Three Stories by Sean Ennis

Editor-in-chief Jennifer A. Howard on today’s bonus stories: Woodpeckers felled an aspen in my back yard last summer, so I was primed for a story that understands (as I hadn’t before but now did) the notion of “tree money.” But what kept me rapt by the world of Sean Ennis’ Water Valley was the unassuming but profound voice of this narrator, the small questions that felt so big, and best of all: three quietly perfect endings. [Read other stories from Ennis’ Water Valley series in Queen Mob’s Tea House and F(r)iction.]

The Flora of Water Valley

This itinerant tree surgeon says, a thousand dollars, after cutting at one of our trees and lifting it off the ruined fence.

For a tree? I say, Was it made of diamond?

Five hundred, he says.

Put it back, I say, Here’s some super glue.

Two hundred.

That’s perfect. It’s not like I was going to chain myself to it—it was a weak and cowardly tree. And so we come to an agreement: let’s lug these logs to the street like real business partners.

Now the fence. The dogs can smell freedom from inside and I can taste freedom so I get some twine and rig it up myself, tree money having jeopardized fence money.

I called the man a tree surgeon, though I’m not sure that’s a real job or how he identifies beyond Robert. I guess my sad intent was to disparage his hustle, which is strong and lucrative, two hundred dollars.  You can tell by the debris at the curbs that the trees in this town don’t want to stand up anymore and Robert has the tools. There’s this effluent whiff of wood. He said he’s been tending to our trees longer than we’ve owned them. I had been impressed but it faded pretty quick in the humidity. As much as I keep talking about him, I’d rather move on.

Because my biggest fear when my son’s friends sleep over is that there’ll  be a home invasion. My own friend calls to tell me about his daughter who is now a karate black belt. If only my son hung out with lethal kids like that, I’d have a lot less to worry about. Whatever, I’ve felt like an impostor but there are also those times when I feel as though I’m just secretly on to something.  What would make me feel safer, filling out gun paperwork, three, no, now just two angry dogs?  Still I always end the interview when someone asks can you protect what’s yours? There’s that reptilian feeling one gets while watching fireworks.

Robert, here I go again, was back the next night, running his saw through the rain at the neighbors’. What crisis was he inviting, what accident attempting?

Now he is waving. We are not friends.

Now I’m on a group text with Robert and the candidate running for Coroner. How many doors does your house have? What happens to your loved ones when you die? When they die? What about that other tree?

That one is a cedar that smells not so much like freedom but more like that time you threw away the map while walking in the woods. It’s too tall to hear shaking in the wind. If it were to fall it would split this green brick house like a melon, we breathe its air at our own peril. Still, I’ll defer that disaster, tree money having jeopardized other tree money.  Though it looms.

The Fauna of Water Valley

Some people in this town complain that the church bells violate the noise ordinance. Some wash their cars at night, so ready for the morning. Some think that showering during a thunderstorm could get you electrocuted. When it rains the deer are out in the street. When the plumber changes the faucet in the kitchen he says, you don’t drink this stuff, do you? Some people say, well, you’ve been there long enough, it must be home.

The gentleman from the Electric Department says while trimming tree branches that my son is too athletic not to play baseball. Actually, he yells this from a bucket, thirty feet up, like some extracurricular god. My son hates baseball like a communist but has been to many games. He has a girlfriend now.

Sometimes I see the kid who stole my bike riding it around. He has spray-painted it gold. I hadn’t ridden in fifteen years, but the loss bugs me. I want to tell him to go ahead and keep the bike, but know, you little jerk, that it looks pretty dumb painted that way.  Maybe he can’t afford a bike, but I still don’t like the idea of him creeping around in my carport. And has he thought about how much a solid gold bike would weigh?  Next time could he just ask?

Like the two kids who  knocked on my door selling rakes—no, they wanted me to give them money to clear our leaves. The recurring suggestion here seems to be that I can’t take care of my shit. They are appalled when I tell them no. What do I look like, someone who carries cash? Someone who keeps free bikes in his carport? Stop your lawn inspections, you tiny deputies.

Speaking of law enforcement, There’s no smoking in the Piggly Wiggly. No pets. No green beans, but sometimes cactus, sometimes tofu. Many brands of energy drinks. No scallops, but alligator. A bake sale in the parking lot, a table selling homemade crucifixes. The clerks wear the earbuds. We can at least say the shoppers are vaccinated.

Our neighbors have a pig for a pet and the stupidity of this choice is fantastic, their refusal to eat it. After all, there’s the palliation of the Sonic drive thru, and overpriced ice cream at the gas station.  No doubt, the pig smells the BBQ pit on Main Street—pigs are said to be smart. It’s always wagging its tail though I’d have to look up whether it’s the same as a happy dog.

More headlines. A life-size painting of a deceased street preacher on a piece of plywood: also stolen.  A jade-colored statue of a centaur in front of the Dollar General: defaced. The Redbox won’t read your card. The good mechanic retired. The garden has those worms that look just like plants that eat your plants.

Now it’s the show about animals on local talk radio and my son calls in to ask how you tell a boy-wasp from a girl-wasp. They give him the fucking run around, they don’t know. But what kind of strange boy hates baseball and ponders the sex of insects? I mean, I’m pleased when he tells me his girlfriend has dumped him, but not when he won’t say more. Even his grandparents suggest we go to the casino to swim in its  pool. What am I doing wrong? I don’t know how to undo this.

The Politics of Water Valley

Having come back from a specific brink, conversation was difficult. They were talking about the art gallery and I asked, “Well, how much does something like that cost?” Victory, I was ingratiated, though not in the market. It’s stationkeeping, I thought, sometimes you just need the right username and password.

Then our state senator walked by with the town’s largest watermelon on her back. She had won an auction at the fair and was looking for a knife.  Our simpering president, I used to be able to speak about him, but this is much better.  Her plan was to divide it up, like reverse votes. Here was porch-worthy discussion, right: the best way to slice a melon. Now find a way in.

The psychiatrist, no, her nurse, said I’d been taking a juvenile dose. Let’s up it. That way things will seem more lighter.  More filled with light, my head maybe a balloon full of good speech. Can I afford not to?  I’d become so blank in company, a coat rack in summer, an airy aquarium. The trick with the pill was to take it and never stop taking it or else things will get mega-real, i.e. bad. I just want to be chatty.

So. So many things to see at the fair. Vomiting children, homemade pickles and whole fried onions, hermit crabs with Confederate flag painted shells. There’s a tower to fail to climb and the actual antique car that triggered climate change.  Why be so negative and elliptical? Exorcise your first amendment.

The state senator found her knife and began slicing on the hood of the car. My pocket knife had a small melon baller but she refused it. She did thank me for my vote. Our conversation ended when the line started to form: free watermelon!  

As night fell on the fair, the creepers and dark preachers from the county arrived. They rarely provoked city limits, but they wanted their measels-positive kids to see the street dance, and they wanted to compare their homemade tattoos with ink needled in a shop. They said nothing, just rolled up their sleeves. They had heard rumors of the free watermelon, but grew their own anyway. Battling prayer groups formed and mainly they fought among themselves.

All this seen and intuited from the porch. I brought up the art gallery again but there was less enthusiasm now and the crowd had been drinking. Conversation was random. One participant was crying without consolation. This was not, like, the Art of the Deal. Sometimes it feels like a long time ago that I was a good person, that credit maxed.  And not having friends is lonely, yes, but also embarrassing.  

---

Sean Ennis is the author of Chase Us: Stories (Little A), and his fiction has appeared in Tin House, The Adroit Journal, F(r)iction, Queen Mob’s Tea House and Grist. More of his work can be found at seanennis.net.