Walk Among Us, page 20
But before that, the slaughter.
Ecovillage
We’re a small food and arts commune up in North Portland, on just shy of two hundred acres of former industrial land near the airport that nobody else wanted, turning weeds into farmers market gold, wage slaves into artists, and people at the end of their rope into healthier, more “functional” members of society. It’s a noble goal, and we do it well. We’ve been open for just a few years, and already we have over a hundred and fifty members—and a lot more on the waitlist. But we can only get the approval for new houses so quickly, and what we build is quality, no double-wides or half-insulated shacks. No, we are going to fit in. We want Craftsman-style looks, and comfortable living. We’ve even rescued a few from demolition for infill development, picking them off their crumbling foundations and moving them up here to fresh concrete pours, and I’ve been working on restoring them in my off time. Winter’s good for that.
All of this—the commune, the sheep, the houses, my job—I owe to Lucille. She’s an old-timer, one of the rare locals, and she’s a great coworker. She understands our mission statement even better than I do. She wrote the thing, after all. It was her idea, to build a collective that’s ethical from top to bottom, nose to tail. There are so many people in this city who need help, support, inspiration, structure, and we can give that to them. In return, they work the soil if they want to, create art, and live safer lives. But no matter what, they all contribute to this great moral feast, nourishment without guilt, organized to benefit all.
Around me, the night deepens. My watch buzzes an alarm. It’s time to head into the office; there’s an applicant due for an intake interview in half an hour, and I don’t want to keep her waiting.
The Interview
Robin Joy is perfect.
Not her name (the name is unfortunate, but that’s the one she prefers, and the one on her birth certificate) but the rest of the package. Her voice is powerful, her words undeniable, her stage presence glorious and addictive. And now she’s sitting in the chair across from me, her plump, freckled legs crossed at the ankle, asking to live with me.
“Look,” she says, leaning in, “I’ve never tried anything like this, and I can’t say I’ve always wanted to, either. But it’s cool, what you’re doing here. It’s really good stuff. The outreach, the self-funding, I’m a big fan.” Formulaic, perfect interview answers, but coming from her, they feel genuine. They are genuine. I can tell these things.
It’s early for me, around six in the evening, but I had to be the one to interview her. Everything about her, the vibrancy and life she exudes, has been calling to me. I couldn’t leave this to Key like I normally would.
She doesn’t know that I’ve watched all five of her most recent performances across town in the last twelve months. That’s probably for the best. It means she’s open with me, honest, and doesn’t expect me to be impressed. Wants me to be, yes, but doesn’t expect. Maybe that’s real humility, or maybe she’s still in that wretched stage every artist goes through, where they’re embarrassed people agree that they’re good. Or maybe she knows how to work a fresh audience. Live performers are good at that, and even though her work isn’t improv (she’s done a few podcast interviews on her process, I’ve listened to them all), I know she’s got that special something.
“I want to do the work program,” she says, before I can do more than smile and offer her a beer from the minifridge behind my desk. She cracks it open smoothly. That’s her blip of bartending experience, nine months backing at a place in Southwest.
“Rewilding or production?” I ask. The collective needs both still, but I can’t imagine her working either. No, she’s better suited for the farmers market, but we won’t be manning a regular booth again until April.
“Where do you need more help?”
I’d planned to give one answer—focus on your art, we’ll find something in the spring, there’s no rush—but my self-control slips. “I could actually use some help around the office,” I say.
The one job she is in no way qualified for.
But she smiles, and I’m smitten, and what can I do?
She says yes, she’d love to work in the office. She asks if that means she’s been accepted.
“We’d love to have you,” I say, and touch her set of keys, already printed a week ago, that hang beneath my desk.
I knew I was going to say yes when she made the appointment. We almost always do.
We’d—well, I’d—done the homework.
Hawthorn House
She moves in officially four days later. Robin Joy likes privacy, so I put her in Hawthorn House. Right now, she’s the only resident. I make it clear it won’t be like that forever, and she understands. She’s never done this communal living thing, though, and this will be a nice transition.
The house is technically under renovation, but parts of it are finished and livable. There’s running water and electricity everywhere except the kitchen, the replastering should all be set, and the laundry facilities are in working order. I’ve cut corners here and there—the ceiling medallion is Styrofoam from Home Depot—but I doubt anybody but Lucille could tell, and I haven’t invited her to be part of the move-in crew.
“There’s a mini fridge and hot plate,” I say as she drops her bags near the bed. “Yours to keep, even once the kitchen’s working.”
“Are you sure? Somebody else must need them more. I can just go out and get my own,” she says. “I mean, I know the deal is you provide furnished living, but . . .”
“We’re very strict on that,” I respond, smiling. I have a hard time not smiling around her. It’s a problem. “Everything here, we provide. It helps equalize things. Makes sure we’re not appearing to favor anybody, or that we’re out to take people’s belongings or money. We don’t want to look like a cult.”
She laughs at that. “You know, if you say you don’t want to look like a cult, it makes it sound like you know you’re a cult.”
“Well, commune, cult . . . it’s all in how it’s handled, right?” I motion for her to follow me on a brief tour of the house, indicating the work still to be done, and where she can treat the building like it’s her own. “We don’t have anybody at the top. That helps, I think.”
“There’s you. You’re at the top, aren’t you?”
I wave it off. “Just administration. Somebody has to do the accounting and keep everybody from biting each other’s heads off.”
More laughter. We get along really well. That makes me uncomfortable, when I think about it too long, but why should it? I wouldn’t be the first shepherd to have a favorite ewe. And it’s not like I feel hungry when I look at her.
Well, that’s a lie. Of course I feel hungry.
Her art suffuses her, and I can’t get enough of it. It’s not just a job; it practically drips from her, fills the room on her exhales. And I just want more. Something like this was always going to happen, and really, the guilt I’m feeling should just be pride. Pride that I’m really settling into this job.
How could I run an arts commune if I didn’t thrive on art?
“So when’s my first shift?” she asks as we run out of rooms to stroll through. We’re back at her bedroom door, and she leans on it in that inviting, enticing way that some girls have when they’re flirting just a little bit, not quite ready to say goodbye, but not sure yet where they want the night to go.
Well, that makes two of us.
“Tuesday, two in the afternoon,” I say. That’s when Key is working, and they’re solid and reliable.
She gives me a double thumbs-up. “Great, I’ll see you then,” she says.
“No, I work nights. Key will take care of you.”
And that makes her frown. “Oh, I guess I just thought . . .”
That we’d be working together? Yeah, bad idea. Good idea? Fuck. “Maybe once you’re more settled, we can revisit it,” I say. “But nights are tricky. I wouldn’t want to dump you into that first thing. Get to know everybody first, figure out where you fit. Then tell me if you want to spend your nights putting out fires.”
“I guess that makes sense,” she concedes. But she sounds nervous. Lonely. Everything flirtatious has gone out of her, and I suspect she’s realizing that this really is just another place to live, not some exciting adventure.
She’ll settle in, though. She’ll make friends easily. But this is her first night in a new world. “I’ll be here most evenings,” I say, “before work. Finishing the kitchen and everything. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
And just like that, Robin Joy’s shoulders unwind. “That’ll be great,” she says.
Soup
We had our last crop of squash in today. Some of it went into dinner, rice-stuffed roast butternut, and now I’m handling the rest. It’s officially shift time, so I left a sign on my office door. I can play loose with the rules every so often, especially when I’m working elsewhere in the building.
This main building is institutional, a little industrial even, but we’re working on it. Making it as beautiful as it is functional.
The kitchen and dining room were our first projects, and the large prep counters are glorious to work on. The pressure canner and flats of mason jars are ready, and I have plans for a soup that will cook up easily in a big batch and keep well, shelf-stable. We prefer to have the community members do the food prep—it makes them proud—but we also don’t want to overwork them. Some people thrive on overwork, but on the whole, those people aren’t here. Or, if they are, they want to use that energy on art.
I’ll never stand in the way of art. I am of a line of artists, and I was made for a beautiful world.
It takes the better part of an hour, peeling and splitting and seeding and chopping, but I enjoy the glide of the well-sharpened knife. I love cooking, even when I don’t get to eat it. Once all the squash are disassembled, I move on to garlic, bell pepper, and the rest of my mise en place. I measure out a fair amount of nutritional yeast; we have an ongoing problem with pernicious anemia right now with our vegan members, so I’m trying to work the fortified yellow powder in wherever I can.
Finally, I get the cubed, oiled squash roasting in the oven, and sit down at my laptop.
Work can only wait so long, after all.
I pull up our finances. No deposits to record from farmers markets, since they’re thin on the ground this time of year (though soon we’ll probably make wreathes to sell at the winter craft fairs), but we have plenty of expenses. We’re nowhere near self-sufficient, not yet. Give it a few more years. Until then, thank goodness for our patrons.
I hear the footsteps long before their owner arrives in the kitchen, but I’m too focused on reviewing our property tax records to look up. Then I hear, “Leigh?”
Robin. I lift my head. She’s been here two weeks already, but seeing her still fills me with pleasure. “Hi there,” I say, smiling. And it’s a genuine smile, always is for her. “Were you looking for me?”
“No,” she says, but comes and sits down across from me anyway. The tables in the kitchen are small, not the long communal deals from the dining room. I can smell her over the roasting squash: already-dry sweat and a hint of perfume, the same she was wearing the first day she met me. “Well, not really. I mean, I didn’t go by your office or anything.”
“But you want to talk?”
She bites her lip. Nods.
Nervous. Not good. I close my laptop. “Is something wrong?”
“Just . . .” She looks around the room. “I don’t know, do you want to go get a drink? I feel weird talking about it here.”
Very not good. I stand up and turn off the oven. The squash will keep. I wrap up the bowls of chopped garlic and the rest. “I’m not supposed to go off campus during my shift,” I say. She grimaces. “But Lucille’s probably up, or Key. Hang on.” Lucille isn’t my first pick, not normally, but we have a stakeholder coming by tonight around three to pick up an order. He’ll appreciate the luxe touch of having the official owner here to greet him.
I grab up my phone and shoot Lucille a text asking if she can come in to work tonight after all. In under a minute she’s responded, saying yes. Nothing more than that, no details exchanged, because we’re professionals.
I add that I’ve started some squash soup, if she wants to keep it going.
She won’t.
Vegan
We end up in Southeast, at a bar on Division not far from Ladd’s Addition. I drive, because the bus at this time of night only would’ve made Robin more uneasy. Saturday night TriMet gets weird, and even though Robin has lived in town for a few years, she’s relieved to avoid the transfers, the potential incidental nudity, and the bizarre array of substances, teenagers, hipsters, and all the rest.
The bar I pick is entirely vegan, which Robin likes, and loud, which I like. The patio’s still open with a haphazard array of radiant heaters, and I tuck us into a corner by an absolutely stunning mural. I haven’t been here in a year, and it hasn’t changed at all. I can’t tell you how much of a relief that is. I love the new bars and shops, all the variety, but sometimes it’s just nice for things to stand still for a while.
“So, what’s up?” I ask.
She looks down at her spicy paloma. (I just have water. She didn’t ask. Either she’s used to sober friends, or she remembers I’m technically on the clock.) She fidgets instead of answering. She didn’t talk much on the way down to the bar, either. Maybe she’s second-guessing herself now that we’re off campus?
The important thing, no matter what, is to give her space. To make her comfortable, to make sure she feels she can trust me. Trust papers over a lot of sins.
So I don’t fill the silence. I don’t fiddle with my phone or look away as if I’m bored, but I don’t stare at her, either. I wait. I keep my expression open, easy, a little concerned. When more than a minute goes by, I lean forward and rest a hand on her upper arm. Just as I expect, she finally looks at me, expression all nervous desperation tinged with hope.
(I’m very good at reading people. Community manager, shepherd, and all.)
“Hey,” I say, softly. The din of the patio swallows up the sound, but I know she hears it. “It’s okay. If it’s not working out, it’s okay. I’m not going to take it personally.”
(A lie. Of course I would. But no need to get ahead of myself, not here, not now, when she needs me. No time to think about the outboarding process, the way we’ll have to track her, the paperwork I’ll have to fill out.)
“No, it’s—that’s not it. Not exactly.” She ducks her head, takes a swig from her glass. She’s going to go through it quickly. “I’m going to sound paranoid,” she says.
Shit.
That’s all I can think. All my people-reading skills go out the window, all my self-control, and for a moment, I just think SHIT. Somebody fucked up. Have I fucked up? What has she seen? What has she heard?
Shit shit shit.
I make myself take her hands. Just for a moment, just a light squeeze, and then I let go. If she’s figured it out, if we’ve fucked up that badly, I don’t want her to feel unsafe or trapped. I don’t want to cross those boundaries.
But she came to me. To me. And she isn’t angry. Okay. Maybe this isn’t as bad as I thought.
All this takes only a few seconds. She never has a clue.
“Paranoid is okay,” I say. “Whatever it is, I want to know.”
More of the paloma disappears. She drums her fingers on the table, anxious. “All the blood donations,” she says at last.
I stay calm. “What about them?”
“It just seems a little sketchy.” She shrugs. “Unethical, I guess. I mean, I can consent or not, sure, but some of the other members . . . they get rewarded for it. And it’s weird, seeing it happen at a commune. It’s not like we need our own blood bank or something. And it’s not like it’s open to the public.”
Relief floods through me. I can explain this. She’s quite close to the truth. That makes the lie easier, that and how practiced my answer is.
“There’s some context you’re missing,” I say. (Understatement.) “You know the medical services we provide free of charge? The needle-exchange program, the low-cost prescriptions—those are a donation as well. The blood doesn’t pay for that”—it does, although not in a straightforward manner—“but it’s part of a reciprocal relationship. Medical care wouldn’t stop if nobody wanted to provide blood, but it’s an act of goodwill. We like to provide for the community. Not just our community, but the city. Other people who need help.”
Snacks arrive: roasted cauliflower with harissa tahini. She picks at the steaming food, turning over my answer. “Sure, okay,” she concedes. “But like—you know Ethan?”
Ethan is a fifty-five-year-old man who has been with us since the beginning. Before that, he was sleeping rough for two and a half years. He had a heroin problem when we took him in, but decided to try to kick it last year, and is three months, six days clean right now. Good guy. PTSD, not well treated yet, but we give him the resources he needs to make sure most of his days are okay.
“Yes,” I say. “Of course.”
“You don’t feel like he’s being taken advantage of?”
I consider my response carefully.
She doesn’t like waiting, I guess. “I mean,” she says, waving a cauliflower floret as if it’s a wand, “he’s not all there. He’s erratic. Does he—it just seems like he’s being used. Maybe it doesn’t do him any harm, but . . . I don’t know. Institutional overreach, or something. You shouldn’t have to give up parts of your body for a break in rent, you know?”
“Nobody is forced to participate, and we don’t reward participants with money, or extra privileges, or rent breaks,” I say. “Where did you get that idea?”
