The Huntress, Part One

A short story in three parts.

The month is November, the year 1939, in the next month she will be thirteen.

The girl wakes under many blankets, there is no heat in the room, she rises and dresses quickly, silently. She hears her little sister drawing and letting small slow breaths evenly, as she sleeps. There is a sweetness. A boy, the middle child sleeps in another room. His mind is not right and no one knows what to do for him. So they let him be.

It is before dawn, the house is still except she knows her mother is already up, she is always first and making breakfast. Such as it is. A quick peek out the window into the grey blue reveals little. There is thick frost on the sill. She goes down the stairs in darkness, stepping on the ends of the treads. She likes to outsmart them.

Her mother moves in the work which has no beginning and no end. Breakfast is ready, coffee and thick slices of toasted bread slathered with bacon fat, and a bowl of hot applesauce. They have no butter and no eggs. They have no meat. Today the girl will hunt.

As children, her parents immigrated from Sweden with their families. They later met in Boston, married and moved to this small town in New Hampshire near the lakes. Then the Great Depression hit. As hard as farm life was, their people in the city had it worse.

Her father sleeps, she can hear his muffled snoring. She has suffered her father’s cold fire, his powerful hands, his fumy breath. His desperate need for control. But there is only the day and another and what it takes to get through them, there is no control.

The old farm house on the west face of Cotton Mountain barely holds together. The foundation is solid though, of blocks of granite and will last forever as the old cellar holes in the woods attest. There is a still in the cellar, a big copper kettle over a fire box, a coil of copper tubing springs from the top. It smells of mildew and ashes and alcohol down there.

Winter is near, the brilliant colors of fall are gone. It is cold and grey, the weather wet and thick, the trees are bare except the oak and beech, their leaves will stay on, rustle in the wind all winter. There is no snow, and she wishes for snow. It will make tracking easier.

In the kitchen the stove burns wood, it is warm and snug, the floor is covered with linoleum with holes worn in it. Oil lamps are lit. It is her job to clean the chimneys and trim the wicks and fill the tanks. She likes the smell of kerosene.

The table is rickety, wide pine boards in the round top are contraband from a King’s Pine, oilcloth thumb tacked around hides them. Long ago, those boards might have put the man who cut them in prison. The legs are rotted from years sitting under the maple tree so the table got moved in. Sitting at the table under the tree shucking corn the bees would come for the sweet juice and crawl all over their hands. Let alone, they would not sting.

Eating her breakfast she thinks about this and studies the tops of the tacks, bright red, yellow, blue and green. They are like the gum drops in the covered glass dish on the table but without the sugar crust. She likes gum drops, pink Canada mints are her father’s favorite. Bees are not much interested in candy but ants are. Her mother softly whistles a few bars from a tune over and over again. No one, including her mother knows what the tune is.

The dirt yard between the house and barn is perfectly level. Her father has spent hours, days, years grading it, all with a wheel barrow shovel and iron rake. That it is level means something to him. She looks out at it and wonders what this could be. Perhaps it is having one orderly space. The barn is falling in on itself. Rain and snow fall through holes in the roof. You can see the sky. It smells of oil and grease and manure and hay. Machinery rusts, much of it broken down has sat for years. Except for feathers stuck here and there the chicken coop is empty, quiet.

Fields surround the house, the garden did well and is finished for the year. Parsnips have been left to freeze in the soil. Home canned green beans, corn, sweet relish and pickles line shelves in the cellar. There are potatoes and carrots and winter squashes and apples in wood boxes. The girl packed the apples in dry maple leaves. They will keep longer this way. There are glass gallon bottles of corn whiskey. “Pap, what are you making?” She asked one day as her father tended the still. “Headaches.” He said, perfunctory as a stone in a wall. The bottles glitter translucent light green. The girl has snuck tastes, and felt the burn and the strange lightness.

Her red felt hat with the flaps down conceals light blonde hair. The red buffalo plaid wool jacket and pants, all hand me downs are all too big. Her gum soled leather boots are her own, a Christmas present purposely bought too big the year before from Beans, they are well oiled with neatsfoot. Her mother hugs her and kisses her forehead. She is out just as dawn comes through the grey.

Gordon Bunker

Eye Candy

Every once in a while I stop by the local BMW Motorrad dealership to check in with friends Andy and Ben and see what’s going on in the shop. Andy is the service manager and Ben is the master motorrad tech. A couple of years ago I worked with these guys. Each of us a motorhead in his own way and to the core, we made a good crew.

It was a rainy day this past spring when I walked in the shop and into a sea of BMW’s awaiting service. Ben and his assistant were hustling, riding season was around the corner. One bike stood out, it was Eye Candy. The S1000RR was propped up on a work stand looking like it had a light source inside it. Most but not all of the body work was in place. This was Andy’s recent acquisition and project and it was news to me. It stopped me in my tracks. I stood and looked. And looked and looked. Andy stepped out of his office. “What do you think?” he asked, with a grin bursting with mischievousness.

“Um, er…” I smiled and shook my head, all but speechless. “It’s… amazing.”

The winter 2011 issue of BMW Motorcycle Magazine (bmwmcmag.com) is hot off the press and features an article and photographs by yours truly about this one of a kind S1000RR. I hope you’ll pick up a copy for the whole story.

Gordon Bunker

Happiness At Whole Foods

In the Dali Lama’s travels around the world he made a point of asking people, “are you happy?” Those living in abject poverty would typically look at him impassively and say nothing but people just above that level who had met the basic needs of life for themselves and their families responded they were very happy. People above this level however, as wealth increased he found their happiness became less.

The big Whole Foods grocery in Santa Fe is a place I generally avoid. It’s too much of everything, including a scene. The parking lot is always a snarl, crowds of people wander around (the place has to be a cash machine), the selection of goods is endless, the schmooze factor is over the top, and there’s the ensuing din of it all. Nonetheless I braced myself recently and went to the store for a few items.

The combined SUV inventories of the local BMW, Land Rover and Lexus dealerships would fade in comparison to the lineup in the parking lot. The next largest vehicular group would be a generous sprinkling of feel-good Toyota Prius’. MB and Audi made strong showings, there were a couple of Porsches and just one Bentley. Suffice it to say if the contents of the parking lot is any indicator, Whole Foods customers are pretty well heeled.

Inside the store I made a point to look at people’s faces. I saw frowns, scowls and self-absorbed blankness. The staff were making efforts to smile, and the fellow I asked where I would find the canned chicken soup dropped what he was doing and lead me to it. He then offered to become my shopping assistant, asking if I had other items he could help me find and I did. So he lead me around and waited patiently each time I paused to make a selection and then on we went. I thanked him profusely; I’d never had help in a grocery store like this before and thus assume whatever the other customers trouble’s it wasn’t the service. But they were unhappy. The air was thick with their malaise, it was an uncomfortable vibe.

At the check out counter I watched the two customers ahead of me interact with the cashier, a pleasant well-groomed young woman who started each encounter with, “Hi, how are you today?” The customer in the lead was yammering away on her cell phone through the whole transaction and didn’t even look at the cashier much less speak to her. The next glanced at her but didn’t say a word.

The people working in places like this have my admiration; they are kings and queens for the good efforts they put in and the crap they put up with. When it was my turn and the cashier said, “Hi, how are you today?”

I made eye contact and replied, “I’m good thanks. How are you?” and it actually startled her. I could see her collecting herself for a second or two and then she smiled. No, it was more than a smile, her face lit up.

“I’m doing well. Thanks for asking.” she said. I paid for my groceries as she was bagging them and she said, “Enjoy your day.”

I said, “You too,” then looked around the store adding, “the very best you can.”

“Thanks,” she said, with her face still alight.

How about that. A little bit of happiness is pretty simple.

Gordon Bunker

The Bulldozer

There once was a cat named Max. I called him The Bulldozer. He was a big cat, no, a huge cat. Think D11 of the domestic cat world and you’ve just about got it.

It was the coast of Maine and it was winter. In Maine there are two seasons: the 4^th of July and winter, and neither is for the faint of heart. Weeks of winter would go by without seeing blue sky. The best weather would be a brief splash of sun, the ok would be snow and the worst would be freezing rain. It was mostly the worst and it was damp cold and ungodly windy. At the time I lived in an old and partially restored fisherman’s cottage and the part that was yet to be restored was the insulation. So the heat never got turned up too much because you could see dollar bills suck and seep right through the walls and get swept away down wind which was always in the direction of the home heating oil company.

So you get the picture. It was cold and miserable. And I mustn’t forget, it was also dark a lot.

The Bulldozer had golden eyes and short hair which was mostly white with a few patches of pumpkin tabby here and there. And he was either very, very mellow, stoned or not very smart. It was hard to tell.

Early on in the evenings, immediately after dinner mostly, I would retreat to bed. Nestled on top of a featherbed mattress and under a half dozen blankets was the warmest place in the house. The wind would blow, the house would creak and whistle and sometimes shudder. Sometimes I could hear the surf crashing on shore a mile away. I would wear a wool hat and lay under the covers with my face and just enough of my hands exposed to hold a book and I would read. And every evening The Bulldozer would come to visit. First I would hear the thump, thump, thump of big cat feet padding across the floor, and then silence. Apparently he liked to sit and think about things for a moment. The silence, the building tension of it could be excruciating. Cats know how to wait.

And then, and then… kerPLOP! The leaping Bulldozer would land on the foot of the bed, making the whole shebang bounce and squeak and then he would walk ever so slowly up the length of my outstretched body. And if his steps were just so, one foot would come down on my man parts which would always make me jump but he would keep walking, plowing right into my book, mow it down and settle himself on top of it and me with his nose inches from mine. And he would gaze into my eyes with his vacuous look… and purr. And purr and purr. Sometimes he would drool.

Dear Max, one big weirdo cat, The Bulldozer. I think of him often.

Gordon Bunker

The Consumer Force

I find myself wishing I had a West Point education and knew the ins and outs of raising an army.

R and I were doing errands the other day and I noticed a small tent city set up in the Railyard Park. “What’s going on over there?” I asked. It looked a little ramshackle compared to the typical arts and crafts fair.

“Those are the Wall Street protestors.” She said. “They’ve had it with corporate greed… and the dismal state of the economy.” Bless their hearts but c’mon, camping out in a public park is not going to do it. The source of all truth reveals the tent group calls itself “OccupySantaFe.” Their web site prattles on about keeping homeless people out of the encampment, kitchen rules, and asks campers to “self-regulate” and refrain from “having sex in group tents.” Got that, campers? The who we are page says nothing about who they are. O… K.

Meanwhile across the street the teeny Whole Foods parking lot is the usual snarl, and at the other end of Cerrillos Road the mega parking lot at the new Super Walmart is packed. This is exactly as big business wants it and nothing will change so long as we the consumers continue to stream in their doors and hand over our hard won cash.

So I come to organizing The Consumer Force. We have tremendous power in spending our cash, but each of us as an army of one, forget it. If we could get together the strategy would be simple: hit them in the pocketbook. Instead of mindlessly flocking to the big greedies, we take our trade to small business. Yes, suck it up and stop doing business with Walmart and the rest of them. Proprietors of small (i.e., struggling) shops will practically kiss our feet to get us in the door.

And conserve. As an example, being there is no small business when it comes to oil, here’s one of my favorites. I’ve actually done this. When you drive your car, whatever type or size it is, raising the tire pressure 10%, timing deceleration approaching red lights so you don’t always come to a stop, and slowing down in general can improve mpg by 20%. Yes, 20%. You could achieve even better. At the end of the week this equates to some genuine cash in your pockets as opposed to those of Big Oil.

Imagine if Walmart, ExxonMobile, Bank of America, or you pick saw a 20% decline in sales in the course of a year… ha ha! They’d come crawling and begging to us. We’re talking big, big change quietly done. Small businesses would flourish, there’d be more cash in your and my pockets (otherwise known as a fair distribution of wealth) and big business would suddenly be interested in what our terms are.

All this by spending and consuming wisely. Troops, are you with me?

Gordon Bunker