by Ian Daniels
“Is that a convertible Polara?” Clint eyed the faded blue paint and few pieces of actual car that wasn’t covered by moving boxes, a painter’s drop cloth, or other random junk.
“Yep, a seventy with the meaner looking front end. I got it cheap from a guy that worked at the grain silos. Runs good for a stock big block, and the body’s straight. It makes a good dining room table and couch too... kind of like being at my own deserted drive in theater.”
“God you’re depressing sometimes, you know that?” Blake frowned and shook his head at me.
"I don’t mean to be rude, but how were you able to afford all this?" Danielle asked. "I mean, we did pretty well in the Army, but with the economy like it is... I'm sorry, I shouldn’t ask that," she backtracked.
"No its fine, my parents retired and cashed out before the first big fall off in the market happened. When they died, what they had left went to me. Really though, everything you see, the property, the house, the car, my truck... it was pretty much all just falling into a good deal with people desperate to sell. Heck even most all the guns are just cheap mil-surplus, except for the few nice ones I pieced together myself. But really, I had paid off any debt early on and it was still having a job from my company that kept me going. I mean officially, we never have closed, even now. Of course I haven’t heard from my boss in a good two months, and that was to ask if I had any 45-70 ammo I'd sell to him," I explained. "We were one of the lucky few companies that had some really long prepaid contracts out on projects, and him and I were the last ones left, so he really helped me out by keeping me on when I found this land to buy."
"You mean you still have a job?" Blake sounded astonished. In all fairness, it was a pretty rare thing these days.
"Well no, not really. We finished our last job about four months ago. The office and shop are on his land, so for the last little bit we mostly just shot baskets, worked out, drank beer and tinkered with shit. He was into riding sport quads and I had the gun stuff to play with, so it gave us somewhere to go and something to do. No new jobs are out there for us to bid on, but it's not like I got a pink slip either. We're just on hold I guess. With what I've got here, I should be able to make it through for a while until... well until the next step."
"You're pretty freaking lucky you know that?" Blake didn’t hide the jealousy well.
Yeah, luck played a part, but I worked my ass off, and had lost a lot to get what I now had. The slowed down pace at work had also given me plenty of time to spend in cold, wet and otherwise really shitty places working with Clint and the uniformed people of ten different agencies and organizations.
"What about your place in town?" Danielle asked, maybe trying to diffuse Blake's last comment.
"I pretty much cleared out of there."
"Why, I mean obviously this place is great, or it will be, but..." she trailed off, unsure of how to stop digging a hole of her own.
"The last city council meeting I was at the cops basically ran it, and they were standing with their arms crossed on both sides, and at the front and back of the gym. It just felt weird. They started talking about pooling community and residential resources, so I went to take a pee and never went back. I saw their mentality and it wasn’t worth the effort. They don’t have a clue and won't listen, but are dang sure and insist that they need to be listened to. They're a mess I didn’t want anything to do with so I moved out here," I flourished my hands at the unfinished interior of the basement.
We spent the next hour warming up and I organized a few of the boxes of my stuff into new or different piles, more just to have a menial task to do as my mind blanked out for a while.
Blake, Clint and Danielle were all quiet, content to sit around staring at the flames licking the glass door of the stove and not talking about our most recent run of bad luck. Finally after realizing I had just moved the same box back and forth three times in a row, I came over to sit down next to them.
“Well what next then?” Danielle asked me.
I guess since this was my house, it somehow fell to me to be the one that they asked questions of. I hoped I wasn't also expected to know all the answers, because right now, I had very few good things to say.
“We stay here tonight obviously, see what we can do about getting some intel, and then go from there,” Clint came to my rescue after thinking on the situation for a second. “If we can get back to the truck, or borrow yours, then we’ll head back home when we know the way is clear and safe.”
“Radios?” I asked him, trying to get my own mind caught up to where he already was with the overall situation.
I was very decisive in a fluid situation, but still looked to Clint for guidance in long term planning. It could have been simply life experience, but he had a knack to instantly see the different paths and avenues available and to discard those that did not have a favorable outcome just as quickly. I always admired his ability to look and plan ahead.
“That’s what I’m thinking. You have all your comm gear here?” he asked.
“It’s all here but nothing is set up; most of its still in boxes.”
If I had have been in a better place mentally during the move, I would have instantly set up the priority parts of my household. As it was, things had gotten thrown into boxes and stuffed in with little fanfare. The ability to gather news and communicate was vastly important, but the mood I had been in for the last little while was not one that wanted to be connected to anything or anyone, and so the boxes with my radio gear, scanner, amplifier and antenna, were still packed away somewhere.
“Okay let’s break it out and get listening. What do you have for power?”
“Well that part might get interesting,” I stalled.
While it wasn’t my long term plan, I had been relying on the unreliable line power for the most part as the construction was going along. I wasn't without a few temporary back up options though.
“There’s the generator and a couple cans of gas, or I have an inverter that I never got around to installing in the truck. It might be better to hook up the inverter inside and run the Ford to keep the battery charged until we can dig out the solar gear.”
“Well that will take longer,” Clint said, although he didn’t sound disappointed with my lack of options or poor organization. I had been in the middle of building and prematurely moving, it just wasn’t an ideal state of affairs.
“Should we try to get a hold of Kathy?” Danielle asked, bringing a voice of compassionate reasoning into this group of stereotypical males.
“Who?” Clint kidded her.
“Your wife!” she said quickly before realizing he had been joking.
“Oh her, yeah I left my shortwave on. Who knows if she’ll be listening for a call from us though.”
“We should maybe be… selective… in what we tell her,” I reminded him.
“In case other people are listening, like the guy that sniped at us?” Blake asked me.
“Well that, and the part where I don’t really think we should worry your mother unnecessarily now that you’re finally home again.” I said tapping into some of that compassion Danielle was trying to provide. “Hey Mom, I’m home from war, we got in a car wreck and a gun fight, and then had to hike a couple miles in the freezing cold,” I mimicked his voice.
Clint and Danielle both smiled at his frowning face until he gave in and finally laughed with us. The levity of our moods right now strangely belied the extreme danger we were all still in. It was the beginning of a characteristic I would soon come to embrace and dispense over the next few years to come.
Clint and I got the radio stuff out from the five different boxes it was scattered in, and he started working on setting it all up while Blake and Danielle worked on getting us some food started on the top of the wood stove. Instead of focusing on one single task, I was really acting more as an errand boy in finding coaxial wire and silverware and a crock pot and electrical tape... but finally between the four of us, we were able to get the radios up and runni
ng and also get a decent little warm meal in our bellies.
“So really, what is the next step here? Do we try to call the sheriff over the radio or do we have to go into town to let them know that there are people shooting at trucks on the back roads?” Danielle asked after dinner.
“They know,” I answered, again probably before I had thought it through.
“What?” she turned her head in my direction.
“You saw the people at the train station and heard about the riots in the town,” Clint stepped in. “The cops are overwhelmed and there are a lot of desperate people out there. There’s also some pretty bad and desperate people who know there is no police presence right now, and they are doing whatever they think they have to do, or worse, whatever they want to do. I honestly think whoever attacked us today wasn’t one of those bad people, just a desperate one,” he concluded.
“Why do you say that?” she asked.
“Because they could have easily killed us all,” I summarized for her. “No shots through the windows at us, just skipping some rounds off the hood. They bolted or hunkered down when we fought back. They had the advantage, if they wanted to kill us, they could have.”
“They should have,” Blake said darkly, surprising us all. “Desperate or not, if I find the guys who shot at my wife, my family, I’ll smile killing ‘em.”
I had a hard time disagreeing with his anger. Sympathy and forgiveness were not my strong suits either.
“You can’t blame someone for trying to feed their kids or keep their grandparents warm,” Danielle tried to reason away the murder in his eyes.
“Maybe some people are like that, but just remember,” Clint continued to instruct us all, this time playing to Blake’s side of the issue. “One way or another, no one wakes up in the morning one day and just decides to become an armed robber. It's a gradual process that requires some bad traumas and a good deal of desensitizing. Mercy is divine, but don’t underestimate a desperate person. You get face to face with someone you don’t know better than a brother; you don’t turn your back to them.”
“It must have been your mom that told the bedtime stories when you were little,” I told Blake, “because I’m guessing in his stories, the Big Bad Wolf wins and you would’ve never slept,” I laughed at my own joke.
“Yeah no shit, when did you get so cynical?” Blake laughed at his dad’s expense.
“Must be hanging out with the wrong crowd,” he jerked his thumb in my direction.
“I guess I just have a hard time accepting it’s gotten so bad, even here,” Danielle brought us back down a notch.
“Its like I said the other night, we've been in the process of collapsing now for a few years. As the train went downhill, it picked up speed. The real collapse is when the general public realizes that the game is up and they've been had. I think that’s what we’re seeing now with these riots starting up,” I prophesized sadly.
We sat and talked for a few more minutes before everyone found their way to bed. Or couch, or back seat of an old Dodge convertible, or wherever my guests had decided to sleep for the night. As exhausted as I was, I wasn’t really that tired, and decided to go outside with a small glass of scotch to keep me company and maybe help me to relax a little.
I made it about three steps from the back door when I heard it open again and Blake slipped out to follow behind me.
“Can’t sleep?” he asked in a hushed tone.
“Not yet. Thought I’d see what the weather was doing, and thought this might help too,” I swished the smooth amber liquid in my glass.
“Is it weird having people here at the house?” he asked me seriously.
“No. Well yes, but it’s a good weird. I wasn’t just building it for me you know.”
“Yeah, how ya doing with all that?”
“It’s fine. Nice having you guys here to help keep my mind off of it,” I shrugged.
“I thought you liked being alone?”
“I do. I just like being alone when other people are around,” I laughed at myself again.
“You’re still going to stay with us at Mom and Dad’s though aren’t you?” Blake asked.
“Oh I’ll spend a few nights there, but I like it here. You get a good fire going and it heats up nice and warm. Plus it's peaceful; I can just relax and be alone with my thoughts.”
“Are those good things to be alone with when they’re so dark all the time these days?” he asked the stinging and honest question.
“Hey I’m not gonna off myself or anything like that,” I said, offering him a sip out of my glass. “I know I’m moody and pissy, but you know me, on my own is how I work stuff out.”
“Yeah I know, it still sucks to see you unhappy though,” Blake responded.
“I’ll be fine. It’s not like I’m going to lock myself in here and hide away from the world. I’m good to go.”
“Good, ‘cause I want to know you’ve still got my back if this shit gets worse before it gets better,” he said coolly.
“Those are about the only two things I can guarantee will happen.”
Chapter 9
“You have a cup holder in your shower,” Danielle informed me as she closed the door to the second story and came down the stairs, still drying her hair with a bath towel.
“I like to drink beer in the shower… it’s the nicest one I could find. You think I should have gone for a tiled inset one to match the rest of the backsplash don’t you? I knew I should have sprung for the extra!” I played up the dejection.
“Boys are weird,” she proclaimed and went over to stand by the fire.
"So what's on the agenda?" Blake came around the corner with a plastic spoon sticking out from the cup of oatmeal he was eating.
After finally falling asleep, I had woken up after all the others and was still nursing my first cup of coffee of the day.
"Anything on the net?" I asked Clint, who was jotting notes on a clipboard at the makeshift radio desk he had set up.
"Nothing for us, some bad local stuff, weather from Canada, still trying to jump between channels," he yawned and went back to listening to the ear piece.
An hour later we were no further along than before and everyone was starting to get restless.
“What else can we do to get news and information besides the radios?” Danielle prompted.
“I guess we should look at this from a different angle.” Clint sighed.
“Boots on the ground?” I perked up, happy with the idea of getting back out into the woods instead of sitting around my unfinished house, plugging in wires. “It won’t give us much, but I can hit the roads and see what the locals are doing. We’ll get an idea of our immediate security if nothing else.”
“Yep, I didn’t really want to suggest it, but besides getting the other radios hooked up, it looks like that’s the best course of action right now. Probably don’t need to go too far out or for too long, just a half a day doing a good circle of the road traffic within five miles or so of here,” he advised.
“Great, you three should be all set up by the time I get back.”
Apparently I was getting a head of myself as both Blake and Danielle immediately protested the idea. It happened quickly enough that a question of their protests’ motivation started creeping into my head.
“There’s no reason for you to go out on your own and us to all stay here,” Danielle attempted to say in a gentle way. It was too late and I wasn’t buying it.
“Yeah man, this is your place... you know where stuff is at,” Blake backed her up.
Yeah, I knew where stuff was at.
“I also know the area around here better than even Clint, but that’s not the point is it, so let's have it out. Do you two not want to stay here where you can be of some use, or is it that you don’t know if you can trust me without a babysitter?”
“It’s not like that. There’s just no reason someone shouldn’t come with you,” Danielle again tried to explain.
There absolutely was n
o reason we shouldn’t split up into two pairs, but they missed the mark in presentation if they were going to try to keep their concerns about me hidden.
“Look guys, I get it. But you also better know right damn now that even if you don’t believe I can handle all this on top of everything else, you had better not treat me like a ten year old. You want me pissed off, depressed and unstable, then you keep me bored and sitting around with nothing to do,” I had their attention now and was going to take the opportunity to lay it out there before they kept up anymore of this bullshit.
Then turning to look at Blake directly, I laid into him, even if he didn’t know me as well as when we were kids, we had the same mentality. If anyone, I knew he could identify with where I was coming from the most.
“You’ve been gone a long time but you should still know that I’m at my best when I’m working on something that has me sweating and keeping my mind occupied. I don’t want any more of this kid gloves shit, alright? If you’ve got something for me then you put me to work and don’t second guess it or try to watch over me ‘cause I’ll leave all your asses in the dust. I’m a damn expert on getting stuff done when the walls are crumbling down, so right now, this is my world; you just try and keep up.”
“Sorry man, you know how it is,” he said in the frank way that we could talk to each other.
And that was it. There was no animosity or hurt feelings, just two people on the level that could be honest about themselves with the other one. Clint could see it and knew it, even if he wasn’t right along with us, but I was sure Danielle would take some more time in coming around, and I understood that too.
“So who do you want to help you get set up?” I asked Clint, getting us back on track.
“I’ll keep Danielle here with me. You take Blake out and get him broken back in to our way of things,” Clint smiled, taking his own turn at stirring a hornet's nest.
“What the hell's that supposed to mean?” Blake asked incredulously.
“It means you’ve got a ton of good experience with exactly what we don’t have, so you’re going to have to relearn, or at least remember and adjust,” I tried saying.
