Mine Craft: A Mike Dodge Intrigue

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’

"Mending Wall"

Robert Frost

Most folks believe Robert Frost was a big wall guy. But verse is an iffy basis for popular discourse, especially hereabouts where poetry is for eighth graders and the Hallmark Store and the occasional bar band that actually buys that the Friday crowd is craving original works that illuminate the human experience of bar band dudes.

In point of fact, Frost’s protagonist did not subscribe to wall-building as social contract, or at least unsubscribed after a couple hours dragging rocks in the New England sun. However, Frost’s 1914 treatise on mankind’s artificial boundaries has endured as a credo for the anal-retentive, paranoid and proper. “People are frequently misunderstanding it or misinterpreting it,” he chuckled a half-century later (I assume he chuckled, because that’s what folks who don’t know when to shut it do after they’ve effed things up but good).

All I know was, I was now about three hours into this project, lacquered in sweat and topsoil, fingers bleeding, knees screaming as I sawed and hacked away at a dense root seemingly grafted from a fossilized redwood. Good Neighbor Fencing and Siding would be coming in Thursday to slap up a wall of vinyl between us and the Perrys’ senile cairn terrier, who could not seem to understand that what happens on our side of the links is not the first step in a blitzkrieg. Even now, Maxie was gawking and occasionally yapping at me hunkering in the corner clearing the fence line. As my handsaw jammed on something harder than the neighbor’s maple root, sending a jolt up my forearm and prompting a very unneighborly utterance, he cranked it up to 11.

“Dude, shut up,” I begged. The Internet People assured me pruning this one root would be little more than an arboreal flesh wound, and Ray and Genise were like getting 30 totally free feet of vinyl anyway. The saw was jammed about an inch into the cut, and the tip of my As Seen On TV blade thumped repeatedly against whatever lie beneath.

Finally, the saw ripped free, knocking me on my ass. I righted myself with an effort fortunately only an enfeebled terrier witnessed, and, cracking the remainder of the root segment free, began to explore the electrical line or neighborhood HBO connection I’d probably damaged. I scraped away at what turned out to be a broad enameled metal disk with a brass thingie topped with a large screw that from the bidirectional arrow underneath could be turned either to the words “Sicher” or “Scharf.”

The phone was on the patio deck box – I grunted to my mangled ankles and stumped across the grass. I fed “sicher” into Google: “Safe, secure (not dangerous or in danger).” I reasoned out “scharf,” and limped back to the hole and checked where the dial was set. Yup.

I then muttered another popular German-derived term and called 911.

**

“A World War II German F.W.157 Tellermine, 1940. Anti-tank mine – Hitler’s boys planted a lot of these babies in Russia. It’s in really awesome shape -- almost all its original wartime paint, carry handle and fuse head still intact. And wow, clearly marked with the Nazi WaA stamp.”

Before this episode of Antique WMDs Roadshow could go on any longer, Det. Mead ushered us past a group of Peoria PD guys in armor and padding. When you uncover an apparent landmine in a white-collar Midwest suburb, you do what the Millington PD did – call in The Prince of Pawn. Like my handsaw, also seen on TV, cranking out “Money For Nothing” on his bass and mugging over the opulent spoils of failed finances, dead relationships, and inflated dreams. Chucky Wyler looked like a cut Uncle Fester who’d robbed a Harley-Davidson outlet.

“Let me clarify,” Curtis began, “You were chopping away for like three hours on top of a landmine?”

I could see out of the corner of my eye that The Prince of Pawn was now talking to the first of the Peoria TV crews to land on the block.

“Pretty positive he must’ve tipped the TV folks,” Curtis muttered. “’Bout three years ago, we had a homicide, weapon was some custom-made Gestapo revolver. Chucky might seem like a chucklehead, but he helped track it from its original owner to the grandpa of the skinhead asshole who blew away the new skinhead asshole his wife was banging. Chucky’s got a healthy stock of WWII crap, but nothing the fashionable supremacist might trot out at a statehouse or the Capitol. Lot of these local collectors got a secret room back of the shop with a Nazi flag and a whiteboard so they can link up BLM with the Jewish space lasers and COVID boosters. Even the Peoria boys use Chucky once in a while they got something Hitlery or ninja-ish. And he does love his publicity, but hey.”

One of the PPD bomb guys sprinted over, pulled Curtis aside, and briefed him. I thought we’d reached the “anything you say you can say in front of my portly friend” stage, but Curtis had been institutionally conditioned to believe Sandburg’s admonition: “You can’t trust the judgment of good friends.” Poets.

“You can go back to your lavish life,” he finally told me. “Mine was hollowed out long time ago, probably when whatever GI Joe smuggled it home as a souvenir. Maybe set it to ‘Scharf’ to keep any curious kin from bleeping around with it.”

“Then buried a dud bomb in the yard where nobody was likely to ever find it. Why?”

“That is a terrific question for someone who might conceivably give a shit. All this was farmland back in the ‘70s, before suburban infestation. Guessing the statute of limitations on whatever this might be passed 30 or 40 years back.”

“But the fence guys are coming out Thursday,” I protested. “How do we know our guy didn’t bury a few more along the fence line that aren’t so. . .sicher?”

The cop gave the wrap-it-up signal to the MPD uniforms. “The Peoria squad did a pass with ground-penetrating radar. You’re clear. You still worried, maybe cut back on the beef and pasta.”

I had a really awesome rejoinder ready, but a tap on the shoulder blunted my wit. The Prince of Pawn towered over me, the low spring sun glinting off his bare skull and that unnaturally toothy grin that moved a lot of amps and chunky bling.

“Make sure the cops return that mine, less they decide to make it evidence and it winds up in some sergeant’s basement bar. Gimme a call -- I can do you a sweet deal.”

Sarah liked sweet deals, but usually at a Target or Ulta. If my Tellermine wound up holding Beer Nuts in a cop’s lair, que sera.

**

The answer was in Thursday’s Register-Gazette, which had tapped county docs to trace our homestead to Gropf Farm. Gropf Farm now sold hand-crafted artisan cheeses at its middie-mega dairy op about a mile past suburban infestation. Graying cheesemonger Brad Gropf recalled his late dad’s tales of Grandpa Gropf’s postwar obsession with privacy, and his own childhood fascination with the memorabilia he’d found one day in old Delbert’s barn, including a half-dozen land mines. All disemboweled and harmless, Gramps had assured the boy.

“He explained how the Nazis set the mines – how ‘Scharf’ meant they were armed and ‘Sicher’ meant they were ‘safe,’” Brad told the R-G. “After the hell he saw at the end of the war, can’t blame him for being a little odd. But we’re truly sorry about the scare he gave those poor people.”

“Delbert got killed in a tractor accident about five years before Rick and I bought the house,” Sarah noted as she spread Extra Crunchy Jif on our bagels. She and the ex were charter members of our nameless subdivision in the late ‘70s. “Otherwise, I’m not sure Jerry Gropf would have sold the land.”

When the bright green Good Neighbor Fencing Truck pulled to the drive a half-hour later, Frank Good himself followed in his gleaming Escalade. Good had put in the original fence three decades ago; now, Good’s mulish face appeared regularly on TV and, in caricature form, on his growing company fleet.

“We sure my guys won’t get blown to shit?” the old man inquired.

“To the best of our knowledge,” I pledged.

Frank nodded, waved his guys in, climbed back into his SUV, and disappeared. The guys seemed unconvinced, but quickly set to work on our doggie hate fence, supervised closely by Sarah.

**

The free Disney-Plus trial expired Saturday and I’d ill-advisedly’d popped for some dark roast during Law and Order, so I was burning off She-Hulks around two when I heard the shot. We weren’t within the 340-day Central Illinois window for indiscriminate fireworks discharge, so I catapulted from my La-Z-Boy and wrestled the pole from the sunroom slider track.

The sunroom lights illuminated the backyard and our spanking new vinyl. I flicked on the patio lights, and Ray blinked up, dropping the Swiffer in his left hand. The phone in his right was illuminated.

I wrestled the second firewall dowel from the “porch” door, and sprinted to the pooch wall. “You OK?”

“Little shit had to take a piss,” my He-Hulk neighbor reported, retrieving his “weapon.” “I’m about to let him out when I see a couple assholes fucking around. Then I hear the shot, and the other dude runs off. Gimme a second here.”

Ray negotiated with 911, and the details sent a jolt through my gut. I crept barefoot to my new fence, which creaked slightly as I craned over.

“Chucky,” I gasped.

**

Fortunately, the Prince of Pawn had borrowed some old-school kevlar from stock. Unfortunately, old-school pawnshop kevlar usually has taken a good whupping already, and between the kick of the shot and the impact of skull against shed sent Chucky to the St. Mark’s ER.

“Mike, man, I appreciate the fence,” Ray commented as the ambulance departed. “Might keep the little shit from going crazy every time Sarah gets nuts with the bushes.”

“No problem,” I assured him, sneaking an anxious look at an unreadable Sarah in the sunroom as Ray caught Genise’s baleful glare at the deck rail. The hoopla had awakened everyone in a two-ranch radius, and I contemplated an impromptu pajama block party until I read the room.

“Hey,” Ray said. “Your fence guys leave that?”

I followed his gaze to the metal detector propped against the shed.

“Might be the Good folks didn’t trust me about being mine-free,” I theorized. “But gonna guess Chucky went treasure hunting.”

**

Under the circumstances, Friday seemed a great day to get off the block for a spousal team-building exercise.

The Good Neighbor folks apparently had rounded up some additional bidness down the block, quite possibly based on Dodge envy, and the cable and Mid Illinois Power crews were healing the ravages of an Illinois winter. The first of the spring cleaning yard sales had beckoned, and the surrounding streets were clogged with bargain hunters. I got three offers on the bike by the fifth garage.

“Crap!” I pulled my head out of a box of vintage kitchen tools. The middle-aged woman poring over a tub of romance pulp next door was pawing her windbreaker pockets. I recognized her as a fellow neighborhood bike browser, Lynn or something else with a consonant.

“How much you need?” I offered, fanning my remaining two fives.

“Oh, no. Thanks, but I just remembered. Lemme show you a little tip.” Her bike was parked a few feet from ours’ on the adjacent lawn. She unscrewed a large pink bike bell clamped to the handlebars to reveal a tight roll of dead presidents. “Better safe than sorry.”

I didn’t point out the flaw in her logic, but ultimately was grateful for the tip.

**

St. Mark’s is midway between Kroger’s and the Dodges, so I made a quick side-trip with the cantaloupes and turkey sausage.

“Yeah, it’s mine, dude,” the Prince of Pawn grimaced. His torso was encased and his dome wrapped. “I wasn’t gonna mess up your friend’s lawn — just wanted to scout things out. Got a guy said he’d pay big for any other Tellermines I turned up. But I got late to the game. The other guy, I don’t know if he located any mines, but he got real serious when I showed up. Two cracked ribs, broken collarbone.”

“You get a look at him?”

“Nah, wearing a mask and a hoodie. All I really saw was the gun. Cheap .38 — wouldn’t give him $20 bucks for it. Uh, the Minelab? The metal detector?”

“Cops got it. Wouldn’t worry, though — would look lousy in a rec room.”

**

After I took a spin around the block and dropped the melons and faux-kielbasa, I announced we needed some fancy cheese for tomorrow’s patty melts. After a call in the drive, I set forth.

“After the Army invaded Germany in early 1945, soldiers routinely looted civilians,” I began. “It was easy to justify — they’d liberated the camps, seen the devastation and evil these people ‘allowed,’ and felt payback was merited.’”

Gropf Farm’s shop was on County Road 1200W. Brad Gropf had expanded the “factory” in back where he crafted cheddars and goudas and led student tours.   

Brad remembered me, though it had been more than 15 years since I’d done a feature spread on Illinois’ artisan cheesemakers. After assuring him I had no plans to sue, he patiently endured my historical lecture.

“Your grandpa may have felt that outrage even more strongly,” I suggested. “After he smuggled his ‘loot’ back home, though, Delbert knew he needed to let it cool down —looting even from the Germans would have been a serious military violation.”

Brad leaned against a refrigerator case. “Jesus. I always wondered how Delbert managed to expand the herd, how Dad started the cheese plant, the store, with just the developers’ money.”

“I don’t know your Dad even had any idea what Delbert had done. The old farm was mostly where the junior high is now, right? Most of my neighborhood – Boone, Remington, Arbor – was pasture?”

“We had corn and beans all the way back to the Interstate overpass. But, yeah, mostly grazing where your place is now.”

I nodded. “Perfect area to bury a brace of dead landmines where they’d likely go undisturbed. My guess is the original crew dug up a few of the mines for foundations and basements. If they found them, they probably tossed ‘em. Kind of a miracle ‘our’ mine survived. Or maybe not.”

“But, why?” Brad demanded. “I mean, putting landmines out where nobody was likely to trespass? Booby trapping the farm with traps that didn’t work?”

“Because he wasn’t protecting the farm. Sicher literally means secure, in this case, safe. Probably where your grandpa got the idea. Look, whatever loot he might have brought back was probably small – jewelry, money, trinkets.”

I heard the muffled crunch of tires on gravel outside, and smiled a bit nervously. “You will be. Look, you take out the explosives and bomb mechanisms, and what are you left with? A large, sturdy metal shell with its own lock. A literal safe where Delbert could store a crapload of baubles and keepsakes. He wanted a safe place the feds wouldn’t search. He buried six makeshift ‘safes,’ making sure to turn them to the ‘sicher’ position to keep anyone from thinking he was leaving armed mines on his property. Then he died in a tractor accident before he could tell you or your dad where he hid his treasure.”

“Wait a minute. The mine you found. You said it was in the ‘scharf’ position. How do you know Grandpa set them to ‘safe’ in the first place, and if it was, why wasn’t it when you found it?”

“Your grandpa was a soldier,” I suggested. “I’m assuming he wouldn’t leave a mine he wasn’t intending to use as a mine in the armed position. And this one was empty. Because it had been dug up before.”

The bell above the glass door chimed, and a barrel-shaped man in a cap and a gaiter leveled an arm with a thoroughly modern pistol. “Empty the register!” he yelled, a little too high and a mite too terrified.

“You don’t need to do that,” I advised Brad. “This is my fence guy. And Mr. Good, the fella with the gun over by the plant door is my cop.”

**

“The Gropfs weren’t the only folks who enjoyed a major overhaul,” I told Curtis as he snapped into his complementary Applewood bacon/cheddar stick and I unlocked the Tucson. “Good was a two-man operation when he put in Sarah and Rick’s original fence in the ‘80s. By the ‘90s, he had a fleet of vans. One was down the block all day today. But nobody was having any fence work done.

“When Frank found the mine in our yard years ago, he had no idea what it was, but something was rattling inside. Unfortunately, there was a crucial obstacle to hauling the ‘safe’ off the property. Sarah, She of the Eagle Eye. Probably watched his every move from the kitchen window. So Good pocketed whatever goods Delbert had squirreled away and reburied the mine. If we found it years later, who’d know it had been used to store wartime swag?”

“You think it was the only one left?”

“Chucky’s hopeful. He made a sweet deal with most of the homeowners to do a neighborhood mine sweep, I assume with a split of any of the theoretical take. Guess you just can’t keep a good prince down.”