THE MUSHROOM HUNTER

Rain for five days now. Been mostly inside, except to make sure the tarp is tight on the woodpile and the cabin’s gutters are clear. Jake doesn’t mind. He sleeps a lot these days, but then, so do I. Guess we’re both getting on.

It’s a cold, soaking October rain—kind that gets into your bone marrow and grows moss in your footprints overnight. The Big, Wet Dark. That’s what they call the fall up here, and these woods are about as big and dark as they can be. Aren’t many full-timers in Bridgeman Lake. Come September most folks head back to the city. Head back to their nine-to-fives, and all those neighbourhoods that cut down the trees then go and name the streets after ‘em.

Happens right after Labour Day—you see the RVs and campers bumper to bumper along Lake Road, all of them headed south. Most folks say the winters up here make ‘em stir crazy. Say the trees grow too thick—that nothing gets in but water. So they go. Suits me fine. I get tired of their ski boats, and fancy coffee demands down at Ginny’s cafe—can’t get a seat in there all summer because of all the city kids sucking up the WiFi—faces glued to their damn smartberries and electronic gizmos and what have you.

Been staying in bed longer than usual this week, just lying on my back and listening to the rain pummel the tin roof. Why not? When the weather clears, I’ll be in the woods at first light.

Come Thursday, I sweep out the cabin. Get to thinking it’s time to throw out the mushrooms, too—those damn turkey tails are just collecting dust on the windowsill. They’re pretty enough, with their wavy edges and those cinnamon-brown stripes. Been sitting in the window almost two years, hard as wood now. Still don’t know why I bothered to bring them home at all—kinda like closing the barn door after the horse is gone. Bet Celia is having the last laugh over that now. She always did have a dark sense of humour. I put the turkey tails in a box, but I still can’t throw them out.

***

Rain stops on Friday, and we head out at eight. The ground is spongy soft; full of water, and the air smells washed. It takes me a while to loosen up after being shut in all week, but not old Jake. He shoots out the cabin door like a bullet leaving a gun, and disappears into the bush. Seconds later I hear his bay. Most likely a rabbit—he never catches them but he sure as hell enjoys trying.

Mutt comes to life in the bush. Forgets about his arthritic hips and failing eyesight; is suddenly all nose. He puts his muzzle to the ground, and zigzags along the trail, drunk on scent. Must have some hound in him, though can’t say for certain. Found him at the dump last winter. He was scrounging garbage, skinny as a rake. That’s what I called him for the first few months till he got some meat on his bones: Jake the Rake. Anyway, I opened the truck door, and he jumped right on in. That was that. Been with me ever since. Never once thought about leaving, either.

By the time I reach Bonanza Ridge I’ve worked the kinks out of my knees, and my breathing is regular. I could stop here, I guess, have a look around. It’s as good a spot as any, but I don’t. I keep moving. I like the act of putting one foot in front of the other; like the way my head empties out. It’s the only time I feel like I’ve outrun Celia—when I’m in the bush. Rest of the time I feel her pretty close—a big cloud full of shadow. And while it’s dark in these woods in October, those kinds of clouds don’t get in.

But there I go, thinking about Celia again. I guess sometimes she gets through anyway.

I stop. Have a smoke to calm my nerves. Old Jake sniffs my pocket. Waits for the milk bones he knows I keep there.

“Here you go, buddy.” I give him two. He pretty much swallows them whole.

I finish my smoke and take a swig of the sweet tea I have in my thermos. It’s that exotic smoky kind Celia liked to buy—Lapsang Soo-something-or-other—expensive stuff in a shiny green tin. Just tastes like campfires to me. I don’t know why I still drink it.

I keep walking. Head down the bluff a bit, then stop a little way down and sniff the air. Apricots. And butter. Folks don’t believe me when I say I can smell them; say I spend too much time with a scent hound, but I just shrug. I know what I know.

Sure enough, something gold catches my eye—a flash of amber near some big firs on my right. I find them half-hidden under a thick carpet of moss. See the trumpet-shaped caps with their wavy, rounded edges—first one, then four more, then too many to count.

I kick aside some decaying leaves from a neighbouring stand of alders, then peel back a little of the thick moss carpet. Jake runs over, but I push him away. Damn dog still isn’t mushroom savvy.

“Go on,” I bark, and he goes. He knows how I get. Doesn’t take it personally.

I shake out my bag. It’s nothing special—an old mesh onion sack. Not like the ones the hipsters carry—fancy “fungi-friendly” bags bought from those overpriced gluten-free stores in the village.

I bend over. Pick a few choice ones—ten, maybe twelve. No more than that. I don’t clear-cut the way some of the other pickers do. Picker. That’s funny. I’m hardly that. I like the search more than the find. Kind of like a treasure hunt. And these gems are elusive little buggers. Often come home empty-handed. You gotta keep your senses sharp to spot them, but they trick you every year. Always seem to come back somewhere different. Least they do around here.

Guess I could pick with more heart. Make a few bucks. Restaurants in town pay good money for local chanterelles. That’s the reason for the gold rush up here every fall. But I’ll never do it. I just like being in the woods, under the trees, away from the clouds. If I come home with gold for dinner, then damn it; it’s been a good day.

Celia used to say I spent too much time on my own. That it wasn’t good for me. Said I oughta join a club. What kind of club, I asked her. I dunno, she said, why not a men’s walking club. Well, let me tell you, I pretty much laughed her out of the room with that one. Men's walking club. Would probably end up being a bunch of middle-aged guys talking about retirement funds and the fact none of us can get it up real good anymore. Never much was one for talk. Overrated, if you ask me. But Celia meant well. She always did.

She used to joke I’d end up some wild mountain man if she weren't around to see I kept a foot in the real world. Guess maybe she was right. Then again, guess it all depends on what your definition of the real world is. Way I see it, doesn’t get much realer than these woods.

I set the bag down on the ground and walk over to sit on what’s left of an old felled big leaf maple. Its trunk is mostly rotted, saturated with moisture. Don’t matter. I’m used to damp.

And then I see them—a straight row of turkey tails growing along the side of the trunk. I shake my head. Celia used to make fun of me and my mushrooms. You’re such a fungi to be with, Ben, she’d say. You’re gonna turn into a mushroom if you don’t get out into the light once and a while. It’s just not healthy. Not healthy. But here I am, and here she isn’t.

I stare at the turkey tails, and my eye twitches. Back near the end, I’d found an article about them in a TIME magazine at the hospital about a 7-year study. Learned the damn things boosted immunity in women with stage III breast cancer. I went out the next day, and the days that followed—Hell, I’d have howled at the moon every goddamn night if I thought it could have done some good—but I came home empty-handed every time. Stupid thing is, right after, they were everywhere.

You’re late to the party, I say under my breath, something Celia used to say to me all the time. I was never on time. Not even at the beginning. She’d tap her watch, back when we still wore them, and hold her head to one side, her auburn curls clinging tight to the side of her face. Later, those same curls would be flecked with grey. “Damn it, Ben. Next time I’m not gonna wait.” But she’d wait. She always did. Until she didn’t.

I’d stopped at the grocery store on my way to the hospital for lemon tarts—her favourite. I knew she couldn’t eat them. She couldn’t eat anything by then, but I needed to buy them just the same. I wanted to walk into that hospital room and see her laughing green eyes and talk with her about how the neighbour’s well had gone dry and how the new Tim Horton’s over on Lampson Street was supposed to open in just another week or two. I wanted to talk about nothing and drink that god-awful smoky tea she loved so much and share a goddam lemon tart with her. But we didn’t do any of those things. By the time I got there, she was gone.

“She finally got tired of waiting,” I tell Jake, who looks at me in that particular way only a good dog can. Then I stand up and kick every single one of those turkey tails off the rotting maple. I kick them clear across the ground then stomp on them until they’re nothing more than pulp.

END