A Duluth Dusting
Dustin Brewer
It was about 5:30 am, and bitterly cold, when I realized I was not alone.
An inch or two of snow had fallen overnight. The last of it was coming down in gentle waves through the cone of amber light shining from the only lamp along the paved trail. The fiery red tip of my cigarette, as I breathed in what it had that I needed, shone dimly amidst what was otherwise complete darkness.
Swish, swish, swish.
‘What in the hell is that fool doing?’ I thought, squinting at someone leaning over a park bench beneath the light.
I blew smoke through the window of my ‘92 LeSabre. The glass was all the way down. Warm lips, but a numb, cold face. Basically sums up winter, for me. Heck, winter technically hadn’t even started yet that morning. But in Duluth, as you know, November might as well be winter.
It’s worth mentioning that in those days I was basically a full-time insomniac. I wasn’t able to sleep. Not for more than 30 minutes here and there. So, I was spending even more of my time smoking than I had during the hellish, stress-strangled days that had preceded the big SNAFU in Iraq. And I had gotten tired of doing it from the stoop of my one-room apartment, where the neighbors complain and the butts in the coffee can remind me of the mess I’ve become. That’s why I was in the park so early that morning.
I watched the figure leave the cone of light and then listened as whoever it was shuffled along the path. They were whistling and I hoped that I wouldn’t be seen. But even the urge to remain invisible wasn’t enough to get me to drop the cigarette. I haven’t found much of anything that is enough, so far.
For a moment, I thought they were going to pass on by, but then the shuffling and whistling stopped abruptly. A little, white light appeared, which pointed right at me.
“Excuse me, sir. Can I help you?”
It was an older man’s voice, of course. Raspy, but not quite in the way mine is. It had a patina wrought more from time than intentional, hourly abuse.
As the light got closer, I felt familiar bubbles of rage appear within me. Like the initial ones in a pot resting on a stove burner turned all the way up. The light was so blinding that I couldn’t see the guy at all, which was not only eerie and frightening but, for me in that moment, enraging.
“Can’t a man enjoy a smoke anymore?”
He certainly heard the anger, and danger, in my voice. Nonetheless, he kept coming toward me.
“A man sure can, if he happens to be foolish,” he said, still fixing the penlight squarely upon me. “But not at this hour in this park. The sign by the entrance clearly states it. Park hours are 7 am to 9 pm.”
He placed a gloved hand on the door, where the edge of the window’s glass slightly protruded. I smelled coffee, but still couldn’t see him. So, I reached down to the floorboard, picked up my lantern that I always keep there, and turned it on. Then, I rested that old Coleman on the wheel, so I could see the man I suddenly wanted to kill. Intermittent explosive disorder. IED. That’s what they call it, and every time they do I want to scream. Because of Jimmy.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he continued, pocketing his penlight. “But you are going to have to leave. Rules are rules.”
I could tell he was 80-something. And I know it might seem odd to say to you now, but every time I think of him, I see him there at the edge of darkness in the soft glow of my lantern. Behind thick glasses, his eyes were like deep pools that reflected the moon. The veins of his face were an extensive system of red and pink rivers, creeks, and rivulets. But there was no gravity to guide them in a coherent direction. Despite that, and all else time had done to him, he was still handsome.
Upon seeing him up close, as his head gently trembled and he breathed heavily, I decided that he would be easy to rob, even for me. I know that is terrible to say, and for you to have to hear, but it is true. The assistance they give me isn’t enough. It’s almost like they want me to snap and try to rob someone so they don’t have to give me anything anymore. But that’s beside the point, I suppose.
“Oh, yeah,” I snarled at him, in response. “Rules are rules? Fair enough. But why then are you here, old man? Do you work for the city, or something, and just happened to forget to put on the vest that all the parks people wear?”
I really thought I had him. I have a bad habit of thinking that everyone is a hypocrite.
“Work?” he said, and laughed heartily. A big, beautiful laugh like my grandfather used to share freely. “I haven’t worked for 25 years. Retired in ’95.”
With my left hand, I reached into the little basket I’d screwed to the car door, due to my paranoia. There it was. I felt the icy metal of my pistol. And I thought about shooting him right in the chest. I hate to tell you that, but I have to, so you can have an idea of what I was going through at the time.
I don’t know why, but I let go of the gun when I saw he was handing me something. I took and unfolded the yellowed paper. Then, in the lantern light, I read the single sentence that was written on it:
To whom it may concern,
Lee has special permission to be in Veteran’s Park at any time because of his devotion to its well-being.
-Linda Breckenridge
Director
Parks and Recreation
I refolded the paper and handed it back to him. When he put it in his pocket, I noticed the blue brush, with frayed yellow bristles, that was clipped to one of his belt loops.
“Alright, Lee,” I said. “You must have been brushing the snow off that bench. Is that why you have special permission to be here now?”
Nodding, he said, “I’ve been taking care of this park for about 20 years now. It needs care to be a good place. But it is.”
I can’t tell you why, but all of a sudden I forgot about the pistol and felt Jimmy’s heavy, sweaty, drunk, and loving arm resting on my shoulders. Maybe because Jimmy always looked out for me, like a brother, when we were in a bar or wherever and I was in trouble or about to get myself there. And, in the same gentle and thankless way, this guy was taking care of a park without even getting paid to do it.
I hate to get all sentimental on you, but life took on a different meaning, or lack of it, after Jimmy got clobbered by the IED. An improvised explosive device. He was standing right next to me when it happened. Which led to my own IED, I suppose, and Jimmy being sent back to New Mexico in a body bag. And God, he was a good man. Or kid, really. Good in ways I could never even begin to describe in words. It feels like a lifetime ago that he was with me in Iraq. It was only five years, though.
“Why so early?” I managed so say, suddenly, trying to shake the feeling of Jimmy. I could even smell his cologne. “Why are you here, all alone, before sunrise on such a frigid day?”
“Well,” he said, as a drip fell from his nose. “Usually, I come a little later. I try to wait until at least 6:00 or so, especially on the cold days. But you know what today is, right?”
I shook my head.
“Veteran’s Day!” he said. “I know it’s just a Duluth dusting. A couple inches. But the names on the monument. They should never be covered, especially not today.”
“You do that?” I asked, as my voice cracked and I could feel Jimmy’s arm on my shoulders again.
I imagined that long, arcing, black wall of names on the other side of the park, which commemorated people like my dead friend. Then, I saw Lee look down, for the first time, to where my right leg used to be.
“Oh, I see,” he said, as I wiped the tear from my face that was already beginning to freeze. “Thank you for your service.”
He gently put a hand on my shoulder, and I could feel that he really cared. Then he went off along the path, into the darkness.
I can’t quite tell you what I was feeling as I sat there. But it was almost like the impenetrable, dark cell I had been locked in for years suddenly was breached. Not destroyed, but breached. A single brick was knocked out, and I could finally see a bit of light in a place where there had been none. I knew that someday I would escape.
As I was feeling that, the rush of hope and light all at once whereas for a long time there had been nothing but fear, rage, and darkness, I saw the penlight switch on in the distance. I could just make out the bench he was standing beside. I saw him unclip the brush.
Swish, swish, swish.
While I sat there in my crappy old car, I felt the cigarette fall out of my hand and onto the icy pavement. That didn’t bother me, though. I was transfixed by the little light moving along the trail, toward the veteran’s monument.
For the next hour or so, as dawn timidly arrived, I did not even think about lighting another cigarette. I found myself shaking, not quite shivering, and I don’t think it was due to the cold. Quite to the contrary. Sometimes all it takes, to break out of a rut and get to feeling the right way again, is to realize that someone exists in this crazy world who cares enough to do something kind in the darkness.
Elli, I know that might be a little more than you wanted, but that is how I became acquainted with your father. Then, over this last year, we kind of became friends. I certainly thought of him as a friend, and I hope he felt the same about me. I saw him just about every day and he always stopped by to talk. Between the hours of 7 and 9, of course.
“Thank you for telling me that,” she managed to say. “And for being here today. Dad told me about you. Rest assured, you were most certainly his friend.”
Elli leaned down and hugged the young man who sat in a wheelchair, staring straight ahead, beside the open grave that held a plain, wooden casket. The mound of dirt at the edge of the hole was dark and rocky.
They were alone, and it was almost silent.
“Well,” he said, “I’d better be go—"
“Damned gophers!”
Startled by the outburst, they both looked toward the pastor, who had been walking toward her car. They watched as the small, older woman with curly white hair regained her balance and briefly glanced back toward the small hole that had tripped her. She kept heading toward the gravel parking lot.
He and Elli laughed a little as a ground squirrel scampered from one hole to another, just as the the pastor began to slowly drive away. Only two cars remained in the lot. One was very new and the other was basically an antique. It wasn’t long before the ground squirrel, and the unexpected levity, had vanished.
Elli shivered in the brisk, autumn breeze as the ancient maple tree above them, like a healthy fire, let loose a handful of leaves for the first time that season. Her black dress and dark, gray-streaked hair slow-danced with the wind as the man, with a scruffy beard, sat up straight in his wheelchair. His hair was long, but clean on his shoulders. He and Elli quietly looked at the two gravestones, side by side. Lee and Helen, Helen and Lee, or Mom and Dad, depending on who looked at them. ‘Fifty-two years together on Earth, eternity in heaven,’ both stones said.
“Elli, although I’ll miss him, I’m glad your parents are together now,” he half-whispered.
She nodded as the full weight of what had come, and was so sweet for what had seemed like forever but turned out to be but an instant, began to suffocate her. For the first time that day, her sobs made their way out.
As she cried beside him, he decided that he should leave her to be alone with her parents. She deserved that, he knew, and again recalled Lee’s calm, half-frozen face glowing in the lantern’s light. Sensing the cold times that were coming, an idea occurred to him, which crystalized into a commitment. Just before he left, he looked up at her and said:
“I know you live in California, Elli. Lee told me that. But I want you to know that I’ll be here. And I’m actually happy to be, for the first time in a long while. That’s in large part due to your dad.”
A cold breeze pushed her closer to him, for just the moment that he said:
“You have my word. I’ll keep an eye on the park. And I’ll come here to brush the snow off their stones.”
Dustin Brewer
It was about 5:30 am, and bitterly cold, when I realized I was not alone.
An inch or two of snow had fallen overnight. The last of it was coming down in gentle waves through the cone of amber light shining from the only lamp along the paved trail. The fiery red tip of my cigarette, as I breathed in what it had that I needed, shone dimly amidst what was otherwise complete darkness.
Swish, swish, swish.
‘What in the hell is that fool doing?’ I thought, squinting at someone leaning over a park bench beneath the light.
I blew smoke through the window of my ‘92 LeSabre. The glass was all the way down. Warm lips, but a numb, cold face. Basically sums up winter, for me. Heck, winter technically hadn’t even started yet that morning. But in Duluth, as you know, November might as well be winter.
It’s worth mentioning that in those days I was basically a full-time insomniac. I wasn’t able to sleep. Not for more than 30 minutes here and there. So, I was spending even more of my time smoking than I had during the hellish, stress-strangled days that had preceded the big SNAFU in Iraq. And I had gotten tired of doing it from the stoop of my one-room apartment, where the neighbors complain and the butts in the coffee can remind me of the mess I’ve become. That’s why I was in the park so early that morning.
I watched the figure leave the cone of light and then listened as whoever it was shuffled along the path. They were whistling and I hoped that I wouldn’t be seen. But even the urge to remain invisible wasn’t enough to get me to drop the cigarette. I haven’t found much of anything that is enough, so far.
For a moment, I thought they were going to pass on by, but then the shuffling and whistling stopped abruptly. A little, white light appeared, which pointed right at me.
“Excuse me, sir. Can I help you?”
It was an older man’s voice, of course. Raspy, but not quite in the way mine is. It had a patina wrought more from time than intentional, hourly abuse.
As the light got closer, I felt familiar bubbles of rage appear within me. Like the initial ones in a pot resting on a stove burner turned all the way up. The light was so blinding that I couldn’t see the guy at all, which was not only eerie and frightening but, for me in that moment, enraging.
“Can’t a man enjoy a smoke anymore?”
He certainly heard the anger, and danger, in my voice. Nonetheless, he kept coming toward me.
“A man sure can, if he happens to be foolish,” he said, still fixing the penlight squarely upon me. “But not at this hour in this park. The sign by the entrance clearly states it. Park hours are 7 am to 9 pm.”
He placed a gloved hand on the door, where the edge of the window’s glass slightly protruded. I smelled coffee, but still couldn’t see him. So, I reached down to the floorboard, picked up my lantern that I always keep there, and turned it on. Then, I rested that old Coleman on the wheel, so I could see the man I suddenly wanted to kill. Intermittent explosive disorder. IED. That’s what they call it, and every time they do I want to scream. Because of Jimmy.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he continued, pocketing his penlight. “But you are going to have to leave. Rules are rules.”
I could tell he was 80-something. And I know it might seem odd to say to you now, but every time I think of him, I see him there at the edge of darkness in the soft glow of my lantern. Behind thick glasses, his eyes were like deep pools that reflected the moon. The veins of his face were an extensive system of red and pink rivers, creeks, and rivulets. But there was no gravity to guide them in a coherent direction. Despite that, and all else time had done to him, he was still handsome.
Upon seeing him up close, as his head gently trembled and he breathed heavily, I decided that he would be easy to rob, even for me. I know that is terrible to say, and for you to have to hear, but it is true. The assistance they give me isn’t enough. It’s almost like they want me to snap and try to rob someone so they don’t have to give me anything anymore. But that’s beside the point, I suppose.
“Oh, yeah,” I snarled at him, in response. “Rules are rules? Fair enough. But why then are you here, old man? Do you work for the city, or something, and just happened to forget to put on the vest that all the parks people wear?”
I really thought I had him. I have a bad habit of thinking that everyone is a hypocrite.
“Work?” he said, and laughed heartily. A big, beautiful laugh like my grandfather used to share freely. “I haven’t worked for 25 years. Retired in ’95.”
With my left hand, I reached into the little basket I’d screwed to the car door, due to my paranoia. There it was. I felt the icy metal of my pistol. And I thought about shooting him right in the chest. I hate to tell you that, but I have to, so you can have an idea of what I was going through at the time.
I don’t know why, but I let go of the gun when I saw he was handing me something. I took and unfolded the yellowed paper. Then, in the lantern light, I read the single sentence that was written on it:
To whom it may concern,
Lee has special permission to be in Veteran’s Park at any time because of his devotion to its well-being.
-Linda Breckenridge
Director
Parks and Recreation
I refolded the paper and handed it back to him. When he put it in his pocket, I noticed the blue brush, with frayed yellow bristles, that was clipped to one of his belt loops.
“Alright, Lee,” I said. “You must have been brushing the snow off that bench. Is that why you have special permission to be here now?”
Nodding, he said, “I’ve been taking care of this park for about 20 years now. It needs care to be a good place. But it is.”
I can’t tell you why, but all of a sudden I forgot about the pistol and felt Jimmy’s heavy, sweaty, drunk, and loving arm resting on my shoulders. Maybe because Jimmy always looked out for me, like a brother, when we were in a bar or wherever and I was in trouble or about to get myself there. And, in the same gentle and thankless way, this guy was taking care of a park without even getting paid to do it.
I hate to get all sentimental on you, but life took on a different meaning, or lack of it, after Jimmy got clobbered by the IED. An improvised explosive device. He was standing right next to me when it happened. Which led to my own IED, I suppose, and Jimmy being sent back to New Mexico in a body bag. And God, he was a good man. Or kid, really. Good in ways I could never even begin to describe in words. It feels like a lifetime ago that he was with me in Iraq. It was only five years, though.
“Why so early?” I managed so say, suddenly, trying to shake the feeling of Jimmy. I could even smell his cologne. “Why are you here, all alone, before sunrise on such a frigid day?”
“Well,” he said, as a drip fell from his nose. “Usually, I come a little later. I try to wait until at least 6:00 or so, especially on the cold days. But you know what today is, right?”
I shook my head.
“Veteran’s Day!” he said. “I know it’s just a Duluth dusting. A couple inches. But the names on the monument. They should never be covered, especially not today.”
“You do that?” I asked, as my voice cracked and I could feel Jimmy’s arm on my shoulders again.
I imagined that long, arcing, black wall of names on the other side of the park, which commemorated people like my dead friend. Then, I saw Lee look down, for the first time, to where my right leg used to be.
“Oh, I see,” he said, as I wiped the tear from my face that was already beginning to freeze. “Thank you for your service.”
He gently put a hand on my shoulder, and I could feel that he really cared. Then he went off along the path, into the darkness.
I can’t quite tell you what I was feeling as I sat there. But it was almost like the impenetrable, dark cell I had been locked in for years suddenly was breached. Not destroyed, but breached. A single brick was knocked out, and I could finally see a bit of light in a place where there had been none. I knew that someday I would escape.
As I was feeling that, the rush of hope and light all at once whereas for a long time there had been nothing but fear, rage, and darkness, I saw the penlight switch on in the distance. I could just make out the bench he was standing beside. I saw him unclip the brush.
Swish, swish, swish.
While I sat there in my crappy old car, I felt the cigarette fall out of my hand and onto the icy pavement. That didn’t bother me, though. I was transfixed by the little light moving along the trail, toward the veteran’s monument.
For the next hour or so, as dawn timidly arrived, I did not even think about lighting another cigarette. I found myself shaking, not quite shivering, and I don’t think it was due to the cold. Quite to the contrary. Sometimes all it takes, to break out of a rut and get to feeling the right way again, is to realize that someone exists in this crazy world who cares enough to do something kind in the darkness.
Elli, I know that might be a little more than you wanted, but that is how I became acquainted with your father. Then, over this last year, we kind of became friends. I certainly thought of him as a friend, and I hope he felt the same about me. I saw him just about every day and he always stopped by to talk. Between the hours of 7 and 9, of course.
“Thank you for telling me that,” she managed to say. “And for being here today. Dad told me about you. Rest assured, you were most certainly his friend.”
Elli leaned down and hugged the young man who sat in a wheelchair, staring straight ahead, beside the open grave that held a plain, wooden casket. The mound of dirt at the edge of the hole was dark and rocky.
They were alone, and it was almost silent.
“Well,” he said, “I’d better be go—"
“Damned gophers!”
Startled by the outburst, they both looked toward the pastor, who had been walking toward her car. They watched as the small, older woman with curly white hair regained her balance and briefly glanced back toward the small hole that had tripped her. She kept heading toward the gravel parking lot.
He and Elli laughed a little as a ground squirrel scampered from one hole to another, just as the the pastor began to slowly drive away. Only two cars remained in the lot. One was very new and the other was basically an antique. It wasn’t long before the ground squirrel, and the unexpected levity, had vanished.
Elli shivered in the brisk, autumn breeze as the ancient maple tree above them, like a healthy fire, let loose a handful of leaves for the first time that season. Her black dress and dark, gray-streaked hair slow-danced with the wind as the man, with a scruffy beard, sat up straight in his wheelchair. His hair was long, but clean on his shoulders. He and Elli quietly looked at the two gravestones, side by side. Lee and Helen, Helen and Lee, or Mom and Dad, depending on who looked at them. ‘Fifty-two years together on Earth, eternity in heaven,’ both stones said.
“Elli, although I’ll miss him, I’m glad your parents are together now,” he half-whispered.
She nodded as the full weight of what had come, and was so sweet for what had seemed like forever but turned out to be but an instant, began to suffocate her. For the first time that day, her sobs made their way out.
As she cried beside him, he decided that he should leave her to be alone with her parents. She deserved that, he knew, and again recalled Lee’s calm, half-frozen face glowing in the lantern’s light. Sensing the cold times that were coming, an idea occurred to him, which crystalized into a commitment. Just before he left, he looked up at her and said:
“I know you live in California, Elli. Lee told me that. But I want you to know that I’ll be here. And I’m actually happy to be, for the first time in a long while. That’s in large part due to your dad.”
A cold breeze pushed her closer to him, for just the moment that he said:
“You have my word. I’ll keep an eye on the park. And I’ll come here to brush the snow off their stones.”
