Friday, October 27, 2017

Sleep In A Tent


Sleep In A Tent

            “You still sleep in a tent?”
            “Oh yeah.  Sleeping in it right now.”
            “Really”.
            “Yep.”
            Pause
            “We remember you doing that.  We talked about it on the way up here.  It’s not the same tent right?”
            “Basically it’s the same.  This is our fourth tent. We’ve used it for four years so far.  It’s the same as the other ones.  Eventually they rot out.  Actually.  Not the tent.  The fly gets brittle and tears from exposure”.
            “You still really sleep there every night?”
            “All the time.  From mid April to mid November.  Since 1984.  At this site.  It’s the highest point on the property.
            “We remember you doing that.”
            “We still do it.  We’re doing it right now.”
            Pause.


            “Look:  You’ve come up here and rented that camp (in Raymond on a lake)  Sort of.  (Sort of rented the camp and sort of it being on a so titled “lake”).  Your there for a week.  You love it.  Then you go away (home). We’re in the tent the whole time.  That’s what we do here.  When I get up in the morning I crawl on all fours out of the tent.  It’s dark.  It’s raining.  Whatever.  I have calluses on my knees from doing it.  All you got is some camp photographs you took with your phone and, like, look at or show them to people.  You know like... get away from me.  Your not doing that (sleeping in a tent).”



            When I get up in the morning it is dark and I walk by one of the outbuilding.  On its second floor we have some beans and all our onions (we grew) drying right now.  On old sheets.  On the floor.  I toss the bean vines with a pitchfork every few days.  The room; the second floor of this building, is perfect for drying.  A dry heat.  It was built during the Civil War to do that; be a drying loft.  It’s, like, once a year and it’s perfect.  No one cares.  You don’t even know what I’m talking about.  Okay?  So there’s, like, no electricity there.  NEVER HAS BEEN.  Never need to.  Never want it.  GET IT?  WE SLEEP IN A TENT IN THE WOODS.  For over forty years.  GOT IT?

            We harvested all the cabbages.  They are in the (hand dug, field stone lined and dirt floor) cellar.  The potatoes are drying in the dark at the back of the barn on the floor under a cotton duck sheet... intentional... as are it’s four companions... for doing this.  Now.  Once a year.
            Okay?
            We’re still sleeping in the tent.  Got it?  The Maple leaves are turning red and yellow and falling off the trees.  The oaks will go another month.  Maybe we’ll still be in the tent then.  Too.  This is what we do.  We don’t have a home security system with twenty spy cameras.  We don’t need one.  Like... whose gonna take the tent... down.
            ME.
            And you won’t be there when I do.  No one ever is there.  THAT’S WHY WE SLEEP IN THE TENT:  YOUR NEVER THERE.

            My wife painted my office.  First time in thirty-five years.  All the old books had to be routed out.  You wouldn’t believe the great stuff I found in there.  I’m shingling the back side of the house; twenty-six feet wide.  Four windows.  Two on the ground floor.  Two in the chamber.  Here the upper corner (of the homestead) sits on ledge. 



I purloined a Delft charger the other day.  The farm I found it in has been sold and they’re making summer rental camps along the edge of the lake.  The house is empty.
            They told me.
            The charger was dirty but it was still in there.
            I mean really dirty:  black.
            No one cared about it.  I didn’t let on.  Just put it in the pile.  Bought the pile.  Loaded the pile into the truck.  I put the charger up in the cab.  “NICE” is the best description.  You don’t even know what I’m talking about.  Yeah, yeah:  1740-1760 English or Dutch. Perfect.  Must have been in there two hundred years.
            NO ONE SLEEPS IN A TENT.
            Right?
            TENT – ONIONS – CHARGER.  This is what we do.  We
            Sleep in a tent.