The Final Chapter

by Darrell Maloney

  “There were several doctors in San Antonio named Martinez, but none of them were oncologists.

  “Most of them were general practitioners and came from two families. One family had five sons and two daughters.

  “As I recall the five brothers were all general practitioners and the daughters were both gynecologists. They sent their parents on a sixty day trip to Europe every year to pay them back for getting them all through medical school.

  “Dr. Reinhardt was an orthopedic surgeon and Dr. Quincy is an ear, nose and throat specialist.

  “He’s still alive, but I don’t know where he lives. I’ll see if I can find out for you if you like.”

  John and Rhett looked at one another. John shrugged, and Rhett answered for both of them.

  “That’s okay. I don’t think he’d have treated Eddie for anything terminal.”

  “As for Depotane, that was prescribed routinely for people with high cholesterol.”

  “So he might have a congenital heart condition?”

  “Perhaps. But if that were the case I suspect you’d have found something to indicate he was seeing a cardiologist.”

  -24-

  John asked the old nurse the million dollar question.

  “As for the surviving brother, who might also suffer from high cholesterol, and who doesn’t have Depatone, is there anything else he can do to lower his cholesterol?”

  “You mean by natural means? Sure.

  “Fish is better than red meat.

  “Have him eat lots of oats and barley. The Army left seeds for both behind when they left. Are you growing either of them on your street?”

  Rhett said, “No. We opted for corn and soybeans and wheat for our subsistence crops.”

  “Soybeans are good too. I’d recommend you trade some of your excess corn for some oats and barley at your farmer’s market.

  “But not to eat. Use it for seed to plant your own crops. That way your guy can have an ongoing supply.

  “Did the Army plant any walnut trees in your neighborhood?”

  “Yes. They surrounded a playa lake with walnut and pecan trees at a park not far from us.”

  “Pecans are good but walnuts are way better.

  “Also, look in your own gardens for help. Tomatoes are especially good for lowering cholesterol. So is garlic.

  “And by the way, everyone else should include the same types of foods in their diets.

  “Your guy might not be the only one suffering from high cholesterol. It’s a condition that’s well hidden and many people don’t even know they suffer from it.

  “If you can lower your cholesterol, you lessen the risk not only of heart attacks but strokes as well.”

  The pair left feeling a lot better than they had when they’d gone in.

  The main piece of information they got was that if cancer or heart disease ran in Bill’s family, his brother almost certainly would have seen seeing a cardiologist or oncologist.

  The fact he was seeing neither was a relief to both men.

  It was to Scarlett as well.

  After they briefed her she went to find Bill and to tell him he was going on a new diet. A special diet, Scarlett said.

  Bill, because he was Bill, took Scarlett’s words the wrong way.

  “Why?” he asked. “I’m not fat.”

  The men got back to Baker Street just before lunch and ate leftover barbeque and baby potatoes.

  John remarked, “When did you start growing baby potatoes?”

  “This is our first crop of them,” Scarlett told him. “And they’re supposed to be full sized potatoes, but for some reason they didn’t want to grow.”

  “Where’d you get the seed potatoes?”

  “From somebody at the Farmer’s Market.”

  “And the seed potatoes were full size?”

  “Yes. These look just like them, only tinier.”

  “You need to loosen your soil.”

  Scarlett had gardened for a long time.

  John never had, leaving the gardening to Hannah.

  Scarlett was, therefore, hesitant to take gardening advice from him.

  But then again, she was stumped.

  “Explain, please.”

  “You remember my friend Julio? The one I brought the night before last? He lives on the ninth floor of a high rise hotel.”

  “So?”

  “He had the same problem.

  “He said the problem is with the San Antonio soil. It’s much too hard. It packs tightly and squeezes the potatoes and keeps them from growing very big.

  “The same thing happens to carrots and onions and anything else that grows underground.”

  “So what’s the solution?”

  “Find top soil at a construction site. Mix some of it in your natural soil. You can also mix about twenty percent sand. And mulch. Any way you can loosen the soil a bit and not take away the nutrients will result in bigger taters.”

  “Did you say taters?”

  “Well, I am a Texan.”

  -25-

  John had one more person to visit on this particular day.

  He made his way back downtown to the Victoria Courts housing project.

  It was nestled alongside Interstate 37, just south of the old Hemisfair grounds.

  In its heyday, back in the 1960s, it was one of the roughest housing projects in the city. Police were called there nightly, and the homicide division always had at least one active case from VC streets.

  Since then it had cleaned up its act somewhat, but still had a reputation as a rough project.

  It was a place where the residents didn’t get along well with the police; where they thought the city didn’t care for them.

  And after the blackout, where rumors ran rampant the city wanted to exterminate them all or put them into concentration camps.

  No one knew who started the rumors or why.

  The net result, though, was that no one wanted to leave the projects to look for food, for fear they’d be gunned down for their efforts.

  Unfortunately there were few food sources available within the VC neighborhood, other than a couple of mom and pop groceries and one outlet from a national grocery chain.

  They quickly ran out of food and the people of VC began to starve.

  At the same time, the city was overrun by an exploding rat population.

  Rumors they were as big as Mack trucks weren’t true. But many were as big as squirrels or small cats.

  To the rescue came R.J. Salinas, who was once a master chef at a fancy downtown restaurant.

  He was able to make a dent in both problems by convincing the residents of Victoria Courts the rats weren’t only easy to catch.

  But also that they could be an excellent source of protein.

  Salinas aided the residents in two ways.

  First, of course, was teaching them how to catch and cook the disgusting little creatures and to turn them into jerky.

  The second was to teach them that the rumors were untrue; that the city was not only not out to get them, it was trying its best to keep everyone alive.

  To help accomplish the second part of his task he drove his city-provided Saturn automobile from the projects to a downtown warehouse every other day for supplies.

  Each time he’d take two residents along as helpers.

  And each time he’d stop at the Alamo for a free meal provided by the Catholic Family Services Commission.

  John found Salinas at his home on Refugio Street.

  He was sitting at a small card table in the front yard, beneath a large oak tree, playing dominoes with three old men from the neighborhood.

  “Well hello, John,” he said as he stood and took his friend’s hand.

  “How are you doing, R.J.?”

  “Well, health-wise I’m fine. Dominoes-wise I’m getting my butt kicked. I think these guys are cheating.”

  “Ain’t our fault you can’t play worth a damn,” one of the other players countered. “Making points on you is
like taking candy from a baby.”

  “Cut me out, will ya fellas?”

  “No problem. Come back when you feel like losing some more.”

  John said as they walked away, “Wow. Those guys don’t cut you any slack, do they?”

  “Nope. Not at all. But hey, I can’t be this handsome and smart and be a good domino player too. It just wouldn’t be fair to everybody else that I was blessed with so much, right?”

  “If you say so.”

  “How’ve you been, John?”

  “I’m good. The wife is good. The girls are good. I have no complaints.”

  “And why has it taken you five long years to come back and say hello?”

  “No excuses there. Time just got away from me.”

  “Like your hairline?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Your forehead is a lot higher than it was the last time I saw you.

  “Turn around.”

  He examined the back of John’s head.

  “Yep. Just as I thought. Your bald spot is a lot bigger than it used to be.”

  John panicked.

  “Bald spot? What are you talking about?”

  His hands flew to the back of his head and poked around there.

  “Relax, John. It happens to the best of us. My family and friends didn’t want to tell me either.”

  The smile on R.J.’s face told John he was only teasing.

  Still, as soon as he found himself alone in a room with two mirrors he’d be examining the back of his head himself to see for sure.

  John wasn’t self-conscious about too many things, but his hair was one of them.

  He mentioned to his mother once that he was glad his father had a full head of hair right up until his death.

  He took that as a sign he’d follow suit.

  His mom burst his bubble when she informed him the male pattern baldness gene comes from the maternal side.

  And that it typically skips at least one generation.

  “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, John.

  “But my father was as bald as a cue ball.

  “You probably will be too.”

  Dave was depressed about that, until Hannah told him the biggest crush she ever had was Telly Savalas, who played a detective named Kojak on a syndicated television series when she was growing up.

  “I’ve always found bald men sexy,” she told him.

  Then he was okay with it.

  But at the same time, he wasn’t particularly looking forward to it.

  -26-

  R.J. told John, “We’re heading out, if you want to go with us.”

  “Where you going?”

  “To a city warehouse on Houston Street. I need to get some more rat traps. We’re going to stop by the Alamo for a free meal.

  “Have you ever been there? To the Alamo, I mean.”

  “Are you kidding me? I was born and raised here. I’ve been to the Alamo a zillion times.”

  “No, I meant since the blackout. The nuns serve a meal once a day there to anybody who shows up.”

  “Oh. Yes, I’ve been there for a couple of free meals.”

  “John, this is Marcus and Justin. They’re my helpers today.”

  Marcus held out his hand.

  Justin didn’t offer his, but instead did the traditional “man nod.”

  He said, “I already called shotgun.”

  “That’s okay. I don’t mind riding in the back seat.”

  From his position in the back seat Marcus and Justin appeared to John to be a bit antsy, a bit nervous.

  Were John the paranoid sort he might have suspected they were up to something. That they might be planning to rob R.J., or to steal his vehicle.

  He made a point to be on his game in case something went down.

  The air conditioner on R.J.’s Saturn wasn’t working.

  It was an older model, and parts for it were hard to come by.

  Their solution was to drive around with all four windows down.

  Later on, in August, the oppressive heat would make the ride unbearable.

  But for today’s ride the passing wind made it more than tolerable.

  The warehouse on Houston Street was only a few short blocks north and then east a couple more.

  It was actually close enough to walk.

  But not close enough to lug back a bunch of heavy equipment and supplies.

  John assumed that R.J. took the vehicle because he had a considerable amount of things to gather.

  He was surprised when his friend put two small boxes of rat traps in the trunk and pronounced the errand finished.

  “Let’s go get something to eat. I’m hungry.”

  John said, “That’s all you’re gonna get?”

  “No. That’s all I’m gonna get here. Now we’re gonna go to the Alamo, and we’re gonna get something to eat.”

  “But there’s four of us. We could have easily carried two small boxes back with us and walked over.”

  R.J. lowered his voice to a whisper and said, “I’ll explain later.”

  The four drove a couple of blocks farther and, because there were few working cars out and about, they were able to park on South Alamo Street directly in front of the old mission.

  They joined a line of about thirty other people and showed a photo ID, then signed their names in a daily log.

  The procedure was one John and R.J. were familiar with.

  It was new to Marcus and Justin, though.

  They only half believed R.J. when he told them they could get a free meal each day just by walking to the Alamo.

  They hadn’t known R.J. long enough to trust him.

  Actually, that wasn’t entirely true.

  They’d known him for several weeks and were slowly learning to believe in him.

  But they’d known the people from the neighborhood for much longer.

  And it was those people… the ones Marcus and Justin grew up with… who were helping spread the rumor the city was trying to lure them away from the projects so they could take them into custody.

  The rumors were pervasive and seemed to linger despite the fact that many of the VC residents had left the projects and survived.

  Mistrust of the police and the city government ran deep in the Victoria Courts projects.

  It wasn’t something that would dissipate quickly.

  “I’m using them,” R.J. admitted to John when the pair was out of earshot.

  The look on John’s face was one of great surprise.

  “For what?” he whispered back.

  “The people in the VC projects still don’t trust the police who keep coming around trying to help them.

  “They’re still buying into those crazy rumors that if they leave the projects they’ll be arrested and thrown into some kind of FEMA concentration camp.

  “One or two at a time I’m taking them out of the projects.

  “I want them to see for themselves the rumors aren’t true.

  “I want them to go back and tell others they know that they left the camp and returned. That they didn’t end up in a concentration camp. They didn’t get boiled in oil or forced into doing slave labor for the city.

  “I want them to go back and tell everyone they know that at the Alamo, just a few blocks from the projects, there are nuns who will welcome them and give them a hot meal every day.

  “They won’t believe the police officers who go into the projects and tell them the same thing.

  “But I’m hoping they’ll believe their own people.

  “And even if the naysayers who claim Marcus and Justin are liars win the argument, there will be two fewer people in the projects I have to worry about starving to death.

  “Because from this day forward Marcus and Justin will know if they get hungry they can walk to the Alamo and get a free meal every day.”

  “And come back alive.”

  -27-

  “How’s the rat population these days?”

  Salinas smi
led.

  “It’s going down. Way down. I’m only catching seven rats a day on average now. The residents of Victoria Courts are catching even less.”

  “Seems to me that seven rats a day is a lot.”

  “Not when you consider when I started this project years ago I was catching as many as I set traps for.

  “Back then I’d catch thirty a day without even trying. I could have caught a hundred, but I had to spend some time preparing and cooking them and training the residents.”

  “But that’s a good thing, right? I mean, fewer rats mean lesser chance of them biting people or spreading diseases.”

  “Well, yes. That’s one way to look at it.

  “But fewer rats created another problem. I worked hard to help the residents get over their hesitancy of killing and eating rats.

  “Most of them were surprised at how easy it was to catch them and cook them.

  “Many of them were surprised by how good the little critters tasted when they were properly prepared. They were like potato chips. They could be seasoned in a hundred different ways, depending on one’s individual tastes.”

  “I’m sorry. Did you just compare rats to potato chips?”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s a bit of a stretch, huh?”

  “A bit, yes.”

  “My point was I showed them how to catch them and how to prepare them and how to disguise the taste with spices and other flavorings.

  “In the end most who tried it liked it or at least tolerated it.

  “Now granted, that may have been because they were starving to death and felt they had no choice.

  “But whatever their motivation, they started eating rat on a regular basis. For most of them it became their primary source of protein and kept them alive.

  “The practice spread to the other projects around the city, and I’d like to say it’s saved a lot of lives.”

  “So what’s the problem, then?”

  “The problem is there are a lot of diehards who, even after all this time, don’t trust the government enough to leave the projects.

  “They rely strictly on the rats they can catch and what little plants they can grow in their tiny front yards to survive.

  “And for the first time since I started this project, there aren’t enough rats to go around.”