The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

I was chatting it up with some of my UpCreek neighbors the other day and we got to arguing whether living Up River was the same as Up Scale. Bayou Bill was making the point that any riverfront property was upscale, no two ways about it. Course, Bayou was undercutting his argument by standing on what was left of his dryrotted, slick-as-snot porch in front of his 1973 single wide with the lower one third vinyl green with mold or algae or moss or all three. “Up scale,” Little Jimmy was saying, making his point with his second Milwaukee’s Best can, “might not be a description the realtors would come up with on the sales brochure.”

Bayou crumpled his own can and snorted, “What are you talking about, Jimbo? I wouldn’t sell this riverfront paradise for any price under a million.” The boyz talk like this, sort of like their Lottery Dreams, something to fill the conversation between ball games and Wheel of Fortune. Harmless enough, I guess, but not exactly uplifting or educational. Maybe we all live in our fantasy worlds … and that’s okay with me so long as they’re upbeat even if it isn’t a synonym for upscale. Us river folk — at least us up river folk — can use all the optimism we can muster. It’s dark back here, it rains an extra inch every inland mile and there’s no jobs left anywhere near for us moss-backed old timers. If the Oso slide had closed us off from downriver civilization during winter, our suicide and alcohol rates would have been alarming. As it was, illegal fishing and some minor deer poaching kept us occupied while the State was preoccupied with re-opening the highway.

Course now that the road to Arlington and Gomorrah is passable once more, Bayou figures his real estate values are soaring to stratospheric heights. Life is good, the river isn’t flooding and the boyz are getting richer drinking cheap canned beer. It’s a fool’s paradise all right. That, or a drunkard’s dream.

More Tales from UpCreek

My old shack looks east into the mountains and across the river where two or three fishing cabins still sit perched on the bank. Last year’s spring melt after a week of unseasonably warm weather and heavy rains turned the river into a rage that ate at the banks across from me and finally, one afternoon, sloughed off one of the cabins, Harry Watson’s, a Seattle attorney who’d come here since before me, and sent it into a log strewn Waring blender where I watched it go over sideways, hesitate a minute or so, then collapse in on itself. The boarded up windows turned beseechingly toward the sky, the front door popped off its hinges, the roof tore away in two parts and Harry’s cabin set sail briefly before sinking from view. It was a sobering sight to behold.

Harry came up to inspect for damage a few days later and I drove around, took the bridge and found him staring at the gash where his house had sat for 50 years. ‘I’m real sorry about this, Hank,” I said when I came up beside him standing over what must have seemed like an open grave. “Lot of memories in that old cabin,” he muttered mournfully.

I tried to console him, of course, said hey, you’ll rebuild another one, a better one, but we both knew the county would never grant a building permit that close to the river now. 1960, sure, go ahead, what’s it to us? Your loss if the river eats it and who cares where the outhouse drains? It all washes out to sea so let the Down River folks in the next county worry about septic overflow. We’re UpCreek people and maybe that’s what gives us an Uppity Attitude. But times change, not as fast as the river, but they change.

Trouble is, Harry’s no spring chicken. My guess is Harry’s fishing days are pretty much over. I just hope it’s only the fishing that’s ended for him. I sure don’t need to see another obit photo with a guy and his damn big fish he caught 30 years ago.

The South End Slammers are the local Roller Derby queens, mean mamas on ball bearings, elbows sharp as their tongues. Jammin Janice, by day a demure office secretary down at Windy Rear Realty’s south office, captain’s the squad with an attitude like an unfed piranha. The Slammers are a no-holds barred bunch of bruisers with a volcano of pent-up aggression they unleash on their opponents as they hurtle around the maple track that’s canted for increased speeds on an oval circuit. Cheryl is a teller at the local branch of Coastal Bank 5 days a week, but weekends she’s the spearhead for the Slammmer’s feared Flying Wedge, a vicious phalanx of boiling estrogen mowing down any and all opposing skaters too slow or witless to get out of the way. Elbows hammer chests, bodies slam bodies, skates are used the way a mallet is used to tenderize meat.

Paula is the point getter, small and wiry and able to stoop low and slide under or around the opponents’ blockade. She’s their best Jammer, lapping with graceful strides on her custom made skates like a dancer on bearings. Paula waitresses at the Diner part-time and if some of the patrons mistake her quiet demeanor for mousey modesty, she has a tongue fast as her trademark passing maneuvers. You want a refill on that coffee, mister, you learn to say please. And you better try a thank you when you get it.

The Slammers are ranked #1 this season. For good reason. I ran into Betty, the team’s burly Blocker, the other night. Not many Jammers get by Betty. And if they do, they’ll pay for it next time around. She was at the Pilot House Lounge ordering her 3rd whiskey on the rocks. “Nice shiner,” I remarked, sliding onto the adjoining stool. Her eye was swollen half shut and she had a bandage over her right eyebrow. The whiskey was probably half painkiller. Betty laughed. “You should’ve seen the other skater when I got back up and caught her on the next rotation. She’ll think twice next time she elbows this mother.”

“Betty,” I said, “that’s true of ALL of us.” The Slammers, like I might’ve mentioned, aren’t to be trifled with on the rink or off the rink.

Freddie was holding the podium at the Diner yesterday, practically setting up the proverbial soapbox, you’d think he was running for Congress, nothing new there, not for us citizens of the sectarian South End. New England has its town meetings — we have breakfasts at the Diner. Sheila, the current owner, tolerates it for awhile, but if newcomers are in attendance, she limits floor time for speeches. To NO time…. Business, after all, is business, and Freddie can give his stump speeches down at the Pilot House Lounge where alcohol fuels the debates and the debates fuel alcohol consumption. Sheila’s selling coffee and omeletes without the salsa of politics.

“What ABOUT it, Sheila?” Fred hollers across the formica tabletops, the tables about half full this late in the morning. The Hispanics have come and gone — they have work to do and Fred’s filling his retirement years with coffee refills apparently. “You gonna feel okay serving gays? You got that sign that says you have the right to refuse service to anyone, how about the government telling you you got to serve criminals and perverts and terrorists? How about no shoes, no shirt, no morals, hey?”

Al, over on Table 4, spoons his 4th pack of sugar into his coffee and asks, “What’s next, Fred? No blacks? You gonna brink back a Colored water fountain again for gays? “

“It’s about freedom, Al. Religious freedom. The Bible says men on men, well, that’s why we got a Hell, know what I mean?” Al knows very well what he means and decides the debate isn’t worth ruining breakfast, which Anita serves up right then. He throws a hand up in dismissal and digs into his biscuits and gravy.

“Whadday think, Sheila?” Fred persists. “You okay with the government forcing patrons down your throat?”

“Freddie,” Sheila says, laughing, “you are SO 1950’s. Ike is dead. The Cold War is over. Women can vote. And maybe you never noticed, but plenty of gays eat here. You just never can tell, can you?”

Fred took a slow look around the Diner. When his gaze settled on me, I nodded and blew him a kiss. I figure Fred needs all the love he can get ….

Judge Jack was kicking himself. Down at the South End Senior Center a sculpture they’d thought had been donated 12 years ago was now in Limbo. The donator’s brother had seen it there, seen it for the first time, and since they had owned it when they ran their restaurant into a backwash bankruptcy, he now wanted it back. The Center had grown fond of the carved basswood dolphin over the years and they were more than reluctant to give it back. Statue of limitations, apparently….

What to do, what to do??? Turn it over to an arbitrator, of course, some poor sap who would willingly step into the vise. Who you gonna call? Judge Jack. And Jack had said naively, sure, he’d mediate. Now he regretted it. No King Solomon decision here, he soon learned to his dismay. Someone was going to be sorely disappointed and he would take the fall, maybe lose a friend. “Let em flip a coin,” Two Toke Tom advised. “The Gods of Fate, my friend. Better than the judicial system, you ask me.” Two Toke, naturally, thought a septic system was superior to the judicial, having been harassed for most of his so-called adult life over recreational preferences and underground agriculture. Two Toke was legendary for a life of minor cannabis crime and he was a man who held a grudge.

Judge Jack sipped his latte thoughtfully. Tom was usually in geosynchronous orbit a bit too far out to take seriously, but he had a point. Flipping a coin might be the way to go. Nobody right, nobody wrong, no judge hung on his own petard. Just bad luck calling that head over tails. Way of the world. Keep the dolphin, lose the dolphin. Jeez, who cares when the Middle East is collapsing into sectarian war? Just art, after all and Judge Jack knew better than most that art in corporate America was worth about what bitcoins were on the South End. And sinking fast.

Flip a coin and walk away. “How you gonna rule, Judge?” Tom smirked over his coffee. Jack shook his head sadly, shoved his mug into the center of the table. “Refill?” Brenda asked, holding the coffee pot, working the tables. Jack said mournfully, “Hell if I know, Brenda. Come back in five minutes. I got to give it more thought.”

Tom fairly howled. He slapped the table. “Hit me again, Brenda.”