The weather couldn't make up its mind what season it wanted to be. The sun was warm, but a chilly wind insisted on stripping the leaves from the trees. Day and night there came the sound of apples falling with a thud, like a catcher's glove receiving a softball.

I was picking (and picking up) apples when I heard a car pull over at the top of the hill, its tires crunching on the rocky shoulder. I decided to take a load of apples to the table and say hello to my customer.

But when I got up there, I found that it wasn't a customer at all. Not unless the mogul had suddenly become interested in acquiring his own beans, peas, and poetry. I figured he had "people" to be interested in things for him. But I didn't want to assume.

The bald driver opened the back door, and out stepped the mogul, shiny shoes, space-black suit, and all.

I said hello to them both as I dumped sweet-tart green-and-red apples onto the farm stand. I asked if either of them would like one.

"Lucky I caught you," the mogul said, ignoring my question. "Now I won't have to walk all the way down there to post this on your door. Course, in civilized towns, a sheriff's supposed to do this sort of thing, but what can you do? Must have a mastermind cow-tipper to catch or something. Sad. You know what they say, 'If you want a job done right . . .'"

The mogul snapped his fingers at the driver (Anton, was it?), who handed him a few sheets of paper, stapled together, which he handed me. The document was official-y, and seemed to have a lot of Herebys and Whereases. "What's this?" I said.

"Gee, I sure do hate to be the bear of bad news," the mogul said, "but I'm afraid this is your sixty-day notice to quit."

"Quit . . . my job?"

"Quit, as in, beat it. Scram. Skedaddle."

"I don't understand."

"Hey now, don't you dare. Don't you dare start grousing like you didn't know this was coming. There's been a notice posted at the courthouse since August, and who knows how many notices in that fish wrap you yokels call a newspaper. You know, right between 'kittens free to good home' and 'Thank you St. Jude, patron saint of lost causes'? So I don't want to hear any bitching and grousing because boo-fucking-hoo."

"Could you please not use that word?"

"Excuse me?"

"I'd appreciate if you didn't use 'grouse' in that way. It isn't polite, or fair. Have you ever even met a grouse? They're not complainers in the least. All they want is to be let alone, and not shot at."

"Hooookay. Whatever you say. And as far as I'm concerned you can keep that tin can you call a house, as long as you have it moved. Seriously, you'd be doing me a favor. I don't want to see it, I don't want to deal with it. It's the land that interests me. And every day my men are sitting around with their thumbs up their asses not breaking ground is costing me money. In fact, I'll sell you the house for a dollar if you promise to haul it out of here."

"But-it's my house."

"Hello? I bought the tax lien. I hold the quitclaim deed. You have sixty days to vacate."

"Vacate?"

"Vaaay-caaate. You know, it's like vacation? Only better, because you don't come back!"

"But, I bought this house. With grapefruit juice stands, and birthday checks, and summer jobs and after-school jobs, and sweeping up sequins and typing up memoirs, and never buying a car, and not going to college-"

"Well! Ain't that a hell of a thing. Bet you wish you'd paid up those overdue taxes back when it was forty-two bucks, huh?" He laughed and slapped me on the shoulder. "Tough break, kid, but that's the way the game's played. God bless the American way! Be a maker, not a taker, I think that's the takeaway here."

"But you're . . . taking my house . . . ?"

"Well, sure, sure. Taking from the takers is what makes the makers makers, you see?"

I stared down at all the Herebys and Whereases, feeling like I was back in high school trying to understand Shakespeare.

"What's this, about a window?"

"Window?"

"A sixty-day window?"

"Oh. Ha. You mean, the window to reclaim the title."

"Right, that part."

"Where it says you have sixty days to get the title back? That part? If you pay everything I've paid, all the taxes, all the fees, all the interest, plus twenty-two percent? Which, let's face it, ain't gonna happen, unless you find an actual goddamn leprechaun with a pot o' gold. And if you don't? Find a leprechaun, I mean? Well, in sixty days I come back here to take possession of this shit-heap, and if you aren't out, I file a FE&D and have Sheriff Hayseed drag you out by your lazy ass and charge you with trespassing."

"Oh," I said.

"But you know what? I'm a reasonable guy. So here's what I'm gonna do. You forfeit the sixty days right now, and I will give you one thousand dollars, now, from my own wallet. I give you cash, you give me the keys, and you can walk away from this dump. A thousand bucks sets you up in a cozy little apartment in West-Westfield-first, last, and security. Who's gonna give you a better deal than that, huh? Better yet-let's make it fifteen. Fifteen hundred bucks. Nice little cushion. Plenty of time to find yourself a job and become a worthwhile contributing member of society. I hear Dirty Dean's farm is always looking for warm bodies to hose out the slaughterhouse and clean those mountains of shit from under the hen batteries."

I stared at the mogul.

"Or, hey, you could always try that St. Jude thing! That's his thing, right-lost causes? Ha! Ha!" He smacked me on the shoulder. "So, whaddya say? We can sign some papers right now, get you out of here by five tonight. In fact-" He snapped his fingers at the driver. "-I happen to have some papers all ready to go." The driver popped open a briefcase.

"Tonight . . . ?" I thought about the squirrels, asleep in their box in the apple tree. What was I going to do with them? Leave them behind? What about all of Dougie's things he'd left with me for safekeeping? What about Bob down at the filling station-I'd promised him some boxes of apples. What about . . . well, there were just too many things to put in order.

"No," I said. "I can't go right now."

"Gosh. Well, that's a damn shame." The mogul nodded and the driver closed the briefcase. "Then I guess I'll see you in sixty days. Oh, and by the way-" He stopped and grabbed an apple from the table. "Those are my apples." He took a bite as Anton opened his door. He got in the car and threw the rest of the apple out on the dirt just before the door closed.

You know, going over it all in my head after the fact, I really do believe he said "bear."