Stories About Corn

by Ri, Xesin

  He put the key in the ignition. Since the Synad farm explosion; since Sheriff Douglas told him to never breathe a word of what happened, or else; since he realized the Flints and the ADD Corporation and even the Department of Agriculture had started looking for him; since he was getting visits from FBI agents asking vague questions; and since the Mexican government wanted a full investigation into the matter at the silo, Al had found turning the key in his ignition had become an adventure every single time.

  He turned the key. The engine roared on and settled into idle. The radio started playing an old, sad country song about a lovie-dovie thief and his not-so-sure girlfriend.

  Al let out a sigh of relief.

  He noticed that the device on his mirror that let him contact emergency authorities was green. He stared at it trying to remember whether it was usually green or red or even on. He couldn’t remember. He’d never used the thing before. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever even signed up for its service.

  A black car pulled into the parking lot kicking up a thick cloud of dust as it cornered through the gravel towards Al. Al reached down and held the handle of his pistol as the car neared. He wasn’t sure whether to run or gun. He just waited until he knew who it was and what they wanted.

  The dust covered Impala skidded to a sliding swinging stop. Two young men jumped out of the car.

  “Yeah, yeah,” yelled the first.

  “That’s how you do it. Just like Junior! Just like Junior last week!”

  The two joyriders ran into the diner.

  Al could see them sit down at a table. A pretty young waitress walked up and gave them each a great big hug and kissed the taller one. Dora walked by them and gave a friendly smirk at the trio.

  Al Duncan found he was breathing normally. He was getting used to these little spooks. Soon not a prankster in the world would be capable of getting him going.

  Al dropped the shifter back into drive and took his truck out of the lot while the Impala’s dust was still rising up into the air. Two turns and less than a mile later, he was back on 90, headed west towards the Illinois-Iowa border and far, far beyond.

  It didn’t take long for Al to become bored. When he realized that passing yellow dashes in the road, passing by mile after mile of empty winter fields, not even filled with snow or ice, was making him drowsy, despite a very real fear that at any moment anything could happen, he told himself how tough he was and how this was nothing. “Not even that damn sheriff can push me around,” he said.

  He turned the radio up.

  He lit a cigarette. He couldn’t remember when he’d had one last, and he smoked it like it was made of gold. “At the prices tobacco products were, it might have been cheaper to smoke gold,” he thought. “Taxes,” he said out loud. He wondered if there was some way that would be possible, to smoke gold. He puffed and turned the radio up even more to drown out the sound of the road.

  He wondered if he should take his gun out and put it somewhere where it would be a little more out-of-sight if he was ambushed but still where he could grab it quick in a shootout.

  He wasn’t sure how much of it really mattered. How many miles really mattered when Sheriff Douglas had access to all sorts of databases and information systems specifically designed to find the lost, the missing, and the hunted?

  The road passed by under his truck. The cold air made the exhaust of an older car look like smoke in the drowning sun. A cowboy had stopped singing on the radio. The ads that followed the song were about a community college that worked around your schedule; an airline company that had your comfort and peace of mind at heart; and a new local bar that promised to “…Serve country beers brewed right here in America, and we play music from right here in America.”

  He didn’t notice it fully right away, but something was wrong.

  He checked his lights to make sure they were on auto and would click-on soon when night had fully fallen.

  He looked and checked his gun. He looked behind the front seats and looked for something that was out of place.

  When he checked his mirrors, trying to look down the body of his truck, he noticed that the little green light on the rearview mirror was now blinking. He was sure it hadn’t been doing that.

  “Hello,” said a woman’s voice.

  Al Duncan turned down his stereo.

  “Hello, this car has been reported stolen. If you are the owner of this vehicle, please identify yourself and give us your password within the next forty-five seconds, or we will initiate an electronic limiter that will not allow this car to be driven above fifteen miles-per-hour and then will be shut down.”

  Al sat there a moment, as he continued down the road, dumbfounded. He opened his mouth and wasn’t sure if he should verify anything. He shut his mouth, waiting for the voice to try again.

  “You have thirty seconds, driver.”

  “Um, this is Al Duncan. I own this car. I never set up anything with your company, and I certainly wouldn’t have used this service.”

  “That is not the name on this account, sir.”

  “I am the only owner of this truck. It’s my truck. I bought it several years ago, like seven, from the dealership with only forty-eight miles. I am Al Duncan. I am the only owner of this vehicle. This is my truck.”

  “Sir, do you know your password or passphrase?”

  “No, I never set this up. I didn’t want this service. I don’t want it now.”

  “Sir, I need, at the very least, the owner’s passphrase or password so that we can know if you are legally driving this vehicle.”

  He was arguing with a disembodied voice. He was in his car, running from God-knows-what, and was about to get his car shut down and police to show up and ask questions due to a secretary on a mike. Illinois databases would light up and Sheriff Douglas, the Flints, Synad’s people, and a million others would know he was running. If they knew he was scared then they would think he was compromised. If they thought that—he was soon to be a very dead man.

  “Listen, I did not set this up. My name is Al Duncan. I am driving my truck. I do not require assistance or help of any kind from any form of emergency services. My truck is running perfectly. I did not steal my own truck. Maybe this alert has been confused. This is a brown Chevy. It has a eight cylinder engine and had the added suspension package when I bought it. I have paid for it in full. My license plate number is J32RE—something, something but definitely the J32RE part. This isn’t the right vehicle. Do not stop me. Do not shut me down to idle. I am in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Sir, I must inform you that this vehicle has been reported stolen, and you have not validated your identity. We will now be employing an electronic limiter. Please pull over and do not block traffic as this vehicle will slow gradually.”

  “Don’t you hear me? Don’t you dare stop me! Don’t you dare!”

  Al Duncan watched his cruise control click off and the “rpms” gauge drop down to an idle level. The car began to slow.

  “I am in the middle of nowhere. There’s nothing but empty fields and freezing temperatures out there, and the sun is going down. I am going to freeze, you idiot!”

  “Police are on their way, sir. You won’t have to wait long. The engine will still run, so you will be plenty warm. Please remain in the vehicle and follow all of the officer’s prompts.”

  “I will. Thanks. Thanks a lot for your professional courtesy.”

  The voice was silent.

  Al Duncan caught, as he rolled along the shoulder of the highway at fifteen miles per hour, a sight of his eyes in the mirror. He saw his own fear. He pressed the gas pedal over and over trying to get the engine to kick back up, but nothing happened. He slammed his palms against the steering wheel.

  “Damnit!”

  A car pulled up in front of him on the shoulder about two-hundred yards ahead of him. It rolled slowly.

  Another car pulled onto the shoulder a quarter mile behind his truck. The car crept ahead, towards his tailgate.

  �
�Hey, will you be alerting me when the police get here, so I can make sure to surrender peacefully? I wouldn’t want there to be any misunderstandings.”

  The voice said nothing.

  The front car was not a police car.

  The second car was approaching.

  He was getting squeezed.

  Al Duncan grabbed his gun.

  He shut down his truck, turned off his lights, and jumped out of his truck. Running out into a small wooded area beside the road was the only option. There hadn’t been an exit coming up, but there hadn’t been one close behind either. The unknown ahead was better than the empty cornfields behind him.

  He ran as fast as he could. He heard car doors open and shut behind him.

  The cold air seemed to be rushing all around him.

  There were no flashlights or shouts for commands.

  No one tried to drive the cars off-road trying to follow him into the little woods.

  But he was, undoubtedly, being followed by more than three men from the slams of the car doors.

  Spotters might stay in the cars.

  Al slowed as the running was getting harder in the dark light and over the frozen earth. He tried to see where to go next. The Flints, Synad, the sheriff, the United States Government, the Government of Mexico: they wouldn’t be playing games and wouldn’t just quit because he’d run away. These were people paid well to do this; they were expected to succeed. If these were government men, he hoped, then there was a chance he could simply surrender. Anyone else would likely shoot him on sight. There was the chance this was revenge—but by who? How far could he run in the cold? How far could he go into the little woods? Had they brought rifles?

  There was a dark shadow of a man blocking off Al Duncan’s run. He wouldn’t be able to double-back into the cornfields and go back east. He would have to continue west.

  Inside the little woods he felt no safer. He was in darkness. He was unprepared. A gun would mean little. He was losing sight of the highway between all the naked trees.

  He stopped and listened. He could hear nothing but the road. It was an early-December Illinois night. The temperature was dropping and a light breeze cut Al’s face.

  He started forward again.

  A tiny bright light from something like a firework lit up near him. Then another and another. The little sparks burned hot and very bright. They arced when they lit and burned making him realize someone was trying to spook him. The delay of the sparks was purposeful. Someone wanted the hot little sparks to light near Duncan and not the person tossing the little things.

  When the sparks burned, they were like a little bit of sunlight. When they were gone, he tried to blink away the dots and lines left by the hot light.

  “Shit!” he said, realizing what they were doing.

  He stopped again.

  A big spark burst into life before him. He saw three moving shadows. Two were clearly in the shape of men.

  A rock hit him from behind. He turned and the big spark went out as he looked towards where he thought the rock was thrown. Another rock was thrown. Then another. And another.

  The rocks were big.

  Another rock hit him in the chest.

  Al ran from the throwers. He rubbed his eyes as he ran trying to adjust to the night and the darkness. He outran the throwers of rocks and sparks.

  Ahead, he could see that the trees ended abruptly. He would run out into the dark field and turn and fire at any shadow the crescent moon gave him. He’d take a few down.

  He neared the edge of the woods. He drew his gun preparing to spin the moment he got far enough out to be clear of the rock throwers and far enough that he could spot the moving shadows. He hoped one of them would make a fatal mistake and launch a glowing spark and give him all the targets, but he could only hope they were that stupid.

  He ran into the dark, the deep dark, dark. The ground wasn’t soft. Burned-in lines and dots littered his vision. The ground was hard and rocky here. It wasn’t a field at all. As he took his next step, still in full momentum, Al Duncan realized that there was a very serious possibility the darkness beyond wasn’t a darkened field but maybe a lake, but he would have reached its beach. A lake would be icy or muddy, and it would slope. The ground didn’t feel like that. The ground was hard, like concrete. And, as he took that next step, the image of a huge hole, a mining facility or quarry, lit up his mind; and even before he landed one step and the next, his foot found no earth beneath it.

  Al didn’t cry out. He only thought of who would take care of his mother now, certainly not his wife, maybe his cousins.

  He couldn’t see a thing, but he saw his own fearful eyes in his rearview mirror realizing he was doomed. The sudden stop at the end of the fall made a quick snap Al was vaguely aware of.

  Four shadows loomed above, pressed out of the night by the crescent moon. They waited and looked down below. The body below was already beginning to freeze with the night. The shadows stepped back and were gone.

  Early-January

  The Old World

  Mr. and Mrs. Flint sat there staring at Mr. Synad in his great big office. Apparently, they had said what they had come to say to Mr. Synad’s face while he sat in his own big, gray-stone colored office on the seventh floor of a brand new office building featuring floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a scenic vista that included a parking garage and its surrounding parking lot littered with all the maroon, gray, and black cars accountants love and a few bare trees, set in for aesthetic purpose, near the outskirts of beautiful Aurora, Illinois.

  “That’s it?” said Mr. Synad at last. “That’s all? You came here for that. Who the hell do you think I am? Where do you think you are? I know how to deal with unions; I know greedy—these are my people—I’m one of their people. Your problem is you think you’re special because you’ve got some cash and lived around here a little longer than I have had an office here, but I know what you’re up too. You aren’t as clever as you think you are. So why don’t you stop wasting my time and sell me your business because you don’t have it in you to take me down; and you sure as hell don’t have enough support from the unions to do it either—because the new deal’s going to get them their money—you got me?”

  “I hope you aren’t suggesting you bribed anyone?” said Hilary Flint in a low, quiet tone.

  “Bribe? I don’t need to bribe people who get rich making money off the hottest new thing the markets have ever seen. Yeah, I know about your IPO idea; and it won’t happen as long as I’m around. I’m blocking even that. I’m blocking everything you’ve got until you recognize we are in competition, and we three are going to get rich off of h. h. corn by being competitors, not archenemies.”

  “Mr. Synad, there is no reason to take this personally. We’ve done nothing to you,” said John Flint.

  “Do you two have kids?”

  Mr. and Mrs. Flint raised their eyebrows a bit with restrained, but real, surprise.

  “Why? You wonderers you, isn’t it obvious. I’d like to know what the kids of two true-blue psychopaths look like. Maybe in the future, I’ll be able to figure out if there’s some sort of physical trait so that I can see that and know that person is just like John and Hilary Flint, and I can cross the street to protect myself from them.”

  “From what I hear, you may not be free to be on the street so soon, Mr. Synad,” said Mr. Flint.

  “Oh yeah? You’ve heard wrong.”

  “Mr. Synad,” began Mrs. Flint. She stopped. Her thin lips pursed together and stuck from the mismatched blood-red lipstick she wore. Her upper lip stretched when she started again. “Mr. Synad, you are spread all over the place, and your business is simply not big enough to handle the strain. Especially with the sabotage at—“

  “Whoa,” interrupted Mr. Synad. “Sabotage? There is no police report saying that—“

  “Even if there isn’t,” said Mrs. Flint forcefully, “The illegal immigrants who died there—all carrying guns. Mexico isn’t a superrich nation with a l
ot of free time on its hands, yet it has taken the time to run its own investigation into what happened that day on your farm. We don’t know, you—probably—don’t know.”

  “Hey, we are going to find out what happened there. And I swear to God, if I even smell the stink of you two gray dogs anywhere near there, it’ll be war. So, I hope you have your house in order, little Lady Gray.”

  “Mr. Synad, don’t talk to my wife like that.”

  “He speaks.”

  “Mr. Synad, Al Duncan is dead, committed suicide just last month when the heat was getting a little hot and with him goes any real knowledge of the exact—“

  “You forget Sheriff Douglas was there,” said Mr. Synad.

  He was hot. These people were here to destroy him. They had come here. They had sat here. They were simply trying to take whatever they could get, but they had been refused; and it dawned on him: “There is something else they came for.” There was very little chance of a buyout or a takeover or a merger or some other aggressive or subtle trick that would make his money theirs. They wanted something else, something they came in person to know or get.

  Mr. Synad wanted to lean or recline. He wanted to take the weight off his hips and lower back, but he wasn’t going to move until the next insult.

  “Mr. Synad,” said Mr. Flint. “We, the three of us, can at least agree, right here in this room, that those October events, like Mr. Duncan’s death; the fires two seasons ago; and the more petty issues of stealing workers and managers from each other’s crews and farms is small in comparison with what will happen if we don’t mount a resistance to the large corporations that are trying to get into selling h. h. corn along with its products and by-products. We need to join forces, Synad. Otherwise, we are doomed to failure.”

  Mr. Synad felt that this was the perfect moment to lean back. It was a lie; but a lie is the proper reaction to lie, thought Ray as he glared at Mr. and Mrs. Flint. The two of them sat there, in their gray suits, hers no less rough than his, with searching eyes that waited too patiently for such an important deal. Ray thought, “Money is everywhere. Land is everywhere. Why do they specifically need mine?”