Grant was doing his own share of politicking. He was spending as much time as possible with the “fence-sitters.” These were the people at Pierce Point who still hadn’t decided whether to have a trial of the tweakers, who by now had been in the makeshift jail for three weeks, or whether to turn them over to the authorities. The fence-sitters were not weak and indecisive people. They were like Mary Anne: decent people who didn’t want to overreact or kill people who were innocent. Mostly, though, the fence-sitters were going through varying stages of normalcy bias. It was just too mind blowing to think about imprisoning and then killing your neighbors, all without the involvement of the police or courts. It was an extreme thought, and one that forced a person to confront the reality that there were no more police or courts. Decades of assuming the police and courts would take care of things – and that anything else was uncivilized vigilantism – took a long time to shake. More than three weeks, in many, if not most, cases.
“How is that toe coming along?” Grant asked Theresa Swanson, one of the fence-sitters.
“Much better now that your wife got me some antibiotics,” she said with a big smile. Theresa had a very bad hangnail that had become infected. Lisa took care of it with some of the “fish” antibiotics that Grant had purchased before the Collapse. They were labeled for use on aquarium fish, but had the exact same ingredients as human anti-biotics at a fraction of the price, and were available without a prescription.
Grant gave Theresa a thumbs up and thought about whether he should say what came to his mind. Oh, what the heck, he thought. “We try to take care of people out here,” he said, in a not-so-subtle reminder that the Patriots at Pierce Point had the ability to provide people things while the Loyalists could not. Lisa went over to Theresa and talked to her about her toe.
By the time Grant and Lisa got to their usual seats – right up front because Grant often got up to speak at the little podium that sat on a card table at the front – Rich was getting the meeting going. It was 7:00 pm exactly. Rich liked to start meetings on time. Not only did it mean the meetings ended earlier; it showed the crowd that Rich was the leader of the discussion.
“OK,” Rich said, “tonight is the final vote on whether to have a trial or to turn them over to the authorities in Frederickson.” The crowd murmured, most of them saying variations of “it’s about time.”
There wasn’t much of a “debate” feel to this meeting. All the arguments had been made, and remade, dozens of times before. People knew where almost everyone stood. But there were still a handful of fence-sitters both sides were fighting over.
“Is there a motion to have a trial?” Rich asked.
“So moved,” said Dan, who had been briefed by Grant that he would make the motion and do so by saying “so moved,” which sounded so official.
“Is there a second?” Rich asked.
“Second,” Grant said, which was also part of the plan. Grant was the judge and carried some authority as a result.
“Any discussion?” Rich asked, knowing the answer. He looked to Snelling.
Snelling raised his hand and looked at Rich for permission to speak, which was something he didn’t do in the past, but now he made sure to show his best manners.
“I speak against the motion,” Snelling said. “We’re not savages. We’re Americans.” He let that sink in; even though Snelling hated traditional America, he would appeal to people’s love of what used to be America to get what he wanted. “America is about due process and fairness,” he said, “and that means courts and laws. And the only real courts and laws are in Frederickson.” A few impolite people let out loud sighs.
“Even though things have been unsettled for the past few weeks,” Snelling said, “the laws have not been repealed. There is only one set of laws in this county, and they’re carried out in Frederickson. That’s the American way. We’re still Americans.” He stood silently.
That’s it? Grant thought. We’re still Americans? That’s the best you’ve got, Grant wondered. He spoke too soon.
“I’m not the kind of person to threaten,” Snelling said in his best attempt to sound tough, “but imprisoning people – even ones who have been accused of terrible things – is kidnapping. And shooting them by firing squad or whatever is murder. These are serious crimes and will be punished when order is restored in the near future. Please think about that: anyone voting to hold a trial is an accomplice to kidnapping and probably murder.”
That stirred up the crowd. Snelling had hinted at this in previous debates, but now with his “I’m not the kind of person to threaten,” statement, it seemed like he was announcing he would try to have the authorities arrest people.
Grant tried not to be obvious and look around at people’s reaction, but he couldn’t resist. He turned his head around and saw a few of the fence-sitters looking disturbed at the thought of being prosecuted for kidnapping or murder.
Snelling stood and remained silent for dramatic effect. He wanted everyone to think about the seriousness of this decision. After a few moments, he looked at Rich and slightly dipped his head in a gesture that he was respectfully turning the floor back over to Rich.
“Thank you,” Rich said. “Any further discussion against the motion?”
The hands of Snelling’s followers went up. Rich called on them and they said roughly the same thing: they didn’t want to go to jail as an accomplice to kidnapping and murder. They didn’t want their kids or grandkids to see them in jail. Yadda, yadda, yadda.
“What jail?” Doug Smithson finally said. “There is no jail in Frederickson. If there is, it’s full of actual criminals. But, I heard they can’t feed prisoners so they’re letting them go. They’re not going to put all of us in jail. They can’t. Don’t you people get that?”
Grant wanted to show the fence-sitters that he and the others supporting the trial respected the rules of the meeting. He raised his hand. Rich called on him by pointing to him.
“If I may,” Grant said, trying to sound like a lawyer because he now wanted such credibility with the fence-sitters, “Doug brings up a good point. There are no traditional jails. There are no traditional courts. Everyone here knows it. We’re it, folks. We’re on our own.”
He started to walk around the room to get close to people in the audience. “Hey, who here has seen a mailman or received a letter?” Silence. “Who here has even seen a police officer in the past few weeks? Remember the speed trap right at the entrance to Pierce Point? Remember that? Every couple of days, usually around 4:00 in the afternoon, they were there. Remember? Not anymore. Am I right?”
Several heads nodded. Most of the people in the room were largely over their normalcy bias, but some were still suffering from the last bits of it. Normalcy bias takes a while to get over, and almost everyone never fully gets over it. There are always little lingering effects. Someone might seem to be over it, but then something reminds them of the past and they start to want to deny that things have changed. It’s a process. How people deal with it varies person to person. To combat normalcy bias, even the last little lingering effects, Grant found that people needed concrete examples of how different things were compared to before. The speed trap was one such example.
But Grant had been making the same point for weeks now. Tonight was the big vote. It was time to try a new angle, and one that would grab the last fence-sitters.
“Think of Frankie,” Grant said, to the surprise of everyone. “His face is still swollen up and he can hardly move his mouth. His broken jaw has set crooked. He can only eat liquids, if he wanted to eat, but he doesn’t because he’s still going through withdrawals from the meth.”