The Naked Gardener

by L B Gschwandtner

  I arrived to the ever present grumble of the Trout River falls. Streams of sunlight danced off the spray as I crossed the bridge over the Trout River. The falls, flowing as always, cascaded over rock outcroppings, pooling in places and then meandering down to plunge again. There was a good clear drop on the north side of the falls, just next to where the old mill pond wall had been built to collect water to turn the mill wheel. The water level was low for late spring, and I could clearly see the cliff of rocks usually hidden by water. I eyed that drop, gauging just where one would have to paddle to steer clear of the rocks and where to point the nose of the canoe. I had watched white water kayakers negotiate the falls but had never seen a canoe go over it.

  The bank was closed on Saturdays. Doris and Eddy Barr had not yet opened the hair salon. The luncheonette’s door was propped open with a brick and the little plastic tables had been set out so they were open for business. The big clock on the front of the old grain storage warehouse said four fifty-two, which of course was wrong. I wondered what year it had ticked off its last minute.

  I spotted Erica’s red mini van and pulled up next to it. She was busy with a few of her regular customers. Erica’s breads had their own local mystique. She had an easy way with everybody. Of course she’d lived her whole life here, knew everyone and all their business. And they knew hers. Even though Maze and I had been in the area three seasons, I still got the feeling the locals thought of us the way they thought of the tourists. Summer people. A nuisance. People who never stick around to deal with the snow and ice, the power outages and early spring mud, and year-long political infighting.

  Erica was a large, tall woman. I parked where she wouldn’t see me. I wanted to surprise her. I hadn’t called anyone since Maze and I had arrived. Just the kind of funk I was in I suppose.

  I came up behind Erica and said, “Boo.”

  “You’re back,” she turned and hugged me, knowing who it was even before we made eye contact.

  “Did you bring anything to sell or are you just visiting?”

  “Both,” I told her. “Sorry I haven’t called yet. We’ve been so busy getting the farm back in shape. Do you mind if I put my jars on your table?”

  “Of course not. Do you have any of that strawberry jam to trade for maybe a chocolate pecan loaf?”

  A ratty old station wagon pulled up. All its doors flew open and a batch of children fell out and ran over to the wall overlooking the falls. They squealed and yelled, picked up pebbles and threw them as far as they could into the water. A balding man with a scattered expression on his face slowly emerged from the car and walked over to Erica’s table.

  “Well, well,” said Erica. “Got you on baby patrol today, Howard?

  “Just like you see it. The kids and their friends about to drive me over that bridge,” Howard pointed to the Water Street bridge.

  “What you need is a wife,” said Erica. “For your wife that is.”

  “Give me those two loaves,” Howard pointed to a wheat and a sesame on the table. “If I show up with none of your bread, Mavis’ll have my head.” Then he craned his neck and yelled over to the kids at the wall. “Hey one more throw and then back in the car. No more foolishness.”

  He turned back to Erica and shrugged. She handed him the loaves wrapped in thin brown paper.

  “Here you go, big boy,” she smiled and winked at me, tilting her head slightly.

  “Thanks,” he said and tucked the bundle under his arm. “You girls come to any conclusion, yet?” he asked.

  “Oh, Howard, how sweet of you to call us mature ladies girls,” Erica chided him.

  Howard chuckled. “You’re too much for me, Erica. I’ll be seeing you at the meeting at the end of the month.”

  “I do look forward to that, Howard,” said Erica.

  He rounded up the children. They piled back into the car squealing and jockeying for seats and off they went. Erica carefully lowered herself onto a little chair she’d opened early that morning. She sighed.

  “Never expected to see Howard Oettenger here today,” she breathed deeply and let it out slowly. “Oh look at me. Finally sitting on this rickety chair and didn’t even break it.”

  “Who was that?”

  “Used to be head of the town council.”

  “What do you mean used to be? Who’s head of it now?” I asked.

  “You’re talking to her.”

  I missed a lot being away nine months of the year. “When did that happen?”

  “Oh, let’s see. At the March meeting. Right before spring mud.”

  “I didn’t think you were interested in politics.”

  “This isn’t politics. It’s more like charity work. Trout River Falls is dying and the men don’t see any reason to run a town that technically may not exist in a year or two.”

  “What? This cute old town?”

  “Cute doesn’t pay the bills,” she shrugged. “Malls and office parks and WalMarts pay bills.”

  We watched a few cars cross over the bridge.

  “Even the bridge is cute,” I said, looking at the old wooden bridge with the tiny bridge man’s cabin at the north end. There hadn’t been a bridge man in over a hundred years but the little room stood as a reminder of days when a toll was collected to pay the bridge owner for the right to cross the river.

  “The whole thing’s fading into the past.”

  More people stopped at Erica’s table to buy bread. Some bought jars of my produce. The sun had passed its mid point. Light sparkled on the waterfalls behind us and downriver the water gurgled away. The market would close at two. There was always a rush at the end before the farmers shut down and went home.

  “What about the businesses that are still here?” I asked her.

  “What you see along River Street is it. The only revenue comes from real estate taxes and if we don’t do something soon, everything will be abandoned and boarded up. Oh I can’t worry about it now. Let’s take a break for lunch.”

  We sat in the sun on top of the wall overlooking the falls with its ceaseless soft roar behind us. I unwrapped a tuna sandwich. Erica opened a salad in a Tupperware bowl and poked at it with a plastic fork.

  “If you’re head of the council, who else is serving with you?” I asked her.

  “Omigod,” Erica pointed to the bridge. “Look who’s coming to town.”

  A silver BMW convertible – top down – sped across the bridge and pulled up next to the wall. The pretty driver’s hair was neatly covered by a printed silk scarf that ruffled a little as she drove. She grinned and waved, sticking her hand straight up over the windshield. Next to her, a dowdy younger woman whose hair had been blown wild by the drive, opened the car door and looked at the ground as if she half expected to step in something unappealing. When she did look up, I recognized her and then realized I also knew the other woman.

  “Here’s part of your answer. You remember Valerie and Hope?” Erica was asking. You met them at that barbecue last summer. You helped serve food.”

  It was one of those covered dish things where everybody brought something and they set up the food on long tables.

  “Oh right.” I did remember. “So you mean Valerie and Hope are on the council?”

  “With Charlene and Roz. You met them all last summer.”

  I tried to remember everyone but there had been so many people.

  Valerie and Hope joined us by the wall.

  “I picked Hope up after class,” Valerie told us.

  “How are you?” Hope asked me. “What have you been doing since last summer?”

  We chatted about nothing in particular, the way women do when they haven’t seen each other in a while. Hope had started taking nursing classes. She was still working at the Methodist church, renting a room from the pastor and his wife, taking classes at night and on Saturday mornings. Valerie had done some modeling. A charity show at the country club. A shoot for a golf magazine. She had gone to Nevis on vacation with her husband. I told them about two shows I�
��d been in, illustration jobs, that Maze was out hang gliding.

  “Hang gliding,” Valerie repeated. “Is that like where they jump out of planes and grab each other’s hands and float in the sky?”

  “No, that’s a type of sky diving. Where they free fly in formation before they break apart and open their parachutes. Hang gliding is like flying with huge wings. They jump off a cliff somewhere or a mountain face and glide on thermals until they slowly come back to earth.”

  We stopped talking for a few minutes.

  “If we could save this town, we’d be like those sky divers, hanging together. That would show my husband,” Erica smacked her palm on her thigh.

  “What does he have to do with it?” I asked.

  Valerie and Hope groaned.

  “Will.” Valerie said.

  “Yes, Will,” Hope repeated.

  “He’s the town’s attorney,” Erica said. “Pro bono of course. He plays golf with all these men. He counseled them to quit and disband the town council altogether. He says the state pays for the bridge and roads so just let the rest go to hell.”

  Erica glanced over toward the bridge. There were no more cars. A few cyclists had stopped at the luncheonette for drinks.

  “And you want to revive the town?” I asked.

  “We’ve talked about it. Matter of fact, the council is going to discuss it at the public meeting this month. You should come,” Hope told me.

  “The whole council wants to save it,” Valerie said. “The question is how?”

  Before I even thought about it, I said, “Isn’t there some way to make it a destination?”

  Erica’s voice rose a bit with an excited edge. “That’s what I thought. But Will says I’m crazy. He says I should have turned down the job to begin with. But men…”

  “I know. They don’t understand.” I nodded in agreement, thinking about Maze leaving that morning.

  “He thinks because he’s retired, I should just sit around like him playing golf all day. Like waiting at home to make his dinner is satisfying for me.”

  “Oh, God, that’s what I’m afraid of.”

  “Oh did you tie the knot and not tell anyone?” Valerie asked.

  “No.”

  “But still thinking about it.” Hope said.

  “He’s thinking about it. I’m conflicted. But if we don’t move forward, then what? I guess one day you have to choose. Either give up your man or give up your independence. Nothing stays the way it is. You either move forward or die holding down the fort alone.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Hope said.

  Erica repositioned herself so that her legs hung out over the wall with her back to the market tables. She wore Birkenstocks that looked as if they were a good ten years old. She was agile, the way some heavy people are.

  “A destination. But to what?” Valerie asked.

  “I do have one idea. But it involves a real sales job. And it’s only the germ of an idea. Nothing concrete yet,” Erica said.

  “What’s is it?” I asked her.

  “Well,” Erica turned her head toward me, her tone conspiratorial. “An old lady named Mrs. Ward lives in that big mausoleum just over there,” Erica pointed above the falls to some woods but I couldn’t see anything except trees and a high wall with ivy covering most of it. There was the weathered mill and waterwheel and I could also see an old wooden pier that stuck out from the land into the river.

  “She lives in the original house. It was built about two hundred years ago. And then it was added onto later when the family really prospered. That grist mill is the last one. At one time there were three mills on the river. The other two were for lumber and power for electricity to the house and village. Old people around here say the Ward place is huge. All stone. Quarried up the river a little ways and floated down to the falls on barges. Her great grandfather I don’t know how many generations back built the mill and the family built the town and the house and the bridge and everything else around here. They had a lumber business and a store where they sold flour. There used to be a factory that made shoes and another one that made buttons and a third that wove ribbon. The ribbon factory burned up in a fire that hit the town over sixty years ago. Some people say it was an insurance fire since the ribbon business had gone south. The shoe factory just sort of fell apart after all the shoe manufacturing went to Brazil and the factory here shut down. And buttons … they just stopped making buttons. All that’s left is the house and the mill.”

  “What happened to the button factory? I mean the building?” I asked

  “It’s still back there, behind the hardware store. On Water Street next to the old shoe factory building. It’s been empty for years. Just a big empty place with those old skylights they used to put in the roof for light,” Hope explained.

  “I’ll bet it’s a great space.” I looked at Erica. “And your idea?”

  “The old lady has no children. And no family left. She’s a recluse as far as I can tell. No one’s seen her for years except the man who worked for her husband tending the grounds and taking care of the house. He buys her food and every once in a while someone sees him outside by the mailbox. He even comes to the market to buy bread from me every other week. Not today though. So my idea is to try to get her to leave the house and the mill and her money to the town in a trust. And we do something with all that to draw people here to Trout River Falls.”

  I watched the water cascading over the falls to the left of the mill pond dam. Funny about all that rock. Some of it is immovable, like the rock that creates the waterfall. And some of it just won’t stop moving, like the rocks in my garden, always showing up where I didn’t want them. I thought about all the stone walls I drove past everywhere. In Virginia a stone wall is a sign of gentry, the moneyed class. Here they were as common as trailer parks. You could barely walk a hundred paces without hitting a stone wall. Stone foundations, stone houses, stone barns, stone walls.

  I watched the way the water flowed and dropped, terrace by terrace, into pools and rushes. The good run on the west side had what I estimated was about a forty foot drop at a thirty degree angle. Not too hard the way the water was flowing now. After a good rain, it would be a bit trickier, more turbulent. The rocks would be hidden under water.

  “I guess you’d have to come up with a way to get to the old lady. Old people get pretty fixed in their ways. They don’t like being asked to do things. Especially for someone else. Does anyone know her or know anyone who knows her?”

  “I used to know some women at the club who knew her,” said Valerie. “But they’re all long gone.”

  “Then we’d better hurry up and get to her,” Hope said.

  I was surprised at Hope’s practical approach. She had seemed mousy when I first met her last summer. Maybe it was being at the church that day. Maybe she was like me, also in transition.

  People had stopped driving up to the farmers’ market. Only a few trucks and vans remained parked outside the hardware store. The last of the farmers had packed up and gone for the day.

  We collapsed Erica’s table and moved to our cars. She gave me her new phone number. Now that she was head of the town council, she had gotten her own line.

  Maybe you’ll come over and see how we’ve fixed up the farm,” I told them. “Maze and I will be doing some chores Monday.”

  “I’d like to see that. Anyone who could fix up that old Reichelm wreck just might be able to bring Trout River Falls back to life.”

  “I suppose you think I don’t really fit in up here.”

  “No,” she shook her head. “I think you fit in just fine. But I always wondered how you got here. It’s not like it’s on the main route to or from anywhere.”

  Tiny droplets of water from the falls pricked at my face. I looked up at the sky and wondered if Maze was at that moment floating on hot air currents, gliding over some farmer’s fields, maybe even watching the Trout River from way off in the distance. How does anybody end up anywhere?

  * * *


  Sunday morning and a light breeze. Warm air currents ruffled the edges of the leaves. Sun blazing in an azure sky. Puffy white clouds moved lazily eastward, casting shadows over the fields and garden. The pond glittered with feathery patterns like a harpist’s fingertips were rippling a broken cadence across the water.

  I left the barn naked, the warm sun on my shoulders. Past Queen Anne’s lace. Down the path. Then, just as the garden came into full view, a rabbit hopped into the middle of the path, munching on some tender shoots of wild violet. His ears pointed forward away from me. Tail tucked, haunches relaxed. I stopped. Watched as he chewed the flower and then the leaves, taking his time. Unaware of my presence, not frightened. It was good Maze had walled my garden off from the creatures.

  When I was seven, my father tilled up a large rectangle in a wide grassy field behind our house. He must have borrowed the tiller from our neighbors who had a small farm. I was friends with their daughter. She and I used to collect eggs from the chicken roosts in their barn. In there it always seemed like dusk; it smelled like fresh hay and cow hides and milking pails. Even the manure smelled fresh and clean, a natural part of life. Her brothers mucked the stalls, refreshed the hay for the cows. There was a big old horse named Red. A gentle soul with large eyes and heavy legs. We’d climb up onto his back and ride him around the farm, never going faster than a slow, ambling walk. I don’t know how Red felt about these jaunts but we loved them.

  Once my father had plowed up the field for his garden, he laid out rows with wooden stakes at the end of each row and lines of white cotton string between the stakes. Every row was evenly spaced with the next and each string ran true from stake to stake. After he sowed the seeds, he popped the corresponding seed packet over its stake to show what was planted in each row. On one side, the whole length of the garden was reserved for corn, four rows neatly spread out with more space between them than the other rows. Next to the corn, he planted vegetables. Once he reached the middle of the garden he planted flowers. A riot of flowers, as it turned out. But in the beginning, there were just the furrows with my father’s footprints running up and down in the earth.