Look at Flower Read online

  I gotta say, I look longingly at the row of balloons, now battened down for the night; but as cheerfully as I can I say, “Sure. We gotta get back for dinner, right?”

  Turns out Butter isn’t in such a rush to get back for dinner. Instead, she drives us around Albuquerque until we stop in front of a turquoise-and-red-painted building with a big sign out front that reads: rosa’s.

  “What’s up?”

  “I’m taking you to supper.”

  A vision of the goopy roots smothering the weird grains back at Old Bison dances through my head, followed by a light, teasing scent of tomatoes and chiles. I don’t hesitate a moment. “Oh, Butter, I am soooo ready for something different.”

  We’re still in the van, and she pauses a second, looking at me closely. It’s like she’s trying to see something. I’m not sure what? That I’m hungry? I’m starved. That I’d do anything for good Mexican food? Anything, Butter. Any old thing at all. . . .

  - - - - -

  Look at Flower, catching a pass thrown by Billy, our quarterback, and streaking toward the goal line, the red cotton flag flying from the back of my jeans, skipping and dodging and feinting and swaying on my way to a touchdown. It’s our usual Sunday-afternoon “hippie football” game, which we play right before diving into the Sunday evening feast (followed by a long session in the smoking wigwam). This is the first time Billy’s thrown me the floating disc, and I’m going to make a touchdown. Sally’s lunged at me but missed my flag; so has this creepy guy named Jonah who wandered up barefoot to the commune a few days back. The only person between me and the invisible line between two rocks on our desert-sand field is Butter. Her copper hair catches the late-afternoon sunlight. She’s planted right in front of me, but she’s Butter, I tell myself, too round to move fast.

  I charge right at her. I see her grinning. I slip left, then pivot on my Keds and go right. Butter hasn’t moved. It’ll be easy to run by her, but I guess I’m going a little fast and can’t angle off her far enough, because cat-quick she reaches out and flicks the red flag from my back pocket.

  Damn! I pull up and look at her. She’s grinning. The rest of her team are clapping and hooting. “Butter!” I cry.

  “It’s the game, babe,” she says, her voice deep and rough like a tough football guy.

  “Butter!” I cry again.

  Well, on the next play I’m waiting in the end zone for another toss, but Sally’s all over me; and Billy pitches out to a rabbit-quick dude named Springer, who finds a hole and dashes, sand flying up behind him, across the goal line.

  Final score: their team 28, our team 21. Means we have to serve them dinner.

  Chester, who usually captains the other team, and Saffron, who’s our center, aren’t at the game. They’re not at dinner either.

  After we’re done eating, I go up to Butter and say, “What do you hear?”

  “About what?”

  I throw my head toward the head of the table, where Chester isn’t. “You know.”

  Butter nods, then says, “Later.”

  Later comes the next morning at the zoo. Saffron’s taken the day off, no explanation given. It’s just me and Butter in the van.

  “They’re gonna do it,” she says.

  “A lion?”

  “I think they’re thinking of Sebastian, not Lima.”

  “Why him?”

  “Some kind of dream came to Chester.”

  “A dream?”

  Butter puts two fingertips together and mimes sucking on a joint. Then she says, “It’s going to be soon.”

  A shiver runs through me, grabbing and clinching.

  “What’re we going to—”

  Butter lifts her hand off the wheel and puts a finger to her lips. “Don’t worry,” she says. “We’ll be fine.”

  I have no idea what she’s saying. “You mean we’re—”

  “Just do your job today, like nothing’s going to happen.” Both hands are back on the wheel, and Butter’s driving carefully like she always does. “Then we’ll just leave the zoo, like usual. Nothing suspicious. Can you do that, Flower?”

  I don’t say anything.

  “You trust me, right?”

  I sigh. “I’d feel better if I—”

  “Just trust me.” Butter turns and gives me her big smile. “It’ll all be fine. Really.”

  I try not to, but I keep walking past Sebastian in the tiger cage. He spends most of the morning sleeping. I try to imagine him at the commune. Where are they going to keep him? Will they be able to feed him as well as Butter and I do here? What if he gets sick? What if he eats someone? Questions like these tumble through my head all day.

  That night I toss and turn and finally fall asleep, only to get a light tap against my arm. I flinch, then I’m awake. I’m on the lower bunk of the bed. I look out and Butter’s round face is before me catching the moonlight, cool white in her pale eyes.

  “What’s up?”

  “Ssshhhh,” she goes, finger to her mouth. “Get dressed. This is it.”

  My heart jumps into my throat. I start to say, “What do you mean, this is—” but she’s left me too fast.

  I quickly pull on jeans, sweatshirt, and my Keds, and head outside. It’s a cool night, wisps of breeze on my bare skin, enough of a chill to make me dart back into the room for my jacket.

  I head toward the main house and see a clump of people where we park the vans. Butter’s there, as well as Chester, Sally, Saffron, Billy, and three other guys—some of the biggest ones at the commune—who I don’t know that well. They’re passing red-lit joints around between them; stamping their feet in the chill.

  Chester and Sally see me and pull faces.

  Butter glances from them to me and back to them.

  “I want Flower along,” she says. Sally starts to say something, and Butter adds, “To help me. She works at the zoo, too. It’s important.”

  “Butter, I—” I say.

  “Shhh,” she goes. She gives me her bright-eyed stare and says, “Don’t ask any questions. I need you with me. Come on.”

  “Butter, really,” Sally goes.

  “I’ll keep my eye on her. It’s cool.”

  The joints go around another time or two, then we get into the vans. Butter and I are by ourselves in one of the bison-painted ones; Chester, Sally, and two of the big guys get into a larger nondescript black van I haven’t seen before; and the rest of the group gets into a third van. Butter lets our van idle for a moment, until the other two have pulled out and are kicking up dust on the road to the highway.

  “Butter,” I say when we’re under way, “I don’t want to do this.”

  Butter’s looking intent through the windshield. It hasn’t rained in a while, and with the two vans ahead of us, there’s a lot of dust. I decide I better roll up my window.

  “I really don’t want to do this.” I fold my feet under me and turn in my seat. I’m thinking of when I got stuck driving the car for the Big Star commune. I am not doing anything like that again.

  “I know,” Butter says.

  I shake my head. “No, I don’t think you do. I—there’s a lot you don’t know about me. Some things I have to—”

  “Flower, it’ll be all right.”

  “No, Butter, I have to tell you about—”

  “Really, Flower. I know exactly what you’re thinking, but don’t worry. I have it all figured out.”

  “I’m not going to hurt Sebastian.”

  “Sebastian will be fine. So will Lima.”

  I give my head a quick shake. “You’d better tell me.”

  Butter drives ahead, silent, then simply reaches over and throws on the car radio. It’s tuned to XERB, this station out of Mexico that each night plays old rock ’n’ roll. It’s way after midnight, so the DJ is this wild guy, Wolfman Jack. His deal is, he makes like a wolf, and there he is, howling like crazy; weirdly, the way he rips and shreds his voice makes me feel a little better. Then he plays one of my favorite songs, Sea Cruise by Frankie Ford.
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  When we get to the main road the dust storm stops. We’re still behind the other vans, and as we head into town, the way we go every morning, Butter just noodles along till the caravan has pulled well away from us.

  “You’re losing them,” I say.

  Up go her thick eyebrows. “I know.”

  O.K., she’s not going to let me know anything. I just sit in my seat. Onto the radio comes Speedo by the Cadillacs, followed by El Watusi. I don’t know who sings that. I can’t help myself, nervous as I am, I start singing along.

  We’re at the top of the long hill into town; the other vans are way down the empty road. Butter slows our van even more. I don’t get it.

  Then I see a single balloon floating by the road. The Balloon Farm. Butter’s explained that during the week they deflate all the balloons but one of them, which they keep flying as an advertisement. The one balloon up there is the one Butter likes best, the purple-and-pink, up-and-down-striped one. On it is a sign I haven’t seen before:

  tex albom’s balloon farm

  expand your head

  balloon trips sat, sun, and holidays

  “Butter, what’re we—” I start to say, but Butter’s wrenched the wheel and spun the bison van into the Balloon Farm parking lot. She flicks off the key, killing the music, then hops out, pulling along a black book bag she must’ve hidden behind her seat. She beckons for me to follow. I step out of the van in a kind of daze.

  “What time do you think it is?”

  I shake my head. None of us at Old Bison wear watches, it’s so regimenting, but I follow Butter to the window into Tex’s office, where there’s a round, green-glowing old Coca-Cola clock. We both peer through the glass. It reads 4:32.

  “Come on,” Butter says. “I think we have just enough time.”

  “I don’t get—”

  But Butter’s already disappeared around the corner of the office. There’s a refrigerator there, and she takes out a brown-paper grocery sack. “Breakfast,” she says. Up go her eyebrows. “Probably lunch, too.”

  I shake my head. “Butter, you have me totally—”

  “Just stick with me, Flower. We’re cool.”

  The purple-and-pink balloon is held down with four metal ropes, each tightened by a winch. Butter takes one of the handles and begins to crank it. The balloon is tugged earthward in our direction.

  “Over there,” she says, pointing to the winch directly across from us. “That’s yours.”

  I run across the yard and try to match my turns to Butter’s. We get the balloon to about eight feet off the ground, then head over to the two other winches. Pump, pump; the ropes go taut and the balloon drops even farther.

  “Get in,” she says.

  “In?”

  She nods fiercely, then steps back. I follow her gaze to the east. There’s just the faintest glow of yellow over the hills in the blue-black night.

  “We want dawn,” she says, more to herself than me.

  “Want it for what?”

  She steps back and puts everything she has into the look in her pale mushroom eyes. “You know, Flower.” She drags a three-step wooden stool over to the wicker basket underneath the balloon, then points at it. “Up you go.”

  I can’t tell you what I feel. It’s a floating kind of breathless astonishment and a warm tingling and a firm determination and just a giddy swooning before the vision of utter, fabulous freedom rising inside me. All this all at once. I don’t hesitate.

  From the top step of the stool the woven-straw rim of the wicker basket is about chest high. Butter’s beneath me; she gives me an encouraging look. I put my hands just so and lift myself and tumble over the rim and into the basket itself.

  When I straighten myself and pop up my head, I’m grinning so wide my mouth hurts.

  “Good job,” Butter says. Then: “Here.”

  She hands up the brown-paper grocery bag and her black valise. I stick them in a corner of the basket. I notice there are two silver cylinders there, with hoses leading out of them. Above me is a metal contraption, circular, with holes. There are also a couple levers, one red, the other blue.

  “This is when it starts to get tricky,” she says. She turns east again: Yellow blooming over the red-black hills. A few hints of sun warm my face. “Ten more minutes, then we’re off.”

  “What about at the zoo?” I call down.

  I can see Butter smiling. “I think Chester and Sally and all of them will have themselves a little surprise when they get there.”

  “Oh!”

  “Yeah.” Butter goes back to fiddling with the ropes.

  The purple-and-pink balloon swells overhead, blotting out most of the sky. I’m close, and it’s still too dark to see its edge clearly, but even as I’m looking upward, the balloon slowly reveals itself; I see its graceful sweeping curves. My head lifts back in awe.

  “O.K.,” Butter shouts, “let’s go.” She scampers to one of the winches and unhooks the rope. As I’m watching her do it, the wicker basket lurches up on one side. I grab the basket’s rim with both hands. I’m tilted to the left.

  “Give me a second, I’ll balance you out again.” And Butter runs across to another winch and sets that rope free.

  It’s now totally clear what she’s up to, of course. I still can’t believe it, but I have to. I call down to her, “Butter, you’ve flown one of these before?” I hear my voice jump nervously.

  “We’ll be fine.”

  “Butter!”

  She looks up at me. “Flower, I’ve been up with Tex or the other cowboys dozens of times. It’s not that complicated.” She frees the next rope. The balloon jerks again, but it’s more level. Even so I hold on tighter. “It goes up, it goes down. It’s just a balloon.”

  “Just a—” I look up again. The sky has quickly lightened, and if I crane my head to the side, I can see around the looming purple-and-pink teardrop. The sky is shot with yellow, blue, and gold. God, it’s huge.

  “Two to go,” Butter calls up.

  “How’re you going to get in?” I shout to her.

  “No problem.” She’s at the third rope. “O.K., hold on really tight.” When the rope’s unhooked, the balloon pitches wildly. My stomach jumps. The basket’s opening is almost perpendicular to the ground. At any moment, I feel, I could be tossed out.

  “Now it gets real tricky,” Butter says.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I have to get the last rope loose, then climb into the basket.”

  “Yeah, but how?”

  “I’ve been working on it. I’m going to set it free, then climb up the rope. I’m pretty fast.”

  I remember her from the other day playing Frisbee football, how quick she caught me. Still I say, “Butter, that sounds crazy.”

  “You can help me.”

  “Sure. Anything.”

  She’s looking up. “O.K., there are two handles—”

  “You mean these levers? One’s red, the other blue—”

  “Exactly. The red one fires up the burner, gets hot air into the balloon—makes it rise. The blue one lets the hot air out the top; that’s how you get down.”

  “Why don’t we just let enough air out so you can climb into the balloon now?”

  Butter shakes her head. “It’ll take too long, now that it’s light out. But, if you let out a little air, I’ll have more time to get up the rope.” I turn from Butter to the two levers. The handles have plastic tape wrapped around the metal. “So pull the blue one a bit now—not too much.”

  I reach up and give it a gentle tug—nothing. It’s tight, and I’m imagining most of the people who pull on it are the strong cowboy pilots. I brace my feet and tug down on it again. It won’t budge.

  “Butter, I’m not sure I can get it to move.”

  “I think there’s a safety latch or clasp you need to undo.”

  It doesn’t help, of course, that the wicker basket hangs nearly perpendicular and that I’m barely in it. Right then a wind gust comes and kicks
the balloon. The basket and I spin around.

  “O.K,” I say. “I’m looking.” It also doesn’t help that not much light falls into the basket. I run my fingers up and down the lever but don’t feel it hooked in any way. Maybe there’s a button somewhere. I kneel in the basket and start poking all around.

  “We gotta get going,” Butter calls up to me.

  “I can’t find anything,” I cry. “I’m—I’m sorry.”

  “Keep looking.”

  “Can’t you just climb in here first, then we’ll let the rope go?”

  “The rope’s metal, we can’t cut it,” Butter says. “I don’t know how else to do it.”

  “What does Tex do?”

  “He gets you into the basket, then somebody like me just sets the balloon free.”

  I let out a long whistle. “Butter, this is really crazy.”

  “Flower, the balloon will take off, you’re right, but I know what to do. I only need a couple pulls up the rope. Like I said, I’ve been practicing. And you’ll grab and help pull me in, of course.”

  “Of course.” I look up again; the whole sky’s glowing blue and yellow. Any moment I’ll be up in it. My heart soars.

  Then I look around the basket again. There . . . look, a small metal box with a round gauge and a couple buttons. Maybe that’s it. One button says lift, the other release. That has to be it: release. I push it. Then I put my hand on the lever again. Nothing.

  “I found a button that seems right, but it’s not doing anything.”

  “What’s it say?”

  “Release.”

  “That sounds good,” Butter says. She’s winched the balloon down so there’s only eight or so feet of rope holding it. She reaches up and grasps the metal rope. I can tell she’s psyching herself up. Then she says, “Try holding down the button while you move the lever.”

  “Butter, good idea!” I brace myself again, push down the button, then with my other hand reach out and grasp the blue lever. My fingers have never seemed tinier. Still, I get a good grip—and as I pull down this time, the lever moves.

  I hear a high whistle of air from the top of the balloon; the sound builds then crescendos. I don’t want the balloon to drop too far, so I push the lever back up.