The Language of Trees (9 page)

But friendship was not Emily Shongo's goal. It never had been. Instead she put her arm around Echo's shoulders, pulled her close, and whispered, “I know that you think nothing can match the passion between you two, and that you think none of us old folks know a thing about it. But I can tell you, we've all had it. Fire like yours burns itself right out. The hotter the fire, the sooner it dies.” Then, Emily Shongo gave a compassionate smile. She stubbed out her cigarette with her heel, grabbed her grocery bag and headed home. She died two years later with the same type of abruptness, her last wish: no funeral or memorial service, simply the spreading of her ashes across the lake at night.

Echo hears a plate crash to the floor. “You okay, Pop?” she calls.

“Just dropped a cup, that's all. Go back to sleep.” She waits and listens to Joseph sweeping up the broken pottery. Then she hears the TV flick on and the sound of muffled voices. Soon after, she can hear his light snoring. He needs her here, she is certain. She feels empty and afraid when she thinks of how old he looks now, so much older than last time, his ashen complexion, his wrinkled face, the hands that tremble whenever he is at rest, causing him to drop cups and plates. The sounds of his
wheezy sleep makes her ache with regret for everything she hasn't done for him. He is the only person who has always been there for her. He is all she has. As she lies in bed, she clings to the lavender silk pillow stuffed with potpourri. It still smells like roses and soap. She tells herself her mother left it for her, even though she knows this is not true.

A
FTER WATCHING
E
CHO DRIVE
away, Grant races the setting sun on his way back to the cabin. His mind is cluttered with thoughts of her. His heart is racing. The air fills his lungs, cleansing them. The earth is buoyant under his heels. Ahead he can see the day's last mirage, the silver light spilling over the potholes like molten metal. These battered roads are remnants of the ice storms that do enough damage in three months to keep anyone from ever calling this a good road. An eerie self-consciousness overtakes him.

He knows he's being followed.

He slows, and then whips around. Nothing. He begins running again but after a minute, the same feeling. He spins back.
Yes
. The scraggly hybrid wolf, the one from Echo's accident. He's there watching Grant from under a dogwood tree about twenty feet back, one paw lifted as though Medusa had cast her eyes on him, still as stone.

“Go home,” Grant orders, trying to harden his voice. “For God's sake,” Grant says, trying his best to muster up some kind of annoyance. But who is he kidding? He's a sucker for animals. The more wounded, the better.

Slowly it limps toward him. It's an Academy Award performance.

“All right. Come.”

He kneels, claps his hands together. The animal begins to prowl back and forth, confused, not quite sure what to do with the kindness. Grant whistles through his teeth, and it comes galloping forward and assaults Grant with kisses that smell like sour eggs. The wolf-like ears don't fit with the rubbery jowls spilling out of both sides of his mouth. “Hey, easy now,” Grant says, running his fingers over the matted fur. He touches something that feels like raw fish, and the animal whips backward with a high-pitched yelp. Grant carefully moves the skeletal body around. A flap of skin is hanging off, exposing the pink hamburger flesh that is leaking blood. Grant takes a deep breath and looks around. He is alone. He turns his attention toward the wolf, and holds his hand about two inches above the area, feeling the waves of piercing heat lurching out. Then, an aversive energy makes him pull his hand away. The animal lies down and utters a low whine. Grant hesitates, stares at his hands, which feel as though they're immersed in warm water.

He can't remember feeling so clear.

He looks around again to make sure he is alone. And then, without any more thought, he places his hand back over the wolf's body, above the wound. He closes his eyes. He begins to sweat, feeling the heat energy that signifies pain, sensing an orange haze rising above the animal's wound like a smoke signal reverberating throughout its entire body. Grant begins sweeping his hands in the air from the front of the animal to the back, smoothing the heat that is pulsating from the animal's wound, and pulling it out into the atmosphere. The animal goes limp, closing its eyes. Grant opens his left palm up to the sky, then positions his right palm about an inch above the animal's upper
back, pulling a golden light from above and down through the bloody fur, into the battered skin and flesh, to muscle, tissue, organ and moving it through the animal's body. Grant breathes deeply, concentrating, picturing the golden ball of energy and filling the animal's body with it. The animal growls, opens its eyes, and Grant pulls his hands away. It stands up and shakes off the air as though it had been swimming. Then it stretches and begins to walk, circling Grant. Grant rubs his hands in the dirt until his skin is coated with the grounding earth. He glances up at the wolf. Dodging toward him and back, taunting him with play, the wolf is as good as new. Grant checks over the wolf's body. The wound is gone.

The wolf follows Grant back to the cabin, never straying too far from his heels. Grant feels strange, invigorated, his muscles tired but strong, as though he had just run ten miles. The lake is crushed with sunlight. When the animal falls asleep on the porch, Grant notices he is thirstier than he has been in months. He walks into the living room, duct tape in hand. He feels confident about being able to put the window back together. He stares at the broken glass scattered across the soot footprints zigzagging across the yellow shag. He leans down, brushing his fingers over the coal dust.

L
IGHT
. M
ELANIE WAKES SUDDENLY
in the darkness. It has been fifty-four hours. She has been listening to the waves lapping at the shoreline mixed with the sound of her own breathing. Nothing else. Lying face down, her wrists are tied in back. She can feel the springs of an old mattress poking against her belly. A blindfold pulls at the edges of her hair. Her head throbs in back where someone hit her. Musty air fills her nostrils. She hasn't enough energy to raise her head. Her eyes ache. She is so tired. So tired that she cannot keep herself from falling in and out of consciousness. Sleep takes her suddenly, like a huge snake, dragging her into the depths of the lake.

Pieces of coal fall from the sky like rain
.

She dreams of pieces of shiny black coal and bits of broken white china softened by rocks and the waves. She and Maya are walking across the lake floor, collecting coal in the baskets they have made by pulling up their skirts. Only one of them will find the piece that will turn into a diamond.

Above, Melanie sees a crown of golden curls floating on the surface of the water. Luke's hair sways like seaweed. Melanie struggles to reach him. She tries to swim to the surface, but he
floats farther and farther away. She tries to call his name but she is under water. He is leading her higher and higher, climbing through the water to the crowning yellow light at the surface.

Awake
. She splashes to the surface, gasping, trembling. Light warms her legs. The heat has raised the scent of urine from the old mattress. The sour smell of her own body is almost too much.

Despite the sunlight, her teeth are chattering. Even though her hands and ankles are tied, she can make a racket by kicking her feet up and down. But she has only so much energy.

She has never been so thirsty. Hunger claws at her stomach.

She can hear the water surrounding her but she cannot taste it. Her throat is raw with unleashed screams. Her mouth is so dry, she has forgotten how to swallow. She tries to speak, but the pain is too much, she fears her vocal cords have been cut.

In the cool blue center of her mind she pictures her child.

Strange, this feeling of wanting to fight for her life. It's because of Lucas. It's because of the way his eyes hold her as she moves around the room, never letting her go. She wants to scream. Tries to lift her head, but her throat is so dry, she cannot make a sound.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry
, she's screaming in her mind, hoping they will hear her: Lion, her mother, God. She's drained of fight. She wants her baby. Wants to smell him, to touch his skin. She knows she has caused this somehow, that it has to do with what is inside of her. Doubt. Guilt. Maybe the feeling that somehow she didn't deserve this life that was shaping up.

She knows that when you are weak, everything is a trigger.

The gulls cry on the rafters above her, a promise of escape. Melanie tries to move but her body isn't strong enough. After a while, she doesn't fight. She's been teaching herself how to die for some time now.

G
RANT HASN'T WANTED TO
go anywhere in three weeks. But seeing Echo has ignited a new sense of hope. He has showered and put on the only clean clothing he has: jeans and an old flannel shirt he found in the back of the closet, probably one of his father's, from the way the rolled sleeves are creased. He has fed the wolf and tied him up outside. The animal is content to sleep for hours, only looking up once in a while to make sure Grant's car is still there.

He is now intent on driving the old Cadillac down the dirt road, belting out “Freebird” at the top of his lungs. It's a reclamation. A cry of possibility. Though why there are more wild turkeys now crossing the road, Grant can't understand. The damn birds still flood the area. When he was a boy, teenagers used to shoot BBs at them from their car windows as sport. Turkey-plinking, they called it, similar to the way buffalo were once shot from moving trains. Grant always wondered why the turkeys never ran. They never learned. They were machine-like and unafraid. They simply remained easy targets as they hovered near the roadside, apparently feasting on the gravel. Even the trucks didn't scare them.

He passes the last clutch of turkeys as he drives down East Lake Road, one eye on the black glistening water. The buoys, part of the yacht club race course, are white in the moonlight. The waves are high, crested with frothing white foam. It's almost time to put the docks out, he thinks. In the next few days the shores will be busy with men hauling out huge heavy pieces of metal to fish off of and to tie their boats by.

Ahead, he can see the orange neon sign, K
ELLEY'S
B
AR
, the electric swirls lighting up the row of trucks in the packed parking lot. He pulls into the lot. He hopes the place is still mellow enough to have a long conversation. He has that need to talk and it doesn't even matter to whom.

The place is packed. A far cry from the small empty dive bar with its creaky benches and weary dartboard that he and Echo used to frequent. There is hardly any empty space left at all, not on the walls taped with photos of movie stars, not on the ceiling papered with posters,
Casablanca
and
The African Queen
, not even on the beer-sticky floors. Two large pinball machines face off in two corners, one labeled “Harold,” the other “Maude.” Tables and chairs are scattered about. The rudder of the
Onnalinda
, the largest of the old Canandaigua boats, has been turned into a table in a corner of the room. The ship, dismantled in 1913, refused to be pulled from the lake. She broke free of her towline and her pieces drifted across the water. On East Lake Road there's a house built almost entirely from its lumber.

Grant moves through the bar. An eight-foot tropical plant with thick prehistoric-like leaves is flourishing in another corner of the room. Tied to one of its branches is a photograph signed by Mel Gibson.

“I met him once,” the waitress says, cracking her gum. “He's
short. Not like what you would think.” She repositions the tray of drinks on her arm. “You want something?”

“Thanks, not just yet,” he tells her.

“I'm Georgia, when you're ready let me know.” He watches her disappear into the crowd, tray held up high above her head.

In the corner, a couple of young men are arguing, making a lot of noise. Both look drunk. Grant cuts through the crowd to the back door, which opens onto a muddy beach. Two empty picnic tables stand in the muddy sand. Grant pictures himself and Echo sitting on the tables, watching the fog encircle Squaw Island, making the trees look as though they were floating above the water. From here, you get the best view of the gulls as they spin hypnotic circles, searching in vain for fish that never come close to the island due to the lime deposits that cluster at the shore. Why do the gulls stay when there is no food? Some people understand. Others marvel at the oddity. On Saturday afternoons, once upon a time, Grant and Echo would sit out here, watching the gulls, sipping cheap Chardonnay and talking about life, as though they were an old married couple and not just two sixteen-year-olds.

Across the lake about a mile down, Grant can see the Diamond Trees, their leaves lighting up his dock.

“Shongo?” shouts Sean Kelley from behind the bar. “In the flesh?”

Grant smiles, walking over. “Hey Sean.”

Sean peers at him, taking off his pilot sunglasses. “God, you look old. You are the spitting image of a guy I once knew. Long time ago.”

“Yeah?” Grant smiles. “What was he like?”

“A lonely guy. You wouldn't have liked him.”

“You're probably right,” Grant says, looking around.

“Okay. Sit down, let me clean this off. Tell me everything. You okay? You look all right.”

“Sure.” Grant takes off his tan corduroy jacket. “Good. Place is busy. Love that photograph of Mel.”

“Yeah, well. You gotta have a theme,” Sean says, grabbing two shot glasses and a bottle of Jose Cuervo. “Business is great, through the roof. Tourists are killing the lake. But I got to make a living.”

“More people. More booze, I guess.”

“It's a catch-22, you know? I keep pouring drinks.”

“You lost weight,” Grant tells him.

Sean is sweating, his black silk shirt pulling over his belly. “Damn straight. Ah, the wife and me, we measure years in pounds now. Forty big ones,” Sean says, pointing to his gut. “So how's things with you?” He pours two shots. He grabs napkins with his thick short fingers, and sets down salt and lime slices.

“Fantastic. Terrific, never better. You?” Grant says, picking up the shot. Grant knows he looks bad, what with his rumpled clothing and his sunken cheeks. He watches Sean down the shot. He does the same.

“Me,” says Sean, wiping his mouth and setting the glass down. “I can't complain. Keeping the wife happy takes up most of my time. What'll it be?”

“Whatever's on tap,” Grant says. The wizard bartender works magic. He's got three bottles going so fast, Grant can't even identify them.

Sean smiles, shakes the metal canister and pours a couple of new shots. “Do one of these. It's for what ails you.”

“God bless,” Grant says. He downs it, schnapps and rum,
something tropical he can't quite identify. They do two more shots without talking.

“So, you don't look in such bad shape,” says Sean, as he cleans out a glass. “I was picturing something much worse.”

“Like what?”

“Like maybe something crazy. Maybe you had a long beard and came out at night, throwing white stones at houses and scaring children. Something like that.”

“What is that all about? Those rocks?”

“The wife thinks it's the spirits of the Seneca. She believes in that stuff. I told her it was the storm.”

“Right,” Grant replies. Who did he think he was fooling, hiding away in the cabin for the last three weeks when it seems the entire town has been waiting for him to scare children or hang himself? He could have stayed where he was, but the slight activity of Echo's accident, the remote hint of a new life, has pulled him toward her like a whirling planet. Sean sets a beer down in front of Grant. He notices Grant's blistered fingers.

“What in the hell happened to you, Shongo?”

“Fishing. Carp are real tough this year, like submarines. Yeah.” Grant self-consciously shoves his hands back into his pockets. “Reeling in those big ones.” They both know he's lying, that in ninth grade, he started a petition against a yearly bass tournament. It had made him less than popular with the locals.

“Fascinating,” Sean says. He, like all good bartenders, is versed in the art of letting a lie dissipate into the air. “Well, the bass boats are making us crazy. Every morning, five thirty to eight
A.M
., zipping their lures into the docks and stealing all the fish.” His fingers brush back his thinning blond hair. “The
wife's gonna shave it all off tomorrow. Says that's the style for bald guys. What do you think?”

Grant rubs his eyes. The bitter liquid slides down his throat. He shakes his head. He's in no position to give anyone marital advice. “Don't know. What do you think?”

“Well, you know, I get along best by not having an opinion, especially around the wife.” Sean grabs napkins and puts two more slices of lime and some salt in front of Grant. “So, when did your wife leave you?”

“A year ago. Bit more.”

“Man, Shongo. Takes time, I guess.”

“Yes, well coming here's been good for me.”

“You know, once Kerry took off. For real. Because of that goddamn Indian snake monster story. You know what the hell I'm talking about, right? You remember how folks see that thing occasionally? It almost cost me my marriage. Kerry saw it out middle of the lake one morning. She thought it was a big beaver until the rest of its body rose up from the water. So, she runs inside, wakes me up. I laughed at her. I told her she was crazy. That's when she put on her favorite coat, grabbed her toothbrush, and walked out.

“Kerry was gone nine days, one for every year of our marriage.” He holds up his fingers, counting off the years, one by one. “I was climbing the walls, ready to turn myself into snake bait. She came back, though. She couldn't stay away. Can you really blame her? I am a good-looking bastard.” Sean pours another round of shots. “Here's to women everywhere. God bless them and the way they cut our hearts out.”

With that, they both down the burning liquid. Grant feels his insides rebel, but he swallows hard. “That's tasting better. I should probably stop,” he says, his voice hoarse. Still, the fire that's rising up in his belly is burning off all the worry from
the afternoon. And he hasn't thought about either Susanna or Echo in almost forty-five minutes.

“Well,” says Sean. “Thank sweet Jesus that she didn't leave you with a kid, like that poor bastard Lion Williams over there, the one yelling at the pinball. Melanie Ellis's boyfriend. Sure you heard about that situation now that you've climbed out of your cave.”

The young man with the dreadlocks and the big leather jacket is shouting something at the ceiling. His eyes are big, light brown, and his face is thin with a square jaw. He has his hands in his jean pockets, which hang low on his hips exposing white boxer shorts. He's wearing big white sneakers with the laces untied, staggering around, piss drunk.

“Lion? Where's the name come from anyway?”

“Name's Lionel, I think. He says he couldn't say his own name when he was a kid. Called himself Lion and it stuck.”

“At least it was his own idea,” Grant says.

“Not a bad guy. Moved to town a few years ago. Came with nothing. Both he and the guy yelling at him, they both work at the Good Word Garage. They've been here all day. These are tough times.”

“Who's the other guy?”

“Rory Post. Good mechanic. But Lion's better. Hey, you still like old cars? I got a white 1956 Porsche Speedster. Like the one James Dean died in. Lion and Rory spent all year restoring it.”

Now Lion is trying to shake the pinball machine, and Rory is trying to body slam him away from it.

“Hey, you better cut them off.”

“Georgia, do your thing,” orders Sean, motioning to the waitress. “I leave it up to her. She'll let him know when he's had enough.”

Grant is vaguely aware that Georgia the waitress has been
listening to the conversation, and is taking far too long to garnish her drinks. Standing in front of him, she looks about sixteen and busty, her breasts swelling in the tight, lemon yellow low-cut shirt. “Hi again.” She looks up, smiling nervously at Grant.

“You messed me up!” Lion is yelling at Rory.

“What are you gonna do?” Grant asks Sean.

Sean shakes his head. “Nothing, until they break something. A bartender in Rochester just busted his spleen breaking up a fight.” Sean washes out two shot glasses, holds them up. “What-daya say? One more?”

“Not a chance.”

“For old times?” Sean says with a smile.

“Maybe later,” Grant tells him. “Phone still broken downstairs?”

Sean grabs his cell phone from under the bar. He slaps it on the counter. “Would you believe? People are still shovin' bottle caps into that goddamn pay phone. Not like anyone uses it anymore anyway. I'll never understand human beings. Always got to destroy something. Hey, let me guess, you don't own a cell phone, do you?”

“Why in the hell would I?” As Grant dials, he keeps an eye on Lion. The fight is heating up. Testosterone and anger and alcohol don't mix, that much he knows from experience. “Sean,” he calls. “Bartender. If you don't do something, I will.”

Rory's hair is flying wildly as he tries to dodge Lion's jabs. He zips out his BB gun and points it at Lion.

“Ah, not again. Every goddamn Sunday, it's the same old thing,” says Sean. “Guys come in here bloodthirsty as all hell. Goddamn obsessed with shooting turkeys. Gets 'em all riled up. Never stops.” Georgia starts to make her way over, but now it's too late.

“You scared? Lion, motherfucker, let's see what you got,” Rory spits.

Grant hangs up before Echo answers. “Dammit,” says Sean, slapping the towel down on the counter when the gun is knocked from Rory's hand. Lion swings at Rory with his left hand. Rory ducks, but Lion comes at him with a right hook and Rory's head is knocked back. Blood streams from Rory's nose as he falls, holding his face in his hands. Lion picks up the BB gun and points it at Rory, who is on his knees. Lion holds the gun with two hands, shaking, with the barrel about an inch from Rory's face.

“Not in my face, man,” sobs Rory.

“I don't care about your face,” shouts Lion, staggering back a step.

Grant hops off the barstool. Sean jumps sideways over the bar but Grant has already knocked the gun from Lion's hand and lodged himself between the two.