For my mom and dad
For Nellie Zentner (1921–2019), who showed me that someone could love me so much she would cry every time I would leave
The human eye can discern more shades of green than of any other color. My friend Delaney told me that. She said it’s an adaptation from when ancient humans lived in forests. Our eyes evolved that way as a survival mechanism to spot predators hiding in the vegetation.
There are as many tinges of understanding as there are hues of green in a forest.
Some things are easy to understand. There’s a natural logic, a clear cause and effect. Like how an engine works. When I was eleven, my papaw pulled the engine out of his Chevy pickup and took it apart, letting me help him rebuild it. He laid the pieces out—reeking of dark oil and scorched steel—on a torn and greasy sheet, like the bones of an unearthed dinosaur. As we worked, he explained the function of each piece and what it contributed to make the engine run. It made sense, how he said it.
He wasn’t sick then. Later, when he was, I understood that when he used to say Don’t nobody live forever when accepting another piece of his sister Betsy’s chess pie, that wasn’t just a phrase he used. That was when he still had an appetite.
Now his appetite has moved to his lungs, which are always starved for air. His breathing has the keening note of the wind blowing over something sharp. It’s always there, which means he has something sharp inside him. People can’t live long with sharp things in them. I understand this.
Some things I understand without understanding them. Like how the Pigeon River moves and pulses like a living creature, never the same twice when I’m on it, which is as often as I can be. Or how sometimes you can stand in a quiet parking lot on a hot afternoon and perfectly envision what it would have looked like there before humankind existed. I do this often. It brings me comfort but I don’t understand why.
Other things I don’t understand at all.
How Delaney Doyle’s mind works, for example. Trying to comprehend it is like trying to form a coherent thought in a dream. Every time you think you’re there, it blurs.
You’ll be talking with her and she’ll abruptly disappear into herself. She’ll go to that place where the world makes sense to her. Where she sees fractals in the growth of honeysuckle bushes and elegant patterns in the seemingly aimless drift of clouds and the meandering fall of snowflakes. Substance in the dark part of flames. Equations in the dust from moths’ wings. The logic of winds. Signs and symbols. An invisible order to the world. Complex things make sense to her and simple things don’t.
She’s tried to explain how her mind functions, without success. How do you tell someone what salt tastes like? Sometimes you just know the things you know. It’s not her fault we don’t get it. People still treat her like she’s to blame.
Some aren’t okay with not understanding everything. But I’m not afraid of a world filled with mystery. It’s why I can be best friends with Delaney Doyle.
A carload of girls from my high school is trying to exit out the entrance of the Dairy Queen. I pause to let them. Then I pull in, my lawn mower rattling in the back of my pickup—the same truck whose engine my papaw and I rebuilt.
The early evening July sun blazes like bonfirelight on the hills behind the Dairy Queen. They’re a soft green, as if painted in watercolor. Gleaming soapsud clouds tower behind them. Delaney told me once that the mountains of East Tennessee are among the oldest in the world, but time has beaten them down. Sounds about right.
Delaney stands outside, her shadow long and spindly against the side of the building. She’s wearing her work uniform—a blue baseball cap, blue polo shirt, and black pants—and holds a cup with a spoon sticking out of it. With her other hand, she twists her auburn ponytail and presses her thumb on the end, tufted like the tip of a paintbrush. It’s one of her many nervous tics.
The expression on her face is one she often has—her eyes appear ancient and able to see all things at once, unbound through time and space. It’s what I imagine God’s face looked like before summoning the world out of the ether.
If God were wearing a Dairy Queen baseball cap, I guess.
I’m in no hurry, so I wait, out of curiosity. It takes longer than you’d think for her to notice I’m there.
“It’s fine. I had no plans for my Saturday night but waiting in the DQ parking lot,” I say out my open window as she finally approaches. I try to play it straight-faced, but I never manage with her.
She gets in, giving me the cup to hold while she buckles up. “You’re late.”
“By like two minutes.” I go to hand her back the cup.
She refuses it. “That’s for you. Started melting because you were late. Your punishment.”
“Based on how close you were watching for me, you were obviously deeply concerned. Oreo Blizzard?”
“Your favorite.”
“Nice.” I take a bite and study her face for a moment. “How was work?”
“You smell like gasoline and cut grass. Did you know the scent of mown grass is a distress signal?”
“For real?”
“It’s from green leaf volatiles. They help the plant form new cells to heal faster and stop infection. Scientists think it’s a type of chemical language between plants. So you’re covered in the liquid screams of grass you’ve massacred.”
“I could’ve showered off all this grass blood before picking you up, but then I’d’ve been even more late.”
“Didn’t say I minded,” she murmurs, not making eye contact. “Plant screams smell nice.”
“You reek like french fries,” I say, leaning toward her and taking an exaggerated whiff. “The smell of french fries? Potatoes shrieking for their babies.”
“I’ll slaughter some potatoes. I don’t care.”
“You just gonna pretend I didn’t ask how work was?” I put my truck in gear and back out.
She twists the end of her ponytail. “The Phantom Shitter struck again.”
“The Phantom Shitter?”
“Some dude who comes in once a week or so and absolutely wrecks the men’s room. No one ever sees him come or go. We’ve even checked security tapes. It’s a pooping ghost.”
“Imagine dying and haunting the Earth and making it your mission to befoul the Sawyer Dairy Queen.”
“Befoul. Where’d you get that word?”
“Dunno. Besides the Phantom Shitter, how was work?”