Eddie
A Short Story
Thank you for reading The Questing Beast. It occurred to me that people might sometimes have questions about what they encounter here. Why is it a story this time? Why not an essay? And where are some of these pieces coming from? Maybe you don’t care.
In case you do, I can say that fiction and nonfiction for me come from the same place. Sometimes an image or idea comes from my life as a blind writer and teacher. Sometimes it comes from my life as a father. Sometimes it just comes from the soup where most of my feelings and imaginings end up. This story came from a tree.
Eddie arrived in his life on an evening in late May. Ned opened his eyes from his sherry nap to see a young man sitting in the armchair watching the television. Ned was stretched full on the couch. He blinked his eyes and swallowed repeatedly, noting the angle of the sunlight slanting through the west window.
Who the hell was this kid? And why was he sitting in his living room?
Jesus fucking christ!
The kid was wearing a Star Wars t-shirt, what looked like wind-pants, and thick, rumbled socks. A baseball cap was pushed back on his head. He was staring intently at the television through thick glasses.
Ned looked at the TV. It was an episode of Star Trek. Kirk and Spock were in an intense exchange about something or other.
Ned looked back at the kid. “Who the hell are you?”
The kid didn’t even look at Ned. Pushing himself up from the couch, Ned shuffled blearily across the living room, passing directly across the kid’s line of sight.
He came to the long shelf where he kept a mess of cigarettes, books, and assorted bills and other papers. He grabbed his phone, then opened the cupboard above the shelf and took out a bottle of sherry. He looked around for a glass. He walked into the kitchen and took a glass from the dishwasher.
Not clean, but not too bad.
He filled the glass and walked back into the living room, sipping slowly and feeling himself beginning to come back together. He sat down on the couch and looked again at the kid. He was still watching the television. He was mesmerized. Ned thought it best to wait for a commercial.
Now that he had a chance to take a closer look, Ned thought he recognized the kid. He was heavy-set, maybe eighteen or twenty. Ned had seen him riding his bike around the neighbourhood, sometimes talking to people as they worked in their yards.
Finally, a commercial break.
The kid finally looked at Ned. “I like Original Star Trek better than Next Generation. Next Generation is good, but it doesn’t have Mr. Spock. Mr. Spock is my favourite. But I like Data, too, not as much as Mr. Spock, though.”
“Well,” said Ned, carefully. “I like The Original Series, too. Kirk can be kind of an ass, but I think he gets a bad rap, for the most part.”
“I like Captain Kirk. I like him because he’s the captain. He’s Mr. Spock’s friend. Mr. Spock is a Vulcan, so he doesn’t really understand friendship. Vulcans don’t have emotions like people.”
“True,” said Ned, sipping.
The show came back on. They watched in silence while Kirk and Spock argued about chasing some space creature. Ned thought he remembered the episode. Kirk was obsessed with catching some non-corporeal creature that was killing the crew—or something like that.
Abruptly, the kid stood up. “I have to go,” he said. “My mom doesn’t like me to be out too late.”
Ned glanced at his phone. It was 7:30. The kid tromped off to the door. Ned followed.
“What’s your name,” asked Ned, as the kid pulled on battered running shoes.
“Oh, it’s Eddie. My name is Eddie. I live with my mom. My dad doesn’t live with us. He left a long time ago. My mom’s still sad sometimes.”
“Well, thanks for dropping by.”
“You’re welcome.” Eddie straightened, one hand on the door-knob. His face became serious. “You have to cut your grass, Mr. Sterling.”
Ned stared.
“I noticed your grass is long. You shouldn’t let it get too long. I came to tell you. You don’t want to cut it too short, but too long is bad, too.”
“All right, thank you” said Ned. And Eddie walked out, picking up his bike where it lay on the front sidewalk. He wheeled it down the front walk, then swung a leg over and pedaled away down the street.
And that’s how Ned met Eddie.
· * * *
Eddie showed up two days later while Ned was bagging cut grass in his front yard. It was evening again. The sky was a high, washed blue, and robins sang up and down the street.
“Hi, Mr. Sterling,” called Eddie, smiling, sitting astride his bike at the edge of the road.
“Eddie. How are you?” Ned straightened, his knees cracking as he stood. His breath came hard.
When the fuck was the last time he’d got some proper exercise?
“I see you cut your grass,” said Eddie, nodding. “That’s good. You don’t want your grass to get too long.”
“Indeed,” said Ned, feeling half amused, half irritated.
Who was this kid? The goddamned neighbourhood ranger?
But even as Ned looked at Eddie’s smiling approval, he felt his irritation give way and he grinned back, feeling oddly pleased with himself.
“I can help, you know,” said Eddie. “I can help with stuff like this—like cutting grass, and stuff.”
“Well,” said Ned. “Why don’t you help me carry these bags out back?” He indicated the bags near the sidewalk.
Eddie brought his bike up the walk and leaned it against one of the pines. With a surprising lack of self-conscious effort, Eddie swung up two bags of grass and started around the side of the house. Abandoning the mower, Ned heaved up the third bag and followed. He caught up to Eddie at the garbage bin, puffing and blowing as he swung the bag of grass to sit with the others.
Eddie was staring at the bags of grass and other yard refuse Ned had placed by the bins.
“What’s wrong?” asked Ned, trying to catch his breath.
“You need to buy orange bags,” said Eddie. “Orange bags are for grass and stuff, blue bags are for recycling, and black bags are for just garbage.”
Ned looked at the boy. “Tell you what. I’ll go inside and see if I can find orange bags. But that means we’ll have to transfer the grass from the black to the orange bags.”
Eddie looked at him seriously. “Orange bags are for grass,” he said softly.
“Orange it is.”
Ned went in through the back door and down the stairs. He hunted on the shelf beneath the stairs for orange bags.
What a fucking disaster. There was junk everywhere.
Then, miracle of miracles, he found three orange bags and headed back outside. Again, Ned had the absurd feeling of being pleased with himself.
Eddie did the work. He transferred the grass from the black to the orange bags, while Ned swept up the spilled grass.
Once the lawnmower, rake, and broom were put away in the garage, Ned found a can of Coke for Eddie and a beer for himself. They sat together on the back step. Ned sipped his beer while Eddie talked. He talked about Star Trek. He talked about other shows he liked to watch. He talked about his two older sisters, about his dad who left, about his mom who managed a coffee shop.
“So, my mom’s pretty busy. She works shift-work. Sometimes she doesn’t get home until 11:00. That’s the P.M., not the morning.
“Her job is important. People need their coffee. I don’t drink coffee. I don’t like it. But I do like the muffins and the cookies from the coffee shop. Sometimes my mom takes me to work, and I help. It makes me happy to help people.
“My sister lets me help, too, but she won’t let me babysit. She says my nieces are too little. They’re four and six. Their names are Ashley and Jaqueline. Ashley is older. They make me be the monster in their games. But I’m not a scary monster—that wouldn’t be good. I’m a nice monster.”
Ned sipped his beer and let Eddie talk. He wondered if the kid had an off switch. And as the twilight deepened and a faint coolness came into the air, Ned learned a great deal about Eddie, his likes, his dislikes, his family, and how to care for the yard.
· * * *
It went like that for the rest of May and June—Eddie coming over on Tuesdays and Fridays, late in the afternoon or early in the evening.
“My mom says I shouldn’t come over too often,” Eddie announced, solemnly, one day, as they worked together, pulling weeds in the backyard.
“She says if I come over too often I’ll start bothering you. And I don’t want to bother you. My mom says I should be a help and not a pest.”
“You’re not a pest, Eddie.” Ned pulled a weed with a snap. “And I appreciate your help and your company.”
“Thank you, Mr. Sterling. I’m glad you let me help.”
“You should let me pay you,” said Ned. He clutched a knee as he tried to straighten.
“I don’t need money. I have a job at the grocery. I work on weekends. They send money to my bank account. My mom says I should save my money, but I just want to give it to her to help with things around the house. Houses are expensive. They cost money all the time. My mom had to call the plumber to fix the bathroom sink and he charged her two-hundred and forty dollars. That’s a lot of money, but the sink was broken.”
“Don’t you like to buy things for yourself?”
“No, I don’t need things. My mom takes me shopping for clothes in the spring and the fall, and she buys me things for my birthday and for Christmas. I always take good care of the things she buys for me, but mostly I just like the movies. I like movies, and I like TV shows. We used to have a video player but now we have a DVD player. I got Star Trek the Original Series on DVD. And I have seasons one, two, and three of Star trek Next Generation. But if my mom tells me I’m watching too much television then I stop, but I don’t stop for that long.”
“How about a Coke?” asked Ned, cutting into Eddie’s stream.
This was their ritual. Ned would go to the fridge in the basement and come back with a Coke and a beer. They would sit on the back step, sipping in turn, while Eddie talked.
And talked.
Eddie also asked endless questions. He wanted to know about Ned’s life, why he didn’t talk to his daughters anymore, why he got divorced, what Ned taught in his classes.
Ned answered in short, gruff sentences.
“You should call your daughters, Mr. Sterling,” Eddie said, one afternoon, as they sat on the step.
“It’s not that simple,” said Ned, staring hard at the neat stack of wood on the trellis by the garage door.
“Sure it is,” said Eddie. He paused to belch. “You just need to call them. I saw your smartphone. My mom has a smart phone. You can even ask it to call your daughters for you. I would be sad if my mom never called me. But we live together, so she doesn’t have to call me. She just talks to me. You should call your daughters, Mr. Sterling.”
· * * *
At the beginning of July, Ned decided to try and clean the basement. The temperature had been climbing for days, and now it was in the thirties. Cleaning the basement would give him the chance to avoid work and stay out of the heat.
He started in the laundry room. The shelves by the foot of the stairs were full of junk. He began pulling stuff out and chucking it into boxes—three of them standing there, one for the Eco Centre, one for recycling, and one for trash. The trash box filled up first. He lugged it upstairs, then fetched another.
By the time Ned had reached the shelves beneath the stairs, he was beginning to lose steam. Six boxes now stood outside on the deck. But here, beneath the stairs were all those things left behind by his daughters.
Jesus christ. There was even a box left here by his ex-wife. He opened it roughly. The smell of stale cardboard hit his face—but something else, a scent that reminded him of his ex-wife—her dark brown hair, thick and wavy, cut short after the girls were born, framing a strong-featured face that was too often tired.
Ned slammed down the box. He peered in at the shelf. Yanking out a Rubbermaid box, he opened it. Clothes—tiny clothes, as though for dolls. An old sock puppet in the shape of a monkey.
Ned slammed down the lid. He straightened. Leaving the mess, he went upstairs and straight to the cupboard in the erstwhile dining room. He pulled out the bottle of sherry and poured a full glass. He drained half, then refilled it.
Fuck, he thought. Why in the name of everything holy and unholy did he keep that junk?
He felt the sweat cooling on his back and scalp—he had kept a fan oscillating for the last four days. The windows were open, but the air was close. Ned wandered to the front window and looked out. The sky seemed covered in a thin haze. The air was heavy and sticky.
“Fuck,” he said, out loud, just to hear his voice, and staring out the front window at the birch shadowing the front yard.
He shouldn’t have started drinking before noon—he knew that later. If he had just stuck with sherry, he would have just slept it off—but he didn’t. He switched to scotch by 2:00.
Eddie showed up about halfway through the bottle of scotch. Ned was sitting on the deck, trying to light a cigarette.
Ned looked up, and there was Eddie, standing by the stairs and staring.
“Eddie,” said Ned, still fumbling with the lighter. “Si’down.”
Eddie continued to stare.
“Can you b’lieve this goddamn heat ... can’t b’lieve it myself . . . C’mon. Sit, man.”
Eddie did not sit.
“You shouldn’t drink so much, Mr. Sterling.”
“Jesus christ! Who the hell are you ... my goddamn conscience? If you’re going to sit, just fucking sit, or get the hell out of here.”
Ned managed to light the cigarette, but by that time, Eddie was gone.
· * * *
It was the thunder that woke Ned—a crashing crack of thunder that vibrated the house and brought Ned back to himself.
He was lying, curled up on the floor in front of the couch. For a moment, he didn’t know where he was—then the thunder came again, a rolling crash of sound that made Ned jump. He sat up, feeling the throb in his head and the dryness in his mouth. He pushed himself up from the floor and went to the shelf. The bottle of scotch lay there on its side, but the sherry bottle was still half full. Ned poured a measure, and as he drank, the rain fell.
Fell, didn’t quite describe it. The rain hammered down like gunshot onto the roof. Ned walked to the back door and opened it. The rain was like a wall of water. Not really knowing why, Ned walked straight out into it—that wall of water.
He was immediately soaked, and the cool rain soothed his burning skin. He looked up at the dark sky, and a flash lit the world from edge to edge, momentarily blinding him. Then the thunder, following within less than a second.
Ned stood while heaven fell. He still held the glass in his right hand. He took a drink, the sherry now mostly rain water. Ned drank it anyway, suddenly wanting to laugh. He stood while the rain ran down his face and neck, his shirt and shorts stuck to his body.
He didn’t know how long he stood there, the lightning coming every few minutes. It was close—right overhead, the simultaneity of light and sound rupturing the world with a bang that sounded like artillery.
Finally, Ned went back into the house. Water poured from him as he walked through the kitchen and down the hall to the bathroom. He stripped off the shirt and cut-offs and threw them into the tub. He found a towel to wrap up with, then another to mop the floor.
He was at the head of the stairs when he heard the sound—water, bloody running water, not outside but inside.
That was bad.
He ran down the stairs and slipped into a half inch of water.
He sat there, gasping at the pain in his back and legs, clutching his now sopping towel. The basement floor was running with water. He wanted to laugh, or maybe yell, but he knew he had to get busy. He got back to his feet and headed upstairs. He found a pair of shorts at the back door he kept there for gardening. He pushed his feet into an old pair of runners, then grabbed the corn broom.
He went back downstairs, flicking on a light. And there was the mess he had left earlier in the day. Cursing God, Heaven, and everything else on earth, Ned began wrestling boxes and bins onto the landing. He piled them, one on top of the other, then began sweeping the water towards the drain.
He could still hear the rain falling outside.
He swept for more than an hour, until, finally, the floor was damp but free of water. He found towels and spread them out to catch the last of the water. Then he went upstairs. It was nearly 4:00 in the morning.
***
Ned woke on the couch at 10:00. He felt like death warmed over. He made coffee, then showered.
Dressed in clean, dry clothes, Ned took his coffee and wandered into the living room. He found himself staring out the front window, and for a moment, he wasn’t sure what he was seeing.
Then it came into focus. The birch, the tree that had shadowed his front yard for more than twenty years; where his daughters played in spring and fall, where he raked leaves into piles so they could jump and burrow; where he watched Ellie carrying the last of her things to a waiting car—the tree was no longer standing. The trunk was sheared through, maybe ten feet from the ground. His patchy but well-kept lawn that had once run down to the front street was now a mass of leaves and broken branches, extending right onto the street.
“Holy shit,” said Ned. And then again. “Holy shit.”
Ned searched the bathroom cupboard for aspirin, then sat down at the table. He made a list—his hand only slightly shaky. Ned got everything he needed at the hardware store, and within two hours he was at work on the tree. He sawed branches and filled boxes. He panted and sweated. Eddie came by mid afternoon. Ned looked up to see Eddie sitting on his bike at the edge of the curb.
“That tree fell,” he said.
Ned paused in his cutting. He stretched his back, feeling a little uneasy as he looked at the kid.
“Indeed,” he said. “I think it was struck by lightning. I looked out the window this morning, and there it was. All over the yard.”
A pause.
“I would like to help, Mr. Sterling,” said Eddie. He had on his serious face.
“But I can’t stay if you drink too much. I don’t like it.”
Ned stood. He felt like such hell. “All right, Eddie. I’m sorry. I won’t drink too much.”
And that was that.
Eddie dumped his bike at the edge of the mess of leaves and branches and got to work. It was easier working beside Eddie. The kid talked and talked, and Ned let him. They cut branches, filled boxes, and swept. It took them three days, but finally it was done. Ned asked a neighbour whom he knew owned a chainsaw to cut down the remaining trunk of the once great tree. Then he called a guy to grind out the stump.
After that, he and Eddie talked about trees. They drove to three greenhouses, looking, assessing, criticizing every tree in sight. Finally, they agreed on a tree. It was called a Maple Blaze, a young, straight tree, whose leaves would turn red in the fall.
***
Ned and Eddie stood on the step and watched the truck backing onto the lawn. The tree, their Maple Blaze, was lowered carefully into the ground, exactly in the spot where the old birch had stood. Ned and Eddie got to work filling in the rest of the hole and mounding the earth around the trunk. When they were done, Ned took two bags of bark chips and covered the mound. They stood back to admire the tree.
“It’s beautiful,” said Eddie, softly, staring up at the tree.
“It is,” said Ned. “Thanks for your help, bud.”
Ned raised a can of Coke to Eddie. Solemnly, Eddie tapped his own can to Ned’s. They drank.
“A good tree,” said Ned, looking at the straight, slender trunk, and the shadow of the leaves moving on the grass.
