by Dede Crane
I got out of bed, threw some clothes on. In the rec room, I excused myself and asked Dasha, real nice like, if I could see her spray bottles.
She looked at me with her beautiful sad eyes. “My bottle?”
Sergei stopped sweeping the ceiling corners.
“You going to clean for us?” he asked, drilling those consonants. He held out his broom, angling the handle toward my face.
“No, no. I’m, uh, just doing a study of what’s in those sprays,” I said, thinking, please don’t push that into my brain.
He lowered his broom and, still looking at me, gestured to Dasha to hand them over.
“Thanks, great.”
None of the bottles’ ingredients were listed. Not one. I took note of the brands — to look up on line — and quickly gave Dasha back her aerosols. I held up my hands to show Sergei I didn’t mean anything by it.
* * *
Dressed in my Cineplex worker bee uniform — black pants, blinding yellow shirt and black ball cap with yellow logo — I planned to hit the mall early to shop for a birthday present for Natalie. I’d blown it on the Christmas present thing. She gave me this dice shirt and a leather wallet and I gave her a gift certificate to the Cineplex. Dickhead.
I went to ask Mom for ideas but found her bent over the kitchen counter, phone tucked between her ear and shoulder, concentrating on filling little clear capsules with turmeric powder while making excuses, by the sound of it, for being behind on those banners for the bank. I didn’t have time to wait so went upstairs to ask Maggie. She was a girl, after all.
Propped up in bed typing on her laptop, Maggie had purplish rings under her eyes. Hot dog rings, I thought. She’d gone to that sleepover. Probably had pop at the theater. I’d found out that pop often contained benzene, which was used in cleaning the cans and dispensers.
“What is that?” On her bed table beside a glass of reverse osmosis water (Mom had had a system installed) and her water crystal book was a bowl of cottage cheese sitting in a pool of yellow oil.
“Some cancer cure of Mom’s. It’s disgusting.”
It did look disgusting, but…
“We got to get you well, so just eat it, okay?”
“I’ll probably just throw it up anyway.”
“You’ll get used to the taste.”
“Yeah,” she said, sounding noncommittal.
“Mag, do you have any idea what I could buy Natalie for a present?”
She stopped what she was doing.
“Bracelets. Those thin metal ones that come in different colors. Girls wear them in bunches. Like twenty on one arm. They make this neat tinkling sound.”
“Hey, good idea,” I said.
She typed something. “Go for the silver ones, not the gold. Silver’s in right now. Oh, and matching hoop earrings.”
“Okay. Sounds good.”
“The earrings shouldn’t be too big. About like this.” She made a circle with her thumb and middle finger.
I nodded, was about to leave when she said, “I really want to see the next Harry Potter movie.”
For a minute I wondered if she was saying she wanted to live to see it. She’d read all the books at least twice. I’d only seen the movies, and afterward Maggie would fill me in, explaining things the movie left out.
“I could take you to the preview,” I offered. I’d always taken Davis, Parm or Hughie before. Maggie looked at me sideways. It was a pity move and she knew it.
“Okay, as long as none of my friends find out.” She smiled and I laughed.
“Maggot head,” I said, leaving.
“Was it your dumb idea to go vegetarian?” she called after me.
* * *
I found the bracelets Maggie was talking about, in silver, and got several dark blue ones, too, to match Natalie’s hair. She’d just had it done and had sent me a message saying how great it looked. There were a million different sizes of hoop earrings, so I was glad Maggie had been specific.
When I told the saleslady it was a gift, she hunted up a little white box with that cotton stuff, laid the earrings inside the bracelets. It looked really nice. She even put a ribbon around it so I didn’t have to worry about how to wrap it.
At work, behind the refreshment counter, I filled up paper cup after paper cup of Coke, Orange Crush or Sprite. Benzene drinks, was how I started to think of them. Cancer colas. And when I wasn’t doing that I was drizzling cancerous hydrogenated fat over popcorn. Or selling neon candy full of cancerous food coloring.
Handing a combo tray of pop, popcorn and candy bag to one little wide-eyed kid after another, I felt like some serial killer.
At the end of the night, I was the one told to haul seven black plastic bags out to the dumpster. Seven. Would they be incinerated and spray dioxin confetti everywhere?
As I was leaving, the manager was giving out boxes of Reeses Cups because their due date was coming up.
“Any takers?” he asked. “They’ll get thrown out otherwise.”
Everyone took a box. There was one left.
“Gray?” he asked.
Maggie loved Reeses Cups. I imagined her face lighting up.
“Yeah, sure. Thanks.”
Maggie was already asleep when I got home. So I looked up chocolate and cancer on the net. It checked out all right.
Then I looked up peanuts and cancer. Shit. Peanuts had a naturally occurring carcinogen called aflatoxin. And because peanuts needed so little soil depth, some crops were being grown on landfill sites. No wonder there were so many damn peanut allergies.
I dumped the Reeses Cups in the garbage, pumped up some music and went on MSN to see if Nat was on. She wasn’t, but I wrote and told her I’d bought her a birthday present.
it’ll match your hair, which I can’t wait 2 c… and kiss. can already picture how great it looks.
I signed off, then remembered reading something about hair dye and cancer. Too late now.
9 Happy Valley
The next morning, Maggie was feeling good so Dad and Mom were taking her and a friend to the science center. Afterwards they were going to have lunch at this famous vegetarian restaurant. They asked if I wanted to go, too. Yeah, right. I was glad Mom and Dad were going together, though, because they weren’t talking a lot lately.
Normally on a Sunday I would hang with friends, do some gaming, hike up in the woods and smoke some leaf. Davis and Parmjot had both called to see what I was doing. It was even sunny out. A decent March day. But I wanted to finish what I’d started. Clean house, so to speak.
I cranked up my iPod and went room to room with my list of suspect chemicals and a bucket to put stuff in.
Every shampoo, soap and detergent in the house contained DEA or TEA — a chemical that made things foamy and slippery — both of which led to the formation of the nasty NDEA. Cancer. Dad’s cover-the-gray shampoo had coal tars. Cancer. Mom’s disinfectant spray contained orthophenylphenol. Cancer. The bathroom cleanser contained crystalline silica. Cancer. The whitening toothpaste Natalie insisted I start using had about three things on the list. Maggie had started using it, too. I put it in the bucket.
I gave up trying to match up all the ingredients and just started including anything with long unpronounceable names. I included all the bleached-paper stuff and any food with hydrogenated fat in it, nitrates and nitrites, BHA and BHT, and food colorings. I emptied my bucket onto the kitchen table. When that was full, I used the counters.
By the time Dad, Mom and Maggie and friend came home, I was pretty tired.
Maggie and her friend, Tess, came in the kitchen and grabbed some water.
“Hey, Gray,” said Maggie. “Mind if we watch this in your suite? She held up a movie. I knew she knew she was making the most of being sick but still I said, “Sure.”
“
Kitchen’s a mess,” she said, glancing at the counters before disappearing downstairs.
“What do we have here?” said Dad.
“I’ve collected all the stuff with sketchy chemicals in them,” I said, pretty proud of myself. Having sacrificed my day and all.
“Oh, yeah?”
“It’s amazing how much garbage is in stuff. I thought if we cleared it all out and — ”
“Gray, it’s trace amounts of these chemicals.” Dad picked up my deodorant. “Deemed safe in amounts tested by scientists.”
“Trace amounts don’t make them less carcinogenic.”
“And some molecules, like titanium dioxide, for example,” he said, reading a tube of sunscreen, “are too big to penetrate blood vessels.”
“But skin cancer happens on the surface.”
“What I mean to say, Gray, is that you just don’t know enough to be making these decisions.”
“I’ve been reading on the net — ”
“Don’t believe everything you read.” He sighed. “Especially on line.”
He was treating me like I was some little kid.
Mom was now standing in the doorway all glassy-eyed. She looked seriously sleep-deprived.
“I know you’re just trying to help, Gray,” said Dad. “But a bigger help would be to remember to take out the trash so I didn’t have to do it for you.” He snickered. “Or we’ll put you in charge of the recycling?” He started to put the cereal back in the cupboard and I felt my stomach harden. I’d blown off my day to do this…
“You have to be practical, Gray, weigh the negatives against the benefits,” he continued. “The sun can cause cancer but we still need it to survive. Tuna fish has mercury in it but that doesn’t mean it isn’t one of the most nutritious things you can eat. Heck, there’s DDT, dioxins and whatever else being found in breast milk, but nobody would argue it still isn’t hands down the best thing for a baby.”
“Breast milk has carcinogens?” The thought made me queasy. “And nobody’s doing anything about it?”
“You are, Gray,” said Mom, walking past Dad to grab some plastic bags. “And it’s just great. I’m going to go, right now, and return these things for healthier alternatives.”
Dad glared at her back. “Well, you’re not taking my shampoo.”
“Coal tars are on the American Cancer Society list,” I said, more confident with Mom on side.
Shampoo in hand, Dad met my eye. “The plastic of your iPod there is made using hundreds of chemical compounds. The cotton in your goddamn brand-name clothes is the most heavily pesticided crop in the world.”
I don’t think I’d ever heard Dad swear in front of me before.
“The creature comforts of this modern world come with a price, Gray.”
“Cancer?”
He threw up his hands.
“You want to live like a caveman, go right ahead. It’ll save me some money.” He smiled but it wasn’t funny.
“Ethan,” said Mom, sounding disappointed. “We’re all working toward the same objective — ”
“We all need to relax is what we need to do.” He sounded anything but relaxed.
“Relax?” said Mom in disbelief. “Relax?”
“Yes, and enjoy Maggie while we still — ”
“This is no time to relax.”
Dad shook his head. “I give up.”
“Great attitude.” She started jamming things in a shopping bag.
Dad took his tainted shampoo and left.
“Sorry, Mom.” Though I was pissed at Dad, I hated to see them argue.
“No, you are not sorry,” she said sternly. “It only makes sense to err on the safe side. Right?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Come on, help me bag. I’m going to return these things.”
“Can you return stuff that’s already been used?”
“I don’t see why not.” She sounded ready for a fight.
* * *
I’m not sure how, but Mom managed to return every last item and arrived home with organic this and that, non-toxic cleansers, unbleached toilet paper, etc.
“Had quite the public argument with the manager,” she said, laughing. She seemed all hopped. “People were stopping to watch but what did I care?”
Sure glad I wasn’t there.
“I want to drive out to this organic farm my friend Kath told me about. Their food’s supposed to have life-giving properties.” She was talking really fast. “Why don’t you come with me, Gray? You can practice your highway driving.”
“Shouldn’t we put these groceries away?”
“We can do that after. Let’s go before it gets too late. Their stand closes at four, I think.”
“Yeah, sure.” I wasn’t doing anything and I’d only ever driven on the highway once before. It was sick to go that fast.
After pulling out of the driveway, I gave the car that burst of gas for that rush of accelerating from a stop.
A few minutes down the road, it dawned on me that whenever I hit the gas, I was pumping out a hit of carcinogens. I pulled up to a stoplight thinking how the guy on his bike beside us was inhaling my exhaust, and the kid on the corner being pushed in her stroller. Her little nose was happily sucking it all in.
Man, I hated knowing this shit.
I tried to ease off on the gas after that, take advantage of hills and coast as much as possible.
“I read about this substance,” said Mom. “Oh, what’s its name? Something fruits and vegetables produce to fight off pests and molds. It’s found just under the skin and has cancer-fighting properties. Is even marketed as a cure.” She waved her hand, knocking the rearview mirror. She didn’t notice so I fixed it. “Sprayed produce doesn’t have to work to fight off pests so it doesn’t produce the substance. Or much of it. Oh, what’s it called…”
Up ahead I could see the light turn yellow. Normally I’d race up to an intersection and more or less ram on the brakes, but I took my foot off the gas and let the car coast the rest of the way to what was now a red light.
“I’m going to start cooking more,” Mom went on. “Not just dinner, but breakfast, too. Even your lunches. No more fast food.”
We were going slug slow. If I timed it right, I might just get to the light as it turned green again and never actually come to a stop. The guy behind me laid on the horn and Mom jumped.
“What was that?”
“Some jerk wanting to hurry up and stop.”
* * *
Over the weathered roadside stand read a hand-carved sign: Produce That Makes You Happy. Were these people so old school they didn’t even know enough to call their stuff organic?
It was real quiet. Maybe spring came earlier to the country, because there were pale green buds on bushes and trees, something I hadn’t noticed happening in town, and white snowdrops bloomed along the base of the produce stand.
Built on a slope, the farm backed onto a wooded park where we used to go for family hikes when Maggie and I were little. There was a creek running down the west side that we used to dam with rocks. We’d make pretend boats out of sticks and race them to the dam. From the top of the park you could see all the way downtown.
“Lovely afternoon,” said the woman working the stand.
“Yes,” said Mom. “Yes, it is. Heard terrific things about your produce.”
The woman just smiled. A thick mash of gray curls raged on her head like a small storm. She had these weird eyes, one brown and one pale blue, like a husky’s. Her gaze was steady as a dog’s, too. In contrast to the tense, jerky movements of my mother as she tested vegetables, this woman didn’t move a muscle. For a minute I imagined this was on purpose, to try and calm my mom down. It was strange watching them together.
Being only Ma
rch, there wasn’t that much to choose from: green leafy things I didn’t know the names of, chives, some squashes, onions, eggs, jars of jam, tomato sauce and various pickled things. There was a basket of muffins for a dollar each. At the end of the table were these doll-sized pillows. Above the pillows was a small sign that read Happy Valley Farm: Nacie and Milan Daskaloff. A small Help Wanted sign hung above that.
“And you’re Nacie?” said Mom, pointing at the sign.
“I am.”
“And you grow all this yourself?”
“With my husband, Milan.”
“Must be an awful lot of work. I’ve always wanted to grow vegetables but it’s hard to find the time.” Mom rattled away, holding a bouquet of chives to her nose. She had a stiff plastic smile on her face but I didn’t think she realized it.
“I’m Julia, by the way, and this is my son, Gray.”
“Julia,” she repeated with a nod. “And Gray.” She was studying me with her calm two-tone eyes when this chicken shot out of nowhere, leapt on my foot and banged its beak into my knee.
“Ow!” I yelled, shaking it off.
“Cla-rence,” said Nacie slowly, and the bird tucked in its red neck, guilty as hell, and ran off, ass feathers trembling. “Means he trusts you,” she said as I rubbed the front of my knee. Clarence, I guess, was a rooster, not a chicken. “He’d peck you in the back of the knee if he didn’t.”
Flattering. Knee throbbing, I checked my jeans for blood. Nacie just smiled at me.
Up the lane, I could see their farmhouse with its sweeping front porch and a laundry line of swaying sheets that ran from the porch’s corner to a tree. Nice, I thought, not using a dryer. There was an orchard to the right of the house and a pond with a giant weeping willow whose branch tips swept the water’s surface. Farther up the slope were the growing fields and a couple of outbuildings painted bright red, which looked cool against the green.
I wished I’d brought my camera. I’d take a picture of this woman’s wacky eyes for starters. And a close-up of that rooster’s butt. The pond would be dope with all the reflections and shit. I had a sudden urge to bolt up the hill and climb that big-ass tree.
