I am Gideon: Chapter #17

Blue skies and green pastures

I made five crossings – Declivis to Demeter and back; that was two days each way.  Declivis to Equus and back; that was five days each way.  Then Declivis to Demeter again, and that time I got off and didn’t get back on. I had credits from two round trips in my pocket and a deep desire not to feel the floor shaking beneath my feet.

It was only my second time off the ship since I’d started work.  The first time I’d gone and paid Mrs. Membuss what I owed her, and I’d started to go and see Azar.  I didn’t.  I was too afraid he’d turn me away at the door and the memory I had of our friendship would be in tatters.  I couldn’t risk it.

This time, I planted my feet on Demeter.  Even in space dock I could see blue sky above me, and the further I walked, the bluer it got.  There was no city, no dingy buildings clawing at a stained sky.  It was a town.  The first town I’d ever been in.  There were trees everywhere, and green grass.  I’d only seen grass a few times; never touched it.  Now, I did.  I sat right down in it and ran my hands across the tops of it, watching the blades as they waved back and forth.

When I got up, I realized the grass was wet, and now my trousers were equally wet. It made me want to laugh.  I was free.  I was truly free and far away.  My mother was not going to stagger into my place of employment and vomit out my life’s story.  Nobody was going to see the brands on my body ever again.  Nobody was going to use me to get back at somebody else.

When a bit of the euphoria wore off, I realized I was alone on a planet with not a single friend, no job, no place to stay, no ability to read the signs or sign my name.  I stayed off the main sidewalks until my pants dried out, and then put on my oozing-confidence face and went exploring.  I was hungry, it was well into the afternoon, and I needed a place to stay.  The town was far nicer than anything I’d ever been exposed to, but I was leery of flopping down under a tree and waking up dead.

There were a couple of men playing cards at an outside table, enjoying a drink and the cool of evening.  I glided up as casually as I could and said, “I’m new in town,  Can you tell me if there’s a good place to stay nearby?”

“There’s a boarding house just up the street,” one of them said.  “Food’s pretty good, beds are clean.  Baker’s Boarding House.  Can’t miss it.”

I thanked them and strode on.

Of course I could miss it.  I couldn’t read.  The need to be able to read more than ten words on a menu board was beginning to burn inside me.  I was handicapped in a way I’d never fully realized until now. But…I could read ten words.  Those words had letters.  Baker and Biscuit sounded the same.  I would look for the Biscuit letter.  I walked along looking left and right muttering, “Biscuit, biscuit, biscuit…”

A sign, and on it, the biscuit letter.  The biscuit letter again.  There were men sitting in a long line of rocking chairs on the porch.  I started up the steps.  A pleasant-faced, unsmiling man nodded and said, “Mrs. Baker is just inside.”

Would she have room?  Could I have some supper?  The smell of whatever she was cooking was tantalizing.  I could feel my mouth starting to water, and I sucked my lips and swallowed before I spoke.

“Are you Mrs. Baker?”

A portly, middle-aged woman whose face matched the man on the porch nodded and came toward me, wiping her hands on her apron.  She tucked a wisp of hair behind her ear.  “Do you need a room?”

“I do,” I said. “And supper, if that’s included.”

“Breakfast and supper,” she nodded.  “Upstairs, third room on the right.”

“Roommate?” I asked, wondering if I was going to be carrying everything everywhere all the time.

“Just you,” she smiled, handing me a key.  “Supper in half an hour.”

Image by Hollis