Sherwood Nation: a novel

by Benjamin Parzybok

  “I hope this is just last words?” William asked.

  “I can’t do it, Willy. Damn it.” He stood there immobilized with fear, the elevator just ten feet away from exposing him as a traitor. August unbuttoned the red flannel shirt and this he folded neatly and handed back to William, and waited with his hand outstretched until the other man dug in his duffel bag for the major’s uniform.

  “Auggie?”

  “Don’t say it, alright?”

  “Goddamnit. I’m going to watch for you.”

  “Please don’t say any more.”

  “I’m going to wait for you. Going to watch for you.”

  “Willy.”

  William forked two fingers and pointed them at his own eyes then at August. “Right? You watch your back with that old fucker. When your mind is right, get out fast.”

  August nodded.

  The elevator descended to the first floor and Major August Gonzalez watched his friend exit into the empty lobby and walk out, with a loping, non-uniformed stride. Then the doors closed and the elevator started back up. Quietly he mouthed “Sitta Zenree, Sitta Zenree.”

  During the elevator’s ascent, he realized he’d just deposited several months’ worth of intelligence into Willy-the-defector’s duffel bag and he had a long, sad chuckle. He was surprised to find he had very little remorse.

  He could print more, and staple as many as were required.

  Epilogue

  Hey Boyfriend.

  So like, Canada, eh? Is there really any other way I can start such a letter?

  I made it.

  It’s amazing how much time one can spend on like each sentence. The “I made it,” written just there, one line’s worth away, took about a day to compose. Anxiously, hard-worked-at, and then an unbelievable effort with little to show for it in the space after its period. This letter sitting here abandoned hour after hour on this small painted-wood desk. A child’s desk, I think, with its colorful drawers, or perhaps that of a quirky old woman, looking to add a little more color to her life.

  Now look, another day’s gone by and already I don’t have the desk to talk about any more, used up as a topic as it is. How can there be so much to tell and yet it cost so much to say?

  I am, quite obviously if you’re reading this, a-live, as it were, such as it is. Turns out you do something bold, you make friends and enemies everywhere. You become divisive to ambulance drivers. Your fate debated by nurses. Even army dudes can’t make up their minds among them. In the twisty route from ambulance to hospital to prison I drew a lucky route, and then that route was dusted over.

  I wasn’t able to do much for myself for some time. There’s a wicked ache in my shoulder now off and on, just above the heart, and many a time I tell myself it’s the ache for another’s heart, too far away. It’s not a pretty wound, even you wouldn’t think so. i.e. one must try hard to look in the mirror and not say eww . . .

  I try to fill my days with something other than remorse, but that’s a difficult thing to do, being the rich game that it is. Sometimes when I sleep, I cycle through the faces, some whose fates I know, and some I don’t. Ach, hope. In this little household up north I have chores, simple things we do to stay alive. Aspects of Sherwood here, adopted from, and talked about much, and for that, in my anonymous little way, I am happy. Though did it really need to cost this many lives to spread these simple things (fuckfuckfuck).

  There is some news I have to share.

  Damn it. There it is again, a week this time spent in toil in the space after that period above.

  Not only am I alive, I’m pregnant.

  Surprise!

  There. See how easy that is to say? (Not really, I’m sweating bullets here + other salty water-droplet like things from other sources, etc, with no little amount of precipitation). So 2x alive, I guess you could say, which in one letter is probably about 10x too much to reveal to poor you all at once, my sweet. To give you some idea of its origin, we’re estimating I’m about eight months (no small lithe creature am I), and so do your own math there.

  Honestly, the remorse and regret thing? It’s the like fifty-something foot wall I’d have to climb prior to hoping to ever speak words to you like: We should meet up! We should totally hang out!

  Much less: Do you think she looks more like you or me?

  But needless to say, I have been thinking about you a great deal.

  Next to this letter here, I’ve put another blank sheet, at the top written: Hey Boyfriend!

  You know, get a jump on episode #2.

  Bit by bit. Spoonfuls of sand. That’s the best she can do.

  yrs,

  -r

  p.s. Vancouver East Nation, c/o Ariel Boat Builders Residence.

  p.p.s. believe me, it was no small feat of endurance to scrawl out that address above. This anonymity a certain—not pleasure, more like the absence of pain. Lost in a connectionless whirlpool, no one to injure but herself. And since delivery of this is in no way certain, I will wait long without expectations. Forever if need be.

  This heartrending and inspiring book is about the tragic events that led to the modern concept of community nations, so called for their micro size, and their ability to thrive much more ably under extreme duress. Told to us by Brandon Bartlett, who, before becoming a historian and spokesperson for this new model of government, brought down Sherwood Nation with the help of the National Guard, and then fought a coup d’etat of his own. Read about the historic journey of Maid Marian, and learn about the successes and failures of community nations in the changed landscape of the west.

  “What Christopher and Brandon Bartlett (yes, that Bartlett, former mayor of Portland) have done here is nothing short of remarkable. While perfectly depicting the rise of what we now commonly know as the Community Nation, they enrich the reader with a series of guides for making sure your community nation is sustainable and highly functional. I highly enjoyed and unreservedly recommend this book.”—Zachary Jefferson, inventor of the Unit Gallon and former chief statistician for Sherwood Nation

  Acknowledgments

  This book started in the anarchic favelas of Rio de Janeiro and finished at a crossroads town in rural Washington state, and many people helped along the way. Were I to be a part of a secession movement, I would certainly want all of the following people along, who were a great help in putting this book together. Members of my writing group who slogged through the earliest versions: Lisa Hoashi, Becky Kluth, Karen Munro, Tammy Lynne Stoner, Laura Larsell, Victoria Blake, and an especial thanks to David Naimon, who provided a sane ear for a truckload of book-anxiety, or mercilessly teased me out of it. John Metta helped me to understand that a drought of this scale is practically impossible in the region I set it, though I pig-headedly continued on anyway. Mel Favara, Jenni Fallein, Melanie Hudson, Marisa Anderson, Andrea Dunne, Bronwyn Barrick, Jan Parzybok, and Ezra Parzybok all helped tremendously by reading drafts of the book. I’m very grateful to my publisher, Gavin J. Grant, for believing in me, and for the enormous number of times he has read and worked on the book, easily winning the prize for the most work put in. The same goes for my agent, Eddie Schneider. A very early beginning was read by the good people of Rio Hondo Writer’s Workshop, and of particular help were Kristin Livdahl, Maureen F. McHugh, and Karen Joy Fowler. Roy and Dottie Moulton were vital, providing space on their land for me to work and trusting I was not frittering away in there playing games on my phone, because I totally wasn’t. Lastly: Laura Moulton, as always, as a co-conspirator, co-adventurer, and for braving that awful granite hunk of a first draft, and my kids, Coen and Sylvie, for indulging me in this madness.

  About the Author

  Benjamin Parzybok is the author of the novel Couch and a number of short stories. He has been the creator/co-creator of many other projects, including Gumball Poetry (literary journal pu
blished in capsule machines), the Black Magic Insurance Agency (city-wide, one-night alternate reality game), and Project Hamad (an effort to free a Guantanamo inmate and shed light on habeas corpus). He lives in Portland with the artist Laura Moulton and their two kids. Find him online at levinofearth.com.

  Praise for Benjamin Parzybok’s debut novel Couch

  “This funny novel of furniture moving gone awry is a magical realism quest for modern times. Parzybok’s touching story explores the aimlessness of our culture, a society of jobs instead of callings, replete with opportunities and choices but without the philosophies and vocations we need to make meaningful decisions.”—Josh Cook, Porter Square Books, Cambridge, MA

  An Indie Next List Pick

  “Parzybok’s colorful characters, striking humor, and eccentric magical realism offer up an adventuresome read.”—Christian Crider, Inkwood Books, Tampa, FL

  Selected twice as An Indie Next Reading Group List Pick

  “Simply one of the best, most enjoyable, and most original books I’ve read in a very, very long time. This novel about a fantastic orange couch is a lyrical story of a heroic quest undertaken by flawed but intrinsically good people. Humorous and glorious, celebratory of the sacred thing that lies inside each (OK, most) of us—I’m recommending Couch to everyone!”

  —Beth Simpson, Cornerstone Books, Salem, MA

  “Hundreds of writers have slavishly imitated—or outright ripped off—Tolkien in ways that connoisseurs of other genres would consider shameless. What Parzybok has done here in adapting the same old song to a world more familiar to the reader is to revive the genre and make it relevant again.”—The Stranger

  “Delightfully lighthearted writing. . . . Occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, the enthusiastic prose carries readers through sporadic dark moments . . . Parzybok’s quirky humor recalls the flaws and successes of early Douglas Adams.”—Publishers Weekly

  “A lot of people are looking for magic in the world today, but only Benjamin Parzybok thought to check the sofa, which is, I think, the place it’s most likely to be found. Couch is a slacker epic: a gentle, funny book that ambles merrily from Coupland to Tolkien, and gives couch-surfing (among other things) a whole new meaning.”—Paul La Farge

  “Beyond the good old-fashioned story, Couch meditates on heroism and history, but above all, it’s an argument for shifting your life around every now and then, for getting off the couch and making something happen.”—The L Magazine

  “Succeeds as a conceptual art piece, a literary travelogue, and a fantastical quest.”—Willamette Week

  “Couch hits on an improbable, even fantastic premise, and then rigorously hews to the logic that it generates, keeping it afloat (at times literally) to the end.”—Los Angeles Times

  “Couch is a quick and funny read, a short fable that ensnares us in its quixotic intentions and encourages us to believe for a short time in something magic, even if it is just a couch.”—About.com

  “The essential message of Couch appears to be that the world and our lives would be better if we all got off our couches (literal and metaphorical) a bit more often.”—The Zone

  “Once upon a time, Donald Barthelme, Jonathan Lethem, and Umberto Eco attended a film festival together. The featured flicks were Kiss Me Deadly, Fitzcarraldo, and Repo Man. Inspired by this odd bill of fare, the trio set out to collaborate on a novel. The result was Benjamin Parzybok’s debut, Couch.”—The Barnes & Noble Review

  An Excerpt from Benjamin Parzybok’s novel Couch

  Chapter 1: The Couch

  From above, from a thousand feet up, an eagle’s-eye view, it’s a strange spectacle still. A six-legged insect, stiff and ungainly, too long on the grape vine gone to vinegar.

  From five hundred feet one sees a mutant, an insect with three heads, each imbued with its own purpose. Each with a desire to carry its midsection somewhere else. First moving one way, and then the next, drifting here and there like three hands on a Ouija board.

  From one hundred feet up, the height of a mere eight-story building, it becomes obvious that each pair of insect legs is joined at a human torso, with human heads, and between them, the three, they share a burden. A piece of furniture, seemingly.

  From ten feet, a guardian angel’s view, the view this tale will take, three men carry a couch. An orange, knit couch of considerable size.

  Thom moved his meager possessions into Tree’s apartment. It was a high-ceilinged, early twentieth-century affair that had obviously been reworked in the seventies, destroying much of its charm. He put his books in the living room in an attempt to add some sort of decorating touch, and they sat there like moldering sea chests.

  Thom moved his chairless desk around his room, trying to figure out how to fill in the emptiness that a lack of dresser, bed, and every other item that a person usually owned caused. He occasionally glanced toward the window across the corridor between the buildings to see if he was being spied on, at once trying to hide his actions and trying to make them presentable and interesting on the off chance there was a single woman across the way who might be interested in a fairly intelligent, bumbling ogre of a man with a slightly below-average self-esteem.

  Slightly? Thom’s brain said.

  “Yes, slightly,” Thom replied firmly. Brain was the entity of indeterminable size that sat somewhere above Thom’s right eye, one inch in. The origin of headaches. That Muppet cynic gallery that studied his every move from some disappointed forefather’s eyes. Part logician and part patriarch, brain intruded on Thom’s consciousness primarily as a backseat driver.

  He uncased his laptop, tracked down a wireless signal, and got on his knees in front of his desk to check his email. “As if to pray,” brain said. “I know, I know,” Thom replied.

  Erik burst through his door, knocking after the fact as he had done the other three times Thom had encountered his new, somewhat excitable roommate. Erik was in his mid-twenties and would be considered handsome but for an utterly uncombable head of dark hair.

  “Donuts!” he said like a herald, like the king had arrived. He lowered a giant box of donuts to Thom’s eye level.

  “Ah,” Thom said. “I can’t eat them. They look good though.”

  “Can’t eat them?”

  “I can’t eat wheat,” he intoned for probably the millionth time in his life, knowing it always led to confusion. “I have sort of a strict, ah, strict eating habits.”

  “Good Lord, man. This is a celebration. We’ll go running in the morning. There’s a park around here. I’ve seen it on the map, and I’m going to find it. We can get up at dawn, get our one-twos in.”

  Thom repressed a shudder. “It’s not a diet diet—it’s a stomach sort of thing. Gluten intolerance, among other things. I can’t eat wheat.”

  “Gluten, huh?” Erik raised his eyebrows. “Glutentag,” he said brightly. “Okay, man, they’ll be in the kitchen if you change your mind. Nice room you got here. Like the desk placement. What kind of games you got on that thing?”

  “Nothing much, really.”

  Erik nodded vigorously. “Alright, man, see you around. I’ll be in the living room if you need anything.”

  Thom shook his head. He was fairly sure he wasn’t living with any of the chosen people.

  To: thom@sanchopanchez.net

  From: richardd@shopstock.com

  Subject: bad news

  Hi Thom,

  I’ve got bad news for you. ShopStock has decided once and for all that in this economic climate, having a strong web presence for a local grocery store is just not practical. Ahem. As we’ve known all along. So they’ve decided, effective immediately, to cut the web development team.

  I’m sorry about this. I know you could use the money. Email seems like a bad way to break it, but knowing you I thought it’d be better. I’ll keep on the lookout for
other jobs for you. How’s the apartment hunting coming? Let’s have a beer soon and talk more about where spammers fit into Dante’s Inferno.

  Richard

  Thom put his head in his hands. The last three months had been a spiral in which life seemed bent on unhinging him from every stable situation he’d had a feeble grasp on. At least he had an apartment. His stomach churned. He opened up his website and thought about how to phrase his newly found freedom in a way that wouldn’t read “laid off.” “Now available for freelance work! ;-)” he wrote, and then deleted the idiotic smiley. Then deleted the entry altogether.

  He fretted about how to write his self-descriptive summary at one of the many job-networking sites he belonged to. “I am professional (still have all my teeth!),” he wrote as filler text to keep his fingers busy while he thought, “stable (no longer living out of a hotel!), competent (kung-fu coder still can’t code his ex-girlfriend back), and motivated (as big as an ogre and twice as bright).” Then a migraine took over and he closed his laptop without saving.

  “Thom!” said Erik. “Have a seat, big guy.”