Stormer’s Pass

by Benjamin Laskin

  It was noon when they stumbled across Lake Gilgamesh. They were hot and tired and the still pond was an inviting sight. Meandering along the shore of the lake, they came across a beachhead that struck them as the perfect picnicking spot. It went without saying that this was where they would rest and lunch.

  “I didn’t even know this place existed,” Steve said. “I wonder what it’s called.”

  “I think I’ve been here before,” Max said, looking about.

  Steve groaned. “Not again…”

  “No, this time I mean I was really here, when I was a little kid, with my dad.” He looked for some detail to spark his memory. “You know, my old man used to get in fights all the time with my mom and storm out of the house. He always came home late and he always came home drunk. One time I followed him because I always wondered where the hell he went. He came here. It doesn’t look as big as I remember it, but I was a little kid then and everything looked bigger.”

  “Well, what happened?” Steve asked, amused by the picture he had of a tyke-sized Max Stormer scampering through the woods after his father. “Did he spot you?”

  “Yeah,” Max chuckled. “I never thought about it until now, but I think he knew I was following him the whole time because he used to stop every fifty yards or so, take a swig from his bottle, and pretend he was looking at birds or something, just so that I could catch up. He knew I’d have gotten lost otherwise. I was only about five at the time.”

  “Well, what did he do when he caught you?”

  “I was watching him from behind a boulder—maybe it was one of those up there—and I saw him take a candy bar out of his pocket and start unwrapping it. He made all these cooing noises, like it was really delicious. I moved for a closer look and stepped on a branch—snap. He turned and acted all surprised and strict, and ordered me down. I slunk over to him, scared and ready to burst into tears. I stood there in front of him for the longest minute, looking up into his fearsome face, wondering what he was going to do to me. Then a grin cracked his stony expression, and taking my hand, he gave me the rest of his candy bar.” Max shook his head, surprised that he remembered such a thing.

  “Then what happened?”

  “Nothing. We just sat there looking over the lake. I remember I asked him if he came here a lot. He said he didn’t come here enough. When I asked him why not he just gazed at the water and shrugged. I felt sorry for him. He looked like the saddest man in the world.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “What do you keep asking for?”

  “Just asking,” Steve said, embarrassed. Not knowing what else to do, he bent down and picked up a small stone and chucked it into the lake. “Plop,” he said, as the stone entered the water.

  Max felt like a cad. Underneath his friend’s brutish exterior—the buzzed head, large, pelt-covered chest, arms that hung thick and long like a gorilla’s—beat the heart of a puppy dog. Steve was not ugly or mean or stupid—it was just that he looked almost too masculine, as if there was not a single domesticated gene in his make-up. Steve’s bashful disappointment was not something one would expect from a guy who looked like he could take your head off with a lazy swipe of his hand.

  “Nothing happened next,” Max said.

  “Oh.”

  “Wait…” Max began to hum to himself.

  “What?”

  “Did you ever hear this when you were a kid?

  ‘Old Man Messerman,

  Lives alone in a great big can,

  Sleeps all day, hunts all night,

  Eats little children in one big bite!’”

  “No,” Steve laughed. “Never.”

  “Maybe some of the other guys know it, like Sid or Jake. They were born here.”

  “What about it?”

  “I remember my old man telling me this spook story about this guy, Old Man Messerman, who lived in these woods. A real wild man. The story goes that he had been this successful doctor who enlisted as a medic during the Iraq War, but after seeing so many terrible things it freaked him out and he went bonkers. He came and lived up in these mountains in a tin shack like a hermit. He never talked to anyone, never went to town, nothing. Sometimes hunters or campers would spot him traipsing about the woods with a rifle in his hands looking all mangy and mad, talking to himself, always looking around like he had lost something. If ever someone tried to say hello or wave to him, he’d start hopping up and down, growling, cursing, spitting, waving his gun in the air—a real lunatic. They say that he’d even leave booby traps around to protect his space. Foot nooses, rolling logs, avalanches, stuff like that.

  “Well,” Max continued, “one night some kid disappeared into the woods and was never found again. Rumors spread that Old Man Messerman had got to him. The townspeople organized a posse and went looking for the madman. They never found him. But, they say that at night, when the moon is full and the forest is alive with the shadows of things living and dead, you can still hear his wild cries and cackling laughter—and, the gnawing and munching of bones!”

  “Is it true? Was there really an Old Man Messerman?”

  “Yeah, there was.”

  “And the part about the kid?”

  “Nah. Parents told the story so that their kids wouldn’t go wandering off and get lost. I’m sure that’s why my old man told me.”

  “It’s a cool story, though,” Steve said. “Kind of makes you wonder about the old guy. Maybe he wasn’t as crazy as people thought. I’m sure people think you and me are crazy too. I bet there’s another story there somewhere.”

  “So why don’t you write it?” Max said. “You’re a poet now. Write the ballad of Old Messerman.”

  “I never said anything about being a poet—you did. I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

  “Begin here, now,” Max said with enthusiasm. “Just start thinking of yourself as a poet. It’ll change the way you think about everything. Make your life a poem. Do that and the words will follow.”

  “You think so?”

  “I know so.”

  “What about you?” Steve asked.

  “Me?”

  “Yeah, if I’m a poet, what are you?”

  Max shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  Steve said, “A philosopher!”

  Max laughed. “A philosopher?”

  “Yeah, Max, that’s you. To be a philosopher all you have to do is to want to look life straight in the eye so that you can point out to others what they are missing, and you’re good at that. Yeah, a philosopher…” The idea was sounding better to Steve the more he considered it. “Like Socrates, Max. Socrates was cool. I think philosophers are true lovers of life because they can love it nice and they can love it mean. You don’t expect life to love you back. You don’t care if the universe might never have heard of you before. That’s how philosophers are, aren’t they? And philosophers, Max, they know how to fight, and they know which fights are worth fighting. They see the big picture, right? They’re true individuals, which isn’t easy, because if it were, there would be a lot more philosophers around, and I haven’t seen or heard of a damn one, have you? All the ones I ever heard about died a long time ago. Why do you think that is?”

  “They’re out there somewhere,” Max said.

  “Yeah, well where? Maybe we could go look one up.”

  “In colleges and universities. Nowadays they’re called professors, and you have to go to school for ten or twenty years to become one. You have to have a Ph.D. to be a philosopher. I know because once I was looking through one of these college catalogues my brother Whitney had sent away for, and I saw it in there.”

  “Well, maybe that’s what you should do.”

  “Yeah, right,” Max scoffed. “I’ll be lucky to graduate high school. There’s no way.”

  “But, damn, Max, there must be a way ’cuz I think you’d make a great philosopher.”

  The boys strolled along the edge of the lake lost in thought, both pondering hard the way out of their dilemmas. It o
ccurred to Steve that he was in the same position as his friend—poets probably had to go to college too. Being a poet and being a philosopher, it seemed to him, were related, like cousins. They sat down and stared out across the lake to the other side.

  “When I think about it,” Max said, “it’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That philosophers have to live in universities. Those ancients, guys like Socrates, I betcha they didn’t sit on their asses for ten years getting a degree. Nuh-uh. They strolled around in their sandals, pried and pestered and checked things out. There’s something wrong, even gross, about a big brain that’s never known anything but a classroom. There are things in this world that only your hands and feet can teach you.”

  Steve nodded. “And the same goes with poets, don’t you think?”

  “Hell, yeah,” Max said. “Poets have to have big appetites. They have to be able to stomach the whole world—good and bad, pretty and ugly.”

  Steve nodded. He glanced back at his daypack containing the books he had purloined. He wondered if those poets had college degrees.

  “What we’re talking about here,” Max continued, “is the difference between living life and just thinking about living it. We have to find out what we’re made of. We can’t take things for granted like everybody else does. Grown-ups think they’re wiser than us because they’ve breathed more breaths than we have. They’re always saying that they live in the real world and we don’t.” Max pounded the ground with his fist. “This feels real to me.” He pounded on his chest. “Feels real to me.” He reached over and tweaked Steve’s nose.

  “Ow!”

  “That feel real to you?”

  “Ow! Gawd, you didn’t have to pinch me so hard!”

  “Pinches don’t get any more real than that, good buddy. I don’t care how old you are. They say we live in a dream world? Well, maybe we do. Their dream world. We were weaned on it from the start—a dream told to us by other dreamers. Now, if you don’t like your dream, what do you do? You wake up, that’s what you do. And that’s what we have to do, Steve, if we’re going to be poets and philosophers.”

  “My dad says you’re an angry young man, Max.”

  Max smirked. “Yeah? And what did you say?”

  “I said I’ve seen adults who were a lot angrier than Max Stormer.”

  “And what did he answer to that?”

  “He got pissed off and slammed the door.”

  Max shook his head. “You know, sometimes I think grown-ups are the biggest brats around. They’re always whining about how crappy their lives are and how unfair everything is, as if it had to be that way. As if they had nothing to do with it! Big babies. They don’t know what they want any more than we do, but they’re too damn embarrassed to admit it. Somewhere along the line they all got sucked into something. I don’t know what exactly, but they got stuck bad. And if we’re not careful, buddy, we’ll be wading in right after them.” Max shook his head thoughtfully. “We have to stay clear of it, Steve.”

  “Clear of what?”

  “The stuff.”

  “What stuff?”

  “All the stuff that keeps you from knowing you’re alive. From now on, Stevie-boy, you and me, we’re going to live real. We’re going to live deep.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Max said. “We’ll figure it out as we go along. But acknowledging the difference and realizing that there is another way we can live is the first step.” He stood and brushed the seat of his pants. “Come on. We’re burning daylight.”

  21

  Stairway to Heaven

  Max and Steve continued walking, and picked up a trail that led back into the woods. Neither said much for a while. Both boys knew that something had happened to them back at the pond. Inside they felt something click, or snap—or bud. It went without saying that they had sworn some kind of vow, and that their friendship had risen to a new level of understanding.

  The path led to the opening of a large meadow. The sun was overhead and there was hardly a cloud in the sky. The sight fit their mood perfectly—a feeling of expansiveness, freedom, and possibility. They strolled through the meadow filled with expectation for things unknown.

  When they reached the woods on the other side of the meadow, Max spotted a long eagle’s feather on the ground. He snatched it up. He traced its edges with his thumb, twirled it between his fingers, and then stabbed the feather into his hair behind his ear.

  Steve said, “How much farther are we going to walk?”

  “Until we get to the end,” Max said, speeding up and pulling ahead, as the path had narrowed considerably. “Whoa…look out, low hanging branch, twelve o’clock.” He ducked.

  “The end could be thirty miles away,” Steve said. He snapped off the branch and used it to goose his friend.

  Max said, “Or thirty seconds. Look…” He halted. They had arrived at the edge of another, smaller meadow. A house stood at the opposite end.

  “Wow,” Steve said, pulling up along side of Max. “Do you think this is where she lives?”

  “Only one way to find out,” Max said, and headed for the house.

  Max knocked on the door but there was no answer. He knocked again, louder. They stepped back from the door and waited. Above the door, Max noticed a plywood plaque with edges sawed into teeth and a burned-in inscription. It read:

  COME INTO THIS SMOKY CABIN,

  GOD IS HERE ALSO:

  APPROVE YOURSELF TO HIM.

  —HERACLITUS

  Max knocked again and tested the doorknob. To his surprise, and Steve’s chagrin, it was unlocked. The boys exchanged glances. Steve shook his head in apprehension. Max smiled mischievously. He pointed to the plaque above the door.

  “It says to come in. Besides, if God is in there, I sure would like to meet Him.”

  “But, Max…”

  Max slapped his pal on the back. “Don’t worry, no one’s here. Let’s have a look around.”

  Max strolled in as if he lived there. Steve, still apprehensive, deliberated by the doorway. Finally, hearing no voices or gunshots, he entered, saying, “Just don’t touch anything.” Passing through the small kitchen, he found Max in the next room gazing up at some drawings on the wall.

  “No doubt about it,” Max said, pointing at the sketches. “This is where she lives. It’s the same hand.”

  “Okay,” Steve said, “so now we know. Let’s get out of here. We’ll come back another day when she’s around.” He made a move for the kitchen, but it was plain Max had no intention of leaving yet.

  “Books everywhere,” Max said, very impressed. He began to walk the length of the room, dragging a finger along the spines of the books as he went. “I love books,” he said.

  “Since when?” Steve scoffed.

  “Since I became a philosopher,” Max said. “Man, where do I start?” He slid a book from the case, flipped through it, and slid it back in again.

  “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “Damn right.”

  Steve walked over to one of the bookcases and pulled a book out and began thumbing through it. Neither youth had ever been much of a reader, but there was something inviting, even magical about the room. The sight of so many books, their musty smell, the wood floors, fireplace, cool cabin air, high beamed ceiling with its cobwebbed corners, the large oak desks, and the way the sunlight shafted through the window—ethereal and misty white, like a heavenly stairway—blended well with their newly acquired pretensions.

  “Do you think that girl—what’s her name?”

  “Aidos,” Max said, flipping through the pages of a history of the American Revolution.

  “Do you think she’s read all these books?”

  “Probably.”

  “Wow. She must be pretty smart.”

  “And she’s never even been to school,” Max said.

  “No kidding? Hey, what are you doing?”

  “We
haven’t seen the upstairs,” Max said, bounding up the creaking steps.

  “I’m not going up there,” Steve said. He crossed his arms in defiance. “It’s not right.”

  “Suit yourself,” Max said, leaning over the railing at the top of the stairs. “Wait outside if you want. I’ll be down in a minute.” He disappeared into the bedroom on the right, playfully tossing up the heel of his foot like a ballerina.

  Steve shook his head. “Nut.”

  He walked back outside and sat on the porch where he had left his daypack. He slid it over alongside of him, unzipped it, and took out one of the books he had lifted back at the girl’s tree.

  Max cased the small bedroom. He noticed a framed photograph on the bedside table. He picked it up and examined it. The picture showed a young family—mother, father, and daughter—sitting on the hood of a white pickup. The bed of the truck was crammed high with various household goods. The man, short-haired and with a neatly trimmed beard, wore a red flannel shirt and smiled broadly at the camera, his arm around the shoulder of the woman. The woman had on a purple, turtleneck sweater, her dark hair held back with a white scarf. Max thought her very beautiful. Her eyes looked lovingly upon the child, little more than a babe, who sat on their laps between them. The little girl, bundled up in a blue winter jacket, her inky black hair tossed by the wind, also smiled, but not at the camera. He studied the picture for a long time, then gently set it back down.

  He strolled to the other bedroom, peeking into the bathroom as he went. The two bedrooms appeared identical, only this one had blue diaphanous curtains and was a lot tidier. The bed looked as if its occupant had merely slipped out the side. A small indentation remained in the pillow. He crossed the room to a bureau on the facing wall. On top sat a variety of objects: pinecones, rocks, arrowheads, a vase of dried flowers, two brass candleholders, and an empty tea cup. An old maroon, leather-covered chair with its stuffing oozing out took up a corner by the window. Behind the chair stood a brass floor lamp, and beside the chair a small bookcase.