Houston, 2030

by Mike McKay

  It had been over ten years since the last supermarket in the area had closed its doors, but Mark was still not used to going from shop to shop. How easy it was before the Meltdown! One would walk into a nice, brightly lit supermarket, with things neatly arranged on the shelves. Naturally, it would take Mary a couple of hours browsing through novelty items, clothes, cookware and so on, mostly looking at things they did not need. The boys, William and Michael, would be deeply entrenched in the toy section. As most males, Mark considered this a total waste of time. If he was doing shopping alone, it would take him less than half an hour to fill the cart, before proceeding to a checkout. Ten minutes and one credit card transaction later, he would be at the parking lot, loading the purchased goods into his car… Now, Mark had neither a car, nor even a credit card.

  About four years ago, Mark was trying to explain the concept of a supermarket to the younger kids. Samantha and Pamela had been to the supermarkets on few rare occasions, although by the time the shops were already emptied somewhat by the Meltdown. They were probably too young at the time to remember clearly. The youngest, Patrick, missed the supermarkets all together, – he was born after the last supermarket in the Sheldon-Res area went under.

  “These shops, – the ‘supermarkets,’ – they were huge. That's why they called them ‘super’,” Mark explained.

  “As big as Mister Bell's General Store?”

  “No. Hundred times bigger.”

  “If the shop is so big, how would you find the stuff you need?” Patrick asked.

  “The ‘stuff’ was on the shelves. All labeled. They call them ‘sections.’ If you need, let say, clothes, you would go to the ‘Clothes’ section, and look in there. You would pick up what you like, and put in the cart. Then, go pay for it.”

  “Oh, I remember,” Samantha said. “The carts had, like, little seats. I was sitting on the cart, up high, and Mom was pushing me. There were shelves, and shelves, and shelves, so tall! Mom said: let's go to the ‘Clothes’ first. How did you call them, Dad: ‘selections?’ But there was nothing. Then she said: let's go to the ‘Bed and Linen’ selection. There was not much too, but Mommy picked up two bed covers. She made me and Pam dresses out of those bed covers later on… Then we went to the ‘Kitchen’ selection. There were all kinds of pots, and electric machines and so on. It was interesting… And then Daddy came, and they started arguing with Mommy.”

  “Yeah, I remember,” Mark said, “I told Mommy we need to get rubber boots. Five pairs. It was why we went to the shop first place. I got a call that they would be selling some rubber boots… And she said only the largest size left, and we don't need them. But while you were going around the ‘Kitchen’ section (it's ‘section,’ Samantha, not ‘selection’), all boots were gone! I only managed to get one last pair. And in the rush, we got also three pairs of flip-flops, which looked like a good idea at the time. But those flip-flops were of bad quality and broke after one week of use.”

  “Why people did not just grab the things and run away?” Pamela asked.

  Mark smiled. “Some did. But it happened very rarely. These were called ‘shoplifters.’ The shop clerks and security guards would catch those and give them to the Police. Most of the people would not shoplift, although. You would pick up what you need and pay for it at the checkout.”

  “Checkout – is it like in our school? Like we have to bring the school fee money each Monday morning?” Patrick asked.

  “More or less. Although, they did not line up people and call their surnames,” Mark laughed.

  “Why the clerks did not pick up the stuff and run away?”

  “There were the security guards.”

  “And why the security guards would not pick up the stuff and run away?”

  “Why would they do it? There was plenty of ‘stuff’ around. If you need something, you happily go and buy it!”

  “And what if you don't have no money?”

  “Don't use double negatives, Pamela. It's not proper English. The double negatives are only used by beggars and in street gangs.”

  “OK, Dad. What if somebody had no money?”

  “Much better! If you had no money, you could go to a bank and take a credit.”

  “What's a credit?” Pamela asked.

  “And what's a bank?” Patrick added.

  “A credit is if the bank gives you money now, and you would pay back later.”

  “And why would the bank give money ‘now’?” Samantha was confused: “if you have money ‘later,’ you will get what you want ‘later.’ For example, somebody stole my sandals and my hat at school last month.

  “This is very sad, Samantha. We told you many times: you got to put your things to the locker,” Mark said.

  “I know, Dad, it's my own fault. But I was so late for the PE! So I asked Mommy to get me the new sandals. And she is, like: Sam, can you go to school without sandals for a little while? We have no money for it ‘now.’ Daddy will get you new sandals ‘later.’ OK, we will get them ‘later,’ what's the big deal?”

  At that time, they were indeed short on money. Mary's father developed a serious bladder infection, so they had to spend a month-worth of Mark's salary on antibiotics. If ‘what's the big deal,’ Mark contemplated, we can let her go barefoot to school for another month or two. Besides, it will be an excellent lesson for her not to forget her things all over the place! “Don't worry, Samantha. I will get you new sandals, eventually.”

  “‘Eventually’ means ‘later,’ Dad?” Patrick asked.

  “‘Eventually’ means ‘sometimes in the future,’” Mark explained, “I mean, Samantha, it will be ‘later,’ but real soon now. Probably, even next month. I promise.”

  “Real soon? Real promise?” Samantha asked.

  “Real promise! Only, if something more urgent does not pop up, OK?”

  “OK, Dad. I can wait for the sandals till the ‘eventually,’ no big deal.”

  “I like your example, by the way. You got the difference between ‘now’ and ‘later’ quite right. So for the credit, the bank would ask you to pay back a bit more ‘later’ than what they give you ‘now,’ understand? You can get what you want ‘now,’ but pay ‘later’ just a bit more than if you used your own money.” Mark himself started getting confused. Explaining the banks and the credit system was not on his teaching plan for today.

  “Ah, I got it!” Patrick said suddenly. “Your ‘bank’ thing is like a street gang. They can give you money ‘now,’ but if you can't pay back on-time, they make you a slave for life?”

  “Very close,” Mark nodded. Amazing as it sounded, the six-year-old after the Meltdown had more common sense than the fully grown adults before the crisis. You should take a credit only if there was a life-and-death situation. And – it very well might make you a slave for life. Before the Meltdown, getting credit was too bloody easy. That's why the Meltdown had happened first place.

  “The supermarket owners must be very rich to have such a large shop,” Samantha said.

  “Well, they were rich. Very-very-very rich, in fact. Some owned hundreds of shops, all around the world, see.”

  “How is it possible, Dad? The owner would have to go from place to place to sell the stuff? You can't be in hundreds of places at once!” Patrick shook his head, probably imagining how the tired owner would pedal from place to place on his delivery bike.

  “They would not run the shops themselves. They hired special people, called ‘managers’.”

  “Like a strippers' foreman?”

  “Yeah, exactly like a foreman.”

  “Were the managers rich?”

  “No, they were something called a ‘middle-class.’ They had a good house, and a couple of cars, and money… But by far not as much as the shop owners.”

  “Are we a ‘middle-class,’ Dad?” Patrick asked.

  “I guess so.” Good question, really. Mark's salary at the FBI was far better than most of the compounded family incomes in the neighborhood. They had a good house
and a couple of cars. Granted, the house had no electricity, not counting the nearly ‘dead’ solar panels on the roof and nearly ‘dead’ Lithium Ion batteries under the kitchen. They also had no running water or sewage, not counting the 50-gallon shower barrel and the corresponding PVC pipe for the ‘gray water,’ plus a hole-in-the-floor type latrine at the back yard. Their cars had not been driven for about six or seven years (and unlikely to be driven ever again – they were rusted through, and the Lithium Ion battery under the kitchen was actually salvaged from the Mary's super-compact.)

  But everything was relative. In 2015, their current state of affairs would firmly place them at the very bottom of the social pyramid: a notch above the poverty line, or even a notch below, as a matter of fact. But now, in the post-Meltdown 2026 America, they could proudly consider themselves an ‘upper middle-class.’ If such thing still existed.

  “What happened to the shop owners? Are they now a ‘middle-class’ too?” Pamela asked.

  “Oh, I am not too sure about the shop owners, sweety. Some are probably much better off than we are. Some – may be worse. You see, the rich people, they did not have money as ‘money.’ They kept everything in stocks, and bonds, and hedge funds, and other such things. And this stuff became much less valuable after the Meltdown. So many lost their wealth – big time.”

  “OK, the ‘hedge’ I understand,” Patrick said, “it's like a fence, only made of bushes. I guess, you can hide your money in the bushes. What are these ‘stocks,’ and those… How did you call 'em: ‘bands’?”

  I should not have mentioned it, Mark thought. Now he had to explain the stock market to the kids. The knowledge they would never need. “Stocks are like papers. You give some business money, and they give you back a paper. It was called a certificate. It's like certifying that you own some small part of their business.”

  “I got it,” Patrick said, “is it like Mom goes to the Use It Once Again business at the 'Fill to buy some re-whitened paper for our school notebooks?”

  “No, it's a bit more complicated… Those shares, they were not even real papers. It was all in computers… You know what? I will tell you all about the stocks and the ‘bands’ some other time, OK?”

  “I don't like this ‘supermarket’ idea,” Samantha concluded with the resolution of a ten-year-old child, “if we need, let say, bread, you give me three hundred bucks, and I go to Mister Sullivan at the corner. Or I can take my bike and ride all the way to Missis Chang's bakery. It's so fun! Missis Chang always has left-over bread cut in small cubes and dried in the oven, and gives them to kids for free. ‘Crunchies,’ she calls them…”

  ‘Crunchies,’ another street-talk word, Mark smiled. His daughter was right, to a degree. The family-owned shoppes had their advantages. At least, they would not get the pre-Meltdown dosage of food preservatives, and artificial coloring, and animal antibiotics. Before the Meltdown, all these cryptic ‘E-numbers’ were in small print all over the food packaging! Actually, in Texas, the food situation was not too bad at all. If they were careful not to overspend, they could easily afford enough proteins: tofu, eggs, milk or cottage cheese every day, meats or poultry twice a week, and fish or other seafood once in a while, – and all would come absolutely fresh. Nobody could afford using fridges – for chilling food. The fridge in Mark's kitchen was converted into a pantry, and the garage freezer served as an emergency water storage. Some neighbors ran little freezers from the solar panels to make ice. If Mark wanted a little luxury of the pre-Meltdown days, he would issue Samantha or Pamela a plastic box and a fifty-dollar bill and send them down the street to purchase some ice-cubes for his drinks…

  The local market square was as crowded as it always was on Sunday mornings. Another three-four hours, and the crowd would start dissipating – some would go to their church, some would take a shorter day to relax at home. Before the place had turned itself into a busy local market, it was a typical-American small business mall. Now the former bank at the corner was converted into a butcher shop, the former Indian restaurant sold rice and spices, the former ‘Radio Shack’ served as the headquarters for the local electronics repairmen, and so on. The larger shops had been separated into smaller, more affordable, shoppes, some measuring less than three feet at the front. Besides the permanent shops, there were plenty of vendors with carts, while most of the veggies sellers simply had their produce on the sidewalks.

  The first order of business was to hire a delivery boy. They had a territorial or professional mafia of sorts. Naturally, if the parents sent a ten-year-old to pick up a jug of milk or a half-dozen of eggs, it was perfectly OK with the local kids. However, a boy could not simply walk into the market with a self-constructed cart and start his own delivery operation without the risk of the major beating. The places had been taken! A couple of older teenagers were running something like a taxi rank. The delivery boys, with their variety of carts, were lined up in the corner of the parking lot. As Mark approached, the next in line was an Indomerican boy, about twelve, with a two-wheeled contraption for a cart and a golf umbrella for a bonus. The boy was dressed only in a pair of shorts, with no trace of shirt or sandals. Considering his nearly-black skin and his quite dirty, callous feet, this was his standard working attire.

  “Sixty dollars for any delivery, sir!” As any Indomerican, the boy was keen to make an extra buck.

  “Fifty. I know the prices. Besides, we live less than two miles away.”

  “I have an umbrella, sir!”

  “It's not raining, buddy. Look, if you don't want to be hired for fifty, I will take the next in the line.”

  “OK, sir. Fifty.” One of the older boys controlling the rank was showing the Indomerican a fist. On Sunday, there were a lot of takers for the delivery job, and the price was not negotiable. They started going through the shoppes and stalls, Mark crossed items in his shopping list, ordered and paid, while the boy was filling up the cart. Within an hour and a half, all the necessary purchases had been completed. Mark spent about three weeks worth of his FBI salary. Hell with it. The boys were going to the Army! He might not see them again…

  Along the sidewalk at the market entrance, the usual detachment was doing the Salvation Way collection. Today, the spot was manned with five vets: a middle-aged man on a single crutch, without left arm and left leg, three young men without both legs, one of them accompanied by his pregnant wife, and finally – the local celebrity star, poet, composer and singer: Jack-the-Rapper. Jack was an Afro-American man of a difficult-to-define age. Instead of arms and legs, he only had short stumps, perfectly fitting into the ‘Quad’ category, as the Salvation Way defined it. Unlike the other four vets in the line-up, he was allowed to have his own permanent spot, but he actually preferred to give his concerts at a different place every day. The lack of limbs was compensated by an impressive dread-locked hair, mirror sun-glasses, and a thirty-two-teeth smile.

  Mark remembered that Jack-the-Rapper appeared in the Sheldon-Res area about the same time William returned from Venezuela, but Jack did not come on the Dumpster. Apparently he had been in his mutilated state for many years prior to his arrival. His songs were very much welcomed in the area. It was not like people had much choice nowadays, – on TV, only the re-runs of the pre-Meltdown singers and groups were shown. Only few popular groups nation-wide remained operating, and even those – on pure enthusiasm. One thing was to post your clips on the Internet for free viewing, another – to collect your copyright money from the people who did not have enough money to buy food.

  Jack-the-Rapper was sitting in his wheelchair, roughly painted in the American flag colors. A belt was riveted to the backrest, helping the vet to maintain an up-right position. The leg-rests housed two speaker boxes, while the amplifier was bolted on the back, below the chair's handles. The chair was strategically positioned over a three-foot tall concrete embankment, so the crowd could easily see the star. A small solar panel on the grass behind the concrete wall was charging a spare battery. Clarice said all this setup
was delivered to the market each morning, along with the rapper himself, by one of the ever-changing Jack's girlfriends. Apparently, Jack-the-Rapper possessed the secret of finding the new girls, while discarding the prior ones without scandals. After all, the stars must be allowed some freedom in girlfriend selection.