Shine

The blink was unmistakable. It was from a little pixilated ball that resembled a Christmas tree ornament out of season. The tag read from Sweden with Love. I hesitated, initially out of fear that it might be a digital virus looking to spread a plague across my domain. Just a mouse click away and it’s goodbye to my vast collection of fictional masterworks that I’m convinced reside there.

But my curiosity got the best of me and fired a neural impulse across my synaptic gap to a right click of my index finger quicker than a broadside from a HMS dreadnought at the flag waving of the Jolly Roger.

Click!

And then, nothing! No blue screen of death. No nuke meltdown of my hard drive. No flaming entombment of imagined works of genius into the Grave of the Unknown Opus. Nope, not even a whimper. Just some words popping up in Courier script from a woman named Malena.

 Before my cognitive state had a chance to re-boot and connect the pixels to a face  Malena had already invited me to her upcoming wedding. The nerve. It took some jiggle-jangling of my addled brain to bring her memory into focus.

Yes, Malena of Stockholm.

Dimly, I recalled some nine years earlier she was being harassed by a seedy, lecherous SoHo bartender and still possessing a few shards of chivalry I saved her maidenhood, or what was left of it. During the next week we had a brief romance and then she like an ending in a tragic movie hopped a jet and flew home to Sweden.

First thought - ‘No can do, darling’ but as this gave away to the tug of a more generous heart forcing me to call in the ‘cavalry of more excuses’ bugles blaring: firstly, cost, secondly, out of vacation time, thirdly, the Samuel Johnson dodge  – gout, and fourthly, more time had passed since I last laid eyes on her than most killers spend in prison.

My resistance crumbled as the days passed. For one, I was touched that she even remembered me. My own family barely remembers me and we had a history.

Now, a wedding means the presentation of a gift. And a gift translates to money. At first, I resisted, thinking fancifully (later diagnosed by doctors as a temporary madness) that my mere presence would suffice. Going gift-less as a proposition brought to mind Wittgenstein’s dictum: on things that can’t be said we must pass over in silence as we must also gifts we can’t afford.  That’s why Ludwig was seldom invited to parties.

The following month I searched the city far and wide looking for the perfect gift for a woman who has everything including a fiancé willing to change his name to hers.

I started down market and worked my way up driven by overweening pride. A point is reached when prices become so stratospheric that there aren’t enough molecules in the air and lift abandons you and you crash hard to Earth.

I was somewhere on Madison Avenue having nearly succumbed to the seductive desperation of buying that expensive bauble in the powder blue Tiffany box when it hit me like a crystal bolt out of the blue. 

Moonshine.

A few years before my brothers and I had bought a log cabin nestled in the deep woods of Tennessee. Why? Not for the usual roundup of reasons like hunting, fishing or chasing hillbilly women. Our reason was more parochial. Outside of a fine investment we were looking to hedge our bet just in case America’s power grids did shut down when the clock turned over into the century.  

On a previous trip I learned of a man named Japson Smith who could get things done around The Ridge. He owned the biggest junk shop within miles. Junkers held a revered social status second only to Collectors who had been anointed the task of rounding up snakes for Pentecostal snake handling rituals.

Status in those parts was defined by what one amasses in their yard.

…

It was mid-afternoon when I pulled up to his shop. A weather beaten ‘closed’ sign hung from a string stretched across the screen door. Across the road I spotted a Dollar General store. Perhaps, I thought, they might know his whereabouts.  

Near the checkout I saw a fortyish woman of fireplug build sporting a laminated gold and black nametag that read ‘Judy’.  

“Do you know how I can get in touch with the owner of that antiques store?”

I referred to it as such as to not offend local sensibilities.

She was clueless.

Sensing her obtuseness, for the next few minutes, I tried everything short of signal flags, from a feral growl to some wildly articulated hand signals finished off by a rolling of the eyeballs not seen since the last time D.W. Griffith cranked a camera.

Her eyes drew into a severe squint, hinting at a bloodline not far removed from Mongolia. Judy did a half turn on her Chinese white injection molded heels and grabbed the nearby phone.

“I’m calling the sheriff!”

“What?” I cried, “Why?”

“Cause you act like you’ve been bit by a rabid dog, mister!”

The last thing I needed was trouble with the law and their Southern notions of justice. I spent the next minutes heatedly dissuading her of that notion.

“You mean the junk shop? Japson Smith’s dump? Why didn’t you say so?”

“Do you know where can I find him?”

 “Last house at the top of Smith Road,” she answered.

…

. I drove up Smith Road and found his mailbox at the end of it just like Judy said; the only Smith on that road. When I pulled up and got out of the car I was immediately set upon by a large Collie dog; of the attack variety. This Lassie had way too much attitude. First thought, run! But it was too late for that. Second thought that came to mind, protect my crown jewels which I did by assuming a leg position taught to me by a New York City ballerina that she swore was used by Nijinksy the night they raided Minsky’s.

From inside the house bellowed a twanging voice “Get off of ‘im Fantasia!”

Moments later a tall, fiftyish man built like an office safe appeared on the front porch. He was dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt. His long gray hair was pulled back into a braid Indian style and looped back through a baseball cap that read ‘Live to Hunt’.

“You Japson Smith?”

“Yep…” he replied, pausing slightly to give me a look over, “How’d you know where to find me?”

“Dollar General.”

“The Dollar’, he spat, rubbing the stubble on his chin, “how can I help ya?”

“I’m looking a present.”

“Antiques?”

I stared down at my shoes and nodded in the negative.

“Collectibles?”

I kicked a bit of dirt. “Not that either.”

“Some lawn booty… then?”

“Lawn what?”

“Sorry… professional jargon,” he drawled, “You’re a Northerner?”

“I came out from New York looking for a present…”

“A Yankee from New York City.” He pronounced the phrase slowly as if he was trying to dislodge a peanut caught between his teeth.

“New York City!”

“Lawn booty’s not your game, that’s fer sure.”

             “Escaping the madness?”

I just shook my head unsure of what madness he was talking about.

 “Let’s cut to the chase. What is it you’re really lookin’ fer?”

            I leaned in close and whispered, “Moonshine.”

He broke into just enough of a grin to let me see what is considered a badge of honor in those parts - a missing incisor; the good housekeeping seal of approval for moonshiners.

             “Who’s the recipient?”

            I gave him a quick back of napkin rundown of the facts. A task made no easier by his incessant humming of Billy Idol’s White Wedding.

When the music stopped he asked what I did in New York?

“Program computers.”

            “Well, c’mon inside, see my real business and check out my gear,” he said, with a hint of pride.

            Inside the split-level ranch style house he pointed to a stack of letters. “Know what them are? Purchase orders off  E-bay. Hell, I make more on-line then I do with that damned shop. But I gotta keep it open for appearances,” he said, winking.

            Japson moved in closer to me, crossing the boundaries of the ‘personal space’ box of NYC.  “Tell me, boy, what’d you really come for?” he demanded, conspiratorially. 

            “Moonshine, like I said!”
            Smith drew back and said in machine gun rat-a-tat-tat fashion, “Ya mean white lightning, don’t ya? Or rotgut? A taste of skull cracker? A dance with happy Sally or stump the peg leg?”