Snapper

by Brian Kimberling

  “I hadn’t realized,” said Annie to Dad and me one evening in Evansville, “that you two had spent so much time in the woods together.”

  “Can’t do it anymore,” said Dad. “The stripper pit woods are full of crystal meth labs. You see ammonia bottles, lithium batteries, whatever else they use lying around everywhere. Two or three years ago I went out there and a Warrick County sheriff questioned me. Told me it was not the best place for an elderly math professor to be.”

  “He called you elderly?” said Annie. She looked ready to pick up the phone and lodge a formal complaint. Her accent alone would be devastating.

  “Not directly,” said Dad. “It’s a look people start giving you at a certain age. You get used to it. I’m sure Nathan knows some places that haven’t been despoiled.”

  Vermont has bears. I like bears. All four states bordering Indiana have bears, too. The state forms a sort of sock-shaped bear-shunned hole. Vermont also has moose and mountains and other natural glories, all of which I enjoy. But they don’t—can’t—call my name the way Indiana woodland used to; the Ohio and Wabash Rivers have a way with words that our local New England brook can’t match (I suppose you would say it babbles). Vermont has famous fall foliage, too, but compared to Box County in October, Vermont is a painting Gauguin left out in the rain.

  Annie noticed my disappointment at how those little towns had changed. She said she had been looking forward to driving from Needmore to Prosperity via Stony Lonesome. I told her not to worry, because that wasn’t what we came for. I said we’d go to my square mile of Box County State Forest, where my birding career began.

  I wouldn’t take a pregnant woman there in high summer—I had always worked in intolerable heat, and however carefully I dressed, the poison ivy, poison sumac, smilax thorns, deer ticks, and mosquitoes lacerated or pierced every inch of my skin. But it was October when the forest becomes an endless cool cathedral in red and yellow and gold and green, with a perpetual shower of susurant leaves. Out there I had encountered wild dogs, hostile armed men, and a vicious tornado, but in October none of these things was even conceivable. I imagined that Annie and I would have a pleasant, unhurried stroll along a dry creek bed whose every turn, rise, and depression was known to me intimately despite the intervening years.

  We left our phones in the car.

  “I think you’ve painted an unnecessarily grim picture of Indiana for me,” said Annie as I helped her over a fallen log. “I didn’t mean this,” I said.

  “Everything else, then,” she said. “You told me, ‘Indiana bills itself desperately as the Crossroads of America because there isn’t anything else to say about it.’ ”

  “Did I say that?”

  “You did.”

  “I meant that other places have mountains and coastlines and major cities. They call Indianapolis ‘Naptown’ for good reason.”

  “But you have this,” she said. Shafts of sunlight pierced the canopy and the leaves drifted past like the ashes and embers of a celestial conflagration.

  “Yeah, but the people,” I said.

  “You love them. It’s why you didn’t take me to Gnaw Bone or Bean Blossom. You’re afraid of what they’ve become.”

  “I had a good time,” I said. “I will admit that. But you can’t live in a place full of signs about killing babies. I can’t, anyway. Like you said about bumper stickers. You’re surrounded by people who choose to introduce themselves with ‘You kin pry it from my cold dead fangers’ or ‘God is my co-pilot.’ Just as bad either way.”

  “You went to jail and everyone was really nice,” she said.

  “That’s different.”

  “If it weren’t for your ear,” she said, “would you have stayed?”

  It was only when I returned that I viewed Indiana through such a jaundiced eye. While there I tried desperately to gather the whole state around me and make it cohere. I don’t mean to say that I enjoyed living there, either; rather, the state itself was my own lifelong imbroglio. I was driven to fury every day by the idiotic factions people formed; by the smugness of university towns stocked with out-of-state migrants and the bewildering willful irrationality of the native retrograde reprobates. I had hoped or assumed, though, that one day, maybe tomorrow, everyone would be just a particle or two more like me: and the ineluctable outcome would be that the Eastern bluebird flourished again, cats assisted the blind, and every campaigning politician from elsewhere was greeted in Indiana with polite skepticism.

  Perhaps that is a kind of hope one must maintain to live anywhere but in solitude. From remote and sparsely populated Vermont, Indiana seemed hopeless; a collection of turtle-shooting subliterates—people opposed to evolution, pluralism, and poetry.

  And yet. Those leaves.

  “Would you live here again?” said Annie.

  “Would you live here?” I said.

  “I love it,” she said.

  My parents had talked about moving to Vermont. I didn’t want them to do anything that drastic and disruptive at their age.

  “I’d have to buy a canoe,” I said. I could picture it, provided I could spend my time outdoors. Imagine the parasites and predators and uncouth species I could take out with a well-trained Cooper’s hawk. Every last cowbird in the Sweet Note Saloon would hightail it for Illinois.

  If you were to stand in that creek bed during April or May you would get wet to the knee and above. By mid-June you would be walking on fragments of dry limestone and skirting the occasional stagnant puddle. By October you would not find even a trace of mud. The banks, however, are loose in places—looser, in fact, when dry—and although I knew exactly where the earth was most likely to give, I didn’t think of it because the whole was gently clothed in leaves. Every sharp thing was smoothed, and everything straight was softened, save the sturdy eternal trunks of the trees and the ephemeral sunlight in lengthening shafts like the spokes of Apollo’s wheel.

  Annie placed a foot on the side to clamber out, and with her weight it gave way. She landed on her ankle with her foot folded at a right angle inside. She cried out and shifted her weight to the other foot but lost her balance. She pitched face-first into the creek bed, keeping her hands low to protect Peach, and when she rolled, wailing, into a fetal position, the rocks beneath the leaves had cut her forehead and both her hands.

  I could have prevented it.

  “Annie,” I said, crouching.

  “I tried not to land on Peach,” she explained through clenched teeth.

  I helped her to sit up, and I asked rather stupidly if she was all right. I wiped the blood from her face with my sleeve and she took deep breaths before replying.

  “I tried to twist,” she said.

  I asked again whether she was all right, and she replied that she didn’t think Peach had taken much of the shock.

  To help Peach we have to help you, I said.

  She looked at her lacerated palms and I told her to press them against my other, unbloodied sleeve.

  “It’s just my ankle,” she said. “Just the ankle that hurts.”

  I removed her shoe and her sock as gingerly as I could. There hadn’t been time for it to discolor or swell. When I pressed on it lightly she howled.

  “Can you stand up?” I said. She put her arm over my shoulder and rose on her right leg, holding her left, afflicted ankle in front. She did not want the sock or the shoe so I carried these in my free hand.

  We were closer, by a quarter or a half mile, to a ranger’s station than to our car. In Annie’s condition the distance was crucial. It was a more level walk, too, and time was short as dusk approached. The route would take me out of the area I knew, and the station might be locked and empty. But I reasoned that at least I could leave Annie there while I retrieved the car. We began to hobble slowly toward the station.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m sure it’s just a sprain.”

  “I’m not worried for me,” she said.

  There was a compact black Jeep with the DNR logo on the d
oor parked outside and a light shining through the station’s screen windows. Several plank steps led up to a flimsy wooden cabin; clearly Annie couldn’t climb these. I helped her sit on the bottom step and ran up to the door.

  “My girlfriend’s pregnant and she’s twisted her ankle,” I said as I entered. A ranger at a small rickety desk stared at me. He didn’t speak, didn’t even lay down the pen in his hand.

  “My girlfriend’s pregnant—” I began again.

  “I heard you,” he said calmly.

  He was in his early twenties, I guessed, but what struck me was how clean he seemed—as though he had shaved and moisturized his sharp dimpled chin five minutes before, gotten his fine brown hair clipped and his nails manicured that morning. His shorts, shirts, and even his socks looked freshly ironed; they had never deviated from the straight line between the driver’s seat of the Jeep and the folding metal chair he perched on, and his boots did not often forsake carpet for concrete, let alone gravel.

  “Maybe you ought to marry her,” he said.

  “What?” I couldn’t quite take that in.

  “Since you got her pregnant.”

  “Look, she twisted her ankle,” I said.

  “I heard you,” he said. He rose slowly and deliberately from his chair.

  “She’s outside,” I added.

  He crossed the room to a metal cabinet and fetched a set of keys from his pocket.

  “Her parents know?”

  “She’s not sixteen, for God’s sake!” He paused to glare at me, and I supposed I had taken the Lord’s name in vain. Then he unlocked the cabinet and extracted a plastic box marked First Aid.

  “You should marry her,” he said, walking past me.

  He was very kind to Annie.

  “Let me look at that ankle, ma’am,” he said, crouching at the bottom of the steps. “My name’s Wayne. I’ll get a Band-Aid for your forehead, too. Are you hurt anywhere else?”

  Annie held up her hands.

  “I’m worried about the baby,” she said. “I fell on my front.”

  “I wouldn’t worry, ma’am,” he said, taking a confident and expert hold of her ankle. “By the look of your hands I don’t think there was much weight left for the baby to take. I’ve got bandages for them, too.” He began to press on her skin.

  “I feel some swelling,” he said.

  Annie breathed in sharply.

  “I don’t think you broke anything,” he said. “You may have torn a ligament, though. Need an expert to tell you that.”

  He turned to me. “How’d y’all get out here?”

  “My car is at the start of the Ten O’Clock Line.”

  “That’s awkward,” he said. It was only three miles away on foot, but closer to ten by road.

  “The Jeep has only got two seats,” he added.

  I didn’t know what to do.

  “I want to get Peach checked out,” said Annie.

  “I can lend you a flashlight,” said Wayne.

  Peach was unharmed, and Annie’s ankle recovered over the course of many weeks, although even a year later she sometimes felt a twinge when shifting the baby from one arm to the other, or applying the car brakes unexpectedly. Wayne rang my parents from the hospital and stayed with her (I have always been jealous of him for this) until they arrived—they made it from Evansville in under two hours, which is unheard of. Dad must have been topping ninety miles an hour the whole time. I learned later that Annie was being kept waiting for further examination when they came in, and a nurse or orderly put her into a folding wheelchair that had not been fully secured in an open position. It began to collapse with her in it, constricting her middle on three sides, but Dad grabbed both handles and pried them apart.

  “Another incident like this,” he said calmly, “and I will own this hospital.”

  She was immediately placed in the care of a very senior, very competent doctor—over the vociferous (Mom’s euphemism for foul-mouthed) objections of another pregnant woman alone in the waiting room. The doctor examined Annie thoroughly and reassuringly before releasing her free of charge.

  I could have made it easily without a flashlight, but I didn’t try. Highway 45 was just a mile away and I jogged along a gravel road in that direction, through billows of dust kicked up by Wayne’s Jeep. Highway 45 intersected with 37 not far away and if I couldn’t get a lift on one I’d find it on the other. Perhaps I should have gone back for the car—I would have to eventually anyway—but I was worried and impatient.

  More important, I discovered suddenly that I hated that damn square mile. Beneath and behind its beguiling ravines and glorious canopy lay such casual treachery, such indifferent malice. It was one thing to work there alone, young, in an almost simian physical condition, but now I found it laying traps for my family. I wanted human contact, preferably medical, not craven alien eyes peering at me through the dark.

  I reached 45 and tried the side of the road. Not one vehicle slowed down. I began to walk down the yellow line in the middle of the road, toward 37 and away from the car. At least I provoked some angry horns and mild swerves. I spread out my arms to show I was asking for help, not wandering dementedly alone. I nearly lost them to the wing mirrors of coinciding eighteen-wheelers.

  I reached the intersection of 45 and 37, and I stood beneath the traffic light, arms outstretched. Every oncoming headlight seemed to me a feeble reflection of the sun shafts piercing the canopy that afternoon, and the alternating red and green and gold of the stoplight bathed the pavement in a pale electric echo of the forest floor.

  For three hours I stood there, begging for help, and not one person stopped.

  Oh, people.

  My people.

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to early readers Andreea Petre-Goncalves, Shefali Malhoutra, and Joanne Dexter; also to agents Tim Glister and Will Francis; editors Tim O’Connell and Mary-Anne Harrington; publicist Josefine Kals; and, in particular, to Tessa Hadley, who suggested writing about Indiana in the first place.

  About the Author:

  Brian Kimberling grew up in southern Indiana and spent two years working as a professional birdwatcher before living in the Czech Republic, Turkey, Mexico, and now England. He received an MA in creative writing from Bath Spa University in 2010.

  Visit: http://briankimberling.com

  Friend: http://www.facebook.com/SnapperByBrianKimberling

  Pantheon Reading Group Guide for

  Brian Kimberling’s SNAPPER

  About the Guide:

  The questions contained in this guide are designed to enhance your reading group’s discussion of Snapper. Explore debut author Brian Kimberling’s series of vignettes told about birding, Hoosiers, and love.

  Questions for Discussion:

  1. The book opens with “I got my job by accident.” How does this set the tone of the book? Does it describe the path of Nathan’s life? How does this idea apply to the secondary characters in the book?

  2. Snapper revolves around birdwatching. What part do animals play in the book? How do animals help to move the story and define the characters? In what way are they characters themselves?

  3. Several of the stories feature Lola. Is Nathan’s infatuation with Lola affected by her unavailability? Does Nathan love Lola? How do Nathan’s other relationships compare to his with Lola?

  4. How does Nathan treat his relationships? Does he have trouble committing to anything? To anyone? Is he better on his own or with someone?

  5. Does the book portray men and women with mutual respect? Does one gender have more control or power than the other or are they equal?

  6. Kimberling references Peter Taylor, a loyal Tennessee native, and Nathan is clearly from Indiana. How much are the main characters defined by their home states? If Dart and Loretta represent Texas, then how do they differ from the characters from Indiana? Is it significant that Nathan’s mother is from Texas and his father is from Indiana?

  7. The author also references to Katherine Anne Po
rter, whose writing deals with topics like justice, betrayal, and the unforgiving nature of humans. How are these topics handled in the story?

  8. Uncle Dart squares off with the Klan yet displays his own prejudices. Is this solely to bother Nathan? At what point is a joke to be taken seriously? Or is it simply wrong to joke about certain topics? Where do you believe the boundaries are?

  9. Nathan claims to “wax wroth with Darcy” yet seldom speaks with anger or indignity. Does he believe he has stronger convictions than he shows? Does he take an active or passive approach? How does his taste in literature match his ideals and represent his values?

  10. This book deals with tolerance on many different levels and on many topics. How much can be overlooked? Lola does not hide the fact that she has multiple lovers. How forgiving are we due to love, or lust? Dart and Loretta return to Texas. How much can we be expected to accept from our family?

  11. Nathan parts ways with John at the end of chapter IV. Why do long friendships end or fail to be rekindled? Darren is obviously not an ideal roommate, but is allowed to stay until he hurts Nathan. When does the line get crossed with friends?

  12. What can be taken from Nathan’s encounter with Maud and Ernie? Why were they offended? They welcome all to their diner. Are they choosing to turn a blind eye unless forced to do otherwise?

  13. Nathan has encounters with veterans. Once in the woods, and another in the vet center. Compare the two encounters with each other and with Nathan`s experience in Outward Bound. How do these three experiences complement each other? How do they differ?

  14. Have you tried, à la Ernest Hemingway, to write a story in six words? How long does a story need to be? Is this a story collection or a novel? What is the difference? How important is a plotline in telling a story? Is it more satisfying to have one or more enjoyable to be free of the bounds of the structure?