Bloody Mary. Susan found it tasty and soothing.
She bent to stroke the hot eggplant of her ankle. It answered her heartbeat with echoes of pain. “You know what this orchard really needs, Karen? A forest fire.” Said this devoutly— imagined, with bitter longing, the reptilian trees in flames.
“I think that’s a swell idea, but let’s sell it first. Come on, hon. While those aspirin kick in we’ll scoot up to Gravenstein. Get meds, ice packs, Ace bandages. We’ll sell some flats, too, and have some cheeseburgers.”
Susan felt her habitual irritation at Karen’s patch-it-and-truck-on attitude towards injuries. In Susan’s Mill Valley homeland, all injuries required the sacrament of a doctor’s visit. She felt some irritation too at Karen’s simple perennial faith in cheeseburgers as potent antidotes to all misfortune. But Susan mainly brooded on the thought that this whole foul place had done this damage to her in its spite. How right the Inquisition had been, to purge its demons with the stake and torch!
“That sounds great, Kare. Cheeseburgers. But could we drive around the orchard before we go? I haven’t really seen it yet.”
As they wound downslope in Karen’s truck, the land’s curvature slowly swallowed the house and sheds, and Susan felt herself in a sea of trees. And found it all a bit intimidating, really, the brute will and labor manifested by all these regimented trees, all this shackled, captive life. Agriculture . Look at it: an army of tamed trees. This was really Titan’s work. Susan remembered her childhood fear of the troll in Billy Goats Gruff . Farmer Jack Fox was a monster just like that troll. That big, black-souled son of a bitch… .
“What’s that? Compost?”
They had a view of a great worm-shape wrapped in black plastic and weighted with tires: a tube of compost fifteen feet high and stretching a full hundred feet to one side of Dad’s still-shed.
“Why are those tires on it? I’ve seen that before… ”
“Their weight keeps a tight seal on the plastic, keeps the heat in, it rots even faster.”
“Boy. You could start a whole new farm on that much.”
“And next to it there is the still-shed. Dad read there. And made brandy from those fruit trees back up in the yard. When the screen door of that shed slammed, I could hear it all the way up at the house… .”
Karen began telling about it, still meandering the truck through the lanes as she talked. Susan watched her lover’s profile as she listened and saw that Karen could not quite believe she was saying these things out loud.
“Oh, Karen,” said Susan softly at the end.
Karen swung them back upslope and shortly had them on the highway. After a visible hesitation, she said, “I think I understand what you’re doing with this drinking and I love you for it. But hon, you don’t have to drink for me to help me stop,” saying this, she reached out and touched her lover’s cheek.
“Hey, who says it’s all about you? You always get to be the drunk and rowdy one. Asskicker. I’m little Miss Sweetness-and-Light. I keep our checkbook balanced and get you out of trouble. Maybe I like this. Maybe I just want to have some fun and kick some ass!”
A rusty laugh jumped out of Karen. “Girl, you may be kicking ass, but you sure fucked up your foot doing it.”
Karen had really laughed. Sober. Susan blinked at sudden tears and thought: Daddy Fox, I am gonna kick your ass. You’re through hurting her.
The highway to Gravenstein showed Susan a lot of countryside, twenty miles of it. The green life here was like a conflagration. Between the beef-lots and walnut orchards, everything was grass and wild trees to the horizon. Ivy clothed those trees, mistletoe studded them, and mosses and lichens bearded them. The undergrowth poured down both banks of every stream they crossed, as if stampeding for a drink. Here and there the vegetation was reclaiming clearings where decayed sheds, long-spined and roofed with
She bent to stroke the hot eggplant of her ankle. It answered her heartbeat with echoes of pain. “You know what this orchard really needs, Karen? A forest fire.” Said this devoutly— imagined, with bitter longing, the reptilian trees in flames.
“I think that’s a swell idea, but let’s sell it first. Come on, hon. While those aspirin kick in we’ll scoot up to Gravenstein. Get meds, ice packs, Ace bandages. We’ll sell some flats, too, and have some cheeseburgers.”
Susan felt her habitual irritation at Karen’s patch-it-and-truck-on attitude towards injuries. In Susan’s Mill Valley homeland, all injuries required the sacrament of a doctor’s visit. She felt some irritation too at Karen’s simple perennial faith in cheeseburgers as potent antidotes to all misfortune. But Susan mainly brooded on the thought that this whole foul place had done this damage to her in its spite. How right the Inquisition had been, to purge its demons with the stake and torch!
“That sounds great, Kare. Cheeseburgers. But could we drive around the orchard before we go? I haven’t really seen it yet.”
As they wound downslope in Karen’s truck, the land’s curvature slowly swallowed the house and sheds, and Susan felt herself in a sea of trees. And found it all a bit intimidating, really, the brute will and labor manifested by all these regimented trees, all this shackled, captive life. Agriculture . Look at it: an army of tamed trees. This was really Titan’s work. Susan remembered her childhood fear of the troll in Billy Goats Gruff . Farmer Jack Fox was a monster just like that troll. That big, black-souled son of a bitch… .
“What’s that? Compost?”
They had a view of a great worm-shape wrapped in black plastic and weighted with tires: a tube of compost fifteen feet high and stretching a full hundred feet to one side of Dad’s still-shed.
“Why are those tires on it? I’ve seen that before… ”
“Their weight keeps a tight seal on the plastic, keeps the heat in, it rots even faster.”
“Boy. You could start a whole new farm on that much.”
“And next to it there is the still-shed. Dad read there. And made brandy from those fruit trees back up in the yard. When the screen door of that shed slammed, I could hear it all the way up at the house… .”
Karen began telling about it, still meandering the truck through the lanes as she talked. Susan watched her lover’s profile as she listened and saw that Karen could not quite believe she was saying these things out loud.
“Oh, Karen,” said Susan softly at the end.
Karen swung them back upslope and shortly had them on the highway. After a visible hesitation, she said, “I think I understand what you’re doing with this drinking and I love you for it. But hon, you don’t have to drink for me to help me stop,” saying this, she reached out and touched her lover’s cheek.
“Hey, who says it’s all about you? You always get to be the drunk and rowdy one. Asskicker. I’m little Miss Sweetness-and-Light. I keep our checkbook balanced and get you out of trouble. Maybe I like this. Maybe I just want to have some fun and kick some ass!”
A rusty laugh jumped out of Karen. “Girl, you may be kicking ass, but you sure fucked up your foot doing it.”
Karen had really laughed. Sober. Susan blinked at sudden tears and thought: Daddy Fox, I am gonna kick your ass. You’re through hurting her.
The highway to Gravenstein showed Susan a lot of countryside, twenty miles of it. The green life here was like a conflagration. Between the beef-lots and walnut orchards, everything was grass and wild trees to the horizon. Ivy clothed those trees, mistletoe studded them, and mosses and lichens bearded them. The undergrowth poured down both banks of every stream they crossed, as if stampeding for a drink. Here and there the vegetation was reclaiming clearings where decayed sheds, long-spined and roofed with
Similar Books
