Dennis smiled. “You can call me Denny.”
“Well, Denny,” the man said. “What do you think of it so far?”
“Think about what?”
“All this,” and the guy made a huge circle with his arm. “Nature’s greenery. The woods. The silences. Too quiet for you?”
“It’s okay, I guess.”
“Do I detect a tone of uncertainty?” Frog had a huge smile on his face.
Dennis shrugged. He wasn’t sure about the tone in his own voice, nor was he certain what he thought about living out here. He’d gone on several walks into the forest and had even penetrated a place where, some three or four miles from the house, the pines grew so close together you almost had to turn your body sideways to slip through the spaces. “I’m not used to it, I guess,” he said. He wanted to add, Sometimes the forest gives me the creeps. Sometimes I think I’m going to get lose out there. Sometimes I miss the city so badly I want to yell.
“Give it time,” Frog remarked. He switched his scythe from one hand to the other. “It takes some getting used to. When I first came up here about a year ago, I thought I was going crazy. How was a city boy like myself supposed to cope with all this goddamn quiet? Where were the video games? Where were the poolhalls? What was I going to do all the time up here! You get used to it. It sorta gets under your skin after a while. Either that or you go insane totally, in which event the environment doesn’t matter a damn anyhow. Who knows? Maybe you’ve got to be a little loony to live up in these woods.”
“What do you do?” Dennis asked.
“Try to stay alive and healthy.”
“Is that a full-time occupation?”
Frog looked at the kid and laughed. “Yeah. Yeah it is when you think about it. Anything else is bullshit, Denny.”
The boy was silent. He liked it when an adult used a word like “bullshit” casually around him because it meant he wasn’t being treated like a kid. It conferred upon him the status of acceptance. Usually, adults didn’t swear in front of him—at least his parents’ friends didn’t. They cussed in private, but not when a kid was around. Dennis knew it was a hypocrisy.
“You live in your van?”
“It’s comfortable.”
“You’re free?”
“I’m working on it,” Frog said.
“I like the idea of living in a van,” Dennis said. He stared at the vehicle in the driveway. “No landlord and no mortgage to pay. I like that. You could take off any time you liked.”
“Yeah,” Frog said. “So what do you do all day?”
Dennis kicked at a clump of weeds and watched a red butterfly rise upward and float away. “I go for walks. I watch a little TV.”
“You get any kind of reception up here?”
“Fuzzy,” Dennis said. “Sometimes it’s just snow.”
“Where do these walks take you?”
Dennis thought about this question a moment. “Here and there,” was what he finally said. “I’ve been on the lookout for someplace to fish. You know any good spots?”
“Sure,” Frog said. “Ten miles on up the dirt road brings you to Canyon Lake. Sometimes you’ll find bass up there.”
Dennis thought that ten miles sounded like a long way. He’d have to talk Max into driving him—if he could somehow get his father activated. Max had retreated into the big bunch of books he’d hauled up here with him and whenever he had his face stuck between the pages—which was most of the time—he was lost in his own space. Book in one hand, a glass of scotch in the other. Louise called this process of reading and drinking “unwinding.” Last night, when they had all been out on the sun deck, Max had lost his balance momentarily and slipped against the handrail. Louise, entranced by the trees, hadn’t noticed it. But Dennis had and the little incident bothered him. He’d never known his father to drink to excess before.
“Well,” Frog said. “I better get on with it. Your mother’s paying me to cut her weeds.” He turned away, then hesitated. When he looked back he added, “See you around, Denny. Nice meeting you.”
“You too,” Dennis answered.
“If you see my van out there in the forest, come visit me. Okay?”
“I’ll do that.”
“You like rock and roll?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve got some good tapes. Feel free.”
Dennis watched the guy walk back toward the weeds. Frog raised the scythe and began hacking furiously, the muscles in his thin arms tensing as he worked. When he paused once he lifted his face and smiled in the boy’s direction.
“You met your neighbors yet?” he called out.
“I didn’t know we had any.”
“Old couple by the name of Summer. They live back that way”—Frog pointed loosely—“about three quarters of a mile.”
“What do they do back there?” Dennis asked. He couldn’t imagine anyone living out there in the direction Frog had indicated, but then he remembered the sweet scents that had drifted down through the trees just the other day. Maybe that’s where they had come from, the Summers’ house.
Frog said, “I never asked them. Maybe they spend all spring growing cucumbers and all winter pickling them. Who knows?” He winked and went back to work.
After a time Dennis drifted back around the house again and lay down in the shadow of the sun deck.
Nice kid, Frog thought, and stuck his old meerschaum between his lips and worked as hard and as fast as he knew how. He trimmed and snipped and cut and hauled weeds, his whole body a frantic instrument of activity. He was sweating and his muscles ached and his hands bled from various snags he’d caught, but he understood it was only good business practice to work like a fucking whirlwind the first time, because then you left a terrific impression and they always asked you back.
The woman came out once and offered him a glass of lemonade but he refused it, wiping streaks of sweat from his forehead. The Puritan impression. Nothing interferes with work. She went up on the porch and watched him for a while before she stepped back inside the house. Without his audience, Frog slowed his work rate, though not by much.
When he’d finished with the weeds he carried the heavy plastic trash bag to his VW and dumped it inside. He wiped his wet hands against his shorts.
The woman came back on the porch. “You through?”
Frog nodded. “You had a heavy weed problem,” he said.
“But not now?”
“Weeds always come back, Louise.”
She watched him, her arms folded beneath her breasts. A curious little smile lingered on her lips. “We’re just about to have coffee. Want some?”
Frog stepped into the house, wiping his feet on the doormat first. He followed the woman through the living room to the kitchen. Her husband, a long thin guy with glasses and brown, thoughtful eyes, was already seated at the table with a coffee mug in one hand. He introduced himself as Max.
Frog sat at the table, where Louise poured him coffee. He took one sip of the strong black liquid and shut his eyes like a wine expert taking a sample. “Kona,” he said.
“Right,” Louise said. “Was knowledge of coffee something else you picked up on your trip?”
“I drink Maxwell House when I’m at home. Instant.”
“Where’s home?” Max asked.
“The van out there,” Frog said.
Max nodded. “A free spirit,” he said.
Frog stared into his coffee cup a moment. “I try. It ain’t easy.”
“You worked hard out there,” Louise said. She sat down and faced him.
“A tornado,” Max put in.
Frog smiled. “It’s all sleight of hand. I wasn’t alone out there. I had a gang of helpers. Didn’t you notice? A bunch of dwarfs. Modest little guys. They don’t ask for much.”
He emptied his cup and Louise filled it up for him again. She regarded him with curiosity. “What else do you do, Frog?”
“This and that. So long as it’s legal.”
“Frog cooks, M
ax. Did I mention that? Gourmet stuff.”
“Is that right?” Max said.
Frog nodded. He understood what was going down here—it was a kind of polite interrogation. He couldn’t blame the couple. They had every right to know who they invited inside their house. Was he really just an itinerant weeder? Or a mad ax killer? He looked at them, his eyes switching from wife to husband. Of the two, he received warmer vibrations from the woman. The husband was stiffer, although you had the impression he was trying.
Frog asked him what he did for a living.
“I’m a GP,” Max answered.
“No kidding? I was in premed once. Jesus, it seems like a long time ago.”
“Where did you go to school?” Max asked.
“Boston.”
“You dropped out?”
“First time I saw a fetus in a pickle jar I decided it wasn’t for me.” Frog paused. He could still remember that baby, umbilical cord and all, floating in a glass jar of formaldehyde. Its eyes were shut and its expression was one of eternal annoyance. Both mother and child had expired during delivery. It seemed unfair to Frog that your destiny, after a nine-month gestation, was to be displayed in preserving fluid for the edification of generations of gaping medical students.
“Some people don’t take to medicine,” Max said. “What did you do after that?”
“I spent a semester at Columbia,” Frog answered. He glanced at Louise, who was smiling at him. “That was around ’68, I guess. Time gets away from me. I never finished, though. I had a political disagreement with the authorities.” Political disagreement, he thought. He had been unceremoniously kicked out on his ass after an occupation of the administration building and a bonfire of personnel records. He recalled, with uncomfortable clarity, being dragged down Amsterdam Avenue by a big red-faced cop who was making free with his nightstick.
“I wasn’t much of a student,” Frog said. “There were too many things that sidetracked me back then. There was a war nobody liked very much. There was a butcher in the White House. I got bogged down in the politics of protest, which seems damn childish to remember now. Funny. I don’t have the energy for politics now. If I had to vote, I’d vote the apathy ticket. If there was such a thing.”
There was a silence in the large kitchen. He concentrated on his coffee, slouching over the mug. The quietness compelled him to add something. “But I had one or two beliefs back then. You know how it was.”
Max said, “I remember.”
Another pause.
“Tell us something about our neighbors,” Louise said.
“Neighbors?” For a second Frog lost his place. He couldn’t imagine what the woman was talking about. Sometimes he had moments like that, when there was a kind of slippage in his concentration. He wondered if it had to do with his past drug excesses—some form of brain damage—or if it was just the harbinger of eventual senility—an old broken-down man with pee stains on his pants. Who’d look after him? How could he survive cold winters in a VW van, for Christ’s sake? Panic Time. The way to defeat that kind of desperation was simple—you just refused to think of a future.
“You mentioned an old couple—”
“Oh, the Summers.” He nudged his empty cup away from him. He could already feel caffeine jangle inside him. “I don’t know anything about them, really. I talked with them only one time. I was looking for a job.” He spread his thin hands and examined the lines in his flesh. “I saw their place and I figured they’d be happy to hire me …”
He looked at Louise. She was listening with obvious interest, her dark eyes alert. Maybe, he thought, she’s hungry for social news already. Hungry for snippets of information about neighbors she never suspected she had. Conditioned by her urban environment, coffee with the girls, the chitchat of the city.
“What’s wrong with their place?” Max asked.
“Charitably, it’s a dump.” Frog paused. “Anyhow, they didn’t need help. They were emphatic about that in a polite kind of way. I got the impression I was the first being they’d seen in half a century and they weren’t sure where I’d parked my spacecraft. I’d venture to say they’re mildly eccentric.”
“Eccentric neighbors,” Louise remarked. “They sound intriguing.”
“Yeah,” Frog said. “They’re intriguing all right. You ought to visit them sometime. Pay a courtesy call.”
He stood up, hitching the belt of his cutoff shorts. Max and Louise seemed a little disappointed at the prospect of his departure. He felt vaguely flattered. “Off and running,” he said. “This business. It’s cutthroat, I swear. I never know when a competitor is going to underbid me.”
Louise laughed. “How much do we owe you?”
“Twenty,” he said in a tentative fashion.
She found her purse and passed a brand-new bill to him. Max, who was standing up, said, “Come around some night for dinner, Frog. We’d be glad to see you.”
“You might even cook for us,” Louise added.
“My Chinese is best. Hunan. Szechwan, Cantonese.”
“It’s a deal,” Louise said. “We get the ingredients, you do the rest.”
“All I ask is a wok,” Frog said. He moved toward the door and noticed how they tracked after him politely, seeing him off the premises.
“Denny loves Chinese,” Max said.
“I just met him,” Frog remarked. “Friendly little guy.”
Louise shook her head. “He must have wandered off somewhere, I guess. New territories to explore.” She was quiet a moment, then she added, “At least I don’t have to worry about him so much around here. It’s not like San Francisco.”
Frog opened the front door and paused a moment. “I like kids,” he said. “Kids and puppy dogs.”
He waved, hearing the door close behind him.
When he reached his VW he imagined he heard the sound of a child from nearby, but he looked around and saw nobody. A cat maybe, he thought. There were lots of wild cats up here in the woods, turned out of their domestic bliss by weary owners. Evicted from suburban comfort and left to forage for themselves. It was a hard world.
He climbed inside the van, looked at his suntanned face in the rearview mirror. It was the face of a man, he decided, who did like kids and small dogs.
10
Simple curiosity took Dennis out into the trees. The idea of neighbors living out there in the forest somehow struck his fancy. How did they survive the winters here? What did they do with their lives? Then he had a picture of this landscape filled with clean white snow and two old people trudging through it, their arms linked together. It was like having a Christmas card inside his head.
He moved quickly until he came to a kind of funnel in the land, like a dried-up streambed. The place was strewn with rocks and pebbles and all kinds of rotted stumps and branches; blue flies zinged back and forth over everything.
When he reached the other bank of the streambed he paused, tilting his head to one side as if he were listening for something. But there was nothing except for the hollow screech of a jay and the flustered sound of some quail nearby. He moved down the bank, realizing when he looked back the way he’d come he couldn’t see the redwood house any longer. The forest might have swallowed it whole.
He went deeper into the pines. Thin midday sunlight filtered down through the branches. The air was slightly humid around him and he had the feeling he was walking through tepid water. He paused again. It would be dreary here when the winter settled in on the landscape. Everything would be gray and bleak. Everything would be depressing. The trees. The silences. The isolation.
Something in the notion of isolation appealed to an aspect of Dennis’s personality. Since the age of six or seven, when he’d stopped to consider possible futures for himself, possible jobs, he had been drawn to occupations that involved long spells of solitude. A long-distance trucker. A forest ranger in a lookout tower. These essentially lonely occupations struck chords inside him—he wasn’t sure why. Once his mother had said it was because
he had a streak of the romantic in him, a description that brought to mind pirates and buccaneers and characters swinging on vines through impossible jungles. He wasn’t altogether sure, even now, what it meant to have a romantic streak inside—he wasn’t altogether sure he liked the idea either. It implied being a dreamer. And Dennis liked to think he was much more practical than that narrow description allowed.
He moved on. The pines grew closer together. When he looked up he saw a gray-blue sky scarred by pine needles. Then it hit him quite suddenly.
The air was perfumed. It floated around him, danced and weaved in the air he sucked into his lungs—a wondrous scent of chocolate baking, burned sugar, pastry rising. It was what he had smelled the other day when he’d been up in the tree pursuing the lost cause of bringing music into his life. It was the same smell but it was intensified, pervading everything, seeming to cling to his skin and invade the fibers of the clothes he wore.
It was coming from a place nearby. A distinct hunger bit him sharply. It seemed to him that he’d actually stepped inside the aroma, that he was powerless to do anything except follow it.
The land rose upward almost imperceptibly. Dennis climbed the gentle slope, and when he reached the top he saw what he’d come to see. A clearing. A small house.
Dennis shook his head. What he saw in front of him was a wonderland, a run-down wonderland filled with the carcasses of all manner of things—the skeleton of a pickup truck, rolls of rusted chicken wire, piles of lumber in various stages of decay, an amazing array of old tools whose names and functions he couldn’t begin to know, a mountain of tires, the broken sticks of discarded furniture, oil drums, sewage pipes. A museum of the broken and the useless and obsolete. And still the smell rushed around him. Now he saw pale smoke rising from the chimney of the house.
He gazed at the chimney, the way the roof sagged. He absorbed the sight of the porch and how it sloped toward one end. But it was the sight of the junk that attracted him most. You could play for days—weeks even—in all that stuff! It was like one huge rummage sale to which nobody had ever come. You could find a thousand things to do there. He moved into the clearing and, glancing once at the house, which, except for the smoke, seemed lifeless, walked around the ruin of the old pickup. He opened the door and climbed into the driver’s seat, laying his hands on the steering wheel and gazing out through the spider’s web cracks in the windshield.
The Wanting Page 7
