The Tree Man

It’s a ten-hour drive out to the family farm. I’ve thought about getting a trucker’s license, just so I can capitalize on these insanely long trips by hauling a trailer from North Carolina to Maryland. I could learn the route, ingratiate myself with the community, get some more respect on the road. I could talk to my trucker friends on the radio, and we can pull off for meth breaks. Who knows. Might be a worthwhile venture.

I never intended to return home this often. I was ready to move out when I was sixteen. Couldn’t make it happen until I was eighteen and boy, nothing makes you hate a place more than having to stay when you’re ready to leave. I told myself I wouldn’t be back for years. I told a few members of my family that too. I made it fifteen wonderful months on my own. I still remember the day; coming home from a double at the restaurant when the ol’ cellular gave a ring. It was Mom. I knew something was up before I answered.

“It’s your father,” she said, sniffling.

“What’s my father?” I said.

“The reason I’m calling. It’s your father. He’s-well his condition is worsening.”

“The tree thing? I thought the doctors said he would be fine?”

“Well, he might’ve been, if the bastard told us when it started getting really bad. Nope, he’s been ignoring it apparently. Hiding the symptoms and pretending it would go away; that stupid-”

“Hey, I’m sure he had his reasons. Can’t say he made the right choice, but he’s still the man you love right?”

“It’s hard to feel love for someone who’s actions will be negatively affecting your foreseeable future,” she said.

“What? I mean, what’s the big deal?” I asked.

“I just- oh, would you just come down and see for yourself? If you won’t do it for me, that’s fine but do it for your father. And your siblings,” she said.

“What can I do for them? I’d love to see you guys, it’s just that I have to ask off work and get my shifts covered and the bills-”

“Tommy-”

“It’s Tom, Mother. I go by Tom,” I said.

“Fine Tom, we’ll call you mister-fucking-president if you would just get your ass down here! Please, Tommy. He wants to see you. I’m sure he’d tell you that himself if he were drunk enough, but it’s hard for him to express feelings. He definitely wouldn’t say it with me in the room, and he can’t call you without me because he can’t dial a god-damn phone anymore. Please. Come talk some sense into him, or at least help everybody else deal with this.”

And just like that, I fell right back in. I started making trips every month because Dad said he liked it, it made him feel better. Truthfully it was good to see the old guy more often. He’s always been my hero, even when he wasn’t.

Then I started visiting more frequently, a couple of times a month. Had to help the old man get some things in order; get a will drawn up, help sell some farm equipment to pay for doctor visits, take care of some jobs for him. Eventually, they got fed up with me taking so much time off, they let me go at the restaurant. Which, admittedly, wasn’t too bad. I could make more money running Dad’s farm a couple of weeks out of the month. But I couldn’t stay at the house all the time. It was just too much. It was too much before Dad moved out, but now it’s unbearable. Every dusty corner reeks of the helplessness of childhood. There’s a storm cloud over everyone, and they just let the rain soak through their skulls while they stare at the floor. Plus, I just couldn’t take it. I got out. I moved away. That was my goal for years, and I made it happen. It’s my right to drive ten hours back home just to sleep and play Skyrim for a week or so before piling in and driving right on back to Maryland.

So here I am again, driving out to Maryland. I often find myself thinking of these things, the twists and turns life throws at you. It’s true what they say: time waits for no man and destiny doesn’t give a shit what you had in mind for yourself.

It was dark by the time I pulled into the dirt driveway. I usually go in the house first, but it was late. I figured the little ones were asleep. I went straight to the barn to check on Dad, he liked to stay up late talking to the animals.

“My boy!” he said in a raspy voice. “Get over here! It’s good to see you, lad. Help your old man out, put another beer in my hand.”

The six-pack was right by his wheelchair with only one can missing. I reached down and pulled another beer out of the plastic rings, cracking the can and setting it on his thigh.

“Thank you,” he said with his extra-long straw pinched between his teeth. He was able to move his head just enough to extricate his straw from the last can, toss it aside, and wiggle the straw into the next one.

I laughed. “What do you do when there’s no one else out here?”

“I just sit and watch the stars,” he said, “the real buzz you get is just from being in the quiet of the night air.”

“You know,” I said, “you’ve gotten much more poetic since you’ve been out here.”

“Terminal illness will do that to you,” he said, laughing.

We both looked down at his feet, covered in bark with long spiraling roots growing into the ground and twisting around the spokes of his chair.

“Doctor says I can stop eating,” he said. “The roots are deep enough that my body is starting to get all its nutrients from the soil. Only beer from here on, boy!”

The metal of his wheelchair glimmered in the rectangle of moonlight created by the window.

“Well you picked a good spot,” I said, “probably get lots of sun right there.”

“Your Mother broke down right here when the doctor told her,” he said. “She just kept begging me to come inside. She just doesn't understand.”

“I think she understands just fine,” I said. “She just wants you around is all, Pops. Why are you so hell-bent on dying out here, anyway?”

“I told you,” he said, “It’s peaceful out here. I talk to the animals in the daytime. I watch the stars at night. People visit sometimes and put beer in my lap. It’s not so bad, Tom. You grow up like a snowball. You know? Just rolling, collecting more and more as you go. You don’t know how to stop or if you even can. I feel like this illness has brought me to a stop. I can finally appreciate what’s around me.”

“And you don’t want your family around you?” I asked.

“Come on man,” he said, “not you too. You know that’s not it.”

“I’m just curious,” I said. “You’re a grown man, it’s your house, your barn. You’re just taking it all quite well. You seem happy is all, I feel like you speak honestly out here. It’s really up to you where you spend your last days.”

“It’s not my last days,” he said. “This, this disease doesn’t mean death. It’ll just be a transformation. Trees, they live just like us. They experience, they create, they feel. I’m not dying Tom, this is where I’m supposed to be.”

“You don’t feel like,” I trailed off.

“Like what?”

“Like your body is turning into a prison?” I asked.

He sighed and said, “It’s already a prison. I don’t have much choice in this matter. Most serious illnesses end in death. I’d rather spend the time I have left accepting a fate I can’t change, than desperately trying to change something I can’t accept.”

He smiled and took a long sip through his straw. I laughed and sat down next to him, grabbing one of his beers. I looked up at him. The skin on his neck was starting to look stiff and bark-like, yet he held his head up to smile at the night sky.

“Yep,” he sighed, “ this is how it’s all supposed to be. First a man, then a tree.”

“That’s beautiful,” I said.

He jolted and said, “Look!” He was so excited he even moved his head slightly to gesture at the owl that landed on the right corner of the open window. It was brown with an austere white chest, against the deep blue of the dark sky. It almost seemed to glow; shimmering like the constellations around it.

“Tom,” he said reverently, “This is Ambrose, he’s a barn owl. He hunts in our field and he comes to this barn to nest. I’ve been wanting you two to meet.”

I laughed, “Oh yea, why’s that?

“He’s in my will,” Dad said. “Well, in a way. I told Ambrose he could nest in my branches once I finish my metamorphosis. It’s important to me that Ambrose finds a comfortable home in me. It’ll be safe for him that way and it’ll give me purpose.”

“You really are starting to lose it,” I said between laughs.

“No,” he said, chuckling, “this is all part of it. You know I love your mother to death, but she is just so bent out of shape about all this tree business.”

“Well I can’t blame her,” I said.

“No, I’m not either. No one can. There’s no church group for women whose husbands turn into trees. She just doesn’t understand about my new life. I talked to her about Ambrose, she wouldn’t listen. She wants to have a service and have people coming by to study me. They’ll be cutting off branches and stealing leaves to try and find a cure. That’s what she wants. She wants to save everyone else from going through this.”

He paused and said, “Not me. This is how it was meant to be. If God likes me better as a tree, then I’ll be the best tree he’s ever seen.”

“I know you will, Dad,” I said. “I’ll be here to make sure that can happen.”

“No,” he said. “You’ve got to get out there and live your life. I know there isn’t much growing to do in that old house.”

“Well, good thing I won’t be staying in there,” I said.

“Where’re you going to sleep?”

“I’ll stay out here, with you and Ambrose,” I said, looking up at the barn owl staring down at us with glassy black eyes. “Maybe he’ll talk to me too. I’ll be right here and I’ll make sure you make a good home for him.”

I heard the sound of wood bending as my father turned his head to look at me. Teary-eyed, he said, “Thank you.”

With those last words, the bark spots on his face began to expand. His flesh was swallowed up by the encroaching wood. He shot upwards as a skinny trunk, continuing to climb. His roots undulated with growth. They thickened as they burrowed deeper into the ground. The skinny trunk began widening, growing thicker and taller as he burst through the top of the barn. The animals startled and ran outside moaning and bleating. I stood right there, watching. It was like an iceberg suddenly being lifted out of the water to reveal it’s true size. His branches sprouted at the top shooting out in every direction, engulfing the barn in an umbrella of shade. I stepped outside to try and see the top. I could just barely make out the chocolate, coconut silhouette of Ambrose settling on a low branch.