THE CLOUD SEEDERS

by James Zerndt

  The Cloud Seeders

  James Zerndt

  Copyright © 2012 James Zerndt

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-10: 1478209151

  ISBN-13: 9781478209157

  For Erika & Jack

  For Norm

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  1 Serve Your Country, Conserve Your Water, Observe Your Neighbor

  2 Operation Green: What’s In Us, Sustains Us

  3 H20: Priceless.

  4 Smells Like Green Spirit

  5 What Will Your Children Drink?

  6 Go Green 4 Life

  7 Kick the H20 Habit

  8 Every Cloud Has a Green Lining

  9 Can You Hear the Eco?

  10 Got Water?

  11 Water is Life. Don’t Waste Yours.

  12 Vote Water

  13 Reduce Your Water-Footprint, Re-use Your Fluids, Recycle Your Life

  14 Green Energy Means Moral Energy

  15 It’s Not Easy Being Green

  16 Think Rain

  17 Water is Good. Water is Great.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book has seen a lot of ups and downs over the past few years. One thing that always kept me going was thinking about someday writing this paragraph. And, even though all the major publishing houses passed on this book, I’d still like to thank the following people:

  Irene Kraas, my lit agent, for never giving up (even now). Luke Sandler and Lindsay Williams at Gotham Group Productions for trying to get this made into a movie. Catherine Zerndt for listening to all my rambling phone calls. Julie Tegethoff for reading an early draft. Kim Jones for her constant encouragement and cheerleading. Javid “SNIKS” Howell for the whiskey talks and telling me I wasn’t a housepainter. Jonathan Harris for swapping poetry and trying to teach me about the ponies. Pete “WTF” Fromm for turning me on to Roddy Doyle and Niall Griffiths and for telling me when I’m being an eejit. Joe Green of the Salal Review for telling me how much he and his students enjoyed the short story. Todd, Kelly, and Chris Moehling for letting me follow them around the country all those years. That one college English professor who kept me after class and accused me of plagiarism because he couldn’t believe someone like me could write something decent. All my ESL students at LCC for reminding me every day that good people still exist in the world. And, most importantly, Erika Clark for believing in me even when I gave her every reason not to.

  Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

  1 Serve Your Country, Conserve Your Water, Observe Your Neighbor

  Our Mom tended to be philosophical when she played Would You Rather.

  Thomas, would you rather be thunder or lightning? Snow or fire? A question mark or period? Red or yellow?

  Dad never played. He even refused to answer the easy questions like Would you rather kiss Marilyn Monroe or Madonna? He’d shake his head, smile at Mom, but always claim he just liked to listen.

  I still play my own version with Dustin even though it’s been over a year since we’ve seen our parents.

  “Would you rather I kick your ass or you hurry it up?” I say, and Dustin stops to ponder this before realizing I’m not kidding.

  “Hurry it up?”

  “Move,” I say, and he does.

  He has to.

  I’m all he has now.

  It’s seven a.m. and we’ve got four hours of water-patrol ahead of us. While Dustin gets dressed, I toss his used body-wipe in the bin and head outside to wait.

  At least he’s stopped asking to take showers.

  There’s that anyway.

  When he finally comes out of the house, Dustin’s wearing the state-mandated dust mask with his Officer of Sustainability jacket zipped up to his nose. The logo, a big drop of blue water wearing hand-cuffs, covers his entire nine-year-old torso.

  “Let’s do this,” he says and struts off ahead of me, ticket book at the ready.

  Normally I’d be doing this on my own, but it’s summer, so Dustin’s helping out, earning his badge. Nearly twelve months now and no rain. And the year before we had a whopping two inches. Just enough to keep the hinges of the world oiled.

  We walk, without incident, for a solid hour before being heckled by a Leftover sitting on a cardboard box. There’s a liter of brown-colored water at his feet. Leftovers are what most people call them. The government’s official name for them is “The Internally Displaced.”

  “Hey, I think I hear somebody watering their lawn! You guys better go arrest them!”

  Even from this distance, I can see his lips are cracked and torn. Dustin has his pen out before the guy finishes his sentence.

  “Forget it,” I say, grabbing Dustin by the collar before he can cross the street.

  “But he’s worth at least 50 water points.”

  Water points: an incentive plan cooked up by the powers that be. For every 1000 water points, you get a 5- gallon drum of fresh water.

  “We’ve got plenty without him, D. This isn’t a game.”

  “What if Mom and Dad don’t come back? What if they stop giving us their rations? Then what?”

  “Then we get by like everybody else.”

  Dustin tucks his ticket book back inside his jacket, sticks the pen behind his ear and contents himself by taking a long, unnecessary drink. Then he wipes his mouth on his sleeve and says, “When are they coming back anyway?”

  “When Dad finishes his research and figures this mess out. We’ve gone through this how many times now?”

  “A million.”

  “C’mon,” I say. “Let’s go find some electricity-bandits. That’ll make you feel better.”

  We pass by a few abandoned stores, the insides all gutted long ago. One has a banner pasted over whatever the old name was.

  The Water Barter.

  At least they tried.

  We walk off the main road, down a few side streets, straight into the middle of nowhere and see a boy about Dustin’s age riding a bicycle, his belly just starting to distend. He stops and waves when he sees us, thinks we’re the good guys.

  I tell Dustin to throw him a bottle of water and Dustin just looks at me like do-I-have-to, but he does it anyway. We watch the kid pump toward the bottle, his spindly legs coming to life. When he picks the water up, he waves it in the air in thanks, then goes back to pedaling more dust.

  I keep an eye on Dustin, see if he’s registered the fact that the kid could be him if things were different.

  But he just seems annoyed.

  It isn’t much longer before we spot some lights peeking out from a curtained basement window. We knock on the door, and, sure enough, the lights go out. A woman, forty something, still wearing her bathrobe, opens the door. She’s got the thirst. It happens when you drink too much recycled water.

  Her lips look like two dead worms.

  “Hi, ma’am. We’re with the Sustainability Unit. Would you mind if we came in, took a look around?”

  I know the look she’s giving me. Our dog used to do the same thing after he peed the carpet.

  “Be my guest,” she says. “And who’s this little cutie-pie?”

  She doesn’t know it yet, but she just earned herself an extra ticket. Maybe ten.

  “This is Cadet Dustin,” I say and give her a look she interprets perfectly.

  “Oh, you’ll have to forgive me. It’s just that I haven’t seen such a handsome cadet before.”

  Dustin, having none of it, says, “The basement?”

  I shrug and she leads us down the hallway. On the way, I peek my head into her bathroom, note the illegal tube running from her Recycler into a hole in the tiled floor. She must have just gone because the thing is still agitating, filtering out the urine, turning it into clear drops of water to be used fo
r laundry, dishes, that sort of thing. On the side of the 5-gallon plastic jug, in big black letters, it says:

  NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION.

  The basement holds the usual Unforgivables: crude hydroponics, some lettuce, carrots, tomatoes. The government made indoor-gardening illegal last year since it uses up too much electricity. Well, that and people don’t tend to share what they grow inside.

  The only real surprise here is the row of flowers.

  “Dragon Lilies were his favorite. My husband’s, I mean,” the woman explains. “He died last year. I share with others when I have enough. Please, you have to understand.”

  I want to grab her hand, put my arm around her, sit down and have a nice big salad, eat every last morsel of evidence with her, tell her she has no idea how much I do understand.

  “I still have to write you up for this. They’ll probably just garnish a few liters, put you on water- probation for a year. It won’t be so bad.”

  “Not so bad?” she starts to say, but stops when she notices Dustin scribbling away.

  “Let me see that,” I say and take the pad from him.

  “Eight Unforgivables,” Dustin says. “And that’s not counting the fan you have on upstairs.”

  “Cadet Dustin,” I say. “Could you go outside and check the perimeters, make sure we didn’t miss anything?”

  “Gotcha,” he says and actually goes so far as to hitch up his pants before heading upstairs.

  “I’m already getting by on less than most,” the woman begins, her hand rubbing her neck, the robe parting just a touch. “Isn’t there something we can work out, some sort of community service I could perform?”

  I take a step back, cough some of the color back into my face. “Here,” I say and only hand her two of the tickets. “Just pay these and dismantle the greenhouse, okay?”

  Her eyes go all big and soft and I hurry out of the basement before she can get to me. When me and Dustin head down the street, he eyes me suspiciously.

  “How many did you give her?”

  “Eight,” I lie. “Nice work, partner.”

  *

  After our shift, Dustin and I get cleaned up for our date with Jerusha. She asked me to bring Dustin along to the Water Rally, said she had a surprise for him afterward. Jerusha’s what we call a Bootlegger: someone who makes un-recycled water and sells it on the black market. Dustin adores her, but I’m a little worried about what’ll happen if he finds out about her hobby.

  The Water Rally is supposed to be a formal event, so I go through Dad’s closet, pick out one of his brown tweed numbers, the kind with the patches in the elbows. I’m hoping Jerusha will get a kick out of me looking smart for once.

  When I get downstairs, Dustin’s standing in the middle of the room wearing his old Halloween costume. Tony the Tiger. From his favorite cereal. Back when we still had milk. And cereal.

  “Dustin, what the...?”

  “You said get dressed up.”

  “I meant wear something nice.”

  “This is nice. Wait, no, it’s GRRRR--”

  “Stop. Where’s your I.D.?”

  We were told to wear our badges on a lanyard. For security reasons. Dustin pulls up his tail. His badge is taped to Tony’s sphincter.

  “Wonderful. I’m sure Sarge will love that.”

  When we get to the party, there are giant banners hanging everywhere with slogans written in giant green letters.

  WATER IS A STATE OF MIND! YOU REIGN!

  Dustin’s costume, it turns out, is a big hit. One of the officials even comes over, shakes both our hands, says that maybe next year they’ll have a real costume party.

  Dustin jumps up and down at this, claps his paws and growls, “That’s GRRRRREEEAAAT!”

  The guy eats it up.

  We stop by a few of the demonstration tables as we make our way to the buffet stations, not wanting to appear in too big of a hurry. There are pamphlets about new Recyclers, some with a focus on women’s needs. They’re pink and smoother looking than the clunky one we have at home.

  Next is a booth on how to police your neighborhood and turn in Violators: Serve, Conserve, Observe. Basically, it’s teaching regular citizens how to do our job. Free video cameras are available from the government if they want to set up surveillance on a suspect neighbor. There’s even a poster of a man brandishing a knife, a dead garden hose in his other hand.

  Like a trophy photo.

  Give me a break.

  We move on, eventually finding Jerusha hovering around the buffet they have set up. There’s shrimp. Well, not real shrimp. Shrimp-flavored soyfu or something. Jerusha looks amazing, dressed in a black one-piece that stops just above her knees.

  “I didn’t know Tony the Tiger was coming!”

  “Next year they’re having a costume party,” Dustin brags. “All because of me.”

  “Too bad it’s not this year. You’d win hands down, kiddo.”

  Dustin wags his tail. “You going to watch the speech with us?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world. Nothing I like better than watching people lie through their teeth.”

  We watch the “hysteria”, as Jerusha calls it, from the nosebleed seats. Everybody else is jostling down below, crowding the main stage like our President’s some kind of rock star. Which, in a way, I guess he is. They even have his face beaming down from a gigantic 4-sided screen set up above the crowd. His beatific eyes about a foot-wide each.

  “How come they get to have a TV?” Dustin wants to know.

  “Because they’re pigs,” Jerusha says and pops a fake shrimp in her mouth.

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Don’t think of it as a TV,” I tell him. “It’s more like a screen. So we can see him better.”

  “Oh,” he says, but I can tell he isn’t buying it.

  If I could have your attention for a moment, please.

  The crowd quiets down, presses closer to the stage.

  The first thing I’d like to address are the rumors that there’s been precipitation in California. Unfortunately, that’s a blatant un-truth. Now believe me, there’s nothing more I wish were true. We believe the rumor was started by some of our more unsavory citizens who would like nothing better than to undermine Operation Green. We, as a country, must focus on sustaining our current water economy, working as a whole so we can overcome this greatest environmental challenge of our time. Now who’s with me?

  The crowd erupts. I even start to clap but stop once I notice Jerusha glaring at me.

  “Do you even know why you’re clapping?”

  “Of course, I do,” I say, zero conviction in my voice.

  Thank you, my friends! Thank you! Now, with that nasty bit of business out of the way, let’s get to what you’re all waiting for. The Water Awards!

  More frenzied applause.

  I sit on my hands.

  As you know, each month we reward one exceptional citizen with a twenty-gallon supply of pure un-recycled water. This month, for outstanding dedication to the Sustainability Movement, we award Citizen Hugh Penly for the courageous act of turning in his neighbor for washing their electric car. Hugh, are you out there? Come on up here! I want our citizens to see what a true hero looks like!

  An elderly man wearing an old Mariner’s baseball hat emerges from the crowd, makes his way to the podium as the crowd chants, “Hugh! Hugh! Hugh!” When they roll out the five-gallon drums of water, the man nearly breaks down in tears. A fairly moving scene, but one cut short when Jerusha stands up.

  “C’mon, we’re leaving. I can’t stomach this any longer.”

  As we make our exit, we get a few strange looks. Like we’re nuts for leaving just when things are getting good.

  Once we get outside Jerusha squats down next to Dustin, and he climbs up without a word.

  Piggy-back time.

  It’s nice. Something a mother might do.

  “You boys game for a real party? Something that isn’t sanctioned by fascists?”

/>   I knew there would be something like this. There always is with Jerusha. Probably some lame party with wanna-be Leftovers in scruffy beards, none of them fully weaned off the grid’s tit yet but doing everything possible to look like they are.

  “I’m game,” Dustin says and uses his tail like a whip to spur Jerusha on. “Gitty up!”

  “It depends on where the party is,” I say, like the decision hasn’t already been made.

  “Not far. C’mon.”

  Jerusha trots off, Dustin holding onto her black hair like the reigns of some magical horse. The streets are deserted, not one car out since nearly everybody in their right mind is at the rally. After about five blocks, Jerusha plops Dustin down on the sidewalk and raps four times on a metal warehouse door.

  A peep hole slides open, then quickly shuts again.

  “I don’t know about this,” I murmur and Jerusha lowers her eyes at me, says, “Of course you don’t know. That’s the whole point, isn’t it?”

  Before I can come up with a response, the door opens and we’re ushered in by a kid in a black suit. It’s ten times more expensive than the hand-me-down I’m wearing.

  “Welcome, comrades,” he says and acknowledges Jerusha by kissing her on both cheeks, all European-like. I couldn’t dislike the guy more. “I see you brought some defectors.”

  “Not exactly,” Jerusha says, eyeballing me. “But I’ll vouch for them.”

  “Whatever you say, Jerusha. But they’re your responsibility.”

  Jerusha grabs one of Dustin’s paws. “C’mon. Stick close to me.”

  She leads us through a dark and seemingly empty warehouse until we reach a ladder mounted to a wall.

  “Where’s that go?” Dustin asks.

  “To the roof. Where else?”

  Jerusha turns to me, flicks my lanyard. “You might want to lose that.”

  I look down, and, sure enough, my ID is hanging out. Luckily it’s face down, my Water-cop face still hidden.

  “Right,” I say and stuff it into my breast pocket.

  Dustin bends over, wags his tiger-butt at Jerusha. “What about me?”