Stories About Corn

by Ri, Xesin

  “Goodnight,” she said to the stars and the sky as she made it home.

  She thought of herself landing safely on a ledge. Farran there to greet her. Smiles and tears decorating his gorgeous face. Her wings beating the air down upon him. His tears drying.

  “I can’t wait to break him all over again,” and she smiled. And she laughed.

  End of September

  You Spend More Than You Got, You Got Less Than You Spent.

  “Thank you for letting me ride with you, Sheriff Douglas. It means an awful lot to me.”

  “You’re welcome, but you didn’t need to get the governor involved—I would have certainly helped you out if you had just asked. Your brother was a friend of mine. He was a good man. When he died, this county lost one of its best.”

  “Thanks, that means a lot coming from you. My brother said great things about you and your service to this county. He gave you his best compliment by calling you a ‘hard worker.’ That means a lot to him. And here I am searching for clues about Mrs. Dean’s disappearance right where my brother died. I have to go to the very place my brother died—but when is law enforcement easy? And who wants easy. The risk and surprise are what make the job the job.”

  “I don’t think we can agree on that, Officer. I’d rather know a few things, like whether or not I’m about to meet a guy hopped up on something, carrying a full-auto something, talking about the end of the world, and acting and shooting at anything that moves like it is the end of the world. Give me nice quiet farm communities; that’s my kind of job.”

  “It wasn’t so quiet according to my brother.”

  “Hey, if things were perfect, there wouldn’t be any cops here at all. Illegals carrying guns, that Al Duncan character, and this Synad guy—you’ve been hearing about him in the news haven’t you? Real shady guy. When we get a little closer, you’ll see his fields, all torn up, weeds growing all over the place; he left the h. h. and the regular young stalks just cut up and laying there in the mud decomposing. Smells pretty terrible too. We’ve tried to fine him for leaving his land in such a dismal state, but we really can’t match his lawyers, so he gets away with leaving his land a mess. Looks awful and smells awful. I’ve already heard Illinois and Indiana are making laws against growers who leave their land like that. Your state, Iowa, seems to be dragging her feet.”

  “When you say, ‘growers,’ don’t you mean ‘grower?’ Synad’s the only grower to survive what the farmers are calling ‘the apocalypse in the h. h. market,’ right?”

  “Yes and no. ADD and Flint Farms did very well too. Both were well leveraged. Those laws were harsh, and they might be having some difficulties also.”

  “You know, I was talking with some of the farmers in Iowa, not h. h. growers, but just regular farmers. They said that it was suspicious that the ADD Corporation and the Flint Farms group did so well. I’d go so far as saying they seemed to think there was something of a conspiracy, yet all I hear about in the news is about this Ray Synad character doing things to his crops, pushing lobbyists, failed marriage after failed marriage. It seems strange. What’s his marriages got to do with his farms?”

  “Yeah, I suppose it is strange. Have you met Ray Synad?”

  “No,” said Off. Reingold staring straight ahead, watching yellow dash after cracked yellow dash pass by the car.

  “If you ever do—you’ll know he’s not to be trusted. He’s a snake that one. The FBI, the Mexican investigators, DEA, ATF, and the EPA—I’ve taken all of them out here, to the Synad farm, in these past months since your brother was shot there—and all of them distrust Synad. You’ve seen the reports too. And what the Feds don’t tell me and you, because we aren’t privy to that information, leaves us to sometimes work upon assumptions. I know it isn’t best, but when someone brings heat on themselves, like that—I’ve got a duty to protect the people of my county. I’ve got to figure some way of making sure crime doesn’t find a home here. These are good people. They deserve better.”

  Officer Reingold looked out the car window at the trees and fields and the homes they drove by. The sun was golden in the sky. A few clouds hung here-and-there, seemingly motionless against the background of the blue sky. The bright green of a wet summer made for a vibrant landscape despite row after row of corn and mile after mile of dusty yellow dashes and solid white lines painted on the old, faded asphalt.

  “Do you have children, Officer Reingold?”

  “Yes, four. Three girls and our last one was a boy. They’re 9, 8, 6 and the boy is 4. My wife said that’s enough, but I think she’d like one more for some reason.”

  “Very good for you. Nice family.”

  “Thank you, my wife did most of the hard work.”

  “That is how it is,” said Sheriff Douglas with a laugh.

  Sheriff Douglas moved in his seat and straightened his back.

  They came to yet another stop sign directing traffic at another lonely intersection. Sheriff Douglas stopped and then got going again without giving much notice to the empty crossroad.

  James noticed a building that had been an old church that had been converted into some sort of temple for some religious group he wasn’t sure of, maybe Hindu or something like that, lots of gods needing lots of worship.

  “You know,” said Sheriff Douglas, “if you go left back there, you can drive for a while and take a few turns and either get to Carthage, Illinois or Nauvoo, Illinois. You know either of those two?”

  “Nope,” said James.

  “Nauvoo is the place that the Mormons settled after they’d left Ohio and then had an extermination order placed on them in Missouri. They had to flee Jackson County, Missouri and came north to Illinois, ending up in Nauvoo. Joseph Smith and Brigham Young and their church set up shop in Nauvoo—I forget the exact year—back before the Civil War—1840s or so. The town’s got less than two thousand now, but back then, the Mormons had it up to twelve thousand or so. Imagine if they’d stayed. A place like Salt Lake City might be right on the Mississippi sitting right between Iowa and Illinois. Wild to think about that. Imagine the Italian gangsters and the Mormons battling for the soul of Illinois in the 20s. That would have been something. Bootleggers trying to run their hauls across the state, trying to get to the speakeasies in Chicago and St. Louis, while the Mormons are out there probably trying to get the boys in Springfield to outlaw liquor in Illinois before the Feds ever did nationally. That’d’ve been something’.”

  “What about Carthage?”

  “That’s where Joseph Smith was done. Shot, fell out a window, pretty nasty stuff really. Angry mobs, generally, aren’t a very nice way to go. They probably look at that as something like the way the Romans killed Christ.”

  James thought about this. “Huh, I didn’t know any of that. I’ve met plenty of Mormons. I just didn’t know they had a history here. I always thought they were coming east out of Utah as their home.”

  “What do you think about that story?”

  “What part?”

  “Smith’s part. He was promised safety. Killed by an angry mob. Angry because he’d changed Christianity and proposed polygamy, among his many sins. You think he got what he deserved?”

  James looked at the sheriff. Sheriff Douglas took his eyes off the road for just a moment to look at Officer Reingold’s face.

  “What do you mean ‘deserved?’ Since when is vigilantly murder ‘deserved?’”

  “I didn’t say he deserved anything. I was just asking—“

  “I know what you were asking. No. That is the only answer. We work for the law of the land. We follow the Constitution and try our best to figure out how to do that properly. You should know that. The law has its limits, but vigilantes are not the concrete any society needs to fill that crack.”

  “I think you misunderstood.”

  “I sure hope so.”

  “Look,” said the sheriff seeming a bit more settled than before. ”We’ve got a few minutes more. We’ve got some small towns we’ve got to get throu
gh and then some back roads and a pretty good drive once we’re actually on the property, so if you would like we can stick to the case; but it seems as if you’ve asked all your questions before we even got here; you’ve read the reports; you know what you know. I don’t even know why anyone would okay this trip in the first place.”

  “My captain thought that there might be something about the location that wasn’t in the pictures your people took after the fact. And you know this area. And both my brother and Deputy Rightendale were hired by you after a pretty good, long process. I know my brother, but he’d gone to war and come home and jumped right into his goal of being a cop. Then he became one of your deputies. You might have more insight into what happened that day than I do. It can’t be coincidence that within a month these murders happened here at this Synad property and then Miss Dean is gone. Then another month and Mr. Duncan is dead. And, yes, I know you and the Feds sent dogs out here, and I’m no bloodhound. But I want to take a look around anyway, and my captain agreed it might be worth the time to just see what there is to see. That’s all there is.”

  “But you read the reports my office made. We’ve talked, at great length. What more is there?”

  “I’ll be honest with you, Sheriff Douglas. I think that ADD has exerted an enormous amount of power to find out what happened to Mrs. Dean. So much, in fact, that I’ve been sent here, and you’ve been forced out here to check something out, again, without much good reason. I think they are grasping at straws, but who knows? I don’t know about you, but I think ADD is so tied with the growers and with the power brokers in our states that giving them even the appearance of total cooperation with their needs is something to be considered. And I don’t know what your political situation is, but I would guess you need votes to stay Sheriff Douglas in this county. If ADD decides they don’t like you then you wait and see if some young man shows up in your county trying to take your job with a barrelful of ADD cash behind his campaign. And I think you know this like I know this. It’s what we’re both doing out here, so let’s make the most of it and see if there isn’t anything we can find and tell them about. Sound good?”

  “Yeah. That’s right about where I was thinking too.”

  Sheriff Douglas stopped the car at another stop sign. The car to the right had gotten to the intersection first but upon noticing the sheriff’s car decided to wait a long interval. Finally, the man in the car drove his vehicle slowly across the intersection. The sheriff moved across the crossroad once the slow vehicle passed. The sheriff got back up to speed a few moments later.

  “Who do you support in the upcoming election?” asked Sheriff Douglas.

  “Um, you mean for president?”

  “Yep, that’s the big one.”

  “I guess I like Ron Paul pretty well.”

  “Really! Ron Paul! You Iowans always have your own ways of doing things.

  “What’s wrong with Ron Paul?” asked James perking up a bit.

  “Well, I’ll tell you that as a sheriff here in Illinois and Obama being our guy, I’m for Obama even though he’s pushing against parts of the Constitution, like Bush did, on some of the anti-terrorist stuff. But, getting that out of the way, I think Ron Paul is just fine if you want to take a chance. I‘m not big into taking chances; however, I’d rather not stick with things as they are if things can be improved.”

  “Running up debt? Wars we shouldn’t be in? You knew my brother was a big fan of Ron Paul, right? I wouldn’t have given the old man a second look if it weren’t for my brother’s enthusiasm.”

  “Really? Huh. Think you know somebody and then there’s that. Well, I guess I would have had to let Austin go if I knew that. No way a deputy could have that red flag and work for me,” laughed Sheriff Douglas cruising through a green light.

  James laughed and winced and added, “I guess maybe he would have been better off then. Working security at the mall or something, not the worst thing.”

  “Your brother was a good man. He died serving this county. People understood he was a hero. I don’t regret hiring him. I wouldn’t fire anyone for their political beliefs, unless they were a Nazi or communist or something awful like that.”

  “Why don’t you like Ron Paul?”

  “I should, I guess. Here in Illinois, with all the taxes, fines, fees, and the foreclosures in recent years, I sometimes think the side of our cars should read, ‘to protect and collect.’ I’ll be honest—I use that in my closed-door discussions with my bigger donors to keep their feathers ruffled. You can use that too—whenever you run for sheriff in your county.”

  “Thanks,” said James. “I’ll keep that one in mind.”

  “Look, politics are politics—people talk about how the world has changed since the time that the Constitution was written—really? What’s changed? We don’t enslave anyone anymore. Women can vote. Men who don’t own land can vote. Indians can complain about their ill treatment. Taxes have increased dramatically, which was a contributing cause of our very first war. Cars, planes, trains and bicycles have replaced feet, horses and carriages as transportation. Sounds like a lot. It’s not. Most of that is just transportation of people and information, nothing really, when you think on it. I promise people things. I promise that I will uphold the law. I promise I will do what I can to protect the farmers and their property. I promise that I will follow the law and do my best to protect people. Yet, we’ve got corruption in Illinois. One governor sits in a cell, and the next one in line wants to join up and join him, apparently because he was playing for all but the kitchen sink. The two parties fighting over who’s more corrupt, who’s more awful, who’s hurting our state most. Billions in debt. Schools needing money. Projects need money. Empty buildings. Empty million dollar projects. Did you know that a hundred years ago they were building manmade islands for the City of Chicago in order to give it more beachfront, have bigger parks? The Great Depression came along and the project was paused. It’s been about a hundred years that project’s been paused. Instead, you can watch those Arabs building their islands and hotels in the water, bringing in mountains of snow so they can ski without leaving their Islamist’s paradise. Boston dug a multi-billion dollar highway under its city. And we can’t move enough dirt around to make a few small islands. Caterpillar is here for crying out loud. We are a little more than thirty minutes from one of their main offices right now. Hillary Clinton wants people to think she’s more New York or Arkansas than Illinois.”

  “Where are you going with this?” asked James when the sheriff paused.

  “That’s the edge of his land.”

  James could see, a ways off, the sickly looking fields of Ray Synad’s farm.

  “You were right. Those fields don’t look good.”

  “Getting back to it is this: it would take a flood of soldiers, not armed with guns, but armed with honesty and the will power to do what is right. Men and women willing to work hard and fight for this land and this country, like our forefathers and even the Indians did.”

  James regarded the sheriff for a moment. He didn’t understand what was being said.

  “Of course we pretty much killed them,” said the sheriff. “But then again they sided with the British more than one too many times.”

  James stared at the fields full of debris. They looked like a tornado had torn through them throwing down every last stalk.

  The sheriff continued on his speech. “But it’s the same reason there are some kids still not adopted year in and year out. People have compassion and care and kindness, yet they are like children, screaming and crying when they see how hamburgers are made. From disgusting act of the calf’s birth, to the cow being fed, to the cow being slaughtered, to the cow being ground up, to the meat being delivered and ending up between two slices of bread, people are disgusted by life. Work has to be done. The hard work has to be finished and engaged in too. Politics isn’t an easy thing. Everyone likes to think they’ve got it all figured out. I did and then I got this job. All you got to do i
s help those that need help, spend the money on the right things, guarantee everyone’s rights, protect your country from outside threats and inside threats, make sure no one group feels too excluded, and evolve the government for changing populations, technologies, and land ownership. Then, if you get through all that, you’ll piss off—who knows how many people—get letters calling you awful names. The simplest mistake proves your life a total failure to this people. The simplest disagreement will bring hell down on your head. Discussing real issues in a detailed and sober manner tires and confuses the average voter. Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce—our divorce will be front page news. Your kids misbehave or break the law—that’s your failure, not just theirs. A business partner does something shady—he was your friend—your failure—you must have known. But men like us—men like us try our best to keep this country safe and secure. Men like us are willing to put up with all that to serve the people, protect the country we love, and help keep this country great. Right?”

  “Absolutely, somebody has got to be out there. And hell, I love this job. Always something new—never know what someone is going to do—or say when you show up; showing up is half the fun. Twists and turns of the profession, right?”

  Sheriff Douglas smiled and said, “Yup, I think that’s right.”

  “I see why you got this job—you love to talk. Good talker equals good politician, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah, I suppose it does. I like to think I’m not just a talker, Officer Reingold. I like to think my words aren’t just empty gestures repeated because they worked before. I don’t want to be known that way, as a ‘talker.’”

  “Actions are loud, sir. I like to say, ‘Words are only good when they command actions.’ I don’t think that’s from anything. My brother had a football coach who yelled at him once when my brother was late. My brother tried to explain. The coach just said, ‘Reingold, you always tell me things that will happen that don’t happen. Stop that.’ Not that inspiring really, but I always liked that.”