Empty Mile (10 page)

CHAPTER 12

A
week later, when we officially started work on Plantasaurus, I still hadn’t told my father about it. Stan and I went over to the garden center midmorning and found the place full of men in coveralls loading everything that could be moved into trucks outside. Rachel showed us the plants Bill had said Stan could have. There were forty assorted centerpiece shrubs around six feet high—dracaenas, weeping figs, kentia palms, etc.—ten large trays of smaller subtropical plants, and a pallet of potting mix.

It took us two hours to lug the plants and the soil over to our warehouse. When we were done we drove to a copy shop in Oakridge. Earlier that morning we’d sketched out a design for the fliers that were to be our principal means of advertising—I’d written a description of our services and above this Stan had drawn a smiling, cartoon-style brontosaurus holding a big flower in its mouth. We talked through the design with the copy guy and ordered five thousand fliers.

After that, we hit the road for Burton. There was a plastic-molding business there that had the kind of containers we needed as planters for the displays Stan had in mind.

The hour-long drive felt like an adventure—the day was beautiful and we were on a mission, out in the world actively pursuing the dream of self-employment. Stan was twitching with excitement.

“Hey, Johnny, you think we should get the truck painted too?”

“With a dinosaur?”

“Yeah, and the name, so people will know as soon as they see us.”

“This truck?”

“It’d look cool.”

“Would we have to have the flower as well?”

Stan laughed. “Hey, Johnny, you know what? I’m stoked.”

Burton was twice the size of Oakridge and it took us a while to find the molding factory that made the planters. When we did, we bought what the pickup would carry of the models we wanted—cylindrical drums and long rectangular troughs—and placed a wholesale order for more to be delivered the next day.

It was early afternoon when we got back to our warehouse. The workmen had gone from the garden center and the complex was closed and locked and already had an air of abandonment about it. After we’d carried our planters inside Stan showed me how to build a display.

I followed his instructions on how high to fill the planters with soil and what plants to use and where to place them so that they looked good and gave a balanced effect. The drums were simple. A layer of pumice stones, several inches of potting mix, remove the black plastic wrapping from the root mass of a single palm or dracaena, center it in the pot, and fill it up with potting mix.

After we’d done a few of these we moved on and prepared a couple of troughs. Stan called these “display planters” and they took more time since a selection of plants had to be used to create a symmetrical display that rose gradually from the ends of the box toward a high point in the center.

It was pleasant being there like that. The scent of the dark moist earth and the green humidity of the plants made the work seem clean and real and good, and for the two hours we spent at it there was no need to think too deeply about things.

Even so, I couldn’t help moments of vague unease. I’d had to pay Bill Prentice the first three months of the lease up front and even though he’d given us a good price, that and the deal we’d just done for the planters had taken more than half my savings. We still had Stan’s money, but there would be more plants and soil to buy, and there would be bills too—electricity, insurance, the cost of running the pickup …

Toward midafternoon, while we were still working, I heard a car pull up. Shortly afterwards, faintly, beyond the tin walls of our warehouse, it seemed to me that someone was walking around the outside of the garden center. I assumed it was someone who’d come to buy garden supplies and that they’d go away when they finally figured out the place had gone out of business. But when there were still noises five minutes later Stan and I went outside to take a look.

Midway between the garden center and our warehouse a man stood looking carefully at the section of land. Though he could not have failed to notice us he gave no immediate indication of it. Instead, his gaze continued to wander over the buildings as though he was taking an inventory. Beyond him, in the parking lot, a red convertible E-type Jaguar bounced sun off its paintwork.

When he’d finished his inspection the man walked over to where we were. For an instant, as he looked at me, an expression of hatred rippled across his face, then he smiled and it was gone and he stuck out his hand.

“Jeremy Tripp. You’re Johnny Richardson. And you’re Stan.”

Stan made a surprised noise. “Wow, how’d you know?”

Jeremy Tripp waved his hand dismissively. “A man moves into a new town, he does his homework.” He gazed toward the trees that lined the road. “This is a very nice spot.”

There were two wooden benches in front of the warehouse, put there to add a little rustic charm to the metal shed. Jeremy Tripp sat down on one, leaned back comfortably, and gazed at us. He was in his late forties and a few inches under average height. He had brown hair that had been highlighted and a body that, while not overweight, was more padded by fat than muscle. He looked like a man who was used to dealing with people. He waved at the other bench.

“Sit down, it’s a beautiful day.”

I found his proprietary air offensive but as we were just starting a business it seemed sensible not to be offensive back. Stan and I sat and I forced myself to make conversation.

“So you’re new in town?”

“Mmm, arrived yesterday. Got a place on the Slopes.”

“What brings you to Oakridge?”

He looked levelly at me and took some time to reply. “I’m thinking about building a small hotel here.”

“Oh? Whereabouts?”

“I’m not certain yet, though I have a possibility in mind.”

“Is that what you do, build hotels?”

“I ran a telecommunications company. I’m taking a leave of absence. I was getting flaccid. The challenges in that world are really not so interesting. The boardroom is bullshit. What I’m interested in is something real. We’re like children, John, always children. We have to keep pushing at the walls of our playpens. Without that there isn’t a whole lot else to do.”

“I guess.”

“You don’t sound as though you know your own mind. You should watch that. The mind is the most powerful thing we have. A big, strong guy can beat someone up. But a smart guy can destroy a whole life.”

“If he wanted to.”

“If the person deserved it, it would be satisfying, don’t you think? Manipulating events to get that result.”

Despite the dictates of good business sense, I was thinking of getting up and leaving him to pontificate to himself, but he laughed and shook his head.

“Don’t pay any attention to me. I get these crazy ideas and I blurt them out. I don’t mean a word I say. What do you do, John?”

Stan chirped up before I could answer. “We’re starting a business.”

“Really, Stanley? Tell me about it, I’m all ears.”

“We’re going to put plants into stores and people’s houses.”

“I know the sort of thing.”

“Hey, you could be our first customer. Is your house big?”

“Yes, it is.”

“I bet it would look better with some plants in it.”

“It might. How are you structured? A one-off start up fee and a monthly maintenance charge?”

Stan looked nervously across at me and I pretended I had at least some idea of what I was doing and answered Jeremy Tripp with a firm “Yes.”

Stan took him into the warehouse and showed him the displays we’d assembled. When they came out again Tripp told us how many planters he wanted, then he shook Stan’s hand and sat back down.

“Done deal.”

I thought Stan would burst with happiness. “Boy, this is incredible! Hey, Mr. Tripp, can I go look at your car?”

“That’s not a car. That’s a VI2 E-type Jaguar. Yes, you can look at it.”

“Wow, thanks!”

Stan bounded off to the parking lot. Jeremy Tripp watched him go.

“You two seem close.”

“We are.”

“Your brother appears to be quite invested in this plant venture.”

“Yes.”

“For the money? Because he doesn’t really seem like the money type. Tell me, is he challenged?”

“He had an accident when he was young.”

“And this is his chance to feel like he’s part of the normal world?”

“I don’t know.”

Tripp smiled knowingly. “Did you research your market?”

“What’s to research? No one else in Oakridge does it.”

“Even so, I’d be surprised if the town could sustain this kind of business. You’ll get customers, of course, the question is will you get enough of them? You have to pay for your stock, cover your operating costs, and generate sufficient profit to make the whole thing worthwhile. Juggling your income and your expenses can be tricky, John. I should know.”

“Well, we’re going to give it a shot.”

“How do you think your brother will react if that shot fails?”

“I guess he’ll come to terms with it.”

“Really?”

Stan came back from the parking lot then. “Cool car, um, Jaguar, I mean.”

Tripp’s face brightened. “Just the man! How would you feel if your plant business didn’t make it, Stan?”

Stan looked at him in surprise. His mouth trembled and he glanced at me then back at Tripp. “Don’t you want plants anymore?”

“Oh, I want them, don’t worry about that. But what if no one else does? What if no one ever leases plants from you?”

“Well, I … I …” Stan couldn’t form an answer and I saw tears start in his eyes.

I stood up and clapped my hands together and made a show of being the upbeat, busy guy who really just had to get on with his work. “Well, we’ve got a lot to do here. We can come out tomorrow with your displays, if that’s convenient.”

Jeremy Tripp just sat and smiled at me for a moment. Then he stood up. “That would be dandy.” As he turned to go back to his car he put his head close to mine and whispered, “Doesn’t look like he’d come to terms with it to me.”

After he’d gone Stan looked at me unhappily. “He’s weird, Johnny.”

“You can say that again. But guess what? We got our first customer.”

Stan made a superhero noise and raised his fists in the air. “Yeah! Plantasaurus lives!”

And though it
was
an exciting event, and I high-fived and clowned around with Stan, I couldn’t help wondering how the hell Jeremy Tripp had known our names and where to find us. And what he really wanted, because I was sure he had no interest in our plants at all.

My father came home that evening with presents for us. In the past his choice of birthday and Christmas gifts had been a family joke. Although he never missed these occasions the things he bought seemed either to have come from some bargain basement bin, or otherwise had no relevance to the person for whom they were intended.

As an adult I had tried to understand this seeming incompetence. He was an intelligent man, so it wasn’t that he didn’t have the ability to make appropriate choices. He was not a wealthy man, but neither was he so strapped for cash that he was prevented from buying something reasonable. What I came to suspect was that he felt the choosing of a gift that would delight its recipient, that required thinking about and searching for, was an action that would betray too much emotional involvement on his part. And so he chose instead to give gifts that were empty of meaning and maintained the barriers to engagement that seemed so necessary to him. But this evening, when he came home in a white Ford Taurus rental, his presents were nothing like that.

We sat around the table in the kitchen. The back door and the windows were open and the scent of the garden came lightly in, as though its essence had been dried and powdered and was suspended now about us, whispering of all the things summer could be. The sun was low against the rim of the Oakridge basin and the sky above the trees had turned rose with the warm dust of evening.

My father was pale beneath his sallow skin and looked tired, but it seemed that whatever made him tired had also loosened his usual restraint because he spoke easily and his movements were open and unthought. It was a magical time. One of so few across the stretch of my life where he let fall the armor of fatherhood and allowed himself to become equal to his children.

The three of us talked for a while about nothing in particular. My father told the small stories that accrete about every family, the domestic occurrences that for some reason or other take a wrong turn and become with the passage of time a trove of intimate humor. They were part of Stan and me, they were part of my father, and the three of us laughed at ourselves in them. They would have seemed boring to anyone else. To us, though, their meaning was not in their content but in their ability to make us remember that we were father and son and brother.

In one of the lulls between conversation my father cleared his throat and, looking quite embarrassed, took two gift-wrapped presents from the pocket of his jacket and put them on the table before us.

“I, ah, wanted to give you both something.”

Stan clapped his hands then frowned. “It’s not birthday time, Dad.”

“I know, but I just wanted you two to know how much you mean to me.” He spoke haltingly and I could almost feel him squirming inside. “I’ve been something of a … peculiar father and I haven’t done or said everything that perhaps I should have. So I wanted you to have something you could keep in case … well, in case you were ever in any doubt about how I feel.”

Stan and I sat looking at him without speaking. We were dumbfounded. I think in a way we were almost scared. Surely this kind of speech was something we’d only hear as a prelude to catastrophe—an impending earthquake, perhaps, or a recently pronounced sentence of death.

We opened the gifts. Mine was a Tag Heuer watch, engraved on the back with
To John, from Dad
. It was by far the most expensive thing he had ever given me, and more than that it was tastefully chosen. On the other side of the table Stan drew a gold chain from its torn packet of wrapping paper. He held it up to the light.