Jed Wolf

I was hired as a laborer to help build a church in Burlington Vermont in the summer of 1985. I knew nothing about commercial construction and was struggling with my sexuality but the hexagonal design of the house of God looked intriguing and I wanted to learn new skills.

Normally carpenters, masons and roofers would be too intimidating to work with but I’d been living with a woman and her kids for years and could trot them out if need be. After digging graves, facing wolves, Indians and sobriety, by my mid twenties I thought I could handle anything.

My girlfriend didn’t ask or seem to care who I was attracted to. Her husband had recently been shot in a hunting accident and she’d been raising her two little girls on her own for a year when we met. Practically a kid myself, at nineteen I was a charming diversion, if not a great lover. Caring for them derailed my innate self-loathing and gave my life purpose while providing a bit more stability, security and fun in return. Our arrangement was equally beneficial and we soon became a united little family.

I was working and attending college and planned on getting a music degree. Throughout my life overachievement and creativity competed with guilt and shame. The struggle kept me subliminally depressed but as a family man, I thought my ennui passed for masculinity. But people began to call me “artistic” which had dubious connotations in the rugged north, so I quit college and devoted myself to manual labor worthy of absolution by God.

After being raised by alcoholics and encountering the addiction-prone Indians, I also quit drinking and smoking pot but with nothing left to obscure my heavy heart, I began performing “random acts of kindness” with a vengeance.

I fixed our decaying house, taught the girls about structural architecture while building snow forts and delivered hydraulics lectures flooding our swampy pasture for skating rinks. I piously kept our wood split and wood stove stoked and soon noticed, in addition to my ascendant self-image, I began to win scratch-off lottery tickets at will.

The relationship between melancholia and mania was described in 1st century Greece. Hospitals began experimenting with Lithium to treat patients in the late 1800’s but in the 1980’s, antidepressants were not yet in fashion.

Whenever I called my father and mentioned my “moodiness,” he’d suggest I see a shrink but, “only crazy people need therapists,” I thought as I stomped confidently through bee-covered goldenrod towards construction workers from The Village People.

I shook the hand of the gentler-looking one who I hoped was the project manager and asked if they were hiring. They both looked incredulous, “Hell, didn’t you see all them bees?” “Nah,” I said realizing my bushwhacking impressed them so like a coy Micheal Landon I asked, “how much you guys paying?” “For what,” the thinner one snickered.

Up close they looked like Cain and Able from an Esquire photoshoot. Able, the project manager continued driving stakes while after studying me Cain said, “You got a head shot? What’s your background pretty boy?”

My heart skipped with adrenaline. I’d grown a beard since high school but apparently still appeared fawn-like. My recent spiritual practices required truth to keep my good fortune flowing, but I couldn’t tell these rugged-looking guys I’d waited tables, babysat Indians or sold vacuum cleaners.

“I most recently dug human graves,” I said dropping my larynx nonchalantly, praying they wouldn’t require references. Then I added, “I have a strong back.” “Well then,” Cain said. “How ’bout using it to move that plywood over there.” “Where to,” I said eagerly tramping towards the sloppy pile as Able groaned in disapproval.

Oil-sprayed sheets of 3/4″ plywood are used to make forms for concrete. They’re expensive and the more they can be re-used the better, but the oilier and heavier they get. Each weighs over one hundred pounds. When hauled by hand around construction sites they must be heaved on one’s back, balanced, walked then dumped. I’d lugged about 10 sheets from the road when Cain reluctantly started the forklift and Able told me I was hired.

May Wyman’s mother was a Christian Scientist who regularly sunbathed topless by their pool. When I was a kid, May and I were best friends and her mother who was an actress was the talk of the town. Neighborhood kids would sneak outside their yard trying to get a glimpse of her arresting boobs which were rumored to have been augmented.

May’s mother was a devotee of Mary Baker Eddy, the former medium who founded Christian Science. On pleasant Sunday mornings May’s mother taught neighborhood kids who dropped by that “God is Love and he who abides in love abides in God.” Unlike the horror stories I’d heard from Catholic kids doomed ’till noon on Sundays, when May’s mother read poolside from Mary Baker Eddy’s mystical “Science and Health” while her two teenage sons exhibited their diving skills in Speedos, Christian Science was a pleasure to abide. The Wymans didn’t believe in doctors or medicine yet everyone in May’s family, especially her two older brothers remained in perfect health.

My father said May’s mother was Unxious, “characterized by excessive piousness in an affected manner like ointment,” but I liked her far better than my own. I regularly worked in May’s mother’s gardens simply for the way she’d pat my head. Though everyone else suspected she might be a witch, I knew she had magical powers.

May’s family moved to Southern California when I was 16 and her mother was delighted when I phoned her from Vermont ten years later. “Jeddy,” she said. “How wonderful to hear from you!” After sharing family news, I told her I’d been regularly winning scratch off lottery tickets and she said, “Isn’t that wonderful! You must be doing something right.” When I said I thought it was from “doing good,” she said, “Isn’t love wonderful,” then warned me to keep my mouth shut. “You’ve got a tiger by the tail, Jeddy but you must be very careful. Tell no one. Keep it zipped. Believe me. People won’t understand.”

“Building a church will be a good place to practice good deeds,” I thought as I left our dead end road that morning to find work. My girlfriend high-fived me when I returned that afternoon wearing a hard hat, just like she did when I won lottery tickets.

I wanted to celebrate with a six pack or a joint but chemicals affected my performance in the bedroom. They blurred my imagination and made my necessary vivid fantasies impossible. But mostly I didn’t want to risk compromising my good fortune with alcohol or drugs. In addition to consistently winning lottery tickets, other marvels resulted from my newly immaculate lifestyle. My life-long shame seemed to be dissipating. I believed my recent ability to “satisfy my girlfriend” now and then meant God was rewarding me. My most fervent wish was being granted. I might be becoming a man.

After scattering my last large garbage bag full of pot I’d grown in an alfalfa field behind our house, I watched a friend pathetically crawl on his knees searching for remnants of it in the rain and vowed never to bother with friends again.

With it’s long winters and rare good weather, addiction was prevalent in the back woods. Playing music occasionally drew folks together but drinking made driving home perilous and most preferred indulging to going out.

I was nineteen and knew know one when I arrived in Northern Vermont. I’d drove up Route 100 which became progressively more beautiful and remote the further north I traveled. With winter quickly descending, I decided to stay and moved into a rugged one-room schoolhouse.

I was playing morose violin sonatas like a dying swan in that empty room to keep from going crazy when a church pianist neighbor who was out snowshoeing heard me. “I thought I was hearing things,” she said stomping out of her squeaky frozen webs. “I’m Cordelia, Cordy for short. You must be a gift from God.” She visited long enough for us to plan a jam session at her house with another violinist she knew but rather than Bluegrass, we were going to attempt Bach’s double violin concerto in D Minor.

The three of us had a blast getting to know each other guzzling homemade apple wine at Cordy’s secluded place – with it’s sickeningly dramatic view of four thousand foot, frost-covered Jay Peak looming salmon red in the setting sun as our sight reading grew sloppier and sloppier.

Cordy suggested we head home while we could still start our vehicles because the temperature was plummeting. After assuring one another we were fit to drive then garbling our goodbyes, I followed Cordy’s friend in my jeep as she crawled ahead in her suburban in the stark moonlight.

We’d gone only about a mile when she gently slid off the icy road in slow motion. We couldn’t stop laughing. Though we both had four-wheel drives, neither had a chain to yank her vehicle back onto the road. She rationally suggested I simply drive her back to my place where she’d spend the night but she’d obviously she’d want to sleep with me. Everyone did in those days. I knew this dilemma all too well – too drunk to fantasize and not nearly enough to be honest, I was cornered.

I found a length of thick nylon rope in my Jeep and insisted we use it to try to pull her out, “cause your husband will be worried sick,” I said as if I cared. “If it snaps, I’ll take you back to my place.” Despite her seductive protestations and the biting cold, I tied my my jeep to her vehicle and not only couldn’t extract her from the ditch, our vehicles became tightly bound together by an unyielding knot from God who preferred we stay off the road.

It was thirty below. Nearly overwhelmed by how easy it was to freeze to death, we jogged to my place to stay warm desperately singing selections from “The Sound of Music,” in the horrible moonlight.

“Why would God want my worst fears to find me here in this primeval place,” I wondered as I casually lay in bed with her attributing my “difficulty” to the apple wine. The next morning I cut our vehicles apart, sent her packing and vowed to remain a hermit forever.

I’d been living with my girlfriend and her kids for seven years and hadn’t had a drink in months when I met Jack Eden. Originally from Connecticut, Jack started started his fast-growing construction company a few years before. He was erudite, scrupulous and like everyone, he loved Burlington Vermont with it’s Adirondack views across Lake Champlain. Tapping the potential of the stunning college town, his exuberant company won every job he bid on.

People respected and trusted Jack Eden. Whenever he showed up at the church, the crew, normally cackling like fishwives became a well-oiled machine. Otherwise they jockeyed to outdo each other’s filthy language and vulgar insults while hammering and dangerously slinging power tools. Growing up around clam bakes and country clubs, construction crew behavior was totally foreign to me so I kept my head down and mouth shut.

Being low man on the totem pole had it’s advantages. No one competed with me

or expected much yet I was vital to everyone’s productivity and secretly I knew I was needed. I took pride in methodically moving materials and cleaning up after them. Drudgery like grave-digging, baby-sitting or withstanding ridicule became zen practice especially when they called me their “cleaning lady.”

It wasn’t unusual for arguments to break out over who to blame or how to do things and I remained silent, until the first heavy snow. The enormous concrete floor of the church sanctuary had just been meticulously poured but there was yet no roof over it when we woke to eighteen inches. The area was far too vast to hand shovel and too delicate to plow. Snowblowers would simply rearrange the deep snow. Something had to be done to remove it so we built a temporary tent using gargantuan tarps and installed several kerosene jet heaters inside to try and melt it overnight.

By morning the snow had melted into six inches of dense ice. Everyone was stumped about how to proceed when, no longer to able to keep silent I said, “This is a blessing.” Rather than trying to melt it, I suggested using the fork lift to pick up huge slabs. At first my suggestion was dismissed, but within a couple hours the sanctuary was ice free and I gained a modicum of respect.

I was no dummy. My father was an architect. I was becoming familiar with forming concrete with plywood and sauna tubes so between random acts of kindness at home, I began experimenting pouring plaster of paris into miniature geometric forms. Trial and error resulted in beautifully functional, curved walls and columns embossed with formative geometry. I believed this method might be used in commercial construction so I made an appointment to show Jack Eden my models.

The meeting went well but Jack wondered why I wasn’t setting my sights higher than working as a laborer. I couldn’t tell him why I had so little self-confidence but left the meeting pleased. As I returned to my truck, I noticed Cain leaning on his. “Wanna’ go have lunch,” he said. “Sure,” I said and hopped in his truck.

I’d developed a soft spot for Cain. Moody and complicated, I noticed he also had difficulty fitting in and I thought he might open up to me a bit. I said nothing of any consequence and made small talk about the church until Cain said, “What did you tell Jack?”

“What?” “You heard me,” he said. “What the fuck did you say about me?” “Nothing,” I said and tried to change the subject but when kept pressing me I said, “an invention,” “Bullshit,” he yelled and began swerving his truck while deliberately glaring at me like a mad man.

“Is this what you said I was like? Did you tell him I was crazy? Did you?” he screamed as he stepped on the gas. ” Scared pretty boy?” “No,” I said. “Stop the truck,” I demanded but that just made him speed up more saying, “now ‘you scared?” “No! Let me out,” I yelled but as opened my door and began to swing out my legs out he slammed on the breaks. “Damn. You’re crazier than me,” he said as the trucked came to a halt. I hopped out, said, “thanks for lunch,” and hitchhiked back to the office.

From then on, the crew thought I was a mole. I told Jack Eden nobody trusted me as a result of our meeting. He empathized and explained things to Able but it just made things worse. I continued to work hard, refused to complain or react when teased and when I turned the other cheek they began to call me “Jesus.” I called my father to get his take on things but as usual, rather than siding with me he said I ought to see a shrink.

But I was used to being teased. I’d grown up in boys school. Whenever the construction crew wanted my suggestion about how to approach a problem they’d ask, “what would Jesus do?” One day returning from the trailer with my lunch, after someone made a crack about my “inner stillness” I said, “God is Love,” just to get a rise, “and he who abides in love, abides in God.” Then sat on a boulder and crossed my legs in the lotus position to eat my lunch.

Nearby Lake Champlain attracted shore birds. Seagulls fed regularly by tourists kept an eye out for handouts wherever groups gathered. Being an avid bird watcher, I was aware of their presence overhead at the trailer so when one of the crew predictably said, “look ladies it’s Buddha, I flung my hands into the air and within moments seagulls swooped down and hovered around me like angels. “What the fuck,” they said incredulous. Saying nothing, I hid my sandwich got up and walked away in smug silence.

The hexagonal church was designed around six fifty-foot laminated rafters to support a huge roof. The temperature had dropped to well below zero but the last rafter needed to be attached to the others forty feet up. A rented cherry picker which had been used for the other five expensively waited for the weather to warm. Without a roof, the whole job stalled. Though some had tried, no one had managed to insert the final pin at the vertex high in the dangerous cold. “Let me try,” I said. Curiously without argument, the next thing I knew Able lifted me skyward into the arctic tempest as everyone watched.

We all worked wearing hooded coveralls but even with my parka underneath and mitten-covered gloved hands, I never imagined cold, wind or height like that. The last beam rested in place. I had the pin which simply needed to be banged in but by the time I reached the top I was far too cold to handle it or the sledgehammer. My face and fingers were numbing and I waved my arms to be taken down.

But the bucket didn’t move. The cherry picker must have stalled I thought. It did no good to scream in the howling wind so with no reason to stand and wait, I crouched in the bucket thinking none of this would’ve happened if only I’d been attracted to May’s mother’s hard boobs.

After what felt like at least a half hour but was “only about five minutes,” they said, the bucket bounced back to life and brought me down. “What the fuck happened,” I said trying to keep a kerosene heater from igniting my coveralls. “What do you mean,” Able said. “How did you get it started?” Then Able told me there was nothing wrong with the cherry picker.

I tossed my hard hat out the window on my way home, bought a six pack of beer and began drinking it all. Achingly disappointed in everything and everyone, especially myself, acts of kindness abruptly ended and I became despondent. Karen tended to me and everything else waiting patiently for my resurrection but like a depressed daffodil, I didn’t emerge from the covers ’till spring.

My next job was driving a truck delivering tropical foliage plants for a northern greenhouse and I never bought lottery tickets again.