by TJ Weeks
I stopped. “Bobbi!”
Bobbi came running over with her jacket pulled tight around her. “Yes, sir?”
I put my hand on the top of her back and led her to the cafeteria. “We’re not doing anything today hun, no point in sitting out there freezing your ass off.”
She shook her head. “I just didn’t want to be missing in action on my first day of the job.”
I shook my head as wel l. “I like your drive, but there’s no need to be out today.”
We walked into the cafeteria and grabbed some soup, crackers and some coffee.
Milissa came sat at the table with us. “My lord, how can you drink coffee at this hour?”
I looked over. “It’s the only hot drink that we have.”
She put her hand on her hip. “I could have made some hot
chocolate.”
I looked at Daltin. “I’m sure he’d love some.”
Shianne joined in. “Me too, please.”
We talked amongst each other until the dinner crowd started pouring in and made our way to the school.
Tiffany and Robin knocked on my door.
I walked over and opened it. “What’s up?”
They both had a shit eating grin on their face. “Want some company?” I started laughing. “What, Bo isn’t company enough?”
They looked at each other. “Well, he’s keeping Lisa company right now.”
I started laughing. “Oh, well I guess so, come on in.”
They walked in and sat on one of the cots. I had some more coffee going. I took it off and poured a cup. “Y’all want some?”
Robin raised his hand. “I’ll take a cup.”
Tiffany shook her head no.
I poured a second cup. “You know, we’re not in school, you don’t have to raise your hand.”
He started looking around and smiled.
I caught onto the joke. “Okay , so we are in school, but we don’t have a teacher that’s going to walk by and smack your hand with a ruler or anything.”
Kris smiled. “I might.”
I looked at Tiffany. “You were asking about a job the other day. Well, I’d like to put you as a floater between our teams as a medic.”
She nodded. “Sounds good.” Robin took a sip of his coffee. “What about me?”
I looked over at him. “I’m going to try you out on our team, but the first time you freeze up, I’ll have to pull you for your own safety.”
He took another sip. “I
understand.”
We talked for about an hour before I walked them out so I could get some sleep. “Surely Bo and Lisa are done keeping each other company by now.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
AS SOON as I woke up the next morning I walked out of the room to see Bo walking out of his room too.
I closed the door behind me. “Long night, brother?”
He started walking down the hall towards me. “Not really…why do you ask?”
I started laughing. “I hear you were keeping Lisa company last night.” He gave me a scoured look. “We just talked.”
I started walking with him to go outside. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”
He pushed the door open. “I found out that she came from about an hour from my old stomping grounds. Found out she’s a metal head too.”
I walked out behind him. “That’s good. She’s a pretty cool chick for sure. She’s definitely one of those, don’t take shit from anyone, type of girls.”
He laughed. “So is Kris.”
I agreed. “That’s why I married her. I don’t think any normal chick that carries their feelings around on their sleeve could have handled me."
He shook his head. “I can’t think of anyone that would argue that.”
Howard and Gizmo walked up after being out at the tower.
Gizmo seemed anxious. “What’s the plan for today?”
I stared him down trying to figure out his excitement. “Crunching around in the snow, I guess.”
He sped up and walked in front of me. “How about we start that pond?”
I looked over at Howard that had apparently been encouraging him. “Bro, look around…we’re standing in about six inches of snow. I’m sure we can do it when it starts heating back up a bit.”
Howard joined in. “At least when the snow melts, it can help fill the pond up.”
I started laughing. “So you’re just going to dig a hole and expect it to hold water?”
“I was actually thinking we could make a run and grab a liner of some sort.” Gizmo stated.
I shook my head. “Brother, you need some clay or at least I would think so. I wouldn’t see people throwing liners out when they build big ass lakes.”
He stood there for a moment. “What if we concrete the bottom?”
I started laughing harder. “What are you going to do, concrete it, then brush it down with Thomson’s Water Seal?”
He crossed his arms. “I don’t fucking know.”
I put my hand on his shoulder. “Tell you what, you can start digging the hole for it and I’ll take Bo and Howard with me to see what I can find. I’ll even swing by and grab Robin and Tiffany for the just in case.”
Gizmo didn’t respond, just hauled ass to the backhoe and started driving it to the back.
By the time I gathered up everyone, Gizmo was already breaking surface.
I turned and looked at my team. “Do any of y’all know how to make a pond hold water?”
Robin stood. “You can test the ground to see if it can hold the water, but if it doesn’t, then you generally put a thin layer of concrete, sand and gravel down.”
I started looking around until I spotted Kris. “Hey babe! Assemble your team as well, we’re going to need all kinds of help on this
apparently.”
She smiled and walked off to grab her team.
I led my team to the storage. “Hey Bobbi, I’m going to need about ten shovels and a few dollies if we have them.”
She started running her finger down the list on her clipboard. “It only shows for us to have eight shovels, but no dollies.”
I looked over her shoulder. “What about a wheelbarrow?”
She looked down at her list. “No, sorry.”
“Damn! Okay, well give us the eight shovels and we’ll figure
something out on the rest.” I stated.
She started grabbing the shovels and handing them out to us. She picked her clipboard up and began writing all of our names down on who she handed the shovels to.
I started laughing. “Just put in there that you signed eight shovels out to me and save a lot of work.”
She was looking a little over whelmed, but changed it up on her paper. “Sorry.”
I smiled. “Don’t be sorry. You’re learning this. I just don’t want you to have to do more work than needed.”
I turned around to see my wife’s team making their approach, but no Tina. “So what’s the mission?”
I counted up everyone to ensure no one was missed. “We’ll call this, Mission Water Front. However, we’re going to combine forces on this one, so there’s not a team one and team two. We’re going to get all the shit to make this pond that Gizmo is so eager to make. We’re going to take five vehicles and it’ll be two per vehicle. I want Tiffany with Kris, Shianne with me, Lisa with Bo, Robin with Karen and I want Bobbi with
Howard…We’re going to convoy up to whatever hardware stores that we can find and load two trucks down with bags of cement and then we’re going to find places that have sand and gravel and load down the other three trucks with that…There’s not enough shovels for everyone and since I don’t want to tire everyone out, I want someone to go grab Gizmo and have him follow our convoy in the backhoe. With a little luck we’ll be able to get the backhoe in any of the places to save our backs from going out.”
Bobbi stepped out and walked to the back field to get Gizmo and caught a ride with him back to the trucks.
; Karen spoke up. “Wouldn’t we be able to hold more in the deuces?”
I looked over at the gas cans. “Yeah, but if we keep using them for everything, we’re going to end up in another gas run as well.” I turned towards everyone. “I want you to start pulling your trucks up to the gate and fill up before we pull out.”
Everyone acknowledged and got in their vehicles.
Shianne jumped in with me and I pulled to the gate first to lead the way as everyone else started lining up behind us.
Donald started walking to the gate.
I stopped him from opening it. “Just a second bud, we all need gas before leaving.”
I was at three quarters of a tank, so I just sat one of the gas cans in the bed of the truck.
I waited for everyone to fill up and get back in their trucks before
signaling Donald and driving out of the gate.
Shianne sat up in her seat. “I’m so scared.”
I looked over at her and then back to the road. “Why?”
She tugged at her seatbelt.
“Because, I’ve never gone a mission and I’ve heard the guys talk about a lot of the crazy shit y’all have ran into…Dad, I’m not sure if I could pull the trigger on a living person.”
I looked back over. “Hopefully you never have to.”
I could see “Ace Hardware” coming up on our right. I slowed up and turned in. I could see a few rotters inside. They were wearing the green aprons, so I could assume they were working there when everything went down. “Wait here.” I grabbed my machete from the seat.
I got out and walked over to the side of the building that was closed off by a chain linked gate that had a lock on it. I climbed over the top and dropped down. I quickly placed my back against the side of the building and started making my way down to the back. I could see a massive pavilion with lots of lumber and eighty pound bags of concrete stacked up on a pallet. There was also a big pile of sand, but no gravel. I turned around to go back and turned into Gizmo. “WHAT THE FUCK!”
He snickered from startling me. “You should know better than going to check out things alone.”
I put my hand over my heart trying to slow it back down. “Get back to the backhoe and use the stinger to break the chain on the fence and we can load the cement and the sand.”
“10-4 little buddy.” He called out.
I started looking around for more stuff and saw a forklift. I started walking over to it and tried to start it. It wouldn’t turn over, but I could see it was gas powered, so I waited for everyone to pull their trucks around back.
I pointed over to the pile of sand to let them know to start there and signaled Shianne to pull over to me. I walked over and grabbed the gas can and poured about a quarter of it into the tank and tried to start it again. It fussed for a few seconds and then started up. I pulled it around to Bo and Lisa. “Back your truck up to the pavilion.”
They backed up to the pavilion and put it in park. I lowered the forks down and got the pallet with the cement and softly set it in the back of their truck. I pulled back and grabbed another pallet that was only about half stacked and set it behind the other pallet and pushed both of them in so none were hanging over the tailgate.
I jumped off the forklift and walked up to Bo’s window. “Start taking this home. Just pull it to the back and leave the truck there for now. No need in unloading it until we know how much space he’s going to make into the pond.”
I walked over to the rest of the team to see Kris was loaded down with sand. “Follow Bo and get this home. Park the truck next to Bo.”
Karen backed her truck up so Gizmo could fill the back of her truck.
I walked over to her window. “Once you’re loaded, take the load home and park next to the other two.”
She stepped out of the truck. “What about plants? No fish will survive if they don’t have oxygen going to the water.”
I hadn’t thought about that. “We’ll have to figure it out later. We’re running out of vehicles.”
She smiled. “Our team will take care of it.” She stepped back into her truck and pulled off.
Gizmo killed the backhoe and joined me on the ground. “So what’s the plan now?”
I waved my hand in front of my face to clear the dust from Karen pulling away. “I guess we’re going to Grand Saline by the Dollar Store. That’s the only place I know around here that has gravel.”
Howard pulled up after hearing from a distance. “Well, let’s ride.” Gizmo started laughing. “Fuck that, follow me.”
Didn’t really feel like arguing, so I jumped in the passenger side of the truck since Shianne was already in the driver’s seat. “Follow Gizmo.”
He turned right out of the parking lot like he was headed to Hawkins. I reached over and turned on our hazards to be funny at how slow we were moving. Howard followed suit and turned his on as well. All I could see was a silhouette of Gizmo giving us the middle finger.
He turned off right before the loop overpass and started driving behind a building. We followed him around, to a huge pile of gravel.
Shianne put the truck in park and got out. “I suck at backing up.”
I shook my head and scooted over to the driver’s seat and put it in reverse and pulled up next to the pile and got out and moved the gas can to the front of the cab. Shianne climbed back in once Gizmo started loading.
I pulled forward and waited for Howard to get his load. Gizmo filled up the bucket and the stinger before following us out.
CHAPTER TWELVE
WE PULLED up to the gate to see the corvette that Lisa had brought back from the mall was gone and could see Bo and Robin standing out next to the trucks. We pulled down and parked next to the trucks.
Bo walked over. “The women..”
I interrupted him. “I know, they went for plants.” I got out of the truck and waited to see what Gizmo was going to do with his load so he could finish digging. He dumped it in front of the trucks.
I walked over. “What if we have to use one of the trucks, DICK?”
He cracked his window open. “BINGO, BANGO…WHEEW!” He completely ignored the questioned and pulled around and started back digging.
I started gathering up all the shovels from the different trucks and we started walking over to the storage to return them.
Bobbi was standing at the door. “Guess y’all didn’t have to go far for the gravel? And why are we all of a sudden doing this?”
I handed the shovels over. “Not this time, just gathering some shit for Gizmo to keep his mind focused and busy.” I turned to Bo, Robin and Howard. “Well, what else do you have on your plate?”
Robin stated over Howard’s
shoulder. “Can we cook some more of those alligator steaks?”
I started laughing. “I guess we can, but you’ll need to move one of the pits around to the side of the school so we’re not being dicks and just rubbing it in to the rest of the people.”
He took a fast pace walking. “I’ve got it.”
The rest of us walked to the
cafeteria so we could pull another alligator tail and slice it down.
I was about to walk behind the counter when Milissa stepped in front of me. “Can I help you?”
I stepped to the side and she stepped with me. “I just need to get something out of the back.”
She was shaking her head with my words. “I’m sure you do, but the only way I’m letting you back here is if you’re going to cook enough for me and my helper as well.”
I started laughing. “You drive a hard bargain, but you got it.”
She stepped to the side and we walked through. The first tail I came to was that from the biggest one we killed. I pushed it over and grabbed the one under it, so I wasn’t being so selfish using the bigger meats that could feed a lot more than us. I used both hands to carry it out and laid it up on the table.
I signaled to Howard to grab the cleaver behind him and he handed it to me. “Start grabbing some of
the spices and bring them in here, also grab the foil or a plastic dish big enough to hold these.
I started slicing them into a little less than two inch slabs and laying them over. I sliced up fourteen of them and then put the remaining meat back in the fridge.
Robin walked in from moving the pit. “Who’s the other one’s for?”
Bo walked in and handed me some serving trays. “Milissa said to only use the foil if we have to.”
I took it from him and started putting the slabs on it. “This is enough for everyone on our team, Milissa, Chelley and another to split between Daltin and Cloie.”
Howard brought in the spices and I started sprinkling it on, flipping it and spicing the other side before stacking another layer on and doing the same.
I went to lift one of the trays. “Better move two of the pits around to the side. These are bigger than I was figuring.”
Robin walked back out to move another pit to the side of the school.
I got Milissa’s attention and she walked to the back. “Hey could you throw fourteen potatoes in the oven so we can have some baked potatoes with this?”
She cracked a smile. “Of course I can.”
I gave her a wink and picked up the other tray and walked out with it. I turned to Howard and Bo on our way out. “Hey brother’s, can you grab up some of that wood we cut up and bring it around?”
They both nodded and walked ahead of me to start grabbing some. I was moving pretty slow, but I had close to thirty pounds of meat on the trays.
I got to the pits and set the trays on the rack sticking out of the front of the pits.
Howard walked up dropping a pile of wood and Bo was a few minutes behind him, bringing log starters and lighter fluid.
“Good men.” I stated.
I threw the log starters into the smoke boxes and started piling the cold damp wood on top of them. I doused it in lighter fluid and then lit it. I reached around the side of both pits to make sure the flues were wide open.
After a few minutes, the wood was dried out and popping a bit from the flame burning into the wood.
I had Bo grab a small table and some throw out chairs from the bunker so we wasn’t stealing from those having to eat in the cafeteria.
