Treed

Grandma Kathleen had two apple trees in the back.

The one cherry plum tree in the front was for decoration, and it wasn’t to eat from or climb. I did it anyway, spitting pits into crabgrass when no one was looking. Summers were barefoot and smeared with sticky, purple palms. Gritty sand from anthills found its way into the creases of my skin.

The apples stayed sour all August long.

But those trees in the back were the best to scale. I could see Ms. Betty’s overgrown yard—prairie of dandelions, grasshoppers, and hiding places. The sun glared off the tin patio roof, making a ringing in my ears, but I stared anyway.

I could even see the enormous tractor tires a few blocks over at Alameda Elementary.

When the grown-ups found me eating an ebony plum in the cover of its petite branches and bruised-colored leaves, I insisted its flesh was good to eat. Boldly argued that it was sweet.

Grandma Kathleen was the one to smile and take a bite.

Life Sciences Biology

I am waiting.

I am in the university’s two-story library with the sun at my back, staring at the small, blank screen of my T-Mobile Sidekick. Click. Slide.

My Biology Classification Test is tomorrow. I slide the screen and keypad open and shut, waiting for the thing to buzz. Click. Slide.

The biology book pulls at my peripheral to be opened, but every time I go to grab it, my fingers feel a familiar buzz, and the tiny screen lights up. My stomach twirls.

New Message. Click. Slide. I am holding my breath.

When my friend asks me why I am smiling I exhale and shrug. I reach for my book, but there is only open air and I am grasping at nothing. When I look up I realize I am at least a foot away from my mark.

Leaning forward, I pull the book to me and open to the sticky note on page 173.

Kingdom. Phylum. Class. Click. Slide.

Order. Family. Genus. Click. Slide.

Species.

I don't know what to say.

I don’t want my dad to think I am boring. The sun sinks farther down.

I reach for him in fragments.

Each piece of him is a place that he isn’t. Family. Genus. Species.

I get a B on my biology test.

The Circus

My father was a firecracker, red-headed ringmaster.

His hair cascaded down his shoulders in waves of orange. His handlebar mustache was long enough to twirl.

He tamed tigers.

When the circus came to Idaho State’s mini dome—home of the Bengal Tigers—I dug through couch cushions, collected cans, and checked the laundromat for loose quarters.

I had exactly $2 in change for the elephant ride. I pleaded with my grandparents to take me.

I thought if he could just see me on top of the elephant, he’d have to take me with him.

When it was my turn, I rode alone. The man holding the rope gently lifted me onto a red felt saddle, and I held the horn with one hand. With the other I reached down and set my palm on her skin.

She was cool. And cracked. Like the soil when it hadn’t rained all season. When she began walking, our movements were smoother than the horizon. I never saw the ringmaster.

My First Memory

I remember Pocatello Creek Road and cold concrete on my calves

and the neighbor girl saying

I only see my dad in the summertime.

At least you have a dad

then we are clinging to each other–

I wipe my nose on her shoulder, she wipes her eyes on my sleeve.

He Insists I’m a Witch

What tugs on me at my father’s house is a couple of apple trees in the backyard.

The first time I reach to pull one off a branch, he tells me they aren't any good for eating. When I tell Grandma Kathleen about the twinned trees she says

Golden Delicious            and      Wait for the first hard frost.

I repeat this spell to my father, but he remains an unbeliever:

They have always been bad apples.

So I wait.

When the ground grows frigid, I step barefoot onto the green turf porch. My breath is a sheet of snowdust. I grab the nearest container; an old cardboard box slotted for recycling, and ascend up the farthest tree's spine. Years of climbing shake loose and awake, and I balance through branches, the ground catching what I detach.

When I am scuffed with sap and bits of bark, I pause and bite down. The apple tastes as yellow as morning;

I slide tenderly down the trunk with my box in hand, and deliver the fruit to the breakfast table.

Dad has a paring knife ready, though he shakes his head. He cuts himself a sliver and the slice sits deliberately on his tongue. His eyebrows lift high, wrinkling his forehead.

What did you do to my apple trees? I smile and tell him it’s just biology. He laughs and says I’m magic.

The Firefighter

When I meet my dad for the first (remembered) time, he is a very tall, 230 pound firefighter. His face is clean-shaven. He is smiling all the way up to his eyes.

He has lived in the same house on the same road

in the same town for my entire life.

Before I can shut the car door I am buried in his arms. Home feels like dirt roads and pow wows—sagebrush and this.

We Never Talk About It Afterwards

One night, after beer and barbecue and pistachios, the scent of campfire will still linger on our skin. My father and I will be sitting in his living room with the lamp low. Once 2am hits my eyes, I will get up to say goodnight, but I will fall into my father's lap and stay there.

He holds on.

Care Package

The mailman knocks and is gone when I open the door. A box.

It is filled with old photos, fruit-snacks, and red pencils. As I tear the tape off the cardboard to better flatten it for the recycling bin, one photo flutters out.

A baby gazes at the face behind the camera. A hand is shielding one side of my frame. I am so small.

Jeep

My father will take me up the mountainside in the jeep. He will remind me every thirty seconds to remember the shape of the landscape, the way the air smells like pine needles and stones. He will say names like "Scout Mountain" and "Pike's Peak” and “Bonneville.” He will quiz me on them later.

I will remember the red-brown rocks broken with sage, the way his voice is as smooth as clay, and the lurch

of the jeep as we make our way down

the mountain.

I will ask about our past, but there are barely any scraps.

My eyes will take in the storefronts:

a pinto posed above the general store,

the Grease Monkey with its waving, mechanical ape,

a decision to move back to Poky on the way to the grocery store.

The Entire Sky

“I saw you once," he offers,

“When you were about 3 years old.” “Where?” my curiosity awakes.

"On the college campus,” he looks over as he turns the wheel, “with your mom.” The jeep pauses in front of the stop sign.

“Did you say hi?” I ask. He shakes his head before shifting gears and accelerating. I wait, but he is quiet.

Finally, daring: “Did you do anything?” He keeps driving, lazily letting other vehicles go before us.

“I did,” he says, glancing toward my profile, “I savored you.”