Green

Coming of age summertime romp. Dad is unemployed and Mom is sick of living in her mother's house. Three generations of women on a plot of land that is being swallowed by surburbia.

Green

It was an odd smell. A deep, earthy fragrance of rotting leaves Sami rubbed the tomato leaf between her fingers, releasing the fragrance once again. Bitter-green, but then again…sweet. Sami pushed aside a clump of blond hair from her face and studied her younger sister, Shannon, who was bent over picking cucumbers from their backyard garden. The sun was directly above them but after a summer spent outdoors, neither girl felt the heat. Both were summer contradictions--sun-bleached hair and skin as dark as the mud squishing through their toes.

     The girls had been picking vegetables all morning and the weight of their harvest was now pulling at the necklines of their oversize T-shirts. Through the chirping of birds, and the rat-a-tat-tat of hammering from new apartments going up across the street, the girls’ mother called them to lunch. The girls sped off, the vegetables swaying back and forth in the cradle of their T-shirts as they raced through the garden, over a small divider fence and onto the back porch. Shannon, dumped her lot out on the porch, then stuck her tongue out at her slower sister and ran into the house. Sammi turned out her tomatoes, readjusted the cement block that held up one end of the back porch, and burst through the backdoor. A sour smell of Marconi & Cheese along with her grandmother’s voice stopped her.

     “Back when I was your age my family knew everyone…for miles around.” Grandmother Freese said, as she twisted her stout frame and pointed a pudgy finger at Sammi.

     “That’s because there were only five other families back then,” Mother said, her blue eyes twinkling as she pinched the bottle cap off a Pepsi and handed it to Shannon.

    “You just going to stand there or what? Sit down.” Grandma Freese said as she turned back to her plate of Macaroni.

 

     Sammi shook herself from the glare of her Grandmother’s thick bifocals and sat down next to her sister.

     “That maybe smartass,” Grandma Freese said to Mother, “ but things were different back then. None of this divorcing and s**t. No…a real woman stayed by her man until he was dead and buried.”

     Mother rolled her eyes, and continued spooning the lumpy mass onto white paper plates, then sat down. Sammi picked at day-glo orange pasta thinking it better suited for jewelry than eating and peeked at her grandmother from behind her unruly waterfall of snow-white hair.

     Grandma Freese had weathered her changes of fortune. She was plump, but withered like a prune. She always had a sour disposition and, in her black dress and large glasses, resembled an owl, as she sat most of the day framed in an upstairs window. Grandma always faced westward, overlooking Rosella; the street named after her when the city was carved from her farmland. But Rosella was more of a gravel trail than a street. Once a summer the city would send a truck out to spray creosote on the road, but by the end of summer the dust always returned.

 

     Grandma took a deep swig from her bottle of Colt 45. She set the bottle down on the table and waved her stumpy arms around in the air. Her fingers curled into fists, which she pounded on the table, “Back in my day this was the Freese property!”, Grandma yelled.

     “So why aren’t we rich?” Sammi asked, taking a sip from her sister’s Pepsi bottle and watching as small orange bits of Mac & Cheese slid back down the inside of the bottle.

     “There are different ideas of being rich,” Mother said, adding, “Now, if your done eating, go on and play, but stay around here.”

 

 

    “Yeah, we will,” Sammi told her mother as she rose from the table and dropped her plate into the garbage. Shannon was already out the back door when Sammi followed but jogged right, heading for her favorite Silver-Maple tree. This summer the tree was harder to climb, since Sammi had added two inches to her height and grown breasts but expertly scaled the branches. Once she reached the top she rested her bottom on one of the branches and surveyed the small garden; all that was left of the Freese property.

     The sun was just sliding westward in the sky when a white 1955 Cadillac DeVille rolled up in a cloud of dust into the driveway. Sammi wanted to yell out “Daddy”, but waited, hid in the branches of the Silver-Maple. She spied him as he emerged from the car, his hair slicked back and dressed in his clean dress shirt and pants. He glanced around then wandered to the back door.

     Sammi turned around and placed her toe on a lower branch. She moved slowly as she heard her father’s voice, “What the hell am I suppose to do? I showed up.”

    “You’ve got to find something steady!” my Mother’s voice flared.

    “I know! Everyday I know!”

     Father’s voice was followed by the sounds of breaking glass then silence.

    Sammi remained, hidden in the branches until the shouting died down. Then, slid down the rough limbs until her bare feet felt the tickle of grass. She waited, then snuck off to the old barn. The barn had no doors so Sammi walked right in, stumbling in the darkness till her toe caught the tire of her Radio Flyer wagon.

Shannon ran in behind and slammed into Sammi, “What’s going on?” she asked.

    “Dad ’s home…”

    “Oh.” Shannon glanced sadly at the backdoor.

 

    “I got a plan. What if we sell some stuff out of the garden? I bet Mom and Dad would have enough money then!” Sammi said as she tugged on the wagon’s handle and pulled it towards the sunlight.

     “I don’t know. Mom might….”, Shannon protested.

     “I‘ll leave you here by yourself if you don‘t come,” Sammi shouted.

     Shannon stood there a moment, her eyes behind her cat-eye glasses began to tear up and Sammi felt a twinge of guilt for pulling her into her plan. Sammi pulled the Radio Flyer to the back porch and the girls piled the wagon bed with Swiss Chard, cucumbers, tomatoes, green peppers, and “sqaumbers.“ (The term the girls had christened their accidental mixing of cucumber and squash seeds. The offspring was a strange mix of the two. Squambers were the size of a cucumber but misshapen like squash with skin that ranged from emerald to pumpkin orange.)

    The girls left behind a few un-ripe tomatoes to be warmed by the afternoon sun, then snuck across the front lawn almost dumping the load when the wheels of the wagon became lodged in the twin ruts worn into the driveway from Dad’s DeVille.

    The sidewalk, which started where the Freese property ended, opened up to a manicured heaven of suburban living. Sammi thought of Dorothy falling asleep in black and white Kansas and awakening in a Technicolor Oz. She loved the names and games sketched on the concert in various colored chalk; like Kim, Brian, or Mandy amidst lopsided boxes for Hopscotch or Four Square. The girls passed men washing shiny new cars parked in groove less driveways and women stretched out in bathing suits on green and white lawn chairs. At the first cul-de-sac (Weddell Court) the girls arraigned their vegetables and waited.

    They didn’t have to wait long. Soon drivers began to pull up to the curb to look over the vegetables. Most barely spoke but the ones who did “admired the girls’ natural resourcefulness,” a virtue, as another man put it, “not to be found in suburban children anymore.”

 

    All the people who stopped seemed eager to shell out a few bucks for home-grown produce.

A man driving a shiny 1970 Lincoln Continental pulled up and leaned over his wife, who sat stiffly against the passenger seat

     “So you grow these in your own garden how delightful,” he said, “What’s that?” The man asked and pointed over his grimacing wife to one of the squambers.

Sammi locked eyes with the man and smiled. “This? Oh… a rare Chinese vegetable.. tastes a little like cucumber and squash. Good in salads or baked.”

    “All right then, I’ll take 5 tomatoes, 3 green peppers…and what do you say dear, we try the…what did you say those were called again sweetie?”

    “They are called Ming fruit.” Sammi picked up one of the squambers before her sister could respond.

    “So what do I owe you girls?” The man asked.

     “Two dollars,”

     The man pulled a $5.00 bill from his wallet and handed it over to his wife. Sammi frowned, as she held the bill. “Do you have anything smaller, cuz I don’t have change.”

     “That’s ok sweetie, you keep it for your sister. She’s so cute. Well, you girls be careful out here.“ The man nodded then drove off.

     The afternoon sky began to redden and shadows crept across the lawn but the girls stayed at their corner until even the squambers were gone. The streetlights were flickering to life as the girls followed the sidewalk back to the wilderness of their property, the empty wagon behind them.

 

 

 

    The girls snuck past the front of the house where the blue flicker of the TV was radiating from a front window. Sammi pushed the Radio Flyer back into the darkness of the barn and drifted towards the quiet house. Shannon hesitated at the back door but Sammi entered and found Mother at the kitchen table, clutching the burning stub of a Pall Mall between her fingers.

    “Where’s Dad ?” Sammi asked.

    Mother did not answer but nodded her head towards the small room that had once been a parlor. It was rumored to have held the body of Grandpa Freese for three days before his funeral in 1960, but now served as the family’s cramped living room.

    “Hey,” Sammi said.

    Dad was stretched out upon a small burnt-orange sofa. He turned on the girl, his eyes were like two burning sapphires then slowly they softened to a sky blue.

    “Hi kiddo, what’s going on?”

    “Nothing”

    “So how’s school?” Dad asked and stood up to adjust the aluminum foil on the TV antennae.

    “Starts tomorrow,” Sammi answered.

    “God damn TV!” Pops yelled and pounded the top of the television with his fist. He still had on his dress clothes, but the shirt was unbuttoned and his shoes were off. He plopped back onto the sofa watching a scrambled version of Mutual of Omaha‘s, Wild Kingdom. Sammi walked over to the TV, pulled a little on the mess of aluminum foil, which was scrunched around the ends of both TV antennae, and Wild Kingdom magically appeared.

     “Great.“ Dad said, “Now see what’s on channel 2. Naw…channel 4. Keep going…wait.“ he said at Bonanza, “now move out of the way.”

    Sammi backed away from the TV and patted the money in her pocket.

 

     “Dad, we just sold some stuff from the garden and we want you and Mom to have this.” She pulled out the money to show it to him.

     “Wow, how much you got there?” Father pulled himself from Bonanza and righted himself on the couch, patting the tatty cushion besides him. “Shhh…your mother will….”

     “What’s going on in here?” Mother said. She was standing in the doorway with Shannon hiding behind her, her hand on one hip, and a Pall Mall in the other.

     “Um….nothing,” Sammi said.

Daddy cut in quickly. “The kids were selling vegetables out of the garden dear.”

     “I don’t believe you.“ Mother snapped. “Sitting in here watching TV, not worried where they were. Someone could have snatched you up in their car and kidnapped you and do God knows what to you. You’re the oldest,“ Mother said to Sammi. “Your suppose to be watching your sister not running around all over the neighborhood.

    “It does them good to learn about life,” Father said turning back to the TV.

     “And what if they get themselves killed?” Mother returned to her seat at the kitchen table and began to cry, Sammi got up from besides her father, took Shannon by the hand and went out the back door. She rearranged the tomatoes on the porch and the girls sat down on the good end. Despite her pockets being full of money, a feeling of emptiness grew within Sammi. The girls stared out across the field of green that separated them from the new subdivision and the apartments being built across the street.

     The sun was sinking, Weeping Willow trees were swished their dangling green manes in the breeze and another argument ensued. Mother’s voice carried itself out of the backdoor until Dad emerged from the house flinging the back door so violently one of the hinges gave way. His face was as red as one of the tomatoes he inadvertently crushed beneath his feet..

 

     “God damn! Why the f**k do you kids gotta play right here?” he bellowed and began kicking the tomatoes off the porch. Then, Pops reached down and seized two, chucking one at the maple tree and another toward the willow where it hit with a splat, its juicy center bleeding down the bark and pooling at the base of the tree in a green and red mess. At the first signal of trouble Shannon had run back into the house to Mother, but Sammi stayed to face her father’s storm. He was breathing hard when he plopped down beside Sammi and grabbed up one of the last green tomatoes in his large palms.

     “I wanted you to have this,” Sammi said and dug into her pocket pulling a wad of bills.

     “I appreciate it kiddo,” he said, and with one hand mussed her already unruly hair, “but I can’t take that.”

     “But there’s enough here for you and Mom,” Sammi protested.

Daddy chuckled, “there probably is, but I can’t take it from you.”

    “But I just wanted to help…”

     Father shook his head. “Don’t ever grow up kiddo. The world’s a s****y place,” and stood up. He lifted the broken door out of the way and went back in the house. Soon the bitter stench of butter-fried green tomatoes drifted from the kitchen. Sammi sat on the porch till nightfall watching the dust mushrooming into great clouds on Rosella Street.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reviews

[Celtic Cat]

Oh, Samara! I absolutely adored this tale. So full of everything. Very visual as well. I could completely picture the whole piece in my head as I read it, and I want to give the girls a big hug! It's so sad that suburbia is crashing down on good ol' country living everywhere we look....and to lose a big piece of land and then have to watch apartments being built on it is most likely part of why grandma's disposition is so sour. I loved how she was drinking a beer at dinner....and how the pasta fell into the soda bottle. So many wonderful details in this piece....it's so wonderful. I hope you keep churning out more of these stories....this one is still clenching to my heart. Thanks so much for writing and sharing. Much love~~