Chapter 50
Adjustment and Moving On.
Indian Summer visits the northern shores of lake Michigan unfailing. Some years it lasts two weeks arriving in mid to late September, then vanishes as cold descends and the trees change early. In other years it lingers, off and on for over a month, a period of calm breezes extending into the middle of October as the trees turn bright red and gold becoming dirty brown by Halloween, and in some years the first snow… overall a peaceful progression from summer to winter, finishing with amazing beauty until the trees grow barren of leaves on their way to November 15th and hunting season, which this year will be the one-year anniversary of Tim Stevens’ death… November 15th when the snow may already cover the ground with cold temperatures, or when Indian summer sometimes reappears for a day or two with temperatures extending into the low seventies, a final shock of warmth before the gales arrive followed by the blizzards of sometime early, sometimes late December.
Fall then winter, these seasons have not changed much in Northern Michigan despite global warming. And in the late nineties the weather of fall and early winter will be much the same as it would be today, uncertain, the light departing, the days growing shorter, the sun every day a bit further south, the hours of daylight less, the gloom descending.
But it will be a more positive year than last, with Wilson assured of payment, and his crew of work, as the town supports Daphne who combines with Indian Dick representing the Chippewa, aided by Smythe and Feely, Bloom and the University of Michigan, to make Chateau Daphne certain… For now, and for the next year or three or for forever, the only residence in Longbottom’s now canceled estates. As the circumstance of relic reality and economic crash take hold, development has ended. New property owners’ dreams have been placed on hold, and prospective owners have vanished. Leonard Longbottom is in trouble, lawsuits hover. These are not happy days for Longbottom.
Chateau Daphne will continue, with Wilson in charge, as directed by Daphne and a new estate managed consortium of The Chippewa, Bloom, and Janet Wainwrights newly established Committee for The Point, and Longbottom (trying to save his ass…) Work will continue and decisions will be made.
As for building… This fall, the men who build Chateau Daphne are not as haunted by the coming winter as they were the previous year. They are less concerned, less fearful of frozen fingers, and the inefficiencies of building through the coming squalls and blizzards. Because this year, unlike last, the house will be closed in. This year, they will be inside and finishing.
With much to do between the tile and interior marble, the kitchens, the details, the trim, the coves and crowns, the head blocks and base blocks, the installing of doors and mortising of locks, the installation of floors and finishing, the stair railings… The many details, not to mention the painting, the flats and shines of many coats, enamels here, flat wall there, and also Daphne’s wall papers.
The structure will not be finished until spring, this is certain, but it will be finish-work… complete with different scents of accomplishment, more chemical, cleaner, varnish and enamel, shaved corion counters and final finish epoxies. A lot to accomplish, this year, and the coming new one, and this year and the coming winter they will be inside, in warmth from temporary heaters, and then eventually the network of pipes and fans and furnaces that will heat the house into the next century.
**********
The first week of October- the men, Wilson, Indian Dick, Randy, Dean, Waltner and the others have helped Wilson disassemble his turret stair and haul the parts downstairs, the stringers and the treads, those already mortised and those not, all of it to be reassembled with a final sanding, to sit waiting in the Great room for the perfect weather, for two days of October, when Indian Summer shines. When they will haul the completed stair outside, where it will be carefully balanced vertical and then attached to the crane and cable, to soar skyward across the roof’s ridges to the entrance side of the house, with the turret on the north side of the entrance, to hang in waiting, in preamble, to be lowered, carefully, slowly, then placed, dropped inserted into its final ship in a bottle forever location.
For as long as Chateau Daphne lasts, enclosed in the rising turret, upstairs and down, in the corner where the Northern Great room wall meets the angled transition that becomes the split garages, on the main level, and into the hallway to the greater 2nd floor where it intersects the haul that becomes the servants’ quarters, the 695 square foot apartment above the split garage.
There are three stairs in Chateau Daphne and this one circles from the main floor upwards, the other stairway on the other side of the Great room bridge goes both up and down, three floors, a third goes downwards from the main level kitchen into the cavern of the lower catacomb, the cobwebbed wine room and beyond. All the stairs are, or will be when finished of a quality equal to the finest furniture, but this stair from the main floor upwards is the most interesting, and the most curvaceous/interesting/courageous, a spiral helix imitation of the DNA molecule, but much, much, larger, made of polished bent and fabricated red oak. Wilson’s months long project, his craftsman contribution to the finished house… The project that occupied his non managerial moments through the months of summer.
And today is the day, the weather watched, the sun shining. Temperatures will rise from 48 degrees to 72 by late afternoon. The crane is coming and this day the stair will travel briefly across the sky to be lowered into its permanent location.
Dick and Randy are on the Turret early, perched like medieval Gargoyles, Randy in deep conversation, Indian Dick pretending to listen. They squat on the turret drinking coffee, preparing to remove the bituthene waterproofing from where it covers the turret's cap bolts, preparing to remove the nuts and bolts, then Randy supports Dick as he climbs and slithers to the turret's peak in order to cut a hole to attach the crane’s cable. Because, before they can drop the stairway into place, first they must remove the turret top.
Imagine, a black witches cap of bituthene coated plywood and 2x12’s, an inverted fabricated cone, a piece of the roof, of Chateau Daphne sent temporarily flying, floating, a singular unit built to withstand such abuse sailing through the air to be deposited temporarily on the tarmac while the stair is lowered into its permanent location.
The cap, like the stairs, has been built with this in mind. And before the day is out, barring disaster, the stair will be inserted into the cylinder and the cap repositioned and waterproofed permanently into place. The next days, the cap will be shingled with a lightning rod on top. And with this the roof of Chateau Daphne will be finalized, finished except for some soffit screens, 1x4’s, 1x8’s and 6’s attaching to the underside of the rafters in inverted steps—one more bit of sculptured staggered shadows that make the building special and an ‘Abernathy'. Details, Details, Details… Yes, details make the soffit, details make the house.
But details aside for now. All of this will be a very cool show, a rare event and a first for Wilson. And, a first for Wilson likely means no one else in Beauville or the surrounding towns—possibly no one in the state, has had the idea for such an activity.
Some of the worker’s girlfriends and wives will be there to observe this bit of ‘something special’. Daphne will be arriving shortly, and also Brown, and Janet Wainright. And possibly even Joe Beauville with his satellite truck, if someone has informed WBCD’s morning show… What’s Up—It’s Michigan.
And… No, if you are imagining… Janet has not composed any music. She has been too busy with her Committee for the Point. So, the day is not to be a fete. The pumpkin patch women will not be arriving, unless they have come individually for the weather and this unique event, sans hats, pumpkin heads, or festive bunting.
It is beautiful fall, not a cloud anywhere, except one or two that have escaped the conformity of the wide blue sky, white dollops, dots along the mid-horizon. It will be a glorious day, a productive morning, and if all goes as planned, a satisfied and satisfactory afternoon that will eventually adjourn to the warmth and tall tale telling comradery of MacGuilties.
So, it is likely there will be a small crowd assembled… Those who have adopted Daphne… Assorted Beauvillians, a construction class, adolescents, the high school and the junior high, and who knows perhaps children too, 1st and 2nd grade and kindergarten, an event, a lovely day, workmen, wives and girlfriends. The High School Wood Shop, The High School Metal Shop.
It will be a great excuse to skip whatever you should be doing. And, many of those assembled will have been here once before, for this very purpose, because this is the 2nd time round for this affair—the first scheduled attempt occurring the week before until disruption as the wind arrived without prediction by the weatherman or NOA, and Wilson, alert with a sailors’ eyes and knowledge had ignored the added cost and canceled the crane. Imagining the folly and expense of a spinning turret cone sent flying, detached—a brief upended missile falling into adjacent marina’s waters or smashing crashed and broken against the ground.
He had decided wisely to absorb the added cost of a canceled crane and gamble on one more bit of Indian Summer. Fortunately for him, the workmen, the assembled Beauvillians, for Daphne, Janet, Brown and Conrad, and for the crane operator’s wages and the crane company’s coffers, and for a finished Chateau Daphne—Indian Summer had obliged.
With Conrad now observing as he watches the stairway rise.
“I see it spinning, and rising high. May it not come crashing down, a twisted helix, a smashed, goodbye.”
And briefly, it seemed that a sudden gust might have made Conrad prophetic. But the gust was only one, soon gone and just a warning of the wisdom of Wilson's earlier postponement… A good thing, because the project had already experienced enough drama, enough twists and turns, for five houses.
By late afternoon, the stair was sealed in its cylinder and the early evening at MacGuilties was inebriated underway. It was as if the Gods, the fates of life had decided that they, that God had-perhaps, Job like, fucked with Wilson now too much. It was time to move on, to hassle and disturb some other humans. Hello Wilson, and goodbye. ‘Hey grasshopper- it is time for change accompanied by tranquility.’ As Wilson imagines the spirits dancing down the road.
…………………………..
By early November it is certain chaos has moved elsewhere, given up as the completion of Chateau Daphne moves forward with no hiccups, financial or otherwise. After all the turmoil, the project finds peace. And by the middle of December Wilson is gazing at the snow, un-shoveled on the deck outside the window, as he sips a beer, settling in to the furniture, adjusting to the cold stark beautiful gloom of another Michigan winter, thinking of skiing, the past, and mountains where the winter weather was much more on the sunny side.
He will have money by the spring, enough to change… move and support this house for a while, move back to the mountains. Though, his comfort, financial, mental, and otherwise, will be temporary without income, unless….
He can see the finished Chateau Daphne in his mind’s eye, bright and shining inside, outside awaiting age and ivy… pondering, feeling good enough to imagine a different, a returning future, a different ‘once upon a time’ … where his house might sell in some massive Santa Christmas present, ho-ho-ho gift to Wilson, a Christmas pile of dollars for him, representing both loss and freedom. If such a thing might happen… no house, but freedom…and enough money to buy a hundred thousand Santa hats.
Maybe? The whiskey glittered from the fire, built on a whim, unnecessary, and now smoking, until he adjusts the damper as dusk turns to night.
Maybe he might? Cash it all in. Quit…again! Find some different area, a new, a renewed creativity. There is nothing on the schedule…no lots he is eyeing… And perhaps, if he ever unloaded his wonder of a house? Would that be it for spec house peril and freedom, building for oneself more than the market in his case? Perhaps there would be no more spec houses? It had been a fun and wondrous creative ride- This house, other houses, his twenty years of building adventure, but as fulfilling, as joyful, as self-satisfying as it had been, he could not risk it again, or not now at any rate, the big bucks payments and uncertainty of his last five years…. Was he becoming too old for uncertainty?
He imagined the freedom of no debt, no payments, and then he thought back to five years previous when debt had been his friend. Debt was great, if you were already loaded, or consumed by work, a constant machine of commerce, but not so great if you pledged it all, everything on the black ball or the red letter of life, only to find your life evolving into some form of financial roll the dice-snake eyes.
Yes, if he could build for himself-he would. But then what would be left to live on, if his house were to sell, if he cashed out? The future, more houses meant more productivity, more creative joy, more progress, but also more treadmill, more hamster on a forever spinning wheel… A hamster with a Wilson head. He thought of that scene in the movie Oh Lucky Man where the human head is attached, as the sheet is lifted back to reveal the young male human head attached to the body of a pig…Then he imagines a cute little hamster fur rat body spinning with Wilson’s own head a-top. Would he, will he, just keep spinning until his bearings finally slow and crawl and screech to silence, death, the end, and all worn out?
The whiskey flows.
In his mind’s eye he sees himself, electrodes attached, chest naked and steaming, sweat pouring from his face racing on some lifestyle treadmill, measuring his progress to the grave. And then the imaginary bells are tolling and he returns to reality, pours some more whiskey in his glass then walks across the room to put on Cavalleria Rusticana.
The fact was that Chateau Daphne had worn him out, had wrung his soul and substance of any desire to build again. And designing, well perhaps on occasion he might and if special, but that is what he had said to himself when Tim had first called… No-No-No, never-never… not now, no more people, no more clients, not if he could afford it. Do not let lust for achievement turn you, yet again, into a hamster! Do presidents know that even they are simply spinning? That history repeats. That even Napoleon was Tolstoy’s War and Peace trained monkey.
Peace, warmth, comfort, money, security for now… And Christmas on its way.
……………………………………………………………………………………
Dec 15th. Wilson examines the schedule, he makes reservations, he waits for the Daphne party, which turns into a party for Daphne and Janet Wainright and many Beauvillians, not including the workmen who have their own party, but including Indian Dick and Liz, even Grace and her Bond trader show up unexpected. But from Grand Rapids... there is almost no one. Except for Margie, no one bothers. The men of Trustworthy are busy, and Daphne would not have wanted them there anyway, and Cortland… Well, he arrived and hissed and kissed and then departed, the energy too strange.
And as Christmas descends on the month as it follows the shortest day, Wilson thinks of Colorado Decembers where the sun is bright, where the temperatures even if ten or twenty below in early morning will rise to thirty, dry air and sun and where outside when working facing south, on a buildings southern side one might strip to a t-shirt during the months of January, February and December. Not in Michigan he thinks as he watches the sky go dark and cold, and the trees across his small bay vanish pausing on the view for a moment, shifting thoughts, in summer he would be gazing across the bay for three hours yet, but summer’s past, history for the moment.
He remembers, growing up in Michigan, then those first post-college years in Colorado, where in winter it was usually sunny, and the days were longer, and where any day spent reading or inside was filled with Northern Michigan guilt, guilt because on nice days, if you lived in Michigan, you went outside.
He longs for younger days. He longs for Colorado. If he were free, he would be going there. But, of course in his case freedom conflicts with achievement, or at least the freedom to flee does, because Chateau Daphne waits, its finish now a certainty, the money there. Yet, he remains the structures slave. He cannot depart until he finishes her. He has lately begun to think of his building as feminine... probably the result of Daphne. But still he contemplates, springtime and the future, new endeavors… Retracing his path back West-again, contemplating change and its incumbent difficulties.
LATER… He ponders the difficulty of new paths, corridors of life, as they frequently have new doors waiting to be opened. It is how we reach, how we approach these doors that makes the moment, defines the past and shapes the future.
What were these mechanics of life and time and place? Did man wish change, or were we molded, forced, attacked by life and mood and neurosis, a need for security… Sent screaming out the last door from some nasty bit of fate, or some former lover? In the latter case, he knows that the door is closed, and alone all he must do is have the courage and commitment of the path and the ability/courage to open a next emerging door. Exciting, eventful... hurrah for you, hurrah for me. But then there are the more ambiguous and likely more frequent occurrences in lives and life where there is ennui and loss in the shutting of the old door, even as this is necessary to open the new one. Bittersweet may be the word I seek, a place where hope and loss exist entwined, where just enough balance tilts the beam, the new door winning out with dreams and hope, as the past departs—good, triumphant, bad, the past with all its complexity turning into memories… loss… Bittersweet.
Until—Eventually selective memory takes hold. We forget… of course… To save ourselves.
Bittersweet or not, there is no way Wilson cannot finish… perhaps one trip West to ski, but maybe not? He could just wait, finish Chateau Daphne, reach spring and move West in summer. This would be easier. But in summer, there was the boat, the Anomie would beckon. And he knew she would not sell like gold or silver. Every year there were more fiberglass boats. Yachts that, even in disrepair, would never get dry rot and rot away. Old boats were becoming a dime a dozen… And his model, a great boat, and improved by him… She was a ‘Chevrolet’, and there were thousands of them. Scarcity would provide no help with selling.