Rear-View Mirrors

by Paul Fleischman

  “Better living through chemistry, as they say.”

  “I hear that they’re going back to their Bibles.” His voice had a matter-of-factness to it that warned me he was pulling my leg. “That they’re studying up on the virgin birth. And that the pet shops can’t meet the demand for doves.”

  I reached for a bagel and bit into it. “I’ll keep it in mind for my science fair project.”

  “Just this last week I read a review of a book claiming that God is a woman.”

  “Judging by the screwed-up state of the world, I’ve never had trouble believing he’s male.”

  “The next thing women will want,” he continued, “is to break into major league baseball!” An outrage he apparently found even more shocking than seizing the throne of God.

  We finished eating, packed up our basket, and I wrote my mother a long letter. Afterward, we strolled for an hour along the beach, a heaping handful of whose stones I stuffed in my pockets. Then we started back toward home. In the course of which forty-five-minute drive, my father discoursed, in tour-guide fashion, on the magnificence of his state’s salt marshes, the exquisite practicality of her stone fences, the perfection of her climate, the charm of covered bridges, and the advantages of attending a small college, of which New Hampshire boasted many. A sales pitch that impressed me not with the Granite State, but with his desperation.

  We turned onto Hatfield Road, passed our house, and drove on to that of Mr. Peck, the man who’d given me a lift to my father’s the night I’d arrived in North Hooton. We found him in the barn, peering into a cow’s ear.

  “Morning, Floyd,” my father said. “I was wondering if you could spare us some straw. We’re going to be mulching the garden today.”

  I didn’t care for his use of the word “we”—especially since I’d never heard the word “mulching.” Nor did I care for the dozen cows looking me over as if I might be lunch. Some of their backs were nearly up to my chin, and I was glad to see they were confined in their stalls.

  Mr. Peck grabbed his cane and hobbled across the barn. On one wall of which I spotted a bumper sticker: “U.S. Out of the U.N.” Presumably placed there for the benefit of his cows.

  “I read where they had another earthquake in California,” he said, eying me.

  My father didn’t subscribe to a paper, but I watched the news each night on TV, alone, and had heard a quick mention of it. And had noticed a relish in the reporter’s voice, as if California were being punished for its sins.

  “Ten injured,” Mr. Peck continued. He pointed to a stack of bales of straw. My father paid him for two, placed one in my arms, and hoisted up the second. Trailing Mr. Peck, we trudged back to the car.

  “Two million dollars’ damage!” he crowed. Then he turned toward me, his face pale, fearful perhaps that, being a Californian, I’d bring down a similar calamity on North Hooton.

  We put the bales in the trunk and headed home. Mr. Peck tipped his Red Sox cap. I suspected he hoped we wouldn’t stop until I’d been safely returned to the Pacific. Instead, my father turned up our driveway, waved to a gangly boy mowing our lawn, and drove on to the garden, behind the barn.

  “Who’s that?” I asked him.

  “Owen Pearce. Lives half a mile up the road.” We lifted the bales out of the trunk. “Helps out with the heavier yard work most weekends. Given the sorry state of my heart.”

  He entered the barn and returned with a knife and a transistor radio, snipping the bailing twine with one and tuning in the Red Sox game with the other. Then he stood a moment and surveyed his plot.

  “Tending the garden,” he proudly proclaimed, “is a venerable New England tradition.”

  I wasn’t aware that New England had a monopoly on that particular custom. And I doubted the Puritan fathers would have approved of their hallowed rite being performed to the racket of the radio.

  “The garden is a living symbol of renewal.” My father strolled down a row of potatoes like a general reviewing his troops. “And spreading a mulch at the base of the plants, keeping out weeds and keeping in moisture, is a vital part of its maintenance.”

  He walked back toward a bale and grabbed a handful of straw.

  “Your mother, no doubt, holds Aristotle’s view that man is a political animal.” He packed the straw around a pepper plant. “Today we’ll confirm the definition I prefer: Man is the only animal that mulches.”

  Contemplating the garden’s great size, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to fully realize my human potential and spread straw around every one of its plants. It was an ark of vegetables, with every sort, from asparagus to zucchini, represented.

  What exactly my father would do with it all when it ripened I’d no idea—unless gorging hourly on salads was an old New England tradition too.

  “My parents,” he bellowed above the radio, “had their garden right here as well. I still recall helping them as a boy.”

  He was working among the cucumbers. Reluctantly, I took up an armful of straw and started in on the onions.

  “Every New England child learns to garden. In this part of the country we guide our steps by the light of the Bible and the Burpee seed catalog.” He stopped and wiped his glasses with a handkerchief. “Many winter nights I’ve found spiritual strength in the pages of the Burpee catalog—consoling myself with its promise of spring. And the Bible, of course, as I’m sure you’re aware, is a treasure trove of gardening advice. How to deal with plagues of locusts, and so on. . . .”

  I was too intent on getting the chore done and myself out of the sun to smile. After half an hour of crawling down rows, listening to gardening lore with one ear and trying to tune out the Red Sox with the other, I stood up, wiped my brow, and found that we’d finished.

  “You can report to your mother,” my father announced, admiring our labors, “that I’ve freed my serfs. And that I’m working my fields, my pores producing the honest sweat of the working class.”

  My brain was too hot to think up a reply. I lay back in a strip of shade by the car. And was at once disheartened by the sight of my father emerging from the barn with an armload of stakes from which pie tins fluttered on strings.

  “Next, we’ll pound these into the ground.”

  At which point it became quite clear to me why most people simply went to the store when they wanted some vegetables.

  “To help keep the birds and rabbits away.” He dropped several stakes and a hammer beside me. “They say their flashing in the sun scares them off.”

  I got up and started pounding them in, lest I bring on a comparison of western loafing and eastern industry.

  “Anything else you want, Mr. Tate?”

  I turned around and saw that the boy who’d been mowing the lawn had joined us.

  “Just one thing.” My father smiled. “I’d like you to meet my daughter Olivia.”

  The boy looked my way. He was dark-haired and bony. I kept on hammering away at my stake.

  “Owen,” my father addressed me, “will be a senior in the fall, like yourself.”

  I gave a brief smile. Out of habit I quickly compared our heights and saw I was taller, though only by an inch or two.

  “Olivia’s from California.”

  Owen nodded impassively.

  “From near San Francisco,” my father added. I’d heard that New Englanders were known for not talking much and had the distinct feeling my father was struggling to get him to speak.

  “Ricky asked if he can do the yardwork next week as usual, or if you want me again.”

  My father’s face fell. Those weren’t the words he wanted—and suddenly I understood why.

  “I’ll—let you know,” he fumbled in reply. He pulled out his wallet and paid Owen, who walked off.

  I pounded in the last of my stakes. “Sounds like he’s not your usual helper.”

  My father dabbed his bald head with his handkerchief. “His younger brother often comes instead.”

  “You don’t say.” I flicked a pie tin and watched it
twirl, glinting in the sun. “You put up these tins to repel the birds. But you brought him here to attract—me.”

  I glared across the garden at him, his sober expression telling me I was right. He’d thought he could anchor me here that way—and it struck me that here was a third courtship, joining my father’s wooing of me and his being pursued by his artist friend, Flora, in which one of the parties had no wish to partake.

  “You like playing God, don’t you?” I asked him. “You’ve got your vegetable Garden of Eden. And we were to be your Adam and Eve.”

  He hammered in a stake without answering.

  “Well then, I’ve got a prayer for you. Send one of your angels unto Owen—and tell him that next week he can stay home.”

  5 / Epitaph

  I brake the moment I see it. I look behind me, circle back, stop beside it, and get off my bike.

  I crouch. There are ants all over its head. It’s some kind of warbler. Or maybe a vireo. I’m no expert on birds, though I have progressed beyond my mother, who stopped at whippoorwills. Last fall I bought myself a bird book. And fell into the habit of taking a feather from those I find dead—which I do right now, carefully pulling one out from the tail. I hold it up. It’s brown, edged with white. I thread it through the front of my cap. And at once I feel as if my hands aren’t my own, as if someone else has willed this deed, and realize I’m taking part in a practice as old as mankind itself: identifying myself with an animal, in this case by wearing one of its feathers, hoping by doing so to acquire its characteristics, in this case swiftness.

  I put on my cap and continue pedaling, unable to detect any gain in speed deriving from the feather. On the contrary, the new black pavement abruptly turns old and horrendously bumpy, slowing me down considerably. Each jolt travels up my arms and spine. I feel like I’m saving a trip to the chiropractor, the only silver lining I can think of. Peering around bends, I expect any moment that the road will regain its frosting-smooth surface. Half an hour later I’m still waiting, afraid I’ll need to see a chiropractor, imagining nuts shaking loose from their bolts and the bike spontaneously disassembling. At last, the pavement improves—just a bit. As a connoisseur whose rock-hard tires convey every wrinkle in the road, I’m grateful.

  I coast down a hill. I pass a beech tree and discover my thoughts turning back toward my father. I then cruise through the tiny village of Barbeau, whose downtown consists of an abandoned gas station. It dawns on me that the name is French, pointing my thoughts toward France, and toward Ben. I’ve been too busy in the week since graduation to miss him—but suddenly I do. I wonder how he’s finding Paris and if there’ll be a letter waiting in Maine. I calculate that we’ll only have five weeks together back in Berkeley before heading off to our respective schools. Why, I ask myself sharply, didn’t we think to apply to the same university? Then I recall applications were mailed in October, and that we didn’t get to know each other until Christmas.

  I ride beside a flower-filled meadow, my mind traveling a route of its own. Christmas. Ice skating. Ben skating backwards. France. Snails. Cave paintings. Van Gogh. My father’s imaginary French baseball league. I pause on this last topic and find myself laughing at the strange silliness of his diversion. Then I remember that he operated this fictitious concern from October to April, and wonder if this was another of his subversions of mortality: a scheme yielding baseball year-round, creating a world of summer without end, a world in which winter never arrived.

  To my right a hawk hovers above a field, hanging in the air like an asterisk, directing my eye to the grass below. I round a curve, lose sight of the scene, wonder about the hawk’s hidden prey, and find myself daydreaming about mice. Which leads my mind to Of Mice and Men. Followed by musings on the turtle crossing the road in the opening of The Grapes of Wrath; the race between the tortoise and the hare; France, where I’ve read they eat rabbits, and horses; the Donner Party, stranded in the Sierras; then the current state of my own stomach—empty. I ride on a few miles, reach Greeley, population 672, pedal down the elm-lined main street, and decide to stop and eat lunch.

  The town is larger than North Hooton, with two grocery stores to choose from. I stop at one, pay for a tin of sardines, some doughnuts, and an orange juice, and walk across the street to a park. Or “green,” as they call them in this part of the country. I pass a statue honoring the town’s Civil War dead, and eat under an elm. In whose shade I then stretch out, close my eyes—and next open them, to my utter amazement, half an hour later. I look at my watch, reach for my map, and find I’ve ridden twenty-eight miles. I’m nearly half done, and it’s only 12:10. I can afford half an hour for a nap.

  I pick up my stuff, ride two blocks, then take advantage of a gas station bathroom. Coming out, I notice there’s a narrow graveyard tucked between the gas station and a church. Knowing that I can spare the time, I prop the Raleigh against the low fence, open the squeaky gate, and enter. The tombstones lean, as if tremendous gales have tormented the cemetery. A sparrow sings atop one of the stones. I stoop, peer at an epitaph, and make out “June 12th, 1828.” The rest of the inscription is too worn to read. I move along to another gravestone, stoop again—and feel my eyes widen, at once recalling my Uncle Leo’s visit to North Hooton when I see the words “Passenger, as you pass by . . .”

  “. . . Remember you are born to die.

  As you are now, so once was I.

  As I am now, so you shall be.

  Prepare for death, and follow me.”

  Leo’s voice was large, like my father’s, and he’d addressed this epitaph to the assemblage of tombstones as if he were a minister lecturing his flock. He turned toward me. “Preaching to the converted, I’m afraid.”

  I smiled in reply. I heard my father’s ax in the distance and reread the inscription. “Remember you are born to die” was advice he’d certainly taken to heart. His death seemed to have cast its shadow over all his days—except for this one. When I’d come downstairs he was already up, zealously splitting wood, shouting to me that his heart would last a thousand years, fearlessly defying his demise.

  “I’d forgotten about this little graveyard hidden away out here,” said Leo.

  I studied the inscriptions on a cluster of stones. “Most of their last names seem to be Pyle. And most of them didn’t live very long.”

  “Tempus fugit. Time flees. A strong argument against sleeping in late.” Leo stepped over the low stone wall. “Something a sluggard like me, with no wife or kids to wake him up, can use.”

  “You must not have slept too late to have driven all the way here from Boston by nine.” I followed him over the wall and we continued our stroll through the woods behind the house.

  “I got used to getting up early last semester. Had to teach an eight o’clock class.” He converted a branch to a walking stick. “Italian literature of the Renaissance. A subject that put many students back to sleep.”

  We passed several gnarled apple trees, some bent-backed and dead, some with a few leaves, all looking misplaced among the pines.

  “But tell me, Olivia—how are you finding rural life?” A chipmunk darted past us. “Fresh eggs. Clean air. No bookstores for miles. Mosquito bites. Giant leeches in the lakes. . . .”

  A woodpecker’s drumming rang through the forest.

  “It’s all right,” I replied. “Kind of boring, though.” I searched for something more to say, then noticed Leo had halted and was pointing with his walking stick.

  “Haven’t seen that since I was a boy.”

  We both angled left and found ourselves approaching a large, stone-lined pit.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  The hole was about four feet deep and rectangular. “An old cellar, I suspect.” He squatted at its edge. “Those rocks over there were probably part of the chimney—all that’s left of the house.”

  I crouched. “When do you suppose it was lived in?” I realized I was speaking softly, as if we were intruding on its occupants.

  “If those
folks in the graveyard are the ones who built it, it might have been standing two hundred years back.”

  A chill skittered up the length of my spine. I stared ahead blankly. My ears heard no sound. Then I jumped down into the pit, my feet disappearing beneath a foot of dead leaves, and discovered my mind repeating a line that my teacher had paused upon when we’d read King Lear last year: “Ripeness is all.” Walking around the basement, entranced, running my fingers over its stone sides, I knew that some bud inside me had burst. I no longer wanted simply to collect rocks; I wanted to know the lives of the people who shaped them into tools and lined their cellars with them. Buried lives, hidden like stones underground, waiting to be unearthed.

  “They probably got their water from the creek over there.” Leo gestured with his stick.

  The house and its dwellers were becoming more real. The children had walked to the creek to fetch water, and no doubt had grown tired trudging up the hill. Their last name was Pyle. I thought back to the tombstones and tried to recall the first names I’d seen: Sarah, Nathaniel, Obadiah. Suddenly, I remembered something.

  “Those apple trees—could that have been their orchard?”

  “Good!” shouted Leo. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  I broke into a smile, then reminded myself that my month of sampling my father and the fabled East would be up in two days. By the time I’d climbed out of the cellar, explored the grounds, and found a rusty key, I wasn’t sure I wanted to accept my option to rush right back to Berkeley.

  “Sounds like your father’s still splitting wood.”

  We emerged from the pines and could see him in the distance.

  “Have you ever had any heart trouble?” I asked.

  “Not a bit.” A light breeze combed the long grass and played with Leo’s wispy red hair. “The result, I believe, of a daily dose of Bluebird ale.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “Good God!” he burst out in mock amazement. “Since I brought a six-pack, allow me to offer you your first taste—or would I be guilty of contributing to the good health of a minor?”