Nonfiction / Brandon Hansen

 

:: An Acre of Woods ::

        I remem­ber flick­ing bass­wood seeds as far as we could off our fin­gers, and blood pool­ing in per­fect moons beneath our nails. I remem­ber the deep blue eighty-gal­lon plas­tic bar­rel my dad usu­al­ly used to flush cus­tomers’ boat motors, and how on week­ends it became home to the min­nows he would trap for bait. Dad would hose fresh water into their home, and the suck­ers and shin­ers would rise with the swell, then over­flow from the bar­rel. The lit­tle fish would squirm down the impromp­tu riv­er in the dri­ve­way, and Nicky and I would tod­dle amidst its flow, scoop them back up with clum­sy fin­gers. Mom, sun-drunk and slouched in her plas­tic chair, would watch us lift our cupped hands high to the bar­rel and drop them back into the depths, and wave them good­bye. I always won­dered what that felt like, to go from one world to anoth­er like that. 

        Savanah, the neigh­bor girl, would watch me and Nicky sword­fight with the slashed limbs of fire­wood, watch us pick burst­ing-ripe crab apples and boot them into her Grand­ma Bonnie’s yard with dol­lar-store plas­tic bats. One day, Savanah sprang through the field between our homes, emerged into our yard with the petals and cal­ices of iris and wood vio­let glued by the morn­ing dew to her knees. She opened her cupped hands and dumped a dozen, fra­grant, crushed crab apples into my out­stretched palms, and said some­thing like, I think these are yours. 

        We spent the rest of that after­noon and hun­dreds of after­noons after that mar­veling at garter snakes beneath the old tires in the back, or leop­ard frogs that would bathe in the pool of rain­wa­ter col­lect­ed in the footholds of an old customer’s aban­doned jet-ski, entwined in thorny rasp­ber­ry bush­es behind the barn, bleached basi­cal­ly white from years in the sun. I can see the boat motors and their flak­ing paint and rust­ing pro­pellers leaned against the barn; I can see Dad out there in the sun, knees in the grav­el of the dri­ve­way, tend­ing someone’s speed boat or four-wheel­er, so bright amidst the sun fad­ed back­drop of every­thing we owned. We orbit­ed around him, turn­ing dusty and fad­ed our­selves, lift­ing old tires and gasp­ing at garter snakes, throw­ing crab apples at black­flies that gath­ered in dozens on the win­dow screens, and duck­ing reflex­ive­ly to the deaf­en­ing hum of their retreat.  

        Dad was a fix­ture in that dri­ve­way. He cranked away at the bro­ken machines of vaca­tion­ers and snow­birds, the peo­ple who lived in the north while it was warm and left at the first fall of a leaf. They towed their glis­ten­ing boats on shin­ing trucks up High­way 32 every spring, blazed them down our trails and across our lakes until a gas­ket gave, or the oil cur­dled, or an engine seized. That’s when they’d roll into our dri­ve­way, where on warm, beau­ti­ful sum­mer days dad spent hours fix­ing them. 

        But some­times, my ears would perk at the sound of the brass bells tied to our back door. There was some­thing dif­fer­ent about how Dad would open it some days. I knew he was going fish­ing, and I knew because his eyes would change col­or. They opened up, wide and won­drous, and they soaked up sun in a way I rarely saw. They changed from the dark of old engine oil to a light green, like lit­tle lakes them­selves. Still, I’d call out to him, and Mom would slur for her kiss good­bye, but the only answer was the clos­ing of his car door. To my dad, to fish was to rest. The lake was his cra­dle. 

        When he would leave with­out me, it was like a lit­tle hook in my heart. But there would be Savanah, tug­ging at my sleeve, Savanah who would point to a chrysalis in the leaves, who remind­ed me that I had every­thing I could ever want, right there.  

* 

        For years, Savanah and I didn’t know the world out­side our yards. We didn’t know the lakes dad went to or the roads that led there; we knew no infra­struc­ture beyond our homes and the pow­er lines between us, and even when we went to school it was more a mat­ter of tele­port­ing from a place we need­ed to be to a place we want­ed to be. What we did know was how to wear a desire path into the wild­flower field, where we dashed back and forth to each other’s homes in the sil­very light of post-school days and week­ends. Togeth­er we’d fol­low spring-melt rivers down the crack­led asphalt road, or catch sum­mer frogs in the lit­tle cages of our hands. We’d crunch fall’s leaves into a sort of con­fet­ti and throw it about us, or build snow­men togeth­er, lit­tle stat­ues in our yards, tes­ta­ments of what we could build togeth­er. Savanah was my best friend.  

        We did these things and talked; we talked about school and home with what words we could man­age, young as we were, but what I loved most was how we always talked about what was in front of us. How the water was warm, or the fish were lit­tle, or the snow was packy. We built vil­lages in the sand­box, hous­es con­struct­ed with four twigs poked into a canopy of a sin­gle bass­wood leaf, and our faces became warm with con­cen­tra­tion, the logis­tics of our lit­tle world where crab apples were the denizens. Where would they eat? Do these two love each oth­er? We’ve dug them a lit­tle lake in the cen­ter, but how will they get there?  

        These were the prob­lems of the moment, and for what felt like some bliss­ful eter­ni­ty, when I was with Savanah, it felt like the only prob­lems there were.  

        But that changed as we changed. Small bod­ies grew, our yards shrank, the bass­wood leaves I once craned to gaze at began to slap my face when I ran through the yard. This is when Savanah began to dis­ap­pear. It’s a con­glom­er­a­tion of mem­o­ries, an orb of feel­ings float­ing in my mind, like a rot­ting, round fruit. In its reflec­tion there is mot­tled shade over the sand­box, dirt pressed into our knees, Savanah’s eyes dark like syrup when she’d look at our cre­ation and say, 

        “I’m going by my dad soon.”  

        My stom­ach would gur­gle with a strange heat. I’d trace my fin­ger around in the sand.  

        “For a long time? 

        She’d flick an apple down a lit­tle hill of sand we’d made.  

        “Maybe.” And she would scoot around to my side of the sand­box, and sit close. 

        That’s how it went for a long time. Savanah and I spent every day togeth­er when she was liv­ing with her Grand­ma Bon­nie, just across the field, whether we were ambling off the bus togeth­er or cross­ing the field on the qui­et days of a school break. But for rea­sons she didn’t explain, she’d some­times live with her dad, Zane. He lived the next town over, in Tipler, ten min­utes away, and so she’d still be on the same bus to the same school at basi­cal­ly the same time. But it just wasn’t as close.  

        Not long after Savanah’s warn­ing, Zane’s black truck, fish­ing lures swing­ing from the rearview, would inevitably be there at the bus stop after a school day, a por­tent of our part­ing. Like Savanah, he was short and thin, his hair dark in the exact shade of hers, though unlike her, and like most log­gers, he wore a beard always home to a dash of saw­dust. His frame was crooked from a life of labor, and he donned a tank­top from which his stri­at­ed arms hung, tan and shred of all excess save for the mus­cles he need­ed to push the chain­saw. His eyes were dark, and with them he would stare right through me as Savanah clam­bered into his truck, and she’d reach across him to wave good­bye as they rum­bled away. 

        Bon­nie, though, saw me. She would let out a grandma’s hap­py “Ohh!” on the few occa­sions Savanah and I would rush into the house, red-faced and pant­i­ng, down­ing spot­less glass after glass of water at the gleam­ing steel sink. She scooped us Moose Tracks from an ever-full ice cream car­ton, and gave us cold, clean rags to press on our necks. There I would stand, the water slid­ing down my back, and stare around her house.  

        In Bonnie’s liv­ing room was the first time I saw a flat screen tele­vi­sion. In her breeze­way was the first time I was told to take my shoes off before step­ping inside, and in the dark gran­ite of her kitchen island was where I saw myself, in a way, for the first time. I saw the storm on my head, my ever-tou­sled hair. And I knew if I were to smile, there would be my crooked teeth. Clothes soaked in the smoke of Mom’s Marl­boros and our wood­stove hung off my body, all hand-me downs, down to the socks. I liked when we’d stop in to rest at Bonnie’s, but in that air-con­di­tioned par­adise, I felt more than ever like an amor­phous shape, grow­ing taller so fast it hurt, uncon­tained, and yet with my gut sucked to my back with a hunger that left me always in a daze. It felt bet­ter to be out­side in this state; to feel as floaty as the whirligig maple seeds that flut­tered about us, to feel my body so warm it was like I was the air itself.  

        I think Savanah felt the same way but for dif­fer­ent rea­sons, because we didn’t stop in at Bonnie’s often. Maybe once a month until we were pre-teens. Savanah only talked to Bon­nie when Bon­nie asked her a ques­tion, and her answers always formed odd cir­cles of qui­et in the con­ver­sa­tion. When she was asked where she was going, it was always “Not far,” and when she’d come home, “When­ev­er you make din­ner,” and what we’d be up to, silence.  

        I didn’t under­stand it – Savanah was the sweet­est per­son I knew, and Bon­nie the most gen­er­ous. Yet I could feel tur­bu­lence; some­thing pained Savanah. There was more to Bon­nie than there seemed. The com­plex­i­ty of it made me odd­ly grate­ful for the sim­plic­i­ty of my home: things looked ter­ri­ble, and they pret­ty much were. Savanah seemed to love it though; the scratched wood floors beneath the garbage, the cob­bled sand­wich­es of bread ends and yel­lowed sliv­ers of but­ter and loose sug­ar shak­en from the bag. I think she felt free. She spun about the house and top­pled cob­webs with arms wide open. For the longest time I accept­ed this for the mir­a­cle it seemed to be; but the old­er we got, I real­ized not all things were as sim­ple as they seemed. 

* 

        When I was about 12, I entered the work­ing world. Few Long Lak­ers were as well off as Grand­ma Bon­nie, and almost nobody as bad­ly off as my fam­i­ly, and so while peo­ple couldn’t afford land­scape work, they could afford me. I was Long Lake’s lone and unof­fi­cial mow­er of sprawl­ing lake­side lawns, slash­er of dan­de­lions, burn­er of pinecones. I accu­mu­lat­ed clients all along the lake. 

        Har­ry was an ancient man who lived across the street and had a voice like a cement-mix­er, though I nev­er actu­al­ly spoke to him. Dad arranged our trans­ac­tions and his own; it felt like every month of the sum­mer, Dad could be found car­ry­ing Harry’s small boat motor across the street, and accept­ing some cash from the old man, who would some­times hold his hand there in my dad’s, and grum­ble some­thing I could bare­ly hear: “the boy,” “the lawn.” Dad would come back and tell me that Har­ry want­ed the yard cut again, though it’d only been a cou­ple days. 

        “He for­gets, you know,” Dad would say. And he’d look at his oil-stained hands, as if regret­ful for yet again unflood­ing the motor Har­ry had long for­got­ten how to prop­er­ly choke.    

        Many morn­ings passed on the bru­tal hill of Harry’s back­yard. After­noons and evenings passed in wood­ed lawns of two dif­fer­ent Johns on oppo­site ends of Long Lake, and I babysat for Lar­ry and Linda’s grand­son, who was some­how named Blade, and did the same for Dave’s grand­son Con­nor, who vis­it­ed them two hous­es down from Harry’s, one from Larry’s. Mom would dri­ve me a few miles down the road to cut her friend Doreen’s grass, and they would drink lit­tle green grenades of Jäger­meis­ter while they watched me go back and forth over the sweep­ing yard. Some­times Grand­pa threw me ten bucks to do his whole yard, though I’d have shoved it and more right back at him if he would spare me the hour-long lec­ture that fol­lowed – how the lines were not straight, or a tree root was nicked, and how if I’m going to do some­thing, I ough­ta do it right.  

        I didn’t know that this was only the begin­ning, that one day I’d get my driver’s license and my reach would extend to the whole coun­ty. But in the ear­li­est years of my work­ing, I felt like a painter on the can­vas of Long Lake – beau­ti­fi­er of neat parcels all along the shore. Or at least that con­cep­tion smoothed the real­i­ty of the work, so much of which was tedious, and made no sense to me; my blis­ter-pocked hands were tes­ta­ment to how many dan­de­lions I’d dug, though I thought they were pret­ty. I found myself weed whack­ing wild mus­tard tucked behind trees peo­ple would nev­er see, and drag­ging a vac­u­um out­side to suck dust off porch-lin­ing rocks. It felt waste­ful and long, and for every inch clos­er to per­fec­tion these people’s yard became, the worse I felt about my own – for every sec­ond I spent sweat­ing by the lake, the more I wished to dive in. But most of all, when I’d find myself on my knees, elbow-deep in the under­car­riage of a tick­ing mow­er, pulling sod­den grass from the hot blades while the day burned away, I just wished I was with Savanah.  

        But Savanah seemed to like that I was a work­ing man now, and Bon­nie seemed to love it. 

        Those days were some of the strangest of my life, and they added up slow­ly. At first Savanah would insist we go to Bonnie’s once a week, then both days of the week­end, then soon it felt like I was at Bonnie’s more than I was home. Those days, I’d go from one world to anoth­er, from the hot air, the qui­et of only my foot­steps and bird song and my own hard breath, fin­gers crust­ed in dirt and smashed grass, hands fat with bug bites, my feet inflamed and socks and shirt soaked through with sweat, feel­ing so worn and moist and in a loop with the earth around me that I may as well have been one of the long fall­en logs I was tasked with cut­ting – and then into the blast­ing air con­di­tion­ing, the shined gran­ite and tile, a glass of water in my hand so cold it stung to hold, and then Savanah there in the bright liv­ing room, her hair long and glossy as every­thing else, smile straight­ened by the vice of braces now that she was old enough, don­ning new clothes what seemed like every sin­gle day. Then there would be Bon­nie, burst­ing through the sun­room door into the kitchen, her ener­gy zap­ping around, offer­ing me what felt like every­thing. 

        “Should we make a piz­za? Two?” 

        “Let’s see what’s in the fridge – we have Sprite, Pep­si, Diet Pep­si, blue Gatorade, red, oh hon­ey we even have pur­ple Gatorade, when did they start mak­ing this? Maybe it turns this col­or after a while? No?” 

        “Okay – water? Ice? How much ice? Hon­ey, you have to drink some­thing! Beer? No, you don’t drink beer yet, right? You bet­ter not! But it’s there!”  

        Savanah and Bon­nie would float around me while my head swam, dot­ing on the cuts and stings that siz­zled beneath the per­ox­ide-soaked cot­ton balls they pressed into me. Slow­ly, as I ate piz­za and sal­ad and milk-dunked cook­ies, sipped Gatorade and water rip­pling in their sep­a­rate glass­es before me, I felt the ener­gy return to me from my feet upward, like a pot­ted plant fill­ing to the dew leaves of my brain. When final­ly my exhaus­tion waned, and my brain felt like mine again, I would get to think­ing, to remem­ber­ing. 

        I remem­bered Bonnie’s hus­band, grand­pa Jim. I’d only seen him once in the house, if I didn’t count the pic­tures of him stuck into cor­ners that would be dusty, if this were not the house of Bon­nie. In those pic­tures, Jim would be stand­ing, a long-haul truck­er and log­ger, his square-jaw­line near­ly as sharp as the bow­saw dan­gling from a nail in the wall of his work bench behind him, where, if the pic­tures were any indi­ca­tion, he almost always was. I knew though from years lap­ping Bonnie’s acre of woods that there were stashed old canoes and pad­dles here and there, draped now with fall­en branch­es. I could tell by the water­line on the bel­lies of those boats that they knew lakes – that Jim knew lakes. 

        That’s the Jim I tried to pic­ture when Bon­nie would men­tion him, the one I think she want­ed every­one to remem­ber. But I couldn’t for­get Jim as I knew him – a shape on the couch, drained by lym­phoma, swal­lowed by a flan­nel he once filled to burst­ing. His face was blast­ed by sun on one half from the decades dri­ving that log truck; that half of him was wrin­kled and gnarled and punc­tu­at­ed with the bright blue dot of his eye, like drift­wood embossed by beach glass. He tried to speak to me just once, and I tried to answer, but Savanah held my arm, and whis­pered,  

        “It’s okay. He won’t hear you, any­way.”  

        And so I nev­er spoke to him. I saw him once more, in his cof­fin at St. Norbert’s, the lit­tle church with the semi­cir­cle dri­ve­way off the high­way. Bon­nie and Savanah had beck­oned me to the front row, the fam­i­ly row. Sor­row hov­ered amongst the pews, thick as gas. When the town was only fifty strong, we all felt this loss. We all fit in that church. 

        Jim was gone, and there I sat at his and Bonnie’s kitchen island. I didn’t know much about the world, but I knew Bon­nie loved the Catholic church and its val­ues, and I vague­ly knew churchy peo­ple loved hard-work­ing men and dot­ing women. Because of that, some part of me won­dered if that’s why Bon­nie tend­ed to me so. 

        When Bon­nie would fin­ish feed­ing me though, she returned to her usu­al self, and it was hard to believe she was just built to dote. How Bon­nie act­ed and how she felt had lit­tle to do with con­struct and much to do with real­i­ty. This seemed true for every­one in town – we didn’t live near many peo­ple nor any­where near any­where that had many peo­ple, and rare was the per­son who watched much news or late-night talk shows over a good old movie. Cul­ture was not a pat­tern set by an unde­ni­able mass of oth­ers – there were no four-lane com­mutes of leased sedans bust­ing through rows of stop­lights to tell you that you were going the right way. Instead work dragged us down state high­ways and side roads in pick­up trucks bit­ten by rust, cut­ting through the mist and swerv­ing deer, spin­ning ever for­ward on tires trad­ed to each oth­er, though we all went sep­a­rate ways. We pow­ered small busi­ness­es or branch­es of large ones; we drove a hun­dred miles a day lis­ten­ing, if we were lucky, to the oldies, but most­ly to the wind. Most­ly to our thoughts.  

        This was as true for Bon­nie as any­one else. So I don’t think she dot­ed because she was a woman or a church­go­er or a grand­moth­er. I think, to her, it was a cel­e­bra­tion of my work­ing, but even more so, it was work itself. And Bon­nie worked as much as she breathed.  

        Bon­nie worked the desk at a lum­ber mill in Newald, 20 min­utes away. She man­aged all the paper­work imag­in­able, the lone woman in a crowd of a dozen log­gers who milled about beneath swing­ing cranes car­ry­ing de-limbed trees, hum­ming saws as wide trac­tor tires, an ever-present rain of saw­dust so per­va­sive even Bon­nie, safe in her office, had to shake it off her coat when she got home. She sold lum­ber, bought machines, man­aged pay­checks, tin­kered with sched­ules. She clapped her hands and got peo­ple mov­ing; she nev­er stopped mov­ing her­self.  She was that lum­ber mill.  

        So it made sense when I was 15 and Bon­nie called me, and some­thing was dif­fer­ent. Her voice was not the one I always knew, one that would say she rent­ed a DVD for us to all watch, one that quipped at a movie as we sank into the clouds of her couch cush­ions until me, her, and Savanah we were all heavy-eyed, and near­ly dream­ing. This was her voice from her oth­er world, ask­ing me to come over, that she had some work for me to do.  

        Savanah was off with her dad, so this was a rare moment between just Bon­nie and I. 

        “Hi hon­ey!” she said when I walked in. “You can leave your shoes on!” 

        She led me out­side, back through the hall­way where her fax machine sat suf­fo­cat­ed beneath its own paper on her wood­en desk, the only clut­tered place in her house. We stepped through the sun­room, a screened-in oasis of a space as large as two rooms in my house, where she had ver­ti­cal propane heaters with hoods like mush­rooms, wrought-iron tables and chairs and mini fridges full of col­or­ful drinks plugged in on the back wall. I loved that room; as far as I remem­bered, it was where I first saw Savanah, on her third birth­day. It was back when my fam­i­ly used to do things like go to birth­day par­ties. I remem­bered flow­ers and bal­loons and lit­tle Savanah near­ly glow­ing in the sun in her white dress. Years lat­er that room became the one place she and I could escape twi­light mos­qui­toes but still feel the air; the smell of pine and sweet laven­der would waft through the screen and as the years ticked on, we’d scoot those heavy chairs inch­es clos­er togeth­er.  

        Now, Bon­nie brought me through the doors, and we stood before the woods. These were the acre of woods that framed my whole life, every dri­ve to school and every lake and every sight­line as far as I could see. To the west of where we stood, these woods stretched for hun­dreds of miles, a vast spill of green with paint­brush dabs of lit­tle lakes and tiny towns and twist­ing roads of dirt built along with the for­est, and not despite it. Even­tu­al­ly these woods wrapped around the Mid­west­ern cities and pressed unfath­omably onward until the land turned to rock. To the north, they sprawled yet anoth­er hun­dred miles or so until the trees met Lake Supe­ri­or. To the east, a hun­dred miles and Lake Michi­gan. To the south, a hun­dred feet away at some undes­ig­nat­ed point, Savanah and Bonnie’s woods merged into my family’s yard. A hun­dred feet from there lay Long Lake, then anoth­er untold vast­ness of pine and maple and spruce, of wild­flow­ers and moss and sway­ing branch­es, Amer­i­can toads and spot­ted sala­man­ders tak­ing naps between fall­en leaves and bugs nest­ing in foot-thick lay­ers of inter­twined pine nee­dles pre­vi­ous­ly untouched by any­thing save the great trees that dropped them, between which birds sang. 

        The patch of woods that sat before us was an acre, a foot­ball field, a stone’s throw for some­one strong. But they felt as big as all that to me. Savanah and I had grown up beneath and between those trees, lis­ten­ing to the sway of the leaves and the slow change in our voic­es. So when Bon­nie swept an arm grand­ly over the whole expanse, and said, 

        “Most of this has to go.” 

        I felt dizzy.  

        Bon­nie went on about what she want­ed me to do: push down all the dead trees, pile them with the ones already fall­en, rake every leaf and twig between and burn it all. Then she’d call some­one to cut most of the rest of the trees, leav­ing a hand­ful of the big maples. I would scoop the slash and throw it in Grand­pa Jim’s old truck, then back it up through the new­found road through the for­est and burn all of that, too.  

        “That should leave enough room to let a trac­tor through,” she said. “And till up all the roots and every­thing. Then I can plant some grass! I want it to look like a park, you know?” 

        It sort of flashed before my eyes then, a snap­shot of a ten­nis-ball-green, man­i­cured land­scape cut odd­ly on the fringe of the semi­cir­cle of old woods where my family’s prop­er­ty tech­ni­cal­ly start­ed. My dizzi­ness redou­bled. 

        “You just let me know when you can start, and what you think is fair for pay,” Bon­nie said. “I have all the tools here in Grandpa’s shed, and you come in when­ev­er you get thirsty!” 

        Then she was inside. 

        I walked slow­ly home, through the woods. I poked at leaves, but couldn’t move them. I pressed my hands to feath­er­weight trees, stand­ing only through some con­ve­nience of grav­i­ty, but couldn’t push one down. I couldn’t do this. This was not the world I knew.  

        In my house, Mom was out-cold, crushed by vod­ka and a med­ley of pills, limbs akim­bo and basi­cal­ly dead, her bed­room door open. Dad was passed out on the couch. I closed Mom’s door sur­rep­ti­tious­ly, like Nicky and I learned to do when­ev­er Savanah vis­it­ed, a small funer­al every time. 

        I think Savanah under­stood some­thing was wrong with my mom, that some­thing was sad about dad, but she accept­ed it as part of life in the same way death or judge­ment is. These things were inevitable, and life was unfair. In that odd mix of time that was late mid­dle school and ear­ly high school, some­where in the midst of her ping­ing between Bon­nie and Zane, the con­certs and movies and things I’d nev­er seen, it seemed like Savanah had set­tled on that world­view. I guess we hadn’t touched base in a while – had just float­ed around with each oth­er late­ly.  

        But as that night wore on, I felt myself calm down. I’d text Savanah, and she’d set her phone in the win­dow to get a sliv­er of sig­nal from some north­ern float­ing satel­lite whose reach fid­get­ed through the trees, so I could get through to her, so she could get through to me. 

* 

Hey you!  

Hey!  

…. 

Gram wants me to, I guess, tear down the woods behind her house? 

Oh, what?  

I’ll show you what she meant when you come back! 

It should be this week­end. 

….. 

I’ll see you on the bus?  

You will. 

* 

        That Sat­ur­day, I scram­bled across the field and stood with Savanah in that same spot I stood with Bon­nie, near­ly breath­less.  

        “So she basi­cal­ly wants me to destroy every­thing,” I said, chuck­ling, sweep­ing my arm over the woods. “Like cut down and burn and rake every­thing green.”  

        Savanah stared out into the woods. The way she stared, in ret­ro­spect, should have rung some bell with­in me. She looked unlike her­self, and yet so famil­iar. Instead, I real­ly only thought of myself when she turned to me and said, 

        “Well, hey! That’ll be a lot of work for you.”  

        Birds chirped. A lit­tle breeze came through, and I glowed with pain. I stared at Savanah, blood pound­ing to my face; and then I looked right through her. I looked through her into the shift­ing leaves of our woods, and in all that mot­tled shade the truth came clear.  

        Savanah didn’t think she said any­thing wrong, and most peo­ple wouldn’t think she said any­thing wrong, either. It was Bonnie’s yard, after all, and mon­ey was some­thing I need­ed, and mon­ey was some­thing she had. Every­thing dis­solves beneath that rea­son­ing. Learn­ing that is a big part of grow­ing up, and just then I felt myself grow so fast I creaked and popped inside, like what might hap­pen if you press your ears to a young tree and lis­tened.  

        I sighed, then.  

        “Yeah,” I said. “It’ll be a lot of work.”  

* 

        In the months to come, new­found gaps of sky would light my way through the acre of woods. For a long time, I won­dered if Savanah was watch­ing me through the win­dow, watch­ing our trees fall to my axe, the fluffy leaves of our for­est floor be raked to dirt. Maybe she did watch, for a while. But it wasn’t long until I could say for sure that she was curled up on that couch, face awash in the blue light of her phone, while Bon­nie pol­ished the dark gran­ite. The nov­el­ty of me as a work­ing man had fad­ed. In flood­ed the expec­ta­tion. 

        Those nights, I’d kneel before a fire of dead trees. For the moment, I could only rest my head on my knee while the flames died, while the embers and the dry heat gave way to cling­ing dew and the choir of evening frogs and bugs.  

        Some­times, I’d grow tired. The walk through the tree line to my house seemed so far. So instead I knelt there awhile, breathed in the smoke, took the for­est with­in me. Through my flut­ter­ing eyes, the bath of moon­light that fell between the new­found space in the woods looked, I swore, like a lake.  

From the writer

 

:: Account ::

Any­one who loves the out­doors may under­stand the bound­less­ness of an acre of woods. Espe­cial­ly when you are a teenag­er, and it feels like every thought and feel­ing and wor­ry, so many of those that you have then, echo off the trees and sink into the leaf lit­ter as you shuf­fle through the mot­tled shade. It’s a life defin­ing feel­ing, to be beneath the canopy.  

This is the feel­ing I want­ed to cap­ture in this piece, along with the idea that, in gen­er­al, some­thing small can be some­thing huge, and it’s all a mat­ter of per­cep­tion. A tick­ing lawn­mow­er, a cold Gatorade, crab apples, bluegill in the shal­lows – these are the small­est and the biggest things in life. Like dark mat­ter, their tiny mass con­tains infi­nite ener­gy – or so some think. Because, also like dark mat­ter, the pow­er of these things are most­ly con­cep­tu­al, built upon what we can see them doing, but not so much how they are doing it. This is why these lit­tle things, and the truths that come with them, might mean lit­tle to some, and every­thing to oth­ers.  

As I grew up, I real­ized I was much more the lat­ter, but most peo­ple around me, even the ones I thought I knew the most, were the for­mer. Which is all to say: this essay is the sto­ry of a small-town kid who goes from one who plays to one who works, one who loves the neigh­bor girl and her grand­ma, whose love and care is a com­pli­cat­ed salve for the sear­ing pover­ty of his own home. The sto­ry recounts the feel­ing of a dreamy child run­ning face first into adult­hood, and the stiff winds of expec­ta­tion that blow away the whim­sy of being young. There is med­i­ta­tion on work, and small-town cul­ture, and nature, and young love, all rolling around in the head of a kid, and then a young man, who lives between the trees. 

Bran­don Hansen is from a vil­lage in north­ern Wis­con­sin. He stud­ied writ­ing along Lake Supe­ri­or, and then trekked out to the moun­tains, where he earned his MFA as a Tru­man Capote schol­ar at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mon­tana. His work has been Push­cart nom­i­nat­ed, and can be found in The Bal­ti­more Review, Quar­ter­ly West, Puer­to Del Sol, and else­where.