by L. L. Akers
Jake was too soft. They should’a sent the man to nap.
A dirt nap.
But Grayson had been wrong. Smalls had left on foot. The one silver lining to the gang showing up here had revealed itself few days later, when out on a walk, Elmer did come across the vehicle that Grayson had felt sure was there—Elmer’s own truck—parked in the woods, filled with his own belongings: some food, mostly in mason jars prepared and hand-packed by his dearly departed wife, and a few other odds and ends that the group was happy to see added to their larder and supplies.
But most of all, Elmer’s prized pair of Baby Desert Eagles; The Beagles, he called them. Grayson had made sure through the years that the family had acquired weapons of the same caliber so they could combine ammunition if they ever needed to. It was a lucky coincidence that Beagles were the same, too.
The food they’d found hadn’t made up for what was given away, but on top of what was left, it was enough to add to the larder and feed this ever-growing group for an additional few weeks.
But no coffee.
While he understood everyone’s frustration, and their fear, he could cut his wife some slack. Olivia had passed many years now as the wife of a prepper, and they’d never had any real occasion to use the preps that Grayson obsessed about, and periodically added to, or rotated out.
Like most people, she never really believed a true disaster would ever hit them. Never thought she’d see a day when you couldn’t run to the store to pick up the essentials, and she sure didn’t know one of the totes she’d given away held their entire supply of extra coffee.
She’d have never given that away.
Coffee—or lack of it—was her kryptonite.
She was a sheeple. Pure and simple.
Of course she hadn’t thought that the one time she borrowed from the prepping larder—to save her some time in doing her own shopping for the charity church food drive—that they’d actually really need it.
But damn, he loved this woman. She was also a bit spoiled; and he’d not deny that he helped make her that way.
His life was incomplete after the loss of his first wife—Graysie’s mother—due to a shit hit the fan disaster, which was one of the reasons he did prep and prepare now. It had truly been TEOTWAWKI for him and Graysie, but Olivia later filled that void in his life, healing the hole left in his heart, and putting the pieces of his soul back together.
As far as he was concerned, once he got past the initial anger, she could give away every last damn crumb of food and every tiny pinch of coffee they had. As long as she and his daughter, Graysie, were still okay, he’d deal with it, somehow. At least they were together. And so far, they were safe and fed.
It’s not the end of the world—again.
At least, not yet.
He stepped up beside her, turned, and sat down, showing some unity—if not forgiveness—again. He knew her heart was in the right place. Olivia would give the shirt off her back to help someone. She was a giver. Couldn’t be helped. That was something he’d always loved about her. It was just bad timing, this time.
Jake turned up, looking weirdly jumpy, and carrying a well-used leather satchel of tools. He avoided eye contact with Grayson as he found a seat on the porch.
Grayson lifted his shirt up to wipe at the dirty sweat on his face. “So, the java finally ran out, huh?”
Olivia nodded sadly. “I told everybody last week I was near to scraping the bottom of the can. I guess we weren’t expecting it to be this bad though.” She rubbed her head.
His own head was pounding, too, but not any worse than his bad tooth. He’d love to lounge around and nurse all that ailed him; sitting still helped relieve the pressure some. But there was no time to sit still. There was firewood to cut and split, more work to do on the camper, food to be cooked, laundry to be washed and hung, and the big job coming up.
They’d need all hands on-deck for that.
How am I gonna motivate these people to get started without coffee?
The air grew thick with a quiet tension. Grayson turned to look at Puck, giving him a half-smile and getting a little wave and big cheesy grin in return. At least Puck wasn’t affected. The kid didn’t drink coffee. He was fine; full of energy as usual, recovered from his bee stings now, and almost fully recovered from his gunshot wound, too.
Built like an ox, healthy as a horse, the kid was a fast healer.
Puck had taken to hanging out wherever Graysie or Olivia was—had become somewhat attached to both and seemed a part of the family now. But had he raised him, he wouldn’t be following the women around. Nope. He was going to have to work harder on teaching the boy to work like a man now that he was under his care.
“Puck, have you seen Elmer today?” he asked, already knowing the answer. Puck kept his eye on the old man, too; almost to the point of stalking.
“Yeah, GrayMan. He’s sitting in his chair by the tree-line,” Puck answered.
Since Elmer’s arrival, after the loss of his wife, Edith, he’d taken to sitting in a lawn chair at the edge of the yard, facing away from the house, and looking into the woods. Every morning, the first thing Elmer did when he sat down was light a cigarette. He smoked that one cancer-stick in silent thought, and then spent the day quiet and alone. Everybody dealt with grief in their own way and this was his way, so they tried to give him his space.
Several times Grayson had wondered if that was the right thing to do though. Surely the man was getting lonely to talk to someone. He’d mosey over, intending to try to draw him out and chew the fat, only to find him already in a conversation.
With Edith.
So, he left him alone, to deal with his demons the best way he could. Puck however, spied on him at all times. The kid was very empathetic and was drawn to the old man. Grayson could see on Puck’s face the desire to pull up a chair and talk his ears off, but somehow the kid held back, satisfied with knowing where Elmer was, and keeping an eye on him from afar.
Elmer usually followed the smell of supper back to the house just as the plates were handed out. He ate in silence, thanked them for the food, and then walked back to his chair outside. He returned late at night to sleep on the couch, refusing to take one of the three beds.
“He talking to Edith out there again today?” Grayson asked Puck.
“No, sir. Not today. He smoked his cigarette, and then built a campfire, and then washed some plants,” Puck answered in the funny way he talked. “And then cooked some coffee-bean-stuff in a box, and then boiled it over the fire in water, and then poured it into a cup and drank it and then smacked his lips and then sighed really loud,” Puck answered innocently, followed by a wide, proud smile at giving such a full report to GrayMan.
And then? Grayson was dying to ask, but kept it to himself, hiding it behind a smirk.
All eyes widened and faces perked up. The ladies stood in unison. “Coffee?” Olivia asked. “Are you sure?”
Puck shrugged. “It smelled like coffee. And then it was brown after he cooked it. He drank it out of a coffee mug, and then it made him smile a little bit.”
Okay, the ‘and then’ was getting on his nerves a bit now…
That was enough evidence for the ladies. As one, they all hurried off the porch, shoving past Grayson. He flinched at the stampede, tucking his shoulders in tight, and laughed. Headed toward Elmer’s quiet place was Olivia in the lead, followed by Gabby and then Tina and Tarra, with Graysie behind them, waving a hand back at Puck to follow her.
Grayson knew for a fact that Elmer didn’t have any coffee beans. He came with nothing, in his hurry to warn the girls that Trunk and his boys were on the way. And there hadn’t been any in his truck that the gang had arrived in. He’d searched through everything himself. He hoped whatever it was that Elmer was cooking up, was a’ plenty and would pass muster with the girls.
3
The Farm
Elmer eased up from his chair, his old knees creaking loudly, and stood. The wrinkles in his face were creased
with grief and dirt. More dirt than grief, as he’d made his peace with Edith and his failure to protect her from the motorcycle gang led by Trunk. The pain of her loss was nothing compared to the pain of knowing what they’d put her through before she passed.
Branded.
The Wild Ones used their initials: TWO, to proudly ink themselves like a bunch of randy peacocks. It was just ink—a regular tattoo. But on their women, or anyone that crossed them, they used the number ‘2,’ burned into the skin with a sizzling hot steel branding iron to mark them.
Like an animal.
Her demise, thrown alive, into a grave with a dead body, after being marked like a wayward cow, was almost more than he could bear to think about. The thought of her terror brought tears to his cloudy eyes and a pain to his old heart.
But a few days ago, he’d awoken with a sense of forgiveness. Edith never was one to hold a grudge. He’d had many conversations with her lately, some overheard by Grayson and Puck. He felt sure they thought he’d lost his mind, but Edith wasn’t talking back to him.
She was dead for Pete’s sake. How could she?
He was doing all the talking.
Working it out in his mind.
Watching this motley crew, as they watched him, he’d seen them suffer though the withdrawals of caffeine, putting the blame on Grayson’s wife for giving away the coveted coffee supply. He’d shrugged off the lethargy and headaches himself; what pain could be worse than the loss of your wife?
He was over it, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be comforted by a hot cup of joe—or something that looked and smelled, maybe even tasted, like it.
He’d snuck off and foraged for Chicory plants. He’d found plenty alongside the road—and was also tickled to find his own truck full of food and supplies, hand-delivered by the monsters that’d killed his wife—but the Chicory he’d found by the road wasn’t safe. It had probably ingested exhaust and fumes from cars, and more than likely would do more harm than good.
He’d had to walk further and further each day on his hunt to find some not exposed to the modern poisons all around them. He found more far enough off the road to be safe, and once he’d dug up a good many, he’d harvested the roots, washed them off, scraped them, chopped them up into small pieces, and then soaked them in water while he built a solar oven to roast them in.
For the oven, he’d swiped one of Olivia’s wooden planters off her back porch; he was surprised she hadn’t noticed yet, but looking at the dead plant inside, it was obvious she’d forgotten all about it. The planter wasn’t very big at 24 inches square, but big enough. He’d tossed out the dried-up dead plant, rinsed it out, then insulated the inside of the wooden box with a stack of crumpled and crushed newspapers, using silicone glue to adhere it to the wood as a liner on the interior of the box.
Then he’d made a smaller box out of scrap wood he’d dug up from the barn, and covered the inside and the outside of the smaller box with aluminum, and nested it inside the wooden planter, making sure there was no space between the outside of the smaller box and the newspaper liner.
That was the body of the oven.
For the window/door on the top where the sun would shine through, he’d swiped the glass and frame from the one and only window in Grayson’s barn. It came out of a small tack room, that looked as though it hadn’t been used in years as more than a closet; it was covered in dust and cobwebs. So, he felt justified in re-purposing it.
He plugged the hole he’d left with plywood.
He had some manners.
With a few screws and hinges he’d rummaged out of Grayson’s shop, he’d made the window into a door of sorts, and attached that to the top of the planter.
Then he cut four even pieces of plywood for the ‘sun funnel,’ covering them with tin foil—nearly slicing his finger off with the sharp edges—and attached them to all four sides of the planter at an angle, so that the sun would reflect from every which way, back down onto the glass door.
The light went through the oven’s door and heated up the air in the interior with the reflective tin foil. At the same time, the insulation layer of newspaper kept the same heat inside of the oven.
He’d attached a thermometer—swiped from Olivia’s junk drawer—to the oven when it was finished and tested it out, putting a layer of the Chicory roots at the bottom of an open-topped Dutch oven and placing it inside. Surprisingly, during the hottest part of the day, the temperature hit 350 degrees. He’d roasted the Chicory roots for many hours, until they were dark brown and dry, and then let them cool. He then boiled them over his camp fire in an old dented metal pot also from Olivia’s kitchen, steeped them in the water for a few moments, and finally, strained the concoction with a bandana.
He held his coffee up in the air and took a sniff. “A fine cup of coffee,” he muttered aloud. Or close enough.
Looking over his shoulder at the small crowd of crazy-eyed females marching across the yard, he pulled the old towel off the stump, revealing five half-pint Mason jars of dried, roasted Chicory Root.
No one could say he didn’t earn his keep. He might not have brought anything with him—but fate had brought his supplies anyway, meager that they were. And his old eyes might not be the best behind a scope, his legs and arms had seen their better days, and his short-term memory wasn’t sharp, but he wasn’t totally useless.
This, he could do.
So far, he had one small jar for each of the women. He assumed they’d share with the gentleman folk, and maybe take charge of having it ready and steaming in the mornings.
It wouldn’t give them their caffeine, though, which in his mind was a good thing. But it’d give them a mental-kick in their rumps that they sorely needed to start their day.
He threw back the last dregs in the cup, even swallowing the loose grounds—dirt? —from the bottom. He grimaced, just as Olivia and the other ladies arrived, and picked at his teeth with a dirty yellowed fingernail.
Those roots could ‘a been cleaner.
The women stared at the jars in amazement, willing their eyes to believe it was coffee. Grayson arrived with Jake at his heels, and they both stepped up to examine the solar oven.
“Now, before you get too excited, it’s not coffee. But it’s like coffee. Close as we’re gonna get. Give this batch a try. For the next batch, I’ll need a scrub brush. And a grinder. Maybe even a real strainer,” Elmer grumbled. “Grinding the roots before boiling them would make it even more like real coffee. Maybe you can do better with it. You’re quite the home-maker,” he said, as he handed Olivia her jar, and a compliment, at the same time.
She cradled both to her chest.
The woman was a bit fragile, but she was quite the cook. Not in Edith’s league, but close.
Elmer belched and swiped at his mouth. “Not as good as real cup of joe, but good enough.” He drank his joe straight—black—but he’d also tested a cup with a bit of nutmeg and cinnamon, assuming the ladies probably liked that fluffy foo-foo Starbucks stuff, and would need to doctor it up. That was good, too. For the women, anyway.
But he’d take away the man card from any of the boys who attempted to lighten up his joe. Same as he’d do if they were his own boys.
Which by this time, they were.
He wasn’t volunteering the fact that the concoction didn’t have caffeine in it. If they wanted to assume it did, he’d let them believe what they needed to believe.
They’d nearly beat the caffeine addiction, anyway. And while he could show them how to make Holly Berry Tea and get caffeinated again, it was dangerous. If not done exactly right, it could cause diarrhea and vomiting, and he hadn’t seen this family’s paper collection yet, but in a grid-down situation, he’d think it best to avoid multiple trips and long rests on the john.
Plus, the tea was made from the leaves of the American Holly Tree, not the fruit; and he didn’t trust that kid, Fuckin’ Puck, not to pop one of the delicious-looking red berries into his pie hole. Seemed like a good kid, but maybe jus
t a sandwich short of a picnic.
If Elmer pointed out those trees, he felt sure that eventually, someone—probably that Puck boy—might take a hankering to try one of those berries, if they got hungry enough.
And that wouldn’t be good.
He’d just keep the Holly trees to himself. Plenty of other uses for it, too.
Later.
For now, this concoction would work fine as a substitute in feeding their mental addiction of that first cup of hot brown tonic to start their day. Humans were creatures of habit. He could give this habit back to the ladies, and that would make them happy.
Probably.
He shrugged.
Hell, he didn’t rightly know if’n it’d make them happy or not. After fifty years with his Edith, he still didn’t know what made women happy. Fickle bunch, they were.
But it was worth a shot. He felt sure Grayson, Jake, and even Puck would thank him for that.
Jake squatted down and opened the sun oven door. He peered inside. “Nice set-up here, Elmer.”
Elmer gave him a nod and sat down heavily in his lawn chair.
Jake stood up. “You know what would work even faster? A Fresnel lens.”
Elmer nodded, but Grayson looked confused. “What’s a Fresnel lens?”
“It’s the lens out of an old flat-screen TV. You take the cover off the screen, and underneath there’s a sheet of plastic in there—a lens—that magnifies sunlight to a fine-point beam. It’ll light a 2x4 on fire in seconds. I’ve seen someone cook a two-pound roast and potatoes in three hours, using only two glass bowls and one of these lenses. We can do it even better using it with Elmer’s sun oven. And you have the perfect TV down in your basement.”
Jake had noticed the old TV years earlier when he’d helped Grayson move in. They’d struggled to get the old dinosaur down the narrow steps, into the small basement—which was more of a cellar—and Jake hadn’t seen much use in doing it, since Grayson had told them the TV no longer worked.
