The woods are quiet and late afternoon orange as I tromp through them, looking for more inspiration. I've got my Nikon 3400 hanging around my neck on it's strap, ready to snap anything I see. So far, the woods have been, to quote Robert Frost, lovely, dark and deep. For a week I've spent at least an hour or more walking along the trails and by the lake, snapping hundreds of photos.

It's not that I really need anything for my upcoming show in Chicago next month. Hell, it's going to be difficult enough to get up there, the used car and truck pickings in Lakeview are pretty slim. But even on the Interstate I'm looking at a four or so hour drive ahead of me. There's no way my little Zoomer could make it.

Seeing an interesting looking rock formation, I snap a photo, thinking that the shadows and light have a great interplay. I've established my reputation on my unique point of view, something some people call macabre, but it's not that I'm looking for the darkness... I just see the beauty that exists in it.

I climb over a fallen log, and snap a few photos of the muck that's growing on the bottom, interested in the unique almost glowing tint to it. I'm sure it's because the rivers that feed this lake aren't exactly the cleanest, but so far I haven't gone swimming, just sunned myself on the dock.

I keep going, trying a new direction as I wander. I know I'm still getting my bearings around the lake, but as long as I keep the water in sight, I know I can more or less get back home if I don't get stupid. And I've got my backpack on my back with my phone, a bottle of water, and a little bag of trail mix. If I have to stay out overnight I can. Might be hungry when I get home, but I'm not gonna die.

I see a little dirt road up ahead, one I haven't seen before and I head for it, paralleling the lake as I walk, letting my arms swing freely. The daily walks have been great for exercise too, I'm feeling full of energy and my painting times have been easier and easier as I seem to get filled with fresh air, clean living, and my body doesn't have the same aches that I had living in a cramped Chi-town apartment where the furthest I walked was to the corner store.

There's a flash of afternoon sunlight off of blue metal up ahead and I pick up the pace, curious. I've found a lot of stuff around the lake, and wonder what this might be. My interest quickly fades though as I see an old pickup truck, at least thirty or so years I'd guess, parked off the road. It's a Ford, faded metallic blue, with just a little bit of rust spiderwebbing its way along the tailgate. Still, I raise my camera and snap a few photos, the rust pattern is kind of interesting and I could work that into the background of a painting really easily.

Beep beep.

Beep beep.

I hear splashing, and I stand up just as someone calls out from the shore of the lake. “Someone there?”

“Hi,” I greet them easily, making my way the short ten yards through the tall grasses that ring this part of the shore. There's a trail, and then the grass gives way to a narrow sandy shore. Standing on the sand is a man of about fifty or sixty, it's kind of hard to tell with the way he's dressed.

And what a way he's dressed. Rubber boots that go about halfway up the shins give way to super pale knees before an honest to god pair of pink and black camoflague shorts. A Hawaiian shirt over top of an American eagle t-shirt hangs off a skinny pair of shoulders that's holding up a shaggy head that's protected by a cowboy hat with a peace sign symbol pinned to it. He's holding a fishing rod, and giving me an amused look. “Hi to you too. You must be Christina O'Hara.”

“Chrissy, please,” I reply, holding out my hand until the man holds up a right hand that's smeared with... well, gunk. I pull back, grinning a little. “Forgive the rudeness, but that looks yucky.”

“Yeah... but the bass here love bloodballs, so I have to get this shit all over my hands,” the man says, wiping his fingers on his shorts. Now wonder he wears camo. “Dirk Robertson, mayor of these parts.”

“I've heard the name,” I reply, looking around and seeing a rock. I sit down, enjoying the afternoon warmth against my butt. “Willow said she'd ask you to come by.”

“Ah, Willow,” Dirk says with a chuckle. “She's a… unique one in these here parts. She did come by my office, but I was planning on doing that on Monday. No sense in interrupting someone on their weekend. Guess you saved me a trip. How're you adjusting to Lakeville?”

“I think the town's wonderful,” I admit, lifting my camera and wiggling it for him. Dirk nods, and I snap a few photos of him before watching him cast into the lake. I manage to get a decent shot of his bright orange bobber flying through the air before it plops into the water, and Dirk wedges his pole into a hollow in the shore. “I used to come here with my grandmother, but it's been a few years. Still a lot like how I remember.”

“I bet… most folks who come back here for the high school reunions and stuff seem to think things don't change a lot,” Dirk says before chuckling. “I keep telling them that the bank changing from a Wells Fargo to a credit union is a big deal, but nobody believes me.”

I laugh lightly, letting my camera dangle. “Well, progress comes in little fits and spurts I guess. But that's what makes Lakeville nice, there's still that old time feeling around here. So Willow told me you used to be a hippie?”

“I'm not that old,” Dirk says, chuckling as he backs out of the lake and sits down on a flipped over bucket, his eyes never leaving his bobber, “but close enough. I did a few years in the Navy in the eighties, then met my wife. She and I got along well, but she was such a enviro warrior… you know I first met her because I had to arrest her for breaking into a Navy facility as part of a Greenpeace demonstration?”

I laugh, enchanted. “She must have taken a shine to you.”

“Actually, I had to get her address from her arrest report,” Dirk admits with a wistful look that tells me he was in love from the start. “She nearly called the cops on me herself when I showed up at her apartment, asking her out on a date. I still think the only reason she said yes was because she thought she could convert me to her side of things. One date was all it took… I never reupped in the Navy, and we were married a week after my discharge.”

“What happened?” I ask, hearing the unspoken finish to their story in his voice. Nobody can sound that in love and sad and all mixed up at the same time without tragedy.

“Car accident,” Dirk says softly. “She'd encouraged me to run for office, to make sure that the people she called the 'non-rednecks' in Lakeville weren't silenced when the Bush era was sweeping the country. With my military credentials and all, I was able to win office. Melinda and I went to St. Louis to celebrate when we were hit by a drunk driver. I survived… Mel didn't.”

“I'm sorry,” I say honestly, and Dirk nods.

“It's been quite a few years, so it's not as painful. I still miss her everyday. Would have quit the job too, but I could hear Mel in my mind telling me there was no way in hell I was going to quit to let the town council appoint some good ol' boy as Mayor in my place. The sympathy factor got me through the first re-election, and since then the town's come to accept me as just a good mayor. I guess I do an okay job, even if I'm making half of it up as I go along.”

“Like with Willow?” I ask, and Dirk laughs.

“That girl… and I don’t care what she does for her job, she’s just a force of nature all on her damn self. I was sitting in my office one day when she comes tromping in, looking like something out of a damn burlesque show, and slams a paper down on my desk. 'What's this?' I ask her, knowing who she was but not having really spoken with her too much. 'This is your memorandum appointing me to the town's LGBTQN...' well, there were a few more letters I think but you get the point, 'issues focus group.' I was so amused and entertained I just signed the thing.”

“Was there a focus group?” I ask, and Dirk shakes his head.

“Nope, and other than Willow, there still isn't. Don't cost the town no money though, she comes by my office about once a week or so when she's in town, we shoot the shit over a couple of coffees that I pay for out of my own pocket. Oh, and she has an official town e-mail, or the focus group does. Anyone who's feeling harassed or otherwise because of their sexual orientation can call a number or e-mail that address, and she'll raise holy hell if need be. I get it, she’s professionally done everything in the Betty Crocker cookbook, so she catches her fair share of shit too. But she’s sweet, and like I said, doesn't cost the city nothing, e-mails are pretty much free, and the phone number is a cell line she pays for. I guess the only cost is she can use the line as a tax write off I think.”

I chuckle, it sounds like Willow. “I'm glad to see her personality is for good uses too. Have you gotten any flack?”

“Sure I have,” Dirk says with a  chuckle, “I've had two pastors come in asking what I'm doing letting a porn star run a hotline in our town. My response to them each time shuts them up really quickly. I point out that Willow's work name isn't her real name, and that the only way these two men of God could have found out about Willow's career is because they've been online looking for her videos. So I ask them how many they've watched. So far, it's worked.”

I lean back, laughing uproariously to the early evening sky until I can barely breathe. “Sorry, I know that scares the fish.”

“Bah, to hell with it, I've got enough anyway to last me for a couple of meals,” Dirk says, lifting a stringer of fish out of the water. “Might as well clean them and put them on ice.”

“Mind if I take a few photos?” I ask, and Dirk looks over, lifting an eyebrow.

“Willow said you were an artist. Photography?”

“No, painting mostly,” I admit, “although I've dabbled in sculpture. But I use the camera to gather images that I like to meld into the paintings I do. The whole idea of having someone sit still so I can do a portrait just doesn't work any longer.”

Dirk chuckles and opens his tackle box, taking out a sharp knife that he uses to quickly start gutting each fish. “I worry about the scales when I cook 'em,” he explains while I snap away. “So what's so interesting about an old man with fish guts on his fingers anyway? You into death or something?”

“It's the black clothes and ghostly looking hair, isn't it?” I ask, Dirk nodding while I smile. “I'm not totally goth. While Marilyn Manson might be an interesting artist, I think the man goes totally overboard with it. No, I just see the beauty in what other people might think is grotesque sometimes. Like, your fish. Lots of people would just see the yummy fish, or maybe your wife might see some innocent animal, I dunno.”

“Nah, Melinda loved coming fishing with me,” Dirk admits. “We sort of… tempered each other as we got older.”

“I see the cycle,” I continue, thinking I'd love to do a painting that's just Dirk's life and his wife. Maybe if I had a picture of her. “The fish feeds you, and the guts and stuff are going to nourish the plants and the lake. Something's going to eat those guts, which will be eaten by the next generation of fish. And eventually we're going to pass away, and our bodies will hopefully nourish the earth. So it's from the ugly and supposedly disgusting that we get the beautiful and the energy of life itself. I guess I just like bringing that forward for people to see.”

Dirk hums, tossing another cleaned fish into a small cooler. “Yep, you're an artist. Melinda would have liked you a lot. Then again, she liked a lot of people.”

“Speaking of lots of people, Willow said something about my neighbors,” I comment, remembering her cryptic question. “Problem is, I haven't seen either of them all week. The one on my left as I look at the lake seems to be around, maybe I did see him my first day, but I haven't seen the other one at all.”

Dirk nods. “The one that you haven't seen is Justin, he's probably out of town, he's a businessman who works in the city a lot,” Dirk says. There's something in his voice that tells me he doesn't like Justin all that much, but Dirk's not going to tell me what that dislike is. “The other… well, Dan's not much for seeing people.”

“Why's that?”

Dirk purses his lips, then shakes his head. “He's had some bad luck in his life, and some of it's still going. There’s a lot about him that people might tell you that isn’t true, but you know how it is with lies and truths. Although I think with your point of view on life, you might find him very interesting.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, and Dirk tosses the last of his fish into his cooler and washes his hands in the lake.

“Let's just say that Dan could use a neighbor who sees the good in the middle of the ugliness,” Dirk says. “I'd advise you to go over and introduce yourself, but don't be surprised if he's not the most neighborly of types. Still, he's a good man to get to know.”

Dirk looks down in his cooler, chuckling. “Say, you want some fish? There's no way I can eat all this without freezing some, and the only way to cook frozen fish is to batter and fry it. Doctor Pendergrass is gonna chew my ass if I keep eating fried foods.”

I laugh, shrugging. “Sure. Gotta be better than the spaghetti and meatballs I had planned. I'm not much of a cook to be honest.”

“Butter, lemon, salt, pepper,” Dirk replies, shouldering his fishing gear. “You do that over a low to medium flame, ain't no way you can screw up bass. Just cook it until it's nice and fork tender, side of rice and some veggies to keep the MDs happy about your cholesterol.”

“Thanks,” I reply gratefully. “So, mind if I hitch a ride then? I don't think I want to carry a fish home in my backpack.”