Excerpt from In Kirkpatrick's Woods
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He is like the trees that surround her. Tall. Strong. Permanent.
She wonders how he came to be in the middle of the woods– so apart– yet so connected. He never talks of his past so she has no way of knowing. Once she had asked him and he had smiled in his mysterious way. Shrugged his shoulders as if to say ‘what possible importance is it?’
It seems as if he has always been here. Rooted.
Yes, he is a “rooted” man.
Her focus falls to his hands. She imagines them in a fresco, somewhere in an ancient ceiling in Italy. The hands speak for him. Sculpted, they convey the masculine embodiment of strength that promises to endure every battle.
They are the hands of artist and subject alike; the eternal prong.
They illustrate the magick he creates. . .
The craft for which he is sought out. He is far removed from city lives and the clackety-crunch of pavement life. Far removed from her.
She has a mind to sleep with him.
Sometimes, at night, she wonders how his sure, capable hands would feel slipping softly over her body. Sometimes she imagines the low, rugged sound of his voice as it rolls over her skin. . . .
She has lost her way, her values, her desire. She spends long hours questioning what is happening in this country. Is Roncon a true symbol for twenty-first century capitalism? Or is it just the bad seed. Is this where we are going? What has gone so horribly wrong?
Maybe Roncom lost it way, like she has; defiled by men whose selfishness knows no bounds? She believed in this society; she believed in the strength of our dollars. Dollars which are inscribed with the words: “In God we Trust”. She thinks that the words are put there to signify that decency is our equal partner– our higher conscience in a society that sometimes seems to be built on the principle that making money is the reason d’etre.
Until this moment she doesn’t realize how deeply her foundations are damaged in this “it's just business" world solely compromised of mile after mile of money metropolises, this sea of megalithic Roncons. What happened to the souls of those corporate leaders? Did they ever have souls?
Or were they an army of dopplegangers, cardboard replacements who waved the posters of what we used to be in our faces? They didn’t get paid for their humanity. But then, who did? Twisting words until euphemism begot euphemism.
Open was closed.
Profit was loss.
And decency had drowned; its last gasp stamped out by the footprint of More.
So Kirkpatrick is right.
She has come here to hide.
And somehow she is finding herself in a man who makes his living by hand.
It is the way this county was built.
Can she find that idealistic part of herself once again in him and his way of life? She doesn’t know. But she feels alive once more.
He feels alive.
And so good! Everything about him is good. Who he is as a person, his way of living, the energy he pours into everything he does.
He is a woodsman, a quintessential American man. Unique in himself. Sure about his beliefs. He carries his Scottish heritage with him and you could never sell him the Brooklyn bridge. . . .