Border Crossing
I’m standing on the side of the road, talking with my neighbor Chester (not his real name) about the porcupine that had been in that very spot for several days but is now gone. “Smelled it before you saw it,” he says. A period of silence follows. I’ve learned not to rush these conversations. They’re fragile things, and one wrong word or move can shatter them. We both gaze at the greasy smudge where the critter met its fate.
Finally, I offer, “Bud (another neighbor and also not his real name) said he tried to kick it to the ditch, but the quills went right through his sneaker.” A look passes across Chester’s face that might be interpreted as, “Well, that wasn’t too bright.” I nod gravely, hoping he will take that to mean I’m not the kind of person who would kick a rotting porcupine.
“Surprised it took so long for someone to come for it,” I say, like I’m in any position to comment on the town or its road crew, but Chester jumps right in. “Never did come for that deer down in the creek. Blew right up like a balloon and then got picked clean where it was.”
It was true. Because I walk my road every day, twice a day, I notice things. On several occasions I watched a great blue heron delicately extract morsels from the deer’s torso, entrails that dangled from its beak like strands of rubbery pasta. I’m used to these birds at the coastline pecking for livelier fare. This heron carrion buffet was new to me. I want to tell Chester as much, but I’m waiting for his next cue. I don’t want to wreck the moment.
Now, if you’d told me not so long ago, in my other life, that the social highlight of my day would be a discussion of roadkill with an old-timer on a rural road, I probably would’ve spit my Aperol spritz (not my real drink of choice) out through my nose. The very idea of living anywhere in Maine but Portland was unthinkable to me. The hinterlands beyond the city limits were like the jungle on the TV show Lost. Beyond the blur of firs and field on 295 and the Turnpike, that’s where the Others lived. And as anyone who watched the series can tell you, you don’t want to mess with the Others, lest they suck you in and make you one of their own.
Don’t get me wrong. I love the woods. I’ve been perfectly at home holing up at a friend’s hunting camp that has neither electricity nor running water or winter camping in a yurt for three nights (replete with 3 a.m., sub-zero outhouse calls). But said adventures were always undertaken with the understanding I would soon enough be slurping oysters at Scales and complaining about all the hicks in town who drove too slowly or couldn’t parallel park. I’d yell, “Go back to…” and then fill in the name of any peripheral berg or hamlet, although only with my windows rolled up, just in case the hick in question was packing.
When I moved to my current outpost, it was to be a stopgap after the end of my marriage and the onset of the pandemic. I just needed a place to cool my heels until things righted themselves. I trusted I’d be back in Portland directly.
During those first weeks and months, I mostly kept to myself on my walks, stopping only to look at birds or what was blooming in the ditch. But gradually, a smile or a nod from a parent waiting with their kids for the bus, or from someone working in their yard, would turn into a hello, eventually a conversation, and next thing I knew I had several neighbors’ numbers in my phone, access to fresh farm eggs, and I’m celebrating Christmas Eve at a pizza party up the road at the insistence of two very convincing young boys who burst out of their house to loudly call my name whenever they see me.
Chester, however, was a tougher nut to crack.
Truthfully, I didn’t make warming to me easy. My road is busy, and I sport an array of clothing to make sure I’m visible: fluorescent-yellow fleece cap and matching scarf and cycling jacket; a blaze-orange, Elmer Fudd hunting cap with ear flaps, or a wide-brimmed rain hat, also blaze orange, with reflective tape around the brim and crown. Who was this kook out there, walking the road every day in all weather dressed like a crossing guard, gawping around with binoculars? I mean, would you want to talk to me?
But then, I suppose we’re all Others, aren’t we? It just depends which side of the divide you’re standing around on.
I read Chester correctly. He takes a quick breath and starts off. The conversation is over. But as he passes, without taking his eyes off the horizon, he brightly says, “Nice bonnet,” and I feel like a velvet cord has been lifted. I cross.
Elizabeth Peavey (her real name) perambulates here monthly.
