Anyone that knows me has heard the two back stories behind Bryony.
One was how the idea came to me (lying on the couch reading from a book of short vampire stories in early January 1986, trying to distract me away from early pregnancy all-day morning sickness).
The second was how, on Labor Day weekend 2007, I attempted to write Bryony as a novella for my son Timothy's 17th birthday. That attempt led me to realize the story was not a novella and that I needed to write the thing already.
His present turned out to be several chapters, some-made jokes and limericks with a newspaper carrier theme, and the short story below. That story has a rather macabre, real-life back story of its own (I'll share at the next WriteOn Joliet meeting - you've got to attend to find out), but even more importantly, it was the very first piece of fiction I had written since college - and that was just one very short story.
Other than that, in reality, I had written nothing fictional since my novella, (so please be kind in criticsms), The Inheritance, in eighth grade. And the story behind THAT project is for another post.
This morning was the first time I had read this story since I wrote it for Timothy. I never did title it. Friday's story link is at the end of the selection.
Oh, and by the way, Christine from Cal Graphics is reworking the cover for Staked!
Sometimes, I still
think about Anna Marie and Betsy.
At night when I lie
awake in bed and hear a train whistle in the far off distance, when I taste the
sweetness of a strawberry, when I see a green grasshopper leaping through the
grass or when I see a brown and white dog running down the street—oh, any
number of things—my mind carries me back to events I’d prefer to forget.
But these things
were not on my mind when I turned 10 and had to spend the summer with Grandma
Schmitz, in the house where my dad grew up. Years ago, when my dad was a boy,
the neighborhood was a developing, upper middle class subdivision of which his
parents were proud to have owned their one story ranch home.
Then, about a mile
away from their home, a developer built a section of apartments and duplexes
for low-income families and individuals. My grandfather, an architect, saw
trouble looming ahead for the neighborhood, bought land in a town about 20
miles away and made plans to build and relocate his small family there.
But all that
changed when my grandfather suddenly died, from overwork my grandmother will
tell you because grandfather liked nothing better than to become immersed in
his work, the cause of many long, happy hours for him.
He’d gone out one
night to take out the garbage, lock up my father’s bike in the shed and he
never came back into the house. My grandmother sent my father outside to look
for him and he found him, lying dead in the back yard. From that time on, my
grandmother was a changed person.
Gone was the fierce
independence from which she lived her life and ruled her house. What remained
was a frightened shell of a person. She refused to drive; indeed it was the
rare occasion that she would even leave her home. She never packed away
anything of my grandfather’s possessions. She was frozen in time.
That was not,
however, true with the rest of the world. My grandfather’s predictions about
the neighborhood came true. Those people who moved into the subsidized housing
lowered the standards of the rest of the neighborhood. Many people chose to
move away—my father, as an adult, was one of them-- and the once stately homes
were now dilapidated and uninhabited.
Like my father, I,
too, was an only child, which probably made it easier for my parents when they
divorced. As part of the terms of the divorce, my father was to oversee my care
during the summer. My mother, a school teacher, preferred to spend her summers
in Europe, where she had many good friends.
But arranging for
me this particular summer became complicated when my father was promoted to a
new management position in a software company that required him to spend the summer
at out of state training. My mother refused to alter her plans. There was no
one to care for me for an extended period of time except for Grandma Schmitt.
And I did not want to go.
So I begged. I
screamed. I threatened. I even kicked, but all to no avail. When you are 10
years old, you go where your parents send you and that is that. I wasn’t afraid
of Grandma Schmitt nor did I dislike her. She could be rather pleasant at
times. But I was convinced that I would be bored stiff and have no playmates.
I was wrong on both
counts.
Because my father
had an afternoon meeting, we were late leaving Chicago. Traffic was heavy because it was a
Friday afternoon and it was dark when we arrived in Joliet. Grandma had a simple dinner waiting
for us--fish sticks and macaroni and cheese—which I ravenously devoured.
After dinner, my
father showed me to the bedroom he had occupied as a boy. It was a pleasant
room with hardwood floors and bookshelves that my grandfather had built into
one wall.
But the tan and white paint on the walls were
faded and yellowed, testifying to the fact that no improvements had been made
to the home since my grandfather’s death over 30 years ago. My father was to
stay the night in the guest room down the hall and depart in the morning.
I lay awake in bed
for a long time, listening to the monotonous drone of chirping crickets.
Occasionally, the far off blast of a
train horn in the distance accompanied their song.
I fell asleep at some point because I woke later
to the sights and sounds of a heavy thunderstorm. The storm apparently kept me
awake longer than I thought because when I wakened the next morning, the sun
was shining and my father was gone.
After a breakfast
of cold cereal and juice, I asked my grandmother if I could play outside. She
said that I could but she was hesitant about allowing me. I could see anxiety
rise up in her eyes. I assured her, because of the state of the neighborhood, I
would stay very close to the house, which seemed to make her feel better. She
did have one admonition, however. I was not to play on the other side of the
street.
Of course, the
second I disappeared from her view, I went across the street to check out the
other side. The row of houses there were mirrored images of those on my
grandmother’s side of the street. Behind them you could see the marks of where
developers had begun another set of houses and streets then had, for some
reason—perhaps the turn the neighborhood had taken—simply given up. Beyond
that, was nothing but open fields.
I cut across the
yard of the house directly across the street from my own and wandered back into
the abandoned development. Here was a path that would be ideal for bike riding
and a series of hills where a bulldozer once moved the dirt around—hills that
were so old trees had grown up on them. Little ponds had sprung up overnight
here and there, evidence of the previous night’s storms.
I reveled in the
joy of space, something that was not to be found in the dirty, crowded city
where I lived. In the apartment I called home, nature was something you saw
only if you took a special trip to the park.
Here, I could roam
as I pleased, safe from my grandmother’s prying eyes. I ran about, watched the
tadpoles in the pond and climbed the trees, reveling, for the first time in the
joys of boyhood. What a pity there was no one to share it with!
Later that evening,
at dinner, Grandma remarked that she didn’t know what a boy could find outdoors
that could keep him occupied all day long. But she didn’t really care that I
was gone. It left her time to watch the game and talk shows she hated anyone to
interrupt. Her conversation was about as interesting as the casserole she had
cooked, which tasted like shit. I showered, selected a Hardy Boy’s book from my
father’s old collection and went to bed.
I was up the next
morning, bright and early, eager to explore more of the territory across the
street. I begged my grandmother for my father’s old bike, which she again
reluctantly allowed me to have on the condition I stay on the sidewalks on my
side of the street. I promised, fingers crossed behind my back, and blissfully
rode the dirt trails through the abandoned subdivision.
Then came the
morning that changed everything.
I was walking
through the woods—really the areas of tall, overgrown weeds--and threshing them
with a large stick when WHACK! I heard a cry from among a particularly tall
clump of plants.
There sitting on
the ground in front of me were two little girls, about five and eight in age.
In my state of daydreams, I had nearly fallen upon them and had frightened
them, I could tell.
They were little
matching yellow dotted swiss sunsuits and had their short hair pulled back with
metal barrettes that snapped shut. The older one’s hair was parted on one side
and held with one barrette. The younger girl had bangs to cover her large
forehead and two barrettes, one on either side of her head.
“Whoa!” I cried. “You guys scared me. Who are
you and what are you two doing here?? Then I saw the plastic containers the
girls held, the kind that once contained margarine. The oldest girl held hers
out to me. It was half full of tiny wild strawberries, about the size of
raspberries. I had never seen strawberries that small and she beckoned me to
try one. It was warm and sweet, the best tasting strawberry I had ever eaten.
“They’re really
good on cereal,” the oldest girl said. “Why don’t you help us pick them and you
can take some home with you?”
Anna Marie, for
that was her name, showed me how to move aside clumps of grasses to find the
clusters of the small berries. Only the red ones were ripe for eating. Best to
leave the ones that were still white and even pink for another time, she
advised.
It took awhile
before I became skilled at finding those elusive berries. Even Anna Marie’s
little sister Betsy did better than I did. As the sun climbed high in the sky,
I knew I had to get going. Grandma didn’t like it if I was late for lunch, even
if it was only peanut butter sandwiches and milk with Nestle’s chocolate mixed
into it.
“Gotta go, now” I
told them. Anna Marie gave me her container of strawberries to take home with
her. I thanked her, took them and ran off. Too late I realized that I should
have asked where they lived. Although I enjoyed my outdoor freedom, it did
sometimes get lonely and I looked forward to having someone to play with, even
if they were only little girls.
So, I quickly
scampered back to the spot where we had picked strawberries. But the girls were
gone. Puzzled, I moved back and forth among the weeds where we three had been
just a few minutes ago. I called their names, but received no reply. Obviously,
I was mistaken about the location. After all, one set of weeds pretty much
resembled another.
Well, at least Grandma would be happy to have fresh
strawberries on her breakfast cereal so the morning wasn’t a total loss.
It turned out I was
wrong again. I showed Grandma the strawberries and her eyes widened in fear as
if I’d offered her poisoned berries. “Where on earth did you find them?” she
asked, almost in a whisper.
Now I hate lying to
old people, but I had to lie this time or how else could I give her an
explanation and safeguard my secret playground? So I told her that they I found
them growing right behind the fence in the backyard and that answer seemed to
have satisfied her.
Years ago, she
said, my father had picked strawberries back there, although they were not
nearly as plentiful as those that had grown across the street. I had not
actually been across the street, had I? I quickly assured her I had not. Her
face relaxed, she expressed surprise that strawberries still actually grew
there and showed me how to de-stem them and carefully wash them in a colander
so they would be ready for breakfast tomorrow.
The next day, I
looked around carefully for Anna Marie and Betsy, calling their names over and
over again, but they did not answer and neither did I see them. I was tempted
to ask Grandma about them, but since they did not seem old enough to cross the
street by themselves, she might guess where I had been playing all summer. I
kept my mouth shut. For 10, I was sometimes pretty smart.
I spent many more
mornings happily picking strawberries. Grandma said they would be gone by the
end of June and, right on cue, they were. But I invented other games to keep me
happy. I pretended that fierce and scary monsters lived among the dirt hills
and pounced on unsuspecting passersby. Thus, the weeks flew by and June turned
into late July.
One lazy summer
afternoon, while pretending my father’s bike was a motorcycle that I was
speeding down my dirt bike path, I saw them. Screeching to a halt, I saw that
they clutched a glass jar. Anna Marie held it out for me to look and I did. Inside
was a large, green grasshopper and a few pieces of long grass.
“Do you want to
feed it?” Anna Marie asked me. “My dad showed me how.” She took the grasshopper
and a blade of grass out of the jar, held it gently in one hand and offered to
it the strand of grass. I watched it nibble it, fascinated. It looked easy
enough to do, but when I tried to get the grasshopper to eat the grass it
refused. I squeezed its jaws the way I thought Anna Marie had and a black gooey
material oozed from its sides.
“Stop! You’ll hurt
it” she cried indignantly. I dropped the grasshopper back in the jar and jumped
back on the bike. “Who wants your stupid old grasshopper anyway?” I yelled back
at her. I drove off in a fury, my tires spitting dirt and gravel in the girls’
direction. But after a few minutes, my anger had eased and I regretted losing
my temper. I stopped the bike and turned around to give them a friendly wave
good-bye. But once again they had vanished into the tall weeds.
I went home and
searched among the lawn there for my own grasshopper. I found one and begged
Grandma for a jar. She gave me an old, empty Skippy peanut butter jar. Gently I
encouraged the insect to take the grass and felt elated when it did. This time
Grandma watched me, with I interest. She had not seen a grasshopper up close
like this since my father was little, she said.
July fast melted
into August and soon the day arrived for my dad to take me home with him. Boy
oh boy was I happy to see him. He hugged me back even harder than I had hugged
him and promised to take me to a carnival that night. Then in the morning, he
said, we would pack my bags and return to Chicago.
After a hurried
dinner of what my Grandma called “beanie weenie” or hot dogs cut into pieces
and heated in a pot of baked beans, we left for the carnival. It was only a few
blocks away so we walked there, my father and I. We rode the Ferris wheel
together and shared a bag of cotton candy. The fluffy mixture, so like cotton,
melted in my mouth the second I stuffed some in there. Dad assured me it wasn’t
cotton at all, but spun sugar.
I was just about
ready for bed when Grandma remembered she had forgotten to take the garbage out
later that day. After what happened to my grandfather, she never took the
garbage out after dark, nor did she allow anyone else to do so either. I
offered to do it for her and she adamantly refused. But my father told her I
was a big enough boy to do the job and I could see her waver. She did so hate
garbage left in the house overnight.
Quickly, before she could change her mind, I
twisted a tie on the bag, replaced it with another and shut the lid. The can
was a small, metal old fashioned one, with a pedal on the bottom. When you
stepped on the pedal, the lid opened.
Once outside, darkness
did not swallow me up. The light from the kitchen window was my beacon. I
thought about what happened to my grandfather, but I was not afraid. That was
so long ago, I could not even feel sad for him.
But before I could reach the garbage cans behind
the shed, a little brown and white dog came running up to me, barking happily.
I set the bag of garbage down and stooped to pet him. What a cute little dog, I
thought. The dog, in turn, licked my hand all over.
Suddenly a voice
called out in the darkness, “Buster! Buster!” and a shape began to emerge from
the darkness. It was Anna Marie. The dog turned and ran toward her. “Is he your
dog?” I asked her, jealous that he seemed to prefer her to me and hoping that
was the reason.
“No,” she replied.” “He belongs to Mark Nerfon,
my friend next door,” and she gestured to the house on her left.
Huh? I couldn’t
comprehend what she was saying. The little, formerly white house next door was
an empty burned out shell--the result of an old house fire—and scheduled for
demolition. No one had lived there for years. I took a step closer at Anna
Marie and really looked at her for the first time. There was something eerily
vacant about her eyes.
“Just who are you?”
I asked her. “Where do you live?” But Anna
Marie, rather than appearing secretive about my questions, seemed confused
instead. She hesitated, then turned and ran away, with the dog yipping at her
heels. I ran, too, following them, but they slipped behind the fence and
vanished into the night.
I had had enough and I had to know. What did
I care if I got into trouble or not now? I was going home tomorrow.
When I got inside,
Dad and Grandma were sitting at the kitchen table eating Neapolitan ice cream
and they offered me some, too. Well, I am not one to ever turn down ice cream. While
Grandma scooped some of the frozen treat into a bowl for me, I asked Dad, “Did
you ever hear of a family named Nerfon who lived next door?”
Grandma gave a
scream and dropped the bowl of ice cream on the floor, shattering it. She
looked at me in horror. Dad was surprised, but he kept his composure. “How did
you hear about the Nerfons, son?” he asked me.
“From Anna Marie, a
girl I played with this summer,” I replied. “Lies!” Grandma screamed and fled
from the kitchen, crying all the way to her bedroom. I heard the door slam
behind her.
I looked at Dad for
sympathy, but there was none to be found there. Dad’s face was white and the lines
around his mouth were tight. “Are you certain?” he asked tersely. I nodded, not
sure of anything anymore. “Then come with me,” he said sternly.
I followed him to
the living room where he opened a locked curio cabinet and took out an old
photograph album. I couldn’t believe my eyes. They were filled with pictures of
Anna Marie and Betsy with my grandparents.
Anna Marie and
Betsy looked just the same, but my grandparents did not. They looked young like
my dad. I didn’t understand and looked up at my father with questioning eyes.
“You couldn’t have
played with Anna Marie, son,” he said. “Anna Marie and Betsy were my older
sisters, but they died the summer before I was born. They had been out picking
strawberries across the street and they fell off one of the dirt hills back
there and broke their necks. Anna Marie and Mark Nerfon were best friends and he
took her death hard. He was never the same afterward. The Nerfons moved away
after Mike stabbed his dog Buster to death.”
Morris music school adds a parlor touch to lessons and events
One such event is this Sunday, at The Timbers of Shorewood
