Mary Bergeron Monologue

“Your home is lovely. William and I met at Quinnipiac; just the other side of Sleeping Giant there,” Mary said, head nodding out the window above the kitchen sink. “We used to come here to pick apples and pumpkins in the fall.
“You don’t say,” Mr. Bergeron said.
“I grew up on a farm,” Mary said. “I know how important the land is. I can imagine how difficult this must be for you.”
Mary’s compassion took William by surprise. He’d never known his wife to show the slightest hint of empathy for anyone or anything. Perhaps a byproduct of her own experience losing a farm, the empathy Mary radiated filled the kitchen. William watched Mr. Bergeron melt under her spell. William sat back in his chair and let his wife do the talking, lest any lingering
I guess so,” Mr. Bergeron said. He stood, walked to the sink, stared out a window, and let his gaze linger over the orchards and settle on an American flag that hung limp in the breathless air. “I’ve been flyin’ the Stars and Stripes on that flagpole my entire life. I was drafted out of high school. The only time I ever spent away from this farm was when the government sent me off to fight in Vietnam. I earned the right to fly that flag. A few years back, my boys asked if they could fly the Gadsden Flag under it. I let ‘em. I kinda liked the idea of remindin’ anyone who cared to notice that we didn’t appreciate the taxes and regulation. I was actually proud of my boys for it. I thought it was sign that I done a good job raisin’ ‘em up with a little steel in their spines, and a taste for independence – ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ is as good a motto as any for a hardworkin’ farmer.”
“You were right to do it. Progressive have really done a number on Connecticut,” Mary said.
“If you say so. Never paid much attention to politics. Always too busy tendin’ to the farm to pay it no mind. I just paid my taxes and voted Republican, then went about my business. Didn’t realize how much I counted on it ‘till they started rollin’ back the laws.”
“What do you mean?” Mary
Open space conservation and farm bills always gave me a break on the property taxes and sales taxes on the produce, and the ConneciticutGrown program gave us a boost with the marketing, and the subsidies was generous. When those programs went away things got a little tougher. Then the banks seemed to start doin’ whatever the darned well please – deregulation they call it. First they tripled my interest rates, then they cut off my lines of credit altogether. Guess no one’s left to tell ‘em they can’t pick on the little guy. But the nail in the coffin came when they repealed the marijuana laws.”
“Marijuana laws?” Mary asked.
“Both my boys got pulled into tendin’ the marijuana crops on those plantations in the northern part of the state where they used to grow tobacco wrappers. They done run off, lookin’ for the easy money. That crop is nothing more than a weed, doesn’t take half a mind a raise it up, not like the constant tendin’ and hard work needed on an orchard. Can’t eat it or drink it, no damned good for nothin’ if you ask me. I wouldn’t let ‘em plant a single seed of that poison on this farm. So they turned their back on me.”
William’s hands balled into fists, and his pulse quickened. “What’d you do with the flag?” William