Chapter 23
For I tell you,
Beneath this powerful tree, my whole soul’s fluid
Oozes away from me as a sacrifice steam,
At the knife of a Druid.
Excerpt from Under the Oak, D. H. Lawrence
Joni was fuming by the time she reached Oakelline and Millibelle, around 6:00 that evening. Even in the wake of likely victory, all she could focus on was Oak, the messages he left, the tone of his voice, his demands—more patriarchal bullshit. They made a great team when it came to saving trees; maybe this is all it was at this point, some kind of professional partnership, yes, okay, call it a small business. If there was any love left, she wasn’t feeling it…at least as his little secretary. She was never the main sitter though Michael said it was because she was so good at title searches and timber rights research. This was true and she loved it but…all rock and roll bands break up sooner or later and this show was over.
Oak saw the van from the platform and felt his heart skip a beat. He missed her. He liked looking at her. She was the most alluring yet complex of the wildflowers, he always told her, like a night-blooming orchid, symbolizing how she was with him, her passion, desire, and love for him best expressed in the heat of the night. She parked. Working her way through a scattered group of reporters, supporters, the curious (she heard Tamara call her name), she walked briskly to the base of the tree.
“Maybelline!” she all but screamed.
“Joni!” Oakelline called.
“How are you? Do you need anything?”
“Fine. Come up!”
“Look out for piss!” somebody yelled, laughter erupting from some of the on-lookers.
“I’ll be back later,” she yelled back, code for ‘after dark when (hopefully) everyone is gone’. “I’m going to get you supplies! I just wanted you to know I’m back!”
Around midnight, Oakelline dropped to the ground. After putting a few bags of groceries in the Jeep, they walked behind the hedge.
“Okay. Where are we?” he asked her anxiously, Joni shrugging off his attempt to hug, kiss her.
“It’s all in here,” she said, shoving a legal-sized envelope into his chest. “Take it. I have the originals.”
“What’s it say?” he implored.
“Read it for yourself because I’m done. I quit. We won by the way but I quit. I’m sick of being your secretary, sick of being talked down to, sick of being ordered around, sick of—well, you. You take me for granted, Michael. You didn’t used to. It’s just more of the same—”
“Let me guess,“patriarchal bullshit”.”
“Yes, PATRIARCHAL BULLSHIT, Michael,” she hissed, looking around, “and this is stupid. We’re putting the whole situation at risk, what we’re doing, talking here, and no, you can’t kiss me. You’re Maybelline, remember?”
“Maybe she’s a lesbian.”
“NO. I’m leaving. Read the paperwork. We have until the end of this week. Tamara and Terrence…this part will blow you away, a first for us. Just read it. You’ll know what to do. As far as the timber rights, it’s like the situation in Ohio. I’ll get the van back to you soon. Maybelline’s with my Mom. She’s fine. Be careful. You’re almost done.”
“Joni? Joni?” he called to her back as she opened the door to the van and drove off into the urban night.
********************
Chapter 24
Joni met up with her mother and Maybelline in Petaluma. Sitting on the deck of the house her mother was house-sitting, Joni informed both of them she had broken it off with Michael and after returning to Berkeley, she intended to drive her (older) Civic to Arcata, meet up with some old friends, possibly rent a place, stay awhile, help out with some causes there. She told them everything Roberta had discovered, assuring Maybelline they would win. They only had to stall a few more days. She would be handing the van over to Maybelline but Maybelline would need to hang out in Petaluma for a few more days. Everyone had bit the bait that it was her in the tree, so far, so good. Oakelline appeared to be pulling it off. She advised Maybelline to keep wearing the, any, wig, disguise; they were too close now. When the two of them expressed how hard it was to imagine she and Michael broken up, implored how much he loved her even if he wasn’t so good expressing it ‘under stress’, Joni waved her hands at them.
“Please both of you, just stop talking. If you don’t think I’m in deep pain about this, you’re very fucking wrong. I am. The point is, we saved the, your tree,” Joni directed at Maybelline then walked into the house.
Maggie sighed. “You can’t tell her anything. You haven’t gotten this yet?” Maggie watched her daughter close the door. “This was coming, I’m afraid. As much as I love Michael…this was coming. It’s hard to imagine those two eco-warriors going solo after all these years but all rock and roll bands break up sooner or later.”
Despite the sad news, inside, Maybelline was jubilant. It was almost over! Joni was sure of it. Almost there! They toasted to Millibelle, a free tree! To Tamara and Terrence’s grandfather. There was a reason he loved the tree. How long he had known Millibelle! How beautiful his friendship with the tree, their stunning connection; what happened to the rights of African Americans throughout this time. The tree commemorated this, marked it! Joni and Michael? Both Maybelline and Maggie were convinced it was not over. They loved one another too much, had fought, lost, won too many good green battles together. Combined, they had saved a forest, one that traversed the nation, the world, and it would be the trees, their power and spirit, that would heal, bring them back together again.
Maybelline waited two days then could not stand it anymore. She would be shrewd, careful. She had to get back to Oak. Affixing the wig on her head very well, with bobbie pins, around 10 p.m. she headed back to Santa Rosa. Adhering to Joni’s instructions, she parked the van about two miles from the tree in an area crowded with condos and apartment buildings, box stores. Straightening her wig, she was pleased nothing seemed out of the ordinary on this late summer night, the temperature a pleasant 80 degrees. A few young people were out, she heard music, someone laughing. Tired yet thrilled to see her tree, Oak, she approached Millibelle. In the dappled light of the urban night, she recognized the unmistakable profile of Tank—standing over a body. She slipped behind the hedge and watched with horror as Tank nudged the torso with his boot. Nothing. It was Oak. After a few seconds of looking around, Tank then took off in the opposite direction while Maybelline tried to catch her breath. Nauseated, she struggled to keep from fainting by grabbing on to one of the shrubs in the hedge. Stumbling towards him, she dropped to his side and began to sob. Here it was, how it would all end. There could be no greater pain, even when Jay died. She buried her face in his neck and grasped his shoulders realizing after a few seconds, his body was still warm, sweaty. He moaned. She rejoiced.
Holding his left shoulder, Oak commented the next morning, “I should never have smoked that fat bennie my grower friend gave me, and all the beer.” They were in a place called The Wander Inn, about ten miles north of Santa Rosa. “They just don’t make weed like they used to. It was like being on fucking acid. Jesus.” He paused then scoffed. “I fell out of my own fucking tree because I was so wasted. So lame, so lame. I’ve never done anything like this before but it hurts. It hurts so bad, Mom.” Maybelline understood that what hurt so much was not his shoulder. “I love her. I can’t imagine my life without her. I guess I am an asshole. Maybe this is all too much now…maybe she’s tired of…me. It’s not the fight. We love the fight. She loves the fight. We’re good at it. It’s me.” Wiping tears off his face, he wistfully, emotionally, quoted a line from Gaudete by Ted Hughes, “I see the oak’s bride in the oak’s grasp.”
“I’m still worried I need to get you to an emergency room, no matter what you say,” Maybelline said.
“It’s fine. I was completely wasted, fluid, and even if it isn’t, this is going to be over Friday with an ending to this pathetic fiasco so beautiful, so perfe
ct, it was worth it. I can go to the doctor’s when it’s over.”
“Saturday, 12:01 a.m. Do we really need to involve Tank, the family—”
Oak pressed his lips together tightly and looked at her angrily. “Uh oh” passed through her mind. She recognized this was the part of Oak that most annoyed, offended Joni.
“So, Mom,” he paused with great effect, “how many old-growth trees, groves, have Joni and I saved over the past five or so years?
“Quite a few,” she answered weakly.
“And even though each situation is different, they’re all basically the same—and I’m not talking the legalities. I’m talking the reality of human behavior. The type of people that can kill an old-growth tree all meet the same personality profile meaning they lack something be it depth, education—”
“Money,” Maybelline added.
“Of course. They may also lack honesty. Maybe Tank, the family knows the significance of Saturday, 12:01 a.m., has the paperwork we have but since they haven’t been able to cough it up…Most likely Tank was going on 100% verbal. There is no doubt in my mind that whoever cut Tamara’s branch would have kept going if they could have. You caught Tank standing over my, your, body. Obviously he thought you were dead and he did nothing just in case you weren’t—nothing but run to cover his own fat ass.”
“And I forgot my damn phone so no photo. I’m so sorry but of course, I never expected—”
“Doesn’t matter because he knows he did it, Crime and Punishment and all that. This is a gift, what you saw and what he didn’t see after he took off.”
“It wasn’t a gift at the time.”
“My point is, we have to bring this thing to a grand finale, emphasis on GRAND. A culmination so obvious to the boneheads involved, any idea of attempting to poach Millibelle is dead, dead, dead. From here on, we’re implementing a plan, a rigid, structured plan. Joni left me some notes, ideas, of course excellent. It’s Wednesday. Tomorrow we take the show back on the road.”
“Your shoulder is black and blue, so swollen and discolored. You can’t even move it. How are we going to implement this plan with you in such pain? You look like someone who fell out of a tree.”
“12:01 Saturday morning, if you want, you can take me to the emergency room. Till then I’ll keep it iced and try to hold it together.”
“Hopefully not literally,” Maybelline winced.
“If Tank knows somebody saw him, he’s dumb but not that dumb—he may even turn himself in—even if he didn’t do anything. I’ve got it all planned out Mom then I need to figure things out with my girl.”
“Marry her under the tree,” Maybelline suggested.
“Marry her? Marry her?”
“Yes.”
“Joni doesn’t want to get married, to anyone. Patriarchal bullshit, remember? She’s not going to shackle—”
“Ask her.”
“No. I know her. You know her. I don’t care…then again, whatever she wants, I need her back.” Pausing to drink his coffee, he set it on the end table next to him. Picking up a pen and a restaurant flyer sitting on the end table, Oak started scribbling; they needed to get on with it. Maybelline listened carefully as he wrote and spoke. Putting down the pen, he looked up to ask her if she had her checkbook for “Phase II”.
Phase I required both of them to get back to her hotel in Santa Rosa, a place she was too scared to go to when she found Oak and loaded him into the van. Considering…Oak was impressed with her presence of mind to take him out of town. None of them could be seen at that point, not her, not him, not the van.
“Blame it on adrenaline,” was her explanation. “Sheer adrenaline.”
Chapter 25
The doors to the Holiday House Inn opened. Blocking out the pain, Oak strode through them like a God. He bounded to the check-in counter.
“My mom,” he said with stirring emotion, “has she been here?” Out went the first cast.
Any and all staff within hearing distance immediately moved near him, Oak delighted by the opportunity to catch a whole school of fish off only one line of bait.
Irma, the manager, the big fish, bit hard.
“Mr. Emmons, we are so sorry. A deputy just left asking the same question. We assume you know they’re looking for her too. If it’s any consolation, there are a lot of people at the tree right now, worried about her, protecting it.”
“Perfect,” Oak thought. Then he launched into his part. “Oh my God,” he said rubbing his hands all over his face in contrived despair in order to cook up some tears. “I can’t believe it’s come to this, for that magnificent tree, that piece of history, what should have been protected in the first place by this goddamned county,” he said angrily while they all nodded. Then he planted the glorious seed—“and Tank. Tank standing over her body. Has he been arrested yet? I haven’t heard.”
The fish gasped. “Tank?” they asked.
“Surely you all know that Tank was seen standing over her body right before she disappeared?”
Oak let that sink in for a few seconds.
“I need a room,” he said taking out his wallet, full of cash thanks to Maybelline. “I’m here to deal with it, to find her. Do you have anything through at least the weekend? Two beds in case relatives show up.”
No but yes was the answer. Anything for him, Maybelline, the tree.
The rumor took like a highly contagious disease. Oak moved on to the next part of Phase I which was to get
Maybelline in the room as soon as possible. After he checked in, he walked up and down the hallway outside his room with the ice bucket though it wasn’t ice he was looking for—it was cameras. He spotted three. Two by each of the exit doors, and one in the middle of the hallway. He would be using them to their advantage. After a quick call to Maybelline, she knocked on the exit door closest to their room. Oak opened it and she collapsed into his arms, trying like hell to gush. “Watch the wig,” she whispered into his ears after he grabbed her a little too zealously and it shifted a little.
“Thank you so much,” she blubbered. She pulled back from him. “You must be Oak. I’ve heard so much about you from Maybelline.”
“And you must be Mary, her cousin. Come on in, come on in,” he gushed, quickly conveying her toward the door. “You must be exhausted.”
“I could use a glass of water,” Maybellmary answered. “It would be great to sit down for a minute.” With the cameras in mind, employing ever the slightest of shoves, Oak pushed her into the room and that was that. She was in. Phase I was finished. On to Phase II: Tank. Oak wanted to give the Tank rumor time to swell, grow like a big fat black cloud, the success of which would be symbolized by a barrage of knocks on their hotel room door…
Maybelline had picked up some ice packs. After handing them to Oak, both of them dropped onto their beds and fell asleep. Oak dreamed of Joni, her eyes like fire. When he reached for her, she was glaring at him, the curls of her hair pressed against a stormy sky.
About an hour later, the first knocks landed on the door, waking them up.
“Right on schedule,” Oak confirmed. “Here we go,” he said getting up too fast only to wince in pain.
“I’ll get it,” Maybellmary offered, instinctively,
“NO,” he hissed. “What are you doing? NO, not even with the wig. You can’t be here, even as your cousin.”
“Why not? I’m on camera coming into the—”
“NO. Get in the bathroom. You’re not here,” Oak said hating himself for not covering this base during their planning. Any little thing could blow it at this point. There was no margin for error. Still wearing the wig, Maybellmary slipped into the bathroom.
“Lock it,” Oak hissed at the door. She locked it. After sliding a suitcase in the closet, dragging in his backpack, hiding any other incriminating evidence, all with one arm, he tossed the ice packs in a drawer, and wincing, put on a long-sleeved shirt. Speaking into the bathroom door, he said, “I’m openi
ng the door now.”
A small crowd looked back at him composed of the sheriff, two television cameras, two newspaper reporters, one of which was Monty Cross, and Jim Bock, Millicent’s son. Before he could even say a word, they all pulsed into the room. When they all started to talk at once, the sheriff put his hand up.
“I need to talk to this young man one on one. You folks need to step back out into the hallway, NOW.” The television reporters started to say something. The sheriff herded all of them out of the room and shut the door. Oak inhaled deeply, trying to remember his lines, after all, he was at the scene of the crime, sort of.
“Have a seat,” Oak offered. The sheriff sat down in one of the table chairs.
“Who saw Tank standing over your mother’s body?” the sheriff jumped right in, biting the bait.
Oak stammered, realizing he hadn’t thought this part through either—SHIT!
After a second of trying to find some words, he answered curtly, “I got a call.”
“A call from who?”
“A woman who claims she got a photo on her phone. We haven’t see it yet.”
“Whose “we”?”
Oak was pissed. Now it was more than obvious who’s side they were on.
“Mr., Oak, why in the hell didn’t you report this? Why am I just hearing about this right now?”
“Because I just got into town to try and find her. I was ordered OUT OF TOWN, remember? It’s been ten days and now I’m back, to find my MOTHER! Maybe if you hadn’t ordered me out of town—”
“For your own and other’s protection,” the sheriff spit back.
“Believe me, I want to see that photo and when I do, I will let you know.”
“He’s got a lot of enemies now, Tank does. May be complete bullshit.”
“You hope it’s complete bullshit, don’t you. What are your ties to this family, this case?”
“We’re over,” the sheriff said opening the door to the room. “When you got something, I want to know. In the meantime, rest assured, we’re looking for her. This has taken one weird goddamned turn and I hope not in the direction it appears to be going. Somethin’s goin’ on and it stinks.”
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