#creative non

Australian Book Review welcomes entries to the 2023 ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize, one of the world's leading prizes for an original short story. The prize – worth a total of AU$12,500 – is open to all writers writing in English. The winner will receive $6,000; second place will receive $4,000 and third place will receive $2,500.

Peniocereus Greggii

The ­­­first thing I noticed was the greenhouse. Not the steeple, not the baseball field across the dirt road or the barn out back, but the greenhouse.  Traditionally, they are made entirely of glass. From the roof to the walls, the greenhouse’s glass windows let in the sun; the biological world inside thrives. 

This was not one of those greenhouses.

            It was old; aqua blue panels substituted for glass. They were browning on the edges. The domed roof looked like an upside down swimming pool. Oddly enough, that’s exactly what was inside. Small, and relatively shallow – I think it was 6’ at its deepest – the pool was surrounded by a variety of vegetation.  Trees, cacti, flowers with unusual names and colors; they were crammed inside this small blue structure. The air was musky, heavy with the steam caused by the pool being enclosed with temperatures of up to 100 degrees outside. It was a rainforest. It was a desert. It was an aqua blue paneled greenhouse.

It was browning at the edges.

We had come for his funeral. Seven years, that’s how long we’ve been making the trek from Kentucky to the Navajo Reservation, but we’d never made one like this before. There was a silence in the air. We’d traded the thick, damp humidity of Kentucky for a different kind of heaviness. It stuck to our insides.

It’s not like we hadn’t seen it coming. Uncle Putz was 84. He’d lived a long, rewarding life. Sure, the end was wrought with disease but most ends are like that. The problem was with every loss there comes a change and we weren’t ready for that yet. Consistency brings comfort and comfort provides safety.  He died – a peaceful and overall heavenly death I’m told – but he took away our consistency. We hesitated to walk outside the comfort zone, so we hovered on the edge.

            The greenhouse was under the care of Brother John. From his garden he provided all the produce used to feed St. Michael’s monastery men.  His greenhouse also served another purpose. It gave a glimpse into an exotic world beyond the dirt and rock of Arizona’s landscape.  I don’t recall now whether Putz ever ventured into the aqua blue building, but something tells me he did.

Brother John was a man of many characters. He’d been at St. Michael Parish for thirty years. He was a man of God, a man of the Navajos, a man of Nature, a man of humor and geniality.  When I first met him I thought he was insane. I was nine and he was a man of many characters. I didn’t know which one to address. Raised within a large catholic community where everyone went to private catholic grade schools and private catholic high schools, where Catholicism ran rampant like a wild animal, I rationalized that the only way to treat Brother John was as a man of God (i.e. with minimal contact and fear).  

What I soon came to find, however, was that the men at St. Michael were not the kind to be stereotyped. They knew how to let loose, how to make jokes, how to laugh at themselves. Some say it was the alcohol that gave them this ability. The Navajo Reservation is dry, except for St. Michael. For some reason the priests were deemed exempt and permission was given for them to bring beer and liquor into the monastery.   I won’t divulge much – that is for another story – but let me just say they knew how to have fun with Catholicism. They could poke fun while still retaining respect. They were good men.

The night after Putz’s funeral, Brother John hurriedly rushed us out into the cool, dry air. I was tired; my eyes were puffy from tears that were neither sad nor happy.  He led us to the greenhouse door, placed his hand on the knob and paused.  The suspense was palpable; his enigmatic expression gave the air excitement. He turned the knob. We entered.

In the back corner, behind a tree and an exotic looking vine of some sort, was a white flower. 

“Peniocereus greggii,” he said. I don’t think anyone understood the meaning of his words but we understood the reverence in his tone. This flower meant something.

 We inched closer.

An overwhelming scent soon engulfed us. It startled. The bush it was attached to looked dead, but the flower was very much alive. It danced for us.

“What is it?”

“The night-blooming cereus, or Queen of the Night. It only blooms one night out of the year.”

I held my hand out and hesitantly touched its petal.

“When the sun rises it will close forever.”

I felt its breath on my fingertip; its life on my skin. A tear fell down my cheek as I looked closer at the white petals.

“Remember when our dads used to be friends?”  I let my eyes rest on the empty white walls of my small apartment living room, swallowing too much red wine out of the jam jar I used as a cup so that it hurt my throat as it went down.  Casey was the first familiar thing to set foot in the place; an old friend since kindergarten, it felt strange to see him sitting on the stiff sofa across from me.  An hour earlier, when he first called at the exit ramp, I felt kind of nervous.  I realized how little I had to show for the time I had spent cooped up here, and the only thing I could offer him was a clean apartment and a box of wine that I had only contributed three dollars towards.  But that was enough for him. 

            “We really sort of have them to thank for our friendship,” he said in a throaty voice, downing some more of the wine and resting the glass on his knee.  His hair was longer now, and he pushed it back so that the blond waves ran over his head; he looked like a romantic philosopher in the wind or something.  “I mean, if you think about it, a lot of times we hung out because our dads would watch the game together or something.” 

            “Right, well that did make it easier for us.”  I remembered the story my mom had told me, about how my teacher suggested we pair up because Casey was an extrovert and I was an introvert, having a tough time adjusting to the social atmosphere of school.  But I also remembered meeting him on my own, because he had gotten a kick out of the pyramid of ham blocks I had constructed at snack time.  That caught his attention, so a few minutes later we formally introduced ourselves underneath the lunch table.  That's what I liked to remember. 

            “To think that maybe we wouldn't be friends right now if it weren't for that,” he said.  He smiled and looked down, shaking his head and then rubbing his eye with one palm.  I frowned, watching the red liquid as I swirled my glass.  Our minds wandered freely from the alcohol. 

            “I wish they still hung out.  Always made me sad.” 

            “Well that's just the way things go.” He sat back on the sofa.  “The thing is,” he continued, “They were both in the same kind of situation in their lives, you know?  My dad was going through a divorce and so was your dad.  They were both going through some shit and they had that in common.  They could get together over some beers, watch the game and talk about how shitty their lives were.”  We both laughed.  “They had that sort of masculine bond.  They're both hard asses, and they both got that about each other.”  He pounded his fist into his other hand, getting more into his spiel.  This time I didn't mind.  I just listened.  “Your dad, I know, is a crazy motherfucker.  That story my dad told me about those five dudes in a car he called out.”  I guess the story was that these young guys who were towing a boat had stopped in the middle of the road, blocking the way from my dad and Kevin.  He signaled for them to move and they mouthed off to him in some disrespectful fashion, and with a quick slam of the door he was upon them.  At a high volume he suggested that they all exit the vehicle immediately and settle the matter in the street, an offer which they respectfully declined.

            “Yeah yeah, that's a good one.”  I beamed.  I remembered how I had asked my dad about it one time and he undersold the story.  I felt like he always tried to hold back, like there was a long lost part of him I didn't know, or maybe I didn't want to know.

            “And then my dad with those guys that followed him back to the house.”  Sort of the same deal.  Also with a slam of the door and ample usage of curse words, the two men in the car turned around and left.  In both cases our fathers were outmatched.  One versus five and and older man versus two.  They did it anyway.  We had always looked up to our fathers in that respect.  There was something so venerable about it.  As much as I didn't agree with some of the things my dad was about, I was proud of him in other ways.  As much as I wanted to consider myself above him, more aware, educated and open-minded-- a competition has grown between us in recent years, and I could never beat him at sports, so I try in other ways-- sometimes there was just nothing cooler than my old man.  And I knew Casey felt that too.  I got that tingling feeling in my gut as we boasted, feeling like a little kid again...

            Casey and I are hard at work putting together the cushions of our fort which snakes around the fireplace.  We can crawl from one end to the other without it falling down.  Every once in a while I poke my head out of the blanket roof and look at my dad and Kevin.  They're sitting on the sofa facing the glowing TV and the lights are off.  Kevin has curly, longish gray hair.  His face is broad and pale except for the reddish parts around his nose.  His eyelids droop a little but he looks happy.  My dad's hair is cut short and faded on the sides, and it's going gray but not the soft lighter gray like Kevin's.  His face is plumper, and he is bigger and more solid than Kevin.  They both have bottles of beer and they both talk the same.  Sometimes they don't need to talk much.  They are watching football, and every once in a while I'll hear my dad yell something and Kevin say “Jesus Christ!” in a drawn out, high voice.  I feel excited when they do that.  I like to watch them be friends, and when we all get together it feels like our own secret family...

            “But they don't have that now.  They both found girlfriends, so they didn't need each other anymore.  And when it came down to it, my dad and your dad are really different from each other.”  I remembered when Kevin came over to the new house my dad lived in with his girlfriend.  It felt different, and I don't think he came back again.  Casey took a long sigh and looked at me.  “People change, Christian.  People. Change.”  There was so much emphasis on his words that it bothered me.

            “I don't know.  Maybe I'm just being naïve, but I feel like there's a way to keep what you have.  To grow and keep your old friends at the same time.  Like you can always find a place for both.”

            “Don't get me wrong.  I'm sure they could easily go back to that.”

            “But now there's the distance.” 

            “Yeah, and to be honest man, as much as I love the guy and respect him making a choice for himself, he really kind of abandoned me,” he sneered.  “I mean we still saw each other but it just wasn't the same you know?” 

            “Yeah, that was really shitty.  I never really wanted to say it at the time.”