Eight, Sixteen, Twenty-Two

I remember the soft scent of asparagus, and pulling the stalks from the ground, one by one, tender roots giving way as the soil crumbled off, cold and gritty. My back ached, and my knees ached, and the sun was hot, but what did I care? I was only eight, and pulling asparagus for dinner was a thing to do with other eight-year-olds on Montague farm. Every once in a while we’d stop and chase each other through long rows of sweet corn. The tall stalks would slap our faces, and as we played peek-a-boo between the green shucks and sprays of yellow cornsilk, the voices of our elders rang out across the fields calling us home.

This was the best of Montague Farm, a hippie commune turned small-time dairy farm. Then of course there were the cow chips; the straw that got in your clothes, giving you itches and rashes as they tickled their way down your back; the cruel squawk and helpless flapping of the headless chicken you’d later eat alongside fresh cheese and spinach. It wasn’t all an idyllic life, not at all, not at all. Even the walk along the upper field was dangerous, as you walked by the white boxes of the twenty or so beehives. They stung you even with protective clothing, and I refused to wear it after the first time I saw my father wearing the hood, with fifty bees trapped underneath it, buzzing their song around his eyes and lips. He wasn’t stung, but it scared me.

It’s funny how a knife held to your neck can make you change your mind about things. It happened when I was rounding the corner, leaving the mall. I was sixteen — we’d been living in the city since I was twelve. My brother was walking just ahead of me, and he was saying to me in a low voice, “I don’t like this. These guys walking in front of us… they don’t look right.” And I was reassuring him, telling him not to worry, it was broad daylight in front of several houses, in a nice residential neighborhood. Then they ran up at us, from behind, from the sides, from all around, and pulled us apart. “I have an ice pick,” the boy said in my ear. “Don’t fight back.”

The spinach we picked always tasted better raw, I remember that. And the asparagus was better uncooked too — I hated asparagus then and still do. Dinner was a thing of discussions on the new nuclear plant that everyone at the farm was protesting against, it was leftover hippie farm workers talking about how the liver is a filter for poisons and why they wouldn’t eat any, even if Mary had spent hours slaving in the kitchen, they didn’t care, hell no, livers were BAAAD for you. Everyone commented on what a wonderful chicken this one had been before it got beheaded and fried.

Sleep came early — a hand churn was tiring, and the occasional whupping for daily pranks was annoying if not very painful, and the alarm set for milking was painful indeed. We went to bed on rough blankets, slept fast, and awoke to shaken shoulders when the stars were still out.

They didn’t hurt us, of course. I took my jacket off and gave it to them, and to do that they had to let me go. The boy stood watching me uneasily, with a look on his face like a startled rabbit, while I took off the heavy coat and handed it to him. He couldn’t very well threaten me with that lump in his arms, so away he ran. The gardener in the yard we stood in front of was shaking his head sadly. I ran up to my brother — they were trying to make him take his shoes off — and they scattered like chaff as soon as I approached. We were left alone with a shaking gardener and what seemed like hundreds of people gathering around: old women, street vendors, a few small children who stared at us astonished. They all stood around and shook their heads.

“A shame,” the gardener said, clucking. “Don’t know what this neighborhood’s coming to. In broad daylight. In a nice residential area, too.”

I live in cities. I like the smell of the fresh wind blowing the scent of countless people living countless lives towards me. I like the books and movies and songs and just plain variety that swirls around in neon lights and sidewalks. I have learned how to disable a knife-wielding attacker. I have learned the way to stand alert, like a deer listening for cracking twigs; I have learned how to pick up on people following you down the street.

My wife is a country girl, and she’s not used to these skyscrapers and this traffic. But me, I live in cities. I know better than to fall for the childhood image of the gorgeous tall corn and the spinach as sharp-tasting as salt breeze, and the beds of dry leaves on the ground between New England trees, crunchy and yielding. The farm is just an image in the back of my mind now, just a memory of a time when I thought there were no dangers. I know it wasn’t perfect, and I know that city or country, I would still walk along the roads with wary eyes and steps, because one place or the other can still summon up the image of that headless chicken, running across the farm yard, stumbling against the firewood stacked against the shed, coming to a final shuddering stop at the axe again, lolling against the stump, blood cascading down its white feathers.

It was a very good chicken, and even if I don’t know if the boy had an ice-pick or not, I will never forget that no matter where I am, no matter how rich the soil and fertile the ground, how vivid the lights and loud the music, there will always be the scream of sirens and the cut-off choked cry ending in the solid thunk of an axe, somewhere under the pretty postcards.

City. Country. Even though I know all I have said, I still miss the feel of those asparagus stalks, soft and pliable under my hand, and the feeling of being eight years old, running through endless corn. But in the end, most of what I miss isn’t the place.

It’s the age.

The above was written as a sample personal essay on the topic of “City versus country” for a class I taught back when I was in grad school, just 22 as the title says. I stumbled across it on the hard drive today, and thought that it deserved to see the light of day.