The Hundred Dollar Cabin in the Woods

The Hundred Dollar Cabin in the Woods

Jitter wrote a book once about how to build your own house for under one hundred dollars. You can't argue with the concept, when there he was, coasting through life in the woods, a roof over his head and carpet under his feet. When I walked in he looked up from the book he was reading in his wine barrel chair with his bad leg propped on a wooden crate. His reading light was a kerosene lantern purchased from the army surplus store. The lamp was not a part of the hundred dollars.

"Leave your shoes on the shelf by the door," he said.

My head swiveled around surveying the open space, decorated with eclectic treasure retrieved from the bins behind furniture stores and apartment buildings and the occasional find made while cruising the backstreets of the city.

It wasn't large. I'd guess fourteen wide by twenty deep. At the back end a six foot deep balcony hung under the log truss ceiling.

It was my first week to volunteer for "Meals on Wheels." They said I didn't have to go to the cabin in the woods if I didn't want to. It was at the end of a narrow foot path more than a half mile off road. I'm glad I took the assignment.

Jitter was a legend in our town. In high school he held all time football records for most yards gained and most touchdowns. He and Brenda the homecoming queen made the perfect couple. His family was rich and he was good looking. He seemed to live a charmed life until it all unraveled the week after graduation.

His father committed suicide when it was discovered that he had embezzled one point four million from his bank. When Brenda was sent away by her parents to avoid the disgrace of being an unwed mother, Jitter left for California. The legend is unclear about how successful he was during the years he was away. Some say he was a big shot in the movie business. Others describe him as more of a hippy living in communes experimenting with living off the land.

When he came back to town thirty years later he was a different person, something of a vagrant. He wandered around town wearing the same worn sweat shirt in all kinds of weather talking to himself and ignoring everyone else. Then he spent some time in a drug abuse program before he moved to the thirty acre plot of woods by the river that he inherited from his uncle.

He watched me studying the balcony. "That's where I sleep. It's the same carpet as the rest of the house except with three inches of foam underneath. You don't need much headroom when you're sleeping"

"I like the openness," I said," and the way everything seems to belong here, as if your cabin grew right out of the woods."

"It did, sort of. It took two years cutting and fitting the logs with an axe while I lived in a tent at the edge of the meadow."

"What about the windows and things you couldn't get from the woods?"

"My good fortune from another man's junk. You'd be amazed at what people throw away. That wood stove for instance, it hadn't been used more than a year, discarded in a back alley. "

I noticed a log in the roof over the balcony about ten inches in diameter that sagged in the center where there was a rather large knot. "How did you know how to put this together so it wouldn't fall down?"

He laughed, "Intuitive engineering, God told me how strong each log was and what it could do when I cut it down. I built the cabin to live out my days and it will take care of me as long as it needs to."

As I left I glanced back over my shoulder. The house was an echo of Jitter's life and personality.
___

Four days later a storm raged through the area. It unloaded a burst of baseball size hail and few light tornadoes. The news reported that the storm destroyed some homes north of town. Instantly I thought of the sagging beam in Jitter's cabin. My worries were confirmed when a rescue team went out to find Jitter, dead in the collapsed rubble of the cabin.

I was surprised at the number of people that showed up at his funeral. In spite of the rain hanging around after the storm, everyone wanted to honor his memory. They included his old high school friends, social workers, business people and even the Mayor. Quite fitting, I'd say for a farewell to the towns legend.

After the service, the chapel was slow to empty due to the drizzle outside. I found myself next to Alice, my old high school friend. She was a nurse and was there when they brought in his body.

I said I thought it was sad that the cabin he had so lovingly created killed him

"Not true," she said, "it was his heart. He died in his bed five hours before the storm."

"It did take care of him," I said, shaking my head.

"What do you mean?"

We walked out of the chapel and I looked up to see the sun just beginning to break through the clouds. "His cabin," I said. "He picked up the pieces of his life and created it out of what was left. His soul was as much in the cabin as it was in his body."

A week later, I walked the path again to where the cabin had stood. Most of the rubble had been cleared. A small crew groomed the area so that nature would soon restore itself. A sense of serenity came over me.

Jitter left the thirty acres to the city for a park and wildlife habitat. Those of us who knew him would remember him.