Suspicious Activity

Very still morning, so any sound carries. I heard the school bus down on Upper Twin which I only do a couple of times a year, then men's voices. Talking loudly, to make themselves known, walking up the driveway. I wasn't feeling particularly social, first cup of coffee and laboring over a comma, but I couldn't ignore them. They had distant relatives buried up here somewhere and had heard I knew where the graveyard was. What I had taken to be rifles at a distance turned out to be pruning shears. They were polite and seemed to understand my bent for privacy. Pointed them in the right direction, then wondered who the hell they might actually be. No way of knowing. Maybe relatives. Still, there have been more than the normal number of people (which hovers around two per year), strangers to me, on the ridge in the last six months. Power company, phone companies, sheriff's deputies, people paying allegiance to dead bodies buried on my property, two missionaries, and one wacko meth-head running through the woods. I fail to see a pattern, which is not to say that there might be one, or not. It's a mystery to me that we can place one foot in front of another. I suspect I'm suspected of something, but I'm so transparently a dolt, I can't imagine anyone suspecting me of anything. Ten years as a janitor prepares you to seem stupid. And it' so easy to appear stupid, because, a couple of props, a mop, a broom, and you're dumber than a rock, and you can't hear. Deaf and stupid. Tie-dye tee-shirts under Carhartt overalls, and you're just another burned out hippy, happy to be alive. I can't imagine why anyone would consider me of any interest. Suspect T (to give myself a name) is extremely careful not to draw attention to himself, he has no tattoos that can be seen, and only a slight scarification beneath his left eye. He doesn't go to church but he does do that bird-count thing. We have a file of people like this, they want to integrate, as a way of disappearing, but they're actually off-shoots. I'm not getting that correctly. I hate when language fails me. If you don't buy the package, they don't let you on the bus. How much slack are we willing to grant any specific individual? As it turns out, I'm a very good person to interview for this survey, because I know quite a few people who live on what most people would consider 'the edge'. What I consider normal. Shooting a squirrel in the head at 100 feet, guilty as charged. The cousin that taught me could shoot the flame off candles. When we were hunting quail, he would only shoot birds that were 'crossing' so that he could get two with one shot. I never was any good at shooting birds on the wing. I'm barely ok with grouse and young turkey, they move so slowly, but I've never hit a dove except by accident. Other friends who only eat fruits and nuts and sleep on the ground. Two friends who read more than me, which is, technically, almost impossible; two hermits; a village idiot; and one friend that can play all of the cello suites, in the dark, without a score. I suppose it's just a matter of throwing in your lot, whichever direction, enough money and creature comforts, or a simple cabin in the woods with no amenities. You can live very well on cattails and oysters. Shitting in an outhouse isn't that much different from shitting in a toilet, running water is a relative phrase when I pour a gallon of rainwater over my head after a walk down to the mailbox; and the Jeep people want so badly for me to bring in my vehicle, because of some gas-tank issue, that they want to give me a $100 pre-paid card to cover any disruption. Almost exactly enough credit to buy a case of whiskey for my winter reserve. I'll be stuck at the dealership for several hours, while they fuck with the frame and the bolts, but I can just read a library book, at which, not to brag, I am a past master.