By: David Sapp

When I was ten or eleven, I had this crazy idea to trek through the woods, along the Kokosing River, from my house to, well, wherever, just to see where we might end up and explore uncharted territory. It was very likely that no one walked there for decades – maybe a century. I had a vague notion, but I was far from certain. Tom, his little brother, Ross, and maybe Chris was there – and we set out without telling our mothers. Maybe this would be fine during the long days of summer, but it was the middle of winter, and we were tramping through at least half a foot of snow. It was a real possibility that we could freeze to death or at least lose a couple of toes.

Hopelessly lost, we were grateful to come upon a field and an electric fence, a sign of civilization. Ross peed on the live wire, and later he swore that it turned his penis black. (I always wondered if he had kids.) We stumbled upon Danny Doup’s trailer. The summer before, his mom fried wild mushrooms for us in her little kitchen. Delicious. We skirted their property and found the road home. Despite our numb fingers and toes, we decided to explore the abandoned house our bus passed each day. Someone saw us and called the sheriff. A deputy brought us back to our mothers, to warmth and supper just as it was getting dark. My mother just shrugged, but she got a call from Ross and Tom’s mom and held the receiver away from her ear so that I could hear the other mother’s fury.

***

When I was little, I wanted rules, obeyed rules and wanted to be a policeman – as much as fireman, general, farmer or priest. Mommy rode in the backseat when she was brought home by wincing police. I imagined she lashed viciously with bullwhip tongue all the way through town and down our long lane. Tall but nervous in their uniforms with badges and guns, they asked us with their eyes if we’re sure – ready before springing open the cage, the rage behind the door. Their pity dripped in muddy puddles. Mommy burst from the car and marched, cursing across the yard with words we never heard from her lips once bright red, whetted with light polite chatter at canasta parties and Christmas. The next time the judge kept Mommy, she said she descended into the din and terrors of hell – wretched jail, woeful state hospital.

***

Someone snitched on me. While working at Fletcher Pharmacy as a stockboy and delivery boy, after dropping out of art school, poor, aimless, trying my best to make my way in the world at twenty-five – for a while there, I dumped my trash in the dumpster at Phillip’s Park. Always in a tidy bag. Just one little package every so often. A cop showed up at the pharmacy counter and asked if I was David Sapp. Sure, I was. He knew I was. He asked about the trash. He probably went through it to get a name. He asked if I dumped the trash, and I denied it. (What was I thinking?) He said, “Must be another David Sapp,” and smiled wryly. I shrugged, feeling caught and stupid. “Tell that other David Sapp not to do that.” And he turned and left. Later I thought he was probably acquainted with my mother and gave me a break. Or maybe he was more pissed with the good complaining citizen for wasting his time.

***

As a young assistant professor, I was sent to the Mansfield prison to teach art appreciation. I was grateful for the guard’s company as he escorted me through the cell block, the clamor and aroma of incarceration – and across the yard, the same yard from which Morgan Freeman’s deep, soothing voice would narrate Andy Dufresne’s story and infatuation with Rita Hayworth in The Shawshank Redemption. On my first day I said to the men, “Don’t talk to me about what you’re in for.” And a young inmate piped up, “So long as you don’t tell us about some vacation you went on.” I admitted, “Fair enough.” We got along splendidly. Soon they were making me laugh and occasionally I made them laugh.

***

Thirty years later, now with a wife, kids, career, and the mortgage paid off, a deputy knocked on my door. My door. A door I paid for. Still, at seeing him, I was a little nervous. Just a kid, he stuck his thumbs in his gun belt and puffed out his chest. Apparently, someone complained. I blew leaves into the road with my new, too expensive John Deere riding mower. He explained that when the leaves get wet, it’s dangerous for motorcyclists. I returned very politely, smiling, “Certainly officer. Completely understand. Never happen again. Have a good day.” He seemed relieved. I did understand, and he had a good point, but when I closed the door, I muttered to myself, “Fucking neighbor.”

***

Charity pulled her pistol from her holster, aimed, fired. Her concentration (or was it reluctance?) seemed to require far too much time. Charity, our officer, ordinarily cheery Thalia, one of three Graces, a mom who runs Safety Town on the playground, came when called, came with bullets in her gun. Inside, my wife governed a raucous birthday party, distracted wild, sticky nine-year-olds with games and cake and kept them clear of windows. Outside, a doe lost all grace, flopped helplessly in our yard beneath the apple tree, her hind leg bent, merely touched by a truck. Usually, her lean, sienna flanks flashed across the lawn, leapt over fences with fawns. Our apples, old, Jonathans, the deer’s delicacy, too near Berlin Road, I’ll cut the tree down. Charity and I shared an intimate glance of regret, this death a loss of elegance. Charity’s gun snapped three times, a jarring, contradictory violence. In her report, Charity accounted for each bullet.

***

I watched too much TV – too much Law and Order, too much of Lenny Brisco and Jack McCoy. If I ever got arrested, I was prepared to say nothing, call my lawyer and remain pleasant. I came close a couple of times. When I was a professor teaching studio art at a tiny branch campus of a large university, each semester I hired a person to act as a model for the figure drawing class. I was very protective of the model, going out of my way to treat them well as they posed nude for the students and felt vulnerable to begin with. A temporary parking pass was given to the model to display in their windshield so as to avoid a ticket. A deputy sheriff acted as our campus security, but for most years, they rarely issued a ticket as it was a silly endeavor. No one cared. But one year, a new, young deputy, eager to prove himself, patrolled the parking lots with zeal, and yet was unfamiliar with the temporary passes. My model showed me her ticket and I straightened it out.

When going home for the day, I saw the deputy cruising the lot. I gave him a friendly wave, then walked over to his window and politely explained the temporary pass, the model, and the ticket. He ignored me and said with unnecessary hostility, “I’ve heard about you.”  I wasn’t sure what he meant, but replied, “Just leave her alone – please.” He produced another snide remark, and I returned with a double-bird, jabbed in his direction. Bad idea – however satisfying. I walked to my car and got in. He pulled up behind me, blocking my exit, got out and put his chest against my window. He motioned for me to roll it down. I did so – a crack. “You got something to say to me?” I realized then what this man was all about – his intent to provoke. I said nothing, attempting de-escalation, until he decided to go away. I sent a memo, an account of the incident, to the dean and the deputy’s captain, but there was no response. However, a few weeks later, a different deputy was gossiping with secretaries instead of writing tickets.

***

Jacob created an abstract shaped painting constructed of two by twos, plywood, and stuffed with second-hand clothes from the thrift store to give it form – all covered with stretched canvas. It was sealed in white gesso then painted in garish colors. It was Jacob. It was beautiful. It was beautiful because it was Jacob. I acquired Jacob’s painting for the college and together we hung it proudly in an empty hall on an empty white wall. I passed it nearly every day going to classes.

            Twenty years later, now nearly sixty, I lost track of Jacob. The maintenance crew removed his painting, misplaced it, and thoughtlessly tore a hole in the canvas during a renovation. You could see part of a shirt sleeve and the buttons of a sports jacket through the opening. When I eventually found the painting and discovered the damage, I was nearly fired, nearly perp-walked off the campus for hurling exquisite expletives in the hall. The deputy sheriff who would be cuffing me was an older, wiser officer, a heck-of-a-nice-guy who I talked with now and then between classes. We swapped views of the world around us and retirement fund strategies. He helped me out by removing a rapist from my art history class (when the dean was reluctant), and confided he feared bombs more than guns these days. I aimed my profanity at no one in particular as no one would fess up. No one seemed to know or see anything. No one was remorseful. (I would have welcomed a simple “sorry about that.”) A committee was called, a meeting convened, a reluctant reprimand issued. And the painting simply vanished. There was an unspoken understanding: no one was to inquire about the disappearance of Jacob’s painting.

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David Sapp’s work appears widely in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. His publications include several chapbooks; a novel, Flying Over Erie; and five books of poetry and prose: Drawing Nirvana, The Origin of Affection, A Precious Transience, Love and History, and Acquaintances.