Was Mr. Harding a “good man?” He’s been dead going on thirty years, and I still can’t say. It’s harder to assess the dead, knowing that we tend to grade those no longer with us on a curve. When we’re children we tend to view the world in a binary fashion. We like baseball, or we don’t. School is fun or it’s a chore. We feel loved in our homes or not.
There is good and evil, nothing between.
Then with each passing year the mist sweeps down from the mountains of time, obscuring everything in our little valleys in a haze of incertitude. The wisdom of age—if you can call it wisdom—is the acknowledgment that our attempts to understand our lives are largely futile. That life itself is but a pyramidical hierarchy of allusions and dreams.
I suppose that’s why all these years later I find myself reflecting on Mr. Harding. Well, that and because of the similarities in relationship that have developed between me and my own son.
Here’s what I believe I know for sure. Mr. Harding was my best friend Dan’s father. The three of us went on a hunting trip to the Appalachians in 1994. Only two of us returned. Anything else is largely speculation. I suppose I should also describe the events themselves, as best I remember, endeavoring to stick to the basic facts of that weekend without interjecting any critical analysis.
The trip itself was sold to me under false pretenses. Daniel had asked if I wanted to spend a weekend at his family’s remote cabin. He never mentioned that it was a hunting trip, specifically, because he knew I wouldn’t have accepted the invitation. He never mentioned that his mother and older sister wouldn’t be joining us, because he understood that my mother wouldn’t have allowed me to go anywhere with just Mr. Harding. My mother later confirmed as much.
Mr. Harding was often the talk of our suburban town because he wasn’t like the other dads. When you’re a child, adults seem inexplicably big and strong, but Mr. Harding was built like an actual grizzly bear. Even the other adults would marvel at his size. The other dads were terrified of Mr. Harding; especially when he drank too much, which was all the time.
The trip started early in the morning. I remember observing the fear in my mother’s eyes at the drop-off when she learned it would be a hunting trip. Her father was an alcoholic, so she knew all the signs.
Mrs. Harding looked half-awake as she meekly reassured my mother and helped pack Mr. Harding’s black truck.
“I packed extra soda and sandwiches,” she said. “In case you guys get hungry or thirsty on the ride up.”
Mr. Harding was wearing jeans with a camo hunting jacket. It was the third week in October and the weather was unseasonably cold that autumn. The bed of Mr. Harding’s truck was crammed with coolers and duffel bags. The cab of the truck was stuffed with hunting and fishing equipment.
Dan tapped me on the shoulder and apologized. “Sorry I didn’t tell you about the hunting bit,” he said. “I just figured you wouldn’t want to go.”
“You should have asked Brian along,” I said. “He loves to hunt and fish.” At the time, this wasn’t about any great moral imperative of mine. I was simply afraid of holding a gun, or even a fishing knife. Just wasn’t the way I was raised.
“Yeah, but you’re my best friend,” Dan said, his eyes hopeful. “It’ll be fun,” he added. “Besides, the cabin is really cool. There’s even a Sega Genesis.”
“Well,” I said. “Then at least it has electricity.”
Soon enough we were on the road, with all its attendant freedoms. Mr. Harding’s mood seemed to brighten once we left our town behind. He turned up the radio, blasting oldies as we made our way further into the country. Before long we stopped at a McDonald’s in the shadow of a decaying, green bridge. Mr. Harding ordered us cheeseburgers and milkshakes at the drive thru.
“Wow,” I said, “Milkshakes before noon. Awesome.” My parents were strict. They wouldn’t allow milkshakes period. Even when they could afford them.
“Pete, there’s no sense in depriving ourselves in this life,” Mr. Harding said, while downing cheeseburgers in two bites. “We’ve got the forest before us and there’s nobody but us men here, so let’s make sure we don’t lose sight that life is meant for living.”
“Thanks again,” I said.
“You’re too damn polite,” he said. “A real man rarely says, ‘thank you’ or ‘sorry.’ He takes what is his. Your mother’s got your head all spun around, boy.” Then he laughed and added, “But don’t you worry, we’ll get you right this weekend; we’ll get you right.” By then I had given up defending my mother, I knew that everyone in town thought she was strict, authoritarian even. I’d learned that my words weren’t going to change her actions, and they certainly weren’t going to change how others felt about her.
Once we turned off the main highways and onto a spindly county road Mr. Harding asked Dan to fetch him a beer. At first I thought I had misheard the request. Then I gave Dan a look, a look as if to say: is your dad fucking nuts?
“I don’t know if I should,” Dan protested.
“Just get you and Pete some sodas and grab me a Bud Light,” Mr. Harding said. “What’s the big deal?”
“Mom said—”
“Well, your mommy ain’t here,” Mr. Harding said. “Is she?”
“No.”
“Then fetch me a goddamn beer, boy.”
“But you’re driving.”
Mr. Harding grabbed Dan’s right arm from behind and held him tight, all the while not taking his eyes off the road.
“You disrespecting me, son?” Mr. Harding said. “Is that what I’m hearing?”
“No, let me go,” Dan pleaded. His eyes grew wide and concerned. The way he reacted made me feel unsafe, like we were both alone in the woods already, with something scratching on the roof of our tent.
“Will you fetch me a damn beer?”
“Yes, sir.”
Mr. Harding released his grip and Dan turned around to fish out a Bud Light. When Dan turned to ask me if I wanted a soda, I could tell he was struggling not to cry. Looking back now I’m certain that he wanted to, but he understood from experience that crying would only exacerbate his father’s anger.
Mr. Harding opened the beer with one hand, his other firmly on the wheel. He never took his eyes off the road, not even when he lifted the beer to his lips and chugged. It looked to me like he was somehow drinking right through his beard, as though he had no mouth at all. When he was done with the beer he demanded another.
“Okay,” Dan answered, this time in a meek tone.
Mr. Harding’s right eye shifted to measure the mood of his son.
“You acting like a mopey little girl?” Mr. Harding asked.
“No, sir.”
Mr. Harding pulled over to the shoulder of the road. He bristled, staring down his son.
“Looks to me like you’re moping,” Mr. Harding said. Then he turned to me, “Sorry to have to do this in front of you, Petie,” he said.
“Dad,” Dan said, protesting.
“I preferred you earlier when you were pushing back against me to this whiny little girl bullshit. You fucking martyr—should I have brought your sister along? She’s tougher than you, ain’t that right?”
“No, sir.”
“When you’re older and you think I’m wrong about something, then take me, all right?” Mr. Harding said. “That’s the law of nature. But until you can take me, then do as I say. And even if you don’t like it, no goddamn moping. Got it?”
“Yes,” Dan said.
“Well good then,” Mr. Harding said. He leaned back to retrieve a beer. “Good.” Then he belched and his left hand tapped rhythmically in the area above his seatbelt holder. In that moment, I looked over and saw Dan’s face, twisted into a terrible mask of rage. He was seething, but unable to speak his mind. I was too afraid to speak too, but I tried to make eye contact with him, to let him know I understood.
At that moment, a small, furry rat-like creature smashed into the front of the truck’s windshield. It didn’t hit with sufficient force to crack it, but it did leave behind a smear of blood, which Mr. Harding quickly used his windshield to clean off. “Wild country out here,” he said. “Wild country.” Dan leaned back in his seat, his expression one of contemplative surprise. He would not allow his eyes to meet my own.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Too large to be a rat and too ugly to be a dog,” Mr. Harding said. “I honestly don’t know what the hell it was. But I do know we’ve barely made it into the backcountry and we’ve already got our first kill.”
Dan looked strange, as though in a trance. “You okay?” I asked, but he didn’t respond, just kept staring straight ahead.
“Hey,” Mr. Harding said after a few minutes passed. “We’re all men here, you boys want to try a Bud? It’s a light beer, 99% water.”
He looked at me first.
“My mother wouldn’t let me,” I said. “She says drinking’s a sin.”
He laughed. “Drinking’s a sin,” he repeated. “Your mother sure is something. She’s got you and your old man all strung up by the balls, don’t she?”
“I guess I’ll have one,” I said, not wanting to appear weak like my father.
“Toss your bud-dy a Bud,” Mr. Harding commanded Dan, who finally shook out of his strange weirdness. “And just a bit of free advice for you, Petie, if I may: your mother is a domineering one, but there’s no need for you to be kowtowed by her the way your old man is. He chose to marry her, but you can’t choose your parents. Right Danny?” He put his arm around Dan in a mini-headlock, sort of antagonizing him and sort of nuzzling him.
I was surprised by a lot of things during that drive, of course, but the statement Mr. Harding made about my father was somehow what I found most shocking. Not that I should have. Even I thought my father powerless. My father was a manual laborer, and he was often big-timed or put-down by the other fathers, who were mostly professionals or skilled tradesmen like Mr. Harding. I noticed their condescension even before I reached double digits in age. And my mother loved my father, of that I had no doubt, but she never respected him. Not really. My father was a man who carried no respect inside or outside of his home. I swore from preschool on that I would never turn out like that.
But Mr. Harding had always treated my father with some modicum of respect, even though they couldn’t be more dissimilar. My father spoke openly against “machoism,” and resented sports like football, which he considered one step above gladiators in the Colosseum. My father enjoyed gardening. Mr. Harding resented weakness, particularly in men—although of course he also resented strength in women. My father was a teetotaler (not that my mother would allow it any other way). Yet at many a scouting event you would find the two sharing a log (my father looking so comparatively tiny he bordered on being non-existent) around a campfire, somehow finding a mutual respect in the friendship of their sons and their shared belief that the other fathers were, on the whole, a bunch of phonies. I already knew Mr. Harding thought my mother the Devil, but never before had I realized that he had his judgments against my father as well.
Back on the road, Mr. Harding downed his second beer. His mood was now rangy, volatile.
“Here’s a tip for drinking beer while on our public roadways,” he said to me. “A public service announcement, if you will. Always wear blue jeans and always drink a blue beer that camouflages it, like.” Then he added, “When you do take a drawl of the beer, chug as much as you can. Get in and get out quick, like a military mission. When you’re not drinking, keep the beer low, blending in with your jeans and in your hand closest to the door.”
“Cool,” I said, and twelve-year old me truly thought so.
“And always stop at three,” Mr. Harding said. “You got to be responsible and you got to be smart.”
We passed signs bearing names of places I had never heard of, like “Devil’s Gap,” “Winder’s Furnace,” and “Strangler’s Notch.” The view outside the truck became increasingly primitive; the towns smaller and spaced further apart. Some of the places we traveled through could hardly be said to be towns at all, made our own semi-rural community seem like a vast Megalopolis. We drove up and down valleys and hills, cutting right through coal country. At times we drove through tunnels boring straight through mountains.
“Everything up here is a gap,” I said.
“Everything here and everywhere else for that matter,” Mr. Harding replied. “Life ain’t nothing but a series of gaps, my friend. And don’t forget it. Not that you could, because life don’t let you forget. When you get a bit older you’ll see.”
A few minutes later Mr. Harding was onto that third beer, and I was doing my best to ignore the situation. I think part of me was trying to pray or wish it away, even though I was old enough to no longer believe in magic. Fear gripped my body, as though even then I had a premonition of all that was to come.
By the time we pulled into the cabin it was about one in the afternoon. “Shit,” Mr. Harding said. “Too late to do any proper fishing or hunting, but we’ll get to it tomorrow.”
The cabin was secluded, surrounded by dozens of acres of dense woodland. On each side of us rose the mountains, (technically hills) of rangy Appalachia. Out here you might encounter black bear. You might see copperheads or hear the defiant shake of the timber rattlesnake. In the fall these venomous snakes blend right into the downed leaves. They don’t go looking for trouble, but if you step on one they strike. It’s just instinct. But I didn’t fear any of those animals; not when I was twelve, and not compared to Mr. Harding.
“Help me unpack,” Mr. Harding said. “Then we’ll give Petie the grand tour.”
Inside the place was sufficiently rustic. I wouldn’t have known that word when I was twelve, as back then I was inexperienced in the rustic (still am). There was a waterbed, which was interesting to slosh around on in a childish manner. The Sega didn’t work at first, but we figured it out. Mr. Harding switched to whiskey and we all unpacked.
“You like this place?” Mr. Harding asked me.
“It’s awesome,” I said, truly meaning it. “It’s your family’s?”
“Yeah,” Mr. Harding said. “This place was my father’s. I guess old pops decided to play one final payback on me and left all this to my brother Steve. Here’s the punchline: Steve don’t even like hunting—he’s an accountant for Christ’s sake.” Mr. Harding laughed; a deep guttural laugh that sounded like the roar of a bear. “But Steve lets me come up here a few weekends a year and he has to deal with the property taxes and upkeep, so I guess the last laugh is mine after all.” He put his hands on his hips and laughed as though he was privy to some secret joke. “Pops died right over there, on that sofa,” Mr. Harding said. “Choked on a ham sandwich like Mama Cass. Toughest old bastard you’d ever know and that’s how he went out.” He poured himself another drink. “I suppose none of us get to choose. It’s always someone else or something else choosing for us.”
That night we drove out to get pizza; there was only a couple of food options in that kind of country. Dan and I took to bed early that evening, swapping baseball stories. We slept in sleeping bags on the floor in the living room. Every so often throughout the night I could hear Mr. Harding opening the fridge, closing it, and then the hissing sound of a can opening.
Around two in the morning I woke with a start. An eerie sensation flowing through my body, as though I was being watched from a million different directions all at once. A strange tapping at the windows surrounding the property. I got up and looked out the windows, but it was too dark to make anything out. There was no outdoor lighting, and everything outside seemed but shadow. A scuttling, rodent-like sound seemed to emanate from all along the perimeter of the little cabin.
A creeping, haunting sensation gripped me, and then let go. I suppose now I would call it a premonition, but back then I just thought it a bad case of the willies. I sat for hours, listening to every strange sound. The air itself seemed to taste some awful miasma of putrid death. In his sleep, Dan tossed and turned with uncontrolled violence.