Eight-year-old Ardy and his family take a trip to a replica of an old western town. The Cutter will eventually appear, but when? Find out in this coming of age story.
The Cutter of Fort Eriez
He always thought their car looked like a rocket ship, and that day, it actually felt like one. Square tail lights blazed fire-engine red when Mama applied the brakes. The long, midnight-blue hood stretched out toward the oncoming highway. From where they all sat, safe within the glass cockpit, dashed yellow lines slid under their vessel, enemy laser blasts, just missing them. Good thing their ship had its own fire power. Fixed firmly in the car’s chrome grill, were dangerous weapons of war, the headlamps, two on each side, stacked vertically one above the other. Their warp-speed engine thundered loud and strong, so much so that it echoed back a roar when they drove close to the broadside of a building or barn. Flat surfaces make the best echoes.
On top of all this was the familiar leaning and tilting that comes with rounding curves, the gravitational pull of the many bends in the road on their way to the country. This car, their trusty starship, was aptly named Ford Galaxie 500. It said that in raised silver letters across the rear quarter panel, silver on blue. Now there were many cars on the road in those days, back when this story takes place, and he would ride in many others since then, but none, no none could compare with this, their first family car.
It felt all the more thrilling to him to know the endpoint of their flight across hill and creek. He had been there just once before, on his seventh birthday. Mama tried to take the kids someplace special for birthdays. He had heard about Fort Eriez from a friend at school who went there. Now, on his eighth birthday, they shot across the expanse of hazy-hot July countryside to explore it once more. Fort Eriez. The crème of the crop for eight-year somethings looking for adventure and running-around coolness. It was the kind of place a boy dreamed about long after visiting, building models of it out of blocks or Legos. All that he had done since last summer, but dreaming was done. The New York line was just ahead.
“Put on your seatbelt, Ardy”, said Mama, “You don’t want to get caught by the police, do you?”
Ardy fished around with his one hand under the passenger seat. It had to be there someplace. He felt dirt and little pebbles. No luck. He got down on his knees on the floor, half under the dashboard, and peered into the dark. He spied the sheen of the buckle, then pulled the straps up over himself. There. He was safe. No police could arrest him. Mama also found hers. She had the tougher task though, having to watch the road, steer, and forage for the belt, all at once. Mama was a good driver. There were lots of things she could do while steering. Feeling for seatbelts was one. Lighting cigarettes, putting on sunglasses, or twisting around to scold Lance were others. As for Lance and Gwen in the back, they were exempt, being that they were in the rear seat. The Galaxie had only lap belts, like most cars did at that time. Ardy’s family only used them in New York state. Pennsylvania had no seat belt law, not yet anyway.
“Where is the fort?” Lance cried.
“Just a few more turns” said Mama, sounding frustrated. That was only the tenth time Lance asked that same question.
“Stop asking that!,” yelled Gwen. “It’s annoying.” She gave Lance a light swat on his leg.
“Easy on your brother, Gwen,” said Mama, “You were four once.”
“Once a long time ago,” said Gwen, “but not so annoying.”
Ardy couldn’t resist. “You were twice as annoying!”
“No I wasn’t!”
“Oh yes you were, and you’re annoying now at six.” Gwen sat up and put her head close to Mama’s in front of her. “Tell Ardy to be quiet. He’s being mean to me. I’m never mean to him, but he’s mean to me a lot!”
Ardy prepared his next comeback in this little argument, but dropped it. The last curve was rounded. They were there.
In the little valley, Ardy saw the wooden buildings. Some would say they were more like shacks. There must have been twenty of them. From where their car was, headed down the final hill, they still appeared quite small, like the structures of a model train set. There were square box shapes, elongated rectangles, a few cylinders–water towers–and, of course, flat storefronts, complete with hitching posts and fake horses. All these stretched back a level field to a tree line. It was probably a farm at one point, as the biggest building was a barn next to a weathered two-story house.
Of course Ardy didn’t care about the origins. This western town in miniature, or should we say, ghost town, for there were no cowboys–dummies or real; this place was pure playground to him, a jungle gym of ramps, rickety steps, secret passageways, and ladders leading to rooftops. What’s even better is he was there. And being there, in the moment, for eight or six or four year olds, was everything. That day’s everything, at least.
“I can actually see the horses,” Ardy said.
“Let me see,” cried Gwen.
“Let me see,” cried Lance. And they both slid simultaneously across the seat, faster than the return arm of a manual typewriter. They were wide-eyed at the widow.
“I can’t see them,” said Gwen.
“Tied to that bar,” Ardy said, “Near that one by the woods. And I can see the gold mine.”
“Yes. I see them! I see the horses!” Gwen said. She grabbed Lance’s whole head and faced it toward the horses. Lance laughed and let out a high-pitched “weee” sound. Mama slowed the Ford. Tail-lights blinked on. Ardy undid his seatbelt. He could hardly wait for the car to stop.
There’s was the only car in the parking lot. Gravel sounded like popping corn under the tires as they came to a halt. The door to the one-floor building was open. A wooden Indian held a green sign with white letters. Ardy could read that word–OPEN. There were other words on the sign. He couldn’t read those last year, but this year he tired. “Closed every hour on the hour…” He actually read aloud and Mama helped him finish. “…for ten minutes.” Ardy thought about that. “What’s that mean?”
“Must need a break every hour,” Mama said. “He is pretty old.”
“I see,” Ardy said. “Maybe he smokes a pipe like a lot of old people do?”
“Maybe,” Mama said.
There were neat things on the porch of this long building. Ardy especially liked the wooden barrels. Two downspouts filled them with rainwater from the overhanging roof. “Mama, look how many pennies there are now,” he said. “Way more than last time. There’s even a quarter. Who would throw a quarter?” Gwen ran to where Ardy was and pulled herself up. Ardy picked up Lance by the legs. All three of them could now see.
There were tiny mountains of tossed coins at bottom of the watery barrel. The pennies were hard to see because of the shade from the roof, but the quarter shimmered. He thought he could reach it if he stuck his head halfway in. He only thought about it. He knew he would never take the money. What was in those barrels was part of the whole experience of the Fort. Based on how many coins were there, he figured the old man never cleared out the money. They just build up year to year. It felt good to Ardy that they stayed in the barrels, untouched and unstolen.
Gwen’s hand disturbed the water. The coins disappeared momentarily in the ripples of the water’s surface, then they were back again. “Lower me down, Ardy,” she said, “I think I can get it.”
“It’s too far down,” said Ardy, “ And we don’t take money out of there. That belongs to the Fort. Don’t you get it?”
It didn’t seem like Gwen got it or even listened to Ardy. She was off and running, Lance in tow, for the other barrel.
“There’s hardly any in this one,” she cried. Her face was in the mouth of the barrel. Lance was standing on tiptoes, attempting to see over the rim. Ardy could not resist also looking.
“You’re right”, Ardy said, “People forget about this one because it’s further from the door.”
“There’s a quarter in that one,” Gwen said. “What if someone made a big wish and threw in a dollar bill? That would have to be a really really big wish.”
“It’s doesn’t matter how much you put in,” said Ardy. “Wishes are the same price. The price is whatever you’ve got at the time.”
“I still think it would be neat. Seeing a dollar at the bottom,” said Gwen.
Ardy pictured a green one-dollar bill floating on the water in the dim light of the barrel. It just didn’t seem to fit, a paper dollar. People don’t wish with paper money. They don’t even throw well. They kind of float down the way an autumn leaf floats down. There’s nothing fun or interesting about dropping a dollar in a barrel or a well or a fountain, even. That’s why people don’t do that.
“I think it would float,” Ardy said. Gwen shook her head.
“No. It would sink. It would get soggy and sink.”
“I would bet all the money in this barrel,” Ardy said, “That it would float. Dollars are not totally paper. I learned that in school. There actually made partly of cloth. They would stay dry even in water. And dry things float.”
“Mama!” Gwen yelled, “Do you have a dollar?”
“Don’t listen to her,” Ardy said, “She just wants to pitch it in the barrel.”
Mama was already half through the open door.
“Do you want to go through with this,” she called, “or do you want to stay on the porch all day?”
Ardy and Gwen both gave up their argument and ran, Lance in tow to where Mama was.
Once inside, Ardy took in the regular sites of this little gift shop. He went right over to the hooks on the wall where the bow and arrow sets were. There were red bows and green ones with arrows armed with suction-cup tips. He had these kind of bows before, but they all broke. That didn’t stop him from staring and wanting one again. An eight-year old can never have too many bow and arrow sets.
There were also the usual shoe-shine-brush-sized cedar boxes containing colored glassy rocks they called treasure chests. On the lids Fort Eriez was wood burned in black letters. When he saw the old man wasn’t looking, he picked one up, held it to his face and breathed in. There was that familiar scent of cedar wood. He loved that smell. He thought it must be how Pharaoh’s tombs smelled. His grandmother had a big cedar chest at the foot of her bed. It contained black and white pictures and knitted sweaters. One time he even climbed inside, just to be surrounded entirely by the scent of reddish cedar. He came to associate this aroma with things old and important. He figured, by his definition, that major treasure chests or even coffins must be made of cedar, for thy both contained things old and important. A larger such box on one of the shelves contained a rubber scissors of sorts. On the inside of that hinged top was another wood burn. It read “The Cutter’s Scissors” in a scary kind of script.
A shiver blew through Ardy’s whole body. Ardy didn’t forget about this. It was in the back of his mind the whole time traveling there. Even though he was a year older, a view of the replica of this tool still caused a feeling of dread and dark inside him. The Cutter was the villain of Fort Eriez. He was the ominous and heavy presence, so heavy and so ominous that you could literally feel something of him when you wandered the town’s streets.
There was a glass case with a cash register on it where you paid. Inside the case, the old man, now giving mama change and tickets, displayed pocket knives, money clips, and Zippo lighters engraved with Indian heads. These were the special items that could get stolen more easily and the things kids could get hurt messing with.
The old man’s hair looked even whiter than it did last year. Everything else about him was the same. He was a thin man, so thin, Ardy thought, that he could, if he wanted to, squeeze through places only children could. That would help him in games like hide-and-seek or sardines where you had to squish a group of people behind a bush or under porch steps. He must have been a hundred years old, at least, Ardy thought. Even with that, he moved quickly, not unlike a chipmunk’s jerky motions. Some old people turn their head slowly when they interact with you, as if turning would be painful–not the old man. He looked all around, always aware. That’s why it was especially hard to sneak a whiff of a treasure box in his gift shop, let alone try to steal something from him.
Of course, stealing from the old man, no matter what color his hair, was something Ardy would never do. Who would think of such a thing? The old man was generous, capital G generous. After all, he built Fort Eriez almost single-handedly, all the buildings, the water tower, the store fronts and the spooky mine shaft. He did it all for kids like Ardy, Gwen, and Lance, kids everywhere who go on family excursions over hill and creek to get there.
Mama was still talking with the old man, which was normal for Mama. She talked with everyone, even unkind or rude people. He, of course, was anything but rude. He spoke at such a gentle, low volume, even Mama had to lean close to hear him. He was the kind of person that gave you his full attention when he conversed with you. This fact was proved when Ardy noticed a deer fly land on the man’s forehead, just above his eyebrow. He must not have wanted to lend anything else his attention, even a fly, while speaking with Mama. Gross as it sounds, he let that fly bite him rather than swat at it. Ardy could nearly feel the itchy pitch himself. This seemed a great sacrifice of self to Ardy. Not one of the kids he knew could stand a spider or even an ant crawling on them. This was just the kind of man this man was.
Now the talking was done. The tickets were bought. It was time for the fun part. To the Fort! It didn’t matter that the Cutter was part of the experience. Somehow, the Cutter’s existence seemed especially right that day. Still, that didn’t keep Ardy, though, from dreading meeting up with him. Strange figures in dark clothes haunt even ten-year olds. Such are the likes of the Darth Vaders, the Grim Reapers, and The Shadows of our world. That which is masked and mysterious to tends to terrify, scare, or at least unease us, be we eight, or ten, or sixty-eight, or as old as the old man behind the counter.
So off they went, running fast ahead of Mama, all of the Fort before them. Dust formed dwarfed clouds beneath their speeding feet. Ardy felt sticky sweat on his neck and forehead. The moist air was everywhere, thick as steam in a sauna at the YMCA. Gwen climbed onto one of two horses tied to a horizontal beam near a wooden platform. They looked like carousel animals, complete with bits and bridles. The way they held their mouths agape, their legs frozen in a running pose, they could have actually been horses taken from a carousel, like the one they rode so many times at Ocean Forest Park. They certainly weren’t horses quietly waiting at a hitching post by a general store. They were much more dynamic, charged with movement and playful action. Gwen pulled hard on the reigns, nearly falling. Mama called for her to be careful. She quickly dismounted and climbed onto the second horse. By this time Lance had his foot in the stirrup of the first one. Ardy helped him up. He didn’t mind he was the only one not on a horse. He didn’t come for the these. He had the gold mine and the Cutter in the front of his mind. Still, he didn’t think it a waste of time at all to let the younger ones enjoy what they wanted. They all came to the Fort for different reasons.
A painted badge looked down on them atop a doorway. The sheriff’s office was a favorite for everyone, especially Mama. Lance got ahead and reached the jail cell first. There was a door with a padlock, but the lock was closed. The barred door swung open or shut. A bench made for a place to sit down out of the hot sun, which Ardy welcomed. Lance in the center and Gwen and Ardy on each side, Mama took a camera out and snapped a picture, then advanced the film with the little clicking wheel on top of the camera. In those days, people would rarely take more than once picture of something because of the expensive cost of film. Gwen reached down and grabbed an ankle shackle. It was chained to the bars of the cell. She stuck her small hand easily through it.
“Take a picture with me like this,” she said. Mama shook her head, probably thinking about the cost of the film. The other ankle shackle was just a chain. As the story goes, the shackle part had been severed off by the Cutter’s sharp scissors. How he got the scissors into jail with him nobody knows. Ardy imagined one of his henchmen handed it to him through the barred window. What kind of scissors could slice through a metal chain? Ardy could use a tool like that. Wires, or even wood, would be easy to cut. His homemade pinball machines could be made in half the time. There could be other purposes for a scissors like that. As they jogged onward through the streets, he daydreamed of cutting up Russian barbed wire fences and their soldiers’ bullets, even American guns and bullets. With that kind of power, a person might put an end to war, at least some of it. Nuclear missiles probably wouldn’t work because they might go off when you cut into them. He thought further about adding lasers to the scissor’s blades, making them amazingly powerful. That would make some of the heavy cutting possible, maybe even cutting up the missiles.
There was something on TV last fall about a tape that got put into a computer that caused a big problem. All the army guys thought missiles from Russia were headed to America. They got ready to launch our missiles from bases underground in the middle of fields in the west. Some people said that could have blown up the Earth. When all those missiles came together and exploded, the planet could have got messed up and killed everyone, not instantly, but eventually. Some people would get sick from drinking nuclear water. Now the Cutter’s scissors could not get rid of all that, but something of that nature would be nice. There really was a lot one could do with a scissors like that.
Part of him did feel a little bad for thinking something good associated with the Cutter. You weren’t supposed to think like that. The Cutter was hated and evil, at least that what he was to the town of Fort Eriez. This continued what started in the gift shop, a feeling of tug-of-war, a rope being pulled in opposite directions inside of him. He began scanning the rooftops. He walked a little, then looked behind. Last year, before he knew about the cutter, he didn’t do all this. There is no need to be vigilant when there is no enemy. But there was one this year. He could feel his presence, the way Ben Kenobi sensed Darth Vader in halls of the Death Star. He knew he would appear, but when? When he did appear, what would Ardy do? Run? Hide behind something?
That feeling was intensified by what he saw in the town bank. There, behind a dirty glass picture frame on the wall, a wanted poster glared down at him. In old-west writing, it said, “Wanted. The Cutter, for damaging federal property, paper money. Look for my grave near the racetrack.” In the center of the poster was a back-line drawing of a scissors. Gwen hid behind Mama’s leg.
“I forgot about him,” she said. Last year that was scary.”
“I wasn’t scared,” Ardy said. I know he’s fake.” The rope in his gut pulled again.
“We’ll I was scared, a lot.” She was peeking out at the poster from behind Mama. Lance just stood staring.
“Scissors,” he said.
“Not just a scissors, Lance,” Gwen said, “The Cutter’s scissors.” Ardy knelt down and looked Lance in the eyes.
“He’s just fake, Lance, you don’t have to be afraid.” But Ardy knew Lance would be–when he appeared. The real truth was that Ardy would be afraid, too.
A lot of it was the way he appeared and could appear–anytime, anyplace. Last year, he walked right down the middle of the street dragging that clanky, broken shackle behind him. Clink. Clank. Something like ice water going down your throat all at once seized him. He was in luck, last year though, being in the mine. Ardy saw his black figure through the narrow slits in the boards of the mine shaft. He was a moving shadow, stepping slowly in the street. Clink. Clank. And as he walked, his form darkened the vertical space between each board.
He was short, about the size of a boy teenager, not a girl teenager, for they were generally taller. He wore a black cowboy hat with a flat, wide brim pulled down to his bushy eyebrows. His face was covered up with a black bandana so you could only see his eyes. Ardy’s intermittent glimpses caught only a few good views of his eyes. Even from a distance, they were bright green, almost glossy, like a tree’s leaves in the sun. It struck him as unusual, there would be something bright in the midst of all that black. Then Ardy thought about these guys called the IRA. They were the closest thing resembling the Cutter. Anytime he saw them on TV, black or green ski masks hiding their faces, he walked straight out of the living room into the kitchen.
“Come back. They’re fake,” Mama said, but he knew she was just saying that. Dad told him they were real, but way on the other side of the world. Ardy decided they were real, but he never knew exactly how far away. He had a feeling it was closer than the other side of the world. In any case, seeing the Cutter made him feel like walking out of the room, only in a mine shaft, there was nowhere to walk but down deeper into the mine, to go farther into the dark to get away from the dark on the surface. That seemed a crazy thing to do. It was trading one fear for another fear. Still, he felt the fear of the dark, the little fear of the dark that remained in him at his age, was still preferable, or at least more natural, than his fear of the IRA or the Cutter. Part of him even thought about why he should have to fear at all. It seemed entirely unfair, especially after living through many years not knowing even as much as uncertainty about the world. Mama and Dad kept his world fear free, but there was a limit to their power to ward it off now. The Cutter taught him about that, and for that, he was, on some level, grateful.
The sight of the entrance to the gold mine instantly made him forget all this about fear. They had reached, at last, his favorite part of the Fort. A ceasefire was called inside of him, for now. The rope quit tugging, for now. The mine shaft didn’t actually go underground. The whole thing was made of wood, and it was all above the ground. It was designed to give you the impression of descending into a creepy mine. You had to go up steps on the outside until you were about as high as a garage, then walk down a ramp surrounded by walls. Vertically nailed boards made up these walls and there were narrow spaces between these boards where you could see out from the shaft to the street. Shafts of light slivered through, projecting horizontal lines across the ramp floor at intervals, making it look like a glowing railroad track, headed ever downward.
This year, Ardy was unafraid to follow this railroad of light into the deeper chambers. He knew what was down there. Still, he couldn’t help but look through a few of the places between the boards for a sign of the shadowy figure. No shadows. No black clothes. Just mama opening her purse for a cigarette. Just a hot, dusty bright street. He could hear Gwen’s steps coming up behind him on the ramp. Lance was yelling something from the mine’s entrance. When Ardy did not hear Lance’s feet on the ramp, he knew his brother had gone back to Mama. He waited with Mama last year, too. Maybe he thought he could try it this time, but it didn’t work out for fear’s sake.
The chamber at the bottom really wasn’t so dark. It was just the contrast to the light outside that made it look that way. Once Ardy’s eyes adjusted, he could see everything. A minecart, also made of wood, filled a good part of the room. Gwen climbed inside and threw some gold coins out onto the floor. The coins were actually made of metal. He cupped his hands and picked up as many coins as he could and put them into the cart, then grabbed a wooden shovel and scooped some more. He thought it wonderful that all those coins remained, that children like him had not pocketed them. He thought about the old man again, the generous old man that he could never take anything from. This gave him a warm feeling inside. The Cutter liked metal money. He only cut up the paper dollars or hundred dollar bills. He believed the metal money should be kept as the money people use. Ardy agreed. Shoveling gold coins in and out of minecarts gave he and his sister a cool thing to do. Shoveling paper money just wouldn’t be fun, not much at all. It kind of floats down, silently. There was something musical about the ring and tinking sound of the coins as they fell. Maybe the Cutter wasn’t so bad after all. He gave kids something fun to do, if not long ago, then today. Maybe he was, as Dad would say, ahead of his time.
There was no way out of the mine, except the way you came in. Mama soon called, as did Lance, and Ardy and his sister charged back up the narrow railroad into the broad daylight. The day outside seemed to him too broad, as in too wide. The constricted, controlled path of the mineshaft felt better. It led from someplace to someplace. He knew where he was and where he was going. He had heard there are people who fear wide open fields or pastures. Maybe it’s the same emotion for them. Out where it’s open, something can come at you from any side. You also have to pick where to go and all the directions are set before you, all the points of the compass, north, south, east, west. The same for cats. Cats feel safest when they can hide within view of their enemy or of their prey, maybe under a foundation bush or in a clump of Hosta plants. Watching what they fear gains them a level of control over it. The Cutter was not in the mineshaft. Ardy was sure of that. The Cutter didn’t go there last year, either. Maybe the Cutter stays away because the money is all metal in the mine. Nothing to cut. That explained his feelings walking the Fort’s streets again. There were too many corners, doors, walls, rooftops, barrels. He couldn’t possibly watch them all. That’s what made the day too broad and wide.
Gwen must have sensed some of the trepidation in Ardy as they approached the water tower, for she took his hand. Ardy felt a little shaking in her tight grip. Lance, on the other hand, was oblivious to anything. The only thing he knew of the Cutter was the scissors. There was nothing else to him than the tool. They climbed the ladder to the water tower platform which encircled the barrel-like upper part of the tank. A spindly railing guarded those on the platform from a fall to the dusty ground below. The real height where they were was only five or six feet. For kids, like them, it felt much higher. They smiled and squealed as they made their way around the barrel on the narrow boards, Ardy strutting more confidently than he felt, Gwen still taking his hand, back sliding against the barrel wall. You can bet he had one eye on his footing, which honestly seemed tentative, and the other on the Fort streets. From where they were, he could even see sections of streets across the way: a hitching post by the general store, part of the blacksmith shop porch, part of the street that led to the cemetery toward the woods. His whole field of vision was beige and sand colors, pale, muted hues of weathered wood, dust, old signs, or general sunshine. In such a homogenous landscape, anything black would have stood out in sharp contrast. His nerves, which had been crawling, relaxed a bit. A cat in a tree views its enemy with some sense of safety. The Cutter was not in the mine. He was not on the tower. That was a good thing. Still, he was somewhere. He would eventually appear. Ardy began to think he needed a plan. A plan, of some kind, seemed reasonable in light of–or in dark of–what he knew would happen. He began to wish time was rolled back to a year ago. It was far easier to be ignorant. All the Fort was a wandering playground of playful happiness, unbridled and unlimited fun. It was not the same this year, nor could it ever be.
“I want up,” Lance said. “Come and get me and take me up.”
Lance had two feet on the lowest ladder round. He was looking up at his siblings on the platform. Mama came and took his hand. “They’ll be right down, Lance, she said. She called up to them. “Ardy, it’s almost four o’clock. I told Daddy we’d be at the farm by five. We need to keep moving, so move it.”
“Coming,” Ardy said. Mama’s voice broke into his vigilant stare across the fort. He was glad for the interruption. One can only focus on this kind of thing for so long. Mama wasn’t thinking of it, the Cutter that is. It was the farthest thing from Lance, and even from Gwen. Ardy thought for a moment about last year. He was younger then, almost as young as Gwen. Again, he wished he was younger, even by a year. A year makes a big difference to a child. Each year bring changes, big and small ones.
Mama was now ahead of them, leading the three of them. Gwen and Lance lagged behind. Ardy knew they were tiring. Ardy wasn’t at all tired. Maybe he was last year, but not this year. His scanning resumed–barrels, shop fronts, glassless windows, building facades that stuck up from rooftops. As they neared closing time, his appearance, by reason, also drew nearer, for his emergence was inevitable and unavoidable. The tug of war intensified, the tug of war with it’s tight, pulling ropes. He felt as though one rope was tethered to his stomach, another to his throat. All this was inescapable and each step they took drove his eyes to shift around more and more wildly across his field of vision. He actually felt the tendons in his head as they rotated his eyes. This was more than these muscles did normally. It was really a lot to feel at once; and he was alone in these emotions. No one else there felt it, no one at all.
Two soft beeps on Ardy’s watch told him it was four o’clock. His mother presented the watch for him on his birthday and he loved the chime function. He set it to chime every hour on the hour. It even chimed at night and that sometimes woke him up. At first he thought this to be quite neat, but later it became annoying, that is until he realized that waking up, momentarily, in the middle of the night, caused him to remember his dream, if he was in the middle of one. This was interesting and he had always been interested in dreams, in general. In some ways this trip to the Fort was something like a dream, one he did not want to turn nightmare-ish.
A few more store-fronts and they rounded a corner, and then, well then a black shape like a rain puddle in the middle of the dirt street, came into view. No need to search any longer. It was him. Gwen stopped in her tracks. Lance bumped straight into her back. Mama said, “Oh, look at that.” Mama ran, somewhat in a fake way, to into a blacksmith’s shop, and all of them followed. There was a window there with an outside view. Gwen peeked out and mama boosted Lance up to see. Ardy gazed over the other’s shoulders. The storm-cloud-dark shape now took the form of a man. He was just as Ardy recalled, except a little shorter in stature. He stood motionless, brimmed hat pulled down low on his face, chain behind his left ankle, long sleeves down past his wrists. Across the way, a father’s head and five or so children’s poked partially out of other windows. One small boy with a red baseball cap crouched behind a barrel on a porch. There were even a few kids up on a roof. He could see just their foreheads, and hair. They must have been too frightened to even look. For the first time he noticed the absence of pistols or any kind of weapon. What harm is he? What would he really do to anyone? Is this really our enemy, the villain of the Fort? If not, what is he?
He was moving now, slow, deliberate steps, looking determinately forward. His feet made no sound. There was no wind, not even a breeze. Ardy thought, in that instance of time, that there was no other movement in the world, or maybe even in the universe, other than that of the Cutter. It was as if his slow stride caused Ardy’s legs to seize up, rendering them immobile. Ardy considered it unfair that the Cutter should have such power over all in the Fort. More, that he should strike such terror in them all. Why should children have to take this year after year? Ardy wished he had made a plan, a plan greater than simply surveying his surroundings. The Cutter walked on, with the same gate that said nothing will stop me, nothing will dare disrupt my ever-onward direction. Indeed, nothing ever did, no one ever stood their ground against that type of pure, undiluted fear.
It was then that a notion passed through Ardy’s mind. The idea was but a suggestion at first, coming from his heart, his imagination, a past dream, or from who knows where. The idea grew into a formal thought, then a partial plan, and then like the torn pieces of an ancient map that magically came together into a whole, a fire, a burning flame such as that which ignites the action of righteous men, saints, poets or warriors. This was the kind of energy that welled up inside of him. The ice melted that shackled his small feet. He found his legs treading on the boards of the blacksmith’s shop, down the front stairs. Gwen called out words, Lance screamed, too, and Mama also, utterances incomprehensible to Ardy, barely heard at all. He was driven on by a force he felt as a fire, now become an inferno. Faces in windows stared like still-life photographs. Now Ardy became movement, a movement equal to that of his adversary. His surroundings on the street were fading fast, transforming into watercolors like he’s seen of old-west towns in restaurants.
There are times that life draws something out of you that’s not natural, for the sake of doing what’s right, even if what’s right is not natural, even strange, even shocking to our inmost being. We play-act our part, with joy because the wrongs of life demanded of us something as right as going against our own self, the way enemies in war volley with each other, gaining and losing ground, advancing and retreating in a kind of dance macabre, until one falls dead and the fight is finished. We hope to end on the side of victory, but often we don’t, and even more than often, we end on the side of partial victory, but that is all right, for both us and for the world, for we have stove against the most terrifying foe, our very self, and that is certainly not natural.
The two figures, Ardy and the Cutter, approached each other with the slow steps. There was an odd sameness to them both. Spectators–in windows, on roofs, and behind barrels–saw what looked like gunfighters, one staring down the other, each observing the whole of the other with experienced scrutiny. There was a hush in the street, a hush that comes upon a crowd, even a crown of millions, during the key play of a sporting match, the crisis of a film, or the moment of a man’s passing from this world. The very air was charged with potential, anxious and ready to burst with something, something not one of them knew what.
Ardy’s coming toward the Cutter did not stop nor slow him. It was only when Ardy came to a halt just a foot away did the Cutter stop. Since Ardy had already been staring at him, he had no need to look away or drop his eyes. Ardy gaze was intent upon the man’s face. His cheeks had ridges and cracks running up and down them like pictures he’d seen before of desert landscapes on calendars. He could see the real color of his eyebrows and a little of his hair–all gray, almost white. That being said, his eyebrows were indeed bushy, as bushy as thick brambles that were nearly impassible to he and his dad when they went hunting.
Then he saw it. Above his left eyebrow, a red dot. A mole? Too red, too ugly. A mosquito bite? Too small. He knew what it was–a deer fly bite. The same bite he saw in the gift shop. Ardy’s breath was blown out of his body, so even his lungs were silent and still. His feet became shackled to the dirt street. How could this be? He continued to stare at the red dot. No movement. No sound. He resisted up to this point, but it was bound to happen. Their eyes finally met. The Cutter’s eyes spoke gently, kindly. No a hint of threat of menace.
Ardy wondered what the man saw in his eyes, a boy’s eyes. What is he thinking? I know he won’t hurt me, but why…then why? Why dress up like this and march the streets like he does? How many times does he do this? It’s coming to me now. What did that sign the Indian was holding say? It would only take ten minutes to walk these streets as the Cutter. That’s it. I’ve said it to myself. The old man is the Cutter. He did it for me, for the other kids, for all of us. He meant to scare us, he must have, but only a little. Life is scary. I know it is. The old man is trying to teach us, to help us. Ardy knew what he had to say. He felt like he said it as loud as a trumpet blast, but it came out a mere whisper. “Thank you.”
The Cutter’s lip quivered. He spoke nothing. Still, Ardy understood. There was a resounding thank you back. It was as if the man had been waiting for someone to step out from the crowd, out from behind his mother’s legs, her father’s back, and stand head-to-head with him, the way Ardy did. Maybe there were hundreds of other boys or girls like him that did the same courageous thing. Maybe the old man lived for moments like those, moments when children go beyond themselves to face their fears. Ardy stepped aside, still in the street, but out of the Cutter’s path. The Cutter walked on. Nobody else dared challenge him. There was no applause from the crowds of people, but Ardy became aware once again of their presence, and of the presence of the world in general once again, for the world had been stopped, suspended for what seemed to him a very long time.
As the rest of his family joined him, he was now the lead person in the group. Ardy felt taller as he made his way, Gwen, Lance, and Mama behind, to the racetrack by the woods. As he did, he thought about what just happened.
By challenging The Cutter, Ardy forced himself to deal with the reality of what to do about him. He decided not to run. Facing his fear brought about the truth in the Cutter and in him. He was no longer afraid, but saw the good in the cutter, in his actions and mission. The Cutter taught him that fear is part of life. To ignore it is not reality, but the world needs to teach children to fear, not throw all of it at them at once. The Cutter taught him to fear, but in a gentle and silent way. It was kind of like going to the doctor for a shot. What did Mama call it? Inoculation. That’s where a little sick is let inside of you, enough to ward off the bigger sick. The Cutter was like that to him. Ardy knew there was a world of evil out beyond the woods, the highway, and the farm. In the Fort there are barrels, in the world there are the concrete towers of Three Mile Island. In the Fort, it’s the Cutter’s mask, in the world, it’s the green and black ski masks of those gun people on the news. The dark of the mine is better than the dark of divorce, drugs, or dungeons–things he only thought about in his worst dreams.
On the edge of the trees, the woods that they saw from the highway, was the the racetrack, a packed-down dirt path that encircled a single wooden grave marker in the middle of stubbly grass. Lance and Gwen immediately ran up to it.
“There it is!” Gwen said. The gray, weathered wooden marker was a simple piece of plywood with a rusty scissors fastened with equally rusty, bent nails, so it was suspended with it’s long finger-like blades upward to the sky. Lance touched it and tried to place his hands in the circles to see if it actually worked.
“Get your hands off,” Gwen said to Lance. “That thing’s scary. I don’t like looking at it.” Lance continued to try to get some movement out of the shears.
“You could get poked,” Mama said. “That would be just great getting poked by a rusty piece of metal. You’d have to go get a tetanus shot. Do you want that?”
Mama was often warning the children about having to see the doctor or get a shot. Maybe that was her mild introduction to fear.
There already were people walking the path, moving clockwise, all in the same direction. They turned their heads when they reached an angle where they could view the Cutter’s tool, Some made comments. Ardy could hear a little of what they said passing by. Weird, Strange, What’s it mean?, We came all this way for this?, and other things, some he could not distinguish. A young couple strode at a brisk pace as if the track were a fitness trail. Some stared. Some oblivious. Some frightened. Ardy was none of these. Ardy’s emotions consisted of admiration, mainly, and empathy.
Everyone rotated around the path, some seeing the Cutter as just a scissors, a scary thing, but Ardy saw a man concerned. The Cutter stood for something, the old man as the Cutter stood for something, too. He taught us that we can cut out of the world some of the wrong there in it. Ardy wished, at that moment, when he came to die, there would be something as concrete as a scissors on his tombstone; a guitar, a feather pen, a train, a gear, or a hammer. Maybe the whole world loved its paper money so much that everyone in the future would have a dollar bill on the back of their stones, everyone but the Cutter. Maybe the one who is unshackled best stands for something. Maybe the ones who only follow blindly are really tied to the world without flexibility and freedom. Maybe Ardy would become the Cutter’s successor, by virtue of his stepping out of the crowd, by virtue of his going against the whole world and himself. Ardy imagined, just then, that the rusty shears pointed upward, sliced the very sky in half, and that feeling was glorious inside of him. As Gwen, Mama, and Lance joined the others in their encircling, Ardy gazed at the simple tool until everything else disappeared. Standing up, he spoke a final thank you, nothing more.
Short Stories
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