Page 1 of Sourland: Wuthering Heights, New Jersey

SourlanD:

Wuthering Heights, New Jersey

by Mary D’Amore

Chapter I, Page 1

CHAPTER I, Page 1

2001—I just got home from visiting my new landlord, the reclusive neighbor that I’ll be telling you about. This is certainly a beautiful area! I don’t think that I could’ve found a place more isolated from society in all of New Jersey. A perfect place for someone like me who has such a negative attitude, not just toward people but toward life as a whole. Mr. Moore and I are a perfect pair to divide the isolation between us. A good-natured guy! He’d never know how much my feelings warmed towards him when I saw his dark eyes frown at me so suspiciously under his eyebrows as I drove up, and when he buried his hands deep into his jacket pockets when I introduced myself.

“Mr. Moore?” I asked.

“A nod was the answer.

“Luke Di Legno, your new tenant. I wanted to let you know I’m here, and to make sure I haven’t annoyed you too much by insisting on renting Ponden Place. I heard through the grapevine that you’d had some thoughts … ”

“I don’t let anyone annoy me, if I can help it. Come in.”

The “come in” was said with a clenched jaw, and seemed to say “drop dead.” Even the fence gate that he leaned on didn’t move when he invited me in; I think that atmosphere made me determined to go inside. I felt interested in a man who seemed like even more of an introvert, the unpleasant kind, than I was.

When he saw my Beemer parked along his narrow gravel driveway, he waved to a man doing some sort of work outside, calling as we walked toward the house, “Joe, pull Mr. Di Legno’s car into a space and bring up some beer from the cellar.”

“Here’s the only guy who works for him I bet.” “No wonder his grass has gone to seed and deer are the only hedge-trimmers.”

Joe was an older man, but tough looking and wiry. “Who’s this rusticator?” he mumbled under his breath, while taking my car keys from me, looking in my face so sourly that I immediately decided he was suffering from a bad case of indigestion and his wise-crack had nothing to do me personally.

Sourland Farm is the name of Mr. Moore’s place. “Sourland” being a reference to its location on the Sourland Mountain, a large forest in the middle of the state. The highest point isn’t that high, but the way it rises from the surrounding farmlands has earned it the title of 'mountain.' Not an area you’d imagine when thinking of New Jersey. I read about this area in a book at Ponden Place. What the name itself is descriptive of is most probably the color of its shale rock, which is the color of sheep sorrel flowers, or so the book claimed. The English supposedly called the . . .