Lemon by Cordelia Strube

my head, I worked some more on Truly Loved , got old Lillian, fuelled by the motivational speakers, to rally the deadbeats at the bank to protest. Half of them are being transferred to a new location in Oakville. Most of them don’t have cars, which means a two-hour commute to and from work on public transit. But management says that’s where the jobs are if they want them. Plus they’re extending branch hours, which means some shifts will start at seven in the morning. Nobody objects because they know there’s a bunch of the downsized in Oakville who’d be grateful to get their jobs. Lillian starts jumping up and down beside a plastic plant, chanting about self-respect, solidarity, human rights and union busting. Nobody’s too interested. The manager gets the security guard to take her out.
    Vaughn looks unconscious and it occurs to me he might be dead from all that tree-related sorrow so I say, ‘Yo, Vaughn.’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜Just checking.’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜If you’re dead.’ Immediately I regret saying this with his friend being dead and all that.
    â€˜I’ll keep you posted,’ he says.
    It’s pretty obvious he has no time for plebs who aren’t sitting in trees and I can respect that. I’m thinking maybe Lillian, after the big disillusionment, could become a tree sitter. After she blows up the bank.

11
    O ld Blecher asks me if I think I’m doing what God put me here to do.
    â€˜He didn’t put me here.’
    Personally I think we’d be a whole lot better off if we dropped the God concept. Without the God concept, we’d be equals. Nobody could make deals. Old Swails was telling us about Martin Luther figuring out that the Catholic church was all about making money. Priests would show up in villages and say, ‘Buy this bit of parchment with Latin scribbled on it and your granddaddy will not burn in Eternal Damnation.’ The people were dirt-poor so buying religious junk meant no bread for their children. Martin Luther said, ‘Forget all the junk, I’ll translate the Bible for you and you can practice your faith without worrying about what the old cardinal has to say about it.’ Was the Vatican ever pissed. Old Swails was jumping around pretending to be the cardinal, shouting in an Italian accent. ‘Thisa heretic MUSTA BE BURNED!’
    â€˜Let me put it differently,’ Blecher says. ‘Do you find purpose and meaning in your daily life?’
    She’s giddy because she just got certified as a Life and Career Coach by the Institute of Life Purpose. She thinks people are going to pay her to ask them profound questions like ‘Do you have clear goals and direction?’
    She pulls the lid off a yogourt and licks it. ‘Do you feel that you’re making a positive contribution to others?’
    â€˜Negative.’
    â€˜Do you feel good about yourself?’
    â€˜Negative.’
    She digs around in the yogourt with a plastic spoon. ‘You know what I think? I think you’re holding yourself back from living your life’s purpose.’
    Last week in Sociology Mrs. Freeman was talking about the Underground Railroad. She asked if anybody knew what it was. Kirsten said it was a railway that went underground. Nicole said it was a series of secret pathways. Mrs. Freeman went gospel as she bellowed that it wasn’t like that at all, that it was the slaves just following the gourd. Then she started singing ‘Follow the Drinkin’ Gourd.’ One of Drew’s Extraordinary Women books is about Harriet Tubman, the escaped slave who went back to the south hundreds of times to rescue more slaves even though she’d been beaten and raped by her masters since she was seven years old. She’d decided she’d rather die than live in slavery. She ran barefoot through woods and swamps with bloodhounds and shotguns chasing her. Big rewards were offered for her