Chapter 14

Parson Farm
Grindstone Island
St. Laurence River

January 2011

They drove up the road, around this giant house, and then down the hill behind it and around to a gated courtyard, the buildings around all lit up and warm with candles and firelight in the snow. This was not a small group, Spencer realized, there were lots of people here. Even as they pulled up to one building which seemed quite full word was being passed, and someone came out to meet them. "Hey Foreman." JD said. "Got you a new schoolteacher. Set him up, get him started in the morning."

"Yes sir! Very good sir!" The man who came out said as he bowed repeatedly. "I will see it done sir."

"Very good." JD nodded and drove away.

Spencer didn't dare quite fully look up just yet. A foreman was a leader, and he didn't know how that fell in the social structure here. But as soon as JD's truck passed through the man stood up straight and squared his shoulders. "You don't need to look down to me, kid." The man said, a stronger note and ample confidence in his voice. "I'm a slave here, just like you, not one of those capullos. Call me Foreman." A wide, callused hand was stuck under Spencer's nose.

Uncle Tom Syndrome, Spencer thought, a coping skill where individuals use passivity and submissiveness when confronted with a threat, leading to subservient behavior and appeasement, while concealing their true thoughts and feelings. During the antebellum slavery era blacks used passivity and servility to minimize retaliation and maximize own survival while maintaining their integrity and self-respect. Hopefully they were maintaining their integrity and self-respect here. "Foreman." Spencer looked up and found himself meeting a middle-aged Latino man with a thick beard, grizzled and worn, but big with strength and seemingly happy. He accepted the handshake offered. "Nice to meet you, I'm..."

"Ah ah. No names. We use them rarely here. You are Teacher. Welcome to Parson Farm. Hungry?" He was already turning to lead Spencer back into one of the rooms. It was a large dining hall, crude and rough, candle lit and warmed by a big stove in the corner. There were roughly sixty men and boys sitting around the hall, some playing games, some laughing or talking. "Hey everyone!" Foreman jerked his thumb back at Spencer. "New schoolteacher, everyone look out for him until he learns the ropes around here." Everyone was looking at him curiously, but there was a generally murmur of welcome and no negativity he could sense. He waved a greeting at them all before Foreman showed him where to hang his coats and led him to the far wall. Almost immediately a small flock of boys showed up around him. "Hey, you kids have all day tomorrow to pester him. We have to talk now. Go back to your tables. Go on. Shoo." They went, but not without many curious looks.

Foreman led Spencer to the back wall where he knocked above a square hole with a ledge. "Two servings and a jug of tea for two, please and thank you." He said to the hole. Moments later plates and bowls were passed out, and a jug and two cups and whatever else was needed. Foreman handed him some of it to carry, took the rest, and led him to a table for four in the corner.

As Spencer watched Foreman settle into a chair worn for his body he realized that this table was likely his office, and the others would not try to listen here. "Are those going to be my students?" He asked, nodding at the boys who were still looking over, curious.

"Yeah. There are eight boys in the father's house right now. Parson likes his people educated, god only knows why. So, what farm did you come from?"

"I didn't." He didn't know if this would have any meaning or not. He stuck his spoon into the bean soup that, along with some brown bread and butter, looked to be his supper. "I'm, um, an FBI agent."

This did have meaning. Foreman sat back, this news shocking him. "Are you serious?" Spencer nodded. "Has the world out there gone loco or something?"

"My team actually hunts serial killers. We were investigating a string of murders when my partner and I went to interview this pastor who might have known some of the victims. We found JD and his friends loading up a truck. They jumped us and brought us here."

Foreman nodded. "I heard through the grapevine that some new Elders were moving to the island. Yeah, we're on an island. You must have walked in to moving day. A couple of Feds, Jesus."

"Elders?"

"Free men, but without enough cash to set up a big house like the Masters. They like having like minded people around. They're the middle class out here."

"How long have you been out here?"

"I'm one of the oldest. Most of these vatos were brought here as children, or were born here. Me, I was fifteen when I was sold to Parson. I'm from LA. I was in foster care back in the day. Never met my father, Mama got deported." Foreman set down his spoon and rolled up his sleeve, revealing a tattoo of a crown bracketed by ornate letters. "I also ran with the PLK."

"Pasadena Latin Kings." Spencer had seen their graffiti back in his CalTech days.

"Someone, either my foster family or my social worker or somebody, decided I needed to be out of the city and in a clean, Christian environment in the country to save me from the evil gangs. I've been here ever since."

"Ouch."

"Yeah." He'd poured two mugs from the earthenware jug, now he passed one over. Chamomile tea, Spencer realized, with a bit of honey.

"So what do we do out here?"

"You teach the little ones to read and write and do math. We do farm work, keep the place up, that sort of thing. It's like an old-fashioned plantation out here and us poor folk are the niggers. Slavery based on class not race, everyone not born here came from the ghetto, barrio, white trash trailer park. Hell, you're only the second college boy slave I've seen, the first was the former school teacher. He was a student at UCLA, Parson brought him here twenty years ago."

"What happened to him?"

"He started acting like he had what my foster mom called sugar in his blood. Died about three years back."

"Diabetes." Odds were medical care was as crude as the rest of this place. If his math was right the former teacher would have been in his forties, about right for an untreated case. "Has anyone ever tried to escape this place?"

"Only about a dozen times or so. You can't get past those fences without the code. If you manage that somehow, harvest maybe when everything's more open, they're no boats, they keep them on the mainland and call for one when they want to go. And if the Overseers catch you they take you off to their place for a few days, treat you like an animal. Do things no man should have done to, you know what I mean?"

Spencer swallowed and nodded. "What about a way to communicate with the outside world?"

"Ain't none of us got a reason to. This is home for most of these vatos. But now that you're here?" Foreman thought about it and nodded. "I'll say something to Housekeeper; see if the maids can find a phone or something up at the big house."

"She?" Spencer looked around the room full of men. "There are women here?"

"Yeah." Foreman jerked his thumb at the wall the food came from. "Over there. About as many as we have men here. You'll see them at work sometimes, other times, but we're not supposed to socialize. Live apart, you know."

Likely to control sexuality. Spencer nodded. "So what happens now?"

"Now you finish your dinner and I show you where to sleep."