Vineland
Hollis the Mountain Man's garden of grotesques
by Sally Cragin
"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.