by Eddie Austin
Back at the fire, Nathan is working at the kettle. There is a sense of urgency as I watch his hands, shaking, move the cubes of meat and chunks of kidney to the pot.
Slow and low. Cook in a little water, and add the rest later. I can see that he has produced a couple of cans of condensed soup from somewhere to add once it gets going. In the meantime, I stake some meat on sticks, like kabobs, and set them at an angle towards the fire.
Nathan speaks up, “I hope you are hungry.”
I smile, in passing. “Are you kidding?”
I walk out into the trees and pick a bunch of pears, pausing to inspect some of my old traps along the way before returning. By this time, the kettle is steaming nicely, and Nathan has added the cans of soup. I have become used to bland food, and find the smell intense; it excites my senses.
Nathan asks for salt and twine, so I go into the barn and rummage around a bit. My salt supply is low, so I remind myself to make sure it is on my shopping list. The twine is rolled up on a thin spool in my workshop. I grab this also.
When I return to the fire, Nathan has a long green stick, which he is whittling to a point. He ties the twine to the skinny end, rolls out about three feet and then cuts it. The other end of the twine he ties to the deer leg. I watch; curious as to what he is about.
He judges the distance from the fire to the leg and then when he is satisfied he drives the sharp end into the ground. The leg swings lazily beside the hot coals. He reaches out and begins to wind up the leg, spinning it until the line begins to kink. He releases it, and it spins all the way around the other way, stops and spins back. He looks up at me and grins.
“Rotisserie. Do you have a platter to catch the juice?”
Again, I retreat to the barn. There is an old china platter with a blue pheasant painted onto it. Miraculously, it has survived the hailstorm of 7.62’s. It will do.
Nathan stirs the kettle, grabs one of the skewers, and then sits.
I set the platter underneath the spinning leg, feeling the intense heat of the fire on my exposed hands. I grab a skewer as well and walk away from the fire, pulling a chair over next to Nathan’s. I take a bite and remark:
“There is no way we can eat all of this. Maybe I’ll drive some over to town and see if they want any.”
“Speak for yourself. I’m hungry as hell.”
We sit for some time, eating skewers.
By now it is almost noon. Having skipped any kind of morning meal, I have attacked the skewers hungrily. Nathan is more delicate, I notice, but he is on his second skewer before I am.
“So, how long do we cook the stew and the rest of it?”
He stares intently at the fire. “Oh, the leg, a few hours at least, and the same for the stew. It’s best to take your time with this stuff. Are there any spices in there?” He jerks his head back toward the barn.
“I don’t keep a big supply. There are some herbs growing around the side of the barn. Check it out if you want, just don’t pick anything from out back. Those ones grew out of the zombie mess I told you about.”
He nods, “Right, that would put me off my appetite, too. You know, Bill and I took a cooking class once, years ago. I remember him saying he was going to grow some herbs. I wonder what’s survived?”
“Go see. I’ll fetch us some pear hooch, if you’re feeling thirsty?”
He stands up and tosses the used skewers into the fire. “Perfect! We’ll have a proper feast to celebrate your recovery. How is the leg, by the way?”
It still aches some, but I am pretty sure I will conquer the infection; I tell him, “Just great, you should try getting bit sometime; does wonders for the soul.”
He waves me off and disappears around the side of the barn, his hand resting on the handle of his old service revolver, head looking left and right. I don’t sense any zombies, but I’m not going to tell him about that, yet. It seems too difficult to explain.
I go down into the cellar and grab an armload of the good stuff, jars clinking together merrily. The shelves are emptying fast, but with some hard work and a bit of luck, I will be replenishing my supply soon. I glance up where the strange fluid had clung, mercury-like, to the ceiling. There is still a stain, but it looks dry and cracked. I climb back upstairs and shut the trap door.
Nathan is back and busy with a small pile of leaves and a dirty-looking clump. He seems excited.
“Kyle, look, garlic! And some parsley. Things are shaping up.”
“You found all that?”
“Yeah, right next to a patch of marijuana that would’ve sent you packing in the old days. What? Are you selling that stuff?”
I laugh, “Oh, is that what that is? I guess I’m busted.”
He chuckles, “Well, I won’t turn you in. Maybe one of these years, I’ll need some for glaucoma—that’ll be the day.”
“Yeah, well, until that day.” I hand a jar over to him. He unscrews the lid and takes a sniff.
“What is this stuff?”
“I press the pears and let the juice sit in the cellar. I figured out how to get it to ferment. It’s kind of like prison-style toilet wine. Once you cook off some of the water it gets stronger, and then back to the cellar it goes. Take a sip. It’s kind of sour, but maybe better than you’d think.”
He sips it and gives me a level look, “Kyle, you’re too modest. This stuff is great.”
“Thanks, drink up.”
So we sit, the sun beating down on us, the smell of smoke stinging my nose, and wafting over, making our eyes water. The heat of the fire adds to the general intensity of it all, and sweat and booze flow.
Nathan tosses a couple cloves of garlic into the stew, then crushes another, dropping it onto the platter. He adds some of the parsley as well. It wilts quickly, as juices drip down onto it. He pulls out a spoon, and ladled some of the mixture back over the leg, winding it up again. He looks over his shoulder at me.
“Save a cup of that hooch. We’ll use it to deglaze this platter and have a nice au jous for the meat.”
“Uh, ok.” I say, sipping from my jar and only half listening, “you sound like you know what you’re doing.”
And so, a rhythm is established. We duel with the jars. He sips, I follow, and soon, we are both drunk. He winds the leg, stirs the pot, and tells me about cooking. I think he is just happy to have someone to talk to.
As dusk approaches, we try the stew. It is great; meaty and thick. The bits of vegetable in the stew are almost unrecognizable; a bit of corn here, a bean there, but they add their essence all the same.
I wash out the glass bowls at the pump after our first course, and watch as Nathan serves the leg. He cuts it down and holds the bone with an old cloth to keep from burning his hand. With the hunting knife, he slices off thin slabs of meat, still rare near the bone, and arranges them on the platter in an overlapping circle. When he is done, there is a heap of meat, and he is holding only a bone. The pan drippings, now a thick and dark glaze, are poured over the whole mess.
I have to remark, “That’s incredible.”
“You haven’t tasted it yet.”
And, it is good!
Either he has a hollow leg, or an extra stomach, for we clean the platter between the two of us. I’ve never seen someone eat like that. I cover the kettle of stew and set it off to the side so it won’t burn. Sated, we sit watching the last of the fire and sipping cold water now, from empty hooch jars.
I light another of the old cigarettes and sigh, “Thanks for cooking man, that was phenomenal.”
“You’re welcome.” He glances at the cigarette. “You’re just full of bad habits, aren’t you?”
“We all have to go sometime.”
He turns then, and unbuttons his shirt, pulling it open so I can see his chest. A wicked scar runs from between his collarbone and down his sternum.
“I used to smoke. Triple bypass cured that. Be best to remember, there’s no more doctors around to do this.”
I cringe and sit up. “Shit.”
> He nods, “Yeah, you said it.”
A pause, he turns back to the fire and his hands fall to his lap. He speaks, “You got a deck of cards?”
I nod. He looked around the darkening yard nervously.
“You want to move inside and play a few hands of rummy?”
“It’s been awhile. Can you teach me?”
“Sure.”
“Then, let’s play cards.”
I grab my drink, and he grabs the cooling kettle, setting it inside the door in the entryway to the barn. He follows me into the big room, looking around appreciatively. I ready a lamp for later, hanging it from a beam that runs over the table and then clear a spot for us to play on. Nathan spies the soap.
“You make this?”
“Yeah, take a couple bars with you if you like.”
“I will. Thanks.”
I set up some chairs and I find the cards, dust covered, on an old junk shelf out back. He explains the game, and I pick it up pretty quickly. It is a lot more fun than I remember, or perhaps it is the company. Some time later, I light the lamp. The sway of the light casts strange shadows, black tongues licking out from beneath our chairs, and flicking back. Neither of us pick up our hands. I light another cigarette; only five left, and Nathan looks off into his own mind. He speaks suddenly, without moving his eyes or changing expression.
“Do you think much of death, son?”
“Well, we’re kind of surrounded by it, aren’t we?”
“No, I mean your own death?”
I think for a moment, but he continues before I can answer. The dim light from the lamp has settled about his shoulders, muted by the cigarette haze. His eyes are deeply shadowed, face cast with dark lines. I listen.
“I remember the first time I saw death, as a boy. This was years ago, back in North Carolina—a different place even from what you might think you know.
“I was an industrious kid, maybe nine years old. I had always worked at my grandparent’s store, or for myself. I used to fish catfish out of the town sewer outtake. They were thickest there; and I’d sell them to the blacks on the outskirts of town, for cheap sure, but it was a fortune to me. I saved every nickel.
“This one day, I was walking back to my grandparent’s place, down an old lane, hardly traveled at all. I saw a form up ahead in the road. I walked up and when I got close I saw that it was a boy about my age, but I didn’t know him. He was lying on his side next to a pile of burnt excrement.
“I guess it was his, I don’t know why he was trying to burn it. Next to his hand was an empty bottle of rubbing alcohol. He’d drank the whole thing. Stupid.
“I didn’t run home. I just stood there looking at him for a long time. He looked peaceful. It’s funny, the things you remember, and the things you forget.”
His voice trails off, and after a few minutes, I realize he is asleep. He won’t wake up, so I decide to carry him over to the couch. I am shocked when I lift him. I thought he’d be heavier, but he is so light.
I turn down the lamp after I cover him, and retreat to my bed up in the loft. My head is spinning from the drink, and I don’t remember getting to bed or falling asleep.
⃰ ⃰ ⃰
When I wake up the next morning, Nathan is gone. He has folded the blanket and left it on the couch. There is a note thanking me for the game of cards and for dinner. It also says to stop by for eggs when I run out.
Chapter 21
I resolve myself to get some serious work done this day. I breakfast with the remaining stew, cold, but almost as tasty as the day before. I rinse the kettle and set it to boil on the fire.
Back in the workshop, sunlight streams in through the window and reflects off the water still left in the tub, casting ghostly tiger stripes on the ceiling and the far wall.
I have forgotten to drain the tub after my bath the other day. I reach my arm in, through the lukewarm water, up to my elbow, and pull the plug. The drain gurgles, and I hear the cascade of water draining out back.
I cross over to the great form of the cider press and pull off the sheet that covers it. I turn the old brass crank wheel and it moves smoothly, forcing the upper plate to lift, creating a space to set the fruit for pressing. I wipe it out briskly, cleaning out dust and a couple of scrap flaps of pear skin.
I gather glass jars, which I possess in multitude, and begin to boil them in the large kettle outside. I fish them out one at a time with a thin stick and set them upside down to dry. I leave the lids for later since they are harder to get out of the water and can be dumped out when I need them.
I pause from the hot work and look up at the blazing blue mackerel sky. I noticed the night before that the moon is waxing, and that means the trip out to the desert will come soon.
I start to think about the reasons for the trip as I walk around the farm, but then soon get distracted by the task of collecting the empty white five-gallon buckets. I want ten of these full of fruit before I begin to work the press. There always seems to be an abundance of buckets as they have been used for a variety of tasks. Bill collected them over many years, buying detergent in bulk. Who uses that much detergent?
With all the initial prep work done, I decide to sit by the fire and smoke a bowl before I start picking the pears. It is pretty monotonous work, and a nice high is called for. I produce my old glass pipe and a pretty tip-top bud that I have been saving. It is smaller than my thumb, but just. It shines an incredible green, almost neon, with hairs the color of autumn.
I hold it in front of my eyes and look at the crystals of THC; thick and bristly like frost. I pick off bits from the bud and load them into the pipe until all I hold is a thin stem. My fingers stick to one another now and smell of evergreen.
After the past few days, and being without for the longest stretch I can remember, well, I am looking forward to this moment.
I take a light pull on the pipe, really just to taste the stuff, and exhale a thin line of smoke toward the fire. It tastes like Wisconsin, I think; deep and dank, and full of trees. The thought makes no sense, even to myself.
The next pull on the pipe is deeper, and produces a creamy yellowed smoke, thick and burning my throat. I fight the urge to cough, but loose. A huge dragon billow blows into the sky from my lips. My head sags back, and I cough until I think my eyes might bleed.
I zone. And zone. Zone further. Then, an inner dialogue begins. Who am I? Ha, ha… no really. What am I doing here sitting by this fire surrounded by empty jars?
My ears ring; not with a high tone, but an almost imperceivable bass. It makes my eyes water. Panic thoughts. Am I trying to kill myself? What is going on?
My heart ticks in my chest like a machine gun. My palms are cold and sweaty. Tingling sensations begin at my fingers and move up my arms, across my back, and up to my head which now feels top-heavy.
Oh god. Oh god. Oh, God. Oh, GOD!
I need a drink of water, no! I need to urinate. I walk over to the wall of this barn and pulled out my dick. A pitiful splash of piss; nothing.
What’s wrong?
I started walking around the barn and out to the trees. Being with the trees will calm me. A thought strikes me. Why don’t I sense any zombies?
I walk back to the fire; the effort making my heart tick faster. I sit. Feel uncomfortable. Zombies?
I stand. I’ve had enough of this, thanks.
I decide to call it quits for the day.
I leave everything as it is and crawl up to bed. I try to sleep, but I am wide awake and feel like I’ll forget to breathe if I don’t... what?
I stand. This is serious. And. It isn’t going away.
I grab my .38 and belt it on. They are around somewhere, need protection. I don’t think I will hurt myself, wait, why am I thinking about hurting myself? I climb down from the loft.
One more thing to try.
Desperately, I climb down into the cellar and start grabbing jars of hooch. Four. I carry them up and walk out the door, looking around, and over my shoulder. I start
walking. I open the doors to the garage and set the jars on the seat of the truck.
I turn the key and back out of the garage through a cloud of grey smoke. I take a right out of the driveway, away from town, out towards where people had given up on development, after trying and trying. I drive to a rise, and a clear view of the valley where it meets the hills. The only sign of humanity: multitude cul-de-sac developments of unfinished houses, killed when the US economy soured years ago. The sun sticks to the skeleton stucco and turns it pink.
What time is it?
I leave the truck running in park and open a jar. I drink it all down. I turn on some music, but it is jarring to my mind. I eject the CD, toss it, and hit scan, the volume low, cycling across a dead dial. Pleasant white noise.
I drink jar number two.
My head feels thick, but better. The static calms me.
A relief; my heart feels light and beats just fine.
Deep breaths. Jar three.
Half gone now, I sip and watch the sun on the horizon, turning. I watch it splash on the sides of the hills. Movement?
Yes, there. A form, small as a speck, perhaps two miles distant, works its way up a hill, drawn toward the desert?
It falls, some fifteen feet and kicks up big dust before coming to rest against a boulder, jutting from the slope like a giant’s tooth. It rises and continues.
Jar three finished. I open jar four. I am wasted now, but my mind is calmer. I sip jar four, relishing it, watching the progress of the zom. I feel better.
What has happened to me? In all my years of smoking, nothing like this has ever happened. Is this because of the bite? Both Silas and Bryce have turned down weed, when everyone else seeks it out with a passion. Bryce said that weed made him feel uncomfortable, but this is not uncomfortable, this has been a death panic. Why?
