Dirt (3 page)

Chapter 4

G
alen woke with Jennifer's panties just a few inches from his face, thighs on either side of his head.

Good morning, cousin, she said. It's a sin, you know, to peek at your cousin. But you're always peeking. So I thought I'd give you a good, close look.

Blue silk, a different shade than the blue cotton yesterday. More tightly fitting. He could feel the heat. He tried to smell her, but she smelled only like soap.

He was afraid to say anything. He didn't want this to end.

The twenty-two-year-old virgin, she said. This is the closest you've ever been, isn't it?

Yeah, he said.

Why is that?

I don't know. Just not very popular, I guess.

And a mama's boy. You never leave this house.

People don't value the spiritual enough.

You mean freaks don't get laid. You can jack off. You can jack off while you look at me.

So he reached down and began pulling, squeezing tight, enjoying the ache of it.

I'm going to turn around, she said. So I can watch.

She stood up on the bed, which tilted like an ocean, and came back down facing the other way. She pulled away the blanket and sheet so he was exposed. He pulled harder. This view he'd never had before. The backs of her thighs and ass, so perfectly shaped, beautifully cupped, and the hollow and curve toward the front. The edges of her panties against soft creamy skin.

Can you pull your panties to the side? he asked. I wanna see.

No, she said. Not yet. You only get the panties for now.

Not yet, he said.

Why would you even want it? I thought you wanted the spiritual.

Galen's dick was harder than it had ever been. He stroked more slowly to prolong this, and he could see she was getting wet, the silk darker in the center.

You're getting wet, he said.

Yeah, she said. I like this. I like watching. I want you to come now.

So he sped up his hand and arched his hips, feeling every part of him drawn tight, and then he came and his neck pushed back and he shook with the pleasure. He opened his eyes again, her panties dark and wet above him, and he wanted her in his mouth. Please, he said. Let me see, or let me just lick.

Jennifer stood up on the bed, stepped down carefully onto the floor in her bare feet. No, she said. But that was fun. I like that. It's always nice to spend time with family.

Galen laughed. It felt good to laugh, and he tried to add the little yelps again.

You're a freak, she said. I'm leaving. But she was smiling, and Galen had never felt so good. When she was gone, he just lay there and smiled and stared up at the ceiling.

Then his mother was knocking at the door. Get up, she said. We're having a quick lunch, and after that we're working on the walnuts.

Galen had forgotten about the walnuts.

September, he yelled. The harvest isn't until September. But she was already back downstairs.

It was only the end of July, but his mother would make them put out all the drying racks to inspect.

So Galen rose and cleaned up, then looked around for green clothing. He would dress as a green, unripe walnut. He had a green sweater and green rubber boots. What he was missing were green pants. But in the hallway closet, in the stacks that smelled of mothballs, he found two green towels. He doubled old belts around his thighs to cinch the towels into place, then pulled on the green boots.

Galen walked carefully down the stairs, and he felt like some old knight heading into battle. He'd carry a giant cucumber for a sword, or a spear of asparagus.

Mother, he said as he entered the dining room. I am Green Walnut, and I am reporting for duty.

Galen's aunt Helen shrieked with laughter, and Jennifer snorted her milk onto her plate. But Galen's mother continued cutting the crusts off her baloney sandwich. Fine, she said. Have some lunch, Green Walnut.

I hope my unripeness doth not offend, he said.

His mother quartered her sandwich diagonally and picked up one triangle. Today is a special day for me, she said. It was this time each year that Mom and Dad would put out the drying racks to inspect them. We'd start earlier, of course, at first daylight, when the air was still cool. And we'd work quietly. I'd feel the day heat up, and by lunchtime it was wonderful to stop and sit in the shade under the fig tree and have lemonade.

And don't forget the wine, Helen said. The wine started in those early hours, too.

We'd drink lemonade, Galen's mother said. And we'd have sandwiches, cut like this, and we'd be a family.

Until the bickering would start, Helen said. I'm not sure where you're fitting in the bickering.

Stop, Galen's mother said. Just stop. Why can't you remember the good moments?

Gosh, I don't know. Maybe because I wasn't the one prancing around being cute? Maybe because I was older and knew what was going on?

That's not fair.

Wake up, little Suzie-Q.

Galen poured himself a glass of lemonade and then considered the food options. Baloney and ham in plastic packets, American cheese also in plastic, saltine crackers in plastic, sliced bread in plastic. I think I'll have a plastic sandwich, Galen said.

Mom and Dad had their problems, but what you don't seem to understand is that we were lucky here, living in this place, working on the walnut harvest together.

Dad used to beat Mom. He'd beat her right in this dining room, and in the kitchen, and upstairs in their bedroom. What part of that are you not understanding?

He never beat her.

Oh, for chrissakes.

Galen didn't want bread and mustard, which was one option, so he decided to go for the crackers instead. He grabbed a handful of saltines and crumbled them into his half-full glass of lemonade. He used a fork to submerge the pieces of cracker and then he drank his lemonade while shoveling with the fork. Salty and sweet and not really all that bad.

His mother was still working on her sandwich, and there seemed to be plenty of time, so he fixed another glass. A bit heavier on the crackers this time, pulpier, more substantial. Fitting in a good meal before a day's work.

When his mother had finished, she rose to take her plate to the kitchen. She returned to the dining room and looked at them all, sitting there. For a moment, Galen felt bad. Felt guilty for dressing up like this and destroying her special day. She looked hurt, and he didn't like seeing that. Not really.

I'm going to start on the racks, she said. If any of you want to join me, you may. She had curled her hair. Long brown waves. And she was wearing makeup. Galen wondered if she had planned this for the special day, or if it had happened only because she was up early from his crowing.

And then she was gone. He realized he was standing. Green Walnut must make up for everything, he said. Green Walnut has been very bad.

Hallelujah, Brother, Jennifer said.

She deserves it, his aunt said. You're the perfect curse for her.

But Galen ignored them, sallied forth out the pantry door and walked stiffly to the farm shed, trying not to lose the towels, same path he had taken last night into the orchard.

He found the large bay door slid open. The green tractor, slim front tires, narrow ventilated snout. A thing of the past. But he tried not to be distracted. Stepped into the dark half of the shed, where his mother was hidden deep in the piles of racks.

Just carry them out? he asked. Smell of dust and mildew, smell of walnut husks. Smell of his childhood. If he closed his eyes, he could go right back, and no doubt this was what his mother was doing now. We have the same childhood, he said. Because of the smell of this room.

Not the same, she said. You have no idea. You can't imagine what it was like.

Fine, he said. Your specialness can't be touched. So where do you want the racks?

His eyes were adjusting and he could see them more clearly now, square wooden frames with mesh screens. Stacked like bricks, making a wall.

I'm only telling you the truth, she said. It was a different time. I'm not the enemy.

He clenched his teeth and made a growling sound and shook his arms. It was just what he felt.

You won't be able to do that to anyone else, she said. You treat me worse than you'd be allowed to treat any other person. I'm just about at the end of my patience.

Your patience? Galen asked. He grabbed a rack and stepped around the tractor, into the bright hot sun. His blood pounding. He walked twenty yards to the staging area and set the rack down in the dirt. He got on his knees and grabbed big dirt clods like the earth's own walnuts and set them in the rack. Dark crusted shapes already drier than the sun itself, and these would put the rack to good use.

The towels on his legs were too difficult to keep in place, so he let them fall. Bare legs and underwear, a green sweater and green boots. He passed her on the way back to the shed, kept his eyes on the ground. I haven't done anything to you, he hissed.

Like jousting, he thought. Tilting at each other, only a brief moment of contact. He stepped into darkness, grabbed a rack and set it on the ground, grabbed another and stacked it, grabbed another. They were heavy, made of wood, and he wasn't sure he could carry three at once, but he picked them up, his back washing out a bit, then recovering. He stumbled outside, his cheek pressed against wood, and tottered his way to the staging area.

His mother was removing all the dirt clods from the rack he had placed. Those aren't dry yet, he said. But she didn't say anything in return. Just knelt there in the dirt in her work pants and one of her father's old work shirts, sun hat and gloves, removing clods.

He set down the stack of three racks and headed back for more. He grabbed another three, brought them out into the sun. Then he had an idea.

He set all six racks next to each other in a long row, and he lay down on the racks, careful not to punch through any of the mesh screens. He made sure his butt and head and ankles were supported on the wooden edges. Another edge made a crease in his back.

Why do you do this to me? his mother asked. Her voice as quiet as a whisper.

Green Walnut needs to be dried, he said. And these are the drying racks. He tried to keep his eyes open, staring up into the midday sun. He was roasting in his sweater, and his bare legs and face would burn. He would stay out here the rest of the day. The wooden edges so hard across his back and neck he didn't know how he'd last even the next five minutes, but he was determined. It would be a meditation, and who knew what might lie on the other side.

All I've sacrificed for you for more than twenty years, his mother said in a low voice. Get up before Helen and Jennifer see you.

Galen could hear his aunt and cousin talking at the shed, coming this way. Why does it matter if they see? he asked. I'm just curious. I don't see why it would matter.

Just get up now.

No, he said. I'm staying here like this all day.

The sun so bright Galen couldn't see his mother, couldn't judge what might come next. But she only walked away.

He tried to relax into the hard wood, tried to let his flesh and bones find a soft way of fitting to the wood. The edges cutting into his butt were making his legs numb, and the edge across his back made breathing more difficult, but the one at his neck was the most urgent. He tried to exhale, stare at the sun, forget this existence, find something else.

You already look like jerky, his aunt said.

His thighs are white, Jennifer said.

True, his aunt said. And I guess they should match his face and neck.

Galen dizzy and blind, his eyes filled with flashes and spots, but he could hear the work on every side, a pointless task. The racks didn't need to be cleaned or oiled or maintained in any way, unless a screen was broken. But none of them knew how to repair a screen. If one was broken, they'd simply put that rack aside, in the pile directly behind the tractor, and not use it. So what was happening today was that they were taking all of the racks out of the shed and then putting them away again.

We're just going through the motions, Galen said.

What's that? his aunt asked.

Our whole lives, Galen said, just reenactments of a past that didn't really exist.

The past existed, his mother said. You just weren't there. You think anything that's not about you isn't real.

What about my father? Galen asked. Can you prove he's real? Can you narrow it down to the two or three men who are most likely, at least?

No answer to that. Never an answer to that. Only the sounds of their shoes in the dirt, the sounds of racks being picked up now, returned to the shed.

I have some other questions too, Galen said. I'm not finished.

But no one was listening to him, it seemed, and his back was so destroyed by now it hurt too much to speak. So he closed his eyes, saw bright pink with white tracers and solar flares, a world endlessly varied and explosive. His body spinning in the light. Face and thighs cooking, a stinging sensation. But he would stay here, he would see this out.

Pain itself an interesting meditation. On the surface, always frightening, and you wanted to run. Very hard not to move, very difficult, at least at first, to do nothing. Pain induced panic. But beneath the surface, the pain was a heavier thing, dull and uncomplicated. It could become a reliable focal point, a thing present and unshifting, better even than breath. And the great thing about these racks was that they distributed the pain throughout his body. He was afraid his neck and back might actually be damaged, and that was a part of pain, too, the fear of maiming, of losing permanently some part of the body. Even an insect didn't want that. No one wanted to lose a leg or an arm or the use of their back, and so as we approached this moment, we approached a kind of universal, and if we could look through that, and detach ourselves, we might see the void beyond the universals, some region of truth.

Stop thinking, Galen told himself. The thinking was a cheat, robbing him of the direct experience. And it's also bullshit, he said aloud. It's all bullshit. I'm just lying on a rack, and that's all.