The Language of Trees

by Ilie Ruby

  “I ain’t going outside with that goddamn wolf. And I ain’t going in the water,” warns Lion.

  “Why not?” asks Grant.

  “You got to get someone else. No way I’m going.”

  “Well, can you help me get started at least?”

  “Damn, you don’t even have a boat. Why do you need a dock?”

  “Everyone needs a dock. For fishing, and other things.”

  “You kill fish?”

  “Just hurry up and eat, Lion.”

  “Is this the freakin’ army or what? I have my rights.”

  “You lost your rights when I saved your ass,” says Grant.

  “Nah, man, you didn’t save anything.” Lion scoffs. “Whatever, man. I gotta call Leila. My mother-in-law. She’s probably worried. Probably been up all night, worried sick. And Melanie is probably home now. I gotta get home.” Lion is the one with the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He knows how disappointed Leila will be to learn that he’s broken his abstinence. She had been so proud of his sobriety. And it was obvious that if he wasn’t clean, he wouldn’t be able to keep Melanie clean. And this would make Leila worry even more. Lion thinks about how each year on his “abstinence anniversary” she has made him special cupcakes.

  “I called her last night,” says Grant.

  Lion is looking through him, glassy eyed. “You called who?”

  “Leila. I had to call her.”

  “But you didn’t tell her, right?” Lion puts down his fork. “You didn’t say—“

  “That you needed to sleep it off. You just had a bit to drink. That’s it.”

  Lion puts down his fork. “Man. Why you gotta go and do that? She’s probably a crying mess right now. I didn’t ask you to get in my business. She doesn’t have enough to worry about? She has to worry about me, now? You just about ruined my life.”

  Grant shifts uncomfortably in his seat. He wouldn’t be surprised if Lion gets up and flips the table upside down, a classic move, and a real show stopper. “Look, you slipped up once. It happens.”

  “Not to me.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t know. I’ll take you back soon. Promise.”

  Lion pushes a lone banana slice around the plate with his fork, and then he once again notices the wooden statues lining the perimeter. “You make all those? How many you got? Like one hundred?”

  “Twenty-one.” Grant points to a few fresh pieces of wood piled in the corner. “Basswood. It doesn’t grow anywhere else nearly as well. I had a little time on my hands, no, a lot of time on my hands…so—”

  Just then, the wolf paws the sliding glass door and begins to prowl back and forth on the porch. Grant goes outside and rubs its stomach. Lion watches. When Grant comes back inside, Lion seems different. “I know you didn’t mean to nark on me to Leila. You just, you thought you were helping, right?” Lion says, wincing, as though the words are painful. “Just forget it.”

  “Thanks. I thought I was doing a good thing.”

  “It hard to do? Carve those statues?”

  “Not if you learn the right way,” says Grant.

  Lion picks up his glass of orange juice and sips it. The acidic taste makes his mouth burn. “How’d you learn it?”

  “From my dad. It’s good for your hands. Keeps them strong.” Grant had sat with the wooden sticks as a child, waiting for the spirit in the wood to seep out. First, you had to know that you were actually only the tool, only there to do what the wood asked. Only then would the shape reveal itself.

  “How’d you learn to help wolves?” Lion asks.

  “Got that from my dad, too,” says Grant.

  What Lion needs, Grant has decided, is some physical exertion, a chance to be successful at something. The wooden statues have taught Grant about this. There is nothing that pulls a man out of a slump faster than working up a sweat.

  When they finish breakfast, Grant gives Lion a minute to himself. Meanwhile, he rifles through his closet for a pair of pants and some mud boots for Lion, not the kind Lion is used to, but big yellow rubber boots built for high water. Grant knows these will do little good for the job they have to do, but then wet clothes are just one more thing Lion will have to deal with. It’s a risk he’s willing to take.

  “Come on outside,” orders Grant.

  He opens the door, and Lion follows him out onto the porch, making sure to edge far away from the wolf that is asleep under the porch swing.

  “Man,” says Lion, staring out at the two huge willows fluttering in the breeze. “I know where we are now. The Diamond Trees Melanie was always talking about. You got to be kidding me. This is where her brother died. Man, this is the haunted cabin I’ve always heard about. You can’t keep me here,” he says, glancing up at the gravel driveway. “Where’s the road to town?”

  “Look, it’s still early. You do something for me. I’ll help you.”

  “Help me. Help you,” mutters Lion mockingly, out of the corner of his mouth. “Help you, help me.” Lion’s hateful thoughts are being triggered again. He shivers, recalling Melanie’s stories about Luke. This was the place where it all happened, the place where someone she loved had been lost forever. Lion feels closer to her, and farther away.

  “What?” asks Grant, but Lion doesn’t respond. Grant goes inside and puts on his pants and boots. Minutes later, Lion is straining, stretching to get the boots on as though he were pulling on a second skin. Grant knows there’s room in those boots. Lion’s feet are two sizes smaller than his.

  “You got a cigarette?” Lion asks, wiping his forehead dramatically, one boot in hand. “Man, I could use one before we do this.”

  “Never smoked,” Grant says, tightening his father’s boots. Lion rolls his eyes. “Smoking killed my mother. Lung cancer,” Grant says in a clipped tone. “Get that other boot on.”

  “I don’t smoke a lot,” says Lion.

  “Whatever. Let’s go. Water’s rough.”

  “What if it starts to rain?” asks Lion, as he looks around, eyeing the water miserably. “What’s that big black cloud in the sky?”

  “Rain or not, the docks go out today,” says Grant, sounding like his father. They traipse silently into the garage, where the sections of dock are kept, Grant in his father’s invisible footsteps, Lion close behind. Together they clean off the layers of dust and spider webs, some of which are so thick, you can practically hear them tear when the large pieces of metal and wood are pulled from their place against the wall. The spiders tumble down around their feet and scatter in every direction across the floor. Lion doesn’t even balk, and this makes Grant like him more. Lion has surprised him.

  “I saw a spider strung out on pot once…marijuana,” says Lion.

  “A spider?”

  “Yeah. It was in a book at rehab, when I was getting clean. A bunch of photos, with all these different webs. Some on pot, mescaline, coffee. The scientists fed it to them. Like a study. You know, some webs were kind of saggy. Some lopsided. The coffee webs were the worst, loose, crooked. You should have seen it.”

  “What about pot?”

  “All ratty. Like they forgot to make the in-between threads.”

  “Hmm,” says Grant.

  “Yeah, but I didn’t like them messing up these spiders for no good reason.”

  Together, they drag a one-hundred-pound section of heavy metal dock down the backyard slope to the shoreline. While Lion guides and pushes, Grant lifts the section on one end so that the wheels on the other will roll down the shoreline. Grant has already estimated by the lake’s low level that it will take two sections this season. As though some primal peace has taken over, he and Lion now communicate only through hand signals. Grant pointing. Lion following. For a minute, they’re even in synch. Together, they drag another section into the water, with Lion dragging and Grant guiding it.

  The water is rough, as Grant had predicted. It begins to rain. Lion looks up at the sky and shakes his head. He’s wet and cold and resentful and can’t stop thinking of Melanie and Luke
. He has that vague sinking feeling that he’s trapped, like he’s gotten on the too-old-to-be-a-good-idea roller coaster at the old Roseland Amusement Park and the bar has just slammed down on his thighs.

  “Let’s go.” Grant refuses to let him off the hook. A little rain never killed anybody. Grant glances up at the wolf, which is watching from the porch. Then he wades into the water near the end of the first section of dock, pliers in hand, and begins fitting the sections together. The water is cold but not as icy as he remembers. Some years, he’s lost feeling in half his body. During these times, his father’s cheery optimism had just about driven him nuts. Grant became thankful for the times of crisis, for that’s when Ben Shongo’s heavy moods always seemed to have lifted.

  Grant could annoy Lion with more humor and optimism. Besides, as long as he still has feeling in his toes, they should keep going. The section is slipping. Grant moves out deeper and hangs on to the edge of the first section. He looks down at the submerged leaves caught in a breezy underwater wind. The bright lobes are the perfect size for the minnows, which are everywhere, diving for cover. Occasionally a logy carp rolls by. They’re huge, between three and four feet. They come by every few minutes just to check on everything.

  Grant’s boots are filling up with water as he motions to Lion. The boy hesitates on the shoreline, glancing back at the wolf. “I’ll stay here,” yells Lion, his voice searing through the sheets of rain.

  “No way!” calls Grant. “I need you. Can’t get the thing to fit together myself.”

  “What?” The rain is coming down harder now. They can’t hear each other, so there is no point in talking. The wolf gets up and begins to howl. Slowly, Lion steps out onto the first section of metal dock with trepidation. There is a foot-long gap between this section and the second. Lion stops once, looks around. Grant can’t quite make out his expression through the shifting slats of water as Lion jumps onto the second section. “No!” Grant calls. “Help me push from down here.” He is trying to tell Lion to get off the dock. It is not sturdy and more than likely it is slippery. For a moment, he turns back to look at the cabin, picturing himself sitting in his father’s favorite chair looking out at the lake, as he used to when he’d imagine his father walking into the lake until his head and shoulders rested just above the water like turtle shells.

  “I can hold it from up here,” Lion calls back. “Let me do it this way!”

  Grant sloshes through the muddy and rocky bottom. Standing out here, he can almost hear his father’s voice through the rain, shouting instructions.

  Standing on the slippery metal, Lion feels a jolt underneath him as though the earth has moved. He feels the metal sliding beneath him. Lion tries to catch himself but slips off, his yellow boots hitting the water. Lion sputters, choking, his arms flailing wildly, his body dragged down by the water-filled boots as though they were cement.

  Through the hazy green water, Lion is falling into an eight-foot depth of despair. He is drowning. He always knew it would happen this way, but he didn’t count on feeling everything, every minute of it. He didn’t count on the feeling of suffocation, the pressure in his lungs, the reflex of gasping. The water is frozen, turning his body to ice. He opens his eyes as he swallows murky water. He can hardly see. He is shouting but his words come out in long strings of bubbles. He can hear his heartbeat. He is certain his lungs are going to burst, certain they are going to pop like two balloons. Suddenly, he sees large white skulls, or are they fish, floating up all around him. And then, just when Lion’s eyes begin to close he feels the tug on one ankle and when he looks down, he sees, for a moment, a small pale face framed by blond curls peering up at him.

  Though his boots are filled with water, Grant manages to slip them off and he dives toward Lion, through the cloudy water, and grabs hold of one of Lion’s boots, which slips off in his hand. He manages to grab Lion’s arms and drag him toward the shoreline as Lion splashes and sputters. “Don’t panic!” Grant orders, but this is like telling a volcano to stop erupting once it has started.

  Later, after Lion has dried off, he is sitting cross-legged on the shag carpet with a blanket over his shoulders, staring dejectedly at the wolf staring back at him from under the porch swing. It is still raining. Lion is mimicking the rain’s rhythmic drumming with his fingers. He puts his palm up against the cold window and gently hits his head against the glass. The wolf gets up and comes right up to the window, trying to paw Lion’s hand. Lion does not pull away. Lion bangs his head on the glass again and the wolf stares at him quizzically. Lion feels mean. Humiliated. Broken inside. “Why don’t you let the wolf come inside?” asks Lion, who is convinced he has just had a near-death experience. He is wondering how it is that he has survived. Although he may have imagined it, the image of the blond-haired boy is stuck in his mind. He shivers, pulling the blanket tighter around him. His voice is caught in his throat. His sinuses are burning from the water and his ears are clogged. He feels like he might like to cry, that is how cold he is. He swallows back his tears and does his best not to look at Grant.

  “It was the boots,” Grant says. “I should have warned you.” There’s no excuse, Grant tells himself. He should have seen this coming. For years, he had helped his father with the docks, and he knew how to get boots off quick or they’d become lead weights, filling up with water. But how could he have known Lion couldn’t swim? “Swimming is a good thing to learn if you live on a lake,” Grant says, throwing another woolen blanket over Lion’s shoulders. Lion looks like a wet dog sitting there. Bony, small. “I could teach you.”

  “Ha. Right.” Lion still won’t look at him. “Last night.”

  “What?” asks Grant, sitting down.

  “You think you saved me, man? What were you doing there? Doing shots? I saw you.”

  Lion’s dark eyes are tight like fists held under glass.

  Grant shrugs. “Just, you know, catching up with a friend.”

  Lion folds his arms and turns his back to Grant. “Save it. You want to sit there all big ’cause I’m here in the middle of a disaster, but it’s you, you’re the one, I can see it. You sit there looking like a goddamn shipwreck, but you don’t say a word about any of it.”

  “You can’t see anything,” Grant tells him. “Even if I am a goddamn shipwreck, so what.”

  “Ha, I knew it. You’re a crazy motherfucker.”

  “So what if I am.”

  “Look, whatever. We’re not even. You saw me take a fall. I was helpless, you know. Now you got power over me. So now you got to tell me something. Confess something.”

  “What do you think being even is going to get you?”

  Lion looks hopeful. “You never did anything bad? It’ll make me feel better.” As the edges of clouds peel back, honeyed rays fall along the bare patches in the lawn where the oaks have made the soil so acidic, it’s work to keep any grass growing. Lion writes his name on the window and won’t look at Grant.

  “Lion, I know how it feels—”

  “You don’t know shit about me.”

  The silence passes in a wave between them.

  Lion leans in and breathes on the window, the fog refining his name. “I keep thinking about that spider language. His design shows what he feels. You know his feeling if you know his language.”

  “Wish it were that easy with human beings,” says Grant, noticing Lion’s large bloodshot eyes, and pierced right ear with a tiny silver skull earring.

  “You ever been sleeping next to someone, you’re lying in the dark but you can feel they’re awake, like you can feel them thinking?” asks Lion.

  Grant nods.

  “Sometimes at night, when I’m lying next to Mel, she covers her head with the pillow and faces the wall, but I know she’s awake. It’s like she wants to be swallowed up by the dark. I’ll say her name but she won’t answer. She pretends to be asleep. In the morning, her eyes are all red and she’ll stay in the house all day wearing one of my ratty sweatshirts. And I know she’s thinking about Luke.�
�� As he says this he pictures the little boy’s face again. He blinks hard, trying to will it out of his mind. “She thinks that she caused it, you know? I know she’s trying to figure out what happened, that it’s in her subconscious or whatever. She’s trying to figure out if it was her fault or if it was Maya’s. Or if either of them could have saved him.”

  “They were just kids.”

  “I tell her that. She says it was her idea to get into the canoe. But she lost the paddle. She says something in the water ripped it out of her hands. Something in the water.”

  “She was just a kid, of course she’d think that,” Grant says. “It was the waves.”

  “I can’t make her believe that,” says Lion. “I’ve tried. I’d do anything for her. It’s scary what I would do for her. I scare myself.”

  Grant leans back, guarded. “I have some experience with that.”

  “Right,” Lion scoffs.

  “When my mom was dying of lung cancer. The only thing she asked for was her cigarettes.”

  Lion stares at Grant, silent.

  “It made her happy. It was the only thing.”

  “Man, how did you deal with that?”

  “I was broken. So was she. That Polynesian restaurant, the Aloha, on Monroe Avenue? They had a cigarette machine in back. I’d run the whole way and back, like a man on fire.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Your dad, he saw?”

  “My father wasn’t a big talker. If he saw he never said. It was like it was going to be him or me that had to do it.”

  “He couldn’t do it. It had to be you.”

  “Yeah,” says Grant, staring at Lion.

  “You hated him,” says Lion, folding his arms. “For making you do it.”

  “No. Only myself.”

  “No way, man. I would have hated him.” Lion shakes his head. They are both full of guilt, but for different reasons. Guilt is a magnet for bad health, Lion thinks. People refuse to let it go even when they get mysterious addictions.

  Grant runs his fingers across the carpeting. “When I was a kid, I had this crazy stutter. Could hardly say my own name. So one day before school, I’m twelve, I think. Out back on the playground. I’d always get there early enough to run around the track a few times. Some tough kids are in the bleachers, yelling, teasing me, and I don’t stop running but look right at them as I pass. Then I stop. I give them the finger. I just stand there, holding my hand up. Six of them and I’m there alone. Then before I know it, they’re kicking the crap out of me…. I wanted to get the crap kicked out of me.”