by Jeremy-Joseph Rosen
Jeremy-Joseph Rosen is an author, ingenue,
rabble-rouser and roust-a-bout.
When Scooter was a child, he was a collector, as most children have been throughout the span of human recollection. You probably collected something as a child; be it bottle caps, cards relating to baseball, insects of various genera and species, building block sets mixed up in large bags, coins or stamps actually collected by numismatic or philatelic grandparents, recorded works of music, toy train sets (though this may be considered its own hobby), stuffed animals, comic books or rocks.
Scooter was a tad different in that he collected palm trees. It was difficult for his parents to support this hobby as they had very little in the way of land, but the neighbors often helped out. Scooter was quite the horticulturalist, if a bit narrow in his proclivities. Through his palm collecting he also learned how to assemble and operate a mid-sized crane, which came in handy later in life.
He was not narrow in the scope of palm tree care. The child grew palm trees from many continents, including Africa and South America, and had attempted to recreate the Easter Island Palm, once the tallest in the world before its extinction at the hands of the residents of that island, by cross breeding several related species of Chilean palm with carefully cloned seedlings of Easter Island Palm. His flora cloning knowledge also came in handy later in life.
Scooter’s neighbourhood was stuffed with palm trees. The local geezer Mr. Chartres, a retired distiller, had even started a small and profitable business selling palm wine (the beverage, not the music). Mr. Chartres’ fist was one of the tightest things in the Universe and some speculated that apart from giving out as little money as possible it could also compress coal into diamond. Remuneration for delivery of palm fruits did come to Scooter, though the palm fruits did not originate with Scooter.
The Palm Tree Phase kept up for several years after Scooter had developed a way of speeding up the growth process. Eventually he passed on the enterprise to his brother, who became the CEO of a large chain of hotels. David hired out the care for Scooter’s palm trees to a Gambian emigree who did a rather nice job of it.
The palm trees were the vehicle through which Scooter met Javier. The child who could not return spoons was found by the child with a gift for palm forestry one day at dusk in the midst of a small grove.
“Hey,” said Scooter, who was never surprised to find anyone in the trees. Javier looked at him for a minute and said “See you later.”
He got up from the grass and scampered South through the palm trunks. This puzzled Scooter because there was no way to get out of the grove towards the South due to a rather high wall Scooter’s sister had constructed around the southern end of the property (she was an expert stonemason). He decided to follow Javier through the trees and discover what he was up to down there.
As Scooter emerged from the trees, he spied Javier covering a hole in the ground. Behind him was a stack of coconuts. Scooter laughed. He walked over to Javier and his hole.
“Those aren’t going to grow like that.” Javier looked at him strangely.
“How would you know,” he said? Javier grabbed one of the coconuts from his stack of coconuts and ran off East through the grove. Scooter was very confused, but he loved coconuts. None of his trees grew coconuts. He could never figure it out. Special orders went out every time Scooter needed new stock for his projects. Sometimes he even attempted cuttings, but those rarely worked with palms as he had discovered with his Easter Island specimens. The new stock he ordered always had a percentage reserved for Mr. Chartres.
Scooter gathered the coconuts and the small trowel which Javier had left behind and walked on to the tool shed. He turned once to look over his leafy charges, but didn’t notice the small electric box humming away under an experimental lemon bush Scooter had planted last year. The box had very little to do with anything and quite a lot to do with some other specific things. The only thing you really need to know about it right now is that Scooter did not notice it.
Months passed before Scooter’s schedule indicated he should get back to the South end of the grove. In that time Scooter had learned how to jump rope, read a few dozen simplified Chinese characters and operate a fork lift. The fork lift was Scooter’s favourite new possession which he drove around the cul de sac at the end of the street. Mr. Chartres lived there and he lost a shipment of palm wine to Scooter while the latter was learning how to operate and drive the fork lift.
He now had a part-time job at a local warehouse, loading and unloading trucks for five hours every Thursday.
The work paid fuel for the fork lift and fuel for Scooter. Jenny Perl, theadministrative assistant at the warehouse, often made something wonderful for lunch just for Scooter.
Jenny was only a few years older than Scooter and enjoying her first job with the help of a work permit obtained at the State Department of Labor. Jenny had noticed that Scooter was quite fond of soups and stews. She frequently brought in soups and stews for Scooter to consume, though she found he was quite repelled by her mushroom barley concoction.
One evening after work, Scooter checked his schedule and went on down to the South end of the grove, where he found a small palm sprouting where Javier had planted a coconut. Scooter had forgotten to dig it up. He looked at it, thought and went off East to try and find Javier, who he had not seen for some months. The small box under the experimental lemon bush (now a lime bush), remained conspicuously anonymous, but not to Scooter.