21st Century Bogatyr: Some Relief Amongst the Chaos at Woodpecker Flats

"Oh, put it on the ground/ spread it all around/ dig it with a hoe/ it will make your flowers grow" Ray Glasser

This is the twelfth part of a work of fiction in progress. Links to all of the other parts can be found at the bottom of this page.

by Zvi Baranoff

My first impression of the place when we arrived there in the middle of the night was that it resembled a junkyard. In the daylight, with Dave leading us about as he pointed with his staff, my initial impressions hadn't shifted much.

My first impression of Dave was that he was fairly advanced in years. In the decades upon decades since that morning when we met, I would see the fellow every few years and he never really seemed to age much. It is as if he had gotten old at a fairly young age and then settled into that role forever unchanged.

Dave did often talk about his eventual demise and elaborated in complicated details about his eventual funeral. That was one of his favorite recurring monologues. The details would keep changing but always involved a Viking theme, a huge pyre, explosives and guns, loud music and large crowds that included the Hari Krishnas and the Hells Angels.

Dave was exuberant about everything and believed himself to reside at the very center of the universe. He spoke with run-on superlatives about the history and future of Woodpecker Flats, whether or not anyone else could see it the way he described it.

For Dave, Woodpecker Flats, which wasn't really flat at all, was a dream come true and a Great Quest and the Promised Land and his personal playground. He relished in all the junk and chaos and confusion and the odd collection of broke-down people scattered about as if each of these bring light and beauty to the world if one just looks at it from the right angle.

Everything about the place was a mess, chaotic, a disruption or a confusion and in some stage of decay. David was immensely proud and satisfied with it all.

He showed me art projects that he worked on for months. They were full of whimsical details and complex planning. They were all built with no regard to physical reality or even gravity. Shortly after any of these labor intensive projects reached completion, they would fall down.

There they would be in a devastated heap and Dave would glow about how wonderful it was but for some tiny flaw or another. He seemed to be in denial as to why the project would not stand for centuries or millennium. He would never acknowledge that the primary flaw was that while trying to defy social and artistic norms, he also tried to deny the Law of Gravity, which is one law that none of us can defy for long. A project might clearly be in a pile and a heap, dead and quite unlikely to see resurrection. In his eyes, however, a monument was erected that will be a glowing beacon to the Universe in Perpetuity.

There was a generalized disregard for any sort of expertise there. Most higher education at Woodpecker Flats was suspect. There was a broad disregard for all scientific theory. Invisible things such as gravity and germs were disregarded. On the other hand, rarely observed phenomena such as fairies, angels and space aliens were all taken very seriously and held in high regard.

As we wandered about, following Dave and taking in the sites of fallen down art and broken down cars, we heard a stream of expletives in French accompanying the sound of banging on metal.

"Ah, that would be Jacques. He is a Class A mechanic and a wonderful person and a wizard with tools. You boys have to meet him!" Dave carried on in his ebullient and exuberant manner as he led us in the direction of all that French cursing and banging.

Jacques spoke with a thick rural Quebecois accent and mangled any English words that he reluctantly used if he absolutely wanted anyone else to understand him. I don't think that he much cared if anyone understood him unless they were in his way and then he made himself perfectly understood.

English was usually accompanied with spitting and wild gesticulation. He drank heavily, starting early in the morning. Most of his words in any language were slurred. The slurring definitely contributed to the incomprehensibility of Jacques.

Over the following years I heard various possible background stories about the man and have no way of knowing how much truth there was in any of those tales. I never heard a word about the past directly from his lips.

Others told me lots of contradictory stories with all sorts of possible explanations of his demeanor and circumstances. He was wanted for a politically motivated bank robbery, a series of bombings or an attempted assassination, perhaps. He had killed or maimed a man, fighting over a woman, maybe. He had beaten a wife or girlfriend that had cheated on him, some claimed. He was a pilot for drug lords and lost or stole a load, they said. He was wanted by the American Feds, or the Canadian Mounties or the Mexicano Federales or had a price on his head with one set of mobsters or another.

All of the versions agreed that he was both wanted and unwanted everywhere else in the world except for Woodpecker Flats.

Years later, coincidentally while I was visiting Woodpecker Flats, FBI agents came and quietly arrested Jacques. No one saw or heard from him for three years.

Then, one day, he walked up the driveway carrying a small knapsack which contained all of his worldly possessions. He had sobered up in prison. He had not learned much English. His accent was still thick but the words were no longer slurred. He was still difficult to understand and truly still did not try much to be understood. He never spoke of his time away and he would glare at folks when he thought that they were talking about it.

As we got closer to all that banging and yelling, we saw a disabled Chevy similar in model and vintage to my personal heap. The car was up on blocks and a pair of legs were sticking out from under it, and bare feet. Dave kicked the bottom of the feet.

Jacques jumped up and looked ready to pounce, until he saw that it was Dave. They each smiled widely and embraced in a bear hug. Then they commenced to yelling and gesticulating. It was all incomprehensible to us, yet there was all appearance of some form of communication going on.

When they came to a conclusion and some sort of agreement, Dave took us aside. Dave lowered his voice and spoke to us in confidence and with as close to a whisper as he could, which was not really very whisper-like. He told us that Jacques had agreed to see what he could do for my car and that he would cannibalize that other vehicle for any useful parts. "I know that it has a very nice cigarette lighter," Dave told us with a wink.

I cannot say that I had any coherent thoughts whatsoever and no real expectations at that point. I handed my keys over to the French-Canadian stranger. I hoped for the best as we followed Dave along a trail towards his house. He said that there was likely to be breakfast waiting for us.

On the way to the house, Dave pointed out his gardens, vineyards and orchards. The gardens were full of weeds. The fences were all knocked over. What the deer and moles hadn't eaten the insects and worms had decimated. The grape vines were all stunted. The apples in the trees all looked mealy and the trees looked sickly.

When we got to the house, the hitchhikers that guided us to Woodpecker Flats from the backseat were cooking pancakes by the stack. They were cooking outside and flies buzzed all about.

Dave brought us into his house, yelling an introduction to his young wife, Rose. She was stretched out on a mattress on the floor with a mostly sleeping babe at her breast. The yelling woke the little one and the baby started crying. A couple of other little children were running about in varying stages of disarray and undress. Rose looked at us and she smiled. Rose smiled at us, at her children, at her husband and at the universe.

Over the years, when I returned to Woodpecker Flats, I would watch those children grow up and grow into themselves. As soon as each of them were old enough to get out on their own, they went as far as they could to get away from their parents, that place and the way people lived there. They each studied at prodigious universities, graduated with honors and accolades and became committed professionals.

Shortly after the youngest of these three had left the nest, Rose got sick and rapidly became increasingly ill. All sorts of herbalists and crystal workers and faith healers with salves and lotions and potions and tinctures had absolutely no effect on her.

By the time that the first medical doctor had seen her, the cancer was quite advanced. She passed away at home and is buried there as well. Dave planted a rose bush on Rose's grave which he took very good care of.

A few years later, Jacques also passed away. He was buried near Rose. Dave carved a tree stump into an elaborate memorial for the French-Canadian. A rifle, a wrench and the Fleur de Lis are obvious and observable, with other symbols and images blended in as well.

Of course, all of that dying and burying occur many years later. At that moment, a baby was bawling, hippies were cooking pancakes and a fugitive Frenchman was banging on old Chevrolets.

We ate our fill and Dave led us over to his workshop. He told us that he had gifts for us. We followed the old man with the staff and floppy hat.

The workshop was piled with half-finished carvings. Tools were spread all over. Sawdust drifts were on the floor and the dust filled the air.

Books and magazines were piled all over the place. This was, of course, long before books had been criminalized. Books were cheap and plentiful back then. Now those books that he tossed about would be worth a fortune.

The changes in Federal law never really affected how Dave handled his books. He never took any laws or regulations or protocols seriously. The Prohibition of Books did, however, slow his acquisition of new additions to his unread piles.

Dave pushed himself into his overcrowded and disarranged workshop and we tried to find somewhere to stand while he ransacked the place as he looked about.

"It's here somewhere," he said as he tossed things about. He muttered and clucked and snorted as he opened drawers and moved things about until he came to one particular book. "Aha and eurika!" he shouted. He leafed through the book until he found a single dollar bill, which he held up proudly and waved about for a while.

Dave climbed over the mess and stood in front of me and very formally handed me that single dollar bill. "When you get down to the bottom of the hill," he told me, "stop at that little store and buy a scratch off lottery ticket. You never know…" He trailed off speaking and winked at me.

He turned to Greg and said, "I have something here, somewhere, for you too. Wait and I will find it." He was back at searching, opening drawers of his semi buried desk until he shouted "Eureka!" again. This time he came up with a single quarter which he handed to Greg. "Buy some candy with this. They have good candy at that store." He smiled broadly.

Dave stepped over the new piles that he had recently created, pushed the door open with a theatrical flourish and strolled out of his shop. Greg and I looked at each other and we each simultaneously shrugged. We followed him out the door and on a trail through a wooded area and around and about until we were back to where Jacques was busy switching out Chevy parts.

Jacques had banged out some of my dents. He had replaced the driver's side back door with the back door from the other Chevy, so I now had one door on the driver's side that could open and close. The "new" door had a window that was stuck, three quarters of the way up. He used baling wire and duct tape in various creative ways.

The exhaust system was held up by a couple of metal clothes hangers. My worn out windshield wipers were replaced with slightly less worn out ones. My two most bald tires were replaced with slightly less bald ones. We had inherited, as Dave had suggested, a very nice cigarette lighter. There was now a jack in the trunk but still no spare.

Greg and I were ready to roll and we piled ourselves into my slightly less of a disaster car. We drove away, down the winding mountain road, back towards the highway.

At the bottom of the hill we found the small country store and parked that heap in the store's lot. We had $1.25 to spend and clear directions on how to spend it.

Greg found two gumballs for a quarter and we got ourselves a Scratch Off lottery ticket with the dollar. We sat on a bench outside of that store, each of us chewing gum and both of us staring at that lottery ticket for a really long time. Eventually, I went ahead and put my thumbnail to work on the ticket. The ticket was a winner and paid off $100. We bought gasoline, junk food and a couple of beers and pointed that car towards home.

We made it back almost to my parents' house, running out of gas about a block away. We each tried to get as straight and as right and as settled we could.

Greg found a factory job with union pay and worked his way up to a supervisor position. He married. He bought a house. He joined a bowling league.

I tried to do similarly, but that was not how things worked out for me. Now I am in Indiana, staring at the hyperloop station and trying to work up the nerve to jump down into that gut wrenching, mind fucking monstrosity.

Yea. Now, many years later, here I am on the road and still unsettled but still alive. Greg died from a drug overdose and is buried in New Jersey.

The beginning tinges of daylight were then visible. It was already an hour later on the East Coast.

I put my flask to my lips and tipped it back. The whiskey helped calm my jittery nerves. I accepted my fate. I determined at that moment that if I survived the East Coast phase of this buggered up voyage, I would stop off in Tennessee on my way home and check on Dave at Woodpecker Flats.

I drove as if watching myself from afar. I set the car into gear and dropped into the hyperloop.

I was swirled and flushed and pushed and yanked all in a most discomforting manner. I emerged just a few minutes later in Virginia, on the outskirts of Washington, D.C. I blended in with the morning rush hour traffic.