Cuba, Vermont: A Pastoral

PART 1

In Cuba (Vermont, that is) -- a tiny burg of a mere 300 or so souls just large enough to rate a spot on any good, detailed map -- the only place to shop is Buck's Country Market. As one might expect, it is located along the sole sizeable thoroughfare running through Cuba, a piece of two-lane hot-top running roughly north-south as the crow flies smack in the center of the Green Mountains. To the extent that much happens in Cuba at all, it will nine times out of ten take place at Buck's. Driving, you come into Cuba from woods, brooks, and sheer mountain cliffs. You pass a few farmhouses, Buck's itself, a small church, town hall, a shack that serves as the local post office, a rundown abandoned Grange Hall last used in 1931, a couple more houses -- then you're back in the big green empty again for miles and miles. If you're not local, and you're making a stop in Cuba, chances are better than a thousand to one it'll be at Buck's.

Buck's Country Market is a typical backwater arrangement by New England standards. An old two-story colonial built in 1790 (the year is painted just over the ground floor entrance), it now houses the market downstairs, and Buck Martin's living quarters upstairs. Buck's wife passed on three years ago now, and it was a lonely job keeping store for a while, but Buck has since adjusted. There are plenty of familiar faces in Cuba to keep him company until he either retires, sells the market and decides what to do with himself -- or joins Emma down at the Mountain View Cemetery. He hasn't made up his mind which yet. He sometimes reflects that he may never have to.

Out front, there are two gas pumps, 1970's era mechanical dinosaurs with their peeling green and yellow BP decals standing under a rust-flecked white hooded lamp which Buck switches on after dark. There's also a yellowing plastic BP sign hanging from a marquee with flourescent tubes that light it up from inside. On occasion, one of them will start to buzz and flicker, and then Buck will have to get out his painting ladder, take the damned thing apart, and replace it. He usually leaves these lights on after closing, as well. There has not been a burglary in Cuba since who knew how long (1964? '65?), but better safe than sorry -- and that goes for both Buck and burglar. The sign just under the marquee advertises:

BUCK'S COUNTRY MARKET

GUNS-FISHING LICENSES-COLD BEER & WINE

Buck has never considered the possibility of going fishing or getting drunk with any would-be intruders.

Mounting the cement steps -- split in two by a timeworn metal pipe for a railing -- you set foot onto a kind of front porch landing. To the right, is a much-pinholed cork bulletin board, replete with thumbtacked business cards, notices of church ham and bean suppers, a flyer giving notice of the next town meeting. Directly in front of you is a hinged glass door with an anodyne aluminum frame -- perhaps the only visible sign of even a suggestion of modernity. Through it, you can see the inside of Buck's, but this view is obscured by numerous decals advertising everything from cigarettes to 7-Up; from Dentyne to ice cream. A black sign with orange letters hung on the inside at eye level reads: COME IN, WE'RE OPEN! To the left, is an early 1900's scale (Buck's is a game weigh-in station during hunting season). But it will not see use for a few months yet. It is mid-summer, and in Vermont, farmers are gardening and milking cows and will not begin tapping maple trees for sap for some time to come. Housewives are baking homemade breads and biscuits and have not started laying up preserves in Mason jars to date. Younger people are out of school, and so are busy fishing trout, and splashing into swimming holes, and riding bicycles. Shadows grow long in the even longer afternoons, and the air is redolent of fresh-mowed timothy grass, and manure, and all manner of things both green and fecund. We may hear, on occasion, the chuckle of a nearby stream; the buzz of a bumblebee; the faraway, dreamlike drone of an airplane. But that's all. With the exception of an occasional car breezing by Buck's in a thin cloud of bone-dry road dirt, that is all.

We're not going to enter Buck's Country Market, you and me; not exactly. Some other people are going to be doing that soon enough. But if we did, we'd pull the handle on the front door, and it would open easily and silently -- although a leather belt strung with sleighbells and hung from the inside would jingle, reminding us oddly of a Christmas which has six months or so to arrive. As if to further break the spell, we observe, just before entering, that the Coca-Cola thermometer affixed to one side of the bulletin board is hovering around 85 degrees.

The floor creaks as we step in, and looking down we see that the rough oak boards, worn smooth and tanned by what may be two centuries of custom, stretch off to the rear of this market in not-quite level planes. Running more or less symmetrically to these ancient planks are two sets of metal shelving, forming three aisles within the market's overall floorspace. All the way to the rear -- a mere 30 feet or so -- we can see a long white deli counter with a clear glass front. The left wall begins with the main counter, where there is, among many other things, a large antique cash register. Here also is seated Buck Martin, talking with his friend Roy LaPage, who is leaning his rather formidable beer gut comfortably against the counter's end. We will be returning to them shortly, but for now, let us continue to examine the interior of Buck's Country Market.

From the main counter, the first aisle consists of a large glass sporting goods case on the left side, shelved goods on the right. The center aisle is shelved products on both sides. The third aisle is again shelved items to the left, and a series of glass cooler doors on the right, behind which we can see various chilled beverages and groceries. If we were to venture out into these aisles we would find a smorgasbord of seemingly unrelated things: bizarre when described together -- yet necessary to one degree and at one time or another, to both the residents and passers-by of Cuba. Some of these things would have been just recently placed on the shelves. Others are coated with the dust of disregard, wares little-used and infrequently demanded. We would find fishhooks and frozen pizza. Comic books and cookies. Tins of shoe polish, and types of shotgun shells. Jars of pickles and cans of peaches. Dog collars and disposable diapers. Bags of charcoal and blocks of cheese. Turkey pans and transmission fluid. Singer sewing machine needles, and Star spaghetti sauce. Padlocks and lightbulbs, roofing nails and beef jerky, sour cream and binoculars, camera film and cabbages. The smells are dry, musty -- but by no means unpleasant. They are smells of well-worn wood, licorice, old tobacco. The air is cool, circulated by a couple of ceiling fans, not a blasting dry heat like outside. Here it is comfortable; relaxed. You could sit in a rocking chair and sip coffee and puff on a corn-cob pipe and stare out the plate glass window behind the counter at the gas pumps outside (and the road beyond) all day and not feel disconcerted in the least regard. This is standstill time, almost. Life under glass. A pocket of isolation in an otherwise bustling world too busy to notice itself. And Buck Martin and Roy LaPage are most of what is happening of any import whatsoever in Cuba, Vermont this afternoon.

Though Roy is 20 years Buck's junior, they think largely alike. Both are lifetime NRA members. Neither have ever used marijuana. Both, in spite of the name of their hometown, agree that they want to see that bastard Castro die sometime soon. But there are slight differences.

Roy has long held that the 16th Amendment was never properly ratified, and hence, has not filed a 1040 with the IRS in over ten years. Buck, unsure whether to agree with Roy -- while in turn certainly no fan of the IRS -- hasn't quite the gumption to follow his friend's advice. He likes his store and isn't prepared to lose it. However, once a month, Buck is host to half a dozen other guys who collectively call themselves the Green Mountain Militia. They assemble with a wide assortment of shooting irons, and engage in target practice in the woods behind the market. Roy has expressed interest, but says that his wife, Sharon, "draws the line" when it comes to his tax resistance and will tolerate no further deviation from a domesticate life, so to speak. Buck understands -- having been married almost 40 years himself before becoming a widower -- but still urges Roy to talk to his wife; maybe she'll reconsider. Roy allows for how if the UN manages to succeed in stripping away the Second Amendment, it won't matter what Sharon says -- he'll join, and he'll fight. Buck accepts this...albeit with some secret, half-acknowledged skepticism.

Buck and Roy hold court here in the market this afternoon, as they have done on many such afternoons, discussing these things and more: whether or not the town hall needs a new heat system before this winter, how the bass fishing has been of late, inflation and the exorbitant price of gas (Buck's pumps bear signs with prices currently ranging from $2.39 for regular to $2.79 for hi-test -- not exactly, unlike the pumps themselves, 1970's oriented). Buck rocks easily in his chair, puffing his pipe, making the floorboards creak and filling the air with the aromatic tang of cherry Captain Black. Roy spits an occasional stream of Red Man into his empty styrofoam cup, adjusting the greasy Chevrolet baseball cap planted on his head from time to time. Both of them are jawing away as the blazing sun slowly trails its course down the nearly flawless sky, where only a few puffy cumulus clouds drift by like some musing child's cotton candy dream, idling back and forth about this and that, pausing to smoke or to spit, living in a cat's cradle of their own yarns.

PART 2

Dennis and Rachel Trellis are on their way back to Burlington from Albany. Since there is no main interstate that will take them directly there, they are travelling on side roads. Their car is a modest late-model Volvo. It shows some sign of rust, but is still respectable. On the rear are several bumper stickers: THINK GLOBALLY, ACT LOCALLY. IT WILL BE A GREAT DAY WHEN SCHOOLS GET ALL THE MONEY THEY NEED AND THE MILITARY IS FORCED TO HOLD A BAKE SALE. PEACE, LOVE, AND THE GRATEFUL DEAD! FREE TIBET! DON'T CRITICIZE IT, LEGALIZE IT! next to a big green pot leaf. GIVE PEACE A CHANCE.

Indeed, they are just returning home from a peace rally protesting the criminal war going on in Iraq. This rally, they both reckon, has been moderately successful. It has garnered attention on radio and TV in the Albany area, as well as all the local papers. Even the Village Voice down in the Big Apple itself has picked up on it. And there were only a couple of arrests. In all, the foray has gone well. A statement has been made by both of them. They have stood up, where so many others have not. There is no arrogance in this -- at least not consciously. There is a deep sense of satisfaction. That is the difference.

Rachel suggests they smoke a joint, but Dennis declines. He does not like to get high while driving (these days, anyway), and they will need to stop for gas soon as well. A green sign with white lettering informs them: CUBA 3. The sun is lowering, and its glare makes Dennis flip down the visor. On the tape deck, Carole King is singing "Been To Canaan."

A gas station comes up on their right, and Dennis pulls in on virtual auto-pilot, braking gently at the low-grade pump. He shuts the car off, and Rachel gets out before Dennis hardly has a chance to unfasten his seat belt. But he's not surprised: It's been a long drive already today, with a fair distance yet to go, and it's coming up on Rachel's time of the month, too. She'll be looking for a restroom. If she succeeds in finding one, he's going to be next in line.

He gets out, spins off the Volvo's gas cap, flips the antiquated pump lever up, and watches the digits roll around to zeroes as he plugs in the nozzle. He hears the jingle of bells as Rachel enters the store. He squeezes the handle is immediately flushed with the rich smell of gasoline, a shimmering heat-haze of vapor wafting upward, similar to what the soldiers on the ground in Iraq must see on desert patrols. Perhaps one of the last things many of them have seen before being cut down by sniper fire, or blown to pieces by IED's. And this is one of the reasons they have been sent there -- so that people like Dennis Trellis can keep buying fuel at inflated prices while oil industry CEO's soak up the profits (and let's not forget the gas is taxed, too). In order to protest the war, he was being forced to promote it by proxy. A bitter irony. Even the steady thrum of the gas pump's antique electric motor doesn't soothe him. He winces.

He tops off the tank, screws on the cap, hangs up the nozzle. He has run up a $23.00 tab with British Petroleum. For his efforts, more will undoubtedly die: Brits, Americans, Iraqis, others. Iran is waiting in the wings, after all. He draws in breath and tries not to think too deeply about this. It is a fine summer afternoon in Vermont, after all, and he and Rachel have done what they can.

Dennis bounds up the steps in his tattered unlaced Keds sneakers, long blonde hair streaming out behind him. He enters a tad self-consciously (he is wearing a tee-shirt which says INTERNATIONAL TERRORIST under a picture of the president dressed in Arabic garb), but does not look away from the old men who are at the counter, both of whom offer him non-commital gazes. He nods politely, and looks around for Rachel. When he doesn't see her anywhere, he looks back quizzically to the man in the rocking chair; the man drawing away on a corn-cob pipe and grinning at him in a half-amused, cynical way. The other man, he notices peripherally, is regarding him with the flat stare of a zoo visitor -- one who has perhaps tired of mere chimpanzees and tigers, and who now is ready to graduate to something worthy of greater fascination.

PART 3

Dennis is about to utter a question, but the man behind the counter speaks first, pre-empting him: "She's usin' the restroom. S'pose you'll want to after?"

A slight pause. "Umm, yeah. If I could, that'd be great."

A sigh from the man in the rocking chair. "All right."

"I can pay for the gas now, if you like."

The man begins lurching out of his chair, as if it is a task performed only with the greatest effort. "The gas'll be all?" he asks, cocking one bushy silver eyebrow at Dennis through a raft of smoke.

"Well, unless my wife wants to get something."

The man slumps back into the chair, and it creaks. "We'll wait," he says. The other man spits into his styrofoam coffee cup, adjusts the cap on his head, and says nothing.

Dennis paces a little; he looks at a wooden rack full of newspapers and magazines, looks up at the ceiling, stares at the floor. He hates being made to feel self-conscious like this. He had been anything but in Albany yesterday, waving a sign; Rachel and he shouting slogans with a thousand or so other people.

He almost wishes he'd taken her up on burning that joint earlier. It might have eased this sense of disconnectedness.

The creak of a nearby door, along with the chugging of a flushed toilet. Rachel emerges from just beyond a glass case full of guns, fixing her frizzy brown hair a little. Dennis sees her brow wrinkle as she glances at the display case and its varied hardware, the glass panels festooned with Remington and Winchester and NRA decals. Dennis is no big fan either, but is more neutral on the subject than Rachel. She makes her way to the counter.

"You need anything, babe?" Dennis asks, vaguely grateful for the distraction. "I need to use the john."

"No, I'll wait 'til we get home."

"All right." Dennis makes tracks for the restroom.

"Thank you for letting me use --" Rachel begins, but the man in the rocking chair holds up a hand.

"No need, miss. 'Salright. Where you headed?"

"We're from Burlington."

A nod from the old man. Silence. A car pulls up outside. It's someone local, and both Buck and Roy know who it is pretty well.

"Miss," Buck begins, looking a bit embarassed, but determined to carry on just the same, "that fella of yours could hardly do worse but to have on that shirt he's wearin'." A pause. "If you don't mind my sayin' so, that is." Roy has been seemingly neutral, almost a waxwork up until now, but for the tobacco chewing. Yet, at this he nods his agreement, not unlike a Disney character in car's rear window.

Rachel's expression darkens in earnest now, her lips pursed in a thin, tight line. Several different responses flash through her head in angered indignance -- none of them equating silence. What comes out is remarkably measured, considering: "We all have a right to our opinions."

Just now there is the jingle-jangle of bells, and in walks Buck's most recent customer, who nods at the two men in silent greeting. They both nod back somberly.

This time, it is Roy's turn to speak. "So we do. We also got a right to go after those damned murderers who attacked us on 9/11." Now it is Buck's turn to nod with alacrity.

Dennis returns from the washroom just as Rachel replies: "Those people in Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11." Her voice is now actually quavering. This causes Dennis, who is quickly looking more and more bewildered, no small measure of alarm. He realizes she is furious.

"What's going on here?" he asks.

"Dennis, just pay this man for his gas and let's go," Rachel says curtly.

"Hold on a minute. What's the problem here?"

"Problem is," Roy replies, "you young people don't seem to know just who the enemy is and ain't. And that shirt there proves it," he finishes, pointing.

Dennis' eyes widen. "Oh, is that so?" he asks, now joining the rising fray of tension; feeling it rise in his chest. "Well I know sure as hell it isn't a bunch of Iraqi women and children. And it isn't everyone with dark skin who wears a turban either."

At that, Roy snorts, and Buck shoots forward in his rocker. "Just who in hell d'ya think took down those towers in New York? Buck Rogers?" he almost yells, holding his smoldering pipe out in one hand like a judge's gavel.

"I don't know," Dennis responds, now raising his own voice. "There's some debate on that. It wouldn't surprise me if Lord Bush and his cronies pulled it off as a pretense. There are a lot of people who believe that. And they make a pretty good argument for my money."

Roy brays laughter, and hawks another stream of Red Man into his cup. Buck sits back in his chair again, laughing cynically, shaking his head.

"Dennis," Rachel asks, not pleading -- but not merely suggesting either. "Let's just --"

"I'm with you," Dennis blurts, his anger not directed towards Rachel in the least. He unlimbers his wallet with impatience, tossing a picture of Andrew Jackson and three George Washingtons on the counter in front of Buck. "Here's your blood money for the gas. Sorry to have bothered you. Now you can go back to cleaning your guns and hating Arabs and the Koran, and anyone who doesn't wanna see anyone else die for the oil companies."

Buck springs out of his chair like a shot, pipe clamped viciously in his teeth, and sweeps up the four bills from the counter, bunching them in his fist which he shakes furiously at Dennis. "And you, you long-haired dope-smoking hippie bastard, can go back to your damned commie friends, who eat up my tax dollars on welfare while they flip the bird at the flag!" His face is now red with rage, purplish veins sticking out in stark relief; a condition approaching borderline apoplexy. "You can go back to wipin' your ass with the Stars And Stripes while our boys die in Afghanistan! Don't you ever come back in here again, you hear?You can --"

"'Scuse me? Pardon? Buck?"

Buck's tirade ends abruptly, and four heads snap around at the sound of this new voice. It is, of course, the third and latest of Buck's customers at present, and while Dennis and Rachel -- not being from around here -- do not know this man at all, he is familiar to both Buck and Roy. An awkward, embarassing silence descends. Only this fourth man is smiling.

It takes an abnormal length of time, but in due course Buck clears his throat. "You, uhh, all set, Alex?"

"I s'pose," Alex says, setting a half-gallon carton of milk and a loaf of wheat bread on the countertop.

"C'mon, let's go," Dennis says to Rachel, his voice low with true disgust. They head for the door.

"Hey, hold up a sec," Alex says, and the couple pause, looking at this newcomer with blank faces. "You know," he continues, "I really like those bumper stickers on your car. All except the one about schools. You got any more of those?"

Buck's old mechanical cash register rumbles a couple of times and Buck says: "Five twenty-seven, Alex." Alex pulls out his billfold, and absently hands Buck an Alexander Hamilton. Buck is peering at Alex over his horn-rimmed, Coke-bottle glasses. Alex is pretending not to notice.

"Weelll...I don't know --" Dennis begins.

"There might be a couple in the back seat," Rachel says, half to Alex, half to her husband. She sounds utterly befuddled, but seeing an excuse to head outside nonetheless, makes for the Volvo. Dennis, for no apparent reason, stays rooted.

Buck, face still blooming from his outbursts, quietly hands Alex his change, and puts the milk and bread in a small paper sack. There is a rueful smirk across his features; almost, though not quite, a sign of self-blame. Roy is looking down, spitting chew into his cup, tugging at the visor on his cap.

"Thanks Buck," Alex says, stuffing his change in one pocket and scooping up his groceries in another. "You know, you ought to listen to Roy here on that Sixteenth Amendment stuff. You might not want to tell the IRS to go hang, but he still knows what he's talking about."

Buck grins, as does Roy, who with his jowly face, looks not unlike an aging Cheshire cat.

"And I'll be in to talk about that hunting rifle, too," Alex continues, making for the door. But he turns to regard all three of them.

"It's none of my business of course...but from what I can gather, you all share a hell of a lot more in common than you think."

Not a word. The ceiling fans whisper. The coolers hum. A bird twitters outside.

"C'mon," Alex says to Dennis, as they walk out. "I'll give you a couple dollars for one of those Grateful Dead stickers."

"If there are any you can have one," Dennis remarks, bemused, as they stroll towards the car.

Back inside, Buck turns to Roy: "That Alex is an awful funny fellow, ain't he?"

"Yeah," Roy replies, now hawking the whole used-up wad of tobacco into his cup, and tossing it into the trashcan. "Funny guy, all right -- but a good man just the same."

At this, Buck nods, sits back down in his rocker, and relights his pipe. Outside, through the window, Buck sees the young people in the Volvo have given Alex his bumper sticker, whatever the hell it says. They are all laughing pleasantly. They wave at each other, get in their respective cars, and drive away -- the Volvo north; Alex in his SUV, south. Clouds of sand take to the air and make strange shapes in the elongating shadows of this dry afternoon. Buck reaches over and snaps on a battered AM radio set he has had since time out of mind, since Emma and he were almost as young as those damn hippie kids in their foreign car. Back then they would sit up nights and listen to Amos N' Andy and Fibber McGee and The Shadow coming in crackly and distant from New York straight into the wee hours. Back when America was still America. He clicks it on and in a moment or so (as the old vacuum tubes warm) he is listening to Sean Hannity talk about beating the Islamofascists, avenging the Arabs and the Leftists for their transgressions. A moment or two more, and Roy and he are discussing how both the Red Sox and Yankees are doing this year, and all is right with the world once again.

Note: This story is a work of fiction. It is wholly the product of the author's imagination; no resemblance to actual persons, places, or events is intended, and any such similarities are entirely coincidental.

Really.