Be Good Be Real Be Crazy (8 page)

“HOMES, IF I HOLD IT
much longer, I'll increase my chances of developing cystitis, which also puts me at risk for permanent damage to the kidneys and other internal organs.”

“Cist— What?” Homer looked down at the directions he'd printed at the Hideaway Motel's business center that morning. He'd been in a rush and yanked the paper out of the printer before the ink had had a chance to set, and so he was left with smudged directions to the one college he'd promised D.B. he'd visit.

“Cystitis. It's the medical term for bladder inflammation.”

“Steiner, if you see a place, we'll stop. But given that we've passed nothing but horses and farmhouses since we got off the highway, you'll probably have to hold it until we get to Pillar College. Or you can water a tree.”

Homer glanced in the rearview mirror. Einstein's cheeks were puffed out and he was squirming from side to side.

“You look like a blowfish right now,” he said, turning his eyes back to the two-lane country road. “At risk for cystitis? How do you come up with this stuff?”

“Really?” Einstein went from blowfish to puzzled, his head tilted in a way that suggested he didn't know whether Homer was kidding or not.

“Yes, really.”

“I'm a genius.”

Einstein, Homer noticed, said “I'm a genius” the way another person might say “I'm six feet tall” or “I'm an enthusiastic fisherman.”

“What do you guys think about ‘Oscar'?” Mia had found a pair of sunglasses with plastic pineapples on the sides under the bed in her motel room that morning and hadn't taken them off since. Homer couldn't look at her without smiling. “Or ‘Penelope'? I could use ‘Penny' for short. ‘Lucky Penny,' that's a cute nickname, don't you think?”

“Name for what?” Einstein hollered from the backseat.

“For Tadpole, silly,” Mia said, shaking a paperback book in the space between the front seats. “I need a real name. Look what I found at the gas station while you guys were getting doughnuts.”

“One Thousand and One Names for Your Baby,” Einstein read. “If there're one thousand and one names in there, I think you can find something better than ‘Oscar.'”

“Steiner, S.F.,” Homer said without much conviction. He
was too busy trying to keep the Banana on the road while figuring out if he should be looking for Silver Pond Road or Slither Pond Road to put much energy into calling his little brother on his rudeness.

“No way that's an S.F. Mia asked for my opinion, right?”

Homer saw Mia nod and wiggle back and forth as she turned the pages of her book. “Yup. Yup. I asked. Can't get mad at the answer. What about ‘Ernest'? Or ‘Anastasia'?” She pushed the pineapple sunglasses back up her nose and tucked her candy-apple-red hair behind her ears.

That simple gesture, how Mia brushed her hair off her face, was so effortlessly hot that Homer had to force himself to look away.

“Now that I think about it,” she continued, “I should probably go, too. Bladder infection? No, thank you.”

“Really? Again?” Homer asked.

“Preggo ladies have to pee all the time,” Mia said as she reached down and shuffled the magazines at her feet until she found a particularly thick one. She set it on her lap. “According to Dr. Traynor—” Mia cleared her throat and, in an exaggerated accent somewhere between British and Australian, read, “During your pregnancy the amount of blood in your body increases by almost fifty percent— Wait, that wasn't the part I wanted.” She began flipping through the pages. “I'll find the part about needing to go all the time. Just give me a sec.”

“They have a magazine just for pregnant ladies?” Einstein
asked, peering through the crack between Mia's seat and the door.

“Nope.” Mia looked up. “It's a parenting magazine. Homer got it for me when I found out I'd be having a Tadpole.”

“He did?” Einstein replied. “Isn't that something the baby's dad should—”

“Look, I can't read the printout and my cell doesn't get reception.” Homer said, dropping his phone in one of the Banana's giant cup holders. “There's a farm stand ahead. You guys can pee. I can get directions. Win. Win. Win.”

Mia clapped her hands together. “I hope they have pickled beets.”

“Pickled beets?” Homer asked.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mia shrug. “Babies crave strange things, Homer. What can I tell you?”

“Guess I learned something today,” Homer said, taking a left turn at the sign for Doxy Community Farm Stand into a dirt parking lot.

“Oh, that's nothing. Did you know that babies don't have kneecaps and they can't swallow and breathe at the same time for months and months? Plus . . .” Mia, still wearing her ridiculous sunglasses, continued talking as she slid out of the Banana and walked toward a red, shacklike structure with a hand-painted sign proudly declaring “Open All Year!!!” above the door. She was already inside by the time Homer and Einstein caught up.

“Huh,” Einstein said, scanning the dusky space. “I've never
been to a farm stand, but aren't they supposed to have . . . stuff? Farm stuff?”

The store was nearly empty save for a few jars of jam on a counter above an old-fashioned metal cash register and a handful of sad-looking potatoes in a bin close to the door.

“Maybe they're closed,” Homer replied, swatting at the strings of cobweb he'd walked right into off his face. “You might need to water a tree after all, Steiner.”

“Nuh-uh.” Einstein shook his head and hopped from one foot to the other. “I'm still itchy from the bites I got yesterday—in places you can't scratch in public.”

“Hello?” Mia called, pushing her sunglasses on top of her head as she stepped away from the lonely potatoes and farther into the shack.

“Hello! Are you here for the tour?” A voice, high-pitched with enthusiasm, bounced around the empty space. “Brother Bob is going to be so excited.” The tall man who strode into the shack through a door in the back right corner was dressed in denim overalls dotted with multiple patches, each a different color and pattern. His stained shirt had uneven sleeves, and his floppy straw hat was at least two sizes too big. “Bob, get out here! You have some folks here for the tour.”

“What tour?” Homer asked, but if the oddly dressed man heard him, he gave no indication.

“Okay.” The man clapped his bony hands together, then ran his long fingers through his stringy beard as if he were thinking
deeply. “What can I tell you about our community? Let's see, we're a farming collective, in the spirit of Jeremiah Johacksenburg's grand vision. We like to call him J.J. around here.” The man guffawed and slapped a hand against his leg.

Homer shuffled closer to Mia while the man was still doubled over.
Just grab a corner of her jacket and Einstein's shoulder and pull them both toward the door.

“Excuse me,” Mia said, raising her hand.

“No need for schoolhouse formalities around here, young lady.” The man swung his arms like a conductor leading an orchestra into a crescendo. “As J.J. once said, ‘We're all students and the world is a corrupted classroom from which we learn nothing but how to bring about our own undoing.'”

Mia lowered her arm. “Mr. I'm-not-sure-what-your-name-is—who's Jeremiah Whats-it?”

“You can call me Jenkins. Brother Jenkins.” The man leaned against an empty display that, according to the handwritten sign above it, once held “Organic Farm-Fresh Local, Free-Range, Gluten-Free Cabbage.” “I suppose I should start at the beginning. You'll have to forgive me. It's been a while since we've had prospective community members come for a tour. I'm a little rusty. Phew.” Jenkins whistled. “Okay, back to the start. Brother Jeremiah was a nineteenth-century visionary. He had the foresight to see that technology would one day destroy society, and in order—”

“He thought technology in the eighteen hundreds was
bad?” Einstein interrupted. His squirming in the Banana was nothing compared to the dance he was doing now.

A cloud of confusion passed over Jenkins's face. He was clearly not used to having his pitch interrupted, but after a moment his salesman smile returned. “Brother Jeremiah had the genius to understand that the air conditioners, the airplane, plastic, were all going to—”

“But—” Einstein interrupted again. This time, he stopped shifting from one foot to the other but kept his hands pressed against the front of his pants. “Willis Carrier didn't invent the air conditioner until 1902. The Wright brothers didn't get a plane legitimately off the ground until 1903, and synthetic plastic wasn't created until Leo Baekeland made Bakelite in 1907.”

Now Jenkins looked outright stunned and, Homer thought, a little panicky. “Well,” he eventually spurted, “think of those examples as metaphors. So as I was saying, Brother Jeremiah saw the destructive path the world was taking and took it upon himself to lead a chosen few to salvation. He established the first of many Johacksenburgian communities in the Adirondacks in 1842. His followers achieved harmony with nature. Avoided the temptations of the world. And they all lived happily ever after.”

“The end.” A guy in an outfit just like Jenkins's minus the hat sauntered into the shack. “Did you tell them the next part of your inspirational spiel? About how we both gave up lucrative careers and rent-controlled apartments in Wallisburg to live off
the land and be one with nature?” Each time the second guy made air quotes with his fingers, Jenkins flinched.

“Did Brother Jenkins happen to mention that there're only two members of our utopian community?” The ranting guy threw his arms in the air and turned toward Homer, Mia, and Einstein. “Did I interrupt him telling you three all about how neither one of us can farm for shit and our own parents won't join New Eden?”

“Brother Bob,” Jenkins said, his teeth clenched in a pained smile. “Language. The Powers That Be would not approve.”

Bob grunted and rubbed his chest. “I would give an arm for a pair of blue jeans. Hell”—he started scratching the back of his neck—“I'd give my nuts for clothing that didn't itch like I was wearing a damn sheep.”

For a long, awkward moment, the only noise was the furious scraping of Bob's fingernails against his skin.

Einstein was the first one to speak. “Do you guys have a bathroom?”

“We have an outhouse,” Jenkins replied brightly. “Built it ourselves from reclaimed wood.”

Einstein mulled this over. “Well, I guess that's better than peeing on a tree.”

“That's the spirit,” Brother Jenkins said, swinging his right arm across his chest. “Just be careful on the last step and don't bother with the light switch. Someone”—Jenkins jerked his head toward Bob—“can't figure out how to properly hook up
the solar panels we spent the last of my, sorry,
our
savings on.”

“What are you saying about those damn panels?” Bob, still itching various parts of his body, looked up. “I told you, they're defective. It's not my fault I got sent a shoddy product.”

“I wasn't even talking about them, Robert. Stop being so paranoid.” Jenkins rolled his eyes. “Such a Sensitive Sally, that one.”

“Okay, I'm going to go. Be right back.” Einstein darted out the door Jenkins had appeared through before Homer could catch his little brother's eye and silently communicate to be quick.

“We can wait for him,” Jenkins said, leaning against one of the many empty barrels that were scattered throughout the room. “The tour is short.”

“Yeah, because we only have three buildings, and this dump and the stupid outhouse are two of them.” Bob glowered as he backed up to the wooden pole near an empty apple bin and started rubbing against it like a bear against a tree.

Homer got the sense that Jenkins would have been throwing vegetables by now if there had been any. Jenkins's patient, happy expression was as natural as a winter storm in a snow globe. “So, what brought you in today? I bet you saw the nifty sandwich board I set by the highway.”

Mia opened her mouth, paused, then shut it.
If even Mia's lost for words—
Homer didn't have the chance to finish the thought before Jenkins spoke again.

“Painted that sign myself. I imagine that you three are just
the beginning of all the curious travelers who decide to pop in.”

“They didn't see the stupid sign. No sane human beings are going to drive ten miles out of their way because of a sandwich board.” Bob stepped away from the pole, his fingers twitching as though now they too were itchy.

“People love that sign. It's iconic,” Jenkins said, pulling a square of cloth from the chest pocket of his overalls and wiping it across his forehead.

Homer started stepping backward in the direction of the door. “Mia, maybe we should go—”

“You put it outside last Monday. How could it be iconic? Do you even know what ‘iconic' means? Or did they not use big words at your couldn't-get-into-the-Ivy-League-so-I-have-to-go-here safety school?” Bob's face was as red as the cartoonish apple on the wall just over his left shoulder.

“Mia,” Homer tried again. “Let's give—”

“Oh, come on. You're still angry that I got in and you didn't. Real mature, Robert. Way to get over the past.”

“Well, the eggplant on your stupid sign looks like a penis,” said Bob as he crossed his arms.

“No it doesn't.”

“Uh, yes it does.”

“Excuse me.” Mia's shout was strong enough to make Homer step back and loud enough to startle Jenkins and Bob into silence. “The thing is, babies can hear.” She put her hands on the sides of her stomach as though she were covering Tadpole's
ears. “So I'd rather you not shout. Plus, you two are behaving like a couple of jerk-faces. If you keep doing that, no one's going to want to join your thingie.”