Authors: J. Robert Lennon
The stairs creaked as we climbed to the second floor. There were not many rooms, but they were large and high-ceilinged, and the master bedroom was fully twenty feet square, with a bank of tall windows that, if cleaned and reglazed, would doubtless appear quite beautiful. The view north and east was spectacular.
“That would be the whole property, there,” Jennifer said, pointing. The land sloped gently away from us, and the village of Gerrysburg was visible in the distance through the dusty windows. But what drew the eye was a feature in the very center of the woods: a large gray outcropping of bare rock that jutted out from the carpet of trees. I made a quick judgment of the distance and determined that it had to be at least a hundred and twenty feet tall, if not more.
The sight of the rock moved and disturbed me. Its incongruousness here, the way it interrupted the gentle curve of the land, seemed like some kind of challenge or rebuke. It appeared much the way I imagined a great whale might, breaking the surface of a calm sea to draw a mighty breath; and like a whale, its imposing nature enticed the viewer to conquer and claim it. I stroked my chin, to indicate to Jennifer that I was deep in thought. “Tell me about that rock,” I said.
“I suppose a glacier left it,” she replied, her voice echoing flatly in the empty room. Her arms were crossed and she hugged herself in the damp cold.
“It’s possible to reach it through the woods, I’d imagine.”
She let out a snort of laughter. “If you buy the place, you can do whatever you want,” she said. “I’m sure you could get there, it can’t be more than half a mile.”
I nodded, as though considering. But I had seen enough. I turned to Jennifer. Her eyes widened, and the corner of her mouth twitched. I said, “I’ll take it.”
She scowled, blinking. “What, this place?”
“Yes,” I laughed. “I’ll take it. The price seems reasonable to me.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, I’m not. It’s exactly what I’ve been looking for.”
She stared at me, silently, seriously, judging. “Believe you me,” she said. “I would be totally happy to sell you it. But I just have to know if you have any idea what you’re doing.”
“There’s no need to worry about me,” I said with a smile.
She seemed to soften, her features relaxing, her arms falling to her sides. She sighed. “Well, okay, whatever then. You can still change your mind. Come on back to the office and let’s get started.”
“Wonderful,” I said, and for a moment, I felt as though I should shake the agent’s hand, or engage her in a friendly embrace, something to commemorate the occasion. And perhaps sensing this, she quickly moved into the hallway ahead of me, and down the stairs to the door.
I would spend most of the next month working on the property. At first I was frustrated, when it became clear that it would be at least a week until I actually owned the house and land: lawyers would have to be consulted, meetings arranged. I left it all to Jennifer, however, and set to work anyway. Who could complain? My first act was to call the power company to have them turn the electricity on. But the power lines, having long ago fallen into disuse, would prove to be damaged, and it would take some time to repair them. No matter: I drove into Milan, where there was a large chain hardware store, and bought a generator. I also bought lumber, sawhorses, a circular saw, a sander, screws and nails, a hammer, and a rechargeable drill. Almost at random, I chose several colors of interior and exterior paint, and sufficient cleaning supplies to last me a year. At a gas station, I filled the tank of my SUV, and two five-gallon cans as well. I checked into a motel, paid two weeks in advance, and drove to the house to begin work.
It would please me to be able to say that I felt, upon my return to the house, a reprise of the confidence and enthusiasm that had braced me the previous day, when I announced to Jennifer that I wished to buy it. In fact, the sight of the place filled me, at first blush, with weariness and dread. Of course, up until this moment, the house was all potential—its glorious restoration existed only in my imagination. To view it now merely brought to mind the toil and frustration I might endure while renovating it. But there was something more contributing to my sense of unease: the house
appeared
different. The flaking paint revealed itself to actually be peeling, as though from an underlying dampness and rot—an impression strengthened by the moldy odor emanating from the house’s interior. The roof seemed sunken somewhat, perhaps the product of weak, decaying beams. And, most disconcertingly, the house’s trim lines now gave the faint impression of crookedness. I walked slowly around the place, stepping carefully over some broken cinder blocks and fallen branches, assessing the angles. Was it listing to the north? Or leaning to the west? Its lopsidedness seemed to change character depending upon my vantage point. In the end, breathing clouds into the cold air, I ran to my SUV, pulled a spirit level from my toolbox, and took some measurements. To my mingled relief and dismay, and in spite of my clear impressions, the house stood true. With a shrug, then, I set to work, determined to put all bad feelings behind me.
My first task was to prop up the sagging porch and repair the front stoop. This took me all of the first afternoon and evening. I am a highly organized and energetic person and I am accustomed to getting things accomplished quickly and thoroughly—but I must have fallen out of practice, because I made several mistakes, including an incorrect measurement and an uneven cut. Nevertheless, by nightfall I had completed my work on the porch and stoop, and was able to walk into the darkened house as if it were already my home.
That night, in my motel room in Milan, I watched television until I fell asleep. I woke up at three o’clock with every muscle in my body tensed, full of anxiety about the work ahead of me, and about the inevitable delays and obstructions that would hinder me from completing it. I had learned, however, to calm my mind and body using various relaxation techniques, and within the hour I had gotten back to sleep. I woke for good at six, showered and dressed, and returned to work on the house.
All that second day I made repairs to the roof. I had the hardware store deliver a telescoping ladder, several boxes of hot-dipped galvanized nails, and a few bales of asphalt shingle squares. I was lucky: the present roof was thin and only one layer deep, and I was able to lay my new shingles right on top. It was possible to spike the ladder into the ground at a gentle enough angle so that I could push several squares in front of me at a time, and thus make great progress without assistance. By noon I had covered half of one side, plus a gable. I also discovered that my initial impression of the roof—that it was sunken in places—was in fact erroneous. The roof was flat, and the underlying support beams strong.
The sun was bright that day, and the air moist, and I drank a bottle of water while gazing out at the monumental stone in the middle of the woods. As I watched, a hawk, a distant speck, glided across the land and alighted on the leading edge of the rock, as if to survey his domain. I felt a kinship with the bird, and was filled with a sense of renewed pleasure and purpose.
By the middle of the fourth day, I had completed the shingles and added flashing to the chimney and vent pipes. Then I started in on the clapboards. The years of dirt and peeling paint came off easily with the sander, and I was able to complete the painting prep work by the following morning. Indeed, I was beginning to feel as though the work was going my way, that I had at last taken control of the house. It was at this point that I clumsily knocked over a can of red paint that I had bought for the window and door trim; somehow the lid came loose—an irresponsible paint-mixing clerk at the hardware store was to blame, no doubt—and the paint spilled across the newly rebuilt porch and down the front steps. I began to clean it up, but soon realized that there was no point in wasting my cleaning supplies on an essentially impossible job. I decided to just leave it as it was, until I could decide on a color for the porch. However, the spilled paint left the strong, if irrational, impression that the house was drooling blood through its open mouth, like a road-killed animal. In the end, I simply painted the entire porch red.
On the afternoon of the fifth day, Jennifer stopped by to tell me that the sale would proceed on Monday, just three days away. She had failed to find me at the motel, and a sixth sense had told her I would be here. She emerged, in fact, from her car with a sly smirk, as though she harbored some kind of secret; but then she looked around the tool-strewn yard, and her expression was supplanted by one of astonishment. She gave me the good news, then asked, “Did you… put on a new roof?”
“And I repaired the porch. And painted it.”
She frowned as she said, “But Eric… you don’t
own
it yet.”
I laughed. “In my line of work,” I said, “you do what has to be done, and you do it as soon as you can.”
“What line of work is that?” she wanted to know.
“Infrastructure and information,” I answered.
She gazed at me quizzically, as if this weren’t the answer she’d been expecting. “Okay… ,” she said. “And you got in how?”
“Weak lock,” I replied. “And tell me something. You might have phoned me. Why come all the way out here just to give me this news?”
Jennifer opened, then closed, her mouth, and blushed deeply. “Slow day,” was her answer, and then she left me to my work.
By Monday, I had painted the house, and I reported to the closing meeting with my body and clothes flecked with dots of pale yellow—my choice for the clapboards. There was no room at the real estate agency, so the meeting was held in the quiet study area of the public library. There sat Jennifer, at a small study table, across from another real estate agent and an attorney, both representing the state office responsible for public lands. I was the only participant not wearing a suit, a fact that filled me with a special pride. I signed where I was told to sign, and handed out checks, drawn on the account I had opened just the other day at the only bank in Gerrysburg. When it was over, I shook hands with everyone, accepted the thick folder of papers that certified my ownership of the land, and walked to my car, breathing in the crisp spring air. For the first time since I arrived, dark clouds were massing on the horizon, and the breeze carried the metallic tang of an impending storm.
As I prepared to climb in and leave, I heard a voice: Jennifer’s. She had jogged up behind me, her high heels clicking and scraping against the sidewalk. I turned and regarded her broad smiling face, free of any of the doubt or mistrust it had harbored just a week before.
“So!” she said, trying to catch her breath.
“Yes?”
The real estate agent shrugged. “Oh, nothing—it’s just that it’s been a real interesting week. Everyone’s curious, you know. That’s a big plot of land.”
I took a glance at my watch. “It certainly is,” I said.
A brief silence opened up between us. “Okay, well,” she stammered. “I guess… you know, good luck doing whatever it is you came back to do. And, you know, thanks.”
“For what?” I asked her, choosing to ignore her prying non-question.
She shrugged again, this time cocking her head flirtatiously to one side. “For one thing, I get a nice commission from this. You made my month!”
I felt the edges of my mouth begin to curl. “Well, I’m glad I could fill your pocketbook,” I said.
She straightened, frowning. “Well, that’s not the only reason I—” She stopped, and bit her lip.
“You were saying?”
“Nothing,” she said.
I waved her away with one hand, and used the other to open the door of my car. “I think I understand,” I said. “And I’m flattered. But I’d prefer it if we kept things between us on a professional level.”
She appeared shocked. “You what?”
“Jennifer,” I said. “I know we’ve had some pleasant moments together. But I’m just not interested in any kind of—”
Her little hands curled into fists now, and her forehead creased. “Hey, look here, mister! What kind of girl do you think I am?”
I climbed up into my seat. “Forget it, sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“No, you shouldn’t have!” She was truly angry now, her face crumpled into a mass of pink flesh. “You really should have just left it alone!”
With a grim smile, I shut the door and started the engine. Jennifer took a step back, her mouth open in astonished disgust. She was shaking her head in mock disbelief as I pulled away. I was given, in that awkward moment, to wonder what had happened in this town to cause its inhabitants to behave so peculiarly around me. Given Jeremy Pernice’s coldness, and Jennifer’s absurd antics, I felt as though some strange malaise had gripped Gerrysburg in my absence, rendering all its denizens nervous and impolite.
Back on the road, I calmed my racing heart with thoughts of the work ahead. There was much to be done at what had at last become my house, and soon, Jennifer the real estate agent had ceased, once and for all, to trouble my mind.
TWO
That Monday, when I arrived back at the house after closing, I found that the power had been turned on. I walked through the empty rooms, pressing the wall switches, and to my surprise found that half the ancient light bulbs still lit. I tested each of the outlets by plugging in a high-intensity halogen clip lamp I had bought, and most of them worked, as well. It occurred to me that the remaining outlets might also be operational, that perhaps the problem was a blown fuse, and so I strolled around the place, looking for the cellar door.
I found it in the kitchen, next to a chipped, nineteen-fifties vintage refrigerator that appeared to be broken. The door was strange, half-painted from the top down, as if someone had been interrupted during a renovation. It had a ten-inch-square hole cut into one lower corner, as if to allow the passage of a cat, and sat crookedly in the frame. It opened with a scrape and creak to reveal a primitive wooden staircase leading down into a blackness that stank of mold. The light switch just inside the door had no effect, and I wondered if perhaps it was such a good idea to tramp down these rickety old steps in the dark, and fool around with an electrical system that might well present a grave danger to my personal safety. After a moment’s thought, I shut the door, or at any rate tried to—now that I had loosed it from its frame, it would no longer fully close. Worse, gravity caused it to fall open when I released the knob. Such a danger was unacceptable: it was all too easy to imagine myself stumbling on the threshold, falling down the stairs, and lying helplessly on the cold floor. I might end up sprawled there, immobilized by broken bones, as rats and insects crawled across my curdling flesh. I could starve to death there, and never be found…
No, that would not do. My solution was to go outside, find a rock, and use it to hold the door shut: inelegant, of course, but good enough for now.
I had picked up a copy of the Milan phone book from my hotel, and now used it to make an appointment with an electrician. I would need all the outlets to be grounded, and the wiring to be inspected and upgraded if necessary. The electrician said that he could make it on Thursday morning, which was perfectly acceptable.
My phone, I should add, was quite new—I had bought it before I left for Gerrysburg more than two weeks before. It was a cell phone, of course, and I now added the electrician to my personal directory, where he joined the hardware store and power company. Jennifer, the real estate agent, was still listed as well, so I selected her name and number and deleted them.
It was getting a bit late in the day, but the electric power would give me the opportunity to work at night. I drove down to Milan and rented a drum sander, then returned to the hardware store and gathered up several packages of sandpaper to fit the sander, in several different grits. I picked up enough finishing wax to coat every floor in the house, and more paint, this time for the interior walls. I also lifted several gallons of water into my cart, and some cleaning supplies, before wheeling over to the bank of cash registers. Most were unmanned, and atop each stood a container of small American flags, the kind that could be mounted on the doorframe of your car. I approached the single register staffed by a checkout clerk.
The clerk recognized me from my previous trip. He was a tall, thin man, perhaps retired, or maybe a refugee from a previous failed career, and was quite inquisitive. I am not unfriendly, so I responded as politely as I could without rewarding his nosiness.
“Looks like you’ve got a major project going!” the man said, dragging my cans of paint across the bar code scanner.
“That’s right.”
“Bought a house, did you?”
“Yes.”
He nodded. “Well, good for you. New in town?”
“No,” I said, as brusquely as possible.
“We could use some newcomers, though, wouldn’t you say?”
“That’s no concern of mine.”
This quieted him, however briefly. When I had paid, he offered to help me carry my purchases to my car.
“I’ll be fine on my own, thanks.”
“Oh, don’t be stubborn, let me give you a hand. Pretty awkward, doing all that by yourself.”
Finally, I met his gaze with as much directness and authority as I could muster. “What is awkward,” I told him, “is the need to deflect your attention away from my private business. I do not need any help conveying these things to my car.”
If the clerk was taken aback, he certainly didn’t indicate it with his expression, which was one of mild puzzlement and acceptance, with perhaps a touch of arrogance. He shrugged, held out his empty hands, and said, “Okay, okay. Suit yourself, soldier.”
I had been about to leave, and had wrapped both my hands around the handle of my heavily laden cart. But the clerk’s method of address pulled me up short. I turned to him now and, bracing myself against the counter, leaned forward.
“I beg your pardon,” I said, quietly and clearly. “But what did you just say to me?”
The man stood his ground. “I said, ‘Suit yourself.’”
“You called me ‘soldier.’”
He crossed his arms over his chest and breathed in through his long, thin nose. “You look like a military man to me.”
“And I suppose you believe you can tell, do you?”
He nodded slowly. “That’s right. I was a captain in the First Infantry in Vietnam. Gia Dinh Province. Battalion Intelligence. I did two tours. So, yes, I believe I know a soldier when I see one.
Soldier.
” And he leaned forward until his nose nearly touched mine.
I realized at this point that it was not in my best interest to pursue this matter with the hardware store clerk. While he had no right to make assumptions about me based upon his “instincts,” I nevertheless had no wish to denigrate the man’s military service. Nor would it have been prudent of me to alienate the employees of a store that I would doubtless continue to depend upon for the supplies I needed. And, of course, the longer I stood here arguing with the man, the less time I had to accomplish the task at hand, ie., the renovation of my house. So I pulled back, cleared my throat, and disengaged from the encounter.
“Pardon me,” I said again, this time in a conciliatory tone. “There was no need for me to become hostile. I appreciate your offer of help, but I prefer to be alone.”
“Fine,” the man said, his expression unchanging.
“I’m sure we’ll see one another again,” I added.
“I’ll look forward to it.”
I offered him a final nod of acknowledgment, then took hold of my cart and pushed it toward the sliding glass exit doors. Just as I was about to leave the building, I hazarded a glance over my shoulder. The clerk was still watching me.
After a day and a half of aggressive cleaning and sanding, I made an interesting discovery. Part of the transfer of ownership of the property involved the creation of a title abstract, a copy of which the bank had given me at the time of closing. The abstract was held in a legal-sized manila envelope, and consisted of a quarter-inch-thick sheaf of papers, stapled at the corner. For some days I had left it sitting in the back seat of my car, as I concentrated upon the renovations. But that afternoon, weariness overcame me: I had overextended myself in my eagerness to complete my labors. I decided to take a break. A light rain was falling, and the air was pleasingly cool, so I took a seat on the newly repaired front stoop of the house, drank from a bottle of water, and paged through the abstract.
As it happened, the document was fascinating. The legal firm that handled the transfer of ownership had researched the history of the property, and compiled facsimiles of every document it discovered into this compact, convenient package. It was arranged with the oldest information at the back, so that is where I began reading.
The bottom document was dated October 12, 1933, and consisted of a typewritten history of the property up to that point. Evidently, most of the county had been ceded to the colonial government in 1762 by the Kakeneoke Indian tribe. We can assume that this arrangement was less than fair to the Indians, but its details were not provided in the abstract. The land was not settled immediately, but was used extensively by hunters and trappers up to, and during, the American Revolution. At this time, it was divided into large plots and given to veterans of the war as part of their compensation for military service. My plot was a portion of a much larger plot that had been assigned to a man named Ezekiel Cordwell.
No information was provided about this man, other than that he had “served honorably” in the Revolutionary War, that he did indeed come to occupy the land, and that he died in 1815. At this time, ownership of the land was transferred to his son, Daniel, and then to another son, Peter, in 1821.
Apparently no records existed for the years between 1821 and 1904, but it is clear that, at some point during that time, the land was owned by a man named M. Jefferson, for it was he who sold it in 1904. This Jefferson was a farmer and a freed slave, but the documents gave no indication whether or not he actually farmed the land. In any event, by this time the land had been further subdivided, and the plot that M. Jefferson sold had very nearly the same boundaries of that which I had bought—with one important exception that I will reveal in a moment.
The land was bought by another farmer, Gerald Jones, and some years later—we can surmise during the Great Depression—it fell into disuse. Given the density of the forest at the time of my purchase, it is safe to assume that no farming took place on the land after Jones abandoned his efforts.
At this point the abstract took a peculiar, somewhat mysterious turn. The next document revealed that ownership of the land was transferred in 1959—but this document differed from the others in one important way. The name of the person who bought it was carefully blacked out with what appeared to be a thick marker. I held the papers closer to my face and tilted them against the weak gray light of the afternoon, figuring that I could make out the words underneath the ink. But I could not. My copy of this page of the title was obviously a photocopy of the one that had been blacked out—or perhaps even a copy of a copy. I quickly flipped through the remaining pages, and found one additional blackout, on the document describing the purchase of the land by the state of New York. The rest of the land’s history I have already mentioned: the state’s intention to transform it into a public wilderness area, their failure to do so, and finally my own purchase of it.
I got out my phone and called the law office that had prepared the abstract—their number was printed on each page—to inquire why the previous owner’s name was blacked out, and who had done the censoring. The woman I spoke with declined to give me any additional information. I was irritated, of course. But I understood that further complaint was not, at this moment, to my advantage.
The curious issue of the blacked-out name, however, was soon overshadowed by the interesting discovery that I have mentioned. One of the new documents near the top of the abstract was a detailed survey map of the property. I say “detailed” primarily because of its impressively specific measurements; these included exact lines of longitude and latitude, and the angle and length of each property line. But the fact was, there was very little detail to be recorded. The house and the lot it stood upon were evident on the southwest corner; the creek that demarcated the northeast corner was also clear. And the rocky crag was shown slightly east of center, precisely where I’d have expected it to be.
What surprised me was that, pressed up against the western face of the rock, there was a small lopsided quadrilateral that I did not appear to own. This section of land was less than an acre in area, and was filled in on the survey map with a series of diagonal parallel lines. I searched the accompanying text for some explanation, and eventually found, buried in the packed paragraphs of legalese, a single mention: “Beginning at a point marked by an existing iron pin at…”—and here a series of coordinates were given—“and running thence west 80 degrees a distance of 257 feet, 6 inches to an existing iron pin, and running thence south 05 degrees a distance of 194 feet, 3 inches to…”—and here the remainder of the coordinates and distances were given, and the description concluded by saying, “SUBJECT TO the restrictions contained in the deed recorded in the Henford County Clerk’s Office, and the grantor herein certifying that said restrictions have been complied with, the above-described premises are NOT included in the terms of this SURVEY.”
Now, I am not a lawyer, nor do I understand fully the laws that regulate the real estate market. But this seemed to me a clear indication that a small area of land to the west of the rock did not belong to me. Needless to say, I immediately called the law office once again, and from an assistant there received confirmation that this was in fact the case. That bit of land was not mine.
“To whom, then,” I asked, “does it now belong?”
The woman’s voice grew distant, as if she were leaning away from the phone to consult her papers. “Err… ,” she said, “I will probably have to get back to you on that.”
I persisted. “There is nothing in your records that can answer my question?”
“I’m sure there is, Mr. Loesch. But it will take some time to find it.”
“And tell me this,” I went on. “If there’s a bit of land there that someone else owns, it’s logical to assume that there should be a right of way to it, correct?”
“Ahh… yes, I suppose so.”
“But it would appear there is no right of way.”
“Hmm,” the woman said. “Yes. It does look that way.”
“And so this must be some kind of mistake, correct?”
She sighed. “I would think so, yes. But as you said, it’s quite clear there on the survey map. And in the text on Schedule A. So it can’t be entirely mistaken.”
I laughed. “Big mistakes do get made, though.”
“I suppose they do, sometimes,” she replied. “I’ll have to consult one of the attorneys.”
“You’ll get back to me about this, then?”
“I certainly will.”
Having done all I could to resolve that small mystery, I resumed work on the interior of the house. The process of cleaning each room and sanding its floor gave me ample opportunity to take stock of the place, and really see what it was I had bought.