Coop by Michael Perry

Author:Michael Perry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2009-02-14T16:00:00+00:00

My plan had been to get back at the work waiting in the office, but I dive straight into fencing the garden. The rabbit population around here has been exploding. With no barrier they’ll decimate our vegetables. And the planting season is nearly upon us. At least these are the things I am telling myself. There is some truth to it, but there is an unquestionable element of escapism. When I get way behind on deadlines and responsibilities as I am now, I rather perversely throw myself into physical labor, which yields palliative sweat and tangible progress even as I fall farther behind.

While shuffling through a pile of mail and miscellaneous papers beside the telephone today, I came across some scribbled notes. They were in Anneliese’s hand, and appeared to be the rough draft for a set of talking points: tired baby/tired mom/7-year-old = frustrated mom…things you can do… The subsequent notes essentially sketched out something that Anneliese brought up recently, saying she appreciates everything I am doing to pay the rent and prepare for having animals, but sometimes she wonders if I’m using work as a hideout. It made me crabby that she would even suggest such a thing, because of course it is true. I can provide plenty of justification—a man must Provide, soon I’ll be on the road again, yada yada—but there is no question I find refuge in the work, and I’m not sure I’ve got it in me to change on that front. I love to put my head down and bull.

Amy appears, apparently still ruminating on the bugs of Beetle McGrady. “Mommy says when she was in Mexico she ate a taco with crickets!” She is bursting with wonder and admiration. I wonder how often Anneliese wishes she were back in Mexico or even her Talmadge Street house and not saddled with an irritable self-employed scribbler wiring slapdash pigpens up a dead-end road.

Plunging into the garden plot, I rip up last year’s weeds and clear the overgrowth from the perimeter. Then, using a posthole digger, a level, and a two-by-two tamper, I set the poles (salvaged from where I found them leaning in a corner of the pole barn) solid and square in the dirt. Next I dig a trench so I can bury the bottom few inches of the fencing to prevent the rabbits from tunneling under. After stretching and stapling the fencing in place, I fill the trench and stomp the dirt down flat all around. Lastly I rig a gate. I keep my head down, working steadily, sweating and not stopping. There is far more in play here than work ethic. A teacher of psychology once reviewed my behavior over the long term and pegged me for bipolar—it strikes me that this desire to hide out by hooking oneself to the plow may be nothing more than the manifestation of mania. I once knew a woman whose manic swings drove her to don scarlet clothes and makeup and dance the downtown streets, whereas your manic Scandinavian will dig postholes.

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