Acre Under a Green Sky

The Fourth of July week-end at the farm was upon us. The whole family gathered there twice a year –– Christmas and July 4th. They were due to arrive sometime Friday, so Danny and I were allowed to spend Thursday night at the farm with my grandfather. Very early Friday morning, I was sitting on the stone steps leading to the kitchen porch when my grandfather came out of the house. He stood at the top of the steps and looked up the red dog road. It was a dewy summer morning with just a hint of chill in the air. The sun shone cleanly and bright. It was a perfectly chaste morning and my grandfather took a deep breath and said, "Couldn't be better!" And then he winked at me, and went back into the kitchen where he was frying trout for breakfast.

It would be some time before I would know a moment of perfect contentment. Happy in that moment to be who I am, where I am, surrounded by the things that are mine; wanting no more in spite of having wanted so much more, blissfully loving and being loved by those there without a single longing for the fantastic ones to come. It was my grandfather who held out a road map to those moments of joy and serenity in the things he said and the way he did even the most meaningless chores –– like waiting. But back on those stone steps, I was a paroxysm of waiting; waiting to be, waiting to do, waiting to be allowed to do –– trying to be what I would become. My grandfather did waiting well. It was maddening, but he enjoyed it.

Frying trout in a kitchen was anathema to my grandfather, but this was store-bought trout so the sin would be forgiven. Trout should be fried off the hook in a small, black skillet over a small open fire by the side of a stream with a gob of butter and a lemon. The once-brilliant skillet was light-weight and charred black and dented like an old pick up, and it had never been scoured nor soaped. A quick dunk in the stream and a wipe with a glove or shirttail or whatever rag might be available was all it ever needed. And that trout was like candy melting in your mouth.

But we kids were too antsy for fishing that day, so store-bought would have to do. Midge and Rick were coming from New York City with their newborn son, Bint. Carol and Marty were coming from Baltimore with their two children, David and June. These were my father's sisters, and their husbands, and my cousins; the most exotic people I had ever known.

My grandmother, Natalie, would hold court in her apartment. At some point during the course of the week-end, an appointment would be made and nerves would be steeled and off they would go for an hour or two as if to the dentist. My mother and father would arrive at the farm with Baby Ruth late in the afternoon.

I never strayed far from the house on those days when they were expected. Those days at the farm with those wondrous people were the happiest of my life, and to miss a minute of it was unthinkable. The sun soon burned off the mist and the day was becoming hot and sullen. It was a perfect day to set fire to the Earth and watch it burn. There was not a breeze; nothing stirred. I memorized the gradation of stone piled upon stone to form the steps leading to the porch and plucked grass one at a time from between the stones that made a walkway to the steps. I watched a ladybug cross the walk and resisted an almost irresistible urge to crush it. I lay on my back and carved faces in the clouds. Mostly, I asked my grandfather what time it was, and he cursed me. Then as if by surprise, a horn blared and a car could be seen coming down the grade by the barn and making the half-circle by the flower garden and the jungle gym and continuing on in an arc until it pulled into the drive by the house. All the while, I strained to see who it was; Carol or Midge. Danny and my grandfather were speculating with me. It turned out to be Midge and Rick in their brand new station wagon as big as an oil tanker. And it seemed to me that that horn blaring up by the barn was the starting bell for a parade that would go on forever.

There were arms outstretched and joyous smiles and car doors slamming with warnings to watch fingers. My grandfather held Danny's face out to them and said, "Look! Eyebrows still like feathers." An avalanche of luggage lay at our feet, and Midge reached deep into the backseat for a blue bag that turned out to be her new son, Bint. His hair was white-blond and his skin was peaches and cream, and Midge held him out to her father as if she were making an offering to an ancient stone god. This was her crowning achievement, and my grandfather smiled his approval. I asked if I could hold him, too, and she said I could. Rick wanted a martini.

My grandfather was the first to see the second car arcing toward the drive, and the excitement that had barely subsided erupted anew with the arrival of Carol and Marty and David and June. They had brought a tent to pitch under the trees by the house, and they would sleep there and watch for flying saucers. Rick was already serving martinis in long-stemmed blue glasses. Each glass was as big as a birdbath with a fluted stem and a basin of clear robin's-egg blue glass. Holding the glass up to the light was like looking into the depths of a luxurious Caribbean sea. Rick said he was sorry there were no olives; and with that, Marty pulled a jar of olives out of thin air. The magic had begun.

My aunts and uncles were beautiful young people. Rick was tall and lean with dark hair and fair skin. He was a handsome black Irishman with dark eyes and a cosmopolitan charm that he spread with ease and a powerful dose of gin, but he was never sloppy or even careless.

Midge was short and big busted with a tiny waist and good hips. She had her mother's aristocratic bone structure and bearing, but was generally thought to be the kook in the family. Playing the fool was a convenient, but stupid pretense; more protective than anyone could have imagined, but it prevented anyone from taking her seriously, and she was often desperately serious.

Carol had the more robust, lusty look of her father; a freckled peasant with a generous smile and a hardy laugh. She gave the impression of being keenly intelligent and interested in a wide variety of people and things; and if it weren't for a charming gap between her two front teeth and the glint in her eye, she might appear stuffy at times. The truth is she had a morbid fear of disorder; of being out of control, and so she compensated with an almost maniacal efficiency coupled with a genuinely profound curiosity as if she believed herself to be alien to life and people and the stuff of life, too.

And Carol married Marty; a big, cuddly bear of a man with eyeglasses that wouldn't stay up and no pretenses at all. Marty was equally as charming as Rick; but more inclined to problem-solving than having fun. Marty was secretly and deeply observant; while all along appearing not to have a care in the world. Ultimately, he would be the one to find all the answers long before any of the others had even phrased the questions. And he was somehow responsible for the two little carrot-heads; David, age 2, and the baby, June. His hair was a lightish brown and Carol's was dark brown. Their kids had orange hair. None of us had orange hair. None of us since the beginning of time had ever had orange hair, so it had to be Marty.

That whole day was an aimless maze of encounters with one or another or all of these people. Where I went and what I did and with whom was a matter of chance. If Uncle Rick said that he needed a tube of toothpaste, and I was within earshot; I might find myself riding into town with him for a visit to Jeffries Pharmacy. We might get back to the farm, slam the car door, and turn to see Carol and the kids in their shorts and towels off to the pond for a swim. Barely dry from the swim, I might stumble onto Midge and Rick and Marty deep in conversation around the jungle gym or in front of the tent with their elegant robin's-egg blue glasses. I might leave them to join my grandfather on a walk to the Harley Farm, and half-way there, I might be diverted again by the arrival of someone new visiting Carol or Midge. We kids were like pinballs happily bouncing from post to post.

Around supper time that first day, my mother and father arrived with Baby Ruth, and the whole whirl of reunion started all over again. Once again, Bint was passed from hand to hand, and no one thought to ask why they called him 'Bint', when he had been named 'Richard' after his father. But that was Midge, wasn't it? Her own name was the product of my father's infantile mispronunciation of 'Smidgen' because she was "just a smidgen of a thing".

Old friends, who were strangers to me, came and went; and still others stayed all evening.

Marty expertly fired up the barbecue with added fuel from Rick's robin's-egg blue glass; and steaks and whole potatoes and ears of Harley Farm corn still in their golden husks and just about anything you could possibly eat was assembled outside for the big meal. My father gave me my first sip of beer, and my grandfather said they should put it back in the horse that pissed it.

I remember laughter more than anything else; and glimpses of serious talk without rancor. My parents seemed to come alive in this company. It was wonderful seeing them laugh.

After the barbecue, coffee was served and the outside lights were turned on and candles as big as torches were lit. The sky turned purple; then dark, and a blanket of lightning bugs hovered waist-high for as far as you could see. The fire in the barbecue was crumbling and dying with just a few ruby coals aglow. The moths were attacking the outside lights in a suicidal frenzy. And still those magical people went on talking and laughing; sometimes with limp, unconscious children draped over their laps or shoulders or curled up at their feet. Those blue glasses turned azure in this light, and were joined by crystal-clear brandy snifters that caught the light like bubbles blown through a hoop. My grandfather proudly caressed the muddy brandy bottle in his lap, and lovingly doled out finite portions as if it were liquid gold. After tonight, it would return to some secret vault until Christmas.

I crept like a ghost among them hungrily taking in every word I could; greedy for the talk I was missing across the way. I was patted like a dog, and sent on minor errands for books of matches and purses and diapers and baby powder; and I loved every minute. From time to time, one or another of them would focus on me and begin quizzing me in a way I found intolerable; because I really wanted to be invisible to soak them up. And so I squirmed out of a lot of conversations and a lot of arms, too; particularly the strangers' and moved on to less intrusive company.

When you're a child, there's nothing more painful than trying to keep your eyes open when sleep is trying to rob you of a good time; but invariably, your eyes close and your head falls back and warm arms catch you falling and pull you close and lay your head upon a lap and sleep drowns you in darkness. And still the talk goes on amid the clinking of glasses and the laughter and the torches' glow. And a car door slams, and you're being carried under your father's arm through your front door; and now someone is pulling your shoes off. And now you're being kissed good-night and the sweet smell of brandy on her breath intoxicates you.