Free the Slave to the Summer House

There's an oppressed group in this country that Lincoln missed.

Don’t be fooled by the cabin’s inviting back deck. The house is a slave driver.

A friend of mine, who is also named Joyce, wasn’t crazy about returning to her country house this year, but she didn’t have a choice: She’s a slave to the house and she had been summoned.

“You have no idea how much work a country house is,” she tells me, as we drive up to the Catskills. “The lawn has to be mowed every few weeks, I had to replace the railing last year for the third time, there’s water in the basement. And what’s worse, the house demands I put on a happy face. It requires me to sing at least two hours a day.”

“You’re kidding,” I say. “Sing what?”

“Oh, you know, the usual field hand stuff,” Joyce says. “ ‘I am climbing Jacob’s ladder, I am climbing Jacob’s ladder. I am climbing Jacob’s ladder. ‘Cause I got to fix the roof.’ Are you sure we can get there by four?  The house is already pissed about the shrubs crowding the deck. Everything’s growing so fast this year.”

“Joyce,” I say. “I think you’re giving this house too much power. What’s it going to do if you’re a little late?”

“You know what it’s like to be in a country house when the toilet stops working?” Joyce says.

“We’ll skip the Roscoe diner,” I say.

I should say a few words about Joyce’s house. It’s a two-story log cabin, on a mountain overlooking a reservoir, that Joyce and her late husband Gary built fifty years ago. Gary did special effects and explosions for movies and could build and fix anything. That was a good thing, as the cabin is so remote that for years the electric and phone companies refused to run lines. Electricity came from a generator Gary installed that that ran on gas. Phone communication involved radio transmission and prayer.

The cabin always required work – whenever I arrived, Gary was going somewhere with a wrench, which over the years had become embedded in his hand. He also had a tractor, which he slept with. Since his death, several years ago, the cabin had become increasingly demanding. For instance, there are at least twenty wooden Adirondack chairs, weighing between 100 and 150 pounds, which have to be covered with tarps and dragged under over-hangs every winter, then dragged back out on the house’s three decks every summer. The dirt road leading to the cabin gets so deeply rutted, Joyce, driving a truck, once rolled. The plumbing is moody.

“We won’t have electricity or water when we first go up,” Joyce tells me when she first asks me to drive her. “But I’m used to roughing it. We can just squat in the woods.”

“Call me when you’re back in the city,” I say.

A day later, Joyce texts me that a friend has turned on the water and electricity, so off we go, hauling two-gallon jugs of water, as the water in the cabin does not seem to be running clean. The steep dirt road leading to the cabin is gutted, bringing back memories of the terrifying days I used to take this road in my Miata. The ground clearance of the Miata was 5.5 inches. Now that I drive a Mustang, which has a ground clearance of 6.7 inches, I am much more relaxed.

“Mother fuck!!!!” the Mustang howls as I turn onto the road.

The cabin, when we pull in, is not in a good mood.

“Do you see that grass?” it hollers at Joyce, as we pull up. “It’s a foot high! I look unkempt. Anybody hiking up the mountain would think I was deserted!”

“Sorry,” Joyce says, struggling under the weight of two two-gallon jugs of water.

“Sorry, what?” thunders the cabin.

“Sorry, Massa House,” Joyce says.

“Massa House, Sir,” the cabin yells.

And to me, “Hello, candy ass. I’ll be sending an eagle over later to shit on your car.”

The electricity is indeed working, but I spot a note Joyce’s friend has left on the stove, an appliance which dates back to the ‘40s and is either charming or deadly, depending on your temperament.

“Right burner does not work,” the note reads. “Possibly dangerous. Do not attempt to light.”

I alert Joyce.

“Aaah, that’s nothing,” Joyce hollers from another room. “It’s been that way for years. But don’t use the downstairs toilet.”

The cabin snickers.

“That’ll teach you to let the lawn go,” it says.

“It cost $900 to get the property mowed and cleared this June,” Joyce says, in a burst of rebellion. “I can’t do it every two weeks.”

The cabin rattles its walls.

“I can’t do it every two weeks, Massa House, Sir,” it yells. “And make sure the plumber for the downstairs toilet is licensed. Unless you want to hear the musical gurgling of overflow in the middle of the night.”

The upstairs toilet is up a rustic winding staircase, but of course there are handrails, made from bent branches, which are substantial enough to absorb your screams. Also the mice, which are never in short supply in the country, have left their regards in the bathtub. Also, the bed in the downstairs bedroom, where I usually sleep, is piled with deck chair cushions. The insect dead, who valiantly fought the immovable window panes, have fallen here as well.

I sleep on the couch in the living room.

It is, as you can see, a cozy room. The chairs and sofas are covered with faded, flowery ‘30’s fabrics in wine and green, there’s a cast-iron wood stove and stacks of books.  The night is hot and humid, but there’s the promise of rain. It hits just as I realize I need a bathroom.

I go outside and squat, in harmony with nature; me drizzling the earth, the night sky drizzling me.

Behind me, the cabin laughs.