An American Folktale

Ted Abernathy had been living in Janet Melkin’s in-law apartment for the better part of a year. He was quiet, affable and paid his rent a week in advance. “I’ve a favor to ask,” he noted one morning as the middle-aged woman, who had just stepped out to check the mail, was fishing envelopes from the box.

“And what might that be?”

“I was admiring your flower garden,” Ted continued, gesturing in the direction of the backyard, “especially that row of purple lavender the bumblebees and smaller honeybees are presently ravishing.”

Janet’s features dissolved in a broad grin. “Yes, the bumblebees will be harvesting the nectar and pollen straight through the late summer months. The honeybees much prefer the lilacs, lavender, wisteria, mint, sunflowers and black-eyed Susan.” Having retrieved a handful of letters and a gardening brochure, she raised the lid on the mailbox. “You mentioned a favor,” she noted, deflecting the conversation back to the original topic.

“Would you mind if, on occasion when I returned from work in the late afternoon, I sat out in the yard?”

“I’d be flattered.” Janet returned making light of his original concern. “There’re several Adirondack chairs so you can sit wherever you like. My own preference is near the bird feeder.”

“I noticed a broad array of finches, cardinals and an occasional hummingbird.”

“The hummingbirds,” Janet clarified, “have no interest in the feeder. They go directly to the petunias and fuchsia.”

*****

When her mother-in-law passed away following her husband’s untimely death, Janet desperately needed extra income to make ends meet. The widow had no intention renting the vacant apartment to a male tenant, but the women who responded to her line ad in the local newspaper fell into two unsavory categories: post-menopausal types, mostly unmarried with troubled expressions plus a surplus of emotional junk in the trunk; or there was the younger crowd, living hand-to-mouth off minimum wage, dead-end jobs. Even the simplest question was met with flat affects and infantile responses.

In his early fifties Ted Abernathy was medium height with pale green eyes. Unlike the vast bulk of applicants who traipsed through her living room the previous year, he seemed settled, easy going. “What do you do for a living, Mr. Abernathy?”

“I own a small construction firm.”

“I would expect a security deposit in addition to the first month’s rent.”

“That’s fairly standard,” Ted replied.

“You’re married?”

The man glanced momentarily at the gold band on the third finger of his left hand and his eyes clouded over. “My wife is gone… no longer with us.” His words were tinged with a beleaguered finality.

“Any children?”

Ted Abernathy’s shoulders slumped as his eyes misted over. “My daughter’s no longer with us either.”

Janet was at a loss for words. Thanksgiving weekend the previous fall, the Meriwethers, a family that lived one street over, died in a horrific car crash; the driver, who had a half-dozen DUI arrests, limped away from the head-on collision with nothing more than a sprained ankle. “So sorry for your loss,” Janet responded. The applicant, who regained his composure, was staring regretfully out the bay window. “How soon would you like to move in?”

*****

“You’re renting to a male tenant, a potential homicidal maniac you know absolutely nothing about?” Janet’s daughter, Gwendolyn, showed up the same day that she told her about Ted Abernathy. “You promised you wouldn’t do such an asinine thing!” Gwen leered at her mother, her cheek set in a perpetual sneer.

Unperturbed, Janet waved a hand dismissively in the air. “He was the best of the bunch. None of the women measured up. They were all-”

“Oh, God, mother!” Gwen raged. “When father died I thought you might develop a shred of common sense.” Rising from the chair she had just sat down in, her daughter stormed about the kitchen in an agitated state. But then this was vintage behavior; Gwendolyn would find fault, relentlessly demean and ridicule her mother much as the father had done during the marriage.

“The guy could be goddamn rapist for all we know,” Gwen blurted histrionically waving a fist in the air.

“My friend, Ellen Crocker’s husband is a detective with the local police department,” Janet spoke in a relaxed, deliberate manner. “He ran Mr. Abernathy’s name through the BCI computer data base.”

“A criminal check?”

“Yes, a criminal background check, and the only thing he found was a paid parking meter ticket from five years ago.”

Gwen glowered at her mother. “Having a strange man in the house is an insult to my father’s sacred memory and I’ll never forgive you for this sacrilege.”

Mr. Melkin dropped dead from a massive heart attack in late September; the mother-in-law, who had only recently come to live with them, couldn’t survive the shock and was laid to rest a month later. As if on cue, Gwendolyn hastily bolted to her feet and rushed out the door, denying her mother the opportunity of a rejoinder.

If Gwen had lingered a moment longer, her mother would have reminded her that this man whose sacred memory she treasured was a loud-mouthed bully who seldom if ever had a kind word to say. Instead, Janet stood by the living room window and watched as the metallic blue Honda backed out of the driveway, the taillights finally disappearing at the far end of the cul-de-sac. “Good riddance,” she muttered and went off to gather a load of laundry.

*****

While she was sorting the dirty clothes, Janet remembered how inconsolable Gwendolyn had been when the call came that her father passed away. Janet conversely experienced a newfound serenity, relief, thankfulness and jubilation.

At the funeral parlor she chose the cheapest casket from among the offerings along with the bare minimum of flowers and decorative trappings. Harry Melkin had laid waste to her life; she would treat the inconsiderate brute in similar fashion.

The visitation was closed casket, a framed picture of the deceased perched on a table in the front of the viewing room and little else. At the gravesite she sat with a solemn face, eyes downcast. Every so often she wiped away an imaginary tear and responded in whisper-soft tones to the words of condolence. It was like reading through the script in a maudlin, third-rate soap opera. “Yes, thank you so much for your kind thoughts and prayers” “He was a wonderful, saintly soul and we will miss Harry.”

*****

After the mother-in-law passed away, Janet went for several sessions with a psychiatrist, Dr. Winetraub. “You say your daughter was totally unsympathetic and mirrored your husband’s abusive instincts,” the therapist observed midway through the second visit.

“Yes, she was quite merciless.”

The doctor made several brief notes with an ornate, lavender fountain pen then removed her bifocals, laying them flat on the desk. “Identification with the aggressor,” Dr. Winetraub spoke in an offhand manner as though the psychiatric anomaly was common knowledge, “is a defense mechanism in psychoanalytic theory, describing a situation where victims unconsciously adopt the characteristics, behaviors, or traits of the abuser.”

“I never thought of Gwen as a victim – just the opposite!” Janet objected. “At times she was nastier than my sadistic spouse.”

The psychiatrist shrugged. “With younger children it often functions as a survival strategy, where they unconsciously internalize or emulate cruel behaviors, traits, or even the role of the aggressor as well.” Dr. Winetraub glanced briefly at the clock strategically positioned on the far wall in back of the patient. “And your mother-in-law… what was she like?”

Janet flinched as though struck with a closed fist. “Worse than her diabolical son.”

“Three on one certainly never makes for a terribly fair fight.” Dr. Winetraub scribbled one final entry then tossed the bulbous pen aside. “Between your husband, daughter and thankless mother-in-law, you were tormented by a cadre of emotional despots.”

*****

No one ever came to visit.

In the first year Ted Abernathy resided in the Melkin’s in-law apartment no one ever stopped by; not a solitary relative or acquaintance was ever seen coming or going from the separate entrance abutting the house. And yet the solitary man was always agreeable and in bright spirits. One day in mid-September Janet spied Ted sitting in the backyard thirty feet from the bird feeder, which she had just topped off with a mix of thistle, black oil sunflower, millet and corn. Ted wagged a finger emphatically in the air. “I just saw the most gorgeous bird at your feeder.”

“What were the colors?”

Ted rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “The back was green, the neck deep burgundy with a sunshine yellow belly and purple breast feathers.”

“That would be a Gouldian finch. We get a handful throughout the summer months.” Janet’s features softened in dreamy satisfaction. “They’re ridiculously wonderful to watch.”

Ted raised a white cup he was cradling in his hands to his lips. “What are you drinking?” Janet asked.

“English breakfast tea… the new, extra-dark variety.”

“I’ve never tried it.”

Ted took another sip. “It’s very unique with a smoky after-taste that’s a bit hard to describe.”

The following day when Janet was sorting her mail at the kitchen table, she noticed a blank envelope with no stamp or identifying information. Ripping it opened, a small tea bag fell out on the ash table along with a handwritten note.

Here’s a sample of the English breakfast tea
I mentioned the other day. Enjoy!
Ted Abernathy

“Such a sweet gesture!” Janet put the kettle on to boil. When a shrill drone pierced the air, she poured the boiling liquid into a mug. The color was much darker than her usual blend of Assam and Ceylon teas, and the aroma contained a distinctly smoky aftertaste. She added a splash of light cream, a spoonful of honey and sipped the drink. “Delicious… absolutely scrumptious!”

*****

Following a late winter snow squall, Janet made a trip to the post office. “Jan Melkin,” a frumpy-looking woman with a wide jaw and pronounced overbite near the stamp counter, called in a strident tone.

Janet cringed. Veronica Slotnick, who lived several streets over, had married Don, a plumber. They bought a garish mini-mansion with a three-car garage and kidney-shaped, in-ground pool near the center of town, gussied up the front lawn with plastic figurines and paraded around like the nouveau riche. “I heard Ted Abernathy’s staying at your place.”

The offhand remark caught Janet totally off guard. “Where do you know Ted from?”

“My husband, Donny, ran into him yesterday coming out of the hardware store. Donny sees him at jobsites.” Veronica splayed her hand out admiring a set of glossy nails done in burgundy sparkles. “Did you know Ted contracted the rough framing and hung all the sheetrock at the city hall last year?”

“No, I wasn’t aware.”

“Finished the renovations two months early and fifty thousand dollars under budget.” Veronica shook her head and cracked a cynical grin. “Most contractors, my husband included,” she lowered her voice several decibels, “would have kept the goddamn money.”

“What was the wife’s name?”

Veronica tapped the side of her mannish jaw reflectively. “Haven’t a clue. I always thought of her as Ted’s wife.” “He’s quite the businessman!” Veronica rambled on. “Teddy sends three crews out to separate worksites on any given day. The way he dropped off the face of the earth so suddenly was a great mystery.” Veronica edged closer and pawed Janet’s forearm with an absurdly glossy nail. “I don’t suppose you -”

“I know nothing,” Janet interjected, “about Ted’s past before coming to stay with me.” Pocketing a roll of stamps just purchased, she fled the post office.

*****

In early April Janet began arranging her vegetable garden. She planted snow peas and Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans in straight rose with metal rods positioned every so many feet. By early May the black seeded Simpson lettuce was already in the soil along with a host of herbs, eggplant, and beefsteak tomatoes. Coming outside to water the emerging shoots, Janet noticed Ted in the far corner of the yard staring intently at the ground. “What are you looking at?” she said wandering up alongside.

Ted pointed at the red brick walkway. “That rotten piece of lumber sticking up from the ground.”

“That’s the remnants of an old arbor blown down by an icy nor’easter several years back.”

“And the tangle of vines?” He indicated a jumbled, unsightly mess littering the walkway.

“A mix of clematis, bougainvillea, and wisteria that I planted when we originally bought the wooden structure. With the arbor gone there’s nothing for them to climb.”

Only now did Ted turn and look the woman full in the face. “There’s a house two streets over with a stunning trellised arbor.”

Janet pursed her lips and nodded. “That would be the Hutchersons. They spent over three hundred dollars on that cedar structure.”

“I could reproduce a replica using Douglas fir for fifty bucks, and once stained you’d never know the difference.” Ted waved his hand in the direction of the house. “Your husband, may he rest in peace, left a collection of woodworking tools in the basement that’s just collecting dust. I could build an arbor in a day or two that would put the Hutchersons’ cedar trellis to shame!”

“Fifty bucks,” Janet repeated, lifting an orphaned strand of clematis where the pastel purple flowers were just beginning to bud. “How soon could you start?”

*****

The outer frame and topmost pieces of the arbor were run through the table saw with a rough-cut framing blade then firmly joined together in a single day, using half-inch lag bolts to structurally secure the upper portion. The following day he ripped the ornate trellis strips that flushed out the sides on the Ryobi band saw, sending up plumes of aromatic sawdust. Ted hammered the side rail in place with deck nails then waterproofed the structure with a chocolaty walnut stain that he found squirreled away on a shelf in the tool room.

“This is amazing!” Janet gushed as she gently wrapped a climbing vine onto a leg post jutting seven feet in the air. Once the tendrils picked their way halfway up to the latticed side rails, the sturdy plants would require no more assistance.

*****

July fourth Janet spotted Ted sliding a folding chair into the rear of his car. He was wearing Bermuda shorts, tan boat shoes and a baseball cap. “Gonna be a scorcher!”

“Mid-nineties with bright sunshine,” Janet confirmed. “So what are you doing for the holiday?”

Ted slammed the trunk shut. “Heading to the center of town for the festivities. There’ll be marching bands along with a military parade.”

“No picnic?”

Ted shook his head. “No such luck.”

“I’m spending the day with my daughter and grandchildren.” Janet’s eyes brightened as a incipient thought flashed through her mind. “Why don’t you join me in the late afternoon for an impromptu barbecue… hot dogs, cheeseburgers, potato chips? It’s my way of thanking you for the elegant arbor.”

“Watching the clematis come back to life is a pleasure.” He turned and glanced at the sturdy structure in the rear of the yard, where the vines had already latched onto the decorative molding. “And yes, I’ll join you for a barbecue.”

Ted returned from the parade around noontime, showered and changed into clean clothes. The intense heat had weakened somewhat as a bank of cottony clouds partly obscured the sun. Still, there was no hint of rain. In the back yard he found Janet bent over the propane grille. “Burgers will be ready in another minute or so. Hot dogs are already on the table if you’d like to help yourself.” She flipped a patty, draping it with a slice of Swiss cheese.

The grille turned off, they settled in at the table. “I want to tell you an American folk tale.” Ted was spreading a glob of relish across a streak of Dijon mustard layered the length of his hot dog.

Janet looked up but Ted was facing away from her, his eyes settled on the lavender which was beginning to wear thin with the intense summer heat and absence of rain. “A folk tale,” she repeated. “Does it contain an allegory like Aesop’s Fables?”

“Yes, in a perverse way it contains a deeper, if somewhat obtuse, message.” He devoured what remained of the hot dog and grabbed a handful of potato chips. “Once upon a time in a far away land over the river and beyond the mountains lived a middle-aged woman called Sally.” The sun was momentarily darkened by a wispy cloud that quickly drifted off into the otherwise turquoise sky. “Sally was a bleeding-heart liberal, who believed fervently in late-term abortion, LGBTQ rights, critical race theory and sanctuary cities for illegal aliens.”

“Hell of a beginning!” Spearing a cherry tomato in her tossed salad, Janet raised the fork to her lips. “Any children?”

One daughter, a bra-burning bisexual feminazi who couldn’t hold a steady job for more than two months back to back and, like her mother, suffered from Trump derangement syndrome.”

“I’m assuming there’s a husband in the mix.”

“Fred… the husband’s name was Fred.”

Pushing the empty salad bowl aside, she turned her attention to the cheeseburger on her plate. “Rhymes with Ted,” she shot back with sardonic humor.

“Nothing more than coincidence.” He was still staring out into space in the general direction of the lavender bushes, his hazel eyes focusing on nothing in particular. “Supercilious Sally… that’s the nickname Fred coined for his emotionally labile wife.”

Janet put the half-eaten cheeseburger back on the plate. She was enjoying the repartee far more than the spur-of-the-moment meal. “And the daughter?”

“With her unwillingness to earn a regular paycheck and penchant for radical causes the daughter was even more dysfunctional than the wife.”

“Failure to launch,” Janet piped in. “Bra-burning feminazis refuse to grow up and join the real world… It’s a female version of the Peter Pan Syndrome.”

“Yes, well Fred reached the end of his rope one day and ran away from home… jettisoned his dysphoric family.” He reached for a dill pickle. “And that’s the end of my American folk tale.”

“Fred rhymes with Ted,” Janet repeated.

“You already mentioned that.”

“The moral to the story?”

Ted held the green wedge up to his lips. “An inscrutable God put us here to be happy.”

“I’m assuming there’s more to the tale,” Janet pressed.

“Yes, of course, but the listener must think inventively and fill in the missing pieces.”

The conversation faded away, died a natural death. A strawberry colored hummingbird was hovering over the fuchsia. As the sunlight receded, the intense heat also faded to a manageable eighty degrees. Ted began collecting the soiled plates and silverware. “Stop what you’re doing and sit down,” Janet finally broke the impasse. “Since you were kind enough to share your fictional folk tale, I would like to offer one of my own”. Clearing her throat, she began, “Once upon a time in a far away land over the river and beyond the mountains lived a woman called Pomegranate.”

“Pomegranate?”

“Yes, her parents were farmers and named the child after their favorite fruit.”

“Pomegranate rhymes with Janet.”

“Just a crazy coincident,” Janet dismissed the comparison. “Pomegranate was married to a foul-mouthed ogre, a revolting, argumentative, disagreeable…”