Jack returned home from work Monday night with a little cash in his pocket. The new regulation had been rescinded and he had been able to get access to the money in his checking account. He wondered what that meant with regard to dinner and the commune. He figured that now that the crisis was over, so was the impetus for everyone to work together.
Pulling into the driveway, he was surprised to find a dozen people gathered in the garage. Someone, he assumed it was Abby, had brought out a lamp so that there would be light out there. He walked up to the garage and was immediately greeted by Claire, "There you are."
"Hello, Claire," Jack said. "Where is everyone?"
Claire said, "Now that the crisis is over, the crowd has thinned down a bit."
"I was wondering if anyone was going to be here tonight," Jack said looking around at all of the activity. He still wondered how it was that his garage had become the meeting place for everyone.
The young couple with the two kids was there. The wife was busy watching over the kids and making sure that they didn't get into mischief. The husband was standing off by himself trying not to be noticed. Beverly Smith, the woman who had run the extension cord to the house next door, was seated on the couch. Wanda Johnson, the woman who lived across the street from him, was at the crock pot stirring the contents. Liz Andrews, the woman who lived across the street from Claire, was giving the two kids glasses of milk. Two other women who lived on the street were there, but he didn't know their names. There were three women and an elderly man who he had never met sitting on the couch.
"I had expected about forty people to show up, but this is it. Wanda made three crock pots of stew, but it looks like we'll only eat one of them tonight," Claire said leading Jack over to the table. She handed him a bowl and said, "Eat up."
"It smells good. The others don't know what they are missing out on," Jack said looking at the stew. There were chunks of meat, potatoes, carrots, and peas swimming in a thick rich looking broth.
"I think we'll lose one or two more once things have calmed down a bit, but this is the core group of our commune," Claire said looking around at the people gathered there.
"We went from a hundred people down to fifteen of us?" Jack said doing a quick head count. He figured that by the end of the week there would be only the three of them left. He looked around for some bread, but spotted some hot rolls in a basket next to the crock pot. He grabbed one and lifted it to his nose to smell. He couldn't remember the last time that he had a hot roll.
"We'll probably end up with around ten people in the commune," Claire said smiling at the sight of him smelling the roll. She said, "Go ahead and eat."
"Thanks," Jack said walking over to the coffee table. He put the bowl down on the table in front of an empty seat and returned to the main table to grab some silverware. Returning to his chair, he dug into the stew.
Abby entered the garage carrying a pad of paper and a pen. She said, "I guess this is everyone."
"Yes," Claire answered.
"I suppose that we ought to get down to business," Abby said. She looked over the pad of paper and said, "I guess the first thing we have to establish are the goals of this commune."
"What do you mean?" Liz Andrews asked.
"I mean, we have to decide what it is we want to get out of joining forces. Do we just want to share food expenses? Do we want to start carpooling together?" Abby answered.
"Oh," Liz said frowning.
Jack raised his hand and waited to be recognized. Not surprised that he didn't interrupt, Abby asked, "Do you have something you want to say, Jack?"
"Could we introduce ourselves? I don't know everyone," Jack said looking kind of embarrassed. He had a feeling that everyone there knew everyone else.
"That's a good idea," Abby said. She said, "I'm Abigail Dickerson, but everyone just calls me Abby."
Claire said, "I'm Claire Bridger. I live next door."
"I'm Liz Andrews and I live across the street from Claire."
"I'm Wanda Johnson and I live right across the street."
"I'm Emily Anderson. I live three houses down the street from here."
"I'm Beverly Smith and I live on the other side of Claire," Bev answered. She looked over at Jack and said, "I kind of owe Jack an apology for the other day."
"That's okay," Jack said.
"Thank you," Bev said.
"I'm Cheryl Benjamin. That's my husband, Rich over there. The boys are Chuck and Mike."
Jack noticed that Rich frowned when his wife introduced them. He wasn't sure, but he suspected that she was the one and only reason they were over there. It wouldn't surprise him if they quit within a day or two.
"I'm Ella Shultz," one of the women Jack didn't know said. She had a thick German accent that made it a little difficult to understand her. She gestured to a much older woman beside her and said, "This is my mother-in-law, Frau Shultz."
The elderly woman nodded her head on hearing her name. She looked around with bright eyes, but it was obvious that she didn't understand much of what was being said. Seeing that everyone was looking at her, she said, "Guten Abend."
"She said good evening," Ella said with a weak smile. She added, "She doesn't speak English."
"Guten Abend, Frau Shultz," Jack said nodding his head at the little old woman. She smiled at him.
"I'm Sally Bagley. I live next to the Benjamins."
"I'm Dave Putnam and this lovely little lady is my wife Laura. We live right down the street."
"I'm Abigail Whitney, but everyone calls me Gail. I live next to Dave and Laura."
Jack realized that he hadn't introduced himself. He said, "I'm Jack Dunne and I live here."
Abby said, "Now that we all know each other a little better, I guess it is time to decide what our goals are for this commune."
Bev asked, "Are we all going to move in together and do that free love stuff?"
"No," Jack answered with a shudder. He was surprised to see that Bev looked disappointed at that answer.
Claire laughed and tapped him on the shoulder. She said, "You don't have to make that face, Jack."
"Sorry," Jack said. The idea of having sex with a woman who was fifty years older than him was a little unsettling.
Abby smiled at Jack. Turning back to face Bev, she said, "You don't have to give up your houses. If any of you decide to move in with each other that would be your choice. I don't think any of us would be interested in going as far as having common property."
"You're right. The house is the only thing I have to leave my son and daughter," Gail said.
Abby said, "I was thinking more along the lines of sharing the food expenses, some of the work around the house, and helping each other out more than anything else."
"So how would that work?" Dave asked.
"Well, some of us aren't capable of mowing our lawns and end up having to pay someone to do it. If you get your lawn mowed, that's a little money you save every month. The person who mows the lawn might need some laundry done. One of you can slip their laundry in with yours. That saves some money at the Laundromat," Abby said.
Claire said, "We all chip in some money for food and then take turns cooking meals for everyone else. Some of us work or have to watch kids, so going shopping isn't very easy for them. Those of us with more time can do the shopping. We can clip coupons, search out good deals, and take advantage of specials."
"I don't drive," Ella said.
"One of us could take you to your appointments. You can come with others when you need to do your shopping," Abby said.
Ella said, "Sehr gut. My mother-in-law and I are good housekeepers."
"Jack is pretty good at fixing things," Abby said.
"My Ernie used to work on wood out in the garage all of the time. Maybe you would like to see if you can use some of his tools," Bev said.
"Thanks," Jack said wondering if he was going to become the lawn-mower and fixit man. He tried to remember how many houses were represented by the people there. He came up with a count of nine. That wasn't too bad since he typically mowed that many houses on Saturdays anyway.
"I used to be a plumber," Dave said looking over at Jack.
"That's great," Jack said relieved that he wouldn't be the only one fixing things around the neighborhood. He thought that it would be kind of nice to work with someone else on some of the repairs he knew would be coming his way.
"Rich can mow lawns," Cheryl said. Jack noticed that Rich didn't look all that excited about being volunteered to do work. She added, "I like to garden."
"I do a bit of gardening myself," Liz said.
Cheryl said, "Maybe next spring we could plant a vegetable garden."
Nodding her head appreciatively, Claire said, "We all have something to contribute that will make life easier for the others."
"You're right," Liz said looking around at the others hoping to get nods of agreement. There were a few, but not as many as she had hoped. She settled back in the couch trying not to be noticed.
"I did a little research over the weekend. If we pool our money, we can buy the giant economy size products. We'll get as much as fifty percent more for our money over buying the individual sized items," Abby said.
"Does that mean that I won't be eating noodle soup for half of the month?" Gail asked skeptically.
"Yes," Claire answered.
Laughing, Gail said, "Count me in. I'll die a happy woman if I never have to have another bowl of that garbage."
"Me too," Sally said.
"No more spaghetti," Rich said looking over at his wife. She served spaghetti three times a week.
"There's spaghetti and there's spaghetti," Bev said.
"No more spaghetti," Rich said flatly.
"I'll cook you a steak if you don't like my spaghetti," Bev said with a smile. She took a lot of pride in her spaghetti sauce.
"I might take you up on that," Rich said.
"We can buy bulk items for breakfast and lunch. By splitting them up, we still realize the cost savings without having to share every meal," Claire said.
"What do you mean?" Wanda asked.
"How many of you buy a loaf of bread and find that you're throwing half of it away because it has gone moldy on you?" Abby asked.
A couple of the women raised their hands. One of the women said, "I get the smaller loaf. It costs nearly the same amount as the large loaf."
"I freeze mine, but it doesn't taste the same after it thaws," Wanda said.
Claire said, "If we split a loaf of bread four ways, you'll be getting fresh bread every three or four days. If we split up the packaged lunchmeat four ways, you can have a different kind of lunch meat every two or three days."
"That makes sense," Wanda said. When she bought a package of lunch meat, she usually ended up eating it for lunch and supper for three days.
Abby said, "We'll set up a central repository of food items. You come in and take what you need for a day or two. We wash some small jars and you can put condiments in it so that you're getting just as much as you need. We get the huge boxes of cereal and you take enough for the next day or two. Everything stays fresh because you've got fifteen people consuming them."
"A quart of milk is almost half the price of a gallon, but there are four quarts in a gallon. The only ones here who can go through a gallon of milk before it spoils are the Benjamins. You're paying twice as much for milk by buying it in sizes small enough to use," Claire said.
Jack said, "I don't like skim milk and I know that Abby likes it."
"We have enough people here that we can buy a variety of milks, cheeses, lunch meats, and other items," Claire said.
"Okay," Jack said. He looked down at his empty bowl of stew and wondered if he'd be rude getting another helping.
As if reading his mind, Claire said, "Go ahead and get some more. There's plenty."
"Don't mind if I do," Jack said. He smiled over at Wanda and said, "That stew is delicious."
"I'm glad you liked it," Wanda said smiling proudly. It had been a long time since she had cooked for anyone beside herself.
It was time for Claire to bring up the one subject that was going to cause the most discussion. She asked, "How much does everyone budget for food for a month?"
The answers ranged from a hundred and twenty five to two hundred per person. Abby looked around the room thinking that people had really been skimping on food. She had gone through the grocery store Sunday making note of the prices for various common items. Even a can of soup was more than a dollar. A box of oatmeal was five dollars. A lot of things ran three dollars or more. Her average weekly trip to the store cost her fifty dollars and that wasn't because she was buying gourmet foods.
"How can you live on that little food?" Abby asked.
"It is not easy," Ella answered tiredly. She sighed and said, "It has been a long time since I've made schnitzel."
"Weiner Schnitzel?" Frau Shultz asked looking around excited.
"Spater," Ella said. Frau Shultz sat back in the chair looking sad.
"With a little planning and effort on our part, I figure that we can get twice as much food for the same amount of money. I went on a little price comparison expedition at the grocery store Sunday. Like I said before, a gallon of milk is about twice the price of a quart of milk, but you get four times as much. A five pound bag of apples is the same as two pounds of unpackaged apples and you get two and a half times as much. The family size soup is twice the price of the regular size soup and you get three times as much. Even meats in quantity cost ten percent less than single servings," Abby said.
Claire said, "We couldn't buy the larger quantities because they would spoil. Together we can."
"So long as I don't have to eat noodle soup for half of the month, I'm in," Gail said. She had come to hate the stuff, but it was about all she could afford to eat towards the end of the month.
Tearing out a sheet of paper from her notebook, Abby said, "I worked out an average menu for a week that we could afford if everyone put in a hundred and fifty dollars a month. Take a look at it and tell me what you think."
She handed it to Claire. Claire looked over the list and then passed it on to Jack. He just passed it on to the woman next to him. Gail looked up at Abby and said, "You're sure about that?"
"Yes," Abby said nodding her head.
"Pies?" Gail said looking over the menu. It had been ages since she had a nice homemade pie.
"Ice cream, too," Abby said with a smile. "The five quart package of ice cream is twice the price of the one quart."
"You're kidding?" Jack said thinking he should have looked over the menu.
Dave looked over the menu when it reached him and said, "Eggs and bacon for breakfast twice a week?"
"That's right. If you buy the sixty count package of eggs rather than five packages of a dozen eggs it is like getting a dozen eggs for free," Abby said.
"I can't believe it," Dave said passing the list to his wife.
Abby said, "I did assume that the pancakes were all served at one place Sunday morning. I felt that would be a good time to have our weekly meeting."
"What about church service?" Bev asked.
"I figure that if we meet about 10:30, then we'll be done with church by the time we meet for breakfast," Abby answered.
Sally said, "I like the idea of having a community meeting after church."
"It has been a decade since I ate that well," Bev said looking down at the menu. Her standard of living had gone down significantly when her husband had died.
When the menu reached Rich, he glanced down at it and snorted. He said, "I see that spaghetti is on the menu."
"Rich!" Cheryl said sharply. He sat back and tossed the paper to her. He crossed his arms and stared at the ceiling.
Jack looked over at the man and shook his head. He could tell that all of this talk of a commune hurt his pride. It appeared to him that Rich was likely to put his foot down soon and that would be the end of that family's involvement in the commune.
He decided to get one or two items that were bothering him out of the way before Rich exploded. He said, "I kind of have a question about labor. Some folks might end up working a whole lot more than others. How do we make it fair?"
Claire had thought about that question a lot since her unplanned announcement when the press showed up Friday night. She said, "I think that everyone ought to put in eight hours of effort a week helping to make the commune succeed. Your work has to be recognized by someone else to be credited to you. If you fall short, you owe the commune twenty dollars an hour that you're short."
"What kind of work?" Ella asked.
"You do laundry for others for an hour, that's an hour's worth of effort. You clip coupons for an hour, that's an hour's worth of effort. You mow someone's lawn for an hour and that is an hour worth of effort. You go shopping for the commune for three hours, then that is three hours worth of effort. You cook a meal for everyone and the time spent on the meal is your contributed effort."
Rich said, "Now wait a minute. I work for a living and I can't spend eight hours doing stuff for other people when I've got my own stuff to do."
Cheryl put a hand over her eyes and shook her head. She had been afraid that was going to happen. She looked up in shock when Abby asked, "You mean that you couldn't take notes at the weekly meeting for an hour? You couldn't help out with making pancakes before the meeting? You couldn't spend an hour or two typing up the notes and distributing them? You couldn't work with Claire for an hour to come up with an agenda? You couldn't help Jack and Dave mow a lawn or two a week?"
"Well, I suppose I could," Rich said. The things that he was getting asked to do weren't that bad.
Cheryl asked, "What about the boys?"
"Well, they could do a couple of chores. They could set out the syrup and stuff before the pancake breakfast. I'm sure that they could help clean up afterwards. It might not be eight hours, but they're young," Claire said.
Bev smiled and said, "I wouldn't mind earning four hours by babysitting a couple of boys on a Friday or Saturday night. It would give a young couple a chance to be a couple again."
"That would be nice," Cheryl said. She even entertained the idea of picking up a part-time job if she could find someone to babysit the boys after school. That would really help their financial situation tremendously.
"I suppose," Rich said doubtfully, but without his previous anger.
Abby said, "It isn't about losing anything. It is about gaining things that would have cost you a lot more money than you have."
"I'm satisfied," Jack said deciding that eight hours a week wasn't a high price to pay. He decided that he wouldn't have to cook, clean the house, or run too many errands after work.
Claire said, "I would like everyone to think about it. We'll meet here for dinner the rest of the week and discuss the matter. We'll officially start the commune on Sunday morning."
Jack thought about it for a second. He frowned and asked, "Who's paying for the food?"
"Well, a couple of the people who came by over the weekend gave me twenty dollars for their share of the meals. They weren't interested in joining the commune. I've gotten most of my money back and I figure that we'll use the two hundred dollars that Gail's grandson brought over," Claire said.
Beaming with pride, Gail said, "He's a good boy."
Figuring out how much he would normally spend in a week, Jack said, "I'm chipping in forty dollars."
"You don't have to do that," Claire said.
"Yes, I do," Jack said. "That's how much I would have spent on food this week anyway."
"Same here," Abby said.
Ella reached down for the purse at her feet and opened it. She pulled out her wallet. She counted out sixty dollars in crumpled ones, fives, and tens. Holding them out with a trembling hand, she said, "Here's all I have for my mother-in-law and me."
Claire went over to Ella and took the money while Ella and Frau Shultz had a minor conversation in German. Several others got out some money to chip in to help defray the cost of food for the rest of the week.
Clearing her throat, Abby said, "There's one thing that we need and that is a good sized freezer."
"I've got one in the garage. I unplugged it a couple years ago because it was just using electricity and there was nothing in it. I'll plug it in tonight when I get home," Sally said.
Deciding that he wanted a chance to talk to Rich alone, Jack said, "Maybe Rich and I could go with you and make sure that it works."
"I know Rich will be glad to help," Cheryl said. She elbowed Rich in the side when he snorted in displeasure.
Angry to hear that he was being volunteered, but not wanting to make a scene, Rich said, "Uh, okay."
"Good," Jack said smiling at the man.
A half an hour later, Jack and Rich walked Sally to her home. Once there, the two men went into the garage and located the freezer while Sally directed their efforts from outside the garage. Squatting down, Jack fumbled around the back of freezer until he found the cord. It only took him a minute to plug it in. He turned to Sally and said, "It will need a few minutes to start cooling down. We'll check it in five minutes or so. We should be able to see if it is working by then. Why don't you go on inside the house? I'll let you know if everything is okay."
"Thank you," Sally said. She really didn't know the two men and was a little nervous about being out there with them.
Once Sally was in the house, Jack said, "You've got a nice family, Rich."
"The boys are great," Rich said.
"Don't fuck it up," Jack said turning to look Jack in the eye and stepping closer to the man.
Rich stepped back and asked, "What do you mean?"
"That wife of yours is doing everything she knows to do in order to keep your family together. Having you standing around with your thumb stuck up your butt and acting like an asshole isn't helping you, her, or your kids. I don't know about you, but if I can help myself, a family, and a bunch of little old ladies all at the same time then I think a little effort on my part is well rewarded. So I'll tell you one more time, don't fuck it up," Jack said.
"How dare you?" Rich said angrily.
"I'm just being a good neighbor," Jack answered. He opened the freezer door and felt the back wall. He said, "It is already a little cooler to the touch. I think the freezer works just fine. I'll tell Sally and then head home. Close the garage door when you leave."
"Who are you to judge me?" Rich asked staring at Jack's back.
Jack turned around and, while pointing a finger at Rich, said, "I'm just a guy who made half as much money this year as I made a year ago. I don't even have electricity in my house because I can't pay my bills. I'm nobody special and I know it. You got three people who think you're special and you don't have a clue. Grow up and don't ruin a good thing."