Peck

When I woke, Agnes was gone and in her place on the bed sat a bushel of wheat. I thought it was laundry because of the basket, that Agnes woke early and threw her clothes in the wash. But I don’t have a basket like that, the old round wooden kind, and when I looked inside, I saw the wheat, golden and fine. Truth be told, I didn’t know it was wheat yet, because I’d never seen a bushel of wheat, just pictures of wheat fields. But that’s besides the point: Why was there a bushel of anything in my bed? And where’d Agnes go? I pulled on pajama pants and wandered into my kitchen, hoping she’d be there, in my pajama top, maybe with breakfast made. I could’ve eaten a waffle. But no Agnes. And no waffles.

I forgot about the wheat until I went to get dressed and it was still there. “Oh, right.” I snapped a pic and sent it to my sister, who taught fifth grade. She’s the one who said it was wheat. At least then I knew what it was. I’ve heard of leaving roses on pillows, maybe a phone number. But wheat? Was Agnes, like, Amish? I had to get to work.

~

Again, the wheat slipped my mind until Agnes called me on my way home. It was just after dark. She said she couldn’t wait to see me. I said, “Cool,” and she said she would make something for dinner, have it waiting when I got back. I said, “You’re in my apartment?” and she said, “I never left.” Then the train went underground at North and Clyburn and I lost her. At home, she met me at the door, threw her arms around me, gave me a kiss on the cheek, and led me to the kitchen. She had two plates out, each holding two pieces of buttered wheat toast. “You don’t have a lot,” she said. I didn’t have a lot, but that included wheat bread. I pointed this out and she said, “It was no trouble.” Then she ate her toast. After each bite, she gushed in ecstasy. “Oh my god,” she said, “I don’t want to brag, but you have got to try this!” I did. And then I was gushing: It was the best toast I’d ever had, and even though it was just toast, it was some of the most amazing food I’d ever consumed. I gobbled down both pieces. Agnes said, “Nothing more satisfying than seeing a man appreciate something as much as you just appreciated that toast.” Then Agnes rammed her tongue down my mouth and dragged me to bed. The bushel of wheat was gone. I was sure I’d imagined it. Of course I had.

~

Fuck me, I woke the next morning and the bushel was next to me again. This time I dug through it, put my hand deep inside, not sure what I was feeling for. Then I dumped it out onto the sheet and spread it out. It was wheat. I looked inside the basket and there was nothing else. Just wheat.

I took the day off, spending most of it researching wheat. I was hoping to have that movie-scene revelation, come across some ancient document that would tell me who Agnes was and why she was leaving me bushels of wheat after we fucked. Was it some sort of offering? Was she a fertility goddess, using my seed to ensure a bountiful harvest? Was she merely insane? I never found that document, never found some grainy picture of Agnes in a wheat field from centuries ago, impossible to be her but clearly her. I’d met Agnes in a bar. She was a sexual genius. And she left me wheat. That’s still all I had.

When I went to my room to shower, Agnes was lying in the bed, sprawled out, naked.

“What the hell? Agnes?” I’d almost jumped out of my skin.

“This is how you left me,” Agnes said. “How you wanted me.”

“Have you been hiding in the closet? Under the bed? Jesus, are there passageways in the walls?”

Agnes collected herself, stood, and threw her arms around me, darting a peck on my cheek. “If you want, I can make you more of that toast with butter.”

“I don’t want any toast with butter.”

Agnes pulled out one of my work shirts from my closet, buttoning two buttons. “I can use jam instead—if you go out and buy some jam. Or make you a grilled cheese. Have you heard of grilled cheese?”

I wasn’t hungry. I wanted Agnes to explain herself.
Instead, one thing led to another and I had the most scrumptious plain wheat toast I’d

ever eaten, better than the night before. And then Alice and I fucked until we passed out.

~

The next morning: bushel of wheat.

All day, I didn’t let the bushel out of my sight. I carried it into the bathroom when I had to go. I was afraid something would happen if I took my eyes off it. As hours passed, I thought about baking the wheat into bread but didn’t know how to do that. I thought about spreading it around the apartment or throwing some out the window. I thought about flushing some down the toilet. I considered jacking off into it. I dialed the police then hung up.

Near sunset, my heart rate skyrocketed. I rained sweat. I wanted Agnes to pop out of the closet, out of a secret panel in the floor, rehiding the bushel in her place. I wanted her to put her arms around me, to kiss me, then make me toast. I stood at my window and watched the sun dip behind the rooftops, into the trees. I clutched the bushel of wheat like a baby. I stroked the thin pine, inhaled the dust. I was ready for whatever happened next, ready to make it the sustenance of my life.