As an orange sun caught between the branches of the tall pines of the park, amidst moist air and solemn green, day inclined toward night. Before long, it seemed that all the birds of Texas had gathered there to vibrate evening with their song and chatter, intoning sermons to the dying light.

      The checkered tablecloth needed patting down and to be pinned at both ends of the table. That’s what the two mothers did. As if on cue the small ones came running ready and hungry from beyond the trees, even Mike, the bully, the son of my parents’ friends.

      But there was time yet before the food was to be unloaded from the car. Time to talk, to watch evening fall, and listen to the families playing games of horseshoe and croquet nearby under the trees. So the children disappeared again.

      From a swing, Janet, Mike’s mom, rocked his tiny baby sister back and forth, one toe anchored to the patch of dirt below, one arm around the chain. My mother twisted in the next swing over, smoking, her free hand wedged under her arm, I think, admiring the baby and laughing, since Janet spoke of pleasant things and always answered thoughtful, with kind intent.

      My father and Janet’s husband, George, settled themselves at the picnic table opposite each other talking ideas and art. When George talked his nasal voice rattled and buzzed like wax paper on a can as he made his points.

      “It’s just a myth to talk of a ‘tree,’ Henry. It’s a way of nullifying the complexity of reality, to diminish experience, as if the experience of one tree could be identical to another—for convenience, for economy. A tree’s a constellation of changing attributes circumscribed by a name. You paint the attributes, the form, the play of light on the form, the variations of color, the vibrations around a tree, but never apprehend what we call a ‘tree.’ That’s impossible.”

      As he spoke they were both looking in the same direction at an enormous trunk with bark, branches, roots, and leaves and shuffled their legs under the picnic table, thinking hard.

      It wasn’t a conversation really. My father listened while George talked. Meanwhile, his glance enveloped the soft light of evening, searched the cool shadows beneath the bushes, pursued the warm gold-trimmed edges of the leaves, followed where the light wrapped delicately within the folds of the skirts of the two women on the swings, and beyond to the loud glint on the chrome of their car.

      He was wondering about what George was saying, considered himself a painter of trees, trees on canvas, gnarled forms with leafy green, representations of an impression rather, and what we mistake for a tree, it’s true. He heard with half an ear, that and the sound of a car door slam.

      In a moment Mike the bully dashed from the station wagon and found cover with his mom. There had been a skirmish meantime, from the sound of it; one of the smaller boys had been locked in the car, and howling. The lecture from the table halted then and shifted from metaphysics to a volley of words fired hot at his wife. George got up to scold at close range and riddle the boy’s character, so much like his own, but by then she with the two children had reached the car in tears, let Mike’s crying captive go, and shut themselves in with the unpacked baskets of food.

      So the evening ended with apologies and without a picnic. My parents retrieved the checkered tablecloth, folded it between them like a vanquished flag, and stowed it in the back of the car along with four unmanageable kids. Night had come. The harsh car headlights astonished a cluster of oaks and pines at the exit of the park producing a fan of shadows behind as each family left in silence, reached home, hungry, a little fatigued, but simply going on.

©Vincent Montenegro

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