Dirt

by David Vann

  What are we doing? Galen’s grandmother asked.

  We’re home.

  This isn’t home.

  This is home.

  I don’t like this place. You take me home right now, Suzie-Q.

  This is home, Mom.

  Why are you doing this to me?

  Galen couldn’t bear to listen. She was pleading now. Let’s take her home, he said.

  But his mother simply ignored him. She took her mother carefully by the arm. Come on, Mom, she said, and helped her out of the car. There. We’ll get you all settled in.

  Galen’s grandmother looked back at him. I don’t like this place, she said.

  Why are we putting her here? Galen demanded.

  Because she walked into the forest at night and would have kept going and died. Because she could do that at home, too. I found my mother this nice place because I love her and I want her to be safe. I don’t want her to be hurt.

  Galen believed her for once. Her mouth open and ragged, tired, and he could see how worried she’d been last night. He hadn’t realized that before. She’d been afraid she’d lose her mother. Galen felt uncomfortable. He had a sense of his mother’s goodness, and he didn’t like to think of his mother’s goodness.

  His mother and grandmother walked away into that awful place. Prison and hospital combined. A place of a thousand voices, none of them talking to each other. His grandmother curtained away in her white linoleum semicircle, waiting. Looking ahead to ten or twenty years of waiting.

  She shouldn’t be here, Galen said. It’s better to maybe wander off and die than just wait here in a prison.

  That’s true, Helen said. She’s still my mother.

  She’s a bitch, Jennifer said. Who cares what happens to her.

  Yeah, Helen said. Maybe you’re right.

  What if Jennifer says that about you someday?

  Huh, Helen said.

  I wouldn’t do that, Mom.

  You might. It’s true. You might. And that’s fine.

  The engine was cooling off, pinging, and it seemed that all its heat was being transferred to the interior of the car. Galen’s entire body was a slick. The windows down, but no breeze, and the outside air almost as hot.

  Galen opened his door and stepped out, dizzy. Jennifer followed, her face wet with sweat, hair up in a ponytail. We’re getting a place with air-conditioning, she said. I don’t care where the house is, or how big it is, but it has to have air-conditioning.

  Galen walked in a slow circle in the sun. There was no shade. The black pavement radiating. Humans had invented all the shittiest ways to live. Rest homes, cars, pavement, stuck in deserts like this, places you wouldn’t want to live even one more day. It would have been a better plan to walk around naked and never invent anything. That way, you’d have to head for a creek or a lake or at least some trees. You’d never just stand around in a thousand-mile oven.

  I can’t believe she’s here, Galen said. And I can’t believe this fucking pavement.

  Whoa, Jennifer said.

  I’m serious. Every square foot is nothing less than tragic. It’s a sign of how fundamentally stupid we all are.

  Down with the pavement.

  I’m serious.

  I know. That’s why you’re a freak.

  Galen kept his focus on the pavement, walked a tight circle, around and around with a feeling that the center would melt, a great vortex that would pull him down. We’re criminals, he said. Leaving her here.

  Maybe you can get her to suck it.

  Fuck you.

  Not anymore. But I think Grandma would be into that. You could close those curtains and she could gum away at it and forget where she is.

  What the fuck? Why are you like this?

  You could come back an hour later and get it again, because she won’t remember. You could do it all day. Jennifer laughed.

  Galen walked away toward the glass doors, but he was only partway there when his mother emerged.

  She shouldn’t be here, he said. Even if she walks off and dies, it’s better than being here.

  His mother ignored him and walked past. She got in and started the car, and he knew she’d leave without him, so he slid into the passenger seat, damp from his grandmother.

  What was the amount on that check? his mother asked as they pulled onto the road.

  It was enough, Helen said.

  How much?

  None of your business.

  Well, I just want you to know this. I don’t want to see you or Jennifer ever again.

  That’s not a problem.

  I mean that. Not ever again. You are never to show up at the house again.

  Like I said, that’s not a problem. It was the plan, in fact.

  Yeah, Jennifer said. We already talked about it.

  But the reason I’m telling you is in case that check doesn’t work out for you. If the check doesn’t work out, you’re going to want to come to the house.

  The check will work.

  But if it doesn’t, here’s the deal. If I ever see you again, you get nothing. But if you stay away, I’ll get Mom to write checks for Jennifer for college each semester.

  Galen pounded the dashboard with his fist. So angry he couldn’t speak. He felt that if he spoke, he would hit his mother instead of the dashboard.

  I’m not paying for anything expensive. Just a state school, but I’ll get Mom to write those checks if I never have to see you again.

  Galen punched his own thighs. He was afraid of what he could do. He folded his arms in tight and closed his eyes and tried to just get through the time. Trapped here right next to her.

  Chapter 18

  The figs ripe. Hot still air thick with their scent. Galen in the tree pushing at a fig with both hands until its purple skin burst open in a seam, exposed, and he sucked at the meat, delicious fruit. The stickiness all over his face and hands.

  Galen knew he was eating to cover his grief. He would never see Jennifer again. It felt as if a section of his chest had been removed, and in its place, a gravity hole becoming increasingly dense, an impossible weight.

  He wrapped his legs tight around a limb, hung beneath it and walked out the limb with his hands, strung himself as far as he could to reach two figs, enormous and heavy, their bodies hot and slack from the sun. So ripe inside the skin had become translucent.

  Galen, his mother called.

  He thought of not answering. If he just never answered again, what would happen then?

  Galen, she repeated. She’d come out the back door onto the lawn, carrying a tray of finger sandwiches.

  Not the finger sandwiches, he said.

  There you are, she said, but it didn’t sound the way it usually did. No delight in her voice, as there’d been only a few days ago, before the cabin. It sounded more now like she’d located a target.

  I’m having figs for lunch, he said.

  I have something to tell you.

  Well I can hear from up here.

  She set the tray down on the wrought-iron table. Galen could see the table’s leaf pattern, and it seemed lovely to him for the first time. Heavy and old, but lovely.

  I’ve made a decision, she said.

  I can’t wait to hear.

  You were all my world once upon a time, she said. You really were. I wanted a baby. I don’t know why. And if I could go back now and make it never have happened, I certainly would. But for a time there, having a baby was a magical thing.

  Thanks, he said. For that part about wanting to go back.

  Shut up and listen. I’m giving you a gift right now. I’m letting you know the whole thing.

  Galen wanted to scream, but he felt a little afraid, too, so he only readjusted lower on the limb, found a more comfortable position in a vee with one of the main trunks. Holding the two figs in one hand.

  I saw the world opening. I’m not sure what I saw, exactly, or how I could have believed any of it, but maybe it was something like imagining how we’d play in the walnut orchard, p
laying tag through the trees. Yellow mustard and wildflowers, and laughter. Maybe something like that, from the best moments of my own childhood in the orchard.

  She wasn’t looking at him. She was gazing off into the orchard, and she had her teacup held in both hands, but just floating there, not drinking from it.

  This is sounding like an after-school special, he said.

  You want to make everything small. That’s what you’ve done. You’ve tried to make everything small. But I’m going to continue on anyway, because this is important to me. It’s important to me to let you know, just this once.

  Fine, he said.

  There was some feeling about it, some feeling about you. It was that Christmas-morning feeling, something really as innocent and pure as that. What I imagined was joy. And I think what I wanted, really, was to remake my own childhood. I wanted to go back and fix everything and live it the way it should have been.

  His mother still hadn’t looked at him. It was disconcerting.

  There was supposed to be a man. And I thought I had found that man, but when I told him I was pregnant, I watched everything just fade and die. It was less than a minute. It really was that fast. Everything he had felt for me just went away.

  Who was he?

  He lost that chance. He doesn’t get to be named or have anything told about him except the one part that matters, that he let everything just die in less than a minute. That’s all you need to know about him.

  That’s real helpful. The daddy-minute. It explains so much.

  It explains everything. It explains the truth about men, the truth that they care only about themselves. And you’re no different. I thought maybe you’d be different. That’s what I hoped.

  This is all such self-serving crap. You should fucking listen to yourself.

  That’s right. Straight to the fuck words. All violence. That’s who men are.

  Fuck you.

  Yeah. Fuck your mother. A favorite insult. But I’m not letting you take this away from me. I’m here to tell you a story.

  Once upon a time.

  That’s right. Once upon a time. Because it was a fairy tale. I believed you could be good.

  Galen hated this conversation so much.

  I spent all my time with you. All my time, for years. I helped you learn each word. Just think about that for a minute. I helped you learn every single word that you know.

  Galen tried to focus on his exhales, tried to calm.

  I helped you learn every sound. How an s sounds, how a z sounds. How a p is different from a b.

  Well thanks, Galen said. If that’s what you’re looking for, thanks for all the instruction.

  Shut up. You need to listen. Today you only listen.

  Fuck that.

  You’re going to listen today, because I’ve made a decision, and you need to know what this decision is. And I want you to really understand it. I want you to know why I made it.

  Well let’s just get to it, then. What’s the decision?

  No. I want you to understand first.

  Fuck me.

  That’s right. Look at it however you need to. But shut up and let me finish.

  Fine. Do tell.

  Where was I? She put her teacup down, put her palms flat on the table, looking at her hands. Okay. I watched how every expression developed. How you laughed and forgot to laugh, how you smiled and how that smile twisted up and changed, how your temper and crying became your anger, although I have to admit, I don’t really understand your anger. Your anger is something foreign, something I can’t see coming. Your anger is part of how you’re no longer mine.

  So you’re only claiming the good parts?

  No. I’m just tracing things. And there’s a gap there. And it’s the gaps that make you someone I can’t be with anymore.

  Is that the decision?

  No. It’s related. Maybe it is the decision, actually. Maybe that’s the fundamental thing, that I just don’t want you in my life anymore, but it’s not the decision I need to tell you about now.

  Well about fucking time.

  There’s more I need to explain. I haven’t even started, really. Because you’re going to be angry, and you’re going to feel betrayed, and you’re going to believe it’s unfair, and you’re going to think it’s about me and not about you. But I want you to understand. And I need you to know that it really is about you.

  This is driving me crazy. You really are crazy.

  No I’m not. And you won’t call me crazy again.

  Crazyland, Galen said. That’s where you’ve lived for a while now. Look at you with your fucking afternoon tea and sandwiches. Think for a second about who else plays make-believe all day. Who is it who plays make-believe all day?

  I’m not going to let you distract me.

  Think about it. Children play make-believe all day, but who else does that? What adults do that, and where do they all live together?

  Galen’s mother looked up at him finally. That’s been your gift to me, she said. To call me crazy.

  The nut farm. You grew up on one kind of nut farm, but now you’re ready to live in a different kind of nut farm. Galen liked this idea, but he stopped, because he didn’t really like to see his mother hurt. That was always the problem. She deserved to be treated worse, but he could never do it.

  I’m going to live right here, she said. But you’re not.

  Is that the decision?

  No.

  Throwing me out on the street, like you were threatening at the cabin? Even though you’ve been taken care of your whole life?

  Let me continue, she said. I’m trying to tell you that I loved you. I loved you your whole life, and I tried.

  You were my mother. That’s what you were supposed to do.

  You don’t understand anything.

  No one made you have me.

  She shook her head. I’m not going to let you do this to me.

  Yeah, because I’m doing such awful things to you right now. I’m the one making threats, saying I’ve made some kind of life-changing decision.

  I tried even when you became like this, even when everything you did was ugly. I tried to still love you. I tried to forgive you. I tried to let you become whatever you needed to become, even if that meant you lived at home all your life.

  Like you have.

  Let me finish.

  You don’t get to finish if everything you say is crazy. I only have to listen if what you say is reasonable. I don’t have to listen if it’s crazy talk.

  I hate you. I hate you so much.

  Fine, he said. He dropped his two figs and climbed down out of the tree. That’s great. You’re a great mother. You’ve really improved on things from your past, just like you wanted to.

  Galen’s mother was crying without sound, in great hiccups of breath. She could hardly speak. I shouldn’t hate my own child, she said. I know that. But I hate you.

  Well you won’t have to see me anymore. I’m moving out to the room above the shed.

  Galen’s mother began to smile. It was the strangest thing. She was still crying, but she began to smile. She sucked in breath, and what she did was laugh. Instead of crying, she was laughing at him.

  What? he asked.

  You don’t understand, she said. You have no idea.

  Well stupid me, then. You’ve been so clear.

  She was smiling. You think you can just move out to the shed, and that’s going to be it.

  Yeah. I’m moving to the shed. You’re not going to see me, but you’re going to give me money for school and food and other things, too. You’re going to stop fucking up my life.

  The shed is not where you’re going, she said.

  I’m moving my stuff right now. He began walking toward the house.

  You’re going to prison.

  Galen stopped. He had this feeling of heat rising all through him. Did you just say prison?

  Yes. Prison.

  How am I going to prison?

  Statutory rape.
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  That’s ridiculous.

  Your cousin is seventeen. You’re twenty-two. Even if she weren’t your cousin, it would be statutory rape. And since she’s your cousin, it may be incest, also. We’ll have to see.

  This is too stupid. I’m not even talking about this. This is what I mean by crazyland. He kept walking toward the house, and it seemed farther than before. It felt like the lawn fell away to either side of him. He was left to walk on a kind of narrow bridge of lawn to the pantry door, and then he was inside the house and safe. He walked quickly through the kitchen to the stairs and up to his room, where he took the duffel that was still packed and hefted it over his shoulder.

  His mother was on the stairs. I’m going to be the witness, she said. And I brought the top blanket, the blanket that has both of you on it. I brought that as evidence.

  You collected evidence?

  That’s right. So even if you and she both deny it, I have evidence. And you haven’t had a shower, so you’re evidence, also. And she hasn’t had a shower.

  You’re insane.

  I just want you to know that I’ve loved you all your life, but I have to stop you now. I have to do the right thing. And I have to let you know, also, that I can’t visit you in prison. I can’t go there. I can’t have that become a part of my life.

  You’ve thought about this.

  Yes.

  You’ve thought about it all the way up to me being in prison and you not visiting.

  Yes. I almost drove us all to the police station, after we dropped off Grandma. But I decided I wanted to explain to you. I want you to understand. That’s my gift to you.

  The house felt to Galen like a cavern. No lights on, shades drawn. Great hollows in the ceiling above. Prison. His life, not someone else’s life. His life in prison. And for doing nothing wrong.

  Please, he said. I don’t understand this. I don’t know how this happened. He had to be careful how he talked to her. She really was crazy. I can’t go to prison, he said. You’re my mother.

  Yes. I’m your mother. And that’s why I have to do this. It’s my responsibility.

  Please. Please think about this. You’re talking about prison.

  Yes.

  You’re talking about sending your own son to prison.

  Yes.