I was getting reports from all over the west coast now as most all of the groups had decided to coordinate with each other through us. As I was reading the Ventura County list of known survivors, a middle school age girl arrived with an updated list of survivors from Long Beach.
“Jane said I should wait to see if you needed me to run an errand or something.” I guess in the absence of real communication equipment runners were as good as we could hope for. I’d already discovered the telephones in the oval office didn’t work.
“Thank you. What’s your name?”
“Julie, sir.” She was so mature that I was a little taken aback. Then again, she’d almost certainly seen loved ones die and had recovered enough to join a group of strangers who were living at a museum.
“Well Julie, would you ask Lydia, Kevin, Anna, Jane, and Marco to join me at their earliest convenience? And would you see if another runner could come to this office? Is that too many names to remember? Here, let me right the names down for you…..there you are. Thank you.”
“Yes Sir.” And Julie was off. She actually ran.
Within five minutes Jane was in the office. She was carrying a steno tablet! I felt completely out of my league for a few seconds, but before I could start screwing with my own head, Anna, then Kevin and Lydia, and finally Marco all arrived. We all sat at the conference table. It’s a nice setup for meetings, but of course it would be.
“Thank you for coming so quickly. I hope I didn’t pull you away from something you couldn’t delay for a bit, but I’m getting very concerned about where, when, and how we are going to make our retreat. The smell is really getting noticeable, and I think we’re living on borrowed time. If you have any thoughts, please speak up.
First, we need to find a place to go. Personally, I think we need to find an area with a university and farming in close proximity. Has anyone been working on that? Anna, are the Internet people doing anything with this? Jane, are there any farmers in our group or any of the other groups around us?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, Todd says that his group has been in touch with survivors in San Luis Obispo. There aren’t many of them, but they seem pretty enthusiastic about their area. Cal Poly is right there and there are a number of commercial farms complete with livestock and lots of farm equipment. You’re thinking we’ll have to grow our own food pretty soon aren’t you? Oh, and Cal Poly is well known for it’s agriculture department. There should be a lot of information and resources right there.” Anna was still a senior in high school and, yet, was so mature. Probably all of us were. Maybe even I was.
“We have several amateur gardeners, or at least hobby gardeners and an agriculture teacher from Pierce College. That’s a community college in the western San Fernando Valley that offers a number of courses related to agronomy. I’ll have to review my notes, but I think I’ve seen some more professional growers show up on our lists.” Jane was a gift. Well into her seventies and as efficient as anyone I knew.
“Wow. Thanks, both of you. So what do you think about San Luis Obispo?” I wasn’t familiar with SLO at all except that I knew the university was there.
Lydia spoke up then. “How far is SLO away from here? Will we have the same health concerns there as here?”
“I don’t think it will take us more than four or five hours to get from here to there after we get out of the congestion of all the stalled cars on the freeways. We may want to send out some scouts to find the best way to drive there if we decide on relocating to there. I’m getting concerned too about the health problem with so many decomposing bodies around. San Luis Obispo and the university aren’t small isolated places. There are going to be a lot of bodies around.” Kevin had considered going to school at SLO and had some knowledge of the university at least.
I’d heard of the university but everything else was new information. I knew it was relatively easy to get to from Orange County. At least, it had been before the sickness. I also knew it wasn’t too far from the coast which was a plus weather-wise.
“Are there any other places they’ve looked at?” I thought it best to have more than one place to consider.
Anna was on top of that question, too. “According to Todd, there may be other places, but there are more drawbacks for them than for SLO. For instance, we could go up further along the coastal valley, but they’re going to be a lot like SLO except further away, and very few have a university that was known for agriculture. We could try the San Joaquin Valley, but the same thing holds true. A lot of the San Joaquin Valley may revert to wetlands since we may not have the population to keep the dikes and canals in good repair for quite some time.”
“Ok, you mentioned that there is a group of survivors in SLO who seem willing to take us in, right?”
“According to Todd, they were very enthusiastic about the possibility of our settling there. They indicated that most, and probably all, of them wanted to join us wherever we end up going, but they would like us to come there.” Anna sounded like she was already convinced.
“Anyone else want to express an opinion?”
“I’d like to suggest that I take some of my people up there tomorrow and look around. I know this is going to be a downer comment, but we need to start thinking about security more. Of course there are going to be wild dog problems before too long, but there are also some very unstable people out there. We’ve been hearing stories now from several of the groups around the country about some pretty unsavory types showing up and making threats and doing some bad things. So far they’ve handled things but only because there are more good guys than bad guys. Also, there is a state legislator in Indianapolis who has declared himself the governor since he’s apparently the highest ranking elected official in Indiana. I don’t know how much traction he’ll have, but we may encounter who knows what going forward.” Thank goodness Marco was one of he good guys. I will never forget thinking of him as Rifleman.
“I think that’s a good idea. Can you be up and back in one day? I know that’s cutting it close, but we don’t have much time. I don’t want to have an outbreak of something because of decomposition.” I tried to make it as soft as I could, but it was still tantamount to being an order.
“Certainly, barring any unforeseen encounters.”
“Ok, can you ask Todd to let the other groups know our plans, Anna?”
“Sure.” I liked Anna’s brevity.
“That brings us to motor homes. Anyone have any thoughts on that? Keep in mind that I would like to pull out of here day after tomorrow, leaving our searchlight crews, our siren drivers, our ice cream trucks, and armed guards for each light. That’s at least seven and maybe more per search light crew. So far we have five searchlights so we’re talking about thirty-five people, maybe more. Am I right about the number of searchlight groups? Marco do we have enough guards for the searchlight crews and for the main body of survivors during and after the retreat?” I could almost hear the clock ticking and every time I took a breath, I could almost smell the stench growing. I knew that wasn’t true, but I was getting nervous.
“We can get enough guards on duty for the next week or so to take care of security wherever we need it. Besides the marines, we also have several recently retired and former military personnel to draw from. We have pretty good numbers of men and women with experience. If they didn’t want to help, they didn’t have to tell Jane about their past military training. I think we’re good for a week or so, as long as the smells don’t overtake us.” Marco had evidently already been planning everything out in pretty fine detail.
“Ok, Kevin, will you work with Ed to make sure we have all the sirens, ice cream trucks, and light crews set up for the next several days, maybe a week or so? Will they be safe from diseases?” I didn’t want to leave all these people behind, but I couldn’t see a way around it. I wasn’t sure they wouldn’t stay behind and continue looking for survivors no matter what I thought.
Kevin was ready with an answer. “We’ve got it covered. We’re c
oordinated with the other groups already. They’re taking care of San Bernardino and east along the 10 and the 60 as well as the high and low desert cities and we’re covering Riverside, Corona, Eastvale, and Lake Elsinore. San Diego is going as far north as Temecula, Hemet, Murrieta, and Perris. Beginning tonight we have the five searchlights you saw with sirened vehicles for south county, but we also have five more for our part of Riverside County. The searchlight teams seem to want to stay as long as they are finding people. I’m thinking that by taking precautions we can keep everyone safe, health-wise. If the decomposition smell becomes too great they may have to pull out, but they know that and will take it as long as they can. We don’t know how bad it can get since no one has ever been through something like this.”
“Wow! That’s good to know. Thanks! We also will need a lot of motor homes. Lydia, would you work on that? I’m going to guess that we’ll need one for every adult and a bigger one for any adults caring for children. I also suspect that a motor home will be easier for most people to drive than a fifth wheel, but I’ve never driven either one. We might need to plan for some driving instructions, nothing elaborate, just some tips from a real bus driver? Or a truck driver? We need to know how many motor homes we need, where to find them, who is gathering them, and where they’ll be parked until we take off. Jane can you work with Lydia on who is going to be assigned to drive and who will be on guard. If we have two people per motor home, we won’t be able to have one motor home per adult. I don’t know what to do about that, except maybe make more than one trip. We’ll find more motor homes here than we will in SLO, I suspect. One good problem is that we’ll need more in a couple of days than we need now, what with all the people coming in lately. I know your plate is full with the SLO scouting trip, Marco, but please give some thought to what we’ll look like when we start moving. Oh, and we’ll need a lot more power generators, at least for the short term, until we can get our own power working once the local power goes out. Did I go too fast?” I have a tendency to go too fast and too far when I’m on a roll.
The group laughed as I said that, but they didn’t seem bothered in the least.
“Another thing, Anna, you said the research group has already been looking for motor home dealerships, right? Would you make sure Lydia has that information? Thanks, and let’s ask Todd’s group to check around to see if there are any people who might want to switch groups. Not everyone will want to go to San Luis Obispo. Some of them might want to stay with the San Diego group.” We all talked a bit after that, but even though we got a lot done it really took less than half an hour.
As they were leaving, I noticed that Julie was standing with a boy about the same age. They were waiting to see if I needed anything so I sent the boy, whose name was Kyle, to see if Todd could give me a rundown on what was happening with the northern California groups as well as the other groups across the country. Julie went to ask Ms. M to meet me at the children’s play area in about half an hour. My destinations were nearby, and my meetings are always as brief as I can make them so I hoped I wouldn’t be inconveniencing anyone too much with my interruptions.
A few minutes later, Todd and Jeff both showed up. There were survivor groups forming all over the country as well as in other countries. Smaller groups were joining other small groups. Larger groups were growing and joining other groups and so on. The one thing we all had in common was a need to connect with other survivors and other groups. In a world where every authority figure was gone, where every cultural institution was gone, we all needed to connect with each other to discuss next steps and to try new things, to invent new ways of solving problems. In a world where all of life’s necessities were abundant and free, what we needed were ideas, and reassurance, and answers. Todd had recorded our meeting that morning and played it for the other groups. Somehow I was no longer Bobby Caldwell, scared, introverted, second year fifth grade teacher earning spare cash dog sitting and tutoring after school. I was now, Robert Caldwell, leader, permission giver, answer finder, idea maker, encourager, hope provider….for the next six months.
I thanked Todd and Jeff, and, after sending Julie and Kyle back to Anna with a request that they check in at the oval office, we all left and went our own ways. I went straight to the kid’s group where I saw Charlie, Jerry, Chad, and Chanelle doing helpful things.
“Hello Mr. Caldwell”, Ms. M greeted me soon after I entered the large room.
“Ah, Ms. M. Did you get my message? I wanted to hear how things are going with the kids. Have they eaten dinner yet?”
“Oh, yes. The kids get to eat first. The cooks are doing a great job taking care of all of us. They’ve set up a food court over at the senior center, but they’re bringing the kids’ meals here. How about you, have you eaten? We have lots of fruit and snacks.”
“No. I’d forgotten all about dinner until I saw the kids. I’ll get something a little later. It looks like you have more kids than even this afternoon. There are more adults in here too. You’ve been recruiting?” The room was much better organized than earlier. Ms. M was already making a difference.
“Yeah. We have another teacher who joined us and a couple of teachers’ aides so now there are five of us adults. We’re up to twenty-three children now, not counting the middle school kids who report to the communications center. Some of the adults you see are the new potential guardians for some of the children. We put out the word that children needed guardians and immediately there were volunteers for every single child.”
“Really. I don’t think I said it, but I was hoping to keep Charlie and Jerry with me. Am I too late?” I felt really guilty then when I realized that I had been remiss in keeping an eye out for the boys.
“Oh, don’t worry about that. We know you’re busy, and I think everyone assumed you were looking after them anyway. But I’m glad to hear it sort of officially. Little Geraldine Charlotte, or Dinah as we’ve taken to calling her will be in the care of Kevin. He’s also asked for Chad. Anna has asked if she can be Chanelle’s guardian and I said I’d check with you. Anna’s only eighteen. What do you think?”
I hoped Ms. M wasn’t planning to ask me about every placement, but she really was only concerned about Anna’s age.
“ I don’t see a problem with her age if she’s willing to take on the extra responsibility. Are we planning to keep the day care arrangements for working parents going once we get to our retreat? I think that will make it a lot easier for people to take on guardian responsibilities.” I certainly hoped that was the case.
“Yes, since everyone will be very busy and we need to set up a school as soon as possible anyway. I was expecting that we’d have child care from the nursery on up even after we get to wherever we’re going.” Ms. M was a great find for this type of thing.
“That’s sounds good to me”, I responded. “I’d like for you to work with the teachers from all the groups joining us to set up classes for all the kids all the way up through high school. I think we’ll have to give some thought to changing the curriculum just a tad, though. You should check with Jane to see how many kids there are in the LA County groups as well as the others that are joining us. Based on raw numbers I suspect we may already have found over a hundred kids, all in all.”
“Oh my goodness! That’s very exciting!” she said with pronounced understatement and brevity. I was coming to love brevity.
“Please save a place on your staff for me for when my current gig is up.” That got a pair of raised eyebrows, but she didn’t respond verbally.
The last three days had been wrenching and I was coming to the end of my rope even though it was only 9 PM. Everyone was busy and I decided to visit with Jerry and Charlie.
“How’s it going guys?”
“We’re ok. Can we go out with the ice cream truck tomorrow? It’s getting kind of boring here in the kids’ room all day. Ms. M’s nice and all, but it’s not like school.” By now Chad and Chanelle had shown up too. Chad was a little younger than Charlie and Chanelle was
a couple months older than Jerry, but the four of them had formed a little gang of sorts. “Chad’s going out with Mr. Turner on a siren run, and Chanelle will be with Miss Anna helping run the computer room.”
“I don’t see why not. Why did you decide on the ice cream truck and not the siren run?”
Jerry usually spoke first, but this time Charlie piped in ahead of him. “Chad’s going to live with Mr. Turner when we retreat and he drives a siren car so that’s why he’s going in a siren, but it’s loud. The ice cream truck is better cause it doesn’t hurt your ears, and they have ice cream. All the siren cars have is sandwiches.”
“Sure, you can go with one of the ice cream trucks, but only if they have room and don’t mind. I was going to my house again tomorrow morning after breakfast to take a shower and get a few things before we go to the retreat. Do you want to come with me, and then we can go to your house if you like? You can get some of your things to take with you, too. I thought you might want to have a funeral for your parents.” I don’t know what I was expecting, but I wasn’t expecting them to grab me in a waist high bear hug. I guess I hadn’t really considered that children need to grieve and have closure in their tragedies just like adults do. I also realized that they might be taking their cue on how to respond to their grief from me, and I’ve been putting mine on the back burner. We held each other and cried together for several moments.
“I know this has been very hard. You’ve been very brave, but now you don’t need to worry about that. We all miss our families. We can cry together and miss them together. I’m so sorry you have to go through this.” They just nodded and each held one of my hands.
“Ms. M, I’m going to sleep in my office tonight. I’d like to take the boys with me to spend the night there. We’re going to hold a funeral tomorrow for their parents. I think they’ll be with me most of the day. Will that be ok? I don’t want to disrupt your routine here in the children’s room.”
Pandemic Reboot: Survivors Page 9
