Too Much

I'd barely gotten to sleep, fully clothed on the sofa, when I heard a car and saw headlamps on the ridge. Not expecting guests I went out on the back deck with a sawed-off shotgun and a flashlight. 3:00 AM. What the fuck? A vehicle had been stolen, a few miles away, and the deputy sheriff was checking isolated driveways. I qualify. I know him, to wave to, I think his name is Brian, he nailed me once for digging roots on the side of the road. A very funny conversation about verge violation. He let me go after I promised to roll him a smoke. I can roll cigarets on the tail-gate of a pick-up truck in the dark, I can roll cigarets walking in the woods, I once rolled a perfect cigaret treading water off Key West; so it's easy to roll a smoke for a cop. Local politics. He accepts a beer. It's awkward because all I have is a really complex porter and he was expecting a Bud Light. I run into this, time to time, and I just fold my hands across my chest. The constabulary leaves, and I'm exhausted. I'd better go. Lightning to the west. When I wake up, some hours later, the house is stuffy, and I'm hot. Open some windows and take a cold sponge-bath. The power is back on so I turn on Black Dell to see what time it is, to set the one clock, hidden behind a thousand manuscript pages. I read a few more of the Lives Of The Saints. I have, as it turns out, a great many books about the early church. My mentor in the book business was editor at Beacon Press in Boston. He wanted me to write a history of god; they published a lot of religious work and received review copies from other presses, so he was always giving me books. He published Levi-Strauss, The Elementary Structures Of Kinship, which started me on a lifetime of reading that impossible genius. I feel about reading him as I feel about playing chess with B: they're ALWAYS one step ahead of me. Where was I going? Right. It was hot, I was cooling off. And there was a phone call, not germane except that the person wondered if she had the correct me. I didn't know how to answer that. She asked some questions and I answered honestly. I don't do that for everyone, but this was an interesting situation. I finally did remember, I think, who she was, and she was amazed that I was that person she had Googled. The fact that I can be Googled, the fact that I appear in any way in social media, is a shock to me, I thought I was living alone, in the woods.