MARTINSVILLE, VA — Buford Eggert leans against his old Ford tractor, chewing idly on an alder twig. His verdant fields sprawl out before him as far as the eye can see.
“Yep,” he said, “it’s a bumper crop this year. Barely April and I’ve already hauled a year’s load to market. I think we’re set to break some records.”
Like many local farmers, Eggert has shifted away from traditional agriculture. His chief cash crop these days is the thing that grows best in Martinsville:
Crippling internal strife.
“It goes by a bunch of different names,” Eggert said. “Whether you call it strife, infighting, acrimony, conflict, bickering, it’s all the same business. And friends, business is booming.”
Eggert credited Martinsville’s unique soil composition for the city’s remarkable ability to seemingly grow conflict out of thin air.
“Take a look at this,” he said, holding up a handful of rich, dark earth. “You’ve got economic inequality, a history of systemic racism that’s never been properly addressed, crabs in a bucket mentality … and you see those little shiny bits? Those are poorly implemented ideas that someone heard at a conference.”
Strife sells, but who’s buying? According to Eggert, Martinsville produces more infighting per capita than any other U.S. city, allowing farmers like him to ship the excess to other municipalities.
“See, the problem some cities have is that they’re growing too fast,” Eggert said. “Everything’s going too well for them and everyone wants to move there. They just want to slow things down a bit, so they buy a few bushels of our internal strife. The next thing you know, companies that are thinking of relocating to the area check the local paper, read about some completely avoidable self-inflicted public embarrassment, and then decide to move to a different city. Before long, the property values start going back down. It’s a fine system.”
Agricultural scientist Nona Singhal said that she’s never seen anything quite like it.
“We conducted an experiment,” she said. “We locked a random volunteer in a room with one tablespoon of Martinsville’s soil. We then told him that he had just been elected to Martinsville City Council.”
“Within just one hour,” Singhal continued, “he was banging on the door and asking to hold a press conference to demand his own resignation.”
Singhal added that a follow-up experiment involved locking two people in a room with a tablespoon of soil. Tragically, there were no survivors, and further experimentation was discontinued.
“It’s powerful stuff, the soil,” Eggert said as he sprayed Miracle-Gro on his fields. “But sometimes — it’s rare, but sometimes — everything just gets too quiet. When that happens, I come out into the field at night and whisper the word ‘reversion.’ Next thing you know, we’re back in the black.”
We asked Eggert if he had any concerns that Martinsville’s perpetual internecine squabbling could have a negative impact on the city’s health. Eggert attempted to respond but his voice was drowned out by the sound of the Indian Trail power substation exploding again.
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