January 2, 1978

Worked all day today. Made the big mistake of calling Katie. It was a short cool phone call. I said, “I just wanted to wish you a Happy New Year.” She said, “Oh, okay” with this tone, like why in the world would you call me? I tried not to sound desperate, but her silences were damning. What crap. I’m so full of crap. One minute I’m making her come, the next minute she won’t speak to me.

October 13, 2006

I am in the northern Berkshires. The trees are bare. Everything up here is frozen. My footsteps crunch on the scatterings of icy snow. My nose and eyes itch. The skies are high and empty.

I arrived last night, checked in after ten, got settled. The motel bed was too soft but the food wasn’t bad. I was lucky to get a room at all because I guess it’s “bow season” or “turkey season” or something. A season for hunting and killing. Inside the inn, guys in camo outfits bustled around, anticipating the hunt. Very few women in evidence, the hunters like an invading army, only interested in force and functions thereof. They spend their time in the antler-festooned bar, watching vintage football on ESPN.

I called ’Gitte first thing this morning. She sounded cheery on the phone. They probably don’t get many visitors up here. I made small talk, as if I just happened to find myself in her neighborhood. She invited me over to their place for lunch.

Her directions were straightforward: Drive twenty minutes north on a two-lane out of the center of town, then turn right past an abandoned gas station, go six miles and locate a hand-painted sign nailed to a tree. I did all this. Once off the two-lane, I endured twenty minutes bouncing along on a rutted, unpaved passage through the thickening woods hoping not to break an axle. In a clearing stood a brown-shingled affair, probably constructed by local volunteer help (a pound of potent weed for a day’s work?). It looked like a typically suburban split-level transported to the bowels of a witch’s forest. I was surprised. I guess I’d expected a geodesic dome or a large teepee.

As I popped the car door, two yellow dogs trotted toward me, tails whipping. One sidled up and I patted his neck. He crouched and began to bark viciously. The second dog followed suit. They flanked me. I was midway between car and house. I’d have thought it was abandoned were it not for a ribbon of gray wood smoke trailing from the chimney.

One dog nipped at the other’s rear as they circled me in an ever-tightening orbit. The barking became ominous whining. I had no options. I was surrounded by thick, dark woods, home to wolverines and possums and other ravenous nocturnal animals that feed on the rotting deer corpses abandoned by careless hunters. My body would never be found. Saliva dripped from the dogs’ fangs. One was barking so hard, he had begun to go hoarse. John’s dogs. Probably bred to kill.