When Ruth hits the yard, she is still in her housecoat. She is too damn old to dress up for anything, even a murder. Ruth smashes the bug zapper on high as she descends the porch steps. She takes her ax in one hand and a syringe full of herbicide in the other. Tonight, Leon Hishon’s poplar is going down.
The tree has grown eight feet in the three years since Hishon arrived from England to “go rogue” in Slave Lake. For the past three weeks, Ruth has watched with displeasure as that barky bastard has dropped its yellow leaves across her birdbath. The bath water has grown so foul, even the fat wrens have started to think twice. Ruth hasn’t seen a waxwing in weeks, and she knows exactly why. The waxwing is a fine bird. Elegant. Classy like. Not liable to dip his toe into some gangly poplar’s filthy leavings.
Hishon has it coming. Ruth has knocked eight times in as many days, but the old loon won’t darken his door. The ruffle of the curtain in his upstairs window tells Ruth all she needs to know about the strength of Hishon’s spine. Afraid to face her. Like they all are. Goddamn men.
Last summer, Ruth’s ex-husband Reggie had told her she was “terminally friggin’ aggressive” right before he tried to drive off with most of their casino winnings and her budgie named Cecile. When the cop filled out the incident report, he wrote that Ruth “displayed poor self-control during the dispute.” Screw the both of them. Ruth was not put on this earth to please people.
Ruth holds the ax aloft as she trudges across the freshly shorn grass. There is no need to be coy about this killing. Most of the neighborhood, herself and Hishon included, are in their seventies and more likely to be snoring into their pillowcases than keeping watch on their yards.
Ruth hikes up her flannel nightshirt and eases her veined legs over Hishon’s fence. Ruth is no skinny, but she is light on her feet when she needs to be. Ruth’s slippers slap the moist earth beside the poplar's roots. She leans back, takes her stance and squints into the darkness.
A shriek springs forth from the poplar’s trunk. Ruth startles, belts out a war cry, and drives her ax blindly into the wood. When given a choice between anger and any other emotion, Ruth invariably chooses anger.
“Step one is to understand that you are not powerless against your rage,” says the tree, and Ruth jumps backward. “Picture a stop sign on the road ahead. Heed it, Ruth. Give your thoughts permission to overtake your impulses."
The idea of a talking tree is asinine, but reason has become a tiny matchstick in the inferno of Ruth’s mind.
“You think I’m gonna take advice from some deciduous smart-ass, you’ve got another thing coming,” Ruth bellows. She cocks the syringe, but her stab is interrupted by Leon Hishon as he slinks out from behind the tree.
“But will you take advice from a born philosopher and soon-to-be-certified life coach?” he asks, in a voice more placid than one would expect from a man who has just narrowly escaped a grizzly maiming.
Ruth appraises Hishon and is surprised by his attire. The few times she has seen him skulking about the neighborhood, Hishon has been dressed in a faded linen shirt and some ridiculous bow tie, but tonight, a vintage Rolling Stones tee is stretched across his skeletal chest.
“Life coach?” says Ruth. “Thought you were supposed to be some kinda professor.”
“Never made tenure, I’m afraid. Not much of a pension. Multiple income streams and all that, I thought I’d try out this new ‘coaching’ craze that’s set the millennials ablaze.”
Ruth eyes the pale husk of a human hunched before her and snorts. “Life coach, my ass, Hishon. Who the hell are you gonna give life advice to? Some of your old pals down at the Vampire’s Supper Club?”
Hishon seems delighted by Ruth’s words. He leans toward her and says, “We are both creatures of the night, it seems.”
“Don’t go shoving me in your slop-hole, Hishon. I’m way outta your league.”
“You’re a huge person, Ruth,” Hishon whispers. “I’ve always admired that about you.”
“Gonna make wisecracks about my weight now, are you?” Ruth fumes. “I’ve been alive longer than the goddamn Prime Minister. I want a piece of pie, I’m gonna have it. With ice-cream if I feel like it.”
“Of course, Ruth. Whyever wouldn’t you?” Hishon says. “You are a woman who does precisely what she likes. That much, I know.”
Ruth pulls her housecoat tight around her body, wary of how much Hishon claims to know. “You been spying on me, you old creep?”
“Not spying, per se,” Hishon replies. “I’m sure you’ll agree that, being neighbors, our proximity means we are often obligate bedfellows in each other’s mundanities. I’ll bet you a thin Canadian dime you could tell me a few of my own quirks and quarks.”
Hishon pulls a dime from his pocket, flips it in the air, and removes it from behind Ruth’s ear. Ruth takes an abrupt step backward and says, “Like how you never bother to cut back your lousy poplar?”
“Quite.” says Hishon. “To say nothing of our mutual appreciation of the waxwings who dwelt there. They have gone now, but did you see their nest in the branch overhanging your garden?” As Hishon recalls the birds, his voice reminds Ruth of a hypnotist in Vegas who once encouraged her to do a chicken dance on the casino's stage. “I couldn’t bear to trim it,” Hishon continues, “despite its obvious assault on your birdbath. Perhaps the pair will return next spring.”
Ruth coughs and slips the herbicide syringe into her housecoat pocket as Hishon walks to the tree and rips the ax from its trunk with surprising strength.
“In truth,” Hishon continues, “I did stand a little closer to the window than was necessary when you finally chased off that git Reginald. First time I have seen a suitcase so successfully drop-kicked through a windshield, by the way. I said to myself, ‘Leon, if only you could live your own life so viscerally.’ I don’t mind telling you, Ruth. You were part of the reason I decided to become a life coach. I see you as sort of a…how should I say it?”
“Queen among vermin?” Ruth offers, as her eyes slide back to Hishon’s t-shirt and the smooth, moist lines of the Rolling Stone’s tongue graphic.
“Precisely,” Hishon says, following Ruth’s gaze. “Best band of our generation, eh Ruth? ‘As Tears Go By’ seems to be a 3 a.m. favorite for both of us.” Hishon pauses to observe how the ax blade shimmers in the moonlight. “Do you miss him terribly? Is that why the rage?”
Ruth looks past Hishon and into the dark yard. Of course, she misses him. Reggie hadn’t been much, but at least he’d been another warm body beside her on the porch.
Hishon takes a step toward her. “There is no shame in it, Ruth. Most of us only miss the ones who don’t deserve us.”
“Anyone ever miss you, Hishon?” Ruth asks, and instantly regrets it. Ruth’s nerves are buzzing from Hishon’s creeping proximity, and she wishes she had not given him an excuse to dive deeper into their conversation.
“Barely,” says Hishon as he drops the ax and glides his pale fingers through his disheveled hair. “Too strange a bird for most, I’m afraid. Wound too tightly to reveal myself for fear I’d say something gauche. Despite what the novelists tell you, nobody ever falls in love with a professor. Not for very long, anyway.”
“That’s a hell of a mouthful for a man who claims to be dead wood,” Ruth says. “Sounds like you’re feeding yourself a lot of hocus pocus.”
“It’s kind of you to say, Ruth. I suppose that’s what the life-coach business is about. ‘Physician, heal thyself,’ and all that bollocks.” Hishon presses his fingers together as if in prayer. “Say, Ruth, won’t you let me help you slay that rage of yours? I’ll never get anywhere if I can’t practice my skills on real people, and I do love a challenge.”
“I don’t go in for that nonsense.”
“Oh, please, Ruth?” Hishon whispers through his fingers. “Just for a wee moment?”
Hishon opens his hands and offers Ruth the dime. “Take it,” Hishon says. “I implore you.”
Confused, Ruth removes the dime from Hishon’s hand.
“Quick now,” Hishon says, “give it back to me.”
“Why the hell should I—”
“Do play along, Ruth. Go on. Give it here.”
Ruth presses the dime back into Hishon’s palm with significantly more pressure than necessary. Hishon snaps his fingers closed. “Perfect!” he says. “My first paying client!” Hishon tucks the dime in his pocket, waves his hands as if conjuring a low-grade spell and recommences speaking in his hypnotic voice.
“Okay,” Hishon says, “Close your eyes, Ruth. Can you do that for me?”
Despite herself, Ruth complies.
“Now, imagine your special place. Somewhere you feel at peace with the universe.”
Ruth thinks of Vegas and the big pool in front of The Bellagio; the way the water glows pink right before the fountains shoot their spray. She opens her eyes a crack to see Hishon pacing a circle around her, twisting his body, and gracefully raising his arms. When she recloses her eyes, Ruth sees a vision of the waxwing, the shimmer of his neck-feathers as he splashes in the water. She feels a warmth descending toward her, and then, for an electric second, Hishon’s bony fingers land atop her forearm.
“Tell me what you see, Ruth,” he says.
A Ferris Wheel of feelings clatters through Ruth’s body: excitement, fear, and then, inevitably, rage.
Ruth slaps Hishon’s hand and stomps back toward the tree. "It's none of your damn business what I see, and keep your claws to yourself," she barks over her shoulder.
Hishon is quick to retreat. “I’m sorry, Ruth,” he calls, his expression downcast. “I should never have agreed to guide you when I knew I was so inappropriately conflicted.”
“What the hell are you on about now?” Ruth says, stopping and turning back to Hishon. “Why can’t you just speak plain?”
Hishon mumbles his words into the grass, so low Ruth can barely hear them. “That’s how it always goes with me,” he says. “Too bloody enthusiastic, aren’t I? And next thing you know, I’ve made a mess of everything.”
Ruth doesn’t like the look of defeat that comes over Hishon’s face. Maybe he’d been on to something there. God knows Ruth would like to feel more peaceful. But that’s the problem with men; first sign of trouble, they lose their goddamn nerve.
“Cry me a river,” Ruth says. “One unlucky hand and you’re outta the game, is that it? You’re the crappest life coach ever. I’ll tell you why you spend your nights sneaking around your own backyard like some kinda pervert. Because you’re yellow, Hishon. Just like your sloppy-ass poplar.”
“But I’ve compromised you, Ruth,” Hishon says.
“Blow it out your pie-hole, Leon. It’s me who decides when I’m compromised, and I’ll tell you, it’s gonna take a lot more than your fluttering fingertips to compromise Ruth Sowery. Get back on the horse.” Ruth closes her eyes. “Hit me up, and stop being such a belly-aching flake.”
“Ruth,” Hishon whispers, “you are simply peerless.”
Ruth listens to the sound of Hishon’s furtive footsteps as they approach her, wills him forward with her furious mind.
“Come on,” she says. “Stop screwing around.”
“Alright, Ruth,” Hishon says. "This time, I promise not to disappoint you. Can you take a slow, deep breath?”
Ruth breathes richly of the cool night air.
“We are going to do a self-truth exercise,” Hishon murmurs, the hypnotic quality of his voice gathering steam. “When I ask you a question, I don’t want you to hesitate. I want you to say the first thing that comes to your mind. Can you do that?”
Hishon’s words surround Ruth like fresh-fallen dew. “I guess,” she says.
“I want you to picture yourself walking on the sidewalk outside your house. It’s early, and the sun is just starting to crest the distant horizon. Are you there with me, Ruth?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Let all that moist morning concrete surround you like a simmering womb.”
“Sure.”
“Good. Now I’m going to tell you something. It’s Thursday. What does that mean to you, Ruth?”
“Garbage Day.”
“Precisely. And tell me, Ruth, what do you see in front of you?”
“The big, black bins.”
“Perfect. Now here comes the question, Ruth. Are you ready?”
“Yeah.”
“Was it you, Ruth, who painted ‘GO BACK TO OXFORD, ASS CLOWN,’ on my rubbish bin?
“Yeah.”
Ruth’s eyes snap open.
The bastard.
Hishon lets loose another unexpected shriek. “Got you good, Ruth!” he cries, and as Ruth runs her angry eyes over Hishon’s face, it occurs to her she has never, before this moment, inspired such happiness in another human being.
The Ferris Wheel spins again in Ruth’s chest: anger, excitement, anger, and then, unexpectedly, mirth.
Ruth springs forward, grips her fist around Hishon’s diminutive wrist, and says, “Leon, you want to come back to my porch, watch the bugs crackle, and listen to ‘Honky Tonk Woman?’”
Hishon’s eyes light up, and he says, “That sounds like an absolute dream, Ruth, but…”
“Here it comes,” thinks Ruth as she watches Hishon’s face crumble. “You finally put your toe in, and they can’t screw you over quick enough.”
“But what?” demands Ruth, though she can barely stand to hear the answer.
Hishon’s expression is tortured as he says, “It would just be so…inappropriate.”
The beast in Ruth rises again. “There’s nothing friggin ‘inappropriate’ about—”
“Don’t you see? Hishon says. “We have already established a therapist-client relationship.” Hishon pulls the dime from his pocket and places it in his open palm.
Ruth looks back across the lawn, past the faint outline of her birdbath, and onto the glow of the bug zapper where it lies in wait on her porch. She hears a snap, then a sizzle, and she makes her decision.
Ruth snatches the dime from Hishon’s hand and flips it upward toward the stars. When the dime falls, she catches it atop her glistening tongue, and, as Hishon beholds her with his mouth agape, she swallows the dime down.
Ruth’s slippers smack against her calloused heels in staccato time as she turns and darts toward the fence. She doesn’t need to turn around to know that Hishon is following her. She can feel him swooping in, his arms raised like yellow-grey wings.
Elegant. Classy like. The finest bird Ruth has ever seen.
K.R. Segriff is a Canadian writer and filmmaker. Her work has appeared in Atlanta Review, Greensboro Review, Best Canadian Poetry, and Prism International, among others. She won Space and Time Magazine’s 2021 Iron Writer competition and the London Independent Story Prize. She has been working for far longer than is reasonable on her debut story collection.