“Aye, aye, captain,” she saluted. Then she turned and walked down the hallway to the kitchen where moments later I heard the back door open and then close behind her.
I turned to Jason. “Well…guess it’s just you and me now. So what will it be, dry cereal or cocoa cream of wheat?”
“Wheat! Wheat!” he cried.
“And so it shall be done my little prince,” I bowed.
I scooped Jason up in my arms and carried him out to the kitchen. Once there, I put him in his high chair so that I could focus on making his morning feast.
Before I got started, I flipped on the small television that sat atop of the refrigerator.
The morning’s local news was on.
It was the typical Chicagoland smattering of local despair – a slain police officer on the south side, gang violence on the rise, more corruption discovered in a near-west suburb, the city considering a downtown casino to increase tax revenue, complaints about rising property taxes, and of course, possible severe storms on the way – the norm.
While waiting for the water to boil on the stove, I grabbed the remote and found the national news.
Jason was enthralled with a pair of plastic measuring cups I’d set on his highchair’s tray as entertainment while I cooked.
The trio of news anchors was jabbering away about the latest celebrity in drug rehab.
“Holy christ,” I muttered to myself. “The national news is just as sad as local.”
“Howy cwist,” Jason chimed in mimicry.
“Oops,” I cringed. “Jason, we don’t say bad words.
He dropped one of the measuring cups he held in his pudgy hand and pointed at me accusingly, “YOU say!”
I sighed, “I know Jay, but you can’t always say what Daddy says.”
He gave me a bewildered stare and then went back to clattering the measuring cups around his tray.
“Have to watch myself,” I murmured. “Mommy’s going to have my nuts if I’m not careful.”
Outside the studio, the lead anchor had now assumed the dignified role of interviewing a teen pop idol before he took the stage to perform his latest hit single. The two were surrounded by throngs of adoring fans who appeared mostly to be looking for their five free seconds of fame by way of holding up brightly-colored neon signs and screaming words of adoration into the camera.
I muted the television.
“What is the world coming to?”
Jason didn’t stop his puttering with the measuring cups to answer.
I heard hissing on the stove behind me. I spun around to find water burbling over the pot’s edges and onto the stovetop.
“Shit!” I cried, grabbing at the handle of the pot and quickly moving it over to one of the other burners to cool.
“SIT! SIT!” cried Jason.
“Ahhh,” I cringed, smacking my palm against my forehead. “When will I get this right!”
“Sorry, Jay. Don’t listen to Daddy.”
“No lis, no lis, no lis da-da,” he quibbled.
“Nobody else ever does anyway,” I mumbled to myself.
I mixed in some of the chocolate flavored wheat cereal and stirred the concoction. An occasional bubble blurped to the top of the quickly thickening brown sludge. The pot of goop reminded me of a miniature prehistoric tar pit.
I stood thinking as I stirred, mesmerized by the oozy swamp of chocolaty wheat cereal. It made me mad how Claire never took my reasoning seriously, but half of me couldn’t say I blamed her. I mean, she was definitely a “glass half full” kind of girl. And while I did my best to remain positive about things, I couldn’t help but see myself as more of a realist. And after me nagging her constantly about being prepared for snow storms, power outages, fires, tornados, car accidents, horrific pandemics, and just about every other sort of emergency or terrible event that could befall someone, and not one such situation ever actually coming to fruition, she probably thought she’d married the most neurotic man on earth. But at least she listened to my ramblings, nodded her head in agreement, said, “Yes honey,” to me at all the right times, and allowed me to create my emergency stockpile of supplies. So I had to admit, she gave me plenty of leeway. How could I complain? Plus, she was letting me live my dream; working as a freelance writer and stay-at-home dad – or vice versa depending upon the day. Either way the roles went, they still gave me more than enough time to ponder things that most people just didn’t have the time, patience or inclination to think about.
I took Jason’s cereal off the stove and spooned it into a small plastic bowl to cool.
As I waited, I glanced back up at the television. The screen was no longer focused on the news desk but rather on a female newscaster whose finely-sheened gams cast a white-hot glare strong enough to burn retinas. She sat on a sofa chair, long legs crossed, wearing red pumps that shoved her calves into tightly rounded form. I wondered if part of her job interview took place on a step machine. I had to admit, the producers knew what they were doing. Even the most impertinent or irrelevant tidbit news seemed somehow more captivating watching her.
I forced my eyes up from staring at the newscaster’s legs to the picture floating on the screen beside her head, carefully positioned so as not to interfere with her finely quaffed dew. The caption grabbed my attention.
Above a picture of an oversized hypodermic needle jammed into a muscled arm was the word: “PANDEMIC?”
“Ha!” I grabbed the remote and mashed the volume button. “I knew it!”
I had already heard rumblings by way of the internet and a few back-page newspaper articles about several outbreaks of a new flu strain in China. But as usual, most reports had been suppressed by the Chinese government or pushed aside by larger headlines such as “Dow Rockets to Record Close” or “Yankees Get Cy Young Winner” – important stuff like that.
Jason was laughing at his measuring cups as he wacked them around his tray. “Scootie-scoot, scootie-scoot,” he jabbered.
“Shhh,” I hissed, putting my hand up. “Quiet, Jay! I want to hear this.”
“…a new report out this week about a recent flu strain discovered in China,” the newscaster was saying. “The World Health Organization is requesting access to investigate reports of localized outbreaks in the Gansu province. Several villages in the region have reportedly been quarantined by the Chinese government, but WHO officials are meeting resistance from Chinese officials in their requests to enter these villages in order to better determine how the virus is transmitted, what, if any similarities it has to other known flu strains, and what the incubation times and mortality rates are for those who are infected.
Travelers to the area and China as a whole are being told to exercise caution until officials know more about the virus.”
A film clip had been inserted over the newscaster as she finished her report showing air travelers waiting at an airport wearing white surgical face masks and receiving squirts of hand sanitizer at a screening area. Then the picture cut back to the newscaster.
“Back to you Rob and Allison at the news desk,” she smiled serenely, as if she hadn’t a care in the world.
“Boy, Allison,” the omni-confident male newscaster quipped, “almost seems like every year now we’re seeing some new strain of flu or similar disease rearing its ugly head. Bird flu, swine flu, mad cow disease, SARS, ebola – doesn’t it seem like we’re always pushing the panic button before we actually know anything about these viruses?”
“Well, you just can’t be sure, Rob,” his female counterpart shook her head. “That’s why officials are so desperate to get to these villages in an effort to find out how dangerous this new strain really is.”
“Aw, come on Rob,” I hit the mute button. “When you’re puking your brains out or worse, you’ll see just how important that panic button really is.”
I turned back to Jason’s bowl of cereal. “Okay, I think this stuff should be cool enough by now.” I did a last stir of the portion I’d placed in Jay’s Winnie the Pooh bowl and
dug a short plastic spoon from the utensil drawer. “You ready for cereal, buddy?”
“Ceweal! Ceweal! I lub ceweal!” Jason chanted back, skittering the last remaining measuring cup to one side of his highchair tray and then off onto the floor.
I pulled out a chair from the kitchen table and sat down in front of him. “Okay, here we go,” I handed him the spoon and set the bowl in front of him. “Time for you to earn your keep. You get to try feeding yourself this morning.”
He gave me a huge grin and grasped the spoon awkwardly in his hand. I guided it down into the cereal and watched with interest as he rubbed it around in the sludgy muck for a while and finally dug out a heaping spoonful.
I then spent the next 15 minutes watching Jason cover the highchair and surrounding area – as well as himself – with gooey brown cereal, actually getting a few bites into his mouth occasionally. I spent the following 15 minutes cleaning it all up.
CHAPTER 3
FRIDAY, AUGUST 23rd
“Ugh, what a day,” Claire sighed, slumping against the kitchen counter and taking a long sip of red wine.
“Busy?” I asked.
“Super busy. We had another code brown today.”
“Yuk. You get any on you?”
“No, but the guy had pooped all down his leg and it leaked out onto the floor. It was that real runny, like diarrhea poop.”
“Eww,” I grimaced. “At least you didn’t have to clean it up.”
“Yeah, but I had to help. And I had to smell it! That was the worst part.”
“Well, that’s why you get paid the big bucks,” I grinned.
“As an occupational therapist! Not as part of the poop patrol.”
“Anyway, that gets me thinking. What do you want for dinner?”
“Ugh,” Claire moaned again. “I don’t know…whatever’s easy.”
“Take out?”
“Sure.”
“Italian?
“You read my mind.”
“I’ll take care of it. You go sit down and enjoy your wine. Jay is having a late-afternoon nap, so hopefully you’ll have a couple minutes reprieve.”
“Oh no, the dreaded late nap,” she said as she left the kitchen and headed for the living room. “They’re nice breaks, but then he’s up half the night.”
“Sorry,” I called after her. “But you know how it is when he gets cranky. And there’s hell to pay if you try to keep him awake.”
“I know, I know,” she said, sounding tired.
“Anything else exciting happen at work today?” I called, sticking my head under the pass-thru that divided kitchen from living room.
“Not really.” She paused, “Oh, I almost forgot. We got one of those flu cases they’ve been talking about on the news.”
“Claire!” I exhaled exasperatedly. “And you didn’t tell me that first?”
“Sorry. My mind is mush after today. But the guy is in the isolation unit, so it’s not like I have anything to do with him or am even anywhere near him. Plus, I knew it would send you into a tailspin the minute I mentioned it.”
“Uh yeah, this is important shit here. Is this the first reported case in Chicago?”
“Yeah…I think so. I don’t know. There may have been a couple down at Rush. I’m not sure. John, please, I’m tired.”
“See?” I said, shaking my head. “It’s that kind of nonchalant attitude that’s going to get us into a world of shit.”
“They’re dealing with it John,” Claire said, slumping down on the couch, one arm laid across its back, the other holding her glass of wine out and away from its side.
“Claire, I’m serious. If this thing gets any worse, I want you to take some time off.”
“John, it’s one case, and it’s going to be flu season soon, so I’m pretty sure it’s going to get worse. And you know we’re understaffed at the hospital. What am I supposed to do, run and hide every time a sick person comes in? Anyway, officials are saying they think last year’s flu shot will handle this strain, so we’ll probably be fine.”
It was a discussion we’d had more times than both of us would care to admit, but I couldn’t help it. I cared about her and her health, as well as anything she might bring back to the house with her. It was bad enough her job risked her own well being, but I just couldn’t look the other way when it threatened Jason’s.
I sifted through the basket of take out menus we’d collected over the years.
“Where is that stupid menu,” I mumbled.
“Now, now,” Claire soothed. She had gotten up from her reclined position on the couch and joined me in the kitchen, standing behind me. She rubbed my back with her wine-free hand. “Don’t take your frustration out on the poor menu. I know that you worry, and that’s a good thing; but sometimes I think you worry too much.”
“I’d rather worry too much than not enough,” I shoved the menu basket aside in a huff and turned around to face her.
I decided that I would leave it at that. It wouldn’t do any good to continue; at least not now. I knew when to fight my battles, and now was not the right time.
Claire moved closer, setting her wine down and wrapping her arms around my waist, pulling herself up to me. I stared straight ahead, trying not to make eye-contact, pretending to be more upset than I was. She tilted her head up at me and stood on her tip-toes to kiss me softly on the check.
“Don’t worry so much,” she whispered. “I’ll be careful.”
I frowned and continued to stare straight ahead.
“You know, we might still have a little time before Jay wakes up.” She kissed me again, this time on the lips. “You want to make the most of it?” Her lips moved down, brushing against my neck as her arms pulled me against her in a waist-to-waist embrace she knew I couldn’t resist.
My interest in menus and food quickly faded.
After Jason was born, we’d both realized that these short bursts of freedom were few and far between and that we should take advantage when they presented themselves. I had not however, forgotten Claire’s words regarding the man in the isolation unit at her hospital, and even as my libido took over, my worries remained.
For now though, dinner and the flu would both have to wait.
CHAPTER 4
TUESDAY, AUGUST 27th
“Alright little guy, inventory time…you ready? The underwear crew is going to take stock of our super-secret stash, okay?”
Jay looked up at me with a questioning frown. “Weady?” he said, giving the crotch of his cartoon-festooned diaper a tug.
August in Chicago meant it could either be ninety-five degrees with a comparable percent humidity, or a brisk, sixty-degrees with a nighttime low in the fifties. Today was the former rather than the latter, which meant that Jason and I were in our skivvies and spending the afternoon hours in our home’s finished basement. At eighty degrees, the basement was about five degrees cooler than the upstairs living space, and about fifteen degrees cooler than our upstairs attic, which while finished, always seemed too hot or too cold to utilize for anything more than storage.
I just couldn’t force myself to put the air conditioning on in a region where it typically felt like winter eight months out of the year. Plus, according to the forecast, this hot streak was only supposed to last a few days. So I tried to convince myself that by the time the air conditioning caught up, the temperature would be back to normal anyway.
I had gotten some work done upstairs in the morning cool, writing an article for a local newspaper on the exciting subject of area commuter routes. After that, Jason and I ate lunch. Jay had feasted on shredded ham, bits of cheddar cheese and sliced grapes. Meanwhile, I indulged in peanut butter on toast, barbeque chips, and leftover morning coffee.
Enjoying the pleasant sense of accomplishment both as careerist and father, I had given myself and Jay the afternoon off to complete an inventory and stock rotation of our emergency supplies. These were items I kept in the space beneath the basement stairs that I’d converted into a pan
try of sorts. It was the perfect time to do it since Claire wasn’t home and I wouldn’t have to listen to her give me a hard time about the fastidiousness of my stockpile.
Jay typically spent inventory day picking through boxes and cans, putting his disorganized spin upon my regimented order and building tiny towers of foodstuffs.
“Okay, Jay…” I said, pulling open the doors to the pantry and flipping on the small fluorescent tube light I had affixed to one wall, “…time to work.”
As soon as I said the words, I saw his shock of blonde hair shoot past me into the five-by-ten foot irregular-shaped space and over to the far corner that shrank to a Hobbit-sized hovel where the base of the stairs met with the floor.
“Hidey spot! Oooh, dark,” he said in all his sweet two-and-a-half-year-old innocence.
I still wasn’t sure which of us Jason looked like more. I guess neither really when it came to facial features. He had the blonde hair and striking blue eyes of his mother and the strong jaw-line of his father; but otherwise, he was his own person. I had to admit, he had his father’s physic though – tall, lengthy, but muscular. Maybe our second one – should there be a second – would have Claire’s taught, power-packed, gymnast’s physique.
I was sweating bullets, the relatively cool air of the basement being quickly swept aside by the heavy blanket of humidity that already hovered inside our home. I ran a backhand across my forehead and then wiped it dry on the side of my boxer-shorts.
“Whew it’s hot,” I murmured.
I sat down in front of the cabinet that I had positioned against one wall of the space. It stood about three feet high and had a total of three shelves about four feet across and a foot deep. I stared at it, reveling in the sense of security my little stockpile provided. I had to admit, it wasn’t much compared to some of the preppers I’d seen on television, but it was a heck of a lot more than I figured most people probably kept on hand.
I had always been good at planning and organizing. The saying, “Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst,” pretty much described me. It wasn’t that I wanted society to crumble or anything like that, but a part of me dreamed of the day when cell phones weren’t attached to every ear, people once again made eye-contact as they passed on the street rather than busily flicking their fingers texting pointless messages, and paper maps replaced vehicle GPS systems. Maybe it was just simpler times that I longed for.
The Systemic Series - Box Set Page 3
