Beggars and Choosers by Nancy Kress Read Free Book Online Page B

the other hand, nobody never stood trial for
the bow-shooting of Sam Taggart out in the woods two years ago. But I
think we had a different franchise, us, back then.
    FBI is a whole other thing. All them federal outfits are. They don’t
come to Livers unless something donkey is threatened, and once they
come, them, they don’t let go.
    “Well,” Annie said stubbornly, “all I know, me, is that she was a
donkey. I can smell them.”
    I didn’t want to argue, me. But I didn’t want her to worry, neither.
“Annie—ain’t no reason for FBI to be in East Oleanta. And donkeys don’t
have big heads and squinchy features, them— they don’t let their kids
get born that way.”
    “Well, I hope you’re right, you. We don’t need no visiting donkeys
in East Oleanta. Let them stay, them, in their places, and us in ours.”
    I couldn’t help it. I said, real soft, “Annie—you ever hear of Eden?”
    She knew, her, that I didn’t mean the Bible. Not in that voice. She
snapped, “No. I never heard of it, me.”
    “Yes, you did. I can tell, me, by your voice. You heard of Eden.”
    “And what if 1 did? It’s garbage.”
    I couldn’t let it go, me. “Why’s it garbage?”
    “
Why
? Billy—think, you. How could there be a place, even in
the mountains, that donkeys don’t know about? Donkeys serve everything,
them, including mountains. They got aircars and planes to see
everything. Anyway, why would a place without donkeys ever come to be?
Who would do the work?”
    “ ‘Bots,” I said.
    “Who would make the ‘bots?”
    “Maybe us?”
    “Livers work? But
why
, in God’s name? We don’t got to
work, us—we got donkeys to do all that for us. We got a right to be
served by donkeys and their ‘bots—we elect them! Why would we want to
go, us, to some place without public servants?”
    She was too young, her. Annie don’t remember a time before the
voting came on HT and the franchises made cheap ‘bots and the Mission
for Holy Living was all over the place, them, contributing lots of
money to all the churches and explaining about the lilies of the field
and the sacredness of joy and the favor of God to Mary over Martha.
Annie don’t remember, her, all the groups for all the kinds of
democracy, each showing us how in a democracy the common man was the
real aristo and master of his public servants. Schools for democracy.
Irish-Americans for Democracy. Hoosiers for Democracy. Blacks for
Democracy. I don’t know, me. The ’bots took over the hard work, and we
were happy, us, to give it to them. The politicians started talking,
them, about bread and circuses, and calling voters “sir” and “ma’am”
and building the cafes and warehouses and scooter tracks and lodge
buildings. Annie don’t remember, her. She likes to cook and sew and she
don’t spend all her time at races and brainie parties and lodge dances
and lovers, like some, but she still ain’t never held an ax in her hand
and swung it, or a hoe or a hatchet or a hammer. She don’t remember.
    And then suddenly I knew, me, what an old fool I really was, and how
wrong. Because I
did
swing heavy tools, me, on road crews in
Georgia, when I was just a few years older than Lizzie. And when I
wasn’t being an ass I could remember, me, how my back ached like it was
going to break, and my skin blistered under the sun, and the blackflies
bit, them, on the open sores where they’d bit before, and at night I
was so tired and hurting, me, I’d cry for my mother into my pillow,
where the older men couldn’t hear me. That’s the work we did, us, not
some quiet clean assembling of donkey ‘bots. I remembered the fear of
losing that lousy job when there wasn’t no Congresswoman Janet Carol
Land Cafe, no Senator Mark Todd Ingalls meal chip, no Senator Calvin
Guy Winthop Jay Street Apartment Block. The fear was like a knife
behind your eyes when the foreman come over, him, on a Friday to say,
“That’s it, Washington. You through,” and all you