style="font-size:15px;"> Gus wasn’t disappointed at the lack of a welcoming committee. He really hadn’t expected his father to run out and greet him. Still, it would have been nice. He parked the car at the side of the house and climbed out. He whistled for Cyrus, who was busy smelling everything in sight. “Hey, Pop!” he bellowed. Cyrus stopped his sniffing long enough to lift his head to see what was going on.
A tall man with a shaggy gray-white beard appeared out of nowhere. He was wearing a red plaid jacket with a matching hunting cap. “No need to shout, son. There’s nothing wrong with my hearing. You on your way to somewhere or are you visiting?”
Gus licked at his lips. What happened to, “Nice to see you, son” or “Good to see you, son”? Maybe a handshake or a hug.
“I came for a visit. I thought I’d help with the trees this year. Looks kind of dead around here. What’s going on, Pop?”
“Like you said, it’s dead around here. I let everyone go. I’m retired now.”
“Just like that, you retired? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Didn’t much think you’d care. Nice looking dog. Not as nice as old Buster, though. Buster was one of a kind.”
Gus jammed his hands into his pockets. “Why would you think I wouldn’t care? If you needed my help all you had to do was ask. Are you just going to let those trees grow wild? That’s just like throwing money down the drain.”
“You’re a little late in coming around, son. When I needed you, you were in California making fancy houses for fancy people. When you left here you said you didn’t want to be a farmer. I took you at your word.”
Gus flinched. The old man had him there. He didn’t want to be a farmer; he wanted to do exactly what he was doing. Well, I’m here now, so I’ll just have to make the best of it.
“I’m here to help. The first thing I’m going to do is fix the steps on the front porch before you kill yourself. Then I’m going to hire some people to thin the fields and then I’m going to set up shop and sell Christmas trees. I’ll find someone to operate the Christmas store and then when you’re back on your feet, you can take over.”
“Don’t need your help, Augustus. If that’s why you came here, you can just climb into that fancy rig of yours and drive back to California and all those fancy people you like so much.”
Gus dug the heels of his sneakers into the soft ground and rocked back. “I kind of figured you’d say that, Pop. So, let me put it another way. I came home to protect my investment, my half of Moss Farms. The half Mom left to me. If you don’t want me staying in the house I can get a room at a hotel in town. It doesn’t matter to me. The farm does matter. So, Pop, like it or not, I’m going to go to work.”
“Won’t do you any good. Some group of women in town will be selling trees this year. A lady all prissy and dressed up came out here to ask me to sell her my trees. She wanted them at cut-rate prices. I said no. You want to go up against her, go ahead. I always said you were a smart aleck,” Sam Moss said as he turned to lumber away. “Stay in the house if you want; I don’t care, just pick up after yourself.”
“Yeah, Pop, you always did say that. And a bunch of other things that were even worse,” Gus called to his father’s retreating back. If the old man heard his son’s words, he didn’t show it. Gus wished he was a kid again so he could cry. Instead, he straightened his shoulders and climbed back into the Porsche, with Cyrus right behind him.
Gus backtracked and headed for town and a used car lot, where he bought a secondhand pickup truck the owner said he could drive off the lot with the promise that one of his workers would drive the Porsche back to Moss Farms by midafternoon.
With Cyrus riding shotgun, Gus drove to Home Depot, where he loaded up the back of the truck with a new chain saw, hammers, nails, lumber, paint and anything else he thought he would possibly need. When he checked his loading sheet and was satisfied, he drove to the unemployment office and posted a notice for day workers paying five dollars over minium wage. All calls would go to his cell phone so as not to bother his father. The Fairfax Connection took his ad and promised to run it for a week. Again, he asked for day workers to run the Christmas store his mother had made an institution.
Gus made two more stops, one at a florist he remembered his mother liking. There he explained what he needed and was promised wholesale prices. The order, the nice lady said, would be delivered by the end of the week. His last stop was a gourmet shop, where he again explained his needs and was promised delivery in seven days.
On his way home, Gus pulled into a roadside stand where his mother used to buy fresh cider. Within thirty minutes, he signed a contract for a daily delivery of fresh cider, and for an extra hundred dollars the owner agreed to rent him a top-of-the-line cooler. His arms loaded down with vegetables, fresh apples, eggs and some frozen food, along with some dog food, he completed his shopping, and headed back to Moss Farms, feeling like he’d put in a hard morning’s work. He was on a roll and he knew it. It was the same kind of feeling he always got when he presented a finished set of blueprints to a client. He loved the feeling.
As he drove along in his new pickup truck, Gus wondered about the dressed-up prissy woman who wanted to buy trees from his father. Competition was a good thing, a healthy thing. Maybe he needed to come up with a jingle or something to be played on the radio. For sure he was going to need to do some advertising. Well, hell, he had a workforce back in California. He’d give them a call and let them run with it. Creative minds needed to be put to use. He made a mental note to order a fax machine.
“I’m paying my dues again, Mom,” he whispered.
“I know, son, I know,” came back the reply.
Gus almost ran off the road as he looked around, his eyes wild. Cyrus let his ears go flat against his head. He whined as he tried to get closer to Gus. I must be either overtired or overstimulated. He tried again. “Did you just talk to me, Mom? Or was I hearing things?”
The tinkling laugh he’d loved so much as a kid filled the car. “In a manner of speaking, Gussie. I told you I’d always be there for you when you needed me.”
“Where…where are you, Mom?”
“Right beside you where I’ve always been. You just haven’t needed me before. I’m so proud of you, coming back like this. Your father is a hard man, Gus. Be patient and things will work out.”
“He gave our tree to the White House. I went there and got a branch. I hated him for that, Mom.”
“I know. I saw you there. I don’t want you to hate your father. He has difficulty showing affection. He loves you.”
“Well, Mom, he has a hell of a way of showing it.” Gus wondered if he was losing his mind. Was he so desperate for family affection he was imagining all this? He asked.
He heard the tinkling laugh again. “No, you aren’t losing your mind. You’re opening your mind. It goes with the upcoming season, Gus. You really need to fix that sign,” Sara Moss said, as Gus pulled into the entrance of Moss Farms.
Gus stopped the truck. “I’m going to do it right now. I have everything in back of the truck. Mom, did you…what I mean is…?”
“I saw the plaque on your office building. That was so wonderful of you, Gus. I felt so proud of you. Go along now. Do what you have to do.”
