Weidknecht, Paul

Ninety-Four Winters

Paul Weidknecht

Featured, Feb 2014

Every winter as a teenager, she'd find herself standing at the pond. She remembered her fascination at how the shelves of wafer ice, more fragile than bulb glass, would grow and knit over the wilted pickerelweed, eventually thickening enough to support her father's tractor. Though the years had bundled themselves into decades, she recalled with clarity of someone much younger the last time she had been to that edge. Now her view came from the parlor chair, past mother's yellowed lace curtains: a dozen children skating and sledding, laughing and shouting.

She turned toward the phone. One call to the sheriff would end their trespass. His four-wheel drive would appear at the crest of a hill a quarter-mile away, bump over the cattle guard at the end of her frozen road, and come to rest near the dock. He'd talk a moment before gesturing vaguely for them to leave, probably half-embarrassed he was breaking up their fun. As the group slumped away, they'd glance at the house, knowing who had called: the bitter old woman who lived in stale shadows, whose youth was so ancient as to be alien.

And they’d be right, she thought. At least a little. Yet there would be no call today. They didn’t need to know that ice sometimes breaks, shattering lives and dreams with it. So she stood, pulling the chair close to the window, hoping the ice would hold and that they would never leave.

The Top Ten . . .

Winter/Snow Memories

10. Shoveling 23" of snow from the driveway back in February 2010.

9. Riding an iceboat on a frozen lake— Fun, but the seating was precarious—sitting out on the plank, holding the steel guy-wire.

8. Hearing ice crackunder my feet while while walking across that same lake years later.

7. Alone, fly-fishing a small New Jersey trout stream, two brown trout coming to hand under a gentle snow fall. One of the most relaxing times I’ve had on the water.

6) In fifth grade, flying down the aptly-named ‘Suicide Hill’on a wooden toboggan with a 300-pound classmate, momentarily airborne, shattering the sled upon landing, then trekking back to his house to have his mom pick him up because he’d been hurt.

5) As a Boy Scout, having a snowball fight near the summit of Mount Baldy (elev. 12,441 feet) at Philmont Scout Ranch in Cimarron, New Mexico—in August.

4) Every time my Mom and Dad notified my brother, sister, and me school had been cancelled.

3) Waking up one morning in Queenstown, New Zealand to see the Remarkables dusted by an overnight snow. The place looked like a postcard.

2) Groundhog Day, 2003. After getting my brother’s Ford Explorer stuck in a snowy ditch in the mountains of northcentral Pennsylvania, we hiked over a mile through the woods in the dark, bummed rides on the backs of snowmobiles, then rode in the snow-filled bed of a pickup (beyond cold) to be randomly dropped off at a stranger’s home who happened to know the manager of the closed motel located just next door, where we spent the night as the only guests. This is known to us as the Pennsylvania Big Woods Adventure, and it is remembered with reverence each year.

1) Every Christmas with family (whether it’s a white one or not).

&MORE--January 2014

Refill

by Paul Weidknecht

“Hey, idiot, pick up the phone; I know you’re there. Pick up.

“Anyway. We had our little sit-down the other day, but now I remember some things I need to say. You think pink-slippin’ me is gonna make a difference in my life? Forget it. And don’t tell me your hands were tied, because I know for a fact you had a choice on who to keep and who to let go. Like they say, ‘I may have been born at night, but not last night.’ Just to let you know, before you were ever around, Tarker asked me personally if I would consider a seat on the Board.

“I’m not worried though. My stockbroker is beating everybody on the Street, so I’m covered. You need to sit behind that desk; I don’t. And while you’re there, I’ll be in Italy. Yeah, that’s right. My fiancé has a runway show in Milan, and afterward we’re traveling cross-country to her villa that overlooks the Adriatic Sea. Swivel your chair around, enjoy the view of the Hudson.

“And another thing, it’s disgraceful the way you treat a veteran, someone who served this country in a time of war. You have no idea what I’ve seen. To crouch behind that stone wall, as twelve thousand men march across a field to kill you, the future of America—no, the world—in the balance if you crumble and give way. And it wasn’t just Gettysburg, there were other battles, I just don’t mention it.

“So, good doctor, next time make sure I have enough of a refill on the script so I don’t run out. You know I need my meds, and if I don’t have them, then it’s not good for either of us.”

The Update

by Paul Weidknecht

Season’s Greetings Everyone,

What a year it has been! After a challenging start, things finally settled down. John and I closed on the Diamondhead condo, then on the ranch in Montana after negotiating the land rights after the oil and gas were discovered. Kara will be home for winter break after finishing her first semester at Harvard where she is pre-med with straight As. Earlier, Todd completed his junior year by going 32-0 and winning the state high school wrestling championship (the phone rings every evening from Division I recruiters).We’re so proud of them! I tend to my orchids in the greenhouse or swim laps in the pool, but most of my day is taken up with paperwork with lawyers, the SEC, and IRS. Recently, John has gotten into fitness and is working out a lot. His bench is going through the roof (he’s repping three hundred pounds now!) thanks to his being able to use the weights in the rec yard after a group of men he knows offered their protection services at a reasonable rate.

Wishing you all a Happy New Year,

Jessica

Paul Weidknecht’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Oregon Literary Review, Clapboard House, Potomac Review (online), The Copperfield Review, Yale Anglers’ Journal, Stone’s Throw Magazine, The Oklahoma Review, Outdoor Life, and elsewhere. He has written a feature-length screenplay, A Storm In Season, about a former slave who became the first African-American war hero. He is currently at work on a novel. When not writing, he throws flies to wild trout and gets thrown to judo mats. He lives in Northwest New Jersey. For more information, visit Paul's website.

Time to Vent

by Paul Weidknecht

(November, 2012)

Don't listen to the water cooler slugs or copier room fakers; real office spying is in the vent. Get your ear to the louvered rectangle and help your career. True, I'm still in the mailroom, but next week I'm having a sit-down with the CEO, a nice guy, but deeply flawed. Anyway, there's this problem: I've discovered we're moving into a building across town, I've put years into these vents and I don't want to start over again. But I'm sure I'll adapt and get to know that place too. I imagine my new office should have great ventilation.

After A Quick Review Of Jeremy Proehl’s Whole Life

by Paul Weidknecht

(Sept/Oct 2011)

The car's rough idle made the dessert quiver, and for several long moments Jeremy and Allison Proehl sat at the foot of Barry John's driveway considering their contribution to the agency barbeque--banana slices suspended in tangerine Jell-O. Soon they glanced at each other, silently agreeing that stalling was useless.

From his window, Jeremy looked up at the house. People in bright summer clothing, pastel blue this and canary yellow that, trudged up the asphalt slope, their steps slowed by the gravity of Barry’s hill. “You know, we could back out of here, have this nice gelatinous refreshment all to ourselves. How does that sound?”

Allison smiled and refitted the aluminum foil around the lip of the rectangular glass tray. “They’re just people, Jer. A little older than us, a little bit more money, but they’re still just people. You’ll do fine.”

Jeremy had to admit Barry John’s home was as end of the cul-du-sac and up on the hill as his invitation had claimed. No question about that. However, Jeremy was pretty sure those weren’t Ionic columns, but Doric. Still, he’d keep his mouth shut. At separate agency meetings earlier in the year, Jeremy had accidentally called Barry by his last name twice, so he wasn’t about to go there again based on his knowledge of ancient support architecture. Barry was a good person to know, a guy who could make things easier for a new agent. Or harder. In sales of life insurance and investment products within the agency, Barry John was the number one and number three producer, respectively, and currently the number seven producer in the entire country. Jeremy was last.

As he and Allison stepped from the car, Jeremy couldn’t help but feel that his own ranking was the result of the territory the general agent had assigned him. This felt like an excuse, a wormy cop-out, but Jeremy knew Charlie didn’t like young reps, and that much was a fact. Once while in a men’s room stall during a break at an agency meeting to promote a new product, Jeremy overheard Charlie tell Herb Mellin, the number five producer in the agency, that no one under thirty had any right selling insurance, none at all. He’d said there just wasn’t enough life experience to be able to sit at someone’s dining room table and speak intelligently about the matters of life and death. Jeremy shook away the memory as he and Allison continued up the hill.

Reaching the top, they were intercepted by Joan John, who smilingly took the tray from Allison and guided her toward the house. Jeremy said a quick hello and wandered toward the open three-car garage where Barry, Herb, and Andy Whit, the number four producer in the agency, stood around Barry’s restored 1973 Corvette. The hood was up and they were leaning over the engine compartment as if looking for something just lost.

Barry stood up and took a drink from a tumbler that appeared to be filled with gin and ice. He wore a tropical print shirt, tan cargo shorts and rattan flip flops. His shirt was unbuttoned to the center of his chest, where a braided gold chain sat smothered in a tangle of hair that looked like silver wire. He laughed at something Andy said and took another sip from his tumbler. As Jeremy approached, Barry’s gaze drifted over and their eyes met. Jeremy saw his face drop in an expression that looked something like disgust. A second later Jeremy heard what sounded like ‘worst’. He thought it was probably just thirst, couldn’t have been worst. They wouldn’t be talking about him. He was just too new to hate.

The three nodded curtly and Barry kept his profile to Jeremy, continuing on about the car. His face was flushed and he seemed a little drunk. The fragrance of suntan lotion hung in the air as heavy as fresh paint and Jeremy felt a cough rumble in his throat.

“I wanted one of these so much when I was a kid,” Barry said. “When I was eighteen, this was the car to be seen in. Back in ‘73, this thing retailed for about fifty-five, fifty-six hundred, base. I thought that was a fortune. Never thought I’d know that kind of money. Now–.” Barry shrugged and took another sip.

“I make that much sitting down with a couple for three hours.”

The two other men nodded dully in agreement, the statement as ordinary as it was truthful.

“Provided you’re sitting with the right couple,” Andy said, bringing a collective chuckle from the senior agents.

“You’ve got the small-block in there,” Jeremy interrupted, startling himself by the suddenness of his statement. “Three hundred and fifty cubic inches, one hundred and ninety horses. One of two engines that were available that year. The other was the four-fifty-four.”

Barry turned toward him and smiled. “Yes, sir?”

After ten minutes or so, Jeremy soon discovered he knew far more about Corvettes than either Herb or Andy and the deal was sealed when he described, in tantalizing detail, his visit to the Corvette assembly plant in Bowling Green, Kentucky, a place Barry said he’d been trying—no, dying—to get to for years.

“Say, can I get you something to drink?” Barry asked. “We’ve got beer, wine, hard liquor, just about everything.”

“I’ll take a Coke.”

Barry laughed and shook his head to himself. “Then it’ll be a Coke.”

After a while Herb and Andy drifted from the garage, their knowledge of the car now exhausted and insufficient to add anything enlightening to the conversation, and as the gin worked on Barry, Jeremy learned about this agency. He heard about the agents who’d managed to talk themselves back into their jobs after being called out to the home office in Phoenix for a sit-down by the ‘silver-haired ones’, and about the agents who slipped off their wedding bands when visiting the hotel bar while attending company training sessions. Normally Jeremy would have felt a discomfort, an oiliness, about hearing these stories, embarrassed for those he now saw wandering the lawn in search of yard games or little hot dogs impaled on toothpicks, but with each story came a strange empowerment. He felt like an insider, newly invited into the group with a secret handshake from one of the agency’s gatekeepers.

Barry also explained something Jeremy would have found nearly impossible to decipher on his own.

“You have to understand,” Barry began. “There are two groups within this agency: the losers and the producers. It’s cold, but true. There are people who advertise on diner placemats right along side of the tanning salon or bowling alley, and those who don’t have to. That might be why some people in the agency top ten aren’t real friendly in the beginning. They just don’t know who you are yet.”

For several moments, Jeremy thought about Barry’s statement. When the thinking turned to pondering, Jeremy felt vaguely bothered and wanted to offer another subject to dilute the topic away. He wondered if Barry saw something in him, a nugget of something that could be cultivated into a successful career in sales. Jeremy also knew Barry’s supreme talents in selling made him an expert on human reaction, and for a moment, he wondered if he had become another sales call, with pointed closing questions just seconds away.

But Jeremy would let them all know, in time. This was a job, one in which he could make a lot of money, for sure, but he also remembered what the lack of life insurance could do to a family, and what it had done. He remembered a woman with no education and few skills having to work three jobs in order to replace half of what her husband had earned, reminded every time she spooned slop onto a cafeteria tray or took abuse from some snot-nosed sixth grader that when a person has three jobs, they have no career, and even less future. The company sent a fruit basket and arranged for six months of salary after the crane collapse at the plant. A small insurance policy from work was enough to put him in the ground, with two hundred and fourteen dollars left over.

He couldn’t blame his father. Sometimes the act of living gets in the way of life. Hard-working people do just that, they work hard, they fill their days with things to do. Who thinks of life insurance on their own? That was the job of the sales rep. Jeremy knew the pitches: You see, life insurance isn’t about death, it’s about life, your family’s life after you’re gone; and he believed them.

Barry motioned with his chin toward the lawn. “See the guy in the red polo shirt, with the horseshoe in his hand? That’s Oscar Tome. He’s—what?—fifteenth, twentieth in the agency.”

“Twelfth.”

“Fine, twelfth, whatever. Forget agency, with the whales that live in his territory, he could easily be a top twenty guy in the company. But he’s too much of a straight arrow, and it costs him. He could be in the Diamond Club every year with us, go to Hawaii on the company’s nickel, get the Super Bowl ring they give you. But he plays it too straight. Look, your job is to get a signed app and a check that won’t bounce. You don’t leave any money on the table.”

As Barry went on, Jeremy recalled that chilly spring morning just four months before when he sat in Charlie’s office and took the test. Even lousy territories couldn’t be given away, so there was an aptitude test administered to all potential agents. Jeremy knew what the company wanted in an agent, so he had skewed the answers to resemble someone he wasn’t, and with each penciled-in oval moved closer to helping families secure their financial futures.

When the time came to discuss the results of the test two weeks later, the two sat around the glossy table in Charlie’s conference room under lights that seemed too bright, dressed like twins separated by forty years—navy suit, white shirt, ox blood tie—the definitive uniform of fiscal conservatism. Jeremy remembered how his palms left damp whitish prints on the table, and how he tried to discretely buff them away with his sleeve by odd arm movements and paper rustling. Charlie read about an individual of intense drive and entrepreneurial spirit with a fanatical sense of giving. He remembered Charlie looking over the top of his reading glasses and repeating that word, fanatical. Does that sound right, he’d asked. Jeremy couldn’t disagree. That part of his personality must have become trapped on the test like a fly in a cube of amber, visible from all sides, unable to be concealed. Jeremy had no answer then, but now wondered if fanaticism wasn’t merely the pursuit of idealism, the fanatic trying to convince others of the worthiness of the journey.

Jeremy broke from his reverie and found Barry leaning forward. “Just remember, when in doubt, roll ‘em into Whole Life. The actuaries can sit in that glass tower out there in Arizona with their tables and charts and create all kinds of new products, but nothing beats a good Whole Life policy for a heavy commission. Personally, I’ll take dessert over the desert any day. Look, I’m going over to the buffet tent. I’m starving.”

Barry left the garage, waving to the horseshoe gang. Oscar innocently waved back. Jeremy fell in behind Barry, then hitched a moment and turned back toward the car. Placing the unfinished Coke on the roof of the Corvette, he headed toward the clang of someone nailing a ringer.

Sept/Oct 2011

Paul Weidknecht's Top Ten Movies

10) It’s A Wonderful Life - It almost seems as though the reason for this classic is to make folks pause to consider the important issues of life, and the impact of their lives on others. I know it has that effect on me. During the busy time leading up to December 25th, no matter where someone lives January through November, everyone seems to be a resident of Bedford Falls around Christmas.

9) A River Runs Through It - As a lifetime fly angler, I understand it is akin to heresy to like this movie (a vocal majority of fly fishers believe the movie brought too many wannabes into the sport), but it goes on the list, unrepentantly. I can forgive the scene of Brad Pitt’s river ride, swept away by a salmonid on a trout tether, because the film is so atmospheric and in touch with the real purpose anglers take to the river—to ponder this thing called life.

8) Witness - To protect the young witness of a murder, Philadelphia cop John Book finds himself living among the Amish, eventually falling in love with the boy’s recently widowed mother. Part crime thriller, part love story, part cultural glimpse, Witness satisfies on several levels, and I never get tired of seeing Book take care of business Philly-style when the townie decides to test the ‘Ohio cousin’.

7) One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest - Which is the best scene in this movie? The imaginary World Series game? The water spraying scene? The fishing scene? The final party? Any of their therapy sessions? Too many to choose from, for sure. An amazing cast and one of those few movies in which every actor could have won an Oscar for each of their performances.

6) The Godfather: Part II - What can be written about this film that has not already been written? This saga of family and crime might be considered another true rarity: a sequel that out- masterpieces the masterpiece. In a movie of many great scenes, the one between Michael and Fredo at the New Year’s Eve party in Havana is still one of the most haunting in film.

5) Heat - An LA heist movie starring two of the best actors on the planet, Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro—that right there seems enough to sell the movie to the unacquainted. Armored cars get knocked over (literally), money exchanges turn into shootouts, and I dare you to walk into the kitchen for a sandwich in the middle of the downtown gun battle scene.

4) The Outlaw Josey Wales - Great westerns contain dialogue that crackles with attitude without coming off as melodramatic bravado, andThe Outlaw Josey Wales never violates this law. Bullets and tobacco juice fly as family man becomes outlaw, and outlaw becomes protector. Watch this movie, get on a horse, and see if you’re not inclined to reciting some of the film’s many gems.

3) Places In The Heart - In Depression-era Texas, a family and strangers come together, throwing off tragedy and injustice, to earn victory and redemption. Places In The Heart is genuine storytelling. When it kicks in, I’ll always nod my head in rhythm with "Cotton-Eyed Joe", but it’s "In the Garden" at the film’s conclusion—perhaps the most brilliant and moving in cinema—that keeps me rooted in place, just staring.

2) Glory - The story of the 54^th Massachusetts Voluntary Infantry Regiment during the Civil War, an all-African-American unit fighting to preserve the Union, for an army that wouldn’t pay them equal to white soldiers. Every character is fully realized and the banter among the soldiers when they return to the tent each night is some of the best-delivered dialogue you’re bound to hear. Another movie with a poignant ending.

1) Braveheart - Simply put, the movie has everything: love and hate, joy and rage, courage and fear, honor and deceit. Add to this the magnificent backdrop of the Scottish Highlands, epic action sequences, and a tight script, and you have what I consider the complete film entertainment experience. The movie is scary, not so much for the battle scenes, but for the fact that when I flip through the channel guide and see it scheduled to air, I know not a sentence of work is getting written for the next 177 minutes. But seeing Robert the Bruce lead Wallace’s army across the field in the final scene is always worth the time.

A Line from a Movie

Paul Weidknecht (February, 2012)

Years ago I saw a movie, one containing a scene of Brad Pitt staring deeply and longingly into the eyes of a beautiful woman. It was the sort of scene that probably came with quivering stings and vibrating woodwinds—crescendoing, no doubt—to further dramatize the point that he was totally taken with her. Yet while I’m unsure about the musical accompaniment, I do remember that a second after the scene passed, a woman in the row behind me whispered to her friend, “Wouldn’t you love to have a man look at you that way?”

My attention drifted from the movie and I considered what she had said. As a man, I realized this was genuinely valuable information, good stuff to know. A door was cracked, a sliver of light beheld, and now a secret revealed, one I had come to by no personal merit or favor other than fortuitous seating. I thought how brave she was to admit this to her friend, to leave herself so exposed, the candor of feelings overriding any potential shame of revelation. I thought she might be single, having never been loved with the intensity she had desired, or that she was married and now in a loveless relationship that had once held so much promise. I thought of her going home, extra smiles all around, perhaps preparing a special meal, leading her man into that look, drawing out that gaze she desperately needed, confirming for her, if nothing else in this world, that she was truly loved.

Then I thought a little more and figured what she really wanted was Brad Pitt to look at her that way, so I returned to my popcorn.