Good News from North Haven by Michael L. Lindvall

Author:Michael L. Lindvall
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Crossroad Publishing Company

– 10 –

Lamont Wilcox’s Boat

There really is no such thing as privacy in a town like this. As in all the villages that ever were, people pretty much know and have always known each other’s business. Current notions of privacy and anonymity are urban luxuries. The anonymity of city apartment blocks and the privacy of detached suburban ranch homes do offer a certain liberation. They also offer danger. Since the dawn of time, the question “But what will people think?” has put a fence around even vaguely aberrant behavior. If nobody knows or cares, the fence is gone. Terrible things can happen. Wonderful things, too.

People who want to be different, or simply are different, have three choices in a place like this. First, they can leave. A lot of them do, which is why places like Mankato and New York City are full of strange and creative people. These people mostly came from someplace else, often someplace small, where life would have been uphill had they stayed.

The second choice for people who are different is to stay and try to be extraordinarily discreet. This seldom works for long. The third alternative for different people is to stay and become a local character. Every town has a few. Often, such local characters are, in time, not just tolerated, but veritably celebrated with the knowing smiles of a resigned acceptance. A lot of small towns even take a certain pride in their characters. But they are talked about. To stay is a brave choice.

Larry Wilcox’s older brother, Lamont, chose to stay. That is, he chose to stay until three years ago last spring. Lamont left town when he was forty-eight. His manner of leaving was the most dramatic exit anybody in North Haven remembers. (Second place in dramatic exits is usually assigned to my predecessor, the Reverend Mr. Paulsen, whose story I have already told you.)

People talked about Lamont on a number of counts. Most conspicuously, he didn’t work. More precisely, he didn’t work at anything that earned money to support himself and his family. He had inherited the farm, such as it was, leased out the tillable acreage, and lived in the farmhouse. The white paint has been peeling off the house for as long as anybody can remember. Bales of hay are stacked around the foundation to keep the cold out.

People also talked about Lamont because “he drank.” In local parlance, “to drink” means to drink to excess and implies alcoholism. This was clearly the case with Lamont, who “drank” since he was in high school. There are any number of private alcoholics in town, but Lamont was thoroughly public in his insobriety. All his drinking was done at the Blue Spruce Bar and Grille. But he only drank in the evening, which began about three-thirty.

What people mostly talked about, however, was the boat Lamont was building in the barn next to the farmhouse. He had started work on the boat in the summer of 1959 after finishing the last of C.

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