Blood, Gravy, Sweat And Egg

Blood, drip, drain, vein
Will it ever fucking rain?
Blood, drip, blood clot
Will it ever fucking stop?

The city farm sits cradled on the side of a hill above a train line,
it's head tucked under its chin. It is certainly no idyll. It sits on
land that the city wants back after discarding it so many years ago.
The farm is a housing development waiting to happen.

The yields have been decreasing year upon year, the soil is becoming
less fertile and the pressure to grow greater quantities of produce is
building. The previous year saw seen the earth give up nearly three
tons of assorted vegetables, mainly potatoes, carrots, beets and
cabbage. This year a ultimatum has been delivered. Productivity and
profit at the farm should increase or the land will be sold for
housing.

In a sense the farm has always lived incognito, on time heavily
borrowed from those with a dubious claim to it. But if it is to close,
it will not mean a great deal to many, only a few. Some workers will
find other allotments to dig over and keep like children, others will
never touch so much as a lawn. One son however toils this farm while it
remains with his horny hands like no other. His name is Benjamin.

Through the breezy mornings, the long days and sweet evenings, Benjamin
digs and rakes, plants and hoes. At night he rests in a small shed at
the edge of the farm. He has no home to speak of but the small shed
serves his meagre purpose and somehow he knows that to leave this farm
would be to betray it.

Benjamin is not by any standards an educated man but he believes in
the soil and he believes in what he grows. He refuses to use chemicals
and pesticides, it is not His way. Benjamin believes the respect he has
for the soil somehow filters up to the deferential mammals and
scavenging birds who look the other way. The sizable quantities of what
he grows is donated to local elderly care homes, the rest is sold to an
organic health food shop in the city where it makes what the farm needs
to survive for now. He is not the only producer but his contribution is
massive compared to the combined efforts of the other gardeners.

He is the expert on the farm, no one questions him, and no one speaks
to him except the farm director, unless spoken to.

Benjamin is the farm.

Benjamin's father was long disappeared by the time he met Luka. This
was in the time before the farm, in the days of the docks. Benjamin was
a young stevedore, hauling and loading great crates of produce off the
huge container ships. Luka was his partner. Until Luka was thrown off
the job, the pair had worked together as a two man crew working the
hoists, watching each other's backs, covering for each other when the
foreman prowled. Luka's life showed in his face as it would come to
show in Benjamin's own.

There were days when Luka was not at his best, malaria from Burma, as
common as coffee from Columbia and so Luka's surrogacy became mutually
beneficial. But the days of the docks were a lifetime ago. Since then,
Benjamin had sailed the world with the merchant navy and drunk himself
blind each day on an endless supply of gin. He'd worked on the railways
and seen men crushed and cut in two like tomatoes.

Blood, drip
Cut the skin
Wash the floor
Drink the gin

A bus stops outside the farm. Benjamin who has been on his knees
planting , stops and looks up at the other farm workers who are
gesturing at each other and pointing back at the bus.
"Benjamin, will you be giving blood?" The farm director has crept up
behind him unnoticed and surprises him.
"What?" His thick Rastafarian accent makes him sound angry when he is
actually slightly deaf. The young woman smiles and points to the other
side of the railings that surrounds the farm.
"Give blood, me? Never. 'Dem needles 'urt doncha know."
"A big strong man like you Benjamin, scared of a little prick?" The
farm director bites her lip, wondering if she has gone too far.
Benjamin is notoriously hot-headed.
"Whatchu sayin' "
"Nothing Benjamin, it just would be a good example to the others if
they saw you giving blood. You know how much they look up to
you."
"If I give my blood, it is harder for me to work the farm. The earth
needs my blood."
"If you give blood then you could be saving one of these people's
lives, these people who work the farm."
Benjamin thinks about what the director has said for a few seconds. The
logic seems sensible enough.
"Okay. Just this once."

Blood, prick
Beating stick
Triple bypass
Double quick

Despite a deep unease somewhere between his head and his feet, Benjamin
makes his way across the farm. The farm director sticks her thumb in
the air as a signal to the others. Benjamin's fellow farm workers clap
and whistle him as he trudges like a child on his way to the dentist.
He has obviously been the subject of a bet on the part of the director.
He cannot not back out now and soon he is laid out on the makeshift
couch in the mobile clinic. He is not scared of the needle he just
remembers Luka and his practice. Benjamin has the lumps on his head to
prove it.

He sits waiting and watches suspiciously as one of the assistants sits
clipping and generally tidying her nails. He watches her clip the nail
on her left index finger and it drops to the floor barely noticed. An
assistant begins to prepare his arm. He begins to protest. "Wait, wait.
I don't like this. Tell me what your doing."

The old man Luka spent weeks in and out of fevers. The Burmese had
taught him to let his blood so that he could control the attacks. He
remembered the pained look on the old man's face as sat back and
listened to the pissing of blood into a porcelain bowl at his feet.
Benjamin, as a young man could not move his eyes from the sight. His
pulse rose with the volume of blood. His breathing shallowed. Luka's
silver canula that he had forged himself dropped to the floor with a
hollow metallic ring just as Benjamin would faint cracking his skull in
the process on the flag stones.

Blood, drip,
Drip, drip, drip
Out, out, out
Bugs and shit

Benjamin quizzes the blood donor assistant in detail about the process
almost to the point of her concern until finally, he is satisfied. The
assistant re-assures him. "It's a perfectly normal reflex you know,
being scared of blood. Happens to about ten per cent of people."
"Why are they scared?"
"Lots of reasons I guess. People don't like to see what should be
inside them, outside them."

The blood flows freely and instead of feeling weak and nauseous,
Benjamin feels strong. With each pulse he feels purer as each minute
passes and he looks down to see his erection and then the assistant
smiling broadly down at him. "Does this happen often?" Benjamin
ventures nervously.
"You tell me, it's your cock." She giggles back.

Benjamin emerges from the bus to more rapturous applause and wolf
whistles. He musters the only thing everyone expects him to say, it has
become a catchphrase. They all said it in unison. "Back to work
people."

Blood, gravy
Egg and sweat
Whitest whites
Reddest Reds

Benjamin is regaining his strength, sitting on an upturned bread crate
perusing his morning's work. The director takes the opportunity to
explain the farm's state of affairs to her hardest worker.
"Do you think we can do it Benjamin?"
"How many tonnes do we have to crop?"
"Five. Mainly beets, we can get the best price for beets."
"Impossible. Five tonnes, who do they think we are? Are we supposed to
grow this out of t'in air?"
"I know we couldn't even afford the fertilizer to grow that much." The
farm director shrugs her shoulders. "Have a think about it and get back
to me if you have any brilliant ideas."

Blood, drips
Spiders, flies
Clusters, eggs
Thousands, eyes

Benjamin lies awake in his shed under a thin blanket. The World Service
blathers idly up on one of the soil strewn shelves. He likes to listen
to the voices from all the places he had visited as a young man on his
travels and he remembers how he once wished that those days would never
end. Those days had come to an end dismally with British exports and
the decline of the merchant navy fleets. He had spent nearly a year
without work. He hates that prospect more than he can express. Tonight
he is listening to a correspondent in Rwanda describing the genocide
and the blood soaked land. He tries to spare a thought but he has never
been to Rwanda. His mind turns to his own land. How can he possibly
save it? Large quantities of natural fertilisers are expensive,
especially for a small city farm. The prospect of closure is
unthinkable.

Once every week Benjamin drains a pint of his blood. He stores it in an
icebox at the back of his shed. With only a few months to go until they
crop, Benjamin has amassed 36 pints of blood. It's not much but blood
is a marvellous fertilizer. By eating healthily and exercising
regularly he feels he can maintain his cycle. At his worst he looks
pale and grey, usually a few days after the letting. His body now
expects its blood to be let and he's sure it now produces more over
time to compensate. He is worried however that the pains in his stomach
are worse than just cramps. Blood, pores Open sores Doubled up On all
fours Benjamin does some rudimentary sums, he doesn't have enough blood
to fertilise the land or enough budget to buy the fertiliser. The crops
are still weak and it will be a struggle to meet their lofty target. He
has to let more blood, there is no more money. This is the only way to
make up the shortfall. His weekly pint becomes two and soon his weight
had drops by a quarter. Being a quiet man, no one thinks to ask him
about his health, no one dares.

Benjamin is the farm.

Benjamin works at night when everyone has left. The pains in his
stomach are terrifying and occasionally he has to stop and lie down on
a hard surface. He guesses that the gin has finally tapped him on the
shoulder. He soaks the fertilizer they could afford to buy with his
blood and deposits it evenly and deliberately, where it will do most
good across the farm.

Blood, blisters
Dirty splinters
No more summers
No more winters

He has almost given his all but he saves enough energy for his last
task, to dig a hole. He piles up the earth onto a large tarpaulin
beside the trench. At the end of his effort, Benjamin has given almost
everything to the ground. Slowly he climbs down into the damp soil and
lays down. He looks up at the stars one last time and tugs the cord
tied to the tarpaulin as hard as he can piling the earth down on top of
himself.

Benjamin is the farm