The Almanac

Jeremy slouched beneath the oak tree and looked out over the horizon. It was more for dramatic effect than any inquisition against the natural world. He let out a deep, controlled sigh as the lukewarm dregs of his beer sloshed about lazily in the glass bottle dangling from his fingers. Only several feet behind him, the earth upon his father’s grave still swelled freshly above the surrounding grass. It was a pleasant service—simple and endearing, family, and neighbors who had ascended to the rank of family in attendance. What one might call “quaint” if they weren’t afraid of being called “patronizing.” The shield of grey clouds overhead protected them from the harsh August sun and even invited the mourners to linger after they’d laid the casket in the earth.

The last few hours were a blur of drinks, retold memories, and tearful toasts to the memory of Joshua Graves—but none initiated by his son. Jeremy accepted the beer imperatively pushed into his hand, raised it with every chorus of "To Josh," and adjusted his face accordingly with every story. Now, after everyone else had left to avoid the trap of the eminent summer rain, Jeremy had his first truly reflective moment during the whole affair and discovered he felt deeply. . . tired. . . and nothing else, really.

Jeremy held no ill will against his father, it was more that he held no will of any kind concerning him. Their relationship had been in stasis since Jeremy left after high school and even when the call came Jeremy only felt what barely passed for a flicker of grief before giving his attention to the business of his father’s death. Executor of the estate was a safe title to hide behind if one wanted to feign business to avoid sympathy. Although, Jeremy still couldn’t help but feel a little unsettled that even now with the ceremony behind him and sharing shade with the tombstone that he himself erected, he had no idea how he could even begin to mourn his father’s death.

A low growl of thunder from somewhere down the valley signaled that it was time to return to the house. The first few droplets had just begun to tap him on the shoulder when he crossed the threshold. He peered into his father’s study and heaved another sigh, more exasperated than the first, as he looked over the sprawling metropolis of boxes. He had hoped not to worry about the estate until tomorrow, but the impending deluge would gradually sabotage the cable, the radio, and even the phone lines which left his schedule for the evening rather open.

No time like the present, he thought facetiously and sat down at the old desk to tackle the first box, which bore his name across the side in fat, black letters: "JEREMIAH ABRAHAM GRAVES." He winced at the sight of it. Inside was a hand-written note clipped to an old newspaper and a grubby black book—one of Joshua’s handwritten almanacs. He recognized his father’s chicken scratch immediately. It read, "To my son (hi, Jeremy) I bequeath this, the account of my greatest failure. Learn from it all that I had to learn through it." Jeremy turned the paper over to look at the newspaper clipping. A thirty-year-old picture of his parents in the foreground of a muddy slope graced the front page with the headline, “The Storm Taketh; But The Storm Leaveth the Essentials.” The incident pictured was apparently what brought his father’s farming career to an abrupt and dramatic halt. He was already an established insurance salesman by the time he became a father and remained in that middling line of work until the recent day he could no longer get out of bed.

Jeremy furrowed his brow. It was very much in Joshua’s character to attempt one last opportunity for a heart-to-heart with his son, even from beyond the grave—from beyond the grave. The truth that Jeremy’s dear old dad was no longer around twinged uncomfortably somewhere in the recesses of his chest. Maybe that’s why he sat down and opened the notebook as the rhythmic pitter patter of the rain outside steadily turned into a sheen of white noise. The inside cover read “1976.”

* * *

March 26: The corn kernels have begun to sprout. The weather has been favorable and at this rate there will be a bountiful harvest by the end of May.

April 1: We’ve been struck by a cold front. It’s more severe than we anticipated. I begin to worry for the wellbeing of this year’s crops. Several of the vegetables are jeopardized and many of the flowers are surely dead. Hopefully we can replant what we lose without tremendous deficit.

April 4: The frost has passed, but we have much work to do. Our flower patches are all but destroyed as I feared. A sizable chunk of our spring crops will need to be replanted. In other places, entire acres of produce have been lost to the frost and we will not have the opportunity to try again this season. The corn, strangely, remains unharmed. The entire crop is intact although by all means it should have been counted among the frost bitten. Needless to say, we shall count our blessings, sow again what we can, and tighten our belts for what we cannot.

April 8: There was a meteor shower last night. I have heard of phenomena like this but never considered I’d personally bear witness to such a sublime display. I tend the earth, not the stars, but the only way I have been able to make sense of what I am about to explain is to attribute it to some extra terrestrial link between our fields and the great cosmic migration I witnessed last night. While the majority of the farm continues to either sprout or recover as expected, our entire corn crop has matured overnight and is ready to harvest. Divine gift or celestial prank, we find ourselves unprepared for such a sudden harvest, but we know better than to take such a blessing for granted, particularly after such a ravaging frost.

April 10: The corn harvest has taken almost a full two days—or rather, the harvest of whatever this supernatural crop happens to be. The first thing one notices once the husk is removed from the stalk is how unnaturally heavy it feels in hand. At first it seemed harmlessly amusing but the hinderance created by the added weight in the carts eventually demanded we examine the crops more closely. We took one of the husks firmly in hand and tore back the greenery to find. . . Even more greenery! And coins! Where there should have been leaves and fibers, paper money uncurled in fans like flowers in the sun. And once the husk was pulled back, coins gushed out unbraced. There was no cob or kernels to speak of, rather the whole of the inside of the vegetable seemed to be made of money. In disbelief, we shucked another and then another. All three were blessed by the same miraculous malady and so we could assume were the rest, which shared the same density and—now that we were paying attention—had a slight jingle when rattled. It has taken us two whole days to deliver all of the corn from the field to the barn. Tomorrow we will begin sorting and counting to discover just how much we’ve profited.

April 13: The barn has turned into a bank vault. With our cash crop sorted and counted, we now find ourselves $20,000 richer. $20,000! This compensates us for everything we lost in the frost and could sustain us through three more like it. How strange this change of fortune for us. A week ago we were looking at a woeful deficit and braced to bring in only a fraction of what we intended. Now, our profit exceeds our forecast through the next several years.

April 14: The coins sat in the husk just like the kernels would normally. Could they be planted like corn kernels as well? Could the coins that miraculously appeared in my crops be planted as seeds to yield another cash crop harvest in a month’s time? We could invest in better tools, expand our fields, and renovate every nook and creaking cranny of this house! And when all is said and done, I can take Marjorie on a proper vacation. Lord knows it’s been years since we truly got away.

April 15: The second round of the officially christened "cash crop" is sown. It struck me as we tilled the field this morning: there is a very real possibility—given the cash crop is not actually corn—that it is not limited by the seasons as corn is. Could it not be reaped and sown again indefinitely? Could we not become obscenely wealthy by the end of this year?

April 25: It’s really working! The corn field is strewn with tiny green sprouts. We are actually growing money from plants! If we clear the forestry encroaching on our land we’ll increase our yield five times over. Why should we even bother wasting valuable real estate on crops that have to be tended and sold when we could just grow the cash crop?

What could we reap by this time next year with aggressive expansion? We would be one of the richest families in the country with dignitaries for peers. What power and influence we could yield from growing a plant! And of course we would invest in security measures in the fields to safeguard our precious secret. Were the truth discovered, it would surely be stolen and we likely harmed in the process. This is a gift to be guarded, divine provision to be protected.

April 28: Our endeavor ends in more devastation than even the frost brought upon us. Last night we were graced by a spring thunderstorm, although only if "graced" and "thunderstorm" are meant as diplomatic pleasantries. We established this farmstead with foresight, knowing the way each acre could be impacted by the turbulence of Mother Nature; but her more hostile schemes can be keen—and painfully exacting.

No amount of recorded rainfall would be enough to drown the fields; yet as this deluge bore down on us so perniciously, it was pummeling the rolling hills to the west into marshland even more hatefully. The churning and the pounding of the waters liquified the earth upon its foundation and it in turn came roaring through the valley. Our barn was torn to smithereens with a thunderous crash that made the storm overhead sound like a docile bee colony by comparison.

As quickly as the landslide first came bellowing through the valley, we heard it galloping away to join the river. We of course had no way of assessing the extent of the damage until this morning and so were shocked to find only two primary fixtures turned to silt. The storehouse—along with everything in it—and the corn field next to it. Our first harvest of the cash crop was gone without a trace, as were the sprouts meant to make us even richer. All of it taken at the roots and cast into the river bulging with wrath and power from the storm. Surely it had ferried our fortune at least twenty miles before the sun was even up. We already know it is gone forever.

May 20: We’ve decided we will sell the farm once the harvest is over. In our frenzy to expedite the cash crop, we foolishly missed our opportunity to replant what we lost in the frost. Now that we’ve lost the cornfield as well, we see it’s in our best interest to finish the season with what we have, take what we can get for the property, and use it to start again in a more modest estate. Not as a farmer, though. Never again as a farmer. I’m much too ashamed of my actions and day dreams the last few months to ever try that again.

It’s ironic the effect money has on your head when large amounts of it exist in your hands and not just in your imagination. We held a small fortune and it only cost us our dignity, our principles, and our senses. Really, they vanished into the clouds the second we pulled back that first husk. I can only hope that a fresh start is all the grace I need to make an honest living, to be an honest man. And if I can care for my wife—and my children one day—with the same zeal that I did that corn, well then I would be a very rich man indeed.

* * *

Jeremy affectionately laid his hand across the back cover as he closed the book. In the orange glow of the desk lamp, he watched the heavy drops spatter the darkened window like overly ripe tomatoes. It was no record breaking rainfall, but it was certainly a fitting echo of the tempestuous night that changed his father’s life; and it complemented well Jeremy’s more cerebrally oriented storehouse that was now in danger of being swept away by his father’s last words to him.