The Latest Freeboaters

Life is the great leveler. You start out thinking that you can make a difference. You end up holding the short end of a shitty stick, glad that it didn’t put your eye out.
-Superior Commander Grizzly Watt

The representative from Lansing arrived on the last catamaran of the day. He stepped along the gangplank in penny loafers and a jovial state that immediately irritated Griswold Watt, the man he was really here to see. In a show of late decorum, the Lansingman tried to button up the lower button of his blue blazer with his left hand while he shook Sooner’s hand with his right. Then he shook Griswold’s, and Mellon’s, and, having reached the end of the line and the end of his pleased-to-meet-you’s, looked into the six Finnish eyes looking back at him. An awkward moment passed before he remembered to give his own name. Miller Hyatt cheerfully assured the three men that he was not related to the hotel family, or he wouldn’t be working for the governor of Michigan.

Mellon cleared his throat before Griswold could grumble that he hadn’t asked. “Mr. Hyatt, thank you for coming to this neutral ground to speak with us. We have a lot of ground to cover, so we’d appreciate if you’d step into the fort and join us at the conference table.”

A few minutes after this Griswold sat at the head of the table, chafing at the delay while Mellon fussed with various map displays and Sooner checked the statistic pages in his folder. Hyatt used the bathroom, where he paid particularly close attention to the racks of tourist flyers touting pilgrimages to the Grand Hotel, Dwightwood Spring, and Arch rock. One of each ended up in his pocket, even though he knew he would only have time to see one of them before he left the next morning. Of course, the fort counted. First English, then American, and briefly English again during the War of 1812, the fort finished its strategic importance in American hands before the government declared it a historic landmark.

Hyatt felt his first slender thread of anxiety when he sat down across from the others. His enthusiasm hadn’t diminished, but he noted a high volume of camouflage and brown serge on the other side of the table. The large one in the center - Watt - hadn’t said anything except his name, but his gaze was uncomfortable to endure.

Mellon coughed to get everyone’s attention focused back on the map display. Greater Michigan. Names of major cities, the surrounding lakes, the surrounded rivers and major highways. The cartographer had paid special attention to the Mackinac bridge that crossed the strait of the same name, and the upper peninsula (which seemed curiously large on this map). Mackinac island was tiny speck, unconnected by road to either peninsula, on the right side of the strait.

“We asked you here to discuss the future of Superior.” Mellon circled the upper peninsula with a laser pointer. “We would like to have good relations with Lansing after the separation process, hence this meeting, to eliminate any surprises.”

“I… I don’t quite follow…” Hyatt said finally. “Wasn’t there something wrong with the Lake that you wanted bring to the attention of the Department of wildlife and fisheries? Separation… That doesn’t make sense to me.”

Silence. Then Sooner leaned over to Griswold. “The letter was too vague.”

When Griswold answered, it sounded like someone was dragging a fallen log to a woodpile in the most inefficient way possible. “It had to be. We didn’t want to surprise them, but we didn’t want to give up too much information, either.”

Mellon cleared his throat again. “Let me back up -”

Griswold raised his hand. “Mr. Hyatt, do you even know what the U.P. is?”

Hyatt frowned. “The upper peninsula.”

“Which, for the length of this discussion, we will call ‘Superior.’ “

Hyatt still didn’t fully understand, but he saw three tough men with outline-blurring clothes, so he agreed. Okay. For the length of this discussion, the upper peninsula was a fantastic place, far better the lower peninsula. Never mind that it had three percent of the state’s population, and less than a third of the total area, Mellon’s map notwithstanding. Escanaba, Marquette, Sault Ste Marie. All superior places he’d never seen.

“You trolls do not respect us.” Griswold continued, “Fancy boys from Lansing and crazies from the Motor City don’t know the pleasures of a quiet forest. You can’t appreciate fishing for lake trout at dawn. You ignore us, as long as we send you our tax dollars.”

Mercilessly he held Hyatt’s eyes with his own baleful stare, and even Sooner and Mellon held their collective breath. “You are welcome to keeping on ignoring us when we don’t.”