Page 85 of Hollow Valley
“Wow.”My eyes were wide as I tried to take in all the clutter that filled up such a small space.
“Wow?”He looked at me, suddenly uncertain.“Why did you say it like that?”
“I guess I wasn’t expecting so much stuff,” I admitted honestly.There were even plants and cheesecloth pouches hanging from the rafters.
“The bed is probably the most comfortable space here for you,” he said as he helped me cross over to the sleeping area of the open floorplan.
His bed was neatly made, stacked with plush pillows, so I didn’t doubt it.He leaned over, supporting my back as I maneuvered myself onto the mattress with my one good arm.Once I had, he adjusted the pillows behind me and tugged the blanket into place.
“So you think my place is cluttered?”he asked, glancing around as if looking as his home in a new light.
“I didn’t say that.”
“No.You just saidwow,” he replied with a smirk.
I defended my position with, “The apartment I’m staying in is so sparse.”
“Yeah, cause I rent it out.Thisis where I keep all my possessions.”He gestured around.“And I need a lot of them for my work.”
“No, it makes sense.I’m not trying to make you feel bad.It just wasn’t what I was expecting.And even if there is a lot of stuff, I can see that everything has a place.It’s orderly.”I smiled up at him.“Now I understand how you were always able to bring me over so many books.I was afraid I was putting you out, making you track them down all over town or something.”
“I basically grab every book I can get my hands on,” he admitted and raked a hand through his thick black hair.
“What do you do with them all?”I asked as my eyes followed the towers of books on either side of the headboard.“I mean, you have a lot, but you seem to be reaching maximum capacity.”
“If it’s full of useful knowledge, especially relating to chemistry and medicine, or if it’s one of my favorites, like Jack London, I’ll keep it no matter what,” he explained.“With everything else, I trade them, or I give them away, or I use them as firewood or to make grinleaf.For those, though, I usually pick books I hate or ones I have in duplicate.TheDa Vinci Codewas a good enough read, but I don’t really need a dozen copies of it.”
I held my hand to stop him.“Wait.What do you mean you use books to make grinleaf?”
“Well, it’s a whole process.”He took a deep breath before launching into the step-by-step of it.“I grind up a few herbs and naturally occurring ingredients with a pestle and mortar, and then I soak them with ethanol in a cheese cloth for a few days.
“When it gets to be a kind of thick paste, I add apple cider vinegar to liquefy it,” he went on.“I simmer that concoction in a cast iron pan over low heat until it’s almost a syrup.Once it has the right viscosity, I pour it out in a shallow dish, so it’s a thin layer about half a centimeter thick.
“That’s when the books finally come into play, because I need paper for the final step,” he continued.“I tear out a page of a book and submerge it completely, leaving it until it soaks up all remaining liquid.After that, I air dry it for a few days, and then I tear it into little tabs that you put on your tongue.”
“How’d you figure out how to make it?”I asked.
He shrugged, like inventing a drug or a remedy or whatever he wanted to call it wasn’t any big thing.“It sounds a bit like alchemy, but I assure you it’s all very boring chemistry.People were hurting, and I tried a few things that I thought might work until I found something that did.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you for a while.Why is it called grinleaf?”
“Oh, that one’s easy.When I was first tearing the pieces of paper, I thought they looked a bit like a leaf.”
He went into the kitchen area and grabbed a mason jar full of the green flakes.On the side of the glass jar, he’d drawn a crude picture of a maple leaf with a smiley face in black marker.He shook it up for me like a snow globe, and they did look a bit like leaves falling from a tree.
“So I get the leaf part.What about the grin?”I asked.
“After you take it, you’re grinning from ear to ear,” he replied with a crooked smile, and he returned the jar back to the kitchen shelf.
“So what I’m learning about you is that you’re very smart, very organized, very generous,andyou’re also a little bit of a nerd,” I teased.
He laughed as he walked back over to me.“That really takes me back.I don’t think I’ve been called a nerd since I was a teenager.”
“To be fair, it takes one to know one.”I picked up the battered copy of the graphic novelBatman: Shamensitting on his nightstand.“I used to read comics all the time, but I haven’t read this one.”
“It’s pretty good, although there are dated tropes around some of the tribal elements,” he said.“But since when do people ever get everything right?”
Just then, a knock sounded at the front door, sharp and unexpected.