Life would provide Gwendolyn with few moments purer, and no moments more innocent.
Maybe that’s why she remembered the conversation in higher definition than had existed on screens and photos when the moment took place.
“Unca Darren, that rock just moved.”
Her mother’s youngest brother didn’t move his neck, nor did he move his eyes from the flame coming from the Zippo that Gwendolyn thought was a magic silver locket.
“Not a rock if it moved, Winnie. It’s a turtle.” Darren said it through clenched teeth, but only because he was holding a roll-yer-own in them.
His voice was calm and warm like a sunset.
“A turta?”
“A turtle,” her uncle pronounced it for her, and her head understood, but it would be a decade before her mouth would make the L sound.
It was a common affliction, but a terrible one for a little girl named Gwendolyn, who grew up on Lafayette Boulevard and would attend Martin Luther King High School for a year before the proper L blossomed from her lips.
Darren looked at his niece, staring at the pond like it was a crystal ball. He found a log on the shore, perfect width, a bit short.
The shadow of the For Sale sign bisected the water.
The shadow tugged at the lungs of the man who tugged at the unfiltered cigarette, but neither the shadow nor the sign meant anything to the little girl who was a child of pavement and exhaust.
With some twisting and cajoling of the earth, Darren anchored the log in the pondside mud so that it jutted into a sunny spot.
He pointed at the barren log.
“Watch the log, Winnie, and be patient. A turtle will climb up on it.”
Winnie was extraordinarily patient for a child her age. She stared at the log, calmly, determined to see a turtle.
Darren pulled his draft notice from the inside pocket of his denim vest.
He had come down here from the house to set the letter on fire and throw it in the pond, but his sister asked if Gwendolyn could tag along.
He would report for induction, he figured. His father would never speak to him again if he didn’t.
Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. But Chuck was there, and Miguel, and Keith Moon Rico, whose drum kit was in Ellen’s basement.
He decided he would simply show the induction center his ID and tell them the letter had been misplaced. He looked over at his niece.
Maybe the letter wouldn’t be misplaced.
Maybe he could wrench on airplanes. He knew a guy who…
“Unca Darren! Is that a turta?”
A snapper had made its way onto the log, back end still submerged, neck craning.
“That’s a turtle alright, Winnie. That kind is a snapper. They bite.”
Winnie was staring at what moments ago had been a moving rock. Now it was somehow a friend.
“Momma says Margo Watson’s dog bites, but she never bit me. She’s pretty. She’s red.”
A second turtle followed the snapper up onto the log. Gwendolyn squealed happily.
“Another turta!”
Darren smiled, rolling more cigs, expertly, on his lap.
“How many turtas are there, Unca Darren?”
“In this pond, probably two dozen or so. In the world, millions.”
“I’ve never seen one before.”
“Well, now you have. I’m glad I could introduce you to turtles.”
Gwendolyn remembered her neck twisting so fast toward her uncle that she winced.
Her lower lip jutted out in an epic instapout.
“You did not innerduce me, Unca Darren.”
Darren had to choke back a laugh.
“I don’t know their names, honey. You can give them your own names for them.”
“Ummmm…”
Gwendolyn paused, squinting, really thinking.
The snapper is Ho Chi Minh, Darren thought.
He reclined in the field, not bothering to put his hands behind his head. His long brown hair tangled in the wild meadow grass. Like it wanted to stay.
“The big one is Pop and the small one is...Squishy.”
“Those are good names, Winnie. Every time I see them I will say “Hi, Pop, Hi Squishy.”
“But Unca Darren, I wanna take Squishy home with me.”
Darren sat up, the cigs he rolled falling into the grass. He scooped them up and pocketed them.
“You can’t take a turtle home, darlin’.”
“Why not, Unca Darren? I gonna feed her and take very good care of her.”
“Because Winnie, if you take a turtle away from its home, it spends the rest of its life trying to get back home again.”
***
She knew, in high definition, with surety and clarity, that there would be a No Trespassing sign.
She pulled over the crest, the two-lane now paved, and it was one of the first things she saw.
No Trespassing, No Hunting.
Kind of an ironic sign for a commercial slaughterhouse.
At least she was unarmed.
She had hoped for a gate, a gap, or a crawl-under. There were none. The fence may have cost more than the purchase price of the farm.
Gwendolyn looked around and approached.
The fence was barbed, but no razor wire.
She reached over, dropping the tote bag as gingerly as possible.
Her left pantleg caught a bit as she went over, and she landed with a brief stumble.
The pond had a rudimentary fountain in it now, to keep it from stagnating. The grass was manicured and scanning the area there wasn’t a twig, much less a log.
Gwendolyn sat in the lotus position and stared out at the water.
No rocks were moving.
She pulled the framed triangular flag from the tote bag and confidently began, for the first time in her life, to roll cigarettes.
***
Photo by Benjamin Wong on Unsplash
Ok you got me all teary eyed again!
Oh, I really liked this one, and the double “tugged at...”