Memos From the Wasteland

by M. P. Fitzgerald

  Thank you for coming to me to defuse and solve this area of contention. As you are both aware discussing the number of coffee rations you receive is against our regulations, and I ask that you both cease doing so immediately. The amount or grade of pay (as well as benefits provided) is strictly the business of the employee and their supervisor.

  With that said I went ahead and forwarded the pamphlet to Operations. They are really happy with it! Plans to roll them out with our written notices are underway and will likely be mailed out by the end of the month.

  Good work team!

  How to Cook Meat

  Recipes from a nearly illiterate and anonymous land pirate.

  Doodles removed for clarity and decency.

  Meat is good. Cooking make meat more good. 2 cook meat make fire. Fire easy.

  There many ways 4 2 make fire. Fire can be made with boom stick or from grenade. Fire can be made with gas but make meat taste bad. Meat best if fire made on wood or bbq rocks from bag. Be careful with rocks. Rocks found at city full of bomb poison. Bomb poison make bad time headache and you will piss blood.

  If meat fire made on wood cover fire and also meat with car hood or surround with animal hide. Trap smoke 4 2 make more flavor 4 meat. The urge want fire big and angry. Do not listen 2 urge. Big fires cook meat 2 much. Big fires burn meat and make it hard 4 chew.

  REND! TEAR! MEAT!

  Hard chew meat 4 suckas. Meat best if meat cooked slow with small fire. Other pirates will make fun. Other pirates will call small fire weak like losers. Other pirates will shut fucking mouths with good meat after done and then can be killed in sleep. Pro tip: good meat will make enemies sleepy with big bellies and will help 4 killing in sleep. Use different nife 4 killing so no dull cook nife.

  Small weak ass wood fire with smoke kidnaped make meat tender and taste like smoke. Gas smoke make meat tastes like gas.

  BURN! FIRE! FIRE FIRE!

  What will need 4 cook meat:

  1. Meat.

  2. Fire.

  3. Salt.

  4. Dry green stuff and also pepper.

  5. Mouth.

  6. Sometimes also water.

  Put salt and dry green stuff and also pepper on meat b4 cooking. This add taste. Can also drown meat in world water or make own world water with salt. Keep meat in water 4 a day. This better than dry taste like from above but mean u need 2 protect meat from others longer. Cocane good 4 staying awake 2 watch meat. Can also threaten 2 blow up cars if meat s2len. Cannot threat 2 blow up cars 2 much or others will think you won’t. Blow up cars 1 time a week so others no you r a serious fucker.

  After meat made tastetee with dry taste or water taste cut meat in 2 slabs and stab with spits. Get good small fire going and put meat over. Cover with car hood or other thing 2 kidnap smoke. Enemies can be drowned in smoke 2 if can wait longer 4 meat.

  Cook meat 4 long time. Urge tell you cook fast.

  HUNGER! STARVE! EAT!

  No listen 2 urge. Meat more good if cook 4 long time. Start meat when sun near mountains. Meat is done after night and stars in sky. Turn spit all the time so fire burn meat even. IMPORTANT: turn spit with one hand so can hold nife in other if others attack. Some r enemies but others no wait 4 meat 2 be done. Make fun of others bad cooking when stabbing.

  When meat done cut more. Cut slabs in2 smaller slabs. Make small enough 2 put on hubcap and then put leaf on top. Leaf just make meat look more good. How meat look important. Others make fun of foo foo look but you will stab them because you no better. Laugh at dead enemies then eat more good meat than others have.

  HA HA HA HA HA!

  How 2 get meat:

  There r lots of kinds of meat in wild. Dog meat is good but no eat dogs. Dog eaters r barbarians. Dogs 4 play and also 4 kill enemy with sharp teeth and you will laugh. Lizard and squirrel good 4 eat but small and cleeshay. Best meat is moo moo. Bad thing is that moo moo good 2 4 pulling car that has no gas. Crow good also but crow hard 2 kidnap. Save bullets 4 enemies. If kill crow use stone or arrow. After kill and cook lots of meat me can say that easiest meat to kidnap 4 cook is child. Child easy to trick because some want play with dog. See? Dog better if no cook. Dog eaters r barbarians.

  How to Cook Meat

  Recipes from an entirely illiterate and anonymous land pirate.

  “Activities”

  Income Tax Return for Single and Joint

  Filers With No Dependents (99)

  Form

  1040EZ-Post Word-A

  Your first name

  Last name

  Initial

  If a joint return, spouse’s first name

  Last name

  Spouse's initial

  As of the 20th year since the nuclear holocaust the IRS now officially recognizes “The New Economy” of the United Wastes of America. This includes recognizing squatters of old world ruins as property owners.

  Home Address (number and street). If you have a P.O. Box, see instructions.

  City, town or junk town, state, and ZIP code.

  The IRS now recognizes “The New Economy” and will accept items normally reserved for barter. Please see conversion chart below for the most commonly bartered items before filling out boxes 1 through 6. A more complete conversion chart may be obtained upon completion of Form 72-52c.

  Item or object to barter

  Amount in U.S. Dollars

  651 Calories (about one pound of meat*).

  $3.50

  1(one) Bullet, .50 Caliber

  $2.50

  1(one) Bullet, 9mm

  $0.15

  1(one) 12 Gauge

  $2.40†

  *As per the new economy the IRS defines meat as fat, tissue, muscle, sinew, or bone marrow from any animal living or dead, including human.

  †Price varies depending on the type, file form 72-52c for more information.

  Income

  1. Wages, salaries, and tips. This should be shown in box 1 of your Form(s) W-2.

  2. Taxable Interest. If the total is above $15,000 you cannot use form 1040EZ-Post Word-A.

  3. Unemployment compensation and Alaska permanent funds dividend (see instructions).

  4. Add lines 1, 2, and 3. This is your adjusted gross income.

  5. If someone can claim you (or your spouse if a joint return) as a dependent check the box(es) below and enter the amount from worksheet on back.

  ❏You ❏Spouse

  If no one can claim you (or your spouse if a joint return), enter $10,000 if single; $20,000 if married filing jointly. See back for explanation.

  6. Subtract line 5 from line 4. If line 5 is larger than 4, enter -0-. This is your taxable income.

  Payments, Credits, and Tax

  7. Federal income tax withheld from Form(s) W-2 and 1099

  8a. Earned income credit (EIC) (see instructions).

  b. Nontaxable combat pay election.

  9. Add lines 7 and 8a. These are your total payments and credits.

  10 Tax. Use the amount on line 6 above to find your tax in the tax table in the instructions. Then, enter the tax from the table on this line.

  Refund

  11. If line 9 is larger than line 10, subtract line 10 from line 9. This is your refund.

  12. If line 10 is larger than line 9, subtract line 9 from line 10. This is the amount you owe. For details on how to pay, see instructions.

  Disclaimer: The Internal Revenue Services (IRS) is not responsible, liable, or accountable for any death or dismemberment that may occur related to tax matters. Likewise, the IRS is not liable for any goods received as a refund that is radioactive or spoiled.

  Bonus!

  A preview chapter for the upcoming novel A Happy Bureaucracy.

  Stifled breath was held suddenly as an offense was made on the door. There was nothing here but dust and radiation, and the cold glare from an uncaring sun. There was supposed to be no one living for miles, he had made sure of that. Yet, here it was, a sharp noise being made on the door in quick succession. The word knocking
was not in his vocabulary, because no one had knocked since The War. He did not dare to let out his breath and realized too late that she, the little girl with a knife to her throat, had begun to cry.

  Whoever was on the other side of the door will hear her. The option to hide was now gone. “Fuck” he whispered accusingly at the child. Her whimpers were not loud, but when deafening silence is the natural order, even a sneeze from a mouse would sound like blaring klaxons. He put down the butcher knife onto his table, and the little girl’s eyes spelled relief. He replaced the knife with his rusty hunting rifle. Fight or flight were now having their familiar debate inside of him, and before one could win the argument another knock came at the door.

  “Hello?” a voice that was almost meek said through the door, “do you have a moment?”

  What is this? the man thought, still not certain if there was danger. His instinct finally won over indecisiveness, and the man loaded an ancient bullet into the gun’s chamber, but moments before he could rush the door the little girl spoke, answering with a tired and frightened “hello?” She did not dare to yell “help”.

  “Yes, hello? Do you have time to talk? It is very important.” The voice asked politely.

  Slavers kick in the door, raiders wait until you are outside. This, well, this was confusing. So, with the affront to his brain winning, and the option of surprise gone, the man answered the door.

  What he saw made even less sense.

  Outside there was dust, and then there was irradiated dust. What was once a thriving and happy suburb, a perfect portrait of the American dream, was now a dead nightmare. The hydrogen bombs never made it this far, but their wrath spread without impetus. The War had ended modern history, and it started something that would make the dark ages look like a regular renaissance. The houses that were once built for families were now mostly empty, rotting slowly under an unforgiving sun. The grass that once grew on this house's lawn had dried up decades ago and then burned for warmth. What were once windows were now a collection of boards nailed into the wall of the house haphazardly, their origin likely from the picket fences of the other houses. The people responsible for nailing them now long dead. What was outside was misery, misery and dust. There should be nothing else…

  …Yet, there he stood. Standing weaponless, and awkwardly, was a man who was somehow clean shaven, and washed. His hair cut short and parted, businesslike, to the right. His skin is somehow fair, and not sun damaged to a tan leather. This man, against all odds, was wearing clothing that had been washed, and it had been ironed. His shirt collard and white, his shoes black, polished and tied. There was something around his neck, it should have been the bones of his enemies, strung through their dried tendons, it should have been a makeshift bandolier made of bullets and spikes, but instead, it was a tie. A regular, black tie, its knot a Windsor. Where there should be a club, a gun, or a spear in hand, is a clipboard and a pen.

  The pen was not stabbed into someone’s eyes, which is the only use he had ever witnessed seeing someone do with one. He had only ever seen someone who looked like this in photographs. He looked like people did before The War.

  This should not be.

  Standing off to the distance, leaning on what was once a tree, was a man who did look like he belonged. Dressed in leather and looking as rugged and miserable as the earth beneath him, the other man carried a shotgun. This he understood. This was protection. Professional protection. After making eye contact with the man in leather, he lowered his weapon. No one needed to die yet.

  "Hello!" The man in the tie said, "My name is Arthur McDowell, I am an agent of the Internal Revenue Services, and you are?"

  “What?” the man responded.

  “I am an agent for the IRS, I am here for an audit.”

  He had been warned about this. Of all of the gangs in the United Wastes, the IRS was the most powerful. He had never met an agent himself, but he had met others who had. The last time he joined a raiding gang the oldest of the group told him once that “there are only two for sure things in this world, death and taxes. The IRS wants only one of those, but they’ll take both if you do not cooperate." Everything else he heard sounded like myth or horror story. He was not excited to learn which stories were true.

  Arthur McDowell clicked the top of his pen tentatively, as dust from the dead planet beneath him shifted from the wind. Arthur was now looking at the man inquisitively, and the man behind him in leather rested a single finger on his trigger. "Is this the residence of the ‘Murder-Man?'" Arthur asked. Someone talked. Someone gave me away. If anybody of his old gang had sold him out to slavers, torture would come before death once he got his paws on them, but if the stories about the IRS were true, he wasn’t sure if he could even be mad. Hell, if the stories were true, he’d do the same.

  “Yeah, I’m Murder-Man.”

  "Good," said Arthur, as he hurriedly wrote something on his board. "Mr. Man, it seems that you did not do your taxes this season, now, as the postal service has not delivered here in a generation we can understand the oversight. As an Auditor, I am here to fix that."

  “Oh”, said Murder-Man, “what ah, what are taxes?”

  "That is a surprisingly common question, Mr. Man, so no need to be embarrassed." He wasn't embarrassed at all, he was afraid. “Taxes are a percentage of your income that is mandatorily volunteered to the United States government for the goods and services provided to you, a citizen, and to keep it running. It is both our patriotic duty and law, to pay them."

  “Oh.”

  “It looks like you have not paid your taxes this season, Mr. Man, and though the IRS understands that this kind of omission is likely given the circumstances…” Arthur said motioning his hand around him, meaning “circumstances” to be human holocaust by nuclear fire. “…they still must be paid.” The man in the leather stood upright at “must be paid” and stepped a little closer. Murder-Man had no intention of pissing him off.

  “How ah, how ya want me to pay ‘em?” Murder-Man asked, not eloquently.

  “With United States currency of course!”

  “You want old world money?”

  “Preferably yes, but the IRS has positioned itself to work with today’s economy, for your convenience we are willing to take bullets or calories.”

  This is the most polite raid Murder-Man has ever seen.

  Keeping his gun low, so as not to piss off the hired help, Murder-Man leaned on his doorframe eyeing Arthur suspiciously. He was hoping the girl stayed quiet. “How much ya want?” he finally asked, after another moment filled with listless dust passed.

  “That is what we are here to find out Mr. Man, I know that you are unfamiliar with our process, again, nothing to be embarrassed about…” Arthur said to a man who was still not embarrassed. “…we do not take a set amount from everybody, Mr. Man, we only take a percentage of your combined income and assets.”

  Murder-Man knows neither of the words income or assets, but it is the one that sounds more sexual to him that raised his interest. “What’s a ass-set?” he asks.

  "Oh! Why those are the things you own! Let's go through those first. You own this house?"

  “Yeah.”

  “Good, good” Arthur said writing on his clipboard. He seemed to be enjoying himself. “Let’s see, you are a homeowner, and according to your old gang you were a raider by profession?”

  I knew it! Someone did talk! Murder-Man’s mind howled with rage. His words were muted “Yeah. I don’ do that no more”.

  Arthur did not look up at this, and his writing quickened. “Unemployed? That’s a shame, have you been jobless this whole season?”

  Murder-Man, not sure what Arthur meant by “season” stared blankly and said “Yeah” just to hurry this along.

  “It can be a very hostile job market in today’s world, that is for sure. Well, judging by the size of your house, and the fact that it is not radiated, we will classify it as a class 3 house. You should be very proud!”

  “Uh, thank you
?”

  "Mmmm Hmmm…" Arthur replies, still laying his attention on the clipboard. "Assuming you can't pay with currency, that would put what you owe to be 80,000 calories, 150 bullets, or a combination of the two" at this Arthur reached into his pocket and fished out a small black, plastic calculator. "I can, of course, help you with the conversion."

  Murder-Man's breathing was thin, flight or fight was back in his mind demanding the forum. It was time to pay the tax man.

  “I uh, I don’t have that—” he started before he was quickly interrupted by a now giddy Arthur.

  “Wait, we haven’t gone over your deductibles! The IRS is no armed robber sir,” he declared with an armed man behind him. “Do you have any dependents?”