Smoking Skillet

by Ron Foster

  .

  Homecoming

  Travis saw Carl returning home late the next afternoon and he wasn’t alone. A large RV was following him closely and it pulled into the driveway behind him. Tina and Travis went over and welcomed Carl home as Wilma came out of their house and did the same.

  “Hey there folks! Sure is good to be back! Look here who I found Wilma, it’s our old friends Beth and Steve! Found them parked camping out on the old Delaney place down by the armory.” Carl said referring to a small abandoned farm house on the edge of town as a landmark.

  “This is my friend James Watkins, we just call him Slim.” Steve said introducing a traveling partner.

  “I found him one day hunting the wood line next to us but we had known each other before the grid got fried. He used to be the National Guard before they closed the armory over there.” Steve said as introductions and handshakes occurred all around.

  “Back in the day we used to go camping sometimes with Beth and Steve and spent a few summers at their fish camp in Florida.” Wilma said smiling nervously and explaining perhaps why Carl had brought them home with him.

  “I take it that there were no there was no peanuts to be had in Smileyville Carl.” Travis said solemnly wanting to hurry up and get to the meat of the matter of Carl’s apparently useless expedition and not particularly liking the idea of seeing three new strangers and friends or not mouths to feed appearing next-door to him all of the sudden.

  “Hold your horses, boy; I was going to get to that! Let a body do his homecoming in good order Travis, but yea, no peanuts to be had anywhere, you’re right about that. Come on into to the house everyone and we will talk some on that fiasco but I have another prospect that might be interesting. Lets give Wilma a chance to talk to these old friends we got visiting first though before I tell you what a mess that town was in Tina! We got some hard decisions for ourselves to make as a group and I was halfway considering asking the neighbor Miss Amos over but for now we’ll just talk amongst ourselves.” Carl said, not liking to be interrupted by Travis the very minute he got back or his evident disproval of the strangers.

  “I’m sorry, Carl, we’ve just been real anxious about your safety and thinking about what might have been going on in Smileyville! Travis and I were sort of hoping and praying that we might have been able to move over there!” Tina said apologetically.

  “No worries, darling’! I’ll start talking about it all here in a minute but that place is totally out as for us moving over to and we might as well get that fact out of the way now. Also Steve, Beth and James are going to be staying with me here a week or two. Come on the rest of the way inside and I’ll tell ya’ll all about it.”” Carl said.

  Wilma and Beth were trying to halfway jabber between themselves about what had gone on since they had last seen their old friend friends so Travis and Tina went ahead and wandered on in and took their seats at the dining room table with Steve waiting for everyone to get around to sitting down together.

  “So Steve, are you from Smileyville or did you just did you just end up there somehow after the grid went down? Travis asked eying his worn dirty cloths and haggard appearance.

  “No, I had me a little trailer over there that I called home but I moved out of that hell on earth trailer park to the woods for my own safety about three weeks ago. I was trying to get by living there when I met back up with Steve. There are just too dang many crazy folks living way too close together over there in that trailer park, if you know what I mean.” Steve said with a meaningful glance and an aimless worried look at the table as he tapped his fingers a bit nervously on the wood.

  “I can’t imagine what it would be like trying to live in a grid down trailer park these days! Must have been awful!” Tina said horrified at the thought and watching the man nodding his head in agreement it was a really bad place to find ones self stuck at in a grid down or otherwise situation.

  “Yea it’s been pretty rough on me and on everyone else. Down right scary as hell too you might say with all the hoodlums lurking about. I kind of figured that moving to the edge of town into the woods was about the best I could do until I finally decided where I was going to bug out and locate to with that little bit of gas I had left in my car! But that didn’t work out very well for me either. Seems that lots of people thought about maybe doing some hunting or camping out at the edge of town also and a bunch of gun-happy wanna-be survival hunters are as dangerous to be around as trailer trash thieves!” Steve said disgustedly thinking about how that it seemed to him at the moment there was a lot more city boys out wandering in that neck of woods than country folk that handled weapons a whole lot safer and retained a bit of manners during hunting season..

  “Ya’ll want some coffee? I’ll go put a pot on!” Wilma said, escorting her friends and husband to the table so they could get on with the group discussion.

  “Coffee would be great! Can I help you with it?” Tina asked starting to rise.

  “No, Honey, I got it keep your chair.” Wilma said heading to the back porch to heat some up on the propane grill that they were all very thankful to still have fuel for.

  “Travis, in regards to Smileyville I can tell you that it is pretty much like every other rundown little small town around here with most folks pretty much staying to themselves on their own or bunkered in with friends and relatives if they are still making it in anyway. There was no real government presence that you can note anywhere tried to do much of anything. Streets are pretty deserted. Seems that the city council and the police force sort of banded together at the beginning of the disaster and they tried to establish some sort of law and order over there. But it didn’t work but for a week or two.

  The owners of the two grocery stores over there allowed people to come in carrying flashlights and write down what they took and leave an IOU for the food to help the unprepared who had neither food nor cash to buy anything because all the banks were closed and ATM machines and credit card machines were not operational either.

  But it didn’t take long for general chaos and anarchy to take over when the food started running out. Seems that crooked mayor over there tried to keep a bunch of food for himself that had been supposedly gathered up to be distributed to the populace. That’s what folks say anyway. What’s even more interesting is the few cops they had on duty got into it with the Federal officials when they attached, appropriated or just plain stole all the peanuts that were left stored in the silos, which wasn’t that much anyway because the silos had just made a bunch of big deliveries last week to the processors. They said that papers were served that said all agriculture commercial facilities were federalized for some Emergency National Relief Services Act and that they were authorized to do as they liked city council objections or not. The way I hear it was, six big semi’s came in with a squad of soldiers and they just took the peanuts and for whatever reason the cops ended up getting shot when they objected! After that, you might call it the mob rule in the jail because whoever was an inmate in the county jail got released and folks started dying off just like around here including those formally in charge because of no food being available. This also caused some of the starving prisoners without families to move in with, or homes to go to once released to basically start committing suicide by attempting to break into someone’s house or committing other crimes in order to try to eat something. Folks don’t take kindly to break-ins’ as you know and most everybody is armed with something deadly in that little Southern community.” Carl said describing the bloody mayhem that had occurred.

  “I kind of figured that the National Guard would have come in there or the folks that used to go to that armory over there would have set themselves up there as a sort of town militia!” Travis said contemplating why it was none organized together.

  “Oh there are militias a plenty over there! Trouble is they are all different separate entities you might say and they’re not all under any one particular leader or belief system about law and order. It’s just who yo
u know and who is on your side that matters with regarding each others boundaries that determines outcomes when there are differences. Ain’t a whole lot of them militia type folks left around either, a lot of them decided they wanted to shoot at each other over some particular thing or another. Well I take that back, that is, unless you count the ones scraping by that were the more sensible types and just formed up themselves and their families around the big farms for protection and security. They know not to mess with the other remnants of militias that are just trying to get by just like themselves. Now the various groups will talk to each other without instant confrontation, maybe trade a little now and then and it isn’t like any Mad Max World but they are trigger happy and suspicious minded! The peace between most of them gun toting Rednecks is based on hunting rights and both sides know if you get caught poaching this xyz property or that one and a group of us have declared it our hunting area, then you are likely to get shot for trespassing! It’s kind of like warlike tribes of Indians feuding with each other over hunting or fishing boundaries all the while living within a mile or so of each other. One tribe will trade occasionally with another, be on good terms with another one that’s enemy to someone or another, but it doesn’t take much to send them all on the warpath at once. So you might call it an uneasy peace that you don’t want to be trying to travel through unawares. I’ll tell you this right now, you don’t want to be a stranger coming through there at night, trying to cross individual group’s borders, No sireee! For one thing you cant see their guards and they have a hard time figuring out your intentions are when they are blinded by your headlights that might need shooting out. Usually during the day its not so bad and the worst that will happen to you if you get stopped is being told to ‘Move on!’ at the point of a gun and keep it going on down the line away from a tribes control area or boundary. Or if you don’t handle the initial confrontation of being told by them that you are trespassing correctly, it isn’t hard to end up dead either if you make any bad moves! Seems that some folks have been watching in the past far too many Rambo movies or playing them violent video games to understand the finer nuances of being greeted by a bunch of shotgun wielding rednecks who are telling them to “get!” and cooperating without shots ending up being fired!” Steve said relating how he would try to just drive normal or slow if he spotted danger and then try to handle those touchy situations as best he could to escape a situation.

  “Oh I can just imagine! I guess I would be on a hair trigger also if I was guarding cows or farm access roads. Not a whole lot of folks have much experience meeting other hunters in the woods as it is I imagine. Lots of folks who go hunting never grew up being told angrily that you’ve strayed over on another man’s land and to leave and not comeback. See, in the South, that sort of thing goes on all the time and you usually just say ‘I’m sorry” and just move on. Wouldn’t be something I would want to be trying to learn again how to do these days with folks shooting out in the woods recklessly or for that matter at anything that moves most likely. So Carl you said that the government evoked the emergency powers acts and confiscated all the Peanuts! What fools they are to try to redistribute a community’s asset! A big distribution plant like that and all those large landholder farmers living over there to supply it could have probably fed four counties all on their own, well at least a little something anyway! The same thing probably has happened I bet with some of the big cattle operations and the government ended up with a pile of food located lord who knows where now that’s probably rotting while they figure out where to truck it to next. I am glad to hear some of the smaller landholders kept their cows for awhile I guess though.” Travis said thinking someway to get a steak now would be like approaching Ft. Knox...

  “Yeah, but I tell you what. If you are not kin to that cattle rancher or have your great granddaddy buried in their churches cemetery over there, you ain’t getting near any of them cows let alone even be in smelling distance of a steak cooking! Lots of folks on both sides have been shot over poaching and cattle rustling over the months that have gone by since the fall. But if you’re that hungry, you take risks, it’s kind of like a ‘what are you going to do if you don’t’ thing. It’s hard to leave a cow alone if you’re starving and it’s a couple well placed shots separating you. And with all the folks ganging up these days to try to get some food however they can, those folks that are guarding those few cows daily that are left are beyond suspicious of their own shadows right now!” Steve said indicating how jumpy and liable to shoot without hesitation everyone was.

  “Yea, I accidentally ran up on Steve while we were both out hunting in the same piece of woods for birds and squirrels unaware of each other. I was carrying a shotgun and he thought wrongly when I shot at a gray squirrel close to him, that I was shooting at him and it scared the hell out of us both! See I saw me one of those fat little tree rats way up by some mistletoe in the storm damaged branches of a white oak and popped that snag and that squirrel’s noggin with my 12 gauge. This caused all that brush and that squirrel and his guts to fall out of the tree and hit the ground with a pretty good crash in back of my partner here. I didn’t know that Steve nor anyone else was sitt6ng at the base of that very same tree facing out waiting to get a shot at a different squirrel about ten yards away with his pellet gun! “Slim said relating how they had managed to run into one another after all these years under some very scary circumstances.

  “Scared you? Scared the hell out of me worse! My single shot pellet gun against a 12-guage don’t sit too well with me! I didn’t know where you were at, what you wanted or who you were. But I thought you were someone right behind me when I heard all that brush that came crashing down and then another branch would fall or something and spook me some more. After that first shot I tried to make myself as small and low to the ground as I could! Hell, I didn’t know how many people there were out in them woods meaning me mischief and I just kept hearing all that brush and sticks falling down and cracking as I got a bearing on where it came from. I tell you what I thought I had a platoon of Viet Cong or something rushing my position there were so many little noises to flinch at! By the way, and note to self: It’s a bitch trying to get your pistol out of a hip holster while you are sitting on your butt at the base of a tree next to a briar patch!” Steve said chuckling and rocking around in his chair while reaching his hand down, rocking and trying to get his butt out of the way of the invisible stickers in a mimicry of the motions and contortions it had taken him to have finally unholstered his pistol to attempt to defend himself.

  “Well, Steve hollered out “Don’t shoot! Folks are over here!” and then he yelled out “Who are you?” and a couple other choice words and I hollered back at him “Sorry! Was anybody hurt?” as I was trying to hide myself behind a tree and do you know for the next five minutes, we both just sort of shouted back and forth at each other trying to determine how mad the other one was at the other and if it was safe yet to try to approach one another! Once we both mutually figured out we were nothing but two old country boys out hunting and the close shot was just a mistake we calmed down. Eventually decided we would get up and shake hands and talk to each other when Low and Behold who do I see? If it wasn’t my old friend Steve standing over there with that kids pellet gun and who was just as surprised to see me, as I was to see him. The fact neither one of us recognized the others ones voice all that time gave us both a good laugh let me tell you!” Slim said chucking with his old childhood buddy over the mishap.

  “You would have thought that we could recognize each other’s voices but it has been over twenty years since we laid eyes on each other or talked to one another. But I tell you right now, I was right to be cautious around Slim in the woods with a gun! Do you know when he was about thirteen or fourteen he was shooting at a turkey running and shot one of our buddies with birdshot, just one pellet, mind you, that flew over the turkey he was aiming at and shot that poor boy in the forehead! Now, ol’ Harvey that his stray pellet hit was trailer trash just like
him and they didn’t have a whole bunch of money and the Doctor said that they couldn’t get that pellet out of his forehead without a bunch of expensive surgery! After the Doc told his Dad leaving it in wouldn’t kill him, they did so then Harvey had to run around with this little knot on his head for as long as I’ve known him! And this son-of-a-bitch here, when they got to drinking moonshine or booze together, some time before the night was over; he would reach over there and playfully thumps him on the knot on his forehead where the birdshot was left in there!” Steve said with a loud guffaw.

  “Man, you ain’t right! You aren’t going to let me live that incident down after, what’s it been, now on to fifty years now? You better be quiet and not laugh too much about that or I’ll start telling your wife some of your stories that I am sure you don’t want her to know!” Slim said warningly with a smile.

  “Oh No! We aren’t going there! Let’s leave our growing up stories off the table! Anyway, he isn’t known to quite aim right, as I just explained to ya’ll.” Steve said throwing one more dig at his long lost childhood friend.

  “Yes, growing up around here was quite different than what these modern kids are used to with their little phone games and such! Shit man! My Daddy was one of the highest paid craftsmen in this town at one time, you know what he did? When the telephone service came to town with all the new construction back then, he was a specialized cabinetmaker of sorts! Now the young folks are going to think this is funnier than hell but if you wanted to modernize your house then or you had a mansion going up new in the community, everyone of them houses had to have to a little recessed specialized phone stand custom built in the hallway! The old man took great pride in building those now useless furniture grade things! He used to be a finish carpenter at first doing all the trim work on houses like moldings and things but he invested his money in a little shop in our backyard to build them dang little household phone stands, you might say until they became as unpopular in town as we were when the money and jobs ran out!” Slim said with a slow shake of his head at all the dumb luck or bad luck his family seemed to have in life back then