September 10th - "When The World's On Fire"

MEANWHILE, IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA…

“My God,” Lucille said from the backseat. “Would you look at that…”

Per Google Maps, it takes about 12 hours to cross Texas east-to-west and about 13 hours to cross California north-to-south. In Massachusetts, you can leave the easternmost point in Boston at 9 AM and hit the western border by noon (assuming no run-ins with the dreaded Staties). Can such a small state have any sort of cultural differences? That was the question on Lucille’s mind during this cross-state journey. Her direct knowledge of the world - the knowledge she learned and earned with her senses, not books or online videos - was essentially limited to the two highway rings looping around the eastern part of the state - the I95 and I495 corridors that swung around Boston and formed the halves of two possible transmutation circles (hey, you never know).

Everything within I95 is heavily, heavily urbanized, nature limited to its man-made reservations. Things pick up a little outside of it, but once you’re past I495, that’s where the first change becomes noticeable.

“Cows!” Jackie called out from the passenger seat half an hour ago as Regina’s car passed by the first real-life farm Lucille had seen in a long, long time. In East Eden, anywhere in the eastern part of the state for that matter, her view was limited to midrise apartments and colonial homes and new homes and tall trees and well-maintained woodland that provided a sort of veil that hid the wider world. Very rarely in eastern Massachusetts can you see any distance longer than a football field away - and when you can, it’s usually just down your street.

But out here, the urban conglomeration was gone, and the trees lining the highway were occasionally replaced by open farmland. And what a sight those stretches of land could be! Harvest season would be soon, and tall fields of wheat(?) stretched a distance of perhaps four or five football fields until they hit woodland again. Cows roamed around little patches of grassland crisscrossed by muddy trails. Jackie went giddy in the front seat, pointing at the cows, another field full of horses, an idle tractor resting on a well-trodden trail.

“This must be what Wisconsin is like!” Jackie cried as she watched the passing fields until they finally disappeared behind trees again.

Technically, Lucille's direct knowledge of America did include some out-of-state areas - trips up to the Green and White Mountains, the four-mile circus known as the Las Vegas Strip. But Wisconsin…what really is Wisconsin like? Ohio, Michigan? Georgia and Alabama? Are those states just miles and miles of quiet farmland and long views? Some sort of feeling arose in Lucille’s stomach, some sort of antiquated feeling of cottages and pastures and frontier. The unknown and the wild imagination filling it up in all its glory. Unfortunately, the frontier was declared closed in 1890 and cottages now could fetch prices of over a million dollars and likely had a freeway running by it. In fact, they passed a house with a driveway connecting right onto the freeway - in what world is that desirable?

She didn’t know, but maybe she couldn’t. Lucille’s lineage could be traced back to Bavarian peasantry who arrived in the United States in the 1850s - in fact, arriving just around the same time as the ancestors of the Miad cousins from Ireland. Furthermore, if you went back in time, every ancestor of Lucille’s until the 1850s had been farmers. Almost everybody’s ancestors were. But by now, Lucille had been urbanized through-and-through, her imagination limited to concrete jungles and the perpetual suburbia that blocked her view to the 300 feet in front of her - and 300 might be a generous number.

But out here, maybe these people still had a more expansive view. If everyday, you can wake up next to an honest-to-God forest or farm, rolling hills or even just meadows and marshes and flatland, that would certainly shift your worldview away from urban-dominated interests. More expansive, but perhaps simultaneously narrower in an odd sort of paradox. Eastern Massachusetts generally went blue in Stalinesque landslides; out here, past the highway corridors, the victories were more along the lines of FDR in 1932.

This could definitely create some oddities. Once they left the highway for local roads, they came across aristocratic estates - huge houses with beautiful lawns the size of Lucille’s entire street back home. The life of an idle rich man - now that would be the life. Lucille smiled at the thought of waking up, watching the trust fund numbers go up and up, and then waltzing out to the back patio, breakfast in hand, watching the sunlight dance along the freshly-cut grass, not a care in the world.

But beyond that, as the roads continued on and the car traveled further westward, there was some sort of hidden shift in the air. The expansive mansions turned into rundown farmsteads, the carcasses of trucks rusting away on lawns filled with gravel and patches of struggling grass. They drove through a quiet town that consisted of three streets - just three streets! And this was only hours away from the stockbrokers and fintech social climbers of Boston, the Keeping Up with the Jones go-go-go lifestyle of the suburbs.

The life of an idle poor man - perhaps the poor can’t be idle. But the juxtaposition of her single state sent shivers through Lucille, because just like Jackie said - was this what Wisconsin was like? Three hours across Massachusetts left another forty-one to Los Angeles. Lucille felt dwarfed by the scale and complexity of a country she never really thought too hard about. Flyover country, the prairies, the Sooners - these all existed in the same country as East Eden.

The reason for Lucille’s “My God” was an old barn next to an old farmstead somewhere down the winding roads far beyond the corridors. Perhaps an idle poor man who couldn’t be idle lived here. Lucille wasn’t sure what he did for work, what his family felt of him, who his friends were. But the person who lived here hung a particular flag across their barn - thirteen stars in a circle, so far so good, but only three stripes stretched out to the right of it. In all its glory, the Stars and Bars swayed gently in the early breeze of September.

Because of the fields, the women in the car could stare at the flag for a long while, far longer than in the eastern part of the state, where it would just be a passing blip in the radar, drowned by thousands of distractions.

“Is that allowed?” Jackie asked. “I’m no history expert, but I don’t think we were part of the Confederacy.”

“No kidding,” Regina murmured from the driver’s seat.

As Lucille remained quiet and pondered the potential circumstances - the brain chemistry, the question of nature versus nurture, the possible anger over being a poor man just forty-five minutes away from the aristocratic estates, plain old bigotry, fear of the other - Jackie shook her head.

“The people out here just must be stupid.”

“Speaking of stupid,” Regina said, “Jackie, what street are we looking for?”

The role of navigator always fell upon the person in the passenger seat. Jackie glanced down at her phone. “It’s…hey!” She crossed her arms. “I am not stupid!”

Regina let out a quick exhale through her nose. “Alright, Einstein, just tell me the street.”

Jackie looked down at her phone again. “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t have cell service.”

“No cell service?” Lucille exclaimed. “It’s the year of our lord 2023, and there’s places without cell service?”

“Looks like we’ll have to do it like the pioneers,” Jackie supposed. “We’re trying to hike a mountain. Mountains should be easy to spot, right?”

Despite their names, Massachusetts doesn't have mountains. It has hills, some of them even reaching over a thousand feet.

Regina tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. “We can keep driving until we get service again-”

“Let’s stop at that house and ask for directions,” Jackie interrupted. Up ahead, a weathered cottage with two trucks rusting in the front appeared.

“I don’t want to get murdered,” Lucille protested.

Jackie glanced back at her. “What’s so spooky about stopping and asking for directions? It’s how they used to do it. Hell, I bet the people here still do it. And c’mon...”

Jackie motioned her hand between herself and Lucille, as if they were part of some super secret club. “We’re city-dwellers. These are just...hill people. Stupid farmers who like to shoot guns at black helicopters. We can deal with these rural people, Lucille. Who’s scarier - a stupid farmer, or the average crackhead on the subway? We have street smarts. If we get into any danger, which we won’t, we’ll know and we can skedaddle.”

Jackie leaned and raised her arms. "Besides, I'm packing iron. Two guns, in fact. I double-majored at the gym."

Lucille swallowed, pondering her words, but curiosity ultimately won out. How often did she get to talk with somebody from outside the highway corridors? After Lucille nodded in agreement, Jackie patted Regina on the shoulder. “That’s two votes for stopping.”

Regina sighed. “Alright. But I’m staying in the car, and I’m keeping it running.”

As the driveway approached, Regina slowed down and pulled into it. Now that they were closer, a woman became visible. She sat on a lawn chair next to a rusted husk of a truck, smoking a cigarette, drinking a Narragansett beer. Lucille frowned, her alleged street smarts thrown into disarray - the woman was barefoot, and nobody went barefoot back east. She wore a faded Bernie 2020 shirt and messy, unwashed brown hair fell to her shoulders.

She only gave the stopping car a passing glance before turning her attention back to her cigarette and beer. When the car finally stopped, and Lucille got out to join Jackie, she found herself thankful for the running car. Not for the escape avenue it presented, but simply for its noise. Everybody complains about noise pollution, but the silence out here actually made it hard to think. When all that background noise is gone, something in the body screams, telling you things are out of place, unusual and unnatural - but silence is the most natural thing there is. Lucille found herself not wanting to talk - she couldn't concentrate enough in the silence to shape her sentences. 

“Hey!” Jackie greeted the woman, who looked to be about college-age. “We’re looking for Mount Patuxet. We don’t got service out here, so can you look up directions for us?”

Slowly, ever so slowly, the woman lifted her head. At least with the crackheads, you can sort of tell what they’re thinking, the lethargic direction of their shambling, both in spirit and body. But this hill woman had the perfect poker face. Her half-closed eyes bore deeply through Lucille’s soul.

“Phone’s inside,” she mumbled, then lifted herself from the lawnchair. She headed up creaky wooden steps to the creaky wooden building and disappeared inside, leaving Jackie and Lucille at the bottom steps.

“She seems nice,” Jackie whispered to Lucille, who scratched her thigh to calm herself.

The door opened, but it wasn’t the woman. A man emerged, dressed in a ratty bathrobe and slippers, a scraggly beard adorning his face. Rosaries hung around his neck, and before he closed the door, music from some living room drifted out and into Lucille’s ears. A lone banjo backed raspy vocals strengthened by the sounds of a ghostly, otherworldly crowd, as if everyone was reaching up towards the singer, hands outstretched as they faced the final battle. 

They say in Harlan county, there are no neutrals there. 

You'll either be a union man or a thug for J.H. Blair.

Which side are you on, boys? Which side are you on?

Tell me, which side are you on? Which side are you on?

Lucille let out some kind of groan while the man studied them with a smile.

“And in Jerusalem,” he said, now looking east, “He made engines, invented by cunning men.” Standing on the top step, he knelt down to look at Lucille and Jackie at eye-level. He remained quiet for an uncomfortable amount of time, finally smiling with a full set of white teeth before speaking. “What can I do for you?”

He smelt of cigarettes and incense. Lucille let out a shaky breath, her curiosity disappearing within stomach-churning fear, while Jackie admired his bathrobe. “We’re looking for directions to Mount Patuxet.”

“Ah, I see.” He exhaled slowly while trees swayed in the breeze. Somewhere nearby, a fence let out a rusty squeak, while a dog briefly barked inside the house. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”

Lucille took a trembling step backwards. Jackie tilted her head and scratched it. “...uh-huh. Do you know the score of the Bengals game?”

The man kept his head still, simply tilting his eyes towards her. “The Browns are up by twenty.”

“Rats.”

The woman from before emerged through the door, phone in hand. “Straight down this road for ten miles, then a right on Shire Lane. Mountain will be on your left.”

“Thanks, boss,” Jackie said. Then she had a glint in her eye. Alarm sounds blared through Lucille’s head.

This bitch is gonna ask to use their bathroom!

Lucille’s anxiety turned into action via a slight elbow to Jackie’s ribs. She frowned and rubbed them, but the message got across.

“Ah, children, no need to fight,” the man said, his voice sounding distant, like it belonged behind an altar. “Save your strength for when we fight the enemy." He refused to elaborate on who he thought the real enemy was. Perhaps it was a strange thing to ask. 

Behind him, the woman nodded as the man continued his preaching, slowly moving his head towards Lucille. He kept his eyes on her, taking slow breaths, speaking just barely above a whisper. "Everything will be coming to a head soon. A country on the brink, torn in two. Tell me...which side are you on?"

The opening of Jackie's mouth earned her another a sharp elbow from Lucille. 

“Uh, I don't know...thanks for the directions,” Lucille concluded briskly, already stepping backwards towards the car.

“Thanks!” Jackie said in farewell, joining Lucille in the longest walk she had ever taken - twenty feet back to a running car. Before she slipped inside, Lucille heard a door creak and glanced back. From within the house, one by one, the inhabitants stepped outside, all of them barefoot and in faded shirts, their glassy eyes occasionally red-rimmed. Twenty total people from the hill country, young men and women, stared at Lucille. They shambled down the steps, not taking their eyes off of her, fanning out towards the rusted trucks and patchy grass.

For a moment, Lucille tried to ponder the circumstances of their own lives, how they got to this moment, but she decided to forget it - it’s hill country. She ducked her own eyes away and got back into the car. Without needing to be told twice, Regina drove out of there, leaving the house and its inhabitants to their business.

“They seemed nice,” Jackie said about a minute later.

“We almost got Charles Manson’d!” Lucille complained, her heart still beating from the adrenaline. “This is what happens when you interact with the hill people! You get almost murdered!”

“Almost murdered is still fully alive,” Jackie answered. “And besides, my danger sense didn’t go off, so we weren’t in any danger.”

“The man quoted Bible verses!”

“A lot of people do,” Jackie said with a shrug. "Look at my Twitter bio. Do not fear, for am I with you. Do not be dismayed-"

“There were twenty people at the house!”

“Probably just splitting rent. And who knows? Maybe the man has a lot of friends over for the football games.”

“He asked us which side we were on!”

“Well, I did ask him about the Bengals earlier."

“They were dirty!”

Jackie wagged a finger. “Ah, Lucille, aren’t you being a bit judgmental right now?”

Lucille groaned in exasperation. The unknown was scary, and they were deep in a land of unknowns at the moment, rolling hills hiding its own secrets, away from prying urban, coastal eyes.

“Well, Regina, what do you think of rural America?” Lucille asked.

“This is rural Massachusetts,” Regina corrected. “You can’t just lump all the rural people across the country together. You wouldn’t want them to lump us together with Philadelphia, would you?”

Lucille and Jackie shook their heads vigorously. If you're from Boston, you hate New York because you have to, but you hate Philadelphia because you want to.

“And there’s not even an ‘us and them’,” she continued. “We’re all just Americans. We’re just a bunch of loud people with a strange sort of charm about us.”

Jackie frowned. "I'm not loud."

Lucille ignored her. “Isn’t that, I don't know, kind of a bit too simple though?”

Regina shrugged. “Well, it’s America we’re talking about…’tis a silly place.”

They left it at that, but Lucille couldn't shake the dark feeling gnawing at her. Her fingers slightly trembled as she gazed out the window at the passing scenery. Rural and urban, north and south, east and west, American and American, all gazing toward that uncertain, increasingly dim future on a runaway train...

Which side are you on?