Acorns and Other Stuff

There are many Maines. When I venture too far inland from the coast, I get the feeling I’m trespassing. I walk into a gas station north of Pittsfield, and I’m sure they can tell I’ve never shot a deer. Or plowed a field. Or harvested trees from the woods. As I pull into an unmarked driveway to buy rocks from someone I’ve never met, I think he can sniff a hint of salt air in the dust kicked up by my truck.

Harvey is slow to shake my outstretched hand.

“How’d you get all this stone?” I ask.

“Slowly.”

Harvey is an old-timer. As we start walking among stockpiles of granite laid out neatly between clusters of young pine trees, it’s clear there’s more separating us than years.

It’s not that he’s from another world. I contacted him through an app. He texted me GPS coordinates to get here. There’s a very new iPhone in a case hooked to his belt. He’s very much of this world. But he also knew another world before this one.

Not all of Harvey’s stones are old and weathered. He buys big slabs from a quarry I know well, splits them into steps and posts and usable pieces, and stains them with vegetables to make them appear older than they are. As we try all sorts of potions and injections to make ourselves appear young and new and fresh, we want the stones we surround ourselves with to appear ancient and rooted.

He’s hesitant to share his recipe.

“Acorns and other stuff,” he concedes.

That big iPhone rings. He detaches it effortlessly from his belt.

“Hold on,” he tells me. “I gotta take this.”

He answers on speakerphone.

“Hey,” the voice says.

“Hey,” Harvey responds. “Danny says there’s some pigs in Texas that need shooting.”

“Yeah,” the voice says. “Maybe we can make a long weekend out of it.”

We keep walking around the yard. I can’t find the stones I’m looking for, but I’m cataloging what I see in my mental inventory for future projects. I ask Harvey what he’s working on now. He’s building a wall and some steps over on the coast. He doesn’t seem particularly happy about it. I commiserate as he details his complaints about his lazy crew, stubborn clients, incompetent architect, and the long drive.

The price of diesel is a big thorn in his side. Mine too. We agree the price is too high. There’s a pause, a space for one of us to say why, but neither of us fills it.

We come to some rocks that are the right size for what I’m looking for, but they’re that newer granite my client and I don’t want. Harvey assures me he could work his magic on it. Or I could.

“It’s the tannic acid,” he explains. “You fill a barrel a third full of acorns, let it fill with rainwater, and then you add…”

Sorry. The rest is between Harvey and me.