My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me: Forty New Fairy Tales

MICHAEL MARTONE. A Bucket of Warm Spit

ONCE’T, YOU COULD SPIT ON THE GROUND AND GROW WATER.

They said back then that the rain would follow the plow. They lied.

Our plows were painted grass green, and they broke open the green grass prairie hereabouts. Where it split and opened up, I swear, you could hear it leak, spitting a little spit, spitting a hiss-like hiss.

Spit of steam here, spit of steam there, the ground a rolling boil, all that steam boiled up into a smoke of steam.

The water rained from the ground pouring into the sky sighing as it went. The water, it up and went.

After a while all that water emptied into a big ol’ cloud wall that hanged down from the sky and hugged the ground that fed it.

That big ol’ cloud wall, it was made up of all these little drops of steam-water and seeded inside each of all these drops of steam-water were itty-bitty grains of dust that got carried away, snug, that the water would stick to.

When that big ol’ cloud begun to move with the big ol’ wind a-pushing it over the land, the grains of dust inside, they sanded the dry ground beneath it into more dust.

More more dust.

More dust got swallowed up by the dust and soon it was just dust in the big ol’ cloud. That and a little paste of mud.

The land was wore away.

The land was wore away. The land was turned into air. We breathed it in.

The land, it filled our lungs like food filled up a stomach, but those were empty, our stomachs, even as we got to eating the dirt. We were eating dirt all the time as it up and went.

Jack, he kept burying his daddy.

Jack kept to burying his daddy in the dirt as it up and went.

Nobody farmed anymore. Nobody farmed.

We’d plow and the furrows would flatten. We’d plant and the seeds, they’d be blowed away. No need to hoe since the dirt-wind and the dirt-cloud scoured the ground-up ground clean of every weed.

Jack, he kept burying his daddy.

In that dirt-wind, Jack, he kept to burying his daddy.

Jack, he’d dig him a hole and roll his daddy, in his winding, into it.

The tailings Jack tossed into the hole turned to smoke on his shovel as he tossed them, trying to fill the hole he dug.

A whole spade full of soil smoking off the blade as he aimed for the hole with his daddy, in his winding, in it.

Jack, he’d end up scooping the sandy sides of the hole over the sides of the hole to fill the hole up.

Jack, he dozed the dust with his feet, pushed the dust into the hole to get it out of the wind, get the ground below ground out of the dirt-wind even as dirt-dirt washed away in the dirt-wind.

He’d finally get a blanket of that dirt-dirt over the body of his daddy, wrapped in the rotting winding.

Jack, he’d sit on top the dust he’d swept into the hole, but not to rest so much as to see if he could hold the dust down, keep it from drifting away again.

But the dust, it drifted away again.

He watched coils of dirt-dirt snake away from right under where he sat on it.

And Jack, he’d sink into the hole he dug as the dirt-dirt washed away from right under where he sat on it, wash away in the dirt-wind.

’Fore you know it, Jack, he would be all the way in the hole, sinking into it, with his daddy in his winding cloth. ’Cept there was no hole no more.

Jack, he’d stand back up and start to digging another hole to bury his daddy, his daddy in his rotting winding, lying in a heap on the shifting ground at his feet.

This went on a spell.

About then, the brindle cow, she run dry.

The brindle cow, she up and dried up.

Jack, he was in no ways surprised by this.

Jack, he’d been feeding the brindle cow wood from the barn, the red clapboards stripped of paint and sanded smooth by the dirt-wind.

Jack, he’d be back there massaging the bag to get the brindle cow to let down. The brindle cow, she’d be chewing and chewing the old barn wood all the time Jack was there in the back trying to get her to let down.

Jack, he’d work up a spit to spit on his hands to rub the boss’s bag to get her to let down.

Before she give out, she’d give just one-half tin cup of rheumy cream.

To get that, Jack’d use all four teats for that one-half tin cup of rheumy cream the brindle cow would give after Jack’d massage her shrinking bag to get her to let down.

The brindle cow, she’d graze the sticking-out tops of the buried bob-wire fences.

The fence pickets and the bob-wire, they would knock the dirt-dust out of the wind and all get buried in the drift.

The brindle cow she would graze the fence tops, work the staples loose.

The brindle cow, she’d lick rust right off the bob-wire. Her big ol’ tongue licking the rust right off the wire.

Jack, he found himself one of them ol’ magnets. He found one of them big ol’ bar magnets and fed it to the brindle cow.

The ol’ magnet, it done lodged up in the crop.

That ol’ magnet up in the crop, it draws all the hardware the brindle cow grazed on.

That ol’ magnet, it didn’t do no good.

That ol’ magnet, it didn’t do no good at all ’cause the brindle cow went dry as a bone.

The brindle cow, she stopped altogether letting down.

The brindle cow, she stopped altogether letting down, stopped giving milk, not even giving up a stringy spit of milky milk.

Jack’s momma, she says to Jack to fetch the brindle cow into town.

Jack, Jack’s momma says, fetch that ol’ stopped-up cow into town.

She’ll fetch a price, Jack’s momma says, for her stringy meat if nothing else.

Jack’s momma says the brindle cow’s hide’s done been already tanned by the wind. Her coat, she says, done been wore away. Her horns and hoofs done been hollowed out by the same dirt-wind wore the coat clean away.

And she’s full-up with all that scrap, Jack’s mamma says.

Jack’s momma, she tells him to sell the scrap after the slaughter of the ol’ brindle cow.

Jack, he says he will.

And the bones, Jack’s momma says to Jack, fetch home them inside bones for bread.

Jack, he says he will.

And the tongue, Jack, Jack’s momma says, fetch that home too. We can ring it out, ring it dry of water, the water that got leeched from the rust she’s been licking from the bob-wire.

Jack and the brindle cow, they up and go, gone behind the big ol’ cloud wall hanging from the sky and sweeping up dirt-cloud of dust at its feet.

Right away, Jack, he sees nothing but the cloud of dirt all around him.

Jack, he can’t even see the brindle cow on the other end of that there rope.

Jack, he nickers. Jack, he says, come, boss, he says.

Jack, he hears the brindle cow say moo. Jack, he can’t see her inside the dirt-cloud all around.

This goes on for a spell.

Then Jack and the brindle cow come to the forest. Jack, the brindle cow, and the forest are all in the dirt-cloud all around.

The forest isn’t made up of no trees. It is a forest of old windmills. Hundreds of windmills. Hundreds. The windmills’ blades make an aching sound in the gloom when the snaggle-tooth blades turn in the gritty dirt-wind.

The snaggle-tooth blades turn over out of sight inside the gritty ground-up dirt-cloud there overhead Jack and the brindle cow mooing in the gloom.

The windmills, they are only milling wind.

The windmills’ screw gears, they done been wore away, been stripped clean by the gritty wind.

The windmills can’t lift no water. No water to lift.

The windmill in the windmill forest done sucked up all the water out of the ground hereabouts long ago. The windmill forest, it is sinking into the ground, into the hollow place where all the water used to be.

All them windmills, they can’t lift no more water. No water to lift. The windmills, they pump sand.

Jack and the brindle cow, they walk through the forest of the criss-crossed windmill towers, the windmill blades making their aching sound overhead.

The brindle cow, she hold up, stops to take a bite from the wood on one of them criss-crossed windmill towers. The brindle cow, she can’t be budged.

That’s when a man, he’s been there all the time, says to Jack, say, what you got there at the end of that rope.

Jack, he says back to the man that he has a brindle cow all dried up he’s taking to slaughter somewhere over there on the other side of the dirt-cloud.

The man, he says I can take her off your hands, says he’s got something here way better than a dried-up brindle cow to trade.

Jack, he considers this for a spell.

Jack, he considers all the digging he’s been doing, trying to keep his daddy in the ground. Jack, he considers what his momma said about the scrap metal and the hide and the sopping tongue and such.

Jack, he considers the big bones inside the brindle cow and the bone bread his momma wants to make with them.

The man, he says, after a spell, says what’s it going to be?

Jack, he says to the man to tell him what’s he got.

The man, he takes out a glass vial, a vial stopped up with a rubber stopper. The man, he holds it up right up to Jack’s eye so as Jack can see into it.

Jack, he looks and looks.

Jack, he sees inside there an ocean of silver in the vial. An ocean, it has itty-bitty waves breaking and everything. Silver spume and such.

Jack, he is fair amazed.

The man, he says that that there is beads of quicksilver eating each other up. That there is melted metal that don’t need no fire to melt. That there is magic beads.

Jack, he can’t take his eyes off of them beads of quicksilver swallowing each other up inside the glass vial.

The man, he says this here is the rarest of the rare. Metal made outa water, water made outa metal. You go and spread that there metal-water on any ol’ ground and see what grows up.

Jack, he’s done thinking.

Jack, he up and takes the glass vial with the beads of quicksilver from the man right there and then.

Jack, he hands over the rope to the man. Somewhere out there on the other end of the rope is the brindle cow.

The brindle cow, she moos in the gloom.

Jack, he hears the man and the brindle cow go off that-a-way.

Jack, he turns the other way for home. The quicksilver in the glass vial, it gives off its own kind of silver light in the gloom.

The windmill blades over Jack’s head, they make that aching sound, turning in the dirt-wind up inside the dirt-cloud.

This goes on for a spell.

Jack’s momma, she asks Jack what he’s got to show for the brindle cow. Jack’s momma, she’s been waiting for Jack for a spell. Dirt-drifts, they have drifted around her skirts where she waited for Jack on the house stoop.

Jack, he shows her there then what he had to show for the brindle cow.

Jack, he shows his momma the glass vial glowing in the gloom, filled up with the itty-bitty ocean of water-metal and metal-water.

Jack’s momma, she’s angry.

Jack, says Jack’s momma, what about all that scrap metal and the leather tanned by the dirt-wind and the waterlogged tongue of that ol’ stopped-up brindle cow?

Jack’s momma, she says what about the big bones I was going to grind down to bonemeal to make our bread?

Jack, he says to his momma that there is quicksilver inside the glass vial, the rarest of the rare. Metal that ain’t hard like metal. Water that ain’t wet like water.

Jack, he says there ain’t no telling what it can do.

Jack’s momma, she don’t say nothing, takes the glass vial right out of Jack’s hands. The quicksilver inside the glass vial, it’s glowing a little in the gloom.

Jack’s momma, she considers for a spell.

Then, sudden-like, Jack’s momma, she up and unstops the stopper there and just like that pours the water-metal metal-water on the ground.

The quicksilver is quick, quicker than quick, glows in the gloom as it slides through the dirt-air to the ground.

Jack’s momma, she says this here is not worth a bucket of warm spit.

The quicksilver, it splashes on the ground. Where it splashes it kicks up little clouds of dusty dust. The way the quicksilver splashes, it makes a wet pattern like a map of the world ’cept the wet parts is the land and the dry parts is the vast ocean tracts I have only heard about in stories.

Jack and Jack’s momma, they look down on the ground where the quicksilver, it makes a map of the world in the dirt.

Both of them stare as the silver-wet of the quicksilver sinks into the dirt-dirt, making a patch of gray mud that, right there and then, begins to dry up on the spot. But it isn’t so much drying up as it is drying down. The wet soaking into, seeping into, that ground-up ground.

Jack and Jack’s momma, they both stand still for a spell. They watch what little wet there was in those quicksilver beads turn into a big ol’ dry.

In no time, even the big ol’ dry, it’s all dried up or, more exact, all dried down.

Jack and Jack’s momma, they stand stock-still for a spell. Still long enough that the drifts of dirt begin to cover Jack’s feet. Still long enough for the drifts of dirt to begin to cover the hem of Jack’s momma’s dress.

Enough, Jack’s momma says after a spell.

Not enough, Jack thinks after another spell of saying nothing.

And both of them fall asleep then and there.

This goes on for a spell.

Then in the dark-dark of the night, Jack, he wakes up to take a leak. Jack, he wakes up and gets up from where he fell asleep on the dirt. Jack, he makes water.

In the yard, Jack, he makes water. The yard, it is so dark, Jack, he can’t see the leak he is taking.

Jack, he hears the water he is making hit the ground. The water, it sounds like it sizzles when it hits the ground-up ground, sizzles like it turns to steam the second it strikes the ground.

After Jack takes a leak, after he has made water, Jack he goes back inside to his pallet of hard-packed dirt.

That night is when the thing growed up out of the ground-up ground.

The thing didn’t need no sun to grow since it growed up in the nighttime.

That nighttime while Jack and Jack’s momma sleep on their pallets of hard-packed dirt, the thing commences to grow.

First, there is this wrenching sound followed by a thumping bunch of big ol’ hollow booms followed by a slide-whistling, followed by a scale pings and plucks followed by a string breaking on an out-of-tune fiddle followed by the kinks being peened out of an ol’ washboard followed by a mucus-y pneumatic sneezing followed by the crinkling up of a tinfoil ball the size of the moon followed by the lumbering howl of a two-handed whipsaw being doubled up and honed with a horsetail bow to within an inch of its life to play a kind of toothy crosscut lullaby of ripped-up half-notes cut in half. And all of this followed by the ears of Jack in the dark-dark, a dark darker than dark on account of the dirt-cloud doubling the dark of the night.

Then, in the dark, there commences the no-mistaking-it sound of water running, water banging in plumbing that hasn’t been bled yet, water glugging through too narrow a gauge pipe, water over a rapid, water filled with air bubbles, water fizzing with seltzer. Water plumb out of its mind with wet.

In the dark-dark, Jack hears it all. Jack, he heard the metal sounds and the water sounds growing together in the dark-dark.

In the morning, when the dark of the dark turns less dark and the dark becomes more of the regular gloom, Jack, he gets up off his dirt pallet and sees what he can see.

Jack, he sees that it is no longer dark-dark like the night but he also sees it isn’t the regular gloom. The thing that growed up through the night with sound of metal and sound of water is so big as to cast a shadow on all the shade.

Out of the ground-up ground all around the wind-stripped wood of the wore-out house of Jack and Jack’s momma, Jack, he sees these big ol’ struts made of metal.

Jack, he sees a grove of these big ol’ struts all studded with rivets, all trussed up and down with guy wires and ratlines growing out of the ground-up ground.

The big ol’ struts, they’re all riveted up and rigged all around with guy wires and ratlines, the big ol’ struts also got rungs.

The rungs, they’re tack-welded to the big ol’ struts.

Jack, he looks up into the depths of the gloom of the dirt-cloud. Jack, he looks deep into the cloud.

Jack, he can’t see no end to the big ol’ struts growing up together into the depths of the dirt cloud.

Jack, he grabs hold of one of them tack-welded rungs.

Jack, he commences to climb one of them trussed-up struts.

Jack, he has no idea where he’s going.

Jack, he has no idea where he’s going but he gets going, climbs up them tack-welded rungs, hand over hand, up into the depths of the dirt-cloud.

The climb, it takes a spell.

After a spell, Jack, he looks back down from the rung he is hanging on to, back down through the rigging of the guy wires and ratlines going every which way between the big ol’ struts. Jack, he sees nothing down below but the dirt-cloud and nothing up above but more dirt-cloud.

Jack, he commences to climb again.

Jack, he climbs up those rungs so long and so far he sleeps in the rigging of the guy wire and the ratlines.

After a spell of more climbing up the rungs and more sleeping in the guy wires and ratlines, Jack comes to the top of the dirt-cloud.

Jack, he pokes his head up above the top of the top of the dark ground-hugging dirt-cloud. And Jack, he sees out over the vast plain of the top of the dirt-cloud, a desert of dirt-cloud, and floating above that desert are cloud-clouds, all white and lovely-like.

Jack, he pokes his head through the top of the dirt-cloud, sees the cloud-clouds stretching above the dirt of the dirt-clouds, and then and there he ends up on a catwalk.

Jack, he ends up on this here catwalk after all that climbing up the rungs of the big ol’ strut.

This here catwalk, it rings around a big ol’ cloud, but this big ol’ cloud is different from the white and lovely-like clouds floating all around it in the clear-clear air above the dirt-cloud.

This big ol’ cloud, Jack, he sees, it’s all made out of metal, metal studded all around with rivets and such. The big ol’ metal cloud is being held up by the big ol’ struts with the guy wires and the ratlines right at the top of the dirt-cloud. The big ol’ metal cloud, it looks like it is floating there, a big ol’ bar of soap floating on top of a bathtub of dirty cloud water.

Jack, he walks for a spell on the catwalk.

Jack, he walks on the catwalk and on one side, Jack, he sees all the while the white lovely-like clouds hanging in the deep blue sky, and on the other side, Jack, he sees the sheet metal of the big ol’ metal cloud with its rivets and seams and such.

Walking on the catwalk, Jack, he comes to a hatch cut into the metal of the big ol’ metal cloud.

Jack, he climbs through the hatch, he climbs inside the big ol’ metal cloud, and inside there, here is this here other catwalk that Jack climbs down onto.

It is dark inside that big ol’ metal cloud. It is dark and Jack, he waits a spell until his eyes can see the light that’s in the dark.

And in the light inside the dark, Jack, he sees nothing but water. Inside the metal cloud, Jack sees nothing but water in an ocean of water stretching away to forever and ever.

Inside the metal cloud, Jack, he sees this ocean as far as he can see. This here ocean, it looks like an ocean with ocean waves breaking over each and such right up to the catwalk where Jack, he’s standing.

Inside the metal cloud, the breeze in there is freshening. The freshening breeze, it sails over the endless ocean, over the breaking waves and such, and lights on Jack’s grimy sweaty face.

Jack, he just lets that breeze light on his face. Jack, his face, it is all grimy and sweaty. And the breeze sailing over the ocean lighting on his face washes all that away.

The breeze, it lights on Jack’s face with all its grime and sweat from climbing up inside the dirt-cloud, from living on the ground-up ground for so long.

The freshening breeze, it lights there, it licks the grime and the sweat right off of Jack’s face.

This goes on a spell.

And Jack, he commences to cry right then and there. Jack, he’s crying on that there catwalk, looking out over that endless ocean he sees in the light of the dark.

Jack, he cries these big ol’ tears. These big ol’ tears, they roll down Jack’s once’t grimy and sweaty skin of his face. And the breeze lighting there freeze-dries them big ol’ tears right then and there.

That’s when a woman, she’s been there all the time, says to Jack, say, what you got there?

Jack, he says back to the woman that he don’t know what she means.

The woman, she says I can take them off your hands, off your cheeks. The woman, she says she’s got something here way better than them there freeze-dried tears.

Jack, he considers this for a spell.

Jack, he considers all the walking he’s been doing, all the climbing. Jack, he considers all the dirt and all the water. Jack, he considers not even knowing about them there freeze-dried tears on his once’t grimy and sweaty face.

Jack, he considers the big ol’ tears on his face, how the freshening breeze squeezed them right out of him and freeze-dried them on his face.

The woman, she says, after a spell, says what’s it going to be?

Jack, he says to the woman to tell him what she’s got.

The woman, she takes out a glass dish, covered all over with a glass lid. The woman, she holds it up right up to Jack’s eye so as Jack can see into it.

Jack, he looks and looks.

Jack, he sees inside there a frozen ocean of silver stuck on the glass dish. A frozen ocean, it has itty-bitty frozen waves breaking and everything. Frozen silver spume and such.

Jack, he is fair amazed.

The woman, she says that that there is flakes of iodide frozen on the dish. That there is frozen metal that don’t melt. That there is magic flakes.

Jack, he can’t take his eyes off of them flakes of iodide frozen on the glass dish.

The woman, she says this here is the rarest of the rare. Metal made outa no water, air made outa metal that don’t melt. You go and spread that there air-metal on any ol’ cloud and see what grows down.

Jack, he’s done thinking.

Jack, he up and takes the glass dish with the flakes of iodide from the woman right there and then.

Jack, he chips off the big ol’ freeze-dried tears from his face, hands them over to the woman.

Jack, he sees the woman turn to a purple smoke in front of his eyes right then and there.

Jack, he smells the blood in the freshening breeze.

Jack, he watches the purple smoke turn and twist. The iodide frozen on the glass dish, it gives off its own kind of silver light in the dark light inside the big ol’ metal cloud.

The ocean waves below Jack’s feet on the catwalk, they make that breaking sound, grinding down the waves into water.

The smoke, it turns and twists going up and up.

The turning and twisting smoke, it done turns into a stairway of smoke. The smoke, it done turns to a stairway right in front of Jack’s eyes.

Jack, he knows there is more climbing to be done, knows he will have to climb these smoke stairs, turning and twisting.

Jack, he commences to start climbing the smoke stairs with the dish of iodide flakes giving off that silver light inside the big ol’ metal cloud filled up with an ocean that goes on forever and ever.

This goes on for a spell.

The smoke at the top of the smoke stairs, it done drilled a Jack-sized hole in the metal of the top of the metal cloud.

Jack, he sees up ahead the hole the smoke done drilled there.

Jack, he sees the sunlight pour in through the hole the smoke done drilled.

The sunlight, it pours through the hole.

The sunlight, it pours through the hole and goes right for them iodide flakes under the glass lid on the glass dish.

Up inside there, up inside there the iodide flakes begin to melt. But them flakes don’t melt as much as they don’t turn into no water. Them iodide flakes, they turn right into more smoke turning and twisting under the glass lid.

Jack, he climbs himself right through that Jack-sized hole the smoke stairs done drilled in the top of the metal cloud. Jack, he climbs right out of that there hole in the cloud.

Jack, he is standing on top of that there cloud.

Jack, he is standing on top of that there cloud holding in his hand the glass-covered glass dish holding the cloud of purple smoke that once’t was the silver flakes of iodide.

Jack, he lifts up the glass lid right then and there. And the smoke, it commences to expand. The smoke it begins to break into a million grains of smoke carried by the wind up there in the blue-blue sky.

Jack, he blows with the breath from his dirt-filled lungs the last of the smoke from the dish.

Jack, he sees the million grains of smoke go looking for the million cloud-clouds all white and lovely-like.

Jack, he’s done climbing.

Jack, he is on top of the big ol’ metal cloud and he is done climbing.

Jack, from way up there, he watches in the blue-blue sky the grains of smoke go looking for the cloud-clouds all white and lovely-like.

Jack, he’s done climbing, he’s done climbed all he was going to climb.

Jack, up there in the air, works up a bit of spit in his dry-dry mouth. It ain’t much but enough.

Jack, he works up some spit.

Jack, he leans over the edge of that big ol’ metal cloud he done climbed. He looks down into the dirt-cloud hanging there down below.

Jack, he spits.