[Listen]
[Sound of an ax chopping wood. Quirky music fades in…]
Christopher Gronlund:
I want to make one thing perfectly clear: this show is not about lumberjacks…
My name is Christopher Gronlund, and this is where I share my stories. Sometimes the stories contain truths, but most of the time, they’re made up. Sometimes the stories are funny—other times they’re serious. But you have my word about one thing: I will never—EVER—share a story about lumberjacks.
This time, it’s the Not About Lumberjacks’ anniversary show, the most Not Not About Lumberjacks story of the year!
When Wayne finds strange items in geocaches along the old lumber roads of northern Minnesota, he becomes obsessed with discovering who’s leaving the items behind. What he discovers changes his life forever…
And now…the usual content advisory: This story deals with divorce. There’s also swearing and some crude humor.
All right—let’s get to work…
* * *
Geocached
On Saturday morning, Wayne pulls a dildo from the ammo container nestled against the base of a white pine. He looks at the blue dick in his hand and drops it when a thought occurs to him: “This might be used.” He instinctively sniffs his hand, which fortunately smells like cardamom—not silicone and a moment of pleasure. He gets the toe of his trail runner beneath the rubber penis and kicks it as far as he can into the woods, watching it wobble in the air and out of view.
He shakes his head and thinks, “What sort of person leaves such a thing in a geocache?”
* * *
Wayne’s therapist suggested a hobby, something that would get him out moving his body after the divorce, rather than sitting at home and feeling sorry for himself. He’d overheard two guys in the cafeteria at work talking about geocaching, and he figured that was as good as anything. He quickly discovered it appealed to his sense of wonder, each new cache holding the promise of logbooks full of signatures and—sometimes—key chains, tiny plastic toys, or stickers and patches from state and national parks. The surprise of what might be found keeps him going.
In return, Wayne leaves behind coins from an old collection he’s had since childhood—nothing worth too much, but still…things rare enough that he imagines the surprised faces of people finding Mercury dimes from the 1920s.
* * *
A half mile down the trail he comes to another cache, something only a day old. Wayne puts on a pair of garden gloves and digs through the leaves at the base of a paper birch. He comes out from the debris with a small metal cylinder with a screw-top cap. It’s not much larger than a pen. He lightly shakes it side to side and listens to something rattling inside.
“Probably some stones,” he thinks—a fairly typical find. Instead, after unscrewing the cap and rocking the opening toward his palm, out roll four human teeth like dice. Molars. He pokes the tip of his tongue into the void in his mouth where, twelve years ago, wisdom teeth presided over the back.
With the second strange find of the day, he decides to call it quits.
* * *
Sunday morning, Wayne finds a Ziploc baggie containing a logbook and a wad of hair. It’s soft and red, like an Irish setter’s fur, but upon closer inspection it’s definitely human. It smells of cardamom.
Wayne looks through the logbook and doesn’t notice anything strange—just the usual names and dates people leave behind as proof they were there. It’s been over three weeks since the last entry.
At the end of the trail is another cache, a fake, hollow rock held shut by magnets. Inside is another mass of hair, about the size of an egg. Wayne pulls on a glove and, using his thumb, separates the mass. Inside, he finds a tiny bone. It looks like something from the inner ear, and he panics, wondering if a serial killer is leaving behind pieces of his crimes in geocaches. It would be easy for someone to step out from the trees and take Wayne’s life while he focuses on strange items he’s found over the weekend. Even if he screamed for help—out deep on trails and old lumber roads—even if he was heard, it would take time to reach him. By then, his throat could be slit, he’d be dragged deep into the woods, and his thumb or big toe could end up in the next cache.
He’s relieved when he notices a clump of feathers and a tiny, mouse-sized leg bone. Wayne is far from an outdoorsman, but he knows enough about wildlife to realize he’s holding the regurgitated contents of an owl’s gizzard in his palm—another peculiar thing to place in a geocache.
The rest of the morning’s finds continue the path of oddities: a pocket watch that runs backwards, a small silk pouch of what appears to be toenail clippings, and—in some ways the strangest find of all—a copy of Herbie Goes Bananas (on VHS tape).
* * *
In the week that follows, it becomes an obsession. Vacation days are taken in the hope of catching the culprit leaving behind doll heads, a vial of coyote urine, and a glass eye featuring the Ace of Spades instead of an iris and pupil. A week later, he finds an actual monkey paw in a capped length of PVC looking like a pipe bomb.
Wayne reads through the list of recent finds he keeps in a small notebook he carries everywhere, hoping to find some connection. He wonders if it’s a puzzle—are all the items somehow related? What would he win if he could figure it all out? Or maybe it’s just a running prank. Perhaps he’s being recorded at each geocache and is now a minor YouTube celebrity—“DildoMan” kicking a rubber penis into the woods in slow motion for the amusement of teenagers.
The most perplexing thing of all is the occasional whiff of cardamom…in the geocaches, but sometimes Wayne swears he smells it on the breeze. He wonders if it’s all in his head, like how some people say they smell toast when having a stroke. What bodily function fails and triggers the smell of cardamom, he wonders?
* * *
It is a morning of lumberjack finds when Wayne comes across a letter.
The first cache of the day held Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox figurines in the olive-green Tupperware bowl everyone seemed to own in the 1970s. After that, in a tiny metal box hanging from the branch of a white spruce like a Christmas tree ornament, he found a vintage button for the Lumberjack World Championships in Hayward, Wisconsin. Then: wrapped in plastic and placed in the crook of a silver maple, a copy of a book called The Art of the Lumberjack. But it’s what Wayne finds in a baggie weighed down by a pile of perfectly stacked rocks that startles him.
He examines the baggie, wondering how to pull it out from beneath the waist-high stone tower without toppling it. Through the clear plastic, written in gold calligraphy: WAYNE.
They know his name! Maybe his initial thoughts about a serial killer were correct after all; maybe some giant man with a coarse beard and perfect handwriting is about to step out in a knit cap, checkered shirt, and an ax. The Lumberjack Killer, the news will call him—a crazed man of the Northwoods who shouts, “Tim-ber!!!” as he cuts his victims to pieces.
Wayne kicks the stones over and picks up the baggie. He unfolds the piece of paper and reads:
Dear Wayne,
I know you are trying to catch me, and that makes this all the more exciting. The two of us out in the forest playing cat and mouse. You, wondering if there’s a reason to any of this—and who could blame you? Yesterday, it was 80s hair bands on cassette tape. Today, it’s all about lumberjacks. I wonder what tomorrow will bring? Any requests?
Sincerely,
Me
There is no clue to who left the letter by the handwriting, but Wayne has known more women to practice calligraphy than men. For a moment he wonders if it’s his ex-wife toying with him, but Patricia hated being outside—restaurants, stores, and hotels were her style, not old lumber roads in middle-of-nowhere Minnesota. Besides, calligraphy is not a thing she would have ever deemed worth doing.
Wayne looks at the last line of the letter—Any requests?—and smiles.
He licks the tip of the golf pencil he keeps with his pocket notebook and writes: An Old Plaid Thermos.
Wayne puts the letter back into the sandwich bag and places the largest stone from the stacked tower on top. Then he goes to work collecting the stones he kicked away. He piles them one on top of the other, until it looks like a good clearing in which to practice yoga beside balanced stones.
* * *
Since childhood, Wayne has lived by the Boy Scout motto: Be prepared! He hikes back to his car to retrieve a sleeping bag and his store of emergency food and water. When he returns to the stones, he half-expects the letter to be gone, already retrieved by whomever has been teasing him for weeks. But it’s still there when Wayne comes back to the clearing. He hides in the trees, wrapping himself in the sleeping bag as he waits for the prankster. He finally falls asleep around two in the morning.
Wayne opens his eyes at the first light of day, a blue light before the sun climbs above the horizon and trees. It’s always been his favorite time of day: a head still hazy from dreams—a daily do-over every twenty-four hours.
He slowly makes his way toward the teetering stone pillar, keeping an eye out as he goes. The letter is gone. On the side of the stones opposite his view he sees it: an old plaid Thermos and something wrapped in Christmas paper.
* * *
Wayne picks up the Thermos and sees the Post-it note stuck to its side. In perfect calligraphy, two words: DRINK ME.
He sets it down and then unwraps the gift, revealing what might be a first edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. A smaller sticky note marks a spot in the book. Wayne flips it open and reads two underlined passages:
It was all very well to say “Drink me,” but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry. “No, I’ll look first,” she said, “and see whether it’s marked ‘poison’ or not.”
And…
“What a curious feeling!” said Alice; “I must be shutting up like a telescope.”
Wayne removes the cup from the top of the Thermos and unscrews the cap. One of his favorite things about cool mornings is how every sense seems heightened—particularly one’s sense of smell. The clearing fills with the scent of cardamom coffee.
Poisoned or drugged coffee be damned, he does as commanded and takes a sip straight from the Thermos. Wayne waits a few minutes and then pours a cup, savoring the rising vapor as it cools. It’s the best cup of coffee he’s ever had.
As he drinks, he ponders the opening of the book: Alice chasing a rabbit down a hole. Alice drinking a potion that makes her tiny enough to pass through a small door into Wonderland. Is there some bigger meaning to all this, Wayne wonders? Patricia always said he lost himself in his obsessions, never content to simply let a thought go until rolling it around from every direction and understanding everything about how it worked. Down his rabbit holes and locking himself behind his tiny doors.
When the sun is fully up and he’s consumed too much coffee, Wayne goes home, showers, and eats a proper breakfast. He laughs while looking at the Thermos on his kitchen counter.
* * *
Wayne is at Annie’s Attic antique shop the moment they open. In much the way surprises found in geocaches appeal to him, the random finds in antique shops have always had the same pull. What stuck in his memory most from his last visit to Annie’s Attic was the plaid Thermos, just like the one his grandfather used for work and brought along on fishing trips.
“Good morning,” Wayne says as he enters and goes straight to a shelf in the back of the shop. The Thermos is not there—the bait was taken!
“Excuse me, I was here the other day, and you had an old plaid Thermos in the back. It’s not there. Did somebody buy it?”
“Let me ask my wife,” the man behind the counter says.
“Annie? Did we sell that Thermos?”
“What Thermos?” a woman says from another part of the shop.
“The plaid one. Gentleman up here is asking about it.”
A woman in her 60s approaches. She smiles and says, “I remember you.”
Wayne nods and says, “Thank you. I like shops like this.”
“You’re looking for a Thermos?”
“Yes,” Wayne says. “But it appears to be gone.”
Her eyes widen. “We’ve not sold it. Let’s go have a look.”
As she leads Wayne to the back of the shop, it occurs to him the only time the person who left the note in the clearing could have read his request for the Thermos and then purchased it was when he went to his car for provisions and his sleeping bag. They had to have been right there the whole time. He wonders if they are watching him now.
“It was right here,” Annie says when they reach the back corner of the shop. “That’s strange.”
On a closer look, Wayne notices the envelope on the shelf where the Thermos should be. He hands it to Annie, who opens it and pulls out a note and two twenty dollar bills.
In calligraphy:
The Thermos that was here cost twenty dollars. Here is forty.
“How strange,” Annie says.
* * *
Wayne returns to the clearing and shouts, “I know you’re here! Show yourself!”
He pauses and listens, hearing only the calls of crows and pipping of cardinals.
“Who are you? How do you know my name?”
Nothing.
He looks at the stone pile and notices another note. This time, in a woman’s handwriting:
Wayne,
We don’t know each other, but I saw you mention your divorce on a geocache forum a while ago. It’s not hard to discover things about a person by piecing together a few things online.
I guess we all look for things to pass the time when we’re sad. I lost someone very dear to me last year. I guess I needed the laugh, but also, I wanted to honor his mirth.
My husband was a fan of leaving things behind: notes tucked in places all around the house, some that I’ve only just found while packing to move away from here. It wasn’t just for me, though. In bookshops, restaurants, or just while out hiking, he left behind notes and strange little trinkets, hoping to inspire people…or at least make them smile.
I’ve missed smiling and laughing, and it seemed like it’s been a while for you, too. I’m sorry if you’ve felt picked on—that’s not been my intent.
To make up for it, get here quickly: N 47°25’39.1″ W 93°36’36.3″.
Rebecca
* * *
Wayne steps off the Soumi Hills Trail and finds a small wooden box hidden beneath some ferns on the shore of Hill Lake. Inside is another note and two coins: nineteen-hundred Liberty head twenty-dollar golds. He looks around, making sure he is alone before admiring the coins in the sunlight. Holding them tightly in his left hand, he unfolds the paper and reads:
Wayne,
I found two of your Mercury head dimes and figured leaving these for you was the least I could do for all the trouble I may have caused. My husband collected coins; I’m sure he’d be honored these found their way to a keeper who respects them for what they are and not their worth. But if you need money, do not feel bad selling them. Or cash them in and use the money to make somebody’s day better or different.
That’s what I hope for you: better days full of unexpected surprises.
Thank you, and goodbye,
Rebecca
Before placing the note and coins back into the box, Wayne inhales slowly, savoring the faint scent of cardamom from inside.
He knows what he must do…
* * *
It doesn’t matter where Rebecca is going or what Patricia is doing—Wayne lets it all go. Still, he wishes he could thank the woman who sent him on a chase for weeks. The best he has, though, is hoping she knows she changed him and pulled him from a rut. His actions will have to suffice.
Wayne places the dildo into the ammo container and nestles it against the base of a white pine.
He shakes his head and smiles, now knowing what sort of person leaves such a thing in a geocache …
* * *
[Quirky music plays…]
Christopher Gronlund:
Thank you for listening to Not About Lumberjacks.
And a huge thank you to Mr. Jesse Harley…one half of Canadian Politics is Boring, a history and comedy podcast. Find it wherever you get your podcasts, or just go to canadianpoliticsisboring.com.
A little bit more about Jesse:
When he’s not singing sea shanties at kitchen parties or streaming video games, he can be found flipping and tumbling all over the piers of Halifax. And I’m not kidding about the flipping stuff…he can really tumble and do all kinds of cool acrobatics stuff, to the point I’m positive, if he so desired, he could become Nova Scotia’s premier breakdancer.
But what Jesse really does best is make movies, and that’s pretty impressive because whatever he puts his mind to, he really does well. His films have won multiple awards and allowed him to travel all around Canada and the United States. So really, you should check out at least a couple things Jesse does, because he really is a great person.
All right, onto the rest of the end credits…
Theme music, as always, is by Ergo Phizmiz. Story music this time is by Headlund, licensed from Epidemic Sound.
Sound effects are always made in-house or from freesound.org. Visit nolumberjacks.com for information about the show, the voice talent, and the music.
December brings the annual Christmas episode: a handful of micro-fiction anchored by something a bit longer. There’s a tale of friendship, a story of a strange reunion, a genie story, something about suburban vandalism, and a somber Christmas story because that’s what I do.
Until next time: be mighty, and keep your axes sharp!
[…] Episode Transcript >> […]