An Inhuman Condition

Most people waste their lives collecting commodities and idling as if that’s all there is. But life is much more complicated, more faceted. There is animation in it, electricity. A real spark – a bud on the edge of destruction – could flicker into nothingness in an instant. It is beautiful, sad and perpetually now existing exclusively in the present. It’s something only the creative soul with its beating heart can embrace.

Jake spent his youth unwittingly searching for a spark. He saw through the veils and understood that titles and possessions weren’t a life. He had foresworn material culture and rebelled against it. His existence was one flask-of-Jack, punk-rock, cigarette-burning-before-it-faded-away moment at a time. He lacked the mental programming for hope and future thought. Instead of simply abandoning the old, pointless rules and rituals of his parents, he disowned those of his generation as well. Like so many others, he spiraled into apathy.

He had a look that screamed meth, poverty or both. His cheekbones sunk in just a little, and myriad bruises littered his arms and chest. The green, faded Taz tattoo on his wrist wound with tribal grief up to a Misfits skull on the shoulder before ending in stock scorpion at the base of his neck to complete what he called his “welfare sleeve.” His dirty-dishrag hair could have been mistaken for a chopped-up section of mop never clean and always hidden beneath his ragged cap. His clothes were old and ill-fitting now. Back in his early high-school days, they would have been new and correctly sized, but it must have been before the peak of puberty. His pant legs were never long enough, and the arms of his T-shirts seldom saw halfway down his bony biceps. He didn’t care or give any of it a second thought. If not for indecency laws, he would probably meet the world bare-assed, his dick blowing in the wind.

The knowledge and feeling needed to live burdened Jake, but he could never make out the why or what-for of it all. He had dabbled with sketching and writing semi-anarchistic rants with a modicum of clarity. Like most dejected, punk-rock youth, he had played in a few bands – some with modest success. He could play a guitar, even sing a little, but all he did with it was write songs like “Lewinsky’s Stain-Baby” or “Fuck Money, Steal Whiskey (Skipping the Middlemen).” He could always pick out the contrived crap from the gut-stabbing, authentic, blood-sex-and-sweat of real art; he just didn’t have it in him to write a “Holiday in Cambodia.” He couldn’t project fear, beauty, sadness and joy because he never learned what the things really were.

Onward he went, bustling through his early twenties. Jake had taken a few community college courses here and there, but it all seemed so desperate and naïve to him. Eventually he always thought: “why am I spending my time listening, reading and writing about other people’s experience? I could be out there having my own. Right. Fucking. Now.” And he would pick up in the middle of class or wait out the hour and leave never to return. Even if he never accomplished anything with the time, his life was in the moment, and he felt lucky to have a thousand of them every day.

He tended to spend his days, nights, waking moments at the local café or drunk at a house party in the surrounding neighborhood. It always had the potential to produce interesting people, and Jake thrived there as an organic part of the whole. When he had some cash in his threadbare wallet from selling drugs, buying booze for teens, working sporadically at a local farm or dog-sitting he would spend it there. Often he would just idle around letting wild thoughts flutter in and out of his mind. On this particularly dead summer evening, he was pondering the old man wandering down the street.

They called him the vigilante gardener, but nobody knew much about him. They watched as he ambled across town picking trash from rose bushes, weeding the blooming annuals, watering street-side herb gardens. No one seemed to mind or question it too much. He had to be over fifty, maybe even sixty, with a weary visage. He wore a bright, caution-orange vest – the kind you would see “men at work” wearing on a highway shoulder. In the summer months, sweat poured from his forehead and the usual dirty T-shirt that accompanied his vest disappeared. The chest underneath was like a Brillo pad on tanned leather. His old tattoos, a couple contorted faces and an uneven boat anchor, faded like cigarette stains. With a boxer’s build, biker’s swagger and a sailor’s beard, the gardener was a Jack London novel personified.

Jake always wondered about the gardener, but couldn’t be bothered with addressing him in conversation. Jake liked to make little puzzles for himself trying to figure out the motives and sway of the world without getting too close and caught up. He stared at the odd figure for some time observing the way he lifted cigarette butts into a trash bag and pulled this or that tool from his wheelbarrow of tricks dipping it into dirt doing something of apparent significance. People were wide open to Jake, but this one made a magnificent mystery.

Out of nowhere a small voice ripped him back to reality.

“Do you think it’s public service?” she said.

Jake turned stunned to see the small frame standing before him. She was a tiny thing with dirty-blonde dreadlocks framing her cute, smiling face punctuated by a small lip piercing. Her clothing was eccentric and summerish: a flowing brown skirt with several decorative belts, turquoise-beaded flip-flops, multi-colored armbands and a tight tank-top framing her busty cleavage where an intricate, silver bird charm seemed to nest.

She caught Jake staring and formed a coquettish grin. “It’s a Puffleg,”

“Puff what?”

“Looks like something good for sure – chronic or hash maybe, but I haven’t ruled out opium yet with the way you seem to be on the verge of drooling. But really, my necklace is a Puffleg – it’s a tropical hummingbird. There are over a dozen different types, and they’re named for physical characteristics like the Coppery-bellied Puffleg, Turquoise-throated Puffleg or my favorite, the Glowing Puffleg. That just sounds awesome; don’t you think?”

“I guess,” he said.

The girl’s eyes widened, “You think? If one of them has a coppery belly they call it that. There’s a Glowing Puffleg. I think a glowing bird sounds fantastic.”

“How did we get on the subject of birds?”

“My necklace, remember? You seemed entranced by the glowing might of my silver Puffleg.”

He blushed and held out his hand. “I’m Jake.”

“I’m Caeleigh like you’d never spell it.” She took his hand and curtsied.

“You might be the most confusing girl I’ve met in a while, and I’ve known Rubik’s cubes.”

“Thanks,” she said, “you seem very average for a boy. So what’s this guy’s deal? Is he a city employee or what? He looks too dirty and eclectic to be official.”

“I dunno; they call him the vigilante gardener. He just roams around picking up trash, weeding flowerbeds, pruning bushes and shit. It’s kind of a puzzle.”

Her eyes pondered a moment; “Why don’t you just ask him? Are you afraid he might be part of an underground cult of gardeners sworn to keep the city safe from blighting flora – loyal to an oath of secrecy and therefore forced to assassinate anyone who might learn of their doings?”

“I like the riddle,” Jake said. “It gives me something to do. People seem so transparent most of the time. It’s refreshing to find some mystery in a person. Your average Joe wouldn’t spend his waking hours wandering the city tending to nature – at least not since Druidic culture was all the rave.”

“Congratulations, Jake. That actually sounds like a worthy game. I’m betting on the cult theory though. I have a sneaking suspicion that they might be the last surviving tribe of Druids. They worship oak and berries while sacrificing all who uncover their ways to the glowing bird god, Puffy.”

“Puffy, eh? Well now that you’ve figured it out, aren’t you afraid they’ll come for you?”

“Not in the slightest. We have the same god for one, but you ought to be afraid if you ask me.”

“Oh, and why is that?”

“Well it’s simple, really. I’m duty bound to report you now, and it obviously means I’m a lot smarter than you because you’ve been pondering this for some time and I cracked the case in only a few seconds of sarcastic banter. It’s been nice knowing you, Jake. I’m off to find their lair and start my new life of religious clarity. Puffy acknowledges your brave sacrifice.”

She flicked her cigarette into the street and strode away. Jake stood stunned as she took a dozen steps and it was clear she wasn’t joking. A brief panic overtook him, and he jogged after her.

He yelled, “Hey, wait a second!”

“Gosh Jake, I’m not having a change of heart about this.”

“No, that’s all well and good, but if you don’t find their hideout or they decide to let me live, do you maybe want to hang out sometime?”

“Well… I think it’s very unlikely you’ll live once I find them, but I suppose if you’ll be loitering around here all summer, we’re bound to run into each other again.”

“So that’s a yes?”

“Sure. I’ll be around, but I don’t have a phone. You’ll just have to gamble.”

“Deal! Take it easy, Kaylee.”

“It’s Cae-leigh. You’re totally pronouncing it like some sorority sister. Use more air when you say it. Caeleigh.”

“Kay-lay,” he said.

“Ouch, not like a robot would say it, but that’s better. Take it easy, Jake.”

She turned and continued onward. Jake paused for a while trying to figure her out. He was sold, down payment and all, on this peculiar female. The eighth-grader butterflies were swarming inside him, but for some inexplicable reason they felt a lot like hummingbirds.

Jake haunted the café diligently the next few days waiting for Caeleigh make an appearance. He would get the frantic rush of a smirk while thinking about their brief interaction, and that would inflate him until the building fear of never seeing her again burst into crippling anxiety. On the fourth day with his scale tilting toward terror, he scanned the whole shop before seeing her reading in a corner – a delightful deus ex machina.

He ambled toward the barista staring off in her direction hoping for eye contact or acknowledgment, but she was too engrossed in the book to be bothered. Without any need for conversation, he set down his dollars and collected his coffee cup. He hurried over unconvincingly feigning nonchalance.

“You’re late,” she said. “Let me finish this page, and we can return to our regularly scheduled, snarky programming.”

Jake sat politely pondering the novel between her fragile fingers. He hadn’t heard of the author, but the cover was an Americana infant watching a juggler. Jake speculated what kind of novel a girl like Caeleigh would read. She abruptly flipped and dog-eared the page.

“Where were we?” she asked.

“You were saying I was late.”

“Yes – late, late for an important date. No time to say hello, I’d say. I was sitting here reading about eels before you had the courtesy to show up. I figured you wouldn’t keep such a puzzling young lady waiting.” She stared sternly a moment before cracking up.

“Damn it! You had me going there. I guess the Druids decided to spare me.”

“For now it seems. They want to see if you’re a potential convert. I tried to tell them it’s a lost cause. You wouldn’t look good in a white robe.”

“You just might be right.”

“You bet your berries I am! If it wasn’t for the rampant patriarchy of religious cultists, you’d be bleeding on the altar already.”

“I see. So you’re one of those modern pagan feminists looking to break through the stained-glass ceiling.”

“Actually I consider myself an apocalyptic, neo-classical, post-feminist, non-Trinitarian activist of apathy. It means I couldn’t care less what I really believe, but I really like stringing labels together. I bet it makes me sound pretty hip, eh?”

“Definitely. Your bitterness at fake things astounds even a jaded, pre-modern, nondenominational heathen such as me.”

“The farce is strong with this one.”

“Don’t make me Barf, Princess.”

They carried on through the evening arguing antagonistically about nothing in particular each of them trying to out-reference or out-wit the other. Their connection was something new to Jake, and Caeleigh’s flirting turned genuine. She had expected a tightly wound townie trying to charm his way into a sweet lay. Instead she enjoyed herself without the burden of keeping the conversation interesting. The two of them twisted pretzel-perfect, and she was dumbstruck when he didn’t make a move at the end of the night.

The moment enveloped Jake so thoroughly he thought their banter would never end. By the time evening faded, her declaration to sleep took him aback. As they said goodbye, the banter continued. He could only muster a weak and awkward assurance that they should chat again in the coming days. It was only after he turned to leave that he realized she seemed to be waiting for something. He mentally kicked himself ad infinitum the whole walk home and swore he would pay closer attention next time.

Her whole life, Caeleigh knew she was too cute to be so smart. People didn’t expect it from her, and she often had to hide behind a bubbly little curtain to fit in. She didn’t invest much in the opinions of others, but enjoyed being friendly and walking her own path through life. She had come to expect very little of men and even less when they seemed interested in her. She made a game of seeing how many veiled insults she could fit into conversation with flirty fellas, and it surprised her how much she could slide past their lingering libidos.

Jake had something going on under the surface, and she saw it there unable to innumerate it. It had a dangerous sort of allure. It smelled like sex, but it wasn’t just that. It was visceral yet calm, whatever it was, like sunrise on the morning of battle. A coiled snake, he was brimming with potential energy. He sat on springs, pockets of natural gas, on atomic bombs. Jake’s eyes stared like powder kegs at rest – waiting for a spark.

She knew she wouldn’t make the first move. Caeleigh never had a lack of men approaching her, and she liked to watch the decent ones squirm a little as they flirted their way up to making a move. If she was into a guy, the way he asked her out could easily ruin it. She hated all the holler-back, “hey-baby,” and “damn-you-fine” guys. The timid, half-joking dudes always turned her cold. Something about the lack of assertion bothered her. She felt like there were some things in life you just put yourself on the line for – no exceptions. Most of the time she got a boring hand around her waist at a party or the timeless, straightforward standard: “Would you like to go out sometime?” She wondered how Jake would finally get around to it.

After they had spent a few weeks hanging out at the café, he had yet to make a move. Caeleigh pondered whether he was oblivious or not. She was sure there was something between them. They were obviously flirting their way through every conversation, but he never made an effort to move beyond it. No arm around the shoulder while they smoked a cigarette, no surprise out-whipping of genitals behind the café, no awkward kiss at the end of the night, no bold “Wanna go back to my place?” – nothing.

When Jake had gone four weeks without trying to seduce her, Caeleigh’s self-esteem tanked. She found her mind filled with doubt about her attitude, her clothes, her body. It was just like the facile bullshit she went through in high school. Every time she saw a fashion magazine, makeup commercial, bathing-suit sale – every time she would start to wonder if she was pretty enough, hot enough. She tried wearing tighter shirts, shorter skirts, bare thighs with tall boots. She caught Jake make an errant glance every once and a while, but nothing happened.

Jake wanted something to happen; he was just preoccupied. Whenever they were together he was stuck in this oddly blissful place. Her presence was enough to shake off the real world, leaving the reality-television, rent-paying, job-hating shackles behind. At the end of the nights, they would say goodbye, and it was always a shock. It was like he stepped into the time machine of her gaze and woke up in the future. The thought of making a move didn’t occur to him until it was too late. He worked himself up and promised he would do something next time. Hanging around the café waiting, he would repeat his mantra “Make a move, you idiot. Just make a fucking move.”

He didn’t.

There was something special about her that wouldn’t be enumerated or isolated. If Jake was a volcano, she was a whirlwind, a typhoon – a light yet gusting thing with enough force to keep the rest of the rotting world at bay. When they stared at one another across a small table, he couldn’t erupt – there was no such thing in his lexicon. Frozen in the gale of her presence, he was swept perpetually upward while summer wilted.

In late August, they met at the usual spot. Caeleigh was stressed, frustrated and impatient. There was a hint of growing resentment bubbling in her belly waiting to spew forth. Jake saw her cigarette burned down to the filter. She shot him a terse glance before lighting another off the smoking butt.

“Well hello,” he said.

“Hi,” seeped out more sigh than word.

“Is something wrong?”

“Yeah, I guess. It’s nothing – shit I’m not ready to deal with yet.”

“The invincible Caeleigh has been bested? Say it isn’t so. Cry it out to the crowds, ‘Mighty Caeleigh has fallen! Long live Caeleigh!’”

“Shut up, you jerk!” She punched him lightly in the shoulder, smirking.

“Oh come on, what can possibly be so bad?” he asked through a cigarette, lighting it as he slouched against the building wall.

“It’s school. It starts in a few weeks, and I’m just not ready to go back yet. I feel like the entire summer has slipped past me, and I’ve done nothing useful with my time.”

“Ain’t no cure for the summertime blues?”

“No. I was going to read books, make some jewelry, bake with my mom. None of that happened. I’ve just been idling.”

“There’s always time to do that stuff when school starts. Just find time on the weekends when you aren’t having coffee with yours truly.”

“Well, my school is in California, and the commute is hell. So, none of it happens now.”

Jake’s expression halted. He stood with an idiot’s stare right at her saying nothing. She looked away, unable to watch the cogs of realization spin in his head.

“California?”

“Yeah, I’ve been in art school there for two years now.”

“You, what?”

“I’m moo-ving back to Cal-i-for-nia? I go to school there. Do you understand the words coming out of my mouth?”

“Yeah, sorry. It’s just a shock is all.”

“What’s a shock? Is it that I’m not some townie in this insignificant place or just that I might be going to college somewhere?”

“No. I just. Well, I thought we’d have more time.”

“You will have plenty of time, Jacob. The coffee and dead-end jobs will be here tomorrow and for the rest of your life. So there’s plenty of time to float around and not give a shit about anything.”

“I meant that I thought we would have more time to spend together.”

“I gathered that, but I can’t figure out why on earth it would mean so much to you.”

“Well, I… shit. I guess I’m kind of into you, you could say. I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell you or whatever. Every time we hang out, I tell myself I’m going to do something or say something, but then I just don’t. And now that you’re leaving, I feel like the biggest sack of shit for not telling you sooner, you know? I’ve never met someone like you. When we’re talking I get this stupid, kid smile that lasts for hours. I think I could spend forever just looking at you. You’re awesome and special, and I can’t figure out why the hell you even talk to a chump like me, but I’m glad you do. I guess I just figured that if I said something stupid or tried to grab your tits or something that you’d leave. I didn’t want you to leave, and now you are so I’m like the biggest fuck-up right now.”

“You’re definitely up there, Jake. But there’s still George ‘W’ to contend with, so I don’t think you’re the biggest fuck up. To be honest, I was hoping you’d do something. I don’t know why I talk to chumps, but I like you. I wouldn’t have been here all summer if I didn’t.”

She looked away down the street toward nothing in particular. He felt stupid in an entirely new way, but he didn’t have a choice what to do next. Jake tossed his cigarette and moved closer.

“Caeleigh.”

She turned to look at him; their eyes met inches apart.

He leaned in close, almost whispering. “I should have done this a while ago.”

Her eyes wide, they closed gently as Jake’s lips moved in. The slower his mouth pressed against hers, the faster their hearts beat. He put his hand on her cheek; she grabbed his waist. They stood lost in the act of their soft, steady kissing – the culmination of a summer, the end sum of a thousand regrets absolved in the moment.

They ended the embrace with one last, long kiss neither wanted to pull away from. As their lips parted, their eyes opened stuck to one another’s. Jake’s expression was beaming happiness; Caeleigh’s a soft smile with a hint of sadness. They held hands and sat on the café steps smoking in the silence of a thousand thoughts streaming through their respective minds.

“I’ll go with you,” he said.

“What?”

“I can move with you to Cal-i-for-ni-a. I’ve got a few grand stashed away for bail or personal burial money. I’ll clear it out and get a place wherever you’re going. I’m sure I can find a way to make money, and we can see where this goes.”

Caeleigh laughed at him, “You sure do move fast from first kiss to traveling across the country together.”

“I mean it! I’m so sure of it, I can’t think of doing anything else. You’re worth gambling on the unknown.”

“But Jake, there’s so much we don’t even know about each other. What if I hate the way you fuck? Then you’ll have wasted time and a bunch of money on nothing.”

“Let’s go back to my place and find out.” Jake stood up and started to pull her hand. “Well, come on; I’m feeling vigorous!”

She was in an outright guffaw, “Wow, Jake. That has to be the worst pickup line ever. You know how to make a gal feel special.”

“I mean it. I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth or farther if I have to.”

“Jake, be realistic. This is it, and it sucks, but you can’t just barrel across the country on a whim.”

He let go of her hand and started pacing. “Why not? Why can’t I? Where is that in the rulebook? Look, obviously we both feel something here, and it could be phenomenal. What objection can you possibly have to giving it a go? It’s my time and money; I’ll be taking the risks and venturing off to uncharted lands, and I want to. Just tell me you want to try and we can; it’s that simple.”

Caeleigh stood and sighed.

“It’s not that simple. We don’t know each other, and if I let you follow me out there I will feel guilty forever if it doesn’t work. Jake, believe me the odds are against us. I’m not going to end up stuck in a relationship just because you were willing to move across the country for me. If you wanted this to work, you should have done something sooner. Hell, maybe I should have done something sooner. But you didn’t, and I didn’t. We’re living in a world with fewer possibilities, and ‘us’ as a thing isn’t one of them. I’m sorry.”

“How can you write us off like that? I see how special you are, and you must see something in me. How can we kiss like that and not see what happens next?”

“Some things just don’t happen how you want them. Remember how nice the moment was. Maybe learn a little something about missed chances and regret; use it to do something with your life, Jake. I can’t be the only thing you care about; it’s not fair.”

“But…”

“But nothing, Jake. We both know what happens next. I go back to California, and you go back to the old routine.” She started crying. “God damn it, Jake. This is only making things worse.”

She gave him one last look. “Goodbye, Jake. It’s been fun, frustrating and infuriating.”

“But…”

In a moment she was gone. The body turned, hair whiplashing across a fragile neck, with the slowed purpose of an automobile collision – no brakes, no belt. The instant eternity passed, and Jake was stuck, contorted amongst the wreckage, disoriented and clawing through the cubed glass of all that could have been. He sat crippled on the stoop and smoked a while.

Minutes, moments, hours later a familiar figure pulled his cart into view pausing to peruse the flora. At the sight of the gardener walking and weeding along, Jake wept. His tears spit grief onto the pavement. The man approached paying no attention to Jake, no attention to anything save his sacred duty.

Insulted, Jake leapt from his step.

“Hey, old man! Don’t you have anything better to do than walk this same block every night picking up trash, watering plants wearing that stupid orange vest? You have tools and a traffic cone; are you some sort of washed up city employee? What’s your deal, eh? Are you deaf or dumb? Can’t you see that nobody needs you to prance around here like a fucking side-show act? You’re just a stupid joke – an attraction – a spectacle. Does it get you off – everyone watching, never participating with the rest of the world? Or are you too dumb to find something useful to do?”

“I just like plants.”

Jake let out a burst of mad laughter.

He barked, “Yeah? Well what’s so special about plants? What can flowers do that people can’t?”

The man paused and looked at Jake seeing him for the first time. He pursed his lips slightly and sighed.

“Persist.”

Jake stood dumbstruck – the world wilting around him – sparks fading.