by Kim Korson
“Oh my god, this is stupid,” Buzz said.
“Exactly,” I said, trying to break the orange netting on a bag of clementines. “This idea is stupid.”
“Not the idea!” said Buzz. “Your excuses for not wanting to go!”
“Oh, those are not stupid,” I said. “Those, my friend, are solid.”
“Right,” he said. “Your not looking rural is solid.”
Buzz was getting on my nerves. “What would we even do there, realistically?”
“We’ll just live, man,” he said. “We’ll figure it out.”
“We’ll just live, man?” I said. “You’re Matthew McConaughey now?”
Buzz is the guy who gets a restaurant menu days before he is slated to eat there just so he’ll know what to order once he arrives. Now he wanted to just walk around living?
“Are you worried you won’t be unhappy in Vermont?”
“Oh, please,” I said. “I can be unhappy anywhere.”
“Then what’s the big deal?” he said. “It’s not like the other places we’ve lived have worked so well for you. What’s the difference if you’re miserable here or there? At least there we’ll have a view.”
I rooted around in the bag of clementines, trying to find the perfect one.
“Hello?” Buzz said.
“What if I have to go to the dentist?” I said.
“They don’t have dentists in Vermont?”
“Not real ones.”
“Okay, this is now officially the dumbest conversation we’ve ever had,” Buzz said, pelting two clementines at the pantry door. “I’m going to bed.”
“Fine,” I said.
“You win.”
“Good.”
“We’ll stay here because of the dentists,” Buzz said, storming up the stairs, leaving me to pick up the fallen fruit.
• • •
I sat in front of our flip-the-switch fireplace for hours that night, thinking about Vermont. We’d been visiting for years, way before we were married or had kids, but I’d considered my relationship with it a superficial one, a fling. All I really knew about it was its fresh air and mountains and woodland creatures. It was a postcard, one I’d attach to the round mirror of my sit-down vanity and stare at longingly, if I’d had one of those set-ups or did that kind of staring.
I’d floated in its ponds and snowshoed on its trails and hiked up its mountains. I’d picked apples and sampled all varieties of syrup and filled up the basket I’d bought at Basketville (real name) with local kale and purple carrots and fingerling potatoes. My friends who lived there would clear their schedule when we arrived for the weekend, making us feel like we were the best and only friends on earth. I’d drive the back roads, taking in the white barns, and fall in love a little more each time, knowing deep down that every quick trip was a tryst with John Irving and Sam Shepard, who, in reality, would have no interest in me because I didn’t look rural.
When it was over, we’d drive back to sludgy New York and I’d pine for Vermont and dream of living there permanently, where every day would be maple syrup and forest friends. But really I didn’t know this Vermont character at all. We’d never stayed up all night talking about its dysfunctional family, compared pet peeves or stories or scars. What did it do when I went home? And what would happen when the magical attraction eventually fizzled?
It was time to call up the police blotter. If Vermont wasn’t ready to share its stories just yet, it left me no choice but to snoop around. “All right,” I said out loud, “let’s see what you got. . . .”
Various DUIs. A bar fight. Someone’s Havahart critter trap stolen from Woods Road. Ho and hum. Three entries, less than seven minutes of investigative work. Montclair’s always took at least half an hour. What was Vermont hiding? Where were its secret fetishes? Its second family? I’d even settle for a weird rash. But there was nothing. A different route had to be taken with this one.
Enter the catamount.
I’d heard this name on prior visits to the Green Mountain State. It’s possible I’d even seen a billboard somewhere. I thought Catamount was a ski resort, but it made little sense that a mountain would warrant gaspy noises from the locals I was dining with, no matter how many black diamonds it had. Being the victim of a mortifying no-soap-radio incident as a youth, I have made a lifetime practice of pretending I get the joke, or whatever it is people are talking about, followed by in-the-know noises so they don’t think I’m daft. I was a city dweller, though—what did I know about how seriously they took their mountains? When it just didn’t add up anymore, I pulled my friend aside to ask her what the hell a catamount was.
“Oh,” she said, fishing around in a bag of organic chips. “It’s a mountain lion.”
A what?
This was the nugget I was searching for. Never mind the blotter, look to the great outdoors. I couldn’t believe it took me so long to get there. I went to work. The wilderness websites were abuzz with news of this majestic creature prowling the countryside; there had been sightings in six towns. Great debate ensued over what to call this thing—some liked eastern cougar, others preferred mountain cat or, worse, mountain screamer—but no matter its name, they all seemed hopped up about it.
The catamount is a stealthy beast, able to jump seventy feet in order to pounce on deer or rabbits or, potentially, me. The mountain cat kills you by digging its hind claws into your legs, front claws into your shoulders. Then it bites your neck with these special teeth, ones with nerve endings that aid in finding the perfect spot at which to pull apart the vertebrae before snapping your spine. Finally, it drags you to a ravine and eats your organs. The catamount has been known to stalk its prey for a few days, familiarizing itself with your habits so it knows exactly when to strike. I turned off the light and closed the blinds.
Working under cover of night for the next few hours, I began to feel a kinship with this stalk-and-ambush predator, who, it turned out, is also reclusive and usually avoids people. Catamount attacks were rare but they still happened, mostly when people entered their territory. Statistically, there were maybe four attacks a year, one being a fatality—a fact I didn’t dare share with Buzz, because he’d accuse me of being narcissistic for believing I’d be the one-in-four to get murdered by a puma. I had a comeback for him should the need arise. I’d tell him that although they don’t attack frequently, when they do it’s usually a small kid or a solitary adult. It’s then that I’d remind him that for the most part I’m a solitary adult. He’d just sigh and leave the room. This was not a strong enough case to keep us in Jersey.
I needed more information about the troublemakers I’d be sharing my new neighborhood with if we moved. I started small by familiarizing myself with what the local snakes liked to eat (small rodents and toads) and where wild rats might nest (I don’t want to talk about it). There were two varieties of fox that might saunter onto the property—red and gray. Both species inhabit the same territory, though they prefer not to interact with each other, so they use the land like a time-share in Florida. I’d already pegged the reds as favorites, because they were famous for being intolerant of one another.
I wondered about the moose, an animal I’d been obsessed with spotting. Apparently the most likely problem with a moose-tangling would be hitting one with your car. However, they were showing up as special guests at certain ski hills, one even recently charging a skier. Of course, there were the bears. No matter how many times I read about them, I never remembered which I was to fear, the brown or the black. One is an opportunist, eating whatever berries it finds in the forest, and the other eats the people. Studying up on nature hooligans seemed to give me the ease and pleasure I felt when reading about crime. I thought it quite adaptable of me, to switch what there was to worry about so effortlessly. I guess it is all how you choose to see things.
City people often tell you the country terrifies them, that
it’s too dark and quiet. They feel safer with people around. Nightfall in the middle of nowhere can be daunting, especially if you have a lush imagination. In Montclair, I’d lie in bed hearing the sigh and whine of the DeCamp bus outside my window, but rarely did it make me conjure up the Wood Chipper Murder. In Vermont, the sounds of crunchy noises outside my window brought images of fanged creatures traipsing through the brush, ready to rip me to shreds.
My Internet connection might be slower in the country but my typing skills and patience are as sharp and fierce as what lurks outside. And they need to be when, at four a.m., you hear shrill screeches belting through the trees. At first you think you are imagining things, but when the yowling pierces the air again, it all sounds a little Jurassic Park out there. You can’t wake the husband or call friends at that hour, and you certainly can’t shout out the window to keep it down! All you have left is the Internet.
So you type in things like “weird screeching noise in southern Vermont.” It is then you meet the fisher cat. Yes, it sounds adorable. Conjures up stuffed toys my son might have, a soft kitty complete with rain hat and fishing pole. Inquire about the beast, however, and you’ll learn it has nothing to do with fishing or cats. This thing hails from the weasel family and looks like what might ensue if a woodchuck screwed a bear. It doesn’t eat people (although watch out for the family cat), but when this varmint is mating or back from a kill, you can’t imagine the racket. Teeny hairs you were not familiar with make special guest appearances all over your body.
There is also another group of no-goodniks responsible for caterwauling—the coyotes. Honestly, I never would have pegged coyotes to sound so effeminate. Don’t tell them I said this, but I always imagined them to be macho things. Really, they sound like a pack of teenage girls on a teen tour bus. A local vet told me that when coyotes meet up in the middle of the night, all that screaming is just their way of catching up with each other. Those freakish yelps, the ones that make you want to hide in the closet, are them having a little chitchat. Just gossip. I have no idea what stories hang off the coyote grapevine, but I can promise you I want no part of it.
I was feeling slightly jazzed about Vermont until I read that the coyote is super adaptable, able to live happily in all habitats, including the suburbs. I then took issue with the coyote, hostile toward this creature that was so mangy and yet still more well-adjusted than I was. Frankly, I took issue with the whole state of Vermont. Buzz was annoying and the country was stupid and I was not moving. Animal research did not do the trick, and now, on top of it all, I couldn’t sleep. I typed in medical symptoms I’d been experiencing just to end the evening on a high note. “Crunching sound while bending knee” took me well into the wee hours.
People will tell you life is a journey. To them I say, I don’t care for journeys. They’re long and dusty and they make you tired. I was already fatigued from all the research and the decision-making process. I just wanted to know what would happen to me if I moved. See into the future a bit. Flip ahead. A side note about my nature: I am terribly nosy. I have participated in some diary hijinks of which I am not proud. I can’t help it if I have stealthy eyes and I notice stuff. I like to think it is my job to be observant, that all this interest in other people’s privacy helps me hone my craft, but really I’m just a snoop. And while I will definitely dip into your letters, I will never read a book out of order. Ever. I do not, under any circumstances, flip ahead. (I also never peek at the author photo, because if the author is peculiar looking I spend the entire reading experience focusing on the wrong thing.)
A book and its chronology demand respect. Plus there was a small incident when I was nine and accidentally opened the soft cover backwards and read the ending of I Was a 98-Pound Duckling, by Jean Van Leeuwen. I was assaulted by the second-to-last line of the book, which then promptly imprinted on my brain: I now weigh 102. I now weigh 102.
For years, the line continued to harass me. It would taunt me in math class, during a root canal, even once at my wedding. Now when I read a book I have to actually cover the last few lines of a paragraph just so I don’t read ahead. I kind of think it was Jean Van Leeuwen’s fault. She was probably the trigger for a lot of my special behavior. Let’s go ahead and blame her for some other stuff that’s wrong with me, too.
But I wanted to flip ahead. I also probably needed to, because Buzz seemed slightly annoyed with me and was throwing fruit around. Also, the act of deciding whether or not to uproot was beginning to make me mental. I tried filling up a glass halfway by stuffing it with fun animal facts, but the truth is my glass is never even close to half-full—I barely even have a glass. Sometimes, when my decision making goes poorly or gets to this point, I ask a small committee of friends to tell me what I think. Unfortunately, they tend to say stuff like, You’ve got nothing to lose or You can always move back or The city will always be there or, the very worst, Live every day like it is your last—carpe diem! Which, frankly, all sounds a little too pom-pomish for me.
You know what? If I found out it was my last day on earth, I can guarantee I wouldn’t rummage through my desk to find some sort of bucket list. And I can also promise you it wouldn’t be called a bucket list, because the only things that annoy me more than the term bucket list are poached chicken and compromise. If I found out it was my last day on earth, I’d take to the bed and worry about the exact time said death would be happening.
Come to think of it, I have been living every day as if it were my last. There are mornings when I am drinking coffee or moisturizing and I cook up all the gruesome ways I could go. I even hear the sound bites by neighbors and reporters recounting how my day began just like any other, with coffee and moisturizing. When I leave for an airport and foresee my fiery demise, I envision the article that would begin by stating that my day began so routinely, so normally. This is how I spend every day living like it is my last. And, for a little extra credit, when I have the sniffles I don’t just reach for the tissues. Instead I head to the computer to call up that article I read about that woman who thought she had the sniffles, only to find out that what she really had was some ghastly flesh-eating cancerous plague virus malady, and died not six hours later. If my stomach aches, it’s that festering tumor I once saw on Nova, the one that grew so big it ended up sprouting hair and teeth.
I had to show Buzz I was taking this decision making seriously, so I made the family try on Vermont numerous times to see how it fit, check if the mountains made our ass look fat. Once there, I started interviewing anyone who’d talk to me. A woman at the co-op told me she breathes easier there and can hear herself think. I don’t think anyone needed that. I’ve had quite enough of myself, thank you. I can hear my thoughts as loudly and as clearly as that freaky pack of coyotes. That is why I needed to flip ahead.
Will I actually start that vegetable garden, or change my mind and raise goats or cheese or hemp? Will I be lonely or bored or satisfied? Will I hit Hank, our resident woodchuck, with my car by mistake? I really do get giddy when he makes an appearance and I’d miss him if he were dead. I used to feel the same way every day in Brooklyn when I’d spot a character I knew only by face, one of the many day players in my life. Maybe exchanging hipsters for field rodents wasn’t a bad thing.
But what about the family? Will the kids fall out of trees or get run over by wild turkeys? Will Buzz lose three of his fingers to the gleaming new machete he insisted on buying because he’s now convinced he is G.I. Jew? Will all that silence and nature calm me down or turn me into The Shining? I kind of need to know.
It took me 127 minutes to buy glitter and 172,800 to settle on resettling in Vermont. How bad could it be? I eventually told myself. The Ingalls family were mostly happy in Walnut Grove living in their little house on the prairie, even after that street urchin Albert came along to get adopted and ruin the show. And should I ever go blind like Mary, I am told the community would absolutely rally around me. That’s what small, hempy communitie
s do. They rally. They call you by name at the post office and DMV. They make meal trees. That woman from the library assured me that if something happens to one of their own—say, they get stricken with some cancer—the whole town comes together, helping any way they can. It was a touching exchange and very reassuring. I left that conversation finally feeling like I could do it, just pack the bags and everything would be fine.
It was only later that night, after we drove all the way home to New Jersey, and I put the kids to bed, and locked the doors, and checked that I’d turned the oven off even though I’d never turned it on—it was only then that I got into bed and thought, Wait, I’m going to get cancer?
Sorry, Nana
• • • • • •
Here’s what I know about Jews:
1. We don’t name our houses.
2. Due to weak constitutions, propensity for nausea, and irritable bowels, we are not seaworthy.
And,
3. We don’t celebrate Christmas.
Were she alive today, my nana would tell me not to feel bad and to look on the bright side (neither of which, I might add, are normal activities for the Jews). She’d tsk, saying we have our own customs and holidays sprinkled throughout the year, some even involving deli. If I think about it, I’m okay with my house being anonymous. Half the time I’m convinced the furnace will combust, so it is probably better that I don’t humanize the place and get too attached. I feel little pull toward the ocean, because I am not a strong swimmer and am terrified of sailboats. But Christmas, with its twinkle and catchy tunes, well—that’s the one I can’t quite let go of. Christmas is pretty. I want to hug Christmas. I want to deck the halls and hang my stocking with care. I want trees and cookies and shiny wrapping paper with twinkly bows.
“What about a nativity scene?” Buzz says. “You want that, too?”
“Why would I want that?” I say, knowing full well the dog would eat it.