EcoTheo Review, Winter 2023
We traveled along the ribbon of coastal highway when we turned in toward a remote area near the mountains. I figured this is where John Henry would end it for us. My mother, Rose, and her need to be with gangsters would finally do us in. John Henry was playing cool while he duped his probation officer, mom, and me. When he had us far away, this is where he would strike. My body buoyed on the van’s floor, my paperback hard in my hands —The horrible thought she had was that the house she remembered was in Tennessee.
“Bex!” Rose said, and I jumped. “Look!”
From the driver’s seat, John Henry pointed to majesty.
“The Coast Redwood. These trees came to our world from deep time,” he said. “Sequoia Sempervirens — Always Flourishing Green or Everlasting.”
We followed behind on the needled path. Way ahead, John Henry carried an old dog of a saw, a pick hammer, and a pry bar. I was supposed to be dead already. Rose had done her best while I was still in the womb with the umbilical cord wrapped around my throat, so here I was, at the forest entrance, steeling myself for a possible second try. This time at the hands of some guy just let out of prison Rose fell for while pen-palling. We had come up with John Henry to revisit his old ways of making some cash. This meant making live tables, wood crafted into artisan furniture to sell on the streets.