Chapter 2

Chapter Two


I never did find out how it got named the Sally Look, but the mystery of it just gave the whole situation more charm. So over the next year I kept in touch with the old fellow as I diligently searched for a suitable boat for a trade. He rejected all my suggestions until I had found a forty-five foot old Chris craft yacht that had a lot of potential. I got a hold of him again and he was willing to make a trade. Twenty thousand and some change was the deal, maybe a little steep, I think my dad paid less than four thousand for the thing, but that was in early nineteen seventies dollars, and she was a bit of a fixer upper at that time. But now she was in mint condition, this guy had gone over her meticulously and made her flawless.
I also, had to arrange to have the Chris craft boat shipped to him from Vancouver Island at my expense. Having done all that, I was held up in Yellowknife on taking delivery of the boat by the bankers; who did not make the money transfer from my term deposit. That meant that I couldn’t certify the check to purchase the Lady Susan or Sally look as it is now called. The savings plan I had, allowed for immediate access to my money, but there were penalties that had to be paid. Beyond that I had to give three months notice and I could avoid some of the penalties, or I could wait till the term was up and there would be no fees, but that would take more than a couple of years. I guess six weeks was immediate access in banker lingo, anyway not allowing for that is what put me where I am.
The six week delay put me into the Bering Strait in late October, and the temperature had plunged to well below freezing. The wind and spray froze onto the deck and sides of the cabin cruiser. I had tried to break it off, but it was getting too icy and slippery on the decks. I could not leave the safety of the cabin or the rear deck well of the boat without risking slipping off into the icy sea, and I knew that would be the immediate end of me. Due to my course and speed and the direction of the wind, the ice was collecting more onto the starboard side and causing the boat to list that way. I had to stop and get some sleep, and at some time in the night the boat laid over and water began flowing in over the stern deck of the boat.
At this point I don't know for sure if it was fortunate that I woke up. If I had not it would be all over, I would be where eternity was going to place me now, some place warmer and drier than where I am now, I can be pretty sure of that. But I did wake up as the small craft foundered. I tried to make it out of the cabin but she capsized and water flooded in, driving me back into the forward lower cabin where my bunk was. Stupid bankers, they're probably at home warm, dry, with lots of freely provided air, able to fall asleep on their warm, soft pillows without worrying about being sucked into the depths of an icy sea while they slept. It made my teeth stand on edge just thinking about it.
I had left Yellowknife in September, about the last week of September. The Mackenzie River was a difficult but beautiful leg of the journey; it had taken a week longer than it should have. There are many large deltas on the Mackenzie and it is easy to get out of the main channel, as it is not clearly marked. I had gone around an island on the wrong side at one point, and the water had gotten too shallow, so I had to double back around the Island. I would mistake some inlets for the main channel and have to turn around when they came to a dead end.
I didn’t mind these sidetracked excursions very much, the northern lights and the wild life on the shore, and the scenery was breath taking. The long fall nights of the north provided hours of entertainment from vivid northern lights. It was cool, but not too cool. I would grab a sleeping bag and stretch out on the deck leaning my back against the windscreen of the cabin bridge. And watch the stars and the aurora dance for hours.
Floating on that river, with the sound of the current against the shore, so gentle, so steady; the unknown, hidden behind a wall of trees that was crowded against the riverbank, and the small span of water between that tree line and myself, providing layer of protection from whatever the night hid in those trees. The comfort of a small bulb glowing at the back of the cabin, it was so distinctly cozy, like the sound of a mug of hot chocolate being stirred. I loved every night on that river, even though I was all alone.
Come morning I would make myself a small breakfast on the propane stove in the galley. The air was cool; so I would leave the stove burner on to warm the cabin while I ate breakfast. Then I would start up the old Flathead six and let it warm up while I sipped my coffee and gazed out the window at the last dance of the aurora borealis across the river. I nearly had to pinch myself to believe it was all true. It was a strange appreciation somehow for me, how things come full circle, knowing that I was sipping a coffee and sitting in the navigators chair, a seat I had not occupied since I was a boy. I didn't know how to describe it, I still don't know. There should be some word that tells it all, but I can't find it. Perhaps I am the only person in the world the thinks of these things.
The first glow of the new day lit up the river channel and so it was time to go, the days were short; I couldn't waist a minute of them. The shoreline of the Mackenzie is mostly pristine; untouched by the movements and industry of modern man. But there are some large oilfield developments that are clinging to the shoreline. Norman Wells being one of the largest, a huge manmade island extends from a man made peninsula from the core of the small city. The river is very wide at this point, so much industry packed into this small area, it was as if they were hiding it under the cover of the wilderness. If I had more time I would have stopped in and toured the place a bit. It would not be the first time I had been to the Wells, but it had been more than twenty years ago, at that time they were just starting to build the island in front of the town in the middle of the river.
There were several other small towns along the shore, but all were far between. From time to time I could see some native trappers and hunters along the riverbank waving as I passed by. I would have loved to stop to talk to them around their campsites, but I was running late, the encroaching of the winter season ever pressuring me onward. Each passing day was colder than the day before. I knew the north, the weather up here is predictable in its trends, after the week of warm summer weather at the end of July, it got colder, and everyday colder than the day before, as predictable as it was deliberate. I had no time to waste.
I made it to Inuvik and fuelled up and loaded the stern deck with four barrels of fuel. I figured that was more than enough to make it to Barrow Alaska. From Barrow I figured I would make for Shishmaref at the Shishmaref inlet. I would have liked to spend a day in Inuvik; perhaps I might even run into someone I knew from long ago. But I had to keep moving, it was now so cool that even in the height of the day I had to keep my jacket buttoned up tight. I considered for a moment, that I should perhaps just pull the boat out of the water in Inuvik, but I quickly dismissed it as an option.
Perhaps, I should've considered it a little longer. I hate that word: "Should've!" It should be removed from the language, it serves no good purpose, and it assumes an impossible tense. If that word didn't exist then there would be no need to hear that annoying phrase: "hind site is twenty-twenty!” If that was true then how come the people sitting in the rear facing seats in a station wagon don’t have a steering wheel? …And their always thinking; I wonder what that sign says?
I untied from the dock and pushed off; it would be some time before I would get to the next port of call. I motored out through the delta following the channel markers out to the Beaufort Sea. The Pingos slowly sank out of sight beyond the horizon, and then after they were gone, all that could be seen was the sea. It looked colder and darker than I feared it would. I was all alone again.
The first day and night at sea were unnerving, I was a lake and river person, and inland waterways were my experience. The open sea was not something I was used to. Navigating correctly was critical, and I busied myself checking and rechecking my charts, and drawing a pencil line to mark my progress against my global positioning system coordinates, this gave me some comfort.
I powered all day and through the night. As the hours drew long and midnight had long passed, that old indescribable feeling came over me, that feeling they don't have words for. I listened to the low rumble of my engine, the creaking and groaning of the planks rubbing against each other. I was rocked back and forth in my chair by the repetitious surge of the waves and I was comforted, like a baby is rocked to sleep on its mother's breast. It was a time for living in the moment, a time for making memories, not recalling them.
The tachometer was reflecting off the windscreen glass, my oil pressure gauge and engine temperature gauge like small satellite moons surrounding the large tachometer face floating in space on the glass; the bilge pump monitoring lights flickering with each roll of the hull. These were my only companions out there in that dark cold night, and they gave me comfort. I would look at the engine temperature and the oil pressure, they were steady and normal. That’s good, I’m okay, I’m not crazy, and I’ll make it all right. I would try to convince myself.
I looked around the cabin, the heavily varnished mahogany, the fine woodwork and structural design, and the smell; nothing smells like a well kept wooden boat. I found myself imagining my family and friends sitting on the couch, or sleeping on the bunks, but they were not there, the bunks were empty, and no one was in the cabin to sit on the couch and enjoy the moment with me. With no one to share these moments with me made the moment pointless, pointless melodrama. As serene as it all was, I was alone. The dash lamp reflections were transparent company at best, and so I busied myself with the task of reaching my first port of call.
The weather began turning colder by the minute all night long. I had to put my jacket on as the cabin cooled off. The sea spray was beginning to freeze to the windshield glass. The waves grew to a heavy four-foot chop, but that was nothing we couldn’t handle. It cooled off so much in the cabin that my breath was now freezing to the glass as well, making visibility poor. Because I had a state of the art global positioning satellite navigational system, I had no need to visually see anything to navigate, Although I still had to watch for the edge of the pack ice, as there was no way to know exactly where it would be.
I went down to the galley and lit all four burners on the propane stove and cranked them up as high as they would go. Heat came rolling up to the main cabin and bridge area from the lower galley deck. Before long the frost was off the glass and I could take my jacket off. It was all toasty warm and cozy again in the cabin. This was in stark contrast to what was happening on the dark sea around me.
With the sea spray continuing to freeze to the glass, visibility remained poor. I watched my track on the GPS, I found I was continually drifting to the north, and I had to keep steering to port to keep on course. I sailed all through the night, unlike being on the river, where visual reference was critical to keep from running aground, on the open sea there was little chance of this. For three days and three nights I sailed non-stop trying to make Barrow as fast as possible, each dawn came around and was exponentially colder than the day before. I was sleepy and hungry, but it shouldn't be much further till I reached Barrow, less than a hundred and thirty miles more if my GPS was correct.
Some time after Daybreak I made it to Point Barrow, I had to squeeze between the shore and the pack ice at this point, as it was only about a quarter mile off shore. The pack ice being so close to shore sheltered the shoreline from the waves, so a thin layer of ice had formed, some places this ice seemed to be nearly an inch thick. I powered through it like I was some kind of icebreaker, the planks of the hull echoing retorts of the breaking ice like a drum throughout the cabin. I was afraid that the ice might pierce my hull, but it held up fine. It would only be another ten miles following the shoreline of the point till I would reach the city of Barrow.
Barrow was unremarkable, it was like so many other Arctic Settlements that I had been to. There was no real port or dock that stood out. I cruised back and fourth about a hundred yards off shore till I spotted a place I could land, a large dock that looked like it was industrial in construction, but it did not look as if it saw a lot of service. Most of any shipping or boating was done from the several inlets and lagoons that penetrated the shore of the sea and were all around Barrow encompassing it. But they were heavily frozen, so this one dock exposed to the sea was all that was available at this time of year.
The weather began turning bad as soon as I had landed, with forty below temperatures and blizzard conditions expected. I was able to find the fuel depot and fill up with fuel. I filled both tanks and refilled the barrels with fuel as well. A guy with an old Hummer came with a small trailer and brought the barrels of fuel for me. He helped me roll the barrels down a plank and lash them down in the rear deck well area of my boat. His name was Frank; he ran a tour business taking people out on the land with his Hummer in the tourist season. He said I was nuts to do what I was trying to do, but also reassured me that "At least it was all down south from here!"
I feared getting frozen in so I was anxious to head out before the bay froze too thick. Ice was threatening to freeze me right to the dock even while I waited for fuel, so I ran the engine and while secured tightly to the dock I let the propeller churn away to keep the water moving. I really wished that I could sleep tied to that dock, if even only for a few hours, but time was not on my side, even as it was it was uncertain if what I was attempting was possible.
There was a bit of a stir in the community about my arrival, and even more about my departure. Several people came and told me rather bluntly that I was nuts to think of leaving and heading out at this time of year. But there was no place to pull my boat up out of the water, and if I left it in, the ice would crush it and the spring breakup would tear it to pieces. "In for a penny in for a pound!" I would respond. I felt committed, there was no turning back now; I felt committed, and they all thought I should be committed. I had no choice; I had to leave immediately, if the ice became any thicker I would not be able to push through it. There was some talk of getting the sheriff to stop me, so I left before they could get anything organized.
I powered a path through the ice and headed southwest, the ice was crunching loudly against the planks of my hull. Because of the blizzard that was whipping up a lot of snow; visibility was nearly zero. If not for the GPS I am sure I would have run aground. I was fearful of running into the pack ice and becoming trapped in it, the GPS had no way of knowing where the pack ice was, so it could not help me avoid it. The farther south I traveled the farther the pack ice retreated from the coast. I just had to get through this first part; I had to get away from the pack ice. I swung the search light back and forth across my path, continually looking for the broken and uneven edge of the pack ice. The possibility of striking it and breaching the hull was a constant worry.
It was a new experience to power a boat through a snowstorm, especially with the flat frozen black sheet of ice surrounding us. But it was getting thinner; it was making less noise as it crunched against the hull. It was breaking up, and soon it would be gone. When I made open water the waves picked up, but there was not as much snow blowing around. I set on my course for Shishmaref, and set up the semiautomatic pilot. I call it that; actually it's a small length of rope to lash the wheel and an alarm on my GPS unit. I set a tolerance for how far off course I will allow us to drift and when it reaches that point it sounds an alarm.
I hoped that I could then take short naps, enough to rest my eyes, and if blown off course the alarm will wake me; I will make the course correction, and then go back to sleep. I set the tolerance to plus or minus one quarter of a mile, and set the course heading tolerance to plus or minus ten degrees of desired heading.
That gave me a half-mile wide corridor to travel and weave back and forth on. I traveled like this for nearly three hours, bucking a strong head wind and seven-foot seas. At this point I knew I was clear of the pack ice and more than forty miles off shore, so I increased the tolerance on my GPS alarm. I gave myself a ten-mile corridor and a sixty-degree course tolerance. I was longing to sleep, and this seemed like a good chance to do that. I was off the coast somewhere between Wainwright and Point Lay, which is about half way to Cape Lisburne, where I planned to make my turn southeast towards the Shishmaref inlet.
With everything all set I crawled under the covers in the lower bunk and tried to get some rest. I knew that it might not be that smart, maybe even illegal, to have my boat underway with no one at the watch. But I did not have the luxury of stopping, I had to make for warmer ports further south, but I still had further north to go before I could get there. It would be at least two or three days sailing before I would be turning due south.
In my younger years I might have stayed awake all the way to Victoria, but I could not do that anymore. Years earlier, I had used up all my sleepless nights; I had no more to use. I think a man must only be allowed a preset total of nights that he can go without sleeping. Once those are used up, it is over; and you can't push yourself any more. I woke up some time late into the night, the alarm had not sounded. Or had it? I felt a little panic at the thought of having slept right through the alarm, or if there was some kind of malfunction with the GPS. I got up and checked the GPS; it appeared to be working fine.
I checked our track, and we were slowly edging toward the north side of the corridor that I had laid out for us. I had been able to sleep for over three and a half hours, and even in a very stiff breeze and medium seas we maintained a pretty good heading, by just lashing the wheel straight. I was feeling pretty good, so I put on a pot of coffee and sat up and steered for the rest of the night. I continued heading west by south west, and to pass the time I would calculate and recalculate when I would be turning south-by-south east. But it was over two days away before I would be making that turn, and the north was getting colder and harsher by the hour.
I stayed awake as long as I could, and trusting in my semi-auto pilot, I took another nap. I slept for about two hours at a time, when my alarm on the GPS would routinely wake me. I would reset my course and input any corrections needed, then go back to sleep. I considered widening the range so that I could sleep longer, but I decided against that, three hours sleep at a time was pretty good. I traveled day and night like this, trying to get enough rest and at the same time making maximum progress each day and each night. I hoped I would be turning south soon, this was turning into a long week, some days the progress recorded by the GPS was discouraging, and Alaska is a lot bigger in person than it shows on the map.
The GPS alarm Sounded and again I rose to check our course and position. Everything was smooth, too smooth I thought. Perhaps some time in my sleep we softly ran aground and now we weren’t even moving? I switched on the searchlight, and swung it around to scan the sea. The wind had stopped, the entire sea was crystal clear, but the temperature had plummeted to minus thirty eight, according to my cheesy little dollar store thermometer outside the back of the cabin. A thin layer of ice was forming over the entire sea, blanketing and subduing any of the usual ripples.
According to the waypoint set in the GPS I was off the coast at Cape Lisburne where we should turn south-by-south east. I traced the coordinates onto my chart with a pencil, and using old-fashioned time and speed calculations I determined that the GPS was probably right. I set a new course direction into the GPS, reset the alarms and went back to sleep.
Since the weather was now so calm, and we were far from the pack ice and from the shore, I reset the alarms to a much larger corridor, I set the tolerance to give or take two and a half miles, and heading tolerance to plus or minus fifteen degrees. I slept soundly for several hours perhaps eight or nine hours, and I was not awakened until the light of dawn. Which at this latitude; comes just before noon this time of year. If the sun doesn't rise until noon, do we still call it dawn? That was another thing I did not know. But for now I was feeling very well refreshed.
The sea was still calm, I checked our course and we were about two miles west of our desired track, not bad, so I left everything the way it was. I made myself a big breakfast, toast, eggs, sausage, bacon ham, even orange juice, it was the whole shebang. I was not planning on having lunch so this would have to carry me till supper, which I would not have till probably nine or ten at night. I moved the charts off the navigator's table and ate my breakfast there. After breakfast I cleaned up the galley and headed topside to clear the ice off the windshield and chip some large icicles that were hanging off the sides of the decks. A thin layer of ice covered everything, and it was extremely treacherous and difficult to keep from slipping, even the handholds were iced up and too slippery to get a good grip on.
I retreated back inside; I had knocked off as much ice as I dare. I wouldn’t be going out there again, it was too risky. The wind was picking up as well now; so staying inside was a good choice. The Nav alarm on the GPS went off, so I untied the wheel and steered our course correction, and since the sea was rising I stayed at my post.
The wind had whipped up into a frenzy; within minutes the sea broke through the thin icy layer that had bound her down and ten-foot seas were rolling in at me off my port bow. The spray freezing to every surface of my boat, the ports bow taking the brunt of the storm. The starboard lee side was becoming quickly encumbered with ice. While the force and mass of the water kept the port side relatively clear. Sometimes large sheets of ice that were not completely broken up by the storm would crash into the hull with a resounding cracking sound, I thought for sure that we were breaking up. But I checked for any internally visible damage, and there was none, she was holding together fine.
For several hours I fought the storm, the seas were rising to fifteen and sometimes twenty feet, the sound of the wind buffeting the cabin was deafening. Large grotesque ice sculptures were forming on my decks. I would reset my course so that my starboard side would take some of the brunt of the waves in hopes that the water might knock some of the ice off that side. It worked to a certain extent, but it took me too far off course to do it for very long. Minute by minute the ice was building up and weighing me down. I was listing more and more to starboard. The half-light of this short arctic day had given way to night once more, and the storm showed no signs of letting up.
By six a.m. I was exhausted from battling the storm all night, but it seemed to be letting up. Seas were down to about six feet at the most for the rest of the day. But the ice build up was still getting worse. I zigzagged my course to expose my starboard side to the waves as much as I could. This helped melt and knock some of the ice off that side, but much of it was too stubborn to be washed off that way.
By nightfall I should have been less than six hours from the Shishmaref inlet, but I was over twelve hours away, the storm had held me up for more than six hours. I transferred extra fuel from the four barrels to the main tanks to make sure that I would have plenty of fuel to make it through the storm. By the time I was done transferring the fuel to my main tanks I was soaked and shivering from the cold, and exhausted from vigorously pumping the hand operated barrel pump. I hung my soaking wet jacket over the stove to dry and changed into dry clothes. I wrapped a blanket around me and sat back at the helm. It would take several hours before I would feel warm again. Often I would leave the wheel and check on my jacket to see if it was dry, and to make sure that the open flame on the burner was not in danger of lighting it on fire.
Some time in the night the storm had subsided into less than three-foot waves, I slowed my engine and reduced propeller speed to twelve hundred revolutions in hope of eliminating any further spray from collecting on my boat. I was now at the final waypoint, I had to turn east by south east and make straight for the inlet.
I was sure the Shishmaref inlet was within reach now; according to the GPS it was less than forty miles away. I was having difficulty getting there however; the ice buildup on my starboard side made it difficult to navigate. With the hull being encumbered on that side I could scarcely turn to port. With full rudder to port the boat was still favoring a starboard turn. All I could do was turn to starboard and power in circles, or rather; in ovals, and try to make each oval stretch in the direction that I wanted to go. Or turn to starboard and head to Russia for fuel, but I was not sure how that would go over, and it seemed a little extreme.

It was at about the Arctic Circle where the Chukchi Sea and the Bering Strait mingled that the ice pulled us over. I had tired of making endless ovals and poor progress. I had motored in circles for hours, I had to stop and rest. I idled back the engine and let the propeller turn at about four hundred revolutions, just barely enough to keep us moving.
I set the GPS alarm to warn me only of running aground by inputting coordinates of all land masses in the Cape Krusenstern area, which were basically Alaska, and Russia. I was worried about the stove being on so long, so I shut it off. I didn't want to die from carbon monoxide poisoning. My jacket was good and dry now so I put it back on; I usually slept in it, since it was always cold when I woke up.
I piled on some extra blankets and settled in for a long snooze, tomorrow, in the light of the day, I would make a last desperate effort to chip the ice off my boat. If that didn't work I would send out a mayday call. If it came to that I knew that I would be in big trouble. I was not supposed to be out to sea up here with this type of boat at this time of year.
Morning never came; I was rudely awakened from my deep slumber when she foundered. By now I figured that the wind and the ocean currents were carrying me through the Bering Strait. Or was it? I did not know which way the ocean currents flowed here. I assumed south, but it could be north, I didn’t know. If it were north I would be in the Chukchi Sea rather than the Bering Strait. I hoped it was flowing south, the direction I was going, rather than being pushed back to where I had come from, I hated the thought of losing all that ground. The air was getting thin; I had to begin pumping in more air again.
I began to think about my situation again to see if I could at least improve my comfort level, with the boat at its present attitude bobbing in the icy sea; the head was high and dry, so to speak. I wondered if the light would work. The batteries had surely shorted out in the salt water and drained all their juice out, but that would be the starter batteries for the engine, the cabin light batteries were separate, they were in their own sealed box, isolated from the starter batteries by a battery isolator. There was a very good chance that that battery was ok and the light in here might work! I reached around feeling in the dark beside me for the light switch, it was difficult, and in the cramped space my arm had difficulty reaching everywhere.
Finally I found it, with the excitement of anticipation I flicked the switch, and…nothing, there was not even a dull glimmer of a glowing filament. The disappointment of it was such that I cursed that I had ever thought of trying to turn on the light. I was hoping that its glow would warm me. Perhaps I hoped it would be like when I was afraid of monsters being in my room and my mom would turn on the light and scare them all off.

When not at the cottage we lived at Milliken Ontario, on Kennedy road a mile north of Steels Avenue. Steels Avenue was the northern border of the city of Toronto. The mornings were chaos, my mother worked as hard as she could trying to get a half a dozen or more kids off to catch the school busses on time. The Milliken house as it would infamously be remembered, was an old drafty house, made around the turn of the century or sooner. The commotion of the mornings would wake me up and I would wander down stairs. "Go back to bed!” my mother would tell me, “you don’t have to get up for anything, and everybody else has to get ready for school!" I would wrap a small blanket around me and sit on the register vent in the dining room to warm up while I watched everyone get ready for school. Finally the last one of them would be running to catch their bus and the house would fall silent. Just silent, there was no peace that followed; there was always some kind of tension in this house.
With eleven kids to feed my mothers shopping trips were an adventure. My dad worked the night shift at MacLean Hunter and was home till about two thirty when he would leave for work. My mother couldn’t drive, some how, for all the efforts of all those that tried to teach her she could not do it. So my dad would drive her to the grocery store and wait in the car while mom shopped.
Canned goods were the order of the day, from as far as I could tell was if it didn’t come out of a can you couldn’t eat it. Only the sanctity provided by solid steel could protect food enough so that it could be stored and then eaten. Boxes full of cans of Campbell’s soup; processed spaghetti; ravioli; and even chop suey, all in a protective tin can. I was a skinny kid, food was a necessity of life, a cruel trick by God to make us pay for any fun we would have, you can’t get nothing for free everything comes with a price. I concluded.
One day I was at some friend’s yard in the neighbor hood, and his mother called him in for lunch. He immediately came back outside into the yard and asked if I wanted to come in for lunch. "Naw," I replied.
"Come on!" he insisted, "My mom made some soup and everything,"
"Campbell’s?" I asked,
"No its home made"
"Oh yeah! Campbell’s!" I stated correcting him.
"No my mom made it herself from scratch!" he insisted.
"From scratch? Oh you mean Liptons chicken noodle!" Lipton's soup was the only soup I knew of that did not come from a can, it came in a box, I was sure that must have been what he meant.
"No! She made it all herself from nothing! She makes everything herself!"
"All by herself in her own kitchen? You’re crazy." I persisted.
"Yes! She makes it all herself!" he asserted boldly.
"All by herself? That’s unpossible! …but, Ok! I said, let’s go!" I had to see this, I mean the machinery alone required for such a thing would be mind boggling to behold. With great anticipation I ran into his house, expecting to see giant steam driven stainless steel machines! Belts and pulleys, steel smelting crucibles, and all manner of levers! I had to see how it was possible to fit all that into their kitchen.
Imagine my disappointment, I walked into this kitchen and all she had was a pot on the stove that she was stirring occasionally. What a fraud had been perpetrated on me! There were no machines! There were no cans! There was not even a label maker! It was now obvious to me that these people were to poor to afford the real thing. His mom offered me a bowl of soup but I recoiled in horror, what had I gotten myself into?
"Is it safe?" I asked, you see to me, the can was best way, nay, the only way to safely convert living creatures into edible food. When someone would inform me that canned meat products were just scrapings off the slaughter house floor, I knew it was okay, because it was in a can, and so it was purified.
"Of course it is!" his mother snapped, I sensed she was insulted for some reason, but I didn’t under stand why.
"How can you be so sure?" I asked, "I mean without it being sealed inside a can how can you be sure that all the germs have been killed?"
For no reason at all that I could think of, his mother looked like she was getting upset, “Its good soup!” she insisted.
Skeptical I waited till my friend began eating his soup; he began eating it very enthusiastically. I cautiously took a sip off my spoon, these barbarians I thought, how could they eat food that has not been properly processed?
"Well how do you like it?” his mother asked, I could tell she was looking for a spectacular reaction, so wanting to make her happy I said "Its good," and then, being as tactful as I could I added; " but it is missing something."
“Probably the taste of the can,” she says with what I perceived was a slight bit of uncalled for sarcasm.
"That’s it!" I exclaimed, "You don’t have anything that can make it taste like the can!"
"You see," I continued, "I am used to eating real soup."
“This is real soup!” she exclaimed indignantly.
Then I realized that her problem was one of ignorance, she just did not know that modern technology had developed so far that no one need for dangerous old fashioned cooking any more. "No, if you go to the grocery store they sell real soup in cans! It’s called Campbell’s soup. Someday when you have enough money you can buy some too!"
At that his mother seemed a little bit angry with me; some people just don’t want to get with the times, I thought.
“It’s not supposed to taste like the can!” his mother asserted one more time. But by now I wasn’t listening, as it was obvious to me that this woman did not have one clue what she was talking about. I suffered through the rest of the bowl of soup sans that tangy metallic taste that all good soup should have; I was praying with every sip that I wouldn’t get some kind of food poisoning. Now I know how those missionaries in Africa feel like when the natives make them eat their crappy food! I thought.
Milliken was an interesting enough place I guess, it wasn’t really a town or anything, it was just a post office. I guess they needed a place for a post office so they put it here, and since it was a post office after all, it would need an address, so they called the place Milliken. There was not a lot to do, most hot summer days I could be found on the cement steps of our house with a hammer or a magnifying glass killing ants.
I had declared war on the ants, squirting Ronson lighter fluid down the cracks in the cement steps and lighting it up to destroy the ants inside. I could spend hours chasing the ants across the cement stoop with the magnifying glass as they would zigzag and run to escape. I would chase them into the dirt and strike at them with the hammer leaving craters like little bomb blasts in the dirt. The ants were relentless, and no matter how hard I pushed on with my war effort they would never give their surrender. I was no more than four but already I knew what they meant when they said, "War is hell!" Often, sitting on that hot sun bathed stoop I would think of the cottage and wish I were there.
Behind the Milliken house was an old powder blue nineteen fifty-five Cadillac. It had a seized up engine, I remember the night that it seized up, it was dark, and we were lost somewhere in the suburbs of Toronto, I don’t know what we were out looking for that night. We were climbing some sort of hill on a street with lots of houses on it, there was a chain link fence at the top of the hill and that was where the car quit.
My dad had ventured out for help and had been gone for hours. I remember looking at the backside of the front seat of that car, it had blue seats, and there were pouches in the backside of the front seat. There was a strap along the top edge across the back of it so we had something to hold onto as we stood up and looked out the front window as my dad drove. Hours seemed to pass, I don’t recall dad returning to the car, and sometime in the night I fell asleep.
After that we got a new car, it was a big white “Oldsy” is what I heard it called, it had some giant motor and Alex and Ron were quite excited about it. It was short lived though; Ron piled it up pretty good. Apparently the brakes failed, he hit a telephone pole, a big ol’ tree and finally into a graveyard and into a tombstone. There was a policeman right there who witnessed the whole thing. To try to make it stop Ron had put it in reverse and floored the gas, that big old engine lit up and boiled those rear tires in reverse, but that didn’t help enough to prevent the crash. After knocking the tombstone over Ron was frozen in position from the impact and still had his foot floored on the gas pedal. With the tires spinning wildly in reverse the car begins to back away from the tombstone. At that point the constable that had witnessed the whole scene came up to Ron’s open window and got his attention saying “What are you trying to do? Take another run at it?" The car came home on the hook and was very smashed up indeed.
My favorite thing about the Milliken house was the veranda, it covered the whole front of the house, and it had one inch thick by four-inch wide tongue and groove flooring running the whole length of it. A pony wall that came up only about three feet high or so surrounded it and it was capped with a two by ten-inch cap board that ran the whole perimeter of the three exposed sides.
The wall had a sort of ship-lap horizontal siding on the outside and the inside had a sort of vertical wainscoting. There were four six by six posts painted bright white, one on each of the two corners and two were framing the opening where the outside steps came up to an opening in the wall at the center of the veranda. This lined up with the double doors that were the entrance to the house.
Actually, I had never given the veranda much thought until one night when Cathy and Lynn and Dan and some friends they had over, were planning to sleep out on the veranda. “You can do that?” I mused. We dragged the mattresses off our beds out onto the veranda and loaded them up with blankets. It was cool at night so I think it was either late spring or early fall. I was not originally invited but I made my bed out there with them anyway. That night; before we would even try to fall asleep; everybody wanted to hear a scary story.
Dan would be the one whom we would solicit to step up to the task. Dan was an avid writer, he would make little storybooks with cartoons and drawings and stories that interested him. These books were made from proof reading paper that he would get from dads typesetting shop. He would cut the paper so that when folded in half it would be paperback size. He then would use the bobby pins as book binding material by sliding it like a paperclip on the fold he made in the center. This was one of the few passive uses we had for these bobby pins. There was a box full of these little books but I don’t know where they are now.
Mom used lots of bobby pins to secure her forty year old hair do, mom was older than that, but that was how old her hairdo was. These bobby pins were everywhere around our house, one of our favorite uses was to fire them at each other as projectiles launched by the red elastic band that came on heads of lettuce. These were the most deadly elastics, and would fire a bobby pin right through a hollow core door, or clean through your coat and stick about a quarter inch or so into your skin, oh yeah, that smarts.
Dan would pull these stories from things he had learned at school or from stories Ron or Alex would have told him. So since Dan had written them in his books he was a good choice for storyteller while we were out on the veranda. The cool night air was setting in and we all grabbed and pulled for our share of the blankets as we slid under the covers up to our noses. Lying on our backs listening intently with our heads sunk into our cold pillows Dan would ask, “Do you want to hear a bear story?"
“Oh yeah” those were our favorite.
"Well…" he begins" Sandy and Ron were way up north campin'," Now Sandy was the name that we all knew Alex as at that time, at some point though; Sandy grew up into Alex. I always wondered where the name Sandy came from, I was sure it had something to do with the cottage or the Peg III. Sandy dug the well at the cottage, which was probably sandy, and Sand Island, they used to go there a lot with the Peg III, so maybe that was it.
“They set their tent up beside some creek, that night; there was jus' a sliver of a moon so it was still very very dark. Before long Sandy was fast asleep, but Ron, had not been able to sleep so easily, he was sure he could hear something in the bushes.” Dan’s voice was becoming a little hushed. "Ron was sure he could hear something. He jus' couldn't fall sleep.” Dan would then quietly pause for effect. “Suddenly there was a scratchin' sound on the tent wall! But Ron had just started to doze off and was unsure of what he heard.” By this time we were listening intently and becoming very aware that there was only a three-foot high wall separating us from all the dangers that lurked freely in the night.
"But before long," Dan continued, "Ron fell off back to sleep, but he was not completely asleep. The scratchin' on the tent wall began again, When Ron awakes this time he is sure he heard something; "Sandy! Sandy!" He whispers his throat too dry to shout." Dan again pauses for effect. He is such a showman. "Finally Sandy wakes up and Ron Whispers to him what he has heard. Sandy listens for a bit, but hears nothing, "don’t worry about it," he says in a hushed groggy tone, and goes back to sleep. … Now Ron's sittin there all alone and there was no way he was gonna be able to sleep. An hour goes by, and nothing, Ron is now so tired that he slips back into a near sleep state. And no sooner than he does, he is awakened by the same sound. This time it's a little more persistent, and continues for a moment even after he is fully awake. "Sandy! Sandy! "Ron called out; reaching over and shaking him awake.” Dan again pauses and notably takes a moment to swallow.
“What now?” Sandy asks.
“Listen!” Ron tells him, so Sandy listens for a bit again, and hearing nothing silently falls back to sleep. Ron is now wide-awake, and he was thinking that Sandy was as well, and that both of them were quietly listening for any sounds.
"Then Ron hears what kinda sounds like something sniffing the air outside the tent! Ron was thinking Sandy was awake and listening. So Ron waited for his reaction. The sniffing turned into scratching and still no response from Sandy. “What do you think it is?” Ron asks in a hoarse whisper, and still no response from Sandy. Ron now realized that Sandy must have fallen back to sleep! He begins to shake him again to wake him up. Then Sandy grunts; “Oh what is it this time?”
“Listen!” exclaims Ron. The bear was much bolder now, even though it could hear Alex and Ron inside, it didn't stop! This means it must be a killer bear!" Dan pointed out, since he knew all about killer bear behavior.” The killer bear was scratching heavily on the tent wall! Nearly pulling the tent down! Jus' as Sandy wakes up the tent wall begins to tear open from top to bottom!
"Ron and Sandy jump up and dive out the tent flap! Their legs were in full run speed before they even could pick themselves up from the ground. With legs pumping and feet slipping like spinning tires they got to their feet in a full run!"
We had all heard how fast bears could run, so we understood why Sandy and Ron had to keep their legs flailing at top speed if they were going to get away. "They bee lined it for the Austin." Dan pauses to catch his breath. By this time we were all hiding under the covers.
The Austin was another legend from the before time. Its full name was “Austin Countryman”. This car was incredible. Its station wagon format disguised the beast within. I never knew the color of it, but I knew of its exploits. It was faster than a rocket ship, tougher than a Sherman tank, could drive through any terrain and up any hill, and it handled like an Indianapolis racer.
There was this one time when there was this four by four truck stuck blocking the road, and my dad was driving the Austin. The guy said that there was no way around him because the road that he was stuck on was surrounded by swamp and that my dad had no business even being there in just a two wheel drive vehicle. Dad just steered into that swamp and drove all the way across and up the other side, we sure showed him.
“So they made it to the Austin” Dan continued, "and climbing in they locked the doors. Because bears, although bigger than wolverines, are just not as smart and don't know how to pick locks." Dan explained. "They rolled down one of the windows a little bit, just enough to stick the barrel of Ron’s four ten shot gun out through it.”
"Four ten?" I asked, is that a big gun?
“No,” Dan replied, “in shot guns the bigger the number the smaller the gun. Four ten stood for four hundred and ten this was as high a numbered shot gun you could get, so then it is the smallest shot gun they make.”
"That seems stupid, why do they do it like that?" I asked
“Criminals!” was Dan’s reply, "you see, criminals might want to use these guns to rob a bank or something, and they would naturally want the biggest gun! Well to confuse them they number them backwards, so that the criminals think that there getting the biggest gun but instead are getting the smallest. That way the police will always have the bigger gun."
"Hey that’s a good idea!" I agreed.
Somehow the story petered out there and that was the end of it; “Is that true?” Some one would ask of the story.
"Oh yes it is!" Kathy answered for Dan. "I was there when Ron an' Sandy were telling it to dad to explain what happened to the tent!" Well it must be true then. I concluded.
Sleeping out on the veranda was always more peaceful for me than sleeping in the house, I always found this house creepy, even though it was the only house I had lived in except for the cottage. Strange things always happened in this house, things that stayed unexplained. Once I was sound asleep in my room when “Bang” a very loud noise woke me up.
It woke me up with a start, and I looked around my bedroom, my big brother Dan was still asleep. “Did you hear that?” I would ask, but no reply he was sound asleep. I got up from my bed and looked out the window, nothing there I thought. I walked into the hallway. It was dark, and every one was sleeping and all was still. I then went back to bed and after more than a few minutes I fell back to sleep.
What seemed like several hours later that I am awakened by voices in my room, I cannot make out what they are saying, but the light is on and it wakes me up.
Dan and Lynn and Kathy were talking. Something had happened; it was about three in the morning.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Boy are you a sound sleeper!" they accused me. "There was a bad car accident out front, didn’t you hear it? It woke us all up at the same time, there was one big Bang and we all woke up at once, but you were just sleeping away.” They taunted me.
“Wait a minute, I did hear it and you guys all slept through it, I got up looked around and nobody was up and I couldn’t see anything so I went back to bed!” I explained
“Sure, you just don’t like being called a sound sleeper.” Well they were right about that, I didn’t like being called a sound sleeper, I don’t know what is so bad about being a sound sleeper, but I knew I didn't like being called one. So, I didn’t know how to continue to plead my case, so I fell silent except to ask, “So what happened?”
“Some guy in a pickup hit the power pole down the road.” They explained. It was the next power pole in line from our house; that is to say one power pole length away. “The power pole broke off and the pole jumped up and the pole came down through the windshield and landed on the guy with its splintered end piercing him and pinning him into the seat.” they explained.
“Was he dead?” I asked.
“Not at first… I don’t think,” Dan replied, “but after a while the firemen slowed down and were not trying so hard, so we think he died then.” I was still puzzled how it was that I had heard it, got up and went back to bed, finally falling to sleep after some time, and then everyone else hearing it later, seemingly much later, I never would in my whole life figure that out.

The sun warmed up the morning air and I roused from my sleep only to find I was the only one left out on the veranda. I went inside to find my mom making her own special brand of coffee. Pride of Arabia instant coffee, she would always make it too strong and have to pour half of it out and replace it with Carnation evaporated milk. It was the only kind she would use; it was made from “contented cows”. It was also my dads favorite curse word, when he would get mad he would say; “What in Carnation…!” so it all worked together very well.
“Where is everyone?” I asked,
“Oh they're all still sleeping,” came moms, reply. So I went back onto the veranda to double check.
“No they’re not!” I replied returning from my investigation.
“They’re not out there; they all got scared from Dan’s scary stories and came inside to sleep last night.”
“So I was all alone?” … “Why didn’t you wake me to come in?”
“Oh, you were still sleeping, and I didn’t think there was much of a chance that there was anything to worry about so I left you out there.” I supposed she was right, but it seemed a little unsettling that my own mom left me outside all night alone.
Then I heard something outside, I went out the side door that was off the kitchen. The kitchen had a black and white checkered pattern tile floor; the contrast of the white against the black has always remained vivid in my memory. The old stove holds another memory, I can still see my little sister Shirley reaching up to an outlet on the front of the stove, she must have stuck a bobby pin into the receptacle slots, and she was showered with a huge shower of blue sparks. How she never got hurt Ill never know.
There was wainscoting halfway up the wall and continued all the way around and throughout the kitchen and into the dining room surrounding it as well. There were double doors to the outside, providing a small boot and coat porch. In the wintertime this spot would be full of boots. Our coats on the other hand would be piled up against the front doors, filling the space and making the front door unusable for the whole season.
I went out the side door and found Ron lying under his car; he was trying to fix something. With his girlfriend Debbie sitting on the edge of a flower garden that graced the south side of the house, patiently waiting, looking contented, just like the carnation evaporated milk cows. Ron was a real greaser when he was not at the cottage. He had jet-black hair loaded down with Brillcream, “a little dab ‘ill do ya’!” the ads would say. I don’t think Ron ever saw those ads though, cause he used most of the tube each time. His hair was in a wild dovetail in the back, and with a full cowlick that made a complete tunnel in the front. I always wondered how he was able to make that tunnel; it was that big and cylindrical.
As Debbie sat and watched Ron you could tell that she was completely taken with him. Ron was the first subject of gossip with the neighbors; he had a certain presence about him that required that you took notice of him whether you wanted to or not. Not a ham by any means, just a strong still presence that many immediately resented. Ron was completely unaware of this fact and was forever puzzled by the sometimes mean and spiteful reactions of people towards him.
“I don’t know what kind of evil spell that boys put on her!” Mrs. Melinsky would say, speaking of Debbie’s affiliation with Ron. “Can't she see his brains are in his feet?” she would go on. My mother would not know how to react. I think Ron was a little more of a free spirit than mom would have liked him to be, but I am sure that she still hoped for the best for him. Mother was not pleased enough with Ron to defend him against Mrs. Melinsky, but still didn’t necessarily share her spite. Even still, all mother could do was to squeeze out a non-confrontational sigh.
It was no secret to me; most everyone in the neighborhood thought Debbie was too good for Ron. Debbie was one of the prettiest girls in school, and Ron was a high school drop out, this fact may have also rubbed some the wrong way. Mrs. Melinsky was no exception, in fact if Debbie showed up at the house to see Ron and Ron was not home yet Mrs. Melinsky would try to strike up a conversation with Debbie aimed at discrediting Ron to her. But Debbie would usually walk away, and ignore her. Mrs. Melinsky persisted one time and Debbie turned to her and said “Listen mama’ I do not want to here what you have to say! Now leave me alone!” At that Mrs. Melinsky would insist that she was only trying to help her get away from that awful boy, and it was for her own good. But Debbie would have none of that; she knew Mrs. Melinsky never liked Ron. Debbie was faithful to her man and would not stand idly by and hear any one, much less this spiteful old bitty speak ill of him.
“What’s wrong with the car?” I asked.
“It needs a new piston,” came Ron’s reply.
“What’s a piston?” I asked.
“It's kind of like a can with a stick stuck in it!” That’s what I liked about Ron, he always took time to explain the technical stuff in a way that you could understand without dumbing it down so much that you felt like you were being condescended to. Ron worked on that car most of the day, and Debbie sat patiently on the stoop till he was done. I guess he changed that piston right there in the driveway. It was late afternoon before they left in that car together.
“Brains in his feet?” what does that mean? I was never sure, he was working in roofing putting shingles on houses, and the heal of his shoes would wear off on an angle. I don’t mean a little bit, it was a lot, one side, the inside, would be untouched and still at full thickness; while the outside of his shoe’s heel was worn right down to the soul. On both left and right shoes! Could that be what she was talking about? I thought.
Whenever I had a question that needed answering I went to the knower of all things, Dan. Dan said that what Mrs. Melinsky meant was that Ron was so smart that God could not fit all his brains in his head, and so Ron’s brains were every where, even in his feet.
"Is that why his shoes are always crooked?" I asked
“Yep! you see, that’s why Ron has to tilt his feet when he walks! To keep the weight off his brains that is in there.”
It all made perfect sense to me now! I decided.
The Milliken house had some strange happenings that were never fully explained. The bang in the night that I woke up to and no one else did till later was just one of them. There was another bang in the night, and this time we all woke up to it. “Did you hear that?” I asked.
"Yeah," was the reply. Within minutes the girls were up and out of their beds and coming into our room. Since dad worked the late shift he was rarely home at night, so Dan was the man of the house at these times.
“Dan you got to go see what that is” the girls insisted. So Dan swallowing hard and forcefully overcoming any fears prepared to go investigate.
I was up in our room with the girls and we were all awaiting Dan’s return, “Dan was so brave”, we all agreed.
After a while Dan returned; he was visibly shaken. “What is it?” we asked.
“Well you know the door that goes out of the backroom to the outside of the house at the back next to the well?”
“Yeah” we responded, our expectations evident in our tone.
“Well it has been torn from the wall and is leaning up against the house as if some one had put it there…. As if someone tore it off and then set it up leaning against the house.”
“But who?” we asked
"I don’t know I didn’t see any one" Replied Dan.
The door on the back of what we had called the “backroom” was covered over on the inside. The door was nailed shut with three and a half inch spiral nails, there were cement stairs leading up to it from when it was in use, but now it was locked and nailed shut. Even if it was not, and you could still open it, all you could see were the studs of the wall, some insulation or the sheet rock that covered the wall from the inside.
The next morning I went straight way to investigate. Sure enough the door was just as Dan had said; leaning as if someone had tore it free and placed it against the wall. I studied the situation for hours, and it was determined that there was not a sufficient enough of a seal in the doorway for air pressure to somehow build up and blow the door off, and even if it could, how would it get leaned up against the house? The only logical explanation was that supernatural forces had been at work.

As I continued to pump on the handle to draw in fresh breathing air, my mind began to ponder that point, all these years and still, what went on that night? What supernatural act had caused such a strange event? I had lived my life on the belief that things make sense, and although there very well may be a supernatural that can affect such things, it did not set well with me that this was the case here.
What could have happened? Let me think… The backroom was not always the back room; it used to be the back shed. But my dad had it renovated into a bit of a fancy studio apartment for my sister Nancy; it had a loft where her bed was, and a large living space with her own stereo and TV and couch and everything. It had its own entrance on the south side. It also had its own full bathroom that my dad had installed for her. It was the bathroom placement that was the reason the backdoor was covered up.
Dad had hired a local handyman to do the work. But it was Dan’s job to actually nail the door shut. I remember watching Dan nail the door shut. The hinges had been removed because my dad being a Scotsman, he saw no reason to leave them up there if they were not going to be used there any more. Was it possible that the door had simply fallen out? Changes in weather and humidity simply worked it loose enough to fall out? Perhaps the nails that Dan had pounded in there did not catch any good wood, and so they held very little? The bang was the sound of that big old-fashioned solid core door falling flat onto the cement landing?
But how did it lean itself back up? What possible explanation would there be for that? I have a couple of theories; one; “the magic bounce theory” seems about as far-fetched as anything supernatural would be. But there is another theory that incorporates coincidence and practical probability; I call it “The Dave Martin” theory. Dave martin was a very accomplished singer songwriter that had often stayed at our house when he needed to. I never knew where he came from, but he was someone who was nearly family somehow.
When Dave Martin was not staying at our house sometimes we would find him in our house anyway. One night I went into the basement of our house, the lights never worked down there, and it was more dungeon than basement. Most times I could only get partway down the stairs before I would have to turn around and run back up in terror. But on this particular day I managed to get a flashlight that worked. This gave me the courage to venture deeper down. I was looking for something I don’t recall what. My flashlights dying yellow beam caught what appeared to be the image of a man sitting on an old trunk in the corner. I didn't give myself the time to fully focus on or comprehend what I saw. I just ran like lightening up the stairs.
"There is something down stairs!" I yelled trying to get the ear of anyone that might listen. The TV was on, it was going to take a little more fuss to attract any attention to my plight. Eventually I got a response from Dan, and we made up some extension cords and rigged us up a lamp from the living room and ventured into the depths of the basement.
Caught, Dave Martin just sheepishly grinned. We asked him what he was doing here but he gave us no explanation. We invited him upstairs for cocoa and toast; reluctantly he accepted. I don't know why, but no one every pressed the point of how he snuck in, or how long he was down there for, or why he was down there in the first place. Then later, when no one any longer noticed him he would slip away into the night. Not to be seen again for some time. Come to think of it, Dave Martin showed up in a lot of places unexpectedly. Sometimes I would go for a short walk at the cottage, and find him just hanging out in the forest that came up to the back door of the cabin. At the time, I never gave it a thought, I just invited him in to the cottage, usually everyone was surprised, but happy to see him. But I can now tell that his mannerisms were awkward, like he had been caught at something, but at the time I was oblivious to this.
Another time I now recall is when my brother Dan and I were playing with some cheap CB type radios, we were up at the cottage, and we were up on the roof trying to see if we could reach anybody over the airwaves. After a while a voice came back calling himself; "Captain Canada!" We did not know who he was, but after a while we realized that he seemed to know who we were, this puzzled us, until we found out that Captain Canada was Dave Martin. What a strange thing now that I think about it. He lived more than sixty miles away from our cottage, how did our toy CB radio reach so far?
There were other times as well; My Dad had a shop out back from which he ran his typesetting business. There was a switch for the light at the door as you entered but rarely would the light work, so to find what you had come out there for you groped in the dark. One evening, my mother went out to the shop to get things ready for my dad. There was an electric heater on the crucible of the linotype machine that she would turn on so that the lead was melted and ready for my dad to start typesetting as soon as he got home from the late shift at MacLean Hunter magazine.
On this particular occasion when the light did not work, she was able to step on a small milk crate to reach the bulb. “Its loose again” she muttered giving it a slight turn to snug it up; then it instantly illuminated the figure of a man sitting at the machine!
“Ahh!” She screamed! But it turned out to be only Dave Martin.
"Hello Marjorie," is all he said, offering no other explanation for why he was there. Mom invited him in for some coffee, and once again at sometime when we didn’t notice he slipped away into the night. I recall it was not that uncommon for some one to come into the house from somewhere outside and say: “Dave Martin is out there!” The more I think about it, the more it seems something was not right about all that, something very disturbing, like flying a kite at night, it is all very unsettling.
So it is possible that either Dave Martin encouraged the door to fall and the leaned it up. Perhaps it is more likely that he was sitting in the dark of my dads’ shop in the middle of the night. Then the door fell, Dave went out to investigate, seeing the door lying on the ground, decides that it is a hazard and leans it up against the wall to stow it safely. Then he hears Dan coming out of the house and so he retreats back into the darkness, as is his custom.
There is one more theory, it is totally preposterous but still some might argue it is possible. I call this the Dan theory. Perhaps, just perhaps, as far-fetched as it may be, that Dan had not hit any good wood with the nails, the door had worked its way loose due to weather and settlement or shrinkage, as in the other theories. But here is where it gets really crazy, Dan sees the door laying down, realizes it’s his fault; that the nails he drove into it were driven in faulty. So he leans the door back up, first trying to slip it back into place to cover up his incompetent nail driving, and this fails. So unable to replace the door in the dark, he leans it to one side of the doorway and goes back inside the house.
Now, I don’t know when he devised his deception, was it at the door in the shame of his incompetent nailing, or was it immediately upon entering our room and seeing all the expectant faces of fear. To say that the door had fallen over, it was not nailed in good enough would be rather anticlimactic. So not willing to disappoint us, he made up the story of it already being leaned up against the porch as if some one had leaned it there. After all it was not really lying, I mean it was leaned up against the wall as if some one had put it there…. But that theory is preposterous.
But still that is not to say that the Milliken house was not without its Salem's Lot type charm. It was always trying to burn down, light bulbs would continually blow out, and it was impossible to keep all the lights in working order at the same time. I never felt good in that house; I never trusted the house like someone should trust his or her own home.
Perhaps there was good reason to not trust the home, it did have a little history, and years after we moved away from there I learned the houses terrible secret. It had belonged to Mr. Hogg. Mr. Hogg was Canada’s last hangman, and he actually had preformed the last execution ever in Canada. Now I knew all of that when we lived there, and that seemed spooky enough. My mother used to tell me of a story about when a pig was loose in the neighborhood. There was a bunch of people trying to catch the pig with a rope but were having very little success. My mother, exercising her sense of humor, hoping to endear her self to the new neighbors with her charm; remarked: “If Mr. Hogg was here I bet he could get that rope around that pig!”
“Mr. Hogg was good man!” one of the people in the neighbor hood responded indignantly; not finding it the least bit humorous.
I am still not sure if my mom meant that it was because he was a hangman, or if it was because his name was Mr. Hogg? What I did not know was that Mr. Hogg had been murdered and his body was found in the back shed of the house, and for that reason my dad was able to buy the house and more than four acres that came with it for a song.
It wasn’t all bad though, the driveway turned into a two tire track dirt road that went to some pear trees and some grape vines and some vegetable gardens that were out back about a half mile. We called it the back road. The back road was picturesque; it was two parallel dirt paths worn into the green grass, caused by the traffic of Mr. Toucheques old ford tractor. Mr. Toucheques would drive through our driveway to get to the back road nearly every day. We would run and jump onto the back of the tractor as it drove by, Mr. Toucheques either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
A fence that hemmed in a herd of sheep that belonged to Mr. Toucheques bordered the north side of the back road. A cornfield framed the south side of the back road, with the tallest corn in the world; it was more than twice my height, maybe three times! If you got up early enough you could watch the sun rise up right at the end of the road, I recall standing in my pajamas in the tall dewy morning grass, not minding the cool morning air as the sun rose, mesmerized by the spectacle. I cannot observe a sunrise or even a sunset, without it triggering that memory. Some time later I learned that the sun was more than a million miles away. Hmm? I have walked down the whole length of that road, and it didn’t seem that far. I recall thinking to myself.
Sleeping in the Milliken house was for a long time was not good for me. I would have nightmares where my older siblings would burst into my room while I was sleeping. Each one of them grab an arm or leg and carry me off hanging face down to the top of the stairs, then swing out to build momentum to really throw me down the stairs; “one!…two!…three!” they would taunt. I don’t recall actually being thrown down in the dream, but I do recall the terror. I recall my mind panicking as it tried at the same time to imagine what kind of pain was going to happen as my head squeezed through the big cast iron central heat register vent at the bottom of the stairs. Years later I learned that those were not actually nightmares but rather repressed memories.
One real nightmare I had plagued me nearly every night, for I don’t know how long, but in the end I learned something from it that has helped me my whole life. In this nightmare I would be out playing minding my own business and thinking that things were good. Then in the distance I would hear a slow fast voice, a rising and falling tone to a descending beat. At first I could not make out what was being said but the voice distracted me until it had my full attention. It was getting closer and I could make out the words; “I’m gonna get you…I’m gonna get you…” it would repeat in that sickening descending beat. As it got even closer I could see its legs, long legs, taking even longer strides, and seeming to glide even longer distances than those long strides should have provided for.
I would hide, the whole time knowing that while I hid I was safe, but the voice would laugh and say “You can’t hide forever! I'll be here when you come out!” I knew he was right, I couldn't stay there forever. So I would come out rather then wait in terror forever. He would attack very ferociously as soon as he saw me, the terror peaked and sweating in terror; I would bolt straight up in bed! This would occur almost every night, it got so I feared and hated bedtime. Then one day I told my brother Dan about the dream. Dan said, “Well, you know it’s a dream, so next time go after him!” I recoiled in horror at the suggestion,
“Perhaps you were not listening! He has really long legs!”
“It’s your dream, so what can happen?” Dan asked
“I could die like those people who fall from bridges in their sleep and don’t wake up and hit the bottom an splat!”
“That can't be true, where did you hear that?” asked Dan
“You told me!” I exclaimed
“Oh I was just trying to scare you, it not true!” confessed Dan
“You were trying to scare me?” I asked
“Yeah, Dan replied
“ Wha’ wha’ why?” I asked, a little shocked. “You think that scaring me is funny?” You think it funny to take some kid that is still experiencing everything for the first time and make him live day in n’ day out in terror, too scared to sleep to eat, or have the light off is funny?”
“Yeah, a little, I mean not ha ha funny but kinda funny.” Dan answered.
“Yeah, I guess I can see that.” I conceded. “So I won't die if I attack this guy?”
“Naw, its just a dream, get him!” Dan urged.
So that night I went to sleep and sure enough the voice in the descending beat was coming, I was as scared as I usually was and I hid. He was laughing; “You have to come out sometime!” it would shout with a cackling laugh to follow it.
It was at that point that I remembered what Dan had told me to do. I was terrified, but I mustered all my courage and came out from my hiding place. I looked the beast straight in the face and he began to laugh looking as pleased with himself as moved to descend upon me and devour me. I didn’t move at first, it kept coming and so I summoned all my courage and through the all the terror I forced myself to make an aggressive move towards it. I was bluffing, if it got too close I was ready to bolt like lightening. At first it called my bluff and gave me a look from its eyes that said it was prepared to really tear me apart. I quivered but only for a moment, and I nearly ran, but instead I gave a death charge at him, truly thinking that this thing was gonna kill me. Such was my determination to end this ongoing torment I had been suffering, this terror that gripped me when I was most vulnerable. This beast that came to steal the peace from my sleep! I was not going to have it anymore!
To my surprise it ran, ran so fast that those long legs were a blur, and I saw him disappear over a dark horizon. The next night he came back to try to scare me again, but as soon as I moved towards it, it ran again. It came back one more time, this time I was angry at it for running off like a coward after it had scared me so much. When it was terrifying me I could not disappear over the horizon like this thing could; way out of reach, free to roam and terrorize the weak.
So this time I pretended I was scared, to draw him in, but I was only angry, not scared. I hid, it seemed pleased with it self again, I waited; it seemed to be drawing strength from my hiding, even from my fake fear. I pretended to show my self from my hiding spot in fear, it attacked, thinking it had me again, I reached out and got a hold of it, my anger was wroth, I was gonna tear this thing to shreds. Horror, pure horror, that is the only way to describe the look on this things face, it pulled away from my grip and ran, I gave a hearty chase but it was too fast. This time it evaporated into the blue gray mist before it even reached the dark midnight horizon. I waited for it in my dreams many times since, but it has never showed its cowardly head again.
Ever since then whenever I am placed in a situation of real danger that causes fear, or I find my self at the rants of a coward, I can’t help but get angry. No matter how scary or dangerous the situation I have to hold my self back, while inside I am saying “Bring it on!” It prepared me well for violent confrontation, but sometimes I would catch myself avoiding initiating confrontation when perhaps I should have. Like when I know that someone is lying to me, and I just let it go.
The next morning after the first attack Dan asked, “Well? Did you fight it?”
“Yeah! I did!" And so I told him the whole story of the dream.
“Well what do you know about that, you don’t die” Dan muttered to himself.