Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre

Chapter 19

Leaving Mostar’s house, I turned left instead of right. I wasn’t supposed to be at Reinhardt’s for another few minutes and I wanted to spend that time in the garden. Not that there’d be much to do. I figured I’d turn on the drip line, maybe shower and change while it ran.

I opened the front door, then the garage door, and gasped.

SPROUTS!

A tiny little arch was poking up near my feet, right at the spot where I’d planted the first large white bean!

“Pal!” I called, then sticking my head out the front door, shouted, “Palomino! The garden is sprouting!”

I bent down to examine the little, upside-down u. It was whitish, about half an inch high, and as I peered closer, I could see that tip of the bean below one end.

The spot next to this arch looked like it was bulging a little, so, using Bobbi’s teapot, I dripped a few drops on it. Sure enough, as the dirt fell away, the first hint of an arch as well. I tried it again with the next one, and the one after that. So many u’s struggling to free themselves from the soil.

And they weren’t the only ones!

The entire garden! Every inch!

“OhmyGod!” That was Carmen, who’d just come in with Pal. “Did you plant all those?”

“Just these,” I said, referring to the marked beans. Ironically, nothing was coming up where I’d planted the Chinese peas and sweet potatoes. Or maybe they just weren’t coming up yet! And it really didn’t matter because their seed beds were surrounded by mysterious little shoots. They were everywhere, those shoots, scattered randomly across the entire garden.

“What are they all?” asked Carmen as Pal examined them on hands and knees.

“No idea,” I said. “I don’t even know where they’re coming from.”

“Maybe the earth we brought in?” That was Mostar, who’d just joined us.

“Maybe,” I said with a little disappointment. If they were all just wild weeds…

“Compost?” That was Dan. This was turning into a real party. “The compost we mixed in, the older stuff at the bottom of the bins that turned into soil… could there still be old seeds from…”

“Cucumber slices,” mused Mostar, who squatted next to Pal. Together they were examining a little wild sprout with round green leaves. “And tomatoes?” She pointed to a three-inch thread with two tiny narrow leaves. “This one, I think. How many times do we cut off the bruised parts?”

“I do that all the time!” said Carmen, with more energy and excitement than I’d ever seen. “The extra slices of something, or cutting out pits. And salsa!” This was directed down to Pal. “When we have taco night! All the leftover salsa we make! Right in the bin!”

Our own tomatoes! Even now I can’t stop thinking how good they might taste.

Mostar looked at Pal, who was gently brushing her fingertips across the wobbling tomato stalk. “You know, we still have a lot of older soil-type compost. That has to have more seeds.”

“And rice.” I pointed to the little square foot where I’d sprinkled Bobbi’s brown rice. It was now a solid patch of grass.

“Rice!” Mostar beamed at me. I explained where I’d gotten it and how much more I thought Bobbi had left. Mostar’s lips rounded into a tight O. “We can live on that, rice and beans.” She looked at Carmen. “Do you have any more of those beanbags lying around?”

“We might.” Carmen looked at Pal. “And maybe some extra loose beans we didn’t use. Maybe in the arts and crafts chest?”

Pal nodded enthusiastically.

“Then that would be worth it…” Mostar nodded back. “Worth the calories to build more gardens.”

“More gardens!” Dan almost hit the ceiling. “Totally! Another garage! Maybe two, drip lines, compost”—he glanced at Palomino—“more worms and shit!”

“And shit?” Mostar asked with cocked eyebrow. Dan laughed, his cheeks reddened.

“Yes, really—the biodigester tanks!” And to me, with outstretched palms, “C’mon, I won’t get cut, or sick. I promise!”

Before I could answer, Carmen asked me, “Can we do it?”

I wasn’t sure if she was asking for my permission or expertise. Not that I had either to give. But Dan, Carmen, Palomino, the way they were all looking at me. And Mostar, hanging back, crossed arms. Judging my call?

My mind had already been racing through calculations, judging if the math added up. One cup of brown rice was around two hundred calories. One cup of beans, depending on type, might be the same or more. And fattening too! Most beans had fat in them, about a gram per cup. But how many cups of beans and rice could we hope for?

“We can,” I started to say, but held out my hands quickly, “but after… after we finish the perimeter. First things first, right? Safety, then food. Soon as we get the stakes up, soon as we know they work, we’ll focus on more gardens.”

“Yeah!” Dan pumped his fist as Carmen hugged her daughter.

Behind them, Mostar smiled and nodded.

I felt ten feet tall.

Then she jerked her head to the door and tapped her wrist like an old-style wristwatch.

Reinhardt! My shift!

I ran over to Reinhardt’s house and saw through the window that Effie was reading in the chair next to his couch. She saw me, smiled, and got up to join me in the foyer. I could see Reinhardt was sleeping and she said that he’d been out for most of the morning.

I tried to apologize for being late and described what had happened in the garden. She brightened, but not for the reason you’d think. “Thank you,” she said, “thank you for all you’re doing with Palomino. She needs the purpose now, routine.” She looked across the circle to her house, where her wife and daughter were waving from the window. “And now”—her eyes scanned the ridge—“she needs to focus on something positive. We all do.” More waves from her family, and a final “thank you,” before heading home.

So many thoughts were racing through my head. How many gardens can we build? And what about this one? What now? How much warmth do those little plants need? Dan had been right about cleaning off the roof. We’d need every kilowatt to keep the garage at summer temperatures. And what about summer light? Happy lamps? Everyone has one. Enough? At least the walls are white. Reflective. Aluminum foil? That hydroponics store in Venice. A plant in a reflective box? And fertilizer. Can we really use our own poo? Safe for Dan? Worth it? Smelling up the house?

So many questions, sitting here writing all this down. Foggy brain. Should nap. Reinhardt’s still out. But his library. So many books. Gotta be something useful.

Nope. There wasn’t. Not one practical text, and believe me, I looked! Lots of philosophers though. Descartes, Voltaire, Sartre, and shelves of historians like Gibbon, Keegan, and Tacitus. Beautiful novels too, leather-bound first editions with gold printed names like Proust, Zola, and Molière.

And, of course, there’re his books. Halfway to Marx, Walking with Xu Xing, and the famous Rousseau’s Children, in at least a dozen languages: French, Italian, Greek, Chinese. (Or Japanese, I can’t tell. Can’t be Korean because I didn’t see those little circles.) I noticed a lot of Rousseau’s works were intermixed with various volumes of his book, as if they were buddies who got published at the same time.

At one point I thought I’d hit pay dirt when, going through the larger coffee table books, I came across the title Vanishing Cultures of Southern Africa. I thought I might, at least, get some helpful tips from the pictures. I didn’t. It turned out just to be “white man’s porn”; a lot of voluptuous, topless, or totally naked women dancing and jiggling in various indigenous ceremonies. Okay, so maybe these are culturally accurate photos, and maybe I’m projecting too much from memories of my “Colonialism and Male Sexuality” class at Penn, but Reinhardt’s the exact age to have collected National Geographic the way later generations “read” Playboy for the “articles.” And besides, the picture on the spine above the title should have been a giveaway. It showed a beaded G-string between a woman’s legs.

There was one section though, which I almost missed. It was of a young woman during a coming-of-age ceremony carrying what looked like a hybrid sword/spear. I say “hybrid” because the shaft was shorter than I’d ever seen (barely three feet), while the blade was longer (about a foot and a half). The caption underneath described the weapon as an “Iklwa,” which made me skip to the index for a closer look.

It’s a Zulu weapon, invented by a guy named Shaka, which “revolutionized Bantu warfare.” Unlike earlier throwing spears, which could be knocked away by the other side’s shield, the Iklwa was meant for “close combat.” The wielder would get right up into the face of his enemy, knock the shield away with his own, then stab the short spear’s long blade under the man’s armpit. That’s where the name comes from. The sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs. “Iklwa.”

Gross, yes, and horrifying to think of whole armies fighting this way. But I couldn’t help being fascinated by the book’s comparison to Roman legionnaires who fought in a similar way. Different places, different ages, completely different cultures, and yet they came up with similar weapons and tactics. Is there something about how we’re wired, something universally human? That was my last fuzzy thought before I finally nodded off.

The comfortable chair, Reinhardt’s rhythmic breathing.

I didn’t know what happened until my head suddenly jerked up to a dark sky with Reinhardt coming out of the entryway bathroom. Must have been the flushing that woke me. After half a couple disoriented seconds, I realized that Reinhardt was supporting himself against the wall. I jumped up to help him but he waved me away with, “I’m okay, I’m okay.”

He clearly wasn’t. Even as I struggled to get him back onto the couch, I could see how pale his lips were. I asked if he was hungry and he nodded weakly. I remember thinking that must be a good thing. Don’t really sick people lose their appetites?

There wasn’t much, at least when it came to frozen diet meals. But I did find plenty of “secret goodies,” little packets of gummies and candies squirreled away. He must have hidden them all upstairs, like the ice cream, when I came over to catalog his food. Now they were everywhere, stuffed into drawers and cabinets all over the kitchen. It actually gave me a little bit of sympathy to see all those caches. I’d hid more than a few Twix bites from Mom.

Shame.

I didn’t feel too sorry for him though, not when I asked if there was anything he could and couldn’t eat in his condition. I got a feeble, “Anything is fine, I guess.”

You guess? Aren’t you supposed to know if you have a heart condition? Lord knows his library isn’t much help.

Hey, Flaubert, what can’t a heart attack victim eat?

I settled on his second to last packet of insta-waffle. The kind you eat from a cup. Just add water, stir, and nuke. I tried not to keep reflexively checking the windows, or note that there were no kitchen knives to be seen. The man has probably never cooked anything in his life, or has had people do it for him.

Amazing how your perception of a space can change so quickly. If I’d been invited into Reinhardt’s kitchen two weeks ago, I might have just thought about the décor (or lack thereof). Then, when I came in with Dan a few days ago, all I could think about was what there was to eat. Now all I could think about was what I could use to defend myself. Same room, different priorities.

The microwave chirped and I stuck a spoon in the expanded, muffin-looking thing. Reinhardt was sitting up now and swallowing with obvious delight. “No sugar?” I told him it looked like it already had plenty but his “aw, c’mon” shrug sent me back to the kitchen. “Some salt too…” I heard him call from the living room (with what sounded like a full mouth) and then, after probably realizing his tone, he added, “Please?”

I grabbed the salt shaker off the counter, the box of white sugar from the pantry, and returned to discover that he’d practically finished.

The world-famous scholar looked up at me like a ten-year-old boy. “Couldn’t wait.”

Something rattled. I jumped and spun. My eyes flicked to the source of the noise. It was the kitchen door, the cracked glass rattling in its fixture.

Reinhardt said, “It’s been doing that. The wind.”

I apologized, told him that Dan would be happy to look at it, and felt my body relax. That was when the yawn came out, big and loud, and I covered my mouth with embarrassment. As my eyes opened, I saw Reinhardt looking at me with an expression I hadn’t recognized before, a kind, almost fatherly smile.

He said, “I’m the one who’s sorry. I shouldn’t have kept you here to watch me. You’ve got to get home and to bed.”

I told him that I was fine, to which he responded, “Balderdash,” and asked how many hours I’d slept in the last two days. I confessed to a couple of catnaps.

“Aha!” A tiny twinkle, a wag of the finger, and a dramatic, two-hand sweep toward the door.

“Do you want me to set the alarm?” Then, remembering all the window damage, said, “At least the internal sensors? Maybe just the kitchen?”

“What if I need a midnight snack?” He patted his stomach lightly. “You think I know how to disarm that infernal apparatus?”

“But you can’t make it to the kitchen,” I protested, “if you get dizzy, fall, and hit your head or something…”

“Go, go. I think it was a…” He hesitated before saying, “Nerves… I used to get… when I was young… these spells… I could have been more forthright last night.” He scowled at the floor. “It’s a cruel joke, those formative years, when your brain learns the rules of the universe. Your childhood is spent being nurtured, protected, loved unconditionally while your adulthood is spent searching in vain for substitutes. Mate, government, God…”

He suddenly looked up at me, embarrassed, angry. “Sorry.” He waved his hand like those words had been a bad smell. “Intellectual coward.”

I felt so bad for him, all that puffed up veneer stripped away. Embarrassed old man, admitting his weakness.

All I could say was, “It’s all right, I mean, who doesn’t want to be taken care of when things get scary?”

He repeated that phrase, “taken care of,” and blinked hard with a long, wet sniff.

I suddenly found myself asking, “Do you want to stay at our place, you know, just in case it isn’t a panic attack? If you need something in the middle of the night?”

He paused at that, genuinely surprised, then said with a smiling swat, “Will ya get outta here already?”

“Just let me clean up first,” I said, and carried his cup and spoon to the kitchen. It didn’t take long, spoon in the dishwasher, disposable cup in the trash. But when I came back, he’d already managed a trip to the bookshelf. Three small, thick, red hardbacks were sitting on his lap. I’d noticed them before but couldn’t read the Latin titles. “Childhood friends,” he said, “Cato, Varro, Columella, their writings on agriculture.”

And of my questioning look, he answered, “I overheard you telling Effie about the sprouts. I wasn’t really asleep.” He opened the first book, grabbed his glasses off the table, and said, “Maybe I can find something useful in here.” Then with a derisive snort, added, “Maybe I can be useful for once.”

And with a really bitter chuckle, he muttered, “Work sets you free.”

Where have I heard that before?

I told him not to stay up too late. He said, “I won’t, I won’t,” and shooed me away with a smile and a big yawn.

That was about an hour ago. I’m home now in my kitchen, writing all this down before getting back to work. Dan’s on the floor, sitting cross-legged amidst a pile of bamboo. Two piles, actually, a smaller one of finished stakes and a much larger, rougher pile resting across his lap. He’s out, by the way, back against the fridge, snoring, half buried in his bamboo blanket.

I thought about waking him to go upstairs, but I know he’ll just want to get back to work. I think I’ll crash on the couch for a couple hours, set my phone for midnight. Then I’ll get up, maybe wake Dan as well, and the two of us can saw spikes till morning. Mostar thinks we’ll have enough by tomorrow night to completely ring the neighborhood.

And after that?

I keep getting up to check on the garden, to see how all my little sprouts are doing. They’re so beautiful, so vulnerable. I gotta figure out the best way to raise them.

Raise?

Whatever, so tired.

Tomorrow, or rather the day after tomorrow, after I get a really good night’s sleep, after the perimeter is done. By that time Reinhardt might have found some tips in his books. I hope he’s okay. As I started to leave, back turned, my hand on the knob, he said, “Good night, Hannah.”