As I write this,
Larry is still missing. John and Reg and I
are keeping his garden green and hoping for the best. We spent a
couple of
mornings going over his land, to make sure he hadn't had a run-in
with a gun in
the hands of an "Unfriendly." Of course his body could
be lying out there
somewhere, still. Sixty acres of brush and second growth trees can
hide a lot
of sins. But I refuse to get into such negative thinking. My energies
are
focussed on trust.
Reg volunteered
the opinion that if Larry was lying out there rotting, we would
have smelled him, given this late summer weather: or Spiro would
have led us to
him. That's another weird thing. I can't picture Larry just up and
leaving
Spiro, without seeing he was taken care of. A man who spends good
money on a
boarding kennel for a broken down mutt like Spiro would not then
turn around
and leave the same to fend for himself, without even a pan of drinking
water.
It was Spiro
who tipped us off in the first place. About two weeks back, he
came loping down to Reg's and hung out there all day. None of us
had seen Larry
for two days, but that was nothing unusual. He wasn't due to go
on road guard
duty until the night of the day Spiro showed up. After they got
to thinking
about it, though, Reg and John couldn't remember hearing his truck,
either. When Spiro didn't go home at the dinner hour, John Smith
and Reg
trekked up the hill to check it out.
The truck was
gone, but as far as they could tell, that was all that was
missing. Aside from Larry, that is. I looked over the place the
next day, after
Reg saw me at Murrish's Market. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have
known
anything was wrong until the weekend. During the rip-off and CAMP
season, we
all stay pretty close to home. Anyhow, I couldn't find anything
missing. But
then, Larry doesn't own much to speak of. As I've said, he is not
an
acquisitive person. Even at flea markets he fails to pick up any
junk that
might turn out to be useful. Maybe that comes from having been a
rich kid.
We differ on
that definition. He insists that doctors are not really rich until
they get into real estate or some other lucrative sideline. I say
that any kid
who can have his teeth straightened and have psychotherapy at the
same time is
a rich kid.
So Larry doesn't
have a thing in his tent that isn't absolutely necessary to
survival. There are none of the decorative touches typical of the
grower
culture: no Bob Marley poster, no brass water pipe, no Indian print
bedspread. Except for the pillow I made him, and the candle I set
in a bottle,
his decor would put a Cistercian monk to shame.
So if he did
suddenly decide to split, what would there be for him to
take? Spiro, that's what. He's freaky about that mutt.
It is for this
reason that the three of us think this nonappearance (I am not
prepared to say "disappearance.") may have been nonvoluntary.
In the meantime,
the mystery is wearing thin. I've got better things to do with my
time than
help keep his garden and listen to Reg and John make up a whole
string of
"maybes." I've got my own garden and home to take care
of, and my classes to go
to, and Bertha's innards to get fixed. Not to mention Rain, who
is about as
energy consumptive as a resource can get. We do half an hour of
yoga together
before I drop him off at school. After that I dash home to straighten
the cabin
and water my plants, then dash to Larry's hillside to help Reg and
John. Bertha's getting more frazzled by the hour, to say nothing
of me.
Last night,
before he went to sleep, Rain frowned up at me and asked, "When
is
Lawwy comin' back, Kiki?"
"Soon,
sweetie." I lied. "Why?"
"He should
come home. Spiwo is sad. Are you sad, Kiki?"
For the first
time in my mother life, I think I gave my kid a serious lie. "No,
Rain, I'm not sad. Larry chooses his path, just like we all do.
And if his path
is far away, so be it. Now whisper your mantra and go to sleep."
I stroked his
soft hair for a few minutes while he whispered "Holy shit,
Holy
shit..." and then I went out to my porch to see how Orion was
doing. The stars
were hanging over the treetops; them you can count on. There they
were, bright
and simple and clear. Why couldn't life be like that? Why couldn't
Larry just
hang in there like a star?
Back inside,
I grabbed the old ratty sweater that I'd borrowed from Larry last
fall. Spreading it out on my bed, I unwrapped my crystal pendant
from its scarf
and dangled it over the cardigan. "Is Larry okay?" I whispered
to it. I
waited. Nothing. The crystal just hung there, trembling with indecision.
"Is
Larry in trouble?" I demanded, louder. It bobbed and swayed
lightly, first
this way, then that. Weird. The only time it had done that before
was when I
hung it over a friend's pregnant belly, trying to determine the
sex of the
fetus. I didn't understand its confusion until she had twins, boy
and
girl. Okay, once and for all. "Is Larry going to come back?
To his home, to
Spiro, to his friends? To me?"
Uh-oh. Overload...the
crystal began to spin like crazy, but then it suddenly
slowed, and settled into a clockwise circle, steady as could be.
Wow! The
answer was yes.
I woke up this
morning to find myself hugging that ratty old sweater, just like
it was a life raft from the Titanic. While I was fixing Rain's breakfast,
I
decided that I'd take some bones to Spiro, and give him the good
news. I also
decided to carry the crystal with me, for luck.
I should really
patch up that sweater. He'll need it this winter, my
disappearing Dervish,...the fucker.
