THE MILITARY TRUCKS ARRIVED at the Schrock farm, only three of them this time. We loaded them up, close to full, working carefully and intently together. The work was done quickly, and then I settled in to the first of the trucks, along with Isaak and three Guardsmen.
We moved along the roads toward Lancaster, passing out of our little community and going along one country road after another. We passed farm after farm, and as we moved beyond where I usually venture, I was struck by the absence of work. Nothing was happening on most of the land, even though the crops were almost overfat and nearly past the time of harvest.
The harvesters and combines were not busy. The tractors were not moving. There was no activity on most of the farms. It was still and quiet.
I asked the driver—his name was James—if there were any among the English farms still operating, if the Guard were picking up flour or anything else from them. He said he didn’t know, but that he hadn’t seen much of anything.
“I think there was a bakery open, I think. Or a couple of them, smaller ones, the ones selling organic bread. But the big mills are still not running, so, you know, like, that’s not been easy. Getting the flour to the little shops is just really hard, and once you get it there—well, shoot. It’s just hard.”
I said that I was sure that it was, and then asked him how the city was holding up.
“Doing okay so far, I guess. Nothing like the bigger towns. At least there’s farms and food around here. It’s gotten real bad other places, that’s what we hear. I mean, so many people got a couple of days of food, or maybe some were good for a couple of weeks. I mean, really, if you eat your way through the fridge in five days, and then you were smart enough to have emergency food good for a week, you’d be doing better than most folks.”
So more people are coming for food now, I asked.
He grunted. “Yeah, you could say that. Not at all like those pictures you always used to see of Africa or nothing, but—yeah. Oh, everything is fine here so far, though folks do worry. But this thing makes me worried about my mom and dad. Shoot, I don’t even know how they’re doing, so far away and all. Desperate people do stupid things.”
He looked out the window. “People know that there can’t be any looting, but they still do it. Like some people went into the Walmart over near Elverson, busted in the doors with a truck. They weren’t even taking food. They were taking big-screen TVs. Who even needs big-screen TVs now? And even when they know looting is a crime, and with emergency powers and martial law in place, they know what that means. Why would you even do something so stupid?”
Because it seemed like he wanted to talk about something else, I asked him where his parents were, and he told me that they’d moved to California a couple of years back, buying up a cheap house that had been foreclosed on.
“I don’t even begin to know how I’d talk to them. Nobody’s Skyping, right? And none of the phones work, right? Not cells, not landlines, and everything’s a mess. Just gotta pray, I guess.”
I asked how old they were.
“My dad’s, what, sixty-two now. And his health isn’t that great. Problem with his heart, you know, and he takes all of these pills. I don’t know what’s even happening with that.”
We talked, then, for a while, about our dads, as the trucks rumbled slowly southward.
As we got closer to town, coming down Oregon Pike, we began passing neighborhoods, developments out near the edges of Lancaster. I’d been there before, many times before. For the most part, it looked as it always looked.
But in one development, a row of houses were blackened and burned. And I noticed that there were piles of trash out by the fronts of some of the houses, garbage piling up, with no one to collect it. The piles were not large, but the neat lines of houses had not been marked by them before. I wondered what would become of them.
And when I had come through the neighborhoods before, driven to market by Mike, there were never any people around. It was the funniest thing, about the English, about how all of their neighborhoods are always so nice and filled with things, and yet they seem to have no people in them at all.
What I noticed, as we drove through, was that today the neighborhood was filled with people. Kids, some milling around, most playing. Adults sitting or talking in circles, or busying themselves at the height of the day, as the warm sun drove out some of the chill.
There were no moving cars, but there were people on bicycles, some of which were pulling carts full of things. On some corners, there were parked military vehicles.
As we passed, all eyes came up. We were watched as we went, heads turning, mouths moving to share some thought or another.
We arrived at the Market, and there were plenty of people waiting, and many soldiers. Other trucks were arriving, most of them military, but some of them civilian.
The distribution was orderly, despite my worries. People seemed to be getting along and helping each other. There was a feeling of purpose in the air, but there was talking and even the occasional laugh.
It was a funny thing, because in my mind I had assumed it would be something else. Somewhere, in the last week, I had thought it would be a teeming throng, like the panicked mob in Pittsburgh that Jorge had told me about.
But it was not that. The city was intent. It was focused. People were doing what they needed to do, and yes, there were many soldiers around. But it felt neighborly. It felt like people were pulling together, like they knew each other. The feeling was one of common purpose, like when we gathered at the Fisher house to help rebuild, or when we work together for the harvest. That whispering fear that it would be a madhouse was just a lie.
As I reflect back on the day, I wonder how much of that came from my own fears of the English. Yes, I would not choose their life. But so much of my growing up was in a place where they were not viewed as neighbors, but as dark and terrible and spiritually dangerous. In my heart and through my faith, I do not feel this to be true, but it is difficult to entirely lose that fear once it is planted.
October 8
These have been two difficult days.
Late on Wednesday morning, I rode over to the Fisher place to talk with Joseph. I had heard in the morning that they had found Tom Johanson’s body, deep in his unharvested cornfield.
Joseph was still working the soil for one of their fall gardens when I arrived, expanding it with the plow. I walked by his side as he drove his team, and he talked.
“It was a little hard getting the word out for a search party,” Joseph said, over the loud clink and clatter of the harness. “But we did, sending out riders and bikers to see what folk were willing to come out. I think that I was hoping all along that our prayers would be answered, and that we’d just find Tom sitting on his porch, apologetic and promising never to do it again.” It had been that way, so many times.