The Tree of Knowledge

Author's note: This is a story that I wrote several years ago. I'm posting it here unedited. Since then I've had some schooling and published some poetry and a book. Thos of you who have read my current work let me know if I've improved from this later stuff. This has been serialized. More later.

Genesis 2:9 - And out of the ground the LORD God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

The tiny bird worried something in the cropped grass blades. Dew flecked off the brittle strands of grass as its feathered body ducked and dodged among them. It seemed that its little brain couldn't determine whether the thing it was troubling was alive or dead. The tiny beak would pluck at it and it would jump, but in effect all it was attacking was some inanimate thing that had gotten its narrow attention. This occupied the bird in a very strict way. High above, on the top two-by-four of a grape stake fence, a cat sat crouched, silent, still, watching every tiny move the bird made in the dewy grass. Wind tousled its hair but it didn't stir.


He adjusted the spark. Then he pulled on the starter cord. The engine juggled into a brief chortle and then grumbled back into silence. He pulled out the choke. Pulled the cord again. The engine sputtered into life. He throttled the choke and the engine responded, its acrid roar putting up the Sunday afternoon silence with the acerbic interruption of lawn mowing. He released the brake and the lawnmower lurched forward. He finagled out onto the lawn. He recalled lawn mowing fifty years ago, as a young man. It had seemed so easy then. You follow the paths in the lawn. The grass responds to the blades. Watch out for sprinklers. There you have it. Today, so many years later, he found that tightening in his chest somewhat annoying. He wrestled the lawn mower over the dry grass. As the lawnmower had barked into life, the bird rose and planed right over the head of the startled cat, which eyed the whole thing with feline annoyance.

The sun settled over the lawn. Beams of light shifted and poked through a storm of dry grass blades and dust stirred by the lawnmower. Round and round the man and machine marched over the lawn. Dogs barked. A child rode by on a bike that had been made to sound like a motorcycle with playing cards clothes-pinned onto the spokes. Round and round he strode, letting his arm drag a little on the turns. It was aching.

Disturbed by the lawnmower, the cat padded through the open chain link fence gate and across the still, as of yet, green and shaggy back yard lawn. He came to the trunk of the large Bluegum Eucalyptus in the back yard and put his paws on the raw bark, digging in the claws a little in a sort of stretch. In a breath, he ascended the trunk, alighting on a branch high enough to taunt dogs from; there he sat in a furry crouch, eyes deep slits gazing at some distant place, bordering on a nap. The lawnmower droned on, around and around. Jeremy opened the gate and strolled though, just to the rear of where the towering tree stood. The cat didn't seem to notice, but as cats will do, was slyly keeping one eye on the movements of the boy. He stopped and put his schoolbooks down, then took the cards out of his pocket. .. Mad Magazine trading cards... monsters. These were the best things he had ever possessed. He shuffled through them, studying each one. The lawnmower had stopped in the middle of the yard and was popping and chugging there.

Grandma had spotted him from the kitchen window. She quickly opened up the refrigerator and took out the lemonade. She poured a glass. Then she pulled out an ice tray and broke the ice in it, crackling and popping briskly.


One by one the cubes plinked into the cold lemonade. She took the glass to the screen door of the back yard slider and hollered over to him. "Jeremy, I have lemonade".

"Be right there Grandma".

He gathered up his things again and ran across the lawn to where she was putting the glass on a wrought-iron table.
"How was school today?" Grandma asked over a hug.

"It was OK I guess. Where's Grandpa?"

She looked up, briefly turning her ear toward the front yard where the lawn mower still choked and putted.
"He's mowing the lawn it sounds like".

"Do you think he wants some lemonade yet?"

"I don't know. He hasn't been mowing very long. Why don't you ask
him?"

Jeremy set down his glass and leapt past Grandma into the living room with its familiar smell of Cherry Blend. He turned down the hallway, choked with pictures of grandchildren and favorite pets long dead. He was through the screen door and had circumvented the vine trellises when he saw the man who had stopped his car and was bent over Grandpa, giving him CPR. The man's wife had gotten out of the car and was heading up the driveway to alert whoever was inside to call an ambulance. Jeremy watched as the man breathed into Grandpa's mouth, and then massaged Grandpa's heart. His wife yelled at Jeremy to call an ambulance; by this time Grandma was in the driveway, her mottled hands fluttering about her mouth.

     "Ambulance!" someone shouted, and Grandma spun around and dashed through the porch screen door and to the kitchen phone. Jeremy watched, and then as an afterthought, pulled the throttle on the lawnmower and let the engine die. Silence echoed up and down the street, nestling in the tops of the trees everywhere, and perched. .. waiting.

Four days later, Jeremy stood in his black suit by the old Bluegum Eucalyptus tree, watching large ants wind a trail through the coarse bark. Behind him, relatives mingled under the awning on the patio, their conversation subdued. Jeremy watched the ants scour the tree bark for something invisible to him. He had moved the lawnmower into the garage several days ago. The lawn was still half-done; sometime he would Finish it for Grandma. He felt a little guilty that he had not offered to do it before; no one had known that Grandpa was so sick.

Under the awning Jeremy's Dad was talking to Grandma.


     "We have to go upstate in a week, Mom. Carolyn's folks are having a reunion and we need to go. I know it may be too soon, but could Jeremy stay with you while we're away? I wouldn't ask but... "

     "Of course he can," she said, her glasses reflecting the pool from a cup of coffee she seemed to be nestling in her hands and not drinking.

"We'll get him packed and... "

      "It's all right. Grandpa loved Jeremy and it would be good to have him here. I really don't mind."
"Thanks, Mom."

     "Of course you're more than welcome," she said. There was a kind of distance in her voice. Her eyes were settled elsewhere. Her mind was on other things. She was hearing the lawnmower over the ambulance siren. She closed her eyes and traveled to another time. She saw the trailer they lived in when they were in Arizona. A dapper, fully-coiffed Grandpa was pumping up a bike tire. They rode bicycles together in the evenings, up and down the lighted streets. That was a good time. There were other good times too. She would remember them all. Having distanced herself from the conversation on the patio, her eyes roamed the lawn. They traveled over the neatly trimmed bushes, the weeded yard. They rested on the small, suited figure, tracing paths in the bark of that old tree. Grandpa had planted that tree in 1978. She remembered when he brought it home. She made him iced tea as he dug the hole. She watched him from the patio, smiling, content with the fact that he was there, right where he should be. This is all she would ever want. This is all she needed. As she watched, the wind tugged at one of the leafy branches, moving it slightly, blowing tufts of dust in the dry earth. She thought the branch made a gesture to the boy, like it was trying to reassure him. She finally took a sip of the coffee, and only then did she allow herself to cry.

Jeremy didn't hear her tears or see the relatives reach out to his grandmother to comfort her. He didn't see his dad with his hand over his mouth battling back tears, or his mother, who had just come out from the living room, massaging his shoulders as she watched the cat toy with something on the dry lawn. Jeremy was oblivious to all that. What he was watching was the ants. He watched them form trails like ticking veins across the wild bark. They had their little paths to follow. One by one, over the dry and brittle bark, they explored and dabbed at the world with little antennae. He amused himself drawing a twig over the paths and watching their confusion. He ran the stick this way and that. The ants were reliably redundant in their tenacity. The wind blew a gust once more and he heard a sigh. He was sure


it was a sigh. The dust swirled about him and blew into his eyes. He stepped back and wiped it away. When he could see again, he noticed that the ants were making trails that all seemed to be headed toward the roots of the tree. The wind coughed up dry Bluegum Eucalyptus leaves. He heard something again, seeming to come from deep inside the roots. He stepped back another step. The ants followed a trail to the grape stake fence. They seemed to be deserting the tree, like tiny rats deserting a ship. Grandma was watching and hollered across the lawn, "Come out of the dust, Jeremy; you'll ruin your suit."

In the garage, the lawnmower, still sitting there in the blood of chopped grass, still smelling of gas and oil, sparked and rumbled on. It sounded like someone was revving it with the choke. Uncle James got up after a few people had reacted in startled surprise, muttering under his breath, "Damn kids," and walked over, into the garage. In a few seconds, the engine was silent again. He closed the garage door to keep out the riff raff. The lawnmower sat alone, silhouetted in the light from the garage door window, surrounded by darkness. All was silent now, there in the "lawn smells", the stink of gas and oil. A gust of wind came up and blew through the mourners, shaking the table covers and causing people to leap toward the pick-at food to protect it. Jeremy dropped the stick and strolled over to where his Dad was sitting with Grandma, his eyes red and swollen, his nose red too.
"Can we go home now?" Jeremy said.

The Bluegum Eucalyptus tree had been a part of the house almost as long as they owned it. The Bluegum always flowered from April to November, bringing hummingbirds into the yard. The tree seemed to "nail down" the property... somehow, it anchored the house to the lot. The house was a three-bedroom home built in the late 60's, nestled in a reverted orchard. To the west beyond the grape stake fence there was the football and baseball field of a local grade school, and beyond that, newer townhouses and the main drag. Angie and Bob (Grandma and Grandpa to family) purchased the house in 1968 after selling their trailer. Together they selected the flora and fauna that populated the place, poring over catalogues on warm summer evenings, sharing a pitcher of cold lemonade. Their biggest purchase was the Bluegum Eucalyptus tree. The Bluegum comes from Tasmania and southeastern Australia. Grandpa learned that it was brought to California in 1856 (he liked looking up things like this in the Encyclopedia). He and Angie looked over the catalogues for days deciding on this tree over a


Willow. Grandpa recalled Willows getting worms. Not much grew around the Bluegum; it was always bereft of growth under the thing, except for the crab grass. Grandpa said the Bluegum was an important source of fuel in other countries. It was used for windbreaks (which is why Grandpa's was at the southwest part of the yard), "shelter belts", and slight sound barriers along highways. Folks driving the freeways sometimes would see walls of them planted to keep out traffic noise. The only problem was that Grandpa insisted on planting the Bluegum next to the grape stake fence, knowing they could catch fire very easily. He made the mistake of mentioning that to Grandma and she had fussed about it ever since. It is the stringy outer bark that catches fire, although the tree itself has some magical properties after being burned. Release of what is called "crown-stored" seed is triggered when shoots die, and these seeds spread like crazy in the aftereffects of a fire. Grandpa's tree, after many years, grew over the grape stake fence. The Bluegum Eucalyptus, at least 85 feet at its crown, formed a leafy bridge between their home and the old Meyers home next door.

The house on the other side of Grandma's was one of the older houses on the street. It had been a family home, owned by the people who had tended and taken care of the orchard. Now the orchard had become tract homes, and this house stood out like a sore thumb. It was a large, two-story structure, with a wasp's nest by the door to the top room where Richard Meyers sat with his shotgun, drinking beer and watching the surrounding yards like some bizarre caricature of a lifeguard. He kept a black and white TV playing all the time, switching channels between wrestling and Roller Derby; his favorite was wrestling. He slept, ate, drank and sometimes pissed in this room. Richard had done some time in prison for sex crimes and was tentatively on parole. His aunt was an elderly woman, easily bamboozled by his jailhouse charm. At first, Richard did odd jobs for her. Later, as she grew more senile and became more of an invalid, he tended to ignore her. Richard Meyers was predatory; more than that, he was a sociopath. He was someone the neighbors steered clear of. After they got to know him, most things steered clear of Richard Meyers.

To be continued: