Ben Bedard: The World Without Flags

The Homestead has changed a lot over the years. It used to be just the farm and the fields around it. Then more people came, and over time we grew and began to build the Village. We’re still building it. From the Village, we have a pretty good idea of what’s around us. I remember there used to be trees on the hill, but not anymore. We used those trees for houses or to burn during the long Maine winter. Now we have to drag trees uphill from the forests to get wood. But it’s worth it for the view.

This view. I’m sitting on the side of the hill, just below the Village, looking down at the farm. The river we call the Rill runs down to my left, down past the backfields and eventually into another river. The farmhouse is down there. I can see smoke coming from the chimney. The cows are out to pasture, and I can see Cyrus working on a fence. Even from this distance, I can tell it’s Cyrus from the way he moves, slow but powerful like an ox. I don’t think I’ve heard him say more than ten or twelve sentences my whole life. I like that about him. He’s quiet like me. Queen, our new dog, is right next to him. Pest found Queen a couple months ago, just a skinny mongrel, white with black patches all over her scraggly fur, shivering under a pine tree. Norman said she’s some strange mixture of labrador and husky or maybe hound dog. “Just a good ole American mutt,” he decided finally. Pest nursed her back to health and they’re pretty much inseparable. But if Queen isn’t bounding around Pest like a gust of wind, she’s usually near Cyrus. Strange how dogs decide they like someone and stay with them. I wonder what it is, what they sense? I wonder sometimes why Queen doesn’t come with me.

In the fields in front of the farmhouse, the fields we call, imaginatively, the “front fields,” I can see the Goon Squad. That’s what I call Crypt, Gunner, Rebok, and Pest. They’re always together. Just a bunch of adolescent boys. They’re arguing about something, as usual. Even from here, I know the figure standing quietly in the back is Pest, the youngest. He’s watching. There’s something about the way he’s standing, like he’s satisfied, that I’m sure he’s behind the fight. He might be the youngest, but he controls that group. I don’t mean to make him sound evil. He’s not. But he’s spooky smart.

As I watch, I see Matt come strolling in and call out to them. They stop fighting and go talk with him, all of them except Pest who stays where he is. Matt’s an older guy, just joined us a few years ago. He’s bald and always sad. If he laughs, which is not often, he gets this guilty look on his face afterward, like he’s ashamed for being alive, and then he walks away. Lots of the older people are like that. It’s like they break down to their core and can’t do anything but mourn whatever it was they lost. I’m glad I’m not like that. I’m glad I’m whole and not so fragile.

Whatever Matt said to the boys seems to have worked because they’re shaking hands and Rebok is hugging people, because he’s a hugger. Then it’s back to work. Just another day in the fields for those boys. Hope they don’t screw up. We’ll end up fixing it.

I take a long drink of water. It’s nice and fresh and cold. I wish I brought more bread with me, but I wasn’t hungry then. I am now. I reach into my pocket for my apple and bite into it. It’s a little old and grainy, but I don’t care. It’s kind of sweet and I like it. It’s been sitting in the root cellar for months, it’s pure luck it tastes like anything. I finish it off quickly, watching the boys turn the earth with hoes. Matt has joined them with a wheelbarrow full of manure from the barns. Unpleasant job. I’ll probably be doing it tomorrow. As long as it’s not chicken shit, I don’t mind. Chicken shit, I don’t like. Cow manure is almost pleasant, earthy. But chicken shit invades you like ammonia. I almost gag just thinking about it.

There’s still snow in the corners of the field, I notice, and under the trees. It’s still pretty cold. Cold enough for winter jackets. The wind coming up from the south has got a little bite to it, but it’s no longer the frightening jaws of winter when a wind comes up across the fields of ice and snow and makes you feel like you’ve inhaled pure death and you have to cough it out. I shiver a little, thinking about it. Then I sigh because winter is broken and spring is here and down in the cellars under the farmhouse there’s jug after jug of maple syrup and bags of maple sugar. Soon it’ll be warm enough to wear t-shirts and we’ll swim in the lake.

There’s the sound of a door shutting, and I turn around toward the houses of the Village. It’s Diane, coming out of her log house. Her kid, Amber, about 10 years old or so, follows behind her. Diane sees me and waves and I give a wave back. She and Amber walk down the path toward Franky’s house, I imagine. They live together, even though she’s like twenty years younger than him. Franky likes to tinker on things. He calls it “puttering.” He just goes around and fixes things and makes things for us and is generally a good help to everyone. I wish I could be of more help than I am. No one calls me for help. You don’t ever hear anyone say, oh, you know what this problem needs? Kestrel. We need Kestrel. Well, unless they want me to find Eric, but other than that, I’m just, I don’t know, Eric’s girl.

But Franky is busy all day, every day. Everyone wants Franky around. And Diane is so, well, not to be mean, but she’s like the apple I just ate. She’s bland and boring and kind of mushy and soft. I don’t eat the apple out of pleasure, that’s what I’m saying. I feel like Diane is like that. She came here about five years back or so, with two kids, Amber and Curt, who’s just a couple years younger than me. They came from Boston with the usual hellish story. I remember when she came here, she was as near to death as you can be without dying. She was like bones and skin and not much skin. She didn’t even talk for the first few months except to say thank you for everything. She looks better now, but still has a kind of frailty about her, like she’d crack into a thousand pieces if you said the wrong thing. She’s tall and slim and has scraggly blonde hair that she keeps long even though long hair is such a pain.

I guess I sound kind of harsh toward Diane. I don’t mean to be like that. She’s not bad. She’s just, well, damaged. She never smiles and even though she’s only in her early thirties, she looks really old. She looks tired all the time. I can tell life is very hard for her. Not the stuff that’s hard for all of us, like the fear of starving or whether or not there’s some marauding gang on the horizon. I mean just normal stuff. Like cooking and washing up and getting out of bed. She’s like on the edge, just hanging on. I think sometimes Franky’s with her because he likes to tinker. Maybe he thinks he can fix her the way he can hang a door level or patch up a hole in the wall. Franky’s very handy, but not so smart, really, when I think about it. I don’t think you can fix people. People have to fix themselves. I’m not even sure that can be done either. Sometimes I think who we are is like a wild horse and we’re just riding it as best we can, hoping like hell we don’t fall off. Diane is a person who doesn’t hang on very well.

I watch Diane walk around the hill and out of sight and then I turn back to the fields. That’s when I notice the horse and cart. I watch for a while, my heart beginning to pound. I put my hand on my knife just to make sure it’s there. I feel the handle and breathe a little easier.

But it’s no stranger. I recognize the horse before the rider.

It’s Tangerine.

And riding the cart a little awkwardly, stiffly, in that gangly way that he has, is Randal the Vandal. I get up and start running!