The World Without Flags

But first I have to spend the day at the Homestead, acting like I’ll be here with them for the rest of my life. Norman and Franky come for me pretty damn early in the morning. It’s hardly dawn when they bang on the door. After a quick breakfast of a dried old apple and a fried egg, I have to follow around Franky like his personal pet, or like, well, like his princess, going from house to house, checking on people, solving problems, holding people’s hands as they cry.

I’ve been too shocked by the whole resurgence of the Worm and Eric’s horrible transformation to think about anyone else. But as I follow Franky, I see that the damage of the Worm to the Homestead was more than a pile of ashes where our friends used to be. People are barely keeping it together. Some people can’t even get out of bed. Others are walking in some kind of stupor, like zombies. Franky tells them what to do and they do it, more like machines than people. Others throw themselves into work, people like Crystal who basically starts doing the work of like four people in the kitchen. She works without break. Pest too is like that. He works by himself in the field, all day long, as if trying to resurrect his friends by doing what they normally would have done. As if they would live again if he could only do all their work. When we visit him, he looks up, gaunt and filthy, his eyes haunted like a child’s should never be. He doesn’t look at me the whole time. He only takes the water that Franky offers him and drinks until he’s full. Franky claps him manfully on the back. Pest picks up his hoe and goes back to the field. I feel sorry for him, but I can’t think of anything to say. Queen is sitting at the edge of the field, watching Pest protectively as if she can sense the danger around us. I watch Pest attack the earth with his hoe, wishing there was something I could do or say. I never thought I’d feel bad for Pest.

As we move from place to place, I see that Norman and Franky were right. We need each other. The Homestead is just barely hanging on. If it wasn’t for Crystal, I could easily imagine that everyone would just wander away on their own, in some kind of daze, and the place I grew up in would be no more. I used to think that the Homestead was unbreakable, something as unshakeable as a rock, but now I see it as it probably always was—fragile and precarious. It’s another revelation to me. Like most of the others, it’s discomfiting.

All day Franky is like the old Franky. He’s kind and gentle and helpful. He walks from house to house and person to person with his tool box in his hand, as if it was like the old days, as if he was coming to ask about some broken hinges and not to make sure you weren’t in the process of hanging yourself or guzzling rat poison. I feel most of my rancor toward him dissipate. Most of it. Sometimes, when we are alone, I can see him looking at me with distrust. And maybe something else, something dark and intense. Although I know the Homestead needs him badly, it’s dangerous for me to stay here. I can feel it. I am more certain than ever that if Franky found Eric, it would be the end of Eric’s life. I have no doubt.

All day I plan out the evening. I think about Eric up in the Land Rover. I know that I have to leave, and I have to leave tonight. If I stay much longer, I may find it too difficult to leave. I know it’s going to hurt people when I vanish. It will be yet another blow to the Homestead. It’s not really that I am necessary here, but that I am, like Franky and Norman said, a reminder of Eric. I’m like a walking memory of more secure times, like a promise it can be that way again. I’m sorry I can’t be that for them, but I won’t let Eric die. If I stay, someone will eventually find him and, “for the good of the community,” they will kill him.

They will have to find their own hope.

I will have to find mine.

41

When I leave Franky’s side for the day, he looks at me meaningfully and says, “See you tomorrow.” I get the gist. This is supposed to be my new job, following him around like his new puppy dog. If I wasn’t planning on leaving, I’d have to think about a way out of this, but since I’m already opting for a good old fashioned skedaddle, I nod and give him a hesitant smile, like I’m still missing Eric, but following him around is giving me hope. That’s what I go for anyway. Franky turns away before I can figure if my little game seemed to work on him. But I feel like it does. I can kind of sense him thinking that he’s got things under control. He has that air about him as he walks back toward his house. I don’t stand there and watch him though, that would be creepy, so I turn away and stride back to our house.