Upper Bean's Point on Moose Harbor Somewhere in
the Lost Kingdom
I've heard that more than once over the years. And I heard it again last week when the two of us took to the road with a fistful of cigars and a battered road map to guide us. Me and the prairie dog's Confucius, cruising in a '58 Rambler, in search of prize real estate for our hotel-country inn project. We've been on the move, too, making time--up and down the coast, over the mountains, along winding roads, and across the plains. A host of carnies and hucksters posing as real estate agents have paraded us through ramshackle dumps, pretentious palaces, and desolate swamplands. Too much driving, really, in such little time. I was set to cave when father received a tip on a happening spot up the Maine coast. A trucker filled him in at a rest stop. The guy had a payload of wood flour, which got the best of father's curiosity. "Wood flour?" father asked. "For what?" "It's a filler," he replied, except 'filler' sounded closer to 'phillah.' "For toilet seats and doughnuts. We got both ends of the market covered!" He smiled and gave a shrug. "Think of it as sifted gold!" It was pretty much all he had to say. Father being the consummate businessman, they struck up a conversation. The next thing I knew we were off to the low mountains on the eastern frontier, a place the trucker called the Lost Kingdom. I was spent and in no mood to drive for hours into the wilderness. "Just a little farther, boy," father pushed me on, "and the tumbleweed rolls no more." He chuckled at his own wit. Up and down rugged hills we traversed. On and on, climbing higher and higher past windswept terrain. We nearly drove the Rambler into the ground on that last mountain pass. The valves were tapping Morse code. Father was cursing and swearing like he had hives. At me, the car, or the trucker? I did not ask and did not want to know. Once we cleared the pass I could see the ocean. I threw the beast in neutral to cool her down, thinking it would be a good thing to coast. Which it was until we hit G-force resistance about a third of the way down the mountainside. I'm not sure if it was the brakes that were smoking on that final turn or if it was father's death grip on his St. Christopher's medal. I have to admit that I was relieved when we rolled into this secluded town. The big, old road sign read: "Welcome to Downeast Way-the Last Sanctuary and Hope for Western Civilization and Your Investment Dollar." It's been one heck of a
road trip, but I think it was worth it. I think we've finally
found the perfect spread. Our harrowing journey and everlasting
search hath ended...
Rob dearest, Hope all is well and life is grand. A rather brisk late autumn chill is in the air, which is quite apropos, the chill that is, after what has gone down here in the past week. I can say that we were a bit unhinged with all the talk of the place being haunted--Halloween can do that to you! We're back on track now, and have a near full house. Fonebone declared the place clean a few hours ago and left with a check in hand. Sparky took a liking to him, though I think the pooch was disappointed that he missed out on the "exorcism." The beauty of it is, with all that went down, the guests thought it was part of some kind of living theater-the type of thing that even I couldn't have concocted. And we had coverage in the Downeast Way Times, too, which, considering the advertising rates of that rag, was a major coup. Mother may never be the same after what happened, but for now those little pink pills seem to be doing the job. At least she doesn't speak of wanting to go stay with sister Liza anymore, or brother Casimere. The whole affair began early one morning a week ago Thursday. I was upstairs in the head when I heard a primordial scream from downstairs. It was louder than that time in the moe.van when you screamed "Holy shit a deeeeer!" just before we bored into that six-point buck, except this scream was a shriek of sheer terror rather than shit-your-pants surprise. I had just finished shaving-the third leg of the morning triumvirate complete-when I was distracted from the never-ending count of gray hairs and their continuing assault on my head. I ran downstairs fearing the worst. The commotion was in the kitchen. When I burst in I found the bride comforting mother. A few guests had wandered in. Father was standing there, too, mumbling something about those idiot, imbecile, senile Huxley sisters, and telling mother to get off the floor and finish with the bacon. All mother kept saying, in a half whisper, was "I heard it! I heard him, scratching, right there in the wall. He's real-Edith and Emma were right!" At that moment, staring at them all, amidst the pandemonium, I realized I was still in my boxers. Now there's nothing to worry about. Let me assure you, firstly, that the turtle's head was still in his shell. Secondly, your investment is as safe and sound as the day you made it. Our neighbors, Edith and Emma Huxley, the grand dames of Downeast Way, as I've mentioned before, are the last in the line of Colonel Huxley, the hero of the Battle of Fredericksburg and the guy who actually built this place. I don't know how leading your men up hill into a wall of cannon fire can be construed as heroic just because somebody told you to do it--even if he did lead the charge. Anyway, as you know, these Huxley sisters have bonded with mother, and have her believing that things are amiss here in the hotel. They've been telling her about the arm of Colonel Huxley. I don't want to get too deep, but this place is supposed to be haunted by him, or it, or whatever. I'm not really sure. And everyone in town knows about it. They'll tell you that the moe.Republic is haunted by the ghost of Colonel Josiah Huxley. Seems it was a minor detail that Kinghorn and Bigwood neglected to mention. It came up after we began to renovate. A few crew members mentioned that the place was spooked, but I just shrugged. No need to alarm you with any tales from the crypt--you know I've got plenty of skeletons in my closet without being haunted by Colonel Huxley, too. There have been a few unusual things, I suppose, but nothing worth writing about or too odd for a place this old. It's kind of creepy when a few boards creak, a door slams shut, or things disappear from one place and turn up a few days later in another part of the hotel. Father keeps complaining that he can't find his keys, but then again, I told the bride to hide them every chance she could. I'm beginning to wonder if he should even be behind the wheel of the John Deere mower. And then there is the occasional weird stuff, too. I've overheard guests talk of similar nightmares--the sensation of a heavy pressure or weight holding them down, feeling an icy grip around them, unable to speak or move, waking suddenly in a cold sweat-it all sounds like a bad hangover in Vegas if you ask me. But what do I know? You can't get sucked into the drama and paranoia. I sure the hell don't want to scare off the masses before they show up! I guess we should have asked Kinghorn and Bigwood why no one had lived in this place for the past twenty years before we walked off the boat and bought it. All I was thinking was location! location! location! And you know how I feel about the view. Before you think that your
dollars would have been better placed in dot.com futures, there's
no need to worry. Until mother's scream that morning, it had
been smooth sailing. That being the week before Halloween we
were able to quiet the concerns of our hallowed guests. I can't
say that screams coming from the kitchen is that reassuring,
particularly during breakfast, or any meal for that matter. Even
though I was standing there in my underwear, I calmed down the
curious with a wink and nod. Thus began the theater of the absurd... About that
Hedge Fund Hola mi hermano, Thought I'd put down a line or two while I have a chance. I've been busy of late. The routine of a humble publican is consuming me. But I'm not complaining. Spring is finally here, for the most part. The cold snaps are getting fewer and the days are getting longer. People are beginning to amble out and reclaim the great outdoors-at least as long as they can tolerate the black flies, which have arrived a little early this year. Yesterday the whole family went up to Farkleberry Farm just to air it out. It was kind of neat to see all the animals. Zebras bolting. Giraffes galloping. Bison stampeding. Seems that the animals were showing their restlessness, too, after being cooped up all winter. The six of us were in front of the elephant pen when Casey McNugent walked by. We'd already been there a couple of hours and were set to leave when he bumped into us. By then the child units were running around in circles so fast and tight that they were making mother dizzy as she tried to calm them down. Father couldn't have cared less. Too tired, he sat on a nearby bench smoking a cigar. The bride was indifferent to it all, mesmerized by Rafiki. McNugent's overly-endowed pachyderm was hanging near the front of the pen, trumpeting. His harem was cornered in the back, apparently exhausted from a night on the town. "He's magnificent
isn't he?" said McNugent as he approached me, nodding toward
Rafiki. "I have a half-dozen zoos around the country waiting
for that big boy's sperm. And that's just the first round,"
he said. "We'll know if he's reached his majority in about
a month. He was with Clara there in the back over the last couple
of days," he added, pointing to one of the females. "If
we're lucky, that's $10k a pop for Farkleberry Farm!" he
breathed excitedly. "Let's hope that buck's sperm count
is off the chart! Then the grand experiment, Operation Overflow,
shall commence." That's his code name for you know what,
the how was a mystery to me, and I didn't want to know. He probably
should have called it Operation Big-O or even Operation Cash
Flow. It would have been apropos, as it were. "I'm going
to need some help extracting," McNugent said to me casually.
"Why don't you help me out? It'll be the experience of a
lifetime and I'll pay top dollar." I wanted to tell him
that genital contact with this or any elephant is not my gig.
I really did. But, cornered as I was, I said I'd think about
it. McNugent was a bit giddy for sure. I would be giddy over
a sixty-grand payday, too, even if it meant jerking off an elephant.
To wit: me thinketh the line between bestiality and free enterprise
hath grown finer... From: brother.john@moe.republic.org Dude--Received your message last night. Relax will you? For the umpteenth time mother and the girls are not going to play Sunday nights. That's passé. Though she did mention the possibility of opening at moe.down next year. Now you can keep your fingers crossed-it may be the only way I'll ever get to the festival. What can I say? I missed moe.down again. We've been too busy. Labor Day weekend and all. In my naivete, when I said we'd come, I thought there'd be enough coverage, but we're stretched. Can't seem to make anytime to do anything but manage this place. I've had one day "off" since I last wrote, if you want to call it that. That was for the astral blast, which turned out to be a struggle of and in itself. Talk about the heights of absurdity. I really don't know how I get myself into these situations. Okay, I'm easily seduced. A sucker for a good time. A huckster's wet dream. When my life story appears in print, they're going to call it Gullible's Travels. Should be a bestseller, even make it to the big screen. A dark comedy. The hit of the season. Much like the astral blast we had for the Perseid Meteor Shower, which was as dark as it gets. Don't get me wrong. For the most part it was a good night. Though, one strangely detached from reality. There was one minor triumph. After much deliberation we held the bash up on the mountain side. I finally convinced Timmy Tucker that if we had it here we'd have to be on, like work. There'd be no way I could hold a private party up on the hill with the number of guests around. "Bottom line, Timmy," I laid it out for him. "Do you want this to be a money-making affair or a keg party? Do you want to watch the best natural light show this side of the equator or watch other people watch it? Because I'm not flying solo and there's not enough staff to help." He thought about that for a minute. "Also, as for the live music, at this juncture, the only group available would be the four horsemen," I added with a chuckle. "A little Guy Lombardo, a little Pat Boone, we'll be cookin'!" That was my trump card. Timmy knew that the old ladies wanted to play in front of an audience, but he didn't know they'd passed on any night gigs. Edith's arthritis tends to flare up after six o'clock. Makes her a bit spastic unless she takes the cure, and she takes the cure most evenings. Hits the tea hard until the fairies come and tuck her in. I overheard mother telling sister Liza, Irma, and the bride the full scoop. Not that the Huxley's would ever come clean with me. Instead, they see me, pack my bags and send me on a guilt trip. As usual, I got the old 'if our great-nephew James were alive you wouldn't take advantage. We'd play every Sunday night and headline the show.' Yeah, I thought, P.T. Barnum's freak show. I know it sounds harsh, but the thing that gets me is their attitude. They sold this place to us. We didn't take it from them. Yet, every time I see them I'm beset with a conspiratorial angst served up with the right amount of indignity. Just enough to set the veins in my temples bulging with a subdued rage. On a brighter note, I shouldn't
complain. I didn't have to weasel out of anything. I was off
the hook. Not only for Sunday nights, but the astral blast, too.
Timmy, ever the shrewd business man, cut a deal with me. If we
had the blast up on the mountain, I'd bring a keg and he'd take
care of the rest. Fine by me. That's what I'd been leaning towards
for weeks. It was though everything fell into place like I'd
scripted it. Which was cool, until the night of the party, when
the Perseids were peaking, and I nearly spaced it out. When I
think about it, in a night of many omens, that was my first.
A portent to back off and stay on the porch. Not to go anywhere.
But hey? This was the night of the cosmos. It only happens once
a year. The grand parade across the northern hemisphere. The
night a thousand falling stars land on your lap. How many wishes
do you have in you? How many dreams will come true? From: brother.john@moe.republic.org dear Rob: Sometimes the path of a wayward publican leads in directions you never dream of. Sometimes amidst the daily challenge to keep the party hot, the music playing, and the beer flowing you forget about the life that's out there on the other side of the door. You forget about the bourgeois decadence and hedonistic fury that struck each Friday happy hour like a summer lightning storm. That's when routine actually meant something and was not, simply, routine. You realize what a creature of habit you've become. An insidious monster. All the scarier because the fiend's a bastard offspring of your own stupor. Sometimes one must retool--need I remind you--to seize adventure at the tide before it ebbs away and you're left mired in the shallows, if I may paraphrase my old comrade Bill Shakespeare. Sometimes it happens, adventure, and you break out of the routine, one way or the other. That day has arrived, or I should say it will tomorrow. Though I can't dismiss the last twenty-four hours. They've been anything but routine. Maybe it's an omen, which father is always quick to remind me is one letter short of women, the most dangerous of five letter words. I wasn't thinking about that when earlier this evening our good buddies Dr. Kinghorn and Mr. Bigwood strolled into the moe.Microbrewery looking pretty antsy. I figured something was up because each of them walked like they had a woody undercover. A borderline film noir look, minus the trench coats and fedoras. The two of them are regulars enough. But tonight I had a hunch they showed up for a reason. They had the same game face when they skewered that insurance guy last summer over the gazebo fiasco. So now it was my turn, I thought, to get my rosebud plucked. They were here to drill me about what happened yesterday. I knew it. I could sense it-it was the talk of the town. Juicy, fresh pulp. When that many bales of marijuana wash up in your backyard it usually is. "Well boys, what's on your mind?" I asked them tentatively, serving up a couple of pints. "This is highly confidential," said Bigwood in earnest before he even took a swig. "We have a few things we'd like to talk over with you." "Guys!" I snapped, anticipating the question. "If this is about the dope I had nothing to do with it." I was on the defensive. "I told Chief McO'Fayle and all the other cops everything I knew. Did the Chief put you up to this?" Mind you, I was sensitive about all the pot that washed in with the tide. The bucolic shores of the moe.Republic may never be the same. Don't be surprised if a couple of Feds come knocking at your door asking questions, either. As a longhaired musician you fit the profile. I didn't mean to imply when I was getting grilled that your long hair or playing the bass in a rock band had anything to do with smoking dope. So I would just avoid the whole "the hotel's a front for smuggling" line of questioning when it comes up. What happened was a half-dozen bales floated in from Moose Harbor, prompting a massive search for drug smugglers. A guest found the first one while strolling on the beach. Just appeared out of the morning fog, he'd say. I wasn't sure if he meant the weather or himself. The "dude" was a moe.ron from Jersey here on holiday-could that have ever happened to me on vacation? Nearly thought he'd died and gone to heaven. Next, mother and the Huxley sisters found a bale during their morning perambulation along the beach. First, I had to endure a ten-minute berating from mother like it was my own stash I'd hid there. I don't know how many times she shouted, "how could you?" or "when are you going to grow up?" before the Huxley sisters pounced on me. No dope had ever washed ashore at Huxley Manor when their family ruled over the property. Nothing of such sorts would have ever happened if their nephew James had lived. He was a smart boy. Yeah! James Huxley was smart enough to join the army and get the hell away from those two, the spawn of Cruella DeVil. Alas! The gene pool was not deep enough to sustain him during some invasion of some Latin American country some many years before. His was the same fate as his great, great, great grandfather Colonel Josiah Huxley. Except, rather than la cause noble of the Battle of Fredericksburg and the preservation of the Union, James was lost forever in the battle to grease the palms of the Americas and the preservation of the banksters. I couldn't endure another "if James were alive" rant. Not then. I've only heard it ten-thousand times since we moved in. When I finally broke free of the three amigos, amicably, mind you, I called the Chief and all hell broke loose. You can't believe how many cops there were. The Feds, state troopers, and local law enforcement elite arrived in force. The weather was crappy and foggy, but they still sent out a helicopter and two boats to scour the coastline. Four more bales wrapped in white burlap sacks were found, but nothing else. The Chief told me that this was nothing new. According to him Moose Harbor is a hot spot for smugglers, always has been. "My father used to say that during prohibition the rum-runners came across the Bay of Fundy from Nova Scotia." He looked at me, smiling knowingly like I knew something I didn't. I rolled my eyes in frustration. "Barrels of rum and crates of scotch and whiskey were easily smuggled in on fishing trawlers. There was supposed to be an ultra-secret drop-off where they stored the booze, a place they called the Whale's Jaw. No one ever found it, if it ever existed. Mostly because everyone figured it was here, Huxley Manor. Your beach there," he pointed, "the way it curves sharp on this end and that little peninsular on the other end. Well, there's your open Whale's Jaw. Anyway, that's what everyone thought. Another indication was that the Huxleys were said to be in the thick of it, letting the trawlers dock up here rather than down at the town wharf, and unload the booze in waiting trucks. They thought they were doing the fishermen a favor and making a little cash on the side. Had no idea what was going on. Not until that one time, at the height of it all, there was a big gun fight between the Walker and Kennedy gangs." He told me that Jackson Grant's grandfather was wounded in the melee. The guy ended up in jail for a few years. He wouldn't name names. "I can tell you with the rise in the popularity of smoking dope," the Chief added, "it was fairly common during the drug-trafficking decades of the nineteen-sixties, seventies, and eighties for smugglers to bring in a bale or two as the 'catch of the day'--the elusive square flounder." The Chief asked me to keep an eye out for strangers or unusual looking characters. I wanted to remind him that just about everyone who walks through the door is a stranger, let alone a character. Maybe I should have asked him what type of character. At times the place is a rotating door for freaks and merry pranksters. They keep coming here looking for answers. Which I don't have for them and didn't have for the Chief. But considering the alternative, I told him I'd keep an eye out for anyone who looks suspicious, and we left it at that. I guess I snapped at Kinghorn and Bigwood because I had been through the wringer over the past day. I'm surprised they didn't get up and leave. But they laughed at me. "Dude," Bigwood calmed me. "If we wanted to score this would be the last place we'd come to." Not sure if that was a sign of respect or if I'd just been labeled an L-7, I took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and asked quite calmly, "What's up?" "Plenty!" Kinghorn
replied. "And it's bigger than any dope bust!" So began
a tale of discovery in the offing out at Popham Island, out on
the fringe of Moose Harbor. I listened closely to what they had
to say. The more they told me, the deeper into the story they
went, the mystery unraveling, the more I realized that the tide
had just come in. Finally, when I was just about to ask where
I fit in they asked me if I wanted to go with them on a boat
ride, if I could help. "Where and when?" I pumped up.
"Count me in!" After the brush with reefer madness
it was just what I needed. If Kinghorn and Bigwood were right,
if their research and investigation were accurate, then the end
of a near three-hundred year old mystery was at hand. Even now
I keep asking myself-have they really located the lost treasure
of the pirate One-Eyed Red Beard? The grim reaper himself?
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