[Come February and the fabric of human society begins to fray. Bear, fox, and other mammals may be sleeping comfortably in their dens, but humans are clinging deperately to what they call “civilization.” It shows. SB SM]

Shunpike Seed Consortium

February

A shunpike is a side road used to avoid a major highway. In this case, Hiram Road is a minor tributary that begins and ends on Vermont State Route 100, forming a loop of about two miles. Today, the area’s fourteen households have adopted the term to add cachet to what its residents like to call “our little loop of paradise.”

The gravel on Hiram Road doesn’t just crunch under the tires of Emil Dummerston Weed’s pickup; it shrieks, announcing his arrival long before the truck rounds the final bend toward The ’Stead. The vehicle is a rolling testament to Vermont ingenuity and neglect: a rusted-out sculpture of a Chevy body with a driver’s side door salvaged from a different-colored donor, a composite of Bondo and duct tape painted primer-gray. Its inspection sticker lapsed half a decade ago.

“His Nibs has arrived,” Grace remarks, wiping a stray crumb from the table.

Henry checks his watch. “Say what you will about Emil, the man respects a schedule when there’s free coffee or beer involved.”

Falco follows, a mongrel of what Emil describes as “debatable breeding, same as my truck.” Emil’s skin has the texture of a well-worn work glove, and he wears a scuzzy beard that smells of woodsmoke and regret.

“Knock, knock!” Emil hollers, stomping onto the porch in boots that have seen the inside of a barn and the outside of a snowbank within the last hour. He tugs them off and places them in the rubber tray by the door, having learned the swift reprisal that follows any disregard for Grace’s “No Shoes” edict.

Behind him, more sedately, follows the rest of the Shunpike Seed Consortium. There is Olive, drifting toward the porch like a dandelion seed. She wears a batik-print skirt that swishes against her ankles and a necklace of hand-carved wooden beads. Though she spent thirty years teaching third-graders the fundamentals of long division, she still looks ready to depart for Woodstock at any moment, provided the bus has heated seats and good lumbar support. She carries an offering.

“Chocolate zucchini bread,” she announces. “Fresh-frozen from last August.”

Behind her is “Manny” Manacca, known locally as The Mayor. Manny is the only man on Hiram Road who wears a logo shirt under a V-neck sweater. As a licensed realtor for Backroad Properties, Manny never walks anyplace without appraising it. He enters mid-sentence, regaling Olive with the latest episode involving his seventeen-year-old son, Leo.

“I’m telling you, Olive, the boy has the spatial awareness of a goldfish,” Manny says, his hands animating the air. “He takes the turn by the farmstand so wide he nearly ends up in the brook. I’m on the passenger side stomping my right foot like there’s a snake in the car. He tells me the steering wheel felt ‘vague.’ His brain is vague! I am counting the days until we can turn his bedroom into an Airbnb.”

“He’s just exploring boundaries,” Olive says with a serene, teacherly smile. “The road is a metaphor for his life.”

“No, the road is a synonym for my insurance premiums.” Manny removes his boots and steps into the dining room. “Henry! Grace! You look like you’ve been behaving yourselves. That’s a shame. Cold enough for ya? Thinking about listing this place in the spring? I can put up the sign soon as the ground thaws.”

It’s a longstanding joke that elicits the same shopworn shrug from the older couple. “Actually, we’re listing it on Sotheby’s,” says Grace dryly.

“You wouldn’t dare,” says Manny, lip curled in mock anger.

Emil changes the subject. “I checked in with Lorette about her seed order this morning. She said to tell everyone it was 74 degrees in The Villages yesterday and that they had a fun time at the Fat Old Bastards’ Political Rally. Little Ray says he can’t shoot his age in golf, but he beats his weight every time. The two of them were having breakfast on their lanai, whatever the fuck that is. She had a good laugh when I told her about your frozen pipes.” Lorette and her husband, Little Ray, are old friends of Grace and Henry, seasonal residents of Hiram Road who take perverse delight in being archetypal Flatlanders.

The group settles around the heavy oak table. Grace, the undisputed Queen of the Perennials, takes her customary place nearest the kitchen. She isn’t here for the vegetables. Her interests lie in the high-stakes world of delphiniums and foxgloves, but she acts as the social arbiter, ensuring the coffee stays hot and the insults remain, more or less, civil.

“Alright, let’s get started,” Henry commands, adjusting his reading glasses. He spent four hours on a spreadsheet that a teenager could have built in ten minutes, but to Henry, these rows and columns are the blueprints of civilization. “We’re here for the Fedco order. Let’s keep it alphabetical and civil. Emil, are you going to want your own order?”

Emil slumps into a chair, Falco curled over his feet. “I’m representing Lorette. I’ll just steal my seeds from her order.” He snickers, digging a crumpled paper from his pocket.

Grace looks at him disapprovingly. “You know Lorette and I go way back …”

“Yeah, yeah … I know, I know, but you’ve seen the way they garden. They have me rototill a patch that could feed the whole road. Then, on Memorial Day weekend, they throw the seeds on. That’s it! They don’t pull a weed; they don’t water. They just have me mow around it all summer. And Little Ray, the fat fuck, chips golf balls into the bushel basket. I shit you not, that’s all he does: that, drink Bud, and eat burgers. Then, in August, they go out to the so-called garden to see if anything looks like a vegetable. Last year, all they found were fat yellow cucumbers the size of torpedoes. They ate them anyway, then called me to mow it all down. I know they’re your old friends, but they are ridiculous people.”

“Hear, hear,” says Henry.

Grace tries to summon a glower, but she can’t suppress her amusement at Emil’s characterization of the road’s most notorious Flatlanders.

Emil continues. “I mean … Lorette’s a sweetheart, but Little Ray … what’s the over/under on him breaking the 300-pound ceiling this year?”

“How are we going to get him on a scale?” asks Manny.

“Maybe the one at the sanitary transfer station,” suggests Olive.

“You mean ‘The Dump,'” Emil clarifies.

“Back on track,” Henry says. “Alphabetically, then. We are gathered tonight to face a common enemy: the high cost of seed packaging.” He points to his screen. “Fedco sells a package of Black Seeded Simpson lettuce for $2.75 for 1/32 of an ounce. But a two-ounce bulk order brings the price down to eleven cents a packet. That’s a ninety-six percent savings! Can anyone afford not to garden?”

The “Seedy Affair” proceeds. They move through the catalog—artichoke, beans, beets, carrots. The mood stays light until they reach chard.

“Lorette wants a full pound of Rainbow Chard,” Emil announces.

“A full pound?” Henry blurts. “Is she trying to feed all of Vermont?”

“She says it’s pretty,” Emil says with a shrug. “Ever try to talk a woman out of ‘pretty’?”

By 8:00 p.m., the worksheets are handed in. Henry will later divide the seeds (“Reminds me of dealing weed in college,” he whispers to Grace) and allocate the expense.

“You keeping warm in the trailer?” Olive asks Emil as they wrap up.

“For now. Muffy wants me to shovel the roof, but snow is great insulation. It’s just a fine line between ‘insulation’ and ‘roof collapse.'”

“Don’t you ever wish you had a TV?” Manny asks.

“Naw, we got Oakley for entertainment. The other night he spent three hours trying to teach Falco to whistle. Came pretty damn close.”

“You’re too hard on that kid,” Olive says.

“As long as we keep him from falling through the roof or eating detergent, he’s fine,” Emil grunts.

“Hey, Muffy’s a Bump, right?” Manny asks, his realtor brain clicking. “I’ve heard stories about perc testing at the family farm. Some development coming?”

“Nothing Muffy or I know about. I’ll keep my ears open.”

The evening ends with the annual strategy session on how to ditch surplus zucchini. Henry shares his secret: “It’s a trade secret, but since we’re among friends in the Consortium, I’ll tell you what I did last summer. I got a big cardboard box, put up a sign that said ‘Free Kittens,’ and set it outside the post office on Saturday morning.”

“And the box was filled with zucchinis?” Olive asks.

“No, but while people were checking out the kittens, I was putting zucchini in the back seats of their cars.”

And thus ends the annual gathering of the Shunpike Seed Consortium, a seedy affair indeed. By 8:30 p.m., The ’Stead is returned to the stewardship of Henry and Grace. The laptop is closed. Everything and everyone is firmly rooted in the dark hills. Even the rumble of Emil’s truck has been swallowed by the night.

“Gonna be another cold one,” Henry says. “Let’s leave the water dripping in the bathroom.”