Vampires in the Lemon Grove

The story is about Rutherford B. Hayes, the 19th president of the United States. He has died and woken up in the body of a horse. The story is broken into section headers that reveal various details about life on the farm.

“The Girl”

This section starts with, “The girl is back. She stands silhouetted against the sunshine, the great Barn doors thrown open. Wisps of newly mown hay lift and scatter. Light floods into the stalls” (113). The girl is the niece of the farmer who owns the barn, and she is feeding Rutherford peaches. He is licking her hand in a sort of Morse code, attempting to tell her his true identity.

“Rebirth”

When Rutherford:

woke up inside the horse’s body, he was tied to a stout flag post. He couldn’t focus his new eyes. He was wearing blinders. A flag was whipping above him, but Rutherford was tethered so tightly to the post that he couldn’t twist his neck to count the stars (114).

He says he was terrified of the sound of his own huge heart, and of the man “with a prim mustache and a mean slouch” who spurred his sides. At first he thinks this man must be the devil, but then the man gives him “a gentle ear-scratch and an amber cube of sugar,” which makes Rutherford wonder if the man is God (114). The man puts Rutherford in a trailer and takes him to the barn, where he “has been stabled ever since” (114).

“The Barn”

The barn is part of a farm, and from what Rutherford gathers, the landscape looks like the grasslands of Kentucky:

There are twenty-two stalls in the Barn. Eleven of the stabled horses are, as far as Rutherford can ascertain, former presidents of the United States of America. The other stalls are occupied by regular horses, who give the presidents suspicious, sidelong looks. Rutherford B. Hayes is a skewbald pinto with a golden cowlick and a cross-eyed stare (115).

Rutherford tries to figure out how the former presidents have been rebirthed into horse bodies, but can’t understand the seemingly “frantic cosmic arithmetic” behind it all (115). He believes that they’re still in America, and that life plays by the same rules as it did when he was alive, but he can’t be sure. Many of the president horses think that the stable-owner, Fitzgibbons, is God, but Rutherford says, “there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that their reverence was misplaced. Fitzgibbons is not a good shepherd. He sleeps in and lets his spring lambs toddle into ditches” (116). The James Buchanan horse vehemently thinks that Fitzgibbons is God and that the stable must be heaven because he was reborn into the “Royal Ledger of Equine Bloodlines,” meaning that his ancestors were coveted racehorses (117).

Rutherford decides that whether each president thinks that they are living in heaven or hell, it doesn’t matter since it’s the same outcome either way. He misses his wife, Lucy, and hopes that he will find her reincarnated somewhere on the same farm.

“The Runaway”

The James Garfield horse escapes from the farm and runs away. This is a curious thing since the other horses are inexplicably scared of jumping over the fence.

“The Next Incumbent”

Fitzgibbons puts the John Adams horse into Garfield’s now vacant stall. Adams wonders the same things that the other horses have wondered, like if they’re all dead and if it’s heaven. Rutherford asks him if he wants it to be heaven, and Adams says, “That also depends. If Jefferson here?” (120). Adams can’t accept that he’s a horse, and says that they all must find their way back to Washington.

“The Fence”

Adams doesn’t understand why they all can’t just jump the short fence and run away. The other horses don’t know why they can’t jump it: “The presidents have tried and failed to get over the Fence every day of their new lives. Rutherford thinks it’s an ophthalmological problem. A blind spot in the mind’s eye that forces a sharp turn” (121). Adams wonders how Garfield did it, but since “Garfield’s hoofprints disappear at the edge of the paddock,” it almost seems like he just vanished (121).

“Animal Memories and Past Administrations”

Woodrow Wilson is “giving speeches in his sleep again […] his voice thick with an old nightmare” (122). While the other presidents dream about politics, Rutherford only ever dreams about the moment he died and of his wife, Lucy.

“The First First Lady”

Rutherford’s wife, Lucy, “was the first president’s wife to be referred to as a First Lady. Nobody besides Rutherford and a few balding White House archivists remembers her. Rutherford wishes that he was still a man and that she was still a Lady” (123). Rutherford walks around the farm wondering if any of the animals are Lucy reincarnate. He thinks that a particular sheep with “a fleck of recognition, ice-blue, floating in her misty iris” could be Lucy. He asks Woodrow Wilson, who used to know about sheep, if it could be Lucy. He says definitely not; she’s just a normal sheep.

The idea of the “Adam’s referendum” is introduced; the horses plan to leave in three days and go back to Washington (124).

“Washington or Oblivion”

Adams is convinced that he and his fellow former presidents must return to Washington. He says that no matter their political party affiliation, they must put them aside and unite. He says, “It is obvious, gentlemen: of course we’re meant to lead again. It is the only thing that makes sense. What other purpose could we have been reborn for?” (125). While half the presidential horses agree with Adams, Rutherford says that he can’t leave because he’s convinced that the sheep is his wife. He’s been holding “his own supper in his mouth and then drops clumps of millet and wet apple cores to coax her forward” (126).

“Dirt Memoirs”

The girl comes into the barn and the presidential horses are frantic, hoping that she has a history book with her: “Every president wants to find out how history regards him” (127). One of the horses knocks her bag onto the ground, but to everyone’s dismay there are no history books. One of the horses says, “Every subject but American history! What has become of our education system? What are they teaching children in schools these days?!” (127).

The James Buchanan horse is trying to write his memoir in the dirt, but his hooves can’t form letters very well. Rutherford used to believe “it was the civic duty of every elected official to preserve a full record of his administration,” and he kept close records of his life while in office, but now all he wants is to write the word Lucy in the dirt (129).

“Hunger and Restraint”

Rutherford keeps the sheep that he thinks is Lucy close by giving her his half-chewed food. He is getting skinnier by the day. Lucy frequently stays with Rutherford in his stall, and one morning Fitzgibbons finds them in the stall together. He exclaims, “What in the hell are you doing with that blind ewe? That is spooky, Sarge. That is […] unnatural. You feeling sick, Sarge? You get into some rat poison or something?” (129). While not explicitly stated, this moment suggests that Rutherford is being sexual with what he believes to be his sheep-wife.

“Campaign Promises”

Many of the former presidents are “still hungry for power. They are practicing their return to Washington. Adams is so starved for dominion that he begs the girl to allow him to represent her interests to her uncle Fitzgibbons” (129). In response, she calls him “Mister Pretty” and says that he’s being noisy (129). Rutherford thinks they are all wasting their time, saying, “Don’t you gentlemen realize that you are stumping for nothing? What sort of power could you hope to achieve out here?” (130). He thinks about how he couldn’t wait for his presidential term to end.

He also thinks about how if only everyone could agree that they are in heaven, then they would all be free to enjoy the moment, instead of dreaming about what’s beyond the fence.

“Shorn”

Fitzgibbons shears Rutherford’s lady sheep: “The sheep rises up out of the green grass completely bald. Now the fleck in her eye looks bright and inhuman” (131). He then realizes that she’s not his wife.

“Independence Day”

It’s the night before the presidential horses plan to rebel, and Fitzgibbons leaves Rutherford’s stall open: “The latch bangs in the wind, a sound like open, a song like no accident” (132). He walks out of the stall and heads for the fence:

His blood feels hot and electric inside him, and Rutherford knows from the certainty of his heartbeat that he is alive, that there isn’t any ‘after.’ There is no reason to believe that anything better or greener waits on the other side of the Fence. There is nothing to prevent him from jumping it (132).

He jumps, and “nobody is watching when he clears the Fence” (133).