Showdown in the Economy of Good and Evil Read online

  The oven had cost sixteen thousand US dollars. Muna had been able to support a small portion of that expense thanks to the favorable exchange rate with his Farm Bucks savings, but a huge portion of that was covered by a loan from the Farm. For obvious reasons, the idea of a loan had left him feeling a bit queasy.

  Queasy. That had been another of his words of the day. He liked the way that one sounded and hoped that he had used it correctly.

  Evan gave the pickup one last go at coming even with the curb before giving up. The damn thing would just have to sit three feet too far into the street.

  “You ready to haul this thing in, businessman?” Evan asked as he leapt from the cab. His hand-clapping enthusiasm proved contagious, despite Muna’s uneasy mood.

  “You better believe it,” Muna said with a toothy grin.

  Together, and with some help from the volunteers, they tottered the giant, surprisingly heavy oven into Muna’s bakery. The owner of this bakery delighted in how much progress the volunteers had made while he chatted with David and waited for Evan. Already, they had begun to stock the walk-in refrigerator and had arranged tables and chairs for the guests. One of them was prodding at the screen of Muna’s second biggest purchase since deciding to open this bakery: a tablet computer designed to serve as a cash register.

  “You look tired, Muna,” Evan said. “Why don’t you kick your feet up for a bit while we get this oven in place?”

  Muna shook his head. “I would not hear of it. You were kind enough to loan me this oven. I will not have you carry it for me one step farther.”

  “I didn’t loan you the oven,” Evan corrected. “The Farm is doing the financing.”

  This brought Muna little comfort. Indeed, it had taken Evan many conversations to convince him that he could afford a loan. Two years as a homeless immigrant living on an expired visa had rather soured Muna on the whole concept of borrowing money, after all.

  “Is that what you’re worried about?” Evan asked. “The loan?”

  Muna hung his head. His friend Evan was quite adept at reading his mind. Adept, Muna thought. That had been yesterday’s dictionary word. The definition had reminded him of his mother, who had been so skilled as a weaver that her earnings had created the nest egg that sent Muna to America in the first place. He knew that he could read the whole dictionary, and because it reminded him of his mother, adept would always be among his favorite words.

  “You have nothing to worry about,” Evan said. “Yes, this is an incredibly expensive machine.” He shook his head as he set his hand on the side of the enormous oven. “Seriously, I had no idea how much these things cost. But we’ve run all the numbers again and again. We have to give you the high interest rate, as we discussed. But your customer base at the Farm was big enough on its own to support the payments and then some. You might have to live on your daily deposit until your base expands here at the new location, but you’ve done that before, right?”

  Muna nodded. Yes, he had done that before.

  “A little Shit-Bowl for a few weeks never hurt anybody, am I right?”

  “You are right, Evan.”

  “Plus, your loan’s going to be easier to pay off once you’re accepting American dollars in addition to Farm Bucks. You’ll be running this shop and covering your personal expenses on free money, while all those real dollars will go straight back into paying off your loan.”

  “As you have said, yes.”

  “So as long as you keep making that bread of yours, you’ll own this oven outright before you even know it.”

  Munanire sighed. He knew this. There was still so much pain and shame in his past to accept it wholeheartedly. As a boy, he had been promised a kind, giving America—a place of joy, freedom, and abundance. The real America had been something altogether different than that. So now that he found himself in position once more to accept the prospect of the American dream, he was experiencing a healthy dose of skepticism.

  “Be proud, Muna,” Evan said. “You’re the first Farm resident to open his own business. You know how remarkable that is, right?”

  Muna did not reply.

  “Think of how proud your family will be,” Evan said.

  Evan could not have said anything worse. Despite all the excitement of the day, Muna began to cry. Then, with the volunteers all arrayed around him in the chairs set up for his future customers, he heard himself telling the story of how his family had saved everything they had to send him to America, only to have him fail at the moment they needed him most.

  The story over, everyone sat in silence for a time. Evan, it appeared, was fuming.

  “I have angered you, Evan,” Muna said.

  His expression broke and his shoulders slackened. “No. No, it’s not that. I’m just frustrated about the imbalances in this world.”

  “What you mean, Ev?” one of the volunteers asked.

  “They wound up impacting every economy on earth,” he said. “And all because they wanted to prevent another Nazi Germany.”

  Everyone blinked at Evan in confusion, so he kept on.

  “Bretton Woods,” he said. “Back in the 40s, the leaders of the Western world got together to try and stabilize a global economy during World War II. They decided to make an international monetary fund that would set exchange rates and control the flow of money.”

  “Kind of like what you do in the nerd shed,” one of the volunteers said.

  Evan blanched, but kept on. “Kind of.” He removed his glasses and began massaging the bridge of his nose. “You see, they decided to tie the value of this fund to the US dollar. The dollar became the default currency of international trade. So now the International Monetary Fund would loan money in US dollars and then insist on it being paid back in US dollars. This is all fine if you’re a wealthy, powerful nation whose currency and resources are valuable enough to exchange with dollars at a fair rate. But if you’re a third-world country? If you’re a tiny, war-torn nation like Somalia?”

  “It is more difficult to pay back the loan,” Muna said sorrowfully.

  “So now you have a whole system designed to control the flow of money. It’s all great in that it’s going to make it easier for nations to lend and borrow as they invest in infrastructure during and after the war. But if you were one of those third-world countries, suddenly you found yourself on the outside looking in. Your currency had no value in relation to the juggernaut that was the International Monetary Fund. In trying to rebuild the world, the member nations had created hegemony.”

  Hegemony, Muna thought, intending to look up the word in his dictionary as soon as he got back to the Farm.

  “It’s an absolute wonder, Muna, that you were able to travel here to the US in the first place,” Evan said. “You come from a nation whose currency is so invaluable compared to the dollar that your family would’ve had to work and save ten times as hard just to afford your ticket.”

  Muna began to tear up again. This wasn’t helping him with his guilt.

  “The imbalance is as American as the apple pies you’ll be baking in that oven,” Evan said. “The agreements essentially force countries to hold onto the dollar like it’s gold. Except that the dollar wasn’t actually backed by gold at the time of Bretton Woods. What this means is that anytime a third-world country wants to build something, they’re essentially forced into taking on debt to do it. It’s all a sham. They disguised something that cemented the dollar’s dominance in the world as a benevolent agreement meant to prevent the rise of another Nazi regime. So the US stays on top of the global economy while Africa and Central America have no means to improve their position.”

  The volunteers were sitting back, legs crossed, none of them on the hook for the massive loan for Muna’s oven. So Muna said what was on his mind: “But you have loaned me a great deal for this oven,” he said guiltily.

  “Yes, but the loan was to purchase something with US dollars. We won’t lose a moment of sleep about that because the Farm Buck is so much more valuable
than the dollar. Don’t you see? We’ve created the same effect as Bretton Woods, except that our economy is in the driver’s seat.

  “Out there in the real world, the trickle-down effect of dollar dominance is what holds countries like Somalia back. But what we’re doing here on the Farm? Any country in the world can do this same thing and thrive. They just need to set up a system that avoids corruption and puts people first—before the banks and corporations. Maybe that’s a big ask, but I think it’s possible.”

  Munanire Capela had endured many hardships, both in the country of his birth and in his adopted country, so he did not know whether he agreed with Evan about the possibility of these things. What he did know was that he no longer cared about which America was the true America—the one from his youth, the one he had learned about on the streets, or the one Evan now described. It might have been impossible for him to achieve his dreams in the real America; and it might be impossible for countries like Somalia to rise in an imbalanced global economy; and it might even be that the American dream wasn’t the pure, mythical thing he had always been told. But none of that mattered to Muna now. What mattered to Muna was this chance to achieve the Farm Dream.

  He knew in an instant that he would learn from the mistakes he had made from his first pursuit of the dream. This time around, he would spend every waking minute trying to earn as many of those invaluable American dollars as possible, so that he might pay back his loan, help the Farm that had so helped him, and finally—hopefully, desperately—bring honor to his family.

  “Let’s plug this thing in,” Munanire said, rising to his feet. “I want to start baking.”

  Chapter 16 Conflict Food

  It is the cost of living that creates food scarcity in modern society. It is almost impossible to run out of food in a first-world country.

  —Justin Wolfe

  “If you’re gonna blow smoke up my ass, you could at least liquor me up first.”

  The way she smiled with her eyes always made Evan wonder how in the world he had gotten so lucky. Ever since he was a kid, he’d wondered about this feeling, and a part of him had always assumed that he would never experience it. Romantic love was something reserved for people far cooler than him. Growing up, most of the shows and movies had depicted love between beautiful women and equally beautiful men, the kind with effortless charm and untouchable cool. A young Evan hadn’t seen much of himself in these characters. Usually, he identified most with the math dweebs that so often served as comic relief.

  But Evan had never thought of himself as funny, either. What was Nora doing with him anyway? He asked himself this question every day. And every day, he did as much as he could not to screw things up.

  At the moment, he had to admit to some concern in the screw-up department. Sure, they were out walking together on an unexpectedly lovely evening, and sure, everything about the relationship seemed to be going well. But there was no denying that Nora had been guarded and defensive all week. She clearly had something on her mind.

  “No, I’m serious,” Evan said adamantly. “No smoke, I promise.”

  Her reply was to squeeze his arm and glance away as they walked.

  They were walking arm in arm, Evan and this beautiful, talented, confident woman, and they were walking arm in arm beside the cornfields. He just wished he could figure out what was bothering her.

  It was July 2017. Somehow, it had only been six months since Donald Trump first took office as president of the United States. The most recent news cycle had spun around Trump’s son, who had basically been caught red-handed soliciting election help from the Russians. Maybe that’s what Nora’s so worried about, Evan thought before immediately shooting the notion down as absurd. Even if she’d had time to think about national politics, Nora likely would have felt exactly the same way about it as Evan did: completely removed from its effects. Had they not lived and worked in a place mostly disconnected from this odd new reality in the US, stories like these might have troubled them. But given how well things were going on the Farm, they really only ever viewed the national news as a vague sort of curiosity.

  And things were indeed going well on the Farm. Despite the weird spring weather and the record heat they had been experiencing all summer, Dan and Laz had managed to plant another crop that looked like it was going gangbusters. The evidence stood five feet tall already as Evan and Nora strode beside it. With the Circus drawing bigger crowds every weekend, Larson’s influx of residents becoming contributing members of the Farm, the windmill essentially eliminating the Farm’s need to pay for electricity, the uniform and farmer’s market issue at least tenuously resolved, Valence’s movie house packed three nights a week, Nora’s farmhouse restaurant taking reservations from higher and higher profile members of the public, and Muna’s bakery bringing in US dollars hand over fist, everything seemed right with the Farm’s little corner of the world.

  Evan cracked a smile when he thought about the name Muna and David had come up with for the bakery. Dollar Bread. It seemed that his talk about Bretton Woods had inspired Muna in more ways than one.

  “Well anyway, you’re being intentionally reductive,” Nora said, snapping Evan from his proud reverie.

  “There’s nothing reductive about it,” Evan said.

  “C’mon. Justin rescued this farm from bankruptcy. Just ask my dad. And this farm is thriving because of the system you built to run it. You can’t just stand there and say that the whole operation depends on my food.”

  When Evan stopped walking, Nora followed suit. Gently he turned to face her, sliding his hands into hers and bobbing them gently. He wanted to ask her what had been bothering her, but instead, he fumbled his way into a joke. “The whole human race depends on food. We’d be dead without it.”

  She let go of his hands and stared at her feet. This was unusual behavior for Nora. Usually, she’d have given him a playful punch in the chest. No denying it now; she had something to tell him. All that boyish disbelief about how a woman like this could ever want to be with him fluttered back into his mind. And like a boy, his reaction to this feeling was to try to delay the inevitable.

  “No, I mean it though,” Evan said. “There’s a reason the first thing anyone asks about when they get here is food.”

  “Yeah, because they’re hungry. Has nothing to do with me.”

  “It has everything to do with you. Or, well . . . maybe not everything. But it has an awful lot to do with you.”

  “You’re a regular Cyrano, you know that?”

  Evan blushed. She finally made eye contact, but her smile was forced.

  “I’m saying this all wrong,” he said. “But the point remains. Yes, we need Dan and Laz and all their farmhands to produce quality crops. And yes, we depend on some measure of trade at the farmer’s market and through commercial suppliers. But the way people respond to that food depends on its preparation. For that, we have you to thank.”

  With a sigh, she finally accepted the compliment. Nora Pastor was good at everything, Evan had noted, except for taking a compliment.

  “You know,” she said, looking down at her feet again, “I’m thinking about opening a restaurant in the city.”

  Though he had been waiting all week to find out what was bothering his girlfriend, finally learning the truth still caught Evan by surprise. He took a step backward, immediately wishing he hadn’t because she appeared to take this as resistance to the idea.

  “Well, you know how well we’re doing with the reservations at the barn,” she said defensively.

  “Absolutely, and—” Evan tried to interject, but there was no stopping her.

  “I guess I’ve just been inspired by Muna, you know? He brought his product into the world. That’s what I’ve always wanted to do. Even before all this.”

  “I know. You were going to culinary school and—”

  “This Farm taught me I didn’t need culinary school. I had all the tools right here at my disposal. I’ve been so happy to contribute to your dream a
nd Justin’s dream. Just feel like, you know, maybe it’s time to pursue my own dream. I’ve trained more than enough residents to cook more than enough dishes to keep the menu fresh, rotating, and just as motivating after I leave. You say this operation depends on my food. But really, it just depends on food. There are so many people who can do it without me. I might as well let them. This way, I can finally do my own thing, you know?”

  When finally she looked up at him again, she had tears in her eyes. This left Evan rather tongue-tied, as he had never seen tears in Nora’s eyes.

  “Well . . . are you gonna say something or what?” she said.

  He sucked in a breath. “I think it’s an excellent idea.”

  Clearly, she had not been expecting this response, because she tumbled into his arms and squeezed him so hard he lost his wind. He melted into the embrace, delighting in it even if his mind was spinning with confusion. He couldn’t fathom why Nora might have thought he would reject this idea. Everything she had said was correct. She had created an operation that could run itself without her. Her considerable talents, in truth, were somewhat wasted in that barn kitchen at this point. Why wouldn’t it make sense for her to take those talents into Savannah? She would clearly succeed.

  So when she was done squeezing, he backed away and asked why she had been keeping this from him all week.

  “I guess I just figured you would tell me that the Farm still needed me in the kitchen,” she said, wiping away a tear. “I mean, you literally just told me that the whole operation depends on my food.”

  “Well, yes, but . . .”

  “Are you trying to take back the compliment?”

  Evan tried to chuckle away the tension. “Of course not.” He shook his head, trying to clear it so he could find the right thing to say. The sunlight had gone all golden-orange, the songbirds settling in for the night, their music replaced by the harsh and distracting cacophony of the Farm’s resident crows. Carl hated those crows. He had made it something of a life’s mission to deter them.