A Perfectly True Story and a Puzzle

Blog Post #2

A note before I begin:  While I was writing The Tiltersmith I did a lot of research about the many woodland spirits and deities who have been showing up in folklore everywhere for thousands of years. I was particularly interested in the figure of the Green Man who is usually associated with rebirth and spring. He can be fierce and bloodthirsty or mild and gentle. Sometimes he shows up as the Guardian of the World Tree who must be murdered and ripped to pieces at the end of every winter. Sometimes he shows up as a great antlered stag. Other times he is a demi-god, half stone, half alive with leaves growing out of his nose and mouth. The one who shows up in The Tiltersmith managed to fashion himself into his own Brooklyn version. 

Now, this is a perfectly true story, although—really---is there such thing as a perfectly true story?

Anyway, it happens that I took some photos, so you’ll be able to see I’m not making this up.

It happened a couple of months ago in February, not long before The Tiltersmith came out. I had been restless all day, having trouble figuring out what I wanted to work on next. It was so bittersweet, knowing the book was finished. No more wandering around in my imaginary woods with my wild dog or my own beloved Brooklyn Green Man. How I missed them. It is hard to let go of an act of imagination once you pull it out of the magic hat. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Once you conjure it up, it doesn’t like to let go of you. I decided it might be best to give my mind a rest, to just go out for an ordinary, everyday walk, to clear my mind.

 Now Prospect Park has eleven official entrances and each one is completely different from the others. Whichever one you choose, you only need to walk a dozen steps inside and the city falls away behind you. All the sounds of the green taxis honking and the buses braking and people talking into their phones, fade off. You could choose the gateway that brings you to the head of the rolling meadow that is nearly a mile long. Or you could choose the gateway that will take you into the Midwood which is a small leftover forest that is now more than 8,000 years old. It was one of the first forests that sprang up here after the glaciers began to retreat. When, the designers, Olmsted and Vaux, first landscaped Prospect Park, they decided not to take these woods out, but to leave them as they were. When you walk in them now, you will often find, maybe with a certain amount of uneasiness, that you have the whole place to yourself.

Then there’s the entrance at Third Street, which is guarded over by two bronze panthers. The panthers stand among the trees, high up on two narrow stone pillars. On first glance you will think they are identical, but when you examine them closely, you will see they are not. They look very serious about their jobs and probably dangerous. You would not wish to meet them on one of those nights when they decide to get down for a walk.

But that’s a story for another time because on this particular afternoon I wasn’t looking for mysteries or adventures. I was just walking to settle something restless inside myself. So, I chose the entrance that leads to the playing fields, an easy-going, no surprises entrance.

Here there are seven baseball diamonds laid out around a long oval of lawn. On that day, the lawn was just beginning to turn green, but the diamonds had not yet been refreshed with that delicious looking caramel-colored dirt that gets laid down in the spring. There were no ball players yet. Scattered at distances from each other were people playing with their dogs and parents pushing strollers and persons simply strolling along not looking for trouble, just like myself. As I walked north, the ballfields were on my left and the woods were on my right. It was almost possible to hear the trees waking up, rustling softly, pushing out the tiny nubs that would turn into buds that would unfold into leaves. Up ahead everything was open and full of sunlight.

After the ballfields the lawn begins to rise and fall into soft hills. These hills obscure the view a bit when you’re passing through them. Sometimes I think these hills look forbidding, like the old “barrow” mounds where ancient people used to bury their dead and where the ghost “wights,” the undead, were said to take up residence. Other days I think these hills look gentle and inviting—like the backs of stretching kittens, or loaves of bread. That was the way they appeared to me on that day. Perfectly innocent. The sky was a bright blue, rising up and up, one of those afternoons with extra room in it. I was warm enough, moving along briskly and to keep myself steady, I looked for signs of spring. I was pleased to see flocks of robins everywhere, trippety tip-toeing in short dashes over the grass, searching for late-in-the-day worms.

When I was nearly past the ballfields I caught, in the corner of my eye, a quick glimpse of something moving through the trees. For just a moment my heart jumped, as I thought of my old beloved “ghost dog”  (read my previous blog). But then, of course, I remembered it couldn’t be him, since he had been rescued and adopted not that long ago.

In any case, whatever it was, was gone.

I continued along on my ordinary, everyday little walk and was beginning to think what a good idea this was and that I was getting myself nicely sorted out. I passed the little dog beach at the edge of the pond, but there were no dogs paddling around with tennis balls in their mouths. Too early in the season.

There’s a curve in the path there and when I came around it, I saw, just up ahead, lying in the grass, a big sawn-off piece of fallen tree trunk. Right next to the tree trunk, was something that sort of looked like a discarded and withered Christmas tree. At first, I didn’t give this much attention since people sometimes hold onto their holiday trees forever around here and then drag them into the park and dump them. But, walking forward, I had the feeling there was something not quite right about this scene. I was wondering what it was, when the tree made an unnatural jerking movement with one of its upper branches. I stopped, puzzled. The branch settled back down. Surely, this must have just been the wind, although there wasn’t any wind.

I waited uneasily. But when nothing else happened, I got my phone out and took a picture and then I walked closer.

As I approached it, I saw that the tree was much shaggier and withered looking than I had thought at first. To my alarm, it moved again. This time it appeared to be wiggling something at its bottom end that looked much like a foot. Why would a Christmas tree have a foot? As I drew near, I saw that, indeed, the tree had two feet with big shoes on them.

Wait. What? Was this meant for me? Was it a tree or was it, after all, some sort of a Green Man just lying right there in the middle of the park?

Forgive me. Of course, it wasn’t meant for me. It was just a weird sort of coincidence. This is a problem with coincidences, don’t you think, that it’s hard not to take them personally? They often feel like messages or warnings or a joke that the universe is playing on you.

 I looked around sharply to see if there was anyone else nearby, but there wasn’t anyone in hailing distance. Which seemed unusual in itself and did nothing to calm my uneasiness. I also noticed, all of a sudden, that there were no robins around. Why I thought robins could be of help to me in such a situation, I have no idea.

I was torn between a silent internal voice of caution warning me to get out of there fast, and another, louder, piece of me which wanted to know just what the hell was going on. I waited, watching. Maybe the tree was waiting, too.

After what seemed a long time, but probably wasn’t, the tree very slightly lifted its head, apparently to get a better look at me.

Yes. Its head.

We stared at each other.

I just couldn’t help myself and took another picture.

Right away, as if I had frightened it or hurt its feelings, it lowered the head back down.

Really, I needed to know what was going on here.

“Are you all right?” I asked the tree. Was I addressing a dying nature spirit or some sort of madman in a tree suit?

Silence.

“Can I help you?” I tried again.

The tree lifted two branches displaying two hands which I had also missed until that moment. What it meant by that gesture, I have no idea.

Then it seemed to twist its head as if it were trying to look behind itself. It turned back to me and it spoke.

“Can you see them?”  It had a low Brooklyn sort of voice.

It took me a moment to remember to breathe. Then I scanned the area nervously again. “I don’t see anybody. Who are you looking for? What’s going on here?”

The tree lifted one of its arm branches and pointed to the little loaf-shaped hill behind itself. “They’ll be coming from up there,” it explained.

I looked at the hill with a shudder. I told myself that there were no undead barrow wights about to come pouring down from there. It was, after all, the middle of a bright Brooklyn afternoon in February.

“No,” I told him, firmly. “Nobody’s coming. Would you mind telling me what’s going on here?”

“Listen,” the tree person replied. “I can’t explain right now. Please. You gotta walk away and don’t look back. You’re drawing attention to me.”

And with that, the tree tucked its hands and feet back inside its withered branches and lowered its head.

I waited. But now, clearly it wasn’t going to move. What could I do?

I walked away.

I walked away and, using every ounce of self-control, I didn’t look back.

Now, I could tell you that I have no idea what happened next or that I never did find out what was going on. But that wouldn’t be true because when I reached the top of the next rise, I found a bench.

There I sat down and I waited and I watched.

Although I don’t think I would have guessed what was happening until I saw it coming over the hill, it wasn’t all that unreasonable, I suppose.

What do you think I saw?

There’s your puzzle.

If anybody wants to hazard a guess, would you message me on my contact page? I would be so pleased to hear your thoughts—reasonable, wild, dreadful or otherworldly.

And if you come up with the right explanation or some other striking alternative, I’d love to post it on my website. And, in any case, I’ll tell you next time what it was that I saw.

I should just close this by saying, as a general rule, I’m very suspicious of coincidences. And, to be honest, I don’t really believe that there’s such a thing as an ordinary, everyday walk.