Box Turtle
The guys were in the truck somewhere behind me on Route 29. I stopped at the ATM at the local bank so I could tip them once the load of crap was distributed and the hold-baggage matter was resolved. I sometimes wish I was a turtle, so I could just carry my whole house on my back.
At the moment, I was on the ragged edge. The drive from Hoosierland to the District had tapped my resolve, but this intermediate step toward the completion of the down-sizing would give me a brief respite before the evacuation of Tunnel Eight, the two bedroom unit I have occupied for nearly five years.
Astonishing how the crap and boxes pile up- exponentially- as the liquidation of the estate was concluded last year. The garage contains sedimentary layers of stuff, loaded in helter-skelter based not on utility, but on date of arrival.
The guys did not have a semi-trailer. They were pushing a smaller pale green truck tricked out in the livery of the van line. Reggie was driving, and Shawn was his assistant. They had shed the young, college student picking up some extra money between semesters who helped them load me up.
There were a lot of boneheads on the road. Heat addled motorists, maybe, or perhaps it is vehicular hangover from the miles yesterday.
I took the time before their arrival to fire up the Bluesmobile and move the truck out of the garage, staging them out of the way next to the barn. I noted the erosion on the lower driveway, and sighed. A call to Don-the-builder was in order to figure out how to get a load of gravel and a scraper in to even out the ruts.
There was an ominous pile of sawdust on the floor of the office, when I opened up the double doors that suggested something was eating the structural elements of the roof. Add a visit from the exterminator.
I need a tractor, I thought, wiping the sweat from my forehead. I wonder if I should stop at that place on Rt 29 near Remington and enquire about the classic sitting in the field with the for sale sign. I wonder how that works? There appears to be a brisk trade in a wide variety of vehicles and farm implements along the State road.
I moved discarded lumber from the project two years ago- damn, that was inconvenient losing last summer to the accident- and then picked up the push-broom and began sweeping out the bay. Then up to the house to pull stupid stuff off the walls, take down the framed New Yorker cover of then-candidate Obama in traditional Arab garb and Michelle clutching an AK-47, and replace it with an image of a 1959 Rambler Ambassador station wagon that “Roof-rack” Raven had designed long ago.
I pulled the books off the folding rack in the hall and moved it upstairs.
If I could get Reggie and Shawn to move a chest of drawers from the garage up to the bedroom upstairs, I could start putting things away.
But that goal dissolved with the arrival of the truck, and the great unloading of the boxes, and assorted debris from hold luggage. The chest of drawers actually made it upstairs, and the boxes started to stack up in the garage.
Reggie and Shawn kicked butt. When things were unloaded and stacked, I grilled them some Croftburn Farm local dogs on hoagie rolls, and we drank ginger ale and water on ice on the back deck, letting the sweat dry off. They are good guys. Reggie is married to a GS-14 who works at the Agency where I used to toil. Shawn is just getting on with things.
They are hard working guys, trying to keep moving. Shawn helped me clean up before going out front to smoke a cigarette. Walking out to the truck with the final paperwork, I saw a big turtle in the middle of the slate path to the front gate, sunning himself in the rich warm light. He extended his neck, looking at me with detachment. He was a big sucker, and I noted the articulation of his shell.
I looked at the complex colors of his shell, none dominant, all interdependent. Eastern Box Turtle, I thought, not a snapper.
“Move along,” I said to him sternly. “We have quite enough boxes here.”
I waved to Reggie and Shawn as the truck started and the air-brakes snorted on release.
The truck lurched out of the driveway, narrowly missing the mouse’s mailbox, and knocked down a few pine limbs. I policed them up and tossed them behind the box elder on the drive.
Then I went back in the house and re-hung the New Yorker cover in the bathroom, and thought it might be about time for a drink.
Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
July 23, 2013
DailySocotra
