Project Reunion (5 page)

I smiled at him. “Yup. Guess we’re early.” I’d allowed extra time to pick up three Amenoids on the way, but found them standing on the street corner, ready to roll. Will, Dave, and Mel piled out of the back seat and gazed around, looking as entranced as I did.

We didn’t wait long before the city hybrid bio buses started rolling in, three of them in a line from New Haven. Advertising slots on their blue sides held bright murals to promote local festivals and New Haven market town days. Watching these low-slung articulated urban behemoths see-saw their way into the sloped humpy gravel orchard drive was entertaining. Emmett leapt out of the middle bus to spot and direct for the lead driver. They worked it out, and eventually bounced and grated their way uphill, to park by the red shack. About a dozen cars had piled up behind them, and pulled in beside us. The quiet was nicely shattered as a hundred or so inner city kids and their keepers laughed and bounced their way out of the buses.

“So what are the ground rules here?” Will inquired, as we drifted into line to be issued our picking bags.

“We’re only picking windfall apples,” I explained. “There should be plenty, after the storm yesterday morning. You can eat some, if you want. But the proceeds go to support the elderly. Emmett promised this to the kids. It's their way to help Grandma or Grandpa pay their taxes. This group is from the Hill in New Haven.” I pointed to a 30-ish black guy in the ubiquitous militia camouflage pants, and a bright white T-shirt. “DJ's their Coco. This is really his party. He’s Emmett’s number two now for greater New Haven.”

That role used to be Zack’s. On such a glorious day, the thought didn’t twinge much. DJ was incredible at his job. He could have been Emmett’s right hand in the first place. But Zack had an easier community in West Totoket, and was an experienced officer. DJ retired as a sergeant to work with New Haven Parks&Rec, to keep kids busy and out of trouble outside of school. His brilliant white grin was infectious. When that man smiled at you, you knew you were loved.

“So they bus black kids out to work the fields, on threat of starving their grandmothers.” Will said it. Dave and Mel grinned and patted his back.

If I’d wanted to enjoy this glorious harvest festival, I shouldn’t have brought my hacker cronies. I frowned at them. “Everybody works to eat,” I said. “The kids don’t have a chance to grow food at home.” A couple other volunteers in line glared at us. Alex shot the guys an uneasy look. He found some teenagers to join near the back of the line.

Dave was ever the peacemaker. “It's lovely for the children to get out of New Haven on a field trip. Treats included.”

“We’re all slaves to the Cocos anyway,” Mel said. “Might as well train the kids young at hard labor. What?” he demanded, as a middle-aged woman turned to glare at him, fists on hips.

“I support the Cocos,” she schooled him. “They’re the only ones keeping us from complete anarchy. Without them, we’d have no food distribution system at all! What are you doing here, anyway?”

“Major MacLaren invited us,” I offered wanly.

“He’s our boss, like everyone else’s,” Mel added unnecessarily.

“Why don’t we wait over by the trees, Mel?” Dave suggested smoothly. “Dee will be along with the bags in a moment. Won’t you, Dee?”

The busybody ahead of us took a parting shot. “And don’t talk to children along the way!” She huffed and turned her back on me, to face the front of the line again.

I considered explaining that I supported the Cocos, too, probably a lot more than she did. But she hadn’t exactly earned the right to an explanation.

I tuned out the lot of them and tuned in to Emmett instead. Now that the kids were out of the way, he and a helper carried an elderly black woman and her wheelchair out of the bus. She was missing both feet. Her smile flashed some gold teeth as she and Emmett flirted with each other. He wheeled her toward DJ and the orchard owners by the sales shack. The helper carried a folding table.

I walked down the line and asked Alex to grab bags for five, and bring them to me. Then I slipped into the gang by the shack and under Emmett’s arm. They were still at the greeting stage, so I wasn’t interrupting anything important.

I mock-glowered at the elderly woman. “Have you been flirting with my man? The nerve of you, Emmett! Flirting right in front of me!”

He laughed and kissed my forehead. “Uh-huh. Sorry, Liddy. I brought a date. Meet Dee.”

“Huh! Scrawny.” Liddy clucked pretend disapproval, then gave it up for a warm smile. “Just teasing you, child. Emmett talks about his Dee all the time. So nice to finally meet you. She is a pretty little thing, Emmett! We still miss you in New Haven, though.”

Clearly this was a long-standing issue between these two. Emmett had lived in New Haven for a year before settling in Totoket after Zack died.

Emmett just smiled at her, and took his turn shaking hands with the orchard owner. “Any limits today, Mike? Beyond windfalls,” he asked.

“Nah. All you can pick up and sort,” the owner replied. “You’re welcome to it.”

I silently cursed Mel for planting an ugly seed in my mind. This orchard owner had little choice but to agree to whatever Emmett suggested. My little vegetable operation bore the standard 30% taxes to support the military and public services, because it was ‘subsistence’ level – less than 3 acres. Pine Ridge Orchards didn't have that problem. They could pad their payroll to hundreds of people, and probably did, to shield as much as possible from higher taxes. Regardless, Emmett's organization would essentially confiscate over half his harvests, one way or another.

Mike gave a good impression of not minding in the slightest, though.

“So we can glean the whole orchard?” Emmett pressed.

Mike grinned. “I've got over a hundred acres in apples, Emmett.”

“I might have some friends on the way,” Emmett suggested.

“Now how are we going to make that much applesauce, Emmett?” Liddy complained.

Mike sighed. “Alright. I'll press them into cider for you, too.”

“Bless you, Mike!” Liddy replied, with a beatific smile.

The deal was concluded before Emmett’s ‘other friends’ started rolling in, trucks full of professional farm workers, mostly Hispanic. Emmett saluted their leader, who wore properly complete Army camouflage uniform. Lieutenant Colonel Carlos Mora, Emmett’s commanding officer, had brought his friends from Middlesex county next door. Mora’s elder brother was still in the fruit picking business, as a farm labor organizer.

“You tricked me,” Mike commented.

“You underestimated me,” Emmett countered. “Now what kind of resource coordinator would I be, if I couldn’t get an orchard gleaned?” He smiled in challenge, and then relented. “You still OK with this deal, Mike? It’s for a good cause.”

“Yeah,” said Mike. He sighed. “Can’t let all these windfalls go to waste. You’re doing me a favor. I’d just have to hire those guys anyway.” He shook his head and waved to the crew bosses. He wandered over to them, to set up logistics with the pros.

“It doesn’t matter how many apples the kids glean, does it?” I said.

“It matters that they helped,” said Emmett.

“They’ll be proud of themselves,” Liddy agreed. “Let’s get them started, Emmett!”

“I’ll find you later, darlin’,” Emmett assured me.

I lost sight of the massive operation around me, as I settled into picking through my assigned row of Macoun apples with the Amenoids. Alex wisely stuck with the other suburban teenagers he’d found, and vanished up the hillside. He’d find his way back to the car eventually.

Gleaning apples is fun at first, then hard work as the sun beats down on you doing stoop labor. I was used to it, and conveyed a steady stream of apple bags to the nearest collection crate. The Amenoids quickly progressed to spending more time on break than working.

“Do you have to talk politics all day?” I complained, after Mel concluded a particularly academic diatribe against the food taxes. “Mel, your theory could be impeccable, and still completely irrelevant. We need to eat. The guys with the guns need to eat. The apples need picking. We have peace and protection so we can pick them. The weather’s gorgeous for once. How about you get off your high horse and pick up some apples?”

“When does it end, Dee? No, tell me. When do we escape martial law and restore free government and free trade?”

“When does it start, Mel? I’ve been producing food all year. You’re still on your ass. Yet you’re still eating.”

Dave pulled Mel to his feet and got the trio working again.

I probably should have shut up, but I wasn’t done. “You know, before the borders, this orchard probably paid just as much in taxes as it does now. Income taxes, payroll taxes. The property taxes would have been murder. Most farms didn’t survive here on the shoreline. The taxes were too high. Developers offered too much money to just give in and sell off housing parcels. Now we need peace and order to pursue agriculture. People like me who produce food, we want predictable taxes and protection, instead of random violence and looters. The Cocos aren’t out raping and pillaging. They’re trying to rebuild a collapsed economy, so we can have a good life.”

“Don’t you think you’re a little biased, Dee? You’re sleeping with the oppressor,” Mel retorted. “Collaborator.”

“Maybe I’m sleeping with him because I believe in him,” I hissed at Mel. “Maybe I was in on this whole food taxation scheme from the beginning, because I thought we needed it. Maybe I created Amenac to support them in the first place.”

“Paddy paws, gang,” Dave cut in calmly. “Mel, I was there. Dee’s telling the truth. Dee, we do live under martial law. The Rescos like Emmett, and the Cocos under him, dictate our lives. He’s a benign dictator, and doing a bang-up job of it. But Mel has a point. Emmett’s still a military dictator.” He paused and added more softly, compassionately, “It can’t be much fun for you. Working like this all day, every day, for nothing but enough food to eat and a little protection.”

I stood up to ease my aching back and stretch my neck. Mel’s intellectual criticism was easy to reject. Dave’s compassion was not. He’d caught a chink in my resolve, and I swallowed uneasily. “It’s not easy,” I allowed. “It’s not fun.”

I usually refused to look at it, but I didn’t love life as a subsistence farmer. I used to love gardening. I needed security. I feared survivalists and looters. I thought I loved Emmett. But this life was a grind.

But I didn’t have to look at it that way. I had goals, things I was working toward. I was presenting Amenac to a regional summit meeting in just over a week. I had good weather and good apples, a gorgeous day. Kids were safe and playing and laughing in the next row. “It’s good enough,” I breathed.

In sudden decision, I yanked up my picking bag. “You people aren’t much fun. See you back at the car.”

I switched over a row and walked up-hill along the Macoun trees until the guys were out of sight and earshot, if not out of mind. I picked through windfall apples alone. It took me a quarter hour to realize it wasn’t the Amenoids I kept arguing with in my head, it was myself. I didn’t win that argument either. But I picked up a lot of apples to feed people who couldn’t. Eventually the monotony of the job and the beauty of the setting allowed me to just give it a rest and enjoy the day. The glory days of Indian summer were nearly gone. I wanted to savor this one.

“Heya, darlin’,” Emmett said. I startled, and coming up, knocked my head on an apple bough. “Watch your head,” he commented. He flopped down in the tall grass between the rows, after kicking a few rotten windfalls out of his way. I crouched my way out of the tree, to flop down beside him.

He gazed at my stormy face, and thoughtfully chewed on the end of a sprig of grass he had sticking out of his teeth. “Wanna talk about it?” he offered.

“No.”

He scratched his jaw. “Dave seemed to think they pissed you off.”

“They did.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I think I lost it when they called you a benign dictator.”

The grass seed-head bobbed. “Uh-huh.”

That wasn’t honest. “I really lost it when Dave said I was doing hard work without end, for nothing.”

“Uh-huh.”

I sighed. I’d long suspected that ‘uh-huh’ meant Emmett heard me, but didn’t buy it. He said it a lot – to everyone, not just me, though especially to me. He waited me out. I hugged my knees and put my face down on them, looking at him, watching the seed head bob.

“You’re done?” he inquired. At my nod, he continued, “The difference between heaven and hell is the company we keep here, darlin’. These are hard times. It’s a lot of work. I sure do like the company I’m keeping, though.” He smiled and laid a hand on the small of my back, just where I liked it.

“Lots of work,” I breathed.

He nodded, and took a deep breath. “I’m just a convenient target, Dee. The real problem is productivity. We need to farm more efficiently. Until we manage that, yeah, it’s one hell of a lot of work just to keep us fed.”

I frowned at him.