Driftwood

 by B. J. Carter
Coastal Journal staff

A man named Russ called me on Black Friday and told me about a driftwood rocking horse he had made in the last year.  He told me that, last he knew, it was on a mantle in Bookland.  He considered himself an artist as an afterthought, something his friends believed about him but he was unsure of, animating the remains of trees set adrift in the uncaring Androscoggin River.  He wondered if he might come to the office and see me. 

He came with a white plastic bag and a face hardened with pain.  His eyes spoke of a haunting; sadness deepening with time, regret.  Hope. 

We exchanged faint pleasantries about Thanksgiving, the onset of winter, Christmas looming, but they sputtered as soon as they began.  Time to address the moment's question.

He opened the plastic bag and produced a slender pile of images-a few Polaroids, printouts.  The subject of these photographs was driftwood twisting into floor lamps, clocks, and a rocking horse.  Somehow, the wood looked traumatized, like blasted stumps of trees in lightning, in spirit if not in actual form.  He told me that he had begun working with driftwood within the last year, and that, as far as he knew, what he was producing was “unique.”

We returned to that word several times.  It had several different meanings to him, only a few of them translatable to me.  He spoke in quiet marvel of the medium, of the scarcity of rocking horses, of the absolute rarity of a driftwood rocking horse.   He spoke of the Androscoggin's wierd power, the only place he had ever come across in Maine with so much driftwood in it.  And he spoke of spirituality, the healing that ensued as he built that rocking horse, made free of nails. 

This he read from two folded sheets of paper, apparently conscious that these words might make for compelling storytelling.  He was less forthcoming with the details of what exactly it was he was healing from.  What he did manage was that he had last lost his boys some time ago, not in the ultimate way, but in a manner no less profound, and that the subsequent years of torment forced a change in his life plan.  He turned to God and driftwood.

We talked about what he hoped to do with his driftwood monuments, and here he admitted that he hadn't figured that out yet.  If someone took an interest in his work and wanted to commission it, he was not opposed.  In fact he had been approached by a few individuals with similar propositions, and he was currently weighing his options.  He had just moved from Auburn to Bath and was trying to orient himself in his new community of artists.

But this art had no real, designated place except in the most private of venues.  All Russ knew was that his art was unique and necessary to him.  Which, I suppose, was why he came to me.  He wanted to tell somebody.

He gathered his things, we walked down the steps to the outer door of the office.  I took his picture, twice, and offered my thanks for his story.  He shook my hand, twice, and offered his thanks.  He said, “This feels really good.”  I could only nod to that.

He descended the steps of the porch, and I continued to watch him through the window in the door.  I'm not sure why.