by Cadle, Lou
It wasn’t any fun at all. It was nothing like survival games or movies. His muscles ached. His stomach twisted in hunger more often than not. He longed for a hot shower. His clothes were getting crusty and gross. He was tired of feeling cold. And he was terribly lonely.
Where were the road crews clearing the streets? Where were the power company trucks he’d seen lined up on the news?
He was outside in the street again, working on harvesting firewood from the dead tree, which he was whittling down bit by bit, when he saw the first work crews.
Chapter 17
They were taking down trees with chainsaws and plowing the street, coming his way. He kept working. Maybe by the time they got up to him, he could convince them to use their power saw on the tree’s main trunk for him.
But first, before they drew anywhere near him, he saw a man walking up the street in a hardhat and dark blue overalls. As he approached, Ray could see the name of the power company printed on the hat. “Hey, when do we get power?” Ray called.
The man shook his head.
Ray put down his ax and made his way closer. “Do we get power soon?” If they did, he wouldn’t need to cut more wood. He could stop where he was, with just this pile of wood, and take a break. His shoulders and arms and back were all aching from the unfamiliar work. He had enough wood to last through nightfall, but no more than that.
“We can’t guarantee a time,” the man said. He sounded bored, as if he were tired of answering the question.
“Can you guarantee it within a day?” Ray asked.
The man looked at the tree, and up at Ray. “Cutting wood?”
“Woodstove. Ran out yesterday or the day before of split wood.”
“You been working at that tree there? Alone? Without a chainsaw?”
“Yeah.” Ray thought about saying more about it being hard, but he didn’t. Complaining wouldn’t make the work easier. “Anyway, the power?”
“I can’t give promises—I shouldn’t—but I think by midnight we’ll have this sector done. As long as the winds don’t pick up again.”
“The weather forecast didn’t say they would.”
“The forecast said we’d have one day of sleet. Didn’t mention the second day, or the wind, or the snow. So I’m not feeling real trusting about weather forecasting right now.”
“I guess it made it hard for you guys, huh? The wind.”
“You can’t work with high power lines in the wind. Not unless you want to die. Anyway, I have to keep working. Be careful, kid.”
Ray nodded. He had gotten colder standing there and talking. He really wanted to count on what the man had said—midnight—and quit with what wood he’d gotten so far, which should last until almost then. But if the man had been overly optimistic, it might be dawn or noon before electricity came back.
So, back to work.
He’d cut enough wood that morning to last until after sunrise the next day. This afternoon, he’d find some more to hold him through most of the day tomorrow, just in case. After that, he’d be done with the tree, down to the trunk, too thick to chop with the ax. If the power stayed off for longer than tomorrow, he’d have to hunt down another tree or scavenge for dead oak branches.
Ray worked until his arms were shaking with fatigue, and then he made himself work some more. The road crews caught up to him, but his tree wasn’t in the way of the road. He thought again about begging them for help with their chainsaws, but they had their own work to do. And it was work that would help him in the long run, getting the power restored. Ray was on his own with collecting fuel.
He was never going to be able to play another survival game after this. Not when he knew what it was really like to have to work to stay warm.
When the crews passed by, they left some cut branches and trees on the sidewalks. Eve had said that you could burn a little green wood, right? He wished he’d asked her for a percentage or something. He guessed maybe one part green to five dead wood would be safe. No idea how he’d picked that number out, but it seemed right—conservative.
If he was wrong, he’d burn down Eve’s house and probably himself. So maybe one in six? He gathered only shorter lengths of green wood, already perfect for the stove.
When he was done dragging all the wood he’d cut to Eve’s backyard, he wanted to lie down and nap immediately, but he made himself bring every branch into the house to dry out by the stove. He’d have to break a few of them into shorter lengths to get them into the stove, but he could do that later. Right now, he wanted food and a nap. But not in that order. Nap first, definitely.
He was deep asleep when he heard a familiar sound. He swam groggily up to consciousness. And he recognized the sound.
His phone.
His phone was back on.
He grabbed for it and held it up. Two dozen texts, all from his mom but one, and many voicemails too. They were from a different number than hers. He read the last text only, which said, CALL ME, and checked the time of it. It was yesterday evening. She’d made it through the storm and power outage okay.
A weight he hadn’t realized he’d been carrying lifted off him, and he would have had to sit down from the lightheadedness it left him with, had he not been sitting on the sofa already. The phone didn’t have much charge left, so he texted her right back. I’m fine! And then he waited a second, making sure it had gone through. And he phoned her at her own number. If his phone was working, hers would be too.
It went straight to voicemail. “Mom, I’m fine. I’m warm. I’m at Eve’s, you know, the lady with the plants in her front yard two doors up? I’m here and she has a woodstove, so I’m warm. Warm enough, at least. I hope you get home soon. I love you lots. I’ve missed you.”
His voice broke at the end. He shut his phone off, quickly, wanting to preserve the last few minutes of its power.
He was famished. As much as he wanted to talk to his mom, he also had to eat. In the kitchen, he mixed up a bunch of tuna salad, with mayonnaise and tuna and the last of his dill pickles, chopped roughly. He ate it with a fork standing at the sink.
A pounding came at the door. Sounded like the firemen when they’d pounded, hard, insistent. No nonsense. He swallowed and wiped his face with his hand as he walked to the door.
It was his mother. She launched herself at him and grabbed him tight around the neck. “Raysan. Raysan. Raysan.” She started sobbing.
He pulled her in and kicked the door shut and just stood there, hanging onto her while she cried. He might have cried too, in relief, but she was crying enough for both of them. He patted her on the back as she cried into his neck, patting her winter coat rather than actual mom. But it was close enough.
She pulled back from him and wiped her face with her sleeve, staring at him. “You’re really okay.”
“I’m really okay.”
“Where’s Ms. Russell? Eve?”
“That’s a long story. She’s not here. I’m still here because of the stove.” He tried to pull loose of her, but she wouldn’t let him.
“Let me look at you.”
“I look the same, honest. It’s just me.”
“I had no idea—” And she started to cry again.
“Mom, I’m fine. I’ve been eating. I’ve been warm. I’m not dead or even hurt.”
She nodded.
“Here, let’s get your coat off. Come into the living room and get warm.”
He led her to the sofa and got her settled on it. He hung her coat in the hall closet where he’d been hanging his. She sat there wiping her eyes. He went to the bathroom and brought her back a box of Kleenex. “Let me load the stove before the fire goes out.”
She wiped her eyes while he worked at the stove. “You seem to know what you’re doing,” she said. The crying seemed to have passed.
“Eve’s a good teacher.” He shut the door and opened the damper a bit. If the power was going to come on within 24 hours, he didn’t have to be quite so stingy with the heat now.
“Good heaven
s, this is a mess.”
He looked around and saw the living room as she might see it, with branches piled on the hearth and floor, and twigs scattered here and there. “Yeah, but a necessary one. You have to get the wood dry. And there’s no reason to clean up until I’m done cutting it up.”
“Cutting it up? How?”
“A hatchet. An ax. My body weight. However I can.”
“Oh Ray,” she said. “You could have hurt yourself!”
“Seemed a better choice than our both freezing to death.”
“Where is Eve?”
“The hospital.” He told her the story as quickly as he could, but she kept interrupting him. “I want to go there as soon as I can. Are the roads clear?”
“The main ones.”
“Did you see our house? The tree?”
“Yes. I was scared I’d find you under it, crushed to death.”
“I left you notes,” he said.
“I found them. You did the right thing, Raysan. I knew you would. I knew you’re a smart kid and you’d figure out what to do. But I worried anyway.”
“I worried about you too. I’m glad you’re okay and you didn’t try to drive before it was safe. Did you have power the whole time?”
“No, but it never got too cold in the building. I mean, it wasn’t anything like our house when I walked in there. You know, I almost walked home at one point. But the people at work talked me out of it.”
“I’m glad they did. Walking on ice might be safer than driving on it, but the last couple days have been cold.”
“I wanted to get back to you.”
“You’re here now,” he said. “We’ll have to stay here until the power goes on,” he said. “I don’t think Eve would mind.”
“We might have to stay somewhere else but home until I can get someone out and get plywood up over the ceiling and walls of the kitchen. Until then, we can’t heat the house. I turned the heat off when I came home and saw the damage.”
“I tried to shut the kitchen off from the rest of the house.”
“I saw. That was a good idea.” She shook her head, in wonder. “You really did well, didn’t you? You did that, and you found a place to stay, and you found a way to get wood and learned to keep a fire going in the woodstove?”
“Yeah, I guess. I turned our water off too so the pipes wouldn’t freeze.”
“You’re a wonder. I don’t know how I raised such a capable kid.”
Ray felt warmed by the praise. “I have a good mom. And Eve really helped.”
“I took one look at the kitchen and just about curled up and refused to move. Only needing to find you kept me going after seeing that.”
“We’ll get it fixed. There’s a guy down the street with a chainsaw. He might help us get the tree out of the way once he’s finished with his work. And then it won’t be quite so hard to block off the wind.”
“There’s lots of houses with lots of damage. It might be a while before I can get a construction guy to our place.”
“Then we’ll look up how to do things on the internet. If it’s only about nailing up some plywood, you and I could do that, right? I mean, it won’t be great, and it might look bad, but at least we can fix it so it won’t snow inside. And we can still use the stove and fridge. And furnace.”
“I doubt it’ll snow again. It’s nearly spring.”
“That’s what you said last week,” he said, but he smiled. It was easy to smile now that she was back.
“It’s what everybody said! I can’t believe this came so late in the year.”
He shrugged. “It came. We dealt with it. Everything is okay now, except for our roof and maybe Eve. Can we go see her today?”
“How about tomorrow? I’d call the hospital right now, but my phone is low on charge.”
“So’s mine.”
“I swear, I’m going to order one of those phone chargers as soon as we have internet again. You can crank a charge into your phone, or set up a solar cell in the sun to charge it.”
“We didn’t have a whole lot of sun until today,” he said. It had come out while he worked outside.
“No, we didn’t.”
“Eve has a weather radio. That’s all it does, talk about weather. It’s on a crank.”
“Really? I didn’t know there was such a thing.”
“I’ll show you,” he said.
“Not until I hug you some more. Come here,” she said.
They sat on the sofa together, and he let her hold on to him and say mom-things for a while. When she’d seemed to run down, he said, “You didn’t drop by the grocery store on the way here, did you?”
“I was fixated on getting home to you. It took me a while too. I don’t know that most grocery stores have power. Oh, gosh, and think of the mess they’ll have if things melted. Meat may have gone bad. It might take some time to be able to buy groceries.”
“Well, we’re going on a diet then. We don’t have anything at home, and Eve didn’t have much either. She didn’t expect a guest.”
“I’ll never be able to thank her enough for helping you.”
“She seemed to enjoy it. I like her, Mom. She’s really interesting. She’s traveled all over the world, did you know that?”
His mother smiled. “I’m glad she was here for you. And that you were here for her, from the sound of it.”
“No, you had it right the first time. She did way more for me than I did for her.” He stood. “I need to deal with this wood that’s too long. And maybe get some more, in case the power doesn’t come back on tonight.”
“How are you going to get it into the stove?”
“I have to cut it shorter. With the ax, I guess, though it’s hard work.”
“We have a limb saw. That should work.”
“What’s that?”
“I’ll go get it.” She looked around. “Where’s my coat?”
“I hung it up.” He got it for her. “I’ll gather some more green wood while you’re doing that. A couple of logs, just to get them dry.”
“What’s that? Green wood?”
“Trees that fell that were living just a week ago. The city crews left them on the sidewalk, maybe to be picked up later, but I took a few pieces. We’re not supposed to burn too much of it.”
“Huh. You’ve learned some things, haven’t you?” She kissed his cheek. “I’ll be back in a second.”
That afternoon, he and his mother sawed up the top of the dead tree’s trunk with the limb saw. The saw was much easier than the ax, especially when they could trade off work, and it wasn’t all on him. They also got a start on their tree that had fallen on their house, taking off the limbs that were easy to reach from the ground.
That evening, his mom used the last of her phone battery and called the hospital to check on Eve. They wouldn’t give out information, but they confirmed she was there. So at least she had made it. Ray was relieved to know it.
That night, just as Ray was falling asleep, the electricity came on in Eve’s house. Light bulbs popped on. He went to turn some of them off and stopped to read her thermostat. 48 degrees. So now he knew he could live just fine in 50 degrees if he was out of the wind. True, if he had the choice of that or 65, he’d take the 65. But 50 was survivable.
“Ray?” His mom woke sleepily from her spot in Eve’s recliner chair.
“The electricity is on again.”
She sat up, rubbing her eyes. “That’s wonderful. Our house though. I should go check it.”
“Tomorrow, Mom. We can wait until tomorrow to start fixing things over there. Tomorrow is time enough.”
“You’re right. Do you think she’d mind if we showered here?”
“I don’t think she’d mind. But I doubt the water will be warm for a few more hours.”
“Tomorrow morning then. I haven’t had a shower in days, and I’m sure you haven’t either. I’ll run home and get our own towels and soap so that we don’t have to dirty hers.”
“When I turn the wat
er on back home tomorrow, I’ll be able to do laundry and have clean, dry socks,” he said. “I never thought of that as a treat before, but it will be.” He remembered he had his phone charger with him, pulled it out, and plugged it in.
They just looked at each other for a long moment, smiling at the thought of a return to normal life.
“We made it,” she said.
“We did.”
“You did such a good job of keeping yourself alive and safe. I’m proud of you.”
“I’m proud of you too.”
“For what?”
“For trusting me enough to not come home and risk dying in a car crash to make sure I was okay.”
“It was a close thing. But a guy at work convinced me you’d be okay. He had to do that several times, because more than once I said I was leaving.”
“I was okay. Better than okay, even.” Now that he knew there weren’t days more of hunting for and collecting wood, or days more of eating too little food, he knew he would come to see the past few days as an adventure. It wasn’t one he’d seek out again, but the only part he regretted was Eve getting ill.
Chapter 18
First thing in the morning, his mom told him to call his father and tell him he was okay.
“How did he know I might not be?”
“I texted him about your being alone in the storm, and he phoned me back. He was worried. I mean, really, the man’s not seen snow since he was in grad school here, and not much then, so to him, it seems like a mysterious and dangerous enemy.”
“Felt that way once or twice to me.” He hadn’t told her every detail yet, but for him, the scariest part was the walk up to the firefighter’s house—that, and the first moment he’d seen the tree inside their house. The tree was emotionally hard. His enemy had been his own despair as much as the storm. The walk up the block had been cold, and with the fallen trees and electrical wires down, his enemies had been physical forces. He thought, all things considered, he preferred challenges that involved the outside world, not the inner one.
The fire was out, but he didn’t need it any longer. He shut the damper entirely and gave the stove a pat, a thank-you for having saved his life. It was too warm in here. He checked the thermostat, and it was 72. Definitely too warm. After a hesitation—it felt as if he were overstepping by doing it—he turned the heat down to 68.
