Westbound
by Stephen Ausherman
(an earlier incarnation of this story appeared as
SHE GAVE ME HER PINEAPPLE
in Swink)
She gave me her pineapple. Her pineapple. She gave it to me. It's mine now, but I still call it
her pineapple. Or sometimes I call it Charlene, after her. It's her name. She never gave it to
me, but she took mine in marriage and still uses it, so I'm using hers. For her pineapple, which
she gave to me.
I gave her everything. I gave her the car, the swimming pool, the house and everything in it.
I gave her my unbound love, and in the process, the seed for her daughter. Our daughter,
who is also named Charlene and who chose to stay with her mother because she had
everything, which I gave her, and I had nothing but the pineapple. Her pineapple, which she
didn't so much as give me as throw at me from the balcony outside our bedroom, which is
now her bedroom. But I caught the pineapple. I stopped it from splitting over my head, as
she'd intended, and I held on to it like an infant tossed from a burning orphanage, an infant
with jagged green hair and spiked skin that tore into my palms like stigmata, but one I learned
to love as my own because it was all I ever got from her.
The pineapple and I are going places now. We ride the Greyhounds. I cradle it in my lap.
Sometimes when it starts to feel heavy and there's an empty seat next to me, I'll set it there
and secure it under a safety belt. People look at me odd because nobody ever thinks to use
safety belts on Greyhounds. We're riding into the sunset. Charlene, the pineapple, seems
drawn in that direction.
One night, in a Super 8 motel just outside Charlotte, I try to explain to Charlene why we
can't be with Charlene, the woman I married, and Charlene, our daughter. I tell her
sometimes a woman isn't happy with her man. Sometimes a woman needs a boy, like the
pool boy who comes by twice a week to skim water and add chlorine. And sometimes when
you ask a woman why she needs such a boy in such a way, she becomes indignant.
Outraged, you could say. And she may never forgive you for it. Instead she may chase you
out of the house and then return to the bedroom balcony and launch a pineapple at your head
as you stand below pleading for her forgiveness.
You might wonder why she had a pineapple with her up there, and you might guess that it
came from the fruit basket that the pool boy delivered to her bedroom. And you might worry
for the poor grapes that somehow got crushed into stains on the bed sheets. Truth be told, I
would have preferred the grapes at that moment, for grapes have softer skins and are easier
to catch or deflect. But now I'm glad she threw her pineapple because I've learned to love
her tender and true.
Charlene doesn't want to talk about any of this. She rests on the pillow in stoic silence and
gazes at the weather report on TV. It promises clear days ahead for as far into the future as
they can see.
At the top of that great arch in St. Louis, we can see halfway to Oklahoma, and we realize
this is the point of no return, this being the Gateway to the West. I am tempted to turn my
gaze back east, but I don’t want to betray my regrets to Charlene. They are quickly
diminishing, anyway. She keeps my mind off the past and grows more stunning by the day.
Her colors beguile me. She shares the same hues of yellow and brown as a box turtle I
caught when I was young. I named that turtle Marla and sheltered her in my hamper for three
days and nights before concluding that she was too beautiful to keep, that I had to let her go.
I am all too aware of Charlene's resonant beauty. I can't ignore her succulent charm. Some
people fail to recognize the inherent exoticism of pineapples. They forget that a pineapple
was once a gift worthy of a king. Charles II loved his pineapple so much he posed with it in
his official portrait. You can see him standing there with his wrist on his hip, trying so hard to
look nonchalant as his royal gardener, on bended knee as though proposing, offers up the
prickly fruit. Charles II seems hardly paying mind to anything. Not to the gardener nor the
offering nor the little yappy dogs at his feet. Except there's his right hand reaching out, almost
trembling, honing in on the precious gift. And there's that glint in his eye, a slight reflection of
the young bud he is about to receive. Now people just as soon grind one up with some rum
or stick it on a glazed ham. They don't always recognize the complex nature and expressions
of a young ripe pineapple.
I see the way they notice Charlene, though. Some days she's perky, with all her tips erect.
Some days she's fiery, almost explosive, like a grenade fixing to blow. Oh and she's sultry
when she pouts. That's what people notice at the theater in Kansas City after we get caught
in the rain. I laughed and skipped down the sidewalk, all the while trying to shield her under
my jacket. But we both got soaked, and now she's dripping all over the lobby, and
everybody just stops and stares like she's the feature presentation. I just want to take her in
my arms and tell them all she's mine. But she's not. Not mine, really.
Two days later, in a steakhouse in Amarillo, a trucker comments on how big Charlene is.
That's a mighty big pineapple, he says, even for Texas. I don't know whether to swell with
pride or chastise him for eyeballing Charlene. Maybe I'm getting a little reckless here, not
shielding her enough from the roughness in the world. She's tough in her own way, but she's
still young, too.
I want to take her to a tamer place, someplace soft, a town completely void of sharp corners
and hard edges. I think that place is Santa Fe. I know it is when I see all the old folks there
and how they can ramble around in massive hats without fear of persecution. And nobody
ogles Charlene, nobody gives us a second look when I walk her though the Palace of the
Governors. We're safe here, I can feel it. Charlene and I shop for dreamcatchers and
turquoise necklaces. We meet Indians in the plaza. Real Indians. We visit a museum that
displays the work of an artist so wonderful they named the whole museum after her: the
Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, like it's her museum.
Georgia O'Keeffe was this lady who in the time of the Great Depression painted obscenely
pretty pictures of flowers and bones. The Dole Pineapple Company loved her work so much
they invited her to Hawaii to enhance their product image. Sex it up, as they say. She
accepted their offer and their money, then painted much of Hawaii--its roads, valleys, and
waterfalls. Yet much to the chagrin of the good people at the pineapple company, she didn't
pay much mind to pineapples. It's cruel, I know. They gave her everything, and all they
wanted in return was a pineapple, her pineapple, but she wouldn't give it to them.
A pineapple in an O'Keeffe picture is indeed a rare and beautiful sight. If you visit the
O'Keeffe Museum on special days, you can witness for yourself her vision of a pineapple
plantation. It is a marvel in tropical lust, with pineapples perched about the emerald hills on a
paradisiacal isle. They look so happy, so free. So seductive. Charlene is smitten. She gazes
as though blinded by a glimpse of heaven. I know now where this journey is taking her.
I should warn her. I should tell her what they do to pineapples on pineapple plantations.
They'll shave off her spiky hair. They'll tear off her abrasive skin. They'll cut out her tough
core and slice her into rings. But I'm afraid I don’t know how I can explain that to her. I want
to keep her here with me, forever, but I don't own her, can't tell her what to do. So I let her
go, and there's no way to explain why I can’t follow. I just have to let her go out on her own.
##
by Stephen Ausherman
(an earlier incarnation of this story appeared as
SHE GAVE ME HER PINEAPPLE
in Swink)
She gave me her pineapple. Her pineapple. She gave it to me. It's mine now, but I still call it
her pineapple. Or sometimes I call it Charlene, after her. It's her name. She never gave it to
me, but she took mine in marriage and still uses it, so I'm using hers. For her pineapple, which
she gave to me.
I gave her everything. I gave her the car, the swimming pool, the house and everything in it.
I gave her my unbound love, and in the process, the seed for her daughter. Our daughter,
who is also named Charlene and who chose to stay with her mother because she had
everything, which I gave her, and I had nothing but the pineapple. Her pineapple, which she
didn't so much as give me as throw at me from the balcony outside our bedroom, which is
now her bedroom. But I caught the pineapple. I stopped it from splitting over my head, as
she'd intended, and I held on to it like an infant tossed from a burning orphanage, an infant
with jagged green hair and spiked skin that tore into my palms like stigmata, but one I learned
to love as my own because it was all I ever got from her.
The pineapple and I are going places now. We ride the Greyhounds. I cradle it in my lap.
Sometimes when it starts to feel heavy and there's an empty seat next to me, I'll set it there
and secure it under a safety belt. People look at me odd because nobody ever thinks to use
safety belts on Greyhounds. We're riding into the sunset. Charlene, the pineapple, seems
drawn in that direction.
One night, in a Super 8 motel just outside Charlotte, I try to explain to Charlene why we
can't be with Charlene, the woman I married, and Charlene, our daughter. I tell her
sometimes a woman isn't happy with her man. Sometimes a woman needs a boy, like the
pool boy who comes by twice a week to skim water and add chlorine. And sometimes when
you ask a woman why she needs such a boy in such a way, she becomes indignant.
Outraged, you could say. And she may never forgive you for it. Instead she may chase you
out of the house and then return to the bedroom balcony and launch a pineapple at your head
as you stand below pleading for her forgiveness.
You might wonder why she had a pineapple with her up there, and you might guess that it
came from the fruit basket that the pool boy delivered to her bedroom. And you might worry
for the poor grapes that somehow got crushed into stains on the bed sheets. Truth be told, I
would have preferred the grapes at that moment, for grapes have softer skins and are easier
to catch or deflect. But now I'm glad she threw her pineapple because I've learned to love
her tender and true.
Charlene doesn't want to talk about any of this. She rests on the pillow in stoic silence and
gazes at the weather report on TV. It promises clear days ahead for as far into the future as
they can see.
At the top of that great arch in St. Louis, we can see halfway to Oklahoma, and we realize
this is the point of no return, this being the Gateway to the West. I am tempted to turn my
gaze back east, but I don’t want to betray my regrets to Charlene. They are quickly
diminishing, anyway. She keeps my mind off the past and grows more stunning by the day.
Her colors beguile me. She shares the same hues of yellow and brown as a box turtle I
caught when I was young. I named that turtle Marla and sheltered her in my hamper for three
days and nights before concluding that she was too beautiful to keep, that I had to let her go.
I am all too aware of Charlene's resonant beauty. I can't ignore her succulent charm. Some
people fail to recognize the inherent exoticism of pineapples. They forget that a pineapple
was once a gift worthy of a king. Charles II loved his pineapple so much he posed with it in
his official portrait. You can see him standing there with his wrist on his hip, trying so hard to
look nonchalant as his royal gardener, on bended knee as though proposing, offers up the
prickly fruit. Charles II seems hardly paying mind to anything. Not to the gardener nor the
offering nor the little yappy dogs at his feet. Except there's his right hand reaching out, almost
trembling, honing in on the precious gift. And there's that glint in his eye, a slight reflection of
the young bud he is about to receive. Now people just as soon grind one up with some rum
or stick it on a glazed ham. They don't always recognize the complex nature and expressions
of a young ripe pineapple.
I see the way they notice Charlene, though. Some days she's perky, with all her tips erect.
Some days she's fiery, almost explosive, like a grenade fixing to blow. Oh and she's sultry
when she pouts. That's what people notice at the theater in Kansas City after we get caught
in the rain. I laughed and skipped down the sidewalk, all the while trying to shield her under
my jacket. But we both got soaked, and now she's dripping all over the lobby, and
everybody just stops and stares like she's the feature presentation. I just want to take her in
my arms and tell them all she's mine. But she's not. Not mine, really.
Two days later, in a steakhouse in Amarillo, a trucker comments on how big Charlene is.
That's a mighty big pineapple, he says, even for Texas. I don't know whether to swell with
pride or chastise him for eyeballing Charlene. Maybe I'm getting a little reckless here, not
shielding her enough from the roughness in the world. She's tough in her own way, but she's
still young, too.
I want to take her to a tamer place, someplace soft, a town completely void of sharp corners
and hard edges. I think that place is Santa Fe. I know it is when I see all the old folks there
and how they can ramble around in massive hats without fear of persecution. And nobody
ogles Charlene, nobody gives us a second look when I walk her though the Palace of the
Governors. We're safe here, I can feel it. Charlene and I shop for dreamcatchers and
turquoise necklaces. We meet Indians in the plaza. Real Indians. We visit a museum that
displays the work of an artist so wonderful they named the whole museum after her: the
Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, like it's her museum.
Georgia O'Keeffe was this lady who in the time of the Great Depression painted obscenely
pretty pictures of flowers and bones. The Dole Pineapple Company loved her work so much
they invited her to Hawaii to enhance their product image. Sex it up, as they say. She
accepted their offer and their money, then painted much of Hawaii--its roads, valleys, and
waterfalls. Yet much to the chagrin of the good people at the pineapple company, she didn't
pay much mind to pineapples. It's cruel, I know. They gave her everything, and all they
wanted in return was a pineapple, her pineapple, but she wouldn't give it to them.
A pineapple in an O'Keeffe picture is indeed a rare and beautiful sight. If you visit the
O'Keeffe Museum on special days, you can witness for yourself her vision of a pineapple
plantation. It is a marvel in tropical lust, with pineapples perched about the emerald hills on a
paradisiacal isle. They look so happy, so free. So seductive. Charlene is smitten. She gazes
as though blinded by a glimpse of heaven. I know now where this journey is taking her.
I should warn her. I should tell her what they do to pineapples on pineapple plantations.
They'll shave off her spiky hair. They'll tear off her abrasive skin. They'll cut out her tough
core and slice her into rings. But I'm afraid I don’t know how I can explain that to her. I want
to keep her here with me, forever, but I don't own her, can't tell her what to do. So I let her
go, and there's no way to explain why I can’t follow. I just have to let her go out on her own.
##
AUSHERMAN'S CONTRIBUTION TO
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