Glen Tate - 299 Days - The Community

“Oh, yeah, we’re fine,” Steve said. “Lots of deer meat in the freezer. I’m eating more smoked salmon than ever. Not a bad way to go. What about you guys there in Bellevue?” Steve asked. Bellevue was the wealthy suburb of Seattle where Todd and lots of other executives lived. Steve had been to Todd’s house once for a company event. It was an amazingly beautiful home. Todd’s wife, Chloe, wasn’t bad, either.

Todd was silent again. “Things could be better, but they’re not terrible. The stores are running out of things, but people are pretty calm. There’s lots of money in this town. Most people can pay ridiculous prices for things. The lack of ATM cash and the on-and-off credit card system is making buying things hard, but it’s not impossible. Chloe is freaking out about all the things that are closed like school and, get this, soccer practices for the girls.” Chloe was a little on the yuppie side for Steve’s tastes. Freaking out over soccer practice being cancelled. That sounded about right for Chloe.

Steve decided to raise a controversial subject with Todd. He figured he’d probably never work with Todd again, so what the heck. “Hey, Todd, you got a gun? Just sayin’.”

Todd got defensive. “No. I never thought…well, Chloe doesn’t like guns.”

Steve normally wouldn’t get on a guy about things like this, but he knew that Todd really needed a gun.

“Can you get one?” Steve asked. “I hope I’m not sounding like I’m on you about this, but, Todd, you need a gun. Things will get nasty pretty soon.” He didn’t say what he really wanted, though, which was “think about Chloe and the girls.”

Todd just sighed. He knew he was screwed. His chance to get a gun was down to about zero. There weren’t any gun stores around Bellevue. One had tried to open, but the city council wouldn’t let them because it wasn’t “the kind of thing we like to have here.” There were plenty of porno stores, but a gun store didn’t meet “community standards.”

Even if there were a gun store, Todd was still screwed. With the Governor’s executive order, guns were illegal. Todd didn’t know anyone who had a gun, either. He’d never fired one, so he was afraid they would blow up in his hand or something.

“We’ll be OK without one,” Todd said. “We have the best cops in the state. They make over $100,000 a year here. We’ve paid good money for them to protect us. They will. Besides, not to be a dick, but you’ve seen my neighborhood. Not exactly a high-crime area.” Todd was doing a good job of convincing himself that they’d be fine. Just like they always had been. Crime happened elsewhere.

Steve knew he couldn’t help Todd. Steve finally said, “Yeah, you’re right. Didn’t mean to scare you. You guys will be fine.” He wondered if he sounded convincing. At this point, all Steve could do for Todd was try to convince him that nothing bad could happen.

Todd had to go. He had a bunch of other calls like this. He didn’t look forward to them. “You take care now, Steve.”

“You bet, Todd,” Steve said. “A country boy can survive.”

Todd had no idea what Steve was talking about.

Nancy Ringman was a piece of work. Two days ago, immediately after Ron Spencer had seen the Matson’s trashed house and heard what his wife, Sherri, had told him about Nancy’s odd behavior, he had gone to Nancy’s house to confront her. She denied doing any of it. Flat out lied. And she acted like Ron was the crazy one for suggesting that she’d do something like that. Her voice was dripping with condescension. He wanted to punch her in the face. He’d never actually done that to a woman before. He’d never had a reason to.

The final straw came when Ron was leaving Nancy’s house. She actually said, “Ron, I’ll bring up your concerns about whoever vandalized the Matson house at the neighborhood meeting. We are getting a Freedom Corps group together. Maybe you’d like to serve on it. The Freedom Corps would find the vandal or vandals. Oh, and perhaps you can help us catch Grant Matson. He’s on the POI list, you know.” She was actually smiling when she said that. She was a crazy, crazy bitch. Ron had never used that word before. It wasn’t worth his energy to use it now.

Ron walked out. He wouldn’t take the POI bait from her and get mad, which was just what she wanted. She would use him being mad to convince everyone that she was the calm one who they should listen to.

On his walk from Nancy’s house to his, Ron started to realize how outnumbered he was. Nancy might just succeed in turning the neighborhood into her fire-wardens-with-funny-hats Freedom Corps group. Most people in the Cedars were government workers. They were used to some government structure for anything to get done. They didn’t have many independent thoughts. They had never relied on themselves for their own safety. This Freedom Corps thing was perfect for them. Taking direction from an aggressive and manipulative political hack. They did that all day at work. It would be “normal.”

For the first time, Ron realized that the greatest threat to his family might not be from the looters outside the Cedars, but from his neighbors inside the Cedars. He could see how this would play out. He needed to suspend the fight against the looters and start it against Nancy. He hated politics and neighborhood meetings, but he had to do this.

He told Sherri what had happened. She said, “I’m coming to this meeting, too. I won’t let her treat us that way.” Sherri knew that Nancy would claim Ron and his “testosterone” were trying to intimidate poor little Nancy. Sherri could say things that Ron couldn’t because she wasn’t a man.

Ron talked to Len before the meeting, who, along with some others were feeling the same about Nancy. This meeting would be a showdown.

They assembled for the meeting at Nancy’s house. There was some guy there with a funny hat. It was a hard hat with a “FC” sticker on it for “Freedom Corps.” Oh, God. Were they serious? Funny hats and everything. Ron actually laughed out loud when he saw it.

Nancy started. She absolutely loved having a crowd and power. “OK, thanks for coming,” she said. “I have a special guest with me. He’s Clint Peterson of the Freedom Corps. He is our official Freedom corps, or “FC” as we call it, representative. I know Clint from our work on the Governor’s campaign. He’s at Revenue,” meaning the Department of Revenue. “He’s here to tell us about the FC and how we can all help get this situation back under control so we can return to normal. It’s all been so hard on everyone.”

Clint Sillyhat, or whatever his name was, droned on for a while. Ron kept thinking about his great grandfather’s description of the American Protective League during World War I. Most people had no idea how bad the government, and lots of willing citizens, infringed on civil liberties during World War I. The APL was a group of hundreds of thousands of citizens who worked closely with the government to “keep an eye” on undesirables, such as those opposing President Woodrow Wilson. The APL had semi-official status. Federal authorities bragged about having a cadre of Loyalist APL people helping the government. Some APL members carried badges. The FC was the APL all over again.

When Clint was done with something about “neighbor helping neighbor” and asked if there were any questions, Ron’s hand shot up.

“How,” Ron asked in his nicest voice, “in specific ways, not platitudes, will your little Freedom Corps protect us from the looters that came here a few days ago and tried to kill me?”

That surprised Clint. In his world of polite bureaucratic meetings, people didn’t talk that way.