Homeland Security

Don't go to the mall off Lee Blvd. and Rt. 6 if you have missed a few passes with the razor, carry a large backpack, and two hiking sticks. You may think that it is 9 a.m. and you can just sneak in and out for a peaceful coffee. You will not succeed. Yes, I got my coffee, but every ounce of inner peace that I had been saving was spent in twenty minutes.
Security picked me up as soon as I made the food court. I figured southern New York would be a little on edge, but it is hard to keep that thought foremost in the mind day after day. These security men are young. Their mom packed their lunch, and woke them up for work this morning young. The swill at the Coffee Beanery was not the worst part of the adventure, but it did not make it worth the stress. As I took sips of my twisted coffee, Mr. Mall Security leaned against a concreate column, toyed with the brim of his Smokey The Bear hat, and pretended to look at everything but me. I guess I should have let the poor lad off and left, but I hated being pressure sold on an exit by a boy working up his first pimple. More tots in uniform joined the case from the railings above. My coffee found a home in the garbage, as I headed for the privy. When I came out,and headed for an exit, Smokey stepped in my face.
"You got a card,"asked the young man that couldn't keep looking in my eyes? He kept turning his hat in his hands instead.
"Do I have a what," I asked in agrivation because my hand was still fumbling with my pants, and I had enough of this local legend.
"Do you have a car? You can't come in here with all of this, and those sticks."
I simply said that I was leaving, and the gun play at Twisted Pretzel was called off.

As I made it out of the parking lot, I was relieved. I should have never entered the mall with all this gear. People are jumpy. Nervous people can ruin a good day, or worse. Alright, no more malls.

Maybe I am a dozen miles from Bear Mountain Bridge. It could be fifteen miles away even. I have become more than a little anxious to leave this paranoid feeling behind in New York. My legs move faster in agreement.

When I first thought about this walk, this was not the emotional climate I pictured. We all think 'what if' a little bit more these years after the towers fell.

At a garage that allows me to get water out of the filthiest sink I have ever seen, I ask about the road ahead. I ask about the weather. I ask about crime, bears, and the law dogs. The three men in their twenties that I am talking to do not change their posture until I ask about the law. They all stand up and move to me with something in their mouths that they want to share.
" It wasn't more than a week ago that our truck was called to go on a run past the military reservation up the road that you'll be heading. It broke down near the gate. Our man found his face down a half dozen gun barrels while they took that truck apart. He just wanted to use the phone," the tallest man explained. All three added details that held up the story. "And he was a local man," they added, after a pause for affect.

I left more heavy with words, than water. My inner voice is on the phone with reason as I walk up Strawberry Street, and they are whispering.

I pass a marker where Lt. Col. Willett's men skirmished two hundred British invaders in 1777. At a gas station a mile ago I prepared for less than friendly events today. When I found a box of condoms on the roadside earlier in the month, I laughed at their apparent uselessness, but I slid them into my pack. Heading toward the Hudson bridge ,and potential searches I decided to take the knife that cost most of a months wages, a few hundred in cash, and a gold coin internally.
In Maine a police officer asked to see my knife. All day I had given my labor as a volunteer at a smoked food and garlic festival in Bar Harbor.
"Come on Mac. Damn, he's one of us . He worked with us all day for smoked goat and free beer. Let him alone, and eat,"said the young bartender I had enjoyed the company of all day.
"Give me the damn knife," the firm voice of the officer repeated from the end of the bar.
I slid the knife down the bar expresssionlessly. The cop opened the razor sharp blade and then laid it across his palm. The knife stuck out a good inch and a half beyond his large hand. Everyone of us six workers watched silently.
Looking up the officer snapped the blade shut. "It's a big knife, but this is Maine, and it just doesn't matter. " Everyone laughed.
This isn't Maine, and the weather man says rain is on the way, and put away everything that you don't want to get wet.

At the citgo on Oregon Street I buy Funny Bones peanut butter cakes to take the edge off. My brother Steve used to buy them for me in high school. It works. After I eat the three cake I go to the bathroom to check myself. Blood is moving down my leg. Six more miles to the bridge. I will not abandon my inner post.