Liquid Geography

By Lawrence g. Yates

The editors of The New Quarterly, when first reviewing my story submissions, concluded, rightly or wrongly, that my work fell into the category of 'Magic Realism'. 'Magic Realism', as one editor proceeded to define, was the "seamless blending of the ineffable and the concrete". The 'ineffable' or 'other reality' part of this definition is at the core of many of the stories in this collection.

The stories in Liquid Geography could be categorized as 'backyard fiction', or even 'transformative realism'. They all, more or less, take place in and around a home environment and conclude by literally 'spilling outside'; differences between what is 'real' and is 'not real', what is present, past or future, disintegrate and blur away.

The characters who inhabit or appear in these stories, are invariably destined, in one way or another, to experience glimpses and encounters with heightened or altered moments of cognition. They are not necessarily characters who are spiritually evolved or wise in any sense; they are not characters who have consciously embarked upon a path of higher understanding. They are generally very ordinary individuals leading seemingly ordinary lives. What they discover, however, is that reality as they believe they know it, is a slippery path where the 'unreal', 'super-real' or even 'magical' may (and can) present itself at any given moment.

Whether the characters in question have initiated this shift through some psychic turmoil or trauma that alters his or her patterns of perception, or whether there is a hidden 'other reality' containing different truths, becomes merely a matter of definition, and therefore moot.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Aug 30, 2004
• ISBN: 9781412228220

Lawrence g. Yates

Lawrence G. Yates's work has been published in various Canadian and American literary periodicals. He is also the recipient of several Arts Council grants. He is currently at work on his second collection of short stories, Where Bones River Bones.

Book preview

De Farina’s Orchard

As he stood there at the edge of the shallow creek, watching the apple blossoms slide along the chrome green surface of the water, he saw what he thought at first was a piece of metal or a tin can buried in the ooze of the creek’s bed, but then realized, in astonishment, that it was an eye, large and unblinking. He knelt down and looked closer. A dim, gelatinous orb stared back at him.

It was an enormous fish-a carp or a lake pike, he guessed-a creature of unbelievable size. Its one eye remained fixed on him, its body-what was visible and now slowly emerging from the mud-was black, plated with big, loose scales that looked like battered sheets of armour.

It must have come in off the Niagara, swum up one of the local rivers and then found itself trapped in the creek that crawled through De Faria’s orchard. He glanced out across the orchard and could see exactly where the creek ended, could see the cracked, dried-out creek bed encrusted with rocks and scrubbed wood. He looked down at the fish again, feeling the strangest sense of dread or foreboding. Apple blossoms slipped along the water, pink and feathery, and the blue sky printed shifting clouds above the fish’s eye.

Eric carefully dug his hand into his jacket, pinched a cigarette out of his package and then struck a match, hoping that none of his movements would alarm the fish or spook it, send it darting down the creek where it would run aground on the sudden, baked mud. He blew out the match and the fish’s big gill fluttered as though it were a sheet of paper ruffled by a single, momentary wind. It continued to look at him through the water, a dull, almost prehistoric languor in its gaze.

He heard a twig snap behind him, heard someone coming near him, and turning, saw a young woman in a shiny, peach-coloured dress and high heels approaching rather effortlessly through the precarious tree root and debris that covered the ground. She had also managed to carry a full glass of red wine with her.

He threw up his open palm, signaling her to stop, afraid that this sudden commotion would fire the fish like a rocket out into the fields. That the fish had not moved, that it had remained there looking at him in such a strangely peaceful and trusting manner made him think he had stumbled upon one of those rare and inexplicably synchronistic connections with another living thing-a moment unrepeatable.

Wait! he said, trying to stop her before she came any closer. Don’t move!

But the young woman, who seemed either not to have heard him or not care what he had meant by this command, pushed his hand aside as though it were merely some small obstruction in her way and stepped down onto the embankment beside him, tugging at her dress, shifting it back into shape following her climb down the hill. The under sleeves of her dress were soaked. She gathered her hair from her shoulders, holding it in a ponytail above her head, hoping for any measure of relief from the cloying heat.

It surely takes a courageous man to wear leather in this heat.? she said, looking away from him, drinking her red wine though finding no pleasure in it.

Eric vaguely remembered what he had put on that morning; he had not noticed the heat, in any case. Though compelled to look at himself, to respond to the woman’s comment, he could not register what, if anything, he had put on that morning. He wished in a way that felt like a hot wind lifting under his feet that he had not been disturbed. He didn’t need to look down at the creek. The fish had vanished. Perhaps it had turned around, escaped back out into the river and would slide down deep into the cold depths of the lake.

What were you looking at.? she said.

Nothing. Just thinking, he said.

There was an imperceptible smirk on her face. Her question was not a question at all. Her tone betrayed any genuine interest in what he had been doing there, or what had caught his attention when she had noticed him kneeling by the creek. She let her hair fall to her shoulders and taking another sip of wine, fanned her neck.

Not all of us are people people, I suppose, she said, looking at her nail polish.

Eric did not want to tell her about the fish, and stood there looking at her, puzzling over the subtle, yet unmistakable air of recrimination or accusation in her demeanor, her manner of speaking at him or through him, the sense that her words were not extemporaneous, but practised. Then it occurred to him. She was one of the De Faria siblings-Isabella’s sister. Isabella had obviously seized the opportunity to speak with her, had said a great deal, had said too much-about him, about them. There was something in her voice-a smug, absurd confidence?-which suggested that she knew something about him he didn’t!

He had been introduced to her, but he could not remember her name. It was clear to him now that Isabella had spoken to her, and he wondered how much she knew. Whatever she had been told she was certainly a young woman in receipt of a personal confidence, unqualified in discretion and likely to burn her fingers. He looked down at the water, wondering if the big fish was really gone.

May I have a cigarette? she asked.

Eric reached into his jacket for the cigarettes, and the young woman stepped toward him. He felt her shoulder against his arm and he stepped back.

I think there are degrees of vices. Some okay. Some not. What about you? she said, cupping her both hands around the lighted match he had struck, her fingers pressed around his.

Again, he heard a something in her voice-a tone, a reproach.

Dunno. Whatever the intended significance of this comment might be, he wanted to give no indication of having understood anything.

She puffed on the cigarette for a moment, then following a deep breath she put her hands on her hips and looked at him. She had not made eye contact with him before that moment, and he was surprised that what he saw in her eyes was not some sort of self-styled indifference or grandiose estrangement, but fear; diluted down, abated.

He did not know what that meant, nor could he find the space in his mind to consider it. He tilted his head back and exhaled into the branches above him; smoke curled and eddied through the shiny new leaves that were just beginning to open. He was thinking about Isabella; he wondered how she was. Had she told them everything? What had she told her sister, the young woman standing beside him, the one whose name he could not remember.

She flicked her partly smoked cigarette in the creek where it floated away in the clusters of pink petals half-turning in the slow life of the creek-water and apple blossoms pushed like soft paws against the creek banks.

I should be getting back. he said, and laughed to himself. He shouldn’t have come at all. Isabella hadn’t wanted him to come. It was a family get-together, a happy time. She hadn’t wanted the complications.

* * *

A car had come from behind him-gravel popping out from under its tires, pinging out of the warm treads-and he stepped aside between two parked cars. Wagons, sedans and four-wheelers lined both sides of the driveway and there seemed hardly enough room between them on the gravel driveway for the car to proceed. Cars were parked in the shallow ditch in the straw-coloured grass, others had been driven up onto the lawn in front of the De Faria house. It looked as though something accidental or much grander than a family get-together had transpired. Barbeque smoke wafted in the air, spicy and thick with meat fats.

Eric waited between the two parked vehicles for the car to pass by him and nodded at the driver. The driver, a young man wearing a short sleeve plaid shirt and over-sized amber tinted sunglasses that made him look somewhat like a bug, nodded. The woman who sat next to the driver had merely started to turn her head when the driver reached over and clamped his hand down on her shoulder, snapping her back in her seat. As the car drove off down the lane towards De Faria’s house, a child appeared in the back window. Eric smiled and raised his hand to wave but she dropped out of sight as though she had suddenly fallen through a hole in the floor boards. Clouds of gravel dust, white and hot, swirled out from under the car.

Women in bright loose summer dresses were sitting on the lawn, sipping wine, talking, tending scampering toddlers with perfunctory glances. Babies slept on blankets under big golf umbrellas. A group of men were standing around one of the parked SUV’s-a new, black, gleaming, discussion topic-drinking beer, kicking at the gravel. On another car nearby-not nearly as sacred the SUV-a man was stretched out on the hood, a baseball cap covering his face and a beer resting on his chest. Although many people had arrived during the short time that he had been down at the creek, he couldn’t help but notice the sombre mood that prevailed, as though there was something that no one was talking about, but everyone knew. Even the children seemed subdued. It was strangely quiet-or anticipatory?-for such a large gathering, as though a dark weather front had settled over them, pressing down, threatening rain. It was not at all the kind of get-together that Isabella had suggested it would be.

That so many people had arrived and that he hardly knew a soul here didn’t bother him. He’d get himself a drink, talk to a few people-it would be nice. He glanced over at De Faria’s house, remembering the onion-yellow coloured shutters, the paint-peeling gables, the glorious, though somewhat rundown state of the place. The purple lilac bushes had burst open. He’d thought, just for a moment, when he’d come out of the ravine, that he’d strayed off De Faria’s property and inadvertently come across a neighbour’s party. But he knew the lilac bushes. He’d looked out through the kitchen widows at them before.

A drink. A nice cold beer. He looked forward to meeting Isabella’s mother once more, as well. She would want to feed him all afternoon, dote on him. Portuguese women were like that. It was good-it made the world feel ordered or fundamental again. He could see several women in the kitchen through the lilac bushes, moving, busy. Something caught his attention and he stopped before going inside. Behind the house, in the great slope of fields that blurred away against the lake, were De Faria’s vineyards-acres of endless aisles of vine that hung like gnarled wire. He saw Isabella at once, saw the bright lime flowers of her dress. A woman was walking with her-she had to be an elder De Faria sibling, he thought. She looked so very much like Isabella it was uncanny, just older. She had her arm around Isabella’s waist. They stopped, and then hugged, and then Isabella laid her head on her sister’s shoulder, while the other stroked her hair.

He felt someone grab his wrist and turn him around, heard himself sputter out some utterly startled noise. The hand was as big as a baseball mitt, and strong. It was De Faria. He had a fresh bottle of scotch and two plastic tumblers under his arm. He pushed one of the plastic tumblers at Eric.

Yes?! De Faria said, in a loud voice.

Of course. Yes, please.

De Faria poured half tumblers of scotch for each of them and then smelled the rim of the bottle as though he wasn’t sure what to expect or what exactly the scotch might taste like. He knocked his glass hard against Eric’s tumbler and they drank.

Good! No!? said De Faria, almost shouting, chocking a little on the hot scotch fumes that had singed his nostrils. His eyes had not once strayed from Eric’s.

It is, Mr. De Faria. Very good.

Joe! Everyone call me Joe! he shouted.

Despite the initial effect the scotch had produced, he was determined to go again. He tipped the glass back, swallowed and grimaced, wiping his mouth with the back of his big hand.

"Very good, hah!?’ shouted De Faria.

In the dormant, scrubby-branch vineyards behind where De Faria stood, Eric could see Isabella again. Another woman had joined them and she too was putting her arms around Isabella. The three of them formed a circle and held each other.

He felt De Faria grab his wrist again and fill his glass once more.

Eric watched Isabella and her companions drift through the vineyards and when finally he could see nothing more of them, he looked at De Faria, and heard himself say, ‘you have a beautiful house, Joe’. He had meant it to be construed as nothing more than one of those polite, conversation-filling-comments, a reciprocal kindness for the hospitality, the generous amounts of scotch.

De Faria’s chest swelled; his face went red.

My hands! he shouted, holding his hands to Eric’s face. I build on my hands! You bet!

Oh, Papa…for petesakes!

It was the De Faria daughter Eric had met at the creek. She had suddenly appeared between Eric and her father, and was shaking her head in amazement.

De Faria’s face softened at the sight of his daughter.

Eh, Maria. My baby-Maria! he said.

This is not dressed, Papa. This is…I don’t know what this is really?

De Faria was wearing his house slippers-some of the nylon fur was missing-gray work pants and a flannel shirt. The shirt was buttoned up to the neck. It was clean. He had no idea what Maria was referring to.

Show the ring, he said, grabbing her arm. Beautiful ring. My baby, Maria! A woman!

What are you doing, Papa! she yelled, throwing his hand off. Not until you change your clothes. Go! You have. paint. or something on your pants. You look like a farmer for godsakes.

De Faria thought about that for a moment, but what had stung him more was way Maria had pushed his hand away.

I am farmer, sure. I grow my grapes. he

said.

It was Eric’s opportunity to escape, to find Isabella. A familial net had fallen over De Faria and Maria, complex and