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November 7 - 14, 1 9 9 7
[Tales From Tritown]

Vineland

Hollis the Mountain Man's garden of grotesques

by Sally Cragin

[Tritown] "Squash, so American that its very name is Indian: it is a shortening of the Narragansett askutashquash. As this means literally something that is eaten raw, we are entitled to believe that this was the way the Indians ate it."

-- Eating in America, by Waverley Root and Richard de Rochemont

By late fall, the leaves have blown from the trees at the Mountain Lair, leaving a sere, skeletal landscape. Hollis the Mountain Man goes about his indoor routine (feeding the cats, Trick and Treat, washing his dishes, or some of them) and then decides it's time to face the outdoor chores.

You can put off raking leaves for so long, he thinks. But leaves in the gutters definitely need to be dealt with before snow season. Hollis has unpleasant memories of his first winter at the Mountain Lair when he left this small (but crucial) chore until after Thanksgiving. He spent several hours chipping icy, leafy clots out of dangling gutters. Worse, when he was done, he turned around to see Lorencz the Hermit squatting contemplatively on the ground watching. Lorencz is incapable of asking, "Need help?" (Also, "Please," "Thank you," and "I'm going away for a few weeks so don't worry about me.") But he is always willing to pitch in when asked, and yanking frozen leaves from the gutter is just the kind of mindless chore at which he excels.

Hollis has gutters on the mind as he steps outside and breathes deeply. There is an invigorating quality in the air, a combination of pine needles, moisture blown off Picture Pond, and the faint aroma of diesel wafting from his neighbors, Tarbox Automotive (Collisions? A Specialty). "These are a few of my fay-vor-it things," Hollis hums as he walks toward the barn for a ladder. When he returns to the house, a flash of orange catches his eye. The remnants of his squash garden need to be retrieved. How could he have forgotten about his squash garden?

Every year, Hollis plants pumpkins, squash, and gourds, and these are invariably successful. He believes he is living in the grand tradition of the long-gone local Indians who'd grown varieties of crookneck, butternut, and acorn squash. Since all squash tastes the same to Hollis, he grows his crops big and ugly; the more ghastly the gourd, the better. He usually saves the seeds from his most spectacular specimens to plant the following spring.

This season, he's growing a clutch of quirky gourds and some gigantic, pustular squashes. Delia Ellis Bell the Partial Yankee (there was a questionable great-great-grandmother) thinks that Hollis likes these monstrosities because he identifies with them. Since taking an Abnormal Psychology evening course, she is positively insufferable with her opinions, most of which she wisely keeps to herself.

"He's always cast himself as `The Beast,'" she theorizes. "The unkempt beard, the hat pulled low, the baggy, flannel `farmer clothes.' Having a garden full of leprositic lumps of vegetable is just a variant on the old theme of Narcissus gazing into the reflecting pool."

At the far end of the garden are a couple of oblate blue Mother Hubbards ("the Mother of all Hubbards," jokes Hollis) and a smaller collection of gourds. As Delia inspects what she calls his "Garden of Grotesques," she comments, "it looks like a tumor factory, Hollis."

"But aren't the colors great?" he enthuses. "A lot of the hybrids have this interesting mottled effect -- somewhat surreal." Hollis shoves his hands in his back pockets. (Delia always makes fun of him when he twangs the suspenders with pride.) But Delia isn't convinced. She extends a tentative toe and turns over a melanin-deprived acorn squash.

"I don't know, Hollis," she begins. "All this green and burnt orange. Don't you think there's something quintessentially 1970s about squash?"

Hollis looks perplexed. "That's part of the fun!" he explains. "Also, the fact that if I were to buy any of these items, they'd cost anywhere from a dime to a quarter a pound. Seventies prices, too."

Hollis strolls along the perimeter. "I also love the names. I tried some new models this year: `Miskatonic Zumpkin,' `Golden Dawn Colossus,' `Butternut Buddha.' Can I interest you in a `Ruby Red Hullaballoo?'" He points to a pale and wrinkled squash that is narrow at both ends, and round in the middle, as if it had swallowed a turtle and hadn't started to digest it yet.

"Dunno," she replies suspiciously. "What's it taste like? I remember how stringy the `Marco Polo Crookneck' was."

Hollis twists the Hullaballoo off its vine. Delia swears she hears the squash emit a vague, content `a-a-ah'; as if by picking, its hideousness is forgiven. He brings the squash up to his nose. "Probably tastes like squash," he says. "Maybe this one is supposed to have a `tangy, citrus-like taste,' but I forget." He gives Delia a sheepish look. "I planted these last spring, and that is a lo-o-ong time ago." She holds out her hand. "Sure," she agrees. "I'll give it a try." They walk around the garden. The leaves are brown, and the vines twisted like cheap telephone cords. The earth is hardened -- frost is setting in. Footprints that were made in October won't disappear till April. Then Delia sees something odd.

"What's THIS!" she gasps, retreating quickly from a large, egg-shaped object. Splotches of orange bleed into kidney-shaped pools of acid green, mortered by a sickly taupe. The entire squash is barnacled with boils. Not modest cankers, but enormous, protuberant masses that bubble like slow lava across the surface. Hollis looks for a stick to turn it over and finally extends the tip of his workboot. Delia screams. Wavey wrinkles are scored deep in the squash, like quilting stitches between irregular eruptions. "Geez, Hollis," she breathes. "I don't know. If it were darker, and we were out here, I might think you'd grown --" her voice lowers conspiratorially. "A HUMAN HEAD!" Hollis scratches his head through his tractor cap with the bent brim. The brim rises just above his shaggy eyebrows, before he pulls it back into place. "Hmmm," he mutters. "Too green for a pumpkin, too orange for a zucchini." He snaps it off the vine. "Weird little wrinkles that don't look like the other squash. It really is like a human head, isn't it?"

Delia moves closer, and her breath quickens. Like many Tritownies with a hardened work ethic, she still dreams of the quick score, the mega-win, the walkaway cash-out. "Hollis," she says quietly. "I'm going to get my camera and take a couple rolls of film of Ichabod Squash-head here in different settings."

Hollis perks up. "Sure!" he says. "I'll get some old clothes. We can make a scarecrow lying down . . ." "Right," says Delia. "And after the pictures have come out, we'll carefully extract each and every seed. Then we'll send the picture into the Tritown Bugle, and every other local rag, and mention that we're selling the seeds for a dollar apiece."

Hollis laughs heartily. "Two bucks a shot, and three for five dollars," he says quickly. "Hey, it is harvest time!"

Sally Cragin thinks that as far as squash is concerned, size does matter.


The Tales From Tritown archive


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