Nathan Jones - First Winter

“What’s your point, Larson?” the same woman from before shouted. “That you get to decide who lives and dies?”

In spite of the heated mood of the crowd more than a few people loudly protested that accusation. Matt fought to keep his calm, although he raised his voice over the tumult.

“I do the best I can as Mayor!” he shouted. “If you all decide I’m doing a poor job, it’s within your rights to remove me and select someone else, through the established process of impeachment and election. Until then I’m going to do my job. The excess food will be held by the town to aid those who need it most, with a council selecting candidates based on their need and their and their family’s ability to provide for them without aid.”

Predictably, that raised another uproar, with far more approval than protest. Probably from the large percentage of the population who didn’t have enough and would need aid.

Matt shouted over the noise, at this point not caring whether anyone heard him. He just wanted to get this meeting over. “The military’s instructions were simple! I was instructed to give each person their share, while the excess would go to the town to be used as the leaders saw fit. None of you are being cheated or shorted! You’re getting exactly what you were supposed to get! And if you really can’t live with that then toss me out and vote to split it evenly. Or heck, have the majority vote to split it unevenly and watch the town fragment around you as everyone goes their own way!”

He hadn’t meant to rant, but somehow during his speech the crowd had quieted down. Matt trailed off into an awkward silence as everyone stared at him.

“The military gave the surplus specifically to the town?” Grant asked from the front row.

Matt nodded. “Each person’s share is their own, but the excess is to be used as the town’s leaders see fit,” he repeated.

The new Aspen Hill resident made a disgusted noise. “Well why didn’t you just tell us that?”

For one precarious moment Matt was on the brink of either exploding into laughter or completely losing his cool. He took a deep, steadying breath. “I probably should’ve,” he said as calmly as he could. “Moving on. You’ll all be receiving a generous amount of food, and it may be tempting to eat more than you should. I would caution you to carefully ration it to make it last as long as possible, even beyond the six months if you think you can manage it.”

He hardened his voice. “If you irresponsibly eat through your share faster than you should, the town will not provide aid to you. I think we can all agree on that. Similarly, you all know the town’s punishment for theft. Exile. No matter how desperate you might get, I would be very disappointed to hear you resort to such measures. And regardless of mitigating circumstances, the consequences will be the same.”

Surprisingly, the crowd was mostly silent now. Maybe he’d managed to talk his way through the hurricane. He continued a bit more confidently. “On the subject of theft and rationing, the town is willing to store and guard any food presented to us on behalf of its owners. We will return any food stored with us upon request. We can also help plan rationing and distribute based on that plan, for those who would like that bit of formal encouragement. There will be a small fee for the service, strictly to pay for the construction of the space and compensate those who’ll be guarding it, but some might find the peace of mind worth the cost.

“Last of all, let me remind you that we just received a lot of food.” There were a few subdued chuckles at that, as people remembered they had far more reason to celebrate than complain. “What that means is it’ll take us a while to determine exactly what we have and how to fairly distribute it. Please be patient until we can get it done.”

The woman from the back of the crowd stubbornly raised her voice again. “What about those of us who’re starving now and can’t wait for you bean counters?”

Matt had mostly managed to find his calm again. He smiled wryly. “Well it may surprise you to hear it, but the town’s been doing its best to aid those in need. Mostly by giving them something useful to do besides complaining to earn their meals.” There were a few chuckles at that. “If you really can’t wait a few days for your share I’d say you qualify for those charitable efforts. Come talk to me and I’ll see what we can do for you.”

He fell silent, waiting for his heckler to find something else to complain about, but she didn’t respond. A bit relieved, he once again looked over the crowd. “All right then. Any questions?”

There were. A lot, and not all of them particularly cooperative. Matt did his best to answer the ones he could, relying on Catherine and the town leaders for advice with some of the finer details. But mostly the mood of the crowd had settled and they seemed content to wait and let him do his job.

After about another fifteen minutes Matt called the meeting to a close so they could get back to work dealing with all the food they’d received. He awkwardly hopped down, immediately found himself mobbed by people with more questions and comments, and began making his way through the press.

Among them he passed the knot of his family who’d been watching, his mom Mona and dad Ed, as well as Terry and April each holding one of their young sons Aaron and Paul. Sam was comfortably nestled in the center of the group, and he briefly stopped to kiss her as the others congratulated him on his speech.

“I’m probably going to be pretty late tonight,” he said apologetically to his wife. “Why don’t you head home and rest?”

“All right.” She hugged him tight for a moment. “Don’t stay up too late or push yourself too hard. I’ll see about having Aaron run over to bring you some dinner later.”

“Thanks.” Matt let the surging tide of humanity pull him away with a final wave and got back to answering questions, soothing complaints, and easing fears.

Catherine was waiting at the edge of the crowd, and as it finally dispersed she gave him a warm smile and pulled him into a hug. “You did a good job up there,” she said as she stepped back. Beside her, her husband Scott stepped in to offer a handshake.

Matt returned her smile with a rueful one as he gripped the older man’s hand. “You’d be surprised. Half the time I was fighting not to lose my cool, the other half I was trying to keep my wits together well enough to string two words together coherently.”

Scott laughed. “Welcome to public speaking, especially to an unruly crowd. Nobody’s as smart as they think they are, and everyone thinks they’re the smartest person there. So most of them act in their own self interest and call that the smart decision, drowning out the few people who actually do have valid points to make.”

“Although that crowd was rough by any standards,” the former Mayor added.

Matt winced slightly. “I wasn’t sure I was going to convince them for a few minutes there.”

“That’s what being Mayor is all about,” Catherine replied. “Half the time you’ll spend dealing with ignorant or deliberately unreasonable people, half the time you’ll spend trying to keep your cool when people treat you like a moron or a crook, and half the time you’ll spend examining yourself to make sure that you’re not actually the ignorant or unreasonable one, and you haven’t been acting like a moron or a crook.”

“That adds up to three halves,” Matt said with a wry smile.

The older woman nodded soberly. “Try as you might, you’ll never be able to do it all. You’re only human. Unfortunately the people looking up to you won’t ever let you be anything less than perfect, so they’ll come down twice as hard on you for every mistake, every inadequacy.”