20

Tomatoes

It was a little envelope, the stamp slightly askew, the flap taped shut, and inside was half an index card, and on the back, in her small precise hand:

Gary,

 

The tomatoes are ripe and awaiting harvest. Where have you been keeping yourself? Are you anticipating a visit to your old aunt and grandmother in the near future or must we be patient and wait until the snow flies and your social obligations lighten?

 

Aunt Eva

The next Sunday morning, at the Breaking of Bread, sitting in the circle in Aunt Flo’s living room, I try not to look at Aunt Eva in her Sunday outfit for fear she is looking at me. I look at Kate instead, then Sugar, then Flo. If Mother is willing to tell me Eva is “not right in the head,” I wonder how much she isn’t willing to say. Last Sunday, Eva brought a rhubarb pie for Mother, and when Mother served it after dinner I declined a slice. The thought of poison entered my head. A crazy idea, yes, but maybe that’s how a crazy person thinks. Uncle Al stands, hands clasped behind his back, head bowed, raising up and down on his toes, and prays, thanking the Lord for His Precious Word that sufficeth for all our needs, surely. Maybe it sufficeth for them. But it doth not suffice for me. I want more. I want to kiss girls, just to name one.

Sit in a car with a girl, my arm across the back of the seat, my right hand stroking her hair, and kiss her on the lips, our lips parted, my tongue in her mouth.

Go to the University of Minnesota and study writing and meet girls who are also interested in writing and kiss them.

Have my own ideas about things, especially about girls.

But the Sanctified are hard on independent thinkers. Thinking is something that is simply not supposed to happen. You’re supposed to read Paul’s epistles and conform your life to them, like you’d read a book about how to play the violin and then, by George, sit down and play the thing. Just do it. A writer in the Brethren is like a fish wanting to sing, you have to leave the lake and be eaten by a singer.

Eva corners me afterward, when Grandma is talking to Mother. She leans close and I smell that smell so beloved to me when I was little.

—You seem to be avoiding us.

I pretend not to know what she means.

—I brought you up from a pup. I know when you’re being sneaky. You can’t fool me.

I say that I have been extremely busy with my yardwork and writing for the newspaper.

—We don’t get the newspaper. I never found anything in it that was worth my time. Maybe you should send me a copy.

Eva and I stand in the doorway to Aunt Flo’s kitchen and the others drift away from us. Uncle Al leads some of them to the backyard to look at his roses and Aunt Flo pours the wine back in the jug and puts it on the shelf. The remains of the bread she drops into the wastebasket! A revelation. The Body of Christ, thrown out with the garbage—I can’t wait to bring this to the attention of the big sister.

—Well, I suppose Mother is anxious to get going, says Eva. She tells me to come and collect some tomatoes before they get mealy.

—I’ll see you soon.

—I’ll believe that when I see it, she says.

 

 

I feel bad about her, thinking how lonely it must be on the farm with only Grandma to talk to and how good to me Eva always was and how close we were in that bed with Mother gone to New York to ride the roller coaster and walk around Brooklyn at midnight. The people slept on blankets in the park and I lay curled up against my Aunt Eva.

I get out clean paper after dinner and write a poem to her, which I type up cleanly on the Underwood, double-spaced, on my best white vellum.

On August days when I was young
My aunt and I in bright sunshine
Took the pail from where it hung
And walked among the leafy vines.
And reaching down, she quickly drew
One red tomato from its nest,
The finest one that ever grew,
And wiping it across her breast
She gave it to me to enjoy—
And O the juices hot and sweet—
And on that day the happy boy
Tastes where earth and heaven meet.
Of food or love, if ever I should be in want—
I’ll think of that bright day and you, dear aunt.

I sent it to her on Rural Route 1, Lake Wobegon, and a few days later received a note saying, “Thank you very much and I hope we get to see you in person before the summer is too far gone.”