Correspondence

 

Sun., Feb. 17 at 9:14 a.m.

Peter Streicher <pstreicher@dmail.com>

 

To: Jerry <js2000@ilsu.edu>

 

Hey There!                                                                                                        

 

Hey there, son! Just thought I'd drop a line as we haven't heard a word from you since you were here for Christmas. Your mother's left a you a few VMs since then and she still hasn't heard back from ya.

Hope everything's OK. Please drop us a line or give us a call when you get a chance. Just so we know things are good with you.

Love,

Dad

"Remember how long you have been putting off these things, and how often you have received an opportunity from the gods, and yet do not use it." -- Marcus Aurelius -- CARPE DIEM!

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Sun., Feb. 17 at 9:32 a.m.

Peter Streicher <pstreicher@dmail.com>

 

To: Jerry <js2000@ilsu.edu>

 

Hey There (Again)!                                                                                           

OK, your mom just reminded me that we HAVE heard from you since Christmas. Or at least she has. You called her on her cell the day after New Year's to wish us a happy new year. So...I stand corrected. (You know how much mom likes to correct me.)

Anyway, please reply or give us a call soon. Would love to know how you're doing. 

 

Love,

Dad

"Remember how long you have been putting off these things, and how often you have received an opportunity from the gods, and yet do not use it." -- Marcus Aurelius -- CARPE DIEM!

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Mon., Feb. 25 at 8:46 p.m.

Peter Streicher <pstreicher@dmail.com>

 

To: Jerry <js2000@ilsu.edu>

 

Long time, no chat                                                                                     

So how's it going? I assume you got my e-mails last week....? Your mom and I both tried calling your cell a few times over the last couple of days and we just keep getting your VM.

 

Can you just let us know that you're OK?

 

Love,

Dad

"Remember how long you have been putting off these things, and how often you have received an opportunity from the gods, and yet do not use it." -- Marcus Aurelius -- CARPE DIEM!

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Sat., March 2 at 11:09 a.m. 

Peter Streicher <pstreicher@dmail.com>

 

To: Jerry <js2000@ilsu.edu>

 

Long time, STILL no chat                                                                               

Hello, son.  Still haven't heard back from you.

Fortunately, I got hold of your buddy Jake yesterday. He said that he had just talked to you a few days ago, and that as far as he was concerned you sounded as though everything's OK. Was glad to hear it.

 

BTW, I had no idea that Jake is going to.....culinary school???? Your buddy Jake???? OUR Jake, that smart-ass kid that always flirted with your mom??? 

 

Not that there's anything wrong with it. I just had absolutely no idea that he had any interest in cooking at all. It was a bit of a surprise. Anyway, he sounded good. It seems he's really taken to it and is having a great time, though he hinted that it could be fairly rough at times. 

 

Hope school is going well with you.

 

Anyway.....PLEASE CALL, TEXT, OR E-MAIL. Me or your mother. We'd like to hear from you directly as to how you're doing, not have to track down your old high school classmates to find out.  

 

Love you always,

Dad

"Remember how long you have been putting off these things, and how often you have received an opportunity from the gods, and yet do not use it." -- Marcus Aurelius -- CARPE DIEM!

  

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Mon., March 11 at 1:34 a.m.

Peter Streicher <pstreicher@dmail.com>

 

To: Jerry <js2000@ilsu.edu>

 

We miss you                                                                                                

Hey, Jerry. So you're still not replying to my e-mails or taking my calls, or calling me back. 

You're angry with me. I get it. Your mother and I have hashed and re-hashed our conversation at Christmas a hundred times. (More like a thousand times, it seems.) She says that what I had said to you was very hurtful to you. Well, I understood perfectly well at the time I said what I said that it very well might be. 

But look, my point wasn't to belittle the plans you shared with us for the sake of belittling them. I didn't say what I said to make you feel bad. I said what I said because I care about you. 

Jerry, what you're considering is a very major life-altering decision, one that will determine the entire course of your future. In my (humble) opinion, such a course would bring you an awful lot of unnecessary misery and suffering. 

And please, please, PLEASE....understand that out there in that big, complicated, crazy world, there are all sorts of con artists and fraudsters with their own agendas, who don't give a damn about what's in your best interest--they only want to use you for their own narrow, selfish ends. (Many of these people may not even be aware that they're con artists, as they've managed to so effectively deceive themselves. The human mind can be such an elegant mechanism of self-deception!) This is a fact that you will become more and more aware of as you get older. 

That's not to say that you should be suspicious and mistrustful of everyone you meet. But you have to make sure that you have a finely honed bullshit detector between your ears. You have to be able to distinguish between those who sincerely want to help you succeed in actualizing your authentic self and becoming a better person, and those who just see you as a tool to be used. And that can be tricky sometimes. A lot of the time, those who claim that they just want to help you are the ones who want to use you, and those who appear to just want something from you are the ones who can actually help you--really help you--and may even turn out to be your closest and most trusted friends in the long run. (Confusing, I know! But be wary of those who say they want to help you out without expecting anything at all in return. That is often a ruse.)

 

And Jerry, these people you told us about, who say they just want to help you with whatever problems you have, or believe you have, who are encouraging you in this decision--they sound like hucksters, not friends. It seems to me that they don't really care what happens to you. They just know what they can use you for. 

Anyway, I'm telling you this not because I want to thwart your happiness--quite the opposite. I very much want you to be happy--not such a simple thing to achieve, I might add--because I love you. I'm saying all this because I love you, Jerry. I've loved you since that night I first held you in my arms after your mom endured nearly twenty hours of labor (as she never fails to remind us), and you reared your head back and aimed those big brown saucer eyes at mine. At that moment, not only did I feel an overwhelming sense of love, but it had also fully dawned on me that your mother and I had an awesome responsibility to make sure that you would someday be fully equipped to take care of yourself in this utterly insane, chaotic world. 

And as you have grown up, that has often meant telling you things that you do not want to hear. But I do it anyway, because I love you and I honestly believe that you NEED to hear them, so that you don't someday end up being utterly confused and miserable. Love is not telling someone only what they want to hear, Jerry. You tell the people you love what you really think they should hear, even if you have an awful hunch that they probably don't want to hear it.

 

And maybe--just MAYBE--you might consider that it's remotely possible that I've learned at least a few things in my nearly 60 years of walking this Earth. 

 

Anyway, I think that I've pretty much said all that I have to say about this, and I have nothing more to add. You know my honest opinion, but the decision is still yours to make, of course. You're a young man now. You're about to turn 19. 

 

Maybe the lesson I'm learning right now is that I eventually have to let go and allow you to make your own choices, even if I think they're terrible choices that you'll end up regretting. (But I will still always let you know what I think---because I LOVE YOU.) This is the hardest lesson I've learned in a long, long time. But I remind myself that regrets are, unfortunately, and often painfully, the necessary lessons taught by experience that we all must go through on occasion throughout our lives. I've had my share of such experiences, God knows, and you will, too, no matter what I think or say to you.

 

OK, enough of my rambling. I just hope I've made myself clear. I'll say nothing more about this. (Unless, of course, you ever want to discuss it further.)

But please, PLEASE--call or write us sometime soon, OK? We miss talking to you.

I miss you and love you,

 

Dad

"Remember how long you have been putting off these things, and how often you have received an opportunity from the gods, and yet do not use it." -- Marcus Aurelius -- CARPE DIEM! 

 

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Wed., March 20 at 5:47 p.m.

Peter Streicher <pstreicher@dmail.com>

To: Jerry <js2000@ilsu.edu>

 

Pick-up                                                                                                           

Hey, Jerry. Just wanted to let you know that I may be a little late picking you up at the train station on Friday. I have an afternoon meeting with a client and I have a feeling that it may end up running a little late. (This guy is quite the talker.)

Can't wait to see you! Your mother and I have missed you.

Love, 

Dad

 

"Remember how long you have been putting off these things, and how often you have received an opportunity from the gods, and yet do not use it." -- Marcus Aurelius -- CARPE DIEM! 

 

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The Hunter (with apologies to Anton Chekhov)

It is a seductively hot day. There isn't a single cloud to be spotted in the sky. The sun-bleached grass looks depressed, dreary. Perhaps there will be rain soon, but it seems as though it will never be green again. The forest is still, quiet, perfectly motionless. It's as if the trees are bearing silent witness.

A tall, thin man of about forty to fifty years of age in a plaid red shirt, army green camouflage pants, and knee-high boots nonchalantly saunters into the clearing and down the trail. To one side, there are the green trees of the forest, and to the other side, stretching all the way to the horizon, is a golden ocean of ripe wheat. He is sunburnt and sweaty. A blue baseball cap sits on his blondish-gray head as if it were a crown. A large leather bag hangs over his shoulder, a dead goose residing within it. The hunter carries a double-barreled shotgun. He squints his eyes at his old, thin dog as it sniffs the ground and bushes. It is so quiet...every living thing is taking refuge in the shade, away from the heat of the midday sun.

The hunter suddenly hears a woman's soft voice calling his name.

Startled and perturbed, he turns around. In front of him, as if having suddenly materialized from the air around him, is a pale, red-haired woman, about thirtyish. She holds a scythe with a long, polished wooden handle that glistens in the sun. She smiles, almost bashfully.

"Well hello, Penelope," replies the hunter, slowly putting down his rifle. "What are you doing here?"

"The women from town are working out here, so I'm here with them. I'm the hired help now."

"Hmph," the hunter quietly grunts. He turns away from her and slowly continues on down the trail. Penelope follows him. They wander on for a few minutes or so.

"I haven't seen you for such a long time," she finally says, breaking their mutual silence as she gazes tenderly at his back, admiring the slow, graceful movements of his shoulders. "You stopped by the cottage for some water on Easter Sunday, and we haven't seen you since. Of course you were drunk. God only knows how you even managed to walk. You cursed me, smacked me, and left. I've been waiting for you to come back ever since. I've been looking and looking and looking out for you, but I suppose you couldn't be bothered to come back just once."

"What would I do with myself at your place?"

"There's nothing for you to do there, obviously, just, anyway...there's the household...things that need...that need...looking after. You're the man of the house, after all. Why, just look at you, you've shot a goose! Here, why don't you sit down and take a rest?" Penelope laughs like a smitten schoolgirl as she looks up at the hunter's face, with her own face radiating pure joy.

"Sit down? Sure, why not?" asks the hunter indifferently. He sits down on a stump between two saplings. The old dog slowly lays down beside him and lowers his chin to the ground, his sad-looking eyes fixed on Penelope. "Why are you standing?" the hunter asks Penelope. "You should sit, too."

Penelope sits some distance away in a patch of grass. She is almost ashamed of her happiness in this moment, covering her smile with her hand.

"If only you'd come once, just once, just one little time," Penelope says wistfully.

"What would be the point?" The hunter heaves a sigh and wipes the sweat from his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "There's no reason to screw around with you for a couple of hours, get you all hot and bothered. And a little piece of my soul dies with every passing hour I spend in that godforsaken town, you know that. I'm spoiled rotten. I like a nice firm mattress to sleep on, a cup of freshly brewed, piping hot coffee, and nice, quiet conversation. I want to have all the good things of life, and that town is drowning in poverty and filth and meth-heads. There's no way I could live there another day. If they passed a law that said I had to live with you, I'd blow up the whole town or kill myself. It's just the way I am, can't help it."

"Where do you live now?" Penelope asks.

"At the Ivins place. They let me live in their coachhouse, I furnish fresh game for their dinner table. Mr. and Mrs. Ivins are big on keeping their food as local as possible."

"That doesn't seem very dignified, Mr. Good-Things-of-Life. Trudging around the woods, killing animals for another man's table. That's what most men do for fun, but here you are doing it for your living."

"You don't understand," says the hunter, gazing thoughtfully at the sky above them for a moment. Then he looks at her, right into her eyes. "You couldn't ever possibly understand who I am, what kind of a man I am. To you, I'm a crazy, lost soul, but everyone else knows that I'm the best damn shot in at least three or four counties. Even the rich fancy people like the Ivinses know that. There's even been a story published about me in a sportsmen's magazine. Nobody can ever even hope to match me toe-to-toe when it comes to hunting. And if I don't want to have anything to do with your towny ways, it isn't because I think I'm better than everyone else. It's just that I've never known anything else but guns and dogs since the day I was born. Take the gun out of my hands, and I suppose I'll just grab a fishing pole and do nothing but fish for the rest of my life. Take away the fishing pole, and I'll just start hunting with my bare hands. Of course, I traded horses for awhile. I went around to all the county fairs whenever I had some spare change in my pocket. You've seen it yourself, when any of these farm boys fall in with horse traders or hunters, it's good riddance to the tractor and combine. Once a restless man's soul gets the taste of freedom, there's no way he can ever forget it. It's like when a rich kid goes off to the city to become an actor, or some other kind of artist, he doesn't want to try his hand at anything else. He doesn't want to try and run some company, or become some kind of muckity-muck in politics--"

He notices a small, lonely tear trailing down Penelope's cheek.

"You just don't understand."

"I understand," she quietly answers.

"Then why are you crying?"

"I'm not crying," says Penelope as she turns away so that the hunter can't see her tears. "I'm not. It's just...it's just that...you could spend at least one day with me, one little, frickin' day. It's been twelve years since we got married, and...and...I don't think there's been a single day of love between the two of us, not one."

"Love," mumbles the hunter as he lifts the cap off his head and scratches his scalp. "That's impossible. We're husband and wife in name, but that's about it. You think I'm some rootless, aimless wild man, and I find you a simple woman who doesn't understand anything. We're a fine couple, aren't we? I'm Mr. Footloose-and-Fancy-Free and you're...you're a, uh...you're a...farm laboring...peasant woman of some kind. I fancy myself a master of the hunt, and you feel nothing for me but pity."

"We got married...in a church. Before God and man and everybody!" sobs Penelope.

"Not so fast, Penelope. You've left out a few details, haven't you? Go give Judge Platt a big hug and a kiss and thank him for this situation. He'd always been jealous that I was a lot better shot than he could ever hope to be, and so he took me out and got me drunk. And one thing led to another, and it turned into a thirty-day bender, of course, as can sometimes happen. A man lost in the bottle can be talked into all sorts of things. He can be talked into converting to a religion he's never heard of before, or getting married, even. And so out of the sheer spite of his envy, he married me, the best shot in five counties, to you, a...a, uh...a, um, cow girl, or...whatever it is that you are. You could plainly see that I was falling down drunk, so why the hell did you go through with marrying me? You're not a slave, you could've said no! Of course, a farm girl is awful lucky to snag a great hunter for a husband, but you should've thought a little bit more about what you were getting yourself into. Well, anyway...go ahead and suffer and cry. It's all just a big joke to the judge, but go on and sob your face off. Go beat yourself in the head with a hammer if it makes you feel any better."

A moment of stone silence passes, as if a quiet angel is flying by.

The hunter and his dog suddenly notice three or four ducks flying overhead. The hunter's eyes follow them as they trail off into the distance, slowly shrinking into a cluster of little specks over the horizon.

"How are you making ends meet these days?" asks the hunter as he turns back to Penelope.

"Between the field work and a little babysitting here and there, I manage to get by," she answers.

"Well...good," replies the hunter.

Another quiet angel passes. The faint sounds of women singing from off in the distance can be heard now, even in this oppressive heat.

"They say you built a new cottage for Alicia," says Penelope. The hunter is quiet. "I guess that would mean--"

"I suppose that's just the way it goes for you, eh? You've got yourself a new cross to bear now. Anyway, I think we've said all that we can say to each other. Time for me to get back on the trail." The hunter stands, stretches a little, and slings his rifle over his shoulder. "Always got to remember to stay on the trail. Just have to remind myself from time to time."

"When are you coming back to town?" she asks quietly.

"Doesn't matter. I'd never walk into that town sober, and it's no good for you when I'm drunk. I'm an awful drunk. I get so angry."

"Good-bye."

The hunter slaps his ball cap back onto his head and whistles to his dog, who lazily rises on all fours. They go on their way. Penelope stays right where she is and gazes at his back as he walks on down the trail. She admires the movement of his shoulder blades as he lazily saunters off. She feels the sadness fill her eyes and tenderly caresses her arms as her eyes stroke the long, lanky figure of her husband. For a moment it seems as though he feels her gaze on his back; he stops and looks back at her. He says nothing, but judging from the look on his face, it seems to Penelope as though he wants to say something. She meekly walks up to him, her eyes begging for him to finally say whatever it is he has to say.

"This is for you," he says, handing her a wad of bills, which she takes into her hand almost robotically. He quickly turns away and resumes his walk down the trail, the dog at his heel.

"Good-bye, husband!" she calls out.

He and his dog continue to walk down the long and winding path. She remains standing where she is, perfectly motionless like a marble statue, and closely studies his every step. Soon, the redness of his shirt seems to merge seamlessly with his camo pants, and then not long after that he can barely be seen, the old dog virtually indistinguishable from his boots. Only the blue of his cap can be seen now. Then he suddenly makes a sharp turn in a distant clearing and fades from her view.

"Good-bye," she whispers. She hoists herself up on her tiptoes in a last ditch effort to at least see the blueness of his cap one last time.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Richard Pevear's and Larissa Volokhonsky's translation of Anton Chekhov's short story "The Huntsman," originally published in 1885, served as the guide and template for this newly updated version that I offer here. Their translation appears in Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov, copyright 2000 by Pevear and Volokhonsky.

On the Occasion of His 123rd Birthday

Walt reflected on his long life as he sipped the green tea his great-granddaughter had poured for him. "Green tea is so good for you!" she exclaimed. "So many antioxidants!" He quietly replied with a pleasant smile.

His hand trembled a little, as it usually did, as he raised the cup to his lips.

"Here, let me get you a straw."

"No, it's OK. I'll be fine."

"I'll get you one anyway, just in--"

"No, thank you," he replied, rather firmly. "I'm fine."

Today was Walt's 123rd birthday.

"One hundred and twenty-three years," he muttered to himself.

"That's right, Gobby!" exclaimed Lucy. "Gobby" was what she called him ever since she was barely a toddler. She sputtered out the word the first time she tried to call him "great-grandpa." The family found it charming and affectionately adopted it as his nickname. Walt was already closing in on a hundred years of age at that point and found the new moniker a little annoying. He was fond of his great-granddaughter--she had grown into a smart, charming young woman, though she had a habit of asserting opinions on things that she appeared to know very little about--but he still winced inside every time she called him that.

"And now that you're one hundred and twenty-three years old, do you know what that means?"

"I don't know, what?" asked Walt.

"It means that, as of today, you are the oldest person in the entire world who has ever lived, Gobby!"

"Oh, right. Of course." It suddenly returned to Walt's mind that Lucy had arranged for a reporter or journalist of some kind to come talk to him, a lady reporter about Lucy's age. She would probably have a photographer with her to snap some photos of the world's oldest human being.

"That record had previously been held by a lady in France. She lived for one hundred and twenty-two years, Gobby! Well, one hundred and twenty-two years and one hundred and sixty-four days, to be exact, so technically you already broke her record several months ago, but I just think it's better to celebrate your new world's record on the day of your birthday, it just feels more fitting. Anyway, she died a long time ago, way back in the 1990s--which means that she was born all the way back in the 1870s, Gobby! I mean, ohmygosh! That also means she was, like, a young woman of about twenty years old at the time you were born! Just a little younger than I am now! And we're part French!"

She smiled at him as though she had just shared the greatest discovery with him. "You know what else, Gobby? I just found out online that not only are you the confirmed oldest human being who has ever lived, but of the entire list of the world's twenty oldest living people, you are the only man! All the rest are women! Isn't that something?"

He just looked at her for a moment. He took in her face through the thick lenses of his spectacles, studied it. A quick slideshow of hundreds of photographs played in his mind. It stopped on the image of his mother, which he then superimposed onto Lucy's face. It fit almost perfectly. She had always reminded Walt of his younger sister, Catherine, who was the spitting image of his mother. Catherine had died young, killed by the Spanish flu that swept across the globe and killed hundreds of millions in 1918. It was the first great heartbreak of his life. But at this very moment, Lucy looked much more like his mother than his sister. It dawned on him that it was the shape of the eyes, and just the way her smile curved across her face. He decided that those details were much closer to his mother's face than Catherine's, reversing a previous assessment he had made some years before. Perhaps he would change his mind again.

"What the hell are you doing?" asked Walt.

He saw the smile on Lucy's face slowly fade away. There was a long, uncomfortable silence.

"I, um...I just...," she finally began to mutter.

"What are you doing with your life, Lucy?"

She just stared back at him, dumbstruck.

"I don't give a single goddam how many years I've lived, why should anyone else? What the hell does it matter how many years I've been alive? How many years a person's lived matters about as much as a pile of cow dung. Never mind about me, what are you doing with yourself these days? I know you've gone back to school so many times I've lost count. You graduated with one degree, and you've been going back over and over ever since. I guess that's why they call it 'graduate school.' It's a school for people who graduate college once but then they never want to leave it. Maybe it's high time you stay the hell out of school and get out in the world more. I've lived one hundred and twenty-three years now, and there's a hell of a lot I never tried my hand at, and now I never can because even if I lived another hundred and twenty-three years this body is just too damn old and shopworn to give those things a try."

His bespectacled eyes focused intently on hers as he leaned into her face. "Lucy, I'm going to tell you right now, the only thing that could be worse for you than dying in the next five minutes is to live to be my age--to live for more than a hundred and twenty years--and have it dawn on you after all that time that you ain't done jack shit with yourself, not really."

He saw the gears behind her eyes begin to grind, and her face began to change, almost transform, after he uttered those last words. Then her eyes darted from his. Her posture changed. Her mouth parted as if to admit some new spirit or soul to take up residence in her body. She rose slowly from the kitchen table and walked over to the window. She gazed outside, quietly meditating.

The doorbell rang. She looked back at Walt.

"Oh, oh...that's them! The reporters!" She quickly darted out of the kitchen. Walt then heard her answer the door, her voice chipper and excited, followed by a muffle of strange voices.

Walt took another sip of his tea and braced himself.