Lennivolchuck Falls

The sun was high overhead, hot and bright as I’d ever seen. It seemed to hang only inches above me; I could feel my shoulders burning. From time to time, the wind would pick up and push aside the heat for a while, though it would disappear as soon as I dared to grow the least bit comfortable. Well, relatively comfortable—no matter how much I wished otherwise, I was still alone, outdoors, dehydrated, and lost in the least popular nature reserve in the United States of America.

I’d first heard of Lennivolchuck Falls on one of those “See the World!’ sort of travel specials that are so popular with those apparently educational sorts of television channels. You know what I’m talking about, those shows that declare that you simply must see more of the world to be a worthwhile human being. Having spent so much of my life in the concrete jungle, as those who don’t live in said jungle tend to call it, how could a little bit of the great outdoors hurt me? It would be a life-altering experience, absolutely. Besides, as the show told me, those who don’t travel simply must, and if you don’t you’re a simple, sad person whose position in the world is about as great as a vegan’s desire for a three-week old veal sandwich. Well, at least that’s what I felt they were saying; I could be entirely wrong. After all, Travelin’ Travis isn’t the one lost in a desert, is he?

That’s another thing: one would think that such a strikingly hot desert would be somewhere that is traditionally warm, like New Mexico or Arizona. Not Lennivolchuck Falls, though—it’s smack dab in the middle of Maine, abutting the tiny town of Lennivolchuck. On the drive up, I thought that I might be in for a nice trail hike, a few moose sightings, and maybe a little exploration of the Falls so that I could find the elusive waterfall from which the area gets its name. Truth be told, there are no trails, the moose probably packed up and left fifty years ago, and there is no waterfall. There is no water, really. This isn’t one of those prissy deserts where you might be able to collect dew with one of those fruity Boy Scout funnel traps, no—this is the sort of desert that absolutely wants you to suffer. Never mind the various possibilities in anthropomorphizing land, Lennivolchuck Falls plain does not like me.

Evidence of what was to come was obvious as soon as I crossed the town line. I noticed immediately that Smithville’s rather unremarkable landscape of dull grass and thick pine trees shifted suddenly into nothing but grey rocks and brownish-grey dirt at precisely the divide between the towns—sort of like driving into a small town version of New Jersey. There was a palpable change in ambiance between the two areas, too. I found that the people of Smithville were generally polite, even downright nice at times. The owner of the town’s general store, Bob, gave me a free bottle of Moxie, which is a foul-yet-compelling soft drink that is supposedly made with water from Lake Moxie. Lake Moxie, I’d assume by both name and reputation, is just filled with water, one of many things that Lennivolchuck Falls lacks.

The person (yes, person—I don’t believe I saw anyone else) of Lennivolchuck, a clerk at the town’s peculiar general store, never did say a word to me. Instead, he chose to stare at me with what I assume was his one good eye; his other eye hung out of the socket by a good inch, though both were quite peculiar shades of muddy-grey. As I browsed his store, I could feel that eye drilling a hole in the back of my head, though I tried to ignore it as I browsed his establishment, looking for those things by which small town general stores attract outsiders. I went down a short list in my head. Local newspaper, check, though the one available issue of the Lennivolchuck Iconoclast was from 1957. I passed on this. Strange soft drink, check– I managed to find a multi-colored bottle of Friendly Ford’s Vernicious Knid Tonic. It sounded appalling, and so I simply had to have it. I could not find any cheesy T-shirts, and so I paid for the tonic and hurriedly left. The shopkeeper remained eerily silent throughout the experience. The door squeaked loudly as I closed it, and, oddly enough, it was the loudest thing I’d heard since entering that little, creepy town.

The drive and subsequent hike to the entrance of the nature reserve was quiet and mostly uneventful. I did pass a llama farm; it looked dilapidated and quite sad. There was splintered wood, broken glass, and rusted metal everywhere. A faded, John Deer-green and yellow sign weakly proclaimed that it was “Frank Nelson’s Family Llama Farm.” The one llama that was visible from the road stared at me as I drove past. Its fur was matted and filthy. It chewed the way that llamas tend to chew, doing what llamas tend to do, in that curious way to which most are wise. It spat at me and ground its teeth. I sped away, half watching it in the rearview mirror until it was nothing but a speck on the horizon.

The sign that pointed to Lennivolchuck Falls was, much like that used at the llama farm, green, yellow, and faded. It squeaked on its mounts in the gentle breeze. I stopped my car just at the road’s end, just feet from the sign, and made my way up the pathway.

I’d been hiking for only half an hour or so when I started to feel quite uncomfortable. There was a strange silence languishing about the path; even every soft step I took seemed to offend the sensibilities of the environment, and when I stepped on a branch or the occasional small, sun-bleached bone, the hairs on the back of my neck would stand on end. It was genuinely nerve-wracking to bring a little noise into that place. Around me, there was very little to see except a few dying trees and a lot of dusty gray rocks. I felt dehydrated, tired, and thoroughly unimpressed, and so, after taking a long drink from my water bottle, I turned around, defeated, and looked back on the descending trail. Well, what should’ve been the trail—nothing existed to give a hint as to how to safely return to my car. I felt a bit of a knot in my throat, though I opted to keep marching down. Perhaps I’d taken a wrong turn as I’d admired that stone that was shaped much like Ronald Reagan in a Greco-Roman wrestling match against the Jolly Green Giant. Regardless of my uncertainty, I knew up from down; it couldn’t be too difficult to find a road to follow to my car.

I stopped, when I couldn’t be sure, and pulled a CD from my pack. The batteries in the player were dead and deadweight, so I tossed them at a passing buzzard and sat on a long-neglected red rock bench. I stared at my reflection in that disc. I waved it back and forth, watching my image distort, until it caught the sunlight and slapped my eyes around with a harsh glare. I stood back up and continued on my journey.

I’d been hiking for about another hour, downwards the entire while. Half of the time taken to reach my uninspiring apex passed far before that, so this puzzled me. Exactly how high was this hill? Was I traveling on the wrong side entirely? The sun, still apparently set to “I will insult and burn you, your ancestors, and any children that you may have should you escape me– not going to happen by the way, fatty,” relentlessly followed me, at times resting only inches above my neck. The rare gust of wind would cool me with the help of the sweat that soaked my clothing, though more often than not, the sand that whipped into my face at every opportunity mitigated such relief. I was quite thirsty at this point, though my water bottle was about empty. My mouth felt like cotton, so I finished off the last of my water and walked onward. I’d lived in a van for four months in Mattapan—there wasn’t the slightest chance that a little nature could beat me.

Minutes later, I could help but feel that I was being watched. It sounds pretty clichéd, though everyone experiences the sensation now and then, no? I started to look over my shoulder every few steps, and I strained to look and listen for anyone or anything that might be coming for me. My knees felt a bit wobbly, sweat was running into my eyes, and I was experiencing a mild but worsening nausea. Dysphasia had my number on speed dial; it was playing hardball like a psychotic telemarketer with a pathological fear of failure.

The low point of my day arrived as I vomited violently on the side of a cactus (what it was doing in Maine, well, I don’t know). I was dehydrated, I imagined, and that cactus probably wasn’t in very good shape, either. My knees shook even as I moved at a snails’ pace, and, not long after that, I found that I simply couldn’t stand. I should’ve panicked, though I simply wasn’t sufficiently lucid to do so. I lay down in the dirt, a small rock poking into my back. If I was going to die, I wouldn’t die without a little bit of comfort, so I rolled over, picked up the offending object, and chucked it off into the distance.

***

What our kind-of-intrepid fellow did not know, though, was that, on this particular day, all of the planets were more-or-less aligned. This fact is of little importance to most people who are on the brink of death, though for him, it was a godsend. On days such as this, Baxter Faxtorton takes out his metal detector and combs the harsh land of Maine for treasures such as coins, railroad spikes, and metal plates that may be attached to the skulls of less-than-fortunate souls. Such dedication had already made him a hundredaire, and he fully expected to keep piling on the riches. On this day, however, he would acquire nothing but a lump on his forehead, a result of the small stone that had just impacted precisely three centimeters above his left eyebrow. Slightly dazed, he stumbled for a moment, and then succumbed to anger. “Whoever did that, I’m gonna kill you, damnit! Come on out!” he shouted. As he expected, no one appeared. Grumbling to himself, he traipsed in the general direction of what he believed to be the unknown thrower. As he walked, he heard what sounded like moaning. He followed the sound, which quickly became very obvious moaning, and came upon the rapidly deteriorating form of our unfortunate traveler. Not knowing entirely what to do, Baxter weakly said, “Hey… hey! You okay, there, guy?” The man gurgled something indecipherable, and so Baxter knew that his find was alive, though he, in a purely metaphysical sense, was rapidly heading towards the light in the tunnel.

***

As I ran toward the mysterious light at the end of the terribly dark, terribly scary tunnel, I could hear the voices of friends and relatives who’d passed on calling for me. “Go to the light, kid!” exclaimed my father. “Bobby, you’re so close to the end!” said the voices of my mother and Felix, who’d been my best friend up to the eighth grade when he was hit by a car. Apparently, dogs can talk. “You can make it!” they all shouted in wonderful unison. As I neared the end of the tunnel, I stretched my hand out to touch what seemed to be an impossibly bright door, though as I did this, I could feel myself being pulled backward by a powerful force. The door opened; through it I could see a beautiful place, full of rolling, lush, green hills and crystal clear, unpolluted, and satisfyingly full lakes. The sky was pure blue and cloudless, and beneath it were countless groups of people, all engaged in fun activities, some playing ultimate Frisbee, others telling stories, and a few were enjoying what looked to be a lively Depeche Mode concert. This was the sort of place for which I’d always dreamed, maybe lusted, even, and who wouldn’t? Everyone was happy, relaxed, and there wasn’t a sign of sand within sight. I reached toward this door with every bit of strength; I needed to be in there, with the jovial, carefree people—and with Depeche Mode! — though the force that pulled me away was simply too strong. “Sorry,” whispered a gentle voice, it reverberated in my head. “You don’t get eternal bliss right now. Maybe later.” The light shrank to the size of the head of a pin, and then all was black.

As I opened my eyes, I could see a leathery old man’s face peering down at me. The air was hot and arid. I had a piercing pain in my side. My throat was dry; it hurt, too. The man said, “Hey, you okay, guy?” A vulture circled overhead. I sat up as well as I could, and smacked him across his face. “No, I’m not. Tell me: are Depeche Mode dead?”

“Nawp. They’re on tour around North America next month,” he replied.

“Weird. Weird that you knew that and weird that they have tribute bands in the afterlife.” The man, perhaps still recovering from my mighty slap, scowled and walked away. Spurred by my desire to avoid eternal disappointment at the hands of a fake David Gahan, I followed him. He took me to his pick-up truck, the back of it loaded with twisted bits of metal, where he drove me back into town.

I never did find my car, and, as crazy as it sounds, I never inquired as to its whereabouts. That sat alright with me. I was simply content to never again have any sort of business with Lennivolchuck Falls.

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