Pear Cider

“Of all the varieties of pears used to make perry, my favorite is Butt, otherwise known as Norton Butt. While many of the perry pears have flamboyant names—take, for example, Lumberskull or Stinking Bishop—there’s nothing quite as satisfying as Butt.”

Charlie looked at me, holding the bright green fruit in his hand with a snide smile on his lips. He had been doing a horrible mock English accent that existed somewhere between Irish and Australian, a strange and unpleasant combination that would have been impossible for any proficient linguist to do but, for some reason, fell naturally from the mouth of Charlie Oliver. I sighed. It was the only thing I could do.

We’d been at the British Food Festival for all of twenty minutes when he found the perry booth and offended the owner by referring to the drink as “pear cider,” a classification which he didn’t take kindly to. Clearly, the man valued his craft, but he made a mistake in handing Charlie a pamphlet outlining the brief history of perry brewing complete with a comprehensive list of all the pears used in the process.

Charlie couldn’t resist a terrible pun and a chance to be loud.

“Come on,” he said, nudging my ribcage. “That was funny!” The booth’s owner, who was from England, didn’t seem to think so. I was already dripping sweat beneath the hot summer sun, and my clothes were clinging uncomfortably to my skin from the humid air, but the embarrassment of Charlie’s comment made me ten degrees hotter. I bought a bottle of perry, deciding I needed a drink, and thinking for a second longer, bought a second bottle as way of an apology.

I found a bench in the shade of a tree nearby and sat, staring at the label on the bottle. It was a vintage etching, a group of farmers in trousers and bonnets gathered around a pear tree, smiling as they picked pears from the ground. Thankfully, the bottle had a twist-off lid. It opened with a hiss, a fine cloud of sweet-scented miss coming from the mouth.

Charlie sat next to me a minute later with a cucumber sandwich already half-eaten. He offered me a bite, which I declined. Personally, I never saw the point of a cucumber sandwich. It’s plain tasting and doesn’t do much for you, nutritionally. Charlie seemed to be enjoying it, though.

Myself, I was content slowly sipping the semi-sweet, bubbly perry. I could see why the booth owner became so defensive over Charlie’s insinuation that the drink was like cider; the distinction between the two was subtle but important. I’d venture to say it was the perfect summertime drink.

I’d finished the bottle without even realizing and found myself disappointed when I tilted it back and nothing came out. To be honest, I’ve never had much of a tolerance for alcohol, so when Charlie and I stood up, it took me a moment to gather myself. I admit it, I was drunk and craving something salty.

I waited in a long line for fish and chips while Charlie went off on his own. The food wasn’t really worth the wait, but I suppose that’s the trade-off for festivals. Regardless, the salt was exactly what I needed, and I felt myself sobering up enough to be coherent again.

I found Charlie speaking with a girl I’d recognized from a college writing class, but I didn’t know her name. He was deeply engrossed in the telling of some story, emphasizing aspects of it with erratic hand motions, and she was laughing heartily. When he noticed me, he called me over and introduced me.

The girl’s name was May—“Short for Maybelline,” Charlie joked—and she extended her hand for me to shake. I declined, awkwardly saying something about the humidity and my sweaty palms. Apparently, they’d worked together at a restaurant that had closed a year earlier, which would have been around the time I met Charlie.

It’s interesting the ways people come into our lives. It’s interesting the ways in which they leave, too. Time passes by so quickly, you’re never quite sure how a chance meeting with a girl in a café becomes the confession of an “I love you” and the slow reliance on waking up to her hair in your face in the morning or falling asleep to her soft snoring, or how all of that ends with you watching through a window as she packs boxes into her car and disappears into the mist. How do two minutes become two years? How do three years become three seconds?

It was sometime in the three seconds between the fading of her taillights and the purchase of a basket of fish and chips that Charlie Oliver, a friend of a friend of a friend, sold me a signed Simon & Garfunkel record then trapped me in a conversation about how modern music has gone down the drain. I didn't agree with his sentiment, and I certainly didn't want to discuss it with him, but he'd cut me a deal on the record. Besides, I didn't have anything better to do. After thirty minutes, he invited me inside and offered me a drink. We listened to music and talked until four in the morning. After that, Charlie Oliver became an integral part of my everyday life.

One second or one year later, Charlie introduced me to May, a young journalist wearing an old Canon around her neck, in a park with trampled grass and wilted flowers. Sometime after, I noticed the tear-shaped birthmark on the nape of her neck as I was zipping up her dress; she told me her mother had the same birthmark, and what are the odds of that?

Charlie left for Arizona and came back a moment later saying the air was too dry, and I laughed at the mustache he’d grown while he was away. He said he liked the look of the apartment May and I had moved into. Our cat, Pippin, purred and rubbed against Charlie’s leg. I grabbed a bottle of wine from the cabinet, and we listened to Simon & Garfunkel for a year.

The next day, I was carrying the last box into the baby’s room in the new house when May came in, excitedly shouting for me to press my hand to her stomach. “Do you feel that?” she asked, beaming. “Do you feel her kicking?” I took her then and made love to her on the hardwood floor. I’d never lived somewhere with hardwood floor.

One day, I woke up and all my hair was gray. I’d gone to bed the night before with a head full of brown hair, and the next morning it was all gray which I felt I was too young for, but May told me it looked dignified. That was the word she used. Dignified. Charlie reminded me to be grateful mine hadn't fallen out like his had. I forced a laugh for his sake.

May and I split equal custody of April; May told me I could keep Pippin. “He always liked you better, anyway.” He wasn’t the same when we moved into the new apartment, though. It was like some part of his soul had been stripped away, like he’d exhausted eight of his nine lives. He only acted like himself when Charlie was around, and we’d sit and listen to records and talk. He’d brought a gift, “To celebrate the divorce:” a bottle of Norton Butt perry, and twenty years later, I finally laughed at his joke. I think that laugh was the thing he’d been waiting for.

The next time I saw Charlie Oliver, they were planting his body into the ground. He opted to be buried in a tree pod, and he left me a note.

“Make some cider from my butt.”