by Joe Derkacht
Episode Eleven
Newaulakem.
Beyond the vaguest of recollections about a river (a few pleasant flashes of sunlight off my own wet shoulders as I dove from high rocks into a seemingly insignificant stream), I remembered nothing about the town itself. As unsure as I was of myself, and of my Swiss cheese brain, I did remember the town was about four miles east of Driftwood Bay.
As Zell told it, in her childhood its main thoroughfare had consisted of one cafe, a gas station and mechanic’s garage, a grocery store with a genuine pickle barrel just inside the front door, a church, a tavern, and a bait shop, (both of the latter better attended than the church), exactly the sort of place that comes to mind whenever one thinks of a sleepy village. Situated on the stream of the same name, which was no more than 100 to 120 yards across at its very broadest, it had displaced an even older and ostensibly sleepier village of mixed Clatsop Tillamook or Clatsop Nehalem Indians.
The shed she brought me to was a relic of Zell’s childhood; damaged in the storm of 1939, it had been hauled out of the river and placed on a concrete foundation with plank flooring. A hand carved wooden sign declared Newaulakem Artists Co-Op over the doorway. Like the door of my own shop, business hours were posted, except that these included weekend hours. Zell didn’t have to unlock the glass-paned door. A pretty blonde opened it from the inside and breathlessly ushered us in.
The interior was not at all like the vision I’d seen of boarded-up windows, dark ceiling spaces and lone, hanging light bulbs and cobwebs. Inside the weathered exterior were white plaster walls and rustic open beams lit by skylights.
“You didn’t go to town with Tryg, Mr. Raventhorst?”
Mr. Raventhorst unsettled me, as if I were hearing echoes in my head. For a moment I had a flashback, of waking up to a slap, and voices demanding something of Mr. Raventhorst. Wasn’t Mr. Raventhorst my father? Then all at once my head cleared; I was back in the present. I would have answered the girl, if Zell hadn’t tightened her grip around my arm and stepped me past her like I was some sort of show dog instead of a human being.
“Tryg went by himself, Candi dear,” Zell said without explaining a thing. Trying to look normal, I waved, stumbling at the same time, as Zell hurried me on. I would have stayed to talk if allowed; despite the Mister routine, I was sure I knew Candi well. Or maybe it was just that her features and corn-silk blonde hair were distinctively Finnish. She was a cousin of mine, perhaps?
The shed, or Co-op, as I should have thought of it, turned out to be a series of spacious cubicles devoted to the works of local individual artists: a seascape painter; a sheet-metal sculptor; a bowl maker (in burled woods); a potter of Picassoesque forms; and finally, Tryg’s furniture and my carvings. That was perhaps half of the building. Several chattering tourists walked ahead of us through a set of French doors into a more rustic workshop. Here were my missing tools—my table saws, routers, sanders, and everything else. Once again it was as if I’d been transported to a place I could call home. Still, as familiar as the place felt to me, it didn’t make much sense. Why should I move all of my equipment several miles away from where I lived, when I’d always been able to simply walk out my back door to go to work?
Zell must have seen my puzzled expression.
“What is it, John?” She asked.
“Why? Why should I—? It’s crazy!”
“Crazy?”
“Moving all my tools here.”
“Oh, that’s what everybody says—or used to say.”
“Then why did I do it?”
“Because you could?” She said, smiling brightly. Even coming from her, it didn’t seem like much of an answer to me. “Why should you care?” She demanded. “A lot of people already figure you’re crazy, so why should it matter?”
I must have frowned or looked even more confused.
“You tell me yourself all the time, John. At a certain point in your life, a person has to quit worrying what people think about your decisions. And should it matter? You’re helping people here. Even if you’re not very good at communicating with most people, you’ve always done okay at selling what you make and making a name for yourself. The Co-Op isn’t just for you. It’s helped Tryg a lot, along with the other artists, as well as Newaulakem. Without the Co-Op, the town would lose a good percentage of its tourist business. You couldn’t do all that in Driftwood Bay. Your place is just too small.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the tourists we’d followed conversing with a woman seated at a pottery wheel. As in my old workshop, the artists evidently welcomed the tourists to watch them as they labored over their creations. The potter nodded in our direction and I distinctly heard my name mentioned.
“Maybe we should go,” Zell said, propelling me back toward the shed’s retail section.
“But those people might want—”
“Don’t worry, dear, talking to them is Candi’s job.” She glanced at her wristwatch in mid-stride. “Besides, it’s time we returned to the shop.
I tried to protest.
“Candi knows everything anyone needs to know. She’s Tryg’s fiancée and runs the sales end.” Her voice lowered to a whisper: “She may look empty headed but she’s really very bright.
“We’ll see you, Candi dear,” Zell said more loudly, waving with one hand and still herding me with the other. I almost felt as if Zell didn’t trust me with Candi. Or perhaps it was vice versa? My heart seemed to hammer in my chest at her enormous blue eyes—maybe just the same old appreciation I’d always felt for blondes?
Customers were milling around on the sidewalk in front of my house and at the door of my shop, waiting for us to re-open, when we pulled into Zell’s carport. Eagerness lit her face.
“You go back to your journals,” she told me, patting me on the arm. Over my protests, she said, “Better yet, dear, go talk to your old friend Claude. Anything to rest that poor brain of yours as much as it needs.”
She was out of the car and headed through the gate into my yard before I could properly respond. Running the shop seemed to suit her. It might even be her calling. My own tortured responses to questions from customers certainly would not measure up to her voluble, happy exchanges with them.