Apple Sauce

Apple Sauce
by John Burke

It was two in the afternoon and Ronnie Toyle had been out in the orchard for almost eight hours and still had four left ahead of him. His shirt, which had been drenched in sweat by 10:00, was now tied around the top of his head and bone dry under the sun’s searing stare through the empty blue. His skin was like sun-beat leather. It rolled loose over the lumped muscles in his back that swelled as he raised the pole-picker, like they were trying to escape, while his biceps scrunched together in angry little knots.

He stopped for a moment and let out a sigh, wiped the dots of sweat from his forehead and rubbed them into the torn blue-jeans he rolled up over his calves. The sweat leaked faster as the sun climbed higher. He thought of his bottle of water and his tongue grated over his lips like sandpaper.

The pole picker shot from his hand and lodged itself into the earth. He leaned himself against it, his arm coiled around it like a snake. He swayed and wobbled away but his hand gripped just under the cone shaped basket as if he were tethered. He tallied the apples in his basket on his free hand, then shook his head and closed his eyes. He sighed as he righted himself upward, his spine popping and cracking as it lengthened, when he noticed there was someone standing not six feet away from him and sprung back as if he’d stuck his finger in an outlet. His gaze was fixed on the shotgun wedged into the man’s armpit.

“What’s the count?” the man asked from under the straight-haired moustache resting across his top lip and falling straight off on either end down to his jawbone. It seemed fairly well maintained, albeit long, in contrast to the long, brown tangles of hair that snaked out from under the faded purple bandana, twisting and tangling its way down to his nipples.

“What?” Ronnie replied, stupidly.

“Watcha got, there?” the man said and his nostrils flared, knocking his big orange lenses crooked. He shook his head to the right, flagging that side of his long brown hair behind his shoulder. He shuffled his hand around the neck of the shotgun and angled it toward the sun.

“Wh…Who are you?”

“Boy, I’m the man that pays you. Unless I ain’t. Then I’d recommend you leave them apples where they sit and get to goin,’ ” the man said, looking toward the edge of the sky. Ronnie’s eyebrows bunched together under his t-shirt turban and he looked at the man in total bewilderment.

“I..I work for Mr. Hardman. There must be.. some kind of—“ he halted and his jaw unhinged. The man’s right eye bulged under half cover of the big orange lens, straight through the metal V and the O in the sights of the shotgun he had raised straight into the air, and was now in rapid vertical descent toward Ronnie. “Please!” he cried and crouched with his hands over his head, balled up like a big fleshy apple. He heard the crack of the shotgun like God’s whip and then all was silent but for the all powerful buzz that settled in the air between everything.

After a few seconds he opened his eyes and, to his surprise, he was quite alive, head and limbs intact. He rose from his balled position into a backwards step and watched the man’s hearty laugh but heard nothing but the buzz and its reluctant fading.

Behind him and to his left he saw the scattered pieces of his apple-crate and the torn red skins scattered like leaves. He wiped the hot apple-sauce spray from the entire left side of his body. The man was laughing harder now and he doubled over, resting himself on the butt of the gun wedged into his stomach. He couldn’t tell if the laugh was just getting louder or if his ear drums were taking their shape back. Ronnie tried to stagger away quietly.

“Hold up, son” the man said, and the sudden clarity of sound froze Ronnie where he stood. The gun snuggled itself back into the warmth of the man’s armpit. “Where you think you’re goin’?”

‘The police station’ Ronnie thought. The realization that this man was, very likely, completely insane slapped Ronnie across the face. “I was going to get a new basket.”

“No need,” the man said, the gun’s tip easing down towards the ground. “I’m sorry, there won’t be no need for that.” Ronnie took a hard swallow. “How long you been working here,” the man asked, quickly adding “for me, of course.”

“Every august through October," Ronnie started, “for the last six years.” The man’s eyes scanned the orchard, crawling over the tops of the trees down to the edge the orchard, as if he watched six years of blooming in the manner of seconds it took to scan the place.

“That’s a long time,” he said.

“Yes,” Ronnie said and turned slowly back toward the man, ”it is.” His clenched shoulders loosened a little and he stuck his hands in his pockets. “It’s been a long time.”

“And a lot of apples.”

“Yes,” he agreed. ”A lot of apples.”

“How old are you? You look awful skinny,” the man said, looking Ronnie over. “What am I paying you, anyways?” Ronnie’s eyes went wide under the assault of questions. He tried to profess his innocence with a shrug. “You don’t know how old you are?”

“No-”

“Then I’d say you been here a might too long.”

“No I mean no I don’t not know how old I am…” he said, tripping over his syntax and falling flat. “..I’m not that skinny.”

“Awful skinny,” the man smiled, “for someone in the, uh.. food industry?” Ronnie stared blankly and they both went quiet for a moment, the man staring off at the horizon and Ronnie watching his toes writhing in his shoes.

“I make enough,” Ronnie said suddenly. “I’m okay.” The man looked over and shook his head in disapproval.

“Make enough for what?” the man asked and dropped the nose of his gun into the ground. “To come back to work?” He looked over at Ronnie who returned his gaze in silence from under his heavy eyelids, his chin tucked into his collar. “Maybe you’ve forgot how old you are,” he started at Ronnie, whose hand reached up to ease the throbbing in his forehead, “but you don’t look too old to me.”

“--Thank you,” he replied, his frustration surrendered to the compliment.

“You got the world here,” the man said, his arm making a sweeping gesture towards the expanse of red and orange bursts like fire popping up and down the hills, off to where it met the sky. “That’s why, son, I regret to inform you,” the man began and slung the gun up onto his shoulder, resting the butt in his palm. “You’re fired.”

Ronnie paused a moment. “Okay..” he said at last. The man nodded approvingly and turned off. He started to hack the tail end of his shotgun through the twisted apple-tree branches that snatched at him like menacing arms.

Ronnie waited a moment and listened as cracking branches moved a little further, and then he heard a yelp, a cry like a dog asking you to throw his stick. Ronnie eased toward the pole-picker that still rested on the ground, He picked it up, moving his hand up and down, feeling out the weight of it. It felt awkward in his hand, and a lot heavier. He tossed it back onto the ground and made his way quickly through the trees, toward the rallying shouts and yelps of his former employer.