Best Friends Forever - The Year of the Nut Spider, Future Sadness
The Year of the Nut Spider (Future Sadness)
It’s strange the things that can take you back. One minute you’re walking across the paddock, thinking ‘bout nothing more interestin’ than the ache in your knee and what you want for supper, and the next minute you’re staring up at a spider, snug in the simple web she’s spun near the barn door, and suddenly you’re back in the past, walking up on one of the most awful moments of your whole damn life.
It was early October, just like now, and me and Jack had decided just the evening before that we wanted to get away for a few days. He wanted to head up into Virginia, do the tourist thing - drive down a buncha back roads looking at pretty leaves and chasing down the local wineries hidden back up in the hills. I’ve never been too much of a wine drinker myself, that’s his thing, but we hadn’t had much time together in a while - we were both coming off a busy summer - and I was craving some alone time just as much as he was. Eatin’ cheese puffs and gettin’ tipsy at two in the afternoon sounded like a fine time to me.
Things were finally calming down around the barn, fall coming on and all, and we had some good help around the place, so it was a good time to go. My dad was still technically the one in charge, but I was actually the one runnin’ things and had been for a long time. Those days, he mostly just hung around and shot the shit with the clients when they stopped by, worked with a horse every now and then if he took a mind too but it wasn’t ever nothing I was countin’ on.
He was well up into his seventies by then - he’d already done his share of the work. Anymore, I was just happy to see him still showing up every day, glad he was still interested and all. He’d really started slowin’ down the last couple of years and I knew it was taking a toll on him, knowing he couldn’t do things like he usedta could. I was starting to get a taste of that every once and a while myself, aches and pains that hadn’t been there the year before, and it sucked. I could only imagine how it must feel to him, his strength and vitality seeping away bit by bit as the days went by, to where even the least little bit of activity left him winded and tired.
However, even with the other folks working around the place, if me and Jack was gonna get out of town for a few days, that meant some of my load was gonna fall to him. That afternoon, walking up to the barn, that’s all I was thinking on - making sure he’d be ok for a few days without me - trying to figure out a way to get everything set up so he wouldn’t have to do too much but wouldn’t feel like his pride was gettin’ stepped on neither.
Just as I was getting close to the door of the barn, I noticed something moving up in the corner of the opening. I looked up and sure enough, there was another one of them fat brown spiders. I’d been seeing ‘em all over the place for the past few days, webs hung mostly up high enough to be outta the way so that I hadn’t actually walked into any of ‘em, thank God.
They were everywhere and it was just so strange ‘cause while I knew I’d seen ‘em before, maybe one or two, it was almost like a plague of ‘em that year. They were strung up along one side of the barn like streetlights going down a sidewalk - every few feet and there’d be another one up there, all of ‘em swaying like synchronized swimmers whenever a little breeze blew up.
Just a few days earlier, I’d stopped by up at the house, mostly just to check on my folks, see if they needed anything, but also to get my Dad’s opinion about a couple of issues I had working down at the barn. The evening was still plenty warm but not hot like the summer had been, so we’d left my mom in the kitchen making dinner, grabbed a couple of beers and headed back out to the front porch to talk shop.
Sure enough, there was one of those spiders out there, web strung up in the corner of the porch between the post and the ceiling. That'd made about the twentieth one I’d seen that week, so I’d pointed at it and asked, “What’s up with all the spiders this year, Dad? I can’t remember ever seein' more’n a couple of ‘em, 'nd this year seems like they’re damn near taking over the place.”
He’d sipped his beer and eyed the creature, a little brown nugget of a thing suspended on the tiniest of threads. There was nothing pretty about her or her web, not like those big black and yellow ones that would sometimes string up a fancy web across our kitchen window. No, she was real plain and kinda scary looking if you got up close, but even still, I’d never had any urge to disturb one. I was a live-and-let-live kinda guy and my dad was too.
“I dunno, Ennis, but you’re right, they’re damn near everywhere. Don’t recall the last time I seen so many of ‘em. Must be really good conditions for ‘em this year. Or maybe they run in long life cycles, like those cicada bugs. Don’t see them for years at a time, then those little shells’ll be all over the place and the whole farm’ll be singin’ with ‘em.”
“Yeah, guess that could be it.” I’d stared at the thing, wondering what its purpose was other than to eat a bug or two and reproduce. “Wonder what it’s called… Do you know?”
He’d shaken his head. “Got no clue. I always called ‘em nut spiders myself, ‘cause that’s what they look like to me from a distance when they’re all huddled up like that - like a pecan or an acorn stuck there in the web.”
“Yeah, first time I saw one, that’s what I thought," I'd said, nodding and childishly pleased that I'd seen it the same as him. "I just figured it was something got blown into an old web and stuck there. Walked right up on it before I realized what it was.”
I’d shuddered and he’d laughed at me, well acquainted with my love/hate relationship with spiders. “True, they’re ‘bout as ugly as fartin’ in church, but me, I kinda like ‘em. Don’t do no harm that I can see. Long as they stay up there and I’m down here, we’re good,” he’d said, toasting his porch guest with his beer. I’d agreed and we’d moved on to other things, whiling away a pleasant hour before Mom had called him in to supper and I’d headed back to my own house and dinner with Jack in front of a football game.
A few short days afterwards, that nut spider hangin’ by the barn door was the last thing I saw before I walked inside and found him layin’ there dead on the hard dirt floor.
Lookin’ at the new spider, almost seven years later to the day, it still makes my heart clench up with sadness as my mind travels back to those awful days of death and tears and heartbreak, the foundation of mine and my mother’s lives wiped out just like that, crumbled and gone in less than a minute, leavin’ us adrift in a tearstained blur of tired summer leaves fadin’ on the trees and fat brown nut spiders hangin’ in the shadows, keepin’ silent watch as we cried.
It’s strange the things that can take you back. One minute you’re walking across the paddock, thinking ‘bout nothing more interestin’ than the ache in your knee and what you want for supper, and the next minute you’re staring up at a spider, snug in the simple web she’s spun near the barn door, and suddenly you’re back in the past, walking up on one of the most awful moments of your whole damn life.
It was early October, just like now, and me and Jack had decided just the evening before that we wanted to get away for a few days. He wanted to head up into Virginia, do the tourist thing - drive down a buncha back roads looking at pretty leaves and chasing down the local wineries hidden back up in the hills. I’ve never been too much of a wine drinker myself, that’s his thing, but we hadn’t had much time together in a while - we were both coming off a busy summer - and I was craving some alone time just as much as he was. Eatin’ cheese puffs and gettin’ tipsy at two in the afternoon sounded like a fine time to me.
Things were finally calming down around the barn, fall coming on and all, and we had some good help around the place, so it was a good time to go. My dad was still technically the one in charge, but I was actually the one runnin’ things and had been for a long time. Those days, he mostly just hung around and shot the shit with the clients when they stopped by, worked with a horse every now and then if he took a mind too but it wasn’t ever nothing I was countin’ on.
He was well up into his seventies by then - he’d already done his share of the work. Anymore, I was just happy to see him still showing up every day, glad he was still interested and all. He’d really started slowin’ down the last couple of years and I knew it was taking a toll on him, knowing he couldn’t do things like he usedta could. I was starting to get a taste of that every once and a while myself, aches and pains that hadn’t been there the year before, and it sucked. I could only imagine how it must feel to him, his strength and vitality seeping away bit by bit as the days went by, to where even the least little bit of activity left him winded and tired.
However, even with the other folks working around the place, if me and Jack was gonna get out of town for a few days, that meant some of my load was gonna fall to him. That afternoon, walking up to the barn, that’s all I was thinking on - making sure he’d be ok for a few days without me - trying to figure out a way to get everything set up so he wouldn’t have to do too much but wouldn’t feel like his pride was gettin’ stepped on neither.
Just as I was getting close to the door of the barn, I noticed something moving up in the corner of the opening. I looked up and sure enough, there was another one of them fat brown spiders. I’d been seeing ‘em all over the place for the past few days, webs hung mostly up high enough to be outta the way so that I hadn’t actually walked into any of ‘em, thank God.
They were everywhere and it was just so strange ‘cause while I knew I’d seen ‘em before, maybe one or two, it was almost like a plague of ‘em that year. They were strung up along one side of the barn like streetlights going down a sidewalk - every few feet and there’d be another one up there, all of ‘em swaying like synchronized swimmers whenever a little breeze blew up.
Just a few days earlier, I’d stopped by up at the house, mostly just to check on my folks, see if they needed anything, but also to get my Dad’s opinion about a couple of issues I had working down at the barn. The evening was still plenty warm but not hot like the summer had been, so we’d left my mom in the kitchen making dinner, grabbed a couple of beers and headed back out to the front porch to talk shop.
Sure enough, there was one of those spiders out there, web strung up in the corner of the porch between the post and the ceiling. That'd made about the twentieth one I’d seen that week, so I’d pointed at it and asked, “What’s up with all the spiders this year, Dad? I can’t remember ever seein' more’n a couple of ‘em, 'nd this year seems like they’re damn near taking over the place.”
He’d sipped his beer and eyed the creature, a little brown nugget of a thing suspended on the tiniest of threads. There was nothing pretty about her or her web, not like those big black and yellow ones that would sometimes string up a fancy web across our kitchen window. No, she was real plain and kinda scary looking if you got up close, but even still, I’d never had any urge to disturb one. I was a live-and-let-live kinda guy and my dad was too.
“I dunno, Ennis, but you’re right, they’re damn near everywhere. Don’t recall the last time I seen so many of ‘em. Must be really good conditions for ‘em this year. Or maybe they run in long life cycles, like those cicada bugs. Don’t see them for years at a time, then those little shells’ll be all over the place and the whole farm’ll be singin’ with ‘em.”
“Yeah, guess that could be it.” I’d stared at the thing, wondering what its purpose was other than to eat a bug or two and reproduce. “Wonder what it’s called… Do you know?”
He’d shaken his head. “Got no clue. I always called ‘em nut spiders myself, ‘cause that’s what they look like to me from a distance when they’re all huddled up like that - like a pecan or an acorn stuck there in the web.”
“Yeah, first time I saw one, that’s what I thought," I'd said, nodding and childishly pleased that I'd seen it the same as him. "I just figured it was something got blown into an old web and stuck there. Walked right up on it before I realized what it was.”
I’d shuddered and he’d laughed at me, well acquainted with my love/hate relationship with spiders. “True, they’re ‘bout as ugly as fartin’ in church, but me, I kinda like ‘em. Don’t do no harm that I can see. Long as they stay up there and I’m down here, we’re good,” he’d said, toasting his porch guest with his beer. I’d agreed and we’d moved on to other things, whiling away a pleasant hour before Mom had called him in to supper and I’d headed back to my own house and dinner with Jack in front of a football game.
A few short days afterwards, that nut spider hangin’ by the barn door was the last thing I saw before I walked inside and found him layin’ there dead on the hard dirt floor.
Lookin’ at the new spider, almost seven years later to the day, it still makes my heart clench up with sadness as my mind travels back to those awful days of death and tears and heartbreak, the foundation of mine and my mother’s lives wiped out just like that, crumbled and gone in less than a minute, leavin’ us adrift in a tearstained blur of tired summer leaves fadin’ on the trees and fat brown nut spiders hangin’ in the shadows, keepin’ silent watch as we cried.