Hieronymus Bosch's American Landscape, Barry Rachin [early reader books .txt] 📗

slumped over in the chair, his gnarled, arthritic hands resting on his knees. "In Yokosuka, I had one of the hospital corpsman bring me a copy of the Stars and Stripes military newspaper, which featured a lengthy account of the ambush in the Mekong Delta."

"The battle where you were hurt?"

The old man's head bobbed up and down in the darkened corner. "The military brass reported the ambush exactly as it happened with one slight difference: the newspaper stated that we caught the enemy unawares, and the communists had to pull back after suffering horrific casualties."

Bethany felt her brain go numb. "They turned everything upside down."

"Upside down, topsy-turvy, inside out, every other which way but how the events actually unfolded in the real world." The man rose to his feet. "Good night, Bethany."

"Goodnight, Uncle Vern."

*****

In the morning, Houa was sitting at the kitchen table sipping herbal tea. She offered Bethany breakfast, but the girl wanted to get on the road. As she left the house, she noticed the chickens foraging in the side yard. The tabby was lounging on a rock; the senile poodle who couldn't remember to feed himself was tethered to a rope with a water bowl within easy reach.

The southern New England countryside was stunning, fall foliage turning every shade of earth color from rust through bright yellow and orangey-red. She cruised past postcard-perfect farms where silos, tractors and hay ricks were scattered about. Cattle grazed in fenced-off fields. A riding academy with a mix of horses and smaller ponies roaming a spacious paddock loomed directly ahead. The route to Braxton was uncomplicated. Ten miles due east, the narrow, two-lane road she was traveling on bisected the interstate. From there she traveled north another twenty miles, exiting onto a smaller roadway. Only when she reached the outskirts of Braxton did the bucolic landscape noticeably fade. Reaching the gritty downtown area, Bethany spotted a parking garage. Locating an empty space on the third level, she rode the elevator down to the street.

Downtown Braxton resembled a third-world, banana republic.

There were few Caucasians and the people she passed were, for the most part, poorly dressed and clearly in no hurry to get where they were going. Many of the buildings were for rent or plastered with neon orange signs from the building inspector indicating that the structures had been condemned. Every so many feet the sidewalk was torn up with patches of concrete strewn in the gutter.

None of the residents looked like they had two nickels to rub together much less a plan, to better themselves. Horatio Alger was not an option. Where would the money come from to make repairs? Certainly not from the hardscrabble residents milling about downtown Braxton. Directly across the street and sandwiched between two scorched structures that looked like they had been set ablaze for the insurance money, stood a brand new courthouse. An architectural anomaly, the municipal building was lavish in the extreme. It would appear that Braxton possessed resources sufficient to finance a multi-million-dollar, state-of-the art courthouse and nothing more. Bethany located the dowdy, social services office two blocks down.

"Why is the community so…" Bethany wasn't quite sure how to finish the sentence.

"Excuse me?" The thickset woman she was addressing was the director of a local food bank.

"Down at the heels," Bethany ventured.

The food bank director stared at her icily. "The country is in a recession, if you hadn't noticed."

Bethany glanced at the director's name tag: Marisol Gonzales. The Hispanic woman had probably misconstrued the remark as a personal slur and now there was no way to make amends.

On the other hand, why should she?

None of the minorities Bethany passed in the street looked like they were gainfully employed. Many jibber-jabbered amongst themselves in staccato, rapid-fire Spanish. Those illegal aliens who did work, were, of necessity, employed in a murky 'underground economy', paying no federal taxes or social security. Bethany felt her face flush hot as an iron poker held over an open flame and bristled at the notion of apologizing to the fastidious food bank director.

*****

After the training session wound down around four in the afternoon, Bethany hurried back to the garage. Exiting onto a one way street, she quickly became disoriented and pulled over in the parking lot of a Dunkin' Donuts. The girl got out of the car and went into the donut shop. Everybody in the place looked like they were on welfare or AFDC or just escaped from prison or a loony bin or were receiving a disability check because they exhibited dull normal intelligence. "Where's Laurel Avenue from here?"

The black woman she was addressing stared impassively into space as though Bethany had requested a description of quantum physics. "Dunno," the girl mumbled.

Back in the parking lot a police siren caterwauled somewhere in the distance. A teenage girl in her third trimester waddled past. Bethany retreated to the safe haven of her car. Two blocks up she pulled into a liquor store with wrought iron bars on windows and doors. A malignant panic metastasizing in her chest, it was becoming increasing difficult to keep her voice from breaking. "Laurel Avenue… where is it from here?"

"Easiest thing in the world!" A short, dark-skinned man, who looked like he might have been Malaysian or from the Indian subcontinent or Pakistani or Yemenite squeezed out from behind the counter and stepped into the late afternoon sunlight. "Two streets down… see that brick building just beyond the gas station?" Bethany nodded. "You turn right and keep driving maybe eight or nine blocks until you bump your nose." The pleasant man tapped his scimitar-shaped honker with a forefinger.

"Bump your nose," Bethany repeated softly. "What does that mean?"

"Bump you nose… until you can't go any further," the man elucidated. "Then you take a right and a quick left onto Laurel Avenue."

"Thank you so much."

"It's no problem." The man went back inside the stuffy prison-cell-of-a-building and shut the door behind him.

Three-quarters of a mile down the road Bethany 'bumped her nose' and, after a couple of deft maneuvers, was back on the main thoroughfare heading to Uncle Vern, Aunt Houa, the single-purpose chickens, demented dog, scruffy tabby and Freda, the high-fat-content cow. In a rest area shortly before the interstate, the girl eased the Volvo off the road, killed the ignition and volubly sobbed her heart out. Fifteen minutes later, she wiped her puffy eyes, located an FM radio station with reasonably good reception that featured country and western music and continued her homeward trek.

*****

"There's been a change of plans," Bethany announced later that night at supper. "I'm running additional, training seminars in Boston straight through the weekend."

"Well then," Houa replied, "you will remain here with us and save the expense of a hotel room and all that frivolous nonsense."

"Are you sure-"

Her uncle raised a mottled hand indicating that the issue was not open for debate. "How did you find Braxton?"

She wanted to say that Braxton resembled one of those surrealistic, satanic scenes straight out of a Hieronymus Bosch painting, that Braxton was the unmitigated toilet of the universe - Shitville USA! "A bit down at the heels."

"So I heard." Uncle Vern reached for another slice of meatloaf. "If you came for an extended visit during the summer, we could take day trips to Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard - maybe even view a Red Sox baseball game at Fenway Park."

Houa positioned an ear of sweet corn on the side of Bethany's plate and nudged the crock with Freda's homemade butter closer. Though the woman wore the same pokerfaced expression, Bethany had the distinct impression that the oriental was holding her breath while smiling inwardly. "Yes, I'd like that just fine. I'll come back for an extended stay in the spring."

"Well then, it's settled," Houa announced in a whisper-soft tone. "May is nice around here… June equally so."

"Look out your bedroom window as soon as you rise in the morning," Uncle Vern counseled, shifting gears. "You'll probably see a family of white-tailed deer wandering about the backyard. They clean up the fallen apples before wandering off elsewhere."

"They're also crazy for acorns," Houa noted. "Sometimes I see them over by the oak trees eating their fill of nuts."

*****

In the morning just as Uncle Vern assured her, the deer - a buck with a narrow set of velvety antlers, his doe and two Bambiesque youngsters with speckled pelts - were meandering close by the apple tree, gorging on fallen fruit. "I generally take my vacation the beginning of June." Bethany hugged and kissed her uncle before heading off to Boston on the second full day of her visit.

Houa was lingering at a safe distance, but Bethany approached and kissed her too and the dark-skinned woman generously returned the favor. "When the worst of the winter is over," Houa said, "your uncle drills tapholes with an auger and we make our own maple syrup. You might enjoy joining us." "We boil down the syrup usually in the spring," Houa explained, "once the sap begins rising through the roots and -"

"Autumn, too," Uncle Vern blurted, lurching awkwardly closer to the driver's side door. "The practice is less common, but there's plenty of sugary sap flowing in these beauties before the New England winter sets in." He gestured at the thickly wooded countryside bordering the farm. "We got plenty of sugar maples but also red, silver and black. Personally, I favor the blacks 'cause of the high sugar content."

"Well then," Bethany eased onto the front seat of her car and smiled mischievously at her newfound relatives. "That changes everything!"

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Publication Date: 09-08-2011

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