Fruit of the Wounds

The vines were there when I moved in. I guess I was kind of depressed at the time too. I used to sit in the backyard looking at the scraggly rows. It was a big backyard compared to most places I'd lived, having lived mostly in the city or near cities. I never really understood the concept of suburb, what that actually looked like. On TV over the decades it looked different, and everywhere I'd lived or gone in the nation, it looked different. Are neighborhoods with the small lots and houses on tree-lined streets right in a city suburbs the same way housing tracts more than an hour outside the city with big box stores and malls purpose-built nearby and no tall buildings?

I had a lot of time to think about things like that and nothing. It was several weeks before it even occurred to me I might do something with the vines. There were books in the house. I found the boxes when I was unpacking my own. Some of the books were about making wine. There was stuff in a shed, not exactly everything you needed but enough to get me started. I had to do a lot of work on the rows first. They were a bit overgrown but strangely the vines were bearing fruit even in their untended state. It was a while before I got enough to make any wine. I started making it with other grapes I got when I bought the stuff I needed at the home wine store. But I got most of what I needed online. It was easier than going into town. The delivery service there, UPS, was pretty good, surprisingly.

The area isn't really known for wine. Drunkards were more common than vineyards. I was probably in that category. The first wine I made with other grapes wasn't very good but I didn't really care. I enjoyed making it and drinking it. I didn't have much else to do. After about two years the vines in the backyard were yielding enough fruit for me to make my own batch. It wasn't a lot, a handful of big Sparklett's water bottle-sized vats in the shed. I have to say it was pretty good. I bottled and laid aside most of it, thinking it might improve with age.

That was about ten years ago. I planted more rows in the backyard. It's a big backyard. I've been harvesting and making wine ever since. I like it. It gives me something to do, something to look forward to every year. The funny thing started about five years ago. I had given a couple of bottles to the home wine store guy. I was as friendly with him then as I am these days with anyone. About a week later he came out to my place. I think he may have been the first person ever to visit me since I got there. I had taken to sitting out by the road in the mornings almost every day. I don't know why. Maybe I felt closer to people, not that any cars came by since it wasn't on the way to anywhere else. I could see the cars down the way on the main road, the two-lane highway about a mile and a half off. Anyway, that's how I saw him coming. I recognized his S-U-V. He pulled right up and I tried to make myself more suitable for company, more mental than anything else.

"That wine," he said.
"Hello, Pete," I said. "Funny to see you out here. What about the wine?"
"You made that from the grapes that grow here?"
"Sure. Did it stick in your throat or something? You break out in hives? What?"
"It was great!"

At that point I figured I had been isolated too long. I had gotten used to being alone most of the time and actually enjoyed it or maybe that's too strong a word. I just didn't quite know what to make of the home wine store guy coming out to tell me the wine from my scraggly rows was great.

"Are you making fun of me?"
"No! Seriously. I tasted it and served it to some guests at the restaurant with the wild boar risotto my wife makes. Have you had that?"
I had never been to the restaurant in the years since I moved there.
"Sure. It's great."
I figured it was better to lie. He wouldn't know the difference, as if he wouldn't remember every time I set foot in town, in his shop or his restaurant.

It turned out the wine went well with game and lamb, according to him. It wasn't bad with chicken in a heavier sauce approaching a more flavorful dish. What the hell did I know? I ate a lot of processed food. I didn't feel like cooking very much. I can hardly recall how I got interested in making wine other than the fact I liked to get drunk and enjoyed being drunk about as much as I liked getting loopy on pain meds. After I stopped having an excuse to take so many meds drinking was just as good.

Anyway, I made the mistake of humoring this guy. I couldn't ask him in, I told him, because the place was a mess which was true. But I did take him out in the back and showed him the vines and the new ones I'd just planted. He was impressed I'd been able to do all that myself and I told him I didn't have much else to do so if it took a long time there wasn't anybody chasing after me to get on with it. I showed him the setup I had in the shed and that nearly floored him. I'd been at it something like five years so it wasn't any surprise to me. But people always assume things about you when they see you one place and not somewhere else. They don't know the whole story and frankly they don't care. They're only interested in what they want and can get. I had learned that the hard way, I guess. I gave the guy a few more bottles of the wine and he insisted on paying for it. He started babbling about bottles and labels and ideas for marketing. Immediately I got an anxious feeling. Here we go again, I said to myself.

So off he went after that visit, and the first people started showing up. That was about a month after the home wine store guy stopped by.

"Is this the place where the wine comes from?"
He was a good-looking young guy and he had a woman who was even better looking with him.
"Did Pete send you?"
"Yeah. He said we'd know when we saw you. And the place. Look for the guy, you can't mistake him."
I always wonder about women and their choice of men. Not that she was a great gorgeous thing but I could see she was better than he was. What did these women see in these guys anyway?
"Can we taste it? Do you have tastings?"
I was a bit dumbfounded at first and then it occurred to me these people were thinking I was some kind of vintner and this was a winery. I had to turn around and look at the house. It was set a bit back from the road on the rising ground. Behind in the backyard the ground sloped more gently the opposite direction and down to the right, towards the highway. It's not a bad old building but hardly what you'd think of as a place anyone would come even to sit a while and have a glass of wine. The shed was big enough, a barn really.

"Sure," I said turning back around. "Follow me, if you don't mind."
"We could drive you up there."
"That's probably a good idea. Otherwise you might have to spend the night."
That got a weak smile out of the woman, and the man nearly fell over trying to open the car door for me.

That was the first visit. I took them to the shed and showed them what I had set up. They asked questions and I answered as best I could. I was glad I had taken such special care of the setup in the shed. It was probably the cleanest and neatest place on the whole property besides the vines themselves, which weren't any great shakes really. Anyway, they went away and I gave them two bottles of wine, and then I saw the woman saying something to the man, and he walked back and handed me a hundred dollar bill. I was a bit embarrassed but took it otherwise I might have risked ill feelings. After that the home wine store guy came out a couple more times and started talking what I thought was craziness about working a deal with the restaurant. I listened and said fine, and he ended up taking two cases on consignment. He came out again with a check for the wine having sold it in less than a week. Then he spent about four hours or more with me going through what I had aging and what I was making, taking notes the whole time, and he would have gone out to the scraggly rows with me to count the fruit if I hadn't said I was tired and really needed to sit down. Then it seems like all hell broke loose. People started coming up. I'd see the cars turn off the highway and after the first few times I knew what they were coming for.

"We're here for the tour," this young woman said. Another woman was getting out of the driver's side. They were probably in their twenties, maybe thirties. I have trouble with telling ages. Everyone looks young to me. I hesitated a minute and then said, "Sure."

It was always the same those first few times. I'd show them my setup in the shed and then they'd want to see the vines. I'd take them out and show them the scraggly old rows and the newly planted rows as I kept adding with cuttings. I couldn't always tell if they were genuinely interested or just felt sorry for me. They tasted the wine. Most of them had already tried it at the home wine store guy's restaurant with the wild boar risotto or the venison stew. I suppose there were some differences in the batches. Then they wanted to buy as much as I was willing to sell. Well, at first that kind of panicked me because I was used to drinking my own wine. It wasn't something I felt like sharing really. I didn't mind the stupid questions nearly as much as having to consider parting with the bottles. When someone asked about how I managed the tractor or if I had help, that kind of thing I can understand. But sometimes when I watched them walking off with a few bottles, I almost felt as if they were taking a piece of me, a part of my life I could never get back, which was silly since it was only wine.

Then this couple showed up with their kid and I changed my mind. I saw the van turn off the highway and I was worried maybe that crazy Pete had hired a car to bring huge batches of these wine tasting people and I would never have any peace ever again. Maybe I ought to burn the place down and plow the damn vines under. I was on my way up to the house half way by the time they caught up to me in the driveway. The couple in front were older. Then I saw in the backseat the kid and the folded up wheelchair.

"Are you the winemaker?" the woman asked.
"Sure," I said.
"We wanted to take the tour. Our son really loved your wine. We tried it last night at the restaurant in town."
"Sure," I said. "Thanks. We may have some difficulty. The place isn't really accessible."

We got the kid into the shed without too much hassle.
"Is he old enough to drink," I said as a opened the first bottle. "Kidding!"
They laughed, even the kid, nervously.
After I served up a couple different batches, and told them about how I got started and all, mom and dad went off to look at the vines on their own and left me with the kid.
"Where did it happen?" I asked.
"Kandahar. Second tour."
"I got the first dose the first year in Iraq," I said. "They patched me up for the main course."
I swatted my ersatz thigh and it rang hollow like hitting a football helmet.
We didn't have that much in common. The wine was a better subject. That and the economics of disability and the VA this and that. I was an old timer compared to him. He was just a kid. They took a case and promised to come back and I said anytime.

After that I had to make a decision. It wasn't easy. I started shaving regularly just in case, and I cleaned up the whole place. I also took to wearing long pants all the time. I'm patient and have all the time I need. It was probably good for me to have this happen. The only problem is getting the place fitted with ramps. I felt that was important just in case. Because of that I started talking to Pete about more serious marketing and selling online. It stills seems silly sometimes though, that people come out here and stand in my backyard looking at the scraggly rows. It's not all bad. I don't mind. Only occasionally do I think maybe it would have been better to keep the wine a secret. Why impose these things? You know?