by E. E. Knight
The clouds piled up and darkened, threatening rain. Carlson opined that some would use it as an excuse not to attend, but this made him all the more determined to go. Showing up in spite of precipitation would just make their presence all the more notable, considering the long round trip to and from Monroe. “If we’re going to play their game, we should really play it,” he added, stowing tarps in the two horse-drawn vehicles and reminding everyone to bring rain slickers and hats.
Only Gonzalez—much improved but still not up to a long trip in the wet—and Frat stayed behind. The young man wanted to keep an eye on the stock and said he felt like he stuck out like a sore thumb in a sea of white faces.
So it turned out that Molly and Valentine ended up together in the buggy, bearing four baskets full of lunch, dinner, and gifts of food for Mrs. Carlson’s brother, with the rest following in the larger wagon. Valentine’s Morgan trotted along behind the buggy, brought along as the equine equivalent of a spare tire.
At lunch, a few miles outside of Monroe, the first sprinkles of rain came. When they climbed back into the buggy, Valentine draped the tarp over himself and Molly and drove on, the heavy raindrops playing a tattoo on the musty-smelling oiled canvas. They used the buggy whip as an improvised tent pole and peered out from a cavelike opening, their faces wet with rain. Valentine felt the warmth of her body against his right side, her left arm in his right, helping him hold up the tarp. The rich, seductive smell of femininity filled his nostrils without his even using his hard senses. She also had a faint, flowery smell of lavender.
“You smell good today,” Valentine said, then felt himself go red. “Not that you smell bad normally… I just mean the flowery stuff. What is that, toilet water?”
“No, just a soap. Mrs. Partridge, the blacksmith’s wife, she’s a wonder at making it. Puts herbs and stuff in some of them. I think she started doing it in self-defense; her husband picks up animals that have died of disease or whatever, turns them into pig and chicken feed. Dog meat, too. I guess he smelled so bad after working with the offal, she went into scented soaps as a last resort.”
“It’s nice. Hope I’m not too bad. This tarp kind of reeks.”
“No. For a guy who traipses around in the hills, you’re really clean. Some of the county men could take a lesson.” Valentine felt a stab, remembering Cho’s near-identical joke. “A lot of them are going to use this rainstorm as an excuse to skip their Saturday bath.” She turned her face and pressed her nose to his chest. “You just smell kind of tanned and musky. Like the saddle from a lathered horse. I like it.”
Valentine suddenly felt awkward. “So who exactly is this we’re going to hear?”
“My dad says he’s a speaker from Illinois, someone affiliated with their church. Kind of a bigwig. This church the Kurians run, it’s not like you worship anything. The Triumvirate doesn’t discourage the old churches, but they do listen to what gets said. As long as the ministers stick to the joys of the afterlife, and God’s love in troubled times, they’re fine. Anyone who speaks out against the Order is gone real fast. Most of them get the hint. No, this New Universal Church is more designed to get you to like the Kurian Order. They are always trying to recruit people into the patrols, or to come away and work their machinery, railroads, factories, and stuff. The real slick ones try to convince you that the Kurians came as the answer to man’s problems. Some answer.”
“So we just sit and listen, then go home?”
“That’s about it. They try to recruit people right then and there. Take them up on stage, and everyone is supposed to applaud. Just clap when everyone else claps, and don’t fall asleep. You’ll be fine. I’ve got a feeling today’s topic is going to be the importance of motherhood. They want more babies in Wisconsin.”
The tent they eventually reached dwarfed the old public tent in the Boundary Waters. From a distance it resembled a sagging pastry. But as they grew closer, the mountain of canvas turned into an earthbound white cloud, complete with festive little flags atop the support poles that jutted through the material to either side of the center arch.
Horses, wagons, and vehicles of all description including cars and trucks were parked in the fields of the fairgrounds. Most of the people were already sheltering from the intermittent rain beneath the tent. The Carlson wagon pulled up, and the families all got out and released the horses from their harnesses. Tied to numerous posts in the field, the horses munched grain from their nosebags and stamped their unhappiness at being left in the weather. Carlson nodded to the uniformed patroller navigating the field, wearing a poncho that also covered much of his horse against the rain.
“Major Flanagan is inside. He’s got some seats lined up for you, Carlson,” the patroller called.
“Thanks, Lewis. Are you gonna get a chance to come in out of the rain?”
“Naw, we had our meeting this morning. All about how duty isn’t the most important thing, it’s the only thing. Your brother-in-law gave a pretty good speech. Be sure to tell him I said that.”
“Deal. If you get real desperate out here, we got a thermos with some tea that might still be hot in the buggy. Help yourself.”
“Thanks, Alan. Enjoy.”
True to the patroller’s word, Major Flanagan had some seats set off right up in front. There was a main stage, with a little elevated walkway going out into the crowd connecting it to a much smaller stage. The Carlsons, with the addition of Valentine and the subtraction of the three Breitlings, sat in a row of folding chairs lined up parallel to the walkway. A few hundred chairs formed a large U around the peninsular stage, and the rest of the spectators stood.
As part of the day’s festivities, a comic hypnotist warmed up the crowd. His show was already in progress when Valentine sat at one end of the row. Molly sat to his right, then her sister, with Mr. Carlson next to her. Mrs. Carlson took the seat in between him and her brother, and they chatted as the hypnotist performed. He had a pair of newlyweds on stage; the young groom was hypnotized, and the wife was asking him to bark like a dog, peck like a chicken, and moo like a cow. The audience laughed out their appreciation for the act.
“I saw this guy in Rockford,” Major Flanagan explained to his guests. “I recommended him to the Madison Bishop, and he got him up here for this meeting. Funny, eh?”
The young woman finished by having her husband lie down with his head and shoulders in one chair and his feet in another, four feet away from the first. The hypnotist then had her sit right on his stomach, which did not sag an inch. “Comfortable, yes?” the hypnotist asked.
“Very,” she agreed, blushing.
The audience cheered for an encore, so she had her husband flap his arms and be a bird. As he flapped and hopped around the stage, the hypnotist finished off with a final joke, “Most women, it takes ten years till they can get their hus-bands to do this. How about that, ladies, after only two weeks of marriage?”
The audience laughed and applauded. “Let’s hear it for Arthur and Tammy Sonderberg, all the way from Evansville, ladies and gentlemen.”
After the befuddled Mr. Sonderberg came out of hypnosis, and his wife told him what he had been doing on stage, the hypnotist gave a good imitation of him to further laughter before they left the stage and returned to their seats.
A heavyset man in a brown suit that was simple to the point of shapelessness came onstage. He applauded the hypnotist as the latter backed off, bowing. Valentine marveled at the man’s hair, brushed out at the temples and hairline until it looked like a lion’s mane.
“Thank you, thank you to the Amazing Dr. Tick-Toe,” he said in a high, airy voice.
“That’s the bishop of the New Universal Church, David. From Madison,” Mr. Carlson explained quietly across his two daughters.
The bishop stepped to the podium on the small stage at the end of the runway and picked up the microphone. “Thank you all for coming out in the rain, everyone,” he said, looking at the speakers mounted high on the tent poles which broadcast his voice. “The Ha
rvest Meeting is always a serious occasion. We have a lot more fun at Winterfest, and the Spring Outing. But I know everyone has all the coming work on their minds. Well, today we have an expert on hard work on loan to us from the flatlands in the south. Won’t you please welcome Rural Production Senior Supervisor Jim ‘Midas’ Touchet, visiting us all the way from Bloomington.”
A middle-aged, hollow-cheeked man strode out on stage, dressed in a red jumpsuit. He had thinning hair combed neatly back and held in place with an oily liquid, giving it a reddish tint. White canvas sneakers covered his feet. He took the microphone out of the bishop’s hand with a flourish and a bow to the audience. He exuded the energy of a man younger than his years.
“Can you all see me?” he asked, turning a full 360 degrees. “I know it’s hard to miss me with this on. You see, we’re all color-coded in downstate Illinois. Red is for agricultural workers, yellow for labor, blue for administration and security, and so on. In Chicagoland, you can wear whatever you want. I mean, anything goes up there. Any of you guys been to the Zoo? You know what I mean, then.”
A few hoots came from the audience, mostly from the patrollers, Valentine noticed.
“Oops,” Touchet continued. “I forgot we have children present.”
Valentine shot a questioning glance to Molly, who shrugged. He suddenly noticed how charming she looked with her wet blond hair combed back from her face. It accentuated her features and the tight, glowing skin of a vital young woman.
“Never mind about that. I bet you’re out there wondering, ”Who is this guy? What does he have to show me, other than what not to wear, ever?“ Anyone thinking that? C’mon, let’s see your hands.”
A few hands went up.
“I bet you’re thinking, ”How long is he going to speak?“ Let’s see ‘em!”
A lot of hands went up. Major Flanagan, smiling, raised his, and the Carlsons followed suit.
“Finally, some honesty. Okay, since you’ve been honest with me, I’ll be honest with you. I’m nobody, and to prove to you what a big nobody I am, I’ll tell you about myself.
“I’m from Nowhere, Illinois. Actually, more like South Nowhere. Just off the road from Podunk, and right next to Jerkwater. Typical small town, nothing much happened. I grew up quick and brawny. You wouldn’t know it to look at me now, but I used to have a nice set of shoulders. So I ended up in the patrols. And the patrols in downstate Illinois, let me tell you, they’re really something. I didn’t have a car. I didn’t even have a horse. I had a bicycle. It didn’t even have rubber tires; I rode around on the rims. The highlight of most days was falling off my bike. It’s a little better now down there, but back in the thirties, we were lean when it came to equipment. In the winter, I walked my route. We didn’t get paid back then, just got rations, so there was no way I could even get a horse at my rank.
“I spent ten long, empty years riding that bike. Farm to farm, checking on things. I carried mail. I delivered pies and pot roasts to the neighbors. ”Since you’re going that way, anyway,“ they always used to say when they asked me. I was bored. I started reading a lot. I was curious about the Old World, the good old days, people called them. Do they call them that up here, too?”
A couple of “yeps,” quietly voiced, came from the audience.
“It was lonely in the patrols, and when you’re lonely, you need friends. So when I found a little hidden pigpen or chicken coop on someone’s farm, and they said, ”Be a friend, forget you saw this, and we’ll let you have a couple extra eggs when you come by,“ I went along. Hey, everybody wants to be a friend. So I went along, got a friend and a few eggs in the bargain. On another farm, I had another friend and a ham now and then. On another farm, some fried chicken; down the road, a bottle of milk, a bagful of corn. I had tons of friends, and I was eating real good to boot. I had it made.”
The red figure paced back and forth, microphone in one hand and cord in the other, first facing one part of the audience and then another.
“Eventually, I got caught. Like I told you, I’m nobody special. And I wasn’t especially bright. One day my lieutenant noticed me wobbling down the road with a ham tied to my handlebars and a box of eggs in the basket in back. I think I had a turkey drumstick in my holster, I don’t remember.
“Boy, it all came crashing down in a hurry. I think I died the death of a thousand cuts as my lieutenant walked up to me. I made the mistake of asking him to be a friend, and I’d give him everything I was collecting from the farms. He didn’t have any of that.
“So within six hours of my lieutenant spotting me, I was sitting in the Bloomington train station, waiting for my last ride to Chicago. I was bound for the Loop. I was very, very alone. All those friends on all those farms, they didn’t come get me, or turn themselves in and take their share of the blame. They weren’t my friends after all.
“Well, it’s a good thing for me I got caught in the spring of forty-six. I’m sure you remember the bad flu that went around that winter. It killed thousands in Illinois, and thousands more got so weakened by it, they caught pneumonia and died just the same. So we had a serious labor shortage in Illinois. I got put to work shoveling shit. I’m sure many of you know what that’s like. But that’s all I did, every single day. I-worked at the Bloomington railroad livestock yards, taking care of the hogs and cows bound for Chicago’s slaughterhouses. Of course, I was just on parole. Any time they felt like it, they could throw me on the next train to Chicago, and no more Jim Touchet.
“The first day shoveling, I was happy as a dog locked up overnight in a butcher shop. The second day, I was glad to be at work. The third day, I was happy to at least have a job. The fourth day, I began to look for ways to cut corners. By the fifth day, I was trying to find a nice spot to maybe take a nap where my boss couldn’t find me.
“Of course, my boss noticed me slacking. He was a wise old man. His name was Vern Lundquist. Vern had worked at the railroad station in the olden days, and he still worked there. He didn’t threaten me, not really. He just called me into his office and said that if I wanted to stay in his good graces, I’d better come in tomorrow and give an extra five percent effort.
“Even though he didn’t threaten me, I got scared. That night I couldn’t sleep. I was worried that I’d show up at work the next day, and the boys in blue would throw me on the first train to Chicago. I could be in the Loop in less than twenty-four hours.”
He stood still, next to the lectem, wiping his sweating brow. His eyes passed over the Carlson family, and he smiled at Valentine. His face took on a scaly, cobralike cast when he smiled.
“That twenty-four hours changed my life. All that night, I thought about giving another five percent. How hard could that be? Vern wasn’t asking me to work seven days a week, which is what most of you out there do on your farms.
“The next day, I gave the extra five percent. It was easy. I just did a little extra here and there. Did a job without being asked, fixed a loose gate. If old Vern noticed, he didn’t say anything. I got worried; what if he wasn’t noticing the extra five percent?
“So the next day, I did just a little bit more. Spent an extra fifteen minutes doing something I didn’t have to do. Cleaned some old windows that hadn’t been washed since Ronald Reagan was president. I found it was easy to give that extra five percent.
“It turned into a game. The next day, I gave another five percent. I was compounding my interest, to use an old phrase. In tiny little baby steps I was turning into a real dynamo. Jim Touchet, the guy who leaned his bike against a tree for a two-hour lunch, who always rode home on his route faster than he ever rode it while patrolling, was trying extra hard even when no one was looking.
“Vern was real happy with me. After a month, I took the job of his assistant. Within a year, I was old Vern’s supervisor. I always gave that extra five percent no one else was giving. I always did more than my boss, and usually within two years I had his job.
“I said the same words to people under me. I asked for an e
xtra five percent. That’s all. An extra five percent, when you have a whole bunch of people doing it, can turn things around.
“Before I knew it, they were calling me ‘Midas’ Touchet. Everything I turned my hand to seemed to turn to gold. Me, the guy who never learned his multiplication tables as a kid, who couldn’t stay upright on his bike, went from shit-shoveler to production senior supervisor. I’m responsible for farms from Rockford to Mount Vernon, Illinois. I answer to the Illinois Eleven. You think you have tough quotas? What are they called up here, reckonings? I’ve seen the figures; the Illinois Eleven are a lot more demanding than your Triumvirate up in Madison. And last year, we were over production. I know what you’re thinking; we broke quota by five percent, right? Wrong. We doubled the quota. That’s right, doubled. The New Universal Church is handing out brass rings to my best people like lemon drops. See mine?” Touchet asked, holding up his hand. The coppery-gold ring glinted on his thick pinkie. He passed it through his oiled hair, removed it, and flicked it into the crowd before the platform. A woman caught it, screamed, and almost fainted into her husband’s arms.
“Oh my God, oh my God,” she blubbered, shoving it onto her thumb as the audience gaped.
“It’s no big deal, that ring. I’ll get another one this fall. Not that I need it. If I could have your attention back, I’ll let you in on a secret. I’ve already given you one secret, the secret of the extra five percent. I’m a generous man. I’ll give you a twofer.
“The secret is that you don’t need a brass ring. That’s the beauty of the New Universal Order,” he said, lowering his voice.
Valentine looked around, trying to shake the feeling of being almost as hypnotized as the young Mr. Sonderberg.
“All the Order demands is production. Efficiency. Good old hard work. The things that made this country great before the social scientists and lawyers took over. I see some old-timers out in the audience. How was it when the lawyers ran the show? Did they make things more efficient, or less?”
