Short Story - Grove (Patreon)

I (branson) wrote this about a year and a half ago, after a couple months of not writing after I finished Water, Wasted and wanted to warm up before starting a new book. The project never materialized so I'm throwing it up here. Patreon is terrible at formatting text. Enjoy.

GROVE

The warehouse floor had a dull grey sheen that reflected all the old incandescent light bulbs that still hung up on the ceiling there. They were a kind of pale yellow-white that made everything seem sterile. All the gear was just as grey and boxy. A goofy looking old guy walked out of a walk-in freezer holding a big tray of metal parts. Sharp looking circular things. He walked up to a big stainless steel meat grinder and started hooking them up to it. Then he headed back to the freezer.
“Verne,” a different guy said.

“Ya,” Verne said.

“Suet guy is here.”

“Anyone check it?”

“Nah.”

“Let me go check it before he leaves. Sometimes he gives the good shit to the candle guy,” Verne said.

“Ehright,” the different guy said.

Verne put down his shit by the grinder and walked out the big shipping doors. The day was calm and cool. The leaves were starting to change and flitter off to the ground. No wind blew.

When no wind blows the world feels like a big living room that you just sit in.

There was a jingle when Verne opened the door. He saw his boss Roy and the suet guy doing the handshake ritual. The suet guy worked at some processor a hundred miles away. He rolled his eyes and turned back to Roy when he saw Verne.

“Wassup Verne. You come to ruin our fun again?” Roy said, smiling.

“Cops are here,” said the suet man, pleased with himself.

“I’m only a cop if you actually brought suet this time,” Verne said.

“I brought suet last time,” said the suet man.

“Mind if I?” Verne said, pointing at the cooler by the man’s feet.

“Be my guest,” he said.

He flipped open the white and red cooler to reveal it full of hard, packed beef fat. He flipped it over, pressed his thumb in it, pulled it back and looked at his thumb. He nodded at his thumb, moved that piece to the side, and began digging down towards the bottom of the cooler.

“He giving the damn thing a colonoscopy,” the suet man said.

Verne located a flimsier piece near the bottom and held it up. He mashed his thumb into it like before and took a look. Then, he squeezed it as hard as he could with two hands, put it back, and removed a rag from his back pocket and wiped his hands.

“See?” The suet man said, “You make me feel like a drug dealer, Verne. Every time I’m in here you gotta check my stuff. Makes me feel downright criminal.”

“Hard beef fat. From the kidneys. It’s harder than all the other fat. That’s why it works in the bird feed, the suet cakes. That’s why it works and stays at room temperature. Most of that’s suet, but the other stuff got all over my hands. Not what we asked for. That’s just beef fat. Sell that as tallow, man, I don’t want that. If we get too much of that stuff, everyone yells at me and says I can’t do my job. Shit gets all runny and disintegrates. Then I look like a dickhead. I look like a dickhead if that shit gets into the mix. Not you. This ain’t about you. How many more packs you got?”

“I got about ten in the truck. Whatever you guys don’t buy I got to drive down to Kansas City. Wanna save me a trip?”

“They all about the same as this?”

“Yeah, basically,” said the suet man.

“Alright, good enough,” said Verne.

“You coming over tomorrow, Verne?” Roy said, squirting some sanitizer into Verne’s hand.

“Gotta check with the boss, boss,” Verne said.

“Please,” Roy said, “I’m gonna drive by and see your shitty ass truck just sitting in the driveway again. You ain’t gonna be doing nothing but sitting on your nuts on the couch.”

“My wife is the brains of the operation,” Verne said, “so I’ll let her figure it out. I’m gonna ignore what you said about my truck.”

“I tell you what, you show up tomorrow, I apologize for what I said about your truck.”

“Eh, whatever. I know it’s shitty anyway,” Verne said.

“What time you leaving today?” Roy said.

“Twenty minutes ago. I forgot to put all that stuff in the freezer this morning so nothing was cold enough to grind.”

“Just head off, man. We ain’t going to be able to ship anything out til Monday, anyway. And if you don’t show up Sunday, man, I’m blaming you, not your wife. You can’t be allowed to pin off that kinda stuff on her. I got a good mind to tell her.”

“When she don’t show up for work parties, she blames me too. That’s why people get married. I’m gonna go throw my stuff back in the fridge and get out of here. You guys have a good one,” Verne said.

“Alright, have a good one,” said the suet man.

“Alright, take it easy,” said Roy, “And get some sleep. You look tired.”

“I ain’t been sleeping great. Either way, see ya,” said Verne.

Verne swung out of the door back onto the warehouse floor and shoved his gear back in the fridge. He washed his hands at a sink by the door and waved himself off as he walked to his truck in the parking lot.

No wind still. Still some light. I’ll drop by the grove. Sue’s working til six. I got some light. It’ll be still. I’ll just fiddle with the altar.

It was a short drive home on a country road flanked by grain and soybean fields. Everything had already been threshed so the only thing to see was dried up fibers strewn about. Verne eased his truck onto the gravel road. He slowly oozed out of the drivers seat and shut the door. He regarded his home with a look before continuing down towards the woods at the back of his property.

If she gets off at five, I got about an hour. If she goes grocery shopping I got longer, I think I can go til six. That’d be enough to move the altar. I have started to see the stones at night. I have memorized how they feel. Where to stack what where. Rocks with notches and groves that are sympathetic to one another. That is man’s role in nature. To arrange. I have an hour.

A small dirt path beckoned at the mouth of the forest. He walked on the tongue and was surrounded by teeth. It was nearly dusk. He could hear the insects gnashing. They sang songs for one another. The bark down to the mud and to the grass.

The path led to a cracked tree by a dry riverbed. He turned left. His eyes were filled with nothing but history. He remembered the taste of dirt. The heat from the sky faded in the long hours of the day and the canopy above him protected the cool air that flowed between the trees. He walked down the riverbed, before hitting a ridge and traipsing right over a bunch soggy wood and leaves hanging delicately over some stagnant water. He began walking up a hall riddled with loamy clay and he took a few tries of slipping and sliding before he finally made his way to the top.

The Grove sat at the top of the hill.

The Grove sat at the top of the hill.

A small path of clean, flat rocks led to a small altar that rested on a large stone. Multiple flat rocks were stacked and each held up an unlit white candle. Orange-brown stripes had been painted on using some iron-oxidizing bacteria. Partial animal skulls rested at the base of the altar alongside an eclectic looking combination of forest minerals and fetid mushrooms.

From the altar, three were three paths. To the left, a few short feet away, was a pit. It was about a dozen feet deep and it was filled with things that Verne did not need and did not know how to get rid of. There was also piss and shit in it.

To the right, a path leads down a short hill to some makeshift stone stairs and a circular fire pit. Stone was pressed into the exposed clay in order to make a small seat in front of the fire. The fire pit was blackened by frequent use and you could see large coals, shards of clay and small iron pellets within the debris.

At the center of The Grove was The Wasp Tree. The Wasp Tree was covered in multiple, overlapping burls that grew at the base of the tree. Tumors of tree flesh stacked like bowling balls on top of each other that erupted suddenly into a recognizable form. All up the tree, smaller pocked marks made themselves known as their dark, nearly pulpy flesh oozed a black paste. The forest floor around it crunched with acorns as Verne approached The Canker Tree with his arm outstretched. He placed it on the bark solemnly and looked down at his feet. He felt a wasp flicking around his ear. He exhaled calmly.

The tree beckons the wasp. The wasp lays its eggs on the tree. The tree creates a small, red-orange growth around the egg. It protects the egg. The tree feeds the egg. It is it’s own language. We do not speak it. In sickness, the forest feasts.

Verne placed his hand in the black ichor bleeding from the tree. He presses the substance into his palms with his fingers. He sniffs it deeply. He checks his watch and sighs. He heads towards the altar and begins to rearrange the flat stone tablets into new towers, gingerly placing the candle at the top when he is done. Verne does this for a long time, and when he is completed, it looks nearly identical to how he had it before. Then he spits on the altar.

In the dreams, he cannot bow. Neither should I.

Verne takes some hand sanitizer out of his pocket and squirts it into his hand as he sets back down the hill to home. The sun is nearly down, and the amount of shadows within the forest instantly tripled. He walked out of it and into his front door.

“You seem to be in a good mood,” his wife said, unloading groceries.

“Do I?”

“Yeah. What’s up? Did you do something bad?”

“Nah, just left work a little early is all,” Verne said.

“Think I’ll do chicken tonight,” she said.

“Mhmm,” Verne said.

His wife gathered up some bags and walked outside into the garage.

“Gail,” Verne yelled after her.

“What?”

“Remind me to save the bones,” Verne said, “for stock.”

“Sure. And oh, by the way,” Gail said, walking back into the room, “I talked to Julius today. He mentioned that he’s looking for burls. He makes stuff out of it, furniture or whatever. He tells us he will pay us a hundred bucks if he gets a good one and I remember you said there was a big one on the property back when we bought it. You remember where that one was?”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Burls. You know, the big growths on trees that are just like, big circles or whatever? You know what a burl is. Anyway, Julius makes stuff out of them. He’s a woodworker. He’s got an etsy shop.”

“Oh, that’s cool.”

“I told him to come by tomorrow. A hundred bucks is pretty good. We’ll do a steak night,” Gail said.

Verne pretended that he had to go to the bathroom and he sat on the toilet fully clothed. He stared in a blank panic.

Takes a long time to figure out what is going on in the endless churning of the world and all the death and rebirth and Volcanoes can just go for thousands of years and then stop forever and forests park right outside of glaciers and in any moment everything can be ripped in half and I’ll hide in the grove and hope he doesn’t see it or I’ll throw some foliage over it and no that’s risky or makes it more obvious or maybe if I just explained what I was doing to him or to Gail I could just figure this out or maybe just bring him to some other part of the woods and who is this guy anyway really and when did she even start talking to this guy and I remember him from the VA hall that one night when Gail had too much to drink and I did too and then he was at Sandy’s thing too.

Verne splashed some water on his face and stepped back out into the kitchen, where Gail was chopping up a whole chicken.

“Where’d you meet Julius at?”

“He was at the grocery store. I saw Debra and Ricky there and they know Julius so we were all talking. Why, you getting jealous?”

“No, no, nothing like that. It’s just that Roy has his work thing tomorrow, and he really wants me to go.”

“Okay, so go. I’m sure Julius will be fine and he won’t mess up nothing. He’s been doing this for two years now, Verne.”

“I just don’t feel comfortable with another man on my property while I’m out at some party. Makes me nervous.”

“So? What do you want me to do?” Gail asked.

“I want you to tell him not to come.”

“You won’t even know that he’s here,” Gail continued.

“Gail, I’m not messing around. You know I don’t put my foot down often but tell him not to come. I don’t want this fuss. I don’t want some guy wandering around. Please.”

Gail took a deep breath after Verne was finished talking. She looked at him cockeyed for a second, smiled, shook her head, and then went and sat down on the couch and started watching TV. Verne followed her lead and silently followed her.

…

In the morning, Verne rolled over.

“I had the dream,” Verne said.

Gail was already up and reading a book in bed while drinking coffee.

“That’s so weird,” Gail said, “It’s been a minute, right?”

“Yeah.”

“The soldier one?”

“Yeah.”

“The same guy? The Roman one? Did he get ya?”

“Yeah, he did. I only really remembered the end. They strangled me and he cut my head off.”

“Yeesh,” Gail said, smiling, “Pretty bleak.”

“Yeah, and something before that. Something was on fire. I don’t know – I had it a second ago. I don’t wanna bore you with my dreams. I hate hearing about people’s dreams.”

“I don’t mind hearing about dreams. Rather hear about dreams then people complaining about something or another,” Gail said, flipping through her book.

“Yeah, which reminds me – my back hurts,” Verne added.

“You should talk to somebody about that,” Gail said.

“Nah,” Verne said, “it’ll sort itself.”

“Suit yourself. Hey, what time do we wanna head to Roy’s?”

“What? Since when are we heading to Roy’s?”

“Since yesterday. You made all that big fuss about not wanting Julius to come over to look for burls or whatever and brought up going to Roy’s so I figured we were going to Roy’s.”

“I… I don’t want to go to Roy’s,” Verne said, sitting up, wiping his eyes, “It’s going to be all of his shit kicker friends. Last time I was there they got all liquored up and wrestled and knocked his grill over. Like, fifty year old guys.”

“Well, that works perfectly then. Julius is coming down at three.”

Verne stood up and walked into the bathroom. Verne starts peeing and cranes his head around the door to look at Gail in bed.

“I thought you told him not to come?” Verne said.

“I knew you weren’t going to go to that, you never go to those things. A hundred bucks is a lot of money, Verne. That’s a lot of groceries,” Gail said.

Verne peed in silence and stared at the wall in front of him. He exhaled.

“Well, I actually do have to go to Roy’s, and we can head over at around two. Would you just please call the guy and tell him not to come? I just don’t want to deal with this today.”

“Alright, alright, I will. Somethings up with you, though. You get so tense both times I’ve brought it up,” Gail said.

“Yeah, well,” Verne said, and left the room.

…

Verne and Gail pulled into Roy’s driveway with their shitty truck.

“Nice truck,” Roy said, “it’d be a shame if anyone made fun of it.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I’m here. You got what you wanted, huh?”

“It’s good to see you Gail. Hey, how do you deal with this old coot?”

“Oh, he’s not a problem for me at all,” Gail said, “He spends most of his time outside or in the garage. He gets annoying in the winter, though.”

Roy’s place was a sterile looking rural mansion with wood floors and white walls. Inside, a group of overweight men were drinking beers around the tv. As they walked in, Gail was summoned by the wives of the overweight men into a different room, and Roy handed Verne a beer.

“We got pulled pork, we got those Hawaiian sweet rolls, mustard, ranch, whatever you need. Green bean casserole over there. Plates,” Roy said.

“Right,” said Verne.

“I tell you, I am real surprised you came, Verne. You always act like you are so damn busy all the time. Tell me, if you weren’t here right now what would you be up to?” Roy said.

“Shit, I don’t know. I got an old four wheeler that I need to get running again. Poke around in the garage.”

“I keep thinking you are mysterious and you keep telling me you are boring. Sooner or later, I’m going to believe you,” Roy said, slapping Verne on the back and instantly walking off to the couch to have a seat.

In the dream I am in a temple. I see my own body and I am me, but not. I become me when they strangle me. I remember the man’s nose, angular and huge and clean. At the altar I place my head prostrate. I dip my hand into the tree and I feel the same feeling, but in reverse.

Verne sat and watched football. He cheered when the others did and laughed at their jokes. At one point, Verne and another guy followed Roy into his garage, where he had a big piece of plywood that he practiced throwing knives into. Verne slipped off to go look for his wife.

He heard chatter coming from the kitchen and followed it. He exhaled and checked his watch. It was a little after three.

“A hundred bucks. Yeah. For some old tree burl. Yeah,” Gail said from the other room.

Verne’s ears picked up.

“We got a tree on the hill with a burl like a bowling ball. I wonder if he’ll pay me for that,” someone else said.

“Wouldn’t hurt to ask. He’s on our lot right now looking for some. He makes little bowls or just, I don’t know, cool little art out of them. I saw some of them online. He’s the real deal,” Gail said.

Verne went pale. He turned around. He walked into the empty garage and slipped out the side door. He got into his car in began to back out onto the road in a single, fluid motion. His car glided home while he maintained clenched facial expression. He slid into his driveway and began to walk into the forest.

Fill up the world with endless chirping and chatter. Rolling over, whining, mewling. The longer the sentence the less true it is allowed to be. Nothing is truer than silence. I see my hands in the font and the wasps are stirring and we are all eggs and we are all ichor and we—

And in the endless dreams every night where I can’t sleep and I see it and I enjoy none of this I enjoy none of this I think they would understand if they could accept that I see no joy in any of this but they cannot see it that way because if not that why and I don’t understand but I can’t sleep like I used to and I don’t I just-

Verne heard the guttural churn of a chainsaw become a roar deeper in the forest. His face tightened into anger.

They kill me every single night. I used to think it was a dream.

He took a left at the cracked tree. Turned right and traipsed up the slick clay hill. He heard the chainsaw idling. He sunk his fingernails into the soil and climbed.

“What the fuck, man?” said the man with the chain saw.

“Ah, ah, I’m sorry, Julius, right?”

“What the fuck is this, dude? You got like – candles and bones and shit out here? What the fuck?”

He was a slightly balding man with a long, elegant forehead that crested down into a nose that was straight and long. Harsh features with a gentle expression. It was a face of history.

Harsh features with a gentle expression it was the face of history. And in the wick of the light and the tree and the sun we see all things erupt and all things fold in on themselves and fold outward. Breathing followed by suffocation and how could it last but it does. I know this man. I know this man, like I know all men, but I know him especially.

“What, this? This is what I came here to, uh, warn you about. I didn’t know this was here, and I uh, I didn’t know how to tell my wife, and uh, I guess some teenagers made it, I don’t know, I didn’t know how to tell her, you know? I didn’t want her worrying.”

“Oh,” Julius said, relaxing a little bit, “Fuck that. Bunch of fucking weirdo kids man – probably doing this shit to scare you or some internet shit. We should just smash it up. Make them get a new hobby. Jesus Christ.”

“Well, I don’t know about all that. I think you should just let me handle it,” Verne said.

“Alright, well, let me just get this tree here. There’s a lot of stuff here that I can use at the base, nothing really higher up. I’ll give you two-fifty for the tree. Three-fifty if I cut into the burls and they are good, workable shit.”

“What? No, let’s just not worry about this shit out here. Let’s go check the other spots, I don’t think this one will work for you too well,” Verne said.

I see you with your wet lips and your posture and your squared shoulders and your legs and you regard me as a threat and I regard you as a threat and you can say whatever you want but you are holding a chainsaw and if we funneled through history you would be holding a spear a torch holding a garrote holding horses and burning the forest to turn it into a pasture.

“What won’t work about it?” Julius asked.

“Wasps have sort of taken over this tree. Look here, it’s a sick tree. You can see the pockmarks up there, sometime they ooze a black type of ichor, you know? Burl probably wouldn’t even have any internal support. Probably rotted. Sorry that she wasted her time, Julius,” Verne said.

“Okay, well I think it’s fine for what I’m going to do, and I’ll pay it for you, man. What’s the deal? Is this all your stuff or something? What’s up?”

I was meant to fall into the woods as an old man with diabetic feet that slunk and slunk further into the earth and festered and exploded outward in spores and loam and you took me to your fucking temple and you fucking ground my neck to dust

“Oh, no, no, no, you know what? It’s just that it, it’s not mine, you know? Weird kids and whatnot. Yeah, go ahead,” Verne said, looking at his feet.

“You weren’t kidding about the wasps, man,” Julius said, turning to regard the tree.

“Gall wasps,” Verne said, “they make those little red things on the tree.”

“Right,” Julius said, feeling a burl at the bottom of the tree.

“Gall wasps. That’s their name. They deserve that we know what they are.”

Verne took a step forward.

“Hey, what’s up with you, man? You’re all over the place. Listen, I don’t give a shit if this is your shit or whatever. Can I have the burl? Can I go? I’m just gonna start the chainsaw. Stand back.”

Julius pulled the ripcord on his chainsaw and it came alive.

It has a name but if you give it a name that isn’t what it is. He has the face from me dream.

“You have the face from my dream. You’re the Roman Soldier.”

“WHAT?” Julius screamed over the roar.

Julius sunk his blade into the Wasp Tree. Pale, dry flesh flew into the air.

“I SAID YOU HAVE THE FACE FROM MY DREAM. YOU’RE THE ROMAN SOLDIER!”

“WHAT THE FUCK, MAN?”

Julius stepped back with the chainsaw as Verne stood next to him motionless, staring at him with big, awestruck eyes. He bumped stepped backwards into another nearby tree and the chainsaw revved menacingly. Verne remained still, watching.

“GET OUT OF THE WAY, MAN! WHAT THE FUCK!”

I just remembered.

“FUCK!”

Julius reached up and slapped his neck. He let off the chainsaw and set it to the ground. He screamed.

“FUCKING WASP FUCKING STUNG ME! Oh man, fucking today man, fuck, I just – FUCK. FUCK. STUNG ME again. FUCK!”

Julius began swatting in the air more and more as you heard the buzzing of wasps around him. He started sprinting away, ripping his shirt over his head and tossing it to the ground. Verne closed his eyes and he felt the insects land on him.

“WHERE’D I PUT MY FUCKING BAG!”

Julius ran a few feet and grabbed a small green backpack and ran away for a minute or two. Verne had not moved. He began to walk in Julius’ direction.

The only rule of the world that has ever been put in place is that you must answer for things that you are not responsible for all of the time.

Verne approached Julius, who was laying on the ground and breathing hard. He rolled to his back, regarded Verne with a glare, and turned his attention to his small green backpack. He located the zipper and started to open it and turned his attention to Verne.

“Could you get me to a car, man? Should probably go to the hospital. I think I got stung too much. I can feel it. The stings. Fuck, man.”

Julius pulled an epipen out of his backpack and started to read the directions. Verne ripped it out of his hands and smashed it in half. The men looked each other in the eyes as history unfolded.