“Yes, of course,” I say. “I’ll head over after work.”
“Spectacular,” he says, the same dry, almost-sarcastic edge to his voice that’s always there. “I’ll see you there.”I head over after work, calling June on the way and explaining the situation. She expresses regret that she won’t be there to watch me chop wood, but she understands and says she’ll see me tomorrow.
When I pull up to the brewery, the sun’s nearly at the mountains, casting gold and blue light over the whole valley. Loveless Brewing is a little ways outside town, nestled on land between two farms, backed by the forest.
It’s got a huge patio in the front that leads onto a grassy area that’s usually got lawn games out, dotted by fire pits surrounded by Adirondack chairs. Even though it’s a brewery, it’s actually a pretty popular family hangout spot on weekend afternoons.
Inside there’s a taproom, with a bar along one end. Most of it’s taken up by long wooden tables and benches, a few bar-height tables, and dartboards along one wall.
All they serve is their own beer, with occasional guest taps, so it’s less drinking establishment and more chill hangout zone.
Then, of course, the rest of the huge building is taken up by the brewing and bottling equipment. That’s Daniel’s zone. I don’t go unless invited.
“Oh, good,” my mom’s voice says the moment I open the brewery doors. “Seth and Caleb are out back. I think Seth might have kittens, you know how he is.”
“That would be something,” I say, and next to my mom, Rusty starts giggling.
“Fifty-four,” she says, in answer to the index card my mom’s holding up.
“Correct,” my mom says, and puts it atop a stack on the table, then holds up another one.
I head toward the back. On the way I pass Daniel, a keg lifted on one shoulder, who just nods to me in the hallway.
“Thanks!” he calls, as we pass each other, and I push through the back door.
Outside, Seth and Caleb both have their shirts off already, a pile of logs waiting to be split in front of them, and a smaller pile of split logs to one side.
“Hey,” calls Seth, slightly out of breath.
“I told you he was coming,” Caleb says, also slightly out of breath. “He’s got a job. Eli should be here any minute, too.”
“I have a job,” Seth says, pointing at the pile of wood with an axe. “This is it. Though usually it’s more spreadsheets and less manual labor.”
“I’m sure this is good for the soul,” Caleb says.
“I’m not,” Seth says, grinning.
“You roped Eli into chopping wood?” I ask, rubbing my hands together, assessing the situation.
The situation is thus: we have a shitload of wood to chop.
“Well, he agreed to it,” Seth says. “He’s perfectly capable. There’s another axe over there.”
My sleeves are already rolled up, but I push them past my elbows, lean down, grab the axe.
“Remember the time we ran out of firewood for the woodstove during that snowstorm one year?” Caleb says, like he’s recalling a fond memory. “Eli had just been stacking random shit underneath a tarp to make it look like he was chopping firewood, so when we went to get more, we were out.”
I heave a chunk of tree onto one of the chopping blocks they’ve already got set up, give it a good, long look.
“He got grounded for a month and had to miss the middle school winter formal that year,” I say. “You remember him trying to negotiate his punishment with Mom?”
Seth laughs.
“Yeah, didn’t he try to talk her into grounding him from his senior prom instead, even though it was five years away?” he says. “You gotta admit, it wasn’t a bad idea.”
“Tell me it didn’t work,” Caleb adds.
I hoist the axe, swing, split the wood apart.
“Nope,” I say, grabbing a chunk and tossing it onto the pile. “Not even close. You think Mom would fall for that?”
I grab another chunk, and for a few minutes, we chop wood without talking. I feel like I’m a teenager again, chopping wood for the wood stove in the family room that, of course, my mom replaced with central heat after Caleb graduated and left home.
Not that I blame her. Without the free labor of young men, a wood stove must be a huge pain in the ass.
Caleb and Seth were never my wood chopping comrades — that was Eli and sometimes Daniel — but it feels familiar, like home, nonetheless.
After a few minutes, I’m warm, despite the chill in the air.
After a few more, the sweat’s pouring down my back. The sun is still going down, so I look around, see if anyone else is around. They’re not, so I join my brothers in taking off my shirt and toss it onto a tree branch.
“Holy shit,” Seth says the moment I turn around.