Dispatches | Page 23

Clinging to a Tree on Christmas

August 7, 2013 Dispatches

I’m forty feet above the ground hanging, onto a palm frond for my life, and Batiota wants me to go higher. He motions for me to take my foot from the palm’s trunk and place it on the fronds above. I hesitate and give him a look that must be something between, What am I doing up here? and Why are you trying to kill me? Palm fronds grow green from the top, but whither and fall from below, so all I can see to step on is a dying frond, connected by nothing more than a thin, brown-red scar.

Deluge

July 31, 2013 Dispatches

By KEANE SHUM

I got caught in a deluge the other night, and when it hit me, it hit me just like that, italicized, like the rain was coming down so hard even the words to describe it were soaked and falling to the ground. I was in the back streets of Sheung Wan, an old part of town on the outskirts of Central that rests against the side of a hill. Steep stone staircases run up and down and through the area, and on a sunny Sunday morning you can play snakes and ladders with the past, sliding down to a street of antique stores that sell Bruce Lee posters from the 60s and twin-lens reflex cameras from the 30s, or climbing up to peek inside the few Edwardian mansions that remain, the once proud homes not of colonial officials, but of the Chinese compradors who even then—or maybe especially then—had a thing about putting the white man in his place.

The Cave

July 24, 2013 Dispatches

By DREW CALVERT

On my final day in Malaysia I visited the Great Cave near the town of Niah, site of the oldest human remains in all of Southeast Asia. To get there, I took a bus from Miri, a city not far from the Brunei border, which brought me close to the main entrance of an unceremonious national park. At the museum, I glanced through photos of Englishmen joylessly separating ceramic from bone, and I studied brochures on the local economy, which runs on bird’s nests and guano. Then I walked through a rainforest thick with cicadas until I reached the mouth of the cave, which looked like a secret airport hangar or a decommissioned gateway to hell. Armed with a flashlight and an outdated map, I followed a mossy path through the darkness and breathed in the prehistoric funk. By sunset, I found myself back at the entrance, where swiftlets and bats converged on each other in a giant black cloud above my head.

Provincetown

July 17, 2013 Dispatches

By KATHERINE HILL

I can only assume that Stellwagen Bank is a financial institution. Perhaps a progressive Norwegian firm with a board of directors that is, by law, at least fifty percent women. The kind of bank that would sponsor a football club in Trondheim and a chain of internet cafés in Toronto, as well as a tour of the National Marine Sanctuary from Provincetown’s MacMillan Wharf. A global thought leader. A benevolent presence at Davos.

I Bring My Father News of the Road

July 10, 2013 Dispatches

By AMY KNOX BROWN

Four days a week, I drive the fifty miles between Omaha and Lincoln on Interstate 80, a line of pavement that stretches across the entire country, from Teaneck, New Jersey, to San Francisco. In Nebraska, the interstate follows the old Oregon Trail the early settlers bumped along in their horse-drawn wagons filled with household goods that shifted and creaked as wheels churned over the uneven ground.

SAR Talk

July 3, 2013 Dispatches

By JEFF MUSE

When I arrived for my shift, I heard talk of a search and rescue near the south end of the Ptarmigan Traverse: two climbers, stuck on an 18-inch ledge. They dropped their rope and most of their camping gear while summiting 8,200-foot Spire Point, the remote tail of the route, a spot between Sentinel and Dome peaks that most people reach only after several days of route finding. It’s fearsome, storm-wracked country — the Pacific Crest, where waters spill east toward the Columbia River or west to Puget Sound. And if you get high enough, your cell phone might work, as it did for those climbers this morning. They called 911, who in turn called us, the Park Service.

The Short Summer

June 26, 2013 Dispatches

By AMY MONTICELLO

I knew enough from Facebook to recognize the muddy maroon Jeep with the top off when it ran the long red light at North and Main. I was about to turn right when zoom, straight through with a lead foot. I honked loudly and repeatedly until a freckled arm raised a middle finger through the open roof, so I broke New York’s latest traffic law and thumb-punched a text: “Its me u idiot pull over.”

Bootleg Trout

June 19, 2013 Dispatches

By JOEY DEAN HALE

When I’m there I never think about Mr. Sam O. Dale, an eight term state representative for whom this site was named. Actually, I’ve never heard anyone call this 194 acre lake anything other than Johnsonville Lake, that being the nearest town. I’m not sure if this is because in southern Illinois there seems to be a common disdain for politicians or if it’s just that Johnsonville Lake seems like a more fitting moniker. All I know is this Sam Dale guy never crosses my mind. Usually I’m trying to stay focused on the subject at hand, be that catfishing, building a campfire, or trying to land a nice rainbow at the trout pond. Regardless, when my mind does wander, and it often does, especially while I’m waiting for a fish to bite, I often find myself thinking about my grandpa Dutch Hale who drove down from Clay County to fish here.

How We Stilled the Leaves of Every Alder

June 12, 2013 Dispatches

By BRANDI KATHERINE HERRERA

i am breathless in the unnamed woods.

inspiritus, prana, pneuma, qi.

we carry provisions.

canteens.

one of us carries a gun.

we wait for someone to break the silence.

In the Field behind the Condo Where the Fat Boy Plays

June 5, 2013 Dispatches

By JOHN MCNALLY

In the summer of 1975, in the southwest Chicago suburb of Burbank, my parents finally became homeowners when they bought a condominium unit in a brand-new development comprised of eight buildings. The cost: $25,000. First, however, we had to break our apartment lease and move out in the middle of the night. I was nine years old, carrying my toys down the stairs to my father’s pick-up at three in the morning while everyone else, our friends and enemies, slept soundly. In every apartment building we’d ever lived, we always had friends and we always had enemies, and we never lived in any one place for longer than two years. Things were finally going to be different.

All posts tagged: Dispatches

Clinging to a Tree on Christmas

Deluge

The Cave

Provincetown

I Bring My Father News of the Road

SAR Talk

The Short Summer

Bootleg Trout

How We Stilled the Leaves of Every Alder

In the Field behind the Condo Where the Fat Boy Plays

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