Ollie looked wearied by the request of a favor but went to her laptop. “Well?” Ollie asked.
“Can’t you just type in Cainland and the information comes up on the screen?” asked Vern. That was her impression of how it worked from watching TV at Ollie’s house, but she wasn’t sure how much of that was based on reality. No one on TV woke before dawn unless they were about to commit a murder. On the compound, everyone did, families gathering around the lake for the morning word and prayers. If there was to be a drowning on that day, it was best to do it before sunup, so the person was resuscitated—reborn—in time for the new day.
On TV, everyone woke around 6:00 or 7:00. They poured their breakfast from a box into a bowl. Alternately, they squeezed breakfast into their mouths from plastic pouches and tubes. Or had yogurt from little plastic containers with pictures of cartoons on the front, or pictures of raspberries or strawberries. They went to work, where they sat, or to school, where they also sat.
Teenage girls on TV shows weren’t much like Vern at all. They universally adored boys.
TV spun a web of dreams. Vern was happy to be caught in it. She could get drunk on this place where police were good, always solving crimes and caring about folks, and everyone was so shiny and pretty. A place where you could type words into a computer and get answers.
“Here,” Ollie said, gesturing for Vern to come over to the laptop.
“Just read it to me,” said Vern. “What’s it say?”
“The whole … internet?” Ollie asked, but she was being deliberately obstinate.
“Pick one,” said Vern, “and read it to me.”
Ollie dragged herself back over to the sofa, laptop in tow. She cleared her throat, then began: “The Blessed Acres of Cain, generally referred to by its shorthand name ‘Cainland’ or ‘Cain,’ is a religious and political settlement. Founded by the Black nationalist group Coloreds Against White Supremacy （CLAWS, or Claws） on April third, 1966, Cainland rose to national prominence in the 1960s and 1970s for its strongly antiwhite and anti-American views.” Ollie paused to look up at Vern.
“What else does it say? Keep reading,” said Vern.
Ollie sighed but went along. “The name of the settlement originates from the founders’ belief that those with African ancestry were rejected by the White Devil, their interpretation of the Christian God, and were cast out of the Garden of Eden and banned from his bounty. They believe the Cain of Genesis to be their direct forefather, and that the true God, the God of Cain, will provide them untold riches as long as they resist influence from the White Devil and his creation （Europeans and those with European ancestry）。”
The original founders of Claws and later the compound, Harvey Whitmore, Shana Lee Hopkins, Jimmy Jake Jackson, and Barbara “Queen” James, never said those things. In fact, they’d left, not to be heard from again, after Eamon took the stage. It was their mystic talk about dirt and visions that Eamon had latched on to and spun into a mythos. He’d announced himself as a prophet of the God of Cain. The Blessed Acres, named for the sanctity of the land, became the Blessed Acres of Cain. This was what Vern had gleaned from the occasional mutterings of lifers, brothers and sisters who’d been on the compound from the beginning. Harvey, Shana, Jimmy Jake, and Queen were essentially ousted, but everyone went along with it because they weren’t willing to abandon their lives at the compound and all it meant for Black liberation.
“Well? What’s next? Don’t stop,” said Vern. Listening to Ollie read was a little like catching someone gossiping about you: uncomfortable, but rewarding to learn what people really thought.
“Though regarded as a cult by many outsiders and law enforcement because of its socially deviant beliefs and practices, including numerous alleged cases of child abuse, there has never been legal action taken against the group,” continued Ollie.
Vern perked up. “Does it say why?”
“Why what?”
“Why legal action hasn’t been taken against the group,” Vern said.
Ollie scanned the article and shook her head. “Not that I see.”
“Nothing? Nothing at all?”
Ollie fixed Vern with an impatient glare, but Vern let it slide off her. “It’s odd, don’t you think? I know for a fact government workers witnessed illegal things on the compound, but we never got in trouble for it. Not once. That means something, surely.”
Ollie didn’t shrug, but her nonanswer communicated similar levels of disinterest in the topic. Vern supposed that for someone who hadn’t grown up in Cainland, none of this was significant, but Vern couldn’t let it go.