The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

I suppose if I’d lost two wives to cancer, early deaths, I might become cynical the way Smoker Bill did. And maybe if I had had an alcoholic father, the kind who would throw the Thanksgiving turkey across the room in a fit of drunken rage and watch it splat against the wall and then ooze dressing onto the floor, I might want to sever most ties with my fellow man. Bill was never what you might call gregarious before his second wife succumbed to cancer, but trust me, after that he was a man you left alone. For a year he worked on an old industrial RV, a twenty footer that he replaced brakes and assorted parts on, hard to find items, usually used was all that was available. He refinished the interior the way later he would refurbish houseboats down in Nowhere,Nevada, meticulous work since he was a woodworker by trade, the kind who works alone and refuses any form of supervision from employer or client alike.

I would watch him smoking his usual Camels unfiltered with reading glasses low on his nose scratching measurements before cutting, a serious man, a man who took pride, if not love, in his work. Love had long since abandoned Bill. Except for his cats, two at the time before he sold his house to his brother and drove off the island for good, going god only knew where, but definitely somewhere else. Last I saw him he was holed up in a godforsaken hellhole of a trailer park in southern Utah, swamp cooler rattling on the roof of his trailer, the inside crawling with over a dozen stray cats he’d taken in, the smell of full litter boxes gagging in the heat. He’d already made enemies with most of the other down and outers living the good life in deteriorating mobiles, bad jobs, bad habits, bad marriages, all fodder for Bill’s harsh judgement. The alcoholic manager finally demanded he take his attitude and hit the road after Bill complained about the community restroom and showers’ filth and Bill gladly complied. But not before a scathing shouting match and a burned bridge.

For a time he made camp in another trailer park further south, picked up a few more stray cats, made a few more enemies before being asked to move on, then broke down near the border, got towed to yet another park on its last legs out in the desert and for all I know is still there since his RV no longer runs. And never will. Hermits, I suspect, are made, not born. Bill left civilization a long time ago. Is he happy, you might ask and I would have to say no, he gave up on that after his second wife died. Is he unhappy then? I suspect he would tell you he’s doing just fine, exactly what he wants, and no one to tell him one damn thing.

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