Ro sleeps in Granddad's bed that night, in the loft that looks down onto the kitchen. I nestle in my own bed, right below that loft. He sleeps real quiet-like—so quiet, I cain almost convince myself he ain't even there. But my own breath catches when I do that. I want him to be there but I ain't at peace with that. I been alone long enough that I should be used to it by now. So how come I like havin' Ro 'round so much? It shouldn't matter whether he comes or goes, but I'm honestly glad he's here now, whether it's because of what he told me out on the porch today, or in spite of it—I'm not sure which.
Ro ain't killed no one. He tells me that first off and seems keen on me believin' it, if nothin' else. He adds in that he ain't no threat to me. He'd sooner slit his own wrists than do me harm.
"That's pretty dramatic," I tell him. Leadin' with a declaration of suicide should he act dishonorable towards me—he certainly has a flair fer tale tellin'. So I say, "Go on and git to the rest of the story."
He's from the capital city, which is what I suspected. Grew up there all his life near the city's soarin' spires. And also like I thought, his life is lucky, right from the start. He's privileged and never wants fer nothin'.
He got him a good childhood... happy. Durin' his young days, he rarely sees the parts of his city where the poor wretches live—the slums where folks are driven in order to escape their fruitless farms 'fore they get swallowed up by the desert. The Regions don't take in common folk as a rule, but it turns out the capital city makes an exception. Likes to show how merciful it is, lettin' desperate folk from inferior stock feed off its leftovers, and even gives a few of those folk employment of the toilet cleanin' variety.
I believe Ro has a toilet cleaner at his own fine house, but the only time he ever glimpses at where that woman comes from is when he leaves the city each summer to go on what he calls a wilderness expedition. That's where, if you cain believe it, people actually pretend to be homeless and without all their city conveniences. They make fun times out of survivin' off the land, till it tires 'em out, at which point they go back to their food-brought-on-a-platter-every-morning lives once more.
I cain't quite wrap my head 'round this, that his kind have to play at survival, that it don't just come natural from day to day gettin' by. They still gotta find a way to pretend once a year when the weather is nice and all the forest berries are in season. Must be rough. It do explain how he managed to git this far from the capital, across hundreds and hundreds of miles of harsh land, not a toilet cleaner in sight, all without expirin'. Pretend survival's paid off fer him, and I gotta remember that. Best I don't discount Ro as fast as I was first inclined to.
Anyways, goin' on these wilderness expeditions means travelin' from its pristine luck-filled center through the dangerous parts of town, where all the folks like me git stuck and evidently stay stuck till the day they die. But he tries his best not to see 'em, tries his best to ignore their stench, to ferget their sufferin'. He's a kid, so he cain push his mind in other directions, but not entirely. Somewhere at the back of his head, he notes their sufferin' and stores it fer future reference, and it's so well hidden, he don't even know this knowledge exists in himself till years later.
Eventually, the campin' trips stop and the upper education starts. College. That's something they got in the Regions, along with schools in general. Ro is on his way to becomin' a journalist. He learns all about turnin' facts into a good story, as his own life facts spelled out fer me in one hotter-than-hot afternoon stand in testament of. He gits apprenticed to a man who teaches him how to set type, how to put thoughts on a piece of paper and make 'em stick there. Ro believes he'll finish school and then work with this teacher till that teacher retires, which is what wealthy folks git to do 'fore they die, stead of constant work bein' the cause of their demise. After that, he'll take over, writin' government-approved news stories, printin' papers, gittin' people to read what he wrote. Well, this end up comin' to fruition, just not nearly the way he imagines it.
A few months into his first year of college, Ro meets up with a fellow student, name of Stuart. Him and Stuart started a real friendship, which includes drinkin' what he refers to as copious amounts of liquor. Now, a thing you gotta know about the Regions is that they don't take kindly to alcohol consumption. So this liquor drinkin' takes place where the authorities ain't bound to care overly much about it—at an underground tavern in the poor part of town.
Time and time again, Ro and Stuart make their way to their favorite spot, a hole in the wall called Mattie's, and it don't take long fer Ro to start seein', I mean really seein', what's 'round him. That exposure from his childhood starts creepin' out of his subtle mind into his not-so-subtle mind and he's back to bein' a spectator in the middle of a field growin' up sufferin' like it's a fertile vineyard. Only now, he ain't just passin' through the fields, he's there to squeeze juice from them grapes.
It don't take long fer his emotions to get all mixed up. Here he is, comin' to a place most people hope to escape, and he's there to recreate, like he's back on a wilderness expedition, playin' at something everyone else considers the hardest form of hard labor. It makes him feel real bad, and after a while, he cain't stop his bad feelin' from spillin' over.
One night, several bottles already drained, he tells Stuart these here poor parts of town is startin' to weigh on him. Something's not right, he says to his friend. Something's not fair.
He expects... I don't know... a pep talk from Stuart, I suppose. Stuart's every bit as lucky in his life as Ro is in his own. He'll probably slap Ro on the back, buy him another drink, and tell him not to worry about these sorry saps beggin' on the tavern's threshold. Don't mind the shoeless children, or their doped-up parents. Just look at 'em. They ain't us, he'll say to Ro. They deserve to live this way.
Well, Stuart don't say or do none of those things, 'cept he really does slap Ro on the back. He smiles as he tells Ro, "Finally. I've been wondering when you were going to come around." Then he hops out of his chair and leads Ro back behind the bar, ignorin' the Employees Only sign. Stuart pushes open a door and it turns out, there's a back room to Mattie's Tavern. Ro's jaw nearly hits the floor at what awaits him in that room. Papers and books and a printing press, and mixed up with all of that, folks, lucky and unlucky, all workin' together. Fer what? Well, the word Stuart uses is, "justice."
Turns out, their printer had up and got herself arrested a few weeks back. "So," Stuart says, "I need you to take over. You in?"
Ro wouldn't be spendin' tonight up in Granddad's bed if he'd declined Stuart's offer, but of course, he says yes. He starts out printin' fliers about rallies and organizational meetings, tryin' to convince the capital's poor to come together. These sorts of activities, in which poor folks try to figure out how to get themselves not poor, ain't even close to bein' acceptable in the eyes of the law. Ro knows he'll be in trouble if it's found out he's usin' his skills to spread the message that people don't just have to mistake misery fer a death sentence. He believes things cain change, and he calculates his personal risk based on that believe.
This goes on fer a while, him almost gittin' caught on three separate occasions. They have to move the underground press to different locals to keep it secret. One time, they don't beat the law and all their stuff gits burned up and two of their workers git arrested. But they persist, none-the-less.
One night, him and Stuart are talkin' with this commoner, name of Amos. Amos is a refugee, newly arrived from the heart of the Desert and he says to 'em, "Fer all of yer learnin', it's funny how none of yous know what all of us desert dwellers have accepted as true fer years."
And Stuart and Ro are like, "Tell us, Amos. We don't wanna be stupid city boys no more." Course they say it more proper than that, but anyways, Amos responds, "Well, the desert, it's spreadin'."
"Yeah, yeah." They shake their heads. "We know all about desertification."
"Yes, but no." Amos shakes his head back at 'em. "This ain't something that cain be reversed. The situation seems to be permanent. It just stopped rainin' at the center of the world and the no rain is spreadin' itself out. Pretty soon, it's gonna be a desert here too. All us refugees know it, cuz we've lived through our houses and our towns goin' under the sands, but you folks in the Regions, you've turned a blind eye so that you could enjoy the party fer another hour or two. But the party's gotta end at some point."
The two lucky boys don't know what to say to that. Everything' they was doin', it has to seem pretty futile in light of Amos' revelations.
"May," Ro breaks from his storytelling. "That's why you're wrong about lucky and unlucky. It doesn't matter if you're living on a goat farm east of a dried up gulch, or in a fancy house surrounded by the capital's luxury. Sooner or later, luck's going to run out for every single one of us."
A/N: What do you think of Ro's story? Has your opinion of him changed at all now that you know more about him? His story will continue in the next chapter and let me just say, there's a lot more to be told!
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