Free South Village (Ash McKenna) by Rob Hart Page B

supposed to show Zorg around. He’s going to help me in the kitchen after you leave. Can you show him the ropes? I’ll be back in a half hour, tops.”
    Aesop is probably lying, that motherfucker. I can see it in his eyes. He says I need to be more social and sometimes corners me with folks so maybe I’ll make new friends. I want to go to the library but I’m not exactly in a rush, so I nod him off and turn to Zorg.
    “Do you have any cooking experience?” I ask.
    “Zorg does not.”
    “Look, you can call yourself Zorg and that’s fine, but let’s cut it with the third person just for right now, okay? I’m way too hung over for that.”
    He purses his lips and dips an eyebrow, like he is suddenly deeply suspect of me. “Okay. Zzz… I… do not. Do I need cooking experience?”
    “No. I didn’t have much. Aesop is a good teacher. Let me run you through the facilities.”
    I show him the cast iron stove, powered by dead wood from the forest. The electrical outlet for the occasional device we try to not use because we only have as much power as the solar panels suck up. Kitchen appliances are a hell of a drain. We can get two minutes out of the blender, tops. We run through the greywater sink and the water filter, which takes even longer than the greywater, and the whole time Zorg watches me like a lizard, his eyes wide and flat.
    After the tour of the kitchen, I figure I should show him the garden. Outside we find Gideon hanging upside down from a tree, shirtless, doing sit-ups. His face is red and he’s counting off very loudly, as if for our benefit, “Four… five… six…”
    “Wow,” Zorg says.
    “That’s Gideon. What you’re seeing right now tells you everything you need to know about him.”
    As we wander down the footpath Zorg asks, “So, everyone works here?”
    “Everyone works. If you’re staff you have a job and you do it and you get paid a little money. If you’re a guest you pay a little money for your accommodations and you pitch in on a chore.”
    “A lot of people come through here?”
    “Most people don’t stay more than a few days. That’s less an indictment of the facilities and more about demand. Lots of people want to come here.”
    “And how does the food service work?”
    “We do dinner every night. Full vegan, no exceptions. Most of it comes from our gardens, but we go into town for stuff we can’t grow. Pasta and things. We don’t do breakfast or lunch, that’s up to everyone else. We have two chest fridges. People are welcome to use the kitchen and to store stuff. Truth is no one does anything elaborate in there. Most people wait until dinner for their big meal. Everything else is snacking.”
    Something shimmers in my line of vision. I stop, put my hand out to block Zorg. I take a step forward and there’s a web spun across the trees lining the path, a spider the size of a large strawberry chilling right at face-level, its abdomen a brilliant explosion of stained glass. It would be beautiful if it wasn’t a giant nightmare spider. I walk around the trees, let the spider be.
    “Are there a lot of those out here?” Zorg asks.
    “Too many,” I tell him.
    We pass one of the outhouses, which is the size of a porta-potty, the outside graffitied with flowers.
    “So you pee against the trees and do your other business in there?” Zorg asks.
    “That’s the deal,” I tell him. “You cover it with sawdust. Works surprisingly well.”
    “Sounds scary,” Zorg says.
    “It is, a little. Check for bugs before you sit down. Took me two days to work up the courage the first time. Don’t wait that long. It’s not healthy.”
    We reach the garden. The canopy is cleared out here and the clouds have burned away, so the raised beds are drenched in sunlight. The temperature jumps noticeably as we step out from under the shade, enough I want to retreat. I lead him down the long rows, show him the vegetables and the herbs. The special plot we have set aside for Momma’s.