"Porcupine Quills" by Nina Adel

Porcupine Quills

One car follows the other, her sister in the car at the front, traveling with a husband and three children. They have camping gear. Two good tents. Bear-proof boxes. Lanterns. Almonds and protein bars. Carrots and hummus. Leadbelly’s blues and Quilapayún’s Andean flutes competing with Lucinda Williams and Thich Nhat Hanh for total dominance of the stereo speakers, for occupation of all the airwaves.
Leila is in the high-mileage car, lagging behind. She, too, has a husband and children along. The two children, her companions of the road. She is not the driver. Her job is to sing, to make dolls and bears and other toys with the children, to keep their hands busy, their breath occupied — she loves these occupations. She fingers the colored seed beads in her purse, over the little plastic bags, massaging her palms on them distractedly, planning beaded shells embroidered onto quilt squares, beaded medallions to make with all the children at the picnic table. Birchbark drawings with campfire charcoal.
They’ve driven up from their home in the humid South to the two-family rendezvous point on the Wisconsin-Illinois border, ready to camp at the forest site chosen by her sister.
Driving slowly along old logging roads that are becoming increasingly gravel-covered and narrow, her eyes skim the stumps and logs along the way, noting the ones with birch bark peeling in large pieces, thinking perhaps she ought to get the bark now, while it is available, already cut and drying. But they cannot stop. They have no directions to the site and must keep following the car ahead, the car that is turning, even now, into the woods, dust and dirt rolling up from the tires, clouding the road.

~  

Just before the campground turn-off, there is something raw and red, something split and wounded. Something dead by the side of the road, and Leila feels a jolt when she deciphers this vision. Roooadkeeeeell, says the husband, in a fake drawl, a drawl intended to resemble the Tennessee language to which they’ve become accustomed; a drawl their Tennessee-born northern children haven’t acquired. It is not their culture; they are not of that dialect. Leila doesn’t laugh at the drawl, nor at the sight of the brutalized animal.
A porcupine, she breathes. And then blurts, Stop! There are quills! She is suddenly loud and alert. But they cannot stop, they must follow the other car, and she begins to feel a rising desperation. It’s ok, it’s ok, her husband says, patronizing.
In her baggage, there is a small bottle of alcohol and a large glass jar, a jar that had contained marinara sauce, a jar for collecting the things she finds, for feathers that really ought to be disinfected, for shells that may have traces of rotting flesh inside. It is their standing compromise: she can collect what she likes and transport it in the family car, but it must all be sterilized before it’s packed in.
Leila knows that she’ll be going back and gathering the quills of the poor animal. She knows what to do with quills, with quills and beads. She knows how to clean and preserve them, to dye them, to sew with them. She has only ever used purchased quills, but she’s read up on the preservation processes. If she can gather and save the fallen ones, perhaps the futility of the animal’s death, caused by a human carelessly driving a car through these woods, will be minimized. She will do it; she feels she has to.

~   

The campsite is not so far from the turn-off, after all the anticipation. Leila roots around in the car for her alcohol and glass jar as they arrive. She spills some of the former into the latter before replacing the cap and stashing it away again. I’m going back, she says, inviting the kids to join her. But they are exploring, unloading, following directions for raising the tent. Everyone is busy with the initial set-up chores for the weekend camp, but it will be too late, perhaps, if she doesn’t gather the quills now. It’s hard to get away, though, without a charge of laziness, of irresponsibility. First, the gear must be unloaded onto the ground — it’s only fair. Working faster than usual, she gets it done as quick as she can, her part.

~   

Leila goes alone in the car. Back at the turn-off, she stands quietly over the carcass, apologizing aloud. I’m so sorry. I’d like to have them . . . since you can’t use them anymore . . . her voice trails off. She doesn’t understand what has happened here. There are very few quills left on the body of the animal, and many spread all around. They’ve scattered pretty far in all directions, an impossibility based on what she’s read of porcupines. She’s read to shatter the myths and knows that they don’t shoot their quills at passersby. They don’t possess firearm capabilities. You’d have to rub up against one to get pierced, for the porcupine to release the barbs.
One by one, she picks up quills of every size: the long and thin ones, the short and stubby ones, all surprisingly intact. She drops each into the alcohol so that it will be clean and accepted by her family as suitable art material. She understands the requirement, knows that the quills may be carrying germs, but she’s a little sickened by her own sanitizing act, as if she’s too good for germs, too human. She feels like a mercenary scientist, pillaging and plundering the natural world for interesting specimens to collect.
That’s not me, that’s not what I am, she says aloud, to the carcass, to the piney air. She looks into the alcohol jar, removes a thick quill, holds it in her palm. With the other hand, she presses into the quill, feeling through its hard exterior to the spongy interior. She imagines the quill dyed blue, her sewing needle piercing through the middle from one end and out the other side, sewing its length down onto the leather material she’s brought. It’s slow going, the quillwork. Sometimes the needle pokes through the middle, never making it through to the clipped end. She’ll figure it out, teach the children to do this. They’ll make the medallions or maybe some earrings. The porcupine’s quills will not be wasted. She is committed to this.

~   

When the evening settles onto their campsite by the lake, the two families build a fire. There is still enough light to do it. They’ve gathered tinder, kindling, bigger pieces to light the logs they’ve hauled along from the mouth of the camping area. Leila could build the fire by herself, but she lets the others take the lead. She respects the silent hierarchy not because it’s easier, but because it’s her habit. She knows her place, and it isn’t doing the important jobs, but the frivolous ones. Art, not survival.
Her husband, her sister, and her brother-in-law all openly regard Leila and her quill-collecting as cute, adorable, like a child. As if she were one of the children. As if they’ve humored her. They shake their heads. They look at each other, then one by one back at Leila, her sister’s fingers condescending to her shoulder, delivering three taps and a sigh. Wow, her brother-in-law says to her husband, laughing; her husband nods and grins consent awkwardly, grins like a playing card’s joker.
Across the site, someone is getting a guitar from its case. Her sister calls the children over. Tells them to gather roasting sticks. For the all-natural marshmallows, for the campfire.
The glass jar is on one of the picnic tables provided by the park. Leila straddles the bench seat and places her hands around the glass jar protectively. The glass is a cool and smooth oasis in the smoky air. She conjures a crew of dark vultures in the night, devouring the carcass safely now that there’s no danger of being pierced by quills or shot by humans. They peck at the remains, this unwitting gift from humans invading the forest, and they are nourished. Their leavings, what can’t be eaten even by carrion, will take their time returning to the forest floor.

Nina Adel

Nina Adel holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Hamline University. She has been published in Sweet Tree Review, Selcouth Station, Linden Avenue Literary Journal, The Tennessean, and Louisiana Folklife Studies Journal, among others. She lives in Nashville alongside her two children, teaches at a local college, and runs the “Creative Writing for Immigrants and Refugees” program at the Porch Writers' Collective. Nina's piece, "Refugere," just won the Creative Nonfiction Prize (2020) from Bellevue Literary Review.

Headshot: Nina Adel

Photo Credit: Staff