Читать книгу Inhabited - Charlie Quimby - Страница 10

Native landscaping costs less to maintain than non-native plantings and turf grasses.

—“Home” with Meg Mogrin, Grand Junction Style

She had been born here and so had to learn that eyes from wetter climes saw brown as the color of failure. The dismay of northerners weary of rain and snow should have been obvious from those unhappy years in Denver when she looked toward the alien east unstopped by the mountains. Farmtowns dustbowled out of existence. Cattle living in feedlot shit. A dachshund-colored haze lapping the sky. The city clutching the skirt of the Front Range and burying its face in snowcaps, granite and redrock. Though not so apparent here, the west slope of the Rockies shared that arid reality with the relentless high plains.

Homebuyers craved green. Green represented sanctuary, abundance, progress, fecundity, and until they encountered it in full sufficiency, Meg Mogrin might as well have been showing them burial plots. Her job was to guide the immigrants gently, since surely they had hoped to find in these brown barrens their own little patch of swampland.

She made sure retirees saw the orchards and vineyards and golf courses. Families she drove past the sprinklered ball parks and the waterslide at the pool, pointing out the gasflame-blue sky through windows sealed against its swelter. And in season, the Botanical Gardens. In the west, she would say, towns thrive only because of water and here we are at the junction of two grand rivers. From drive-by distance, the tamarisk remained a distant splurge of olive foliage and pink feathery blooms, not a creeping riverbank strangler. Butterflies shimmered among lavender blossoms, unmindful that the soil once hosted mill tailings and scrapyards.

On glorious mornings like this one, it was easy to forget how much of the town had settled atop ruin and reclamation.

Meg stopped to watch five made-up little girls strut across the parking lot toward the Discovery Castle. They looked like barhopping bridesmaids wearing leotards and leg warmers, saggy tees and pixie tutus layered in bright pastels, hair bunched by head scarves, wrists rattling with plastic bracelets. Their ten-year-old voices piped the chorus of “Hit Me With Your Best Shot.” A watchful mother young enough to be Pat Benatar’s daughter followed, no doubt conscious of how closely the Botanical Gardens bordered the river camps. Her gaze sought Meg’s reassurance and solidarity. What can we do? she seemed to ask.

Meg could only shrug. She had given up shepherding children when she forsook the classroom for a profession that offered more finality. After she sold a house, she never once worried what would become of it.

She put her pickup back in gear, the company truck, a GMC three-on-the-column half-ton from the seventies. In the flush of her first upper-six-figure sale, she had purchased it already spiffed up with a tri-tone paint job and slapped on a High Country Living logo. It was impractical as an everyday ride. The idea was to leave it in the parking lot as a free billboard outside the RE/MAX second floor realty office. Then the recession hit and she had to dump the lease on her Escalade. With only the Jimmy to drive, she discovered how effortless it was to be noticed without being scrutinized, almost as if the pickup granted her temporary dispensation to be a man. If not exactly a classic, the truck was a survivor that could signify upmarket western Americana to prosperous retirees and let crusty ranchers know the fancy girl realtor could drive a stick. Now that business was back, a Buick served as her workhorse and she saved the truck for puttering around town on errands like this one.

Real estate was mostly routine that arrived at unexpected intervals. What appeared to clients as urgent crises could often be eased away with a little timely effort. Redelivering this misdirected packet of fliers could be seen as a waste of her time or an opportunity to bank goodwill with the printer who had screwed up. Everyone bought or sold eventually, and when the printer needed a realtor, Meg Mogrin expected her name to occur to him like a favorite tune.

Across the lot, Zack Nicolai’s rasta slouch cap flashed its stoplight colors next to a police SUV. Zack, a rabble-rousing member of the Homeless Coalition, had insisted on accompanying the literature drop to announce the tamarisk removal project to the encampments along the river. He leaned toward Amy Hostetter, one half of the police department’s homeless outreach team. Meg knew her going back to their co-ed softball days when Amy’s team had been perennial rec league champions. Her tall, Nordic-blond ambiguity exerted an attraction that was fundamentally physical, yet not precisely sexual. With varying degrees of intrigue and confusion, both men and women found her attractive. Meg had settled somewhere between being in awe and slightly intimidated.

Zack brightened when he saw a fellow member of the Homeless Coalition. “I’m glad somebody else decided to get their feet wet.”

Meg wasn’t tramping through any tamarisk thickets, not in suede flats and an Ann Taylor sheath. “Where’s the River Alliance?”

“Apparently outreach is not their thing.” He screwed up his face. “Unless it’s ecology-related.”

She had to credit Zack. He called himself an anarchist but he showed up on time.

He snatched the fliers and squinted at the printer’s sample taped to the wrapper. “Oh, jeez. Tamarisk Removal and River Restoration Project. Nobody but kayakers and birdwatchers are going to wade through this beat-around-the-bush crap. Blah, blah, non-native species, blah, blah, riparian habitat. It should just say, hey, campers, we’re getting rid of the invasive species—and you’re it! Who wrote this crap? It’s like we’re dropping warning leaflets before the bombers come. They’ll see Amy and Richard and think it’s a police action. Nobody’ll stick around to talk.”

A trim Hispanic man in office-pressed Dickies workwear leaned against a Public Works truck nearby. Was Señor Dickies part of this? Where were the others? Meg had handed off the leaflets but she felt responsibility sticking to her fingers.

Señor Dickies checked his watch.

Ugh. She had to stop that. Snap-naming strangers had started as a game she invented to bug Brian, who was so adamantly against stereotyping. She’d give herself three seconds to come up with an original label based on first appearances, to see if she could make him laugh. It was supposed to be ironic, a commentary on his hyper-correctness. Now it was just a bad habit.

She introduced herself. Richard Diaz said he was along to estimate the pre-cleanup before the tamarisk removal could start. “Can’t mix the waste streams,” he said, looking doubtfully at her feet.

Zack steepled his hands and made a sad clown face. “Oh, please come along.”

Such a poor showing. If citizens wanted the river cleaned up, they should do some of this dirty work. They should see the poor people being driven from their homes. The dignitaries would appear to dedicate a new park but where were they today? There was no one important, no one around she needed to impress. What the heck. She kept a ballcap for the sun and a pair of mud shoes in the truck, clodhoppers that would look ridiculous with this dress but perfect to complete the Village People tribute band assembled here in the parking lot.

They started down the nature trail through the cottonwoods and turned onto an unofficial footpath worn through the saltgrass. Richard Diaz pointed out places he had played while growing up just across the parkway. The riverfront was much cleaner now but his neighborhood had scarcely changed. Two blocks of six-hundred-square-foot houses quartered by alleys and pinched by industrial lots was all that remained of Las Colonias, the settlement for workers at the old sugar beet mill. His grandparents had always pronounced Noland Avenue No-Land, he said, as if they were not certain it was theirs.

“I was born a spic, grew up a beaner, joined the Navy as a Mexican-American and came home Hispanic. Now my men call me boss…” He paused. It was clearly a line he’d used before. “To my face, anyway.”

Some days the town seemed immovable. It was good to hear Richard’s perspective and remember some changes took more than a lifetime.

They reached a sandy catch basin reinforced with tumbled and broken concrete slabs. A mired shopping cart pointed where the trail climbed the far bank and continued through hummocks lush with tall grass too fat to stand. This was the paradox of the valley’s alluvial bottom: stretches of ground that looked suitable only for adobe bricks until water was applied. For decades, this floodplain had been trampled by industry. The introduction of tamarisk to stabilize the eroding riverbanks had seemed like an improvement. But the thirsty guest and its drinking buddy the Russian olive choked out the willows, cottonwoods and native grasses, leaving thorny thickets too dense even for nesting birds. But ideal for concealing campsites.

Barking set off as they cleared the other side. They waited to see if any dogs came out to challenge them. Meg spotted a flash of red, then a flutter of yellow. A woman draped in a striped bedspread stepped from a green dome tent tucked into the thatch. She glanced their way and then dipped out of sight. From this distance, the encampment looked serene but Meg couldn’t help but think of cavalry descending on a sleeping village.

A massacre was called for, she supposed. With tamarisk it was all or nothing. Given a foothold, it bunched close as broccoli, withstood drought, fire and flood, sucked up two hundred gallons of water per plant per day, and excreted salt back into the soil so only sea grasses would grow. Like Assyrians laying ruin to conquered lands. The survivors had no choice but to leave their homes.

Amy Hostetter had walked quietly along with their little band. Now she squared her duty belt and clicked into full officer mode. “Here’s the deal. We’re going to be friendly and safe. Today’s no different than walking up to somebody’s front door. Say hello before you go in. If you see somebody’s home, ask if you can approach. If they say no, tell them you got some information for them and ask where you can leave it. Nobody around, just stick it in plain sight and move on. Stay clear of the dogs. I’m here to head off trouble. If anything makes you uneasy, back off and give me a shout.”

Two pit bulls lunged against their tethers, defending the clearing around the first tent. The striped bedspread Meg had glimpsed through the tamarisk now hung from a bicycle inner tube stretched between two sturdy Russian olives. If the woman who’d placed it there was still around, she did not respond to Zack’s call. A lawn chair appeared to lie beyond the perimeter guarded by the dogs. As he approached it, Amy motioned him back.

“Look again,” she said. The pits were tied to the ends of a rope threaded through a ring sunk into the ground. “If one attacks and the other one retreats, he’s got the full length for a run at you.”

Amy folded a flier into a paper airplane. She lofted it and the dogs followed her arm motion, then braked and looked around in confusion. The glider arced to its apex, wobbled and coasted to a landing near the tent. “Some police action, huh?”

Meg placed a leaflet under a rock atop a licorice-red sleeping bag, in the lattice of a camp chair, pinned one to a clothesline. Richard stopped to take pictures and make notes about location of the camps. As Zack had predicted, they worked for about twenty minutes without encountering anyone. They all met again where two trails converged on a stretch of beach. A kicked-over fire ring flashed the blackened teeth of a broken shipping pallet. A worn blue comforter spread on the rumpled sand. Fronds of tamarisk bobbed in the breeze. Someone had spent the night here under the moon listening to the river trickle over the gravel shallows.

“This is going to be a nice park someday,” she said.

Zack scowled. “It already is nice for the people who are here. But they don’t deserve it because somebody’s decided they can make a buck on it.”

What was he talking about? This was city land. Everything was evil capitalism with him, power politics versus the downtrodden. You’d think he’d never met a businessperson with a soul.

Zack showed her where a vet named Wesley Chambers had set up camp across the channel. A stripped white bicycle frame anchored a crude footing of submerged stones between the beach and a low island choked by more tamarisk. A beaten pair of desert tan boots faced the shore. Painted on the toe of the right boot: NO. On the left: GO.

“Wesley and a couple others live there. When the boots are pointed the other way, the heels say OK, which means visitors can cross.”

“What if you don’t know the code?” said Meg. She peered toward the island. Something about empty boots used as a warning. Or maybe it was the bike frame, like bones of the drowned. She was ready for this to be over.

“Wesley’s okay. Just wade over and poke a flier in the boot,” Amy said. “No need to disturb him.”

“There’s no need to disturb anyone,” Zack snapped. “No one’s hurting anything.”

“Except for the ones with the loose dogs, open fires, trash. Fighting, rape, drug abuse. Kids don’t belong here. And you know it’s unsanitary for everybody.”

“So kick them off the river and make it illegal to camp anywhere else. If this town really cared, they’d have a place to go.”

“I hear you, but why should taxpayers be deprived of enjoying their riverfront?” Amy said. “Nobody wants them to suffer, but there’s a price tag for everything in life.”

“Yeah, so many people in favor of doing the right thing. So many excuses not to do it.”

“Our team’s trying, just like you are. But not everybody wants our help. People like Wesley are down here for a reason.”

“So am I,” Zack said. “A good reason.”

Up ahead a pale cottonwood towered fifty feet high, its bark in rags, limbs uplifted as if in surrender.

Stabilize the riverbanks and kill the trees. Reclaim the abandoned parkland and dislodge the poor. Offer helpful services and create dependence. Meg’s business was so simple in comparison. Buyers and sellers brought contending interests to the table. They understood both sides had to be satisfied for a deal to work. The money was important but she helped find other ways to complete the transaction. The parties shook hands. Closure. In business, money was the lubricant that got things done, while in public matters, it was the reason to accept shameful outcomes.

Amy said, “This is your big night, right? If you need to leave, go ahead.”

“It’s okay. I’ve kind of stepped away from managing the event.” It was flattering to know Amy knew.

Scholarship Night had been Meg’s creation. In the first year it had been an achievement just to get scholarship recipients from the four district high schools to appear on one stage. The resulting shuffle of teens receiving a handshake from the superintendent was no one’s idea of a fun night out, so Meg proposed a follies format for the second year, letting students demonstrate the talent they considered responsible for their scholarship. The staid ceremony turned into a variety show with musical performances and dramatic readings, dribbling exhibitions and blindfolded gymnasts on balance beams. One scholarship winner declaimed a sonnet celebrating the Tenth Amendment. A science nerd recited pi to one hundred places while juggling glass beakers. A kid dressed as a rodeo clown rode a mechanical bull from a defunct country and western club.

“Well, I hope the kids are still doing those crazy tricks,” Amy said.

“Unfortunately, no. It was too much fun. The school administration squashed it. They made it into a reminder of why bright kids don’t come back after college. Maybe we could slip in a guest appearance, though, if you have a trick you’d like to perform.”

“I’m not that entertaining, really.”

“My ex-husband called you a stud. He said you played ball as if you had superpowers.”

“I wish.”

“Okay, superpower granted. What would it be?”

Amy paused. Meg heard it, too, a low drift of voices. The disembodied murmur so close by chilled her. The sound came from a section they hadn’t yet canvassed, near the dead cottonwood.

Amy noted the direction but showed no concern. “Okay, I’ll take time travel, the power to give people do-overs. I’d return kids back to the day before they were abused, before they first shoplifted because their folks didn’t feed them, before they tried booze or weed or meth. If I only had one shot, it would be Jimmy Johncock, the first guy from the river we finally got into rehab. Tony and I went when Jimmy graduated from a program in Denver. We were so proud. We were new to this outreach stuff and we’d thought we’d made a save. Three years later, Jimmy’s right back here.”

Richard and Zack appeared from a side path. Amy motioned to them to wait.

“Just to be safe, I want to check it out up there,” she said.

Amy walked down the path and stopped where it made a turn toward the thick understory around the cottonwood. She fingered the radio mic clipped to her shoulder and spoke too quietly to understand. A dog started woofing, setting off the pit bull pair behind them.

“Anybody home?” Amy called. The barking intensified. Meg thought she heard muffled curses. “Grand Junction Police. Secure your dog and you’re fine. We’re just bringing by some information for you.”

A hoarse voice called back, “Hang on, hang on, just a minute.”

Amy raised a hand toward Meg and then disappeared around the bend.

The voices again, one high and one low, words impossible to sort out. Branches crackled and snapped. Meg thought she heard a car door thump closed. There was no road in here… No, it was more like a watermelon dropped on the ground. The dog quiet now. Scrambling sounds of retreat, then the commotion stopped.

Okay, she’s letting them go.

Meg and Richard waited, expecting to hear the okay. Zack had a different notion.

“Amy!” he cried. “Amy!”

Amy. When they ran in her direction, it was toward the silence.