Holland Chapter 1

After weeks of contemplation I had at last decided to take upon my son Mark’s request to move to a location where I would await Death to discover me, or rather as my son would attempt to explain, a building where help would be around the corner if the need was presented. Situated in the small northern Michigan village of Spalding, Shade Grove was established at the early turn of the century for the copper miners diagnosed with tuberculosis. A rather horrible disease that cruelly destroys the victim from the inside as it rapidly breaks apart one’s lungs with savage brutality. In a village that does not even net a population of a thousand, Shade Grove was the only treatment center within hundreds of miles. Once the smart minds of the world developed a vaccine for the disease the building gradually turned into a home for the old and needy and thus, the name Shade Grove would be inscribed upon its walls.1

The building itself, now in need of massive exterior repair as its walls have a stretched worn out look, rests on the summit of a small hill overlooking the rest of Spalding. Its gray exterior is marked by three rows of dark black windows that give them the appearance of dozens of spider-like eyes gazing down upon the people living in the village below. At the center of the building is the welcome center, more or less looking like the mouth of the murderous spider waiting to engulf its latest victim caught in its web. 2

I’ve always hated the idea of moving into a so called “nursing home,” and as I sit here in its lounge writing this down longhand on old tattered notebook paper my opinion of one has yet to change. Unless a person has some obscure nose condition, the smell of “death” itself lingers in the air once he or she peers down its vast corridors. A concoction created from unclean bed sheets, stale food, used medical supplies, and something else one can never quite put their finger on. It can not be explained in any other way than to simply say that it smells like “old people.” 3

The ones that have checked themselves into Shade Grove have signed the dotted line and have tiredly resigned from a life they once thrived in. They are so close to the blackness of death they can almost see its manifestation walking through the haze with scythe in hand and a boney finger outstretched in the other. In buildings like this, the residents are quite simply the living dead and sadly, have subconsciously come to terms with it. 4

The captives on this ship of no return have little to do with their stay onboard than to idly sit, stare, or take part in exhausted games of bingo or cards. I have observed that they mostly do this with little joy, often merely waiting for the chime of the clock to signify that the next hour has arrived, one step closer to the moment they will have to stand upon the pearl colored gates of heaven and for some no doubt, the infinite fires of hell. And that moment will indeed come. 5

Deep down every individual believes that they are the one person that will escape death. Even if one “proudly” proclaims they are not afraid of death and are truly ready to look upon their creator. Deep down, into the far reaches of the soul there is a feeling that it simply won’t happen to them. That somehow, Death will not be able to overcome their unique life force and will move silently onto its next victim. Hell, there was a time when I was youth that I truly believed that I would never grow old and leave behind a time of eternal energy. 6

Then there are the Screamers. The patients that have truly lost the sight of the horizon beyond the trees and believe they are in another place and time. It has always fascinated, and at the same time, horrified me to believe that a person’s mind could deteriorate so profoundly that they believe they are living several decades before. Ashamedly, sometimes I wished I could experience this for a day or two just to relive some of the memories that I had as a youth. Still, a few weeks before I resided here I entered Shade Grove as a guest visitor and came to terms with one of the screamers, realizing they were impossibly caught in a purgatory of the past trying to understand the present and their mind literally went insane in the process.7

I fear the reader may have already begun to draw an ill conclusion that I am an old, bitter man not happy with the hand that life has dealt me. This can not be further from the truth, as I have loved my life to a high degree. The locations I’ve traveled to, my beautiful wife, the experiences I had in college in the sixties, and most of all and standing above all others, are the adventures that I had when I was young boy. Most notably, THE adventure I had as a young boy, not even old enough to think about the worries the world would soon present. 8

True, I am indeed unhappy with one particular card life had dealt me, a card so cruelly conjured that it nearly toppled all others, but it’s far too early into my writing for its revelation. Not that it would mean anything if I wrote the word transcribed on that card out on this paper this very moment. First there must be an understanding. 9

I am simply drawing you into the thoughts that were present in my mind three months ago, and six days before I signed into this place. Until recently, my mind had dug a deep fox hole and refused to budge an inch from moving away from the house on the outskirts of Spalding that I have resided in all my life. Things changed the month before that would lead to a chain of events that would inevitably bring me here. Countless have tried, myself included after I read that word that would forever change my life all those years ago, but none have succeeded from stopping the world from turning.10

It was early June, the warmth of summer was finally arriving. After reading Farmer in the Sky [fuck the haters] I began to feel a sharp pain in my chest. It was unlike anything I have ever felt, and I believed at first it to be heart burn but as the pain intensified into a strangulating, suffocating experience far more intense than any heart burn I have felt, I knew that the situation would soon turn grave. 11

Up to this day, I do not clearly remember how I reached the phone, let alone punch in the number to dial my son’s house. I certainly don’t seem to remember that I, in fact, never dialed my son’s house but rather his cottage just up the road where he rarely stayed. I had absolutely no way of knowing that my son Mark was staying there for the weekend to fish with a friend. When he questioned why I dialed the cottage’s number rather than his house I did not have an answer.12

Was someone looking after me that day? Maybe. Perhaps. I have had several occurrences throughout my life that could lead me to believe in the supernatural. The old Science Fiction novels I so often read didn’t exactly push away these notions of the unworldly. The often wild, and out of control imagination that my mother so often poked fun at me about still thrives inside my mind today. Although I am unsure if this is one of those instances as the speed dial to the cottage is simply one number below that of the house. When I later spoke to Mark after he stopped by the hospital he did not only bring up what he had been hinting at since Carrie passed away, but rather demanded that I live at place where help would be more readily available.13

So there I was a month after the incident and six days before I entered Shade Grove, packing a few remaining items into a brown box simply labeled “etc.” It’s funny how so many aspects of life fall into “etc.” You have family, school, your job and then etc. Lovers, mistakes, adventure, and excitement all fall under this category too varied for specific words, but too large to let go. This category is essentially what makes us the person we are today.14

Less than a week ahead of me I would leave that way of life forever, and as I was putting the few remaining items into that box that I would take here I looked out the back window, noticing the patio I had helped my father built when I was in High School. Suddenly I felt an urge to walk out onto it and enjoy one of the few remaining sunsets that I had left at that house. I slid the porch door open and walked quietly out onto its smooth furnished surface with a few items still in hand, not really caring enough to set them back down next to the brown cardboard box. I walked to the edge of the porch slowly and sat down, my bones aching from a day of standing and packing. I placed the items that I brought to my side for a moment.15

The air was cool and the sun well past its peak that day, had begun to arc considerably to its horizon. The deep orange of the sun presented the surroundings with a deep tinge of gold and brought a sense of warmth and security to my heart. I just stared past the back field [sometimes corn was planted but luckily this year it was alfalfa] and into the woods. A few deer were in the field near the edge grazing on the alfalfa. I’m not sure how long I was caught in the moment and as I regained a sense of awareness the sun was even closer to the horizon, the clouds reflecting shades of red and orange from the sunlight contrasting beautifully to the blue sky. However, it was still well over an hour away from true sunset. 16

Behind me stood a typical two story white house lined with dark green trim around the windows, over the decades my father and no doubt his father before have gradually added onto the place. It is a typical farm house, and there was an actual white picket fence that bordered the dirt road at one time. A real all American home if someone was to ask me. The telltale signs of wear over the years had begun to take the building hostage and like the sun, the house had long been past its prime while the paint had began to fade and the shingles on the roof needed to be replaced years ago. 17

Not to mention the long red barn next to the house. The red paint so bright to me as a child had long since faded, revealing the dark grey wood that lay underneath. While I have burned several hours in the tool shop located in the barn over the years, those days too have long past. I was never really cut out to be a farmer like my father, and I had no real intention of taking over the family business when teaching soon became my love. Still, there was something peaceful about spending time in the workshop and fixing one of the many failing structural ailments of the building, and at times, even fixing things that really did not even need to be fixed.18

As I sat on the edge of the porch I looked down to my side and picked up an old photograph that I brought with me. It was copy of a black and white picture with a note written hastily on the back proclaiming that the photo was taken in the year 1955, not that I needed to read the note to know that. I will never forget that year because of what happened that summer.19

In the picture I was wearing a Rebel Without a Cause shirt with a picture of James Dean on the front. No one could be cooler than James Dean at that point in my life beside maybe Bill Haley or Elvis, both sparking an interest in me by being a big deal in the music industry. I practically wore the Rebel Without a Cause shirt to its threads. It was either that or one of the several army shirts that my dad snagged for me, knowing my passion for the Allies fighting in the Big One. I loved when my father would sit on that very back porch and tell me a war story between my bouts of science fiction novels. The Battle of the Bulge, Normandy, Operation Market Garden, all epic tales of tremendous action and courage that floored my mind. I smiled sadly as I held the picture to my eyes with my old, wrinkled hands shaking slightly. A scar on the palm of my hand was still visible from the day that photo was taken that seemed almost a lifetime ago, and in a way, it had been. 20

Standing to the right of me in the picture with his arm around my shoulder was Ryan “Keets” Pearson. We nicknamed him Keets from an addicting card game he invented himself, self titled “Keeps”. The whole goal of the game was to score a triple seven with as many cards as possible, and once accomplished the victor was able to “keep” whatever the other players put down as a reward, usually marbles or a couple baseball cards. Unfortunately for Ryan he had a minor speech impediment and while he knew exactly what he wanted to say it often became disorganized while actually trying to speak. When explaining the game to the group and rather than the word Ryan intended to say, “Keeps,” it came out sounding much like “Keets.” For awhile there, every time he would hang out with the group at school he would ask us if we all wanted to play “Keets.” It became so bad that we eventually just began to call him Keets, and it stuck. 21

Tall, thin, brown eyes, with a short flat crew cut sporting his carrot colored hair and wearing thick glasses for his absolutely awful eyesight, Keets was a real sight for sore eyes but at the same time it was hard not to smile when hanging out with him. Often when the group would make a joke he would think about it for a bit, listen, and then laugh when finally comprehending what was so funny after all of us had already moved on. 22

I still remember the time I asked the group how many Coppers it took to screw in a light bulb and explaining much to the joy of the group, that it took none as it turned itself in. It took Keets a full five minutes before he understood the riddle, then chiming in with his own high-pitched fit of laughter. If you looked carefully, you could almost see in his eyes the very moment he “got” the punch line or witty message. Sometimes I thought he laughed just so he would appear to “fit” in with the group so to speak. That was fine by me; Keets was as part of the group as anyone ever would be. In fact, without him and his card game there may have never been a “group” at all.23

Keets stood by his friends and would stick up for them regardless of how big the person who wanted to beat the living shit out of them was. He would become so infuriated when he saw someone causing trouble with one of his pals that he would step forward without hesitation and take care of the situation himself to the best of his abilities, often getting pulverized in the process. Once, when somebody wanted to meet me near the backdoors after school for crossing the line of an underclassmen earlier that day, Keets, who caught wind of someone wanting to fight me was already there getting into the thick of it with the person that intended me harm before I arrived. 24

Standing to the left of me in the picture grabbing my side and grinning wildly in that light hearted dare devilish way that was unique only to her, was Eva. Her near shoulder length blonde hair looked almost white in the photograph. A real tomboy if you ever met one. Her eyes were blue green and her young face was dotted with a few freckles. Eva’s skin was almost always tan as she absolutely hated to be “cooped up indoors” as she so often liked to say to the two of us. Eva would never be caught in a ponytail and wearing a dress with heels unless it was Sunday morning when she went to church with her mother. As soon as she would arrive home Eva would switch to a t-shirt and jeans without a moment’s thought. 25

She could stand up to the toughest guys and play ball with the best of us. All of this while looking absolutely stunning in the process. When she set her mind on a particular goal one could see in her eyes that she had already accomplished the goal before she even started. While I will always love my late wife Carrie, I to this day believe that there is no one with a stronger heart than Eva Belle.26

I remember how Eva first started hanging out with both Keets and I. It was during 5th grade recess and we had an odd number of people to play basketball with [a real up and coming sport] and Eva stepped forward to say that she would be on our team. While we were adamant about it initially, she ended up kicking as much ass as we did. She gradually hung out with us more often at recess throughout that school year until that wasn’t enough and she would hang with us on weekends and sometimes even after school. She rarely showed any fear, even when at times I had no doubt on the inside she was terrified. She had a heart so large that I really felt that she could almost crush whatever was thrown at her.27

How often I wished I would have remained closer to Eva, alas it was not meant to be. As we enrolled into High School and entered the emotionally fragile years of fourteen through seventeen things begin to change whether we liked it or not. What was once cool was no longer cool, and what was once our typical lifestyle was influenced and changed by the times and people around us. 28

Eva became associated with the popular kids, mostly due to the avid success she found in sports, and while she always did try to talk up a storm when we ran across each other in the school hallway I often avoided her. I had the feeling that deep down, she would not have wanted to be seen with an awkward boy like myself who “digged” reading novels after school and playing the guitar alone rather than to see how far I could throw the football or how large Johnny’s “bent eight” was in his new car, a stupid little term people used to describe their V-8 engine.29

I looked down into the photograph and sat helpless as the seams on the floodgates of memories almost lost, but never truly forgotten, began to burst. That particular summer pictured in the photograph defined my childhood and perhaps, played a large role into shaping me into the person I am today. When I explain it to someone, even after being a fairly successful english teacher throughout my time, I find it quite difficult to convey the actual feeling, thrill, and overall mood I found myself in that summer. I was twelve and solemn thoughts like high school, college, bills, and a job had yet begun to wedge themselves into my mind to take root. I was only concerned about three things: Adventure, Friends, and if my dad would bring home the Astounding Science Fiction magazine from the local convenience store on his way back from town. That was a big deal to me back then. A real big deal