Chapter 12, To vote or not to vote - rewrite

Bumpersville, 1984

"Lunch be at noon, come if hungry," Billie said to her patron. The occasional borderer she had recieved throughout the years rarely stuck around long enough to chat with nor bother to hang around enough to learn anything about her. She had learned to shut herself off from most of the world and to guard herself with care. This older gentleman was a little different. He said he was passing through and needed a place to rest for a spell but wasn't in any hurry to leave. Of the locals still left, Sheriff Tate and the widow Hostetter where the only other faces she saw on any regular basis, and neither was that much to speak of as desirous company.

"Ok, I'll see about that then," the man said as he exited the apartment.

Solitude regained, Billie waited in silence for the widow to return for her serving dishes. Every day without fail the widow had been bringing Billie her daily meals. For as long as Billie could remember the widow was chef and bus boy for provender and she didn not have need to cook for herself. The daily habit was such that she never asked why, only came to expect it. The widow was always punctual and like clockwork at the stroke of Nine AM came the knock on the apartment door.

"Come," Billie said.

The Widow Hostetter entered and nodded to Billie and headed straight for the kitchen. Soon the clang of dishes in the sink punctuated the silence. There had been a time when Billie wished she could just do a little for herself but to convince the Widow of her self reliance and need to clean for herself was an impossibility. The Widow would stop and stare at her, a look of consternation and pitty upon her face such that Billie needed to quickly retreat from. Now Billie just let the woman do what the woman insisted upon doing.

The Widow's three times daily hustle and bustle was Billie's only human contact aside from the disagreeable intrusions of Sheriff Tate. He dropped in now and again with the excuse that he was checking up on her though she never believed him. He would open the door to the apartment without knocking and just make himself at home for an hour or two then leave. Billie stopped trying to tell him he needn't bother looking in on her. It didn't really matter what she told him, he had his way of looking at things and that was the only way to have them looked at by anyone. To argue, not something that Billie had opportunity to practice in her solitude, was to talk to a brick wall.

The Widow finally emerged with an armfull of tupperware containers of the leftovers from breakfast and with a slight nod to Billie took her leave. The apartment was once again thrown into peacefullness. Billie often enjoyed the silences like these. Though her life was only infrequently interrupted by visitors such as her lone tennant, having grown up in this silence she enjoyed it.

As Billie sat in her easy chair and nodded off to sleep the door opened to the apartment and shook her awake.

"Howdy there Billie," came the annoying squeak of Tate's voice.

"What you want, Tate?" Billie snapped in her usual tone.

"I'm jus' checkin' up on yees, seen that you had a visitor an' thought I'd better see that you was ok," Sheriff Tate replied in his usual condescending tone.

"You checked now, you can go now," Billie replied and stared at the Sheriff with cold eyes.

"Always th' warm welcome," the Sheriff chuckled. "So, how long he plannin' on stayin'?"

"He payed fer a day, din' ask his plans," Billie retorted.

"Well, I suppose I'd better go find out fer myself then, dun' want no outsider causin' trouble like back in the old days," Sheriff Tate stated and turned to leave.

"Trouble from him or trouble from you," Billie snapped.

"Both!" Sheriff Tate said with a grin and put another toothpick in his mouth. "Both."

"I going bed, goodbye," Billie said as she slid herself down from the chair and quickly walked out of the living room.


Bumpersville, 1961

George tapped his pen upon the desk as the stack of papers of West Virginia's by-Laws of Encorporation weaved a confused and muddled array of wherefor's and legalese. It was not written for the laymen but for an army of lawyers to understand as they drew up thier battle lines and charged forward armed with such lines as: Wherefore the undersigned do hereby declare that the population of said district meets the minimum required unless in possession of a writ of non-compliance served by District Court officers with the express knowledge of the County Assessor and consent of the office of State Lands and can prove to wit: sufficient population, services, ...

The stack was the same cryptic language, every page of it. After only the first page George wondered if the whole of Happy Valley even complied with the various regulations and the lines meant to disqualify the previous line if a certain form was in thier possession to trump. What seemed to be but a simple desicion to do or not do now looked like an impossibility unless another book's worth of forms was to be pursued to bypass the regulations that weren't exactly met. His eyes burned and blurred and he'd been staring at these pages all morning. The County Assessor's office agreed to send someone to the meeting that night to answer questions but he wondered now if there were even any questions to ask. The local population wasn't large enough even with the people trucked in from Charleston to the plant and the buisnesses along State214. There weren't enough services like gas and electricity to the capacity suggested by the rules for encorporating into a village. There wasn't sufficient law enforcement prepared and no local watch organized in the absence of offical law enforcment, not even a posse. Yet it was already started down this road and he couldn't put on the brakes now.

It wasn't the dream that unsettled him, it was the emberassment that awaited him when the meeting commenced and it was discovered that there was not reason to call a meeting in the first place. He poured over the pages now in the fading hope that there was some other exception to the exceptions list that would salvage the meeting and his reputation.

The house was quiet and still dark save for the corner of light that shown from his desk lamp. The fire died and he noticed that his fingers had become brittle with the cold. Thus feverishly driven, he skimmed line after line of legalese until he had covered most of the stack of papers and still could not definatively say that they had a case for encorporation. Finishing the last page he slapped it down upon the desk and heaved a sigh. Everything now came down to this. That the plant opened and the roadway attracted buisnesses and other people meant but little to the looming defeat in the grand scheme to become someone important. The plant was functioning well under his tutelege and the company higher ups seemed pleased with the additional community influence along with the lower costs of processing and shipping the raw material to the manufacturing centers in Charleston, Cincinatti, and Raliegh. It had all gone as forseen all those years ago.

But that wasn't enough for George, it was always on to the next dream and the next big thing on the horizon. He closed his eyes and rubbed them. It was only up to finding some way of salvaging the meeting and putting the best face things so that once the conditions where met they could move forward. He rolled through mental scenarios on what could be done and how. The Assessor's office could be contacted and the representative, who no doubt would be asking questions of them, could be called off and thus save face. He could beg Mr. Townsend to get the company lawyers on it to find the loopholes needed. Of course, what would he himself have to sacrifice in order to get the favor? He knew the game and the players and always preferred to limit the field to only those whom he could easily beat, but this would open up the field to the heavy hitters in the corporation; the thought of which sent a shiver down his back. He could call off the meeting and make up an excuse but keep the door open and hopefully retain the advantage with the local population; of whom most but the farmers had begun to see him as a man of influence and means.

George canvassed a few of the buisness owners about the meeting and thier thoughts on the question and found them to be in agreement. The plant employees would also fall into line with his way of thinking naturally enough. It was the local farmers that might pose another delicate problem to be dealt with. He had talked with the Hilcock's who seemed genuinely in favor, but farmer politics was something he knew little about and decided that he could not count on any of them to be in favor of the proposition. It would be the people on the hill who would make or break it, plus the legalities of it all. The hill folks owed most of thier existence to his realty company, and though he wouldn't dream of an overt flexing of that muscle, he also knew that it would predispose his tenants to go his way. He was an acute observer of the human animal and learned to use that whennever he could.

It had gotten him through school and college. The right amount of work and the right amount of influence here and there and alliance building had gotten him the plant manager position as well. Yet, the thought that he had over extended himself, played his hand a little too soon haunted his thoughts. The spectre's couldn't be chased away with platitudes nor reasoning to the contrary. For the first time since he tentatively used his awareness in high school to outwit the bully toughs who controlled the hallways, George felt uneasy about his plans. Perhaps it was the valley that had pulled the wool over his eyes. It wasn't a group or a person but an amalgam and wasn't easily read as looking at a person and knowing what buttons to push. Just as he knew his college friend Benton would do what he needed to do to keep George's friendship at all costs, a very good person to have on any team whose fear of rejection can be used deftly. But the Benton's of the world couldn't be counted on to turn sour situations into gold.

George stared at the Happy Valley map with its penciled in plots and buildings. Some existed; others only in his imagination and they stretched out all along the highway and into the neighboring farm land. He had even created side streets to feed the growing residential areas he wanted to lay aside through another land grab; this time one sponsored by the county and carving into no less than three farms on the upper end of the hill. He had even been so bold as to name the place, Bumpersville. He liked that name and thought that it bespoke of the bumper to bumper traffic down State214 that would soon pour money into the fledgling village. He had named it even before cajoling Benton into buying into the realestate scheme. The traffic was coming and the buisnesses along the road where turning tidy profits. Each plot of land was money in the bank to the Happy Valley Realty and the unsold plots where appreciating nicely. All of it was a gold mine waiting to happen, awaiting that magic moment when legitimacy and place conspired to bring about cornucopia; Bumpersville.

The more he stared at that map, the more he felt the pressure of despondency laying heavily upon his shoulders. The Valley, Happy Valley, was stealing his dream and tearing into his hard work by nothing other than its influence being greater than his, presience further reaching and a hold upon the immoveable objects that he called the locals. It vexed him to see them stroll about in the winter time, grown men with nothing better to do than sit and jaw for hours while real work was to be had; work and progress that begged for attention and a ready ear to hear the siren song of riches and prospect. They were heedless of the song, most of them at least. They had not come around as he had presupposed in the beginning. They had carried on as they had always carried on. He had missed it, missed the signs and missed the messages they were sending him in thier demeanor and refusals to recognize the inevitability of progress. He believed in it with a capital "P" and was astonished at the continued resistence to what should have been an inevitable consequence of the State214 project rolling through.

The blood shot eyes and the stubbled cheeks showed a man at the end of his tether and yet at the precipice of the changes his own hands and mind had wraught. He owed no one but himself and yet was now at the begging position; bowed to genuflecting to the masses and to those he shamelessly used for his own gain. From Mr. Townsend on down to the man who swept and cleaned the plant floors, all were craftily persuaded and lead to believe they made thier decision voluntarily to help the new chemical plant open its doors. Even Mr. Townsend, a power himself in the company hirarchy, did not escape from George's ability to read a man or woman and manipulate the strings that tugged at just the right spot.

George stood, slowly lifting himself from the chair and felt the tug upon his back and leg muscles from the hours of having sat. The dawn brightened the eastern horizon and brought sunlight to the valley after the days and days of cloudy gloom. He should have been heartened by the sun's appearance, warmed by it, given hope by it. It was the birth of the new day, as every day was. But his mood was already down and the rising of the sun was the Valley mocking him, each and every farmer mocking George's folley, the Sun reserving its blessings for them alone, they and thier precious soil.

Shaking the visions of happiness and mirth from his mind George resolved to not allow the setback to keep him from what he needed to do for the day.

Across the street as the sun peeked over the hills that hedged the valley floor marking the course of Muleshoe creek in its lazy, indolent flow, as the sun lit the path of State214 turning from the bridge to the north eastern passage leading to Charleston and other points east Benton was sipping his morning drink. Theresa was up this morning, the first in several weeks since Benton could remember she had willingly of her own accord roused herself from the warm comfort of the heavy down comforter. She was rattling around in the Kitchen and Benton, standing as was his habit in the mornings by the large bay windows, followed her progress in what he guessed was the preperation of breakfast. He wondered if this might not be the end of her funk; the cloud that descended as quickly as the winter blanketed the valley floor with foot after foot of snow fall. He too noted the sun's tardy appearance this morn. It brightened the day and seemed to speak to him the good that George so desperatly needed to find. Perhaps the sun's sudden clearing of the clouds had worked its magic upon Theresa as well.

"Morning," Benton said as he leaned against the kitchen doorway.

"Morning, you hungry for something other than toast?" Theresa asked and forced a smile.

"What did you have in mind?" Benton noted the strange attempt at a smile and his hopes dropped. It was niave of him to expect a return to normalcy as if the move, the money, and the flowershop. But, she was talking to him after a month of melancholy mooning about the house in silence.

"Eggs and sausage?" Theresa asked.

"Sure, that would be a nice change of pace," Benton smiled.

"Ok," Theresa replied and pulled two eggs and the package of sausage from the refridgerator.

Benton moved to the table and sat down. He wanted to talk, to find out what had been going on in her mind this past month and if things where going to be all right with them once again, but the more he thought of how he might broach the subject the longer he sat in silence instead. Theresa busied herself with the process of cooking and kept her back to him. They where the movements of someone doing something they have to do and not really want to do. If he hadn't known any better, he would guess that she was a novice at cooking. He could imagine every waittress in every diner in America making the same movements, the same studdied and mechanical actions taken when something has to be done. It disturbed him and he wished he had declined the breakfast.

Finally tiring of the silence punctuated with the snapping of the eggs and sizzling of the sausage, Benton broke the ice.

"We got that meeting tonight at the county school,"

"Oh?" Theresa replied.

"I suppose we'll see if there is enough support for encorporating yet," Benton said with all the emotion of a bingo caller.

"I see, so we'll see if all of this was worth it for George?"

Benton winced. The rest of his hope drained away just like the grease that Theresa poured from the sausage into the tin she kept near the stove.

"Yes, I suppose so," Benton uttered.

"Down at the diner there's been talk of a split in support with the locals for it, some thinking it is good and others followin' with the others who want us all to go away," Theresa said as she laid the eggs upon the plates.

"Diner?" Benton puzzled.

"Yes, the diner. Some of the other wives have taken to meeting there for soda's in the afternoons. Few of the locals go there, so it is generally safe to show yourself in public," Theresa said as she turned to face him for the first time that morning, a haggard and weary expression hid behind the forced smile she showed him.

"Oh, does everyone feel that unsafe?"

"Yes. I'm not the only one."

Benton winced again. Theresa placed the plate in front of him and set hers down opposite on the table. For a moment, too brief a moment for his liking, he saw a sadness in those eyes that used to look lovingly upon everything she touched.

"I didn't mean it like that, really. I suppose I don't see any of them at all during the days, I'm surprised that people are behaving like that."

"Nobody's done anything, you can just see it in thier faces if you happen upon one of them. They all feel it."

"I'm surprised no one at the office has mentioned anything of it yet." Benton asked as he took a tentative bite of his eggs. The thought that they had been poisoned flashed briefly through his mind.

"We know that too," Theresa said.

"Not that there's anything anyone can do about it at work, I'm just surprised it hasn't come up in the usual water cooler conversations. Maybe none of them know about it," Benton said as he chewed and swallowed another bitefull.

"Well, you could just brush it off as more female imagination as I suppose all of the husbands have done."

"I'm sorry, but I don't know what I can do about the locals and what they think or supposedly want to do to us," Benton said and dropped his fork. "What is it that they, you want?"

"Find that out and you'd be the envy of every woman out there.," Theresa sneered.

"I don't follow."

"What do I want? Why have I spent the last month in mourning?"

"Mourning," Benton interrupted.

"Yes, mourning. You've been too busy at the plant and following after George like a lost puppy to either notice or care. You drug me to this place for you, not for me or not for us. I've been unable to face the days knowing what I left behind and you've been no where to be found."

"That is why we moved and it wasn't just for me. It was for our future. I didn't like doing all that stuff to get here, but I did it because I thought it promised us something better than what we had in Raliegh," Benton protested.

"Sell your stake in the realty so we can build the hotel," Theresa said and looked Benton in the eye.

There was a firmness yet gentle pleading in that look that shook him.

"Sell my stake? Is that what this has been about?"

"It's about us, Benton. Not about me and not about you, but us. Until I see that you are willing to do something for us and not because George talked or pressured you into it I'm not going to ..." Theresa trailed off and looked away.

"Love me?" Benton retorted.

Theresa's face turned red and her cheeks flushed. "No."

"Then what?" Benton replied.

"We'll continue like this, like it has been. I'm surprised you've even noticed since you've said nothing about it."

"You're in bed before I get home and in bed when I get up in the mornings. I'm sorry it has gone on this long, I just thought it was a phase or the winter or something else that would go away."

"I want the hotel on our own, no Petro-Chem, no George, no favors. I want it to be us and ours," Theresa said and stirred her fork absently upon her plate.

"And you think selling our stake will allow for that?" Benton asked.

"Yes, sell your stake and buy that plot with it. Show me you're more concerned with us than with George or his schemes. And I don't love you any less, if that is what you're thinking I'm meaning."

"Well, that is good to know," Benton said and looked at her.

"How has the opening been?" Theresa asked.

"Uh? Oh, ok, " Benton stammered as the realization and change of topic took him unawares. "Smoother than I had thought it would since we're still at half strength on the shop floor."

"The other wives have noticed that too."

"Noticed what?"

"That you're understaffed and overworked," Theresa replied.

"Hmm, yes. The hotel, more houses, encorporating, all those will help that," Benton said and ate another mouthfull of egg and sasauge. "What eles have the wives noticed?"

"That this place is boring and there is little else to do but drink coffee and soda in the diner."

"Hence another reason to build the hotel," Benton stated.

"Yes."

"But what about the locals and this valley and feeling like they want to do us harm?"

"We're here already. I don't like it and I don't like them but I want to be doing something other than staring at them and feeling helpless. Besides, you wouldn't move again anyway, so why ask?" Theresa stated and glared at Benton.

"Ok, you're right, I wouldn't want to move. Just want to make sure I know where you're coming from, one minute you're saying you don't feel safe and the next you're wanting to build the hotel here all the same."

"I'm entitled to both at the same time," Theresa replied and winked slightly at Benton.

"I see," Benton rolled his eyes and finished off his last peice of egg and sausage. "I'll think about the realty thing ..."

"You will sell our share," Theresa flared.

Benton froze, the sudden change taking him off guard once again. He'd let his guard down and was paying for it. He looked at her hard, trying to read the unreadable and understand the unfathomable temperment of his wife.

"Ok, I'll talk to George and let him know," Benton said defeated.

"Today," Theresa pushed.

"Sometime," Benton pushed back.

"Ok, but you will talk to him. I'm tired of living without a husband." Theresa stood and took her plate to the sink and turned her back on Benton.

Benton thought of those last words and thier meaning and the hurt on the inside quickened. By no malice or foreplanning on his part he had yet wrecked deep trouble upon himself and Theresa. Chalking it up to that mystery of womanhood that men are best left in the dark about, Benton stood and retreated to get ready for the day with not another word passing between he and Theresa.

****

The small county High School gymnasium was packed this evening, not basketball game packed, but the floor space where the seating had been arranged was spilling out into the bleacher sections on either side of the room. More and more chairs where being needed as more and more people poured in through the doors. The murmured conversations, hearty hullo's, and buisness talk rose in crescendo as each new person entered and joined in the raucus chorus.

George paced nervously in front of the speakers podium, running through his head what he was going to say and when. He felt it was the sales challenge of his lifetime and for the first time today he was actually chipper. Forgetting for the moment the emberrassment of the begging to Townsend for assistance, the lowest ebb he could remember since the day he watched his platoon get cut to pieces storming that patch of sand now permanently referred to as Omaha beach on the Norman coastline; he savored the victory he knew was in his grasp. The garantee sat upon his chair, a stack of waivers almost as tall as that of the rules and regulations he had poured over that morning in despair. He still had to play it right, lead up to it just so. The trump card was in his hand, but it still called for finnesse.

The man from the assessor's office had arrived and unpacked his briefcase and now sat stoic with his hands folded neatly upon the table in front of the speakers podium. He had the look of a city man, neat and trim and out of place with most of the full gymnasium decked out in acres of denim and work coats. George wore a simple long shirt and tie and didn't blend but didn't stand out as this man did. He and the man had chatted when he arrived but that had been it. He was there as a prop, a hedge against anything George hadn't counted on, and it always helped to have the expert in ones pocket.

George glanced at his watch and as the room looked full enough, he stepped up to the podium expectantly. The sea of flannel and dark colors slowly became one of pink as face after face obeyed the unspoken rule of directing thier attention towards the speakers podium. The crowd had divided itself almost cleanly down the middle with the locals on one side and the hill folks, new comers and plant people on the other as if directed there by ushers. There was also a marked difference in attire from one side to the other and into the bleachers. Flannel and work clothes on the one and dark or dressy coats on the other. It was going to be a stretch, but the sides looked about even in numbers if one counted the multitude of squirming children flanked by stern faced adults.

George glanced at the sheet of paper he had placed in the front of the podium. He had written an introduction that he hoped now he wouldn't mangle too much.

"Residents of Happy Valley, I'd like to thank everyone for braving the cold tonight to make it here. I arranged for this so we could talk about a growing need that I have seen in our community, that of our corporate identity. Looking about the room, you can see that this area has grown in population since the State214 project connected Happy Valley Road with I20 two years ago. Since then, the new roadways have brought many of you here to open businesses and pursue your dreams. What is before us now, today, is the question of forming a more permanent and binding title to our community, one that will ensure services and opportunity for those of us who are here now and for those who come afterwards. What I want to propose is to encorporate into a village. I've asked Mr. Lewiston from the County Assessors office to be here tonight to describe the process of encorporation and some of the benefits and then how we would go about doing it," George said in his best salesmen speak.

"What if we don't wanna 'corporate," a voice from the crowd, the local side of the seating arrangement sang out.

"And who would we be?" George responded non-plussed.

"We, ever one," came the reply. It was Willie Shank's voice coming from somewhere in the middle of the local crowd.

"Well I don't think it is every one who shares that view point Mr. ..."

"Shanks, Willie Shanks, lived in this valley from birth an' same as mah daddy an' all o yor daddy's," Willie said to the locals around him. "We don' want ta 'corporate."

"Thank you for your view point Mr. Shanks, but we will get to how we as a community will go about deciding to do this or not. We will all have a chance to speak our minds here tonight." George stated with a smile.

"Just did," said Willie followed by a spattering of laughter from the locals.

"Well, before I ask Mr. Lewiston to speak, I'd like to outline a few advantages for the valley for encorporating that will benefit all of us, not just those up on the hill. The primary thing is state and county assistance in establishing the basic services that as a rural farming community without a legal designation cannot qualify for, like law enforcement and fire protection. We would be able to upgrade the power station to meet the growing needs and build a centralized water tank instead of each residence needing to dig a well. If we grew large enough, eventually we would qualify to build at least an elementery school for our children instead of having to bus them to the county schools thirty miles away," George paused to watch the crowd. Aside from an occasional whisper and shuffle in a chair there was stillness.

"So, that is what I can see will benefit us as a community, I'd like to have Mr. Lewiston outline a few things about encorporation and how to go about doing it." George sat down and heaved a sigh. He couldn't tell if the crowd was taken in by the message or just being patient and respectfull. The sudden appearance of Willie Shank and the reactions of the locals around him took George off guard. He had known they didn't care much for change or for the new people on the hill, but the level of the opposition was a surprise. He wasn't looking forward to the question and answer time after Lewiston finished speaking.

Lewiston confined himself to just the process and definition of moving from a loosely connected group of dwellings and people into a village. There were advantages to staying the way it was, fewer taxes levied on the properties making up the village, no centeral governing authority spending that tax money, and no attention paid by the county upon local affairs. Lewiston then outlined the process of voting for or against the question of encorporation in a special vote held at the county court house in Charleston of all registered voters in Charleston county who lived in the area in question. A simple yes or no vote would decide the matter until the next election cycle when the county would then allow the residents to vote once again. The only thing that stood in the way of that this year was a simple majority vote of those eighteen or older in attendance that night as to hold a vote or not, a vote to vote. .

Finished with his spiel, Lewiston sat down and looked at George. George took the podium and as MC for the evening, then had to do what he dreaded.

"Thank you Mr. Lewiston. So, what is before us is to decide to hold a vote or not, and Mr. Lewiston will then accept application from a committee of those chosen by us tonight and make the arrangements for the official vote of encorporation."