The two-lane ribbon of highway ran the length of the coast. On one side, the land rose up abruptly as the foothills of the coastal range. On the other, the earth dropped away to end in precipitous bluffs on the edge of the North American continent. A hundred years before, massive redwoods trees had crowded to the very cliffs. Now, grasslands were interspersed with chaparral interrupted briefly by the remaining protected groves of trees that were still being cut, but slowly, with more regulation now.
The scenic highway was one of the best to drive. People from all over the world traveled to see the sights and visit the towns here and there along the road. The main artery for the locals in the area, it was also a source of contention. It brought tourist dollars into town, but thousands of people drove the road, which was still narrow and in some places had no shoulder. Cyclists were often part of the traffic flow, slowing down vehicles that would otherwise have moved faster.
The corpses of skunks, raccoons, and deer were frequent testament to the speedy nature of the visitors. Some locals wanted the road widened to increase safety and visibility; other wanted it left the way it was, a rural landmark, characteristic of the area. Rancorous debate filled the letters to the editor of the local newspapers.
Two figures walked along the edge of the road, the man pushing a battered bicycle, the boy carrying a white bucket. The sun was hot today and the man could feel his skin burning. He cursed himself for not bringing sunscreen. Usually, the temperature on the coast never wandered far above seventy degrees. Today, the forecast had called for a high of eighty-one, but the man had disregarded the radio newscasters because the forecast was often wrong. The bicycle baskets were filled with trowels, sweatshirts, bottles of water, and a first-aid kit. In the white bucket were a trowel and a pair of gardening gloves for the boy, but, of course, no sunscreen. Who needed sunscreen on the coast?
A large truck laden with logs roared by, taking the turn wide. In a panic, the man grabbed his son, dragging the boy behind him and off the road. He could feel his heart race and he took a deep steadying breath. He heard his son protest his rough treatment and complain of getting hurt. The man inspected the boy. Blackberry brambles and nettles had scratched his arms and neck – a small price to pay for survival. The man lifted the bike from the roadside where he had dropped it and the continued on.
"Hey, Pa? Why do they cut down trees all the time?”
The man could tell it was going to be one of those conversations. While his son was not retarded, the doctor had labeled the boy “developmentally delayed.” The man was not quite sure what that meant; his wife seemed to understand, but he knew that his son did not seem to catch on to basic ideas as other children his age did. A house was a house and a tree was a tree. In the boy’s world, trees did not have to be cut and houses could still be built of wood. The man often wondered if the boy thought houses were like mushrooms and simply appeared after a hard rainfall.
"To build houses. Gotta build houses if you want people to have someplace to live, ya know?”
"But they cut down my favorite tree.” Wandering the hillside behind their home, the boy had found a redwood so large that even the man had not been able to get his arms around its trunk. The boy went often to sit at the base of the tree. One day it was gone, along with many others, and a new dirt road had been carved into the face of the hill to allow logging crews and their trucks better access. The devastation crushed the boy, who had cried for hours afterward.
“I know, son, but that’s their job. And it is their land. Remember, you were only visiting.”
“But it was a nice tree. And really big, too.”
“It sure was. Kind of a shame it was cut like that.”
“How come we gotta use trees to build houses? Is it cheaper?” The boy knew that money was often a source of contention between his mother and father. Cheaper was always better. Nobody ever yelled about buying cheap stuff.
“Sometimes. Sometimes it can be more expensive. I guess it depends on where you live in the world. Like here. Lumber is really expensive here.”
“But this is where the trees come from,” the boy said.
“They have to cut up the logs somewhere else and ship the wood back here. That’s a lot of driving. Makes the price of wood more.”
“What other kinda stuff do they build houses with?”
The man pulled out a cigarette, then paused, chewing on his lower lip as he thought about his son’s question.
“I dunno. Different parts of the world use different things. Some places they use mud and other places they use skins and stuff." He lit the cigarette and sighed as he felt the smoke bite his lungs.
“Do we use that kinda stuff?” The boy thought a mud house would be the coolest ever.
“Nah. We use brick or concrete or steel. And wood, of course.”
“Oh.”
The boy pondered this for a moment. “So, if they can build a house with all that stuff for cheap, why don’t they?”
The man shrugged. “I dunno. I guess cuz it’s easier. People spent a bunch of years learning to build houses with wood. Maybe we got too good at it. Or may we’re just lazy.”
“Oh.”
The boy picked up a stick and poked the ground. “Is our house wood?”
“Uh, no.” The boy’s father flicked his cigarette butt into the bushes.
He could tell that one of the tires on the bike was getting flat. He’d already patched it twice. Maybe it was time to get a new one. Damn, tires weren’t cheap.
“Pa?”
“Yeah.”
“Where are we going?”
“Gonna pick mushrooms, remember?”
“Oh, yeah.” The boy paused. “How come?”
“Gotta make money. Need to eat and pay for stuff, ya know? Can’t steal it, and nobody’s gonna give it to us.” Amen, brother, he thought to himself. Wasn’t that the truth? In the man’s life, nobody, including his folks, had given him anything.
“Do the people who cut down trees make money?”
The man snorted. “Hell, yes! They make a lot of money.”
“Can you cut down trees?”
The man shrugged.
“I don’t know how. That’s a hard job and it’s dangerous and scary. People get hurt a lot cuttin’ trees. Especially if they don’t know what they’re doing.”
“They do?”
“Yep. You wouldn’t want your dad to get hurt, would you?”
The boy shook his head. “Uh, uh. No way.”
The man smiled. Sweat dripped from his brow. His hair was damp. He felt his shirt sticking to his back. What was this kind of weather doing on the coast? It was almost eighty.
Another truck sped by, this time on the far side of the road. Again, the man snatched at the boy’s arm, pulling further off the highway, his heart in his throat and his stomach clenching, testicles rising. The man felt sure he could touch the dusty steel of the logging truck, it was so large and road felt so small. All he could do was try to keep his distracted child out of their speeding path and hold up the rusty bicycle. They were like two deer waiting to become road-kill.
This was insane. Even when the trucks were in the other lane they felt dangerously close. The boy deserved to be in school, but the reality of children is that they are cruel without thinking and the words of the children who were not slow hurt the boy deeply. The man and his wife had seemed to go around in circles with the boy’s teachers and principal, but nothing seemed to change the special kind of hell that was school for the boy. So they had taken the boy out of school.
But the man and his son needed the money and there wasn’t any other way for them to get to where they wanted to hunt for mushrooms. It had rained the previous morning, hard enough to convince the man to look for the little nuggets of fungal gold. With luck, he’d be able to pay the rent all at one time. Maybe afford a tire for the bike.
“Pa?”
“Yeah.”
“Can we go home? I’m hot.”
“I know, but we have to find some mushrooms.”
“How come we pick mushrooms to make money?”
“Well, they’re worth a lot. People pay if we have good mushrooms.”
“Joe, at school, his dad builds houses. And they don’t live in a bus.”
The man had no answer for that.
“Pa? What do you do?”
“I guess you could say I’m a farmer.”
“But we don’t have a farm. How can you be a farmer if we don’t have a farm?”
“Well, we have all those planters and stuff. Not all farmers have farms like on TV, ya know?”
“Oh. I hate farmers. We’re poor.” The boy kicked the ground.
The man turned.
“Listen. Your mother and I do what we can. We both work hard to try to give all of us a place to live."
If it weren’t for the boy, the man and his wife would be splitsville. They lived for their son.
“I love you very much and I would give us everything if I could, but I can’t. I don’t know how to build houses or cut down trees. I do know how to find mushrooms and that makes us some money. And I grow what I can at home and sell that.”
"Like your plants that are way out in the woods?”
“How…?”
The man thought about those particular plants. Right around September those girls would earn them enough money to move into a real place. Thank God for medical marijuana laws. Unfortunately, the landlord was less tolerant. If he got wind of those plants, literally, they would be evicted quick. They started walking again.
“You know about those, huh?”
“Mom says I’m not supposed to talk about them.”
“She’s right. You’re not.”
“Why?”
"Well, it’s kinda like why people don’t talk about what moms and dads do after bedtime. Or going potty. We just don’t.”
"Oh.”
The boy thought about that for a moment.
“We’re not supposed to talk about a lot of stuff, huh?”
“Sometimes, it feels like that.” And sometimes, my son, we’re supposed to talk about things we don’t. Just wait until you’re married, the man thought.
The man looked up at the sound of a truck’s engine brake. Another log truck, taking the road too fast and too wide. The air brakes hissed. The man saw the truck swerve.
Turning, he saw his son standing on the hot black surface of the road, head down, swinging his white bucket back and forth in front of him, the toes of his shoes dragging with each step. The man had time to do nothing more than reach out his hand toward the boy.
Later that week, the local paper carried a letter to the editor. The reader suggested that the boy should never have been walking on that particular stretch of road, and his father should be sent to jail for neglect. Why wasn’t the boy in school? Why did the father thing that a child should be required to help earn money instead of playing with fireflies? The reader suggested the man think about finding a better way of making money and maybe find a better way of getting from one place to another. The reader never thought to suggest widening the road.
