The Garden Club by James Gerard (bill gates best books .TXT) 📕

The attention turned to the thick boundary of overgrown ferns and seedlings lining the edge of a path.  Hal searched out signs of someone lurking about, but the culprit was not detected—whoever it was knew not to be caught.

Hal reached down and picked out the bunch of bananas from the weeds and started hiking down the dirt pathway that had been invaded by the plants over the years.

The youthful enthusiasm and a body lean and fit once made the walk a literal stroll in the park for Hal, but such vigor had given way to a two hundred and fifty pound frame that huffed and puffed for the mile or so it took to reach the targeted destination.  The destination was a punishing stairwell rising one hundred and fifty feet above woody shrubs, trees hosting a number of colorful epiphytes, and emerging to a perch high atop the canopy layer rich in flowers, fruits, and nuts.

Hal entered the observation nest and plopped down in the first chair that was available.  Panting furiously, he scanned the nest.  Ron was absent.  So too was the report.   Minutes passed.  The heavy panting gave way to slow and steady breaths and clarity of thoughts. 

A finger reached out and activated a radio.  “Ron, is the final draft of the revenue report finished?”

A response was barely audible through the static of the rickety radio.  “It’s by the printer.”

Hal looked to the printer and saw the papers perfectly aligned and smartly stapled together.  Although he was unable to count the number of ways his friend found ways to make his life a living hell at times, he could always count on Ron’s technical skills to produce the park’s business data in a timely fashion.  He smirked while realizing the only aspect of the business end of the park in which he were responsible was the job of meeting with the Governor—one that Ron detested but he managed to stomach.

Hal walked over to the computer desk.  The bananas were tossed atop the clutter free surface.  “They’re at it again.”

“Who’s at it again?”

“Someone from the maintenance crew is taking fruit again.  I found a bunch of bananas by the entrance to the power plant.”

“Great!” the static voice responded.  “You better make sure the Governor finds out about this.”

Hal reached out to the report and immediately the attention was drawn to the bottom line.  Observing the positive numbers he wondered if Ron actually thought either he or the Governor was unaware of the clever accounting trick that spoke well of the park’s financial health.

“Well, look at this,” noted Hal, “the walk-up gate receipts have increased again this month.”

“The figures don’t lie you nutcase!”

“Oh for god’s sake will you calm down.  I’m just making an observation is all.”

“Are you saying I made up those numbers?”

Hal could hear the anger in the tone of his friend’s voice as accusations, questions concerning the integrity of not only the numbers but of ethical behavior, sputtered out in rapid succession.  He knew better not to let out suspicious statements concerning the numbers, yet the suspicions remained and eventually would have to be confronted by direct questioning that would lead to the truth.

In the meantime, Hal struggled to justify his friend’s angry mind and manipulative ways.  He wanted to try to pinpoint the cause and the beginnings of such irrationality.  All he knew is that such behavior had surfaced recently and was cleverly disguised, as with the accounting tricks. But Hal wanted to know why his friend felt the need to keep secret the source of anger—arguing just made it worse.  But the reason why kept eating away at the conscious.

Hal reasoned the answer could lie in Ron’s self-perception of him being the key to the park’s vitality.  In a way, Ron may have felt as if he were the last survivor of a mindset that had once believed that the earth needed pampering and protection for her precious and delicate resources being raped by the lusts of men.  And Hal could empathize with what his friend must have been experiencing, but to a point.  The sheer mental torture that had beset his mind with thoughts of fighting a lost battle, a crusade for which all had abandoned, left him alone in the struggle.   As much as he too loved the park, neither he nor a united stand with his friend could defend its existence or assure its fate.  The park was coming to an end.  The corporate leadership saw it as wasted space.

Having heard enough of Ron’s chattering diatribe, Hal yelled out, “Okay.  Just drop it already.”

“You’re the one that brought ….”

“Why do you sleep at the park?”  Hal demanded to know.

“I’m….”

“You don’t shop for food do you?”

“Are you accusing me of eating off the park?”

“Well?”

After a long pause, a reply to the question was heard over the static.  “I’d never do that and you know it.”

Hal heard the sincerity, the quiet passion that quickly dismissed the notion that Ron could ever bring himself to commit such an act.  Hal could blame Ron for a lot of misdirected intentions, but to angrily accuse him of stealing from the park was simply a callous and vicious attack born out of frustration.  Stealing was not part of Ron’s character.

“Sorry Ron…I didn’t mean that.”

Static responded.

“By the way, what happened Friday?”

“Why do you care?”

“Governor Hartson wants to see me.”

“Moved up the monthly meeting did you?  Can’t wait till they close the park down can you?”

The realities of the situation begged to be discussed, but Hal lacked the heart to start anew any volatility with his friend.  “Come on already, just tell me what happened.”

“A monster attacked them as usual.  Now get the hell out of here and tell the Governor of the attack.”

Hal refrained from responding to the hurtful statement, a statement he knew was derived by Ron’s personal demons speaking lies.  He realized that anything that could be said to his friend would be twisted and turned and made into a point of argument.  Hal flipped off the radio and placed the bunch of bananas and the report in a bag and decided to just walk away.  He walked down the stairs to the path below.

Upon stepping on the dirt path, the sprinkler system sent the water sustaining the manmade ecosystem raining down.  Hal looked up and realized he could not stop the violent storm that was about to destroy the park that had long ago reached an ecological balance in spite of all the attention given by Ron.  Time was running out.  The Board of Realtors had been putting insurmountable pressure on the Governor to hand over the park’s fertile land for yet another closed habitat for human occupation.  The park’s fate was already decided.

Though he would not miss the park terribly, it would be a devastating loss nonetheless.  Ron, however, was another matter.  The park meant everything too him.  If he was forced to leave he would not know what to do with himself.  He would be lost and not know how to survive.

Such speculation would have to wait until the day the Governor made his decision concerning the park.  Until that time, Hal decided to commit to the business end of the park by reporting to the Governor each month.  More importantly, Hal defended his friend from the wrath of all those that demanded the park’s destruction.

As the caravan of cars rolled along towards downtown at a slow but steady pace, Hal now and then glanced down at the phone praying the Governor might demonstrate a little understanding for being late.  The thought of eight-thirty creeping up to nine o’clock sent chills throughout the mind.  All he could envision was confronting that stone face and cold stare of a man who lived by punctuality.

Hal believed the Governor to be a good man, but yet a man dealing with responsibilities that the corporate leaders had given him.  Unfortunately for him, it seemed as if those responsibilities were being slowly taken away.  Maybe, he wondered, if the Governor finally reached a point where he sensed his usefulness coming to an end?  But then again, maybe he had been grappling with the idea that the need to retain any semblance of a government that ruled by their decisions and discretions, was just a demand from those who remembered and still looked to the past to manage the lives of its citizens.

For most, the fall of government, no matter what the philosophy and means of implementing the objectives to manage the lives of its citizens, was born out of the outright anger.  The fury had been directed at the worldwide leaders’ willingness to do battle with one another over the natural resources needed to fulfill their agendas.

The war to end all wars, the war that was waged, and the war in which governments wielded their autonomous power against one another became a battlefront of epic proportions.  It was a war in which every weapon that had been designed to maximize death and destruction was employed to wrestle away the victory from one another.

The weapons that had been unleashed in the name of progress, a progress that could only be propagated by rare earth minerals, were devastating.  Most of the destructive weapons were launched by countries lacking the desired minerals.  The unleashing of such only came when negotiating with the countries that held the minerals in abundance broke down.  These countries held the minerals for ransom.  The high price of the ransom were for political, social, religious, and economic gains these countries sought.  The asking for such an unreasonable rasom backfired.  What followed was so vile that the entirety of earth’s population came close to the verge of extinction.  If it had not been for the outcry of both citizens and corporate leaders around the world, the governments would have proceeded unchecked.  Their determination to bring to fruition their visions until all humanity had been destroyed would have been acomplished.

In response to the madness, governments worldwide were toppled.  Military actions were momentarily halted in the absence of direction and stood idly by.  Political leaders were taken into custody and thrown in makeshift prisons that offered nothing but miserable conditions.  Worldwide throngs then sought ways to make each individual stand trial for the callous assault on all of humanity.  If not for certain corporate leaders, men and women who had a vision that reflected the needs and wants of all, just not the select few, the trials would have commenced without any regard to those that may have been innocent of the charges.

If it were not for the actions of one particular corporate leader that stood up and placed herself in front of television cameras to issue a passionate plea to all those that watched, the madness might not have ended.  It was a plea that ran contradictory to the philosophy of government that stated “first you do something for us, then we will do something for you.”   And it was a plea that caught the attention of the entire world.

Her simple plea had not been rehearsed.  Its simpleness was spontaneously uttered as reporters from around the