Rachel's Blue. Zakes Mda
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and nodding their heads in agreement. Jason is unimpressed. His attention is on the women in the opposite front pew.
“He’s been staring at you all this time,” Schuyler whispers to Rachel.
“He’s not staring at anybody; he’s speechifying.”
“Come on, you know I’m talking of Jason.”
“How do you know he’s staring at me and not you?”
“You were his girlfriend, not me.”
Rachel elbows Schuyler in the ribcage, and they giggle away.
Skye Riley is looking directly at them; they fall silent and pay attention. He is explaining that extractive industries affect poor people everywhere. The people who are doing mountain top mining in West Virginia are the same people who are poisoning Ohio water through fracking. They are also the same people who drive poor folks of colour out of their houses in New Orleans.
“We need people who are willing to lock themselves to equipment. We need folks who are not afraid to go to jail,” he says before sitting down to even greater applause.
“Shut down the injection wells in Ohio now!” some people are chanting.
It is obvious that most people in the room agree with the direct action route and some may even personally commit themselves to it. Rachel finds the chants electrifying. Such gatherings are what make life so wonderful in Athens County.
The two girls agree that Skye Riley is “awesome”, especially when he glowers at the mention of elected officials who have sold out to extractive industry. When he shapes his lips into a defiant smirk he is even more “cute”. They admit to each other that they fancy him, although it is all in jest and laughter. Rachel is happy that Schuyler is gradually coming out of her shell and is becoming herself again after the death of her lover and then a trial that left her broken-spirited and on probation. She is beginning to appreciate life and men again. But the fact that she has a permanent limp and will walk with the aid of a crutch for the rest of her life will be a constant reminder of a sad chapter in her life.
After the meeting Skye rushes out for a much needed smoke as the rest of the people mill about the aisle debating the merits of direct action versus legal channels. Genesis is obviously a rule of law guy. He says he believes in protest, orderly demonstrations and court actions rather than in this so-called direct action which to him is tantamount to violent revolution. An elderly woman says Genesis is living proof of how people change as they age. After all, he is no stranger to jail; back in the day he used to lead sit-ins and lie-ins and other kinds of defiance campaigns against every cause known to man ranging from the Vietnam War to the saving of seals and whales and all sorts of animals that don’t even exist in America. A fellow sixties hippy – an unreconstituted one – asks: “When did Genesis become so conservative?”
“Bullshit! You guys just want West Virginia folks to take over our fight,” says Genesis, looking around for Jason. “Let’s go, Jase.”
Jason bumps into Rachel.
“Excuse me,” says Rachel.
“You’re excused,” says Jason. “Although I should be the one to apologise.”
“Jason!” she says.
“Yep, the one and only. Good to see you’re as pretty as you ever was.”
She doesn’t say “thank you”. Compliments always embarrass her.
“Meet my pa.”
“You’re Nana Moira’s girl,” says Genesis.
He shakes her hand heartily. “How’s the grand ol’ lady?”
“She’s doin’ great, Genesis. I didn’t know you were Jason’s dad,” says Rachel. “I knew him way back at high school.”
Rachel only got to know Genesis de Klerk a few years ago when Jason was already playing a hippy in Yellow Springs. He never talks about a son when he visits the Jensen Community Centre to hang out with the other seniors and gossip about the good ol’ days or to donate fresh produce for Nana Moira’s Food Pantry. She and Nana Moira have been to Genesis’ house deep in the Wayne Forest to glean tomatoes from his vast garden. Nana Moira makes them into salsa. He is the most organic of all the old hippies of southeast Ohio. His home is self-sufficient in almost everything, including electricity, which he gets from solar panels that are on the roof and on the boulders in the wild-looking part of the garden. Behind the house is a dam where he catches his fish. There are a few beehives for honey, ducks and chickens for eggs and meat, a cow for milk, and three large heaps of compost.
What Rachel remembers most about the visit was that when she wanted to use the bathroom Genesis’ wife – Rachel now concludes she cannot be Jason’s mom, judging by her young age, but his stepmom – took her to a room with a wooden toilet seat and a portable bucket under it. The family does all its business in that room and in another one like it downstairs. The contents are emptied outside and become part of the compost heap. That’s what gets Genesis’ vegetables so gigantic and full of vigour.
Rachel cannot forget how she flipped out. She had not known that some people use crap to fertilise their gardens.
“Ain’t nothing more organic than human crap,” Nana Moira told her when they were driving home.
“I’m not gonna eat Genesis’ veggies. Otherwise I am gonna think of all that crap. I wonder why it didn’t even smell in the house, not even in the latrine.”
“Maybe they treat it with something that eats the smell,” said Nana Moira.
“You gonna eat those veggies even when you know they’ve been fertilised with Genesis’ crap?”
“Of course I am gonna eat them. We’ve been eating them all along and we’s healthy as a fiddle.”
“Not me, Nana Moira. Not any more.”
“You don’t know what manure they use for them veggies from Kroger or from the Food Bank.”
That flipped Rachel even more. To this day she hates vegetables.
But it is not from the vegetables, honey, eggs and milk that Genesis’ family earns its livelihood. These are mostly for home consumption. Genesis buys a lot of cheddar from Wisconsin cheesemongers and adds value to it by ageing it before selling it at the farmers’ market. Rachel and Nana Moira were impressed when he took them to his cellar and showed them the shelves with chunks of cheese in half-open glass containers or just wrapped in wax paper. There were thermometers on the walls and a range of fans on the floor to create air circulation. Some of the cheese, he told them, had been there for two years, and would only be sold after another three to fetch a good price from connoisseurs. Rachel was struck by the smell that permeated the room, both mouldy and pungent, almost like pee – a smell that she has associated with Genesis and his wife ever since. Even as he stands here with his son and Schuyler she can detect the familiar whiff.
“You remember Schuyler?” says Rachel to Jason.
“Yeah. The queen of them yentas back in the day.”
The memory provokes a few giggles; Genesis is bemused.
“‘Back in the day’ being the operative words here,” says Schuyler.
“I’ll leave you with your friends, Jase,” says Genesis. “Some of us have work to do.”
Jason suggests they all go for coffee at Donkey provided they give him a ride home. He was persuaded to attend this meeting by his dad so he came with him in his car.
Rachel helps the limping Schuyler down the steps.
And there is Skye Riley sitting on the steps smoking a cigarette.
“You girls didn’t hear a darn thing I was saying. Talking all the time,” he says looking at Rachel and Schuyler. And then turning to Jason he adds, “I bet you can’t get a word in edgeways with these two, bro.”
“About