The Things They Carried: Elroy Berdahl

    As I had begun to dose off on my dearest old arm chair, I heard a faint knock on the door. No one is ever out here, this random arrival was nothing but uncommon. I approached the door slowly with a slight remorse in my step. I am usually not this anxious when answering the door but this time felt different. I felt as if something significant was about to happen. The mood in the air changed as I took my next step and the floorboards creaked. I entered the mud room and unsteadily rose my hand to turn the handle. I have never been so nervous. I considered pulling away my hand and looking through the peephole but I mustered enough courage to face the unknown.

    I somehow recall grabbing a the small pairing knife and green apple off of the cutting board in the kitchen, most likely an irrational decision that I had made due to my ferocious nervousness. I peer down to survey the visitor, the brown work boots coated in an auburn film of a stain stood on the pristine welcome mat, baggy ripped jeans sloppily draped over his shaking knees, and a loose plaid shirt buttoned all the way up to the base of his chin. He smelled of a very putrid odor, it is a horrifying smell that will always stick with me, my face must've looked ridiculous as I tried to hold back vomit. His face wasn't much better, it was the face of a pale and worrisome young man, it was almost as if he felt guilty, and it seemed as if he was so anxious he would have passed out right in that moment. I figured he was ill or his car broke down so I listened to what he had to say then invited him inside and came to find that, that was all he needed. I could tell right away that he was just a kid in trouble. He asked if I had a room for him and I guess if I looked back now I made a sly remark that he may have interpreted as sarcastic. He must've thought that my curious staring was over whelming because he was very hesitant to follow me towards the cabins that I offered to the dilapidated young man. I walked him towards cabin C then stood on the doorstep and handed him the keys. He then did the most peculiar thing ever, he granted me a smile. I felt as if all that loneliness that has welled up in me for so long could not be diminished by a mere smile so it wasn't worth the effort to react. I offered him a fish dinner without entailing a second option, he agreed with a sort of desperate tone, which would be expected.

    I learned that his name was Tim O'Brien. He was at the lodge for six days and we spent most of it together. I looked forward to the long nights of playing Scrabble or reading by the fireplace after a long day of hiking. I tried very hard to keep the conversations at a minimum to avoid awkward situations or asking the wrong question. I was never good at coping with that. I would often times just curiously watch the boy staring out across the river and I would wondering what he was thinking about, maybe he was thinking about the future or wherever he would go next. He would look at me with the same curiosity as I thought about my future or as I watch his innocence reflect upon that river, his naive and unexperienced qualities really shown through when he made himself vulnerable like that. It was that fragile and vulnerable state that made me uncomfortable to talk to him, I was afraid that he could disappear in an instant and that would be my fault. I had begun to realized that if I were to ask the million dollar question, I would receive an insufficient answer. Words cannot describe the emotions of this very frazzled young man.

    Most of the time I didn't need to ask questions to get answer, I could just tell by the amount he was helping me with chores and preparing the cabins for winter, he was conditioning for something. It took all my might not too ask those nerving questions, when were outside behind the cabins, chopping firewood, he would work so hard and put so much extra effort in but why is that? What is he doing here? These questions were eating away at me but I knew that I must retain my self control and abide by my Minnesotan principles, politeness is key. I held my bearings even until the end when the money situation. I did not attempt to pry but we suddenly got on the topic of his job at the slaughter house and I had made a dumb witty joke about the smell when I first met him. I left him with $200 for all the chores and hard work he had done for me around the cabins, but he was to prideful to accept it in front of me so it stayed on the table for the rest of the evening. I waited for O'Brien to leave for his sleeping quarters then I took to the four twenties, wadded them up, stuffed them in an envelopes, wrote 'EMERGENCY FUND' on it in bring bold letters, and tacked it to his door.

    On the last day, I really wanted to test his morals and base his decisions on actions rather than words. I took him on a fishing trip. The tide began to rise as the morning dew began to evaporate. I took him out far enough to see the Canadian border but not close enough to swim to. I provided him with the decision to jump and risk his life or stay aboard and play it safe. I sat aside not wanting to interfere with this very pivotal decision that he needed to make for himself to stop the feuding. I didn't interfere even when he climbed aboard an emotional rollercoaster and began to cry, I could even imagined what was going on in his mind. He began to look disorientingly back and forth from Canada to Minnesota, as if he was look at a mirage.  There were a few close calls when I thought he would make the insane decision to jump over the edge, but he would retreat to the center and appear shameful, disappointed, and most of all embarrassed. As the emotional roller coaster reached it's climax and the crying became more audible now, I could feel his eyes admiring me and it made me wonder what he was thinking and it made me more nervous than when I first opened the door to meet him. I decided it was about time to end this torture so I drove the boat back to the lodge. We ate dinner that night and I made him breakfast the next morning, but I couldn't wait around for a sad ending to a happy story, so I ran. I ran the way any good coward should, I was never good at good-byes and I probably never will be but I knew I would miss that crazy kid when I came back and saw those four fifties sitting on the kitchen counter.