Chapter 13

When my mother returned from her trip to Minnesota, I discovered another item on the con list for moving to the country. With her dislike of the Amazon's rustic look and her clinging to cosmopolitan elitism, I should have guessed, but something in her past made me hope she liked the great outdoors.

While Mother stayed in Hibbing, I read my grandmother's letters. I knew nothing of my mother's family before. Grandmother expressed herself simply with plain spoken sentiment rarely emotional. In its absence she disguised love. She was happy about my mother's letters. She was sad about mother's siblings forgetting her birthday. Such were the extent of her feelings. I had an uncle and an aunt, both leaving the nest as soon as they could. They provided eight cousins. The aunt received a scholarship to Northwestern to study chemistry and became a lab assistant while her husband continued his education and became an instructor and eventually a professor of literature at the University of Chicago writing short stories which were published and a couple of novels which were not. As soon as he found gainful employment she retired to raise the kids. The uncle lived in Minneapolis working as a chiropractor. Though living fairly near Hibbing, my aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews only managed two visits a year. One of those visits continued a yearly event happening in the middle of summer. They went camping. Strangely, my grandfather never joined them. Ever since Mother and her siblings were children they spent a month canoeing and backpacking in various parks in Northern Minnesota. Later it became two weeks because the adults couldn't afford any longer. Grandmother wrote about recent vacations and reminisced about ones including Mother. They went to a park for two to four years in a row and then would change to another. Essentially they followed a park ranger and guide when he moved. At the beginning of each vacation he'd show them the area and hike and canoe with them. By the end, the children played on their own. Grandmother preferred those times. She wrote a lot about the ranger. She wrote she didn't like roughing it, but liked the peaceful noise of the woods and water and she liked talking to this man for hours. A loner and a homespun philosopher, he spent winters alone on fire towers reading and philosophizing in journals. He read them to her. The ranger visited her in Hibbing. I imagined he stayed in a hotel in a nearby town, but she didn't say. It happened not more than twice a year and some years not at all. When March passed and she hadn't heard from him, she wrote disappointment with a vague phrase about worrying about his health.

Mother called a couple times from Minnesota. The last time she told me Grandfather succumbed. He was 60. I asked if she wanted me for the funeral and she asked why. I never met the guy or her family. A week later she returned, Grandmother and the ranger in tow.

Despite her being in her mid fifties and him in his mid sixties they were a handsome couple. Grandmother had widened a bit but still had the soft skin and the elfin nose and the large eyes of my mother, though hidden behind tortoise shell glasses. She still resonated beauty. Tall and thin with a tanned face carved by deep lines and a long white narrow beard and bushy mustache, he reminded me of Don Quixote. Freed at last from the guilty burden of cuckolding, the lifted restraints refreshed their lengthy affair. Like honeymooners, they exuded the emotional warmth of newly minted love.

When they arrived, after compliments from Grandmother on my handsomeness and my good grades (and after recovering from the shock of elegance and riches the penthouse created), I told my mother about my plans to move to the country. She laughed. I insisted, telling her I needed fresh air and to get out of the City. As part of my excuse for leaving, explaining my plan to cultivate healthy untainted food, I explained about the book the plain woman and I worked on to my grandmother, and when she doubted it because I looked too young, I went into my room and brought out the introduction I had written. It still needed work and the first chapter remained in outline form so the project waited to be pitched. I hoped the country environs inspired better writing. While Grandmother and the ranger read, I dragged Mother into the kitchen. I showed her the scars on my arms, a couple fresh. She collapsed into a seat, her weariness returning. "Why not go to Montauk?" she said. "Stay with the mistress until school starts."

"I need more time. And my girlfriend wants to do this. So does your daughter. And I have a friend with a similar problem only worse who I could help save."

"You mean the lumberjack?" she spat, holding on to the first person mentioned. "I knew she'd be bad for you. You want to be a country bumpkin like that boyfriend of mother's or a fucking farmer like my stupid grandfather?"

"What if I do?"

"I didn't raise you for that."

"You raised me to fuck old women. You did well, except this," I pointed to my tracks again, "has got me down to one. And the mistress of course who still loves me for some reason and accepts me for who I am. Even she's excited about living in the country."

"She's going to wear bib overalls and dig in the dirt?" mocked my mother.

"I doubt it, but why not? It would probably be a kick for awhile until she got tired of dirt in her nails. She doesn't necessarily want to join us, but she's excited for me. She's excited for me, Mother, because she can see I'm excited."

"I hate that fucking lumberjack," my mother mumbled. "How can I stop you?" she said clearly.

"You can't," I said.

"I did all I did for you and you want to be a fucking farmer? Is that gratitude?"

"Mother, I love you. I respect you. I'm in awe of you. There's no one as good as you at what you do, whatever you do. And there are few women in this world as beautiful. But whatever you tried to make of me I'm not. Okay I'm a good gigolo. I even enjoy it even though I wanted no part of it. And like I said I'm down to one client. But what makes me happy? Do you know? I loved doing my show which you considered a waste of time and hated, even if you were nice enough not to admit it. The mistress told me she hated it. She walked out. That's fine. It wasn't for everyone or for a lot of people. But she was honest. Be honest. And maybe it's my last great moment. I lost inspiration and got lost and turned to junk and maybe if I go away for awhile I can find my muse again. Let me go, Mother. Be happy that I'm trying to get straight and have something important I want to do, even if it is farming."

"Farming," she mumbled shaking her head. "We should get back. We'll talk."

While joining my grandmother, I said, "The plans are set. I'm leaving the day after tomorrow."

"Are you okay?" asked my grandmother. My mother looked grayer than her.

Showing Grandmother the City excited Mother. Grandmother wrote how much she wanted to see it. She had dreams of sophistication which, unlike my mother, never came true. A day after her arrival, they went shopping and touring and visiting backstage leaving the ranger at the penthouse.

The ranger and I talked. The ranger was a City boy, from New Jersey, but close enough. He hated it and it hated him. Bad air gave him asthma. He went hoboing and discovered he didn't like the rails or the men riding them. He hated every city he ended up in. Looking for the edges, he ended up in Duluth where he met his mentor. Unkempt as he, the man displayed a smile and a twinkle. A little crazy, the ranger didn't fear madness. Sitting in a coffee shop, the ranger paying from his meager supply, he told the ranger where he'd been. He said he liked getting lost in the woods and living on what he could scrounge and mapping the places as he travelled and making drawings of the flora and fauna until he bumped into civilization. There he'd find the park headquarters and show them his work and guide them. They bought his work for a little money. He'd live on it until it ran out and then head back into another unchartered place and start again. The ranger asked if he wouldn't mind his joining. He asked if the ranger was queer. When the ranger said no, the peculiar man said good and led him to a whorehouse where the whores treated him like a regular or better, bathing and shaving and fucking and letting them sleep. The man gave them most of his money and he and the ranger headed into the woods. After a couple times getting lost and returning, including the whorehouse, the man left the ranger. The man enjoyed his company but preferred being alone. He suggested talking to a park supervisor to get a job as a ranger. Clean and shaved by the whores he looked hirable, so he went and got a job. He wanted to stay through the winter, and they loved him for that, eventually giving him the fire lookout.

"So why'd you accompany Grandmother here?" I asked.

"I love her. Been in love since before your mother became a teenager. She always talked about the big city. I'd let her. It made her happy for some reason. Out in the middle of nowhere, she'd dream of the city. She did these camping trips because she figured they'd be good for the kids. Her father used to do the same thing. Toughen them up and appreciate Mother Nature, you know. She loved it in her way. I mean, it doesn't get more beautiful then camping by a stream or a lake and the view and the vegetation and the birds. The peace is unlike any other. But she'd talk about the city. When you're mom came here, even with the whole pregnancy, you I guess, she envied her. She'd show me the letters and the pictures and drawings. Your mom's a beautiful woman, so of course I didn't mind. I mean your grandmother's no dog, but your mom's a sexy lady. I know they look a lot a like, but ... never mind. Anyway, as soon as she was free of the grouch, god rest his soul, and her kids left except your mom, she brought me home, to her home, and we made love the first time in her bed. Your mom simmered with anger, but she accepted it for what it was, her mom happy. It wasn't hard for your grandmother to be lured to New York City and she begged me to come, saying it was a long time and maybe I'd feel different. I don't. I'll stay for awhile, but not too long. I hope she comes to her senses and realizes what she's missing. She of course thinks the opposite, that she's finally not missing things. I'm retired, so I can stay as long as she wants, but ... Anyway, what you talked about interests me. Maybe I can help. I spent time in the country around here. It's beautiful. I know a thing or two about what works and what doesn't as far as locating and building a place that won't end up sinking or falling apart. I helped with a few cabins. And I had a good friend who's doing what you want to do, scratching up the land and growing enough to survive. I mean the winters here are nothing like Northern Minnesota, but it gets cold. What do you think? Do you mind an old man accompanying you?" I didn't.