Inside the House of The Big Why

I drove to Brigus to walk out to the
house one last time. I'd lasted a couple
of nights in the tent, catching trout and
eating them on a fire beside the brook
they were caught in. On the Cape Shore.
I had the rentacar's passenger
door window open, and the CD player
belting out Hank Williams, the
Handsome Family and Loretta
Lynn's Van Lear Rose. I drank the last
of the twelve year old Macallan's that
my publisher had given me. So I was lonely
and thought to drive out to Brigus and
cook my lunch near Rockwell Kent's old
house.
But there were five cars parked at
the end of the road. And as I walked
along the path, three pickups near
the house.
The padlock was off the front door.
People sitting inside. A lot of people.
People dressed in modern raincoats.
I knocked.
And met Bob and Denise,
down from Alaska to take care of
Jake's house, now that he'd passed on.
They were meeting the Brigus Historical
society.
Would I like to see the house?
I'd never been in this house. Jake,
the owner, had once let me stand in
the doorway. Odd, to be walking
through rooms I'd only imagined. On
cupboard doors two painted roses, done
by Rockwell Kent. I climbed the
stairs. The walls stripped
down to flakes of newsprint and wallpaper.
I read the line "faith, and are rejec".
Spartan. Such an unassuming house in
the end.