The Bucolic Plague: How Two Manhattanites Became Gentlemen Farmers: An Unconventional Memoir (3 page)

“Sulphur water. Hence the smell,” Brent mused. “This is where people used to ‘take the waters.’”

“It looks like somebody took the people.”

“It’s beautiful, though, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” I said. “In a very odd way. It doesn’t feel as dead as it looks.”

“Martha would love this town,” Brent said. “The old architecture is amazing.”

“Well, she better get here quick. One good snowstorm and it’ll be a pile of rubble.”

We climbed back into the car and slowly made our way to the other end of the main street, taking in all of the abandoned glory. Before the hill that led out of town, the road bent slightly, enough to hide one final old hotel from our view until we were right in front of it. It was ablaze with light. And people moving about in the windows. After all of the abandoned darkness, I nearly had to shield my eyes.

“Whoa. People!” I said.

“The American Hotel,” Brent read from the sign out front.

Neither of us actually had to suggest stopping. Brent automatically turned into the gravel driveway. It was full of cars—so full that we had to park on the grass. We got out and walked around to the front entrance. The front porch stretched the length of the white wooden building, punctuated with black shutters at each window. It was lined with comfortable old wicker rockers and meticulously decorated with piles of pumpkins and cornstalks. If Norman Rockwell were gay and owned a hotel, this would have been it.

There was another porch above our heads, running along the length of the second floor, and there looked to be a floor above that as well. There must have been several dozen rooms in this place.

“Do you think—” I started.

“No way. A place like this has got to be booked months ahead of time.”

“Way out here?”

Brent opened the front door and warm air flooded onto both of our chilled faces.

“A woodstove,” he remarked happily.

“A full bar,” I added happily-er.

The burning stove and carved wooden bar were located at the far end of the cozy lobby decorated with well-worn antiques and memorabilia from Sharon Springs in its spa heyday.

It almost felt like an episode of
The Twilight Zone
. Had we stepped across a threshold to a different era? This was the one building in town that looked as if it had anyone in it, and now that we were inside, it looked as if it had
everyone
in it. Connected to the lobby was a restaurant, in which every table was set formally and full of patrons. The noise, after driving around those deserted streets, was almost too much to bear.

A voice bellowed from behind the host stand, near the hotel desk complete with little cubbyholes for keys.

“Hello! Welcome to the American!”

It was a bear of a man, tall, broad shouldered and chested, dark haired, with a full beard and mustache to match. He reminded me of a drawing of Paul Bunyan in a picture book I had as a child. After greeting us, he held up a friendly finger motioning for us to wait as he turned back to chat with one of the waitresses who had come up to ask him a question.

Brent studied a framed postcard of the American Hotel that looked as if it had been printed a hundred years ago. It was summertime when the photo was taken, and the sidewalk outside was lined by a row of stately trees. The grass and trees were both manicured to perfection, and several horses were tied to hitching posts. The men and women on the porch were all smiling broadly and were wearing suits and ties, or full dark skirts. It’s rare to see a photo of that era in which the people are smiling. Sharon Springs must have been a very popular place at one time.

“Okay! Sorry about that…Do you guys have a dinner reservation?”

I turned back around to see Paul Bunyan stepping out from behind the host stand wearing…a kilt.

Not that Brent and I were the least bit secretive about our relationship, but whenever we traveled around small rural areas, we were always a little self-conscious of appearing gay. We did this less out of concern for our own safety, but more out of respect for communities that may not have had a fair chance to grapple with the subject beyond the occasional
Jerry Springer
episode.

And there stood Paul Bunyan in a kilt.

“Ah no,” Brent said. “We didn’t make a reservation. We were just driving by. But if we can get dinner, we’d like to.”

Paul Bunyan winced and sucked in his breath.

“Gosh.” He looked down at the reservation book. “We’re really booked tonight. I’m very sorry.”

My heart dropped into my stomach—in which there was plenty of room. I’d been looking over the menu posted by the front desk and had already picked out my three-course meal. Everything looked delicious and local.

“But you can eat here, in the bar area, if you’d like,” Paul Bunyan offered brightly. We quickly accepted.

Our dinner plates arrived and were taken away in a satisfied blur. I’d eaten in restaurants around the globe, but I didn’t think I’d ever eaten a better meal. It wasn’t simply the food—it was the warmth of the fire, the coziness of the bar, and the slight mysterious air of this Brigadoon.

As the last course was being cleared away, Paul Bunyan came by our table. We motioned for him to join us, and he pulled up a comfy leather chair.

“I’m Doug,” Paul Bunyan said. He squinched his eyes at us, inspecting. “You guys are from the city,” he deduced accurately. “What brings you way out here?”

“We got lost,” Brent said.

Doug laughed a big hearty guffaw. “So did I,” he said. “Twelve years ago. And I still can’t find my way back.
Take me with you!
”

“Please do,” another man said as he approached the table. This man was a bit leaner, with a scruffier beard than Doug’s and thinner, lighter hair that was graying at the temples. “Is he bothering you?” he asked, putting his hand on Doug’s shoulder.

“Am I bothering
them
?” Doug said. “Here I was, literally minding my own business, when in walk these city slickers demanding a meal.”

I could already tell that I liked the brash Doug.

“Table twelve wants you to drop by,” this second man said.

“My public can wait,” Doug said. “I’m hatching an escape plan.”

The second man rolled his eyes and pulled up a wooden chair beside Doug’s.

“I’m Garth,” he said. “How was your meal?”

Garth seemed very gentle and sincere. It had been a long time since I actually believed that someone truly cared how my meal was.

I quickly pieced together that they were the owners of the American Hotel, and that they were, in fact, “together,” as my mother euphemistically says. The four of us chatted the evening away. They told us how they’d fled the city in 1996 and wound up first opening a café and bakery up the street. Garth had been a Broadway musician, and Doug had been an actor. We told them about ourselves, that I worked in advertising and wrote on the side, and how Brent had quit being a doctor to work with Martha Stewart. By the time there was a lull in the conversation the giant grandfather clock in the bar was chiming midnight. I looked around only to notice that there were no other customers left. I cast a wary glance at Brent, and then to the clock. Doug picked up on my signaling.

“You two heading out?”

“I suppose we should,” I said. Ugh. The Red Roof Inn awaits. “We’re going to try to make it to Albany tonight and get a room.”

“Why—and I would ask this of any living being—
why
would you want to stay in
Albany
?” Doug asked.

I’d been eyeing the keys in the cubbyholes by the front desk all night. Each time I’d gotten up to use the restroom, more and more of them were missing. There was no way this place would have an extra room in the middle of peak leaf-peeping season, would it? But even as of fifteen minutes ago when I went to the bar for yet another Riesling, cubbyhole number eleven still had its very own shiny key in it. I’d always desperately wanted to stay in the type of place that kept its keys in cubbyholes. It makes me think of movies like
Holiday Inn
and
Same Time, Next Year.
If an establishment cared enough to keep its keys cozy, just imagine how its guests felt. But I’d promised myself I wouldn’t inquire about vacancies. The deal between Brent and I was that the day’s driver always gets to pick the hotel. And I knew he’d choose the Red Roof Inn.

“You don’t have a room here, do you?” Brent asked of Doug.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Brent was willing to give up noisy ice machines, fuzzy HBO, and fiberglass shower stalls for cubbyhole number eleven? Brent must have been under the spell of this place too.

Doug shouted at Garth, who was cashing out the dinner receipts at the front desk.

“Did the Schmitters ever show?”

Garth looked into number eleven.

“Nope.”

Doug turned back to us.

“Good news, bad news,” Doug said. “Good news is that we have a room.” He paused for dramatic effect. “Bad news is that there’s only one double bed.” His face turned serious for the first time in the evening. “And we don’t go for homosexualists in these parts.”

His tone was so sober that I almost believed him. But an instant later he broke out in his heartiest laugh of the evening as he rose to bring us the treasure of cubbyhole number eleven.

Chapter Two

“They were nice,” Brent said once we’d settled into the car the next morning.

“Yep,” I said curtly.

“What’s wrong?” Brent asked.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing big, or nothing small?”

“Nothing-nothing.”

“Well,
I
had a good time,” he said.

“Me too.”

“Then what’s bothering you?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It just seems like the weekend flew by so quickly. I’m not ready to go back into the city.”

It’s been said that whenever New Yorkers leave the city, they can’t fathom how they live there. But as soon as they return, they get caught right back up in the pace of it all and egotistically proclaim that they could never live anywhere else.

Doug and Garth were kind enough to show us exactly where we were on the map and to trace out the most picturesque route back to the city. It seemed to be pretty much a straight line down Route 10 into a town called Cobleskill and then another forty-five minutes or so until we would hit the New York State Thruway. Then it was a straight two-and-a-half-hour ride right back into the hectic hustle and hassles of the greatest city in the world.

I wasn’t ready to go back. I never was after our apple-picking weekends. They gave me just the slightest familiar taste of the slow rural life I enjoyed growing up in a small farm town in Wisconsin. Our five bushels of McIntoshes in the backseat may as well have been from the Garden of Eden. Each bite reminded me of how good it used to be, but how doomed we were to our stressful urban careers and lifestyle.

We didn’t need to talk much, thankfully, as we drove down the pretty route that Doug and Garth had picked out for us. Just out of town we passed a picturesque pond and witnessed a flock of geese splash down for a pit stop on its way south. A little farther beyond we passed a herd of Holstein cows on a hill—black and white polka dots against the brilliant orange sugar maples. About four miles away we passed a tiny outcropping of farmhouses punctuated by an archetypal gleaming white wooden church. The Sunday service had just let out. Here was the church. Here was the steeple. Open up the doors and out came the people.

“Wait. Slow down. Here’s another historical sign.” I would stop for anything to prolong our idyllic getaway. Luckily the entire area seemed to be saturated with state historical society roadside plaques. Whoever the local state senator was, he was certainly bringing home the bronze.

This particular sign was planted on the road in front of an elaborate white house. It was unlike any house that we’d seen in the area. Most of the other homes in the vicinity were either simple turn-of-the-century farmhouses or prefabricated beige boxes.

“What’s the sign say?” Brent asked. I rolled down the window and stuck my head out.

“The Beekman Mansion. Built 1802. William Beekman was first judge of court held in Schoharie County. Died here on November 26, 1845. Buried on this farm.”

“Is it a museum?”

“I don’t know.” It looked like a museum. I wasn’t exactly an architecture buff, but I remembered enough from when my parents dragged me to Williamsburg, Virginia, as a child to recognize the structure as vaguely Federal. Maybe with a slight Georgian twist. It had white balustrades around the roofline and intricately carved arched moldings above each window. Even in the shade of the double row of centuries-old sugar maples in formation across the front yard, the white clapboard seemed to glow. But the most amazing feature was a massive forty-five-paned arched Palladian window smack in the center of the second floor.

“It’s gorgeous,” Brent said. I knew that he was appreciating entirely different features than I was. Being from the South, he was probably staring at the ornate balustrades and what looked to be a porch with pillars that wrapped around the back and sides. It definitely had a plantation gene somewhere in its bones.

Being more northern, I loved its elegant but simple symmetry—its four hidden chimneys built right into the boxy home, the ornate but understated carvings painted white against the white background.

With its peculiar and unique details, the house was like a perfect combination of Brent and me—both southern and northern in equal complementary measures.

“Drive up farther,” I said. “We’ll see if it’s open.” A building this beautiful had to be a museum. Nobody had a right to own it all to themselves.

As we inched forward, we realized there was a barn just to the south of it—a perfect red barn in the architectural style of Fisher-Price. The white house with the red barn, with the green manicured grass, with the orange maples…It was like something out of a Disney movie. I half expected an animatronic milkmaid to stick her head out of the hayloft door and wave at us.

This was nothing like the farms I grew up around in Wisconsin, where the house was generally an afterthought to the outbuildings, and a yard was considered to be whatever patches of grass grew up through the mud. Farms are messy, I’d learned. Really messy. When your business is dependent on inventory that shits wherever it feels like, you can’t really be a stickler for neatness.