“What about a mental ward,” a woman asked. Grant remembered that incoherent older woman they saw that afternoon during the census. Grant and Rich hadn’t picked out a specific place for that.
“We’re open to suggestions on a place for the mental ward,” Rich said. “It should be close to here,” he said, referring to the Grange, “so we don’t have to transport people far. An abandoned place is OK, as long as it is livable.”
“Transparency is the next thing,” Grant said. “Everyone gets to see how everything is decided. Period. Pretty simple.”
There was a pause. “Well,” Grant said, “no one wants to hear a lawyer talk all night so, if there aren’t any more questions, I’m done. How we do our justice system out here is for you to decide, as long as it follows the Constitution and is simple and transparent. I guess you could decide to have a system that didn’t follow that, but it wouldn’t involve me or my men.” That was the first time Grant had thrown down the term “my men” and the concept that the community would have to fight the Team if they went astray. It was the right time to hint at it. Grant wasn’t going to participate in a dictatorship or vigilante gang. The residents needed to know that. The short speech he gave about the Constitution and decency was the time to make that point.
It was quiet for a while. Rich introduced the next topic.
“OK,” Rich said, “we have the Chief here to bring us up to speed on the beach patrol. Chief, take it away.”
Chief Boswain’s Mate (retired) Shane Eaton came up to the front. He had on work clothes, not hunting clothes.
The Chief went up to the podium and addressed the audience like he was giving a briefing to the captain of a ship. “We have twelve volunteers so far. All good men and women.” He introduced those of them who were at the meeting, which included Paul. It was good to see Paul had a solid role. Two, actually, because he was the metal fabricator for the gate and probably other projects, as well. It looked like Paul had lost some weight and was beaming with confidence. He looked happier than he had since Grant met him.
“We’ll have one boat on the water at all times,” the Chief said, “including at night when it’s a little trickier. We have plenty of boats made available to us. I’ve been told to get with Drew and make sure those donations are recorded,” the Chief said as he was scanning the crowd for Drew. He saw Drew, they waved to each other, and the Chief kept going.
“We will always have two in the boat for safety. We’ll cruise the water and into the open waters of the Puget Sound a little. We’ll try to conserve gas by drifting whenever possible. We’re there to detect any unauthorized craft, to board them if necessary, and to act as a deterrent. As far as authorized craft go, we are asking residents to stay off the water unless they absolutely have to be out on it. Try to get in touch with the Grange here and they can radio us that someone from here is on the water. I understand that there will be fishing and crabbing going on. We’ll work on a system of identifying friendlies. Speaking of fishing, we think that one of the reasons outsiders might encroach on our waters is to fish and get crab, clams, and oysters. We’ll tell them to leave and make an impression on them to not come back,” he said with a smile.
“In addition to the two on a boat,” the Chief said, “we’ll have at least one man with a radio walking the beach roughly parallel to the boat. The beach walkers will be looking for any unauthorized people who have come ashore. They will also be a deterrent. The beach walkers will be well armed and they will need to know how to walk up on someone undetected. So far, my beach walkers have regular hunting rifles. I’d like to upgrade if possible, but I understand that AR-15s are in short supply right now. I can use people for this who don’t know boats. So if you’re a hunter or, better yet, ex-military, I’d love to have you as a beach walker.” Grant noticed that this was the first request for better armament he’d heard. He thought about that basement full of ARs and how much they’d be appreciated. But they were Chip’s, so it was up to him on how, or if, to use them.
“I can’t pay you, of course,” the Chief said, “but my wife is arranging to have meals for the beach patrol. My neighbors down on the point are pooling their resources to do that.” The Chief waved at Drew again so Drew would know to get that recorded. “Our neighbors have plenty of deer meat and we’ll be fishing while we’re patrolling on the water. Get used to lots of fish, crab, clams, and oysters if you’re on the beach patrol. If you’d like to volunteer, see me after the meeting. Remember, no boating experience is necessary for the beach walkers.”
Rich asked the Chief, “How you doin’ on gas?”
“Oh, pretty good for now,” the Chief said. “We’re taking the gas out of our cars and trucks. We have nowhere to drive now. That will last us for quite a while. We’ll keep an eye on it and let you know.” More for Drew’s record keeping. Grant thought that Drew would need a helper or two and that gave him a political idea.
Grant said, “You saw the Chief motioning to Drew about keeping a list of who’s contributing what. There will be a flood of that. I bet Drew could use some help. I also think it’s important for there to be transparency on this. I want everyone to know the records are being kept fairly. So anyone and everyone can help Drew keep records or inspect them at any time. We don’t have any secrets out here.”
Drew gave the thumbs up. Grant asked, “Drew, could you use some help?”
“Oh, yes,” he said.
“If you’d like to help with recordkeeping, go see Drew after the meeting,” Grant said. Some people nodded and smiled at this. It was important that people didn’t think Grant and his relatives were running everything. Grant tried to always think about how the former government did things—secrecy, favoritism, stealing, thuggery—and do the exact opposite.
Rich could tell that the people, especially those standing, were getting a little tired. They’d been at this a long time.
“How about we take a little break and start up in ten minutes,” he suggested. Everyone seemed to appreciate that. Besides, the socializing that people were doing at these meetings was as important as the “business” at hand. People were meeting up and sharing resources voluntarily. No government needed. The more people did on their own, the less Rich and Grant had to worry about.
Chapter 112
The Ayes Have It
(May 11)
During the break, people were talking about having their neighbors over for dinner, having beach parties, which were excuses to share food, and talking about siphoning gas from their own cars for someone else to use. They were volunteering for the beach patrol and to help Drew with the recordkeeping. They didn’t need government telling them what to do; they were just doing what made sense.
Not everyone was sharing, though. Some of the residents stood off by themselves and didn’t want to talk to people. They looked like they were taking everything in, but not willing to share any information. They were probably figuring out who had what and weren’t going to tell anyone about their stuff. Grant was trying to memorize the faces of all the people who were abstaining from the sharing. He had a hunch they’d be trouble in the future. Political trouble and, possibly, security trouble. He needed help keeping track of them. He motioned for Pow to come over and told him what was going on. Pow agreed to help memorize the “selfish” as he called them.
Since this wasn’t socialism out there, people were free to be “selfish”—but only if they kept that selfishness to themselves. That is, if people wanted to be self-sufficient and not share, but didn’t ask for anything from others, that was fine. But Grant just knew they wouldn’t be that way. The people not sharing now would run out of whatever they had and then would demand that the community take care of them. That was the danger: the selfish demanding that someone else take care of them.