Welcome to Gaia! ::

Rated T for some violence and peril


At the Garrett Ranch, long, straight rows of orange trees stretched far into the distance, their flow across the vast San Fernando Valley interrupted only by the small, sturdy ranch house, where five generations of the Garrett family had lovingly tended to the crop, day after day, year after year.

But the Garretts were the last of their breed. Every other ranching family had long since sold out, giving way to tract houses, industrial parks and shopping malls, sweeping across the landscape in sameness like the rows of orange, lemon and avocado that came before them, but bland, lifeless and cold, without the juicy citrus aroma that greeted travelers on the highway.

And the generations of ranching Garretts ended, with 15-year-old Jeff Garrett.

On a broiling hot August afternoon, three days before the ranch house would be torn down, Jeff was packing his boxes. He was throwing out his old toys from when he was a kid. No one would want them now, since they were old and broken, and today's kids would only play with new toys that were advertised on those horrible Saturday morning cartoons. Never mind that some of them had belonged to his grandfather, from the time when the orange groves still stretched all the way across the Valley.

As Jeff was putting an old wooden train set in the trash bag, his mother shouted, "Jeff! That was your grandfather's! Get it out of the box.

Startled, Jeff yanked the toy out of the box.

She shouted, even more loudly, "No! Carefully!"

This confused him because he thought his mom was out with his dad, taking some of their things to the new house. He answered, "Mom, you're home already?"

"Of course I'm home!" was her reply.

Of course she's home? thought Jeff. She wasn't supposed to be back home for hours!

Jeff turned around. Where was his mom? It looked like no one was home. He walked around the house looking for his mom, down the hallway to the tiny kitchen with the creaky old gas stove, into the living room with its faded but sturdy yellow couch. Where was Mom? And what made her change her mind about the toys? She'd told him to get rid of all of them! She said they were useless and no one would want them, not even the poorest kids down in the Watts housing projects.

She shouted, "Don't let go like we did!"

What's she talking about? he thought. She wants to "let go" as much as the rest of us! We only held on so long because Dad wanted to. But now all the smog from the city makes it impossible to raise a good crop anymore. Oh, and we can't sell our crop for juice anymore because all those ads on TV make it so people only want Florida orange juice. Dad now realizes ranching in the Valley isn't working out anymore, and Mom's happy.

Again, she shouted, a little louder this time. "Don't let go like we did!"

So Jeff looked her in the eye, just as she demanded. "Why do you want me to save those toys? This morning you said we were just gonna give them all away."

"I never wanted you to save them. Christine told you to do that, huh?"

Christine was Jeff's mother's name.

"Umm... now I know you're not my mother."

"YES I AM! HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO ME LIKE THAT, YOU STUPID BOY! GO WASH YOUR MOUTH OUT WITH SOAP, YOUNG MAN!"

She grabbed a baseball bat Jeff had left on the floor and ran after him, holding it right above his head. Terrified, he stormed into the bathroom and put a bar of soap in his mouth, hoping this would please the woman. She opened the door, grabbed him by his hair, grasped the bar of soap and shoved it farther into his mouth, moving it back and forth. As he struggled to fight her off, she forced the soap down his throat until he choked.

He collapsed on the floor, soap suds dribbling out of his mouth.

A boastful smile crossed upon the woman's face. "That'll learn ya to disrespect your mother," she chortled.

Jeff had never "picked the crop." This was the first time anyone had told him to do such a thing. The family hired people to harvest the oranges, and had done so for the past fifty years.

The man shouted. "Get up! NOW! You stupid, lazy boy! UP!"

Jeff decided to ignore the strange goings-on. He went into his room and put his favorite Kiss record on the stereo, turning it up as loud as he could stand.

Just as he got back to packing up, his door swung open. It was that man again! Now he was carrying a rusty pitchfork that looked like it had been lying behind the shed forever.

"GET TO WORK! THE CROP IS AT ITS PEAK! IT'S GOTTA BE ON THE TRAIN BACK EAST BY MONDAY!" the man screamed. He ran into Jeff's room. With a rapid sweep of his pitchfork, he smashed the record player, amplifiers and speakers to the ground. Then he jabbed into it over and over until it was reduced to bits of plastic and metal. Afraid for his life, Jeff huddled into the back corner.

The man turned to Jeff. "What is this filth you're listening to? The crop's practically overripe, and you're just laying there, listening to... this! You stupid, lazy young man!" He pointed the pitchfork at Jeff. "Want me to smash you to pieces? No? Then GET TO WORK!"

As the man lunged toward Jeff, he ran down the hall and out the front door. The man chased after him, jabbing the pitchfork toward Jeff over and over.