Scenes From a Post-Revolutionary Federal Hill
A walk to the Housing Committee headquarters complicates Billie’s decision to become a shuffler.
This was my first attempt at writing fiction since conjuring slightly smutty Pokemon tales as a child. It was very humbling exercise for my journalist brain, and at times even enjoyable!
A special thank you to Eric, Zach and my mom for the insights, feedback and encouragement.
Billie woke up thinking about the fig trees his great grandparents had planted more than a century ago. The undulating buzz of cicadas and chickadee songs seeped through his open windows on the Penn Paths, whisking him away to a lifetime of tree climbing, reading under their shade, and collecting figs for his famous pies. A web of threads bound him to those trees, pulsing vital energy into him wherever he was.
When Billie was younger, his grandparents would recount tales of their parents planting them alongside their neighbors during the revolution. Local jazz musicians set the scene, serenading hundreds of lively helpers in shabby overalls and tattered work gloves. In-between songs you could hear a chorus of shovels plunging into what they, back then, called lawns, and sledgehammers thwacking hostile concrete into oblivion. Local arborists and landscapers huddled up with the various crews to delegate tasks they had been coordinating for months. Feral kids ran around hooting and hollering with red, green and yellow kites whipping around in the wind, waving to the new world being sowed.
But today, Billie was making moves to leave Federal Hill in Providence behind. He’d head to the Housing Committee headquarters on Broadway, meandering past the grape vines, past the persimmons, paw paws, blueberries, raspberries, and walnut trees, past the collective kitchens’ soupy scents, past the free-for-all art studio leaking mysterious purple dyes, past the many libraries of things, past the community acupuncture clinic, and past his beloved figs too. He’d request another apartment, in a whole other city, at random with the shuffle button. He’d become a shuffler. Would his future neighbors distrust him for his uprootedness, for becoming a shuffler? Would these severed roots forever feel like a phantom limb, he thought weepily.
The weight of what he’d be leaving behind hit him like a ton of paw paws. He was known to be one of the most dependable and active members of the Healthcare Committee and Sustainable Energy Committee of his Commune. At the Commune level, he made decisions alongside one-hundred fifty of his neighbors at assemblies and they all distributed resources according to each others’ needs. He frequently served as a committee delegate during Federal Hill’s neighborhood-wide assemblies, where delegates from all forty Communes convened to solve problems together, coordinate and learn from each other’s successes and mistakes.
A few dozen times he served as a delegate in city-wide assemblies, and once even as a regional delegate for their canton in the Democratic Confederation!
Still, it was true that he lived a less communal life than most. But his Mom lived close by on the Knight Paths, and she had started hosting weekly bonfires recently where neighbors would swap ancestral stories. Every Sunday he would venture out somewhere new with his best friend and former long-term partner Isabella. No one knew him better, and there was comfort in staying close to her, even if their worlds weren’t as intertwined as they once were.
Yet, for months now, Billie had been longingly watching ships leave the harbor. In previous generations, others with similar cravings could’ve joined one of the revolution’s front lines or thwacked concrete with their neighbors like his great-grandparents once had.
When these thoughts first crept up, he’d check the Housing Committee database’s listings for openings around the world. Eventually, though, he realized his cravings ran deeper than simply wanting to relocate. He increasingly felt like a machine with a stultified code, constrained by his memories, his feelings, and his obligations. Shuffling would spiral him into a situation he might never actively choose for himself.
And, though he was ashamed to admit it, after a lifetime of collective decision making, Billie was tired of making decisions.
Ambivalent voices wrestled with each other as he bustled around his pristine three-bedroom apartment. He ate his overnight oats. He brushed his teeth. He swept and mopped the hardwood floor. He erased any evidence of clutter. He tended to the herbs in the green room. He journaled with the same prompts he had been using for years. He meditated for 15 minutes. He went out back to water the squash, the carrots, the tomatoes. He tended to the apiary. He filled the bowls outside for his cats Pirate and Apo, who were probably out flouncing around in the dirt and sniffing each other’s butts. He fed the dawdling chickens. He filled the bird feeders with sunflower seeds, and the hummingbird feeder with sugar water. If he left, he would never have to do any of this again, he thought with a surge of bitterness and gnawing grief.
The thought that he could always return gave him some relief. The Housing Committee refreshed its database with housing openings daily, making a wandering life easy for the wanderlusters. Ships from around the world passed through the area every couple weeks.
Would his future self even want to come back, though, he wondered. Who would he even be somewhere else?
Billie made it three steps out of the house before Craig’s fuzzy gray head bobbed up from his rooftop across the street. “Hi Billie! I’m growing cukes up here, ya want some?” the irreverant old man hollered. “I can’t keep up with ‘em, they’re fuckin’ like bunnies up here!”
Hoping for some solitude that morning, he hesitated. What was he supposed to do with a bunch of cukes if he was leaving town soon anyway? But he hadn’t broken the news about his shuffling to Craig, and didn’t want to seem rude.
“Yeah, I’d love some,” he hollered back, his voice wavering slightly.
He headed toward the vibrant green house, bracing himself for the ensuing chaos that was typical of Craig’s place. Already, there were signs of life. Twinkling ethereal sounds skittered into the streets. Orange light pulsed eerily in the windows. Like shuffling, you never know what you’re going to get with them, he laughed to himself.
He opened the door tentatively, nearly tripping over a dozen buckets of mycelium substrate fruiting massive pink oyster mushrooms. They were hooked up to a wiry contraption Billie had never seen before.
The mushrooms appeared to be generating the twinkling sounds drifting through the house, along with abstract projections of wiggling lines and dots on the walls. Craig’s roommates painted around the projections in bright oranges and yellows.
Billie wormed his way through the mess, shouting hello to the creaturely painters as he made his way toward the rooftop staircase.
Like an affectionate puppy, Craig was waiting right at the top of the steps to give Billie a sweaty bear hug and vigorous shoulder rub. The aroma of tomato vines, feathery ferns, sage, rosemary, and Craig’s unmistakable stench swirled together in the summer heat as the old man launched into the latest petty dramas unfolding in the Agriculture Committee. He threw his head back, cackling mid-story as he described the familiar tensions brewing between urban farmers like Craig and the “lunatic” growers on the fringes. As the story climaxed, Craig’s eyes teared up and darted wildly with passion. Billie watched his violet-stained hands with curiosity as Craig pierced the air dramatically.
“The roommates and I are working with mulberry dyes,” Craig suddenly chuckled. “We’re molding some chairs out of mycelium for the forest nodes. We’re dyeing ‘em purple!”
As Billie said his goodbyes he wondered how Craig would react to the news of his shuffling. Most likely, with some confusion. Craig didn’t strike him as someone who had ever even remotely considered leaving Federal Hill. He flowed with the highs and lows of life, welcoming every sensation into his body with open arms, a superpower that probably shielded him from boredom or longing or self-consciousness. Or at least that’s how he appeared.
He dropped the cukes off at home with some guilt. They’d probably need to be re-homed. Maybe to Isabella? Or to his Mom. Damien? He mulled it over as he took off once again. The sugary scents of the Seven-son blossoms drifted through the air as he shut his apartment door behind him. House sparrows, speckled like sprinkles inside the shrubs out front, cocked their heads to the side, staring inquisitively at him as he veered underneath the forest canopy toward the Courtland Paths.
A familiar kaleidoscopic light dappled the fungal floor below the paw paws, walnuts and persimmons. Billie’s hunched shoulders inched away from his ears as he entered a trance in search of a freshly re-done forest node. There were usually new treehouses this time of year, maybe he’d spot one. Or maybe he’d find a mycelial sculpture of a mammoth inside a giant onion, or a mysterious shrine to a Goddess. Anything was possible, as long as the creations abided by the Trail Committee’s ecological guidelines.
He zigzagged through the paths, past hand-crafted signs for collective kitchens, White Electric café, health clinics and tool libraries scattered throughout the neighborhood. And then at last, a freshly re-done node: a towering three-tiered stone fountain etched with snakes. Billie recognized the symbols as markings of local Goddess worshipers and smiled, remembering Mellie teaching their neighbors about pre-Patriarchal snake iconography. Plump mourning doves sipped water together below an altar with offerings of moss, acorns and other forest treasures.
Billie took a seat at one of three wooden benches triangulating the fountain and scribbled an idea to improve the rapid-response home health aid program for the Healthcare Committee. He leaned back, closed his eyes, and grinned as he became the hollow echoes of a red-bellied woodpecker, the swish of frisky squirrels chasing each other, the distant giggles of kids playing in a treehouse somewhere above. And then his stomach rumbled, tugging at him like a child. Time for figs.
He walked another five minutes, before taking a familiar sharp-angled turn.
There they were.
Tears welled up in his eyes. With blurry vision, he watched his hands rub the fig leaves, and barely noticed that a stocky person with tousled blonde hair had quietly joined him.
“My great grandparents helped plant these,” the stranger said gently after a few minutes.
“So did mine,” Billie sniffled.
They both quietly plucked and munched on a couple figs together.
“Much love to you comrade,” the stocky stranger said. “May the Goddess bless you.”
His eyes were dry by the time he reached the Housing Committee headquarters, a glass dome full of elephant ears and herbs. Three Russian Blue kitties shimmied up to him as he opened the door, purring sweet nothings, no doubt begging for treats. Four committee members, who were all reading, looked up at him and said hello eagerly, no doubt begging for tasks.
One was Mellie, who Billie knew as a facilitator of his neighborhood’s de-patrification educational group.
“Hey Billie! Weird, I was just thinking about your mom,” they said. “Do you want some rosehip tea? Homegrown!”
“Yes, please! Thank you,” he laughed, realizing he wished Mellie had been thinking about him. “What about my mom?”
“We’ve started working on a quilt together to commemorate some of the martyrs. She was telling me stories about your great grandparents,” they exclaimed. “Her descriptions were so vivid, so cinematic! I can’t stop playing the scenes in my mind.”
“Oh yeah, she’s full of good stories,” Billie replied. A sudden desperate urge to see Mellie again before he shuffled tingled throughout his whole body. There were so many questions he had never asked, so much left to learn about the inner world behind those fierce and tender brown eyes.
“Would you want to come to her story swapping fire later?”
They smiled sheepishly, “I’d love to.”
Did Mellie wince when they finally asked, “What can we help you with?”
Did he even still want to go? His affectionately chaotic encounter with Craig, the Goddess fountain, the stocky stranger, and now his unexpected feelings for Mellie. For the first time in months, the thought of leaving felt slightly surreal.
“I’ve decided to shuffle,” he blurted, before he could stop himself. “And I want someone to hold me to the first option.”
Mellie raised their eyebrows. “Are you sure?” they asked gently. “You know you don’t have to commit to the first one, right?
They hesitated. “And… if you’re open to something less shuffle-y, the Women’s Committee in Boston could really use more support.”
“I’m sorry Mellie,” he said, “I think I have to do this.”
Mellie studied him for a moment, then nodded.
“Okay,” they said quietly. “Your choice.”
They reached beneath the desk and handed him a Provi-ball. “The process itself is pretty simple. It’ll ask a few questions about allergies and preferences,” they explained. “Then it adds everything to your profile.”
He turned the device on, and placed it on his lap. Questions glowed into the air in front of him. After swiping through them, he looked up at Mellie. “Done.”
Mellie told him the button would spit out a match within a few seconds as they brought out the button. “It’ll project right here,” they said pointing to a screen a few feet in front of him.
Billie’s thoughts zigzagged like the forest paths. He might end up in an urban commune of small homes in Tokyo! A treehouse village in Indonesia. Or a mansion with ten housemates in Catalonia’s Costa Brava. Maybe he’d even end up in Kobane, where the revolution began! He’d accept his fate, no matter what. Beads of sweat drenched his shirt, he clenched his fists, his throat tightened.
He stabbed the green button
On the screen,
in bright rainbow letters
NORTH PROVIDENCE
He let out a strange gasp of relief. Mellie giggled, the others joined in, and soon the whole dome echoed with laughter.
As the energy calmed, Billie wiped his sweaty palms on his pants and looked over longingly at Mellie.
He pulled the last soggy fig from his pocket and offered it to them.