by Jarl Jensen
It was good to hear another voice—particularly one coming from a conservative. It washed over Evan like a salve, calming his nerves about lashing out at Larson. When he continued, he did so in a calmer tone.
“I apologize for the rant,” he said. “It’s just that we have to untangle that misconception all the time. The point is that we aren’t assigning people jobs and putting them to work for some government collective. We’re giving people the means to take care of themselves and to participate in making their lives better. How they do it is entirely up to them.”
The way Larson’s smile faded filled Evan with an intense sense of satisfaction.
“So you’re not going to bring in the construction squad to put up these tents?” the billionaire asked.
Evan shrugged. “They’ll do it themselves. Who’s better at putting up tents than homeless people?”
“How will you feed them?”
“Nora?” Evan asked. “You up to the task?”
She cocked a hip to one side and smirked playfully. “I know you didn’t just ask me that.”
“There you have it,” Evan said. “Nora’s got the food. We’ll give everyone their direct deposits, and they can go out and buy food for themselves.”
“But they’re all . . . ,” Larson said, losing steam.
“Homeless?” Evan finished for him. “They’re all layabouts, is that what you assumed?” He clucked his tongue in satisfaction. “I think you’ll find that people are more than capable of taking care of themselves.”
Finally, the billionaire had run out of half-cocked retorts. As he stood there, well-shucked, Nora stepped over to Evan and stood delightfully close by his side. Evan’s knees went a little weak when she placed her hand on the small of his back and gave him a little squeeze.
“How long you staying, El?” she asked.
“Indefinitely, if you’ll have me.”
“Okay then,” she said, already turning to bail. “I’ll just avoid your trademark bullshit until you’re bored with this place in a few hours. Do let me know when you’re ready to leave, though. I’ve always enjoyed watching you turn tail.”
All at once, Larson’s confidence appeared to return. He broke into a hungry smile as he watched her walk away. “The feeling’s mutual, my dear.”
Evan White hated everything about this notion that they would have another billionaire on residence—especially one who clearly didn’t understand a thing about what this Farm represented. The exchange irked him so completely that, for a moment at least, he forgot about the thirty-six new people surrounding him, almost all of them from a smattering of different Caribbean, South American, and Central American cultures, and almost none of them being fluent English speakers. He knew they would build tents for themselves, but how long would it take before they started looking around at the housing everyone else enjoyed and began wanting that for themselves?
“What we need is a builder to step in and see this opportunity,” Evan said, more to himself than anyone.
Despite the fact that he stood some fifteen feet away from Evan’s mumbling, Larson managed to hear.
“Well then, you’re in luck,” the billionaire said. He scanned the crowd of newcomers scattered around them and brightened up when he spotted who he was looking for. He stepped past Evan and rather dragged the poor little guy into the center. “Meet Joe Chen. He’s what you might call a master builder.”
The so-called Joe stood all of five feet tall. He was a handsome man of Chinese descent, his hair thinning and his eyes innocent. “I am Jao,” he said. “I build.”
“Joe doesn’t speak much,” Larson said with a chuckle. “But he builds. That’s what I understand.”
“Jao is it?” Evan said, correcting Larson with the old side-eye as he stepped forward to shake the newcomer’s hand. “Have you ever built anything like barracks?”
The little builder offered a single nod. “I build.”
“See?” Larson said, clapping the much smaller Jao on the back. “He build.”
Evan and Jao exchanged an uncomfortable glance as Larson bathed in his self-satisfaction.
“Now don’t you go manipulating the currency around here, Joe,” Larson said. He elbowed Evan. “You know how they do that over there in Beijing. You’re from Beijing, right, Joe?”
“Chiang Mai,” Jao corrected meekly.
“Right! I knew it was one of those overcrowded ones. Maybe you can ask Evan here why proper Americans don’t manipulate their currency like your people.”
Jao’s uncomfortable smile suggested that he didn’t understand. Evan was glad for this, because everything about Larson’s tack was offending him.
“Engineering currency is actually much more efficient than what the Fed does,” Evan said, trying to sound more civil than he could manage in the moment.
Larson broke into a condescending laugh. “You’ve already torn me a new one once, kid. Must we do it again?”
“It’s as true for the economy as it is for combustion engines,” Evan insisted. “What they do in China is far better than banks being allowed to create and lend money whenever they want, and for purposes that benefit themselves the most. And anyway, our system here is like neither economy. It’s better than both. Makes them both obsolete.”
Larson let go of his condescension and offered a remarkably sincere-looking expression. “I’m not here to push buttons. I’m just here to help.” He turned and motioned toward the buses. “And so is she.”
Before Evan could ask whom Larson was talking about, out stepped one of the single most attractive and intimidating women he had ever seen. Her Nordic features were so precise that it was difficult to look at her face without wanting to curl up and disappear from her gaze. She wore her yellow hair in a tight bun behind her head, her dark eyebrows serving a sharp contrast. Her shape was long and lithe, and her black bodysuit hugged her in all the right places, which was to say, it hugged her everywhere. She moved with the uncommon grace of a dancer or gymnast. And she regarded Evan as if he were nothing more than an annoying little obstacle blocking her line of sight.
“This is Natalia,” Larson said proudly.
Laz and David rushed to her at once, offering hands that she did not deign to shake.
“And what do you do?” David asked breathlessly.
“She’s my bodyguard,” Larson explained. “Goes with me everywhere.”
The affection in David’s eyes redoubled. “Do you know jujitsu?”
“Krav Maga,” she allowed, her accent as musical as a dump truck on a gravel road.
“I studied some judo when I was a kid. Maybe we could, um, tangle.”
Natalia looked straight through the thoroughly enchanted David. She had noticed something before anyone else—which, now that Evan thought on it, was probably a huge part of her job description. But there, tearing up the long drive into the Farm, was a squad car bearing the insignia of the Savannah Sheriff’s Department. Suddenly Evan felt like he stood alone, all the problematic new residents surrounding him replaced by this one singular problem racing toward him.
“This can’t be good,” he said to himself.
“You want me to talk to them?” Larson asked helpfully. “Police have a way of listening to me.”
“I’m good with cops too,” David said, more to Natalia than anyone else.
“So am I,” Laz agreed. “Probably better than this clown.”
“I’m not a clown. You’re a clown.”
Natalia ignored David and Laz’s starry-eyed attention and assumed a rigid posture just behind and to the side of Larson.
The squad car pulled to a stop behind the line of buses. Evan couldn’t see beyond the mob of newcomers, who had formed a human wall as they turned to watch the spectacle, all of them as defensive as anyone who had ever encountered a police officer while trying to sleep in the streets at three a.m.
After the slamming of a car door and the sound of a struggle, the mob parted to reveal a chinless, middle-aged sheriff’s d
eputy in an ill-fitting uniform, and behind him, he was dragging Javier and Francesca Soto, both in handcuffs. Evan’s heart sank. The Sotos, in spite of the language barrier, had become two of his favorite residents. They were brother and sister, as it turned out, and their hearts had proven every bit as big as their doe-like eyes.
“What seems to be the trouble, officer?” David asked, swaggering up beside Natalia.
“Who’s in charge here?” the deputy asked of no one in particular.
Everyone turned their gazes to Evan.
“I guess that’s me then,” Evan said, wishing—and not for the first time—that Justin hadn’t flown off to deal with something he had insisted was business related, even though the tabloids had taken great pains to assure that it was in fact Connie related.
“These two picked a fight with one of the vendors at the farmer’s market,” the deputy explained, firing a thumb at the Sotos. “I could’ve let them sleep in county lockup for the night, but I guess I was feeling charitable. Decided to bring them back here instead.” He paused to let that sink in. “Where they belong.”
“Now hold on a minute, John,” came the voice. Dan, who’d been dead on his feet until now, suddenly looked invigorated as he stepped forward to confront the deputy with whom Dan was apparently familiar and whose name was apparently John. “Javy and Franny are about the gentlest, most honest people you’ll ever meet. If someone accused them of picking a fight, that someone was lying.”
“All I know is what I was told,” John the Deputy said.
“Ain’t no way you have this right.”
“Look, it ain’t the first complaints we’ve had about these two.”
“How in the world is that possible?” Evan said. “They wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“Wanda down at the market says they been . . . how’d she put it? Cheating everyone else out of sales.” John the Deputy set his legs apart and leaned back, puffing out his belly.
Evan had feared that something like this might happen. Entering a public market was perhaps a risky thing to have done. But the Farm needed the influx of money from the outside world. Evan figured the local market keepers would simply adapt. Either way, for now, he thought it best to let Dan do the talking.
“Well, that’s how all this works, John,” Dan said. “You seen it on the news. We can’t help how we’re able to charge so much less than everybody else.”
The deputy passed a threatening gaze at the crowd of newcomers and residents. The scene must have struck him as outlandish, because he hardly even batted an eye at billionaire Elliot Larson and his quite literal femme fatale bodyguard. Everyone else was strange enough on their own that he didn’t need to process that weirdness too, thank you very much.
“Maybe you should do some, what’s it called?” John the Deputy said. “Price fixing.”
Dan laughed. “That’s your solution? Have us go communist?”
“That little Chinama—Chinese fella, I mean—looks like he’d be into it.”
Evan stifled a gasp at John the Deputy’s self-correction. Jao, for his part, didn’t seem to take offense to the xenophobia.
Larson, meanwhile, was doing some knee slapping. “That’s exactly what I was saying before you got here!”
“We can’t control pricing,” Dan said, carving through the noise. “We can only do what the market allows. It’s exactly what we’ve always done on this farm, even before Justin came in. We price our produce to move so we don’t waste anything.”
“I ain’t no farmer, Dan,” John the Deputy said, throwing up his hands. “I’m just trying to keep the peace.”
“Raising prices has never been a way to keep the peace.”
Now John the Deputy was shaking his head and grinning in a way that said he couldn’t decide whether to laugh at Dan’s insolence or start cuffing everyone in sight. “Then maybe you could help me out with something.”
Everyone held their breath as they awaited the deputy’s decree. He looked at the Sotos with thinly veiled disgust.
“Part of the problem is how they look,” he said finally.
“Excuse me?” Dan said, offended.
John cast a hand in their direction. “Well, look at them.”
Evan did as the officer instructed, but he couldn’t figure out what it was he was supposed to be looking at. The Sotos were slight, dark-haired, big-eyed, and if you looked past their salt-of-the-earth self-care routine, they were also quite attractive. And they were the hardest workers and most diligent money savers on the Farm, bar none. The two of them made tens of Farm Bucks a day, but still took up residence in the dollar-a-day barracks and still ate Nora’s Shit-Bowls. By now, they surely could have afforded their own private rooms, and maybe even a standalone house, provided they were willing to share it as brother and sister. But the Sotos were savers. Now that Evan was looking them over, it occurred to him that they were still wearing those same raggedy clothes they had worn on their first arrival to the Farm.
“I mean, are they wearing gunnysacks?” John the Deputy asked incredulously.
They weren’t wearing gunnysacks—more like hempen shirts and shorts that appeared in need of a wash. Though he hated to admit it, Evan was starting to see the deputy’s point.
“Are you suggesting that their appearance is part of the problem?” he asked.
The deputy arched an eyebrow in a classic show of sarcasm. “You think?”
“We’ll ask them to buy some new clothes.”
“They’re not the only ones that come into town, though,” the deputy cut in.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m just gonna say it.” John the Deputy shook his head as if at war with himself. “All you people dress like shit. You want to make it feel less like our genteel city is under assault by your hobos, then start dressing better.”
The heat of offense bloomed in Evan’s chest, compelling him to ball his hands into fists. But then it dissipated when the logical part of his brain piped up. If he managed to look through the bigotry and general paranoia spouting from the deputy’s mouth, he could kind of see some semblance of a point. The Farm’s only intent was to coexist with the city to the east—and indeed, with the surrounding country in general. If they wanted to coexist, then part of the process would be to assimilate as best they could.
Before Evan could say any of this to the deputy, before he could make any assurances that the residents would start wearing their Sunday bests on trips into the city, Elliot chimed in with an entirely different idea.
“How about a uniform?” he said.
“That’s a great idea,” John the Deputy and Dan the Farmer said simultaneously.
Evan did not agree about the idea’s greatness, given how it would only help further that misconception about socialism he’d been working so hard to dispel. But then again, he couldn’t resist the intrigue about how a need to create uniforms would mean plenty of work for the resident clothiers.
“Yeah, that’ll make us look so much less like a communist cult,” Laz said wryly.
David laughed. “All of us struttin’ around the grounds in identical overalls.”
“It’d be a regular Animal Farm up in here.”
The groan escaped Evan’s lips before he could get on top of it. “Fine,” he said flatly, just wanting to be done with cops for the day. “We’ll have Donatella work up a uniform.”
Donatella was the mononymous, self-styled fashion designer in residence. Her designs always trended toward earthy and handwoven, but Evan couldn’t deny their appeal. She didn’t sell much of it because she charged too much, but her business did seem to be growing. On the one hand, Evan figured she would hate the assignment to design something as utilitarian as a uniform. On the other hand, Donatella outwardly hated everything, even the things that clearly brought her joy.
“But Laz has a point,” Evan said, as much to Elliot as to anyone. “We’re not wearing these damn things around the Farm. They’re only for anyone going into the city to work.”
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Whether this assuaged his concerns, the deputy did not show it. In fact, he seemed distracted, his attention drawn by the opportunity to glare at the thirty-something new residents and former homeless people keeping a safe distance from him.
It seemed to Evan that the tensions had gotten plenty high, so he decided to try getting rid of the cop with some gratitude. “We thank you for bringing Javy and Francesca back to us, Deputy. We’ll do everything in our power to ingratiate ourselves with the locals.”
“Folks just don’t like all these homeless coming into town,” John the Deputy spouted unbidden.
“We aren’t homeless,” David said.
“Not anymore,” Laz agreed.
The deputy mumbled something defensive under his breath.
“Excuse me?” Evan said, the heat rising under his collar.
“Wear your uniforms, fine,” John the Deputy said. “But that’ll only get you halfway to where you need to be.”
“And what’s the other half?”
The deputy fumed, looking like he wasn’t sure whether to say what was on his mind. “Just keep your people away from my people, you understand?” he said finally.
With that, as everyone else simmered in open-mouthed offense, he unlocked Francesca and then Javier’s handcuffs, jangled them around in his hand, and shoved his way back through the crowd blocking him from his car. With him went Evan’s hope that this Farm could ever blend harmoniously with the city it intended to serve. He gave the Sotos, David and Laz, and the thirty-six newcomers as much sympathy as he could project in his gaze, but there was little else he could do.
“Well then?” Dan said. “Who’s ready to pitch some tents?”
Chapter 13 The Very Last Person on Earth That Nora Pastor Wanted to See
The idea that governments should help the needy is backward. A well-functioning economy eliminates need, and in so doing, elevates governments from debt-exploding social obligations.
—Justin Wolfe
It had been a long fucking day. She’d arrived to the kitchen that morning to find that she’d forgotten to sharpen her knives at the end of last night’s shift. Then, one of her line cooks and two of her servers had been late again—hours late this time; so late that she’d had to wait three tables herself. During the lunch rush, there’d been a run on Muna’s croque monsieur because the damn thing was too good, and they’d run out of ham early enough in the afternoon that a fight nearly broke out between two residents warring over the last available sandwich.
