Our house phone rang during dinner. We let it go to voicemail and assumed the salesperson on the other line would hang up. But it wasn’t a sales call. The voice of my neighbor Lars boomed from the machine.
“Peter! Stacey! It’s incredible! Maret and I found a rattlesnake by Lake Alice. I have it in my car and I’m bringing it over.” click.
There was a long silence at the dinner table. My father looked up from his pasta, exchanged glances with my mother, and laughed to himself. Mom was less amused.
“He won’t be bringing a rattlesnake to my house,” she stated. We all agreed, but I secretly wanted to see what he would bring.
Fortunately for me, fifteen minutes later, Lars pulled his dusty Subaru into our driveway and produced a tied pillowcase out from the passenger seat. It spun and writhed with anger, and I could make out the body of the snake. He held it high and smiled, like a third grader showing off what he did in art class. Much to his disappointment, my parents never let him untie the bag. The snake left with Lars, and we never saw or heard from it again. The next time I saw Lars he told me he found a beaver dam in his lake, and he wanted me to take some pictures.
I think Lars might still believe he lives in Norway. Sometimes at dinner parties he gives toasts in Norwegian—or maybe it’s Swedish. I’m not sure because he speaks both. His children have Scandinavian names like Nils and Karl, he’s 78 years old and plays better soccer than any young American, and when he’s drunk he sings some foreign national anthem. Whenever anyone throws a dinner party, Lars is always the first one called, although lack of an invitation would not stop him from attending.
“English has four times the words of Norwegian,” Lars always says. I’m pretty sure they don’t have a word for “trespassing,” because Lars definitely doesn’t understand it. He pops out of the woods behind my house a lot. He’ll knock on the door, say yes to coffee, and stay for dinner if he feels like it.
Last Christmas Lars found me after midnight mass. He was still dressed in a choir gown that just barely covered his enormous frame. Every person in the church did a double take at Lars; he had finally shaved his patchy gray beard and exposed the time punished skin underneath. Lars looked at me and smiled,
showing me all of his teeth. As he approached he pulled down his choir gown and exposed a fresh six-inch scar that ran down the right side of his chest. “Double bypass surgery,” he said with a smile. “I’ve never felt better!”
Since his surgery, Lars has made some style changes. He still wears his wool-knit hat, torn jeans, and hiking boots, but he no longer wears Christmas sweaters all year round. Instead he prefers plaid flannels, with the top four buttons undone to reveal his scar.
Lars fell in love with a three-legged golden retriever. He bought it off a breeder for $800 and then drove it to Denver to get a custom made prosthetic leg. To this, my parents rolled their eyes as Lars promised to tell us how the “fitting” went. We learned three days later from our answering machine that it went “satisfactorily,” and then a week later we learned that the prosthetic had fallen off somewhere on the Appalachian Trail during a hike. Lars left a message asking me to form a search party with him to find it. It was supposed to snow, and I wanted to use my skis, so I reluctantly agreed.
I arrive at the trailhead after lunch. Five inches of fresh powder cover the forest. The trees have already lost their leaves, leaving the wind hollow and muffled like a television on mute. And then there is Lars, balancing himself on a terrified sapling, beating his enormous boots into his skis. He turns around, sees me, and waves.
“I think Tessa lost her leg this way.” Lars points generally into the woods. Hearing her name, Tessa rushes from the woods to greet us. She limps and face plants every few steps, but she otherwise enjoys her relative freedom. “You’re sure you want Tessa walking without her leg?” I ask. “You’re a good girl Tessa! Aren’t you?” Lars violently pets Tessa’s back, then throws a stick into the woods for her to fetch.
“She’s really a magnificent dog,” he tells me like a cars salesman. “She’s beautiful.” Lars doesn’t see my concern for Tessa. “Oh yes she is. I don’t know what it is about the golden retriever. But ever since I got Loaky, I’ve never wanted a different breed.” Tessa sprints back with the stick and Lars gives her another violent back rub.
Lars waits for me to kick my boots into my skis, and we are off to find the prosthetic. Lars’s size does not benefit his skiing technique. He skis clumsily and reluctantly and slowly. I wait for him patiently.
“Have you been to the lake recently?” he asks. “It froze over last week and the hockey has been incredible.”
Tessa carries a stick the size of a tree. It hits the back of my leg with every one of her strides.
“Nobody likes the woods in winter,” he continues. “But if you get over the cold it’s definitely the most pleasant.” Lars pushes forward slowly. His does not break his stare with Tessa.
“Back in Norway, we would play soccer and hockey in this weather. All you Americans thinks it’s too cold for soccer, but back in Norway we would play when it was much colder.”
I say I agree and there is some silence. I don’t want to intrude on Lars’s story.
“You know, Maret and I bought our house in Garrison because the hills look like the ones back home.” I should say something but I’m using all my oxygen climbing the increasingly steep trail.
“There’s something special about the land out here.” “Definitely,” I choke out. Lars doesn’t seem to hear. “I hope you love the woods as much as I do.” “I do Lars.” “That’s good. It’s really just incredible you know? When I bought this land back in 1956, I had hoped that everyone would use it. People deserve to experience this.” I nod but it doesn’t matter, he’s speaking to himself, not me. “Back in Norway, we had a house and a lake.”
“Really?” I say. I have heard this story many times. Lars does not pick up on my sarcasm.
“It’s incredible really. I got lucky you know? The Nazis kicked us out of Norway. We moved to Sweden, and then I came here and it’s like I never left.”
Lars slows to a stop and scans the white velvet woods. There is only silence.
“Did Tessa lose it this way?” I ask. “Maybe.” “Should we check?” Lars hesitates. “No, It’s ok.” He pushes his skis forward and we continue on the trail. Tessa sprints behind us, limping, but easily keeping up. She runs with a smile, with her tongue flapping out the side of her mouth. It hits me that this search party isn’t for the purpose of finding the prosthetic. Lars starts a story about Yale and the Nazis and we continue up the mountain. Lars’s stories make me smile. Everyone believes he is crazy, but I know otherwise.