SHALLOW CREEK

DAVE DANVERS’ LAST FORAY INTO ALL THINGS WOO WOO-2

smiletightly“Thanks, but no. I want to get started,” I gestured vaguely to the town square. “The weather’s looking none too promising.”

“Oh, the weather here is always promising,” Mal said. “The question is; will it deliver on that promise?” He turned to the ratty guy now stood beside him, the Look on Ratty too and a damn sight tighter than Mal. I offered my hand. He didn’t.

I got to the point. “Mr. Mal, I’m not sure I fully understand what you want. I mean, I know you want a story, a yarn to put the Creek back on the radar, but I could have written it back in New York.”

storyHe placed his hand on my shoulder, “It’s not about what I—we—want, it’s about what you want. The story you want, need, can only be written here. In the mountains, at Devil’s Gorge.”

youI nodded. Mal was as crazy as the clown. He removed his hand and turned to Ratty. “Allow me to introduce your guide, Barney Slyvester. Mr Slyvester will take you into the mountains.”

I gave Barney a little wave and he tipped his head, almost imperceptibly.

“In this town,” Mal continued, “Mr Slyvester is the wellspring of all knowledge. His family have presided over the junkyard for generations beyond recall. Eventually, all things come their way. We have much in common, Mr S and I. We both deal in used things. We are on the same retail continuum, you might say.”

used“Uh-huh,” I said sagely, looking around, checking out the shrunken heads, sundry two-headed beasts.

Barney said, “Best be off, Mr Danvers.”

“Dave,” I said.

Barney picked up a worn canvas haversack. “If’n you wanna be back ‘fore dark, Dave.”

Dave“Sounds good, Barn.”

Barn“Oh, Mr Danvers,” Mal said softly. “Before you go, I’d like to give you a gift.” He pressed something wrapped loosely in brown paper into my hand. “A token of my gratitude.”

Before I could utter a reply he’d ushered us firmly out into the street, the door already closing. I slipped the small package into one of my jacket pockets and followed my guide northwards across the square. More folks, more tight smiles.

Hey, Dave. Keep it real.

Hey, Dave. Keep it real.‘Appreciate what you’re doing, Mr Danvers.

‘Appreciate what you’re doing, Mr Danvers.You’re the coolest, man.

You’re the coolest, man.I looked up at the mountains. What the hell was supposed to happen up there? What was my role in all this? Gotta be some kind of a show, laid on for little old me. Krinkles, Mal, Barney, all from central casting. Gotta be. I couldn’t understand the smiling, though. Didn’t fit the dark tourism profile. I caught up with Barney.

“What’s the joke, Barn?”

“Suh?”

“What’s everybody smiling about? Are you all laughing at me?”

meBarney stopped and faced me, his face as grim as one could be while smiling. Said, “This smilin’ business ain’t no laughin’ matter. No, suh. We got to smile. We got to ‘ccommodate it. Though, we don’t have to smile all the time. Gotta strict rota. I got a day off tomorrow. Thank the lord.”

all“Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”

“Pleasure,” Barney muttered, striding off.

Less than a minute later we were climbing into a blue dinghy tied alongside a concrete jetty beneath a groaning bridge. The dinghy had seen better days, but its outboard motor looked fairly new. I plonked myself on the centre thwart while Barney sat by the tiller. He untied the mooring ropes and the dinghy slowly slipped out into the river. Barney let us drift for a few seconds before firing the engine. We manoeuvred into the centre and sped down stream.

“How’s the junk business, Barn?” I shouted over the whine of the outboard.

Barney studied me. I had the feeling he was weighing me up, judging me to see if I passed muster. After all, according to Mal, he was the local fount of all knowledge. Before answering he pulled out a small tin and extracted a plug of chewing tobacco, shoved it in his mouth between his lower lip and muddy teeth, and let it soak.

“Junk’s a funny thing,” he started. “People is kinda junk, you know. If’n you stay alive long enough. We all fall apart. But some folks, they want to become junk before their time. Like they wanna fresh start. They wanna be broke, dismantled, taken apart. Some say, if’n it ain’t broke don’t fix it. I say, if it ain’t broke, maybe you should break it … maybe that’s where the fixin’ starts … when the real healin’ process begins … you know, searchin’ for your authentic face, your real self … the thing itself.” He spat rusty saliva into the river and steered us starboard, up a feeder tributary.

fixin’authenticthingWe were headed north again, into the mountains proper. I wondered what Barney meant about a need to be broken. It sounded like creepy martyr-type s**t to me. Not my cup of coffee, no sir. Maybe Barney was intimidated by Mal, and out here on the river and far away from him, he felt safe and free to let it all out. Whatever the hell it was. Man, could he yabber.

it“Take yourself, Dave,” he resumed. “If’n you don’t mind me sayin’, you need fixin’. Yep, let yo’sel’ fall apart, let yo’sel’ become fractured, let your psyche shatter. Create a li’l space there for the real you to emerge. And Dave, trust me, a joke’s a good place to start. Maybe have yo’sel’ a little laugh. Maybe not stop laughin’ until they take you away. It’s why folks is fascinated with junk. We all on the way to being junk. All depen’ how you wanna take yo’sel’ apart. Personally, I like the idea of laughin’ until I ain’t fit to do nothin’ else. That’s the best way to get broke, screamin’ and heavin’ until you’s fit to pop. Laugh yo’sel’ into the junk yard. That’s what I say.”

youpsyche“Uh-huh I said, taking a deep breath. “Barney?”

“Yep, Dave.”

“Like, where the f**k are we going?”

“Gertrude.”

“Gertrude?”

“Yeah. Didn’t Mal tell you? Gertrude’s gonna be your, um, shaman, I guess. Hold your han’ while you ride the smile. Can’t do it without Gertrude. Too dangerous.”

shamanShaman? Boy, gotta give it them. They sure were pulling out all the stops.

ShamanThe tributary narrowed. Thankfully, Barney knew what he was doing, like he’d done it a thousand times before. The dense forest on each river bank gave way to sparser terrain as we moved higher into the mountains. Eventually, low-slung wooden pilings appeared around one tight meander. Barney tied the boat up and we stepped out onto a shaky jetty.

“Gertrude’s hut’s up there,” he said. “It’s a climb, for sure. We better get goin’, if we’re goin’ to make the Gorge.”

I followed him up the narrow track. He was fitter than he looked and I found it hard to keep up. Every so often he stopped and sniffed the air. “What are you doing?” I asked.

“Checkin’ for snow.”

“You can smell snow?”

smell“Oh, yeah. Different weathers different smells. Like a calling card.”

“And what does snow smell like?”

Barney looked at me like I was stupid. “It smells of white.”

Was he yanking my chain, or did he actually have synaesthesia. If so, I hoped to hell it wouldn’t affect his navigational skills. Anyway, I didn’t pursue it. I was lost for breath.

Apropos of nothing, Barney said, “Yeah, you in good company up here, Dave. The best, really. Back in the day, they all used to come here. Just to see how funny they really was, just to see if they really did have them bones, you know, the funny ones. They all wanted to ride the smile, ride the laugh. Stan Laurel, he came here in ‘23. Rode the smile. Easy-peasy, a born natural, Stanley. Took the whole smile and some laughin’ too. A few months later, he got his big break. I reckon Mr Hardy coulda rode the smile too. But Stan said he couldn’t get him off the golf course. Didn’t matter, Stan was riding the smile for the two of ‘em. We had a coupla easy years after that, in Shallow Creek. We didn’t have to grin so stupid all the time. Stan had bought us those years. Chaplin, he came too. And Keaton and Lloyd, all those guys. Last big star we had here was John Candy back in ‘82. He took to the smile like a duck to water. Had the whole world at his feet, did John. But he didn’t look after himself and fate did the rest. I miss him. I miss the films he never made.”

Barney sucked in a final sniff and pushed on. We emerged from the forest, beyond the snow line, boots crunching crisply. The mountain eventually levelled out and on a wide ledge, attached like a limpet, clung an oddly constructed wooden shack, as if it were organic, having grown from the ground. Its precarious tenure on the mountainside secured not through firm foundations, but biotic roots plunging deep into the earth. It reminded me of snail stuck to the side of a leaf, always there, defying all logic and gravity.

“Funny, ain’t it?” Barney said.

“Who built it?”

“Accordin’ to Gertrude, Gertrude.”

As we closed on the snail-hut, I noticed a tiny garden. Flowers of all cast and colour sprouted from it like explosions. They should not be here, in this soil, on this mountain. Gotta be fake. Gotta be.

We reached the garden and I tugged on a petal, expecting it to remain fixed to the plant on account of it being a fake, but it pulled off like a regular petal. I sniffed it. A regular petal it was.

Barney caught my surprise. “I know. Beats the hell outa me too.”

“Shouldn’t be a thing,” I said. “Not at this height.”

“Yep,” said Barney, spitting out a great gob of baccy, careful not to hit the plants. “She’s a witch, you know. So maybe that ‘splains it.”

Again, I studied Barney for signs of mockery. Again, nothing. “A witch, you say.”

“I do,” he said, knocking on the oval-shaped hobbit door.

Yowza. If this was a show put on for the purpose of my edification, someone had gone to a lot of trouble. Mal, probably. But that urbane Englishman didn’t seem the right fit to launch something this peculiar, especially at this altitude.

wasthisThe door, if indeed that was the right word, opened inwards. Inside the hut smelled of m*******a and … something else I couldn’t place. Sour, but pleasant, a counter to the scent of hash. Barney leading, we stepped inside. It was gloomy yet cosy, lit entirely by candles and old-school hurricane lamps. There was no fire, but it was warm, and the uneven floor was covered with expensive-looking rugs. A woman pushed through some hanging blankets, two skittish dogs following close behind. Sixties, medium height, long dark hair framing her oval face. Despite her age—or maybe because of it—she was beautiful. Objectively, that is. There was no need for subjective-eye-of-the-beholder malarkey. Not here. No, sir.