Reboot

Rourke invited Rather and Stevens to discuss policy. He wanted to set up the first basic rules and lines of communications. How often do we meet, what do we barter for, how do we deal with money and the government, can we help Robert and his enterprise.

The meeting took place at Rourke chosen residence, which, funny enough was the same house where we’d taken that big generator. It was mid afternoon, on a cold autumn day. They invited me and I invited Colby to everyone’s surprise. I was taking a big risk. But I believed there was no way to move forward without taking risks. There would be many more.

When I walked in with Colby, everyone just stared at us. The mayors and Rourke were already sitting around a table. Each one with a glass of water in front of them. Rourke stood up, came towards us, looked at both of us a solid five seconds each before settling on me and saying: “Are you absolutely sure about this?” I looked at Colby who was understandably nervous, Rourke could do that to a person, and I looked back at Rourke with dead seriousness and nodded. “Absolutely.”

Rourke then looked at both mayors and continued: “I trust Robert, with my life. Hell, he just saved it. If he says we talk with Colby, I’m inclined to let it happen, but I can’t speak for the both of you, you have to agree. It has to be unanimous. Rather and Stevens discussed it a little bit in hushed tones, but it didn’t take long. Colby was invited to join the table. He was next to me, then Rourke, Rather and Stevens. Dutch and William were sitting on couches near the table. There was a fire in the fireplace. It was very cozy.

Rourke opened the meeting by going over the topics to be discussed for Colby’s sake, as it had already been decided by the rest of us. And then Colby said: “I want to thank you for trusting me to be here. I know it can’t have been easy. I know there’s nothing much I can say to make you feel more at ease, but I will tell you that I think Mooney is taking us down a very dark path. I believe Robert, and I want to make sure we get a solid chance to rebuild a new home for all of us. A place that will be different because we can learn from our mistakes, For the first time.”

And he sat down.

As Rourke was about to speak again, Colby interrupted him.

“I propose to be your ears and help where I can. If you have other ideas, I’m listening.”

“Thank you Mr. Colby,” said Rourke. “It will be very helpful and we will certainly need your help. Please sit down.”

We were all seated around a circular table. There was a bottle of water and snacks in the middle of the table. It was bright so I could see everyone’s faces very clearly. Rourke was confident. Stevens and Rather were talking to each other in hurried short words. Colby seemed excited, not so scared anymore, but jittery. Then the mayors stopped abruptly and both turned to me at the same time.

“Mr. Morgan,” said Mayor Rather, “how do you see this –action- of yours developing? You’re leaving, you see, so in a way, we’re going to have to clean up your mess. Yes?”

I thought about this for a few seconds. I looked at Colby, and suddenly understood why he’d been so nervous. The thought had occurred to him too.. “Yes,” I said. I nodded towards Dutch and William. “We’ve gone over this a lot, and we don’t see any other way. I have to hide and move constantly and make sure Mooney knows it. I was thinking that Mr. Colby could be of significant help with this.” I looked at him. “What do you think Mr. Colby, anything you can do?” Colby harrumphed a bit, shocked at being brought into the conversation so soon. “Um, yes, thank you, uh, Robert. I, uh, let’s see, mmmm.. I can send a report saying that you’ve left. That someone told me that they’ve seen you leave. Something like that.. How would that be?”

“That’s what I had in mind. It will save lives I think. However, you could be a bit inconclusive about the direction we’ll be taking, or how we will be travelling,” I said smiling. I wanted to put him at ease.

“Yes,” he chuckled. “I can be vague. In fact I’m known for being a tad wobbly. I’ve worked with Mooney before. We didn’t agree on much and I’m sure he remembers it. He won’t trust me very much. But I can help while he does.” Now he smiled back at me.

“Good.” I now looked at the mayors. “What’s next?”

Mr. Stevens looked at Mrs. Rather who nodded, then he started in. “Mrs. Rather and I have started discussions regarding trade and policy, and I thought we’d bounce off a few ideas if you don’t mind.” We all moved a bit forward in our seats in anticipation. These were possibly the first serious discussions between leaders in the new United States.

“Good. Well… We’ve decided that we should try a new direction with community and social systems. Learn from our mistakes so to say. So here goes: We want to try and stay away from money. We think that it’s possible to wean ourselves away from it. We have to look at it as if it were a disease, a drug. It’s going to be difficult, people are going to fight us, but we need to give it a serious try. What do you think?”

He looked at me.

“I think you’re right of course. People always fight change but this is a good road to take I think. How will you manage trade?”

Mrs. Rather took over.

“We start with the basics. I grow tomatoes, my neighbor grows potatoes and then we trade. Go from there, organize. As it gets bigger, we can trade in the same way with other cities. The goal is to trade, not to make a profit.”

“That won’t be easy,” put in Colby.

“No, it won’t. But we’ve seen that people are willing to try it. It’s just that the people who want to go back to the old ways have a tendency to be louder.”

“There is another problem, more a psychological twist to this,” added Stevens.

“People are nervous about safety, security. Old age. One of the benefits of a solid banking and financial system was to guarantee a retirement fund. Now we don’t have that and it has been a recurring subject of concern during our meetings.

“How do you deal with that?” I asked.

“We write a new constitution.” Now that was something we didn’t expect.

“A new constitution?” Colby was shocked.

“Yes,” continued Stevens. “We want to guarantee new freedoms based on respect for the individual. Energy, food and healthcare for everyone - start with that. We think that a society that starts by offering the basic necessities of life will lead to individual expansion in other spectra. In other words, if you don’t have to worry about your paycheck, you will actually be more productive because the motivational drive will come from a more altruistic source: working to better yourself and the people around you.”

We were all silent for a while. This is what I’d been hoping for, but I hadn’t been able to put it into words quite so well.

“Yes, well, that’s all fine of course, but how do you intend to rewrite the constitution? You’d have to be in charge of the government to do that, no?”

“Yes. And maybe no.” said Stevens. “We plan to resist Mooney’s attempts to control us. Keep leadership on a small level, resist government. What is government anyway? It’s just a managing team, you know? Upper management. So we’ll just cut them out. I deal with Mrs. Rather quite comfortably. We’ll contact other mayors and leaders and make connections. Soon we’ll have a network. This is how we will help Robert.”

“My God,” was all I could muster. “You’re talking about a revolution.”

“Yes,” agreed Stevens. “We don’t see any other way. If we don’t do this, Mooney will slowly worm his way back into every level of society. And things will soon be just like they were before.”

After all this time, I could still be shocked at the grandeur of what I had stepped in. The size of the shit storm I would be instrumental in starting…

“What about that?” I asked. “Have you been successful at communicating with other mayors?”

“Yes, of course, your race helped a lot.” Stevens smiled. He looked at Rourke.

“We have several meetings planned,” said Rourke. “And at first glance, it looks like they like this idea. A new constitution, rewritten by the people, for the people. Not government or corporations.”

“Ok,” I said. “What about discussing with other countries? Who’s gonna do that?”

“Easy. A rotating elected group of five leaders will have special duties like international relations. A lot like a council of elders. Like the Native Americans had.” Stevens smiled.

“Native Americans?” I asked.

“Absolutely. Some tribes had very sound organizational structures. Democracy, strong family values, respect for individuality…We plan on copying it a bit. I know, I know… quite the turnaround isn’t it?

“Yeah, well, look what happened to them, though,” that was from Dutch. “We all turned towards him. “You don’t like it?” I asked him.

“I love it. I like the irony. But I just think we should also be more careful than they were. To avoid a similar fate. Speak Navajo, but carry a big bow. We have to be solid on defense, or some pissed off neighbor’s gonna come over and poof.. all gone. I think it’s inevitable. Natives had trouble with their neighbors too. And we certainly are no more evolved than we were before the war. There’s always room for another Hitler.” That was a lot of words for Dutch.

“Agreed,” said Stevens, “We’ve thought of that too. We plan to continue research and development in all scientific and engineering areas to make sure we have a significant technological advantage over any aggressor. That’s where the lack of a financial system will be most challenging. How do we build parts of a shield defense system for example? Or advanced weapons? How do we fund research and development?.. We’ll be busy figuring all that out in the next few months.”

“How did they manage without money?” I asked Mrs. Rather. I knew that she was an expert in these things. She joyfully launched into it:

“Oo that’s interesting stuff. Thanks for asking Robert. OK, here goes.”

She stood up and drew a map of the USA on a board.

“Native peoples of the Great Plains engaged in trade between members of the same tribe, between different tribes, and with the European Americans who increasingly encroached upon their lands and lives. Trade within the tribe involved gift giving, a means of obtaining needed items and social status. Trade between Plains tribes often took the form of an exchange of products of the hunt (bison robes, dried meat, and tallow) for agricultural products, such as corn and squash.”

“What the hell is tallow?” mumbled Dutch.

“Rendered animal fat,” she answered unhappily. She didn’t like being interrupted. But Dutch still had a questioning look on his face and he looked at me.

“Candles and soap,” I said. And he was happy.

She took a deep breath and looked around to see if we were still paying attention. We were. So she continued, regularly pointing at various spots on her crude map.

“Trade among the Plains Indians has a long history. The archaeological record shows an active trade in Knife River flint in the Northern Plains beginning before 2000 B.C. The trade systems remained relatively stable throughout the following centuries.”

“Interesting,” said Rourke.

“Yes. The trade systems were maintained through a variety of sustaining mechanisms, including the calumet ceremony, redundancy trading, and sign language.”

“What’s –“ started Dutch

“Shoosh. I’ll get to it.” And she plowed on. We all smiled.

“The calumet ceremony brought unrelated peoples closer through the working of a fictional kinship. A make-believe family sort of. Leaders of different bands or tribes adopted each other as father or son, allowing trade to take place even between traditional enemies.

The Pawnees traded corn for corn with the Arikaras. This redundancy trading” - she stopped and stared at Dutch, who clamped his lips together, - “was a security mechanism, setting up avenues for exchange in case of local crop failure.

European traders began to engage in this trade from the edges of the Plains and a dependency on outside supplies was created, and when there no longer were furs to trade the Indians could not obtain the goods they had come to rely upon, like our guns.

The increased market demands resulted in the collapse of the resource base. The traditional Plains trade system that had endured for so long fell victim to imposed European American economies.”

She paused and looked at all of us in turn.

“Greed destroyed Native Americans. As it destroyed us. It’s contagious.”

Everyone just stared at her after that for a few minutes as the weight of her speech sank in.

“Incredible. I can’t think of better people to spearhead such a project. Congrats to you both,” I said. They both reddened a bit.

After the meeting, Stevens said that he had spent too much time away from his town and had to go back. I promised to go with him in the morning. It would be the last thing I did before moving eastward. A last visit to Veneta.