Fifty Days of Solitude by Doris Grumbach

second day of a cold month) he gestured that he wanted a ride. I stopped for him, and he rode to the post office with me, saying nothing until he got out at his house, under one of the KEEP OUT signs. “Social Security day,” he said in his thick, almost incomprehensible Maine accent. Holding his letter of the month, he said good-bye and walked off, a great, slow bear of a man ambling into his cabin.
    When I got back to my place, the Captain White House, as it was still called before we moved in, I thought about Kenny. To the summer people of Sargentville, he is a “character” who speaks a strange tongue and looks very much alone and odd. They do not associate themselves with him, because, of course, they lead their lives differently.
    But the more I thought about him, the more I realized that he and I are more alike than we are like our other neighbors. I too prefer my own society, I too have become distrustful of what I hear on the TV , the radio, in the newspaper, and do not often listen to them, or read it. We are alike in our critical views of the contemporary world and its inhabitants; we both keep better track of the small animals we live among than the human beings around us. It may be that we part company in our views of personal sanitation. But then it is easy for me, possessed of unlimited hot water, a washing machine and dryer, a shower and a tub, to stay clean. Left to myself without these amenities, I think I would decide that, living alone without a companion or much company, I did not need to worry about clean clothes or baths. Who knows, I might even put up some KEEP OUT signs to replace the discreet PRIVATE one that now stands at the side of my driveway.
    O N all the roads I traveled in this very cold, wet, and snowy winter there were warning signs. Some read FROST HEAVE , others simply BUMP . The roads freeze, melt a little, and then freeze again, leaving serious barriers to progress. Being an inattentive driver, I often failed to see the signs and then was jolted out of my driving reveries by hitting the heave, hard. Then I was alert, watching for the next BUMP sign. The lesson was: words are not as powerful as acts. Show, do not tell.
    A CATALOG came in the mail at the end of an unproductive morning, from Daedalus, a company that supplies bookstores with remainders. It was addressed to Sybil, of course, for she does all the ordering of such books for our single remainder table at the front door. Nonetheless, I scanned its tightly printed pages to find out which of my friends’ and acquaintances’ works were being cavalierly disposed of for sale (cheaply) in new bookstores, and some old-book stores, like ours.
    How self-centered we writers are. Anxiously I first looked to see if my book was remaindered, if Joe’s or Bill’s or Ellen’s or Pete’s.… The good thing about the catalog is that it does not tell which printing of the book is being emptied out of the publishers’ warehouse. So charity allowed me to believe that John’s book was in its fifth printing when it was placed on remainder tables in drug- and chain stores, not its first.
    I realized how much more I was aware of my vices (envy, gloating, egotism) when I was alone. In the presence of others, it was possible to ignore them, or even deny that they existed. In solitude, they are there, omnipresent and bountiful, unable to be dispelled by the unknowing flattery of kindly others.
    H ARRY , a kind neighbor and friend, came to the door at three in the afternoon yesterday. Was I OK? Did I need anything? He said he had not seen me about after the big snow storm and wondered how I was getting on. Did I need more wood from the pile across the driveway? Groceries? Company?
    Nothing, thank you, I told him, disturbed by the interruption and yet I was tempted to ask him in for coffee and, yes, for his company. But I didn’t. I thought of explaining my experiment to him but decided against it,