I’m Bound to Leave This Dark Behind
A small-town boxer fights with family obligations, lost love, and the pull of his roots as he chews on whether to sell his dying father’s cherry orchard.
I dreamed the hills were burning again last night. Hannah was out there, in the dream, walking around in the flames and the ash. I saw it all through the window, only it wasn’t my window exactly. You know how dreams can be. But Hannah was out there. I used to think about her a lot. I still do.
A headache pulses through my skull and jaw, mostly from drinking crappy beer and repeated hits to the head. I won the fight though and winning almost makes the pain worth it. Hannah didn’t come to the fight and texted me sometime later not to come and see her this morning. Some argument we had, that we keep having, something about moving on.
It’s dark still as I get out of my truck and step onto the sidewalk. I stare out over Jerusalem Hill in the center of town. A small grove of hydrangea bushes and a memorial sits at the top of the hill. The same place where those Saints of the Holy Ghost people always said God would come back to. They were some strange cult-like people, that church. A blessed congregation, they called themselves. They had everyone terrified, spouting all sorts of damnation on everyone from street corners and parking lots back when I was a kid. All their holier-than-thou stuff sort of faded out after a few years—after that heavenly car never came and took them off to paradise.
June now and it’s hot out, even before the sun is up. The smell of a diesel truck fills the air as it passes, black smoke trailing behind it. I head toward the Lighthouse Café, lingering on the sidewalk to finish a cigarette, not sure if I should even go in and see her. I’m always finding myself like this, knowing I shouldn’t do something but doing it anyway. Like I’m proving something to someone watching.
There’s this little pink plastic flamingo in the darkened window of a second-hand store next door. Neck bent down, drinking endlessly from the dusty shelf it’s sitting on. Flamingos. We always said we would make it down to Florida together, Hannah and me. Had this whole sweet story we’d made up, two runaways in love, us against the world.
We always said we would make it down to Florida together, Hannah and me. Had this whole sweet story we’d made up, two runaways in love, us against the world.
She sends me pictures now and then. Gators in the grass of her trailer park, lizards everywhere. Cuban ladies selling oranges on the side of the highway. She sent me some once, but they were moldy by the time they showed up. She comes home for the summers now. Two years she’s been down there but still can’t take that summer heat.
Outside the Lighthouse Café I toss my cigarette into the street and before I even walk in, I know he’s there.
“Jeff’s real smart,” Hannah said to me a few days ago, when we were sitting in my truck.
“No, he ain’t,” I said. “Jeff’s an ass. Don’t hang out with him, it ain’t good for you. Please, just promise me that, please.”
“Look at you,” she said. “Strong boxer-man all jealous, huh?”
Things aren’t really like they used to be anymore. She says she’s always busy now. Guess I should have known she’d move on sometime. I don’t really care what she does anymore, none of my business, but I can’t stand Jeff.
Hannah’s behind the counter, twisting the strings of her apron around her little finger. She only halfway glances up at me when I come in. She knows it’s me and lets me know she doesn’t care what all I have to say, just carries on smiling to the other customers, going about her work. She got this job back in high school and picks up shifts whenever she’s back in town.
I take a seat at the counter and hunch over, hiding my face from her. Hannah hates seeing me after a fight, swollen and cut up, glove burns on my cheeks. She’s smiling and listening to Jeff talk at the other end of the counter. Jeff Conway has most people convinced he’s some sort of aspiring businessman and handsome love-guru. Staring over at him, I think about what it would be like to hear his nose break.
The butterfly bandage holding my eyebrow together pokes at my fingers. It split right open in the first round last night, mostly because Uncle John never showed up, and Billy doesn’t know a thing about getting me ready for a fight.
Hannah doesn’t look up, lazily pours me a coffee, drops a spoon in it. She gives me this long, aggravated look.
“Well, don’t you feel strong with all them cuts on your face,” she says and walks away.
I can’t help but to eavesdrop. I rub the sleep from my eyes and picture Jeff’s nose dripping with blood. The butterfly bandage holding my eyebrow together pokes at my fingers. It split right open in the first round last night, mostly because Uncle John never showed up, and Billy doesn’t know a thing about getting me ready for a fight.
Hannah smiles and holds a hand up in front of her crooked teeth and Jeff’s fingers keep stroking along her arm. I sip my coffee, waiting, but she doesn’t move his hand away.
“Let me get some more,” I say to her, holding up my cup. “And some ice, please.”
She turns and looks at me a moment, then walks over to lift the cover on the ice machine. Jeff smiles at me like an idiot.
“That’s some eye you got,” Jeff says. “Heard Chuck White had to go up to Danbury to get looked at after the fight.”
“He shouldn’t be fighting. He’s always had a glass jaw,” I say.
Hannah drops a plastic to-go bag with ice on the counter in front of me. There’s something in her eyes like she wants to say something to me, something sweet maybe, but she keeps her lips together over her crooked teeth and walks back to Jeff.
I set the ice on my right hand, hold the bag tight against my knuckles. Hurts like a son of a bitch but still a good month away from a break if I’m lucky.
Another waitress refills my coffee. I look out the front windows watching everything begin to take shape in the morning light.
“Well, I’d better leave before it’s too hot,” I say to Hannah.
She says nothing.
“Take it easy, Eli,” Jeff says, and nods to me.
“See you later on, Hannah,” I tell her.
She blushes but gives me a look to go ahead and piss-off already. I take a last sip of coffee and leave. I wish I hadn’t come.
On the sidewalk out front, I call John. He doesn’t pick up. I know what it means.
I start the truck, drive out past Jerusalem Hill. New Oxford isn’t much of a town really, just a long strip of fast-food joints, rundown strip malls, and a thousand different churches. After that, it’s just fields and hills. Dad lives on the north end of the orchard in all that nothing. Don’t know why he hasn’t sold it yet. But I’m tired. Tired of being the one left to check up on things, tired of trying to make excuses for this family.
I pull off the gravel road where Uncle John lives in a rusted-out Quonset hut. Pulling up to the door, I can see why he never showed up last night. His place is usually a mess, but it’s worse this morning. Just crossing the yard, I get this knot in my gut. Like a homesickness for somewhere that doesn’t exist.
Beer cans and trash are strewn across the grass every which way. He left the bags in the yard and some animal got into them. It stinks. I stand outside the door and look off at the mountains taking shape along the tops of the oaks and wait a moment for inspiration.
Uncle John is asleep on his cot near the back wall, across the mess of rank dishes, soiled clothes, empty cans of Busch Ice. I put some coffee on, rinse out a couple mugs. John stirs around in bed at the noise.
“What time is it?” he says.
“Early still,” I say. “Come get some coffee.”
He swings his legs over the side of the sagging cot, rests his elbows on his knees as the breathes. Uncle John isn’t actually related to dad or mom but that’s what I’ve always called him. After this long I guess he’s filled the position well enough.
“You need to eat something,” I say.
When death first smiles at you, you feel this cold shiver run through your bones, dad used to say.
“Your daddy’ll tear you a new one, when he sees that eye.” John rubs at the scruff of his beard, squinting his eyes to the morning light.
“I won. But Bill ain’t no help. Halfway though, he starts telling me he’s going to call it. Starts saying I’m finished and all this crap.”
“Billy just scares easy is all.” John reaches into his pants on the floor and pulls out a can of dip, slaps the can a few times, stuffs a fat pinch into his bottom lip.
“Come get some coffee.”
“I’m fine,” he says, and reaches down under his cot and takes out a six-pack of tall-boys, two of them missing. He pops one open.
“You never showed up.”
“Wasn’t feeling all that well.”
“I can see why.”
“How’d you make out?”
“Won the big purse. After pay-out, I walked with a little over five hundred or so.”
“That’s fine, Eli, real fine. Still can’t cover up your right though like I told you.”
I walk over to the heavy bag John has hanging up in the corner. Two mirrors are screwed into the wall on either side. I throw a few punches, feel the soreness in my hand.
“You coming to the fight next week?”
“Yeah, I’ll be there,” he says.
John always says this but forgets most of what he says. His mind is so soft and watery now. Dad used to say drinking was for killing ghosts. John sighs and I can smell his breath from across the room, his skin a few weeks out from a shower. He spent the last few days on a binge, probably will keep it going. Which ghost is haunting him today?
John coughs and gets up from his bed. Sunlight angles in through the narrow windows. His lips are wet and glisten with dark brown spit the color of mud.
“Coming up to the orchard with me?”
“Suppose I’ll come along,” he says, shifting the lump of Copenhagen around in his bottom lip. He walks into the bathroom, carrying his beer with him.
I quickly hide the rest of the six-pack way back under his cot. Least he’ll have to make an effort for them.
Uncle John coughs and gags a little, starts retching into the toilet. I step over to the bag, punching again, letting the sound of the chain and my fists hitting the leather drown out the sound of him. John comes staggering back out, wiping his mouth. He swishes a frothy gulp of beer around his teeth, spits it out in the sink.
“Maybe I should just stay in today.”
“No, no, some sunlight’ll do you good.”
I toss him his boots and he sits down at the table, pulling them on. He coughs for a fit, takes a long drink. I wonder how much longer he’ll be able to keep this up. Wonder if he’ll be where dad is in a few months.
When death first smiles at you, you feel this cold shiver run through your bones, dad used to say. It was almost a year ago now when I first took dad to the hospital, after he started coughing up fistfuls of blood. Back then the spot on his lungs was only the size of a big tooth, the doctor said. Said it was nothing too bad, nothing some treatment couldn’t cure right up.
Do you feel that shiver yet Uncle John?
John is silent as the truck bounces on the dirt road. There’s something on his mind. Dad always had trouble keeping John’s beak shut because he never stops with the stories. Stories about anything at all. I stopped caring if they were true or not after mom passed. Wasn’t awed by much after that. John is silent now as we bounce along the uneven path and he stares at the cherry trees. The fruit hangs in purple clumps under leaves bright and green as katydids. Hills stretch on for miles and the dragon back of the mountains sits against the morning horizon like an awesome wave.
I stand in the first warm rays of the morning sun at the mouth of a long row of Napoleons. The Hudsons and Windsors are to the east of the orchard, and the sour Montmorency trees are off to the west. John sits in the truck a moment longer listening to the radio and I pull on a pair of gloves and stare up at the ladder. The top half of it vanished in the thick branches.
I grew up on this land just like dad did. I’ve always loved and hated it—hated climbing these ladders and walking these hills but I get heartsick soon as I’m away. Pathetic, I know. Never really wanted to take it over, never wanted to sit out here and watch the days run away and never return. The hills and mountains and fields all blur together from the tops of these ladders, everything rising and out of focus in the summer haze. Tucked away behind these branches, I can see for miles. I used to imagine all the towns and highways out there when I was a kid, making plans for where I would get to when I grew up, all my great plans after that.
John sits on a hickory stump retying his bootlaces. He takes a finger and pulls the dried-up lump of Copenhagen out from his lip. I grab a handful of fruit and inspect them. Eat a few, spit out the pits. I pull a young branch in close and look at the leaves and new buds. Black knots cover the bark in small rashes. I stare at the branch and feel my chest sink.
“You’re a damned stupid old man, Dad,” I whisper, “leaving me with all this mess.”
“What is it?” John calls up to me.
I let the branch go and it swings back and knocks a few cherries off the branches.
“Black knots,” I tell him. “A lot of them.”
He stares up at me, pulls off his hat to wipe the sweat from his forehead.
“Got to check the whole lot,” I say.
John nods up at me. He stands and heads over to the barn. I climb down the ladder and stand in the grass a moment. You’re a foolish man, Dad.
The barn is musty and damp. Little motes shine and vanish in the sunlight. John sits on a stack of metal picking pales looking out from the open barndoors at the even rows.
“That black knot ain’t no good,” John says.
“All I’m saying is, sometimes things is gone and dead, but takes a man a long time to accept it. When that one thing you’ve known and done all your life is finally over, what’s left?”
“No, I’d say it ain’t.”
“Guess you’ll be calling Hector to come and see about it?”
“Suppose I will.”
“Best not tell your daddy about it, not with your face looking how it does.”
“He wouldn’t care either way probably.”
“You going to train any before next week?”
“Might go for a run later on.”
“Best cut out the booze and smoking then.”
“Could say the same to you, old man.”
We sit and say nothing for a while.
“You seeing your lady tonight?” John says.
“She’s not my lady.”
“Well, whatever she is,” he says. “You know, if you lay off all this self-pity crap, you might just do something with yourself, Eli.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You sigh too much. You got some heart, some raw talent. If you gave it a real chance, you could get a shot at a nice contract of your own. Stop doing all this scrapping and get some real fights.”
“Well, maybe I don’t want a contract. Besides, scrapping pays the bills. Maybe I just want to keep going how I am. I’m winning. And I’ll keep winning, too.”
“Yeah, Eli. But you ain’t just some scrapper. You’re better than that, better than this town. And you know, that girl, she ain’t no good for your head.”
I bend and stab my cigarette out in the loose dirt. I walk out of the barn and stand looking at the rows of trees, wonder how many we’ll lose to disease. Hope all of them, hope the whole place gets shut down and the bank takes the land just like they want.
I look out and picture the hills burning, all the trees in flames. I can almost smell the fire eating up the grass and disease and all the rest.
“You going to tell Mr. Mason about this?”
“He came by yesterday already,” I say.
“Weaselly little bastard.” John opens another beer and drinks. “What’d you tell him?”
“Told him it ain’t my land. Told him he’d have to take it up with Dad.”
“You know your dad ain’t selling,” John says.
“Maybe he should, everyone else has. It’s like he’s holding onto something that’s already dead.”
“You know, guys used to come back home from that war in Vietnam, blown all to hell. Folks said they still scratched at arms and legs that were gone and rotting halfway across the world. Even years after all of it.”
I look over at John.
“All I’m saying is, sometimes things is gone and dead, but takes a man a long time to accept it. When that one thing you’ve known and done all your life is finally over, what’s left? What’s a warrior without a war?”
“Guess I’ll give Hector a shout,” I say.
John nods and stares off at nothing in particular. I walk through the grass and down a row of trees. I used to think these rows went on forever, that the orchard was infinite as eternity. Going and going in that bible-black predawn. It was a pleasant thought to think some things are endless.
Dad is asleep in his chair when I walk in. The television is snowy and muted and I walk over and twist the rabbit ears around to get a clearer picture. His breathing hasn’t gotten any better. He looks like a ghost all alone in the dark. The hair never came back after the first round of radiation, eyebrows neither. His beard’s come back though, but only in patches like a mangy dog, yellowed from nicotine.
The house smells like cigarettes and rotten food and medicine. That chemical smell from washing his soiled towels and clothes in bleach lingers on everything. Like a cheap motel, that smell of chlorine but you know there’s no pool.
He wakes up a little and starts shifting around in his chair. Hollers about something he’s been dreaming. He’s one hundred and thirty pounds now, six-foot tall and shrinking, but can still make my spine crawl when he yells. I calm him down, straighten out the blanket around his legs. He settles a bit and drifts off in a morphine dream and I go and sit out on the front porch, trying to keep the rotten smell out of my nose.
The sun burns up the last of the rain from the day before and it looks like ghosts rising up from the grass. I look off down the road, at the trees, at the long grass swaying lazily. I don’t know why Hannah does things like this, I hate watching it all dissolve. Can’t say I know why I used to break her heart like I did either. I could stand to do better, I know, to be a better man. Everyone could be better.
What would my life be like if I had made it down to Florida with her. Would I like her little Airstream trailer in Seminole Park down there? It’s quiet she said. Palm trees every which way, sand instead of clay. Sometimes the neighbors get all worked up about the pythons and hawks eating their small animals, but usually it’s quiet. Hannah always believed in dreams, of thinking about something and actually doing it. She always believed in me, was always saying I could do anything I wanted. I almost started believing her too. Dreams are fun to think about, like seeing the world or moving someplace, but sooner or later, the real world comes back. I’m just as formed to these hills and fields as much as they’re formed to me.
Hannah’s the type that could actually make it out of here and be happy. I guess I knew that deep down somewhere and that’s what always ate away at me. She loved me enough to try and save me, to get me to realize that I needed to get out of here, that I could do anything. I loved her enough to know that she had to get out. But I knew I wouldn’t ever be able to let her leave if I had anything to do with it. A love like that just can’t work. Dad said love was selfless. I say love can become one of the most selfish things in the world if you let it. Because, before you know it, it isn’t love anymore. When you start letting yourself think you’re the only thing that matters, when you start looking at that other person like they’re a god and can’t do any wrong, well, then you’re lost.
Mom was the one who complained about the house and yard looking like shit. Always had to have it clean, just in case we had company over. We never had company over.
Anywhere is beautiful when I’m with Hannah, that isn’t the problem. I just can’t think of anywhere being as quiet as here on Dad’s porch with the brush crickets and cicadas droning from their invisible place in the tall grass.
Back inside, ribbons of smoke, nicotine air, fill the spots where the sunlight slithers past the blankets hanging in the windows. Dad can’t really take all the light anymore. He’s still asleep and the television screen flashes. I find the cleanest towel I can in the kitchen, run the faucet, scraping off the dried bits of his vomit under the water. Out the back window there’s nothing but trees and a few forgotten blackberry bushes, choked by ivy and the tall grass. When I was a kid, I spent every weekend in the summers cutting that grass. Pulling up weeds and burning all the brush, would do all these little dances around the flames, like I was a war chief or something. I always got it looking tidy and nice. But after mom died he told me not to anymore. She was the one who complained about the house and yard looking like shit. Always had to have it clean, just in case we had company over. We never had company over.
I lay the towel on the tray next to his chair, empty the full ashtray. I dust my hands off on my jeans and stand there looking at dad. He’s the color of milk and his skin hangs on him like wet newspaper. His lungs gasp and wheeze with each forced mechanical breath from the machine. Tubes hang out of his arms like vines and drip into his bloodstream. His reality is only warm dreams now. The breathing machine curls around his ears and into his hooked nose. How many breaths have I wasted?
His eyes start to blink and he struggles to speak.
“What’s that, Dad?”
“Didn’t know you was still here,” he says. His eyes flutter as he forces them open.
“I’m here.”
“I dreamed I was standing in the orchard,” he says. “Everything was just beautiful and blooming. The trees felt warm and real. Felt the sun on my head and neck. Nothing hurt. Nothing made a sound and I just stood there under the trees.”
“That sounds like a good dream.”
He nods solemnly. He starts coughing and lifts the tubes up a moment, sinking lower into the chair.
“I left a towel beside you there.”
He picks up the towel and dabs his mouth, coughs into it.
“That Mr. Mason come by at all?” he asks.
“He came by yesterday.”
A gasp of air hisses from the machine and blows into his nose and mouth, forcing a breath.
Her kids used to come and visit all the time, every holiday. Stay and eat and then leave again and she’d reappear out on the porch like clockwork. They don’t really come around anymore.
“What’d you tell him?”
“Told him it’s not my land to sell.”
Dad’s quiet a moment. “Maybe we should. Give you some sort of inheritance after I finally die.”
“Get some rest. You’re not thinking straight,” I say, smiling.
“Aw, hell.” He grins, showing his rotting teeth. He sits there thinking for a moment and the smile slips away as he dabs the wet towel across his lips again.
“Well, I’ll be back by later on if you want.”
“I’m fine,” he says.
The sound of his cough makes my eyes start to water. I dry them with my shirt walking to the kitchen.
“I’ll see you, dad,” I say and walk back outside.
I look out from the front porch and see the lady who lives up the road. Gina or something like that. She’s lived there as long as we’ve been here. Might be Dana. Always sits out on her porch, drinking red wine and reading paperback romance novels. She’s always just sitting there in the summer with a box fan beside her, blowing her hair around her face. Her kids used to come and visit all the time, every holiday. Stay and eat and then leave again and she’d reappear out on the porch like clockwork. They don’t really come around anymore. Not that I’ve seen in a long while. That must be the worst part about dying, how no one wants to be around while it’s happening. I watch her reading and she smiles at me. Her teeth are long and stained purple from the wine and I know she smells like fermented blackberries and summer air.
It’s a strange sight driving past her porch, her garbage cans all sidled along the gravel driveway, full of empty wine bottles, boxes of Eggo waffles, and bags of kitty litter. You can know a lot about a person by their trash. She smiles and waves at me as I pass. Her mouth is a purple-red. I wave and wonder if she minds being alone. Wonder if she ever thinks about the space next to her when she goes to bed. I never minded being alone, spent most of my days just with my thoughts anyhow. If Mr. Mason buys up the orchard to build his neighborhood or Walmart or whatever, will I just be left sitting on dad’s porch drinking wine? Just waiting for Hannah, for anyone to come by.
Leaving town, I pass a few rows of houses. Out here there’s little or nothing at all, just country and endless landscape. Trees stand at attention along the road, tall grass ebbing up against the blacktop. Tobacco flowers are blooming, waiting to be clipped. I loved that smell of fresh tobacco when I was a kid. I love it now as it comes in waves through the windows. I fill my lungs. Sunlight angles down through the vast sea of green and shines through the leaves like stained glass. There’s too much to do and I try to forget about everything for just a few minutes longer.
As I drive back up the orchard road, I hear the chainsaws screaming. The sound carries all the way to the front gate. The black knot will take a whole row of trees, probably more. Hector and a few other guys are sawing through the trunk of a Montmorency. I stare a moment and wait for them to see me. They kill the saws and lift off their safety glasses.
“How bad is it? Um . . . qué mal?” I shout to Hector.
Hector wipes the sweat from his forehead with a bandana. “Está jodido,” he says, “siete, quizás ocho hileras.”
“What’s that, eight rows?”
“Eight, si.”
“Hell, that’s almost all of the Montmorencys.”
“¿Quieren nos vayamos? You want us to stop?”
“No, no. Haz lo que debas,” I say. “Hell, take them all down.”
He nods and gives the other workers the go-ahead and the saws scream to life. I walk up the hill to the barn, thinking. The logs will make for good firewood, let them dry out in autumn and keep them at dad’s place. Will you still be around by then, Dad?
Soon it will be cold enough and everything will die, and I think about if dad will make it through another winter. When it’s cold enough, I wonder where I might be.
Mr. Mason is only a few years older than me, early thirties maybe, if that, but never misses a chance to talk down to anyone. I think of punching him, shattering his eye socket, see if he still thinks life’s just all business.
I look past Hector and stare at all the trees and hills and imagine them burning. I keep having that same dream, of everything glowing in the flames, embers and ash covering all the green. I just stand and watch the slow fire, listen to the pops and crackling of the trees dying. Then all of a sudden, I see Hannah, just walking barefoot along the hills like she’s just out picking wildflowers. And I’m just standing there, watching it all burn, trying to call out to her, but she can’t hear anything over the roar of flames. It’s just her and me under this coal-black sky. Sometimes after I wake up, I’ll look out from the window and wish it would all burn up and become dust again, and that everything could be made new.
I walk down into the heart of the orchard with a machete and start clearing paths through the tall grass. A ballet of bees and gnats dances in quiet random in the warm sunlight. Cicadas roar in soft pattern and perfect timing, like a symphony. Wind cuts through the trees and the landscape oscillates in rhythm, rising now, now falling. Sunlight touches everything. The blade cuts through the green grass, crickets and katydids fly all around me. Sweat slides down my spine and drips into the shade of my waistband. I push the sound of the saws from my ears and try to just hear the wind, hot and heavy. The heat doesn’t let up a moment. I bend a budding sumac sapling and chop it down to the roots. For the moment, part of me wouldn’t change any of it, not the breeze rustling through the trees, not the sunlight coming down or the smell of cherries and tobacco and clay filling my nose. The other part wants to see the hills burn. But right now, standing here, I am almost content.
“Hard worker, ain’t ya?” I hear someone say.
I turn and see Mr. Mason coming down the row behind me. The grass is brushing against his khaki pants, the sun glaring off his pale arms. Sweat is soaked into his white short-sleeve polo shirt, making it look almost transparent. His hair is full of product and looks hard like glass, or stone after a heavy rain. He pauses a few feet from me, holding his leather laptop bag in front of his knees as he stands. Like how a funeral director might stand.
“Have to do what’s necessary,” I say, turning back to chop a few more feet of grass in front of me.
“See they’re doing some sawing up that way,” Mr. Mason says.
“You saw that, huh.”
“Must be a pretty penny you’re gonna lose on that.”
“Not really. Things die sometimes. Sometimes they grow.”
“Brother, I know how that is,” he says and takes out a handkerchief to wipe his forehead down. Mr. Mason looks clean and I see that even the gnats can smell the sweetness of his cologne and start dancing all around his head. He swats at a couple flying around his face.
“Well, to skip all the chitchat, have you put any thought to what I said, Eli?”
“Yeah, and it’s same as before. It’s not my land to sell.”
“Now that’s some integrity you got there, fella.”
Mr. Mason is only a few years older than me, early thirties maybe, if that, but never misses a chance to talk down to anyone. I think of punching him, shattering his eye socket, see if he still thinks life’s just all business.
“To be honest though,” he continues, “it’d be nice to have the money to give your old man a decent grave, one that’d make him proud. I know I’d be thinking about something like that.”
I look up at the trees.
“How much is the land going for out this way?” I ask.
He smiles a big smile. Suddenly, I don’t want to hear the answer.
“Just over twenty-five hundred an acre,” he says. “And you’re just shy of ninety or so, including that little place your daddy’s got. Nice little house there.”
I think about dad lying in his chair, just waiting for those slow drips to carry him into that great sleep.
“It’s a lot of money, Eli. Think about it.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” I say and pick up the machete.
He pulls the back of his hand across his forehead, looks down at the sweat.
“You got my number, Eli. I also left a card up in the barn there, just in case.” He smiles again. “I look forward to hearing from you, bud.”
I watch him nod and walk back up the row and suddenly I can’t help myself.
“Mr. Mason,” I say and he turns back. “Who wants this land anyhow? There’s nothing out here.”
“Just someone who wants to put something out here.”
I look around at all the trees, at the hills and quiet landscape. “Enough people like that, then there won’t be anything left anymore.”
“Yeah, kind of beautiful, ain’t it? It’s called progress.” He smiles and turns back and starts walking again. “I’ll be hearing from you, Eli.”
Dad’s house is no cooler than the summer outside and I know the air conditioning’s gone out. I call out to dad and hear him mumble something from the living room. I pour myself a glass of water. The water is brown when I first lift the faucet and then starts to run clear after a second.
“You eat yet, Dad?” I say.
“Yeah,” he says.
“Liar,” I say and walk in next to him and sit on the sofa. “How’re you feeling?”
“Fine,” he says and coughs his way through the last half of a cigarette.
He picks up the television remote and changes the channel to People’s Court. I lean back on the sofa and let my eyes rest on the screen.
“Hey, dad, Mr. Mason came by the orchard again yesterday. Says he’s got a lawyer and everything ready, just needs you to call him.”
“Kind of a weasel, ain’t he?”
“Yeah.”
Dad stares at the television, thinking.
“I think maybe you should talk to him, Dad. I think it might be best.”
“Is that so, you think it’s best?” he says, mimicking my voice suddenly.
“I’m not trying to start a fight, I’m just trying to do what’s best.”
“No, you never do, do you? You always just keep it easy.”
“I just mean it might be time to let it go.”
I walk back over to dad and lean down to kiss him on the top of his head. Part of me feels like I betrayed him somehow. Like I’m about to. But what the hell will I do with all the land, that same land I grew up getting lost and fox hunting and playing on? What the hell do I know about running a damn business?
He’s quiet for a moment and the slow drip of his IV echoes through the room. He stabs his cigarette out in the can next to him.
“It’s yours, Eli.”
“What?”
“The orchard,” he says. “The land and all of it. It’s yours.”
“What do you mean it’s mine?”
“I’m giving it to you. You’re a grown man, do whatever you need to.”
“What the hell am I supposed to do with it?”
“Hell, I don’t care. I don’t give it no mind no more, you’re right about that.”
“Not sure I give it much either.”
We watch the television for a few minutes and I look over and see dad is nodding off. I pull the blanket over him and turn off the television. Sit back on the sofa and stare at the dead gray screen, stare at our reflection in it, just dad and me, like a nice photograph. I take the damp towel off the table and dab at his forehead and neck. I touch the gray hair of his beard, feel his wrinkled skin, thin like paper. I touch him and wonder where he is. Where he’s gone off to. I think about him wrestling with me as a kid, teaching me how to shoot his pistol, how to fight. Mom could never get him to quit once he started something, working or fixing the car or whatever it was. He’s never stopped going all these years. He used to be able to knock guys out with one punch, Uncle John said. He used to be the man that I always wished to be. I can pick him up and carry him with one arm now.
Sometimes I would spy on him as a kid. Catch him sitting outside or reading the paper on the sofa. If I stared long enough, he would start to become unrecognizable. Everything would change and shift its shape. His eyes would be still but there’d be something behind them. Something that he wouldn’t show to anyone. Mom always said that sort of thing is the soul. Guess you can’t ever really know anyone, not even your own father. You see the cards they show, but there’s always something they never show you. I’d look at him when he thought no one was looking and wonder who he was. Sometimes he wouldn’t be my dad anymore. Just a man. Just a man sitting there, thinking about nothing in particular. Thinking about everything.
The air is stagnant and heavy in the house and I walk out to the back porch. I walk on the stones, around the side of the house, and bend down beside the air conditioner unit. Not a hum coming out of it. I walk back inside and go to the fuse box. Reset it, listen a moment, and hear the air start blowing. I walk back over to dad and lean down to kiss him on the top of his head. Part of me feels like I betrayed him somehow. Like I’m about to. But what the hell will I do with all the land, that same land I grew up getting lost and fox hunting and playing on? What the hell do I know about running a damn business?
Dad’s house backs up to the north side of the orchard. If you ran out the back door and kept running straight, you’d be at the barn up there in about twenty minutes. That was my best time, anyway. It’s too much land. I never understood how someone could own land. Whose is it? Who’d we get it from? Who’d they get it from? And somehow it always comes back to someone having to die because someone else wants something. A whole history will die with Dad, it’s already dead. I’ll find myself selling the land sooner or later, hating myself for it, and they’ll throw up another store, another strip mall, and this forest will be pavement. Nothing will look like this much longer.
I pull down Dad’s road and wave as I pass the woman on her porch. I park and stare at the papers in the seat next to me, at Mr. Mason’s name emblazoned across the top. I leave them and walk inside.
Dad is sitting in his robe and sweatpants in a lawn chair on the back porch, unhooked from his machines, staring out at the weed-choked trellises of Mom’s old garden.
“Morning, Dad,” I say.
He nods his head silently, staring out at nothing in particular. I sit and lean against the stone patio and the moss-covered part of the house where brick meets siding. I sit there next to Dad and we stare out at the woods behind the house. The trees white as bone and everything still and quiet. I listen to nothing. Dad lights a cigarette and turns the air tank off.
I look out at the back yard and see a red fox standing on the edge of the forest, skulking around the grass. It sees me watching and moves its paws fluidly, cavorting across the dry leaves and dirt. Vulpine eyes dart around in hunger and Mr. Mason flashes through my head, the papers on the seat of the truck. My heart sinks.
The fox’s fur is dull in the shadowy arbor. I can see its skin hugging tight, pressing into its bones like dough around a pie tin. I look over at Dad and see him watching now. It buries its snout into the earth and breathes and the tall grass scrapes against its fur.
“Your Ma always loved them,” Dad says.
The fox stands in a path of high grass, spread apart like the Red Sea. He stands, looking at us, sniffing the air, then vanishes slowly and bravely through the grass.
I think of all the fox trinkets she kept around the house. Salt and pepper shakers, plates and coffee mugs. Little glass blown fox statues. Every birthday or anniversary card dad ever got her had a fox on it. We tossed them out though when dad found the box of cards under the bed a few months after she died.
“They’re nasty little critters though,” he says.
“Ah, he’s just trying to survive.”
The fox stands in a path of high grass, spread apart like the Red Sea. He stands, looking at us, sniffing the air, then vanishes slowly and bravely through the grass. I look at dad and watch him stare off at the sun.
Dad breaths slow and labored. I look at him and think about how one day he’ll be nothing more than a khaki cloud on the hills, a ribbon of smoke, and that old woman on her porch nothing but a faint smell of fermented blackberries and grapes. I can’t stay here much longer. I should be sleeping with a space next to me someplace far away.
Dad whispers something.
“What’s that?” I say.
“I’ll be glad when it don’t hurt anymore. I’ll be glad to rest soon.”
I smile as we sit and watch the evening come down. I’ll stay with him tonight. But I have a lonely bed waiting for me in New York or Miami—anywhere past these green fields, anywhere that’ll test the timber of my heart. Dad’s fear moves in rings from his tongue like a parade and my fears slide away in slow clouds. We watch the same fields we’ve always known, as if borne back ceaselessly into the same place and time. I look at dad and feel almost happy, here, just us. Soon it will be cold and all the green gone and leaf will subside to leaf, but I don’t think of that now. I don’t.
About the author
Spencer K. M. Brown is an award-winning poet and novelist from the foothills of North Carolina, where he lives with his wife and sons. His work won many honors honors. He is the author of the novels Move Over Mountain and Hold Fast. His debut collection of short stories, Into My Heart an Air That Kills, is forthcoming from Loblolly Press.
- Spencer K. M. Brownhttps://www.salvationsouth.com/author/spencer-k-m-brown/
- Spencer K. M. Brownhttps://www.salvationsouth.com/author/spencer-k-m-brown/
What a stunning story, beautifully told. Chekhov would be proud.