OCTOBER 20, 2023 – According to plan, I stayed with Cliff and Jeanette that evening following the unveiling of concept drawings for the Rutherford properties. My hosts treated me to a celebratory meal, indulgent dessert, and upbeat conversation. After we cleared the table and filled the dishwasher, Cliff led us on what was intended as a continuation of our self-congratulatory bender.
“I think we’ve earned extra wine and cigars,” he said, as he collected bottles, glasses, and Nicaraguans.
“You guys certainly have,” said Jeanette, moving the glasses into position while Cliff opened the bottles.
“Red or white?” Cliff asked me.
“White,” I said. “I’m allergic to red wine.” In short order, my choice wouldn’t matter—allergy or none.
“Cheers,” said Cliff.
“Cheers,” Jeanette and I said, lifting our glasses.
“Let’s go down to the pier,” Cliff said. “but first let’s step out on the patio so we can light our cigars.”
“Your cigars,” said Jeanette. “Not mine. And did you ask Eric to make sure he wants one?”
“Of course he wants one, don’t you Eric?” Cliff laughed as I smiled and shrugged my shoulders. “After 30 years—in my case, at least—of the world according to Bruce, we’ve finally got something to celebrate. Here you go,” he said, handing me a cigar.
After organizing ourselves on the patio behind the back of the house and lighting the stogies, Jeanette led the way down the long wooden staircase to the pier—the same pier where 20 years before, Cliff had told me the full story revealed to him on the night of the Great Fire.
With my (white) wine in one hand and a glowing Nicaraguan in the other, I followed my friends and noticed immediately how summer rains, heat, and humidity had fostered the growth of a thin layer of moss on the top several treads. From my time in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, I was abundantly familiar with the slippery quality of ground moss. At the precise moment of my visual detection of hazardous steps, my right foot shot out from under me as if it had landed on a heavily greased banana peel. A nano-second later I was re-enacting an Olympic luge run down a wooden stair case three flights long. Two-thirds of the way I rammed into Cliff—a former semi-pro hockey defenseman—who fell backwards on top of me for a two-man rendezvous with gravity. Our spectacular crash at the foot of the luge run made my ears ring.
My right-side ribs and thigh took a terrible drubbing, but in my right hand the stem of the former wine glass, at least, was secure, and my left hand still gripped a small piece of the cigar, the rest having been shredded on the descent.
“You guys okay?” Jeanette’s words signaled alarm, but they struck me as funny and filled with irony.
“After all we’ve been through with Uncle Bruce and Rutherford,” I said on the heels of a two-part expletive starting with Holy, “You’d think we’d catch a break that didn’t involve broken bones.”
“And did you break any?” said Jeanette. She carefully took the remains of the wine glass from my hand.
After Cliff had regained his senses and confirmed that I’d survived the smash-up more or less intact he asked if I wanted another cigar. “Because now we have even more to celebrate,” he said.
“Like what?” I asked, my aching body still spread over the landing planks.
“Our survival down these stairs.” We laughed together. Like dazed but ambulatory survivors of an Olympic appearance gone horribly bad we made our way carefully back up to the patio, where Jeanette poured us wine in replacement glasses and Cliff and I lit two new, undamaged stogies. Improved judgment disqualified us from risking a second luge run down to the pier.
That night I slept on my left side. Once I fell asleep I was in my usual Land of Deep Dreams. Who knows what nightmares would’ve rattled me if I’d given the hematoma on my right thigh a better look before I’d slid—this time safely—into bed.
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© 2023 by Eric Nilsson
