Spoonwood (17 page)

By the time we arrived at the van it was almost dark. The lights were still out at the rock shop so we drove on to the campground. We had the place to ourselves. I built a campfire from brush. I used to read to my son every night before retiring, but these days he read to me.
The Swiss Family Robinson
was his favorite book. It wasn't the adventures that excited him, it was the family atmosphere he lacked—siblings, pets, two parents, ordinary values. All my son had was a father, and not a very normal one at that.

Later, after I tucked him into his sleeping bag, his eyes wide open and staring up at the stars, I set to work by the fire making a flattish spoon in the Swedish style with a wide handle, on which I carved a mushroom-shaped cloud. At the top of the handle I scooped out a pea-sized hole, where I embedded the piece of trinitite my son had found.

SPOONWOOD DOCUMENT: Education

It was high summer. We'd had a lot of warm rain, and everything was greener than usual. My son had reached school age. We'd spent the summer living on forgot land in a state that shall remain nameless. It was a good time for me to see the local school principal about my legal obligations to educate my son, since the school should not be too busy at this time of year. I made an appointment. My purpose was to discover how to dodge around the law requiring school attendance, for I had no intention of enrolling him.

I hate progress and people, but I love general knowledge, and I wished to give my son the best education possible. Accordingly, I felt it best to keep him far away from school. The trouble with school is that there are too many children in a confined space. It
might be necessary for adults to congregate in large groups for one reason or another but only for a few hours and only for some rote ceremony, such as religious services, concerts, sporting events, political gatherings, or other marginally useful activities. But Nature did not intend for the massing of children in one building with only a few adults to preside over them. Children teach each other cunning logic, which invariably departs from false premises, a habit that persists until death. Children produce nothing, nor are they exposed to people who do produce something.

One of the tragedies of the modern world is that children no longer see their parents at work, a situation that breeds disrespect and keeps the child locked into the child's world. Who would want to live in such a world—paranoid, dangerous, uncertain, illusory, and so dreary that children constantly complain of boredom? Certainly not a child. Every child wants to live as an adult. Our culture conspires to keep children childish, which accounts for the high crime rate among child-men, not to mention hysteria among child-women. I suppose I am blaming my own failures upon the culture, for I was a child in my heart until the death of my lover. I can still be childish—petulant, self-absorbed, rash, violent. I do not want my son to grow up to be like me.

A new concrete-block addition, appalling in its ugliness, had been added to a charming wood-frame schoolhouse with its cupola and rows of clerestory windows. In the parking lot was a dumpster, brimming at the top with the kind of wooden school desks I grew up with.

We went inside. The principal came out of his office, stormed past the secretary, grabbed my hand, and introduced himself. He was very young, on the job only a couple weeks, eager.

“Mister Latour? Hap Conroy here, come on in. I was tied up talking to a school board member.” He smiled as if I should understand. As an afterthought, he said a few words of mishmash to my son, who looked at him with pity in his eyes.

“My son is eligible for school in the fall,” I said.

“He seems to be a bright boy. Let me guess, you had him in Montessori?”

I shook my head no. “My son has never been to school, nor do I want him enrolled. I'm here to ask you how I can educate him myself and stay within the law.”

“Home schooling.”

“Is that what it's called?”

“It's the coming thing, especially among certain church groups. Are you part of a religion?”

“In a manner of speaking, I suppose I am.”

As it turned out, Mister Conroy was very helpful, only too happy to explain the law and home schooling. My son would be one less headache for him.

On the way out I asked Mister Conroy about the discarded desks in the dumpster.

“We're getting new computer stations. Those desks will be useless in the twenty-first century.”

Outside, I climbed into the dumpster and rummaged around the desks until I found one that suited my purposes, nicked with graffiti cut by a child's jackknife and filled with color by a ballpoint pen—in other words, a desk very similar to my own when I was in elementary school.

I believe children should be exposed to knowledge without distractions or prejudices. Keep kids away from each other, away from TV, expose them to the livelihood of their parents or guardians, put them to work, and they will learn.

I'd been reading to my son since he was two months old: works of literature, history, geography, art, and philosophy. My son had already learned mathematics, because in our work as spoonmakers we were constantly measuring and calculating. He knew the names of trees, and how each species behaved. He knew birds, rodents, and insects. Instead of stuffed animals, he enjoyed the company of the deer, the woodchuck, the porcupine, the red squirrel, the mink, the otter, the raccoon, the coyote. We lived in the eddies of society. I saw no good reason to send my son to school.

Back at our campsite I inspected the school desk I'd pulled out of the dumpster. The legs and the cubby under the desk top were a drab brown, the result of darkening over time by exposure to
light and faded varnish. The top, three-quarters of an inch thick and edge-glued, had been sanded down to bare wood and covered with clear urethane, dreadful stuff that, in effect, imprisoned the wood in an envelope of plastic. The wood might have been sugar maple or yellow birch—hard to tell the difference even when you sank a blade into it. Also it could have been some alien wood, for I wouldn't put it past the school government to purchase wood desks outside the local area. The top included a routed groove for pencils and an ink well, which was out of date even when I was a student.

The legs had been scratched by a child's jackknife. I know because the jackknife was my preferred tool for marking up desks.

The graffiti had faded over time. Someone had the initials L.W. The artist had carved triangles, various indecipherable marks, and the words “yellow submarine.” Elementary school students received too much credit for being creative.

I knocked the desk apart with a sledge hammer and put the pieces in a galvanized tub. I poured water in the tub, dumped in some forest duff, and swirled it around until the desk pieces were in a wet slurry.

Every few days for three weeks I periodically added water to the slurry. Green wood responded best to my knives, but wetted was almost as good. During this period I made a plan for using the wood. It was always hard to start a spoon series (demanded by my dealer), and I kept putting off the job, making single spoons instead. I work better on the fly, but one cannot plan a series through serendipity alone, because the spoons must fit together in some way. In other words, I had to plot the wood, and that was difficult for me. Then on a chilly morning in late September, I saw a skim of ice on the galvanized tub. I broke it with my hand, enjoying the shatter on my fingertips. I rolled up my sleeve and mucked around for the wood pieces in the thick, icy soup, so cold it hurt.

The desk pieces were almost black, swollen with moisture, dirt embedded in the wood fibers. I set to work, following the plot that had been shuffling around in my mind all these weeks. From each of the four legs, I made two small teaspoons, almost
identical. My secret finishing oil brought out some pink in the blond wood. I knew now that the wood was maple. From the desktop, the book nook, and the side supports I created twelve nearly flat stirring spoons. All sixteen spoons had individual designs on the handles, a notion I borrowed from my son. I asked myself what the appropriate design for these spoons should be and how best to incorporate it into all the spoons while allowing each spoon to attain its own identity. Further, how could the design represent the wood, specifically that intermediate zone between forest and the human hand, between formal education and the wild knowledge of experience?

With my jackknife I simulated child graffiti—initials, circles, triangles, stars, and shapes of undetermined meaning. I filled the scratches with various colors and put a natural oil and wax finish over the entire spoon.

It was my practice to burn leftover wood in our campfire. My son was picking up the waste wood for disposal when he came across a piece about ten inches long. The markings were no longer visible to my eye, but he could see them or perhaps could feel them with his fingers. He traced the marking, revealing a meaning. My son completed our set by making a spoon with the carved words “yellow submarine” flowing from the handle to the back of the spoon. It was the best piece of the set.

14

IN THE YELLOW SUBMARINE

I
have an idea to linger in rural Massachusetts until after the foliage season, but one night I wake with a premonition that something is terribly wrong. I immediately check on Birch. He's awake.

“What's the matter?” I ask.

“The antelope in New Mexico, they're following us,” he says.

“You were dreaming,” I say.

“Am I dreaming now, Dad?”

I feel danger but I don't know where it's coming from. I do what I always do when I'm afraid. I run. Birch and I leave in the middle of the night and head south.

We spend the winter in the Everglades, making spoons from cypress and various found woods in the wetlands. I like the big sky, the sweet smell of the sugar plantations burning off the cane, the alligators basking in the sun, the catfish who come to my illegal gang hooks.

By late March it's getting hot and I'm looking at maps, scoping out our next forgot place. The van is parked on a turnoff on Alligator Alley, and we're sitting at a picnic table. I point at the Rand McNally.

“Birch, what do you think about this for a road trip?” I say. “It's Route 1. It goes all the way from the bottom of Florida in the Keys to the tippity-top of Maine.”

Birch puts his finger close to my finger. “Why do they call it Frenchville?”

“I'm not sure, but it's probably because some people from French Canada moved there.”

“Dad, if we go up Route 1 we'll be close to Darby?” He points at the map.

“Who do you want to see?”

“Everybody.”

“Even your grandmother Persephone?”

“Yes.”

“For all I know she's moved permanently to Tasmania, or she might even be dead. She didn't look all that healthy the last time I laid eyes on her.”

“She's not dead. She's waiting for me to come home.”

“Now, Birch, how could you know that?”

“I dreamed it. In my dream Spontaneous Combustion told me to come back to Darby.”

“You miss that cat?”

“No, I do not miss him. I don't even like him.”

“Do you remember Persephone?”

“Yes I do.”

“And you'd like to see her.”

“Yes, in that great big house. I want to live there.”

“And Grandma Elenore and Grandpa Howard, you want to see them?”

“Yes, and I want to live with them, too.”

“Do you want to live with me?”

“Yes.”

“You can't live with all of us at the same time.”

“I could if we all moved into the great big house.”

I laugh.

“Don't laugh, Dad. Don't laugh.”

“Let me think about it.”

That night we eat steaks over the grill. We watch the sun go down over the cane fields. It's clear that I have to give Birch what he wants. His desires are not frivolous. It's part of my philosophy of child-rearing that I must honor all serious requests. I mull over the problem of returning to Upper Darby. I'm guessing that after five years the charges against me—misdemeanors?—are no longer in effect. As for Persephone, perhaps she will not seek custody of Birch if I agree to let her visit. And then there is the matter of Forgot Farm. I miss my life in the woods. Maybe it's still forgot land. Maybe I could buy it. I've been hoarding the money that spoonmaking has brought me. I don't believe in banks, so it accumulates in my cash box.

“Okay, Birch, here's what we're going to do. We're going to make an offer to buy Forgot Farm. Then we'll go back to Darby.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

Dad drives us to Delray Beach, Florida; he is determined to buy Forgot Farm from Mrs. Walter Sturtevant. He has her address from his visit to the town clerk's office five years ago. Mrs. Sturtevant resides in a twenty-story senior citizen apartment building on a manmade channel leading into the Atlantic Ocean. A high wall surrounds the building and we are met at the main parking lot by a uniformed guard. He has a big mustache and he is reading a newspaper in Spanish, which he puts down as we pull in.

“Mrs. Walter Sturtevant,” Dad says politely. His clothes are neat and with me sitting beside him he looks respectable.

“She's over by the dock,” the guard gestures with a head nod. “She likes to look at the manatees.”

Dad thanks the guard, parks the van, and we walk along a pebbled concrete walkway, which is landscaped on both sides by palm trees, flowers, and grass without weeds, a scary sight for Dad.

“What's a manatee, Dad?” I ask.

“Like a sea cow,” Dad says. “Up close they look like intellectually challenged walruses, but from far away they're sometimes mistaken for mermaids. You can't trust what you see.”

“Can you trust what you hear?”

“Sorry, the answer is again no,” Dad says. “You can't trust anything or anybody.”

“I trust you, Dad,” I say.

I take his hand. I look around, trying to understand what Dad is telling me, but the world as I see it at this moment does not seem untrustworthy.

An old lady is standing at the edge of the dock, pointing what looks like a gun at the water. In fact it's a 35 mm camera with a telephoto lens. She's tiny, with knobby wrinkled knees and a face with more lines and folds than our road map.

In the water I see two huge shapes about ten feet long, no distinctive features, just shapes.

“Do they bite?” I ask as we approach.

“What?” she asks.

Dad shouts my question.

“No, they're vegetarians,” she says to Dad, and then looks at me and says, “Young man, you're not a vegetable, are you?”

Dad winces and shuffles his feet in annoyance. “You don't have to condescend to him,” he says.

The old woman fiddles with her hearing aid. “I can never get this thing to work right.” She points to the water. “Look.”

The manatees lie suspended just below the surface, brown thinking blobs. I try my old telepathy trick. It works. Manatees are easy reads because unlike Dad they are very trusting. They are telling me to enjoy the day. I switch to Dad's mind, but nothing is coming through. More and more, I'm losing touch with his thoughts. Spontaneous Combustion the cat was right. My mental powers decline day by day.

“See the big one with the scar on his back?” the old woman says. “That's the result of hitting a boat propeller. They come into the channel because the water is warmer. They're basking in the sun like us old retired folks.”

“Mrs. Sturtevant?” Dad says. “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Latour.”

“Latuna, Latuna, I know that name,” she says. “You called me some years ago after my Walters passed away about . . . You were an old Army buddy or something.”

“I called you about your New Hampshire property,” Dad shouts.

“Yes, I remember now. My young Walter bought that land to recover his verities after the Vietnam War, but it didn't do the job. In fact, he never stepped foot on it. The land thing was all in his head.”

“For that very reason maybe it did do the job, Mrs. Sturtevant.”

“That's a nice thing to say. You can call me Gertrude.”

“Gertrude, I'd like to make an offer on the property,” Dad says softly.

“Okay, I've got it tuned,” Mrs. Sturtevant says, removing her hand from her ear. “You'd like to what?”

Dad repeats his words.

“You're late, Mister Latuna. I sold that property two springs ago.”

Dad is disappointed, but he is not too upset—until he discovers who beat him to the sale.

“I was contacted by a Mister Garvin Prell, attorney for some kind of conservation district.”

“The Salmon Forest Trust Conservancy,” Dad says.

“That's it. They bought it.”

We leave Mrs. Sturtevant to her manatees and drive north on I-95. Dad is very quiet for the remainder of the day.

After the disaster with Mrs. Sturtevant the old hatred of Upper Darby that I thought I'd left behind takes possession of me. No doubt Persephone bought Forgot Farm to prevent me from ever having it. No doubt Garvin Prell gave her the idea—“He's like a son to me,” Persephone had said. I begin to think back, how Garvin fawned over Birch, how Garvin was seen with Lilith when
she was supposed to be with me. He was county attorney when the warrant was sworn out against me for cutting trees on the trust land. With the old hatred comes the old paranoia. Who does Birch belong to—really? Garvin wanted me and his bastard son out of Darby. I played into his hands by leaving. In my heart Birch will always be my son, but what about biologically?

We never celebrated my birthday until I turned five, because of Dad's philosophy, but along the way I got wind of the idea of birthdays and started complaining, so now Dad compromises. I suppose I should feel guilty, but I don't. I guess I'm just a selfish boy.

“What do you want for your birthday, son?” he asks.

I've been gearing up for this moment for a year, and my answer is ready.

“I want to go to McDonald's for dinner,” I say.

I've see the signs all over the country, have used the restaurant restrooms, but have never tasted the food. Though Dad loathes not just the food at McDonald's but the very idea of McDonald's, he honors my request the way he honors all my requests. We will feast at McDonald's for my birthday.

It's not hard to find a McDonald's. Dad's in a bad mood. We don't usually frequent service roads. Dad doesn't like the traffic, the architecture, the people. I eat a Big Mac, large fries, and a cola. The food is delicious. Dad does not eat. He sits there glowering, which I find kind of funny. When Dad gets in a bad mood he looks like he's trying to stare himself down in a mirror.

I like the uniforms worn by the McDonald's servers. I'm thinking how nice it would be to wear a uniform with thousands of other McDonald's servers. Who serves the world better? I daydream that someday when I'm of age I will be a McDonald's server in service to my species.

After McDonald's, Dad decides he needs some “therapy,” as he puts it, so we visit Cooty Patterson. The old hermit lives in a small trailer in a small trailer park in the small town of Port Mansfield, Texas. In sight is a lagoon that calms the roaring ocean so it
looks like a great big gentle lake. Sport fishermen come and go. Sea birds circle and make argumentative noises. The town is surrounded by ranch land, miles and miles of prickly pear cacti and mesquite bushes. The next town over is twenty-six miles away.

As we pull in, Cooty, dressed in cowboy duds, is waiting outside as if he expected us.

“Hey Freddie, what happen to the baby?” Cooty hollers as we get out of the van.

“He grew some,” Dad says.

“He don't look gruesome,” Cooty says.

The trailer is very crowded, because every last bit of space is taken up by aquariums. Cooty feeds us a delicious stew that includes dumpster vegetables, lizard, snake, and some kind of road-killed creature that Cooty cannot identify.

After the meal, Dad starts carving a spoon for Cooty made out of mesquite wood. As Dad works, Cooty sips agave tea and I watch the fish.

“This mesquite is beautiful wood, but hard to work,” Dad says. “Cooty, what do you do all day around here?”

“Take care of the fish and watch them. It's exhausting. Night comes and I'm ready for a good sleep.”

“You don't get bored?”

“Never. There's always plenty going on.”

Dad laughs in a tender way that makes me a little jealous. Only Cooty can make Dad laugh like that. I pick up
Texas Highways
magazine and start fingering through it under Cooty's nose.

“Hey, look, he's reading the magazine upside down,” Cooty says. “I wish I could do that.”

“He can read right side up too, he's just showing off. Isn't that so, Birch?”

“Yes, Father,” I say, “but I really can read upside down, and backwards too.”

I put the magazine away and return to the fish. I like the feeling of my nose pressed against the glass.

“Freddie, I mean Latour,” Cooty says, “Garvin Prell and a couple bounty hunter guys were here looking for you and Birch.”

Out of the corner of my eye I see Dad suddenly stiffen.

“Really, when?” Dad asks, his voice very soft.

“Last week, last month, last year—I don't know; I don't keep track of time,” Cooty says. “Garvin, he told me that if I see you I should tell you that Mrs. Salmon got custody of Birch.”

“How come it's always the wrong people who die before their time?” Dad says.

“Couldn't you work something out with her and Garvin?”

“What do you mean?”

“Make peace.”

Dad laughs again, but this time it's a bitter, mean laugh. Suddenly, I'm afraid.

“Cooty, there's only one thing I know for sure,” Dad says, “and that's that the Elmans hate the Salmons and the Salmons hate the Elmans, and that they both hate me—for good reasons, I might add—and that there's no end to it.”

Dad hands the completed spoon to Cooty. “Here you go, old man.”

“A fish food scoop,” Cooty says.

“Right,” Dad says. “Make sure you follow the old rule when you oil it with the stuff I gave you.”

“The what?”

“The old woodworker's rule: Once a day for a week, once a week for a month, once a month for a year, once a year forever.”

Cooty begins to weep. “Oh, that's so beautiful,” he says.

I don't catch the rest of the conversation, because while I'm looking at the fish, profound things happen in my head.