Parable of the Sower (8 page)

I decided to go on telling the truth for as long as I could. I hate to lie to him. “What I said was true,” I insisted.

“You don’t have to say everything you think you know,” he said. “Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

“Joanne and I were friends,” I said. “I thought I could talk to her.”

He shook his head. “These things frighten people. It’s best not to talk about them.”

“But, Dad, that’s like…like ignoring a fire in the living room because we’re all in the kitchen, and, besides, house fires are too scary to talk about.”

“Don’t warn Joanne or any of your other friends,” he said. “Not now. I know you think you’re right, but you’re not doing anyone any good. You’re just panicking people.”

I managed to suppress a surge of anger by shifting the subject a little. Sometimes the way to move Dad is to go at him from several directions.

“Did Mr. Garfield give you back your book?” I asked.

“What book?”

“I loaned Joanne a book about California plants and the ways Indians used them. It was one of your books. I’m sorry I loaned it to her. It’s so neutral, I didn’t think it could cause trouble. But I guess it has.”

He looked startled, then he almost smiled. “Yes, I will have to have that one back, all right. You wouldn’t have the acorn bread you like so much without that one—not to mention a few other things we take for granted.”

“Acorn bread…?”

He nodded. “Most of the people in this country don’t eat acorns, you know. They have no tradition of eating them, they don’t know how to prepare them, and for some reason, they find the idea of eating them disgusting. Some of our neighbors wanted to cut down all our big live oak trees and plant something useful. You wouldn’t believe the time I had changing their minds.”

“What did people eat before?”

“Bread made of wheat and other grains—corn, rye, oats…things like that.”

“Too expensive!”

“Didn’t use to be. You get that book back from Joanne.” He drew a deep breath. “Now, let’s get off the side track and back onto the main track. What were you planning? Did you try to talk Joanne into running away?”

Then I sighed. “Of course not.”

“Her father says you did.”

“He’s wrong. This was about staying alive, learning to live outside so that we’d be able to if we ever had to.”

He watched me as though he could read the truth in my mind. When I was little, I used to think he could. “All right,” he said. “You may have meant well, but no more scare talk.”

“It wasn’t scare talk. We do need to learn what we can while there’s time.”

“That’s not up to you, Lauren. You don’t make decisions for this community.”

Oh hell. If I could just find a balance between holding back too much and pushing, poaching. “Yes, sir.”

He leaned back and looked at me. “Tell me exactly what you told Joanne. All of it.”

I told him. I was careful to keep my voice flat and passionless, but I didn’t leave anything out. I wanted him to know, to understand what I believed. The nonreligious part of it, anyway. When I finished, I stopped and waited. He seemed to expect me to say more. He just sat there for a while and stared at me. I couldn’t tell what he felt. Other people never could if he didn’t want them to, but I’ve been able to most of the time. Now I felt shut out, and there was nothing I could do about it. I waited.

At last he let his breath out as though he had been holding it. “Don’t talk about this any more,” he said in a voice that didn’t invite argument.

I looked back at him, not wanting to give a promise that would be a lie.

“Lauren.”

“Dad.”

“I want your promise that you won’t talk about this any more.”

What to say? I wouldn’t promise. I couldn’t. “We could make earthquake packs,” I suggested. “Emergency kits that we can grab in case we have to get out of the house fast. If we call them earthquake packs, the idea might not bother people so much. People are used to worrying about earthquakes.” All this came out in a rush.

“I want your promise, Daughter.”

I slumped. “Why? You know I’m right. Even Mrs. Garfield must know it. So why?”

I thought he would yell at me or punish me. His voice had had that warning edge to it that my brothers and I had come to call the rattle—as in a rattlesnake’s warning sound. If you pushed him past the rattle, you were in trouble. If he called you “son” or “daughter” you were close to trouble.

“Why?” I insisted.

“Because you don’t have any idea what you’re doing,” he said. He frowned and rubbed his forehead. When he spoke again, the edge went out of his voice. “It’s better to teach people than to scare them, Lauren. If you scare them and nothing happens, they lose their fear, and you lose some of your authority with them. It’s harder to scare them a second time, harder to teach them, harder to win back their trust. Best to begin by teaching.” His mouth crooked into a little smile. “It’s interesting that you chose to begin your efforts with the book you lent to Joanne. Did you ever think of teaching from that book?”

“Teaching…my kindergartners?”

“Why not. Get them started on the right foot. You could even put together a class for older kids and adults. Something like Mr. Ibarra’s wood carving class, Mrs. Baiter’s needlework classes, and young Robert Hsu’s astronomy lectures. People are bored. They wouldn’t mind another informal class now that they’ve lost the Yannis television. If you can think of ways to entertain them and teach them at the same time, you’ll get your information out. And all without making anyone look down.”

“Look down…?”

“Into the abyss, Daughter.” But I wasn’t in trouble any more. Not at the moment. “You’ve just noticed the abyss,” he continued. “The adults in this community have been balancing at the edge of it for more years than you’ve been alive.”

I got up, went over to him and took his hand. “It’s getting worse, Dad.”

“I know.”

“Maybe it’s time to look down. Time to look for some hand and foot holds before we just get pushed in.”

“That’s why we have target practice every week and Lazor wire and our emergency bell. Your idea for emergency packs is a good one. Some people already have them. For earthquakes. Some will assemble them if I suggest it. And, of course, some won’t do anything at all. There are always people who won’t do anything.”

“Will you suggest it?”

“Yes. At the next neighborhood association meeting.”

“What else can we do? None of this is fast enough.”

“It will have to be.” He stood up, a tall, broad wall of a man. “Why don’t you ask around, see if anyone in the neighborhood knows anything about martial arts. You need more than a book or two to learn good dependable unarmed combat.”

I blinked. “Okay.”

“Check with old Mr. Hsu and Mr. and Mrs. Montoya.”

“Mr.
and
Mrs.?”

“I think so. Talk to them about classes, not about Armageddon.”

I looked up at him, and he looked more like a wall than ever, standing and waiting. And he had offered me a lot—all I would get, I suspected. I sighed. “Okay, Dad, I promise. I’ll try not to scare anyone else. I just hope things hold together long enough for us to do it your way.”

And he echoed my sigh. “At last. Good. Now come out back with me. There are some important things buried in the yard in sealed containers. It’s time for you to know where they are—just in case.”

S
UNDAY
, M
ARCH
9, 2025

Today, Dad preached from Genesis six, Noah and the ark: “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts and of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.”

And then, of course, later God says to Noah, “Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.”

Dad focused on the two-part nature of this situation. God decides to destroy everything except Noah, his family, and some animals.
But
if Noah is going to be saved, he has plenty of hard work to do.

Joanne came to me after church and said she was sorry for all the craziness.

“Okay,” I said.

“Still friends?” she asked.

And I hedged: “Not enemies, anyway. Get my fathers book back to me. He wants it.”

“My mother took it. I didn’t know she’d get so upset.”

“It isn’t hers. Get it back to me. Or have your dad give it to mine. I don’t care. But he wants his book.”

“All right.”

I watched her leave the house. She looks so trustworthy—tall and straight and serious and intelligent—I still feel inclined to trust her. But I can’t. I don’t. She has no idea how much she could have hurt me if I had given her just a few more words to use against me. I don’t think I’ll ever trust her again, and I hate that. She was my best friend. Now she isn’t.

W
EDNESDAY
, M
ARCH
12, 2025

Garden thieves got in last night. They stripped citrus trees of fruit in the Hsu yard and the Talcott yard. In the process, they trampled what was left of winter gardens and much of the spring planting.

Dad says we have to set up a regular watch. He tried to call a neighborhood association meeting for tonight, but it’s a work night for some people, including Gary Hsu who sleeps over at his job whenever he has to report in person. We’re supposed to get together for a meeting on Saturday. Meanwhile, Dad got Jay Garfield, Wyatt and Kayla Talcott, Alex Montoya, and Edwin Dunn together to patrol the neighborhood in shifts in armed pairs. That meant that except for the Talcotts who are already a pair (and who are so angry about their garden that I pity any thief who gets in their way), the others have to find partners among the other adults of the neighborhood.

“Find someone you trust to protect your back,” I heard Dad tell the little group. Each pair was to patrol for two hours from just before dark to just after dawn. The first patrol, walking through or looking into all the back yards would get people used to the idea of watchers while they were still awake enough to understand.

“Make sure they see you if you get first watch,” Dad said. “The sight of you will remind them that there will be watchers all through the night. We don’t want any of them mistaking you for thieves.”

Sensible. People go to bed soon after dark to save electricity, but between dinner and darkness they spend time on their porches or in their yards where it isn’t so hot. Some listen to their radio on front or back porches. Now and then people get together to play music, sing, play board games, talk, or get out on the paved part of the street for volleyball, touch football, basketball, or tennis. People used to play baseball, but we just can’t afford what that costs in windows. A few people just find a corner and read a book while there’s still daylight. It’s a good, comfortable, recreational time. What a pity to spoil it with reminders of reality. But it can’t be helped.

“What will you do if you catch a thief?” Cory asked my father before he went out. He was on the second shift, and he and Cory were having a rare cup of coffee together in the kitchen while he waited. Coffee was for special occasions. I couldn’t miss the good smell of it in my room where I lay awake.

I eavesdrop. I don’t put drinking glasses to walls or crouch with my ear against doors, but I do often lie awake long after dark when we kids are all supposed to be asleep. The kitchen is across the hall from my room, the dining room is nearby at the end of the hall, and my parents’ room is next door. The house is old and well insulated. If there’s a shut door between me and the conversation, I can’t hear much. But at night with all or most of the lights out, I can leave my door open a crack, and if other doors are also open, I can hear a lot. I learn a lot.

“We’ll chase him off, I hope,” Dad said. “We’ve agreed to that. We’ll give him a good scare and let him know there are easier ways to get a dollar.”

“A dollar…?”

“Yes, indeed. Our thieves didn’t steal all that food because they were hungry. They stripped those trees—took everything they could.”

“I know,” Cory said. “I took some lemons and grapefruits to both the Hsus and the Wyatts today and told them they could pick from our trees when they needed more. I took them some seed, too. They both had a lot of young plants trampled, but this early in the season, they should be able to repair the damage.”

“Yes.” My father paused. “But you see my point. People steal that way for money. They’re not desperate. Just greedy and dangerous. We might be able to scare them into looking for easier pickings.”

“But what if you can’t?” Cory asked, almost whispering. Her voice fell so low that I was afraid I would miss something.

“If you can’t, will you shoot them?”

“Yes,” he said.

“…yes?” she repeated in that same small voice. “Just…‘yes?’” She was like Joanne all over again—denial personified. What planet do people like that live on?

“Yes,” my father said.

“Why!”

There was a long silence. When my father spoke again, his own voice had gone very soft. “Baby, if these people steal enough, they’ll force us to spend more than we can afford on food—or go hungry. We live on the edge as it is. You know how hard things are.

“But…couldn’t we just call the police?”

“For what? We can’t afford their fees, and anyway, they’re not interested until after a crime has been committed. Even then, if you call them, they won’t show up for hours—maybe not for two or three days.”

“I know.”

“What are you saying then? You want the kids to go hungry? You want thieves coming into the house once they’ve stripped the gardens?”

“But they haven’t done that.”

“Of course they have. Mrs. Sims was only their latest victim.”

“She lived alone. We always said she shouldn’t do that.”

“You want to trust them not to hurt you or the kids just because there are seven of us? Baby, we can’t live by pretending this is still twenty or thirty years ago.”