THE COLLAPSE: Swantown Road

by Frank Kaminski

  Stephen was stunned, and said, “What in the hell kind of logic is that?”

  “Real logic!” Fish said. “I’m serious!”

  “What’s sad, is that you really are serious!” Stephen cried out. He shook his head and then pointed out the door toward the truck and added, “That giant beast out there probably isn’t even diesel, is it?”

  “No, you’re right, it’s gas. Unleaded.” Fish replied, sheepishly.

  Tarra laughed loudly and roared, “That thing is gonna get like ten miles to the gallon, jackass!”

  “Yeah, but I pretty much only do island-driving.” Fish said, as if ‘island-driving’ somehow magically bestowed more miles to the gallon upon a vehicle.

  Stephen noticed that Tarra’s eyes suddenly lit up out of nowhere. She reached a hand out to Fish and ordered, “Give me the keys.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I said so!” Tarra demanded. Fish was dumbfounded and didn’t know what else to say, so he dug into his pocket and threw her the key, still dealership tagged and solitary.

  Tarra eagerly looked at Stephen and said, “Let’s go.”

  “What?” Stephen asked, shocked.

  “That truck reminds me of Alaska and it’s raining, lets go puddle jumping! Fish and Connie can watch the Kays for a few.”

  “Bye guys!” Stephen shouted without hesitation as he leapt out the door and ran through the rain toward the giant truck. He hadn’t done anything spontaneous with his wife in a long time. It was turning him on!

  Tarra shouted as she ran behind him, “I’m driving, fool!”

  As the sound of his new ‘big knobby’ tires tearing up the pea gravel driveway outside indicated that Tarra wasn’t joking around, Fish shrugged his shoulders at Connie and the Kays and said, “I guess we’re stuck here for awhile.”

  The Kays responded, of course, with a very loud, “Yay!”

  *****

  After Tarra and Stephen returned and everyone settled down, the Kays were put to bed and the adults were able to talk. Fish and Connie told Stephen and Tarra some interesting and disturbing things that had not been highlighted in the news lately. The Memphis Occupation and protests in nearly every city across the nation had smokescreened the fact that the Continuing Resolution had expired, and the military budget was frozen. Since they both worked in the supply department, they knew that all requistions for non-essential supplies had been cancelled. Only very few emergency items such as food and fuel would be approved. To make matters even worse, the frozen budget included military personnel compensation. There were rumors floating around the squadron that nobody was going to receive a paycheck on February 15th, and everyone was worried.

  Stephen’s heart went out to his fellow sailors for a moment, and then realized that his own retirement check was on the chopping block as well! He was optimistic, however, and figured that the government would have everything figured out before payday

  Stephen brought up a point, “So, all those soldiers guarding Memphis right now are probably not going to be paid on the 15th either? That’s not good.”

  “Yup. Probably not.” Fish shook his head. “I mean, that’s what everybody is saying. We aren’t going to be paid. They are also saying they wished YOU were back in the Personnel Office right now. Everyone is scared!”

  “I’d do whatever I could for them.” Stephen said, gallantly. Tarra looked at him as if he was Superman. But in reality, there would have been nothing he could have done for them at his own level.

  Connie added, “They shot down every supply request that I submitted this week. We’re running out of pretty much everything, and they won’t approve anything.”

  Tarra cocked her head at Fish and asked, “So, again, knowing all this, why in the hell did you buy that truck?”

  Stephen waved her question away and said, “Nah, nah. This has happened before. They threaten a payday shutdown and everyone gets upset, then suddenly, BOOM, Congress approves the budget and we all get paid on time, or shortly thereafter. Someone gets to play the hero. It’s just a political tool they use.”

  “I’m not so sure about this time, brother.” Fish said. “People sound pretty positive that we ain’t gonna get paid on the 15th. That’s why they wish you were there. You would know for sure.”

  “True, true. I could log into my systems and find out. Why doesn’t the guy that replaced me do that?” Stephen asked, angrily.

  “Because he’s not there. He went on emergency leave to St. Louis. I guess his mother and father lived in a not-so-good part of town and they had their house burned down during the protests there. Not just him, too. A bunch of people are on leave right now.” Fish said, and looked at his girl. Connie nodded her head in concurrence.

  Tarra shook her head and jokingly called out, “Things are going to shit all around the lower forty-eight! I should have stayed in Alaska!”

  “This will all pass. You guys are just paranoid.” Stephen teased.

  Fish shook his head and said, “Yo, check this out though. The commanding officer sent an email to the whole squadron saying that if any of us participate in the protests in Seattle or Tacoma, that we would be punished, big time. He said it was an executive offer, or something like that. I didn’t really read the whole thing.”

  “Of course you didn’t.” Tarra laughed.

  “Executive order, you mean?” Stephen corrected. “Executive orders come directly from the President of the United States, yo. They’re kind of serious, yo.” He said, mocking Fish.

  “Yeah, that.” Fish said, embarrassed, and Connie bursted out laughing at Stephen doing a perfect impression of her silly man. “Which kinda sucks because me and Connie totally wanted to go down to Seattle and check it out.”

  “With the baby? I don’t think so!” Tarra scolded.

  “No, by ourselves, silly woman!” Fish said. “The baby would stay with her neighbor, just like he is right now. Every time I give the lady twenty bucks she acts like I gave her a thousand!” Fish said.

  Tarra looked concerned, and turned to Connie and said, “As long as you trust her.”

  “We do. Her name is Elsa, she is an older lady and I am not so sure she’s even a citizen, so she wouldn’t do anything to draw attention to herself. She takes super good care of my baby boy, though. Gives him warm baths and stuff. Almost as if she might have done that for a living at some point in her life. If it wasn’t for Fish I probably would have never starting talking to her. He’s just naturally good with people. I’m so lucky to have him!” Connie replied, smiling up at the magnificent tattooed gentleman beside her.

  “Ugh, I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.” Tarra joked. But what Connie had said made Tarra feel a bit better. She had been worried about the baby for a moment.

  The four of them continued to talk for another hour or so before Fish and Connie left for the evening. The entire time they chatted, the movie Transformers played silently on the TV beside them against the wall. Had they been watching the news instead, they would have heard about another ‘executive offer’ that was just issued. No longer was the military the only persons banned from protesting. The President just expanded that order to cover the entire country; military or civilian. Publicly protesting the Occupation of Memphis was now officially against the law, and those that chose to continue would be arrested, effective Sunday morning at ten o’clock AM, Eastern Standard Time, February 10th.

  Chapter 12 – The Nation’s Paranoia Worsens

  The next morning, Tarra finished a long talk with her grandfather on her cell phone in the kitchen. She appeared very disturbed and frustrated. Stephen sensed something wasn’t right with her as he peformed his ritual morning bee-line to the Keurig coffee machine in the corner.

  “What’s wrong? You don’t look so good, babe.” He said.

  “First of all, I barely have a signal on my phone. It kept cutting in and out and I had to call him back twice because I actually lost the signal. In fact, I only have one bar at the moment, and we nor
mally have at least three or four. He was on his land line so I’m positive it was on our end. Second, he was desperate to tell me about another vision he had last night.” She told him.

  “What did he say?” Stephen asked, curiously.

  “He warned me that our family is going to be in great danger, in the very near future. Something to do with what’s going on in the rest of the country right now.”

  “What! He’s just being paranoid like everybody else. He’s probably been watching Fox News up there in Alaska. Got him all riled up. Probably just a bad dream.” Stephen laughed. But Tarra wasn’t laughing along with him. She was serious.

  Tarra looked him in the eyes and said, “He also said that you were part of the problem. Which is weird. The guy loves you to death, so I don’t know why he would say that. He mentioned something about you not being a warrior, and you needed to do something you’ve never done before, like risk-taking or not procrastinating, I couldn’t tell. The signal was fading and kept cutting out. His visions do have a tendency to come true, though. I don’t like this!”

  “Me?” Stephen shouted, as he dumped a healthy (unhealthy) load of refrigerated liquid Coffee Mate vanilla creamer into his fresh, steaming cup of morning joe. “I take good care of you guys, I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

  “I know you do, babe. Trust me, I know. Maybe he is just being paranoid like you said. There’s a lot of that going around right now.” Tarra said, as she dropped a tab of her own into the Keurig and closed the top to brew herself a cup. The Kays were watching the Saturday morning cartoons in the living room.

  Tarra added, as she waited for the coffee to brew, “Can we at least look into some preparations? Not like the crazies on TV, I’m talking about maybe stocking up on some extra foodstuffs and making sure we have enough firewood for heating and maybe even cooking, in case the power goes out for an extended period of time, etcetera, etcetera? Nothing big, okay?”

  “Yeah, no problem. If that makes you feel better. I will take my truck into town today and get some stuff.” Stephen replied. Firewood wasn’t going to be an issue. He had plenty of that, at least two cord were stored under the blue plastic tarp along his fence. His greasy neighbor Mickey took a few pieces from it without asking from time to time, but Stephen was aware of it and didn’t care. In his mind, a few pieces of wood wasn’t enough to afford a confrontation. Plus, ever since he installed baseboard heaters, they never used the woodstove or fireplace anyway unless it was a “fire night” and the kids wanted to. Firewood, fireplaces and woodstoves, Stephen opined, after buying his home with no other heat source installed in it at the time, were nothing more than a messy pain in the ass.

  “I hope you’re not just saying that.” Tarra began, “Have you looked on Facebook lately? It’s like a war zone on there. Everyone is bashing everyone else’s opinion on everything, people are fighting in comment sections of normal, mundane wall posts, and then there’s the endless posts and shares about that ‘government cleansing’ thing or whatever it is they call it, which is total bullshit. Some idiot came up with that to scare people and it went viral somehow. I went on there earlier this morning and logged right the hell off, it made me sick! People are sick! And the idiots forwarding and sharing this stuff are sick, too! They actually believe it!” Tarra declared.

  “I haven’t logged in for quite a while. Usually Fish keeps me abreast of all the cool stuff going on within social media circles.” Stephen said, then pointed toward the living room, where the Kays were still watching cartoons, “Once they’re old enough, they’ll probably be the ones updating me instead.” He said with a small laugh, attempting to lighten the conversation. It didn’t work. Nothing was going to calm Tarra down until he did what he said he was going to do.

  Stephen had plenty of camping gear, and it was all in excellent condition, just in case they had to tough it out somewhere other than home. But why? That would be a really bad day, if things came to that, and Stephen was sure it would never come to that. Not in America, the greatest country the world’s ever witnessed! Hell no! Why did Tarra put so much stock into her grandfather’s visions? He didn’t want to reveal to her, his true feelings about those visions, but this was getting ridiculous. He knew the old man smoked some type of ‘herbal concoction’ prior to having one of his ‘visions’. Most of them turned out to be hooey. Simple hallucinations. Now Stephen was going to have to spend extra money on the cusp of his retirement in order to satisfy his wife. It went against his better judgement. He thought it would be better to wait it out, see what happens. Exactly how fast could the world actually go to shit? One month? One week? Certainly not one day.

  “Daddy, the cartoons stopped, and there’s words on the TV that won’t go away.” One of the Kays stated from the living room, almost matter-of-factly. Stephen went to the living room to see what was wrong. There was a public service announcement on the screen. A message from the President of the United States.

  *****

  Fish walked out of the Oak Harbor Walmart confused. He had been sent by Connie to pick up some AA batteries, a four-pack of Avent size 2 nipples, and a gallon of milk. Walmart had the batteries and the nipples, but no milk. In fact, a good portion of the food section altogether was bare. I guess the whole two birds with one stone thing was a total fail. I’ll just have to go to Safeway for the milk. Fish decided that the Walmart in Oak Harbor was too small. The food section was even smaller. It wasn’t even close to what a normal Walmart in a bigger city consisted of. He hated the long lines in there, and on that Saturday the lines were even longer than he had ever observed since he moved to the island. Something just felt wrong about the place. It hung in the air, thick. Tension, anxiety, nervousness, or friction, he couldn’t put a finger on it. Weird morning. He thought that maybe it was all that stuff on the news lately, it’s got everybody on edge.

  Fish was relieved that Safeway had milk, but he had grabbed one of the last gallons in the reefer. What in the hell was going on? And why were there so many people in there, too? Fish tried to hurry, he didn’t want Connie to be suspicious of his actions since he was taking so long just to pick up a few things. He was old enough to know that women tended to think that way. He quickly texted her while he stood in line to pay for the milk that he had to make two stops, and that he would be there soon. If that line would ever move! How frustrating!

  Fish never received an acknowledgement to his text. Strange, because she always texted him back immediately. He got used to her instant replies. He assumed that she was busy with the baby, or maybe the text never made it, the cell phones had been acting screwy lately. He hoped that she wasn’t angry or suspicious of him.

  He drove as fast as he could with his behemoth F-150, although traffic was unusually heavy and he got stuck at every light. There’s nothing special going on this weekend here in Whidbey Island, where the hell are all these people going? Don’t they understand that I have important business to take care of, and it’s urgent? Get out of my way, yo!

  Once Fish arrived at Connie’s apartment complex, and parked his truck on the street nearly a block away (it was too big for the parking canopy), he checked his phone quickly for anything from Connie. Nothing. Oh well. Time to face the music! He thought. I wonder if this is what real married life is like? Kind of exciting, isn’t it? I think I like it!

  Fish opened the door to her apartment and walked inside. He almost tripped over two grubby old green duffel bags, packed full, that were laying near the door. He had never seen those before. For a brief second, Fish thought she had packed up all his things and stuck them there for him to take a hike with, but he didn’t have very much stowed away at her place, so it couldn’t have been his stuff. Those bags were full of someone else’s things. Something wasn’t right, and Fish’s spider-sense went into full detection mode.

  “Connie?” Fish called out. Nothing.

  “Hello?” Fish said, cautiously. He quickly scanned the small living room for a weapon, something, anything, in case t
here were prowlers still in her place. He didn’t see anything of combat value, so he decided that the cold gallon of milk that he was already holding would have to do. He proceeded to crouch and slowly take steps toward the bedroom. There were sounds in there, like a couple of people moving around. He called out again, ready to either run for his life or start pummeling people to death with the milk until the plastic failed and it burst open.

  “Connie, is that you?”

  “Yes, Fish it is me.” Connie said, but it didn’t sound like her normal happy self. Even so, Fish was relieved to hear her voice.

  Suddenly, he almost dropped the milk he was still holding as a young man in a white wife-beater and jockey shorts walked out from the bedroom, brushed past him, and then plopped down on the cheap couch by the TV and grabbed the remote. He didn’t even look at Fish until after he had turned on the TV.

  The man (overgrown kid) said to Fish in a condescending tone, “So, you must be the old guy that was helping out my wife while I was gone? I appreciate that, man. Really I do.” It didn’t sound genuine, whatsoever.

  Fish was dumbstruck. Was this turd her husband? Couldn’t be. Could it? Fish just stood there, cold milk container still sweating away in his fist, staring at the punk, with his slicked back, glistening black hair. He had a pathetic excuse for a mustache. Fish wanted to take the milk gallon and shove it up the fucker’s ass.

  “Fish? Don’t leave yet, I’ll be right back.” Connie said, as she emerged from the bedroom and sped past him straight to the bathroom. Her hair was tousled, and she was not wearing the same clothes that she had on when he had left.

  Oh my god, she just fucked him! Fish’s heart broke instantly when he realized what just happened. It hit him like a Mack truck doing eighty. Stunned, and not knowing what else to do at the moment, he slowly turned and sluggishly trudged into the kitchen to put the milk, which now felt like it weighed about a thousand pounds, into the refrigerator. He set the bag with the batteries and the nipples on the counter and gradually trudged back into the living room. He had a sorrowful expression etched upon his face, and as much as he wanted to hide the fact that it was there, that task was impossible. Nothing aches your heart more than walking in on your lover cheating on you. Nothing.