Picking Cherries with Batman

Back from one of his summer explorations, Adrian yelled, “Leland, get the bucket!” 

At nine I still aspired to be my brother’s side kick–Robin to his Batman–but at sixteen he didn’t play Batman anymore.  He seemed most interested in bossing me around.  “Leland, get the bucket!  Come on!” 

“Where’s the bucket?”  

“In the basement, get it and wait, I’m going in a minute.  You wait right here.” 

Sitting on the bucket, I had waited no more than three or four minutes when Adrian returned slamming the screen door and wiping drips of water from his chin.  “Follow me!”  

Peck bucket in hand, I followed as fast as I could down to the railroad track.  Adrian walked a fast pace stepping three cross-ties at a time.  I tried walking the ties, then ran beside the rocks, trying to keep up.  

Soon we turned off the railroad, up and embankment, and across a road.  Adrian, well ahead of me, was halfway across an old field grown up with brush and brambles. I struggled through, the bucket catching on branches in my sweaty hand.  

In front of an overgrown fence, Adrian stopped, panting for breath he said, “Look at that!”  

Before us was a wonder: A giant cherry tree with branches drooping down, the weight of the fruit pulling them so low a kid could easily pick from the ground. We climbed the fence and began eating cherries and picking cherries, and dropping handfuls of cherries in the bucket.  But Adrian kept looking up, “I’m gonna climb the tree.”  

“Why’re you gonna climb the tree?  There’s cherries here.” 

“To throw branches down.”   

 “You don’t need to climb, Adrian, there’s plenty here.”  We were surrounded by leaves and cherries.  

Full of excitement, Adrian repeated, “I’m gonna climb the tree,” and pulling off his sweaty tee-shirt, he started pulling himself up with the vines on the tree.  He climbed and talked and began throwing branches to the ground.  As I picked the plump red fruit, Adrian climbed out on big limbs, cracked smaller limbs and threw them down.  I was picking fast.  

Watching Adrian in the tree and me picking on the ground, made me think about Batman. “Hey Adrian, this is like Batman and Robin.” 

“Shut up about Batman, Leland.”  Adrian climbed even higher until he was near the top of the tree.  He made the tree top sway back and forth, and he kept going on about how far he could see.    

With lots of branches on the ground, Adrian finally came down and helped top off the bucket I had mostly filled.  We had a treasure!  We had picked blackberries and dewberries before and filled little lard buckets, but nothing like this.  

The bucket full, we beat it back home, walking fast, with visions of having cherries any time we wanted, of big cherry pies, of fried cherry pies, of selling cherries, of going back to this bountiful tree, of never ever wanting for cherries. 

Back home, our mother in her apron was surprised at her two overexcited, hot, sweaty boys and a bucket full of fruit.  “Why, they’re beautiful!” Wiping her hands on her apron she took the bucket.  “Where did you get all these?” 

Adrian replied, “In a tree down the railroad, it’s full! 

“Full!,” I said, repeating my brother, “We can go back and get more!  All you want, mama! There’s so many!” 

“Yes, but exactly where did you get them?” 

“Down the railroad.  The tree is loaded with cherries.”  

“Yes, I understand ‘down the railroad’—here’s two glasses of water.  Both you boys sit down, cool off, and tell me exactly where ‘down the railroad’ you picked these cherries” 

“Adrian found it,” I said, “in an old field, all covered with weeds bushes and vines and stuff.  Almost in the woods.  Adrian found it.  We can take you there.”  

“No, I don’t want you to take me there, I want you to tell me where it is.”  

Clearly mama didn’t understand, we could get all the cherries she could want, yet she kept asking exactly where.  Finally, we explained. 

Mother looked at us thoughtfully, “Boys, these cherries came from Mrs. Crews’ land, and that’s her cherry tree.  

“But mama,” I said, “it’s all grown up with bushes and vines.”

Adrian argued, “Its almost in the woods.  Nobody’s picking ‘em.” 

“Yes, it’s like a wild, wild tree mama,” I added. 

“Boys, listen. Mrs. Crews is older, and her husband’s dead.  She can’t pick cherries, and she has no one to pick them for her.  You have to go down to her house and offer her the cherries.  After all, they’re her cherries.” 

Adrian started to argue more, but mama cut him short, “You have to take her some cherries.”  Then she pulled out the Scout Law, mama was big on pulling out the Scout Law. “Remember, ‘A Scout is Honest.’ And, this can be your Good Turn for the day.” 

I thought, “I’m not even old enough to be a Boy Scout.” 

We finished our water and sat, deflated.  

“Go on,” she said, “it’s best to go ahead and do it.”  

Adrian grabbed up the bucket and said, “Come on, Leland.”   

Walking along the railroad, Adrian talked, “She probably won’t take many.  Just one old lady by herself, and we picked ‘em for her.  She’ll probably take enough to eat some today and maybe for a pie or two.  Old people like it when boys come telling the truth.  But remember Leland, if she’s fat, don’t say anything about it.  People don’t like if you see they’re fat.” 

I trudged behind, looking at the cherries, and listening.  I never said anybody was fat.    

He kept talking.  Adrian was good at talking.  And, by the time we found the drive into the Crews’ farm, we were both convinced that Mrs. Crews would be generous with the cherries, and when she opened the door to our knock, she smiled and looked kind.  

We explained about the cherries, and she said, “Well come in you two, aren’t you sweet to pick and bring me these cherries.  My husband and I used to pick that tree.  He planted it just after we were married.  It’s been a good tree.”  

We followed Mrs. Crews into her kitchen, where we expected milk and cookies, or may be lemonade, it being so hot.  We were doing the right thing, giving her a share of the cherries.  She reminded me of our grandmother, and it was beginning to feel good.   

Still talking about the cherry tree, Mrs. Crews reached in a lower cabinet and pulled out a large milk pan.  She held out her hand, and Adrian handed her the bucket.  Then, to our dismay, she dumped the whole bucket into the pan.  

Looking at us, she asked, “Did you boys keep enough for your mother to make you two boys a nice pie?”

“No,” we mumbled together, staring at the milk pan now full of our bucket of cherries.  

“Well here, let me get you out enough for a pie,” and she picked up a couple of double handfuls and returned them to the bucket. They barely covered the bottom.   

Our trip back was long and hot, and Adrian was in a foul mood.  He didn’t talk, and I didn’t listen.  Instead I picked up railroad gravel and threw them as hard as I could at trees and down at the railroad ties. I wanted to throw some at Adrian. The ugly smell of hot creosote from the railroad ties made the day seem even hotter and the walk even longer.  The afternoon sun beat down and you could see heat waves rising from the ties.  Finally, we were home. Adrian went in and slammed the door. Angry and tired, I went to sit at the trunk of a big oak tree in the yard. 

  I suppose that evening, or the next day our mother made a pie of those cherries.  I don’t remember.  Mother said doing the right thing would make us feel good, but Adrian I didn’t feel good that night, and the next day we felt even worse.  

At breakfast, both of us were scratching.  By noon we were miserable. The red rash of poison ivy covered our hands, arms, chests, and Adrian even had it on his back and lower legs.  We were told not to scratch, but we couldn’t resist. This was a wicked first for us.  We knew about poison ivy, but we had never had it, at least not until then.  For days we stayed mostly indoors, away as much as we could be from the summer heat and the sweat that made the itching even worse.  Mother gave us pink calamine, and we slathered it on our bodies several times a day.  There was nothing else to do but wait it out—two long weeks.  A few years later when The Coasters turned out the hit song, Poison Ivy, I had no trouble understanding the need for “an ocean of calamine lotion.”  

It was at least two years after the disappointing cherry picking that I began to fully recognize the seriousness of my brother’s physical and mental limitations.  He had been set back in the early grades, so although seven years older, he was only four years ahead of me in school.  My mother, in loving desperation, referred to my brother as being “a little retarded,” and she worked diligently with him on homework he could never understand.  She believed he would get better.  He never did.  As an adult, he rode a motor scooter and worked hard jobs that were hot and paid little.  At the age of twenty-eight he had the first of his paranoid delusions that resulted in his being institutionalized for the rest of his life.  He lived a long time, dying at 76 from his third bout of pneumonia in less than a year.  And as I knew him better than anyone in the world, I can testify that in the end my big brother, my first model in life, did not give up life easy. 

This summer it will have been seventy years since Adrian and I climbed over the fence to gather those cherries, and I can still feel the excitement my brother shared as he led me to that cherry tree, and as he swayed back and forth in the top.  I still remember the juicy sweet taste of plump cherries.  Cherries still taste like summer to me.  Of course, we forfeited the bucket of fruit and we suffered poison ivy, but we did do a good deed, and for years I have had a story to tell.  Also. I have the treasured memory of a summer adventure with my excitable, indomitable brother—Batman.