Jack Coey, a 72-year-old grandfather of two, has navigated life’s many challenges with grace, always striving to leave others unharmed—a testament to a life well-lived, in his view. Writing brings him unparalleled satisfaction, fueling his passion and purpose. While he works as a cashier to meet his needs, he writes to nourish his soul. Jack resides in Keene, New Hampshire, USA.
The men came in mostly in two’s and three’s, and sometimes, four’s and five’s from the service; many of them in short sleeve shirts and ties, now pulled down from the neck, and they looked like car salesmen or accountants or store owners. A young man in a pin-stripped shirt and tassel loafers; a doctor or lawyer, perhaps, and not yet 25. Frenchy waited until they were lined up at the bar at Atten-hut and began pouring; he didn’t have to ask what they drank or how they drank it. The men were solemn. When they were served, there was a moment of silence, until an older gentleman raised his glass and said,
Here’s to Bronson,
and the men raised their glasses and drank to his memory. It was August of 2004, in Greenville, NH.
He walked his own road, said another man..
Ay, that he did. He was as individual as he was unusual, said another man. The men were silent, and sadness came over them like a shadow. Frenchy spoke,
Gentlemen, the drinks are on Bronson. He wanted it that way.
The men looked self-consciously at each other. The older man, who spoke first, spoke again. His name was Lyle.
God, I remember when he first came to town. I heard he graduated from Harvard, but he looked like he lived in the woods.
He lived in the same dorm I did and was an English major same as me. Matter of fact, he wrote a recommendation that helped me get in, said the young man in tassel loafers whose name was Jean Dupry.
But he invented things? said Lyle.
That’s right, but he also wrote children’s books. I’ve read some of his books, and he was a good writer along with his talents for electrical engineering. His books are set in the Middle East and have a bright young boy as the protagonist who outwits the older rich man – somewhat autobiographical, I would say. He loved to tell the story about how he won a short story contest at Harvard which is true, but the part he fabricated was that the runner-up was a fellow named John Updike.
The big-shot writer?
Yep, says Updike never forgave him.
But he invented the beeping thing?
The Sonalert. He sold that to GM and Polaroid.
The door opened and in walked Regis Grenier a white-haired man in a pinstripe suit.
Regis! exclaimed Jean.
Gentlemen.
The drinks are on Bronson, said Lyle. It was a good service, I thought.
I wonder what will become of his land, said Regis.
He has two children.
He always looked like a bum to me, growled Claude who was sitting on his stool since this morning.
He didn’t worry about what others thought, said Regis. One time, he and I had to go before a judge over a land dispute, and it took me a week to get him into a coat and tie, laughed Regis.
There was a pause as one man looked at another to see who would go next.
I remember the time with Ruggiero’s manure dispute with the state, said Lyle.
Regis laughed,
Oh, I can tell that story. Bronson had a neighbor, Robert Currier, you all know him? One spring, maybe fifteen years ago, one of Bronson’s goats got loose from its pen and got into Mrs. Currier’s flower garden and ate pretty much all her newly bloomed flowers. Currier told Bronson the next time he would shoot the goat, and made Bronson pay for the flowers. Then the state went onto Ruggiero’s pig farm, and told him he’s got too much manure on his property, and the Soil Conservation Office told Ruggiero they could build him a concrete holding pond for manure for $20,000. Ruggiero laughed in their face. Bronson saw his opportunity, and he and Ruggiero worked out a deal where they would transport the manure in trucks to Bronson’s field which happened to be up wind of the Curriers.
Regis was laughing.
Currier showed up at the Selectmen meeting screaming about the stink, but as far as the Selectmen knew, there was no law being violated. They told Currier they would contact the state and get an official to render an opinion on whether the location of the manure was legal or not.
The men laughed at the story.
When I was at Harvard, I heard a story about him, said Jean, it had to do with a rare donkey from the Middle East called an onager. Seems like Bronson was traveling in Iran with the son of the Premier, no less, when they came across a herd of thirty of these onagers. Bronson had no money and was worried about how he was going to get home. He would, of course, never say anything to the Premier’s son as that would be too embarrassing. They give chase to these onagers in a jeep, breaking the colts away from the herd cowboy fashion. Bronson’s quote in the New York Times, was something like: You get alongside one, lean out, hug him around the neck, and let him pull you out. He soon tires. Then you throw him to the ground and rope him. Bronson Potter meets the rodeo. I’m confused how he learned to do that, growing up on Long Island. They captured five onagers, and Bronson made a phone call to the Bronx Zoo and told them he would donate the onager if they would send him the air fare.
No one can say the man wasn’t smart, said Regis.
Him? He always wore dirty clothes, snarled Claude.
The men were silent.
You know, I always believed he knew when he looked at it, said Jean.
What do you mean? Oh, the trestle you’re talking about?
He knew he could do it.
What was it he told the papers? I had to bend up one wingtip and cut five feet off the other.
He loved to exaggerate for the papers, said Jean.
A tall man spoke,
My son was working in a up-scale camera store on the east side of Manhattan, I mean Jackie Kennedy shopped there – that kind of place. Bronson came in and took apart a Polaroid Land Camera right on the counter. He exclaimed Ah, Ha! when he discovered they’d stolen his patent.
Ah, Ha! is right. He won a settlement from Polaroid and they had to pay him six cents for every camera they sold after that, said Regis.
They stole the beeping device from him, said Jean, they used it to signal when the pictures were developed in the Land camera.
He worked for Polaroid before he came to Greenville, said Regis, so he knew how they operated.
You mean their arrogance? said Jean.
Sure. Bronson called himself the first hippy to graduate from Harvard, told Regis, and he had a shrewd distrust of corporations that made him a lot of money. He sued GM for using his Sonalert in their vehicles without paying him for it. GM used it to warn occupants that their seat belts weren’t fastened.
The guy looked like a hobo, grumbled Claude.
He was a hippy, teased Jean.
Hippy, my ass, dismissively muttered Claude waving his cigarette hand for emphasis.
He was opposed to any repressive hierarchical power structure, explained Jean.
Bullshit snapped Claude.
Jean laughingly shrugged his shoulders. Regis said,
He invented an electric blanket that would turn on or off by body heat. When the occupant got under the blanket, it would turn on, and when he got out, it would turn off.
Jean teased,
You’re what the hippies would call uptight, Claude.
Bullshit, grunted Claude.
Speaking of shit, said Regis, the government paid him money for an invention that eliminated human waste.
What? What was that you said? asked the tall man.
The sanitary waste disposal packets he called them. His idea was that after a disaster, man-made or natural, it would be an efficient, sanitary way to dispose of human waste. If it worked, it would do a great deal toward eliminating disease and infection. He liked to have people test his invention after he developed it before submitting it to Washington. The sanitary waste disposal packet was a cardboard box that the user squatted over, did his business, and when he was done, would fold up the box. The box had holes in it to allow for aerobic bacterial decomposition aided by limestone that would accelerate the process. Or the box could be burned. There was toilet paper provided to clean oneself. Like I said, Bronson liked to test his inventions and he was going around town asking, Would you like to shit in my box?
The men laughed.
He loved to shock people like that, said Jean.
He was funny, said Regis.
As long as you weren’t the butt of his joke, suggested the tall man.
I’m sure he got a laugh from how people reacted, said Regis.
You know, I don’t mean to get too philosophical here, but it is interesting the attitude of the locals toward Bronson, observed Jean, I mean, there’s kind of this ambivalence toward him; on the one hand, a feeling that he was odd or eccentric or a weirdo of some kind, and on the other, this admiration for all the money he’d made.
What’s ambiflance? asked Claude.
Feeling two ways about something; like you love and hate it at the same time, explained Jean.
Boy, do I know that one! I never heard that word though, muttered Claude.
I think you’re right, Jean, said Regis, Bronson was a lone wolf. He gave no alliance or allegiance to anyone. He was self-absorbed which gave him a creativity of the highest rank, and sadly kept him from intimacy with another human. The misunderstanding was he had a character defect when, in fact, I believe it was his temperament. I’m not talking about the alcohol – that is a disease he chose not to treat, but his aloneness, his individuality is what I’m talking about. He was different from most of us temperamentally which made us nervous and so we ridiculed him. But it was him who ignored the convention and boundaries the rest of us live by. Contrary is the word to describe him. That’s what the fly under was about – it was breaking the rules in a unique way that showed to the rest of us that Bronson went where the rest of us won’t travel, took risks we won’t take, and while he sacrifices
the security and comfort the rest of us thrive on, he produced work of the highest originality.
Bronson followed his own path which brought him to uniqueness and our misunderstanding was that he was like the rest of us.
Well said, Regis, said Jean.
That is interesting, echoed Lyle.
The guy’s a drunk, muttered Claude.
Frenchy cleared the bottles from in front of the men. Regis waved his finger for another round. When Frenchy was done serving, Regis asked,
Frenchy, you must have stories about Bronson?
Frenchy smiled and said,
Bien Oui, monsieur. He come to drink and bring his cow, and tied her in front, and Sonny the policeman come, and tell Bronson that is illegal, and Bronson told him to show him the law that says so, and they go round and round, and Sonny he couldn’t find a law saying it was illegal, and Bronson already know that because he study the ordinances before he brought the cow, and Sonny he get so mad, and Bronson he just laughed at him. The town workers had to come to clean the shit, and they were mad at Bronson too, and Bronson gave me a hundred dollar bill, and told me to buy the town workers a drink on him, and after that, Bronson was their champion.
Frenchy got called to the other end of the bar.
Sonny takes himself way too seriously, said Jean.
He’s a prick, growled Claude.
Spoken like a true hippy, teased Jean.
Bronson was giving Sonny the business, is all, said Regis, just like he did with Currier and the manure, and tacitly, we all took pleasure in what he did, but would never do ourselves. There was a story a lawyer colleague told me about Bronson and him flying from Logan to Texas and back. Bronson drove them to Logan in that VW he had which had an ignition key, but he’d lost the door key, and when he parked the car in the lot at Logan, Tom noticed he didn’t lock it. Tom said, Bronson, are you sure you want to leave that unlocked? This is Boston, not Greenville, remember? And Bronson says, Aw hell, I guess you’re right, and he took the steering wheel off the car, and puts it in his suitcase. They flew to Texas, did their business, and flew home. They landed at Logan, and the airline announced their luggage was left behind in Texas, and Tom says, Looks like we’re spending the night in Boston. Bronson answers, like hell we are, and went out to the car, and took a pair of vice grips from the trunk, and they drove back to New Hampshire with Bronson steering the VW from the side of the steering column with vice grips. Tom said he thought they were dead a couple of times.
Frenchy comes back to the men.
There was another night with Bronson, he said, and he waved a little cardboard box in my face, and say, Frenchy, this is going to make me a million dollars!, and I said tres bien, Bronson, and I don’t laugh at Bronson because he is a smart man, no? Inside that little box was the thing that finds oil in the ground.
He started a company called Oil Recovery Systems with that invention, said Regis. Billy Jones told me he would go see him, and he would have a pot with water in it, and he would pour cooking oil on top, and try and separate the two using the vibration from a dildo. He wanted to figure out a way to detect oil on water so he could find it and eliminate it before it polluted the ecosystem.
The sadness with Bronson is the alcohol, no? quietly said Frenchy.
The men were silent. Finally, Regis spoke,
I don’t know what comes first, the chicken or the egg. I mean, I don’t know whether alcoholism was a part of his temperament or separate from it. Temperamentally, Bronson was self-absorbed which impedes intimacy with others so does that inability to connect with others “cause” the alcoholism, or would it be there if he had been happily married? I don’t know. I know of other men, temperamentally like Bronson – William Faulkner and Eugene O’Neill were alcoholic, so the temperament seems to lend itself to the disease, but that’s as far as I’ve gotten.
There are plenty of married men who are alcoholic, said Jean.
Oh, for sure. As I say, I don’t know. It’s my observation totally. Proportionally there may be a greater incidence of alcoholism in these intrapersonal temperaments than there are in interpersonal temperaments. These men also seem to have a death wish which Bronson’s fly under could be interpreted as. There is a paradox in their personality of being highly creative on one side and highly destructive on the other.
Wow, you’re getting pretty heavy there, Regis, said Jean.
That’s the thing about a man like Bronson, he was so multi-faceted.
Did Billy Jones tell you about his wood stove? asked Lyle.
The men all looked at Lyle.
He took a bathtub and turned it upside down and attached a pulley to it. He cut some holes in the top to regulate the air flow, and he would put a tree stump under it, and it would burn for a week before he would have to replace the stump. He used a hairdryer with a vacuum cleaner extension which he would stick into the faucet drain to blow air on it if he needed to. He would let it burn down overnight and get it going again in the morning with the hairdryer. He slept all night without having to tend the stove.
He has so much stuff in his house, said Jean.
But with a mind like his you never know how that stuff will be used, said Regis, I mean using a hairdryer as a bellows or a dildo to agitate water and oil or vice grips as a steering wheel. We look at an object and see one or two uses for it, and he sees five or six.
Like I said, I think he looked at the trestle, and knew he could do it, said Jean.
I’ve never heard what gave him the idea, said Regis.
The story around town is it was a bet of some kind, said Jean, I bet Frenchy could tell us.
When Frenchy stopped being busy, the men waved him over.
Frenchy, do you know anything about how Bronson got the idea for the fly under? asked Jean.
Ah, oui, he was sitting where you are now, and Mike O’Toole said that the railroad was shutting down, and unless the town wanted the trestle, they would tear it down, and Bronson said he could fly a plane under it, and O’Toole laughed at him, and Bronson got mad, and said,
I’ll bet you a hundred dollars I can,
and O’Toole said,
You’re on.
The wager was all anybody could talk about, and it was the talk of the club for about a week after that – many of the jokesters saying how Bronson couldn’t stay sober long enough to catch a bus, never mind, fly a plane under the trestle. I watch these men laugh, and I know they are jealous of him because the truth is, he was successful and wealthy, and I had no doubt he knew what he was doing because he is un homme intelligent.
And O’Toole is the biggest blowhard in town, said Lyle.
He was drunk, I know he was, grumbled Claude.
See what I mean? asked Frenchy.
I wonder if O’ Toole ever paid off? questioned Jean.
Are you serious? He’s as tight as a crab’s ass, and that’s waterproof.
The men laughed at the bartender.
Actually, I’d heard another version of what happened, said Lyle. There was this man named Eugene Flatters who was an elderly flight instructor at the Fitchburg airport who taught Bronson how to fly. Bronson and this man developed a very close relationship – I’m thinking he was a surrogate father for Bronson, that sort of thing. Eugene died, and Bronson was heart-broken, and vowed never to fly again. He wanted his last flight to be a spectacular one and flying under the trestle would certainly be that.
Eleven feet clearance on each wing, said Regis, can you imagine the nerve it took to do that?
They say when the FAA officials found him, he handed them his license and said, You can have it. That was my last flight, and as far as I know he never flew again.
He had a landing strip on his property, said Regis.
He became even more withdrawn and isolated after the death of Flatters, said Lyle.
I remember watching him, said Regis, my wife and I stood on the shore of the Souhegan River with a hundred other people all in a festive and carnival mood. It felt like we were about to witness a once–in–a-lifetime event. Like seeing a hole in one or a perfect game or hearing a politician give a Gettysburg Address type speech. A defining moment that lives in the memory of witnesses forever. We heard the plane from far off, and we all looked up at the sky, many of us with our hand over our eyes to block the sun. It looked like we saluted God coming into our midst. Finally we could barely make out the plane, and a murmur went through the crowd, and when the plane gained greater definition a cheer rose from the crowd in homage to what they were about to witness. About fifty kids were on the trestle waving their arms and dancing. There were those electrical wires in front of the trestle, and we all caught our breath as the plane approached, and the plane cleared the wires, and dropped down, and Bronson pulled up before going underneath the trestle, and he circled around, and made another pass, but again, pulled up, and there was murmuring in the crowd – spectators thought he’d lost his nerve, until the police came out onto the trestle, and ordered the kids off. Bronson made a third pass, and pulled up again, while the cops were getting the kids off the trestle. He came around again, and went under the trestle this time, and the shot of excitement went through the crowd – it was exhilarating to see it, it really was, I got goosebumps. There was a streak of white paint on the side of the trestle that Billy Jones said that Bronson figured out where exactly half the distance was between the two pylons, and smashed a gallon can of white paint at that exact point so he would know where to point the nose of his plane. Billy said that Bronson had eleven feet on each wingtip to make it. A gust of wind could have been a disaster. It was something to see – it really was. Looking back on it, it was the last time I can think of when we were all for the same thing. No one on that riverbank that Sunday wanted Bronson to fail. There are very few times in life where everybody wants the same thing, and that was one of them, and I think all of us who were lucky enough to see it had an event that doesn’t happen very often, and is getting harder and harder to find as society gets more and more complicated.
Every man in the room listened to Regis. There was silence. A man spoke,
I was sixteen that day, and I was on the trestle until the cops chased us off. And I can tell you they weren’t messing around. They were angry and wanted us off that trestle like we would see something we weren’t supposed to. If the plane went under us, we could see who was in the cockpit, and I’ve wondered if that was it. The cops say it was for our safety and maybe that’s it, but I know there are people who don’t think Bronson would have been sober enough to have flown the plane that day. So I don’t know.
The men were silent.
It was Bronson, said Regis quietly. He raised his glass and all the men, except Claude, did the same.