The Bottle Tree

The strangest thing my grandfather, Terry requested in his will was the express wish that we leave the bottle tree he had placed in the front of his house intact, no matter the fate of the property itself. The tree stood in the middle of the yard in a prominent position, a sentinel to guard against who knows what. And of course, the first thought on my father’s mind was to sell the property and everything on it; he couldn’t care about its fate. The Freemont estate (as Terry liked to call it) loomed at the end of a lane of tall, gnarled cedar trees that lined the gravel drive on both sides. It stood rigid and unforgiving with its deep brown cypress beams and long, frowning windows, but it was built to last through the ages. I remember how it looked as though it disapproved when father pulled up to the middle of the gravel drive, gazed up at the upstairs windows and said, “The real estate agent recommends having that tree removed. Said it wouldn’t suit a lot of people’s tastes.”

I was eighteen and ready to move on with the next phase of my life, although I was uncertain as to how I would proceed from high school. Nothing stuck to me in terms of career interests when I weighed the options, so I applied at various local colleges and got accepted to a couple. In keeping with my pattern of indecision, I had been unable to figure out which of the two schools I wanted to go to. I felt a kinship to the family home and its uncertain fate because I could not decide on my own. As to my family, I was getting the usual eyerolls and looks of disapproval that gradually became a cloak of silence that hung over us like a cloud when I was in the room with them.

“I’m glad Terry isn’t here to see you waste your time like this,” Father blurted out one day. I turned quickly and made for the stairs to avoid conflict as was my way.

My grandfather was one of those boomers who were hard on their offspring. He was always giving my dad a ribbing for not working hard enough or being good enough. Of course, he was ignoring all the economic and social advantages his generation had over my dad’s and certainly mine. My dad would just wave him off and say something like,

“Sure, I worked my ass off to be a professor, but no, that’s not good enough because I don’t have a six-figure salary and a sprawling estate, right?” My grandfather would then wave him off in response and proceed to walk away. It was always the same up until we got the call that he’d had a heart attack right on the front steps of his home.

And even though my grandfather was headstrong, stubborn, and sometimes just plain harsh, he did have a six sense about things that I had come to trust over time. The first time I can remember him having this ability was when we were in the middle of the pond on the estate. We were fishing off the side of an aluminum John boat, which was his favorite even though he had several other nicer, motorized boats. I distinctly remember that there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and what a perfect day it was for fishing. Then suddenly, out of nowhere he announces,

“Well, Sean, we had better head on in. Don’t want to get wet.” And sure enough, no sooner had he made that declaration, but a cloud appeared and then over the next few minutes, another, and then another. I could feel the drops beginning to fall on my shoulders as he turned the boat over and took me by the hand to lead me up the steep embankment towards the back patio. He paused for a long moment, staring out into the rain under the safety of the awning and put his hand on my shoulder,

“Sean, all this will be yours someday, the Freemont Estate; to do with as you wish of course. As you know, your grandpa takes pride in this place, and I would love to think that you could feel that same way about it.”

I smiled and nodded, not knowing how to make my ten-year-old brain say the right thing the way I often felt when adults would make such weighty declarations. To me the farm was a place I could go and escape the realities of life back home. I was bullied a lot in those days, and it was a place where I could roam the woods and pretend to be in some great wilderness. Or, I could causally visit the horses and cows and not have to feel the responsibility of being their stewards, which is why the idea that he was trying to implant in me was one I grappled with.

Now I understand the importance of what he was trying to pass on, despite my helplessness to hold onto our heritage. That’s why I knew that if he said it was important for us to preserve the bottle tree it must be so. As soon as I heard his wishes during the reading of the will, I immediately did some research and found that the bottle tree was a legend that had its origin in the African Congo. The blue bottles hung upside down on the branches were meant to both ward off spirits and trap them if they got too close and too curious to resist the shiny blue glass. It was easy to brush this off as just some tradition from another continent, but we would come to realize it was so much more.

For many reasons, the time just before and after the bottle tree was built stands out in my memory because there was a definite shift in the way I felt about going to grandpa’s and a shift in grandpa himself. When I went, I would stick mostly to the outside, trying to avoid the darker corners of the dimly lit house with its naughty pine walls and dark brown panel floors that creaked and moaned out the murmur of too many years when you walked across them.

And my room… would be so intolerably dark if I dared turn off the candle-shaped night light, which I only did a couple of times, just to see how black it was. The darkness was probably the most benign aspect of what I would occasionally encounter when it reached the three o’ clock hour. The first thing I would hear was the relentless pacing, up and down the halls outside my room and then up to the door. The doorknob would begin to turn and heavy footsteps would drag across the threshold, for there was no lock on my bedroom door. There would be a gruff noise like someone clearing their throat and the sound of a glass hitting the floor and shattering. I would reach for the light switch a few feet to the left of my bed and illuminate the proceedings, but there wouldn’t be anyone there and no shards of glass on the floor. After the first time it happened, I insisted that I take the downstairs fold-out sofa to which grandpa reluctantly agreed. Then, after nothing happened down there, I agreed to try and sleep in my bedroom again. Well, the same thing happened the next time, and it would be the last time because I refused to ever sleep there again.

Around the same time that the bottle tree went up, grandpa put down the bottle himself, the opaque brown bottle of Kentucky whiskey that he preferred to drink with a dash of Pepsi. I remember the night I saw my grandfather and Morris Jenkins place the shiny blue bottles over the tree branches of the young oak in the front yard. I was looking through the window watching them with fascination. Morris was a short, elderly man of color with a grim, taut mouth and wise, kind eyes. He seemed to be instructing my grandfather who would nod his head and listen intently. I overheard him laughing heartily about the family curse as they walked in the front door and wondered with fascination and a bit of trepidation as to what he was referring to.

I noticed the shift in him soon after they adorned the tree, despite my only being about twelve years old at the time. His cheeks were a little less rosy and he wouldn’t get as angry at little things. Before all of this, when I would visit, I would learn to be as quiet as possible after five. This was his happy hour that he had kept true to since his working days.

Soon, I began to feel safer when I would go there for a visit. As a matter of fact, I even began to sleep in my upstairs bedroom again sensing that something had changed. Sure enough, I slept through the night without the curious sounds of someone moving through the halls. This would last the rest of grandpa’s life and it made me want to visit him more often. I could roam the halls at night without any trepidation, which I often did to celebrate my newfound victory over my fear.

Back to the ill-advised decisions my father was making about the house. He decided to follow through on the real estate agent’s recommendations, and he was sneaky about it too. Early one Saturday morning, I awoke to the beeping sound of a bulldozer backing up. I sat straight up in bed and somehow intuitively knew what was happening. I threw my clothes on as quickly as I could, ran down the stairs, and out the front door. Sure enough, the tree was now on its side with its roots stretching out madly holding onto clumps of dirt like someone would have if they were clawing the ground to escape from someone. All around the large crater left behind by the root base were bits of shattered blue glass. There were a few bottles still intact somehow, holding onto their prospective branches for dear life. I was aghast and angry right away because knowing my grandfather and his sixth sense about things, I could tell that we would suffer for the bad judgement my father was displaying from not following my grandpa’s wishes.

This was the hatching of dad’s plan, which was to stay in the house while some renovations were made, move into our new home once it was ready and then sell the estate. I was both irritated and sad at the whole situation. Although grandpa made it clear in his will that it was our decision about the fate of the house, I knew in his heart of hearts he would prefer for the home to stay in the family. In this cynical age, it seems that ancestry and the symbols thereof are often disregarded in the name of cold hard cash. Dad was anxious to have that huge deposit hit his bank account like a sudden shot through the veins I would imagine heroin addicts feel. I couldn’t help but ask the questions I would imagine my grandfather must have asked himself at some point or another when he was trying to write his will.

What will be the fate of the house and surrounding sixty acres?

Did the legacy of family imbued with property ever really mean anything?

Is there any real value or meaning behind a family’s legacy?

Or at least that’s what I imagined might have gone through my grandpa’s head.

As the renovations began, I could sense my father’s growing unease and impatience already beginning when he found out just how long the repairs would take and how much they would cost. I would hear his heavy, dragging footsteps pacing downstairs. It was a bit disquieting how much it reminded me of those nights when it was impossible for me to sleep here.

“Don’t worry,” I overheard my mother’s reassuring voice telling him. “Remember that when we sell the property, we will be able to easily recoup the money we’re spending on the renovations.” She had always been the voice of reason when my father got into his spells of hopelessness.

At first, he seemed to take hier reassurances to heart and would exhibit brief periods of good spirits over dinner, but it was spirits that became the issue. It began as a celebratory gin and tonic at the conclusion of a tasty meal of homegrown vegetables purchased at the local farmer’s market. However, as the long days of boredom wore on and the updates took longer than planned, he took to having them with his lunch. By the time we were in the second month there, he took to having two to three of them a night, beginning at dinner. I took to hiding in my room where I would listen to music and pretend I was elsewhere.

One warm evening at the end of that summer as I was reading the last novel on my summer reading list, I overheard my parents arguing. The vitriol in my father’s voice was unlike anything I had ever heard from him before.

“Of course they said it was going to take a long time, but another month just to finish the updates to the two downstairs bathrooms? Ridiculous!”

My mother did not answer him. She seemed to not know how to respond to this more snarling version of her husband. He always did have a way of talking over her, almost speaking her responses for her at times. I always wished she would speak up for herself more, but I wondered if maybe she was afraid to, fearful of how he might respond to her suddenly defending herself.

As the days wore on, I took to spending more time outside or locked up in my room until it was unavoidable for me to stay out of father’s way. One day I was walking back from the creek where I would often go and smoke a cigarette clandestinely. Father stopped me as I entered through the back door.

“Where’ve you been?” The slur in his speech was very clear.

“Just went hiking down to the creek.”

He stared at me for what seemed like an eternity without talking until his eyebrows curved inward and his eyes became angry slits.

“You’re such a good for nothing! Are you even going to graduate when you should?”

It was remarkable how much he sounded like my grandfather in that moment; I felt like I was his generational punching bag.

“Of course, dad, what do you mean?”

“I see you going out a lot but not studying so much.”

“Well, it is summer, and I’ve just about finished my reading list.”

“Are you being smart with me?” he snapped.

It really was uncharacteristic of him to be in this much of a snit, and I could now clearly see the empty bottle of Buffalo Trace teetering on the edge of the counter.

“I’m going up to bed,” I declared, seeing if that would be enough for him to step out of my way so I could make for the stairs.

“Ok, but this isn’t over. We need to talk about your future and when you intend to get out on your own!”

This kind of talk freaked me out because at that stage I was nowhere near ready to be on my own. I assured myself that he was drunk and wouldn’t be likely to remember what he had said. Besides, I knew that the sober version of my father wouldn’t bring something like that up. I simply ran past him and made for the stairs as fast as my legs would take me just to escape his glazed over, hawkish sneer.

That night I tried to sleep, but I was only able to count the dots of the knotty pine walls and in the gloom, they began to resemble several faces looking in on me with unblinking curiosity. And then, just like a memory or distant recollection I heard the pacing of heavy footsteps, dragging as if unable to give their full effort. It reverberated in the hallway outside and stopped suddenly, just in front of the door. I looked over at the bedside clock- ‘Three o’ clock,’ it read as if to say I told you so. A gruff, coughing sound was soon to follow, just like clockwork. Next came the swirling of ice around in a glass.

` It’s just father about to tell me that I need to get to bed and stop wasting time on video games or something.

I wanted to cry out to make sure it was him, but something held me back like that feeling you sometimes get when you need to call for help in a dream but can’t quite find the power to do so. A ghastly silence cast its pall over the proceedings and was broken by what sounded like heavy breathing through nostrils.

The doorknob began to turn; I could hear it squeaking softly, twisting in a torturously slow manner. I managed to raise myself up in bed to get a better view and be ready to defend myself, if necessary. I was hoping some light might issue forth from the opening door, but none came as the heavy footsteps drug themselves across the threshold. I cleared my throat, preparing to cry out for help, but somehow my throat was too dry, almost closed like someone having an anaphylactic reaction to a wasp sting. A figure lurched slowly forth in the dark.

It must be father checking to see if I’m asleep

I felt paralyzed, unable to move myself beyond my position, wondering if I even could raise my arms to block any possible assault. The figure cleared its throat, making an all too familiar sound. A light switched on in the hallway, and all at once I saw them all. The translucent figure of my great grandfather stood with an angry look on his face, his hands balled into fists that he seemed poised to use. My grandfather, also translucent, but more illuminated, was behind him. He grabbed my great grandfather’s arms and pulled them behind his back, pushing him face first onto the floor. Looking back, it seems that I could easily have stopped the attack, but fear can create serious paralysis if it’s severe enough.

Everything vanished in a flash as my father, who was standing a few feet behind my grandfather, dropped his glass. His eyes were wider than I had ever seen them, his mouth fully agape. It was just he and I then, staring at one another in wonderment. All at once I realized what my grandfather had gone through when he was younger, and why he wanted to keep the family curse in check. I realized why he wanted to be sober.

The very next day father booked us a week’s stay in a local Bed and Breakfast down the road a few miles. It would take him some time to figure out what we should do next. He swore off the booze and wasn’t going to spend another night at the Freemont Estate. I for one began to understand the family curse, and also had no desire to be there. The estate was sold a few months later, much to Father’s relief. As for my father and I, I think he and I understood and appreciated each other a lot more after that night.