Gum Boots and Mistletoe
Christmas 2018
By
Dan de Souza
He is pulled to the trees by money and they have pushed him away from her. And now he stands here, on a plot of land, a “block” his boots covered in mud from the early spring, vegetation from fall that was late in arriving, and snow from this first spit of winter. If it would only snow a little more, just enough to cover the tops of my boots, he thinks, I could call it a season. “I could call it a season and get in that truck and ....” His words disappear into his beard.
“I could call it a season”, he says out loud. “I am done with this”, he mutters to the dog as he yanks the mistletoe out of the ground. The irony is not lost on him; the irony of mistletoe. The last contract of the season meant “the eradication of mistletoe.” Mistletoe. The kissing plant.
Who knew it was a parasite? “That’s right”, he says aloud, this time to his spade, “a parasite that steals the water and nutrients from its host plant. Phoradendron leucarpum, the kissing plant is a killer! Not just of these trees,” he says sweeping his hand across the block as if delivering a lecture, “but can and has killed young lovers. Kissing under the mistletoe,” he continues, now delivering the lecture to her Labrador Retriever sniffing in the dirt to his left, “Kissing under the mistletoe is fine, if you find parasites lust inducing.” The dog never looks up, having heard this lecture several times since he bid on the contract and found himself on a vast block of young trees being choked by it. “You can kiss under it, but don’t EAT THE BERRIES.”
This time the dog looks at him, one ear cocked, head turned to the side.
“Yes, I may be losing it” he says more to his boots this time than to the dog. Where had the seasons gone? Yesterday he had been planting in shirt sleeves but the same boots. He’d felt the sun ironing his shirt on his back and saw his sweat drip down his glasses from the drenched bandanna strapped to his brow. Fall came with that usual coolness and rain. The day she left it had really rained.
He looks up from his spade, towards the tent, where her truck use to be. It was understandable really, he rubs his chin, steps further into the mistletoe. She hadn’t planned on this contract. “I didn’t tell her about it. Fair is fair. She was right to leave. Not her fault.” Snow is falling harder now. Really the first snow of the year, if it only could be the last he thinks. “Would be great if it snowed like hell tonight, don’t ya think.” The dog’s nose is turned on, disengaging her ears. “DON’T YA THINK?” he yells at her tail as she bounds into deeper brush.
“They’re not completely parasitic you know.” This time there is no one to hear him. His words fall between the broken and amputated trees of the cut block. Even the little trees he is trying to save are oblivious to him. “They do produce some energy on their own, you know, some photosynthesis occurs but then they just become parasites.”
The dog is nowhere near.
* * *
A cut block is a desolate place. It is a swamp without water; a jigsaw puzzle shaken and thrown. She has worked cut blocks for as long as he. “He promised this year, he said we would leave together.” Her fingers drum the steering wheel. She looks at the empty bench seat of the truck, where the dog sat first, then him.
“They both snored, remember? Do you remember what that tent sounded like? How about the way it smelled...not that you’re a bed of roses,” she says to her eyes in the rear view mirror. “No. No bed of roses. “ The radio cut out a half marathon back and there is nothing to keep her mind occupied but the dried creek bed that serves as their road. The truck bucks and sways. “I won’t get there before dark.”
“I didn’t ask much...you know that” her eyes in the mirror again. “Talk to me. Tell me what the plan is. Tell me what we are doing. Tell me what is happening here. “ The reflection never answers. Her eyes just stare back, the brows forming a triangle over her nose. “But, it’s not all his fault.” She finds it hard to hold on to the wheel as the road gets tighter and tighter. “He told me it would be tougher. Tougher than last summer, than the one before. He didn’t lie about it. But God, the time. How much time? How long? And for God Sakes, he kept the dog….”. She glances in the mirror and can see her eyes getting wet. She doesn’t want to cry; hates to cry.
She looks down at her thumb extended on the steering wheel. It’s cracked, peeling. The nail on her first finger is missing a section down to the cuticle. She glances again to the mirror and sees, really for the first time, that she is getting old...not older...old. “He kept the god damn dog. Who keeps your dog?” Again there is no answer from the mirror. “I’m just going to get the dog. Get the dog. Get the hell out. Who can spend Christmas without their dog? Am I right? I’m right! “ The truck lurches from side to side and in that moment she sees her eyes staring back at her.
* * *
“She usually comes back by now.” He has been looking for an hour and no sign of the dog. His head light disappears into the darkness within a meter of his face and his voice, buffeted by the wind doesn’t travel much further. “She can’t hear me and I can’t see her.” His voice sounds more tired, older and alone than it has ever seemed.
Mistletoe snares him. His boots are wrapped in the stuff. He’s called and called. Yelled and yelled for the dog to come back. Just come back. “I am NOT going back into that tent until I find you. Until you are back!” He is too old for this. Too old to feel tears come down his cheeks and freeze in his beard. Too old to be alone just before Christmas with a dog, her dog, lost on this “GODDAMN CUT BLOCK”. His voice echoes back at him. “CUT BLOCK”
He doesn’t see her lights hit his camp. Couldn’t have seen them because he is face down on the block, mistletoe having tripped him in the dark. Face down in the very mistletoe he is supposed to be eradicating. It seems to be progressing, wrapping itself around him, like he is some sort of Gulliver and it a Lilliputian rope. The parasite is winning. Face down, the lights from her truck go over top of him and capture his tent for a moment.
“Hey” she yells from the truck’s open window. “Hey, where are you guys?” . She opens the door, doesn’t have time to close it and steps on to the block, moving toward their, his tent. “Anyone home?” she cries into the wind, “Hello?”
He hears her voice but it seems like a dream, a dream he has had many times since she left. In the dream he hears her voice but can’t find her, just like he loses everything, has lost everything. “Hey, hey, I’m over here.” He is standing now and can see her near their tent, not far from her truck. She is wearing the plaid shirt he gave her in the spring and the tuque she knit herself. He can feel his cheeks under his beard, moving up to his eyes. He feels himself smiling, and he hasn’t felt that in a very, very long time. “Hey!” he cries again and this time she turns.
“I can’t find her he says” having run across the block. “I saw her at dusk, I was just going to knock off for the day and she headed over toward the east of the block. What time is it? I’ve been looking for hours.” He hears his voice crack slightly when he says it. When the hell are you going to grow up, he thinks.
She turns towards him at that sound. She’s heard that crack in his voice before...when she was heading to her truck weeks ago. “Let’s keep calling” and takes his planting hand in hers. She can feel the calluses of months of labour and squeezes it harder than she should.
They search for a long time. They retrace their steps from the first time they walked this block. The first time he told her that they would have to get rid of all of the mistletoe and then they could go home. They walk east, then along the north edge calling for the dog the entire time. Whistling and clapping, along the west border until they reach the southern end of the block near the tent and the truck. She sees from the distance that she has left the door open, the security light a dim beacon.
“I’m sorry” he says as they reach the truck. “I’m sorry for everything. I should have told you about it. I should’ve talked to you and now I lost your dog. I am so sorry”. His voice is barely a whisper, words swallowed in beard. She has let go of his hand and is striding toward the open truck.
There she is, forming a perfect dog ball in the middle of the bench seat. “She’s here.” she says more to herself at first and then turns to him. “She’s here, right where she always sits.” He reaches the truck and places his left hand on the open door as she leans against the door frame.
“I’m really sorry. I feel terrible. I’m so tired” he says. She leans into him, the door open and protecting them from a northern wind.
“You have mistletoe on your toque” she says, and moves her chin up to him.
“It’s a parasite you know. It’s called Phoradendron. You don’t want to eat the berries” Her kiss stops the lecture.
“Merry Christmas, let’s go home.”
