Cool's Ridge

by Perrin, Ursula;

  “And what do you know …” she said, her chest heaving, “about these Cools?”

  Shauna and Sal had come up behind us. He was still in his wet trunks, black sunglasses, and rubber bathing sandals, the kind called flip-flops.

  “Oh no,” I said. “You’re climbing the mountain in this outfit?”

  “Ah, come on,” Sal said, “this is no real mountain.”

  “Have you ever experienced poison ivy of the feet?” Shauna asked him. “No? How about mosquitoes of the chest?”

  “I’m more worried he’ll break his leg. Then we’ll have to carry him down,” I said. “Major heart attacks will follow.”

  “Or hernias,” Shauna said. “To answer your question, Mrs. Stillwell, the last Cools to own the two farms were cousins. When we first came out here in April, Leonard did all sorts of research on the place. He even called on some of the area’s old residents.”

  “She means old,” Sal said, “as in ninety-five, ninety-seven, that kind of old. Nobody up here dies until they’re a hundred and ten.”

  We started hiking again at a leisurely pace but soon we were scrambling like rock-climbers, digging in the fingernails, catching at vines or branches. I kept looking around, keeping an eye on my mother, afraid that she’d fall, break a leg, or a hip. Oh please, I prayed, pleased don’t let her fall. She had no one now, except me. Her mother had died when she was small, her father died after World War II. She’d had a sister, Beth, who had died at nineteen, of T.B. I was it: her entire functional family.

  “So,” Sal said, as we stopped again, “the story on the Cools was this: they were crazy. There was insanity or something in the family.”

  My mother had decided to rest by lying on the fern-covered ground with her hands under her head. She had on a faded red and white seersucker dress that reminded me of a candy-striper’s uniform. Her white socks were neatly folded over, her tennis sneakers had been whitened. The outfit came out of a time capsule stamped Smith College, Class of 1934. She said in a dogged voice, “Perhaps you don’t know this, Sal, but Liz’s brother is quite sick.”

  “Yeah?” Sal said, “what’s he sick with?”

  “Insanity or something,” my mother said drily.

  “Mom,” I said, “you know what? DON’T.”

  “Don’t what?” she said. “Tell the truth?”

  “Oh please!” I said, “please. It’s the Fourth of July. Can’t we have a holiday from it?”

  Lying there on the banked ferns, she looked silently off into the treetops, so still she looked dead. She coughed and then said in a voice that seemed to be coming from far away, heaven perhaps, “It’s because people won’t discuss it that nothing gets done.”

  In a soothing professional tone, Shauna said, “Sal got the story wrong, Mrs. Stillwell. The two Cool farms were owned by Rufus and Herman Cool. They were married to sisters. One sister got sick and was sent to Greystone. The other sister came down from the ridge to look after her sister’s children. While she was keeping house for them, she fell in love with their father.”

  “Her own husband got real ticked off,” Sal said. “He came down from the ridge and burned his cousin’s house down. At least that’s the story.”

  “Sounds like he was the crazy one,” my mother said. “And that poor woman, the one they sent to Greystone. I wonder what happened to her? Have you ever been to Greystone, Sal?”

  Sal slapped at a mosquito on his chest. “Not yet,” he said.

  “The main building was built in 1871. It’s a beautiful example of High Victorian architecture. Back then, New Jersey was proud of its mental health care system. They had classes for the mentally ill in art, music and horticulture. The country air was thought to have curative powers … so they built the asylum in a park. These days we still believe in lots of fresh air, which I guess is why mental patients live on the street.”

  Sal stared at my mother through his sunglasses.

  She coughed. “Human beings are a frail lot. At one time or another we may all need some help.” Her voice had gone. She spoke in a whisper. When she tried to get up Sal gallantly buckled his knees and extended his blacksmith’s arm, pulling her upright as easily as if she were made of crêpe paper.

  A few minutes later we stepped out of the forest’s damp twittering gloom onto the grassy ridgetop plateau. The old pastures had grown up waist-high, a dark gold sea that rippled in the constant breeze. Straight ahead of us, sunk in its ocean of grass, lay the abandoned dairy barn, its tilted silo about to succumb to the buffeting winds. Beyond this ridge, the next one rose up sullen and overpowering, a real mountain with barren cliffs of purple stone that resembled a jawful of clenched teeth.

  “Let’s go see the barn!” May said.

  “What? Walk through all this itchy, buggy grass?” my mother asked.

  “C’mon,” May said, “it’s fun. Pretend you’re swimming!”

  We surged forward, lifting our arms and swinging our shoulders like turn-of-the-century seaside bathers in a silent movie. Grasshoppers exploded like popcorn, shooting out ahead of us. Sal lost and then found a sandal, Wayne swatted himself and worried about ticks. We were all glad to get inside the barn where it was dim and cool, and I was the only one who thought it was sad—everything—beams, troughs, milking stations covered with funereal hunks of spiders’ lace, and the vivid dungy warmth that permeated the air the only trace of long-gone horses.

  “Phew!” my mother said, waving her hand in front of her face, “the dust! Get me out of here!”

  “Let’s go see the house,” May said.

  “Is anyone in it?” my mother said.

  “Not now,” Wayne said.

  “Is it a wreck?” I asked.

  “Not exactly,” May said. “Wayne keeps saying, ‘With a little work …’”

  “That’s right,” Wayne said, turning and giving May his pink grin, “with a little work …” We were walking through the spruce grove that sheltered the house.

  “Sweetheart,” May complained, “just forget it. I wouldn’t live up here if this were the last house on earth and you were the last man.”

  “I am the last man,” Wayne said, putting his arm around May’s waist.

  “Really,” Shauna said. “I thought you were the first man. As in Cro-Magnon.”

  “Wait!” my mother said. We were standing on the overgrown path in front of the white farmhouse. The house wasn’t a wreck, but it was stark, as stark as an early house of the Great Plains. No shutters, a plain front gable with a square attic window, a front porch with a railing of turned balusters, and on the porch a wooden rocker with a board crudely nailed over the seat.

  “Ma, what’s wrong?” I asked. “Do you feel okay?”

  Shauna had started up the path. “Shauna, wait!” my mother said, and put her hand on my arm. “I saw something up there, on the second floor!”

  “A squirrel, probably,” Wayne said, turning around.

  “The window curtains moved,” my mother said.

  “Maybe’s somebody’s squatting,” Sal said.

  “Way up here?” Shauna said. “Without a car?”

  “It’s possible to have a car up here,” Wayne said. “There’s a better road down the other side of the ridge.”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t go in,” May said.

  “Of course we should, May,” Wayne said. “This is part of our rental property. If anything’s wrong, we ought to report it to the realtor.”

  “Well, then,” May said, “you go first, Wayne.”

  There was a pause. “Why me?” Wayne asked.

  “Why not you?” May asked.

  “What happened to Women’s Lib?” Sal said. “I think Shauna should go in.”

  “Women’s lib is about justice and equality,” Shauna said, “not stupidity. But if you cowards insist, I’ll go in first.” She went up the wooden steps and then turned. “How about it, gang, you going to back me up, or what?”

  “What is it,” May asked, “that makes Shauna so brave?”
r />   “Lack of imagination,” Wayne said.

  “I heard that,” Shauna said.

  The wind blew, and from the back of the house we heard a wooden clatter, perhaps a bulkhead door being dropped.

  “We’ll all go together,” my mother said firmly. “For heaven’s sakes, such a fuss.” She marched up the porch steps, elbowed Shauna aside, and herself shoved open the front door. In the dark hall, a narrow staircase leaned against the wall. The kitchen had nothing in it but a porcelain sink torn from the plumbing like a tooth wrenched out of its socket. The parlors were empty except for the stained wallpaper and the smell of mildew.

  Upstairs, the rooms were brighter. They’d all been painted—orange, cherry, lime—the hopeful colors of tropical fruit.

  I said, “I hate the smell in this house. It smells dead.”

  “Mice and mildew,” May said.

  “But the views are nice,” Wayne said. “With a little work …”

  May punched his arm.

  Then came the bang of the door again, or whatever it was the wind kept teasing.

  “Hey!” Sal said, “Listen!”

  We all heard it, and stood in a row at the upstairs bannister, listening to the noise of the footsteps clumping through the downstairs rooms, each step as heavy and relentless as time.

  The front door opened and slammed shut. The footsteps clumped across the porch. It was momentarily quiet, we were all intently listening, and then came a noise, a creak, creak—the sound of the porch rocker monotonously rocking.

  We looked at each other. “See,” Wayne said, matter-of-factly, “squatters.”

  “Who could it be?” Shauna asked.

  “I wonder if he’s armed,” May said.

  “Oh, May,” I said.

  “Liz, really,” May said, “people up here use guns. Ever looked in the back of one of these pick-up trucks?”

  “Well,” my mother said rationally, “we can’t stay here all day. Let’s quietly go down the stairs and reasonably approach this person, whoever he is.”

  He was very thin, thinner even than I’d remembered, his arms coming out of the dark green work shirt like sticks. He rocked slowly, looking out over the ledge into the small green valley to the south. He didn’t look happy, but his face was without the pinched fearfulness I’d seen there before.

  May spoke first. “Hi, Erroll,” she said. “Happy Fourth of July.”

  His head jerked around. His eyebrows peaked, his mouth fell open.

  “What are you doing all the way up here?” she asked. She had said it sweetly, but all of him withdrew. He huddled back in the chair, pressed against the woven splint. His long skinny neck retracted.

  “Do you come up here often?” Wayne asked gently. Erroll shook his head and sank sideways. “Hey, Erroll,” Wayne said, “it’s okay, we’re not going to hurt you. It’s nice up here, isn’t it? Peaceful, right?”

  “Listen, Erroll,” Shauna said in her practical way, “we’re having a picnic today over at our place. Would you like to stop by? We’re having hamburgers, hot dogs, and what else, guys? What else are we having?” she asked, turning her face to us and raising her reddish brows.

  “Chocolate cake for dessert,” May said encouragingly, “and ice cream.”

  I turned my head to look at my mother and saw that her eyes were full of tears.

  And then he bolted. Jumped out of the rocker and ran down the porch steps full tilt, his arms going like pistons, his big boots slapping the overgrown flagstones until he hit grass. He moved like a thresher, flinging himself forward, his long legs were blades slicing a path. Wayne called out after him, “Erroll! Hey, Erroll!” but he never stopped or turned around. At the edge of the ridge he plunged into the woods, his arms thrust up into the air as if he were diving feet-first into a lake.

  My mother shook her head. “Poor boy,” she said. “What’s wrong with him?”

  “He had some disease,” Shauna said. “Encephalitis, maybe. He lives next door to us. His name’s Erroll Knacker.”

  “Does he have a family?”

  “His brother and the brother’s wife. We think they mistreat him,” Shauna said. “Nothing too obvious. She makes fun of him in public is what we see, but he seems so terrified.”

  Going back down the ridge we were almost home free when Sal twisted his ankle. This brought forth a bellow of pain and he went hobbling off toward the house, theatrically declaiming and leaning heavily upon poor Shauna’s shoulder. I turned to my mother to say something humorous about Sal, and as I watched, her eyes went blank, she turned pale and fell to the ground, as silently as a balloon deflating.

  “My God,” May said, “Liz, your mother! Mrs. Stillwell! Mrs. Stillwell!”

  She immediately revived, but she looked so sick that we took her into the house and made her lie down on the wicker sofa. After a few minutes, she fell asleep. I watched beside her for half an hour, and as I sat there turning over the pages of a magazine, it came to me why, all day long, I’d been so irritable. I was scared she’d get sick, scared she might die. And then I’d be left all alone, to take care of my brother.

  When she woke up, she said she felt fine, she was just hungry, here it was five o’clock and she hadn’t had breakfast or lunch. We put on bug dope and went down to the pond, where everyone had gathered.

  We ate our picnic supper, the fireflies came out, and through the clear evening air, from the village four miles away, we heard the high school band strike up. They played a medley of marching songs, starting with “America” and ending with “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” We couldn’t see the village fireworks but heard the distant “ooohs” and “ahhhs” of the crowd.

  My mother slept in Skip’s room and left the next morning. She kissed me and told me I worried too much. I smiled wanly and went off to work. I fell asleep at my desk because I’d slept badly. Leonard was sarcastic and gave me stupid assignments. I thought to myself, “What are you doing? Why are you here?” but I had no answers to these questions. I felt depressed and without hope. That night my father called. He said, brusquely, “Will you kindly tell your mother to get a divorce lawyer?”

  As if the fact that she hadn’t was all my fault.

  7.

  Skip came back on Friday, in the evening. I had seen his car coming down the drive and I went out to meet him. He got out of the car and slung his arm heavily around my neck. “Hey, babe,” he said, and kissed me. His lips were dry, his breath was bad, as if he were ill. He had on a blue polo shirt that had stains on it, coffee-colored tears.

  “How did it go?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “It’s bad,” he said.

  “About us, you mean?”

  “Us? Oh no. Not about us. The other thing. Let’s talk later.”

  About eight, we went out for supper. It was a perfect July night, the black sky carelessly littered with stars and in the black air around us the swoop and pulse of thousands of lightning bugs. We drove south to Route 46. There was no traffic.

  “Where is everyone?” he asked.

  “Down at the shore,” I said.

  “Suckers,” he said.

  We went to the New Century Diner in a place named Butzville (eight houses, two gas stations, the diner) and sat in a booth eating hamburgers and drinking coffee. We sat side by side. I kept my hand on his knee, he put his hand over mine.

  “Okay,” I said, when he’d finished. “Now, speak.”

  He gave a weary grin. “I thought maybe you’d guessed.”

  “You want me to guess? I guess …” I closed my eyes and then opened them wide, “your parents aren’t happy about this.”

  He frowned. “About what?”

  I said, impatiently, “Our engagement. What did you think I was talking about?”

  “Oh,” He looked surprised, as if ‘engagement’ were the last thing on his mind. “Well,” he picked up a chunk of doughnut and crumbled it into his coffee mug, “you see, I didn’t tell them.”

  I looked into the thick white ch
ina mug with its mess of floating crumbs. “That’s repulsive,” I said. “That’s juvenile. It reminds me of something a three-year-old would do.”

  “You’re upset because I didn’t tell them,” he said.

  “How intuitive.”

  “Look, there was too much going on. I didn’t get a chance to see anyone alone for more than five minutes. My mother cried the whole time and my father sat in his study with his lawyers all around him—he looked like a raven in a flock of crows, they were all in there cawing and clawing at papers. My mother wanted me to hold her hand and my father wanted to tell jokes. It was very bizarre.”

  “What was going on?”

  “You didn’t see it in the Times?”

  “No.”

  “I thought Leonard would see it. It was in the business section on the Fourth of July.” He smiled ironically. “Perfect timing. My father’s being sued by the board of a hospital. He did a renovation for them and the facing of the building fell off. Some windows fell out. A porter was killed. There’s going to be a grand jury investigation, and meanwhile, he’s lost a couple of large pending contracts. He says by the time this all gets cleared up he’ll be bankrupt. We’ll be bankrupt. I don’t mean “we” as in you and me, I mean as in my family. For us,” he pressed my hand, “I hope nothing will change.” He paused. “How do you feel about that?”

  “About what?”

  “My … not being rich anymore.”

  “I’m disappointed. I had hoped you’d buy me a horse.”

  “We can still get a horse, but not right now. I’m not rich, but on the other hand, I’m not broke. I’ve got a job starting Monday. We’ll go on just as we were. Nothing will change.” He was talking to himself, mumbling.

  “How do you feel about it?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Confused. I don’t know what it changes, if it changes anything. I drove up saying to myself, ‘You’re not rich anymore, you’re not rich anymore.’”

  “How did it sound?”

  “Unbelievable.”

  We both laughed. I said, “I’m glad you can joke about it.”