Here in the Real World

by Sara Pennypacker

Ware felt himself redden. “My friend?”

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

  Ware got up and leaned into the hall. There was no sign of Jolene. “You saw her?”

  “See those mirrors up high?”

  He looked up. He nodded.

  “They’re so the orderlies can see the gurneys coming around the corner, avoid crack-ups. I may have accidentally adjusted a couple with my cane. I see everything that happens on this floor.”

  “Oh. Well, she did come with me, but she’s not my friend. And she’s sure not quiet.”

  “No?” Big Deal seemed to grow larger, as if she weren’t going to fit in that crib much longer. “Well, go call her in, the little skulker. Let’s hear what she has to say for herself.”

  Ware sighed, but he got up. There was no talking Big Deal out of something once she’d decided.

  He found Jolene hanging out of a dumpster in back of the building. He tugged her overalls and she slid to the ground.

  She held her arm up to display a sling as if it were a diamond bracelet. “Just thrown away. People.”

  “My grandmother sent me to get you. I can say you left.”

  “She wants to see me?” Jolene pulled off the sling and stuffed it into her pocket.

  “She’s kind of direct,” Ware warned. “She wants to know everything.”

  “Me too,” Jolene said. “Maybe I’ll finally get some answers.”

  Forty-Four

  Jolene was a whole lot more polite than Ware had guessed she could be. “Pleased to meet you, hot one out there today, what did they do with your old hip? Ma’am. Er . . . please,” she said after the introductions.

  Big Deal tugged her wig around, as if it was suddenly too tight. “Well, hmm. I had those hips for seventy-one years. I don’t know why I didn’t think to ask where they were taking them.”

  “That’s all right, ma’am,” Jolene said, all soothing comfort. “But can you ask now? Thank you, please.”

  Big Deal shook her head with what looked like genuine regret. “The surgery was in a hospital back home. I’m only recuperating here. Now, tell me why you want to know.” She raised her eyebrows at Jolene.

  “Uh-oh,” Ware muttered.

  Big Deal shot him a look that reminded him he used to be afraid of her. She smiled encouragingly at Jolene.

  Unbelievable. His own grandmother, taking the side of a stranger she’d known for a single minute.

  Jolene sat up primly. “Things get used up or broken. Or they’re too hard to take care of. But that doesn’t mean they’re trash. I like to know if something gets thrown away it’s done right. Respectful-like. Ma’am.”

  Big Deal nodded. “Very admirable.”

  Jolene raised her chin toward the empty bed. “How about, excuse me, your roommate? Do you know where her kidney went?”

  “Sorry. The subject hasn’t arisen. But I’ll tell you what. There’s a fellow here knows things. Name of Franklin, goes around delivering meals and rustling up blankets. He used to work in a big hospital over in Tampa. Go find Franklin—you’ll get some answers.”

  Jolene mumbled a string of thank-you-ma’ams and bolted.

  “She’s obsessed with how stuff gets thrown away,” Ware said apologetically when she was gone. “It’s like she thinks trash has feelings.”

  Big Deal perked up. “Why is that?”

  Ware shrugged.

  “You haven’t asked?”

  “Ha!” was all he could manage at that terrible idea.

  Big Deal cocked her head. “Girlfriend trouble?”

  “No, she’s not my . . . she lives behind the community center. I only help her with her gardening. That’s all.” He got up and looked out the window. This line of questioning could bring him dangerously close to the subject of where he spent his days. “That’s a nice tree down there. Have you seen that tree?”

  “What’s her family like?”

  “She lives with her aunt. I’ll bet a lot of birds land in that tree. Did you know that a sandhill crane weighs ten pounds and it lands feet-first?”

  “An aunt? What about her parents?”

  “I don’t know. All I know about it is that her aunt doesn’t want her there.”

  Big Deal sat up. “That is terrible. That is a crime. Why doesn’t she?”

  Ware spread his hands.

  “Ware, there is a considerable lot you don’t know about a person who came all the way here with you.”

  “It’s just . . . Jolene. If she wanted to tell me something, she’d tell me.”

  “That sounds like an assumption, Ware. Don’t make assumptions about people. Maybe she can’t guess that you’re interested. It’s never wrong to ask.”

  Ware pondered the idea. Maybe he’d try. Probably not.

  He pulled the chair out, but Big Deal waved him away.

  “You go catch up with her. I’m tired. But come visit again. And bring her with you.” Big Deal lowered the bed and nestled her head into the pillow. The proof machine beeped in a reassuring manner. She closed her eyes and smiled. “Little skulker.”

  Ware could still hear her chuckling as the elevator door closed.

  Forty-Five

  Ware checked the waterweeds every morning for a week. The new plants didn’t seem upset they’d been kidnapped, but they didn’t seem thrilled about it either. He filmed them each day, and each day they looked the same: wet and green.

  The new wall grew taller around them, like an anxious crowd rising on their toes to see better. When it was finished, Ware stalled. “Three feet is a lot of water. A lot of pressure,” he said. “We need a back-up wall around this deep part, just in case.”

  They built the second wall inside the first, leaving a gap that they filled with garbage-bagged gravel. And each day that week, too, Ware checked the waterweeds.

  Still wet and green.

  Ware thought about the proof machine in his grandmother’s room. He would like to have one above those waterweeds.

  And then finally, finally, he noticed something different. He scrolled back to the first day he’d filmed them to be sure, then ran to get Jolene. “See here on the fringes?” he asked. “How the green is lighter?”

  Jolene dropped to her knees and raised her sunglasses to inspect them closer. “Yep. They’re growing again.”

  “They’re growing again!” he crowed, two fists in the air. “We did it. Life!”

  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. I’m not going anywhere, it seemed to say. I like it right here.

  “It’s time,” he declared. “Let’s fill the moat.”

  Forty-Six

  “You never asked? All this time, you never asked?”

  “It’s water. Water’s free.”

  Ware folded his arms and narrowed his eyes.

  “Okay, fine,” Jolene said. “We’ll go ask Walter.”

  Ware looked up at the Grotto Bar sign. The flamingo’s beak suddenly looked extremely sharp. “We?”

  Now Jolene folded her arms and narrowed her eyes.

  “Okay. We.” Ware followed Jolene over the fence and across the parking lot. Jolene pulled open the back door and marched in, but Ware stopped to prepare himself. He was walking into a bar. An actual bar. He wanted to etch every detail into his memory.

  The bar was cool and dark. While his eyes adjusted, he drew in the smells—beer and something that smelled like it used to be beer. And then the sounds—whirring fans, clacking billiard balls, a song that seemed to consist entirely of the words “Without youuuuuu . . .”

  The bar itself was an L-shaped island of wood. A mirror behind it reflected hundreds of bottles.

  And two kids. Jolene looked like herself, but Ware was embarrassed to see that he could have been auditioning for a roller-co
aster commercial. He closed his mouth and blinked his eyeballs back into their sockets.

  A bear-sized man behind the bar was filling a mug from a tap built into the mirror. His head was shaved and a rainbow tattoo encircled his neck like a halo that had slipped. He glanced up in the mirror and winked at Jolene. “Hey, Sprout,” he said over his shoulder. “You and your friend pull up a stool. I’ll be right there.”

  Just in time, Ware saw that this was a joke, since the stools were bolted to the floor. He chuckled in what he hoped was a manly way.

  Jolene shot him a puzzled look. She climbed onto a stool and he took the one beside her.

  The bartender came up and leaned in. His hands, splayed on the bar, were the size of baseball mitts. “The usual?” he asked.

  When Jolene nodded, he grabbed two mugs and shot something pale and sparkling into them from a spigot. He arranged a couple of orange slices on the rims and set the mugs down on coasters that said, hilariously, Bottoms Up!

  “Walter, can we have some water?” Jolene asked.

  Walter tipped his head to Ware. “Who’s we?”

  “This is Ware. I told you about him.”

  “Good to meet you, Ware,” Walter said. He picked up two more mugs and made for the sink.

  “No, I mean outside,” Jolene stopped him. “Can we have some water from your hose?”

  “Of course, Sprout. It’s hot out there. Take as much as you want—you don’t have to ask.”

  Jolene shot Ware a look of triumph, and Ware picked up his mug. His first drink in a bar. Ginger ale. It tasted completely different, way better than any ginger ale he’d ever had. Possibly it was champagne.

  When Jolene bent to her drink, Walter stretched and peered at the booths along the far wall. Ware thought he looked a little worried, but then Walter leaned in toward Jolene with a smile. “Got some more cans for you out in the stockroom. While you’re out there, flatten the boxes for me, take them out to recycling, okay?”

  Jolene grabbed her mug and pushed through a set of swinging doors.

  A bald man at the far end of the bar raised a hand. “Hey, Walter. Fill ’er up,” he called.

  While Walter was gone, Ware swiveled to check out the customers. Four men playing pool, two guys in green uniforms hunkered over beer mugs a few stools away, two older women perched at a high-top table playing cards.

  Counting the bald man, nine people.

  Just then, another woman’s head rose over the back of a booth. Her hair sprang out in a crown—the yellowest Ware had ever seen, but black at the center. She took a sip from a green bottle, swept a slow gaze around the place, and then plopped back down as if what she’d seen had exhausted her.

  So there were ten of them—a dozen counting himself and Jolene. It had looked like more, because of all the mirrors. 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. Some of the mirrors were also clocks. Ware was surprised that people would want to look at themselves with time sweeping over their faces, but there were many mysteries about bars he had yet to unravel.

  He twirled his stool back to the bar and noticed what he’d missed before: blue plastic bowls were spaced every couple of feet.

  ChipNutz. At last. He reached for the closest bowl, but just then Walter came back.

  “Sorry. My client had a sensitive issue that needed my ears.” Walter tugged his ear. “Professional listener. Mostly, that’s my job. And, of course, every so often to offer a refreshing beverage.”

  Ware pointed to the bowl down the line. “And ChipNutz.” He secretly pinched the side of his thigh. He was in an actual bar, having a conversation with an actual bartender.

  Walter snapped his fingers. “Yes! Never underestimate the value of having something to crunch when you’re trying to clarify a problem.”

  Walter picked up a white towel and began to polish the wood in slow, perfect circles. “Say you come in. I get you something to drink, then I ask, ‘How you doin’, pal?’ You take a sip, then you say, ‘Doin’ okay, Walter, thanks. But I got this problem.’ Now, do you have a problem, Ware?”

  Ware nodded vigorously. He had several, in fact. His mother, Jolene, Mrs. Sauer.

  “Okay, so here’s where the ChipNutz come in.” He slid a blue bowl over to Ware. “Take a handful and shake them into your mouth. Crunch for a while, and think about the problem.”

  Ware shook a handful into his mouth. And just as Jolene had claimed, they did taste like bacon and french fries and peanuts all at the same time. They were the most delicious thing he had ever eaten. He crunched them thoughtfully.

  And Walter was right, it did help him clarify his problem.

  “People have a lot of expectations about me. My mother expects me to be like her. She hates spending time alone, so she thinks it’s bad for me, too,” he began. “But I’m not her.”

  “Hoo, boy. Tell me about it.” Walter nodded in a manner that somehow expressed sympathy over all the injustices of the world.

  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 peered around an armload of cans and nodded toward the exit.

  Ware drained his soda, then drew out his wallet.

  Walter waved it away. “On the house, pal.”

  “Thanks, Walter,” Ware said in a new, deeper voice, and slipped off the stool.

  Ware unscrewed the hose nozzle. For a moment, he and Jolene stared down at the water running into the vast, empty moat.

  “Maybe it’s not turned all the way on?” he asked hopefully.

  Jolene shook her head. “Full force.”

  He followed Jolene’s gaze as she lifted it from the hose to her papayas, and then to the front fencing where the auction notice was. He could read her feelings as if they were printed on his own heart.

  “Everything takes too long,” she said. “Except the things that don’t take long enough.”

  “Hoo, boy,” Ware said. “Tell me about it.”

  Forty-Seven

  Jolene drew out a knife and sliced a papaya plant off at its base.

  Sitting beside the plants, Ware dropped his movie camera and grabbed his ankles.

  “Only the females make fruit,” Jolene explained. “You can’t tell which they are until they make flowers. See here? The male flowers spray out, kind of stringy. The females have fatter flowers, close to the base.”

  Ware looked over at the rest of the plants, happily growing with no idea that half of them were wasting their time. “So . . . what? The ones that turn out to be boys—I mean males—you kill them all?”

  “Almost all. I keep a few around for pollination.” She hacked down another plant. The plant fell over with a cry of betrayal only Ware seemed to hear.

  “It’s not their fault they can’t make fruit,” he tried. “They shouldn’t have to die for it. Maybe you could plant them somewhere else.”

  Jolene shook her head. “You can’t transplant a papaya. Their roots don’t like to be disturbed. That’s why I start them in cans. When I know which ones to keep, I can slide them out—that doesn’t cut any roots.” She glanced up at her apartment. “Once some people start growing in a place, they don’t want to get kicked out.”

  Ware knew she’d meant to say plants, not people, but right now, he didn’t care. “Well, it’s not fair.”

  Jolene put down her knife. She smiled with goofy wonderment and smacked her forehead. “I keep forgetting! We’re in Magic Fairness Land!” Then she frowned a clowny sad face and smacked her forehead again. “Oh, no, darn. Still here in the real world.”

  Ware felt a growl—an actual growl—rumble in his chest. “Why do you even care? So what if I live in Magic Fairness Land?”

  Jolene cut off another stalk with a savage slice. “You’re not a realist—you want things to be magically what they’r
e not. You have to be a realist to survive in this world.”

  Ware shifted uncomfortably. “What do you mean, survive?”

  “Make it through. Life. Life’s going to crush you if you don’t see it coming.”

  Ware looked around. It didn’t help that he was surrounded by flattened playground equipment. This lot hadn’t seen it coming.

  “What should I do?”

  “Open your eyes. Look out for life, coming to crush you.”

  Ware got up and walked down to the moat.

  Jolene was probably right. She usually was. She’d been right about the baptistery—he’d looked it up that first night. He’d checked about those rakers and the Black Plague—she’d been right about that, too. And about people breaking into landfills, and about nobody caring if you stole waterweed, and about bar water being free to take.

  Jolene was right about everything. So he needed to get reborn, not just as someone whose report cards said, Ware is outgoing and normal! and who lived a purpose-driven life and watched over his grandmother, but also as someone who could open his eyes, see life coming to crush him. A realist.

  He lifted the hose that was filling the enormous do-over tub. The water, as far as he could tell, was just plain water. According to Jolene, the preacher had said some important words over it to make it holy.

  He and Jolene were the closest the lot had to a preacher now. The water actually came from the Grotto, so Walter should have a say, too.

  He gave Jolene’s words first. “Everything was something else before.”

  “Hoo, boy,” he added for Walter. “Tell me about it.”

  He thought for a minute about what would be his own contribution. “The outside is part of the inside when it’s people,” he said at last. Maybe the words weren’t important, but they were the truth.

  Forty-Eight

  For three days and three nights, the water ran.

  When Ware arrived at the lot on the fourth morning, he nearly fell off the oak branch, the way he had on the very first day.

  Ware turned on the camera. He dropped to the ground and flew across the yard. He turned off the hose, then ran up the drawbridge.