Singular Muck

After all, if something's happening in a small town and you have absolutely nothing to do, you go look. This is a noble profession, known as being an 'Onlooker'.

I wasn't the only one looking on.

The buses were still unloading luggage from rooftop racks when I walked up. A significant crowd had accumulated, some of whom I recognized (the mayor and police chief and a few neighbors), but others were strangers. The strangers were obvious - wearing warm-weather gear, looking confused and nervous, both families and single people alike. If there was a median demographic, it'd be younger-age women, it looked like.

The mayor got a bullhorn and stood on a car hood (the car hadn't moved for a long time and already had dents on the hood. I'm sure everyone local but me knew exactly whose car it was). "Attention, please."

Enough of a crowd had gathered by then.

"Attention, please. I have an announcement. These people have just shown up. They all have letters addressed to them, specifically, from PINETREE. This is the letter." He waved it, then read it.

"To: Andrea Kinkaid, from: PINETREE Regional HQ, Broadville, VT"

"You are being offered PINETREE incentives to move to Edville, West Virginia. In exchange for moving there, marrying or cohabitating with a local male previously of this city and settling in and growing a family, you will be paid three (3) times the UBI rate for the next 12 years."

"Each additional child you bear will receive the 3x the age-adjusted UBI child rate until they are 18 or move away, whichever comes first."

"You must be inside the city limits of Edville at midnight for at least 325 days out of every year, or a set of gradually-increasing disincentives will kick in and you'll forfeit your benefits. These will be explained in future mailings."

"Note that all local, state, and federal laws and regulations concerning bigamy / multiple-marriage have recently been rescinded by order of PINETREE. Such marriages are now completely legal and encouraged worldwide. PINETREE will act to guarantee protection for persons in such marriages as a matter of religious / ethnic / cultural independence and will resolve such societal disputes by various effective measures."

"This action is being taken to redistribute demographics and culture within and outside the United States, decrease racism and cultural isolation, and halt population decline."

"Enjoy your new opportunity. You have 30 days to move into the specific address named below, or a nearby one within Edville WV city limits if you so choose, and inform the U.S. postal service of your new address when you reach it."

"That address is... etc."

"Congratulations, The PINETREE Trustees"

The mayor put the letter down and took a deep breath, then said in a tired voice, looking around at the crowd, "This is a new thing, I'm just learning about it right now. So, don't ask me questions, I don't know anything. Will we comply with PINETREE? Of course, no real choice there. If you have complaints, religious or otherwise, don't talk to me about it, and don't bother Dave here," (motioning to the police chief), "because he isn't going to enforce your petty worldview and fight PINETREE."

People nodded in a, 'yeah-that's-obvious' way.

"So. We don't know how many people are going to come in besides these 3 buses. Might be more. I happen to know that at least one of these girls is headed to the address where my friend Tom Winters lives, and he's 87. I doubt he's in a family-making mood, but nowhere in this letter does it say Ms. Andrea Kinkaid here has to do anything with Tom, or vice versa. It's NOT OUR BUSINESS. We drop it, got it?!"

We all kind of nodded, and I wondered what Tom was going to do.

"I am not going to enforce, and Dave here, is not going to enforce, either for or against this letter. We're not going to force Tom to take her in. We're not going to force her to stay away. We are Out Of The Way."

His adamant refusal to interact was obvious, but then he toned it down for the next bit and got back to being a politician.

"I'm depending on everyone here, every Edville-ian, to be polite, and, uh..." He hesitated, then got inspired, "...trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent."

There were enough Boy Scouts in the crowd who recognized that to laugh.

"...So, if you see a new person in town, someone here or even if more people come, say hello, be nice, and help 'em out. Got it? Great! Back to your Wednesday morning."

I stuck around long enough to see the crowd was milling around, until the police chief organized the newcomers into groups that could walk to areas of town, and asked some people in the crowd to help them get to where they were going.

I liked Dave, the police chief. We'd talked (about my cybertruck) and he seemed courteous, businesslike, and professional. That said, he hadn't done anything about my meth-head downstairs neighbors, so I didn't know if he was actually competent or not.

Having nothing much to do and since I didn't talk with people that often, I hung around to see what else would happen, and then went over to the post office to pick up my mail.

I had no mail. I didn't usually have mail. It wasn't unusual. Still, I checked every once in a while. No one sent me letters; advertising was frequently stupid since businesses didn't want to spend precious cash in uncertain times.

Just as I was coming back...Here came more school buses! Four more of them pulled in, then pulled around the corner to park along a side street and disgorge their passengers.

Luggage came down from being tied on top, and a lot of people waiting around didn't know what was going on. Some of them asked me for help, but all I could say was maybe, divide into groups by the area of town?

The mayor came back and gave another abbreviated speech to the new folks.

Another two buses pulled in.

This was going to be a bigger thing maybe than just a few new residents.

I helped for a while, but I got hungry for lunch and started to head across the park towards home.

Ahead of me, a newcomer was trudging along, dragging a large suitcase down the sidewalk and seeming very weary.

I was walking faster, and caught up to her.

It was at that point I met Kim Hanson.

She had an identical letter to the one they'd read, but on her phone, and the address it had on it was my downstairs meth-neighbors, so we laughed and I told her about them and hoped that she'd be okay and safe. I said, I think they moved out a few weeks ago, but... you never know, so, watch out?

She said she would, and thanks.

I volunteered to help with her stuff, but she just had the one suitcase. So I led her through the short-cut across the grass to the apartment. Our building's super (manager) lived one building over, so we went over to get her (Mrs. Dunbar, a white-haired but very matter-of-fact lady) to let Kim inside.

When we explained what was happening, she laughed and showed us her phone. It had 'rental arrangements' listed for that apartment as "TBD" and a directive 'to comply or suffer noncompliance penalties' by PINETREE.' Given how powerful PINETREE was, that would be insanity.

The email she'd gotten indicated prepayment half-again my current rent plus a security deposit, "Payment in full for all residents of this address / unit / apartment / condo / dwelling."

Kim was very happy at this part - she had a place to stay, and didn't have to pay for it, at least initially.

There was no furniture in the apartment at all. Mrs. Dunbar didn't have anything to help with, either.

We went our separate ways since Kim seemed to want to be alone there for a while and take a shower, which I certainly understood.

I went upstairs to my place and did some work, but still was distracted by the situation of people being relocated. What could it mean?

Would tons of men move into town? It wouldn't work - the letter the mayor had read said, "a local male previously of this city."

That was not a huge list of people, I had to figure. Edville wasn't that big. At least, I stood a good chance of getting a girlfriend out of this, or meeting someone at least. I might even get a roommate, which with a 3 bedroom apartment was more being-social than being-crowded.

Maybe there would be women in the bar I sometimes went to who had all their teeth.

(Note, this is a joke, very few people had meth problems, they were just over-represented in tragic or comic stories of things-about-town.)

"Knock, Knock."

Someone was at my door.

I opened it to find three women, all my age or maybe slightly younger (I was 22 at the time), standing at the top of the stairs up to my apartment door, waiting.

They showed me letters, the same one the mayor had read - but... they had my address.

Huh.

I could refuse to let them in, for sure. If I did let them in, could I ever kick them out again? They'd traveled - in a HUGE hassle move - to a small town in West Virginia.

"Come in." I had no real choice, ethically. They needed a place, and I wasn't going to be a dick. Plus, I had a feeling that if I didn't comply, I might end up with bad effects from it.

They came in, doffed coats, and made introductions. They were:

Dana Evans, a short, curly-redhead with quite a few freckles, thin/med build.

Josephine Davis, tall blonde, straight hair and a definite top-heavy but thin body.

Mary Santiago, a dark-haired hispanic girl with a fun expression and obvious charisma.

I introduced myself as a recent college grad, about 3 years out, kind of into books, a government job, and that I owned a Tesla but the cops had stolen it. All that was true, but I left out that I hadn't actually graduated despite having way more than enough credits to get the degrees.

We laughed together and I wondered where this was going.

They'd all been students at different colleges, displaced from classes and sent home, but there wasn't much home to go to so they crashed with friends. Then, the letter had shown up, and they had a debate.

In the letter, they each said, was an appointment for a full medical exam including ob/gyn. They were required to do that to participate.

The results were sent by phone to them with directions that as soon as they arrived, they were to use the PINETREE app (first I'd heard of that) to send their results directly to the resident of the apartment they'd be staying at, and/or anyone else they wanted to.

This was the topic of some considerable debate on the bus, Mary said, because it had private medical information in it, and she wasn't sure she wanted to share.

I said, hell, I'm not sure I need to see that, but Mary showed me the app and the directions, "Mandatory for Consideration", though it didn't explain what that meant.

They, all 3, hit the 'send' button, and my phone bing'd.

A new icon had appeared, and I had the PINETREE app, too.

We chatted for a few minutes, and there was another knock on the door.

Kim was outside, with another girl, medium height and a runner's body by the legs coming out of her shorts (too cool for this weather, I thought, but hey, up to her).

Kim Hanson, who I'd just met, medium-height, athletic build (now that she was just in a t-shirt and jeans and not 2 sweatshirts), med-small bustline, hourglass figure, thick dark-red/brunette hair, slightly shorter than me.

Carrie Winslow, red-haired and thin-nordic-featured, wary eyes, med build.

We did introductions with the other girls as 'downstairs neighbors'.

Kim cut the introductions short and said, "We just got a notification on our PINETREE app, we had to come up here, that our apartments were 'merged'.

Mary asked, "Merged?"

Some amount of debate, all somewhat loud, started going off, and I went to the kitchen to get myself some water and an apple.

The debate continued. Who would sleep where, was it just that they were to come up or were there going to be other people. No one knew.

The doorbell rang.

"Ah," I thought with some fatalistic sense of Things Happening To Me, "More people."

I opened the door to find four people on the stairs and three more at the bottom since they all had luggage and wouldn't fit.

The first one in line, Tina, said, "Uh, sir? We... live here now?"

I suspected I knew what that meant. "In for a penny, in for a pound, come on in."

Everyone came upstairs:

Tina Hamiliton, long curly-hair-Jewish olive skin girl-next-door gorgeous, med build tennis player

Winnie Young, African-American, short dreads, med./avg build.

Yee-Soon ("Yee"), recent Korean emigree via a big sailboat

Cindi Wen, Alameda/SFbay Chinese-American, very buxom but otherwise trim build.

Pat Behar, pink-dyed streaks in blonde hair, four ear piercings, musician carrying a guitar,

Dani Patricks, swiss-austrian, proper, very muscular, dark haired

Candy Jenkins, farm-raised on an eastern colorado ranch, red hair.

We did introductions again. They just wanted to shower and unpack, but there was nowhere to unpack into.

Showering, I could help with, but I warned them, half-hour of hot water at most. So, water on to get wet, soap up, water on to rinse, off, same for shampoo, maybe? I was apologetic, the water heater just wasn't that big.

This met with some opposition at first, but I think the concept that we might be dating at some point put a damper on their objections. Everyone agreed not to flush while someone had the water on, and Cindi went to the bathroom first.

The thought had occurred to me. There was definitely an overabundance of red hair compared to the general population, and I really did like red-haired girls.

I'd mentioned this before, had to have, so if Cohort had my email history, they'd have found that much.

Everyone's phone dinged, "Confidential delivery at 4 pm, many boxes to your merged addresses. Bring these inside upstairs immediately and close your doors before opening. More deliveries ETA tomorrow noon. Delays unavoidable."

It was only 2:30 at that point, so we chatted and waited.

Two more women showed up just about then, but the door was open so they just walked in.

Alice Frenald, dark hair short on one side only, medium athletic build but slightly larger chest than normal.

Suha Yackit, dark-complexioned middle-eastern Egyptian-American coptic Christian, open-friendly-pretty eyes/face, med-thin build.

Several times around for introductions and we had backgrounds on everyone, though the stream of people in and out of the bathroom interrupted some of the conversations.

About 3:30, the doorbell rang again and it was not another girl, it was a set of older women dressed in support-weight belts and carrying in heavy and thick cardboard boxes.

We all wondered what was in them, but the instructions had been clear, and no one was going to mess with PINETREE directions.

Each box had a number printed on a label, and we put them along my wall in order by the numbers (13/25, 14/25, etc.), but some boxes were huge and heavy and others weren't. Once the ladies unloaded the electric-drive delivery van for my apartment, they did the same for an equal number of boxes to the apartment below mine. We decided to just open the first set upstairs and leave the second set downstairs until we saw what we were dealing with.

Immediately after the ladies left, Kim locked the up the lower apartment and we all gathered with a closed door. Given that I knew how sound carried around our complex when there weren't cars and street noise, we shut the windows, too, before opening the first box.

The contents? Oatmeal. It was a 50 pound sack of Oatmeal that said, "US Government / Relief" on it. Under that, 10 pounds of brown sugar and another 10 pound box labeled, "Cooking Spices".

Lots of 'OOoooo!' and "Ahhh!" sounds rang out, and I knew we were doing well. Food had been pretty bland and barely nutritious lately.

The rest of the boxes were very, very similar. Granola, a pasta-maker, tight-packed kitchen utensils and silverware, stock-pots with food packages inside, tomato paste tubes, chocolate chips, flour, yogurt and sourdough starter mixes, baker's yeast, gallons of olive oil, cheese marked 'store room temp / shelf stable', tea, compacted packaged coffee grounds, those I understood.

Getting 10 gallons each of peach schnapps, 5 of 151-rum, and 3 gallons of everclear? These didn't make any sense. That much alcohol, labels marked with 'US Government / Relief' and what it was, was so bizarre we all couldn't believe it.

Box 25 wasn't food. Box 25 was GOLD.

Not literal gold, of course, but just as good. It had seed packets, for gardening, of a popular commercial brand, completely filling the large, heavy box. Tiny seed potatoes (idaho, sweet, and some blue kind) were the heaviest part of that, but there were so many seed packets we could have fed the town from the contents, provided it grew.

At the bottom of that box also were grape seeds and another prepackaged box labeled, 'Winemaking Starter Kit Complete with Yeast'. This stuff was Too Cool For School, as my dad used to say.

Our apartment was suddenly the land where the Wreckoning never happened, where we'd just come back from Costco overburdened but assured of plenty.

For the moment, though, everyone was hungry, so a group split off to get the kitchen going and make a big dinner for us.

We didn't have enough plates.

I left the women alone and went down to Mrs. Dunbar's apartment.

She wasn't home.

Walking down the street, I remembered once running (literally, but not seriously) into a lady walking a dog that lived... right there, so I turned up her driveway and knocked on her door.

She was there in a flash, and I realized the dog wasn't barking at me. That meant... she didn't have the dog anymore.

Her face looked haggard, like she'd been crying.

"Yes?"

"Hi... Uh, I live over there, in Mrs. Dunbar's apartments? And... I saw you walking your dog once, maybe you remember me?"

She was self assured but still confused why I was there, "Yes, Mr. Cooper, I remember you."

How she knew my name, I didn't have a clue."You know my name?"

"Of course. Mrs. Dunbar does quilting in our group. Is there something that...?"

"Ma'am, I..."

"Mrs. Lettchick. Call me Daliah." Her smile told me she was warming to my being there.

"Daliah, thank you. Kevin. Anyway, I have some houseguests now? Uhh... roommates?"

"Yes. We have some new roommates, too."

"I thought, your husband..." I'd heard something vague but I didn't want to assume I was informed.

"Is disabled with from a car accident, yes."

"Ah." I was figuring things out. "We... were going to make a little dinner, just whatever I could scrape up, and... we don't have plates, ma'am. I have silverware for them, but I only have 7 plates, and we have 15 people. I'm wondering, I can pay you...?"

She smiled widely, like this was the biggest chance she had, and threw open the door. "Come In!"

I walked in and found her husband in a wheelchair, one of his legs missing, and a look on his face that said he wasn't all there. I'd seen him around town from a distance.

She walked me up to him and said, "Kevin, meet Bob Lettchick, my husband. Bob, meet Kevin, our neighbor."

Bob didn't say anything. I wasn't sure if he could hear or understand anything.

Dahlia said, "He doesn't talk much. Funny, he used to work at Cern." To him, she said, "Bob, I'm going to introduce him to your new wives."

Well then!

We went back to the kitchen, where I heard voices. We opened the door to find five women and two toddlers hard at work peeling potatoes and washing dishes from the cupboards.

Introductions were said all around, but I won't repeat their names. Two were in their 30's, one in her late 20's had fraternal boy-girl twins playing, and the young one spoke only Russian, but when I suggested maybe German, she piped up since she had some of that, too.