Pine Cones (There will always be) more pine cones, come tomorrow

The tree, its battered bark clinging to itself sticky like that of the supposed species to which belonging, barely missed the house. Heyward Guérard preferred the home across the highway, but when his parents rightly prospered short after first grade for him, they had to build a brick mansion better to compete. Hey stared at the familiar English bond of red that matched in oblong colors, ochers and oranges, shades of imperfect nature in what paradise he forgot. The brown magnolia leaf cut his bare foot. Walked on, ignoring what bled. Quarter of a day later, half dying and thought alone, he was found by Marshall LeRoy. His brother eased off the sandy trail, its dried wet a dead giveaway.

“Bro?”

“Daddy said when all else might fail, you’d be the first to go–”

“It would be just be, me and you. You and Me.”

“You and me.” Confided, two.

Silently: “If we didn’t kill one another first, and here we are in second place.”

“Lawyer called, meant to tell ya sooner.” But would it have changed the matter by then.

Let me help you bandage that up, he wanted to say. He thought instead, good thing never took ya for a queer or I’d have that HIV-AIDS-another-virus by now up my sleeve or worse. “Why don’t you leave, lean on me, Hey?”

Droplets perspired upon the waistcoat. They’d left out the church clothes after the funeral. The female cousins all a priss. Heyward had wanted their papa buried in his seersucker; Marshall’s wife said never before Easter even here–never before, not now please. I love you (’til wa go). “They said I’d always need a wife, but I knew yours would–

“Yeah, be fit for two.”

He tried to laugh, then heard how awful the–

“Lemme get you some ice cube.”

From the side porch, Marshall cursed the flush electric co-op, hit the dangly wall socket. Checked the breaker with a rickety elbow. Ceiling fan whirring dust in every direction, he considered the sway of the pines amid the magnolias none the cooler out there in herein.

“Did ya pay last month’s bill, brother?”

But he didn’t hear him.

When he returned, two cubes in a paper towel a floral print and dish rag that smelled from another decade no century, the elder brother alone on the front porch. Surprised to eye-spy the speckled red cat that sat in Heyward’s rocking chair, it swaying like the yard in motion before another storm, wished-not (nor half-dead son about to follow the generation, leaky a spout upon a browny yard askin’). Yellow of pollen covered everything, the newer day’s air not filtering but more rightly bothering the civilized spot of swamp with most of nature stirred up, antsy.

“Marrr-shaaaall? Marrr-shaaaall?”

Don’t gotta shout so, he whispered out-of-breath most out-of-blood. Healing hoped-for, he recollected his breathing talk and set it to suspiration, “Here. Brother, over here—hyyyyyeeerrrre.”

Marshall’s wife blew the truck’s horn. Once. Rolled down the window. (She’d been sitting there all along, watching?) Thriving. Rolled it back up. Second time, uncharming–A yellow fly zapped her good (or bad, dependent upon which animalar perspective).

“Maybe I don’t need no horn blower.”

“Two kids,” Marshall said.

“Church,” he added. “Weddings, reunions,” stopping before funerals.

“Help me upright this fence post. The creosote finally took in deep. I don’t know what I’m rightly saying. My–” He held his bald head, feeling for porkpie or sweatercap. His hand wet, the sun hollowed all strength cutting through the littlest of milky veil known as the heat, the howl of air nearest come from the fallow left-over field next to nonexistent by the time it reached them two the other year.

“Give yourself a hernia doing this all by yourself.”

“Why you got no business livin’ here all by yaself.”

There, the words said. Here, the wood might live again: fence post at attention. A lone deer pranced noble-old above the latest canebreaks, some sweet herb sassafras? The animal must have broken roots by its hoofing hurry, he thought, it sounded a stumble and rattlers moccasins simple-no-harm black slitheries went scurrying to, fro, hither, and yon. Every ordinal but above.

“You see that.”

[No response.]

“Well, did ya?”

[ ]

“And you tell me I oughta not live out here by”

[ ]

If Heyward had had an arm. Shotgun pistol or sling– He leaned over, grunted. A pine cone, prickly. “see, ya hurt yaself. like I was sayin’. WHO ya gonna turn to?”

“I wish some people stayed in the cities. When they had to head off and stay. They oughta. No right to be messin’ come ’round and turn to nothin’.” He finally spat. What good sense God gave a madman–

There’s a machine these days for doing that, his brother said.

Doin’ wut.

Pickin’ up pine cones.

[ ] from the other extreme.

[ ] to exaggerate, hone in on a point, two:

Ain’t never been afraid of no knife.

Ain’t never been afraid of no knife. in mimicry,¹

“Not gonna be some frail faggotty for an ole-man pine cone.”

“Enough of the ‘mo-fear in ya. You who don’t live with a wife. More pine cones tomorrow, you’ll see.”

“I have my whores.”

So they say.

“What was that?”

[ ]

When I answer I mean ask you a question You gotta speak back to me I don’t know sometimes who ya whole diddy was But Mama they both answered here not twins but at times mightaswell have been a single soul between them too It pained them both dear not in a fey way but downhomemen’mong’men theirselves be-atalkin What with nothin but the wind breeze or fart And not guffawin or somethin-gnawin at ’em womanly ma or mrs. to be more-politer what their anglish like how they was before the slightly-elder-of-2?to?too? went out to (small) town hack back a five year old for kindy-garten gone-ta-town rivalry, dontcha-c? Don’t we see. Do we not.

“My feet never grew, brother, to learn how to walk in sidewalk shoes,” Marshall said, reaching for a pine cone underneath the debutante camellia, one of scores all rooted and flummoxed with the loss of their planter, cross-bred by the dozens rather than in– He did not see the brown recluse, who could. A boat-length gator farther away, its wet stank catching his not looker but snouzer, he was really on the lookout for a rabid coon searching bass-ackwards for a drink in the cool shade of hot (there had been much talk down the road, new-normal’s-thunk-thinking-awful-wrong, the pity about another disease, its relation to water: from a wet market?).

Pricked my hand and
You didn’t scream

“Like a girl,” the two boys said as one.

“Like a girl,” the hurt one, again.

Laughing mad, enraged with tear. Of the hand

                       not of the           heart not so visible so
from eye                                                                                                        Proud.

Next morning, no answer, Hey by phone. He had more yard work, his granddaddy’s home place too much, what with only a sometimes-obstinate push mower in need of better oil grown too pricey. Thought nothing of it. Had they not spoken in years, it felt; the reality not all that a difference, the way of words the day before, foreign. He knew his brother had stopped by because the property taxes were overdue; Marshall was always one step ahead of them all, until he wasn’t. Hey didn’t tarry. No cereal, out of milk. Headed into town, county’s seat, all-the-better to pay in-person, process-fine-stamped, and receive official like the documentation of homeownership his, probate soon to come with likewise papers he knew: He rubbed his hand and thought of Marshall no more, who also somewhere also thought:: of that first snake-bite (a) dropsy a secret best ’til grave oops, a year before he first went off to real school. And how months later, with the town kids, they laughed at the sag his hand drooped. WEAK!!, not like the rough hand of some rural one unstudied, the class braggart shoutin’ to the smarter of a pair::: unawares of his own, one future even then. That day too, a pine cone.#

1. ‘miniature cries’ for assistance between the two ↩︎

R. P. Singletary is a rural native of the southeastern United States and writes across genres. http://www.rpsingletary.com / socials:@rpsingletary

A Song for R.P.