The Barrens & Others

  Damn well better run.

  It had been a long and sloppy trek into these marshes. He intended to drive out.

  Finally the mail truck clinked into gear, did a U-turn, and headed back the way it had come. The old guy shoved a couple of envelopes into his back pocket, picked up a rake that had been leaning against the Ford, and began scratching at the dirt on the south side of the house.

  Gil decided it was now or never. He straightened up and walked toward the shack. As his feet crunched on the gravel of the yard, the old man wheeled and stared at him with wide, startled eyes.

  "Didn't mean to scare you," Gil said in his friendliest voice.

  "Well, you sure as hell did, poppin' outta nowhere like that!" the old man said in a deep, gravelly voice. The cigarette between his lips bobbed up and down like a conductor's baton. "We don't exactly get much drop-in company out here. What happen? Boat run outta gas?"

  Gil noticed the we with annoyance but played along. A stalled boat was as good an excuse as any for being out here in the middle of nowhere.

  "Yeah. Had to paddle it into shore way back over there," he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.

  "Well, I ain't got no phone for you to call anybody–"

  No phone! It was all Gil could do to keep from cheering.

  "–but I can drive you down to the marina and back so you can get some gas."

  No hurry." He moved closer and leaned against the old Torino's fender. "You live out here all by yourself?"

  The old man squinted at him, as if trying to recognize him. "I don't believe we've been introduced, son."

  "Oh, right." Gil stuck out his hand. "Rick... Rick Summers."

  "And I'm George Haskins," he said, giving Gil's hand a firm shake.

  "What're you growing there?"

  "Carrots. I hear fresh carrots are good for your eyes. Mine are so bad I try to eat as many as I can."

  Half blind and no phone. This was sounding better every minute. Now, if he could just find out who the rest of the we was, he'd be golden.

  He glanced around. Even though he was out in the middle of nowhere at the end of a dirt road that no one but the mailman and this old fart knew existed, he felt exposed. Naked, even. He wanted to get inside.

  "Say, I sure could use a cup of coffee, Mr. Haskins. You think you might spare me some?"

  *

  George hesitated. Making coffee for the stranger would mean bringing him inside. He didn't like that idea at all. He hadn't had anybody into the house since the late sixties when he took in his tenants. And he'd had damn few visitors before that. People didn't like coming this far out, and George was just as glad. Most people pried. They wanted to know what you did way out here all by yourself. Couldn't believe anybody sane would prefer his own company to theirs.

  And of course, there was the matter of the tenants.

  He studied this young man who had popped out of nowhere. George's eyes weren't getting any better– "Cataracts only get worse," the doctor had told him – but he could plainly see that the stranger wasn't dressed for boating, what with that blue work shirt and gray denims he was wearing. And those leather shoes! Nobody who knew boats ever wore leather shoes on board. But they were selling boats to anybody with cash these days. This landlubber probably didn't know the first thing about boating. That no doubt was why he was standing here on land instead of chugging about the harbor.

  He seemed pleasant enough, though. Good-looking, too, with his muscular build and wavy dark hair. Bet he had an easy time with the girls. Especially easy, since from what George understood of the world today, all the girls were easy.

  Maybe he could risk spotting him a cup of coffee before driving him down to the marina. What harm could there be in that? The tenants were late risers and had the good sense to keep quiet if they heard a strange voice overhead.

  He smiled. "Coffee? Sure. Come on inside. And call me George. Everybody else does." He dropped his cigarette into the sandy soil and stomped on it, then turned toward the house.

  Just a quick cup of coffee and George would send him off. The longer he stayed, the greater the chances of him finding out about the tenants. And George couldn't risk that. He was more than their landlord.

  He had sworn to protect them.

  *

  Gil followed close on the old guy's back up the two steps to the door. Inside was dark and stale, reeking of years of cigarette smoke. He wondered when was the last time George had left a window open.

  But being indoors was good. Out of sight and inside – even if it stank, it was better than good. It was super. He felt as if a great weight had been lifted from him.

  Now to find out who made up the rest of the we.

  "Got this place all to yourself, ay?" he said, glancing quickly about. They were standing in a rectangular space that passed for a living room/dining room/kitchen. The furniture consisted of an old card table, a rocker, a tilted easy chair, and a dilapidated couch. Shapeless piles of junk cluttered every corner. An ancient Motorola television set with a huge chassis and a tiny screen stood on the far side of the room diagonally across from the door. The screen was lit and a black chick was reading some news into the camera:

  "...eriously injuring an orderly in a daring escape from the Monroe Neuropsychiatric Institute. He was last reported in Glen Cove–"

  Gil whooped. "Glen Cove! Awright!" That was the wrong direction! He was safe for the moment. "Fantastic!" he yelled, stomping his foot on the floor.

  "Hey! Hold it down!" George said as he filled a greasy, dented aluminum kettle with water and put it on the gas stove.

  Gil felt the customary flash of anger at being told what what he could or couldn't do, but cooled it. He stepped between George and the TV set as he saw his most recent mug shot appear on the screen. The black chick was saying:

  "If you see this man, do not approach him. He might be armed and is considered dangerous."

  Gil said, "Sorry. It's just that sometimes I get excited by the news."

  "Yeah?" George said, lighting another cigarette. "Don't follow it much myself. But you got to keep quiet. You might disturb the tenants and they–"

  "Tenants?" Gil said a – lot more loudly than he intended. "You've got tenants?"

  The old guy was biting his upper lip with what few teeth he had left and saying nothing.

  Gil stepped down the short hall, gripping the handle of the knife inside his shirt as he moved. Two doors: The one on the left was open, revealing a tiny bathroom with a toilet, sink, and mildewy shower stall; the one on the right was closed. He gave it a gentle push. Empty: dirty, wrinkled sheets on a narrow bed, dresser, mirror, clothes thrown all around, but nobody there.

  "Where are they?" he said, returning to the larger room.

  George laughed – a little too loudly, Gil thought – and said, "No tenants. Just a joke. Creepy-crawlies in the crawlspace is all. You know, snapping turtles and frogs and snakes and crickets."

  "You keep things like that under your house?" This was turning out to be one weird guy.

  "In a manner of speaking, yes. You see, a zillion years ago when I built this place, a big family of crickets took up residence"–he pointed down–"in the crawl space. Drove me crazy at night. So one day I get the bright idea of catching some frogs and throwing them in there to eat the crickets. Worked great. Within two days, there wasn't a chirp to be heard down there."

  "Smart."

  "Yeah. So I thought. Until the frogs started croaking all night. They were worse than the crickets!"

  Gil laughed. "I get it. So you put the snakes down there to catch the frogs!"

  "Right. Snakes are quiet. They eat crickets, too. Should've thought of them in the first place. Except I wasn't crazy about living over a nest of snakes."

  This was getting to sound like the old lady who swallowed the fly.

  Gill said, "And so the next step was to put the turtles down there to eat the snakes."

  "Yeah." As George spooned instant coffee into a couple of stai
ned mugs, Gil tried not to think about when they last might have had a good washing. "But I don't think they ate them all, just like I don't think the snakes ate all the frogs, or the frogs ate all the crickets. I still hear an occasional chirp and croak once in a while. Anyway, they've all been down there for years. I ain't for adding anything else to the stew, or even looking down there."

  "Don't blame you."

  George poured boiling water into the mugs and handed him one.

  "So if you hear something moving underfoot, it's just one of my tenants."

  "Yeah. Okay. Sure."

  This old guy was fruitcake city. As crazy as –

  ...Crazy. That was what that college chick had called him that night when he had tried to pick her up along the road. She was cute. There were a lot of cute girls at Monroe Community College, and he'd always made it a point to drive by every chance he could. She'd said he was crazy to think she'd take a ride from a stranger at that hour of the night. That had made him mad. All these college broads thought they were better and smarter than everybody else. And she'd started to scream when he grabbed her, so he'd hit her to make her stop but she wouldn't stop. She kept on screaming so he kept on hitting her and hitting her and hitting and hitting...

  "You're spilling your coffee," George said.

  Gil looked down. So he was. It was dripping over the edge of his tilted mug and splashing onto the floor. As he slurped some off the top and sat on the creaking couch, he realized how tired he was. No sleep in the past twenty-four hours. Maybe the coffee would boost him.

  "So how come you live out here all by yourself?" Gil asked, hoping to get the conversation on a saner topic than snakes and snapping turtles in the crawlspace.

  "I like being by myself."

  "You must. But whatever rent you pay on this place, it's too much."

  "Don't pay no rent at all. I own it."

  "Yeah, but the land–"

  "My land."

  Gil almost dropped his coffee mug. "Your land! That's impossible!"

  "Nope. All twenty acres been in my family for a zillion and two years."

  Gil's brain whirled as he tried to calculate the value of twenty acres of real estate fronting on Monroe Harbor and Long Island Sound.

  "You're a fucking millionaire!"

  George laughed. "I wish! I'm what you call 'land poor', son. I've got to pay taxes on all this land if I want to keepit, and the damn bastards down at City Hall keep raising my rates and my assessed value so that I've got to come up with more and more money every year just to stay here. Trying to force me out, that's what they're up to."

  "So sell, for Christ sake! There must be developers chomping at the bit to get ahold of this land. You could make 'em pay through the nose for a piece of waterfront and all your money worries would be over!"

  George shook his head. "Naw. Once you sell one little piece, it's like a leak in a dam. It softens you, weakens you. Soon you're selling another piece, and then another. Pretty soon, I'll be living on this little postage stamp surrounded by big ugly condos, listening to cars and mopeds racing up and down the road with engines roaring and rock and roll blasting. No thanks. I've lived here in peace, and I want to die here in peace."

  "Yeah, but–"

  "Besides, lots of animals make their homes on my land. They've been pushed out of everywhere else in Monroe. All the trees have been cut down back there, all the hollows and gullies filled in and paved over. There's no place else for them to go. This is their world, too, you know. I'm their last resort. It's my duty to keep this place wild as long as I can. As long as I live...which probably won't be too much longer."

  Oh, yes...crazy as a loon. Gil wondered if there might be some way he could get the old guy to will him the property and then cork him off. He stuffed the idea away in the To-Be-Developed file.

  "Makes me glad I don't have a phone," George was saying.

  Right...no phone and no visitors.

  Gil knew this was the perfect hiding place for him. Just a few days was all he needed. But he had to stay here with the old guy's cooperation. He couldn't risk anything forceful – not if George met the mailman at the box every day.

  And from a few things the old man had said, he thought he knew just what buttons to push to convince George to let him stay.

  *

  George noted that his guest's coffee mug was empty. Good. Time to get him moving on. He never had company, didn't like it, and wasn't used to it. Made him itchy. Besides, he wanted this guy on his way before another remark about the tenants slipped out. That had been a close call before.

  He stood up.

  "Well, guess it's about time to be running you down to the marina for that tank of gas."

  The stranger didn't move.

  "George," he said in a low voice, "I've got a confession to make."

  "Don't want to hear it!" George said. "I ain't no priest! Tell it somewhere else. I just want to help get you where you're going!"

  "I'm on the run, George."

  Oh, hell, George thought. At least that explained why he was acting so skittish. "You mean there's no boat waiting for gas somewhere?"

  "I..." His voice faltered. "I lied about the boat."

  "Well ain't that just swell. And who, may I ask,"–George wasn't so sure he wanted the answer to this, but he had to ask – "are you on the run from?"

  "The Feds."

  Double hell. "What for?"

  "Income tax evasion."

  "No kidding?" George was suddenly interested. "How much you take them for?"

  "It's not so much 'how much' as 'how long.'"

  "All right: How long?"

  "Nine years. I haven't filed a return since I turned eighteen."

  "No shit! Is that because you're stupid or because you've got balls?"

  "Mr. Haskins," the stranger said, looking at him levelly and speaking with what struck George as bone-deep conviction, "I don't believe any government's got the right to tax what a working man earns with the sweat of his brow."

  "Couldn't of said it better myself!" George cried. He thought his heart was going to burst. This boy was talking like he'd have wanted his son to talk, if he'd ever had one. "The sonsabitches'll bleed you dry if you let 'em! Look what they've been doin' to me!"

  The young stranger stared at the floor. "I was hoping you'd understand."

  "Understand? Of course I understand! I've been fighting the IRS for years but never had the guts to actually resist! My hat's off to you!"

  "Can I stay the night?"

  That brought George up short. He wanted to help this courageous young man, but what was he going to do about the tenants?

  "What's going to happen to you if they catch you? What kind of sentence you facing?"

  "Twenty."

  George's stomach turned. A young guy like this in the hole for twenty years just for not paying taxes. He felt his blood begin to boil.

  "Bastards!"

  He'd have to chance it. Tenants or not, he felt obligated to give this guy a place to stay for the night. It would be okay. The tenants could take the day off and just rest up. They'd been working hard lately. He'd just have to watch his mouth so he didn't make another slip about them.

  "Well, George? What do you say?"

  "I can let you stay one night and one night only," George said. "After that–"

  The young fellow leaped forward and shook his hand. "Thanks a million, George!"

  "Hear me out now. Only tonight. Come tomorrow morning, I'll drive you down to the train station, get you a ticket, and put you on board for New York with all the commuters. Once in the city, you can get lost real easy."

  George thought he saw tears in the young man's eyes. "I don't know how to thank you."

  "Never mind that. You just hit the sack in my room. You look bushed. Get some rest. No one'll know you're here."

  He nodded, then went to the window and gazed out at the land. "Beautiful here," he said.

  George realized it would probably look even more beautiful if
the window were cleaner, but his eyes weren't good enough to notice much difference.

  "If this were mine," the young fellow said passionately, "I'd sure as hell find a way to keep it out of the hands of the developers and the tax men. Maybe make it into a wildlife preserve or bird sanctuary or something. Anything to keep it wild and free."

  Shaking his head, he turned and headed for the back room. George watched him in wonder. A wildlife preserve! Why hadn't he thought of that? It would be untaxable and unsubdividable! What a perfect solution!

  But it was too late to start the wheels turning on something like that now. It would take years to submit all the proposals and wade through all the red tape to get it approved. And he didn't have years. He didn't need a doctor to tell him that his body was breaking down. He couldn't see right, he couldn't breathe right, and Christ Almighty, he couldn't even pee right. The parts were wearing out and there were no replacements available.

  And what would happen when he finally cashed in his chips? What would happen to his land? And the tenants? Where would they go?

  Maybe this young fellow was the answer. Maybe George could find a way to leave the land to him. He'd respect it, preserve it, just as George would if he could go on living. Maybe that was the solution.

  But that meant he'd have to tell him the real truth about the tenants. He didn't know if the guy was ready for that.

  He sat down in the sun on the front steps and lit another cigarette. He had a lot of thinking to do.

  *

  The five o'clock news was on.

  George had kept himself busy all day, what with tending to the carrot patch outside and cleaning up a bit inside. Having company made him realize how long it had been since he'd given the place a good sweeping.

  But before he'd done any of that, he'd waited until the young fellow had fallen asleep, then he'd lifted the trapdoor under the rug in the corner of the main room and told the tenants to lay low for the day. They'd understood and said they'd be quiet.

  Now he was sitting in front of the TV watching Eyewitness News and going through today's mail: Three small checks from the greeting card companies – not much, but it would help pay this quarter's taxes. He looked up at the screen when he heard "the Long Island town of Monroe" mentioned. Some pretty Oriental girl was sitting across from a scholarly looking fellow in a blue suit. She was saying,