Genny felt conspicuous in her slim red dress and high heels. The new perm, manicure, and borrowed diamond necklace simply added to her discomfort. No one noticed, though, or, at least, they didn’t say anything. Many of the new recruits had arrived in various and inappropriate garb, the result of Halloween invitations becoming mixed in with the correct ones for tonight’s meeting.
Bill Yamada came dressed as a Sioux chief, which really ruffled the feathers of Jamal White, who appeared costumed as Christopher Columbus, complete with the curly-ended moustache of ancient Italians as well as the original tracksuit the famous mariner wore on his leisure days on the Santa Maria. Then, there were Pedro Fernandez, the spitting image of Pancho Villa, and Mohanddas Gandhi in his sumo thong. Genny, in her 90’s socialite getup, fit right in.
Despite her good fortune, the nerves caused her teeth to chew on her fingernails, a habit she picked up after reading an article in the (now discontinued) propaganda section of Teen Vogue. The action of her natural dentures fired off tiny keratin bullets with the clickity-clickity-clack of a semi-automatic revolver. Pedro fell in a heap with a potentially mortal wound.
“Serves him right,” Bill thought. “Coming in here pretending to be something he’s not. The nerve! The anxiety he’s caused me from the perceived microagression has given me hives, which is much worse than, say, real aggression involving economic pressure to get someone fired … or knives. I hope he dies a slow, agonizing death, the cultural appropriating bastard.”
“I’m fine,” Pedro says.
“Great! I was pulling for you,” Bill said. “Bat stew anyone?” He held out a thermos. “Made it fresh this afternoon.”
Pedro quickly shook his head. “I haven’t received the Gates’ vaccine yet.”
Mohanddas adjusted his crotch. “You mean the computer guy?”
Pedro nodded this time. “And all-around population control genius.”
“Hmm,” was Gandhi’s only response.
Bill seemed to have recovered from Pedro’s slight. Jamal, on the other hand, continued to stew (pangolin, not bat) at Yamada’s naive depiction of Native Americans and quietly hummed Barry Manilow’s ‘Copacabana’ to calm himself down.
Genny looked around at all the craziness and smiled. “I’ll take some stew,” she said. A warm blush passed her lips and traveled down to her stomach. “Delicious,” she said to Bill. “Sure glad I’m up to date on the tetanus,” she thought.
“Looking beautiful there, G,” Mohanddas said.
“As always,” Pedro added.
Now, it was her cheeks’ turn to blush. “Thank you,” she said. A gentle squeeze on her shoulder turned her around. “Hey, Pierre,” she said. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”
Pierre greeted her with a quick peck on each reddened cheek. “Good evening, Genny. It’s good to see you. So glad you didn’t bring your black friend as the plus one.”
Genny couldn’t tell if his tone was angry or playful. She decided to chalk it up as matter-of-fact.
Pierre headed to the stage and tapped the microphone. “Testeeng, testeeng,” he said and cleared his throat. “Mmgmmfff,” it went. “Welcome, everyone, to the fall environmental club planning meeting. Please. Have a seat. Yes, you too. Everyone. Lookeeng good there Pedro. Your father would be proud. And Jamal. Kudos on the Stalin outfit. Eef I could vote, and thees was the Halloween party, you’d ween first prize.”
He paused and waited for the dying notes of the chatter to fade away.
Pierre continued. “I don’t have much to say as Jorge weell lead us tonight. I just wanted to mention, before we got started, how lovely eet eez to gather weeth you. I conseeder all of you family. Brothers, seesters, perhaps cousins, een-laws you may or may not have put a hit on.” He turned to a slim man in a horizontally striped shirt, who was apparently stuck in a box. “Martin, who reminds me a leetle of my weird Uncle Jacques. But all of you, een your own way, family, because that’s who we really are. When all eez said and done, when no one else eez there to turn to, we always have each other.”
Pierre continued to speak in his own eloquent fashion for another ten minutes. When he had finished, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.
“… and as my babushka used to say, ‘Once a Tortuga, always a Tortuga.’”
The thunderous applause almost drowned out the roar of the encroaching wildfire, which had regained its original strength and then some. He motioned to Jorge.
“Jorge. The podium eez yours.”
“Thank you, Pierre, for your stirring words. You’re a hard act to follow.” He turned to address the audience. “As official Friends of the Environment, we have been invited to participate in the third annual L.A. County Earth Lover’s Festival. This is a big honor and a bit of a surprise, especially considering the unfortunate bulldozer accident last year.”
Ramón coughed nervously.
“The first order of business is to decide who will man this year’s booth. Any volunteers? You’ll need to be good with the public.”
“I’d be happy to do it,” Mohanddas said. “I like stabbing people.”
“You’re not there to stab people,” Jorge said.
“You just said you needed someone good with the public.”
“I meant someone who likes to engage with people, who can put on a friendly face, be a goodwill ambassador for the Tortugas.”
“And then can I do the stabbing?”
“There’s no stabbing. Just talking.”
“You should’ve said that to begin with,” Mohanddas muttered.
“Anybody else? Bill. Thanks for raising your hand to volunteer.”
“Actually,” Bill said, “I have a question.”
“What is it?” Jorge said.
“Do we get to stab people?”
“No, Bill. No stabbing.”
“Never mind, then.”
“Jamal? Are you volunteering?”
“No. Just a question.”
“There’s no stabbing,” Jorge said.
Jamal’s hand lowered.
Jorge sighed out his annoyance and resignation. “We’ll come back to that later. For now, we need to focus on our principal responsibility for the festival. Everyone should have received a flyer from me ….”
Jamal cut in. “I didn’t receive a flyer.”
“I didn’t either,” Bill said.
Jorge scanned the room. “Anybody else not receive one?”
A roomful of hands went up.
Jorge lifted his eyebrows. “I guess I forgot to send it out. Well, you’ll be excited to know that we’ve been chosen to do decorations.”
The Tortugas let out a collective gasp, followed by the applause a valedictorian might expect to receive after winning the thirteenth superlative award in a row. Jorge chose to ignore the veiled disappointment and carried on.
“We’ll need to form five committees. The first will be our ribbon committee. They’ll be in charge of tying ribbons to the trees that surround the park. We’ve got green and brown and yellow ones already. Let me know if you want another color as well. There’s a little room in the budget for extras. Can I get a volunteer to head up that committee? Patel? Very good. Next up are the centerpieces. I’m thinking we’ll go with a lovely pinecone theme. Anybody for that? Genny? Excellent. You’ll need to work in squirrels somehow. Never mind? OK. Martha? Thank you. That brings us to posters. I know. I don’t even need to ask. You’ve got it Pablo. Finally, I’ll need someone to find us some magic dirt, preferably a person with experience. Someone with discerning taste buds. Beto, I volunteer you. Great. Looks like we’re ready to go, so if there’s nothing else ….”
Genny raised her hand. “I don’t mean to be rude,” she said, “but you said we needed five committees. You only mentioned four.”
“Yeah, I know,” he said, obviously annoyed with her. “Everybody else will be relegated to their normal role.”
“Which is …?” she asked.
“When the festival participants are distracted, we’ll break into their cars and remove the radios and other valuables.” His gesture said, “Duh.”
Everybody laughed, except for Genny, whose fingernail chewing increased its pace.
“Almost forgot,” Jorge said. “There’s an addendum to our duties.”
The Tortugas knew better than to snicker.
“I need one person to fashion an Ashtoreth. Make sure it’s out of wood, but only wood from a tree that fell over naturally. Don’t want to antagonize Gaia. Another person will need to help and round up a couple children for the good harvest sacrifice, just in case we choose to use them. If there are no more questions ….” He paused and looked around the room. “… meeting adjourned.”
The feeling in Genny’s gut was the same one she got after eating a bowl of menudo which had been left on the counter for three days. This time, however, no stomach pump would cure her. She walked over to Jorge and Pierre, who had found a corner in which to discuss some private business.
“Hey, Genny,” Pierre said. He cocked his head to one side and squinted. “Something the matter? You look a little upset.”
She brushed a long strand of hair out of her eyes. “I guess so.” She hesitated and bit her lip.
“What is it, Genny?” Pierre said. “You can tell us. You’re among friends here.”
“It’s … well … I’ve got some reservations about this festival thing.”
“You want to do the pinecones after all?” Pierre said.
“No … no, it’s not that.” She stared past Pierre as though the answer was written on the wall behind him. “It’s … I don’t feel comfortable stealing from people. Mainly, because it’s wrong. Except in socialist societies, of course.” Her brows furrowed. “It’s certainly nothing I signed up for when I joined the club. I mean, what would my dad think if he found out his little girl had become a thief? What would Cou …?” She cut herself off. “I … I don’t think I can do it.”
“Oh, but eet eez what you signed up for,” Pierre said. “Didn’t you read the contract?”
Genny shook her head. “It was too long. I just signed the at the bottom.”
Pierre pulled out a copy. “See right here. Paragraph 4. ‘I, the undersigned, agree to allow my data to be collected, stored, and manipulated for marketing and brainwashing purposes.’ Wait. That’s the wrong one.” He replaced the contract and removed another one. “Here. See. ‘Rules on Committees. Breaking into Cars.’ Read eet for yourself.”
Genny read it, her lips moving slightly out of sync with her brain. At the end, her eyes grew wide. “But … but I didn’t … I mean … I can’t ….” Her heart pounded as though John Henry was hammering a tunnel through her chest. “I’m sorry, Pierre. I can’t be involved with this.”
“We’re the Tortugas. Eet’s what we do.”
“Then … then, I guess I can’t be a Tortuga anymore.”
Pierre’s piercing gaze burrowed into the top of Genny’s lowered head. Jorge reached towards his waistband for the 9mm, but Pierre placed his hand on Jorge’s to stop him. He waited a few more seconds, then, began to laugh.
“Ha, ha, ha,” Pierre laughed. Although, to Genny’s ears it sounded like a nasally, ‘Hoh, hoh, hoh,’ with a slight accent on the last ‘hoh.’
“I am just keedding,” he said.
Genny joined him with a timid, ‘Ha, ha, ha.’
Pierre’s grew more robust. “Ha, ha, HA!”
Genny’s laughter rose with his. After a few more rounds, they were both doubled over, tears streaming down their cheeks. Finally, Genny stood up and wiped her eyes.
“What are we laughing about?” she said.
“I do not know,” Pierre said. “But whatever eet was must have been funny.”
Genny dabbed at the final drop. “Whew. Yeah.” She took a couple deep breaths to calm herself. “Well, I’ve gotta go. Thanks for the lovely evening. Let me know how I can help at the festival.”
“Will do,” Pierre said.
Pierre and Jorge watched her walk away.
“You want me to follow her, boss? Take care of her?” Jorge asked, tapping on his pistol.
“No.” Pierre continued to stare at her.
“I’m confused,” Jorge said. “You know she’s going to find out, and when she does, she’ll definitely try to quit the gang.”
Pierre nodded and looked at him. “I know.”
“Then, what are you waiting for? The only way a person is allowed to leave the Tortugas is in a pine box. Or mahogany, if they have the money.”
“Not tonight, Jorge,” he said. “I’ve got plans for her.”
Pierre’s silence let Jorge know that was all the information he would get. Turning once more towards the far door, the two followed Genny’s progress, her blonde curls swinging with each step, until she disappeared from sight.