Serpent of Paradise Orchard
The school bus bounces over potholes, my brother Mike and I ride for the last time from Brace elementary school to our grandmother’s house. It’s the beginning of summer break 1973. My two younger brothers, Karl and Mathew are home with grandma. The rear tires of the bus hit a big pothole we fly eight inches and land hard on worn rear seats. “Hey Mike, want to explore the monastery today?” I’ve been wondering about the place ever since our dad took us kite flying there. Grandma lived on Dun Scotus Drive not far from a Franciscan college of the same name. Mike smiles happily then his face gets a stern look. I know what he is thinking, or rather who, as he says, “Grandma won’t let us go. She will have us once we walk in the door.”
Grandma is a task master and would not spare the rod for any disobedience. She is a short intense woman equally kind and brutal with her love. Grandpa, who’s not really my grandpa, is totally off limits and completely unavailable. He is a house painter and when not out working he stays in his study and gets angry at the slightest interruption. If only mom wasn’t at work. She’s a waitress at Stouffers and won’t be home till late at night long after we are already in bed. The bus slows as we approach our stop, we get off with several other kids and start walking toward Grandma’s house suddenly Mike puts his hand on my shoulder. He has this devilish grin on his face and says, “Come on Joe.”
To get to the monastery we must sneak past grandma’s house. Fortunately, there are some woods across the road and as we enter the great bell of Dun Scotus rings three gongs, each gong pulling me onward, calling me away into the unknown. The undergrowth is thick beneath, but we manage to follow deer trails in the direction of the monastery. We emerge from the woods well past grandma’s, spider webs and forest debris trailing behind. We run striving for our freedom, to go as we would, with the heavens above, and the earth to bear us up two head strong youths laughing and talking merrily as we pass through a thicket and see the holy site of Duns Scotus College. Built in 1928 and cloistered as a religious house October 19, 1930. It rises like a monument well above the towering spruce lining the grounds.
My brother and I stroll down the lawn of the place till we reach a paved path that follows around the back wall of the great building. An ancient feeling fills the air. It seems a wondrous place full of fair things and marvelous adventure. The windows are small and as high up as chimneys, a fort or castle it seems built of mighty stone blocks and custom red brick. There are no people coming or going anywhere that we can see as we are in the back, away from the Cathedral and main entrance to the college. We turn left up the path and see a small, elaborately arched, wooden door with stylized ironwork. Attentively we approach the door, come under its arch, and stare at a bird shaped handle. Hands trembling, I grab the bird and pull. Nothing, Mike shoves me aside and tries pushing, turning and pulling, but the door is solid and tightly shut, not a joint or seam just a keyhole that is large enough to stick my finger in. I crouch down and peer into blackness, no light escapes only the pleasant faint smell of frankincense. Mike has already moved on, I run my hand over the beautiful bird handle then run to catch up with my brother.
Strolling along the path that rises up a gradual grade we can see large concrete walls off to the left away from the main building and what appears to be an apple orchard. Mike wants to check it out so we cut across the lawn running toward what could only be some kind of outdoor racket ball courts. I have a super ball in my pocket I throw at the wall it hits the cement then ricochets overhead. Mike retrieves the ball while I circle around the courts.
A large apple orchard spreads before me, branches drooping low with small green apples. Hungry I run and pick a few of the largest ones, about two inches wide, rub one across my shirt till it shines. I stroll between rows under gnarled branches growing at crazy angles and bite into the hard bitter fruit, spit out the skin and begin sucking at the pome. The fruit only enhances my hunger and I long for something more substantial. I feel nervous and suddenly afraid. I am reminded of my disobedience. I should not have disobeyed. Grandma truly loved us kids and would fuss over us, kissing us lovingly while shrilling at us to wash our hands as she set out bowls of sweet, canned fruit. Shamed and hungry I toss away the apple.
I look up and lo, before me is a man painting a picture, brushes and pallet in his hands. He is a monk, a brother of the college. He doesn’t seem to have noticed me. Hesitantly I take a step closer trying to see what he is painting. As I draw near I can hear his breathing the rustle of his paint brush and his somewhat frantic movements. Eyes straight ahead he does not even look at what colors his hands are mixing. I watch as he paints. I catch enough glimpses and can now make some sense of his canvas. There is a tree, a large snake, and two naked people eating apples beneath.
Suddenly the monk stands up and stretches. He turns about and our eyes meet. Shamefaced I stand muted before him. He is a man of about thirty with a ruddy face, black bearded, wearing a brown robe tied with a white rope. He is surprised as I but only for a moment then his hands clasp, smiling kindly he says, “Welcome young prince. Are you here on an errand for anyone?” His voice is deep and loud.
“No sir, I am just out playing with my older brother.” I say relaxing at his friendly manner. Looking back at the painting I ask, “What are you are painting sir?” I can now see that the private parts of the man and woman of the painting are covered in vegetation, the serpent coils threateningly around the tree.
Slowly he sets down his brushes, wipes his hand on a rag and booms, “That my prince is the Tree of Knowledge, Adam, Eve and the serpent of Paradise Orchard.” His small brown eyes twinkle as he points to each.
Curious I ask, “Is the serpent guarding the tree? Then playfully,” Why does Adam not slay it?”
“Oh yes,” he says. “The serpent is a guard, he guards against God, to keep God from us and us from God.” He pauses takes a large breath and breathes out slowly. In a quieter tone he says, “The way to slay the serpent is through the light of Jesus, the Prince of Peace shows us a way to overcome the evil of this world.” Just then Mike walks up a little bewildered he looks back and forth between me, and the monk, and the painting.
The monk blesses us and says, “You must go home straight away to your mother, for I weep for her love of you, hurry now, and may God bless you.” Just then the great bell of Duns Scotus rings, five times. Suddenly nothing is more important than running straight home. “Come on Mike we got to go,” pulling on his arm he feels it too and we run towards Grandmas.
Instead of going right into the house we decide to go in the back yard and start playing, having the idea that we have been home the whole time. We quickly run up the gravel driveway, sneak across the well, groomed back lawn to the shed where we keep our balls in a wicker basket and start tossing a football.
Grandma has a one-acre backyard that is ordered like an English gentleman. She rules nature with an iron shovel, endless poison and chicken manure. Everything growing in its place, flowerbeds on the West, stepping up to ornamental shrubs with spruce trees running all the way to the end of the lot and across the back. Apple, cherry and pear trees line the East side then turning into ordered rows of raspberries and blackberries. The center half acre is vegetables too numerous to count.
Suddenly Grandma appears, coming down the back porch dressed in denim pants and shirt, straw hat atop her head, and a pruning saw in her gloved hand. She heads straight for us and though she is barely over four feet tall she walks like a mountain. My heart fails me as she approaches. Her eyes are terrible to look upon. “Where in heaven have you been?” When she says heaven, it is high and shrill. Trembling I am unable to speak then Mike lamely says, “We were just here playing, Grandma.” She looks at me and I avert my eyes. She holds out the pruning saw to my brother and says, “Cut, each of you.” I walk with Mike as he selects a branch and in slow shaky strokes cuts his doom. We know the drill: a low hanging branch from the apple tree. Mike hands me the saw and begins slowly stripping leaves. I reach for a branch and place the saw approximately three feet from the tip. I had been taught to make a smooth cut right below a live twig. I hold the branch with my left hand and cut with the other, careful not to let the bark peal. My tears fall on the heart shaped green leaves.
I think back to how we became living with Grandma… My parents were young and beautiful, fun and popular with their peers. They married soon after high school, but it became obvious, they were not well for each other. Ill-equipped to survive their demons they divorced having been married only seven years. My brother Mike and I were born eighteen months apart in Detroit Mi. After 68’ we moved north to a small farm in Milford, Mi. I was just four years old. My father was a talented mason and builder who worked long hours while my mother ran the home and farm with strength and knowledge of one born to it. She bore and gave birth to Karl, born 1971. We had two cows, Claw and Penelope, a pony named Frisky, a large mare my mother rode, fifty chickens and Bootsy our faithful old dog.
I remember my mother showing my dad how to break a chicken’s neck. She would grab it up, cock back her hips, legs apart, one quick wrist motion was all it took. They flopped and twitched a little but did not get up and run. My dad however could not get the hang of it he took to chopping their heads with an axe only to have them run around headless for a few yards spewing blood from their necks. We grew strong and wild, caught frogs, snakes and turtles, and learned to swim in our swimming hole. My parents were good and loving with us. We wrestled with our dad and napped in the bosom of a loving mother. Whatever their failures at marriage they dealt with us honestly, I heard the shouting late into the night when they thought I was sleeping, I did not understand being a child knowing nothing about what comes between husband and wife. We all cry together as our parents tell us the terrible news.
Startled from my reverie by the whipping my brother was receiving, “Lying children, you will obey! Grandma shouts. After a half dozen she stands my brother up and snatches me across her strong thigh and whips the back of my legs and butt. “Aggravation, frustration,” she shouts in time with her strokes. Each one stings like fire, but we are used to the blows and injuries of young boys and are not overcome by pain but of grief and circumstance.
That night Grandma yelled and shouted her frustrations as she ran up and down the halls of her sprawling ranch. My brothers and I live in the large basement and play amongst ourselves. We have plenty of games and toys to entertain us before bed. I feel a deep longing for my mother and father. Before long, my mind is distracted by Stunt Bike racing across the basement floor hitting the stunt ramp and flipping to a perfect landing. My brother Karl screams joyously racing after it. He brings it back to Mike where he inserts the rip cord pulls it out and sets it down racing on another run. “Quiet!” Grandpa shouts from above. Chastened, we soon are falling asleep in our cots wearied from the day’s dealings.
An atmosphere of dread surrounds me. Alone in utter silence I float over the neighborhood. I am in a bubble; everyone is in a bubble all my friends and family slowly rising toward the Sun. I see my mother floating away from me. Everyone is crying the sadness is overwhelming. A pressure surrounds me, and I can do nothing but cry like never before. There is a grief in me and a yearning.
I wake with a start still sad and afraid. I look to my brothers who are sleeping safe, listen to their breathing I want to draw them around me like a blanket. I wake Mike. “Mike, I had a bad dream.” I am so shook-up that he is afraid with me. He talks with me and while I am somewhat consoled, the grief clings to me and I cannot sleep. I want to go upstairs and check if mom is home from work. I tip toe up the stairs down the hall past the kitchen where I see my grandmother prostrate on the floor arms raised above her head, hands outstretched, tears streaming down her face. I hear the record needle scratching the end of what most likely is a Jimmy Swaggart album. Suddenly she cries out in anguish, and she is weeping like the people in my dream.
All that summer my brother and I were often free to roam the monastery and made friends of the monks living there. We explored the woods about the place, discovered many statues of St. Francis, and prayer shrines of Jesus and Mary. One such friend was Brother Martin, who worked the front desk of the college. He arranged a special tour of the monastery for my family. He showed us the wondrous library with its massive oak shelves, glittering golden books, spiral stairs of wrought iron leading to upper levels and ancient tomes opened upon alters where monks stood and studied. Song and prayer reverberate through the halls. The feeling of wisdom rich in the air as I stare at many paintings and sculptures my eyes fill with the sight of it all. I want to read from the great books, create works of art, and sing. We end the tour in the dining hall with a meal of hearty bread, cheese and soup, all of us eating merrily with prayer and gratitude upon wood benches around a great oaken table.
Like most kids I did not like going to Church or Sunday school however, ritual and ceremony have always interested me. The whole of society is a series of great and small rituals, from birth to marriage and in death. Sharing food in safety and gratitude is the most basic and, in my mind, the most sacred of rituals. I also like prayer as an act of gratitude. Like spontaneous heroic activity it does not recognize the individual as amazing rather it is recognition of whatever it is that draws you to act your best. I sometimes feel that the energy and activity flowing out of me is not solely generated by me rather it is passing through me, not a loss of self-control but, consciously letting go of oneself as an act of gratitude. Gratitude motivates self-sacrifice in heart and mind. The most significant and meaningful thing about giving is the time you spent thinking of others instead of yourself. A girl friend once mocked me for buying her flowers, “Buying me flowers doesn’t mean anything.”
“They mean that I am thinking about you even when I am not with you.” I replied.
Every one of us has felt and expressed gratitude at one time or another. It is the go-to response when favorable things happen. Where we direct our gratitude varies whether toward friends and family, God or simply the joy of giving. Gratitude is a useful frame to view things through and yet, it is so hard to do for any length of time.
Grandma’s whippings did little to reform me. I remember feeling like the beatings were for her benefit rather than mine, a hapless victim caught in a ritual of cruelty. “This hurts me more than it hurts you.” was one of her first things I remember her saying to me. After a semester at St. Michael’s catholic school, I learned teachers of religion flog more often and more painfully than teachers of secular subjects and the children were more aggressive in acting out their aggressive needs as well. Sunday school lessons were often confusing, and I would ask many questions about what was said or what some parable meant. The answers only confused me more. I remember having a moment of conscious clarity suddenly realizing that no one knew anything. Like tasting the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, a light turned on and I began to think for myself. I remember the classroom at St. Michaels with its high windows constructed so you could not see out them and from that time onward I always knew that there is an inner source of knowing within me. I would confirm it many times with eyes closed, meditating in silent contemplation.
I know the pleasure of violent sport, testing my skill and strength against others but, I do not find enjoyment hurting others and question the use of corporal punishment as a legitimate form of behavior correction. It wasn’t punitive aggression or the fear of Hell that made me a moral agent it was my parents and a few teachers who spoke to the morality already in me. They helped nurtured me into a moral being by cultivating ideas of value. My mother and father would sit me down and talk to me about what I done in moral language with emotion and intensity I could almost feel my neuropathways connecting.
Joseph Caldwell
Ferndale Mi.
1/10/22