3\SS UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI'I LIBRARY THE GIRL WITH POMEGRANATE CHEEKS A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI'I IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN ENGLISH MAY 2004 By Anthony o. Pennay Thesis Committee: Ian MacMillan, Chairperson Steven Curry Rodney Morales For Loni andLia 111 Table ofContents SALMON TINTED AFTERNOON 1 MEMORIAL DAY 4 THE GIRL WITH POMEGRANATE CHEEKS 21 JOHNNY APPLESEED 25 THE BALLAD OF BLUEBERRY JOE 30 AT THE OTHER END OF THE LAKE 40 TIRE PICKIN' 56 SPRING 69 FIELD TRIP PREPARATIONS 74 THE HOUSE OF 1000 FIGURINES 84 CRACKS ON THE PORCH 97 BLOODY FRIDAY 101 CUT THE BULLSHIT 117 SETTING OUT 121 CATALINO RANCH 134 UNEASY DREAMS 148 INTO THE DEEP ..•......................................................................................................... 160 IN THE GARDEN 165 DOGTOWN HOSPITAL 170 GUMBALLS 181 IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT 191 THE TOWN 195 JIM MCGREW 200 SEED PACKETS 215 HARMONICA SHOPPING 218 RATS 229 DANCING IN THE COLD 238 GRANDMA'S NEW BOYFRIEND 249 A SEA OF LEAVES 257 LEAVES IN THE JAM 268 IN THE CORNFIELD 278 RAINDROPS 291 JIM AND HENRY 295 SUNDAY MORNING 305 SUNDAY AFTERNOON 317 SUNSET .......•.....................................................................•...............................•.......... 329 SUNDAY NIGHT 331 BLACK LEAYES 340 IN FLIGHT 355 EPILOGUE....................................................................................•................................ 365 IV Salmon Tinted Afternoon Today I learned that some guy named Salmon wrote a book that began with two men falling from the sky. And I always thought that salmon was a fish, until my dad, who knows more than I do, told me it was a man who'd once been in a lot of trouble with someone from the government. I began thinking about what it must be like to fall from the sky, and how it would hurt to land on the ground, more or less, depending on how far you fell. I fell out ofthe tree once, when I was playing pirates with Johnny Appleseed. My brother Henry came along and threw a water balloon at me, and I slipped and fell. It hurt like hell. For a month, I wore a big white cast that turned brown, and everyone called me Thumpy because we've got hard wood floors and two feet of hollow space between our house and the ground where rats like to scamper, so I couldn't even imagine how much it would hurt to fall from the sky, even ifyou were wearing cowboy rodeo jeans. But then I started wondering if the men who fell were dead or hurt already, or ifthey opened what they thought was the bathroom door on an airplane and got sucked out, and if not, how they got into the sky in the fust place, and it made my head hurt so I ate some cookies dipped in lemonade. On the day my Dad told me this, Johnny was out oftown and I don't have any other friends, so I went to the lake to throw bottle caps and pennies. I found I kept looking up at the sky to see if two men were falling, and that book by that Salmon guy was about me, but the only things falling from the sky were bottle caps and pennies. 1 Sometimes I gave the bottle caps names and titles before I threw them into the lake, like King Tinman, or the Duchess of Foil, and this entertained me for a bit, but I couldn't help feeling lonesome, so I decided to write a book myself. I figured if a man who didn't have enough sense not to swim upstream could write about two guys falling from the sky, which is about as preposterous an idea as I've ever heard, then I could certainly write a book myself I chucked the rest of my pennies and bottle caps into the lake, and they jingled like Christmas bells before sinking to the bottom. I found a stick and a good patch ofdirt, ,cause I didn't have any paper, and began to write. I started offwriting about myself and quickly realized I don't do much except sit on the porch and watch the dog bark at the wind and scratch his huge ears, and so I changed it around so that I was a prince voyaging across the sea in a boat made of bottle caps and pennies. A boat kept afloat by ten thousand inflated rubber boots. In the story I was looking for a princess, a sweet one with pomegranate cheeks, who'd been kidnapped or stolen or run away -I wasn't sure ,cause there'd been no message. I got about halfway across the sea, and then I thought I should wrap it up quick ,cause the dirt was turning into grass, and my hand was sweaty and cramped from writing with a crooked stick. I nearly found her before I decided there's too many happy endings already. So the boots disappeared while I was asleep and I sank with my bottle caps and pennies and got tangled in some seaweed and drowned and cried for love. But at that point I didn't care and I thought Salmon could have his preposterous book and keep it. The sun was nearly down on the horizon, and the evening breeze came off the lake and made me shiver with goose bumps. A lot ofpeople don't know it, but this is the best time 2 to go into the lake - it's quiet and the water is still and the parrots are swoop back and forth among the cottonwoods and feed their young. So I stripped off my jeans and shirt and left them in a pile on my book, and ran and jumped from the dock. And it was like falling from the sky. 3 Memorial Day When I woke up on Memorial Day the sky was red, white, and blue. Even though the stars were supposed to disappear with the moon, a few ofthem stuck around for the barbecue and apple pies. Dad had hung the flag from the wooden pole that juts at a forty­ five -degree angle from our porch and opposite the tree that isn't there. We had the biggest flag in the neighborhood because Dad was an Eagle Scout. And the tree wasn't too shabby neither. Our flag was six feet long and ten feet wide, and a certificate complete with a carved wooden frame and the autograph ofa senator hung in the hallway and declared for all the world to see that the flag once flew over the state capitol. When the wind picked up and blew through the cottonwoods the flag batted around and sounded like a giant bird flapping one wing. Every once in a while, when the winds blew from both sides ofthe street, from Lake Fancy and the cottonwoods to the east and from Downtown to the west, the tallest branches oftree that isn't there just scraped against the dithering flap ofthe flag, and for a minute it looked like they were holding hands. I've tried to snap a picture on several occasions, but the camera is a hand me down from Grandpa McGrew, and there isn't any film, so no one believes me that it happens. "We've got to be on the road by seven thirty. Up and at 'em." Mom poked her head in my room and called. I'd been up for halfan hour already, watching the shadows change in the front yard and a couple ofsparrows chase each other from perch to perch. "Wake up Henry and Jim, I've got to finish making the lattice top for the apple pie. You know how Grandma loves apple pie." 4 I hated to wake up Jim and Henry because they always got sore at me, like I was the one forcing them to go to Grandma's when all oftheir friends were playing over the line and swimming down at the lake. Both ofthem were pretty sound sleepers. Their rooms sat across from one another down at the end ofthe hall on the first floor. Once you got past the bathroom, the sound oftheir snoring hit your ears like a couple oftrash compactors beating each other with chains. It reverberated through the walls and out into the darker parts ofthe corridor and made my toes scrunch up. There was a painting ofa creek on the wall by Jim's room. In halfofthe painting the water trickled amidst a forest oflush green trees, bright yellow sunshine, and three smiley-faced children stood and fished with their uncle from the sunny side ofa wooden bridge. On the other side ofthe bridge the sky turned dark. Heavy clouds gathered in covens above moss covered trees that dipped down into the violent whitewater torrent that swallowed the trickling stream. At the far edge ofthe picture, the water disappeared into a cave and the entire right edge ofthe canvas is pure black except for the author's illegible signature, scrawled in gray across the bottom comer. Dad bought the painting at the estate sale ofa man who'd gone mad and cut his wrists with a butter knife. It was from his personal collection. He didn't especially like it, but it was too much ofa deal to pass up. Mom said it was amazing none ofus had slit our wrists, with a picture like that in the hallway. When Jim was at the zenith ofhis snoring, the times where he sounded like he'd choked or stalled the engine ofan old tractor, the edges ofthis picture rattled and the rapids sloshed up and out into the hallway and got your socks all wet.