Theme week 5 Narrative, action

LOOK OUT!
Looking back on this day, the first thing that surprises me is that friends were letting me drive. Evidently these friends hadn’t yet talked to other friends that had learned their lesson. I have to admit I’m a bit of a flake when it comes to driving. Too much to pay attention to. Which lane? What right turn? Where’d that car come from? Plus, I was driving a Chevy Celebrity, a shit box of a car with eroding brakes.
We had a wonderful day planned. My friend MaryLynn is a great planner. Newly moved to Maine from New York, she could not believe we had never visited the Roosevelt summer home on Campobello Island. My friend Barbara had found an article in Down East magazine. There was a golf course nearby and we were good to go.
We golfed an interesting little course in Roque’s Bluff. It’s interesting because the water hazards change with the tides. MaryLynn is the most consistent player I play with. One hundred and twenty yards straight ahead. Over water, sand, rocks, one hundred and twenty yards. Barbara is a long straight ball striker. As long as most men and straighter. We call her “Easy Trail” because she’s not into working too hard. She doesn’t like to sweat. We think that’s why she hits so long and straight. It’s just easier. I don’t think I need to talk about how she falls apart around the greens. It’s what keeps her playing with us mortals. My ball is apt to be most anywhere. There is consistency only in my inconsistency. We had our usual great time at the little course and moved on the cottage where we all wanted to live.
The Roosevelt cottage is amazing. The grounds so well designed, the architecture of the cottage so beautiful. The large oval captain’s window frames the gardens and lawn stretching down to the harbor. The cottage inside is stuffed full of comfortable looking period furniture in big colorful patterns of the time. Cabbage roses all over the place. The wallpaper has big sprays of lilacs, Eleanor’s favorite. We were surprised to see steps throughout the house, down into the living room, up into the hallway. It could not have been easy for a man in a wheelchair. Everything was so comfortable and old-elegance until you get up the back stairs to the servant’s rooms with their little iron beds and one dresser.
We moved on from there although we hated to go. MaryLynn wanted to visit the Sunsweep Trail friendship plaque. I believe the sign said it was a .25 mile walk to the plaque, but old Easy Trail was starting to whine. She was hot and tired and mumbling something about shopping in air conditioning. We insisted that she put her hand on the friendship plaque and smile damn it for the picture. We laugh every time we see that picture.
We are ready to call it a day. However, fate intervened on the way through Columbia Falls. What is that big deer doing in the middle of the day, almost in the middle of town, running on a collision course with the shit box Celebrity? I frantically check for an exit. Too much traffic, no where to go. I start saying SHIT every time the deer bounds which was about six times. I pull back on the steering wheel of the shit box thinking that will help the eroding brakes do their job. Nobody can tell me animals don’t know mortality. I can see the face of that deer change as we both realize there is no avoidance. The terrible thump, the tinkling glass, the deer rolling over my fender, into the windshield and off the side of the car into the ditch. I pull over, look at Barbara beside me and we both burst into tears. As I keep repeating unnecessarily, “We hit a deer!”, MaryLynn, the practical one in the back seat keeps asking, “Is anyone hurt?” Finally she says, with love, “Stop that blatting you morons. Is anyone hurt?” That changes the tears to laughter.
We decide the car is o.k. to drive down the hill to a store to make a call to the powers that handle these things. The nice lady tells me that an officer is on his way. By the time we drive back up the hill, pick up trucks are stopped and men with missing teeth and hammers in their hands are offering to take that deer off my hands and take care of it. Scanners? Radar? Or just driving around looking for road kill? I’m sure there are hack saws in the back of the trucks. I tell them an officer is on his way. They stand back a little.
The police officer is, of course, a cute young thing. We are at that age where doctors and officers look like boy scouts earning merit badges. He is very nice, asking me, after the paper work, if I want the deer. The pick up men are very interested in my answer. I say, “How would I get it home, strap it on the hood of the car? The trunk is full of golf clubs.”
He said, “You could put it in the back seat with Mary.” She hates being called Mary, but didn’t seem to mind when he said it. Mary and the pick up boys are happy with the deer disposal decision.
The car is drivable, but with only one headlight. That would have been fine except that by Ellsworth and dark we realize the remaining headlight goes out with every bump. MaryLynn has taken back some measure of control of the day, not by driving, but by sitting in the front seat with a flashlight and shining it out the windshield every time we hit a bump. At one point, from the back we hear from Easy Trail, “Why aren’t we stopping to shop?”