Nathaniel's Got the Blues

by David L Heaney

  He swung around to face Nathaniel, whose tone immediately changed. Apologetically Nathaniel started again. “Mr. Leach, I fear I’m just too—”

  “I will not hear it!” Mr. Leach scolded, wagging his small paw finger in Nathaniel’s face. “I know you’re going to tell me you’re just too old, and that, old chap, is utter nonsense! The most important lessons life has to teach are reserved for your … your … maturest years.” He grinned at Nathaniel. “All this lesson-learning business is an intensely personal affair, and while company is always nice, the fact is the lessons are yours to learn alone. Understand?”

  Nathaniel meekly shrugged and answered, “Look at me.” He thrust his front paws out plaintively. “I am an old rat. Too old to be fussing with the fantasies and aspirations that may hold the young’s attention.”

  “No, Nathaniel. This is your time, your season. You’re restless and agitated, all stirred up, old man. Perfect conditions for learning the big things, mate.”

  Then, dismissively waving away any further objections, he continued. “Now, lastly, you need not go search for anything. It will all come to you. Once it does, then your job is to engage and extract … engage and extract. Simple, huh? Live your life. Engage with your life. Then extract the lessons life wants to teach you. You have the equipment to accomplish this, old boy. Use your noodle!” He tapped Nathaniel on the head playfully with his paw.

  “Hmm. Right.” Nathaniel offered a tentative agreement. “Yes … I’ll be engaging and extracting, Mr. Leach,” he said, offering the old possum an awkward smile.

  “Good! I shall be keeping an eye on you.” Mr. Leach was clearly done with their visit and turned to leave. Just then he stopped and looked over his shoulder. “Engage and extract, Nathaniel. Engage and extract! Bye-bye now.”

  Nathaniel watched Mr. Leach slowly wander along the two-by-four that ran across the top of the fence, until he finally disappeared into the shrubs.

  Nathaniel suddenly became aware of how exhausted and deflated he felt. Between his dark moods, his irritability and impatience with Birgit, and his encounter with Mr. Leach, he just wanted to go home and enjoy a nap. He glanced one way, then the other. He was on the fence next to the home where his old friend Niles had lived … a place he had been to many times, yet it now felt strange. He cautiously made his way down from the fence, feeling just plain “old” in spite of how Mr. Leach had sought to soften this reality.

  Soon enough, Nathaniel was back home, explaining to Birgit that he was sorry for being impatient with her but simply needed to rest a bit before discussing his encounter with Mr. Leach.

  “Rest, rest. Yes, of course, Nathaniel.” She busied herself fluffing their bed.

  Nathaniel roiled around in the nest to get comfortable and then lay there, tired but unable to sleep. Honestly, he was not entirely certain that everything Mr. Leach had offered was spot on. Yes, Mr. Leach was a “truth talker,” even if his explanations of everything seemed impossibly obscure, so Nathaniel decided it was unwise to dismiss his comments, and he looked a little more carefully at this engage-and-extract business.

  He laughed, commenting to no one, “Leave it to Mr. Leach. Engage and extract.” He shook his head and began to grow tired. He’d have to ponder this later. “Hmm. Maybe there is a song in this,” he said aloud—his final thought before he drifted off to sleep.

  3

  The weather may have seemed remarkably consistent to non-native Southern Californians, but those who lived here were attuned to the subtle seasonal changes. In fact, the weather was quite variable, depending on, for example, your proximity to the ocean or mountains, which had an impact on the stability of the temperature. It could be warm at the ocean and cold in the hills, even just the handful of miles inland from the ocean where Salvador’s home was located. And sometimes even the hottest days turned icy cold after the sun went down. Rats and farmers both knew that a freeze could ruin the fruit crops.

  This morning the weather was cool, the sky was blue and cloudless, and the air clear. Nathaniel thought it a perfect day to, as Mr. Leach had explained, “engage and extract” the lessons life intended to teach him. Mr. Leach had assured him he need not do anything in particular. “Go live your life,” he’d said.

  Fine, he thought. I will.

  “Look at you out of bed so early!” Birgit looked pleasantly surprised to see Nathaniel up and alert rather than moping about, looking lost.

  “I’m testing out Mr. Leach’s counsel,” he explained.

  “Oh, yes!” she said enthusiastically. “Carpe diem!” Birgit exclaimed, shaking her fist. “Seize your life!” she said eagerly.

  “No, Birgit. I told you. Engage and extract. Not carpe diem.” Nathaniel rolled his eyes and smiled at his wife.

  “Same thing,” she said, busying herself with fluffing up the leaves and other detritus that their bed was composed of.

  “I am going to go walking, Birgit, and I am going to engage with life and extract from it the lessons it has to teach me—no, the lessons it wants to teach me. And I will be home …” Nathaniel thought for a moment. He wanted to come home with some bit of wisdom that would impress Birgit and reinforce his belief that he was on the right track. “Let’s just say that I’ll be home when I have something, uh … uh … something worthwhile, something perhaps profound that will tumble from my tongue.”

  He smirked and eyed Birgit a moment to gauge her reaction to his remark.

  Birgit nodded curtly but then did so once again, more deliberately, attempting to show that she was supportive, that she understood and would be patient. “Life’s lessons are calling you, husband,” she said dramatically. “And who knows where these lessons may call you? But, Nathaniel, you must go! I’ll … well, you know … I’ll be here waiting for you.” Then Birgit grinned at her husband.

  “Oh, pshaw, Birgit! I’ll be home later this afternoon, more than likely. But I will tell you this: I plan to know a little bit more about life than I seem to know now!”

  He kissed Birgit goodbye, then climbed down the branches of the shrubs and made his way into Salvador’s orchard, where he had a fine breakfast before he chose a direction and began walking. Walking along, he was attentive to the beautiful day, the clarity of the air, the lively colors, and the unpredictable warm winds that blew in from across the desert, which all creatures knew and were wary about.

  The devil winds, or Santa Ana winds, were temperamental, blowing one moment warm and gently but often packing powerful and even ferocious gusts, able to knock over big rigs or create sandstorms. In a few days, they could dry out everything in their path, leaving a trail of shriveled shrubs and grasses, creating a dangerous wildfire hazard. Some creatures became restless and unsettled when the winds blew. And others told stories of how the winds had driven some creatures crazy. He thought for a moment about the wind and how it affected the way some creatures felt, and wondered if there was a reason to engage with this thought, then laughed aloud at the notion.

  Life in the rural areas of eastern San Diego was quite different from the densely populated urban areas that were located a short distance away. The rural areas were marked by rolling hills, covered with inhospitable thorny shrubs and wild grasses. Some people kept horses and other farm animals. But nearly everybody had a garden or an orchard that demonstrated the life-giving magic adding a little water could produce in this arid place. That magic included avocados, peaches, plums, apricots, and grapes that farmers hoped would end up on the dinner tables of urban homeowners as wine and make them rich. As Nathaniel surveyed the landscape, he was reminded that he really had little to complain about. For a fruit rat, this was paradise, he thought as he looked over the selection of fruits easily available to him whenever he wished.

  Nathaniel walked along a dusty dirt road that was intersected by what appeared to be a long and still-dustier driveway marked by a faded green mailbox on a post with a name, McCorkle, stencil
ed in white on each side of it. Nathaniel saw that the driveway wound up a hill where at the top stood a farmhouse, a barn, and several outbuildings in various states of disrepair. The sun was warm, and the mild but persistent Santa Ana winds periodically surprised him by gusting hard enough to topple him. This was such a strange time of the year, when the hot winds dried everything up during the day, and the evenings were often cold enough to freeze water into ice.

  Even after all his protestations, he found that the walk wasn’t really that bad. He tried to remember the last time he’d felt as relaxed as he did at this moment. “It’s not that I’m feeling good,” he said aloud, as if trying to explain this unusual mental state. “But I’m not feeling bad,” he added cautiously. And that, he reluctantly admitted to himself, was a welcome improvement. As he contemplated this rather unique new feeling, he considered the words of Mr. Leach. “Engage and extract.” OK, OK. He got that. But this business of lesson learning and how it must be done individually just didn’t sit comfortably with Nathaniel. So he continued up the dusty driveway.

  Walking up the hill, he began to sing softly.

  I have to share my doubt, sir,

  from something in a speech.

  Regrettably, it came from

  the mouth of Mr. Leach.

  But he’s the wisest one I know,

  oh yeah, the wisest one I know,

  the wisest one I know,

  so I can’t just let it go.

  He said that all life’s lessons

  are tailored to your heart.

  If you want to know the truth in life,

  you better get a start,

  because a lesson must be yours,

  yes, a lesson you can’t shirk.

  A lesson can’t be yours

  when someone else has

  done the work.

  The singing was a sort of oasis where his thoughts didn’t tyrannize him. Instead, he could spit out his angry and despairing feelings in song, and they offered a respite from compulsive thoughts that troubled him. He found that music allowed him to hold conflicting thoughts in a strange sort of fashion, so a song could be both happy and sad, and he liked that, because in his mind that was how life was—filled with conflicting emotions at the same time. It offered a peculiar kind of harmony for his thinking. Harmony—the thought had not even occurred to him of harmony’s musical connotation. Then, as if struck by a revelation, he smiled, uttering, “That’s perfect. My songs harmonize my thoughts.”

  Just then Nathaniel heard rustling noises coming from a collection of tufted grasses located just ahead, off the dirt road. He held very still, inclining his head even more to the right than his injured ear demanded, to get a fix on the sound, and determined the rustling was likely skittering noises that suggested small but busy animals. Nathaniel listened for a few moments to what he believed were the sounds of an undoubtedly industrious group of some sort. He kept listening and inching forward, determined to locate the source of all this busyness. He crouched low to the ground and stealthily slipped through the tufts of grass, following the sounds, until just a few feet ahead of him, there appeared a large number of very busy mice.

  He stepped back cautiously and watched while he remained hidden by the tall grass. He had heard about mice from his friends but had never actually seen one himself. Indeed, one of Nathaniel’s friends claimed to have eaten a small mouse, stating it was very delicious. But that was Elwood, and nobody thought much of Elwood. It was “friends” like Elwood who had encouraged him and Birgit to live a more reclusive existence. And now, here they were. Mice, he thought. Real mice!

  Nathaniel marveled at these tiny creatures, which in many ways looked much like a smaller version of himself. He watched and considered them for a moment—they were cute and so industrious, each seeming to engage in some task. Mothers were caring for their pups, and the younger ones were pulling bits and pieces from the collection of nests in their colony and carrying them away from the nest and toward the barn a short way off.

  “What in the world are they doing?” he wondered aloud, causing the whole operation to suddenly stand still as if frozen in place. Nathaniel held his breath and dared not move, for fear of exposing his presence. All the creatures seemed to be focused on determining what the sound of Nathaniel’s voice might have been. When the newborn pups started squealing, the momentary spell that had fallen upon the community lifted, and everyone returned to their activities.

  Nathaniel took a deep breath and slowly and very quietly let it go. This was definitely a place he wanted to visit again. He would return home and tell Birgit about these curious tiny versions of themselves. He wanted to laugh at the utter absurdity of his newfound fascination but stifled it as he began quietly backing away from the colony and moving toward the road.

  That evening, Birgit assured him that the creatures he described certainly must have been mice.

  “Why would you bother with them? A colony of pathetic little mice,” she asked, sounding as if she were chastising a child, Nathaniel thought. “I thought you were taking the advice of Mr. Leach and going on a quest or some sort of journey, or whatever you call it. I thought you were seeking to understand the important lessons of life. Why are you wasting your time stalking a bunch of inferior creatures like these silly mice? It’s kind of creepy, if you ask me.”

  He wished Birgit hadn’t framed it that way. “Mr. Leach didn’t tell me to do one thing or another. He said I should just live my life, engage with it, and I will learn the lessons that life wants me to learn.” Nathaniel spoke somewhat apologetically but with a hint of defiance in his voice to compensate for the embarrassment he felt.

  “Nathaniel,” she began, “I didn’t mean to—”

  Nathaniel interrupted her to quickly add, “But, Birgit … engagement is not enough. The lessons to be learned … well, they must be extracted from the experience!”

  “Oh, and what does that mean?” Birgit regarded Nathaniel as if he were a lost child, but then added as she shook her head, “I know you’ll discover what all this means. It will take a little time. I understand.”

  Nathaniel smiled and pushed himself up close against her ample figure, and they snuggled close together, watching the sun set before settling into their nest for the night.

  4

  “Why would you want to go back to look at a bunch of mice again?” Birgit complained as Nathaniel readied him-self to leave for another day of “engaging and extracting,” as he had labeled his outings.

  “Honestly, I thought you had understood last night, and yet here we go again! Look, I don’t really have an explanation, Birgit. I guess I find them interesting to watch. Isn’t that all right? I wonder if I might get to know them,” he reflected rhetorically.

  “Know them?” Birgit looked incredulously at her husband, who appeared startled. “We moved away from others because you liked being alone.”

  “Wait, wait. That’s not entirely true.”

  She stared at him, still more astonished.

  “I always wanted your company.” Nathaniel gave her an affectionate kiss on her ear. “I’m off now. Engage and extract. How was it that Mr. Leach described it? Engage and ex-tri-cate! Ha!”

  Birgit laughed. “That raccoon is just a crazy old eccentric.”

  “Birgit! He isn’t a raccoon. He’s a possum. Now, please!” He stopped for a moment to compose himself, taking a few deep breaths before continuing. “He is eccentric. Yes, he is eccentric. He’s kind of quirky. But I suppose that’s partly why I have missed him these past few years,” he said wistfully, climbing down the shrub leaning up against the house. “Yes, he’s quirky all right. But he is also wise. Very wise!” Nathaniel called back up to Birgit, but she did not answer. Perhaps she just hadn’t heard him.

  As always, Nathaniel nibbled on some of the fruit he found beneath the trees in the orchard before he was off. The ground
under the fruit trees was sprinkled with fruit that the hot winds had blown from their branches. The winds today were particularly strong, and gusts caused Nathaniel to grab hold of whatever he could to keep from being blown over. It always seemed to him that these desert winds made the whole world a little crazier. The dust blew into your eyes, making it difficult to see. Even when you could see, your eyes hurt and were red and dried out. Most any creature you encountered was irritable and easily provoked. Trash blew this way and that, tumbling down the road or striking you with a body blow as you leaned into the wind and moved forward. The hot winds disturbed the general sensation of life as peaceful, he considered. Maybe that was why it bothered others as he now decided it did him.

  The dusty road led to the driveway near the farmhouse where the mice were encamped. It took Nathaniel until midday to find what looked so different in a windstorm. The dirt roads that ran through the grassy and shrub-covered hills was a challenge for him to negotiate. Pushing forward, then taking his bearings to be certain he was headed in the right direction, he noted the winds were growing still stronger and lifting clods of dirt and spraying sand that stung as it pricked his face and irritated his lungs. Now coughing and barely able to see more than a few feet before him, he cautiously pushed forward.

  When he came to the entrance of what he believed was the driveway to the farm, he stopped a moment and tried to recall any landmarks from his previous visit. That was when he smelled it. Nathaniel sniffed the air, instinctively standing on his hind legs to get even a little bit higher. Smoke. He was certain it was smoke. Then, as the wind shifted, so did the smell. He had begun the arduous trek up the driveway, fighting the stinging dirt and sand, when the smell and presence of smoke quickly became overwhelming, suggesting he was moving closer to its source, which had to be a fire. Gray-black clouds of smoke enveloped Nathaniel, making it still more difficult to see and breathe. He was becoming more confused and disoriented as the smoke, sand, and dust almost blocked out the sun itself. The mouse colony was just a little bit further up the hill, he thought. If I can just get up to the mouse colony … And then, with the smoke and the dust and the sand swirling about him, he laughed and wondered why in the world it mattered if he got to the mouse colony. What were they going to do for him by way of offering refuge? Unlikely they would do anything! Yet “One step at a time,” he told himself, and kept heading up the drive.