Suicide is, but what is suicide? Let me tell you. I will show you.

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—

Standing on the street corner in the comfort of morning was much different than witnessing all those unsavory peas tumbling out of that pod around midnight. The front door that bursted open with people spilling out was closed tight. No one peeped. Paint peeled freely and windows looking in were permanently smudged. What seemed sprawling in darkness now looked small and worn out by the light of day. A sign hung over the door that read:

Peas in a Pod Inn

below which was a pod brimming with happy faded peas, below which read:

F. Guerre, Proprietor
Collector of Taxes and Tolls
Undertaker

Having made it this far I stood at the door of the Peas in a Pod Inn not quite knowing what I should do next. All the instructions said was to get here hurriedly and then to learn and then maybe, though not necessarily, I would earn my Hospitality Merit Badge.

Well, I said to myself after a long pause, I guess there’s nothing left but to go in. I reached out to pull back the heavy wooden door when I heard a commotion behind me. I turned to spy a stout figure at the curb across the street close to where I visited the Army-Navy Surplus Store. The figure wore a short woolen coat that barely covered his wide body. Atop his broad head was a little black beret and around his thick neck was a black scarf tied not neatly in the manner of a scout neckerchief but wrapped gaily and jauntily. His wide body was matched by a wide gulping mouth with no lips to speak of. He was of a greenish hue. Not a sickly green. More like a healthy green, probably just the same as the sign above the door of the inn when once freshly painted. His wide body tapered to two powerful back legs. Plump and powerful were the words that sprang to mind. At that particular moment he also looked tentative and the commotion was certainly not coming from the man I spied. It was coming from the street itself.

Every time I visited the Army-Navy Surplus Store the street was empty. This was an abandoned part of an abandoning town. I can’t even remember seeing any cars on any visits, not that I was looking for them to notice one way or another. This morning was different and what I noticed now was a rush of cars and buses and tractors and motorcycles racing up and down the street so there was almost no space between them. The anxious man looked back and forth and forth and back and then he made a tentative hop into the street only to immediately hop back to the curb barely being missed by an ice cream truck barreling down the road blaring ice cream music at high speed.

What followed was an excruciating scene in which the gentleman hopped into the street and dodged a car and hopped to one side and up and then back to avoid yet another ice cream truck!? and then forward to avoid a station wagon towing a camper towing a motorboat and up and back and side to side he hopped always avoiding getting hit but just by a whisker and all of my hopes were placed in this man to make it to this side of the street and at times it didn’t look promising. I wanted to yell out with encouragement so he would know someone was rooting for him but I thought that might distract him so I clenched my teeth and my knuckles turned white as I watched and waited. No one stopped or even slowed down. They just sped on. It didn’t seem like they were trying to hit him but it didn’t seem like they weren’t trying to hit him either. Fire trucks. Ambulances. A convoy of buses. A literal clown car. I didn’t know our town had this many vehicles of such variety.

The gentleman was almost to this side of the street when the most curious thing happened. He paused for the briefest of moments as if distracted when how could you get distracted like that under these harrowing circumstances but in that sliver of time his head tracked round and round and in a flash a thick tongue darted out to snatch something in the air and back in went the thick sticky tongue and immediately the gentlemen resumed his dodging of traffic. He was just a few feet from getting to this side of the street when the biggest semitractortrailorbigrigloggingtruck I had ever seen came roaring down the road heading straight for him, but I believe the gentleman was now in the zone and with a mighty hop he landed on this side of the street right in front me.

He looked at me and blinked.

I’m so glad you’re okay, I said. I watched you cross the street. That was really dangerous.

I appreciate your concern young master, he said. It’s like that every morning. The street is empty and all is quiet until I step to the curb. Then out of nowhere traffic explodes. I don’t know where they all comes from or where they go. It’s like they’re just waiting for me.

The gentlemen brushed the dust of the road from his short coat and returned his scarf to its former gayness and jauntiness.

Now look, said the gentlemen while pointing to the street. They’re all gone. Disappeared. Vanished. It’s a mystery I have yet to solve.

I looked to see for myself and sure enough the street was completely empty. Deserted. Barren where it overflowed only a moment ago. I could not explain it either.

In any case, said the gentlemen, I appreciate your concern. I don’t believe I’ve seen you in this part of town before. Do you have business to attend to in our fair corner of the world?

I’ve been down here many times but mainly going to the Army-Navy Surplus Store for gear to trek and camp and explore. Today I’ve come to the Peas in a Pod Inn instead and I guess I do have business to attend to.

What might that be?, inquired the gentleman.

Well, you see, I said, I am a boy who scouts and I need to learn about Hospitality. It’s for a merit badge. The Hospitality Merit Badge. But I don’t really know what I’m supposed to learn. All it says in my, um, Handbook is to go to a hotel or motel or inn and find out. I’m not even sure I’m doing this right. Do you know anything about Hospitality? Can you help me? At least to tell me what I should be doing?

Ah, so you are part of Troop 41 that meets up at the old Yule Log? Too much moose meat if you ask me, Mr. Guerre added. But then again nobody asked me.

This put me in a bind. Not the part about moose meat. I did not have an opinion on that matter one way or another. But what should I say about Troop 41? It was the only scout troop in town so to say No would make no sense since I just said that I’m a scout who is a boy. The question was honest and friendly and more conversational than suspicious. It wasn’t meant to trick or trap me. But I didn’t quite know how to answer so I quickly scanned the Scout Laws in my mind’s eye to see what my options were. I got to the very first law that reads, A Scout is Trustworthy. A Scout tells the truth. Dang it!

Yes, sir, I said, but No sir. I was part of Troop 41 for a while, sort of. But not any longer. It just wasn’t for me and I don’t think I was really for them either. Now I kind of scout on my own. I think of it as solitary scouting.

The gentleman looked on me kindly.

Solitary scouting, he repeated as if mulling it over in his wide mind. So you scout on your own and you are here to learn about Hospitality?

Yes, sir.

Well then perhaps I can be of assistance, said the gentleman, for you see I am Mr. Guerre. F. Guerre. Owner-Operator of the Peas in a Pod Inn. Undertaker and Taker of Taxes and Tolls, he added.

What good fortune!, I cried. So you know all about Hospitality?

Alas, I do, said Mr. Guerre goodnaturedly as if this was his particular cross to bear. Won’t you come inside. Let’s have a glass of cold milk and we can talk. Milk is good for the digestion, wouldn’t you agree?, asked Mr. Guerre as he produced an ornate skeleton key from the pocket of his short coat and inserted it into the keyhole of the wooden door also painted in the color of faded green. The key turned and a heavy bolt slid back. Mr. Guerre returned the key to the front pocket of his short woolen coat. Then with a grand gesture he pulled back the door and ushered me inside.

Bienvenue, he declared. Welcome to the Peas in a Pod Inn.

Thank you, I said. It’s lovely.

It was not lovely. It was a single room that was dark and somewhat dank. The great hearth on the right side of the very small big room, or very big small room, was cold and gray and the long tables and benches before it were in disarray from a night of obvious revelry. Opposite the hearth was a heavy wooden bar with bar stools and spigots for draughts to flow from and a long mirror that seemed to reflect the room through a dirty glass. I imagined that late into the evening when the fire is roaring and the room swims in beer the inn truly comes to life but at the moment it was a little depressing.

At the back of the room was a staircase that led up to a balcony overlooking the hall below. At back of the balcony were four doors painted in the same faded color of green. Underneath were three neat stacks, one of casks, another of kegs, the last of coffins.

Mr. Guerre proceeded to go behind the bar in the most unusual manner. He did not walk in a straight line so much as he hopped forward a little and then he would hop to one side as if having a thought that pulled him that way and then he would hop to the other side to correct that thought to balance things out. Then, almost in spite of himself, he would hop back and then forward again in two hops and then side-to-side and in this manner he finally reached the behind of the bar.

Belly up, said Mr. Guerre, as he set down two tall glasses and I thought this phrase was funny because he’s the one with the big green belly sticking out of his short coat. Nevertheless I bellied up and perched myself on a bar stool facing Mr. Guerre.

Mr. Guerre poured milk into one glass with greatest care I had ever seen anything ever poured and then he poured milk into the other glass with equally great care. As we drank the milk he observed me with his somewhat bulging eyes and I don’t mean that rudely. They simply bulged and they looked both straight ahead and sideways and maybe that’s why he was so good at seeing traffic coming at him from both ways and in general those eyes seemed perfectly in place for Mr. Guerre.

Milk is good for the digestion, he repeated as he drained the last drop. I followed suit.

Now, let me see if I have this right. You are trying to earn your Hospitality Merit Badge, is that correct?

Yes, sir.

And you were told by your, um, Handbook to go to a hotel or motel or inn to find out more.

I nodded and added that it was specifically to go to a Holiday Inn but we don’t have one of those in town so I made a substitution hoping it would be okay.

I believe it will be just fine, Mr. Guerre assured. And that’s all you know?

That’s all I know.

Mon dieu!, said Mr. Guerre. Where to begin?

Oh!, I exclaimed. And it said that Hospitality is both ancient and a law. Actually, it says that Hospitality is an ancient law that is both ancient and a law. Does that help?

That did it. The room brightened for a moment and then returned to gloom but now Mr. Guerre was filled with clarity.

So you were a part of Troop 41, but now you’re not.

Yes, sir, I said.

Now you scout on your own. Out in our deep forest and up into the mountains, I presume.

I gulped. Yes, sir.

And you want to learn Hospitality?

Yes, I need to earn the Hospitality Merit Badge. But I don’t know how? Usually there are detailed instructions and a checklist and illustrations that show as well as tell in a manner that is both scribbled and really life-like, like in that Ah-Ha video.

Take On Me!?, exclaimed Mr. Guerre. I love that song! And in a deep, ribbity voice he belted out a few lines that broke decisively when called upon to hit that outrageously high note and he chuckled and was having so much fun.

Everybody loves to sing that song, he reminisced, and everyone thinks, I’m going to be the one to hit that high note, and everybody breaks and everybody loves it when they’re broken. What a good song! If you could capture in a bottle all of those broken notes and swirl them around and mix them together so they all sing against and for each other in a harmonized cacophony of notes broken and bounded together and then you uncork the bottle and pour them all out to wash over the world I think you could heal it, wouldn’t you agree?

I did not know how to answer that.

The acoustic version sung a lifetime later is the fitting other bookend, added Mr. Guerre, don’t you think? But I digress.

Mr. Guerre turned the empty glass of milk round and round a few times in his mildly webbed hand while he considered the question at hand.

So you are here to learn Hospitality. But not hospitality in the sense of check-in times and continental breakfasts and turn-down service and wake-up calls. You are here to learn Hospitality that is both ancient and a law? Mr. Guerre looked at me with his bulging eyes that had a real warmth to them.

Yes sir, I said.

Then we need another glass of milk!

How much milk does this man drink in the morning?

Another round of milk was poured with the same greatest of care and together we drank it down.

After the second tall glass of cold milk I didn’t feel so good. I had been living off of mountain water from the babbling brook for ages. The rich milk was too much of both richness and milkness to handle. But I wanted to be polite and not refuse him.

With the second glass of cold milk dispatched with Mr. Guerre settled in.

Hospitality, he announced, so we were definitely on the same page.

I straightened up, ready to learn.

Today, said Mr. Guerre, hospitality is an industry and the Peas in a Pod Inn is no exception. Traveling people far away from home still need meat and bread and beer and I serve it to them. People who journey this way and that need a room for the night. Right this way, is my reply. In return, people give me money. A set price. One in exchange for the other. A simple bargain. When there were hotels and motels in town if the Peas in a Pod Inn wasn’t to your liking you went elsewhere. If your purse was light and they were too expensive you probably ended up here. Hospitality is, in short, a business that sorts itself out accordingly.

Hospitality in this manner is not exactly new, of course. Hospitality has been a business and an indispensable one for eons. But the root of Hospitality, what runs far deeper into the world, is truly both ancient and a law. In fact, Hospitality was once sacred. Hospitality was a ritual to be observed with great care. To learn this particular Hospitality let me tell you a story three times over.

I was writing this all down in my head so I could read it back to myself that evening at my desk by the single flame of my kerosene lamp.

* * *

There once was a monster of a man. His body was monstrous in the very manner of a monster and yet there was a mildness to this monster for being a monster in his monstrously mild heart of hearts. The man who was a monster wandered through the forest looking for shelter. He is not hungry and yet he hungers. He kills what he eats and he eats what he kills. Foxes. Wolves. Bears. He is a monster after all. His yearning is for warmth and comfort and companionship.

In a clearing he spies a cottage. The master and his wife are away but the elderly father, blinded by time, sits by the hearth on this cold morning.

The monster knocks and the old man finds his way to the door.

Who is it?, he asks.

I am merely a traveler looking for rest and warmth.

Then come in, says the old man, opening the door. My son and his wife are away so that leaves me to host you in our humble abode.

The monster enters the cottage. It is small but neatly appointed and tended to.

Won’t you wash up in the basin. There is hot water on the stove to chase away the chill.

The monster tilts the kettle and steaming water flows into the basin. With cupped hands he lifts water to his face, rubbing his eyes and forehead and mouth and nose. He repeats this act several times and lets out a heavy sigh of relief.

The old man looks up, pleased at the sound of it.

Now, come sit by the fire. Join me for a cup of strong black teas swimming in sugar and a healthy slice of fresh baked bread with a pat of butter. Hopefully this refreshes you even more.

Thank you, said the monster. Your generosity touches me deeply.

The pleasure is mine.

Both men sipped hot tea while the monster took a bite from the thick slice of fresh bread with a hunk of melting butter on it. What a simple joy and comfort, he thought to himself.

We don’t get many guests passing through and a little conversation will be a nice change of pace. I am blind and sit by the fire most days. I cannot work in the field or feed the animals or repair the cottage that I built with these very hands. Now I sit here and watch all that has passed by in my mind’s eye. I see my lovely wife who is now buried under the big elm tree. I recall a daughter growing up to be a beauty who now lives in a town far away with her own family. My son is a good man and his wife reminds me of my own. But I feel I am no use to them anymore. So I sit here simply remembering.

The monster listened intently. He sat in one rocking chair by the fire while the old man rocked slowly in the other. The old man continued on with pictures of his life. Sometimes he painted them for the monster. Other times it seemed he forgot anyone was there and simply painted for himself as he did on so many days before. The monster was enthralled listening to the old man and the life he had led. The journey did not go far and wide but it had been complete and fulfilling and the monster celebrated for him and envied him at the same time.

Finally the old man caught himself and apologized.

Dear me, he said. I have been going on forever with my boring life. Most of it was spent here or within a day’s journey at most with very little adventure. From the sound of your voice you come from far away. I can’t quite place the accent but you are obviously well-traveled. Won’t you tell me a little about yourself and a world I will never see? And let’s have another cup of tea, shall we? And another slice of bread with butter!, the old man added with a touch of mischief. My son’s wife will be cross with me. She just baked the loaf this morning and we might just about finish it off. But this is not a usual day. We have a guest so there is every reason to be lavish.

The monster was taken aback by the old man’s warmth and his interest in the life of the monster. No one had ever wondered about his travels or where he came from. The monster didn’t even know how to describe how he came to be what he is and he feared revealing to the old man who was blind what he really was so that the monster despaired and raged at the very sight of himself. He stuttered and mumbled, not sure where to begin.

Just then a cart pulled up to the front of the cottage.

Ah, that must be my son and his wife returning, said the old man.

The monster and the man stood to greet them. The monster was anxious on account of being a monster. Please introduce me and let them know we have been talking amiably, said the monster. I don’t want them to think some kind of monster has invaded your home and holds you captive.

The old man chuckled. There’s no chance of that, I assure you. I know they will welcome you just as I have. Under this roof you are the guest of our entire household and now we all shall be your host.

The door opened. The man and his wife entered. The wife shrieked upon seeing the monster in his monstrousness standing over the old man. The man charged at the monster to tear his father away.

While the man beat the monster with his fists the wife grabbed a butcher knife and slashed at the monster slicing him open. The monster cried out as he fell to the floor. The man grabbed a hot iron from the fire and seared the monster with it. The wife raced outside and returned with a pitchfork that pierced the monster over and over.

Amid blind chaos all around the old man kept repeating, What’s happening? What is happening? Won’t someone please tell me.

Finally, the monster bursted out from his attackers and fled into the woods while the man and his wife breathed heavy and the old man looked on.

And that, said Mr. Guerre, is the end of this story. Now tell me, young scout, Where is the Hospitality in it?

I listened to Mr. Guerre’s story intently. The fact that a monster visited a cottage in the woods and the fact that an old blind man was there to greet him was both odd and fascinating. I didn’t want to miss anything and I was also trying to find a way to figure out what he was truly saying.

Well, I said, the where is a good question. Hospitality does not begin in a hotel or motel where you check in. That much you already said. I am just repeating that part back to you.

Where does Hospitality begin then?

Hospitality begins in your home and at the hearth. Actually, Hospitality in the story began at the front door when the monster who is traveling and far from home knocks and asks for shelter and old man invites him inside. On the one hand you don’t let just anyone into your home, but this old man did.

What does that tell you about hospitality?

They are strangers to each other. Neither knows anything about the other. So to welcome someone into your home who is a complete stranger is to be trusting from the very beginning. And even though the monster is a monster, to enter someone’s home and to be at their mercy not knowing what awaits them inside is also to be trusting. And for each of them to be justified in his trustingness the other has to be trustworthy. Otherwise, the whole thing comes apart from the very beginning.

Bon, said Mr. Guerre. What happens next?

Well, the old man asks the monster if he would like to wash up. When you are a traveler I know firsthand that you become dirty and so this is the first way to find comfort. The cottage sounds neat and clean and what better way to feel at home as a home away from home than to get clean too?

And, I continued, while the monster washes his face the old man sets out hot tea and bread with butter. Then they sit by the fire.

What do you see in all of this so far?

I can see the steps forming. The monster is far from home and he can’t simply find an inn for the night. He has to rely on someone welcoming him into their very home. Now he’s the guest and the old man is the host. Then the old man starts tending to his needs. First to get clean on the outside and then to nourish what’s inside the monster. It’s like a scout checklist.

Very good, said Mr. Guerre. Now, let me ask you a question. What did not happen at the doorstep in the moment Hospitality began? And this is both easy and tricky.

Well, first of all the old man did not ask for payment. He’s not an innkeeper trying to turn a profit, no offense. He’s just someone at home and someone in need comes to his door and he welcomes him in. So there was no demand for payment or thought of a reward. Just Hospitality plain and simple.

What else did not happen at the doorstep?, asked Mr. Guerre.

This really was a hard one. I had no idea what Mr. Guerre was referring to.

I’m not sure, I said. Could you give me a hint?

When we first met just outside that door, what did I do?

You blinked, I said.

After that, said Mr. Guerre, and that was the clue!

You introduced yourself. I am Mr. Guerre, you said. F. Guerre. Owner-Operator of the Peas in a Pod Inn. Undertaker and Taker of Taxes and Tolls.

Precisely, I introduced myself so you would know me and me in relation to this establishment.

When the monster and the old man met they did not introduce themselves!, I exclaimed. Why was that? Was it by accident or oversight or is this part of Hospitality.

Oh, it’s very much part of Hospitality for you see in ancient times the land was populated by clans and tribes and nations and even empires that hated one another. There were wars and feuds and grudges and everyone was sworn to hate nearly everyone that was not them and most often this meant you had to fight and even kill those people if ever you cross paths. And so when a stranger comes to your door asking for shelter you don’t know if they belong to the wrong tribe or city-state. In short, you don’t know if they are your enemy or if you are theirs. But with Hospitality that is set aside. You start as simple strangers where one becomes the guest and the other the host and that is what binds you together. And for that to be possible you do not introduce yourself.

It is as if you are blind to the enemy before you and so you can become friends?

Correct. Only later do you reveal yourself.

How?

Through a story you are told so you can see the stranger’s life as it is and through a story you tell about yourself so a stranger now understands. You come face to face as people and not as mere enemies.

I nodded so Mr. Guerre could see I understood what he was saying. In this way, your loyalties to feud or war or vendetta are suspended, I thought to myself, and a new duty takes hold.

What else does this story tell you about Hospitality?

The first word that came to mind is actually kindness. Hospitality is kindness for someone in need. It’s just a specific kind of kindness, if you know what I mean. Someone is far from home and doesn’t have food or water or shelter or a fire. Someone else does because they are home and they share it and it’s simply out of kindness. I can see how this would be a sacred duty. It’s like what we learned as cubs who scout. Do a good deed for the day without expecting a reward. It’s our motto! And today, for the old man, the good deed was Hospitality.

Then, when the monster and the old man were together in the cottage, I continued as I worked the story out in my scouting head, they were considerate and polite and courteous to each other. The old man was courteous because he wanted the monster to feel at home and the monster was the same so he was respectful to the old man and the home he was in. And when the old man offered the monster more tea and another slice of bread he wasn’t being thrifty in the sense of being stingy. He was making sure his guest had plenty because he probably had very little while out on the road.

So then, I concluded, Hospitality means being trusting and trustworthy, kind and courteous and doing something good for someone in need without holding back and without asking for anything in return. Good Hospitality is basically being a good scout when someone comes to your home.

Oui!, exclaimed Mr. Guerre. The ancients called it la grande ame qui tient à tout l’univers par les liens de l’humanité. Magnanimity as greatness of spirit. Greatness of spirit that binds people together from around the world.

It’s almost like a Scout Jamboree, I said, with scouts coming from everywhere except they meet in someone’s home, and in this case there are only two of them, and one is a monster who scouts and the other is an old man who is no longer a boy but otherwise it’s just like a Scout Jamboree.

Mr. Guerre nodded approvingly.

Here’s what I don’t understand. The monster was a monster. But if the monster was a monster he wasn’t really all that monstrous. In fact he was polite and nice and humble and very human in a good way and not in a bad way. In fact you simply called him a monster without showing him to be all that monstrous. And the blind man was right not to see the monster as a monster since he couldn’t see whatever what you called a monster looks like and so he didn’t think the monster to be a monster at all and in this sense the monster was not really a monster despite what you said.

In fact, I continued, the only monsters in your story were the son and his wife who beat and cut and burned and stabbed the monster who was a guest and in a way the old man was a monster too for inviting the monster in and being the host and then not protecting him in the very home he built with his own hands. So in the end, the old man really wasn’t all that trustworthy.

Mr. Guerre looked at me and waited with patience as I worked things out.

Then again, I said, maybe it was just a sad story for everyone. The son and his wife weren’t there to welcome the monster in and so all they saw was a monster that got into their home and to them it looked like the old man was in danger. Then the old man should have protected the monster who was his guest but he couldn’t see to know what he needed to protect and everything happened so fast and he didn’t know what was happening with all the commotion so he just stood there helpless. And the monster also took advantage of the old man’s blindness to conceal what he looked like so the old man couldn’t be prepared to introduce him to his son and his wife, or at least the monster didn’t get a chance to tell his story so the old man would understand. So in a way it was good hospitality that just went very wrong.

Tres Bon!, said Mr. Guerre.

Now I see the ritual in Hospitality and how it could be so sacred and how tragic it is when the bond is broken even if by accident where nobody’s at at fault but everybody is.

Excellente. It is true that the story ended badly. Had things been different the old man and his son and the wife would all have welcomed the monster in. Everyone would have been kind to the monster as their guest and the monster would certainly be just as courteous to all of his hosts as he was to the old man. The monster would have told his story and maybe the old man and his son and the wife would have gained a new understanding of becoming and being a monster.

When the monster departed there would be no payment, Mr. Guerre continued, but there might be the exchange of des cadeaux, or gifts. These are mere tokens but tokens that are meaningful to the giver and to the one who receives. The ancients call them tesserae. Tessera hospitalitatis, a token of hospitality. A tessera is to give thanks and to hope for safe journey. They are to remember and to be remembered by.

Sometimes a tessera was a single token, such as a coin or an ivory statuette that is broken in two for the guest and host to keep to be rejoined if they ever meet again. Often with the exchange the guest extends an invitation for the host to visit his own home far away so as to return the kindness. The return visit almost never happened but the bond stretches far and wide to last a lifetime.

Mr. Guerre paused while I took it all in.

Thus ends the first story, he announced. Shall we take a break before the next story? Perhaps another glass of cold milk?

Oh dear, I thought to myself so aloud I said, Let’s go on to the next story. I’m okay without milk for now.

Suit yourself, said Mr. Guerre as he poured a third glass of milk and tipped his wide head back to drain the glass. Ahhhhhh!, he said, refreshed by the cold milk. Then he let out a deep long ribbity belch. He collected himself, felt for the skeleton key in his front pocket, then turned his attention back to me.

Hospitality, Part Deux, he said.

* * *

A soldier wanders along a damp and drizzly road somewhere in the Roman empire. He is lost in thought remembering all the brothers in arms he has lost in the wars. They are only ghosts now and now all he wants is to make his way home.

The soldier approaches a sleepy town. Once a decorated soldier he is now just a tramp looking for a bowl of hot soup and a place to rest his weary head.

Welcome to Ancora, says the sign at the limits of the city.

Just then the constable steps out of the shadows.

I am just a poor soldier trying to get home, says the soldier. Is there a place to eat and somewhere I can stay for the night before I continue on?

The constable sizes up the soldier. He is spattered with mud and ripe from his travels.

No Roman soldier I know looks like that, says the constable. There is nothing to eat here, he announces. There is no place to stay. We are just a boring little town that doesn’t like your kind showing up to stir the pot. The next town is only a day away. You’ll find all the food and drink you could ever want when you get there.

The soldier is escorted down the road beyond the city limits. That’s what they pay me for, the constable chuckles as he turns to head back. Drizzle turns to rain and rain begins to pour. The soldier bristles. He wraps his cloak tight to him and begins walking back to town. The constable is not amused. The soldier is arrested. The soldier is caged and beaten. Word gets out and townsfolk gather to gawk and taunt. The soldier forms of Zeus xenios. The soldier takes shape as Jupiter hospitalis, the avenging god of jus hospitii for violation of the very same. The soldier was a god all along. The the god now unleashes lighting bolts riddling the constable in particular and the whole of town in general with fiery light. Avenge yourself, say the bolts of lightning. Avenge sons who found no welcome in their native land. Society against its very own individuals.

In another episode of the story, adds Mr. Guerre, the soldier will reprise his role as the avenging deity to throw bolts of lightning at the Viet Celts and to free his fellow soldiers from their cages at the Hispania Hilton. Checkout Time!, becomes his signature line. But let’s focus on the story at hand and what it tells us about Hospitality.

Compared to the first story this one is easy, I chuckled. In the first story everything went wrong in the end that undid all the good hospitality at the beginning. The second story goes wrong from the very start. The town has a Welcome sign but it seems like they really don’t mean it. And all the soldier wanted is some food and a place to sleep for the night. But the constable of town kept pushing and he pushed the solider right out of town and then he pushed the soldier too far and then all the people in town joined in.

So in the beginning the soldier was sort of trusting. It’s just that the town and pretty much everyone in it wasn’t trustworthy. They really weren’t welcoming and they definitely weren’t kind or courteous or friendly.

I don’t even think the constable was very brave by pushing the soldier around. He was actually sort of a coward by using his position to arrest someone who didn’t do anything wrong. That’s not being honest or courageous in the face of danger. That’s just being a bully by picking on the little kid who can’t defend himself and who gets left out.

Except that the solider could defend himself!, I added, because the soldier was a god!

That’s right, said Mr. Guerre The Romans called them dii viales. Gods who travel. Gods who journey. Gods along the way. Gods on the move. Sometimes it’s because gods really do have places to go. Other times it’s just see who you really are in your heart of hearts when a god disguised as a simple man in need comes knocking. It was the gods themselves who first commanded Hospitality. This is what makes it both ancient and a law above all else. To take a stranger into your home or community was seen as the greatest good. To harm your guest and even kill him was the foulest crime and the vilest of impieties. And sometimes, just sometimes, the gods themselves were there to punish the wicked.

So the constable and the whole town was violating divine law when all they needed to be was kind and welcoming like their sign promised?

Truly and indeed, said Mr. Guerre. And they were punished for it. Unfortunately, this does not happen all the time. Sometimes a stranger is welcomed in only to be robbed and beaten and even murdered and the host goes unpunished. This is what brings great sadness to the world. The guest often simply disappears from memory.

This struck a chord with me.

Does the world seem quite right to you, Mr. Guerre?

Why do you ask?

Because it doesn’t seem quite right to me. At least the world as I’ve been able to see it. Who knows what happens way way out there. But even in town there’s a … a … an I don’t quite know what.

A peculiarity? And not always in a good way?

That’s right! A peculiarity. I can’t even put my finger on it. It just feels not quite right. It feels off. When a guest is trusting and the host isn’t and abuses and harms and throws the guest away and the host goes unpunished and is even rewarded for it. To me that is peculiar and not quite right as the way of the world.

Mr. Guerre nodded.

Sometimes the guest stands up for himself, I continued, but in your story the guest needs to be a god with absolutely outrageous strength and most people don’t have that, which is why I suppose the gods have to do it for them.

Alas, young scout, you are all too correct. The world can be peculiar and it often is, both here in town and way way out there.

Maybe that’s also what scouting is for, I said, with its motto and promise and 12 or 13 laws and its merit badges and secret orders and scouting beyond scouting. The Scout Handbook does say that we are just guests in the world. But this is more about treating the outdoors with respect and leaving no trace in nature.

No matter where you go, you are someone’s guest, says the Handbook. No guest would think of breaking his host’s window or carving up his host’s furniture. Neither would a Scout damage trees or shrubs or water where he camps.

This is like the monster being in the old man’s house and being respectful of where he is. So in the Handbook nature is the old man’s house and we are the monsters.

I thought about that for a moment and then continued.

Boys who scout really were at the forefront of respecting and not damaging nature, you know. This was about the same time when that noble Indian wearing a stunning combination of buckskin uppers and lowers adorned with beads and fringes and feathers looked straight into the camera with a tearful eye as garbage piled up all around him. It’s as if to say that strangers were welcomed to this land and have been bad guests who never left ever since. Or maybe it’s that strangers took the land from their hosts and made it their own home instead and then proceeded to trash it.

Mr. Guerre watched and waited as I worked through what troubled me.

But maybe there is a meaning within and all around the meaning, I said. That people are often both really bad guests and really bad hosts. This is why we need gods in stories and divine laws coming from them and scouting and real punishment. It’s because bad hospitality is the rule of the world and good hospitality is the exception. Maybe it’s even that what we claim to be ours, our house and home, both truly is and truly isn’t though I don’t know what that really means. Maybe a house is more like a campsite where camp can feel like home where this gives us a better idea of what home really is. And maybe there is a meaning within and all around that meaning though I don’t know what that would be either.

Keep looking young scout. You might be onto something, said Mr. Guerre, though I don’t know what that would be.

Mr. Guerre smiled in a broad gulping smile while the little black beret atop his broad head seemed to blink and then wink.

Say, speaking of home, I cried, I don’t think I’ve seen you in town either until we just met this morning and I think I would have remembered you. You are very distinctive and distinguished.

Why, thank you, said Mr. Guerre.

How long have you lived here? Did you grow up here or come to town somehow? Why did you start the Peas in a Pod Inn? Is it what you always wanted to do or was it an accident?

Alas, said Mr. Guerre, it feels as if I have been here since the beginning of time. But first I wandered way way out there in the world where I came from only to stumble into a town because it was just the same as going this way or that.

I did not open the Peas in a Pod Inn. That was Mr. D. Qi. Koenig. He was a giant of a man who opened the inn long ago.

One day I stumbled in both lost and hungry and penniless. Mr. Koenig did not kick me out though. He let me sleep on a cot in the back amid sacks of potatoes and hanging hams. In exchange for food and shelter I washed dishes. I cleared tables. I swept the floor. I hauled and stacked kegs and casks and coffins. Anything he needed me to do. A few days turned into time standing still while I found a place to call home. More than that I learned the trade. Mr. Koenig taught me everything he knew. About hospitality. About running a business. And about all his other trades in town. Taker of taxes and tolls and of course undertaking.

Why a taker of taxes and tolls, and why undertaking?, I asked.

I asked Mr. Koenig the very same and do you know what he said?

I shook my head.

He said, Because they need to get done and that’s what publicans do.

So you’re a publican?

I am. I wasn’t always. I was just a helper and in some ways I was an apprentice. For years I learned under Mr. Koenig until I knew everything well enough myself. Then one day he took me aside and said, I am old and tired and have spent my life in town. You traveled the world before you arrived at my doorstep and have found a home here. Meanwhile I was never strayed far from the inn and have seen very little of out there. Strangers come from places far away and disappear beyond the horizon and I always stay put right here as a fixed dot amid all their travels. I think I would like a little change of scenery. I think this dot needs to make a beeline before it’s too late.

I looked down to the side of Mr. Koenig and saw that his bags were already packed. I looked back at him. He was smiling.

The Peas in a Pod Inn is yours, he said. I taught you everything I know and maybe a little more. I shall never return. There is nothing left to return to. My new home is along the way. With that he handed me two skeleton keys, one that he kept with him always and the other as a spare behind the bar. They were both cold and warm to the touch and clinked together softly. I placed one in the front pocket of my short coat.

I didn’t know what to say. We shook hands, pressing the second skeleton key tightly, and before I knew it he was gone.

And that’s the last you saw of Mr. Koenig?

The very last. Except I see him every day in my mind’s eye and always in my heart of hearts.

He sounds like a very nice man.

He was the best of men in my estimation. Honest. Kind. Hardworking. He took in a stray when I had nowhere left to go and he made me everything I am today. Well, almost everything …, Mr. Guerre added.

So now you are the Owner-Operator of the Peas in a Pod Inn. Publican. And as such you are also Taker of Taxes and Tolls. And you are an Undertaker. What does all that mean?

Taxes are the mundane part, said Mr. Guerre. People owe for this and that and I collect. It’s all very friendly. There is no intimidation or rough stuff involved. I just inform or remind someone that a tax is applicable and we proceed accordingly. What I collect goes to common goods like improvements on the Eggnog Recreation Center … or funding the library, added Mr. Guerre and for the briefest moment his expression changed.

What about tolls. What kind of tolls are there in town?

There is only one toll that I collect anymore.

What toll is that?

The toll for undertaking, replied Mr. Guerre.

Is undertaking part of Hospitality or is it separate? It seems like an odd combination.

That’s what I thought at first. It makes no sense to most people until you need undertaking. Here’s how Mr. Koenig explained it.

Think of undertaking as Hospitality turned upside down, said Mr. Koenig. Someone has died. Now they travel far away to who knows where. That is not for the undertaker to decide. Instead, the undertaker welcomes those who remain behind. Those who do not travel. The inn become a place for people who stayed to gather one last time with someone already along the way so they can still be together.

You see this room, said Mr. Guerre. On the appointed hour of the appointed day the tables are arranged in neat rows with lovely flowers in vases adorning them. The fire burns bright amid the darkness. Candles surround the room and line the balcony above. A flute or fiddle might play softly in the background. Here, before the bar, the casket is placed. Most often the casket is open so family and friends can come face to face. Spirits flow freely as mourners flow within and all around mourners. It is a place of kindness and friendliness and reverence and even uproar. All the best attributes that people can muster at a time like that.

It seems like a noble profession, I said.

I believe it to be, replied Mr. Guerre, not that that makes me noble too. It is just a good thing to do for people.

Is this where the toll comes in?

Correct. But unlike a tax that is owed I do not collect a toll so much as take custody of it because someone wishes to pay it. I deposit the toll on their behalf according to their wishes. Sometimes the toll goes to a church or synagogue or a mosque, when we had one of those in town. Other times the toll is dropped into the river or buried where no one will find it. Most often the toll goes along with the dead in the casket and into the ground.

What is the toll for?

The toll is for safe passage, though I am clear that I cannot guarantee that. I only convey the message by depositing the toll.

Safe passage to where? What is the message?

Safe passage to where it is hoped that the dead go. The message is simple. Please help them get there. Please let them get there.

Who is the message for?

The message is for the powers that be.

Now it all made sense! In the television mini-series titled, The Blue and the Gray, which aired on CBS in 1982 (not to be mistaken with The North and the South, which aired on ABC a few years later), the main character is named Jonas Steele, played by Mr. Stacy Keach of Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer fame. Jonas is a big person who scouts for the U.S. Army and he also has disturbing dreams that tell of the future. One dream that Jonas often dreams is of President Abraham Lincoln laid flat in a boat that drifts on a lake shrouded in mist. In the dream Lincoln is dead and lays motionless with two heavy silver coins placed over his eyes. The camera cuts to his face and you stare directly into it as Mr. Lincoln stares back at you through those two silver coins. The image was frightening to the mind of a cub who scouts and stuck with me ever since. I told this to Mr. Guerre and asked him if this was a toll.

Mon chéri, said Mr. Guerre sadly. The two silver coins were indeed the toll. The toll to cross over to where Mr. Lincoln must surely be.

Discovering what those coins in President Lincoln’s eyes really meant other than scaring the hell out of me somehow made the image burned into my little brain a little less scary although it was still very scary to me. But it explained what was happening where I didn’t understand before.

I pondered that for a moment and Mr. Guerre waited as I pondered. But I could tell, amid my pondering, that he might use the pause as an opportunity to offer me another glass of cold milk so I sped up the pondering just in case and moved on with a question I thought I knew the answer to.

So you stayed in town to run the Peas in a Pod Inn and to take taxes and tolls and to undertake?

That is precisely the reason, said Mr. Guerre. Yet it is not entirely the reason.

What do you mean?

I mean at the end of the day why does any man do anything?

Since I was only a boy who scouted I did not know what a man did at the end of the day but I assumed Mr. Guerre would tell me so I waited.

For the love of a good woman, Mr. Guerre answered with such passion and self-evidence that I felt I aged a few decades with the very revelation.

Don’t get me wrong, said Mr. Guerre. I would have stayed in town to run the Peas in a Pod Inn no matter what. How else could I honor Mr. Koenig and all that he did for me? Plus, I love being a publican. But then it happened.

What happened?

What happened was business was slow that day and the hall was empty. The fire smoked but nothing seemed to stay lit. I was, um, swatting flies from behind the bar. Light rain had been falling since morning. Then, late in the afternoon the door open just as the clouds parted and sun flooded in to fill the room. There she stood.

At first she was a silhouette of striking beauty. Then she walked toward the bar where my broad mouth was agape. She was tall with ivory skin and the fieriest red hair piled high enough to reach the rafters. She wore a colorful scarf around her most graceful neck and the scarf seemed to blow in the breeze of the stillness of the room.

My eyes widened at Mr. Guerre’s description. I nearly fell of my bar stool in fact. Could it be?, I asked myself.

Mr. Guerre noticed my reaction. I believe this sounds familiar, non?, he said.

I think it does, I confirmed, but please keep going. What happened next?

She walked straight to the bar to the very bar stool where you now sit. We were face to face with only a wisp of air to separate us. I could not speak so she had to do the talking for us.

What did she say?

The tallest glass of the coldest milk you have, she said in the most enchanting Southern drawl, if you please, she added to enchant me even more as if that were even possible.

Make that two, I replied in my best imitation at being confident.

She laughed in the manner of someone both charmed and charming and reached out to touch my arm. Just then the sputtering fire bursted into flames and the room grew hot and bright. We drank I don’t know how many glasses of cold milk while we talked for hours. We laughed as we talked and soon we fell in love.

Mr. Guerre paused to take it all in. He still held the empty glass in his mildly webbed hand and he turned the glass round and round as he remembered. Then he looked straight at me with his bulging eyes.

Have you ever been in love, young scout?

I didn’t know how to answer and so I giggled and blushed. No, I said.

But yes?, said Mr. Guerre.

Yes, I admitted. She’s a girl at school. When I went to school, I added. But I can’t say she ever walked up to me or talked to me or touched my arm and we definitely never shared cartons of milk in the cafeteria or had a good laugh together.

Let me guess, said Mr. Guerre. It is as if she doesn’t know you exist.

That’s exactly right!, I yelled, almost too loud.

Alas, mon chéri. This too is the way of the world, which is why I could not believe this elegant yet sassy beauty would talk to me or reach out and touch my arm which is why you treasure the true love of a good woman when it happens.

Are you still together?

Non, mon chéri. This too is the way of the world, which is why you should never ever under any circumstances fall in love with a beautiful woman.

Mr. Guerre chuckled at the joke that was on him twice over.

Our love lasted an eternity. Our great passion was to venture out past the old Yule Log into the unfarmed fields and up into the wooded hills and forested mountains. Yes, my friend, I know what it is like to wander blissfully in the shadow of what looms. She would pack a lunch and we would explore and laugh and sweat under the hot sun and roll around on a mossy blanket in the cool of the shade of a long afternoon. On these treks I would tell her about places I had been and she read books to me and together we experienced a world that was new because we shared in its making. It was as if we thrived together in a vibrant swamp, lush with only two lives in it.

Our love lasted an eternity, Mr. Guerre repeated, until it was over. Contrary to popular belief and wishful thinking, Mr. Guerre continued, eternity does in fact end. Sometimes the end is gradual. Other times it is sudden. Our love ended gradually, then suddenly, then finally.

What happened to end it? It sound like true love? How did it end?

My friend, said Mr. Guerre, do you want my heart to break all over again? This too is the way of the world that you don’t wish to relive what you relive always, every day, eternally.

I’m really sorry Mr. Guerre. I don’t know much about the ways of the world, but to be honest they all sound terrible.

Mr. Guerre could only nod.

Can I ask you who she is?

I think you know, my friend.

Yes, I think I do. I am just a little kid but I know first hand that she is pretty breathtaking. And fast. She moves really fast.

She is indeed. She does indeed, Mr. Guerre chuckled.

Do you ever see her in town?

I do. And she sees me. But we don’t talk. We just nod and smile and go about our days. Not as if nothing happened but because there is nothing more to say. It feels empty and helpless to me but sometimes that’s the truest way to feel to honor what was once love, full and complete, that is nothing of either anymore.

I’m kind of glad that pretty girl in school doesn’t know I exist, I declared. If she did ever notice me and smile I probably couldn’t help really falling in love with her and god forbid she touch my arm for then it would all be over except for the eternal heartache.

Except for the eternal heartache, Mr. Guerre repeated and smiled.

Shall we return to Hospitality?, he asked. That’s what got here in the first place and we are almost done. By coincidence, the last story is about love, in a manner of speaking …

Yes, please. Let’s return to Hospitality.

* * *

Mr. Guerre settled in once more. Hospitality: Troisième Partie, he announced.

There once was a man named Siegmund. Siegmund was a man on the run. Running to. Running from. It did not matter. For Siegmund had sworn enemies everywhichway. Even now they hunt him for crimes against their kin.

Siegmund is wounded. He has lost his weapon and his way. In a clearing Siegmund spies a cottage. At home are the husband and his wife. Hunding is a powerful man, dark and brooding. Sieglinde is fair with delicate features in the manner of Siegmund.

Siegmund knocks, begging hospitality. Hunding is suspicious because he watches for an enemy slipping through the forest. But the request is made and Hunding must oblige.

While Hunding smokes a simmering pipe Sieglinde tends to the stranger. He is bathed in hot soapy water. His wounds are tended to. He is served bread and wine and meat to his fill. An uncanny connection is made between Siegmund and Sieglinde.

After dinner Siegmund tells his story in a series of half-truths. Wrongly accused. Henchmen in pursuit. Gods will punish. He then tells of his childhood and the separation from his twin, a fair-headed maiden lost to the wind. It is enough. Hunding’s suspicions are confirmed, as are Sieglinde’s.

Hunding drinks heavily from the cask and soon he falls fast asleep. Siegmund and Sieglinde declare their love for each other and with Hunding’s sword and gold from a chest they flee the cottage.

Here endeth the story, said Mr. Guerre. Hospitality, young scout?

Well, this one is kind of the same and better than the first two stories, but it’s also different and worse.

How so?

Even though Hunding knew, or at least thought, that Siegmund was an enemy he still obeyed the law of Hospitality. He didn’t exactly like it but he didn’t refuse either. So this is a case of reverence to divine law being more important than loyalty and obedience to your clan and your blood feud, at least during the bond of Hospitality. I suppose once Siegmund departed they returned to being enemies and then all bets are off.

Correct.

But Siegmund doesn’t simply depart and there is no friendly exchange of gifts. In fact, Siegmund straight up steals from Hunding under his very roof. He steals his sword. He takes his gold. He runs off with Hunding’s wife, Sieglinde. That seems to be the very definition of being a bad guest! Siegmund wasn’t trustworthy or courteous. He wasn’t reverent and obedient to his own duties as a guest. He definitely wasn’t brave by slinking off in the dead of night. And he wasn’t thrifty either. He was greedy beyond belief. The only way he would have been a good scout who is a boy is if the motto was to Do a Really Bad Deed and Get Rewarded For It. In fact, the only way it could get worse is if Siegmund actually killed Hunding while he slept in his own home.

Mr. Guerre chuckled. Believe me, he said, it can and does get worse though perhaps not in ways you would imagine.

What do you mean?

Let’s just say that Hospitality is not the only ancient law that Siegmund will violate that week, and Mr. Guerre chuckled some more.

I did not know what he was talking about but it did not seem germane to the story of Hospitality so I let it pass.

A quiet settled into the Peas in a Pod Inn. Then, Mr. Guerre clapped his hands with two snappy claps as if to conjure and then release a white dove into the air. Young scout, he said, I believe we have hit upon all the major points of Hospitality that is both ancient and a law.

Thank you, Mr. Guerre! Those were wonderful stories and a wonderful way to learn about Hospitality.

De rien, said Mr. Guerre with a nonchalancence.

Do you think that means I’ve earned my Hospitality Merit Badge?

Mr. Guerre thought a moment. I’ll tell you what, he said. I don’t believe so. I think you learned the basics. Now take what you know and put it to good use. Then come back when you are ready and tell me your own story of Hospitality. A real story with you in it. Perhaps even of a kind I could not imagine. When you do that then I think we can agree you earned your merit badge. How does that sound?

Deal!, I said.

Alas, I will not have a patch to give you. Only a glass of cold milk. Will that do?

That is an excellent bargain, I said, while in my mind I made a note to do some milk training leading up to our next encounter because I suspected that the celebration would entail many glasses of cold milk.

Very well, said Mr. Guerre. And with that he reached out and we shook hands as new friends affirming an old bond. I look forward to our next meeting.

I was about to leave but turned back suddenly. Mr. Guerre, will you undertake me if I ever need undertaking?

Mr. Guerre was taken aback but he quickly gathered himself. It would be my honor, he said as he bowed his great head.

I’m afraid no one will come because I don’t know anyone and no one knows me so I don’t think I’ll need the big hall with a fire and candles and flowers and probably no food or drink is needed and I don’t have anyone I want to pay a toll to or anywhere I think I’ll go and even if I did I wouldn’t have the toll to pay for it so there would be no toll to take custody of, is what I’m saying, and all that said I don’t really know what the undertaking should even look like. But it would be nice to know you’re the one doing it.

Mr. Guerre reached out and touched my arm. Don’t worry, young scout, he said. If ever the time comes I know exactly what do you. You can count on me.

Thank you, Mr. Guerre, for all your kindnesses.

De rien, he said once more.

* * *

Leaving the Peas in a Pod Inn I walked aimlessly around town. It was good to be out in the fresh air so I could turn over my conversation with Mr. Guerre. Not that I expected anything to begin with but what happened at the Peas in a Pod Inn was so far beyond my expectations I almost didn’t know what to think. There was just too much and my mind bounced around without being able to stay put for very long before getting pulled away to think about another part of the conversation and then another because it all felt so important and too much to take in with a single thought and I just needed to figure out what it all truly meant but I couldn’t settle anywhere long enough and I felt myself spiralizing but not in a bad way but in a way that let me touch down for a moment only to lift off to float and flitter off to the next flower and in this way I made my way from flower to flower sampling and lifting off and flittering and floating only to touch down again but only for a moment before lifting off to flit and float around and around.

The first flowers I landed on was the Peas in a Pod Inn in itself. It is helpful to recall that my version of town was Leaper Elementary School and the Rec Center and the Library along with kindred establishments that a boy would go to whether a scout or not. The most exotic place I visited was the Army-Navy Surplus Store with its heavy smell of oil and canvas and rust and with mannequin displays dressed up in camouflage wearing gas masks pretending to camp by a fake campfire. For some reason, however, that all seemed to match my sensibilities and therefore it all made complete sense. Then there was the wild that I wandered in. Trees and rocks and the river and thickets and gullies and the barren desert and of course what looms so far away. All that had become familiar too to see and smell and touch and be within and all around.

Then there was the Peas in a Pod Inn as its very own world apart from all that a scout would experience in the normal course of being a boy. The inn was dark and dank with the smell of stale beer and smoke seeping into and out of everything. Yet the hall was capable of exploding with life of the roughest most raucous most big people kind. I had seen that from across the street that first time at midnight and could now picture its very origination inside the hall by the great hearth climbing atop tables while bellied up to the bar with gruff men and toothless wenches hanging down from the balcony or perched on stacks of kegs and casks and caskets toasting wildly to the crowd. It was a place that was home to a world I had never seen before or even knew existed. It was a world within and outside the world I knew around town and into the forest that was now imprinted vividly in my mind’s eye.

Then there was Mr. Guerre himself. A striking figure. Handsome and broad and refined in his slight amphibiousness. A world traveler. Someone who loved and lost and rejoiced and mourned deeply. They must have made a splendid pair, I told myself. A force of nature going hand in hand with red-headed Nature herself where the result is simply Heartbreak. Mr. Guerre was also someone carrying on the sacred tasks handed down from Mr. Koenig who more or less adopted Mr. Guerre and passed on his trades one generation to the next. Mr. Guerre was also generous with me when he didn’t have to be with all the time and care he took to tell me about Hospitality when he could have said he was busy and never welcomed me in.

Mr. Guerre really is noble, I concluded, whether he agrees with me or not. He would have made a good boy who scouts who is a boy. I was certain of it. But all that cold milk. So much cold milk … I shivered just thinking about it.

The biggest bunch of flowers arrayed as Hospitality itself. Hospitality really resonated. It struck. It hit hard. All those parts of Hospitality that are both sacred and a law really got to me in a way I could not have expected maybe because I recognized myself in Hospitality in a slanted sort of way. The Handbook says that we are all guests in the world and in town I always somehow felt like that was true for me. But now knowing Hospitality from Mr. Guerre I could add that I always felt like an unwelcomed guest. In class every day and on the playground at Leaper Elementary School. On the big kids side of school in Room 13 when it came time for boys who were cubs to scout with the leader sitting behind his desk never looking up or at you while he drank from a thermos and read the paper. At the Rec Center with all those scoutmasters where there are too many of them to count and all the boys who scout in their patrols being pals with their special calls with me just drifting around and out back inside the rectangular track during summer camp watching everything from the sidelines. None of it felt welcoming and by that I mean not kind nor friendly nor trustworthy nor any of the rest. Nowhere did I feel protected like the old man should have protected the monster. Protection was something I always had to do for myself for the better or worse of it. The only place that felt like home was basecamp high in the mountains and in town at my little desk with the single flame of my kerosene lamp and my bed where it was more like basecamp than a house as a home anyway.

Then I remembered that I had asked Mr. Guerre to undertake me. I don’t know why I did that. It was spontaneous and heartfelt but I don’t know why I felt it so deeply. It simply welled up from inside my heart of hearts. I wasn’t ashamed or regretful that I asked him. I simply didn’t quite understand what it meant to have asked it.

Finally, I decided that I needed to give Mr. Guerre a gift so the next time I saw him to tell him a story of Hospitality I could show my appreciation and maybe he would have something to remember me by. I thought about what that could be and then I knew just the thing.

Then it came time to consider that task at hand. I needed to tell Mr. Guerre a story about Hospitality and to tell Mr. Guerre a story about Hospitality I would need to live it and to live it I would need to figure out what story to live so as to live so as to tell about it. By that time I had wandered back to my little desk and lamp with the bed next to it. I was so tired that I crawled underneath the covers with my boots on and fell fast asleep.

* * *

When I awoke it was pitch black and I was starving. The only food I had had during the whole day of my visit to the Peas in a Pod Inn was those two glasses of cold milk and their nourishment had worn off long ago. Now I needed some real food. I needed a pot of soup with dumplings because there is never a bad time for a good bowl of dumplings swimming in thick soup. The flour in the dumplings releases into the broth to give it a rich creaminess to embrace carrots and potatoes and celery and onions and, yes!, one single turnip for radical spice. Dumplings mean you may be an urchin of the street but verily do you dine as the Maharaja himself.

I lit my kerosene lamp and I got to work and while soup simmered I pondered what to do. I started by weighing my options.

I suppose I could own and operate an inn of my own, I said to myself. Then I could extend Hospitality to all sorts of people. I would name it the Arrow of Darkness Inn or something of the sort and a sign would hang over the door showing nothing because it’s so dark.

But that would compete with Mr. Guerre, I concluded, and that’s not very friendly. Besides, I needed to do Hospitality anciently where there were no inns to stay at. Plus, I’m not sure I could get financing to open an inn in this uncertain economic climate and because I am a kid with no collateral or business plan.

So Hospitality would need to be ancient, I concluded to get that out of the way.

Then I wondered a more basic question.

The story needed to involve me but should I be the host or the guest? I assumed I would be the host but then again could I just be a guest? How would that even work?

I would show up at someone’s home.

Knock Knock

A big person would answer and there I would be, just a little kid looking sad and lost.

Would they take me in?

Of course they would.

Would they feed me?

Almost certainly.

It was almost too easy.

But this would only beget the inevitable line of questioning. How old are you? Where do you go to school? What grade are you in? What’s your favorite subject? What do you want to be when you grow up?

That’s not being able to tell my story. That’s an interrogation that will all but certainly lead to the most obvious question of them all.

Who are your parents? Let’s call them so they can come pick you up.

No parents? We should call the police? You stay put.

Imagine that! Calling the police on your guest!! That’s not very friendly.

Then again, I thought to myself, I’m not being very trustworthy by showing up at someone’s house knowing I don’t really need Hospitality. It’s all play pretending. More like trick or treat where I ring the doorbell and ask for a treat by tricking them.

Besides, I don’t think Mr. Guerre would look kindly on this ploy. What’s it all for, he would ask? What did you learn that was good and true by tricking those people? Plus, that story would be boorrrrrring as hell, I told myself, once again trying out swearing to see if it suits me.

In short, being a guest seemed problematic. That only left being a host, I deduced.

But how would that even be possible? First of all no one ever showed up to where I live with my little desk and kerosene lamp and bed. I’m not even sure someone could find where I am, neither friend nor stranger nor enemy. I could literally wait an eternity for someone to stumble upon here so I could show them Hospitality.

That left basecamp way up in the forests of the high mountains under what looms. The prospect of a visitor just happening to show up at Camp Glim was even more remote. I could invite Glim to camp. I hadn’t done that yet although I think, or at least I hope, he knows he’s always Welcome. Then again, Glim isn’t a stranger and he is definitely not an enemy. Glim is my friend. I mean the whole camp is named after him for Crissake. So I don’t think that would satisfy the requirement of the Hospitality Merit Badge in its most ancient sense.

As I mulled over thoughts about Glim and hosts and friends and strangers and guests and enemies I remembered one part of Mr. Guerre’s instructions for earning the Hospitality Merit Badge that I almost completely forgot about. What did he say? He asked for a a real story. That much I got. But then he added that the story might, paraphrase, even be of the kind that I could not have imagined, end-paraphrase.

What did he mean by that? Tell him a story about Hospitality that even he couldn’t imagine? I imagined that Mr. Guerre could imagine a lot and had seen even more at the Peas in a Pod Inn. All sorts of crazy characters. Origins and destinations to encompass the entire globe. So many unbelievable but believe it it’s true kinds of stories and circumstances. Guests with all the basic needs and guests with needs that run wild. He has seen it all and what he hasn’t seen I’m sure this boy who scouts could not surpass by way of imagination let alone experience. So what could I possibly do to surprise or impress him? Or maybe what he meant was not about surprising or impressing him. It was about showing Mr. Guerre something new and meaningful and true in Hospitality. And to do that Hospitality has to be meaningful and true for the guest and host and not merely so I can impress Mr. Guerre.

Now the word imagine rattled and rolled around in my head. Something had pried loose that I couldn’t put my finger on.

Imagine … Imagine? … Imagine … Ring a bell? …

Imagine … Remember? … Remember to put your finger on it …

Remember? … Imagine … Remember!

In a flash that was slow in flashing itself I remembered the Day of Shame and Infamy in the unfarmed field across the road from the Eggnog Center for Recreating. I recalled the ambulance speeding by and the siren that called me out of the tall grass. I listened once more to the song blaring on the radio as the ambulance rolled back to town in procession.

Imagine!

What was that song really about?, I asked myself.

It’s about picturing countries and religions and possessions so you can just stop picturing them …

So it’s about erasing the lines dividing us …

So we can imagine no boundaries and by imagining no boundaries we tear them down, do we not? … in our imagination, of course …

So we can do so it is done, assuredly, eventually, inevitably, presumably, probably, maybe, possibly …

So we can build up new and better boundaries that someday a song will need to be written about …

So let’s focus on imagining as such as it pertains to Hospitality as the story I will live to tell.

Can we imagine Hospitality by erasing dividing lines? Hospitality already does that very little imagining is required except for regular imagining. Imagine, then, breaking down what builds up to bind while building up to bind what breaks down not to undo Hospitality but to redo or double-do or do-do Hospitality. Sounds hard. But really, it’s super easy.

Part I: The Breaking Down Of …

Hospitality begins with Strangers to Each Other. There is One and then the Other where Each Other is One and Each One is the Other where One and One and the Other and the Other are separate and distinct from One Another. Simple enough.

As Strangers neither One knows if the Other One is an Enemy or merely Some One not known or connected to at all, which is to say a Complete Stranger rather than being a Stranger not entirely Complete in being an Enemy.

Does this mean that the Stranger as Other cannot be a Friend, Unbeknownst to the One, and vice-versa, even though the Stranger might also be an Enemy?

No.

Just as One may meet the Other as Stranger as Enemy, though not immediately recognized as such, One can meet the Other as Friend, Unbeknownst, and vice-versa, and so as Stranger though not ultimately Complete.

So the Stranger as the Other can either be an Enemy or a Friend or a Complete to the One, and vice-versa.

Does this mean the Stranger really has to be a Stranger in the sense of not being known to all initial appearances and appraisals meaning not recognized in any familiar sense? I see you, you Other, and I don’t know you or at least don’t think it do, in other words.

No.

Of course Hospitality can be extended and enjoyed between obvious Friends as well clear-as-day or at least almost-certain Enemies. Hunding showed us that. And so the Stranger can also be Recognizable or Familiar from the very beginning as Friend or Enemy and so not Complete or Strange in the sense of being a Stranger. This simply removes much of the initial Mystery about whether the Stranger is an Enemy or Friend or Complete where all else about Hospitality pertains, although with Friends trust is must easier to come by while with known Enemies being trusting and trustworthy demands what Mr. Guerre calls la grande ame, or greatness of spirit, that must reign in what being in the presence of a sworn Enemy must evoke, such as outrage and rage, hatred and venom, fear and terror, horror and revulsion, retributionness and vengeanceance, righteousness as justice as the command for punishment, and the like, such that to extend and enjoy Hospitality becomes no mean feat.

Hospitality also begins with Strangers where One is Home and so not Traveling and the Other is Traveling and thus Away from Home, or vice-versa. One comes from Near or Far Away, but not from Right Here, while the Other is from Right Here and so Not From Away, or vice-versa, although eitherwhichway both are also Right Here Right Now in the manner of Hospitality, which is to say they are Face to Face.

In Hospitality who is at Home becomes Host and who Travels becomes Guest. You know this because there are two different distinct and not the same words to distinguish between them. If both Host and Guest were to go by the very same word the result would be Total and Complete Pandemonium where One is Host and the Other is Host or the Other is Guest where nobody knows who is who and the One and the Other get entirely mashed up and mixed together or mixed up and mashed together.

Then again, Some One Traveling and thus Away from Home can also offer Hospitality to Some One who is also Traveling in the sense that One Traveler is at a Campsite they call Home for the night while the Other Traveler happens upon the very same.

Won’t you come into to my Campsite?, One will say.

Okay, says the Other.

Of course we have established that a house as home is more Campsite than eternal dwelling anyway and so there is that.

Then again, Hospitality can become Mutual especially at a Campsite even if Hospitality does not begin that way. Maybe One is making soup over the Campfire and offers the Other a hot steaming bowl when it is ready while the Other has flour and lard and salt and introduces dumplings into the mix and now soup and dumplings is a Shared Endeavor of Hospitality such that at this point I got up to check the dumplings in the soup and they were still a little soft and doughy so I let them simmer some more and got back to Hospitality.

Hospitality also begins and ends with Humans. What did Mr. Guerre say? Hospitality concerns l’humanité in the double sense of needing Humans and truly being and becoming a Human Being by way of Hospitality. Then again, Hospitality in stories at least sometimes involves a god who comes knocking at your front door. This can be a god on the move or one coming to check on just how well you are being Human. So now One is Human and the Other is a god where the Human is Host and the god is Guest.

But Hospitality can sometimes involve a god, or a demi-god as the case may be which is to say One who is half-god-half-human, also known fully as a goman or a Humod, as Host and the Human as Guest though results vary on this point. Sometimes in the story the god Hosts you so you get to dwell there forever and ever. Other times you are stretched until pulled apart or you are cut into little pieces while you sleep or you are fed until stuffed so as to become a farm animal to be fed upon. Again, when gods in stories Host results may vary.

In sum in Hospitality you are either One or the Other while also being the Other or One. Each is a Stranger to the Other where the Other as Stranger is either Enemy or Friend or Complete or each Stranger is not a Stranger to each Other but is Familiar and Recognizable from about the beginning of the story. One is always the Host and the Other is always the Guest, or vice-versa, unless Hospitality is Mutual where both are both Host and Guest. Both Strangers are always Humans unless one is a god so that One is Human and the Other is a god, or vice-versa, unless One or the Other or Both is a goman or Humod. When One is a god and the Other is Human, or vice-versa, the Human is always the Host and the god is always the Guest unless the god is Host and the Human is Guest, or vice-versa.

Some will say that this is all so very obvious that it is painful and others will say, Precisely.

Here ends the breaking apart of.

Part II: Of the Rebinding of…

Breaking Hospitality into pieces means rebinding them by way of truth in imagination taking almost no effort at all. Again, super easy. De rien, as Mr. Guerre would say.

The keynote is one of pandemonium as the coming together of all the pieces of Hospitality not as chaos or anarchy or haphazardness but as true and meaningful Combining as Rebinding by way of having Broken It Down …

Of course, Hospitality as redo or do-do is not all of Hospitality meaning Hospitality for all. And earning this particular Hospitality Merit Badge or earning the Hospitality Merit Badge in this particular manner is probably at most and best for approximately One or the Other or Both. That does not change its truth or meaning. It simply means it probably is not for all boys who scout who are boys.

Now, having Broken Down Hospitality let us Build Hospitality Back Up not in the manner of LEGOs where you simply stick the colorful blocks back together into about the same sort of robot or spaceship you had before you took it all apart. It is the blocks themselves that change in the Rebuilding and Rebinding while staying the same, or vice-versa, that change what you have to play with and how you play and what is built accordingly.

In Hospitality the building blocks are either this or that that sometimes Bleed into being Both and possibly Neither. It is the Bleeding more and more into being Both and Neither that changes the game where One is both the Other and the Other is Absolutely not the One within and beyond Hospitality.

How then to learn what Hospitality as bleeding into and thus out of truly looks like?, I asked myself.

Well, what would Mr. Guerre do?, I wondered some more.

He would tell me a story about Hospitality, I said to myself to stop the wondering, to figure out what story of Hospitality to live to tell.

His stories were never only about Hospitality that is good and thus right, I continued.

In his stories of Hospitality Mr. Guerre mixed both good and bad so you had to discover and figure out the good by picking out and really seeing the bad too so it’s not bad to tell a story of Hospitality that’s not entirely good because once you’ve told it you can retell it to tell yourself what really is bad and also good in the story of Hospitality. In this manner good Hospitality can enhappen as knowing its very limits so you can truly make it so.

Then again, I think I already have a story of Hospitality to tell myself that I already lived that is both good and bad where really it was all bad. Every single little bit of it was bad in fact. Nothing in any sense was good at all. It’s also my only story to tell myself about Hospitality that just happens to be about what not to do in Hospitality so it will have to do for now in any case.

What story is that?

It’s the story of meeting the Spectre, of course. Where do I even start?

Let’s start with my Pronged Plan, which was hostile to begin with. It was hostile through and through. I built basecamp so that from basecamp I could venture out to track and hunt the Spectre. Back at basecamp I lurked and laid in wait to ensnare the Spectre when he finally had the nerve to show up. How’s that for a good start to the story? I was not trusting or trustworthy and we know what happens to Hospitality that begins that way.

It only got worse from there.

My Pronged Plan was not to show kindness or courtesy. It was to trap the Spectre so as to put him on trial for the crime of pinning the UNO card to my forehead when I didn’t deserve it without knowing what the card truly was or whether in truth I deserved it. It would be a mock trial because I had already decided how it would turn out with the Spectre coming clean and me being triumphant and the Spectre slinking away in shame.

That was my Plan in Three Prongs to deal with the Spectre that I worked out and readied before he even set foot in basecamp. I was Prepared, I told myself. A fine Welcome I will give him, I also told myself as I chuckled. The Spectre was the Enemy and I planned to treat him as such.

We can pause here to recognize that already I was the real monster in this story of Hospitality, was I not?

I was.

And what happened when the Spectre finally did appear at camp?

What happened was, I bolted. I ran away in fear and terror at coming Face to Face with the Spectre. I fled my own Campsite in sheer panic at Absolute Presence experienced by my Absolute Absence and by Absolute Absence experienced by my Mere Presence only to trip over rocks and stumble over roots only to tumble straight into that thicket with all those thorns and needles. How brave was that even according to my own Pronged Plan? How’s that for Hospitality under any circumstances? How Prepared. How dismal. How abysmal. How clumsy through and through. Foreshame, I said to myself while wincing. Foreshame.

So in a sense I already had a story to tell Mr. Guerre. But this is not the kind of demonstration of Hospitality I really want to be showing off and it certainly does not merit the Hospitality badge. If only I had another chance. A redo or do-do. What would I do different? Everything, I answered. But what does that mean? It means rebinding Hospitality, I answer. I became excited. Now I could set to work figuring this out Hospitality the right way so when the time came I would be ready. I would truly Be Prepared.

Just then the single flame of the kerosene lamp melted into a puddle of burning blue. I heard a rustling at the entrance. I knew every sound within and all around and this was different. It was rustling in a vacuum with the world drained of sound. Then …

Knock Knock

I jumped in spite of myself because nobody ever comes to visit and especially while the flame of the kerosene lamp melts into a blue puddle. I blinked in confusion while knowing full well. I opened the door and there was the Spectre just floating before me. Floating and bobbing as if on a gentle swelling sea.

I stared at the Spectre in confusion and disbelief. I wasn’t ready. I was going to get ready but there were so many things to work out and plan and do before and I wasn’t at all Prepared. If only I had a little more time I pleaded in my head for no one in particular to hear or to do anything about it. And now look. Now there was no more time. And here was the Spectre just floating in front of me at my front door. What should I do?, I asked myself. This was all so unexpected and it was all going to go wrong from the very beginning. I searched my brain. Should I ask the Spectre to come back later? Should I shut the door and go back inside?

No!, I screamed at myself. That’s not the right question.

What is the right question?, I asked myself as the Spectre continued to float and bob.

The right question to ask yourself, I told myself, is this. The right question to ask myself is, Where are my manners?

That helped tremendously. That gave me the right word to say and to mean it and with that I said it.

Welcome!, I said to the Spectre

Welcome!, cried the Bullets as they spun freely in the cylinder. Welcome!, they cried after barely being able to contain themselves for the whole part of the story of scouting beyond scouting as it pertained to Hospitality. They had practically been bursting at the seams ready to explode in anticipation of saying Welcome! and crying it out aloud and exclaiming it with glee for all to hear. The cylinder spun in a pinwheel of Welcomes! until it finally came to a halt as the Revolver looked on.

The Bullets were now breathless. What did the Spectre look like?, they demanded breathlessly. What happened next? Tell us!, they demanded.

I thought for a moment on how best to describe the Spectre. It was hard to put my finger on it. And yet it was so easy.

Have you ever played the tabletop game called Hungry Hungry Hippos, ages 4 to 99?, I asked the Bullets.

The Bullets shook their heads.

Hungry Hungry Hippos entails four large Hippo Heads in the colors of red and tangerine and pink and green surrounding a field of play where marbles are released to roll around madly.

Behind each Hippo Head is a human player who presses a lever so the mouth of the Hippo Head leaps out to snatch as many mad marbles rolling around as they can gobble up.

When the lever is released the Head of the Hippo retracts to deposit all those marbles into a little well so the Hippo Head can leap out again to gobble up more and more marbles until there are no marbles left to gobble and then everyone counts the marbles their respective Hippos have gobbled and the Hippo and thus the human with the most marbles wins. There is a little song that you sing while you gobble marbles that goes something like this:

Hungry, hungry hippos
We’re hungry, hungry hippos
We love to feed our face
We’re hungry hungry hippos
We’re in an eating race

Or something like that. I don’t remember all the words. But it’s surprisingly catchy. That game is the story of human hunger that gobbles up more and more and the most it possibly can until nothing is left where humans are Hippos and Hippos are human. This is called the natural attitude.

So the Spectre looked like a Hungry Hungry Hippo?, said the Bullets in unison.

No.

Oh, said the Bullets.

About the same time that Hungry Hungry Hippo came out as a table top game a video game called Pac-Man also came out. While you could play Hungry Hungry Hippo at home atop your table you had to both have a pocket full of quarters and be headed to the arcade to play Pac-Man.

Well, the hero of Pac-Man looks like a human being if human beings were big yellow circles with gaping mouths. Pac-Man is a Hungry Hungry Hippo unfettered and on the move racing through a maze munching on as many yummy dots as possible while being chased by four ghosts.

Do you know this game?

The Bullets shook their heads. They also didn’t know what quarters were or what an arcade was but neither seemed especially germane to the story so they just shook their heads both sideways and up and down to cover everything.

The ghosts in Pac-Man are mild and not menacing looking. They have big googly eyes and each of the four ghosts is a different colorful color of red and tangerine and powder blue and pink. They are harmless looking but their sole purpose is to chase Pac-Man around the maze and if their not-menacing-looking selves can catch Pac-Man they get to gobble him up. So in terms of Hungry Hungry Hippo the ghosts are also Hippos and Pac-Man is the single solitary marble, or Pac-Man is all the marbles, depending on how you look at it.

There is in fact a lot to say about Pac-Man because the video game is really complicated with so many layers of strategy and meaning so this is an oversimplification, but sometimes Pac-Man swallows a big round pill and the colorful ghost all turn a dark glowing blue with hollow white eyes and squiggly white frowns while still looking mild and not especially menacing and when this happens the now-blue ghosts scurry everywhichway and the hunters become the hunted and for just a moment Pac-Man gets to eat the blue ghosts if he can catch them until the ghosts blink and blink in their entireties and then turn back to their colorful colors so they get to chase Pac-Man again. There is also a loud siren that blares all the time so if you weren’t playing the game and instead you were were just listening to the siren blaring nonstop you would simply go mad and melt into a puddle of you.

Did the Spectre look like one of the colorful ghosts trying to eat Pac-Man?, asked the Bullets.

No.

Oh.

The Spectre looked like a blue glowing ghost with hollow white eyes and a mild not frowning but not smiling mouth in the same color of wavy white that just floated and bobbed in front of me.

The room grew puzzled with the Bullets scratching their respective heads. One Bullet raised his hand with a look of bewilderment. A blue ghost?, said the Bullet. A blue ghost that glows?, chimed in another Bullet. Then from all corners. Blank white eyes? White wavy mouth? Just floating and bobbing? Was he really mild and not menacing looking? It was a flood of questions but with each question the storyteller nodded his head patiently and respectfully in confirmation.

Once the description was confirmed the Bullets looked to one another to decide just what they thought about that for you see the Bullets were caught off guard by how the Spectre as Absolute Presence looked in light of being experienced by Absolute Absence or by mere presence experiencing its Absolute Absence. They had been waiting for so long in the story so when the time came they expected the Spectre to be the most monstroushideoussinisterhorridterrifying creature imaginable and what they got instead was a blue ghost with white eyes and a mouth that is wavy white that seems to say Egads! instead of Grrrrrrr.

Then again, the Bullets discussed among themselves, why should what is clearly an Absolutely Outrageous Strength even need to look scary? When some one tries to look scary to try to scare someone else, observed one Bullet, it is often a sign of being scared themselves. Looking scary and knowing the other is scared of you because of it helps you to not be scared and why would that pertain to an Absolutely Outrageous Strength? What does it matter to an Absolutely Outrageous Strength if you are scared or not?

Or sometimes what is supposed to be scary only lives and thus comes alive only in stories to then be carried around and nurtured and embellished in thoughts and imaginations, another Bullet added, and so the scarier looking the better as the best substitute for the fact that you will never truly come face to face with whatever you are supposed to be scared of to know its in its true presence and power rather than by its mere appearance. So your imagination has to run wild to try and catch what is forever out of reach which is Absolute Presence experienced by Absolute Absence as Absolute Absence experienced by mere presence.

Unfortunately, lamented one Bullet, what you get in stories is weak substitutes for Absolute Absence as Absolute Presence that comes to be mistaken for the real thing so the real thing hides behind mere emulations and imitations.

Doesn’t this then make the Absolute Presence of Absolute Absence even more scary when it is experienced, asked a Bullets. It doesn’t manifest itself dressed up in fangs and scales and horns or covered in pus or slime or armed with horrid weapons. It simply overwhelms in the plainness of a lighted room or in the hazy focus of the periphery. It is experienced in the most mundane as well as in the revelatory as an abyss that opens up beneath your feet so you simply fall and fall with the feeling in your heart of hearts that no flight is possible.

All the Bullets nodded at this as the Revolver looked on. He was well pleased at the Bullets working together to work out the problem of what is scary.

Of course there are plenty of scary looking things in the world that are truly worth being scared of, the Bullets agreed. But they also settled for certain on the fact that the Spectre doesn’t need to look scary to be scary. They also recognized that what the Spectre looks like could depend on who he is visiting. Who knows what the Spectre looked like to Glim?, they wondered. And this might be very different from what the Spectre looked like when he first appeared to you, they said to the storyteller who nodded emphatically. And whatever the Spectre looked like then might be different still from the blue glowing ghost that came knocking at your front door.

It all seemed very reasonable while being something the Bullets knew they could never prove but it felt better not to assume that the Spectre always looked like one thing let alone a not-menacing blue ghost and, to come full circle, the Bullets also acknowledged that sometimes for some people the Spectre does appear terrifying or horrid as circumstances and psychologies require according to the judgement of the Spectre. With that the Bullets were satisfied that they had exhausted their consideration of the Spectre in relation to looking scary.

The storyteller was grateful for the discussion since he learned something more about what scary is than he had understood before.

Now that the Spectre is at your front door, they exclaimed, what happened next?

Well, said the storyteller returning to the story, there floated the Spectre and here I was and we were face to face at my front door.

The Bullets all nodded and everyone was on the same page.

Welcome, I said again. Would you like to come inside?

The Spectre bobbed in place for a moment and then he floated across the threshold into my humble abode with me following right after.

I know it’s late at night, I said, but I’m hungry and was going to have some supper. It’s soup and dumplings and I think it’s just about ready. Would you like to join me?

The Spectre floated to my desk which also served as my table for eating and settled into the spot across from the chair where I always sit. Belly up!, I said nervously and I kind of regretted saying it since the Spectre had already bellied up, but when the Spectre bellied up to the table the flame of the kerosene lamp rose out of being a blue puddle and lit the room brighter than I had ever seen it. Now all was illuminated.

I went to the simmering pot to check the soup and realized I had missed a step. If only I could have Prepared …

You’ve probably come a long way and I know this town is so very dusty, I said. Would you like to wash up before supper? There’s a faucet outside where I get my water. It’s cold but it’s clean. I think it comes straight from an old well dug deep into the ground.

The Spectre turned to float back outside. A moment later I could hear the squeaky knob turn and water started to flow from the spigot. The sound of flowing water splashing on the ground was interrupted now and again by what I assumed to be the Spectre washing up. Then the knob squeaked in reverse and the flow of water stopped. That whole time I stood by the pot of simmering soup staring toward what’s outside transfixed by what the Spectre washing up must have looked like by way of my mind’s eye. Another moment passed and the Spectre floated back in and bellied back up to the table.

I checked the dumplings and they were firm and fluffy. Perfect!!

For the Spectre I ladled soup with big pieces of vegetables and lots of broth and several large dumplings into a big, albeit chipped, bowl. I brought the bowl over along with the spoon and set them before the Spectre. Then I ladled soup and dumplings into the plate of my mess kit and set that down at the table alongside the fork.

I set out one glass and a mug with the ear broken off and poured tea made from flowers and herbs I collected in the mountains. Then I sat down at the table and scooted my chair in.

At this point I didn’t know what the precise etiquette was on how to begin the meal so for lack of a better idea I raised my fork and kind of toasted the Spectre with it. As the Spectre’s blank white eyes stared at me the spoon floated up and then floated back down to hover just above the bowl. Inside the bowl I could see a hunk of dumpling with some broth and a piece of carrot sunk into and then disappear only to reappear in the well of the spoon. Then the white line of the mouth of the Spectre that was neither smiling nor cross moved a slight muscle and the hunk of dumpling with soup disappeared from the spoon.

I smiled to myself and then I looked down at my plate with my mouth watering. Without thinking I dug into the soup and dumplings with a ravenousness that I quickly thought to rein in. I was not home alone to eat like a hungry wolf, I reminded myself. I have a guest. I need to be polite. The shoveling of soup and dumplings into my face was replaced by slow deliberate forkfuls with full and complete chewing and I was amazed at how pleasant this made eating. As I looked to see how the Spectre was doing the glass of tea floated up and the level dropped with a good sip from the cup. Then the cup floated back down to the table.

Supper went on like this in relative silence. The silence started out being a little awkward, at least for me, but soon we settled into eating and drinking so it felt comfortable and even comforting. I had never had anyone over to share a meal with, let alone the Spectre. What a treat!, I thought to myself, and now I felt a warmth inside from both the soup and the thought and the whole experience combined.

After a time the Spectre’s bowl was empty and the cup of tea floated up to drain the last drop. I was finished too. I pushed back from the table and burped a little in spite of myself. I looked to the Spectre to apologize for bad manners. The Spectre looked at me with those blank white eyes while floating back just a touch and I noticed a slight ripple or undulation in or about the tumnal area of the Spectre.

It’s good to have you here, I said, trying to be conversational. I almost never receive guests. Plus, you caught me at a good time, just before I head back into the mountains. I divide my time between here and basecamp way out there. Basecamp is in a clearing surrounded by deep forest high in the mountains down below what looms. I call it Camp Glim after someone I met up there. His name is Glim Primsbs the Fourth. You might know him. He’s a Racoon now but I do think he was a really good person in his heart of hearts. And I think he still is, I was quick to add.

I paused for a moment. The Spectre bobbed and floated with blank white eyes looking straight at me.

I gulped a little. Then I continued.

Actually, I think we’ve met before too so we are not complete strangers though you might not remember me. I was in that clearing at Camp Glim and you showed up one night a while back. I was there and you floated up to the campfire. I have to say that I wasn’t very nice and I wasn’t being a very good solitary scout. I was plotting and planning and waiting for you to show up but not in a kind or friendly way. So when you did show up at camp I didn’t have greatness of spirit, as Mr. Guerre would say, and I didn’t welcome you to camp like I should have. I’m really sorry, I said, and that’s all to say I’m glad you showed up now and are here this evening.

The Spectre looked at me with blank white eyes while bobbing and floating upon a billowy sea.

I’m still learning hospitality, I volunteered. I know the basics from Mr. Guerre and I did a little tinkering of my own, or actually I had just started to tinker right before you arrived. I didn’t have enough time to finish, but in any case it’s one thing to know about something and another to actually do it and do it well so that it counts. Do you know Mr. Guerre? He lives here in town and is the owner and operator of the Peas in a Pod Inn. You might know him best from … um … one of his other trades.

Was I being rude, I wondered? Do you bring up undertaking with the Spectre in particular or with guests generally? I really didn’t know one way or the other. There are so many consideration to hospitality within and beyond the basics …

In fact, was just thinking about hospitality, I continued. In particular something struck me and stuck with me that I couldn’t shake. It probably won’t make sense but would you like to hear?

The Spectre looked at me with blank white eyes and floated and bobbed. The flame of the kerosene lamp dimmed. It was awfully bright I must admit and this was much better. Much more intimate. With that I told the Spectre my story of home and not home even before becoming a boy who is a cub that scouts and how I came to live here. I was not born here, I told the Spectre. I came from far away and was just kind of deposited in town. Then I told the Spectre about wanting a home and then just wanting to get away. I told the Spectre about wanting so badly to blend in and then wanting simply to disappear. I told the Spectre about only feeling welcome when I could get out and far away from town. To be honest I don’t remember what exactly I told the Spectre. I only remember that I told him everything. At one point I even closed my eyes and held them shut to look everywhere within to get out a story that was true and complete. I had been talking for forever as the single flame of the kerosene lamp flickered on when I stopped and realized just how long I had been talking.

But look at me!, I declared. I’m just blabbering on and on. I apologized for boring the Spectre. Then I said that I get the impression that you’re not very talkative and are more silent than not but I would be grateful if you had a story to tell about yourself. I know you in a sense, I said. You are familiar, that’s for sure. Not just from our meeting in the clearing in the woods. I realized after that that you’ve been present for pretty much the whole of my conscious life. But you are also a complete stranger or more accurately you are a mystery. I have to admit that I am terrified of you. But I am also fascinated and so I am not afraid.

I also have to admit I don’t know even know your real name. I grew up knowing you as the Spectre because that’s what everybody in town calls you but that’s because they are afraid of you and always run and hide because they don’t understand or maybe because they do understand but in any case I don’t think that’s your name in real life and I also think maybe you are one in the same for everyone and for each one you are different so maybe you have one name but really you have many names, and vice-versa. And maybe it doesn’t matter what your name is or if you even have a name. I call you the Spectre because I don’t know what else to call you but I am happy to call you whatever you want or whatever I should. I don’t know that the Spectre is a particularly bad name and it’s kind of fitting but whether it’s your actual name or whether you like it or not I have no idea. Anyway, your story doesn’t have to be about your name or anything like that. It could be about anything you want.

Or, we can just enjoy the silence together, I tried to add helpfully.

The room paused for forever and ever. The Spectre looked at me with blank white eyes. Then the eyes blinked. Then from deep down inside the Spectre cleared his throat. Then in a still small voice the Spectre spoke. It was more how a whisper whispers even unto itself. I had to lean in close to listen intently.