Chapter Twenty-Nine

The sheriff may have won the battle, but the flower caravan would win the war. He drove them out of town, but they wouldn’t stay driven out. The next morning, as the sun was rising over the horizon, they drove into the main square of the town and set up the flower show once again: the gazebo truck in the middle, and the flowers set on the ground around it. The townspeople gawked, wondering if these people were incredibly brave, or just incredibly stupid.
A dirty white van pulled up into the town square and skidded to a stop. David recognized it as the same white van that had been tailing them on the highway. The side door slid open and about a dozen people slid out, their eyes vacant, their clothing unwashed. The men had scraggly beards and the women had knotted, unkempt hair. They were the grubbiest bunch of people David had ever seen.
Each person carried a wooden stick with a piece of white poster-board taped to the end of it. David smiled so broadly that his face hurt. It was a strike! They were going to picket! Finally, the workingman was standing up and refusing to take it anymore.
Then David saw what was scrawled on the poster-boards and his heart sank.
“Stop the Flower Show!” one sign said in angry red marker.
“Set the Flowers Free,” said another in navy blue.
“Animalists Go Home!”
“Plant Rights Now!”
“Born Free!”
“Tear down the gazebo!”
It wasn’t a strike; it was a protest. And the protest was against them, against their flower show.
The protestors thrust their picket signs like spears. One hefty young woman in an orange dress handed out homemade Xeroxed pamphlets to the confused townspeople. A townie in a straw hat politely accepted the pamphlet and scratched his whiskers. Was this part of the show?
Elizabeth stomped straight up to the oldest protester, a thin man with stringy gray hair.
“I know you!” she shouted. “You stole my begonias!”
The gray haired man jumped back but then quickly composed himself. He smiled and David saw his teeth were yellow with black spots. “No I didn’t,” he said. “I liberated them. And I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You do too. I know it was you. Why don’t you go away, leave us be, and let us have our flower show.”
“We have a constitutional right to do express our opinion.”
“The Founding Fathers never intended this.”
Natasha was shaking her head and looking down.
“You know them?” David asked her.
“The Founding Fathers?” Natasha said.
“No. The protesters.”
“Sure. They’re just some crazy cult that always harassed us. They don’t think people should own flowers. They say we shouldn’t keep them in captivity.”
That was pretty crazy. David thought they needed to enter Pat Henderson’s deprogramming program. He wished he had brought some of those pamphlets with him. Maybe if he splashed Ghetto Traveler in their eyes…
“I’ll talk to them,” David said.
“Don’t get too close,” Natasha warned. “They might have rabies.”
David walked up to the man with stringy gray hair.
“Look,” David said. “There’s no need to protest. We’re just trying to inspire these nice people here. We’re sharing the beauty of flowers.”
“Sharing the beauty of flowers?” the man scoffed. “That’s a nice euphemism, but they’re not yours to share. How would you feel if someone shared the beauty of you?”
“Flattered, I guess.”
“You wouldn’t be flattered if someone owned you, if you were his property. You can’t own plants.”
“They’re not mine,” David explained. “They belong to Elizabeth.”
“No,” Elizabeth corrected. “They belong to everybody. We’ve come to share the beauty with everyone else.”
“No,” Gray Hair said. “They belong to nobody. They only belong to themselves. You can’t keep plants in captivity. It’s wrong.”
The protesters cheered and thrust their signs.
“It’s not captivity,” David said. “It’s soil. It’s their home.”
“It’s a flowerpot,” Gray Hair said. “Flowerpots are flower jail.” He turned up his head and shouted, “FLOWERS YES! FLOWERPOTS NO!”
The rest of the protesters picked up the chant and thrust their picketing signs.
“FLOWERS YES!!! FLOWERPOTS NO!!! FLOWERS YES!!! FLOWERPOTS NO!!!”
They continued to chant and the townspeople stared at them; they had never had such action in their sleepy little town. Larry Shoemaker picked up a potted orchid and prepared to launch it at the protesters.
“Flowerpots yes,” he said.
“Don’t!” David shouted and grabbed Larry’s arm in mid-throw. Larry didn’t get a good follow-through and the orchid only reached halfway to its intended target (the protester’s skull) before it shattered on the ground.
“Don’t lower yourself to their level,” David said.
“What? You’re just gonna stand there and let them get away with this?”
“No. I’m not. But I’m not going to use violence. I’m going to use poetry. Just let me try.”
Larry shrugged. “Go for it.”
David tried to get the protesters attention, but they were still chanting, “FLOWERS YES!!! FLOWERPOTS NO!!!”
“QUIET!!!” David screamed. It felt like he tore something in his throat.
There was an instant hush. David recited The Fire of Flowers:
Forest Fire:
Tropical rain forest fire
Burning the dense gray jungle of tedium and oppression
to make room for Agriculture.
The crop is not corn, but fields of flourishing flowers:
a harvest yielding truth, love, and beauty.
The Great Chicago Fire of Flowers:
a cow knocks over a lantern and burns down the city,
the cow is a poet
his udders squirt the milk of poetry
that drips off tender petals
and down the sturdy stem
the calf is a flower
suckling milky verses from the poet’s torso
Traveling Arsonists Shouting:
Fire of Flowers in a crowded theatre
yellow pollen sparks
kindle dried-out hopeless hearts
Burning, blooming, billowing
lighting up the Earth like Jupiter, a big ball of flaming gas.
It had sounded better in his head, before he said it out loud. David had been a little apprehensive about some of his metaphors, particularly the one comparing himself to a cow. It might seem a little arrogant, putting himself in the poem. He hoped that they liked it.
“What was that?” Gray Hair asked. “Was that supposed to be a threat?”
“No. It was a poem,” David said.
“It didn’t rhyme.”
“It doesn’t have to rhyme. And who says threats can’t rhyme?”
“You said you’re going to burn my house down. That’s a threat.”
“No I didn’t. I said that the Fire of Flowers is going to burn down the forest.”
“Well, I live in a forest.”
“Really.”
“Yep.”
“You’re a hermit?” David asked. “Do you know Toby?”
Then he realized it was a silly question. Just because he was a hermit didn’t mean he knew all the other hermits.
“I’m not a hermit. We all live together. We have a cabin in the forest.”
“Well, I wasn’t talking about your forest. I was using the forest as a metaphor.”
“A metaphor? So it’s a veiled threat. It’s still a threat.”
“No it isn’t. What I was trying to say was…”
David trailed off. He had promised himself that he would never become one of those poets who said, “What I was trying to say was….”
Just then, Sheriff Webber’s police cruiser rolled slowly over the gravel and crunched to a stop. He opened the door, stepped out, and shook his head. The flower show had returned and now there were more people.
He approached them, took off his sunglasses, and rubbed his sizable gut. “Who’re these?” he asked David. “Your reinforcements?”
“No,” David said. “They’re our groupies.”
“Sheriff,” Gray Hair said shrilly. “We’re peaceably assembling here, as is our constitutional right, and this right wing extremist is threatening to burn our house down.”
“I’m not a right wing extremist,” David said. “I read poetry to flowers.”
“So did Genghis Khan,” Gray Hair said. Then he explained his theory about how people shouldn’t hold plants in captivity.
Sheriff Webber rubbed his chin thoughtfully. He looked down at the flowers, looked at David, looked at the protesters thrusting their signs, looked back at the flowers. “What have I done,” he muttered.
David saw that the sheriff’s eyes were filled with tears.
The sheriff straightened himself up and wiped his eyes. “You’ll have to pardon my tears,” he said. “I’m allergic to carnies.”
“Carnies?” Gray Hair asked.
“You,” the sheriff said.
“I’m not a carnie. I’m a Plant’s Rights Activist.”
“Do you have a permit?”
“A permit? No.”
“Well, don’t fret. I can sell you one. Ask me how much.”
“How much?”
Sheriff Webber slapped Gray Hair in the face with the back of his hand.
The protesters gasped as Gray Hair fell backwards, landing on his rear end in the dusty street. He rubbed his face and glared at the sheriff.
“Now git,” the sheriff said. “Get out of my town. I don’t like long-haired, dirty hippies tellin’ us we can’t look at flowers. Those flowers are beautiful, and if you can’t appreciate it, then you’re the one who’s Genghis Khan.”
Gray Hair stood up and dusted himself off. “We’re not going anywhere!” he screamed. Some of the other protesters clearly wanted to go; their knees were knocking and they kept glancing at their van.
“Don’t make me get the volunteer fire department,” the sheriff said.
The gray haired man laughed this threat away. “We have a right to make our voices heard,” he said, shooting spittle with every word. “We shall not be moved.”
The sheriff shrugged. “All right. You asked for it.” He turned towards the assembled townspeople and asked them, “Is there anyone here knows how to put out a fire?”
“Water!” called one person.
“Yeah! He’s right!” called another. “Water’s the way to do it!”
There was a chorus of agreement. Water would put out a fire nicely.
“That’s not what I meant!” the sheriff said. “I’m askin’ fer volunteers to help put out this fire. The flames of these here flower-haters.”
“Oh boy!” shouted one young freckled lad. “There’s gonna be a dousin’!”
They all cheered and volunteered to help.
The sheriff slapped a meaty palm on David’s shoulder. “Tell you what, son. You got a choice. You join the volunteer fire department and I’ll pardon ye’. You won’t have to go to jail. What’s it gonna be?”
David’s childhood dream was to be a fireman; even as a young boy he had empathized with the workingman. You didn’t get more workingman than fireman. Now he finally had the chance.
“I’ll do it.”
“Great. Say, you don’t have a hose, do you?”
“No.”
“Neither do we. This could be a problem.”
“We have watering cans,” David Schweitzer, the driver of the tulip truck, pointed out.
The sheriff nodded. “That’ll have to do. Follow Travis. He’ll show you where to fill up.”
They grabbed some watering cans and followed the lanky, bowlegged Travis over to a faucet. Some stood in line waiting to fill up. Others went into the buildings to find a sink.
While they were filling up their watering cans, the protesters were making preparations of their own. They took several lengths of rusty chains out of the back of the van, and dragged them over to the gazebo. They began chaining themselves to the wooden gazebo posts.
“Ouch!” said the slim young woman being chained to one of the front posts by the stairs. “Randy, these chains hurt! Why’s it always have to be chains? Why can’t we use rope? Or handcuffs?”
“Quit whining,” Gray Hair said, tightening her chains. “It’s for the greater good.”
“But Randy, why do they have to be so rusty. Now I’m gonna get tetanus. And I already had a tetanus shot. I don’t want another.”
The townspeople and caravan people lined up in formation in the street, holding containers of water: watering cans, buckets, vases. The sheriff bent into the driver’s seat of his police cruiser and switched on the siren. Flashing red lights lit up the square. This was the bugle that started the charge; the townspeople started walking towards the gazebo. Everyone was there. Even the little girl with the pigtails, apparently over her concussion, carried a small glass of water.
The protesters started to chant.
“PLANTS ARE NOT YOUR SLAVES!!! PLANTS ARE NOT YOUR SLAVES!!! PLANTS ARE NOT YOUR SLAVES!!!”
When the townspeople were just inches from the protesters, and about to drench them, there was an earsplitting scream.
“AAAAIIIIEEEEEEE!!!!”
Everyone turned and looked. Rolling toward them at great speed was a man in a wheelchair with pencil-thin legs and massive arms that pushed the wheels frantically. He zoomed towards the protesters at top speed, lifted up the fireman’s axe from his lap, and began to swing it over his head. His eyes gleamed madly.
“Barry! It’s Barry!” the townspeople called.
This must be Gimpy Barry, David thought, the one they wanted him to heal.
Barry soared right at the protestors, swinging the axe with his powerful arms. They dove out of the way to avoid his powerful axe chops, and then scurried away in all directions. The young woman chained to the gazebo screamed hysterically.
The skinny freckled lad ran after Gray Hair, holding a paint-splattered aluminum stepladder like a battering ram. This wasn’t a proper fireman’s ladder, but it worked just as well to get cats out of trees or anti-flower protesters out of town. He came to a sudden stop, set the ladder upright, and kicked it open. He climbed to the top step, jumped off the ladder, and dropkicked Gray Hair in the mouth. The crack of his jaw breaking echoed through the town square.
Everyone used their watering cans to soak the protesters. Only Larry Shoemaker used his tin watering can to hit a pudgy young protester over the head.
Gray Hair, grabbing his bleeding mouth, leapt into the driver’s seat of the van and started the engine. The others leapt in as it started to move. Those who were chained up wiggled out of the chains like Houdini and rushed to the van. They all managed to get inside and slam the door as Gray Hair drove away.
“Fascists!” the protesters shouted behind them, except for Gray Hair who couldn’t speak because of his broken jaw.
Gimpy Barry threw his axe at the van, hitting one of the back tires, and popping it with a loud bang like a gunshot. The van sped away, one back side dragging, the metal frame shooting out a trail of sparks. David expected the gas tank to explode, but it didn’t and they drove out of sight.
A big cheer went up from the townspeople and they shook their watering cans high in the air. The sheriff bent into his police car and turned off the siren and flashing lights.
“Now,” he said. “LET’S SEE SOME FLOWERS!!!”
The townspeople picked up the flower and danced around with them, circling around the gazebo. Even Gimpy Barry danced, doing wheelies in his wheelchair. Then he pulled himself out of the wheelchair, stood on his head and walked on his hands, his legs flopping limply to the side. There was talk of setting this date as an annual festival. Even Derrick managed to seem happy, dancing around with a giant potted sunflower.
Only David felt deflated. The protestors had spoiled the metaphors in The Fire of Flowers. In his poem, the flowers were the fire that burned away the timber of evil. Now the fire was the protesters (the force against the flowers) and the volunteer fire department put out the fire. The poem was ruined. David was no longer a cow.
“What’s wrong?” Natasha asked him. “You look like you’re gonna cry.”
“It’s nothing,” he said.
“I know what you need,” the sheriff said, placing his hands on David’s shoulders as if to start a Congo line or give him a massage. “Flowers!”
***
י''ג בכסלו תשס''ח
ירושלים
November 23, 2007
Jerusalem