A story by Leo Gonzales
Image: Untitled by Leo Gonzales
I. The businessman tosses watered down orangey Ford paint on the floor of the tree. It matches autumn maple leaves, and it seeps into the roots. The tree is almost gone, with some branches already fallen. The branches are dry sticks with auburn winds behind it and guidance tells the businessman to carry lumber over to his truckbed. He goes to his pick up and feels a sad wind blow through the window. All the boxes are new and it smells like cardboard when the shipment arrives.
II. The pick up came in time for a vacation, and the weary but young businessman rests his foot on the pedal before moving his way through Louisiana bayous. At a gas station he picks up tobacco and lets the gas funnel through as he moves in light moving from green changing to yellow. After a few minutes, he wonders what incentive he would have with a cash bonus. He loads more strands of tobacco into the husk.
III. At a rest stop, he reserves the pipe by his side and sits by a river. A lone smoke billows and he imagines the native man from work beside him – the things he would ask. He would ask to share tobacco first, and then ask if the native man thought it wrong to pour watered down paint over a tree’s dying roots. The river with steep mossy gorges moved slow; in a deep end a fish jumps past a wild brush. He thinks all stones are the same.
IV. After his vacation, the businessman returns to the dead tree and makes bundles of lumber beneath winds of maple. He carries the bundles by rope and stacks them clean in his truck bed, then the first scuffs of paint. He ties down each bundle with a sigh and drives with another tobacco bowl. Now he asks himself if it were smart to just toss the sticks in the back or to lay down some sort of cloth.
V. The next weekend, he makes a fireplace by the beach and listens to sea foam roll in under some moon. Embers move to one side of him, and he sees orange paint on his skin. He takes his shoes off and turns the truck on, tuning the radio to some station. He loads another tobacco pipe and moves himself into the driver seat with a post card. He wishes he had asked his co-worker, a neighbor, someone. A plume of ash hits the back of his throat and he coughs it out.
This work was featured in issue #11