Yeah, that was never going to happen. I never showed anybody anything I wrote, not that anybody’d ever asked to see it before. I figured I’d better change the subject quick.

“So what brought y’all to Benign?” I said.

“Nice deflection,” said Luther.

“I did deflect, didn’t I?” I said.

“Absolutely you did,” said Cass. “But no worries. I’m sure I’ll read your poetry soon enough. But as for your question, Stephens and Jack grew up here. I came from Kentucky, and Luther’s from Mississippi.”

“I just don’t get why you guys would come here of all places,” I said. “I mean, I’m glad you did, but how did you hear about the Farm?”

“You kidding me?” said Stephens. “Your grandmother’s a fucking legend. The Farm was a pretty amazing thing back in the day. An actual utopia.”

“What do you mean?” I said.

“You know, how it was like the perfect society and all that,” said Luther. “Share and share alike, everyone’s equal, no one left behind.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said.

“Dude,” said Stephens. “That is crazy. How do we know more about your family than you do?”

“The Farm was a kind of commune,” said Cass. “It got national coverage in the news and everything. It would have gone on forever had your uncle not died. How do you not know any of this?”

I didn’t know if it was the beer already going to my head (yeah, I’m that much of a lightweight) or what, but that kind of got to me a little bit. I mean, I knew from the tapes of Jeremiah’s sermons that people came to the Farm to hear him preach, and Grandma had said other folks used to live there. But I had no idea it was famous. I hated that I’d missed everything, that nobody had ever even bothered to tell me. It made me pretty mad at my mom, to be honest with you. This was my legacy too, you know? It was where I came from.

“Well, my mom didn’t talk about her past much,” I said.

“That’s a fucking shame,” said Stephens. “My dad used to live on the Farm, and he never shuts up about it. Said it was the happiest time of his life. That’s part of why I hooked up with this crew and moved out here. I wanted to see if it lived up to the hype.”

“And does it?” I said.

They all looked back and forth at each other like they had some kind of secret.

“It remains to be seen,” said Luther.

A foot stomp and a wolf howl sounded from the roof.

“Oh shit,” said Stephens. “Jack’s onto something.”

Jack was waving his arms for everybody to hush.

“Quiet down now!” hollered Jack from the roof. “I got an announcement to make!”