Twelve By Twelve Part 7

I didn't realize that I was wearing PJs - a faded T-s.h.i.+rt and paint-splashed sweatpants - until I was twenty minutes down the train tracks. I stopped, embarra.s.sed for a second, but then laughed out loud at myself. I was on a train track in rural North Carolina. Who was I going to meet? I did twenty stretch-shouts - an energy-boosting technique I'd picked up at the wonderful Kripalu yoga center in Ma.s.sachusetts - and then let my gaze fall into the distance, where four or five textured clouds staked a claim to the southern horizon. They were probably down in South Carolina someplace. All that s.p.a.ce between the clouds and me! I smiled broadly and closed my eyes, imagining myself taking flight from the tracks and soaring over ponds flush from last night's storm, nose-diving through soft clouds.

The creek flashed below the railroad bridge, the fastest I'd seen it, thick with bubbles and pounding noisily against the bridge pillars. I found myself staring down into the creek, not thinking of a thing. Just listening. The sun climbed the sky. Still I sat there, listening to the creek. Eventually, when I felt like doing so, I got up and walked back along the abandoned train tracks toward the 12 12, realizing that my days were beginning to pa.s.s more like those of the Thompsons, the Pauls, Jackie, and so many others in the Idle Majority - in a blissfully subversive leisure. Jackie was s.h.i.+fting from overdevelopment to development. She is a talented physician who could have easily risen in wealth and status, and you could say she's instead chosen to live in poverty, but that's not entirely correct.

She lives in enough. She has abundant fresh food in her gardens, the music of a creek, a network of friends, neighbors, and family. She and other wildcrafters in Pine Bridge and throughout the rich world are choosing downward mobility - living well instead of forever striving to live better.

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DON'T BE SO PREDICTABLE

15. THE DRAGON.

ONE DAY AS I WALKED by the Thompsons', a few of their younger kids ran up to me. They stopped and looked at me as if to ask, "What are we going to do?" So I picked up a handful of rocks and said, "I have ten rocks." They watched as I counted the gray gravel. by the Thompsons', a few of their younger kids ran up to me. They stopped and looked at me as if to ask, "What are we going to do?" So I picked up a handful of rocks and said, "I have ten rocks." They watched as I counted the gray gravel.

They each picked up rocks and started counting them. Brett held out two. "You've got two dollars!" I said.

"How much do I have?" asked Greg.

"You've got some pennies and quarters in there ... six dollars and twenty-five cents."

"And me?"

"Five euros."

"Huh?"

"The money in Europe is called euros. And look, Greg, you have twelve Mexican pesos."

For an hour or more we explored the currencies of the world, and did a bunch of math to boot. The next day, Michele thanked me for homeschooling them.

"We were just playing."

"Exactly," she said, explaining that kids learn like adults learn - by following their bliss instead of having the three Rs force-fed in forty-minute blocks. She said she likes the traditional village concept of education, where children spontaneously pick up knowledge while working on the farm or interacting with neighbors like myself.

The Thompsons homeschooled five of their six kids using a freely adapted version of the Mennonite homeschooling curriculum. (Their eldest, Zach, attended a charter school because he was from Michele's previous marriage, and her ex-husband insisted Zach receive a more traditional education.) There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason as to what or when they studied. I'd sometimes see Kyle and Greg relaxing for an hour on the porch in front of their pond, s.h.i.+rtless, their little tan bodies soaking up the morning sun: Intro to Idleness. Other times they'd be feeding the hogs, out in the forest, or biking. Then, for large spurts - once I saw Kyle at it for an entire day - they'd read intensely.

"What ya reading?" I asked Kyle that day. He showed me. Though he was only eleven, he was fully engrossed in an engineering text. I asked Michele about it, and she chuckled, saying, "That's his gift. Kyle is always building things and it fascinates him. He wants to be an engineer, so I focus his homeschooling around math and science. When he feels like it he reads entire novels, but I don't force it. It comes from him."

As it turns out, there are some twenty-five hundred homeschooled kids in North Carolina's Research Triangle area alone, and overall, homeschooled kids have admission rates into college equal to those of traditionally schooled kids. Homeschooling isn't for everyone. For starters, it means at least one parent must be home. But it reflects a wider pedagogical trend, in which education is returning to the original Latin derivation of the word education education - meaning "to draw out." For example, new European models of "holistic teaching" or "facilitation" consider the instructor to be a coach in the child's own spontaneous exploration, particularly of the local communities and nature. Waldorf schools point in this direction, too. The factory education model that drives most US public schools, with its rigid time schedules and standardized testing, parallels the factory economy of twentieth-century workplaces. In the twenty-first century, the internet is softening the edges of that industrial way of working, providing the opportunity to invent more fluid ways of educating children. - meaning "to draw out." For example, new European models of "holistic teaching" or "facilitation" consider the instructor to be a coach in the child's own spontaneous exploration, particularly of the local communities and nature. Waldorf schools point in this direction, too. The factory education model that drives most US public schools, with its rigid time schedules and standardized testing, parallels the factory economy of twentieth-century workplaces. In the twenty-first century, the internet is softening the edges of that industrial way of working, providing the opportunity to invent more fluid ways of educating children.

Homeschooling blends well with wildcrafting - life on the creative edge of the system - because freeholders like the Thompsons have greater control of their time. Having escaped from the nine-to-five, they are free to live and educate themselves a bit like the world's Idle Majority does.

"WHY DON'T YOU RENT THAT HOUSE?" Kyle asked me one day while I was talking with his mom. He pointed to a two-story farmhouse that I'd hardly noticed until then. It lay in a clearing across the Thompsons' pond, right off Old Highway 117 South. Puzzled, I studied the house, and then looked to Michele. Kyle asked me one day while I was talking with his mom. He pointed to a two-story farmhouse that I'd hardly noticed until then. It lay in a clearing across the Thompsons' pond, right off Old Highway 117 South. Puzzled, I studied the house, and then looked to Michele.

"The thing is, they've gotten so attached to you," she said, "that they want you to rent that house when Jackie gets back."

The house wasn't particularly inviting. In fact, it looked a tad creepy. All the trees around it felled, too close to the highway. "Who owns it?" I asked.

"Bradley."

"Of course," I said. Bradley seemed to have a hand in everything. I wondered, momentarily, how someone so landand property-rich could avoid the temptation to "sell out" his ecological values.

"Well, to be honest, we'd all love it if you'd rent it," Michele said.

"That's kind of you," I said.

"Will you deal drugs out of there?" six-year-old Greg asked.

"Greg!" Michele reprimanded. "I'm sorry. It's just that ... well, the girl who'd been living there. Cops busted her with fifteen thousand dollars in crystal meth."

I s.h.i.+fted from one foot to the other. I knew crystal meth, cocaine's poorer cousin, was common in both urban and rural areas of North Carolina, since it was so cheap to make. It was so common, in fact, that people, when giving you a tour of their home, would routinely joke, "and this is the meth lab." But I never would have imagined it being produced one house over from the 12 12.

"We'd seen men coming in at all hours of the night," Michele continued, "and so we thought she was a ... you know. But turns out the whole place was a giant meth factory."

The wind s.h.i.+fted direction. Cutting through the smell of the Thompsons' place - the smell of a farm - was a hint of the oppressive, dead scent of one of the nearby industrial chicken factories. A giant meth factory? A giant meth factory? Just through the woods from Jackie's beehives, heirloom teas, and honeysuckle; right on the banks of No Name Creek. I felt a little queasy. Just through the woods from Jackie's beehives, heirloom teas, and honeysuckle; right on the banks of No Name Creek. I felt a little queasy.

Michele seemed to notice and went on, "We'd much rather you moved in than another Section Eighter. Just don't move in until after the 'meth-busters' get here. The squad that detoxifies the house."

I looked down at her the faces of her kids, the same ones who had recently been learning math and world currencies with me. I said, "As in, 'Who ya gonna call?'"

"Meth-busters! Exactly. It's in the police department. The drug is so toxic that it gets into the walls, floors, drains, everywhere. The 'meth-busters' use even stronger chemicals to get rid of it." My queasiness began to turn to nausea. "After that," she said cheerily, "it'll be ready for you to move on in!"

As if meth-next-door wasn't enough, a "cheeze" scare suddenly hit Adams County. It was headlined in the local paper after the drug - a cheap blend of heroin and Tylenol PM - killed several high school kids in Texas, and rumor had it that North Carolina dealers were adding it to their repertoire. I noticed the Thompsons eyeing Jose's and Graciela's kids, with their dark hair and skin and baggy pants, with even more mistrust, perhaps seeing possible cheeze dealers - the very ones they'd left the trailer parks to escape.

After that, on my walks and bike rides, I began seeing a different North Carolina. I noticed more despair on the porches of roadside trailers and run-down houses, heads hanging low, eyes staring blankly into the awakening landscape. Every day one hundred million Americans take drugs, and this statistic hit me viscerally, with a former meth factory next door and cheeze scaring my neighbors. The 12 12, perhaps because of the abundant energy I was absorbing from nature and the physical exercise of biking and walking, had inspired me to limit caffeine and alcohol in my diet. I had only the occasional coffee or gla.s.s of wine now. This made me even more sensitive to all the pain, anger, and estrangement being deadened by drugs.

"IAM A DRAGON / Fire is one of the things I favor /And sometimes acid." / Fire is one of the things I favor /And sometimes acid."

I was reading aloud to Leah outside the 12 12.

"Now we know who 'the dragon' is," Leah said.

"Do we?"

This was Zach Thompson's poetry. The thirteen-year-old had pa.s.sed me a copy of the poem along with a sixty-page novella called Fallen Dragons Fallen Dragons that he'd written for an English a.s.signment. When Leah saw it in the 12 12 she said, "Ooh, I love reading thirteen-yearolds' fiction," and dug in. At one point she laughed and said, "Check this out: 'Two hundred feet and closing, the dragon spread his wings, and his two clawed feet spread. An innocent buck looked up, but too late. The dragon's ma.s.sive claws wrapped around him like a soft taco wrapped the meat, lettuce, and hot sauce.' " She giggled, and continued, "His teacher - one Mr. L - took a red pen and crossed out 'like a soft taco wrapped the meat, lettuce, and hot sauce.'" that he'd written for an English a.s.signment. When Leah saw it in the 12 12 she said, "Ooh, I love reading thirteen-yearolds' fiction," and dug in. At one point she laughed and said, "Check this out: 'Two hundred feet and closing, the dragon spread his wings, and his two clawed feet spread. An innocent buck looked up, but too late. The dragon's ma.s.sive claws wrapped around him like a soft taco wrapped the meat, lettuce, and hot sauce.' " She giggled, and continued, "His teacher - one Mr. L - took a red pen and crossed out 'like a soft taco wrapped the meat, lettuce, and hot sauce.'"

We read the rest of Fallen Dragons Fallen Dragons aloud, a tale of hatred, blood shed, and destruction, in which the protagonist - a dragon curiously without a name - kills everything in sight. We wondered about the inspiration for this angry, violent persona. The poem "I am" gave clues. aloud, a tale of hatred, blood shed, and destruction, in which the protagonist - a dragon curiously without a name - kills everything in sight. We wondered about the inspiration for this angry, violent persona. The poem "I am" gave clues.

"Start again," Leah said, and I read: I am a dragon, Fire is one of the things I favor And sometimes acid.

I terrify people.

They just don't know, Know who I am I am a dragon.

I am the drums, loud and obnoxious, But I help people with the anger I talk to them when they beat me.I am me, This poem is me So you think you knew me, So what do you think of the real me?

We talked about who the dragon might be. It seemed to represent blight. I only knew the Thompsons in their hopeful present phase, pursuing a dream of living as organic farmers. But Zach probably still had the trailer park horrors vividly in mind, horrors that now seemed to be following his family into Pine Bridge. Just beneath the dream was the flattening, the deadening; the nameless dragon.

I BIKED TO THE QUICK-N-EASY in Smithsville to call Leah on the pay phone. Fluorescent lights; the hot dogs rolling in a gla.s.sed-in oven; a dozen types of malt liquor; a bounty of chewing tobacco. I was studying the drink selection when an African American woman, maybe early thirties, came up beside me with two daughters. "You want the blue one?" she asked her toddler. Her older daughter grabbed a c.o.ke, and she a king-sized Dr. Pepper. "You from around here?" she asked me. in Smithsville to call Leah on the pay phone. Fluorescent lights; the hot dogs rolling in a gla.s.sed-in oven; a dozen types of malt liquor; a bounty of chewing tobacco. I was studying the drink selection when an African American woman, maybe early thirties, came up beside me with two daughters. "You want the blue one?" she asked her toddler. Her older daughter grabbed a c.o.ke, and she a king-sized Dr. Pepper. "You from around here?" she asked me.

I told her I was staying at a friend's up the road for a while.

"I know everyone here, and I said to myself, 'Who's that guy?' "

We introduced ourselves. She was Pam. She said, "Me, I've never lived outside of Adams County, only traveled once to Myrtle Beach."

Her older girl jumped in: "You've been to Busch Gardens!"

"Oh yeah, there too."

"These your kids?"

"Nicole ... and Darleen," she said, beaming. "Darleen's thirteen, going to the eighth-grade prom, but they treat it like a high school prom. You should see her in her dress. She's like, like a beauty queen."

"What was ninety-nine cents?" A customer was complaining loudly about his receipt to the cas.h.i.+er. was ninety-nine cents?" A customer was complaining loudly about his receipt to the cas.h.i.+er.

"This," the cas.h.i.+er said, pulling a beef jerky out of his bag.

"Says sixty-nine. The bigger one is ninety-nine."

"Oh."

"I know, I'll just trade it for the bigger one."

"I'm always tryin' to s.h.i.+t somebody," said the attendant.

Pam turned away from me and joined their conversation, saying with a friendly grin: "She did it on purpose!"

"Yeah, I know she did. Ninety-nine! Now we're square."

The customer left with his purchase, and Pam looked back at me and said conspiratorially, "You know I went into Ashboro, you know Ashboro? No, well, you can get there in twenty minutes on the back roads if you ever want to go somewhere more exciting than here, but anyway I went to Belk's there and got her a prom dress that was $250 for $24.99. Don't tell her."

"I promise," I said.

"And I got the shoes for $19.99. They look like Cinderella slippers on her." She looked over at Darleen, her pride obvious. "You know a lot of folks think she's my sister," she said. "Soon she'll be off to college. But I've still got her. At that prom, she's going to be a real Ms. America ..."

Pam stopped speaking; she was the only one in the Quick-N-Easy still talking. Someone turned the radio up. Something terrible was happening across the state line at a place called Virginia Tech.

THAT EVENING, LEAH CAME OVER to the 12 12, still in her work clothes: a long brown suede skirt and a cream sweater. She got out of her car, her hair falling in a flop over one shoulder, and hugged me, whispering, "How horrible." We went straight over to Jose's, to see how he and Hector were taking it, talking as we walked about the "why" of the Virginia Tech slaying: earlier that day, over the course of several hours, a Virginia Tech student had shot and killed thirtytwo people, wounding scores more, before committing suicide. Part of it must have been plain mental illness, but that couldn't have been everything. Does our culture sometimes value production over life and alienate people to the point where mental illnesses deepen and going postal becomes routine? to the 12 12, still in her work clothes: a long brown suede skirt and a cream sweater. She got out of her car, her hair falling in a flop over one shoulder, and hugged me, whispering, "How horrible." We went straight over to Jose's, to see how he and Hector were taking it, talking as we walked about the "why" of the Virginia Tech slaying: earlier that day, over the course of several hours, a Virginia Tech student had shot and killed thirtytwo people, wounding scores more, before committing suicide. Part of it must have been plain mental illness, but that couldn't have been everything. Does our culture sometimes value production over life and alienate people to the point where mental illnesses deepen and going postal becomes routine?

At Jose's, an enormous fire blazed in the backyard. The thirteen-year-old Hector, his back to us, was burning garbage. Though the fire burned just fine, Hector threw additional gasoline on it, sending the flames up so high that they singed the treetops and licked his hands and arms.

"Hector!" I called out.

He spun around, equally surprised and self-conscious. Had he been thinking of the kids killed a hundred miles away, across the border in Virginia?

"Quemando basura" - "Burning garbage" - he finally said, turning his back to us again. He put the gasoline can down. Leah and I stared into the flames. The fire dwarfed Hector's small silhouette. No Name Creek rushed by reflecting the flames. - "Burning garbage" - he finally said, turning his back to us again. He put the gasoline can down. Leah and I stared into the flames. The fire dwarfed Hector's small silhouette. No Name Creek rushed by reflecting the flames.

The fire made me think of America's early pioneers, not Mexicans and Hondurans settling twenty-first-century North Carolina, but the European immigrants who arrived long before Jose and Hector. As they caravaned through the American heartland, they sometimes lit the prairie on fire to announce they'd found water. A poetic gesture, but also an overly extravagant one that captures something of America's ethos, where ebullience over one beautiful thing leads to destruction of a greater one.

In the firelight I regarded the rest of Jose's property. Not yet a year since he'd cut the red ribbon to his new house - the neighbors and Habitat for Humanity volunteers applauding - and the place was already beginning to suffer from neglect. The back doork.n.o.b lay rusting on the porch right where it had fallen off. Several screens were ripped and one window cracked. Bicycles lay rusting outside, and - though Jose's prized carpentry shed was immaculate - his tool shed's roof panels were starting to cave in. Perhaps his carpentry shed was immaculate only because he'd just finished it two months before. It stood st.u.r.dy, padlocked, but had not been treated.

"My dad's inside," Hector said into the fire, a single military plane zooming overhead. Graciela's dog rounded the house, looked surprised to see us, and changed course, limping in a slow arc around the fire, and disappeared into the woods. Yellow and white-headed dandelions and other weeds made their way through the mess of a poorly mowed crabgra.s.s lawn.

Inside, Jose told us, "I sent Hector to burn garbage so he wouldn't see any more of the terrible news." There was no place to sit on the messy sofa, so Jose busily moved aside a jacket, a newspaper, some component parts of furniture he was making. The TV was too loud. Leah's face scrunched up a bit over the volume and the images of dead bodies on the campus. Unenthusiastically, Jose bit into a fish stick. He offered to make us some, but we weren't hungry and declined.

A reporter interviewed a Virginia Tech professor who'd hid in his office as the students were slain. The journalist asked the professor how the students would deal with all of this the next day, and the professor's voice caught, as he held back tears.

"Got him," Leah whispered, and then: "Christ! This is what I hate about journalism. Everyone at the station was itching for that: someone whose voice would catch dramatically." Leah whispered, and then: "Christ! This is what I hate about journalism. Everyone at the station was itching for that: someone whose voice would catch dramatically."

Hector came in from the back, his arms soot covered, and slumped onto the couch. Jose scrambled for the remote to change channels. But Hector saw the bodies. He sighed and started playing video games on a laptop next to Leah as his dad flipped to the telenovela La Fea Mas Bella La Fea Mas Bella.

To lighten the mood, Jose began talking in Spanish about the lives of the soap stars now on the screen: "That actor is from Mexico, but his parents are Dominican, and the other guy was born born in Mexico but his parents are from Spain. The female actress, La Fea, her mom was a Mexican beauty queen far prettier than her daughter ..." in Mexico but his parents are from Spain. The female actress, La Fea, her mom was a Mexican beauty queen far prettier than her daughter ..."

Eventually I asked Hector in Spanish, "How are your grades?"

"Huh?" He was engrossed in his game, killing chickens with a shotgun and pitchfork.

I repeated the question in English. Still just a blank look. Jose s.h.i.+fted in his seat and was about to say something when I went on, "Do you get As, Bs, Cs?"

"Cs, Ds," Hector said, looking back at the soap, frowning, and then back at his screen. "I need more chicken bones. You see" - he showed the screen to Leah - "I've got a record now, but I need more bones."

I slept poorly that night and woke up just after sunrise thinking of Weimar, Germany. I hadn't thought of it for a long time, but in the summer I was nineteen, I spent several weeks digging through the former Buchenwald concentration camp garbage dump near Weimar.

It probably wasn't the wisest choice for a sensitive teenager like me, but I signed up for an East-West peace exchange in which twenty Soviets, Americans, East Germans, and West Germans - it was the summer of 1990; the Berlin Wall had fallen, but the USSR was still a country - got together in the Buchenwald trash heap and dug for personal items to return to the victims' families, almost fifty years after the Holocaust. If the families were not found, the items would go to a museum in Buchenwald to educate the youth of the newly uniting Germany about the dangers of fascism.

I unearthed prisoners' spectacles, coins, cups, and belt buckles. Almost none of it could be linked to specific people, so it ended up in the museum, next to the human skin lampshades and light switches made out of mummified thumbs - items that Ilse Koch, the wife of the camp commandant, ordered to be made from ga.s.sed Jews. Next to the museum was the oven chamber, with people-sized ovens, where tens of thousands of prisoners were incinerated after being worked, flogged, or shot to death. At night, I collapsed, sometimes in tears, onto a cot in my bedroom: a former SS barracks.

When I got back to Brown to begin my soph.o.m.ore year, I signed up for Professor Volker Berghahn's Modern German History course, and I read everything I could on National Socialism. I thought that if I could understand Hitler, and the millions who willingly followed him, on an intellectual level, I might be able to fight similar evils in our world today. During a college recess on Long Island, I once asked my parents over dinner: Didn't they see the parallels between our society and that of n.a.z.i Germany? The Germans killed Jews, but we were killing the planet with acid rain and global warming. Then it was genocide; now it's ecocide. Why were we collaborating?

Just five miles up the road from Buchenwald is the town of Weimar, where, while the ovens burned tens of thousands, life went on as usual with weddings, church on Sundays, and kids going to school. How can we understand and explain such docility at the gateway to the Holocaust? Hitler's internal policing explains part of it, but there was also a certain amount of denial - there are films of Weimar residents brought to Buchenwald right after the defeat of the n.a.z.is. They were truly shocked and many fainted. After the Virginia Tech slayings, down by No Name Creek, I smelled the light stench of the chicken factories: Was there a similar floating stench from the Buchenwald ovens? Like Weimar's citizenry during World War Two, we twenty-first-century Americans don't want to know exactly what kind of animal torture takes place in the factories, nor how undoc.u.mented Mexican labor is being exploited, nor, in a larger sense, what kind of effect our overconsuming lifestyles have on the planet.

A big orange sunrise burned right into a No Name Creek that blazed more strongly than I'd ever seen. Down deep, rich lacquer and satin. These deeper lights interacted with surface textures, dimpled, s.h.i.+ngled, wavy, calm, and streaky. I looked away from the glare, back toward the 12 12 up the hill. The previous day - the day of the Virginia Tech ma.s.sacre - 171 people died in bombings in Iraq, and in the ten previous days thirty-two Americans had been killed - the same number killed at Virginia Tech. With all this violence at home and abroad, is it any wonder our kids lose themselves in chicken-slaying video games, cheeze, and dragons, and that the number of emotionally disturbed children in America has tripled since the early 1990s? At what point does the blight become too deep?

16. HOLDING HANDS WITH EXTINCTION.

EACH DAY, AS I WALKED THE TRACKS or the creek's edge, I'd hear my father's words from his hospital bed, or the creek's edge, I'd hear my father's words from his hospital bed, You're a man without a country You're a man without a country. The words rang truer every day.

Paul Jr. stopped by the 12 12 two days after the Virginia Tech ma.s.sacre. As we sipped some of Jackie's rosebud tea outside, we talked about it for a while and then lapsed into silence, staring out at the ever-taller winter wheat and the thickening forest.

Finally Paul said, "We're at that age where we have to ask ourselves: Am I going to start a family, or remain a bachelor?"

I s.h.i.+fted uncomfortably in my chair. No Name Creek sounded especially loud that morning, flush with the previous day's showers; it flowed accusingly over its stones.