The Fern Tender (13 page)

     Lillian closed her eyes and let the moment happen. He mind was truly in the present here with her daughter hugging the big lemon tree. She felt free for a split second. It was a wonderful feeling.

     Back in the kitchen, they prepared their fruit for the pies. David stood in front of the stove stirring a pot of eel stew. He had a long few days at the river working their eel trap lines. The wily fish was a delicacy but like all good things, it was hard to catch.

     David looked at her with both eyes while his hand stayed on the wooden spoon, “Eel stew tonight Lillian, your favorite.”

     “Thank you David. I know they are not easy to catch. You make me happy. I love your cooking,” Lillian responded.

     “Momma do you know what’s so cool about eels?” Asked Alena.

     Hoping to involve David in their banter Lillian said, “Maybe I do, but why don’t you ask the expert eel catcher, your father? He probably knows all kinds of cool things about eels.”

     David nervously kept stirring and said, “They come from the ocean a long ways away all the way to here to spawn. They are a funny fish because they have two separate lives, one in freshwater and one in saltwater.”

     “Yes! That’s what we learned in school Dad,” Alena remarked. “But why are they so hard to catch?”

     “Because their bodies allow them to get out through our traps a lot. They are like snakes, so they can slither through small places the other more regular kind of fishes can’t go.” David left the explanation there. It was hard for him to talk about all the things he did with his hands and body in the eddies of the river. He was far better at just doing things and not explaining them.

     Unlike Alena and the rest of the Colony’s girls, the men never questioned any part of what they did or challenged each other as to why their fishing and hunting customs were as such. Acceptance of their place was more than part of their working lives, it was also part of their domestic lives.

     Feeling that David gave the best answer he probably could, Lillian wound up the banter, “Well for snake like fishy things they sure do taste good. Let’s eat.”

     Later that evening Lillian and David lay side by side in bed. Lillian wished the moon was right and she could have a quickie with her husband. Just something to take the stress away, a good fucking would have been a perfect way to relax and fall asleep.

     Instead, she stuck to their rules and didn’t make any moves. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway, David would have forbade the sex. The moon was in the wrong phase. He was a rule follower, all the men in the Colony were. This made love and sex predictable. Not to say all sex was boring, most of the women had their own complicated web of relationships with each other. Lillian had participated a few times in their sexual meetups and it was highly erotic and fun. The women were creative at finding ways to satisfy each other plus they did have magic on their side. It could get interesting.

     With access to the Capitol and what it had to offer in terms of partners and variety, Lillian didn’t attend very many of these meetings in the Colony. She probably would have tonight though if one was happening.

     Instead she tossed and turned in bed, thinking of Andrew, the wheel, guilt, shame, hate, love, and whatever else her brain was queuing up to taunt her with. Her next meeting with the President wasn’t scheduled for another two weeks. Her plan was to focus on her classes with the girls and maintain a good eye on the Ferns. But with the wheel slowing, she knew it could be any day now when it stopped.

     After taking a shower, then trying sleep again, her mind finally settled down on the inequities of her life. She had great privilege and freedom as the Fern Tender, but it wasn't enough. Sensing love and knowing it was achievable, but still never able to have true parity with a man was her greatest frustration. She felt guilt for even engaging this thought. The world was about to reset, and most of the people in the Capitol and in the world were not going to make it through the transition to the next way of life. Millions and millions were going to perish. Lillian had a deep feeling the Colony would survive though. Her people had made it through other resets. However, she knew they would feel the impact.

     Lillian knew that a hard reset of the world carried no guarantees that love would even exist in the future. Hardwired more animalistic survival traits would probably be the favored feelings. Love was ephemeral, a secondary slippery emotion and unnecessary for repopulation. She wanted to know more about love before the wheel stopped, even if it was for a day.

     In the morning, she had a quick breakfast with David and Alena. Then she met with the school’s head mistress. She told her she had important business with The President today, it wasn’t true. Lillian was bursting at the seams to see Andrew again, and she couldn’t wait another day. She packed a change of clothes and a tall mug of strong hot coffee. Then she set out for the Capitol.

      Passing back through the guard gate at the gorge, she waved hello then goodbye to Chris. Perplexed, he watched her pass through even though she just passed into the Colony the day before.

      Fumbling through the trash in the passenger seat, she used the tips of her fingers to feel for the CD. She wanted some music and her phone was just a flip phone made for arranging meetings not for music apps. She'd seen the people in the Capitol listening to music on their telephones, but either crap Capitol radio or two stolen CDs would have to do for her. The Frank Zappa one was buried deep beneath the empty Starbucks cups and green plastic travel stoppers. She wanted Frank today, the Elton John one was wearing thin now. She needed something different.

     Skipping ahead to her favorite song on the disc (Track #9) she turned it up and let it play. He was singing “The boy thought he was a man but he really was a muffin" over and over.

      Despite growing up in a place with a limited sense of humor, she got it. Most of the men in the Capitol fit the description perfectly. The irony that this was the President’s CD. The biggest muffin of all, he had unknowingly, before her theft, listened to a perfect song about himself.

     As she drove, she thought more about the contrast between education in the Capitol and the Colony.  She reflected at just how important all the girls in the Colony are taught from birth that the backbone of magic and finding their own black swans is just education mixed with a healthy dose of awareness. The awareness part was simply letting the magic in. Lillian knew that awareness is a mindful mixture of knowing and doing things within the three main states of being; the conscious, subconscious, and of course the unconscious. The subconscious was by far being the most powerful. Anything could and would happen in this realm. The ability to do as you please by flipping your subconscious on and letting it run wild. Letting it do the heavy lifting while your conscious provided the cover. This was the way to open up the pathways to deep math probability problems that Lillian had mastered. A place to let your brain solve the hard stuff or find the cool things such as which men to fuck, or where to locate thieving monkeys for jaguars or as Lillian speculated if you were Andrew you could merge yours with another’s generating some of the most powerful sexual magic she’d ever known. Andrew’s magic was amazing, even so, she still just craved the small things about him.

     Lillian thought of the president, he knew none of this, and neither did his people. Their awareness stopped where the textbooks and bachelor’s degrees ended. They were never encouraged to keep going to find and to use their own subconscious. They walled off their own internal holy areas and put them up for sale. They were scared to death of their own personal attics and basements, and thought wrongly that these were dark places that needed filling with rules and notions of someone else’s God. They never found their own magic but attempted to outsource it to the mega churches which did nothing but create guilt and shame if anyone were to attempt to explore their own internal god.

     Sometimes she felt sorry for them all. They were sold consumption packaged as freedom. The more you have the more independent you were supposed to be, but the truth was just the opposite. The more they had, the more they were shackled to their cars, houses, electronics, their stuff. Some of them, the hippies, the old-time ranchers, maybe even the truckers, she speculated had real independence, but straying from the suburban herd was frowned on. It was tough to go against the muffin grain so to speak.

     She decided the President was just a poor scared muffin boy, and she chuckled for a minute. Her laugh quickly turned to horror; however, when she realized how ill equipped he would be when the wheel stopped.

     The housing projects of the Capitol looked even more menacing today. Called the Cuts by the locals, it was a massive swath of decaying urban core that physically took up one third the city limits of the Capitol. Its prime was long past, and what was left the drug and gang leaders lorded over. The police wouldn’t drive into the Cuts without a minimum of two squad cars together. There had been too many instances of a single patrol car being hijacked and horrible things done to the cops who drove them. The buddy system was important here.

     Now, Lillian navigated her way solo through waning afternoon light past the shadows and the figures selling drugs on the corners. Her long blonde hair and her plain white car stood out. She had to keep moving, knowing that if she stopped she would draw attention and possibly get into trouble. There were no puffy white guys around here to make fun of, just desperate people looking for their next fix, predators and prey. Wild jaguars were more predictable than a junkie looking for their next score.

     Driving through the blocks of abandoned shotgun shacks and crumbling projects, she began to wonder if her senses were off. She still hadn’t found him. The longer she stayed here the more danger she felt. She drove on, alongside the old refinery that bordered the area. Then zig zagged through the maze of convenience stores and check cashing services with bullet proof glass. The crack of gun shots pierced the late afternoon air every so often.

     Finally as she rounded the next block she found him leaning up against a bus stop. His tall lean almond colored frame stood out amongst the stereotypes of hooded men and oversized sports team jackets. He was wearing jeans and sweater with work boots, looking more like he could be browsing the existential aisle at the local resale book shop. But here he was in the darkest corner of the Capitol, his home.

     This place was his forest. Awareness was just as important here too as it was in the Colony. The jaguars defended their territory here with semi-automatic pistols and brutality. Despite the dangers, the broken part of the Capitol could be just as beautiful as the ferns. Anytime humans were truly dialed into their surroundings, whether in a forest or in a ghetto it had a certain purity to it. Unlike the mindless suburbs that went on for miles where everyone was in their own private world. Their plugged in lives left no room for real awareness and connection to their environment. There was a truth to this part of the city just as there was a truth in the forests of the Colony.

     He saw her before she saw him. The cars and people coming and going had a certain pattern, and her white car disrupted the normal flow of life here. To someone as in tune with their surroundings as Andrew, the white car turning the corner appeared more like a flashing red neon sign. He was just settling in, ready to unload the rocks of cocaine he just purchased from a bigger dealer on the other side of the Cuts.

     Emboldened by surviving her drive through the Cuts and also famished for Andrew, Lillian stopped and got out of her car. Striding past the others hanging around the bus stop and ignoring the whistles and calls, she walked up to him, “Will you come with me Andrew? Please, come with me.”

     Stunned at her words. He stared at her, “What? What?” was all he could manage.

     He thought they had a good thing going with their silent liaisons. Now she was hunting him down and talking to him. Everything changed in the instant the words came out. It began to feel real.

     “Wow, you do speak English I see. I like your voice.” Lillian could feel the blood rush to her head. It felt surreal, at the bus stop in the Cuts talking with Andrew. They could have been anywhere now. The feeling of danger melted away once he spoke to her.

     Again she insisted, “Come on, get in the car, I want to talk to you.”

     Still shocked, but curious, he obeyed. He jumped into the passenger seat and they drove away.

     “Where are we going?” He asked.

     “I don’t know, where do you want to go?” Lillian replied.

      Sensing her resolve, he decided to play along. “Well, whenever I get kidnapped I like Club .357. It’s a quiet friendly place in this wasteland of a ghetto. We can sip a bubble tea and decipher John Donne passages.”

     “Great. Club .357 is it. And yes, the bell tolls for thee.” She shot back.

     “Nice. But I’m kidding. Let’s not go there. I don’t like to mix business and crazy white women. So, take us to a Starbucks.” He said.

     “Really? Where would a Starbucks be around here?” She snapped.

     “Exactly. Let’s get out of here. The one off of Grand Avenue is the closest,” he directed. “And why are you calling me Andrew? I know we
know
each other, but I’ve never spoken to you.”

     She’d taken knowing Andrew’s name for granted all this time and realized he was right. Now feeling very much like his stalker, she spoke sheepishly, “You write your name on your books.”