Point and Shoot, FL (YU)—We bathed
in the river after work.
I
kept a sharp lookout for alligator snapping turtles. One could bite your weenie off in a minute.
They
had a red tongue and yellow eye and jaws that would snap a hoe handle in
half. Green moss on their backs.
The
skeleton of the mastodon in the
Giants
roamed the earth back then. Archaic
Indians. I often wonder if the Curse of
the Pharaohs is on me, for digging up that mandible with the jasper celt.
We
would take the john boat up a tidal creek as far as we could go, then get out
and walk the rest of the way to the site.
There
were deer flies, dog flies, horse flies, mosquitoes that could fuck a cow
standing flat-footed, water moccasins, rattlesnakes, coral snakes, king snakes,
that looked like coral snakes, when you turned the black plastic we covered the
squares with, in the morning, back.
Scorpions, black widow spiders, banana spiders.
We took the squares down in .2’ levels. Two-tenths of a foot. The plot books, and stadia rod, were in feet and tenths, rather than feet and inches.
We dug five-foot squares, instead of ten-foot squares.
That’s 5’ x 10’ rather than 10’ x 10’.
Scrib and Tree each dug a square. That way they would compete with each other.
Dick sifted the dirt from both squares.
He shoveled it into the sifter basket, rolled the dirt through, picked out the artifacts, and bagged them, by square and level, by himself.
That is, he worked twice as hard as Tree and Scrib.
At the end of the day they carried the bagged artifacts out, along with the tools.
Dick would make a pot of coffee and Scrib and Tree would wash artifacts and set them out on a screen to dry. After supper, they would rebag them.
They talked about what was coming up in the squares when they washed artifacts.
Dick had a 24-cup coffeemaker in the trailer. He and Scrib drank a pot in the morning, before work, counting filling the Thermos, and a pot after work, before bed. They also drank coffee with their supper at the Ship’s Cove Café, instead of iced tea.
Those boys could drink some coffee.
It caused them to piss a lot.
They shit in the woods.
The mosquitoes would bite your ass when you took a shit.
You got where you were right quick about your business, in the woods. Because of the mosquitoes.
Scrib didn’t use bug spray because you sweat it off.
He believed the mosquitoes didn’t bother the Indians. The trick was to acclimate yourself. Think like an Indian.
Hemingway used the second person in A Moveable Feast because it involved the reader, he thought, but Mary changed it to third person. When his grandson did the Restored Edition, he changed it back.
God save a writer from his editors. Especially if they have an ax to grind.
A. E. Hotchner sided with Mary.
Of course he would.
One day they were excavating a feature and had to stay until they finished.
They worked later than usual. Until dusk.
Crepuscular, like the bullbat. Minerva’s Owl takes flight in the gathering dusk, Hegel said.
Scrib made a sign for the slough next to the site, Slough of Despond, after Dante.
They had to walk the john boat out through the tidal creek, picking it up, in places, to ford it over rocks on the bottom.
Sharp rocks, that would cut your sneakers, or deck shoes.
Scrib had a pair of $2 deck shoes from K Mart. And sawed-off camo shorts. Or fatigue pants.
He worked barefoot in the squares but wore his shoes going to and from the site.
The shoes got wet and dried out so often he went through several pairs that summer.
Monk called a tune “Crepuscule with Nellie.”
All the way out, to the river, when they could get in the boat and ride, Scrib thought about alligator snapping turtles, in the creek. He had seen one in the creek once.
It was an irrational fear, but there you were. Scrib was scared of snapping turtles.
I could rename this “The Curse of the Pharoahs” and call it a ghost story.