chapter 56
In Which Jackson Knows a Thing or Two about Knots
A short, squat, elfish-looking creature was tying a purple rag onto a pipe. He was absolutely filthy. A few scraggly strands of hair poked out from underneath a dirty hat. Jackson could just make out his grimy pointed ears and the black, gooey smears all over his uniform and thick fingers. The creature glanced at Jackson, his bright green eyes like two bright lights in the darkness, then went back to his work.
“I’m very busy. Please go away.” He grunted again, giving the rag one final yank.
Jackson watched him for a moment. “Do you want some help?” he asked.
The elf’s bright green eyes looked up in surprise, but then he scowled. “You’ll just get in the way. A lot of work to do. Can’t be bothered with all your chitchat and whatnot.”
“No, no. I’m great at tying knots. My dad taught me.” The elf gave one last tug on the rag, then stood up and eyed Jackson up and down. “I suppose you can’t tie a clove hitch?”
“Of course I can!”
The elf reached into his dirty workbag and pulled out a handful of colored rags. He looked Jackson over again, then shoved the rags into his hands.
“Are these all water pipes?” Jackson asked.
“Work!” yelled the impatient elf.
Jackson quickly shoved the rags into his own satchel and walked around, inspecting the pipes. He could hear dripping. He listened very carefully, following the sound to a large pipe that was already festooned with many bright rags. Liquid gathered at the bottom of the pipe, forming into droplets that made loud PLOPS as they hit the ground. The dirt was muddy underneath. Jackson reached up, swinging a red rag over the pipe and pulling it tight on the other side. His fingers moved slowly and carefully, pulling the ends of the rag through each other and then yanking them tight. The dripping stopped. Walking slowly between the pipes, Jackson listened for the next leak.
“I’m Jackson, by the way!” he called out.
GRUNT! “Alfonso!”
Jackson found another leak. He tied another rag. “What do these pipes hold?” he asked. “Water?”
Grunt. Snort. “Pipes … they’re roots!”
“Roots?” Jackson touched one of the pipes gingerly. It wasn’t smooth like a pipe and it wasn’t made out of metal or plastic. He squeezed it, and the dampness oozed between his fingers. He squeezed a bit harder, and a piece of bark came off in his hand. Oops. He patted it back on, looking around to make sure Alfonso hadn’t noticed.
“Where did you think you were? A building? You’re in a tree!” GRUNT.
“We’re underground, then?”
Alfonso gave an unpleasant-sounding snort. “That’s where roots grow,” he said.
Jackson gave a final tug on a yellow rag and looked back at Alfonso. “Why are the roots leaking?”
“Because roots are porous. They have tiny holes in them to suck in or push out water. Don’t you know anything about trees?”
Jackson did know quite a bit about trees, actually. He thought of several rude things to say to Alfonso but bit his tongue instead.
“But don’t you want the roots to leak? You want to get the moisture everywhere so the tree doesn’t dry out?”
Alfonso stopped mid-tug and looked at Jackson. He checked his watch. “How many did ya do?”
“Three.”
“Humph. I’m keeping the roots from leaking because they need as much moisture as they can get. This here is one sick tree.”
“What do you mean? Is it diseased?” Jackson squinted at the roots, looking for fungus.
Alfonso’s dirty hands reached into his even dirtier work bag. He pulled out a sandwich and began to munch, paying no attention to the soil and muck getting all over his bread.
“Wumph. Mugletdd.”
“Neglected? What do you mean?” (Jackson had a copy of Thompson’s Full Mouth Translation and had read it several times, so he understood what Alfonso had said.)
Alfonso swallowed. “No one’s taking care of it.” He switched hands to eat. His sandwich, which had looked quite tasty, was now covered with dirt.
“What about Stimple? He takes care of the tree, doesn’t he?” Jackson asked.
Alfonso snorted. Then started choking. Jackson smacked him on the back a few times. “Much obliged.” The elf took another big bite. “Dapl whomey mah festtsss.” He swallowed a big swallow. “You know, only keeps out the riff raff.”
Alfonso stopped chewing. “Who?”
“Sir Shaw. The guy who runs the elevator.”
“There’s an elevator in here? When did that happen?” Alfonso wondered aloud.
Jackson looked at Alfonso strangely. “Just how long have you been working down here?”
Alfonso chewed thoughtfully, a piece of something awful stuck to his lower lip. “Hm. Ah. Ever since I was a young lad. Humph. Dunno.”
“You don’t know? How old were you when you started?”
Alfonso scratched his head. “Ah, let’s see. Twenty? Yah, I was twenty. Just graduated from Rag-Tying School. Graduated first in my class!” His chest heaved proudly. He took another bite.
“And how old are you now?”
“Well, that I’m not sure of. I’m too busy to know what day it is!” With another grunt, Alfonso shoved the remainder of his sandwich back into his grubby satchel. “Back to work!” he cried.
“But don’t you have a calendar or something?” Jackson protested.
“Work!” Alfonso yelled.
Jackson sighed and grabbed another rag from his pile. He found a leak near Alfonso and began tying a green rag on the root. “Don’t you even have a calendar?” he asked again after a moment.
“Of course I do!” said Alfonso. “Everyone needs a calendar! Tells you what day it is and what time your dentist appointment is! It’s at home, of course!”
“Where’s your home?” A leak escaped from the rag and squirted Jackson in the eye. He tied the knot tighter.
“Huh. Well. I think it’s around here somewhere.” Alfonso shrugged, then walked off. Jackson tied off one last rag and followed him.
“You don’t remember where you live?” Jackson tried to keep his voice friendly even though, truth be told, he wasn’t sure he liked Alfonso very much.
“We-ell. It’s been a while since I’ve been home. Terribly busy here trying to keep up with all the work.”
“But what about your family?”
Alfonso’s eyebrows furrowed in puzzlement. “Family?” He looked down and his forehead wrinkled. “I remember a wedding.” His eyes lit up. “The bride wore white, the groom wore a tux, there were flowers everywhere, and people came to watch.” Then he frowned again. “Was it my wedding or my brother’s? Wait. Do I have a brother? Hmm.” Alfonso shrugged and wiped egg salad off his mouth. “Ah, well. Back to work.”
The elf grabbed another fistful of rags and moved among the pipes, listening for drips and tying them off when he found them. Jackson joined him, tying clove hitch after clove hitch wherever he heard the plop! of a leak. The damp air hung around him as he moved back and forth between the pipes, and after a few minutes Jackson felt himself panting.
“Why is it so hard to breathe down here?” he gasped.
Alfonso chuckled. “You’re underground, boy. Not a lot of air here as it is. If the roots were growing properly, they’d aerate the soil and make it easier to breathe. But as it is, I’m trying to keep this tree from going anywhere.”
Jackson stared. “Why would a tree go anywhere?”
“If you’re gonna make me talk, you’d better help me work,” he said. Jackson tied a magenta rag around a particularly leaky root. “Trees are like people,” said Alfonso. “They need nourishment, water, air, sunlight. Wait, do people need sunlight?”
Jackson stared. “I guess so. I think a person would go a little crazy without seeing the sun for a while.”
Alfonso looked at Jackson in surprise. “I guess it has been a while since I’ve seen the sun. Hasn’t bothered me yet!” And he cackled in a very weird sort of way. “Anyway, this here is an old tree. A very old tree—some say older than Time itself. And it used to have great roots. Wasn’t going anywhere. But over time trees, like folks, get itchy feet, you know?”
“Itchy feet?”
“Means they gotta move. Find something new, work somewhere else, do something new, be someone new.”
“Why would anyone want to be someone new?” Jackson tugged on the ends of an orange rag and sealed off a very drippy leak.
“We-ell, imagine if you didn’t like who you were,” said Alfonso, grunting as he tied another rag. “You could just move somewhere new and pretend you’re a whole new person. No one would know you, and you could be anyone you wanted.”
Jackson stared at Alfonso. “Why would anyone want to do that?”
“Because …”
“Because if you didn’t like who you were, then that means you were doing things that weren’t very nice. Instead of just taking off, you should apologize! Then you could work on fixing problems instead of ignoring them,” Jackson burst out.
Alfonso stopped tying and peered at Jackson. “Wait. Wait a minute. What do you mean you can just apologize?”
“I mean just say you’re sorry!”
“But what if what you did was really awful?” Alfonso began worrying his rag. (This doesn’t mean he was worried about his rag or that his rag was worried. It means that he was twisting it about in a nervous way.)
“Then apologize!”
Alfonso nodded. “Yes, but what if it was really, really awful?” He worried the rag more.
“Yes, yes, I see, but what if it was something really, really, really awful?” The rag had almost came apart in his hands.
Jackson threw his hands up. “Are you serious? A-pol-o-gize.”
Alfonso paused. “But … but what if …”
“Alfonso.”
“Yes, but … you don’t understand.”
Jackson sighed. But then he reached out to Alfonso’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Just say you’re sorry, okay?” Alfonso nodded.
There was a long moment of silence, during which Jackson pretended not to hear the sniffly sounds coming from Alfonso’s direction. Instead, he looked around at all the roots and brightly-colored rags tied tightly around them.
“Are you sure this tree wants to leave? I mean, trees don’t normally just walk away, do they? They normally just keep their roots in the ground and grow.” Jackson wrapped a yellow rag under and over a root and brought the ends together.
“Well,” Alfonso sniffed, “I don’t know for sure that it wants to leave …”
Jackson paused. “Then why are you doing this?”
“It’s my job.”
Both of them were quiet for a minute—then two—then three. Finally: “When was the last time you were home?” Jackson asked.
Alfonso looked at Jackson. “I don’t know.”
And then … Wait. What was that noise?