The Stump, as I’ve come to call my little nest — thanks, George! — has only one door. I stand 6’1” tall. The frame of the door rises exactly six feet above the floor. It’s precisely that perfect height at which your eyes, your inner ear, and all the neurological mechanisms that keep your brain informed about your body’s relationship to the outside world conspire to convince you, despite repeated historic evidence to the contrary, that you don’t have to duck when you walk in.

The Village is a seriously happening place. Especially if what you’re hoping will be happening involves sex, drugs, or both.

I spent a chunk of time this morning sitting on the beach, facing out toward the open ocean, toward Iceland, toward Ireland and Hamburg and Kiev. I got to the cold granite of the island’s eastern rim a little while before sunrise, but I really don’t know why.

To understand the Island Car, you have to understand “Whirlpool” Eddie McCoy.

The first thing you have to understand is why he is called “Whirlpool.” It seems that when he was a young man, back shortly after World War II, he was something of a hellion. A wild thing. A daredevil. A world-class taker-of-chances. The girls loved him, the guys admired him, the police were in awe of him, and the entire town of Grayling, Michigan, struggled with the legal ramifications of renaming itself Eddie McCoyville.

Bo was welding the human ass at the end of the torpedo. The image of the blazing acetylene torch poking at this bulbous butt won’t leave me anytime soon.

He was silent for a long time as he worked, but that didn’t surprise me. Bo doesn’t believe in small talk. Trivial conversation, he insists, is an indication that you have abandoned deep and important thinking in favor of superficial, glittering cleverness and mundane, insignificant details. I’m sure he’s a blast at cocktail parties.

I have a home! A humble abode. A dwelling. A resplendent domicile that remains upright only because all the termites, cockroaches, and earwigs have agreed to hold hands and sing Nearer My God To Thee until the whole thing collapses like the one-horse shay.

After a remarkably mundane dinner at The Larboard — a dinner that consisted primarily of hot dogs, Shredded Wheat, and marshmallows — I decided to see what was happening in The Village. You know, journalistic inquiry and all that. It’s odd, though, that I rarely seem to wonder what’s happening in The Town. Maybe that’s because The Town is entirely predictable.