“I think most fathers are,” Kramer interjected. “It’s just our nature. We have to make things right when there’s a problem.”
“Gerry,” Ed began. “I’ve been thinking about that. I may have a way to get word to her.”
Kramer raised his eyes in surprise. “What could you do?” He asked hopefully.
“Well, I know a guy,” he started.
“You know a guy?” Kramer joked back. “I didn’t know you were mafia?”
“Yeah! Soze I knowz a guy, dat knowz a guy…” Ed replied in his worse New York accent.
Kramer snorted, and with a smile, poked his friend’s shoulder. “Sorry, go on.” Kramer said.
“Anyway, I know a fellow that is a ham operator. I met him a few times at the track in Auburndale. He’s a big FASCAR follower.”
“FASCAR?” Kramer asked.
“Florida Stock Car Association. We train young drivers on some of the local tracks. Kind of like a minor league team in baseball. Anyway, we got to talking and he has a ham radio and solar panels. Spent more time speaking about solar than about the kids on the track.”
“So he may have a backup solar system that would power the radio?”
“I know he does, and he doesn’t live far from here.” Grafton replied. “I could see if he’d try and contact someone in the Nashville area. They might be able to get you some information.”
“Ed, I don’t know how to tell you how much I appreciate this,”
Kramer’s heartfelt reply was all the reward Grafton needed. After all, with no kids of his own, Claire was as much family as anyone was.
“Gerry, she’s family too.” Was all Grafton said; and for both of men, that simple statement was enough.
Finally, Kramer put out the real reason for his visit.
“Well, I do need a favor.” He started. “I was wondering if you could help me put in a solar backup array for the house. My system was designed with a charge controller that will handle the addition of the batteries to the system.”
“I got the cabling,” Ed replied. “I just don’t have the spare batteries; and they need to be deep cycle if you want them to hold enough power.”
“I have an idea about that!” Kramer replied. “We can go to Bella Collina and take some of their golf cart batteries.”
“Bella Collina?” Ed mused. “Most of the carts are resident-owned, but they should have some at the clubhouse for the guests.”
“When can we do this?” Kramer asked.
“I want to help Rob drop the engine into the chassis of that dune buggy, then we can leave. He can connect the cabling and fuel line.”
“Hey,” Rob said. “Where’s Caroline? I could use some help.”
“She’s back at the barn, tending her horses.” Kramer replied.
“Oh!” the young man said, sounding a bit dejected.
Kramer gave Ed a knowing look, while Ed nodded in understanding. Sounded like the two young ones were starting to become closer than either realized.
“I’ll come get you when we’re done.” Ed said after a moment of thought.
“Driving the Chevy?” Kramer asked, hoping to drive in the old ’52 pickup.
“Yeah, we’ll need the room,” Ed replied. “If we’re bringing back enough batteries to do the job, we could completely fill the old gal’s bed.”
Kramer returned to the house and told Barb of his plans; but he didn’t tell her about the ham operator, preferring to wait until he got more information. No sense getting his wife’s hopes up without the necessary information.
His wife reminded him to stay safe, and handed him the revolver he had taken from the dead criminal back at his office.
“Hope you don’t need this,” she stated grimly.
“I hope not either, but I’ll have Ed along, so I should be fine.”
A few minutes later, Grafton pulled up to the Kramer’s front door. The old engine in the Chevy pickup sounded great, although a bit louder than he expected. People would be able to hear them for miles.
The doctor jumped into the passenger side, admiring the black leather bench seat. Beside Ed, an AR-15 was leaning against his hip, barrel pointed to the roof.
“Grab this, would you?” Grafton asked, pointing to the rifle. “I don’t want the damn thing bouncing around.”
“Is it loaded?” Kramer asked.
“Well, of course it is!” He laughingly replied. “What use would it be if it wasn’t.”
Grafton grabbed the barrel and looked down onto the lower receiver and checked that the gun’s safety was engaged.
“Safety’s on!” He stated. “Just keep the barrel pointed up and we’ll be good.”
The old Chevy’s Stovebolt engine smoothly accelerated, and they moved down the driveway and out onto their road. Hitting the end of their street, they turned right onto Rt. 455 and made their way to the golf course.
The road took them back through the Academy. The fields surrounding the various older buildings were strewn with trash. Papers, plastic and other discarded items were evident now that normal utilities and services were down. A group of over twenty teenagers were collected near the school’s auditorium. Sitting on the steps and walls around the gymnasium’s parking lot, they sat idly in the morning sun.
“Let’s check on them,” Kramer said as they came up to the parking lot entrance.
“Sure, Gerry. Just keep that revolver of yours handy. I don’t expect trouble since they look fed, but you never know.”
The old green pickup was attracting attention as it rumbled down the road, bringing the students out of their dorms and turning the heads on those that were already outside. All in all, the school had a maximum capacity of 1200, but an actual an enrollment of a bit over eight hundred, 200 or so of which were boarders.
“Put the rifle on the floor board!” Ed told Kramer. “I don’t want to spook them.”
Soon, dozens of kids, ranging in age from ten to eighteen began to run to the lot in front of the gym as Grafton pulled up to the facility’s doors. By the time the two of them exited the vehicle, nearly a hundred young people were mobbing them.
Questions flew at the two men as the cacophony of voices blended into a mash of gibberish. Ed looked over the children and saw several adults jogging toward them as well. Grafton and Kramer moved to the back of the old pickup and jumped into the bed, taking a commanding position over the crowd.
Ed held up his hands, yelling for the group to quiet down. They noise levels dropped quickly just as the two adults, a man and a woman, arrived on the scene and moved to the side of the pickup.
“Hello!” The woman said. “I’m glad to see you! You’re the first people to stop.”
“Hi!” Kramer said first. “I’m Dr. Gerry Kramer. My friend, Ed Grafton and I live down the road. We stopped to see how you’re getting along.”
“Hi Doc,” the man said. “I am Raj Mehta, and this is Marka Dohlavich. We’re house parents here.”
“House parents?” Ed asked.
“Live-in supervisors for the student housing department.” She replied. “We have 182 live-in students, and we’re what’s left of the staff.”
“Everyone else left days ago,” Raj said with disgust. “They all live close enough by that they went to their homes.”
“They filled backpacks full of food and left us here.” Marka said as well. “Now we have to take care of all these kids.”
Ed and Kramer exchanged horrified glances at each other. It was unimaginable that two adults could handle this many young people in this environment, although Kramer had to admit that the crowd around them was respectful as the adults spoke.
Within five minutes, the two men learned that the school’s food stores were adequate to keep the kids fed for a few more weeks, but their sanitatio
n system was overloaded. Fed by their own water tower, Raj had instituted severe restrictions on bathroom privileges, so their fresh water supply should outlast their food. Even so, several bathrooms had backed up due to the failure of the town’s waste system, leaving raw sewage contaminating the restrooms.
“We’ve abandoned the dorm bathrooms,” Raj said. “Now, we’re using the gymnasium and library for toilets. They’re on a septic system and not the town’s sewage lines.”
“Good thinking,” Ed said. “Keep the flooded bathrooms closed off.”
“Already done!” Marka replied. “We’ve moved the kids out of the building that had the sewage overflow and into the ones that aren’t contaminated.”
Finally, he asked the question that no one seemed to have a good answer for. “So, what’s going on?”
Several of the older kids began to talk as well, causing Ed and Kramer to once again shush the crowd.
“ALRIGHT!” Kramer yelled. “Every one listen up! I’ll explain what’s happened so you can all understand!”
Dr. Kramer began his speech, reciting off everything he knew or had a pretty good guess about. He left out scary things, like the thugs and criminals roaming the streets of Orlando. But the meat of the talk let all the kids know that they weren’t going home anytime soon.
“Why isn’t the Army stopping to help us?” One of the younger kids asked.
“What Army?” Ed asked back.
“We see several busses a day driving by,” Raj added. “They look like military busses but have cages over the windows. They have a DHS logo printed on the side. Whenever one of them goes by, we try to wave them down, but they never stop. Every day, three or more busses go by full of people, then return empty. They never even acknowledge us when we try to stop them for help.”
“That’s strange,” Ed said. “That must be the traffic noise we started to hear at the house last week.”
“I have no idea why they don’t stop!” Kramer said. “But the government must know you are here. Just be patient and I’m sure they’ll come help soon.”
“I hope so,” Raj said with a smile. “We could use it.”
“Is there anything we can do until then?” Ed said.
“Any kids need me to look at them?” Kramer asked as well.
“I don’t think so,” Raj replied. “None of them has any medical emergencies. A couple of kids with asthma, and one with diverticulitis, but they have plenty of medication. They bring enough at the beginning of the term to last the semester, so they should be covered until January.”
“That’s good,” Dr. Kramer added. “I’ll stop by as much as I can and check on you.”
“We’d appreciate it,” Marka said with a grin. “And if you wanted to give us a parent’s night out and bring any adult beverages, I’d appreciate that too.”
Ed’s laugh rang out, eliciting some smiles from the surrounding children.
“ALRIGHT KIDS!” He shouted laughingly. “If you promise to be nice to Mr. Raj and Ms. Marka, I’ll see if I can get some people to come get you home. DEAL?”
The kids all cried out with a positive yell, bringing some hope to the abandoned group.
Ed leaned over to Kramer and whispered. “Let’s find someone from the government and get their butts over here.”
Ed spoke with the students, telling them that he and Kramer would find someone from the government to come help. He told them it may take a few more days, and that their green pickup would be driving back and forth for a while.
“Speaking of that,” Ed asked Raj. “Do you mind if we stop on our way through every once in a while and siphon some fuel from the cars in the lot?”
“Not at all,” Raj replied. “But it might be easier if you used our fuel depot. We have a bladder tank at the Plant Department with all the gas you need.”
That was a positive, Ed thought. Stealing fuel from modern gas tanks was difficult due to their anti-siphoning design. He had brought a hammer and metal punch to spike a hole in the donor car’s fuel tank, collecting the stolen gas in a plastic tray underneath. Taking the gas directly from a bladder tank was immeasurably easier.
“Next time we come through,” Ed said to Raj and Marka, “I’ll trouble you for some gas.”
“Next time you come through,” Marka said with a wink, “You better have some scotch.”
Both Ed and Kramer chuckled until they saw Marka’s face, which was as serious as a heart attack.
With shouts of “Thank you,” and “Nice Ride!” coming from the assembled group, the two men started the Chevy’s engine and continued their journey south to the Bella Collina Country Club.
Within minutes, they pulled up to the majestic community. No one stopped them as they drove past the guard shack, long since abandoned when the lights went out. Making their way through the multi-million-dollar community, they moved unchallenged all the way to the golf course’s maintenance building. Abandoned mansions stood open, doors ajar and the structures empty of life. They followed the winding road up to the clubhouse, a towering structure that was a throwback design made to look like an ancient Mediterranean castle. Its walls were stacked old rounded rock, creating a grotto-like environment that oozed of wealth and opulence. The two men finally found the golf cart garage, but opening the side door, they were disappointed to find that all the carts had already been cannibalized. Every battery was gone, along with all of the cabling.
“Someone beat us to it!” Ed said dejectedly.
“We are a few weeks into this mess.” Kramer replied. “I think we’ll be too late on a lot of things.”
Kramer and Grafton then drove cautiously through the community, but every privately-owned golf cart they could find had been relieved of their batteries as well. With nothing to show for their efforts, the two men retraced their steps north back through the Academy’s grounds. Passing the kids still roaming and playing in the boarding school’s fields, they honked their horn and received approving yells and waves. The mere sound of a car driving by was soothing to the kids. It meant that not everything was broken and not everyone was bad.
“Vernon Bragg,” Ed started speaking, waving to the kids as they slowly drove by, “is old south. He’s a born and bred cracker that can only be appreciated in person.”
“No problems,” Kramer replied. “I’ve had a few of them in my practice.”
“Not like this one!” Ed replied with a grin. “You’ve never met a man like Vernon Bragg, I can promise you that!”
The pickup continued to hum along, then Ed turned left off the two-lane highway, taking a street well before they had made it back to their own road. After several more lefts and rights onto increasingly smaller roads, they ended up on a long dirt driveway that found them in front of a metal-faced bunker. The entire building was buried under a mound of dirt, only the front rusting-steel façade of the structure uncovered. It looked like the owner had scooped out the side of the hillside, built the house, then covered the top and sides with the excavated soil.
“He says that he did that to protect it from hurricanes. But once you meet him, I’ll let you decide.” Ed said, as they stared at the half-buried structure.
“Strange bird, huh!” Kramer commented.
“You have no idea! He retired from the Marines and sometimes I think they scrambled a few eggs in his noggin, if you catch my drift.” Ed replied.
They got out of the old pickup, noticing the bank of solar panels standing off to the left of the “house.” The solar panels were connected to a smaller second metal building.
“There’s his solar array,” Ed commented. “He made a faraday cage out of the attached shed; so if anyone has power, he does.”
Electric wiring snaked from the panels and into the small structure. A large, single electric conduit then came back out on the other side and immediatel
y dove into the dirt, likely sending its electricity to the half-buried main house. A steel or aluminum 80-foot tower stood attached to the side of the metal shack and was bolted to a concrete pad, which had been poured as a foundation. A hand crank was situated at its base, allowing for the tower to be retracted.
“Old fool installed a retractable mast to collapse the tower in a storm. Guess he isn’t such a fool after all.” Ed stated.
The two men moved toward the front door, Ed stopping Kramer by putting his arm in front of the advancing doctor.
“Hold here,” Ed said. “Let me handle this.”
Grafton stepped up a few paces and yelled at the front door.
“BRAGG! ITS ED GRAFTON!”
After a few seconds, the front door opened just enough for a shotgun barrel to extend out.
“WHAT DO YOU WANT, ED? I AIN’T GOT NOTHIN’ FER YA!”
“I don’t need anything, Bragg. Just wanted to ask you a question.”
“You armed?” Bragg asked as he opened the door a bit more, sticking his head and arms out of the opening, and pointing the double-barreled coach gun at the two of them.
“In the truck,” Ed replied. “You don’t think I’m fool enough to come over here without my rifle, do you?”
“Nah!” Bragg replied. “I suppose yer Momma didn’t raise no fool! But who’s the other one!”
“Dr. Kramer,” Ed replied. “He wants to ask you a favor!”
“I done tole you that I don’t have nothin’ fer ya!” Bragg blurted in his thick “southern” accent.
“I don’t want anything from you, other than your expertise!” Kramer said in his most soothing patient/doctor voice. “I hear you may have a working ham radio.”
“WHO TOLE YOU THAT? GRAFTON?” He yelled.
“Now come on, Bragg. You know me. I wouldn’t put you at risk telling just anyone about your radio! Dr. Kramer’s a good man and I knew you’d do him a favor since you never know when you might need one back, him being a doctor and all.”
Charlie's Requiem: Democide Page 22
