The Nation.



'The Way Life Should Be'

By Janwillem van de Wetering

This article appeared in the September 1, 2003 edition of The Nation.

August 14, 2003

Maine is big, and has a long coastline. I mostly know about the coastline, where I live. There were, in the almost thirty years I have enjoyed life here, a few expeditions inland, cross-state to Montreal and Quebec City and New Brunswick. Bad roads, strange people, some holding shotguns, not loaded but broken open, and as I drove by the strange people kept one hand in one pocket, no doubt holding some perfectly good shells. I drove into a gas station and nobody came out to pump--yes, a regular pump, with a glass cylinder filled with orange-colored gas and a handle. I went in and there were strange people, one in a wheelchair. I said I needed gas and the person in the wheelchair asked why. Someone locked the door behind me and we sat around for a while, looking at each other. "I am from away," I said, and a hairy person said, "No kidding." Were they going to rob me? After killing me, of course? Any torture? Did I care?

I remembered my coastal neighbor, a gnarled man named Jezz, leaning down from the antique that he says is a tractor, after I shouted up that there was a dead raccoon in my pond. "In Maine, if you don't care," Jezz shouted, "it don't matter."

"Do I care?" I asked the wheelchair person.

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About Janwillem van de Wetering

Janwillem van de Wetering is the author of a series of police procedurals set in Amsterdam and books on Zen. more...
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