Another few days passed by — I spent them by myself, alone in the house. That weekend, though, the Memory of Johnny Appleseed prayed to me from across the street and told me that the sheaths were uncurling, that I needed to get over to the deadgroves right away. When I got there I saw: some of the fathers were waking up, rubbing their eyes and stretching their arms and stepping out of their stalks. Most of them were dressed in work suits and carrying briefcases. Each ripe father dutifully placed one foot on the field and then the other. Then they all checked their watches and straightened their ties.
One father approached me. “Dad?” I said, but he walked right past me and bolted across the grove.
Then another father stepped out of its stalk. “Dad,” I said, but that one walked right by, too.
Soon, a steady stream of fathers was storming across the street. In the groves, meanwhile, more fathers were waking up. One of them stepped out into the deadsoil and smiled at me. “Name’s Jim,” he said.
“
,” I said.
We shook hands. “Very good to be here,” he said, looking around at the fields. “You’ve done a great job here. I’m really proud of you, Son.”
I hadn’t heard words like those in I don’t know how long — maybe never. “It was nothings,” I said.
“But now it’s somethings, and that’s because of you, because of what you did. Show me around?”
Jim and I walked past the rows of dead trees. I introduced him to the Memory of Johnny Appleseed, who was helping other fathers out of their stalks. “I’m Jim,” he said to the Memory of Johnny Appleseed. “And you are?”
“The Memory of Johnny Appleseed,” said the Memory of Johnny Appleseed.
“Great to meet you,” said Jim.
Just then, I saw my father’s truck pull into our driveway. He got out of the cab and watched a school of fathers pass him. I saw him look across the street. Then he began marching mechanically toward us. “What—” he said, his silver skin shining in the sun. “Who are these people?”
Jim extended his hand. “Name’s Jim,” he said.
“They’re fathers,” I said.
My Dad tried to compute this. “What are they doing here?”
“Dads are really popular right now,” I said quietly.
“But you have a Dad,” said my father. “Me.”
“I know,” I said. “I thought — if we brought them to the flea bee—”
“OK, but you should have asked me about this first,” he said, rubbing the soot of toil off his forehead. “This is a really meaningful risk.”
“The seeds were only—”
“Fathers have huge appetites,” my Dad said. I could smell the work on his breath. “What do you plan to feed them?”
Across the street, fathers were looking for tasks. Two had opened the hood of my father’s truck and one was fixing the steel banister on the front step.
Jim looked at his watch. “Gosh darnit, I’m late,” he said.
“Late for what?” said my father.
“I’ve got a meeting at the office,” he said, straightening his tie.
“Will you be coming back?” I said.
Jim winced. “Probably not,” he said.
“Not ever?” I said.
“I’ve got a lot of work to catch up on,” Jim said. “, you take care of yourself, all right, Son? You have a good life now, you hear?” Then he chucked me on the shoulder and charged toward the street.
“Jim,” I said, weakly.
“Forget that one,” said my father. There was sudden meaning in his eyes. “Go back out to the fields. Keep them in their stalks until we figure out how to store them.”
I was dizzy. “How do I keep them there?”
My father ran his hands through his tired hair. “Do whatever it takes,” he said. “Try to reason with them. Tell them a story.”
My Dad ran toward the house and I went back into the groves. By then it was almost dusk, and more difficult to see — the running fathers made shadows on the white page.
When I reached the fatherfields, though, all was quiet. The only fathers left in those fields were not yet ripe, still sleeping in their stalks. I went from stalk to stalk, looking at their sleeping faces. Some fathers were mumbling to themselves; others were wheezing and snoring.
I won’t ever forget that chorus of snores. It sounded like family.
WORRYFIELDS
PRAYER PIANO II
We left that piano out in the worryfields for anyone to play, but most people seemed to ignore it. Once I saw a Canada out there, sitting at the bench and staring at the keys, but I didn’t hear any music or changing points of view.
For a while, I didn’t think about the piano too much — it just sat there in the fields, switching points of view every now and again. That spring, though, I started spending a lot more time in those fields. By then, I think I was just craving company. I liked to watch the worriers pacing back and forth in the high grass, wringing their hands, hugging themselves or praying. I’d started praying again, too — not to my Mom, who I still hated for leaving, but directly to the Core. “How can you leave me here?” I prayed to it, my knees sinking into the page.
As usual, there was no response.
“Isn’t every single person holy? Even me?” I prayed.
A hole appeared in my palm.
“Not holey,” I prayed. “Holy! Like, sacred!”
Nothing.
Walking back from the worryfields one day, I passed by the piano and, on a whim, sat down on the stool. By that point the keys were warped and weather-stained. I pressed a note and heard the point of view of close worriers.
But mostly I was concerned about Bob. What would I tell him?
I pressed another note and the POV switched to a chorus pacing the edge of the field.
How are we supposed to live knowing that we may or may not have cancer somewhere in our body?
Another key called the point of view of the page.
Why is everyone looking at me so strangely? Do I have something on my face?
All that shifting point of view made me hungry. I stood up, walked home, and had a potato chip sandwich.
The next day, though, I went back to the piano. When I sat down at the keys this time, I tried two notes simultaneously. I heard whispers from the trees, the whining of a cloud, the gruff of a shingle.
Soon I was making chords, just like I’d seen the Possum do: three notes, and points of view, at once: my father’s point of view at the labor factory, fixing the Supply-Demander/the Memory of Johnny Appleseed, trading for seeds/a bird in the trees. I heard “… bad gasket?/trustworthy/shee-twee-bee!” simultaneously.
As I was leaning into the chord, though, my foot happened to push the foremost left pedal on the bottom of the piano. “Bee-twee-shee!” said the bird.
I stopped and looked down at the pedal. Then I pushed the right pedal. “Shee-twee-bee!” said the bird.
I played a different note and pushed the left pedal with my foot.
“Morning, Ralph,” said the Forebarrel.
“Morning,” I said. “What’s on tap for today?”
“Need you to take a look at the Demander in Building Six,” the Forebarrel said.