First, again, as he’d done at many other meetings on the subject, Jim Lombard, who’d been given a place on the dais, rose to explain the Plan. His pants would have fallen to his knees without his suspenders, a man with no hips, no rear end, a man who was one thick knot across his shoulders, so muscle-bound he couldn’t fully extend his arms over his head. His tufty hair had been tamped down, tidy and strange, but probably land-usey and respectable. In the hall our notable specimen outlined for us the history of the committee. He had his hand-drawn charts and graphs, and he talked about the surveys taken—the proof that informed consideration had gone into the comprehensive Plan. Yes, there had been opposition, and the committee had responded. The goal, he reminded the assembly, was to provide a framework for responsible growth, growth that the township could afford and support, and growth that suited the character of the area and its people. He sounded a little bit like a social studies teacher but we were sure he wasn’t dull.
In the middle of the presentation Mr. Reed, an old grouse, called out, “Sounds like socialism, Lombard. We can’t subdivide our farm how we want, is what you’re saying. By order of the law we got to have open space? A green corridor? Like the Chinks and the Russians do to their peoples? Commie-stuff, just like all your other presentations. How many times we have to hear this?”
“It’s not your turn to speak,” Mrs. Bushberger cried.
“How many times?” Mr. Reed asked again.
William had brought along a book to read but he hadn’t cracked it yet.
Mrs. Tillet, the tax accountant’s wife, was the first person in the citizens’ portion of the meeting to say her piece. She had to remind us how much she loved living in the country, and how, on their two hundred acres, they were fortunate enough to have orchids and trillium, gray foxes and great horned owls, the pileated woodpecker and other animals that should be respected.
Philip was nodding, in firm agreement.
No one, Mrs. Tillet said, wanted to live in suburbia—that’s why, after all, everyone in the room had moved out to our town, to get away from the subdivisions.
“You move out here, lady, you become the subdivisions.” A truth-speaking grumbler.
“You want the gates to close but only after you’ve moved in,” Susan Peterson heckled.
Don Tribby, the chairman of the board, pounded the table with his gavel, his big fun in any meeting.
Mrs. Tillet with her silky layered blond hair that she drove to Chicago to have styled, and her toned arms, and her diamond rings up to her knuckles, was not good for the cause. My father, we knew, in a perfect world, would have had her muzzled.
Mr. Carter stood next, the old farmer with a fat lower lip and squinty eyes, and he had maybe three hairs right at his crown, and everywhere else moles, large, medium, small, an array, an assortment. Connect the dots. He was big enough to bellow. “I’ve given my life to my farm, see,” he said, with surprising quietness. “Don’t tell me I don’t love it the way I’m supposed to. Don’t tell me I can’t give my wife her dream. She’s been a good wife, my Betty. She don’t want to be cold in the winter anymore. Don’t tell me I got to put half my land in some kind of plan. I need to take her to Florida. She’s a good wife.”
My father pulled out statistics about how farmers should be able to sell at market value with the proposed Plan but everyone probably suspected this was not absolute. We were suddenly not sure about the Plan, either, curiously sad for Betty and old Mr. Carter.
There followed a stretch of talkers on both sides, people either praising the rural character of the town and supporting thoughtful growth, or protesting that the Plan was government yet again limiting the freedoms of its citizens. We weren’t paying close attention until Philip himself stood up, stating his name and the address of the stone cottage.
“You don’t know me,” he said, “but I’d like to introduce myself. I’m a Lombard relation. I’ve been here for a year or so and my hope is to be involved with the orchard, the Lombard operation, long-term—” He smiled at my father, and turned to Dolly and Sherwood to acknowledge their potential goodwill.
Long-term? I turned to William. Is that what he wants?
Philip had shaved, no sign of any farmhand scruffiness, and his clean hair was loose and golden. He’d even tucked in his chambray shirt, a shirt that brought out the notable blueness of his eyes. “So, I don’t know,” he said. “I get that it’s difficult to try to legislate morality, that one person’s moral views shouldn’t be imposed on the community. I mean, I agree with that, and yet I think we need to recognize that laws most always have moral aims? Moral aims, and that in many circumstances those aims concern justice.”
It’s possible I had never felt so embarrassed. I wanted to scream, He’s not from here!
He scratched his cheek, his lips screwed to one side of his face, a gesture an actor would make on stage, a further mortification. “I guess,” he said, “I think that in this situation tonight the committee has tried to be both moral, you know? In terms of stewardship of the land and future generations, and also practical, serving the needs of the citizens in the here and now. I mean, it goes back as far as Plato, right? Philosophers making a close connection between true justice and human well-being. When companies pollute the air and the river, this is unjust because it disturbs every person’s well-being. It prevents individuals from flourishing. So then the Environmental Protection Agency is born.”
“My achin’ back,” someone behind us said.