A Scent of Peaches
A Scent of Peaches
by David Michael
Regis cut the motor and used the last of the forward momentum to steer his small boat through the cypress knees. Like all the creatures who called the swamp home, he approached Peach Isle in deference, in respect.
The boat came to a soft, bumping stop against a large pair of cypress knees. Locals called the knees Saleau and Saloppe and used them like the end of a pier. Abnormally large and jutting nearly a meter out of the swamp water, the knees looked like an old couple, a man and a woman, both wearing ragged clothes and caked in mud. The clothes were an illusion caused by the swirling bark and the shape of the knees. The mud, though, was quite real.
Be careful, p’tit Macaque, Regis’s mother used to say as he would splash about in the shallow water among the cypress knees. Don’t trip over the boscoyo. We don’t want to annoy Saleau and Saloppe. In all his memories of Maman, she called him Macaque: her little monkey.
He tied off on Saleau’s head while offering a smile and a friendly “Buenos dias” to Saloppe. From the plastic toolbox he kept in the bottom of the boat he took out Papa’s gun and stuffed into his waistband. Then he stepped out of the boat onto the soggy dark earth that passed for “dry land” in the swamp.
The cypress trees, all of them at least centuries old, rose up from the wide buttresses of their roots. They held up the canopy of the sky, reducing the bright August sunshine with their dense foliage to a hot, muggy gray twilight, full of shadows and hints of the past.
Despite what local legend said, which legend Regis and the other swamp “tour guides” passed on to the gullible tourists as Gospel Truth, he knew that Peach Isle didn’t move. Peach Isle’s cypress forest extended roots so deep that it was anchored as completely, as securely than any mountain. Compared to Peach Isle, the rest of the swamp, maybe even the rest of the world, was adrift.
He had seen no other boats this morning. He should have the whole island to himself. Not alone, of course. No one was ever alone in the swamp.
Listen to the wowaron, Macaque. If you can hear him, Grand Caimon is sleeping. The Big Gator had been the monster of his nightmares as a child, waking him up, making him cry out. But with his mother’s hand clutched to his chest, with his eyes squeezed shut, and with the soothing song of the bullfrog, he had been able to sleep.
He walked the cathedral maze created by the cypress trees. The swamp was never silent, but here it came close, muted, as if every creature paid its respects to the ancient grove.
Since he had returned home to the swamp six years ago, he had visited Peach Isle several times with tourists. Those times he had stayed on the boat, not wanting to share with the noisy, plodding tourists. Now he came alone. Maybe Maman would be here, as Papa had been on the hummock with the rotted tree stump–and the gun.
He had only two memories of his parents that included a place. The whole swamp he considered home, but just two places had stayed with him in the twenty years following the death of his parents. One was of his father, his Papa, burying the gun that Regis had found a week ago.
The other memory was of coming with Maman and Papa to Peach Isle. He had could not have been more than four years old, and might have been only three. At first the gloomy light under the trees had scared him, but Maman had smiled and told him, Go on, Macaque. What kind of a monkey is scared of a tree?
Then he was running around, ducking in and out of the tall cypress roots, sometimes climbing them to be as tall as Maman–and almost as tall as Papa. He was laughing and shouting, a little boy safe with his parents. Big Gator couldn’t get him here. Big Gator wouldn’t dare.
Now Regis wondered how long after that day he and his father had gone out to bury the gun, and Papa had left him. It couldn’t have been too long. Months, at most.
The air around Regis brightened, became sweet with the smell of the peaches that gave the island their name. He came back from his past, looked outward again and saw that he had reached the small peach grove in the center of the island.
This late in the season he doubted there would be too many peaches left. Not only were the tourists like locusts, the locals harvested the peaches and sold them as aphrodisiacs. Still, he moved into the grove to see.
Maman had picked one for him back then, in his memories. Are the peaches really magic? he asked. Maman laughed. As magic as can be, she said. She handed him the peach. A magic peach for my magic Macaque.
He spotted a peach up in one of the trees, out of reach from where he stood. He hesitated for a second, then pulled himself into the tree and climbed up to get the peach. Firm beneath the soft fuzz, the peach seemed almost perfect. He pulled it free of its branch and held it to his face, breathing in the tangy scent.
He felt rather than heard a soft laugh. Still my p’tit Macaque!
Startled, he dropped down from the tree, landing with enough force to dislodge the gun from his waistband. It clunked onto the ground.
Shaking his head at his carelessness, he picked up the gun, then sat down, leaning against the tree, gun in one hand and the peach in the other.
The magic is strongest when the fruit is fresh.
The words seemed to hang in the air, but dissipated like mist when Regis looked up to see who had spoken.
“Hello?” he said. “Hola?” he added, covering his slip back into his native tongue.
Eat up. The voice came again, from the trees, from the air, from the birds, from everywhere and nowhere. Now Regis heard the voice as well as felt it. Macaque.
“Maman?” His voice caught. A little boy, lost in the swamp, calling for his mother.
You are sad, Macaque? Co faire?
Regis opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He could smell her now, a sweet scent of peaches and Cajun spices, almost feel her stroking his hair.
He felt a soft touch on the hand that held the peach. You’re hungry, Macaque. You’ll feel better if you just take a bite.
He ate the peach then, peel and all, chewing slowly, not wiping the juices that ran down his chin, gun in his right hand, rotating the peach in his left hand as he ate.
When he finished, when the peach had been reduced to just the hard pit, it was like waking up. He blinked at the sunlight. He almost yawned.
He stood up, still holding the gun and the peach pit. He looked at them both. He wished he had a handkerchief. It didn’t seem right to just put the peach pit in his pocket. He wasn’t sure why, but he wasn’t going to leave here without it.
He put the gun back in his waistband, and held the peach pit in his left hand all the way back to the boat. As he walked under the tall trees, he didn’t get lost in his memories this time. The swamp seemed more alive now, still dangerous, still mysterious, but not as dark. This was his home.
As good as he felt, he wondered if maybe the peaches were magic after all.
In the boat, he put both the gun and the peach pit into the plastic toolbox and locked it closed. With a final “Adios” to Saloppe, he untied the boat and headed back into the swamp, the scent of peaches still with him.
Copyright © 2006 by David Michael. All rights reserved.
Exit 101 » Blog Archive » A Scent of Peaches said,
August 14, 2006 @ 12:38 pm
[...] A Scent of Peaches [...]
A Short Story a Day » Best of ASSAD 2006 said,
December 27, 2006 @ 8:02 pm
[...] Silent Pictures Mother’s Little Helper Tucker Crowfeeder The Hall Closet Door A Beating Heart in Texas Trikes and Aliens The Survivor When Writers Attack Function Follows Form The Call of the Hunter Moon A Scent of Peaches Reruns Working Girl He Came The Worlds Traveler Time: A Love Story The Protector Victor Comes Home [...]