vituperation

I turned the wheel sharply and gave the accelerator a little pressure. The truck eased forward, and the dog I had my eye on moved slowly out of the way. As the truck came around, I realized I was getting too close to the barn and the calf tethered to a post in front of it. I stopped the truck, a little more suddenly than I wanted, and the Amish man in the bed threw an arm over the side to keep from sliding off the wheel well he sat upon. Our eyes met in the rearview mirror and he flashed me a jagged smile.

“My life sure can be surreal,” I said to Robyn, and put the truck into reverse.

About ten weeks ago we took a day trip up to Ethridge to visit among the Amish, two goals in mind. First, to find someone who could build us a big pantry for the kitchen and second, to find some pigs to replace the herniated ones we’d returned to the man at Dog Days. We didn’t get pigs that day, but we were able to find a builder, a very pleasant and chatty man named Emery. I showed him the picture I’d scribbled, and with some hand-waving discussion, a ten percent down payment, and a handshake, we had a deal for a pantry.

A few weeks passed, and I received a letter from Emery, expressing a little concern over my original design. The pantry was to be eight feet tall and have two doors, but he was worried that doors that tall would warp over time, and thought it better to have two upper doors and two lower doors.

I agreed, and sent him a letter authorizing the change. It was all very eighteenth century.

Early last week, another letter from Emery arrived, letting us know the pantry was done.

I sent him a second reply, to tell him we’d be there on Saturday to pick it up.

Saturday came, but we didn’t go to Ethridge because of the rain. The goddamn, motherfucking, shithead cocksucking asshole fuckface RAIN. We’ve gotten more rain this year already than we did in all of 2006 or 2007. We’d be beating 2008, too, but this infernal rainy season started at the end of 2008 and dumped about 20 inches in late November and December. We’ve already gotten nine inches of rain in May. It’s raining right now, and will be all day long. It rained all day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. It rained Monday afternoon, and there’s a decent chance of rain (30% or higher) every day until Sunday.

The rain is making me insane because I can’t do ANYTHING but watch the plants in the garden drown. Except the weeds, of course. They’re thriving, and almost waist high. We did have a mostly rain-free stretch before last Friday. I had time to get the garden started and build a big carport-like structure off the front of the big chicken coop, but now the rain is back and sometimes it feels like it’s pushing me into a clinical depression because I get very frustrated when I can’t do anything.

But I digress.

So no, we didn’t go to Ethridge on Saturday. I sent Emery a third letter Saturday morning, letting him know that the weather prevented us from coming up, and that we’d be there the next time there was some sunshine.

That next time was yesterday afternoon. Though cloudy and overcast all morning, the weatherman said it wasn’t going to rain, so I took the afternoon off and we took the truck up to Ethridge. By the time we got there it was sunny, the sky full of fluffy white clouds.

We turned into the dirt drive, apprehensive as always. With their quiet and peaceful ‘live and let live’ ways, the Amish are very intimidating. The workshop was still and silent. Robyn noticed a note in the window above the door and we got out to read it.

Emery wasn’t there, it said, but there was a neighbor who could help if someone was there to pick up furniture. I made note of the directions, and we got back into the truck.

“We could just wait for him,” Robyn said. “It said he’d be back by three.”

“I don’t want to wait around for almost an hour. That’s like tempting it to rain. We need to just suck it up and go see the neighbor.”

The neighbor’s place was still and silent, too, save for a wary shepherding dog watching me from the porch and a curious calf tethered in front of the barn. I looked around for a person, unsure of what to do. As intimidating the Amish are, it’s even more intimidating to walk up and knock on their door. Plus, I wasn’t sure of that dog’s intentions.

Finally, a man sauntered out of another outbuilding, wiping his hands on his pants. He smiled broadly, and his face was wide and open.

“I was just about to start paintin’,” he said.

Through the open door of the building he’d just left, I saw a wheel-less carriage sitting on blocks.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” I said. “We stopped by Emery’s place to pick up a piece of furniture, but he’s not there and his directions led us over here.”

“Yup. I can help you get it loaded.”

With that, he went into his house for what felt like an eternity but was probably just a minute or two. I stood by the truck and made quizzical faces at Robyn, unsure of what to do. Finally, the man came back out.

“Do you want to ride over there with me, or…?” I asked, because I didn’t know if riding in a truck would be offensive to him.

“I can ride in the back,” he said, then smiled again. “If it will take one like me.”

I laughed, taken again by surprise at an Amish man cracking a joke.

“I’m sure it will,” I said.

He hopped onto the bumper and climbed into the bed of the truck while I went around the front got back in. I started it up and began the arduous process of getting turned around in his small dooryard. The dog had followed the man out to the truck, and now watched us with interest from back by the bumper. I backed slowly, watching the motionless dog out of the side mirror, until I was about to get off the dirt and onto grass.

I turned the wheel sharply and gave the accelerator a little pressure. The truck eased forward, and the dog, now in front of us, moved slowly out of the way. As the truck came around, I realized I was getting too close to the barn and the calf. I stopped the truck, a little more suddenly than I wanted, and the Amish man threw an arm over the side to keep from sliding off the wheel well he sat upon. Our eyes met in the rearview mirror and he flashed me a jagged smile.

“My life sure can be surreal,” I said to Robyn, and put the truck into reverse.

The drive back to Emery’s house was interminable because I didn’t want to go over 10 miles an hour. All the way, visions of the Amish man’s mangled body, tossed like a doll from the back of the truck because I hit a pothole too hard, danced in my head. We made it without incident, however. I didn’t kill the Amish man, or even bruise him.

He opened the door to Emery’s workshop and we went inside.

“I need your name to go find your piece,” he said.

“Anders0n, but I don’t think you’ll need to look,” I replied, and pointed. “That’s it.”

Our pantry dwarfed everything else in the workshop, including us. At just over eight feet tall and almost four feet wide, it towered over us like a small skyscraper.

“Holy cow, that’s big,” I said, and immediately fretted that the Amish man might find holy cow offensive.

We chatted about the best way to get the pantry out to the truck, and decided to put it on a cart and roll it over to the overhead door, where there was something like a loading dock. Just as we were tipping the pantry onto the cart, a horse-drawn buggy clattered up to the building and parked next to my truck.

“There he is,” the Amish man said, then flashed me another of his sly smiles. “I shoulda had you pay me first, before he got here!”

A regular George Carlin, this guy was.

The two men loaded the pantry onto the truck, while I had the manly job of making sure the doors didn’t swing open. As they worked, they chattered directions back and forth in German. Once it was laid in the bed, Robyn and I got it covered with a just-in-case tarp and I tied it down. The whole time, Emery stood and made small talk — how he’d gone to town because it got sunny, how I didn’t need to send a letter because he figured the weather kept us away (but that he was glad I did, because most people never sent letters and took forever to come get their stuff), how all this rain was making his strawberries rot before they even ripened.

A chatty guy, that Emery.

I paid him and we were on our way. All the way back to Smallville I wondered how we were going to unload the pantry. It looked to be made out of 1x wood, and probably weighed closer to 300 pounds than 200. Had I been paying attention, I’d have had them slide it in top-end first, so that we could just pull it out and lower the base, then stand it up. But I wasn’t paying attention.

With no other ideas, I did the only thing I could think of: I threw myself onto the mercy of the corner grocer.

“Do you by chance know any teenage boys who would like to make some money for about three minutes’ work?” I asked the man and woman working behind the counter.

I explained the situation, and they told me there was a man who lived in a little apartment on the backside of the store who could probably help me. While I talked rain and gardens with the woman, the man went to see if the other guy was around. He was, and he rode to the house with us in the truck. I babbled the whole way about how unexpectedly heavy the pantry was, and he never said a word beyond the initial “hello” when we were introduced at the store.

At our house, another truck pulled into the driveway before we even got out of mine. That truck was full of teenage boys, and almost before I knew what was happening, the pantry was unloaded and standing in the garage. No one would take money, and they left as quickly as they’d arrived, taking the apartment-dwelling man with them.

And now we have a pantry I need to stain.

Poplar, before you ask