The Orchard

by Charles L. Grant

  And I hadn’t taken two steps toward the workbench and my project beside it when someone started pounding on the walls.

  “It’s Amy, that goddamned little bitch!” Mike yelled as he bulled in when I reopened the door.

  At first I thought she must be dead or in a coma, but the way he ranted around the room, the way he looked for something to throw and didn’t even dare pick up a pencil, told me she had zapped his ego again.

  “You know what she said?” His face was flushed the color of roses, and he couldn’t stop waving his arms. “Do you have any idea what she just said to me?”

  I didn’t, and I dragged him quickly outside before he destroyed everything I had. Immediately, he flopped onto the grass and began pulling it out by the roots.

  “What,” I said, not getting down beside him. “What’s going on now?”

  “She said … god, I still can’t believe it. She said that she’s decided she can’t ever let herself love anyone because sooner or later they’re going to die and she doesn’t think she can handle that kind of pressure.” He looked up at me in disgust. “Can you believe it, Herb? I mean … Jesus H., can you believe it?”

  “You are out of your frigging mind, you know,” I told him less than tolerantly. “You’ve been chasing that woman like an idiot since you were both in diapers and she just doesn’t want to be bothered, right?”

  His expression was glum.

  “So I don’t get it. Why are you killing yourself?”

  He went from glum to suicidal.

  “Mike?”

  He only sighed.

  I wanted to hit him then, put some black around his lights. This was exactly what I did not need tonight, not after Rich yesterday and Mary’s confessions on the phone. And it wasn’t long before he realized from my silence that he wasn’t going to get any of my sympathy, only a strong dose of the truth heavily laced with my own brand of self-pity.

  But Jesus, you’d think even a pal like him would understand what was happening to me. He knew. He knew what it was like, and he knew this was the absolute worst time he could have picked to come crying on my shoulder.

  “Well, shit on you,” he said at last, pushing himself to his feet. “I’m going for a ride.”

  “Good. It’ll cool you off.”

  “Like hell. Maybe I’ll drive into a telephone pole or a truck or something.”

  “Not on my block,” I said. “I’ve got work to do.”

  He gave me a halfhearted finger and stalked off, and a few seconds later I heard a car start and tires squeal as he sped away. Then I felt rotten. He was looking for help and all I did was shove his stupidity down his throat. Jesus, I’d make a hell of a priest; I definitely wasn’t being much of a friend.

  Then I remembered Mary and went back inside. Locked the door. Pulled aside a stained dropcloth and sat on a stool to look at my project.

  It was a tomb.

  On that television special I had watched, I’d been fascinated by the way the rich used to be buried in the real old days—in huge stone tombs with their likenesses carved on the lids. Like Queen Elizabeth I, and Mary, Queen of Scots, and a bunch of other people I had never even heard of. Some of the tombs were so elaborate they were hysterical; others so simple they were stunning. Some effigies had been painted, others retained the stone’s natural color; biblical verses, poems, life histories, political lies, were sometimes engraved along the sides; and more than once, a husband and wife were buried together, and together they were carved, as if they were napping.

  Nobody did that anymore, and it really was Art if you looked at it kind of sideways, and Danvers sure as hell couldn’t deny it was unusual.

  So I began with small blocks of wood, a couple of feet long at the most, and tried to create facsimiles of what I had seen, and of the pictures I found in the library at college and in town. I decided after the first few attempts went sour not to have them in fancy clothes, like the Elizabethans, but the way someone might be buried today—in a suit and tie, or a Sunday or birthday dress. Then I thought it would be even better to have them represented the way they were in life—some in jeans, some in tuxedos, some in evening gowns, things like that. I tried a baseball uniform, a cop’s outfit and, one night when I was pissed at Uncle Gil, a judge’s robes with astrological signs along the hem.

  Jesus, they were terrible.

  The results looked like what they were—whittling without any force behind them, without any caring. I stopped and did some sketches, but they didn’t help either—they looked great, but they were only … sketches.

  I had started in February.

  By the end of the month I was ready to take the bus into Hartford and throw myself into the Connecticut River.

  Then I discovered my first solution—I was working too small. The power of the originals lay partly in their size. Life-size. And after a lot of wheedling, of whimpering, of swearing up and down it was a secret and I’d tell as soon as I could, I got Uncle Gil to have a carpenter friend make me a thick block of wood six feet long and five feet high. It took three men to carry it into the shed. It hasn’t moved from the spot where they dropped it.

  I was scared to death to start because I couldn’t afford a single mistake, but one look at my sketches and I knew I couldn’t use any of them. Not even now.

  And that’s when I discovered my second solution, the most obvious one—I needed a real subject to work with, not just some imaginary person.

  That’s why I couldn’t talk to Mary.

  I had chosen her to be the model for my corpse.

  And there she was now, lying peacefully with those green eyes closed, those soft hands folded on her stomach. Only the effigy was done. The base was still incomplete, because I had no idea what to put there yet. But it was all right, anyway. I mean, you could tell it was her if you knew her—but it wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t good enough by half, and I had less than two weeks to get it all done.

  A car backfired on Raglin and I jumped, grinned at myself and pulled the stool closer, reached out and ran my hands along the lines of her body. She was smooth, cool, and I let my fingers trace the folds and curves of the dress she was wearing, in my mind, the white dress I had seen her in last March, at a concert on campus. Suddenly, I began giggling and couldn’t stop. I found myself pressing down on her forehead and whispering, “Heal! Heal!” to her closed eyes, to the mouth slightly parted, standing and pretending I was a tent preacher bringing the wooden dead back to life.

  “Heal!” I said loudly, and fell back on the stool, laughing harder and shaking my head.

  I was crazy.

  I had finally flipped the old lid and had gone totally nuts. If my uncle saw me, he’d probably have the papers signed before he got me back to the house; if my aunt saw me, she’d tsk and fret a lot and tell me I ought to go to a movie or something to clear my head so I could work better.

  Maybe they were both right.

  I looked at Mary for nearly half an hour, envisioning what I wanted to have there, growing more frustrated by the minute because I didn’t know the secret of how to do it. Twice, I picked up a blade and took a sliver off here, a splinter there, and twice put the blade back down before I ruined what little I already had. I did some sanding to smooth imagined rough edges. I dusted her off three or four times. Then another bout of staring, as if by magic I could shift the wood’s molecules without moving a muscle. What it did was give me a headache.

  “Leave, fool,” I ordered myself at last. “Leave, and seek inspiration in a chocolate shake, you jerk.”

  I stood, replaced the dropcloth and the blade, and switched off the light. Then I went outside, locked the door behind me, and saw someone standing at the corner of the house.

  No light from any of the neighbors came through the pines and high shrubs; there was only a dim square of grey-white on the lawn under the kitchen window. Whoever it was stood just beyond its reach, and for a moment I thought it might be that guy Stick was talking about, the guy from the picnic. Th
en I realized it had to be Mike, back to apologize after his tantrum had run its course.

  “Hey,” I said, grinning and walking toward him. “Listen, you gotta hear what—”

  I stopped.

  A sudden, strong gust of wind punched me in the back, making me duck my head and fold my arms tightly over my chest, filling my ears with a high-pitched roaring. And it was cold. Nightcold. It started my teeth chattering, my eyes watering, and, for a frightening second, sucked the strength from my legs. I stumbled, was ready to fall, and the gust passed as quickly as it had come. Blowing like a whale, I rubbed my arms to bring back some warmth and hunched my shoulders sharply to chase away the tightness that had settled across my spine.

  “Jesus, Mike, did you feel that? Holy shit, I—”

  He was gone.

  There was only the kitchen glow, and the flower garden bordered by painted brick.

  “Mike?”

  I ran to the front and stopped at the gate. The street was empty, no cars at the curbs, no sound of traffic on Chancellor Avenue, off to my left.

  A shudder that was probably a memory of the wind had me holding onto the fence until it passed, and I told myself it was my imagination and what I ought to do was go for a walk to clear my head. And as I did, hands in my pockets and head down, I wondered if it was all just overreacting. I had been grumpy with Aunt May and Stick when they were only trying to help, I’d bitched at Mike when he was only looking for an ear, and I don’t think Mary really believed I was sincere about her grief. Maybe, I thought, it’s really all me. Maybe I ought to turn around, go home, and get some studying done. It would take my mind off things. It would, as May said, keep me from dwelling too much on the bad stuff, like Rich.

  By then I was heading up Centre Street, catching glimpses of this gloomy-looking kid in the shop windows, not paying attention to the people who were walking past me; turning a corner, the clock on the bank striking nine, and going on past the high school, past houses I think I’ve only seen in the dark, thinking about dying.

  I was on the Pike when I finally looked to see where I was heading, standing under the blinking amber light that was supposed to slow traffic before it turned onto Mainland Road. The highway was deserted, the few streetlamps giving it a coat of shimmering black.

  I crossed over.

  I guess I expected some sort of sign there, an accusing arrow pointing to the spot where Mary had held his head and cried, a flashing red bulb to mark where the stupid bastard had ruined my life because he didn’t understand how much more I needed his girl than he did.

  There was nothing but gravel that didn’t even look disturbed.

  I went home.

  I went to bed.

  I dreamed that my carved Mary walked through the walls and joined me under the covers.

  I woke up when Aunt May shook me; I sat up when I saw how pale her face was, and how sad were her eyes.

  The hospital reception room was practically empty when I got there. There was an old lady sitting with a little kid who wouldn’t stop asking for his mommy, and a guy who looked like he’d be more comfortable sitting in the cab of a truck. The nurse on duty told me there were no visitors. I said thanks, asked for the men’s room, and walked around the corner, right into the elevator that took me to the top floor. The station there was deserted, so I went down the hall almost walking on my toes, looking through large windows that showed me mostly old people, lying under clear plastic tents, tubes and wires and monitor screens keeping them out of sight.

  And Mike.

  In the last room, wrapped like a mummy, both legs in traction, both arms in casts.

  “What are you doing here? Visiting hours are over.”

  In the movies, the guy says he’s a brother or a cousin. I didn’t say anything. I just looked at him until the nurse took my arm and led me away. She was sorry, she said, but there are rules and did I know him very well. The look on my face shut her up; and when I asked her how he was, the look on her face told me I’d asked a stupid question.

  I waited for a while downstairs before going home. I was glad there were clouds because I didn’t need spring sunshine to tell me life goes on no matter how lousy you feel; what I did need was a thunderstorm, a strong wind, a cliff overlooking a turbulent sea. What I got was Uncle Gil and Aunt May, sneaking around like I had the plague, smiling sadly, nodding, and keeping themselves so busy I didn’t have a chance to ask them to talk.

  I called Stick, but he couldn’t come to the phone.

  I called Mary, but she wasn’t there.

  I even called Amy, but her mother said she was locked in her room and wouldn’t come out. Would I mind coming over to see if I could calm her down?

  I hung up without saying goodbye.

  Then I went out to the shed and stared at dead Mary, and thought about how some people can go all their lives without having all their friends die on them until they’re supposed to, how some people can get through college without having a crisis every ten minutes, about how some people just can’t seem to help latching onto someone else, like having a transfusion and all the problems flow from one person to the other, get solved, and flow back and everything’s all right—and if it isn’t all right, at least it’s bearable until next time.

  A finger traced the lines of her wooden hair, the lines that soared up and away from her forehead and down around her ears, just like in real life; it stopped to show the way her cheeks were slightly sunken, the way her chin was almost but not quite pointed, the way a muscle on the left side of her neck stood out even when she was resting.

  Rich was dead, and I was glad.

  Mike was going to die, and all afternoon I worked at some decent tears, some feeling other than a horrid sense of relief that I wouldn’t have to listen to his constant bitching anymore about a woman only a year out of high school who wouldn’t give him the right time of day.

  I thought he was my friend, and I thought I should cry.

  I knew something was wrong with me, but I didn’t know what, and I didn’t know then whether or not to be scared.

  I slept in my bed, but I dreamed I was in Mary’s, made of cloud and soft rain and warm sunlight and her; I slept so soundly that Aunt May had to wake me, and remind me that in less than two hours I had my first exam.

  I don’t think I ever moved so damned fast in my life. I skipped my shower, skipped breakfast, and couldn’t believe it when I ran the whole two miles to Hawksted’s small campus. I was, barely, on time; luckily, English still remained my best subject and the professor my easiest mark—the questions were simple, the conclusions to be drawn obvious, and I was one of the first to turn my work in.

  As planned, Stick met me at the student union. We found an empty lounge and dropped onto one of the couches, doing our act about misery and woe and how God Himself would have to grade the papers with divine compassion before we could pass. And when that was done, we matched schedules for the rest of the week. My next test was Wednesday morning, the first of a string of three in a row. Stick had one a day, the fortunes of war.

  Then he told me about Mike.

  “Jackass wrapped his old man’s car around a telephone pole, can you believe it? He must have been doing ninety, the cops said.” He shook his head, took off his baseball cap, and slapped his knee with it. “I don’t get it, y’know? He just doesn’t do stuff like that, speeding and crap.”

  I was cold in that room, and I couldn’t meet his eyes.

  “You go see him?”

  I nodded. “I tried, anyway. Snuck up when they weren’t looking, but they caught me.”

  “Yeah. He looks—”

  I glared, and he didn’t say it, and whatever we were going to do that afternoon was instantly replaced by a trip to the hospital, he on his new moped and me riding behind. It was a tight squeeze, and he laughed most of the way because our combined weights held us down to barely a walk.

  “Damn good thing you’re dropping some tonnage,” he told me as we walked into the building. “Chris
t, the way you used to be, you would have squashed it flat.”

  I shoved him hard through the revolving doors, sneered at his protest, then composed myself as I approached the receptionist and asked about Mike Buller. She looked at me kind of funny, looked at Stick until he took off his cap, and looked pointedly between us into the waiting room. I half turned and saw a group of people gathered around Mike’s parents—his mother was crying, his father looked ready to tear the place apart.

  “Shit,” Stick said, grabbed a tissue from a box on the desk, and blew his nose.

  “I’m going,” I told him when he started to walk over.

  “What?” He stopped and slapped his cap back on. “But you can’t, Herb! You gotta … you gotta say something, don’t you think?”

  I shrugged. I supposed I did, but I didn’t know what, and I wasn’t going to get myself into that mess over there, standing around with my hands in my pockets while I watched the Bullers’ world fall apart.

  “C’mon,” Stick said, reaching for my arm.

  I stepped away and told him no with a look.

  “Sometimes,” he said then, “you are really a shit, Herb, you know?”

  I ignored him and left, walked up to the luncheonette and ordered a chocolate shake. It tasted lousy, but I sat at the counter anyway, like I was in a bar and nursing a drink. I stayed for an hour and had a sandwich I didn’t finish, took a walk through the park and watched some kids playing ball, then wandered again until I passed Station Motors and saw myself in the window.

  The first thing I thought was, there was someone standing behind me, that damned guy again— but when I looked, I was alone. And when I looked back, I saw this almost skinny guy, this blond-haired guy wearing baggy pants and a baggy shirt, with eyes, because of the dark car in the front of the showroom, that looked like empty holes.

  I put a hand to the plate glass as if I could touch myself, backed away to the curb, and looked down at myself. My hands began to tremble. My stomach felt ready to get rid of the shake and sandwich. I must have stood there for nearly five minutes, pulling at my shirt, pulling my waistband away from my gut, acting like I’d never seen myself before.