by Ruth Ozeki
Geek didn’t answer.
“Well, Phoenix doesn’t know everything. Elliot taught history at my school. He was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War.”
Geek choked. “A conscientious objector? You’re joking, right?”
“Well, that’s what he told us back then. Of course, I didn’t know him all that well. . . .”
I heard a noise and looked up. Phoenix was standing outside the doorway. Ocean crouched behind him.
“Bullshit,” Phoenix muttered, kicking the earth.
I raised my voice. “If you’re going to swear at me, Phoenix, speak up.”
“Bullshit!” he yelled into the greenhouse. He turned to Geek. “She knew him real well. Five minutes after he got here, he had his tongue down her throat.”
“Phoenix,” I said, “this is so none of your business.”
“Yeah? Well what about Barney?”
“Who’s Barney?” Geek asked.
“This guy I was seeing back in Hawaii,” I said. “It wasn’t serious.”
“He’s Poo’s dad,” Phoenix said. “He lives with us.”
“He was staying with us. It’s temporary.”
The look in my son’s eye was cool and bitter. “That’s what you say about all of our fathers.” He gave the dirt one last vicious kick, then gripped Ocean’s hand and jerked her away.
“Phoenix!” I followed him to the doorway. “That’s not fair!”
They kept going, cutting through the garden, skirting the freshly dug beds. Ocean twisted around to look back, but Phoenix kept tight hold of her, and she had to turn and trot to keep up. Bobbing and stumbling. I didn’t go after them. I didn’t know what to say. I just stood in the empty doorway.
“Damn.” I didn’t want to cry, not in front of Geek, but he had come up behind me, and now he saw the tears and touched my face. Specks of soil still clung to his fingers, and I could feel the grit on his fingertips.
“Come here,” he said, leading me back inside. He wrapped his arms around me, pressing my head against his chest and stroking my hair. I could feel his heart thump under his rib cage.
“Nothing I do is right,” I said. “I try . . .”
“You try,” he echoed. “You do your best.”
“No,” I said. “I knew better. Elliot was always bad news. But I’ve got such lousy luck with men.”
“He’s a creep,” he agreed. “All men are creeps.”
“Yeah,” I said, then laughed. “I’m glad you’re here.”
He didn’t reply, which seemed okay at first. We stood there while he kneaded the tension out of my neck, but something was hanging in the thick greenhouse air.
“Yumi,” he said finally. “I know this is bad timing. . . .”
I felt my spine stiffen. “What?”
“Well, it’s just that we’re thinking of heading down to San Francisco for a bit.”
I pushed him away. “Why? You promised to stay!”
“It’s complicated,” he said. “It’s just for a little while.” His arms hung by his sides. “I think it’s better this way.”
“Oh, really?” I said, feeling nasty now. “And why is that?”
Geek examined the edge of the potting table. “That letter. It isn’t about you. It’s about us.”
I stared at him, not understanding. “You’re the harlot?”
“Actually, I think Lilith is the harlot. I’m more of the whoremonger type. Listen, you better sit down.”
I leaned against the potting table, and he started to explain about the Web site and Lilith’s acts, how it financed their operations. “It’s not pornography, really,” he said. “It’s really kind of sweet and funny what she does, but I can see how some people might find it offensive. . . .”
I dug around in my pockets for a cigarette. I found a crushed pack and lit up. Geek didn’t like me smoking in the greenhouse, but he didn’t say anything this time. I took a deep drag and exhaled. Nicotine always provided an answer of sorts. I was calm now, conversational even.
“And you’ve been running this little peep show from here? From my parents’ house?”
“Well, no. I mean we did some taping here, but we were doing the uploads from the public library.”
“And you think someone in town found out.”
“That’s what we figure. We got a couple of these letters, too. The postmarks are all local. We thought it might be a good idea to split for a while and kind of let things cool down.”
“So this whole business is about you.” I glanced down. There was a flyer sitting on the potting table, some treatise on global seed politics. “I heard about the action you did in Pocatello last week.”
He didn’t ask me how I knew. He just nodded. “Sorry about that.”
“So why San Francisco?”
He paused. Maybe he was trying to decide how much more to tell me. “There’s a big protest going down, and a man’s going to get pied. We got called on to help.”
“Pied?”
“Pie in the face. It’s the CEO of a biotech corporation. He’s speaking at a forum on the future of the world.” Geek took off his glasses and wiped his lenses on his T-shirt. “I know it sounds kind of silly. . . .”
I thought about Elliot. I wondered if he’d be interested in pies.
“They’re going to use tofu crème,” Geek added.
“Tofu crème?”
“For the pie. You know, tofu? From genetically modified soybeans?”
“Oh.” It was ridiculous. Suddenly I was furious. “Well, this is just fucking great! You break all your promises, run a porno racket from our driveway, and get us targeted by some religious freak, and now you split to go throw pies?”
“Yumi, we don’t want to get you and the kids involved—”
“We are involved! I was counting on you. How the hell am I going to take care of Lloyd and Momoko and the kids, never mind all this?” I looked around at the benches that surrounded us, covered with flats of sprouting seedlings. My anger drained, and now I just felt exhausted.
Geek took a deep breath. “You’ll be fine.” He removed the cigarette from my hand and stepped on it, then led me toward the flats. The seedlings were organized into families: the Legumes, the Cucurbits, and the Umbelliferae. Some were no more than a green gauzy haze, like algae dusting the earth. Others were more robust, an inch or two in height. “They have to be watched,” Geek said. “But Momoko’s fine with stuff like this.”
“I should have left weeks ago, when I had the chance.”
“We’ll be back,” he said. “After things cool down a little.”
I wandered down the row and lingered at the back. I fingered the feathery top of a small Peruvian carrot. “Maybe you better not.”
“Okay.” He looked crestfallen, standing by a tray of buttercup squash, next to the bitter melons. “Listen,” he said. “I’m really sorry. . . .”
“Yeah, well, I’m sorry, too,” I said, picking up a flat. The little transplants had their first true leaves. “I’m sorry you had to flake out on me. Are these ready to go?”
Geek nodded.
I looked down at the spindly shoots, grown from Momoko’s seed. Cucurbita pepo. Warted gourds. I carried them out into the sun to harden.
one damn thing after another
With Yummy, Cass recalled, it was always something. After Elliot left for D.C., she thought things at the Fullers’ might settle down, but then out of the blue the threatening letters started, then the Seeds took off for San Francisco leaving Yummy in charge, and now Cass was beginning to regret ever sending for her in the first place. Life was a lot easier when all she had was Momoko and Lloyd to worry about.
She would be in the office trying to catch up on the bookkeeping or work out a bug in the software, and the phone would ring.
“It’s me,” Yummy would say breathlessly, like she was the only person in the world and Cass ought to know it. “Do you have a minute? I need your help.” Cass could usually hear the baby crying in the backgr
ound.
“Of course it’s never just a minute,” she complained to Will. “Whatever Yummy wants winds up taking all day. The worst was the Seeds up and leaving like that. She’s hopeless without them.”
Will didn’t say anything. He was just as glad they were gone. Cass had told him about the Web site, and he didn’t approve. Hadn’t even wanted to take a look. He was out in the fields when Charmey came to say good-bye, and Cass had asked her about it. They logged on and sat side by side while Charmey scrolled through the site.
“It is the people who write those letters who have evil minds,” Charmey said. She pointed to a picture of Lilith, buck naked and cradling a large muskmelon between her legs. “This is not dirty. This is life!”
The pictures were a little silly, Cass thought, but not really offensive. She glanced over at Charmey, who had one hand on the mouse and the other resting on top of her own melonlike belly. She was going to miss the girl, she realized. She’d been looking forward to the birth of the baby.
The next phone call from Yummy came a couple of days later, when Cass was fixing Will’s lunch.
“It’s me,” she said. “Can you take Poo? I have to go into town.”
There was an urgency in her tone that made Cass stop what she was doing. “Is it Lloyd?”
“It’s Phoenix. He’s been arrested. I have to go to the police station. They put him in jail, Cass!” Her voice careened out of control. Poo cried in the background.
“Calm down,” Cass said. “Tell me what happened.”
“I don’t know! It was Billy Odell. He called. He said something about Phoenix pulling a knife on someone at school. He doesn’t have a knife, Cass. He couldn’t have done that!”
“Get Poo ready,” Cass said. “I’ll pick you up.”
She hung up the phone and turned off the stove. She called Will on the CB. “Do you mind fixing your own lunch? I think I ought to drive her in.”
“Why can’t she drive herself?” He was in the John Deere. She could hear the powerful engine rumbling in the background behind the crackle of the radio.
“She’s pretty upset, and besides, Billy isn’t that keen on her.”
“Odell? What’s he got against her?”
“Trust me, Will. You don’t want to know.”
The police station was a cinder-block building, halfway between town and the freeway entrance. Phoenix was in a holding cell at the back, but Odell wouldn’t open the door. He just kept spinning his keys around his forefinger. Phoenix sat on a bench, his eyes fixed on the wall. He refused to look up when Yummy came in. She was carrying Poo on her hip, and she moved toward the cell in a trance. She stood at the bars and stared at her son.
“Phoenix, are you okay?”
He wouldn’t answer. Poo grasped the bars and tried to shake them.
“What’s he charged with?” Cass asked Odell.
“Well, carrying a concealed weapon for starters. Assault with a deadly weapon. Attempted murder.”
“Murder?” Yummy closed her eyes.
“What deadly weapon?” Cass asked.
Odell reached into a desk and pulled out a plastic bag containing a small paring knife. “He had this strapped to his leg with masking tape.”
“It’s our kitchen knife,” Yummy said. She sounded bewildered.
“Good,” said Odell. He turned to Cass. “You witnessed that. The perpetrator’s mother positively identified the weapon.”
For the first time, Phoenix spoke. “Way to go, Mommy.” Yummy just stood there clutching Poo, who started to whimper. Cass took him, and Yummy held on to the bars as though she might bend them and step on through, to save her son or to strangle him.
“Billy,” Cass said, “what really happened?”
Odell sighed. “He pulled the knife out after school and threatened one of the kids with it.”
“But he didn’t use it. He didn’t actually hurt anyone.”
“No, but the principal called us. They’re reporting all weapons offenses. You know how it is these days. So far we’ve been lucky here in Liberty Falls. Haven’t had any real trouble. We aim to keep it that way.” He glared at Phoenix.
Phoenix’s eyes narrowed, and he started to say something, then appeared to change his mind. He slumped back against the wall.
“You can’t keep him jail,” Yummy said. “He’s only fourteen.”
Phoenix groaned and made a face.
“There’s kids a lot younger than that in jail, believe me,” Odell said.
“But nobody’s pressed charges, right?” Cass asked.
“No. But they don’t want him in school. He’s suspended until the end of the year. As for next—”
Yummy broke in. “Don’t worry about next year. We’ll be gone by then.”
Odell cocked his head. “That a promise? If it is, then I’ll release him into your custody, but if I so much as catch him spitting, I’ll nail him, you hear?” He unlocked the cage. “You hear me, boy?”
Phoenix slipped past him like a small, quick fish.
Out on the street he walked silently between them like a prisoner. He climbed into the backseat of the Suburban, next to Poo’s car seat. No one spoke until the car had pulled away from the station. Then Yummy turned around and faced him.
“Okay. Let’s have it. What’s going on?”
It wasn’t a question. Cass glanced in the rearview mirror. Phoenix was staring out the side of the car.
“Same stupid shit,” he said. “It’s this whole thing they’re into. They want to clean up the school—”
“Clean it up how?”
“You know. Get rid of everybody. Niggers, Japs, queers, wetbacks, hippie scum, whatever. Anyway, this one kid brought in a handgun and was showing it around—”
“What!”
“He’s a fucker. Said he was going to blow me away.”
Yummy shook her head. “Wait a minute. Are you sure it was real?”
“His father’s the sheriff, isn’t he?”
Yummy looked over at Cass.
“It was Odell’s boy?” Cass asked.
“Yeah,” Phoenix said. “Him and his crew. They’re like total paramilitary assholes. They were waiting for me after school and dragged me behind the maintenance shed. They stuck it in my mouth and said they were going to blow my brains out. It was such bullshit.”
Cass felt Yummy’s hand reaching over to clutch her sleeve. “What happened?”
“Nothing. They just sort of tied me up and left me. They said they were gonna get Ocean and bring her back and do us both, but I got loose and tracked her down. She was fine. After that I just stuck close to her.”
“When was this?” Yummy asked. “When did this happen?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Couple weeks ago. Everything seemed cool, but then you got that letter, so I started carrying the knife, just in case.”
“The kids knew about the letter?”
“No. But it sounded like the same old shit they were saying.” He paused.
“What?” Yummy said.
Cass could barely hear the boy’s voice over the car engine. “How you’re a whore,” he said. “And me and Ocean and Poo are proof of it.”
“Oh,” Yummy said. “I see.” Then she asked, “What about Ocean? Does she get picked on, too?”
Phoenix shook his head. “The kids in her class pretty much all like her.”
“What about these older kids? You think she’s safe from them?”
“Yeah,” he said, then added, “She’s blond.”
“Right.” Yummy faced front again and stared out the window. Finally she turned to Cass. “What should I do?” she asked. “Should I talk to Odell?”
Cass shook her head. “It’s just Phoenix’s word.”
“But that son of his . . .”
“I’ll talk to him. No, I’ll get Will to. You should talk to Ocean’s teacher. It’s only a couple more weeks of school, but have her keep an eye out just in case.”
She nodded, then turned back to
face Phoenix once more. “Why didn’t you tell me about this earlier?” she asked. “When Odell’s kid brought the gun in to school?”
“Oh, Yummy,” he said. “Figure it out.”
“Figure what out?”
“He was here. You weren’t exactly available.”
grown-ups
Cass brought Will back over after dinner that night, and we all sat at the kitchen table and listened to Phoenix’s story again. When he was done, Will spoke.
“I believe you, son,” he said. “I’ll talk to Odell in the morning. You did right by not using that knife, but you should never have felt the need to bring it to school in the first place. The thing to remember is, when you have a problem, you tell a grown-up immediately. Got that? Tell your mother, or me, or Cass. Don’t keep it to yourself until it blows up into something like this.”
Phoenix nodded. He didn’t seem to mind Will’s calling him son. He couldn’t quite look the older man in the face, but I could tell he wanted to. He couldn’t bear to look at me at all.
“Tell your sister, too,” Will said. “Make sure she understands.”
Phoenix went up to bed, and I followed him, saying I needed to check on Ocean and Poo, but hoping for a word from him. Just one word. I hesitated at the steps leading up to his attic and listened, but there was only silence, as though he’d vanished. It was creepy. I went up after him. He was lying on the small iron bed on top of the covers. His eyes were closed. He was fully dressed. Ready.
“Phoenix?”
He didn’t answer.
“Don’t you want to get undressed, honey? Get ready for bed?”
He must have heard the fear in my voice, because he looked at me then, and his eyes were dark with a terrible kind of pity.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere.”
I couldn’t help it. I knew I shouldn’t cry in front of him, that I should be the strong one so he could cry and tell me all about his terrors and pains, but that had never been our relationship. The tears just came, and there was no stopping them.
“I’m sorry, Phoenix,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”
