Hard Times: Chapter 9 "Going Home"

Going Home (Stone’s Return)



I’d been away too long. I’d done everything I could think of to get things moving in the right direction. Grace was settled in her new house. Uncle Bud and Aunt Mildred were as happy as they could be. Carlin and Joan were getting along better than they ever had even before hard times hit. The kids were going to the neighborhood school every day and doing well.

It was time for my family to go home. We knew that the Sun Camp was where we wanted to live. Madge fell in love with the place on our visit and so did Denim. It was youthful and vibrant. It was on the cutting edge of a new earth-friendly technology. The people were thoughtful and idealistic. The ideas never stopped flowing at the Sun Camp. They were open to change and their values were a mirror to our own. We had talked about the Sun Camp in such glowing terms that no one should have been surprised by our decision to move there. Still, we had never made it official.

It was mid autumn when we sat down to dinner with a plan to make our announcement. Madge broached the subject by talking about the weather and how good traveling days were coming to an end. Carlin picked up the topic as if he’d known what we intended. He said he expected we’d be moving on then and could I please pass the salt. We went on eating and talking about nothing until a light went off in Denim’s mind. We’re moving? To the Sun Camp? When? Saturday morning if all goes well. We had arranged for three crawlers but we couldn’t be certain they’d arrive on time. Grace was surprisingly composed. She said she’d seen it coming and prepared herself for the day. But when Charlie started crying Grace joined her, taking her into her arms and comforting her. Denim called her a crybaby and told her to get over it. We all spent the rest of the evening and most of the next day preparing Charlie for the move, telling her it wasn’t that far away and we could always visit, explaining how wonderful the Sun Camp was and how much fun she would have making friends there. As children her age often do, she would seem to understand and accept the idea and then the tears would flow again. We finally told her she could stay if she really wanted to and that did the trick. As much as she loved her grandmother she wanted to be with us.

We had a furnished home waiting for us so we packed only the things we didn’t want to be without. There really wasn’t much considering all that was lost in the fire. We had some books and works of art, some photographs and remembrances, a couple of gloves, bat and ball for Denim and I, and some handmade dolls for Charlie. The crawlers were already loaded with trade goods from the Bridge Camp when they arrived Saturday morning. We were a little surprised that so many of our neighbors were out on the street to see us off. Word travels quickly and every one of us had made good friends here. We said our goodbyes and promised we’d be back to visit as soon as the spring. After all the Sun Camp was only two or three days down the road though in some ways in seemed another world.

We had to stop by the Bridge Camp to say our goodbyes there as well. I especially wanted to see Sugar. He was making sounds about hitting the road. He was getting on in years so I couldn’t be sure we’d ever see him again. He was a good friend and as good a man as I’d ever met. I wanted to tell him what he already knew: that he was welcome at our new home any time under any circumstance. He was packed up and ready to move out. I offered a ride knowing he wouldn’t take it. He was stubborn in that way. If he was on the road he was on the road and didn’t want any rides from friends. I was pleased to see he had found a new companion: a big husky Sheppard mix that towed to his side. She would serve him well and protect him if he ran into trouble. Sugar always loved dogs and they had a special bond. He said they were heading north for one last adventure before he called it a day.

We each gave him a hug and our best wishes along with a dozen others who gathered around. Then we started off south. It was half a day to The Farm where we had plans to spend the night. It was tough going for Charlie who (except for the evacuation to the military base) had never been out of town since hard times hit. She wasn’t used to sitting still so we planned to take it slow and easy.

We were pleased to see how well things were going at The Farm. Since the trial there had been no more troubles. Leon was the man in charge now and he ruled with a firm but gentle hand. When there were conflicts he didn’t argue or make threats; he just took the matter to a vote of the community council. The council grew out of the trial.

Holly and Janis met us at The Farm. They would ride with us the rest of the way. We’d been caught off guard before and we didn’t want to take any risks with the kids along on this trip. Denim was maturing fast. He acted like he was an old hand and coached Charlie on what to do all along the way. Charlie had her feet planted now and she took her cues from Denim. We were proud of those kids. With what they’d seen and lived through, you’d think they’d grow up with a lot of problems to work out. Maybe it’s too early to tell but it seems to me they’re doing just fine. Right as rain.

I remember Leon looking up at the sky and saying a storm was coming in. I didn’t give it too much attention at the time. We had tents and rain gear so it didn’t seem a problem. If the rain got heavy or the wind too hard we could just pull off the highway and camp until it passed. Leon didn’t seem alarmed either. We needed rain. It was just an acknowledgement, not a warning. So we said our goodbyes like we had so many times before and started down a familiar road. We didn’t expect any problems. A couple of days and we’d arrive at the Sun Camp to start a new life.

We were half way to our next campsite when the storm hit and it hit hard. Thunder, lightning, sheets of rain and a strong wind. We knew we couldn’t travel through it so we pulled to the side of the road and hunkered down to wait it out. The wind was blowing so hard we couldn’t pitch a tent so we hitched a tarp to the crawlers, pulled out some blankets, some nuts and dried fruits, and waited. Denim was holding up pretty good. He gets a wide-eyed look when he’s scared but he’d rather eat worms than admit it. It was harder for Charlie. She couldn’t stop shivering. Madge held her wrapped in a warm blanket and whispered it’ll be all right. Cinn cuddled up next to her to give her warmth and it seemed to help. But the wind wouldn’t let up. It sounded like a hurricane, roaring through the trees and channeling down the road. There were limbs cracking and falling on all sides of us, one of them landing just south of where we were huddled. We decided we had to find a better place to pitch a tent and wait it out – all night if we had to. I remembered the first time I went down this road with Cinn. We had to wait out a storm for three days. I hoped it wouldn’t be that bad this time. At least we had people expecting us and folks that knew where we were. The one thing we knew was that no one would be traveling this road tonight. It would take a lot of work to clear the road and repair any washouts. We could hope for the best but we had to be prepared for the worst.

The first thing we needed was a decent campsite. The road was like a canyon for the wind and if the trees were going to fall they’d fall here first. We knew the road well. It was too far in either direction to make it to a prepared camp but there was a spot maybe a mile down where a path led to a clearing. The crawlers were designed to build to a certain speed and hold it and the brakes were designed to stop (as opposed to moderating speed) so we had to push and pull them with Holly and Janis out front clearing debris. We couldn’t see but a few feet in front of us so it was slow going. After a short distance we regrouped and decided to leave two of the crawlers behind. We repacked and started off again when Cinn started barking. There were two people huddled alongside the road with a scooter – a man and a woman caught in the same storm and relieved to see us. They had no idea where they were or where they were headed and they were not prepared for harsh weather. We invited them to join us and they fell in line.

We found the path and Holly and I scouted out a campsite maybe two hundred yards off the road. It was shielded from the wind by an outcropping of rocks with room enough for two tents. We hid the crawler and the scooter by the road and hauled what we needed down the trail. I carried Charlie who was just beginning to settle down. We pitched tent, gathered up some dry wood and kindling, dug out a circle lined with stones and covered it so we could build a fire in the night. Then we all gathered in one tent.

Our visitors were a young couple who had spent the last few weeks traveling north from Pasadena. They introduced themselves as Vera and Tack. They’d stuck to the side roads, picking up work for food and gas as they went along. There had been a terrible earthquake in LA and the fires that followed sent a wave of refugees in all directions. It was the first we had heard about it. They were cold, hungry and almost out of gas. They had no tent, no rain gear and no place to go. It was a reminder that no matter how bad things seemed there were always people who had it worse. A situation that for us was probably just an inconvenience, an adventure and a story we would tell down the line, might have been a disaster for them. It was a wonder they had survived their journey. They told us there were camps everywhere they went and most of them were willing to help. We told them we belonged to such a community and they were welcome to join us. At the least we could give them food and shelter until they got back on their feet. They thanked us and said they would. They both smiled that knowing smile that says they trust the world to take care of them. We were happy to be a part of that world and I wondered if what we had accomplished in this valley – at the Sun Camp, the Bridge Camp, and The Farm and even in the city – was happening other places too. I wondered if after all we’d been through we might be better off with the world we created from the ruins. Did we really miss the 24-hour news cycle and the media obsession? Did we really miss the web? Did we really need massive international corporations to govern our lives, to supply us our values, to tell us where and how we should live? Did we really need national government? Did we really need nations? Apparently what had happened here had also happened around the world so we didn’t have to worry about conquering armies. Eventually, I suppose, we would have to deal with that. Maybe that’s how it all begins: Armies of mass destruction.

The rain kept pounding, tapping a steady drumbeat on the tent, and the wind kept blowing but the lightning and thundered eased off into the distance. Madge was worried that Charlie was a little warm but Janis said she was fine. She needed fluids and nourishment but she was otherwise fine. Janis had taken on the role of a healthcare professional at the Sun Camp and she was well respected. She’d saved lives including mine. One of the things we’d learned was that many of the drugs that were fed to people by pharmaceutical corporations were completely unnecessary and often harmful. At first there was a panic. People broke down the doors and stole all the drugs they could. Then there were no more drugs. Some people suffered and some died but the great mass of people discovered they were better off without their drug dependencies. People like Janis became experts in alternative health care, using herbs and diet to treat disease and illness. All of the camps had a healthcare center that provided essential care for the community. They were not prepared for surgery of course but that was not entirely bad either. Surgery is always dangerous and should only be done when there is no alternative. If a surgery was necessary we did the best we could.

Vera and Tack took turns telling us all about their lives down south before and after the fall. That’s what they called it: the fall. As if it was a descent from heaven to hell. They were college students, both into art and music, and both heavily dependent on computer technology. They were media junkies who spent the first weeks and months after the fall in withdrawal. Vera said it was an addiction no different than an addiction to drugs. She knew because she was addicted to pain killers as well.

The earthquake was bad. They heard rumors that it was measure at 7.8 on the Richter scale – a major quake. They were sleeping in apartment building where they were squatters when the rumbles began. They ran out into the street with thousands of others. When it had all died down they went up to the roof and witnessed the destruction. There were fires everywhere, from Hollywood and downtown LA to the San Fernando Valley. The freeways (rebuilt after the last major quake) were down. Masses of people were on the streets with no place to go. Vera and Tack took off while they still could.

It was true that even LA had its share of communities that shared their wealth and made the best of things, planting gardens, building greenhouses and shelters. But the gang problem down south was far worse. The authorities let them sort things out on their own for a long time and then they came down like a sledgehammer. The massacres it seemed started down south and worked their way north. People like Vera and Tack decided it was better to deal with the gangs on their own terms than to invite the authorities to intervene. We had come to the same conclusion.

When the rain eased we lit a fire and made some tea. It was a dark night with just a sliver of the waning moon. We could hear the rushing waters of a nearby creek, swollen with the rain, and the usual rustling of small animals and an occasional yap or howl that restored poor Charlie’s state of fear and restarted the cycle of comforting. We settled in and enjoyed the opportunity to tell someone new all about the communities we had helped to form. They enjoyed the telling and wondered maybe if we weren’t exaggerating our claims.

In the morning we had coffee before we hiked back to the road to survey the damage. From our vantage point we could glimpse how bad it was. In addition to fallen trees and branches the creek next to the road had run so high that portions of the road had collapsed. We knew right away we wouldn’t be changing camp. We could be sure that our friends to the north and the south would send crews to clear the road but only after they took care of their own problems. We would do our part by clearing as much of the road as we could. That first day the best we could do was to clear enough road to retrieve our crawlers. We settled back in camp, gathered some berries, ate some nuts and dried fruits, drank tea and talked.

Late that night something strange happened. Holly was the first to notice it. Off in the distance to the west there was a light. We were all certain it hadn’t been there the night before. We’d been traveling this road long enough to know that almost all of these country homes were abandoned. Those that still had someone living in them didn’t have electricity. If they ran on a generator they wouldn’t waste it by lighting up the house at night. They’d use candles or a lantern or some kind of solar light that didn’t require batteries. This was different. It had to be a house maybe three miles out and it was lit up like Las Vegas without a care in the world.

We talked for quiet a time about what or who it might be and what we should do about it. Holly wanted to hike up there and take a closer look. Denim was all for it. After two days in this camp with no other kids but his little sister to play with, he was about as bored as a boy could be. The rest of us thought it would be wiser to wait until daylight. So that’s what we did. It gave us something to think about all through the night. We watched it hour after hour, a blast of white light in the desolate darkness. No rhyme or reason. Something else was strange about it. If someone was living or squatting there, the lights would go out at some point – at least in one room or another. But there was no change. None. The lights went on and they stayed on.

We were baffled. Then Madge said something that struck me: What if the lights came on? I knew what she meant. Back in the early days when the grid broke down and the lights went out along with all the appliances, the TVs, the refrigerators, the ovens and toasters, we went to bed every night praying that the lights would come back on in the morning. The never did. That’s what Madge meant: What if the lights came back on? What if the grid was back in operation? What if the media was back? What if the world as we once knew it was making a comeback?

I can’t explain how hard that thought hit me. I was nervous and scared. Now it was me who wanted to hike up there in the middle of the night with the rain coming down and who knows what waiting for us? But Madge was able to talk some sense into me. If I went up there, Denim was going with me. I could take chances by myself – even if there was no point to it – but I couldn’t take chances with Denim. So we sat there and waited, watching and imagining what we were seeing. I thought I saw a shadow moving and maybe I did. Maybe it was a cat or a dog or a possum. Cinn went off by herself a couple of times that night. She came back to camp and gave me look that I could swear said something like: You won’t believe this.

It was a long, long night. I thought about all the implications. I thought about property rights, courts of law, police forces and the National Guard. I thought about armies and war. I thought about working for corporations and drilling oil for industrial plants and fuel-burning cars. I thought about all my friends at the Sun Camp, The Farm and the Bridge Camp who didn’t own the land they worked and planted and built new lives on.

What would happen to them? What would happen to us?

Madge, Holly, Janis and I were quiet in our sleeplessness. The thought that the world as we knew it was once again turning over was haunting. Vera and Tack had a different take. They belonged in the world that left them behind. They wanted to go back. They wanted internet cafes, national and international news. They wanted Hollywood movies and the NBA finals. They wanted it all back. They wanted the new world to recede like a bad dream. They could hardly wait to explore the house of lights and Denim was right with them. Charlie sensed our misgivings and it held her in check. She wasn’t sure what to feel. She sensed that something important and maybe dangerous was waiting in that country house. But Denim caught the excitement of an explorer. Something new was something he wanted to be involved in and he wanted to get there first. We had to keep an eye on him so he wouldn’t sneak off in the dark.

We were up at dawn but the anxiety of the night had diminished. We were all convinced there was no other logical explanation. The storm had passed. It was a bright autumn day. Golden leaves were falling from majestic oak, maple and dogwood trees. The earth was glistening with moisture from the storm. We drank our coffee under a spell of silence that accentuated the morning song of birds awakening to the day’s activities. There was a buzz in the air that we had not heard in a very long time. It was the sound of electrical currents, imperceptible when it was constant but distinct after a long hiatus.

Tack and Vera finally announced that they were hiking up there and we all fell in line. It was not a long hike – maybe half an hour. Before long we found a path that led to the house. It once served as a conduit for vehicles from the main road. It was overgrown now and in need of repair but it wouldn’t take much. Whoever had left this house must have thought to cover the path from the road. In all these many months we hadn’t seen it.

When we arrived the first thing we noticed was that the lights were still on including the porch light. There was an old Ford pickup rusting away in the driveway, its tires long since flat. There was no apparent activity but as we drew closer we could make out voices. It didn’t sound quite real. It’s the television someone said. We knocked on the door and no one answered so we walked in, clearing the cobwebs as we went. It was pretty clear what had happened here. Despite the dust and webs, the place was tidy. The shelves were stocked with books. There were photographs and pictures on the walls. The refrigerator was empty and the cupboards were almost bare. They had two small children. When the grid went down they packed up what they needed and went to a shelter or relatives in town to wait for the crisis to pass. They hadn’t bothered to turn anything off. Whatever happened to them they never made it back. I wondered if they might not have been better off staying. They could have planted a garden. They could have fished the creek. They could have survived out here. Who knows? Maybe they were foreclosed. Maybe they were afraid to be isolated from others. Maybe they feared for their safety. Now that it was over maybe they would finally find their way back home.

We all sat down and listened to the broadcast of a 24-hour news station. It was the only broadcast available. They were announcing that the nation’s long nightmare was finally coming to an end. The grid was up over most of the country. Electrical services were coming back on line. Satellites were operative. The government of the United States was back in place. Order was being restored in the cities and help was on the way. It was the same story in Europe and Asia and throughout the world. It was the day of the Phoenix, the day the lights came back on and civilization as we knew it was reborn.

There was a lot of talk about what had happened and why. I took it in and let it go. It no longer seemed to matter. I was filled with misgivings. The full weight of what had happened finally settled on my shoulders.

We had only begun to realize our vision of rebuilding the world. We would hear similar stories all over the nation and in other countries where communities had taken the same path toward free energy, a new social order and self-sufficiency without poisoning the planet. When the government came back on line we instinctively sensed that the experiment was over. We would of course continue our work as best we could but the promise of a new world and our hope that others would join in our vision was over.


End.