Wasted Beauty (5 page)

IN THE CITY FARM-FRESH APPLES ARE SOLD UNTIL
Christmas Day. After that the sweetness fades and the peel goes rubbery. This fall the days are bright and clear as Billy stuffs the five- and one-dollar bills in a paper bag. He has enlarged his assortment of country goods. On the collapsible metal table a jumble of dirty-blond squash and shaggy rubber-banded carrots lie next to a stack of kale. Behind the veggies he’s arranged the tins of maple syrup, each one affixed with a hand-lettered label. Behind them, the dark clover honey, a chunk of beeswax trapped in each jar.

With arms folded across his chest, Billy lectures the city folk who dream of owning a country house themselves, a place where they can cultivate their own patch of brown loam. They prize their horticultural discussions with farmer Billy.

Q: “How do you get your carrots so plump?”

A: “Oh, well, you see, the secret is mixing some sand with the soil.”

Q: “What about nematodes?”

A: “Rotate your crops. Same thing with the squash vine maggot.”

Q: “Is it ever too late to pick kale?”

A: “Nope, you just brush off the frost and she’ll be all the sweeter for it.”

Q: “Are these apples organic?”

A: “Absolutely certified.”

Billy lectures as Reba bags the produce. Then, as the satisfied customers wander off, he quips sideways out of his mouth, “Stupid sheep. If they thought about it for two minutes they’d figure out I’m full of shit. You know what their problem is? They’d go nuts if they didn’t think there was a better place besides this human septic tank. They’re not buying vegetables, they’re buying a fantasy.”

Billy rarely eats an apple and can’t stomach kale. He hasn’t touched a spade or a pitchfork in years, eats his lunch out of a McDonald’s bag. He hates all veggies and hates all city people, calling them “kikes” and “spooks” and “queers” behind their backs. But he’s a businessman, and his business plan includes making a good impression. So he lectures. He knows people are attracted by Reba’s wholesome quality, so he insists she wear her dowdiest cotton dresses every Saturday.

Reba keeps an eye on the passing parade, wishing she could ask these alien folk about their interesting haircuts and tattoos, their pierced noses and lips and tongues, their glossy black shoes and the books they carry under their arms. How do you make a living? Where are you going? Are you students? Artists? Actors, maybe? A young man wanders by with his girl, who wears a jacket the likes of which Reba has seen only in magazines. They make a big show of how in love they are, hands stuck in each other’s back pockets. The boy sneaks a look at Reba as they pass.

One Saturday while Billy is back sorting the van, a young guy comes up to the table, picks out an apple, lifts it to his nose and sniffs. He lobs the fruit back into the basket, picks out another and methodically feels and squeezes the thing like a pitcher warming up. On his chin, a barely visible wisp of a beard, like blond cotton candy. He nails Reba with his sky blue eyes, “You grow these?”

“Yes.” Before she can stop herself, Reba pushes a lock of her hair behind an ear.

“Where?” Such an easy smile.

“Upstate.” Reba fusses with the maple syrup, lining up all the tins in the same direction.

He picks up another and says, “Wow.”

“ ‘Wow’?” Reba can hear Billy tossing crates in the van. Please Billy stay in there a little longer. “What do you mean by wow?”

“Well, you know, trees and shit. I mean, this apple didn’t exist a year ago, then you grew it and here it is. In my hand. This amazing thing. It must be amazing to grow shit.”

“We don’t ‘grow shit.’ We grow apples. My family owns an orchard.” Reba rubs her nose with the back of her hand, hides it in a pocket.

“Your family?” The smile grows wider.

“Me and my brother. My folks are dead.” Just give him the facts. Don’t make a big deal about it.

“Sorry about your folks. But that’s nice. An orchard.”

“How would you know?”

“Well, I imagine it would have to be nice. To grow things. To live on a farm. Getting up every day at dawn. Milking the cows, feeding the chickens, gathering up the apples. Fresh air. You must be really healthy. Sunshine. Blue skies…”

“Sky’s blue here, too.” And so’s your eyes, but you’re just fooling with me. Buy or go.

“Not blue enough. Plus up there you got all that wildlife. Owls and deer and things like that.”

Reba smirks. “Deer suck.”

He picks up another apple and studies it. “I never thought about it that way, but you know, you’re right. Deer do suck.” He says it like he means it and tricks a smile out of her. Cocky smart-ass.

Reba swallows away her smirk as quickly as she’s let it slip out. “You buying that apple or just feeling it up?”

“Can I do that? Buy a single apple?”

It’s one thing to be nice to an old lady or to the men with bright flowing scarfs around their necks, the ones who call her “honey” and “sweetness,” the men Billy calls “faggots.” But Reba has no patience for some pretty-boy pulling her leg. Giving me a hard time for the fun of it. Teasing me. “You want it or not?” He looks like a movie star.

“Can I have a paper bag, please?” He passes the apple to Reba, but she doesn’t let him touch her fingers.

“For one apple?”

“Well, I want to save it for later. So I can savor it.”

As sudden as a thunderclap big Billy is standing next to Reba. He barks, “Closed for the day,” snatches the apple from Reba and flips it into its crate before turning his broad back on the shaggy-haired boy. “Let’s get the goods into the truck.”

The young man addresses Billy’s rude shoulders. “Hey.” Billy ignores him. “Excuse me. I want to buy that apple.”

Billy turns and faces the boy. He grins, lifting his chin slightly. “You do, do ya? And what else do you want to do?”

The guy doesn’t blink. “Eat it.”

Billy’s eyes go ten degrees colder. “Next week.”

The guy shows his teeth. “What a load of crap.”

A line forms on Billy’s brow, as if he’s trying to remember something, and in Reba’s brain a movie begins to play in which a massive fist hurtles through space and pummels a very pretty face. She sees bits of teeth flying, and still the fist moves, ramming the fruit down the almost feminine throat. Reba thinks he sees it, too.

The young man relaxes. “OK, OK, dude. Don’t get your balls in a bunch.” His eyes say, “Fuck you.”

Billy lurches forward and grabs a crate of Bosc pears. He hauls it up and away, just missing the guy’s knees. Blue Eyes doesn’t even have time to ball his fist. Tossing the crate onto his shoulder like a box of feathers, Billy turns his back on both of them and returns to the van.

Reba gathers the veggies into a waxed carton. Fifteen seconds pass before she dares to look up. The boy’s eyes are brimming with laughter, fearless. Now she’s sure the guy is nuts, or stupid, if he doesn’t realize that Billy would split his skull just for the exercise.

The boy shifts slightly toward her, and Reba freezes, transfixed by his lunatic beauty. He’s perfect, like an angel, like a painting in a museum. His skin is flawless. She wants to reach out and stroke his cheek, touch his hair. And then the apple is in his hand and he’s trotting away through the crowd.

His lanky frame slips through the ebb and flow of the shoppers, gets swallowed up by it. Then Billy is back, the interloper forgotten, unaware of the theft, cursing out another crate. Reba grabs a bunch of kale. The culprit is almost out of sight, blended back into the customers. And then, just before he is eclipsed by the anonymous tide, he turns and, finding her eyes, takes a bite from the apple, and is gone.

That evening, after a meal of Popeyes fried chicken, Billy leaves the van alongside the park and locks Reba in. He says he needs a beer. She watches him lumber off, an angry black bear in search of honey.

The trees in the park have shed their leaves and in the early winter dusk, the limbs stand hard and simple, stark against the gray of the city’s nighttime glow. The lady from the next table who sells the little containers of fresh wheat grass stopped setting up two weeks ago. Soon there will be no tables at all. The city in winter. Reba imagines cozy apartments where folks sit by stoked fireplaces reading books, playing chess, supping on homemade stew. She’s seen the men in the park playing chess, other people reading on the benches. They all must go somewhere when it gets too cold.

In the shadowy back of the van the fragrance of apples and pears mingles with the faintest scent of spilled gasoline. This late in the year, this late in the day, it’s not easy to see much inside the van, let alone read a magazine. And Billy bitches if she leaves the dome light on for too long. Besides, when she does, people can see her sitting inside. She prefers it like this, being invisible, watching the world go by.

As far as Reba can tell, there are always some people moving around the city, like motes of dust in interstellar space. They must be insomniacs. And now, in the early gloom of night, they dash past her observation post, going where? Home to families? To jobs? To places she can imagine but can’t know.

The grease-stained alley beside a restaurant across the way shines white in the light of the street lamps. Like tiny phantoms, rats scuttle and nip at the pyramids of bagged garbage. Faceless figures clip along with determination or hobble lethargically, as if postponing the next bad thing. Or maybe they want to go slow in case someone has to catch up to them and let them know they’d just won Lotto.

Like sentries, dog walkers and surreptitious cigarette smokers make their rounds. Clusters of young men in open jackets walk briskly, chuckling and nodding at one another, probably more alive in this moment than they will ever be for the rest of their lives.

When lovers come by and embrace, Reba memorizes every gesture. She wishes there were more lovers. Lovers are the best people to keep an eye on because they’re not waiting for something good to happen, they’re making it happen.

About twenty feet from where she sits is a trash can. Since Billy split, Reba has counted seven people who have rummaged through that one can. And she has counted eight people who’ve stood sentinel while their dogs shit on the pavement, but only six who’ve actually picked up the shit. Two different guys have thrust their hips against the alley wall. Now a thin dark riverlet of urine traverses the sidewalk.

Battered blue and white police vehicles ease past every ten minutes. A silent ambulance with revolving lights floats by. Three more rats. Chinese men on bicycles thread fearlessly through the erratic flow of traffic. And a guy who seems to be scratching himself limps off. Reba’s figured out from her visits that he was probably shooting up into his leg. High above her, blinking dots of red symbolize unseen jets and helicopters.

It’s hard to think of home when I’m down here in the city. Hard to imagine the farm is there at all, leftovers cooling in the fridge, oil burner clicking on and off in the dusty basement, cars swishing along the two-lane. And yet, it’s all back there, even now.

Here in the city, while the apartment buildings loom, the multitudes do whatever they do. Way up there, in the blackness, one yellow rectangle of light.

Someone is up there now, maybe dreaming the way I am. Maybe someone I should know, or who should know me? Maybe someone…

A SNAP, like a pistol crack, breaks Reba’s trance. Even before she wrenches herself around, she knows it’s not a gun, knows it’s someone rapping at her window. Fucking Billy, scaring me like that! But it isn’t Billy. A male face only inches away, not one I know.

The street lamp backlights him, making him all silhouette, no face. Head nodding like a bobble-head doll as he hops from foot to foot. A flashy grin. And then she solves him, his white teeth splitting his face like the Cheshire cat’s. Old Blue Eyes.

“Hey, whatchoo doin’ in there?”

Reba says nothing. Old Blue Eyes makes a show of shrugging his shoulders, turns, and ambles toward the subway, letting her take a good look at his swimmer’s shoulders, his tight butt. Men are tricky, Reba thinks. Especially men you don’t know. He could have friends with him. Muggers. Billy has said it a million times, never open the door. No matter what. Not that she has any cash, Billy takes the cash. She thinks of Maureen. How frightened she’d be right now. But Reba isn’t frightened.

Fear is not the issue, the issue is Billy’s wrath if she fucks up. What if the van gets stolen? Or a case of fruit? What if I get myself raped? Billy will never forgive me. The guy stops to light a cigarette. He seems to be alone. She cracks the door.

“Hey. You scared the shit out of me.”

He blows out a plume of smoke. “Oh, you’re talking to me now?”

“Fuck you.”

“Lady has a mouth on her. Look, that apple was good. I just wanted to see if you had any more.”

“You owe me thirty cents!”

“OK.” He takes three steps toward the van, reaches into his pocket, pulls out pocket change and holds it out to her.

Reba shuts the door. “That’s OK, you can keep it.”

He comes closer. “Why you locked up in this van?”

“I’m waiting.”

“What? I can’t hear you.” Smokin’. Grinnin’.