Down on the Farm; Out in the Maze (James)

[Simon and Cyrus Ettinger]

The second half of the year was thus far shaping up to be a rousing success. Pleasant enough temperatures for this first time of the month, including two days of unseasonable warmth in the mid to high 60's, nearly unheard of for this region at this time of year, and dry overall. Equally free of those early frosts that brought snow while the trees were still clad in their leaves, green peeking through the yellows, oranges, and reds. Apple orchards ripe with fruit, available each time Cyrus and James embarked on a quest to replenish their stores when running low. The constant parade of baked goods - apple and pumpkin spice, ginger and cinnamon, and moist corn muffins replete with Amish butter from a farmer’s market the next county over. Swapping recipes for their Thanksgiving celebration that awaited them at the end of the month.

For Cyrus, who had never spent more than a week south of the Mason-Dixon Line, and even then only on vacation during the warmer months, the crisp air required little more than a windbreaker, a particularly garish garment acquired not from any particular love of the color combination (the three primary colors bled starkly into one another, a sleeve here, a hem there in a vague imitation of Picasso) but because it had been part of a fundraiser at his former school, designed by the students for reasons known only to them. The regional school’s logo was stitched above his heart, and neither Cyrus nor Simon could find the wherewithal to part with the jacket.

Their destination today differed from the orchard where they picked their apples several times over the past month and a half, this one located further south on a proper farm, wide acreage devoted to corn, feed, potatoes, beans, squash, and grapes. Animals grazed as well, raised for meat, eggs, and milk; they were a secondary source of income, the bulk came from the crops proper. A family-operated business, the animals were kept well, able to roam, and then gathered up for the autumn event season where they were penned in the petting zoo. Presently, a toddler barely able to pronounce his own name stumbled about, chubby little fingers embedded in a lamb’s soft wool while cooing, “baa baa baa” to anyone within earshot.

Much like the farm’s typical revenue, the petting zoo was an addition, not the feature presentation. The primary draw was the corn maze, painstakingly shaped into a different configuration each autumn, followed by the hay rides that took visitors on a tour of the vast lands while they inhaled the scent of loam and bounced with every little bump in the road. Vendors dotted the edges of the area, hawking seasonal favorites from kettle corn and corn on the cob to mulled cider to fried dough to meat grilled on demand and to order. .

Hay and corn crunched under Cyrus’s under his shoes as they approached the clear fork in the road. To the left the corn maze; to the right, the waiting station for the hay rides, with the next tractor due in five minutes. Clapping his hands together, he turned to his friend. “We have the whole day, so what first?”

[James Fawcett]

By contrast, James found winter weather in Vermont bitterly cold; back home highs around seventy were the norm for this time of year rather than remarked upon as unseasonable. He'd worn a solid blue knitted sweater and a knit hat from target - black with a blue cuff and a tiny little tag that featured the Florida Gator's mascot, not because he particularly cared about football but because when he'd bought the hat the only options the men's section had were football related, and if he was going to wear something for a team he may as well not antagonize his family by choosing a rival team.

One of those little things he marveled at was the fact that the crowds bothered him less with Cyrus around; his attention was more focused in his friend's presence, less prone to skittering about to compare to all the people around him.

The smell of roasting corn and fried dough overpowered the stench of farm animal, at least from where they were standing; he was sure that the closer they moved to the petting zoo the less pleasant the odor would be.

"Hmmm. Hayride, first. I can't guarantee I won't get so lost in the maze that we'll be in there until dark, so maybe wanna try everything else first."

[Simon and Cyrus Ettinger]

Cyrus had that calming effect on other people - peers, children - and animals, for his entire life. He might take it for granted,just as it was impossible to know what you truly sounded like when speaking or to gauge the smell of home, were it not for his other half playing constant compare and contrast, and the ambient thoughts and emotions from others, which kept him on his toes.

Still, awareness didn’t negate expectation, the same confidence that he would get on with a stranger, transforming them into an acquaintance within five minutes and a friend within ten, at work for keeping the depressed buoyed and the anxious calm(er). A walking, talking, powered mood stabilizer.

“Hayride it is.” He accepted his friend’s warning in the spirit it was intended, not pointing out that whatever James’s navigational deficiencies, Cyrus had an excellent sense of direction. They’d cross that bridge when winding their way through the corn maze later.

This first leg of their itinerary decided, Cyrus turned right at the fork, weaving around a family in the midst of a similar conundrum to join the smattering of people at the tractor stop waiting for the next arrival.

“Growing up, because there wasn’t a lot of farmland to be found around the city, our parks services did hayrides in the fall.”

Of course, many years had passed since either Cyrus or his other half had availed themselves of the Cleveland Metroparks Services, but he fondly looked back on the experience. Did that still exist or had the governor bankrupted the parks budget as he had nearly every other public service?

[James Fawcett]

"Hayrides at the park?" James repeated as he followed beside Cyrus, trying to conjure up an image of the normally rustic activity taking place in a city park, with skyscrapers in view rather than silos. This idea was so foreign to his concept of How Things Worked, but that seemed to be the norm these days.

Nothing in the world seemed to work the way he'd thought.

He picked his way to the back of the wagon, avoiding a couple already scrunched up together and making those faces that signified that they didn't mind being seen in public.

Lucky them.

He settled onto the bench, tennis shoes nudging the hay scattered about the wagon bottom.

"I loved hayrides as a kid, but you know how it is. You get to be a teenager, and suddenly you don't wanna leave the house even for the fun stuff."

[Simon and Cyrus Ettinger]

The image that entered Cyrus’s mind from James wasn’t wholly accurate, but it was close in kind if not in the specific details. Cleveland had vast parkland, greener than large swaths of New York City despite their reputation for polluting their river to the point of igniting,and the rides had taken place some distance from the more industrial areas. But it wasn’t a farm. “They were nice. Not the same as being in the country, but still available without having to take a bus out of the city.”

He folded long legs in front of him, scraping his sneakers along the hay-covered wood to avoid brushing against one of the neighbors, forever mindful and thus respectful of personal space even if he required less than the average introvert. One hand rested on its matching knee, while the other scooped up a couple of strands of hay, twirling them between his fingers like a cigarette.

”I spent a lot of time at The Arcade.” The name of a historic shopping center in Cleveland opened during the late 1880s and already more than a century-old at the time of Simon’s birth. Hanging out at the mall was a rite of a passage for teens from coast to coast, and as the social butterfly of the Ettinger brothers, he had spent more time than he could keep track of there, window shopping, buying candy and eating greasy bourbon chicken, surreptitiously checking out the other boys. “But Simon, he holed up in our room.”

[James Fawcett]

James didn't immediately connect the word arcade with a proper name, instead assuming that Cyrus had spent time at an actual arcade, full of games and DDR.

"There's not a lot to do back home. I did a lot of youth group and choir activities, but otherwise...." He lifted his shoulders into a dismissive shrug. "The nearest mall is in Valdosta, and so's the movie theater. Durin' the summer people'd go swimming in the river near 122."

Only 5 miles outside of town, and now memorialized as the site of a horrific lynching (could any lynching not be horrific? And yet the torture and murder of a pregnant woman seemed exceptionally horrible among horrible murders). When he'd been growing up nobody had mentioned the acts that had taken place there; it was simply the place that families went to picnic and swim. Sometimes teens congregated in groups for the same reason, but free of adult supervision.

James had only become aware of what the site was when the memorial was erected almost a decade ago, and even then he might not have noticed had there not been a (white) outcry. Occasionally people shot the sign designating the spot a historical marker, which was an uncomfortable reminder that even though the murder had taken place in 1918 and thus most everyone involved was dead their descendants weren't remorseful about it at all.

When he'd heard about the marker and read just how many people in Lowndes county had been involved he'd wondered about his own family's history, but he doubted he would get an answer if he asked. Possibly his grandparents wouldn't even know if their parents had been involved, and they certainly wouldn't talk to him about it now.

"The bedroom is the safest place," He declared as the wagon began to roll in unsteady slowness. "My older brother loved goin' to the river to swim but if I wasn't doin' music I preferred my room."

Granted, there was an inherent danger in going swimming with other boys as a teenager. Better to remain secreted away, regardless of whether or not that invited declarations that you were unsociable.

[Simon and Cyrus Ettinger]

Cyrus’s relationship with video games was far milder than that of the average man his age. Simon had a Gameboy growing up, and for Hanukkah received an N64, but gaming was largely casual. His brother cared more about it than Cyrus did, learning a bit of coding here and there, fomented by a class or two in college. For Cyrus, he had been more interested in gaming as a social entity - Super Smash Brothers or Mario Party or a racing game, anything to share with another person or a small group. Arcades, the introduction to gambling for adolescents where they burned through their allowance money a quarter or two at a time had never held his interest.

Despite two months of friendship, Cyrus had yet to settle in front of an Encyclopedia or conduct a thorough Google Map search of Southern Georgia, which left the relative distances between Hahira and Valdosta, or any of the other surrounding communities a matter of imagination drawn from context. Far enough that they weren’t easily chosen for an afternoon activity with friends.

”The river,” he repeated, as his lips tugged into a smile. How quaint a pastime, underscoring the difference between their childhoods as starkly as any conversation about holiday meal plans or religious rites of passage. “I’ve never gone swimming in a river. The Cuyahoga…” He laughed at what was considered a piece of common knowledge that extended beyond his city of birth and the surrounding region.

Surely every American knew the story of how Cleveland had so polluted their river that it caught fire. What few knew was that this had happened no fewer than 13 times over a full century, and while the passage of the Clean Water Act had undone much of the damage, none of the residents ever felt brave enough to treat it like the ocean or a swimming pool for recreational swimming.

A dare perhaps, but otherwise there were municipal pools that were just as good, smelled nicer even accounting for chlorine, and would extinguish a match if dropped from a careless smoker’s fingertips rather than act as a catalyst for the 14th conflagration that would dominate the news cycle for a week.

As the tractor lurched forward, dragging their wagon behind them, Cyrus shifted his weight and leaned back, making himself as comfortable as possible to enjoy the scenic route. Near the front, an exuberant toddler pointed in the distance at the corn maze, chanting, “yawwow yawwow!” as she identified the color.

”But we did have our choice of movie theaters downtown; they were easy to get to with the bus, so we spent a lot of time there. Maybe some hiking in the summer in the parks or on the outskirts.”

[James Fawcett]

James had not, in fact, learned anything so useful as that any rivers in the States had caught fire or even that rivers could catch fire. That might have given some credence to environmentalists and people who believed in regulation rather than unfettered capitalism, and beyond that the amount of attention he'd personally paid to the news had never been particularly much. He'd watched a bit of Fox News with his parents once that had become a regular part of their days, which was the extent of any current event consumption he'd bothered with.

And now he didn't even do that much.

Briefly, when Cyrus mentioned riding the bus to the movies, James envisioned the school bus taking children after school until it occurred to him that there were other buses.

"The only bus I ever rode was the school bus, 'cept for school trips when they rented the travel ones. But hiking! Yeah, that was always fun. My mom would sometimes get a lil worried about it, especially when it was warm out. I survived, but...hayrides are prolly safer."

As the wagon bumped across the grounds he scooted closer to Cyrus, partly because the person on the other side of him had spread out too much but partly because being closer was simply kind of nice.

And maybe Cyrus wouldn't object.

[Simon and Cyrus Ettinger]

Every anecdote that his friend shared only served to underscore the differences between small town Southern Georgia and the urban Midwest. Cleveland didn’t boast the same population, and thus necessary infrastructure, as New York City, Chicago, or Boston, but they had an excellent bus system supplemented by their metro, which they called Rapids and served primarily to confuse tourists who invariably conjured a mental image of white-water rafting instead of the sleek silver train cars.

“You couldn’t get anywhere without the buses back home.” Car ownership was common, unlike in Manhattan or Chicago, but among the middle class, most teenagers had no expectation of inheriting a car upon passing their driver’s test, and they would otherwise remain at the mercy of parents. The bus system promised both freedom and consistency. The ability to travel anywhere within the city or greater county area with the knowledge that one could return as long as one reached the bus stop before the posted time.

“Hayrides have their charm,” he agreed. He wouldn’t have suggested one otherwise.

They rolled over a small hole in the dirt road, causing the wagon to jerk sharply, and suddenly, James had slid several inches closer to Cyrus than he had been seconds before. He didn’t move back.

It wasn’t the result of the recoil or the shifting center of gravity.

Just as the music teacher said nothing about it, Cyrus, too, remained mute, but he responded in his own way. Deliberately unfolding one long leg until their kneecaps touched.

A subtle signal, but he was receptive.

[James Fawcett]

Cyrus didn't move.

James noticed this and mentally filed it away, although he wasn't entirely sure whether that meant there was any sort of reciprocity or if this was simply a natural outgrowth of his friend's extroversion. Either way, not being rebuffed was a relief.

Somehow his expectations for life remained stuck on rejection no matter how often people were perfectly nice.

"Yeah, no rattlesnakes in here," He commented, the casual statement a far cry from the thoughts racing through his mind. "But look! There're cows!"

An animal that drew the attention of nearly everyone aboard as a chorus of humans mooed at the lazily grazing bovines, who were too far away to take heed.

[Simon and Cyrus Ettinger]

Cyrus had moved, subtly and in the opposite direction of what James had surely feared. Leaning into the other man rather than shifting away from him.

Their knees remained touching, even as the wagon bumped along the dirt road and took a wide turn that caused everyone atop to slide just slightly to their left until righting themselves. Their knees remained touching through the thick denim of dark jeans.

Perhaps it was too subtle a sign, not that a crowded wagon was the best place to initiate a conversation if either was so inclined. For the moment, Cyrus was content simply to sit as they were.

The announcement of cows drew his attention to the animals, leaving him as one of the few who didn’t moo as they passed. There was something so…inelegant in doing so, and his empathy for animals such that it felt almost like teasing. No, he waved instead, blue eyes focused on an older cow who, perhaps feeling the intensity of his interest, briefly lifted her head to turn towards the wagon, mouth open as she chewed her cud.

”Were there many farms where you grew up?” James described a provincial small southern town, but Cyrus understood that small town was not synonymous with farmland, no matter the overlap in popular culture. Coastal New England gave lie to such a notion.

The next turn brought them near a different side of the cornfields, and an array of scarecrows, all in outfits reminiscent of superheroes. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman…One of the children aboard babbled excitedly upon recognizing their favorite characters and, breaking loose of their parents, tried to reach out for Superman’s cape.

[James Fawcett]

"Lots," James confirmed, emphasizing this single word with a nod. For all that small town America wasn't synonymous with farmland, he'd grown up very distinctly surrounded by farms, stretching far and wide in all directions. "Pecans, peanuts, cotton, blueberries. A lot of the kids I went to school with were farm kids. A lot of the kids I taught before movin' up here were farm kids. My dad only inspects farms, which I guess didn't always endear him to the people around us."

His attention, much like the children, was drawn to the scarecrows and although not quite as familiar with the characters beyond what he'd gleaned from other people he grinned.

He leaned in to whisper, "Glad I'm not a super hero, pretty sure I shouldn't be wearin' spandex, and I'd get one o'those capes stuck on everything."

[Simon and Cyrus Ettinger]

“Blueberries?” One of Cyrus’s eyebrows crept up, just as the third syllable of the word to denote that it was a question. How surprising. He had always considered blueberries the province of upper-New England and the Pacific Northwest, colder climates with cooler, cloudy summers rather than the stifling humidity and scorching temperatures of the Deep South.

Never let another accuse him of failing to admit when he was unaware of a prior point or to correct a misconception.

The others on the list all comported with Cyrus’s expectations about Georgian crops: peanuts were so popular down south, the same for pecans, and then cotton…what was the story of the American South without cotton?

”When we lived in Massachusetts, we went blueberry picking occasionally. There were a couple of farms devoted to those and cranberries.” As well as fresh maple syrup. That had been a memorable - and sticky - experience, well worth the attempt even losing a pair of jeans in the process.

While James’s attention turned to the scarecrows, Cyrus’s was drawn instead to the child leaning ever closer to the edge of the wagon. Almost imperceptibly, his back straightened and his toes pointed, prepared to reach out and snag the child should they make an ill-conceived break for it.

”That’s a major plot point in The Incredibles he remarked, blue eyes still focused ahead of him on the grasping child. He brought it up only because they had been making a project of watching some of the Disney catalog on movie nights. Although that did provide something of a segue. “What about playing pretend superhero for a couple of hours? Have you ever given thought to that?”

By which he quite firmly meant roleplay, not late-night vigilantism.

[James Fawcett]

"I haven't seen that one." James admitted. A huge shock, given how limited his viewing habits had been up until meeting Cyrus. He didn't notice the child, his attention dancing around too much between the scarecrows and the sky and then how close he and Cyrus were sitting.

He couldn't imagine wearing a cape when even his every day wear got caught on doorknobs and table corners. But for the purposes of play that might not be too bad.

"Pretend superheroes? I can't say I have. That was more Luke's thing."

And at this point in his life he didn't even consider play in that way; who would he play with? His hobbies were rarely social except when he was able to find other people to play music with. But even there he was more often alone.

"Was that something you and Simon did a lot as kids, then?"

[Simon and Cyrus Ettinger]

“It isn’t bad.” Fainter praise than the critical acclaim the movie had received in its original run and the endless merchandise and costumes based on the characters. Popularity enough that, fully fourteen years after it, they released a sequel that had also made money hand over fist.

Perhaps Cyrus, on Simon’s behalf, was sensitive to messages that implied that normal was nothing for which to strive. Normality would be a plateau of comfort, a marked, stable achievement for his other half, and the denigration of that as somehow unworthy was a flashpoint of frustration.

”Inside Out was better.” Another film to add to their growing list, something easily found at the library or downloaded from Netflix.

James’s response was expected enough, but still slightly disappointing. Still, it was only a remark that he had not done this of his own accord, not that he was opposed to the idea more broadly. “That’s too bad. You see-”

He was interrupted by the child making a grab for it, and Cyrus, springing into action with nary a thought to snatch up the toddler before they tumbled headfirst from the wagon onto the dirt road. “Careful, now,” he chided sweetly.

Only once they were safely nestled in their mother’s lap did he withdraw patting an arm gently and resuming his place beside James.

”Not exactly. I used to have a group, and I’d like to get it started again.”