Pence Read online

  Chapter VII

  Pence sprang back up to his feet like a puppet hoisted to a tension by all strings at once. Looking down, he saw that he stood wholly engulfed in the shadow of the gardener’s left foot, and he had to tilt his head back as though peering up a mountain in order to see the old man’s head. “At least I’m bigger than the Sun,” he reassured himself.

  The gardener’s face, where it was not sprouting whiskers, was a lattice of warm wrinkles. His smile was old of the earth, his teeth as bright as the stump to which his lot was tethered. His shoulders were not broad, neither frail. His upper arms, along the short length where his flesh was still brown and hale, were bare but for thinning silver hair. Sunburns and scratches patterned his lean, corded muscles.

  Below the elbow, however, his left arm was toneless and emaciated, the flesh of a ghost. His right arm fared worse–warts and twisted knobs of black wood had cropped up as high as his shoulder, and an outbreak of ashen bruises sprawled up the taut skin of his neck.

  When Pence’s eyes finally arrived at the old man’s hands–the one foul black, the other lifeless white–his tiny lips curled back in feral disapproval. “Now hold on just a pocket-pickin’ minute,” he said, shaking his oversized head and raising an arm to call for silence as though he was presiding over a noisy town hall meeting. He marched toward the gardener, stopping abruptly next to the old man’s left knee. “What’s happened to your branches? You’ve been bumwhushed! Ruined! Razed! What brute would dare such disrespect against a defenseless old weatherbag! Give me the name of the coward who worked these curses on you and I’ll have him hopping headless before my days are done.”

  “They are not curses, my boy,” said the old man. “I chose my own fate, as you will yours.”

  Pence eyed the old man distrustfully.

  “The poorest piece of all is that I would see my princess again after all these long, lonely years… More than anything, I would hold her hand again… yet I know this shall never come to pass. How can it? Ahhh, Pence, the world is no place for a boy.” The old man’s voice scraped from his throat like iron nails sketching on stone. “I have lived a hundred years in a secret garden and all my love jailed from me for the term of it. How young I was when first I climbed up…” He closed his eyes and nestled closely into the unyielding stump. Pence could only watch in disbelief as the gardener began snoring in the span of a moment.

  “Right, have a lovely nap, then,” Pence called up loudly. “I’ll just figure out this whole being alive thing on my own! Alone! In my infancy! With the Sun slinking around, biding his time until I blink. Yeah, I can tell you never had kids!”

  “Simmer down,” the old man grumbled, hardly opening his mouth. “I’m not accustomed to sleeping much; I’m sure I’ll be back around in no time. Why don’t you take a walk and get to know the garden instead of sassing me every chance you get?”

  Reluctantly, Pence turned around and found himself staring down a footpath that disappeared deep around a bend. His hands twitched at his hips like a man before a duel. Overwhelmed by the sudden silence and the weight of the choice before him, he looked away to the right of the stump where lay the purple jewel and the old man’s bucket; for a distraction, it was all he needed.

  The ground around the bucket was wet, watertight buckets being difficult to build with only one working hand. Pence crouched down and pressed his crude fingers into the damp silt while lifting his eyes to the sky. “Just like Mother used to make it,” he shouted up to the old man, grinning, but when the gardener did not so much as flitter an eyelash, Pence sullenly stepped away from the bucket and knelt beside the purple jewel instead. He set a hand upon its lustrous surface. “We had a good run, while it lasted,” he whispered tenderly.

  The gardener cocked an eyebrow at this. “Tell me, Pence,” he said, his eyes still shut and his voice low, “I am curious: Now that you’ve had a proper spot to think… how do you feel to be here, corporeal, with a stone for a brain and gems for eyes and rice for a nose, walking and talking and breathing in the warm air but a day removed from a cold, dark, lonely existence underground?”

  Pence froze. “Is your life above any less lonely?” he said staunchly. He withdrew from the jewel and stomped back to his husk. “And anyways,” he spat with a flash of scorn, “I liked it underground!” Nimbly, he jumped atop the potato skin and sat down cross-legged, looking away from the gardener and into the sun. “If you want to know the truth,” said Pence, “things have been rather difficult so far, and your… your… your cavalier insensitivity toward my situation is not making it any more palatable.”

  “So much for keeping him well-grounded,” the old man muttered under his breath. Then, loud enough for Pence to hear, he replied, “My cavalier insensitivity? Dear me, dear me, I had no idea I was acting self-centeredly and uncouth. I shall be more… appreciative… of you in the future.”

  “See that you do,” said Pence curtly. “It’s the least I deserve and you know it.”

  “Anything else troubling you, then?” the old man kindly solicited.

  “What a stupid question! Of course there is! My life has been one calamity after the next, all dragged through the dirt! Which you did well enough to inform me is actually a century’s worth of your daily bum-nuggets and–”

  “Pence!”

  “–then there’s this matter of you drifting off to sleep every other time I turn around–I’m guessing you’re not a big hit at parties.” Pence threw his arms up in revulsion. “And I hardly need to say anything about this moron,” the boy fumed, gesturing to the sun with one hand. “Between yourself and him, you can see how I might be feeling a little bereft of intelligent company, can’t you? Throw in the fact that I’m the shortest guy in the neighborhood and I’m completely naked, and you might get an idea of what’s ‘troubling’ me.”

  “You know, my boy,” the old man mused, seemingly indifferent to Pence’s malcontent, “it really is most peculiar, the manner of words and language you’ve picked up so far. I think you must have heard me talking to you, to all of you,” the old man nodded to indicate the entirety of the garden, “in your seasons underground. How else to explain your… vocabulary?”

  “Well, naturally,” Pence scoffed. “You do have a way of going on and on. Kind of difficult not to listen to you.”

  “Astounding,” muttered the old man, more to himself than to the boy. “And yet… and yet I cannot dismiss the feeling that some… presence… of me, some intangible fiber of my younger self seeped into you last night when we were connected… but it’s tricky to say…”

  “Of course it did! Was I the only one paying attention?” Pence wheeled around like a top and pointed at the old man accusingly. “Wasn’t this whole arrangement your idea, after all?”

  The gardener shrugged his shoulders, causing his two stumps to sag even further. He smiled wanly.

  A glint of light caught Pence’s notice when the old man shrugged; in his withered left hand the gardener clutched something that deflected a bright band of sunlight back into the boy’s eyes, shattering his righteous consternation.

  Pence promptly dismounted his potato like a circus rider expertly spinning off his saddle and ran over to investigate, freshly animate with the promise of some shiny new treasure to be discovered.

  “This is the tool I used to bring you out of your old skin,” the gardener told him.

  Pence gawked at his reflection in the blade of the whittling knife. It was the first he had seen of his own face. He pulled the flat blade closer to his eyes until his breath fogged the surface. “I’m… I’m… I’m stu-pen-dously handsome,” he crooned. “Am I not? Oh, wow. Oh, my. The ladies don’t stand a chance. I ought to be blindfolded, to make it fair for them.”

  The tiny green gems were afire in the mirrored light and the silver blade seemed to hum in the glow as it seduced him, but finally the boy tore himself away. He turned up to the sky and to the sun, drinking in the light with a carefree smile. He gazed reverently at the flowers t
hat surrounded the stump on all sides, lifted his nose to sample the slew of aromas meandering the morning air like so many merchants at a market square. He looked at the dirt and clay below his feet, then to the stump, and finally, slowly, back to the gardener.

  “Old man, I must apologize for my contumelious behavior,” Pence said at last. “My words were unbefitting of a gentleman and a potato. After all, I am not a child anymore, as I was last evening. I am a young man, and I shall mend my ways. I don’t know what else to say, but that this is all very strange to me.”

  “And to me,” the old man reassured him with his best grandfatherly smile. “Make no apologies–your life shall be far too short to bother with such nonsense as feeling sorry.”

  “Thank you for reminding me of that,” Pence said sincerely. “I will do as you say and think before I speak.”

  “A wise investment of your time will you find this to be.”

  Pence rolled his eyes, but nodded respectfully. Then, with his chest puffed out–rising and falling by the depth of a penny with every beat of the heartseed–he approached the bending garden path. He took a single step past the discarded purple jewel–marking the farthest he had yet traveled from his old husk–and turned around to beam up at the gardener like a boy who has just learned to lace his own boots. Then, suddenly conscious of how childish he must look, he scrunched up his face into a more adult expression. “I think… I’d like… to go… for a… walk,” he said, enunciating every word in a most conservative and well-considered manner. “To… familiarize myself with… stuff.”

  “By all means,” said the old man, smiling at the prospect of an uninterrupted rest.

  “I have big plans for the day.”

  “Oh?” frowned the old man, plainly preferring a nap to a run-down of Pence’s lofty agenda. “I was not aware.” A sound like a preparatory snore rumbled out of his nostrils.

  “And how should you be? I’ve told no one. Ha! Really, old man, you say the quaintest things sometimes.” Pence affected a laugh and shook his head gently. “I’m keeping it close to the vest, you see?” He tapped his bare chest to illustrate. “However, since you asked–”

  “No, I didn’t,” squirmed the old man.

  Pence paid him no mind. “–I’m going to go on a magnificent adventure. Then, I’m going to count my money; I’ll have loads of it by the time I return, no doubt. I have a pretty good head for the bankroll, what with having had a precious jewel for a brain the first time I was born. I won’t be sharing a solitary cent, though. That would be bad business. So there you are. No hard feelings, though–nobody likes a poor loser. Let me see… after all that frivolity I may decide to spend a good chunk of time hammering out a few theories I’ve been developing about everything in the galaxy that ever was. Fascinating work, you know,” Pence carried on, “you couldn’t hope to fit it all in that big, squishy brain of yours. Philosophy taxes my rock, though, so I’ll tuck in for a good nap after lunch, annnnd I assume by this evening I will have acquired a veritable coterie of comely young ladies of whom I shall henceforth be able to take my pick. But again–not sharing. I’m only prevising you now so you can try not to look jealous.”

  “You’re very ambitious, and that’s as well,” the gardener said with a reserved snort. “But as I mentioned earlier, I’m afraid I haven’t seen any young ladies around these parts for quite some years.”

  “So you say, and, well, ha! No offense, old man,” the boy chortled, “but this is obviously a pretty big garden. Look at how big everything is! You probably just don’t know where to look. Are there any second-hand jewelry shops hereabouts?”

  “Not to my knowledge,” replied the gardener amicably.

  “Overpriced bakeries?”

  “Believe it or not… no.”

  “Shoe stores? Salons? Bootlegged handbag boutiques?”

  The gardener shook his head scarcely for each.

  “No matter,” Pence waved the old man off. “There must be scads of women tucked away in here, somewhere. They’ve been waiting for a new vibe, that’s all. I’ll bring them out. You’ll see.”

  “You sound very confident, my boy.”

  “What can I say? Women love a man who’s not afraid of a little fresh breeze.” Pence gave his rear end a triumphant wiggle, then drew himself up impenitently. “My grand adventure cannot wait forever. Nor my contemplations. Nor my nap. Nor my ladies. Especially nor my ladies.”

  “Nor I,” chorused the old man. “Before you hie away, though, would you like some proper garb for your walk? You did mention a concern about your… over-exposure. I could tell you how to tailor a suit for yourself using the leftover skin of your husk. It wouldn’t take long.”

  Pence spurred around and looked up at the old man, eyes ablaze. “Old man, I know you don’t claim to be a smart fellow, particularly when it comes to potatoes, but that is the most repulsive, cold-blooded, barbarian idea I’ve heard in my entire life. Cut my old skin into a coat and sport it? Are you literally trying to be this creepy? No wonder you’ve scared all the ladies away! My old skin? Heads on a stang! You ought to be ashamed of yourself. I mean, really!”

  The old man hiccoughed and bit his lip, bottling in what was nearly a pressure-leak of laughter. “My apologies, then, very much so. Wherever are my manners?”

  Pence stood with his hands on his hips like a father taking the measure of his wayward son. “I don’t know, but if I find them I shall certainly return them to you. What do they look like?”

  The gardener could not properly answer.

  “On second thought,” said Pence, stepping in place impatiently, “never mind what you’ve lost. I’ve got my own manners, for me. I can’t worry about everyone else’s manners. You’re forever delaying me, old man, and it just won’t do. It’s time I put my foot down.” He leaned in near the old man’s left foot and whispered, “Nothing personal, chum.”

  “Go on, then, my boy,” the gardener encouraged. “You needn’t be bedraggled by me and mine. Go on your adventure. Mind you keep to the path, though. And remember to think before each step you take! And after each step. So that’s actually twice the thinking in between steps. You understand?”

  Pence put his hands up, trying to slow the old man’s torrent of better-late-than-never advice, but to no avail.

  “Keep your nose open; sometimes one scent is all it takes to lure a boy off his path–mark my words. And, when you return, I’ll tell you that story you asked about.”

  Facing the path, Pence raised one foot off the ground but held it hovering uncertainly. He put one hand to his chin in a model of contemplation while his leg hung in limbo. “Is this good?”

  “Yes, my boy, you’ll be just fine if you take things nice and slow like that.”

  “Okay, I’ll take things nice and slow,” Pence called back. He stamped his foot down. “Onward!” he shouted and in the twinkling of an earring the boy from the potato was sprinting away at top speed as though he had been running races for years. Arms chugging like runaway wagon wheels, he rounded the bend and was gone.

  “Wait! Pence! Slow down!” wheezed the old man, “Stay away from the well!” but his rasping voice barely reached his own feet, let alone the boy, and at once he fell into a long fit of violent coughing. When he regained his composure there was nothing to do but wait, one eye resting, one eye cracked and keeping watch.