A Tight Grain and A Rich Stain

I pushed the sturdy wooden chair back from the table as slowly and quietly as I could manage, yet somehow my mother still heard and poked her head into the dining room. “Is your breakfast done?” 

“Almost,” I replied, shoveling eggs into my mouth, leaning far enough forward to not make a mess, “done! Can I go out and say good morning to dad now?” 

“If you’re really done,” she offered with a smile in a tone of mock severity. My parents enjoyed making it seem as though they ran a disciplined and structured home. However, we all understood that I made most of my own decisions. Most. 

I jumped off my chair and ran through the dining room, kitchen, and out the screen door letting it fall closed and bounce against its frame, well behind me. The neighbors’ chickens scattered as I ran through them as they cleaned the bugs out of our lawn. I vaulted the wagon in the driveway I promised every week to pull back to the garage. I ran right to the door of my dad’s shop near the edge of the vast woods behind our house. I threw open the door and burst in, “good morning, dad!” I yelled. 

He never broke concentration, an enormous, razor sharp piece of steel in his thick rough hands crafting perfect and delicate features into a rapidly spinning hardwood table leg. “Good morning, young Daniel,” he said warmly through the flying shavings. 

“What’cha working on?” I asked, less from not understanding the scene and more for the inevitable invitation.  

“Oh,” he started slowly, allowing time for his brain to concentrate on both tasks, and possibly build suspense, “I’m jus’ worrying away at this last leg for the sideboard for Mr. Simmons.” All noise ceased save the whir of the lathe and the scrape of metal on wood. I waited, he was testing my patience, I knew he was, but waiting never came easily. Eventually, “You wanna come over here and shave off a few turns?’ 

Grinning, I ran over and dragged out a small step stool so I could get up to the correct height. My father handed me the gouge and set my hand upon it. I marveled at the differences between our hands. Mine was so small and smooth pink compared to his. 

“Hold this tight by the handle and tighter near the blade. That piece of wood is turning ungodly fast and you need to control the gouge like it’s an animal that wants to bite you.” He guided my hands and the tool toward the wood and before I knew it a thin shaving of light wood spun gracefully off, for a moment I watched it turn in the air, morning light filtering through the grain. “That’s right,” he assured me. I continued to work the wood as he guided my hand. 

Entranced by the process I failed to register the tires on the gravel driveway. When Mr. Entwistle crashed in with a boisterous salutation I started, the gouge slipped and ran up the spinning leg nearly ten inches, goring a shaking swirl into the existent designs. My father grabbed and controlled the gouge before it could skip off a feature and stick anyone and turned off the lathe in one fluid motion. 

As the piece of wood slowed to a stop, I saw clearly the terrible channel I dug into the item my father had been carving so beautifully. I felt tears weighing on my eyelids, my chin grew weak, and great heaving sobs clawed their way up my throat. He said nothing of it. “Hey there Hank,” He greeted Mr. Entwistle, “I had a feeling you would be stopping by today. Rocking chair is just in the corner over here.” He shook Mr. Entwistle’s hand and lead him across the expansive woodshop, their boots left barely noticeable prints in the thin film of sawdust. I watched their feet because I did not want these two men to see me about to cry. 

Mr. Entwistle let out a long whistle, “Well, that is a beautiful goddamned chair Tom,” He said, pulling a wallet out of a pair of loose-fitting jeans, “How much do I owe ya?” 

My father pulled a tiny notebook from his shirt pocket, along with an even smaller pair of reading glasses. He licked a thumb and turned a few pages, “Looks like four-hundred and fifty.” 

“Jeez, that much? Did I agree to that?” Mr. Entwistle made a show of looking over the chair. It was a high-backed cherry rocking chair, nothing special in adornments save the Entwistle coat of arms carved into it. “Will ya take three twenty-five.” 

“Price is firm Hank,” my father’s eyes peered over his lenses, the smile that played over his lips did nothing to soften that look. 

“Well, it is a beautiful chair,” Mr. Entwistle chuckled, counting out the tattered bills in his old leather wallet. He handed over a handful and my father put them in his pocket without counting. He then lifted the chair and followed Mr. Entwistle to his truck, securing it on its side in the bed. I watched the men shake hands from the window, my apprehension growing as my father turned on a heel and strode back to the shop. 

I made myself small, stayed quiet. He walked to the lathe, removed the unfinished and critically marred leg, looking it over carefully, “looks like we’ll need another piece of maple if I’m gonna get this sideboard done.” He set a hand upon my shoulder as he walked passed, leaning on the wall next to the door was his large old ax and saw. The former he lifted with ease and let fall gently to his shoulder. The latter, he held out the me, with a quick jerk of his head motioning outside. 

With that gesture, I could breathe anew. I walked quickly to him and slung the bow saw over my shoulder and we both stepped into the sun. 

We rounded the shop and angled toward the woods. My heart was racing. I knew the speech that was coming, I had heard it nearly a dozen times before, yet, the thrill was not lost. 

Clearing his throat, my father started slowly, “you know, Daniel, these woods have been good to me, good to our family. The wood from these trees keep us warm in the winter. And I can harvest it to make the furniture that I sell to keep food in our bellies. But,” at this point his voice dropped deliberately, predictably, “You need to remember, you should never go into these woods without me.” this statement was expertly timed with our passing from the grassy lawn onto the leave strewn overgrowth of the woods. “You see,” he continued gravely, “monsters live here. But you’re safe with me because they are afraid of me. They have seen how clever I am, and they know how hard I can swing my ax.” He tapped the wooden handle with his left hand and smiled at me. 

Those days, walking through the woods with my dad, my mind would show me large, dark figures moving furtively between the trees in the distance. Angry eyes peering down on us from presumably safe distances. “What do the monsters look like dad?” 

“Well, I ain’t seen one up close in a long while,” he mused, looking up at the branches of the tall trees surrounding us, “but they were real ugly back when I first fought ‘em. They looked mean, but soft from so many years picking on little kids and squirrels.” 

I walked a little closer to him. We eventually found a maple tree with a thick straight branch he thought would work nicely for the last leg. He said he thought the saw would work as well as the axe and he boosted me up to a low branch, I climbed a little and cut down the one we needed. He stripped the offshoots with the ax as I climbed down and then he caught me with ease for the last ten feet. I helped him drag it out. He cut a good length and baked it in the kiln, fed it through the portable mill, and set to work shaping it. I watched, nervous to help again. I was called into lunch by the time he was ready to finish it so next time I was out there it was part of the completed sideboard. 

Many days like this passed. I got a little better at woodworking as I grew up, never as good as my dad. But I did not need to be. My passions shifted a lot as I grew, in college I settled on law then in a city nearly two hours' flight from home.  

I was almost six months into my first real job as an attorney when I got the call. It was mom, I knew from her voice that something terrible had happened. She could not fully form the words that my father had died.  

I booked a flight for that night and was walking through my old front door a little before midnight. My mother was asleep on the couch and I settled into the big recliner across from her. I was awakened by a beam of sunlight drifting over my eyelids and the smell of bacon and eggs cooking. I walked into the kitchen where my mom was busy preparing a very large breakfast, “morning hun,” she said keeping her back to me. 

“Mom,” I said simply, unsure what else I could say. I turned her toward me and hugged her. She went limp, she felt so small in my arms, sobbing into my chest. She was always so much larger than life until now. 

We stayed like that until the eggs started smelling decidedly burnt. Then, as if a switch was flipped, she disengaged, fixed her hair and returned to what she was doing.  

The large breakfast made sense when the sea of neighbors and old customers started showing up. I was friendly and social to a point, but my mother took over those duties pretty completely and I took the opportunity to sneak out back. 

I walked very slowly to the old woodshop, the paint looked a little rough, and the door seemed to sit on the frame a little crooked. I stepped carefully inside and breathed deeply of the sawdust flavored air. The space barely looked different from when I was a boy. The band saw was new, and the clamps were no longer organized by length, many were not even put back, but it still felt the same, it felt like him. 

I almost left at that first impression. It was too much and I felt myself, for the second time in my life, about to cry in the woodshop. Almost. As I glanced around, I noticed a few small shaped sticks on a work bench. I walked over to inspect them. They were the disassembled base to a side table. His scrawled plans were next to them. I thought to myself, my father would hate to know that this last project was left unfinished. I attached the legs and base to one another, according to his instructions, and looked around for the top. I found it, in the scrap bin, with a big stress crack through the top surface. Nothing else available in the shop was the correct species or size. Shaking my head, I took the bow saw from next to the door, the ax nowhere to be seen, and headed outside. 

Just before the woods, I paused. The overgrowth at the edge was matted down, probably where they found him, unresponsive. Heart attack they said. He was old, but always so healthy, I couldn’t believe his heart could give out. I sighed a deep sigh and walked into the deep tree cover. 

I walked the familiar path, looking for the perfect oak from which to harvest the pieces to a top of a table commissioned by someone who was unlikely to come around looking for it. I was not sure what I was thinking. Nearly ten minutes into a fraught reverie something unusual caught my eye. A short walk off the worn path, sticking out of a tree, my father’s old ax. 

I approached it, almost reverently. I took it in both hands and wrenched it from the thick pine trunk. The blade was warped from so much sharpening but it was still like a razor. I turned back to the path and took one step in that direction before freezing. 

An enormous form crept menacingly onto the path from behind a tree. It had lean, long limbs and mean, angry eyes. Patchy, matted fur barely covered its sinewy musculature. I froze, my legs went numb, my fingers cold. It snarled, I swear it smiled, thick strands of saliva dripped over its great yellow teeth and fangs and boney chin. 

Its deliberate step in my direction drove some sensibility into my legs and I turned in the general direction of the house and ran. I dodged limbs and leapt over felled trees. I heard crashing behind me, then, it was like my chest exploded. I was sent sprawling onto my back, on roots and stick and rocks. However, that pain failed to register, as a grotesque, simian thing with twisted features and jagged claws danced around me, throwing its bony head against tree trunks and seemingly laughing all the while. 

I scrambled quickly to my feet, remembering the ax, still in my hands, I swung it, ineffectively. The blade dug up a little dirt inches from where the thing was when I started the swing. But it bought me some space, which I needed because my huge pursuer was nearly upon me. Grip tight, eye clenched, ax extended I spun, I connected with something that yielded ever so slightly. I opened my eyes when it bellowed. It stepped back, and the tool buried in its leg went with, tearing out of my hands, the smooth wood did not leave me with any splinters, though it did burn. With the monsters distracted, I ran again. My heart beating in my ears, my emergence into the open air of the lawn was quite sudden. I put a few hundred feet between me and the edge of the woods before turning around. I stared at where I came from, and for just a moment, I glimpsed two disparate figures stop abruptly before nearing the transition and slink back into the relative darkness. 

Sore and shaking slightly, I stepped back into the house on heavy tread. My mother looked at me, in my disheveled state, with alarm before saying, “your father told you not to go into the woods without him.” 

“Mom,” I said, considering her for a moment, sitting with an elderly Mr. And Mrs. Entwistle, sipping a tea, “Do we have another ax? I need to get some wood for a tabletop.”