The Little Girl Who Lives on Berta’s Road
Marty Rivers
A bell-shaped globe cast a pale light from the ceiling over the room and the few coats that hung like tired men on a rack next to the door. The musty smell of grandfather’s attic. Clack! Clack! Clack! Ding! A man in his mid-fifties, seated behind a wood desk, looked up from his typewriter. He stood six feet tall, a husky fellow dressed in a flannel shirt and jeans. His boots sounded on the scuffed wood floor as he approached me.
“Hi. I’m Bob. Can I help you?” A warm smile peeked out through his beard. His brown eyes sparkled. I shook his hand.
“I’m Marty.”
He motioned me into a chair. Here we were, Bob, me, and the little girl who lived in the shadows of my memory.
“How can I help you?”
I handed him the ad. “I want to rent it.”
Bob peered through his eyeglasses. “FOR RENT. Cabin and single-wide trailer on five secluded acres in redwoods. Furnished. $160 per month. Timber Realty, Eureka, CA.” Eyebrows raised, he looked up at me, a clean-shaven, thirties, city boy, in a short-sleeved shirt and tennis shoes, in need of a haircut.
“Humboldt County is a good place to live, if you don’t mind a bit of rain and the pulp mill smell,” a grin mixed with curiosity or puzzlement. He leaned back in his chair, took a cigarette from the pack of Pall Mall on his desk, and lit it.
“What brings you to Humboldt County?” he exhaled.
I laughed to myself. What brought me? Loneliness, rejection, gunshots, alarms ringing, sirens blaring, women raped and screaming shoved into vans at supermarkets. The ten-year-old girl behind the counter who watched her father get shot pop pop pop a half-block from my house. Yellow tape on the floor, motionless behind the counter, her heart broken, her mother’s face stained with tears.
Instead, “I heard it was a nice place to live.”
“It’s a very secluded five acres. You want to be that isolated?”
I nodded. He stubbed out his cigarette and grabbed his keys. We got into his Ford truck and headed to a covered wood bridge; ‘Berta’s Road’ scrawled in white paint at the entrance. “They built it in 1936,” Bob shared, tires rumbled on the planks. “In heavy rain, it floods.”
Fine with me. Flood away. I wasn’t going anywhere. Stock up on cigarettes, coffee, scotch, and cat food. I found alcohol better than the pills my doctor recommended. “You suffer from depression, PTSD. Have some Xanax, Ativan! Hell, knock yourself out!”
Bob stopped for a herd of cattle. “Moooo.” Moo is right. My therapist suggested I stay in a mental hospital to ‘stabilize.’ “Where,” I asked her, “will I find stabilized people when I get out?” The cattle cleared the road, and we climbed into the redwoods.
A mile ahead, in the blackberries and scrub, an unmarked metal gate opened to a steep, long, twisted asphalt driveway. At the top, a cabin and trailer rested in the center of 5 acres of redwoods. We had entered paradise.
The trailer, a rusty metal relic from a half-century ago, sat under a redwood tree, an old man resting. Excited, I hopped on the porch and opened the door. I walked into a 1960 tin can with knotty pine paneling and a faded gold shag carpet. It was stuffy and dusty from lack of use. The windows overlooked the forest. Both bedrooms had beds and drawers. I flushed the toilet and ran the shower. The refrigerator was cold, the bulb was missing. I lit the stove. A propane heater of questionable safety sat in the corner. It was perfect! Bob waited outside, smoking a cigarette.
The freshly painted log cabin hosted a queen bedroom suite and sliding glass doors that opened to the redwoods. A wood stove for heat. There were no keys, no neighbors, and no alarms. I moved in.
I bought a chainsaw, cut and split wood for the stove. I wore flannel shirts, overalls, a Levi’s jacket, and boots. I stocked the old chicken coop with Rhode Island hens and joined the poultry club. I bought a tuna from a docked ship and cooked it over a bonfire. My cat running free, bringing me mice, snoozing in the sun.
Breaking glass, gunshots down my alley, women screaming, alarms, sirens, police helicopter chopping at 3 AM. My home in shambles, drawers upside down, my dad’s watch stolen, everything gone, the little girl in tears, young single women wanting a Mercedes and French restaurants…lonely, despair… Gone.
The sound of owl hoots, rustling of brush, and chirping of crickets at night. Hot coffee and fresh eggs for breakfast. The little girl safe in my heart.
Marty Rivers
Marty retired from his practice as a clinical therapist and moved into a weathered farmhouse in the foothills of Tennessee. He is the proud father of two adult children and the grandfather of 6. He is genre-fluid, depending on what ideas pop into his mind in the wee morning hours. Marty has published in Heavy Feather Review, Barbar, Backwards Trajectory and AOL.