River Rules

by Stevie Fischer

  “Where’s the basic supply-demand analysis? This could place a big strain on the available water supply.” He tapped his pen against his cheek and read everything that might answer the question until his eyes felt like they were hemorrhaging.

  CHAPTER 27

  MARCO FRIENDED KENNY ON FACEBOOK WHEN HE GOT out after only serving half his jail sentence due to good behavior and over-crowding. Kenny started following him on Instagram. They bonded over Peter and their shared love of baseball. Marco bemoaned his cousin’s weak-hitting youth baseball team.

  “Dude, there’s tons of hitting videos online,” Kenny said. “Just start schooling them.”

  “Nah, I got a better idea. You the school.” Marco and Kenny stood side by side, watching batting practice at the minor league stadium in Hatfield. Every spring, the team offered cheap tickets to the earliest pre-season games, and Kenny had nabbed two from the break room at the police department.

  On a whim, he called Marco to see if he wanted to go. Marco, uncharacteristically, fell silent.

  “Hey, don’t do me any favors,” Kenny said. “Just thought it would fun, something different, man. I mean who doesn’t like the Hatfield Herrings?”

  “Fucking stupid name.” Marco paused for a few beats. “Ok, sounds good, bro. But I gotta say, you got cop written all over you. Gonna mess up my street cred.”

  “Oh, yeah? I won’t even say what you’re gonna do to my reputation.”

  They both started to laugh. “We gonna blow some minds, Officer KJ.”

  “Damn straight.”

  Marco’s cousin, Jose, pot-bellied and short, stared at Kenny for a long time when Marco brought him to the ball field. Jose, his muscular legs and arms testifying to his strength, barely lightened up when Kenny offered a handshake. Jose’s reservations about bringing Kenny on board could not have been more clear.

  “What’re you 6′ 3″, 190? You play in college?” Jose evaluated Kenny without emotion. Kenny’s fit and muscular physique in his T-shirt and jeans attracted a lot of attention from onlookers.

  “Club ball. You know, intercollegiate. I was good, but at a D-1 university, you gotta be great. Me—average stick, average arm, average everything. They would have kept me around, you know—for emergencies, but collecting splinters on the bench didn’t do it for me.” Kenny took off his sunglasses, so he could look Jose directly in the eye.

  “He can teach ‘em how to hit better. You got like no nothin’,” Marco said. “How many games you been shut out already?”

  “I don’t know,” Jose finally said. “But stick around if you want. Back there is good.” He pointed to some empty rusty bleachers baking in the sun.

  “Dude, everybody gonna think you like Immigration or FBI.” Marco laughed and gestured at all the anxious and cold stares from the crowd.

  “Yeah,” Jose said, shaking his head. “I won’t have no team on the field. Everybody gonna clear out.”

  Kenny shook his head. “It’s all about baseball. Just tell them it’s about hitting dingers. Hey, the field’s not looking too good.” He gestured at the crumbly rock-strewn infield.

  “I just raked it for like a half hour,” Jose said, wiping his sweaty face. “That’s lookin’ good, man. You wanna do it?”

  “Sorry, my bad.”

  Marco and Jose looked at each other and cracked up. “You so white,” Marco said. “Ima stand next to you, give you some protection.”

  “It’s a shitty field, but it’s all we got.” Jose walked away and whistled for his team to gather. Within minutes, boys and young teens in bright orange T-shirts surrounded him. When Kenny squinted, he could see the Dollar General patch on each shirt.

  “Wait ‘til you hear the cheer. Something lame like, ‘Go, shopping.’” Marco wiped his sunglasses off on his shirt and leaned his back against the rickety metal bleachers, so he could face Kenny. “You gonna do it?”

  “I don’t think he wants me to.” Kenny mirrored Marco’s sunglasses cleaning.

  “He just don’t want you to show up once and don’t come back no more. Kids never met no one like you. A cop who’s a regular dude—some kinda white unicorn. You know, a alien from a distant planet.”

  “You’re so full of shit.” Kenny grinned at Marco and shrugged. “If I do it, you do it.”

  “Duh. But how come you not some hot-shot coach in Bridgeville?” Marco waved at a giggling group of pretty young women and shouted greetings in Spanish.

  “Bridgeville overload, dude. I’m fried.”

  “I feel you.” Marco nodded and whistled shrilly through his teeth as Jose’s team took the field. “Play ball!”

  CHAPTER 28

  DURING PETER’S REGULAR EVENING WALK WITH Brutus, Lori Welles called. “So, I’m at a meeting today, representing a client, and who do I see? Brock Fucking Saunders. You will not believe this. He’s on the Water Board at the New England Council Consortium.”

  “Wait. Brock is what? And there’s something called the Water Board? This is a shitty practical joke, Lori.”

  “Swear to God. He’s some kind of permanent consultant. Not finance, obviously. I think he’s barred for life from anything involving investments.”

  “What the fuck does Brock know about water? I thought the scuzzbag was busy running his old man’s company into the ground.”

  “Looks like Brock’s got something going on with the Consortium. My client says Brock went from like six months on the Zoning Board in Old Bridge to a political appointment with the Consortium.”

  “Unbelievable.” Peter yelled so loud that Brutus turned around to see if he was all right.

  “Don’t kill the messenger. Hey, you were supposed to come over for a drink last week and you weaseled out.”

  “So tired, Lor. Like to the bone. I’m working my ass off. Thank God for Marco.”

  After hanging up with Lori, Peter thought about all the changes he’d seen in the past few years in Bridgeville.

  “Brutus, first the goddam builders buy up all the river views. Then they grease the palms of the greedy pigs in town government. And that includes looking the other way on just about everything. Think of all those ridiculous mansions up by Devil’s Falls.”

  For generations, kids bent on getting high, drinking and having sex hung out at Devil’s Falls Dam. The beautiful reservoir surrounded by tall pine trees stood far enough away from the dam that most of the partying took place down the hill. Its pristine depths supplied water for surrounding towns and fell under the Consortium’s jurisdiction. It set rates and billed residents for their water consumption. New neighborhoods sprouting near the dam boasted starter homes at $500,000.

  Marti got the call to set up a tasting of California wines for one of those new neighborhood’s ritzy summer block party, right up on the ridge near Devil’s Falls. The homeowners bitched at her non-stop about the ignorant old-timers who didn’t understand the importance of protecting the newcomers’ expensive appraisals and tranquility.

  “I don’t get how anti-townie these people are,” Marti said to Lori as they cuddled on their bed after making love.

  “Yeah, there’s always been some tension between new and old, but never as bad as now. It’s downright nasty.”

  “So, what’s that about?”

  “Is this like tell me a story?” When Marti closed her eyes and nodded, Lori tenderly stroked the lion tattoo on her chest before launching into an explanation.

  “OK. It’s almost a cliché, like old versus new. The new families moving here are pretty worldly and know what they want: great schools, good retail, a pretty downtown, safe neighborhoods.”

  “Sounds reasonable to me.”

  “But think about just how much their wants butt up against being frugal, saving money, not being showy, not being greedy—you know, traditional New England values.”

  “Yeah, but whatever happened to live and let live?”

  “Stop being so naïve. Change is guaranteed to be expensive. Plus, the message ends up being insulting: what was good eno
ugh for you and your kids isn’t good enough for me and mine.”

  Marti got up on one elbow to make her point. “If you have young well-off families moving into new neighborhoods, you have to change. Build new schools, pass expensive education budgets. It’s obvious. The town approved these developments so of course they had to know the infrastructure costs.”

  “Please. Peter’s right about most of the town officials.”

  “They’re not very good at running things.”

  “To quote the famous Mr. Russo, half of those clowns couldn’t run a race.”

  Marti laughed. “Wow, get over here, you. Open space preservation is at least getting to the top of the to-do list.”

  “Big bucks, baby girl. And all those new neighborhoods use so much fertilizer, pesticide, insecticide, whatever, for their precious emerald lawns. I mean, that land is ledge.”

  “I like our weeds. They’re kind of neon.”

  “Let me finish my rant. All the underground sprinkler systems they’ve installed are gonna run the reservoir dry if this drought lasts much longer.”

  Bridgeville’s small farmers had PhD’s in water management and utilization. At the Russo farm, Jeff and Sean enlarged the ponds to capture and store rainwater. He also added micro-irrigation techniques to conserve even more water. But, agricultural interests didn’t carry the same weight any more.

  “We’re an endangered species. Where’s our protections?” Jeff’s loud complaints found traction. People who loved the rural vistas and cherished the classic New England landscape sought him out. They listened attentively to farmer after farmer who, voices sometimes cracking from the pressure, demanded lower taxes and urgent action.

  Jeff and Peter organized potluck dinners to get the farmers to agree on an agenda.

  “We can bitch and moan forever. But the fact is John and Jane Q. Public need to get educated about farmland’s importance in New England’s history and economy,” Peter said. “If we don’t do it, who will?”

  “Just from talking to people we know, about 40 percent of farm owners around here are over sixty. The big question is what happens next?” Jeff addressed the roomful of anxious faces. “Does the farm go to the next generation to work the land or do they sell for beaucoup bucks? We need more protection from developers and banks just waiting like vultures.” Jeff waited for dissenting views. There were none.

  Town politics grew uglier. The property tax rate climbed steadily, prompting the farmers by the river to petition to secede from Bridgeville.

  “Didn’t we fight the American revolution about taxation without representation?” Jeff asked.

  “Don’t you have anything else to do? Get a life,” the head of the Zoning Commission demanded after a particularly contentious meeting about approving a right-ofway for yet another gas pipeline.

  “Why are you so blind? How many gas pipelines do we need? Mother Nature isn’t making any more of what we got. The river used to be a toilet. Now it’s clean, and you want to kill it with natural gas.” Peter grew so agitated that his spittle sprayed onto the other man’s shirt.

  But after the Zenergy debacle, which the Hatfield Gazette called, “A spectacular failure of town officials to protect Bridgeville from “corporatocracy,” Peter tried to lower his profile.

  CHAPTER 29

  THE NEW ENGLAND COUNCIL CONSORTIUM FACED an imminent threat unlike any other in its long history. Money, or more accurately, lack of it. The executive board dithered, procrastinated and kicked the can around the table until it was no more than a little nub of metal. But the problem only grew more acute.

  Revenue from its core businesses—water and land—had started rolling downhill so fast that they were practically in a freefall.

  The Consortium had been approached from time to time by other water and power companies about selling tracts of land or water rights, but nothing ever materialized until Eautopia knocked on the door. When Eautopia decided to jump into the New England water market, it came first to the Consortium, which, uncharacteristically, listened to the pitch. But true to form, the protracted pre-negotiation rituals barely inched forward until Brock Saunders came on board.

  Brock now looked like a game show host in a hotly contested battle with Father Time. His brownish-orange sprayed-on tan gleamed. His skin looked smooth and unwrinkled, his thinning hair glossily shellacked like an apricot helmet.

  Brock’s three failed marriages disemboweled his finances. After resurfacing as the face of Saunders Construction around the time of Peter’s Zenergy caper, he made a splash in local Old Bridge politics, running for the Town Council on a platform of cost-cutting and belt-tightening. His narrow loss resulted in a pity appointment to the Zoning Board. Within months, the old-boy political machinery, desperate to make the Hatfield metro region a natural resource player, got him an appointment to the Consortium. His marching orders were clear; bring home the bacon.

  Eautopia’s patience had been sorely tested by the Consortium’s inertia. When Brock learned Eautopia was being courted by a rival for a multi-million dollar bottling deal, he saw his moment.

  “Talk to us,” Brock urged. “Come back to the table. How can we sweeten the pot?”

  “Are you for real?” Brock’s Eautopia contact asked.

  “Present your plan to the full Board. I guarantee you won’t be sorry,” Brock said.

  Within a few days, Eautopia’s senior vice president of Marketing spoke to a specially scheduled meeting of the Consortium’s upper echelon of management. Not a single woman or minority graced the room.

  “Gentlemen, we have a great opportunity in front of us, a mutually beneficial one. For Eautopia, the deal has obvious benefits. For you, with water usage falling, and lower profits for water, this deal smooths out your revenue stream and expands your product line. I’ll leave you now to discuss this among yourselves.” With a head nod at Brock, he exited.

  “Those goddam energy efficient washers and dryers. They don’t just use less electricity, they use less water. And then there’s the dishwashers, the toilets, the showerheads. They’re a threat to our very survival.” The Consortium’s Chief Finance Officer snapped his monogramed cufflinks and surveyed the room.

  “Don’t forget wastewater treatment, sewers, EPA compliance, and all the thousands of other things we need to stay on top of. Money is getting tight.” The Chief Operations Officer played tag-team. “We need to float bonds to upgrade everything. Our rating is going to be in the crapper. We need this cash infusion, or we don’t have a chance with all the new state, regional and federal requirements. The penalties for non-compliance are catastrophic.”

  “Raising prices won’t cut it,” the now florid-faced CFO declaimed the obvious. “Not this time. The problem is our current business model doesn’t work anymore. And we don’t have the manpower to fully analyze the deal. It’s complicated, and we’re short-staffed.”

  Member towns balked at the rates. The State Legislature had no less than three bills in the House and Senate about oversight and opening up the Consortium’s books for scrutiny. The Great Recession had body-slammed the big aerospace companies, their contractors and their subcontractors all the way down to the small mom-and-pop businesses. Consumers still barely had a pulse. Add the evisceration of the submarine base plus an outflux bordering on stampede of high-net worth residents. Palliative care and a fire sale of assets beckoned unless the Consortium struck a bold deal.

  Brock spoke up. “Pretty soon, our member towns are going to get it through their thick skulls that they don’t need us. Our contracts aren’t locked into perpetuity. They’re not completely stupid.”

  “We need this deal. I move for a vote. Eautopia could sign an agreement with another entity; we have to be careful and act fast,” the CFO said. “We need to hire someone to run the numbers every which way from Sunday.”

  The Consortium never enticed any first-tier MBA graduates despite using the top fifty schools as the generous benchmark. Nor did the second-tier, charitably categorized as
the next fifty on the US News and World Reports rankings, submit resumes. Although once in a blue moon, in a trend completely opposite to the region’s prevailing brain drain, a local newly minted MBA came to the Consortium’s attention. They rarely got an interview, but their resumes were printed and kept in a giant file. And that’s where the Consortium found Josh, courtesy of his mother.

  CHAPTER 30

  CLIMBING THE STEEP HILL OF CHURCH MOUNTAIN, Peter saw a feather wafting down from the sky, and had a flashback to the eagle feather he caught before his Zenergy arrest.

  “It fell from a sick eagle; the king of the flock was dying. I should’ve known what it really meant, Brutus.” The mossy rock face had sent more than a few people to their deaths, so they kept a healthy distance from the edge. “It was a cry for help.”

  After Rachel issued her own cry for help getting the food truck up and running, figuring out who to bring on board for helping on the truck still generated some controversy.

  “I’d like to give Paco a try, too. Not just Marco.” Peter knew he was pushing his luck with Jeff.

  “You can get tax credits for hiring ex-cons, you know,” Rachel said.

  “You mean like your uncle?”

  “Or me.” Rachel glared at Jeff.

  “You don’t have a record, sweetie,” Jeff said evenly. “We start with Marco. He’s got to have a valid driver’s license, obviously. Still not comfortable with this, I gotta say.”

  “C’mon, Jeff. Do you know how hard it is for these guys to get a decent job? We can make drug testing part of hiring him.” Peter knew Marco would agree. “Think about it. You write up a contract and he signs it as a condition of employment.”

  “Yeah, but I’m not just talking about one test. He’s got to agree to random testing. I’m not doing it otherwise. And if he fucks up, he’s gone. Zero tolerance.” Jeff felt his daughter stiffen. “Not you, Rach.”

  “Oh, yes me. I want the same deal. You can’t discriminate.”