87. Hurt

“They’re hauling our SUV out of the woods,” said Agnes, as I woke up in a brightly lit white room. He hung over me, a quizzical look on his face. “Are you awake?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

“Well, it’s a hell of a note,” he said. “Were you taking a short cut back home through the woods?” he said, chuckling and now looking relieved.

I said nothing. My head hurt too much to even consider speaking.

“Lance has given us a van to use!” he said. “So don’t worry.”

I wasn’t worried about our transportation at the moment. I was worried I’d done permanent damage to my head or neck.

“No permanent damage, say the doctors,” Agnes offered.

“Don’t they have any good dope here?” I asked.

“Dope?” asked Agnes.

“Yeah, pain meds,” I said. “Four or five Demerol shots would be nice. The big ones.”

“I’ll ask the nurse,” said Agnes. “Is aspirin OK if they’re out of denner-all?”

“They won’t be out of it,” I said.

But they wouldn't give me any. I wondered if my lack of medical  insurance was the reason.

86. Trapped

It’s not easy getting out of a wrecked SUV! I unlocked my seat belt and began to squirm around on the ceiling of the vehicle. The car was tilted at a steep angle. Assuming I was on a hill, I naturally went to the high side of the car and tried the door. I pulled the handle up, then down. The door opened about a foot, but would budge no farther. Scooting around with my butt uphill I tried the lower door and that wouldn’t even unlatch. I took a breath and tried to think. Was I missing something? Was there a button I should push? But I couldn’t think of anything that would keep the downhill door from opening except damage to the vehicle

The engine died with a short cough.  Not until then did I think of the possibility of the car catching fire from a hot engine.  But If I was stuck here for hours, I’d need the heat to protect me from hypothermia.  

I scooted back around to face the uphill door again and the car suddenly began to slide down the hill. It seemed to pick up speed and I stretched out until my feet found something solid. In a moment the ride was over. The SUV crashed into something with a wrenching thud and my feet smashed through the window into water. One headlight shut off. As I began to pray, “Please let the other one stay on,” the second light went out, as if I hadn’t put in my request fast enough.

I was getting rattled. I took deep breath, then another. Cold quickly seeped into the SUV.  I didn’t know how much water was beneath me. Either I was in a ditch containing five or six inches of water or I was teetering on the edge of a major stream or river! My God! I thought, I hope I’m not about to plunge into the Hudson River! They’ll find my body at the 59th Street Pier in Manhattan!

I pushed on the uphill door again and it opened another inch. Putting my arms up and out through the opening, I tried to pull myself out. My head and face were now in the snow as I tried to force the door farther open while pushing myself up and out at the same time. After a few minutes, I knew I would not fit through the opening. Dejectedly, I relaxed and slid my arms back into the car. I flipped myself around again and got into position to kick at the window. That would hopefully break it or push the door more open. But when I thrust my legs my body slipped on the ceiling, diluting each kick. In desperation, I turned around again and this time and began to head butt the window. Once, twice … damn that hurt! … three times and all I had to show for my effort was blood streaming down in my eyes and the beginning of a terrible headache.

I had to somehow get out of the SUV or I’d freeze. By the time I was discovered after the storm, I’d be dead of exposure. I had to come up with a solution. I couldn’t afford to panic, as much as my mind screamed at me to DO SOMETHING … NOW! … like an hysterical child running in a circle trying to get someone to help him.  I rolled over on my back and wrapped my arms around myself and tried to think and pray at the same time. My wet feet felt like they were freezing. I tried to hold back tears of despair. So much for my thoughts of death as an alternative to the frightening journey into old age. Now I desperately wanted to live. That’s when I saw the colors.

I thought I’d lost all the power in the vehicle, but evidently only the headlights had died. Out of the lower corner of my eye I saw a rose-colored light. I was reminded of a sunset long ago, golden clouds on a pink and blue sky. I peered down and saw the door to the glove compartment had popped open and a small light inside weakly lit the red interior. I don’t know why I thought I saw pink and gold and blue and green. Wiping the blood from my eyes, my scalp hurting as though someone had broken a chair over my head, I cramped up into a fetal position and again maneuvered myself to point downhill with my face near the compartment, now above me in the upside down SUV. Jammed inside and sticking out of a pile of maps and assorted junk was a screwdriver. I suddenly remembered a frigid, beery night long ago in college when I’d locked myself out of my car. Of course! Tempered Glass! I could bang my head on that window till Kingdom Come and never get through it. My feet had easily shattered the lower window earlier, no doubt because the glass surface had been well scratched by a rock or tree as we landed at the bottom of the ditch. 

All I needed was to scratch the upper window’s surface with a screwdriver, like I had done long ago in the snow outside Buckland’s Beer Joint. The scratches would relieve the tempering and allow the glass to break easily. Five minutes later I was crawling over what was left of the side window into the snow and up the hill.

I heard a  truck pass by above me. I climbed even faster, anxious to get up to the road. But when I got there it was empty of any cars. I slumped to my knees and waited. And waited.

The snow fell more heavily now. When I finally saw the lights of a vehicle approaching, it was almost upon me. Jumping up I made as much commotion as I could from the side of the road. I did not want to run in front of a car and cause its driver to slam on his brakes and leave us both stranded here. The car slowed down and stopped just beyond where I stood waving my arms.

I heard the passenger-side power window whine down and I ran to it. Bending over to peer in, I tried to find my voice.

“I - I - crash - ditch - cold- freezing-“ I said. The young woman behind the steering wheel looked at me with a shocked expression across her face.

“You’re all bloody!” she cried and pressed her foot to the accelerator. I heard the engine rev up and I jumped back to save my toes. Then I reached out to grab some part of the moving vehicle to hang on to. I didn’t care … dragged along in the snow was better than being left there by the side of the road. But I soon fell away and got to my feet.

“What the F*CK!!!” I shouted. “YOU F*CKING XXXX” (use your imagination), I shouted after the woman.

“What the F*CK!!!” I shouted again, this time at the sky, but He knew who I was yelling at. I could not believe someone would leave me by the side of the road to save her upholstery. Damn! I would have wrapped my coat around my head if that’s what she wanted. Or rode in the trunk!

The road miraculously lit up ahead and I saw my long shadow stretch out in front of me. A truck had come up from behind to stop just short of hitting me as I stood cursing in the middle of the road. I quickly wiped my face on my sleeve as best I could and ran to the driver’s window.

“I’ve been bloodied up in an accident and my car’s off the road.” I shouted.

“Get in!” he called down.


I've loved this album since I bought in 1962.  It doesn't play any more.  I need to get the CD.

85. Whoops!

Despite Terd’s not thinking it a good idea, on the way home my head was full of plans for what I would call the  boarding house. I could find some kind of work for myself. And I knew Bouncer might like to pitch in. We wouldn’t have to ask Harpo. We could support him. Raiser and Kickstart were certainly young enough to work. So too were Cat, Izzy, and Headless. Terd would contribute. Agnes would probably go back to Ireland. Whoever stayed at home during the day could watch out for Beep Beep to ensure he kept his clothes on and stayed off the road.

Transportation would be a problem. We couldn’t all have cars. Well, maybe we could work out some kind of schedule to bus everyone around in our SUV.

It was now snowing hard and I wished I’d remained at Terd’s for dinner. In fact, I should have asked to spend the night and sleep on the couch. Not quite sure where I was, I thought I remembered turning at the light, putting me on the road that led to the bridge, but I could see nothing in the darkness and snow except for the occasional headlights of folks caught out here like me.

I hate driving when the snow is streaming into my headlights and I can hardly see anything else. I get mesmerized and find my eyes unfocusing and I have to look at the speedometer to stop my brain from concentrating on the flakes instead of what little I can see of the road up ahead. It’s easy to understand how people on foot become disoriented and lost in a blizzard. I looked up from the dashboard and I swear I saw something in front of me in the road. My foot instinctively slammed down on the brake pedal. The car swung around in a half circle and I was no longer in control. My head banged hard on the side window and I was yanked backward. I remember the feeling of spinning down a slope like a kid on a snow saucer. Then it was quiet, except for the engine. I could see nothing outside but a blizzard in the headlights. I pressed the accelerator to see if the car would move ahead, even though I sensed it wasn’t going anywhere. Something was pressing on the top of my head. I realized I was upside down.

Pat Boone - Winter Wonderland

84. Over The River

I’m a little sorry I ventured out in the SUV this afternoon. None of us at the monastery have any reason to keep track of the news or weather, but we keep a small portable radio with spare batteries for emergencies in the kitchen up on the shelf over the refrigerator. If the weather appears threatening and a trip on the roads is planned, I turn it on and listen for the forecast. Lance gave us the radio and it receives AM, FM and the weather bureau.

A light snowfall wasn’t due till tonight, according to the forecasters, but flakes are already falling as I head over the Rhinecliff Bridge on my way to Terd’s house for our visit.  I absolutely hate to drive on roads slick with snow. After only five minutes I have a headache as my body and neck tenses up in readiness for the crash when I slide off the road into a ditch. And who will find me down there in the water and snow if I can’t get out of the car? And if I get out and crawl up to the road, who will stop for a snowman waving frantically in the middle of a storm? I’m already getting a headache and the road is bare! I worry too much!

This afternoon Red Hook’s sidewalks are sporting their decoration of students from Bard College, each dressed a little different and each having more of a spring in their young step than the musty old shopkeepers.  Aside from the young tattoo artist with the dreadlocks, everyone else in the community complains about the young men and women while taking their money.

“So you’ve come back!” Terd says with a smile as he welcomes me at the front door and herds me through the tiny vestibule into the living room. He takes my parka and hangs the coat with a great deal of care in a closet near the door, as a store clerk might replace a garment I had just tried on.

In the kitchen we settle down at the table and immediately begin work on the coffee he’s made and the donuts I picked up on my way here.

“I have news,” he tells me.

“So, tell me about it,” I said. It was easy to see he was delighted about something.  A smile was written broadly across his face.

“I’ve got a job!” he said. “I’ll be teaching this spring at Marist College down the road in Poughkeepsie.  Jack recommended me.”

“That’s great,” I replied, but unsure I felt all that elated.

“Science and Religion,” he continued, “It's part time and not in its own curriculum, but the school has a concentration in that area.”

We talked about the various topics one might cover in the class, whether there would be oversight from college officials and the typical things that future college professors discuss.

“Jesse,” Terd said after half of an hour, “you don’t seem all that happy for me.”

“I’m disappointed you won’t be coming back to Our Lady’s,” I said.

“I’ve spoken to Agnes about this,” said Terd. “He wants me to return to the monastery. He said I could take the teaching job and commute from West Saugerties.”

“That would seem unusual,” I said, “to have an abbot invite you leave the cloister each day for a 9 to 5 job.”

“Some of the Bunders do it,” he said, “although it’s true they’re not a cloister.”

“And these are unusual times for Our Lady’s,” I said, “so we shouldn’t expect life as usual.”

“True,” said Terd, “our Brothers may be doing the same in the near future when the monastery closes.”

“You know,” I said, “if we all went out to work for paychecks and came home at night, maybe we could continue to live at Our Lady’s.”

“And if we had decent jobs, we could probably live better than subsisting on rice and beans, too,” said Terd.

“I think we could do it!” I said, my enthusiasm mounting. “I’ll bet only half of us working could support all of us in a decent style.”

“We wouldn’t be monks any more,” said Terd. “At least not the kind we’ve been.”

“I don’t see where we have a choice at the moment,” I said. “We’ll just be the kind of monks circumstances allow us to be now.”

“Nah, it won’t work,” said Terd after a moment.

“What the hell … why not?” I said.

“The Ardent Brothers in Fermoy want the cash from the sale of the monastery,” said Terd. “We might be able to support ourselves living there, but we don’t own the place and we don’t have the money to buy it.”

“Is robbing a bank a mortal sin?”  I asked.

Terd laughed.  “Maybe not if it’s to support a monastery,” he said.

Here's a song that's tough to find on the Internet, Steve Miller's "Take the JOKER and Run."  It's an early version of "Take the MONEY and Run."  I've uploaded the mp3 file to the following url and I'll keep it up there for a while, or until they arrest me.  Just double click the url and your player should automatically play the song.

http://www.windsweptpress.com/smb Take The Joker And Run.mp3

83. Sealed Away

Agnes is treating the Brothers as holy innocents, believing them incapable of figuring out a life for themselves after our time on the mountain comes to an end. Although he doesn’t plan to shake each brother’s hand and then murder him, the abbot has been acting more like a prison warden and seems to have made little headway in his efforts to firm up plans to provide for us after we are evicted. He refuses to discuss plans with the group or encourage their input.

“The Brothers have been sealed away here for years, Jesse,” he said. “They wouldn’t know how to make a very good living to support themselves.”

“Eventually they will have to be told,” I said. “You can’t wait till the last moment and hand them the keys to a few apartments and tell them to show up Monday morning at the car wash wearing their boots."

This all reminds me of the old movies where the prisoner was pushed out the back door of the prison wearing a cheap suit with a twenty dollar bill in the pocket.

Terd is still over in Red Hook.  When I call him he doesn’t say much about his plans.   Agnes has allowed me to visit him this week. I miss him and want to continue our conversation, but hopefully we can do so this time with less choler.

Jim Croce - Working At The Car Wash Blues

82. Under Heaven

I went with Agnes to Sally’s office in Woodstock to sign the papers to allow the sale of the monastery. After the legal documents were passed around and signed, Sally and her boss shook our hands as though we had just won the lottery.  When I took Sally’s hand I stared deep into her eyes … a difficult thing for me to do with a woman … and squeezed her fingers with a little force.  Her eyes avoided mine and she quickly slid her hand from my grasp as I began to apply pressure.  I was learning nothing from this, but perhaps making a fool of myself.   If my memory of Sally on that day in the woods had included wings behind her shoulders,  I would today have thrown my arms around her right in front of Agnes and the office manager and felt up Sally’s back.  I should be glad I didn’t do that, actually.

People shake hands when big things happen or soon will, but I doubt that a warden on death row shakes the hand of a prisoner about to be electrocuted.  Our execution looms in the background of this well kept realty office.  Ten men's lives will be all but snuffed out when they’re sent forth into the cold and their home is sold to a latter day robber baron from New York City. All to pay the bankers on Merchant’s Quay so the Gang of McFour can borrow more money and flush it down some other drain. We're no doubt getting kicked off the mountain because a small group of religious fools in Fermoy doesn’t know how to handle money and investments. But I’ll never know the truth.

And the truth doesn’t matter anyway. Nothing matters when you have no  control. A monk controls nothing, for his fate is in the hands of a loving Father. I would be lacking faith to worry that God can’t help us. In fact, I know he can, so I suppose I'm worried he doesn’t want to. But I know he has always taken care of me and there is no reason to believe he will stop. 

I just worry a lot.

Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues

81. Gift

It’s snowing here on the mountain this morning. Our Lady’s looks quite pretty from the outside. Earlier I walked down the driveway to the road just to be out in the snow. Huffing and puffing my way back up I could see the Chapter House through the trees with snow lying on the old porch roofs and covering the tiny lawn that just a week or so ago was an ugly brown. But now a coat of white innocence covers the house with a temporary relief for the eyes, but it is not a cure for the decrepitude.

It brought to mind a conversation I had last winter in the village with a middle aged woman who sat down next to me at the drop-in place on Rock City Road. People do that. They see a guy in a monk’s robe and sit down next to him as if he were their confessor having come to meet them at the appointed time. I’m still waiting for someone to begin, “Bless me Father, for I have sinned.”

It was a snowy afternoon and outside the window a naked tree, now dark and wet and leafless, grabbed the falling snowflakes to cover itself with a coat of innocent white. The woman’s mood was somber. After an exchange of “weather evaluation” as I call it … “Isn’t it nice today! Yes, a little cool, etc.” … the woman quickly got to what was bothering her. I’m sure she thought about it at least briefly every day of her life, but on that day the sore smarted enough for her to seek someone out, the telling like a salve that gave some relief but didn’t cure.

“He kicked me out!” she said, “my own father. Called me a whore and dragged me out the front door and slammed it shut. And locked it! I was only 16, for god’s sake. My idiot mother stood there frozen like a statue.

“That’s pretty awful,” I said.

“It was snowing, for god’s sake, and I looked behind me on the sidewalk and saw my stuff coming down from the upstairs window. He’s up there throwing my clothes and my dolls and my makeup and all my stuff out the fucking window like a crazy man. I went nuts. I started banging on the front door and I kept it up until my hands bled and I screamed into the windows and I cursed the assholes and I threw up and I choked and I cried until I thought I’d die, for Chrissake.”

She became quiet as she stared out the window.

“What happened,” I said after a minute.

She pulled her eyes away from the window and looked down at her hands.

“I died,” she said quietly. “I just plain ol’ died.”

She remained quiet while I thought about how lucky I had been ... blessed is the word.  All I ever wanted from my father was his hope for me. Had he withheld it, I would have been devastated. And he owed me something else, more than food and shelter and the many other things he provided. He owed me respect.  Respect as a human being, as a person and as a child of God. I am grateful my father did indeed love me enough to respect me and hope for me. Those were the only gifts I really needed, along with his example to give them away.

A child of any age needs a parent to stand by her side, wishing for success and happiness. A man or a woman needs a woman or a man who loves them unconditionally and hopes only for the best. Without respect and hope we die. Plain ol’ die.

Ed Townsend - For Your Love

80. Togetherness

Wilma from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin writes, wondering how we monks can live together without killing each other.  Her query did not seem like a joke.  Perhaps Wilma is keeping house with a large family.

Living with ten other monks has certainly been a challenge for the past thirty years. Perhaps I should say “only” ten other monks, because that’s the nut of it. The same people all day long, all year long and never anyone else. It’s like being stranded on a small island with the survivors from a shipwreck, but it was a very small ship and I didn’t choose my mates.

Now, of course I admit that for monks we’re pretty free at Our Lady’s. I get down to the village every other week or so to visit the hardware store for a toilet part. In fact, the crew that sells me floats and washers and brass rods might be considered my extended family. When I ask how they are doing or inquire about their loved ones, I’m really interested and not making small talk. They don’t realize they are all I have outside the monastery. If I ever worked in a hardware store again, I’d try to keep in mind when lonely people ask about my health or my “family,” they really mean it.  Maybe that’s another aspect of monastic life the Great Benedict intended.

And I have enjoyed an afternoon from time to time sitting on the green in Woodstock. I do try to go when the weather is on the cool side and the young women have returned to wearing underwear, but I have through no fault of my own been caught in the crossfire of conflicting weather forecasts and wound up stuck on the green when the temperature unexpectedly warmed along with my unintended concupiscence.  However, I am satisfied that my intentions were honorable. Pretty much.

Most monks I know were brought up in Catholic households and attended Catholic schools. I’ve mentioned that these were crowded places where children rubbed up against each other in classroom conditions that often resembled cattle cars. Plus, many of us were from working class families where money was tight and personal space miniscule. I’ve always been amazed that my Brothers and I at Our Lady’s didn’t head out for the wide open spaces of Wyoming or Montana when we reached our adult years, instead of signing up for tours on this sometimes claustrophobic tramp steamer we call a monastery.

The Four Lads - Standin' On The Corner

79. Lucky

   I think that evil is all around us, because humanity … what’s left of it … is all around us.  I used to think evil was a terrible person, like Hitler, or a scourge on mankind, like an earthquake that kills thousands and leaves many more homeless, sitting around fires in the middle of a dark and desolate landscape. 

But evil is not what happens.  It's what can  happen.

We are gathering here tonight  behind a deserted restaurant, trying to stay warm, huddling in front of a burning pile of furniture from the house next door.  I am nine years old, and yet I am not.

   The great catastrophe happened on Sunday morning.  I was dressed for church and not in my warmest clothes.  Tonight, the men around me at the fire are not acting like we’re on a camping trip.  They look scared.  They make me fearful and they haven’t asked if I’m all right or told me not be afraid, as they normally would comfort a youngster.  They haven't even bothered to assure me that everything is going to be all right, what anyone would tell a child. 

   I’m really scared that everything will never be all right.  Again, I’m not going to have any supper tonight and I  may freeze to death before morning.  My father is distant.  I think he knows something about my mother, but he’s not going to tell me.  He said my brothers are out looking for food, but I doubt it.  They’re too young to be out and about in the dark in this dangerous time. When he lied to me, he stared into the fire and didn’t turn to look at me.  I know that means something is very wrong. 

   Now, I hear them coming again.  What an awful sound, a tearing and scraping.  Screaming and fire everywhere.  My father has crushed himself into a ball, face buried in his knees.  I try to pull his head up by his hair, but he is rigid and locked up, shaking.  I want him to save me, but he won’t.  He is terrified.  He is as good as dead, I know, as I run from him, run from death. I wish with all my heart and soul to wake  and find this is a dream.  When jump up screaming I find it is indeed a dream.  I am so lucky.  But it is the last time in my life that I will arise from a living nightmare.  The rest will have to be lived and endured.  Alone.

 

Santana - Put Your Lights On

78. Overheard

Calls have been coming in on our phone from Fermoy.  They are inconvenient to any of us using the kitchen, which in addition to being our beans and rice cookery, is also our workshop.  There is a side table where Bouncer often fiddles with any one of a myriad of plumbing devices laid out for his study.  Agnes clears everyone out when the McFour call him.  We have to carry our work over to the laundry and butchery across the hall.  Sparky had another phone in the tiny room he called his office, but Agnes never uses it.

I was not purposely eaves-dropping yesterday as I worked in the pantry trying to find and plug mouse holes, but when the phone rang and I heard Cat run looking for Agnes, I suspected it was Fermoy calling and that I had a minute or two before Agnes arrived.  I planned to leave the pantry  through the kitchen to get out of hearing range.   But Agnes was just coming in the side door and immediately picked up the phone and began to talk.  I would have felt obvious bursting through the kitchen just then.

I never suspected Agnes and the men in Fermoy held any more surprises for us and I heard Agnes say, “Of course they know why I’m here and we’ve discussed it as a group.  This is a terrible thing to do to them.”

I could do nothing but agree with him.  Agnes was silent for a moment and then gave a great sigh.

“That is an evil deed to contemplate, Brother St. Anne,” I heard Agnes hiss into the phone.  “I will not do it.”

And after a full minute, Agnes, sounding close to tears spoke again.

“St. Anne,” he said, “we will both rot in hell for this.”

Yes, I know I've used this ... one of the great songs of the ... was it the '80s?    Crystal Gale - Talking In Your Sleep

77. Brew

Another Irish tradition is alcohol, and though I never smelled it on Agnes,  I saw him physically react when a kindhearted woman from down near the Reformed Church in Blue Mountain brought us a Thanksgiving basket that included a bottle of wine and ... surprisingly ... a bottle of bourbon whiskey.

I carried the box from our side door into the kitchen and began to rummage through the contents.  When I held up the sour mash bourbon for Agnes to see, he flinched as though someone had slapped him hard on the back.

“Pour that down the sink drain immediately!”  he hissed at me.

“Devil’s Brew?” I asked with light sarcasm.

“Right now!” he repeated his demand.

I was intrigued by his reaction.  I placed the bottle on the sideboard of the sink and suggested he empty it down the drain, whining that I didn’t have the heart to throw away good whiskey.  I should feel bad for doing this, but I wanted to see his reaction.

“Please” he now said in a pleading tone, “just dump the cursed bottle and begone with it.”

I suspected my abbot may have had a problem at one time.  I wondered if it related to what Terd had almost told me when we shared donuts at the house in Red Hook.

 

Clancy brothers and Tommy Makem - Whiskey, you`re the devil 

 

Here's a bit of "PogueVision." You won't understand the lyrics, probably, but the message is clear.


The Pogues - Streams of Whiskey