by Inc. HDWP
“That’d be enough to shake a man,” I said, sympathizing with this normally unshakable guy, who also happened to be one of the most fearless pick-up league goalies I had ever faced. Seeing him tremble like that was more than just a bit unsettling.
“But that’s not the worst of it,” he said, maybe sensing the pity in my eye, and needing to prove that this was craziness beyond the sort of craziness even a strong man should be expected to endure. He certainly had my attention.
“It was what they did when they saw me,” he said. His voice had now dropped to a quiet place, like an old man recounting the horrors of war.
“First they’d flash their lights―the ones in my lane, I mean. It was like they thought I was the one doing something wrong. Once. Twice. Three times, most of them would flash. They’d wait, and they’d wait, and then finally, when I didn’t move, they’d duck out of my way at the very last minute, and give me the finger, as though I was the idiot.” His hands were shaking again, as he relived the terror of the experience.
“That is a bit risky, I suppose. Ducking back into traffic at the last minute.”
But the Doc grabbed my hand, spilling his coffee on the table with the sudden movement, and then he stared into my eyes. “But that’s just it, Stu! They didn’t duck back into traffic! They went around me. On the other side!”
It took a moment for that to sink in. Jesus! No wonder the guy was shaken. One time, maybe, that’ll give you a scare. But ten times? Or fifty? Doc had lost count, and at the first chance he got, he’d pulled over onto his own shoulder. But even then, he’d wondered if he was safe. So he’d taken the next turn onto the county side-road, and come all the way back up to town on the gravel, vibrating and shuddering the whole way, but it wasn’t until he’d shut the car off in the parking lot of the Jimmy Hut and climbed out that he’d realized the shaking was him, and not the road. He’d been sitting right here, in this very chair for the last twenty minutes, just waiting for his nerves to settle.
“It’s an insanity of some kind. It has to be,” he said. “All that, for a Double Duck Amuck and a Coke? Who does that?”
“Not at that time of day,” I said, shaking my head. “Not before eleven. Probably coming for a Scramble McDuck and a Mighty Muck.”
“Even worse!” he said. “Don’t they realize that’s just scrambled eggs and coffee? They could make it themselves. At home. In their underwear. What is wrong with these people?”
By this time, we’d gathered a small audience around us, other locals, nodding their heads in agreement, or shaking them in dismay.
“Tire marks torn across my lawn almost every day,” Eleanor added. She’s the town librarian. “Strangest thing. You know my place, corner lot and all, at the stop sign. But some of them, when they come up and find there’s a car ahead, already waiting to turn, those yahoos will cut right across my lawn in order to get ahead of just that one car. You’re right, Doc. It is a madness.”
“That’s nothing,” Denny said. “I saw a woman pulled over to the side of the road, the other day.” Like the Doc and Eleanor, his voice was sort of hushed, as if he was barely sure he believed his own memory. “I stopped alongside to see if she needed any help, but it looked like she was just settling the kid in the back. I was about to pull away when I heard her yelling at the little guy. Couldn’t’a been more than five, maybe six. ‘Stop yer bawling!’ she screams. ‘We’ll be there soon and you can have your Chick-a-Bits, so just shut up! Here! Suck on this until we get there!’ Then, as God is my witness, she reaches down to the floor and picks up a piece of paper that she hands to the kid. At first, I couldn’t tell what it was. Then I saw the logo. It was a wrapper from an old Chick-a-Bits. Nothing but waxed paper and grease stains.”
“You’re joking,” I said.
Denny just shrugged. “I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried, Stu. But you want to know the worst part?” We all leaned in, half afraid to hear it and the other half scared we’d miss a word.
“The whole time, we were parked in front of the Stay-N-Save. A grocery store! I know business has been good for some folks from all these drive-thru junkies, but it’s just inhuman. Is anything worth this?” Denny looked around at the crowd that had gathered around us, but nobody would meet his eye, and nobody had an answer for him, either.
Not even me.
* * *
My grandad told me a story once, about the bad years, back in the Depression. Locusts, he told me, wasn’t a problem by the ones and twos, or even by the handful. They was a pest, sure enough, but not an actual problem. But before you knew it, a handful became a barnful, then a cloudful, and sudden-like, they’d be thick on the ground, like ants on honey. And them locusts was a biblical kind of trouble.
The summer he was talking about, they’d started out seeing just a few of ‘em. No big deal, and everyone more or less just ignored them. But before anyone could turn around, there was suddenly so many of the little buggers there was nothing left to do but curse the sky and watch the crops vanish. Grandad told me about the day they’d been like that―that first day when they’d come in like a carpet of just pure flying hatred. He’d already given up his fields for lost, but he was a stubborn old bugger, my grandad, and there was still some patches not devoured yet, and plenty of stubble, too, so they was still on our land and he was hoping to watch ‘em up close for a bit and maybe learn something he could use for next time.
So he’s out to the east field, sitting on the tractor wheel with a beer in his hand and just… watching, when some commotion or other starts up among the little buggers, right there in front of him. They’re thick on the field, maybe a dozen or so in every area as big as a man’s hand, flitting around and crawling over each other. And while he’s watching, one of ‘em just sort of snapped, he tells me. Just minding his own munchy little business one minute, and then―BAM!―he turns to the littler fellow next to him, and bites his leg clean off. Just like that! No ‘excuse me, pardon me, but yer a bit too close’ and whatnot. Just chomp! Leg gone.
Well, then it was like that chomp was a signal to the others, as if a bolt of electricity had run through ‘em, because the whole field was suddenly boiling with these mad little buggers flying up and dropping back, flapping around, attacking Grandad, and each other, and chawing at the last of the stubble. Then again―Boom!―and just like that, they was gone. Flew off in a whole black cloud of angry. Gone to attack some other group on another field somewhere, leaving nothing behind but wheat stumps and dead bodies.
I could tell the old guy was spooked, even years later when he told me his story. Kept saying it was just crazy how they all turned like that. No warning. No gradual change. Just as instant as a light switch, flipping from peaceful cow chewing its cud to vicious dog biting the legs off’a his buddies. But that sudden change, that swarm behavior, was the secret of how to handle ‘em, too, he said.
Well, it turns out Americans is a lot like locusts.
The crazy started on the first of August, and it was a hot one, with so much humidity in the air that even your sweat was sweating. Normally, a day as hot as that would melt a man’s brain, and all he’d have afterward would be a greasy blur of memory butter, staining the inside of his skull, but I remember that particular day real clear.
Because that’s the day the guns came out.
I was groundskeeping at the cenotaph, showing the new guy how it was done. A guy named Lester. With all the new money coming into town, and all that new drive-thru trash to collect, Mayor Mel had agreed when I asked about taking on an assistant. So I was showing Lester the ropes as we tidied up around the war memorial, and we were having a solid chat about the correct handling of a weed whacker, when I heard a pop-pop sound coming from the next block over. Lester figured it was just fireworks or something, but that just didn’t sound quite right. Maybe it was me remembering Grandad’s story, but anyway, I told Lester to stay low, and then I jumped into the Deere wagon and took off. It was only a minute or three to get around the block, but
even so, it was mostly all over by the time I got there.
Keeno was Johnny On The Spot, and he already had the shooter cuffed and cooling his temper in the back of the squad car. The guy wore a fancy suit, so I figured he belonged to the car that was at the front of the drive-thru line, seeing as how it was empty, still running, with the driver’s door standing open, and it being a fancy car, and all.
Keeno himself was talking to witnesses and taking notes. But beyond him, across from the drive-thru window, there was this kid sitting on the edge of the grass. Had one of those tiny Japanese motor bikes laying on the pavement beside him. Kid wasn’t shot up or nothing. Not even injured, as far as I could tell, but still, he looked white as a sheet and he just sat there, arms wrapped around his knees, and he was sorta rocking back and forth, and trembling. Real spooky.
Anyway, from what I heard, the kid had been a ways back in line, but being a kid, he wasn’t much of the patient sort, so when the fancy guy got distracted on a phone call or something, and didn’t pull forward to pick up his food, the bike-kid thought maybe he’d jump the line and get himself a free meal. Save a little time, too.
But the guy in the suit didn’t think the kid was being all that funny, nor helpful either, and faster’n you could say ‘gimme back my donut,’ the fancy guy had unloaded half a clip of ammo at the kid, from a piece he kept handy on the dash for just such occasions back home. Fortunately, Keeno had been present at the time, and had clobbered the fancy guy while he was reloading. Things settled down pretty quick after that. Thank God. But it was a scary thing for a small town like Saint Croix.
And did I mention that this had all happened at the Jimmy Hut? Suddenly, one fact hit me in the gut. A certified certainty. Now that our place had been sucked into this mess―our Jimmy Hut―shit had now officially gotten real. ‘Til then, all our noisy “guests” had been keeping pretty much to themselves, over in their joints. Thick as lice on roadkill, but still peaceful enough. But now, all I could think about was how one of ‘em had just tried to bite the leg off the another. And if Grandad was right, that was a bad, bad sign.
Because Saint Croix was the field that was about to get annihilated.
* * *
The good news, when I talked about our situation with some of the boys later, was how everybody agreed―something had to be done. The bad news was that they figured it’d be an easy fix. I tried to tell them it was going to be a hard piece of work, but they didn’t listen. So after a bit, I just went home to get some shut-eye. Figured I’d need it.
Next morning, I went straight to the Town Yard, earlier than usual, because I could already sense the wind had a funny, slippery feel to it. The whole town felt like it was vibrating. Or trembling, maybe. I wasn’t the only one, neither. Mayor Mel was already at the Yard when I got there. Looked like he’d been up half the night and he looked like he was already wired from too much coffee and not enough sleep. But it was a zany kind of wired. Soon as I was out of my truck, he tossed me the keys to the school bus and climbed aboard. In a real hurry. Wanted me to shuttle him and some folks out to “Ground Zero” to watch the victory. Couldn’t say I liked the sound of that, much.
Seems that during the night, him and some of the boys had cooked up a scheme. After all, these were just normal, everyday folk we were dealing with. Should be that we could just ask ‘em all to go away, and they’d be happy to oblige, right? So Mel had declared today a town holiday and was itching to get as many folks as possible out to the junction to celebrate his brilliant Mayorship. Even if he had to drive them there himself. Or at least, order me to. So it became my job to take him, the Ladies’ Auxiliary and the Historical Society out so they could serve sandwiches to the boys and witness this great moment in Saint Croix history. After all, how often does a historical society get to witness any actual history?
But we never even got out of town.
It wasn’t even nine a.m. yet, when we pulled up at the Chick-a-Lot, in front of a smiling crowd of ladies, all dressed in their Sunday best, waiting to go see the fun. I’d just opened the yellow folding door to let ‘em all aboard, when a big SUV pulled up to the Chick-a-Lot.
An SUV with U.S. plates.
Damn fool had his windows down and was blowing his horn and shouting all the way about how the ‘South shall prevail!’ or some such. Then he starts to ordering Chickie Chunks like he’s a victorious general pillaging chow for his troops. Soon after that, another one pulled up. Then another. And before we even had all the ladies aboard the bus, it was obvious that our borders had been breached.
Now, this is about when Henry and a few of the other fellas pulled up, looking like a train of pups that had all been whipped. The plan had been real simple. They’d gone down to the junction where Highway 11 crosses the main highway―the one that runs east into Culver or west over to Medicine Falls―and they’d taken enough lumber and concrete with them to set up a proper sign, right there in the middle of #11, on the Saint Croix side of the junction. Friendly and polite, the sign was, just wishing folks a good day, and asking them not to come into Saint Croix if they weren’t from Canada. Saint Croix drive-thrus were just for Canadian folks now, it said.
I just shook my head.
The sign had held for a few hours, they said. At first, the car-folks had just sat there, scratching their heads and wondering what to do, but then the heat started to come up, and the humidity clamped down, and then one of the smarter fellas had figured out that SUVs weren’t just for burning gas and taking up two parking spots at the mall. Wonder of wonders! He decided that maybe they didn’t actually need roads. So that fella had burned out across the neighboring field, tearing hell through old man Jesperson’s early quinoa, spinning his wheels and throwing a spray of mud and shoots back at our boys, standing by their sign. Soon another followed suit. And then another.
By the time our boys had turned tail and come back, the fields on both sides of 11 had been trampled flat and packed down. “We told ‘em what’s what,” Mel said. “Really laid it on the line, plain and simple, but I guess they weren’t inclined to listen.” Our boys had retreated when it’d become clear that the fight was lost. It was Henry who said he’d seen some folks in the rear-view, smashing into the sign with their trucks and knocking it down as he was driving away. And then, just as he finished saying it, a beat up old pick-up pulled into the drive-thru line, honking his horn in victory and pointing to the bed of his truck, getting a laugh from all his countrymen ahead of him in line. In the back was a chunk of Mel’s sign, set at an angle, with broken bits of wood and clumps of mud still sticking to it. You could still read two of the words. Real lay-it-on-the-line kind of words, too. “Thank You,” was all it said.
So at least we’d been Canadian about it.
* * *
For the rest of that morning, and well into the afternoon, the folks of Saint Croix sulked around, still trying to stay out of the heat, and now trying to avoid something else, too―the uppity grins from all those cross-border folks who were still driving around town with their celebratory Glug Buckets of soda and their Super-sized Cheep Chips, acting like they’d defeated the entire Chinese Army in a cage match to the death.
About four o’clock, folks started gathering in the school gym. Mayor Mel had called an emergency town meeting to discuss the problem. There hadn’t been any violence between the Yankees and us Canucks yet, but judging by all their revving engine bravado and squealing tire mockery, it was just a matter of time.
Tempers weren’t much better on our side, either. Some folks wanted to salt the highway and the fields with nails and broken glass. The Harkness boys said we oughta line up back at Ground Zero with pitchforks and baseball bats―show them visitors we meant business. Even the Ladies’ Auxiliary got into it, saying how we should set up a human chain of folks all across the junction. Force those hungry drivers back the way they came. But if there’s two kinds of folks you can’t reason with, it’s those who think they’re starving, and those who feel threatened. So as far
as I could figure, we now had one group of heedless ninnies plotting how to defend themselves by antagonizing another one just like it.
About then, the talk started getting scary. Like poisoning the burgers, or blowing up the highway bridge down south of the junction. “Wouldn’t inconvenience nobody except the burger-Yanks to lose that,” Henry said.
Once again, I tried to tell them about Grandad’s revelation―about the sudden turn of locusts back in the day, and what it showed him about dealing with that kind of pestilence, the kind driven by nothing but hunger and a mindless pressing need. But same as last time, folks didn’t want to hear about Grandad. Said they needed a sure thing this time. No more namby-pamby, touchy-feely for them. No sir. When that emergency gabfest broke up, they’d made their minds up straight. First thing tomorrow, Mayor Mel was gonna make a call over to the National Forces training base, and by this time tomorrow, the Army would be in Saint Croix, and everything would go back to the way it should be.
At least, that’s what folks thought. But to me, it sounded an awful lot like the little locust fella with the missing leg was talking big about picking up his chomped limb and hitting the other fella back with it.
Somehow, I did not think their plan was going to settle things down. No sir. Just the opposite.
* * *
For the second day in a row, I arrived in town early. And once again, folks were already up and about, but something was different this time. You could feel it. A cooler system had blown in overnight, and for the first time in weeks, the humidity was down, like there was almost a memory of spring in the wind. Folks hadn’t seemed to notice it yet, but I just smiled. They would.
Denny served me my breakfast himself. Coffee and biscuit―my usual at the Jimmy Hut. Mel and Henry were already there, waiting for the angry mob of folks to start lining up again, so Mel could put their plan in motion and call for help. Only, they were getting a bit antsy when I showed up, on account of the fact that there weren’t any “unwelcome visitors” in line yet. All the cars so far had good old fashioned Canadian license plates. I just smiled and chatted, keeping myself to myself, but by nine o’clock, it was official. The drive-thrus were quiet and folks were stumped.
