victory garden 2

        Crimson sunrise, rose mackeral clouds. Sage omens in the breeze. Cherry Blossom tended the buds that were showing for the first time since she and Ziggy planted the seeds by moonlight, dancing as they went furrow to furrow, her silver belly looking like a stringbean pod. His name wasn't Ziggy, nor was it Siegfried. His choice of papers was Mister Zig-Zag. Ergo.
         "Morning, Cherry."
         He stood with a mug of coffee. He wore faded blue jeans and a pink Mister Zig-Zag teeshirt, with  a paisley tie for good measure. She inspected his fingernails.
          "My," she said. "You're handsome!"
          "Not silly looking with the tie?"
          "Never silly looking."
          "Well, me and Artie are going into town, to see what we can find."
          "No quick deals. OK?"
          "No quick deals."


                                                                                    *


          Her name was Constance and her friends called her Connie. They drove Corvettes and Thunderbirds to country clubs where punch parties were expected to be crashed. This country club was at Lake Tahoe and there was a Washoe folk fest making music upon the water. She sat in a white lawn chair and sipped the native punch. Thinking, This is so fucking dumb.
          Then she saw Tab Hunter. Jesus Christ, Tab Hunter! From Olympus.
          He stood on the promenade. Madras oxford shirt and white denim shorts. Legs and arms tanned to the color of ermine. Gazing with crystaline eyes upon the moonlit lake, he seemed oddly forlorn. She arose from her white lawn chair and climbed the redwood steps.
          "Mister Hunter?"
          "Huh?"
          "Oh. My. God. I thought you were Tab Hunter."
          They howled and laughed together. His teeth were perfect pearls.
           "Name's Randall. What's yours?"
           "Connie."
           "Well, Connie. Our meeting was written among the stars."
           "Nobody from Hollywood."
           There were those pearls again.


                                                                                   *


            John Muir once called the Sugar Pine the King of Conifers. Of all pines it was the tallest and most massive, and gave forth the longest cone of any conifer. It suffered from Blister Rust, and this was the subject of of Randall's thesis.
             "Pinus lambertiana," he stated. "Incredible tree."
             They were walking along a path near the lake.
             Connie snaked an arm around his waist, prompting him to cup her buttocks in one baseball catching hand. "I love trees," she said. "But I don't know them. Like you."
              "I'm just a college kid. Way younger than Tab Hunter."
              "Way younger!"


                                                                               *


              He was Ziggy now and she was Cherry Blossom.