LIVING IN A SMALL TOWN IS GREAT
Some time ago I stopped in at our only grocery store because I wasn’t sure my wife Elaine, who’d been shopping for dinner earlier, had thought to pick up a few ears of corn and I knew they had some lovely fresh ones that had just come in from Beth’s Farm Stand. I found the fresh corn just inside the door and nearby I found Karen replenishing produce. I asked her if Elaine had been in and if she’d picked up corn. “She was just in a while ago”, she said, “and I don’t think she got corn. But let me be sure.” She shouted across the store to Kathy at the register. “Did Elaine pick up corn when she was in earlier?” ‘No she didn’t and I was going to ask her about that because I knew Phil liked it.” I picked up the corn and left, comfortable knowing that I had the whole community behind me in my time of need.
One day last year I delivered kayaks and boaters to the Basin. I routinely pick up the litter and trash that a handful of our own, in a remarkably mindless gesture of contempt for their own environment, feel free to dispose of in that little parking area by the bridge. This time though, I found someone had deliberately emptied the considerable contents of his ashtray right in the middle of the lot. I say ‘his’ for reasons that will become apparent. The butts, 87 of them, were all ‘Premium Filters’, a brand that has evolved, I guess, since my last Marlborough in 1991. They were all quite precisely within 1” and 1 ¼” in length and only two showed evidence of lip-stick. I checked at the only two island shops where cigarettes are sold and determined there were twelve people, all islanders, who smoke Preium Filters. Five didn’t drive and of the remaining seven, one didn’t own a vehicle. That left six and of those, four were women and I’d already concluded that the perpetrator was a man, who, given only two butts with lipstick among eighty seven, wasn’t making out all that well. Cornered, he asked me not to name him and promised to henceforth properly dispose of his ashtray contents.
There is a long island history of finding alternatives to conventional delivery methods. Folks who have a need to get stuff on or off the island routinely swing down by the terminal to see if they can find someone willing to take it one way or bring it the other. Likewise we who are eager to have something sent over from the mainland are likely to direct the retailer to find a vehicle coming this way. Islanders do a lot of business with florists, nurturing new romances, restoring old ones, communicating condolences or congratulations. Flowers are commonly sent along in such a fashion.
Once a year the Lions Club hosts Ladies Night at a local restaurant and it’s customary to present each woman in attendance with a rose. A few years ago a Rockland florist dutifully sent over a couple of orders on the last boat. Lion member Larry went down to to retrieve the club’s order. Sure enough, there in the back of a 92 black Ford half ton, along with a muffler for the garage, a package for the boat yard, a bundle of Bangor Daily’s that had been misrouted earlier in the day, for the Paper Store, and all the mainland purchases of several walk on passengers who had more than they could carry, were two unmistakable long white un-corrugated cardboard boxes wrapped in both directions in blue ribbon. Before the truck had even come to a stop Travis MacDonald emerged from the shadows, darted in among the other consignees, plucked one of the two flower boxes from the truck bed, mumbled thanks, and disappeared. The driver got out to explain to Larry that the tags had blown off the boxes during the ride across and while he’d re-attached them he wasn’t sure the right tags were still on the right boxes. “I’d liked to have told Travis but he was off quicker than shit through a tin whistle. I ‘spect he was takin’ them flowers somewheres they ain’t s’posed to go.”
Well, flowers was flowers as far as Larry was concerned; he grabbed the remaining box and returned upstreet to the meeting. He was stumped for a moment when he opened it, to find a broad range of blossoms and greenery and not the several dozen red roses he’d always distributed in the past but then he saw the attached note which read ‘Lil, Thanks for the Memories, Travis’, a disclosure quickly shared with those gathered and which provided more than enough fodder for the rest of the evening.
Jay, the UPS driver, long known as jaytheoopsman, usually distributed most of his load right on the ferry. If he didn’t find the addressee personally he’d find a relative or an acquaintance upon whom he could unload responsibility for the package. By the time he left the boat his truck was almost empty and he employed the same resourcefulness and economy of purpose in delivering the few that remain. Once he left a package for Ira Flecker at the home of Beetle Williams because he knew, as did everyone else, that Ira was seeing Beetle’ wife Yvonne and that he’d be by that evening cause Beetle was out seinin’.
Deputy Duffy McFadden set a speed trap up toward Granite Island; his Jeep cruiser tucked in behind a particularly abundant forsythia and a big blue lilac each flourishing in the soggy ground downhill from Billy Waynwright’s woefully inadequate leach field.
From a particular spot in among the foliage Deputy Duff had an unimpeded view of traffic coming and going and, having practiced several times late at night during the preceding week, he knew he could exit quickly if necessary. He was looking to nab the cagey and evasive Pumpkin Stockwell. Pumpkin was sternin’ for Eaglebeak Bunker out to Matinicus but lobsterin’ still hadn’t picked up; this being a pretty bleak spring, and Pumpkin could be counted on to turn up back here on the island once or twice a week. He’d been back home for a night four days before and had raised all kinds of hell. Duffy was certain he’d be back tonight, Friday.
Duff backed the blue police Jeep into his hiding spot, during a lull in the traffic, around 3:30 P.M. and settled in. He’d been sequestered there nearly an hour and, in the heady aroma of the lilac in full flower, had nearly dozed off a couple of times. Around 4:20 he saw the UPS truck heading back toward town. It started to brake as it approached his speed trap and stopped inexplicably right at the spot where he might otherwise have made a speedy exit. Jaytheoopsman jumped out and ran over toward Duffy’s hiding place. Duff was thinking maybe he was going to relieve himself there in the bushes and how silly they’d both feel when Jay realized the Deputy was hiding in here, but no, he ducked under an overhanging branch and came right up to Duffy’s window carrying a small package. “Duff,” said Jay “I only got this one package left. It’s for Pun’kin Stockwell. I just seen him tying up to his mooring but I ain’t got time to wait for him ‘cause I gotta make the 4:30 boat. The guys up island all said you was hauled up here in the bushes waiting to nail him. Maybe you can give him this package when you do. Thanks, Duff, I owe ya one.” He shoved the package through Duff’s open window and was gone.
It kind of took the wind out of Duffy’s sails to find his carefully camouflaged speed trap regarded so casually. While Duff was mulling over his options, trying to decide whether to stay put and risk the ridicule that would come from finding that his speed trap was common knowledge or squeeze a little farther back into the brush in the diminishing hope that an unsuspecting Pun’kin would come by, the subject himself appeared around the corner and nosed right into Duff’s hiding place. “Duff,” he said, “the guys told me they sent Jay down to you with a package for me.”
Duff gave it to him and Pun’kin thanked him, told him to have a nice day, and allowed as how living in a small town is great.