AUGUST 23, 2023 – UB served as navigator to Route 17 leading north. We then fell silent, as UB opened up the day’s edition of The Times. After a few miles, though, I glanced over and noticed that his hands had sagged and the paper, still open, had crumpled onto itself. UB’s chin was on his chest.
I felt a certain relief. With UB sound asleep, it seemed easier to ponder further the awful revelations of the night before. I wondered what the day would be like, UB and I getting together with Nina and Jenny at The Escape Hatch, with I knowing all and my sisters not knowing or even suspecting anything. How weird would that be? How would I ever be able to keep the secret from them?
After two hours of driving and a couple of rest stops, including one for gas (for which I paid), we arrived at the Amtrak station in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, where the plan was to meet the Bostonians coming south and west, and the New Yorkers, coming along a route parallel to the freeway along which UB and I had flown the cargo plane. We would then rent a minivan, since there was no way we would all be able to fit into the cargo plane, even without all of its cargo.
To my relief, within minutes after he and I had landed at the station, UB announced that he would drive ahead to Hamburg to pick up his cousin Anna, just two doors down from The Escape Hatch and take her out to lunch. This would allow Nina, Jenny and me time to talk at length about matters in New Jersey—other than what Cliff had revealed—as well as the condition and future of The Escape Hatch, which, I knew, Nina wanted so desperately to rehabilitate so that it could be enjoyed again.
My sisters’ arrivals were like scenes from nostalgic paintings. First Jenny arrived with her young daughter Maia. They were helped off the train by a kindly conductor several carriages down to the left from where I was standing on the station platform. I ran to them and helped escort them back to the entryway into the station. Just then, the Metroliner from Boston arrived, and Nina and her younger daughter Erica stepped down from a carriage off to my right. I dashed to them, and we greeted each other with warm hugs.
Our drive to Hamburg Cove was a trip through a paradise each of us remembered clearly from childhood. The first part ran along the east shore of the Connecticut River, where we caught glimpses of moored pleasure boats—ready for painters to set up their easels and capture the idyllic scenes. All of us remarked about how beautiful it all appeared. It reminded Nina of the occasion when she had been riding with Gaga and Grandpa along the very same stretch of road. “I said, ‘Look! It’s just like Holland,’” Nina said, “except I’d never been to Holland, and neither had Gaga. In her inimitable way, Gaga said, ‘I wouldn’t know what Holland looks like, since I’ve never been there,’ as if to say, ‘Know whereof you speak.’” We all laughed at this anecdote, and it seemed to bring Gaga alive for a moment.
It surprised me to learn that Jenny hadn’t been down that road to Hamburg Cove in over 27 years. It had been a full 14 years since I myself had traveled it. Even for Nina, who by then had been making fairly regular trips to Hamburg, this was a drive down nostalgic lane.
The weather conditions—sunny and beautiful—enhanced the scenery, but as we wound our way past field and farm, I realized how positively heavenly the area really was. Stone fences, rolling terrain, old Yankee dwellings, some large, some small, all neat, all quaint and picturesque. Everywhere we looked, we saw only scenes to grace a calendar—a New England calendar, I thought, like the ones back in 1941 that Mother had unwittingly exchanged with her grandmother, who, in turn, had been told by the “bad side of the family,” according to UB, that Mother had merely returned the gift. But I consciously shoved that unhappy thought out of my mind. This scenery was quintessentially New England, well preserved, and enhanced by the fruit of human labor.
My sisters had allowed me to drive, so I was behind the wheel, but no matter how slowly I drove the minivan, it was too fast, and the closer we drew to the hamlet of Hamburg, the more distant I felt from the present. At once, I felt like a young boy again but also like an old man.
All else in the vehicle grew quiet to me as I silently recalled the many trips I had taken down that road during the weekends when UB, Gaga and Grandpa and their visitors—Mother, Jenny, and I—retreated from Rutherford. Even then, in my early youth, I loved these scenes, each of which I had framed and hung in my boyhood memory gallery of favorite places.
My frustration, I remember, had been my lack of means to explore in depth this very countryside. I had wanted to ride a bicycle down the quaint, country roads that peeled off the main road, which, itself, was an old country road; to hike through the woods and run across the small fields; to run along the stonewalls and step through split rail fences; to explore Lower Hamburg Cove, the Connecticut River—upstream and downstream to Long Island Sound. I had wanted so much to bask in the summer sunshine and embrace the beauty all around this place so tightly I could squeeze it into my heart and soul so that it was one with me and I with it. But none of these desires had been satisfied. My elders had been either incapable or non-desirous—I wasn’t sure which—of allowing or accommodating my yearnings. My love for the land, for the country went unrequited, and in the course of each departure from it, I felt sad and unfulfilled.
Chasing my recollections were what I imagined to be the feelings of an old man, who after an extended absence from paradise had the happy chance to return—but then, in the event, experienced only sadness and the failure to find fulfillment. Now, as in the days of his youth, the old man yearned to leap from the vehicle and charge into the countryside, to become a part of this paradise that unfolded without limit around every bend, over every hill, down every road. He had business to attend to on this trip and time so short it could be measured in hours. An enormous sense of loss and grief welled up in his heart, as he saw in the fleeting scenery, all that could have been but wasn’t to be.
Upon reaching the intersection of Hamburg Road on which we’d traveled from the south, and Cove Road, where we’d normally turn left to Oakland Avenue, I turned to the right and drove north past the general store and the old Congregational church. We then exited the main road and slipped down Old Hamburg Road to the arch bridge across the Eight Mile River. We were all rather ecstatic over the quaint, picturesque scenery that surrounded us. Nina and Jenny were effusive with their emotions, as if we were the lone visitors in a museum of landscape masterpieces, and their interjections gave full expression to my own deep feelings about the place, the paradise into which we had magically traveled. We proceeded slowly down Joshuatown Road overlooking the north side of the cove and from this perspective we caught glimpses—our first—of the ground, the hallowed acre and a quarter, that had been part of the land grant from the King of England to our ancestor, the Earl of Huntley, in 1635.
After lingering for a time there, each of us absorbed in the same deep response to gazing upon that special place, I turned the minivan around and retraced our route through Hamburg and on up to the top of the hill, where we turned onto Oakland.
We proceeded slowly past the “orchard” where in retirement our great grandfather had cultivated various fruit trees and rose bushes. One overgrown pear tree survived, along with a giant rosebush now completely camouflaged by grape vines. The hedge along the road, once kept so neatly trimmed (as I’d seen in photos from the twenties), was now a mass of forlorn and forgotten anonymous vegetation waiting stoically for succor and attention.
At the break in the green mass, I turned the minivan slowly between the entrance pillars, still as straight and strong as they were the day the stonemasons had finished them three years before the outbreak of WW I. Long gone from the pillar tops were the electric globe lamps that had served as welcoming beacons.
Ahead of us stood the house, but gone was the Escape Hatch sign. When I was a kid, that name had seemed much too lacking in dignity and elegance for a place so finely situated in a kind of Garden of Eden. Now the poor, neglected place had lost its name, its identity altogether. The structure itself looked worn, forlorn, decrepit, faded, old and frail. Lost was the hope of the young boy. What the family—what UB—had so sorely neglected made me feel like an old man.
As we pulled up to the house, I espied UB’s burgundy cargo plane down the way in Anna’s driveway. I wanted to tour the house with Nina quickly before UB appeared to quash our talk of improvements. She was the only hope for the place. Recently, she had given it considerable first aid, comfort, and support, and even the prospect of rehabilitation, all within the restrictions and vagaries of “the world according to Bruce,” as Cliff would say. She had in heart and mind what was the very best for this special corner of the earth, and I was determined to advance her efforts the best I could.
Lots more remained to be tackled, but to Nina’s considerable credit, inside the house she had brought great hope by having holes patched up, mounds of trash cleaned out, and a fresh coat of paint applied to the walls. Even the existing improvements had not come without struggles with UB, whose notions of form, shape, color, and all other elements of beauty, I thought, were so warped and distorted that they weren’t notions at all but manifestations of some extreme mix-up of cerebral chemistry.
After a tour of the interior, Nina and I walked outside to inspect the exterior. We agreed that the present occasion offered the best chance to approach UB about granting Nina control over the property and authority over improvements—along with a kitty of around $50,000 to get things started. I took notes hastily, for I knew UB would soon appear.
“The place could use a new roof,” I said to Nina, shading my eyes as I gazed up into the sunlight, “and see how the chimney on this side needs tuck-pointing? And if I were you, I’d yank off all this ugly, faded aluminum siding, which covers the original cedar shakes—why would anyone want to cover up those? The trim needs painting, the windows should be replaced, and the steps are in serious need of repair.”
We walked slowly around the house, eyeing it carefully as we did. We talked in earnest and eventually went inside to joined Jenny and the girls. Upon our finding Jenny in the kitchen, I glanced through the window and saw UB approach across the yard.
“Here he comes,” I alerted my sisters. They turned and all three of us watched him stride toward the house.
“God he’s odd,” said Jenny.
“Crazy,” Nina said. “Certifiably crazy.”
I had to remain silent. Entrusted with the secrets revealed by Cliff the night before, I couldn’t tell my sisters that UB was in far deeper territory than merely “odd” and “crazy.” But Nina and Jenny were right: on the surface UB was weird and zany.
For four days running, he had worn a mismatched, blue seersucker suit—the coat from one suit, with wide stripes, and trousers from another, with narrow stripes. Worse than that, where the sleeves joined the main part of the jacket, the seams had pulled loose. On his head, of course, was the old, ill-fitting toupee—I presumed, since morning, noon and night, inside and out, at home, in the car, and at The Diner back in Rutherford, a soiled porkpie hat had been covering the toupee ever since my arrival on the scene. And crowning all, I thought, was the fact that on the night of the fire he had wet his pants when confronted by the man in the shadows.
Within a minute after UB had entered the house and found us in the kitchen, the inevitable confrontation occurred. “So, what do you think I should do about the kitchen cabinets?” Nina asked, for UB’s consumption but as she looked directly at me. They were small, cheap, flimsy, rusted, scratched-up, very retro metal cabinets.
“I’d replace all of them,” I said, throwing a match onto the tinder of Nina’s question.
“Absolutely not!” interjected UB with the harsh tone that signaled a major shift in his mood. “These are perfectly okay. We’ll just glue vinyl material on them, and they’ll look fine.” His reaction could have been expected, but we were taken aback nonetheless.
“You don’t have to do anything here,” he shouted at us. “It’s all perfectly fine. We don’t have to go out and buy a lot of expensive things that everyone wants us to buy.” The volcano was in full, contemptuous eruption. “A shelf is a shelf. It doesn’t have to be anything new or expensive. Metal works just as well as wood. You don’t need to go changing things here just for the sake of changing them.”
As he strutted around, enjoying his harangue, I felt an impulse to storm right out of the house and right out of his life, shouting, “Fuck you, you goddamn asshole. You have no business talking to us like that! From now on, you sink or swim on your own, you jerk.”
But just as quickly, I regained reason. I feared, however, that Nina would say, “To hell with it!” as she stomped out, sat in the minivan with the doors locked, cried her eyes out, and waited for me to drive her and Erica back to the train station so they could take the next available train back to Boston and never, ever to return to Hamburg until UB was dead and buried, preferably nowhere close to the state of Connecticut. In the end, while UB continued his tirade there in the kitchen, Nina steamed, but she didn’t boil over.
Eventually UB cleared his throat and disappeared from the room. The eruption was over. Nina, Jenny and I looked at each other with unspoken resignation. Unsure about what to do or say next, we moved awkwardly out onto the back porch. There I pointed at the outbuilding that housed a garage, pump house, workshop and living quarters for “Jimmy” the family’s chauffeur back in the halcyon days. “Do you have a key to that?” I asked Nina. “I think I’m going to have a look.”
She retrieved a set of keys from the kitchen and held them up by one particularly old key. “I believe it’s this one. Good luck . . . and be careful.”
I exited the house, looked to make sure UB himself hadn’t stepped outside, and strode across the lawn to the outbuilding. After jiggling the key in a rusty lock, I gained entry to what seemed to be a distant time and place. I moved cautiously among piles of antique tools, workbenches, furniture, materials, and just plain junk that had long slept under a heavy coat of dust. A silent galaxy of cobwebs stretched across each room. Even the windowpanes seemed to bend the sun-rays into light from the distant past.
In the center room of the outbuilding was an ancient pump, next to an opening in the floor and a steep set of stairs, more like a marine ladder, which led down into black space. I descended the ladder and saw an enormous holding tank. I figured I was down in well land. Before I could explore any further, I heard someone enter the building. I climbed back up the ladder and reached the top just as UB appeared. Nina was right behind him.
“What are you doing down there?” he said. “It’s dangerous. You could fall down those stairs.”
“I was just checking out the mechanicals,” I said. “When was the last time anyone was in here?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he became obsessed with the danger posed by the opening through which I had just emerged. “Look, Kristina,” he said. “Have you seen this?” She stepped closer gingerly. Without letting her answer, he continued. “This needs to be fixed right away. We could put a bar here or a gate of some sort around over here,” he barked, pulling an old two-by-four from a pile of lumber and propping on end against a workbench near the opening.
“Well, maybe you could just lay something over it,” she said, “or you could put a railing around it.”
“I’d want a swinging gate on this side,” he said. The idea reminded me of his swinging gate back at 42 Lincoln, and how he’d tightened the tension on the spring-pull by wrapping it twice around an old Comet dispenser. As UB continued to try to tackle the problem, I wondered again, this time silently, When was the last time anyone had entered the outbuilding, and why, all of a sudden, was he so obsessed with this matter when so many other obvious deficiencies cried out for attention.
I decided to back out of the building altogether. Nina followed me, and soon UB was out as well. She and I both knew that it was pointless to talk to UB about a grand vision for Hamburg. The most that could be mentioned were a few, minor cosmetic features. Nina mentioned the possibility of green paint on the trim, and I suggested screens on the front porch. UB snapped and snarled at both ideas, but he did notice that a handrail, which had been installed for Gaga’s benefit decades before, was rotted away at one end and falling down. “I’ll have to fix that,” he said. “I think I’ve got a piece of bent aluminum back in Rutherford that I can use.” Nina and I exchanged glances. She twisted her mouth and rolled her eyes. I shook my head.
It seemed that he was trying to be ridiculous, trying to be different, trying to be unconventional and eccentric. But why? To drive us all to genuine insanity? Or simply to chase us out of his life? Our brief inspection of The Escape Hatch was giving me new appreciation for how Nina had been battling UB over every single improvement to a place that Gaga had willed to him, but which he rarely visited, and for which he had absolutely no aesthetic sensibilities. If 42 Lincoln was our destroyed inheritance, then what about this place? Was this not part of our inheritance too, and if UB hadn’t yet wrecked this too, was his bent mind not a major impediment to its preservation and enhancement? I was ready to leave in bitter grief and disappointment.
During our tour of the outbuilding, Jenny had led Maia and Erica down to Reynold’s store at the bottom of the steep hill on Cove Road. I wondered how Jenny was able to keep her cool about UB. Clearly she recognized how peculiar, how difficult he was, but then again, she had never argued with him, never tried to influence his thinking, never tried to convince him of anything. Nina and I were in quite a different position, and consequently, we were bound to be frustrated. You could never win with UB, so why bother trying? Jenny seemed to have the better strategy.
Now it really was time to leave. We bade stiff good-byes to UB and returned to the Amtrak station in Old Saybrook. I took the train back to New York with Jenny and Maia, leaving UB to drive himself back to Rutherford the following day.
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© 2023 by Eric Nilsson
