299 Days: The Visitors

Chapter 149 Battle for the Fence-Sitters (June 5)

Grant and Lisa had a marvelous moped ride to the Grange that evening. They felt like they were back in college, except for Grant’s AR-15 slung over his shoulder.

As the Grange came into sight, they both knew that the fun times of the day were over. Tonight was serious business. It was the final vote on whether to have a trial for the tweakers.

Grant noticed that the Grange was packed. There were far more people at tonight’s meeting than the many ones leading up to it. It seemed that, since the raid on the tweaker house, the usual people were at the Grange meetings making their arguments about the trial. Now just about everyone seemed to be at the Grange for the final vote.

Grant wanted to win this vote; he wanted to get going with the trial. But, he was proud that the community was coming together to vote on this. He knew that, no matter the outcome of the vote, the community would feel like a fully discussed and fair decision had been made. The previous accusations of Grant and the Team “ram rodding” things had dissipated. People could see the decision making process was fair, even if it took too much time and discussion from Grant’s standpoint.

The Team had just arrived at the Grange. They were in full kit and getting out of Mark’s truck. It looked like they’d been out all day on patrol or training. They waved when they saw Grant and Lisa. It had been weird for them to have spent a whole day without Grant.

As Grant parked, he saw Dan and Rich with a crowd around them. As Grant got closer, he could hear that they were telling the crowd about the gate guard schedules. Dan had a clipboard and was calling out names and shifts. He was an absolute natural for this.

Rich saw Grant and came over to him. He had a smile on his face.

“Well,” he said to Grant, “This is it. The final vote. Supposedly.”

Before Grant could say anything, the enemy arrived: Snelling and his little followers. They traveled together, undoubtedly rehearsing their arguments on the way over. They were mostly the “cabin people,” the upper income people who owned cabins at Pierce Point, as opposed to the “full-timers” who were the year-round, middle-class rural residents.

The “cabin people” were more likely to cling to the idea that the Collapse was temporary and would end soon; the “full-timers” were more likely to acknowledge that things would likely never be “normal” again. There were plenty of individual exceptions to this, but the basic dividing line was that people who’d had it better in the past, the “cabin people,” were more likely to wish that the past would come back. The “full-timers,” who by and large had been economically struggling in the years leading to the Collapse, were more likely to understand that things weren’t coming back. Some of them were even OK with that because the bad times leading up to the Collapse had been brutal on them. And, by and large, the “full-timers” were rural people who had usually been more independent than the dependent suburbanites.

Grant realized that this dividing line at Pierce Point between the dependent and formerly prosperous suburbanites and the independent, but economically hurt, rural people was just like the divide in America. Great, Grant thought. Pierce Point was a microcosm of a bitterly divided America. This was a big political problem, but Grant felt like he was there to attempt to solve it, at least on a tiny scale. “One millionth,” he muttered to himself and became calmer. By that, he meant that there were several hundred people at Pierce Point, and several hundred million in America, so the political mess facing Pierce Point was only about one millionth of the mess facing America. That made him feel better that he wasn’t supposed to fix everything, just a tiny little piece of it. It made it a little less overwhelming to think about. It was still a big task, but he thought of all the other big tasks he’d accomplished recently. He mentally shrugged. He knew it would work out because he had tons of help doing whatever it was he was supposed to be doing at Pierce Point.

Snelling and his followers would not acknowledge Rich, Dan, or especially Grant. They stopped doing that a few weeks ago, after Grant demolished Snelling in a verbal exchange at the Grange. Snelling didn’t show up for a few days after that. When he returned, Grant got nervous. Grant knew at that point that Snelling was in this to win, and that Snelling was going to be a big problem.

Just as Grant suspected, when Snelling returned he was the most cheerful and polite person at the Grange. He was downright charming. He lost the superior air of being an architect from Seattle; now he was acting like a regular guy. His little followers were doing the same. They now talked apple pie recipes with the Grange ladies instead of complaining about “macho” men with guns.

Snelling and his people fanned out and started glad-handing everyone, except Rich, Dan, Grant, and the Team. Snelling was focusing a lot of his attention on the Morrells; Mary Anne in particular. Grant was afraid of this. Mary Anne was such a decent person that she would want to find a way to not execute neighbors and let things get back to normal. She was a tough bird, but her heart was in the right place – and that place was being humane to people and getting things back to “normal.” John Morrell was suspicious of Snelling’s sudden interest in apple pie, but wanted to support his wife.

Grant was doing his own share of politicking. He was spending as much time as possible with the “fence-sitters.” These were the people at Pierce Point who still hadn’t decided whether to have a trial of the tweakers, who by now had been in the makeshift jail for three weeks, or whether to turn them over to the authorities. The fence-sitters were not weak and indecisive people. They were like Mary Anne: decent people who didn’t want to overreact or kill people who were innocent. Mostly, though, the fence-sitters were going through varying stages of normalcy bias. It was just too mind blowing to think about imprisoning and then killing your neighbors, all without the involvement of the police or courts. It was an extreme thought, and one that forced a person to confront the reality that there were no more police or courts. Decades of assuming the police and courts would take care of things – and that anything else was uncivilized vigilantism – took a long time to shake. More than three weeks, in many, if not most, cases.

“How is that toe coming along?” Grant asked Theresa Swanson, one of the fence-sitters.

“Much better now that your wife got me some antibiotics,” she said with a big smile. Theresa had a very bad hangnail that had become infected. Lisa took care of it with some of the “fish” antibiotics that Grant had purchased before the Collapse. They were labeled for use on aquarium fish, but had the exact same ingredients as human anti-biotics at a fraction of the price, and were available without a prescription.

Grant gave Theresa a thumbs up and thought about whether he should say what came to his mind. Oh, what the heck, he thought. “We try to take care of people out here,” he said, in a not-so-subtle reminder that the Patriots at Pierce Point had the ability to provide people things while the Loyalists could not. Lisa went over to Theresa and talked to her about her toe.

By the time Grant and Lisa got to their usual seats – right up front because Grant often got up to speak at the little podium that sat on a card table at the front – Rich was getting the meeting going. It was 7:00 pm exactly. Rich liked to start meetings on time. Not only did it mean the meetings ended earlier; it showed the crowd that Rich was the leader of the discussion.

“OK,” Rich said, “tonight is the final vote on whether to have a trial or to turn them over to the authorities in Frederickson.” The crowd murmured, most of them saying variations of “it’s about time.”

There wasn’t much of a “debate” feel to this meeting. All the arguments had been made, and remade, dozens of times before. People knew where almost everyone stood. But there were still a handful of fence-sitters both sides were fighting over.

“Is there a motion to have a trial?” Rich asked.

“So moved,” said Dan, who had been briefed by Grant that he would make the motion and do so by saying “so moved,” which sounded so official.

“Is there a second?” Rich asked.

“Second,” Grant said, which was also part of the plan. Grant was the judge and carried some authority as a result.

“Any discussion?” Rich asked, knowing the answer. He looked to Snelling.

Snelling raised his hand and looked at Rich for permission to speak, which was something he didn’t do in the past, but now he made sure to show his best manners.

“I speak against the motion,” Snelling said. “We’re not savages. We’re Americans.” He let that sink in; even though Snelling hated traditional America, he would appeal to people’s love of what used to be America to get what he wanted. “America is about due process and fairness,” he said, “and that means courts and laws. And the only real courts and laws are in Frederickson.” A few impolite people let out loud sighs.

“Even though things have been unsettled for the past few weeks,” Snelling said, “the laws have not been repealed. There is only one set of laws in this county, and they’re carried out in Frederickson. That’s the American way. We’re still Americans.” He stood silently.

That’s it? Grant thought. We’re still Americans? That’s the best you’ve got, Grant wondered. He spoke too soon.

“I’m not the kind of person to threaten,” Snelling said in his best attempt to sound tough, “but imprisoning people – even ones who have been accused of terrible things – is kidnapping. And shooting them by firing squad or whatever is murder. These are serious crimes and will be punished when order is restored in the near future. Please think about that: anyone voting to hold a trial is an accomplice to kidnapping and probably murder.”

That stirred up the crowd. Snelling had hinted at this in previous debates, but now with his “I’m not the kind of person to threaten,” statement, it seemed like he was announcing he would try to have the authorities arrest people.

Grant tried not to be obvious and look around at people’s reaction, but he couldn’t resist. He turned his head around and saw a few of the fence-sitters looking disturbed at the thought of being prosecuted for kidnapping or murder.

Snelling stood and remained silent for dramatic effect. He wanted everyone to think about the seriousness of this decision. After a few moments, he looked at Rich and slightly dipped his head in a gesture that he was respectfully turning the floor back over to Rich.

“Thank you,” Rich said. “Any further discussion against the motion?”

The hands of Snelling’s followers went up. Rich called on them and they said roughly the same thing: they didn’t want to go to jail as an accomplice to kidnapping and murder. They didn’t want their kids or grandkids to see them in jail. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

“What jail?” Doug Smithson finally said. “There is no jail in Frederickson. If there is, it’s full of actual criminals. But, I heard they can’t feed prisoners so they’re letting them go. They’re not going to put all of us in jail. They can’t. Don’t you people get that?”

Grant wanted to show the fence-sitters that he and the others supporting the trial respected the rules of the meeting. He raised his hand. Rich called on him by pointing to him.

“If I may,” Grant said, trying to sound like a lawyer because he now wanted such credibility with the fence-sitters, “Doug brings up a good point. There are no traditional jails. There are no traditional courts. Everyone here knows it. We’re it, folks. We’re on our own.”

He started to walk around the room to get close to people in the audience. “Hey, who here has seen a mailman or received a letter?” Silence. “Who here has even seen a police officer in the past few weeks? Remember the speed trap right at the entrance to Pierce Point? Remember that? Every couple of days, usually around 4:00 in the afternoon, they were there. Remember? Not anymore. Am I right?”

Several heads nodded. Most of the people in the room were largely over their normalcy bias, but some were still suffering from the last bits of it. Normalcy bias takes a while to get over, and almost everyone never fully gets over it. There are always little lingering effects. Someone might seem to be over it, but then something reminds them of the past and they start to want to deny that things have changed. It’s a process. How people deal with it varies person to person. To combat normalcy bias, even the last little lingering effects, Grant found that people needed concrete examples of how different things were compared to before. The speed trap was one such example.

But Grant had been making the same point for weeks now. Tonight was the big vote. It was time to try a new angle, and one that would grab the last fence-sitters.

“Think of Frankie,” Grant said, to the surprise of everyone. “His face is still swollen up and he can hardly move his mouth. His broken jaw has set crooked. He can only eat liquids, if he wanted to eat, but he doesn’t because he’s still going through withdrawals from the meth.”

“He deserves to suffer,” someone yelled.

“Maybe, but let’s be decent about this and get it over with,” Grant said. He saw a few heads nodding.

“What about Brittany?” Grant asked. She and Ronnie were still in the makeshift jail. “They’ve served more time in our jail than they would in any jail in Frederickson. Are we going to keep them in our jail for even more days, weeks, and months while we debate whether things are really so bad that there are no courts in Frederickson? Is that fair to them?”

Snelling sensed that this argument was working, so he whispered something to his wife. She stood up and said, “Crystal deserves a mom,” referring to Josie.

“Not that mom,” Grant shot back. “And how does turning Josie over to the non-existent police and courts in Frederickson help Crystal?”

Silence.

Grant was done. He wouldn’t start making the same old arguments from the previous nights. He realized that tonight’s meeting wasn’t about arguments. It was about people coming to grips with what had gone on. To get their heads around the fact that everything had changed. The idea of having a homemade trial and executing people was an extremely disturbing thing for most people and they needed to mentally process it. This meeting was part of that. Hopefully the last part of it.

“What do people think of all this?” Grant asked, knowing that he was intruding on Rich’s role as the leader of the meeting. Rich motioned to the audience that they should stand up and talk.

They did. One after another, they told about how hard it was to come to the point where they could actually vote to hold a trial and authorize the death penalty for a person they knew like Frankie. “I remember when he was riding his bike by our house,” one of them said of Frankie, and then he started crying. “Oh, God,” he sobbed. “it’s come to this.” He left the room.

“I’m a Christian,” Betty Norris, the old hippy chick said. “I’m not a church person, but I believe in forgiveness.”

“But turning them over to Frederickson isn’t forgiving them,” Mark said. “They’ll be in an overcrowded jail at best,” he said, “and, at worst…” he didn’t finish the sentence.

“I know,” Betty said with her head hung low. “I know. But all these choices are just so bad. There is no happy ending.”

“That’s right,” Grant said. “And that’s what people here need to understand. There are no happy endings. We have to make decisions that we don’t want to make.”

“I’m ready to vote to have the trial,” Mary Anne said, unexpectedly. Fellow fence-sitters had been looking to see what direction she would go. She was a very fair person and people respected her. “There are no happy endings. Things will never be back to normal. We have to do something. Let’s do it.”

Seizing on that momentum, Grant said to Rich, “I move to have a vote.”

“OK,” Rich said. “Anyone disagree?”

Snelling stood up. He was different. He wasn’t Mr. Apple Pie and politeness anymore. He was angry. He felt like things were out of control. “There will be consequences for this,” he said ominously. “You will regret this.”

“What does that mean?” Grant shot back. Rich put his hand up to stop Snelling and Grant.

“Enough, gentlemen,” Rich said. “We’re having a vote.”