by Nick Macksood
Oftentimes the strangest of bedfellows make for the best of memories.
Five Bulgarians (and counting), a Californian, a Brit, an Argentinian, a psychic from Charleston, South Carolina, and an amateur motocross competitor-cum-landowner: this is the ever-growing index of characters who rumble around the old floors of the sea captain’s home in which I will live for the summer.
The house itself, which was built by James D. Peakes in the mid-19th century, is in the historic neighborhood of Vineyard Haven, just off of Main. It is breathtakingly, astonishingly, remarkably, old. There isn’t one floorboard that does not creak. The walls are as thin as bible pages. From the ground floor, the cats that skulk around upstairs sound like elephants bowling through a chapel. It is, however, one of the most impressive homes I’ve ever been in. Not only from an aesthetic point of view, but also and especially because of the bizarre amalgamation of people that will share this space for the next three months.
It’s a bit like living in a hostel run by the production designers of Beetlejuice. Everything is perpetually wet. Half-naked men wander from the bathroom to their rooms shouting in foreign tongues. The fear of harm or burglary is never quite in full view, only peevishly standing around the corner. If you’ve ever stayed in a hostel, you know exactly what I’m talking about. And for fear of this piece quickly becoming a listicle without any substance whatsoever, allow me to pump the gas a little.
These are the places that you ought to stay in. Invariably. They are crammed full of history and attached to every nook and cranny is a story; some already told, others that have yet to be. They are rarely comfortable and always exhausting but they yield the most valuable insight of all. Call me an ascetic, a flagellant wanderer who thinks Truth lives in the most severe of climes. It isn’t that. Far from it, in fact. Eco-tourists searching for Valhalla have always struck me as solipsistic. Maybe I don’t get it, but soul seeking in the wilderness seems like taking the long route to get wherever it is you’re going. If you want to meditate, close your door. We’ve long known that there’s no place like home.
That’s why I prefer to go where other people inhabit. These experiences–however strange–will convince you not who you are, but who you aren’t. I know me. I have spent each day–ALL day–with me and I go to bed with me every night. Frankly, I’m a little sick of me. So I talk to people. I want to know what they like to eat, what they like to do, or how they like to punish their criminals. Because if only for a moment, I can forget about me and imagine what it is like to be, well, anyone else.
In the foyer of our captain’s house there is an ebony button fixed to the end of the handrail leading up the staircase. Embedded in the center of the ebony is a sperm whale’s tooth. Years ago these little emblems were subtle indicators that the owner of the house had paid the mortgage in full. There’s a moral in here somewhere, but a sixth Bulgarian just showed up. We need to tell him to keep the shower curtain inside the bathtub.
