GIVE ME AN AMISH FARMER

If you didn't know already, it's "Bear Week" here in Provincetown. I've always felt like a fish out of water during Bear Week to begin with, what with having a BMI under 30 and a hairless chest, but now it's even worse, because I'm clean shaven. Just took a walk through town with the husband, and by the looks of things, they might as well add a "D" and call it, "Beard Week". Combine the current fashion trend for beards in general with a group who already favored the furry, and it seems the beards have gotten bigger and flouncier than ever, like petticoats at a square dance jamboree. As we strolled up and down Commercial Street, it seemed to my over-analytical mind that the old descriptions we've given to beards, like "VanDyke" or "Goatee", are simply no longer adequate. 
Below are the names which I have assigned to just a few of the popular beard styles we are seeing in the streets of Provincetown.  I think they speak for themselves.

"The ZZ Top"

"The Amish Farmer"

"The Hagrid"

"The Gabby Hayes" a/k/a "The Prospector"

"The GI Joe"

"The Rasputin"

"The Garden Gnome"

"The Burger King"

"The Bald Pirate"

"The BinLaden"

.. and many many more.

UNDERHILL & OVERMOOR

In a grey, dingy café in a grey, dull corner of London, on a grey, dreary November morning, sat Mr. Underhill, in a white linen suit and a white Panama hat. He read the Times, occasionally pausing for a contemplative nod or tap on the chin, every so often stirring his tea, pinky thoughtfully extended. But upon closer inspection, one notices that the suit is actually not so much white as it is a whitish shade of tobacco and sweat stains, the teacup has been empty for over an hour, and the Times is dated two days previous.
"Will that be all, sir?" the landlord asked, in a tone clearly intended to mean that it was time to go.
"Yes, my good man," replied Mr. Underhill, glancing at his wrist. There was nothing on it. "I shall be vacating your splendid establishment shortly. The day awaits!" he said dramatically, removing a rumpled handkerchief from his breast pocket with great flourish before using it to wipe away the beads of sweat which were beginning to form on his upper lip despite the damp chill of the English morning. He clearly had nowhere to go.
"Five minutes, Your Lordship," said the landlord grimly, turning away abruptly.
Mr. Underhill stirred the empty cup, absent-mindedly. He seemed to be finding himself in positions like this more and more often these days, especially in the six months since the money had run out. He had always thought that half a lifetime at boarding school in Kensington and four years at Eton would be all he needed. The right club tie and all the right doors would open for him. Turns out that in the real world of the 21st-century, the real money was hiding behind doors which required more than a mediocre pedigree to unlock.  
His parents had died during his last year at college, a well-meaning, if dull, couple, who had gradually been squandering what remained of a 15th-century family fortune. The Crown took possession of the house after that, with the inevitable claim of back taxes and whatever else the lawyers could come up with. After a 600-year legacy had been auctioned off piece by piece to the highest bidder and all the barristers and bastards had fed to their fill, he had been left with a few hundred thousand Pounds and a set of handmade Italian luggage only half filled with clothes. 
It had taken twenty years to bring him here since then: one suit, one hat, and he had just spent his last Pound on a cup of watery tea.
He stood up, tucked the acrid handkerchief back into his breast pocket, folded the two day old newspaper under his arm, and walked out of the café with as much dignity as a man like Mr. Underhill could muster. His grimy white suit stood out among the sea of Saville Row black and bowler hats scurrying off to cubicles at investment firms and insurance companies in the city, rather like a styrofoam cup floating in a koi pond.
Two blocks away stands Mr. Overmoor. It's rather difficult to know for sure what Mr. Overmoor is actually doing, or what he might be up to. It seems entirely possible that Mr. Overmoor himself isn't quite certain what he's doing at the moment. This, however, is not a problem for Mr. Overmoor, since living in a perpetual state of dull bewilderment is more or less an everyday thing for him. Mr. Overmoor is, for lack of a better term, a bloody stupid idiot. 
Unfortunately for Mr. Overmoor, he lacks any of the redeeming qualities or characteristics which might lead people to use a kinder, less judgemental term like "challenged" or "learning disabled". He shows no kindness, no gentle good humor, no child-like innocence or admirable ambition. Just a dull, discourteous bully whose nose is always running and whose mouth is always hanging open. The sort of person who buys the same cup of coffee at the same place every morning, and every morning asks brusquely, "How much?" and then takes five minutes to add up the loose change from the bottom of their pocket. 
It's hard to pinpoint a past for Mr. Overmoor. He had long ago forgotten his own past. His mind was little more than a dull, constant hum, always focused on the present, and things like cigarettes, food, beer, and the occasional scabby whore. He had scraped by mostly by a life of petty crime, fraud and extortion; found money in the gutters and in the pockets of fat American tourists, and found food on the un-bussed tables of sidewalk cafés and the sidewalk stalls of the greengrocers near Covent Garden.
At the moment, his amoeban brain was in Pickpocket Mode. He stood by the side of the road, leaning against a Royal Post box, his dull eyes staring into the crowd, searching for a mark. His mouth, as always hung slack-jawed, and his newsboy-style cap was pulled down low. For a moment, his thick, granite mind forgot what it was at, began to think about a warm beer and a hot wench. Until something stood out, something white in the blackness, carrying itself for all the world like the bloody King himself. Back into pickpocket mode, then, and he licked the dirty fingers of his right hand in anticipation.
He waited, impassively, by the side of the road as Mr. Underhill came toward him. He began sizing up his victim as he came into focus. Fine-looking suit, like he were off for a holiday in Kenya. No jewelry, but he walks through the crowd like he's walking through the bloody House of Lords, doesn't he. 
Moments later his right hand was inside Mr. Underhill's drab linen jacket, fishing in vain for a wallet which did not exist. It had not been his smoothest attempt at picking a pocket, to say the least, and within seconds he found himself staring into an enraged, sweat-covered face the complexion of unbaked bread.
"My good man," said Mr. Underhill as he grabbed hold of Mr. Overmoor's right wrist. "Can I help you?"
Mr. Overmoor stood, clearing his throat as his feeble mind searched for some escape plan.
"Gentlemen, gentlemen!", came the booming baritone voice behind them. It managed to sound at once like Santa Claus and Satan. "What have we here, eh?"
Mr. Underhill loosened his grip on Mr. Overmoor's wrist as they both turned to see the man standing beside them.
"Uhh, nuffin'," replied Mr. Overmoor dully, sheepishly withdrawing his hand from Mr. Underhill's jacket, and making an elaborate pantomime of brushing something off of his lapel. 
"Indeed, sir, just a friendly... discussion, is all.." wheezed Mr. Underhill. He extended his hand and regarded the stranger: tall, well-dressed, confident, and most of all, composed. All of those things which he, himself, was not. "Mr. Underhill, sir, Eton '89. At your service."
"Yes, I know," said the man, pointedly not shaking Mr. Underhill's hand, but rather regarding it as if it were someone else's toothbrush. "And Mr. Overmoor."
"Blimey," said Mr. Overmoor, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. "Do I know you, squire?"
"Possibly, Mr. Overmoor, possibly. You may call me Mr.-" he paused for a moment as if thinking. "-Trump. Yes," he said, smiling, "call me Mr. Trump."
"Trump, Mr. Trump?" said Mr. Underhill. "Any relation?"
"No, no relation, Mr. Underhill, at least, not yet, " the man answered, smiling again almost imperceptibly. "Gentlemen," he said, "shall we retire for a drink?"
Both men looked pleased by the prospect of a pint, despite the fact that it was barely nine o'clock in the morning.

A grainy rerun of "Coronation Street" played silently on the television set above the cash register in the dark, mildewy hole-in-the-wall, which Mr. Overmoor had not surprisingly known was just around the corner. A scratchy 45rpm version of "Feelings" played woozily on the jukebox.
"Pint," said Mr. Overmoor, whose vocabulary never did contain the word "please", to the man behind the bar. 
Mr. Underhill waited until the stranger had ordered a brandy, then carefully ordered the same. The barman turned and walked away with little more than a grunt. Brandy at 9am was the least of his concerns.
Without fanfare, the stranger began, "Gentlemen, I have a proposition. To begin with, one hundred Pounds, each. A sort of... retainer." He produced four fifty-Pound notes, which he handed to Mr. Underhill and Mr. Overmoor. 
The enchantment was already complete.
"Proposition, Mr. Trump?" inquired Mr. Underhill, smiling hungrily as he tucked the one hundred Pounds into his pocket. 
"Yes. I... require something. Something I cannot get without your... assistance." Mr. Trump seemed to choose his words very meticulously.
"Right, what's the job?" barked Mr. Overmoor as the barman returned with their drinks. 
"The job, Mr. Overmoor," said the man coolly, "is the Tears of the Virgin."
Mr. Overmoor sneered and snorted with laughter like an undersexed adolescent. "Virgin!" he snickered.
"It is the name of a relic, Mr. Overmoor, a chalice," chimed in Mr. Underhill. "Lacrimis Virginem, said to once have held the tears of Mary herself. It is on loan to St. Elmo's parish from the Vatican."
"Quite right, Mr. Underhill," said the man. "It is quite... crucial to me."
Mr. Overmoor had already finished his pint. "You want us to steal-"
"Acquire, Mr. Overmoor," said the stranger.
"Acquire the chalice on your behalf." Mr. Underhill completed the sentence.
"Yes. Unfortunately, I myself am not quite... welcome at St. Elmo's-"
"Indeed," said Mr. Underhill.
"Indeed," continued the man, "hence my need for your... help, gentlemen."
"What's the payoff, then?" asked Mr. Overmoor, blunt as ever.
"A fortune, gentlemen? You bring me the Tears of the Virgin, and I shall leave you, both of you, a fortune."
Mr. Overmoor waved one of his fifty-Pound notes in the air and barked, "Pint!" in the general direction of the barman. Mr. Underhill sipped his oak-aged Napoleon thoughtfully. There was no need to answer. The deal had been done.  

The small-scale interior of St. Elmo's parish was quite empty and quiet a few nights later, as it should be any night at 3am. In their naïveté, church officials refused to consider the possibility that anyone would actually try to steal as holy a relic as the Tears of the Virgin. As such, their only nod to "security" was a lone priest, sitting in the third or fourth pew. Mr. Overmoor and Mr. Underhill could see the back of his head as they skulked in through the rear of the church. He appeared to be lost in prayer, his head bowed.
There it sat, the Tears of the Virgin. A shining, golden chalice, which stood about five inches or so, adorned with a single band of glittering cabochon gemstones.  No one in the Church, apparently, had ever thought it curious that someone happened to have such a chalice nearby just at the moment that the Blessed Virgin was about to cry for some reason, but nevertheless, there it was. It stood, reverently lit, on a plinth to the right of the main altar.
The two men nodded to one another. Mr. Underhill proceeded down the left aisle toward the front of the sanctuary, while Mr. Overmoor followed a few steps behind down the right-hand aisle.
"Pardon me, Father," said Mr. Underhill when he reached the third or fourth row. The priest did not raise his head.
Mr. Underhill cleared his throat. "Ahem. Father...," then somewhat louder, "FATHER?"
Nothing.
"He dead?" said Mr. Overmoor, who was waiting a few rows back.
"That, Mr. Overmoor, would indeed be a gift..." said Mr. Underhill, and just then the priest raised his head with a start and a snort. He had been fast asleep. "Oh! hello, Father!"
"What's that?" said the priest, but it actually sounded more like "Woshat?" because he was holding his dentures in his hand. The old priest appeared to be well over a hundred years old. 
"I said, hello, Father," Mr. Underhill repeated.
"Yesh, yesh, quite sho," lisped the priest through his gums. "Shorry, quite deaf, you know..." he said. He laughed a bit to himself at that, as if growing old and infirm were actually kind of amusing, and then promptly fell right back to sleep.
"Candy from a baby, Mr. Overmoor," said Mr. Underhill. "Candy from a baby."
Mr. Overmoor crept his way towards the apse and climbed the few steps which led to the altar. With no more ceremony than buying a pair of socks, he picked up the chalice.
"Right. That's that, innit?" said Mr. Overmoor with a sooty grin. "Easy Street, 'ere we come, Mr. Underhill!" He turned to make his way back to the nave of the church. When he hit the second step, though, something, perhaps a loose board, perhaps the Hand of God Himself, caused Mr. Overmoor to lose his footing. The holy relic flew out of his unwashed hands, did a couple of somersaults in the air over his head, and landed back on its plinth, balanced precariously at one edge. 
"Jesus Christ!" exclaimed Mr. Overmoor. The irony never occurred to him once.
The old priest in the third or fourth row snorted.
Then, as if in slow motion, the glittering chalice of Mary slowly, almost imperceptibly began to tip, tip, tip over... until finally it fell off the plinth, landing on the marble floor with a resounding ring. 
The two men froze. They turned to watch the priest, who slowly raised his head. Without opening his eyes, he yawned, scratched the tip of his nose, folded his arms across his chest, and resumed a happy dream he had been having about driving race cars.
The men turned their attention back to the golden chalice as it lay on the floor. At that moment, the plinth it had been resting upon began itself to tip over, and as they watched, the heavy column, made from marble brought to London during Roman times, fell right on top of it, flattening the relic like a discarded can of Bass Ale. The marble itself shattered on the church floor, with a resounding smash which caused the entire church to shudder.
The old priest slept.
After a moment, Mr, Underhill approached the altar hesitantly. With his foot, he kicked aside bits of broken marble until he saw the glint of gold, at which point he dropped to his knees. He knelt, though, not in reverence or supplication to God, but in a thirst for gold, for sparkling gems, for his fortune. Before long, and with only the sacrifice of a few bloody fingers, he held up its prize. It now resembled a child's discarded craft project, rather like a royal crown made from cardboard and aluminum foil. It had been completely flattened, the cabochon gemstones were shattered or missing entirely, and while the gold, still gold, shone brightly, it had been crumpled like an empty cigarette packet. 
The two men made their way back through the church. Mr. Underhill stopped at the third or fourth row and said, "Cheers, padré."
The old priest finally lifted his head and opened his eyes. He looked around him, smiled benignly and said, "And also with you."
Mr. Underhill and Mr. Overmoor made their way out of the church.
They joined Mr. Trump, who was waiting in a nondescript black sedan across the street.
"Do you have the... object?" he asked, one eyebrow raised.
"It is on my person, Mr. Trump," said Mr. Underhill.
"Give 'im the feckin' thing!" said Mr. Overmoor.
"Not here!" interrupted Mr. Trump. "We are too... close." He started driving. "I know a... suitable place nearby." 
Before long, the men found themselves in an all-night Chinese restaurant, seated in a booth upholstered in the most revolting shade of green imaginable. There were velvet paintings of dragons and pagodas on the walls, and cobwebs hung from the faded paper lanterns on the ceiling. 
"Lo mein," barked Mr. Overmoor. "Quick."
"Just tea for me, please," said Mr. Underhill.
The tall stranger nodded, indicating that he would have the same.
The three men sat in silence. Mr. Overmoor kept fidgeting on the slippery vinyl banquette, scratching a variety of itches and every so often having to pull himself back to full upright. Mr. Underhill perspired, feeling like a prize steer at the market as Trump's eyes inspected him, looking for a telltale bulge, some indication that he indeed had the treasured relic.
The waiter came and went, leaving the tea and noodles behind. Mr. Overmoor slurped his lo mein unceremoniously, sending droplets of broth splattering all over the tablecloth and the hideous green upholstery. Mr. Underhill stirred his tea, pinky thoughtfully extended. 
Trump finally broke the silence.
"The object, Mr. Underhill, " he said.
Quite slowly, Mr. Underhill withdrew the crumpled, battered, flattened chalice from within his jacket. Without a sound, he placed it very carefully on the table in front of the tall stranger.
Mr. Trump regarded the wrecked artifact for a few moments. His face began to flush. As Underhill and Overmoor watched, a large vein on the side of his neck began to pulse wildly, and his skin went from flushed pink to white, like the color of milk that's been left out in the hot sun. "Fools," he said quietly.
"Blimey," said Mr. Overmoor, as he watched Trump's eyes shift from a cool blue to an angry red.
"Idiots!" he said, his voice just a little bit louder
"That will buff out," said Mr. Overmoor meekly, as he pushed aside the last of his lo mein.
In a twist of irony which was completely lost on all three men, the next thing Mr. Trump said was, "You're fired!" Always mindful of his surroundings, he said it quite loudly, but not too loudly. Nevertheless, Mr. Overmoor and Mr. Underhill found their ears ringing.
" 'ere! What about our deal?" said Mr. Overmoor. "You've got your bloody chalice. Where's our fortunes?"
The waiter came and went, taking the dirty dishes with him.
"Quite so, gentlemen. Quite so," said Trump icily. "A bargain is a bargain. Your fortunes, gentlemen."
Mr. Underhill and Mr. Overmoor looked down at the table. It had been cleared completely, and aside from a few splatter marks from Mr. Overmoor's lo mein, the only thing on the table was a small plate containing two small cookies. Fortune cookies.
When they looked up, the tall stranger, and the flattened relic, were gone.
Mr. Underhill stirred his tea. He thought for a while, and then gave a resigned sigh. He handed one of the cookies to Mr. Overmoor, and took one for himself.
"What does it say, Mr. Overmoor?" he said.
Overmoor cracked open his cookie. He studied the text intently. "One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster," he said finally. "Yours?"
Underhill read his fortune. "You're with Stupid," he said.
"What's it all mean, Mr. Underhill?" asked Mr. Overmoor.
Mr. Underhill paused for a moment, tapping his chin.
"It means, Mr. Overmoor," he said, "that we are going to Bangkok."
  

DRAW ME A TIME MACHINE

It strikes me that an awful lot of people, possibly even most people, can go through their entire lives without ever having met a real artist; an "artist" in the traditional sense, that is, one who can take ink to paper or paint to canvas, whose images might hang in toney East End galleries, and whose work is invariably worth much more after they've died or have suffered a stroke. I, on the other hand, have had the good fortune to have gotten to know a few artists in my lifetime, some of them quite well; some of whom may be reading this very post. Most of them are just ordinary people who have been blessed with an extraordinary talent, not only to take the light which enters their eyes and translate it into a whole different kind of beauty, but also to believe in themselves and their work enough to market and sell it to what can be the capricious and often boorish tastes of the art buying public.
It has been interesting and enlightening to become acquainted with these people and, however briefly, to catch a glimpse at the world through the artist's eyes. A few years ago, I got to know a guy named Joe. Joe was, I gathered, a fairly successful artist; that is to say, he was able to make a living at it without having to wait tables to pay the rent, or hand out flyers for massage parlors in the Bowery. Perhaps one of the reasons for his success was that he actually worked at it. If he wasn't out painting en plein air or working on a commissioned piece, he would spend some time every day, sketching, observing, drawing, improving his skill and his craft.
Joe showed me one day that an artist can actually capture time in a drawing or painting. He showed me a page from a sketchbook he had been working on. He had drawn a room. A bedroom. Nothing unusual, just a typical bedroom with a nightstand, a dresser, a bed, and various objects and bric-a-brac laying about. 
"Take a look at something," Joe said to me. He had a kind of half-smile and his eyes twinkled a little bit, as if he were about to let me in on some kind of secret. He pointed to the watch on the nightstand in the picture. "What time does it say?" he asked me.
"Ten-thirty," I said. 
"Now, check out the clock, on the wall on the other side of the room."
It said something like twelve forty-five.
All Joe had done was to sit in one place and draw the room around him as he saw it. He started on one side, where the nightstand was, and drew what he saw as his eyes moved around the room. The left-hand side of the picture was actually a representation of the bedroom as it had appeared to Joe at 10:30, and the right-hand side of the picture was the same room two hours later. All in one image. The artist, it seemed, had somehow managed to capture four dimensions and distill them down to two.
Mind officially blown.
Yesterday, an absolutely beautiful summer day, I was walking through the east end of Provincetown. I saw a painter up ahead by the side of the road, which is not that uncommon a sight here. I didn't know him, but I recognized all the trappings familiar to plein air painters: a funny hat, box of oils, paint-splattered shorts from Banana Republic, and a rag dangling from his palette so saturated with paints and turpentine it looked as though it could spontaneously combust at any moment. His easel was set up facing me, but at an angle; whatever he was painting was over my right shoulder and behind me, obscured by some tall shrubs. 
As I passed the man, I turned to look at his canvas. He seemed a fairly talented artist, the canvas looked nearly complete. I noted the brilliant, swimming-pool blue of the July summer sky he had painted, beautiful verdant shade trees and the spotted creamsicle-orange of the tiger lilies. The house in his painting showed a beautiful barn red and the classic, clean lines of a Federal-style Cape Cod house.
The only thing is, as I turned to look over my shoulder, there were no barn red, Federal-style Cape Cod houses to be seen there.
Two words came to mind: malleable reality.
I was reminded yesterday that each of us sees the world a little differently, even those of us who aren't "artists". Only a few people are able to take what they see and put it down, onto paper or canvas, or mold it into clay, and then hold it up for the rest of us, saying, "This is the world as I see it."
And it's OK that sometimes, the only reply the rest of us can come up with is, "Really?"

LET'S JUST FIST-BUMP

God knows, I have already come out of more than one closet in my lifetime. Obviously, there's the great big "Gay" one, but that was many, many years ago and is hardly news to anyone. I have come out as Grammar Nazi, and I have come out of the closet as someone who has seen a UFO, as well. That's not as easy a thing to do as you might suspect, unless the people you are with already know and love you despite your little "quirks", or else someone else in the room has already confessed to something equally as worrisome, like believing in Bigfoot or being a Republican. 
Anyway, there are still a few more closet doors I have yet to fling open. Obviously, I can't enumerate them all right here and now, but I can hint that at least one of them involves eating while I'm not actually, technically, awake. But all of that is for another day. Today, however, I am prepared to come out of one more closet. If you've ever had to shake hands with me at a wedding or hold my hand to dance the Hora, you may already know this. I am the guy with sweaty palms.
There, I said it.
Why is this any kind of big deal at all? Well, think about it. Think about meeting that person for the first time, at work, in a coffee shop, wherever. They seem perfectly nice, friendly smile, decent clothes; and then you shake their hand. Cold, clammy, and wet. Gross. The person gives you a weak, embarrassed smile and then wipes their hand on their jeans. You do the same. Nothing has been said, but you both know, and your first impression of that person has just been completely altered, and probably not for the better.
Well, that person could be me. It actually has been me, many times. 
Turns out that being the guy with sweaty palms is actually a named, medical condition (then again, what isn't, these days?). It is called hyperhidrosis. I have known this since about the fourth grade, because this kid in my class named David Baker who was a total genius told me so one day, probably after I had unintentionally touched him or left a wet handprint on his desk. I actually just took David Baker's word for it since then; that is, until today when I finally looked it up on Wikipedia and it turns out he was right. Now I am starting to wonder why a nine year-old kid would even know that, but once again, that is for another day. 
Wikipedia also says in its lead paragraph: "It is associated with a significant quality of life burden from a psychological, emotional, and social perspective. As such, it has been referred to as the 'silent handicap'."
Woo-hoo! Vindication! The "Silent Handicap!" Now you know why I felt the need to "come out". And now that I know that it's "associated with a significant quality of life burden," etcetera, I'm sure I can receive some sort of disability compensation from the government for it, possibly even preferred parking at the mall. 
How can I describe hyperhidrosis to people for whom the most stressful part of a job interview isn't necessarily the handshake when they first walk through the door? It's not that my hands sweat all the time, although they can start sweating at any moment for no reason. Any kind of stress can start it happening, even imaginary stress, like watching a bungee-jumper on TV. And after a lifetime, any situation where I am meeting new people or where I might potentially have to shake someone's hand has been classified by my subconscious as "stressful", so the waterworks begin long before anyone has uttered the phrase, "How do you do?" Oddly enough, I can make my hands (and feet) start sweating at will. Basically, all I have to do is think, "Sweat, palms!" and they do, as if Harry Potter had just mastered the astoundingly useless "Perspiro manus!" spell. I only wish there were a spell to make them stop sweating, but neither I nor Harry Potter have learned that one yet.
There is a physical sensation that accompanies the condition as well. Just before they begin to sweat, the palms of my hands and the soles of my feet feel a weird, tingly sensation, as if they were pressing against a metal plate with just the slightest electrical charge. Not painful, but definitely there. This will continue for just a few minutes, when it either fades away or my attention is drawn elsewhere and I just stop noticing it. The actual sweating, though, can go on for mere minutes, or hours; as I said, even after a lifetime I have no control whatsoever over making it stop.
One of the earliest memories I have of dealing with hyperhidrosis goes way back to elementary school, probably around the time that David Baker was studying Dermatology and Endocrinology in his spare time after Cub Scouts. Back then, we used actual chalk and chalkboards in the classroom. I lived in abject fear of being asked to work out a math problem or fill in the capital of Vermont on the chalkboard, not because I didn't know the answer, necessarily, but because my hand would leave a long, dark, possibly drippy, and embarrassing sweat stain across the black or green slate as I misspelled "Montpelier" or worked out 8 x 14.
Please, don't call on me. Please, don't call on me.
Hypothetically speaking, that is to say, without admitting any violation of the penal codes of Maryland, Florida, the District of Columbia, or the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, do you have any idea how hard it is to roll a joint with sweaty hands? I'm sure that if I had ever, hypothetically, attempted to try such a thing, I would have learned pretty quickly that even a double-wide will disintegrate pretty quickly in wet fingers. 
Everything dwarfs, though, in comparison to the actual anxiety I can get in social situations. There is so much weight put on the handshake in our society, especially for men. Your handshake is somehow supposed to convey your integrity, your trustworthiness, your overall health, as well as your career path, net worth and political affiliations. Nobody, but nobody, likes a clammy handshake. Nor, by extension, do they like the guy with the clammy hands. He's automatically sort of suspect, and possibly unsanitary on top of that.
Here's the thing: I am none of those things. And I can't help it that my hands sweat. I'm hoping we can just move past this as quickly as possible.
I'm lucky. I have a husband who accepts me warts and all, with all my faults, even this one. He has a code word which means "don't touch me": it's "graveyard!" He accepts the idea that there are times when we just can't hold hands, and he forgives the fact that sometimes when I've had my hand on his knee for a while in the car, I might leave behind a bit of a wet spot once in a while. I imagine that for some people, that could actually be a deal-breaker.
So, now you know. I am the guy with the sweaty palms. There are hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of people just like me, in every conceivable corner of the world. We suffer "the silent handicap". So, the next time you shake that guy's hand and he explains apologetically, "Sorry, I've been, uhh, running..." despite the fact that he's wearing a business suit, don't judge too harshly. Give the guy a second chance. 
We're just born this way.

EXTEMPORANEOUS FICTION - "American Idol"

first comment: a city of the world -  Michael B.: Bangkok

second comment: a song - Dennis. C.: "Do You Wanna Funk"

third comment: a holiday or festival -  Christopher DeB.: Groundhog Day

fourth comment: a fictional character - Serge C.: Edina Monsoon

fifth comment: a color -  Casey F.: purple (or indigo)

It had started like pretty much any other Tuesday in February for Phillip. Well, maybe not like any other Tuesday. That morning he had been woken from a sound sleep by none other than Sylvester himself, dead since 1988, somehow screechily demanding at full volume from the room next door: "Do you wanna funk? Wontcha tell me now?" He fumbled around for his glasses and looked blearily at the alarm clock. 7-fucking-23. 

"Toby! Jesus Christ!" he screamed, pounding on the wall between their rooms.

He heard a loud thud and what could possibly have been a cocktail being spilled before Sylvester abruptly stopped mid-screech. 

"Sorry, sweetie! I didn't realize it was so late... -or, err, early..."

How Toby managed to party like a club kid from Manhattan in the middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania, was always a mystery to Phillip. "Yeah, well, just, whatever..." His voice trailed off as he realized that the damage had been done, he was already awake. Another Tuesday in February.

Then he remembered it was Groundhog Day. Phillip happened to live in the one town on earth where Groundhog Day actually meant something: Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, the home of The Groundhog. It was a huge deal here in Punxsutawney, and today especially, the town would be jam-packed not only with tourists but with every over-moussed, under-educated TV "journalist" from every third-rate hometown TV station that could afford the airfare. They can grow a human ear in a Petri dish but all of America wants to know if the Groundhog predicts an early spring.
He stumbled out into the hallway, and after a quick pit stop in the bathroom, went down to the kitchen and made a quick cup of strong coffee. The kitchen looked as if Toby had hosted a cocktail party for forty of his closest friends, but Phillip knew from experience that Toby was fully capable of creating a mess like that all on his own. It made Phillip uncomfortable to sit among the dirty ashtrays and empty jars of Nutella, not to mention the fact that he suspected he was sitting in something wet, so he took his coffee cup and sat down in the living room. 
He had never really been much of a morning person, really, but once in a while, Phillip could appreciate those first few minutes, when the only noise outside was the birds chirping and the sound of the morning paper when it hit the driveway next door. The coffee smelled good and strong, and his mind was still a blank page, yet to be scribbled and scratched upon by the thousand little aggravations of daily life. His eyes wandered to the bookshelves, where he had displayed his prize possessions: the collection of puzzle boxes he had been accumulating since he was twelve years old.
They all looked different. They varied in value, from just a few dollars to possibly hundreds. They were from countries as diverse as China, Russia, and Vietnam. Some were plain, some were hopelessly complicated, some looked like "tramp art" from the 1930s. What they all had in common was that they could all only be opened by following a secret series of manipulations, by sliding a piece here or pressing a part there. Phillip had gotten one as a souvenir after a visit to Atlantic City in the summer after seventh grade, and once he had solved the puzzle, he found himself fascinated, and over the years had gone on to acquire and unlock more and more complicated boxes.
Suddenly, the Sumatra Dark Roast kicked in, and he remembered the box which had come only yesterday. He had been waiting months for delivery; it had to be delivered all the way from Thailand, but when he had seen it on Ebay he had known right away that he had to have it for his collection. Nobody else wanted it, or maybe they were scared off by the fact that it came without instructions, but he had won it for a song. The delivery charges ended up being more than what he paid for the box, but in the end it was still cheap and well worth the wait. 
He went and got the package from his room, and brought it back to the living room. He checked again to make sure there were no notes or diagrams or anything, but there weren't. Just an incomprehensible Thai return address and the words "Ebay Merchant diabol8". He tossed the package aside and regarded the box itself. Beautiful. Some kind of exotic wood, a deep bluish-purple or indigo color, like nothing he had ever seen before. The box was perfectly smooth on all sides, no visible seams of any kind. For a moment he wondered to himself whether he had been ripped off, whether he had just bought himself a sort of pretty-ish block of purple wood. But some part of him knew that it was indeed a puzzle box, and when he shook the box, he swore he could feel something, something light as a feather even, moving around inside. He was determined to figure it out. 
It would have to wait until later, though, because Phillip could smell the unmistakable blend of cigarette smoke, Peppermint Schnapps and Febreze that was Toby, making his way towards the living room. 
"Good morning, sweetie!" he crooned. "Why are we up, again?" he asked in all sincerity as he hit the couch with a dull thump, using his finger to spin the ice cubes around in an otherwise empty highball glass. 
"Groundhog Day," answered Phillip. He could never really be angry at Toby. Phillip had always thought of him as the real-life, male version of Edina Monsoon from "Absolutely Fabulous", and in a way he found it amusing that life had somehow paired him up with a roommate like that.
"Right! Groundhog Day!" said Toby, managing somehow to balance an ash which comprised at least 60mm of his 120mm cigarette. "I'm supposed to go with that Kitty Whatshername from Fox News. She can still get Vicodins!"

Despite the fact that it was cold, 35° and windy in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, the heat sits on the skin of Bangkok; itchy, sweaty and stifling, like a wool sweater. In a decaying neighborhood on the outskirts of town favored by British ex-pats who are either too impoverished, intoxicated, or addicted to leave, one Mr. Underhill sits beneath a feeble, asthmatic ceiling fan, futilely fanning himself with a souvenir fan from one of the shadier bars in Patpong. He sits hunched forward, myopically studying the monitor of an enormous, hopelessly obsolete PC.
The room around him is purple. Purple walls, purple floors, purple curtains. Nearly everything in the room is purple, everything except the 1991 Gateway and the La-Z-Boy, which only came in a dried-blood shade of "burgundy". He wears a suit as well, entirely purple, which was probably meant to look either elegant or arcane, but instead makes him look like a pasty-white British parody of John Shaft, not to mention the fact that it's been laundered so many times that it is a bit threadbare, and Mr. Underhill is sweating so profusely that the suit is starting to cling to him in places.
"The package has been delivered, Mr. Overmoor," he announces to the purple gloom around him. Even his voice, somehow, seems soaked with sweat.
"It's all happenin', innit?" answers Mr. Overmoor, somehow stepping out of the amethyst-tinted background. He too is dressed all in purple, but his look leans definitely further toward Charity Shop than Saville Row. His voice is as thick and as Cockney as warm English beer and fish & chips wrapped in newspaper.
"Yes, Mr. Overmoor! Just as the prophecy foretold!" He attempts to laugh maniacally to punctuate his point, but before long it degrades into a rasping, consumptive coughing fit and he has to pop a Ricola just to regain his composure.
Mr. Overmoor and Mr. Underhill give the overall impression of impending menace, of evil intent, but also that they are just too bloody stupid to do any serious harm. 
Mr. Overmoor looks momentarily unsure about something. Before speaking, he enthusiastically picks his nose and wipes his finger on his purple T-shirt. "Are you sure, Mr. Underhill? I mean, bloody hell, we sold the feckin' thing on feckin' Ebay!"
"I am sure, Mr. Overmoor! The signs were unmistakable. "Φίλιππος" - Philipos! Phillip! When I saw his name, I knew he was the right one."
"Yeah, but there's millions of bloody Phillips, Mr. Underhill! Maybe we should have sent it to Buckingham fecking Palace!"
"How quickly you forget, Mr. Overmoor," wheezes Mr. Underhill, wiping his upper lip with a yellowed handkerchief. "The portent we received last Beltane...?"
Not a glimmer from Mr. Overmoor.
"We had to sacrifice a bloody squirrel! Don't you remember how hard it is to find a bloody squirrel in bloody Bangkok, Mr. Overmoor?"
Still not a glimmer.
"The portent read 'δάσος Πεν' Mr. Overmoor! The forest of Penn!"
"Yeah..." says Mr. Overmoor, hesitantly, although it is clear he has no idea what Mr. Underhill is getting at.
"Penn-sylvania, Mr. Overmoor. Pennsylvania! The forest of Penn! Our friend, Mr. Phillip-" he pauses and squints again at the computer screen, "-Smith, lives in Pennsylvania! It's perfect! Perfectly, diabolically perfect!" He opts this time for a much less ambitious demonic laugh, just a quick "ha-ha-ha." 
"What happens now, Mr. Underhill?" says Mr. Overmoor, despite the fact that they had already had this very conversation dozens of times.
"Phillip from Pennsylvania receives the box. He opens the box. He releases the demon. Phillip of Pennsylvania, the Chosen One, will be found by our Master the demon, Lord Indicum, and his long wait for a physical form will be over. Before long, according to the prophecy, "the people of the world shall be at his feet!" And you and I, Mr. Overmoor, shall rule the world by his side! The world, Mr. Overmoor!" he considers another maniacal laugh, but eventually thinks better of it. 
"So now, we wait, Mr. Overmoor. I shall sit vigil by this noble screen, eager for word of our new world order as it spreads."

The crowds in Punxsutawney had reached their peak. It was cold, and everyone was bundled up and layered in hats and scarves and gloves, and it was just beginning to dawn on people in the crowd that unless you were standing in the first three or four rows from the stage, you weren't going to see a damn thing. Some of the little kids were getting cranky and once in a while you could hear a mom or a dad snarling something like, "We're here to have fun, godammit!" Toby and Kitty Whatshername were drinking mimosas while Kitty's cameraman took some B-roll shots of the crowd. 
Phillip was in his own little world, oblivious to the chill in the air or the crush of the crowd around him. He had been totally absorbed by the purple puzzle box, but so far had found himself no closer to unlocking its secrets. 
The big moment drew nearer. Speeches, speeches, speeches, by the mayor of Punxsutawney, by some pencil-pusher from the Chamber of Commerce, by some has-been weatherman from The Weather Channel. Finally, this year's Groundhog Queen, 19 year-old Bridget Clatterbuck, stepped forward and took the microphone. 
"Ladies and gentlemen!" she squealed into the microphone. "Let's hear it for our very own Groundhog: Punxsutawney Phil!"
Two things happened at that very moment: Punxsutawney Phil the groundhog stepped out for the crowd to see, and the puzzle box in Phillip's hand clicked and opened.
Something flew out. It was kind of like a dragonfly, or maybe like walking through a spider web, but it was definitely something. And Phillip thought for a second that it made a sound as it flew past him. Something like, "Woo-hoo!"
The next thing Phillip noticed was that the groundhog on the stage looked like it had just been hit in the chest by something. Bridget Clatterbuck looked a little confused as she tried to maintain her Beauty Queen smile even though she suspected that Punxsutawney Phil had just dropped dead in front of her. 
Moments later, though, the groundhog stood back up, and then stood up on its hind legs like a human. It raised its two front paws in two tiny little groundhog fists and began to squeak.
"Umm, what..?" said Bridget Clatterbuck. She held the microphone close to Punxsutawney Phil's little rodent mouth.
"I am Indicum, Demon of the Seventh Circle of Hell! Bow down before me!" came the tiny little voice over the microphone. Lord Indicum sounded a bit as if Alvin and the Chipmunks had been huffing helium.
A stunned silence fell over the crowd.

Mr. Overmoor slept. He snored, and a ribbon of drool hung precariously from one corner of his thin, unappealing mouth. 
"You've got mail!" the 1991 Gateway announced.
Mr. Underhill wiped the sweat once again from his upper lip. He leaned in to the computer screen, squinting. 
"Google News Alert" said the header. "Your search for 'Phillip+Pennsylvania+Indicum' has a new result."
"It is here, Mr. Overmoor! The news we have been awaiting!"
Mr. Overmoor snorted as he woke, sucking the ribbon of drool back into his mouth.
Mr. Underhill had already opened the email. It contained a link to a YouTube video, a segment from an American television show called "Jimmy Kimmel Live" His keywords were highlighted in the text below; "Punxsutawney Phil, Pennsylvania's talking groundhog sensation, who refers to himself as "Lord Indicum", wins over America's late-night TV crowd."
No footage of Armageddon. No crowds cowering in fear from their new Evil Overlords. No submissive masses. Just ten minutes of a groundhog, a bloody talking groundhog, telling bad "That's-what-she-said" jokes and waxing nostalgic about the days before Christianity. At the end of the interview, Jimmy Kimmel turned to the groundhog for one last question. "Fifteen seconds, Phil. Any messages for the world?"
"Yes, Jimmy, as a matter of fact, there is," replied Lord Indicum, as the cameras zoomed in for a closeup of his pinched up little rodent face. "The Prophecies have been fulfilled. The world is truly at my feet." The crowd cheered jubilantly at this. "Now where's that latté?"
The YouTube clip ended. Mr Overmoor and Mr. Underhill sat in humid, sticky silence, the feeble ceiling fan wheezing and creaking its way around uselessly. 
"Right, then," said Mr. Overmoor.

CROSSROADS

This is where it becomes like a diary.

"Just write," they all say. "Don't wait for inspiration." "Write what you know." And yet I find myself staring at the computer screen, that cursor just flashing, constant, unwavering; at times taunting, at times pleading with me to write something, write something, write something. And still, nothing. So, "write what you know" becomes writing about this, this moment of my life, this crossroads, this mid-life crisis.

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams!" Thoreau admonishes. "Live the life you've imagined." That's great, and it looks fabulous embroidered on a pillow in the guestroom or on a motivational poster on the wall of the personnel department at the Holiday Inn Express. But what Thoreau fails to mention is that going confidently in the direction of your dreams can also mean going confidently in the direction of financial catastrophe and ruin. It can also mean being told by People Who Matter, that is, the people with the money, that your work is not good, or maybe that it's good but not good enough. It's great to espouse the Power of Positive Thinking and all that, this sort of blissful Zen attitude that things will eventually work out the way they were meant to be. That is, until you're the 52 year-old guy who just woke up with no job after quitting a steady paycheck, no actual plan to obtain an income of some kind, no college degree, and a crazy pipe dream to actually make money doing something you actually love doing. 

It's sort of the same feeling I get from that cursor just flashing, blinking away, waiting to be told where we go next.

What brought me here? Well, a lot of things, for sure. To begin with, one of my greatest personal weaknesses has always been a lack of direction. I never really knew what I wanted to do with my life. My attitude was that I just wanted to live it and not worry about it, and while this may seem to some to be an almost heroic, Auntie Mame-type of approach to life, it has nevertheless brought me to this. Late middle-age, working for years in a job at which I was fairly proficient, but which had gone from being merely mind-numbing and occasionally unpleasant to being actually miserable and detrimental to my spiritual and physical well-being. I try to be a nice person, even at work, but by the end of the day I could be a short-tempered, snarling Hydra who snapped at little old ladies needing refills on their heart medicine. I would go home so stressed out and messed up that I couldn't even communicate with my husband, nothing beyond a few grunts and "uh-huh's" as I sat curled up in a semi-fetal position, rocking slightly and watching "Jeopardy!" without even shouting out the answers. In the morning before work, I would be filled with dread, actual Dread, as if I were about to be marched off to war or a condo association meeting. Some mornings it was so bad that I'd make myself sick. 
This is where the Auntie Mame approach had gotten me. "Life is a banquet!" she would say, "and most poor suckers are starving to death!" as she jet-setted off to Tibet or Singapore. The thing is, Mame had a fabulous Beekman Place apartment and at least one dead rich husband. I have neither. 
So, in order to preserve my own sanity, I had to give up the job, also known as "the income" and "the insurance." 
It's different, though, after you've survived the two weeks, and your last day, as if you're just heading off for a nice vacation. After people have told you congratulations and have patted you on the back, shaken your hand as if you're retiring, you wake up that first morning and realize that you're staring into a sort of abyss. And, for me anyway, the first thought was, "Holy shit this is the rest of my life what the fuck have I done." 
The second and third thoughts went pretty much the same way. 
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams," Thoreau said. Sometimes, though, it's not that easy to tell exactly which direction that is. Dreams are more nebulous, more like a soft glow on the horizon than a bright beacon. I can face my dreams, I can let that soft glow hit me in the face and warm my skin, but I find myself wondering where, how, to start walking.
One thing I know is that I must write. Even now, the world's oldest fledgling as it fumbles its way out of the nest into thin air. I find myself consumed with my own story, so that is what I will write. 
Just keep the words flowing. Eventually the story will unfold. That's my plan.
Hell of a plan, huh?

LABYRINTH

It's a funny thing, getting older. It just sort of sneaks up on you. I've been 55 for a few weeks now, and every once in a while it occurs to me how weird that is. 55. I mean, that's pretty old. But somehow the me that's really me, the me that sees out through these eyes, the voice I hear in my head when I'm thinking, it's the same me, the same voice that was there when I was 25; when I was 12, for that matter. But once in a while I'm reminded that time has marched gaily on, like when I catch a glimpse of my naked body in the mirror and notice how old-mannish I'm starting to look; or when it takes twice as long to shave now because I have to figure out how to shave around all the wrinkles without losing a pint of blood along the way. But it's more than just the physical. The more the years pass by, the more overcrowded the storehouse of memories becomes. Some memories get pushed out forever, some get jostled and bruised in the fray, and some lie in bits and pieces on the floor. And sometimes, what were once memories begin to look like dreams, and what were dreams begin to look like memories, and the older you get the less clear it becomes which is which.
So it is with this one memory I have. I was only 34 or so at the time, so it was over 20 years ago. I had been living here, in this same old farmhouse in Stonington, Connecticut, for a while. Hugh had been gone for about 3 years by that time.
I should probably tell you about Hugh. The easy thing to say would be "the love of my life", but somehow that doesn't really manage to tell the whole story. We met, quite by accident, on vacation in Fire Island when we were both 25 years old. We were at a party at some investment banker's house and everyone was inside snorting coke and trying to get laid except for Hugh, who was outside by the pool with a cat in his lap. A year later we were closing on an 1880 farmhouse, this house, in Connecticut. With him there was never any doubt. This was love: blinding, torturous, gut-wrenching love; the kind of love where you'll give it all up, put your furniture out on the sidewalk and just move away to be together, because that's pretty much exactly what we did.
Unfortunately, in our relationship, it was never really just the two of us. There was always something else, this virus, this HIV, lurking about in the shadows and in the corners. Until one day, about six years later, when HIV decided to collect its due, and then it was just one. Just me.
It was pretty crushing, as you can imagine. I felt angry, I felt cheated out of all the years we were supposed to have in front of us. I felt sorry for Hugh, for the suffering he endured, for how helpless we had both become. But by this day, the day of this memory, I had worked through most of that stuff pretty well. I had begun to reach the point where I could remember him, and think about our time together, with incredible joy instead of grief. I had begun to accept that I had been unbelievably lucky to have received a gift as rare and as precious as absolute love.
Anyway, it had been a stressful week, for some reason. Probably money, or clogged gutters, or some other triviality had me tied up in knots. That's another thing about getting older: these problems, these roadblocks that pop up in our paths which at the time seem so insurmountable, eventually they become so insignificant in our memories as to be forgettable. I had decided that a nice long walk through the woods would do me a world of good, so I had planned to take Sparky through the Labyrinth.
"The Labyrinth" was my private name for a path through the woods near my house. I stumbled upon it one day shortly after Hugh and I had bought the house, when Dylan, our Golden Retriever at the time, dropped his tennis ball  as we walked along Ridge Road and it rolled under this split-rail fence. I climbed through to retrieve the ball, and I immediately felt like the little girl in the Secret Garden, like I had stumbled into a world that nobody else knew about. I called Dylan in after me, and together we walked the length of the trail. The path was fairly wide and clear, and it seemed to have been there forever, probably since the tribal days before the white settlers came. It meandered through oaks and pines, past a beautiful pond laden with water lilies along its edge, and after about an hour and a half, deposited us back out on Ridge Road just a couple hundred yards down the street. I have walked that path every so often, ever since Dylan and I happened upon it that day. Especially if I'm feeling stressed, or sad, or off-center somehow, and if I have the hour and a half to spare, I'll grab the dog and a tennis ball and walk it; and I usually feel a lot better coming out than I do going in. At some point I just started thinking of it as The Labyrinth.
Most people today think of a labyrinth as something like a maze. But actually, they are quite different. A labyrinth has one clearly defined path, one entrance and one end, like life itself. In medieval times, walking the labyrinth was a time for prayer and spiritual reflection, representing the hard path to God in the center. One was meant to exit the labyrinth a changed person, spiritually improved from the person who entered it. 
Anyway, I had grabbed the leash and I was making sure I had everything I needed for the walk. I stopped in the bedroom, and as I was grabbing the keys off the dresser, my eyes rested for a moment on Hugh's picture, the one from his sister's wedding where he looked so handsome in that dinner jacket and he's smiling that smile he only got after a couple of glasses of champagne. Whatever had been bothering me that day had nothing to do with Hugh, or with the lack of him; but somehow when I'd been feeling bad it always ended up leading back to him anyway. So I regarded him for a moment, and I remembered a silly habit we had gotten into. He would be heading out the door, always before me and usually running late for a long drive into the city, and he'd kiss me and fix a stray lock of hair, and he'd say, "See you in the future!" To which I would unfailingly reply, "See you in the pasture!" and I'd pull him down (he was three inches taller than me), and plant a kiss on his forehead. 
"C'mon, Sparky!" I yelled, "Lets go for a walk!" I heard Sparky's tags rattling as he made his way down the hallway towards me.
I kissed my forefinger and touched the picture with it. "See you in the pasture," I said.
I grabbed Sparky's leash and head out the door. 
We had been walking the Labyrinth for about fifteen minutes or so. We were about to come up to a beautiful old oak tree, with an enormous, gnarled trunk and a canopy which spread out and dwarfed everything around it. Sparky ran on up ahead, and I was absent-mindedly watching him as he began to sniff around the roots of the old oak, and just as he began to raise his leg I noticed that he was about to pee on a person. There was someone sitting there, dozing off, apparently. 
"Sparky! No!" I yelled, which seemed to startle the man. He jumped up and it looked at first like he was trying to figure out an escape plan. He looked right, he looked left, and then he looked right at me and seemed to resign himself to the fact that, well, there we were. "Umm, hi," he said. Then Sparky jumped up and started to lick his face.
"Sparky, get down boy!" I said. "I'm sorry, man."
He laughed a little bit. "It's OK. No problem," he said, smiling at Sparky as he ran off after a butterfly or a stray leaf. 
"I'm Matthew," I said.
"Jack." he answered.
"Hi, Jack," I said. "And that," I said, regarding my dog who was now trying to uproot a sturdy birch tree, "is Sparky. We love these woods."
"Do you?" said Jack, his eyes flashing. "So do I, Matthew. So do I."
"I have a place nearby, over on Millstone Court. Where are you from, Jack?" I asked.
"Here," he said.
"Here, like Stonington, or here like Connecticut, or..."
"Just, here," said Jack.
I left it at that.
We had already begun walking together. Anyone who walks a dog will inevitably come upon these situations, when someone will decide to walk along with you uninvited and all you can think about is how to ditch this person without coming off as totally rude and antisocial. But, this was not the case with Jack. I felt genuinely comfortable with him right off the bat, and we talked about the dog and about the weather and about the woods. 
He seemed to know everything there was to know about those woods, and as he talked about the various flowers and the birds and the actual ages of ancient trees, I stood back and regarded him. It was no surprise that I hadn't seen him at first, as he lay there napping among the roots of the old oak tree. He sort of blended with the environment, if you could say that. Like, he was wearing jeans, just like anyone else, but when you looked really close they weren' t really blue, they were kind of green, like the sunlight that reaches the forest floor. It was probably a trick of the light, but it seemed that shadows falling across his face always gave him a sort of dappled appearance which could easily fade into the background. His voice brought me back to reality.
"How old do you think it is, that old oak tree back there?" he asked.
"Geez, I don't know, 150 years old?" I said.
"Close, but no cigar! That tree is 284 years old. It's the oldest living soul for miles around."
"284 years old," I said, genuinely impressed. "That's pretty old."
"I have known that tree for a very, very long time," said Jack. I looked at him again. He looked younger than me.
"You said you love these woods, Matthew," he said.
"I do," I said. "I come here a lot, especially if I need some time to think, or to meditate, sort of, you know? I like that I can be alone for an hour or two. Well, usually," I added, and we both smiled a bit. "I feel like the air is just a little cleaner in here, like I'm on a walking tour of the Oxygen Factory. I like that you don't have to have silence to have quiet."
"That's very wise," said Jack. "There is a lot to learn in the forest."
Wise. I thought that was kind of an odd thing to say. "Like what?" I asked.
"Here," he said, "being successful in life doesn't come from killing or competing with everyone else. Here, it means having strong roots, and spreading out and embracing the sunlight as much as you can. It means sharing the bounty, and living in harmony with everyone, with everything around to create a place where everyone can thrive."
"Yeah, I guess it does," I said, turning that thought around in my head for a bit. 
We kept walking the Labyrinth. We talked about the birds, and the conversations they were having above the treetops. I began to ramble on about the colors, about the hundred shades of early-spring green you'll find in late April, about how some of the leaves were so young that they weren't even green, but came peeping out in shades of orange or crimson, perhaps foreshadowing their fiery exit in the Autumn. I talked about how it all looked like a beautiful Monet, an Impressionist masterpiece, when you see all the colors and the shadows and the splashes of light; the stark tree trunks embracing a diaphanous halo of young green. Jack really seemed to like it when I talked about that, like he took it as a personal compliment.
"Wow, that's awesome," he said. He looked like he was about to say something else, but just then we heard the sound of a car, whizzing by in the distance on Ridge Road. Jack stopped dead in his tracks. 
I had already taken two steps before I realized Jack was no longer walking beside me. I turned to face him. 
"This is as far as I go," he said.
"OK," I said. Sparky was forty feet down the path trying to eat a giant rock. "Well, it was nice talking with you, Jack," I said.
"Yeah, I don't know a lot of people," he said. "Not a lot of people, well, see me, I guess. But I'm glad to have met you, Matthew."
We shook hands, warmly. "OK, well, take care, Jack," I said, and I turned to go. Sparky had managed to get the boulder into his mouth but now couldn't seem to dislodge it.
"I see him, sometimes, in here, you know," said Jack, his voice behind me now. 
I turned and looked at him again. Already he seemed to be fading into the background. "What? Who?" I asked.
"Hugh. I've seen him here, too, walking the Labyrinth. He says he'll see you. He'll see you in the future."
I struggled for something to say at that moment, but all I could do was stand there, silent, my heart pounding in my chest, until finally the tears found their way out of my eyes and began rolling down my cheeks. By the time I had wiped them away, Jack was gone. 
Sparky, on the other hand, was now trying to pursue a squirrel up a giant pine tree with the rock still stuck in his mouth. 
So now, you'll understand why, at my age, I begin to question whether this encounter ever really happened at all, or whether it's something I dreamed up and have begun to believe as fact. 
The thing is, I have marked the occasion every single day since that encounter along the Labyrinth. Since that afternoon, every day, before I leave the house, I stop by the picture of Hugh which sits on the dresser, the one of him in the dinner jacket. I kiss my forefinger, and then I touch that picture, right on Hugh's forehead. And, ever since that afternoon, I say, "See you in the pasture."
And I think I probably will.