Saturday, June 23, 2007

Chapter Twelve

Ben’s apartment was bare again with only a few wires hanging from the walls. The cigarette burnt carpet had only the sight of the moldering brick wall for company. Ben was sure he had forgotten something but he couldn’t remember what it was.

He knocked on Tyrone’s door to give him the apartment key. Tyrone opened the door and grinned widely.

“Come here, Ben Hugh.”

He spread his arms to give Ben a hug. Tyrone was shirtless and his chest was all gooped up with hair gel. Ben didn’t want to get messy, but he didn’t want to offend Tyrone so he allowed the hug. When the hug broke up, Tyrone clasped his hands on Ben’s cheeks.

“Ben Hugh. What a’ adventure you is gonna have. Travelin about, showin folks yo’ daisies. Wish ah could join ye.”

“You can. You know that Elizabeth invited you. Someone has to keep the beat.”

“Naw man, it’s a figure o’ speech. I don’t wanna come witcha. Crazy flower people.”

Tyrone walked over to his littered kitchen table, picked up a small bottle, and held it out to Ben.

“I gots ye a goin-away gift.”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“Made it muh-self. Hope ye like it.”

Ben took the plastic bottle. It was filled with a clear liquid and had a homemade label, made with red magic marker in big block letters. It said, “Ghetto Traveler.” Apparently Tyrone had been brewing moonshine in his bathtub.

“Ghetto Traveler?”

Tyrone grinned broadly. “That be de name o’ de product. I’m fixin a get me a copyright. The patent be all pendin, knowwa I’m sayin’?”

“What is it?”

“A patent?”

“No. Ghetto Traveler.”

“It’s my new invention. I ain’t jus’ yo’ landlord an’ janitor. I invent. You know Thomas Edison?”

“Yeah.”

“He invent things too. See here, I been scrubbin sink an’ toilet so many years, I start to use trial and error, adjust the recipe, developed my own cleaning fluid: Ghetto Traveler. A multi-purpose fluid dat cleans like nobody’s bidness. Scrub yo’ toilet, shine yo’ shoes. Clean yo’ eyeglasses, store yo’ contact lenses.”

“You store contacts in it?”

“I don’t wear me no contacts. My eyes is all twenny-twenny, but I ‘spect you could store contacts in it. You can do jussa ‘bout anyting wit Ghetto Traveler. It’s deodorant for yo’ underarm, creamer for you’ coffee.”

“You put it in your coffee?”

“Naw man, you know I drink tea. See here, you gotsta travel light. I backpacked ‘cross China. I know what I talkin’ bout. You ain’t gotta take a lotta supplies. Ghetto Traveler be the only fluid you need. Now you can be ghetto wherever you go.”

“I feel like I’m in a commercial.”

Tyrone’s face lit up.

“You’re right. I needs me some advertising.”

Tyrone pulled a small notebook and a stubby pencil out of his back pocket and began scribbling ideas.

“I needs me a celebrity endorsement. Wonder who folks’ll truss to sell ‘em Ghetto Traveler.” He chewed on the pencil’s eraser.

“How about Rudy Giulliani,” Ben suggested. “Everyone trusts him.”

***

The caravan pulled to a stop in front of the empty shack and a man in dusty overalls who was probably a farmer walked cautiously out of the rustling corn. Ben was glad to see the farmer didn’t have a gun in his hand, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have one nearby. It could be in his tractor or in the shed. Rural people had guns. Guns and paranoid fantasies. Today, all of the farmer’s paranoid fantasies were about to come true. The flower caravan had arrived.

Ben pulled off his gobbles and pulled the scarf off his mouth. He walked down the steps of the gazebo and jumped the last few feet to the dusty earth below. Derrick jumped down after him and then they helped Elizabeth down. The drivers got out of their trucks and gathered around as the trees swayed in the breeze.

The farmer had broad shoulders and a ruddy complexion. He smiled at them with yellow snaggled teeth. His teeth weren’t just crooked; they weren’t even in the right order. Some of the top teeth were on the bottom and the bottom teeth were on the top.

“Would you like to see some flowers?” Elizabeth asked pleasantly.

The farmer’s smile melted into a frown. “Cain’t ye read the sign?” he demanded, his voice hoarse. “It says no salesmen.”

He pointed at a sign nailed to a tree. But the sign didn’t say no salesmen. It said no dumping.

Ben felt embarrassed for the farmer who was obviously illiterate. Then Ben felt useless, like a discarded bottle cap. What was his poetry anyway? Just a bunch of words. It didn’t do any good for people so oppressed they couldn’t even understand words. But flowers could inspire even an illiterate hillbilly with their beauty. Another point for flowers over poetry. Ben should have been a flower arranger.

“Where’d you get the sign?” Derrick asked the farmer.

“You sayin I stole it?”

“We’ve got flowers,” Ben said quickly, feeling like a hostage negotiator. “We’re not selling them. We just want to show them to you.”

“That so? Reckon if I were to offer you a dolla fer one o’ yer flowers, you’d say no?”

“That’s right,” Ben replied.

“S’pose I say two dollar?”

“The flowers are priceless,” Elizabeth said. “Bobby, get some flowers out of the truck. We’re going to show this man some flowers.”

Bobby clapped his hands together and skipped over to one of the trucks. After a lethargic period of Cheetos and The Price is Right, he would finally get a chance to use his bagger skills.
The farmer spat into the dry dirt.

“You’d best keep your flowers in your trucks. You don’t wanna get your flowers so close or they’ll get sick. They’ll get what my corn’s got.”

“What does your corn have?” Ben asked.

“The corn sickness.”

“What’s the corn sickness?”

“See for yourself.”

The farmer turned and walked towards the corn. They followed after him. Derrick looked a little pale, like he was worried about catching the corn sickness.

Ben looked through the thick leaves of the corn and saw little multi-legged creatures scurrying up and down the green stalks. They looked liked centipedes. Or millipedes maybe.

“Corn weevils.” The farmer announced, shaking his head. “They’re eatin’ up the crop. I’ve tried everything. Pesticides, herbicides, every type of poison there is, but the corn just keeps on a-dyin’. I’ve looked at this from every angle there is. I don’t know what else to try.”

“Ghetto Traveler,” Ben suggested.

The farmer glanced at Ben and then glanced at the shed, probably where he kept his gun.

Ben doubted Ghetto Traveler would kill the bugs. It would probably just kill the corn.
“How do you keep the bugs away from your flowers,” the farmer asked.

“We have Derrick,” Elizabeth said. “The bugs go after him and leave everyone else alone.”

“Wish I had a Derrick,” the farmer said.

Elizabeth scratched her head and then nodded.

“I suppose you could borrow him until the harvest.”

“No,” Derrick said. “Take Ben. He’ll read poetry and the corn’ll grow. Your corn just needs love.”

The farmer shook his head and spat on the corn. “That corn gets enough love as it is. From the bugs. They just love corn.”

“I love corn,” Bobby said and clapped his hands.

The farmer sighed. “I suppose I should invite you to spend the night. That would be the hospitable thing.”

“It’s only ten in the morning,” Derrick said.

“You’re early then, ain’tcha?

“I suppose you can sleep in the barn,” the farmer continued. “There’s hay you can sleep on.”

“We can’t stay the night,” Elizabeth said. “We have to get going as soon as we show you the flowers. How many people are on the farm?”

“It’s just me.”

“You’re all alone.”

“I’m a hermit.”

No one said anything for a moment. Then Derrick asked, “Why?”

“I forget. Seemed like a good idea at the time. But now…I just don’t know. It gets lonely, being a hermit.”

“Don’t you have any family?” Elizabeth asked.

“None to speak of.”

“Do you have a daughter?” Derrick asked, looking towards the shed.

The farmer spat at Derrick’s feet. “You takin a census?”

Ben’s heart leapt. Census. Ben got nervous when people used words ending with the letters U and S. What if the hermit said censi? What if things got plural? Fortunately, there were no censuses around to hear this surveyal slur, but still, Ben had to lighten the mood.

“No family, eh? That might not be such a bad thing. My family’s pretty crazy. But you must have some friends, right?”

“Nope,” the hermit said. “No friends.”

“Loser,” Derrick muttered.

“What was that?” One of the hermit’s eyes almost popped out of his head.

“The luge,” Ben said. “The Olympic sport in the winter. Like the bobsled, only faster. He called you a luger. On the bobsled, there’s four people. On the luge, there’s only one. You’re a luger. All alone.”

The hermit’s lower lip quivered.

“Always wanted to be in the Olympics. That used to be my dream. Then I became a hermit.”

“Why don’t you join us?” Elizabeth suggested. “You can follow your dream of being in the Olympics. We’re all following our dreams here. Marcy’s going to be a plus-size supermodel, Ben’s going to start a revolution with his poetry, Derrick’s going to…” She trailed off for a moment but then started up again. “Bobby. Bobby’s going to be president.”

“Yaaay!” cheered Bobby.

The hermit peered closely at Bobby and then shook his head. “You can’t be president.”
Ben cringed. Hermits were so politically incorrect. You weren’t supposed to point it out when someone had Downs Syndrome.

“Why not?” Bobby asked.

“President has to be born in America,” the hermit said. “You’re obviously from one of those Mongolian countries.”

A light breeze rustled through the corn stalks. Ben could actually hear the corn weevils chewing on the stalks.

The hermit nodded. “All right. I’ll come on your flower caravan.” He looked around at them appraisingly. “Who wants to be on my bobsled team?”

Ben didn’t want to be on the bobsled team. He shrunk in his shoulders, trying to disappear so the hermit wouldn’t pick him to be on the bobsled team.

“I’ll be on your bobsled,” Marcy said.

Ben didn’t know if that would work. He doubted Marcy would be able to squeeze into a bobsled. Plus he was pretty sure that men’s and women’s bobsled were separate Olympic events; there was no co-ed bobsled. Although he couldn’t be sure. Ben didn’t know much about sports. He was a poet.

***
ו' תמוז תשס''ז
ירושלים
June 22, 2007
Jerusalem

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Chapter Eleven

The baggers weren’t looking for new jobs. They just sat there in the lounge of Abbott’s Home for Exceptional People, eating Cheetos and watching The Price is Right. Stephanie scurried around, handing out paper towels for them to wipe the orange Cheeto powder off their faces, but the baggers just tucked the paper towels into their shirt necks. They looked unemployable. The job interview would be over as soon as they shook hands with Cheeto powder on their fingers. No one would hire them. No one except for Ben. Elizabeth had sent him to offer them a job.

Stephanie’s lips snarled when she saw Ben. She strode up to him, holding the roll of paper towels like a club.

“Are you stalking me?” she asked.

“No.”

“So you’re just gonna give up? Just like that?”

“I’m here on business.”

“If you’re looking for flowers to inspire your poetry, you won’t find them here.”

Ben looked around the room and realized there were no flowers. Just the pink walls, stained carpet, and dingy air. Maybe they were afraid that flowers would over-stimulate the baggers and distract them from The Price is Right. They didn’t want baggers knowing about all the beauty in the world. Then they would be harder to control.

“Why are there no flowers?” Ben asked.

“I had them taken out,” Stephanie told him. “Bad memories.” She tightened her grip on the paper towels. “What do you want anyway? Why are you here?”

“I need baggers.”

“I see. And are you lying again, like you lied about the poem?”

“No. I really came for the baggers. I have a job for them. It’s just like putting groceries into bags except now they’ll put flowers into trucks and take them out again. We’re taking the garden on the road to bring the beauty of flowers to small-town America. They’ll get to travel all around the country.”

“You’re insane.”

“That’s beside the point.”

“You’re not taking them.”

“Why not? It’ll be good for them. Especially Bobby. If he’s going to be president, he’s going to need some grass-roots support.”

“He can’t be president.”

“Why not? He’s over thirty-five, he was born in America.”

“You know why.”

“Is he Jewish?”

Stephanie slapped the paper towels against her open palm.

“These aren’t normal people,” she shouted. “They can’t do what other people can do. They can’t travel around the country showing people flowers. Someone has to look after them.”

“Okay,” Ben said. “You can come too.”

“I don’t want to come.”

“Why not? You said it yourself. Someone has to take care of them.”

“They’re not going.”

Ben wondered why she was being so difficult and why she hadn’t even offered him any Cheetos. Maybe she still felt jealous about the flower that inspired his poem.

“That flower that I wrote the poem about,” Ben said. “It’s dead.”

Stephanie eyed him suspiciously.

“I killed it,” Ben added.

“Now you’re scaring me.”

Ben felt worried. This seemed like a place with a few spare straightjackets lying around. There was probably a man in a white jacket with a giant butterfly net. He would catch Ben with it and lock him up in a padded cell.

“I didn’t mean to kill it,” Ben explained. “It was an accident. It was only third-degree murder.”

“Only?” Stephanie said incredulously. “Only third-degree murder?”

“Yes. Flower-slaughter.”

This wasn’t actually true. It was a crime of passion and would more actually be called second-degree murder.

“I’m sorry,” Ben said. “I lied. It wasn’t flower slaughter. It was second degree murder.”

“You lied again?”

“Yeah, but I told you right away.”

“What are you, a compulsive liar?”

He might be. He just lied instinctively. Maybe he should talk to Pat Henderson about this.

***

The truck with the gazebo mounted on top led the convoy down the two-lane highway. It was followed by two dozen trucks filled with the flowers. Ben, Derrick, and Elizabeth sat inside the gazebo. Derrick wasn’t able to stop the bugs from splattering in the others’ eyes and teeth at high speeds so the three of them wore plastic goggles over their eyes and thin silk scarves over their mouths to keep the bugs out.

Ben read poetry to the flowers through a staticy Citizen’s Band radio. CB radios were installed in the front cabins so the drivers could communicate with each other and also in the back with the flowers so Ben could read poetry to them from his seat in the gazebo.

The sunlight rippled through an endless sea of corn on both sides of the road.

Ben finished up reading his poem. The last line had a metaphor comparing orange Cheeto powder to flower pollen.

Elizabeth lifted up her goggles to wipe a tear out of her eye.

“That was beautiful,” she said.

“Let me talk into the CB,” Derrick said restlessly. “I want to read a poem.”

Ben tried to hand the CB receiver to Derrick, but Elizabeth snatched it out of his hand.

“You can’t talk on the CB,” she said. “You don’t have a handle.”

All of them had handles, code names that they used to identify themselves over the CB radio.
Elizabeth was Grey Goose, Marcy was Butterfly, Ben was Mr. Mxyzptlk. Only Derrick didn’t have one.

“I don’t want to change my name,” Derrick pouted. “My parents gave me this name. They named me after an oil derrick. They thought it was lucky. That I’d strike oil.”

Elizabeth was insistent. She wouldn’t let Derrick speak on the CB until he chose a handle.

Finally, he conceded and chose the name Toby. For some reason, Ben found the name Toby hilirious and started giggling uncontrollably.

Elizabeth handed Derrick the CB radio and he recited his poem.

“We got a great big convoy, rockin through the night. Yeah, we got a great big convoy, ain’t she a beautiful sight?”

“You didn’t write that poem,” Ben said. “That’s the convoy song.”

“No. I wrote it.”

“You couldn’t have written it. You weren’t even born when it was written.”

Derrick continued to recite the song in a droll monotone.

“You gotta join our convoy, ain’t nothin’ gonna get in our way. We’re gonna roll this great big convoy, across the USA.”

“Stop it!” screeched a voice through the CB radio. “You’re singing is horrible.” The voice wasn’t one of the gruff voices of the drivers, but nonetheless, Ben recognized it immediately. It was the next president of the United States, Down Syndrome Bobby.

Elizabeth grabbed the CB receiver from Derrick.

“Bobby, is that you?”

“Tell him he needs a handle,” Derrick said.

“It’s me,” Bobby said.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m a stowaway.”

“Where are you?”

“With the flowers.”

Elizabeth looked at Ben with a concerned look in here eye. “There’s no seatbelts back there,” she told him. She pressed down on the radio and told the drivers to pull over to the side of the road.

After the convoy came to a halt, they tried to figure out which truck he was in.

“Bobby,” Elizabeth spoke into the radio. “Bobby, which truck are you in?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can you describe the surroundings?”

“There’s flowers.”

“I need you to describe the flowers for me.”

“They’re pretty.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“They make me feel warm in my heart.”

“What color are they?”

“Green.”

Elizabeth looked at Ben. “Of course,” she said. “The cactuses. He’s in the greenhouse.” She pressed the button. “Bobby, whatever you do, don’t touch anything.”

When they opened up the greenhouse and brought Bobby out, his skin was flushed and his grey sweatshirt was soaked with sweat.

“It’s so hot in there,” Bobby moaned. “How do people live in greenhouses?”

“They don’t,” Derrick said. “And you need a handle.”

“Not now,” Elizabeth said. “Let him drink something first.”

They gave Bobby a water bottle and he swallowed it down greedily.

It turned out that Bobby had overheard Ben’s argument with Stephanie. Bobby wanted to go, but Stephanie wouldn’t let him, so he had no choice but to stow away in the greenhouse.

Elizabeth decided he could join them. Who knew when they would need someone to put something in a bag?

***

Ben stared out at the passing scenery, looking for inspiration. The view didn’t change: corn, corn, corn. An appropriate metaphor for the life of the workingman. Nothing but corn.

Maybe the view didn’t change because they were going in circles. Just like the life of the workingman. The same thing over and over again.

Then Ben saw an unpainted shack sat in the middle of a clearing in a field. It’s wood was grey from years of rain.

“Bet they don’t have flowers,” Derrick said.

Elizabeth saw the dilapidated shack and her eyes lit up behind her goggles. She pulled down her scarf and smiled broadly.

“It’s flower time,” she said. She grabbed the speaker for the CB radio. “This is Grey Goose. We’re stopping at the shack over in that field to the right. Everyone to their battle stations. Over.”

A chorus of ten-fours rang out from the drivers.

“We can’t stop here,” Derrick protested. “This is how horror movies start: pulling off the road and going to an isolated farm house.”

“No,” Ben said. “This is how farmer’s daughter jokes start.”

“I’m serious,” Derrick said. “I saw a movie about this. Some teenagers stumble onto a farm and find out that the farmer grows marijuana there. The farmer points a gun at them and gives them a choice: they can either stay and pick the crop or he’ll shoot them.”

Ben thought that might not be so bad. If he picked crops in the field, he could really feel the plight of the working man.

“What did they do?” Ben asked.

“Huh?”

“They picked the crop?”

“I don’t know. I fell asleep.”

The trucks turned into the narrow dirt path, stirring up a cloud of dust.

“It’s just corn,” Ben said to Derrick, reassuringly. “If it was marijuana, they wouldn’t need our
flowers.”

“Corn’s even worse,” Derrick said. “We can’t even smoke it.”

“You can make a corn-cob pipe.”


***
June 5, 2007
Jerusalem, Israel