by Zakes Mda
He was christened Revelation, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
“Revelation as in the Book of Revelation?” asks Schuyler, laughing.
“From Genesis to Revelation,” says Rachel.
“I hate that name. I am Jason, and I don’t wanna be a cheesemonger. I wanna be a music monger.”
“Those, my friend, are the lyrics of a new song,” says Rachel.
“You can play together,” says Schuyler. “You’ll make a great team.”
“Holy fuck! You got it, Schuyler. Right there, you got it major. Please say yes, Rachel. I heard you play at the farmers’ market the other day. We can make something good.”
Rachel thinks this is just talk. She doesn’t evince any enthusiasm for the suggestion. In any event, she never had plans to team up with anyone. She is a solo artist. Like her dad. Like her granddad. Okay, her granddad was not solo all the time. He had a band. The Jensen Band. But even then it was Robbie and the Jensen Band.
“We can do it, Rachel. Me and my conga and my didj. You and your guitar. You don’t need to sing nothing. Just play the guitar. We’ll produce sounds that no one in these parts has ever heard. Think about it, man, think about it.”
“There’s nothing to think about,” says Schuyler. “You two were meant for each other. She’s going to do it, Jason. I know she will. She’s got too much sense not to do it.”
After an afternoon of banter and laughter Jason says he won’t need the ride home after all. He wants to go bar-hopping on Court Street. He’s going to celebrate the new partnership that he hopes will come to fruition as soon as Rachel gives a positive answer.
“You think I don’t see what you’re up to, pushing me at this guy?” says Rachel as she drives on Route 50 taking Schuyler home.
“For music, Rache. Only for music. Don’t you get any dirty ideas further than that.”
They agree that Jason has become a very charming and well turned-out man, a far cry from the stinky kid they knew in high school.
Nana Moira agrees to let Jason work at the Centre as a volunteer. This means he is not earning any wages, but will occasionally get a few dollars as gas money. It took Rachel weeks of cajoling for Nana Moira to finally go along with this arrangement. She did not want to get on the wrong side of Genesis, a man who has donated a lot to the Food Pantry, helping it not to depend solely on the supplies from the food bank in Logan.
Jason takes to his tasks with gusto. He can be seen with a bucket and a mop cleaning the linoleum floors without anyone asking him to do so. He even dusts the furniture, a thing that no one ever did at the Centre. When Nana Moira needs some ingredients for her culinary masterpieces he volunteers to drive to Wal-Mart in the city in his Pontiac, a distance of more than twenty miles. And he always returns promptly with the right stuff. Soon Nana Moira becomes dependent on him, and misses him on the days he doesn’t come.
He has no obligation to be at the Centre at all, but he is there on most days of the week. Sometimes there is no work for him, so he just sits at the long tables and gossips with the quilting women. Once in a while Rachel is there and joins in the gossip. Thanks to Jason, the new quilting women are beginning to open up to her, to realise that she is not such a snooty person after all. She, on the other hand, betrays a tinge of jealousy when they hover over Jason and hold on to every word he utters.
People notice that whenever Genesis stops over at the Centre Jason does not show up. There is some estrangement between the two, and Genesis no longer visits as much as he did because he feels betrayed by Nana Moira. Exactly what she feared. But there is nothing she can do about it because Jason is a grown man who is entitled to make his own decisions. Also, he is a positive presence at the Centre.
In any event, Nana Moira feels Genesis should not be so pissed off with everyone because the boy still minds the cheese stall at the farmers’ market for him on Saturdays, and even on some Wednesdays. But Genesis expects more than just minding a stall from his son. He wants him to learn the trade and be part of the family business. He thought Jason – whom he insists on calling Revelation – had returned from Yellow Springs precisely because the world had given him a few hard lessons about life, and that now he would be more serious and be an upright citizen; he would not be afraid to face his responsibilities like a man. Especially now that he has been baptised into the church of his ancestors, who are known in history as hard workers who helped to build America into what it is today.
“But all he does is sit here yap-yapping with the women,” says Genesis on one of his visits to the Centre.
“He don’t only yap-yap,” says Nana Moira. “He helps a lot here. And he’s learning plenty of stuff.”
“What can anyone learn yap-yapping with women?”
“What can anyone learn from women? You talk like you didn’t come from a vagina.”
This disarms Genesis and he breaks out laughing.
“I didn’t,” he says. “Caesarean.”
“Same difference. You lived in some woman’s innards.”
The quilting women are scandalised. People in these parts don’t call things like that by their names. Plus Genesis is too young to be talking such stuff with Nana Moira. He could easily be the age of Rachel’s late pops. But he is enjoying the exchange with Nana Moira and even forgets that he is angry with his son.
The original reason Jason took up the volunteer offer was that he was going to be closer to Rachel. He hoped this would give them the opportunity to rehearse and busk together. But now he genuinely loves working here and enjoys the company, not only of the regular quilters, but of a variety of people from Jensen Township and from neighbouring townships such as Rome, Ames, Dover and Canaan. Sometimes storytellers descend from the hills and come out of the Wayne Forest to enjoy Nana Moira’s “special occasion” dinners and tell their tall tales to the joy of everyone, and to Nana Moira’s cackling laughter. Special occasions are not only limited to Thanksgiving or Fourth of July or Valentine’s Day. Nana Moira has a knack of coming up with a special occasion off the top of her head and starts cooking. Sometimes it is something that people can recognise, such as Saint Patrick’s Day or Mother’s Day, but at other times it is an obscure anniversary – the first time she set her eyes on Robbie Boucher, for instance.
It bothers Jason that Rachel is usually somewhere else instead of enjoying his company at the Jensen Community Centre. But he is biding his time. She will learn to appreciate him. And together they will create beautiful sounds that will haunt her soul and make her dream of him in the middle of the night as she sleeps in her room.
Fridays are his blissful moments because that’s when she bakes bread to sell at the farmers’ market the following day. She spends the whole day in the kitchen at the Centre, and he helps her knead the dough, or he runs some errands to town in case she needs some more hickory nuts or flour or whatever else she uses in her recipes. They talk about the old days and laugh a lot. And they promise each other that soon they will start rehearsing and playing together. They giggle and guffaw and tease each other and chase each other around the tables and use the kitchen stools and lids of pots as shields when they blast each other with flour. Then they clean up the mess quickly before Nana Moira discovers it.
Nana Moira always keeps out of the kitchen on those days. She has indeed taken a shine to Jason, and she tells her granddaughter so. “I hope sweet Jesus will open your eyes one day and you’ll see that this is a good man He has delivered right to your doorstep.”
But Rachel has many other interests and, according to Nana Moira, takes Jason for granted. If she is not out there doing Appalachia Active stuff such as demonstrating at the Ohio Department of Natural Resources offices on East State Street to stop a well on the land of Mrs Mayle, an eighty-four-year-old in Rome Township who does not want it on her property, she is visiting with Schuyler – that crippled Schuyler, according to Nana Moira – and driving her to physiotherapy or to her community service work at an old age home in the city.
On Fridays when the baking resumes Rachel does seem to reciprocate Jason’s romantic – some may say amorous – attention. At least that’s what he thinks. That’s what Nana Moira thinks too, and she is ecstatic about it while it lasts. That’s what the gossiping women of the Jensen Township Quilting Circle think as well, and they ask themselves behind Nana Moira’s back why good things always fall in the laps of those who do not deserve them, those who fail to appreciate them.
One weekend Rachel goes to the Action Camp where she meets Skye Riley and things happen.
The camp is held in Stewart in an old building that used to be a school but is now used for various community purposes. Different workshop sessions are going on at the same time in the classrooms, and Skye takes the initiative to look for Rachel until he finds her at the “Fracking 101 Workshop” where participants are learning how gas is extracted using horizontal hydraulic drilling technology. The content is at a much greater depth than at the Arts West meeting. From then on he is with her that whole day, accompanying her even to sessions he would not otherwise have attended; he has heard it all and seen it all.
Rachel is grateful for his company. She would have been quite lonely here without Schuyler; most of the participants are much older people. Skye is with her when she attends the session on “Injection Wells” where they explore what happens to all the toxic frack waste, the dangers of injection wells and how Ohio has become a dumping ground for the waste. Just to be with her, he even attends those sessions that deal with topics he detests, such as one on “Exhausting Administrative Remedies” where Rachel and the other participants learn what bases to cover before resorting to direct action. Skye tells Rachel during the lunch break that it was a session of appeasement, just like the one titled “Strategic Legal Defence”, which explored ways to use court cases to further campaign goals.
“We are tired of playing by the rules of the establishment,” says Skye, using a term that was fashionable in the heyday of demonstrations and sit-ins in those giddy years that baby boomers like to boast about.
Skye is in his element when he facilitates his own workshop on “Strategic Direct Action”. He makes the session great fun by letting participants play games and role-play scenarios based on his own experiences in West Virginia. “The cops can be a real drag,” he says, and teaches the workshop what to expect from law enforcement and how to de-escalate dangerous situations. All the while his emphasis is on defiant action.
“They can’t arrest us all,” he says. “They can’t kill all of us.”
At first Rachel is a bit shy about making a fool of herself playing some of the games in front of Skye Riley. But soon she gets into the spirit of things, especially when Skye himself is leading the activities with abandon, becoming the life of the party in the process. Soon the workshop is raucous; even senior citizens are laughing themselves silly.
“When you’re faced with real law enforcement you’ll remember this moment and you’ll know what to do,” he says after all the horsing around.
After a dinner of pizza delivered to the camp venue by a local restaurant, a movie is screened in the old school hall. But Rachel and Skye decide to skip that one. Instead they repair to Skye’s motel room on the outskirts of Athens, and there she sits on his bed and strums the guitar and sings The Cuckoo, a favourite song that she once heard Jean Ritchie, the legendary balladeer from the hills of Kentucky, play so beautifully on her dulcimer.
He likes the guitar, and he says so.
“Only the guitar? I just sang you a song and you like only the guitar?” asks a wounded Rachel.
Skye Riley comes from the Blue Ridge Mountains where women sing of coal mine accidents in gravelly voices and where songs have been liberated from the tyranny of metre but are laden with ornaments. He cannot pretend he loves what he heard even if that becomes a deal breaker. He searches for kinder words in his head but they don’t exist.
“There’s no voice that you can’t do nothing about,” he says. “Somebody can train you how to use yours to full effect. Back on the Blue Ridge Mountains I know some old singers who can shape it for you. You can be that whiny kind of singer that people love none the less.”
She feels insulted. No one has ever told her she sucks.
“Did I hear you right? Did you just call me whiny?”
“In a good way,” says Skye. “Almost yodelly. It can be a charming style of singing. All you need is to try to be nothing other than a whiny singer. You should appreciate the whine and use it to your advantage.”
His honesty is so disarming that she breaks out laughing.
That night Rachel does not go home. And the following nights too, even though the Action Camp is over and the rest of the activists are back with their families.
When Jason sees her a week later he knows immediately that something happened at that camp. Rachel is withdrawn in the kitchen as they bake the bread. No fooling around. She is more intense than ever before. More focused. But when she is with Nana Moira and the quilting women she is relaxed and even bubbly. She is nicer to her grandma and stops complaining about her candy. One afternoon she even brings Hershey’s Kisses and places the box in her grandma’s lap.
“There, but don’t overdo it,” she says.
She is chirpy in a way that makes those who know her uncomfortable.
“She needs to see a doctor,” Nana Moira declares.
No one suspects that whatever happened at that camp has to do with a scrawny coal miner called Skye Riley. But no one has the time to dwell on Rachel’s change of mood. Nana Moira is preoccupied with the new project that Jason is introducing to the Centre.
After noticing the amount of waste that in his home would have been used for compost, Jason suggests that instead of dumping potato peels, onion skins, outer lettuce leaves, left-over food and even scraps of non-recyclable paper in the garbage to end up in a landfill somewhere, they should build a compost heap.
“And do what with it? We don’t keep no garden here,” says Nana Moira.
“Maybe we should,” says Jason.
“I ain’t gonna keep no garden, Jason. Am too old for that.”
“You ain’t gonna work on it yourself, Nana Moira.”
Volunteers like him will look after the garden. After all, there are all these people who come to the Centre to eat for free. Or just to sit on the porch and gossip about things that are none of their business. They could water the garden. Instead of depending solely on cabbages and Swiss chard from the Food Bank in Logan, Nana Moira could cook some real fresh vegetables for her guests.
“And you can even join the Compost Exchange too,” says Jason. “Pa can tell you all about it ’cause he’s one of the founders.”
Nana Moira learns that she doesn’t even need to have her own compost in the yard at the Centre if she thinks that would be too much for her. All she needs is to join the Compost Exchange. They give you five-gallon buckets that you fill with the waste and then seal them off. You either take them to their booth at the farmers’ market or they collect them from your premises if you are a business that produces a lot of waste, such as a restaurant. Each time you bring your bucket they give you a clean empty one. There is so much waste at the Centre that Jason is certain the Compost Exchange folks would come and collect it. Every six months members receive a five gallon bucket of healthy compost for their own gardens.
“That way you get to be green major, Nana Moira,” says Jason. “Pa says all this global warming stuff is because of them landfills. They pollute groundwater too. You become green, Nana Moira, if you don’t dump stuff but compost it.”
Nana Moira is sold on the idea. The backyard is big enough; the Centre will have its own garden. It need not be large at first while everyone is learning. It will grow as they get more confident.
3
The weather has driven most of the traders into the mall. Their tables line up against the walls, forming a corridor from the entrance to the sofas in front of the department store, Elder-Be
erman, where coffee-sipping townsfolk are lounging. The farmers’ market is not really like the farmers’ market when it is indoors, but even hardened men and women of the countryside don’t want to risk frostbite from temperatures at fifteen degrees below freezing.
Jason stands behind a table laden with Genesis’ aged cheese. Giving his dad a hand at mongering his produce is the least he can do since rebelling against working at the family’s husbandry. The tables on his row and on the opposite one are heaving with winter squash, pasture-raised poultry and eggs, home-made candy of different fruit flavours, honey, beeswax candles, and bottles of apple sauce, apple cider and apple vinegar that the women have made in their kitchens. There are also freezers behind some of the tables with Angus beefsteaks and roasts, and lamb chops and legs – all grass-fed, lean and without hormones, according to the scrawlings hanging at the tables. Jason’s only competition is the woman selling “grass-fed organic cheese”. It is priced much cheaper than his because it is not aged.
The place was quite crowded in the morning but now the customers are beginning to thin out a bit. Every time someone opens the glass doors either entering or exiting the mall, Jason cannot help taking a quick glance before returning his attention to a customer. Rachel should have been here by now. She is late on this, their first day of performing together. Maybe she wants to bail on him. He wouldn’t be surprised if she did. There’s always been some reticence on her part about this enterprise. Or maybe he is just being insecure. If only he could stop the butterflies that have been fluttering like crazy in his stomach this whole morning. As if he has never performed before. He reminds himself that he is Jason de Klerk and he has performed with the likes of Big Flake Thomas, not only in the artsy streets of Yellow Springs but at the Chindo in front of crowds that were not apt to swallow any crap. He has always acquitted himself well. Once he and his didgeridoo even received a standing ovation playing at the park. Granted, most people were already standing even before he began playing. But some of those who were sitting on the grass and on the benches stood up to applaud after some particularly deep and sombre drones that reverberated down his instrument into the air.