Mission wiggled his shoulders. His arms were going numb. He wasn’t used to standing still with a load—he was used to moving. “That’s different,” he argued. “That’s food for climbing.”
Frankie shook his head. “Yeah, but ain’t that hypercritical of him?”
“You mean hypocritical?”
“Whatever, man. All I’m saying is everyone has an excuse. “We’re doing it because they’re doing it and someone else started it. So what if we’re doing it a little more than they are?” That’s the attitude, man. But then we get in a twist when the next group does it a little more. It’s like a ratchet, the way these things work.”
Mission glanced down the hall toward the glow of distant lights. “I dunno,” he said. “The mayor seems to be letting things slide lately.”
Frankie laughed. “You really think the mayor’s in charge? The mayor’s scared, man. Scared and old.” Frankie glanced back down the hall to make sure nobody was coming. The nervousness and paranoia had been with him since his youth. It’d been amusing when he was younger; now it was sad and a little worrisome. “You remember when we talked about being in charge one day? How things would be different?”
“It doesn’t work like that,” Mission said. “By the time we’re in charge, we’ll be old like them and won’t care anymore. And then our kids can hate us for pulling the same crap.”
Frankie laughed, and the tension in his wiry frame seemed to subside. “I bet you’re right.”
“Yeah, well, I need to go before my arms fall off.” Mission shrugged the pump higher up his back.
Frankie slapped his shoulder. “Yeah. Good seeing you, man.”
“Same.” Mission nodded and turned to go.
“Oh, hey, Mish . . .”
He stopped and looked back.
“You gonna see the Crow anytime soon?”
“I’ll pass that way tomorrow,” he said, assuming he’d live through the night.
Frankie smiled. “Tell her I said hey, wouldya?”
“I will,” Mission promised.
One more name to add to the list. If only he could charge his friends for all the messages he ran for them, he’d have way more than the three hundred and eighty-four chits already saved up. Half a chit for every hello he passed to the Crow, and he’d have his own apartment by now. He wouldn’t need to stay in the way stations. But messages from friends weighed far less than dark thoughts, so Mission didn’t mind them taking up space. They crowded out the other. And Lord knew, Mission hauled his fair share of the heavier kind.
27
It would’ve made more sense and been kinder on Mission’s back to drop off the pump before visiting his father, but the whole point of hauling it up was so that his old man would see him with the load. And so he headed into the planting halls and toward the same growing station his grandfather had worked and supposedly his great-grandfather too. Past the beans and the blueberry vines, beyond the squash and the potatoes. In a spot of corn that appeared ready for harvest, he found his old man on his hands and knees looking how Mission would always remember him: with a small spade working the soil, his hands picking at weeds like a habit, the way a girl might curl her fingers in her hair over and over without even knowing she was doing it.
“Father.”
His old man turned his head to the side, sweat glistening on his brow under the heat of the grow lights. There was a flash of a smile before it melted. Mission’s half-brother Riley appeared behind a back row of corn, a little twelve-year-old mimic of his dad, hands covered in dirt. He was quicker to call out a greeting, shouting “Mission!” as he hurried to his feet.
“The corn looks good,” Mission said. He rested a hand on the railing, the weight of the pump settling against his back, and reached out to bend a leaf with his thumb. Moist. The ears were a few weeks from harvest, and the smell took him right back. He saw a midge running up the stalk and killed the parasite with a deft pinch.
“Wadya bring me?” his little brother squealed.
Mission laughed and tussled his brother’s dark hair, a gift from the boy’s mother. “Sorry, bro. They loaded me down this time.” He turned slightly so that Riley—and his father—could see. His brother stepped onto the lowest rail and leaned over for a better look.
“Why dontcha set that down for a while?” his father asked. He slapped his hands together to keep the precious dirt on the proper side of the fence, then reached out and shook Mission’s hand. “You’re looking good.”
“You too, Dad.” Mission would’ve thrust his chest out and stood taller if it didn’t mean toppling back on his rear from the weight of the pump. “So what’s this I hear about the cafeteria starting in their own sprouts?”
His father grumbled and shook his head. “Corn, too, from what I hear. More goddamn up-sourcing.” He jabbed a finger at Mission’s chest. “This affects you lads, you know.”
His father meant the porters, and there was a tone of having told him so. There was always that tone.
Riley tugged on Mission’s overalls and asked to hold his knife. Mission slid the blade from its sheath and handed it over while he studied his father, a silence brewing between them. His dad looked older. His skin was the color of oiled wood, an unhealthy darkness from working too long under the grow lights. It was called a “tan,” and you could spot a farmer two landings away because of it.
An intense heat radiated from the bulbs overhead, and the anger Mission carried when he was away from home melted into a hollow sadness. The space his mother had left empty could be felt. It was a reminder to Mission of what his being born had cost. More was the pity he felt for his old man with his damaged skin and dark spots on his nose from years of abuse. These were the signs of all those in green who worked the soil, toiling among the silo’s dead.
Mission flashed back to his first solid memory as a boy: wielding a small spade that in those days had seemed to him a giant shovel. He had been playing between the rows of corn, turning over scoops of soil, mimicking his father, when without warning his old man had grabbed his wrist.
“Don’t dig there,” his father had said with an edge to his voice. This was back before Mission had witnessed his first funeral, before he had seen for himself what was laid beneath the seeds. After that day, he learned to spot the mounds where the soil was darker from having been disturbed.
“They’ve got you doing the heavy lifting, I see,” his father said, breaking the quiet. He assumed the load Mission had carried had been assigned by Dispatch. Mission didn’t correct him.
“They let us carry what we can handle,” he said. “The older porters get mail delivery. We each haul what we can.”
“I remember when I first stepped out of the shadows,” his dad said. He squinted and wiped his brow, nodded down the line. “Got stuck with potatoes while my caster went back to plucking blueberries. Two for the basket and one for him.”
Not this again. Mission watched as Riley tested the tip of the knife with the pad of his finger. He reached to take back the blade, but his brother twisted away from him.
“The older porters get mail duty because they can get mail duty,” his father explained.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mission said, the sadness gone, the anger back. “The old ports have bad knees is why we get the heavy loads. Besides, my bonus pay is judged by the pound and the time I make, so I don’t mind.”
“Oh, yes.” His father waved at Mission’s feet. “They pay you in bonuses and you pay them with your knees.”