Chapter Nine

NOTE: I DECIDED THAT MRS. ROSEMAN IS A BAD NAME FOR A WOMAN WHO OWNS A FLOWER GARDEN. FROM NOW ON, SHE’S JUST ELIZABETH. (UNTIL I CAN THINK OF A BETTER NAME)

***

Ben’s apartment still had no furniture. Stephanie sat on the floor, on the orange carpet with the cigarette burns in it. Ben stood before her, passionately reciting a poem called Tulip Love.

“The scent of your pollen makes me feel like a honeybee,” he said.

The poem talked about how if he were a honeybee, he wouldn’t take her pollen back to the hive to make honey for the queen; he would run away from the hive and keep all the pollen for himself.

Ben told Stephanie that she was the inspiration for the poem, that the flower was a metaphor for her. This was a lie. The poem was about an actual flower in Elizabeth’s garden.

Ben felt guilty for lying to her. It took him several days to build up his courage to tell her the truth. He decided to tell her while they were walking through the park. If they were in a public place, there was less of a chance that she would gouge his eyes out. They walked along in the cool evening, sharing a grape popsicle.

"You know that poem about the beautiful flower?" he asked her.

She smiled. "Did you write a sequel?"

"There's something I have to tell you about that poem."

Her face dropped and she nodded her head. “I knew it was too good to be true. You didn't write it, did you? It’s just like Cyrano de Bergerac. Some hunchback with a gift for poetry is in love with me. He got you to pretend that you’re him.” She shook her head. “It was Derrick, wasn’t it?”

"No, I wrote it, but the poem isn't about you?"

"There’s another girl? You’re a playboy, aren’t you?"

"No. There’s no other girl. The poem’s about a flower. A real flower."

"I'm not a real flower?"

"You are, but not in the biological sense. I’m talking about a real flower, with cell walls and photosynthesis.”

"What are you, some kind of pervert? A flower pervert?"

"No."

"Is that why you read poetry to them?"

"It’s my job."

“And you enjoy this job, don’t you?”

“I didn’t mean to deceive you. But you just assumed the flower was a metaphor for you and I didn’t want to tell you it was an actual flower, that I wasn’t using a metaphor.”

"Aren't poems supposed to have metaphors?"

"You sound just like my father. Poems don’t have to have metaphors. I’m trying to be realistic so working people can see real beauty, not fictional beauty. Flowers have beauty you can touch and see and smell, not an imaginary made-up beauty that you get after you die if you behave yourself and respect the private property of your oppressors."

Stephanie dumped him.

Although Ben had only known her for a short time, he was devastated. At work, he sat in the grass next to the tulips, weeping as he read to the flowers. The weather was mockingly perfect; warm sunshine and a refreshing breeze. Puffy clouds painted the rich blue sky.

“You’re ugly,” he told the tulip. “Nobody loves you. All you do is soak up sunlight and nutrients from the soil. Everybody hates you. Why don’t you just kill yourself and leave the nutrients for other flowers?”

Birds sang happily to each other in the trees. They weren’t alone. Only Ben was.

Ben popped the flower off its stem, shoved it in his mouth, and chewed up the bitter petals.

***

The next day, Elizabeth said she wanted to talk to him. She asked him to step into her office (the gazebo,) so he knew it was serious. He had a pretty good idea what it was about. He had only eaten one flower but he had terrorized the others. They had probably wilted and died. Ben was a terrorist and would be fired. Once you got fired for terrorism you couldn’t get another job.

They sat down at a small glass table in the center of the gazebo. She filled his glass from a pitcher of iced tea with a whole lemon floating in it. Ben drank it all in one gulp.

“The party was an amazing success!" Elizabeth announced.

A success? Ben was taken aback. Marcy quit her job to become a plus-size model. Down Syndrome Bobby quit his job to campaign for the oval office. Derrick also quit his job to follow his dream, but then realized he didn’t have a dream and rescinded his resignation. Although Ben didn’t think it was a success, he nodded politely. He was glad she didn’t bring up the decapitated tulip.

"We should do it again," Elizabeth said.

Ben frowned. He didn’t relish having to round up another herd of working people. He was still recovering from his previous trial of rounding up the workers.

“I don’t know if I can rustle up any more downtrodden. It’s hard work bringing them to see the flowers. And it’s not in my job description.”

Elizabeth grinned conspiratorially at him. “That’s not what I had in mind at all.” She leaned in close to him and whispered. “If we can’t bring the people to the flowers then we’ll bring the flowers to the people.”

"I'm gonna be a flower delivery boy?"

"No.” She giggled and took a long draught of iced tea. “You’ll still read poetry to them and help them grow. But we’re going to pack up all the flowers and put them on the back of trucks. We’ll travel around the country, drive to small towns, places where the people have never seen a flower before. We’ll share the beauty of flowers with these gray little towns.”

“What about the cactuses?”

“We’ll take the greenhouse. The gazebo too.”

“Why are we bringing the gazebo?”

“You never know when you’ll need one.”

Ben thought it sounded like fun. Traveling around the country having adventures; it would be just like Scooby Doo. Derrick did kind of look like Shaggy. They just needed a dog. When people saw the flowers, they would quit their jobs to follow their dreams. It would be a great adventure; traveling around the country in a flower caravan, leaving a trail of unemployed people in their wake.

“Derrick will come, right?” Ben asked.

“Of course. We’ll need someone to keep the mosquitoes away. He’ll always be welcome until he finds out what his dream is.”

***

When Ben told Derrick about the plans to take the garden on the road, Derrick looked up from the television and stared at him blankly.

“I’m not going.”

“It’ll be just like the Partridge Family,” Ben said. “Only without music.”

“You watch the Partridge Family?”

“It was on Nick at Nite. I had insomnia.”

“What if we run into some backwards town where they sit in rocking chairs and whittle wood?”

“We’ll show them the flowers.”

"We don't take kindly to flowers 'round here," Derrick said in his best redneck voice.

Although Derrick wasn’t enthusiastic about a cross-country trip to share the beauty of flowers, Derrick’s parents were. They wanted him out of their basement. Derrick had no choice and reluctantly agreed to come.

Ben’s family wasn’t so excited about the idea. Ben called up his father and explained the new job to him.

"So you're homeless," Max said. "I knew this would happen."

"I'm not homeless. I'll be sleeping in a mobile home."

"You're living in a trailer?"

"It's a mobile home."

"So you're white trash now?"

"Movie stars live in mobile homes."

"Ben, are you in a cult?"

"What? Of course not!"

"I've been researching this on the internet, and I saw how they do it. They recruit on college campuses. They look for lonely, isolated students, the misfits."

"I'm not a misfit."

"You read poetry to flowers—you’re a misfit.”

“I’m not a misfit. I’m a traveling bard.”

“I read all about these cults. They love bomb you. That's what the experts call it: love bombing. They give you hugs and friendship and drugs and flowers and then you believe any crazy thing they tell you."

"Have you been talking to Pat Henderson again?"

“That man knows what he’s talking about.”

Ben hung up the phone.

***

Ben found Tyrone sitting in the back alley, soaking his feet in a kiddy pool.

“I’m leaving town,” Ben told him. He hoped to convince Tyrone to return his security deposit even though he hadn’t given any notice.

“Goin’ back t’England?”

“No. I’m going to be traveling in a convoy of flower trucks and showing the flowers to people all over the country. Then they’ll see how beautiful flowers are and realize how beautiful life can be.”

“Gonna give ‘em crumpets?”

“No. Just flowers.”

“A travelin flower show?”

“Yes.”

“You got groupies?”

“No.”

“You needs to get you some groupies.”

“Only musicians have groupies. We don’t have music. Just flowers and poetry.”

“Yo man, what you tink music be? It’s poem widda beat. You just needs a beat, then you say the poem, and you got yo’self music. Den comes de groupies.”

Tyrone slapped his palms rhythmically against the seat of his plastic chair and splashed his feet around in the pool.

“Go on man. Act like I a daisy and read me yo’ poem.”

Ben began reciting his poem about the beautiful flower to the beat that Tyrone made. It started off well, the combination of Ben’s lyrics and Tyrone’s percussion was quite catchy, but then when Ben got to the part about leaving the hive, he thought of Stephanie and broke into sobs.

Tyrone stopped slapping his palms on the chair, stopped kicking his feet, and looked at his weeping tenant.

“You gonna follow yo’ dream now, right?” Tyrone asked.

Ben sniffled and wiped his nose with the back of his sleeve. He was about to tell Tyrone that he already was following his dream when he wondered--was he? He had wanted to feel the plight of the workingman, to feel it in his bones and in his sore muscles. But now he was just sitting in an ivory tower; an ivory tower filled with flowers, and berating the workingman for not having flowers. He had sold out. He needed to swallow his pride, tell Elizabeth that he couldn’t travel around the country with her and Derrick, reading poetry to flowers and showing them to America’s lowly people. He needed to go crawling back to Reggie and beg him for his job back washing dishes. It would be humiliating, but that was why Ben dropped out of University--to feel the humiliation that the workingman feels every day.

On the other hand, maybe he hadn’t sold out. He could still be a poet of the downtrodden while traveling around the country, reading poetry to flowers and living in a mobile home. Instead of being a worker’s poet, he would be a hobo poet. He would feel in his bones what it’s like to be a hobo and write hobo poetry.

Ben felt weak and all cried out. He breathed in deeply and the air revived him.

“Thank you, Tyrone. I’m going to follow my dream now. My hobo dream.”


**
April 29, 2007
Jerusalem, Israel

Chapter Eight

Ben wasn't a very good mime. He couldn't communicate nonverbally to Juan the invitation to the garden party. Juan thought Ben was giving him a marriage proposal.

Fortunately, Ben was a poet of the workingman, not a mime of the workingman. His father wouldn't take it too well if Ben told him he was dropping out of school to become a mime.
Actually it would probably be about the same. His father would get Pat Henderson to hold an intervention and tell him he was addicted to miming. "You've been able to fool a lot of people," Pat Henderson would say, "with your unorthodox miming style: using words."

It was probably better that Juan wasn't there--he might have brought a Super Soaker and sprayed the other guests.

Plenty of other working people came to the party: bus drivers, construction workers, garbagemen, busboys, Tyrone. From the supermarket, Marcy and the other checkers, the manager Rod Jennings, (Ben decided that lower management was close enough to working,) and the developmentally-challenged grocery baggers. All of the baggers were live-in residents at Abbott's Home for Exceptional People, a home for people unable to take care of themselves. When Abbott's Home for Exceptional People heard that their Exceptional People were invited to a garden party, they insisted on sending a member of their staff along to chaperone.

Mrs. Roseman approved of the idea, hoping the chaperone would stop the baggers from picking the flowers, or trying to bag them. Derrick, however, was disappointed. "Now we won't have any fun at all," he complained.

But Derrick changed his mind when he saw the chaperone. Stephanie was a shapely girl with a sparkling smile and hauntingly blank eyes. Her long golden hair gleamed in the afternoon sunlight when she chased the baggers around, trying to stop them from eating the petals off the flowers.

The other guests all huddled in the gazebo around Derrick, their protection from the mosquitoes. Caterers walked among them, carrying trays and offering tea and crumpets. Tyrone seemed to be enjoying the pastries. Crumbs spilled out of his stuffed mouth and got stuck in his gelled chest hair.

Bobby, one of the baggers with Down Syndrome, ran in circles around the gazebo, waving his arms like windmills and shouting, "Happy birthday! Happy birthday!"

"Who's he?" Derrick asked Ben.

"He's a workingman," Ben replied.

"That's a workingman?"

"He lives by the sweat of his brow."

"That's quite a brow he's got there."

"He has Down Syndrome," Ben explained.

Derrick ran a hand over his face and and looked worried. "I think I have Down Syndrome."

"You don't have Down Syndrome."

Whenever Derrick heard about a disease, he thought he had it. Once he thought he had Terrets Syndrome.

"You don't have Terrets Syndrome," Ben had told him.

"But people always tell me I speak without thinking first."

"You don't have Terrets. People with Terrets shout out swear words and racial epithants."

"Maybe I have a mild form of Terrets."

"You don't have Terrets."

Now Derrick thought he had Down Syndrome. He felt the bones in his face nervously.

"My brow's too big."

"It's male pattern baldness," Ben said.

"I can't be losing my hair. I'm only nineteen."

"Is there hair in the drain after you shower?"

"I don't know. I don't look down when I shower. I don't wanna see anything down there."

"Well, you're losing your hair. Get some Rogaine. With Minoxydyl."

"My face is too flat."

"Actually it kind of juts out."

"And my ears are too small."

"Last week you thought they were too big."

"They were."

"You don't have Down Syndrome."

"Maybe I have a mild form."

"There is no mild form. You either have it or you don't."

"I think I have it."

"You don't."

Ben looked around at all the people standing around inside the gazebo, drinking their tea and eating their crumpets. His plan wasn't working. The workers were supposed to see the flowers and realize how much beauty there was in the world and want to make their lives better and form a labor union, but the flowers couldn't inspire them if the people just stayed in the gazebo, drinking tea and eating crumpets. They needed to get up close and smell the flowers, see the details in their petals. Only the baggers were meeting the flowers and it didn't seem to help them. Maybe if Derrick walked around the garden, they'd follow him.

"Derrick, why don't you go stand by the flowers?" Ben said.

Derrick looked down at the piece of tape between his feet.

"What about the duct tape?"

"Forget about the duct tape. You can leave the duct tape."

Derrick looked uneasily over at the flowers and shook his head.

"That's where the bees are. That's how Macaulay Culkin died."

"He's dead?"

"In the movie. My Girl. He got stung by bees and died. I'm also allergic to bee stings."

"You're not allergic to bee stings. People who are allergic to bee stings stop breathing when they get stung. They have to be rushed to the hospital."

"Maybe I have a mild allergy."

"You dont' have any allergy."

"I still don't like bee stings."

Ben suggested that they go into the greenhouse. The cactuses would inspire the workers and the bees wouldn't bother Derrick. Derrick agreed. They went into the greenhouse and the entire party followed, even the baggers. The dry heat was a refreshing break from the sweltering humidity outside. The workers carefully touched the cactus thorns, testing their sharpness. Stephanie squinted her eyes suspiciously up at the big green cactus, the one that inspired Ben's poetry.

"We shouldn't stay in here," she said. "Those cacti look dangerous."

Ben grimaced. Not only did she use the botanic slur, cacti--she also said they were dangerous.
Ben looked at the cactus to see how it would react. It didn't make any movement. Maybe it wasn't offended or maybe it was offended and didn't want to show it.

"They're not dangerous," Ben said.

"Then why do they have thorns?" Stephanie asked.

"They live in the desert," Ben said. "They need thorns to protect against desert predators."

"We shouldn't stay in here," Stephanie said. "Someone could get hurt."

Bobby, the one with Down Syndrome, looked ready to belly flop onto the cactus thorns.

"It's nice in here," Derrick said, probably just because he wanted to stay away from the bees.

"Ben, why don't you read us one of your poems about cactuses?"

Ben shook his head. He didn't want to read any homo-erotic poetry in front of a group of working people.

"What's that?" Marcy said, peering into the cactus. She was looking at a small pink and white flower poking out between a cluster of thorns.

"That's a cactus rose," Ben said. "Sometimes cactuses grow small flowers."

Marcy's eyes filled up with tears and her lips started to quiver. She covered her face with her great big hands and sobbed. "I never realized how beautiful flowers were." She turned to the manager. "I just realized something," she told him. "I'm a beautiful flower. I'm too beautiful to stand at the check-out line, pricing items, pricing my life away. I quit! I'm going to follow my dream. I'm going to be a plus-size model."

Ben was concerned. Marcy might not make it as a plus-size model. She was more than big enough, but in all the wrong places. Her sizable gut spilled over the front of her jeans and her bare arms had prominent chunks of cellulose pressing out. She needed something to fall back on, in case plus-size modeling didn't work out--a teaching degree maybe.

Then Ben reproached himself. He sounded just like his father. Never encouraging, always cynical. He should encourage her.

"Good for you, Marcy," he said.

Everyone else stayed quiet.

Marcy smiled at him, then bent over as if to kiss the flower, but stopped an inch away and inhaled its scent.

"I quit!" a squeaky voice slurred out. It was Bobby, the bagger with Down Syndrome. "I'm not gonna take it anymore! I'm wasting my life putting food in bags. I'm gonna follow my dream. I'm gonna be president of the United States."

Ben thought Bobby should definately get a teaching degree to fall back on.

"Good fo' you, little man," Tyrone said, his mouth full of crumpet.

"He couldn't be worse than Bush," Derrick said.


April 17, 2007
Jerusalem, Israel