Geneva

    After our neighbors burn their tent with all their belongings in it, the city comes and clears away the charred debris. Though I predict the campers (or ones like them) will return within a week or two, a few months pass before a new tent appears. It's blue and decorated with plant fronds and trinkets. A number of items lay carefully arranged around a keyboard shaped like a grinning kitty. As far as encampments go, it looks pretty nice.

    I catch glimpses of the occupant when I walk by, but he seems to be keeping to himself, rarely coming out except to rearrange some of his tchochkes.

    Then another tent appears, and another. This is what always happens. The other tents aren't close to the other one though, and then one of those vanishes. And things are pretty quiet back there. 

    And then one morning there's a shed.

    About the size of a camping pop up, it's on wheels but has plywood walls painted white with a full-sized door and window. It stands next to the first tent and is likewise festooned with trinkets and leaves and branches. One wall is made of a wooden sign which reads "Geneva's Shear Perfection, Barber & Beauty Salon", and rumor has it the guy is in fact giving people haircuts. As the days pass, more and more people start hanging around but we don't witness anyone getting a haircut, even after the proprietor erects a pole wrapped in red and silver duct tape. A beige couch materializes.

    This morning it rains for a awhile and then stops. My coworker in the control room sees on camera that someone has lit a small fire between the tent and the shed. Before I have a chance to investigate she's calling 911. While she's on hold, I go out to talk to them, .electing not to bring the fire extinguisher this time.

    A man with long sandy hair is propping up two couch cushions over a fire in a coffee can. The cushions are steaming but they look too wet to burn. I tell the guy that someone has called the fire department, and that I'm just there to make sure everything's okay.

    "We had a big fire here a little while ago," I say. "So we get a little worried about open flames."

    "I hear you man. A couple of my friends accidentally burned their tent once," he said. He keeps reassuring me that the fire is under control, and it seems like it actually is. 

    "This is a pretty nice set up you have here,"  I say, and the man says, "Oh it's all his stuff," gesturing to the shed or wagon or whatever it is. The door is open and the owner lounges on a pile of blankets inside. I say hi and ask how he's doing. He starts screaming at me to go the fuck away and leave him the fuck alone. "You're watching us on camera. You're always watching us." I ignore him and continue talking to the first man, who also ignores the screaming. The fire has gone down a bit and he has re-positioned the cushions so they seem more stable. I hold one in place to help. 

    "I haven't sat on a couch in so long," he says. The wistfulness in his voice is heartbreaking. I suggest he wrap the cushions in plastic. 

    The man in the shed has been screaming and cursing at me this whole time, but makes no move to get up. "I'll kill you," he screams. "I'll fucking kill you. I wish you would die motherfucker. I want you to die. Die! DIE! DIE!"  

    "I will someday," I say, and walk away. The rain starts to fall again and it feels like ice on  my skin. 

Chokecherry

In Which we Once Again happen across our old Friend Grampa Bones, who in turn happens across a rather Vexing piece of Foliage

 

        In the great sticky State of Molasses, home to succulent Succotash County, in which is nestled, slightly off-center, the happy hamlet of Horseradish Falls, there is a sleepy street called Sandbag Avenue, and on that street there sits a house.

        There are actually many houses sitting on Sandbag Avenue, but there is only one we are interested in at this particular moment. It is not a big house, nor is it a small house. It is a just-about-the-right-size-for-an-old-man-to-live-in-all-alone sort of house, which is quite fortunate, as it happens to belong to an old man who does indeed live there all alone. This particular old man’s name is Grampa Bones. 

      Grampa had lived for many, many years in that same house on that same street in the same town, leaving Horseradish Falls only occasionally to go fishing for papayafish on Vertical Lake, or to take the bus to try his luck at the Lucky Clam Casino with his friend Artie Applesauce. He liked it this way. Grampa didn’t care much for adventure, and he found plenty of things to interest him right in his own quiet home.  

      One day Grampa awoke to the sound of the gatorphone ringing. The sound surprised him; not many people found much need to call a weary old coot such as himself. Taking a long ostrich feather from the drawer in the bedside table, he tickled the throat of the gator until it opened its mouth wide enough for Grampa to gingerly reach inside and snatch the receiver, before propping the toothy mouth with a stick of peppermint he kept beside the bed for just that purpose.

      “Grampa, thank goodness you’re home!” It was Grampa’s friend Billy Backwash. “You Betcha’s up in the chokecherry tree again!”

      “Holy hippofeathers!” exclaimed Grampa. “How’d she get up there? Those things are vicious.”

      “I know. The one in our backyard seems to like her for some reason. But she climbed up and is too scared to climb down, and none of us can get close enough to help!”

    “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he said, and carefully hung up the phone.  

    Twenty minutes later the brontosaurbus spit Grampa out a block away from where Billy lived with his wife and daughter. When Grampa got to the house he found a small crowd of neighbors gathered in the backyard, keeping a safe distance from the tree. It was no ordinary chokecherry, which are harmless things that wouldn’t hurt a butterflea. No, this one towered high above the house, and its fruit, which were the size of melons, opened into wide red mouths filled with sharp, splintery teeth.

      “Grampa!” cried You Betcha from far above. She clung to one of the upper branches. Sure enough, the tree’s strange fruits were ignoring her.

      Grampa waved and beamed at her. Grampa was not overly fond of children in general, but despite her reputation for being an ornery and troublesome child (or perhaps because of these very qualities!)  You Betcha held a special place in his heart, right next to cloud cookies.

      “Where’s Yellow Galoshes?” he asked Billy Backwash, who was pacing nervously back and forth in his work uniform. Billy was head detailer at the local garage, where he helped the head baker ice and frost the cars. Yellow Galoshes was Billy’s wife, who despite her name did not own a single pair of yellow galoshes.

      “Visiting her sister in Tonsilvania,” said Billy. “Thanks for coming over so quickly, Grampa. I didn’t know who else to call. I called the fire department, of course, but they said their staff has had too many tree-related injuries in the past year and now refuse to deal with them. I knew we should have just planted a crabapple- at least their claws are pretty small.”

      “Okay, let me think a minute...” Grampa looked up at the tree. Anytime one of the neighbors got too close, a few giant mouths would snap hungrily at them.

     “Didn’t we have a gumball storm the other night?” asked Grampa.

      “Sure was. A pretty bad one, too,” said Billy. “But, you know, I’m just thankful it wasn’t sardines. Or tractors.”

      “Where do you keep your runoff barrels?” asked Grampa.

      “Behind the garage,” said Billy. “Why?”

      “Come with me. We need to drag one of them over here.”

There were three wooden barrels, each of them filled to the brim with multicolored gumballs collected from the gutters. The waste management company had not yet come to collect them. Together the two men dragged one of the barrels across the lawn. Standing a safe distance from the tree, Grampa scooped up a handful of gumballs and started lobbing them at the chokecherry. The mouths snapped greedily at the gumballs and once they’d caught a few they immediately started chewing.

         “Come on, Billy, help me out. Make sure all the cherries on this side catch some.” 

Billy and the other neighbors joined in and started to hurl gumballs at the snarling mouths, all of which were soon busy chomping on the gum.

      “Now get your ladder,” ordered Grampa. Together the two men leaned the ladder against the branch that You Betcha was still tearfully clinging to.

      “Perfect,” said Grampa. “Now climb on up there.”

      “I, uh, I’m…kind of really sort of very much afraid of heights,” said Billy Backwash, blushing and looking down at his feet.

      Grampa looked around at the neighbors milling about, but now instead of looking up at the tree they all too seemed very interested in their own feet.

      “Oh, for the love of pickles... I guess I have to do everything around here. As usual.” And with that Grampa started to climb, despite the fact that his bones were rickety and his knuckles were knobby and even just bending over to cautiously pluck a wolfblossom caused him pain. But there was no way he was going to leave his favorite little sprat stranded in a tree, so up he went, puffing with exertion.

      When he was close to the top, he noticed one of the cherries next to the ladder starting to blow a bubble. “Watch it there, pardner,” he warned. Other mouths started blowing bubbles as well, and some of these bubbles started pushing the ladder away from the tree.

      “Hey, hey!” exclaimed Grampa. He found the ladder starting to fall away, and he lost his grip. Almost immediately he hit one of the enormous bubbles. It popped, and he continued his descent until he hit another bubble. He fell like this, the exploding bubble gum cushioning his fall, until at last he crashed to the grass, covered in sticky pink goo.

      Billy Backwash ran over to him.

      “Grampa, are you alright? Speak to me!”

      The old man opened his mouth and a single pink bubble grew from it, then popped.

  “Someone call the glambulance!” yelled Billy.

      “She’s going to jump!” someone screamed. Billy looked up just as You Betcha leaped from the branch she was on and started falling down, down through the branches. The bubbles broke her fall, just as they had Grampa’s, but being smaller and lighter she hopped to her feet, unhurt, the moment she hit the ground.

      “That was fun! Again! Again!” she cried, clapping her hands, then stopped when she saw Grampa Bones lying on his back in the grass.

      “Oh no, Grampa! Grampa, are you okay?”

        They heard the siren of the glambulance approaching.

        “I’m too old for this,” groaned Grampa as the emergency attendants, strutting and posing in their glittery uniforms, strapped him to a stretcher. As the strobe lights of the vehicle disappeared in the distance, You Betcha looked up at her father. He had a stern look on his face.

        “I’m sorry, Daddy,” she said. “I didn’t mean for Grampa to get hurt.”

      Billy Backwash sighed and patted her on the head, then walked out to the garage to get his axe.

 

 

(For this and more exciting tales about Grampa Bones, You Betcha, and all your favorite funny characters, check out the forthcoming collection More News from Horseradish Falls)

Dark Side

        I didn't really know the AV guy at work all that well, so I really didn't feel much when he suddenly moved to West Virginia, other than a slight puzzlement, since I had never known anyone to move to West Virginia rather than away from it. All I knew about him was that he had a dog and taught workshops on how to wield a light saber.

        I'm surprised when one morning, a few weeks after his departure, I find myself dreaming I’m in the front seat of a convertible with Chris at the wheel -as you probably know, almost all AV guys are named Chris- driving like a maniac along the narrow country roads. I'm terrified, and yell at him to slow down. He laughs.

        "Are you drunk?" I ask.

        "Painkillers," he says with a grin. "Oh look, there's that artist I hate," Chris points to an old man standing with some other people in the front yard of a house. We speed towards them, screeching to a halt at the last moment. Chris backs up and lurches toward the old man a few times.

        When we finally stop, the old man approaches my side of the car. He leans over me and digs his thumbs into Chris' eyes, swearing "I'll teach you to mess with me and my family, you little bastard." Chris' eyes bulge and start to run out of his sockets as the old artist's thumbs dig deeper and deeper. The old man finally yanks his thumbs out, ripping off Chris' eyelids in the process.

        Walking to work a half hour later, I smile at a woman walking her tiny dog. “What are you laughing at, motherfucker,” she yells. 

        All day I feel anxious and unsettled, so after work I decide to run some pleasant errands, none of which I manage to accomplish. To cheer myself up, I have dinner at one of my favorite places, but the usually good service is bad and the food is fine but not that great. 

        On the bus ride home, I feel all the anger and jealousy and rage I've been suppressing lately begin to stir. My skull burns with the knowledge that everyone in my life has a partner or owns a house or, usually, both, and that I'm going to be fifty this year and will probably never have either of those things, or any sort of success with my art, and how unfair this all is, because after all I'm a good person who works hard and deserves good things as much as anyone, more so than many of these assholes in fact, and why am I such a fuck up that I can't seem to meet my very basic needs or be content with what I have or even get a decent fucking meal,

        These toxic thoughts bash themselves against the walls of their cell, desperate to escape. I don't let them out though, just sit with them and hope they wear themselves out like a child throwing a tantrum.

        I had left my phone at home, and when I get back to the apartment, there's a voicemail from a number I don't recognize.

        "Hey bro I don't know who the fuck this is or how you got my girlfriend's number and how you set up a voicemail on her phoone but if I find out, I'm gnna find you and I'm gonna hurt you."

        Knowing I should probably wait until I was calmer, I immediately send a text to the person. "Hey bro you have a wrong number. I don't appreciate being threatened by a stranger."

        An hour later I get a text back.

        "Yeah well my wife was strong armed robbed at gunpoint and they took her phone and now all of a sudden her phone number is linked to this voice mail which this voice is your voice"

        All ll I write back is "That's really strange. Hopefully the authorities will straighten this out."

        I can’t figure out if this is some kind of scam or just a genuine wrong number from a sociopath. I consider reporting it but decide to just wait and see if anything happens. I’m not so much frightened as angry. I am of course responsible for my own ugly state of mind, but I understand why people believe there are dark forces at work in the world, when it seems like no place is safe, when the threat of violence seems to be everywhere: screaming at you on the street, reaching through your phone, lying in wait for you in your dreams.

Augite

        I board the light rail and head to the back row. Only the newer trains have a back row like this; it's really the best spot to sit. You're surrounded by windows, and you feel like you're perched up high, with the entire car stretching before you. The trouble, is there are usually people sprawled across the five seats, often sleeping with their belongings strewn about. Today there is one man back there, and amazingly he's only taking up a single spot. He has a gray beard and watery blue eyes and a skateboard.            I have a long ride ahead of me, so I take out my book and start writing. Almost immediately the man says, "I don't mean to be rude, but is that English you're writing?" There are three seats between us and my handwriting is atrocious, so unless his eyesight is very sharp, I don't know how he could possibly tell what language I'm writing, but I tell him yes.
        "So you write stories?" he asks.
        "Not really," I say.
        Just then another man, who has been staring intensely at me the whole time, comes and sits near me and asks, "Are you a lawyer?" I say no and he shows me a Fred Meyer rewards points card and asks where he can cash it in. Before I can explain that it's not a cash card, he shows me a small black rock and says, "This is worth 327 million dollars." He turns it over and over in his fingers, which are filthy.
        "What's that you got there?" the first man asks him. The other man ignores him. "Don't worry, I'm not gonna take it from you. No one should take anyone else's freedom away. I'm just kind of a rock hound. Spent my whole life finding rocks. I don't look for them, they come looking for me." He chuckles. "You know what augite is? They say it's not worth a lot, but everything you take out of the ground is worth a lot. It may have some use we don't know about yet. Maybe affects people like a magnet.  Could be worth a fortune. I find it everywhere, shining in the sun. You can't see it at night, it's so black. I know as much about it as anyone. I even have a website, augite mine dot com."
        The second man starts scratching the rock with a key. Shiny green specks start to appear in the black. The rock hound notices and says, "Could be emerald. Could be sapphire." He asks me where I'm from. Not this again, I think. I tell him Philadelphia, and he says, "Oh, like the Philadelphia Providence." I tell him I don't know what that is. "It was before the Louisiana Purchase. The entire Eastern Seaboard was bought first and they called it the Philadelphia Providence. Just like this area was the Oregon Providence." He speaks calmly and gently, and doesn't seem to mind when I don't respond. "They want to make that Jefferson Providence south of here. I don't know why not. They're good people. Keep to themselves. Don't do anyone any harm." This is far from what I've heard of the racist goons itching to secede and form the State of Jefferson, but I don't argue with him.
        He genially asks the second man where he's from. The man doesn't answer at first, then mumbles, "The South."
        "Where in the South?"
        "Arizona."
        "Arizona! Beautiful down there. Just like Eastern Oregon. Dry. Rocks lying around everywhere, just waiting for you to find them." The man from Arizona stares sullenly out the window.
        "Did you say 237 million, or billion?" asks the rock hound.
        "Billion," the other man growls.
        The rock hound nods. "That's great. That's really great. You know a black rock is worth whatever you want it to be. It's worth whatever you want it to be worth. You hold on to that thing."
We pass through Saturday Market, which is packed with tourists wandering between the booths.
        "I know what those people about," the rock hound says. "Maybe I should get off this train."
        "What do you know about this train?" the man from Arizona barks.
        "It's okay, there's nothing wrong with this train," the rock hound says soothingly. "It's a good train."
        At the next stop, the man from Arizona suddenly leaps up and dashes out through the open doors. The rock hound smiles. "A little scary. I know what his kind's looking for. Like when I sniffed that black rock. Seen it all the time. Won't do him any good."
        We sit in silence for a while, then he says, "How it started was, there was one perfect rock, and there came along an even more perfect rock, and the two rocks got together and that's how evil was born."
        We sit in the sunlight streaming in through the train windows, I scrawl my little chicken scratch musings.
        "Like a magnet," the man says quietly. "It's all just like a magnet."