by Ada Uzoije
“A bit of country livin’,” he said with his best hillbilly impression.
“Well, call me when you’re back, okay?” said Mick, and sauntered out the front door.
Ideas of being on the farm again cheered Doug substantially and he got dressed quickly, got his stuff packed and went to brush his teeth. He fed the fish and opened his window for fresh air.
“So!” he clamoured down the stairs with his favourite baseball cap on, “Where’s the shindig?” Doug was being that overly silly child Jean remembered again.
His parents, seeing that he was cheerful, welcomed him gladly. His mother prepared a big breakfast of pancakes, bacon, eggs and maple syrup, which they chatted freely over – the first completely unstrained conversation they’d had since the suicide.
Doug told his dad what a good time they’d had at the theme park, and his father in turn talked to them about what was going on at the office and the jobs he had lined up for the well-to-do folks who had taken an interest in his professional work.
“They think my work is ‘tremendously well done’ and frankly, so do I,” he said in a snobbish mockery that had the others giggling.
“That sounds like my English assignments,” Doug said as he wolfed down a pancake.
“Really? Your report card doesn’t make note of it,” Norman said with a mouthful of bacon, and raised his eyebrow playfully.
“Margaret told me how her daughter tried to hide her report card from her when she flunked Biology. It was hilarious,” Jean chipped in.
“Margaret?” Norman asked.
“Bridge Club, dear,” Jean replied and poured her favourite super strong coffee.
“Ah, the Slut of South Central,” he said nonchalantly, getting a gasp from Jean.
“Norman!” she laughed, “You can’t say such things about the former mayor’s wife.” She chomped down on a rind of bacon.
“But yes. That’s her.”
Bridge was one of her favourite activities, not just because she enjoyed playing it and was good at it, but also because the eight ladies who belonged to her club were such interesting and amusing people.
“You know, Mildred tells people’s fortunes,” she said with a mysterious tone.
“If you believe that crap,” Norman winked at his son.
“No, seriously. She’s eighty years old and she is still as feisty as her fiery hair. Lovely old girl,” Jean defended.
“And she said Malory must look out for an exotic man, because he will make her troubles disappear,” she laughed.
“Who the hell is Malory?” Doug wanted to know.
“Don’t encourage her,” Norman said, “she’ll never shut up about her bridge friends. I’ve learned my lesson.”
Jean slapped his hand.
“Malory is the one divorcing her fifth husband, honey. And she shares some despicable, but hilarious stories about him. Never a dull moment. Especially since Jenny revealed to us, before Mildred could read her palm, that her daughter –the one who has a hundred jobs every month – has now told her that she is a pole dancer!” she sniggered through her bacon and Doug shifted in attention.
“A pole dancer?”
“Down boy,” said Norman. “They are never as flexible as they claim to be…so I heard.” He quickly recovered when he got an enquiring look from his wife.
Doug laughed.
Jean continued, “So, not knowing what that was, she had gone to see her daughter and was so shocked that she stood up in the club and shouted, ‘Cindy Lou, get your clothes on and come home at once.’ The poor girl. She must have been so embarrassed.”
Jean’s two boys now listened attentively.
“So get this, her daughter told her to fuck off! Just like that! ‘Imagine,’ Jenny said to us, ‘my Cindy Lou using that word! I just started to cry and ran out of that horrible place.’ Poor thing.”
She finished her pancakes and had a sip of coffee.
“Her daughter hadn’t come home since, and Jenny said she wasn’t sure she’d let her in if she did come home,” she said and looked hard at Doug, “I hope you don’t talk like that!”
Both parents now stared at the poor kid who was just trying to have his breakfast and think of pole dancers.
“Never, Mom, not even once!” exclaimed Doug with less than 100% truthfulness, trying to look shocked at the very thought.
“Yeah, of course you would never,” said Norman, knowing better.
“This week one of the other ladies had broken her shoe in an escalator and had to walk home barefoot. She said that she hadn’t walked barefoot outside for over 60 years and she was quite embarrassed, but it felt good, walking on the cool grass all the way home,” Jean smiled.
“Geez, mom, these women you hang out with were still around when they built the pyramids!” said Doug, throwing Norman into a fit of laughter, mostly because he agreed.
Doug’s mother had told them about Doug’s suicide attempt, but of course she didn’t mention that at the table.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
After breakfast, they packed up and set off for the farm, which was just 15 miles away. Doug even put away his cell phone and abandoned his social networking fun to just be a kid, to just live old school for a day or two. He was going to venture into the different lifestyles of his grandfolk and he actually found it an interesting and welcome change of scenery.
Outside the car window the world that passed by became a blur of green, instead of grey. Concrete became trees and buildings became mountains in a matter of minutes. Out here nobody would judge him, nobody would corner him. In fact, if he so wished, he could disappear into the beauty of the wilder parts of the country and not be bothered by the practices of daily slavery to society and the stresses that caused so many people so much unhappiness.
The trunks of the trees whizzed by like a memory in motion, and he felt his spirits lift with every mile that passed by. Doug felt free. He felt light and witty and he loved the way the sun fell over his face, not stinging, just pleasantly warm. He rolled down his window a few inches and the cool breeze blessed him with the scent of pine and lavender.
Wildflowers and brooks gleamed in the light and he was amazed at how different the world could be if one could only move a little. Whilst mankind toiled and rushed for deadlines and sweated for attainments that meant naught in the big picture of the universe, all this, all the fresh air and growing of things to make beauty was going on, regardless of the modern world’s problems.
And he was part of it, for whatever small a moment in time, he had been set free to just be human, to just breathe and look. The carefree state of things stirred his happiness and he rushed toward it.
On the way they played the alphabet game, which they used to play a lot when Doug was younger. Everybody strained to see something that started with whatever letter they had reached.
“I spy something beginning with ‘C’,” Norman said.
“Oh come on,” said Jean, “that would be car. What, are we in grade school?”
She slapped her leg as she laughed and shook her head at her smiling husband.
“Hey, I’ve never been real good at this kind of game,” he defended playfully.
They stopped at the railway line. There were a few cars ahead, waiting for the apple train which had not come into view yet.
“I have one,” Doug said quickly and his mother immediately watched him in the rear view mirror in full attention.
“Bring it,” she said mockingly.
“I spy with my little eye, something beginning with…,” he waited to build suspense, “…a ‘Q’!”
“Q?” his father hollered, “You’re kidding right?”
“Nope,” Doug boasted.
“Tricky, tricky,” Jean said, looking around with spirited zeal to conceal the fact that she had figured it out. She simply wanted Doug to have his moment and she wondered if Norman was doing the same or if he actually did not know.
“Want a hint?”
“Yes,” she play
ed along.
“Queue, perhaps?” Norman said, acting reluctant to give Doug the upper hand.
Jean knew now that he knew as well.
“Aw, I was going to say that too but I didn’t think it counted!” she lied and Doug giggled.
“Yes, dad, boys beat girls here I see,” he said and Norman laughed.
But then, after the rest of the alphabet went by quite easily, until they reached ‘X’.
The car was a bit more silent now, what with the lack of ideas on ‘X’, and tried as they may they could not find anything to go with it. Norman offered, “an EXtraordinarily beautiful farm,” but Doug and his mother wouldn’t accept that. Through the arched wooden frame with the farm’s name branded on it, the car rolled leisurely and slow, its tires spitting out the occasional rock on the gravel road as it passed the tall weeds and wildflowers that flanked the narrow dirt road.
Doug’s stomach turned with excitement as the old familiar house came into sight around the last bend, cushioned snugly between the shady maple trees and creepers. It was a beautiful double story home from about fifty years ago, a porch all round, lined with plant pots hanging from the shutters and two white bamboo woven rocking chairs on the north corner of the porch. The walls had been recently painted a serene beige and the steps had been fixed since they had last visited.
Next to the house stood the big oak and the rope swing Doug had been playing on, and falling off of, since he was four years old. It was weathered now, but he vowed to fix it right up while he was here. It would give him a sense of accomplishment. Besides, kids never really grow out of swings. Even as adults, the look of a rope swing was irresistible and he knew that he’d love to have another go at it.
His grandparents, Lonnie and Betsy, came out to welcome them, and offered warm greetings, hugs and kisses all around.
Doug’s grandfather said, “There’s a new foal arrived this morning. I was up half the night seeing to the birth. Would you like to see it?”
“Oh yes! That’s so awesome,” Doug exclaimed, thankful he didn’t have to see the actual birth.
“Let’s go, then. Does it have a name yet?” Norman said, taking Jean by the arm and leading her.
“You guys go ahead. I’m going to stick here with mom,” Jean said. She hid very well behind her expression that she actually wanted to talk to her mother alone about Doug.
“Alright then, we’ll see you in a few minutes. Ma, won’t you make us some nice iced tea?” Lonnie said as the three men walked off to the barn.
“Yes, let me get something to drink. Have you seen my new kitchen cupboards?” Jean’s mother played along, knowing her daughter well enough to see that she had something heavy to talk about.
In the barn, the newborn was lying next to her mother. She was a lovely chestnut filly with a white blaze on her nose, and three almost black hocks. The mother was a bit nervous when the strangers came up to them, but they approached slowly and with correct tone, knowing a bit about horses and their behaviours.
They stroked her nose and told her what a good horse she was and how beautiful her baby was, and she soon accepted them.
“Wow, she’s a beauty, Grandpa,” Doug said.
“Yes she is. If you came over more than every summer you’d get to see a lot more of them,” he winked at Norman and smiled at his hint.
“I know. I wish I could come back to farm life. I grew up on a farm nearby here, in fact,” Norman boasted and scratched behind the filly’s jaw.
Both Norman and Doug had learned that horses understand much more of what you say to them than most people think they do, and respond to what you’re thinking even if you don’t speak. Not only were they very intelligent by human standards, but they were animals that could feel emotion and had some beautifully arcane knowledge of the soul.
Norman and his son missed their respective lives in the country so that, before they could help themselves, they were full-blown ranch hands for Doug’s grandfather.
There was something about the fresh air and the freedom of the stretching roads that webbed on the farm that reminded them of all the time they had spent in the city, becoming domesticated, losing their wildness and their happiness with existence.
They were feeding the chickens and other fowl, mucking out the horse stalls, and running enough cobs through the sheller to feed them on Sunday. Doug felt like one of the cowboys he had seen at the Wild West Show and refused to show his fatigue after so many manual chores. Instead he acted tough to impress both men he looked up to, and succeeded.
It was lunchtime when they finally finished.
“I know this sounds stupid, but honestly, when I work on the farm, it doesn’t feel like real work,” Doug told Lonnie.
“That’s what happens when what you do matters to you. And it matters to the other lives you impact, my boy. It’s a good feeling, ain’t it?” His grandfather understood perfectly.
Betsy and Jean had prepared a sumptuous meal of bread, cheese, home-made pickles, jams, and cider that had been made from the apples on the farm.
“Where do you get the hickory nuts, mom?” Jeans asked her mother as they laid out the plates.
“Right here. We get our hickories and walnuts from our own trees.”
After over-indulging in the feast, the conversation took on the usual turn.
“I’m so sleepy right now,” said Jean, and everyone concurred.
“Perhaps we should go have a snooze, then,” Betsy smiled as she covered the leftover food with a net, because she knew they’d all soon come pecking at it again.
Norman and Jean retired to their room for a good old afternoon nap in the room that smelled like lavender and featured a bay window that overlooked the apple orchards. It let in the smell of blossoms and turned soil and soon they both drifted off in the heavenly embrace of the country.
Doug lay on the couch in the living room to watch a television program about alligators, but he too was soon snoozing. The toll of farm work was quite different from the fatigue of city life, but it was somehow more rewarding and sleep was deeper.
While the others slept, the grandparents took a stroll around the farm. Past the rope swing and the big trees that fringed the residence they looked over the slight dip of the valley between their home and the looking mountain where the sun went to die every evening. Doug’s grandmother walked with a knife, peeling a red apple as she walked, and she cut off little pieces to nibble on as she and her husband strolled.
She was most concerned for Doug, especially after the matters that Jean related to her. The way in which Norman handled things worried her, because she knew the boy was much like his mother – not one of the harder people in life. She knew Doug was a stout boy, but Norman was excessively pedantic and somewhat aggressive in his reaction, no matter how nice a guy he was. It would only be natural that Jean would be worried that Doug was not opening up due to his father’s anger issues. So they roamed the clearing to one of the brooks that ran meandered through the little shallow valley.
“I’m terribly worried about that child,” Betsy said.
“Just let the boy be. He’ll be fine. The worst thing you can do is make a fuss. That’s when it becomes an issue,” Lonnie advised .
“I don’t know. I feel like we have to do something, not just sit back and hope he’s okay,” she said and wiped her hands on her jacket.
“You women worry too much. I tell ya, this is just a tempest in a teapot. The boy is over it, by the looks of him. I was talking and working with him most of the morning, and he was just the same as always.”
“You can’t just dismiss these things, Lonnie,” she pleaded. “You know that people can hide things very well while all hell breaks loose every time they find themselves alone. I think at the very least he should see a psychiatrist, just to make sure. There’s something in the back of his eyes. I don’t like it.”
The rest of the day passed happily and the next evening, after a huge meal of ham, cornbread, succotash and three-bean salad, th
ey all went to bed early, quite knackered by the feast.
Doug curled up on the sofa with a duvet wrapped around him. He was exhausted and had forgotten how quiet the night really was. It was pitch dark when the night came here. No street lights and traffic, just you and your mind. Doug dismissed the inkling of concern he felt and smiled at the reminiscence of the filly and how it felt to do some good old fashioned work.
The nightmare began about three hours after he fell asleep. It had been much like his previous nightmares where he was on the bridge, speaking to his mother and looking at the valley below holding the pretty white river. Once more the man drove up, got out with his suitcase and walked to the parapet.
When Doug heard the car he turned to his mother to draw her attention to the odd man. His ears rang with a buzzing sound, like a hundred bees lodged in his skull, and he called out to her, so that she could hear him over the noise.
She had her back to him, looking at the river below, and when she turned it was not his mother. Before him stood the dead man, staring him in the face and smiling. His smile was filled with malice and Doug wanted to look away before the man’s lips curled back in his diabolical grin. In the background Doug could hear the terrible crash and thump of the accident the suicide caused and it started him into reality.
The shivering boy woke up fraught with terror and sweating immensely. His heart pulsed with fear in the dark room that was not his and he threw off the duvet which held his heat. What the hell? How did this happen? Why now? This was all behind him, was it not?
He had to go to the bathroom. His entire body was shivering now and he had to pee. But the bathroom was between his parents’ and his grandparents’ room upstairs and he didn’t want to wake them up, especially in the state he was now. They would have too many questions. It smelled like rain and he made his way to the kitchen instead to get some water. The house was quiet, apart from the thunder that rolled outside.
His feet enjoyed the cool floor and he couldn’t wait to wipe this sweat from his face and body. He hoped to find a towel in the laundry room, just off the kitchen. Jean never liked it when boys used the kitchen as a bathroom. No washing your face in a sink, no using a dishcloth to wipe your face. If she knew what he was up to she’d kill him.
