Content Advisory: May contain ritual 1980s North Country drag shows, nail gun sermons, fishnet theology, cryptid sightings, mild Zen-induced transcendence, and graphic scenes of rural male ego collapse. Reader discretion is hilariously irrelevant.
THE RUSTY NAIL
Climbin’ W Mountain in October fog breathin’ the burn of last night’s Saranac Lake hooch and this mornin’s hope, damp denim on my thighs and the lake a ghost down below, I hear that story Chet told again rattlin’ around behind my eyeballs. Not tellin’ it, relivin’ it.
She stormed in — boots like black knives, jacket sequined with a dozen sins, hammer in one hand, sack of nails in the other. Stompin’ across the sticky floor like she owned it, like it owed her. Nailed the front door shut. Then the back. We all watched, dumbfounded, sippin’ flat beer. Ain’t nobody leavin’ ’til the truth gets told, she said, and by God the silence was biblical.
She climbed on the jukebox like it was a pulpit, ripped out Skynyrd like rippin’ a confession from the throat of a liar. Jammed in a tape called Sonic Agricultural Feedback and it screeched and belched like the barnyard got electrified and nobody moved. Just a circle of names she spat like lightning bolts. Child support, jail bonds, bounced checks and lies. One fella ran for the bathroom, but Bev was out back with the garden hose, chasin’ him like a demon from Revelations.
She pulled the nails eventually, maybe an hour later, maybe twenty years, and we all spilled out like sheep who’d seen God’s temper. Some wept. Some promised. Others lit fire to the parking lot and howled at the moon.
I walk the mountain to remember. Or to forget. It’s the same, some days.
GASOLINE CHOIR
The snow was like ash but colder.
January wind howlin’ through Malone, rippin’ shingles off rooftops and sanity outta men’s ears, and into that walked Beverly — coat mink and misappropriated, fishnets screamin’ down her legs like lightning bolts. She had an inner tube around her waist like she’d just paddled across Chateaugay Lake half-bubbled-up and righteous. Gas can in hand. Purse full of fire.
She declared it the First Annual Gasoline Drag Show and nobody laughed.
Three men she picked — Big Timmy with the lazy eye, Doug from AutoZone who never blinked, and Dwayne, who may not’ve been real. She wrapped ‘em in bedsheets and smeared lipstick across their cheeks like war paint. Duct-taped beer boxes to their chests, told ‘em to strut. Told ‘em to lip-sync to Tainted Love while she sprayed gasoline hearts on the floor.
The air got thick with it — gas fumes, cheap perfume, and imminent judgment. She flicked a lighter open, shut, open, shut, open… shut… the whole bar held its breath like the Rapture was comin’ with heels and a Bic.
She laughed. Didn’t light it. Just winked and said, Y’all ain’t ready for that yet.
Doug won. Nobody knows why. I think he saw somethin’ holy in her eyes.
W MOUNTAIN PRAYER
God I climb because You built the mountain and I don’t know where else to go, boots breakin’ through patches of new snow and pine needles layin’ in crosses, my knees tremble, my mind flutters like the moths in the double-deck shitter door-with-a-lake-view, and I ask You to keep the Wendigo asleep today, I ask You to please blind the things in the misty fog that speak to me in my dreams, Lord I ask You to let the bones buried up here stay buried.
The lake watches. It don’t blink.
I see antlers in the mist. Not a deer. No — too tall, too still, and its mouth opens the wrong way, like a backward prayer. I freeze. I remember the time I saw a loon dive and not come up, like the lake swallowed its own song.
Lord in my aging frailty and weakness I rely on You show me the Way through this infinite never-ending valley of eternal darkness. I keep movin’ uphill. Each step a promise. Each strugglin’ gurglin’ gaspin’ breath a psalm. The trees creak like they know my name.
Amen.
THE LAUGHIN’ THING
Past the cairn where the three pines meet and the moss is thick as wool I hear it — laughter, deep and wrong, like it came from the throat of a tenor Selmer Mark VI saxophone filled with bad teeth.
I’d heard about it — from Old Veritas, from Mrs. Blow, from that one-eyed man who claimed to have danced with it under the full moon near Boomhower Cove. It laughs when you think about leavin’. Laughs when your life cracks. Laughs when you cry for your mama and no one comes.
It followed me once. I felt it behind me on the ridge, just far enough I couldn’t see it but close enough I could feel the fog curl backward like breath from an open grave. I walked fast. I walked foolish. I tripped over my own name.
I started singin’. Out loud. Anything. Jesus Loves Me. She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain. Jingle Bells. The Wendigo don’t like melody. The Laughing Thing don’t like joy.
I yodeled and sang and the trees leaned back. I hummed and the stars blinked. I whistled and I lived.
MILFOIL PSALM
The lake grows hair in the summer — thick green hair that tangles round ankles and souls. That’s the milfoil. Foreign. Hungry.
It whispers if you’re under too long.
They say a girl drowned in it. Minta? Or was it Molly? I can’t recall. But she never left — became part plant, part queen of the weeds. The Milfoil Queen they call her now. You can see her if you look too long into the weeds at Boomhower, long legs movin’ like eelgrass, arms stretchin’ toward you slow like she ain’t in a hurry to kill you but she will.
The fish avoid her. The frogs don’t croak near her cove. And me? I keep my canoe pointed straight when I pass. I nod. I say, Evenin’, your Highness.
One day I’ll stop paddlin’. I’ll just let her take me. Not today.
Not today, Lord willing.
FINAL DESCENT
comin’ down w mountain now boots slippin’ a little knees complainin’ more heart beatin’ steady like a good straight-ahead rhythm section
sun burnin’ low behind the giant pines sky gone that ripe bruised purple I always loved best woke up one night to ol’ mcgee’s blair’s kiln yammerin’ coyotes yippin’ outa the back of his green honkin’ ford pickup truck way off in the deep trout river gathered under them real good tastin’ sour pie apple trees down on the old millard atkins farm in bellmont where the state revnuers harrassed ol’ charlie ’bout some dern crompville cromp they found growin’ in some black bear cub’s juicy ripe plump blackberry nests and wind changin’ tone like it’s learnin’ a new chord I stop at the overlook one last glance chateaugay lake gleamin’ like it knows what I don’t
all day long I meditate on bev tight jaguar-skinned mini-skirts sequins hammers cheap crank and gasoline ghosts I think of doug and his lipstick grin I think o’ His voice still hummin’ under all of it
the world is full of strange things antlered shadows magic sandbar bonfires of shame underwater milfoil queens north country-flavored dada-esque jockstrap drag shows of judgment but me I got ten dollar boots and breath and a little faith left
and that’ll do
that’ll do for now
What mysteries of Chateaugay Lake haunt you?