Rear-View Mirrors

by Paul Fleischman

  I glanced at it out of duty, then spied a shiny black stone and picked it up. I’d collected rocks ever since I could remember—they were the only part of nature that roused me—and I brushed this one off and tucked it in my pocket.

  “Though in Berkeley’s botanical gardens,” he went on, “where anti-royalist feeling runs high, you’d be prudent to use the plant’s more humble alternate name—wild carrot.”

  I raised my hand to fight off the sun. An action that, in that humid air, was enough to make my body burst into sweat.

  “That’s milkweed to the right. The monarch butterfly’s favorite.”

  I unstuck my hair from my sweat-slick neck, wondered if it might mildew on me, then felt a mosquito bite my thigh. “Is that all there is to do around here—memorize the names of flowers all day?”

  My father resumed walking, unperturbed. “He who tires of North Hooton,” he bellowed theatrically, “tires of life.” He crouched and stared at a caterpillar. “Your mother never cared for the country either, despite females’ famous kinship with the earth.” He straightened up with a sigh and moved on. “I believe her knowledge of nature has been gained entirely by the study of woodland scenes on maple syrup containers.”

  “She knows whippoorwills,” I spoke up in her defense.

  “God help her if she doesn’t! That’s one bird that tells you its name every time it calls.” He examined a beetle, then proceeded onward, his muslin net slung over his shoulder. “Her idea of a hike was a walk through the Bowery, where the wildlife was largely beggars and drunks. Though I suppose she may have produced, unknown to me, a learned tract or two on the life of that city-loving bird, the starling.” He halted. “‘The Avian Proletariat: Starling Population Growth, as Predicted in Marx’s Ornithological Writings.’”

  I was racking my brains for a retort when he peered at a flower, then swooped down upon it with his net.

  “Banded hairstreak,” he announced with pleasure. He took the jar I’d been holding, transferred his catch to it, and held it up. “Now tell me that isn’t a beautiful sight.”

  “Right up there with the Mona Lisa,” I answered with a maximum of apathy. The butterfly was tiny and brown and wasn’t fluttering about at all. “What’s the white stuff in the bottom of the jar?”

  “Plaster of paris, on top of potassium cyanide crystals. The fumes kill them quickly, with almost no damage to—”

  “Yoo-hoo! Bull!”

  We both spun around to find a gnomish figure topped with a bonnet bearing toward us. My father’s face fell.

  “Oh, Christ—not her.”

  The woman was wearing boots and a long crimson skirt, which she lifted above the grass.

  “Such a glorious day!” she erupted as she reached us. “Straight out of van Gogh, wouldn’t you say, Bull?” She smiled up at him sweetly, then cast a worried glance at me. “Who’s your friend?”

  “That’s my daughter Olivia. Here for a visit.”

  The woman seemed greatly relieved by this answer. My father gestured toward her with his net. “Flora Gill. Famous painter and professor of art at Oakes College, up the road in Ashton.”

  “‘Famous’—how could you!”

  His duty disposed of, my father resumed stalking butterflies.

  “I’m sure your daughter’s never heard my name.”

  Nor had I ever heard anyone call him “Bull” or imagine I’d ever be regarded as a rival for his affections.

  “Of course,” she confided in me, “the name van Gogh was unknown when he died. Utterly!” She smiled with satisfaction at the thought, loosening the makeup over her wrinkles. “Emily Dickinson? The very same story. And Mozart—buried in an unmarked grave!”

  My father brought down his net, then swore. All three of us watched his quarry flutter off.

  “The freedom of flying things never ceases to move us, does it?” Flora put forward.

  My father sneered at this proposition.

  “A living metaphor for the soul, do you think?” she suggested as we strolled along.

  My father’s eyes rolled. Then he sighted something, stopped us, and crept on ahead alone.

  “I certainly hope he’s not after one of those giant, gaudy butterflies.” She untied the yellow ribbon holding down her bonnet, took it off, and fanned herself with it. “I can’t look at that kind without thinking of Graham.”

  I defended myself against a cloud of gnats and wondered when nature class would be over. “Who’s that?”

  “Graham Gill, my former husband. I’m sure you must have heard of him.” Her voice was sharp with resentment of this fact. “His paintings, geared to the popular taste, began to sell for five figures, then six. There were interviewers waiting at the door, retrospectives, fast cars, fancy clothes—while no one in New York would hang my work.”

  Eying her lipstick, which looked as if it had been put on by Jackson Pollock, I had no trouble believing in her failure.

  She smirked knowingly. “Of course, in the world of art, as in heaven, the last shall be first—something Graham never understood. I can’t tell you what a relief it was to leave both him and New York behind, to be free of the commercial distractions that have corrupted so many talents in the past.” My father returned and she took his arm. “To share the company of genuine artists, undefiled by success—like your father.”

  His eyes bulged. “As it happens, I’ve only just heard that Virgil Stark and the Walden Pond Murders is going into its seventh printing.”

  I noticed Flora’s smile wilt.

  “Really,” she replied, as if some disaster had been reported. She glanced at her watch. “My, the morning. I only intended to stay long enough to invite you to brunch on Sunday. Both of you, naturally.” She beamed at my father. “Afterward, Bull, perhaps you’ll have time to sit for the portrait.”

  My father’s face stiffened. “Actually, Olivia and I have a rather full schedule on Sunday.”

  What, I wondered, could a full schedule consist of in this land of boredom?

  “Well, do try,” Flora pleaded, walking off.

  “Not on your life,” my father muttered. He marched ahead in a new direction. Wearily, I trailed behind.

  “She’s been nagging me over that portrait for months. No doubt she wants it for a voodoo image. Not to kill me, but worse—to lead me to the altar.”

  Sweat-soaked and scratched and bug-bit, I found myself comforted by the thought of a cool, dark church. Preferably air-conditioned.

  “That woman’s driving ambition in life is to be buried in a pauper’s grave. But she’s not going to drag me into it.” He studied a stand of flowers before him. “I lied about the book I mentioned—it’s just gone out of print this year. How I’d love to be defiled by fame! I don’t want to be one of those inconspicuous butterflies she prizes. Gotcha!”

  He brought down his net, his face fierce as a samurai’s. “Brown elfin. Just the sort she adores!” And as if performing voodoo himself, he coaxed it into the killing jar, grinned vengefully, and screwed down the lid.

  4 / Pie Tin

  The sun is finally high enough so that the brim of my cap keeps it out of my eyes. I look at my watch. It’s just after nine. I know that I’ve been making good time, and swoop down a hill like a hawk on a dive. A dog tears down his driveway after me, but I easily outrace him.

  I glide alongside a lake. A few ghostlike wisps of mist are still rising from it, and I smile, supremely happy to be here. The sight of swamp maples, the scent of the hayfield to my left, the phoebe’s song I hear are all familiar, like old friends at the door. I’m surprised at how good it feels to be among them again, to have a second home. And pleased that the prospect of spending the day by myself seems attractive: a change for me.

  I pass a row of summer cabins and breathe in the smell of breakfast being cooked. Watching a man row two children on the lake, I feel proud to have planned and paid for this return trip east entirely on my own—then hear the rumble of a truck behind me. It sounds big. The road is nar
row and I quickly move as far to the right as I can. Just as it’s rushing past I spot a pothole directly in front of me. There’s no time to react, no chance to prepare. My front wheel sinks, whips right, and I fly forward through space like a weightless astronaut. And come quickly to earth on my right elbow and leg, the sound of which impact is drowned out even in my own ears by the roar of the truck.

  Its noise subsides; my body’s emerges. My arm and knee are both screaming for help. I look behind me and see that my bike is sprawled halfway into the lane. As if reliving my infancy, I struggle onto all fours, bring one leg up, slowly unbend the other, limp over to the bike, and drag it out of the road. I squat beside it, close my eyes, and rest, waiting for my heart to quit pounding. Then I straighten up and check myself over.

  My right elbow feels like it’s been sledgehammered out of shape. Slowly, I flex my arm a few times, wondering if I’ll ever play Frisbee again. I’ve got gory, Hollywood scrapes on my right knee and thigh—except that this is blood and not catsup. I hunt for something to clean them with, can’t find anything suitable, and consider going back to one of the cabins for help. Then I think of my father’s New England independence, determine to make do on my own, as he would, and settle for a page of the newspaper I bought. I spit on it, for what reason I’m not sure, wipe the scrapes, and wince at the sting. And marvel that I could have praised myself as a planner just moments before. Why didn’t I bring a first-aid kit along? I gape at the Raleigh. And what about tools? Fearfully, I pick up the bike, straighten the basket, and walk it a few feet. The back wheel makes its familiar clicking. I don’t see anything broken. It seems to be fine. As am I, I come to realize. I drink some water, stroll a few yards, and finally feel ready to ride. I put my canteen back in the basket. Then I lift my leg gingerly over the bar and set off at a gentle pace.

  My scrapes stretch and burn with every pump. My knee is sore. Nevertheless, I give thanks that I didn’t hit my head on the asphalt. Then I notice my front wheel rubbing the brakes and my mood of gratitude vanishes. I lean forward and study the wheel while I ride. It’s no longer perfectly round, but has a slight dent that scrapes the brakes each time around. I try opening the brakes wider, without success, and wonder if the problem is serious. With no alternative but to hope that it isn’t, I pedal to Finchley and open my map, turn onto Highway 14, heading east, wind alongside a stream for several miles, then pull off the road for a midmorning snack.

  I lean the bike up against a tree. Taking my food bag out of the basket, I realize I didn’t even glance at the headlines of the paper I bought, grab it as well, and sit back against a boulder. I scan the front page while eating an apple, recalling my father’s disdain for the news, his unshakable disinterest in the world. I quickly flip through the rest of the paper, aware of the fact that I now merely skim stories I would have once dissected, but confident I’ll never descend to his appalling level of apathy.

  A band of blue jays screams by overhead. I inspect my wounds, decide to donate my apple core to the local fauna, and manage to toss it only ten feet on account of my aching elbow. Still hungry, I open my bag of dates. I pop one in my mouth, survey the stream below, sequined by the morning sun, then reach for a stone that catches my eye. Something I’ve done thousands of times, without understanding or wondering why. Yet this time my mind examines the act, my eyes watch my hand pick it up—a deed that seems to take place in slow motion—and I’m suddenly filled with the certainty that I’m lured to rocks not by their beauty but rather by their great age, by their link to former eras, buried cultures, dimly pictured ancestors. Absently, I stare at the stone, then am struck by the suspicion that this pull toward the veiled past has its source in a quest for knowledge of a very recent ancestor, yet one mysterious as Peking Man: my father.

  Dazed by the thought, I roll the stone in my palm. Then I notice that one of its faces looks chipped and wonder whether human hands shaped it. Gazing before me, I begin to imagine a Stone Age hunting camp down by the stream. This reconstruction of the past from an artifact, of the whole from a part, I find pure joy. Or, more precisely, ninety-nine percent joy, one percent guilt. I muse on that other ancestor, my mother, who always seemed baffled by my collecting rocks, who never encouraged me in that pursuit, and yet who, in the past twelve months, has accepted my leap into archaeology without a word of criticism. I feel sure she wishes I were back passing out leaflets with her, researching her articles, engrossed in the issues of the present, not the Ice Age. And I feel indebted to her for not showing it. Maybe she was steeled for such a shift all along.

  I pack up my food, put the stone in my pocket, and walk the Raleigh back to the road. I get on and push off, in the midst of which act I catch sight of the glint from an aluminum pie tin lying among the weeds. A bit of litter that I recognize as an artifact from my own history—around which my memory at once reconstructs a July morning from the summer before.

  ***

  “Yours,” boomed my father, “is a sweet-tempered ocean.”

  His voice rose above the crash of the waves, as if he were a Biblical prophet preaching to the whitecaps and seagulls and stones.

  “Ours,” he continued, “is a wrathful one.”

  I peered out at the Atlantic, my first view of it, and the first time I’d realized New Hampshire had a coastline. The water struck me as strangely green.

  “A fearsome ocean,” he boasted. “Ruled by Jehovah, not Jesus—or Frankie Avalon.” He locked the car, picked up the picnic basket, and led the way to the beach.

  “We’ve got storms on the Pacific too,” I spoke up.

  He ignored me.

  “And sharks. And killer whales.”

  He spread out a blanket and unpacked our breakfast of bagels, oranges, cheese, and hot coffee. The sky was blue and the breeze stiff, adding sand to the menu. Despite which, it felt great to be by the ocean, even if it wasn’t the one I’d have preferred.

  “Lobster boat.” My father pointed. “Best lobsters in the world come from New England.” He poured himself some coffee and eyed me. “Though since you grew up in vegetarian Berkeley, and would have had to cross the county line to legally dine on meat or fish, I don’t suppose you’re impressed.”

  “You’re right, I’m not.” I struggled to remember if I’d ever actually tasted lobster.

  “Nor, I suppose, should I expect you to care that Plymouth Rock is just down the coast. That America’s roots, and your own, begin here.”

  I reached over, picked up an orange, and peeled it onto this sacred ground. “So how many Russian Jews were on the Mayflower?”

  “That was your mother’s family!” he shouted. “The Tates have been here since 1640, and took a leading part in colonial affairs.”

  I waved off a fly. “The Salem witch trials, for instance?”

  “As it happens, there were a few lawyers among them. Whose descendents might possibly have prosecuted your mother’s anarchist ancestors.”

  “They were unionizers—not anarchists!”

  “From whom she no doubt inherited her tendency to join groups.”

  I spit out a pair of orange seeds. It was true she was always going to meetings, making phone calls, starting committees having to do with one cause or another. But how else could you change things?

  “Never,” my father went on, “have I seen a calendar as crammed as hers. I always suspected she suffered from a fear of her own unreality. Causing her to live by the creed ‘I make appointments, therefore I am.’”

  “And what do you do with your free time? Chase butterflies while the world goes to hell!”

  He leaned back on his elbows. “And why shouldn’t I? The world is here to be enjoyed.

  There are plenty of others who’ll see to its saving, who take the same pleasure in that that I take in netting a spicebush swallowtail. Thank God such people exist—though I found it irksome to be married to one of them. Something you might want to keep in mind.”

  “I’ll do that,” I said with a smirk. “I promise I’l
l never marry a butterfly fanatic.” Not that I had any thoughts of getting married—I still hadn’t had a boyfriend, and wasn’t overly troubled by the fact. My mother had concluded that men weren’t worth the bother; I was too tall, too plain-faced, and too busy with her political endeavors to have disputed her finding. She’d always seemed pleased that I wasn’t one of those girls who spend hours in front of the mirror, and I felt proud to be taking petitions around and reading Gandhi and tacking up fliers while the rest of my classmates sat in movies with dates.

  “I am grateful she introduced me to bagels,” my father said, slicing one in half.

  Instantly, I missed her and the breakfasts she made us both in the mornings—missed her as if I were six years old and had never been away from home before.

  “Lest you think,” he continued, “I’ve got nothing good to say about her.”

  The meaning of the phrase “left-handed compliment” suddenly became clear to me.

  “Do you suppose she’ll ever marry again?”

  I stretched out and buried my feet in the sand. “I think you broke her of the habit.”

  “She’d have to get hold of someone,” he continued, paying no attention to me, “who wouldn’t object to discovering Sacco’s and Vanzetti’s birthdays written in on the calendar but not his own.”

  “They happened to be great men,” I shot back, defending both my mother and them.

  “Then I’m afraid you’ll be shocked to find that the celebration of their births has fallen into sad neglect of late in North Hooton.” He sipped his coffee, viewing the waves. “Last year the stores kept regular hours. And this year there’s even talk of mail delivery.”

  I ignored him, attending instead to a sea gull diving into the sea for a fish.

  “You’d have thought your mother regarded herself as married, in spirit, to that pair of martyrs—the way nuns are said to be brides of Christ.” My father smiled at the thought. “Then again, I suppose by now she’s jumped on the feminist bandwagon and sworn off the male sex. I’ve read that some women are even researching doing away with men altogether and continuing the species on their own.”