The Elephant of Surprise (The Russel Middlebrook Series Book 4) (8 page)

"A revolution?" I said. Of people eating out of Dumpsters? For me, that's what it kept coming back to. I'm sure Wade could hear the skepticism in my voice.

"The world can't go on the way it is," he said. "It just can't! Why should this small percentage of people consume more and more while everyone else just gets less and less? The planet won't allow it. Why should everyone else? Why
would
everyone else?"

"Well, yeah, but…"

"What?"

A wind blew, kicking up dust on the top of that hill. I shook my head. "Nothing. Forget it."

"No. I want to hear what you have to say."

"Well, okay, let's say you're totally right about limited resources, and the dying planet, and the crazy distribution of wealth, and all the rest. I actually agree with you about all that."

He smiled, enjoying this. "Okay, yeah."

"Well, how are you changing any of that? You're consuming less, and that's great. But how many of you are there? Ten? Out of a city of hundreds of thousands? You're not changing anyone's mind. You're doing all this stuff, but people don't even know you're doing it."

"They can see," Wade said. "People know we're here."

I shook my head. "They don't. You've become the person you used to ignore. If people notice you at all, it's to laugh at you or pity you or judge you." I hesitated, not wanting to hurt his feelings. Then again, he'd said he wanted to hear. "This is the Internet era. You can complain about computer or TV screens all you want, but that's where people live, especially young people, the people you need to persuade if you really want to change the world. Maybe you're listening to the trees, but those people aren't. They're listening to their iPods."

"Without trees, there are no iPods!"

"Eventually, I guess," I said. "But in the meantime, people don't care. Your ideas are great—they're really, really cool. And maybe you do know people better than any of us—maybe you
do
know all our secrets or hidden things. But what difference does it make if people have never heard of you?"

"You think we're irrelevant?"

I actually laughed. "Are you kidding? This is America, land of mini-vans and shopping malls. And you're telling people not to own things? Of course you're irrelevant! Completely and totally irrelevant! But that's not even the point."

"What's the point?" he said. Wade had a little of that shell-shocked expression I remembered from when we'd gone to the same high school. But I couldn't stop now.

"You're missing an opportunity," I said.

"How?"

"People are connected now, in a way they've never been connected in all of human history—thanks to technology, I mean. In some ways, that's probably bad. I know all the arguments: we're not connecting to each other as human beings anymore—we're only connecting as blips on a screen, as images, as ideas. But in some ways, it's really good."

"How is it good?" Wade asked.

"Well, for one thing, it means that things can change a lot faster than ever before. It doesn't take years or months or weeks for a new idea to travel around the whole country or even the whole world. It can happen in a matter of hours. Minutes!" I should admit that by this point, I was totally quoting from my Media Studies teacher. But it sounded good, right?

"Freegans are online," Wade said. "We have a website."

"That's a start. But it's not the same thing—that's not what I'm talking about. You have to meet people where they are. You have to speak their language. Would you listen to someone who had never lived like a freegan, who didn't know anything about you, who came up to you and started offering you advice?"

"If it made sense, I might."

"Even if they were telling you to stop doing everything you're doing, everything you love?"

Wade fell silent, and I was just hoping I hadn't hurt his feelings. Finally, he nodded. "I hear what you're saying. You can't change things from the outside. That's what a lot of freegans say. They're freegans for themselves. They don't care about changing the world."

"If you want to change things, you can be a little outside the world. Hell, maybe you
have
to be outside some. But not as far out as you are."

He thought for a second, then grinned. "So maybe that's why I met you."

"Me?" This wasn't what I'd expected him to say.

He lifted an eyebrow. "Sure. Now that you've met freegans, you can tell others. Or write about us online."

"Oh, I'm no great communicator. If you want someone to help you get your message out online, you should talk to Gunnar."

His eyes gripped me again. "You're wrong, Russel. You're really smart. And you're a really good guy."

I blushed. Now he was back to flirting with me again, right? I mean, there wasn't any question, was there? I ask again: validate my feelings, please!

"What does your mom think about all this?" I was no fool. I knew when it was time to change the subject.

Wade deflated like a balloon. I'd asked exactly the wrong question.

"I haven't really told her," he said. "I mean, I've tried to tell my whole family. I know they suspect I live on the street. But I guess I've never actually said the word 'freegan.' I know they wouldn't understand. My mom is barely talking to me. And everyone else, they're just totally pissed that I didn't go to college, like I've betrayed some sacred trust, like I've betrayed my dad, by doing what I want to do rather than what they want me to do. Either that or they pity me, like my mind snapped like my mom's, just at a younger age."

"That sucks," I said. What else could I say? My heart totally bled for Wade. When I'd come out as gay to my parents, it had been a huge deal. But they'd gotten over it after a while. Sort of.

He shrugged it off. "It doesn't matter. We'll all probably be moving on soon anyway."

"Who?"

"The whole house. The plan is to move to the big city—there's an even bigger freegan community there. The freegans are my only family now."

Leaving town? But I'd only just met him.

"Still…" he said, looking down. It was like he was trying to make a decision about something.

"What?"

"Can I show you one other thing?" he said, almost a whisper. "This is probably the most important thing of all."

"Sure," I said. I had no idea what it was, but I hope I don't have to tell you I was
dying
to see it.

*   *   *

Back on our bikes, we headed off again, down the hill, and under the freeway and into a valley that led straight to the downtown area. It was late afternoon by now, and we'd left the residential area behind. The whole valley had once been the industrial part of town, but most of the businesses had long since moved on, leaving crumbling brick warehouses with broken windows and fading painted names on the sides—names like Beacon Industrial and Comstock Shoe Company. A rail line had once run through the valley too, but it had long been abandoned, and the tracks that remained were mostly covered with weeds. But there were still a few businesses left, like a pickle plant where they marinated the cucumbers in these giant round tubs that were almost as big as water towers. You could smell the dill and brine for blocks around. Meanwhile, the side roads were so old that some of them were still paved with red bricks and cobblestones. Between the bricks and the railroad tracks, it made for lousy biking. But before too long, Wade pulled his bike into the gravel lot next to an old wooden warehouse. It had the same square shape as all the other old warehouses in the area, but it reminded me of an old barn—I guess because it was wood and the planks seemed warped and creaky, like the whole structure might collapse at any moment.

"What's this?" I said.

"It's cool. It's abandoned." For a freegan, I guess that was a good thing.

We pulled our bikes into a little patch of trees alongside the building. There was a rusted metal door in front of the building—at least the size of a garage door—but it was sealed tight, so Wade led me around the side of the building. I knew I should have been more wary. I mean, it's never a good idea to break into abandoned buildings, especially ones that look like they might collapse at any moment. But I wasn't worried about being kidnapped by a cult anymore—or maybe I was just so deep into the brainwashing that I couldn't even see it for the brainwashing it was. Something about Wade told me that he was on the level, that I could trust him. Or maybe it was as simple as I just wanted get on with that adventure I said I'd been so eager to have.

At the far edge of the building, there was another smaller door, located along the ground. It must have been for some kind of vent, but it had been boarded up too, with darkened two-by-fours.

Wade crouched down and started pulling out the bottom two-by-fours. I guess they hadn't been nailed in place, or if they had been, someone had already pulled them free.

In a minute, there was a gap that was just big enough for a person, at least if you crawled in on your stomach.

Which is exactly what Wade did. I watched him squirm his way in until his worn tennis shoes disappeared all the way into the warehouse.

I followed behind.

It was dark, but not as dark as it could've been. There was a row of windows up along the ceiling—windows that had mostly long since been broken, something that explained the thick layer of dried pigeon poop along the floor. Or maybe it was bat guano, which was disturbing considering I'd just put my hands in it. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I also saw a layer of trash covering the floor: loose sheets of plastic and opened tin cans. A rusted metal barrel sat off to one side. The cavernous roof was held up by thick wooden pillars. The whole area smelled of dirt and must, but even in here, I could still smell the brine from that nearby pickle factory.

It was mostly empty, except for a glass-walled office in the corner across from us.

I looked at Wade. He surprised me by turning and putting the two-by-fours back in place.

"So no one sees we're inside," he said by way of explanation. This was probably something freegans learned to do by instinct: cover their tracks. "This way," he said, leading me toward that little office in the back of the warehouse.

The floor was uneven—warped wooden slats covered with a dried brown paste of that pigeon and/or bat poop. I was wearing new-ish tennis shoes, but I could feel the loose nails and broken glass dried into the paste on the floor even through my thick rubber soles.

Of course the glass office windows were broken, and someone had also yanked the door off its hinges. But they'd left the big blocky desk in place along with a dented metal cabinet of some sort along the wall.

Wade smiled, then opened the doors on the cabinet. It was packed with stuff, but not the kind of stuff I expected. It wasn't yellowed papers or soggy ledgers. There were cardboard boxes full of paperbacks, and a rolled-up bedspread, and a gym bag, and more boxes full of clothing—t-shirts and hoodies and jeans and socks and undies. There was even an iPod and a computer monitor—more than a couple of years out of date.

"This is yours," I said. His personal possessions. Somehow it just seemed obvious.

"Everything I own," he said.

"I thought most freegans sold all their stuff, or gave it away in freegan stores."

"They do."

"But you were supposed to go away to college in the fall, so you brought your stuff here?"

He shook his head. "No. I had a place to store my stuff for the summer. It's when fall rolled around that I moved it here—took me forever on a bike, by the way. I couldn't afford a storage locker, and I figured this place was so old that everyone would think there isn't anything left worth looting. At first, it was just temporary. What if I changed my mind? What if I didn't like the freegan lifestyle?"

I nodded. That all made perfect sense.

"But then when I realized I liked being a freegan, I also realized I liked having it here."

"Just knowing it was safe," I said.

He looked at me. "Yeah." He rolled his eyes. "Geez, I go on and on about being a freegan, about changing the world, but I can't even tell my family. And I talk about not having any possessions, about being so 'free,' and here I have my secret stash. I really am a hypocrite, aren't I?"

"No!" I blurted. "No. I don't think it makes you a hypocrite at all. I think it makes you human." More than anything, it made me like him.

"Yeah?" he said.

The wood floor creaked under my feet. "Yeah."

Was Wade blushing? With his dark skin, I couldn't tell.

"Someday someone'll probably steal it," he said. "Then again, I probably won't even know. This is actually the first time I've come back here since I left it here a year and a half ago."

"Really?" I said.

"I've never even told anyone. Not any of the other freegans. You're the first."

I didn't know what to say. True confessions? I was touched that he'd shared this hidden part of himself with me. Suddenly, I wanted to share my secrets with him, but I didn't really have any, except the one about how fast I was falling for this strange, complicated guy. Oh, and the fact that I fell for guys.