Jesus's Junkyard
Feb. 13th, 2006 11:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hafoc
(fictionalized to protect the guilty)
The sign out front said "Vern and Kathy Beale," but these days Mrs. Beale lives alone in the big old farmhouse on Beale Road. She's about a thousand years old now. It might be mere coincidence the road has the same name she does, but I don't think so.
The farmhouse itself looks to date from about 1900, which means it's about as old as things get around there. It's kept up, sort of. A white cube with a kitchen lean-to in back and a hip roof on top, chimney coming out of the exact peak of the roof, it has lost front porches on both the first and second floor, but gained a sheath of aluminum siding over the years. There's a corroded and bent TV antenna bolted to the chimney, a new Dish Network dish bolted to the southwest corner of the place.
And it does have a southwest corner. It's a peculiarity of this region that almost all the houses are set up oriented with walls due north-south-east-west, especially the old ones. Whether that makes sense based on the topography or the direction of the road. Here the land is dead flat, so topography doesn't matter, but Beale Road is a dead-end that was probably just a logging trail not that long ago. It cuts across in front of the house, heading about thirty degrees south of west.
"He's at it again," Mrs. Beale said, frowning off toward the setting sun. "Can't you smell it?"
"I smell a little bit of propane, yes."
"You should have been here earlier. It was much stronger then."
"Sorry, Ma'am. We left the office the moment we got your call."
"Your office is too far away. Why don't you have someone stationed in Arnold City, so you can come over right away when he does it?"
I couldn't answer that. Not because I didn't know, but because the answer was not politically correct. Arnold City is a ghost town, if it was ever more than that; a bar, a gas station, and the gas station has closed. The state just doesn't have enough money to station someone in every scummy little dead-end crossroads village in the northern two-thirds of the state, just in case someone in the area happens to call in about an odor problem that day. I really didn't want to get Mrs. Beale off onto the Taxpayer Rant: I pay so much in taxes you ought to be able to do anything I ask, you have to do anything I ask I pay your wages, don't you do anything besides draw a paycheck, yack yack yack yack yack.
Fortunately, Mrs. Beale was more upset with her neighbor, Mr. Carr, than she was with me. Keeping a professional face, I brought myself back to reality as she got past her first complaint (cutting up propane tanks in the junkyard each Thursday), past the barking dogs, chainsaws, fence, captive European deer herd in the creek, and the hoodlum son to start in on the line of trailers out behind the junkyard, trailers Carr rented out to tennants too poor to afford the $200 a month it would cost them to buy their own.
"That's a zoning issue, Ma'am. I'm in air pollution control. We don't enforce zoning ordinances."
She glared at me. "I've told you a hundred times, Sheridan County doesn't HAVE a zoning ordinance! We're not one of your leftist big cities. I can do whatever you want with my land out here."
What I didn't say was "If you can, so can he." What I did say was "Well, even if it doesn't exist, I still can't enforce it."
She sighed. "I suppose not. Well, get over there and see about the tanks."
"Will do."
Carr's place is called CJR Salvage. CJR stands for "Christ Jesus Reigns." A sign over the entrance to the office shack says "Jesus is Lord." The junkyard itself is surrounded by a particle board fence, to hide the junk piles from view I suppose. The fence would look better had it been made of some kind of particle board that was a bit more waterproof, so it wouldn't crumble. It's holding up well enough, though, that it is still mostly black, and you can still read the bible verses painted all over it in white letters three inches high.
I chickened out, and didn't go onto the property. The last time one of us did that Carr said something about his shotgun and ordered us off his property. We have the legal right to inspect, but we don't press the issue. Someone tells us to leave, we smile, say thank you sir, and head out. If it's important enough we'll have Vinnie get his badge and gun, and bring him with us when we come back.
Yup, he had been cutting up propane tanks again. Wildly unsafe, that; probably violating all sorts of OSHA and Fire Marshall regulations there. And the captive deer herd-- from what I heard, not innoculated against the bovine tuberculosis that's running wild in the area-- were still pastured in a little lot, muddy as a feedyard, through which the local creek ran on its way to a high-quality trout fishing stream half a mile away. More violations there. There was no foul odor at the moment, though. The slum of leaning, rotting trailer homes-- well, Sheridan County doesn't have a zoning ordinance, and is proud that it doesn't.
Thing is, Carr is one of the Miiltia types around here. He would say he isn't violating any State health or safety regulations because they don't apply to him; he's not part of the State. He's a Land Patent Man.
I don't even know what a land patent is. Something about the original title of the land (after the US stole it from the Indians fair and square) being direct from the Federal government, so that theoretically the state has no authority there. Which is sort of ironic, since the militia people don't believe in the Federal government either. Maybe they hold their land grant from the French Crown. Some of the land around here, especially near the lakeshore and the major rivers, is surveyed in old French ribbon-lots, the way the French colonial farms were set up; a narrow frontage on the river or lake, which was your highway, and running straight back from there. The rest of the State is done in the standard township-and-range system, but wherever the old French Government Lots existed first, they remain.
All I know about it is that Carr claims not to be part of the state, or perhaps not part of the United States, something like that. Which is a fine theory, and would work perfectly if we agreed to it.
Of course, we don't. It's all going to be settled in court one way or another, along with the OSHA claims and the infected or infectable deer, and the manure in the creek, and all the rest of it. But it's not worth my getting shot over.
So I took my notes and went back home.
I had to think, though. Here's Carr, gassing out his neighbors, befouling the lovely land he's been given. He claims he's exempt from the government. He claims Jesus owns it all. Jesus, who was supposed to be kind and loving, considerate of neighbors, the kind of guy who would want to do things correctly. If Jesus owns the place, doesn't Carr think his Master would want him to do a better job running it?
The sign out front said "Vern and Kathy Beale," but these days Mrs. Beale lives alone in the big old farmhouse on Beale Road. She's about a thousand years old now. It might be mere coincidence the road has the same name she does, but I don't think so.
The farmhouse itself looks to date from about 1900, which means it's about as old as things get around there. It's kept up, sort of. A white cube with a kitchen lean-to in back and a hip roof on top, chimney coming out of the exact peak of the roof, it has lost front porches on both the first and second floor, but gained a sheath of aluminum siding over the years. There's a corroded and bent TV antenna bolted to the chimney, a new Dish Network dish bolted to the southwest corner of the place.
And it does have a southwest corner. It's a peculiarity of this region that almost all the houses are set up oriented with walls due north-south-east-west, especially the old ones. Whether that makes sense based on the topography or the direction of the road. Here the land is dead flat, so topography doesn't matter, but Beale Road is a dead-end that was probably just a logging trail not that long ago. It cuts across in front of the house, heading about thirty degrees south of west.
"He's at it again," Mrs. Beale said, frowning off toward the setting sun. "Can't you smell it?"
"I smell a little bit of propane, yes."
"You should have been here earlier. It was much stronger then."
"Sorry, Ma'am. We left the office the moment we got your call."
"Your office is too far away. Why don't you have someone stationed in Arnold City, so you can come over right away when he does it?"
I couldn't answer that. Not because I didn't know, but because the answer was not politically correct. Arnold City is a ghost town, if it was ever more than that; a bar, a gas station, and the gas station has closed. The state just doesn't have enough money to station someone in every scummy little dead-end crossroads village in the northern two-thirds of the state, just in case someone in the area happens to call in about an odor problem that day. I really didn't want to get Mrs. Beale off onto the Taxpayer Rant: I pay so much in taxes you ought to be able to do anything I ask, you have to do anything I ask I pay your wages, don't you do anything besides draw a paycheck, yack yack yack yack yack.
Fortunately, Mrs. Beale was more upset with her neighbor, Mr. Carr, than she was with me. Keeping a professional face, I brought myself back to reality as she got past her first complaint (cutting up propane tanks in the junkyard each Thursday), past the barking dogs, chainsaws, fence, captive European deer herd in the creek, and the hoodlum son to start in on the line of trailers out behind the junkyard, trailers Carr rented out to tennants too poor to afford the $200 a month it would cost them to buy their own.
"That's a zoning issue, Ma'am. I'm in air pollution control. We don't enforce zoning ordinances."
She glared at me. "I've told you a hundred times, Sheridan County doesn't HAVE a zoning ordinance! We're not one of your leftist big cities. I can do whatever you want with my land out here."
What I didn't say was "If you can, so can he." What I did say was "Well, even if it doesn't exist, I still can't enforce it."
She sighed. "I suppose not. Well, get over there and see about the tanks."
"Will do."
Carr's place is called CJR Salvage. CJR stands for "Christ Jesus Reigns." A sign over the entrance to the office shack says "Jesus is Lord." The junkyard itself is surrounded by a particle board fence, to hide the junk piles from view I suppose. The fence would look better had it been made of some kind of particle board that was a bit more waterproof, so it wouldn't crumble. It's holding up well enough, though, that it is still mostly black, and you can still read the bible verses painted all over it in white letters three inches high.
I chickened out, and didn't go onto the property. The last time one of us did that Carr said something about his shotgun and ordered us off his property. We have the legal right to inspect, but we don't press the issue. Someone tells us to leave, we smile, say thank you sir, and head out. If it's important enough we'll have Vinnie get his badge and gun, and bring him with us when we come back.
Yup, he had been cutting up propane tanks again. Wildly unsafe, that; probably violating all sorts of OSHA and Fire Marshall regulations there. And the captive deer herd-- from what I heard, not innoculated against the bovine tuberculosis that's running wild in the area-- were still pastured in a little lot, muddy as a feedyard, through which the local creek ran on its way to a high-quality trout fishing stream half a mile away. More violations there. There was no foul odor at the moment, though. The slum of leaning, rotting trailer homes-- well, Sheridan County doesn't have a zoning ordinance, and is proud that it doesn't.
Thing is, Carr is one of the Miiltia types around here. He would say he isn't violating any State health or safety regulations because they don't apply to him; he's not part of the State. He's a Land Patent Man.
I don't even know what a land patent is. Something about the original title of the land (after the US stole it from the Indians fair and square) being direct from the Federal government, so that theoretically the state has no authority there. Which is sort of ironic, since the militia people don't believe in the Federal government either. Maybe they hold their land grant from the French Crown. Some of the land around here, especially near the lakeshore and the major rivers, is surveyed in old French ribbon-lots, the way the French colonial farms were set up; a narrow frontage on the river or lake, which was your highway, and running straight back from there. The rest of the State is done in the standard township-and-range system, but wherever the old French Government Lots existed first, they remain.
All I know about it is that Carr claims not to be part of the state, or perhaps not part of the United States, something like that. Which is a fine theory, and would work perfectly if we agreed to it.
Of course, we don't. It's all going to be settled in court one way or another, along with the OSHA claims and the infected or infectable deer, and the manure in the creek, and all the rest of it. But it's not worth my getting shot over.
So I took my notes and went back home.
I had to think, though. Here's Carr, gassing out his neighbors, befouling the lovely land he's been given. He claims he's exempt from the government. He claims Jesus owns it all. Jesus, who was supposed to be kind and loving, considerate of neighbors, the kind of guy who would want to do things correctly. If Jesus owns the place, doesn't Carr think his Master would want him to do a better job running it?
