In this excerpt from King Mai by
Edmond Manning, the sequel to King Perry, Illinois
This scene takes place Saturday morning. Mai and Vin have spent Friday night elsewhere
and now return to Mai’s farm around 10:00 AM . As the first-person narrator,
Vin has been whispering his unique love into Mai’s heart and soul through
stories about a land filled with kings…
King Mai
Pickwick Ink Publications (July 15,
2013 )
ASIN: B00DXMVCO0
Excerpt:
I nudge my truck into his driveway, the Kearns ’ farmhouse down there on
the left, the dilapidated barns bashfully hiding behind it. No suspicious cars
in the driveway or yard, I’m delighted to see. Or not see. Flattened grass, but
it’s subtle. He won’t notice that. I pull into the grass and park a good
distance from the house. He doesn’t even ask why I don’t pull in further.
Instead, he pleads his case for easier treasure hunt clues. The laminated map
of DeKalb corn fields sits between us on the front seat. I should stash this in
my back pocket when he’s distracted. We may need this later.
As he argues, I allow my gaze to cross beyond him, and I frown, staring
hard. After a minute he recognizes I’m not listening and turns to peer over his
right shoulder, his gaze chasing mine.
Staring at the dead tree right off the cornfield where I emerged last
night, I ask, “Are those wasps?”
He stares for a moment, uncertain.
“What the fuck?” He wedges open the passenger door handle.
By the time he slams the truck door shut, he’s already striding hard
down the driveway and I race to catch his lead. I need to be at his side as he
discovers the truth.
My God. It’s beautiful.
The fluttering, bulky clouds of insects buzzing the dead tree are too
large to be wasps; that’s evident immediately. Kearns walks hard toward them
without knowing anything more. Oh God, I love this moment. I can’t tell if he’s
angry or if this is his fierce curiosity. Those two pugilists stand eye to eye,
poised to strike across an invisible but critical line. His head snaps toward
the house, then the barns, scanning everything in view. Where’s his mom? His dad?
How are they not out here?
We arrive.
He stops abruptly to gape, slack-jawed. I grin madly at the perfect
outdoor colors: the sky paints thick blue everywhere, the corn glows a primal
green, and the fat August sun polishes everything with a cheerful, vibrant
shine. In the foreground, our new friends’ orange and black wings fold
incessantly upon themselves—orange and black, orange and black, orange and
black.
“Monarchs,” Mai says, his voice wavering. “Holy shit, holy shit.
These…hundreds.”
He turns to me and tears pour from him instantly, brain censors still
jogging to catch up with his astonished delight. “Thousands, I think there must
be…” he says, the words vanishing like ghosts.
I gaze into the intangible orange and black webbing above us. They’re
so beautiful. “Not thousands.”
Later I will share my estimates, but to his credit, it’s awfully hard
to guess real numbers with the immense orange and black flittering and
fluttering, maybe four hundred or more. This massive cloud creates autumnal
foliage in an otherwise barren tree.
Mai stops his unconscious spinning while staring straight up. He levels
his head at me and now that gravity applies again, more tears leap down his face.
“I don’t understand.”
“Wait,” I say, gasping. “Is this a Butterfly
Tree?”
“How?” He says the word almost painfully, like the mere idea of asking
questions is physical and arduous.
Without words, I point to one of the three dozen watermelon wedges
dangling from the tree, the best bribe to keep butterflies close until
late-morning sunlight seduces them away. Within the next two hours, the numbers
will halve, then halve again. But it’s early enough they’re not quite ready to
explore the big world.
“Mom,” he says with a dazed confusion, looking toward the house. “Where
is she? How can she not…”
He crouches to study a few trunk-loving butterflies who choose to ride
the bark. Standing a moment or two later, he reaches into a lower-hanging
branch to mildly push the nearest watermelon with his index finger, creating an
amusement park ride for dozens of dizzy breakfast-eaters. He stares at the tree
with intense concentration for a full minute. Without looking at me, he says,
“You did this.”
I wait until he turns to me before I shrug. “You and I spent every
minute together since 6:00 p.m. last night. But if I were
to guess, this looks suspiciously like the work of the Butterfly King.”
He ignores me, walking around the tree, staring up into the dead
branches, taking steps back to peer higher. “I don’t understand. I—I have to
get my mom. She loves monarchs. I mean, really
loves them.”
“I know. You told me.”
The words have the effect I had hoped. Mai turns to face me, noticing
me as part of the landscape.
“When you were a kid, you and she agreed to help butterfly migration
researchers at NIU. For three summers, you two logged how many butterflies you
each witnessed every day, but she wouldn’t let you tag them as the researchers
requested. She couldn’t stand the notion of humans tagging a creature so pure
and full of grace.”
Mai doesn’t even flinch. “I told you that. I told you how I spent my
summers as a kid.” He wipes his arm across his face. “Son of a bitch.”
Oddly there’s no anger to this, no real recrimination.
Mai reaches into a nearby rind and rubs his finger against the fruit,
smearing it. He digs his nail into the red flesh until a gooey trail slicks his
finger to the knuckle, allowing him to entice two butterflies onto his finger.
“I have to get my mom,” Mai says, pleading.
“Wait, aren’t you curious about the Butterfly King?”
Through tears, he shoots me an exasperated look—“why are you fucking
with me?”—but the expression is replaced immediately with resignation. He looks
down and touches a slowly folding black-outlined wing, the very definition of
vulnerability married to intricacy.
“I have to get my folks, Vin,” he says without looking up. “Please.
This is…please.”
“The butterflies will stick around for another hour or two. There’s
time.”
I’m tempted to explain his parents have already seen this, but he’ll
know soon enough.
I say, “The Butterfly King lives in New York City Harlem , he patrols the night with
a wooden baseball bat, protecting those who cannot defend themselves. When he
protects what he loves, the Butterfly King is fierce and furious. Even in his
righteous anger, he carries the grace of these gentle creatures. On patrol, he
travels with other men who follow butterfly wisdom. They keep each other safe. Kearns , he knows how tough it is
to lead an army.”
Mai flinches at this last line but he can’t stop his eyes from chasing
the dazzling air show around us. The Halloween-themed flags twitter everywhere,
graceful, jerky movements as they bring a dead thing back to life.
One lands on my shoulder. Welcome,
little king. I even love the word butterfly.
It possesses a meandering quality much like the creature it describes.
But-ter-fly. But-ter-fly. On his finger, one glides away but a
new one settles in, a twin to the one who left.
With his free hand, Mai wipes his eyes. “We were together all night. I
woke up first.”
I remain quiet.
He asks, “Did he do this, the Butterfly King? Who’s helping you?”
I scrutinize the landscape, craning my neck to scan the cornfields and
the house. “I don’t see the Butterfly King. Yet this looks like his work. Best
not to get too attached to the outcome. Best to stay curious.”
“You just said it was him.”
“I said it might be him. May
not have been him personally, but his followers. I wonder what love he’s
sending you, Kearns , what assistance he wanted to give you this weekend.”
“So, he’s a real person?”
“Monday, use the Yahoo search engine and type these three words: butterfly plus king plus NYC. The New
York Post mentioned him a year or so ago wondering if he’s a myth. People in Harlem know his true identity. But
nobody shares his real name. He’s like Batman.”
Mai cringes and tears pop out again, a new rivulet pouring over the
still-fresh steam already there. I believe he would give anything to have a
secret identity, to be someone other than Mai Kearns, homosexual DeKalb farmer
of Thai descent. I’m sure he resented this life trapped in cornfields right up
until he realized he loved it, and what the fuck do you do when you hate the
life you love? Or love the life you hate? Very confusing.
I stare up and he instinctively follows my gaze.
“There’s an envelope up there,” he says.
A plain white envelope dangles from a branch but not low enough to jump
and grab. Climbing is required, exactly what I instructed.
Mai glances from the envelope to the tree trunk, presumably plotting a
route to the letter while avoiding dangling watermelon. I’m sure he wants to
disturb as few monarchs as possible. He may kill animals when necessary as a
farmer, but he loves life in all its forms. I know this is true. I listened to
his stories, the ones where he did not realize all that he revealed.
He leaps and grabs a first-tier branch, yanking himself off the ground
readily as if he climbs trees daily. A few extra butterflies dance harder,
shaken free and circling around the space where he used to stand, like one of
those cartoon clouds indicating speed. Mai’s a strong motherfucker, give him
that. He hoists himself higher with unconscious confidence in his own strength.
He cautiously brushes aside butterflies or waits for them to take flight before
he occupies their space.
While he’s distracted, I move beyond his vision and motion toward the
house with my full arms.
Come out. Come out!
The back door opens as Mai gets to the envelope. I instructed them to do
so silently, and I’m sure Mr. Blattner conveyed my pleading letter to Mai’s mom
when he and the crew appeared on her back porch early this morning. I am pleased
to not hear the screen door creak open. I wonder if his parents even noticed
someone replaced that old spring. I must mention that to Kearns tomorrow. We’ll laugh.
As he unties the string connecting the envelope to the branch, I make
one final sweeping gesture to confirm this is exactly the moment: come meet the king.
I cross again to stand on the ground in Mai’s vision again. Gotta keep
his back to the farmhouse.
I say, “Who is it addressed to? What is it?”
As his fingers unknot the string, he says, “Gimme a minute.”
“What’s it say? What do you suppose is inside? Is my name on the
envelope too?”
“Shut up, Mary,” he cries. “Give me a minute to concentrate.”
I babble the entire time he climbs down, forcing him into constant
conversation, sometimes warning him of nearby monarchs, saying, “Look, there’s
one by your foot, see it? See it? Careful with your foot.”
He drops to the ground a moment later and I stand right before him to
keep him focused on me, careful not to touch him too intimately. His mom and
dad now perch on the picnic table in the yard, and I don’t want to embarrass
Mai. Well, not any more than I already intend.
He opens the unaddressed envelope and unfolds the single sheet of
paper.
“Read it,” I say.
He reads it to himself and passes the paper to me, but I refuse to take
it. “Read it aloud.”
With a smirk, he does just that. “That
which haunts us will always find a way out. The wound will not heal unless
given witness. The shadow that follows us is the way in.”
I frown and nod when he finishes, stroking my chin with my thumb and
index finger, the classic thinker.
Mai says, “Vin, this is what I’m talking about your treasure hunt being
too hard. It’s too artsy, man. I don’t fucking know poetry.”
“How do you know this is a poem?”
“It’s centered and in italics,” he says, waving the paper at me. “Plus,
I’ve read your AOL page. You’re fruity for poetry. Your whole
Lost and Founds mythology reads like a fucking poem.”
“Ah, so you do know something
about poetry. I think you might be right. This wisdom sounds like the
thirteenth century mystical poet, Rumi. But why would the Butterfly King send a
Rumi poem as a clue? Read it again.”
Mai frowns at the paper. “Seriously, I’m not good with poetry. It’s not
one of my things.”
“Sure, sure. But I wonder what it means, this message.”
“Vin, I can’t—”
“The King of Curiosity would care,” I say in a relaxed manner.
Mai cringes and looks at the note again.
Nice—another good reveal. His constant refusal to engage, to choose
frustration and outright anger as his reaction betrays another of his Lost King
secrets. He’s afraid of trying and losing. Afraid he may not be good enough. I
want to squeeze him right now and tell him he’ll always be good enough.
However, I know that despite good intentions, pleasant affirmations can’t make
that true for him if he doesn’t believe it first.
“I mean, the King of Curiosity wasn’t fascinated by everything in the world, but he did
enjoy wondering about new things to see if they shed new light on what he cared
for.”
“Is this really a poem from the Butterfly King? Did he come from New York
“It might have been him.” I put my hands on his shoulders.
Before Mai can speak, I spin him hard to face the opposite direction.
“Or maybe them.”
Mai wobbles from my spinning him and peers across the yard. I hear his
audible gasp as he takes in the crowd, sees them, jumping back into me, falling
in my arms. I stand him up, keeping my hands on his upper back to steady him.
Thirty-odd people stand in his back yard, clumped in groups of three or
four, or spread out with their hands on their hips. I can’t see their
individual expressions from this distance, but I would bet they are smiling.
Grinning.
I wonder if he recognizes any of them.
3 comments:
Edward Manning's work is like no one else's. Beautiful writing, mystical themes.
King Perry was a wonderful and welcome change of pace. That I've put King Mai on my to-read list goes without saying. (But I've said it anyway.)
Yes! Another mystical, disorienting, exhilarating journey. Must go get my copy. Thanks, Edmond.
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