The Drunk Logger, 1977

Tommy Bierman loved two things in life: his red-headed high school sweetheart, and then wife, Ava McRay, and a cheap bottle of rum. Beer gave him bloat and made his already sloppy flatulence more rancid and gag-inducing. Whiskey and scotch burned too much going down and made him tipsy and top-heavy far too quick. Gin and vodka required mixers to get it down, requiring him to buy two different beverages. And without a high school diploma he couldn’t afford mixers. But rum? That hit his sweet tooth in the money maker. Swirling in some ice, in a worn, large, plastic cup that he won at the shooting gallery at the county fair. That punched the ticket each time.

And he punched that ticket far too often for his own good.

At 38, his rum-soaked body grew fat around the middle. He could no longer see his dick when he pissed any more. Ava grew distant and unloving. Two DUIs and a two DWIs made him more trouble than she could manage. So, she kicked him out of their trailer house in Croftville. His parents dis-owned long ago, for dropping out of school. And most the friends he had went on to marriages and kids of their own and had little time for a grown man trapped in the mind of a high school dropout and who spent more time in the bars than at home.

It was quite the shitshow he built for himself. A shitshow that drove him back to his favorite thing in the world: rum. She had no questions for him. No raised voices and insults about his gut or intelligence. No judgements at all. Just the sweet, sweet call for oblivion.

It’s okay, she’d tell him. That trailer house was trash. Stunk to mildew. You know what’s better? Camping! Just find a tent and pitch it in the woods by the stream. The raccoons live there, so why not you? Wash yourself like a beaver. Crap like a bear. Piss like a wolf. No bills to pay. Freedom, man. Sweet, sweet freedom.

It all made sense to him, so he listened.

He cashed his next paycheck and illegally drove his rusted-out Pinto with the mustard yellow paint job into Grand Marais. There, he bought a used tent, sleeping bag and camping supplies at Goodwill. Stopped at Wink’s for five bottles of Captain Morgan - his favorite because, well, pirates, plus it tasted like a vacation he never had and it was cheap. His last stop was the supermarket, where he bought two loaves of bread, mustard, and two packages of Oscar Mayer bologna. That had to be enough meals for two weeks, or when the next paycheck came.

He drove north of Croftville and found a secluded place in the woods along the Devil’s Track River and setup camp. After a confusing three-hour struggle with the tent, he sat on the hood of his Pinto and admired his handiwork. The two person tent sloped to one side and at least two or three of the aluminum support poles were placed wrong, but it had a roof and the sides, so to Tommy it was a success.

The air is so clean here, his new love whispered into his ear. Fresh air is good for you. And you’re so much closer to work. No more commute, sweetheart. And you know what that means?!

Tommy nodded and tipped the bottle back to his lips and down the hatch.

It doesn’t get better than this.

A week later, Tommy worked a harvester northwest of Covill for Bergmann Forestry Services, LLC. A wet day, most of the timber they needed was up a hill and along a steep crevasse down the other side. After felling a a beast of Norway pine, he released the control levers and reached behind him to the back pack strapped to his seat. A plastic half gallon jug of apple cider rested inside the pack. Only it wasn’t apple cider at all. He scanned the surrounding crew and unscrewed the cap to the jug and raised it to hi lips. Several deep glugs of rum later, he spun back around and took the controls. He dipped his sweating forehead to his shoulder and wiped it off on his dirt-encrusted t-shirt.

What Tommy hadn’t noticed that day was Stellen Bergmann’s arrival to check-in on the progress of the Maple Lake section. Bergmann never checked in on projects. He had seasoned supervisors running the show for each one, but that day was different. A young buck followed him around. Like his father, Gunnar Bergmann possessed a larger frame than most men and was gifted lattice of muscle and sinew wrapped around it. The war in Vietnam over, he had come home to work for his old man and learn the family business. Every site they visited, he looked and listened to his father. His stern yet friendly demeanor. His decades of experience. His ability to gab with the grunts, but switch in an instant with his lieutenants to get down to business.

The boy sponged up everything he could, but Gunnar possessed one thing his father didn’t: a small break in the armor. While he meant well, Gunnar had a stare that emerged on occasion. From the war or some other affair, he often stopped to dress down many of the grunts from a far. Not to belittle them or twist the knife on a weakness, but to empathize their situations. Most of them had no schooling. His father paid them a fair wage, but they blew it all on liquor and women. Their homes shabby and in disrepair. Stellan’s son had picked up something in his travels. Perhaps a humanity.

Tommy would have seen the boy watching him from a distance had he noticed, but he was too intent on maneuvering his harvester to the ridge in the mud. The treads slopped through the morass kicking it everywhere. He compensated for the slushes and slides of the machine, but for some reason he was intent on nabbing the last four trees on the ridge. Even when Stellan caught sight of him, climbed aboard the nearest skidder and stamped on its horn; Tommy didn’t stop. He pulled and pushed his levers and crept along the soggy ridge, the claw extending forward to the nearest trunk. To his amazement, he succeeded. The claw closed on the tree, sawed it off at the base and hoisted it to the side.

When the claw boom swung to the side, the hill underneath the machine lurched and slouched to the off-balance load. The harvester tipped on its side and because he pushed it too far, it took six complete tumbles. The boom arm twisted under the weight of the machine, and had it not been for the cabin’s roll cage, Tommy would have met his maker that day. When the twisted machine came to rest, Tommy found himself half submerged in a slurry pool of mud, sawdust and pine boughs.

Gunnar was the first to arrive onsite. He reached out to Tommy’s extended arm and yanked him out of the mud. He slapped him on the back and said, “You okay, man?!”

Tommy staggered to his feet.

The supervisor arrived with Stellan Bergmann in tow.

“What in the hell were you doing up there?” Stellan yelled. He got in Tommy’s face. “Save the high stuff for drier weather. You just trashed a seventy thousand dollar piece of equipment.” When the sweet aroma of rum drifted off of Tommy, Stellan’s face burned red. “Have you been drinking onsite?!”

The supervisor pulled the plastic jug out of the crumpled cab to the harvester, twisted off the cap and took a whiff. “It’s rum, sir.”

Stellan grabbed Tommy by the sleeve and slung him to the ground. “You’re fired! Get off of my site!”

Gunnar tugged at his father’s sleeve in the mist and said, “Easy, pop.”

“Don’t be soft!” he said to his son. “He could have killed himself, or worse someone else. Someone who wasn’t drinking on the job!”

Gunnar stepped away from his father and kept his distance.

Tommy staggered back to his feet. Mud caked his face dark. The whites of his eyes and his yellowed teeth showed bright through the muck. He didn’t even blink. Tommy struggled to comprehend what he just did. He gulped, and said, “I’m-I’m sorry, sir.”

Tommy Bierman stumbled down the hill. Every other footstep slid in the mud and knocked him off balance. By the time he reached his Pinto, the shock set in. his muscles loosed on his bones and he shivered. Every joint in his body wobbled. He felt uneasy and nauseous. When it all caught up with him, he bent over and vomited into the muddy ruts from the skidders. He opened his car door and climbed into the driver’s seat. There, he sat in his stupor. The windows fogged up from his breath and his stink. He sobbed and shook in his seat. The one thing he had left, he wrecked too. Wifeless. Homeless. And now jobless. Upset and angry, he smashed his forehead into the steering wheel again and again. The high-pitched and tinny horn of the Pinto bleated across the open expanse of logged forest.

He still sobbed on the drive home. Rain beat down around the Pinto in straight pours. The Pinto’s heater struggled to keep the windshield clear. When Tommy tried to wipe it clean with his hand, it left a brown swath of mud.

“Shit,” Tommy said. His heart raced. Sweat streaked through the mud on his forehead. No matter how hard he tried to wipe his face clear, there was too much mud. Frustration, anger, and sadness popped through his head like corn kernels in a screaming hot cast iron pan. The Pinto weaved over the yellow the line in the road. He over-corrected into the gravel on the shoulder. Just once, he wanted a crystalline mind to focus on one thing: just don’t get pulled over.

Just past the sign for the Lindskog Road Trailhead, the Pinto veered over the center line as a pair of headlights erupted through the gray mash of the rain on the opposite side of the road.

Tommy pulled the wheel away. Tires screeched over wet asphalt. The headlights spun away. He looked in the rear view mirror and didn’t see the lights anymore. He took his foot off the gas and thought. He should go back. If they ran off the road, they might need help. He turned back to the pounding rain over the hood. No. Get back to the tent. Everything would be better once he got there. He pressed the gas. The Pinto lurched forward and Tommy murmured to himself that everything would be all right. Just get home.

He pulled into the logging road that led to his campsite. Once there, he ran through the brush like a wolf chased him. Just get to the tent. Everything will be fine. Soaked to the bone and partly cleaned from the rain, he unzipped the tent flap and dove inside. It wasn’t warmer inside the tent, but to Tommy it felt cozy and peaceful. Relaxed. Nothing could harm him in his home. He wrapped his arms around himself and tried to calm down. Everything will be fine. His box of rum bottles sat in the opposite corner of the tent.

Everything will be fine, they said. It’s just a little bump in the road. Look at all the freedom you have. No nagging wife. No trashy house to keep clean. And most importantly no stick-up-the-ass boss to bring you down. Who needs a job anyway?

Tommy squinted his eyes shut hard. “No. No. No,” he said. “Maybe Ava will take me back. She always took such good care of me. I was so stupid, stupid, stupid.”

Forget her, the bottles said from the corner. We don’t need any help.

Tommy tucked his head in between his forearms and said, “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”

Tommy focused so much on his shouting match with his demons, that he missed the gentle stoppage of rain, but more importantly, he missed the footsteps behind him and the violent tearing of the tent flap. When the cold, wet hand grabbed the collar of his coat and yanked him out of the tent, he pissed himself. When the tire iron came down on his shoulder blades, he collapsed into the tangle of branches and wet leaves across the forest floor. The blow knocked his breath off like a needle scratch to a record. He coughed and gasped for more air. He held up his left hand to defend himself, but again the tire iron came down swift between his middle and ring finger, breaking them both. Tommy tucked his broken hand close to his chest and cowered on the ground.

“Look at me you drunk bastard,” the man said. He stood above Tommy, dressed in navy whites - the sleeves rolled up displaying tattoos up and down his forearms. A blue kerchief hung from his neck and white sailor hat sat tilted on his head. “You damn near ran my ass off the road back there. I’m trying to get back to my wife and baby, you sonuvabitch!”

Tommy turned his head and did what the man said. He opened his eyes and said, “I’m-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

The forest dripped around them - a steady pitter-patter from the rain falling off soaked branches. Above them, the white disc of the sun tried to peer through the silky fabric of clouds, only to slip deeper into them and disappear. Between the drips of water, the rest of the world fell silent, submersed in a misty landscape. Tommy felt an oddness that he couldn’t explain. He felt like somewhere in the chaos, he stepped across a barrier. This wasn’t his world but a different one, an off-kilter one, full of wrongness.

The Navy man reared back with the tire iron again, but something strange happened. The earth behind him bubbled upward in a heave of bright green moss and thick trunks of cedar. The scent of peat and citrus filled the air. The mass behind the sailor emerged from the ground taller, more than eight or nine feet high. Legs of cedar trunks. Arms of toppled oak. A vegetative flesh of moss, pine boughs and spoor-filled mushrooms rippled over the wooden frame underneath. Atop it all, shrouded in a fleshy hood of moss sat a tangled bramble of thorns for a face. Two deep pockets of emptiness for eyes.

The word creaked out of Tommy’s mouth as he held his good hand towards the sailor. “Wait.”

The sailor didn’t wait. He brought the tire iron down on Tommy, but it did not bury itself in his skull. The earthen golem wrapped its oak arms around the sailor and enveloped him within its body. The bramble face bent down and bit the sailor’s shoulder. When he screamed, the cape of moss rippled and grew over the sailor. The sailor’s screams were muted, along with the crashing sound of the tire iron on wood as he tried to escape. Across the mossy flesh, white mushrooms blossomed and grew bulbous.

Wide-eyed, Tommy skittered away like a crab. Had time stopped, he thought? Had he crossed into a different realm? A place where the forest itself was alive?

Inside the earthen man, the sailor’s beating of the tire iron stopped. His screams turned into gagging and choking. Bones broke. Flesh ripped. The mushrooms along the golem’s back sagged large and full. A wet suckering noise emerged from the gagging death throes inside. More mushrooms blossomed on the thing’s back. A dark compost rained from the earthen man and dappled the leaves on the ground.

Tommy had to get back to the tent. Even though he knew it didn’t make sense, the frightened child inside him begged for it to be true. Get in the tent. It can’t get him inside his quiet place. He backed into the tent on his haunches and tugged at the zipper, but it was torn and inoperable. He crawled to the backside of the tent, knocking over his box of rum bottles and cowered against the thin layer of canvas at his back.

It couldn’t get him inside the tent, he repeated. Here, he was safe.

But he wasn’t.

The earthen creation bent into the tent and tore it away. Tommy grabbed a piece of a broken rum bottle and swiped it at the monster, but where ever he slashed, new wood growth repaired it, or mossy flesh grew around it. It reached out to Tommy and picked him off the ground and held him to its face of brambles. Up close, he heard it breathe. It sounded like a brisk wind through pines and smelled of blood and fungus. It had no eyes, but the empty spaces between thorny brambles. It breathed again like the wind. In and out it breathed.

Tommy realized that it wasn’t breathing at all. It was smelling him. Sizing him up for food.

“Do it,” he said. “I’m a nobody. I’m a drunk and a loser. No one will miss me.”

Tommy closed his eyes and waited for its thick wooden arms to embrace him and that hood of moss to wrap him in darkness. He waited for it to grind his bones and drink his blood through millions of hyphae and siphon it to the mushroom caps on its back. Then, the process completed, the composted waste of his life would sprinkle to the forest floor, where it belonged for the worms.

He deserved it.

But when he opened one eye to check on the gooey process, the monstrous thing had folded back into the forest. Tommy looked around hm hoping to catch another glimpse of it. Why did it leave him? Surely he deserved it. Did it leave him for a reason? Or was he just too drunk? Whatever it was, it was a wake up call. Tommy sprang from torn remnants of his tent and got in his Pinto. He’d drive back to Ava and plead, no beg, for forgiveness and take him back. Hallucination or not, he wasn’t letting a second chance get away.

He put the Pinto in gear and sped down the logging road, and as he turned onto County Road 58, there on the side of the road sat the sailor’s car.

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