Counting by 7s(58)

Dell is still outside, but he’s been asleep on his lawn chair for an hour. He got cold and climbed into a black plastic garbage bag. He punched his feet through the bottom and now he reminds me of a talking raisin I once saw in a TV commercial.

A guy in the apartments across the street told us to turn off the machine a few hours ago, but Quang-ha ignored him.

Finally, Quang-ha gives us a signal and Mai kills the motor.

She and Quang-ha and I stand back and point our flashlights as we stare at what’s been done.

Layers have been removed.

Of dirt.

And pink paint.

And acne-like, lumpy stucco.

The whole surface of the structure is smooth and sleek.

All the cracks are gone. And so are the bald patches where the stucco had crumbled off.

The odd design of the place, with its high windows and box-like mass, now appears futuristic and forward-thinking.

At least to me.

And it is not an exaggeration to say that the Gardens of Glenwood is the cleanest building in all of Bakersfield.



For three days, it is hard for any of us to move our arms.

We walk around like plastic soldiers with our limbs held tightly to our sides.

I go down at night and water the dirt to keep it from blowing again.

And I prep the soil. I add a slow release, granular fertilizer that I got Dell to buy at Home Depot.

By mid-week we are ready for the next step.

We have over four dozen sunflowers, in twenty-three containers, a less-than-thriving poinsettia, and bags of mulch to spread.

As soon as we put the sunflowers in the ground, they should take off.

They will send roots down as far as six feet into the soil. Their single stems in the next few weeks will each produce a terminal flower bud.

I know how this all works.

About a month later, after they’ve gained up to eight feet in height, the large, flat disk that is the flower will unfurl.

For a week it will bloom.

Bees will arrive and pollinate the many florets that make up what we think of as the single flower (but what is in reality many, many small blossoms).

A week later, when the blooming is over, the florets will turn into seeds, and ripen.

All of the energy will move to this next generation of life.

The plant will have given birth to the future, and then it will be done.

This is the way it works. From the bacteria in the sink to the fruit fly circling the bowl of bananas. We’re all doing the same thing.

But if people saw all of this for what it really is, who knows if anyone would get out of bed in the morning?

I will soon have the garden covered with a crop of sunflowers, but in five weeks it will have to be replanted.

And so will I.

What goes in the soil next should be more permanent.

Right now I’m the sunflower.

Temporary, but attaching myself to the ground underneath me.

The garden is challenging me, as always, to see my own situation.

My court hearing is next month.

I’ll be ready. I’m not sure for what exactly.

But maybe that’s what being ready really means.





Chapter 51





Dell pulled into the parking lot.

There wasn’t a place for him, for his car, for his always-now-sore-from-exercising body.

After circling the lot in frustration, he lined up in front of the only available spot he could find.

It was tiny, crowded on one side by a school district van and on the other by the chain-link fence that wrapped around the entire property.

Dell stepped on the gas, intent on inching slowly ahead.

Instead, his foot slipped.

Every hair on his body stood on end at the sound of metal on metal as the fencepost dug a crease along the entire right side of his vehicle.

Dell cut the engine as he shouted and swore and pounded his fist (which hurt because he accidentally hit the dashboard instead of the upholstery).

He found himself thinking of Willow. She would have told him before he went forward that the space was too small. She would have calculated the mass or the distance or figured out something.

Dell pushed the thought of the girl out of his mind and opened the door.

He was faced with another harsh reality.

Even though he’d almost taken out the fencing along the passenger’s side, he was still so close to the van next to him that he doubted he could get out of his car.

He’d just have to make this work.

Wasn’t that what life was now teaching him?

Dell gritted his teeth and got his left leg and then hip out.

But his tummy, even angled and sucked in, was a real problem.

Hoping for the best, he let his belly go. It pushed in all directions, and the edge of his car door dug straight into the side of the neighboring van.

Another metal on metal sound.

He stared wide-eyed at the damage.

That van panel was like cardboard!

Dell slammed his door shut and took off in a run away from the scratched-metal crime scene.

But as he made his way through the rows of cars, a dark mass leaped from behind a tire and slithered right between his wobbly legs.

Dell felt the fur touch his ankles and he shrieked like a startled child.

Inside the low brick building that housed most of the administration, he could see heads suddenly appear in windows.

Dell dropped down to the asphalt to shield himself from the peeping professionals.