Catapult Soul Excerpt - Chapter 9
…Following Ivy’s directions, we were heading further down the long smooth road, further away from campus. Although the night was gripping up on the sky, I could still see the basic geography of the land. On both sides lay wide-open fields, which soon turned into dense plots of stalked corn…then into stunted wheat fields covered in lackluster gold, and in one plot, medium-sized pines positioned all too perfectly to be of natural development. Outlining each side, a ridge sat naked and unbroken, periodically dipping just enough to make hilltops, with (as Ivy informed me) a creek running along the hills to the right. Out before us, in the lower part of the horizon, sat a fortress of piney woods, forcing the hills to head east and west respectively. Even though the night was bright, I wanted to eye these pastoral lands during the day. Meanwhile, I was sampling my music for Ivy, praying she would like it. My first calculated choice was The Bouncing Souls because they’re melodic, friendly, and vocally overstandable. After two songs, Ivy said, “Ehh, they’re all right, I guess.” Not a good enough response, so I ejected and resorted to Plan B: Good Riddance. She winced and said, ‘Too hard and fast.’ ‘But juss listen’ah his voice!’ I yelled. ‘‘N’ listen’ah whad he’s singin’ about! Animal rights!’ Oh I wasn’t screaming at her, just over the music, because it’s a sin to listen to Rock ‘n’ Roll at a low volume or to interrupt a song for petty conversation. ‘Animal rights!’ I screamed again, with a devilish smile and a teasing fling of the hand. ‘Ju hear ‘im?! He said burn the slaughterhouses ta the grahn! Listen!’ I locked both hands on the wheel and looked over—Ivy was just sitting there all cute and coy, and with her hand on her forehead in a shading fashion, playing the role of the innocent girl who’s wondering how she got stuck with such a maniac. I believe inside we were both experiencing the kind of fun that tastes even better when reimbibed as a memory.
Minutes later, she turned the music down. ‘See that barn up there?’
‘“I see,” said the barn man.’
‘Well there’s a little gravel road right past it. Turn in there.’
‘Yes barn ma’am.’
Nearing the large weathered barn, I finessed the brakes and turned left down the said road: a rock-‘n’-dirt road. The main road (now behind us) went into a hard right towards a rolling hill that made a mystery of everything beyond. In our current position, precipitous woods shot uphill to our left (the barn-side), and to our right, more woods but on level ground; here, Ivy picked an indiscriminate spot for me to ease the car halfway off the bank and park. Only one person lived on the road, she said, all the way up at the end: an old man who was a friend of the family. She added how friendly he was if he knew you (or rather knew that your car was on his road), but he didn’t drive anywhere, and was surely asleep, and therefore my car would probably remain unnoticed.
‘Well this is the other place!’ she chirped. ‘Let’s go!’
‘But I still don’t get where we goin’.’
‘Only way to find out is to get out.’
‘Mmm, I dunno; I’m a liddle nervous. Mind if I patcha dahn first?’
‘Please. There’s absolutely no reason to be nervous, just as long as you promise to be good.’
‘Juss as long as I can break ‘at promise,’ I stipulated, popping in a piece of gum. When I opened the door and stepped out, the balmy October air slithered up my nose. Since I didn’t know where we would end up or how long we would be staying, I grabbed my hoodie just in case it became cooler. When I stepped forward with Ivy, she halted my motion as if she had a job to do alone. (She whispered something about not wanting to walk all the way up the hill, by the house.) So I leaned back on the front bumper and crossed my hoodie-tangled arms, while my eyes tangoed with Ivy’s curious and focused movements. She was walking alongside the bank in a measured skulk, scoping around and into the murky thicket. Reflexively, my observations moved upward with instant admiration. The sky was a profound cobalt-blue, and, as I also forecasted, impregnated with lively stars. The moon (as conspicuous as a moon can be) was incandescent like an immense pearl rounded precisely at three-quarters. It even seized a portion of the sky beyond its own niche—this circular chiaroscuro of indigo and chalk, a breathing force-field whose exhalations softly feathered into the cobalt-blue—which evinced, for the moon, respect and solitary, while retaining an air of majestic benevolence. For some reason, I was waiting for a thunderous sound to burst from the heavens, perhaps through the mouth of the moon. But the celestial intensity, from the nearest star to the furthest, remained suspended in a natal gasp of hush—while down below several sounds played in delicate improvisation: twigs and gravel crunching underfoot; cicadas drumming rapidly in spurts; katydids and katydonts bickering in chirps; frogs gulping in bass.
When I broke from the upward gaze, Ivy was walking back down the declivity of the rock-‘n’-dirt road, incessantly glancing left with a dismayed posture. Hope seemed to be skittering away from us like a creature abashed by letting itself be seen despite uncaptured. Seemed we would be getting back in the car with quelled expectations—dreams reshelved for another night. But out of the cobalt-blue, Ivy, as if compelled by desperation, took a semi-plunge into the dark—paused within, before pulling back out—then turning towards me, whispered with suppressed authority: ‘This is it. Follow me in.’ From an irrational decision to have my hands free, I threw my hoodie on, and then, keeping quiet, followed her seductive lead, suddenly finding myself, as I moved forward with uncertainty, swallowed by an obsequious sensation wherein I knew nothing about, was oblivious to the ideas of, comedy and tragedy, conversation and inquiry—while fully conscious of the innate inadequacies of language: a lung-swell of crisp fragrant air; a tug from a phantasmal rope made of fawning fibers; swept into the strangest of woods…
…Through the darkness, we carefully navigated down a thin pathway of treaded grasses and parted trees; an owl hooted twice. Besides feeling obsequious to Ivy’s command, I also felt myself slipping into that mortifying state in which I became vulnerable to facing new things, much like my first experience with the library, which I later discovered was truly a biblio-labyrinth but certainly nothing to run away from. Trying to exorcise an apprehensive monster in my gut, I was praying the dubious change of reality wouldn’t induce a panic-attack. Slightly up ahead, Ivy was either talking to herself or talking herself through. I throat-gagged a Huh? and a Wha’?, but she didn’t answer. With crunchy steps and stealthy swivels, we moved through the rest of the thicket as if engaged in a gut-stirring adventure reserved for ones of youth.
When we came out at other end, the sky and its brilliant blueness (even more oceanic in this quarter) opened back up into a panorama—a Cézanne demystified, yet still mystical within its natural frame—allowing us to behold a large orchard and that which went beyond. In a cadent amble, we headed towards a dense plot of apple trees spread out in asymmetrical perfection. I had a good view of the trees’ horizontal landscape; they were about fifty yards away. I could see where they tailored off to the sides in a woolly, spherical fashion. Their shadowy leafiness suggested they were still in bloom. On the left side was a collection of crabapple trees copious with downy white blossoms which at a distance had a pinkish reflection: perhaps an illusion caused by the potent moonlight. Adjacent with the right margin of the orchard was a bald field descending into the darkness where the woods again rose, so daunting and dense, extending beyond sight. To the left margin of the orchard was a roll of vegetation short in height but interminably long; it had remarkable breadth and verdancy. Altogether, the orchard (with the help of the celestial pearl and the millions of scintillating stars) had a warm poetic glow where it was dark enough to cast out substantial shadows but also lit up enough to see the color of someone’s eyes.
To the left, along the outer set of trees, she led me by the hand into a white stilted arbor. The tunnel was long, wide, the top within reach, the lattice superimposed with bristly branches: shoots and slats of hazel. Weaving in and out of both woods were plump carmine grapes, knotted vines, and “long, dangling, intertwined green tendrils,”[1][2] and therein, coexisting in peace, thousands of fuchsia flameflowers and whimsical white cloudflowers. Sucking in the weight of my steps, the ground was soft and mossy—garlanded with fallen pedals, brittle stems, and tufted grasses full of natural emotion. Before waxing a body of words to exchange, if that was even possible—coherently possible—we looked up at the metallic moonlight peaking in through the overhead lattice: the angled, agile woodwork was eclipsing parts of the light, creating a myriad of penumbras all around us.
‘Whad is ‘iss place?’ I whispered in a tone suggesting we might’ve slipped into a third realm.
‘An orchard, silly!’
‘Obviously. But what’s the story?’
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