A Stalker in the Night
Wednesday night was creepy.
After my duties were done in Sacramento I drove north through the center of a wide geographical corridor whose walls were distant mountains. The fields that lay between the ranges were patched with bright green crops, hemmed by fences and torn by brush lined creeks. Except for the mountains, it looked like parts of Kansas I have seen.
I had no place to be until about four o’clock the next day, and I was in (for me) uncharted territory. I’ve been to all fifty of our United States, and can easily recall distinctive impressions of each of them—Maine in winter with its sharp blue skies and numbing wind at the Portland Head lighthouse, where a man with a bagpipe played his mournful, majestic tune for the Atlantic; the rattlesnake coiled up on the trail in Albequerque; a field of soybeans in Indiana at dusk, swarming with so many fireflies you could almost drive without the headlights on; a hitchhiker who wanted to be dropped off on the shoulder of the interstate at the border of Tennessee and Alabama, where he said the woods were full of clean streams and thick old trees where a man could live quite happily for the rest of his life.
So now it was time to see what Northern California had to say. I had no hotel reservation, no advice from the locals as to what to avoid and what to seek out. The corridor of cultured land ended and my little rental car had no choice but to climb into the green backed mountains. The sun was setting. The towns grew sparser, and fewer exits boasted food or lodging. I started to imagine sleeping in the car, which wouldn’t have been that bad of an option except that I failed to bring my Swiss Army knife on this trip so I wouldn’t have any way to defend myself against the monsters of the wood, human or otherwise.
I pulled over at an exit with a motel called the Neu Lodge. “Neu” is fancier than “new”, I suppose. Right next door was a restaurant incongruously named Brewster’s Mexican Café. I rang the buzzer at the olde screene doore and listened. A lady in hair curlers with a cigarette between two fingers poked her head out of the back room, where an equivalent of Donahue prattled from the television set.
I asked for a room. She told me the price. I winced. It was about twice as much as I had expected, so I said no thanks. She asked what I had planned to pay. I told her, and she said, “Cash?” All I had was a credit card, so she waved me on, saying that the credit card fees were too high.
About thirty more miles up the road was a town called Dunsmuir, where, according to the welcome sign, a traveler like myself could find the best water in the world. I passed a Travelodge, then drove on through the little town to see what there was to see. A few empty bars, a few teenagers trying to look natural while smoking cigarettes in front of the vacant pizza joint, but other than that the streets were empty. It was barren as a ghost town. The town is situated on the side of a mountain, hunkered several hundred yards below the interstate and several hundred yards above whatever river it is that provides that impeccable water. It’s an in-between town. A town in stasis, mocked by the always moving rivers above it and below, the traffic and the water, forever going somewhere while poor Dunsmuir languishes.
I decided to stay. The town at night was so odd and quiet that I thought I might check in to the motel and go for a walk before going to sleep. That’s where this tale gets creepy.
Around ten thirty I made sure my key card was safe in my back pocket, lit my pipe, and went for a walk, during which I planned to pray, to think, and to work out some song ideas that have recently formed. The main street of the town is bordered by houses for several blocks (much like the mountains that bordered the plains near Sacramento). The blinds were open in many of the windows, and I could see people sitting on couches, silhouetted by light from their televisions. I could hear snippets of conversations. Then, only a block or so down from the hotel, I saw something that stopped me in my tracks.
A little boy. A toddler wearing nothing but his diaper, standing on the sidewalk, alone, at night. He saw me. I looked up and down the street, hoping to see a parent nearby, but there was no one. “Where’s your mommy and daddy?” I called. He shrugged and pointed down the street. “Where do you live?” He shrugged again. I crossed to the center of street, speaking loudly to him so that anyone nearby would know I wasn’t being sneaky. Finally, from a nearby house, I heard a woman call for the boy. She emerged from the house, marched down the long steps to the street, and swooped him into her arms. “Everything okay?” I asked. “Yeah,” was all she said, and the screen door clapped behind her.
I walked down the hill, past the residences and to the town proper. The businesses were asleep for the night, but the prowlers of Dunsmuir were not. A two big Ford pickups blatted by, turned the corner, and disappeared. A white Volkswagen Bus puttered past in the opposite direction, looking for trouble, or love, wondering how it ended up so far from the California beaches where it belonged. The teenagers driving these vehicles slouched in their seats, trying to ignore the nagging feeling that unless they did something drastic they would grow old and die in this little town.
I reached the end of the town, still unsettled by the sight of that little boy, and decided to head back. It was at this point that I realized what a Hitchcockian scenario I was in. A traveler, alone, choosing a motel in this purportedly quaint little town for the night, unaware that he would never, ever leave. Suddenly my room at the Travelodge seemed the only safe place in the universe. About halfway back I heard voices. Two drunk men, staggering down the main street calling for someone, or something. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but it sounded like a pig call: “Soueeeee!” In broad daylight it might have been funny, but now, echoing through the barren streets, it was unpleasant and even a little frightening. I wondered if I should’ve woken up Jamie to tell her where I was. The drunks staggered on and turned down a steep street that went to the dark river below. The Volkswagen passed me again.
A woman appeared, walking toward me and talking to herself. She passed me without a word, without acknowledging me with even a glance, making me wonder if perhaps I was invisible—had any of the town’s residents paid a lick of attention to me? I remembered the mother of the little boy. She had answered me. Good. I wasn’t a ghost, then. When the woman passed, I could smell in her wake marijuana smoke still clinging to her clothes and hair. Then I heard two cats fighting in the distance, an inhuman, garbling screech. Behind me, in one of the dark houses, a baby screamed, and screamed, and the sounds of the cats and the child grated against one another and against my ears, and made the world seem for a moment like it was very near its end.
I sped up. I could see the Travelodge sign a few blocks ahead. Then I saw something that once again stopped me in my tracks. Across the street, in a gravelly, abandoned parking lot, something was staring at me. I was not alone. I was being studied. A deer, a buck with a fine crown of antlers nodded its head as if in greeting. He took a few steps nearer, so that he stood on the opposite sidewalk, watching me curiously, as if he expected me to pull a sugar cube from my pocket and offer it to him. One of the giant pickup trucks rumbled by, passing directly between the buck and me. The driver looked neither left nor right, oblivious of the encounter playing out on the streets of his town. We were both ghosts, the deer and I. The sound of the truck faded, and still we stood, regarding each other. The deer trotted across the street at an angle away from me, his hooves making hardly a sound on the asphalt, and disappeared between two houses.
I lit my pipe again and strolled back to the motel, thankful for beauty, and for grace, and the way they prowl and glide the dark streets of lonely towns, even those tucked deep in the mountains, dispelling fear and worry, blessing the traveler with the assurance that there is yet a Great Good in the world, unstoppable, unquenchable, lithe as wind and bold as light.
Have no fear.
By the way, I had a fine omelet at a café in Dunsmuir the next morning. The town was charming, and the water was delicious.
So I was having a bad day. I woke up, for no apparent reason, at 5:30 in the morning, and my brain was already two hours ahead of my body. It was the kind of day that usually lands me in front of the mirror with a mental baseball bat. But on this day, I did not have the wisdom to walk away in defense. Instead, I moved in closer for a beat down. My arms would not reach up to fight, but remained stubbornly, helplessly at my sides. My face, totally unprotected from the oncoming head blow, narrowly dodged clear at the very last second, and I closed my eyes in relief. A minute or two passed and I gained strength enough to push away from the glass and head for the safety of my computer. I put my head down and got to work, hoping to shake off the shadows, but an hour later I found myself crying through the proofread because I hated every single letter on the screen.
Here is a small excerpt from John Piper’s excellent book Don’t Waste Your Life (which you can read here for free, or buy here for a pittance) wherein he expresses thankfulness for Clive Staples Lewis and details some of the ways he has cleared a path for us all. I’ll only add that I vigorously concur, and that JP is among the very few men who rank with CSL for impact in my own life. -sam
Heaven knows why it has taken me so long to write a little something about this album, the newest EP from friend and soul sister, Julie Lee. Julie and I met several years ago at a friend’s house and found immediate ease in conversation and a unique connection; sparks of light and magic hung lightly in the air around our collision. It was one of those instances where you know for sure that the God of the Universe meant for you to meet this one particular human being out of the millions that He created. I know that sounds a little dramatic, but I like drama (the good kind only, please) and am grateful when I find it happening in my little life.
Browsing the shelves of wicked-cool used bookstore here in Nashville, McKay Books, I happened upon Kathleen Norris’s (The Cloister Walk, Dakota, Amazing Grace) latest, Acedia & Me. Though I had no idea she had a new book out, the cheap sticker price for a primo first edition (Note: you will recall from a previous post that I have a more than slight affinity for used bookstores and, especially, first editions) was an easy decision. The title itself was mildly intriguing since I was vaguely familiar with the word, “acedia”, but of which I knew very little. The subtitle, “A Marriage, Monks, and A Writer’s Life”, though hardly an enticing, round-em-up, gather-em-in slogan, is true to Ms. Norris’ midwestern style, neither flamboyant nor melodramatic.
I’ve been hearing about this children’s Bible called The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones for a year or so now, first from Ben Shive, then from a smattering of others whose opinions I respect on such matters. One night last week Jamie and I were putting our sweet Skye to bed (she’s 6 now), and we were talking to her about Christmas. I’d been gearing up to leave for tour and with the first Sunday of Advent fast approaching we wanted to find out what she thought. Jamie asked her who was born on Christmas morning, and Skye answered, “Um…Noah?”
Russ Bremeier at Christianity Today:
Is there a qualitative difference between learning a song from your Grandfather and downloading a song from iTunes, from getting a recipe online and pulling out the yellowing paper of an old, family recipe? Ken Myers answers in the affirmative, channeling C.S. Lewis when he discusses the need for thoughtful Christians to consider not only content in what we appreciate in art, but also how we receive it.
The other night my wife and I had the opportunity to see Charlie Peacock in concert. The Art*Music*Justice tour, featuring Sarah Groves, Derek Webb, Sandra McCracken, Brandon Heath and Charlie, had an off day in Kansas City. So Charlie set up a house show with just him and his piano in the upstairs art gallery of the world’s most perfect Christian bookstore, Signs of Life, in downtown Lawrence, Kansas. (No kidding. Not a Scripture mint to be found, but huge sections on art, history, classics and local writers. There’s one wall devoted to the puritans, and another to Walker Percy, Flannery O’Connor and the like. Dangerous.)
Mystery. Intrigue. Drugs, dark secrets, the decay of the will, and the transforming power of God’s love sown by a single man to a harvest of redemption.
My favorite book I’ve read this year was initially only a curiosity piece I perused while killing time in a Barnes & Noble. I had recently bought Unchristian – a book that offers an insightful look at how outsiders of the faith view the church – by David Kinnaman & Gabe Lyons, but decided I needed a mental break and started looking for something a little lighter. I’m not inclined to reach for humor books, but the cover of a book featuring a man dressed in Old Testament garb and looking earnestly heavenward with the ten commandments in one hand and a Starbucks cup in the other proved irresistible. I picked it up, thumbed through the pages and found myself laughing out loud in the aisle at Barnes & Noble – another uncharacteristic behavior for me.
The Yellow Leaves: A Miscellany, the new book from my favorite author, Frederick Buechner, was released on June 16th. I added it to my Amazon shopping cart when I first heard about it from the Proprietor and Eric Peters, after they heard Buechner read a couple excerpts during the grand opening of the Frederick Buechner Institute back in January (which also featured a concert by Michael Card, with AP opening for him).
Walt Wangerin, Jr. strikes again.
The musical bumper sticker on my car during the ol’ college years would have definitely read “I’d Rather Be Listening To Acoustic Music.” Therein was my initial foray into the early careers of Square Peg artists like our own Proprietor. I found great enjoyment in the Texan college worship scene (early Crowder, Robbie Seay, Justin Barnard, anyone?). And the great unknown (acoustic) rock over which I stumbled came in the form of Jill Phillips.
Janner Igiby lives in Glipwood, a nothing little village in the land of Skree, on the edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness. Manhood is on the horizon, but Janner finds it hard to feel much hope for the future. Skree is ruled by foreign oppressors, snake men called the Fangs of Dang, servants of a shadowy emperor named Gnag the Nameless. The Skreeans are weak and weaponless. They’re even tool-less. Any Skreean who needs to use a hoe has to borrow one from the Fangs (and fill out the requisite paperwork). And from time to time, the Black Carriage arrives in Glipwood to carry young Skreeans toward an unknown fate across the Dark Sea.
I am not a fan of Civil War literature; in fact, I have always thought of it as one of those weird sub-genres for obsessive types. They’re almost like Trekkies with their re-enactments and maniacal devotion to detail. It’s just not my thing (although I’m secretly jealous that they get to dress up and shoot cannons).
A Randall Goodgame song is like a great independent movie. Characters deliver lines like they were lifted from a break room, a truck stop, or a downtown diner. Seemingly incongruent scenes are juxtaposed and plot isn’t obvious; in fact, narrative–a good story–is often more evident than linear plot lines. An indie movie, like a Randall Goodgame song, seems to tell itself. Rather than being rudely yanked by a chain through a sequence of contrived events, with a Randall Goodgame song, I have the sense that I’m being allowed a willing, but vicarious sneak peak into the real lives of his real characters.
Andy Gullahorn is funny, but he’s also one of the more serious lyricists I’ve come to enjoy in a while. Listening to Reinventing the Wheel, you come to understand that he is more than a good songwriter. He is a craftsman. He knows what he’s doing, where he’s going, and where he’s taking his hearers.But as I said, people say Andy Gullahorn is funny. They say that, I think, because he makes them laugh. But as for me, I’m calling it nervous laughter.
You are a brave man. Why is it that reality is more thrilling than fiction? I guess it has more to do with consequences…
perfect, in every which way. perfect.
I am once again thoroughly impressed by your ability to tell a great story.
…and that’s why we keep coming back.
Waiting to hear this song…
This story is great, and had my attention, Andrew. Also, nice to hear of a fellow pipe smoker, thanks for sharing.
come to think of it, i’d like an entire book of this sort, please-and-thank-you. why don’t you get right on that.
Yes, indeed. While Bill Bryson’s approach to small-town America makes me laugh until I cry, I think I could do with someone else’s approach that might make me cry until I laugh.
I second the book request. After the Igiby’s have made their particular Shire a safe haven again, of course.
I think if you wrote the phone book I’d be enthralled. What a story teller you are! Yes, yes on the book! Oddly, I was born in Sacremento, but know nothing of the region-now I have some amazing mental pics. Thanks Andrew!
Yes. Yes to the story. Yes to a book. Yes to a song. We’ll try not to be greedy: you can choose which!
I saw that you were in Yreka, but I did not know you were in Sacramento (I live there). Was it a concert? Something at a local church? Or private event? I would love to attend one of your concerts! I love your music. I have driven by Dunsmir lots of times when I go up North on vacation. Never stopped though. Now next time I will have to. Your writing is captivating.
With the picture you posted with your story, I think I can see Guy Noir walking up to you just as the deer crossed the street.
Or perhaps Robert Stack…
Some of these descripts are fantastic. Thanks for writing this out man…
Great stuff! I felt like October 31st had come early there for a second…
You know the Merchant Man must have been silently watching the whole thing.
Nice narrative. I can’t believe you mentioned the soybeans! I just had the same experience in Indiana a few weeks ago. Fireflies over the soybeans at dusk. I was so moved by it I swore I had to put it into a song, but perhaps you’ll beat me to it.
Anyone ever mention that you should be a writer?
Really enjoyed this.
Becky
Barliman…excellent tale lad. I did some work in Northern CA many moons ago (Placerville, CA the county seat of El Dorado County) and had a similar creepy experience. Something about being “the stranger in town” that makes everything more strange that it really is. Of course it being dark and late at night just adds to the tension of the moment.
Also, I find it generous for a town to promote the purity of its water in a land that is usually in a drought.
Great stuff, AP. I’m glad you survived. (You did survive, didn’t you? Now I’m really weirded out.)
Forget Sufjan Stephens. YOU should write an album about each of the fifty states. Or at least a book, like some folks above mentioned. I think a book would even be better.
I’d buy it.
Oh, and what I loved about your story was that when you were alone and a bit creeped out, the one thing you saw was a deer. A Christ figure, you know. The antlers. Resurrection and rebirth. I find that part of the tale strangely comforting. Reassurance through an unlikely symbol. You were not alone. Providence.
And that is why Southern Californians refer to Northern California as… Southern Oregon.
Glad you survived and glad for the tale.
Augh! They ought to pass laws regulating the production and promulgation of writing as good as this.
Andrew - Great tale! Dunsmuir is one of my favoritest towns in Siskiyou County as far as charm goes! But, like many towns up here the charm is in the daytime and the night can be “dark”.
I’m so happy we got to see you in Yreka!!! Thank you for taking the time to play for us! It was just wonderful!
Blessings to you!
Did you say you smoke a pipe? You are in trouble now!
Interesting…
Are you sure you weren’t a ghost man for that night? Or possibly in a different dimension allowing you to see with “spiritual eyes?”
Just a thought…