Scott Rucker
The Woods, 1909
Our secret fort deep in the woods, was a real work in progress. It smelled like piss. Our gang was made up of neighborhood riff raff. Roger was the oldest, then came Benny, myself, and a boy we referred to as, The Jew. Each of us had our own special gift. Roger had charisma. Benny had the strength of an ox. I had the smarts. The Jew was a talented artist. For a penny, he would draw you whatever you wanted.
We kept our dirty pictures and a series of cuss words in a hole we had dug where we also kept our communal cigarettes, and cologne which we used to cloak the scent.
One grey Saturday, Roger reached into that hole, and much to his surprise there was nothing there. Our pack of Piedmont cigarettes was gone. We suspected a rival gang of nicking our contraband.
“They have done a dastardly deed, in a dastardly way!” Said Roger.
Secretly, though we all suspected each other. Various conspiracy theories swirled about.
I set my canteen on the ground and wondered whether Roger had done it just to unite us against a common enemy. Or perhaps it was Benny who had done it; all part of a mad power grab.
It could have even been The Jew. Yet why would he steal his own drawings? I am sure the others were thinking similarly about me.
Roger said, “Now let’s think back to the last time anyone saw the loot.”
“Yesterday,” I said. “You, me, Benny and The Jew smoked a cigarette, here.”
Roger said, “I remember that. I remember the card with a baseball player in the pack of Piedmonts. What was the guys name? It was a real funny name.”
A flock of geese flew over head to the lake nearby.
Benny said, “So you put everything back in the hole, that’s it.”
Roger said, “I bet those Baker Boys did it! Dread them.”
“Hogwash,” said Benny, peeling a twig apart. “No. It was an inside job.”
The gang fell silent.
No one had before challenged, the loyalty of the gang.
“You think one of us did it?” Roger said.
“Yeah, ” said Benny, “I do.”
And so the conversation descended into a volley of loose accusations, and just as quickly as the gang had materialized, so too it eroded like dust in the wind. Our group dynamic had been fractured irrecoverably. We would always know each other but it would never be the same. The gang broke up and went their separate ways.
~
ALL STAR CAFE, New York City 1998
Danny was a waiter, at the ALL-STAR CAFE, an upscale sports memorabilia restaurant in Manhattan. It was after hours, and Danny sat in a corner booth, with a shift drink, feverishly rolling silverware. This task was part of what waiters called side work. It had been a slow night. He had made ninety dollars in tips. After tipping out the bartender, and busboy, paying for two stiff drinks, and buying a gram of cocaine from one of the cooks, Danny walked away with four dollars.
He was tired of rolling silverware. As his eyes drifted to the far wall he looked at the tiny card that was the prize of the collection. Danny saw a way out of the restaurant business.
~
Requiem, 1909
After the breakup of the gang earlier that day, I was feeling down. I looked in the cupboard but there was nothing but a jar of licorice. I hated licorice back then, just as I do to this very day.
I went to fill a cup with water, when I remembered that I had left my canteen, in the fort.
In the waning light of the afternoon, I unhinged the fenced yard near the dark tree line. I ran through the belly of the forest toward the secret fort in the woods. I walked through misty spider webs, on my way up the twisted hill. I entered the secret fort and found my canteen on the floor.
Then for some strange reason, I paused, turned and reached into the mysterious hole. I felt something. I pulled it from the hole. In the light I saw it was the pack of Piedmont cigarettes, the cologne and the array of scandalous drawings. Everything was there. Only one cigarette was missing.
I was baffled at how the loot could have disappeared and reappeared like that. It meant that someone took the loot, kept it for a day, smoked a cigarette and put it back. It didn’t make sense. I figured maybe someone felt guilty for stealing it and brought it back the next day.
Whatever the case, I read the name of the ball player on the card in the cigarette pack. “Honus Wagner.” I decided to keep the smokes. I commandeered the communal cigarettes, for my own. I was after all an ardent, capitalist.
I put the drawings, and the cologne back into the hole where it belonged. I hurried back into the house, and washed my hands for supper.
~
Hollywood, California 1998
Charlie Sheen awoke from a nap, to a ringing telephone. He did not answer it. He sat on the side of the bed. Then he walked to the window. He stared out the Venetian blinds at the empty swimming pool in the atrium below.
The telephone rang again. This time he picked up.
“What do you want?” He said.
A voice said, “Listen Charlie, there has been a burglary at the ALL-STAR CAFE. They stole the card.”
“What? Who?”
“A couple of cooks, they waited until after hours then they switched it out with a photocopy. They would have gotten away with it had they not gotten greedy?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well they got cocky and stole a whole sheet of cards, and they didn’t bother replacing it. The FBI was called in to investigate. That’s when they noticed the card had been replaced with a fake. They are working to get all the cards back.”
“Whoever stole my card,” Said Charlie, “They drink the blood of the dead!”
~
The Gazebo in the Woods, 1981
They say a man’s legacy is what he leaves behind for the people of the future. If that were the case then my legacy would be this fine gazebo here. I donated the materials, the lumber, the shingles, the nails, the paint, all of it. I paid the wages of the carpenter and his apprentice myself, albeit anonymously. This gazebo located on the trails near the woods where I grew up, is my gift to the town that has been very kind to me. This is my way of giving back.
Sometimes, on days like these I sit in the gazebo. I listen to the distant traffic echo across the lake. These are not the woods of my youth, but the spirit is still there.
