Tracy had to walk to work…again.
At 4:30 a.m., she dragged herself out of bed, ate a quick breakfast of one scrambled egg and a cup of cold coffee, got dressed, and prepared for the long walk to work.
Work started at 7:00 a.m., so if she left the house by 6:00, she would probably make it on time.
Probably.
Unless, of course, the traffic lights weren’t working again.
Then she would have to stand at the intersection waiting for a break in traffic before running across and taking her chances.
So many things had stopped working since the new tax reform law went into effect.
The politicians had promised that eliminating property taxes would put money back into people’s pockets. What they hadn’t talked quite as much about was what would happen when that money stopped flowing into the communities that depended on it.
Maintenance crews disappeared.
Equipment broke and stayed broken.
Traffic signals failed.
Roads deteriorated.
Government buildings closed.
There was no money to replace broken equipment and, increasingly, no one left to maintain what still worked.
Tracy wasn’t the only one walking.
Ever since the school buses stopped running, the children walked too.
When funding collapsed, all of the county’s public schools had been consolidated into one location. Some children now walked miles just to get an education.
Calling it a “school” was generous.
It was actually a giant warehouse.
There were no classrooms.
No walls separating one grade from another.
No air conditioning.
And certainly no technology.
All of the county’s remaining public school students were taught by twenty-one volunteer teachers.
Tracy was one of them.
There weren’t many college-educated teachers anymore.
At least, none who were getting paid to teach.
Tracy had an MLS—a Master of Library Science degree—which had become fairly useless once all of the public libraries closed. Years earlier, she had spent her days helping people find books, research information, use computers, and learn.
Now she taught reading.
To everyone.
First grade through twelfth grade.
All in the same enormous room.
At the same time.
You learned to improvise.
By some miracle, the traffic lights were working that morning, and there hadn’t been any civil unrest along her route.
It was going to be a good day.
Tracy arrived at the warehouse at 6:50 a.m., giving her a few minutes to help set up breakfast before the students arrived.
Today’s donated breakfast was a large vat of porridge, hard-boiled eggs, and unsweetened powdered juice.
It wasn’t much, but it was food.
For some of the children, it would be the first thing they had eaten since yesterday’s school lunch.
Eric, the history and physical education teacher, arrived and helped Tracy set out the food.
He was a nice guy, but he was having a hard time teaching history without books.
They had managed to salvage a few books when the public libraries closed, but there weren’t nearly enough for all of the students. Most lessons were now taught from memory.
History had become particularly difficult.
Years of conspiracy theories and misinformation had convinced some of the students—and many of their parents—that almost anything could be true if enough people repeated it.
Eric could tell them what had happened.
Proving it was another matter.
There were no databases to search.
No library archives.
No textbooks for every student.
No reliable internet connection.
Just Eric, a handful of old books, and whatever knowledge he could remember.
Math was even worse.
There wasn’t anyone to teach it.
Adults who were good at mathematics, engineering, science, or technology were quickly recruited by the large private conglomerates.
They made big bucks.
They lived in communities with private schools, private security, private garbage collection, private recreation facilities, and well-maintained roads.
Their children didn’t attend Tracy’s warehouse school.
The community had helped educate many of those adults when they were children.
Now almost none of their money came back to support the community that had educated them.
That was the strange thing about the new system.
Public services had disappeared.
The need for those services hadn’t.
They had simply become things you purchased individually—if you could afford them.
As the students trickled in, Tracy noticed there were fewer of them again.
There seemed to be fewer every day.
Families who could afford it sent their children to private schools.
Everyone else relied on the warehouse.
But even that was changing.
Everything had become so expensive that struggling families were beginning to pull their older children out of school and send them to work.
Education had become a luxury.
For many families, the warehouse school served another important purpose: it provided a safe place for their younger children while the adults worked.
That allowed parents to take whatever jobs they could find.
But once a child was old enough to earn money, work usually won.
Some went to the fields.
Others cleaned houses, watched children, cared for elderly people, or performed household chores for families wealthy enough to hire help.
Each week, another chair at the warehouse was empty.
Then another.
And another.
Eventually, Tracy stopped asking where everyone had gone.
She usually knew.
The school day ended at 11:30 a.m.
Not because anyone believed four and a half hours was enough time to educate a child.
By noon, the Florida sun had heated the metal warehouse to an unbearable temperature.
There was no air conditioning, and keeping hundreds of children inside much longer would be dangerous.
Before sending them home, the volunteers handed each child a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Nobody protested the peanut butter anymore.
Years ago, there had been arguments about allergies, dietary preferences, nutrition, sugar, processed food, and what schools should or shouldn’t serve.
Those arguments disappeared around the same time the funding did.
When peanut butter and jelly became one of the only foods regularly available for free, people stopped complaining about it.
Funny how quickly priorities changed.
The children ate their sandwiches and began their long walks home.
Tracy and the other volunteers straightened the folding tables, swept the warehouse floor, and put away the remaining food.
Then Tracy picked up her bag.
It was time to walk home.
Again.
Tracy’s route home takes her past what used to be her favorite park. They used to hold concerts in the gazebo, and kids would play on the playground. The gazebo is now part of the tent camp for those who lost their housing when things went south. The playground was torn down months ago and sold for scrap.
It is a hot day in September, with “feels like” temperatures around 110 degrees Fahrenheit, and the trash piles around town have started to reek. With no taxes being collected, regular trash pickup stopped. Private companies will still collect it, of course, but only if you can afford their monthly fee. Most people in Tracy’s neighborhood cannot.
Flies and rats have become as common as squirrels once were. Tracy is sure they are in for an outbreak of cholera, typhoid, dysentery, or something else she remembers reading about in history books. Unfortunately, the county health department closed two years ago, so there probably wouldn’t be anyone left to officially declare an outbreak anyway.
All of a sudden, Tracy hears screaming.
“Help! Stop! You’re hurting me!”
It sounds like one of the students from her school.
She follows the sound and finds a young ten-year-old girl named Ettany being dragged down the street by a man three times her age.
“Stop! What are you doing to her? She’s just a kid!” Tracy yells.
The man turns around and approaches her.
“Mind ya business. She gonna fetch me a pretty penny tonight. Got some fellers lookin’ fer a wife, and she’s gonna have herself a new life servin’ her new man.”
He pulls out a knife and keeps dragging Ettany away.
Tracy freezes.
She wants desperately to help, but she knows she cannot overpower him. She is an undernourished, exhausted woman who has been surviving on donated food for months. If she attacks him, there could be two victims instead of one.
So she does the only thing she can think of.
She runs for help.
Her first instinct is to call 911.
She reaches into her pocket and then remembers.
There is no 911 anymore.
The county couldn’t afford enough dispatchers, police officers, firefighters, or paramedics to maintain the system. Emergency services are now provided primarily through subscription companies. People with money pay for private security and ambulance plans.
People like Ettany don’t have plans.
Tracy runs toward what used to be Town Hall.
The building is locked.
A handwritten sign is taped to the front door:
**COUNCIL HOURS**
**TUESDAY & THURSDAY**
**10:00 A.M. – 2:00 P.M.**
**VOLUNTEERS NEEDED**
It is Monday.
Tracy pounds on the door anyway.
“HELP! PLEASE! SOMEBODY HELP!”
Eventually, an elderly man appears from around the side of the building. Tracy recognizes him as Mr. Walters, a former accountant who now serves on the volunteer council.
“What happened?”
“A man took Ettany! One of my students. She’s ten years old!”
“Did you call security?”
“There is no security!”
Mr. Walters looks down.
They both know this.
The town had four police officers left when the department finally closed. Two went to work for a private security company. One moved away. The fourth now guards the entrance to one of the wealthy communities on the other side of the county.
“What about the sheriff?” Tracy asks.
“County doesn’t have enough deputies. They’re handling violent crimes only.”
“This **is** a violent crime!”
“I know.”
“Then do something!”
“With what, Tracy?”
That stops her.
Mr. Walters isn’t being cruel.
He’s asking a literal question.
With what?
There are no police cars.
No investigators.
No juvenile services.
No functioning local court.
No child protective services.
Even if they find Ettany, who will protect her afterward?
Tracy suddenly understands something she wishes she didn’t.
Laws only mean something when a society has the institutions necessary to enforce them.
The council can declare that ten-year-old girls cannot be sold into marriage.
They can write it on a piece of paper.
They can vote unanimously.
But a law without police, courts, prosecutors, social workers, judges, schools, and functioning government is just a piece of paper.
“I’ll find her myself,” Tracy says.
Mr. Walters looks at her sadly.
“And then what?”
Tracy doesn’t answer.
—
She finally reaches home shortly before 2:00 p.m.
Her shirt is soaked with sweat.
The electricity is off again.
The private utility company has been rationing power during peak hours because several transformers need replacement. The company says it isn’t profitable to replace equipment in neighborhoods where too many customers cannot afford their bills.
Tracy fills a glass from the kitchen faucet.
The water comes out brown.
She lets it run.
Still brown.
A boil-water notice might have been issued, but the local water department no longer has enough employees to deliver notices door to door. The town website hasn’t worked in six months.
She pours the water back into the sink.
Dinner will probably be another egg.
She sits on her porch and looks down the street.
The pavement is cracked. Weeds grow through the sidewalks. A tree that fell during last month’s tropical storm still blocks half the road.
Hurricane season isn’t over yet.
Nobody talks about that.
The drainage canals haven’t been cleared this year. Several stormwater pumps are broken. The emergency management office closed last spring.
If a major hurricane comes, Tracy has no idea what they will do.
There used to be shelters.
There used to be buses to take elderly residents to safety.
There used to be emergency workers who checked on people afterward.
There used to be people whose entire job was to think about these things before something terrible happened.
Tracy hadn’t known their names.
Most people hadn’t.
They simply expected them to be there.
—
That evening, her neighbor Joe walks over carrying two warm cans of soda.
“Want one?”
“Sure.”
It tastes terrible.
She drinks it anyway.
Joe sits beside her.
“Remember when everybody complained about property taxes?” he asks.
Tracy laughs.
It isn’t really funny, but she laughs.
“Oh, yeah.”
“My bill was almost three thousand dollars that last year.”
“I remember mine.”
“I was furious.”
“Everybody was.”
Joe takes another drink.
“When they said they were eliminating property taxes, I thought I’d have three thousand extra dollars every year.”
“So did everybody else.”
“Turns out I spend more than that now.”
Tracy looks at him.
“Security fee?”
“Yep. Private trash pickup. Road assessment. Fire subscription. Water surcharge. Emergency medical membership. And my granddaughter’s school wanted twelve thousand dollars a year.”
“Could you pay it?”
“Nope.”
They sit quietly.
“My homeowner’s insurance dropped me too,” Joe continues. “Said there isn’t adequate fire protection in the area anymore.”
Tracy shakes her head.
Three thousand dollars suddenly doesn’t sound like very much.
—
The next morning, Tracy wakes at 4:30.
One scrambled egg.
Cold coffee.
Another walk to work.
When she reaches the intersection, the traffic lights are out again.
Cars fly through from every direction.
Nobody stops.
Nobody directs traffic.
Tracy waits almost ten minutes before she sees an opening and runs.
She makes it across.
Barely.
At the warehouse school, Eric is already setting out breakfast.
“Any word about Ettany?” he asks.
Tracy shakes her head.
“No.”
Neither of them says anything for a while.
Then the children begin arriving.
Thirty-seven today.
There had been forty-three yesterday.
Sixty-two at the beginning of the month.
More than a hundred last year.
Tracy looks at the children sitting at folding tables in the enormous warehouse.
Some are six years old.
Some are seventeen.
A little boy raises his hand.
“Miss Tracy?”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“My grandma says everything used to be better.”
A few of the older students laugh.
Tracy smiles.
“Not everything.”
“Did you really have libraries?”
“Yes.”
“With books you could take home?”
“Thousands of them.”
“For free?”
“For everyone.”
His eyes get wide.
“And schools had air conditioning?”
“Yes.”
“And buses picked kids up?”
“Yes.”
Another child joins in.
“My mom says firefighters used to come if your house caught on fire even if you didn’t pay them.”
“They did.”
“And ambulances too?”
“Yes.”
“And people picked up everybody’s garbage?”
“Yes.”
The little boy thinks about this.
“Who paid for all that?”
Tracy looks around the warehouse.
For the first time that morning, the room is completely silent.
She walks over to the battered whiteboard.
She picks up the last working black marker.
At the top she writes one word:
**TAXES**
The children groan.
Tracy laughs.
“I know. Nobody likes them.”
She looks around the room.
“But today we’re going to learn something important.”
She writes another word beneath it:
**COMMUNITY**
“Taxes weren’t money that disappeared,” she says. “They were money we pooled together to pay for things that were too big for most of us to buy by ourselves.”
She starts writing.
**Schools.**
**Roads.**
**Libraries.**
**Police.**
**Firefighters.**
**Ambulances.**
**Parks.**
**Clean water.**
**Courts.**
**Trash collection.**
**Emergency management.**
**Public health.**
The children stare at the board.
One of the older students raises his hand.
“So why did they get rid of them?”
Tracy pauses.
She remembers the rallies.
The signs.
The promises.
**KEEP YOUR MONEY.**
**END PROPERTY TAXES.**
**GOVERNMENT DOESN’T NEED YOUR MONEY.**
She remembers how simple it sounded.
How wonderful it sounded.
Keep your own money.
Who wouldn’t want that?
“Because people were angry about how much they were paying,” Tracy finally says. “And some people convinced them that we could stop paying for government without giving up the things government provided.”
“That’s stupid,” someone says from the back.
Normally Tracy would correct the language.
Today she doesn’t.
Instead, she turns back toward the whiteboard.
“Maybe,” she says. “But there’s another lesson in it.”
She writes:
**Nothing is free.**
“If we want roads, somebody has to build them. If we want schools, somebody has to teach in them. If we want firefighters, somebody has to pay them. If we want clean water, somebody has to test it. If we want laws protecting children, somebody has to enforce them.”
She thinks about Ettany.
Her voice catches.
“And when we decide we don’t want to pay for those things anymore, they don’t magically become free.”
She underlines the words **Nothing is free.**
“They disappear.”
A little girl in the front raises her hand.
“Miss Tracy?”
“Yes?”
“Can we get everything back?”
Tracy looks at the children.
She wants to tell them yes.
She wants to tell them that adults will fix everything.
But adults created this mess.
“I don’t know,” she says.
Then she looks at the battered books stacked against the warehouse wall.
“But I know where we start.”
She hands the little girl a book.
“We learn.”
Outside, the Florida sun continues climbing.
The traffic light at the intersection goes dark again.
Trash blows across what used to be a soccer field.
And thirty-seven children pull their chairs closer to Tracy.
For the first time in a very long time, nobody complains about paying attention.
