Conversation

Conversation

The squirrel was eating the tomatoes. Not the whole tomato. Just a single bite, then tossing it on the ground like a two-year-old. She could see the long track of his rodent teeth, the indentation where his claw had grazed the tomato before casting it across the garden to the patio where she was sure to see it. If he’d just drop the discarded thing where he found it, where he’d stolen it, she would never have noticed. But he made sure she saw the tomato; made sure she saw him.

Once she’d dashed out the back door, clapped her hands, “Go! Go!” she shrieked.

The squirrel leapt to the top of the redwood fence and stretched full length along the warm wood. His red fur gleamed and, if he’d had a toothpick, she could imagine him lying back with his head on the fence post, picking his teeth with one hand and scratching his ample belly with the other.

“He’s driving me crazy,” she said. 

Ralph stopped reading the newspaper, didn't look up, just waited. “Absolutely crazy, the way he steals those tomatoes.”

“Who? The mailman? Mail person?” he corrected himself. He had no idea who delivered the mail, had never seen him/her, but knew Gladys was annoyed with him/her, hadn’t remembered that it was about pinching tomatoes. What did it matter? They had more than they could eat and where did he/she put the tomatoes? In the mailbag? That would smear the mail which was probably a federal crime, crushing U.S. mail with tomatoes, except there really was no mail, just circulars, credit card come-ons, solicitations with gaudy address labels, that sort of thing, all of which could be improved by a little tomato juice and a scattering of seed, but it was a crime anyway, so the mail man/woman was probably just taking a cherry tomato or two, eating them on the spot and then continuing the route which was fine with him. toting that bag of mail, he/she needed the energy a tomato could give. Wonder what it weighed. God, how he/she must hate the holidays—all those catalogs starting in September and by October, if not before, the tomatoes dead on the vine, frozen except for the brown paper bags of green tomatoes lined up in their basement. Gladys should set them out for the mail man/woman as they got ripe. She didn’t can anymore, and they could never eat all those goddamned tomatoes anyway.

So when he finally spoke, he spoke carefully, to deflate her indignation enough to let him finish his coffee and get back to the paper. “It’s only a tomato. He/she can have them all as far as I care. His/her job is hard—wonder what those bags weigh.”

“What bags?” She stood at the window glaring at the squirrel who was now patrolling the top of the fence, the padron surveying his fields.

“Mail bags stuffed with catalogs.”

The squirrel had stopped just above the Japanese eggplant and was bent to the long purple cylinder, batting it with one hairy paw, once, twice, three times. She rapped on the window. “He won’t even eat the eggplant. I know it!”

Ralph was back in the newspaper, half listening, but, through long practice, still part of the conversation. “How do you know he doesn’t like eggplant?” And, he thought, where would he put it, but didn’t he didn't say anything. One question was enough. If he asked two, she’d take too long to answer, expect him to stop reading and look up.

“He took one last week, bit into it, tossed it on the patio.” She beat her hand on the windowpane again. “Get out of here.”

Ralph turned the page, refolded the paper, took a long drink of lukewarm coffee—just the way he liked it—skimmed a quick article about Brittany Spears, whoever she was, wondered why her mother named her after a French province and turned to the sports section.

“Drop that eggplant,” Gladys shrieked.

Ralph lowered the paper and almost got up to get a closer look at their thieving mailman/woman, but the Twins were four games up and if he showed too much interest in the mailman/woman, Gladys would want him to do something and what could he do about a man/woman who ate the odd tomato now and again—all in the service of his/her country. 

“Forget it. We get the mail on time," he said, and Gladys, for once, was speechless