The Apple Tree Man
I.
Let me tell you a little something about apples. They scare me. Scare the shit out of me.
Olmsted County Fair, little over a year ago. With my son, William, age nine. We’re walking on the midway and pass a booth selling caramel apples. I try to hurry us past, but they catch William’s eye and he stops right there in front of the booth, squeezing my hand tight. I give him a tug, but it’s like he’s stuck in cement.
“Dad?”
I close my eyes. Try to fight back an acidic bubble working its way up my throat. I try to find the courage to say no. I can say no other times. No when he wants an extra hour playing video games. No when he wants to watch some violent movie. But to say no to this? To a caramel apple? I don’t want him to grow up with a bunch of crazy little phobias like his father has. So I dig out my wallet, pull out a couple crumpled ones. Hand him the money and look away, look across the midway at a kid trying to break balloons with a dart, look over at a woman carrying her baby on her shoulders, the baby’s hands and face sticky with blue cotton candy.
My son comes back. I feel him at my side. I glance at the shadow the sun throws in front of us and look quickly up at the sky when I see the apple’s silhouette, the round fruit impaled on the stick like something from the dark ages.
I hope my son doesn’t notice how fidgety I’ve become. I want him to live a normal life. I want him to grow up healthy. Isn’t that the hope of every father?
He takes a bite and I hear the squish of his teeth in the apple’s pulp. As the nausea builds in me, the world swivels on one big spindle, and I can’t help but turn to look.
His face is covered with blood.
He takes another bite and I feel the world falling out from under me.
More blood spurts from the apple, splattering his chin, his neck, drenching his yellow tee-shirt with it.
He looks up at me. Smiling. Chewing.
I swat the thing from his hands, a good hard smack so it goes flying and smashes against an overflowing trash can. I gulp air, ignoring the stares from passersby, watching the apple as it falls stickily down the side of the trash can, leaving a snail trail of clotting fluid.
I look at my son. His eyes brim with tears, his mouth quivers.
There is nothing on his face. No blood. Nothing on his shirt, his chin. A few pieces of caramel but that is all.
“Sorry,” I mumble. I hate to lie to my son, but feel I have to in order to protect him. “Saw a worm. You almost bit into it.”
He’s still stunned, my words only beginning to register.
“I kind of over-reacted didn’t I?” I give him a chuckle. “Jeez, sorry Will. Didn’t mean to get you too.”
He accepts this with a nod. Looks back at the perfectly good caramel apple laying at the foot of the trash can, trying to see the worm I claimed was there.
“Can I get another one?”
“Shoot. That was my last couple bucks. I think it’s time to go home now. Mom’s going to be wondering why we’re taking so long.”
I put my arm around him. Ruffle his hair. Even as things are okay again between us, I think I see a small drop of blood on the corner of his lips. I ignore it. Look away.
II.
My brother Spencer’s words only two days ago.
“I came so close to telling someone.”
I speak quietly into the phone. “But you didn’t.”
“I came so close, Davy. I even got in the car. Turned on the engine. I sat there in the garage. Even thought about shutting the garage door, and—”
“Don’t talk like that. You hear me, Spence? Don’t say things like that.”
“I gotta tell someone.”
“You can’t.”
“I have to.”
I hear him breathing on the other end. “I’m coming down there. I’ll be there tomorrow.”
I picture him shaking his head, the receiver pressed into his forehead.
“Spence? You hear me? I’m coming down. We’ll work through this. Okay?”
There’s one more sigh, then, “Yeah. Okay. Sure.”
III.
Spencer first told me about the Apple Tree Man when we were kids. It was the middle of October. I was twelve, Spencer fourteen. His friends, Paul and Jack, rode their bikes alongside of us down the gravel road to Nathan Hench’s farm. Hench owned a dozen acres of field corn, a few scrawny dairy cows, and two rows of apple trees.
Paul was short for his age, with a full head of black, curly hair. He often had bruises on his arm from where his dad hit him. Jack was thin and ropy; always on the move. Even when sitting, his limbs were in constant motion. Jack was Spencer’s best friend.
My brother Spence — what can I say about him? He was my brother, and I’ll always love him. That’s all you need to know about him.
It was dark. We wore sweaters, could see our breath wisp past us as we pedaled. We slowed at Hench’s long dirt driveway. Saw him within the golden glow of his kitchen sitting at a table, tending to a brown whiskey bottle. We heard the barking of a far-off dog. The wind rustled through the apple trees, carrying the faint scent of manure. We dropped our bikes at the side of the driveway, skirted around a barbed wire fence ’til we faced the side of an old barn.
We stepped through the fence. Paul and I held our backpacks open as Spencer and Jack plucked ripe apples and loaded us up.
When the backpacks were full, we pushed aside the dead and fallen apples beneath one of the trees and sat there, each sinking our teeth into the fruit. Nothing tastes as good as an apple picked right from the branch. They were crisp; felt good on the teeth. We licked the cold juice that dribbled down our chins, wiped our faces with the sleeves of our sweaters.
“You ever hear about the Apple Tree Man?” Spencer asked between bites.
We shook our heads.
“You’re supposed to leave the last apple of the season for him or else you’ll have a bad crop the next time around.”
“Yeah, right,” Paul said.
Jack threw his apple core at him. “Did you hear the story about the time I fucked your mama?”
Our laughter was cut off by the slam of a screen door. We looked toward the house and saw the silhouette of a man. The beam of a flashlight jerked violently among the trees.
“Who’s out there?” Mr. Hench coughed up something from his throat and spit it on the ground. “I said who’s
