Hard Times: Chapter 4 "Tenacity"

“Tenacity”



It was hard times for everyone. I fought as hard as I could for as long as I could to save our home and the life we enjoyed. How long has it been? A year? Two years? It feels like ten. My story is the same as a million others: Lost my job (a good job supplying tools and parts to American industry before industry was exported to Mexico, India, Malaysia or whatever third world country provided the cheapest labor). I picked up work wherever I could find it but it wasn’t enough. No one could support a family on what they pay you for flipping burgers or stocking shelves at the grocery store. There just wasn’t anything else for me. I tried. I gave it all I had. I’m sorry it wasn’t enough.

I know everyone blames me for what happened. Not the financial crisis, not the total breakdown in the social order, but for what happened with Stone. Apparently the house wasn’t big enough for the two of us so he left. Everyone blames me for pushing him out the door. I never asked him to go. I never wanted him to go. I never even gave it a thought. They can blame me all they want but it’s not helpful. Anyone can play that game. Where was Stone when the tornados hit and we had to make repairs? Where was he when the virus came through and we had to set up roadblocks and impose quarantine? Where was he when the convicts came and shook us down for our food? Should I blame Stone for not being here when all the shit went down?

Someone had to take the lead so I did. There wasn’t enough space so we added a room. We needed a greenhouse. I took the initiative. If Stone resented it he never said a word. You can’t blame me for everything that happened. You can’t blame me that Uncle Bud and Aunt Mildred moved in. If it was my decision it might have been different. It would have been hard turning them away but sometimes you have to make the hard choices. Too many hands on board, too much dead weight, you do what you have to do.

But it was mom’s house and mom’s decision. She has a soft heart for the lost and unfortunate so we knew she could never turn them away. They were family. In her mind that was all there was to it. I wanted to have a family vote. Madge said fine if you let Bud and Mildred vote. Even Joan sided with her. I would have found them a place to live. I wouldn’t put them out on the street. Madge said there was no place to live. Stone got a little red in the face and said it was Grace’s call and that was the end of it. So it was.

So if you want to blame someone there it is. Blame it on compassion. Blame it on the moon. Blame it on Grace but leave me out of it. I wanted to do the right thing, that’s all. I wanted what was best for the children.

To be honest, I respected Stone for leaving. He took a look around and said: I take more than I give. I know it sounds unkind but at the time it was true. We were better off without him. We had more food at the end of the month. We didn’t need him. We all know he loves Madge and he loves those kids more than he does himself. It took courage for him to leave and I respected him for that decision.

When he came back things had changed. I changed. I don’t care what people think; you can’t witness a massacre and not be moved. I remember how it was before. I’m not the kind to question authority. If the army said civilian casualties were unfortunate but unavoidable I believed them. When they said war is hell I agreed with them. I was in the first Gulf War. People say it wasn’t much of a war and compared to the second I guess it wasn’t but it was enough to give me a taste. It was enough to me the pride of a soldier like a player on a football team. Our side is always right. Of course we didn’t take Baghdad. We never occupied the country. There was no Fallujah, Ramadi or Abu Ghraib. The people didn’t hate us in that war even when we left Saddam in power and he wiped out the Kurds.

I was a proud American and a patriot. Not the rah-rah type but people knew where I stood. I spoke up when I had to and I wouldn’t take crap from the crowd who always puts us down – like Madge and Stone. Before the fall we cared about things like that. Now? Now I don’t know what I am. A homeless person, a hanger on, a taker, a leach: I’m the kind of person I always blamed for what was wrong with this country.

I never really knew war in Iraq. I had to come back here for that. They drew them in and wiped them out. Caught them in a crossfire and laid them down. They used me and Big John to lay the trap. We showed our faces, told them to go away and retreated to watch what followed. I tried to stop them when they started throwing firebombs but they held me back and muzzled me. They didn’t let me go until the fireworks began. Nice euphemism. They shot them down with automatic weapons. Snipers from the rooftops shot anyone who was still moving. Then they went man-to-man, body-to-body, in an operation they called Mercy Killing. I watched every last kill. I had to watch. I don’t know why. I guess some part of me figured the story had to be told. The street was a river of blood and that’s not a metaphor: a river of blood. If anyone survived they weren’t in the street and they wouldn’t be returning. They’d get as far away as they could as fast as they could go. That was the point.

I don’t like to talk about it but my mind keeps drifting back there to that river of blood. They knew what they were doing. They brought high-powered hoses to wash the blood away. They wrapped the bodies in black plastic bags, stacked them up like heaps of garbage and hauled them away.

So I was glad when Stone came back. I needed someone to help take the pressure off. We didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of things but we respected each other. At least I respected him. He had a lot of wild ideas about uniting us with the communities he lived in while he was away. I figured we had enough to think about right here but some of his ideas made sense. The other communities had skills and resources we didn’t have and if there was another threat to our security we could band together and do what had to be done.

Sure that much made sense. We had some rebuilding to do here and now and maybe the others could help. Stone wanted to make a run to recruit workers, planners, carpenters and solar engineers but Madge was petrified. She was afraid if he left she’d never see him again. Stone made the point that it had to be him. If it was anyone else it might not be safe. After all that had happened with the gangs and the criminals everyone was a little touchy. There was a feeling that no one could be trusted. Madge finally agreed to let him go on the condition that she went with him. Stone put up a fight but it was no use. She had her mind made up and that was it. It went back and forth for days before he finally relented. We agreed to take care of the kids and off they went: Madge, Stone and his dog.

We didn’t know it then but Denim took off after them. By the time we figured out he was missing the day was gone. I figured he’d be all right but Joan and Grace were hysterical. They’d left Denim in our care and we dropped the ball. I couldn’t argue with that. He was our responsibility and if anything happened to him the blame would fall on us. I went after them, heading for the Bridge Camp, figuring they’d at least check in there before moving on. If we were lucky, they’d spend the night and we’d be able to find Denim so they could talk some sense into him and I’d take him back home. It was strange moving through the streets at night. Eerie. There were fires all over town, metal barrels in the middle of streets circled by people, children and adults, their eyes shining with fire, more fearful than menacing. I tried to stay in the shadows as much as possible, moving swiftly and with a purpose, never stopping to talk or attract attention. People were still unaccustomed to anyone but prowlers and criminals traveling at night. I was afraid without cause or reason and I was worried that Denim could be out here somewhere. He was a good kid and very able. He was smart in both the street and book learning ways. He could take care of himself. But if I was afraid on these streets at night, how would it be for him? It was wet hot and I was covered in sticky sweat by the time I reached the bridge. Stone and Madge had been there only briefly and there was no sign of Denim.

I thought about following them but the people at the bridge persuaded me it wasn’t safe. There was one old man in particular who pretty much spoke for the lot of them. He said he was a friend of Stone and came to know him pretty well. His name was Sugar and he convinced me it was best if I stayed the night. He said nothing good could come of me getting lost out there chasing shadows and ending up bruised and beaten by some group of ragtag ruffians. He was certain that if Denim had only half the good sense his father did he’d be just fine. In fact, he was probably hunkering down by a campfire with his mother and father right now. I don’t know for sure if it was Sugar or my own thinking but I decided to head back home the next morning and let things unfold.

A week passed before word finally arrived by solar crawler that Denim was okay. He was with his parents and they had decided to continue their journey with him. They assured us all they were taking every precaution and they would return safely in due time. It was a great relief not only to me but also and especially to Joan and Grace. Not a day had gone by without a discussion of whose fault it was that Denim slipped out and whether or not I should still be on the road looking for him. It was getting past the point where I just couldn’t take any more. I felt bad enough as it was.

A couple days after my nighttime visit to the Bridge Camp, Sugar showed up with a crew and we put them to work. We had plans to rebuild our home and set up a community center in the space left vacant by the families that stayed with the military. After that we’d think about building a security wall and guard towers. That seemed a long way off.

The first thing we had to do was clear away the burnt out wreckage and that’s what we did. The whole neighborhood pitched in but the hardest workers were the men in the bridge crew. Being around them, talking to them and sweating with them changed what I thought about the people who ended up under that bridge and thousands of others just like them. Like a lot of people, I figured they were all losers – drug addicts and bums. It goes to show over and over things aren’t necessarily the way we think they are.

At the end of the day they planned to go home but we asked them to stay. We fed them, set up some tents and told them how much we appreciated their help. Sugar told us they were building a new community in the old orchards across the river and, when we were done here, there would be plenty of opportunity to return the favor. We all nodded and began to appreciate what Stone had in mind. Every community had something unique to offer. Every one of us had people with different sets of knowledge and different experiences that would be useful.

The Bridge Camp had hard workers, people who knew what they were about and were not afraid to sweat. They had people who could carry their own weight and then some. The farm community was dedicated to producing food. They produced more than they could eat. In this world, that made them both valuable and vulnerable. They had what everyone needed. From what Stone said, the commune of college kids down south had a good grasp of technology, especially solar and wind power. All the communities outside the city had room to grow, room for more gardens, greenhouses, canning and storage facilities.

What did we have that the others might need? Being in the city we had more tools and supplies – wires, nails, screws, gaskets and pipes. In this new world where very few industries were still making products, everything was in short supply. The hardware stores were cleaned out early on. What remained was stored in tool sheds and garages. Every house in the suburbs had a garage full of treasures.

The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. We still had some services in the city – sewage and recycling – but as time went by they deteriorated. There’s only so much you can do without a budget and without paid workers. It was only a matter of time until it all broke down completely. It would only make sense to get out of the city then and we needed somewhere to go.

Whenever I talked to Joan about these things she said we should have stayed with the military. She said at least we knew there would be enough food to eat and no one could threaten us. She had a point but she didn’t realize that they would have expected me to join them. I couldn’t do that. After what I had seen there was no way I could join them. It was something I couldn’t really explain and Joan would never understand. The only thing she understood was that we were here, working and struggling, when we could have been safe and taken care of back at the base.

It seemed like she brought it up every chance she got, every evening before we went to sleep and every morning before we got up, so I finally laid it out for her. I told her what had happened in every gory detail: Teenage kids shot in the head point blank, shot in the back so they couldn’t run away, people screaming in horror before they were put out of their misery, and the bodies piled up and carted away. I told her they wanted me to do the same. I said she could go back if she wanted but they’d probably turn her away. It was me they wanted and I was staying. She cried but I think she understood. She never brought it up again.

We worked hard on the house from sunrise to sunset. We were making good progress and we had enough workers that we decided to start work on the community center as well. We used the foundation of our neighbor’s house that had also burned down and expanded it so it could accommodate a larger structure. We worked in crews and each one had a specialty. When the foundation was finished the crew went down to the Bridge Camp and started work there. I went with them a couple of times and I was amazed at what they were doing and how fast the work was going. I imagined they would use wood to build cabins or shacks made of wood and tin but they were making and using some kind of bricks for the walls and clay tiles for roofs. Aware of what had happened with the firebomb attacks, they wanted to avoid using flammable materials wherever possible.

Sugar told me they had stocked a lot of bricks from abandoned structures but when they didn’t have enough to cover their needs, they went to work on making their own bricks. They used clay or mud from the riverbank, mixed it with sand, stone, plastic refuge, straw and the like until they came up with a mixture and a method that produced a strong brick that wouldn’t crumble in the heat or the rain. They sealed it with a stucco mixture that had grayish white look to it. They were pleasant to look at and far more stable, fireproof and resistant to weather than what we had in mind for our buildings: traditional wood framed structures with dry wall or plywood with insulation.

I asked Sugar if there was any chance he could supply us with bricks and tiles. He smiled and said he could provided we could help with the kiln problem. The one oven they had was ill suited to its purpose. Sugar was a sly and clever man. I’m sure he knew already that we had a generator powered ceramic kiln in the neighborhood. It belonged to the Contreras family and I was sure he was not only willing but anxious to fire it up for the cause. We made a deal on the spot.

From then on we would use a solar crawler to transport bricks and tiles to the neighborhood for firing. We used what we needed and transported the rest back to the Bridge Camp. Along the way we made friends and recruited workers. We seemed to be a magnet for bricklayers and masons and construction workers so we took them on and set them up out at the camp where they became a part of the crew.

We had to draw a line somewhere but I left that up to Sugar and his people. There was only enough food for so many – even with our allotments. I was there when he had to tell a couple and their child they had to move on. The man was ready to fight but Sugar had such a soft touch and so much genuine affection he could only shake his head. Sugar saw to it they were fed and pointed them in the right direction the next day. They left feeling we had done all we could. They were treated with respect and that was more than they were used to these days. I learned later they showed up at the farm a day or two later and they were allowed to stay there. We would see them again on down the line.

There were troublemakers too. Everywhere you go there’s someone who wants something for nothing. There are people who think they can take what you have. There’s always someone who thinks he’s big and bad enough to have his way even if it means running right over you. One time we were running a load out to the camp and a group of four or five scrawny looking men jumped out from the bushes with clubs. We held up our baseball bats and pipes and they folded right back where they came from. Another group had rocks and wanted us to stop the crawler. Now anyone who has a crawler knows the only way to stop it is to cover the collector and even then it takes its own good time. Sugar yelled at them: We ain’t stopping but you’re welcome to follow us where we’re going. They left us alone. The fact is: Nobody had much use for what we were hauling but us.

The Bridge Camp got its crawler (they called it a solar hauler) from the college kids down south. Sugar said they had another one coming. Stone’s plan was working. The camp had already sent a crew of brick makers and masons down to help them develop their own mixture using local resources.

It was mid summer and the weather was baking hot. Every summer was hotter than the last it seemed. It was so hot you couldn’t work without a constant supply of water. We carried leather pouches and we took breaks every hour: forty-five minutes on and fifteen off. We had four walls up and a roof framed when a supply of solar and insulation panels arrived from the south on a solar hauler. They hooked together with an overlap that repelled rain and sealed the roof airtight. Sugar said it was the greatest invention he’d seen in fifty years of engineering. It took two working days to put the roof in place and when we were done it was as cool as an air conditioned home inside.

After that we called the community of college kids to the south the Sun Camp because they had mastered solar technology. Every day we saw more and more solar crawlers and they were getting better. Most of them (and all of the best) came from the Sun Camp.

People from the surrounding neighborhoods started coming to watch us as we finished up the house and continued working on the community center. We had to assign a couple of people to answer their questions. The combination of the Bridge Camp’s masonry and the Sun Camp’s solar technology would provide the perfect home for a new age, a completely self-sufficient structure with all the modern conveniences.

When the workday was done we talked about Stone’s concept of expanding the community by opening it up to surrounding neighborhoods. We talked about our security interests and building a wall to protect us from outsiders. It was a lot to consider but once they saw what we could accomplish everyone we talked to was interested.

It might seem that we got more than our share of benefit from our alliance with the other communities. That may be. But there was one other contribution we made that made a difference. It’s not something anyone likes to talk about but after the attack on our neighborhood we poured our knowledge and resources into weaponry. We have every description of bow and arrow, firebombs and spears. One of the weapons we developed was an air compression gun that could stop a large man in his tracks. We could shoot darts or ball bearings. We could treat them with chemical compounds that could burn with pain, paralyze or kill. When we realized that others could be developing similar weapons we worked on uniforms that could repel them.

Of course we had guns, rifles and ammunition too. You could be sure we weren’t the only ones. But if the authorities caught wind of a shooting or an explosion of any kind, the army would come down on you. We couldn’t take that chance. No one could take that chance. The wrath of an angry god awaited anyone who defied the law of firearms. We kept them locked away and carefully guarded. We wouldn’t use them unless our lives depended on it.

We shared our weapons technology with our partners and they were as pleased as we were with their contributions. We had all had a taste of what people could do when they want what you have. Some people protested but they came around. It was a necessary evil. Even Stone and Madge and their peacenik friends understood. No one wants to kill anyone. Well, I guess some do. I thank god they’re the exception. That’s why we need people like me. That’s why we need soldiers and cops. Someone has to do it.

We had an occasion to use our weapons only once. We had a crew taking a load of bricks to the farm community on a trade for dried foods. Dried foods are about as valuable a commodity as there is in this world. Someone apparently knew about our shipment and a gang of thieves, about a dozen or more, accosted us on a country road. They were attempting to surround us. I showed my weapon and warned the man who seemed to be their leader, a big man with a full gray beard, strong as a horse, that it was loaded and there was more where it came from. The others stopped but the big man kept coming. I shot him in the gut and watched him drop to his knees and crumble to the ground. They backed off, leaving their leader right there in the road, gasping for air like a wounded beast.

I remember the day Madge, Denim, Stone and his dog Cinnamon came back. That little dog was the smartest animal I ever saw. It was midday in late June and a little overcast. The walls were up on the community center and we were putting finishing touches on the house. There was a crowd of a hundred people there. It was like a festival. They drove up on a solar crawler like heroes returning from war.

We gave them a tour of the house and showed them their rooms on the second floor. It was really one room with two divisions: They had two bedrooms with a living space in the middle. We had the same space and Grace’s on the ground floor was a little smaller. It would accommodate us all and still leave room for the gardens outside.

They were like proud parents. They were happy and pleased. This was their work as much as ours. It was Stone’s vision and Madge worked hard to make it come true. I was glad Stone came back. We needed him to build the community. I’m good at getting things done but Stone is good at selling the idea. He generates enthusiasm. He makes people feel like it’s their dream too. Like they’re a part of it. I don’t know how he does it but he does. He has the gift. With Stone speaking for us, all the surrounding neighbors would want to join. As far as I was concerned: the bigger the better. We would be prepared for all contingencies. With a little organization we could respond to emergencies. We could defend ourselves from intruders and at the same time provide for all our needs.

I was grateful Stone came back. We could share the burden.