Fiction: Mountain Laurel

By Jacob Austin

 

Acton Olsen feels like a spider in a shoebox, shaken all to hell and radiating with misery. He sits up as best he can and feels around the dark, unfamiliar room for a light, or a glass of water, something. When he does manage to flick on a lamp, the fluorescent bulb reveals a cheap motel room and his buddy Jesse Suarez passed out on the carpet, a bottle of Evan Williams about equidistance between them, as if they’d passed out while reaching towards one another, Creation of Adam style, but could not quite reach, so the last ounce or two had spilled out its open cap to stain a fragrant halo upon the carpet. 

Jesse lays on his side, jeans unbuttoned, hands shoved into his crotch, boots on, looking all cold and miserable. Acton steps over him on his way to the bathroom where he shoots water from the disposable cup that had been sheathed in plastic by the sink. He forces himself to swallow more, but much of it dribbles into his beard and onto the counter. Doesn’t matter. It’s too little too late. 

Feeling ill, he makes his way back towards the ac unit on the other side of the room and holds his face to the cold blast, peeking through the heavy drapes. It’s gloomy out. The sky matches the asphalt. A bare pecan tree stands within view along the two lane highway, cow pastures on the other side, dead deer squashed on the shoulder: Texas. 

“Some kind of host you are,” Jesse mumbles as he takes in his set up.

“Hey dumbass, you’re the one chose the floor over the couch,” Acton answers from within the moldy ice chamber he has created by tenting the heavy drapes over the vent and sealing himself within.

“Ah shit,” Jesse says after a while. “Ah fuck,” he says again, drawing Acton out of his algid shelter. “I got to go. I didn’t text Marissa back last night,” he says, flashing Acton a screen full of notifications. “I don’t think I even told her I was staying with you.”

“Ah shit, man. You’re in trouble.”
“And what about you?”

“Me?”

“Thought you were waking up at like four to get back for work.” They both look down, eyes catching on the bottle of bourbon.”

“Ah,” Acton recalls, “shit.”

“Yo,” Jesse calls from the bathroom. “You got a clean shirt? Mine reeks like cigarettes and booze.”

“Yeah,” Acton says, moving gingerly toward his suitcase. The old pals are each of average height and the same kind of fat, carrying all their extra weight in neat, calcified pot bellies, so it works out. Jesse comes out of the bathroom and soaps himself down in the skin then pulls on the shirt and rushes for the door.

“Love you, brother. I’ll see you soon, alright?”

“Depending on how things go with Marissa, it may be real soon. Might be crashing on my couch.”

“Oh, now you’re going to give me the couch?”

The two men embrace then Jesse rushes out into the sticky autumn morning leaving Acton to his rented motel room. He’d come here thanks to Jesse who had helped him book the final show of his little tour, but now it is over and he feels as if he is adrift in a vast, undifferentiated void. He cannot make it to work. What he is itching to do is pack up, move onto the next town, another show, to be carried away by a lazy river of light beer and country music, but this is the end of the road. Besides, what is the point? It had been mostly playing to empty barrooms, afternoon sets at breweries, distracted crowds. A false tour, totally powered by a now sufficiently drained savings account. 

Acton slams a k-cup into the coffee maker then finds his way outside to smoke a cigarette.

Central Texas smells of grape soda in the springtime. Too bad it ain’t spring.

The smell is thanks to the mountain laurel blossoms. The gnarled trees push forth heavy loads of these lavender-colored flowers. Their bark is craggy and sun-bleached, their blood red seeds poisonous, but for a few weeks each year their flowers’ enticing scent flavors the region.

The seeds scatter the ground around their trunks. They fall concealed in pods and slowly split open. Bright red seeds sometimes called mescal beans once consumed for divinatory purposes. There is a small twined-fiber pouch retrieved from the lower Pecos containing thirty-eight such seeds displayed at the Witte Museum in San Antonio as the possessions of a shaman. There are stories on Erowid. There is a legend at Acton’s alma mater of students who consumed the beans after learning of them in an anthropology class. So the legend goes, the students became delusional and numb to pain. They crawled on their hands and knees upon asphalt roads until they had worn them down to the bone. 

As kids, Acton’s older brother liked to burn him with the beans. When rubbed together, the hard little nubs grow red hot with friction. “Fire Seed!” he would exclaim as he pressed one into the flesh of little brother’s exposed arm. The bean would burn him, leaving a mark that would last the rest of the day. 

These trees grew along the ridge of a creek that bordered the Olsen family’s land. They bunched up in clusters between the oak trees and cypress to spew their mescal beans into the creek bed. The seeds remained vivid upon the pebbly creek bottom, ignored by the scavenging squirrels and raccoons who must have known better, but among the community of children who shared the creek, there was a cult of the mescal bean. How the knowledge began is unknown. How far back it stretched, or how it entered the community in the first place, none could say. That knowledge was either lost or restricted to the level of the high priests.

Acton was inducted by his older brother at about fifteen years old. There was a large group there in the creek that night, camping beside Spring Falls/Summer Trickles. It was late March and the creek was a bog of grape soda. The flowers cent seemed to drop from the trees and hang in a haze over the water, casting the bottomlands an elven purple. 

The neighborhood children maintained a campsite on the sandbar just above the falls. Down in the creek, one could not see beyond the orb of light cast by the campfire. The swiftly running stream obscured the sounds of armadillos rooting around on the banks. Only the low croak of horny bullfrogs managed to break through. 

It started as a normal night. They camped in the creek quite frequently in those days. It was the usual crew: those who lived along the creek and the friends they invited. Acton had brought Jesse, as he always did, for they were inseparable from the early days of elementary all the way up till the time the Suarez family moved away in late high school. 

It was not until quite late in the night that it was revealed there was more in store than crushing stolen Lone Stars around the fire. 

One of the older boys started in on a long spiel about the holy secret knowledge contained in the mescal beans while another ceremoniously loaded some into a handheld coffee grinder and began to turn the crank. The beans sounded like they might shatter the gears, and the boy with the grinder had to move away a bit so as not to completely drown out the Holy Secret Knowledge speech. Most of those present were rowdy country boys, self-styled roughneck intellectuals, gung-ho about diving into the underworld and rustling up some forbidden knowledge.

When the beans had been crushed into a bright red powder, they were dumped into a pot of water simmering over the fire. After some time, the tea was divided up. Each inductee was handed his cup by the elder boy they were closest with. In Acton and Jesse’s case, it was the elder Olsen brother. Those older members, perhaps remembering their own inductions, were slow to sip the brew, but Acton was eager. He downed the mug and sat back and waited.

The Mountain Laurel Motor Court celebrates the flower of the tree that produces these cursed beans. There is a lavender color scheme running throughout the complex. Sitting outside his room, drinking the second of the two supplied Keurig cups, and smoking a cigarette, Acton finds himself surrounded by several specimens of the tree. They are not in bloom, but their seed pods scatter the area. 

The building behind him is made of tan brick. It is long and squat with two pale purple doors, one for each room. Twelve to fifteen similar duplexes stand in an arc around a driveway. Counting any more precisely than that makes Acton feel ill. Each building has a picnic table and a grill out front. Acton does his best not to vomit while he sits atop the table outside of his own room.

A room cannot be known by taking its measurements, but only by dwelling within.

Acton’s truck is parked in the pea gravel. There is no vehicle in the second parking spot of this building leading him to believe the other room is empty. And why shouldn’t it be on a Monday morning at, Acton checks his phone, a little before seven am? The phone screen ripples there in the humid air of a mid-autumn morning. He slowly turns his gaze towards it and thinks of what a fickle thing it is. A phone screen offers such droll comfort, such a glazing stupor on a daily basis that it is easy to forget the messages it is capable of delivering. When it lights up far too early, or too late, or sometimes, yes, even in the middle of the day and becomes the medium through which grim news is delivered, it is a betrayal, a sudden whirlpool in a long placid pond. Acton rips his gaze away from the strong pull of the water before a funnel opens up within it. 

In the middle of the motor court, more of these trees whose beans had left him rolling on the pebbled banks, writhing in internal pain, all those years ago. It had begun with a nausea that kicked in as they sat around the fire, drinking more Lone Star after the ceremony. Acton set his can down, no longer able to stomach it. He leaned back, placed his hands behind him, and shifted his weight onto them. Clammy fingers sunk into the loose pebbles as Acton felt himself freeze there, having grown very heavy, but at the same time fidgety. Rolling upon the ground seemed to be the only way to not stand up while still releasing the fidgets, so Acton let his arms slide out until his back was against the wet rocks. No one else seemed to notice. They were on their own ill voyages. 

The gripping in his guts intensified until Acton could focus on nothing else.

There were instances, like bright flashes, of a euphoric and omniscient state, but the cramping in his stomach grew to the point that he began to wretch dryly. It was as if his organs were being wrung out by some internal foe. Pain stabbed in places no comfort could touch. The young Acton contorted into shapes in search of relief, finding none. He may well have dropped down into the realm of death where all the knowledge of the universe is contained, but it was guarded by death itself, and all he could do was writhe at their feet. Breathing became difficult. Breaths came in shallow gulps. Panic overtook the boy as he felt sure this was it. That he was going to die die die. He was a bundle of organs only and each one felt as if it were on fire. He feared they would be found in the morning, a twisted pile of jejune thrill seekers. 

Eventually, Acton hacked up some of the tea, a blood red spray of beery vomit that dribbled down his shirt, and the pain slowly subsided. He passed out on the bank and awoke reeking, with pebbles stuck to his face, an arm twisted beneath his body, and a throbbing headache, but there were no casualties that night except for the cult itself, for, as far as anyone knew, no further inductions were held, and the knowledge of its existence was allowed to wane.  

Acton gazes down at the red beans scattered in the grass around the picnic table. A mountain laurel is crouching in the corner between his building and the next, fanning its low canopy up over his head while pressing its ragged body against the double row of fencing behind it like some shameful beast.

An overcast sky blots out any color but grey. Acton lights another cigarette as he sits facing the street. There is a whitetail deer out on the shoulder. Its corpse is host to a few buzzards. Reserve forces circle overhead, the black dots twisting upwards in a double helix. One of the birds beside the body tugs a stretchy line of intestines out of the belly. He lifts off with it and rejoins the flock, floating in the updraft as death strings spent tendons into new life. 

When Acton has smoked his Marlboro down to the filter, and finished off the second Keurig, he hops down from the picnic table and makes his way over to the center store to see about breakfast. As he approaches the office, a man younger than himself exits and puts up an Open flag along the highway. There is a broke down van parked next to the entrance. It had been painted the lavender of the mountain laurel flower and Mountain Laurel Motor Court, Fredericksburg, Texas is stenciled along its highway-facing back door in a pleasing western font. 

Acton walks into the front office where the young man is not to be found though he can hear him around the corner in a hidden employee area, and so takes to showing himself around. He picks through the small store they have in the next room. Most of it is Mountain Laurel Motor Court branded merchandise: t-shirts, stickers, coffee mugs, all tastefully designed and featuring the mountain laurel flower. 

Having given away his last clean shirt, Acton picks out a t-shirt in his size and carries it over to the register. His jeans are good for another day, but he really should find a laundromat. No, he thinks. I should go home.

When the young man comes back to the front, Acton purchases the shirt and orders two breakfast tacos and a latte. A few minutes later, the host brings the tacos out in a greasy white paper bag. Acton peaks inside at the foil wrapped tacos, topped with a couple plastic ramekins of salsa. One is dark red and seedy, the other an evil kind of pale green. Both are going to be hot as shit, he can already tell. The same guy who had taken his order and cooked the tacos now makes the drink, albeit sloppily, in an either untrained or uncaring style. He puts it on the counter in a tall paper cup, sour espresso topped with scalded and over-frothed milk.

“Thanks, man,” Acton says. “Hey, if I decide to stay another night, when do you need to know by?”

“If you’re planning on sticking around, I could do you a weekly rate, save you some money.”

“No thanks,” Acton says without forethought. “Just the night, if anything.” 

After a quick check, he shrugs. “Place is empty. I can put a block on it and you can just make up your mind before checkout.”

“Which is at eleven.”

“Yessir.”

“I’ll get back to you. Say, what’s your name?”

“Dalton Wayne.”

“I’m Acton. Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.”

“You run this place on your own?”

“It’s my daddy’s place. Been working it all my life.”

“Think you’ll continue to do so?”
“Don’t see why not. It’s a sure path, you know? Never felt much need to be a trailblazer. If I just continue on like this, I’ll be set. My kids will be set. What more could I ask for?” 

Dalton is a thin-faced man, maybe just short of a decade younger than Acton. He has a weak beard that sprouts in a ridge along his jawline. 

“These kids at home or strictly hypothetical?”

“Hypothetical, at the moment, sir, but I do believe I found their future mama.”

“That’s good,” Acton tells him, feeling a sudden twinge of sweeping melancholy. “That’s real good.”

Back at the picnic table, Acton unrolls the first taco and slops the entirety of the seedy, dark salsa inside, already able to smell the burn as it slides over the cheesy eggs. The bacon looks thick, he registers happily before rolling the taco back up, pinching its end and leaning in for a bite.

Who is making the decision to derail my life as I sit here eating a taco?

The first one disappears too quickly. He tries to savor the second, knowing that when it runs out so does the script for his day. 

Though totally wired from the caffeine, Acton stumbles back into his motel room and collapses on the bed, willing himself into a sort of half-conscious state, broken only by the vibrating of his phone. His heart leaps as he is shaken awake and he feels frantically about the slippery comforter for the vibrating rectangle before locating it beneath the unused pillow and pulling it out. His gut drops as he sees the caller ID and the time. He has officially missed his return to work and now his boss is checking in. He would be understanding, Acton thinks, if he were to pick up the phone and put some effort into groveling an excuse. He had worked his way into his good graces over the years, and it was his job to lose, but answering the phone seemed to require the summoning of such strength that he can not even watch it ring. Feeling sick, Acton flicks it silent, turns it face down, and slides it further away. 

It rings off and on throughout the morning as Acton passes through some sort of sleeplike state from which he emerges without feeling rested to the sound of knocking upon the door. A net of vague paranoid shame falls upon him. Who might be on the other side, he can hardly imagine. For a moment, he fears the police. He had heard sirens throughout the night, but that is only this gutted dread making him a fugitive. Next, he considers his boss, though that is equally ridiculous. Jesse, maybe… But no. Acton opens the door as Schrödinger's knocker continues to pound away.

“You staying?” Dalton asks.

“Yeah,” Acton says.

“Cool.” He nods towards something behind Acton, “You a musician?”

“Yeah. Just finished up a tour.”

“What kind of music do you play?”

“Country.”

“Mind if I ask how you go about writing a country song. They always seem so simple, but I can never quite do it.”

“You play?”

“A little guitar. Nothing fancy.”

“Well, I’ll tell you. When it comes to writing a song, I’ve got three rules,” Acton says, then goes about making them up on the spot. “Number one, the listener should feel like they already know it the first time they hear it. Number two, it’s got to be funny even when it’s sad and vice versa, and finally it ought to be written either by a fool or the righteously scorned.”

Dalton nods slowly as if Acton had actually said something worth saying. “I’ll remember that.” Then, in a rather conspiratorial kind of way, he adds: “If there’s anything you need, I can probably get it for you.”

“Pot?” Acton practically gasps.

The kid nods cooly and walks away. Unsure what else to do, Acton closes the door and does his best not to sit back down on the bed, but there is nowhere else to actually go. Somehow the entire morning has slipped away. It is past checkout already? Dalton must think he is on something in here. Still, he had been unphased. He has found his path. All he must do is carry on, and for that Acton envies him as he slinks back into bed and fishes his phone out from its nesting place, doing the best he can to blur his vision as he unlocks it and closes all notifications, plugging into the slow morphine drip of The Scroll. 

Acton’s heart had been pounding, but it calms down now. He thinks of his mother cooing over a crib and feels safe. When his boss calls again, interrupting The Scroll, it is as if his mother has turned viper, or the crib has opened over a vast crevice and he is falling. Acton throws the phone from him and it slides off the bed and lands heavily upon the floor as the wayward country singer buries his face into the pillow and stays like that, awaiting the return of his illicit courier.

 

 

 

 

 

 JacobAustin lives in Texas. His work has recently appeared in ergot., DUMBO PRESS, and Heavy Feather Review.