Giving Birth to Penguins
Andrew Jackson and I would get drunk once in awhile out in the grounds somewhere, and we’d shoot the shit a little, and smoke tobacco. It wasn’t very often because I was trying to build a perfect society in plant form, and he was trying to umbrella a nation with ideals.
The first lady didn’t know how much Andrew Jackson walked around, purely soused on alcohol. I never met the first lady. I’m sure she was very nice. But I can’t understand how she didn’t know that Andrew Jackson was silly drunk when he was.
“I peed on her dresser one night,” he told me.
“You what?”
“I peed on her dresser. I don’t remember why. It was the natural thing to do. It took me hours to explain my way out of it. I told her I had read something about vinegar and stains, and that I thought urea might work miracles if it was left to soak all night.”
“She bought that.”
“Of course not. I had peed on her new dresses as well, so it only worked up to a point. At any rate, I was able to snuff the issue out during breakfast. When I take breakfast, you see, I am quite a new man.”
We were silent for awhile while I pruned the viburnum, finding the spent bloom stems and following them back to the branch and cutting them off cleanly. Left to itself, the viburnum would have spent its entire summer making pods, drawing up energy and pushing it into seeds that would never sprout. Now, its energy would go towards luscious new growth, and dark green leaves, and, much later, into the flower buds for next spring. I clipped another spent bloom, and the viburnum sighed. It sighed each time, like a little weight had been taken off its shoulders.
How do you feel? I asked it.
Tired, it said.
That was a hell of a bloom you put on, I said.
Thanks, it said.
I mean it, I said. Hell of a good bloom.
Thanks, it said.
You take it easy now, I said. I’ll take these off your hands. You take a break, okay?
Okay, the viburnum sighed. I cut the last of the vanilla flowers and put them in my sack for the cabin. In water, they would last three more days, and their scent would spill out over the table and make my mornings into a pool of dessert.
“What do you eat for breakfast?” I asked Andrew Jackson.
“Anything I want.”
“That’s fantastic,” I said.
He picked up one of the blooms and picked at it, flicking off the little pieces into the air absently. “She said it wasn’t the first time I had peed on her things,” he said quietly. “I’m afraid that she thinks I may be soused.”
“Is that true?”
“I’m not sure, but I figure it might be true so I better
not press it too much. I just remember a feeling of natural
action. I may have been giving birth to penguins and feeling
the same way.”
“But that’s unnatural.”
“Not if I was a penguin. Then it’d be perfectly natural.”
“You’re soused right now,” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “Now let’s get more soused and go watch the Senate. I want to argue policy.”