Such talk worried Vern as much as it cheered him. Yes, this time around it was the good-hearted folks who were talking about seceding, not the slaveholders. Still, it was a large step, and one he’d stumbled into more or less by accident. The problems Vermont faced weren’t all that bad, not compared with police brutality or voter suppression or—well, a lot of things. And wouldn’t those get worse if the Vermonts of the country just walked away? Hell, left to its own devices, Wyoming might turn Yellowstone into a geothermal power plant. Vern’s world still worked—he just wasn’t all that fond of it. And he didn’t think the center could hold that much longer. But people always thought that, and for about 240 years the country had staggered on. Sometimes the country had surged on—certainly in his youth. Maybe it was all foolishness.
Maybe it was worse than that, he thought—maybe it was mostly ego. He’d long known he liked listening to himself talk, liked the cadence and the artful pause, liked the ability to sound folksy, though the minute you started thinking about sounding folksy it was obviously a fake, Garth Brooks instead of Jimmie Rodgers. Or maybe Garth Brooks was real, in his own mind. But he wasn’t entirely real, he knew. He knew he liked attention, some part of him liked it too much—he knew he was showing off, and it scared him a little. Because if you showed off when you were leading people, you could lead them right over an edge. But slowing down now, backing off now, would be—embarrassing. Real politicians didn’t do doubt; decades of interviewing had taught him that much. Sure, selectmen, and maybe even state legislators, who after all were just part-timers, heading back home to their law offices or their farms when the session ended each April; they actually weighed arguments, and changed their minds. But not governors—they stayed on message, they talked right through objections, they communicated clarity and confidence.
He could do it too—he’d been doing it for the past six weeks, one podcast after another, and he’d enjoyed it; it felt good to lead, to imagine every ear turned in your direction. But he didn’t really believe it, or believe in it. It felt like acting, and he felt like an actor. He knew precisely how fallible he was—he sensed he was on the right path, he really did think the country was too big, out of control. But it was one thing to argue that, and another to act on it, and the pleasure he took made him all the more suspicious. He had burned down someone’s house, more or less. There’d been guns, people firing guns. Guns didn’t scare him—he’d been around them all his life. People firing fusillades at what they assumed was him—that scared him. Not because he didn’t want to get shot—he didn’t particularly, but he was an old man. Because anyone believing anything strongly enough to pull a trigger for it scared him. It ran contrary to everything he’d ever wanted to do, which was mostly to talk calmly about things, with his neighbors, maybe in a little bit more folksy way than was actually quite real. But when you did it long enough it became real.
“Perry,” he said. “I don’t know how you’re going to do it, but this time we really do need to set it up so we can talk to people. So they can call in and say something on the radio and I can talk back to them. Can talk with them. Can listen to them talk.”
Perry had been quietly reading a magazine article to Martha Oxbow. “I’ve been thinking it through, and we can do it, I think,” he said, laying down the magazine. “It will be a little weird,” he said after a pause. “But I think we can manage. We’ll listen to the radio here, and when someone calls in we’ll hear it, and you’ll answer into the microphone, which we’ll put on Skype to a friend I have in Colorado? And she’ll phone the signal back to the radio station? It’s not foolproof—the police will eventually be able to track down where the phone line is coming from, and if they found her while we were still live I guess they could conceivably track the Skype call back here. But we’ll make sure she’s someplace public—some payphone, if they still have them out there. I don’t see how they could trace it in less than half an hour anyway, and that’s all you want, right?”
“That’s all I want, that’s plenty,” said Vern. “We’ll have to tell Mark to turn off the seven-second delay. The FCC won’t like that—but then, the FCC won’t like any of this. Someone saying a bad word will be the least of our worries.”
“I’ll get to work,” said Perry. “You finish this magazine article, okay?”
25
As usual, Vern grew steadily calmer as the minute hand moved toward the top of the hour. They were listening to WDEV on Martha Oxbow’s table radio, and Perry was monitoring the Skype connection to Colorado Springs. Mark Johnson was paying the station’s bills, offering his testimonials to some of the small businesses that still could afford to advertise. “The Greensboro Garage—if they can’t fix your Subaru, you might as well buy a new one,” he said. “It’s seven p.m., and as most of you know, we’ve got an old friend on the show tonight. I grew up listening to Vern Barclay, and he’s one reason I’m in this business. We’d welcome him to these airwaves anytime, but right now he’s also the most wanted man in the State of Vermont. In fact, Vern, I should probably tell you that there are a couple of federal agents here in the studio with me tracing the phone line. I couldn’t stop them—they have a warrant—but I told them they couldn’t stop me from talking about it. I have a warrant too, and it’s the First Amendment.”
“That’s okay, Mark. Those men have a job to do. And I’ve got a job to do tonight as well, which is to listen to Vermonters. If I’m remembering correctly from all my years of listening to your show, the number if you’re in central Vermont is 244-1777, or across the state at 877-291-TALK. Since I’m not there in the studio with you, and since the governor has been insisting I’m now beyond the veil, some listeners might worry that this is just a tape recording of a dead man. So let me begin by saying it’s Thursday, February twenty-eighth, and congratulations to the Windsor girls for their big win in last night’s state semifinal against Montpelier—Tracy Ingersoll, twenty-two points in the second half. But the big news comes from the National Weather Service, which is predicting that tomorrow will bring the first serious snowstorm in three years to the Green Mountain State. An Alberta Clipper pouring cold air down from the Canadian prairies will combine with a rapidly deepening offshore low to set up what forecasters are calling a ‘major snow event,’ thirty-six hours of blizzard that could leave parts of the state with up to two and a half feet of snow. Time to find that shovel buried in the back of the garage, folks, and if you’ve got kids who’ve never seen a real Vermont storm, it’s time to dig that sled out of the attic. It’s going to be a good one.
“But the snowstorm’s not all that’s coming our way. Town Meeting Day is next Tuesday, and I know many towns get started the night before—along with all the regular items on the docket, 231 of Vermont’s 246 cities and towns will be debating the question: ‘Should the legislature be instructed to study the state’s possible secession from the United States?’ Two nights earlier, on Saturday, as you’ve doubtless heard, the governor is hosting a ‘Celebration of America’ at the fine new Bruce Facility, arguing that the answer should be no. Tonight I’ll try to suggest why a better answer might be yes—why you might want to at least consider a free and independent nation of Vermont. But I’m not going to do more than suggest, because I’m not certain I’m right—for decades I’ve learned what I’ve needed to know from listening to you. Mark, is there a caller on the line?”
“Every line is full,” came the reply over the table radio. “First caller is Sue from Alburgh.”
“Hi, Mark. Hi, Vern. My question is, When you have a country of Vermont, are you going to let there be the greyhound racing like they have in Massachusetts? Because I think it’s cruel, and I wouldn’t want to see it here.”
“Thank you, Sue. I tend to agree with you about the puppy track—there’s something about chasing that mechanical rabbit that’s just depressing. But here’s the point I need to make right at the beginning. I have no, none, not the slightest interest in running Vermont. I’m
not suited for running anything more powerful than a radio switchboard; if a free Vermont came with me attached, I’d vote against it at town meeting and advise everyone else to do the same. And don’t support it thinking that you’ll necessarily get a better class of politicians—I mean, Vermonters elected the current governor six times. The only advantage, as I see it, is that at least you’ll have the chance to make decisions about things that matter—greyhound racing, but also whether or not to give health care to everyone, and if we should subsidize big farms or little ones, and if we want to send our daughters and sons off to fight. Right now those decisions are made so far away that it’s almost impossible to really influence them. A few years ago the Supreme Court said that corporations were persons, and so they could spend any amount of money they wanted on elections; if the spirit of Jefferson was still alive, that was the day they put him in the ICU. Vermont by itself wouldn’t be perfect—but it would be smaller. So we could actually see what was going on.”
“Vern, we’ve got Ed on line two, from Ferrisburgh.”
Vern was sitting in his straight-backed chair, feet planted wide, hunched over on his elbows, eyes closed. He felt entirely relaxed, at ease, in the flow—the same feeling he’d always had when he strapped on a pair of skis and headed out onto the snow. He wondered idly if he’d spent more of his life in front of the microphone or in the woods.
“Hi there, this is Ed. I get the corporations thing, but I don’t want to lose my constitutional guarantees.”
“Which ones in particular?”
“Guns. The Second Amendment. My right to bear arms.”
“Well, then, you’ll be glad to know that the U.S. Constitution is not the only one in the world. Vermont’s constitution predates it by some years. It’s the shortest of all the state constitutions, and it begins with a Bill of Rights. Article Sixteen, if I’m remembering correctly, is guns: ‘The people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and the state.’ That’s about as straightforward as it gets. But it adds something interesting: ‘As standing armies in times of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up.’ That seems smarter all the time to me, given the difficulties standing armies seem to keep getting us into. If we’d had to go out and raise an army to invade Iraq, we might have thought a little harder. We’re used to thinking that the U.S. Constitution is the greatest single document ever devised, but it’s worth remembering it was mostly set up to keep things from happening, because the states were suspicious of each other. Small states check big states, and so on. Good idea, except we’re pretty well checkmated right now.”
“Vern, Mark here. I think I need to tell you that the federales here seem to be making progress—they just started shouting into their cell phones out there in the control room.”
“Mark, thanks for the warning. Don’t worry, though—I’m going to turn myself in right after Town Meeting Day anyway. I figure that if I have to spend my time hidden away indoors, I can probably do it as easily in the jail as in a room like this one. I’d just like to stay on the loose a few more days so we can keep this conversation alive. Speaking of which, do you have another caller?”
“This is Marsha, from Clarendon. And I don’t, like, trust politicians? I voted for Obama and then nothing changed. And I’ve never been to town meeting because it’s not for people like me. So I just mostly concentrate on my family.”
“Marsha, just do me one favor. Go to town meeting on Tuesday. I think Clarendon meets in the town hall, next to the church. You don’t have to say anything, just sit there and listen. We all need to be reminded that democracy isn’t just voting for president every four years and then trusting him to fix things. Democracy is about getting together with your community to think together about your future. Sometimes it’s dull, and sometimes people get long-winded, and sometimes they get stiff-necked. But town meeting has been going for three hundred years, ever since people got to Vermont. Just go see.”
Vern felt a tap on his shoulder and opened his eyes—Perry was signaling him to wrap up.
“Mark, just time for one more caller here, and even that may be pressing our luck.”
“This is Art from Essex Junction. I just want to say, I think this whole thing is so stupid. The U.S. is the greatest country on earth. If we were off by ourselves, we’d be crushed. We’d be Haiti with Holsteins. That’s it—just stupid.”
“Ed, thanks for the call. And it’s the right note to end on. Because I think you’re wrong—I think we’d be more like Finland with fall colors. I think we’ve got plenty of brains and resources to do just fine on our own. But you may be right. And that’s the point. I’ve sat behind a microphone and listened for decades as Americans learned to stop talking with each other and start shouting instead. No discussions, just ‘socialist’ or ‘fascist’ or ‘feminazi’ or ‘bigot’ or whatever. So here’s what I want to say, and I think it’s the one thing no one ever says anymore in our public life: I think you’re wrong, but you may be right.”
Perry was slashing his index finger across his throat with ever greater vigor. Vern didn’t let himself speed up—he may even have slowed down a little just to be sure he didn’t sound panicked. “Folks, go to town meeting on Tuesday, and listen to each other. Pay attention to the people you trust, listen to their arguments. This is a big question, and we want to get it right, and the only way we will is if we all think it through. Many thanks for being with us tonight, and remember, there’s a big snowstorm on the way. Don’t drive if you can help it—ski instead! Mark, thank you for—”
At that moment Perry pulled the cord from the modem. “We’re shut down,” he said. “Sorry, but they were closing in. Your computer was skyped into a desktop in Colorado, and my friend was talking to me from across the street. She could see the agents coming; she had a button to press that fries the hard drive. They might be able to figure out where we were coming from, but not very fast I don’t think.”
“Don’t worry,” said Vern. “We’ve said our piece. Nothing to do now but sit and wait till Tuesday.” He picked up the magazine and began to read to Martha Oxbow. But he’d covered barely a paragraph when the door blew open, and his mother stormed in as fast as her walker would allow.
“Mom,” said Vern. “Did you hear the radio?”
“Thought you sounded a little wussy, like you wanted everyone to like you,” she said. “But it doesn’t matter. We’ve got bigger problems. They got Trance.”
“What? Where?”
“It’s my fault. She was going crazy aquacising. It’s like running in slow motion, she said. So we fixed her up so she could go out for a proper run. She didn’t look anything like herself—hair, clothes. I mean, she was wearing a pink sweat suit—I don’t think Trance ever wore pink once in her life. But she hadn’t gone two blocks when a car almost rammed her. She went right over the hood—we could see it from the dayroom window. She got up but they tackled her, two men in suits, and they tossed her in the back of the car. It was black. I have no idea how they knew it was her.”
“They knew it was her because she’s the only woman in Vermont who can run a fifteen-minute five-K. Her hair’s not what gives her away—it’s her stride.”
“Well, it’s my fault,” said her mother, sniffling. “I like her so much, and she was going crazy with nothing to do. And she was missing that Sylvia.”
“No one ever really told Trance not to do something,” said Vern. “Do you think they saw her come out of the door of the home? She won’t give us away, but maybe they saw her.”
“If they’d seen her, they’d be here by now,” said Perry.
“Oh Christ,” said Vern. “I don’t even like to think about what they’re doing to her to find out. You remember how I said a few minutes ago on the radio that we should all just be friends and talk things through and all that?”
“I do,” said Perry.
“Well,” said Vern. “To hell wit
h that. This is more like war. We’re going to get her free, and we’re going to do it no matter what.”
26
Trance was lying on the floor of the backseat of a car, her hands cuffed behind, a blanket over her head, and the feet of her captor resting on the small of her back. She’d struggled for a minute when they’d pushed her into the car, but one of the men had shown her the gun he carried, a standard government-issue Glock 22.
“I’m no sniper, Trance. On the other hand, I’m three feet away, so I don’t think I’ll miss.”
She’d relaxed, lain down, and begun to think. It had happened fast—she’d run barely three blocks, not enough to get her breathing hard, before the car had pulled across her path and she’d gone over the hood. Had they known she was there, or was it a lucky break?
“Didn’t think we’d find you today,” said the man, as if he could read her mind. “But I’m glad we did. We’ve got some work for you to do.”
“Where are you taking me?” she asked.
“Somewhere safe and secure,” he said. He spoke with a flat, clipped accent—midwestern, the law-enforcement default since the days of Hoover.
Trance had felt the car accelerate onto the highway, and she felt it exit again about twenty minutes later. Since Vermont had exactly one highway, that meant they’d either gone south to somewhere near Randolph, or north to somewhere near Bolton. She was paying attention even though the agent was keeping up a steady stream of talk on his radio, milking her catch for all it was worth with his superiors.
Radio Free Vermont Page 12
