A Time of Nettles
by Shauna Checkley
When Dan and Laurel pulled into Leigh’s and Wes’s driveway, they arrived with bright-eyed awareness, mission even. It wasn’t much different than any other of their infrequent visits, however. Both couples only got together when there was something of importance, out of pressing need, rather, never for just plain family time. They were practical people for the most part.
“Sure, hope Leigh’s coaching helps me,” Laurel remarked.
Dan smiled, nodded.
Sure hope I’m able to witness to Wes, he thought. Though he had ulterior motives, Dan was keeping them from his wife, Laurel, from everyone really. He never confided in anyone when he was ready to witness; he just prayed. That’s all. He believed in the old adage: what they don’t know won’t hurt them.
Dan and Laurel got out of the car. With her left leg falling asleep, the pins and needles rendering it lifeless in the passenger seat, Laurel was only too glad to get out. But she had to hoist her numb side out as if she were hauling a piece of dead wood. To any passerby, she would have looked drunk or felled by an early stroke. But it was just her poor circulation, she knew.
The backyard was fabulous as ever and just how they remembered it. A fire pit with a Moroccan-style stove. Big planters full of flowers. That new, sandstone-coloured, plastic deck that they had just put in last year. There was a honeyed scent in the air. A warm, sweet, fragrant type of smell.
Leigh greeted them outside. “You made it,” she smiled. Leigh was wearing a pink and coral sundress, and her bare arms looked crepe-like and spotted with age. She was in her late sixties and portly yet still had a buoyant air about her. “Those good Laughlin genes,” other family would remark.
Wes was sitting in a lawn chair. He nodded towards Laurel and Dan. He wore a ball cap and a wife-beater and jeans, as ever. His shoulders were sunburnt. He was Leigh’s husband of many years.
“Wanna beer?” Wes offered.
“Sure,” Laurel said
Dan shook his head.
“How about some lemonade then?” Leigh asked
Dan smiled and nodded.
Wes ambled off to fetch refreshments.
Breaking into a wide, mischievous grin, Leigh said, “So you’ve come for a bit of coaching, hey.”
Laurel nodded, giggled.
They appeared like two young sisters about to raid the cookie jar or share a first cigarette.
It was a clear, even, summer day with a mild breeze. It was one of those perfectly tempered days when the outdoors seems to almost be as regulated as the indoors. Leigh’s celebrated garden was abloom, well underway. All was green and lush except for a small patch of stinging nettles in the corner that Leigh had been complaining earlier about over the phone.
Returning with a can of Kokanee beer and the jug of lemonade, Wes handed it to his sister-in-law Laurel.
“Thanks,” she said
The foursome all sat down on lawn chairs and settled in with their drinks. Leigh plucked two from a short stack of plastic cups and poured one for herself and one for her brother-in-law Dan.
Leigh took a sip. Then she said to Laurel, her younger sister, “So you’ve been having trouble with management, I hear.” There was a gentle, ironic tone in her voice. She half-smiled.
“Yeppers,” Laurel said ruefully, her brow lightly furrowed into worry lines. But it reminded Dan of the neat rows in the garden a few feet away. Those nettles do look kind of thick, he decided. The plants formed an angry brigade near the fence.
“No worries. I’ll coach you. We’ll get through it.” Leigh said. She made a dismissive, waving gesture with her hand.
Leigh was in her sixties and a veteran of all things legalistic and grievance-related. Housing Boards. Rentals man. Union. Workers Comp. Zoning and By-Laws. Condo boards. Neighborhood Associations. City Hall. Pretty much everything. She had had run-ins with almost all of these agencies over the years or at the very least knew others that had. It was a godsend to Laurel, though, as she was involved in tension at work, a two-way melee involving both union and management.
“So what’s going on? What’s their big complaint?” Leigh asked
The elder sister appeared like a Roman consul, like an officer holding court. Her hair was in several shades now as the gray grew out at the roots of the dyed blonde tresses, a wild-looking melange of varying hues. But she held a somber dignity, a quiet assertiveness that lent itself perfectly to these kinds of matters. She crossed her legs firmly.
Laurel launched into a long-winded account of the antics at work, mild and outright insubordination, stories that built in succession, layers of drama and denial.
Inching closer in her seat, Leigh appeared passionate, bemused.
Wes appeared bored and between quaffs of beer, he struck at insects with his hands.
Dan, however, had listened to the story so many times now that his mind tended to shut off involuntarily whenever she began her account. Well, at least she’s not as stressed as she was before, he thought, hopefully. That’s one good thing. Being her husband of nearly twenty years, he knew most of her stories and issues by heart; Laurel was very vocal about things, as a rule. Perhaps too much so, he sometimes wondered.
Though he found the lemonade especially tart and strong, Dan sipped it anyway.
Wes and Dan exchanged slightly stiff glances. Wes smacked a flying bug and said, “Ha!”
“We’ll do it this way,” Leigh said, leaning in on her elbows, “We’ll run through different scenarios. So when they say this, then you say that.” She gestured with her hands to drive the point home to Laurel.
“When they say this...You say that, got it?” Leigh repeated for emphasis. She repeated the same gesture with her hands again. It reminded Dan of windshield wiper blades, hands slanting back and forth.
“Okay,” Laurel said. She mimicked the gesture for good measure.
Laurel had slid forward in her lawn chair, bright-eyed and eager to be coached.
“Now when they say too many absences, you say self-care and sick time. Got it?”
Laurel nodded.
“When they say insubordination, you say health and safety concerns. Got it?”
“Okay,” Laurel agreed.
Dan watched but couldn’t help but think something vaguely untoward was unfolding. It bothered his sense of Christian ethics. Yet he was still very grateful to Leigh for helping out her sister and his wife. Laurel had been fairly stressed about the whole matter for some time.
Dan looked at his wife and saw colour and animation returning to her. She reminded him of the sunflowers that peeked over the fence from next door, lean, long, and with a big, bright, bobbing, blonde head.
Wes drank his beer, swatted random bugs and appeared thoroughly bored. But Dan surmised the older man had probably witnessed these very same proceedings many times over the years, disputes over boundary lines, dogs, zoning bylaws, just to name a few. It was just human nature to fight over every conceivable feature of daily life, work and the home included, Dan believed. And that is why we all need Jesus so bad, he thought.
Finishing his beer in one long gulp, Wes set the empty can on the ground beside him. “Wanna come with me to pick up some hamburgers? We were gonna have you stay for a barbecue. We can let the gals carry on as planned,” Wes asked his brother-in-law.
“Sure, ” Dan said.
“And if they try and say work ethic, you say time management,” Leigh continued coaching.
Just as they were about to climb into Wes’s car, Leigh called to them. Her voice trilled in the air: “Don’t forget hamburger buns!”
Wes grunted, nodded.
The men got in the car and drove off.
The interior was warm and dusty smelling, even though an evergreen-shaped air freshener hung from the rear-view mirror. A fine film settled like a thin skin over everything. Some particles even lightly shone in the sunlight.
Wes always seemed to be out of breath and sweating profusely, as if he were verging on the edge of a heart attack or stroke or something. He was an older, overweight man, and Dan could hear Wes’s laboured breathing as he steered the car; he wheezed as much as the sedan he was driving.
“Guess we might as well take the ring road. It will be the quickest way to Super Save,” Wes announced.
Dan was glad to be alone with Wes. Even if it was just something as prosaic as a jaunt to pick up hamburger buns, it afforded him some down time with the man. Recently, Dan had got the overwhelming urge to witness to his brother-in-law, something he had been reluctant about over the years.
Dan had witnessed to the two women before, Laurel and Leigh. And even had his wife attending
Blessed Grace church with him, though he suspected she enjoyed the social aspect, making new friends, going for brunch afterwards more than the actual faith itself. Is she really saved even? He wondered.
It didn’t matter, though. He had done his part. That’s all that really mattered. Now, he needed finally to witness to Wes and then his circle of subjects, friends and family would be done.
Turning off of the main drag and onto the ring road, Wes frowned. Immediately, he found himself boxed in between two slow-moving cars.
“What the hell? Why are they moving so slowly?” Wes spat.
Turning the left signal on, Wes grimaced. Then he shoulder-checked and steered to the left, now driving in tandem with the vehicle directly ahead of him.
But the other vehicle sped up.
“What the hell!” Wes growled, “Speeds up! Won’t let me in?”
Dan stared straight ahead. Wishing only to witness about Jesus to his burly brother-in-law, yet Dan knew that this was not an opportune time. So not right now!
Wes stepped on the gas. He was flying down the road.
Making another attempt to pass, Wes was determined to overtake the other vehicle. It was a new, sporty-looking red car. The name of the make of the car was on the tip of Dan’s tongue, though he could not remember. Is it Cougar? Lynx? Some kind of cat name?
But the other car sped up as well.
“Dirty rotten bastard!” Wes shrieked, waving his fist as he finally overtook the other car and passed it with aplomb.
Dan shifted in the passenger seat. He noticed that Wes was slowing down.
“Give that sucker some payback!” Wes grandly declared.
Oh boy, Dan thought.
The red car began trying to pass from the left. But Wes tromped on the gas pedal.
The two cars drove in tandem several feet, with neither seeming to budge.
Wes appeared almost gargoyle-like, his weather-beaten face looked scalded scarlet; his hands gripped the wheel white-knuckle hard. A veteran of these showdowns, Wes was poised and ready. You knew that if the situation availed itself, he would pull up and roll down his window and cuss the other driver out. Flip him the bird!
Dan then recalled something about Wes and road rage. He remembered the two sisters, Laurel and Leigh discussing it once. He was in bed nursing the flu, too feverish to really pay attention to the conversation. Laurel was wandering in and out of their bedroom with her cell phone. She was frowning and repeating words like “road rage” and “the slow lane.”
Darn! That’s right. I forgot all about that, Dan thought. Wes’s proclivity for road tantrums. Though he had an even temperament otherwise, there was something about being behind the wheel of his cherished sedan that made him lose it.
But Dan also knew of Wes’s infamous lack of patience. Wes was the type to resort to force rather than finesse. One time when they were over doing renos at Dan’s place, he noticed how his brother-in-law would overtighten things: screws, valves, and levers, usually resulting in stripping them. Always the overkill with that one, Dan thought, mildly irritated. Whatever.
Dan looked at his brother-in-law with mounting horror. Wes reminded him of a boiled lobster or a giant squid about to shoot ink. And to think that all I wanted was to witness to him about the Lord!
Dan was under no obligation at church to proselytize others. If anything, the service that he attended every Sunday at Blessed Grace without fail was a quiet affair, mainly Senior citizens and young families, consternation only about running out of coffee and lemon cookies in the gathering afterwards.
Yet it was something that Dan had decided to do. I want to reach out at least once to others. I’ll coach them towards Jesus. Then I can let the matter go with a clear conscience. I’d be satisfied with that much, regardless of the outcome. It wouldn’t matter if Wes fell to his knees in exultation or laughed hysterically; either way the mission will be complete.
Wes hit the horn. It blared. He held it down for several moments. Like a wild, charging animal in heat or pain, so it seemed. A wayward rhino.
With the back of his hand, Dan wiped his brow. Maybe I just better keep my mouth shut.
As Wes launched into a string of expletives, Dan shifted in his seat.
Wes stepped on the gas again. The roadside signs blurred past.
Maybe I should just pray, Dan thought, spooked. He felt his heart race like the car.
Finally, though, the turn off leading to Super Save Foods appeared. Wes took the exit. They pulled into the big parking lot moments later.
“I’ll be right back,” Wes said. Then he got out and ambled towards the supermarket.
Dan exhaled deeply. Like one coming up for air after being under water for a length of time, he gasped. Wonder what the ride home will be like?
After a few minutes in which to recover his equilibrium, Dan saw Wes ambling back with a bag in hand.
Wes piled into the car and they drove off. Taking the ring road once again, Wes hummed as he drove. He had returned to his normal facial colour. A sickly yellow. The muscles in his face were relaxed.
Might try to witness now, Dan thought, gingerly. Or maybe not. Why poke the hornets nest? Why touch the stinging nettle?
They returned to Wes and Leigh’s place without incident.
Leigh and Laurel were poking about the garden with gloves on. The coaching session had seemingly ended, and the two sisters were pulling out the offending nettles. Laurel held a bag open for her sister while Leigh plopped the plants in. Teamwork. It was just how the sisters liked it.
“You’ve got such a lovely yard this year,” Laurel said.
Looking up, with her supersized fanny high in the air, just like those wooden signs and caricatures people put up as a joke, Leigh said, “Oh you two are back now.”
Returning to their lawn chairs, the two men sat down. Wes immediately began to crush bugs.
Copyright © 2021 by Shauna Checkley
