stopped my truck and crept through the woods to the top of the hill. Sure enough. A broad-shouldered man stood center stage in the amphitheatre, wearing a kilt and playing the pipes. I sat and listened for about half an hour. Curiosity eventually got the best of me, and I found myself standing on the stage with a half-naked man. Once his eyes focused on me, he adjusted his skirt and shook my hand. We struck up a conversation, and somewhere in there the guy decided that he liked me. His full name, I learned, was Bryce Kai MacGregor, and when he plays the bagpipes, he wears a kilt. But after six or eight beers, the plaid skirt is optional. He has fiery red hair and freckles, and looks like a cross between a coal miner and a trollâjust one big flexed muscle. Bryce is not ugly, although he could take better care of himself, and he has penetrating green eyes.
North of town, where things are more hilly, sits his homeâa drive-in movie theater. Though the drive-in has been closed for more than fifteen years, Bryce is a Friday night regular who watches whatever strikes his fancy. The Silver Screen is actually more white than silver, and the largest of the three screens has a big hole in the left corner where a buzzard flew into it. Unfortunately for the buzzard, it got itself stuck and just hung there, flapping its wings in a panic. Bryce climbed up the back of the screen and shot the bird out with a twelve-gauge. A Greener, no less. He just stuck its head in the left barrel and pulled the trigger. âBuzzard removal,â he called it, and opened another beer.
His usual sundown activity is to sit in the bed of his truck, drink beer, and watch the same old movies by himself. He owns hundreds of reel movies, of which his favorites are John Wayne Westerns. Normally at a drive-in, a moviegoer sits in the front seat of the car and hangs the speaker on the window. But Bryceâs truck window is broken, and he canât fit his cooler in the front seat, so he backs his truck up front and center and spreads out on a lawn chair in the bed.
Most of the speakers in the parking lot are broken and dangling from frayed wires, so he starts the movie and then drives around until he finds one that works. When he finds a live one, he duct-tapes it onto the tailgate or the handle of the cooler. That often takes a while, because Bryce is usually so drunk that he canât remember where he last found one that worked. In his speaker search he has run into or over most of the speaker poles, which presents a bit of a problem to the exterior of his truck.
But thatâs not a concern to him, because he hardly ever goes into town, not even to buy groceries. He does most of that on-line now, which is odd if you think about it. As drunk as he stays, he can still find the computer when he needs it, and he can usually make it work. In about two days, a white delivery truck drops a half dozen boxes at his gate. An exception to the no-town rule is if he runs out of beer before the truck arrives.
Some folks think heâs a rebel or some sort of burnt-out Vietnam kook. Bryce is no rebel. Different, yes, and in a world of his own, but he quit rebelling a long time ago. He has no one. No family. No wife. No kids. Look up âaloneâ in the dictionary and you see a picture of Bryce. As best I can gather, he dropped out of high school, lied about his age, and got shipped off to Vietnam for his senior trip.
They put him in a Special Forces unit, and from what I eventually gathered, they kept him busy. In the bottom of his closet is a fifty-caliber ammunition can where he keeps all his medals. All seventeen. He brought them out and showed them to me one night while we were watching The Green Berets. He was quick to tell me that five of them werenât his. They belonged to a buddy who didnât come back. That meant Bryce had been awarded twelve. Twelve medals. They were all colors, purple, bronze, silver. Mostly purple.
Like most
North of town, where things are more hilly, sits his homeâa drive-in movie theater. Though the drive-in has been closed for more than fifteen years, Bryce is a Friday night regular who watches whatever strikes his fancy. The Silver Screen is actually more white than silver, and the largest of the three screens has a big hole in the left corner where a buzzard flew into it. Unfortunately for the buzzard, it got itself stuck and just hung there, flapping its wings in a panic. Bryce climbed up the back of the screen and shot the bird out with a twelve-gauge. A Greener, no less. He just stuck its head in the left barrel and pulled the trigger. âBuzzard removal,â he called it, and opened another beer.
His usual sundown activity is to sit in the bed of his truck, drink beer, and watch the same old movies by himself. He owns hundreds of reel movies, of which his favorites are John Wayne Westerns. Normally at a drive-in, a moviegoer sits in the front seat of the car and hangs the speaker on the window. But Bryceâs truck window is broken, and he canât fit his cooler in the front seat, so he backs his truck up front and center and spreads out on a lawn chair in the bed.
Most of the speakers in the parking lot are broken and dangling from frayed wires, so he starts the movie and then drives around until he finds one that works. When he finds a live one, he duct-tapes it onto the tailgate or the handle of the cooler. That often takes a while, because Bryce is usually so drunk that he canât remember where he last found one that worked. In his speaker search he has run into or over most of the speaker poles, which presents a bit of a problem to the exterior of his truck.
But thatâs not a concern to him, because he hardly ever goes into town, not even to buy groceries. He does most of that on-line now, which is odd if you think about it. As drunk as he stays, he can still find the computer when he needs it, and he can usually make it work. In about two days, a white delivery truck drops a half dozen boxes at his gate. An exception to the no-town rule is if he runs out of beer before the truck arrives.
Some folks think heâs a rebel or some sort of burnt-out Vietnam kook. Bryce is no rebel. Different, yes, and in a world of his own, but he quit rebelling a long time ago. He has no one. No family. No wife. No kids. Look up âaloneâ in the dictionary and you see a picture of Bryce. As best I can gather, he dropped out of high school, lied about his age, and got shipped off to Vietnam for his senior trip.
They put him in a Special Forces unit, and from what I eventually gathered, they kept him busy. In the bottom of his closet is a fifty-caliber ammunition can where he keeps all his medals. All seventeen. He brought them out and showed them to me one night while we were watching The Green Berets. He was quick to tell me that five of them werenât his. They belonged to a buddy who didnât come back. That meant Bryce had been awarded twelve. Twelve medals. They were all colors, purple, bronze, silver. Mostly purple.
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