Buy Any Other Name

Olivia looked down upon a tomato plant, then up a little at the row it was in, then across the field at more plants and trees that reformed this Leeds, Alabama neck of the woods. She was still a little rattled by the grown ups arguing at the dinner table. Her mom was a city girl and her dad and grandparents were country bumpkins who outnumbered her three to one.

On account of her proud city social status, Olivia’s mom wouldn’t let her dad do what he loved doing most, farm. Olivia's summer job for the last three years in a row was to help Grandma Liz and Grandpa Wayne run the farm.

“Pro duce the produce” Grandpa Wayne would say and everyone would laugh except for Olivia’s mom. She would turn her head, and if either she was wearing her red leather gloves, why red, because they had to be red to match her sports car or if she were born with arthrogryposis, she would look just like a lobster.

Olivia looked to her garb to give her guidance as what she would categorize herself on her future resume. She was wearing Levi’s, a red embroidered thin, but densely woven shirt and sneakers.

“Well,” she thought, “I appear to be a Farm Hand. This title and three eggs will get me an omelet. What job title should I say I am to land me that fine, high payin’, tootin’ fah lootin city job mom is just waiting to fix me up with once I graduate high school?"

"K, got it.” She said, as if she had the answer. In reality she was really trying to bide more time. Her thoughts were always a step ahead of her mind. “K, got it” she said and then again, listening for that guiding thought to come. And it did, kind of.

“If this farm had horses, I could say I was a horse doctor, but it doesn't so I'm not going to take the chance of getting busted. I think it's fair to say I’m a councilor, like a marriage councilor, because that is what I’m doing. I’m going to spend the hottest three months in Alabama working the fields so that my parents could go back to our house and be married happily ever after.”

This would give her some clout but it could upset her long-term dream to become a veterinarian. “Ok, ok I will call myself a Peacekeeper." she reasoned. "Everyone always likes peacekeepers and if you’re a peacekeeper everyone trusts you are free to travel from country to country. You can say things like “Cheeri-o or Das vadanya” and everyone’s like yeah, she’s cool. Then she could become Doctor International Veterinarian and hear things like, “must you to take look at dancing bear, she no seem happy” or, “aye mate could you put a shoe on mi kangaroo?”.

Par for the course, the spirit of the farm grappled Olivia's knees, brought her down and kept her there until three rows of plants that had been presoaked were weed cleaned. She stuck the uprooted detritus into the biodegradable bag Grandma Liz gave her.

A gust of wind lifted a dawdling dandelion out of her hands and into the ether. “What the hell” she thought, “should I have been holding on tighter?“ the dandelion darted straight into a cauliflower plant. “How is this possible she thought?”

As she walked closer the situation got even more amusing. Well not as amusing as listening to Katie Perry or creating digital graphics but come on, this is summer at Grandparents Baron’s Farm- this was as amusing as it gets!

The dandelion tip went straight into a itsy-bitsy hole. Around this hole was a crease in the cauliflower leaves that looked like lips that appeared to be grimacing. Above that were not one but two blue colored button like discolorations that resembled a pair of eyes.

There was a lump for a nose between the blue circles and the lip crease. Side cauliflowers were growing where ears would grow truly creating a "face".

And when you see a face in a cauliflower plant, and it’s a hot, sultry day in Leeds, you bid the face adieu and go inside where there's air conditioning. And that's what she did.

Grandma Liz greeted Olivia with a glass of her favorite beverage, sweet tea. Grandma didn’t have a pendulum like the amethyst rose quartz one that Aunt Penny used for Reiki, but her voice, northern Alabama drawl was just as hypnotizing.

Somehow Grandma Liz could pause time, snap her fingers and create magic. Frequently, after chatting wtih her Grandma, Olivia would literally jump up and say “Did I just bake that!” or “She did it to me again, how the heck did I just knit this beautiful plate matt!”.

Grandma Liz knew how to work her magic on Olivia's mom, too. Olivia’s mom’s display of exasperation during a ride to Leeds could out do any “Karen You Tube” video. But once she got to Grandma Liz's dining table though, her mood always changed. The manifestation of her dining tableu made her mom as happy as a lark.

It was as sad as it was pathetic when she would leave the house to go back to the city. Her mom would always be the first one finished with dinner. That way she could be the first one to get a grandma's homemade chocolate cake.

When she was getting ready to leave she then would take a another piece of the chocolate cake with her fingers. She would nibble as she was parting, all the way to the car. It's as if in her insecurity she was telling grandma that she thought she was a good cook, rather than trying to convey that she was a loved member of the family.

Olivia saw her grandma as the pillar of their family doubted whether even she could undo what Grandpa Wayne had done the day before. Things were going fine, mom had her handle on the car door and then it came. “Hey Catherine you could go back into the house to lick the pan and spatula.”

"How stupid." cried Olivia, "You just don’t say things like that to ostentatious people." She knew deeply how her mom held grudges. She was ill at ease at ease about the reprisal her mom would be scheming for her next confrontation with the Joker.

Grandma Liz’s discourse for the evening was on the history of the Baron Homestead. It was purchased from dairy farmers over a century ago. Grandma Liz went to the basement and showed her what looked like a oversized breadbox. She lifted the lid to show how the milkmen use to leave customers their milk. Before she knew it, it was bed time.

“I know who you are, you’re Dawn”, Olivia said as she shut off her alarm clock. It had a radio and could run on batteries so she took it outside with her.

As she sauntered into the field, itching her morning butt and stretching, she stopped in her tracks. On a day still colored with last night’s dimness, Mr. Potato Head appeared to have grown another ear and under his lips was now a chin. She put her hand on the top of the cauliflower looked into the two blue circles above the lips and said, “Look, you stay here, I’m goin’ to go see what I could do about getting you a haircut”.

Olivia’s thoughts about the effigy that mother nature created for her were diluted with the tasks at hand. She set a sprinkler to water a portion of the vegetation. She then moved the hose to water another section. She then literally had to remove the hose from the spigot and fasten it to another spigot by the shed to water those sections. “You got to love Frugality Farms” she thought.

She checked for blooming fruits and vegetables, insect damage, weeds and dead leaves. She had to do it because the “buds were her buds”. It then dawned on her to check on the amusing cauliflower plant.

Olivia brought a pale of water and hand watered the funny looking plant, at the same time dubbing it “Fountainhead”. This was after a book she had to read for school and absolutely hated. She wanted to be a veterinarian so she couldn’t sympathize with a guy who thought creating blue prints of buildings was more important than restoring health to a woozy goosy, “A woozy goose ee”, she laughed out loud. “Fountainhead you are my woozy goosy” she said. Her chuckling quickly faded as the blue dots really seemed to be looking into her eyes.

When she moved the eyes would follow her. She had stopped watering the plant minutes before but a stream of water would all of a sudden pop up and run down its face. It resembled the sweat that was running down her own face.

When she stood in front, blocking the sunlight that gleamed upon Fountainhead, its eyes appeared to close. When she would sway back and forth in front of him, it appeared that his eyes were blinking. The oldies station started playing the Whitney Houston classic “I will Always Love You”.

Olivia was completely absorbed in staring at Fountainhead. Her body began swaying to the sensual beat. A flirtatious grin governed her face. With her thoughts she told Fountainhead of how her dad saw a picture of her when she was dressed up in her Entro Entro Sleepy Hollow laced tie dye summer dress. He said she looked “sensual”. She didn’t even know what that meant.

It was the first time anyone ever said that to her. Her body was changing and she was becoming a woman. “The rhythm of the seasons” Olivia thought as her knees gracefully let up so that her hips could sway more freely.

She swayed closer to Fountainhead, who was always organic but now becoming animate. And maybe intimate. "Do you think I'm sexua, sensual I mean", Olivia softly asked the plant.

As Whitney bellowed her declaration for the third time, Grandma Liz’ hollered above her, freezing Olivia in her tracks. Olivia’s foot kicked forward a little bit and her toes touched the area under Fountainhead. She noticed that it had a wide thick base, much like shoulders. She then quickly reprogrammed her mind on helping grandma prepare supper.

Like many of the girls at school, Olivia had calf love when it came to Douglas Roberts. He could make her heart beat fast. Her youthful body feel exalted when his doppelgänger would slip into the forefront of her subconscious, whispering something in her ear. That she wasn’t alone and a weird only child. That she was alright, and that the coolest boy in the school had it for her.

She couldn’t be her best without him. Giggling over him with Kaylan is how her heart opened to make her cognizance achievable. Her friendship with Kaylan was what kept all her personal relationships manageable.

On this hot summer day, Olivia got a phone call and a series of texts from Kaylan. They helped her connect the dots as to her direction in life. The moment between when Kaylan hit send and the text picture arrived, seemed like it was going to be the final moments of happiness in Olivia's life.

The picture was of Douglas Roberts and Kaylan at Orange Beach. The texts leading up to the picture led Olivia to believe that Douglas’ being there was a flabbergasting coincidence. Olivia shared in her friend’s frenzy about visiting a water park and seeing the sweetheart of Selma. His smile, reserved demeanor, wavy blond hair parted right down the middle, his eyes- Kaylan would know for sure now if they were brown or more a hazel. “No!”.

It didn’t matter that it was midnight, Olivia knew every inch of the tract like her own pubescent body. Without turning on a light, she jumped out of bed and out to the field. Her emotions were enslaved to the harvest moon that guided her to sprint straight to Fountainhead.

She cusped the appendages that made for ears and brought her brown eyes close to his blue. “What have I done Fountainhead?" she bemoaned.

"I cut my hair so I could keep cool and now I’m not bragging but I look like Frodo the Dodo. My nails are no longer pretty like my mom’s. I cut them so I could garden better and now they have dirt in them that doesn’t come out no matter how much I claw the soap bar."

"I took for granted how good everything was and now, well… Hump the hostess.” she cried.

This was a phrase taught to her by her aunt to which they giggled at as being perverse. “Hump the hostess!” she screamed and the moon let go and reason regained control.

The moon was taken aback and elected to light her course. Olivia returned from the barn with a shovel, still drawing ripe tears. “I love you Fountainhead. I am really sorry I have to take you away from your family, they’re really beautiful too, but I need you now Fountainhead. I will be as careful as I could around your roots”. “It’s ok Olivia, I’m all for it” a peaceful inner voice responded.

Olivia cleared the wooden two by fours and bricks that were lying on the ground between the shed and the garage. She rolled a large storage drum to the area right between the two. She then filled it with two large bags of potting soil.

Fountainhead was out of sight but in plenty of light. From far away it still looked like a plant but from close up the base of the plant looked more and more like a head with a face resting upon shoulders.

Olivia created alibis that she might tell the adults as to why a cauliflower plant was uprooted from its terra firma and repotted into a fifteen-gallon plastic drum. "I want to give this plant to Mrs. Biggio for her birthday. It looks like a scare crow and will keep away the crows. I put the bags of potting soil in the drum and this plant grew in it out of the blue."

The last alibi wouldn't work. She had to address the fact that her grandparents might see the empty space vacated by the plant in the garden. "The plant grew, out of the blue...".

She cast a smile on Fountainhead and her thoughts took control. "It was the first plant in the row and I was worried, ha ha, I was very concerned as a future doctor, as a future practitioner in the medical profession", she excitedly thought, "that grandma might trip on it!"

"We did it Fountainhead!".

Olivia confided to her partner in mime that she wanted to live together forever. She told it that it was her favorite plant ever and that she also loved animals and wanted to be a vet.

Olivia confided to Fountainhead that she would examine the farm's chickens in the morning, the sheep when they had them and the dogs and cats when she could catch them. She found that the chickens were laying larger than usual brown eggs and that is why grandma was able to make such incredible chocolate cake.

If she was a vet and nursed back pets that the owner no longer wanted or could afford, she would bring them to their home. She told Foundtainhead they could raise them as a family.

It was a hot day and most of the work was done. Olivia donned her John Deere cap, summer shorts and tank top and she went to space between the shed and the garage. She pulled out an old metal stool that had been set in the garage, and placed it a fingerbreadth from Fountainhead.

She gracefully sat down. Slowly she wrapped her legs around the makeshift vase. She was alive in a way that she never felt before. All of her cylinders firing, but in control like a high-powered tractor.

Olivia respected Fountainhead's independence, but there was no longer reason to give him space. They were one in the same. Before she could finish looking into his blue spots her lips were pressed against his creased leafy lips, kissing. She couldn’t countervail the forces that threw her hands around the back of Fountainhead. She thrust her shorts against the drum. This is what Fountainhead wanted and it was finally her turn to be there for it.

Olivia could feel that the energy was too much for Fountainhead. She kept her lips pressed against the crease and calmly put her hands on the roots which felt like a person’s shoulders.

She let up on grinding against the drum. Giggling she asked, “How about if I turn your around and put a little butter on your broccoli?”. That line might have come from her aunt.

She looked at the plant to see if this was all still real. Fountainhead was being a little too passive, she had to spice things up. With a stern look on her face she cupped her pint-sized breasts and dramatically adjusted her bra. “Hey, I never said I was a tree hugger!”

Initially Olivia thought Fountainhead’s expression looked like someone in ecstasy. As she pondered, it was more likely that of a face squinting because the sun was too bright. The expression didn’t change when she covered his top with her cap.

Olivia wondered if this meant it was time to turn the plant around. The drum was incredibly heavy as she pulled down on it to initiate the titubation.

The shifted weight over took her forcing the drum to play it’s final note, a crashing, thunderous thud. "What do I do now?" she wondered.

Her inner voice surprised her with a "You panic!".

Olivia was instantly over taken by roller's remorse. Her anxiety at the mishap was quickly replaced by the freakishness of the scene. Fountainhead somehow had jumped three feet away from the drum, roots and all still attached.

Olivia’s cell went off. It was a text from Kaylan. Her and Douglas were now Snap Chatting from the Aquarium. They had their arms around each other and Kaylan presenting the look like they had just made out.

She wanted to send them back a picture of her mounting Fountainhead. Quickly she realized a scantly clad girl on top of a mound of dirt looking at a head of cauliflower wouldn’t daunt anyone.

Olivia didn’t know what to do. Using her think before you think principle, she pulled Grandpa Wayne’s truck to the back of the garage. She gently propped up Fountainhead and what looked like a root based human body on the back of the bed.

She drove to the Farmer’s Market to get four bags of dirt. Two were for what she owed and two for a new potting endeavor. She drove about half way there when she realized she didn’t bring her money.

Olivia pulled the truck over to the side of the road in despair. She got out of the truck, unlatched the bed and looked at her last friend on earth. Choking on the words she said “I’m no good for you, I’m not good at all for you Founty. They’re going to find out I killed you and come for the bounty”.

“I’m going to bury you here, old friend”, she cried. “I’m going to” and she could hardly speak so had to yell to let the words out “I’m going to bury you right here! In the middle of some damn forest. In Leeds, Alabama!”

She paused to listen. As upset as she was, she could sense a calmness to the situation. It was as if something telling her to tell her self that she had in fact delivered the plant to its proper destination.

Not far away there was a tall tree that had fallen over and was leaning on another standing tree. She was sure that this is where she was supposed to take Fountainhead.

She grabbed the plant by the shoulder like roots and placed the round head like part of the plant against her chest keeping it stable with her chin. It was more cumbersome then heavy. When she arrived at the trees, she realized that the soil didn’t have nutrients, there was little sunlight and that for sure her entire life was a mess.

There was no turning back. It was over. She had to relinquish the fantasy or it would relinquish her. I’m sorry Fountain Head she said, and she kissed the unleafed portion revealing the white vegetable.

She dragged Fountainhead, lifted him and released him between the trees. It took several seconds for her to hear him "land". This did not make sense.

She lifted her own leg over the log. As she tried to set it she found there was no ground and she spiraled down a chute to the base of a burrow.

As she got up she heard herself say “There’s bats in here.” A voice then responded with, “And there’s broccoli on your butt. Let’s go.”

“Fountainhead” Olivia called out to a cauliflower plant that was now walking.

“What “bubbly blond”? the plant replied angrily. The name is Wodun." The plant lashed, "You called me Fountainhead because you watered me with an old pail, and after a book you hated.”

“Well I thought Wodun sounded too Chinese” Olivia said, surprising both of them. It was stumbling to gain its footing, traversing away from the tree opening. Olivia followed.

While it felt like an endless labyrinth, there was little doubt in Olivia’s mind that they were approaching Baron’s Farms. And then she heard, as if soft chanting, “A win ter’s day…. A winter’s Day. A wint’er’s day. A winter’s day”. It was the most soulful singing Olivia could imagine. She knew immediately it had to do with the plants singing about the winter coming and how their time was going to end.

Just as she thought she lost her guide she ran smack into him and he was turned around. Anything that ever had to do with stress was lifted off of Olivia’s shoulders. He turned around and continued walking no words spoken.

Perhaps they had just passed under the ground where the broccoli was being grown. Olivia could never stand eating broccoli but now was enamored by her new conception of their spiritual dimension. “A win ter’s Day”.

Looking up from the tunnel Olivia could see new sets of roots. They were turnips and sang “Are you go ing, are you go ing”. Same tone, same harmony, somewhat a different pitch, maybe a little louder. Turnips were not as widely regarded as broccoli and their requiem focused more on whether or not they were going to get picked.

When Olivia and Wodun arrived to the cauliflower underbelly, she heard “then she’ll be a true love of mine”. It was more like an entire sentence than the word or two mantras. And Olivia recalled one of the most heart-warming experiences when she was a kid tuned in to her grandpa’s Simon and Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits. The rhythm, the chanting, the music it all had something to do with that album. “A winter’s day in a deep and dark December…” “Does December mean deep under the ground”?

Wodun appeared out of nowhere. Here, this is what we drink.

He handed her a cup with a brown liquid inside. It tasted like an earthy type of coffee or cocoa that wasn’t too bitter and didn’t have too much flavor. “Ok.” she said. This is my family Wodun said pointing up to vegetation that now seemed to rustle, shaking as if to wave or say hi.

“Aren’t parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme all kinds of plants and herbs?” A trumpet began playing and gradually it was getting louder. “Yes Olivia, these are seasonings which are sprinkled on us before we are consumed.

“Is this like the Vegetables cartoon I used to watch when I was a kid?”. “Yes Olivia, we inspired writers to make fun shows for kids to know how much we love them and we help each other grow”.

The trumpet got louder and the walls of the cavern shook. Small dense leaves fell from the roots above them. Olivia got a text, it was from her mother and she wondered where she was. Olivia forgot her mother was coming.

“Can we go back, I need to get back home. My parents are here”.

“Freedom means you do or you don’t” replied Wudon. The trumpet sound was getting louder, shaking more leaves from the roots.

A couple of leaves landed onto Olivia and she realized they were caterpillars and not leaves at all. They latched onto her and they wouldn’t let go. Wudon began nonchalantly picking at them with his rooted hands. “Are you sure you want to say you were a peas keeper?”.

As Olivia looked at him it was obvious, he wasn’t trying. More and more caterpillars were falling and latching onto Olivia. They covered her body and she couldn’t shake them off. Wudon pressed his body up against her but the leaches were just going between them and getting to her. Olivia’s mom texted, “Olivia where are you? Grandpa Wayne needs the truck.”

“Grandpa Wayne needs the truck”, Olivia tried to explain as the caterpillars just kept falling and the trumpets kept getting louder. The caterpillars had teeth that were just sharp enough to bite into her skin.

“Quit sucking me!” she screamed. “Quit sucking me!”. Wudon looked on but it was hard to tell if he was helpless or indifferent.

“Quit sucking me.” Olivia uttered one last time. “Wake up Olivia, wake up!” shouted her mother. “For heaven’s sake you’re having an orgasm!”.

A puzzled Olivia stumbled out of the bed and into the shower. She glared up at the showerhead as the rain shower gently massaged her noggin. Through the door she could hear Grandma Liz and Grandpa Wayne were going off on her mom for her "matter of factedness."

THE END