by Ruth Ozeki
A little after noon he realized he was being watched. The kid from the Mexican restaurant, the one with the pregnant girlfriend, was tagging him, keeping his distance but keeping him in sight. How amusing, Elliot thought as he approached the kid.
“Take me to your leader.”
“Huh?”
The kid’s eyes were a pale slate gray, with flecks of yellow just beneath the surface, like stones under water. Empty. Unwavering. Where did he pick that up? Elliot wondered. Duncan had it, too. A gaze like that was worth a lot, one of those tricks that life teaches you early on, or it doesn’t and you have to learn to fake it. Elliot had acquired his later in life, and he knew it lacked conviction. He always felt self-conscious, whereas you could tell that this kid never did. He was the real thing: a loser with nothing to lose.
“I’m a journalist,” Elliot said, averting his eyes to look for a business card. “Friend of the Fullers. Is there someone I could talk to about what’s going on here?”
The kid shrugged. “Yeah.” He turned away, and Elliot followed.
Geek was at the registration table, talking to a middle-aged couple with a terrier on a leash. “Today’s mainly an information-sharing day,” he was saying. “Tomorrow’s the day for putting what we learn into action.”
“We’re customers of Fullers’ Seeds,” the man ventured.
“Right,” said Geek. “We’re leading tours of the Fullers’ garden every hour—I’ll be doing the next one, starting in a few minutes—and then we have a seed-saving workshop right afterward with Momoko and Lloyd.”
Elliot moved in closer to listen. Geek ignored him. “They’ll be giving away free seeds at the workshop as a protest against capitalism and the privatization of food production by greedy multinational agribusiness corporations, if you’re interested.”
“We’d love some more of the cucurbits,” the woman said. “The Fullers always had the finest cucurbits.”
“I’m sure that would be fine,” Geek said. “I know they’ll be very happy to see you. Please take a look around before the garden tour. There’s some very interesting information on our government’s failure to enact labeling laws that would help protect citizens and consumers from the hazards of genetically engineered foods.”
“Oh, my goodness,” the woman said. “That sounds very interesting.”
The couple and the dog moved on.
Geek turned toward Elliot. “So what could I possibly help you with?”
“It certainly does sound interesting,” Elliot said. “And you know what? I agree with you completely. GE foods should have been labeled from the get-go.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Sure I do. Full disclosure. It’s the only way.” He held out a business card. “Elliot Rhodes. Journalist.”
Geek took the card, looked at it, then handed it back. “Don’t bullshit me.”
“No bullshit. I said I agree with you, and I do. Where we disagree is about the effect labeling would have. You think the public will choose not to buy the stuff, and I say consumers are idiots. Give them the choice and they’ll buy it anyway, regardless of any label you might put on it.”
“Like cigarettes,” Geek said.
“Exactly. Consumers are dangerous only when they think they’ve been cheated of their right to exercise free will.”
“This being America and all.”
“Exactly. Or when they think they’ve been duped.”
“Right,” said Geek. “You would know.” He straightened the papers on the table. “I’m surprised to see you here. At a small local event like this. We’re honored to have you, of course. I assume you’ll be attending the entirely nonviolent protests tomorrow?”
“As a member of the press, I wouldn’t miss it. Will there be other press members there?”
“I have to go lead a garden tour now,” Geek said. He came out from behind the table and stood directly in front of Elliot. “Listen, Mr. E. Rhodes. This is not a big press event. I wish it were. This is a small educational get-together. One reason we’re doing it is to help the Fuller family. The parents are old. They’re going to die, and they’re worried about the future of their seeds. That’s all we’re trying to do here. Help the family by getting more people interested in taking on the seeds.”
A cheer went up from the pitching concession, where someone had nailed the cyclops in the eye. They both looked up to see Yummy heading toward them. She was wearing a loose white muumuu with a ruffle around the neck. She looked stunning.
Geek lowered his voice. “If you’re really a friend of Yumi’s, you won’t interfere.” He walked away, passing her and exchanging a few words before he cut over toward the garden.
And then she was standing in front of him. “Hi,” she said. He realized he was staring at her. Embarrassed, he looked down at the ground. She was wearing Japanese sandals on her tanned feet. She had silver polish on her toenails and dust between her toes. She was wearing a toe ring.
“You look nice,” Elliot said. “Very Hawaiian.”
“It’s hot,” she said.
“Yes. It is.”
They stood there, not looking at each other. He didn’t know quite where to take the conversation. He had vowed he would not make a fool of himself, but he just couldn’t help himself.
“That was nice last night,” he said.
“Will this make an interesting article?” she asked at exactly the same time.
They both stopped abruptly, and he laughed. “Yes,” he said. “I think it might.” Again he paused. “Of course, it’s just a part of a larger story.”
Yummy nodded. He watched her scan the crowd for her children. They were taking turns at the pitching booth. She waved to Cass, who had the baby. Poo was toddling around on little bowed legs, hanging on to her hands. He squatted and picked up a fistful of dirt and put it in his mouth. Cass leaned over and made him spit it out.
Yummy frowned. “He eats dirt,” she said.
“I’ve heard some babies do that.”
“Cass likes looking after him.”
“She seems to.”
“She never had kids.”
“Neither did I,” he said and was startled to hear how plaintive he sounded.
“I guess you think this is all kind of silly,” she said, looking around the farmyard. “But it’s sort of fun, too, don’t you think? It feels like an auction or a county fair. I just hope nothing goes wrong.”
He couldn’t quite see what was fun, but he understood that she wanted it to be, and that was enough. Duncan had been right after all. This home-spun event was a molehill, and he would let it remain as such. Relieved, he decided to forget about work, to relax and just get into the swing of things for her sake. She looked so lovely.
“What could possibly go wrong?” he asked.
She didn’t answer. Just then her daughter came running up.
“Did you see?” Ocean asked breathlessly. “Phoenix nailed Cynaco right in the eye!”
Elliot felt his chest constrict. Forgetting about work wasn’t going to be that easy.
It was just after two when he spotted the Pinkerton leaning on a fence rail and headed over to talk to him. Yummy had gone in to put Poo down for a nap, and there was a lull in the events after lunch. Rodney was wearing a cap pulled down low over his face. He was watching Lilith get the children ready for the play. A pair of mirrored aviator glasses hid his eyes.
Lilith was painting the face of a little earthworm, holding the child between her legs. She was wearing a halter top, which bared her back, and a tattoo of a serpent coiled up her spine. She was explaining to the children, “You’re all going to play soil organisms!”
“What’s that?” one of them asked.
“Good things. Worms and bacteria. Beetles and moles. Stuff like that.”
“Those are pests.” The girl shook her head. “I don’t want to be a pest!”
“How about a monarch butterfly, then? That’s a big role. The Terminator kills you and you get to die.�
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“I don’t want to die!”
They settled on a ladybug. Lilith picked up a paintbrush and hitched up her skirt, spreading her knees so she could draw the girl in close.
Elliot approached the investigator from behind. “She’s even better in real life,” he said.
Rodney showed no sign of surprise. He barely bothered to shrug, as though he’d been expecting Elliot to show up with a comment like this, and it simply wasn’t worth an answer.
“Too bad about the Web site,” Elliot said, leaning on the fence rail. “Wonder why they decided to shut it down. Was that your doing, too?”
Rodney didn’t answer for a while. Then he said, “Lucky for them they did.”
“You didn’t like it?”
“I got grandkids.”
“Of course,” Elliot said.
They watched Lilith in silence. At one point she looked in their direction, and Elliot flashed her a smile, but her glance drifted past him to Rodney’s cap. It was a promotional item from Cynaco’s GroundUp™ Plant Protection Systems. On the front it read TOTAL CROP CARE, FROM THE GROUNDUP!”
“They’re gonna demonstrate at a potato field tomorrow,” Rodney said. “At oh-nine-hundred. Then they’re planning to march on the fertilizer plant in the afternoon, but I don’t think they’ll get that far.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve alerted the sheriff’s office. They’ll be here first thing in the morning.” He turned to Elliot and fixed him with a mirrored gaze.
“You did what?” Elliot could see himself, tiny and furious, reflected in the flat planes of Rodney’s glasses.
Rodney spoke slowly, as though explaining the rules to a slow child. “They’re planning on tearing up the field, Mr. Rhodes. That’s trespassing for starters. Destroying crops is criminal mischief and malicious damage to private property, not to mention un-American. Could be grand larceny, but they gotta take the plants out of the field first—”
“That’s not the point! I don’t want them arrested. I just wanted them watched!”
“You don’t live here,” Rodney replied, as though that were an answer, then turned his attention back to Lilith’s thigh. Her ankle bracelet tinkled as her naked heel shifted in the dust. Elliot tried changing tactics.
“That’s exactly what they want,” he said. “These kids know how to play the cops and the press like a fucking Nintendo. It’ll be all over the papers.”
“Good,” Rodney said. “People should know. Not that everyone don’t already. They even told the farmer whose field they’re tearing up. Lousy idea from a tactical standpoint. Besides, the sheriff’s had his eye on them, too, long before you got involved. Said he had cause to interrogate Fuller’s daughter on a couple of occasions, once when that punk kid of hers got caught bringing a knife to school. My grandson’s in his class.”
Lilith’s ankle tinkled again as she jumped to her feet, hoisting the ladybug up by her arms. From the corner of his eye Elliot thought he saw her look in their direction again, but when he turned, she was spinning the ladybug in a circle to make her fly. The ladybug’s laugh rang out loud and shrill, like a scream.
“Sheriff said he used to know Fuller’s daughter,” Rodney said. “Said he thought he remembered you, too.”
Lloyd had noticed the man Yumi was talking to, thought he looked familiar but couldn’t place him. He wasn’t from Liberty Falls, that much Lloyd was sure of. Pocatello? At any rate he was a city man. Lloyd thought he might ask Yumi later on, but then he noticed how pretty she looked in her white dress, and after that, Melvin came to tell him that the garden tours were starting, and by the end of the long, exhausting, exhilarating day, he’d forgotten all about it.
So many of their old customers had come, some bringing children and even grandchildren. He hadn’t expected that. He was worried, wondering how they would take to the Seeds and their crowd, but by and large, folks seemed tolerant and polite.
“She’s adorable,” said Martha from Nebraska after the morning performance.
“She’s my granddaughter,” Lloyd said, and he was amazed at the size of his pride. Then Martha asked her name.
“Ocean,” he mumbled.
“What an unusual name!” she said. “My daughter named her youngest ‘Moonflower.’ ”
“She goes for the plants,” her husband said. “She called the boy Juniper. I told her I didn’t like it, but it was better than Sneezewood or Sandwort or Bladderpod.”
“They like to be different these days,” Martha said. “Don’t you find?”
He must have answered hundreds of questions and held more conversations than in the last several decades of his life. By the time he retired upstairs that night, most of the participants had left for the day or bedded down in their campers and tents, and the campfires were dwindling into ash and ember. All he could hear from the bathroom window was the faint sound of the young people drumming softly in the night.
He left the bathroom and made his way down the hall, past Yumi’s bedroom door. It was open, and he looked in. Yumi was lying on her back on the bed. He would have thought she was asleep, but her eyes were open, and she was staring up at the ceiling. He cleared his throat.
“Good night, then,” he said.
She blinked, then turned her head.
“Oh,” she said. “Good night, Daddy.”
She spoke so simply. There were none of the usual currents in her voice, no hesitations or resentments or feelings withheld. Just the words themselves, sweetly said. She hadn’t called him Daddy like that for as long as he could remember.
“Good night, Yumi,” he repeated, because he wanted to say something else but couldn’t think of what.
She smiled. “Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”
That was it. That was what he should have said. What he used to say when he tucked her in every night, and gave her a kiss, and nibbled her nose, pretending to be the bedbug biting.
But she had already turned her head away and was looking back up at the ceiling. He knew he ought to go, but suddenly he thought of something else he wanted to say. “Oh, Yumi!” Breathless, he hesitated, holding on to the doorjamb for support. “It’s so much fun to be alive!”
His eyes filled with tears then, and this surprised him, but he didn’t mind. He was just happy he’d expressed his feeling. She looked alarmed, but he gave her a smile to reassure her. As he headed down the hall, he kept one hand on the wall. He would be fine as long as the wall was there, to steady him.
liberty falls
That’s when it hit me for the first time, that when Lloyd died, I was going to be sorry. His words knocked all those intervening years of attitude right out of me. As he shuffled away, I listened to the frail grit of his slippers on the floorboards and the sound of his fingers as they brushed along the wall.
I had been waiting until everyone was in bed before going out to see Elliot, but now I went down to the kitchen and phoned his motel room instead. I stood in the darkened kitchen leaning against the wall and cupping the receiver.
“I have to see you,” Elliot said. His voice was urgent, pressing me. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
“I can’t,” I told him. “Tell me tomorrow.”
I slept badly that night and woke late the next morning, filled with dread. I got dressed quickly and checked Lloyd’s room. His door was open, and the bed was empty. I collected Poo and continued my search.
The bathroom had been used. I smelled his aftershave, and the scent knocked me back through the years. Old Spice. It was only for special occasions.
Downstairs, breakfast was over and the kitchen was empty. Someone was testing the PA system, and the wail of electronic feedback cut through the stillness of the morning. From the window I could see the stage area where Ocean and Phoenix were playing. Ocean had let Chicken Little out of her coop, and now they were trying to catch her. Ocean was screeching, “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” Her wild voice sent shivers up my back. I walk
ed out to the porch. Lloyd was sitting in his rocking chair, leaning forward and gripping a sheet of paper in his hands. His lips were moving. He heard me and looked up.
“What’s that?” I asked, shifting Poo on my hip. He was chewing on my hair. He wanted his breakfast.
Lloyd ducked his head, sheepish.
“It’s my speech,” he said, but his throat was so congested with spittle and fear he could barely get the words out.
“Oh, Dad! I wish you wouldn’t . . .” My voice, too, had curdled into a petulant whine. He stiffened.
“I’ll be fine,” he said, speaking more clearly now, and there was enough reproach in his tone to get my hackles up.
“Fine,” I echoed. “Whatever.”
I clattered back through the kitchen door and dropped Poo in his high chair, wondering what just happened—how it was that in a matter of minutes my heart could harden so completely.
Still, when Lloyd stepped onto the stage later that morning, I held Poo so tightly he howled in protest. Cass reached out, happy for the excuse to take him. I handed him over and squeezed her arm.
“Lloyd will be fine,” she whispered.
“Look at him,” I said. “He’s too sick. This is crazy.”
He stood there, so tall and frail, holding the microphone and the piece of paper with his speech on it. He opened his mouth to speak, and the PA system gave an earsplitting squawk. He looked around, holding the mike away from him, not knowing what to do. The audience shifted, and someone laughed. It serves him right, I thought, furious with him, with everyone. I wanted to put a stop to this, to rescue him and drag him offstage, but I couldn’t move. Then Geek came over and took the mike from him, tapped it, tested it, made sure it was safe and all was well, then handed it back. So calm and reassuring. Lloyd looked at Geek with bewildered gratitude.
