New Story: "Brussels Sprout"

Brussels Sprout

Bob and Carol were back. They spend their winters in Mesa, Arizona. They always leave the day after Remembrance Day and return the first week of April, but this year they wished they had stayed an extra couple of weeks in the desert sun.

We had two snow storms since they came back, and both times they had to shut down the Trans-Canada Highway. It was only April 28, and the ground was still cold; but Bob couldn’t wait and planted his peas anyway. And Swiss Chard. And beets. “It’s too early yet for anything else,” he said. But three years ago he couldn’t wait either and planted early too, and nothing happened. He had to replant his seeds, so he was no further ahead.

We usually drop over (they lived across the street, one house down) within a day or two of their return; but this year for some reason we didn’t. Neither did we have them over for dinner before they left for Arizona last fall, as we normally did. “We’d better go over and welcome them home,” I said to Cathy, three weeks after they arrived. “But call first.”

Carol made tea. We had introduced her to herbal teas a few years ago, and she did purchase a variety package of herbal teas which she offered to us whenever we dropped over, but she was back into her customary Earl Grey again.

“I just baked these today,” she said, and laughed as she took a handful of assorted cookies out of her store-bought package and arranged them on the serving platter.

We sat at the kitchen table, which served as their dining room table as well because they didn’t have a dining room. Their kitchen window looked out onto the street and our home; but our triplex was on a corner lot, so they could only see our middle apartment tenant’s entrance on the north side, they couldn’t see the front where we entered.

“I walked over a couple of times to see if you guys were home,” Bob said, happy that we had dropped over, “but both vehicles were gone.”

“I see you coming and going out of your basement,” Carol added, as she poured the Earl Grey into our cups. “I guess you’re pretty busy painting.”

“Yes, I’ve been busy,” I said.

“It’s none of my business, but if you don’t mind my asking, where are you painting now?” Carol, whose curiosity about my life went beyond casual interest, asked.

“The municipal office,” I replied.

“Oh, are you still there?” Carol asked.

“Yes. I’ll be there for another week and a half.”

“That’s a nice job. And it’s about time they painted it too. As I was saying to Bob yesterday, I don’t think that place has been painted in years. Didn’t Russ Simmons paint it the last time? I thought I remember him painting it.”

“No. I painted it about fifteen years ago.”

“See, I told you he painted it,” Bob said, with that look of pleasant surprise that comes across his face whenever he’s right and Carol is wrong.

“Are you sure you painted it last?” Carol said, with an inward look in her eyes. “I could have sworn Russel Simmons painted it, but I might be wrong.”

“You are wrong. He just told you he painted it last,” Bob said, his face beaming.

“He’s got you this time, Carol,” I said, with a chuckle.

Cathy, who loves to see Bob win an argument with Carol who hates to be wrong, laughed also; and then we talked about their winter in Arizona, as we always did, and their health, and then their friends (every year they tell us of one or two of their snow-bird friends who had migrated to the other side), and finally their gambling at the casinos and how much they had won or lost. This year Bob won seventeen hundred, Carol lost four hundred.

“That’s another thing she can’t get over,” Bob, who found his courage whenever we popped over, quickly offered. “I can’t help it if I won. I was lucky this winter and she wasn’t. That’s not my fault, is it?”

“I didn’t say it was your fault,” Carol said.

“But that’s how you make it sound,” Bob said.

“Ohhh,” Carol moaned, not wanting to get into it in front of visitors; but it wasn’t often that Bob got a chance to be his own man, and he wasn’t’ going to let up when he was winning an argument with his wife—

“More luck than brains, that’s what you said. It doesn’t take brains to play slot machines,” Bob replied, pushing his luck to its limit.

“Let’s drop it, okay?” Carol said, visibly annoyed.

“Well, does it?” Bob insisted, like a warrior.

“No, it doesn’t. There, does that make you feel better?”

“Yes it does,” Bob said, with a gloating smile.

“Good. Now we can drop it.”

“I’m done,” Bob said.

“You’re going to be well done when we leave,” I said, and laughed.

Cathy laughed too. Even Carol had to laugh, as much as she didn’t want to; but Bob’s face flushed red. He had gone too far and knew it, but he didn’t regret it.

I wanted to say something to back Bob up, but I couldn’t; it would only have made it worse for him later. “So, Carol; did you read any good books during the winter?”

“As a matter of fact, I did. I read Angela’s Ashes. My daughter gave it to me to read. My God, I couldn’t believe how poor they were. Have you read it?”

“No, but I want to read it,” Cathy replied instead.

“You should. It’s incredible. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that held my attention like that. It’s so real and true to life it makes you shudder.”

“To tell you the truth Carol, I’m tired of Irish writers and their sanctified poverty. I might read it just for the literature, but I doubt it,” I said, just to provoke her.

“How can people live like that?” Carol responded, oblivious to my comment. “I don’t know how the father of those children could drink away all their food money like that. How could a man do that to his own family?”

I wanted to laugh. Carol, who had inherited her strong-willed temperament from her Irish father, had one brother who drank himself to death and another brother whose second wife could no longer suffer his drinking that forced their oldest son Jamie out of the house at sixteen and who had to take their other two children and leave; but Carol couldn’t see it.

“Someone was telling me your brother got picked up for impaired a couple of weeks ago and lost his license,” I said, with a straight face.

“He’s going to fight it,” Bob replied, missing my point entirely. So did Carol.

“He’s crazy if he thinks he can beat it. They’ve got him dead to rights,” Carol said.

“They gave him a breathalyzer, didn’t they?” I asked.

“Yeah. That’s why he can’t win,” Bob said.

But Carol didn’t want to talk about her family. “I read Shirley MacLaine’s book Out On a Limb last winter too. Have you read it?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Wasn’t it out of this world?” Carol said, hoping I would open up to her on what she had heard about me. “I mean, that woman had some pretty weird experiences.”

“She starred as herself in the movie,” I responded.

“I heard. I haven’t seen it yet, but I’m going to get it the next time we go to the city. I don’t think it’ll be as good as the book because they never are, but I want to see it anyway. As I was saying, I didn’t think I would ever read a book by Shirley MacLaine; but I didn’t mind it at all. She’s not as kooky as they say she is. I don’t think so, anyway.”

“Then you might be ready to read her new book, The Camino,” I said, with an ironic smile.” I’ve got it if you want to borrow it.”

Carol’s eyes lit up. “What’s it about?” she asked, all excited.

“Essentially, it’s about reincarnation,” I said, with a chuckle.

Cathy looked at me and smiled, but said nothing. “Well I don’t know if I’m ready for that yet,” Carol said, defensively. “Have you read it Cathy?”

“Yes,” Cathy said. “It doesn’t matter if you believe in reincarnation or not, Carol; it’s a good read because she takes you on the pilgrimage with her. I enjoyed it very much.”

“What pilgrimage?” Carol asked.

“The Camino is about the famous Christian pilgrimage in Spain called the Santiago de Compostela Camino, but along the way MacLaine has visions of her past lives. That’s what makes the book so fascinating. If you think you’re ready for a heavy dose of reincarnation, then you should read it,” I said, again with a straight face.

“I don’t know if I’m ready for that,” Carol said, backing off. “I’m trying to keep an open mind about reincarnation, but I still have problems with it.”

Bob stayed silent. He wasn’t a reader. He was a sitter. “I like to sit,” he told me one day. “I like to just sit. That’s what I like doing most.”

And he did sit a lot. He sat in his living room chair in the evening and didn’t do anything. Maybe watch a little TV, but he could sit for hours doing nothing.

“If you’re brought up a Christian, it’s hard to break away from the belief that we only live one lifetime,” I said, to gently bring the conversation to a close. “Reincarnation isn’t for everyone, Carol. It’s a belief you grow into. You’ll come around eventually,” I added, unable to help myself.

“I don’t know about that. I have problems with it,” she responded.

“Carol, ten years ago you wouldn’t even have thought of reading Shirley MacLaine. Now you have. So you are making some progress.”

“I don’t know if you can all that progress. Maybe I’m going backwards,” she said, and broke into laughter at her unexpected comeback.

“I don’t think you are, Carol,” Cathy said. “I think when you’re ready to believe in reincarnation you won’t be able to stop yourself. That’s how it works.”

“What?” Carol asked, with a puzzled look. “How what works?”

“Life,” Cathy replied.

“Life? Don’t tell me about how life works. I know damn well how life works, and I’m not sure I like it!” Carol said, making another funny.                               

We all laughed, but she had missed Cathy’s point and I wanted to go back there but chose not to. We drank another cup of tea, at Carol’s insistence, and then I got up and Cathy got up and I said, “It’s good to have you back home,” and we made our way to the back porch door because they never used the front door.

Carol and Bob followed us, as they always did and which we always allowed for when we made our exit. “Oh, by the way,” I said, as I was lacing up my runners, “Cathy and I saw a movie on TV last winter that you might enjoy. Ironically it brings together very nicely the two books you read last winter. It’s called Yesterday’s Children, starring Jane Seymour; and it’s about a drunken Irish father who abuses his wife and family. The mother dies giving birth to her last child and is reborn immediately. Jane Seymour plays the reincarnated mother who starts having flashback memories of her past life which compel her to travel to Ireland to see if she can find her children from her past lifetime. It’s based on a true story, Carol; so you can’t argue with the premise. I’m sure it’ll give you something to think about.”

“What’s it called again?” Carol asked, with a startled look.

“Yesterday’s Children,” Cathy replied.

“Is it out on video?” she asked.

“I don’t know. You’ll have to check it out,” I said.

“I might just do that this weekend,” Carol said, with surprised excitement.

“Okay, we have to go now,” I said, opening the door to leave; but Carol wouldn’t let us leave. She kept us standing there for another fifteen minutes, beginning every new and unrelated topic with, “As I was saying…”

On our drive to the city the following morning (to pick up groceries, check out the nurseries for flowers for our front yard, and pick up supplies for my next job) the subject of Bob and Carol came up. “As I was saying,” I said, with a chuckle, “we didn’t see much of them last summer. I think we’ve outgrown their friendship—again!”

Cathy laughed. That was a problem with us. We outgrew our friendship with people who didn’t share our view on life. Despite all the mobility they seemed to have, whether it was going on a real holiday to Cancun, wintering in Arizona, or hauling a trailer to different campsites every summer, they all seemed to be standing still.

“It’s not their fault. They just don’t know any better,” Cathy said, referring to our friendly neighbors Bob and Carol.

“Isn’t it curious though that after all these years they’re still so unresolved?”

“Bob’s not bad,” Cathy said, in his defense. “I think it’s Carol who has the problem. She wants to be in control all the time. My ex was just like that. He had to have his own way no matter what. But you can’t grow if you don’t let your spouse grow.”

The memory of Cathy’s insecurity when we first met loomed large in my mind. “Yes,” I said, smiling to myself at the intoxicating freedom that Cathy found in our relationship, which took years for her to adjust to. “It’s karma, basically. If you don’t give freedom to others, you stop growing yourself. That’s the karmic law of life.”

“I think that’s why we outgrow our friendships. Our friends don’t give us the freedom to be who we are, do they?” Cathy said, reflectively.

“Why doesn’t he take you on a real holiday?” I said, and laughed. “You’re right, sweetheart; we give our friends their freedom, but in one way or another they deny us the freedom to be who we are. But do you know why that is?”

“Why is that? I don’t understand why people can’t live and let live. We do.”

“Because we understand how karma works. We know better than to interfere in another person’s life. Take Carol; why do you think she has a problem with reincarnation?”

“Her attitude. She keeps herself stuck in the same state of consciousness by her stubborn attitude, don’t you think?”

“Yes, I do. Carol has to be in control. That’s her personality. And as long as she holds onto the attitude that she has to have her own way, she’ll never grow enough to see how the immutable law of karma works in life. That’s why she has a problem with reincarnation, because it takes karmic discernment to be open to reincarnation.”

“I wonder if Bob believes in reincarnation. Do you think he does?”

“I don’t think so. They’re both stuck in their Christian perspective. It takes courage to grow, sweetheart; more courage than most people have. That’s why it seems to us that our friends are standing still. You can even tell this by the food they eat.”

“Who, Bob and Carol?”

“Yes. Haven’t you noticed?”

“A long time ago. Carol won’t try anything new. ‘That’s the way I’ve always cooked, and I’m not about to change now,’” Cathy said, mimicking Carol, and then laughed.

I laughed too. “It's a safe little world they live in, sweetheart; and there isn’t a damn thing we can do about it. But then, why should we? It’s their life.”

“And their karma. But it does get boring after a while, doesn’t it?”

“More than they’ll ever know…”

We picked up my paint supplies first, and then we stopped at the Super Store for groceries, and then we went to Applebee’s for lunch.

“Where to now,” I asked, as we got into the car after lunch.

“Walmart. I want to see if they have any plants out,” Cathy said.

They did have flowers in their plastic-covered greenhouse, but it was still too early to buy any. We wouldn’t be safe from frost until at least the twenty-first of May, and even then it was doubtful; so we had a couple of weeks to wait yet.

We looked around, and then we went inside and looked for a composting pail for our back yard; but they were all out.  Cathy bought all of her vegetable seeds and a couple of bags of onions, and then I walked over to Chapters and she drove to Intercity Mall. On the way home we talked about the changes that she was going to make in her garden.

Cathy went online the night before to check out gardening in Northwestern Ontario, and she found out that she shouldn’t plant vegetables in the same place every year, so she was redesigning her garden as we talked.

Cathy loved her little garden. When she was married, her husband wouldn’t let her have a garden. Not in Nesbit where they lived the first seven years, nor in Rock Point where they lived for the rest of their seventeen and half year marriage. “There’s no way you’re putting a garden in our yard,” her husband said. “I’ve picked enough goddamn rocks in my old man’s garden to last me a lifetime!”

“You won’t have anything to do with it. I’ll take care of everything,” Cathy said.

“I said no goddamn garden, and that’s that—”

And then Cathy met me and filed for a divorce, and the first summer that we moved into the top unit of our triplex I had a contractor haul in six loads of top soil and made her a little garden which she took pride planting every summer.

“I think I’m going to plant my onions in the back this year. I don’t want that ugly orange fencing for the peas in my garden this summer. I’m going to buy a couple of white trestles for the peas to climb on, and I’ll plant the corn in the warm end of the garden.”

“Corn? You bought corn seeds?” I asked, surprised.

“Yes, corn. Why not? We’ve never had corn before.”

“And with good reason. Our season is too short for corn. No-one in St. Jude grows corn. Not even Jigs McGraw, the best gardener in town.”

“Oh yes they do. I’ve seen corn plants in some gardens.”

“Where?” I asked. “I’ve never seen any.”

“On my way home from the hospital. I saw some corn plants in the Lutheran church property,” Cathy replied.

“You may have seen some plants, but did they produce any corn?”

“They must have or they wouldn’t have planted them, would they?”

I knew that our season was too short for corn, unless it was already started indoors and had a head start of three or four weeks; but I wasn’t going to deny Cathy. “Okay, corn it is. What about the beans? Where would you like to plant them?”

“In the middle somewhere. I haven’t decided yet. I’m going to plant my Swiss Chard beside the onions, in the far end, then my radishes, then my beets, and then maybe my beans, two rows of yellow and two rows of green, then lettuce, two kinds, and then my Brussels Sprout next to the corn.”

“Is it worth the bother to plant Brussels Sprout? We’re lucky to get two good feeds from what we get,” I said, unwisely.

“You’re not going to deny me my little treat, are you?”

“Of course not. I just think all of that soil for one or two handfuls of Brussels Sprout isn’t really worth the bother, that’s all.”

“Oh sure, take away my little treat, why don’t you? Just because I like Brussels Sprout you have to deny—”

I knew it before I opened my mouth, the unresolved conflict between us concerning the Brussels Sprout reared its ugly head, but I wasn’t foolish enough to let it all the way out; so I said, “Sweetheart, I wouldn’t deny you your little treat. It’s your garden, and if you want to plant the whole garden with Brussels Sprout, it’s up to you.”

“I don’t want to plant the whole garden with Brussels Sprout, just one or two rows; that’s all. You won’t mind, will you?”

“Why should I mind? It’s your garden, isn’t it?”

“It’s our garden,” she emphasized.

I smiled to myself. It was our garden, but we both knew it was hers, and if I tried to take any part of it away from her, especially her Brussels Sprout which had taken on unspoken significance, I knew it would do damage to our relationship, and I called upon every ounce of strength I had to keep from denying her her Brussels Sprout after she had given away our whole zip-lock freezer bagful to her uncle last summer, and she hadn’t forgotten; it was still there, deep, unresolved, just waiting to come out to get between us.

It was impossible to change her seventeen-and-a half year marriage personality that had been driven to states of love-destroying silence and which had more power to infuriate me than anything she could ever say to me, that was why I gave her all the freedom to grow into the person she was denied to be by her husband, and if I denied her her Brussels Sprout it would only have driven her into deadly silence; but that wouldn’t resolve her guilt for giving away our whole crop of Brussels Sprout to her uncle last summer just to spite me. Had she given them to her father as she had intended, I wouldn’t have been hurt; but she gave them to a man I no longer respected, and that rubbed my face in it.

We had gotten into an argument. Once again, about once or twice a year, whenever there was a family function, be it a dinner, wedding, or whatever, her family and my family stood like an impenetrable wall between us. It boggled my mind, and every time it happened we were driven into separate corners. This time she stormed out of the house saying, “I’m driving down to visit my dad. You can do what you want!”

“Go visit him. And you can stay there for all I care!”

Cathy did stay with her parents when she left her husband. She had nowhere else to go. But not more than a month of living with her parents and her mother said to her, “I don’t want you living here anymore. You’re fucking up my life!”

Her mother was dead now, and she got along very well with her father who didn’t have a mind of his own when his wife was alive, but it wasn’t the right thing to say to Cathy, and I was wrong to say it; but when push came to shove, I just didn’t give a damn.

She didn’t reply. She knew I meant it and didn’t want to jeopardize our relationship over one argument, but she had her pride too; so she took the Brussels Sprout that she had just collected from our garden, but instead of giving them to her father as she meant to she gave them to her uncle who had dropped in for his daily shot or three of rye.

Cathy knew I didn’t like her uncle. I tried not to show it for her family’s sake, but his clever, joke-making user-personality bothered me. I had done some work for him, painting and texturing his house, a seventeen-hundred-dollar job for the price of the material alone, and then I did another small job for which he owed me twenty-five dollars for material but which I never saw, and as forgiving as I could be, it bothered me to be used that way. That’s why I didn’t care for her uncle Stumpy, who got his nickname from a scaler when he worked felling trees for Domcan Timber because he refused to bend over and cut the trees close to the ground as he was supposed to; so when Cathy’s father told me she had given her Brussels Sprout to her uncle, my blood began to boil.

“I thought she was going to give them to you,” I said to Cathy’s father, who insisted on paying me for all the work I did on his house when Cathy and I got together.

“Stumpy said he likes Brussels Sprout, so she gave them to him. He’s always bumming something,” Cathy’s father replied, blissful unaware of Cathy’s gesture.

“Son of a bitch!” I exploded. “It’s not enough that I paint his whole fucking house for nothing, he has to eat our Brussels Sprout too!”

Cathy’s father laughed. He knew how I felt about his wife’s brother, and agreed with me; but he had gotten used to him over the years, and ever since Stumpy’s stroke which left him partially paralyzed, he felt sorry for him.

“He should pay you that twenty-five dollars he owes you,” Cathy’s father would say to me every time Stumpy’s name came up. “By Jesus, that’s not right. You did all that work for nothing, the least he can do is pay you for the material. That’ not right.”

And it wasn’t right that Cathy should give our whole crop of Brussels Sprout to her uncle, and she knew it; but Cathy couldn’t bring herself to resolve her guilt, so it got shoved down into the shadow part of her personality, and for the first time since she had given away our precious crop to her uncle, her guilt-demon reared its head to be resolved or do more damage to our relationship; the choice was ours to make.

“You don’t want me to plant Brussels Sprout this year, do you?” she said.

She had to get it out into the open, but it was a double-edged sword; so she wasn’t really aware of baiting me. She was, and she wasn’t; that was the double nature of the personality and its dark shadow, and I had to be very careful, if not forgiving.

It bothered her that I never said anything when she gave away our whole crop to her uncle, and most men would have scored on that point; but I knew better. Keeping score was a dangerous game. It kept couples from growing, because they fed off each other’s energies instead of their own initiative. Keeping score was karmically stupid, and I didn’t want us to end up like Bob and Carol; so I chose not to let her little guilt demon out at all but to just let it shrivel up and die from the absence of attention.

“I like Brussels Sprout, so I’d appreciate it if you planted at least one row,” I replied; and because I actually meant it, I wasn’t playing with Cathy’s mind.

“But you said it’s not worth the bother. That’s what you said,” Cathy insisted.

“A lot of things aren’t worth the bother, sweetheart; but we do them anyway. Go ahead and plant them if you want to; I really don’t mind.”

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Of course I’m sure,” I replied, and kissed her on the cheek.

“I was just checking,” she said, with a happy smile.

Bob came over and got my rototiller. His tiller was at his daughter’s place in the country just on the other side of the city, and it wasn’t worth the bother to pick it up and till his garden and bring it back again, so he borrowed mine the past two or three summers; and to show his appreciation, he always serviced it for me every time he used it.

This spring he changed the fan belt also, but when I started tilling the garden the belt went loose; so I walked across the street and told Bob.

I could have solved the problem on my own, but Bob enjoyed being needed when it came to little mechanical things; so he grabbed his tray of tools and walked over with me, and within minutes he had the problem solved.

 “I feel foolish, Bob,” I said.

“I should have tightened it, but it worked fine for me,” he said. “I guess that’s why I didn’t notice it.”

“Well it works fine now. Cathy wants to plant her onions and chard and peas tonight, but not in the same place as last year. She was on the Internet the other night and learned that she should rotate her crops, so she’s planting everything in a different place this year.”

Bob, who grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan and whose vegetable garden impressed us every summer with its abundance, gave me that little look of his whenever he was doubtful about something. “I’m not so sure that’s a good idea for the peas,” he said. “I always plant my peas in the same place. They give something back to the soil that makes them grow better. But that’s just what I think. I might be wrong.”

“I’ll tell Cathy. But I think she has her heart set on planting the peas over there by the retainer wall so she can have her trestles.”

“Well it’s her garden. I suppose she can plant them wherever she wants,” Bob said, with a surprising wisdom that made me chuckle.

“Right,” I said, smiling. “But I’m going to chop down some of those branches to let in more sunlight into the garden. Cathy’s not going to like that, but hey—”

———