Chapter Thirty-Three

David was washing his hands at one of the truckstop diners when two men entered the bathroom and locked the door behind them. They wore blue jeans, faded flannel shirts, and had several days of stubble on their faces. They looked exactyly like truckers, except for their matching black briefcases. It was agents Black and Lugo from the Department of Agriculture."What do you want?" David said. "We don't have any illegal flowers."Lugo raised his hands in a harmless expression."Didn't say you did. We're here for something else."Agent Black pressed the button on the electric hand-dryer and it blew out hot air. David didn't want to accept any special favors, so he wiped his hands dry on his pants."Write any new poems?" Lugo asked.David doubted they had come to hear his poetry, but he wasn't going to turn down a chance to read for a human audience. He pulled out his notebook and cleared his throat."This one's called The Fire of Flowers.""Give it here." Lugo held out a pudgy hand."I'll read it to you.""No. I'd rather read it myself."David had become used to reading his poems to others. (Flowers couldn't read to themselves--they were illiterate.) But Agent Lugo was right: a poem had to stand on its own and couldn't depend on a poet's stage presence. Ultimately, a poem was just words on paper, alone against the world.David flipped to the finished version of The Fire and Flowers and handed Lugo the notebook."Thanks," Lugo said. "I needed some reading material." He walked into a toilet stall, closed the door, and dropped his pants."Hey!" David shouted. He kicked the stall's door, but it was locked. "Give that back!""There's no toilet paper," Lugo said."Use your socks!"Agent Black popped open his briefcase and pulled out a pocket-sized packet of tissues, which he slid under the stall's door to his partner."Thanks," Lugo said.Black pulled a black binder out of his briefcase, slammed it down on the corner of the sink, and started flipping through pages of photographs. This time it wasn't pictures of flowers, but rather pictures of people."Do you recognize her?" Agent Black asked.The woman in the picutre had her arms upand was screaming, her long blonde hair fluttering behind her. She was on an amusement park rollercoaster. David had never seen her before so he shook his head."You're sure?" Black pressed. "She wasn't at the protest?""What, you're spying on them now!? It's illegal to protest!?""When did you join the ACLU?" Lugo grunted from inside the stall. "From what I hear, you hosed them down pretty good.""I didn't have a choice. They made me join the fire department.""It's a volunteer fire department," Lugo said. "Of course you had a choice.""David," Agent Black said softly. "Do you know what the PLA is?"David shook his head."It's an acronym," Black explained. "It stands for Plant Liberation Army. It's the militant wing of the so-called Plant Freedom Movement. They're terrorists, the prime suspects in a string of flower shop burglaries. They "liberate" the flowers." He made quotation marks with his fingers. "Take them from "captivity" and "return" them to their "natural environment," off in a forest or meadow. Most of the flowers can't even survive in the "natural environment.""He flipped to a picture of an obese, florid man walking along a beach and eating a submarine sandwich. Agent Black glared at the picture hatefully."This is Terry "the terrorist" Grawgowski," he said. "The brains behind and spiritual leader of the PLA. A notorious terrorist. He's number one on the most-wanted list.""I thought that was bin Laden.""That's the CIA's most-wanted list. We're the Department of Agriculture. We have our own list.""Number one on the most-wanted list?!" David scoffed. "For a couple broken windows at a couple flower shops?!""They don't just want to free flowers. They want to abolish agriculture. They think growing corn or wheat in rows is a form of captivity.""So why don't you just arrest them?""We can't find them. They live in the forest. They subsist by hunting and gathering and refuse to eat anything grown by agriculture. Only time they leave the forest is to do a terrorist attack. Makes them hard to catch. That's why we need to find a connection between the terrorists and the portesters.""Don't you think you're overreacting? I mean, spying on protesters? Even if they want to abolish agriculture, how much damage can they really do? Shoplifting a few potted plants?"Agent Lugo burst out of the stall, hitching up his pants and waving the notebook wildly."They're terrorists!" he shouted. "They want Americans too afraid to set foot in flower shops, to drive hardworking florists out of business. The Red Chinese'll take over the global flower market. Is that what you want?" He poked David in the chest with the notebook. "Whose side are you on, anyway?""I'm on the side of poetry and flowers.""Well if the terrorists get their way, there won't be any more poetry and flowers. When the PLA abolishes gardens, you'll have to go out in the forest if you want to read poetry to flowers."David gulped. This was exactly the type of poet he didn't want to be: a Romanticist, sitting on a log in the forest, writing poems about Nature. There weren't even any workingmen in the forest for him to inspire. Except for lumberjacks, of course.Of course! He could be a poet to the lumberjacks! By day, he would chop and saw and shout "Timber!" In the evenings, he would write poetry to inspire his fellow lumberjacks; make them realize that the forest really belonged to them."Do they think lumberjacking is a form of agriculture?" David asked.The two agents shared a confused glance."The PLA," David said. "Do they consider lumberjacking a form of agriculture?"Lugo shrugged. "They only attack soft targets like flower shops and botanical gardens. They don't bother large men with axes. The terrorists are cowards."David remembered how the protesters had scattered when Gimpy Barry came at them with the axe. Cowardly."There's more," Lugo said. "We suspect they're trying to develop a nuclear weapon.""They're hunters and gattherers," David said. "How are they going to develop a nuclear weapon?""It's a chance we're not willing to take."***כ''ח בשבט תשס''חירושליםFebruary 4, 2008Jerusalem