Last Exit to Pine Lake Read online

Last Exit to Pine Lake

  By Lenny Everson

  rev 1

  Copyright Lenny Everson 2011

  This free ebook may be copied, distributed, reposted, reprinted and shared, provided it appears in its entirety without alteration, and the reader is not charged to access it.

  Cover design by Lenny Everson

  ****

  CHAPTER ONE

  ****

  The Cottage, Long Lake. Fire Day. October 2.

  Paul put the cat out about three in the morning, after stroking her gently under the chin. Then he blocked the cat doorway so she couldn’t get back into the cabin.

  There was no point in the cat dying in the fire.

  He staggered a bit once, as he shifted some wood around. The cabin was stuffed with wood, mostly dry tree branches. Near the middle, under the big oak table, dry grass was tied in bundles. Moving space was getting tight. He sat down and looked around, rubbing his face, then gripping his the sides of his head for a moment.

  It no longer looked much like the place in which he’d spent the last twelve years.

  Above the cabin, silvered in the moonlight, the Wounded Woodpecker slept in the tree that had provided shade in summer. Its bill was tucked under its one good wing and perhaps it dreamed little woodpecker dreams of thick insects hidden under the oak bark.

  Paul’s cat had caught the woodpecker last spring when it had landed on the ground to catch a cricket. Paul had saved the bird, and had since made sure the feeder contained a block of suet even in summer. The bird also ate seeds and berries – downy woodpeckers are not exclusively insect eaters – and so had stayed alive. But it did not wander far from the oak, whose branches offered some protection from owls and hawks. A bird that could barely fly and had only one good eye needed protection by those still strong.

  Paul thought of the woodpecker when he lit the match. His hand was steady, but one leg shook.

  Over a couple of hills, in the deeper waters of Pine Lake, a large burbot tasted a perch that had been sleeping near the shore, then moved slowly back and down towards the dark heart of the lake.

  ****

  Paul Gottsen. Fire Day. October 2.

  Paul took a voice recorder with him on what he meant to be his last day. These note are transcripts from that recorder. I caution you that they are what he wanted the world to know, and may or may not be factual truth.

  Call me Ishmael.

  Call me anything you want. The world will go on. I won’t.

  Or call me the old bastard who lives by the lake. Once the highway went by my house but twenty-two years ago they rerouted it and now I live and die on a dead-end road.

  It suits. I’m a dead-end man on that dead-end road, in a falling-down house on the shallow end of a filling-in bay. The traffic that goes by is far enough away that I can’t hear anything but the trucks, and the bay is shallow enough that motorboats don’t get too close.

  I’ve got a five-gallon can of kerosene, a candle, and a box of good wooden matches. Unless my hands shake, I should only need one match.

  People turn around in my yard when they’ve come to the end of the road. If they see me, they wave an apology. For years, I didn’t wave back, but now I find myself doing so. There are no more reasons not to, I guess.

  But at least the kids that come here in summer will see the ashes and for years they can point out the place “where the old guy burned his house.”

  One last trip. I guess I owe it to the trees I know out there. God knows I don’t owe it to myself.

  Okay, so it’s not a rational thing, to take a final canoe trip before dying. As if dying were itself a rational thing.

  Dying makes all things irrelevant, including reason and hope and life.

  [pause]

  When I was very young I once saw four angels. They were sitting on branches, among the leaves of the old pine on my uncle’s farm. They said nothing, did not smile. Large wings fanned in the August heat.

  I ran, of course (we were taught to mistrust strangers).

  ****

  Peter Finer, Journalist

  Almost one year after the fire, Peter Finer’s book, Dark Waters: A Life of Paul Gottsen, came out. That critical biography placed special emphasis on the last few days and Peter’s own part in the events of those days. This is excerpted from that book .

  Again, I caution you that the writer’s view of the events and the truth are, for reasons unknown, sometimes at variance. His prose, as well, tends toward the overly dramatic, although a few people claim to like it.

  It was dawn and the canoe was waiting for him. It was dawn and death was waiting for him.

  He had his final odyssey awaiting, and he must have paused after spreading the inflammables around the house he’d lived in for so many years.

  We can speculate about what materials he assembled to create the fire and to make sure it would be complete. His last written but unpublished novel, Dark Lake, for sure. He’d have torn the manuscript apart sheet by sheet, crumpled the papers into bundles, and placed carefully them around. Even in preparation for death, he was never a ragged personality.

  There would have been a supply of gasoline – he bought some at the store the week before, in a tank normally used by the small outboard motor for his aluminum fishing boat. He put the motor itself onto the table.

  There was only one table in the house. It was a small table, and much prose had been written on it. It was on that table that he may have read the bad reviews of his last work, Stolen Rain .

  It’s one thing to think the critics have missed the point of your work, missed the reach of it, and will someday regret what nasty things they wrote. It’s another to think they’re right in their disappointment.

  So he filled the cabin with combustibles and got the canoe ready.

  He may have even kept notes, of course. Egotistical as always, maybe as he always had to be, he may have penned his final writing, the words he wanted to survive him. If so, they’re gone, now, except for his last words into his voice recorder.

  He lit the candle wick that would start the fire after he was gone, calmly set the box of matches on the table, and walked to the canoe. Dawn was not quite there yet. Death had an appointment with Paul Gottsen on Pine Lake.

  ****

  Notes from Kimberley Molley, Student

  Kimberley plays an important part in this narrative, so pay attention. With apologies: The notes from Kimberley are an edited version, compiled from text messages to herself and others, email messages, and phone conversations (as remembered). The originals are no longer available.

  I started taking these notes in hopes they would be an accompaniment for a requirement for Contemporary Writers 1209, January assignment. Assuming “contemporary” to mean poets that are currently alive, I decided that Paul Gottsen was a contemporary writer when I started this assignment. What the heck.

  By “accompaniment”, I wanted to indicate that this document would be secondary to my essay, Paul Gottsen: Misogyny and Redemption, which was due in a month or so. Maybe I was so unsure of my essay-writing skills I thought it needed backup.

  In the end, I decided not to submit this narrative to the prof.

  Instead, this story describes my attempts to meet with, and talk with, Paul Gottsen, in what were to be the last days of his life.

  How It Started

  Early in October of last year, my friend, Cindy, and I were discussing the year’s assignments, and which contemporary writer we’d choose for January’s work. Cindy, like, I suppose, many of the students taking the Contemporary Writers 1209 course, writes poetry herself, as did Harvey, with whom she was living at the time. I declined her offer to do a dissertation her, and refused to do one on Harvey, even if he’
d had a couple of poems published in American literary magazines and dozens published on various Web sites. I felt that any criticism might not be taken as constructive and praise might be viewed suspiciously. Besides, Harvey’s still stuck in a Leonard Cohen milieu (don’t tell him I said so).

  In the Commons Cafeteria we were sharing our disappointment that so few of the poets we studied, while still alive, were able to come personally to the university to lecture, or even to read their poetry and meet with the students.

  “I guess we should go find one ourselves,” she said, laughing, as she put her hand on my arm. [Note: conversations within this paper are approximately correct – I have a good memory for such verbal interplay – but I’ve learned to my chagrin that my memory sometimes edits. So don’t assume the words are exact.]

  “That’s an idea,” I said. My life at the time was a bit mixed up and a distraction promised to be a good remedy.

  ****

  Mad Tom’s Diary

  Mad Tom took to living in the woods around Long Lake a couple of years before the fire. The first winter was pretty much a disaster and he had to return to civilization, but he made it through his second winter without major damage. This is from his diary, which he started a year before and continued sporadically.

  Tom was institutionalized more than once, and lived on the streets quite a bit; you should take his observations with a great deal of skepticism, but he is an important player in this drama, and you will want to be aware of his thoughts and feelings.

  When I was born there were ten of me, No, there were ten of us. Nine were me. The tenth, last born, was not.

  All our life we’ve been hungry for life and love and laughter, but we sat quietly, waiting at the table for the tenth to begin.

  The eyes of those I meet grow small when they see me coming. They can see Mr. 10th where I cannot, so I should forgive them.

  Too many empty streets, too few stranger’s coins in the hat. Too many small rooms with peeling paint. So many that talked to us only when they had to.

  Teresa, Mother Teresa of the Lost Street Folk was always glad to see us. Another form filled out, another folder in some gray cabinet with a name on it. She came and she left, smiling anyway.

  When I die, nine of us will be buried, fading screams within this circus skull. The tenth will not, I think.

  Nine of us are clowns, like all the other people I’ve met. Not the tenth. The Dark Ringmaster of Angels and Clowns demands more respect.

  Winter is coming. Nine of us are cold. I will build a new shelter, this time beside Pine Lake. Pine Lake is where I met Paul three times before, and I think of it as Paul’s Lake. Today I move my few possessions there. Maybe Paul will come visit.

  I think I been diddled

  Rousted and fiddled

  When I took a jump for the moon.

  The people all laughed to see such a sport

  And no dish was found in the ruin.

  ****

  Paul Gottsen. Fire Day. October 2.

  Notes into an Voice Recorder

  I thought I’d have a lot to say right now. Words, it turns out are not only a pale shadow of life, but totally inadequate against death.

  The lake is like velvet. The trees silhouetted against the moonlight are like teeth. The lake is surrounded by black teeth, like a giant shark’s jaw about to close on me.

  I am, of course, my own shark. My writings are remoras, traveling with me but not part of me.

  Not all my mind cannot accept it, even now. I look back more easily on the past than the now.

  I have seldom been out on a lake after dark since I was a college kid. Maybe twice since, when I misgauged my timeline.

  The rest of the time, camping by the shore was camping with a fire, to drive back the darkness. There would be laughter, but the canoe was a dark form by the shore, slightly scary, slightly friendly. The world past the canoe was beyond comprehension.

  Night brings different laws to the world; my primal soul knows that. Only we who are about to die cannot be afraid. When the night wind shakes the thin tent material, we shift as if we found a twig or tree root under us. But in our darkened mind, we hear a faint primal scream, and wonder, is it ours?

  I camped a lot.

  I wrote a lot, but not about night on the lake.

  I wrote a lot but avoided facing my own darkness, till I wrote Dark Lake.

  The full moon helps.

  ****

  Peter Finer, journalist

  From his book, Dark Waters: A Life of Paul Gottsen.

  There was no wind as the canoe slipped down the lake. There was no moon, only a thousand stars in the purple deeps of sky.

  Paddle, pause, paddle. Nausea and starlight.

  The earth was a well of night, and the thin strings of photons touched the water after millions of years of travel. They struck the lake surface without slowing and penetrated less than ten feet before scattering. The starlight fell more softly on the water than any feather, more softly than anything but the despair and determination of the man in the canoe.

  Paddle, pause, paddle. The slight wake spread the starlight and, on the water, stars danced.

  Along shore the forest was blacker than ebony, blacker than the velvet heart of the deepest mystery a dying man's soul could encompass. It slid by slowly, fraught with nightmares from the sleep of small children who turn and tumble in their beds and reach for the light switch in panic.

  Paddle, pause, paddle. A rhythm measuring out the last moments of a human life.

  Like the beast from the swamps time stalked the man in the canoe. The forces of common danger might stalk others in this world, too, and might win, or might lose. But with time blowing chills in the marrow of bones, he was lost. Time eats his allotted hours and minutes and must turn them to dust and ashes. He faced the future and it was dust and ashes.

  Paddle, pause, paddle.

  In the deeps of the lake burbot cruise. They swim from the darkest and deepest holes up into the shallows where they feed on sleeping fish by starlight. They push through the weeds, gulping little fish for whom time has come to an end.

  He stopped paddling for a moment to watch the stars. The canoe slid along the surface of two worlds. A pair of bats circled briefly. An owl called death in the old pines.

  He hung suspended in this time between courage and despair. The wind picked up. The owl hooted again. He began to paddle once more.

  Paddle, pause, paddle.

  The gneiss along the shore was half as old as the earth. Mountains and oceans had covered it. Dinosaurs had stumbled over it. It had seen a lot of life, a lot of death. The old shores would not note the death of one old writer.

  Angels might notice, but the old shores would not.

  ****

  Paul Gottsen: Misogyny and Redemption in Naked Man with a Bible

  by Kimberley Molley

  Course: Contemporary Writers 1209

  [Note: As part of a university course, Kimberley submitted a paper on Paul Gottsen. This is one page excerpted from that paper. It’s a student essay; you can skip it if you want.]

  The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines “misogyny” as “a hatred of women,” although xomba.com moderates this as “a strong prejudice or hatred towards woman.”

  I feel that the contemporary author Paul Gottsen showed an anti-female prejudice in his novel, Naked Man with a Bible. Although his attitudes don’t quite fit the dictionary definition, in today’s world “misogyny” is often used to refer to any male attitudes that limit the rightful aspirations of females (I’m sure you’ll agree).

  Paul Gottsen was born in Welland, Ontario and raised in Sudbury as the youngest of four children. His father remarried before he was born, to a woman with three other children. I feel Gottsen may have resented his father’s new marriage, which could explain his attitudes towards women.

  It is known that he resented his father, a silent and non-social man, and never got over his father’s death, when Gottsen
was eight, from lung cancer (his father had smoked for years). His mother was left with seven children to raise on a secretary’s salary and this may have made her less loving than before.

  The basic cause of misogyny is failure of a man to bond properly with his mother, so this explains some of his attitudes, even if it does not excuse them.

  Naked Man with a Bible was Gottsen’s fifth novel in his series based upon the medieval seven heavenly virtues. The virtue he expressed in this novel is Chastity. To do this he had to contrast it with the opposite sin, Lust. Chastity is defined as courage and boldness and embracing of moral wholesomeness and achieving purity of thought through education and betterment.

  This was deemed to be his most successful novel, winning the Governor-General’s Award and selling enough copies to allow him to leave his job as a surveyor to concentrate on writing. Because Naked Man with a Bible was commercially successful, the previous four novels were reprinted and the name of Paul Gottsen was added to this university’s list of contemporary Canadian writers.

  In discussing this, we need to talk about his next novel, Stolen Rain (which I haven’t read yet). Stolen Rain was supposed to be about the heavenly virtue of Humility. Lots of critics expressed their disapproval and confusion, etc. Firstly, it was unclear what the book was about, from a narrative point of view. In terms of characters, it was difficult to figure out who was supposed to be the protagonist and what his or her motives were. Stolen Rain was the sixth in Gottsen’s proposed series of seven novels about the seven heavenly virtues.

  Gottsen’s last and seventh novel, Dark Lake, would have been about the heavenly virtue of Kindness, which is associated with charity, compassion, friendship, and sympathy without prejudice and for its own sake. It’s biblical opposite is Envy.

  Lots of writers might have just gone on to write that seventh book irregardless of the bad criticism of Stolen Rain, but Paul Gottsen wasn’t like that, or so it seemed. Instead he became a hermit and disappeared from public view. There were many people that wanted him to complete the set of seven novels, but there were others who didn’t want another book they disliked as much as Stolen Rain.

  Naked Man with a Bible, which is the subject of this project, was written about four men hunting rabbits in a small woodlot outside London, Ontario.