Jim Lewis - Why the Tree Loves the Axe

For Jack and Juliet, and Grace And their parents

Cover

Title Page JIM LEWIS Why the Tree Loves the Axe

Dedication Dedication Dedication Sugartown New York Upstate About the Author Praise Copyright About the Publisher For Jack and Juliet, and Grace And their parents

Sugartown

New York

Upstate

About the Author

Praise

Copyright

About the Publisher

Why don’t you just begin?

I WAS TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS OLD AND I HAD LOST MY WAY. I FOUND myself driving on an unlit highway through the middle of a black summer night: it wasn’t where I’d intended to be. Somewhere an hour or so back I’d missed a turnoff that I should have taken, or taken one that I should have missed, and I was hurrying through the Texas hills toward the next town, where I would stop and check my map. Ahead of me there was a great big truck, barreling through the darkness like a factory on a thousand wheels, burning its fuel and spoiling the stars. For ten miles or more I’d been following behind the thing, growing more and more impatient, until at last I decided to pass it. I remember looking down at the green glowing speedometer, and I remember the numbers, but I never did see how fast I was going: I pulled into the next lane, the road turned slightly and dropped suddenly, my car complained, the truck bellowed and vanished, and a sign that said

SUGARTOWN NEXT 3 EXITS

appeared out of the mist. There were high beams in my face, the asphalt was lit up with spotlights, road, shoulder, railing, sky … It was very quiet, and for a moment I thought that I’d driven onto the set of a film … Then the car left the ground and I was piloting breathlessly in the blackness, with the bright asteroids pricking my feet and the wheel turning freely in my hands. I knew right away that nothing I did would do anything. Nothing at all … I heard a voice on the radio, it wasn’t a man’s or a woman’s, it just spoke: Well, well, well, it said, and as soon as it was done we all went up and over …

A couple of books that had been in the backseat began flapping violently around my ears, or else a pair of angry birds had gotten in through the window and were trying to get out again; for a second I saw my face turning in the glass, wearing an expression that suggested I found it all a little frustrating, this commotion and this sudden buoyancy. So I didn’t want to fly; I wasn’t really driving, either. I was along for the ride. The voice on the radio said, You are going to go to heaven now. But instead of rising, the car was falling, and the difference was disturbing.

There were people standing over me, wearing costumes and waxy, blank-eyed tragedy masks; their mouths were round and red with lipstick, and they moved very slowly, swaying one way and then the other in the observance of some formality that was lost on me. A chorus: they shook their heads sternly from side to side, and I just lay there, caressing the ground with my hands. Young lady, look what you’ve done. This is very bad; the car won’t work at all, now. There were thousands of glimmering stars, like bits of safety glass scattered in the grass, which were like stars. I said to myself, Caroline, Caroline. Oh, you really fucked up this time.

For a long time I sat cross-legged by the side of the road, listening with my skin. A trickle of cold blood was making its way down my calf, but it didn’t seem to be bothering me very much; I was getting very comfortable, and really, I didn’t mind sitting there. I watched a line of red and white lights along the road, flashing like a clock ticking that tells no time, and I took two or three deep breaths. An airplane went by overhead, so far above the earth that it was silent and invisible. A woman came over to me; she was wearing an iridescent pearl grey shirt, then a pale blue shirt. Is there anyone else? she asked.

I thought she was testing me, to see how selfish I’d become. I wanted her to like me, but where was I supposed to begin? There were people all over the place. Well, for example, there’s the mailman, I replied.

She turned her head. Help! she said to someone else, and then she turned to me again. Was he driving?

No, no, no. I was driving.

Is he still in the car?

In the car? The idea that he was in the car seemed to be upsetting her, and I thought I could ease her mind. No, no, no, I said. He delivers mail. Where is the car?

There was a man standing by the side of a police cruiser with its lights on and its doors open. He walked over and addressed the woman: Hello, Fay, he said in a lighthearted voice. How’s she doing? I wondered why he didn’t just ask me; instead, he bent down so he could look in my eyes, then reached into his jacket pocket and removed a piece of cloth, which he used to wipe my forehead. By the time he was done the lights in the road had softened into blurry astral splinters. I thought he’d purposely tried to blind me so I wouldn’t know where I was. It didn’t seem very fair to me and I started to stand up and protest, but he put his hand on my shoulder and gently guided me down again. You just stay there, sitting on the ground, he said. Is there anyone we can call?

I said, No. I was in the hospital, and I saw a pair of twins staring at me, one boy and one girl, children. It’s not your fault, I said. I don’t know what I said. The nurse looked down at me in a curious, concerned way, her head bent slightly, her brow compressed. Over her shoulder I could see a long parade of infirm women shuffling up the hallway; then she shot me with something, in the same place on my upper arm where a boy I had known a long time previously used to punch me when he wanted to get my attention. A red-haired boy. What was his name? Brown-haired.—She told me I was going to be all right, and within a second or two, sure enough, I began to feel all right. That was strange. I was going to thank her, but before I could find the words a woman doctor came to me and started strumming on some sewing thread that was strung through the skin of my face, smiling nicely all the while. It was very fine cloth, I thought, but the doll was stuffed with sand, and the sand sifted, shifted, and the figure went to sleep.

When I woke I was lying in a blue hospital room, with my battered black suitcase on the floor beside my bed, and a pale pink nurse standing over me. A curtain had been pulled around us both; through it drifted light from beyond, a picture window, a television, but there was no sound. I looked up at the nurse’s face; she wore an expression of perfect candor and forgiveness, as if she knew exactly what I was feeling. So I thought I could trust her, and I asked her, Did I die?

She frowned. Die? she said softly, her voice full of wonder. Not at all. She bent down, attached a blood pressure cuff around my upper arm, and began to inflate it.

Oh. That’s nice, I said. My tongue was stubborn and slow.

Well, you’re very lucky, she said as she slowly let the air out again, read the dial, and wrote down the results. From what I heard, that was a terrible accident you had. And here you are, pretty much all right. She tucked in a loose corner of my sheets … Not without a scratch, mind you, she went on. Because you cut your forehead, and you bruised your knee, and you broke your nose just a little. But I don’t know, that’s almost nothing for what you went through. She spoke to me as if she’d known me since I was a little girl, and wanted me to understand that my wounds were just a few more of life’s rough spots. For a while at least, she was my favorite person, and I was going to ask her to stay with me, but I was afraid she’d say no. She gave me pills for the pain and some magazines to read, and just before she left she smiled down on me and stroked my forehead. But the doctor who came to see me an hour or so later was less tender: he looked me over quickly and then told me that I was going to have to stay in the hospital for another day or two, just in case something else went wrong.