Toil & Trouble by Augusten Burroughs

Author:Augusten Burroughs
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Fairie’s Finger

Beavers came in the night and ate all the trees we planted by the water.

As he is standing in the kitchen sipping his coffee and looking out the window over the sink into the backyard, Christopher says, “That’s weird. From this angle, doesn’t it look like the trees we planted are gone?”

I look out the window. This is no trick of perspective. “The trees we planted are gone,” I say. I slip into my hiking boots and stomp down to the water’s edge.

Sticking up from the dirt like five pointy wood boners are the remains of the willow, redbud, and flowering pear trees we bought from the nursery and planted ourselves last week.

I cannot believe it. If our trees are going to disappear overnight, why can’t one of them be the Maple of the Damned?

In a rage, I storm back to the house. I say one word: “Beavers.”

Christopher is raising his red Frankoma mug to his mouth when he pauses. “Little bucktooth monsters.”

He sets the mug down and grabs his phone. He uses Swype instead of the tappy keyboard, so he’s fast. Soon he is scrolling through pages: he also reads fast. “Okay, so two mistakes: we planted willow, one of their favorite foods, right by the water. And we didn’t surround the trunks with wire. So it’s partly our fault. But still. It also says if you see a dam, break it up, and I think that’s what all those sticks and crap are at the far edge of the waterfall on the other side. I’m gonna go destroy it.”

For a moment I consider warning him because of my familiarity with When Beavers Attack videos on YouTube. I want them dead. And made into bedspreads.

I watch as he breaks the dam apart with surprising strength. Even though he watches sports that he doesn’t play, and hasn’t worked out at a gym since he was young and single, he’s a jock. He’s a former frat boy and a runner and a swimmer, and you never outgrow those things, so in fifteen minutes that beaver condominium is floating downriver.

Sleeves rolled up, arms wet, pants splashed, big smile: looks like he’s been doing this his entire life. When he comes back inside and washes his hands, he says, “We should dig up those stumps and replant them, see if they grow.”

Is he kidding?

He reads my mind, or maybe he just sees my face. “I don’t mean somewhere prominent, but an out-of-the-way place. Like over there.” He points, and even though Christopher came with a factory-installed anti-compass and he’s pointing the wrong way, I knew exactly where he meant.

There is a stretch of our property that runs parallel to a road on which trees block the view of our property, except for one small area. If you’re going the speed limit of 40 mph, you can glimpse our land for a second or two, enough time to see a flash of green field, some arthritic old crabapple trees, and maybe a “Wait, was that a pony?” Great Dane.

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