GUY Over the years, "the guys" has been one of the more common ways in which folks have identified or addressed us, the 'foursome' that we've come to think of and to experience as J. Hartzelbuck. With instances accumulating in which the reference has seemed to express some degree of understanding, however unconscious, on the part of the speaker, or has had additional meaning for us, we've come to feel considerable affection for the appellation, until very recently we've chosen to give it significant, longer-term use.
Only gradually did we waken to the fact that "the guys" could and sometimes did have more than utilitarian or wholly casual use, that there were times when it was an expression, however undeliberate, of some awareness of our more than casual relationship, of the brotherhood. One of the earlier instances that brought this to our consciousness occurred years ago at our Christmas tree stand at Great Southern Shopping Center in Columbus.
For several years in a row, a woman past her prime, obviously a practitioner of that ancient profession, had come to our stand. Never seeming to have chosen one of the nicer of December's days, and always flimsily garbed, she would make her high-heeled way up and down our generally uneven and often not so solid trails between the trees, pick her tree, and go off in her chauffeured car with it. There was nothing about her manner or her interaction with us that roused in us anything but a sense of care and affection.
When tree sales pressure made prepping our own meal too difficult, our favorite substitute was Chinese food at the Rice Bowl restaurant. Over the years, the Rice Bowl came to be for us our home away from home. One evening, a little while after she'd made a late afternoon visit to our stand, we encountered the woman coming out of the Rice Bowl. The Rice Bowl had a bar, and our customer was leaving the bar as we were going in for our supper. We greeted her as we passed, and then paused when it appeared she had something she wanted to say to us. And she did, though she had to struggle with her message. "You guys," she began, "You guys . . . " She paused, and began again. "You guys . . . are just a bunch of guys!"
I think she sensed that, in the poetry of the circumstances and her few words, she had spoken her message, and that we'd got it.
We had. We were touched!
Time after time, "the guys" was spoken in ways that gave us encouragement, heart. We got such a dose of that encouragement in April of 1993, when for two weeks we interacted with the staff at the Huggins Diagnostic Center in Colorado Springs, where we'd gone to have our amalgam tooth fillings removed. (Silver fillings, they are called, though really they are full of mercury.) One of the staff with whom we had most contact was Carole Wolfswinkel, the nutritionist. A woman almost sixty years of age, a widow who'd lost her husband and an only son in one terrible motorcycle accident, Carole was a bright, youthful spirit. Dressed every day to fit her cheerful outlook, she would bounce into our presence with such a hearty, "Hi, guys!" We loved it, and as we prepped and ate supper or did the dishes in the evening in our little motel kitchen, we would repeat it to each other, in as much of the original style and flavor as we could manage.
It was my prostate cancer that had moved us to do something about the amalgam fillings, but for all four of us while we were at it. While all of us seemed to benefit, we were relieved that I showed an especially strong result, as I was the one of us we thought was in greatest danger. Not two years later, so unexpectedly and so swiftly, Tim died.
Carole Wolfswinkel had kept in touch with us, still consulting about my progress, and serving as go-between between us and Dr. Huggins, the most capable bio-chemist and interpreter of blood tests we know. Though Dr. Huggins, harassed by the authorities who would if they could shut down his research and work with amalgam toxicity, gave up his consultation work for a time, he continued faithfully, and still continues, to follow my case and apply his expertise to its course.
Not long after Tim's death, Carole called us, not knowing what had occurred. Breaking this news to her was not easy. "Oh no!" she exclaimed. "Oh no!" And then, speaking with such affection and deep clarity, "He was such a gentle, loving guy!"
Though I was not aware of it at the time, when Jessie (Tim's mother) was here this last June for Commencement, Mary Sidwell was feeding a stray cat that had arrived at their place sometime in May. This, Mary felt, was an especially well-mannered and affectionate cat, and more unusual because he was a tom. Cat lover that she is, she would have been glad to have kept him. This history I knew nothing of when the cat arrived at the Montana house a few weeks later. Thinking he must surely belong to someone who would want to keep him, we tried to pay him little enough attention that he would decide to go home. We did give in to the extent that we fed him some, first left-over dog food, and cat food when that ran out. But we bought a small package. We just hoped one day he'd decide it was time, or the best thing for him, to go home. He stayed.
That this was an unusual cat, we, too, had quickly recognized. For a tom, and a big tom at that, he was so gentle, and so unassertive. He would come to the porch door, look in so hopefully, and lean just a little on the screen door which would with even so slight pressure begin to open. He must have sensed the very first of the countless times that he leaned on that door that it would take no effort at all for him to push it aside and come on in. But he never did. Not even when we, so far as I know, not once spoke or demonstrated a warning against his doing so. Nor did he, as any other un-neutered tom we've known would have done, cruise the vicinity. He stayed close by, often nestled in a hollow formed by roots at the base of the biggest of our giant maple trees. He looked so composed there, so much a part of the scene, as though it was made for him, he for it. He, master of his domain, just lay there and surveyed it.
He didn't leave. He didn't show any signs of leaving. He just waited. We gradually wakened to the realization that, so far as this cat was concerned, he was at home, and meant to stay.
It must have been about mid-July, in the height of the tree pruning season, when kitty had been with us a few weeks, that Don, Chris and I decided that we'd go to the New Unexplored field to prune trees in the lovely evening hours after supper, and that we'd take this opportunity to talk some about the cat, something we'd felt we had neither the time nor readiness for before. We needed to compare notes about what each of us was thinking. And, if possible, we might decide whether there was something besides "Kitty" that we should call him, as long as he was with us. We didn't arrive at a name, though we threw out some ideas. Mainly, I think, each of us surprised the others by indicating, Chris being brave enough to reveal his thoughts first, that there was something, somehow, in the situation that made him feel that a name should bear some connection with Tim. It should not be "Tim," or "Molth," or anything like that. I think we were all wanting something that hinted at something, but no one could put a finger, or a name, on it. Pretty vague. But we can tell you, whatever we were beginning to think or to feel was certainly vague.
Occasionally thereafter, we exchanged hasty observations about the cat's behavior and thoughts about his future. Sooner or later, we knew, we'd have to decide about that future. Kitty was not going to relieve us of that by moving on, on his own. In my own mind, the course we should take came clear on one of our regular Tuesday morning quiet times. Ever since Tim's death, we've paused to remember and to reflect during those thirty minutes from 8:17 to 8:47 when, life support having been removed, his heart beat its last. I was spending my half hour, as I often do, sitting by the window in the upstairs bathroom at the Montana house, looking out through the giant maples, across the drive with Puff (our old diesel VW bus, named affectionately 'Puff the Magic Dragon') parked there, and past the barn, to the New Unexplored field--the route Tim had hiked his last morning at Raven Rocks, heading so forthrightly for the Little Crum field to see if it would need mowing before the morrow's annual tree planting. One never looks out that window without remembering the grace with which Tim still moved that morning, a grace that caused one's heart to leap with hope that perhaps he was not in as serious a condition as so suddenly it had appeared that he might be.
On this particular Tuesday morning, my meditation came to focus on a sense of Tim's continuing presence in our lives, of how he might still "act" here, how it might be not only possible but appropriate for him to be so "engaged." Especially with regard to the matter of appropriateness have we sought information and direction. The need for more light we have felt pretty keenly. So, this was not a new matter of care or attention by any means. But there was something new this Tuesday morning. There was a flash of new insight, insight so bright, so clear, so promising that it came charged with relief and exhilaration. At the instant of that flash, something happened down there around the trees, the drive, and Puff. The cat of a sudden had taken off in a brilliant burst of energy, a display of graceful romping of a character and degree we had not seen at all before. What exuberance! What life!(1)
Was there some way that the burst of insight in the bathroom had triggered that display? Certainly both had occurred in the same moment. Certainly both were electric with life. Had the cat become the vehicle of confirmation that the insight had been on target? On target, not just in my view of it, but in Tim's view of it as well?
One could not prove such things. Not for a minute would one think of attempting such proof. But also, not for a minute has one felt a need or even an inclination to dismiss the sense of the event. One just holds it, waiting to see how it settles out, what part if any it may have in the very active process of learning and of growth that continues unabated around Tim's life and death.
Also in this same moment, I knew in my heart that this cat belonged with us, that we were meant to keep him.
When we could settle down to a deliberate decision, no one had a different opinion, though we'd arrived at our conclusions by different but not at all contradictory routes. It was a relief when we finally knew that he should stay. We were freed to feel easy feeding him. We were freed to return the affection he so readily had offered to us from day one. So nice now to let close the artificial distance we'd drawn up between us and him.
Somewhere along in the course of events, Herb Smith, on an errand to the Montana house, chose to speak with Chris about the cat. There was something uncanny about this exchange, and Herb's initiative in it, for we had said nothing at all to Herb or to any other Raven Rocks member about the cat, about our observations about him, or about our plans or lack of plans for him. Least of all had we mentioned the wonderings that were growing in us. We'd not found the time, nor did we feel quite ready yet, to talk carefully about such things among ourselves. Frankly, we didn't want to open that discussion till we could do it carefully. We recognized the natural urge, the pressure in ourselves to discover the most agreeable, the most exciting indications in this cat's coming to and being with us. An enormous pressure. But we have been determined to proceed slowly in all matters like this, eyes, ears, heart and mind, all wide open, with the hope that when and wherever we did arrive, we would emerge with a viable building block of understanding on which we and others might build and lean the weight of our lives.
Chris mostly listened as Herb spoke, and what Herb spoke about were his own wonderings in the matter. He was aware of the cat's unusual character, and also of his Raven Rocks history. He thought it was remarkable that he should have left Sidwells' when Mary was clearly encouraging him to stay. It is true, Sidwells had a dog, a young, lively puppy they call Peggy. But Herb didn't think the dog accounted for the cat's move. Or for his taking up such determined, contented residence with us. Without saying as much, Herb let Chris know that he thought there had to be more to this whole thing. He was intrigued.
Though we were finally clear that the cat should stay with us, we didn't decide right off whether he would be a house cat, or would stay out of doors. There seemed no reason to rush that decision. The cat raised no issue about it. He seemed no more anxious to "crash the gates" than before, feeling so at home in the yard. We had some weeks of warm weather left. This decision could wait.
As for the name, it grew along with our sense of who he was. There's always been a reason for the names we've assigned our pets, even our cars and other equipment. Looking back, one wonders how we could have taken so long to settle the matter, or could have thought of any other name than the one we finally gave him: Guy.
Such a gentle, loving guy!
One was about to express some wonder about why it took us so long to finally decide that Guy would live with us in the house. But there may have been a good cause here, or at least a good result. Maybe the delay in that decision led us to take more notice of what happened when we did finally open that door and invite him to come in, for delay had made this event something of an occasion. Had it been a more casual, a lesser event, we might not have noticed, might not have got even a whiff of a message. Guy explored the place, in a way, but not in any way we'd ever seen a cat proceed in new space before. He proceeded with a remarkable confidence, and seemed not so much to be discovering things as finding them where they should be. Did he, or someone involved in his being there, know the place--where the cat food and water are kept, that the litter box (the "boo box" as we call it) is in the basement? At night, his very first night inside, Guy, like the cats before him, raced upstairs to sleep with David.
There is another matter that began to affect our course with this cat. I am not certain how early on in his time at our place I first noticed, however slightly and only occasionally, that he favored his right hind leg. It was as though he might have a thorn in that paw, or maybe some other minor injury or irritation there. Nothing serious, no doubt something that would clear up. Only a couple of us can remember even noticing it. But, by Fall, we all could see that something was wrong, something that was not clearing up. Oddly, that right leg seemed to be turning outward, at first just perceptibly, but gradually so far out of line that you couldn't watch him walk without noticing it. One would see him lying on a railroad tie, which let him drape that leg over the edge. It hung oddly sometimes, almost as though it were free of the restrictions of a joint. By this time he limped most of the time.
Whatever was ailing, deterioration increased at an accelerating pace. By the time we knew we had to have something done for him, that pace was so swift, in fact, that we wondered if we could delay one more day.
We were by this time in the midst of preparations for our first concrete pour at Locust Hill since Tim's death. This was a strenuous occasion, probably the biggest hurdle we'd set ourselves to jump since we'd lost Tim. There certainly was no greater emotional hurdle for us to clear, for in Locust Hill just about every thread of the J. Hartzelbuck fabric we'd woven had some place and function. But there was also the all-too-real and inescapable hurdle of the physical task itself. When there were four of us on the job, we'd felt we were working often on the outer edge of the possible. Moreover, we were not replaceable parts; there were skills each of us had acquired through aptitude and years of practice that could not be omitted.
Anxious as we were about Guy's worsening condition, we could see no way to delay the Locust Hill work. Well in advance, we had reserved time on the crowded concrete schedule for a late Wednesday pour. And lucky that we had; and lucky, too, that we stuck with that schedule, for as was being predicted, the exceptional weather we'd been enjoying for construction work came to an abrupt end only hours later.
On the Wednesday morning, with hours of work yet to do to get ready for the afternoon pour, and knowing it would take all of the next day, Thursday, to complete all the critical work that follows a pour, we called our pet doctor, Dr. Orts, and made an appointment for Guy on Friday, first thing in the morning. We wondered, frankly, when we observed the cat that Wednesday, whether he could wait till Friday.
Before Rich drove his big mixer load up our hill that Wednesday afternoon, we J. Hartzelbucks paused to join, arms over shoulders, in a circle. It is something we'd done before over the years, most often around burial places of parents, or of the cats who'd shared their lives with us. There was a gap in the physical circle this time, a space for Tim. We spoke a few words together, a message of love that is unbroken, of affection that is undiminished, of commitment that does not waver, of love's labor on behalf of the Process that renews and enlivens forever, all born out of our common being and shared as ever by the four of us.
The pour, a big one--over fifteen yards of concrete, or about thirty tons--went well. It went surprisingly well. It has been that way with so many things that should have been difficult, even near impossible in a few instances, things that if they'd reached completion at all certainly could not be expected to have gone either so smoothly or so efficiently on their way to completion. We have come to joke that when Tim died each of us faced in his heart and mind an awful list of things that just didn't dare happen, didn't dare go wrong, without Tim. For, how could we ever handle them without his head, his hands, his skills? Well, just about every one of those things has happened, has gone wrong. It's a long, long list, with things like Chinook, the windmill, shut down; trouble, major trouble, with Puff the diesel bus that only a new engine could remedy; concrete business phones out of service at the peak of the season; Montana house water pump on the blink; all kinds of loader repair that was not expected; a new wrinkle to deal with in the solar hot water system; and, latest and the biggest of them all, the loss of our location for the tree stand at Great Southern, necessitating a complete relocation, including, most daunting of all, a lot of electrical work which was one of Tim's most special specialties. Clearly, one or another of us, or all of us together in some cases, have risen to these challenges. The determination and effort are not surprising. And it is not too surprising that, working beside Tim as we so regularly had done, we had observed and learned more than we had been aware. We are clear about that, and take such explanations as far as they will go. But what has also happened, and this may open the way to more meaning for us, is that there are instances in which our progress cannot be explained this way. There have been situations in which we needed to and have been able to reach well beyond the combination of our native skills and what we could possibly have observed in the past.
Moreover, around the borders of our experience and exploration, we are aware that we have crossed those borders and entered new territory, territory of kinds that we could enter in the past only because each of us was there to play his roles, to perform his particular functions. I had seen it before, but never so clearly, never with such overwhelming gratitude as on the night before his death as I waited by his bedside, that without Tim and the roles he played, the functions he performed, the gang would not have taken on such a life, Raven Rocks and Locust Hill could not have happened. In our more than thirty years of crossing of old borders, the expansion of old boundaries, he was essential. So, how is it that since his death we have not only extended our explorations, but have done so with more confidence, with more clarity of course, with more dispatch and decisiveness than ever? Without Tim? Could one believe that it has been without Tim?
Again, we would not argue the matter; we would not attempt to prove anything. But we certainly do wonder. And hypotheses do grow. And among the hypotheses, one that is most obvious now, one that seems almost to demand our attention: we are not entirely on our own, entirely without help. Good, skillful, caring help. Gentle, loving nudges.
If it is so, what does it mean? I think that if J. Hartzelbuck has been about anything, it has been about the business of imaging hypotheses, followed then by testing. We test and we test and we test, hoping to discard where we should, seeking to expand where the testing shows capacity for expansion, for carrying more load as we advance en route to the next, better hypothesis. In other words, following where way opens.
The sun had set long before Ted ran the last of our concrete down his chute, and pulled away to clean up his mixer. We were working under the lights now, had been for a few hours already. It was a scene reminiscent of so many in the long history of Locust Hill--the late hour, the big push over, lots of work though left to do but also possible to do at the end of a long, long day or series of days, possible because of the hurdle cleared, because of the deep sense of progress and accomplishment, the reality of another concrete step taken toward our deep deep dreams. There is energy in that reality--if that reality really matters to one. And, something we didn't talk much about over the years though it lay at the very foundation and heart of our understanding and intentions: no matter what the stresses involved in a big push like this--or perhaps partly because of and in proportion to those stresses--we emerged each time more bonded, a stronger "cell" than ever. It could not be so if the thing that the heat of stress could forge had not mattered so much to us. It had first to matter to each of us as persons. When it so matters to the persons, but not till then, the cell itself grows and increasingly becomes the vehicle, a larger, more powerful vortex, a corporate vortex capable of the dreaming and the achievement of greater, truer, more apt dreams. So, the stress that would deplete other, more separate persons, and likely drive them, not together, but apart, energized us, renewed us, and deepened our bonds.
In just a while, one or two of us would be able to leave the work at the site and go to start work on supper. Had one ever stopped before to recognize that these suppers, so many of them over the years, have been the most powerful of communions, however ordinary the event and unceremonious the proceedings? Always there has been the sense that we have made it. Tonight that meant more than ever. We had made it! We had made it--excavation, steel work and now the pouring of the concrete. We had made it without Tim, in a way. But maybe with Tim, in a way. It was clear now, as it could not have been till we had tried it: we will be able to build Locust Hill. We can do it! Whoever "we" are.
I stepped out of the lights, into the house proper, where only streaks of light from the work area pierced the darkness. I was on an errand, but paused as I often want to do in this space to sense the beauty and the history of the place. I heard, coming softly out of the dark, a wee voice. At first, I thought it might be a child's voice. It came again, a little closer, a little stronger, but sounded this time more like a cat. I called. "Kitty, kitty, kitty?" And out of the dark Guy emerged.
Guy? Guy! What was Guy doing here? With that bad leg, going most of a mile on a road so harsh and rough with slag right now that walking even with heavy shoes is both difficult and very unpleasant? And was Guy ever at Locust Hill before? We know nothing of it, if he was. And would he have had any cause to look for us here? This was the cat that neglect hadn't been able to budge from the Montana house for weeks on end. And he turns up at night, this night, at Locust Hill.
Oh my! What does one think? What can one say?
And then, something no one could have expected or predicted, or even thought of: four instead of three of us went from Locust Hill to the Montana house for supper this night, all glad to be there, together.
As had been expected, all the usual clean-up and the preparations for the 28-day curing process for the new concrete consumed Thursday. Early Friday morning Dr. Orts examined Guy, discovering very quickly that any movement of that crippled leg caused a gritty rubbing. No wonder it had become uncomfortable. X-rays revealed how it was that that leg had begun to rotate outward. The femur, the major bone of the upper leg, had been broken off about half an inch from the hip, and the hip bone itself had been cracked. The small piece of femur, cut off from circulation or any nutrients now, was, as Dr. Orts says it, "sequestered," so that it posed considerable future risk and should be removed. For years, Dr. Orts has not done surgery, so we talked about our options. He sends his surgical work to Columbus, where it would likely cost near $1,000.00 to have this surgery done. We faced a very difficult decision, and while we talked around it, Dr. Orts was also talking, seeming after a time to be in the process of talking himself into performing the surgery. And so it turned out: he decided to give it a try. We were so relieved, and left for home, leaving Guy. We had not been back home at the Rocks long when Dr. Orts called to say that the surgery was done, and successfully so far as he could tell. He'd checked out his findings and his proposed procedure with the folks in Columbus, and then following a textbook description, had performed the surgery. We were to pick Guy up the next morning.
So, we have a rapidly recovering, very able and agile Guy. He never will have a normal leg, with the joint and part of the leg bone missing, but as Dr. Orts predicted, muscle and deposits the system makes in this kind of situation are swiftly taking over much of the function. Guy seems unaware of any limitation. We are delighted, and relieved at the same time that the cost was less than half what we might have had.But this is not quite the end of the story. There are a few more details that should be recorded here. Dr. Orts, many years ago, performed another surgery for us. Except for some cats who lived with us only briefly here, we J. Hartzelbucks have had one other male cat. This other male was born here, and died here years later. His birth, in fact, is an occasion we won't forget. "Mama" gave birth to him in our Montana house dining room while we were meeting there with a gentleman who like ourselves at the time was investigating the opportunity to secure the rights to manufacture the Swedish Clivus Multrum toilet system in the States. It was during summer pruning that this earlier kitty was hurt. He was resting in the shade of a wheel on Hesperus when John Rockwell decided to drive off, running over him and bursting his bladder. Dr. Orts stitched up that little bladder.Our best guess is that Guy's injuries came from the same sort of accident. Like Guy, the earlier kitty was, besides being male, a beautiful spotted kitty. Grey on white. Like Guy.
That kitty we called Sniffer, because from his first day he tested his environment with such audible sniffing. It's Sniffer who rides on Tim's shoulder in the picture we've used for his memorial essay and the story card. No one who looks at that picture can miss its message.
Such a gentle loving guy!
Warren Stetzel
November 2, 1996
1. I have, since this essay was written, located a note I jotted that morning in the bathroom, immediately after the event. Dated 8/26/96, it reads: "Tim, thee has been, and thee remains for us and for our lives and our growth, soil, sunshine and showers. Not only have we loved thee, Tim, and thee loved us, but that love grows still. It grows apace, and the prospect of its limitless and endless growth in the future excites us and leads us on and on, forever. What a gift--such love, such life! (With this thought, the cat outside the bathroom window, the first time I've seen it, commenced a prolonged frolic and romp!)" (Return to text)
Last Updated June 12, 1999 by J. Hartzelbuck