Дэрил Грегори: Nine Last Days on Planet Earth

The place was wrong for his father, too. Three years after Mom had left, the house was purposeless without her in it, like a desanctified church. His father’s handiwork—the tongue and groove hardwood floors, the hand-turned legs on the kitchen table, the graceful stair rail that curled at the end like the tail of a treble clef—seemed as frivolous as gingerbread. Why stay here? They never used the dining room, or the guest room with its fancy bathroom. No one would ever thread a needle in the sewing room. LT and his father ate their meals in the living room, in front of the fire, wordless as Neanderthals.

LT was grateful when the TV said that a new invasive species had erupted in Tennessee. Dad was in his armchair as usual, eyes on the snowy screen of the portable, which he’d set on a chair close to the fireplace, as if daring it to melt.

“Would you look at that,” Dad said.

LT did not look. He was sprawled on the couch, pretending to reread a book he hoped would annoy his father: Sexual Selection in the Animal World. There was an entire chapter on the bowerbirds of Papua New Guinea, whose males assembled and decorated elaborate bowers in hopes a female would prefer their art over the competitors’.

The third bachelor in the room was Mo. He was a sturdy three feet tall by then, and occupied the corner by the dark window. He was attracted to the fire. At night his limbs eased toward it, wanting the light if not the heat.

Mom couldn’t keep the fern. She’d moved in with a new, temperamental boyfriend, a restaurant owner who named a pasta dish after her the first week they dated, but flew into fits when he felt disrespected. Both Mo and LT had been causes of “friction” that summer, so LT begged to take the fern back to Tennessee in the fall. Mo had traveled in the back seat of his mom’s car like a passenger, bulbous head bent against the roof, a seat belt around his pot. LT hadn’t asked his father’s permission, and was surprised when he let it into his house without a fight. Dad was more upset by his son’s shaggy hair and the turquoise necklace around his neck. The day before school started, Dad drove him to the barber and ordered a buzzcut to match Dad’s own. LT kept the necklace under his shirt.

“It’s getting worse and worse,” his dad said. “Lord almighty.”

Now LT did look at the TV. Lord almighty was as close to swearing as his father got.

The sky over Chattanooga was crowded with spiky black shapes. A reporter asked a question, and a man held out a bloody arm.

“So much for dominion over the earth,” LT said. At the midweek prayer meeting—they went to services three times a week, twice on Sunday and once on Wednesday night—the pastor had launched into well-worn passages of God giving dominion of the earth to Adam. It came up whenever the invasives or women’s rights were in the news.

“Don’t be smart,” Dad said.

“Face it, we’re losing. ” Every day the TV showed men in masks hacking down flowers as big as satellite dishes, or Argentinians fretting over alien moss that clung to the hooves of cattle like boots, or Kansas farmers dulling their chainsaws on traveling vines as tough as mahogany. In a lot of places the invasives were just a nuisance, but in some countries, especially the ones closest to the equator, the alien plants were causing real trouble. “They’re trying a million different strategies. All they need are a couple winners to drive us out.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Out-survive us. They’ve got time on their side. We go at animal speed, but plants move at their own speed. Wheels within wheels.” An Elijah reference, just to poke him. “It’s evolution, Dad.”

Another provocation. His father believed in the Bible. There was no time for natural selection in the six days of creation, and no need for it. Dad’s God didn’t improvise. He was a measure-twice-cut-once creator.

“They’re better at surviving?” his father said. “These plants? ”

LT shook his head as if disappointed in his father’s stupidity.

Dad slowly rose from his chair. LT realized he’d miscalculated. “Let’s see, then,” Dad said calmly. He gripped the sides of the ceramic pot, lifted it. It had to weigh almost two hundred pounds. Mo’s limbs curled inward.

LT yelled, “No! Stop it!”

His father turned the pot on its side. Dirt spilled onto the floorboards. He stepped toward the fire and pushed the top of the plant into the mouth of the fireplace.

LT threw himself into his father’s ribs. Stupid, useless. Dad was as squat and thick as an engine block. He turned, swinging Mo’s head out of the fireplace. It wasn’t on fire, but a haze of sizzling mist seemed to shroud the bulb.

LT burst into tears.

His father set the pot on the floor, anger gone now. “Aw, come on.”

LT ran upstairs, threw himself on the bed, awash with embarrassment and anger. He was thirteen! He should be tougher than this. Crying over a damn plant. He wanted it all to end. How much longer did he have to wait for the aliens to come and scrape this planet clean?

The Chattanooga cloud was supposed to reach them that next afternoon. Vernon Beck, Dad’s oldest friend, drove over from Maryville to see it. Jumped out of his pickup and shook LT’s hand. “Goodness sakes, boy, you’re two feet taller! Hale, come say hello to LT and Mr. Meyers.”

A boy eased out of the passenger side of the pickup, long and lean, hair down to his shoulders. LT hadn’t seen Hale Beck since LT’s mother left. Their families used to go places together, and even though Hale was two years older than LT they got along like brothers. He remembered a long day riding water slides with Hale at a Pigeon Forge park. A hike in the Smokies during which Hale smashed a rock into a snake, the bravest thing LT had ever seen.

Hale shook hands with LT’s father, nodded at LT. Hale had gotten the growth spurt LT was still waiting on.

A strong wind was blowing but the cloud hadn’t shown up yet. The men went into the woodshop, and LT stood there awkwardly with Hale, unsure how to talk to him.

Hale took out a tin of Skoal from his back pocket, tucked a pinch of tobacco into his lip. He held out the tin, and LT shook his head. Hale leaned back on the hood of the truck. Spit black juice onto the gravel.

LT said, “We’ve got a fern man.”

“A what?”

“One of the invasives. Right in the house.” Dad said never to talk about the fern. But this was the Becks.

Hale said, “The one that moves?” He wanted to see that.

Dad had returned Mo to his usual spot. There was no visible damage from the flames. Hale said, “Looks like a regular plant.”

“Watch this,” LT said. He stood between Mo and the window and raised his arms. The fern man slowly shifted to the right, back into the light. LT moved in front of him again and Mo moved opposite. “It’s called heliotropism. Like sunflowers? But way faster.”

“Can I do it?” Hale asked.

“Sure. Just don’t tire him out.”

Hale took LT’s position. They danced in slow motion at first, and then Hale sped up. Mo jerked and flopped in rhythm. Hale laughed. “He’s just like one of those windsock guys at the dealership!”

LT was thrilled that Hale was impressed, but nervous about hurting Mo. “Hey, you want to see where the space seed landed?”

He managed to entice Hale to the cattle field. The wind had picked up, turned cold, but the sun was bright and hot. Hale’s hair blew across his face, and he kept pushing it back.

They walked around at the far end of the field. LT couldn’t find the furrow the seed had made when it hit four years ago. The tall dry grass rattled with every gust.