And then not long ago I found myself sitting in the hot dog place in the village. But it didn’t look like the hot dog place. It was way too large. I got up and walked around and realized I was in a New York State Thruway rest stop, complete with gas station, rest rooms and five different restaurants. But I didn’t really know where I was on the road that runs from New York City to Buffalo. I asked the woman in the gift shop the name of this plaza and when she replied, “Westmoreland,” I knew I was near Utica in the Mohawk Valley.
I didn’t know how I got there, but at least I was on the southbound side of the Thruway and could hitchhike home.You don't see anyone hitchhiking anymore and the reason is it's all but impossible to get picked up. Nobody wants to take the chance anymore. So you hang around truck stops or jump the fence to get in a Thruway rest stop and ask guys for a ride.I walked around the truck area to the rear where the big tractor trailers pull in at an angle so that each is 15 feet or so ahead of the other and the driver can see more than just the trucks on either side of him when he parks. I looked up through the cab windows for drivers ready to go. One fellow was checking out something under his trailer and I approached him, but he said he wasn't allowed to take a rider.
As I walked away a woman said, "You looking for a ride, Bub?"
Behind me stood an elderly woman and I wondered what she was doing in the truck area.
"I'm hauling to the West Side docks, she said, “12th and 23rd."
I knew she meant New York City and therefore she was headed down the Thruway, but it seemed unusual she might be a driver. She had to be 70 if she was a day.
"I'm 72," said Mary, later when we were up to speed and out in the lane.
"My husband, Walter, drove all his life as an owner-operator. I took over when he died."
"You've got more stamina than I do," I said.
"I can see that," she said. "You were sort of tottering when you climbed up into the cab. And I bet you don't have much road experience either."
"'Fraid not," I said.
"You stick with me, Honey," she said. "I'll get you where you're goin." I wondered if I should tell her I was a monk.
Dr. Harry Bunch is a man in his fifties with a boyish face and an open manner.
"Hey," he said as he came in the examining room while the nurse took my blood pressure, "you're the guys from up on the mountain!"
I admitted we were indeed, but were no longer there because of the fire.
"Yes, I know. Sorry to hear it. So what can I do for you, Abbot?" he asked, surprising me.
"How did you know I'm the Abbot?" I asked.
"Your bodyguard caught me as I was coming down the hall a moment ago. He snuck in from the waiting room. I threw him out. I hope you don't mind ... or would you prefer to have him in here with us?"
"Not at all," I said. "Brother Bilhild can be annoying at times."
"So what's the problem, Abbot ..."
"Please, call me Jesse ..."
"Ok, what's up, Jesse? And you will please call me Harry."
"I guess I just need a check-up," I said, "and Bouncer thinks I'm getting too forgetful."
Harry poked and prodded me, asked a lot of questions, sometimes going back to earlier questions to see if he got the same answer. He finally pronounced me physically fit, although out of shape.
“You don’t need to worry about being forgetful. You’ll probably find it comes and goes,” said the doctor.
"Some of us get that way early and others wait till their nineties. It probably wouldn't hurt to have someone to check with, just so you don't get to be a danger to yourself. Should I call him in?”
“Who?” I asked.
The doctor looked at me. "The man waiting for you," he said.
"Oh .... OK," I said.
"Who's waiting for you, Jesse?" asked the doctor.
I remained mum. For the life of me, I couldn't follow what he was saying. Why would anyone be waiting for me?
"Where are we, Jesse?" the doctor asked.
"In town," I answered.
"What's my name, Jesse?" the doctor asked.
A long time seemed to pass. Then I said, "I don't know."
Bouncer is tired of the Mountain Meadow Motel and he wants to leave, he said. When he mentioned it, I first tried to avoid his feelings with some levity, a bad habit I wonder if I'll ever conquer.
“You need a hobby,” I said. “We could get a cow for you and keep her on the meadow out behind the motel.”
“That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking,” he said. “Maybe all of us could run a dairy farm!”
“I don’t think so,” I said, “we’d hardly have time left over for prayer and meditation.”
“Hell, Jesse,” he retorted, “think of all the self-supporting monks on farms the world over. Shoveling cow poop is almost a monk’s tradition.”
"Don’t you miss all the old toilets?” I said. “Can’t you just wait to get back in time to see the front porch fall off?"
"It burned down, Jesse," he replied, as his eyes squinted at me. “Our monastery burned down.”
"I ... I know," I said, "but you just said you were … and I thought you meant ...." I stopped, confused for a moment.
"You didn't remember the fire, did you?" he said. He stood keenly watching me as I sifted through a pile of papers.
I didn't want to lie. "I don't know," I said "I wasn't thinking anything in particular. I wasn't thinking the monastery was actually still there."
"Jesse," he said, "did you have your annual physical this year?"
"No," I said. “We didn't have the money.”
"I think we should call Dr. Bunch and get you in to see him. You're our leader and we have a lot of trust invested in you."
"Well, thank you, thank you very much," I said in my best Elvis imitation, anchoring the tip of my tongue against the back of my lower teeth.
"I'm serious," Bouncer said, "We don't want to follow you off a cliff. You could do a lot of damage if your head is screwed up."
"I appreciate your subtlety," I said.
At the doctor's office later in the week I was reminded of how Terd had handled Agnes when he was alive. Bouncer acted like my servant as he stood with me at the check-in window. Referring to me in the third person as "The Abbot," Bouncer explained to the receptionist that we were mendicant monks and had no money, but would be happy to share the first fruits of our harvest with the doctors and office staff.
"And what would that be," asked the sweet lady, “your harvest, I mean.”
"Why, Ma'm, we're gonna grow milk," he said, launching into his best imitation of Professor Hill in The Music Man. "Yes, we are. Through cows, don't you see, but soon we'll have quarts and gallons and 2 percent and 5 percent and 40 percent and ice cream and cheeses and ..."
"Bouncer, stop it," I interjected.
"Excuse the Abbot," Bouncer quickly said, "he needs the doctor to look at his head."
You get the picture. Traveling anywhere with Bouncer is like accompanying an acting troupe. I filled out paperwork and sat around in the waiting room for an hour, but finally Dr. Bunch finished his schedule for the day and had the nurse bring me into the examination room.
Sometimes, this group took itself way too seriously.
“I met Roger Kumminski today,” I said to Harpo when he and Cat returned from the Chinese restaurant with take out lunch.
“Don’t know him, do I?” said Harpo.
“He’s the fireman who tried to save Agnes in the fire,” I said. “His sister was married to Lance before she died. You taught Lance how to fish.”
“Yes, I did,” said Harpo, looking uncomfortable.
“How did you come to meet Lance,” I asked.
“He lived at the monastery,” said Harpo. “He’s the only boy from the school we ran who stayed around Saugerties when the State Ed Department shut us down.”
“Harpo, are you shitting me?” I almost shouted.
“Language, my dear abbot, is a mirror to the soul,” Harpo said.
“How can it be that I’ve been dealing with Lance for the past few years and you never admitted you knew him. And which other Brothers knew him from his school days here?”
“No one,” said Harpo. “They’re all dead. Took our secret to their graves.”
“What secret?” I asked.
“That when the State closed down our school, we hid the boys and didn’t send them home.”
“What?” I almost shrieked.
“They were all 16 and 17 years old at the time. We had five boys then and we worried greatly about their welfare if they returned to their … sick families. Maybe we couldn’t have students, but who says we can’t have private guests? Ask Visiting Scholar Julio.”
“I’m sure the state would object to that logic,” I said.
“We thought so, too, so we didn’t tell them,” Harpo said.
“What did their families think?” I asked.
“All the parents eventually opened their mail from the state to find the boys had been liberated, but only two families bothered to seek them out here,” he said. “When we lied and said we didn’t know where they were, neither family pursued it, evidently believing the boys had struck out on their own.”
“This is all hard to believe,” I said.
“Well, as time went on, the boys did strike out on their own. Most joined the armed forces. Lance joined the Army, got scholarships, became an officer and did quite well. Did you know that Lance is a wealthy financier?” asked Harpo.
“No,” I said. “Why doesn’t he just give us a hundred thousand dollars a year and take care of us?” I said, half seriously.
“He’s offered,” said Harpo, “but I have explained to him the meaning of our vow of poverty. We wait upon no man. We wait upon the Lord, who provides what we need, Jesse. He’s never failed us.”
Roger Kumminski had been looking down at the ground in front of us, concentrating as he told his story. Now he turned and looked at me.
“What did he mean?” asked Roger. “Did you jump out a window to escape the fire?”
I didn’t think it would be helpful to explain my past fits of depression.
“Agnes had been my Abbot,” I said. “It was his job to worry about the welfare of each of us. I used to climb out on the roof and enjoy the view. Agnes always worried I’d fall off. He was confused when he spoke to you. Maybe he ran up to the third floor chapel looking for me during the fire and couldn’t find me.”
Roger gave me a strange look.
“Brother Jesse, I’m a good Catholic,” said Roger. I don’t believe in lying to the cops or the D.A. I told them all I knew. But I can’t testify against a religious brother either. I told the D.A. that and he said he didn’t need me to testify anyway.”
“Look,” I said. “Agnes had cancer. His liver was shot. He wanted to die. I was his abbot, Roger. He asked me to help him to die. I will live every day with that, but I did what I thought was right. I guess eventually the D.A. agreed. No one sent me to jail.”
“You thought you were risking jail? They didn’t let you go because of that,” Roger said as he turned to look at me.
“You did what you thought was right,” he continued. “But me, I’m a fireman. It’s my duty to save people whether they want that or not. I tried to bring the Brother out because that’s what I’m supposed to do.”
“What do you mean, you “tried to bring him out” of the fire.
Roger leaned back in his chair and stared up at the mountains across the road and off in the distance.
“I failed. Failed my duty,” he said very quietly. “I didn’t bring your abbot out of the fire. I left him there just like you did. I was running out of air in my backpack and he kept dropping to the floor like dead weight and pleading with me to let him go.”
Suddenly, I felt sorry for this poor man who had no reason other than what he believed to be his failure to explain why he had let Agnes die.
“The fire was getting worse,” he said. “I could hear the structure creak and the smoke and was starting to blow around like a whirlwind. I knew we didn’t have much time left.”
Roger was looking at the ground again and he spoke in hushed tones, almost reverently.
“I got thinking about my wife and kids and …. you know, I just wanted to take them all out for a pizza when I got home. That’s all I could think about. Just a goddamned pizza! And then I ran.”
In my mind I was there with Roger, running for the exit. Out into the snow, running after the life I wanted so badly to hold on to. To hug those I loved, to live life, to eat a pizza.”
“But Agnes got out,” I said. “I saw him brought to the ambulance on a stretcher.
“He jumped from the roof,” said Roger.
“What?” I almost shouted.
“I don’t know how he got up there,” said Roger, “but somehow after I left he got out on the roof and jumped. That’s why we could hear his scream. He was outside on the roof.”
My abbot, the man I had felt so sorry for after his death, had either been forced off the roof by the flames or decided to embrace eternity as I had often considered. If the latter, Agnes had stolen my final act of self-glorification. For only a person who truly cannot get over himself ends his own life.
“But that was never mentioned by the D.A. or the newspapers,” I said.
“Well, they knew. So did the Coroner. I guess the newspaper didn’t print it because of me. I’m the local hero,” he said with irony.
That was true. I had read of Roger’s exploits saving hikers from the depths of ravines they’d fallen into, as well as one other extraction from a fire, that particular one successful.
So,” I chuckled, “the D.A. was ready to hang my ass for leaving Agnes in the fire, but not you?”
“You would have never been charged. Maybe you could put this in your blog,” said Roger. “I’d feel more honest if it were public.”
Roger leaned his head back and took a long final swig of coffee from the paper cup he had brought.
“It was nice to meet you, Brother Jesse. If you guys find a house and fix it up, give me a call and I’ll try to help out. I’m a pretty decent carpenter,” he said.
“I appreciate your offer, Roger,” I replied. “We’re not sure about what we’re doing at the moment.”
“Well, knowing Lance,” he said, “I’m sure he’ll help out with a few dollars.”
“Do you know Lance?” I asked, a little surprised.
“He was married to my sister,” he said. “She died a few years ago, before he moved up your way. He loves that property. When he was a kid he used to sit on that rock cliff the whole day long. Brother Harpo taught him to fish!”
I sat outside our room at the Mountain Meadow Motel the next morning, enjoying the very early bout of spring weather.The temperature would climb to 60 today, according to the weatherman, who said so this morning on the small black and white TV in one of our rooms, the one we call Gryffindor.I tipped back in the cheap plastic chair against the wall of the building and felt the rear legs begin to bend under my weight.As I leaned forward, a small green station wagon turned in from the main road and proceeded down the drive to the office, located off to my left in the center of the motel.A short man with a mustache rolled his ample body out of the car and began to walk toward the office.When he saw me sitting in my work robe, he changed course and walked over to me.
“I’m looking for Brother Jesse,” he said.
“That’s me,” I said as I stood to shake his hand.He took it … I thought reluctantly … and then asked if we could sit and talk.When we found two chairs that would hold each of us, he began.
“I’ve been following your blog,” he said. “I’m Roger Kumminski, the fireman who went in after your abbot.”
.
I felt fear well up in my stomach and said nothing.
“The brother was alive, you know, when I found him,” he continued.
I knew that, of course, and I knew Agnes was dead when they got him into the ambulance.
“I heard what you testified at the courthouse,”the fireman said. “When I found him, he talked to me, too.”
A silence ensued.Unable to stand it, I asked, “So what did he say?Could you understand him?”
“Yes,” said the fireman, “I could understand him.The first thing he said was to leave him.He wanted to die.I didn’t want to leave him, so I started dragging him out.He fought me.I stopped for a breath and then I tried to put my air pack mask on him again so he could get some air.He knocked the damned thing away from his face and then he said, ‘I’ve got to get to Jesse before he jumps.He’s up there.’ He said, ‘He’s in his chapel. He’s in his chapel.’”
Roger Kumminski had been looking down at the ground in front of us, concentrating as he told his story.Now he turned and looked at me.
“What did he mean?” asked Roger.“Did you jump out a window to escape the fire?”
I didn’t think it would be helpful to explain my past fits of depression.
“Agnes had been my Abbot,” I said.“It was his job to worry about the welfare of each of us.I used to climb out on the roof and enjoy the view.Agnes always worried I’d fall off.He was confused when he spoke to you.Maybe he ran up to the third floor chapel looking for me during the fire and couldn’t find me.”
I had not paid a single bill since becoming the abbot, nor had I deposited either the $10,000 check from Alfred or his last check for $2,000. Bouncer and I drove down to the bank to make the deposit into our account.
I honestly don’t know why we have always used this bank in town. The tellers are the slowest clerks in the world, I sometimes think, mostly because they’re always catching up on the latest news from their customers who are also their neighbors.You’d think they’d do that over the back fence on their days off. They’re just out of high school and very friendly, except to those they didn’t grow up with. If you’re not part of their set of people, they are barely cordial. Another customer once told me she thought the teller-kids were afraid of anyone they hadn’t gone to school with because their teachers had warned that outsiders could read their thoughts, so better to keep one’s mind blank when dealing with them. She seemed quite serious. When it came my turn, I was lucky to get a real woman instead of a girl-child who was nice to everyone.
“I’d like to deposit these,” I said, “but I no longer have any deposit slips for our checking account.”
“That’s no problem,” she said with a smile. “If I can see some identification I’ll look up your account on the computer.”
I endorsed the back of the checks totaling $12,000 while she clicked away at the keys. I envied her typing speed, especially with numbers which always slowed me down.
“Here they are, she said. “You have two accounts. Which account do you want to deposit into?”
A light bulb clicked on in my head. “The one with less money,” I said, “and then I’d like to know the balance of each account.”
“Sure,” she said. The little printer next to her whirred and spit out first one slip of paper then another. She handed both to me.
“Have a nice day!” she said with beautiful smile.
I nonchalantly accepted the slips and walked outside the bank and got into the SUV with Bouncer. Then I looked at each slip of paper. The first showed an account with $12,009.87 in it. The second showed a balance of $199,584.98.
