Republic of Dirt (19 page)

I shot Seth another grateful glance. The point was to build our relationship with each of Sara’s parents so that they’d agree to allow Sara to come back or at least visit. If neither of them knew the other was coming around, that was probably for the best right now.

“Okay,” I said, when they all had tea or coffee and a slice of zucchini bread. “Today, our writing prompt is fear. We all feel it from time to time—”

“My husband sure as shit felt it when I caught him with that guttersnipe out back of the Black Bear Pub,” muttered Portia.

“—and we all respond to it. They say two of the main sources of creativity are fear and love.”

“Plus hate,” said Portia. “Hate’s big, too. I got nearly nine hundred pages of hate right here.”

She’d brought along the complete manuscript for her divorce
memoir, which she pulls around in a rolling case to save her back.

“I’m more of a love writer, myself,” said Brady.

Orson and Winston had come in and sat down without saying hello to anyone.

“Dad,” said Winston. “Did you bring anything for me to eat? I think I’m experiencing a drop in my blood sugar.”

Orson started rustling around in a Winston-oriented duffle bag he carries everywhere. He pulled out an organic juice box and an egg salad sandwich, which announced itself in a sulfurous cloud of stench as soon as he pulled off the plastic film.

I steeled myself. Winston is a messy and noisy eater. He chews his way through every workshop like a pig snuffling for truffles. His father says it’s because Winston is so intellectual that he burns more calories than the average person. My guess is that the boy is simply a glutton. Not that I’d risk a lawsuit by saying that.

I tried to ignore the wet smacking sounds Winston made with his sandwich, but Seth, who has nothing to lose in the event of a lawsuit, stared and made wincing faces at each new slurp.

“Before we talk about our works-in-progress, I’d like you to write about something that scares you,” I said.

“You going to write about that spotted devil in your pasture?” asked Portia.

“I won’t be joining you in this exercise,” I said.

I turned over the ten-minute hourglass timer I found at the Salvation Army Thrift Store and watched the assembled writers go through their usual routines.

There’s something soothing about watching writers settle into their work. Each has his or her own distinct tics and methods.

Portia leans her head way back and unhinges her jaw, like a young
walrus checking the sky for rain. When she starts writing, she does so as though her primary aim is to punish the paper.

Brady stares into the middle distance, his pen poised over his paper. He can sustain this position indefinitely. He usually begins writing a minute or two before time is called, and then when time is up he acts exhausted, as though he’s been hammering out the words for hours.

Winston writes on his iPad in between taking bites of whatever food he happens to be eating. He brushes crumbs and bits of egg or whatever else briskly off the device and onto our couch or the floor. The food that gets caught on his shirtfront is eaten later, when he finally notices it. His father pretends to write on his own iPad, though he’s really just checking sports scores and reading the paper. The two iPads are networked and Orson occasionally checks what his son has written, nodding with grim satisfaction.

Seth writes like what he is: a person who writes a lot. He bows his head, giving me a good view of the Iron Maiden logo on his hat. Then his fingers fly until time is called.

I’d never seen Sally Spratt write, but she seemed to take to it.

When the sand had run through the glass, I asked the writers to stop.

“Okay,” I said. “Remember that you only need to share your writing if you feel comfortable. We’re just warming up.”

I looked at the faces around the living room. Writing for even a short time can change someone’s whole expression. People who were tense when they sat down appear calmer and more relaxed. People who’d been angry seem lighter. Everyone always looks as though they’ve
done
something, and that is a fine thing.

Brady started.

“Slick and throbbing, he drove his,” he said. “That’s as far as I got. Man, I’m pretty happy with that.”

“Where in god’s name is the fear in that?” asked Portia.

Before he could tell us, I asked her to read her exercise.

She read out a piece about how a woman feels just before slamming her husband’s head into the side of a Ford F-150.

“Her heart’s racing,” she said. “Then she drives the shitsmear’s head into the quarter panel. It makes a noise like a head hitting a truck.”

“That’s good,” I said. “Lots of specific detail. Winston? What did you write?”

“I wrote about a really annoying prince who gets liquid gold poured on his head by his sister’s boyfriend.”

“Scary,” I said.

“Isn’t that what happens to Daenerys’s brother in—” started Seth.

“Great!” I said. “That’s SO terrific, Winston.”

Winston smirked. His father fished out another egg sandwich for him.

“Orson?” I asked, knowing the answer.

“I’ll pass,” he said.

“Sally?” I said, to Mrs. Spratt.

She cleared her throat. I felt sure she’d pass too, but she blinked her large eyes once and began to read. As she spoke, I felt my jaw drop open. Her writing was lyrical and full of startling imagery. Her sentences were works of art. The sensibility behind it all was sensitive and wildly inventive.

By the time she finished reading her piece, my hand was clutched over my heart. I pulled my lower jaw closed.

“Oh,” I said. “That was so good!” I couldn’t keep the surprise out of my voice.

Sally’s smile was vulnerable.

“Thanks. I just … thanks.”

“What else have you written?”

“I’ve been working on a story. I guess it’s sort of a novel …” Her voice trailed off.

It had been so long since I’d heard writing that good that I was disoriented. True talent has that effect, I find. It’s so unexpected and undeniable. Like a poltergeist in the room.

Most of the other Pens hadn’t noticed Sally Spratt’s eloquence. Portia was texting furiously. All of Portia’s communications were furious. Orson and Winston stared at their iPads. Brady stared at his page.

Only Seth had twigged to the fact that something extraordinary had occurred.

“Holy shit, that was seriously excellent,” he said, half admiring, half accusing. “You Spratts are full of surprising talents.”

I glared at him and he again remembered himself.

“You know how Sara’s good at so many things. Not just chickens but all kinds of stuff.”

The quizzical look left Mrs. Spratt’s face.

I could understand Seth’s feelings. Extremely fine writing was a new thing in our group. I wanted to talk about what made what she’d read so good but didn’t want to break the spell. Instead, I let the moment linger.

“Thank you, Sally. Seth?”

“I don’t think I want to go after that. Between the two of us, there’s apples and oranges, or turds and candies type contrast.”

“I’d like to hear it, Seth,” said Brady. “Your stuff’s always lively.”

I wasn’t so sure I wanted to hear what Seth had written, but it
was true he had a distinctive voice and was capable of lively turns of phrase, even if he was a little too dependent on curse words to get his point across. I nodded at him to go ahead. You have to treat people as though you have confidence in them, even if you don’t. That’s how you build self-esteem and competence.

Seth exhaled noisily at his computer screen. The brim of his Iron Maiden hat hid his face.

The room around us was cozy in the lamplight. Outside, day had slid into dark and through the window I could see a single light on in Earl’s cabin, a firefly resting on the window. Lucky and Bertie would be having their evening feed of hay under the tarp. Soon the barn would be up and they’d be tucked as neatly away as Earl. Woefield Farm was getting organized. For some people, beauty is all. For me, it’s organization. Order and efficiency. Self-reliance. We’d convince the Spratts to change their minds. We’d be complete again.

A strange peace rose in me and floated up to include the assembled writers.

Then Seth began to read. “Of the many, many things that currently scare me, the number one item would have to be bugs. Specifically, bedbugs.” As he spoke, he scratched himself. First his forearm. Then his neck.

He suddenly had the sharp attention of everyone in the room. My feeling of well-being evaporated.

“People may not realize it, but bedbugs are tremendously difficult to eradicate. An infestation is wildly expensive to treat. A bedbug can live for two years without taking a blood meal. Two
fucking
years!”

He gave a twitchy shrug inside his jean jacket as though there were at least twenty bedbugs on his body at that exact moment.

The Mighty Pens began to shift in their seats.

“The funny thing is that bedbugs aren’t dangerous to your health. But they are revolting nonetheless, as well as psychologically devastating. And itchy. Some people even develop a form of post-traumatic stress and chronic insomnia. Scary fact: at least fifty percent of people don’t react to the bites. So you could have them and you might not even know.”

He scratched at one of his ankles. So, seemingly without being aware, did Portia, who was gazing at him like he’d just thrown up his dinner on the floor and begun to eat it again. The others had begun to inspect themselves and their seats and the space around them.

“I think of my life as PBB and PoBB. Pre-bedbug and postbedbug.”

“Seth,” I interrupted. “You can stop saying
bedbugs
. It’s getting repetitive.” I tried to laugh, even though once the words were out of my mouth, I knew I’d just made the situation worse.

“Dad!” wailed Winston. “This place has bedbugs!”

“We’ll sue,” said his father. “If I find one bite on Winston, we’ll sue this place to the ground.”

Seth was too gripped by his subject to sense the unease rippling through his audience.

Only Sally didn’t fidget. I could see that she was missing no detail. The woman, for all her low energy, was a writer. She had that ability to be in a situation and outside it, taking notes. We’d probably end up in some ineffably beautiful Alice Munro–type story about hapless, bankrupt rubes with bedbugs.

I had to put a stop to this.

“Seth.” I tried again. “Why are bugs on your mind? Since
we don’t have them here
.”

In full-on obsessive mode, he ignored me.

“If you call a pest control company for help, you could end up on the bedbug hot list. In other words, everyone will know you have them. If you try to get rid of them yourself, you could end up in a downward spiral of do-nothing pesticides and diatomaceous earth, spending all your online time poring over steamer models and passive traps.”

“Oh, I see,” I said, casting wildly about for some excuse for his behavior. “You’re doing a reprise of the opening of Philip K. Dick’s
A Scanner Darkly
, only with bedbugs rather than aphids. Interesting approach.”

“Huh?” said Seth.

I’d hoped the literary reference would calm the group, but it was too late. The Pens were gathering their belongings, brushing off the seats of their pants with extra violence, shaking out their books and their pant legs and their purses, rubbing at their sleeves. Some were shaking their heads as though trying to dislodge crawlies from their hair.

Finally, Seth realized what he’d done.

“Oh,” he said. “Not us. I mean, we don’t have them. I was writing, uh, fiction. Fuck, I’m sorry. Ever since I started reading about them and spending time on Bedbugger.com, I’ve got this horrible crawling feeling all the time. Once you cross the bedbug barrier and understand the true nature of the menace, there’s no going back, psychologically speaking.”

“Seth!” I said, my voice a near-shout. “Stop talking. You’re scaring people.”

“You’ll be hearing from our lawyer,” said Orson, who I know for a fact acts as his own counsel.

“At least there’s one kind of animal they can keep alive around here,” muttered Portia. “Come on, Brady.”

Brady seemed torn between being creeped out by the thought of an infestation and sorry to cut the lesson short.

“I stayed in a few places in Manila with bedbugs,” he said to Portia as they walked out together. “Have you been to the ‘Pines?” He pronounced it “peens.”

I didn’t get to hear her answer. I was too busy trying to process what had just happened.

Sally rose reluctantly. “Thanks,” she said. “That was very interesting.”

I wanted to rush after everyone and assure them that Seth was just having a relapse into alcoholism. We did not have bedbugs. How could we? We didn’t travel and rarely had visitors. I always cleaned and inspected my thrift store finds before bringing them in the house. The only way we could get infested would be if one of the Mighty Pens brought them in. But everything I said was going to sound like an excuse. Plus, there was Sally and her strangely luminous work to consider.

I have numerous mottos, most of which I can’t remember lately. But one I have not forgotten is “Always follow the productive thread.”

I put my hand on her shoulder before she stepped off the porch.

“Sally, I’d be happy to read your novel, when it’s done. I know some people in publishing in New York.”

“Really?” she said. “You’d do that?”

“I’m very interested. And if what you read is any indication, you’re really, really talented. Marvelous voice.”

She wrinkled up her nose, which made me laugh.

“Will you get bedbugs on my manuscript?”

“Oh, dude,” said Seth, who’d followed us out. “No. We don’t have them. I just know someone who does. Who might. And I have to
treat … Never mind. Sorry if I gave everyone the wrong impression.”

“I would infest everything I own with bedbugs if I thought it would get me published,” said Sally Spratt with an unexpected but welcome spirit.

“That shouldn’t be necessary. We don’t have them.” A thought occurred to me. “Sara was never exposed to anything like that.”