To Tame A Shed
by Casey Malinga
Dawn is supposedly the ideal time. They are docile then (relatively), not as quick to startle, to rear up, to attack. For anyone who wants a long career in this business, the ability to rise with the sun is an advantage indeed. This morning there is a moist heat haze that drifts up from the ground as if the earth is a huge pie, placed tantalisingly on the kitchen shelf of this mortal realm, and we – we are merely the frosted sugar dusted on the surface, the wisps of our lives urged this way and that by the rising currents of whatever strange filling lies beneath the crust.
I’m here with Lonnie ‘Yurt’ Mercer, which is just as well because somewhere, no further than 20 feet from us, is a ‘Wooden Genghis’ – slang for an untamed shed. The mood is tense and there is a heavy sense of imminent action. Lonnie is preparing a small mix of burnt squirrel droppings and decking oil – a somewhat overpowering scent for human noses, but catnip to a young, wild outbuilding. He is a stoic man, with the poise and instinct befitting someone who has spent most of his life around timbered storage units. “To me, they’re like displaced tree spirits, hewn from Noah’s lifeboats”, he mused this morning, as he paced thoughtfully around his operations base, a portacabin lovingly dubbed ‘the kennel’. “When we ‘tame’ them” – he hates that term, and uses it only when mimicking outsiders such as myself – “we’re really just opening a dialogue, reaching a hand out to say – ‘hey, welcome to this garden, can I store items such as a rake inside you?’”.
But that was back at base, away from danger, where an indulgence towards the poetic is a welcome contrast to the confrontations that await in the field. Much of the bravado and romantic allusions displayed are, of course, a way to get pumped up. There is no doubt Yurt respects his quarry, admires it even, but he knows the dangers too. As a young tamer, his mentor and father-figure Theodore “Log” Jones (a legend among men in this job) was savaged by a huge shed in front of Yurt’s eyes. “Well, that critter was pretty much a mini-barn”, he begins, eyes fixed towards the floor, letting the words rise up through the undertow of a dark, cold memory lagoon, “8 by 6, western red cedar, gambrel roof. Great craftsmanship, smelled beautiful but was as mean as hell”. Yurt’s quick action with a camping axe and a cup of undiluted creosote saved Log’s life, but with over 6000 splinters and a back injury caused by being violently shaken in the shed’s unsanded maw, Jones walked away for life (apparently sitting was not an option for some weeks) and these days is a recluse. Yurt visits, but is protective of the old man’s privacy. ”Put it this way”, he is willing to confide, “the largest wooden structure anywhere on his property is a little pine box his wife uses to store her fancy hookah tobacco”.
Then, there is a sound, and we fall silent. Yurt sees I am panicking, knowing that the shed is near but my untrained eyes unable to locate it. He puts his hand on my arm (surprisingly calming, comfortingly assured) and very slowly lifts the other to point out the adversary. My gaze falls on a rhododendron bush at 11 o’clock. I see nothing, but as Yurt’s hand rises so does my increasingly frazzled stare, until he is pointing above the bush, and — my god, there it is, dwarfing the bush by a good three feet and I think “really? I didn’t see that?”. The cost of my urbane lifestyle in the diverse, chai-latte-drenched modern metro environment dawns on me; the whump of realisation turns my stomach over like a sad pillow in a lurching tumble dryer. I have a private moment of frantic soul-searching during which I resolve to finally join that hiking club next Summer.
Yurt makes a sign that I recognise from my debriefing this morning – I am to stay here and keep quiet. He rises, readying his lasso. He has a slight advantage, as the shed is turned away from us just a little, and the fortuitous sudden sound of a nearby lawnmower from the other direction ensures the shed’s attention remains diverted – but we are dealing in a currency of split seconds here, and Yurt does not have enough for even a one-way ticket to pauseville. There can be no wasted action, and his approach is a rhapsody of purpose, the lasso lifting in a wide, humming, undulating circle. Too late, the shed picks up the sound and before it can fully turn, Yurt has thrown the lasso expertly, ensnaring the entire upper front section, and as the shed is thrown off balance, he brings it low to the ground. Yurt leaps up and mounts the now enraged structure, thighs tightening against the inverted V of the roof, hands gripping the shingles. It bucks and leaps, spins in circles, tries everything it can to repel this attempted subjugation.
How long it went on is impossible to remember, the sheer adrenaline of the spectacle, the excitement and terror, rendered time almost meaningless – this was a struggle that took place in the first three dimensions, vivid and muscular. Any quarter given to the notion of time would betray an admittance of weakness – that you can only sustain your strength for so long – and this was not a card either side had an interest in playing. So, the 4th dimension was consigned to the sidelines beside me, another fitful child banished from the banquet room so the grown ups can throw soup at each other. On reflection however, I think I should probably have made some effort to time it.
What I do remember is a heartstopping battle – a battle of wits, of worlds, of minds locked in conflict, then in struggle, the line between the two sides blurring as the struggle went from a feeling of pure opposition to an understanding – the kind of understanding that comes not from high-level abstract thought, not from books or college, but from the very fibres of being. After only a few seconds the outcome begins to become apparent. Yurt is too strong, too expert, too determined. The shed senses his emerging dominance, and almost immediately begins to acquiesce. From now, each movement between the two is part of a back and forth negotiation, peace terms being physically thrashed out. Eventually the struggle dissipates completely, and the shed merely shifts around on the spot, like a coquettish minx trying to get noticed at the village barn dance.
And with this, time suddenly becomes a factor. When a shed surrenders it’s feral self, it shortly loses all motor skills and comes to rest forever. Yurt only has a small amount of time to get it into place. Despite these details being arranged ahead of time, the shed’s owner, a shrill, sour-faced florist called Myrtle is shouting commands. “Back it up! Over there, by the garage – quickly now, and no more divets in my lawn!!”. Yurt grits his teeth and sets to cajoling the shed towards the designated spot. Finally sensing I can be of some use, I take a corner and do my best to copy his actions. He looks over and sees this, and I glimpse a faint nod that I take as a token of recognition – just for a minute or so, I’m on the team.
Later, back at the kennel, we drink coffee and reflect. How did this morning’s taming rate, in Yurt’s experience? ”Well, we didn’t lose anyone”, he jokes, “and we got the job done”. I tell him I thought the old lady was irritating, seeming to have no appreciation of the job, the risks. He shrugs, philosophical. “To be honest that stuff is just part of the background noise. End of the day, I’m glad to live in a country where a bat-shit crazy florist can call the shots in her own back garden”. Then, at last, the first broad grin of the day: “And they were some pretty big divets.”
by Casey Koenig
Dawn is supposedly the ideal time. They are docile then (relatively), not as quick to startle, to rear up, to attack. For anyone who wants a long career in this business, the ability to rise with the sun is an advantage indeed. This morning there is a moist heat haze that drifts up from the ground as if the earth is a huge pie, placed tantalisingly on the kitchen shelf of this mortal realm, and we – we are merely the frosted sugar dusted on the surface, the wisps of our lives urged this way and that by the rising currents of whatever strange filling lies beneath the crust.
I’m here with Lonnie ‘Yurt’ Mercer, which is just as well because somewhere, no further than 20 feet from us, is a ‘Wooden Genghis’ – slang for an untamed shed. The mood is tense and there is a heavy sense of imminent action. Lonnie is preparing a small mix of burnt squirrel droppings and decking oil – a somewhat overpowering scent for human noses, but catnip to a young, wild outbuilding. He is a stoic man, with the poise and instinct befitting someone who has spent most of his life around timbered storage units. “To me, they’re like displaced tree spirits, hewn from Noah’s lifeboats”, he mused this morning, as he paced thoughtfully around his operations base, a portacabin lovingly dubbed ‘the kennel’. “When we ‘tame’ them” – he hates that term, and uses it only when mimicking outsiders such as myself – “we’re really just opening a dialogue, reaching a hand out to say – ‘hey, welcome to this garden, can I store items such as a rake inside you?’”.
But that was back at base, away from danger, where an indulgence towards the poetic is a welcome contrast to the confrontations that await in the field. Much of the bravado and romantic allusions displayed are, of course, a way to get pumped up. There is no doubt Yurt respects his quarry, admires it even, but he knows the dangers too. As a young tamer, his mentor and father-figure Theodore “Log” Jones (a legend among men in this job) was savaged by a huge shed in front of Yurt’s eyes. “Well, that critter was pretty much a mini-barn”, he begins, eyes fixed towards the floor, letting the words rise up through the undertow of a dark, cold memory lagoon, “8 by 6, western red cedar, gambrel roof. Great craftsmanship, smelled beautiful but was as mean as hell”. Yurt’s quick action with a camping axe and a cup of undiluted creosote saved Log’s life, but with over 6000 splinters and a back injury caused by being violently shaken in the shed’s unsanded maw, Jones walked away for life (apparently sitting was not an option for some weeks) and these days is a recluse. Yurt visits, but is protective of the old man’s privacy. ”Put it this way”, he is willing to confide, “the largest wooden structure anywhere on his property is a little pine box his wife uses to store her fancy hookah tobacco”.
Then, there is a sound, and we fall silent. Yurt sees I am panicking, knowing that the shed is near but my untrained eyes unable to locate it. He puts his hand on my arm (surprisingly calming, comfortingly assured) and very slowly lifts the other to point out the adversary. My gaze falls on a rhododendron bush at 11 o’clock. I see nothing, but as Yurt’s hand rises so does my increasingly frazzled stare, until he is pointing above the bush, and — my god, there it is, dwarfing the bush by a good three feet and I think “really? I didn’t see that?”. The cost of my urbane lifestyle in the diverse, chai-latte-drenched modern metro environment dawns on me; the whump of realisation turns my stomach over like a sad pillow in a lurching tumble dryer. I have a private moment of frantic soul-searching during which I resolve to finally join that hiking club next Summer.
Yurt makes a sign that I recognise from my debriefing this morning – I am to stay here and keep quiet. He rises, readying his lasso. He has a slight advantage, as the shed is turned away from us just a little, and the fortuitous sudden sound of a nearby lawnmower from the other direction ensures the shed’s attention remains diverted – but we are dealing in a currency of split seconds here, and Yurt does not have enough for even a one-way ticket to pauseville. There can be no wasted action, and his approach is a rhapsody of purpose, the lasso lifting in a wide, humming, undulating circle. Too late, the shed picks up the sound and before it can fully turn, Yurt has thrown the lasso expertly, ensnaring the entire upper front section, and as the shed is thrown off balance, he brings it low to the ground. Yurt leaps up and mounts the now enraged structure, thighs tightening against the inverted V of the roof, hands gripping the shingles. It bucks and leaps, spins in circles, tries everything it can to repel this attempted subjugation.
How long it went on is impossible to remember, the sheer adrenaline of the spectacle, the excitement and terror, rendered time almost meaningless – this was a struggle that took place in the first three dimensions, vivid and muscular. Any quarter given to the notion of time would betray an admittance of weakness – that you can only sustain your strength for so long – and this was not a card either side had an interest in playing. So, the 4th dimension was consigned to the sidelines beside me, another fitful child banished from the banquet room so the grown ups can throw soup at each other. On reflection however, I think I should probably have made some effort to time it.
What I do remember is a heartstopping battle – a battle of wits, of worlds, of minds locked in conflict, then in struggle, the line between the two sides blurring as the struggle went from a feeling of pure opposition to an understanding – the kind of understanding that comes not from high-level abstract thought, not from books or college, but from the very fibres of being. After only a few seconds the outcome begins to become apparent. Yurt is too strong, too expert, too determined. The shed senses his emerging dominance, and almost immediately begins to acquiesce. From now, each movement between the two is part of a back and forth negotiation, peace terms being physically thrashed out. Eventually the struggle dissipates completely, and the shed merely shifts around on the spot, like a coquettish minx trying to get noticed at the village barn dance.
And with this, time suddenly becomes a factor. When a shed surrenders it’s feral self, it shortly loses all motor skills and comes to rest forever. Yurt only has a small amount of time to get it into place. Despite these details being arranged ahead of time, the shed’s owner, a shrill, sour-faced florist called Myrtle is shouting commands. “Back it up! Over there, by the garage – quickly now, and no more divets in my lawn!!”. Yurt grits his teeth and sets to cajoling the shed towards the designated spot. Finally sensing I can be of some use, I take a corner and do my best to copy his actions. He looks over and sees this, and I glimpse a faint nod that I take as a token of recognition – just for a minute or so, I’m on the team.
Later, back at the kennel, we drink coffee and reflect. How did this morning’s taming rate, in Yurt’s experience? ”Well, we didn’t lose anyone”, he jokes, “and we got the job done”. I tell him I thought the old lady was irritating, seeming to have no appreciation of the job, the risks. He shrugs, philosophical. “To be honest that stuff is just part of the background noise. End of the day, I’m glad to live in a country where a bat-shit crazy florist can call the shots in her own back garden”. Then, at last, the first broad grin of the day: “And they were some pretty big divets.”
- Casey Koenig is currently pursuing an M.A. in something or other.
* Hanover, Germany – Some sick bastards with no apparent sense of their own country’s recent history have succeeded in growing a small horse on the back of a mouse. The creature has even been trained to flip over onto it’s equine side and canter around a straw filled cage.
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