“Not much, tearing down my garden beds because Bob says I’m violating the law by growing food in my backyard,” John answered coolly. He punctuated his words with shoves on the pry bar, popping the wood loose nail by nail.
“Yeah, I heard about that. Too bad. I like your spaghetti sauce.”
“I’ll see if I can get a plot in the community garden. They’re on my way home from the bus anyway. ‘Course, that means I’ll have to tithe to the co-op, so there’ll be less to share around. You going to do the same?” Another board popped loose from the frame and went on the pile.
“Nope. I was able to work out a deal with Bob. He gets a bushel of stuff from our garden once a month during the growing season, and we get a produce license from MPED. Probably not the only guy who has a farm license on an acre and a half.”
“He’ll probably want to do something similar with me. His message said something about an orchard license. I wonder what that’s going to cost?” John muttered, putting the pry bar behind the next board.
“It’d probably be more…. He’d probably be a lot more forgiving if you and your dad hadn’t been such a pain in the ass. Honestly, you all should have sold out and moved years ago. You know he’s wanted this land for a long time.”
John shrugged as he pulled on the next board.
To be honest, John thought, I could’ve sold out and moved into those apartments next to the dump years ago. It’d sure make the commute shorter, and I wouldn’t have to spend ‘most every spare minute keeping the old place going.
Jim didn’t notice when his neighbor paused before putting the pry bar behind another board, nor the look on John’s face as he did it.
But that’d mean walking away from Mom and Dad’s house. I’d lose everything I’ve had since I was a kid, and all the sweat and blood we’ve put into this place.
“Yeah, well, you know how we are. Too stubborn to die, too dumb to quit,” John said, leaning into the pry bar, “‘Course, it didn’t help that my sister and Bob had a history, and not a good one.”
Sis never should have dated the little shit, he thought, looking over at Jim, Of course, she sure did Dad proud when she blacked his eye after he tried to get frisky behind the bleachers at a football game.
“Mom and Dad might have listened to a reasonable offer if it hadn’t come from him.”
“Yeah, maybe. Anyway, just wanted to know what you were going to do with those strawberry plants. With my license, I can put stuff like that in the ground and not get in trouble.” Jim said, looking over at the wheelbarrow.
“Wasn’t sure. Thinking about keeping them alive until I can get a plot at the gardens. If you want a few, help yourself. They’re done producing for the year, anyway. You want some of this wood too? Most of it’s too far gone to be of use, but some of it’s still in okay shape.” John said. If the price of silence about him not utterly destroying the garden was a few dozen dormant plants and a couple old boards, so be it. It also made Jim an accomplice in his crime, which might come in handy later. It wouldn’t be enough to deter Bob from messing with him if he got caught illicitly growing food in the woods, but even Bob Couch, Junior, had enemies. Telling one of them that Bob had let a family member take part in such a crime might be a weapon, if it came to that.
“Well, I’ll take some, and if you don’t get that plot in time, maybe I can take the rest off your hands. No sense in letting them go to waste.” Jim answered, pulling the top foot or so off the pile of strawberry plants and stacking them onto a couple of the better pieces of lumber.
“Sure.” John replied, “Not a problem.”
Cold day in hell, asshole. The rest of my mom’s strawberries are going out in the woods, not in your metro-licensed garden.
Jim gathered up his bribe, and after a few more minutes of small talk, wandered back over to his yard. John imagined that he and his wife would try to make preserves out of what they couldn’t trade fresh. He smiled as he thought about those two trying to replicate his mother’s recipes. Memories of kitchen fires and smoke from their grill wafting over the property line brought a smile to his dirty face as John turned toward the last of the raised beds. The memory of trying one of Jim’s batches of pickles left a nasty taste in his mouth as he walked across the yard.
Hell, they’ll probably kill the plants off in the first season, he thought, and not being able to grow strawberries in Kentucky takes real talent.
The tall, narrow tomato and pepper bed was the strongest of the lot, and John left it for last. He and his father had built it tall enough that it could be tended without bending over. Only the top foot or so contained soil, while the rest was full of rocks and gravel. Apparently that had kept the boards from rotting at all, because there was absolutely no give in the wood. John slowly pried the front boards down, halfway caught between cursing his parents for their construction and wonder that the bed was still as solid as the day it was built.
As he shoveled out the rocks and gravel from the middle courses, he heard a hollow “thump”. Using his shovel to scrape and scoop the gravel away, several plastic and metal boxes came into view. Four were a drab green painted metal, about four inches tall, six inches deep, and a foot long. Three more were made of plastic, but were taller and narrower, and they were a dull brown under the dust and dirt clinging to them. The last box was of gray-painted steel, and had a large “1” painted on its rusted and pitted top. Taped to the gray box was a plastic bag with “READ ME” written in block letters across it.
John looked around. Jim was nowhere to be seen, and the trees in the yard shielded him and the boxes from view. Buried treasure might be exciting to a kid, but John knew that if his father had buried something like this, then it wasn’t anything he wanted Jim, Bob, or anyone else knowing about. With his thumbnail, he picked at the tape until he could get hold of it, then pulled it and the bag off the box. The bag contained another bag, and when he opened that one, a bundle of papers fell out on the ground.
Picking them up, John recognized the simple handwriting of his father on the front page.
Son, if you’re finding this, you’re going to have one of three reactions. If you’re thinking “Cool, some of Dad’s old stuff!”, then good. If you’re excited with what you might do with these things, also good. If you’re scared shitless from finding them, better. You ought to have all three, but two out of three ain’t bad.
Be careful who you trust. If things have gotten as bad as I think they will, then there aren’t many who won’t sell you out.
Never trust electronic communication of any kind, and write down as little as you can. Try to do everything by word of mouth.
Read all of the books in the box marked ‘1’ before you open the other boxes.
Hide everything as best you can.
You’ll know when to use what you’ve learned, both from this, and from me and your mom.
Good luck. Your mother and I love you very much.
Dad
John’s hands shook as he put down the papers. He did not know for sure what his father had hidden in the garden, but he knew the risk his dad had taken to put this cache in the ground. Every so often, the censors would release reports of people finding things like this, sometimes with forbidden literature, sometimes with weapons. Stories like that never ended in “And the authorities returned the citizen’s property and left him in peace.” He picked the papers back up, put them back in their bags, and used the remnants of the tape to tack them back onto the box.
John quietly dragged the boxes to the center of the yard and hid them underneath the blueberry bushes. They were still full of leaves and the dust-covered boxes were easy to conceal in their shadow. The long boxes were lighter than he expected, but some of the smaller boxes were so heavy that he had to strain to get them across the garden without grunting out loud. He still didn’t know what was in them, but he knew he didn’t want any of his neighbors to find out. Once that was done, he went back to tearing down the garden bed. As he worked, he thought. He�
��d gotten a lot of practice at letting his body do a task while his mind chewed something over in the years at the mine. What he was going to do with whatever was in those boxes? Why had his parents hidden something with the expectation that he would find it later and not want anyone else to know?
Eventually, the wooden sides of the garden box were torn down, and he was left with a pile of topsoil, gravel, and pieces of rock. John wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and looked around at the mess he’d made of his mother’s garden. Where the raised beds had been, there were now just mounds of black topsoil, their edges smashed down with the waffle pattern of his old boots.
That should do it, he thought as he leaned against a retaining wall. He dared a glance at the blueberry bushes and thought, Now what?
He turned on the spigot on the side of the house and washed his hands and face in the ice cold water before taking a long, deep drink. The ancient aluminum fixture groaned when he twisted the handle closed.
The sun was setting as John walked to the porch and sat down on his mother’s old rocking chair. He could see the lights from Jim’s kitchen on the other side of the driveway, and he could smell the faint odor of something… fragrant cooking on their stove. He snorted and looked over at Bob’s house. His car, the only one left on the block, was not in its normal parking spot in the crumbling driveway, which meant that the neighborhood snitch was out for the evening.
Bess whined and scratched at the door, so John reached back and let her out. Once she’d done her business out in the yard and given all of the newly turned up soil a good sniff, she came back up on the porch and settled at his feet. John relaxed as he rocked back and forth a bit, scratching her gently behind the ears, then let himself drift off to sleep.
He woke a few hours later to the sounds of tree frogs and crickets and the sensation of a dog sleeping on his feet. The lights had gone out at Jim’s house, and Bob’s house was still dark, but John could see Bob’s old sedan parked in the driveway. He looked at the dim glow of his watch, and saw it was just past midnight. He had slept for almost three hours. Normally, he’d go inside and get a few more hours of sleep, but tonight, it was time to go back to work.
As quietly as he could, he walked off the porch. Bess got up and followed, but seemed to sense his mood. The old mutt was as silent as he was as they stole to the other side of the yard.
John carefully took the strawberry plants off the hand cart, then retrieved the boxes from under the blueberry bushes. One slipped from his hands as he lowered it to the cart’s deck, and the dull thud of plastic hitting metal rang through the yard and out into the neighborhood. John stood there for a moment, waiting for lights to go on in windows and dogs to bark, but only starlight lit the yard and he heard only the continued symphony of amphibians seeking companionship.
Once all of the boxes were loaded, except for the one marked “1”, John carefully piled the strawberry plants on top of them. Finally, he lay the shovel across the strawberries, took the cart’s handle, and quietly made his way into the woods. Bess, who had supervised his labors and checked everything’s scent as he loaded it, trotted noiselessly next to him.
Once he passed underneath the tall walnut and oak trees, the darkness was almost complete. John crept along the path, pausing every so often to listen for anyone following him and to make sure he still had his bearings. Only his familiarity with the place prevented him from losing his way, and after a few minutes, he put his hand on the trunk of the tall oak he used for hunting rabbits and squirrels.
The earth under the old tree was littered with leaves and twigs, but a few minutes of moving them away as quietly as he could gave him a few square yards of bare earth. John picked up the shovel and dug into the soft dirt, his mind monitoring the sounds of the woods for the sound of someone on the path or a change in the noise from the frogs.
An hour of digging and cutting through small roots found John standing in a hole about three feet deep, six feet long, and as wide as his shoulders. He snorted when he considered that the first thought anyone discovering it would have was that it was a grave. He climbed up, stretching his back to work out some of the ache, and laid the shovel on the pile of dirt and leaves he had built up. Bess lay on the side of the pile, quietly snoring as her rear paws made infrequent steps in pursuit of rabbits.
I sure picked an awesome guard dog, John thought as he took the first of the strawberries off the cart. The boxes went into the hole, filling it about halfway, John filled the spaces between the boxes with dirt and shoveled the rest on top of them as quietly as he could. As he worked, he felt the air change and heard the distant rumble of thunder.
Could be worse, he pondered with a wry smile, could be raining.
There was still a pile of dirt left over when John finished tamping down the soil in the hole, but he spread that around as best he could, then covered it over with a layer of last year’s leaves and twigs. Finally, he carefully planted each of the strawberry plants a few inches apart, then spread more leaves between them. Just as the first lightning bolt lit up the sky overhead and the first drops of rain pattered to the ground around him, John nudged Bess with his foot, picked up his shovel, and pulled the empty cart back down the path toward the house.
By the time they got back to his yard, the heavens had opened and he was soaked to the bone. He put the cart and shovel back where they belonged, and made his way to the porch. Bess waited for him there, shaking herself and flinging mud all over the side windows. John was sitting down in the rocking chair when he remembered the box under the blueberry bushes.
Cussing under his breath, John walked back out into the pouring rain and retrieved the heavy box. He paused on the porch to remove his muddy boots, and after thinking for a moment, took off his jeans and shirt as well. The hard rain had washed away most of the mud, so he wrung them out.
Hope it stops raining long enough to dry these out tomorrow, he thought sourly as he draped them over the rocking chair.
John opened the door, letting Bess walk in and take her place on an old blanket in front of the fireplace. Down to his underwear and bare feet, John hefted the heavy box and hauled it down to the basement. The creak of the wood floor beneath his feet sounded deafening after trying to be quiet for so long.
When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he paused and considered where to hide it. Leaving it out in the open would be easiest, but a dirty, rusty box would certainly draw the eye in the rumpus room or the pantry. After a moment, an idea struck him. The door to the old tornado shelter was heavy, by design, and John winced at the creak of its hinges as he pushed it open with his foot. A bare bulb hung from the ceiling, and to John’s surprise, it came on when he tugged at its chain. The shelves, once stocked with food, batteries, and clean water, were mostly bare, but the old tents and camp stove still sat in their familiar place. John set the box down next to them, and nodded when it blended in.
John removed the bundle of papers from the box’s lid, and took out his father’s note. He read it again, then looked at the other papers in the bundle. Some were old printouts from websites, while some were even older, faded, photocopies from magazines and books. The bottom one, though, was printed on thicker paper, and was yellowing at the edges. John ran his fingers along the small holes in each of its corners, remembering the cork board his father had hung in his office upstairs. Reminders of appointments, cards from his mom, and a few cartoons that made eyes roll had all been tacked to it. But the central place on the board had been this paper. John sat down on the floor and read the first paragraph by the dim light of the ancient bulb swinging slightly above him.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another...
About Tom Rogneby
Tom Rogneby is a curmudgeonly husband and father who spends his time in the wilds of suburban Louisville, Kentucky. He lives with his wife, children, cats, dogs, fish, and various transient out
doors mammals, reptiles, and amphibians. His hobbies include reading, shooting, playing with an eight-year-old (It’s great to finally have a companion at his level), and writing. He is a veteran, and has gone to many exciting places to do many boring things.
daddybearsden.com
The Unsent Letter
Brad R. Torgersen
The small envelope and the photograph were wedged together down at the bottom of the locker. I’d have missed them, except for the fact that a paper copy of my orders had slid down behind one of the shelves and slipped into the imperfectly-welded metal seam. Retrieving my orders required me to get down on my hands and knees and shine a light from my cell phone into the very back corner, under the bottom shelf proper. I gathered that few eyes had looked this way in the many years this particular locker had sat in this barracks. The accumulation of dust along the seam was tremendous. I sneezed loudly, trying to delicately pluck my orders out without ripping them. Then I retrieved the strange envelope and the photo.
The envelope itself was badly yellowed, both by time and by liquid which had spilled down from above and dried. The photo was not a photo but instead a color printout of a little girl’s smiling face: dark eyes, dark skin, huge grin with missing teeth, and hair that spun around her adorable face in a swirl of ringlets. I flipped the photo over, but saw nothing written on the back. On the envelope there was just a name: Kasheena.
Thick cellophane tape along the back had kept the envelope sealed for who knew how many months. Or had it been years? I couldn’t be sure.
Placing my orders back on the top shelf where they belonged, I walked down the barracks bay to the central hub—where metal trash cans guarded the entrances to the latrine and the shower. Then I stopped, the envelope and the faded color printout picture nagging at my conscience.
Who is she? I wondered. And immediately thought of my two sons, and my daughter, back home in South Dakota. I stared at the envelope and read the name again. Something kept me from tossing the picture and the envelope into the trash.
Freedom's Light: Short Stories Page 15
