Timber Island.  It didn’t feel too bad then, but the lake was flat and we took turns, rowing in pairs. (though Pickle and I seemed always to be part of the pair)  But Dinah was company and it was Lily's boat. Seemed fair, and Pickle and I had our rhythm in all things anyway. We sang the Pirate song from the Musical Peter Pan. It helped us keep time with the strokes. Especially the "yo ho's."

When we got to the cove, the romance began to die. There was nowhere to land and the island seemed a mass of dense undergrowth and granite. Huckleberry and blueberry bushes, sumac. Rocks. We rowed halfway around the island and found a small, bug infested beach.

“What are we, sissies?” Pickle growled.

Inside, I said, 'Uh, yeah. I hate bugs.'

But I got out. Pickle and Lily forged ahead and stepped into a ground wasps nest. They each got stung only about twice, but that was enough for some pretty mean pain, so we ran for the boat. The wasps were slow, thank God. We were not.  Pickle and Lily then looped their legs over the boat to soak their bitten ankles and calves as we rowed away. I spotted another cove and this one seemed better. There was a breeze, so there weren’t the bugs, and there were huge flat rocks to stand on. The boat kathunked against one, but it was metal. No cause for alarm. We pulled the boat onto one of the rocks by the shore and waded in. We made mudpacks for the stings and we had our lunch, splashed around, sang loud obnoxious songs…

It was curiously dark before we’d finished the pretzels or the cookies.

“Damn! Thunderstorm!” Jude looked at me. Suddenly, we were just ourselves again.

We did not care to remember her father’s words or my grandfather’s. The words you live by in the summer at The Lake among the mountains. When the lake is flat until eight, there will be trouble in the afternoon. There were whitecaps and the water was molten lead.

We threw the food in the bottom of the boat, in a tangle with our sneakers and shoved off. About 100 strokes out from the island we felt the water at our feet. There was a leak.

“You bail, I’ll row!” Judy yelled.

“No, Jude, move over and we’ll both row while they bail,” I said. We rowed and rowed, getting nowhere of significance.

Then Geri screamed.  “OH MY GOD! WORMS!”

All over the bottom of the boat, were puffy, horrible white worms wriggling. About three inches long. Everywhere. It was a total infestation. All we could think was somehow or other, they'd got on while we were beached. It was disgusting, but there was nothing for it.

“Shut up and keep bailing!”

The waves got bigger, the sky got darker and we went absolutely nowhere after less than half a mile. Then the thunder came.

We were four idiots in a leaky metal rowboat in the middle of a lake with a thunderstorm bearing down and a boat full of worms.

Then we saw it. A police cruiser.  To our absolute mortification and total relief, we were rescued.

Summarily ordered on board, the two officers could do nothing but shake their heads in disgust. When Judy said her name, they knew where she lived and we were quickly deposited on Judy’s dock, leaky boat in tow.

Ted was there, waiting for his daughter, for us all, his 6’4” enormous frame clearly visible from a quarter of a mile away. I snuck a look at the police and they were smiling, rather sinisterly, I thought.

One said, "We've come to deposit your girls here. We couldn't find an arrestable offense called terminal stupidity, so here you go, Ted. Good luck with them." (Ted knew everyone. I mean everyone. And anyone he didn't know, Mommy knew. We were toast.)

We tried to explain, which was pathetic, really. All that came out was, “Adventure … we were explorers … we know how to swim … boat leaked and stung by wasps and didn’t see the storm worms everywhere.”

“Worms?” Ted asked. It was the only comment he felt warranted attention. The rest was meaningless static. “What do you mean worms everywhere?”

Eager to distract him from the inevitable lecture and further grounding, we led him to the boat. He looked at the boat, then back to us, then back to the boat.  He bent over and picked something up, then turned around.

“Worms,” he said, as he held up a now empty box of pretzel sticks.

***

We pretty much went back to playing tennis and swimming to the raft after that for summer excitement. After another week's grounding. I mean, we could play on the beach for an hour in the morning, then we had to go to our own homes, and got sprung maybe another hour in the afternoon. I got really good at Canasta and read To Kill a Mockingbird for the first time. This was when I decided to grow  up to be a southern writer, and my mom informed me that this was not likely to happen, considering I was a Yankee.

Great. It had only been a year and a half since she'd told me I could never be a linebacker for the New York Giants.


I moped around for at least a day, until I discovered Lad, a Dog and, my favorite, Wolf. And Grandma's books from childhood. Judy said she started reading all the books on the shelf beside her mother's chair. When we each wound up telling our parents that we didn't know why people hated grounding, I think they gave up on us entirely.


***
What I hold onto is how bright the summer was.  That summer before teenagehood, I had already put all the horrors of rape and torture in a locked vault, covered with Utopian New Hampshire days.  It was the last summer of holding onto childhood, but the first summer I latched onto a brand new dream of becoming a Writer. Judy and I felt destiny called. No. DESTINY called. There were no lower case moments that summer.

I think we each created our own adventures there, creating our own versions of Heaven and haven, even Jimmy.  He found his own freedom, too, perhaps, when he was there. I never knew what his prison was.  I only knew my own.

And at the Lake, I broke free and flew.