Showdown in the Economy of Good and Evil

by Jarl Jensen

  Munanire shook his head.

  “Basically it’s just a fancy ham and grilled cheese sandwich. You work much with pork back home?”

  “My family would prepare berbere often,” Munanire said eagerly, “whenever we would host gatherings.”

  “Perfect, because usually our first tier of upgraded dishes is all about the ham. We never seem to have any trouble getting pork around here.”

  “Perhaps I could spice up the dish with some paprika, because berbere is—”

  “You’re gonna want to leave the paprika in your pocket,” Nora cut in. “You wouldn’t believe the dietary demands around here. Whoever said beggars can’t be choosers was a goddamn—” She shook her head and changed tack. “Anyway, better to keep it bland as possible.”

  Evan set his hand on the pickup counter, hoping it might remind the chef of his presence. She ignored him, which was probably for the better, since Evan quickly noticed that his hand was shaking from the anxiety. Mr. Smiley had suggested a take five. But how long had it taken Evan and Fred to run up here? And how long to talk to Oscar? Five minutes was nothing. The camera would be back any moment now. Evan had to ask her now. Or as close to now as he could manage. But she would never say yes. Would she?

  “Anyway, if you learn to make this glorified ham and cheese to where people start asking for it, that dish becomes your dish, and you can add it to your business. Then you can start learning how to make new things, and when those get in demand, you add that to your business, too. Does that make sense?”

  Munanire grinned and shook his head.

  “Every time we sell a croque monsieur, the profit goes to you.”

  Now the line cook nodded his head back and made a delighted sound.

  “Listen,” Nora said, “if you want to do well here, it’s not going to be about the taste. I’m sure you can spice up a dish just fine. What I’m looking for is presentation. If you can make a ham sandwich pretty, I’m all about it.”

  “Then I will do exactly that, Miss . . . Nora.”

  “Excellent. Then keep after it. Because if you master the presentation of enough dishes, maybe I’ll bring you along as a line cook at the restaurant I’m planning to open in town. And there, you can make real food. Good food. And for that matter, real money in addition to your Farm Bucks.”

  Evan could see that news of this restaurant impacted Fred Rogers in a much different way than it did Evan. At the promise of a new restaurant in town, one that paid real money, the auditor made a face like he’d been struck with indigestion. But for Evan, the news caused his heart to flip. Talk of putting down roots of a local-restaurant level of permanence meant that Nora had in fact decided to forgo New York, and Evan was altogether fine with the idea of having her stick around.

  “Yeah, okay, what?” Nora said, finally giving Evan at least a portion of her attention.

  The brain inside Evan’s head did that thing where it gasped and clutched its midsection like it might keel over from the desperation of trying to remember what the hell it wanted to say. Given her grace and poise and beauty, Nora was intimidating enough to Evan in just about any setting, but here in her kitchen, where she was queen of all she surveyed, the effect seemed to double. Nora Pastor was a sweet, kind, dewy-eyed girl, but behind that counter, she gave Evan the distinct impression that one slap from the back of her hand would knock him straight on his ass.

  Any minute now, 60 Minutes is going to find you again. Think quick, asshole. Before Evan’s brain could remember what it had delivered him here to ask, Nora lost interest and moved on to Fred.

  “Who’re you?” she said.

  “Fred Rog . . .” Fred started to say before tailing off, equally flummoxed by Nora’s commanding presence. He stood there with his head down as if what he’d really come to do was examine his notebook for an uncomfortably long time. “My name is Fred,” he finally blurted.

  “Hey, Muna,” Nora said, elbowing her line cook. “This is Fred.”

  “Hello, Mr. Fred,” Munanire said dutifully.

  “Hey, Fred?” Nora said.

  The auditor picked up his head.

  “How can we help you?”

  The question seemed to remind Fred that he was a human being with two feet on the ground and a singular mission to attend. “I’m with the IRS. I’ve come to audit—no, not audit, but rather, just sort of examine—the Farm’s financial records. There’ve been some reports, and—”

  “Reports?” Nora cut in. “You mean, like, complaints?”

  Fred returned to examining his notebook.

  “You see, Ev?” Nora said to Evan.

  Evan held his breath. He loved the way she would call him “Ev.”

  “I told you those self-proclaimed restaurateurs in the city were threatened by this operation. Bet it was one of them that called in this complaint.”

  “I’m not at liberty to say,” Fred managed.

  Nora chuffed. “I’ll bet someone called up and said there are people on this Farm making money and getting housing and they’re not paying taxes. That right, Fred?”

  “I’m not at—”

  “Liberty to say,” Nora finished for him. “Yeah, we got it. You see, Ev? If I know one thing, it’s the people of Savannah. I told you they wouldn’t like what was going on. And now here we’ve got Fred showing up and raising the stakes.”

  To Evan, it looked almost like Fred felt honored to be spoken about in this way. He quickly deflated, however, at what Nora said next.

  “That’s pretty dumb, Fred. You know why?”

  The auditor’s notebook demanded his attention once more.

  “It’s dumb because what we’re doing here has absolutely nothing to do with the IRS. You told him about the Farm Bucks, right, Ev?”

  Evan nodded, having a hard time holding back his smile. He absolutely adored it when Nora would go off on one of her tangents.

  “It’s like I was just telling Muna here,” Nora said, nodding to her new line cook. “Here, look at this.” She motioned for Evan and Fred to join them on the other side of the counter.

  After a smack of the back of Evan’s hand against Fred’s chest, the little auditor followed his host through the swinging double doors and into the kitchen. Prior to that moment, Evan would have thought it impossible for a room to get any hotter than it was in the dining area, but here he learned that he was wrong. How Nora and Munanire could work back here, unsweating and unperturbed, soared quite well beyond Evan White’s sense of credulity. He was so fascinated by it that he failed to notice the presence at the window between the kitchen and dining area. Mr. Smiley and Handlebar Stephen had returned, camera rolling.

  “What do you see here, Fred?” Nora asked, pointing to the giant pot simmering on one of the industrial-sized stoves along the western wall. Tongues of heat licked along the edges of the pot, slithering up and past the bubbling brown contents.

  “A pot,” Fred said.

  Nora gave Munanire a deadpan stare. “Brilliant.” She slid her soft hands into a pair of overlarge potholders and moved the pot onto a stainless-steel prep table so that everyone might observe its contents.

  “Is that, what?” Fred stammered. “Beans?”

  “It’s red beans and rice,” Nora corrected. “You know why I hate this meal?”

  Fred shrugged.

  “Because I have to make this terrible stuff every day.”

  Fred blinked.

  “But you know why I love it, Fred?”

  Fred shrugged.

  “Because it’s basic. Cheap. And at the same time, it’s incredibly nourishing. We can make this meal by the vat load every day and then give it away with the bed all our residents pay for every night. For one Farm Buck, you get a bed and three square servings of this bubbling brown garbage. You know why that’s brilliant, Fred?”

  Fred’s shoulders had apparently tired of shrugging, because this time, he rubbed the side of his nose.

  “The residents call this Shit-Bowl. You might think I would hate having
the meals I prepare with my own two loving hands compared to human excrement, Fred, but I completely love that name. Care to guess why?”

  A sigh escaped the auditor’s lips.

  “Because that’s the reaction we’re going for.” She winked at Evan.

  Evan was so excited about the wink that he failed to notice how she glanced past him at the camera and on-camera personality. She was aware of how they were being filmed, even if Evan was still too keyed up about his question to follow her cue.

  “We want this stuff to be completely nourishing, yes,” Nora continued. “But we also want our residents to get to where they just can’t stand it anymore. Because when they can’t stand it, they start working to improve their lives. Instead of just lying around being consumers, they start thinking, ‘Hey, if I can just earn an extra Farm Buck—just one measly extra Farm Buck—every day, maybe I can start eating ham sandwiches instead.”

  Fred blinked at Nora.

  “You get it?” Nora said. “These Shit-Bowls are motivation. They make people want to think of ways to earn more money. This terrible food has done more for the entrepreneurial spirit around here than anything Evan and the other nerds could ever cook up in the admin shed. No offense, Ev.”

  Evan beamed. There was genuinely and truly no offense taken. Conversely, listening to Nora speak so glowingly about a system he had helped design filled him with a sudden and probably unearned confidence—one that caused him to ask the question he’d been dying to ask since the moment he opened that pristinely white envelope with the fine stationery inside.

  “So, I’ve been invited to this party on Saturday night,” he heard himself saying. “It’s on Jekyll Island. Bunch of rich guys get together every year to celebrate the founding of the Federal Reserve. For some reason, they thought it might be fun to invite some representatives from the Farm. I think Justin’s going, and I’m sure he’s bringing Connie, but I don’t know because I haven’t had a chance to talk to him yet.”

  When he’d finish spouting all this, he looked up expectantly. Munanire and Fred cocked their heads at him as Nora stared at him with a blank smile. No, not at him. Past him. He realized this slowly, and turned his head to follow her gaze, already fearing what he would find. Yep, there stood Mr. Smiley, looking uncomfortable, and Handlebar Stephen, grinning into the viewfinder as he adjusted his lens.

  All at once, Evan realized two things. The first was bad enough: that he had been so nervous about this moment that he had managed to explain the situation without asking the key question. The second was that he had done so on camera. For a heartbeat, his embarrassment was immeasurable. Then it occurred to him that there was nowhere to go from here but up. He’d already made himself look like an idiot on video. What would it matter if Nora also turned him down?

  “I was wondering if you’d be my plus-one,” he said so quickly that there was no possible way he had come off as cool as he’d hoped.

  The smile immediately disappeared from Nora’s lips. She looked flustered. Taken aback. Uncharacteristically nervous in front of a camera. Suddenly she was pawing around for her potholders and returning the beans to the stovetop.

  “So, um . . . ,” Evan said, his heart pounding in his chest. He didn’t think he could take another second of waiting.

  Evan had known Nora Pastor for almost a year now, and this was the first time he had ever seen her tongue-tied. “Yeah, so . . . um . . . I don’t, uh . . .”

  Flustered, Evan gave Fred another smack on the chest and motioned for them to leave. Maybe if they fled before she could finish, the footage would be so choppy that not even the famed editors at 60 Minutes would be able to string together a coherent rejection story. Besides, who wanted to wait around to be punched in the gut with a no? Evan had faced enough of that in his life. Right now, more than anything in the world, what he needed was to reaffirm his position on this Farm by showing Mr. Smiley, Handlebar Stephen, Fred Rogers, and eventually the viewing public the brilliant thing he’d created.

  “Should we go check out the admin office?” he asked, failing to sound disaffected by Nora’s impending rejection.

  “Yeah, um, okay,” Fred said, and God bless him, he moved faster than Evan had seen him move all day. It seemed to Evan that the auditor had seen rejection like this before, as he clearly shared in his withering distaste for it.

  One after the other, they retreated through the double doors and into the mildly less oppressive heat of the dining area. Evan looked to where Handlebar Stephen and Mr. Smiley stood, disheartened to find them both holding their attention in Nora’s direction.

  “Wait, where are you going?” Nora called, her lovely face appearing from the other side of the pickup counter.

  Evan sighed and stopped. So she was going to make him stand there and listen to her turn him down. Why did women always make you do that?

  Nora removed her potholders and dropped them on the counter. “What should I wear to this party?” she asked.

  Mr. Smiley listened. Fred stood by Evan’s side. Nora had gazed at him in all her earnest beauty and said yes. The camera rolled. In all his life, Evan White had never felt quite so much like flying.

  Chapter 5 Jesus Saves

  What determines the value of money? In the modern American economy, the value is calculated based on levels of inflation or deflation, factors that the Federal Reserve attempts to control by raising or lowering the interest rate. But what really determines the value of money? Simple: demand.

  —Justin Wolfe

  In this her fifty-first year on earth, Meryl Johnson had stood before many congregations, but bless her heart, she couldn’t recall one even half as frustrating. This class she had dubbed “Savings 101,” and true to form, her students had arranged themselves into cliques that huddled on either side of a line of empty desks running straight down the middle and demarking one clique from the other.

  She could only imagine how this mostly race-based division would look on 60 Minutes. But there she went, fantasizing again. Why would 60 Minutes want to come into this classroom? To watch her talk about savings accounts? Riveting television there.

  Still, there was a chance. The rumor going around said that CBS had sent a team to film a piece on the Farm. And depending on who you believed, they had sent either Stacey Lawler or Pete Smiley to do the interviewing. Meryl desperately, achingly hoped that it was the latter. For one thing, Lawler had been the one to interview her for the piece on the church Meryl ran all those years ago, and if she squinted hard enough, she could see a case to be made that Meryl owed the downfall of said church to the airing of said piece. So screw Stacey Lawler. Also, Pete Smiley . . .

  Then there she went, fantasizing again.

  Anyway, none of this would look good on camera. There on the left sat the military veterans, and on the right, the immigrants. No one in this room had called the Farm home for longer than six months, but they’d known one thing for certain since their very first day: in this place, kind of like on the streets—and kind of like in prison, for that matter—you kept to your specific, clearly defined social circle, because Lord, it just seemed safer and more comfortable that way.

  There were the Vets and the Immigrants, then also the Addicts, the Outpatients, the Consumers, and many other smaller cliques and subcliques with more nebulous names. If you’d served in a war, you made friends with the Vets, and pretty much only the Vets. If you’d immigrated to America from another country, carrying with you a dream and a painfully small amount of money in your pocket, you aligned with the Immigrants. If you were a little funny in the head, everyone called you an Outpatient and tended to steer clear. The Addicts formed friendships based on their daily meetings and their decidedly harrowing shared experiences. And if you proved unwilling or unready to contribute any actual work to the Farm, the others branded you a Consumer, and either celebrated or shunned you depending on your desire to trade your Farm Bucks for their goods and services.

  This was true of the men, at least. For the women—
far fewer in number at the Farm—there was pretty much just the one clique: the Women. The Women tended to get along just fine, settling their squabbles within their own camp and banding together on many of the Farm’s most successful entrepreneurial pursuits. Meryl enjoyed a deep sense of pride for the Women, even if her status as a teacher made her less of a fit in the clique than her biological sex would naturally allow. Most people thought of her more as an Administrator than a Woman, even if you couldn’t find a longer tenured or more dedicated actual woman on the Farm.

  In any case, no two cliques butted heads more readily than the Vets and the Immigrants. Why that would be, Meryl couldn’t quite figure, but it was always true, and today made no exception. More than one argument had broken out already, even though every man in this stifling, stench-ridden little room shared a common cause. All of them had come to learn the ropes on how to better manage their money. That was where Meryl, a former Bermuda-sloop-having stock trader turned evangelical preacher turned bankrupt evangelical preacher turned homeless lady decidedly bereft of the luxury weekender’s yacht, came in. She could talk money management. What she couldn’t talk was male relations.

  “I didn’t watch three of my buddies die in Kandahar just to listen to you spout about what this Farm owes you,” one of the Vets shouted across the aisle.

  “Do not talk to me of Kandahar yet again,” replied one of the Immigrants. “I have told you how many times now that I am not Afghani? I am from Jordan.”

  “Jordan, Afghanistan, what’s the difference?”

  “There is a large difference, my friend.”

  “Buddy, I ain’t your friend.”

  “We are all friends here, are we not?”

  “No. We ain’t.”

  And so it would continue while Meryl stood there, wondering how she could have ever thought that teaching would be an easier gig than evangelizing. Even if her failed church in Jersey had called a ratty old strip mall home, at least everyone paid attention to everything she said and no one ever argued—while she commanded the pulpit, anyway. At pretty much every moment outside actual church services, they argued constantly. Now that Meryl came to think of it, that was probably why the church had flopped. That or Stacey Lawler’s 60 Minutes piece . . .