The Harrows of Spring

by James Howard Kunstler

  As a child in the old times, Ainsley had been diagnosed as an Asperger’s syndrome case, closer to the more extreme end of the spectrum that bordered on autism. His father, the forest biology research specialist of the Toth Arboretum outside Worcester, Massachusetts, had been similarly equipped for life but navigated successfully through the doctorate program at MIT and then found a position that allowed him to work alone. Ainsley grew up on the three-hundred-acre grounds of that establishment, where from the age of seven he was free to ramble the trails and dells, to stalk small game, and develop his particular skills. He felt freer and happier in his solitary pursuits there than anyplace, school in particular, which had been a special hell for him with its horrifying social pressures. He perceived people talking at him as a form of torture, while the world outside the arboretum, with its highway strips, cacophonous signage, bunker-like buildings, whirring color, and hostile movement, gave him migraines.

  Now, with the automobiles all gone, and the economy reduced to a shadow of what it had been, and the human population winnowed steeply, the whole northeast region was turning into a kind of greater arboretum that Ainsley Perlew felt wonderfully at home in. His journey this day was a joyful symphony of sensation. The songs of birds and insects, the smell of growth and decay, the dappled sunlight in the tender new foliage transported him to a place of exultation where the perturbations of human society could not afflict him and he was free to be his essential self. The sensation of being in perfect unity with the world around him made his body seem to sing at the cellular level.

  The temperature at two-thirty in the afternoon was a perfect sixty-nine degrees. From his perch along the old tumbledown stone wall, in the shade of the woods that followed the upland ridge of Coot Hill, he took a length of hard sausage from his coat pocket and gnawed on it as he surveyed the cows below. It amused him to the point of hilarity that cows had faces like people, like every other animal in the world, eyes, nose, a mouth. When the thought came to him that people’s faces generally looked as dumb as cows, he almost choked on a chaw of sausage in the attempt to suppress his laughter.

  When he finished his lunch, he took the various parts of his rifle out of the backpack, each piece lovingly wrapped in a little piece of blanket cloth and secured with a ribbon. He plugged the stock into the receiver body with the scope premounted, screwed in the barrel, attached the sound suppressor, fitted up the bipod, and locked in a ten-round magazine. He did it all in a leisurely manner, pausing to chuckle now and again over the cows’ big round eyes, soft brown noses, and lolling tongues. Then, he found a nice flat rock along the tumbledown wall, positioned the rifle, flipped up the hinged lens caps, and had a look at the cows under magnification. The Leupold’s lenses were so crisp he could count the flies orbiting the silly beasts.

  Ainsley was intuitively very good at math. He made a series of calculations in his head in preparation for his shots: the distance, vertical drop between himself and his targets, wind direction and speed (negligible). He experienced math, especially calculus, as a matrix of flavors ranging from bitter to delicious the closer he got to putting the numbers in order properly. His first shot caught the nearest brown and white Guernsey directly in the left side of its head and dropped it in place like a big parcel on a doorstep. The others continued to graze. The silencer did not completely eliminate the report of the bullet, but toned it down considerably to about the level of, say, someone splitting stove billets with a kindling ax. It was only when the fourth cow dropped that the remaining three seemed to perceive some clue as to things not being right. They quit their grazing and began to stroll down the sloping pasture away from their fallen sisters, but did not make it very far before Ainsley managed to kill them all.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Karen Grolsch saw the crowd of some hundred people milling about and around the veranda of the Union Grove Hotel as she made her way up Hill Street. Word had been put out and artfully spread around town that the founding leader of the Berkshire People’s Republic, Glen Ethan Greengrass, would be arriving this evening on an outreach campaign to open friendly relations with his New York neighbors and discuss coordinated improvements in public works, transportation, trade, and economic fairness. The “Berkies,” as the townspeople soon came to call them, had also tacked up hand-lettered bills on street trees and old telephone poles that read:

  Glen Ethan Greengrass

  Our Dear Leader

  Come Here [sic] Him Speak

  Union Grove Hotel

  7:30 p.m.

  Not a few denizens of Union Grove remembered Greengrass from his days as a public radio personality, always fighting the good fight for social justice, tolerance, diversity, inclusion, voting rights, women’s reproductive rights, animal rights, marriage equality, income equality, while inveighing against corporate oligarchy, gun ownership, the surveillance state, fascism, racism, sexism, age-ism, look-ism, militarism, capitalism, strict constructionism, and homophobia. He was such a permeating presence on the airwaves in the old times that his thin and nasal voice, like that of a perpetual nineteen-year-old, would often be heard, between programs, announcing simply: “Hi, this is Glen Ethan . . .” with no last name, as though he were head camp counselor to everyone living between the Connecticut River and Hudson River valleys, and that they would automatically know who he was and what he expected of them—that is, to contribute money in the everlasting quest for funds to run the radio station.

  While not a few townspeople remembered him and his never-ending fund drives from the old times, they were intrigued by the notion that he had survived the great dislocations of the crash to emerge, apparently, as the political leader of a sovereign region, this so-called Berkshire People’s Republic, and that he was leading a new movement to form a greater regional federation that would be a first step toward rebuilding the shattered sense of nationhood in the old cradle of the first American Revolution.

  Rumors of big doings in town had spread that day, even among the laborers in the fields, the dairy, and the poultry barns at Carl Weibel’s farm, and inspired Karen Grolsch to hurry home after work with her ducklings and prepare to report on the scene for Daniel Earle’s newspaper. She was aware that Daniel had departed Union Grove for Albany that morning and she wanted to demonstrate her fitness for newspaper work upon his expected return in three days. Her late father had left behind several reams of printer paper and they had a drawer full of old ballpoint pens in the kitchen. Karen hastily stitched together a packet of paper sheets into a notebook of fifty pages, exchanged her farmwork clothes for a skirt and sweater, quickly scrambled two duck eggs and ate them with some of her mother’s quince conserve, and set out across town to record the doings.

  It was a lovely evening, warmest of the year so far, with the temperature lingering in the mid-sixties and the air rich with floral sweetness and the smell of horses. Karen could hear the buzz of conversation from a hundred yards away. The tavern was open and many of those on the hotel veranda held glasses of beer, cider, and spirits. The air of collective excitement and anticipation was more intense than any scene around town she could remember lately, even Christmas Eve before the musical festivities at the Congregational Church, or when the audience gathered in the music hall on the third floor of the old town hall for the debut of one of Andrew Pendergast’s Broadway musicals, or even the recent grand opening of the hotel itself, where she had introduced herself to Daniel Earle.

  The sun had just slipped below the shoulder of Schoolhouse Hill when a procession of mounted riders, carts, and box wagons made the turn across the bridge at Mill Street and up onto Main. In front of the vehicles marched the young Berkshire missionaries, including a few children who traveled with them. As they approached the hotel at the corner of Main and Van Buren the strains of that old-time popular song “This Land Is Your Land” rang out. Quite a few of the New Faith brethren in their black and white outfits peppered the waiting crowd and Karen pushed her way through the
throng to Brother Jobe, who stood watching the proceedings braced against a sycamore tree in front of the New Faith barbershop with Brother Judah, who presided in that establishment. Like virtually everyone not a child in town, she understood the position Brother Jobe had come to occupy among them, but she was not intimidated by him.

  “You don’t know me, sir,” Karen introduced herself boldly, “but I’m writing up events and doings for the Union News Leader newspaper, soon to be coming out, and I would like to talk with you.”

  “Is that so?” Brother Jobe said. “Well, I’ve heard of that endeavor and I congratulate you on trying your hand with it. Your boss is a fine young man. I hope you all make a go of it.”

  “Do you know what they’re up to, these Berkshire folks, with all this hooplah?”

  “Well, I can’t speak to this here particular to-do tonight. I’m just spectating like ever’body else. But, having parleyed with some of these folks, I would say generally they are up to some sort of mischief where the interests of this town are concerned, and that is strictly on background, not for attribution.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “By that I mean off the record.”

  “I’m sorry . . .”

  “It means I’m giving you information you can use, but you can’t attribute it by name to me telling you. That is an old-times rule of the news bidness. Is this not something you know about?”

  “No, sir. The newspapers were all gone before I grew up.”

  “Well you mind the rules and we’ll get along just fine. I’m your anonymous source on this here story. Me and your mayor, Mr. Robert Earle, are still negotiating with these birds, trying to feel out the situation, kinda playing for time to see what they’re up to. Mebbe farther along I’ll go on the record and you can quote me direct. You see how this works?”

  “Yes, sir. I think so.”

  “All right then. Here’s what’s up so far. They’ve got wads of colored paper that they call money and they want to swap it with us for our silver.”

  “Why would we want to go along with that?” Karen asked, rapidly taking notes.

  “We don’t. I suspect it’s no more than an old-fashioned protection racket.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That’s where, say, a man comes to you with a proposition: if you pay him x amount of money, he won’t set your house on fire or poison your livestock.”

  “People really do that?”

  “You bet they do. It’s one of the oldest games going, clear back to the savage barbarian times of antiquity—you pay tribute and they leave you alone.”

  “That’s just bullying.”

  “More’n that, it’s criminal extortion in the statutes, but the reach of the law is a little short and limp these days, and folks’ll try whatever they can get away with, I guess. This bunch dresses it up in a lot of sweet talk about equality and so forth. But it’s just pushing folks around to get money.”

  “Did you meet with this Greengrass fellow?”

  “I ain’t had the pleasure yet. But I aim to, soon as he lands and they fluff him up for company.”

  “Is the mayor here?”

  “I don’t know, ma’am. I expect he’s about in the crowd somewheres, though I ain’t seen him yet. Say, it looks like something’s up over there.”

  Indeed, a fancy box wagon with green and gold painted trim had pulled up before the hotel entrance and the Berkshire visitors were swarming around it.

  “Thank you, sir. I’ll mind those rules, don’t worry,” Karen said. She left Brother Jobe beside the tree, squeezed through the crowd in Van Buren Street, and edged around to see the commotion on the other side of the box wagon facing the hotel. Two of the biggest and strongest young men among the Berkshire visitors were off-loading some bulky object from a side door of the wagon’s cargo box. It turned out to be an old-times metal wheelchair. Sitting in it was a shrunken, frail figure swaddled in a blanket, with a knitted cap on and a scarf wrapped around his neck and lower face, concealing most of his features except his perfect ski-jump nose and, viewed by Karen from the side, his conspicuous bushy gray eyebrows. He was out on the sidewalk for only a few seconds before two big young men hoisted him and carried the chair up the front steps of the hotel, and then they disappeared inside. Buddy Goodfriend, who had been chatting on the porch, excused himself and followed the retinue upstairs. The crowd groaned and broke into a confused hubbub, as if they’d been expecting more of a show. Meanwhile, Flame Aurora Greengrass strode up against the balustrade on the hotel veranda and called out to the crowd in the street in a powerful voice.

  “Listen up everybody! Dr. Greengrass will address you folks from the window of his hotel room in just a few minutes, so be patient. Thank you all very much for coming out tonight. He’ll be with you shortly.”

  Brother Jonah, the hotel clerk, came out to hang candle lanterns from hooks along the eave of the veranda. A choir of twelve teenaged Berkies assembled there and broke into another old-times song: “We Shall Overcome.” More Berkies carried luggage and some wooden crates into the hotel. Upstairs above the veranda, at the center of the building, in a second-floor window illuminated with candlelight, the seated figure of Glen Ethan Greengrass could be dimly discerned behind a scrim of filmy muslin curtain. Electronic crackling emanated from somewhere behind him, followed by the words “test, test, test.” The townspeople gaped at each other. They hadn’t heard an electric public address system for some time. The Berkies were running a 25-watt amplifier powered by a modified General Motors alternator with two teenaged boys taking turns at the crank. A feedback squeal preceded the once familiar reedy voice floating on a cloud of magic amplification out the window and over the corner of Main Street and Van Buren.

  “Hi everybody, this is Glen Ethan. It’s good to have your ear,” he began. “Given the existence of a broken polity, as set forth in the founding deliberations of the People’s Republic, with those who, for reasons unknown, promoted the continued relevance of oppositional thought, the will-to-progress is facing a crisis of confidence. The old Fourteenth Amendment talks about equal protection under the laws, but notice it leaves out unearned white skin privilege. And that was never something that should go up to a popular vote, whether blacks, Latinos, women, LGBTs, the differently abled, or other minorities should be equal first-class citizens. There wasn’t a popular vote whether Jackie Robinson should join the National League. No, but plunged in the fires of racism he came out standing proud on his own two feet, up from all fours, a man for his time, but first and always a man! This is what we call Smart Power, using every possible tool, leaving no one behind, showing respect even for one’s enemies, trying to understand and, insofar as is psychologically possible, empathize with their perspective and point of view, qua traditional political philosophy, helping to define the problems and to find solutions to the dissolution of the old Dumb Power elite that has left such a vacuum of policy and purpose. No minority should have their rights subject to the passions of the majority. This is a fundamental bedrock of what we used to stand for. And I get very concerned that we have created in these times—what we refuse to address, or call it like it is—that we’ve created a second-class citizenship.”

  He paused for a moment. The crowd buzzed and nodded at each other, seemingly pleased with the oration so far.

  “Friends,” he went on, “let’s stop the ruse. Let’s quit pretending. The facts are there, facts are facts, and considering what is much more to the point, we have among us two types of citizens right now: citizens like me, who, if I choose to marry somebody, I can marry somebody from a different area, a different state, and then they will breathe the same air, drink the same water as we all do. You have to breathe it too, in this part of the country: the same air. But my point is can you expect everybody’s wagon to be pulled by a different horse, or even the same one? Watch what you assume. Look closely at the word and you’ll see there�
�s an ass before u and me in it. In wintertime, of course, the air is the same as the springtime. It’s just colder, that’s all. The air is the same. Look, people, I’ve got a right that if I die, and I’m married, my spouse is entitled to the horse I rode in on because I sure won’t be taking it with me where I’m going. I talked to somebody last night who is looking to establish what many deny, though they always say, for reasons unknown, that time will tell. Do you even know what time it is? Can you tell time? The man I talked to had had enough of the perpetual shell game, the chicanery and shenanigans, sports of all sorts, bread and circuses. Statecraft is all about the ebb and flow of influence, friends! Who eats the losses, who pays, who gets sent out for lunch, who eats your lunch. You follow me? Equality under the law! Proportional representation! Go tell it on the mountain! Democracy now! Who can doubt it? I know at the end of the day I would not be here, my family would not be able to put food on the table for me, if it wasn’t for the ideals of America. What’s yours is yours and what’s mine is yours and vice versa. This land is your land . . . this . . . my land . . .”

  The public address system strained. It sputtered, crackled, squealed, and popped. The voice of Glen Ethan Greengrass came out in a few more broken spasms as the wire connection in the cord between the mic and the amplifier appeared to fail.

  “. . . economic parity . . . earth minorities . . . inclusion . . . abandoned . . . unfinished . . .” he said, and then the public address went completely dead. A murmur of uncertainty ran through the throng in the street. Up in the second-floor window, Glen Ethan Greengrass could be seen gliding backward as a shadowy figure moved his wheelchair. More commotion erupted on the hotel veranda as Flame Aurora Greengrass came downstairs again and strode through the hotel lobby back to the porch railing overlooking the crowd.