John Swinburn

The most difficult experiences take place at the intersection of acknowledging one’s most egregious imperfections and accepting one’s inadequacies to overcome them. Those are the points at which one asks whether arguments in favor of continuing to live have any merit. Those are the events that lure doubt out from its hidden places and thrust it into the blinding light of reality. Somewhere along the finite span of one’s life, questions inevitably arise as to one’s value in the universe. Sarah Keeling’s first questions arose when she was in high school. The questions grew loud and impossible to ignore during her first year in college. The answers came in bits and pieces; always disappointing, but never sufficiently clear to warrant snuffing out her life.

Later, though, the answers appeared in books, in magazines, in the scrolling words on the bottom of the newscast screen. The answer that emerged from her confrontation with Liz Peppersmith was the deepest one, the one with the most potential to do good or harm. That ugly interaction made her head throb. She realized, after losing the argument with Liz, that she had always been afraid of being caught telling the truth about things that mattered more than the lies that spawned them.

The morning before Daddy-o Compton died was simply spectacular; there’s no other word for it. Brilliant sunlight reflected off of everything it touched. Even the weathered grey siding of the abandoned First Baptist Church, carrying a hundred years of dirt and grit and abject neglect, shone like a brand new car under theatrical lights. I’m not one to exaggerate. I tell you, the gleam of that morning was beyond measure. It was like the air had been scrubbed clean, cleaner than pure Rocky Mountain air after a cleansing rain. There was no dust, no pollen, nothing to block the sunlight. And it was like the sun was ten times brighter than it had ever been. But not so bright that it hurt your eyes. Just good bright. Happy bright. The kind of bright that lifts your spirits and makes you glad to be alive.

I wasn’t the only one to notice the day was different. I mean, you just couldn’t help it. People came out their houses and just stared at everything around them, as if they were seeing the world for the first time. Everything was clearer, like a grey film you didn’t know you’d been living with your whole life had suddenly been lifted from your eyes. Oh my god, that was a day I’ll never forget.

Daddy-o Compton recited some poems from the gazebo on the town square later that morning. I don’t remember any of them word-for-word, but I recall the theme and the title of one: “A New Perspective.” Some folks sat on the lawn and listened to him, but most of ’em just shook their heads as they walked by, ’cause most people don’t get poetry, you know?

Some people were scared. They thought something was wrong, that dazzling light just wasn’t natural. I guess you’d have to admit they were right.

You know why I wasn’t scared? All the dogs seemed cool. They didn’t bark, didn’t growl. Nothing. I mean, they seemed curious about the differences around them, but they weren’t scared. And when a dog’s not scared, there’s no reason for me to be afraid, you know?

But, the next morning, when the dogs began to snarl, that’s when I got uptight. And then, when Daddy-o Compton was found hanged in the gazebo, things got ugly. Not just for me. For everybody. It was like the spectacular morning the day before had brought with it some really bad shit. That morning, a couple of hours after they found Daddy-o, was the first time I’d ever got drunk before noon. I finished off a half-bottle of Scotch, pouring it in milk to cut the sharpness. It wasn’t bad at all. But, man, was I drunk by the time it was gone. That was the very first time. Did I already tell you that?

Mindy woke me up around four that afternoon. She said she knocked on the door for five minutes before she made a hole in the window with a screwdriver, forcing the lock open just enough to clear the catch. From there, she was able to slide the window up, crawl across the desk, and walk the few steps to my bed. Any other day, she would have climbed under the covers and played around with my privates until I woke up. But that day, she shook me by the shoulders until I emerged from that Scotch-and-milk-induced stupor.

“Damn it, wake up! There’s something going on! Get up!”

Once I come out of it, I’m pretty damn sharp. So I was absolutely coherent by the time I got up and out of bed. “What’s wrong, Mindy?”

“The brightness. It’s gone.”

“Yeah, Daddy-o getting hanged ruined the day; made the brightness disappear.”

“Uh huh, but it’s worse now than it was before. I mean before the brightness. Look outside.”

I pulled back the curtains and looked outside. Sure enough, even though there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, everything looked dull. The sky wasn’t bright blue the way it is after a rain cleanses the air. It was more white with a blue tint, like a white computer screen. I mean, it didn’t look horrible; more like the way the air looks when there’s a haze in the air. But there wasn’t a haze; you could see things way off in the distance the way you can’t when it’s hazy.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking there was some kind of science fiction thing going on. Or that it was weather. Or maybe some kind of mass hysteria. I don’t think it was any of those things. But maybe it was. I guess you’ll just have to figure it out for yourself. I would have asked Daddy-o Compton, but he’s dead.

What you might not know is that I’m Daddy-o Compton. That’s what makes this story so damn hard to tell.  Because I know how he came to be hanged in the gazebo. The thing I can’t explain is how I, Daddy-o Compton, was able to hear about my own death and, at the same time, experience all the stuff that’s happened since. I guess it could all be in my head, but if that’s true, how is it that all those other people were spellbound by that incredibly bright and uplifting day?

I was twenty-eight years old then. Now, I’m twice that and then some. But I remember it like it was yesterday.

[Subject to radical revision or outright rejection before Part 2, which may come about before the end of time.]

Rain stuttered, off and on, through a heavy mist as the remnants of a cold front pushed through. Regular classes did not meet on Saturdays, so the parking lot, hidden among a thick clot of pine trees, was almost empty. Registrants for the cheese-making class, hosted by the school’s adult continuing education department, had the parking area to themselves. The few cars, clustered near the entrance to the hospitality and hotel management building campus, belonged to them and the instructor.

Phaedra Lipscott steered her ancient yellow Triumph TR7 around a deep puddle and parked next to a new Cadillac SUV. She barely cracked the door open, raised her arm just above the top of the car, and punched the button with her thumb. The umbrella popped open like an inverted red flower and Phaedra swung the door open. Her purse held close to her chest, she sprinted toward the front of the building, where she spied the hand-lettered sign: “Introduction to Cheese-Making, Teaching Kitchen 4.” An arrow pointed toward a hallway. She walked in the direction of the arrow, winding around the convoluted labyrinth until she saw the open door and the only illuminated classroom.

The class had begun by the time she slinked through the door, but the buzz of voices and the fact that people were shifting in their seats suggested to Phaedra that it had started only moments earlier. She slipped around the perimeter of the classroom, and found an empty seat near the front. Just as she adjusted herself in the seat, the instructor spoke.

“Okay, why don’t you all come on up and gather around the work table. Be careful not to knock into the table; the legs are a little unstable.”

Students rose from their seats and drifted forward, clogging the space around the work table where water boiled in large pots on a portable electric burner.

Brevity Jones shrank back, almost imperceptibly,  from his students as they edged a little closer, hoping to get a look inside the kettle.  Phaedra noticed his retreat from the cluster of retirement-aged couples, dotted with a few younger pairs and a few loners.  She saw something in the way his eyelids fluttered slightly as the crowd inched closer that told her he was not a people person.

“All right,” Jones began, “I’ve already poured a gallon of whole milk, the stuff you buy in the grocery store, into the top of the double boiler and turned the heat to high. The reason you want to use a double boiler instead of heating the vessel directly on the burner is that you want to avoid scorching the milk, which would ruin the batch of cheese you’re trying to make. I’ll heat the milk until it reaches one hundred eighty-five degrees, which I’ll measure with the immersion thermometer attached to the side of the kettle.”

Jones paused and watched the crowd peer intently at the white liquid in the stainless steel container.

“While the milk is heating, I’ll gather up the rest of my ingredients and utensils. We’ll need about a teaspoon of salt, about four tablespoons of white vinegar, and a teaspoon of citric acid. In place of the vinegar, you could use lemon juice.”

Phaedra maneuvered closer to Jones, sliding around a young couple she figured were newly weds. They looked to her like they were going through the bonding process that takes place early in relationships, that period of excitement during which couples seek out opportunities to enjoy new experiences together.

Jones backed away from the table on which he was heating the milk.  His eyelids fluttered during a pause before he continued with what seemed to Phadrea a well-practiced patter of instructions.

“Now, in addition to the double boiler and thermometer, you’ll want a large strainer or colander and a bucket to put under it, a slotted spoon, and enough cheesecloth to make a double layer in the strainer.

“Okay, while the milk begins heating, you’ll measure the citric acid and add it to the warming milk,” he continued, as he poured citric acid from a small container into his hand, and then sprinkled it into the double boiler.

Jones scanned the students gathered around him, as if gaging whether they understood his instructions. When his eyes met Phaedra’s, she took advantage of the opportunity to capture his attention.

“I noticed you haven’t used a measuring spoon for the salt or the citric acid. How precise do the measurements need to be?”

“Well, I’m pretty good at estimating how much I’m putting in, but the answer is that you don’t need to be terribly precise. Initially, though, I suggest you follow the recipe I’ve included in the handout materials and be reasonably precise with your measurements. Once you’ve made a few batches of ricotta, you can experiment.”

***

For Brevity Jones, the excruciating pace of the day exacerbated his discomfort with his students. This, he thought, was a group of people made up, predominately, of geezers looking for something to occupy their time while waiting for death.

His students, though, seemed to find Brevity’s teaching style fascinating. They followed every word, their eyes following him as he paced back and forth in front of them as he explained the distinction between curd and whey, the concepts of coagulation and curdling, and the differences between, and applications of, cheesecloth and muslin in cheese-making.

***

Phaedra thought Brevity looked worn and mentally exhausted as the last few students finally offered their thanks for his instruction during the day and shuffled out of the room. She had stayed, though she wasn’t sure just why.

“Can I help you pack up your stuff?” Phaedra smiled at him, trying her best to mold her mannerisms to maximize “friendly” and minimize “seductive.” The latter was hard, though. She increasingly had become  interested in Brevity during the course of the day. By the time the workshop was over, her skin was slick with moisture that showed through the thin t-shirt she wore beneath the down jacket she had removed earlier in the day.

Brevity seemed flustered by Phaedra’s offer.

“Uhh. Um. I think I’m good,” he said, as his eyelashes fluttered. “I know where to pack everything so I can find it again. But thanks.” He made an involuntary step backward as Phaedra drew near.

“Yeah, I understand that. But if you need any help, anything at all, I’m happy to oblige.” Her broad smile was, at once, genuinely casual and friendly but seductive and dangerous. Brevity didn’t seem to pick up on Phaedra’s suggestion.

Phaedra decided to be a little more direct.

“Have you ever had sex in a Triumph TR7?”

Brevity’s response surprised her.

“A yellow one?”

[Like so many others, to be continued…or not. Just another spark, triggered by an innocuous recent experience. Sadly, the question about sex in the Triumph was not part of the triggering incident.]

“

The scent of sandalwood confronted me the instant I opened the door of the dim temple— just a tiny room with a low ceiling, really—in Gander’s modest bungalow. The aroma was faint, as if just a memory, but clear. There, in this sacred private pocket of the house, where he meditated and where he pondered over the pains of this world, I sensed the latent aromatic essence of my friend. The room was but eight feet square; it would have been a cube, were it not for the low ceiling, only slightly more than six feet above the floor. Across from the doorway, affixed to the wall, were three small teacup-sized semi-circular metal shelves lined up with six inches between them, forming a mantel of sorts. Upon each shelf sat a small cone of unburned incense and on the cream-colored wall behind each one of them, a hazy grey halo, smoky discoloration from years of burning candles. An old straight-backed wooden chair, worn dark and smooth by years of use, faced the trio of circular smudges.

Gander’s temple served as his refuge from the world for almost ten years. After his wife, Marlisa, left him on their twenty-second anniversary, Gander retreated into himself. Her unexpected departure went largely unexplained; she told him she simply needed to be by herself and could not envision ever returning to him. She withdrew half of their joint savings, about ninety-six thousand dollars, and left that same day, taking with her only a few pieces of clothing and toiletries. She drove away in their 1996 Honda Accord wagon, the car whose title had been changed six months earlier so it was solely in her name.

Though a man who prided himself on being in touch with himself and with the people he chose to have around him, Gander’s  sudden bachelorhood blindsided him. I should have known the depths of his despair, but maybe I didn’t pay sufficient attention to his moods.

As I looked at the walls of Gander’s private retreat, I remembered the times he and I sat there, talking. As far as I know, I was the only one he ever invited into his temple. Our visits there had no religious overtones; we simply talked about how we felt and how the world looked to us and what we wished for humankind. The conversations were spiritual, I suppose, but not in a sense most people would understand. When we talked, he sat in the chair and I sat against the wall, on a cushion.

I studied the room, remembering our last conversation. While I thought about the words he spoke to me, my eyes slowly scanned the walls and the floor. Two red cushions lay on the grey slate floor beside the chair and, next to them, a stack of dog-eared books on meditation and healing. I spied a red ring on the floor, where the wine I sloshed in my glass had spilled and made a circle around the base of my glass.

I guess I was Gander’s only real friend, after Marlisa left him. Her leaving was a wound from which, it turned out, he was unable to heal. His suicide made me realize Gander was my only real friend, too.