The Language of Trees

by Ilie Ruby

  Grant pulls up his collar to keep the flies away. He takes off, running down East Lake Road to O’Connell’s Feed & Grain, halfway between the lake’s north and south ends. He can see that a hazy light has begun to spill through the downed leaves, turning the water into a smooth sheet of glass. It is just a matter of a few hours before the mayflies are in their glory. The swallows are already having a feast, darting back and forth an inch above the lustrous lake.

  Up on the road, the phone lines are down, but Grant’s not even angry about the inconvenience or the mess. The storm has forced him to leave the cabin for the first time in three weeks. It’s time to set his eyes on another human being, if only to prove that one exists. He passes a row of identical small clapboards. Clarisse Mellon is one of the few people out. Kneeling in her garden, she waves a muddy-gloved hand. “The swarm’s coming! Tough day to be out!” she calls, holding up a very large smooth white stone. He waves, wondering whether she’ll actually wait until he is out of sight before she runs to a neighbor’s house to spread the news of his emergence. Still, the rest of the place is fairly quiet but for the birds. All the pets in the neighborhood have been brought inside because of the may-flies.

  The Feed & Grain is hedged in on either side by an eighty-foot fence of Northern red oak. Grant stops. He’s near enough now to see Joseph O’Connell’s shock of white hair. The old man is standing on the porch steps, scratching his ruddy face and puffing on his pipe. The chalky smoke from his tobacco curls in tendrils over the roof.

  Behind him, Squeaky Loomis is seated on an old wooden soapbox, near a card table where he and Joseph usually play yukor. They do this to pass the time in grizzly to fair weather, telling stories, sharing bits of news. Joseph is a man of tradition, and the fact that men gather here to talk for hours, just as they did in the twenties, when this was the original Farmers Co-op, is thanks to him. On cold mornings, men still wake before sunrise to crowd around the potbellied stove. Embraces are still common. Grant has seen many, for this is one of the few places on earth where men will tell their secrets.

  On the morning of his twelfth birthday, Grant’s father brought him to O’Connell’s to have coffee with the men before they put out the docks. It had been a frozen morning, but Grant was thrilled, feeling the trill of happiness for the first time in years. The distance and rejection he felt from his father had left him with a terrible stutter that all but choked his voice. He hadn’t felt comfortable anywhere on earth. But sipping that bitter black coffee had strengthened him. It meant that his father considered him a worthy human being, capable of being in this place, with these men, who seemed as much a part of this land as the trees, the memory keepers of a secret history. Grant had loved every minute of it, listening, taking it all in. They didn’t care that he could hardly manage a hello. Because he was with his father, they had accepted him unconditionally as one of them. Grant sat in front of the lit stove that morning listening to Joseph talk about his missionary work in Kenya, about the Wataita people, and about the spirits of the Seneca ancestors here in Canandaigua that whispered across the lake. Years later, when Grant had come back with Susanna, there was a new ghost story—that of little Luke Ellis, who had drowned in the lake twelve years earlier. Squeaky Loomis claimed to have seen his ghost hovering in the branches of Leila Ellis’s huge lilac bush when he was ambling by on his early-morning walk. He had reported that he was suddenly met by Clarisse Mellon, who lived next door and had seen Luke several times, she whispered, usually just before a rainstorm.

  Joseph O’Connell is making his way down the steps, waving his cane. “For Pete’s sake, boy, where have you been?” Joseph bellows. The old man is like a grandfather, a bit of a folk hero, mainly due to his belief in the goodness of the human spirit, which he’d remind anyone of in the event they forgot. Grant doesn’t even need to inhale the scent of the cherry tobacco to know that Joseph’s pipe is filled with it.

  When Joseph embraces him, Grant’s body becomes a sponge, absorbing all the warmth it can. Why an embrace should make him feel sad, he’s not sure. He’s worried he won’t know when to let go, or that he won’t be able to.

  Joseph gives Grant a customary pat on the back, a hugger’s traffic signal. “Sorry,” Grant whispers, letting go so Joseph can breathe again. Seeing Joseph again is completely disarming and Grant can’t believe the relief he feels.

  “No apologies. Just glad you’re here,” Joseph says, swatting at the flies with his cane. “Now come up and say hello. Folks have missed you.”

  “Window’s broken,” Grant explains to no one in particular as he follows Joseph up the steps. He finds himself staring at a spider web stretched under the porch light. It’s marked with the first of its victims: A mayfly’s forked tail twitches slightly, caught in the threads.

  “So, the silence getting to you, finally?” Squeaky asks as he pulls his fishing hat down over his pink whiskey face, forcing tufts of white hair over his ears. He smiles quickly at Grant, and then fastens his yellowed eyes on the game of cards. The fact is he can recognize desperation on a man’s face as easily as he can spot lichens on a sugar maple and it makes him uncomfortable.

  “We’ve been wondering how you’re doing,” Joseph explains.

  “Oh, can’t complain.” Grant shrugs and looks away.

  He doesn’t want to have to tell the story of Susanna. Anyhow, there’s a good likelihood Joseph already knows enough of it. For the first time ever, Grant Shongo is thankful for gossip.

  “Complaining’s one of life’s little pleasures.” Squeaky laughs. Joseph closes his eyes and nods, as though this was the most covetous secret they share. Both complaining and remembering provide a reason for breathing. They talk about the legendary Canandaigua snake monster that was said to coil the seaweed in Canandaigua Lake. That mysterious giant on Squaw Island kept the serpent as a pet, folks said, and he buried the heads of lost swimmers in the sand until it was the serpent’s feeding time.

  “Pride’s an enemy, boy,” Joseph says, his emerald eyes splashing up, knowing Grant won’t discuss his failed marriage.

  Speech is difficult under the tidal wave of emotion. Grant hedges, looks down. He’s lost weight. The old Syracuse University sweatshirt hangs off him in tatters. At thirty-three, it is only by the grace of good genes that his muscles have any definition at all. He could be the ramen noodles poster man. He’s lived on it. He could write a jingle about the wonders of ramen noodles soup.

  “You’ll be okay, you hear?”

  “Sure, Joe, I’m doing fine.”

  “You know we got a snowy owl around here now?” asks Joseph. “Come all the way from the Arctic, got lost up this way. Only seen him once up there in the trees. Real big, fat white thing. Folks say he fell in love with the snow and hasn’t gone back. Thinks he’s home.”

  “That so?” asks Grant.

  “Caught up by the quiet, I imagine. But not too wise for an owl,” says Squeaky, who is trying not to stare. The truth is, people have been waiting for Grant to show up for weeks, if only to have something new to report. No one wants to be that openly nosy, but any kind of change is news around here. It doesn’t take much in a town where some of the men have donned the same flannel shirt every winter for twenty years. These men will tell you that at a certain age there is no need for new things. Almost always, what a man had in the beginning would’ve served him. The need for newness can make him wreck his life if he doesn’t grow wise to it.

  “Well, one thing’s certain,” Joseph says, cracking the silence. “There’s not much left of you. Skin and bones.”

  Grant puts his hands in his pockets and turns away. “Your place needs painting,” he says.

  “Grant, folks tell me things. Remember where you are. Word travels faster than a runaway train ’round here. Now I don’t pry. You know I don’t have a need to. But when old friends are concerned—”

  “I could paint it,” Grant interrupts, looking around.

  Squeaky has the feeling that he is fading off into the backgro
und. It happens naturally these days. It’s a product of being old and male, of sitting in khaki gabardines for too long with aching joints, in his daughter-in-law’s house, in his doctor’s office, or on the peeling steps of this old porch. Everyone thinks an old man’s face is a puzzle. People try to squeeze wisdom from him as though it were juice from an orange, convinced his wrinkles speak of troubles, even though this belies the way he feels. In reality, he has never felt better, his biggest worry these days, where and what he will have for his supper.

  Grant looks at Joseph. “I should get that duct tape. Tornado broke the window.”

  “Biggest tornado in years,” says Squeaky, trying to hold his attention. “Heck, now you got a reason to fix it up. You might think about renting your place after that. Scout Point’s prime real estate. Property’s skyrocketed. Cottages are renting for six thousand dollars a month. We’d all be rich if we’d sell. They just want to knock down what we got and build fancy mansions anyway.”

  The lake has become a favorite spot for boating, fishing, scuba and the best summer living. This land has always been invaluable to somebody. Humphrey Bogart spent his summers on Canandaigua Lake, along with many a wealthy landowner. Before that, local fishermen posted their shacks along the lake. Hundreds of years before the first white settlers arrived, in the 1700s, the Seneca lived along these banks. But Grant is certain his ancestors wouldn’t like the activity, even if this is now one of the most expensive lakefront properties in the nation.

  “You hear about Squaw Island? Not bigger than the size of two tennis courts now. State won’t maintain it anymore. Doris headed up a citizen action committee to take over its protection.” Grant looks out at the lake. He can see Squaw Island in the distance, now walled off with heavy granite boulders that protect it from the wind, ice, and changing water currents from boat wakes that have altered the lake’s wave patterns. The island, an eroding sandbar, had been deemed New York State’s smallest state park, and was forbidden to visitors, due to its fragility. Once two acres, now it was one quarter the size.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t ever sell,” Grant says, and starts inside.

  “Just like your father, zipping off like a mystery.” Joseph shakes his head in the silence, puffs hard on his pipe. “You’re not the only one who’s had troubles. We’ve all been there. Every one of us has walked across the bottom of this lake, boy, at least once.”

  Grant stops and turns around. There are a million things Grant could say to the old man right now, but not a one would be the thought of a sane man. He could tell Joseph he has whittled twenty-one statues, one for every day he has been back at the lake. That he thought about impaling himself on the barbecue fork at least three times. And at night, well, that’s the ultimate in lucid dreaming. You see, he could explain, the goddamn ghost of Luke Ellis has been taking me flying for almost a month now.

  “I know what you’re thinking. It’s all over your face,” says Joseph. “Listen, you’ll be okay. You’re a good man. Don’t forget it.”

  Grant looks down, examining the frayed cuffs of his sweatshirt. If you only knew how I have wrecked my life, he thinks.

  Joseph, holding up his hand, starts to speak. “When you were this high? You’d be standing there wearing your father’s coat, wearing his stethoscope around your neck, and your yellow high-water boots up to your knees. Watching me like a hawk, making sure I wasn’t cheating your mother out of her groceries. You were a pain, you know. Corrected my math more times than I can count. Then, of course, you and Echo. Boy, one wrong move and I’d have tracked you down myself.”

  Grant startles at hearing her name. He smiles, despite himself.

  “I suppose I should confess that I cheated you out of a few loaves of bread,” Grant says, trying to change the subject, swatting a few more flies that get right into his face.

  “I don’t buy it. You didn’t have the heart,” Joseph tells him.

  Squeaky gets up. Waving bugs away is too distracting and it’s aggravating his arthritis. “Let’s all go in then,” Joseph suggests, but Grant doesn’t hear. He’s looking at the moving trees. He recalls Echo was like that, restless like the trees.

  EACH SUMMER, WHEN THE Naples vineyards were thick with sweet June air that inflated the clouds for miles, Grant and Echo would bicycle through Vine Valley. They would pass crowds of sheep and dairy cattle, and the old farms where equipment had been left to rust like skeletons in the hay. Old-timers would stop work to tell them about the days when wild grape vines, bees, and rattlesnakes festered on the Valley floor, and it was common to see a neighbor covered with welts as he passed on the street, or stood in the scorching sun as he cleared the space for planting.

  Inside abandoned barns, Grant and Echo climbed over reams of old carpets, amidst spider webs sagging in the heat. Echo would sift through countless antique hope chests in pursuit of the mystical crazy quilts. Within these patternless cloths, she explained, you could sense the quilter’s personality. You could read her entire life in those zigzag seams, faded prints and discordant shapes, for these spoke of the secret stories, the ones the quilter never talked about but instead sewed into her memory: the scraps of shirts of the men she never thought she would fall in love with, and the hems of skirts worn by the daughters she never thought would leave her. The cloth worn over a lifetime held threads of the deepest truth, Echo said. She’d once uncovered a century-old quilt that had handprints of several family members embroidered in its center, along with the dates of their births and deaths. Echo had buried her face in the soft threadbare material, as though trying to inhale the family ancestry. Being orphaned had robbed her of her own stories.

  “Feels like a different life completely,” Grant says, leaning up against the railing.

  “That’s where you’re wrong. Same life, boy. Different you,” Joseph says, anxiously. Then, Joseph begins to cough. A high-pitched wheeze seers the air. He holds his side. Squeaky looks at Joseph, worried.

  Grant takes Joseph’s arm. “You okay?”

  Joseph nods, eyes tearing, waves them away. “I’m fine, fine,” he chides them as he hobbles off by himself, leaning far too heavily on his cane. Squeaky eyes Joseph nervously, reminded of his own fragility. Grant stays where he is, watches as Joseph’s chest heaves with each laborious breath, and realizes he is not the only one who suffers. Left alone, Joseph composes himself.

  Just then a police car pulls up in front of the store. Detective Charlie Cooke gets out, smoothing back his wet gray hair. “Need to talk to you for a minute, Joe,” he calls, slamming the creaking car door a little too hard.

  “Sure, Charlie, give me a minute then,” Joseph calls, taking a deep breath. “Fresh coffee on the counter inside. Help yourself. I’ll be right in.” Charlie nods a hello at Grant and walks inside.

  “Why’s Charlie here? Kids still stealing from you, Joe?” Grant asks.

  “No, the Ellis girl disappeared. Run off again,” Squeaky interjects, hedging on the last step. “Leila’s oldest, Melanie.”

  Joseph shoots him a look.

  “Well, none of us believes it, no sir,” Squeaky adds quickly. “That she’s run. I mean, why would she run, now that she’s staying clean? You know, being a mother and all.”

  “Hearsay,” Joseph says. “She didn’t run. I know her.”

  “She worked for Joe on and off for years,” Squeaky tells Grant.

  “Know her very well.” Joseph packs his pipe. “Good-hearted, honest girl. Know Melanie like my own daughter,” he adds, lighting the pipe.

  Joseph stubs out a fallen ash with his sandal. He tugs at his collar, his neck damp and itching hot just as it was the day little Luke Ellis was buried. No one had seen a day as hot in May. A record heat wave in Canandaigua at 85 degrees. People packed into the church and the ones who couldn’t fit inside lined up half a block out. Women in puckered nylons held crying children who pulled their own hair. Their patience was coming undone like the ribbons that fell from the long blond ponytails of the two Ellis girls, who stoo
d on either side of Leila in long black coats, their faces moist, reddening as the service went on. Melanie’s hands shook so badly she had dropped her bouquet of lilies four times that he counted, leaving tiny white petals on her shiny patent leathers. By the end of the service, she stood in a halo of white petals. But her eyes never left the casket.

  “Melanie. She made the paper years ago, I remember. Harvest Queen? Long blond hair? Lives in that apartment with the bright red door and the purple trim?” Grant asks.

  “Blond, black, or pink hair, who can keep track?” Joseph answers, staring out at the serpentine clouds moving in and out of the trees. “Wait a minute. How did you know about the red door?”

  “Well, I mean, how can you miss it? It’s bright red.”

  “But how did you know it was her door?” Joseph stares at Grant. He won’t meet Joseph’s eyes.

  A momentary silence passes between the two as Grant picks up a broken branch and tosses it into the trees.

  Joseph glances at Squeaky, then continues. “Well, she was at the top of her class, too. Quite a girl. Wasn’t but a few years ago she was the town’s pride and joy, riding up on that float, waving at the parade. Then, so sudden, she fell into her trouble because of that good-for-nothing boyfriend.”

  “Neither girl ever got over their brother’s death,” says Squeaky.

  “But she has done a lot of work on herself since her baby was born. To be a good mother,” says Joseph. “Only twenty-one years old for God’s sake. Folks don’t let you live anything down in this town. Always fighting their opinions. Folks just had high hopes for her, that she would redeem her family’s name.”

  “Got a nice tattoo on her arm. Almost as nice as this one here.” Squeaky pulls up his sleeve, revealing a black heart that says “Doris.”