The Fruit Hunters by Adam Gollner

Author:Adam Gollner [Gollner, Adam Leith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-385-67351-8
Publisher: Doubleday Canada
Published: 2008-08-25T04:00:00+00:00

PARKING MY 1982 Acura from Rent-A-Wreck near the four bronze statues of Pan which stand sentinel at the entrance to S’s property, I knock on the door. Nobody answers. I ring again. After waiting around three minutes, I push on the door, which is ajar, and enter the mansion. The living room is alarmingly cluttered. Stacks of dusty unopened envelopes, catalogs, postcards, stock appraisals, bank drafts and letters are heaped in corners. I pick one up at random; it’s a legal notice from the early 1980s. Display cases full of trinkets overflow onto unhung paintings. The floor is a tangled heap of discarded scarves, rolled-up carpets and other debris. “Hello!” I yell. No response.

I head into the kitchen, where the circular table holds a gravity-defying mix of unwashed plates and cutlery, cracker boxes, chocolate containers, half-eaten bonbons and more junk mail. Cereal bowls, possibly from that morning, are precariously balanced on top of everything. The walls are covered with ornate landscape paintings and portraits of wan aristocrats.

Feeling like I’ve somehow landed in an alternate version of Grey Gardens, I head upstairs, calling S’s name. No answer. I peer into a room, and one of the old ladies leaps out. “Don’t look in here,” she snarls. “Did you see something you weren’t supposed to?”

“I don’t even know what I wasn’t supposed to see,” I stammer.

Composing herself, she tells me that S is down at the picnic table. Going outside, I descend a spiral staircase surrounded by dozens of colorful bromeliads and reach a multitiered, man-made waterfall. Here’s where things get bacchanalian, I imagine, looking at the lagoon under the waterfall. Nearby, an outsized hot tub is carved into the rocks. S later mentions that he is in the process of having another lake installed—for fishing—to be stocked exclusively with fruit-eating piranhas.

I descend into the heart of the forest, getting lost several times before finding S manning the grill in a picnic area breathtakingly situated inside a gorge. The walls of the nook are fashioned out of large pieces of quartz and other crystals. Shards of amphoras and ancient jugs are fitted into the facade. A refrigerator is built into the rock. A couple of ornamental giant clam shells are filled with crabs, lobster tails, oysters and other shellfish.

I sit down in the shade of Costa Rican palm trees. S describes the entire picnic area as “Costa Rica” because of all the imported flora. As I sip some fresh lemonade, S regales me with a few jokes.

“Did you hear about the guy with five penises?” he asks. “His pants fit like a glove.”

The conversation turns to S’s favorite local spots to get a “joe-blob.” He recounts a recent trip to an adult cinema: “I was there and this guy behind me says, ‘[S], is that you?’ ‘No, it isn’t,’ I said. It was this old German guy I used to buy antiques from.”

He then starts talking about his all-time favorite names: Marina Pickless, Arlen Snuckles, Bootsy Caucus. “There was Dick Tickle, a furniture salesman,” he said.

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