by David Kersey
CHAPTER NINE – The Operation
Joshua led the two educators through the coffee garden lounge to a doorway that Van had not noticed before. “This is part of the workspace I use. There’s also an upstairs and downstairs that I use, the upstairs for storage and my living space, the downstairs for the humidity it provides. Outside there’s a three wall shed that contains a boiler I use. It has to be outside, unfortunately, since I heat the cauldron with firewood. But what you see here is the main room.”
“It’s quite a bit bigger than what I thought it would be. This is a large barn, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it was at one time the Park Services main storage facility for heavy equipment. The footprint of the building is seventy-two hundred square feet, being 60’ by 120’, but with the loft and basement added in there is a total of over ten thousand usable square footage. The cottage you stayed in last night was one of the Ranger homesteads. When the National Park Service came under tremendous financial pressure, they abandoned this site. Jack Meadors worked a deal with them and we’ve been using it for a little over three years. We’ve made several modifications to suit our needs. For instance, I built these.”
Joshua pointed out two rows of free standing islands, each about twenty feet long and three feet wide. The two islands were separated by a four foot wide aisle. All four available sides of the islands contained pull out drawers beneath the countertops. Joshua pulled out the first drawer. Inside was a plastic container, like a Rubbermaid storage product. He lifted the plastic lid which revealed small measuring spoons resting upon a dark, pulverized material. “This is eucalyptus, ready to go. Based on your memory from yesterday, what do think this second drawer contains?”
Van laughed. “Beets.”
“Bingo. One of nature’s finest products. There are a total of forty of these drawers, most contain the separate ingredients, but some for other things, like the utensils I use and my paperwork. All in all, there is enough product ready to go to fill well over a thousand Ball jars to the brim using the 57 formula. There are two hundred cases of empty jars stored in the basement.”
“I am impressed with your carpentry skills. Looks factory-made to me.”
“Well, I didn’t tell you what I did after I left Lexington seventeen years ago. Maybe we’ll have time to get around to that before you go back to your home. When is your flight again?”
“Tomorrow. I have to be at the Atlanta airport by one p.m. your time.”
“Ok. There’s an easier way to get there than the route you took to get here. Adele wanted you to see the Forest.”
“I’m glad she did. So you use these things on the countertops to prepare the ingredients?”
“I do. There’s a couple of grinders, a steamer, and juicer, a pulverizer, sun lamps for drying, a jar shaker, a microwave, microscope, and my computer setup. I want to show you what’s outside.”
Joshua led the two out a single door at the rear of the barn. “Over there is the shed with the boiler, and over here is the water tank.”
Van had seen similar water tanks at fish hatcheries, the type that contain baits and larger pan fish habitats. The ten foot long tank was divided into two parts, each with its own hinged lid. “I didn’t see these things when we sat over there in the chairs last evening.”
“Well, it was dark. The deer you fed were on their way to the water tank; and that provides a huge secret to the success of these products. See this spigot? Van, I found a water source below ground here, a spring of mineral rich water which I can pump into the tank. That’s why I have lids to cover the tank, to keep out rain water. So if it is scheduled to rain, I cover the tank. But when it’s dry, I leave one side open, and that is the secret.”
“I don’t understand that one bit. Let me hear the rest of it.”
Joshua said, “Stay right here, I’ll be right back, then you’ll see.” He returned with a full Ball jar, opened one of the two lids, and poured the NIL into the water. “Can you let your imagination take it from here?”
Adele interrupted. “Nature calls, boys; I shall return. I know this drill by heart anyway.”
Van thought about the riddle presented to him. “Ok, let’s see. Whatever animals you have that drink this water, they get the benefit of the nutrients of the NIL; that’s fairly simple to piece together. But after that, I suppose you are using the mineral enriched scat from the animals. Am I on track?”
“You are, keep going.”
“So you use the enriched scat as fertilizer for your gardens. It’s like a full cycle, from the earth, to the plant, to the water, to the animal, to the earth again. And you use the enriched water to hydrate the plants. And it keeps repeating. Is that about right?”
“Van, you hit on the secret. In America, the soils used in the majority of agriculture are largely depleted of nutrients due to over-farming and quick return harvesting. Additionally the use of chemically harmful fertilizers and pesticides makes what you buy in the store ninety percent less nutritious than what existed a hundred years ago. The ingredients I use here are loaded with essential minerals and nutrients, more enriched than any product at any time on the earth in my opinion.”
“Ok, boys, I’m back. Let’s go inside the lab and pull up some stools and talk turkey here.”
“Wait one more second; I’ll be right back.” Joshua opened a side door and went to the basement. He returned with a tomato the size of a grapefruit. He added some paper towels and a knife. “Use the knife if you want, but if you don’t, you’re going to get wet. Take a bite.”
Van held the thing in both hands and sunk his teeth into the tomato. The juice exploded out of his mouth, and his taste buds also exploded. “Oh my! Wow! Now that is a tomato!”
“See? There is ten times more lycopene in that than what you’d find even in a farmers’ market, let alone the grocery store. That one bite was the equivalent of a dozen store bought tomatoes. That’s what we’re doing here with the gardens. I hope you are beginning to see how powerful the NIL is. By the way, I don’t use tomatoes in the formula. I raise them because I love to eat them,” Joshua said with a smile.
“Well, I have made it a point to keep an open mind. What you have shown me is indeed impressive and no doubt the product has beneficial attributes that frankly are beyond my limited knowledge of nutrition. But there is one nagging question I’ve had ever since leaving California, and that is, why am I here?”
Adele slapped the workbench and said, “Now we’re talking. Allow me take a little while to say my piece. Jamison, we want to ship you six full Ball jars of NIL. Use them how you see fit, keeping in mind that there will be no charge to you or to whomever you give it to.”
“That’s it? Free NIL?”
“That’s it, for now. Van, we want to have trustworthy, sympathetic distributors in numerous locations. In the early running, while we set up other gardens in other parts of the country and world, we want to build testimonials. We want you to be convinced and see the results for yourself. Simply use it when you see the right opportunities; and believe me, they will present themselves as they have for me in the Lexington area. When and if you want to expand with us you will have the opportunity. But not before we give you a shot at no cost to you; and that trial run will either convince you, or you can turn us down with no hard feelings on our part. So, you will have ninety-six ounces to use free of charge. If you use a one ounce vial per person that’s ninety-six case studies for you to track.”
“And after that?”
“In time we will have set up a website, determined our labelling, distribution points, set up the legal end with a corporation and patenting, and determined the pricing structure. The cost of shipping is the largest part of the cost. Joshua would like to offer the NIL for free in perpetuity, but we just can’t do that because of the setup expenses and shipping costs. So, the next case of six sixteen ounce jars would be on you to pay shipping costs and also six dollars per jar to help fund the startup. That should compute to ten dollars per jar of expense to you. Our
preliminary projections suggest a retail of $19.99 per jar, but we would leave that up to the distributor. For your customers/patients/clients, sixteen ounces consumed at a half ounce per day equals a month’s supply. That’s cheaper than chemotherapy, don’t you think?”
“Will this become one of those multi-level deals?”
“Absolutely not. We are not motivated by profits. Our goal is to restore this country to good health. It will be slow in the beginning and it will take several years to really make a significant impact. If Tracy, Namanda’s chaperone, continues to show the interest she expressed by telephone, Joshua will fly to India to set up the gardening and production system. We hope Namanda can be involved in the operation. And when you sit in on our conversations with them, you will be better informed than you are now. Van, we would also like you to look into starting a California greenhouse operation should you develop that level of interest, but that is something down the road, not right away. Also we need to tell you that a person in Pennsylvania is already in receipt of the six free jars, and there is another one in Michigan that has purchased a case after using up the free jars. Those two people are friends of Joshua’s from his Purdue days. We will be talking with someone from Nebraska next week. And there is an operation similar to this one already producing on the Arizona reservation. You are the only person on the west coast we’ve talked with. So do you have questions?”
“I am willing to listen and consider it. I will give you an answer before I leave.”
“Cool, that’s fair enough. Joshua and I are going to prepare some food for us and our guests that will soon arrive. Why don’t you take a walk, and think about this….if a few hundred bucks could stop a second grader from taking a bullet in the head, you know the rest? While you’re gone I want the rest of that tomato.”
Van rose to his feet. The walk was a good suggestion. As he stood to turn and walk and think, he noticed beads of tears in Joshua’s eyes. In his memory drawer, long buried and remote, but rising from the unwilled depths, he remembered a scripture……’Jesus wept’. That short verse spoke more than a thousand words. Two words with profound sociological implications. He tried to picture the setting….Jesus peering out over the throngs that were anguished, in despair, crying out in pain and sorrow. He wondered if Joshua’s tears were of a similar emotional compassion; but on the other hand, they could signal the joy of seeing his calling beginning to take flight. Dr. Jamison (Van) Vance went for a walk but he already knew his answer.
Adele had been right. As he walked with hands clasped behind him, there was no better way to describe Joshua. He was “different”. Prodigious savant might work, but the absence of off-setting deficiencies eliminated that label in Van’s mind. Yet one deficiency could be the possibility of a poorly understood condition named persecutory delusion, which behavior manifested by avoiding socialization for fear of being shunned or hurt. The fact that Joshua had no car or even bicycle on the property were clues. He had consciously made a decision to avoid contact with others, yet his social skills were not inept. He did display empathy which would tend to rule out antisocial personality disorder. Messiah Complex…..maybe; but normally that tag is given to those who proclaimed themselves to be superior, like Jim Jones or David Koresh, the egomaniacal. Joshua was nothing like that but he certainly had the physical appearance of the biblical Jesus. Different was the best he could come up with. Wonderfully unique.
Van found himself regretting the thought of leaving in the morning. His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a diesel engine battling the incline of the access road. He assumed that would be the Sheriff transporting the two female guests, Tracy and Namanda.