Anthropology, Part 6
Everything in the city is fractured into a thousand pieces by endless collisions. It is as if icebergs scrapped each other on the edge of frozen seas.
The Light on the Hill, Part 42
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Category Archives: The Light on the Hill
The Light on the Hill, Part 40
His First Novel
He would tell me his burgeoning philosophy some nights. We would sit over coffee at the gas station. He was working at the plant, loading boxes. He was quite good at that sort of physical work. He was a great asset to them up there and they liked him very much.
He would say: "It's all about reintegration. The broader the context of resolution, the greater the insight. Do you understand?"
He'd always end such statements with a question as if he were unclear if he had contained his reasoning to a human scale. I would admit that I felt I understood him. I think that was when our friendship truly began, when he felt I'd understood him.
I had followed his progress sympathetically for weeks. I helped him however I could. I made inquiries for him. I helped get him the job. He was outgrowing the character of his surroundings very quickly. He was ready for something like the city. I helped him even there.
My publicist got him an interview. He worked part-time as a copywriter. He wrote little ads for the classifieds. It was the perfect thing for him. What he sought most of all was succinctness. He was quite happy to do this task as well as loading boxes on the docks. He learned from all manner of people. He had a reputation in diverse circles. His first poetry reading was before a very mixed crowd.
No one even suspected he was a bigfoot. It was such a politically correct environment that his ugliness and other monstrous qualities were revered almost perversely. People seemed to want to worship him. At some point, he withdrew again into the forest to write his first novel.
The Light on the Hill, Epilogue
Somewhere in our hearts, a tiny blacksmith beats the anvil and turns our troubles away. Somewhere the water is made pregnant with metals.
Oh, to be free of the many and constant blunders of living. Oh, just to love, after all, some face in the darkness. Just to know one thing through and through.
The Indians call him Windigo, which means cannibal. Anyone can become a windigo with just a bite. You fall off the bottom rung, outcast, Cain. There is always the potential for windigo. They are always with us, within us.
I walked down the Lake Superior shoreline. Down where the basalt and the jasper broke down to sand. I was looking for bigfoot, I admit, I sought the desolation I imagined he haunted. Impossible wild man.
On the far point, a family scattered over the rocks and I stopped in my tracks. What a sight I must have made, unsure of everything, walking along in plain sight.
I found an ATV trail through the birches. The wounded clumps of grass led deep into the forest primeval. A trio of bluejays hopped the trees beside me.
The country felt right.
I’d hear the roar of motors long before I saw the machines. It wouldn’t be hard to stay clear. It wouldn’t be hard to hide.
The country seemed right. There were animal trails through the pine spears, there were deep piles of tree-wrack. Everything seemed still and undisturbed though every human act played out beyond it.
I suddenly felt the weight of all my debts, everything that I owed to anybody, every obligation calling me away.
And if I were to never see another face:
Cease to exist:
Go wild:
:
How strange it would be to look up and see him just now.
The Light on the Hill, Part 70
I tottered on my heels. I was hysterical. My mind was in free fall for several minutes.
She held my arm. With tear-strained eyes, she gave me mercy. She sank her weight onto my shoulder.
I held her as if we were lovers.
My wife and I.
We crumbled to the floor.