Loon Lake

11

Annotated text Loon Lake by Warren Penfield.

If you listen the small splash is beaver.

As beaver swim their fur lies back and their heads elongate

and a true imperial cruelty shines from their eyes.

They’re rodents, after all.

Beaver otter weasel mink and rat

a rodent specie of the Adirondacks

and they redistrict the world.

They go after the young trees and bring them down—

whole hillsides collapse in the lake when they’re through.

They make their lodges of skinned poles, mud and boughs

like igloos of dark wet wood

and they enter and exit under water and build shelves

out of the water for the babies.

And when the mahogany speedboat goes by

trimmed with silver horns

in Loon Lake, in the Adirondacks,

the waves of the lake inside the beaver lodge lap gently

against the children’s feet in the darkness.

Loon Lake

was once the destination of private railroad cars

rocking on a single track

through forests of pine and spruce and hemlock

branches and fronds brushing the windows of cut glass

while inside incandescent bulbs flickered

in frosted-glass chimneys over double beds

and liquor bottles trembled in their recessed cabinet fittings

above card tables of green baize

in rooms entered through narrow doors with brass latches.

If you step on a twig in a soft bed of pine needles

under an ancient stand of this wilderness

you will make no sound.

All due respect to the Indians of Loon Lake

the Adirondack nations, with all due respect.

What a clear cold life it must have been.

Everyone knew where he stood

chiefs or children or malcontents

and every village had its lover whom no one wanted

who sometimes lay down because of that

with a last self-pitying look at Loon Lake

before intoning his death prayers

and beginning the difficult business of dying by will

on the dry hummocks of pine needles.

The loons they heard were the loons we hear today,

cries to distract the dying

loons diving into the cold black lake

and diving back out again in a whorl of clinging water

clinging like importuning spirits

fingers shattering in spray

feeling up the wing along the rounded body of the

thrillingly exerting loon

taking a fish

rising to the moon streamlined

its loon eyes round and red.

A doomed Indian would hear them at night in their diving

and hear their cry not as triumph or as rage

or the insane compatibility with the earth

attributed to birds of prey

but in protest against falling

of having to fall into that black water

and struggle up from it again and again

the water kissing and pawing and whispering

the most horrible promises

the awful presumptuousness of the water

squeezing the eyes out of the head

floating the lungs out on the beak which clamps on them

like wriggling fish

extruding all organs and waste matter

turning the bird inside out

which the Indian sees is what death is

the environment exchanging itself for the being.

And there are stars where that happens too in space

in the black space some railroad journeys above the Adirondacks.

Well, anyway, in the summer of 1936

a chilling summer high in the Eastern mountains

a group of people arrived at a rich man’s camp

in his private railway car

the men in fedoras and dark double-breasted suits

and the women in silver fox and cloche hats

sheer stockings of Japanese silk

and dresses that clung to them in the mountain air.

They shivered from the station to the camp

in an open carriage drawn by two horses.

It was the clearest night in the heavens

and the silhouettes of the jagged pines on the mountaintop

in the moonlight looked like arrowheads

looked like the graves of heroic Indians.

The old man who was their host

an industrialist of enormous wealth

over the years had welcomed to his camp

financiers politicians screen stars

European princes boxing champions and

conductors of major orchestras

all of whom were honored to sign the guest book.

Occasionally for complicated reasons

he received persons strangely undistinguished.

His camp was a long log building of two stories

on a hill overlooking Loon Lake.

There was a great rustic entrance hall

with a wide staircase of halved logs

and a balustrade made of scraped saplings

a living room as large as a hotel lobby

with walls papered in birch bark

and hung with the mounted heads of deer and elk

and with modern leather sofas with rounded corners

and a great warming fireplace of native stone

big enough to roast an ox.

It was a fine manor house lacking nothing

with suites of bedrooms each with its own shade porch

and the most discreet staff of cooks and maids and porters

but designated a camp because its décor was rough-hewn.

Annotate old man who was their host as follows: F (Francis) W (Warren) Bennett born August 2 1878 Glens Falls New York. Father millionaire Augustus Bennett founder of Union Supply Company major outfitter army uniforms and military accessories hats boots Springfield rifles insignia saddles ceremonial swords etc to Army of the United States during Civil War. FW Bennett a student at Groton thence Massachusetts Institute of Technology Boston graduating with a degree in mine engineering. Bought controlling interest Missouri-Clanback Coal Company St Louis upon graduation. Took control Missouri & Western Railroad 1902. Founding partner Colorado Fuel Company with John C. Osgood Julian Kleber John L Jerome. Surviving partner associate of John D. Rockefeller Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, vice president of engineering. Immense success Colorado and Missouri speculative coal-mining ventures suggested use of capital abroad. Took over National Mexican Silver Mining Company. Founder Chilean-American Copper Company. Board of Directors James Steel Co., Northwest Lumber Trust, Baltimore, Chicago & Albuquerque RR Co., etc. Trustee Jordan College, Rhinebeck N.Y. Trustee Miss Morris’ School for Young Women, Briarcliff Manor NY. Member Knickerbocker, Acropolis, New York; Silks, Saratoga Springs; Rhode Island Keel, Newport. Marriages Fanny Teale Stevens, no issue; Bootsie van der Kellen, no issue; Lucinda Bailey, no issue. Died 1967 Lausanne Switzerland.

And this party of visitors were really romantic gangsters

thieves, extortionists and murderers of the lower class

and their women who might or might not be whores.

The old man welcomed them warmly

enjoying their responses to his camp

admiring the women in their tight dresses and red lips

relishing the having of them there so out of place

at Loon Lake.

The first morning of their visit

he led everyone down the hill

to give them rides in his biggest speedboat

a long mahogany Chris-Craft with a powerful inboard

that resonantly shook the water as she idled.

He handed them each a woolen poncho with a hood

and told them the ride was fast and cold

but still they were not prepared when under way

he opened up the throttle

and the boat reared in the water like Buck Jones’ horse.

The women shrieked and gripped the gangsters’ arms

and spray stinging like ice coated their faces

while the small flag at the stern snapped like a machine gun.

And one of the men lipping an unlit cigarette

felt it whipped away by the wind.

He turned and saw it sail over the wake

where a loon appeared from nowhere

beaked it before it hit the water

and rose back into the sky above the mountain.

Annotate boat reared in the water like Buck Jones’ horse as follows: Buck Jones a cowboy movie star silents 1920s and talkies early 1930s. Others of this specie: Tom Mix, Tim McCoy, Big Boy Williams. Buck Jones’ horse palomino stallion named Silver. Others of this specie: Pal Feller Tony.

The old man rode them around Loon Lake, its islands

through channels where beaver had built their lodges

and everything they saw the trees the mountains

the water and even the land they couldn’t see under the water

was what he owned. And then he brought them in throttling down

and the boat was awash in a rush of foam

like the outspread wings of a waterbird coming to rest.

Two other mahogany boats of different lengths

were berthed in the boathouse

and racks of canoes and guide boats upside down

and on walls paddles hanging from brackets

and fishing rods and snowshoes for some strange reason

and not a gangster there did not reflect

how this dark boathouse with its canals

and hollow-sounding deck floors

was bigger than the home his family lived in

when he was a kid, as big as the orphan’s home in fact.

But one gangster wanted to know about the lake

and its connecting lakes, the distance one could travel on them

as if he was planning a fast getaway.

Just disappearing around the corner out of sight

was the boathouse attendant.

And everyone walked up the hill for drinks and lunch.

Drinks were at twelve-thirty and lunch at one-thirty

after which, returning to their rooms,

the guests found riding outfits laid across their beds

and boots in their right sizes all new.

At three they met each other at the stables

laughing at each other and being laughed at

and the stableman fitted them out with horses

and the sensation was particularly giddy when the horses

began to move without warning ignoring them up there in the saddle

threatening to launch with each bounce like a paddle ball.

And so each day the best gangster among them realized

there would be something to do they could not do well.

The unchecked walking horses made for the woods

no one was in the lead, the old man was not there.

They were alone on these horses who took this wide trail

they seemed to know.

They were busy maintaining themselves on the tops of these horses

stepping with their plodding footfall through the soft earth

of the wide trail.

By and by proceeding gently downhill they came

to another shore of the lake, of Loon Lake,

and the trees were cut down here and the cold sun shone.

They found themselves before an airplane hangar

with a concrete ramp sloping into the water.

As the horses stood there the hangar doors slid open

there was a man pushing back each of the steel doors

although they saw only his arm and hand and shoetops.

And then from a gray cloud over the mountain

beyond the far end of the lake an airplane appeared

and made its descent in front of the mountain

growing larger as it came toward them

a green-and-white seaplane with a cowled engine and overhead wing.

It landed in the water with barely a splash

taxiing smartly with a feathery sound.

The horses nickered and stirred, everyone held on

and the lead gangster said whoa boy, whoa boy

and the goddamn plane came right out of the water

up the ramp, water falling from its pontoons

the wheels in the pontoons leaving a wet track on the concrete

and nosed up to the open hangar

blowing up a cloud of dirt and noise.

The engine was cut and the cabin door opened

and putting her hands on the wing struts a woman jumped down

a slim woman in trousers and a leather jacket and a silk scarf

and a leather helmet which she removed showing light-brown hair cut close

and she looked at them and nodded without smiling

and that was the old man’s wife.

Annotate old man’s wife as follows: Lucinda Bailey Bennett born 1896 Philadelphia PA. Father US Undersecretary of State Bangwin Channing under McKinley. Private tutoring in France and Switzerland. Miss Morris’ School for Young Women. Brearly. Long Island School of Aviation practicing stalls tailspins stalled glide half-roll snap roll slow roll rolling eight wingovers Immelmann loops. Winner First Woman’s Air Regatta Long Island New York to Palm Beach Florida 1921. Winner Single-Engine National Women’s Sprints 1922–1929. First woman to fly alone Long Island-Bermuda. Woman’s world record cross-country flight Long Island to San Diego 1932, twenty-seven hours sixteen minutes. First woman to fly alone Long Island to Newfoundland. Winner Chicago Air Meet 1931, 1932, 1933. Glenn Curtiss National Aviatrix Silver Cup 1934. Lindbergh Trophy 1935. Member President’s Commission on the Future of Aviation 1936. Honorary Member US Naval Air Patrol 1936. Lost on round-the-world flight over the Pacific 1937.

She strode off down the trail toward the big house

and they were not to see her again that day

neither at drinks which were at six-thirty

nor dinner at seven-thirty.

But her husband was a gracious host

attentive to the women particularly.

He revealed that she was a famous aviatrix

and some of them recognized her name from the newspapers.

He spoke proudly of her accomplishments

the races she won flying measured courses

marked by towers with checkered windsocks

and her endurance flights some of which

were still the record for a woman.

After dinner he talked vaguely of his life

his regret that so much of it was business.

He talked about the unrest in the country

and the peculiar mood of the workers

and he solicited the gangsters’ views over brandy

on the likelihood of revolution.

And now he said rising I’m going to retire.

But you’re still young said one of the gangsters.

For the night the old man said with a smile

I mean I’m going to bed. Good night.

And when he went up the stairs of halved tree trunks

they all looked at each other and had nothing to say.

They were standing where the old man had left them

in their tuxes and black ties.

They had stood when he stood the women had stood when he stood

and quietly as they could they all went to their rooms,

where the bedcovers had been turned back and the reading lamps lighted.

And in the room of the best gangster there

a slim and swarthy man with dark eyes, a short man

very well put together

there were doors leading to a screened porch

and he opened them and stood on the dark porch

and heard the night life of the forest and the lake

and the splash of the fish terrifyingly removed from Loon Lake.

He had long since run out of words

for his sickening recognition of real class

nervously insisting how swell it was.

He turned back into the room.

His girl was fingering the hand-embroidered initials

in the center of the blanket.

They were the same initials as on the bath towels

and on the cigarette box filled with fresh Luckies

and on the matchbooks and on the breast pockets of the pajamas

of every size stocked in the drawers

the same initials, the logo.

Annotate reference the best gangster there as follows: Thomas Crapo alias Tommy the Emperor. Born Hoboken New Jersey 1905. Hoboken Consolidated Grade School 1917. New Jersey National Guard 1914–1917. Rainbow Division American Expeditionary Force 1917–1918. Saw action Chateau-Thierry. Victory Medal. Founder Brandywine Importing Company 1919. Board of Directors Inverness Distribution Company. Founding partner Boardwalk Amusement Company 1920. President Dance-a-dime Incorporated. Founder Crapo Industrial Services Incorporated, New York, Chicago, Detroit. Patron Boys Town, March of Dimes, Police Athletic League New York, Policeman’s Benevolent Society Chicago. Present whereabouts unknown.

—

Annotate reference his girl as follows: Clara Lukaćs born 1918 Hell’s Kitchen New York. School of the Sisters of Poor Clare, expelled 1932. S.S. Kresge counter girl (notions) 1932–1934. Receptionist Lukaćs’ West 29th St Funeral Parlor 1934. Present whereabouts unknown.

The gangster’s girl was eighteen

and had had an abortion he knew nothing about.

She found something to criticize, one thing,

the single beds, and as she undressed

raising her knees, slipping off her shoes

unhooking her stockings from her garters

she spoke of the bloodlessness of the rich not believing it

while the gangster lay between the sheets in the initialed pajamas

arranging himself under the covers so that they were neat and tight

as if trying to take as little possession of the bed as possible

not wanting to appear to himself to threaten anything.

He locked his hands behind his head and ignored the girl

and lay in the dark not even smoking.

But at three that morning there was a terrible howl

from the pack of wild dogs that ran in the mountains—

not wolves but dogs that had reverted

when their owners couldn’t feed them any longer.

The old man had warned them this might happen

but the girl crept into the bed of the gangster

and he put his arm around her and held her

so that she would not slip off the edge

and they listened to the howling

and then the sound nearer to the house

of running dogs, of terrifying exertion

and then something gushing

in the gardens below the windows.

And they heard the soft separation

together with grunts and snorts and yelps

of flesh as it is fanged and lifted from a body.

Jesus, the girl said

and the gangster felt her breath on his collarbone

and smelled the gel in her hair, the sweetness of it,

and felt the gathered dice of her shoulders

and her shivering and her cold hand on his stomach

underneath the waistband.

In the morning they joined the old man

on the sun terrace outside the dining room.

Halfway down the hill a handyman pushing a wheelbarrow

was just disappearing around a bend in the path.

I hope you weren’t frightened, the old man said, they took a deer

and he turned surprisingly young blue eyes on the best gangster’s girl.

Later that morning she saw on the hills in the sun

all around Lake Loon

patches of color where the trees were turning

and she went for a walk alone and in the woods she saw

in the orange and yellowing leaves of deciduous trees

the coming winter

imagining in these high mountains

snow falling like some astronomical disaster

and Loon Lake as the white hole of a monstrous meteor

and every branch of the evergreens all around

described with snow, each twig each needle

balancing a tiny snowfall precisely imitative of itself.

And at dinner she wore her white satin gown

with nothing underneath to ruin the lines.

And the old man’s wife came to dinner this night

clearly younger than her husband, trim and neat

with small beautifully groomed hands and still young shoulders and neck

but brackets at the corners of her mouth.

She talked to them politely with no condescension

and showed them in glass cases in the game room

trophies of air races she had won

small silver women pilots

silver cups and silver planes on pedestals.

Then still early in the evening she said good night

and that she had enjoyed meeting them.

They watched her go.

And after the old man retired

and all the gangsters and their women stood around

in their black ties and tuxes and long gowns

the best gangster’s girl saw a large Victrola in the corner

of the big living room with its leather couches and

grand fireplace

the servants spirited away the coffee service

and the gangster’s girl put on a record and commanded

everyone to dance.

And they danced to the Victrola music

they felt better they did the fox trot

and went to the liquor cabinet and broke open some Scotch

and gin and they danced and smoked

the old man’s cigarettes from the boxes on the tables

and the only light came from the big fire

and the women danced with one arm dangling holding empty glasses

and the gangsters nuzzled their shoulders

and their new shoes made slow sibilant rhythms

on the polished floors

as they danced in their tuxes and gowns of satin at Loon Lake

at Loon Lake

in the rich man’s camp

in the mountains of the Adirondacks.