“Churning”
I

Windshield wipers slosh the metronome, looking back on it now, but the first time I saw the lakeside road that led to her home, it was under a bed cover of white. The lake’s surface, glassy. It swept the length of several miles in a long weeping crescent of rainfall and weighted trees. Their branches, they bowed to us with every hang we passed, wanted to touch us with their gift of snow. I like to imagine teeth chattering in the absence of heat from the car, but I know the subtle churn was less like an ice cream machine, more like prose.

The View From Saturday was the background muffle of crunching snow, the windshield wipers, the track towards meter. And as we went, I tried counting them, the waterfalls. It would be a long while until I counted them all. And when I did, I’d be a year older, not necessarily wiser for the wear.

II

They trickle on down from the water shed somewhere in the mountain range, weave their way through bush and tangled vine after the winter freeze. I learned about the watershed in Summer Camp, learned to test my balance in a world that lacked definition outside my scope. The dark of the night, like adrenaline. Tag of the flashlight, neon glow of the stick. Mission impossible, a game. Working your way up from the bottom of a rugged hillside, through the underbrush, to the lodge at the top of the world; infiltration at its finest. But dangerous, oh so dangerous.

A counselor broke his leg that year. I heard about it the morning after I’d wheeled around another on a staircase-wide dodge of their lunge. The first of the proud, the few, to make it through the mission to the place where we learned to electric slide. The sloping railing I stuck my head through trying to catch a glimpse of a passing raccoon, location of the very first deer I saw. Origin of the story of the half-fish, half-bear, all-man, Kodiac.

The counselors told that story so well. Wish I’d known at the time they were going for the scare. The way each counselor vanished into the night, the clap of feet outside the windows. I sat up in my bed, swore to God I saw something, heard sounds. It was all them, yeah, but the feeling stays with you even after the fact becomes clear. A bump in the night really can be anything, and monsters exist, even in the animal kingdom, we cannot explain.

Camp David. That was its name. Where I learned to deal with the Pacific Northwest’s rainfall, the clinging scent of intoxication after a storm, or wet dirt and timber. Ferns that cling and vines that snatch. Poison ivy. How good it feels to climb out of bed at 6AM, and dive into an ice cold lake while there’s still fog on the glass (I never went for the dive myself, but I stood on the edge of the docks over the shock-inducing water at least once, testing my resolve).

That’s the thing about Summer camps. Resolves are tested, bead geckos and Jacob’s ladders made, friendships built, and minds grown. There is no greater reality to that than the cliché truth. Unfortunately. But that’s where I scribbled a note on the bookmark between the pages of my issue of Casper the Friendly Ghost, and captured the memory ‘I Saw a rAcoOn.’

III

I’m selfish in my wanting. The taste of what’s on the spoon is good. Ice cold natural vanilla, hand-churned for my consumption. Small-town values in the bottom of a steel cup. They serve it on the side, give you a tall glass for the shake. The silver cup’s for the overflow from the whole mixing process. In the city, you aren’t given overflow. Excess runs wild, but it’s never self-contained. Maybe that’s why this small town had so much more to it than a self-described ‘child’ could see at first glance?

Sure, ice cream. Yeah. Shakes that last for days, and a burger with real onion rings. Phenomenal. Excellent. Words that cannot be described in youthful vocabularies, yeah. Excitement of tastebuds, and a little café in which to test the weight of the spoon. Sit in your booth. Enjoy. The rain’s pouring down outside, the frantic droplets condensing into fog on the window, but you’re inside and dry as political humor. Real nice.

But what’s more, it’s familiar. Nothing like the raging storm outside, or the forest beyond your back door. It’s still the city. You’re being served food, and that’s universal. Even small-town values can’t overcome consumerism’s self-rule. You put your all into the machine, crank it, and hope something comes out. A lot like life. And what you put in? Well, that’s foresight you rely on right there. Hindsight’s 20/20 in any good recipe, and even cooking’s an experiment in uncertainty the first time you crank the heat. Put it to chill. So little to count on, in science, in cooking. Hypotheses are built over time. Mistakes made, hasty conclusions drawn. Hindsight’s 20/20, and you never know what you’re going to get until you add the first ingredient, but yeah… damn, the ice cream’s nice.

“The Story – Inspired by Paul Nzalamba’s art”

It’s interesting how memories can be destroyed by definition, how looking back can be torture to the untrained eye. You see a picture, a color, and memory sparks a wildfire in the dry tinder of the mind. Sometimes, what burns you isn’t the memory itself. Sometimes, it’s the imposition placed down by experience. Hindsight cuts 20/20. Where’s the fair?

I see a picture. It’s African. Two women, hands in the air. Their skin is like ashes, clothes baked oranges and blues. Bandanas wrap around their skulls. The yellow sleeves of their shirts dangle as hands wave. They could be arguing, could be dancing, could be telling a story, or singing... But a third woman joins the painting, trying to make sense of it. She puts a supportive arm on the shoulder of the smear in the center; heads turn.

“How long will you be in the states?” Curiosity glints in her eye. The center woman responds, but the response doesn’t matter. The point is they’re spending time together. For that reason, she smiles. “It will be good to see the children again.”

“Yes.” The center woman clips in a simple, enunciated response. And suddenly, the color in her face has drained, not as if she’s seen a ghost. The quality of the memory is changing. It shifts around her, from black to the green of a field. Bare feet bat dust. Two children run by.

My cousin Nat always loved to play soccer. His round eyes would light up at the sight of the checkered black and white ball, could almost feel the tug of connection as foot meets ball’s side. Dust spins off rubber, three bounces past Anette into the net. His sister would shift her body and guard the goal. Debating distance, judging with her eyes. Nat’s grin is lopsided like a Jack-O-Lantern, carved. I try to spin the ball positive, but it veers off into the distance and they vanish. Here, the memories fade.

I remember the insult, remember the current situation, and grit my teeth. They’re coming again this year, to visit us all the way from Africa, and I have to be prepared. Why is it that I can’t be happier about seeing Nat again after all these years? We used to run around all day playing soccer. He’d laugh and joke about me not being his friend unless we played. Why are all those lines of crayon color smeared again when I think of his name? Oh right. He stole from me. I don’t trust him, and he wasn’t even five.

But there’s the painting again, “Story”. I look at the waving hands caught in mid-argument/dance/relationship, and I ponder the nature of the artist’s work… his theme: Family. I think back to the memories, scarce though they are. Laughter, bright eyes, crayons and a red toy truck… he was two when he broke my trust the first time, yes, but two is too young to place judgment on when sullying memories like that. Applying definition can be murder, but is judging children unfairly any worse than that? Where’s the fair? Five and a half and I’m judging him too hard. Maybe family I can forgive.

“You know, how Charlie Brown Goes to Kick, and…”

We carried them in cardboard caskets, nary a space in-between title and spine. Ancient volumes, beleaguered memories, and tales of Ramona the pest mingled with Boxcar Children mysteries and Charles M. Schulz. It had taken a lifetime to build the collection. Several childhoods had heard the call. My aunts, my uncle, my mother, her mother, and finally my grandfather had rounded out the collection we now hauled in the back.

Crowded in like hotdogs, my cousins and I sat. I flipped through a book, barely managing the task, and read the title aloud. “Louis L’amour’s ‘The Riders of High Rock.’ You know, the hollow husks of eyes in this bandit’s description remind me of the gems of the underworld, hardened in the fiery furnace of the earth's subcutaneous layers.”

My cousin Ray stared at me from under his dirt-brown locks. "You. Talk. Too. Much."

I stroked my neckbeard and shrugged. “It’s part of the joys of reading. Your vocabulary improves.” Aaron shifted uncomfortably between two boxes in agreement. I smirked at him, and he gave a round smile back.

“So, how long until we get there?” He asked blithely. Rather than grumbling, we chose to act like we just didn’t care. The ride to Portland had been hours in the making. We’d sculpted our lives around it. Surely, a car-ride to the land of ports that took five hours in a roundabout trip couldn’t be such a bore now, could it?

My grandmother snored in response. My eyelids flapped an affirmative. “That long? Dang.”

My aunt Syneva shooed us down. That wasn’t funny, not at all! Behind her glass lenses, we knew it though. She accepted the humor of the situation just as much as we. The car drive continued amid the snoring metronome of the windshield wipe.

We got there an hour later. The man at the toll booth to the multi-level garage at Powell’s books was indifferent when we asked about how to get things set up. Apparently, we were parking on the top floor, but the service elevator for book trades was… all the way on the bottom, with no navigational method from lot to elevator other than stairs. We made the decision blindly, and we made the decision quick.

“We’ll simply walk them around. Set some out on the sidewalk, and hope nobody takes them while we wait!”

“Sure, sure! Or, hey! We could kinda hope they take them, right? Someone needs to give these layabouts a good home!” Aaron laughed. He didn’t actually say that, did he? A chuckled with him.

“Right. Let’s just… get these…” I shoved a box onto the concrete next to the red wall of the store. He tossed another one on top of it. Ray’s dreadlocks swooshed as he bobbed his attention back to Synneva. She spoke to the toll booth operator, calmly explaining the situation while grandma sat impatiently behind the wheel. Ten minutes later, the last of the boxes sat on the curb. Our blue Ford Taurus rattled its way easier up the sloping incline of the ramp. Now came the hard part. Getting the boxes through the store.

“Should we… all take the service elevator? Not everyone can carry three boxes. We might have to leave some here…”

“Please. Nobody wants these things.” Aaron laughed again.

Ray pushed back his hair coolly. “I could carry some around the ramp in front.”

“There’s an idea. I’ll do that too.” I said, grabbing a box by the reins and charging toward the door. I… stopped after a step, looked at what I was carrying, set it back down, and put two more boxes on top. If we were doing this, we were doing this the right way. Hardcore was my modus operandi. I’m not sure how I managed lugging three boxes of books up one long stretch of ramp on one knee.

There’s this thing about shopkeepers… some lurk like hobbits at the battle of Isengard. Others stand out like Ents. This one wasn’t visible for the first three minutes we waited patiently by the desk. We started to wish for tree folk as we flipped through our books. Finally, he came. He plodded through the door in the back, and wheeled around the entrance to the little L-shaped countertop we’d set our caskets atop.

“What do you look for in books…?” Synneva asked politely. She adjusted her glasses self-consciously as he tossed another title aside.
“Resale value. Sellability.” He muttered helpfully. The pile grew another inch.

“So, old books stained with bat guano… not so high on the list then?” I wish I’d said this. I nodded instead. The process ticked away. Pile one. Pile two. I started worrying our entire trip would be for naught. Finally, he extracted a book from the box! He set it gently into the ‘sale’ pile, and the collective group’s hopes soared. A half-hour later, we were scurrying around the shop, 90 dollars the richer.

On our return trip home, that paid for gas and a meal on the way. “Old books sell good,” someone had decided at the start of the trip to Powell’s.

“Yeah,” I should have replied then. “And you’re Lucy, setting up the ball.”