White Picket Fences: Homeland Security in a small town and other tales of The Great American Westerly Midwest

“White Picket Fences”

  … Homeland Security in a small town, and other tales

  of The Great American Westerly Midwest

  by Mike Palecek

  Copyright 2013 Mike Palecek

  Original artwork copyright Monty Borror

  [Tommy Michael Moskowitz, a kid]

  Well, I’ve got to hurry.

  They’re building a new fence.

  This one’s over behind Foos Foods.

  It’s me, Tommy. How you doing?

  I’m peddling as fast as I can. Somebody said there’s negroes on the construction crew.

  And girls.

  They’ve been building fences all summer.

  They have to, it’s the law.

  There goes The Swarm, ‘bout a million little kids, a whole bunch. Cars are backed up for three blocks. It’s worse than the train my mom says.

  “Hey, Cleo. Hey, Cleopatra.”

  Those two are brother and sister. One’s a cat. Cleopatra’s a dog. They’re always together. Maybe they don’t have anybody else.

  I’m following The Swarm. They’re going over yards, fences, down alleys.

  The fences most people have around their yards by now don’t stop The Swarm. It goes under, around, over, through anything — right through a house sometimes, back door to front, taking all the food inside, like locusts.

  “Moon Walking!”

  She doesn’t see me. I’m going too fast. Nobody can probably see me. I’m flyin’.

  She’s the head librarian.

  She’s arguing with Don the cop. He’s got a corner post under his arm.

  “Hey, Don!”

  [Robert S. Thompson, older man on bench on Main Street]

  Well, it’s true.

  Everyone is putting up fences.

  Christopher, or Cristoph, as I believe he has asked his parents to refer to him, our high school student state legislator, was instrumental in getting a bill passed that mandates personal fences.

  To go along with the national north and south border fences, the fence now being constructed around the state, and those that will soon be separating counties.

  It’s all part of Homeland Security.

  Fences around towns.

  Keeps us safe.

  I feel pretty safe.

  I guess.

  Safe as the next guy.

  I do have the bedroom window open a crack all winter, though. I’m not sure how that all works, but they say they’ve heard of some folks going to sleep at night and never waking up. I’m not quite ready for that, just yet.

  Christopher says that if we’re going to all that trouble to keep people out of the country and then we just let them traipse around wherever they want, that just defeats the purpose, I suppose.

  I’m not going to watch the fence building.

  I’ve seen lots.

  [Nona, the waitress]

  Last winter the highway department put up snow fence out by the highway like they always do. It keeps snow from Canada or Russia or wherever from blocking the road.

  This time they put razor wire on top.

  I guess it’s permanent.

  Everybody in the café, oh, hello, I’m Nona, everyone in here these days is talking about the fences, fences, fences.

  Everybody likes them.

  They love ‘em.

  They don’t have any choice.

  If you don’t put up a fence around your property you go to jail.

  But if it keeps everyone safe, that’s what they want.

  Safe from what?

  Wind from Russia, maybe. I dunno. Let me think about it.

  They paint the fences, put up lights, wreaths, paint pictures on them.

  They just love ‘em. Just love ‘em.

  Can’t imagine how we ever got along without them.

  “Commies!”

  Oops, that just came out.

  Now everyone is looking out the windows and under their tables.

  But that’s something the fences might keep us safe from.

  Do they still have commies?

  [Tommy]

  I’m going fast now, really fast.

  I can just barely still see The Swarm. I hear sirens.

  It’s got to be Don. The new National Guard trucks don’t have sirens. He must have spotted The Swarm.

  I’m gonna stop. It’s no use.

  I like the new stop signs.

  My mom says there are big bees coming up from Mexico to get us. I was just headed out the door and she was still talking when the screen slammed.

  I’m pretty sure she wasn’t talking about The Swarm, something different.

  Fences STOP Terror. That’s what the signs say.

  See?

  All they had to do was put the two stickers above and below the STOP.

  Gutner had to do that. I rode along on a whole Saturday in the back of the city pickup, keeping the papers from the sticker things from flying out.

  Well, seeya.

  Hey! Hey-Don! Don!

  [Robert S. Thompson]

  It’s been a long, hot summer.

  Many dark and stormy nights.

  There’s now a palpable chill in the air.

  When I sit out here on my bench I wear a wool top coat on some days. Other days the sun shines bright, but still the warmth it provides does not match its luster.

  Some trees are already golden, some others still green.

  The children are back in school, for what reason I have no idea.

  I have my fence around my home. Got that done just this past week, finally.

  I have not been out to see Abu Iowa.

  Some have said it’s lovely.

  Some say it’s just a prison. Like all the others.

  You do not see drug dealers around here, that’s for sure.

  There were none before the prison was constructed, either, but you cannot deny there are none here ever since as well.

  Most people feel even safer, knowing it’s there.

  Some have seen white vans pulling in there with individuals inside in turbans and towels and sombrero’s. I doubt this account, but an associate of mine said the drivers of those vans have heads shaped like human excrement.

  Aliens, perhaps.

  Or not, but still, it’s odd.

  It is much safer here since the controlled movement ordinance was passed by the council.

  You find that you really don’t need to be out and about at all hours. You budget your time.

  Yet get used to it.

  After awhile you don’t notice it.

  [Nona]

  Hey, good morning!

  The special today is, oh, let me check again.

  I’m putting out these new Open Your Eyes posters, one for the front window and these little ones at the tables.

  It’s bacon and eggs, and you get toast and coffee with that.

  Moon Walking, she comes in here, doesn’t want a fence around the library.

  She’s been fighting it.

  She and some of the wing nuts who come in there to read.

  She doesn’t have one at her house either, I guess. Her mother must be kind of weird, too.

  The ones who don’t put up a fence get visited.

  There’s guys from the Legion and VFW and the Tuesday Night Bowling League, the Roy Scouts, that come to the house, sometimes it’s after midnight.

  I heard once it was five in the morning.

  After tha
t they put up the fence.

  Somebody said something about Moon Walking.

  They reported her, I guess. That’s what I heard ‘em say at breakfast a couple days ago.

  They said it’s the name.

  She can’t be from around here.

  Which is all well and good, but then why don’t you just leave then, if she’s not from here.

  Anyway, that’s what everybody says.

  My parents came from Germany and Ireland, well, my grandparents, and that would really be Germany and Ireland and Norway and Netherlands.

  They came here fair and square. They didn’t tunnel under a fence, or go over a fence, or around a fence.

  They walked right in through the front door.

  They didn’t have to sneak and they didn’t need to hide.

  They held their heads high.

  [Tommy]

  Hey, it’s me.

  Me.

  Tom-my!

  You know.

  Know what’s on tonight?

  Umm …. Watch People Mow, How Big Is Your House, Big Hamburgers, and Mom Fixed The Bathroom.

  Everybody’s watching.

  Somebody said they saw The List.

  Somebody had it and they saw it.

  It’s called Christopher’s List, named after the high school kid legislator who lives in the house with the hoop with the glass backboard on Ninth Street.

  Some people are on it.

  They said Moon Walking is on it.

  On the top.

  Robert S. Thompson here.

  At your service, as it were.

  Well, now that’s a new one.

  It says here in the Past-Bugle that the fences are an excellent idea and that there is a brand new ingenious idea about putting up a giant mosquito net over the whole country to keep out aliens.

  Some of the citizens’ patrol, the Roy Scouts — all the members are named Roy, or change their name to Roy in order to be admitted, or get deputized as Roys.

  Well, they are starting to wear bee tender masks, head gear.

  Individual fences.

  Ingenious.

  They say it makes them proud to be an American.

  I can see how it might.

  The giant universal mosquito netting is kind of an Eisenhower Interstate Highway Project Thing, on that scope and scale.

  Should be quite the deal.

  There is also some plan in the works to do something about the wackos who sit in the library reading the