Suicide is a problem of property. It concerns class.

Slaves and peasants are not their own. They have a lord and master. They are property that may not dispose of itself. Suicide is rebellion within the political and economic society of the noble estate.

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___

The cylinder spun freely so as to show that the Bullets liked the story of scouting. The Revolver did not stop the spinning just yet and instead loosened his grip so the spinning could last a forever if the Bullets wanted. In short order, however, the spinning stopped and the Bullets came to rest, breathless and eager to hear more. The Revolver was well pleased. Bullets that rejoice are Bullets that are ready.

Instead of waiting for the storyteller to continue with the story of scouting the Bullets peppered him with questions.

What happened the very next Sunday? Did you go up in the forest and mountains? I bet you did. Farther than you’d ever been before.

When did you meet the Revolver? We hope that part of the story is coming up soon.

What was the mystery in the south? That part really intrigued me. What’s down there?

Did you ever get to the craggy peak to see what looms so that what looms looms no longer?

What was the lake like? Was it deep and beautiful like I image it to be ? Did you follow the river that flows down through town all the way up to get there?

All the Bullets wanted to jump back into the story in different places and all needed answers, Stat! All Bullets but one Bullet, that is, who was naturally quieter and more reserved than the rest. This Bullet scrunched up his face as if he was wrestling with something and trying to work it out. You could tell he was thinking hard. The Revolver could tell too.

What’s on your mind?, asked the Revolver. You seem troubled and deep in thought. Is it anything you want to share or would you like to chew on it for a while more?

I do have a question, said the Bullet, and I want to ask it but I don’t want to spoil the fun. I like the story so much I don’t want to ruin it by asking about something the probably doesn’t matter anyway.

It’s fun if you’re truly listening and truly wondering, said the storyteller. A question that comes from good listening can’t ruin the story unless the story is no good. I have so many to questions to answer all ready, said the storyteller, nodding to the other Bullets. I think we need just one more for a full load, don’t you Revolver?

The Revolver nodded. The other Bullets nodded.

Okay, but tell me if this is a bad question. I’ve been trying to work out the question first, I mean what I’m really troubled by, just as much as trying to figure out what the answer might be. But for the life of me I can’t decide about either.

What’s troubling you?

Well, you said that it was only in failure, with fire or food or water, for instance, that you truly learned, and it was only by going above and beyond that you finally merited a badge. That kind of made sense. But you also said your fire wouldn’t start or your shelter collapsed or there was no water or food to be found? How did you succeed, then, if the end was failure? Did you keep trying until a spark caught or did you just go cold that time. Did you rebuild the shelter or just huddle and shiver under a loose tarp flapping in the rain and wind? Did you finally find food or water, or did you just go thirty and hungry and this was your lesson.

Everybody thought hard to remember that part of the story, and when they remembered it they kind of agreed with the question, though they weren’t sure they were remembering right so they agreed about what they thought they remembered.

The storyteller thought back too, harder even than the rest. You’re right, he realized. That part of the story wasn’t very clear. It doesn’t make complete sense. I’m glad you caught it. I wasn’t trying to be confusing or tell a fib about what actually happened. I just didn’t tell the story very good to mean what I said and to say what I truly did.

The part about finally re-earning merit badges was true. How that came to pass and what it meant for me is the missing part of the story, the part between failing when I needed to succeed and realizing what truly resides within amid failure and what I learned and what I became.

In fact, that’s a good place to start up again if everybody is ready. This will lead us to all the other questions in short and longer order on how I met the Revolver and all the rest. Thank you for asking them. And thank you for listening. Not everybody does.

The cylinder spun once more in pinwheel fashion with brass and blued steel in a whirl. As the cylinder spun the storyteller thought. So many good questions and parts to the story. How do I put them all together? I want to be sure everything makes sense from now on. That was a bad storyteller, he scolded to himself.

The cylinder was still now. The room was still in expectus. The storyteller spoke up.

As you were spinning I was thinking how to tell the story to fit everything together and to explain how I really got my merit badges and what I did in the mountains and how I met the Revolver and what happened after that and so much happened and if it’s okay with you I think I’ll start with a montage.

All the Bullets turned to each other to check and nobody had heard of a montage.

What’s a montage?, asked the Bullet at the top of the cylinder.

A montage is that part of the story made up of a lot of little parts sewn together to show something important that you just don’t have time to show because it would take way too long. A montage is most often used for a drastic change in someone from before to after and how someone got so skilled or smart or accomplished.

The montage was first used in the 2004 film, titled, Patrol America: World Jamboree. Before that, when a movie wanted to show a drastic change you had to watch the whole and complete process. For instance, in the movie titled Rocky IV (1985), the star of the movie, named Rocky Balboa, played by Mr. Sylvester Stallone, flies over to the Soviet Union, the U.S.S.R, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the hated Reds, to fight the Russian boxer Ivan Drago, the most dangerous and hated and feared boxer in the world. To prepare for the boxing match Rocky trains out in the mountainous forests of Siberia in the deep snow and for this to happen you have to watch three full months of his training as he slogs around and then goes back to a rented cabin and sleeps and wakes up and eats and reads the newspaper and then does it all over again, day after day, week after week, month after month, and it’s all being filmed and the movie takes forever and people just walk out of the theater because they don’t have an entire winter to just sit and watch Rocky train for a fight. Get to the fight, they start to thinking about five week into the movie when they realize what’s happening.

Another example is a movie called Jeremiah Johnson (1972), where Jeremiah, played by Mr. Robson Redbird, steps off a boat in fancy frontier clothes ready for life in the high mountains among the craggy peaks only to learn he is just a cub in the woods. Over the next four years Jeremiah meets a real mountainman and learns vital skills, earning multiple merit badges in the process, and then strikes out on his own and then accidentally forms a family out of an abandoned boy traumatized by those savage Indians and a savage Indian squaw who at first cannot cook over a campfire but then becomes a good companion and caregiver and lover, ewww!, and then the three build a cabin that is their home, but then the squaw and the boy are killed by those savage Indians and so Jeremiah goes on an absolute killing spree until they are all literally dead, and then he rides up into the mountain alone, right about where he started, doing exactly what he wanted to do, but now with the scars and sadness of the last four years, and the audience has sat there this whole time. If the movie had known about montages there could have been three or four good ones to tell the story and the audience could be in and out of the theater in 108 to 110 minutes instead of over 1,200 days, which is the current runtime of Jeremiah Johnson.

This is all to say that the montage in Patrol America: World Jamboree changed everything. The World Jamboree is the big summer camp for boys who scout who are boys from all around the world. Each country sends a delegation of scouts wearing their particular uniform and matching their particular skin color to show other scouts. The Jamboree happens once every four years and looks exactly like it does in the paintings by Mr. Normal Rockwell.

In one painting, titled Breakthrough for Freedom, a patrol of six scouts from six different countries marches arm-in-arm on the track around the Jamboree. Around and around they go without stopping, day and night, locked arm-in-arm and with horns tooting and referee whistles blowing, night and day, until the walls of global captivity come tumbling down and there’s a breakthrough for freedom, or until the Jamboree ends, whichever comes first. Another painting, by Mr. Rockwell, titled, A Good Sign All Over the World, depicts two scouts from different countries dancing like cheap monkeys while a band of boys keeps time in the background by banging cymbals with one scout playing the bagpipes.

Amid the comradery between dark skin and blue eyes and red hair and freckles you might notice what’s missing at this world Jamboree and that’s the yellow delegation of Korean scouts who are there but left out of all the camping and games and music and skits and bonfires. They came all this way and nobody wants to include them. So they get angry. Then they plan to get even by building a nuclear bomb and burying it deep down inside the bonfire so that on the last night of the Jamboree when everyone is celebrating and saying farewell to each other with laughter and tears the Korean scouts will give all the other scouts something to cry about in the biggest farewell at a Jamboree, ever.

Well, a plan like that and assembling a nuclear bomb and smuggling in radioactive material and working late into the night in tents by lamplight can’t be kept a secret for long and word leaks out. Now everybody knows and there is only one thing to do. Assemble an Elite Patrol of Boys who Scout Who Are American to hunt down and kill the boy who are Korean who scout before they can finish the atomic bomb.

All the ingredients for this elite unit are there. A scout with a Gun merit badge, rated highly-proficient at over 180 yards. A scout who can Swim and also conduct water rescues if needed. This scout wears a special uniform made of all denim to be used as a flotation device or to wrap up an enemy who will be so water-logged under the weight of wet denim that he will sink into the abyss. A scout who knows Indian Signs to give commands so the patrol can sneak around silently. And a scout who knows 50 ways to Kill other scouts with an official scout pocketknife.

The elite boys who scout are led by an elite a big person who is an American who scouts who is experienced in taking care of business at Jamborees. There was the great food fight of ’68, started by scouts from a certain country that shall not be named, called F_anc_, because they didn’t know how to cook over a campfire. Sacrebleu, they cried out as they threw canned goods at other scouts so these other scouts would throw campfire food, like burgers and hotdogs, back at them. F__nch scouts love hotdogs, mon dieu.

Another problem the big person scout dealt with is skit espionage. Skit espionage happens every year and can spark an international incident that can escalate to the highest levels if not nipped in the bud. Espionage entails stealing the plans for a skit from other scouts so you can outdo them or even put on that very same skit first so the other scouts look stupid when they get up to do it. There is also counter-espionage to identify skits that will, in and of themselves, spark an incident. A classic is when a patrol plans to do the underwear skit by pretending they are a certain dark-skinned patrol from another country in a southern continent and the punchline is that scouts from that country can’t exchange underwear even if they wanted because they don’t wear any underwear where they come from and so they end up wearing the underwear on their heads because they don’t know any better. It’s really funny if done well.

So a nuclear threat by those chinky gooky jappy scouts was right up his alley, said the elite scoutmaster. Together this elite scouting unit formed Patrol America.

There was just one thing missing. A pal who could infiltrate the Korean scout camp to get useful intel on their plans and whereabouts. For this they found an ideal yet far from ideal scout. The scout they found from America was sensitive and reserved. He was there to earn his Puppeteering merit badge and was hard at work on the final project, a four-night puppet extravaganza of Herr Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen. It was a one-scout production. He built the stage and sets. Designed the costumes. Adapted the libretto to be enacted by actor puppets without singing or the accompanying music because a full orchestra of instruments conducted and played by puppets was a lot to pull off and because opera singing is hideous in itself. The Patrol America scoutmaster noticed this scout even before the emergency, but not for his puppeteering skills. What the scoutmaster noticed was that this American scout had vaguely chingchong teeth and slanty eyes. The scoutmaster made a note of it in case the note became useful later. And boy did it ever. When the atomic bomb emergency arose the scoutmaster immediately thought of this puppeteering scout right away.

The problem was that even though the scout looked the part he didn’t have any of the skills of a scout who spies. This is where the montage comes in. There was no time to spare and there was so much training that needed to happen so everything was accelerated and stitched together in a fast reel of learning to become a scout that spies on other scouts.

First you have a quick scene of the scout doing push-ups and sit-ups and pull-ups because this scout did not even look that strong at first but by the end of the scene he is absolutely ripped.

Then you have a scene of the scout in a classroom with a teacher in a lab coat pounding into his head how to speak in broken English. Lice is nice. Lice is nice. Prease may I have more lice. Practice practice practice. Over and over again.

In another scene the scout is in a restaurant learning how to use thin metal chopsticks, which are especially tricky because they are both thin and metal and heavy and thus they are heavy metal chopsticks. In this scene the scout struggles to pick up a big shrimp from a bowl of lice. The chopsticks falter and slip shooting the shrimp clear across the room into someone else’s lice bowl. The person eating lice from the bowl laughs. The maitre’d laughs. The shrimp laughs. All laugh because this wasn’t a real restaurant. It was a specially constructed training site because once the scout infiltrates the Korean scout camp there was bound to be chopsticks and bowls of lice involved and the scout needed to be ready.

There was also the scene where the scout learns to bow. Bow early and bow often was what the scout was told. When in doubt, bow, was another rule of thumb. Bow like that dipping bird that bobs up and down drinking from a plastic cup of water that can’t stop bowing.

And of course the fight training sequence, learning how to do Kung Fu with the proper pronunciation for every lethal move. Hai Ya! Chop Suey! Karate Chop!

In the movie Patrol America: World Jamboree this all happens in a minute or two in a montage that shows you him going from being a puppeteering scout to becoming a scout who is truly Prepared to spy on other scouts.

The final scene of the training montage is the scout picking up a shrimp from a steaming bowl of lice with his heavy metal chopsticks and there is no wavering or weakness. He raises the shrimp confidently and takes a big juicy bite and then smiles while doing a Karate Chop! with the shrimp’s tail wriggling from his mouth. The shot shows that this scout is now Prepared.

The montage is over and in the next scene we see the American spy scout with chingchong teeth and slanted eyes and thick black hair walking up to the Korean scout camp.

Harro, he says bowing and bowing some more.

Harro, says the Korean guard scouts who bow and bow.

The bowing goes on and on, back and forth, for so long that there is a mini-montage of bowing. Then, our scout is admitted to the Korean camp. He is in like Flynn.

The biggest secret the spy scout learns is the patrol call for the evil Korean scouts. The Handbook says that the patrol call is a secret call that only members of the patrol know so they can call out to one another without anyone else knowing what’s going on. Politics and morality aside, when you are building a hydrogen bomb to blow everybody up you need a secret patrol call. You really do. For the Korean scouts the call was one of Kimchee! If a Korean scout hears rustling in the bushes and thinks it might be a scout from another country he will call out the secret patrol call and if the scout behind the bush answers with Kimchee! the Korean scout knows not to stab him with a spear whittled from a thick branch because only a Korean scout would know about Kimchee!

The final sequence of the movie is also a montage of all the ways that Korean scouts are killed by Patrol America. Bullets. Scout knives. Drownings. Stabbings with heavy metal chopsticks. Even the strangling of a Korean scout with a scout-red neckerchief. There is a really great moment when someone is behind a bush and the Korean scout uses the secret patrol call and the reply from the bush is Kimchee! and the Korean scout eases up thinking it’s just another Korean scout lurking behind the bush. He thought wrong!

And each time a Korean scout gets killed the scoutmaster for Patrol America enters the frame to deliver his signature line. That’s one less Korean scout to contaminate the World Jamboree, says the scoutmaster as he takes a big bite out of a juicy cigar dangling from his mouth. With that, Patrol America lets out their own patrol call and the audience in the theatre goes crazy every time.

What’s the patrol call for Patrol America?, asked a Bullet.

Well, um, said the storyteller, regretting mentioning this part. I don’t think I can say.

Why not?

Because … it’s kind of loud and obscene and I don’t think I should say it.

This only excited the Bullets and now they really wanted to know.

The storyteller looked to the Revolver and the Revolver nodded as if to say that Bullets need to hear these things sooner or later in life.

Okay, well, when Patrol America kills a Korean scout they all yell out their name first.

Patrol America!

The Bullets nodded in expectus knowing that can’t be it and that there has to be more.

And then … right after that, then they add a kind of affirmation of being the American Patrol.

So it goes, Patrol America!

The Bullets nodded in promptus.

It goes, Patrol America! F**k Y**h!!!!

The little Bullets winced and covered their ears almost in spite of themselves. They were just out of the box and not used to such language .

I don’t like that patrol call, said the youngest of the Bullets. Please don’t say it again.

I won’t, said the storyteller. It’s not a good patrol call for a G-rated story about scouting. To be honest there are other parts of the movie that are also not G-rated.

Like what?, asked the Bullets in unison.

The Revolver shook his head. The storyteller agreed.

Let’s just say the patrol call for Patrol America is the least hilariously offensive part and leave it at that.

The Bullets were disappointed but they understood. We have to draw the line somewhere. Plus we need to get on with the story of scouting.

* * *

The montage begins the very next week in the field of tall grass next to the road at the edge of town and in the weeks to follow as the scout ventures out, farther and higher, to chart a course along the river and to explore routes weaving through the forests and mountains in the shadow of what looms.

Each trek begins before take one step forward when the scouts packs his rucksack. Into the rucksack goes a bag filled with Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches numbering in the 5s to 7s. Then boxes and boxes of Lemon Heads and Charlie Chan Cherry Drops and Alexander the Grapes, a candy named in honor of Alessandro di Grape-Iuice. The scout shoves candy bars with peanuts and nougat and crunchy fingers of butter into a dedicated candy bar sack that is then shoved into the rucksack. Don’t forget a bag of healthy trail mix with peanuts and raisins and chocolate chips and shredded coconut!, the scout reminds himself. Sacks and sacks of snacks go into the rucksack for energy for being-on-the-go.

Next the scout adds savory snacks to his rucksack to replenish precious salts and minerals. There’s crackers and potato chips and pretzels and, of course, everybody’s favorite when it’s hot and dusty and that favorite something is the one and only Pepperoni Stick. Greasy, spicy, salty, meaty. The goodness of a Pepperoni Stick reigns supreme and bows to no one.

After dealing with snacks such that the rucksack positively bursts the scout turns to water. A steel canteen hangs from the scout’s belt. A round canteen loops over his shoulder dangling down the other side. The scout shoves a third canteen into his rucksack where there’s just no more room. The scout lashes a fourth canteen to the back of his pack so the canteen swishes and swings side to side with each step the scout takes and with every move the scout makes. The scout looks like a canteen merchant traveling village to village to peddle his wares.

The reason the scout takes more than enough food and water is not out of prudence so as to be Prepared. The reason is one of obsession and the nightmare of that day in the open field amid the tall grass without a morsel to eat and with water soaking everything with nothing to drink. The reason is that each time the scout packs his rucksack he fast-forwards about 800 minutes to get to the part in Gone With the Wind (1861-1865) where Scarlett O’Hara, played by herself in a breakout role, rises from the field of destruction and utters those immortal words:

As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry or thirsty again!

It is both Troth and a Motto coined right there and then. Then Scarlett lays down her Laws.

I will Lie. I will Steal. I will Cheat. I will Kill

So four Laws in all. Much easier to memorize than the Scout Law and maybe even more naturally resonant such that laws that override laws are necessary.

Well, we can see this scene playing over and over in the scout’s head with the words I will never be hungry or thirsty again scrolling round and round, over and over, urging the scout to pack more and more snacks into his rucksack and carry more and more canteens clinging everywhichway until the sack is stuffed to the gills with snacks and he is drowning under the weight of water.

Then, astonishingly, on top of all that the scout tries to squeeze other gear into his rucksack to fit around the snacks. For rain. For cold. For shelter. There’s just no more room. The scout leaves pieces of gear behind and sets off confidently, knowing he will never been hungry or thirsty again.

The scout treks far into the hills as clouds roll in. Rain pours. The scout stands stupidly with soggy snacks with water within and all around. Cut back to the rain slicker and waterproof pants and a nice rain cover to protect everything in his pack and they are all just sitting around the desk playing dominoes, nice and dry. The waterproof pants looks out the window to see rain coming down in buckets. He shivers comfortably and then throws down a mean Double-Six.

Cut back to the scout in the rain. The ridiculousness is not lost on him. A thought bubble rises above his head. The bubble is one of a vending machine. The vending machine blinks. Then winks. Then sprouts arms and legs and a head. The vending machine looks just like the scout picturing the vending machine in the thought bubble. The scout is solitary, venturing into the unknown, made possible only by transforming himself into a vending machine that vends to the machine.

The ridiculousness has real consequences. For short trips the scout stuffs the rucksack with snacks. Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches squooshed together into a gooey mass. Boxes of hard candy rattling around deep inside. The constant rattling is maddening. Chocolate bars dripping and viscous in the hot sun. Potato chips pulverized. The food is all sugar and grease and on long treks it won’t last long anyway and all that is left is an empty pack filled with wrappers and empty candy boxes and listless canteens with no real gear to speak of. Nothing to camp with. Nothing for building a fire. No pot or pan to cook a true camping meal. No way to purify water to drink.

The scout looks in the mirror at the vending machine he has become and the scout decides to make a change. Pack all the essentials, not just some of them. Prepare for the worst on all fronts, not just the ones you prefer to prepare for. Take only enough food and water for a good start. Figure the rest out along the way and for the way back. This is what a young warrior does, the scout reminds himself in the cold and wet of learning the hard way. He moves light and fast. Resources will abound, all around, when he is resourceful from within. Only then can he trek farther and higher. The young warrior learns solitarily. He learns for real.

The final scene of the montage opens with a light snow dusting camp. The scout steps out of his tent to build a small fire with embers from the night before. The fire smokes and crackles so as to show it’s getting ready for breakfast. Breakfast will consist of a tangy hot tea made from rosehips and monkshood, along with flapjacks dotted with bright red hollyberries. The scout readies the steel frying pan from his Army-Navy Surplus Store mess kit. Cooked in hot oil the flapjacks will be fluffy on the inside and crispy and brown on the outside. The scout will make extra batter for a hardy lunch of flapjacks on the next leg of the journey.

The scout walks to the waterline of a high mountain lake to fetch water for cooking. A gaggle of geese float placid and serene on the bright blue morning. They haven’t a care in the world or anywhere to be. Little do they know they are about to take flight.

Flight begins with one goose. One goose begins with one honk. This is the call. We are to go, says the goose. Ready yourself. All said with one honk because this is the leader. The goosemaster.

The response comes not from all other geese but from all quarters across the gaggle. A honk here, a honk honk there, honks from everywhere until a full representation of honking lets it be known that we are all busy preparing. The gaggle bustles. There is much to do. Webbed feet wriggle through the water to bring each goose into position pointing up to the leader. A pause for a moment in complete stillness and reflection upon the water. Then a shiver runs through the gaggle and honks spill out from everywhere. With me! With you! We go! All together!

Wings beat furious in a moment of desperation to break the grasp of the world. Each goose struggles for its own sake and all cling to the whole to stay with the lead until the world concedes and releases and they are set free.

The geese rise up still in a tangled mass born of determined desperation. The goosemaster climbs and banks around to soar over the lake and the snowy banks and the frozen trees and maybe me as a mere dot standing there looking up as each goose works into airborne formation. The gaggle gauges the wind and fixes a direction high above and flies onward as a few final honks drift back down.

The scout bends down to collect water now lightly ruffled by all the commotion. The ruffling of water mixes with memory so the scout rewinds to choice bits of the montage that got him to where he is that very day.

Sprinkling the river with a dose of iodine and rare earth before filling his canteen with fine, sweet, holy water. Traipsing through a rain forest dense with ferns and filled with birch trees laden with moss. Here the scout learns which mosses are poisonous so as to filter water with them. The water is purified and the poison builds immunity through sickness. Now poison is the medicine and vice versa.

The scout crosses an innocent stream of clear cold water and smells trouble. The smell is one of feverus beaveris or the fever of a beaver where the swimming beaver, enfevered, infects water all around that now flows downstream and right into the scout’s canteen. The scout catches the beaver’s fever and for a fortnight the scout does nothing but chew on logs and build a dam. Once is enough. Now the beaver is tracked and caught and dipped into a pot of water boiling on a campfire measuring approximately 18 feet across x 4 feet wide x 3 feet deep. The campfire heals the beaver of his fever so as to clean the water within and all around. Now you have fresh drinking water and a healthy beaver.

Then there is the hard lesson the scout learns by way of the pool of cess on that dry hot day with every canteen empty when there is no other water to be found. All there is is an oily pool of scum and villainy teeming with bugs and swimming in muck. As the scout retches from the stench of the now-potable water, filtered and then filtered again and boiled then filtered then boiled again until there was nothing but a pot of scummy smelly drinkable water, the scout appreciates the difference between clarity that hides infection and assurance that may be found in cess. Even now the scout vomits in his mouth just thinking about it.

The scout swallows the vomit and quickly moves on to the memory of stopping being a vending machine and becoming a covered wagon instead. Now the scout hauls provisions like flour and salt, sugar and cooking oil. Sometimes he takes cornmeal or lentils or a little white lice for variety. To these staples the scout adds from the bounty of nature. The scout forages and fills a sack with salmonberries and blueberries exploding on bushes in the summer sun. Crushed up with a little sugar and you have forest jam for your flapjacks. Mix your batter with ferns and chives or winter onions and you have savory cakes.

The scout grazes on a salad of miner’s lettuce and chickweed, seasoned with spicy flowers like nasturiua and a touch of violet sweetness. No dressing required. Mushrooms on the forest floor are plentiful and all are good to eat. Morels in the spring. Chantrelles in the summer and fall. Destroying Angels during the winter months. Smuggle a pat of salted butter into the forest and your sautéed mushrooms turn a bowl of lice into gourmet.

Now trekking is more than the travel. Moving through the forest is observing intently on what the woods has to offer. Stopping at a spot with water or a log to sit on is just as important as being on the move. Building shelter becomes automatic where shelter can be as simple as a tarp with a ridge line. Fire in its countless variations under varied conditions needs almost no thought at all. Just action as enaction that has become practiced. Preparing to cook takes time and intention and is just as important and pleasant as cooking and eating. Cooking implements are mustered. The mess kit. A pot or steel canteen to boil water. A utensil for mixing or tossing. Ingredients are arrayed. Maybe the log has a flat surface to be used as a cutting board so you situate your shelter and fire close-by. Everything is arranged to be efficient. Everything becomes clockwork.

Then you put it all together by turning bad circumstances into good camping. The stench of foul water is neutralized by the presence of an enfevered beaver in the pot. The beaver soaks up the turbid liquid while the water is cleaned. Drop in some chamomile or stinging nettle that you stashed along the way. Add a spoon of sugar or honey. Hot Tea!

Instead of tea, drop a stone into your pot of beaver and and trick yourself into adding so many other good things you foraged for. A potato. A wild carrot. Mustard greens and aromatics like garlic or leek. An extra mushroom or two. Mix flour and water with a little lard for dumplings to thicken the broth. Throw it all in with your boiling stone and now you have a delicious pot of beaver soup that both you and the beaver can enjoy. There are so many ways to learn from the wild.

The scout still brings one Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich to see himself off and another Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich for far far down the line but now as a luxury and not as a staple. The second Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich is saved only for a special occasion and as a reminder of how he started. Or the scout eats it for lunch far into the wilderness when what he wants more than anything else in the world is a delicious Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich.

The montage the scout plays in his mind’s eye winds down as it catches up to this very moment of the scout lifting the pot of icy water out of the lake. The campsite the scout returns to is simplicity born of hard-earned experience that extracts just what he needs from camp by doing just what needs to be done. This has made all the difference.

The pot of boiling water is ready for tea. As the scout reaches into the fire his sleeve rises to reveal a blank slate of skin. He looks down at the page. In purple indigo a word bubbles up only to dissolve. Up bubbles another word only to dissolve in the next instant. Another word bubbles. Another dissolves. The scout reads each word. The scout makes his tea and eats his flapjacks and breaks camp and moves on.

* * *

So that’s how you re-earned your merit badges!, exclaimed the Bullets.

Yes, and no, said the storyteller. Some but not all. All but not some. There is more to the story that should be told. It is first worth telling, however, that I realized something that morning. Breaking camp and moving on, deeper and deeper into the unknown, I remembered the words of the Handbook that inspired me when I didn’t feel all that strong or daring. There’s roaming in your blood, promised the Handbook. You have a roving spirit. You have hardened guts not soft organs.

I also remembered standing in the corner at the Eggnog Center for Recreating, or being pushed to the sidelines, or paired up with a patrol only to be ignored. I remembered the troop parading around the track so as to hike into camp with pride and pomp and then trekking out the way they came. I remembered scouts complaining and lagging behind and stopping for long breaks and forming small groups on the track that sat down almost in protest underneath the hot sun as the rest of the troop lapped them and sometimes lapped them again so the small groups simply let laps tick off and then joined the main on the final stretch as if they had been there all along. Then I reread the Handbook in my mind’s eye.

For wilderness expedition, the Handbook states, the group shall consist of no more than 8 scouts. This is most often the patrol exploring together but the group may be a cross-section of the troop, as well, e.g., an ad-hoc patrol.

The ideal number for wilderness exploring, the Handbook continues, is a crew of four boys who scout. This is also the minimum number of scouts who should venture into the woods. This way scouts can divvy up gear to pack around. They can divide duties. Most important, there’s safety in numbers. A crew of at minimum 4 is prepared for the worst. If an accident happens one stays with the victim and two go for help.

I pondered these passages. These memories. These impressions. I wondered about them as I wandered through the wilderness. I remembered a final admonition in the Handbook. To all scouts who expedition, the Handbook commands with emphasis because it really means it, don’t forget your pajamas! All guts and no softness. But be civilized. Be comfortable.

What shall we call this particular species of scout in the woods, packed tightly together in a group of 4 to 8 for safety’s sake and so as not to go astray? It is a patrol?, Yes, but there must be a word that fits better. The Handbook calls them a crew but this will not do. A better word exists. A more fitting term. A word that is nothing less than a Term of Venery, I said to myself.

But what is a Term of Venery?

Long ago a Term of Venery was fashioned for hawking and the hunt as a term of pursuit. Of course the word Venery derives from Venus, Goddess of the Hunt, with kinship to venereal as a term of love. So at heart a Term of Venery concerns what is loved and pursued, hunted and killed, and probably eaten at the end of the day.

Certainly you know many of Terms of Venery as they entered a commoner’s lexicon and became familiar us all. A school of fishes. A pride of lions. You do not have to hunt with hounds to know that hounds hunt in a pack, but did you know that hounds also hunt in a cry. What, then does a cry of hounds hunt? A leash of foxes, of course. A sounder of boars. A sleuth of bears.

Do hounds also hunt a cast of hawks or a convocation of eagles? How about a shrewdness of apes. No, probably not.

Where did these curious terms come from in the first place? Well, there is a quadrilateral of authorities that begins with rough rules and a spirit of creativity. Together they foster interplays of sounds, a touch of meaning, a nod to appearance, habit, or habitat, and a bolt of inspiration from the bright blue sky. Then there comes a time when a term has achieved what we call a sensis communis, or the sense of communis among people who matter, which ultimately finds its way into a volume, such as the Book of St. Albans being the gold standard.

This is the quadrilangulation of a Term of Venery.

Two of my favorite Terms of Venery are, firstly, a parliament of owls, and secondly, a pandemonium of parrots.

I once heard about a teacher at Leaper Elementary School, Home of the Leaps! who collected owls in ceramic and quilts and embroidery and stuffed owls and all things owl. This was because she was a school teacher and owls symbolized learning and education. And in those days to be a member of society you were responsible for collecting something such as stamps or coins or model trains. So the school teacher collected owls.

One day the school teacher’s husband, who was a preacher at one of the churches in town, discovered in the Holy Bible, generally, and probably the Book of Isaiah, specifically, that owls are creatures of the night and are therefore the eyes of the devil and demonic portals into your home in addition to all the doors and windows that are also portals into your home that any devil or demon may elect to use. So now, when this quirky little bird with luminous eyes and a tiny beak tilts its head and asks, Who Who?, the answer is nothing less than Satan and his demons and evil spirits.

The very next Sunday, after a sermon where the pastor preached spiritual warfare raging between owls and people, with everyone worked into a frenzy, and led by the preacher, the congregation marched straight over to the parsonage where they fanned out and went room-to-room rounding up every member of parliament they could find. Owls from every nook and cranny were hauled to the backyard where the preacher smashed the ceramic ones with a hammer and burned the quilts and tea cozied ones and ripped apart the little stuffed ones and the congregation all prayed in tongues as a secret language to lend spiritual power to the cleansing of this house and home while the school teacher looked on. After that, the congregation joined hands in a big circle around the ash and wreckage and sang songs of praise to the Lord and the school teacher started drinking and collecting creepy dolls.

I like a parliament of owls specifically in relation to a pandemonium of parrots. The contrast between a solemn deliberation of birds and birds going absolutely bananas is funny. But the contrast between parliament and pandemonium is false and this teaches an important new lesson.

Recall the angels falling from heaven as told by a man named Mr. JoJo Milliton. Hurtled through space and time they land on a lake of fire. They are vanquished and confounded. From seraphic beauty they are seared and contorted into hideous forms. They are deprived of God and all Heavenly light. They are consumed by dark flames that will not illuminate. They are stripped of eternal meaning as creatures meant to worship God. They have been torn out of themselves in their heart of hearts.

Then, amid the torment of solitary silence and darkness Satan calls out in a sparkling blaze. The demons hear his voice and gather round with new courage by way of company and a glimmer of light. In the space between fiery chaos and the tyranny of God a new political society takes root. The seat of government is established as Pandemonium — the place of all demons — the high capitol of Satan and his peers. Up springs the Stygian Council, similar to a scout committee, solemnly to debate the central question. What one thing will command our shared purpose? How to prosecute a permanent revolution against God in Heaven, by open war or covert guile? The council is plenary. Who can advise may speak, pronounces Satan who sits at the head. For God is a despicable father undeserving of praise.

Moloch rises to counsel open war. Fuel violence with torment, he declares, and inflict trauma by blunt force. There is everything to gain and nothing to lose. For what punishment beyond Hell itself?

But Hell could be much worse, stands Belial, for at least we have each other in this our shared damnation. Perhaps we sue for peace and plead to reenter the Kingdom of God.

Mammon curses the shame and villainy of it. To rebel nobly only to grovel for forgiveness and offer up captive Hallelujahs for all eternity. Hard liberty, he counsels, by taking refuge here. Pioneer this new frontier. Till the barren soil to see what might truly grow in a wasteland of evil that proves to be our good.

Finally Beelzebub stands to reveal that God hides a new creature called Man. This secret creation created in a brand new world is both feeble and more favored than the angels. For God loves Man most. We do not need an onslaught of Heaven, reasons Beelzebub. To destroy Man is to stab the heart of God.

This purpose rings deep and true. Pandemonium affirms the bold design by acclamation. The demons have spoken. Time now for enaction. Troop 41, specifically, and big people who scout, generally, should take notice for this is committee work done right. It is also of course only a slice of the story of the angels in Heaven and Hell.

More important, the word pandemonium was coined by Mr. JoJo for the very capitolizing of Hell. That is the point.

Alongside Mr. Wiam Shakespeare and one Sir Thomas Downe-Towne-Julie-Browne, who composed Religio Medici, or The Religion of a Doctor — where he declared his own contemplations of suicide according to actual word suicide, which some believe was the first use of the word suicide in the English language, derived from the Latin suicidium, which is its own confusing story that we just don’t have time for —, JoJo M. was also one of the great coiners of words for the modern tongue. Mr. Milliton also made up jubilant, fragrant, sensuous, lovelorn, exhilaration, and of course Satanic. Yes, to that point no one had thought to treat of the Prince of Darkness adjectivally.

It is well known that the adjective would be put to good use by Sir Roberto South-Southey in A Vision of Judgment (1821), where South-Southey condemns the Romantic poets as, quote, men of diseased hearts and depraved imaginations, who, forming a system of opinions to suit their own unhappy course of conduct, and who have rebelled against the holiest ordinances of society, unquote.

What issues from the loins of these poets, according to Sir South-Southey, are, again quote, monstrous combinations of horrors and mockery, lewdness and impiety, unquote. Like Adam naming the beasts, Southey gives this monstrous spirit a name and the name is educational.

This is all a quote.

The school which they have set up may properly be called the Satanic school, he declares. For though their productions breathe the spirit of Belial in their lascivious parts, and the spirit of Moloch in those loathsome images of atrocities and horrors which they delight to represent, they are more especially characterized by a Satanic [there it is again! the adjective] spirit of pride and audacious impiety, which still betrays the wretched feeling of hopelessness wherewith it is allied.

In any case, scholars and critics are still baffled by what inspired the Satanic school to their dark and brooding anti-hero, that tall and striking figure who bears the scars of grief and yet defies fate with unquenchable fire. Nobody knows. And perhaps we will know. Like sands through the hourglass.

Today, pandemonium conjures a state of uproar and utter confusion. Mark Twain adopted the very same picture in Roughing It where he describes the gathering of native savages that always seems to devolve into pandemonium with their howlings and wailings, beating of tom-toms and lewd dancing, night after night.

Mark Twain notwithstanding, if being cast into Hell and broken apart qualifies as a dire circumstance, then pandemonium actually stands for the gathering of all spirits into one. Pandemonium as exiled demons fashioning a new home. Pandemonium as all voices bending toward a shared aim amid din and dismay. Pandemonium as the wellspring of unceasing revolt in the face of tyranny. Pandemonium as savage spirits dancing despite burning in Hell. Pandemonium if only to say that we are fallen and still we rise. Pandemonium. Home of the Demons! All Demons as one Demon! Go Demons!!!

It is, furthermore, well known that demons only became demons in the manner of wholesome youth and innocence kidnapped and turned savage in the eyes of the civilized world while at heart remaining a child. This is often the way of words.

Recall that Socrates praises his daimonion, his little spirit, his divine voice, his inner conscience, his ethical and political guide, and thanks the demon for preventing him from traveling down the wrong path of life. Aristotle charts the middle way as the best way of pursuing eudaimonia as happiness in a good and healthy spirit.

Behold, however, mutation into a monster by way of translation as treachery. Hebrew Scripture gives us Šēdīm as evil spirits and false gods, and Elilīm as worthless gods and idols, and Qeṭeḇ as demonic destruction. The Septuagint turns this Cerberus into a singleheaded daimonia. By way of the Septuagint, the Greek New Testament gives us daimonian and daimones for demonic possession and the exorcism of evil spirits.

From there the Vulgate gives us daemōn throughout Holy Scripture. Then the Douay-Rheims Bible achieves the final corruption from Latin to English to give us demons everywhere. Demons and monsters shall meet, they say, and the hairy ones shall cry out one to another — though of course the King James Version leans heavier into devils by way of their Old English and Germanic roots.

This is the same vicinity in the Book of Isaiah where owls are absolutely dumped on as being creatures of the devil, and it is probably here where the preacher discovered that he needed to smash and burn down the school teacher’s parliament of owls.

It also seems that reference to those hairy demons and monsters points specifically to the ericius or hedgehog. And we know that a gathering of hedgehogs crying out to each other is a prickle. For hedgehogs are shy solitary types and if they call it must be important.

Thus, by the transitive properties we also know that a prickle of hedgehogs equates to a pandemonium of demons as the place of all demons as hedgehogs and hedgehogs as demons calling out to each other. And we know that pandemonium is nothing less than the parliament of Hell, where we will also presumably find a lot of owls who debate what path to follow. And so we have a parliament of demons as being one in the same with a prickle of hedgehogs and a pandemonium of owls.

This is why I think it’s funny that a parliament of owls and a pandemonium of parrots have taken on such opposing characterizations.

How do parrots fit into all of this?, asked a Bullet.

Honestly, nobody knows, replied the storyteller. And we really don’t have time for that. Or maybe it’s somewhere in the book called Terms of Terms of Venery, which is where I learned all about Venereal Terms. The book sat on the New Arrivals shelf at the library in town for who knows long before I picked it up out of curiosity. Critics hailed it as a model of confusion and a new way of writing where the term writing is used in the most minimal and generous sense.

* * *

What then is a group of 4 to 8 boys who rove and roam in the woods for safety’s sake called? It is nothing less than a litter of boys who scout who are still only cubs whether they know it or not.

Does this mean that boys who scout as a litter lack the courage to be alone deep in the wilderness? Is the courage to be alone deep in the wilderness simply the courage truly to be? I leave those questions to be decided between boys who scout as a litter and their Maker. But the answer is Yes and Yes.

It’s a good thing you never joined a litter, said a Bullet. I don’t think you would have liked it or liked yourself for liking it.

I agree. But in that cold and crisp morning as I wandered and wondered I did find the right patrol for me.

What was it?

It was simply the patrol of a solitary scout who roves and roams and divvies up and divides by himself. I was a team of one. A pal unto myself. One as the number prepared best to handle the worst. For the solitary scout hath no dividual or multiplicational being, declares JoJo Milliton, and I agree with him.

Did you have a patrol name?, asked the Bullets. How about an embroidered patch to wear on your uniform? Or a standard to carry around wherever you went?

No patch or standard. Just a name.

What was it?

My Patrol was the Hedgehog where the Hedgehog Patrol was just me.

Oh, I really like that! But why a Hedgehog? Because it’s a creature of the night just like the owl. Who Who!

No. Because for the Hedgehog what truly matters is only one thing. Not like the badgers of the woods that bounce back and forth, here and there, busy with so many important things and important unto themselves because of all the business. There’s just one single solitary thing for the solitary scout who is a Hedgehog. Important while being unimportant. Unimportant in its importance.

If it’s only you in the Hedgehog Patrol did you have a Patrol call? Probably not, right.

As a matter of fact I did have a call.

What was it?

The call of the Hedgehog Patrol was one of quietude.

We like quietude, whispered the Bullets, don’t we?

The Revolver nodded. We do like quietude, whispered the Revolver back to them.

* * *

When did you finally finally earn all your badges for good and all?, asked the Bullets.

That happened when I entered the desert, said the storyteller. It was only when I entered the desert and got lost and utterly failed that I found the way. I didn’t even know there was a desert to enter so as to get lost in. But here it was. From a thinning forest into thickets I stopped abruptly at the edge of endless dunes undulating as far as the eye can see and farther on until swallowed up entire by what looms.

This is no place for me, I said to myself. I have very little food or water. There is nothing out there to sustain me for the trip out and even less for the return. I turned to head back into the woods but the thicket sprouted long sharp thorns and closed up as a wall that would have torn me apart to get through. I was astonished. I was dismayed. I was now in a pickle whichever way I went though which way now was painfully clear. I deliberated over what was foregone for as long as I respectably could. Then I stepped into the dessert.

What will guide you?, asked myself. Only what looms high above on this bright clear day with not one wispy white cloud in sight and a sun still in the morning of its day. That day turned to nightmare.

A desert of dunes is a strange maze of highs that are not really that high and lows that don’t sink down too far and yet everything is there so you utterly lose yourself for it is virtually endless. There is no water. No plants to wring or chew on. The day under the hot sun boils every bone to the point of bursting and the night drains every drop of heat to feed the cold sands.

On the first day I ran out of water. As carefully as I conserved it there was only so much to go around until there was only one drop left. I sipped up the drop before it could evaporate anyway and then there was no more.

On the second day I had no food except a handful of flour. Hunger gnawed at me. Thirst maddened me. I grew dizzy and delirious. I could stand it no longer. I shoved the flour into my parched mouth and gagged and choked on the dryness of it. I gnashed my teeth coated thick with flour. I had nothing left.

On the third day I crawled toward what looms without hope of reaching it. The wall of thorns was far behind. In the black of night I just lay there shivering, squandering whatever remaining energy I could muster. So cold. So hungry. So thirsty. I was no longer a little kid in the field across the road at the edge of town. I was not scared. I was also so far away, at the very edge of everything. I failed. But I was determined. I would not succumb. At around midnight I started crawling. It did not especially matter which way I crawled. What looms could not penetrate this darkest night and so what looms only loomed in my delirious mind’s eye. I crawled toward it knowing I would not get there anyway. I had no hope and still I crawled until I could crawl no more. Sometimes this is the way of the world with you in it.

Just then I spied someone up ahead. Who was it? Where did he come from? Who could it be in this endless desert right in front of me? Was he crawling too? Crawling toward me as I crawled toward him? Imagine if that were so. I was too tired to chuckle. No, he was not crawling. He was standing vital and tall. Could it be? It can’t be!, I said to myself in a raspy inner voice. It was J.L. Tarr!

Ask the Handbook, said J.L. Tarr, who was shimmering right in front of me offering down a Handbook with his very own hand. Ask the Handbook, J.L. Tarr droned on. Ask the Handbook.

But I was in no mood for reading.

That’s not good enough!, I rasped at him. I think it was out loud but maybe not. I need you to talk to me. Tell me what I need to do.

Silence.

I’m asking you, J.L. Tarr, with your skin of bronze, kissed by the sun, and your silvery mane parted neatly on the left, always on the left. What should I do?

Silence.

Talk to me J.L. Talk to me. I’m asking you … My voice trailed off. I was growing very faint. I thought he was gone.

No, I’m still here, said J.L. Tarr.

Then, J.L. Tarr said unto me:

Take, and eat of your body, in remembrance of you.

Drink, drink of your blood, for you are the cup of yourself.

Then, J.L. Tarr vanished and all grew dark again.

With my last ounce of strength I stood in amazement. It was so obvious. Why had I never thought of it before? I wanted to stand there and recall all the times I was thirsty and never thought of drinking my own blood and all the times I was hungry and never even looked at myself as a food source but this was no time to reminisce or to scold myself. I pulled out my scout pocket knife. The scout pocket knife is useless for processing wood, but when sharpened properly the small blade becomes nothing less than a scalpel.

J.L. Tarr did not provide detailed instructions on the extracting portion of the partaking before disappearing so I would have to use my best judgement under the circumstances. A slit here. A cut there. Blood flowed. Just enough to fill my cup but not so much that my cup runneth over. I took a long, deep draught of fine, sweet, holy blood. Then another. Ahhh!!!

With my thirst slaked it was time to eat. Only choice bits and pieces, I decided, selected and sliced for maximum nutrition and minimum divots.

What were they like?, asked the Bullets who were by now on the edges of their seats.

Needed more salt if I’m being honest. But overall not bad. Almost immediately I felt revived. Revived and yet depleted from the loss of flesh and blood. Satiated yet strangely still hungry as when one hour passes after a succulent Chinese meal.

Then, something unexpected happened. Something amazing. Flesh and blood combined and combusted. They became fuel for the fire to warm me from within. With fire I soon became a blazing hearth. A place to dwell even before building shelter with endless sand all around. But that was just the beginning. With water and food, fire and shelter flowing from nothing less than flesh and blood what happened next was the most magnificent thing of all.

What was it!, demanded the Bullets.

I became positively magnetized.

Magnetized to what?, cried the Bullets, practically beside themselves by now.

Magnetized to somewhere I had looked to for so long. Somewhere I was drawn to far above and away from town. Only back then I had to open my eyes and look out and up to see what looms. Now I could feel where it was from within even with my eyes closed tight. The craggy peak pulsed and vibrated in my bones. What loomed practically screamed to me. There was a lot of screaming. It was very loud and constant. It never turned off. In time I would learn to temper the siren in the manner of redhot ardors of love settling into a comfortable unwavering attraction. Now wherever I went I knew where I was in relation to what looms because I could feel where what looms is from the beating in my heart of hearts. My blood boiled. My flesh sizzled. Fire raged on. A rock guitar kicked in and absolutely slashed and slayed with brass horns rearing up and snare drums driving on and the lyrics were clear as day.

I can see a new horizon
Underneath the blazing sky
I’ll be where the eagle’s flying
Higher and higher.

Just then the sun rose and a new day began. A new day dawned but a thick cloud gathered in the north. The cloud headed straight toward me. But this was no cloud of rain. It was a gaggle of geese. But this was no gaggle of geese. It was a cloud of every gaggle of geese there ever was. If you’ve ever experienced with the eyes of an innocent child the sky teeming black and hideous with flying monkeys and been terrified by the very sight and sound and everlasting memory of it you’ll know what I mean. The megagaggle passed overhead, wave upon wave, formation stacked upon formation, one on top of another, higher and higher, stretching for miles in all directions, all heading south with each and every goose honking with the fury of being drowned out by all the geese honking.

I stood in awe and terror at the spectacle in its sheer magnitude as geese traveled overhead and onward to the south. I stood in place and watched until they reached the edge of the horizon and disappeared. All was quiet. Then in the eastern sky I heard a one honk. A lone honk. Looking up and into the sun I squinted to make out a small dot beating its wings toward what looms. A single goose in flight. One honk with no reply.

I gazed at the goose beating its wings all alone. I watched the goose travel the distance and then dip down into the darkness of what looms backlit by a rising sun. I felt like I was witnessing something personal and sacred that I had no right to see. I felt ashamed for seeing it without the goose even knowing it was seen by me and yet I was so in awe I could not look away. I wanted to do something to show my gratitude but I didn’t know what. I just stood there gazing intently. Then without looking away I raised my hand in a scout sign and held it until the very sense of where the goose was was entirely gone. I held it for just a while longer and then I lowered my hand.

I will never be a goose to cover the distance in flight, I said to myself. I will never be a scout who is an eagle either. I am a just a solitary scout bounded to the earth below and all around. This is just right for me. Now I know where I want to go. I have been walking in the shadow of what looms looking up for so long. I learned at its knee but never attempted to scale its craggy heights so as to plunge into the lake below. A lot has changed from all the very beginnings though. Now I have strength and confidence. I have skills and the gear to get there. Now I am a moveable feast and a mobile home who will never be lost again. I will never be lost or hungry or thirsty again for now I have something new. So help me, I will never be hungry or thirsty or lost again. I will never be, so help me, for now I have nothing less than St. Elmo’s Fire burning inside of me. Burning inside of me.

I brought my hands to my mouth in the manner of a megaphone.

Thank you J.L. Tarr, I whispered into the indifferent distance. My voice echoed and echoed and echoed quietly across the dunes of the desert.

Thank you …. Thank you … Thank you …

J.L. …. J.L. …. J.L …

Tarr … Tarr … Tarr …

* * *

That’s how you finally got to what looms and took a dip in the cold cold waters of the lake below!, cried the Bullets.

You would think so, said the storyteller. That’s what I thought would happen. There’s no time to lose, I thought to myself, and I made to start out right there and then to reach what looms with St. Elmo’s Fire burning inside of me.

But you didn’t make it?

Not even close.

The Bullets were baffled. What happened? How could that be?

What happened was, I was slingshottted. Booted. Spitted out.

Slingshotted? Booted?

And, Spitted out …, said the storyteller.

The Bullets nodded knowingly not knowing what any of that even means.

Have you ever seen the cartoon short, titled, Boots Ahoy (1951), where a cowboy gets booted from the saloon over and over again. First, the cowboy is simply thrown out through the swinging doors. The swinging doors swing at the spectacle of it as the cowboy picks himself up and dusts himself off in the middle of the street while townsfolk walking the wooden boardwalks look on. Well, the cowboy marches directly back into the saloon so the second boot is an actual cowboy’s boot with spur and you can see the boot boot the cowboy out the swinging doors while the spur spins in the manner of a pinwheel. The cowboy throws down his crooked cigarette in protest, rolls up his sleeves, and marches straight back in. Next you see two large cowpokes drag our cowboy out the swinging doors while a third cowpoke with a familiar looking boot with spur spinning gives our cowboy a swift kick in the behind. The cowboy soars over the Pioneer Surplus Store across the street. Two old ladies in Sunday best step forward so as to signal Touchdown. The marching band strikes up a tune. The crowd cheers.

Fast forward to the saloon doors bursting open with the entirety of the saloon spilling out with the cowboy hoisted up and tied to a rail. The mob parades down Main Street with the cowboy bobbing on high. The mob promenades all the way to the dry gulch outside of town where they stake him into the ground and leave him for the vultures to deal with. That should do it, they declare, as they clap the dust off their hands and slap each other on the back and amble back into the saloon for a celebratory drink or two.

Well, each time the cowboy gets booted and as the bootings become more elaborate and personal the cowboy only gets more determined to march straight back into the saloon and belly up to the bar to have himself a drink of whiskey. The cartoon is secretly an advertisement for whiskey drinking, but kids do not know that.

In the cartoon we never find out why the cowboy keeps getting booted from the saloon. Did he start trouble? Did he order a drink and drink it down without paying? Did the saloon patrons in their norms and manners just not like the cut of his jib? We never find out. All we see are the bootings, one boot after another boot. The original title of the cartoon was Boots Galor, but the whiskey company liked the nautical angle to this cartoon set in a dusty saloon town on the razor’s edge between civilization and mob rule.

Well, this is exactly what happened to me, more or less. I never even made it a few steps on my way to what looms before I was booted out and slingshotted back down the mountain. It happened so quick I didn’t know what had happened. One moment there were endless sand in from of me. The next I was spitted out in the middle of the forest. I check the screaming of my new magnetism and sure enough it pointed back behind me. To my horror, I was far away and headed in the opposite direction. From all the way out there I was now headed into town!

Well, like the cowboy in the cartoon I’ll tried to turn around and head right back up the mountain to get to the desert to get high above to what looms. I tried to turn but my limbs grew heavy. I made to walk but my joints froze. I was stuck in wet concrete drying fast all around me. I struggled and fought to come unstuck but it was useless and soon I was spent.

I didn’t know what to do. I stood there for an eternity, flabbergasted. There seemed to be only one thing left to try. I leaned forward and let myself start down the mountain. I came unstuck with such force that I practically tumbled head over heels. I continued down the slope. But I wasn’t beaten yet. I tested what was happening. I stopped and tried to turn around. I became a block of cement. I continued down the mountain while a sea of trees parted before me.

What was happening?, I wondered in dismay. What loomed called to me in my new magnetism but the only direction I could go was back to town. How could that be?

The very next week I tried again. I made it to the desert only to be booted and slingshotted and spitted out in the wooded hills just above the unfarmed field.

I tried again. I worked my way around the desert up a narrow, rocky seam. This time I was spitted out of the tall grass onto the road at the edge of town. I worked around the other side of the desert through a thick forest that should open up above the tree line. I tried sneaking. I moved fast. I made no noise. I traveled by night, something I never did because I lost sight of what looms. But now I had St. Elmo’s Fire to orient and light my way. It didn’t help. At around midnight I was spitted out onto the street corner outside the Army-Navy Surplus Store. The Army-Navy Surplus Store was dark and closed tight with a metal gate to protect its precious contents, but the Peas in a Pod Inn across the way was wide open with gruff men singing sea shanties and toothless wenches cackling and bar fights spilling out onto the street.

If those are Peas, I thought to myself, then that’s the roughest Pod I’d ever seen. This was no place for a little kid to be at this hour of the night.

So began The Boot Period. The Era of the Slingshot. The Age of Being Spitted Out. I tried everything I could think of overthrown the iron grip that had a hold on me. Nothing worked. Always, I was booted. Always at some new place along the way for no apparent reason. Always I was slingshotted down the mountain and more and more often it was straight into town. The hardest part was, I didn’t know why. Had I done something wrong? I didn’t think so, but I would make amends if I could only find out what it was I did? Was there meaning to where I ended up each time? A message? Or was it all random and without anything to read into?

I did count my blessings that whatever was booting me did not spit me out and into the Eggnog Center for Recreating on a Sunday morning while Troop 41 was reading aloud from The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 1, by Mr. Edward Gibbon. What a pit of vipers that would have been. They would have hoisted me up and staked me to the ground in the open field behind the Rec Center and I would have kind of deserved it. I chuckled.

After so many of misadventures or malexpeditions or antitreks, as I started to call them, it was becoming hard on my roaming spirit to venture out with purpose and determination while knowing I was just going to get booted back. With every step I took I started to expect the boot, the slingshot. The more I anticipated getting spit out at some awkward location in town like the library or at an estate sale or in Room 13 at Leaper Elementary School, where I would have to slink away with everyone staring at this motley kid who appeared out of nowhere, the less I focused on moving forward and the more and more I readied myself for the booting and spitting portion of the journey. It was a kind of sustained wince whist wandering.

Was this just a test to see how badly I wanted to get to what looms?, I wondered. The Handbook explains that to learn fire is first to fail at it. Maybe this was the lesson I was learning with my new inner flame. Still, I felt like maybe this was my new fate, to have the call screaming at me inside me and not being able to answer. Would it go on forever like this, always going out and always being spitted back into town. It was a kind of humiliation and a painful defeat each time and I didn’t know what I had done to deserve it. But I had learned much along the way, and so resolve as well as roaming was in my blood. I was not about to stop.

How long did it go on for? Forever?

No, not forever. For how long I don’t know. I didn’t stop, I just stopped counting the times I got the boot. All I know is that nothing changed until everything changed with a chance encounter deep in the forest. Two chance meetings, in fact, said the storyteller with a nod in the direction of the Revolver.

The Bullets got excited for this was the part of the story that everyone was looking forward to.

* * *

It was on one of those misadventures that I came upon the most curious sight. Stepping out of the woods into a clearing with a lovely creek winding through it I saw a Raccoon scraping and pawing at a small mound of dirt covered in moss and leaves. From the very first I was on guard because the Raccoon looked both twitchy and suspicious. Twitchy because all the Raccoon did was twitch. Paw and twitch. Scrape and twitch. Stand on two legs clawing at the heavens with his tiny front paws while twitching the whole time.

The Raccoon also looked suspicious. Suspicious because it was a Raccoon of unusual size in the manner of being both mammoth and a Raccoon and next because this unusually-sized Raccoon was draped in the tatters of what looked like a fancy mountaineering jumpsuit three sizes too big even for this-sized Raccoon. The jumpsuit was striped in black and white, which was all the rage at one time I believe, and shredded into mere rags barely clinging to the Raccoon’s hulking, withered body.

The Raccoon dug at the dirt to get at something buried deep within but amid the flurry of digging no dirt flew. The mound was unmoved and unfazed Not a single leaf on the mound stirred and not a single patch of moss was disturbed. It was like the Raccoon was digging at the sky. Digging into air. And yet the Raccoon dug on, consumed by his digging and whatever lay down below beneath the leaves and moss and dirt.

I was terrified but fascinated by this massive shriveled-up Raccoon adorned in the tatters of the uniform of an adventurer. I stepped back in terror while stepping forward with curiosity and because I could not decide which direction to go I stepped both ways and stepped onto two twigs and they both snapped. Snap Snap. The Raccoon looked up, first startled by the noise, then shocked by the sight of a little kid in a ragtag outfit so far out into the mountains with one foot facing one way and the other foot pointing straight toward the Raccoon as a kind of contorted ballet position of wanting to go bothwhichways and being too clumsy and indecisive to do either very well.

When the Raccoon saw me he stepped back, abashed at the sight of himself, and then rose up hissing and clawing and charging straight at me. I didn’t move. I couldn’t move. The foot pointing away was glued in terror. The foot pointing toward the Raccoon was even more fascinated than before. It was a hissing and clawing but more in the sense of, Hey, I’m angry you surprised and saw me, go away, get out of here, hiss hiss, claw claw, and I imagined that the Raccoon probably thought that that would be more than enough to get the job done since I was a little kid. The Raccoon did not count on me not being able to move out of terror and not wanting to move because I wanted to see what this Raccoon was all about.

The Raccoon was closing fast with all the clawing and hissing but just as I predicted, or at least hoped for, the Raccoon stopped abruptly just a few feet away from me. The clawing and hissing persisted but the stopping changed the mood of the charge. Now the Raccoon was so close to me I could catch spray from the hissing but the clawing started to feel a little feeble with the Raccoon stopping and not charging any farther and not pouncing on me and just standing there clawing. I felt it. I think the Raccoon felt it too and soon the clawing slowed until it stopped and the little arms and tiny hands of this gigantic Raccoon dropped to his sides. We stared at each other dumbly trying to figure out what was called for now in such a situation.

There was only one thing to do.

Hello, I said.

Hello, said the Raccoon in a halting manner, unsure about saying the word or if it would come out or make a sound or be heard.

I didn’t mean to surprise you. I was just walking through the forest and came into this clearing and there you were. I didn’t know whether to announce myself or go back into the trees and leave you be. I tried to do both, actually, and that’s where the snapping of the twigs came in.

The Raccoon looked down at my feet facing bothwhichways, each still stepping on a now-snapped twig. I looked down too. It was very awkward to keep my balance heading in both directions all while talking to a Raccoon so I shifted position with both feet pointing toward the Raccoon. Now we were face to face.

Hello, said the Raccoon again, now more confident with the word.

Hello, I said. I am just passing through the woods. It’s a pleasure to meet you.

The pleasure is mine, said the Raccoon. Sorry about all the hissing and clawing. You really surprised me. Apparently, that’s what Raccoons do when they are surprised. What are you doing way out here anyway? You’re just a little kid.

The apology was very nice and the explanation for the hissing and clawing helped. But the just a little kid part kind of set me off so now I wanted to do the hissing and clawing. I was a little kid, I thought to myself, but if this Raccoon only knew.

I am a little kid, I replied, and yet here I am.

The Raccoon thought a moment.

That is an excellent point and a fair one. My apologies. I was not raised this way you know, said the Raccoon, gesturing toward him being a Raccoon. Spending so much time alone in the woods and being a Raccoon makes you forget your manners. Sometimes I even have to remind myself how to think. Thinking about how to think so as to remember thinking because you forgot it. How crazy is that?

Can I ask you what you’re doing here? I don’t want to be rude but, in truth and all fairness, you do not seem to be just a Raccoon.

Well said, my new forest friend. I am not just a Raccoon.

What are you then? Who are you?

The Raccoon straightened with an air of excitement at being asked and an air of pride in what the answer will be.

The what is complicated. The who is simple.

Who are you, then?

I, said the Raccoon, am Glim Primsbs. Glim Primsbs the Fourth, to be precise. I am Glim Primsbs IV.

You’re Glim! …. But that’s impossible!

Glim was visibly pleased that he was so well known by this little kid.

It is possible, replied the Raccoon, for here I am.

That is an excellent point, I conceded, and a fair one. But you were sent away, way upstate, to prison, for life, for killing a man in Reno.

Let’s get a few things straight kid, said the Raccoon. I did not kill that man in Reno. Well, okay, I did. So sue me. He deserved it. If it wasn’t me doing the killing there was a long line and everyone had his number. I just happened to be front of the queue, that’s all. I mean we’re talking Reno here. Everyone in Reno has a long line of people. But I wasn’t sent upstate. That has become a figure of speech though it was once accurate geographically in a specific case. No, I was sent downsouth. And it was for life, though it was not for life, if you catch my meaning.

You escaped?

I’m here, aren’t I, said the Raccoon puffing out his chest and pounding on it with tiny fists. Long before I was a Raccoon, from the time I was just a little kid, I had a knack for climbing trees and fences and walls and so breaking out of prison was no problem because that’s all prison is. Just a lot of things that people can’t climb up and over. Except sometimes they can.

By the way, how do you know who I am? Is it because of my headline grabbing crime or my legendary jailbreak?

No, I said. Then, I explained in very précis fashion the story of scouting up until then, with emphasis on my scholarship and the books written by the Primsbses and the reputation they have for cutting-edge research.

Oh, that, said Glim. It figures. All those fancy famous writers of histories. Look at the Primsbses go! What brilliant men they all are and over so many generations. All except for me. The misfit. The oddball. The black sheep. The kid who liked to climb trees and ride bikes and build forts in the woods instead of holing up like my father and his father before him and his father before him in some dark cave tapping away at a typewriter or nibbling and scribbling. Tap Tap. Scratch Scratch. And I was the one that was maladjusted. There were even whispers at Primsbs-o-ramas, which is what we called all those huge family dinners and holidays and book launch parties, that I was probably adopted.

So I admit, continued Glim, that I got caught up with the wrong kind of people — Groupers, really — and we did some bad things. I did some bad things. I became a criminal. I thought I had finally found my calling. I was going to live a full and complete life of crime. Then, in the blink of an eye I found myself shackled and crammed into a prison bus headed south for life. I never even got to know my own son, Glim Primsbs the Fifth. After I got sent downstate the Primsbs clan quickly closed in and all around him swallowing him up. I never heard from Glim V or got to see him grow up and no Primsbs would ever talk to me again. I was dead to all of them.

The Raccoon stopped and stood for a minute deep in thought, now a bit deflated.

Do you know what shame is?, asked the Raccoon.

Shame is when a good scout does bad and knows it, I volunteered in crisp, assured diction. When that happens the scout is ashamed. That is what shame is.

Shame is also when you’re family doesn’t want anyone to know you are one of them. The family is ashamed and so they pretend you don’t exist. Now which kind of shame do you think applies to me?, asked the Raccoon pointedly

I thought a moment. Well, both actually.

Yes, well, actually they both do. But my point is more about the second kind of shame. They were happy for me to simply disappear into the corrections systems to be stricken from the Book of Primsbses and their long line of distinguished scholars.

I remained silent, not knowing what to say to that.

Speaking of bibliography, said the Raccoon, you tell me my son wrote a book?

Oh, yes, I said excitedly. A very good book. I read it cover to cover. It’s called A History of the Histories of Scouting, by Professor Glim Primsbs V. It’s partly the reason I’m up here in the forest and the mountains. It’s partly how I could go so far alone.

So my son’s a scholar then?, said the Raccoon, reflecting on the discovery.

And a professor, I added.

A professor and scholar. Who would of thought? Well, my family would have thought. That’s what Primsbses do, don’t you know … But you know what I mean.

I do, I said.

Do you ever talk to my son?

No, I never have. I only read his book. I checked it out from the library in town. I think your son is at a big school far away.

Well, if you do meet him some day tell him his dad thinks of him and is proud.

I will, I said.

Just don’t tell him I’m a Raccoon, added the Raccoon.

I won’t, I promised, and I meant it and I think the Raccoon could tell I did.

The Raccoon nodded in appreciation. The time seemed right to start over.

Now that I know who you are, I said, I’m very glad to meet you, Mr. Glim Primsbs the Fourth.

The pleasure is all mine, said the Raccoon, bowing just a little.

Would it trouble you to tell me why you are a Raccoon after being Glim Primsbs the Fourth for so long?

The Raccoon was about to answer but just then he caught wind of something. His nose started twitching and sniffing, searching the air to locate and identify. But what?

The sniffing became more urgent and more pronounced and more and more aimed directly at me, or more precisely at my backpack, or more precisely still at the side pocket of my backpack where I keep my lunch.

The Raccoon sniffed and sampled and savored the air and sniffed and twitched, moving closer and closer where only a few feet separated us to begin with and the distance was being closed rapidly. In this instance I didn’t feel that the Raccoon would stop and merely paw the air. Glim was on a mission. I stepped back almost in spite of myself, as one does when a massive twitching Raccoon comes at you with real intent, even though we had just gotten to know each other and were friendly, if not forest friends, quite yet.

With as much authority as I could muster I held up my hand in the Indian sign language sign to STOP!

The Raccoon stopped but was immediately back to pawing while sniffing. The Raccoon was possessed of something and couldn’t help but to move forward again.

STOP!

The Raccoon stopped.

It was like a game of red light-green light played for real stakes.

Finally the Raccoon settled down while remaining extremely agitated.

What do we have here?, asked the Raccoon as calmly as an utterly possessed mammal can manage while gesturing toward the side pocket of my backpack.

A Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich, I said, reaching into my backpack and pulling out a plastic bag with a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich in it. The Peanut Butter was thick and luscious between two pieces of airy white bread while Grape Jelly oozed out and all around. The Sandwich was by now days old and squooshed but at the very sight of it the Raccoon became ecstatic and beside himself. The Raccoon clapped his little paws and waved them in the air. Gimme gimme gimme!, he cried. Oh, pleeeeeease gimme gimme the Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich. I haven’t had one of those in for so long. So so long …

Looking at how withered and frail the Raccoon was I could believe he hadn’t eaten anything in forever. I was about to give him the Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich but then it occurred to me that he was in such a frenzy that when he got his big little paws on it he would run off into the woods to eat the Sandwich in privacy all for himself and I would never see him again and I needed answers about why he was a Raccoon.

Then I had an idea.

How about an exchange?, I proposed. You tell me why you’re a Raccoon and I will give you the Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich.

To close the deal I cracked open the plastic bag to let the rich aroma of the Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich waft into the air. The smell intoxicated the Raccoon so he nearly fell over. The animal was furious at being deprived of it, but the rational, bargaining side soon kicked in and took over and the Raccoon agreed.

Now tell me why you are a Raccoon and I will give you the Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich, I said, repeating the terms of the bargain. Then I zipped up the plastic bag and placed it into my jacket pocket for safekeeping and to keep the Raccoon focused on his part of the deal.

The Raccoon collected himself with the mettle of a Stoic, it must be said. I felt for him in his hunger and appreciated how serious he took the bargain.

I waited patiently as the Raccoon prepared. Then he began.

Why am I a Raccoon? Why is anyone a Raccoon? No, that’s not a good start.

How did I become a Raccoon? What even is a Raccoon?

The Raccoon paused. Embarrassed. Apologetic.

Bear with me, said Glim. I haven’t really worked out a good opening line. The Primsbses are famous for their opening lines, aren’t they, and look at me fumbling for one. Welcome to the mind of a clam. Who writes like that?

The Raccoon thought a moment and then threw up his tiny paws.

Well, because we are short on time, he said, and for lack of a better opening, Welcome to the mind of a Raccoon who was a man named Glim Primsbs the Fourth.

I clapped to show my appreciation.

One thing’s for sure about prison, Glim continued. It cured me of being a criminal. What it didn’t cure me of was the insatiable hunger to make a name for myself. To stand out in ways the Primsbses never imagined with their churning out of the same old mold of what success should look like. Speaking of unimaginative.

More to the point, I didn’t want to just write about what happened in the past. I wanted to do something to be remembered for for all future time. I wanted to do something that so many had tried before where all had failed. This is how I would make my mark.

What did you do?, I asked.

After I escaped from prison I came up into these mountains to kill or capture the Spectre. That’s what I did. Straight from prison I came up here. I wanted to throw the Spectre in a cage where everyone could pass by to view it in chains, now rendered humbled and harmless. I wanted to ride into town on a fiery chariot dragging the lifeless body behind me. I was so hell-bent on my mission that I didn’t even change clothes when I broke out of the joint. I just threw some supplies into a rucksack and headed straight up the mountain. The murderer still wearing his sartorial garb and he’s the one that apprehends and punishes the greatest perpetrator of them all. How poetic, I thought.

So I came up here on a mission. I got to this clearing, in fact, where I thought I’d make camp and start my hunt in earnest. Everyone knows the Spectre comes down from that craggy peak and I figured this is the perfect place to set a trap and spring it on him. Or maybe there would even be a grand showdown. Just me and the Spectre. Face to Face. Mano y Mano. Alone in the clearing surrounded by the deep dark woods with just the mountains to bear witness. There would be rousing music with a fairly novel arrangement of Spanish guita … anyway, and then lightning and a sudden maelstrom of violence and then silence. A butterfly would flit and float down and settle onto my shoulder as the symbol for a new day. A better tomorrow. Fade to Light. Roll Credits.

When the dust settled I would stuff the Spectre into his own bag — Again the poetry of it, I am still a Primsbs, after all. — and haul him back to town and church bells would ring and townsfolk would all come out to see and they would lift me up on their shoulders and carry me through the streets to the gazebo in le centre-ville and a statute would be erected in my honor right there and then and there would be speeches and pretty ladies and television appearances and a book deal and maybe even a movie with a training montage capped off by a dramatic prison break and then the finale with me conquering the Spectre and I would have mansions and sports cars and pool parties and, well, anyway, obviously none of that happened.

It might sounds silly now, but I tell you kid, I was dead serious at the time.

Believe me, I said, I do understand. Maybe a little less elaborately than what you pictured but more than you might think. Please go on. What happened?

What happened was it didn’t take long at all. It was over before it started. I was in this very clearing plotting and planning and just starting to set up camp. The forest shivered from deep within the mountain. The sky darkened. the Spectre appeared. I was petrified. Frozen in place. The Spectre floated up to me and plucked the Reverse UNO card stuck to my forehand and that was it. I was done for.

And that is how I became a Raccoon, just one Raccoon of many Raccoons. All roaming the forest and mountains without hope in an eternal today that never ends.

The End. Literally.

So there are more like you up here? People who became Raccoon?

Hundreds maybe. Thousands probably. Have you seen them?

No, you’re the first Raccoon I’ve seen up here.

That figures. Raccoons aren’t allowed to approach people. There are dire consequences if we do. Most learn the hard way. So we hide and keep to ourselves if we see a human. In fact, I’m not even 100% sure humans can see us. We’re not exactly Raccoons-proper, if you know what I mean.

That’s why I was so shocked to see you seeing me and that we could talk to each other. Talking to humans is so forbidden I can’t even begin to tell you.

Why does the Spectre turn so many people into Raccoon?

Because we all come up here for the same reason, more or less. To kill the Spectre and to become famous doing it. Everybody brings with them what they think is some absolutely outrageous strength. Some kind of weapon. A chemistry set with beakers and burners. Strong words said in just the right order with just the right confidence and command. A sad story to soften the Spectre’s hard heart, the picture of a loved one held out in one hand with a butcher knife behind the back to cut that cold heart out. Just a little closer. Float a little closer.

All they are really bringing with them is a Reverse UNO card stuck to the forehead. This marks them out. They don’t know it at the time. They can’t see it or feel it. But it’s there. And when the Spectre appears, floats in as per usual, it’s over before it starts. They come up here to play the Spectre and the Spectre merely plays their own card on them.

I’m confused, I said. I’ve played UNO with a lot of old people and don’t think that’s how the Reverse UNO card works.

This is not a game!, the Raccoon roared, suddenly offended at my know-it-allness about what is not a game.

Sorry kid. I’m a little sensitive about the whole thing.

No, you’re right. That was a stupid thing for me to say. So when people come up to the mountains hunting the Spectre, I wished to clarify, you who are now a Raccoon, and all other Raccoons for that matter, can see the Reverse UNO stuck to their forehead?

As plain as day. It’s so painfully obvious you just want to call out and say, Turn around now. Go back to from whence you came. This is a game you cannot win. But they can’t hear you. They come up here singular in purpose and they wouldn’t heed your warning anyway. Who listens to a Raccoon?

Does everyone who comes up here have a Reverse UNO card stuck to their forehead?

No. There are people who think they are just here to climb the mountain or swim in the lake down below. They don’t have a Reverse UNO card stuck to their forehead, at least not yet. What they don’t realize is that it’s not that kind of mountain. Not that kind of lake.

What happens to them?

They only get so far and then they are booted and slingshotted and spitted out somewhere down there, headed back the way they came. They don’t remember any of it and just go home never to come back again. I’m not even sure they can look up to what looms anymore to dream about conquering it. They are, in fact, the lucky ones, all things considered.

That’s what happened to me!, I exclaimed. I would be crossing the desert or scrambling up a steep slope to get to the craggy peak and the next thing thing I know I’m tumbling down some hill far away and back into town. This has happened so many times. I feel like I’m stuck and I’m not sure what to do.

The Raccoon rubbed his heavily furred chin thoughtfully and with some consternation. That is odd. Usually the spitting back out only happens once and that’s it. You never see them up here again. How many times has this happened?

More times than I can count.

How high can you count?

I told him.

And it’s more than that?

I nodded.

That’s a lot

So why is it happening to me, over and over again? When I come tumbling down I pick myself up and I try to turn around but I can’t move a muscle. My magnetism is pulling me one way, but the world is holding me down and pulling the other way.

You’re what?

My magnetism. I paused, scolding myself for even bring it up.

If I told you you wouldn’t believe it, I said.

Kid, look at me. I’m a Raccoon, said the Raccoon. You can tell me anything. Plus, you look pretty Trustworthy.

I told him about the flesh and blood and my orientation and what looms and how it always guides my way.

The Raccoon grew ashen and covered his very big ears with his little paws, which could at most be symbolic given both factors.

I don’t think I should hear any more, said the Raccoon. What you’re describing is something I’ve never seen before and to be honest it sounds a little scary. I don’t know what it means and I don’t want to.

Please tell me what you think. I am in limbo and don’t know how to get out of it.

The Raccoon pondered the imponderable.

What it sounds like, said the Raccoon, is that you are marked.

The words chilled me to the bone.

Marked! Does this mean … does this mean I have a Reverse UNO card stuck to my forehead?

The Raccoon became grave. He straightened up so as to inspect my forehead very closely. He squinted his beady eyes to focus on my forehead and only on my forehead. He appraised my forehead for quite some time. Too long for comfort. Then the Raccoon stepped back. Then the Raccoon leaned in to check again. A simply No would have required far less scrutiny. I started to sweat a little. Not like the big big kids and their smelly sweat. This was the sweat of one who is about to be sentenced and knows it.

Well?, I demanded. Do you see a Reverse UNO card stuck to my forehead or not? I was becoming kind of whiny. I need to get over that.

The Raccoon stepped back again ready to reveal his findings.

Well kid, do you want to good news or the bad news first?

You decide.

The good news is that I don’t see a Reverse UNO card stuck to your forehead.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

What’s the bad news?

The bad news, or more precisely, the news is that what I do see is an UNO card stuck to your forehead. It’s face down. I can’t see what card it is. All it says is UNO in big white letters embroidered onto a red oval and set against a black background. One of a hundred, more or less, in a complete deck.

I was gobsmacked. It was as if I had been touched by an unnamed plague that was plague nonetheless.

What does it mean? Can you turn it over? Can you get it off me? Get it off me! I began to claw at my forehead to scrape off whatever was stuck.

I can’t do any of that.

Well, why not?, I demanded. I began to stand there and cry. What am I supposed to do?

The Raccoon looked on with the unsympathy of the universe.

First of all, get a hold of yourself. This is no place to lose it, said the Raccoon, gesturing to the deep forest all around. This is no place to prove you are just a little kid.

The words were hard but they rang true, echoing back to the little patch of tall grass beside the road so long ago. They were good words to hear.

You’re right. Thank you, I said. I’m sorry for that.

De rien, said the Raccoon.

But seriously. I have an UNO card stuck to my forehead. What am I supposed to do now?

You’re asking me? I’m they guy that became a Raccoon because of poor judgement. Besides, I have no idea. Do what you’ve been doing. Do something different. Do the same thing differently. Do something different all the same. Beside, Advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill. We used to say that in prison. It was kind of our motto. It was short for, Mind your own business.

You’re not in prison anymore, I reminded the Raccoon. You escaped.

Which way I go is prison, hissed the Raccoon while re-presenting himself as being a Raccoon.

That is true. I have a lot to learn in this world.

I can tell you this, said the Raccoon. I know who knows what that UNO card is and what it truly means.

Who?

The Spectre.

The Spectre, I repeated in the sense of being unsurprised in the sense that it figures that it would be the Spectre.

Ask the Spectre, repeated the Raccoon.

There was a long pause as I absorbed the revelation. In the meantime the Raccoon was becoming twitchy again. Twitchy and sniffing. Finally he spoke up. He cleared his throat first, in fact.

It’s a touch indelicate, said the Raccoon, given the discovery that you are marked by the Spectre and all, but I believe there is the small matter of the Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich. I have met my end of the bargain. Would you be so kind as to meet yours?

I was still in a storm within and all around but now it was my turn to get a grip and collect myself.

Of course, I said. You have been more than generous with your story.

I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out the plastic bag with the Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich in it. I broke the seal and extended the Sandwich. With outstretched hands the Raccoon snatched the Sandwich and raced to a corner of the clearing where he held the Sandwich on high as if to present the Sandwich to the craggy peak, or maybe it was to display the Sandwich in defiance. I couldn’t tell which.

Then in a flash that defies the very notion of a feeding frenzy the Raccoon absolutely devoured the Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich. It was over before it started. The Raccoon leaned back in satisfaction. It was a sight to see and I was so happy for the Raccoon.

Then in the next moment the Raccoon jerked. He convulsed. His head snapped back and from his mouth erupted a vomit of peanut butter and hot acid and grape jelly that flowed down his fur and soaked the shreds of clothing clinging to it. The hot acid sizzled and sparked. The Raccoon ignited and was consumed in a fiery blaze, squealing and writhing and screaming in pain at fire fed by an endless flow of vomit still spewing from his mouth until the Raccoon collapsed under the weight of it all and simply melted into the ground.

Time stood still. An eternity passed. Then, in the next moment from that puddle of melted Raccoon a Raccoon arose from the ground in the same way you see Frosty the Snowman rise up from being a puddle of water after being locked in the greenhouse by that unscrupulous magician, where Santa comes to the rescue and so Frosty rises up from that puddle and exclaims, Happy Birthday!, to himself and everyone around, except this was a Raccoon of unusual size now without any clothing who had just been incinerated and melted in the most horrifying scene I had ever witnessed in my short life and now he was back again standing in the clearing with no discernible cause for celebration at being born again.

The Raccoon stared at me in terror and unrecognition. The spell of our meeting was broken. He raced into the wood howling and disappeared leaving me alone in the clearing. I was crushed under the weight of what had just happened. I looked around dumbly for lack of anything better to do. Nothing but me and the little brook winding through the clearing babbling on and on.

I think it’s time to head back to town, I said to myself. But then I remembered something. What was the Raccoon doing when I first saw him in the clearing? He was digging at a mound. That mound over there with leaves and moss on it. I raced over and stood before the mound the Raccoon was digging at. What was he looking for? What’s buried in the dirt?

I got down on my hands and knees and began digging and pawing. Leaves flew. Clumps of moss broke away. Dirt piled up behind me. The mound whittled down as I dug deep into the earth. I hit something. What was it? I dug all around to find the edges of whatever it was to unlock the mystery. Up came a large heavy mass of something, wet and moldy, covered in mud and falling apart even as I lifted it out. It was a rucksack. Glims rucksack! The one he brought up the mountain with all his supplies to hunt down The Spectre. This is what he was trying to get. Why? To finish the job? Day after day digging away furiously in complete futility. What was in his backpack that he wanted to badly? Should I even look? Maybe Glim is watching from behind a tree. What would he think of me, if he even remembers me at all, now rummaging through his things. Even if he’s not watching it’s not a very Friendly or Courteous thing to do especially to a friend who was nothing but courteous to me.

Yet I was hungry to know. Partly to see what Glim wanted. Partly because resources from any source are valuable up here and I had learned to take full advantage. Besides, I said to myself grimly, am I not a scavenger at heart? Some picture I paint. Hunched over the mound that I absolutely tore into heaving and clawing, lifting out a prize that is mine accordingly. I love the wild no less than the good, declares the charlatan of Nature.

Wild, indeed, I said to myself.

Whelp … , I shrugged. Welcome to the jungle. With that I tore open Glim’s rucksack which was already tearing into itself from ages of rot so as to spill its guts.

Much was rusted or broken or eaten away by time. Soggy matchbooks from the Estelle Lounge, Reno, NV. Cotton tube socks that are both useless and lethal when wet. Seven pairs of brand new underwear, XXXL, still in the package. The ultimate solution to the underwear skit, I chuckled, except now you have to wear them over your clothes because they’re so big. A canvas tent rotting from the inside out. These items and more should go back into the hole for a proper burial.

What remained, however, was a veritable trove. A wool blanket, musty but protected from the damp earth by its inner oils. A good airing should do the trick. A huge cast iron skillet with a cast iron lid, far bigger than anyone should load into a backpack. These were big, heavy items that no sane backpacker would pack nowadays. But Glim was a big powerful man and he was possessed. I pictured him throwing what he could rustle up into his rucksack and charging up the mountain not even feeling the load on his back. The skillet and lid were flecked with rust, but scrubbed and seasoned in a campfire they would be better than new.

This gave me an idea. I know I can make it this far without being booted. So the clearing was still solid ground, in a manner of speaking. And Glim planned to use the clearing to launch up the mountain. Or to lie in wait. Why couldn’t I. I didn’t want to kill or capture the Spectre. I just wanted to confront him to find out the meaning of the UNO card stuck to my forehead and find out why I kept getting spitted out.

This will be my base camp, I decided. The babbling brook will supply fresh water. There’s plenty of wood around. Endless fuel for the fire. The fire pit will go here and I’ll build a small shelter next to it. I can use the blanket for extra warmth and the skillet for cooking. I would never pack them in but since they are here why not put them to good use?

I will bring back a big supply of provisions next time. It will be heavy, but it will be worth it. The frying pan from my mess kit worked well enough but it was small and food stuck to the steel surface. Now with a big seasoned cast iron skillet with a heavy lid I can make more food for treks onward and even try new things like loaves of leavened bread. I still have flesh and blood to fuel the inner fire, but now with base camp I also have a new way to cook and a new horizons for food along the way. With provisions stored here I can also stage my return back to town.

I will pack in other supplies and equipment, too. My trusty knife and hatchet did everything I needed in the field, but with a saw and a heavier axe I can make quick work of bigger trees and branches. Hammer and nail would come in handy. I will build a hutch to store supplies when I’m away. I’ll turn this into a proper campsite with a small table and a stool instead of a log or stump or the bare wet ground to sit on. I was getting excited with so many things to do and so many ways to put skills to put to the test. I had never considered such a plan before. But after meeting Glim and with all that had happened, everything had changed.

I turned back to Glim’s rucksack. What else would I find in it? Reaching in I pulled out what seemed to defy the laws of being buried under the earth for who knows long. It was a glass bottle, sealed and unbroken. On the label there was a big salmon in chaps sprawled out underneath a poker table just kind of sleeping it off. In Western style letters the label read:

Eager Whiskey

That’s right! Now I remember. There used to be a whiskey-maker in town. I learned this when I earned the Potent Potables merit badge in Troop 41. Whiskey, says the Handbook, is often associated with the roughian. The near-do-well. The bum. Whiskey is the drink of the saloon, the seedy flat, and even the back alley.

There is more to whisky, however, the Handbook continues, than meets the uncultured eye. In good company Whiskey becomes positively sublime. Take, for instance, the Four Seasons cocktail as a simple mix of:

1 part Whiskey, top shelf.
2 parts chilled Champagne, properly understood.
Served in the elegant glass of your choice in just the right company for just the right occasion.

The effect of the Four Seasons cocktail, Le quattro stagioni, is to experience all the seasons of the year, each in its time, in one full glass. The verdance of spring, citrus summer, spiced apple, and the comfy warmth of a bearskin rug.

Yes, concedes the Handbook, Whiskey surely is the drink of the Devil. But sometimes, just sometimes, sinning is so so good.

Maybe Glim brought it up here for the victory procession down the mountain. Maybe he thought he might need some extra courage to take down the Spectre. Either way, it was a miracle the bottle was unbroken. It’s a good thing that whiskey just isn’t for me, I said to myself, setting the bottle aside for now.

Now there was only one item left that sat heavy at the very bottom of the rucksack, still sagging because of it. Reaching deep down I pulled out an oiled cloth wrapped around something solid and weighty. Already it felt like a real find. I knelt down and laid the cloth on the ground. With care I pealed back the folds, one fold then another fold until what was inside was finally revealed. And do you know what I found?

The Revolver?, cried the Bullets excitedly rattling in the cylinder.

It was … the Revolver.

The Bullets hollered and cheered and woot wooted like you’d hear on late night television once upon a time in a veritable party.

It was the Revolver. In blued metal without a spec of dirt or rust to mar it. Just like today, the Revolver was Holstered in Black Leather without a spec of dirt or rot to mar it either. It was as if they had just been reborn to the world, fresh and new.

What happened next?, demanded the Bullets.

Well, I stared down at the Revolver nestled in the arms of the Holster. The Revolver looked up at me and blinked. The Holster looked up and blinked, twice.

Hello, I said,

Hello, said the Revolver. The Holster said nothing and instead winked. I took that to mean the Revolver spoke for the both of them.

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