A Shadow of Death in The Woods (19 page)

Finally, the big weekend came. Bob was more nervous than I had ever seen him, making me realize how important this was to Bob and his company. Lydia arrived Thursday night with her car packed to the roof with boxes of clothes, shoes, and the cat carrier. I helped her carry the boxes to her apartment but of course I was not allowed to carry the boxes inside for her. She then hit me with a surprise request. She had a hair dresser coming over. She could have her hair done downstairs but she wondered if she could have it done in my apartment. I thought that a strange request but I knew that she allowed no one in her apartment so I agreed. Crazy woman. Had I known how long it was going to take, I might not have agreed but I wanted everything to be friendly or at least appear to be friendly this weekend. The process worked because Lydia’s hair came out looking beautiful. The basics had been laid down but the hair dresser would come back Friday night and Saturday night for the final dos. My apartment was going to be like a circus with me trying to get ready, Lydia having her hair tuned up, and Jane, Liz, Paul and Bob changing clothes in my apartment. The women could use my bedroom and bathroom while we guys used the den and the kitchen but I was thinking that some of us might have to go to the laundry room to wash.

Friday afternoon the guests arrived and we got them settled in their apartments. Momma and her helpers were in the kitchen. Bob had me hire a bartender for the weekend. We had drinks before dinner.

Dinner was served at seven and Momma and her helpers did a great job. It came off perfectly.

Saturday went well. The weather was ideal and we had a great time hiking in the morning and shooting in the afternoon. While the guests went to their apartments I sneaked into the kitchen to help Momma with the Chateaubriand and Chateau potatoes.

Finally, the big dinner came and it couldn’t have gone better. The strawberry Flambé went over better than I expected. Bob was all smiles.

The DJ was ready so I had him play some slow songs to get the dancing started. People joined in and the dancing began. We moved into some faster songs and Lydia and I got lost in time dancing.

She was gorgeous in her outfit. Her auburn hair was radiant. She had on a gown, which was short and trim enough so she could dance well but was dressy enough to match my dinner jacket. I had purchased flowers for the ladies to wear. I picked out a special orchid for Lydia. She caught everyone’s eye. When she wasn’t dancing, she chatted very professionally with the guests, making them feel comfortable. In short, I couldn’t believe that she was the mad woman who lived next door on weekends.

I did my best to make sure that the guests were comfortable dancing or chatting but to be honest I got carried away dancing with Lydia. We did the jitterbug, which I think is a neat dance. Once I realized that people were watching us but most of the time I was transported to a place I hadn’t been to in years, if ever. For a change I was totally happy as we danced the evening away.

I didn’t want to stop but we had to let the guests get some rest for their travels the next day. We wound down the music and put on some easy listening music as we had our last chit chat and night caps. Bob and Jane were beaming but I couldn’t tell if it was from real happiness over the event going well or if it was from all the booze that had been absorbed.

The guests made their way to their apartments. Lydia went her way. Bob, Jane, Paul and Liz had a driver and a car to take them home because they were in no condition to drive legally. Bob eased me to the side and said that he was thoroughly pleased with how the weekend went, which made me feel great. Then with a grin on his face he said he was happy to see Lydia and me having so much fun. I knew that I had a lot of fun but I didn’t think it was something that others would be commenting on. I didn’t care. It was true. It was the best time that I had had in a year or more. It was great fun and I had seen a sane side to my crazy neighbor. Maybe I was going crazy so she didn’t seem as crazy. Or maybe she wasn’t as crazy as I thought. She still didn’t let anyone in her apartment and in my book that was crazy.

Sunday went just as well and the people were off. Lydia came over to hang out for a while after the guests left. I still didn’t trust her. I figured she could blow up at any minute.

Chapter 30

Lydia III

Maybe she should have taken the Interstate. She instead had taken the mountain roads because it relaxed her. The Interstates were better for thinking but for her the mountain roads were more relaxing. It took total concentration to keep on the roads full of switchbacks. She grew up in the country with these roads and it was home to her. Plus focusing on the roads kept her mind off work. It was similar to the way Jack described motorcycle riding in the mountains.

But today she ended up thinking anyway. To do that and live, she had to slow down and it would take an extra hour to get to The Cabin. It wasn’t a big deal since no one was waiting for her. The Cat wouldn’t like it though.

Jack wasn’t exactly waiting for her but he usually called right after she got in to invite her over for a late supper. She liked that because cooking wasn’t her thing. He made great food. She even had stopped being afraid of him. She could now go to his apartment without her gun.

When she traveled, she kept her gun wedged under her right leg where she could easily pull it out with her right hand. It was not a big caliber gun. It was a thirty-two but it was loaded with self-protection ammunition, meaning bullets that flattened and broke up when they hit a target. It wouldn’t knock a man down but it would put a world of hurt on him and take his mind off what he was intending to do.

She had never shot a man but she knew she could do it. She was an expert with the gun and psychologically she knew she could shoot a man just because she was never going through again what had happened to her in high school.

She wasn’t sure when she stopped being afraid of Jack. Maybe it was the business event at The Cabin when they danced the whole evening. Lydia hadn’t enjoyed an evening like that in years. Well, maybe never. She liked to dance but seldom had the opportunity because she was so tall and she didn’t date.

Jack totally surprised her. He was light on his feet even though he was a huge man. It was a lovely evening.

Equally surprising was that she found out it was Jack who got all the women flowers to wear. She noticed that hers was different from the others. It was a beautiful corsage. She would never have guessed that a man like Jack would have thought of flowers. It was a nice touch and it said something about Jack although she wasn’t exactly sure what.

She remembered Bob telling her that she was safer with Jack than she was alone. Now she was beginning to believe it. She trusted Bob but Bob often said things to get what he wanted so when he told her this, she thought he was probably just trying to get her to agree with Jack’s living in The Cabin. Now she was thinking that Bob was telling the truth. Jack had never once done anything that threatened her in anyway. As a matter of fact Jack looked out for her more than Bob did, not that she wanted any man looking out for her.

She thought these things over as she drove through the West Virginia mountains. She was almost to The Cabin and she was trying to figure out how to ask Jack a question. She had taken quantum mechanics in physics many years ago. She got a high grade in it because she could calculate all of the required results from the equations but one of her math students asked the meaning of the solution to Schroedinger’s Wave equation. She suddenly realized that she could not answer the student’s question. She was embarrassed and was determined to learn the meaning so she could explain it.

She remembered that Jack was always reading physics books for relaxation. He must be able to explain it to her. For some reason she didn’t want to admit to Jack that she needed help. At the same time Jack was no dummy and he probably already had figured out how little she really knew about physics. Math was more her thing. It was one thing to take college courses and pass them and it was another thing to really understand the material so that you can teach it or explain it to others so they understood.

After thinking about it the whole trip she decided that the best way was just to outright ask him to help. She would do that as soon as she got to The Cabin but she wanted to have the help on Saturday so she would be fresh. She would talk with him tonight to set up a time for tomorrow.

Jack heard Lydia’s car pull into the parking lot. He noted that she was later than usual and he hoped that she didn’t have trouble on the road. It wasn’t always safe for a woman to drive the roads at night but he would bet ten dollars to a donut that she had her trusty thirty-two by her side. Heaven help a man who tried to harass her. Especially with the loads she had in that thing.

He waited for her to get settled down and gave her a call. The cat door clacked as he dialed her number. The Cat came over and rubbed Jack’s leg. Jack reached down and gave The Cat a hello rub. The Cat went off to check the bed. Lydia answered and he invited her over for a late supper.

It was a strange arrangement. He didn’t like her much but he was lonely and looked forward to having another human being around. His life was pathetic.

She seemed the same as usual except that Jack guessed that she had something on her mind. Finally, she came out with it.

“Jack, would you help me to understand quantum mechanics?”

“That’s impossible.”

Lydia was irate. Who was he to suggest that she couldn’t understand something. She virtually exploded in his face.

Jack tried to calm her down. He pointed out that no one really understood quantum mechanics. Anyone who claimed they did was either lying or didn’t have a clue about QM. QM was a foreign realm where our human intuition based on our experiences was not applicable. However, he was willing to explain as much as he could. They agreed upon an hour Saturday morning.

The appointed hour came sooner than Jack wished. He wasn’t sure how a session with her would go. On the plus side she was one of, if not, the smartest people he had ever met and she was outstanding in math. On the negative side she was crazy as a bedbug. It is best to stay away from crazy people.

Right on time she came with her notebook and a head full of questions. The first one was: What was the meaning of the wave function solution to Schroedinger’s Wave equation?

Jack wasn’t sure how to tell her without losing his head. He was reminded of Alice in Wonderland talking with the queen. If he wasn’t careful, it would be off with his head.

No one knows what the wave function means. There is experimental evidence that small entities can act like waves sometimes and other times like particles or little billiard balls bouncing around. For those cases where they act like waves, the Schroedinger’s equation applies. We know how to solve it and we can calculate results that agree astonishingly well with experimental results. But at the same time no one has been able to say what the wave function really means. Nobody knows what is “waving.” It is one of the great unresolved physics questions.

Many physicists and other people have tried to interpret what the wave function really means but no one has been able to come up with an explanation that everyone believes and, worse, no one has ever been able come up with a lab experiment to explain it. In fact, many lab experiments make the explanation harder.

The magnitude of the wave function predicts the probability that a particle will have a certain property, say a location in space. That is a very useful result, which has successfully been used for close to a hundred years. Interestingly though, we still do not know exactly what is “waving.” At the end of the day physics students memorize rules set down by people like Richard Feynman and calculate useful results that agree extremely well with experimental results. That is quantum mechanics in a nutshell. Live with it.

The quantum world is a bizarre place where things happen randomly. Material may appear out of nowhere and later disappear just as strangely. None of this happens in the world that we experience. So if by understanding, you mean to relate it to your personal experiences, then you will never understand QM. If you memorize the QM rules and calculate useful results, then do you really understand it? Jack relayed all of this information and more to Lydia who absorbed it like a sponge. When he finished, she fired question after question at him. He did the best that he could in answering the probing and insightful questions. He wasn’t sure that her original question was answered but she seemed happy with the session.

Both of them noted that this was the second time that they had fun together. They both liked dancing and physics. Jack breathed a sigh of relief. He had met with the crazy queen and had kept his head.

Chapter 31

The Garden

Today’s food is mostly processed food. There are many reasons for this and the main one is convenience, meaning less work. The problem is that you don’t really know what you are eating but you can rest assured it isn’t healthy. Too much fat, salt, sugar and too many chemicals. I like quality food and by that I mean meals made from basic ingredients. It takes more time and work but that is the way I like to eat.

When I was living with my family, I had no place for a garden and I was the only one interested in what I call basic food. Now that I was on my own I could do what I wanted. That is if I could find a place to have a truck garden.

I talked with Bob and he introduced me to an old boy who was a hard worker, but down on his luck. He had some land where he could have a truck garden but didn’t have the capital to buy equipment, seeds and fertilizer. It takes money to get things going. With my new job I had lots of money coming in and not many expenses.

I went with Bob to meet the guy whose name was Marty. His wife’s name was Louise. They had two little girls, Janice and Joyce.

We pulled into their drive. They had a reasonably well-kept two story house, painted white. In the back was a dilapidated small barn that looked like it was ready to fall down.

Marty turned out to be a likable guy and a hard worker. He had a lot of enthusiasm for a truck garden. We got along right from the start. We walked down to see the land. It was bottom land and looked perfect for a truck garden. We struck up a loose partnership. I wasn’t interested in the business deal. I was only interested in getting some fresh vegetables that I could have canned or frozen for the next year.

I inquired about gardening equipment. Marty knew of a tractor and tilling equipment that he could get for a good price. The only problem was the tractor needed refurbishing. He was a good mechanic but needed money for the parts.

I was okay with supplying the money. I asked where he would do the work and he said in his barn. This was a pipe dream. The barn was ready to fall down. I gingerly mentioned that the barn was in need of repair and a new roof. He said that he had been thinking of fixing the barn up but of course needed the money for materials. I was a lonely man who could benefit greatly from a project. In my younger days I had done carpentry work while working my way through college. I told him we would fix up the barn together and then fix up the farming equipment. I could see that he was excited.

I went back later without Bob and looked the barn over and made a list of materials and tools. We would need jacks, come-alongs, lumber, nails, spikes, etc. We talked it over and agreed to start the following Saturday morning.

Saturday I was at the barn just before dawn. A load of lumber was stacked in front of the barn door. I had the hardware and tools in the back of my pickup. I got out a shovel and started digging under the building for places to set jacks. Soon Marty came out and we spent the weekend with cables drawing the building together and jacking it up to level it. It was beginning to look like a real building. The next weekend we nailed in bracing and put new boards where outside boards were missing or damaged. By the end of the second weekend, the building looked great except it needed paint and a roof. The following week I had a contractor put on a new roof.

The next week Marty bought the farm equipment and had it moved to the barn. I went over the next Saturday and he had the tractor torn apart. I rented a sand blaster and we stripped the paint. I got a paint sprayer and painted the tractor and other equipment. Without telling Marty, I had purchased paint for the barn as a gift and while I was spraying, I painted the barn. I did all the painting in one weekend and was exhausted when it was done but everything looked great.

I loved the weekends and evenings working at Marty’s. As an added benefit I had hardly seen Lydia for a few weeks. I considered myself lucky.

Marty and I agreed on what we were going to plant and he bought seeds. We were going to have two kinds of potatoes, sweetcorn, four kinds of squash, carrots, beets, four kinds of beans, peas, red radishes, horseradish, lettuce, cabbage and more. It was going to be a huge garden of several acres. Marty would keep some for his family and I would take some for freezing. The rest, if any, we would sell.

We got a local chicken farmer to spread chicken manure on the land. Marty then plowed and dragged it smooth. I borrowed a transit from Bob’s company and we laid out the garden. We laid it out so Marty could run the cultivator lengthwise and crosswise in the corn and potatoes so no hoeing would be needed. We were ready to plant. I was excited and couldn’t wait for the harvesting to begin. Peas and red radishes would be the first along with lettuce.

To round out my fare I lined up sources for pork, beef, chicken, eggs and milk all without hormones or antibiotics. All of my food would be organic. It was going to be a good food year.

My life would be really okay if only I could see the children. I called Kat a few times but she was intransigent. I phoned her father, Bill, but he was unable to help me. He claimed he was on my side and was trying his best to change things but so far he was without success. I could understand the divorce. I didn’t agree with it but I understood it. But I didn’t understand not having time with the children. My heart ached for them and I vowed not to give up the fight for visitation rights of some kind.