The Few Part 4: The Monument

John was awakened the next morning feeling surprisingly rested. For a moment he almost forgot about Sidewood and The Few. He heard the twins fighting in the next room, and slowly, but uncharacteristically merrily, he made his way over to calm them down.
It’s a shame, he thought, that nobody has the sense to do the same for this town.
John walked into the twins’ room and stood there for a moment, watching silently, ready to take up sides if he needed to, but willing to just mediate if he didn’t. The two boys were arguing, as he had tried not to expect, about The Few and the town and the runs and everything else that John hated about the town.
Just by looks, they were almost identical in every way. Both of the ten-year-old boys were built smallish, with sandy, light brown hair that could look dark or light depending on how it caught the light. The only visible difference between them was the barely visible scar on Mike’s chin where he had fallen off of his bike a few years back. But despite their similarities, the two boys were about as different as two children could get. Eddie was always the rebellious one, adhering to nobody’s standards but his own, and abandoning those even as was convenient, without caring what John or anybody else thought of it. Mike had previously always adapted to the crowd he was in, obeying and following his parents when they were around, and his friends when they weren’t. But coming to Sidewood had changed something in him. He stuck to John on almost everything, never taking part in the rituals or mingling with the crowd, and, like John, always critical of The Few.
Not really wanting to side with one of his children against another, but wanting desperately to instill in them the problems with the killing that was going on, John walked up to them, and without saying a word stepped between them.
“Quiet,” he interrupted them both midsentence, “The people of this town are killing. Normal people don’t kill. Do you understand?”
He looked directly at Eddie when he said this, knowing that it was Eddie who had asked him about joining the runs and that Eddie was the one who had talked to Sam, and suspecting that it was Eddie who would have doubted what he was saying.
As he finished his scolding in a scream louder than the argument he had interrupted, Sierra wandered in, sleepy eyed. She was a few years younger than the twins, with the same light brown hair, and was also built small, although it was a different kind of small that made her simply look younger. She had a sleek, slightly roundish shape to her, which, when combined with her taut complexion, almost gave her the appearance of having not quite enough skin. She leaned up against her father, who laid his arm down around her neck as she looked up at him, and then back at the twins, who certainly didn’t seem to have done anything wrong. John’s voice quieted, and he looked at all three of his children in turn and said quietly, “We don’t kill.” He wrenched his arm free from Sierra’s hands, which were holding it protectively to her chest, and walked out.
He walked toward the front door, not telling anybody, perhaps not wanting to tell himself, where he was going. Sierra shuffled frantically behind him, afraid of being left alone with the twins after the recent event, but John walked out of the door and threw it shut behind him before she could quite catch up.

The three children stood silent for a moment after he left. Each of them knew they should say something, but none of them knew what to say. John was not the type of person to leave his children alone, particularly in the current state of Sidewood. The twins, both riled up from their argument, scowled at each other, keeping silent only out of the fear that John might return.
Sierra glanced up at them, and afraid to address either of them quickly turned and looked out the window, and found herself staring into the eyes of an old man. He had dark brown hair, and skin like tanned leather, which clashed with his eyes,which were a bright blue. The eyes stared back at Sierra, even brighter than her own, and seemed to make her heart stop in her chest. She knew she should look away, but she couldn’t make herself move. She thought for a moment of calling for her father, but remembered that he was gone. She thought of calling for her mother, but she too was gone, though Sierra had no idea where. She thought for a moment of calling her brothers, but after the morning’s episode, she feared them perhaps more than the figure on the other side of the window.

John proceeded down the crumbling asphalt of Pacific Circle toward the front of the neighborhood. The rising sun shone in his face, and he shielded his eyes to look at the approaching stranger, a man with brown hair that somehow seemed to avoid the sunlight and skin as thick and as wrinkled as a worn-out baseball glove. John did not recognize the man, and he was certain that he had not been at the run the previous night. The man passed him and he continued walking toward the town.
When he came to the front of the hunting club, John sat on the edge of the fountain and looked dejectedly at the crumbling facade that left ash-grey cinderblock visible, and thought of the previous night and the morning’s fight. John had never heard his boys fight before, he realized. Ten years, and he had never once heard them fight with each other. He was certain that they must have fought before, but certainly they knew that he had never condoned fighting, and had always kept their quarrels discrete. He sat there for the better part of an hour before coming to the realization that he had, of course, condoned the fights among the people in the town, and had in fact moved his family across the country from Portland for no other reason to watch it.
Suddenly, as he thought, he saw the shadow on the building of two people walking up behind him. Turning, he saw the old man he had passed on his way out. He stood there, with a knowing smile, and stopped as John looked him in the eye, glancing down at Sierra, who had walked alongside him, and said with a heavy accent, “Mornin’”
A little surprised by this appearance, John stood silently for a moment, his eyes darting between the old stranger and his daughter, almost afraid to ask why they had come.
“Come with me,” the old man responded mystically to John’s silence. He walked around the side of the hunting club building and into the alley between it and the long-abandoned munitions shop next door. Sierra ran quickly behind him, and John followed closely enough to keep them in sight, but kept enough distance not to seem too eager.
The three of them eventually arrived at a well-landscaped plaza, surrounded by the backs of all of the Main Street buildings. The plaza stood in stark contrast to the rest of the town. It was clean and well kept, and all around it were beautiful murals painted on the backs of the abandoned buildings. The plaza in the courtyard was a bright red brick, rather than the crumbling mosaic of concrete and asphalt that covered the rest of the town, and in the center of the space stood a large monument of an oil well, made of brightly polished brass, mounted on a granite base. The copper nameplate read, “To the people of Sidewood, for making the Sidewood refinery the best in the country. Eastern Oil Company, 1971” Engraved in small letters all around the granite base were the names of the employees of the plant. A stone set in the ground in front of the monument read, “Eastern Oil Park, Established by Sidewood City Council, October 1, 1972.”
John looked up into the old man’s bright blue eyes and and asked “Why did you bring me here?”
The old man flashed his knowing smile and replied, “I just thought you might like to know what keeps people here.” After a long pause, he clarified. “This monument is the reason people stay here. This monument has the name of everybody who worked in that plant the year before it closed. Almost all of The Few families have somebody’s name on this stone here.” He pointed to a name and said softly, almost in a whisper, “Here’s mine.”
John leaned over and read the name. Edward J. Pleasant. “You worked in the plant?” he asked.
“Yes,” the old man said after a long pause to look at the ground. “Everybody here did. It was what this town was here for.”
“Why aren’t you part of The Few?” John asked, letting his curiosity overcome his fear of being rude.
“I was,” he said, “but then I wouldn’t murder The Others. The Few was about more than just killing people, you know. We just wanted the best for ourselves, for our families, our children, and when everything fell apart, we had to fight for what we had. It just went too far for me.” He paused, looking up at the sky for a moment before continuing. “Now they just ignore me. They put up with me, I guess.”
John started to ask another question, but the old man was already beginning to walk away. As Sierra rushed to follow him, the old man leaned down and whispered something to her, and as slowly as she could, and looking at the ground, she walked back to join her father.

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