A Tearful Reunion

by Darrell Maloney

  “It’s a good thing you’re not. It wouldn’t go very far, I assure you.

  “Maybe I’m wrong. I seriously doubt it, but I guess it could happen.

  “What do you want to know about him?”

  “What’s his story? What sent him to prison? What kind of man is he?”

  “You mean what kind of man is he in bed? I wouldn’t know, he’s straight as an arrow.”

  “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps not.

  “From what I’ve heard, John Parker was a real honest-to-God war hero. Highly decorated and wounded in battle. I heard he has a bullet wound a few inches below his navel.

  “I’m sure he’ll show it to you if you ask him.”

  He laughed.

  “I’m sure he’ll show you his bullet wound as well.”

  She ignored him.

  “Why did he go to prison?”

  “The word I heard is that he had a monkey on his back.

  “Not the gambling monkey, like I had.

  “No, his problem was alcohol.

  “That’s not uncommon for combat veterans, by the way. They see and do horrible things in combat and many of them don’t know how to deal with the stress. Some turn to alcohol because they consider it better than going to counseling. When you go to counseling there’s a stigma attached to it. People think you’re unstable and can’t be depended on. There are whispers behind your back. You get passed over for choice assignments. And since you don’t fill the choice assignments it’s easy to pass you over for promotion, saying you’re not ‘rounded enough.’

  “That’s why many combat vets forego the counseling and try to fix themselves.

  “The alcohol gives them the false feeling they’re doing that.”

  “But surely being an alcoholic isn’t a crime, not even in the military.”

  “It is when you drive drunk and kill a woman and cripple her child.”

  “Oh.”

  Chapter 44

  With each passing day Dave began to feel more and more uneasy.

  It was nothing specific.

  Nothing he could put his finger on.

  But something was definitely bothering him.

  Sal noticed it too.

  “What’s the matter, my friend?”

  “I don’t know, Sal. I just feel out of sorts.”

  Beth noticed it also, when she asked him for the tenth time when they were going to stop for the day.

  “I’ve told you a hundred times, when we get to a shady spot on flat ground. Now stop asking.”

  Dave didn’t often snap at his daughter, even before the blackout.

  He immediately apologized.

  And so did she.

  As they approached the western outskirts of Albuquerque Dave felt a knot in the pit of his stomach.

  When he used to go on patrol in Fallujah he called it his “trouble knot.”

  All men in combat have their premonitions and hunches.

  Nothing more than gut feelings, really, that something bad is going to happen.

  They’re usually not very specific, but when they play out they can save the lives of the good guys to the peril of the bad.

  Dave’s hunches in Iraq almost always began as a knot in his stomach.

  It told him to be careful, and forced him to examine closely their battle plan, their surroundings and their vulnerabilities.

  “Situational awareness,” the Corps called it. What it meant, in a nutshell, was to stay on one’s toes.

  Marines were supposed to do that all the time.

  But going on long patrols every day of the damn week for weeks on end sometimes led to complacency. Sometimes they got tired and sloppy.

  That was usually when men died.

  And that was when hunches and premonitions stepped up to try to save some of those lives.

  When Dave felt the knot he slowed the wagon down.

  He wondered whether it might be safer to go around the sprawling city.

  But to go around it he’d have to proceed to the I-25 freeway which intersected the city, then head either north or south.

  That would add another hundred miles to their journey, and since they’d be halfway through the city by then it would make more sense to just go on.

  He thought about traveling at night.

  But at night they wouldn’t be able to see Beth. They’d just see the darkened hulk of a vehicle trying to sneak quietly by them, and anyone who wanted such a vehicle might just open fire on them.

  He’d never tell her, and he hated to even think about it, but Beth, sitting on the bench on the front of the rig in broad daylight, might just be their ticket to safe passage through the city.

  Just going through Albuquerque was a risk. He knew that. But this whole journey was a risk. Hell, the trip from Texas to Kansas City was a risk and one which came close to killing him twice.

  The trip west was just as bad.

  The sad fact was, in the new world just getting up and about each morning was a risk.

  And there was no guarantee bypassing the city and putting them five more days behind schedule would be any safer.

  At least he knew the dangers in Albuquerque. Whatever lay north and south of them was unknown. It could be just as dangerous or even more so.

  Dave thought it best to travel by day, and to stick to Interstate 40.

  Tony had maintained the interstate highways were neutral territory. All the gangs recognized the need for everyone to be able to move around, and by mutual agreement those who were on the interstate couldn’t be attacked or molested.

  Not even members of rival gangs.

  Dave believed that to be the truth, since in his previous visit to Albuquerque he hadn’t seen a single traveler on I-40 attacked or even challenged. They were all allowed to proceed to their destination with trouble.

  He believed and hoped the same rules still applied.

  By the time he found out otherwise it would be too late.

  Chapter 45

  Dave wasn’t aware of it, but the death of his friend Tony, and his revenge against the Dalton Raiders’ camp caused a lot of turmoil in and around the once majestic city of Albuquerque.

  Before the Daltons murdered Tony the city was under an uneasy truce. Each gang had its defined territory and neutral travel routes, and each gang more or less respected their boundaries.

  With Tony gone, word quickly got out who was responsible. The Dalton’s Raiders became the most despised gang in the city, and several of the other gangs were making plans to violate the truce and take revenge.

  After all, every gang had dopers within its ranks.

  Since the blackout they’d all used Tony, since his product was quality stuff and consistent. He had his own manufacturers who cooked and processed only for him, and they were the best of the lot.

  With Tony’s passing the gangs knew that drug use would be a gamble. Much of the dope available from other dealers was poor quality and much of it was cut.

  Sometimes with some pretty nasty stuff.

  With Tony gone a user wouldn’t know what they were getting. Odds were even that instead of making a junkie high the dope would make him sick.

  Or even kill him.

  Several gangs were planning action against the Daltons, but Dave beat them all to the punch.

  Right behind him was the Aryan Brotherhood’s military veteran wing, which showed up to mop up the operation when the battle was half over.

  Dave never knew who it was, exactly, who walked up behind him and started shooting in his direction.

  It was one of the few times in his life when he believed his luck had run out; that he wouldn’t survive.

  But the Aryans weren’t firing at him, they were firing past him, into the bowels of Dalton HQ.

  Dave didn’t know who they were and they in turn didn’t know Dave. But it turned out they were allies.

  Dave didn’t hang around that night to ask any questions. He got out of Dalt
on territory, AKA “Crazy Town” and then out of Albuquerque.

  And he didn’t look back.

  If he had, he’d have seen a city that was now destabilized.

  The Aryan Brotherhood took full credit for the Dalton’s annihilation, not giving Dave any due for winning most of the battle for them.

  To the victors go the spoils, and the Aryans claimed Crazy Town as their own. That doubled their territory and made them one of the biggest landowners in the city.

  And nobody liked that.

  Drug users were sick all over the city, in every one of the factions. The smart ones were sick from withdrawals, having decided under the circumstances it was a good time to kick their habits.

  Many of the hard-core users, the ones who would only quit by dying, were getting bad shit and were paying a heavy price.

  And that, understandably, put everybody in bad moods.

  Albuquerque these days was a tinderbox. It was a city on edge, getting ready to blow.

  And Dave didn’t have a clue.

  Albuquerque is like a lot of other sprawling American cities in that long before travelers pass a city limit sign they’ve already gone by miles and miles of heavily developed industrial and residential areas.

  Before they were officially “in” Albuquerque the trio of weary transients noticed a definite pall over the city.

  The first time he passed through there was a steady stream of nomads traversing the interstates going from here to there to everywhere.

  On this particular day the interstate looked like a scene from a bad zombie movie.

  Lots of abandoned vehicles littered here and there, but not a lot of movement.

  Only occasionally would a nomad pass them by.

  And all of them looked nervous at best. Some looked terrified.

  “Oh, I don’t like the looks of this,” Dave said.

  But they were committed at this point. They pressed on.

  A few things looked familiar to him.

  Like the way the exits were marked with abandoned cars blocking the on and off-ramps.

  Cars spray painted in gang colors.

  And tags.

  As a car guy, it almost broke Dave’s heart to see a classic ’57 Chevy in restored mint condition, ruined by the words “CRIPS TURF” in blue spray paint.

  Granted, the Chevy would probably never run again. It would probably stay in that same spot for decades, first turning to rust and then to dust.

  But still…

  All of the marked cars had men standing beside them, or behind them.

  All the men were armed.

  The scene reminded Dave of an armed camp in Iraq. One which had been prepped for warfare.

  And he wondered what the Dalton’s Raiders gang’s actions against Tony, and Dave’s retaliation against the Daltons, had contributed to the new chaos.

  Still, they surely couldn’t be viewed as a threat to anyone as they drove through town.

  Dave and Sal sat on the bench, Beth standing behind them in the engine compartment, resting her little backside against the firewall.

  A single able man, accompanied by an old man and a child. How much harm could they do, really?

  Dave did have his rifle of choice, an AR-15.

  He openly carried a handgun on his hip, on an old military web belt which also held four extra magazines.

  But that didn’t necessarily indicate he was a threat to anyone as they drove through.

  Most people these days carried weapons for self-protection.

  In fact, someone who wasn’t armed was typically looked upon with more suspicion than someone who was.

  They progressed, Dave and Sal praying under their breath they’d get through the city unmolested.

  They viewed Albuquerque as the last big obstacle. If they could get through Albuquerque, Dave maintained, the rest of the trip should be easy.

  Chapter 46

  One by one they passed them by, the territories or pieces of “turf” owned by one faction or the other.

  Many of the names were familiar to anyone who’d paid attention to the news in recent years: the Crips, the Bloods, the Aryan Brotherhood.

  Dave couldn’t help but notice big changes when he passed by the territory previously controlled by the Dalton’s Raiders gang.

  The Lincoln Town car, where he’d killed two sentries on the night of his assault on the Dalton compound, was gone. It had been rolled out of the way and replaced by a 1980s-era conversion van, of all things.

  The words “White Power!” were painted on the side of the van and a confederate flag flew from its radio antenna.

  Dave had wondered since that night, who it was who came up behind him and fired past him into Dalton HQ.

  Now he saw it was the Aryan Brotherhood.

  He wondered how that change affected the very delicate balance of power in the city.

  Perhaps the Aryan takeover of Dalton territory generated turf battles. Or even worse, race wars.

  Dave remembered Tony telling him the Brotherhood wasn’t well liked among the other factions.

  And he wondered if he’d played a role in opening up a big jar of chaos in the city.

  The guards standing outside the conversion van watched them drive by, but didn’t say anything.

  One of them actually waved and smiled at Beth, perhaps thinking that because the people on the rig were white they were somehow compatriots.

  Or at least deserving of safe passage.

  Beth waved back.

  She was mature for her age. Old enough to know these men were capable of violence. She understood the man who waved at her had probably killed. Perhaps for self preservation, perhaps not.

  But the other side of her, the little kid side of her, would always return a wave and a smile.

  Dave was glad. At this stage in her life, Beth had no hatred in her heart.

  That might change later in the violent world they lived in. But for now little Beth had been able to preserve most of her innocence.

  They progressed another mile or two and were stopped by a band of armed men who blocked the highway in front of them.

  They never unslung their weapons, and seemed to sense the people on this rig were no threat.

  Rather, Dave got the sense they were merely on orders to stop and talk to anyone passing through.

  Maybe to assess the mood of the city, perhaps to get news of how other factions were behaving.

  Maybe to gain intel on their enemies.

  Dave likened it to the way the Nazis used to stop people at random on city streets in occupied France and Poland. Trying to find people who might give them trouble.

  If that’s what they were after, they didn’t have to worry about Dave and Sal. All they wanted to do was get through the city intact and put it behind them.

  The cars painted at the nearest exit said “34th St Boiz.”

  It turned out the boyz were mostly just curious.

  Sal pulled the horses to a stop a few feet before the line of men.

  One of them stepped forward and said, “Damn! That’s butt-ugly, but it’s a good idea.”

  He smiled.

  His comment wasn’t meant as a slam, but as a compliment to Sal’s ingenuity.

  “What kinda gas mileage you get?”

  Sal was unafraid and quick with a comeback.

  “About twenty miles to a hay bale.”

  The man looked at Dave and asked, “Which gang y’all with?”

  “We’re neutral. We’re just passing through on our way east.”

  He cocked a suspicious eyebrow and said, “Are you sure you ain’t part of the Aryan Brotherhood?”

  “I’m sure. We’re not part of this. We’re just looking to get through Albuquerque without any trouble.”

  He eyed Dave, as if struggling with a decision whether to let them go.

  It was Beth, when he looked to her, who convinced him to let them pass.

  Tony told Dave a couple of weeks before that even hardened gang members h
ad a soft spot for kids.

  “That’s because most of them have kids of their own,” he’d explained. “Many of them don’t have a clue where they are, because they’re staying with their mothers somewhere else where it’s safer. Or they lost their kids to starvation or violence.

  “Or maybe they feel a need to protect the kids so the future will be a better place.

  “There are a lot of reasons why, I suppose, but most of the gang bangers will go out of their way to take care of the little kids.”

  The man asked Beth, “What’s your name?”

  A lot of kids would have been afraid.

  Not Beth.

  “My name’s Beth. What’s yours?”

  “I’m David.”

  “Hey, that’s my Daddy’s name too. But everybody calls him Dave.”

  The man smiled.

  Dave didn’t have a clue about the man’s personal situation, but got the sense he might be a father.

  A father who missed dealing with the innocents.

  “Where are you going, Beth?”

  “To Kansas City. To see my mommy and my big old ugly sister.”

  Beth knew how to win hearts when she wanted to.

  The man laughed and said, “I used to have a big old ugly sister myself. I know how you feel.

  “Will you do me a favor, Beth?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Have a safe journey. And don’t ever lose that smile.”

  “I won’t.”

  The man turned to the others and said, “Let them through.”

  The human wall parted in the middle and the men moved out of the way.

  Dave looked at David and said, “Thank you.”

  David merely nodded as Sal whipped his reins and the horses pulled them past.

  They’d gone another hundred yards before Dave finally breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed a bit.

  Over his shoulder he said, “Good job, Peanut.”

  “You too, Dad.”

  Chapter 47

  Sal wanted to increase the horses’ gait and said so, but Dave talked him out of it.

  “These people are prepped for warfare and are on high alert. If they see us moving quickly they’re liable to think we’re either up to something or running away from something.