by Brad Smith
‘We have our own garbage to deal with,’ Frances said.
‘Goodbye!’ someone shouted.
‘Look at it this way,’ Bud said. ‘One man’s treasure can be another man’s trash.’
Hofferman stood up and spoke softly to Bud.
‘Turn that around,’ Bud said quickly. ‘One man’s trash can be another man’s treasure.’
The panel of so-called experts jumped through hoops and evaded questions from the audience for another half hour or so and the meeting broke up. Within a week, HALT was formed. Frances, by virtue of insulting Bud Stephens at the town meeting, was voted president. When would she learn to keep her mouth shut? Signs were printed, more petitions signed, late night internet searches on the dangers of landfills were launched by the dozen. A formidable grassroots organization was up and running. Whether it had anywhere to run to was another matter.
John McIntosh, who had lost his farmhouse to fire, volunteered to use his political connections to help fight the proposal, then died of a heart attack a few days later. It was presumed that the stress of losing the family home contributed to the coronary. Whatever the case, he’d been looked upon by HALT as their ace in the hole. With both the local councilor and Bud Stephens on side with Hofferman, and Mayor Roper dodging the issue, the opponents had virtually no political leverage.
The house at River Valley Farm became the headquarters for HALT. Frances held little hope that they could stop the project, but she’d signed on to do what she could. There was a perception in the community that she was an expert in dealing with bureaucrats, apparently based on the fact that she had once lived in the big city of Chicago.
Carl had the new watering system up and running by the end of August, and as soon as he did it began to rain and didn’t stop for a week. It didn’t matter to Frances. It hadn’t been the first drought since she’d taken over the farm and, with the climate changing, it wouldn’t be the last. Next time, she’d be prepared.
She had gotten used to having Carl around, even if Perry was still in pout mode. There was more to Carl than met the eye but then Frances had always suspected that, even back when she hadn’t particularly liked him, when he was being a bad husband to her sister. That was a long time ago and Frances needed to let it go. He was a good worker and he was fine company at dinnertime. Like Frances, he was of the opinion that the world was going to hell in a hand basket. Other than his relationship with his daughter, he could fix nearly anything. When she’d asked him to build an addition on to the River Valley Farm warehouse, he’d agreed.
The members of HALT met every Wednesday night at the farm, usually on the back patio, where they drank coffee and tea and volleyed back and forth terms like ‘environmental assessments’ and ‘safe containment’ and ‘due diligence’. Before the first meeting Frances approached Carl as he was loading his tools in his truck at the end of the day. She explained what was going on.
‘You inviting me to your meeting?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘You saying I should eat in town tonight?’
‘Yes.’
‘OK.’
‘You know how people talk,’ she explained.
Later that evening she discovered that people had already talked. Perry was at the meeting, sitting silently all night as was his wont. He seemed to have no opinions about the landfill, or much of anything if the truth were known, which begged the question of why he was there. Frances, of course, knew why he was there. It was all about proximity. After everybody left he helped her carry the coffee cups inside and then he moped around the patio until she finally asked what was on his mind. He sat in a wicker chair, his bony hands clasped between his knees, waiting for Frances to sit beside him. She wanted to clean up and go to bed, but finally she sat. Perry went back to rubbing his knuckles.
‘What?’ she finally asked.
‘I don’t know,’ he started. ‘Seems like a lot of things are changing around here. Everything was going real good, and if everything is going real good, then it don’t make sense to me to change things.’
‘Are you talking about the meetings?’
‘Not really.’
‘What, then?’
‘Well, just everything.’
Frances stood up. ‘I’m going to bed.’
‘Carl was in prison,’ Perry said. He began to work his knuckles again.
‘I know that,’ she said.
‘Oh.’ Perry was put out. Apparently he had been counting on shocking her. ‘Do you know he killed a man named Red Walton?’
‘A man was killed. I know that too. Who told you this?’
‘Guy I know. Harold Sikes. He was a friend of Red Walton’s. He beat Carl up in Archer’s bar a couple months ago.’
‘Harold Sikes beat Carl up?’ Frances repeated. ‘Harold Sikes couldn’t beat me up.’ She looked at Perry for a moment and then she sighed. ‘All right, if you’re going to be listening to guys like Sikes, I guess I better tell you what happened. This all started when Hank Hofferman first applied to build these factory pig farms around here. Those sow barns are a disaster on a whole bunch of levels. The animals are penned so tight they can’t even turn around. They’re force-fed hormones and steroids and antibiotics. The manure is flushed into big lagoons which have a habit of overflowing from time to time, and they can flood creeks and ditches with this chemical-infested shit. There are airborne problems, dust and whatever, and on top of that these farms are putting the family farmer out of business. There was a group back then called Hogwatch Talbotville, kind of like this HALT thing we’ve got going. They tried to stop Hofferman. Asked for an environmental assessment, never got it, asked for a county-wide referendum, never got that either.’
‘But you didn’t live here then,’ Perry said.
‘No, but my parents did and they were part of Hogwatch. I told you – the real farmers are against these things.’ She looked at his stubborn face a moment, wondering how much he was hearing. ‘Carl was a member of Hogwatch.’
‘Carl’s not a farmer.’
‘A lot of people belonged to Hogwatch. Anybody with a brain, basically. This was a health issue, you understand? Carl was against hog barns for his own reasons. I’m guessing because they represented big money. The pork goes to Beaver Lodge Foods, which is owned by the Montpelier family, old-time conservatives with big-time political connections. Which meant Hogwatch was never going to win the fight. They could take on Hank Hofferman, but not Beaver Lodge Foods. The county council issued all the necessary permits and Hofferman began to build the first barn, out on Ram’s Head Road. When the barn was nearly finished, Carl drove out there one night and torched the place. There was nobody on the premises at the time. But a firefighter was killed trying to put it out. Fell off a ladder and landed in a pile of reinforcement bars. A bar went through him.’
‘That was Red Walton,’ Perry said.
‘That’s right. Volunteer firefighter. Carl was convicted of criminal negligence causing death. He spent two years in jail.’
‘Then I don’t think he should be working here. He’s a criminal.’
Frances stood up. ‘You don’t get to decide who works here, Perry. Go on home. Tomorrow’s another day.’
Perry took her advice. Following his protruding bottom lip, he trundled off into the night. Frances watched him, wondering if it was worth the aggravation, keeping him on. He was a good worker when given something to do that didn’t require much logistical thinking. If Frances pointed to a spot and told him to dig a trench, he would keep digging until he got to Manitoba if she didn’t tell him to quit. She was pretty sure, however, that there were plenty of guys around who could do the same, and without the slack-jawed fawning afterwards.
She went into the house and as she began to wash the coffee cups the phone rang. She glanced at the display and saw that it was Martin. She hesitated and then let it go to voicemail while she continued with the dishes.
Finishing, she pulled the plug from the sink and stood there a moment, w
atching the water swirl into the drain. On an impulse, she picked up the phone and called Carl’s number in town. He answered on the second ring.
‘Am I waking you?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Watching a movie about the Civil War.’
‘I won’t keep you from it.’
‘I know how it turns out. The North wins.’
‘Sure, spoil it for me,’ Frances said. She looked at the coffee remaining in the pot and decided she didn’t need any more caffeine before going to bed. Stretching the phone cord, she reached into a hutch along the wall and found a nearly empty bottle of brandy there. She poured the last couple of ounces into her coffee cup and sat down at the table.
‘How was your meeting?’ he asked.
‘Like the road to hell.’
‘How’s that?’
‘Paved with good intentions,’ she said. ‘I don’t know. There’s a lot of righteous indignation flying around but I really don’t know what we can accomplish with it. According to Rufus, we could use some legal precedent. Apparently it trumps righteous indignation every time.’ She sipped the brandy. ‘Anyway, I didn’t call you to bore you with that.’
‘No?’
‘I just wanted you to know that a guy named Harold Sikes has been shooting his mouth off about you.’
‘I see old Harold from time to time over at Archer’s. That guy must have a drinking problem … every time I walk in the place, there he is.’
‘That’s pretty funny.’
‘It’s an old joke,’ Carl told her. ‘So what’s he been saying?’
‘Oh, he told Perry that he beat you up a while back.’
‘You’d think I’d remember a thing like that,’ Carl said.
‘You would think,’ Frances agreed. ‘Perry believed him. But Sikes could have told Perry you were the Marquis de Sade and he would have believed that too. Anyway, I just thought you should know you’re a topic of conversation when these Mensa types get together.’
‘OK.’
‘I have a feeling you’re not going to lose sleep over it.’
‘Probably not.’
Frances took another drink. ‘Well, I envy you that.’
‘Not sleeping, Frances?’
‘Not much.’
‘This landfill thing?’
She hesitated. She hadn’t called to unburden herself to him. They didn’t have that kind of relationship. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s probably going to happen and we’ll have to live with it. I’m just feeling … restless.’
‘Why is that?’ Carl asked. ‘Things are going pretty good out there.’
‘Maybe that’s the problem,’ Frances said. ‘Everything’s going great. To the point where it’s predictable. I’ve been feeling lately as if I’m stuck in a rut, that old cliché. I realize it’s a good rut, but it’s still a rut.’ She sipped from the cup. ‘My problem is, I’ve always regarded complacency as a bad thing. I realize that’s a conceit on my part. Most people would kill for a little complacency. People with real problems. Do you agree?’
‘I don’t know what most people would do, Frances. What they would kill for.’
She smiled. ‘That might have been a poor choice of words,’ she admitted. ‘What about you, Carl? Are you complacent?’
‘Not that I’ve noticed,’ Carl said.
‘I didn’t think so,’ she said. ‘I don’t know. I feel as if I’ve lost my capacity to be … surprised … by anything. Delighted by anything. Christ, I sound like a nut job. I must be boring you to tears.’
‘Movies about the Civil War are predictable. You’re not.’
‘I feel like I am. I feel like I need to be surprised.’
‘Surprises aren’t always good.’
Frances had another drink. ‘True. But they’re never boring.’ She paused. ‘I want to ask you a question. When you’re doing something, I don’t know, work or whatever – do you ever think about how you look while you’re doing it?’
There was nothing for a moment. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he said, clearly confused.
Of course you don’t, she realized. What was she thinking? ‘Forget it.’
‘Do I think about how I look?’ he asked.
‘It was a stupid question,’ she told him. ‘Really, forget it.’
‘Do you think about how you look?’ he asked.
She laughed. ‘Actually, I don’t. Hey, I need to apologize. You shouldn’t have to listen to this. I’m going to bed and you go back to your movie.’
‘It’s all right,’ Carl said.
‘It’s not,’ she insisted. ‘Good night, Carl.’ And she hung up.
TWELVE
When Carl went to work for Frances he checked out of the motel and took a room at the Queens Hotel downtown. The room was large and overlooked the river, and it was cheap. There was a double bed and a couple dressers, with a little corner counter that had a bar fridge and a toaster oven. Frances had offered him a spare room at the farm but he’d declined. The hired hand Perry was turning out to be a bit of a problem and Carl suspected that his staying at the house wouldn’t help. Lately Perry had moved on from ignoring Carl to telling Carl what to do, but only after Carl was already doing it. One day he told Carl to change the oil in the stake truck while Carl was beneath the vehicle, draining the pan. It seemed that he wanted to establish some sort of pecking order and Carl was fine with that, so long as Perry didn’t peck too hard.
Carl phoned Kate once a week or so. Sometimes she came to the phone but most of the time she did not. He would leave a message on the voicemail or talk to the boyfriend David, whom Carl liked, based on the few short conversations they’d had. The plant where he worked was doing some innovative things with recycling, including shredding old tires to use in roadways and sports stadiums. Carl wished that Kate was as forthcoming as David. When she did come to the phone they would talk briefly and she would beg off, saying there was something she had to do, someplace she had to go. She never initiated a topic, never asked what he was doing, never inquired anything about his life at all.
In light of that, Carl was surprised when she agreed to have dinner with him on a Saturday night in late September. They arranged to meet at a restaurant in the city. Saturday morning Carl drove out to River Valley Farm and worked a few hours on the warehouse addition. Frances and Perry were at the farmers’ market for the day so he was there by himself. Earlier in the week he had cemented in the posts for the addition, and strapped the posts with two-by-fours. The truss system had arrived on Thursday and it was in place. Now he was building lintels and framing in the windows.
He quit work at four and drove back into town to find a message from Kate on his hotel phone, saying that she had hurt her knee playing baseball and had to cancel. She gave no other details. He called her number and got her voicemail and hung up.
He showered and then paced around his room for a bit. He turned the TV on and turned it off. He thought about going to Archer’s, but after his late-night conversation with Frances a few days earlier he wasn’t in the mood to run into Harold Sikes, or anybody else laboring under the illusion that they had beaten Carl up. After a while he grabbed his jacket and truck keys and left. He picked up a six pack of beer and some ice and drove out to the farm. Frances and Perry were not back from the city yet. Fall was the busiest time for the market and often they didn’t return until well after dark. Carl parked by the old garage and went inside. Earlier, he’d seen a fishing pole and a creel in a corner there. He put the beer in the creel alongside whatever tackle was there and packed some ice around it.
There was a Styrofoam coffee cup with a large black spider inside on the workbench. He dumped the spider out and carried a shovel to the cabbage patch where he dug some worms. He gathered his gear and crossed the road and walked down to the river bank.
A quarter mile upstream a creek ran into the river beneath the remains of a wooden bridge. Carl headed for the old pilings, walking through the ankle-high quack grass on the river bank. He sat on a timber th
at slanted down toward the creek and found a hook and sinker in the creel and baited up. He tossed the line out toward the swirl of the current where the creek entered the river and opened a beer.
He had a couple of nibbles right away and then nothing and when he pulled his line in his worm was gone. Catfish, he thought. He threaded the new worm lengthwise on the hook and then passed it back and forth over the barb a couple of times. He tossed into the creek and a few minutes later he had a bullhead on the line. It was no more than eight inches long, its belly bright yellow, whiskers twitching. He unhooked it, mindful of the fish’s spikes, and tossed it into the shallow water along the shore.
He baited up again and didn’t have another bite for the next half hour. The evening sun came through the trees and before long a succession of mud turtles slipped from the creek and aligned themselves on a fallen log across the stream. Red-winged blackbirds flitted from tree to tree, swooping down occasionally to pick something from the cattails along the river bank. The current in the creek was slow and from time to time a limb would drift past to enter the river.
Finally he reeled in and began to walk upstream. The creek meandered down from the northwest and about a thousand yards from the river it narrowed and tumbled through a rock cut, at the bottom of which was a deep pool. Carl stopped there and sat on the limestone ridge, dropping his bait into the water below. He opened another beer and thought about Kate, even though the whole idea in coming was to stop thinking about Kate. His mind went back a few weeks, to the day they’d spoken at the bar called Shoeless Joe’s.
She had told him there was no money in it for him and walked away. Turned her back on him like the stranger he was and returned to her work, her shoulders squared, her expression as she turned suggesting she had already put him from her mind. Physically she had looked as he had expected, but then he had seen her on the news. Still, something about her – the way that she moved – had managed to surprise him. To Carl, she had always been beautiful, but this was something more than that. She had become substantial, he decided. She was a substantial woman and as such she knew what she did and didn’t require. One of the things she didn’t require was the stranger that was Carl. And she had no problem making that clear.
