A Real Story
by John Engelbrecht

Ben

Ramona was crawling through the limp overgrown threads of green as a
warm wind rippled over, fraying her dark hair. Her hair mimicked the
grass, dancing the furling dance of wind-whipped plant. The swelling
dusk haze had shrunk the clear blue day to a pleasant, fading memory.
The new lighting turned the scene into a high contrast photograph, as if
the land had been cross-processed for too long in the wrong chemistry.
She'd been out there for almost an hour, pawing and prodding pink light
off lost rocks and chewing ants. I'd been sitting on the back deck,
sipping lemonade, watching the red disc slip into place and out of
sight, like bread in a toaster, over the eastern rim of the Black Hills.
It was the perfect evening for lemonade. Lemonade, the drink that
invites warmth, yet calms sweat. A drink shared by friends during
summer's sauna. A drink fresh squeezed by grandma. Innocent and pure,
sweet and sour. A drink from a fruit that painted itself after the
sun. The flavorful alternative to water, the healthy choice to pop.
The drink that never quite fit in the soda machine. A fruit so light,
juicy, and fresh, it sounds like a Jamaican born in France: Le mon. A
drink made from a fruit that just wouldn't take no for an answer. My
hand-made glass with the blue rim and embedded bubbles, was filled
with the stuff, sitting crooked against my bleached jeans. The drink slid
freely into my mouth along with one banana-shaped ice cube I held in my
cheek pouch, then spit back into lopsided glass. The last loose pulp pieces
were gathered by my tongue and escorted down the long path that all
nutrients must take on their journey into becoming pure Benny power.
For me, lemonade is a basic daily ritual. I spend hours sucking and spitting
the sour beverage in the lobby of a black forest, surrounded by nervous
trees and wild turkeys, watching a sister I drove nuts.
The air is slimy fresh, like the breeze swept over the Iron Chef's cutting
board during a tuna battle before settling upon my nostrils. The trees have
grown still, along with Ramona, who sits like an obedient Lab on a slab of
granite cocking her head, trying to make sense of the sudden silence. The
moon is an Alka-seltzer slowly being dissolved in fuzzy gray streaks, that
grow thicker and darker, until it's gone. Another gust of wind rushes in,
bringing a moist, starchy scent with it, and causes the optical illusion of
Ramona blowing (in gorilla gallops) under the deck. In the distance I hear
rustling trees and cracking branches, speaking the same phrase over and
over: another storm is heading our way. As the falling thuds rain in the dark
distance, I think of Comet. Imagine his dirt brown and gray clumps of fur,
grabbing at cockleburs and ticks, scampering through crackling trees and
rotten stumps, like an overgrown rat, trying to avoid the plunging potatoes.
I imagine his neurotic mind reeling a million pants per minute, flashing back
and forth from his time as a starved youth to the time he was knocked into a
softpage triple roll by dad's Buick to the present moment, when the world was
being pulled out from under him, again. There is a high pitched yelp beneath me.
My first thought is the traumatized pup. Comet got jabbed by a deer antler.
Then I hear a giggle followed by a low growl. Ramona is bent with her hands
on the ground, alternating between digging her barefoot toes into the soil and
doing mule kicks. It's hard to tell who's worse off, Comet or Ramona.
"Everything okay, Ramona?" I ask, "You under control?"
She snorts, and then shrivels up, and begins slithering through the grass. The
potatoes are close now, probably within the next minute.
"Ohh, okay... I get it, you're a snake now. Just be careful, the potatoes are
coming. Ramona... remember what happened last time."
The first spud implants itself on our lawn like a bullet into a steel wall, basically
becoming liquid upon impact. It's only a matter of seconds before the house is
painted with potato skins. Windows pop, the house grunts with every hit. A
quick, low grunt like a punch in the gut, then more crashing glass. The flurry
came on thick as stew and as quick as a South Dakota thunderstorm. I scramble
into the house, cursing. The potatoes peak for about three minutes then die off,
with a kamikaze few finishing off the job like late-comers to food fight. From inside
the living room where a few potatoes have invited broken glass, I compose my
thoughts, then venture back on the deck to check the rest of the damage. There
must have been close to a thousand potatoes scattered throughout the yard and
splattered against the house. The smell was that of disinfecting solution and burnt
hash browns. This was insane. Almost every window on the backside of the house
had been shattered by all sorts of lumpy clods of skin and root: red, russet, new,
and even a couple yams. Then I remembered Ramona. I was scared to peek over
the back deck railing, figuring I find her limp body beaten right into the ground
surrounded by a pile of half mashed tubers. But when I looked, there was no
body or blood, just raw potatoes and their overpowering stench.
"Ramona? Are you there?" I called.
"Ben?" Ramona's timid voice croaked.
"Ramona, are you okay?"
"What's happened to us? What is this?" she said.
"Potatoes, Ramona. Lots of Potatoes."
"This isn't right, y'know. Potatoes aren't supposed to do this."
She was wild-eyed and confused. Then she started crying. She is a mess,
physically and mentally. Her eyes are swelling, pupils dilated and skin
blotching red. Her shirt is splotched with potato juice, smeared with grass
and dirty skins, as she stands delicately rubbing her big toe over a sticky
busted spud. She just stares at me, uncomprehending and tiny.
"C'mon, kid, let's go inside and clean you up."

* * * * *

The days that followed the stench surrounding the house grew rank and musky.
As the sun dried the bits and pieces, a hint of baked potato would drift inside
our noses, before becoming overwhelmingly rotten. Our lawn became a buffet
for the deer and turkeys, our roof a bird banquet. Our only visitors for the next
few days were insurance people, which was probably for the best, considering
the state of Ramona, not to mention, having to explain to our friends:
"Yes, it rains potatoes here. Yes, that's why our house suggests (in sight and smell)
potato salad. Yes, we know it's not right."
Ramona has basically gone backward since the storm. She continues her
animal imitations, including the snake, dog, and cat, and adding a frog. I think
she's working on a lizard, too, because she'll sit still for hours on end, staring at
a far off point, and licking the air in patterned increments. She's on a strict diet
of lettuce and cat food, and sleeps on the foam pad I hauled out onto the porch.
I'm still kicking back, unhindered by moody weather, sipping my lemonade. The
Iron Chef is just finishing a Shark battle (What is he mixing with the shark? It
looks like blueberry jam. No, it can't be! Yes, it's blueberry jam. Well I'll be...).
The Travel Planet is running a special on hot vacation spots in the nude beach
region of France (A paradise for those who want complete freedom, and those
who just want to watch!). The television holds one of the few pieces of glass in
the house still intact, although it too had to be windexed free of potato juice.
"It's a good day, today, Ramona. Clear blue sky... a damn fine day." I speak
without expectation, talking to keep myself company. I talk and watch TV to
keep my body busy, to keep from having to listen to the silent march of decay.
Mostly, I talk to keep from thinking about dying. But since I'm on the subject...
I have a certain infatuation with death. How do I want my funeral to be? Mostly I
wonder about the music at my funeral... I keep a running list of songs to play as
I lay there in the casket; in fact, every time I hear a new song I judge it's value at
the ceremony of my death. Will it be a real tearjerker? Will it say the things I can
no longer say? Will it ease the pain of my family? Will it turn on an old friend to
a hip new band only I knew about? A band I'm passing on to them, in the form
of a last request, I can never be sure is actually filled. I continue to sit above her
on a white plastic lawn chair, sipping slowly and enjoying my tart beverage as if it
were a fine wine and I a fine wine connoisseur. The smell of rotten potatoes no
longer bothers me and it seems pointless to replace the shattered windows and
busted shingles. Right now, I welcome the next storm. I'll wait with the electric glow,
patiently, for the crimson moon to bloom and the potatoes to come and beat this
house back into the ground. Just leave me a deck, a TV and perhaps a kitchen to
mix a drink. I was picturing this image, myself sitting homeless in the middle of the
woods, drinking lemonade, when I heard a throat being cleared, and a rusty voice
spoke up.
"Ben... Ben..." Ramona said, "Ben, look what I found."
I peer over the railing to see Ramona standing upright, hands cupped under
twitching brown feathers. Her puffy red eyes and crusty T-shirt were as pathetic
as the clump of bird in her hand.
"I found a bird, Ben," she said, "It's not doing so well. Come down here and
look at this."
"You two have a lot in common," I said on my way down the wood steps.
Ramona stood as if for the first time. Her knees slipped, unlocked, and she
wobbled back into balance. A patch of mud fell as the fold in her jeans shifted,
and a worm stretched out, starting its squirm back into hiding.
"I was down in the dirt when I heard it shaking among the potatoes, kicking
itself in circles."she said.
"We can fix its leg, I think. I mean, I've heard of people fixing broken bird legs.
Why don't you bring it inside?" I said.
"No. That's okay Ben. The bird was okay with the ground. It's not our job to fix
the bird. It's our job to let nature take its course."
I looked at Ramona and then at the bird. She kicked some potatoes out of the
way and set the bird down. We watched it jerk its wings and kick its good leg.
It was unable to satisfy its body. The bird continued to scrape circles. Ramona
picked up one of the few, larger, mangled potatoes and smashed it on the bird.
"Let's go have some lemonade" she said.

Ramona

Ben lies. He lies to himself, lies about me. Lied about me being crazy, portrayed
me as being this timid, helpless nut case camping out in the backyard. I am not
a nut case; I am a practicing sorceress. I walk with power. Ben sits and rotates
his chair between me and the TV (Food network and the Travel channel) all day.
He composes elaborate plot twists, undesirable character flaws, and "alternate
endings" to his life. He made up that bullshit potato story. He's in heavy denial
that I'm not his little crazy sister who needs (what he thinks of as) his tender words
and patient wisdom. He just sits there, on his perch, drinking lemonade, thinking
I don't know he spikes it with Karkov. Thinking up wacky stories and creative
ways to describe the most insignificant details of his wasted existence. He acts
so intelligent and caring, yet he's dying under an umbrella of specially programmed
passion. It never rained potatoes. I never sought comfort in Ben. I don't eat cat
food, rarely eat lettuce, and don't believe in diets. And I don't smash injured birds.
It's just not right, to make this shit up. It's people like Ben, people who feel the
need to paint false realities, who are ruining this planet. They are the ones behind
TV shows. Behind shopping malls and consumer culture. Behind automobiles and
plastic packaging. People who spend their lives acting on self-serving impulses for
egotistical entertainment value. People who scoff at the shortcomings of humans,
yet indulge themselves in acting like fools, driving this civilization to an almost
unbearable place. People trapped inside plastic-coated homes, with their
anti-bacterial soap, vacuum cleaners, and microwaves. People addicted to
the idea of living, but too scared to actually do it. All they want is the risk-free
experience, the "reality" television shows, the chat room lover.

* * *

Last night I finished digging the hole. The stars were bombs in space and as I
singled them out, I could feel the redundant history. Each star blowing fiery
gases recklessly into the blank slate of space. Rolling avalanches of interstellar
dust emerging in my mind as the universe stares back with one wild eye.
This is the only way I can describe the feeling. The forest sighed a polluted
sigh. The house stood obtuse and clumsy. I stood facing the orange family
room glow and remembered who I was. Ben was inside, alone, slumped
diagonal on the chair. I walked lightly to the stairs and skipped up them two
at a time. As I ran my narrow palm across the weather-stained rail and stepped
toward the sliding door, Ben turned off the TV. I stood on the deck and
watched the stillness of the room through the glass door. Ben sat with his
back turned, watching me through the reflection in the TV.
Finally, I spoke, "Fifty bucks."
Ben turned to face me now through the window's filter.
"For what?" he asked.
"A night in the hole, naked," I said, "Fifty bucks and a real story to tell."
Fifty bucks was nothing. The story was the whole bet.
"You finished the hole?" he asked.
Twenty minutes later, Ben was lying down underneath our backyard lawn
as I sprinkled cut grass over him. He must have been pretty loose to agree
that quick. He squirmed and shook a chilly shake as the damp blades stuck
themselves to his bare skin and the falling grass became his blanket. He arched
his back and asked me to remove an awkward stone. Then he mumbled
something about being nuts. I'm not sure if he was talking about me or him.
"Each day breaks, each moment is born again," I repeated over and over to him,
"Like the waves of the sea, we are born again."
After several more minutes his eyes drooped shut. I continued to fill in the hole
with old lawn clippings. Before too long, I could no longer detect his breathing
according to the movement of the grass. I put my ear to the indent in the pile I
had left uncovered for his breathing hole and checked his faint, stale breath. He
was still there, and his jerky respiration indicated that the dreams had begun.

Ben

I used to think if you never went crazy in life, your time was wasted. Actually,
I thought this right up until about an hour ago, when Ramona laid me in the hole
and covered me with grass. It was cold at first, but soon became comfortably
warm. I could hear Comet's muffled howling and pictured him, fur pinned over
his eyes by cockleburs, perched on dead pine needles, whining blind into the
night. It dawns on me that I am Comet. A flash in the pan, lost on an infested
rock, trapped in skin I can't control. The weight of grass is all mental, like the
weight of TV and the weight of booze. It took me several drinks to get in this
hole, and I'm not sure they're gonna get me through. I'm beginning to feel fuzzy.
Like I'm a blade of grass growing backward into the earth. The rest of the grass
is shaking itself up through soil into sunlight and warmth, but the blade of grass
who is me is going back. I know that wicked cycle too well. I know the wind
blows the grass, the insects eat the grass, disease infects it, humans cut and
trample it. The grass continues to grow, but I can't warn the other blades of
a hard and brittle winter, or sprouting up fresh in spring, only to be doused in
bird shit and exhaust. I can't breathe. Well, I can, but it feels like I can't. It's
like I'm involuntarily burning my breath. There is something scratching my finger.
I can't remember the Iron Chef. I am inside my body, right? Where's my
lemonade? Is this death? Every once in a while a worm pokes his head onto
my head. All segmented and slimy nature distorts and conducts its freaky
experiment. The unsuspecting chemistry of life (Am I burning up inside?),
sensing with electronic impulses and compound eyes has no other option but
to keep going. Feelers and wings buzzing in my ear and swarming through
light, land, skinning the molecules off dried skin and planting foreign objects
on my epidermis. Fleece and silk breezes smell like cotton candy. The scent
of grass blooms in fast forward as the sun travels the distance of the sky in ten
moist meaty breaths. But it is so dark. Am I still here? The air is thick with
sweat, and busy bugs, and burning birds, and serious deer wait in the
background for my next move. But they can't see me buried beneath their
shit, waiting, thirsting for water. Fuck lemonade. Waiting for me to find reason
(Is that a joke?), to crack the balls of my feet in the forest and stun them in a
dead run, hurling sound waves from my voice box, no fuck that, screaming...
screaming. Back to nature... stuck in suction mud. Mud that pulls down and
holds. A meaty bag of skin that must be pried out with a pop. Slurping mud
gushes back into the body print and meshed grass and drowned bugs begin to
break down. Everything breaks down. Ice melts. Fire burns. Land grows and
dies. And we are land, too. The fuzzy feeling of spider webs stuck on my face
and dirt glued with sap to my palm. The buzz of bees; the hum of a million black
dots above my head dancing like television snow. The delicate hair that lines green
Dandelion stems. The violet mucus that oozes from the crimson gills on that odd
mushroom that decided to sprout one day in the middle of the lawn. All those things
swelling underground with segmented skins and soft bodies that stiffen and squirm
just enough to tickle our fingertips and let us know: this is life too.

Ramona

Death is a burning butterfly. Wings lapping into ash, disintegrating in mid-flight. A
fiery insect that just climbs and flaps and flutters-by, sucking the soul of those
scared of their body, scared of temporary existence. Scared of turning over their
convenience store lunch, cable TV, and two weeks of paid vacation a year to the
big jail warden in the sky. People are scared of meeting that burning body without
something to say. All people want is a story. Something they can tell their kids,
sucking on Slurpees in the back seat of the family sedan. A real story, an experience
that makes us human, that makes us exist. A real story committed to truth and nature
and love and grass. Lots of grass. A story unlike the box office blockbusters who
line the screens with breasts and bucks. A real story like the one waiting at home,
waiting for you to get there, waiting for you to put down this plain ink and garbled
text and rub your feet in the dirt.

Ben

In the deepest shaft of space, perhaps a burning ball millions of light-years away,
or perhaps, right inside the nooks and folds of your own brain (A special brain
made just for you!), there is love and communication, experience and flexibility,
there is sense, and there is place.

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