The Few Part 5: The Old Man

John smiled down at Sierra. She was staring at the ground, her body rigid, trying as hard as she could to pretend he wasn’t there. He patted the back of her head gently and started to walk home. When she didn’t follow, he walked back to her, knelt down on the ground and looked up into her eyes until she looked away. “Let’s go,” he commanded as he grabbed his daughter’s hand and led her towards the house.
They walked home silently until they turned to walk up Pacific Circle to the house, when Sierra stopped suddenly. She pulled her hand free of John’s and began to run off down Exemplary Drive. John ran after her, not quite able to keep up, but able to stay close enough behind her to keep her in view. As they came close to the dead end, where the crumbling street melted into dust and overgrowth, she turned up a driveway and ran up to a modest house, overgrown with moss, and knocked on the door with a vigor that only a child could have. John ran up behind her and put his hand on her shoulder. As the door opened, John looked up to apologize and found himself staring into the expectant grin of the old man from the plaza.
“What took you two so long?” he asked in his friendly drawl. He opened the door and motioned for them to come in.
John shook his head. “We were on our way home,” he explained, only slightly out of breath. “Sorry to bother you.” He gripped Sierra’s elbow firmly, careful not to let her run off again, and started to lead her away.
“Come in,” the old man demanded, the grin disappearing from his face momentarily.
Sierra’s elbow pulled on John’s hand and John resigned to follow her in. They followed slowly into the living room, and at his gesture, sat down on the disintegrating vinyl couch, where, to John’s surprise, Wendy was sitting, reading an old, yellowed newspaper. The man disappeared into the kitchen for a moment, and returned with two cracked plastic cups filled with the pale brown liquid that most of Sidewood called water.
He handed the cups to John and Sierra and sat down in the armchair opposite them. He smiled pleasantly and said in a voice that grinned in their ears to match his face, “I’m Edward Pleasant” John vaguely recalled hearing that before, but he was, at the moment, to bewildered to remember much of anything.
“John Echson,” John muttered.
“Whaddaya think of Sidewood so far?” Edward asked in his same grinning voice.
John sat in silence. Of course he hated Sidewood, but he wasn’t about to sit here and tell that to this stranger. Before he could synthesize an acceptable response, Sierra piped in, expressing his thoughts on the town exactly. “I hate it,” she said. There was no anger or sorrow in her voice, but a sort of emotionless certainty. “It’s even worse than Portland.”
Edward chuckled. “You’ll get used to it,” he assured the three of them. “Once you live here for a while, you’ll get used to it.”
“We don’t live here.” John asserted.
Edward looked up at him with a puzzled expression, and Wendy and Sierra after a momentary silence followed suit. “Where do you live?” he asked with a passive interest. His grin returned and he asked jokingly, “Or are you just here on vacation?”
“We’re from Portland,” John explained. “I’m just here,” He paused for a second. “I’m here on business,” he said.
“You have a house here, don’t you?” Edward smiled. “You spend all of your time here, don’t you? It’s nothing to be ashamed of, John. You just need some time to adjust.”
John sighed and leaned back on the exposed foam of the couch’s plush back. He accepted defeat and waited for the rest of his family to tire of listening.

“Sidewood wasn’t always like this. That’s the part I don’t think you understand. Sidewood was a great place. And it will be a great place again. That’s why people are still here. That’s what The Few is about. They just,” he struggled for the words, “don’t know quite how to do it yet. I’ve lived in Sidewood for 57 years, and Sidewood is the most beautiful place in the world. It’s just a shame it doesn’t show it much anymore.”

“I remember back in ‘71,” Edward began what was obviously going to be a long story, “Sam had a party for all of the plant managers. He an’ his kids fixed up the courtyard behind the huntin’ club an’ we stayed there all weekend. We went home to sleep Saturday night and after church Sunday mornin’ we went right back out there again. An’ right in the middle of it, Sam climbed up on the card table and started singin’ -- singin’ -- an’ everybody else sang right along with him. Maybe it was just the lager up there singin’, but when people‘d ask him if he knew a song, he’d start singin’ it right then, even if he didn’t know it, an’ we would all start singin’ right along, even if we didn’t know it. An’ the childr’n played together...they had races ‘round the block and played ball in the street.
“An’ Sam’s boy Lance -- he worked at the grocery -- came in on Sunday afternoon with a whole box fulla watermelon, and Sam cut ‘em up and gave everybody, even the kids, a full half a melon and we still had half the box left over.
“An’ a couple a’ boys started tryin’ to play football with one of the leftover melons, and every time they went to kick it, it would bust right open, and they would get ‘nother one out of the box. An’ as it went on, some of the kids from the apartments ‘cross the street joined in, an’ even some of the adults started playin’. By the end of the day we were all covered in melon juice, but it didn’t matter. It was fun, an’ that’s what parties were for.
“That’s what Sidewood’s about. That was 32 years ago. The plant closed 30 years ago, and a few people left. But the rest of us knew it was a great place and we stayed here, work be damned. And we were all members of the huntin’ club -- that was what we did for fun. So we decided we were gonna make things good for our families ‘round here. When the old workers started leavin’, Sam started callin’ us ‘The Few,’ ‘cause we were the few who were stayin’.
“An’ that’s why we’re here. ‘Cause one day we’re gonna have another party like we did back in ‘71, and maybe ev’n start up the old plant again, just to remember.

John looked up at Edward as the old man stood and stared out the window. He imagined the old Sidewood in the stranger’s lucid blue eyes, and imagined the tan, leathery skin soaked in melon juice. He let his thoughts carry him away into the old Sidewood the man had described and for a moment he envied the people of the town who had a history to fight for.

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