In the heat and bright noon sun, the trunks seemed farther apart, the orchard expanded, just like metal.
He moaned and growled for a while and walked aimlessly through the dirt. When his feet got too hot, he stepped in mud and then roved on. Weeds and stickers, every single plant unfriendly. Most of them looked dead, but they were still standing upright, thin brown and yellow stalks of crap bush and shitty weed and fuck grass. Years of dead and dried leaves decayed, a layer of skins. And where the dirt still showed, even the brown had been bleached out of it. Dirt become more white than brown. This desolate place. Great for the grasshoppers and bees and butterflies, the grasshoppers the worst, the sound of their landings all around him. He went after a few, stomped on them as they landed, smashed them in his hands, crunchy brown bodies, oversize heads with big black eyes watching him, legs too thin to be made of anything. What he wanted was for all of them to die and just take the weeds with them, clear out the orchard, and then he wanted some rain. He wanted the dirt to be brown again, and he wanted the sun to stop.
One parent, he said. I get one parent in life, and this is it. This is what I get. He walked to the far fence, a high fence the new subdivision had put up, twice as tall as he was, made of cinder blocks painted an orange-brown to blend in. The houses the same color, the top part of their second stories protruding. The racket of their air conditioners running all day and night. Another kind of prison, living in that subdivision, but nothing like the prison he had coming.
He couldn’t even think of it. He couldn’t see himself in a prison. That was not something his brain was willing to do. That was not a picture that could make any sense. It was like standing on the moon in a T-shirt and shorts, or lounging in a chair on Mars, having tea.
Galen felt dizzy from the heat, so light-headed, he walked over and sat against a trunk. The shade a kind of punishment. A reminder of shade without being the real thing, the walnut leaves not dense enough in this sun. They had grown more thickly before, when the trees were pruned and taken care of. They had dead branches now, and produced less walnuts, and were ragged looking.
Lemonade, he said. I need some lemonade. So he got up and walked all the way across the orchard, another moon mission, and said nothing to his mother as he passed the shed. He crossed the lawn and into the house and made a big pitcher, a glass pitcher with a glass stirrer, a long clear shaft with a clear bulb on the end. It made a nice sound as he stirred, and he added lots of ice so that would clink around. He was making lemonade from a mix, and he didn’t add fresh lemons as his mother usually did, but it tasted fine.
He brought the lemonade on a tray with two glasses to the table under the fig tree.
Galen? his mother asked.
Yep.
You let me out of here right now.
Sorry, he said. I’m busy. He pulled a chair closer to the shed wall, moved the table over. The shade here from the fig tree was perfect. Huge leaves, an old enormous tree, and none of it was dying. It was in the peak of health. He poured himself a glass, then he asked her, would you like a glass too?
What?
I just poured myself a glass of lemonade. Would you like a glass too?
Yes.
Okay then. He poured her a glass. There you go, he said.
That’s cruel.
It is what it is. You’re the one hiding in the shed. Safe in your special place. If you want the lemonade, then come out and get it.
He had a drink of the lemonade. Ah, he said. That’s good. I was really thirsty. It’s a scorcher today.
He could hear the shed door rattled and slammed, but muffled since it was far away on the other side.
Galen! his mother screamed.
That’s abuse, he said. Try to rein in that anger. Come and just sit and have a glass of lemonade and we’ll talk. We’re both reasonable here.
I’m going to tell them you tried to kill me. I’m going to tell them you locked me in here.
You locked yourself in.
Your fingerprints will be on that lock.
Yeah, he said, and tilted the glass. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on the lemonade, cold and sweet and bitter, also. He didn’t know how they had arrived at this moment, him sitting under the fig tree alone, his mother locked in the shed, sending him to prison. None of it was possible. I don’t understand how we got here, he said.
You raped your cousin. That’s pretty simple.
If you keep saying that, how can I let you out?
You let me out right now.
You know what I imagine when I imagine prison?
Walk around the shed right now and unlock this door.
What I imagine is standing on the moon in a T-shirt and shorts. That’s what I just imagined, when I was out there in the orchard.
If you don’t unlock this, you’ll get more than prison. You’ll get the death sentence.
It’s the moon, but the air is fine, and the temperature is fine. It’s really quiet, and there’s no wind. There’s only rock and dark sand stretching as far as I can see, and I know that this is it. This is all I get. I’ll never see another person. I’ll never see another color except the color of this rock and sand.
Prison is not the moon.
I know. What I’m saying is that I can’t imagine prison. I can’t even imagine it. I can’t go there.
You’re going there.
But that’s the thing. I’m not going there.
Yes you are.
Fine, he said. He stood up and grabbed the glass pitcher. He stepped to the wall and poured the lemonade against a wide plank. There’s your lemonade, he said. Enjoy.
I’m telling them all of this. They’re going to hear every detail. How you tortured me.
Torture, he said. Now I’m a torturer. Is there anything you’re not willing to call me?
I’m not willing to call you my son.
Galen laughed. That’s great. That’s great. Thanks, Mom. You’re a hell of a mom. Thanks for really being there for me.
Galen. You need to understand this. Every minute that you keep me in here makes it worse for you.
Mom. You need to understand this. You’re locked in a fucking shed.
Chapter 20
Galen lay on his bed staring into the dark caverns of his ceiling. Like craters, his own moonscape right here all along. Sunspots floating around his eyes still, solar flares. His mother another planet, far away, twisting and twisting. The two of them locked into some kind of orbit together.
The air cool in here, even without air-conditioning. Old house, thick walls, thick roof, heavy insulation and heavy drapes. A kind of fortress against the valley.
Galen closed his eyes, and the sunspots did not link up into any pattern. Rounded blurs floating and vanishing, moving suddenly to new regions, like UFOs. Able to appear and disappear in a wink.
He liked the idea of standing on the moon. The light would be always at a slant, like evening on earth, right before sunset, except the sun would never go all the way down. Long shadows trailing from every rock, shadows even in the large grains of sand. A presence to everything, luminous, and no other human. No tracks. He would always know that he was standing on the surface of an orb. He’d be able to feel that, the curvature wrapping away on every side. And when he walked, his feet would touch what had never been touched before. He’d go barefoot and feel the slight coolness of the surface, uniform and unchanging, every rock and grain of sand equalized for billions of years in the unchanging sun. Each step of his would be older than any dinosaur’s, disrupting sand arranged in an earlier era, broken and sifted in the time when planets were made, when the moon was ripped from the earth.
Going back. That would be the greatest gift. If he could go back even a few days, his mother would not be in the shed.