“You don’t believe me, do you,” Phil said impatiently.

“I don’t know, Phil,” Larry admitted, “ that all sounds pretty off the wall. And how do you know anyways?”

“Anyone can find out if they’re willing to look beyond the establishment mass media,” Phil restated.

“Here we go again!” Larry said with grand facetiousness. “We’re all just a bunch of brainwashed idiots because we don’t listen to all those radio stations at the far end of the dial.”

Jason sat at the other side of the break room table and looked upon the conversation while glancing at the sports page.

“Laugh all you want, but I’m telling you,” Phil lowered his voice, “this place was helped started by ex-Third Reich scientists.” He looked around the table expectantly.

“Well big fuckin’ surprise!” Kevin replied. “Our entire space and missile program was fortified with scientists that our military whisked out of Germany at the end of the World War II. Everybody knows that.”

“That’s what I’m saying!” Phil implored. “Doesn’t that seem suspicious? They used to work for the enemy.”

“But they weren’t politicians, or generals, or even soldiers,” Kevin stressed. “They were scientists, and some very brilliant ones at that. They just happened to be working for the wrong side, that’s all, so we fixed it. Their knowledge and expertise was extremely valuable to us, and still is.”

“Yes, I know, I saw Dr. Strangelove,” Phil agreed dismissively. “But you have to wonder about one thing.” He hunched down secretively. “Do they still have any loyalties to their old regime?”

“Hey, as long as they’re loyal to us who cares what they believe in,” Kevin asserted. “If we didn’t get them, the Soviets would have. Now imagine that.”

“The Soviets got the bomb anyways,” Phil reminded.

“We got it first, and used it,” Kevin said ominously. “That sent them a message.”

“It sent a message to the whole world,” Phil added. “You know, a lot of those scientists ended up at IBM. Big Blue is riddled with fascists.”

“Now you’re talking like a crackpot!” Kevin said angrily.

“Am I?” Phil countered. “Didn’t you see those visitors who came this morning? Wouldn’t you say they were a little shady?”

“So that’s what’s got you on this rant,” Larry said with a laugh.

“You think everybody in a suit is shady,” Kevin alleged.

Jason finished his coffee, got up and left the break room. He crossed through the warehouse to his work area, then looked up at the window of the second story office and saw it was occupied with more people than usual. The men in suits who had arrived earlier did most of the talking while the supervisors listened.

Jason watched the meeting for a moment, then looked around and saw Stan nearby writing on a clipboard. “Hey, Stan.”

Stan looked up from his clipboard.

Jason walked up to him as he nodded toward the office. “Who are those guys?”

Stan glanced up at the office. “The corporate shock troops, I assume.”

“So who are they?”

“People way above our pay grade,” Stan said and went back to his clipboard.

“They do look kind of important,” Jason said as he looked up at the office again.

“Why, because they’re wearing suits?”

“I suppose,” Jason said, “plus the limousines they arrived in.”

Stan looked up again from his clipboard. “And then they breezed right through and didn’t even say hi, just straight to the head office like they own the joint.” Stan moved along and Jason followed him.

“Yeah, that was pretty rude,” Jason recalled.

“You know why, of course.”

“Because we’re below their pay grade?”

“It’s because they don’t want to get too close to anybody in case they need to terminate some of us,” Stan said as he took the papers from his clipboard and put them away into a steel filing cabinet.

Jason was taken aback. “So this is it?”

Stan slid the cabinet shut. “Don’t tell me you’re surprised.”

“Sure, I heard some rumors,” Jason admitted, “but I thought that was all BS. You know how people like to talk, didn’t think any of it was true.”

“Well, it’s not a done deal yet,” Stan said as he started toward another section of the warehouse, “but I wouldn’t wait too long to get your resume together.”

Jason was taken aback as he tried to assess the new information. “So now what?”

“All I know is that once Alice and I sell our house we’ll have more than enough for a house up in Grass Valley. The hell with this place,” Stan said as he walked down an aisle of inventory.

“So you’re moving away?” Jason asked as he followed Stan. “That’s sudden.”

“Not really,” Stan replied as he stopped in the middle of the aisle. “We’ve been planning on moving out of the Valley for a while now. Price of living is going through the roof, and it’s getting more crowded every year. Most of the people we know have moved away over the years, whole city is full of strangers. Even our kids are thinking about moving away. This isn’t the place it used to be, and Alice and I just don’t have a lot of attachments here anymore.” Stan continued walking down the aisle.

“That seems to be happening a lot,” Jason said as he followed Stan. “One of my friends from the neighborhood moved all the way to Modesto, but he still works here. He commutes two and a half hours each way every day, we never see him anymore. The affordable houses may be far away but the good paying jobs are still here. No way I could handle a commute like that.”

“Well I don’t have to worry about that,” Stan said as he stopped again. “Already got a job lined up,” he said confidentially.

“Doing what?”

“Dispatching for a freight company up there,” Stan revealed. “A buddy of mine from my trucking days helped set me up.” He continued walking down the aisle.

“Sounds like you got it all worked out,” Jason said as he followed Stan. “Guess it pays to have connections.”

“Yep, the more the better.”

“But I don’t know if I could leave home just like that. My life is here.”

“Yeah, it’s home all right,” Stan said as he turned down a walkway at the edge of the warehouse and came to another stop, “but have you seen the price of a house lately? A couple hundred thousand for a two bedroom hovel? Alice and I bought our first house for a tenth of that price, and it had three bedrooms and a big backyard. What are you going to do when it’s time to buy a house?” Stan said then continued along the walkway.

“You mean I have to worry about that too?” Jason said with new apprehension. “I thought Ihad to get a new job first.”

“You can worry now or you can worry later when it’s too late to do anything about it,” Stan counseled as he came to the doorway of a glass walled office. “Even a good job isn’t enough. Now it takes two paychecks, and who knows what the price of a house is going to be by then. And I don’t know if you plan on having any kids or not, but if you do that’s going to cost you a whole lot more.”

“Well thanks for all the good news,” Jason said half seriously as he followed Stan into the office. “I sure have a lot to look forward to.”

“I’m not not trying to bring you down, I’m just telling you what’s up.”

“I know things aren’t what they used to be, but this is my home. Everyone I know, everyone that’s important to me, is here, and I’d seriously miss them, even if I did leave because of some better job somewhere else.”

“Not just a job but an affordable place to live,” Stan pointed out.

“It’d still be painful to leave home.”

“Yeah, that’s understandable, but home is where you make it,” Stan said as he stopped in the middle of his work. “You know, I used to love it here. Everybody knew everybody, plenty of open land, you could do all your shopping downtown, anything you needed. Just like a mall, but better, before it was full of homeless and crazy people. You could also fish in the reservoirs, hunt rabbits down by the foothills, and you could always get some spending money by picking fruit or working at Del Monte or one of the other canneries. Tourists actually used to visit here just to see the orchards when they were in bloom. Now look at it, my hometown turned into an overpriced little LA, all spread out and crowded with strangers. Time for Alice and I to pull up stakes and go somewhere quiet.”

“You know, downtown isn’t as rundown as it used to be,” Jason defended. “It actually has some cool hangouts these days.”

“But it ain’t like it used to be, and I’m too old to hang out with yuppies and college kids.”

Jason tried to figure out a new line of discussion. “So what’s your new place like?”

“A nice, cozy little home right by a lake and a forest. It’ll be Eden compared to this place.”

“That sounds relaxing and all,” Jason said, “but what’s there to do out there? You’ll go crazy with boredom.”

“I’ll be living in the great outdoors,” Stan reminded, “can’t beat that. And there’s Lake Tahoe and Reno nearby, and lots of woods and small towns with friendly people. We’ll only be a couple of hours away from the Bay Area so anyone who wants to see us can come and visit us, especially during the skiing season.”

“You going to charge them? Make a little extra on the side?”

“I might. You know, San Jose was a small town at one time, or at least a lot smaller when I was growing up, and we didn’t think it was boring. We had plenty of fun. Back in high school, we used to soup up our Chevys, Fords, and Dodges and cruise Monterey Road looking for girls. Gas was only a quarter a gallon back then, those were the days,” he reminisced. “Now gas is over a dollar and the cruisers are all gangs.”

“Guess I can see why you’d want to leave here,” Jason said, “but why leave the Bay Area? This is where everything is at.”

“That’s the problem, people keep pouring in. Traffic is a mess, the pressure to get ahead makes everyone neurotic, and it’s only getting worse,” Stan pointed toward the main office, “not to mention big brother always looking over your shoulder.”

“But you were able to get that new job because of experience you got here. If I went somewhere else I’d have to go back to square one.”

“But with less competition you can rise up the ladder faster. Jobs like what you do here come and go, and they tend to have an unknown future. You really ought to look for other opportunities while you’re still young.”

“One time Christine tried to get me to work for her uncle.”

“What does he do?”

“He’s a contractor.”

“Really, you should consider it,” Stan suggested. “Never a bad idea to learn a trade. Any skill you learn can only help, and the more skills you have, the more options you have. And contracting is the kind of work that if you do it long enough you can go into business for yourself.”

“Those all sound like good ideas and I appreciate the advice,” Jason said, “but I also want to stick with school and try and get a degree.”

“Well now’s the time to decide which road you want to take,” Stan said as he returned to his work and typed a few keys on the computer. “Meanwhile, I’ll be far away from this headache.”

Jason began to leave the office, then thought again of the activity he saw in the main office. “So what do you think those guys are talking about up there?” he asked.

“You know what we do here, right?” Stan said.

“Yeah, basically we create images that are taken by satellites.”

“And what kind of pictures do you think those satellites take?”

“I know they’re used for map making.”

“And?”

“Studying clouds and weather systems.”

“Anything else?” Stan probed.

“Well I assume some pictures are of other country’s armies and navies,” Jason guessed, “what

they’re doing, their movements, keeping an eye on them. Right?”

“Right,” Stan replied. “The Berlin Wall is down, the Soviet Union finally has a decent leader, the Pentagon budget actually went down for the first time since Pearl Harbor, but we’re still busy as ever. Doesn’t that seem a little curious?”

“I don’t know,” Jason said. “Guess I never really thought about that.”

“Most people don’t,” Stan pointed out. “All anybody really wants is a paycheck, just as long as they get it from somewhere.”

“Well I like to think of this place as more than just a paycheck,” Jason maintained. “The job is interesting, the atmosphere is friendly, most of the people are cool, and management has been accommodating around my school schedule. Is that all going to end?”

“It will if it interferes with the bottom line, which it probably will.”

“Didn’t know we were such a burden,” Jason sulked.

“Now you’re getting it,” Stan joked. “You know, they say there are satellites up there so accurate that they can take a photo of a Russian’s newspaper while he’s reading it in Red Square.”

“Yeah, I remember hearing that.”

“So what’s to stop them from taking a picture of you or me or one of our neighbors while we’re having a cookout in our own backyard?”

“I don’t know,” Jason doubted. “That’s sounds like the kind of paranoid thing Phil would say. Why would they want to do that to us anyway? We haven’t done anything wrong.”

“But they could if they wanted,” Stan emphasized, “and we can’t do the same to them. And I’d bet a year’s pay that they figure out a way to survive this peace craze, probably already have.”

Jason tried to comprehend. “Well now what do I do?”

“I’m not trying to get you down,” Stan appeased, “all I’m saying is be a realist, look out for

yourself and the people around you, because you sure can’t trust them,” he nodded toward the upstairs office. “They’re only looking out for their themselves, and we’ve got to do the same.” Stan went back to his job.

“Guess I’ll get back to work.” Jason left the glass office and headed toward his work area. As he was walking back he glanced up at the office window. He looked at the meeting and the men in suits were still addressing the supervisors. He wondered for a moment what was being said, then he moved along.

©2017 Robert Kirkendall

Jason leaned over the grill and radiator at the front of his car and reached downward with a new hose.  He tried again to slide it onto the intake nozzle of the water pump.  He struggled to fit on the rigid hose in the cramped engine space and was getting more frustrated.  He then heard the door from the house to the garage open and close.  He looked up from under the hood, saw his father, and felt some relief from his irritation.
“How’s it going?” father asked.
“Just trying to wrestle on this new hose.”  Jason pulled himself up from underneath the hood.  “A little tough to get to, though.  Everything is jammed in so tight, I lost my grip trying to pull off the old hose,” Jason said as he looked at a scrape on his hand.
“That’s why I heard you swear,” father kidded as he looked at the scrape.  “The things we do to save a dollar.”  He placed his hands on the side fender and looked down onto the engine. “They sure don’t make them like they used to,” he observed.  “It used to be that you could look under the hood of a car and all you saw was the motor, the radiator and the battery, and you could fix just about anything with a wrench and a couple of screwdrivers.  Makes me wish I still had my old ‘56 Chevy.”
“Sure wish cars were still that simple,” Jason longed.  “Nowadays you can’t even do a tune up unless you’re a professional.”
“Ain’t that the way,” father agreed as he stood back up.  “Now you take that old Valiant station wagon we used to own.  It didn’t have all that extra shit that modern cars have,” he said as he pointed at the engine, “but those old slant sixes ran forever.  I’ll bet someone’s driving it around right now.”
“Maybe I should drop one of those motors into this thing.”
“If only it was that easy,” father chuckled.  “Cars these days, with all the fuel injection, air conditioning, catalytic converters, belts, hoses, wires going everywhere.  And now all the cars with the front wheel drive that make everything under the hood sideways, can’t even see the ground underneath
anymore.  What’ll they come up with next?”
“Seems like everything gets more complicated,” Jason said as he stared down at the loose radiator hose.  His earlier preoccupations came back to mind.
They stood and looked at the engine together as father leaned in a little closer.  “I suppose there’s something other than car problems that’s bothering you,” he finally said.
“Oh, you know,” Jason replied, “the usual stuff.”  He looked up from the car and stared outside the garage at nothing in particular.
“Let me guess,” father began, “Christine wants to get more serious, your job wants you to work more hours, and now you’re wondering where all the good times have gone.”
Jason felt somewhat unburdened.  “So I’m not the only one,” he said.  “I think I just need a break in the action, or at least from working on this thing,” he said as he indicated his car. He wandered toward the front of the garage and his father did the same.  “Today it’s just a hose, but I don’t want this car to turn into a money pit.”  They stood at the head of the driveway and looked out at the suburban neighborhood.
“It’s the age old struggle.  Man trying to figure out how to make his way through the world.”
“Wish I had a head start,” Jason said half seriously.
“You know,” father began as they leaned back against the trunk of the car, “when your mother and I moved into this house, there was a cherry orchard right there.”  He pointed down the street at a block of tract houses silhouetted against the setting sun.
“I think I remember that.”
“Remember what they looked like when they were in bloom?  Like big, pink cotton candy trees.”
“Christine’s parents talk about how they used to pick plums, prunes, apricots around here every summer when they were kids.”
“Those were the days,” father reminisced.  “Fruit trees everywhere, more farms, less crowded, no traffic jams, slower pace of life.  Now it’s all expressways, strip malls, tract houses, two story office buildings.  They’ll probably build on or pave over every square inch of this valley.”
“Sure seems like it.” Jason thought of all the changes that happened in the Valley.  “I remember when I was little and we’d drive by an orchard, and I’d look down all the rows of fruit trees, one after another, sometimes we’d count them,” he recalled as he got caught up in the same nostalgia.  “Doesn’t seem to be hardly any of them left anymore.”
“That’s too bad,” father said regretfully.  “No more produce stands either, have to buy everything from the store.  You know, this is some of the best soil on earth, and all they do is keep building all over it.  And they never build up, it’s always tilt-ups and business parks that cover as much land as possible, makes no sense at all.  Bad planning. I mean, who thinks up with all this?”
“Someone looking to make a quick turnaround?”
Father laughed some more. “Now you’re learning.”
“When you look around now,” Jason said, “it’s hard to believe there was a time when this wasn’t the Silicon Valley.”
“Yeah, the old Valley of Heart’s Delight.  Those days sure aren’t coming back,” father lamented.  “Price of land is too high and it keeps getting higher, only the high tech industry can afford it now.  There just isn’t enough money in agriculture anymore.”  He folded his arms as he looked out across the neighborhood.  “That’s the thing about real estate, they’re not making any more of it.”
“At least in your day you could buy a house with one paycheck,” Jason said.  “I don’t know anyone who can do that anymore.”
“True,” father admitted. “It was a boomtown when I first got here, houses were cheap, the
weather was nice, the skills I learned in the service helped me get a decent, secure job.  And once I met your mom I knew I was staying.”
“Maybe I was born at the wrong time,” Jason sulked.
“No, I wouldn’t say that,” father corrected.  “There are a lot of positive changes happening right now.  This is a good time to be alive, even if it has gotten too expensive.”
A new thought came to Jason.  “You know, with all the changes happening everywhere, it seems like that’s going to affect business here in the Valley, especially defense jobs, like mine.”
“Technology will always be in demand, it’s human nature, ever since man figured out how to use tools.  And another thing about technology is that it’s always being improved, so there’s always going to be opportunities somewhere.  Something will come along your way.  I was just lucky enough to move here at the right time, that’s all.”
Jason pondered the timing of his situation. “It’s funny, you know. I don’t feel like I’m doing anything wrong.  I’m not some screw up, but I’m also not sure I’m doing the right thing either.  I keep wondering if there’s some next big thing that I’m missing out on, because if there is, I don’t want to find out when it’s too late.”
“You’re not doing anything wrong,” father assured, “it’s just the inflation, that’s all.  The rising tide that was supposed to lift all boats also lifted up the cost of living, so now demand and supply are out of whack.  You’re generation just happened to be caught in the middle of it.  But things will work themselves out, they always do.”
“Don’t want this thing to sink me further into debt,” Jason said as he glanced back at his car.
“When I was your age you could by a running car for fifty bucks. Talk about inflation.”
“At least I’ll be out of the red pretty soon, then I can move back out of the house.”
“Hey, don’t worry about it,” father said. “You were just living it up and ran into a little trouble, you’re taking care of it,” he said as he clapped Jason on the shoulder reassuringly.
“Yeah, things aren’t so bad,” Jason tried to convince himself.  “Now if I could just get started.”
“You’re on the right track,” father reaffirmed, “but I gotta admit it used to be easier to get
started here.  You could walk into any place, they’d hire you, train you, pay you a decent wage, and you had a career that allowed you to buy a house and raise a family.  That kind of security is sure hard to find these days.  Now it’s all specialized.  Every man for himself.”
“At least you get to retire pretty soon.”
“Looking forward to it, then I’ll have all the time in the world,” father anticipated.
Jason sensed his father reflecting, and he found himself seeing life through his father’s perspective in a new way.  “You know, I hear some people are saying that we may be at the end of history because history is all about conflict, and now the last big conflict is over.  Do you really think it’s going to be like that, no more history?”
Father leaned back some more as he appeared to recall a new memory.  “You know, I was just talking to one of my friends in the aerospace industry.  He was telling me about this big meeting his company just had.  Everybody was there, board of directors, main stockholders, upper management, all these East Coast types, and they were all trying to replan their strategy for the post Cold War era or something like that.  Anyways, the CEO gives some big speech about how they’re going to change the focus of the company to meet the challenges of the new world politics.  One of the lifers with the company asked what that meant exactly since their whole business was about was making aerospace equipment for the defense of the country.  The CEO then says that they will be in the business of making the one thing they have always been in the business of making, money.”  Father laughed to himself.  “As long as there is a dollar to be made someone is going to make it, and that’ll always drive things.”
Jason let the irony sink in.  “At least work hasn’t been a problem, but you know what it feels
like right now at work?  Nobody seems to know what’s going on or what’s going to happen next, so now everyone is trying to figure out their next move before they’re forced to.  Maybe management knows, but if they do they’re not telling us a thing.  I’m starting to wonder how stable my job is.”
“Yeah, they sure do like to keep everybody in the dark.”
“Kind of a raw deal.”
“No, it isn’t very fair,” father agreed, “but I figure every generation has its challenges.  You see, when you’re young you want it all, and you have all the energy and optimism of youth to take on the whole world.  Then one day you realize you can’t have it all, and that you don’t need it all, because maybe having it all is more trouble than it’s worth.  You know, I sometimes miss the days when I was younger and could travel lighter, definitely had fewer worries.”  He surveyed the front yard.  “At least we have our homestead.”
“So,” Jason began, “since I’m the oldest, I get to inherit the house, right?”
“Hey!  I’m not dead yet.”

©2017 Robert Kirkendall