Chapter Fifteen
There was empty square in the center of town where most of the foot traffic passed through. It was the best place to set up. They parked the truck with the gazebo on it in the center of the square, took the flowers out of the other trucks, and made a large circle of flowers on the ground around the gazebo. That way folks could stand in the gazebo, out of the sun, have a cold beverage, look down, and get a good look at all the flowers. The gazebo also made it seem more like a permanent garden and less like a show that packed up and left. They weren’t carnies, after all.
The townspeople peered out of the small shops lining the road and gawked at this strange new sight. Some approached for a closer look, and some even hopped up onto the gazebo for a bird’s-eye view. For many of them, Ben supposed, this was their first time seeing a flower. They had probably only heard about flowers before in storybooks.
Bobby brought out rare African violets, Marcy set down a basket of roses, Toby helped with the poppies, Ben set down a large tub of purple petunias, Hey Zeus lugged out a cactus, and Elizabeth wheeled out the dandelion cart. Everyone pitched in and helped set up the flowers. Except for Derrick, of course.
“You want to help?” Ben asked him.
“Not in my job description,” Derrick swatted at a swarm of mosquitoes swirling around him.
“You can help and absorb the mosquitoes at the same time. A little hard work might take your mind off the mosquito bites.”
“I would prefer not to.”
“Come on Bartleby. It’s good exercise.”
“I’m conserving my electrolytes.”
A car came crunching up the gravel road. It was a police car but its lights weren’t flashing. It rolled slowly towards them and jerked suddenly to a stop, just inches from the Mongolian mums. The driver’s door swung open and a short, wiry man slid out. He wore a tan policeman’s uniform, two ivory-handled guns in a worn leather holster, and a shiny star pinned to his chest. Now Ben knew why the sheriff didn’t have a gun. This policeman had two. He must have taken the sheriff’s gun.
The policeman took off his mirrored sunglasses and squinted his beady eyes. Tan lines tattooed the shape of the glasses to his face. He put the sunglasses back on, and turned his head towards Ben.
“Howdy,” Ben said pleasantly.
“Carnies?” the policeman croaked out.
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Why does everyone keep asking us that? Did you have some problem with carnies?”
“No and we aim to keep it that way. Now who are you?”
“Ben. Who are you?”
The man tapped the silver star attached to his chest. “Sheriff. Sheriff Webber.”
“You couldn’t be. We already met the sheriff.”
“Callin’ me a liar?”
“No. There must be two sheriffs.”
“Sheriff Webber’s the only sheriff in these parts. And that’s me.”
“Then who sold us a flower-beauty-sharing permit?” Ben wondered aloud.
“Must have been Joey Bob,” a woman from the crowd said in a thin voice.
The new sheriff nodded quickly and chuckled.
“That Joey Bob, always trying to be me.”
“How come Joey Bob gets two names,” Derrick asked Elizabeth. “Why don’t you take one from him?”
“Impersonating a police officer,” Sheriff Webber said. “That’s against the law. Do you want to press charges?”
“No.” Ben shook his head.
“Well I’m going to.” The sheriff took a notebook and stubby pencil out of his shirt pocket. “So I don’t forget.” He jotted down in the notebook and mumbled, “Arrest Joey Bob.”
He snapped the notebook shut. “Now, what brings you folks to our neck of the woods?”
Ben explained to Sheriff Webber about their caravan, about the power of flowers to help people see how beautiful life was, and how they just wanted to show the townspeople their flowers.
“Do you have a permit?” Sheriff Webber asked.
“Joey Bob sold us one. But he never gave it to us.”
The sheriff shook his head. “Joey Bob permits aren’t valid.”
Ben figured it was the old double-shakedown. The two sheriffs were probably in cahoots. “So we have to buy another one from you?”
Sheriff Webber’s nostril’s widened. “Attempting to bribe an officer of the law is an arrestable offense.”
“We’re not trying to bribe you,” Elizabeth explained. “We’re trying to pay the permit fee.”
“I look like a bribe-taker to you?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “You look like a very honest man. Like Abraham Lincoln.”
“Abraham Lincoln,” the sheriff chuckled and waved his hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about the permit. You don’t need it.”
“Thank you.”
“So why’d you ask if we had one?” Derrick said.
“You don’t need one ‘cause you ain’t having no flower picnic or whatever you call it. You’re gonna pack up those flowers back on your trucks and get outta town right this minute.”
“Why?” Down Syndrome Bobby asked. “Why don’t you like flowers?”
“Oh, I like flowers just fine.” Sheriff Webber shot a gap-toothed smile down at Bobby. “Sometimes I go for long strolls in the meadow just to look at the flowers. What I don’t like is folks who think they’re better’n us, lookin’ down on us an’ our lives, presumin’ that we need to look at their flowers.” He snatched off his sunglasses and glared at Ben. “I don’t like you comin’ into my town, presuming to have yourself a flower show. Not even askin’ permission first, just settin’ up your flowers.”
“May we have a flower presentation?” Elizabeth asked politely.
“No. You mayn’t. It’s too late for that now.”
“Please?”
“Not even pretty please with a spoonful o’ sugar on it. You ain’t havin’ a flower show, no way no how.”
Ben took a deep breath. The sheriff was a hard man, but flowers and poetry would win the day.
“Didn’t you ever have a dream?” Ben asked.
“I have a dream,” the sheriff said, doing his best Martin Luther King impression, “that one day you will pack up your flowers. You will put them back in your trucks. You will drive away and never look back. I have a dream today!”
Several of the onlookers from the town giggled uncomfortably.
Ben said, “I don’t suppose you like bobsleds?”
The sheriff’s eye’s bulged in their sockets.
“You want me to lock you up?!”
Ben considered this question. He had never been in jail before. It would be a great chance to experience the plight of people so downtrodden that they had to turn to crime.
On the other hand, he knew what they did to poets in jail. He would have to find a patron to protect him from the other inmates. But the patron would demand favors in return. Flowery favors.
On the third hand, it would make a great story to be put in jail because of his poetry. To actually be locked up for his writing! That would certainly help his career.
Ben straightened his back, lifted his chin, and stared down the sheriff. “We’re not going anywhere,” he said, “until you smell these flowers.”
“Funny thing,” the sheriff said. “I’m suddenly feeling all stuffed up. Fraid I won’t be able to smell anything.”
The sheriff pulled a pair of handcuffs off his belt.
Ben looked back at the rest of the flower caravan and saw them backing away slowly. “Come on!” he called to them. “Stand your ground. He’s only got one pair of handcuffs. He can’t arrest us all.”
“I can use a rope,” the sheriff said.
Ben didn’t think the sheriff was planning to tie their hands with the rope. There was going to be a hanging. The sheriff was going to take him for a stroll in the meadow and use him as flower fertilizer. At least Ben’s poetry would become famous if he was killed for it. Everyone would read his poetry then. Artists became more famous after their deaths. He would become like Socrates, Galileo, and Curt Kobain.
Ben breathed deeply and looked at the bright cloudless sky. He was about to be martyred for his belief in poetry and flowers. He hoped he would die well, but knew he probably wouldn’t. If only he had known he was going to die today, he would have fasted and cleared out his system; then he wouldn’t soil himself at the execution. Dirty pants took some of the glory out of martyrdom. That was probably why they let death row inmates have whatever they wanted for their last meal: to humiliate them.
The sheriff pressed his hands down on the ivory handles of his twin pistols and spoke coldly and deliberately. “Don’t make me get the volunteer fire department.”
Ben’s heart sank. The threat was clear: the firemen would spray the flowers to death with a fire
hose. (Or maybe use buckets of sand; Ben didn’t see any fire hydrants.) Sheriff Webber had found their caravan’s weakness, the Achilles Heel, kryptonite, the part that was as delicate as…well, as a flower. Ben thought this was cheating: getting the fire department to do the police department’s job.
When Ben looked over at a row of geraniums, he saw their sad petals drooping slightly and knew he couldn’t allow anything to happen to them. Not just because his job was to help them to grow, but because he had bit off the head of a tulip; he had a special responsibility. He would have to swallow his pride for the sake of the flowers.
“All right.” He met the sheriff’s gaze. “You win this round…”
“Ain’t no second round. This ain’t no two-out-of-three-falls cage match, kid. This is a Texas-Death-Match and you lose. You just go on, git, git, and git gone.”
Ben detected a slight wavering in the sheriff’s voice. Maybe he was bluffing and there was no volunteer fire department. Why would a town so small need one? The houses didn’t look particularly flammable; they were made of stone. And who would be on the volunteer fire department? Gimpy Barry? Joey Bob the fake sheriff?
No. They would have to pack up and go. Even if there wasn’t a volunteer fire department, it would be easy for the sheriff to round of a posse of firefighters to put out this fire: the fire of flowers.
THE FIRE OF FLOWERS! Ben’s face lit up. Inspiration struck in the strangest of places. There was a poem in this. Ben started to compose it in his mind. The fire that no posse can lynch. Flower Fire: unquenchable, unlynchable, un…somethingable.
“What are you grinnin’ at?” the sheriff demanded.
Ben hadn’t realized he was grinning. That happened sometimes in a fit of creativity: he lost all sense of his physical body and got all tingly. The sides of his face ached from grinning.
“Thank you sheriff. You’re my muse.”
The sheriff took a step back. He looked uncertain and a little afraid. Then he breathed deeply into his chest, spat on the ground, and ground the spittle into the dry earth with his boot heel.
“We ain’t no relation.”
He clicked open the handcuffs and approached Ben.
***
י''א באב תשס''ז
ירושלים
July 26, 2007
Jerusalem
The townspeople peered out of the small shops lining the road and gawked at this strange new sight. Some approached for a closer look, and some even hopped up onto the gazebo for a bird’s-eye view. For many of them, Ben supposed, this was their first time seeing a flower. They had probably only heard about flowers before in storybooks.
Bobby brought out rare African violets, Marcy set down a basket of roses, Toby helped with the poppies, Ben set down a large tub of purple petunias, Hey Zeus lugged out a cactus, and Elizabeth wheeled out the dandelion cart. Everyone pitched in and helped set up the flowers. Except for Derrick, of course.
“You want to help?” Ben asked him.
“Not in my job description,” Derrick swatted at a swarm of mosquitoes swirling around him.
“You can help and absorb the mosquitoes at the same time. A little hard work might take your mind off the mosquito bites.”
“I would prefer not to.”
“Come on Bartleby. It’s good exercise.”
“I’m conserving my electrolytes.”
A car came crunching up the gravel road. It was a police car but its lights weren’t flashing. It rolled slowly towards them and jerked suddenly to a stop, just inches from the Mongolian mums. The driver’s door swung open and a short, wiry man slid out. He wore a tan policeman’s uniform, two ivory-handled guns in a worn leather holster, and a shiny star pinned to his chest. Now Ben knew why the sheriff didn’t have a gun. This policeman had two. He must have taken the sheriff’s gun.
The policeman took off his mirrored sunglasses and squinted his beady eyes. Tan lines tattooed the shape of the glasses to his face. He put the sunglasses back on, and turned his head towards Ben.
“Howdy,” Ben said pleasantly.
“Carnies?” the policeman croaked out.
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Why does everyone keep asking us that? Did you have some problem with carnies?”
“No and we aim to keep it that way. Now who are you?”
“Ben. Who are you?”
The man tapped the silver star attached to his chest. “Sheriff. Sheriff Webber.”
“You couldn’t be. We already met the sheriff.”
“Callin’ me a liar?”
“No. There must be two sheriffs.”
“Sheriff Webber’s the only sheriff in these parts. And that’s me.”
“Then who sold us a flower-beauty-sharing permit?” Ben wondered aloud.
“Must have been Joey Bob,” a woman from the crowd said in a thin voice.
The new sheriff nodded quickly and chuckled.
“That Joey Bob, always trying to be me.”
“How come Joey Bob gets two names,” Derrick asked Elizabeth. “Why don’t you take one from him?”
“Impersonating a police officer,” Sheriff Webber said. “That’s against the law. Do you want to press charges?”
“No.” Ben shook his head.
“Well I’m going to.” The sheriff took a notebook and stubby pencil out of his shirt pocket. “So I don’t forget.” He jotted down in the notebook and mumbled, “Arrest Joey Bob.”
He snapped the notebook shut. “Now, what brings you folks to our neck of the woods?”
Ben explained to Sheriff Webber about their caravan, about the power of flowers to help people see how beautiful life was, and how they just wanted to show the townspeople their flowers.
“Do you have a permit?” Sheriff Webber asked.
“Joey Bob sold us one. But he never gave it to us.”
The sheriff shook his head. “Joey Bob permits aren’t valid.”
Ben figured it was the old double-shakedown. The two sheriffs were probably in cahoots. “So we have to buy another one from you?”
Sheriff Webber’s nostril’s widened. “Attempting to bribe an officer of the law is an arrestable offense.”
“We’re not trying to bribe you,” Elizabeth explained. “We’re trying to pay the permit fee.”
“I look like a bribe-taker to you?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “You look like a very honest man. Like Abraham Lincoln.”
“Abraham Lincoln,” the sheriff chuckled and waved his hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about the permit. You don’t need it.”
“Thank you.”
“So why’d you ask if we had one?” Derrick said.
“You don’t need one ‘cause you ain’t having no flower picnic or whatever you call it. You’re gonna pack up those flowers back on your trucks and get outta town right this minute.”
“Why?” Down Syndrome Bobby asked. “Why don’t you like flowers?”
“Oh, I like flowers just fine.” Sheriff Webber shot a gap-toothed smile down at Bobby. “Sometimes I go for long strolls in the meadow just to look at the flowers. What I don’t like is folks who think they’re better’n us, lookin’ down on us an’ our lives, presumin’ that we need to look at their flowers.” He snatched off his sunglasses and glared at Ben. “I don’t like you comin’ into my town, presuming to have yourself a flower show. Not even askin’ permission first, just settin’ up your flowers.”
“May we have a flower presentation?” Elizabeth asked politely.
“No. You mayn’t. It’s too late for that now.”
“Please?”
“Not even pretty please with a spoonful o’ sugar on it. You ain’t havin’ a flower show, no way no how.”
Ben took a deep breath. The sheriff was a hard man, but flowers and poetry would win the day.
“Didn’t you ever have a dream?” Ben asked.
“I have a dream,” the sheriff said, doing his best Martin Luther King impression, “that one day you will pack up your flowers. You will put them back in your trucks. You will drive away and never look back. I have a dream today!”
Several of the onlookers from the town giggled uncomfortably.
Ben said, “I don’t suppose you like bobsleds?”
The sheriff’s eye’s bulged in their sockets.
“You want me to lock you up?!”
Ben considered this question. He had never been in jail before. It would be a great chance to experience the plight of people so downtrodden that they had to turn to crime.
On the other hand, he knew what they did to poets in jail. He would have to find a patron to protect him from the other inmates. But the patron would demand favors in return. Flowery favors.
On the third hand, it would make a great story to be put in jail because of his poetry. To actually be locked up for his writing! That would certainly help his career.
Ben straightened his back, lifted his chin, and stared down the sheriff. “We’re not going anywhere,” he said, “until you smell these flowers.”
“Funny thing,” the sheriff said. “I’m suddenly feeling all stuffed up. Fraid I won’t be able to smell anything.”
The sheriff pulled a pair of handcuffs off his belt.
Ben looked back at the rest of the flower caravan and saw them backing away slowly. “Come on!” he called to them. “Stand your ground. He’s only got one pair of handcuffs. He can’t arrest us all.”
“I can use a rope,” the sheriff said.
Ben didn’t think the sheriff was planning to tie their hands with the rope. There was going to be a hanging. The sheriff was going to take him for a stroll in the meadow and use him as flower fertilizer. At least Ben’s poetry would become famous if he was killed for it. Everyone would read his poetry then. Artists became more famous after their deaths. He would become like Socrates, Galileo, and Curt Kobain.
Ben breathed deeply and looked at the bright cloudless sky. He was about to be martyred for his belief in poetry and flowers. He hoped he would die well, but knew he probably wouldn’t. If only he had known he was going to die today, he would have fasted and cleared out his system; then he wouldn’t soil himself at the execution. Dirty pants took some of the glory out of martyrdom. That was probably why they let death row inmates have whatever they wanted for their last meal: to humiliate them.
The sheriff pressed his hands down on the ivory handles of his twin pistols and spoke coldly and deliberately. “Don’t make me get the volunteer fire department.”
Ben’s heart sank. The threat was clear: the firemen would spray the flowers to death with a fire
hose. (Or maybe use buckets of sand; Ben didn’t see any fire hydrants.) Sheriff Webber had found their caravan’s weakness, the Achilles Heel, kryptonite, the part that was as delicate as…well, as a flower. Ben thought this was cheating: getting the fire department to do the police department’s job.
When Ben looked over at a row of geraniums, he saw their sad petals drooping slightly and knew he couldn’t allow anything to happen to them. Not just because his job was to help them to grow, but because he had bit off the head of a tulip; he had a special responsibility. He would have to swallow his pride for the sake of the flowers.
“All right.” He met the sheriff’s gaze. “You win this round…”
“Ain’t no second round. This ain’t no two-out-of-three-falls cage match, kid. This is a Texas-Death-Match and you lose. You just go on, git, git, and git gone.”
Ben detected a slight wavering in the sheriff’s voice. Maybe he was bluffing and there was no volunteer fire department. Why would a town so small need one? The houses didn’t look particularly flammable; they were made of stone. And who would be on the volunteer fire department? Gimpy Barry? Joey Bob the fake sheriff?
No. They would have to pack up and go. Even if there wasn’t a volunteer fire department, it would be easy for the sheriff to round of a posse of firefighters to put out this fire: the fire of flowers.
THE FIRE OF FLOWERS! Ben’s face lit up. Inspiration struck in the strangest of places. There was a poem in this. Ben started to compose it in his mind. The fire that no posse can lynch. Flower Fire: unquenchable, unlynchable, un…somethingable.
“What are you grinnin’ at?” the sheriff demanded.
Ben hadn’t realized he was grinning. That happened sometimes in a fit of creativity: he lost all sense of his physical body and got all tingly. The sides of his face ached from grinning.
“Thank you sheriff. You’re my muse.”
The sheriff took a step back. He looked uncertain and a little afraid. Then he breathed deeply into his chest, spat on the ground, and ground the spittle into the dry earth with his boot heel.
“We ain’t no relation.”
He clicked open the handcuffs and approached Ben.
***
י''א באב תשס''ז
ירושלים
July 26, 2007
Jerusalem
posted by Benjamin Fishbein at Thursday, July 26, 2007
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