The Apples of My Mind

Hey. It's me. There's the blue. The celestial blue of what we call outer space but might as well call inner space because they lead to the same place, do they not?

The apples are good this year. Here's an excerpt from the book I'm working on called Wishbone. The apples of my mind, so to speak.

Reconciliation or Not (excerpt from a work in progress)

The irises were emerging from the fringes of the garden. A late frost had not damaged them, but it had spread a white rim of melting glass on the field. Kaosky scraped the windows, got into the car and started it. He was going to church on his own. The girls no longer were willing to go along with the charade of believing, although he had tried to use Pope Francis as a call to renewed mission among the lost, claiming that there was hope for female clergy some day. But no, they didn’t buy that one bit, and Jonah understandably had seen no sense, starting in Sunday school, of the show of piety that was put on every week in the name of ritual. He wasn’t about to wake him up and ask if he’d changed his mind at college. And Sibyl, ironically for someone of her blue-blood lineage and apparent saintliness, had no use for God anymore. But for Kaosky, it was a draw. It was his sense of narrative that was appeased, even gorged, by the story of eventual reunification and vindication. Despite the beautiful morning, there was a linear progression that could be amplified through the audience by participation in good faith. Everything in the mass could be seen through the lens of forgiveness of sin, so for Kaosky that was good news. He thanked the big Man on the Cross. Hang in there, he said in silent prayer. We’ll get you down soon. He kneeled and exited early, before the hymn was done. In the meantime, they were to try and remember His words as the glaciers melted and the President was being investigated for treason.

There were secrets in the wind, but they were never treasonous. This was a new development, a sinister poking of the serpent’s head above the soil. Kaosky trusted that it would soon be severed. But a St. George would have to be summoned. He didn’t know how that would work. In the meantime he would hold his patch of ground. One of the chickens had been found dead, its feathers scattered over a wide arc of the grass. Gabriella’s face turned red as she reported on it. Kaosky had just come inside and was seating himself on the sofa with his telephone, about to check on his Facebook. She was truly injured, traumatized in a way that put Kaosky in mind of the Upanishads or the Leinster cycle. She wanted him to do something.

“Where’s Mom?” he asked.

The Traveling Piano Man was now in Utah, and there were cats skateboarding. He had a backlog of papers to grade that was weighing him down internally, a plaque on his spiritual arteries that threatened to choke off his life. But all of that would have to wait. Gabriella’s voice was cracking. The sobbing that was implied would be enough to get him moving to avoid that at all costs. Why was it, he wondered, that such a small, subtle cue as a daughter’s shift in emotional tone, veering towards traumatic injury, would be so powerful? But there it was.

“Where is it?” he asked.

“Outside in the back. Poor chicken. Who would do that? How could anything be so, like, awful?” Gabriella cried. “Why didn’t you know?”

“Know what?”

“That it could get in?”

“I have no idea. Let’s go see.”

They went out the back door silently. The sun was melting the rim of ice off the branches of the ash tree that overhung the backyard. Beyond was a grove of apple trees.

“Where is Mom?” asked Kaosky again.

“She went out for a walk with Julie.”

Julie was one of her set of women friends that she occasionally walked with around the loop of Henniker Hill. They saw the feathers, a white spray of them sitting on top of the wet grass. Gabriella stopped. Kaosky kept on walking until he saw the carcass, splayed inelegantly, the head at some impossible twisted angle, half gnawed. He picked it up.

“Who would do that?”

“Mink,” said Kaosky. “See the two teeth marks here in the neck. Puncture wounds.”

“Poor Puffin. My favorite. Poor thing. What can we do?”

“We’ll have to find it. It’s probably not far from here. They don’t go far from their lairs.”

“Will you shoot it?”

“I’ll have to.”

Gabriella started crying.

“Why can’t you keep them in?”

“There’s no keeping them in, Gabriella. They like to roam. They’re usually okay. Once in awhile a predator gets one of them. We’ll leave Puffin here. She’ll be back for the rest.”

Gabriella saw the women approaching down the road. Still crying, her shoulders convulsing as she walked away, she went to find them. Kaosky could hear them talking, their chatter stop as Gabriella gave out her story. He looked around the back by the scrub. After knocking around, poking with his boots down towards the bottom of the hill, he saw a half rotten plywood scrap in the grass and ferns, covered by bittersweet roots next to the crumbled, old stone wall. When he lifted one corner he saw the wriggling, fuzzy bodies, four of them lined up like sausages in a hollow, their eyes still unopened. He put the wood back. This was where she was coming back to, having set up shop near the best food source, their flock of New Hampshire Reds. He stomped back to the house. The women were still in the driveway, conferring on the precise way to leave off for another week. Kaosky slipped in the back door and reached for the box on the highest shelf of the tools. He dragged it down and began cleaning the gun, the .22 Mark III he kept for just this purpose. Sibyl opened the door from the kitchen.

“We’re eating breakfast. Do you want some?”

“Sure.”

He refilled the coffee maker while Gabriella buttered toast, turning her face away from the table, ashamed of her tears. Sibyl chatted to both of them with more news from the walk, attempting to distract.

"Allison wants to buy a new car."

“Who’s Allison?” asked Kaosky.

“You know. Jane’s daughter, the one who lives in Keene.”

“The one who's married to the sadist?”

“No, that’s someone else. She’s living with a boy. Hes also a musician.”

“Oh, right. The Arab kid who plays the violin.”

“That’s right. She wants to buy a new car. If you know anybody selling.”

“I’ll keep my ears open.”

Jonah wandered in, rubbing his eyes, his hair rising above his head like a banner of dissolution.

“Keep your ears opened. Keep your eyes peeled. We need to update these tropes, Dad,” said Jonah.

“Okay, college guy,” said Kaosky. Jonah laughed. The coffee maker boiled.

“Do you want some?” he asked Jonah.

“I’ll make my own.”

“No, no. You have this one.”

“Why is Gabriella crying,” asked Jonah, concerned. Sibyl turned from the stove to look at Gabriella seated now at the table, Jonah standing at the side. Her look warned them all not to make light of the sadness on Gabriella’s face. Gabriella smiled.

“I’m not crying,” she said.

“You were,” said Kaosky. “Go ahead, tell Jonah what happened.”

“She doesn’t want to talk about it,” said Sibyll.

“She was about to,” said Kaosky.

“Why do you feel you have a right to tell people what to do?” said Jonah.

“Wow. I thought I was doing Gabby a favor. That’s all,” said Kaosky, feeling cornered unexpectedly. Gabby was glaring at him.

“I don’t feel like talking about it,” she said.

“Well, it might help you,” said Kaosky. “We’re here to help. It’s good to communicate.”

“That’s just another trope, Dad. It’s not always good,” said Jonah.

“Oh, yes it is. It’s always good,” said Kaosky. “Here’s your coffee,” he said, handing Jonah the cup. “I’m going back out to the tool shed.” He slammed the door, without meaning to. The silence in the house was deafening.

Kaosky finished cleaning the gun. He went out to the store for milk. He’d used the last for his coffee. Jonah drank it black. Sibyl was in the back yard with the three of them. They were all laughing now. It was better without him, Kaosky concluded. He felt implicated in any wrongdoing. It was not clear who had been aggrieved or if there was any injury done, even. Yet he felt disappointment like bittersweet roots overgrowing his heart. He couldn’t tell exactly why. With reflection came the call for action, though. He was clear about that. Doing nothing was even worse than accepting his role in the pain. He would sever the serpent’s head even if it meant slashing at his own foot.

Mallory Shites was standing in line ahead of him with a pack of beer. He was heading out for stripers, most likely, pulling the new boat behind the truck. Kaosky had seen the boat in the parking lot and known it was his. He didn’t know Shites that well but had talked to him a couple of times at town meeting through the years. Now they were going to the SB2 system and there would be no more town meetings, just a vote. Times were changing and there was no more need of that face-to-face any more. The people had judged. Kaosky thought it was a mistake but was secretly glad, when he examined his heart, that he would not be required to attend the annual town meeting by Sibyl any longer. At some point democracy was no longer worth being nagged about.

Shites’s hair was getting gray. He felt better looking at Shites’s back and knowing that there was solidarity built into the layout of the space-time matrix. He’d seen Shites at the transfer station in the winter at some point and thought about asking if he needed help later in the summer. He was a builder, Shites Fine Homes it said along the sides of the truck, and business had been picking up, it was said, with Trump. He didn’t know if it was true, wasn’t interested any more, but stood there waiting for Shites to sense his presence behind him in line, holding the milk awkwardly in one hand, not sure how to hold it, to dangle it or clutch it to his body. He was sure there was a choice there to be made. People were streaming steadily into the store, the only store for miles until you got to Branford with the Market Basket, about fifteen miles down the state highway. Some were wearing shorts and some of them flip-flops as if it were July. Finally, he plopped the milk jug on the belt with relief that he had survived the uncertainty. The girl cashier had nice eyes. It was inappropriate of course, but he couldn’t help noticing. She rung up Shites’s twelve-pack carton of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. Shites never shifted his weight with unease, just removed his wallet from his back pocket with a slight wriggle, shifting the mass of the gluteus just enough for extraction and counting out crisp ten dollar bills with his surprisingly well-manicured fingers. There were advantages to being overweight, thought Kaosky. Shites turned and glared at Kaosky’s milk jug as if reading his mind. Kaosky was looking away, trying to catch the cashier's eye.

“Have a good day,” said the cashier. Shites grunted.

Outside in the parking lot, Kaosky turned and studied the angle of the sun. It was higher up towards the north then it had been. The needle was still climbing and would for another several weeks until the nose leveled off. Like the bees, the planet’s human layer was buzzing. He was momentarily disoriented when he heard the crunch of truck tires on the gravel. It was Shites pulling the boat around toward the exit. Kaosky whirled and stared through the windshield. Shites rolled down the window on the driver’s side.

“Are you all right?” asked Shites, his voice a servile, insincere pitch above what Kaosky had expected. But the face was a pleasant, grizzled sort of public persona.

“Just getting my bearings. Did they do something to the parking lot recently?” asked Kaosky.

“Yeah, they expanded it last fall,” said Shites, yelling to be heard above the truck’s idle.

“Oh, that must be it.”

“That must be it. Yeah,” said Shites, gunning the engine.

“Either that or the sky's falling,” said Kaosky, grinning.

‘The sky’s not falling, sir. Take it easy.”

Shites’s eyes burned with a momentary knowledge of the fact that Kaosky was jealous and wanted to go fishing, too, along with pleasure that he’d gotten away with calling him sir. But he just rammed his foot on the gas in first gear and the truck climbed up the parking lot entrance towards Route 124, pulling the 20 foot skiff with the swivel seats in the stern and the plexiglass wheelhouse behind it.

At home nobody was home. There was a note on the kitchen table.

Weve (sic) gone up to see whats (sic)in the woods.

It was in the handwriting of one of the girls. Kaosky could not tell theirs apart. He put the milk in the refrigerator. After closing the door he just listened for a moment to see if it was real. The windows in the house were all closed. They had yet to remove the caulking they put on every winter. He liked the way the house was kept shaded by the budding trees in the spring and silent from the road by the closed windows, a locked-in world all to himself. It was nice to have a momentary reprieve from the constant entanglement. A conscious effort to order his own thoughts would have been right, but panic set in at the mountain looming in his mind, the seismic pools of undigested forks in the road not taken. There was a to-do list on his desk he’d drawn up months ago. He sat down and read through it. Number one on the list was “make an effort to cultivate relationships.” It was so easy for him now to coast that it sometimes worked to his detriment and eventual unbalance. He needed to get out more, force himself to deal positively with the grey areas of people close to him, which meant more readiness to reconcile to self-abasement. How much more pleasant alone where the retaining walls held back the madness, the buzz saw of reprisals that waited and whined for not having done what was necessary when it was necessary to do so for the world, having lost its grip on the delusions of the old order and not yet established any accounting for any future.

The peepers quieted when he approached the woods. At the stone wall he climbed down and watched his step, looking to avoid the mud where the melting snow was still seeping to its eventual level. There was an old marker, a surveyor’s post and an old fence line of barbed wire sticking to the trunk of a hemlock. He cut across the almost invisible  flow of water, balancing on moss covered roots. Once on the other side, he climbed diagonally along the westward sloping hill through the second growth hemlock and the stands of hardwood growing up in the spotty sun. Some idea overtook him. He didn't want to be reunited. Or rather he did, but would work against his own interests, choose to be unpredictable because well, why not? He heard their voices and the dog barking. Gabriella and Hope were fighting each other in a mock stick battle, and Jonah was laughing, instigating. He waited behind a tree, and the dog raced by without sensing him and turned, smelling something. Kaosky froze, hoping he would not give away his location. The dog raced on through the undergrowth, trying to catch up with the rest of them. They were on their way to the beaver pond. It used to be more readily accessible from the road, but now they had to take this back way with the new houses that had gone up in the last five years. Kaosky circled behind, keeping them in his sights. He loved them with a painful recognition that they were more than just the children and wife in his life. They were a root and a branch, and more than that, they were life and he, by standing apart, was just nothing, a spark of recognition that did not exist in this vacuum that he’d created. He was part of the woods, and they were going on without him, a laughing, crying, messy flow of humans existing together and therefore existing at all. He understood the confusion and the longing and the evil in the heart of a lone wolf. He watched his children playing and his wife. He was most amazed by Sibyl. He couldn’t help remembering her as a timid, young girl and now her low voice was watchful and wise in ways that shamed him. He stayed and watched them play along the bank of the pond, the beaver dam cloaked by the woods behind them in the distance. In the winters of the past they had skated out here and his had been the big steps, the daring steps out onto the frozen waste. Now he just remembered, and his heart, he feared, was becoming like his memory, harder and harder to prime.