The sun was warmer than I had anticipated when we left the monastery in the SUV. We sat on what must be the only bench in the village of Saugerties on the main street that runs through the town. People drove by only a few feet from us at a slow pace in the traffic. They stared at us in our work robes. Other more gracious folks kept putting dollar bills in our hands. Agnes had asked Terd to come with us, for reasons unknown to me.
“Are you not ready to tell me why you are at odds with Agnes?" I asked Terd. "And by the way, be so kind as to include why you haven’t shared it with me before.”
“What do we do with this money, Ace,” asked Terd, referring to the dollar bills building up in his hand.
“Buy a six pack,” I said. “When Agnes comes back, you throw the beer in his arms while I snap the picture and we’ll soon be rid of him.”
“You think his Irish bosses are going to be scandalized by a six pack?” asked Terd.
I couldn’t think of a snappy response, so I let my sail luff in the wind.
“Well?” I said, going back to what we had been discussing.
“You know I can’t tell you the Abbot’s business,” said Terd.
“And what do you know of his busines?” I asked.
“Right now he’s with a woman,” came Terd’s reply. This shocked me and I wanted to be sure I understood what my Brother was telling me.
“Agnes has a lover? In Saugerties? At his age?” I asked, my voice crescendoing upwards.
“She’s not Agnes’ lover,” said Terd. “She’s his real estate broker.”
I would say one has to be obsessive to carry on our work with ancient texts. Agnes constantly has to pull brothers from their manuscript copies, books and notes and hustle them along to their other duties. I would not say any of us are truly dedicated to scholarship, but once you find yourself involved in a task that you know will help a professional researcher at a university, you naturally want to do your best for him or her.
If I could simplify the day-to-day work of a research scholar, it consists of first becoming learned in your field and then doing an awful lot of library research and summer field projects for the fun of it. That’s really true … summer field projects seldom yield anything useful, but without R&R the academic specialty would lose scholars yearly, I believe. When a scholar has been a practicing journeyman for a few years, sometimes excellent ideas for research will occur to him and he will put together a proposal for further research leading down a particular avenue. The actual work of finding texts, cross referencing and carefully annotating them can take years and tie up a scholar forever, preventing him from going on to his next research idea. That’s where we come in, thousands of research assistants like us across the world, unsung heroes of scholarship. Some of us are quite educated in antiquities. None of us ever get our names on a paper, except for an occasional mention in the footnotes. Among those of us who are essentially slaves … religious brothers and sisters cloistered and set to our tasks … many don’t even like the work. Beep is an extreme example, because the work drives him crazy … literally. I’ve seen him jump up from his desk, and run out of the Chapter House while pulling his clothes off. He runs down the road naked as if he could escape. Normally, we catch up with him.
Terd is the only recognized scholar among us and his work on Athanasius has won accolades from the academic community. He does all of his own grunt work, however.
Much of our effort takes place among the carrels and tables located in various nooks and crannies around the house and the adjoining building we call The Pit, because it’s down three steps from the Chapter House’s main floor. Many years ago The Pit was the resort’s main dining room for guests. We have semi permanent work areas around the perimeter of the large open room and leave the center of the floor open. When one or more of us is laying out a flow chart or logic diagram or drawing an impromptu map, the piece of work can get quite large.
In the main building, our Chapter House, the old staff dining room is now called the Scriptorium for traditional reasons. But it is more like a day room with a bulletin board, mail and all the other accoutrements of an office. It has reminded some visitors of an academic department office.
Our tradition has been to review the literature and choose projects that will help the academic researchers regarding the writings of the Church Fathers. These folks are normally short staffed and can use our help. We don’t attempt to drive the bus, but rather change the tires and clean the windows. We leave the glory work to those in the outside world of academia who feel they need the publicity, while we make less dramatic contributions. Still, we feel our efforts are significant to the underpinnings of our field of study.
I’m feeling better today. Some days I believe the two souls I left on the plane have probably forgiven me and I am the only one who has trouble doing the same. In a sense, I overstate my importance when I am unable to acknowledge someone's forgiveness. Michael from Albany wrote to remind me of that, and no, Michael, I do not mind you pointing out the obvious. It is one of the reasons none of us can live completely alone for very long and we need community. We need others to comment to us about how we’re doing and we should encourage them to do that. Our Chapter of Faults at the Monastery helps toward that goal, but even the rolling eyes or shaking of a head from someone close to us communicates that we might be veering off the path.
I’m a bachelor and I have always valued my role as a religious brother, but after my experience in Africa and the plane crash I found I could no longer continue in a dangerous ministry. A great force of self protection rose up from somewhere deep inside of me and almost instantly changed me from a relatively brave young man into a coward. Today we would say this strong urge to avoid harm is just one manifestation of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.) But I also began to doubt whether my vocation was a gift from an unseen power or just my ego telling me I was someone special.
We have no perpetual vows in our Order. Instead we renew for varying amounts of time. It’s like a contract, except we get only expenses when needed, no pay. I have known brothers who came in for ten years, went out for five and came back. My Novice Master had been at it for 35 years and was out twice, working as a ship’s radio man on freighters and cruise ships. I would have made my first renewal in 1972, two years after the plane crash, but I didn't . I wasn’t sure at the time that I should. The Gang of McFour in Ireland weren’t sure of me either, possibly because I sort of got lost for a year when I got out of the hospital. Not really lost, just not living in community and not answering the phone at the home of whichever relative I happened to be staying with that month.
And so in 1972 I left the order and went back to graduate school with money given to me by an insurance company. For a few of years I lived in the world until I wound up here at Our Lady of West Saugerties.
I seem to remember being on the road a lot. Or at least my heart was.
In case you haven’t guessed, I wasn’t really cut out to be a contemplative monk. But the only monk I’ve known who felt he was up to the task didn’t last long. Most contemplatives who successfully adjust to the life hope they are suited to it, but always entertain doubts now and then … every other hour or so.
Bouncer told me he kept a bag packed for his first ten years, ready to leave. He stormed the gates of heaven with prayer, he said, hoping that his life as a monk would finally become second nature to him rather than such a chore.
“I fasted and prayed and did just about everything except wear a hair shirt,” he said, “trying to adjust to the regimen. After ten years it occurred to me to ask myself why I was trying so hard to be a monk when it was such a tough life. Why not just leave?”
“But you didn’t, evidently,” I said.
“You’re not listening, Ace,” he said. “Why would I keep trying for ten long years?”
“The retirement package?” I joked.
“I realized that I must really, really want this,” he said, “to keep at it for so long. I had never wanted anything so much in my entire life!”
“So you found,” I said, “that you had a vocation of obsessiveness?”
“Yup, you got it!” Bouncer said dismissively, as if he was finished with me and this conversation. But then he looked at me seriously and said, “I think you’re right. We have a vocation of obsession.”
I do not like outdoor fix ups after the first frost. It’s damned cold out there and my arthritis is bound to flare up, as I told Kickstart. He wasn’t listening. He worked in a light jacket while I bundled up in a ratty old down coat and looked like a poorly dressed bum. I'm not supposed to worry about what I look like, but my mother would be terribly embarrassed to see me.
The porch has a noticeable sag and we’ve been trying to shore it up and keep it attached to the front wall of the Chapter House. Too bad the sag wasn’t noticeable this past summer when it would have been more pleasant to do the work.
" I haven’t seen Agnes since breakfast,” I said to Kickstart.
“I think he’s writing a letter to the Mothership,” Kick replied. “I don’t think those old guys in Ireland want us anymore,” he added.
“They’re not that old,” I said. “They’re my age.”
“Uh huh,” said Kick.
“You do know they supplement our finances here each year,” I told him. “And I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re getting tired of it.”
“Or can’t afford it,” said Kick.
We’ve got to find some money for lumber or we will certainly lose this porch. Then the occasional visitor will have to climb a step ladder to come in our front door.
“Jesse, I think we’re doomed,” said Kick.
“You mean like we’re going to be hit by a Protestant comet?” I asked.
“You know what I mean,” he said.
“I do know what you mean, but I have no answer.”
“What will we do if we have to leave?” said Kick.
“I don’t know. Pack, I guess.”
“We can’t bring all of the manuscripts and stuff. Do you know how many documents we have now? The complete second floor, almost.”
“Kick,” I said as kindly as possible, “our work is done as soon as we finish each secretarial task for the scholars and ship it off to them. All those copies on the second floor are duplicated, I’m sure, in the university halls of our clients.”
“Where are you going to live, Jesse?” asked the young monk as if he hadn’t heard me.
“Maybe I’ll apply for assistance or maybe I’ll get a job in a store,” I said, “and get a room down in the village … I don’t’ know. After all, I don’t have far to go. You have an entire life ahead of you, Kick.”
“My life is here on this mountain. I’m staying.”
“Well, you can’t … “
“In the woods,” says Kickstart. “I’ll stay in the woods.”
“A real Desert Father, huh?” I sneered.
“Jesse,” said Kickstart, “everything I learned about my life and myself and God is here on this mountain.”
“But not God,” I said, "he's everywhere."
“What I know of him is here,” said Kick.
I think Kick is right. Since we can really have no true conception of God, our perception is important because it's all we have.
Steve Winwood with Clapton at Crossroads. Can't Find My Way Home
It’s a long climb up the back stairs to the attic of the Chapter House and the exertion is tiring for this old guy. But it’s a perfect day for it and I’m on my way to the roof. Carrying the tool box up here has winded me and I set it down near the ladder and half sit for a few moments with my butt on one of the lower rungs. Tapioca has followed me here. I wonder what she wants. Too bad she can't talk. Maybe I should teach her.
There’s a lot of junk in our attic. There are more pieces of empty luggage than I would have expected, now that I notice them. More than a dozen suitcases. Could it be so many brothers arrived with luggage but eventually went out in caskets? And here's an odd piece. My mother had one of these. I’ll have to make up a story about it to tell Kickstart tonight after supper. He’ll enjoy it.
“Seventeen monks have died here,” I’ll begin, “Did you know that?” “And one of them,” I’ll add, “owned a cosmetics travel case.” He’ll give me a quizzical look. “Would you think,” I’ll say, “the man was somewhat gay or did he carry his pistols in it?” I’ll wait a beat and then say, “Either way, he could be dangerous in a monastery.”
I've been doing some thinking about the roof and have decided it is an "occasion of sin," that is a person , place or thing that can heighten the possibility of my committing an offense. Like jumping off and killing myself. That's certainly offensive! So I've decided to lessen the possibility with a few nails. Eight 12 penny nails should do it, I’m thinking, and up the ladder I go with the nails in my pocket and the hammer hanging from my belt, secured well so it doesn’t drop on my canine companion below. I can't get her to stand away from the bottom of the ladder. She stares up at me. I don't know if her tiny brain is worried about me or she just wants to go out on the roof for the fun of it. I have a similar dilemma: I don't know what my real purpose is out on the roof. I'm not sure if I should be worried or having fun up there. She's a dopey dog. I'm a dopey monk.
At the top of the ladder up under the rafters, I pound a two nails into each side of the trap door so that not even a tornado will open it.
“There, Tapioca,” I say to the dog, “never again will a visitor mistakenly climb up the ladder and go out on the roof while he's looking for a bathroom.”
It's a lie and she knows it. She remains quiet, however, evidently observing our monastic silence. But there’s no rule against dog conversations during the day. I make my way back down the stairs to the kitchen where Izzy is boiling the rice and beans for our supper. There must be old guys somewhere having more fun than us.
The sky is my time machine. It takes me back to another day when the clouds or the angle of the sun looked exactly the same as it does today. I find myself this morning seated at the printing press, staring up through the small window high on the cellar wall. The masons long ago built the rectangular space into the stone and glazed it with old glass that makes the firmament look like it has bubbles. All I can see through the glass is a leaden sky on rainy days and puffy white clouds on a blue background when the weather clears.
This morning’s sky is much the same as that on a Saturday nearly a half century ago when I was a teenager running a small job press for a part time printer in my hometown. “Bedroom printers,” these business owners were called. Many, including my boss, had full time jobs in factories and printed on weekends in their cellars and garages. Al printed in the stable out behind his cousin’s amusements business. The early 1800’s building was made of laid up stone, had minimal heat and housed Al’s print shop as well as pin ball machines and juke boxes.
I stood on one leg at Al’s press, the other leg pumping away as I printed numbered raffle tickets for a club that was trying to raise money.
I’d had an encounter at home with my father just an hour before and I could still feel the sting of it. We argued over some trifle having to do with my leaving the butter out on the table and letting it get warm. I told myself not to feel bad. After all, I had scored a few good verbal blows against the old man and finished triumphantly by walking out of the house and slamming the door. Yet I felt upset and guilty. I suppose my immaturity prevented me from admitting I was wrong. Dramatics and denial can make sense to the head but not the heart.
Besides, Dad really wasn’t upset about the butter. The two of us were groaning under the weight of something neither of us could bring ourselves to discuss. Two days before I had insulted and hurt him.
Lost in thought, I missed a throw onto the platen and the tickets and counters got out of sync. I didn’t notice Al come up behind me.
“God dammit,” he shouted at me, “you screwed up the counter. We gotta go back to 2972 and print them all over again!”
“I’m sorry, Al,” I said, “I was …
“You was staring out the God dammed window at the sky is what you were doin! What’re you gonna be when you grow up, a weatherman?”
“I don’t know what I’m going to be,” I said. “Maybe I’ll be a bum.” I said it seriously, feeling down on myself.
“You ain’t gonna be no bum, youngster. I get a feelin’ about people, ya know? Yer one of those lucky bastards that God takes care of. Me, I gotta work for a livin’, so get outta my way while I reset the counters.”
I was soon back pumping the press trying to stay alert and not get the counters out of sync again.
But my mind drifted back to when I was younger. Although my father and I were often at odds in my teen years, I couldn’t deny that he had meant the world to me when I was a little kid.
Dad was a newspaper pressman and an expert at his trade. When I was six or seven years old I thought he was the smartest man in the world. I can’t count the number of times I told anyone who would listen that my father printed the newspapers that went all over the city and even down the valley to the small mill towns along the river. Imagine me a seven year old kid brought down to the newspaper and walked into the pressroom to watch the men mount the heavy stereotype plates and thread the huge rolls of newsprint (paper) up from the basement into the gargantuan Hoe presses. Wrenches clanged and after a few minutes it grew quiet. Someone called, “All Clear.” Lights began to blink in warning and a sharp staccato buzzer blared out from somewhere above, echoing up and down the line of presses. It reminded me of a submarine’s dive alarm I’d heard at the movies when the crew filled the tanks and dove beneath the waves. Soon I was dragged below the surface of the noise as the presses clunked and groaned and quickly got up to speed with a roar that was deafening. I wanted to hold my hands over my ears, but none of the men seemed impressed, so I kept my arms at my side and suppressed the urge to scream in delight over the thundering machinery. The presses began to spit out the afternoon edition and sent a stream of miraculously folded newspapers of 54-pages each along a conveyor contraption that went up and across the ceiling and over to the waiting men who bundled them up in the mailroom.
When I left the newspaper that day with my father I was the proudest seven year old one could imagine. Only a few years later I was a teenager when I stopped by the pressroom one afternoon to get the keys and borrow his car. When his boss asked me to pose with Dad in a photo for the company in-house newsletter, I refused. I didn’t want to be seen in public with my father in his coveralls and printers cap. I had said only, “I can’t,” and Dad had laughed it off, but I could see he was hurt.
That night when we got home I ate the food he provided and went out in the evening wearing a new jacket he had bought me with the money he earned working in his coveralls.
The next day I sat in math class up the street in an old brick high school building with roots down to the sub strata of rock. My soles could just feel the vibration of the presses start up for the Valley Edition at 10:30 in the morning. I felt exactly like the person Al told me I wasn’t, a bum.
“God dammit, Davey,” I heard Al shout in my ear. “The counters are off again! What the hell’s the matter with you this morning?”
I mumbled something.
“Here,” he said. “Get over here and take the glue pot and make up this order of pads. You’re not good for anything else this morning!”
I did as I was told.
“What’s buggin’ you, huh?” Al asked, and he seemed to mean it.
“My father and I had a fight,” I said. I told him about my refusal to be in the photo, hoping he would take my side, although I knew no one would agree with me.
“So you’re not proud of your old man?” Al asked.
“I just didn’t want to be in the photo,” I said.
“How come you’re not too proud to work here with me in this shit hole garage?” he asked.
I’d never thought of that.
“I know what your problem is,” he said. “You don’t know how to apologize.”
“Sure I do!” I said.
“Not to your father. Have you ever done that?” he asked.
“Well, I’ve never had any reason to,” I replied.
Al glanced across the work table at me. He looked stunned and I remembered he was a father. Then he leaned back and laughed. And he kept laughing. All morning. Every ten minutes or so he’d look over at me and start laughing again. Eventually he got me laughing and told me all the dumb things his kids did when they were teens. He told me he loved them more than the air he breathed.
That night I went home and apologized to my father. He nodded. And then he said, “You’re a good son.”
I have doubted the truth of that utterance but treasured his love for the last fifty years. What amazes me is I did nothing to earn it.
The young nurse named Grace had taken the time to minister to me in a way that was totally unexpected. Her act of simple compassion buoyed me up from the depths of my agony. My mind discovered no solutions to my plight, but some part of me was set free. I would go on from that day to realize that my recovery needed my participation and awaited only my consent for it to begin. More important, I would eventually learn to not face my fears alone and to listen to the music of others around me, rather than hear only what is in my head. There would be times when I would lead, but just as many when I would heed the gentle nudge of someone wiser.
Death still awaits me. It always has. On mornings when I awake early to see the dawn open itself over the world and watch the light creep through my window, I sometimes feel a momentary fright for what is beyond the pane waiting for me that day, or what inevitably waits for me at the end. I bring to mind the foot washing. I never saw Grace again, but in our short dance of forty years ago, I began the life-long process of learning to reach out for the hands of an eternal dancer, to wait for the light touches of direction and to listen for the voice of the one who laughs in the face of death.
-------------------------------
Foot washing in some quarters is known as the Mandatum ... the mandate or great commandment ... from Christ’s “new commandment to love one another.” The Lavabo, Latin for “I shall wash,” is a ritual associated with the washing of hands when asking for a blessing. Over the years I’ve wondered if more took place that morning than either Grace or I realized. There is an economy in the realm of the spirit. An event seems never to be singular, and nothing happens in only one space, or for the benefit of a single person. As the washing of my feet somehow signaled the beginning of my recovery, it may also have served as Grace’s Lavabo, a ritual washing of her hands to invoke the help of an unseen power in her future life’s work, her nursing career. What better way to ask a blessing than by cleansing one’s hands as we wash the feet of another.
A young student nurse helped me out of bed and into a nearby chair. Her name was Grace and she wore the old style white uniform still popular among nurses that year, before colorful tops and scrubs became the style. Grace was attractive, not pretty. Adorned in pure white she appeared soft and angelic. A sweet rustling of starched garments could be heard when she moved. The fledgling nurse had been assigned to give me a foot washing. I’d always thought the ritual was limited to religious ceremonies. I was surprised to find myself slated for the ablution in a hospital. What could the staff be thinking? Maybe a checklist for student nurses mandated tasks to be completed before graduation. Foot washing would be somewhere near the bottom I hoped, and preferably optional. I sighed and told Grace I’d wait to take a shower, but she just smiled and brought an enamel pan out from the cabinet under the sink.
I didn’t want a junior nurse washing my feet for extra credit. I’d never met anyone who’d had a foot washing. Besides, having been brought up in a family of men, aside from my mother, I was never very comfortable around females, especially as a young man in a religious order. Being alone with a woman in an elevator made me nervous, because it was hard for me to believe that a girl couldn’t guess what was racing through my mind while I stood near her, and for that I was usually embarrassed. I had been intimate with a young woman … I think … only once. That affair happened while in college and we were both totally drunk. I used to joke that the only girl who ever swooned over me also threw up on me. Since then I had maintained a distance from women. After all, I was a normal male and the tipping point of my sexuality occurred somewhere around 18 inches from a woman. Any closer, except for a quick Hello hug, and my mind turned to procreation. Wishing to be true my vows, I always maintained a safe distance from women who crossed my path. A young female washing my feet did not fit that picture.
Beyond my aversion to the foot washing, I was being generally uncooperative with everyone responsible for my care. Frankly, I didn’t want to make any headway in my recovery. Better to stay in bed and pretend I wasn’t improving, so the doctors would relent and give me back my Demerol. My need for the drug wasn’t for the physical pain, which lessened each day, but to help me deal with a twisting dread building up inside me, wrenching through my gut. I wanted my drugs, thank you, and Grace could please go away and not fuss over me with her feminine touch that would only make me desirous of her.
I wanted to be left alone to deal with my fright and anguish, to figure it out and fight it, to master it in a direct frontal assault. Something awful that I could feel but not define was watching and waiting. I was scared, more afraid than any time I had known in my life. I so much needed to rise like an Iron Man, and I was trying my damnedest to figure out how to command myself to do so. I didn’t want someone to soothe me. If anything, I wanted to smash something. Or hit somebody. But God, please, not trample across a body and over a face again.
Grace lifted the large pan and placed it in the sink. When the vessel was filled halfway with warm water, she placed a towel over her arm. Carrying the foot bath against her body, she came to me and knelt down on the floor at my feet. She smoothed the apron covering the front of her uniform and laid the towel over my lap. I felt my face grow warm as it turned a bright shade of red.
This seemed bizarre, a young woman kneeling before me, preparing to wash my feet. I did not want such an anointing The intimacy embarrassed me. It made me feel helpless and weak.
I told her, “You don’t have to do this.”
She looked up at me, not in surprise, but in acknowledgement, and I wondered if the bath might be awkward for both of us.
“It will be all right,” she half whispered.
I looked through the window to the outside, where I would eventually have to return someday.
“It will never be all right,” I said.
She lowered her head and began her work.
Grace pushed the hem of my hospital gown back just above my knees. She began to place my foot in the water and I tried to help by doing it for her. She glanced up, her eyes telling me she would take control. I let go and followed, waiting for her touch to signal when I should help to move my limbs. I was reminded of being taught to dance many years before. I didn’t need to know the step. I just had to wait for a light touch to show me when and where to move. Grace led us through slowly, as she tenderly and carefully washed each foot with a washcloth. When finished, she lifted my feet and moved the pan out of the way, sliding her body closer to me. Taking the towel from me, she pulled it over her legs and placed my feet into her lap. That step loosed the emotion welling up in my heart. I began to cry quietly.
“You’re doing fine,” she said. “I’m not doing anything,” I replied. “There’s no need to,” she said.
As Grace bent down and dried my feet, lightly massaging them with her hands, I felt her breath on my bare knees. A different chord was touched in me, and I felt an uncomfortable stirring. Our ritualized intimacy had been crucial to the dance, but could go no further. The moment was over and Grace stood. Leaving my feet wrapped in the towel, she turned and carried the foot bath away.
Returning in a moment, she handed me a tissue. As I wiped my eyes, Grace knelt at the side of the chair and took my hand.
“Thank you,” I said, without looking at her.
She said nothing, although for a moment I thought she might. Then she squeezed my hand and left the room without saying a word.
When I eventually became more aware of my surroundings, I asked the orderlies to move my bed farther away from the hospital room’s window. I told them if a plane crashed into the building I’d be engulfed in a fiery explosion, just like two weeks before. They looked doubtful. They moved my bed.
Mornings were a little easier since the doctors doubled my pain meds. A short time before the crew arrived to change the bandages covering my burns, a tall freckled nurse breezed through the door, carefully pulled back the bed sheet … any jarring movement sent me into a storm of pain … and plunged two hypodermics of Demerol into me. How lovely was this angel of mercy, I thought, as I waited for her each day after breakfast. How sweet the juice she pumped into my body. How wonderful did the world become as the ambrosia worked its magic in my brain, sweeping up the pain and dread and ushering it out onto the sidewalk like a guest who had stayed too long. Twenty minutes after that sweet girl with my morning potion left and the burn unit team arrived for our daily ritual of excruciating pain and bandage changing, I was tree-top high, laughing and all but singing. Addiction nipped close at my heels, but I couldn’t have cared less.
It wasn’t long before they took away my Demerol.
“Gotta do it,” said the doctor. “You’ll still have the pills.”
True, the pain was much less by then, but I missed my sacramental mid- morning high.
At night a strong concoction of chemicals sent me blissfully off to sleep, shooting me instantly into an abyss of nothingness. But in the morning at dawn, as I lay and watched the light creep through the window, I shuddered as I saw the figure of death stalking me. I knew death. I had recently met him. I still remembered his cold arms wrapped around me, clutching me to his lifeless heart as I tried to run away and escape the dismal waltz. Still in my twenties, with little warning, I made the awful discovery I was mortal. A local newspaper told of the few on our airplane who miraculously eluded death. But only for a time, I knew. Death was real, and he promised me that someday, somewhere, he’d be waiting. He scared me silly.
