Stephen Dixon - Letters to Kevin

Always your friend,

Rudy

Dear Kevin: I said goodbye to the man and boy, went down a path, came to a country road and walked along it, hoping to meet someone who could direct me to a highway. After a few miles without seeing anyone, I sat on a log. The log rolled forward soon as I sat on it, and I fell on my back with my head bouncing off a rock. Loose log, I thought. I sat more carefully on the log next to it. This one rolled backward so fast that I fell on my face. “Couple of logs that don’t want to be sat on,” I said, laughing at such a ridiculous thought. I tore my handkerchief in half to dab the cuts on my head and lip, and started off again searching for a highway. A few minutes later Iheard bumping sounds behind me. When I looked back I didn’t see anything but a couple of logs and lots of loose twigs and stones off the road, but nothing moving. I continued walking and heard these same bumping sounds behind me. This time I turned around quickly and saw two logs bouncing along. They dropped to the ground the moment I saw them, and rolled off the road and made a dead stop at the side, as if they were just two ordinary logs that had been there since they were cut up from a fallen tree a while ago. “You two following me?” I said. The logs, each about two feet long and round and wide as a dinner plate, said nothing. “Sure,” I said, standing over them. “You’re only waiting to be hollowed out by termites for a chipmunk’s home. Because logs can’t talk just as they can’t walk, am I right?” Of course logs can’t talk, I thought. They can’t walk either.

I must have been seeing things. Maybe losing my marbles altogether from being without sleep so long. What I need is a long snooze, and I lay on the side of the road and rested my head on one of the logs. The log rolled away from me as I was dozing off, and my head hit the ground again. I got up and kicked the log, as my head really hurt from the banging. The log jumped up on one of its ends and hobbled around as if I had hurt it badly. Then it bumped into the woods. The other log stood on its end and jumped higher and higher till it got up to about half my size, when it swung at me with its top end but missed. It fell on its side, as if it had lost its footing from jumping so high and swinging at me so clumsily. Then it bumped into the woods after the first log. “Least I got rid of them.” I walked on. After a minute or so I heard bumping sounds from inside the woods next to the road. This time it was like two heavy objects bumping on broken branches and dried leaves instead of the bumping thumping sounds of logs on a packed-down road. “You logs in there still trailing me?” I said, feeling that since I couldn’t lose them, I better face them. Two plops, one after the other, were the next sounds I heard. These were probably the logs diving to the ground and pretending to be ordinary abandoned logs in the woods, though I couldn’t see them. “Well, come on out and say or do what you’ve in mind to. As I swear not to be rough again, if you won’t with me.” They bumped out of the woods onto the road. “Now why you following me?” I said, and they bounced up and down a few times, which made no sense to me. “Because you think I’m lost and want to lead me out?” They bounced up and down faster.

“I’m sorry, I no understand log language too good. So if your next answer is ‘yes,’ try bouncing only once for it. And if it’s ‘no,’ bounce twice, okay?” They bounced once. “Fine. Now you are following me?” and they bounced once. “Why?” and they bounced three times. This was way beyond me, as the only words in log language I knew were the ones I either made up or they had before I met them — one bounce for “yes” and two for “no.” “Look. Why don’t we make three bounces mean ‘I don’t know’?” and they bounced twice. “Three bounces already means something else in your language?” and they bounced once. “If we’re going to understand one another, we have to get the right number of bounces for ‘I don’t know.’ Let’s make it four.” They bounced twice. “Five, then?” and they bounced once. “Good, Then one bounce means ‘yes.’ Two ‘no.’ Three doesn’t mean ‘I don’t know.’ I’ve no idea what four bounces means. But five means ‘I don’t know.’ Now. You two know your way pretty good around these woods, right?” and they bounced once. “Great. Do you know a shortcut to a highway where I could get a bus or hitch to California?” They bounced six times together, paused briefly, bounced three times and stopped. “Too complicated. I don’t even know what three bounces means yet. Do those six bounces plus the three mean that highways or buses don’t run through here?” They bounced eight times and stopped. Then one bounced twice. Then the other bounced ten times. Then both bounced nineteen times together, moving toward each other as they bounced till they nearly touched, then farther away from one another and stopped.

“I don’t understand. Did all that bouncing and moving around mean a single sentence or statement in your language?” They bounced once and tapped both ends. “Both?” and they bounced once. “I’m at least beginning to grasp some of your language,” and they bounced once, paused, bounced twice. “But not a whole lot, that what you’re saying?” They bounced once, fell to the ground and rolled over and got up and bunked their top ends once on the ground. “What? I just said something insulting and you’re mad? Or funny and you laughed?” They bounced twice, stopped, bounced once. “Tell me, though. Since one log uses the other to speak with, do you always stick together?” and they bounced once. “What happens if one gets carted off or even rots away, heaven forbid?” One log fell to the ground and stayed still. The standing log bumped and swayed till it fell on top of the log. Then it got up, scooped up earth with its bottom end till it covered the log on the ground with leaves and dirt. It then bumped in a circle around the log, repeatedly falling across the mound and getting up wobbling and bouncing twice. Then it circled the mound, but farther and farther away from it, falling here and swaying and staggering there, but always much less so, till I said “After everything’s over including the mourning period, it looks for another log to be with?” The log under the leaves jumped up beside the standing log, and the two tapped top ends together three times and bounced once. “What are you? Male or female or mixed together something like that?” and they bounced once, stopped, twice, stopped, then once. “Married?” and they bounced five times. “How can I begin to explain it?” and they bounced three times. “Three bounces means I should try explaining it?”

They bounced once. Then they knocked their top ends together, rolled completely over a few times and jumped up bouncing and tapped their top ends together.

“What? ‘Hurray’ because I finally found out what three bounces means?” and they bounced once.

“Okay. Now that we can speak together a little, I’ll ask again if you know a shortcut to the highway, and if you do, where?”

They bounced twelve times together, weaving around one another as they bounced. Then one bounced six times, then the other. Then they bounced twenty-four times together, fell down, rolled back and forth a lot though not completely over, bunking each other at either end every other time. Then they got up, bounced fifty or so times, stopped, a hundred or so times and stopped, this time with their top ends leaning on one another.