by Ruth Ozeki
The old man added, “They was at the potato plant a couple of weeks ago, handing out papers. Funny-looking lot.”
“You don’t say?” Elliot was moving in slow motion now, buying time.
“They were over at the school, too,” the woman said. “Trying to brain-wash the kids.”
Elliot put on his jacket and carefully zipped it up. He tucked in his scarf.
“It’s a free country,” the old man asserted, but his words sounded remote. Elliot drew the keys out of his pocket and studied them. You would not want this man defending your freedoms.
The woman snorted. “Peddling drugs, if you ask me. It’s just like her to waltz back into town and let her friends live like animals out there on her daddy’s farm.”
“Who’s that?” Elliot asked, as casually as he could, but the old man was already talking and didn’t hear him.
“That’s Fuller’s business. It’s got nothing to do with the rest of us.”
The woman sniffed. “It most surely does if they’re endangering our kids and our community.”
The old man took a long, defeated sip of Coke through a straw, ending the conversation. There was no way to pursue the subject, Elliot thought, without sounding persistent, but at least he had a last name. Then the old man shook his head.
“It’s a shame,” he said. “Lloyd Fuller was always a strange one, but it’s a damn shame he ain’t got no one except that daughter to depend on. She’s a bad seed if there ever was one.”
The woman nodded. The two of them fell silent. Ice rattled at the bottom of the old man’s glass.
Elliot leaned forward. His heart was pounding hard now, sending blood into his ears, and again he had the dreamlike feeling of falling. He pressed his fingertips hard against the edge of the counter to steady himself.
“You okay?” the waitress asked.
“I’m fine,” Elliot said. “You don’t happen to have a phone book, do you?”
a man in a suit
The first time Charmey showed up on her doorstep Cass hadn’t known what to think. She had taken Poo for the afternoon, and they’d just gotten back from town when the doorbell rang. She swung the baby up off the kitchen floor and went to answer it.
“I saw your car.” The girl spoke with a French accent, slightly out of breath. “I have the lunch for him.” She offered up a paper sack. “Steamed tofu and vegetables and banana muffins. Whole wheat. The food she gives him is for sheet.”
She was dressed in a baggy pair of overalls, wrapped in layers of sweaters and badly knitted things. She looked up from the stoop, and her face was shining. The flicker of recognition in her eye gave Cass the happy sense of visibility she often felt with Poo. She saw herself from the girl’s perspective, hip cocked, baby lodged upon it, hazy behind the screen door. She smiled and nudged open the door, holding out her hand for the bag.
“It is mostly organic,” the girl said. “As much as I find. Here, I will help you.”
She walked past Cass into the kitchen, and by the time Cass had caught up, the girl was emptying the tofu into a small bowl. She looked over at the container of processed pineapple cottage cheese that Yummy had packed for Poo and made a face. “She knows it is sheet. For the grown-up, perhaps it is not so bad, but for le petit! Ooh la la! You are a farmer, no? So then you know, too. La dioxine, les hormones. Especially in the dairy, no? Poisoning into his little body, just as he makes all the cells of his brain.”
She reached for Poo, and Cass relinquished him, though she couldn’t say exactly why. The girl shrugged off a layer of her knitted coverings, and Cass could see how delicate she was. She was about four or five months pregnant, which somehow gave her the authority to settle Poo in a chair and oversee the shuttling of tofu cubes and carrots from the bowl to his mouth. Cass hung back and watched. The girl was good. She held Poo’s attention, keeping him focused on the task, catching a chunk of flying zucchini or providing a bite of banana muffin when he got bored. When he finished, she wiped his face and fingers with a damp towel and handed him back.
“Voilà,” she said. “Pardon. I am Charmey.”
“I’m Cass.”
Charmey nodded as though she already knew this, knew Cass’s name, knew all about her. When their eyes met over the baby’s head, Cass caught another look of recognition in the girl’s eyes, but this time it was mixed with such sadness that Cass felt hollowed—wordless, childless—and then the look was gone. Maybe she’d imagined it, because Charmey was wrapping herself up again as though nothing had happened, tucking the fabric firmly about her rounding belly as she moved toward the door. She gave Cass a friendly smile and tickled Poo in the soft folds under his chin.
“À bientôt!” She turned and lumbered off down the drive.
Charmey dropped by again soon after that. They sat at Cass’s kitchen table and drank herbal infusions, while Poo crawled around on the floor at their feet playing with ants. Outside, the spring wind was still gusting hard, keeping the farmers out of their fields and holding up the start of planting. Cass thought the girl’s idea to do home birthing in the trailer was the most dangerous thing she’d ever heard. “It’s not even a home, it’s a Winnebago,” she said. “You’ve got to have proper medical care.”
But the girl was adamant. “Oh, no, no!” she said. “We do not believe in hospitals or the paternalistic power structures of Western medicine. Lilith and I will do the birthing together. Like the pioneer women on the Oregon Trail. We are studying how on the Internet.”
Cass reached down and hauled Poo onto her lap. She took the ant he offered her and crushed it between her fingers.
The next time Charmey brought maternity magazines that she’d borrowed from the public library, and they looked at them together. Charmey made fun of the fashions and the recipes while Cass pored over each page, hungry for every word and glossy image. Cass rarely let herself go this far. At the Stop-N-Save she occasionally flipped through the maternity magazines like a furtive adolescent with a Playboy before returning them to the rack. Only once, years before, had she bought one. She had been on her way home from the obstetrician’s after getting a positive test and had stopped off to pick up a carton of ice cream to celebrate. The cover featured a story about “Celebrity Moms,” but she’d bought the magazine for an article called “Things You Should Know When You’re Pregnant Over 35.” The miscarriage happened that night, while she was reading the magazine in the bathtub. Will had rushed her to the hospital, but there was no help for it. When they came home later, she’d found the magazine on the bathroom floor in a puddle of water.
But this time everything felt so different. Before, it had just been her and Will. Momoko and Lloyd lived down the road, but they were old and ebbing. Now, with Yummy and the kids, and Poo and pregnant Charmey and the rest of the Seeds, the Fullers’ place was churning with a life force that eddied and caught Cass up in its currents. She missed a first period. And then another, and for the first time in so long Cass found herself facing down her own desire, throwing open her arms to welcome it in all its wildness. Desire was vital, she reasoned now. Wild desire, and ferocity of faith.
Still, she decided she would wait to tell anyone until she’d gotten a positive test. Until life was safely moored inside her, with enough momentum and substance to sustain itself beyond her fears and superstitions. At nap time she curled her body around sleeping Poo and let herself daydream. The first person she would tell would be Yummy—after Will, of course. She extended her finger and gently touched the baby’s nose, his chin, his cheek. She felt a rush of courage. She could hardly wait.
She woke from her nap when Poo started pawing at her shoulder, surprised to see that it was nearly four o’clock. She got the baby dressed and gave him some milk, then put him in his stroller and headed next door. The stroller bounced over the rough dirt road, and the wind was blowing up the sand from the adjacent fields. She leaned down and draped a blanket over the stroller to keep the grit out of Poo’s face, but he started to protest. He squinted in
to the wind. Dirt didn’t bother him. He liked the wind. He liked to see where he was going.
On the way up the drive she saw Ocean and Phoenix, wind whipped and all bundled. They were racing back from the greenhouse. Breathless, they ran up next to her.
“Yo, brah,” Phoenix said, slapping his brother’s little palm. Poo bounced up and down in his seat. Ocean danced along beside Cass, tugging at the baby bag.
“There’s a man!” she gasped. “A man!”
“Oh?” said Cass.
“In a suit!” Her fine blond hair was blowing wildly, into her mouth, her eyes. The wind was snatching her words.
“A man in a suit?” Cass asked, frowning. “Who is it?”
Phoenix shoved his hands into his pockets. It was a noisy wind, so he spoke loudly. “Some creeped-out buggah. They knew each other. Yummy sent us out to help Geek and Grandma in the greenhouse, but they’re in town, and anyway that was just to get rid of us. She wanted to be alone with him.”
“Is he from the sheriff’s?”
Phoenix shook his head. “He’s a newspaper reporter or something. Slick motherfucker.”
They were right by the door. “Shhh,” Ocean said. “Don’t call him dirty names. He’ll hear you.”
“Oooh, excuse me!” Phoenix said, lowering his voice, mocking her. He tiptoed up the steps like a cat burglar, holding the door open for Cass. “Shhh,” he said, puffing air into Poo’s face as Cass carried him by. Poo blinked his eyes. Ocean punched her older brother’s arm, and together they crossed the porch.
And stopped. Because there in the kitchen, on the bare patch of linoleum by the sink, stood Yummy, wrapped in the arms of the man in the suit. Only it wasn’t really a suit, just a tweedy-looking jacket and khaki pants. They were standing there frozen, as still as a statue, and for a long moment all Cass could hear was the noise of the wind rattling the shutters and the creaking of the house.
“Oh, no,” Phoenix groaned softly. “Not again.”
Cass’s first thought was to turn away. Instead she opened the screen door, and the children slipped in.
“Mommy?” Ocean said.
The two broke apart quickly. Yummy looked dazed, like she had just been woken up.
“Whoops,” she said. “Sorry.”
The pattern of tweed was pressed into her reddened cheek, as though she had been sleeping against this man’s shoulder for a long, long time. He seemed familiar, handsome, like men on TV commercials for nice cars or life insurance. He had an easy confidence that was way too big for Momoko’s kitchen. They stood next to each other, Yummy and this sure-looking man, bodies inclined, like two trees with shallow roots, tipped by the wind so that their upper branches touched, and this entire scene looked both so familiar and so wrong. And then Cass got it.
“Oh, no,” she breathed as her heart sank like a stone. “Not again.”
bad seed
“Yummy?”
His intonation was questioning, but my response was as to a command. Wordless, I opened the screen door, and when he stepped across my parents’ threshold the foundation of their house seemed to shudder. It was like being on drugs again, and even while a dim part of my mind resisted, my arms betrayed me. If I held on to him tightly, it was just to keep from falling. If God himself had bust through the ceiling, I wouldn’t have been surprised.
“Yummy Fuller,” he said, breathing my name into the top of my skull, as though the act of labeling me brought a long-sought relief. He let go and stepped away, and if ever I needed the house to anchor me, it was then. Weak-kneed and shaking, I backed away and leaned against the counter, aligning my feet in my mother’s footsteps by the sink, as though they would support me. He looked around, taking in the signs.
“What luck,” he said. “I happened to be in town doing some research for a story. Found myself driving by and thought what the hell, so I turned in. I didn’t expect—”
“I don’t live here,” I heard myself say. “I’m just here for a visit.”
“Even more of a coincidence, then.”
“I live in Hawaii now.” I could not believe the inanities issuing from my mouth.
“And I live in D.C.” He smiled. “I can’t believe this. You look great.”
“What brings you back?” Trying to regain some formality now. I could hear the kids in the living room, or rather I couldn’t hear them, so I knew they were listening. “Oh, that’s right. You’re researching . . .”
“An article,” he said. “For a newspaper.”
“What’s D.C.?” It was Ocean, standing resolutely next to the refrigerator.
“Washington, D.C.,” I told her. “You know, our nation’s capital. Ocean, this is Elliot. Elliot, my daughter, Ocean.” I raised my voice. “Phoenix, come in here.” I wanted to get this all over with.
My son slunk through the door. “This is Phoenix. He’s my oldest.”
Elliot opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. Phoenix grunted something on his way through the kitchen. Ocean wanted to hang around, but I shooed her out the door after her brother, to find Geek, to help Momoko, whatever. Smart kids. They knew when they weren’t wanted. Ocean was marching and stomping her feet and singing, “Nobody likes me, everybody hates me. . . .” Her voice got farther and farther away. “I’m going to the garden to eat worms, yum, yum, yum. . . .”
When I turned around, Elliot was staring at me.
“Phoenix?” he asked. His voice was thin and hushed now.
“Risen from the ashes.” I couldn’t look at him.
He reached out and put his hands on my shoulders. “I’m so sorry,” he said, holding on to me. I let him, for old times’ sake. He wasn’t stupid. He got it. He knew why I named my firstborn Phoenix, and why I was shaking so hard.
There are some things you never forget. Some things that transport you like a bad acid trip so that, in a flash, it is 1974, the floor in the backseat of the Volkswagen Beetle is covered with sodden newspapers, and no one is saying much as the little car heads east. Grace Slick croons on the eight-track. The sky looms gray, and the interstate goes on and on. You hold Cass’s hand and stare out the window at the ice-covered horizon. Grace sings, “You are the crown of creation, and you got no place to go. . . .”
Cass leans forward between the seats.
“Uh, Mr. Rhodes . . . can you play something else?”
He ejects the tape. The AM radio comes on. You roll your eyes at Cass, pretending that Elliot is a very square old man.
He’s a very bad driver. You snicker every time the car lurches forward or comes to a less than graceful stop, and soon Cass is giggling, too. He tells you both to shut up, which of course makes you laugh harder. He’s looking for an address that he wrote on the back of a Mr. Donuts napkin. You don’t stop snickering until he pulls up on a side street that parallels the railroad tracks. The buildings are decrepit. Suddenly it’s not so funny. The three of you just sit there in the little Beetle, staring at the dingy doorway.
Cass knows you are scared. She squeezes your hand and whispers, “You don’t have to—”
But you shake your head. Elliot turns around and looks at you over the back of the seat. “Ready?” he asks. You look away and blink.
“Wait,” Cass says, and for the first time ever, she’s stronger than you, stronger even than Elliot, and she glares at him. “Just give her a minute, will you?” Then she says, “You just take your time,” and pats your arm, like she’s learned how to comfort a person from the ladies at church. The patting annoys you, and you shake her off.
“God! What’s the big fucking deal. Come on!” You shove the seat back forward into Elliot’s face and kick open the door.
“Atta girl,” says Elliot. You give him the finger.
The wooden door leading into the building slumps and hangs ajar, scraping against the broken concrete of the stoop. The hallway stairs are dark with ancient varnish, and the walls are the color of mold on curdled cream. The banister is sticky with grime. You climb the stairs single file—f
irst Elliot, then you, then Cassie behind. Elliot wears his hiking boots open at the top, with the laces wrapped around the ankles, making his jeans bunch up at the cuffs. The sight is comforting somehow, like you’re following him up a mountain trail. The treads of the old wooden stairs sink against the risers, under his weight. You feel their sogginess under your feet, too, and if you close your eyes and ignore the stench of stale sweat and cabbage, it might just as well be soft earth, or moss, or even a forest floor.
But of course it isn’t. You reach a door. Elliot knocks. Someone opens it a crack and you can see the sliver of a face behind the security chain, a wary eye, a nose. Elliot says something ludicrous and prearranged, and the door closes, then opens again, wider this time. The three of you push in like stooges.
The room is brown, furnished with a dingy sofa and a couple of beat-up metal folding chairs. The dirt-streaked windows face a railway spur, leading to the switching yards. You can hear the trains heave along the rails, feel their locomotion through the floorboards, vibrating against the soles of your feet, up your knees to your tummy. A tired-looking woman with wire-rimmed glasses looks at you and then at Cass. She has lank blond hair, held back with a rubber band.
“Which one?” she asks. You feel Cass shrink, and you step forward bravely.
“Me.”
The woman eyes you, then speaks to Elliot. “It’s legal now, you know. You can take her to a clinic.”
Elliot shakes his head. “Not here. Not without her parents’ knowing.”
“Take her out of state, then.”
Elliot hesitates. “She’s a minor.”
The woman looks at him like she wants to spit in his face, but then she drops it and sighs. “I swore I’d never do another one of these,” she says. She turns to you. “Ready?”
She tells you to use the bathroom, and when you come out, she is wearing stained green scrubs over her T-shirt. Elliot and Cass are seated on the sagging couch, side by side. They watch you follow the green scrubs into a small adjoining bedroom. At the last minute you turn and give them a silly little wave. They wave back, and the way Elliot looks at you, the way he hesitates, then leans forward as though to stand, makes you think for a moment that he’s going to put a stop to all this, and your heart gives a leap, but he doesn’t. The woman closes the door.
