Playhouse

Though my intention here is not to render my political opinion--I don't imagine most care or would be surprised--I cannot ignore that America is again beset by events that would be their own subsections of textbooks if they happened any other time. For the sake of posterity and context, the Saturday before leaving for vacation, former president Donald Trump missed assassination by a matter of inches. Some call this a miracle, and others a shame. The culprit was some discontented, twenty-year-old right-wing guy who aimed at the first politician who had the misfortune to come close enough to shoot--there is murmuring he had a hit list of anyone who was on Jeffrey Epstein's flight logs to Pedophile Island, which does include Trump--but he might not be the most frequent guest making public appearances. Trump ended up in the crosshairs simply because he had a campaign event nearby.

How the shooter was not noticed on that rooftop long before he squeezed the trigger (and was slain for it) will be fodder for conspiracy theorists for the next century, helped in no small part by Trump trying to escape the Secret Service so he could pump his fist at the crowd. People afraid of a second bullet--people who missed having their brain aerated by the turn of their head--might be more cautious. However, I have never been in this position and hope to keep it that way, so I cannot speak from experience.

Biden gave a conciliatory speech about how we can never tolerate political violence and called for unity. However, he stumbled, missed words, and struggled for others. This should have been one of the most powerful moments of his presidency. It was more evidence that he might not be up to the task of being the so-called most powerful person on earth. Perhaps it would have been best if he had kept his promise of being a one-term president.

On this trip to Lake George, I wanted to disconnect. "Assassination attempt of candidate who will likely earn most of my family's votes while the other seems verbally doddering" is a topic unavoidable in polite conversation. My family isn't given to polite conversation if we have our druthers, so I suspect we will hash it out by Wednesday.

My mother arrives first to what she labels "the cabin in the woods." The phrase is so evocative that Amber and I indulge in figuring out the form of the monster we will summon and how our character archetypes will be picked off. I posit that, as I have broad occult knowledge and am goofy, I would go reasonably far, but I would not be alive at the end credits. Amber asserts that as they are non-binary, that counts them out of being the Final Girl. We decide escaping the gender binary means the serial killer ghoul would overlook them so they could get snacks during the butchering.

My mother had to drive into town to make an annoyed call to me, as I had not been able to give her the code to enter the cabin, and she had no reception there. I contact the property manager, who informs me there was no code, and my family could have just entered. I would have tried the doors before venturing into town to be peevish, but my family doesn't understand the tropes of this story.

Before arriving, my mother talked about catching fish from the river beside the property, cleaning them, and cooking them—potentially over a campfire, but we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves. To my knowledge, she had never done any of these beyond cooking, so this did seem an optimistic fantasy.

The two cabins are more rustic than the pictures let on, especially as we pass a more prominent house we mistake for our accommodations. They bring to mind a long-ago summer at Boy Scout camp. I am not here for illustrious accommodations (though I am not averse to them). I came to spend time with my family for five days. As long as we have electricity and running water, I can cope with how humble the accommodations are- though I would not be opposed to reliable Wi-Fi when I momentarily decide I care about conspiracy theories.

There is a proper house and a shed built by a company that literally makes playhouses, as a plaque above the door attests. This is less than a tiny home, though it does contain a small counter with a sink, stovetop, dishwasher, and microwave. It has a VCR and tapes for Fight Club and Father of the Bride, though I am most excited to see Mac and Me, one of the more popular terrible movies in the canon. I envision subjecting my family to this one rainy night, though there is no comfortable way to watch it. The TV/VCR combo is in a room made so narrow by a bunk bed that an adult would struggle to turn around.

The Playhouse is supposed to sleep at least five. I don't know how it could. The ceilings are low, and everything about it is tight. Amber is fond of the idea of tiny homes, though they grant that we would need at least two if they were our permanent, daily accommodations—possibly three, factoring in the cats.

I pop my head in the big (normal-sized) cabin where my family will sleep. A musky fug pervades immediately upon opening the door as though the living room has needed ventilation for the last season, something I hope the air conditioning will at least cover. The furnishings are a sort of beige and muted orange 1970s aesthetic one of us labels "yard sale chic." There is no furniture here that was new in my adulthood. The refrigerator does not close if one has the vegetable bin in. As we have already paid the entirety of the fee upon arrival, we have no recourse beyond complaint.

In the bathroom are gratis and half-used toiletries from previous guests, which is mostly a good consideration. If I forgot my toothpaste, I would rather fold a partially squeezed tube of Crest than trudge to the nearest store—which is not close—while actively ignoring that it was not my bristles that last rubbed against the opening.

My mother shows me four paper towels, all tan to brown. "Some water fell on the carpet, and I tried to sop it up. It was covered in filth. I tried it in the other rooms, and--well, you can see. This place is disgusting. I don't know the last time it was cleaned." She already declared that her dogs found something suspicious about the sofa, and she refuses to have anything to do with it. "This place should be condemned."

My parents offer that Amber and I could sleep in a bedroom with Bryan if we did not want to live in the Playhouse.

Fit for one (1) standard Amber

This is a dire proposal, but I must make an informed decision. The most viable bed in the Playhouse is up a wooden ladder into a loft that is not fit for storing the futon mattress there (but which I would have found an immense, claustrophobic cave of wonders if I were a ten-year-old). The mattress is an unlovely pad of plastic and lumps.

Finding that sleeping option unlikely, I investigate the room, which barely fits the child-sized bunk bed, and the pull-out sofa, which eliminates the living room.

I return to the main cabin to check out the mattress in the full bunk bed where Bryan will sleep. It is crinkly plastic, possibly to discourage bedbugs and bedwetters—which is the case for every mattress that is not in the pull-out. I have never encountered a rental that found plastic beds necessary, and I hope not to again.

This feels insulting. One can get better mattresses for free online. I would not in good conscience afflict any loved one—or something I sort of liked sometimes—with the beds in either cabin.

Bryan informs me that the mattress above where he will sleep is heavily stained and that I would not want to know more. Further, one whole wall is a mirror. I don't know what sort of person would make this architectural decision and then build a bunkbed within it—traditionally the resting place of children.

Amber would rather sleep on the porch than in that bedroom, so we say the Playhouse is ours.

The listing claimed this rental could sleep fourteen, which is among the reasons my mother selected it. She hoped that my brother, Dan, would send his children up for the week, which I found as unlikely as a fresh fish dinner. Indeed, he did not, though the younger four came up earlier in the summer as a concession. It also allowed her to have her dogs. She cannot go anywhere without them. One is diabetic and needs much care. He's not a sweet dog, and you would think that he was older than his mother, who also comes.

I am grateful for my niblings' absence, as I cannot stack them in any feasible way. It could not comfortably fit any four hypothetical people, let alone three athletes and a feral goblin. The capacity is true on an evasive technicality rather than practically.

We go to dinner. I savor the bright sunset hope of our first day, capped at the Adirondack Brew Pub, a restaurant we've enjoyed in previous years. We talk plans for the week. Bryan mentions his impending doctorate for the tenth time and how he always assumed I would get one first. I stick my tongue out and say I want to publish, not be a doctor. A doctorate would do me no good, likely meaning people would want me to do more work when I would rather be scribbling.

After dinner, we all go into town, though Amber and I opt to walk the half-mile between the restaurant and the city proper. Amber flits around a cozy home goods store that sold excess Amazon merchandise last time we were here and which will sell something else when next we come to Lake George.

We strolled down Canada Street, the main thoroughfare for tourists. I look in the windows of the contrivedly right-wing shirt shops--which are several and identical, all owned by the same people--and see one advertising Donald Trump's assassination attempt two days prior. I would have been disappointed not to see one. These shops totter between writing his hagiography as the poor innocent dear who has only done what is best for the country and casting him as a foul-mouthed avenging angel pointing glocks anyone passing, which seems tacky given the circumstances.

Added to the Trump shirts are those referencing the Hawk Tuah Girl, a meme that will be impenetrable in a few years, short of her dropping her OnlyFans—which would only get her a sixteenth minute of fame. One of the shirts has the phrase "Spit on that Thang" over an American flag, the implications of which I doubt the owners considered.

Soon after returning to our cabins, a thunderstorm descends. From the porch of the Playhouse, with lightning flashing over the river, it feels cozy. The storm begins with drizzle, almost pleasant in the heat, as I walk back and forth from the Playhouse to the cabin proper.

Amber and I are trying to negotiate the single-stall shower—in a bathroom where one cannot turn around without banging one's elbow—when the power blows. The water ebbs to a trickle and then stops just after I have washed the worst of the soap off my body. I towel off, expecting a brief inconvenience.

I text the property manager to let her know we are powerless and without plumbing. She replies that she has power but that there is a storm. Between thunderclaps, through now blinding cataclysms of lightning, I assure her I noticed. I leave out that her having power doesn't do me much good. Given that this is a rental, I don't know why they didn't invest in a backup generator for the three houses--especially since a lack of electricity will mean no running water beyond what one can scoop from the river. When I later check the reviews, others mention that the power grid in this area seems to be made of spaghetti and will break with slight coaxing and that the utility company will not see restoring power as a priority. This is to be expected with remoteness, but we are not that far. We can walk to another house in a minute. We can drive to a populated campground in minutes--which I am sure continues to have electricity and plumbing.

I texted the manager that the light was on at the other house up the driveway. She stated that this was not her fault—no one was accusing her of summoning the storm—and then said we could stay there tonight if there was power.

I slip into my pajamas and go over to check on my family. They're sitting in the living room, ostensibly not speaking. They sit in darkness like ink, my mother clutching her Chihuahua to her lap. What are they doing? Why are they not seeking light or help? They are powered-down automata waiting for some charge to direct them.

I am almost perky with this turn of events, which I see will not be brief but maybe a few hours and will add spice to our vacation.

My mother asks if I didn't hear the screaming. I was in the shower, and there was no screaming that I could tell.

"I think there was an accident on the street,"

A car accident might be the safest option if there is screaming in the woods.

"Like hell, I am checking that out alone," I tell my family. "I know a horror movie when I hear it."

My father deigns to join me to investigate.

It would not be convenient or easy, I say on the short walk, but we could pile into my parents' car and find somewhere comfortable for the night--though comfort for them is in short supply at this rental, even at its best.

Through the steam and smoke of the flares, the emergency lights take on a glow like the eyeshine of predators. Across the driveway is a tree or pole blocking us from leaving. My father walks toward it, coming too close to the downed wires, wanting to see if he can divine from the wrecked car and police what is going on and if we will be restored to power soon. I caution him back, but he comes to no harm. The people gathered around this tragedy take no notice of us, as though we are no more consequential than deer emerging from the woods. Perhaps we are. They can do nothing for us and do not care if we are peeping at them.

Horror movie

My father walks through the rain and smoke to ask someone what they know. He is assured that we are going nowhere tonight and that the idea that we would expect electricity before the morning is laughable.

We report this to my mother and brother, who are aghast. My mother feels the property manager should do something about this, though she cannot express what would be sufficient.

My father asks whether we have a flashlight that is not our phones now that Amber and I are their only link to the outside world. I delve into my trunk for the combined emergency kits my mother had bought me over years of Christmases. There is a squeeze flashlight, which Amber charges to full in a few minutes of working out their tension. We tromp up the driveway a little, following the harsh white light. It is only a security light. I text this to the property manager. She says there are candles inside.

Why would we go into a dark house in a pounding storm for candles? So, of course, we do. It is less like a horror movie than a video game, clearing levels to find items. We end up with three used candles. When I return these to the big cabin, I recieve two bottles of water. This is not a fair trade for this quest line.

We retreat to our cabins, each with one working candle—the third was a tea light dummy meant for decor. Amber reads by flashlight, and I write by candlelight. Imagining the air conditioning might return at any moment, I choose to find this an adventure.

Amber and I crawl into the loft to sleep, hoping an earlier morning will set things right. The mattress is thin. The roof is limb-bumpingly close. I can't imagine this loft is meant for sleeping. Given the wadded-up paper cup and used tissues in the corner, people have. It is not a place that is fit for adult habitation, which the owners clearly know.

I sleep so poorly that I have back pain when I wake. I've never felt this before. Amber says this is because I'm a side sleeper, and such beds are not designed for that. I do not subscribe to the notion of mattresses not meant to be slept upon. I urge Amber to sleep on the pull-out sofa with me tonight. If they will not sleep with there, I would accept that, but I would not deign to lie another night in a coffin meant for paupers and children amid a sleepover.

My mother suggests, with anecdotal evidence, that all of the furniture was scrounged from the sides of roads. I cannot speak to the truth of that, but I wish the owners had patronized a better curb, as I have seen cozier, cleaner furnishings given away in my town.

We gather around the picnic table one by one for our breakfasts, unhurried as though the lack of electricity and water has made our conception of the outside world faint indeed.

I root around the big cabin for breakfast, triaging what most needs to be eaten before a lack of refrigeration spoils it all. Though, of course, that won't happen. The power will be back any moment and, with it, the vacation proper. I cannot believe otherwise. We have too much invested in this trip.

I scoop granola over yogurt, the most perishable foodstuff to my thinking, and call that good enough. I tend to chase my breakfasts with a full glass of water, but the only available flows beside these benighted cabins and is unfit for human consumption. I settle on a seltzer.

Amber's breakfast is no more likely to survive prolonged exposure to the elements: egg cups and granola bars they make every two weeks. It is nutritionally balanced and predictable, which is all their autism requires of them. They border on a good candidate for Soylent. I estimate we have ten more hours before their breakfasts for the week are thrown on the four-foot-tall trash pile that has been against the big cabin since our arrival.

Bryan grouches that he walked to the end of the driveway early to survey if we would be able to escape. He relates that the workers said that is unlikely to occur before tonight, which skunks our hopes of an escape room and boat tour.

Having nothing else much to do now, we linger over our notionally cold breakfasts, looking out at the river with no real interest. It isn't especially scenic, though this might be influenced by my having grown up beside a creek. A hundred feet from our shore, just past a thin line of trees, is a highway occupied at all hours by vehicles in a rush to be elsewhere. I cannot blame them. When we saw how trapped we were by the fallen tree, I eyed the headlights with envy, contemplating if there was a way to float over there. In each of these cars are people who have showered this morning, those who are not trapped, who did not spend thousands of dollars for the privilege of privation.

We do not speak to one another with any antecedent, only occasionally piping up as if someone has mentioned the stupidity of a politician, specifically Trump having selected JD Vance as his vice president and Biden for continuing to exist. When did they learn the former? Only Amber's and my phones have reception, and neither of us wishes to waste battery learning stressful facts.

Amber reads The Locked Tomb series again. I write in my leather notebook. Bryan works on a PowerPoint for his classes, which seems like a waste of power and a vacation, but we blindly hope for both soon. Absent a better distraction, my mother cossets her dogs. She would rather do this while watching TV. My father sits, eyes closed, not sunning himself as doing nothing. He is in standby mode.

My mother says this is the first time in she doesn't know how long that she is not showered in the morning.

Biological needs build to a degree where we scoop river water into a cooking pot to fill our toilet cistern so that we might still be able to flush. The water leaves a foul gray silt. I do not envy housekeeping. On the other hand, the state of the cabins implies that the cleaners, if they bother to clean between guests, at best do a cursory pass.

The property is not charmless. In better circumstances, one might describe it as adorable and private. When Amber slips their toes in the alluvium of the river, tiny, near-translucent fish appear to nibble them. It is a harmless tickle that delights them--as it does me when I take my turn making the water turbid that I might flush the toilet. I admire the fish's fearlessness--or they are simply uncomprehending of the providence of the skin they nibble.

When they decide they have had enough of sitting, Amber wanders off to collect firewood for the night to come, though I hope this is only a recreational concern. I would rather choose a campfire than have one become a necessity.

There is talk of spending some time playing a board game. Amber and I optimistically brought a few, and there is nothing much else to do. Then we don't, the notion abandoned as though it had never appeared. We do not have the energy to even contemplate.

Amber says they may swim anyway, even if they cannot shower afterward, but they don't. This would have been panic-worthy with other lovers, but I trust Amber to do as they wish in this dull paradigm.

Bryan rants that our cabins wouldn't be allowed in Lake George or Bolton Landing, only in the lawless hellhole of Warrensburg. This is based on nothing but his irritation. Why would we know the building codes for rental cabins in Warren County? Complaining lavishly about unlikelihoods makes him feel somehow in control of all the concrete things over which he has no power. A lack of power is the metaphor the clunky author is pounding like a tomtom.

The clouds gather, threatening more rain. I do not check an app because I do not want to know, and I regard my phone as too important to waste on disappointment.

For lack of something to do, I walk to the end of the driveway at 10:30 a.m., and the trucks are no longer parked.

I hurry back to urge my family to get in the car and go anywhere else. They move lethargically as though this night without power or water has sapped their vitality. I want a shave and a flush that doesn't involve river water, but not enough that I would linger in this rusticness in hopes I could get them.

My family says we will try again for lunch at noon. I write in my leather notebook detailing the disaster of this vacation so far, then decide to retry sleeping a little to heal my newfound back pain.

Amber comes in mid-way through the failed nap, doing their best to be quiet, but this is impossible. There can be no secrets or privacy in the Playhouse.

The air conditioning shudders on. It feels like relief. I will it to fill the space with artificial air to banish the organic mustiness. Once the Playhouse can refrigerate meat, vacation will begin to recover.

I immediately shower and feel fifty pounds lighter.

Lake George slips further from our fingers, falling to commercialism and crowdedness. This is the destiny of any tourist location. Eventually, tourists find it. Part of our enjoyment of Lake George is a lingering nostalgia for what it had been in the thirty-five years we've been coming here. We do not see it through accurate eyes. We see those layers of memory I have talked about in my books, layers on a fancy drink.

Once my mother is in town, a torrent of texts floods my mother's phone. Though the power loss has not encouraged her mindfulness, she would not have been fully present anyway. Her brother Larry is in the hospital after heart surgery, whose ups and downs are mostly downs. It has been weeks of this, information I gleaned from screencaps of text shared to our family's group chat. I am not medical--that is all Bryan--but it does not take a doctorate to process that an induced coma so one's lungs can relax enough to heal is not auspicious. Larry's daughters are at his bedside following the treatment suggestions of my cousin, Kyle, a nurse at this hospital. Larry may be there specifically because it is Kyle's hospital.

Through lunch, my mother begs my cousins to move Larry to another hospital and get a specialist. This petitioning will do no good, but the alternative is feeling she could have saved him if only she had urged harder. Instead, she will blame his daughters for disregarding her wisdom. This battle may end up being her most salient vacation memory, aside from cleaning after her dogs in a humid, dark house.

My mother has made her notification sound a frog croaking, which it does a lake's worth in a few minutes over lunch. A man at the other table takes the initiative to tell my mother she must try frog legs--not a dish served here. Across the table, I text her that this conversation with an overly friendly stranger is her penalty for having such a noisy phone.

We do an escape room. As we walk down the hall, Amber intones that we have done this one before. I wonder if this means we will solve it in record time, though we do not. It has been long enough, and we are without the children who helped us last time (or pushed hidden buttons well before we got the clues telling us to, entirely because the pictures were obviously worn). Still, we have some pride in re-decoding messages that border on new to us.

After we have exhausted town, we return to the cabins to prepare for a fancier dinner. We get one per vacation, though it is difficult to pin this restaurant as the chosen one except that we all dress up, most of us a little more formally than the weather suggests is wise.

We gather in the big cabin ahead of leaving for our reservation. All our phones chirp: There is a severe thunderstorm warning, then a tornado warning. We know the inevitability, though none of us want to voice it. We know too well the cosmic punishment for saying something as stupid as "Well, this couldn't get any worse."

Rain appears gently, then what can only be called savagely. The other side of the river, perhaps one hundred feet, is obscured behind a linen curtain, all a white static. The power goes out again. There is a pall, something we dare not speak but all know.

We laugh nervously. Surely, our trip will include more than seven hours of electricity? Of showers and flush toilets? For what we are paying, the property manager must have contingencies.

Yes. She texts me a screenshot of an expired tornado warning and leaves me on read after stating that this never happens. Having happened twice in eighteen hours, with only a few hours reprieved between them, our definitions of "never" may diverge somewhat.

We start to drive to the restaurant, though my mother, in a panic, keeps asking if we shouldn't turn back. It is impossible to see in front of us through the near-whiteout of rain.

We get a tenth of a mile before my father gives up, and we return to our dark cabin, soaked enough from the dash from the car to the door to feel the additional indignity.

The restaurant texts asking if we are still going to show up for our outdoor seating. I reply, suggesting we want a later reservation. The hostess informs me that it is sunny there and that she has no idea why we wouldn't show up.

The sky clears over us, but it is no good. We cannot get back what we have lost--and we couldn't have gotten far anyway, which is fortunate. We might have been crushed.

When we start on our way to the restaurant, it is blocked by a dozen massive trees that have fallen into the road. Only through some arboreal grace can we navigate around them enough in the other direction to make it to the restaurant. Otherwise, we were going to eat expiring yogurt in the dark and glare that lobster was taken from our lips. (Not mine; it might kill me.)

The dinner is tainted. The people around us are ebullient, as you would expect with this lakeside view, at these prices, but it is not what we want anymore. The food is inadequate. My salmon is overcooked, which is a sin when it comes to salmon.

I spent a bit of my battery to learn there were eighty-seven miles an-hour winds, rendering many powerless and causing Governor Hochul to declare a state of emergency. I text the property manager this, asking if she knows if we will remain without power. After forty-five minutes, she texts that she has power. Again, this is not what I wished to know, but good for her. She then says she can move us to another rental (without mentioning how many it can accommodate, where it is, and if it is pet-friendly), but we have to cut our vacation short a day--without refunding us anything. She also doesn't know if the other rental has power, which compounds how unhelpful this is.

She says that if we don't like this, we can take it up with VRBO and our homeowner's insurance.

We pile into the car after dinner, laughing at our predicament. It is not funny as much as it is that we are trauma-bonded. At least we are not sniping at one another.

We return to the powerless cabins. My family sits in the dark. They have the candles we have liberated from the big house, but they do not light them.

I feel guilty that the vacation is turning out poorly. Things would have been fine if we had done this the week after.

I have vacationed with people who favored camping, and I respected their charming foolishness. Even they needed a campground with running water. To do otherwise is nonsense, especially at this premium.

Before bed, I read a travel book where worse things happen to the hapless narrator and his friend. I laugh at their misfortune, but it does not relieve my burden.

last watched: Only Murders in the Building
reading: I Am Not Okay with This