This was a short story for my creative writing class in Fall 2019.
It was a cool crisp autumn in my youth. Middle school was out for Thanksgiving, and the world rejoiced in orange-gold freedom. Mike and Jake and I had drawn up an elaborate schedule with fun slotted in for every spare second. On this particular chill day, our sneakers crushed damp leaves into the sidewalk as we pounded towards our undecided destination. Our grinning teeth shone in the late afternoon sun and our panting breaths turned white in the air. Sometimes a car lazily hummed by to some far away place, and we sped up to keep pace. The cars always won, and we happily flopped down onto moist grass, unfazed losers. We sat up after a minute, resting our backs on the rough brown bark of fiery trees.
“Man, this is it. This is fall,” Mike said, and leaned back and sighed in contentment.
“Yeah man. No school, no math. We can go anywhere we want whenever. Freedom.” I felt at peace. It was a time of falling leaves and warm food. “I’m kind of hungry though.”
“Think about something other than food for once man!” Jake laughed. “My mom’s making apple pie anyways later this afternoon, and she said I could invite you guys too.”
“No way, your mom can read my mind! I wanted apples.” I found my gaze centered on the peeling fence, where the color of rusty blood giving way to splintered grey-brown wood from years past. Across the road.
On our side of the road, the neat white houses stretched on forever with almost continuous green lawns bordering a smooth sidewalk bordering the road. Leaves gently drifted down onto the ground where they were raked, collected into bags, and disposed of. On the other side, there was a red fence, and beyond the fence there was a hill and a house and there lived an old man who talked to nobody and who nobody talked to. There was only a single tree standing at the peak, a sad thing that had lived far beyond its years. Somehow it survived, and plump red apples shook themselves from the tree from time to time. They rolled down the dead grass and settled themselves against the opposite side of the fence. There they rotted and decomposed, tart sweet scent giving way to rancid vinegar stink.
“Are you coming or not? Hello?” Jake. I snapped out of my thoughts.
“For your mom’s apple pie? Is that a question?” I stood myself up, dusted off, and ran after them.
That night, or maybe the night after, I had a dream. In this dream, I was naked in a vast forest. The dappled canopy danced and whispered gently in the breeze. The movement was projected on the soft ground cover that I stood on. It felt like a fluffy green carpet. But something was wrong. I didn’t know where I was or who I was. In a panic I realized I didn’t know anything, about anything, except right now. My head and the forest spun, my heart drummed in my ears. Turning around, confused, and my eyes scanned without method for an answer to the problem that I did not know. My eyes twirled in panic.
But then my eyeballs seized upon something suspended from the branches, and grasped it tight in view. My brain saw it too after a moment, and I knew that this was it. Sun shining heavenly rays on glossy red skin which stunned the mind into silence. It would help me know.
Now I was directly below and smiling up, but my smile soon faded. No. I couldn’t reach it. I would never taste the sweet fruit of knowing who I was. I tore the mossy earth with dramatic frustrated stomps, and lashed out with my arms so that my blanket fell off the bed, with me wrapped in it. I fell still. My dreamish frustration faded, but the hunger stayed. And I picked myself up, slightly embarrassed, and went back to sleep.
We were sitting in the same place as last time. It was cooler this day, so I was wearing my new coat. The wind pried at every opening and tickled my exposed skin. I grasped the edges and pulled the coat tighter around myself. I shivered, and so did Mike and Jake.
“Your house has a fireplace. Why are we out here?” Jake asked me.
“My dad hasn’t gotten firewood yet.”
“It’s still warmer inside,” Mike chimed in.
“Shut up. I like it out here. We can talk.”
We didn’t for a full minute. The only sound was the wind fluffing through my ears. I kind of wanted to try one. To take a bite, damn the old man. If the fence wasn’t there, they would roll onto the sidewalk. They would roll down the hill and onto the sidewalk, and I would walk over and sink my teeth through crisp skin into sweet juicy…
“I have an idea.” Who was talking? Mike. “We should throw rocks at the geezer’s fence. It looks like it’s almost as old as him.”
I turned. I was curious as to what the apples tasted like. If the fence was gone…
Mike turned to look at me. “I hid a bucket of good sturdy rocks under my hedge earlier.” We were neighbors. “Go get them and we’ll do this.” I stood, but didn’t move for a moment. Was this really what I wanted to do? Mike’s eyes narrowed. “You chicken?”
“No.”
“Then get the bucket.”
This was what I wanted, I think. To taste the apples. So I reluctantly turned to retrieve the rocks.
As I was returning I heard Jake’s voice. “He seems sad all the time, I don’t know. I don’t mind him.”
“He hoards his apples, the old miser. Greedy old coot. Deserves a rock.”
“This isn’t right. Have you even asked him if he wants to share his apples?”
Mike paused, a bit confused. I put down my bucket and sat down next to them.
“If we knock down the fence, the apples will roll down onto the sidewalk, and then they’ll be public apples and we can finally eat them,” I said. “Jake, remember that time I helped you write that paper for English class? And you said you owed me?”
Jake glared, and I felt slightly guilty, but he reached forward and picked up a rock from the bucket.
“It’s your fault if we get caught?” he asked. I nodded. “Ok, I’ll do it. But I won’t owe you again, man.”
I was grounded. Mike and Jake were, too, even though I took all the blame. Later that day, I shamefully walked across the street, head hung, tin paint bucket in hand. Cars sped by, and I hid behind the bucket. I felt bad for what I did. I set the paint down and got to work. By my hand, the dilapidated rust-red fence brightened to close to a fire truck. By the time I finished, the sun lit the tops of trees in vibrant yellow-orange fire. The most vibrant of them all was the tree on the hill. It beamed with pride at the fruitless oaks below. It looked down on cookie-cutter houses and people. Honey-light illuminated colorful leaves gracefully tumbled to the ground, and beautiful apples as well.
It looked at me, and was sad.
I did get to eat an apple. Our rocks dislodged a single plank of the fence, and a lone apple rolled through the gap and onto the sidewalk. The skin was hard and chewy, and the fibrous meat was slightly sour. Was it worth it, to know what they tasted like? I knew now. I knew also that what I did was probably wrong. And that now I was grounded.
Life went on. Thanksgiving ended, and school went back in session. I was able to go out again. Winter came, and we made snowmen under leafless branches. The snow melted, and flowers sprouted and danced in the spring breeze. It became hotter, and we played under cool sprinklers. I graduated and tearfully said farewell to Mike and Jake. Homework became harder, and I studied and forgot. I graduated again, and my parents tearfully said farewell to me. I learned, grew, worked, and moved on. Years passed, and I tried to visit my parents every Thanksgiving. Every time I came back, I looked to the hill, but didn’t remember why. One Thanksgiving, I came back and the tree was gone, leaving only a stump as evidence it had ever existed. I felt slightly haunted by its absence.
A couple of years later, there was a realtor’s sign in front of the old man’s house. I asked my parents about it, and they said the old man passed away, and the property was being sold. A funeral was to be held for the old man later that week. I decided to go, and delayed my flight. I don’t know why, but I still felt guilty for my childhood transgression. I felt shame letting my youthful curiosity get the better of me. Deep down, I felt as if I was in part responsible for the death of the tree and the death of the old man, as if my greed had added to the weight on a snow-laden branch that eventually cracked under the pressure. It was silly, but I felt so.
The day of the funeral came, and I donned my black suit. I sat through the funeral, feeling out of place. I didn’t even really know him. Why was I here. Eventually, it ended, and I unsteadily got up. I pardoned my way through slow groups of people, towards the person I wanted to talk to. Across the crowd.
“Hi, I just wanted to introduce myself.” I took a deep breath in. “I didn’t know him as well as I should have, but I treated him badly once, and I just wanted to apologize.”
His daughter, slightly past middle-aged, squinted at me. “Are you one of those boys who threw the stones at his old fence?” I felt a twinge of guilt. She knew.
“Yes.”
Her frown slowly turned into a smile. “Kids will be kids. He never held that against you boys. He laughed about it. Destroying the fence for some apples. He joked that he had gotten a brand spankin new fence out of the deal. And you were bawling at his doorstep with your parents, as if you’d killed someone.”
I felt relieved.
“You know, he didn’t even need those apples. That whole time you boys could have just reached over the fence. Always hated the taste, he did. Just waited for someone to take them.”
I walked home. The leaves had fallen off of now-naked branches and were rotting on the concrete where they were crushed by the heels of my formal shoes. My nasal exhales formed tiny clouds as I walked. The evening sunset cast an eerie brown light over my surroundings. To my right there was the hill. The fence was long gone, splintered into dust by the passage of seasons. The grass was still dead, and the tree was still gone.
I felt free. I hadn’t done anything wrong. The man wanted me to take his apples. He wanted me to hit the fence with rocks. He probably laughed when it happened. I was free of blame. It was all likely a set up to get me to repaint his fence for free. I didn’t care what he thought. He was probably laughing at me in his grave. Let him rot and decay like the leaves while I stand on this hill where the stump stands with the sun shining through my hair like light on leaves. Let him have his dark cold pit while I spread my arms and bear fruit. I knew the taste of his apples now, I knew.
Time walked on. It crawled at times and sped at others. I met someone and got married. My first born. My second. Time sprinted through their childhood. Soon they were fine young men, and I realized how time had slipped by. They moved out. It slowed. I focused on my hobbies. I became old myself.
The old man’s house was demolished and put up for sale. I decided to use the money I had saved up and bought it. I and my wife built a cozy little cottage on the side of the hill, where we would live for the rest of our days. The stump was gone by then, and the hillside was bare and dead. I watered it and mowed it and planted beautiful flowers that cast the grass in purple and pink in spring. And for my grandchildren, I planted a tree. A tree that would bear sweet figs that they could eat without shame. A tree whose branches would shield them from the burning sun and that would give them arms for winter snowmen. Gradually, the taste of apples faded from my memory.
I sat at the peak of my vibrant garden, lazy bumble bees buzzing around me. I slouched against my tree and closed my eyes. In my mind’s eye, I could see the apple tree again, decades into the past. I could see the lightning strike it into splinters. I could see its green leaves, the color of emeralds, shining alongside precious rubies. I could see the sapling take root on a hill a century ago.
I looked at the apple tree of my mind, and smiled.
