by Jarl Jensen
“Are you sure?” Evan asked Laz.
“I was trying to contain the stampede at the time, but that’s the word going around.”
“Could you identify these residents?”
“Not personally, but someone should be able to. Sounds like it was a couple of the new guys.”
Evan would have to hold onto this news. He couldn’t very well tell the police or they would start arresting residents left and right. This investigation would have to happen from within the community. Evan groaned at the thought, but he figured he would have to hand the investigation to Oscar.
For now, there was still a great deal of damage to survey. He went from place to place, sizing up the wreckage and estimating in his head the cost of repairs. He was aware of Nora trailing him, but neither spoke, for everything they encountered stunned them further.
The damage to the barracks, to the classroom, and to the windmill was considerable. The Circus, having gone up in flames, had of course taken the brunt of it. This was where Nora and Evan went next, to pick through the charred ruin of what had been a thriving marketplace.
As they searched for any sign of salvageable wares, Evan had to focus most of his attention on keeping himself from tumbling into nausea. Every resident and local had been accounted for, so thankfully they wouldn’t find any casualties, but that didn’t prevent Evan’s mind from wandering into darkness.
With every strip of canvas he pulled back with gloved hands, he would shudder, fearing that he would find some twisted corpse, charred flesh staring back at him. He couldn’t get the image of Carl’s shoulders out of his head. Carl would carry considerable scarring for the rest of his life, but the paramedics insisted that he would make a full recovery. They had seen far worse burns than this, and here, he didn’t even look terribly infected in spite of it all.
Evan did not want to think about what a worse burn would look like. In college, his roommate had been a premed student, and Evan had made the unfortunate mistake of glancing at his First Aid for the Basic Sciences textbook one evening. He’d seen a photo of a burn victim, one of those rare things in his life he wished he could unsee.
But Carl would be all right. The paramedics had loaded him facedown on the stretcher, Carl insisting that he prop himself up on his battered elbows so he could say goodbye to everyone on his way out. His voice sounded like he was talking into a can, and the whites of his eyes had gone bright red. But Carl would be all right.
Every time this thought flashed through Evan’s mind, he would sigh relief. This time, when he sighed relief, he felt an arm slide in under his. There was Nora, gazing up at him with a teary-eyed smile. He pulled her into an embrace. It had been so long since he had felt her press against him that the sensation was almost foreign. But God, was it welcome. She was warm and small and soft, and her hair smelled like lavender and woodsmoke.
“I love you too, you know,” she said.
These were the first words she had spoken to him in nearly a week. And for at least a month before this, she had remained distant—not cold, but certainly not warm, either. He couldn’t blame her. Between the restaurant and caring for her father, Nora probably didn’t have time to think about Evan’s profession of love, to say nothing of how she felt in return. Her poor father. One night, maybe two weeks ago, Nora had come to the door of the farmhouse and actually accepted Evan’s invitation to go for a walk. She’d looked exhausted and emotionally overrun. But she’d gone out with him, and they’d walked the grounds—not hand in hand, but close enough to each other that Evan, at least for a few hours, quit worrying about whether she had changed her mind about their relationship.
“He’s dying,” Nora had said without prompting.
“Oh, Nora, I’m so—”
“It’s MS,” she cut in. “He’s been managing it for a long time, but the progression of it these past weeks has been . . .”
She couldn’t finish. Evan hugged her then. It was the last hug they would share until this moment, standing on the smoldering canvas.
“What do you need?” he had asked her back then. “Anything. Just name it. We’ll get the residents involved, and I’m sure Justin would be up for—”
“It’s too late,” she’d said. “They’ve already sent in a hospice nurse. Evan, he’s . . . he’s dying. Like, any day now.”
As they stood over the fire now, wrapped in each other and in their sorrow and love, Evan wanted to ask about Dan, but he didn’t know how. Evan came from a young family. All his parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins and siblings were still alive. His friends had all led tragedy-free lives. He had never been to a funeral, much less the bedside of someone in hospice care. He had no idea what to say.
“Can I help you somehow?” he asked.
She nuzzled him. “You’re helping me right now.”
Carl. Meryl. Dan. Nora. The utter wreck that this Farm had become. Justin’s flailing experiment. Everything they had worked for had been crippled by a dozen thugs in overalls. He should have seen it coming. Should have been there for intake and noticed the strangeness of these men. The dirty look of them. Their intimidating builds. But instead, he’d been too busy with the numbers. He’d been so engaged with trying to rewrite a sputtering economic system to notice the wolves at the door.
People had nearly died in service to this community. And Dan actually was dying.
Evan began to cry. Softly at first. But then the walls of his forced courage collapsed and he broke into a wave of sobbing. Nora held him closer, buried her face into his heaving chest. They held each other in this way for a time while Evan pulled himself together. And not a moment too soon, because here came Elliot fucking Larson again. He was baring his teeth like a submissive chimpanzee as he pointed to the sky.
“You see?” the billionaire said. His drones had gone silent finally, the fire abated and the firemen engaged in the search and cleanup effort. “If I’d had something to do with this, I wouldn’t have helped put out the fire, right?”
Evan badly wanted to scream at Larson, but given his emotional state, he simply didn’t have the energy. Unfortunately, Larson, in his time away, apparently hadn’t finally picked up the sense of tact he should have developed as a teenager.
“You know why this is happening, don’t you?”
With gritted teeth, Evan slid gently away from Nora’s embrace. She grabbed a handful of the back of his shirt on the way out, as if trying to cling to him, or maybe to communicate without words that he should be careful with this conversation and not get himself too worked up.
It didn’t matter. It was too late. Evan was already worked up. “You going to blame the victim here?” he spit.
Larson showed the palms of his hands. “Not at all. I’m just searching for an explanation, like all of us.”
“Us,” Evan said bitterly.
“Yes. Us. I’m a part of this too.”
“Jesus Christ,” Nora said, shaking her head.
“I am a part of this,” Larson insisted. “Whether you like it or not.”
“Just get to the fucking point, Elliot,” Evan said, exasperated. “Gift us with your wisdom. Why is this happening?”
The billionaire gazed off into the distance as if pained by what he had to say. He scratched his head with manicured fingernails. He squinted thoughtfully. Just when Evan had lost all patience to continue waiting, he finally spoke.
“Because this is America, man.”
Nora groaned.
“You’re kidding,” Evan said sarcastically. “I thought this was Armenia.”
“You mock me, but only because you’re not actually hearing me.”
“Enlighten us then.”
“What’s the one thing that binds all Americans together?”
“Hot dogs,” Nora quipped.
“Baseball and apple pie,” Evan said with a roll of his eyes.
“No. Fear.”
“Fear?”
“Fear.”
“And what exactly does fear
have to do with what happened today?”
“Maybe it was the Fox News piece or maybe it was just Americans being Americans,” Larson said. “But when you started having success on this Farm, with your strange new economic system and your weirdo hobos from out of town, people started to fear you.”
“What could they possibly have to be afraid about? If this system works, and if we can find a way to take it national and even global, everyone benefits.”
“People fear it because they don’t understand it.” This came from Nora, breathlessly. She looked rather awake to this new notion, one that honestly had not occurred to any of them until this moment, starry-eyed and forward looking as they had all always been.
Evan wanted to argue, but he immediately could see that Larson was right.
“The thing that binds all Americans is fear. Fear of the unknown. And you can explain this system until you’re blue in the face, but it will always be the unknown—at least compared to what people are used to.”
“But if the choice is between economic instability and a massive gap between rich and poor,” Evan said, “then why wouldn’t people look past their fear and embrace something that would make their lives better?”
“They don’t see this as something that will make their lives better, even if it will. They see it as something that is making these specific formerly homeless people’s live better. They fear the homeless. It’s why no one wants to think about them. It’s why everyone walks past them on the streets with their noses upturned or their faces buried in their cell phones. We pity them, and so we fear them.
“Here, you’ve found a way to make them contribute. You’ve found a way to make them human again in a world that wants to dehumanize them. And then you unleashed all these rehumanized people into the city with their superior pricing power and their sudden ability to open hot new bakeries and restaurants and movie houses and flower shops. I mean, really. You didn’t think the locals would start to worry about that?”
“This had nothing to do with locals,” Evan said, motioning to the wreckage on which they stood. Here and there, smoke was still slipping out from under the canvass. A half dozen residents were wandering about, picking at the ruined fabric, whimpering or cursing as they tried to salvage what they could of their destroyed businesses. “Those men who started the riot, they were residents. New residents. Residents cleared by your right-hand woman.”
“I’ve already got Natalia investigating the situation,” Larson said dismissively. “We have no idea how so many men like that could slip through our system. And all at once. Really. I’m not even entirely convinced they did come through our system.”
Nora took a threatening step forward, pointing a finger accusingly, fury in her eyes, but before she could argue, Evan stepped to her and wrapped his arm around her to hold her back. It was clear to Evan that Larson had more knowledge about the situation than he was letting on, but accusing him in this moment wouldn’t do them any good. They would get to the bottom of things, but only if they could make Larson believe that they trusted him. Firing off accusations would only cause him to pack it in, destroy evidence, and leave.
“I believe you,” Evan said. He shrugged off Nora’s offended glare. “You’ve been a great help to us, Elliot,” he lied. “The first thing you could do is share the names of the rioters with the local PD.”
“Done.” Larson was already clacking a message into his phone. “Texting that to Natalia now.”
“And the next thing you can do is help us figure out how to dispel the fear that caused this situation.”
Now Larson paused his typing and looked thoughtful. “It starts with changing how you operate your system.”
It took all the self-control Evan possessed to continue pretending to appreciate this man’s input. “Oh?”
Larson nodded. “You’re doing too much controlling of the markets. Americans fear what they don’t understand, right? Well . . . it’s positively un-American to not let the markets be free.”
Evan stifled a chuff. “I get where you’re coming from. But do you really think America has a free market?”
“Of course.”
“Just because banks are free to do whatever they want, that doesn’t make anyone—not even bankers like your buddy Blankfein—truly free. Just because a portion of our economy is dedicated to creating a sustainable future for the community, that doesn’t infringe on anyone’s freedom. People can still do what they want. If we did the same thing with the American economy, there would just be more money available for things like carbon sequestration and cleaning up the oceans. Giving people a direct deposit does not imprison or even burden anyone. It actually frees people from the oppression of the government’s welfare system.”
Larson showed his palms again. “Preaching to the choir, my friend. But the problem is that people still don’t understand it, and they fear what they don’t understand.”
“Speaking of which,” Nora said.
Both men turned to follow her gaze. Framed by the floodlights shining over the wreckage from the bed of David’s pickup truck, there shuffled a silhouette. Evan couldn’t make out the man’s face, but the bright yellow letters on his vest leapt through the darkness.
“FBI,” Evan breathed.
“I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about,” Larson said. “It’s only natural for the Bureau to want to investigate a situation like this.”
Evan glared at Larson like, “How exactly would you know?”
The reassuring smile that Nora shined up at Evan was clearly forced. “Unless you think I’ll be of use with this, I’m going to check on my dad and then go to bed.”
“Okay,” Evan said, unable to hide the regret about having to part with Nora in this moment. Everything was so upside down. He hadn’t even had a chance to process how she had finally told him she loved him.
“You think maybe I could sleep at your place?”
His heart leapt. She hadn’t slept at his place in a month. She’d spent all this time sleeping in her old bedroom at the farmhouse so she could be close to her dad.
“Of course.”
She gave an impish though sad little smile and went off toward the farmhouse.
“You make such a sweet couple.”
Evan had been so enthralled by the moment that he had nearly forgotten about Larson’s unwelcome presence. “Thanks,” he said a little too curtly.
“I’m happy for you.”
“Thanks.”
“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll leave you to your new friend as well.” Larson pretended to take a phone call and slinked off with apology in his eyes.
The silhouette had grown larger, but the man’s face had not yet come into focus.
“If you’re here about the fire,” Evan told the approaching shadow in FBI attire, “then you should talk to that guy first.” He pointed in Larson’s direction. “His assistant will have the names of the suspects for you shortly.”
“Oh, I’ll be talking to every witness before the night is over,” said the silhouette.
When Evan’s eyes finally adjusted, they met with a square-jawed, blue-eyed FBI agent whose general movie-star good looks only added to the intimidation factor of his antiballistic vest. “And how can I help you?”
The agent grunted. “You’re in charge, I’m told.”
“Something like that.”
“Well, then, Mr. Something Like That, let me tell you that this wasn’t just any fire.”
“No?”
“This was arson.”
The information struck Evan both hot and cold at once. Of course he had seen how quickly the flames had gone up, and he had seen more than his fair share of the resulting damage, but part of his mind hadn’t yet been ready to admit that someone could have caused this fire on purpose. It was that childlike part that always insisted that terrible things weren’t nearly as terrible as they seemed—that part of him that always wound up disappointed in the end.
“You think someone caused
this? Like, on purpose?”
“My team is already assembling on the ridge,” the agent said. “We’re going to need access to everyone’s private quarters.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
The agent clapped a heavy hand on Evan’s shoulder. “We’re looking for an arsonist. A skilled one, from what I’ve seen.”
“And your assumption is that it’s one of our residents?”
He shrugged. “Can’t rule anyone out.”
“Why the hell would one of our residents burn down a place that provides them with work and a chance at a better life?”
He spit into the darkness. “Why’s anybody do anything?”
A dozen replies to this condescension came to Evan at once, but he beat each one back with the reminder that nothing good could come from antagonizing a federal investigator. He’d already told himself that the people who lived on this Farm were the kinds of people to whom the government and society at large almost never extended genuine justice. Why should he be surprised now, with this sneering FBI agent standing before him, passive aggressively suggesting that this could only be an inside job?
“It’s best not to resist in these situations,” the agent was saying. “You’ve already had enough tragedy for one day, wouldn’t you say?”
Every instinct told Evan that he should fight this—that he should stand up for his residents against a clear violation of their rights, especially during this dark time, when so many of them were already mourning the loss of their businesses and fearing that their way of life was under assault. They had already watched their livelihoods burn, and now these jackbooted agents wanted to what? Toss everyone’s personal belongings like this was some kind of unannounced prison inspection?
But already he could see the sedans lining up on the ridge. There were six of them, with more headlights coming up the gravel drive.
“I’m tired,” Evan told the agent. “We’re all a little overwhelmed. Just tell me what you need.”
