All Fall Down
Page 15
“We’re only a few miles from there,” Berry-berry said. “You want to go out and look the place over?”
Clinton’s stomach was full of roast beef and ginger ale, and his head was whirling with all these tales of Berry-berry’s adventures. Now, many things puzzled him, but of one fact he was certain: his great dream, which had always seemed so improbable that he had all but abandoned it, had practically come true. Berry-berry was, in a way, asking him to go traveling with him.
“You mean it?” he said.
“Why not?”
“Okay, only let’s give Annabel a ring, ‘cause we said five minutes, and it’s been . . .”
“Agh, why bother?” Berry-berry said.
“Well, it’s just, you know, bein’ gone for two years and then all of a sudden . . .” But then Clinton stopped talking. The bewilderment on Berry-berry’s face made him feel he had committed some blunder. “Okay, to hell with it,” he said, “let’s go.”
They drove through the long main street of Apple Mountain and over a small wooden bridge which marked the end of town. A hundred yards beyond the bridge was a narrow dirt road. Berry-berry followed this road to the first driveway and turned into it. Clinton saw the lights of a small house shining from the middle of an orchard that surrounded it. Berry-berry stopped the truck and flashed his headlights twice. In a moment he received an answering signal from the porch lamp of the house. Then they proceeded up the driveway and stopped again at the house.
There were no stars in the sky. A light rain had begun to fall and the air was cool. Berry-berry reached into an apple tree and plucked a piece of the fruit. He handed it to Clinton. “They’re sweet as hell,” he said, “but watch out for worms. This place should’ve been sprayed, see, but . . .” Then, with a gesture that took in the entire orchard, he said: “Look! More goddam apples than a . . . ! We got thousands of ‘em! And they just fall to the ground like . . . ! ” This abundance seemed to disturb him, but he could not express himself. He shook his head; and then he pulled his sweat shirt up around his neck to protect himself from the rain. He looked all about him, into the heavy branches of the trees and beyond them into the black sky.
“You know something?” he said. “I hate life.”
“You do?” Clinton said.
“Yeah. I do.”
“Me, too. I hate life something awful.”
“We’re getting all wet,” Berry-berry said.
“Berry-berry?”
“Hm?”
“How come you hate life?”
“How come you do?”
“I don’t know,” Clinton said. “I just said that.” He wished there were some way he could persuade Berry-berry to take a good run through the orchard with him. The rain made it seem like a crazy idea, which was partly what he liked about it. But he was afraid of making another blunder.