[Sidebar] The Worcester Phoenix
July 9 - 16, 1999

[Tales From Tritown]

In the swim

Hollis the Mountain Man needs to be needed, kinda

by Sally Cragin

Come June, Tritown residents welcome warm days and bright sunlight, but before long, the humidity, glare, and general stickiness chase them indoors. Hollis the Mountain Man is luckier than most. On the days he's not driving the truck for Tri'd 'n' Tru Potato Chips, he can sit on his porch, put his feet on the rail, and gaze at the pond.

Well, he can if he's not feeling the internal stirring of 10 generations of Mountain Men before him -- the kind of spiritual dissonance that decrees "relaxation is for the weak." Of course, it's different if his brother Mason and wife Sunshine bring their brood of Mountain Tots down from Cow Hampshire for a swim or if Hasky and $erena (formerly The Waitress, now Tarbox, and newly pregnant) come by for a swim or even if Lorencz the Hermit (now comfortably re-domiciled in his school bus after his winter interval serving as the sexton of All Faiths) staggers out of the underbrush with a bar of soap for a fortnightly ablution.

But he'd really like for partial-Yankee Delia Ellis Bell (there was a questionable great-great-grandmother) to visit. Ever since she took up with Whitey Leblanc (who underwent a personality transformation when his brother bonked him with a puck and now calls himself Jean-Pierre, but Hollis isn't buying that), she hasn't been coming around the Mountain Lair much.

Hollis wasn't so lonely when his companion, Nancy Levesque, was a regular visitor, but she's just gotten a new job at a hospital in Providence and is planning to relocate. Hollis just doesn't know what to say to get the friend of his youth to stop by. It's easier in the winter -- all he has to do is tell aunt Winnie (named for Winnepesaukee, though she can't swim), that Picture Pond is frozen as hard and flat as a mirror and Delia zooms by with her figure skates. Warmer months are trickier -- Delia doesn't fish, and isn't crazy about swimming. He knows she'll be back in mid-August when the low bush blueberries are out, but that's weeks away.

It's hard to say what he misses about Delia. She's unfailingly critical and is a genius at the Yankee compliment. When he put a row of impatiens in the window box on the porch, she said, "Oh, usually I hate that flower, but that's a pretty nice color." And when he brought by a couple of bottles of home-brew a few weeks back, she shared them with Whitey, then had the nerve to say, "They were kinda flat, but we polished them off." No, what's great about Delia is that he can tell her anything, and she'll listen. He hasn't yet told her about Nancy Levesque's job, but then, Delia and Nancy circle one another warily. As do Hollis and Whitey -- but at least their feuding goes back to junior high.

And then one afternoon she surprises him. He hears the grinding gears of her sporty yellow Winksta, and then she rumbles into the yard. It seems she was just passing by, but Hollis is relieved at being given a reprieve from the collection of loose two-by-fours and the box of bolts that lurk beneath his porch. "Sturdy enough for now," he thinks, and offers lemonade.

"This is nice," says Delia, gazing at the pond. Then she begins detailing her latest yard-sale scores. She doesn't mention the bookshelf she's planning to refinish for Jean-Pierre's motorcycle-magazine collection, but Hollis is not spared her description of exactly how she plans to bleach and repair a set of damask table napkins.

Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, Hollis sees a bearded and hairy figure striding towards Picture Pond. Lorencz the Hermit, bar of Ivory soap in hand, prepares for his biweekly immersion. Perfect timing. Hollis knows what's coming next, so he peels himself free of the orange canvas chair, mutters "Gotta get a refill," and retreats to the kitchen.

Lorencz turns, and Delia flutters a hand. "Hi Lorencz!" she says brightly. Lorencz bolts toward the water.

"Three, two, one," Hollis waits for the shriek. And it's satisfying, an ascending vibrato. At the door with a fresh pitcher, Hollis asks, "Everything all right here?" Delia's face is a study in shock and amusement, and she silently extends a finger towards the wiry, hirsute, and now naked Hermit.

"Hey there," booms Hollis across the water,. "Ladies present." Lorencz looks at Delia, and then dives in the water, tossing a bar of Ivory in front of him. He swims out of sight, "Was that soap he had?" asks Delia.

"Good thing too," Hollis replies. "Needs that for a bath," and then he takes a lengthy swig of lemonade. "Hmmm, this might need more sugar," he says loudly and stagily, returning again to the cool of his cabin.

Delia is reflective when he re-emerges. And then overcome with gales of laughter. "I think God thought I needed a good laugh," she says, settling down. "Humph," says Hollis, whose concept of a higher power is a shade more Old Testament. "Oh, come on, Hollis," Delia says. "Don't you think it's funny? Well, maybe the heat's just making me silly . . . "

Hollis looks at her. Delia has gotten more . . . well . . . spiritual, lately. Maybe superstitious. She's been using words like "destiny," and "fate," mostly about the rightness of certain objects finding their way into her hands on her yard-saling. Hollis has wondered whether there isn't some secret prayer class happening at All Faiths.

"Um, Delia?" he begins. "What's all this talk about God?" Hollis's personal spiritual beliefs would be hard to distinguish from those of his 19th-century forbears. God, the father, the maker of heaven and earth is a forbidding character, but the signs of His existence are convincing and usually related to weather. Just as a tumbledown stone wall ambling through a grove of sturdy sugar maple is a message from farmers of a previous century, blizzards and lightning storms are salutes from the Almighty.

Meanwhile Delia squirms in her seat. Not far away, the occasional splash can be heard. Delia knows she should get back to the house and unload the day's yard-sale treasures. A folding screen, two McCoy planters, and a department-store Chippendale with a badly-sprung balloon seat. Oh, and a replacement lid for Hollis's coffee-maker -- his old one having vanished in a spring cleaning long ago. "Excuse me," she says, rising and making for her car. "I found something for you on the road."

Hollis follows her. "What happened to your tail-light?" he asks, pointing to the cracked red lens. "Oh, that," mumbles Delia, rooting around in the back seat. "Ah," she says. "Here it is -- should fit that old hissing coffee maker." She takes a step backward and murmurs. "I was parallel parking and got kind of close to a mailbox." Her embarrassment is evident, and she squirms with renewed discomfort. "The Post Office knows all about this."

"Well, good then," says Hollis, adding incautiously, "Why hasn't Whitey -- excuse me -- Jean-Pierre fixed this yet?"

"That's kind of the thing," says Delia uncomfortably. "He kind of doesn't have the time, so I thought, um . . . " Her voice trails off. The last thing a truly thin-blue-blooded Yankee asks for is help, but the mysteries of automotive cosmetics are beyond her. Besides, Hasky Tarbox (of Tarbox Automotive -- "Collisions? A Specialty") would charge her, now that he had a little one on the way.

Hollis has a rare moment of spiritual comity; all is right with the universe. Whitey is slacking off on the job. Delia obviously still needs someone in her life to perform Mountain Manly duties. And if they left now to go to ADAP, they'd be spared Lorencz the Hermit triumphant and clean. A little repair job was just the thing, because relaxation was for the weak anyway. n

Sally Cragin edits Button, New England's Tiniest Magazine of Poetry, Fiction and Gracious Living.

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