Farm Life Chapter 3

As much as she dismissed her mother from her thoughts as someone who had no influence in her life it was her mother who

indoctrinated her to do what she was now doing. Helping the less fortunate was how her mother justified the waste of an evening going to a drab party for dull people to give some of her own sparkle to the event. Her mother would say it is important that those directly beneath us think well of us because our feet are planted on their heads. It only made sense to first give bread to the hungry before washing the sores of the afflicted. What should have been well known but was very easy to forget is that the plague was not transmitted by bathing them, or touching them in most ways. She changed bandages for their comfort since oozing sores never healed. Easing their final days was not a form of life extension and providing them last moments of relief did not insure Martha’s social prominence. There was no haut society in Iowa although the classes were well defined. Spheres of influence were small but restrictions were enforced here as rigorously as Washington. A worker could elevate himself to a manager. Every position in all of society was as narrow as it’s title in a culture that was deeply detailed. The new restrictions were proposed by schools, hospitals and business eventually became the laws written and enforced by government, busy work for elected politicians which created new classes with new responsibilities and giving those class members something to do and everyone something to talk about. Government Offices and positions with titles instead of numbers were bones thrown to retired movie stars and war heroes, even the Army was only for show, the fighting and the profitable cleaning up was done by contractors, recruited vigilantes and free lance terrorists. Security guards thugs handled home security for the elites, crowd control and law enforcement they turned surviving criminals over to the police for locked up and booking. This style of governing saved the taxpayer revenue tax payer were in heavy decline as machines now designed and built machines that supplied goods. Bread one week, milkaid the next, breakfast flakes, shoes, availability depending on the corn being harvested, summer, winter, marsh grown. Energy required to dictate

and enforce things that society was already doing was a tremendous waste of the surviving resources and the results were counter productive in all ways except one. Of those who would protest the general condition none had the strength to do anything about it. When she first left the community of steel and glass that dominated the eastern coastline of Iowa along the Mississippi Sea, she had no idea it would place her in the literal belly of society. It was like descending from the purity of austere thought into sweat and fermentation. Here was the core of oppression and depth of inhumanity. Escaped farm works fled to the cities to become undocumented nonpersons, for them laying on a slab of concrete under an artificial sky was a better life. She had seen growing up the beggars who crouched outside restaurants, certified as plague free and eligible to receive alms but escapees from outside Iowa became the refugees who could not enter the gates or come near the glassed off areas. They lived on the beach eating polluted mollusks, deformed crabs they could catch and what they gleaned from the refuse piles that surrounded the city. The poor here were right at hand and unavoidable, hungry while living in this mythical place where food was actually produced almost within view of the dome. Food production had been a mystery until she married a certified expert who judiciously combined water, light and of course seed in the soil. Not far from their fence waiting without hope those who were the most hungry yet could not be fed without all of the proper paperwork done, cards issued by one department and stamped by another, no federally funded soup given until the number issued matched the givers name. Workers both public and private made sure papers were in order and security guards kept the peace when a hunger case got cast out of line. Wielding of power to control the small mob of sick and docile beggars satisfied the working poor and the other tax payers. That was the image now that made America great adding to their spiritual nourishment by creating and upholding the illusion that

something was being done about the situation and all of the impossible demands were in the process of being met. The complaints coming from the lowest of the classes, which other than the domed is all Iowa has, about the unfairness and bad manners amid starvation and plague were almost inaudible and dying out. If you did not know what they were saying it was just a murmur from outside. The tax payers here could not help but see that the next ones to fall to the gutter might be themselves. The proof was everywhere one looked, the fed and the healthy had their working papers in order while the sick and hungry did not. Hungry, poor, homeless, plague stricken and the dying were in every shadow. Body removal was done by the scrawniest security guards who could not lay on a good beating. They were slow and there was never enough of them. Their fellow bull dog guards with chest thrown out laughed openly at the body haulers. In the city they were taken out of view behind the tinted glass by roughnecks in uniform who worked clumsily in their massive gloves, breathing apparatus and helmets. Here in farmland Iowa the unmasked with pitch forks and wheelbarrows carted them to a kerosene fueled incineration. The hungry survivors, tomorrow’s load, were at everyone’s feet, along with the undeniable odor was the grumbling of their empty stomachs. These people rose from their cowering to received a homemade sandwich in plastic. The thanks she received was unlike any words she had ever heard spoken. Their faces turned up to give thanks were unfolding flowers in surprise and gratitude. That she let tips of her fingers touched one of them would have caused genuine disgust elsewhere and a look that questioned her motive. Her upbringing would never have led Martha to bother herself with the mortal issues of her age. Unmarried girls of her social class spent most of her days being served in a specialty shop. Demanding the privilege of buying what she did not need, wearing a hairdo of such extravagance it was

equal to an average house payment for one of father’s middle managers and was modest compared to some the other girls wore. When an elegant and established woman like Martha’s mother changed hair dressers it was information her press agent released to the social news channel. Mother’s few idle hours were spent learning how to buy paintings or in gossip chambers with her friends while the latest high art was played out before them on screens and stages taking up any lull in the conversation. Martha fought with her mother who allowed her to have anything she desired provided it meet with her approval. She wanting to make Martha in her own image. “Simply gold plate your hair like I do, that classic look will never go out of style.” The beauty and longevity of her mother’s generation who after the designer war had created so much from so little using teams of the finest hairdressers, designers and on down to their army of maids, men servants and nail polishists. Their extravagances beautified a world and entitled them to feel that they surpassed the Greeks and Romans. In fact they had gone beyond anyone in history. Medicine had made them immortal and eternally beautiful. The only death they feared was a social death. The requirements for the young girls to become one of these women of marble were, sobriety, chastity, charity, elegance, and beauty, once those virtues were mastered, something that was almost always done with the support of their mother’s network, they were almost women and could approach the central virtue which was marriage. When a merger was proposed and a marriage was incorporated it was said a new household was created, although often the couple did not live together and in some of the most successful marriages they never met. It is through the social and financial instrument of marriage that a woman was finally considered established. Such was not the situation for men who were expected to work. As in nature and antiquity the continuation of society and humanity through the distribution of wealth and culture was dependant on women.

The women of the society which Martha was expected to grow into were the role models for all of the other classes. “Do I have to tell you the whole history of the human race to get you to put out those candles?” Her mother did carry on, it was not a practical hairdo. “I’m only going to take it off because it’s getting a little heavy. I can’t balance it with you yelling. Alexander the Great said it won’t burn anything. It’s a cold flame.” With her minimally trendy friends at school Martha always claimed to hate such haut fashion and over indulgence. She had to have it done to herself despite everything she claimed to believe. If not it would be a serious disaster for her at the party, at school and especially with mother at home. It was like she was not even there when they outfitted her. Not every girl could wear such inspiring hair. Alexander the Great told her she had the straight back, noble carriage and was one of the few girls strong enough. Everyone assured her beauty was always a burden. She had no more choice than an infant receiving its secondary immune system. The life of a young woman was not predetermined despite the obligation of the parents to arrange a marriage for their son or daughter. It became a challenge for the young to throw off the pre arranged union or merger and show their own acumen by doing better in the proposal and negotiations than their parents. The ones who did were usually the one who did very well in business but poorly in marriage. Intimacy and closeness were something to avoid if a marriage was to last which was why prearranged unions outlasted the others. A marriage between a manufactured product house and a resource family is likely to be a more profitable union than if the same dry land resource was to marry banking or even a fishery family. Or railroads in the south if the family is a mining operation in the west. At fourteen Martha prepared for her first Charity. A function heavy with potential if the specter of an arranged marriage is motivation for the average rebellious child to prove maturity or demonstrate immaturity by attempting to

outplay the parents in the nuptial game. It was also an excuse for parents to get out and be seen as a couple and to show off wealth. Charity plays the most central catalyst role in the complex mating ritual. The intensity of the Charity is hoped to heighten the awareness in amply protected children of the danger in being left alone together without supervision. When properly played it will change some for life. Charity is what takes up most of the time of women. Men work and women manage the charity. A charity function generally employs a thousand or more members of the lower classes to serve, clean, entertain and in all ways maintain the uninterrupted quality of life for the young of society as they get to know each other so they may gracefully get about the business of running the world. Charities are given for geographic regions, fields of study, each industry will sponsor one during the course of a year. Families who can afford it and some who can not will stage their own charity for a hotel full of their closest connections. The idea of going out to meet someone with status who will overthrow the merger parents have arranged is allowed, a futile romantic challenge made by the youngest and least of our class. It is a premature attempt to leave the nest that almost invariably lands the young flat on the ground. “You can not go looking like you have a chandelier balanced on your head.” Martha’s mother’s vocal irritation was the only thing that salvage a coiffure which Martha herself dislike almost immediately. “But you have achieved the desired affect, to upset me before you go away to your first charity.” It was hard for Martha to believe that some girls had good relations with their mothers, hers was endlessly contentious. She made the rules for Martha’s life so strict that she was always on Martha about something much like she was constantly criticizing Martha’s father for no good reason. It drove him out of the house perhaps he was no different than most other married dads. Martha and her

father were close not merely because they faced a common enemy. An exchange of pleasantries while passing in the garden seemed to mean something. It was not just a suit of clothes, a new musk but a person with shared memories who she knew was always there. Her mother was always there too but not in the same sense. Martha’s arranged merger was to be with the son of one of mother’s friends growing up. Since Martha’s father managed real estate and the boy’s father was an importer a marriage would have no business value and it was clear having met a few times while growing up she and the boy did not like each other. A future with him was a constant source of anxiety and even nightmares for Martha since she was old enough to understand the custom. She found her father as usual in his small building behind the main house where he did business work, met and entertained business guests and where he slept. “How does my hair look, Daddy?” “You look beautiful. I want you to meet someone super nice.” He immediately put aside the reader he had been looking at. “I am so nervous and Mom doesn’t like it.” She did not care if her sculpted headpiece crumbled as she put her head on her father’s shoulder. “Just have fun. Is that real fire? You don’t have to meet anyone tonight. I don‘t care if you get married when you are thirteen or thirty. Just show yourself off to your friends and have fun.” Martha laughed, her father always sounded ridicules when he tried to talk like a young person. Still she worried, “I don’t want to be alone. I hate that boy, Wasay, whatever his name is. Mom said with my attitude I could end up a career woman.” She let herself cry. “Don’t even talk like that. Did your mother really say that?” “Once, a long time ago. Of course I had said something first. I don’t want to repeat it, it’s embarrassing.”

Martha was referring to an emotional and precocious conversation when she was little more than twelve. She asked her mother why women could not have sex before marriage. Very passionate about the things she knew before she was old enough to understand Martha was trying to reason out morality. She grappled with ideas like the double standard that said men could be as sexually active as need be but only with the fabled career women whose role was to never marry but to inhabit the back room of office buildings for the relief and satisfaction of hard working men. An employer might present a career woman to reward good work. There was also supposedly a type of man who needed the regular service of a career woman. Accidentally meeting such a man was a constant fear of timid and virtuous girls like Martha and the others at school. No good every came to a career woman and invariably they always died of plague and tragically spread it to innocent women who trusted that certain kind of twisted man. That was the fate old married women used to threatened any girl who did not get married and it was how mothers responded to their daughters when questions of sex came up. Sex was not something people actually did, no more than her father literally ate up the competition at work or killed someone when angry or put a real head over the mantle. Planting the human seed when not done in a clean and efficient clinic was filthy, unpleasant and extremely risky both to mother and future child. The society while built and fortified by marriage disparaged sex and children. Marriage is in its pure form mating, a relationship for the benefit of the mating pair in terms of being a domestic set who could insure mutual wellbeing autonomously without cost to or intrusion by any government agency. Sex was linked to excretion if not something more filthy and with more psychological disturbing associations. The main health consequence and primary reason for sexual avoidance is the plagues which nests in those dirty areas and is transmitted by contact. It was a general belief

that the plague was a gift from Devine caring and wisdom to help people who lacked self control. Those people no longer existed. Only the hardcore were left and the plague itself to keep their numbers small. It was a rule of thumb to take twice as long preparing for a charity as the charity was planned to last. This was to be one weekend, a four day affair, and Martha had already spent several days clothes shopping, refitting and tailoring and another day on her hair, her teeth needed a new color for spring. Last were nails and makeup. Only twice that she could recall had Martha ever seen her mother without makeup, her father said he had never. That was another one of the things that did not seem normal about her family. Martha had worn makeup since starting school like all girls but this was different. Her mother whose job it was to instruct in these matters despaired. “Oh, you are such a homely child.” Martha remembered the glimpses of her mother’s real skin and face. Beastly ugly, a horse face. Her mother was certainly expert at hiding, disguising and cosmetically replacing all of Martha‘s natural appearance. Parents who dropped off their kids were invited to champaign under a canopy of laser light and smoke. It was a small charity, only 200 but it was enough to reserve an entire hotel in the suburbs giving the impression that it was a bigger the concentration of opulence made less seem like more, something that was sure not to catch on. This intimate affair was sponsored by one of the wealthiest families on their road. It was intended as social practice for a girl who rumor said was over twenty, an image that sent chills. Music streamed from several areas in the hotel and on the grounds. Where ever one looked servants were waiting on the young people. “This should be inspirational to them.” Martha’s mother said to her husband. He agreed.

“This is such a waste.” A girl was speaking who Martha did not readily know but was a friend of a friend who had spied her getting her nails done for the party. Apparently she had noticed and could now recognize Martha without the dust mask she was wearing at the nail tip boutique. There were always women who talked about how they hate beautifying themselves but they all did it. They had often talked about how they hated the phony culture but this girl who was considerable older, perhaps even twenty, the very girl everyone had been whispering about. Her eyes flashed and she had the wild look of someone who did not even belong at a charity or in the city. It was the look of the hungry when they turn wild. Martha had just left one of the servants who was delivering her trunks when this girl trapped her on the walkway to a side entrance. With an immediate shutter at seeing this wild woman approach, nowhere is safe, the maxim immediately came to Martha’s mind. While speaking with Martha some people who did seem to know her showed up. “The problem is not in my mind, it’s in my body.” She was pulling down her hair until her enormous beehive collapsed on her head with a crunch, the stiff mass of hair cover her face until she threw it to the ground and it rolled under a bush. “It’s ninety degrees and look at what I’m wearing.” She tore off her wrap, vest and bodice until she stood there practically naked in only a shirt, cammy and bra. Clearly the problem was her mind. Mental health had always interested Martha, it was one of the main things she read about along with science. She was drawn toward book reading because she was considered oddly bright. She did her reading at home, bringing a book to school would make her stand out from the other girls. Psychology interested her because she wanted to understand how people thought however most of what she could find to read was about abnormal behavior. Some of her friends ran away in shock and disgust. No one had ever seen a display like this. The servants did not

know what to do and one would not call security in a situation like this, not yet. Finally the girls parents came running and they walked her away, one with her hair under her arm another carrying her clothes while servants still so perplexed by the situation called to other servants who formed a circle to keep other girls away. This behavior usually described as going crazy was the second most common mental illness yet few ever witnessed it. The Sleeping Beauty sickness was the number one illness. It mostly struck girls over the age of ten and it simply made them go to sleep and stay asleep. Every year a few girls in Martha’s class were stricken. Once put to bed they could sit up for a meal but could not get out of bed for the toilet. A few recovered after twenty or more years. “Was she drunk?” Martha asked one of the girls who stayed behind. “I heard someone in her family has the plague.” “No!” A gossip exclaimed with horror and pleasure. The plague’s dead and dying in themselves were not so shocking. The victims were everywhere, it was where the money raised by charities went. Despite one’s entire lifetime of seeing it, generations witnessed its malignant presence, all anyone knew was the practice by which it was caught and transmitted. It was by sexual intercourse between unmarrieds. This fact had caused an overflow of fear and a suspicion toward sex. No one who cherished life dared do it more than was required for procreation. The human body became seen as weak and flawed and the view of the natural world was that it was the enemy. Martha and other intelligent and thoughtful young people were still affected by the major campaign against sex that was directed at children. A poster was seen everywhere they gathered, the school, church, the doctor’s office and especially where together in crowds there was a chance of physical contact like hallways and stair wells and bathrooms which were wallpapered with the image. The powerful image became the theme in most dreams of kids in elementary school. The words, “Don’t try it. Not even once.” and

between the two phrases were pictures, the face of a plague victim, hairless, covered with scabs, emaciated, festering holes, the remains of a nose, and eyes crusted closed, it made one long for the face of the dead. The other image, a tiny curled up naked baby. If someone in her family did have the plague it would have no bearing on her taking off clothes. Someone like that might even want to be more covered and safe from contact. Word spread quickly and the first night of the party became a grump fest. People now were too shocked and appalled to laugh or smile. Those who would be merry dispersed like a flock of birds frightened by a noise. The only hope was for activities the next day. Mostly boys did not immediately return to their rooms, as the night got later their voices could be heard echoing in the atrium. Laying in her hotel bed not tired and uncomfortable with a few small nightlights casting apposing shadows and gruff voices in the nearby distance Martha got a glimmer into the madness of her hostess. She had always been instructed in home, church and school that when a thought stops to dwell on the abnormal or the unpleasant that in itself was a warning. Several times Martha tried to clear her mind before falling into sleep. The next day the children fully preformed like practiced adults, properly dressed for various sports. Martha had heard the girl assigned to share the room with her come in but as things were already so overwrought it seemed easier to sleep through greeting her that first night. Martha had horses at home and she was one of the first to go riding. When she returned the roommate was getting up. Martha was changing from her riding outfit and the roomy, Linny, was asking what Martha thought of her clothes. Nothing special but Martha lavished the garments with compliments. Both of them now took a few minutes to finish unpacking. “This sweater,” Linny said holding up one that was beaded and looked dull, “my mother got for me at a thrift shop.”

Thrift shop, Martha thought, what kind of woman was her mother? “It was a regular tug of war between her and another shopper. You can find treasures there but you have to have an eye.” Every year the servants delivered Martha’s family’s old wardrobe to one of those places. Helping the poor and plague ridden was an obligation but not for this. “Were you out riding? I do wish I had a riding outfit. If a man rides then you can assume he is choice.” She was trying to fake her way into the life Martha felt stuck with, she probably got invited to this charity by faking. “I can send my outfit to be cleaned, we’re about the same size. Why don’t you borrow it.” “If there is anything of mine you would like to wear…” Martha could only smile and her face burned as she put on the expression like her mother wore, a look of pleasure and pity. The face of a lie. At that moment began a thought process more dangerous and erosive to all that her mother wanted to preserve than even sexual revulsion. Yet it came to her as naturally as the questions about sex. Seeing the humility of Linny and feeling godlike above her Martha experienced the sense of humbling shame for her pride. Martha was maturing into the age of selflessness and giving. Linny was trembling in gratitude and fear of discovery. Over a gesture, crumbs to feed her new life, effortless for Martha. It would have taken more effort to resist the desire to share. Martha went to take a shower before she finished unpacking in the hope that Linny could restore her dignity in that time. Yet even as Linny dressed and primped in Martha’s presence there was the same hunched humiliation and deprecation about this girl in other people’s clothing. The life of a society woman has many roles to play. Enough so that it left little time to think about the implication of some of the rolls. It felt good to give but Martha did not want to help recruit someone who if let in would fall to the lowest rung from where her life in society

would only served to feed cat talking gossips. The rest of the days of the charity Martha avoided her room and roommate as much as possible. There were other girls from school who she knew as skeptics and she sought them out. They talked like they did in school but it was not the same with servants all about whose heads bowed down as they approached and where ever one looked the tables were over loaded with the richest food items most to be thrown away. Music to overwhelm the thought process and of course, boys. When she got home she wanted to talk about what had happened, the girl who took off her clothes and poor Linny but her mother was only interested in her little black writer and laughed with cold superiority that Martha had not met anyone. She was still anxious to talk but one does not talk to ones father about such things and among her closest circle the response was nervous laughter. In school it was all right and even expected for the teachers to chide her about thinking too much and asking too many questions but among her friends a conversation about the significance of some of the things they did would surely lead to the suspicion that Martha would be next to go crazy. Her friends would start dropping her there on the spot. Being almost comatose in bed and having servants clean you was one thing, being half naked, shaking a fist and screaming invectives at society is quite another. Living in the dome that was included the capitol region where everyone’s home is surrounded by high walls and travel on the tramway is done in private cars with dark windows, Martha and her only friends all attended a heavily restricted school where there was no evidence to be gotten from the teachers or the students leading anyone to think there might be a world on the other side of the walls and the glass. Refusing to believe what they could not see. But for a few the suspicion was there and it seemed to have always been in their mind without evidence and it could not be medicated or reasoned away. Rooms in homes had walls and partitions for minimal privacy which were thin and one easily went around. A

modern home was defined by a roof and walls to keep out weather. Inside a child could not laugh or cough without being heard by a parent or a servant and that was part of the design, to keep society’s precious children safe and under scrutiny. Only at those rare times when driving out of the city in a private car past places where the walls on the highway were not all equally maintained and driving to some areas with an acrid odor, and the feeling of a strangely fetid presence that supported the rumors saying those where the plague ravaged regions. It was dangerous outside societies walls but her curiosity grew amid the silence at home and in school. One afternoon she instructed her driver to take an unfamiliar exit. At the bottom of the ramp were security guards who spoke first with the driver and then Martha. For her own safety they said. Behind the guard she could see people sitting on the ground she watched with interest as one of the guards hovered over them. Nearby was a row of rust colored buildings most with broken windows. From the distance it looked like the guard was offering those people something to eat or drink for they looked hungry their faces were lifeless and their clothing hung shapelessly but as the car made a half circle to return to the express it looked like a gun in the guard’s hand. Surely they were criminals. What crime could these weak and cowering lower classes have been attempting. It must involve the theft of food. The site of a gun was enough to satisfy her curiosity for a few more weeks until school break ended. As the girl tearing at her clothes disrupted the party, that event and now this was all that was needed to ruin the weeks of leisure. It was easy to learn about the private lives of singers and actors, the news reads and shows were full of that. Some celebrities were not even associated with any art or achievement but like Martha’s mother simply publicized intimate details to arouse interest. Her mother aroused almost no interest in Martha‘s mind however the publicist said mother‘s life was widely read. The publicists fees were

reasonable so the truth of the matter was never investigated. But why people were arrested, how they came to be living behind the wall, those things were almost unknowable. Now Martha went to the tennis club, masseuse, and nail clinic asking questions and getting strange looks but few answers. The general opinion was that they were new arrivals, either sick or weak and generally not fit to enter or serve society. Beyond the crimes they carried out for sustenance cultish sex seemed to be among the problems they caused and it was the candid opinion of some that natural conception and birth were taking place and they were creating more little classes than the plague was able to erase. She knew her father went outside many walls, that is what men did to obtain resources and claim new real estate. The other business men who occasionally came to the house still greeted Martha like a toddler, she might be able to ask one of them. Mr. Malone said the streets were full of the dying and in the capitol drunks had to be paid off for anything to get done. As Mr. Sanchez described it everyone had guns on the other side of the wall, gunshots and the cries of children were heard every where. And Mr. Wu describe masses of people crushing each other everywhere to receive a sack of food and a bottle of clean water but he said there were almost no babies and few killings. If they had one thing in common beside how inappropriate it was for her to ask these question, it was the outside world was not a place fit for her. Martha asked out of naiveté the questions sparked by the faces she actually saw when her car passed near them. Their faces had pained expressions no different than she had sometimes seen on the faces of people who she new and loved. Father’s business friends after enough of Martha’s sincere argument could be made to agree on one thing, the classes for the most part are people, if not like us they were still some kind of human being. The purpose of a charity, the words on an invitation

always say, is to help those less fortunate but no one ever explained who they were and how their circumstances came about. When it said in the small print that ten percent of the funds went to researching a cure for the plague she now understood none of it went to help those who had no way of getting within the wall. The emotion of pity she had felt for Linny, who she could have brought home and had her mother make her into the woman Martha did not want to be, was insignificant by comparison. People were gathered at the edge of our society to die. There was an entire other world out there and this was its refuse, they were driven to find salvation but instead were handed a slow acting suicide capsule. After high school when she announced her intention to journey inland for her college education there was concern if she would ever find her way back into the city and suburbs, or the family home. On which side of the protective glass would she next be seen did not concern her mother who thought a fate equal to death was justice for her unmarried daughter.