The World Without Flags

by Ben Lyle Bedard

  Most of us know about the Gearheads and the Stars, from Randal, mostly. We think it’s crazy to bring a country together. You can’t even travel from here to Portland without fear of getting shot or robbed. Out here, in the boondocks, there aren’t many people. Down south, we know, there are a lot more. They’re organized in all sorts of communities, most of them a heck of a lot larger than we were, at least according to Randal. The thought of them killing each other is disturbing.

  The Gearheads are led by a guy named Jerome Brown. When the Worm hit, he was part of the U.S. government, somehow. Not someone real important, like the President or anything. Someone way down the line. Randy says that he calls himself President Jerome Brown, and they believe that the future is all about learning. They have schools where people practice mathematics and learn engineering. Randy says they want to rebuild the world. If I remember right, they’re centered somewhere in New Hampshire and, according to Randy, they have a lot of guns.

  The Stars are the other major group. They’re in Boston. The guy in charge of that group is President Ramon Barber. Randy says these guys are more military. He says they have some kind of link to the old U.S. military, and Barber wants to unite the whole country all the way out to California, as crazy as that sounds. They’ve got guns too. I mean, their whole thing is guns. They even have tanks, I guess, though you’re a fool to trust rumors and that doesn’t sound likely. There hasn’t been any useful gasoline in years. Kerosene, gasoline, diesel, all of it just went bad a few years ago. How can they run tanks without fuel?

  “How far has the fighting reached north?” Eric asks finally.

  “There’s been some problems in Portland,” Randal answers. There’s a couple gasps at that. It’s awful close. Randal sniffs again, tries another faltering smile and then clears his throat. “Portsmouth’s a mess,” he says. “A goddamn mess.”

  “I didn’t think they’d come that far north,” Eric says, thinking aloud.

  “They didn’t,” Randal answers. “Not until the war. But now everyone has to take a side. It’s like a disease. And it’s moving fast.” He looks around at us. “I came back here as soon as I could, but sometimes it was like the war was moving faster than I could ride.”

  Eric sits back, still thinking hard. His eyes are distant as stars. I look around and see everyone watching him, waiting. But I know that Eric doesn’t have anything more to say. I know that absence in his eyes. He’s thinking too hard to mind what’s going on around him. He doesn’t realize that people are waiting and they need to hear something. He’s too concentrated on the problem. I swear I can see the machine in his head grinding away at the problem. I don’t like when he does this, when he can’t tell what people need.

  I stand up. “We’re safe enough out here, aren’t we?” People turn around, surprised to hear my voice. Some of them might not even recognize it. Like I said, I don’t talk much. But I can’t let Eric just sit there like that. I sit back down quick enough though.

  Randal looks up at me. He clears his throat. “Truth is,” he says. “I don’t know.”

  Then it’s like something broke. Everyone’s talking at once. Then the talking transforms into something more like shouting and people are standing up and Randal stands up too, and I can see by the way he keeps glancing at the doorway that he wants to make a dash for it. I realize that I made it all a lot worse with my question. I should have kept quiet like Eric. I should have waited.

  But it’s too late for that now. People are scared. It’s in the air like a stench. Even Franky is shouting now, trying to get people to calm down. But it’s no use. Soon it’s all chaos and I hear someone else crying and I look over and it’s Artemis. She’s sitting and shaking and covering her face while the people all around us are shouting. I have a feeling nothing is real, like I’m suddenly surrounded by strangers.

  I begin to think about war, really imagine it. Not far south people are shooting at each other and killing each other. They are dropping in the streets. They are burning in their homes. They are dying. And it’s coming here. I’m eyeing the door too, just like Randal, like an animal searching for an escape, when I hear a long whistle. I look around, half-thinking that war had come already and the whistle was just the beginning and then there’s another set of whistles, fast and loud. I look down at the stage.

  It’s Eric. He has a whistle in his mouth, shining silver. His arms are up in the air and he’s waving them to get everyone’s attention. He blows the whistle again and keeps on blowing until everyone is looking at him. He stops waving his arms and takes the whistle out of his mouth. He makes a calming movement with his hands and everyone looks kind of ashamed and we sit down, first one, then several, then all of us. There’s a moment when there’s nothing but the sound of people settling back into their seats. Finally when it’s quiet, Eric takes a deep breath.

  “We have nothing to do with this war,” he says. “Nothing. We are too far north to bother with. They’re not going to care whether forty-three people living by a lake in Maine join them or the other side. They probably won’t come here.”

  A tiny voice rises. “What if they do?” It’s Fiona. She’s been with us since the beginning. She was with us the final year on the island.

  It’s a good question. Everyone turns to listen to the answer.

  Eric looks around. “We have everything we need here. Food. Shelter. Safety. There’s no reason to choose a side. There’s no reason for us to get involved. If they come, I say that we refuse to pick a side.”

  “And if they force us?” This question comes from Wesley. He’s only five or six years older than me, and he’s a favorite of all the girls. He plays guitar and has long hair and thinks of himself as a carpenter.

  Eric pauses, thinking, and, for a moment, I’m afraid he’ll keep thinking and vanish into himself, but then he says, “That is something too complicated to speculate about.” He looks around. “We have to wait. If that happens, we’ll deal with it then.” The crowd murmurs a bit about that. I know they want certainty. They want to feel absolutely safe. They want Eric to say something that will make it all go away. There are people who will say what people want to hear, to make people feel safe. They’ll even lie to them. But that’s not Eric. “Listen,” Eric continues. People turn back toward him. “We’re a strong community. We don’t just survive here, we thrive. We can handle this together.”

  “I need to say something.” People turn to see Norman standing up. He’s one of the older guys. Like me, he doesn’t say much. He works most of the time in the barn, so he always smells like manure. He’s a tough old guy and pretty highly respected by everyone, including me. He’s wearing his patched and faded overalls and plaid shirt. People wait for a second while he gathers himself. “I just want to say that maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if we did join one of them groups.” Norman looked around them. “Seems to me we need some type of organization. Maybe then we wouldn’t have to worry so much about all the bandits on the road. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if we did join up with them. Maybe that’s exactly what we need.”

  There’s a few people who nod.

  But then Matt stands up, red in the face. “Yeah, easy to say that,” he says. “But how do we know which side to choose? We choose wrong and the other side will kill us dead. We sign up with the Gears, the Stars kill us. We start flying a Star and the Gears kill us.”

  “What if we don’t fight? We just surrender? They wouldn’t kill us then.” This is Crystal. She spends most of her time baking in the farmhouse.

  “Yeah right,” Matt scoffs. He looks around. “Don’t tell me I’m the only one who remembers what the military did when things got real bad. They killed more people than the Worm!” I don’t remember any of it myself, but people still get pissed about what was done at the end. It started when the military fire bombed Houston into ashes. It got worse after that.

  “This ain’t the Worm,” Crystal argues. “This is different.”

  “Believe me, it’s NOT
different!” Matt returns bitterly. “I know these type of people. They don’t give a shit about people like us. When it’s war, they’ll do anything they want!”

  “But what kind of threat are we?” This is Lissa’s tiny voice. I have the feeling from the sound of her voice that she didn’t mean to say that aloud, and by her blush, I can tell I’m probably right.

  “I’ll tell you what kind of threat we’d be,” Matt continues. “We’d be the group that chose the wrong side. They’d always think of how many of us secretly hang up the other side’s flag in our basements.”

  “We don’t have no basements.” That’s Rebok. He’s too stupid to get the point.

  People chuckle a little at that, but it’s faint and disappears quickly.

  “Whatever side we pick, we are screwed.” Matt looks around. “Screwed.” His face is the color of crushed strawberries. I’ve never seen him so angry. He sits down, still fuming.

  People are quiet after that. I look over to Eric, kind of hoping he might provide us with direction or something, but he’s sitting down again, thinking. His eyes are in another world and doesn’t see anything around him. The meeting just kind of sputters to a confused and scary ending, and people unhappily rise from the benches and walk around in a daze.

  In another fifteen minutes, the Lodge is loud with discussions and arguments. I see Sam in the back, trying to lecture everybody on what they should do, but no one is listening to him because he’s an idiot. Gunner from the goon squad is saying he thinks they should join the Gears because “we’re people like that.” There’s a dozen messy conversations happening all around.

  Eventually, Eric walks away from the table and joins people, listening mostly. People are unhappy and unsatisfied. They want stronger certainty, stronger statements, but Eric isn’t that kind of leader. He just walks around, listening, hardly saying anything at all. People are talking about our guns. They’re talking about finding more. About manning all the watchtowers, doubling security. They’re talking about resisting and surrendering. There’s even some talk about picking up and moving north, away from the fight. It feels like people are just desperately grasping at anything. I think people are waiting for Eric, waiting for some kind of decision. They keep throwing out ideas, hoping he’ll catch one.

  Eric listens and nods, but as the minutes turns into hours, people realize that Eric has no intention of making any decisions. He just listens. It creates frustration. I can see groups forming, some breaking part. It’s the same groups as usual. The ones who want to fight. Matt, Crypt, Rebok, Gunner, Pest, Anthony. The ones who want to flee or surrender. Norman, Lissa, Crystal, Franky. Some people get angry when they’re frightened, some people just stay frightened. I watch. I stand close to Eric when I can and listen as he does.

  Matt comes over and talks to Eric. He looks angry. The four boys are behind him. I can see Pest is watching things carefully. He and I make eye contact for a second and the strength of his look makes me turn away. Crypt and Gunner and Rebok all look pissed off.

  “Listen,” Matt says, “don’t you think we should be prepared for war?”

  “What do you mean?” Eric asks.

  Matt makes a hissing, exasperated sound. “You know, get out the guns, train, drill, increase our defenses.”

  Eric shrugs. “Maybe,” he says. “The problem is that we can drill all we want, but we’ll never be able to stop them if they really decide to attack. If they roll up here looking for enemies, I’m not sure a town full of guns and trained people sends the right message. But you could be right. A show of force might save us.”

  Matt looks confused and angry. He doesn’t seem to be listening.

  “If you want peace, prepare for war,” he tells Eric, his lip twitching a little. I can tell he’s been planning to tell him that for an hour or two now. Once he’s said it, he smiles a little, but it’s an ugly little grin that doesn’t do much to hide his anger.

  “I understand that,” Eric says. “But we also have to think about how we are perceived. If one side or the other thinks we might be a military danger or if they think we might be an effective military ally, we could get dragged into this quicker.”

  “So we should do nothing?” Now Matt’s anger is naked. Behind him, the boys make a puffing sound. Only Pest is quiet, watching, his eyes intent on Eric. I can never decide whether Pest is an asset or a danger. I watch him from the corner of my eye as I pay attention to Matt and Eric.

  “I’m not sure what we should do yet,” Eric answers calmly. “Maybe nothing. Maybe something. We shouldn’t make a decision based on fear. We should think about it.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Matt agrees, but his eyes shine with a ferocity he’s not showing, or trying not to. He’s fairly new to us, but he’s angry. I can see he thinks he could do better. I can see him thinking that. Or maybe it was Pest that told him so. I glance again over to Pest. I’m upset to see him watching me again. He’s measuring me. I can see he doesn't know what to think. I’m uncomfortable and look away again. Pest gives me the chills. Matt shakes Eric’s hand and then walks away.

  Finally people start leaving. Artemis comes over to me. Her face is swollen from crying and she still looks scared. I can tell she’s going to hug me, which I don’t like, but I know she needs it, so I relent. Her face is damp and hot against my neck. She squeezes my hand and tells me we’ll talk tomorrow. Randal the Vandal follows closely afterward, telling Eric they will talk again in the morning. He’s too exhausted to think anymore tonight. The Lodge slowly empties out.

  It feels unfinished and not well done. I feel as frustrated as everyone else. I wish Eric would say something. I wish he was that kind of leader, someone to make us feel safe, or at least offer us some comfort. But at the same time, I don’t know what that would mean or what he could say that would be the truth. Eric has never been that way, as long as I remember. He just lets the world be what it is. He makes people see it. He lets people fear it. People don’t like him for it, not as much as they should.

  At last, it’s just me and Eric in the Lodge. Eric sighs and sits down.

  I sit down in the chair where Randal sat.

  “Well, Birdie,” Eric says. “What do you think?” Eric always asks my opinion. He’s the only one.

  I think about it. “I think Matt and the goon squad have it out for you,” I tell him.

  Eric thinks about this and then sighs. “They’re just scared,” he says.

  “I’m going to keep an eye on them,” I say. “Especially that Pest kid. He gives me the creeps.”

  Eric smiles at me. “Be easy on him,” he tells me. “Pest has had a complicated life.”

  Haven’t we all? I want to ask, but I don’t. I think Eric is too trusting of people, too willing to think of their point of view. I wish he was a little more careful, a little more selfish. I look over to him unhappily. “I think everything has changed.”

  Eric looks at me and then scratches his beard. He releases a puff of air that is something like a sigh. Then he makes a sound, somewhere between humming and growling. “Well,” he says finally, “let’s sleep on it.”

  Just like him, always waiting, always thinking. He doesn’t make decisions. I don’t know why I’m disappointed in him so much. I follow him out the door, wishing he was a little more something and a little less something else. I feel bad for wishing it, and the guilt follows me home all the way to our cabin. We eat some dry biscuits at the table and wash them down with mint tea. I keep waiting for Eric to say something, but he’s lost in himself, thinking. After we eat, we climb up into the loft and settle into our beds.

  “Good night, squirrel,” I tell the darkness. His bedroom is right next to mine. We’re just separated by a few blankets hung from the ceiling.

  “Good night, chipmunk,” he answers. It’s something Lucia started back on the island. It usually makes us laugh. Not tonight.

  I listen to Eric breathe in the darkness. He’s not sleeping either.

  It’s a long night.

&nbs
p; 7

  Randy has been here for two days and all day, every day, the talk is war. I need a break. I need time to adjust. I need to think.

  This is where I come to think.

  On the eastern end of the lake, there’s a rusting old jeep. It’s being eaten away by water and wind and grass. The forest is creeping up through the floorboards and in through the windows. It’s an old Land Rover, a part of my past that I just barely remember. The man who owned it is gone now, dead. He was the first and only person I ever tried to kill. His name was Carl Doyle. I remember pointing the shotgun at him and pulling the trigger. I remember him floating face down in the lake. Eric tells me it wasn’t my fault, that the Worm had him, and I didn’t kill him. But I don’t think of it that way. I have some responsibility for his death. It was my finger that pulled the trigger. I still remember the shock of it and how Doyle staggered back. I don’t feel guilty exactly. I did it to save Eric, but the Land Rover always makes me feel a certain way. I look at the Land Rover and I feel something unpleasant. Something dark and brooding. A shadow falls on my heart, and I feel cold and vulnerable. I don’t know why this helps me think, but it does. I can think better. I feel freer somehow.

  For the past two days, there hasn’t been any time for quiet thinking. It’s been arguments and anger and shouting and crying. Yesterday Eric agreed that both lookout towers should be manned toward the south. It’s been a long, long time since we used both. Right now, Patrick is standing up there, looking toward the south for signs of war, clouds of smoke, an approaching. . .what? An army? A band of soldiers? A diplomat with an entourage? None of us know what to expect. Fear is the only language we seem to be able to speak. All work has stopped, even though the fields need to be sowed. Our lives depend on planting those fields, but no one is doing it.