Stumps of Mystery: Stories from the End of an Era



  Stumps of Mystery

  Stories from the End of an Era

  By Susan Wickstrom

  Copyright 2015 Susan Wickstrom

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  1. Who’s Your Caddy?

  2. Stumps of Mystery

  3. Alienpalooza

  4. Quatro de Julio

  5. The Meadow

  6. Skittles

  7. Love Among the Treesitters

  8. The Season of Tiny Yellow Leaves

  9. U-Cut

  10. Groundhog Day

  11. Election Eve 2008

 

  Woodhill, Oregon

  This former logging town, population 17,300, has a quaint history that is continually augmented by the modern world. The paper mill is closed, but Northwestern Oregon University provides a somewhat stable economy, along with a burgeoning tourism industry: wineries and restaurants crop up almost daily. The refurbished Woodhill Hotel (365 Main St.) is an interesting starting point; the lobby is crammed with old photos that tell the area’s story. The dining room offers state-of-the-art cuisine starring locally vinted wines. Each year, the town hosts a whimsical festival to commemorate the supposed 1957 UFO landing on Lost Mountain west of town. The real heart of Woodhill is Mack’s Diner (serving breakfast all day since 1906) where blue-collar workers and college professors rub shoulders at the counter.

  -Lonely Planet Guide to Oregon, 2008

  1. Who’s Your Caddy?

  Mike Burke leaned back in his recliner with a cold sweating can of Bud Light in his hand. The television was tuned to an afternoon Mariners’ game but he couldn’t hear a thing over the roar of his wife Kathy vacuuming the living room carpet. He watched her waltz back and forth, her face flushed, her short frosted hair curling with perspiration. She was graceful despite the middle-age plump that seemed to have snuck up on her in the last few years. She was always on some sort of diet lately: Slimfast, Atkins, South Beach, the Hollywood Fast. But she still looked like a girl to him, especially on that day when she was so excited about their dinner guest.

  The oscillating fan on top of the oak entertainment center scanned the darkened room with its broad dusty face. Kathy had pulled the blinds early that morning against the freaky late-April heat wave. For years, Mike had planned to install an air conditioner, but there was never quite enough cash. After the logging company went tits up, he had bounced around the job scene for years, yet nothing quite took. The state retrained him as an x-ray technician, then the Woodhill Hospital closed down. He often thought about taking classes up at the state college, but he could never bring himself to look into it. So he worked when he could—driving wine tours, treating outdoor decks in the summer, cutting firewood in the winter.

  Truth be told, he had never really liked logging that much. The first time his dad took him to work in the woods when he was 15, he was overwhelmed by the manic buzz of the chainsaws, the smell of gas mingling with fresh sap, the thunderous crash of huge firs as they fell to the ground, men shouting, winches whining, trucks grinding—it scared the hell out of him. His dad was a chokesetter, one of the most dangerous jobs in the business. Once the tree was felled, he chained up the trunk so the winch could drag it onto the sled. The logs were often unstable; Dad’s dinged-up hardhat was evidence of many near misses. For 11 years, Mike worked for the same company his dad and uncles and brother and grandpa had worked for, but when he finally got laid-off, he was more relieved than angry. A lot of the guys moved away, up to Portland, out of the Willamette Valley altogether, but Mike didn’t want to. Woodhill might be a piss-poor little town, but it was his piss-poor little town. Economic disaster wasn’t going to force him out.

  Kathy, thank goodness, had worked her way up from checker to day manager at Norm’s Thriftway. She had been there since high school and never complained once. It was a good job with benefits, vacation, discount on groceries. She liked the work, liked seeing everyone in town.

  Mike fought feeling like a failure—he figured he was enough of a Pacific Northwest cliché—by pitching in around the house and with the girls. And there were many, many days when he was extremely contented, after the kids were dropped off at school, the house was cleaned, the laundry was tumbling in the dryer and he settled down in his recliner with a new library book or rented video. Or he’d head down to Mack’s Diner to drink coffee with the other unemployed philosophers while rain beat against the plate-glass windows. Who in his right mind would rather be out in the woods cutting trees for some corporation?

  Some of the guys resorted to illegal tactics to support their families: kiping game, growing pot. Mike had poached trees out of the national forest until a guy up in Silverton got popped and was sent to the Sheridan pen for six years. He couldn’t stand the thought of his girls visiting their daddy in federal prison. His brother Gary still bagged trees (“This land is my land,” he believed) and slipped Mike a few bills every once in a while. But it was never enough to buy central air.

  “Mom!” Mike’s youngest daughter Michaela burst into the room. “Mom!“ she shrieked, and Kathy turned off the vacuum. Michaela’s usually placid face was blotched with rage. “Aimee totally stretched out my new top.” She held up a shapeless white garment, then clutched it to her chest. “That cow!” she cried.

  “For cripes sake,” Kathy walked over to comfort the girl. “We have plenty of time to wash and dry it.” As bellowing Michaela stamped her feet, Kathy looked at Mike and rolled her eyes. He shook his head and walked the carpet’s well-worn path to the kitchen. It seemed like just a few weeks before, Michaela would have been sitting there watching the game with him—not standing in her bathrobe on a Saturday afternoon, bawling over some shirt. It was all that Ricci kid’s fault.

  Mike opened the fridge and checked out the salmon—a whole fresh king that Kathy had brought home from the store. He then began mixing his special barbecue sauce: catsup, vinegar, sugar, a secret blend of spices. He should have done it the night before to let the flavors get acquainted, but a part of him hoped the meal would never happen.

  Ren Ricci. He‘d first heard that name the previous winter when he drove Michaela and her teammates home from a basketball tournament during Christmas break. Michaela was one of just three sophomores on the girls’ varsity team; the trio naturally stuck together. Mike was often called upon to cart the three around since Woodhill High’s booster club rarely had enough funds to hire a bus. For the boys’ football team, no problem, but the girls’ basketball team had to get to the games on their own. And when Mike was driving, his three passengers sat in the Aerostar’s back seat and pretty much forgot he was there—after the predictable argument over which radio station to tune in (their rap vs. his classic rock). They were three disembodied voices that he listened to with an anthropological interest, sort of like tuning in to NPR, which he preferred when driving by himself. He loved to follow their dramas, though he had to admit there were a few times, usually when Conchetta was chattering on about the details of her impending quinceanera, that he wanted to speed head-on into a semi.

  “Have you seen that new kid from California?” Heather had asked way back in December.

  “Oh my god,” replied Conchetta, “Ren Ricci? He is so hot!”

  “His hair is actually styled,” observed Heather. “I am so tired of mullets and buzzcuts.” Then she gasped. “Oh, oops! No offense Mike.”

  “None taken,” Mike answered, flipping his long hair between his fingers.

  “And his eyes,” Conchetta gushed on, “Have you checked them out? They’re like warm maple syrup. O
h my god.”

  Mike strained to hear Michaela weigh in, but she said nothing. He liked to imagine she wasn’t all that interested in boys yet, especially after what had happened to her older sisters.

  “I like how he walks down the hall with his head down when all the girls are staring at him,” Heather said. “His cheeks get so red.”

  “Ruddy,” Michaela mumbled.

  “What?” The other two asked in unison.

  Michaela cleared her throat. “He has a ruddy complexion.”

  There was a deep silence, then Conchetta and Heather burst into raucous laughter. “Dude,” Heather shrieked, “I’m ruddy for you, baby!”

  “Ruddy or not, here I come,” Conchetta added, panting.

  Mike waited for Michaela’s retort. She had a sharp tongue that always swiftly cut down anyone who dared tease her. He waited for it—waited—waited. He moved his rearview mirror and saw she was gazing out the window, serene, her chin resting on her fist. He wondered about this boy who could inspire such poetry in fifteen year olds. That name alone: Ren Ricci. It was enough to make him want to rap—a lame old white guy rap. Yo y’all, listen up:

  Ren Ricci, Ren Ricci,

  I think you’re just peachy.

  The refrigerator rattled as the motor kicked on. All the kitchen appliances needed to be replaced. Mike took a whisk to his sauce. Kathy came in winding the vacuum cord on her arm between her elbow and thumb. “That girl is a bundle of nerves,” she said, blowing some wisps of hair off her forehead.

  “She’s too young for this,” Mike grumbled.

  “She can’t be your little tomboy forever.” She stuffed the vacuum into the broom closet and muscled the door shut.

  “Let’s hope she doesn’t end up like our other lovely daughters.”

  Kathy snorted. “Come on. She has more sense than both of them put together.” She took a broom to the kitchen floor, scowling at a brown stain on the linoleum. “What time are you putting the potatoes in?” she asked.

  Mike stopped whisking. “Oh. So I’m making dinner.”

  She squatted to scrub the stain with a wet paper towel. “You always make dinner.”

  “Well maybe I don’t want to make dinner tonight.”

  She straightened and stared him down. Her manager face. “Fine. You can do the cleaning.”

  Mike went back to whisking, double-time. “Why the hell does the place have to be so spic-and-span? Who is this kid, Prince William?”

  Kathy looked around the kitchen as if she were taking in the shabby cupboards, the marred floor, the aging appliances. Then she looked back at Mike and nodded. “Yes,” she replied, “He is Woodhill’s Prince William.”

  Ren Ricci, Ren Ricci,

  My wife’s getting screechy.