The Grove
memoir part 6
At dusk we see a grove, just off the road, of Eucalyptus trees, tall and white-skinned in the fading light. It seems like a good place to camp. We park the van and let Wogart out. Jesse picks up a stick and throws it for him. I watch and remember how when I was a kid my mom would pick up branches from the giant Eucalyptus that grew by our house. She would tear off the leaves and put them under my mattress to ward off fleas. Jesse and I don’t have fleas but I find a branch and pull off some leaves and put them under our mattress in the back of the van.
It gets dark. After a while I go to bed. It’s warm and I leave the window open. Jesse stays outside.
“I’m just going to have one beer,” he says.
I can hear him singing, softly at first, to himself. I hear the modulations of his voice change as he drinks. It becomes louder, slower, the words slurred.
“Who’s a good boy,” he says to Wogart. “Are you gonna catch us a rabbit?”
I try not to listen. After a while he opens the door. It bangs shut as he closes it behind him. “Whoops! sorry abou’ that.” I hear him stumbling around as he gets undressed. After a few minutes he gets into bed beside me. “Night night,” he says. In a moment, he’s snoring.
I lie awake. I can smell the Eucalyptus leaves, crushed under the mattress. I think about how they are not protecting me from fleas or anything else. It’s a sober enough thought but they smell good and make me a little nostalgic too, for childhood maybe, and I take a kind of comfort in it.
In the night I hear the grunting, snuffling sounds of wild pigs around the camp. Wogart, afraid, begins to whine.
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Such a short excerpt with such a powerful punch. This was beautiful.
So evocative, and moving. Such wonderful details... singing, the eucalyptus under the mattress. You've done so much here in so few words.