Wounds

Part Two

Part One

Vincent woke up shivering in his back yard, sprawled out face down in the mud in front of the madrone he wasn’t allowed to cut down. Rain pounded down on him. Endless tiny wet orbs showed him the same scene, his own face hitting the mud and shattering. A million times. A million shards coalesced in rivulets and flowed to the tree. He put his palms down in the muck and pushed up, a million more Vincents spun around him in the dark as he turned toward the house.

“Drank too much,” he muttered.

“Are you sure?”

“Fuck off Maril.”

“Turn around.”

He did, more because the voice didn’t sound like Maril’s than because he generally obeyed her orders. Facing the madrone again. There was no one there. He stumbled inside and collapsed on the couch. The last thing he remembered before the world went black was warmth twisting around his bones.

Dry, sometime in the morning, the sun had risen after all. The rain had stopped. He was still a little damp, his bare arms itched and he touched them reflexively. Strands of something rolled under his fingertips as he did and he looked down.

“What the fuck?” Thin, pale threads, like tiny roots had dried all over his skin. He jumped up off the couch and brushed himself off, lifting his t-shirt and checking his torso. Nothing there, it was just his exposed skin. Holding his arm up to his face… He needed better light. In the bathroom he switched on the bright vanity bulbs Maril required for her makeup and looked at his forearm. A few tenacious strands still wrapped his arm, he picked one up between his thumb and forefinger and pulled slowly, his hand shaking. It slid out of his pore with an itchy grating feeling.

“Jesus fuck.” He tore it out of his flesh. Ripped the rest out and flushed them all down the toilet. He needed them somewhere else. Were they worms? They didn’t seem to be alive. He shivered. What he got for falling asleep outside in the rain. Dumbass. Get fucking parasites from the grass. Is that how that works?

Wait, how had he gotten out there? He had no memory of it. Or of drinking anything if he was being honest. He went back to the kitchen-living room space of his tiny trailer house. No empty beer cans or booze bottles. He was definitely not that tidy. Maril reminded him several times a day. What did he remember? He had gone into the forest to collect, he remembered some of the hike, but he didn’t remember actually cutting into any trees, or coming home… Or going outside and laying facedown in the mud like he was praying to that damn madrone.

He walked to the kitchen window, looking out over the dirt pit of a backyard and the madrone planted in the corner of it. The tree had been here since he moved in. Landlord said he couldn’t touch it, but he hated its twisted branches, deep red peeling bark, the berries that always gave the dog a stomachache. More than anything, he hated its burl. Right at eye level, as big as his German shepherd curled up on her bed, it was a fucking tree wart that looked like it was sneering at him. Madrone burls, hell madrone wood in general, went for good money. But the landlord was a damn hippie from Frisco, whined about the madrones declining in numbers. Even presented Vincent with a contract stating he’d agree to pay damages if he harmed the tree. So he couldn’t cut it down. But he hated it. He hated every goddamned leaf.

Fuck it. He turned from the window and went to the fridge, grabbed a beer.

“Hair o’ the dog, or some shit,” he said to Hilda, his German shepherd. She barked and wagged her tail, tongue lolling. She was a good one. He sat by her on the couch, a hand on her head and stared out the dirty front window trying to steady his nerves. Dogs were good for that. Her energy helped him think and she seemed to know it. She sat there with him, leaning on him, sharing her warmth and calm.

Why didn’t he remember anything? He had the wood… Didn’t he? He rose and went outside to the shed, Hilda’s nails tip tapping on the fake wood floor as she followed, then scratching on the concrete. Probably time for a trim, he thought absently. In the shed, he pulled up a mat and then a piece of plywood to reveal a hole he’d pickaxed through the concrete floor. Probably lose his security deposit for that. Hauling out two dirty canvass bags he felt the heft, it had been a good haul. Funny, he wasn’t even sore from hiking out of the forest with all this weight. Usually he had bruised shoulders from where the bag straps cut into him on the hours long trek, sore legs, blisters on his feet. Today he felt great. Despite the grass parasite… or whatever. He shivered.

He hefted the bags again. Felt like a few grand, maybe more if he could get ahold of that old fruit out by Skunk Cabbage Creek. Maril said not to call people that. Fruits. Wasn’t very progressive. He’d tried explaining that the guy wasn’t gay, just soft, but she’d hated that even more. Might have been why she wasn’t around. Truthfully, he couldn’t remember what he’d done this time to piss her off.

“You remember, Hildy? What dumbshit thing did I do this time?” He scratched the dog behind her ears with one hand and opened one of the bags with the other. He felt, hair. Thick, wet, hair.

“Jesus!” He shoved the bag closed and pushed it away. The dog got up from where she sat and nosed at it, whining.

“Whoo, ok. It’s ok. I just went hunting for squirrels. I don’t remember hunting for squirrels, but that’s all it is. Squirrels. That I shot out of trees, in the dark, during a storm. Right.” The bottom of the bag was stained deep crimson.

“I could just put it back in the hole. Forget about it, fix the concrete.” But he knew better. Concrete will sag after a body buried in it decays. His heart felt like it might give out. His stomach felt like lead.

“Maybe it’s just squirrels. Fuck I have to look.” He pulled the bag back over to him and lifted up a flap of canvass. The scent of redwood wafted up to him.

“What the-“ He flipped the rest of the fabric back. Three hard lumps of moss covered wood sat in the bag. “Hilda, you saw it right? Shit, you smelled it. I know you did. It was dead stuff.” He ran his hands through his hair. “Shit, I thought it was a human.” Maril, he thought it was Maril. He laughed as he exhaled. “Maybe hair of the dog wasn’t such a good idea.” He quickly pulled open the other bag. Four large burls sat in that one, a little white mushroom poked out from a crevice in the dark wood. He took the dog by the jowls.

“Ok, here’s how it sits. Your old man is loosing his fucking mind, but we stand to make a good payday from this last run. When I get this sold, you beautiful girl, we’re having steaks for dinner.”

Vincent swiped a text from Maril. Yes, he was sure he wanted to delete it. She was just whining again about how he hadn’t even wondered about her whereabouts. What if she had been “ABDUCTED FR?” He stashed the burls in their canvass bags in the compartment his grandpop had made under the bench seat of the old Jeep. Lucky spot, three generations going. Rangers never thought to look there. And yes, he told Maril when she ragged him about it, he knew he could tell them to fuck off if they didn’t have a warrant. But the point was to look like he had nothing to hide, and to do that, he had to be accommodating. What he got for falling in love with a book smart girl.

He patted the truck’s seat. Hilda leapt up inside. She helped dissuade officers, too. She was real mean looking when he wanted her to be.

“Going out to see the fruit, he wants to buy it all. Got some project I couldn’t care less about, but had to hear about anyway. Artist types are real fucking self absorbed.” Pop had dated a painter for a while when Vincent was in fifth grade. Nice lady, got herself knocked around for insisting that she should be allowed to paint even when Pop was hungry, or horny. One thing Vincent would not do, no matter how much Maril drove him crazy, was hit her. She said ignoring her texts was also abuse. Vincent saw it as protecting his sanity. He wondered if having had his mom around instead of a revolving door of Pop’s women would have made him a better boyfriend. Then, he knew what any good mom would say to that…

He started up the truck and rolled down his window. It was late afternoon and a little chilly, but he loved the fresh mountain air. He thought maybe Pop and Grandpop were wrong, maybe they shouldn’t clear the *entire* forest. It was beautiful. And he’d seen some incredible things while he was out there.

The road out to the fruit’s cabin was deep in the woods. Following the Skunk Cabbage Creek, it was washed out a lot of the time and always in bad repair. The chilly air raised gooseflesh under Vincent’s thick flannel as the truck bounced along the pothole pocked asphalt. Hilda’s tongue lolled out the window on her side as she sat, unbothered by the constant jolting. Redwoods towered over both sides of the road, leaning over in an arch like some old church. Maril had a book about those churches and the twisted, ugly statues the freaks back then put all over them. Didn’t make much sense to Vincent, he wondered how nobody had gone and chiseled them all off for money. Basically it was a building burl, same as a tree burl. A godawful growth caused by some kind of wound. He had no idea what had wounded the builders of those great stone behemoths to God, but he considered the gargoyles and grotesques the obvious outgrowth. And he bet they’d fetch a pretty penny.

As he let his mind wander in the fading afternoon light, Hilda started to growl. Vincent flipped on the headlights. He leaned over the steering wheel to look out the windshield. Looking for movement. Looking for a deer. The last thing he needed was to total the truck while he had a few grand’s worth of illegal wood hidden in it.

Time to remember.

The words came low and fast, but Vincent knew he’d heard them. He twisted the radio dial. It was definitely off.

A tree to his left moved. Vincent hit the brakes and skidded to a stop just short of the branch as it swung out over the road.

Vincent was little, he held a purple sippy cup with both hands and stood barefoot in the grass, he could feel it, cool and soft beneath his feet. His mom stood under the madrone in the corner of the yard, she was crying, holding her hands up. Her dress was green, bright against the madrone’s red bark.

“Christmas,” Vincent yelled, smiling, so she would smile. He wanted her to smile. Her tears made him want to cry, too. His little body shivered with the rising panic.

“Do you know who wounded me?” she sobbed. There was a loud pop and her green dress melted into the grass, her body dissipated like smoke into the tree. The tree bled sticky from a little hole in its trunk. Little Vincent heard someone behind him and turned-

Part Three drops next week!