01/29/01

I never knew what people meant by “six degrees of separation” until one of Percy's geek friends explained it to me at Percy's Super Bowl Party last night. The idea goes that--- pick out any one person in the world---doesn’t matter where--- and chances are someone you know knows someone they know.

Well. . . give or take a few people more knowing people who know people in between.

I wondered later if 6 degrees of separation held true with dead people from a long time ago. . .

I’ve always let Percy on the place any time he cares to visit but I've always told him not to dig. The fucker is always sticking his head down woodchuck holes to do anything he can to get around my rule. Don’t ask me why I put up with the fucking nut. I guess I feel like I have to take care of him because that’s what Clara would want me to do. I never had much chance to do much for her in her short life. Seems she pretty much got the shitty end of the stick from the family. She was cut out completely from Dad’s will. I got everything she should have gotten. I suppose Percy knows this, but he’s never held this against me. He sure does love visiting the farm, does censuses of plants and wildlife on the place. Tells me he’s trying to be just like my cousin, Henry David Thoreau.

I said, as far as I’m aware, I’m not related to the dude---I do believe I descend from a different French asshole than him.

Percy’s not at all happy about my plans to sell. He keeps harping on the lore about Old Claudius Smith— the famous Tory cattle thief during the Revolutionary War— that Claudius had once used the old house on the farm as a hiding spot, that there’s a chest of stolen silver buried on the farm. Turns out my father--- Dowser Boy they called him for a time---proved that lore to be true, but I was never allowed to speak of it.

Dad’s family concealed the treasure find from Phebe’s family. The Noonan’s owned the place then, the Thoreaus only rented. Because the Thoreaus supposedly used assets that belonged to the Noonans to buy the farm from them, Phebe has this idea that the farm is more rightfully hers than mine. She thinks I should accede to her idea of preserving the place in the land trust for all time because it should be her say now.

Yeah.

My worry has always been if I let Percy start digging on the place he’ll dig up a fluted spearhead from the Paleo-Indian period and have the place designated as a damn National Historical Landmark or something. Lord knows I won’t see my pay day then. Dad gave me a beautiful Cumberland spearhead just like the one they pulled out of Mt. Lookout cave on the other side of Goshen. He told me to keep it hid and never tell anyone it came off the farm. Could be up to fucking 12,000 years old.

He said, you’ll have trouble selling the fucking place some day if anyone finds what I did here.

After my arrest from the plane incident, when Percy came to the Goshen mental hospital to sign me out, an investigator pulled him aside to ask him about his visits to the farm, and whether he was ever suspicious of anything going on there. Apparently Percy told them he always felt it was suspicious that I never wanted him to dig on the place, that I didn't even like it when people stuck their heads down woodchuck holes. I imagine they had the last bit they needed to make the application for the search warrant. Wouldn’t you know the fucker drove me all the way home and never once mentioned anything about being interviewed about me by the police. For once in his fucking life he finally manages to keep a secret, and it’s against me?

Peckerhead.

Dad never told me where on the farm he found the spearhead, but he said it was found together with some large bones that looked like that of a mastodon, which he covered back up in fear. He said he thought what he saw looked like a kill site. Archeologists would kill for a kill site. I know I put that point somewhere safe, but damn if I can remember where! I hope it doesn’t take 12,000 years to find again.

I was thinking 12,000 years ago is like the time of Jesus ago times 6 ---6 degrees of separation. So if Jesus had his own ancient Jesus as a savior, and that Jesus also had an ancient Jesus as his savior, he would still be about three ancient Jesus saviors away from hunting mastodon with a Cumberland spearhead.

That's some old shit we're talking.