Here in the Real World: Chapters 41–78

Number five in the Knights’ Code was: Thou shalt never give wanton offense.

“The one who’s been skulking around the hall the whole time you’ve been here, peeking in. Overalls, blond, could use a meal.”

“See here on the fringes?” he asked. “How the green is lighter?”

Jolene blew her bangs out and rolled her eyes. “It’s not like you invented growing,” she scoffed. But she was fighting a smile.

He gave a sprig of waterweed a gentle tug, and the little plant held firm.

When Jolene nodded, he grabbed two mugs and shot something pale and sparkling into them from a spigot.

People in bars must really like to look at themselves, Ware concluded, because besides the giant mirror behind the bar, the walls were covered with them, all advertising beers in ornate golden letters.

Ware munched another handful of ChipNutz and was just about to venture into the subject of the vow he’d made to Jolene when she pushed through the swinging doors.

She hacked down another plant. The plant fell over with a cry of betrayal only Ware seemed to hear.

On the back of the pew in front of him was a brass plaque, carved with the word BEHOLD!

He straightened up and mustered a protest.

Jolene shot her a look like a lance, steely and sharp.

He’d face those machines down—ideally, surrounded by a crowd of breathless admirers, including a national television crew—unafraid in the face of the danger.

A giant heron floated in to stalk the wall, a pair of cormorants paddled the circuit, and a flock of what looked like black-and-white scissors skimmed the shallow end, all on the same day.

The turtle raised its head in a stately arc, looked straight into the lens, and blinked one eye.

Jolene peeled off her giant leather work gloves and tossed them to the ground. The move reminded Ware of knights throwing down their gauntlets to issue a challenge to battle.

“Like here, they’re sunny and languid. All’s good. Then after we see the auction notice, you cut to them whipping around like they’re distraught. How come?”

Ware made a mental note to use words like “languid” and “distraught” more often. “The bank’s going to sell the lot. All our work gone.”

“No, because I didn’t mean to do it.”
“Exactly. You did it intuitively. I called it. You’re a filmmaker.”

“They won’t let us outside at Rec. You know how unhealthy the air is in there. I should stay home.” He added a subtle cough.

“You said your grandmother asked me to,” she answered, as if catering to the whims of the elderly were a natural result of her thoughtful personality.

“What a bunch of nonsense! No one told you?” she asked with an indignant huff.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got it all planned out. There’s plenty of room for your bed and your bureau.”

Ware could only watch miserably as she waded up right beside him, probably to deliver a scathing lecture up close about how ridiculous he was.

Ashley stayed on that afternoon to pick up any litter that could get stuck in a bird’s digestive tract, and when Jolene returned after only an hour at the market, they all trudged to the garden to get digging on the newest trench again.

Knowing that the work might be futile made it seem tragic, but noble too.

Somebody’s going to build a strip mall here. Probably have a crappy convenience store, which is actually an inconvenience store for people like me who might want real stuff, not beer and cigarettes and lottery tickets.

Ware patched the moat wall with as much bravado as he could muster, trying to send her the message: He wasn’t giving up and neither should she.

“Do you know what the word amateur means, Ware?” Ware shook his head. “It means ‘someone who loves something.’ I think that’s what we need here. I could round up a couple of used movie cameras. You and any interested kids could teach each other.”

For five minutes Jolene had been ranting at full throttle, and he would have filmed every second. Even now, winding down, the sheer power and the glory of her indignation made you want to stand up and cheer.

Ware saw Jolene was intent on seething for a while longer.

Ware turned to his house. He saw it as if for the first time. A whole house. From the wide front step he used to jump off for hours when he was five to his room tucked under the eaves where the skylight above his bed perfectly framed the Big Dipper each January, which he would have to give up next week but would get back in a couple of months.

Late that night, after they’d gone for pizza and shopped for a thousand things for school, which did include black jeans and a black T-shirt but did not include ear piercing, Ware lay in bed looking up at the ceiling plaster whorls. Tonight they looked like smiles on top of smiles inside smiles.

“I notice there’s a pile of garbage out back” was the first thing she said.
Ware hurried to intercede. “We’ll move it behind the shed. Or cover it.”

Ware fetched a stack of communion cups and doled them out.