The F train was just pulling into the station when Jeremy reached the platform on Saturday, so he was fifteen minutes early for the Earth Day meeting. When he picked up a spicy bean chimichanga and walked into the back room of the burrito bar, Carl and Sari were already at the table, talking with their heads close together. They looked up and their conversation stopped short, leaving two words hanging frozen in the air: Molotov. Cocktail.
Sari and Carl looked at each other, then spoke at the same time.
“Hey, Jerry,” Carl said.
“You’re early.” Sari pointed to her watch.
Molotov cocktail. Jeremy’s face must have reflected the two words because Carl fumbled. “We were, you know, just shooting the bull.”
“Shooting the bull,” Sari repeated. “Nothing important.”
The first time Jeremy heard the words Molotov cocktail was in the visiting room at the prison. It must’ve been very early in their father’s sentence because he and Tim were still terrified by the place—the beefy guards, the ugly smells, the other prisoners with their shuttered faces. Their dad had already put on that waxy face too—Francie explained that it was a mask to protect him in the rough prison—but the day he mentioned Molotov cocktails his mask slipped for a moment.
That day it took Francie and the twins longer than usual to get through the multiple checkpoints, the bag inspection, waiting for the slow computer processing and finally, the approval. Then they were at a round table. The red line painted on the floor bisected the visiting room and the prisoners weren’t allowed to step over. The vending machines lined up along the wall, forbidden territory to prisoners, but Francie wouldn’t let them buy any cheese doodles or soda anyway. They ate hummus and veggie sandwiches from the old white Styrofoam cooler that shrieked when Francie pulled off the lid.
That is, the twins ate. Her face flushed and shiny, Francie tried to interest Tian in morsels of neighborhood gossip. It drove her nuts that she couldn’t touch him. Hugs were allowed only at the beginning and end of a visit; Francie called them bookend hugs and claimed it was cruel and unusual punishment and that was against the law. In between hugs, Francie talked nonstop and Tian rarely responded, his face hard and fragile at the same time. Jeremy imagined his dad’s skin was eggshell thin, and a little crack would let his thick feelings ooze out. They didn’t though, not all the years in prison, except that one day.
“What can I do to cheer you up?” Francie asked Tian that day. “Bring you something special next week? A cake or something?” She rested her forearms on the table and leaned forward toward Tian, smiling broadly. Jeremy flushed at the way her breasts pushed up when she leaned like that. He looked down at his Batman sticker book.
“How about a Molotov cocktail?” Tian said, his whisper fierce enough to make Jeremy and Tim stop playing and stare at him.
“Quiet!” Francie gestured at the guard with her chin. “They hear you talking like that, they’ll stick you in solitary and never let us back to visit.” Tian looked away and Francie hid her face in her arms. Jeremy crumpled the Batmobile sticker in his hand and stared at the guard on his stool, willing him not to hear his father’s words.
On the long ride home, Jeremy asked his mom what a Molotov cocktail was, the bad thing his dad wanted.
“An explosive device,” she had said. “Nothing you need to know about.”
People crowded around the big table strewn with bean-stained napkins and splotched with salsa verde. Jeremy nibbled at his food while loud conversation spiraled and the room grew warm and the meeting went on and on. He kept losing track of the argument. Teach-in versus sit-in. The discussion spun in circles, with tactics and goals and strategies and objectives twirling wildly in the air like smoke. At the center of the murky language tornado, two words stood motionless. Molotov cocktail. Unspoken but loud.
“We should focus on getting the university to divest in fossil fuel,” Sari said. “Economic pressure will force the industry to pay for their carbon emissions and that’ll level the playing field for renewable energy sources.”
“Divestiture is fine,” said a man Jeremy recognized from the meeting after Mary’s lecture. “But it’s not enough. It ignores global overpopulation and resource depletion. We’ve got to create a new structure for society, like massive permaculture projects. We’ve started a small farm on campus, but it could be so much more. Maybe we could take over the botanical gardens or Prospect Park and grow food to serve the people. Occupy the land!”
A woman Jeremy hadn’t seen before shook her head. “Come down to earth, Tommy. We need stronger local regs about recycling and emissions. People need to take individual responsibility for their carbon footprint, you know?”
Greenhope looked around the room and spoke slowly. “Turning this monster around is going to take more than outlawing plastic bottles or driving a hybrid car. The big carbon polluters are criminals. If we don’t stop them, our children will inherit a dead planet.”
Jeremy couldn’t imagine having children. He tried to picture Mary as a mother.
“This is not only about students,” Carl said. “A teach-in could offer avenues for activism both on campus and in the community. Education is critical.”
“Maybe a radio program, like the one you did at UMass, Jeremy,” Sari said. “I listened to a few of the podcasts and they’re amazing.”
Jeremy leaned back and closed his eyes. Sari listened, so why wasn’t she—or anyone—talking about the dying plants? Why wasn’t he saying something?
As the meeting broke up, the guy called Tommy came over. “Hey,” he said. “Did Sari say you were from UMass? I hear they’ve got this awesome permaculture project going. Have you been involved with that?”
Jeremy shook his head. He’d seen a course listed in the bio department.
“Forget gardens.” Sari touched his arm. “Did you read the Green Book?”
“Most of it.”
“What’d you think?”
“I’m not sure. They seem to believe the only way to save the planet is to bring down civilization. Sacrificing 90 percent of the earth’s population.” He shrugged. “That’s a little hard to stomach.”
Sari nodded. “Still, they make a pretty compelling argument, don’t they?”
Greenhope interrupted her. “Compelling but totally unacceptable.” She turned to Jeremy. “Will you be at Saturday’s planning meeting?”
Jeremy shook his head. “I have to go home this weekend for my brother’s birthday, but I’ll be back for Earth Day.”
“Good,” Sari said. “Because I want to talk with you about the Green Book. And about some other actions we’ve been thinking about.”
Like Molotov cocktails? No thanks. He turned to leave. “I haven’t finished the book yet,” he said over his shoulder.
Jeremy walked toward the subway. Images of the Green Book and Molotov cocktails ricocheted inside his brain. Did any of these people even care about plant genocide? His feet played a dirge beat on the sidewalk. His lips found the syllables of species lost from the planet and chanted their names in mourning. Pluchea glutinosa. In the air around him, deep musical notes grew from the mantra of Latin nomenclature, the melody faint and familiar but not quite recognizable. Shorea cuspidata.
Odd that he never before noticed the gated park on his right, so luxuriant and lush for mid-April that the tall metal fencing couldn’t contain the exuberant growth. Leafy branches heavy with buds twined around the metal balusters and climbed to the ornate spindles sharp against the afternoon sky. Broad leaves escaped between the fencing and reached for him as the music swelled and then he knew it. Of course he did—it was the Kyrie from Missa Luba. He hadn’t played that CD since the awful night of his interrupted radio program and visit to the Health Service. None of that mattered now. The music expanded to fill the air and he added the harmony of his offerings: Radula visiniaca. Psiadia schweinfurthii.
The music grew louder, more orchestral, more salutation than requiem now. Thick branches squeezed through the fence stakes and pushed at him. The metal itself began growing and changing, morphing into organic shapes, shiny metal limbs and delicately veined leaves, and they reached for him too. A long twig—was it vegetable or mineral? How bizarre that he couldn’t distinguish between them—wrapped itself around his right arm and squeezed, sending minuscule green shoots pricking through his skin into his flesh, into his cells, into his circulating blood. The branch tugged at him and the fencing spread itself open. As the forged steel railings curved apart to welcome him, Jeremy stepped off the sidewalk and into the garden.