“An injunction?” Maybelline had the sense of being pelted by snowballs, something icy and hard…
“Like I said, no one has seen any legal proof he has the right to cut the, YOUR, tree down so until he shows us something that holds up, well, he can’t. I consider it a blessing you are who you are and that you own the land now. And anyway, he looked at me and said he likes to shoot “hippie birds” outa’ trees. He basically threatened to murder me in front of a room full of people. Not real bright.”
“I’m glad for your, the injunction, but this has gotten so out of hand,” Maybelline said sitting in the tattered chair, looking troubled. “From confusing…painful, Millicent’s dead…and now, dangerous. I can’t believe I am even having this conversation. Just a week or so ago, the most excitement I had was watching the hummingbirds spar at my feeders.”
“Hopefully he was just blowing smoke out his ass,” Oak said, kicking a rock. “We’ve seen this before too.”
“And we’re still here,” Joni added.
Maybelline felt dizzy, weak. It hit her she hadn’t eaten yet.
“Have you eaten, you two? You must be starving.”
“Starving?” Oak repeated.
“We’re not starving. Oh my God, Oak made us the most incredible breakfast. We have a camping stove, two or three of them. We had farm fresh eggs we got from a guy outside of town, fresh sage, blackberries from the ravine, and totally fine yogurt we found in a dumpster. New. It was tossed out because of the expiration date but it was fine. We glean plenty of fresh fruit that falls off the trees—apples, peaches, oranges, persimmons, avocados. We eat very well. In fact, since I’ve met Oak, I’ve gotten fat!”
Maybelline looked at the adorable girl. She was definitely not fat and if she was, it was in all the right places. “If I could only be so ‘fat’,” she thought.
“Are you hungry?” Oak asked Maybelline, motioning to Joni who immediately headed to the van. Before
Maybelline could answer, she had a real spoon, cup of yogurt, and granola bar in her hands. As if reading her mind, they both chuckled and assured her neither came from a dumpster but if they had, she wouldn’t know the difference. Taken with how astute both of them seemed to be, she gratefully opened the yogurt. She offered them a place to stay.
“When I’m here, you’re welcome to take a shower, stay with me a night or two.”
“We have to stay in the tree,” Oak affirmed, irked.
“We take showers in our trees. We have a bucket and of course water; we dump it on one another to wash. Or when it rains? There’s nothing like standing naked in the rain in the crown of an ancient tree. It’s amazing,” Joni waxed making sensual eye contact with Oak. Oak’s intensity softened for one second as he looked at her. Maybe he loved her, thought Maybelline. But then his intensity returned.
“Look in that van and you see a well-oiled operation, Mom. We have it all organized by needs: bedding, pots, pans, dishes, silverware, towels, washcloths, coolers, water containers, canteens, soap, rope—”
“To tie our stuff into the tree so it doesn’t fall,” they both said in near unison.
“How do you—”
“Go to the bathroom?”
“Why does everybody ask us that?” Joni looked at Oak and laughed. “It’s like we’re astronauts or something.”
“Well, we are argonauts!” Oak declared. “And argonauts, arbornauts? They have to shit too!”
“Well?” Maybelline looked up at them from Pa Pa’s chair.
“We go in a bucket we dump out of the tree when it gets full,” Joni answered. Laughing at the response she read on Maybelline’s face, she continued, “we have a little camping porta-potty and we use public restrooms. It works out, trust me. Don’t worry.”
“Hm,” Maybelline responded.
“Sometimes too there are nice people near our trees. They offer us their homes,” Oak added.
“It’s not a big deal,” Joni laughed again.
“Don’t you be worrying about our bootie’s, Mom,” Oak followed. They burst out laughing. Maybelline caught herself joining in, as if breathing in fresh air after weeks of none. Their laughing attracted the attention of the Acorn Gang. Tamara and Terrence broke off from the group and sauntered over.
“Hi Mrs Maybelline,” Tamara said, releasing her vibrant smile.
“Hi Guys. How are you? See? I’m sitting in the chair,” Maybelline said patting the armrest. “This was their grandfather’s chair purchased from Squirrel-Mart for what—”
“Somethin’ like $4.99,” Tamara finished.
“He used to sit under this tree and babysit these guys,” Maybelline explained, charmed by the connection.
“Oh yeah?” Oak responded. “You guys born here? In Santa Rosa?”
“All our lives,” Terrence answered. “My grandparents lived in Santa Rosa a loooonng time. My grandma died then Pa Pa moved in with my mother and father but after that my father started hitting her. Pa Pa said no more, our parents divorced, and we ended up here. Pa Pa wanted to move here. We been here a few years now. Our mother works like, two jobs. She works hard.”
“She work really hard,” Tamara added, “which is why we have to be good. Do good in school and that.” Smiling, Tamara scrambled up the branch and lied on her stomach, her arms dangling as she listened. Joni and Oak looked at her and smiled at one another.
“You the ones moving into it, right?” Terrence asked Oak and Joni. By then, the entire Acorn Gang had migrated over.
“Movin’ UP into it. We’re movin’ on UP, to the east side,” Tamara sang, from The Jefferson’s sitcom, “to a deluxe apartment in the skyyyy!” Maybelline was surprised she knew it. Terrence and Tamara explained it was one of their Pa Pa’s favorite television shows, even the reruns. They all laughed.
“Yeah, he loved this tree but he’d think you crazy livin’ in it!” Terrence chuckled.
Maybelline was incredulous—all these people from so many walks of life standing here, around her tree. What kind of magic was this, or would it turn out to be a bad spell? Suddenly, arms out-stretched, Oak proclaimed to any and all within hearing distance:
“Whereas, it minds its own business
& lives in its one place so faithfully
& its trunk supports us when we lean against it
& it’s branches remind us of how we think
Whereas it keeps no bank account but hoards carbon
& does not discriminate between starlings and robins
& provides free housing for insects and squirrels
& lifts its heartwood grave into the air
Whereas it holds our firmament in place
& and writes underground gospels with its roots
& whispers us oxygen with its leaves
& may not survive its new climate of ultraviolet
We the people for ourselves & our children
necessarily proclaim this tree
free from commerce and belonging to itself
as long as it and we shall live!”
“Yeah, right on!” rang the Acorn Gang. Maybelline was transfixed.
“All of you,” he stretched his arms out in a way that reminded her of Moses, “know that Joni and I will be here as long as we need to be, in this tree!”
“He didn’t come up with that himself,” Joni informed them. “William Heyen came up with that.”
“Yes, one of many poets and writers I admire, look to for inspiration,” Oak confirmed. One of his tennis shoes was untied. Joni stepped on one of the laces. He didn’t notice.
“That rhymes, man,” Bojo observed. “BE in this TREE.”
“Yeaaah,” Rikki chimed. “Be the tree.”
“BE the tree. I like it,” Tamara said hugging the bough.
Even after delivery of his version of the ten commandments, Oak didn’t notice Joni was still standing on his shoe lace. Still talking, he tried to raise his foot a couple times, the laughter from the peanu
t gallery now hard to ignore.
“Dope,” Joni said, popping his balloon as he looked down at his foot. Oak directed an angry look at Joni as Maybelline got up from Pa Pa’s chair and told him to sit down and tie his shoe.
Recovering his momentum quickly, he continued to preach the gospel of the trees from the royal chair, this time not noticing Tamara’s skinny arm struggling to touch the top of his oblivious head. At the very second she could touch his head, he would lean forward to make a point, fiddle with his shoe laces. Silently rooting for her, they all tried to suppress their laughter until finally she got a firm hold of his braid. Just as he was making yet another declaration (“all people ARE the trees!”), she pulled it up. At that, they lost it.
“What?” he asked, trying to turn his head. She dropped it.
“She used to torture her grandfather that way, I believe,” Maybelline decoded.
“We’d knock his hat off,” Tamara said in her endearing squeaky almost teenage voice. She was now sitting on the bough, her feet dangling just a few inches from Oak’s head. Finally, Oak cracked a smile then laughed. They all laughed. It was a cute moment until a rather sharp—
“You’re SUCH a dork,” came out of the Skipper doll.
Chastened, Oak got quiet.
“You’re such a dork, Michael,” she repeated.
“Michael?” someone asked. “That your real name?”
“No. She just called me that because it’s like, well, my fake real name in case anyone asks. It’s not my real real name.” He got up from the chair and offered it to Maybelline who sat down again.
Determined to make whatever point she felt she needed to, Joni continued. “She’s been hanging there for like, ever, and you’re so…you like the sound of your own voice a little too much,” Joni hissed. This left them quiet and uncomfortable, surprised. Then Joni ascended the tree settling on the branch above Tamara. Like Tamara, she sat with her legs dangling, now only a few inches from Tamara’s head. Tamara climbed down to the ground.
Disarmed by Joni’s rebuke, Oak looked at all of them and shrugged.
Quickly recovering, Tamara asked about how they use the bathroom “and stuff”.
“You can use our bathroom,” she offered.
“Better ask Mom first,” Terrence warned.
“She be fine with it. She don’ want a Squirrel-Mart next to us, on top of grandpa!” she asserted.
“Your Grandpa’s buried here?” BoJo asked.
“No, fool. You know what I mean.” Tamara made a face at him.
“Figuratively speaking,” Maybelline assisted.
“Yeah, figuratively speaking,” Tamara clarified.
Used to Joni handling that response with her standard joke about the bucket, Oak continued, “we have a system, but we may take you up on it sometimes if it clears with your mom.”
“What is it because I don’t want to be under this tree at the wrong time,” Terrence said. Once again they started laughing. Oak explained about the porta-potty on the platform they emptied “legally” at a campground. This released a diverse set of responses but also put some of them at ease. No it would not be necessary to look up for falling turds…and anyway, they would never do this.
” ‘Cause you’re environmentalists? Is that what you’re called?” Rikki asked.
Oak shook his head. “Anyone, everyone living on earth is an “environmentalist”. The idea that I care about clean water, but you don’t–it’s ridiculous.”
“Yeah it is,” Tamara added, the sentiment spreading to all of them, evoking some discussion that Oak enjoyed.
Once the Acorn Gang splintered off in various directions and they were alone again, Oak leveled his intensity back to the task at hand.
“We need you to get home so you can search your paperwork. Millicent never emailed it to you then?”
“No,” Maybelline answered. Understanding it was likely she didn’t own a scanner, maybe even surprised she owned a laptop, Oak explained she would need to take her paperwork to a copy shop to get it scanned. This would result in something called a “PDF” document she could then do a search of using key words he would provide her.
“Like I said, no offense, but we don’t care who owns the tree. It’s a work of art, nature’s masterpiece, and we won’t let anyone kill it.”
“Are there no environmental groups? I wanted to ask Millicent this. Where are the nature lovers? The California Native Tree Protection Society someone said? Where are they?”
“Probably at their potlucks or selling tote bags. They won’t get their fingernails dirty anymore. They don’t fight for the earth in any DIRECT way because they won’t be popular anymore, won’t be invited to all the other potlucks.”
“Won’t get big money, like from public agencies and corporations. Not into little money anymore, from little people,” Joni added, still sitting high on her bough.
“It’s duplicitous bullshit in other words,” Oak answered.
“Tell her, Michael,” Joni urged from her perch.
“Oh, no. I’m rather filled-up with news at this point. Maybe don’t tell me anything else,” Maybelline said hanging her head and looking at her feet stretched out before her.
“He’s a lawyer,” Joni announced with pride.
“Not totally,” Oak said rubbing his face. “I didn’t take the bar exam. Couldn’t tolerate the idea of becoming one of the assholes I was in law school with but point of fact, it has helped. I’ve buried myself in environmental law. The most important thing you can do, Mom, is get to that paperwork. You can help us the most by doing this.”
“Does not surprise me.” Maybelline cocked her head at him from her chair. “You seem very sure of yourself. You both do.” She paused. “Of course you’d have to be to do what you do.” She looked up at him. “If you’re my son, shouldn’t I know your real name?”
“My name is Oak,” he said glaring at Joni.
Maybelline looked at the ground again and sighed. “Well, please don’t get hurt you two. That man, Tank, he seemed—”
“Like a genuine asshole?” Oak finished.
“Yes.”
“Won’t be our first.” He paused. “You probably need to go home and rest. Your friend just died. We’re really sorry.”
“Do you two have a cell phone? Anyway I can get a hold of you?”
They looked at one another.
“Is that a yes or no?” Maybelline pressed.
“We have to use a little strategy. Let’s just say we are constantly changing our phone, the number, courtesy of one of our supporters.”
“We get a new cell phone every time we defend a new tree,” Joni explained.
“And we’re not on Buttbook. We don’t text, twerp, snap, none of that shit, little spy machines, technological overlords, no thanks. Don’t want my personal information sold by Buttbook, thank you very much.”
“Neither do I so this is good but it still doesn’t answer—”
“Yes. We just got it. We don’t know the number yet but yes, we have a cell phone.”
“You’re in my tree and you have been threatened. I have to be able to get a hold of you,” Maybelline insisted.
“You can’t—,” Oak started to say.
Anticipating what he was about to say, Maybelline interrupted, “at this point in my life, I don’t even have anyone to give your number to.” She looked down for a second, recognizing how sad this sounded.
“Your number then,” Oak ordered. “You will have to hand out your number when people ask, and they will. Never ours. Nothing’s in our name, not the cell phone, the van. Van’s registered to my parents. This is really important, what I’m telling you. It’s absolutely necessary in order for us to do what we do. This information stays between us. Critical.”
“Agreed. I get it,” Maybelline nodded her head emphatically.
“Good. The paperwork, there’s something else,” Oak directed.
“Yes?” Mayb
elline asked, feeling weary.
“In order to cut the tree down, he has to come on to this, your property. It’s called ingress and egress. Look for this too.” Oak took a small pad of paper out of his back pocket then removed a pen from the other one. He started writing words down. “You can prevent him from coming onto the land if his so-called title, deed, contract does not include this.” While he continued to scribble down words she should search for in her “PDF”, and Joni swung her feet back and forth, still high on her bough, Maybelline stood up, folded her chair, and leaned it against the tree. “I’ll be back in about an hour. Please be here.”
Studying them from on high, Joni chuckled. “You know, it is uncanny. I can see why people think you’re mother and son. Your hair, builds. You’re both tallish, lean, blonde…ish hair.”
Maybelline released a snort and looking down at her body commented, “I’m hardly “lean”…OR “blonde”.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Joni quipped. “You look alike is my point.” She chuckled again. “This is the first time in years of sitting we’ve acquired a new parent.”
“Probably not something your real parents—” Maybelline started.
“You’re beautiful, Mom,” Oak said suddenly taking Maybelline’s hands in his. “We’re definitely related.” Ignoring a snort from Joni, he pulled Maybelline to him and hugged her tight. She let him hug her while trying to fight back tears. Giving up, she broke into a sob letting them both know the situation was almost more than she could handle.
“Tell us what you want us to do, Mom, and we’ll do it,” he said, letting her bury her face into his shoulder, an action she took mostly out of embarrassment (that these young people should see her in such a state!).
“Reassure me you will both be okay,” she said pulling away from him to look into his eyes.
“We’ll be okay. Promise.”
She sighed. “I need to run an errand. I’ll be back in about an hour. Please be here.” With that she walked to her car and drove off.
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