by Selina Rosen
***
Billy had made two extra chairs for the table and Evelyn was finally able to eat with us so meals were a tight fit what with six of us at a table I’d built for four people, but we made do. Lucy was quiet. Evelyn hadn’t said much and I didn’t know if it was because she was still sick or if she was just quiet by nature. I should have been so lucky, but I’ll talk about that later.
Cherry… well between that girl and Billy and Jimmy just talking about this music group or that one and other crap I couldn’t care less about it would have been hard for Lucy and I to talk at the table anyway.
I went out to do the milking and take care of the stock and Lucy went with me. It turned out she actually liked animals, really enjoyed working with them, and wanted to learn everything about them. That morning though she was just withdrawn, which I didn’t get because I figured we had started the day pretty good. She didn’t really talk to me till she was getting hay to put in the feeders and let out a scream shrill enough that my otherwise-immune-to-yelling animals actually jumped.
I’d been cleaning the chicken pen and came running out to see what was wrong.
“Snake!” she shrieked pointing. “Snake!”
And let me tell you right now, that God-awful high-pitched screech that some women make when they get scared, I have never found that the least bit attractive.
I looked and saw the black, red and yellow tail disappearing into the pile of hay. “It’s just Fred,” I explained. “He’s a king snake. He’s not poisonous.”
“What the hell?!”
“He eats mice and bugs,” I explained. “The wire mesh on the chicken pen is too small for him to get in and steal eggs and he steers clear of the goats. He got into the river once and tried to get a fish but I beat him good and he’s stayed clear ever since.”
“Couldn’t you have a cat?”
“You have to feed a cat and they shit all over and there’s the fur and they don’t eat bugs…”
“Why can’t you have something just for fun? Why don’t you have a dog? I mean this is a farm don’t all farms have a dog?”
“Dogs eat a lot and they shit all over and they don’t produce anything.” Now the truth was that I loved dogs. The last dog I’d had I loved like one of my sons when he died of old age just three weeks after Cindy. I cried like a baby for three hours straight. I just never wanted to go through that again so… “They need food” was as good a reason not to have one as any.
“So you can’t do or have anything just for fun. Everything has to have a purpose!?”
I have you, I thought, but was smart enough not to say it. I knew she was just upset about something and then getting the shit scared out of her by our nearly five-foot barn snake that wasn’t cute and furry like a cat was just a little much. I kept my cool remembering how she had defused me just a few days ago and that she was really good in bed. And let’s face it, what were the odds I’d find another good looking gay woman who would have anything to do with me any time soon?
“Why does everything have to serve more than one purpose? Is this your brave new world Kay? A world where practicality is everything and anything—everything that isn’t practical is just a frivolous nuisance?”
Now I guess I could have blown right back at her. Let’s face it, I’m a lot better at the crazy than she is, but even though I didn’t know why I knew that she was hurting.
“I’m sorry about the snake, Lucy. I should have told you he was out here, but he doesn’t bite and as you can see he’ll just run away from you.” I didn’t try to hug her because when I’m mad—even just upset—I don’t want to be touched. Like most people I figure everyone is just like me. “Listen, the weather has broken. It’s still colder than a witch’s tit outside but there is something that has to be done. I was going to do it myself but maybe you’d like to go with me just to get out of the house for awhile and… I promise it doesn’t serve any real purpose at all.”
Lucy seemed to start breathing then. “I’m sorry, Kay.” She’d taken to calling me that and I liked it so I didn’t tell her not to. “I don’t like snakes.”
“I don’t either, but I’ve gotten used to him.” Fact was I bought him. You never saw the pretty red black and yellow King snakes here, just the green and black spotted ones. There are at least two of them—a male and female in the barn. See, I hated snakes so much that when I found out that King snakes will kill poisonous snakes and eat them I got some. The pair had at least one batch of babies because I’d seen them out on the place. We called them all Fred. We don’t have any mice in the barn or greenhouse—or at least we don’t see any—and damn few bugs.
“Why don’t you wait for me in the greenhouse, put some distance between you and Fred. I’ll come get you in a minute and we’ll gear up and go out to the bird house.”
“Bird house?” she asked.
“You’ll see when we get there.”
We had on all our gear. It was still cold but not unbearable. I hitched the trailer to the four-wheeler we had left with its snow mobile kit on. Lucy rode behind me and we drove to the “birdhouse.”
It’s really the old barn and it’s not far from the old house. Neither of which are far from the new house but over a rise so that you can’t see either from the house. Both were the prototypes for what I have now and were built when I didn’t have buckets of cash at my disposal. That both structures made it through doomsday shows that the new house is really overkill, and that you didn’t need a bunch of money to get set up to survive, but it sure didn’t hurt any.
We drove up close to the “birdhouse” and got off the ATV, immediately sinking up to our knees in the three-and-a-half feet of snow. By the way, when I say we had a break in the weather that means it was a balmy ten degrees with a wind-chill of fifteen below on that day.
I grabbed a bag of feed and started towards the “birdhouse.” As we approached, I pointed to all the animal and bird tracks in the snow leading up to and at the doorway. We walked down the ramp to the barn floor. The opening—usually big enough for me to drive in on my four-wheeler—was barely big enough for us to crawl through because the snow had blown in to fill it up.
Inside there was a stir among the birds. They still spook when they first see me. They calm down after the initial start. After years getting fed here the raccoons, possums, and squirrels just got out of reach and watched eagerly as they waited for me to put out food. They never panic any more. To them I’m the candy man.
I put the feed sack down and removed the mask and goggles from my face. I didn’t know if it was just a comparison thing but it actually felt warm in there.
“This is the birdhouse,” I whispered as hundreds of birds swarmed overhead, finally lighting.
“It’s huge,” Lucy said as she stripped her face gear as well.
“It used to be the barn. It’s the same size as the new one. Of course this one isn’t half full of hay and feed. When I built the new one I decided to make this wild-animal habitat. I figured they’d need some place to ride out the storm as well.” I started dumping the bag of corn into the old goat feeders. The last corn I’d put there was gone. “Wow, these guys have really started eating. There should have been some corn left,” I told Lucy. I checked the salt blocks and they were still mostly whole, so they’d last a good long time.
When I was digging down to build the old barn I hit a spring so I had dug it out and walled it up. It had only actually gone dry twice since I built the barn. It is a little half-circle trough at the back of the building. When I checked it there was no ice on it. That meant without heat the barn was staying above freezing which sort of amazed me. I showed Lucy. Of course now I think of it the ground water from the spring may have actually been helping to heat the building.
“Watch the birds; they’ll shit on you if they can. I suggest you don’t look up.”
She just nodded, her eyes focused on a coon who had jumped into a feed trough.
“They won’t attack and they’ve all had shots,”
I added.
That was true. A couple of years before I’d decided that we didn’t need rabies or other animal-born illnesses in the post-apocalyptic world, so I’d tranked all the critters and once a year I gave them rabies shots and booster shots for other conditions.
Now coons and squirrels will raid your bird feeders and coons and possums will eat birds and their eggs if they can, but because of the way the birdhouse is built and the way I hung the feeders they can’t. The bird’s roosts and houses are all hanging from the top of the dome some fifteen feet above the floor in the middle. The three mega-sized feeders hang on chains from that same ceiling and can only be reached by the ladder I keep there, so until the coons figure out how to use the ladder the birds are safe. I grabbed the feed and started back in and that’s when I saw them: three does and a buck, all watching me and like me about knee deep in the snow. I now noticed the deer tracks going in and out of the birdhouse. I had a bale of hay because I had been throwing it in there for wild rabbits and to keep there from being something besides shit on the floor. I had wondered why it was all gone. Now I knew. The buck was coming closer and the does were following and I realized that like Matt’s zebras, lamas and buffalo these must have come from the wildlife refuge out by the highway because they were obviously tame.
I went back inside and just put down the bag of bird food. I grabbed Lucy’s hand and pulled her over to stand by the door. “Be very still and very quiet. I think I just figured out what happened to all the corn.”
Lucy just nodded.
I went back outside, grabbed the bale of hay off the four wheeler, and started back into the barn and just like I figured, here came the deer. They followed me right inside. I heard Lucy let out a little gasp and saw the buck turn to look at her. Then he just followed me with the does to where I dropped the bale of hay on the floor and cut the twine.
“Are they yours?” Lucy asked at my shoulder in a whisper.
“They weren’t but I guess they are now. The snow must be deep enough that they could clear the fence. I’m going to have to start bringing more feed and hay out here.”
“Can you afford to do that? Will you have enough?” Lucy was already starting to think like a survivor.
“Yeah, I have plenty, and if I run out of hay I can get more from Matt.”
We watched the different animals scurrying around eating. The deer were lean so I decided, weather allowing, I’d bring more hay and some rice bran in a couple of days. I pulled a bottle of antibiotics I’d mixed out of my pocket and dumped it into the water. This many animals in this small a space I figured it was a good precaution to just dose them every once in awhile. I’d dumped wormer in it the last time I was there. I’d worm them again in a week just to make sure the deer got wormed.
Lucy walked up and took my ungloved hand in hers. “This is great.”
It is pretty, snow was mostly blocking the sun from coming through the windows in the dome, but some light was still getting through.
“Give me a second.” I put my gloves back on and popped my goggles and mask back into place. I got the snow shovel out of the trailer and started clearing the windows even though Billy and Jimmy had cleaned it twice and I’d cleaned it once already it still took me most of thirty minutes and by the time I got done I was freezing but it was worth it when I walked back inside and Lucy was just staring at the ceiling, a huge smile on her face.
“It’s beautiful. Is it what I think it is?”
“Yes, this is the barn that poverty built. Instead of two-foot thick aquarium glass and fibered reinforced cement the walls are just two regular concrete domes a foot apart and the windows are made of bottles with the necks pointed into the void.”
How’d I do the domes? Wet sand—lots and lots of wet sand. I built the side walls and then I just filled the whole thing with sand, domed the top, and poured six inches of concrete on top of it. When it dried I took the sand from inside and spread it a foot deep over the whole thing and covered the sand with another layer of concrete. Where I wanted windows—in all my structures—I made boxes. When the second layer of concrete dried I took out the boxes and put in the windows.
I’d made four “windows,” each four-foot across and each a different pattern using different colored bottles. One is a four-leaf clover, one a star, a yin and yang, and a double helix.
The deer looked up at us each with a mouth full of hay and Lucy chuckled. “I feel like Snow White.” That was a picture… Lucy running around singing, little animals dressing her waiting for all the little men to come home… But of course they’d all died in the apocalypse. “It’s like they’re saying thanks.”
“Well sure they are. Come on we better get back to the house.”
Lucy seemed reluctant to go but geared up and followed me anyway.
The ride back to the house was easier because we had just been out and of course using the same tracks we used before we were making a sort of road in the snow.
By the time we got back to the house we were both freezing our asses off and nearly raced each other to get to the fire to start stripping gear.
“How’s the birdhouse?” Jimmy asked before I had even gotten my coveralls half way down. Jimmy loved the birdhouse and converting the old barn into wild animal habitat had been the one project that we’d done that he’d been passionate about.
“Fine. We have deer now—three does and a buck. Tame, too. Followed me in the building to eat. They’ve been there for awhile, so I imagine the four wheeler scares them and they run off,” I told him.
“That’s way cool. How are the coons?”
“Counted five so they’re all still with us,” I said. “Jimmy has them all named,” I told Lucy.
Jimmy would have made a great field biologist, and that’s probably what he would have eventually become after he grew up if the world hadn’t mostly blown up and the need for such things with it.
I went back to the bedroom to finish stripping because all my underclothes were sweaty. Lucy followed me in and then mostly just stood there and watched me strip, which made me feel really uncomfortable actually because well as I’ve said before she has a really great body and me… not so much. “Ah Lucy, do you mind?”
“Oh Christ,” she sighed, disgusted like. But she turned her head away. See we’d already had this argument at least once. “We do it all the time, I’ve seen you naked dozens of times.” Alright so we’re still having this argument.
I put on a robe. “Alright,” I said. She turned back around and just sort of made this face which was a cross between a smile and a thought, the thought being I was sure at the time, What the hell is my fine ass doing with you, oh it’s the whole end of the world and you being the last dyke around thing. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“The stupid thing is that I like your body, dumb ass.”
I just shrugged. “I’m going to get a shower.”
Which I did and when I came back to our room to get dressed Lucy was just laying across our bed still half dressed, just staring at the ceiling and looking close to tears. I sighed and then asked what I guess I should have made her tell me that morning. “So… What’s actually wrong?”
“Nothing.” She forced a quick smile that just looked like she had no acting skill at all, which I knew she did ’cause I’d seen her use it already.
“Fuck that, Lucy. Like you said, who else are you going to talk to? Now what the fuck’s wrong? If it’s something I did then I need to know or I’ll most likely do it again, probably twice. Of course I’ll probably do it again any way ’cause I’m a dumbass, but I’d at least try not to… for awhile.”
Have I mentioned I’m really too honest for relationships with… well anyone?
“You didn’t do anything,” she said and then she sat up on the edge of the bed.
“I’m fine just tired.” And then her eyes started to fill with tears.
I walked up to stand in front of her and looked down at her. “Listen… I know I’m not the most lyrical speake
r and I just sort of bumble through the whole comforting thing not really knowing how to do it, but I really care about you, Lucy, and I can’t stand to see you so unhappy.”
“I’m not unhappy Kay, and I’m certainly not unhappy with you. It’s just…” she wrapped her arms around my neck and lay her head on my shoulder—yes the bed is that far off the floor—“Today is my mother’s birthday, or at least it would have been her birthday if she were alive.”
“Oh baby, I’m sorry,” I said, and patted her back. See what I mean? That’s about as good as I get with the comforting.
“She’s just dead, Kay. They’re all dead and I don’t know how. I could have talked to her one last time and I called the fucking network instead. I was really close to my mother. I loved her. I could tell her anything. Anything. And now I have no one to talk to.”
“You can talk to me, Lucy.”
“I can’t talk to you about you.”
“You could but I’d probably get pissed off.”
She laughed “I don’t want to say bad things about you. I’d love to be able to tell her about you, about us, all I’ve been through. I miss her.” She started to cry and I just held her and rocked her and let her say incoherent things against my shoulder till she was finished.
Chapter 12
Keep the Calendar Updated
***
I can’t express enough how important it is not to lose track of the hours and the days. Even if all you can do is take a crayon and make a mark on the wall, keep track of the passage of time. Knowing that a new season is coming up and maybe a break in the weather—whatever the weather might be. Knowing that a loved holiday, a birthday or anniversary, is coming up will give you the heart to go on. This is especially important to kids. Knowing when it’s day time or night time will be all-important if you’re stuck somewhere there is little or no light. You need to keep these simple rituals going, keep the clock or watch wound, mark the days off that calendar. If you have lights and can afford to use the energy, turn them on during what would be day light hours, and turn them off at night. This will help your internal clock keep on track.
