November 12, 2023 • 44 mins
In this episode of the Cool Zone Media Book Club, Margaret reads "The Lost Roads," a utopian story about a world without cars by author Sim Kern, to Shereen.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Book Club book Club book Club. That's that's how we
start the show. I've decided it's the Cool Zone Media
book Club. I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy, my guest today,
since the whole format is that I read it to
someone reads stories to someone from Cool Zone Media. The
Serene Hi.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Serene Hi, Margaret, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Yeah, well, it's the Coolzone Media book Club. Every Sunday,
I read you different stories, stories that have to do
with the themes of cool Zone Media and specifically it
could happen here. I don't know what I'm saying. It's spooky,
it's not, but the world is spooky. I don't know
that's true. This story though, this is a like this
(00:53):
is a posy story.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Oh I love that for myself and for you and
for us and for all of you listening.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
That's right. Today we're reading a story by it could
happen here alumni guest sim Kern, who I believe you interviewed.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Yeah, they're awesome. I really respect their work and I'm
excited to be read one of their stories.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah. They It's always very weird to be a fiction
writer and then like also be known for this completely
unrelated thing, you know, like I don't know to put
words into Sim's mouth, you know, like like Sim is
right now doing a lot of really amazing content on
TikTok and Instagram about Jewish anti Zionism.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
And and on.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
It could happen here also, but it's just like, but
they also write really amazing stories, and so yeah, we're
going to read you one. I'm going to read you
one and sharene is the stand in for you, the listener,
that is I. This story is called the Lost Roads.
(02:02):
The years of debate and organizing, planning, in preparation had
spanned my entire life, But at long last, the Body
Politic had reached a decision. Demolition Day had arrived, and
I stood on the front lines. The old world would
be gouged and shoveled away, ushering in a dazzling future.
Children would reclaim the freedom of play, beasts of the
(02:24):
wild would roam once more, and we would liberate the
earth from her tari strait jacket. I never felt more
proud in my neon yellow coveralls and matching hard hat
emblazoned with the badge of the Body Politic. My weapons
for the battle ahead rested heavy across my shoulder. Pickaxe
and shovel, simple tools for a simple job. We were cleaners,
(02:48):
not as venerated as the drivers of the mighty diggers
who forged ahead, or the pavers with their specialized skills.
Certainly we weren't as envied as the planters who would
follow in our wake. Our work was hard and tedious,
but essential to the operation ahead, and I had volunteered
for it. Today, on every continent on Earth, teams of
(03:08):
workers like mine would embark on a multi year mission
destroy the roads, all of them. My squad was stationed
in the Buffalo Bayou Settler Reservation in the city formerly
known as Houston, Texas, on a two lane residential road,
Calcott Street, the eighteen hundred block. It was a sweltering morning,
(03:31):
hotter than it had any right to be in early March.
We had a long way yet to go in cooling
the climate. But that morning I didn't mind the heat
because I knew what a start we were making. Cowcutt
dead ended at a maglev line, and from time to
time the woosh of a passing train sent a blast
of welcome wind escaping from its prairie covered tunnel. Miry
(03:54):
Our squad leader gave a short speech that was more
instructional than inspirational. When the digger hummed to life, its
ten foot wheels began to turn, the vicious blades of
its snout sliced into cracked asphalt like a hot knife
through butter, and the huge sheets of shattered road lifted,
twisting towards the sky and clattering down the beast's neck
(04:17):
into the bin on its back. The roar of it
was tremendous, and I was glad for the noise canceling
bud stuck into my ears. We watched it trundle ahead
of us for half an hour until Mary gave the
signal that it was safe for us to begin our work.
The digger only pulled up eighty to eighty five percent
of the road. The bits scattered behind were left for
(04:39):
our shovels. We bent to the work, scoop some asphalt,
then toss it into the drone carts that followed behind us.
Loyal puppies, scoop toss, scoop toss. If the digger had
missed a large chunk of road, we pulled out the
pickaxes or Mary's jackhammer. My earbud played upbeat music, and
(05:01):
I timed my shoveling to the rhythm. There was such
joy in scraping the earth clean of rubble. We'd cleared
a twenty foot stretch of asphalt when I felt a
hand on my shoulder. Mary shouted over the noise of
the digger that it had been a half hour time
for the be squad to swap in. I'd rather keep going,
(05:21):
I called back. I'm not even tired. Rest Mary commanded warmly.
It'll be a long day and a longer year ahead.
I don't want my cleaners getting injured on their first
day of the job. She was right, of course. I
rested with the a squad on a moss yard beneath
a shady elm. The family who lived there came out
(05:41):
of their house to greet us, bearing lemonade and homemade cookies.
My first taste of the unexpected perks of working on
the mission. A long haired child of seven or eight
with freckled golden brown skin showed me a tray of
seedlings and an egg carton. You're cleaner's right, the child asked,
clearly unimpressed by us. I nodded, do you know when
(06:03):
the planters will be coming first. The pavers have to
do their work, I said, I know, I know, the
kid replied, laying paths to the mag left station and
the bike trails. They rolled their eyes. But when the
planters come, do you think they'll want to use these? Well,
that depends, I said, pointing to the seedlings. Are they
(06:23):
native to this region? Of course, the child cried. I
got castilia and Davisia zenotheras biciosa, and these are Lupinus texanis,
prairie fire, primrose and blue bonnets. I confirmed, How beautiful
they'll look together. Yes, I think there's a very good
chance the planters will want to use them. The smile
(06:45):
that lit the kid's face was luminous enough to melt
any lingering soreness in my muscles. As they drifted away
to tend to their seedlings, one of their parents, sitting
a short ways away, leaned towards me. I think you
just made their month. As we swap names and pronouns,
the kid's mom never took her eyes off the digger.
Don't worry, I said, we won't let the kids anywhere
(07:07):
near the job site. She looked at me for the
first time. What, No, it's not that it's just well,
all of it, she laughed apologetically. What will we do
without ambulances or fire trucks, opal as, epilepsy. You know what,
if they have a bad fall, there'll be triage cars
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and water tankers running on the Maglev lines, and you're
right near the station. Emergency services should arrive faster by
Maglov than they ever did by road. They say that,
but everything's changing so fast, everywhere, all at once. What
if they're wrong. Look all your life, you've been living
with one ton bullets speeding past your house fifty feet
(07:50):
from your front door. Cars have been the biggest killers
of kids for a century. Won't it be safer to
have that gone? I suppose, she said, still twisting the
hem of her skirt. Her fears served as a reminder
that the quorum had only been reached by a slim margin.
Millions of people still opposed our mission. But I couldn't
stay and convince her because Maria was waving us back
(08:12):
over to start another shift. By noon, we'd cleared the block,
and a squad of pavers emerged from the Maglev station
with a fleet of drones in tow. I would have
spent so much time watching them work over the next
year that I could have joined their ranks by the
end of it. First they'd survey the land with sweeping lasers,
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then they'd stake out the course of their paths. Some
communities wanted a large paved areas in the middle of
the block for games or festivals. Still, the footprint of
paved spaces was always a tiny fraction of the asphalt
roads we destroyed. And of course the paths weren't for
cars only people walking, skating, biking, wheeling. Unlike sidewalks of
(08:56):
old meeting at sharp right angles, the pavers de only
in curves. From above, their completed paths looked organic, like
branching veins, each block one leaf, each neighborhood a branch,
each city a sprawling tree were once there'd been a grid.
The paving material they poured was a bright green composite
made from a century's worth of discarded plastic. When dried,
(09:19):
it had a slight bounce to it, delightful to walk on,
but hard and smooth enough for wheels. And it was porous,
so that every precious drop of precipitation soaked through to
the soil below. At first I envied the respect afforded
the pavers engineers, all dressed in their smart blue coveralls.
They commanded so much respect from the folks of the neighborhood,
(09:41):
but they were officious to us, perpetually frustrated that we
weren't moving fast enough. They snipped at each other too,
with none of the intense camaraderie that banded together us cleaners.
So even if some magic wish could have made me
an engineer, forget it. I'd rather be a cleaner. But
the planters, oh I did envy them. I didn't often
(10:04):
get to see them work, not unless I took a
stroll during one of my breaks, back to a street
we'd cleaned weeks before. Botanists, mycologists, bryologists and ediphologists, and
of course the native land historians they deferred to. In
bright green work suits, they descend on a street after
the pavers had poured fresh paths. It was the planter's
(10:25):
job to restore the ruined soil trapped by asphalt for
a century. Our work took hours, The pavers work took days,
but the planter's task would take months or even years.
Where the soil was saturated with heavy metals. They used
all kinds of composts, fertilizers, and minerals. But their most
(10:46):
ingenious allies were living things microbes that devoured microplastics and
mushrooms that leached pollution from the earth. At superfund sites
where the land was especially toxic, they displaced residents and
worked for months in hasmac gear to heal the poisoned earth. Finally,
the planters would escort drone carts bursting with greenery from
(11:07):
the maglev station. They'd plant the fruit trees that would
feed the neighborhood, the shade trees that would cool their homes.
The trees would take decades to mature, but one day,
this endless orchard would crisscross the continent, everywhere there'd once
only been pavement. The promise of that bountiful future had
captivated the hearts of most everyone on Earth, most but
(11:31):
not all. Because you know whose hearts it didn't capture,
sharene Please tell me the people who sponsor this pot
gath You are cold and heartless. Wait no, wait, that's
the opposite.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
We love.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Yeah, they're great. Where are the people who we would
oppose all of this if it disrupted the capitalism that
provides these goods and services to you, we're totally not,
just like almost everyone else involved in capitalism at every level,
cynically and gay with it in order to survive, and
(12:17):
we're back. We ran into our first protester around two
o'clock that day, during the last hour of my shift.
Cleaning was my first job after college, and I'd never
worked such a heavy day of labor. By midafternoon, my
muscles were screaming, and I was looking forward to a
long soak in the solar spring at the bathhouse. Suddenly
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the digger fell silent and it ground to a halt.
The driver leaned out of his cab, hollering at someone
up ahead. Cautiously, Mary led us around the side of
the machine. There, inches from the digger's snout, said an
old fashioned gasoline powered pickup truck. There were signs painted
all over the truck the cars are freedom, save the roads,
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resist the stone age. Part of me had to admire
the guy's courage. The digger could have churned through that
vehicle with ease, but the driver sat inside the cab,
arms folded. Mary approached the cab and motioned for the
driver to roll down the window. She introduced herself and
he gave his name, Bruce Wellborn. She used his first
(13:25):
name a lot after that, explaining that we had to
get back to work. Bruce, give us a break, Bruce,
and if he didn't like it, he could take it
up with the body politic. At first, Bruce seemed uncertain,
darting glances at us nervously. But the longer he talked
to Miry, the angrier he got. Until his pale skin
flushed red. He got louder and louder, until he was
(13:46):
shouting car's rights at the top of his lungs, right
in her face. I couldn't remember the last time I'd
seen a grown person totally given over to rage like that.
My legs felt shaky and my heart art was racing,
as if he'd been yelling at me. Miry turned to
walk back to us, and Bruce rolled up his window.
(14:09):
I envied him the cool a sea that must be
blowing inside. The sun was blaring down on all our
heads by then the hottest part of the day. Bruce
grabbed an ice cold can from the cooler in the
back seat. The cab was packed with food supplies and
extra gas tanks. In this heat, he might outlast us
in his stockpiled truck. I couldn't understand him. Forty thousand
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people got killed in car wrecks every year in our
country alone. We would free our air of the smog
that gave so many little kids asthma. We'd replace millions
of miles of heat trapping asphalt with carbon absorbing orchards,
restore parking lots to native prairies, and free the concrete
walled bayous to ramble along rocky shores. Who would want
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to stand or park in the way of all that
we need to move? Him, Mary said to us. She
turned and shouted, this is your last chance to drive away, Bruce.
We're going to continue our work with or without your cooperation.
Bruce locked his doors and revved his engine in answer.
My blood ran icy with fear of the thought of
(15:17):
going anywhere near that truck. What if he tries to
run us over, I asked, hoping the others wouldn't think
me a coward. Should we call a violence response team?
I don't think that's necessary. Mary frowned. It's not like
he has a gun. If he did, I think he
would have shown it by now. He's not violent, just annoying,
as if on cue Bruce cracked his window and shouted,
(15:40):
try coming near this truck and see what happens. Okay,
that sounded like a threat, Ermine said, shooting me a look.
I was glad to have an ally, And it may
not be a gun, but a truck is a deadly weapon.
Sage agreed. Fine. Mary's sighed and walking away from the huddle.
I'll call the VRT. But a few moments later she back,
(16:01):
no good. She shook her head. They've got hundreds of
reports of protesters like Bruce here all over the city,
some of them in big groups. The dispatcher couldn't even
promise they could get to us by the end of
the week. Ah, I whispered. I had assumed Bruce was
alone extremist. But if there were hundreds of blockades in
our reservation alone, how many people were protesting across the watershed,
(16:23):
the continent, the world. Could there be enough anti mission
sentiment to force the body politic back to the debate chambers.
That could mean years of delays. I echoed Mary's words
from earlier. We have to move him, ideas, Mary said,
couldn't the digger just go up on the grass there
and drive around him? Ernie asked, But then I'll be
(16:44):
behind us. I pointed out, what if he turns around
and runs us over? Mary nodded, I want that truck disabled,
but nothing that'll hurt him or us. I wasn't much
help in the discussion that followed, as I didn't know
much about cars. Someone said they'd heard you could just
say car by blocking the tailpipe with a potato. Mary
said that was an urban legend. Once the pressure built up,
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the potato would shoot out. Someone else suggested slashing the tires,
but a bunch of people rolled their eyes and spoke
over each other, pointing out that a car was slashed
tires could still accelerate to deadly speed in seconds. We
could block him in Sage suggested, drive another digger over
here and park it right on his ass so he
can't move. Mary wagged a finger in his direction. That
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could work, But then, what how do we take the
truck out of commission force open the hood. We could
slice the latch with a reciprocating saw Ermine said, then
slash the ignition. Mary snapped her fingers. After that, we
just pick up the truck and move it. You think
we can lift it, I asked, with another squad. We
could sage, said. Mary pressed a finger to her ear,
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calling someone on her earbuds. Ten seconds later, two nearby
cleaning squads strolled up to our location alongside a rumbling digger.
Bruce shaeh outed, I won't be moved. You can run
me over. I'll die for my freedoms, but his voice
wavered as he watched the second digger pull up on
his tail. I'll disable the truck, Mary said, I don't
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want to risk any of y'all getting hurt. She grabbed
the electric saw from our toolbox and clambered over the road,
smashing blades of our digger. Bruce revved his engine threateningly,
but with a digger's blades an inch from both bumpers,
he wasn't going anywhere. Mary sliced open Bruce's hood, then
sawed something inside that made the engine fall silent. It's
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gonna get hot in there, Bruce, Mary called, dangerous hot.
You want to come out now, Bruce cursed her. We
spread out on both sides of the truck. Then and
I got a handhold under the chassis near the driver's
back wheel. On Mary's signal, we heaved up, with all
of us lifting together and the truck felt about as
heavy as a big box of books. We shuffled toward
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the side of the road and set it down gently,
So gently it gave me this funny, peaceful feeling, like
we were carrying a sleeping toddler to bed. Then Miry
called back to work. The digger from the north pulled away,
and I started in on my last shift. From time
to time I spared a glance at Bruce. After a
few minutes, he cracked the door to the cab. It
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must have been over one hundred degrees in there. For
a while he shouted slogans at us, but his voice
soon grew hoarse. Sage had streamed our whole encounter with
Bruce from her lenses, and the vid went viral within
a few hours. Other squads around the city, then the Watershed,
then the continent started using the Miry maneuver to deal
with protest cars until that horrible day March twenty seventh.
(19:46):
After a few weeks, the car's rights protests were losing steam.
Most of the protesters had given up or run out
of cars to protest in, but the most fanatical among
them grew desperate. On the last Friday in March. Some
brought guns in their trucks, the kind of a legal,
powerful guns that people hoarded by the millions at the
start of the century. Of course, we'd known there were
still many of them out there, ar fifteen's that had
(20:08):
been hidden from the smelters. To this day, I can't
walk past the statue of falling cleaners downtown without sitting
on a bench a while and fighting back tears. I
had good friends who were killed that day. I feel
so guilty and disoriented when I think about how it
was just random, just a dice roll, that their squads
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got shot up and mine didn't. That I'm only alive
because Bruce wasn't one of the violent ones. After I
finished up that first shift, Bruce bowed to the inevitable
and finally climbed down from his truck. He grabbed only
the cooler out of the back of the cab, abandoning
the rest of his supplies and the vehicle itself for
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a sanitation team to deal with. I wound up walking
back to the maglev station next to him, surprised by
how small he seemed. With his feet on the ground,
head hung low, He dragged that cooler over the scraped
clean earth. You know what, that cooler could have been
filled with sureen gold gold coins. It could have been
(21:11):
filled with gold coins like perennial sponsor of the show
regging gold coins. Do we still get those? Do you think?
Speaker 1 (21:22):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
I just think it's funny.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Yeah, me too. And if you too want a cooler
full of gold, you just listen to these ads, And
if you don't want to hear ads, subscribe to Cooler
Zone Media, because then you get all this stuff. Without ads,
you just get our weird ad breaks and then immediately
it's my voice going and we're back. Needless to say,
(21:59):
I found it on Settling ten years later, when my
Edel developed a fixation with cars, all they wanted from
the library were books about cars. All the hollow games
they played were car racers. At nearly ten, I thought
Edel was getting a little too old to play with toys,
but they begged me for a toy car. Specifically, they
(22:20):
wanted a toy car from the Lawndale Orchard Swap. These
cars had working lights and horns and battery powered engines.
All the neighborhood kids had one, except Edel. I held
out for months, weathering Edel's tearful requests. Finally, one morning,
Sam and I were sitting on the front porch, drinking
coffee and watching the neighborhood kids playing beneath the citrus grove.
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Edel had gotten hold of a neighbor kid's car and
was zooming it around like an airplane. Sam must have
caught me frowning. You know, the more you forbid them,
the more fascinating you make them. And what if toy
machine guns came in fashion? Huh would you tell me
to get Edel's one of those two that's different, and
(23:03):
you know it, Sam shook her head at me. Watch
how they play with them. Edel was making engine roaring
noises and charged at a group of younger kids playing
with dolls. The little one shrieked delightedly and scattered. It's
how we used to play with dinosaurs, isn't it. Dinosaurs
are extinct. There's no harm in glorifying them, I said,
But there are real people still trying to bring back cars,
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just a handful of extremists, don't you see. Cars are
dinosaurs to this generation, ancient beasts, extinct monsters. It's natural
for the kids to be fascinated. It doesn't mean Edel's
going to grow up to be a car's rights wacko.
My heart pounded with anger, not at Sam, but at
the memory of Bruce's face. I'll be damned before I
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get a kid of mine a toy car, I said,
I don't know about damned Samside, but you're on track
to destroy your relationship with your kid. The truth of
that took my breath away. Had been patting myself on
the back for stubbornness. A wall had sprung up between
me and Edel. Hugs and tickle fights in morning. Prairie
walks had vanished, replaced by sullen looks and slammed doors.
(24:13):
The next Sunday morning, Edel and I boarded a maglev
the Lawndale Orchard. Most of the swap meat was set
up in the block's paved square, produced stalls artisan goods
and homemade medicinals. The toy maker wasn't there, but a
shop was easy to spot, and Edel took off running
for it. Unlike most folks who planted natives or grew
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food in every patch of sun, the toy maker kept
a short lawn of monoculture bermuda grass decorated with hundreds
of scrap metal and plastic toys. There were pinwheels, whirligigs,
and a menagerie of mechanical animals that croaked, roared, hopped,
and slithered. After the delighted kids swarming the yard, a
paved path led up to a darkened garage, gaping like
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an open mouth that too a relic. Most folks had
converted their garages into living spaces long ago. The scene
reminded me of the fable of Hansel and Gretel, except
instead of luring kids in with candy, this guy used
tacky little robots. Inside the garage, a ceiling fan stirred
the dust motes above the tables crowded with hundreds of
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toy vehicles. A toy maker sat at the cluttered work
bench at the back, a fringe of white hair bent
to his work, soldering a circuit board at a table
piled a scrap metal edel ran their hand lovingly over
the candy colored cars, popping up tiny hoods to inspect
battery powered engines. Names half remembered from my childhood came
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back to me. Beetle, thunderbird, mustang extinct species. Now we
traded them back for flesh and blood animals, and good riddance,
oh this one. Edel reverently picked up a black truck
with flames painted down the sides and monster truck tires.
It was the kind of truck that would have had
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a sabotaged exhaust system back in the day, spewing toxic
clouds of black smoke on purpose. Rolling coal they used
to call it. But I bit back my sneer, remembering
Sam's caution, the more you forbid them, the more fascinating
you make them. I approached the toy maker and back,
we're looking to swap for this, I said, placing the
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truck on the table. I opened my bag, displaying dozens
of ripe liquots and a quart of wild rice stored
in a jar i'd blown and fired myself with the glassworks.
Is this enough, sure, he said, not even glancing up.
Leave it over there. He just s were to a
table piled high with all manner of food and homemade goods.
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Can you tell me the make and model of this truck?
Adel asked? The man grinned and looked up. That, my dear,
is a two thousand Ford f one fifty super Cab
Excel t Edel repeated the name in a reverent whisper.
I had to fight the urge to grab Edel by
the hand and drag them out of there. The toymaker
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glanced at me for the first time and narrowed his eyes.
You've been here before, he said, no, I began, But
something about the guy snagged in my memory. He was familiar.
But for a few moments I couldn't place those watery
blue eyes. I might never have figured it out. The
neighbor hadn't ducked inside just then shouting just made some
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low quat smoothies. Bruce want one? Bruce? Suddenly I saw
it his face, ten years younger, wearing a black goateee
instead of a graying beard. Thanks, I'm all right, the
toymaker said, got too many myself already. Indeed the table
was heaped with baskets of the in seasoned loquats. My
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heart started pounding, my blood heating like fire. Bruce, are
you by any chance? Bruce welborn me at a curious smile.
Now you have the advantage of me. How do we
know each other? Demolition day, I said, my voice shaking
with anger. I was a cleaner. Bruce's face went slack,
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then paled. No swap, he said. Edel let out a
cry like a herd animal, fighting back the urge to
punch the guy. I turned to leave instead, No, Bruce said,
I mean take the truck, no swap, no charge. You
can have any car you want. Child of a cleaner.
I took his meaning maliciously, thinking that because I'd been
(28:36):
a cleaner, he was more eager than ever to corrupt
my kid with his vehicular idols. Let's go, I grabbed
Edel's hand. It was a mistake coming here. Edel slipped
out of my grip and clutched the truck to their chest. Tuta, please,
it was my mistake, the old toy maker said softly.
My life was so small back then, and my truck
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a big part of it. I couldn't see, couldn't begin
to imagine this world you've made. He swept his hands
towards the garage, opening, the kids squealing with delight at
the toys clattering in his yard. The bustling swap meet
in the paved square, and beyond a herd of wild
horses grazing atop the prairie covered mag left tunnel. I
(29:18):
was lonely and angry, and I was wrong. I met
his gaze, still searching for some trick. You expect me
to believe that you make all this, But you're not
a car's rights person anymore. Not since the day they
shot those poor cleaners. I've had nothing to do with
them since then. He sat down the soldering iron gently. Sure,
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I still love cars, but they're just toys now, aren't
they toys and relics in a museum Teuta. Edel swung
my hand, Please can I have the truck? Their eyes
were wide and pleading, brimming with tears, and again I
heard Sam's voice in my head. I don't know about damned,
but you're on track to destroy your relationship with your kid.
(30:00):
I dropped a bag of food on Bruce's swap table,
whether he wanted it or not, and Edel squealed and
danced out of the garage, cradling the monster truck like
a baby. As we walked back to the mag left station,
I started feeling embarrassed from my anger. Sternly, I told
myself that it was the least that Bruce deserved for
having stood in the way of the mission he'd thrown
(30:22):
in with those murderous cars. Rights people, even if he
hadn't pulled a gun's trigger. I hoped it'd be the
last time I ever saw him. But a few months later,
it was Edel's birthday and all they wanted was to
pick out another car a friend for their monster truck.
So he visited Bruce again, and this time Edel came prepared,
peppering him with questions about internal combustion engines until he
(30:45):
unearthed a stack of old magazines for them to take home.
Edel looked like they had been handed a treasure map,
and spent weeks rereading the things, gingerly turning the yellowed
paper on the floor of their room. Then they asked
Sam to teach them to bake so that they'd be
able to make their own goodies to swap for more cars.
After a year, Edel had accumulated more of Bruce's toy
(31:07):
vehicles than any other kid in the neighborhood. A few times,
at Sam's encouragement, I tried to talk to Edel about
why I didn't like cars. I wanted to explain what
being a cleaner had meant to me, how vicious a
world full of cars had been, and how I grieved
for my friends who'd been murdered by cars rights protesters.
But every time I tried to get the words out,
(31:28):
I'd wind up stammering and tearing up. Edel would pat
my cheek, looking a little bored. They'd say, I know, Teuta,
I know, in a voice so sweet it broke my heart,
and then they turned back to the city of cars
they'd lovingly set up on the forest floor. I hoped
the fascination would pass as Edel grew, but their interest
(31:49):
only shifted. When they were twelve years old. I found
Edel crying in the midst of what looked like an explosion,
A zillion pieces of monster truck scattered around them. They'd
taken the thing up, drawing careful diagrams at each step,
but now they couldn't figure out how to put it
back together together. We collected all the tiny circuit boards
and screws in a pouch and visited Bruce at the
(32:11):
next swap meet that day. He took Edel on as
an apprentice. Other kids went to dance classes, or played
instruments or sports, but my Edel became a toymaker. Every
Sunday I'd read a book in that dusty garage while
Bruce taught Edel to solder circuit boards and install tiny headlights.
(32:31):
He was always patient and soft spoken, but I never
let them alone together. I remembered his rage from all
those years ago, and I never quite trusted that he'd changed.
It was Edel's idea at sixteen to petition the local
council for the historical restoration project. To my dismay, the
project was approved, Edel started riding Maglev trains all over
(32:52):
the country, scouring scrap metal yards for a tailpipe or
a passenger side door. They'd haul their findings onto the
maglove zipping all the way back to the Lawndale station,
where an ancient Ford truck was gradually taking shape in
Bruce's yard. When the truck was completed, all the adjoining
neighborhoods came out to marvel at it, hundreds of people.
(33:14):
The wheels were blocked so it would never drive anywhere
or hurt anyone. Still, kids loved climbing up in the cab,
honking the horn and flicking the turning indicators. The local
news stations even interviewed Bruce and Edel, watching my kid
passionately explain their hard work. On the seven PM news.
Something inside me melted. I let go of the resentment
(33:35):
I'd been carrying all those years, and my heart swelled
with an uncomplicated pride for my brilliant kid. Edel soon
left home to study mechanical engineering and took a job
improving the efficiency of Maglov lines. They zipped all over
the continent for work, rarely stopping home for a visit.
Their absence never stopped feeling like someone had carved a
(33:55):
hole in my chest. Sundays in particular, felt howlingly empty,
and one day I stepped off the maglev and at
Londale Orchard, out of an old habit. My feet took
me to Bruce's garage. He looked pleasantly surprised, offered me coffee,
and we sat and watched kids play with his latest creations.
(34:15):
I filled him in on the latest news from Edel,
and our talk drifted to the olden days. I was
surprised to find that there was joy in remembering that
long gone world with someone else. We named little things
now extinct, like waiting at a crosswalk, or the smell
of gasoline, or the sound of passing cars in the rain.
(34:37):
When I got the call from Bruce's estate manager Edel
was working on an urgent job on the European continent
and wouldn't be able to return for at least a month.
Sam offered to come with me, but she had only
met Bruce once or twice, so I preferred to go alone.
Long after his eyesight went and his hands started shaking
and he could no longer make toys. I continued to
(34:58):
visit with Bruce most Sundays. Yet no biological family, but
he was often invited into the homes of neighbors, many
of whom had grown up plaining with his creations. So
I was surprised to get the call from his estate
manager to learn that I was the person entrusted with
his last request. I just had knee surgery, an old
injury for my year as a cleaner, so I rode
(35:19):
a motorized wheelchair on to the Maglev. The appointment with
the estate manager didn't take long. Leaving his office, I
cradled an impossibly small wooden box on my lap. Disembarking
at Calcotte, I found the block transformed beyond recognition. Mature
Pekan trees shaded a forest floor where once I'd shoveled
up a road. The path. I drove down, skirted or
(35:41):
restored stream bed, emptying into a pond choked with lilies.
Beyond the path disappeared into a blue stream prairie where
a herd of buffalo grazed among clouds of dragonflies. For
two hundred years, while this place was named Houston, no
buffalo had ever visited the shores of Buffalo by you now.
The herds returned every year from the great Plains up
(36:01):
north to winter along our mild coast, enriching our soils
and our souls with their powerful presence. I loved the
annual festival we threw to celebrate their approach, the children
running atop the grassy maglev tunnels waving streamers. As the
first dust clouds appeared on the horizon, I parked my
chair in the last stretch of shade beside the pond
(36:22):
in no rush. As dust came on, a secession of
animals visited the stream, rabbits, ducks, a herd of deer,
even a fox and her kits. There were two herds
of human children moving through the area as well, an
older group and a younger one. They disappear in and
out of their homes once single family houses now converted
into multigenerational villas with their quilt like additions, each successive
(36:46):
room built with different recycled materials. The children laughed and
called to one another, climbing and jumping from trees. Adults
tended to use the paths rather than venturing through the
thick carpet of undergrowth. Sometimes one would stop an asked
me if I was lost or needed help. I thanked them,
waving off their slightly condescending concern. A firefly flickered in
(37:08):
the gloom, and then ten minutes later, thousands the children
re emerged from their homes, catching the insects and jars
and playing ghosts in the graveyard. Finally, adults appeared in doorways,
calling the children to sleep. The moon emerged from the
tree tops, gilding everything in silver, and still I sat there,
unable to bring myself to complete my task. At last,
(37:31):
a deep voice, asking who who are you? Drew my
eyes up to a break in the canopy, where a
live oak had been struck by lightning. Its lower branches
were lush with leaves, but above a blackened trunk scraped
the sky. A large shadow perched there too, tufted ears
silhouetted against the indigo sky, a great horned owl. I
(37:54):
peered through the dark, judging the distance back to the
maglev station. Was this the right place the a This
owl seemed to be a good omen close enough. I
took a deep breath and opened the box, not sure
what to expect. It was a relief to see a dry,
crumbly substance, just soil. Fifty years ago, Bruce had parked
(38:15):
a truck here on an asphalt street because he wanted
to stop us from tearing up the roads. Now fulfilling
his last wish, I scattered the composts that had once
been his body at the base of the lightning struck tree.
The next rain would dissolve Bruce's matter into the soil,
where his minerals would be absorbed by the trees, grassroots, fungus,
(38:35):
and worms. Cycling through the food chain, he'd feed insects, amphibians, owls,
and squirrels. BlackBerry vine twined through the undergrowth, and I
hoped Bruce's molecules would find their way there. When those
berries ripened in midsummer, the kids of the neighborhood would
be the first to devour them, and in that way,
Bruce might get a second childhood, or dozens of them.
(38:56):
These would be childhoods freer and happier than ours had been.
Buckled as we were into back seats are play trapped
between strips of sidewalk. These kids would grow up with
their toes sunk in stream beds, befriending jack rabbits and
wild horses, beating off the fruits of the land, and
growing in the loving embrace of a multi species family.
(39:17):
Their lives stretched ahead, not a paved road to armageddon,
but a winding path besides the clear stream, where the
path disappeared behind a copse of blooming dogwoods. The future
remained a mystery, but whatever lay beyond, these children could
trust it would be beautiful and free and bursting with life.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
The end, well, that was such a beautiful way to
build a world. For some reason, I really enjoyed that.
It was really nice.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Yeah, I really, I'm really struck by the the grace
of it, the earnestness of it, the like mm hm,
the attempt to understand even as you're like painting, like
ah's damn angry guys yelling, you know, like it's the
most like Okay, it's like the most prison abolitionist thing
(40:12):
I've ever read. It's the most like let's make each
other better thing, And it also like even has like
the protagonist also getting needlessly angry, right and like.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
No, you're right. It's every character is whole and complicated
and has and has afforded grace and I think, I,
I don't know, it's human. Yeah, it's a very human story.
I really liked that.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
Thanks, Yeah, I am. I made Ian have to go
back and cut it out because it cut pieces out
because I started crying while I was reading it, which
is like really not what I expected, you know. But
it's like, I mean, this is like there's almost like
some of it's like so earnest that I'm almost like, ah,
(41:04):
I don't know, it was like pretty earnest. And then
I'm like, that's because this is just kind of what
I want. Like, even if it's like a little bit
like it's very utopian, it's very like oh it'll work out, right,
but it's like, yeah, we need stories that remind us
that things can get better, you know.
Speaker 3 (41:22):
Yeah, it's all like a future where everyone is like
apocalyptic and struggling and whatever. It's it's a future that
we can make better.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Well I'm gonna read the bio. Sim Kern.
Sim Kern is the USA Today best selling author of
The Free People's Village and Indie Next Pick. Their debut
horror novella, Depart. Depart has an exclamation mark at the end,
(41:49):
was selected for the Honor List of the twenty twenty
Otherwise Award, and their short story collection Real Sugar Is
Hard to Find was hailed in a starred review by
Publishers Weekly as a urgent but still achingly tender work
that will wow any reader of speculative fiction. As a journalist,
they report on petrochemical polluters and drag space billionaires. Sim
(42:11):
spent ten years teaching English to middle and high schoolers
in Houston, Texas before shifting to writing full time. Find
them all over the Internet, but especially on TikTok at
Sim Kern is SI M K E r N, and
also find them on It could happen here like a
couple weeks ago, possibly more. I don't know.
Speaker 4 (42:32):
I really liked them. I'm trying to convince you all
to have them on more. I mean I want I
would love to have them on more. I told them
after we were done, I was I was like, this
is not the end. Yeah, you're gonna have to come back.
Speaker 3 (42:43):
Yeah, they're so knowledgeable and I don't know, you can
tell I feel like with someone's writing style, like the
maybe earnestness is the word I'm thinking of because you
kept saying it, but like that's what I mean, Like
you know what I mean, Like the writing of a
person really indicates a deeper level of them. Does that
make sense? Am I making sense? It's been a long day.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
Yeah, no, you can twelve pm it like it reflects
something about you know, obviously, like people write in styles
that are not like you know, you can't tell everything
about an author based on just like what they write
or whatever, but you could you could tell something. And
like you can tell like on the details they focus
on and what they choose to describe about a person. Yeah,
(43:28):
it seems awesome and they will definitely be on. It
could happen here more. But the first episode they were
on came out a couple of weeks ago about anti Zionism,
So I would recommend that if you want to listen. Yeah,
all right, well that's going to do it for book
Club Cool Zone Media book Club catches next Sunday when
we read you more stories of the arcane and positive
(43:51):
and sometimes not positive and all kinds of things. That's
the official tagline. I got it approved by corporate see
you all seen.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
It Could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from coal Zone Media, visit our website
cool zonemedia dot com or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated
monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Book Club book Club book Club. That's that's how we
start the show. I've decided it's the Cool Zone Media
book Club. I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy, my guest today,
since the whole format is that I read it to
someone reads stories to someone from Cool Zone Media. The
Serene Hi.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Serene Hi, Margaret, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Yeah, well, it's the Coolzone Media book Club. Every Sunday,
I read you different stories, stories that have to do
with the themes of cool Zone Media and specifically it
could happen here. I don't know what I'm saying. It's spooky,
it's not, but the world is spooky. I don't know
that's true. This story though, this is a like this
(00:53):
is a posy story.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Oh I love that for myself and for you and
for us and for all of you listening.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
That's right. Today we're reading a story by it could
happen here alumni guest sim Kern, who I believe you interviewed.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Yeah, they're awesome. I really respect their work and I'm
excited to be read one of their stories.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah. They It's always very weird to be a fiction
writer and then like also be known for this completely
unrelated thing, you know, like I don't know to put
words into Sim's mouth, you know, like like Sim is
right now doing a lot of really amazing content on
TikTok and Instagram about Jewish anti Zionism.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
And and on.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
It could happen here also, but it's just like, but
they also write really amazing stories, and so yeah, we're
going to read you one. I'm going to read you
one and sharene is the stand in for you, the listener,
that is I. This story is called the Lost Roads.
(02:02):
The years of debate and organizing, planning, in preparation had
spanned my entire life, But at long last, the Body
Politic had reached a decision. Demolition Day had arrived, and
I stood on the front lines. The old world would
be gouged and shoveled away, ushering in a dazzling future.
Children would reclaim the freedom of play, beasts of the
(02:24):
wild would roam once more, and we would liberate the
earth from her tari strait jacket. I never felt more
proud in my neon yellow coveralls and matching hard hat
emblazoned with the badge of the Body Politic. My weapons
for the battle ahead rested heavy across my shoulder. Pickaxe
and shovel, simple tools for a simple job. We were cleaners,
(02:48):
not as venerated as the drivers of the mighty diggers
who forged ahead, or the pavers with their specialized skills.
Certainly we weren't as envied as the planters who would
follow in our wake. Our work was hard and tedious,
but essential to the operation ahead, and I had volunteered
for it. Today, on every continent on Earth, teams of
(03:08):
workers like mine would embark on a multi year mission
destroy the roads, all of them. My squad was stationed
in the Buffalo Bayou Settler Reservation in the city formerly
known as Houston, Texas, on a two lane residential road,
Calcott Street, the eighteen hundred block. It was a sweltering morning,
(03:31):
hotter than it had any right to be in early March.
We had a long way yet to go in cooling
the climate. But that morning I didn't mind the heat
because I knew what a start we were making. Cowcutt
dead ended at a maglev line, and from time to
time the woosh of a passing train sent a blast
of welcome wind escaping from its prairie covered tunnel. Miry
(03:54):
Our squad leader gave a short speech that was more
instructional than inspirational. When the digger hummed to life, its
ten foot wheels began to turn, the vicious blades of
its snout sliced into cracked asphalt like a hot knife
through butter, and the huge sheets of shattered road lifted,
twisting towards the sky and clattering down the beast's neck
(04:17):
into the bin on its back. The roar of it
was tremendous, and I was glad for the noise canceling
bud stuck into my ears. We watched it trundle ahead
of us for half an hour until Mary gave the
signal that it was safe for us to begin our work.
The digger only pulled up eighty to eighty five percent
of the road. The bits scattered behind were left for
(04:39):
our shovels. We bent to the work, scoop some asphalt,
then toss it into the drone carts that followed behind us.
Loyal puppies, scoop toss, scoop toss. If the digger had
missed a large chunk of road, we pulled out the
pickaxes or Mary's jackhammer. My earbud played upbeat music, and
(05:01):
I timed my shoveling to the rhythm. There was such
joy in scraping the earth clean of rubble. We'd cleared
a twenty foot stretch of asphalt when I felt a
hand on my shoulder. Mary shouted over the noise of
the digger that it had been a half hour time
for the be squad to swap in. I'd rather keep going,
(05:21):
I called back. I'm not even tired. Rest Mary commanded warmly.
It'll be a long day and a longer year ahead.
I don't want my cleaners getting injured on their first
day of the job. She was right, of course. I
rested with the a squad on a moss yard beneath
a shady elm. The family who lived there came out
(05:41):
of their house to greet us, bearing lemonade and homemade cookies.
My first taste of the unexpected perks of working on
the mission. A long haired child of seven or eight
with freckled golden brown skin showed me a tray of
seedlings and an egg carton. You're cleaner's right, the child asked,
clearly unimpressed by us. I nodded, do you know when
(06:03):
the planters will be coming first. The pavers have to
do their work, I said, I know, I know, the
kid replied, laying paths to the mag left station and
the bike trails. They rolled their eyes. But when the
planters come, do you think they'll want to use these? Well,
that depends, I said, pointing to the seedlings. Are they
(06:23):
native to this region? Of course, the child cried. I
got castilia and Davisia zenotheras biciosa, and these are Lupinus texanis,
prairie fire, primrose and blue bonnets. I confirmed, How beautiful
they'll look together. Yes, I think there's a very good
chance the planters will want to use them. The smile
(06:45):
that lit the kid's face was luminous enough to melt
any lingering soreness in my muscles. As they drifted away
to tend to their seedlings, one of their parents, sitting
a short ways away, leaned towards me. I think you
just made their month. As we swap names and pronouns,
the kid's mom never took her eyes off the digger.
Don't worry, I said, we won't let the kids anywhere
(07:07):
near the job site. She looked at me for the
first time. What, No, it's not that it's just well,
all of it, she laughed apologetically. What will we do
without ambulances or fire trucks, opal as, epilepsy. You know what,
if they have a bad fall, there'll be triage cars
(07:28):
and water tankers running on the Maglev lines, and you're
right near the station. Emergency services should arrive faster by
Maglov than they ever did by road. They say that,
but everything's changing so fast, everywhere, all at once. What
if they're wrong. Look all your life, you've been living
with one ton bullets speeding past your house fifty feet
(07:50):
from your front door. Cars have been the biggest killers
of kids for a century. Won't it be safer to
have that gone? I suppose, she said, still twisting the
hem of her skirt. Her fears served as a reminder
that the quorum had only been reached by a slim margin.
Millions of people still opposed our mission. But I couldn't
stay and convince her because Maria was waving us back
(08:12):
over to start another shift. By noon, we'd cleared the block,
and a squad of pavers emerged from the Maglev station
with a fleet of drones in tow. I would have
spent so much time watching them work over the next
year that I could have joined their ranks by the
end of it. First they'd survey the land with sweeping lasers,
(08:33):
then they'd stake out the course of their paths. Some
communities wanted a large paved areas in the middle of
the block for games or festivals. Still, the footprint of
paved spaces was always a tiny fraction of the asphalt
roads we destroyed. And of course the paths weren't for
cars only people walking, skating, biking, wheeling. Unlike sidewalks of
(08:56):
old meeting at sharp right angles, the pavers de only
in curves. From above, their completed paths looked organic, like
branching veins, each block one leaf, each neighborhood a branch,
each city a sprawling tree were once there'd been a grid.
The paving material they poured was a bright green composite
made from a century's worth of discarded plastic. When dried,
(09:19):
it had a slight bounce to it, delightful to walk on,
but hard and smooth enough for wheels. And it was porous,
so that every precious drop of precipitation soaked through to
the soil below. At first I envied the respect afforded
the pavers engineers, all dressed in their smart blue coveralls.
They commanded so much respect from the folks of the neighborhood,
(09:41):
but they were officious to us, perpetually frustrated that we
weren't moving fast enough. They snipped at each other too,
with none of the intense camaraderie that banded together us cleaners.
So even if some magic wish could have made me
an engineer, forget it. I'd rather be a cleaner. But
the planters, oh I did envy them. I didn't often
(10:04):
get to see them work, not unless I took a
stroll during one of my breaks, back to a street
we'd cleaned weeks before. Botanists, mycologists, bryologists and ediphologists, and
of course the native land historians they deferred to. In
bright green work suits, they descend on a street after
the pavers had poured fresh paths. It was the planter's
(10:25):
job to restore the ruined soil trapped by asphalt for
a century. Our work took hours, The pavers work took days,
but the planter's task would take months or even years.
Where the soil was saturated with heavy metals. They used
all kinds of composts, fertilizers, and minerals. But their most
(10:46):
ingenious allies were living things microbes that devoured microplastics and
mushrooms that leached pollution from the earth. At superfund sites
where the land was especially toxic, they displaced residents and
worked for months in hasmac gear to heal the poisoned earth. Finally,
the planters would escort drone carts bursting with greenery from
(11:07):
the maglev station. They'd plant the fruit trees that would
feed the neighborhood, the shade trees that would cool their homes.
The trees would take decades to mature, but one day,
this endless orchard would crisscross the continent, everywhere there'd once
only been pavement. The promise of that bountiful future had
captivated the hearts of most everyone on Earth, most but
(11:31):
not all. Because you know whose hearts it didn't capture,
sharene Please tell me the people who sponsor this pot
gath You are cold and heartless. Wait no, wait, that's
the opposite.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
We love.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Yeah, they're great. Where are the people who we would
oppose all of this if it disrupted the capitalism that
provides these goods and services to you, we're totally not,
just like almost everyone else involved in capitalism at every level,
cynically and gay with it in order to survive, and
(12:17):
we're back. We ran into our first protester around two
o'clock that day, during the last hour of my shift.
Cleaning was my first job after college, and I'd never
worked such a heavy day of labor. By midafternoon, my
muscles were screaming, and I was looking forward to a
long soak in the solar spring at the bathhouse. Suddenly
(12:39):
the digger fell silent and it ground to a halt.
The driver leaned out of his cab, hollering at someone
up ahead. Cautiously, Mary led us around the side of
the machine. There, inches from the digger's snout, said an
old fashioned gasoline powered pickup truck. There were signs painted
all over the truck the cars are freedom, save the roads,
(13:02):
resist the stone age. Part of me had to admire
the guy's courage. The digger could have churned through that
vehicle with ease, but the driver sat inside the cab,
arms folded. Mary approached the cab and motioned for the
driver to roll down the window. She introduced herself and
he gave his name, Bruce Wellborn. She used his first
(13:25):
name a lot after that, explaining that we had to
get back to work. Bruce, give us a break, Bruce,
and if he didn't like it, he could take it
up with the body politic. At first, Bruce seemed uncertain,
darting glances at us nervously. But the longer he talked
to Miry, the angrier he got. Until his pale skin
flushed red. He got louder and louder, until he was
(13:46):
shouting car's rights at the top of his lungs, right
in her face. I couldn't remember the last time I'd
seen a grown person totally given over to rage like that.
My legs felt shaky and my heart art was racing,
as if he'd been yelling at me. Miry turned to
walk back to us, and Bruce rolled up his window.
(14:09):
I envied him the cool a sea that must be
blowing inside. The sun was blaring down on all our
heads by then the hottest part of the day. Bruce
grabbed an ice cold can from the cooler in the
back seat. The cab was packed with food supplies and
extra gas tanks. In this heat, he might outlast us
in his stockpiled truck. I couldn't understand him. Forty thousand
(14:33):
people got killed in car wrecks every year in our
country alone. We would free our air of the smog
that gave so many little kids asthma. We'd replace millions
of miles of heat trapping asphalt with carbon absorbing orchards,
restore parking lots to native prairies, and free the concrete
walled bayous to ramble along rocky shores. Who would want
(14:55):
to stand or park in the way of all that
we need to move? Him, Mary said to us. She
turned and shouted, this is your last chance to drive away, Bruce.
We're going to continue our work with or without your cooperation.
Bruce locked his doors and revved his engine in answer.
My blood ran icy with fear of the thought of
(15:17):
going anywhere near that truck. What if he tries to
run us over, I asked, hoping the others wouldn't think
me a coward. Should we call a violence response team?
I don't think that's necessary. Mary frowned. It's not like
he has a gun. If he did, I think he
would have shown it by now. He's not violent, just annoying,
as if on cue Bruce cracked his window and shouted,
(15:40):
try coming near this truck and see what happens. Okay,
that sounded like a threat, Ermine said, shooting me a look.
I was glad to have an ally, And it may
not be a gun, but a truck is a deadly weapon.
Sage agreed. Fine. Mary's sighed and walking away from the huddle.
I'll call the VRT. But a few moments later she back,
(16:01):
no good. She shook her head. They've got hundreds of
reports of protesters like Bruce here all over the city,
some of them in big groups. The dispatcher couldn't even
promise they could get to us by the end of
the week. Ah, I whispered. I had assumed Bruce was
alone extremist. But if there were hundreds of blockades in
our reservation alone, how many people were protesting across the watershed,
(16:23):
the continent, the world. Could there be enough anti mission
sentiment to force the body politic back to the debate chambers.
That could mean years of delays. I echoed Mary's words
from earlier. We have to move him, ideas, Mary said,
couldn't the digger just go up on the grass there
and drive around him? Ernie asked, But then I'll be
(16:44):
behind us. I pointed out, what if he turns around
and runs us over? Mary nodded, I want that truck disabled,
but nothing that'll hurt him or us. I wasn't much
help in the discussion that followed, as I didn't know
much about cars. Someone said they'd heard you could just
say car by blocking the tailpipe with a potato. Mary
said that was an urban legend. Once the pressure built up,
(17:06):
the potato would shoot out. Someone else suggested slashing the tires,
but a bunch of people rolled their eyes and spoke
over each other, pointing out that a car was slashed
tires could still accelerate to deadly speed in seconds. We
could block him in Sage suggested, drive another digger over
here and park it right on his ass so he
can't move. Mary wagged a finger in his direction. That
(17:27):
could work, But then, what how do we take the
truck out of commission force open the hood. We could
slice the latch with a reciprocating saw Ermine said, then
slash the ignition. Mary snapped her fingers. After that, we
just pick up the truck and move it. You think
we can lift it, I asked, with another squad. We
could sage, said. Mary pressed a finger to her ear,
(17:50):
calling someone on her earbuds. Ten seconds later, two nearby
cleaning squads strolled up to our location alongside a rumbling digger.
Bruce shaeh outed, I won't be moved. You can run
me over. I'll die for my freedoms, but his voice
wavered as he watched the second digger pull up on
his tail. I'll disable the truck, Mary said, I don't
(18:13):
want to risk any of y'all getting hurt. She grabbed
the electric saw from our toolbox and clambered over the road,
smashing blades of our digger. Bruce revved his engine threateningly,
but with a digger's blades an inch from both bumpers,
he wasn't going anywhere. Mary sliced open Bruce's hood, then
sawed something inside that made the engine fall silent. It's
(18:34):
gonna get hot in there, Bruce, Mary called, dangerous hot.
You want to come out now, Bruce cursed her. We
spread out on both sides of the truck. Then and
I got a handhold under the chassis near the driver's
back wheel. On Mary's signal, we heaved up, with all
of us lifting together and the truck felt about as
heavy as a big box of books. We shuffled toward
(18:56):
the side of the road and set it down gently,
So gently it gave me this funny, peaceful feeling, like
we were carrying a sleeping toddler to bed. Then Miry
called back to work. The digger from the north pulled away,
and I started in on my last shift. From time
to time I spared a glance at Bruce. After a
few minutes, he cracked the door to the cab. It
(19:19):
must have been over one hundred degrees in there. For
a while he shouted slogans at us, but his voice
soon grew hoarse. Sage had streamed our whole encounter with
Bruce from her lenses, and the vid went viral within
a few hours. Other squads around the city, then the Watershed,
then the continent started using the Miry maneuver to deal
with protest cars until that horrible day March twenty seventh.
(19:46):
After a few weeks, the car's rights protests were losing steam.
Most of the protesters had given up or run out
of cars to protest in, but the most fanatical among
them grew desperate. On the last Friday in March. Some
brought guns in their trucks, the kind of a legal,
powerful guns that people hoarded by the millions at the
start of the century. Of course, we'd known there were
still many of them out there, ar fifteen's that had
(20:08):
been hidden from the smelters. To this day, I can't
walk past the statue of falling cleaners downtown without sitting
on a bench a while and fighting back tears. I
had good friends who were killed that day. I feel
so guilty and disoriented when I think about how it
was just random, just a dice roll, that their squads
(20:29):
got shot up and mine didn't. That I'm only alive
because Bruce wasn't one of the violent ones. After I
finished up that first shift, Bruce bowed to the inevitable
and finally climbed down from his truck. He grabbed only
the cooler out of the back of the cab, abandoning
the rest of his supplies and the vehicle itself for
(20:50):
a sanitation team to deal with. I wound up walking
back to the maglev station next to him, surprised by
how small he seemed. With his feet on the ground,
head hung low, He dragged that cooler over the scraped
clean earth. You know what, that cooler could have been
filled with sureen gold gold coins. It could have been
(21:11):
filled with gold coins like perennial sponsor of the show
regging gold coins. Do we still get those? Do you think?
Speaker 1 (21:22):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
I just think it's funny.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Yeah, me too. And if you too want a cooler
full of gold, you just listen to these ads, And
if you don't want to hear ads, subscribe to Cooler
Zone Media, because then you get all this stuff. Without ads,
you just get our weird ad breaks and then immediately
it's my voice going and we're back. Needless to say,
(21:59):
I found it on Settling ten years later, when my
Edel developed a fixation with cars, all they wanted from
the library were books about cars. All the hollow games
they played were car racers. At nearly ten, I thought
Edel was getting a little too old to play with toys,
but they begged me for a toy car. Specifically, they
(22:20):
wanted a toy car from the Lawndale Orchard Swap. These
cars had working lights and horns and battery powered engines.
All the neighborhood kids had one, except Edel. I held
out for months, weathering Edel's tearful requests. Finally, one morning,
Sam and I were sitting on the front porch, drinking
coffee and watching the neighborhood kids playing beneath the citrus grove.
(22:42):
Edel had gotten hold of a neighbor kid's car and
was zooming it around like an airplane. Sam must have
caught me frowning. You know, the more you forbid them,
the more fascinating you make them. And what if toy
machine guns came in fashion? Huh would you tell me
to get Edel's one of those two that's different, and
(23:03):
you know it, Sam shook her head at me. Watch
how they play with them. Edel was making engine roaring
noises and charged at a group of younger kids playing
with dolls. The little one shrieked delightedly and scattered. It's
how we used to play with dinosaurs, isn't it. Dinosaurs
are extinct. There's no harm in glorifying them, I said,
But there are real people still trying to bring back cars,
(23:26):
just a handful of extremists, don't you see. Cars are
dinosaurs to this generation, ancient beasts, extinct monsters. It's natural
for the kids to be fascinated. It doesn't mean Edel's
going to grow up to be a car's rights wacko.
My heart pounded with anger, not at Sam, but at
the memory of Bruce's face. I'll be damned before I
(23:48):
get a kid of mine a toy car, I said,
I don't know about damned Samside, but you're on track
to destroy your relationship with your kid. The truth of
that took my breath away. Had been patting myself on
the back for stubbornness. A wall had sprung up between
me and Edel. Hugs and tickle fights in morning. Prairie
walks had vanished, replaced by sullen looks and slammed doors.
(24:13):
The next Sunday morning, Edel and I boarded a maglev
the Lawndale Orchard. Most of the swap meat was set
up in the block's paved square, produced stalls artisan goods
and homemade medicinals. The toy maker wasn't there, but a
shop was easy to spot, and Edel took off running
for it. Unlike most folks who planted natives or grew
(24:36):
food in every patch of sun, the toy maker kept
a short lawn of monoculture bermuda grass decorated with hundreds
of scrap metal and plastic toys. There were pinwheels, whirligigs,
and a menagerie of mechanical animals that croaked, roared, hopped,
and slithered. After the delighted kids swarming the yard, a
paved path led up to a darkened garage, gaping like
(24:59):
an open mouth that too a relic. Most folks had
converted their garages into living spaces long ago. The scene
reminded me of the fable of Hansel and Gretel, except
instead of luring kids in with candy, this guy used
tacky little robots. Inside the garage, a ceiling fan stirred
the dust motes above the tables crowded with hundreds of
(25:21):
toy vehicles. A toy maker sat at the cluttered work
bench at the back, a fringe of white hair bent
to his work, soldering a circuit board at a table
piled a scrap metal edel ran their hand lovingly over
the candy colored cars, popping up tiny hoods to inspect
battery powered engines. Names half remembered from my childhood came
(25:44):
back to me. Beetle, thunderbird, mustang extinct species. Now we
traded them back for flesh and blood animals, and good riddance,
oh this one. Edel reverently picked up a black truck
with flames painted down the sides and monster truck tires.
It was the kind of truck that would have had
(26:06):
a sabotaged exhaust system back in the day, spewing toxic
clouds of black smoke on purpose. Rolling coal they used
to call it. But I bit back my sneer, remembering
Sam's caution, the more you forbid them, the more fascinating
you make them. I approached the toy maker and back,
we're looking to swap for this, I said, placing the
(26:27):
truck on the table. I opened my bag, displaying dozens
of ripe liquots and a quart of wild rice stored
in a jar i'd blown and fired myself with the glassworks.
Is this enough, sure, he said, not even glancing up.
Leave it over there. He just s were to a
table piled high with all manner of food and homemade goods.
(26:49):
Can you tell me the make and model of this truck?
Adel asked? The man grinned and looked up. That, my dear,
is a two thousand Ford f one fifty super Cab
Excel t Edel repeated the name in a reverent whisper.
I had to fight the urge to grab Edel by
the hand and drag them out of there. The toymaker
(27:10):
glanced at me for the first time and narrowed his eyes.
You've been here before, he said, no, I began, But
something about the guy snagged in my memory. He was familiar.
But for a few moments I couldn't place those watery
blue eyes. I might never have figured it out. The
neighbor hadn't ducked inside just then shouting just made some
(27:31):
low quat smoothies. Bruce want one? Bruce? Suddenly I saw
it his face, ten years younger, wearing a black goateee
instead of a graying beard. Thanks, I'm all right, the
toymaker said, got too many myself already. Indeed the table
was heaped with baskets of the in seasoned loquats. My
(27:51):
heart started pounding, my blood heating like fire. Bruce, are
you by any chance? Bruce welborn me at a curious smile.
Now you have the advantage of me. How do we
know each other? Demolition day, I said, my voice shaking
with anger. I was a cleaner. Bruce's face went slack,
(28:13):
then paled. No swap, he said. Edel let out a
cry like a herd animal, fighting back the urge to
punch the guy. I turned to leave instead, No, Bruce said,
I mean take the truck, no swap, no charge. You
can have any car you want. Child of a cleaner.
I took his meaning maliciously, thinking that because I'd been
(28:36):
a cleaner, he was more eager than ever to corrupt
my kid with his vehicular idols. Let's go, I grabbed
Edel's hand. It was a mistake coming here. Edel slipped
out of my grip and clutched the truck to their chest. Tuta, please,
it was my mistake, the old toy maker said softly.
My life was so small back then, and my truck
(28:58):
a big part of it. I couldn't see, couldn't begin
to imagine this world you've made. He swept his hands
towards the garage, opening, the kids squealing with delight at
the toys clattering in his yard. The bustling swap meet
in the paved square, and beyond a herd of wild
horses grazing atop the prairie covered mag left tunnel. I
(29:18):
was lonely and angry, and I was wrong. I met
his gaze, still searching for some trick. You expect me
to believe that you make all this, But you're not
a car's rights person anymore. Not since the day they
shot those poor cleaners. I've had nothing to do with
them since then. He sat down the soldering iron gently. Sure,
(29:40):
I still love cars, but they're just toys now, aren't
they toys and relics in a museum Teuta. Edel swung
my hand, Please can I have the truck? Their eyes
were wide and pleading, brimming with tears, and again I
heard Sam's voice in my head. I don't know about damned,
but you're on track to destroy your relationship with your kid.
(30:00):
I dropped a bag of food on Bruce's swap table,
whether he wanted it or not, and Edel squealed and
danced out of the garage, cradling the monster truck like
a baby. As we walked back to the mag left station,
I started feeling embarrassed from my anger. Sternly, I told
myself that it was the least that Bruce deserved for
having stood in the way of the mission he'd thrown
(30:22):
in with those murderous cars. Rights people, even if he
hadn't pulled a gun's trigger. I hoped it'd be the
last time I ever saw him. But a few months later,
it was Edel's birthday and all they wanted was to
pick out another car a friend for their monster truck.
So he visited Bruce again, and this time Edel came prepared,
peppering him with questions about internal combustion engines until he
(30:45):
unearthed a stack of old magazines for them to take home.
Edel looked like they had been handed a treasure map,
and spent weeks rereading the things, gingerly turning the yellowed
paper on the floor of their room. Then they asked
Sam to teach them to bake so that they'd be
able to make their own goodies to swap for more cars.
After a year, Edel had accumulated more of Bruce's toy
(31:07):
vehicles than any other kid in the neighborhood. A few times,
at Sam's encouragement, I tried to talk to Edel about
why I didn't like cars. I wanted to explain what
being a cleaner had meant to me, how vicious a
world full of cars had been, and how I grieved
for my friends who'd been murdered by cars rights protesters.
But every time I tried to get the words out,
(31:28):
I'd wind up stammering and tearing up. Edel would pat
my cheek, looking a little bored. They'd say, I know, Teuta,
I know, in a voice so sweet it broke my heart,
and then they turned back to the city of cars
they'd lovingly set up on the forest floor. I hoped
the fascination would pass as Edel grew, but their interest
(31:49):
only shifted. When they were twelve years old. I found
Edel crying in the midst of what looked like an explosion,
A zillion pieces of monster truck scattered around them. They'd
taken the thing up, drawing careful diagrams at each step,
but now they couldn't figure out how to put it
back together together. We collected all the tiny circuit boards
and screws in a pouch and visited Bruce at the
(32:11):
next swap meet that day. He took Edel on as
an apprentice. Other kids went to dance classes, or played
instruments or sports, but my Edel became a toymaker. Every
Sunday I'd read a book in that dusty garage while
Bruce taught Edel to solder circuit boards and install tiny headlights.
(32:31):
He was always patient and soft spoken, but I never
let them alone together. I remembered his rage from all
those years ago, and I never quite trusted that he'd changed.
It was Edel's idea at sixteen to petition the local
council for the historical restoration project. To my dismay, the
project was approved, Edel started riding Maglev trains all over
(32:52):
the country, scouring scrap metal yards for a tailpipe or
a passenger side door. They'd haul their findings onto the
maglove zipping all the way back to the Lawndale station,
where an ancient Ford truck was gradually taking shape in
Bruce's yard. When the truck was completed, all the adjoining
neighborhoods came out to marvel at it, hundreds of people.
(33:14):
The wheels were blocked so it would never drive anywhere
or hurt anyone. Still, kids loved climbing up in the cab,
honking the horn and flicking the turning indicators. The local
news stations even interviewed Bruce and Edel, watching my kid
passionately explain their hard work. On the seven PM news.
Something inside me melted. I let go of the resentment
(33:35):
I'd been carrying all those years, and my heart swelled
with an uncomplicated pride for my brilliant kid. Edel soon
left home to study mechanical engineering and took a job
improving the efficiency of Maglov lines. They zipped all over
the continent for work, rarely stopping home for a visit.
Their absence never stopped feeling like someone had carved a
(33:55):
hole in my chest. Sundays in particular, felt howlingly empty,
and one day I stepped off the maglev and at
Londale Orchard, out of an old habit. My feet took
me to Bruce's garage. He looked pleasantly surprised, offered me coffee,
and we sat and watched kids play with his latest creations.
(34:15):
I filled him in on the latest news from Edel,
and our talk drifted to the olden days. I was
surprised to find that there was joy in remembering that
long gone world with someone else. We named little things
now extinct, like waiting at a crosswalk, or the smell
of gasoline, or the sound of passing cars in the rain.
(34:37):
When I got the call from Bruce's estate manager Edel
was working on an urgent job on the European continent
and wouldn't be able to return for at least a month.
Sam offered to come with me, but she had only
met Bruce once or twice, so I preferred to go alone.
Long after his eyesight went and his hands started shaking
and he could no longer make toys. I continued to
(34:58):
visit with Bruce most Sundays. Yet no biological family, but
he was often invited into the homes of neighbors, many
of whom had grown up plaining with his creations. So
I was surprised to get the call from his estate
manager to learn that I was the person entrusted with
his last request. I just had knee surgery, an old
injury for my year as a cleaner, so I rode
(35:19):
a motorized wheelchair on to the Maglev. The appointment with
the estate manager didn't take long. Leaving his office, I
cradled an impossibly small wooden box on my lap. Disembarking
at Calcotte, I found the block transformed beyond recognition. Mature
Pekan trees shaded a forest floor where once I'd shoveled
up a road. The path. I drove down, skirted or
(35:41):
restored stream bed, emptying into a pond choked with lilies.
Beyond the path disappeared into a blue stream prairie where
a herd of buffalo grazed among clouds of dragonflies. For
two hundred years, while this place was named Houston, no
buffalo had ever visited the shores of Buffalo by you now.
The herds returned every year from the great Plains up
(36:01):
north to winter along our mild coast, enriching our soils
and our souls with their powerful presence. I loved the
annual festival we threw to celebrate their approach, the children
running atop the grassy maglev tunnels waving streamers. As the
first dust clouds appeared on the horizon, I parked my
chair in the last stretch of shade beside the pond
(36:22):
in no rush. As dust came on, a secession of
animals visited the stream, rabbits, ducks, a herd of deer,
even a fox and her kits. There were two herds
of human children moving through the area as well, an
older group and a younger one. They disappear in and
out of their homes once single family houses now converted
into multigenerational villas with their quilt like additions, each successive
(36:46):
room built with different recycled materials. The children laughed and
called to one another, climbing and jumping from trees. Adults
tended to use the paths rather than venturing through the
thick carpet of undergrowth. Sometimes one would stop an asked
me if I was lost or needed help. I thanked them,
waving off their slightly condescending concern. A firefly flickered in
(37:08):
the gloom, and then ten minutes later, thousands the children
re emerged from their homes, catching the insects and jars
and playing ghosts in the graveyard. Finally, adults appeared in doorways,
calling the children to sleep. The moon emerged from the
tree tops, gilding everything in silver, and still I sat there,
unable to bring myself to complete my task. At last,
(37:31):
a deep voice, asking who who are you? Drew my
eyes up to a break in the canopy, where a
live oak had been struck by lightning. Its lower branches
were lush with leaves, but above a blackened trunk scraped
the sky. A large shadow perched there too, tufted ears
silhouetted against the indigo sky, a great horned owl. I
(37:54):
peered through the dark, judging the distance back to the
maglev station. Was this the right place the a This
owl seemed to be a good omen close enough. I
took a deep breath and opened the box, not sure
what to expect. It was a relief to see a dry,
crumbly substance, just soil. Fifty years ago, Bruce had parked
(38:15):
a truck here on an asphalt street because he wanted
to stop us from tearing up the roads. Now fulfilling
his last wish, I scattered the composts that had once
been his body at the base of the lightning struck tree.
The next rain would dissolve Bruce's matter into the soil,
where his minerals would be absorbed by the trees, grassroots, fungus,
(38:35):
and worms. Cycling through the food chain, he'd feed insects, amphibians, owls,
and squirrels. BlackBerry vine twined through the undergrowth, and I
hoped Bruce's molecules would find their way there. When those
berries ripened in midsummer, the kids of the neighborhood would
be the first to devour them, and in that way,
Bruce might get a second childhood, or dozens of them.
(38:56):
These would be childhoods freer and happier than ours had been.
Buckled as we were into back seats are play trapped
between strips of sidewalk. These kids would grow up with
their toes sunk in stream beds, befriending jack rabbits and
wild horses, beating off the fruits of the land, and
growing in the loving embrace of a multi species family.
(39:17):
Their lives stretched ahead, not a paved road to armageddon,
but a winding path besides the clear stream, where the
path disappeared behind a copse of blooming dogwoods. The future
remained a mystery, but whatever lay beyond, these children could
trust it would be beautiful and free and bursting with life.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
The end, well, that was such a beautiful way to
build a world. For some reason, I really enjoyed that.
It was really nice.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Yeah, I really, I'm really struck by the the grace
of it, the earnestness of it, the like mm hm,
the attempt to understand even as you're like painting, like
ah's damn angry guys yelling, you know, like it's the
most like Okay, it's like the most prison abolitionist thing
(40:12):
I've ever read. It's the most like let's make each
other better thing, And it also like even has like
the protagonist also getting needlessly angry, right and like.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
No, you're right. It's every character is whole and complicated
and has and has afforded grace and I think, I,
I don't know, it's human. Yeah, it's a very human story.
I really liked that.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
Thanks, Yeah, I am. I made Ian have to go
back and cut it out because it cut pieces out
because I started crying while I was reading it, which
is like really not what I expected, you know. But
it's like, I mean, this is like there's almost like
some of it's like so earnest that I'm almost like, ah,
(41:04):
I don't know, it was like pretty earnest. And then
I'm like, that's because this is just kind of what
I want. Like, even if it's like a little bit
like it's very utopian, it's very like oh it'll work out, right,
but it's like, yeah, we need stories that remind us
that things can get better, you know.
Speaker 3 (41:22):
Yeah, it's all like a future where everyone is like
apocalyptic and struggling and whatever. It's it's a future that
we can make better.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Well I'm gonna read the bio. Sim Kern.
Sim Kern is the USA Today best selling author of
The Free People's Village and Indie Next Pick. Their debut
horror novella, Depart. Depart has an exclamation mark at the end,
(41:49):
was selected for the Honor List of the twenty twenty
Otherwise Award, and their short story collection Real Sugar Is
Hard to Find was hailed in a starred review by
Publishers Weekly as a urgent but still achingly tender work
that will wow any reader of speculative fiction. As a journalist,
they report on petrochemical polluters and drag space billionaires. Sim
(42:11):
spent ten years teaching English to middle and high schoolers
in Houston, Texas before shifting to writing full time. Find
them all over the Internet, but especially on TikTok at
Sim Kern is SI M K E r N, and
also find them on It could happen here like a
couple weeks ago, possibly more. I don't know.
Speaker 4 (42:32):
I really liked them. I'm trying to convince you all
to have them on more. I mean I want I
would love to have them on more. I told them
after we were done, I was I was like, this
is not the end. Yeah, you're gonna have to come back.
Speaker 3 (42:43):
Yeah, they're so knowledgeable and I don't know, you can
tell I feel like with someone's writing style, like the
maybe earnestness is the word I'm thinking of because you
kept saying it, but like that's what I mean, Like
you know what I mean, Like the writing of a
person really indicates a deeper level of them. Does that
make sense? Am I making sense? It's been a long day.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
Yeah, no, you can twelve pm it like it reflects
something about you know, obviously, like people write in styles
that are not like you know, you can't tell everything
about an author based on just like what they write
or whatever, but you could you could tell something. And
like you can tell like on the details they focus
on and what they choose to describe about a person. Yeah,
(43:28):
it seems awesome and they will definitely be on. It
could happen here more. But the first episode they were
on came out a couple of weeks ago about anti Zionism,
So I would recommend that if you want to listen. Yeah,
all right, well that's going to do it for book
Club Cool Zone Media book Club catches next Sunday when
we read you more stories of the arcane and positive
(43:51):
and sometimes not positive and all kinds of things. That's
the official tagline. I got it approved by corporate see
you all seen.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
It Could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from coal Zone Media, visit our website
cool zonemedia dot com or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated
monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
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