this work, it seemed to her— made those branchlets and suckers fly and each time she went down the ladder, laid new rows of gleaming fruit in the flats. She drained her second beer with gusto and climbed back up with a third in her pouch. She looked at Karen in the next tree over and willed herself to be a gift to Karen. An ally.
The sun was getting awfully hot, though. Wasn’t this autumn , for Christ’s sake? The smell of rot rose from the weeds and, with it, big bumbling flies, relentlessly molesting Susan for her sweat. From up on the ladder, the orchard looked more like an ocean, a perspective of green billows rolling away across the acres, dwarfing their labors.
What an awful place this was, to suffer what Karen had suffered. Susan thought of her own mother’s oh-so-genteel form of abuse, her austere— no, perverse — denial of love. Whenever little Susan craved closeness, a simple, warm burrowing into love’s arms, her mother found some mistake in her, some slovenliness, some violation of what a Young Lady should be. Some excuse to mask her void of love.
But how much more cruel to pour your hate into your child, to maim the organ of her love itself. No wonder Karen had to be half-drunk to make love, to attempt to make love. Now that she wouldn’t drink, she would probably not even make the attempt, like last night. It crossed Susan’s mind that if she were a man, she wouldn’t be so shut out , could enter Karen’s wound, and gently but insistently probe until she liberated that scarred and buried passion… .
Jesus, what was she thinking? Where did that come from? This whole place was sick. It seeped into your brain… .
Finding her bladder full, she climbed down, considered trudging back to the house, then pulled her jeans down and squatted in the lane. “Piss on this place,” she said, feeling daring and slightly tipsy.
Karen laughed. “Amen to that,” she said, looking down from her tree. “You wanna lie in the shade a while? Take a wee nap?”
“The hell with that!” Susan went back to work, a trace more clumsily than before. This was getting more tiring as the heat rose and conjured bigger and more numerous flies— flies and a dozen other breeds of bug the trees swarmed with. The clippers had raised ripe blisters on her palm, which popped. Her sweat stung them. The twigs, which she’d avoided more deftly at the start of her labors, started poking her face, as if counter-attacking from every side.
She grunted and toiled on. These trees— it was like wrestling with huge crabs or lobsters, scaly lower life-forms— the cut twigs yielded with a repellent succulence. They seemed to thrash as they fell and to twitch on the grass, like the sundered tails of lizards or rats.
Then, as she leaned slightly off-balance deep into the branches, something big moved, so close to her face it was out of focus. She flinched back and saw, inches from her eyes, a huge gold-and-black spider seizing a large moth that had just struck its web. With quick, darting movements of its obese abdomen— horribly sexual ass-thrusts they seemed— the spider bound the moth’s wings tight, and pierced its head with its fangs.
Susan’s revulsion exploded. She swung a blow with her clippers that tipped her off-balance and seized the ladder one-handed as she felt it topple. They came down together with a snapping of branches, Susan desperately extending one leg as they fell sideways. Her foot took the impact, her ankle awry, and buckled under her weight with a sickening crackle.
* * * *
It wasn’t broken, they decided. Seriously swollen and mottling with purple, yes. Excruciating to put her weight on, yes… but it would take her weight and with none of that grinding twinge that betokened a fracture. One of the closets yielded a cane, probably from Mrs. Fox’s final, arthritic years. They applied some ice. Susan considered and thought that a glass of something might perhaps ease the pain. They finally settled on a
The sun was getting awfully hot, though. Wasn’t this autumn , for Christ’s sake? The smell of rot rose from the weeds and, with it, big bumbling flies, relentlessly molesting Susan for her sweat. From up on the ladder, the orchard looked more like an ocean, a perspective of green billows rolling away across the acres, dwarfing their labors.
What an awful place this was, to suffer what Karen had suffered. Susan thought of her own mother’s oh-so-genteel form of abuse, her austere— no, perverse — denial of love. Whenever little Susan craved closeness, a simple, warm burrowing into love’s arms, her mother found some mistake in her, some slovenliness, some violation of what a Young Lady should be. Some excuse to mask her void of love.
But how much more cruel to pour your hate into your child, to maim the organ of her love itself. No wonder Karen had to be half-drunk to make love, to attempt to make love. Now that she wouldn’t drink, she would probably not even make the attempt, like last night. It crossed Susan’s mind that if she were a man, she wouldn’t be so shut out , could enter Karen’s wound, and gently but insistently probe until she liberated that scarred and buried passion… .
Jesus, what was she thinking? Where did that come from? This whole place was sick. It seeped into your brain… .
Finding her bladder full, she climbed down, considered trudging back to the house, then pulled her jeans down and squatted in the lane. “Piss on this place,” she said, feeling daring and slightly tipsy.
Karen laughed. “Amen to that,” she said, looking down from her tree. “You wanna lie in the shade a while? Take a wee nap?”
“The hell with that!” Susan went back to work, a trace more clumsily than before. This was getting more tiring as the heat rose and conjured bigger and more numerous flies— flies and a dozen other breeds of bug the trees swarmed with. The clippers had raised ripe blisters on her palm, which popped. Her sweat stung them. The twigs, which she’d avoided more deftly at the start of her labors, started poking her face, as if counter-attacking from every side.
She grunted and toiled on. These trees— it was like wrestling with huge crabs or lobsters, scaly lower life-forms— the cut twigs yielded with a repellent succulence. They seemed to thrash as they fell and to twitch on the grass, like the sundered tails of lizards or rats.
Then, as she leaned slightly off-balance deep into the branches, something big moved, so close to her face it was out of focus. She flinched back and saw, inches from her eyes, a huge gold-and-black spider seizing a large moth that had just struck its web. With quick, darting movements of its obese abdomen— horribly sexual ass-thrusts they seemed— the spider bound the moth’s wings tight, and pierced its head with its fangs.
Susan’s revulsion exploded. She swung a blow with her clippers that tipped her off-balance and seized the ladder one-handed as she felt it topple. They came down together with a snapping of branches, Susan desperately extending one leg as they fell sideways. Her foot took the impact, her ankle awry, and buckled under her weight with a sickening crackle.
* * * *
It wasn’t broken, they decided. Seriously swollen and mottling with purple, yes. Excruciating to put her weight on, yes… but it would take her weight and with none of that grinding twinge that betokened a fracture. One of the closets yielded a cane, probably from Mrs. Fox’s final, arthritic years. They applied some ice. Susan considered and thought that a glass of something might perhaps ease the pain. They finally settled on a
Similar Books
