Just something I wrote for my fiction workshop. It's long, beware.

Every Oregonian’s Guide to Mycology

Dedication to the second edition of Every Oregonian’s Guide to Mycology:
For mom – mistakes were made.

Cantharellus cibarius:

They were especially elusive little things, the Horns of Plenty. I spent days wandering the woods of Bend looking for the little bastards, and most of the times the horns were involved, I'd come home with a soaked sweater and an empty basket. I had hoped mom's spore-radar would come through for me magically, since she had long since been too weak to wander the forests. At least now she could just buy her fancy mushrooms at the grocery store.
Mom insisted that the yellow chanterelles tasted best, and to emphasize her point, she'd make these big pots of cream of chanterelle soup; they were always too delicious to argue with. Still, I preferred the Horns of Plenty; they were spongy little indigo trumpets, the hidden chanterelles, which turned a rather ugly black after they’d been pan-cooked. They aren't as overly chewy, in my opinion, and while they make a soup look like something you wouldn't want to eat, they vastly improve a roast. It's like you're eating the state of Oregon whenever you taste one, years of moss and leaves in a little black sliver that you never want to finish munching.
Mom got me into the mushroom thing, and her parents got her into it; mushroom hunting was apparently really big in Russia, so when the family moved from the Old Country and settled down outside Portland, they found that the northwest had an abundance of fungus to be scouted and eaten.
I myco-hunted every weekend with my parents from when I was 4 until I hit about 12. Then dad died. Plus, I had hormones like crazy – all I wanted to do was make out with girls. But mom kept at it, bringing back these huge baskets all the time. It was pure routine for her – I’m not even sure how much she really liked going out into the rain all the time, picking up slimy buttons from moss and rotting logs.
I was in school in Eugene when I realized I missed looking for the little buggers. I’d sniff the air each time it rained, which was often in Eugene, and I’d be completely overwhelmed by that scent of emerging spores, of little underground vegetables poised to pop the soil. But I never felt like looking for the things until mom busted her knee falling down the stairs when she was 60. She started to complain about the lack of chanterelles, and she lamented over the phone.
“Jimmy, I know they’re out there, but I’m just a feeble old lady now.” She laughed, and I felt terrible.
So when I was 31, I ventured into the woods to hunt again.

Pleurotas ostreatus:

Marie and I met in the woods, during one of my earliest attempts at solo myco-gathering. She had found me circling trees, looking for the little tan wings of oysters, and interrupted me to ask what I was looking for. This was a reasonable question, as sane men seldom wander the woods in hunting caps carrying Easter baskets, so I told her, "beautiful oysters," while observing the bark in hopes that I might see a ladder of caps.
"You're a mushroom hunter."
"Yeah..." I still hadn't looked at the voice at my back, but after not sighting a single oyster, I turned around and saw a lovely young woman in a sweater and wool hat. My mouth was open - I remember that much, and I'm fairly sure my knees were muddy. She smiled, and stood on her toes to see into my white-plastic basket.
"Nothing, huh?"
“Nothing good.” I frowned at the intrusive white basket. “How did you know I was mushroom-hunting?” I gave a cute smile, until I realized that I also had mud on my lips. I wiped it off in as subtle a fashion as I could.
“Well, you’re staring at a tree. And you’re hunting for oysters in a forest. Although I don’t understand the camouflage – I don’t think they can see you.”
“Yeah.” I looked at her face. Very dark brown eyes, curly black hair tendrils peeking out from her wool hat, and eyebrows at an angle which suggested that she found me to be amusing. She was very beautiful. “So, do you know where a man can find some oysters?”
She walked with me for a while – I told her that I was Jim, and she told me that she was Marie, and that her brother gathered mushrooms (though usually psilocybin), so she understood the occasional man-in-the-woods who was reasonably sane but staring at trees. Marie knew mushrooms, and I nodded and said “yeah” a lot, and maintained a ridiculous smile as we kept our eyes up, attempting to spot the hidden oysters.
“Oh! Over there!” Marie pointed up at a maple. “Those are tan, like you said.” I looked up and spotted the shelf of cups about 8 feet up the tree.
“Good eye.” I patted her on the shoulder, muddying her sweater. She laughed it off, and shoved me towards the tree.
“Climb on up, Ranger Jim.” I dropped the basket on the ground to go climb, and she quietly picked it up. “I’ll try and catch everything that falls.”
“Alright – I guess I’d better hold on tight, then.” The trunk of the maple was at a convenient angle to shinnying up the tree, so I was able to get very close to the caps. They seemed more orange than tan. “I’m not sure if these are oysters.”
“Knock one down. Let me look.” I poked a cap and it detached from the tree and plopped into the basket below. Marie picked it up and inspected it, while I continued to cling to the tree. “It looks like an oyster.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’ve eaten them before – this really looks like an oyster.” She looked up at me and smiled again, and I knocked all of the mushrooms into the basket without a bit of doubt.

Omphalotas olivascens:

We got very, very sick that night. I invited her over to dinner, so that she could also partake of the oysters. They were apparently not oysters at all, but Jack O’Lanterns, which are very pretty, are orange and not tan, and have spores which glow at night. They also cause you to open up at both ends and thank God that you have two bathrooms when you and an attractive guest are vomiting at the same time. Marie slept it off at my house that night, curled up on my sad, small bed while I hunched over on the couch, remaining sick and thinking about the woman in my house who I decided I loved.
She got the whole mushroom thing. She wanted to go out and gather with me, to help me fill this ridiculous basket, and she was adventurous enough to eat what I had picked. It was a mistake, of course, but the kind of mistake where two people are propelled towards each other because of a bad decision.
I saw her get up to run to the bathroom in my room, and I got up to get her a glass of water. I took it as far the door to the bedroom, when she spoke from the bathroom.
“Jim, you’re going to remember this, right?”
“Hm? Are you OK in there?” I stepped towards the bathroom. She was seated on the floor, between the sink and the toilet.
“Just my gut.” She patted her stomach gently while I handed her the water. “Anyway, you’d better remember this.” She smiled and sipped. “I’m not letting you get this one wrong again.”
“You think this’ll happen again? I was way off on the color, I think.” I sat on the edge of the bathtub. Marie reached over to pat me on the knee.
“I’ll make sure you don’t forget.”

Bovista plumbea:

More misidentifications were made, although I usually carried a guide after the Jack O’Lantern episode. Still, it was never Marie’s fault again. She always seemed to notice the minor details on the mushrooms we came across, and I played secretary and took notes. We usually hunted for edibles, but it was always exciting to find bright purple and red species you’d never ever want to put in your mouth.
We had been together for a few years, and the mushrooming was our thing. We were going to write a book, we decided. One particular day, we finished compiling information and checking caches of the tastiest varieties, and continued our hike into a nearby field, which was dotted everywhere by tumbling puffballs. It was like the ball-end of a driving range, except quiet and safe. I knelt down to pick up a puffball, and I lingered.
I proposed there, she said yes, and she promptly lost the ring while we ran around kicking puffballs out of the ground.

Agaricus praeclaresquamosus:

The book was published two years after we married. Every Oregonian’s Guide to Mycology sold well, for a mushroom book. We were now minor celebrities in the fungus-circuit. The revenues made it possible for Marie and I to continue hunting daily, making sure that mom got what she requested, or at least a decent substitute. Though mom was strong enough to eat whatever we put in front of her (and stronger still, to survive the dinner of flat-topped agaricus with nothing more than some gas, while Marie and I spent the evening throwing up), she had been growing ill, and in the decade since she had busted her knee, she had become completely sedentary. She was the old lady she had feared, now stuck eating her son’s sub-par cream of chanterelle while watching Wheel of Fortune, breathing into a plastic mask, weak, tired, and always frustrated.
“Natalie, you’re a trouper,” Marie always said.
Mom generally responded with a “yeah, I know,” and then told me that I couldn’t cook worth crap. Always while smiling in a way that left me stung, but not hurt.
Marie, thank God, was a saint about the frequent visits to mom, never once complaining about my doting. She understood, and baked candy-cap cookies, marinated beefsteak fungus jerky, and cooked more mushrooms than any human being ever should.

Boletus edulis:

We brought the basket of boletes to mom's house one evening. The white Easter basket was completely full of the things - a couple kings, a queen, and a pile of admirables we had come across near the hemlock at the back of our property. I was the real bolete-eater - particularly if kings were involved, but mom always liked to look at the day's haul. She found boletes "darling", the plump caps with equally plump stems, like little fat ladies wearing enormous hats, and in the place of gills under the caps (which Marie thought made certain mushrooms look quite sinister) were puffy sponges. Adorable, I suppose, but the thrill was in the catch, and the fat ladies would be chopped and cooked eventually, so I never found myself getting too attached to anything I dropped into the basket.
Mom was, as usual, watching Wheel of Fortune when we let ourselves in, sitting in her seat in front of the television. Two rooms away, I could hear her berating the requests for “wrong” letters.
"Do I hear people?" She always said the same thing when we came in.
We walked into the den where she was sitting, and Marie dropped the basket at mom's feet. Mom smiled at both of us from underneath her clear mask, then leaned over slightly to peek into the basket. I switched off the television.
“Good harvest today.”
"Let me see. Those fools on the show are guessing nothing but q’s and y’s, anyway.” She peeked down at the basket. “Oh, boletes! Jimmy, where did you find so many?" She leaned forward a bit, swiping at the basket gently and hopelessly with her not-close-enough hands. "Marie, can I see those?"
Marie looked at me first, as she often did when we visited mom. It was a silent communication; 'your mother needs my help to pick up things that are right in front of her.' It was Marie’s passive-aggressive way of showing fear, of saying something she really did not want to say that I already knew - mom wasn't well. After exchanging the glance, Marie picked up the larger of the kings and placed it in mom's old and waiting hands.
"Kings, Queens, and Admirals."
"Admirables," and I immediately felt bad for correcting her.
Mom looked over at the basket again, and rolled the heavy king in her hand. The stem was easily the width of a banana, and the cap about the size of a hamburger. I decided to lift the basket, so that it was at her eye-level. "Anything in here that you want? I thought you might like the-"
"The Queen, if you don't mind." I took the king from her hands and replaced it with the queen. Mom flipped the mushroom upside-down and poked at the spongy underside of the cap. “This is a really pretty one – was it in the backyard?”
“We found it while we were out walking this morning. Marie picked it up and carried it for a couple miles – it was too nice to leave behind. Do you want it?”
Mom poked at the sponge a little more and placed the queen back in the basket.
“Oh, you keep it. You give me all the good ones anyway. Besides, I still have more oysters than I know what to do with.” The oysters were left over from a hike two days ago. Perfect little tan wings, just like the ones I had been looking for that first time.
Mom asked Marie to hold up the basket again, and placed the queen back among its brethren. Marie brought the basket over to the front door, and called back to the living room.
“You know, Natalie, the mushroom message board on the internet said that there were a lot of springtime amanitas popping up near the California border.” Springtime amanitas were mom’s favorite, and we tried to get them whenever we could. They only occasionally popped up in Oregon at all, so the message boards were the best way to keep track of them. “Jim and I could go down there tomorrow or something to look for them.”
“I don’t want to be a bother.” Mom certainly did in this case. “But if you get them, I won’t complain.” She laughed, and slowly lifted herself from her chair.

Amanita ocreata:

Four hours after sitting down to a plate of what I was certain were springtime amanitas, mom was in the St. Charles-Bend Hospital on a respirator. The case seemed mysterious to the doctor until I explained that my wife and I had just served my mother wild mushrooms which we had picked. Then the case slipped from mysterious to suspicious. It was a poisoning now, and one which needed to be screened for intent. A police officer came to speak to me.
“So you’re saying it was probably one of the mushrooms she ate?”
“It’s likely.” I looked at my feet. “They’re sometimes very hard to tell apart.”
“Your wife mentioned that you’ve made some mistakes before. Nothing this serious, though.” He wasn’t severe, this cop, but just talking to him made me feel like I had force-fed mom a bottle of bleach and claimed it was an accident. “Do you have any idea what kind she might have eaten?” He was calm; there was sympathy in his voice.
“We gave her an ipecac, so I’m not sure we have anything left to check, but it could have been an amanita ocreata – destroying angel, those are called.” The cop cringed at the name. “Those are as bad as they sound.” I felt a twinge in my face – a sharp pain behind my nose which triggered a tear in the corner of my eye. “They can kill you.” I slumped over and started to cry.
“Jeez.” The cop patted my shoulder. “I’m sorry. They all look the same to me.” He looked away from my face.
I heard beeping in the background – a doctor was perched over mom, fiddling with wires, trying to keep the lines on the screen next to her bed jumping. I wanted to vomit, but I couldn’t. Marie was sitting outside mom’s room, looking almost catatonic. The noises around me softened into the air.
I made another mistake – mine again, and the angel had come to smack me for not learning my lesson.

Amanita velosa:

Mom passed away that night. Her lung collapsed, and her weak body couldn’t keep up well enough to fight whatever poisons were in her system. I sat in her room for a little while, talking to her, apologizing profusely, telling her that I should’ve been more careful with the amanitas. She would’ve thrown one at my head if she could hear me. I sounded as pathetic as I felt.
Some mushroom expert I am.
Marie retrieved the basket from mom’s house and brought it back to the hospital to be looked over by the toxicology doctors. We needed to wait a week or so; they told us they’d be prompt.
They were springtime amanitas.
Mom had suffered an unrelated pulmonary arrest.

Super happy action blog time!