Ultimatum

Hindsight, Chapter 3, Part 1.

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Hindsight by Neil Shooter (photo by author)

March 2038.

Bill tossed a handful of mixed grains onto the ground in the main coop, under the carport south of the garage. The hens all burbled and gobbled happily. One or other of the roosters picked up a piece of corn or oats and acted as though he had independently discovered a cache of food, trying to steal Bill’s thunder. “Whatever, Buddy.”

The roosters were all Buddy. They all looked the same. The only thing telling them apart was the coloured plastic ring around their leg. Red, green, blue. It declared which clan they had been born into, and therefore which clan they would breed into. Red into green, green into blue, blue into red. There were some small differences in their features. Buddy Green had a slightly bigger comb. Buddy Red had a bit more golden yellow in his tail feathers. And Buddy Blue had a thin red circle around his eyes. But at a glance, it was very difficult to tell them apart. And for the hens it was even worse. After what amounted to eighteen years of breeding this flock, even with the difficulties of that year, the breeds had all more or less merged. Five toes, feathered toes, beards, fluffy cheeks, pouffy heads, with five main coloration patterns for hen. One was red and brown, the most common, in all three clans. The second was black and white. The third was white and red. The fourth black and buff. The fifth buff and grey. Some had a bit of a mix to their characteristics, but most fitted into only one of these types. The different colour genes were still warring, but Silkie feathers had been absent these past five years.

It wasn’t quite a breed just yet. “The Bardington Bantam?” A couple of the hens, his favourites, looked up at him, to see if the words meant more food. They didn’t, but in a way they did, because he tossed another handful of grains to them as a reward for taking an interest.

It was hard to keep favourites when the birds looked so much alike. He could argue with himself for hours about whether a particular hen was this one or that one. No more Betsy or Barbara or Bertha. If he saw a specific behaviour happen, he needed to catch the bird, isolate it, and then slip a ring over its foot. Yellow meant a good thing, like being particularly friendly or attentive to him. Orange meant a bad thing, like being a bully, or pecking too much. Through the summer, any bird with too many orange rings got culled. He would collect them over the course of a summer day, and keep them in a cage overnight, and then process them the following afternoon, when the shade came around to the back of the house. He had to have some way of deciding which birds got eaten, and which birds were worth breeding with. And the culled birds were part of his food production quota.

A collection of yellow rings meant the hen would be segregated in the coming winter, along with her desirable clanmates, and once their systems were flushed of random semen, the appropriate rooster would be introduced, so that the resulting fertilized eggs were of the widest possible genetic separation.

In all honesty, he was surprised that hatch rates were still good. But then he’d taken in a couple of birds over the years too, so maybe that was enough to explain the resilience of the line. Or else that the original stock had been so diverse.

At least he didn’t need to worry about buying feed anymore, or worrying about hatching too many babies. He was perfectly happy keeping eighty hens over the summer, doing periodic culls, producing about fifty eggs per day over the summer, and the reduced winter flock still producing a dozen or so. And he had the great joy of hatching a hundred and fifty chicks every spring, even though it meant culling seventy-five unnecessary roosters by the end of the season.

He was proud of his contribution, and the quota wasn’t unreasonable.

He tossed more feed, and then went around collecting eggs for his basket.

He heard the whizz of an ETV on the road, and then gravel crunched in his driveway. The high-pitched electric engine settled into silence, and then came a couple of footsteps.

Bill turned to greet the visitor, but swore under his breath when he saw who it was. “Maxwell.” He tried to keep the smile on his face, for the sake of appearances, but didn’t quite manage it.

“Bill.” Maxwell stood beside the four-wheeler, a grim expression on his face.

Perhaps he was remembering?

“What can I do for you?” Bill wanted to get this over with as soon as possible.

“How have you been?”

Bill laughed. “How have I been? What do you want? Why are you here?”

“I’m doing you a favour.” There was sadness in Maxwell’s voice.

“How do you figure?” Bill braced himself.

“The other day, your address came through my inbox, in a list of recommendations for inspection.”

“What?”

“The computer has flagged your property as being under-capacity, and due for an inspection to assess possible allocation opportunities.”

“Quite the euphemism you got there.”

“I could have just let that happen. Instead, I’m here. With my offer of a favour.”

“Oh yeah? Why do I get the sense that I’m fucked either way?” He made no attempt to hide his bitterness. Hatching chicks was one thing. The other things—

“Maybe it would help if I explain what happens if I just get back on my ride and leave you to the whims of the system?”

“Sure thing, Councillor Klaver. Go ahead.”

Maxwell looked away, at the chickens in the run, at the view of the lake, still stark so early in the year, the tail end of winter.

“According to municipal rolls, this is a three-bedroom, two-bathroom residence with two occupants. That makes you at capacity.”

Bill waited.

“Bylaws demand a private bathroom for each resident. But you have more than that, don’t you?”

“You bastard.”

“You have the en-suite bathroom that you never declared to the municipality. An inspection would reveal that, and would also draw attention to the basement.”

“You wouldn’t!”

“The basement is an excellent spot for an extra bedroom, maybe a double bedroom. And to keep within regulations, your laundry room could be expanded into the corner of your garage to make way for bathing facilities. You might even end up assigned two couples, one for the basement, and one for the master bedroom.”

“That’s mine!”

“You’re a single man, Bill.”

Bill clenched his jaw. “That was low, Maxwell. Even for you.”

“I’m trying to help you.”

“Yeah, it sounds like it. You’re enjoying this.”

Maxwell looked away for a moment, and sighed. “Bill, listen to me. What I’m saying is, if your household is not at capacity, some other Unit guy is going to come in here and see how much space you have, and you know you don’t want that. But if you take in one new adult now, you’ll be ‘at capacity’ when the investigations are set to begin this summer, and no one will give a damn about your large basement, because on paper you will have three bedrooms and three single men. You already have the required third bathroom. I’ve used it: I know. I could very easily update your file with an accurate bathroom count.”

Bill couldn’t speak.

“The Covid Cohort graduates next year. It’s crunch time. It’s the only reason we’ve let things go with some people up to this point. So we would have some reserve. There’s going to be a real squeeze, a crackdown. And if you get inspected, you know what will happen. The guy from Plumbing could be here Tuesday. Start the reno in no time. How’d you like that?”

“You wouldn’t!”

“I wouldn’t! Of course I wouldn’t! But if you’re already ‘at capacity’ by taking on a third now, you won’t even be inspected! You’ll be taken off that list automatically! I’m trying to save your ass here! That’s why I’m here off the record!”

Bill’s eyes burned with rage and grief. “You’re going to make me give up Juss’ art room.” The paints were all hardened and useless, but still there as she left them. He swiffered them when he thought about it. Her painting still as she left it. Unfinished. As if she might return at any moment to pick up a brush.

“I know.”

Bill turned away, to the lake. He was damned if he’d let Maxwell see him cry.

“How long has it been, Bill?”

“You know damn well how long it’s been.”

“I do. Fourteen years, and what, three weeks?”

“Twenty-three days,” Bill replied.

“Right.”

“How is Annabel?” She was one of the things Bill could let himself remember.

“Good.”

“Graduating this year?”

“Yes. Moving to Loyalist College.”

“Out of the sub-district. Living down there?”

“Yes. She’s eager for a bit of independence.”

“And her room?”

“I know what you’re getting at.”

“Do you? How many strangers are you welcoming into your house? Or are you exempt from it, as a Councillor? And what about that asshole Fiorini? I bet he isn’t going to be forced into this—and a nice big house like that! Another double standard!”

“Mayor Fiorini will be taking on an extra resident as a gesture of solidarity with the community.”

“How magnanimous.”

“And as a matter of fact, yes, I will be taking on two residents. Next year, during the crunch. I have three bedrooms too. And you know I have a third bathroom.”

That took the wind out of Bill’s sails.

Maxwell looked him in the eye. “Look, I know you can accommodate one of these youngsters.”

“Can’t they just stay where they are?”

“Some of them can, and they do, but many need to start making their own way in the world.”

“That’s a joke. You’re talking about them making their way into my world.”

“These are kids, Bill. New adults. They need to be productive members of society. They need growing room, and broadened horizons.”

“You think this view is enough horizon broadening?”

“It’s a nice view, Bill. You have land here. It’s a bit much for two, isn’t it? You’d do more with three, and you’d do it better. You know you would.”

“You’re just going to up my quota.”

“Yes, your quota will go up. But your per capita workload will go down.”

“It’s not fair.”

“No, it’s not.”

“I’m not ready.” He was about to lose his shrine to Juss. And the house would never be the same.

“I appreciate that.”

“But some punk kid from the city?” There was a time when ‘the city’ used to mean Toronto, but now it could only mean Belleville. Or perhaps Trenton, which may as well be the same thing. Nowadays, Toronto was so far away that it might be as easy to get to China, or Antarctica, or the Moon.

“There just isn’t the population growth in villages like Tweed.”

“Too many old people like me.”

“I’m no spring chicken, either,” Maxwell said, with a glance over at the run.

“It’s going to be a guy, right?”

“Yes.”

“Of course. You wouldn’t send a young lady to live with two strange men on a country acre.”

“Exactly. But anyone who is going to be moving out of the city has actually requested it. Or at the very least has indicated they are open to it.”

The world had changed so much.

“Okay.” There was nothing else that Bill could say.

Maxwell nodded. He reached into his pocket for his phone, and after a few moments made a dramatic sweep over the screen, toward the house. “There. I flipped you the profiles of three prospectives. The sooner we can set up the Streams, and you can make your selection, the better.”

“Sure.”

“Bill, I really am sorry. For everything.”

Bill nodded. “Yeah. Sure. Okay. No problem.”

Maxwell stood there for a few more moments, and then climbed back onto his ETV, backed out of the driveway, and was soon over the hill and away.

Bill stood there, the wind biting into him.

In time, the cold brought him back to himself, and he remembered the egg basket in his hand. He decided to check the nesting boxes one last time before heading inside.

Thanks for reading!

Continue reading with the next part on Sunday!

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