The Compass

My Christian friend Bob had told me that isolation was the tool of the devil. That although it seems like a gift, it’s also a curse when we become too inward, withdrawn from life and disconnected. He’d said that the enemy can get to your emotions only after you’ve been isolated, a strategy used by the greatest generals of all time. Isolate, then defeat.

‘How long you staying?’

The voice startled me, and I turned.

The man walked with a limp, one leg obviously shorter than the other, with high rubber boots over jeans and a flannel shirt. He shifted his weight to the good leg as he ambled up the path towards the cabin, stopping to catch his breath.

‘I been waitin’ for you,’ he said, approaching the deck. He carried a long shovel, the end covered in mud.

‘Really? But I…’ I was about to say I’d just arrived, that he couldn’t have possibly known I’d be there, because I didn’t know it myself. But my energy ran out. I had no more to give, no more explanations. He was the caretaker, it seemed. He’d leave the wood, shovel something, be gone soon.

‘I’ve got wood in the truck,’ he said, ‘to load up the stove.’

‘Go for it,’ I answered.

The man pulled the chair from the other side of the deck and dragged it over, slowly and painfully. I considered giving him a hand but he seemed to be doing fine. I surmised he’d been there for years, probably the employee of charitable and wealthy land barons who owned this cabin and the magnificent property surrounding it. The land at least, would be worth about four million.

‘My name’s Peter,’ he said, extending his hand. ‘After Saint Peter. Or Peter the Great. You choose.’ He laughed then, and threw his head back. ‘You here for long?’ He had a slight accent that I couldn’t place.

‘I don’t know, Peter.’

‘What do you mean you don’t know?’

‘I may stay a month, I may stay a year.’

‘It’ll be about five days I suppose,’ he said, checking his watch.

I glanced at him curiously. ‘You have someone else checking in in five days?’

‘Nope.’

He stood slowly, and entered the cabin. Through the open door I watched him walk into the kitchen and open a cabinet. There were a few tins of food there, and a torch. He reached for something and started back out.

‘I keep some Jack in the cupboard,’ he said. ‘Want some?’

I shook my head. I hadn’t drunk since ‘91, when I almost wrapped my car around a tree after a birthday party for a friend. I hadn’t been an alcoholic, but it was that moment that woke me up to the fact that I was seconds away from it. Being something or not, is a very fine line.

Peter poured me a shot of Jack Daniel’s anyway from the large vintage bottle and poured himself one, too. He handed me a shotglass and I took it, downing the harsh dry liquid all in one gulp.

‘Jack Daniel’s is legendary company,’ he said, settling into the other chair on the deck. ‘The founder saved a small town with the distillery. The first bottle produced cost less than two dollars.’

‘You know a lot of trivia, don’t you?’

‘I’m a lifelong learner,’ he said, ‘I like to know all I can.’ He poured me another shot and I drank it fast, feeling the burn down the back of my throat.

‘So is that all you do? Sit up here and drink Jack Daniel’s in the forest?’

He glanced over as if he were pondering his response. ‘Sometimes it’s a nice end to a perfect day,’ he said.

I looked at him, and wondered. Something about this journey was surreal. In the beginning, I hadn’t known where I was going. I’d bought a ticket to somewhere I’d never been, walked for miles, and ended up in the desert with a woman who had less than a month to live. Now here I was in a cabin at the opposite end of the earth with someone entirely different. Where would I be tomorrow? The whole of it was hard to ignore.

‘You need something for that wound on your face?’ he asked.

I shook my head and instinctively touched it with my hand. ‘Nah. You take care of this place?’ I asked.

Pete nodded. He leaned back and hoisted his rubber boots high onto the porch railing.

‘Do you know how I officially check in?’ I asked. ‘I know they left the key under the mat but I assume they’ll want a credit card at some point.’

‘We’ll get one from you on the day you leave,’ he said. ‘It’s pretty laid back around here.’

‘Sounds good,’ I said. ‘Where you from?’

‘Italy, originally. My parents were immigrants but I grew up in an orphanage upstate. I like it out here in the wilderness. It’s lonely at times, but quiet, that’s for sure.’

‘Are you married?’

He shook his head. ‘Oh no, not for me.’

‘Is it hard work up here in the winters with the snow and all? Do the owners have a lot of vacationers coming in and out?’

‘I’m the owner,’ he said.

I looked at him and laughed. ‘Yeah…right.’

The man shrugged and poured another shotglass of Jack. ‘Why is that so hard to believe?’

I held out my glass and he poured me another. I drank it down, did it again.

‘You really the owner?’ I asked.

Pete nodded. ‘You’re good at pre-judging people, aren’t you?’

‘I just asked if you were the owner.’

‘Yes, but you find it impossible to believe that someone who looks as nondescript as me could have an MBA and own a multi-million dollar piece of property in one of the most expensive regions in New York.’

‘You have an MBA?’

‘Sure do,’ he said. ‘It was an accident, really. Bad time in my life when I didn’t know what I wanted to be. I went back to school to try to find myself.’

‘And did you?’

‘I did. But the MBA had nothing to do with it. That was all a big waste of time, if you ask me. I found this land in the mountains and I knew I wanted to build on it. I built five cabins, then ten. Now I’ve got 17 across a span of 200 acres. It’s worth millions.’

‘Wow.’ I thought of the risk and the guts and the determination it must have taken to do all of that.

‘There were a series of chance meetings that led me to this, of course. Before, I only dreamed about the mountains. But then I met people who inspired me along the way. Son, people are sent to all of us. Angels, you know. We all got ‘em.’