Chapter 8: Midnight Sun

20 June 2016

In one of the long email messages Alice has sent me over the past three years, she wrote, “Before you self-diagnose as depressed or of low self-worth, check to make sure you aren’t just surrounded by assholes.” It was one of her clever one-liners and I was pretty sure I’d seen it on Facebook. It was a good point, though. After being in my trailer for just six months, it was amazing how much better I felt about life. After two years, I felt like I could conquer the world.

But I’d been gone from my trailer for nearly eight months now and I could feel some anxiety creeping into my life. I checked around for assholes. Well, my week in Antwerp had been pretty crappy, especially after having such a great time in Berlin and Mainz. It had been my last trip on my Eurail pass and the last leg was on the Thalis high speed train and it wasn’t included on the pass. That cost me an extra €25. Then my host in Antwerp decided to play hard to get and I ended up checking into a hotel. Nonetheless, I managed to spend eight days trying to sample every dark beer brewed in Belgium and eat French fries every day.

But the past week, I had been surrounded by old friends who welcomed me into their home near Amsterdam. We’d had a good time together and I’d had a good time exploring on my own. It’s amazing how little desire I had to even window shop in Amsterdam’s red light district, or to settle into a coffee house for a little smoke. I guess the coffee houses have mostly survived the anti-smoking ordinance. The problem was that people who came into the coffee houses and ordered a smoke of weed for their pipe or to roll, usually cut the pure stuff with tobacco. The anti-smoking ordinance specifically outlawed smoking tobacco indoors. But you aren’t supposed to smoke weed on the street. I guess they figured out a way around it.

Regardless, my interest in such things had pretty much waned.

No, it wasn’t assholes that were bringing me down. I was preparing to leave Europe. I’d just make it under my ninety days’ automatic visa. Even though I’d been in countries with six different currencies and got my passport stamped eight different times, they were all part of the EU, so I’d never left to restart the clock again.

I had lots of worrisome thoughts. What condition would I find my truck and trailer in? When I’d left it for a month in Texas, I returned to find the entire water system had frozen and I had to replace it. Would the trailer be filled with Seattle mold and mildew? I sometimes had problems with condensation in it. Did I leave the refrigerator open? I could just imagine what that would smell like. Were my tires flat? My battery dead? Had there been any vandalism?

Those little worries were building, but they masked other feelings. I wanted to be safe, secure, and cozy in my little trailer, but that spelled the end of my grand adventure. I’d gone around the world. Technically, I’d been in fifteen different countries since I left, including layovers. I had just one more stop before I returned to my trailer. My feelings were conflicted as I was excited about returning, about having one more country to go, about all the stories I had to tell to people. I was worried about what I would find when I returned, not only in my personal environment, but nationally. And I was disappointed that my adventure was over. Would I ever again have the opportunity to travel like I had these months?

I boarded the plane to Reykjavik, Iceland the morning of June 20—Summer Solstice. When I found out the international airport was thirty-five miles west of Reykjavik, I booked a hotel near the airport and a car. I wasn’t really going to Iceland to see Reykjavik. I was going for the midnight sun. The longest day and shortest night of the year.

A Long Time Ago: Yule

For many years—close to thirty—the Winter Solstice has been my high holiday of the year. You’ve read bits and pieces of my rituals in some of my stories. Invoking the triple goddess with the lighting of green, blue, and white candles, reciting the story of the goddess in the underworld with a different twist each year, laying our burdens on the log and burning it, decorating the tree with memories, lighting the Yule log candles with hopes for the future. Oh, yes. And drinking champagne. Eating a huge meal. Loving our friends. Embracing our family. It’s all part of the ritual, even though the past few years, I’ve celebrated it without the huge party of friends. That’s what happens when you sell the house, close the shop, and buy a ticket to the West Coast. Only my ticket was a truck and trailer and I’d ‘left home’ three years ago.

The first time I celebrated the winter solstice, I celebrated alone. I was kind of afraid to reveal my fairly recent acceptance of an affinity for paganism. I was practicing alone as a solitary. But my wife found out.

That’s mistake number two. I’d traded in the dysfunctionally neurotic Paula for the frighteningly psychotic Annabel Lee. Yes, named after the tragic heroine of Poe’s poem. The night I’d woken up to see her carrying a butcher knife into the bedroom gave me a clue. ‘Sleepwalking, ‘ she’d said. Fuck! I try not to have a lot of rules in my life, but here’s one: Don’t come to me for a hug and a kiss with a butcher knife in your hand!

So why did I stay with her? I think it was the adrenaline addiction. I never knew what that crazy woman would do. Half the time I was skyrocketed into ecstasy and half the time I was scared out of my mind.

I’d gotten a job teaching playwriting and dramatic theory at a small university after I finished my grad work. That’s what I went there to teach. The reality was they hired me because I could tech direct the shows. Yeah. Good old Paula and her idea that I might be able to earn a living in tech theater that I could never earn as a playwright. I guess so. That relationship was long gone. Marriage number one had lasted through getting my Master’s Degree.

Annabel was my teaching assistant and shop supervisor. I have to say I was a little shocked when she showed up in my office on the first day of school. Glamor girl. Reddish hair up on her head. Makeup perfect. Fingernails and lipstick the same 1950s candy apple red. 1940s style vintage dress that had been shortened to considerably above the knee with noticeably bare legs ending in spike heels. I was doomed.

It took almost two months of flirting before I finally succumbed. It was the card that she left me that showed a sexy woman on the front and inside simply said, “Want to get lucky?”

That night, I got lucky to the tune of a tight eighteen-year-old pussy clamping down repeatedly on my cock. A few months later, she was future ex-wife number two.

When she found out I was celebrating the Winter Solstice, she decided to make a party of it. I didn’t really object to that. I like parties and I guess I was ready to come out as a pagan. We established a lot of solstice rituals that I still practice. One of them I don’t practice with enough regularity is fucking the hostess in front of the fireplace after she does her impression of a virgin sacrifice. That usually happened after the guests had left, except the year that Marla stayed. As I cleaned and wiped up the messes from the party, the two women graduated to shots of vodka from the bottle of Stoli I kept in the freezer.

Before long, they were trying to outdo each other in sexy moves on me. And sometimes on each other. When their fancy party clothes started hitting the floor, I decided to drag the mattress downstairs in front of the fireplace. I got back to the kitchen in time to see Annabel perched on the counter with Marla between her legs having a little feast. Annabel came hard when she saw me, then clapped her hand over her mouth and ran for the bathroom. I went to check on her and found her passed out on the box springs in the bedroom. Well, that sucked.

I went back downstairs to the fireplace and found Marla stretched out naked on the mattress. She opened her arms and I sort of fell into them. And her. Repeatedly.

In the morning, Annabel Lee appeared over us, still fighting a hangover.

“Did you have sex?” she demanded.

“Well, yeah,” I said. “What did you think was going to happen?”

“Without me? You fucking cheaters!”

Well, it was just one more nail in the coffin of marriage number two.

But that solstice celebration was really one to remember.

Back to Iceland

The first thing I discovered about Iceland was that it was more expensive than anyplace else I visited around the world. The cheapest hotel I could find, thirty miles outside Reykjavik, was $125 a night. I’d been spending fifteen to thirty dollars a night for Rent-a-Bed lodging and the couple times I needed to use a hotel had found decent beds for less than $60. I found a car to rent on Expedia for $50 and decided to accept the $11 per day CDC coverage, simply because I was in a different country and didn’t want to get bogged down with my credit card maxed out for some insignificant damage. The rental place did a hard-sell to get me to accept gravel protection because ‘the most common damage to cars in Iceland is chipped windshields.’

Most people drive their cars around the island perimeter on gravel roads. I was going to go into town a couple times. I bought the $10 per day coverage. Once taxes and government surcharges were added in, the car cost €300 for the three days. Plus, I had to put up a €1,500 bond. Like I’m going to steal the fucking car and drive it to Greenland! Whatever.

I went to the hotel and took a nap. This hotel was so cheap it didn’t have a reception desk. The keys were on a rack by the door with the guest name attached to it. Just pick up your key and go to your room. They only dealt with prepaid guests. Oh well. I went to sleep and woke up around eight o’clock to drive into the town of Keflavik for dinner. I chose a little restaurant that had windows overlooking the bay. I ordered the Icelandic version of ribs and a glass of wine. Later, I had a second glass of wine. I was watching the sun move across the sky and at ten p.m., I had to admit that I was disoriented in terms of what direction I was facing. The sun was moving left to right, but I was sure the map said I was facing north and a little east.

A Long Time Ago: I Had a Dream

More mysticism.

When I finish rewriting and publish The Props Master Prequel: Behind the Ivory Veil, you’ll find a scene that is based on a dream I used to have repeatedly. It started when I was a kid and continued until I finally wrote it into the first draft of that story years ago. Home, as a kid, was Northern Indiana. And that is where I learned directions. The sun rose in the east and set in the west. It was clear and evident. My bedroom, when Dad built the second story and I moved out of the attic, had windows that faced east and south. Every direction had meaning.

East was history. Valley Forge, the Statue of Liberty, the Boston Tea Party, and Washington, DC. It seemed like everything historical that I’d studied in school happened in the east. Keep going east and you get to England and Europe where my ancestors came from. Go farther east and you got to Bible lands. History was in the east.

South was the hills and in the hills were the hillbillies. It was a primitive and rustic place. Kentucky was where moonshine came from, and it seemed like most of the really tough kids in school had moved up north from Kentucky. Jimmy wore motorcycle boots to school. In third grade! What’s more, I’d been to the Ozarks. I knew what the south was like.

West was the city. Chicago. My family made trips into Chicago about every other month to shop and visit my relatives. I was comfortable in Chicago. At Christmas, we were given the freedom to do our own shopping as long as we stayed in the Loop and met back at Marshall Fields at a particular time. Dad used to say that if you stood on the corner of State and Washington for fifteen minutes you would meet someone you knew. No matter where in the world you were from. In his day, I suppose that might have been true. I knew the city, or at least the eight blocks we were allowed to circulate on our own.

North, ah, North. North was a positive direction. The toll road was north and a mile beyond that was Michigan. Our Indian Guides group had hiked to Michigan once. But beyond Michigan was Canada and the Yukon. And the northern steppes. And the northern lights. I knew the northern steppes were vast tundra plains in Russia, but in my mind, I always pictured long steps that circled the North Pole. You could walk up the steps to something like an old Greek temple where Aurora Borealis lived. The north was a kind of holy land.

The dream. Even at twelve or thirteen, I was having some pretty powerful erotic dreams. Betts and I had played doctor and she let me touch her between the legs and play with her. Her brother, Carl, my best friend, told on us. Damn it! She wouldn’t let me play there any longer. But I dreamed about it. With her and just about every other little girl I knew. So it wasn’t surprising that was what I was dreaming of when it all started. I didn’t know exactly how everything worked, but I definitely liked thinking about it.

We were a pretty religious family and went to church regularly. As in three times a week. I was given a new Bible when I was twelve and became a member of the church. I was determined to read it all the way through and to study it thoroughly. During Wednesday night Bible study, I learned to use the reference notes in the center column of my Bible and relate passages to similar passages. It kept the preacher on his toes.

But I turned thirteen and even then things got scrambled in my brain. I’d think of one thing and it would lead to another and another. Pretty soon I had facts and details of one thing mixed up with stories I’d read, Bible verses, and stuff I heard in school. It was like my head was a Google search engine without any filters.

So I’m dreaming away about playing between Betts’s legs and I was feeling really good between my own legs. I knew something good was supposed to happen next, but I didn’t know how the parts fit together. If only her brother hadn’t told on us, I’d have gotten another chance to investigate and maybe figure things out.

And then there is a noise outside. An angry noise. For some reason, my room was in the attic of our house, where I’d played and slept before Dad built the second story, and the only window was a roof vent in the gable. I jump up and my would-be girlfriend evaporates as I look out the window and see hundreds of people outside lighting bonfires. They’re lighting everything on fire they can.

I climb down the ladder from the attic in my pajamas and run outside to find out what the hell is going on. Only I’d never use the word ‘hell.’ I didn’t want to go there. But people are lighting everything on fire they can find. The fields are burning, the woods are burning, the house is burning.

“It’s the end of the world!” someone yells at me. “We’re lighting the fires of hell!” He points up in the sky and there’s the moon. Only it’s not just one moon. There are dozens of moons in all different phases and they are randomly crisscrossing the sky. People are shouting that it is a sign of the end of the world, and being the Bible scholar that I pretended to be, I try to correct them.

“It’s not the end of the world. It’s just a fulfillment of scripture. The Bible says, ‘Many moons will come and go but my word lives on.’ It’s not the end of the world.” Yes, I know the quote is about false prophets coming and going, but it made perfect sense in the dream.

But because I’m challenging them, everyone starts chasing me. I take off running. Where? North! I could get to the holy place. People are chasing me and lighting fires and I make it to the Northern Steps and have to crawl up from one to the next because they are so high. But I keep running. I have to get to the Temple of Aurora Borealis. There the three goddesses, Shirley, Goodness, and Mercy, will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever. Amen.

And then I wake up.

But I know what direction North is.

Back to Iceland

Even more disorienting than the sun moving from left to right was the fact that dinner cost $75. The house wine was $15 a glass. About eleven o’clock, I left the restaurant. The sun was still well above the horizon. I drove out to the lighthouse on the point at Gardur about fifteen miles away. This point is surrounded on three and a half sides by open water. The North Atlantic. Due west, if I could see that far, was Greenland.

But that was not where the sun was setting. No. The sun was setting almost due north. There were a few of us out on the point watching the solstice sunset. A bunch of people had cameras and seemed excited about something. It turned out that there was some rare bird that had been spotted and they were all trying to get a picture of it.

I wandered along the shore a way. It was a well-kept grassy point and people could camp along the area without much hassle. A couple sites had small firepits dug down so a fire could burn without being blown all over. The wind was pretty intense. I’d never acquired much of a jacket on this trip. The heavy flannel shirt I picked up in Croatia inadequately substituted for something warm. I kept one hand on my hat and used my walking stick to help pick out the path. It was still hard to believe the sun was hanging just over the horizon slightly to the west of due north.

There were a few people who were partying along the jetty and I greeted them. I was kind of hoping that I’d find a group to join. I had a bottle of two buck chuck in my daypack that had cost me fifteen euros. But even though folks were friendly, the vibe didn’t seem right to join in. I got farther and farther from the main hub of activity.

“Sit and warm yourself,” the woman sitting by the next fire said to me. I was cold enough that I gladly hunkered down by the firepit and stretched out my hands.

“I’m aroslav,” I said by introduction.

“Interesting name. Slovakian?” she asked.

“No, it’s made up. Long story.”

“Well, we have a short night and a long day ahead of us, companion. Let’s regale each other with stories,” she said. She still didn’t offer her name.

“Are you local or visiting?” I asked.

“Like you, just wandering to find company for Litha,” she said nodding at the sun. It seemed to be taking forever for it to actually touch the horizon and it had moved its full width to the right as we talked. Litha: The pagan holiday for Summer Solstice.

“May I share in your ritual?” I asked. “I have little experience with the summer festival. My celebration has always focused on the winter solstice.”

“Ritual? Isn’t our being here watching the Oak King and the Holly King struggle for dominance all the ritual we need on this Midsummer Night?” The sun had finally touched the horizon and the sea was burning around it. I smiled at my new companion. What were the odds that I’d find another pagan out here on this windy point in Iceland wanting company to celebrate the solstice? As the sun sank, the Oak King was defeated and in the morning the Holly King would rise. End of the rising year and beginning of the decline. The end of my journey.

She wasn’t a young beauty. In the cool light of evening and flickering of the fire, I guessed she was older than me. But she had a healthy glow. Her backpack leaned against the tent that swayed in the wind. I noted it was well-anchored. It still looked precarious as each gust off the water shook it. She ... Name still unknown, had the look of a real hiker. She reminded me of Leslie Prine, the hiking leader when I was back at the school in Colorado. At first glance you’d think she was carrying a few extra pounds, but when she shouldered her pack, you realized whatever excess existed was pure muscle. I bet she’d hiked around the world and her pack almost certainly weighed twice what mine did.

“Seventy,” my companion said.

“What?”

“You were wondering the age of this old broad. Seventy. I’m Hecate the Crone. You were hoping for Selene the maiden.”

“I would never have guessed you for seventy,” I laughed. Not even close! “As for Selene, I’ve met her before. I think having the wisdom of age with me on this night is better than the foolishness of youth.”

“Ha!” she barked. “Age doesn’t make one wise. You know that. Experience is what makes one wise and you get experience by being foolish. What kind of wisdom would hike out here on this desolate point alone and set up a tent in the wind? I’m no Viking.”

“You hiked out here?”

“Not much choice. Too expensive to rent a car. My flight got in at two o’clock this afternoon and it took me five hours to get out here. That included a stop in Gardur for food supplies,” she said.

“It’s nearly fifteen miles. Where did you arrive from?” I couldn’t even begin to identify her accent.

“Glasgow. We have a pretty good range of daylight in Scotland for the summer solstice, but I decided to come farther north this year. It could be the last opportunity I have. Look!” She pointed out toward the water and the last sliver of the sun disappeared beneath its surface leaving the horizon glowing.

“Farewell to the long days,” I said. “Now the year declines.”

“Yes, but think about it. For the next two months, we bask in the glow of what has gone before. Did you ever consider that the hottest days of summer come as the days are getting shorter? It’s as if we reached our zenith and didn’t realize it had passed. We won’t kill the Corn King until Lughnasad.”

“In many cultures the golden age came when the victorious campaigns were over. That’s when peace came and the people thrived,” I said. “Shall we celebrate with wine? I brought a bottle.”

“It was all I could do to afford bread!” she said. “Have you ever seen such high prices?”

“I admit, it’s not fine wine. But I do have a corkscrew.” I rummaged in my daypack for the bottle and the corkscrew and the plastic cups I’d taken from my hotel bathroom. Hmm. What caused me to pick up an extra cup? I guess I just grabbed the cup and two were stuck together. Shrink wrapped for your safety. My companion went into her tent and brought out a loaf of bread and a blanket. She had a brick of cheese as well. I got the cork out of the bottle and she held the glasses while I poured and reinserted the cork. She handed me back my glass and raised hers in toast.

“Welcome to Litha,” she said.

“Blessed be,” I responded.

“You are freezing. Get close here and put the blanket over our shoulders. It’s a quarter past midnight and the sun just went down. This is as dark as it is going to get.” It wasn’t very dark. For the next two and a half hours, we would see the glow on the horizon dim and then brighten again as Sol regained the heights. ‘Night’ being defined by the period the sun was not visible in the sky was less than three hours long. There was a smooth transition from dusk to dawn. It simply didn’t get dark.

She stirred the fire and added a stick.

“You’ve only a couple more pieces of wood. Maybe I should go gather some,” I said.

“You won’t find any. Look around. I see four other fires. They haven’t left a scrap within a mile. I had to hike a mile back toward town after I set up camp to buy a bundle of wood so we would have any.”

“I have a car. I could drive back and get more.”

“It’s nearly one o’clock in the morning, Ari. We might be staying up all night, but it’s hardly the time to be knocking on someone’s door to buy firewood. We’ll just have to stay cuddled together for warmth. If it gets too bad out here when the fire dies, we’ll go into the tent. Have some bread and cheese,” she said.

“Thank you.”

“I don’t eat meat, but this is a good place for cheese and for fish.”

A Long Time Ago: Vegetarians

Once my affinity for paganism had been revealed, Annabel used it as one more tool to manipulate me. One day she would mock me and suggest that Bill and I go off to dance in the woods together. The next day she would have made up some bizarre sex ritual in which I was supposed to worship a goddess by eating a banana out of her cunt. I frankly didn’t know what was going to meet me when I got home from work. She could be sweet and sexy or an absolute harridan.

We either fought or fucked. When the fighting eventually superseded the fucking, we headed into the inevitable spiral downward.

On the occasion of one spectacular fight in which my mysticism became a convenient target for ridicule, Annabel snapped at me, “Why don’t you just go find one of your new age pagans and marry her?”

I didn’t help the relationship when I answered, “Because they are all vegetarians.”

The day it finally all blew to hell, I came home to find the house had been stripped. Furniture that was too big to move still remained. Pretty much everything else that wasn’t nailed down was gone. She didn’t dare, of course, touch my office. My computer and my writings were intact, as was the one painting I had in the office. Aside from that, she had left my recliner and my stereo.

The honor of thieves.

Annabel Lee had been incensed over the idea that when Paula and I split, she’d taken everything, including the stereo and all the albums. In her fit of passionate fucking to make up for all the suffering I’d endured at the hands of my first wife, Annabel swore that no matter what, she would never take my music from me. She was true to her word. The stereo and my new collection of CDs were untouched.

The house echoed.

Back to Iceland

As we huddled together with the blanket wrapped around our shoulders, I ate my unnamed companion’s cheese and she drank my wine as we talked about life and the changes of Midsummer. But it was driving me crazy not having a name.

“Brighid,” she finally said when I pressed her for her name. Well, if I could make up a name and live with it, I supposed it could only be expected that my companion would do the same. It was appropriate for Litha. “Believe it or not, my hair was once a brilliant red,” she continued. “I was vain enough to color it for a number of years after it started graying. When my husband had the good grace to die twenty years ago, I let it go natural.”

Her silver-gray hair hung in a long, thick braid over one shoulder. Her clear, bright eyes reflected the firelight. I might decide differently in the light of day, but I thought they were hazel. Her skin was not so much wrinkled as weathered. She was definitely an outdoor person and I imagined this was not the first time she’d sat in front of her tent looking at the sunset. Or was it sunrise? It wouldn’t be long.

I’m not sure what possessed me. I wrapped my right arm around her under the blanket and pulled her toward me. I leaned into her and placed a kiss on her lips. It wasn’t long or intense, but it lit her eyes more brightly than the fire.

“My goddess,” I whispered.

“You are a subtle devil,” she laughed. Even though it was a light sound, it just didn’t seem right to call it a giggle. Girls giggle. This woman’s laughter was rich and, even if light, it conveyed deep content.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“My God! Don’t apologize for kissing me. It’s been a long time for this old girl. There might be dew in the desert!” This time we both laughed and toasted each other with our plastic cups of wine. The horizon began to brighten minutely a few degrees east of where the sun had set.

We settled in silence. The last log had long since been added to the fire. Our arms were wrapped around each other, the wine glasses and cheese forgotten. We looked out to sea and watched the sun rise.

“We need to dance,” I said. I took her by surprise. I struggled to my feet. The sun was only going to be out for a few minutes as a heavy layer of clouds already threatened the top edge while the bottom was still below the sea.

“We don’t have music!” she laughed.

“You know the saying,” I said. “Work as if you don’t need money. Love as if you’ve never been hurt. Dance like a two-year-old. They don’t even care if there’s music.” We danced and spun around the remains of the fire, just a few coals now. We watched the spectacle as the sun rose and then disappeared beneath the glowing overcast clouds. Off to the northwest, a shroud of mist was heading our direction. It looked like the prow of a boat cutting across the sea. When it hit the shore, a fine rain began to fall. Brighid grabbed my hand and dragged me into her little tent, pulling her backpack in behind us. She zipped the flap shut just as the drops began to intensify and pelt against the fabric. We removed our shoes and settled on her sleeping bag with the blanket pulled over us. We held each other for warmth and fell asleep to the sound of the rain.

A Long Time Ago: The Face in the Mirror