Forty Days

by Donna Schoenkopf

Forty days. Forty days of unbearable heat and unending drought.

It’s Saturday evening, about seven. I am lying in my usual beached-whale fashion on my bed watching the teevee. As I turn my head slightly to the right to glance out the sliding glass doors I see a towering mass of dark gray smoke south of me. It seems to be right where I saw a towering mass of white smoke the day before as I was driving home down Killer Highway 177. What the ...?

The phone rings. It’s Neighbor Jim. “Do you have your TV on?” he asks.

“Yeah, but not the local stations,” I reply.

We have a little conversation about the smoke we’re looking at. We both recall seeing white smoke the day before and are pretty sure something’s re-ignited. Neighbor Jim is concerned for Neighbor Steve’s house, which is next door to his. Steve is not home. So I tell Neighbor Jim I will call the police and inquire as to what was going on with the smoke.

It turns out it was a flareup from the day before. As of this morning it’s burned a swath two miles long and a mile wide. It has been hard to put out because it’s in a densely wooded area. If it’s a densely wooded area like mine, it’s full of dead and dying trees and will go up like dry kindling.

The most affected trees here at Chigger Lake are the old oaks, but almost all trees are affected one way or another. Did you know oak trees have been on our planet in their current form since the days of the dinosaurs? They’re dying now. I estimate that almost half the trees here are either dead or will be soon.

This drought is a real bitch. A mean, evil bitch.

I watch the black smoke rising, rising and crowning in a beautiful, full white cumulus cloud as the sun sets. The weather station calls for a slight chance of thunderstorms with high winds. I think about what that means. Will there be enough rain to put out the fire or at least dampen it? Will there be winds that will fan the flames into an all out blitzkrieg?

I’m not at all frightened. I’ve seen and been through too many fires in California to be frightened. I know how they move and what they do and what the physics of the whole thing is. We’re far enough away to have plenty of time to withdraw.

I think about how the fire, if it makes it up here, will deal with my steel and glass house. Will the windows burst? Will the insulation melt? Will the gypsum wallboard with its beautiful stucco work catch fire?

I sit and imagine the house after going through a full force fire. It won’t burn to the ground, but it will be stripped of everything except the steel.

I think about how the world here is incinerated just from the unending heat and lack of rain. Huge cracks have opened up in the clay in the north “yard.” The grasshoppers have gone crazy with the heat and the lack of water. They have almost completely stripped the two little apple trees of leaves. I bought netting off the Internet, some white, very lightweight material. I couldn’t find anything even vaguely resembling netting in local stores. Nobody uses netting anymore. Most people spray now, killing whatever it is that is upsetting their plan. Never mind the aquifer underneath us all being filled with poison. Never mind the frogs being killed or the beneficial microbes that balance life on Earth dying. Never mind the endless chain of death that results from your finger casually pushing the button on the spray can.

I think about how hot I was as I stood outside trying to figure out how to cut the netting so that it would fit the trees properly. I think about how I finally sized it correctly and began to tape it together with masking tape and how I tied the bottoms closed with yarn from my crochet basket. I think about how I went out to check it an hour later and seeing the nets blowing in the hot wind, the apple trees covered with grasshoppers.

But I don’t give up easily.

I grabbed my stapler off my desk and went back outside in the damnable heat and stapled everything back together. It’s lasted for two weeks now. And new green leaves have begun to sprout. Hah!

And no dead grasshoppers. No poisoned water. No killed microbes.

I think about how I pulled off the plastic screening that encircled my compost heap because the dogs leaned against it and dragged the dried watermelon rinds out to play with. I laid the screen on the holes in the front “yard” that the dogs have dug to keep cool in the neverending heat. I have filled in the deep holes against the concrete at the base of my house. The dogs lay there, panting, day after day, covered with red clay mud. I finally decided to bring them in during the hottest part of the day. Joe Biden comes over instantly to get the mud hosed off before he’s let into the house. The three dogs lie spread-eagled on the cool concrete floor, the overhead fans move the air, the air conditioner grinds on and on.

I think about how I water the “yard” every single day, usually early in the morning before it gets hellish. Even at seven in the morning, it’s in the high eighties. I stand over each measly shrub that I planted in that concrete ground two? three? years ago. There are twenty-two red tipped photinias that were supposed to be a windbreak and a civilized border between the “yard” and the rest of the world. There are also four small cottonwoods, four Japanese hollies bordering my outdoor shower, a redbud tree and two crape myrtles.

I think about the grass, oh, my God, the fabulous grass in the south and east yards. I think about how I stopped mowing right after the heat wave hit. When I saw the grass turn brown and crunchy after I mowed, I knew I had to just let it grow. I also knew that bare ground was the worst thing that can happen in a drought because moisture evaporates instantly. So whatever sprouted up was welcomed with open arms. No weeding here, baby.

So that grass has been growing for forty days. It’s now deep, deep green. It’s tall and soft. By tall I mean a foot tall. There are a few wildflowers poking through. I hardly have to water at all. The roots and the shade that the dense grass provides for itself have created the most amazing microclimate. It’s cool and moist and fabulous.

I think about the tree seedlings popping up everywhere, already sagging with the heat. I’m letting Mother Nature plant the trees wherever she wants to. I smile when I think about not having to dig any more holes in that hard ground. I see at least a dozen new trees—elms, ash, two willows, and yes, a little oak tree. The shade will be absolutely wonderful . . . in about ten years. I’ll be seventy-eight then. Hmmm. I guess I will be digging holes after all.

I think about the water mains in town breaking. I think about the dead trees along the forty miles of highway as I drive to Oklahoma City. I think about the ranchers selling their cattle off because there is no more grass for them to eat. I think about the farmers cutting down the dead three foot tall corn stalks and the alfalfa burning up in the fields. I think about my tire going flat from the heat. I think about my water bill and electric bill being higher than they’ve ever been. I think about the two other fires, one in Norman, one in Edmond. I think about the ponds and the aquifers and the lakes drying up and the world growing warmer.

I think about all this as the wind blows harder and the black smoke shifts from a column reaching to the sky to thick, black streaks whipping across the horizon.

Can you smell it?

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