THE WALL

For as long as anyone in the family can remember the Wall has always been there. And the Smyth family has been here for five generations. A good 200 yards back from the sun porch, down in a little hollow nestled among the ancient chestnut forest, the Wall is as much a fixture in our lives as the rising and setting of the sun and the changing of the seasons.

The Wall holds many secrets. As far as anyone can tell, it follows no property lines that have ever existed, and in this part of New England, where property records extend back for well over 300 years, that is saying something. The Wall is strangely incomplete— forming a right angle, that from its nine foot high apex doesn’t extend more than ten feet in either direction, with the ends descending at 45 degrees down into the ground, so that when you stand in the bottom of the hollow and face the corner, it has the appearance of a pyramid. It was as if the remainder of the Wall had somehow sunk below the leaf littered ground, leaving only this one corner above the surface, like the bow of a sinking ship.

 Who had built it? What had it protected? Obviously a person of great means had built it to surround some structure of great import. But nary a foundation stone of that original structure has ever been found and of the remaining segments of the Wall there is no trace. No loose stones or bricks have ever been found in the surrounding forest floor.  It is if the Wall is the last vestige of a mystical kingdom. Or at least that is how it appeared to us kids.

 The construction of the Wall only deepens its mysteries. The bottom 5 feet of unmortared,  worked fieldstone is so finely joined that one is reminded of the stonework of the Incas. Then comes four feet of intricately laid brickwork, in a herring bone pattern, which appears to have been laid by a master Mason and atop it all is an elaborately carved granite capstone that is countersunk into the top course of bricks. The three structural elements, fieldstone, brick and granite shouldn’t work together, but somehow they do and add enormously to the Walls overall presence.

It’s obvious that at some point in time, the capstones had been intricately engraved, but the years and the harsh New England winters have smoothed out the sharp carvings to blur both its message and design. As children we scaled the Wall to its corner, to try and decipher its meaning, despite the dire warnings from our parents of the Walls imminent collapse. We laughed knowing that their parents and their parent’s parents had warned each succeeding generation of exactly the same fate.

And each generation added their interpretations of the blurred markings on the capstones. Could those markings have been a date? 1387 obviously could not be correct, as this certainly wasn’t a vestige of the indigenous Seneca people. And despite the fact that this spot had been named the “Captain’s Corner”, based upon what appeared to be the letters “Capt”, etched into one of the stones, it was just as likely they weren’t letters at all, but part of the intricate design, that magically put dreams of a pirates buried treasure into impressionable young minds.

For there is no doubt that the Captain’s Corner holds a strange power over all who sees it. It has impressed us to such an extent that it stands unblemished by the hand of man. The surrounding chestnuts bear many signs of human presence. Extending out from the wall there are signs that humans needed to mark this spot in the forest if not the Wall itself. Some faded slashes of what appear to be early Indian trail blazes, alongside carvings of long lost loves from 100 years ago, intermingle with bright swirls of Dayglo spray paint, which I’m ashamed to admit my little brother Billy and I had some hand in doing. But in the center of all this human induced chaos the Wall stands inviolate. Such is the power of the Wall that even as children we would dare not attempt to mark it, if even with our own piss. It was just a dare that no one dared speak. For even the chestnuts themselves did not encroach upon what is left of it. Limbs and roots mysteriously stop, uncut, within eight feet of the Wall’s unseen boundary.

But we children couldn’t stay away from it. It was indeed one of the greatest joys of our childhood to rest our hands upon the warm fieldstone rocks and feel the hairs on our arms rise up. And no journey to adulthood was ever complete for children of the area, without spending at least one night in the embracing arms of the Corner.

And though we never spoke of it amongst ourselves, we would be amazed to find that those nights were all strangely similar. The campfire was always built at the apex of the corner, though it left no trace upon the stones from its flames or smoke. If two of us were to spend the night, each would lay their sleeping bag along one side of the wall with our head towards the fire. If more, each would lay their bag like spokes of a wheel, each facing towards the fire in the corner of the Wall. Nothing was ever said about these arrangements and now that I think about it, it was very much like the prohibition of leaving any marks upon the wall, it was just somehow understood.

And what magical nights they were! Gazing up at the sparkling sky, it seemed like shooting stars were common, full moons an every night occurrence and even the Aurora borealis seemed to shine well into the spring and fall. We would tell each other tales of pirate’s treasure and our hopes and dreams for the future, until the fire was but a pile of glowing embers. And then we would sleep the best sleep we’d ever had, for nightmares had no dominion within the embracing confines of the Captain’s Corner.

It’s been decades since I’ve walked across the fields, into the woods, to gaze upon the Wall. Part of its mystery is that it has always been a children’s place, a place that somehow, we adults grew out of. So, it comes as a pleasant surprise that as I hear the laughter of my grandchildren, as they try and decipher the mysteries of the Captain’s Corner and the Wall that forms it, I find myself drawn to it yet again.

I hear my wife calling me for dinner from far away. But I am already heading towards a different destination.

My eyes grow heavy, a smile spread across my face, as I feel the wall envelope me in its arms one last time and all of its mysteries are mysteries no more.