Drowning Cactus

By Carrie Russell

When his botched cactus theft is mistaken for an eco-protest, Gordon Burstein is thrust into the national spotlight and expected to speak for the land he loves. He panics and runs, beginning a journey of self-discovery that takes him from spring break in Mexico, across the Sonora, all the way to Thoreau’s Walden Pond.

Press and fans scramble to track him down, but no one is more determined than Mora Sullivan, a disgraced environmentalist who has fallen hard for Gordon. She treks into the desert, determined to find inspiration and love. Gordon and Mora must survive the wilderness, evade the law, and confront the many lies they’ve told the world and each other—all before they attempt to rescue a truckload of cacti from drowning in a New England swamp.

“...a dangerous, smart, and stunning debut.” - Laura van den Berg, author of The Isle of Youth

“...starkly beautiful prose, detailing the relationships of damaged characters.” – Portland Book Review

"Carrie Russell knows that serious stuff can be funny--even Saving the Earth." - Heather Lockman, author of The Indian Shirt Story

• Language: English
• Publisher: Carrie Russell
• Release date: Mar 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310943003

Carrie Russell

Carrie Russell is the author of the novel Drowning Cactus.Carrie studied literature and writing at Columbia and Oxford. She also has a J.D. from Harvard Law School. She has worked at a number of nonprofit environmental organizations and still practices law when she can't resist a cause.She is at work on her next novel.

Book preview

Drowning Cactus

Carrie Russell

Copyright © Drowning Cactus by Carrie Russell, 2015

carrierussellbooks.wordpress.com

Smashwords Edition

Cover design: Shannon LC Cate

This e-book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution by any means is illegal and a violation of International Copyright Law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines and/or imprisonment. No part of this e-book can be reproduced or sold by any business of person without the express permission of the publisher.

This book is a work of fiction. While references may be made to actual places or events, the names, characters, incidents, and locations within are from the author’s imagination and are not a resemblance to actual living or dead persons, businesses, or events. Any similarity is coincidental.

For Richard.

Table of Contents

Drowning Cactus

Drowning Cactus Reading Guide

About the Author

Acknowledgements

Chapter One

Gordon

The wind blew up the mountain, warning of winter, and slapped Gordon’s face until he awoke. He’d been sleeping in the bed of his truck, parked in the national forest, with just an old wool blanket for warmth. No sleeping bag. He couldn’t go back to his apartment in Santa Fe without a rent check, and he wouldn’t last many more nights outdoors without the camping equipment he couldn’t afford.

At least the Santa Magdalena Café opened early. He had enough cash for a drip coffee, so he could sit inside and thaw.

He arrived before the first pot finished brewing and scanned the bulletin board. A half sheet of yellow paper caught his eye. Private garden manager needed. Must have good energy, an open mind, and the ability to keep his or her mouth shut.

Gordon ripped the paper from the thumbtack and ran to a pay phone down the street, worrying, even as he dialed, that someone else might have seen the sign before him and already called. Competition was fierce for scarce jobs.

A woman answered, Do you realize what time it is?

Gordon tried to apologize, but she cut him off. I hate holding these radiation devices against my head. I’m awake now. You might as well come over.

Gordon drove north, back up into the hills, repeating her directions until he could visualize the turns ahead. He rehearsed answers to potential interview questions in his mind. College just wasn’t a good fit. He’d dropped out before his professors could fail him. I’ve worked for every landscaping company in town. He’d been fired by every landscaping company in town, too. This trip is a waste of gas, he thought. She’ll never choose me for the job.

A sign for a scenic overlook beckoned and Gordon pulled off. He pointed his truck straight at the guardrail. The desert stretched below, a huge expanse of exposed golden earth interrupted only by the occasional green smudge. Probably sagebrush or saltbush, the low scrubby plants that stayed rooted no matter how dry the soil.

He’d worked his butt off at community college to get away from New Jersey and out to New Mexico. St. John’s College had sounded like paradise. He had fully intended to prove the admissions staff hadn’t made a mistake taking him on. He read The Odyssey, as assigned, back home before first semester. Once he arrived, though, he couldn’t bear to spend his time in the library. Odysseus heard the sirens singing, but his sailors kept him tied to his boat. No one held Gordon aboard when the hills and desert sang their songs.

At St. Mag’s, he met like-minded guys who shared his addiction to the outdoors. Rock climbers, artists, and casual drug dealers, all living unconventionally, unhindered by expectations about careers and diplomas, happily showed him the best hikes, hot springs, and drinking spots.

Gordon’s professors assigned one irrelevant, indecipherable text after the next. Aeschylus, Sophocles, Thucydides, Euripides. He couldn’t even keep the authors’ names straight much less muster the focus to write essays on their works.

The guys at St. Mag’s assured Gordon that his coursework didn’t matter. He dropped out and moved out of the dorms. Unfortunately, as soon as ski season opened in Taos, they took off, leaving him with a huge house and no way to make rent. He hadn’t known about their trust funds. When St. John’s notified Gordon’s parents that he’d quit, they stopped sending checks to cover his living expenses. Gordon begged for a loan, just to tide him over until he found steady work.

We’re done funding your pot habit, his dad said.

I need to pay my landlord.

Landlord or dealer?

You can live at home, his mom said, until you get back on track. You can start community college courses again.

I can’t stand New Jersey, Gordon objected.

You could work at R.E.I., she offered, as if camping equipment sales could substitute for the actual experience of camping.

Characteristically, not only did they refuse to help pay Gordon’s living expenses in New Mexico, they also refused to pay the cost of his drive back home. They didn’t really want him to return.

He breathed in deeply, trying to suck in the scent of the sagebrush below the plateau. He’d learned the names of about two dozen desert plants since moving to Santa Fe. He could pick out the scents of a handful of them. I’d be a great gardener, he thought.

Ten minutes later, he pulled up to a row of adobe houses along a ridge. A woman stood in an open doorway wearing a loose white dress with a silver belt and huge turquoise earrings. Long gray hair fell halfway down her back. She stood about five feet tall in high-heeled boots.

Are you Gordon Burstein?

Gordon nodded, remembering her stated interest in a quiet gardener. Quiet, at least, he could manage.

Did you get lost? The road winds but there aren’t a lot of turns. Are you one of those people who feels the need to stop at every single scenic overlook?

What was the right answer? Her house sat on a ridge. She must appreciate views. Then again, she probably wanted a worker, not a dreamer.

Gordon dipped his head, falling back on silence again, attempting to give an ambiguous response. He smiled straight into her frown.

She blushed and looked away. Come in already. I hate awkward introductions.

They stepped into a dimly lit living room filled with towering objects. As his eyes adjusted, he recognized them as dead cacti, all missing their flesh and skin. He walked straight to the largest plant, wondering if the last gardener had been a terrible disaster or if the work of a garden manager might be more difficult than he’d expected.

I finished that piece a few days ago.

You did this on purpose?

A number of the galleries on Canyon Road show my sculptures. They used to anyway.

Gordon circled the cactus, inspecting it for knife wounds or bullet marks. As far as he could tell, the flesh had simply evaporated. So you’re an artist?

Rosa Vida, she said, as if the name should be familiar.

I’ve never seen the inside of a cactus. It’s like a dinosaur skeleton.

The wasted remains of greatness. If you’re thinking my work is autobiographical, you are precisely correct. I’m thinking of changing my name again. Rosa Muerte, maybe. Do you think I should? Or something Hopi. Do you speak the Hopi language, by any chance?

I don’t, Gordon confessed. He wondered if she’d hold it against him.

My uninspired parents named me Rebecca Grossman. I figure, Rosa Vida, Rosa Muerte. It’s my prerogative. Anyway, I left Rebecca behind when I left New York for Santa Fe. New York is a terrible place.

I’m from New Jersey.

New Jersey’s even worse, but you know that. You’re a child of the desert. You’ve been reborn here, too. I can tell.

Flummoxed by the rebirth talk, Gordon decided to turn the conversation to his qualifications for the job. I’ve been learning a lot about plants since I moved here. The gardening gig sounds like a perfect fit for my skills.

Oh, Gordon, let’s not talk business. I like you. I trust you. You have the job. Spare me the parade of accomplishments.

Seriously? That’s excellent. You won’t regret your decision. I’ll work really hard. He was making a promise to both of them.

I couldn’t show the garden to someone I didn’t like and trust.

Gordon’s heart surged with appreciation. He had a job. He’d be working outside, up in the hills, in a beautiful, private garden. He couldn’t believe his fortune.

Rosa flung open a set of French doors on the far side of the living room revealing a junkyard of cactus plants, some in the ground, some growing out of various containers—cooking pots, trash cans—squeezed into a narrow walled patio. Their thorned limbs had intertwined forming a three dimensional lattice. There was no way to walk through this garden.

I used to find cacti for my sculptures just outside of town. That was back before the retirement villages overtook all the abandoned land. I have to grow and harvest my own now. It’s a terrible task. It wouldn’t be much for you, but for me, well, I nurture the plants like they’re my own children. That’s why I need you.

Gordon didn’t know the first thing about cactus care, but he promised, I can take care of them like they’re my children, too.

I need you to kill them.

Seriously? He should have been relieved. Killing a plant seemed like an easier task than keeping it alive. How could he fail? The cactus tangle looked formidable though. He wasn’t sure how he’d separate the plants, much less murder them.

You can’t use poison. I can’t work near toxins. And you have to maintain the structural integrity. It’s a nuanced process. Above all else, you must respect the plants.

I respect them, Gordon answered truthfully.

Rosa pulled Gordon into an embrace.

I knew you would. I could tell the minute you drove in. Gordon, would you like to live here? To be closer to the garden? You could come and go as you wish, of course. I could offer you free accommodation instead of a paycheck.

Gordon peered over the low wall at the far edge of the garden. The view wasn’t all that different from the one back at the scenic overlook. This time, he really could smell sagebrush. In his head, he whispered a thank you to any indigenous gods who’d provided this rescue.

I’d pay you a stipend as well, of course. I wouldn’t want you to have to take a second job.

I’ll move in today.

That night, Gordon called his parents from Rosa's kitchen, expecting some praise for finding a steady and seemingly skilled job.

His father said, You’ll be a terrible gardener. You have no aptitude for detail. Besides, that’s a job for an uneducated immigrant, not my kid. When are you going to get your act together and do something of value to the world?

In the moment, Gordon was too humiliated to think of a response. He sputtered, I need to get back to the garden.

After he hung up, he realized he should have objected to the idea that gardening lacked value. Besides, didn’t the phrase get your act together suggest that he was just supposed to act some part? He didn’t want to act. He wanted to really live, like Rosa.

He found her in the living room threading wire through a stack of bird’s nests.

All these people with their jobs and their houses think they’ve got all the answers but, really, everyone is just acting a part, he said. They don’t even know it.

Well, of course, Gordon. Most of us have to act to get by each day. You don’t. That’s the blessing of beauty and youth.

You’re happy. I can tell.

I’m miserable and irrelevant. Help me find a way to hang these nests around this mesquite bush.

* * * *

Returning from a walk on the ridge, Gordon found Rosa standing in the garden, holding two golf umbrellas over the largest cacti. Rain slammed the unsheltered plants and ricocheted against their containers to the ones under the umbrellas.

He dug his tarp out from his closet and rushed out to help her.

They’re drowning, she wailed. My saguaro and organ pipe are transplants. Low desert. This is just too much water, too fast.

Hold tight. I think this tarp might be big enough.

Gordon reached over her and draped the tarp over the tips of the plants, one by one. He gently slid the umbrellas down as his tarps rendered them useless.

They watched the torrent of water fall around them, protected from drenching only by the tarp, a thin, flapping sheet of plastic. It was enough.

* * * *

The next morning, Rosa set Gordon to work improving soil drainage.

Gordon felt good about working among living beings, in dirt he could scrub from under his fingernails with nothing but a cloth, water, and persistence. He wasn’t sure whether he liked Rosa’s sculptures, but he liked the way she seemed to be responding to demands within herself rather than the expectations of others. He thought she shared his love of the natural world.

When a cactus spike lodged in his thumb, Rosa yanked it out and swabbed the wound with tea tree oil. She kissed his forehead before sending him back to the garden.

Life with Rosa wasn’t all that different from the life he’d enjoyed with his grandmother back in New Jersey. His grandmother had lived in the converted basement of his family’s home and basically raised him while his parents worked long hours at city jobs. She’d died when Gordon was sixteen. He’d found her after her heart attack sprawled on the steps up from the basement, her lifeless body half buried in a load of Gordon’s laundry—a load of laundry he was supposed to have washed and toted up the stairs days earlier.

While she’d been alive, he’d been so focused on his parents’ absence he hadn’t thought to appreciate her. She just liked me, Gordon thought. She liked having me around. Just like Rosa.

Rosa appeared carrying two mugs of ginger tea. Gordon didn’t enjoy her tea much, but he dropped his spade and accepted her offering.

You’ve got a green thumb, she said.

Gordon perched beside Rosa in the threshold and took in the view of the garden. The plants had all survived the downpour and seemed to have stretched their limbs higher and wider, to bask in the sun.

Too bad my parents only respect a career if it requires weekly trips to the dry cleaners.

You think you’ve got it bad? My parents think I’m a loon. They constantly try to put me on Abilify, Prozac, Paxil. Whatever commercial they’ve seen last. As if it’s inappropriate for an artist to be expressive.

At least you’re successful. They have to respect that.

Not a chance.

They sat, side by side, staring at the stalwart cacti. Suddenly, Rosa turned and clutched Gordon’s hand. We can never forgive them, but, if we really try, we can forget.

I want my parents to forgive me.

You’re a good man. There’s nothing to forgive.

He wished he could believe her, but she didn’t know him well enough. In all likelihood, he’d disappoint her, too, soon enough.

* * * *

The night before Christmas, they went out together for the city’s Christmas Walk. Luminarias lined every street and roofline in town and bonfires blazed on corners. People opened their houses to strangers, ladling out Styrofoam cups of mulled wine or eggnog to anyone who would sing a Christmas carol. Gordon and Rosa perfected a jubilant version of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and were thoroughly disinhibited when Rosa announced they might as well visit a gallery or two.

Eclipse Studio was throwing a gala opening for Julia Featherblind, a woman ten years Rosa’s junior, whose work seemed to be a perverse reinterpretation of Native American pottery. Julia Featherblind had somehow convinced a famous Zuni potter—She fucked him, Rosa whispered loud enough for anyone in the gallery to hear—to train her in traditional Zuni technique and then applied those techniques, including the highly spiritual designs, to vessels that resembled pornographic close-ups.

Julia, a starkly pale Anglo in a long flowing dress, rushed over to the two of them gushing, Rosa, I’m so glad you came. This must be the houseboy you’ve been keeping all to yourself.

I’m Gordon. I’m the gardener.

Julia stepped between them and clasped Gordon’s hand in her own. You must let me show you my work personally, she said. It might inspire your gardening to reach new heights, or shall I say depths? Julia giggled.

She wheeled him around the gallery, unblushingly showing him penises penetrating various parts of a man or woman’s anatomy.

I’m always looking for new models, she whispered as she reunited him with Rosa. She slipped a business card deep into his front jeans pocket.

Out on the sidewalk, the magic of the evening had corroded. Only a few luminarias remained burning. Many were tipped over on the sidewalk, the sand spilling out from between clamped lips of damp and trampled paper bags that had glowed so purely just hours before. The bonfires had burned to smoldering ruins, giving off little light but still filling the air with a strong scent of charred pinyon. Doors to most houses were closed against the dwindled crowds. The few remaining revelers had turned from cheerful caroling to drunken stumbling and over-exuberant laughter.

She sold everything in the show, Rosa stated flatly.

What did you tell her about me? She treated me like a call boy.

I didn’t tell her anything.

Gee, thanks.

Why do you care? Don’t tell me you were impressed by her.

I’m not your house boy.

She doesn’t understand what you’re doing with an old hag like me.

Well, I’m not with you. I’m just the gardener, right?

They walked to Rosa’s car and then drove home in silence. Gordon was sober enough to realize that Rosa wasn’t in good shape to drive but he didn’t feel he could do any better. He was eager to be home, away from the tarnished glow of the Christmas stroll, back where he could close the door on his own bedroom to shut out her sullen expression and dejected air.

Once home, Rosa attacked her most recent sculpture with a kitchen knife. She hacked at the frame of the cactus itself until it caved in on one side. She worked purposefully and silently while Gordon stood in the doorframe of his room watching the destruction.

He’d seen Rosa muttering in anger and frustration while she worked on plenty of occasions. He’d even witnessed crying, but her angry concentration scared him. Suddenly she stopped and focused her gaze out the back window.

It’s time for you to earn your keep, she said.

Gordon first thought about sex. Julia Featherblind had correctly assessed his relationship with Rosa. It wouldn’t be so bad, he supposed, to sleep with Rosa. He often felt tenderly toward her, and if that was all it would take to maintain their arrangement, one he already found comfortable, even comforting, he supposed he wouldn’t mind.

The saguaro, she said. I need it ready in three days.

Rosa didn’t want to sleep with him. She wanted him to execute a cactus. He tried to shift his mind from sex and stumbled against the thought of suffocating a large, thriving plant.

I can’t do it in three days, he said.

Just hack at the roots if you have to, Rosa responded with uncharacteristic harshness. I’ve got a show in a week and nothing I’ve got will satisfy the gallery.

Beautiful, haunting cactus skeleton sculptures nearly filled the room. Rosa hadn’t mentioned the show earlier and Gordon hadn’t registered the accumulation of finished artwork.

People don’t want genuine emotion and beauty these days anyway, she said, gesticulating wildly at her sculptures, herself, the view out the window, and a half-eaten burrito on a plate on the floor. All they want is filth. People want to see their ugliness mirrored, to know that their depravity is nothing more than a reflection of the world around them. Hack the thing up.

Gordon tried to make sense of her gestures and words, to understand who or what he should hack.

Rosa proceeded to methodically attack each of her sculptures in turn, prying off adornments and stabbing at the structure underneath, gauging deep holes.

He left her to the destruction. He didn’t think it was his job to calm her mania and he had no idea how he would even begin to settle her down. He went out to the cactus garden and regarded the saguaro instead. It was tall, at least eight feet high, leaning slightly toward the house, a single arm-like appendage extending halfway up one side.

He walked back in to search for a tool to attack this formidable creature. It wouldn’t go down easily.

Back inside, Rosa had toppled several of her sculptures. Gordon stepped over the ruins, placing his feet carefully to avoid crushing the fragments and relics scattered across the floor. He found Rosa standing over the kitchen sink, piercing the skin on her own stomach with a paring knife. Her top teeth sank into her lower lips in concentration and pain. She slid the tip of the knife in and out of her flesh in slow, smooth movements, just a little deeper each time.

Jesus Christ, Rosa!

Gordon lunged at her to pull the knife from her hand. He clutched her wrist tightly, twisting with a motion he remembered from the many Indian burns he had received on the playground as a boy. He was keenly aware of her veins under his grip and he wondered if he could be twisting too hard, forcing more blood out at her waistline.

Rosa’s hand went limp. She dropped the knife into the sink.

Just leave me alone, she spat.

Why are you doing this? he asked, unable to take his eyes off of the bright blood beading up on her stomach. The skin on her stomach was puckered, and it sagged over the elastic waist of her skirt. He held her wrist lightly still, afraid to let go. She might run away or grab the knife back up and begin jabbing at him.

This has nothing to do with you, she said. She let him maintain a loose grasp on her arm but turned her face away from him.

How can you say that? I’m here. I’ve been with you all night.

Rosa’s shoulders rose up and her head lifted. She seemed to be collecting herself back together. With her free hand, she pulled her shirt over her wound.

She said, It’s a terrible thing to be a real artist, a person with a purpose and a calling. It’s the callous ones and the phonies who thrive in this world.

Awkwardly, Gordon took Rosa in his arms. It was the last thing he wanted to do. He was repulsed by her actions and her escaped body fluids. He wanted to distance himself, to create as much space between their bodies as possible, but instead he clutched her close to his chest.

He had spent plenty of time thinking about the fact that no one in the world was making any effort to help him find his way. Now he realized that no one was doing much to hurt him either. Not on purpose. Maybe Rosa had realized the same thing. Maybe she preferred the pain of the knife to the ache of utter neglect.

Your work is wonderful. I mean it. I think your stuff is really awesome. He didn’t think Rosa was really suffering over her art. He suspected her pain originated from a far more basic sense of rejection but he had no idea how to address that anguish.

For a moment Rosa relaxed against him, but then she spoke and stiffened. Why should I listen to you? You’re just some loser kid. I mean, you’re a joke. What kind of gardener doesn’t care about plants? You didn’t even flinch when I described the job to you. You don’t try to find passion or purpose. You certainly don’t care about me.

The accusations were too harsh and too true. He retracted his embrace and walked backward away from her. Here, he had thought they were connecting, that, even if they were alone in the world, they could take care of each other, but Rosa was only thinking of herself. He wasn’t important enough for Rosa to love. He wasn’t an artist for her to admire, and he wasn’t a child she would want to care for. He was a full-grown man with no abilities, accomplishments, or even goals.

His back hit the door to the garden. Rosa was watching him retreat. The helplessness and despair in her eyes had been replaced with anger. Gordon could match her fury. He could beat it. He turned and pushed the garden door open, setting the wind chimes off in a frenzy.

Shut up already! he shouted at the chimes.

They continued to tinkle brightly.

As if he’d awakened but not fully surfaced from a nightmare, Gordon couldn’t quite shake the tension and anxiety of his encounter with Rosa, even outside of the condo away from Rosa. He couldn’t quite step forward into the calm, absolving night.

Light from the house spilled out through the windows and door. He knew he should go back in and try to comfort Rosa or at least watch her to make sure she didn’t cause herself more harm but he didn’t want to return to the blaring indoor brightness.

The saguaro stood at the back of the garden, proud, formidable, and seemingly indestructible.

Gordon carried a small spade over to the plant and began digging. Soon, he dropped the spade and began pulling earth away from the plant with his bare hands. He