A Quiet and Peaceful Place
Copyright 2012
ISBN 978-1-4658-6925-8
Freddie Jacobson wrestled with the black leather ski boots, his formerly trim waist pinching as he doubled over trying to secure them, while the boots wriggled out of his grasp. Once he had them subdued, he pulled on the laces firmly and tied them off hard, making his feet hurt. He knew that the laces would eventually stretch and the pain would subside, but the support would remain long after he was out. The dog, aged and grey about the snout, lifted itself ponderously, but gamely, from the floor and walked slowly to the door. Once there, the tri-colored Australian Shepherd sat on the matt, and licked its paws.
“Matilda,” Freddie said, using her full name, which he reserved for times when he wished to make some formal expression. “Bed”.
She stared at him in the forlorn hope that she would yet be called to action, but when he looked at her sternly and pointed across the room, she hobbled to the bed by the fire and lay down.
“You should be enjoying your retirement, you know,” he said, pulling on his faded red anorak. “We both should.”
Mattie looked back at him, unsure of how to respond, but he answered for her, saving her the embarrassment.
“I know. Look who’s talking, right? Go ahead, say it.”
He lifted his palm upward while saying the last, a signal that Mattie recognized, and she said, “Moof,” on cue, but without much conviction, as she was trained to do from long past.
“Thanks a lot. That was a rhetorical question, by the way.”
Mattie put her head on her paws now, tiring of the pointless banter and for being castigated for something which she had been encouraged to do. He opened the door to the fire box and threw in a round log of pine, and formed a tent around it with quarter-split aspen that would burn hot and quick, creating a bed of ashes that would keep the pine smoldering for a long time. Then he moved Mattie’s water dish a fraction closer to where she lay, an action which did not really make it any easier for her to reach, but the solicitous gesture did not go unnoticed, for she waged the stump of her bobbed tail in appreciation.
“Try not to burn down the house,” he said to her in parting, as he stepped out onto the porch.
The air was crisp and the sun strong in the early morning, with the musky scent of decayed leaves moving with the lightest of breezes, the surest sign of the spring to come. Above the winter snowpack lay in its entirety, but at the elevation of the cabin, patches of earth that were exposed to the morning and afternoon sun lay bare and wet, the last years leaves layered flat upon themselves, piled atop the previous year’s, and of years before them. Below, at the stream bed, the ground was dry.
He inspected the bottom of the skis, seeing that the wax was intact and serviceable. It would suit his purpose, but he noted that the bases were due for an overhaul, and he thought that he might work them over later that day. Or maybe he would just put them away until next year, and clean them up then, when a new season beaconed and incited his imagination, as they had for some 60 years prior.
In the cool of the morning the corned snow was still frozen firm, allowing his skis to fly over it, just as he had anticipated they would, and why he gotten out so early in the day. Soon, it would be wet and soft, and there would be no gliding easily over the surface. He slid down the icy driveway that was just starting to emerge from its winter hiatus, then rounded the sign at the bottom that indicated that the summer cabins were above and onto the snowmobile track that led up into the high mountains.
He didn’t stay on the track for long, for the snow was firm enough to make it unnecessary, and once he was clear of the forests he took off over the meadows. Even climbing was effortless, the sticky wax grasping the surface, giving a solid kick, and then gliding free. His breathing increased, his vision became myopic, time and place seemed to intertwine. He told himself that he needed to conserve his energy, but he didn’t listen, he was running out of time and he knew he had to make his move soon.
***
The lead group was twenty-strong, Freddie Jacobson somewhere in the middle, with 40 kilometers done and 10 more to go. The mass of humanity flew over the icy track, the feather-weight skis resounding like freight trains passing over the rough ice. With only 10 kilometers left the competitors battled with their own fatigue and vied for position with each other. There were more racers than tracks, and someone would have to relinquish their position for anyone to move forward. His only option was to wait for a downhill, preferably with a sharp turn at the bottom, where the deck could get reshuffled.
With 5 kilometers left, some of the final group had fallen off, but he was still with the leaders. The last big hill was coming up and he tried to conserve energy while not loosing contact. When he began to climb he broke out of the track and ran in the slightly softer snow to the side, gambling that those who stayed in the tracks would have lost most of their wax and would momentarily lose their grip, slowing them down. When the group reformed at the crest of the hill he found himself in eighth place going into the long downhill. He got into a low tuck, trying to draft behind the skier in front. It was a good tactic for gaining momentum, but once the acceleration started, there needed to be somewhere for him to go.
He timed it for the turn at the bottom of the hill where he broke out of the track again and hoped that the extra speed would carry him around the outside of the bend where he could pass the group while they were trying to handle the press of people in the treacherous conditions. He was well past the thickest part of the pack when someone on the inside lost it and slid underneath the person to their outside, setting off a chain reaction. He cut to the outside of the track and avoided the oncoming sprawl of bodies, but the evasion cost him time, while the three who were most in front remained free from the pile-up and sped off from the remainder of the group. He crossed the finish line alone in fourth place, happy to be finished, but not with the results.
“Nice race, coach.”
He looked up to see Abigail, one of his athletes.
“Thanks, Abby. Not bad at all.”
It wouldn’t do to voice disappointment with his finish to one of his athletes, to whom he always exhorted to know that they were their own greatest competitor.
“Where is everyone?”
She pointed to a spot away from the finish area where the team had set up a small camp. The younger athletes would not begin their national championship for 2 days, but the coaches couldn’t resist running in the largest ski marathon in the country, since they were so close by and the schedules worked.
He saw among them the girl he’d been seeing for the last months, Trish. They lived in the same town, where the national team trained. She worked in the office for the team. She was talking to Seamus, one of the coaches from his division and from a close by town. They stood square to each other, both unconsciously swaying at the hips, in rhythm to each other, but going in opposite directions, big smiles all around. He looked for his bag so he could slip into warm ups.
“Hi Freddie,” she said when she saw him, too brightly, surprised and trying to cover her awkwardness.
“Hi,” he said, without enthusiasm, giving his attention to getting into dry clothes, trying not to notice what he had been seeing.
“I was just telling Seamus I’ve got to run,” Trish said. “The boss is looking for me. I just wanted to see you finish.”
“You missed that part, I think,” he thought but didn’t say, but managed to say, “thanks,” anyway.
“I’ll see you in Michigan,” she said, touching his arm in a way that conveyed that she thought she should offer some level of intimacy, but one which might be construed with a shade of ambiguity.
“Okay,” he said,
as if it mattered not the least. “See ya there.”
“I didn’t know,” Seamus said when she was gone, but who had read their interaction correctly. “Sorry.”
“You couldn’t have known,” Fred replied, not meeting his eyes. “She, on the other hand, does.”
“Well, I’m sorry anyway.”
“Better to find out now, for both of us. It’s going to be a busy week and sleeping arrangements are complicated enough already.”
“Look Fred, I don’t want to start…” Seamus said, trying to mitigate the damage.
“Too late for that, it would seem,” Freddie said, stuffing his unused clothing back into the duffle. “Let’s just try to get through the week.”
Freddie ran alongside Abby as she crested the hill in the woman’s 5 kilometer race. He did the math as quickly as he could, and yelled the information to her as she came by.
“You’re 10 seconds out of first! Don’t slow down! Don’t slow down! Hold your tuck off the hills until you feel you’re losing speed. Then quicken your step uphill. Tempo! Tempo!”
All of the coaches were passing similar information, depending on the relative positions of their athletes, and what type of encouragement worked for each one of them. Once the skiers were past they put their skis on and took a shortcut back toward the finish stadium. When Freddie arrived he found Abby in celebration with her parents. She finished third, good enough for a medal.
“Great job, Abby,” he told her. “Next year, you got it for sure.”
Abby looked at her parents then, who nodded and smiled, but holding back from the excitement they felt, letting her tell him about the decision they had come to.
“Seamus says I can train with the college team next year if I want. We talked about it,” she said, turning to her parents, who nodded agreement with her. “I think I’m going to do it.”
Seamus coached the juniors and the university team in his town.
“Only because you did so much to get her to this level,” her mother added quickly, trying to take the sting out of it by throwing him a bone.
“Sure, sure,” he said. “That’s great.”
He really did want what was best for the athletes, and there was no doubt that this would help her advance. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t a sense that something was being taken from him anyway.
Seamus was nearby with his team and saw what was going on. He came to Freddie after Abby and her family departed.
“Guess I get to say sorry again,” he said. “I told her that before this trip, if it matters, depending on how today went.”
“It does matter,” Freddie said. “It sucks even more. Is there anything else you want? My cars not worth anything, but you can have it. You want it? What about my job? That’s not worth a whole lot either. Go ahead, it’s yours.”
“You know it’s best for her,” Seamus said lamely.
“It must have been best for Trish too. Probably best for me even more. More than that, I think things are best of all for you. Everything’s always for the best, isn’t it?”
“Alright,” Seamus said, thinking Freddie was taking it too far now and turning back towards his team that was packing up to leave. “I’ll see you next year.”
“You want next year? I’ll give you that too. Go ahead, take it!” Freddie shouted to the back that was walking away from him. “I don’t need it, take it!”
He didn’t come back the next year, or the year after that.
***
“Don’t let up,” Freddie Jacobson said out loud as he fought against the shortness of breath while ascending the hill to the cabin, as if he were coaching someone other than himself. “Keep going!”
The skis rattled to a stop at the foot of the step that led to the porch. It was a fantastic ski, fast and furious over hill and dale. The anorak was tied around his waist, a concession to the advancing spring, and the snow was turning to slush, but still fast. Another hour and skiing would become a slog.
“Why’d you have to think of that?” he asked himself, leaning the skis against the shellacked blond colored pine logs that made up the walls of the cabin. “That was almost 40 years ago. If you’re going to daydream about something, why not do it about a race that you win and get the girl. Historical accuracy might be dispensed with at this point, I would think. It’s not like there’s anyone around here who still cares.”
Mattie heard his voice outside berating himself and was in the act of getting to her feet when he opened the door. She took one step out of the bed as if she were coming to him, but then stretched and lay down again with a yawn, albeit with hind quarters trying to wag the tail that wasn’t there.
“Hi Woggle,” he said, scratching her ears. When she tried to wag her tail as a puppy, he called her Wiggle-Waggle, which devolved into Doggle-Woggle, which in turn was shortened to just Woggle. “I won’t tell you too much so you don’t feel bad about missing it, but I’ll give you a hint. It didn’t suck.”
She licked her chops appreciatively, savoring the flavor of whatever it was he was trying to express.
“Yep, we kicked some serious ass out there today, Miss Mattie,” he said, now scratching her back where it made her leg twitch. “Of course, one needs to be careful, you know. The ass that gets kicked, could just be your own.”
Offering proof of that warning, Freddie Jacobson rose stiffly to his full height and hobbled to the seat by the fire. Taking off the boots was only slightly less difficult than putting them on, but it certainly felt better to be taking them off. The chair was by the window where the spring sun poured through and he sat in the glare, tired but satiated, fulfilled yet anxious. It was in the dying of the moment when he could still relish in the joy of pure motion, but was able to see past it into the emptiness beyond that was yet to be filled and yawed open like a chasm. He didn’t want the moment he was in to fade, nor even the one to which he was transported back to, for fear that there would be nothing but nothingness to replace it. He thought of what he might do next and fought against his fatigue, but he lost the battle and lay down on the couch where the sun was warm and inviting, and commenced almost immediately to doze.
***
“Are you ever going to get up?” his wife asked.
“I don’t think so,” Freddie answered, sleepily. “Is there a reason why I should?”
“The wedding is in 2 hours. Aren’t you going to get ready?”
He took a deep breath and weighed the possible consequences of arguing the point, a pathetic one at that, or just doing it to avoid another tiff. The stupid wedding was right downstairs and it couldn’t take him more than 20 minutes to put on an appropriate shirt and whatever else that had to go with it.
Lying on the couch in the hotel should have been peaceful and relaxing, but it couldn’t be. Not then, not ever. If nature abhors a vacuum, he thought, marriage surely must abhor quiet. The fact that he’d gone along with everything up to that point should have counted for something, especially with his leg in a cast up to his thigh thanks to having had his smashed ankle surgically reconstructed. The painkillers were a fine consolation prize, but it was a major injury after all, and lying on a couch for a couple of hours shouldn’t have been too much to ask.
To be fair, he hid from her how much pain he was really in. He’d already learned that it only made things worse. Being injured, or worse yet, sick, seemed to set a choice stage for her to throw a fit of any kind where he inevitably ended up having to minister to some ridiculous problem she always managed to come up with. In the end he always found himself being held up as selfish and ungrateful and having to apologize for something, God knows what. It was far easier to suffer in silence.
“Tell me when you’re ready to go, then I’ll get up and get ready, and then we’ll both be ready at the same time, for once,” he said, regretting it immediately.
It started in the usual way and by the time it was time to go down to the wedding it had progressed to the point where she was refusing to leave. He tried to expedite t
he process of getting through to the apologies so they could just get on with it, and the 2 hours he had hoped to rest was spent in his least favorite but most common pastime, bickering. By the time they got out of the room the wedding was over, but she managed to use his injury as an excuse, saying that they watched from the hall where there was a comfortable chair.
He did find an armchair in the reception room, taking it as a sign of divine providence, and finding a cocktail server who kept a steady stream of Scotch whiskey (neat), coming his way as another. He regaled a small group with the details of the smashing of the ankle, only having to embellish a few unimportant details to make it more dramatic. It turned out he was a minor celebrity for the moment, the local paper had told the story of how the former ski racing champion had been injured in an ice climbing accident.
Just about the time when the pain had faded into the back-round of a well balanced and well opiated Scotch filled numbness, with the distraction of playful interaction and joyful hilarity, his wife announced that she was ready to leave. He climbed dutifully onto the crutches and said good night to all, making their way to the elevator. During the ride up his wife said she had had a nice time after all, and despite how it had started, Freddie felt happy after a pleasant evening.
When the door was closed behind them and he was making his way toward the bed, she said, “Those people sure liked hearing about your big adventure.”
“I suppose,” he said, cautiously. “They seemed nice enough.”
“You think? Well, I guess you would, having people falling all over themselves telling you how great you are.”
“Oh no,” Freddie said. “Not this, not now. Please, not now.”
But it was now, and as he lay on the bed facing the wall, he murmured quietly under his breath, “Dear God, not this, not now. Peace and quiet, can we just have peace and quiet? I’ll do anything for peace and quiet.”
***
“Peace and quiet,” he whispered through the dream, waking slowly on the couch. He opened his eyes and tried to stretch, but found that he could not move. There was a dog’s head fitted perfectly into the curvature of his neck, and its back was pressed firmly against his.