Mulch Thievery

Wednesday ~

It is not true that life is one damn thing after another—it’s one damn thing over and over. ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

There’s an odd group of people roaming the country roads of Gill this week. Just yesterday, one of them strolled down our driveway, much to the chagrin of our dog Daisy, who nearly popped her head off barking, before being subdued by this stranger’s crouched, docile position. We don’t get a lot of pedestrian traffic around here, particularly that which is unexpected, or, in this case, unexpectedly odd, so as soon as I heard the deep, ominous tones in Daisy’s bark, I knew someone was out there who was not a familiar sight or scent. I knew it wasn’t the UPS or Fed-Ex guys, who sometimes park at the top of our driveway and walk down, package in hand; Daisy knows she’ll get a biscuit if she plays it right, with a bark tinged with excitement and a just a hint of malice, and this just wasn’t the bark I was hearing. I knew it wasn’t a neighbor, who would have worked Daisy into a frenzy of high-pitched, celebratory barking, as in Awesome! You’re here! Someone to play with! Throw the Frisbee! Throw the ball! Throw it! Throw it! It wasn’t Malcolm, our trusty Egg Boy, who wheels around the neighborhood on his bicycle delivering fresh eggs (there’s nothing better), and elicits similar shrill vocalizations of love and anticipation from Daisy when he makes his way down our driveway. Malcolm! Malcolm! You brought eggs! You brought eggs! I love eggs! I love eggs! I love you! Throw the Frisbee! Throw the ball! Throw it! Throw it! And I could tell it wasn’t Mowgli, the lovable pooch from across the road who arrives every now and then and sends her into loud, abrasive spasms of bitch-snobbery, Get off my porch! Get off! Don’t you dare eat my food! Go away! Stop sniffing my butt! No, I will not play with you!, before succumbing to her better senses and surrendering to her true feelings, Ok, Mowgli, I do like you, but I have to play it tough when everyone’s watching. Sure, go ahead, sniff it, and I’ll sniff yours.

This was more like Hey You! Get the hell off my land! I’ll eat you up! Get out of here! Can’t you hear me? I’m a big tough broad! Grrrrrr… and then, What’s that? You’ll pet me? Oh, Hiiiiiiiiii! Throw the Frisbee! Throw the ball! Throw it! Throw it! What a pushover.

Just who was this guy? I could tell right away that I did not know him, that he was not from the neighborhood, from Gill, from anywhere around here. But he came around the corner, Daisy now completely under his charm, escorting him through the evergreen gates onto our front walk with a wag and a smile, and flashed me a toothy grin, outstretched his arms, and said Hey, How are you doing today?, all as if I did know him, and he, me, I suffered a brief episode of self-doubt, brought on by my insistence to rose-tint my world by not wearing my glasses and keeping things a bit blurry, (so I can imagine anything I want), and for a second, thought Oh shit, Do I know him? Who the hell is he? But then, clarity and vision restored, I knew I did not know him, and instantly stepped back, thought of Dominick inside the house, and was glad that he was out of sight. I could feel my adrenaline start to pump through my body, the just-in-case mechanisms starting to fire up. I know, I know, I watch way too many crime shows on TV. But the world is a changed place, after all, and my caution, however cynical, rose up and spilled over me without hesitation from deep wells steeped with experience and reason.

What can I do for you? I asked him, knowing full well that I really didn’t have time to do anything for him. I had about twenty minutes to do a million things—exercise and feed Daisy, get Dominick something to eat before his baseball game, change my clothes, help Dominick pack his baseball bag, and warm him up with grounders and pop flies, for starters—and chatting it up with some strange stranger, no matter how friendly he seemed to be, in the driveway was simply not on my list.

He introduced himself as Joe. I did not tell him my name. I volunteered nearly nothing at all, except that I had a very small window of time to give him, and suggested that he had better make it fast. But I tried to be polite, as caught off-guard as I was. After all, I knew nothing about him. So I opted for the middle route—friendly enough, but not too.

Joe was tall and skinny, his sandy hair scruffy and short on the top of his small head. He walked as if not was all right in his carriage. I took in the scabs on his hands, his weather-beaten face, and the old clothes that didn’t fit him quite right. He carried no bag, no water bottle, no Bible, just a few papers visibly tucked into a back pocket. Definitely not a Jehovah’s Witness. I considered that he could be destitute, homeless, looking for hand outs. But there was something else about him that struck me as counterfeit: the awkward way he had of talking and smiling at the same time, in an intrusive, fawning, obsequious way that made me start to question my safety.

He started to talk about why he was there, but it took me a long while to make sense of it. I get out in the community and walk over twenty miles a day, getting to know people and earning points. Earning points? Huh? He looked like he walked over 20 miles a day. I have already earned 44,000 points and when I reach 50,000 points, I’ll earn the money I need to become a sports therapist. Whaa? I just wasn’t getting it. Just how do you earn your points? I asked him. Are you selling something? The smile grew wider. Yes, Ma’am, I work for National Circulating Company, and you can help me earn points. Here’s a list. Out of his pocket, he took out and handed me a plastic-sheathed card that listed magazines front and back. Ah, you’re selling magazines. It was starting to make more sense now. Yes, Yes, I am. I could see him readying himself for his all-out sales assault. I’m up to my eyeballs in magazines, I said, throwing out the first lob. Well, I would ask that you take a look to see if there’s a magazine that you already get, and you can renew it through me, and help me earn points. Ugh. I do hate having to deal with sales calls in this setting. It’s much easier to simply say No thank you, I’ve never heard of National Circulating Company, hang up the phone, and never have to know the face, the gait, or the story of the sales person.

As part of his relentless unnerving sales pitch, he tossed in compliments (You look great, by the way. You’re not working too hard, are you? Your dog is beautiful. What a fine dog she is. What’s her name? Sadie?), took in our house (Your place is lovely. I can tell you work hard at it. Your house is like a country palace, I walked down here and wooo!), noticed the glass bottles of sun tea brewing on the porch (Oh, you make your own iced tea! Lots of people don’t do that anymore…that’s so great), and made sure to assert his essential goodness throughout: People tell me they are so grateful to meet someone with such nice manners. I always say please and thank you and show people a lot of respect. And I can tell that you appreciate that as well. Thank you. Did I tell you that you look twenty? Well, you do. You’re welcome. Happy Mother’s Day, by the way. And an early Happy Father’s Day to your husband, too. You’re welcome. The little sycophant. Was he fishing? Trying to find out if there was a man about? Trying to coax information out of me? Wondering if he could overtake me, ransack the house, and make off with our, umm, flea market furniture?

As suspicions and anxieties flooded my better sense, I was acutely aware of my own discomfort, my impatience (that was well grounded in the fact that I had things to do, and had to get Dominick to his game in about ten minutes), and my desire to just be done with this. I revisited the idea that this guy could be just fine and completely without malevolence, that he had honed his discomfited sales pitch on the road, the best he could do with a limited education, an odd gait and appearance, and a Forrest Gump-like idiosyncrasy that swelled awkwardly under the earnestness of his delivery. But truthfully, who ever he was, I just wanted him GONE. I didn’t want to wrangle, hear any more of his overbearing marketing mess, or stand there worrying about whether he was legit or not, or some serial killer on the lam. Ok, I relented, and quickly wrote out a check for thirty-two dollars to renew my Natural Health subscription, which, of course, would usually cost only half that. It seemed worth it, to reclaim my sense of peace and place from this unknown, specious visitor. He filled out a receipt of sorts, his hand writing barely legible. I couldn’t tell if it was from a frightfully bad tremor, or a brush with illiteracy, but he started to sputter on again, I’m going to leave you with a smiley face, too, right here on the bottom, and my signature, so you’ll have that when I become famous, and well, I would just like to thank you for your kindness and wish you all the best and blah blah blah, so I excused myself, as swiftly and politely as I could, and retreated into the house, where I was grateful to see Dominick, in his baseball uniform, watching closely from inside, ever the Argus.

Dominick, of course, noticed the strangeness about the guy instantly. I applauded his good sense at staying in the house while the man was about. I high-tailed it up to the computer to check on National Circulating Company, and there it was, a simple web page with phone numbers and email addresses, all out of Gettysburg, PA. I followed a link to the Better Business Bureau, which gave it a solid rating. I still wasn’t feeling reassured. Before we left, I made sure to lock all the doors, and instructed Daisy to bite any strangers that came to the door. On the way to Dominick’s baseball game, we drove right by Joe, who was walking up the road towards our house. He waved as we drove by. Dominick told me that he was the guy from his dream. What dream? A dream about a guy who came into our house and wrecked it. But don’t worry, Mom, it was just a dream. Uh-huh. At the bottom of the hill, I turned around, and slowly drove up the hill to see where he was headed. Perhaps to pocket some of our just-delivered mulch? Snatch a sun-tea off the porch? Instead, he turned on his heels, and took a right into Renaissance, the old commune that sits on the hill across the street from our house. I called Jim to let him know about the guy, so he could check on the house later. Further down the road, Dominick and I spied another strange looking guy standing at the corner, no bag, just a few papers sticking out of his pocket, and a bizarre look on his face. A little off. Hmmm…

At Dominick’s baseball game, I ran into the chief of police, and told him about the guy. Oh, yeah, you’re the fourth person who has told me about this person. Somehow, in a weird way, hearing that I was not alone in my paranoia made me feel better. In fact, there’s a bunch of them that are going to be walking around town for the next two weeks, selling magazine subscriptions. They get dumped off. But I’ve called the company, and they’re legit. But I also let the company know that I would have them all thrown out of town if I continued to get complaints, because there can be a real problem with selling door to door in a town like Gill, where people know pretty much everyone, and are weary of strangers, who don’t seem to take no for an answer. I shivered. Don’t seem to take no for an answer? What did that mean? I imagined Joe babbling on and on spuriously, an increasingly malicious bent to his pitch appearing, then finally clubbing me into submission. I was suddenly glad that I had written the check, but wished that I had felt comfortable enough to simply say No, thank you and be done with it.

This morning, every time the dog barks, I am driven out of my seat and to the window, where I scan the driveway and the road for signs of outside pernicious influences. All I see are the white blossoms cascading from the pear trees and filling the sky with spring snow. The wind has stirred things up; Daisy could be barking at an errant dead leaf, fluttering across the road at high speeds. And in a perfect world, I wouldn’t be thinking that along with a leaf there could be a stranger lurking about. In a perfect world, I wouldn’t worry about such loathsome matters. I wouldn’t worry about whether I should worry. But this is no perfect world, so while I am surprised by my unease, I understand it.

In many ways, I have come to rely on the predictable, the peacefulness that blankets this valley with a quiet reassurance, and the relative safety of living here. The stench of the fertilizer that greets us on these May mornings as we head outside to spread mulch over our perennial gardens. The arrival of strawberry season at the farm next door in just a few short weeks. The rumble of trucks passing by. The familiar routes we take day after day. Daisy's repertoire of barks. The endless road work that stalls and slows short trips into town and makes those unpredictable delays mostly predictable.

There are definitely things out there that I would rather keep at bay, away from my children, out of my community, my home—those malicious unpredictable invaders. And yet, after all, I have, for the past few months, been hit with a most unpredictable malicious invader, and the most unpredictable of diagnoses—despite being in the lowest risk group, I got breast cancer. And though I would like to think that I was not totally caught off guard by my breast cancer diagnosis—with a Williams reunion conversation last June with a classmate and prominent cancer researcher, whose name I consciously filed away, a summer of botched, exhausting vacations and an unyielding sports schedule, a September blood test showing a serious vitamin D deficiency that increase one’s risk for breast cancer twofold, and increasingly worrisome fatigue and a feeling of unwell that badgered me throughout the winter—I was shocked to receive the news, to hear that I had a disease that other women—those who smoked, or drank a lot, or who were overweight, or ate fast food crap food—and not me, got.

At first glance, nothing about it seemed to make sense, and the nonsensical of it all hit me hard. Not the why me? but the how? I have mused over possible explanations—all that whole milk I dutifully drank as a kid, all the McDonald hamburgers, plain, please, I nibbled down, all the sugar and salt and hydrogenated oils I consumed after riding my bike to the Andover Spa most days after school, where I would stock up on bags of chips and candy bars, and then eat them alternately, gluttonously; or, possibly, the Nihil en Moderato code of living that I embraced while living large as a Williams Women’s Rugby Footballer at college, and the scads of kegs I helped kill in the wee hours of the morning; or the frightful amounts of toxic gases I’ve breathed in over the years, painting houses, sniffing erasers as a little girl in Japan, sitting in smog-infested traffic with the windows open; or our proximity to the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, which perhaps has infiltrated our water supply with noxious nuclear waste and carcinogenic flavor-enhancers; or more recently, perhaps (because, after all, I’ve been an organic whole food, sober health nut for about twenty years now) all those merciless chain emails I neglected to pass on. Oh, shiver me timbers, I have been cursed. But really, there are no explanations, just unknowns, and the resounding unpredictability of life echoing throughout.

So, I am aware, too, of the possibility that this stranger arrived at a time when I needed a few reminders: to stay open to the unpredictability of life, and to the possibilities that appear only when something shifts, and light is let in, to reveal new paths, new ideas; to beware the fear that drives us inward and away from moving forward towards our dreams and ourselves; and lastly, that it is best, always best, to use caution when strange strangers are about, and the creep-factor is climbing your trellis.

If we don’t change the direction we are headed, we will end up where we are going. ~ Chinese proverb.