Maggie came home from the office early. She needed time alone to clear her mind. She knew John would be out most of day, having gone fishing on the peninsula with a friend. Detective Jones (who preferred the title to his given name despite the fact that he had retired years ago) had become one of his few confidants. John enjoyed calling him “Myron” just to goad him. The detective had three great loves: Shakespeare, his wife and fishing.
So once every two weeks John and the good detective crossed the sound to find their way to some obscure location that the detective uncovered from old fishing magazines. They hardly ever seemed to catch any fish judging from the fact that John would pick up the catch of the day at Fisherman’s Market on his way home. Their expeditions were not really about fishing. They were an opportunity to discuss the affairs of the world and Maggie knew exactly what the topic was today.
His plans were on hold. He would not take action until Maggie gave her final word. She was aware of this and sometimes wished it was not so. It made them seem like a married couple. They had made a choice not to marry though it did not reflect their commitment to one another. Marriage was an institution that preserved the order of a patriarchal society. It did not matter how the vows were altered, the act itself was a cultural and legal claim of possession that they did not wish to sanctify.
They were both financially secure so they needed no legal guarantees and had no desire for societal approval. Their love did not require a formal bond. They were more than married; they were soul mates. Yes, it is a phrase that strikes the ear with an awkward clang yet there were no other words that better defined what they were to each other. It was a distinct distance from the values of their parents and that was as it should be. Having gone to great lengths not to define their relationship, they had defined it in a way few of their friends or family members could understand yet they embraced it with their love. They responded to each other’s needs and desires in a way that required little thought or planning. It evolved as they did – as unique beings in a world gone mad.
Paramount in their relationship was the need for individual expression. They maintained two residences, one geared to John’s need for solitude on the rocky coast of Vancouver Island, the other geared to Maggie’s need for social interaction atop a high rise overlooking Puget Sound.
Depending on his mood and the status of his projects, John would spend days or even weeks alone on the island where the waves ran high, where the winds whipped across the sound and where the kingfishers and gulls were a constant reminder of nature’s power. It was a simple three-room cabin made of old weathered logs. The cabin satisfied his need for solitude far from the voices of media, technology and modern life. The wind and the sea spoke to him in a language he could understand. If not for his social consciousness, his obsessive need for a cause to benefit all of humankind, he might have been content to live a quiet life in the mystic wilderness.
Maggie also loved the sound and the wind and the sea but she was by nature a social creature. She thrived on the challenges that only humans could provide. She possessed a gift for understanding other points of view. She drew people in, gained their trust, formed friendships and alliances and gathered influence. She was loved by those knew her well and liked by those who knew her only casually.
Maggie’s place was in the heart of the city. She was most at home in the comfort of their spacious suite overlooking the sound. It was clean and stylish with straight lines and prominent works of art featuring an eclectic view from Edward Hopper’s modern American realism to Van Gogh’s abstractions. Maggie’s support of the art community was central to her identity. To her there was nothing more natural and fulfilling that living in an artistic environment. To John it was a little like living in a museum. He loved art as much as Maggie did but he had a problem with order. If not for Maggie and the intoxicating view of the sound and, on a clear day, the mountains of Olympus, this was not a place he would choose to live for any length of time. It was however a good balance to the natural chaos that sometimes overwhelmed him at the cabin.
Maggie was drawn to order. She was as constant as the sun and forgiving as the earth. Where John’s was scattered, her mind was geared to organizing, seeking out patterns and using them to optimize function and efficiency. Her aesthetic sense reflected order from works of art to the natural beauty of sunset on the northern Pacific. John preferred the anarchy of the unexpected, the jazz of Coltrane to Louie Armstrong, Picasso to Monet, Burroughs to Shakespeare, and Bukowski to Byron. The terrible beauty of a violent storm was worth a thousand calm sunsets.
They shared a love of jazz. It was a part of Maggie that enabled her to understand her man beneath the skin. His moods were as wild and unpredictable as the music that captured him. When he soared he was the mercurial eagle riding the winds of unbounded imagination and when he dove he dove deep like Dante on his descent to the lowest level of hell.
Maggie grew to understand his mood swings, his eccentricities and his retreats into isolation. She gave him the time he needed before she reached out to pull him back from the depths. To anyone else it might have been the burden that would break them apart but Maggie understood that it was a part of him. When he was giving he gave far more than he took. He respected her needs as she respected his. It was not a sacrifice. It was the natural flow of their lives together. It was a unique relationship that operated on a level most cannot begin to comprehend. They were blessed.
Maggie was reading in the living room when John arrived. He discarded his fishing gear in the laundry room. It was early evening. He tossed her a greeting on his way to cleaning up. She smiled and wrinkled her nose at the smell of fresh cod wrapped in brown paper, which he discarded on the kitchen counter. He took a little extra time in the bathroom, sensing that something was amiss and wondering what it might be.
She handed him a glass of wine and asked how his trip had gone.
“Great, Maggie. What’s on your mind?”
She could count on him to be direct. It was an acquired trait for her sake. Maggie was direct and honest to a fault.
She held a printed copy of his latest chronicle on the web. It was an impassioned attack on the two-party system in the name of the founding fathers and a summons to an independent movement.
“I don’t know what you plan to do. I don’t know if anything can be done but I do know that you don’t address a problem unless you’re prepared to act on it. So what’s your plan?”
“There is no plan.”
“Are you waiting on me?”
“We’re partners, Maggie. I’d like you to be a part of this but we’re moving ahead with you or without you.”
“Then there is a plan.”
“More like an idea.”
Maggie watched him sit in a chair opposite her as she tossed it around in her mind. A storm was approaching and they could see the workings of a strong wind outside their windows. Normally John would comment on the nature of climate change brought on by global warming. For a time she thought it would become his new cause but that was before the last election. Now everything was politics and everything from business to baseball was cast in political terms.
“I’m sorry but I think you’re being a little disingenuous. I sense that you’re waiting for something and I thought it might be me. Have you consulted anyone?”
“Yes.”
“And they convinced you that I should run for office?”
“That was my idea.”
“Do you have other options?”
John walked over to the windows where he stared at a dark sky over the dark waters of the sound. The sound seemed to awaken at night, waves crashing on rocky shores, reminding us that the earth was still a force to be reckoned in this technologically crazed world, a world that too often forgot its dependency on the forces of nature.
“Another storm.”
She joined him at the windows as the first bolt of lightning struck with a shiver of rolling thunder in its wake. She cradled him from behind and took comfort.
“Are you ready to hear this?”
“I know you, John. I could no more stop you from doing what you intend to do than you could stop yourself. But there’s one thing I think you should know from the beginning. It’s not the founding fathers that concern you so much as it is your own father.”
His father had been something of a hopeless idealist. Hopeless because he had never acted beyond voting or choosing not to vote. Hopeless because he never believed that anything could be done.
John remembered an occasion when his father had concluded a familiar rant on the plight of the working class and the failures of democracy with the question: How can any one person make a difference in this world? His mother replied: One step at a time.
“Well, Maggie, we can’t do much about our parents but maybe we can do something about the world.”
“What does Myron say?”
“The same thing everyone else says: It’s impossible. Then we talked.”
“You’ve consulted experts?”
“Pundits, consultants, operatives, advisers and gurus. They all say the same thing: I’m certifiable.”
“I’ve known that for a long time.”
“I’m about to confirm it.”
“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.”
“The goal is the utter and absolute destruction of the two-party system.”
A clap of thunder rumbled through the walls as if to punctuate his pronouncement. It was undeniable that these violent storms were becoming more frequent and all of Seattle (if not the world) was becoming a harder and colder place. People on the streets were harsher. Clients were more cynical. Clerks and waiters were less friendly. Even those in her circle of friends were less patient and less thoughtful. Was it the weather? Was there an epidemic of ill will and foreboding? Or was it the cold, relentless winds of conservative politics? The politics of privilege and exploitation had widened the gap between the rich and the poor. Had it spilled over in the form of resentment on both sides of the gap?
“You are certifiable.”
“I know.”
“Everyone says it’s impossible but you don’t believe them.”
“Yes. No.”
“What do you believe?”
He walked over to the fireplace where he turned a knob that switched on artificial flames. No one responsible burned wood anymore unless they were poor or hadn’t heard the news. Burning wood added deadly toxins to an atmosphere already filled with industrial waste. He missed the flames of a real fire but these would do.
“I believe in wine and music.”
She joined him on the sofa where she saw the forces of destiny at work on his face. It was a constant struggle for John, a battle he felt compelled to fight though its conclusion was always the same. She came to understand that both the struggle and its effect were equally important to his sense of purpose.
“I’ve been talking to the wrong people, Maggie. They know the numbers but they lack a sense of imagination. I should have been talking to jazz musicians, artists, writers, filmmakers, poets and dreamers. If you can imagine it, it can be done.”
She held back the urge to comment. It was a process that would unfold on its own time. She knew already there was no turning back. It was his cause and it would become hers. It would surround and dominate their lives. She settled in his arms, flames dancing and a storm raging outside their windows.
“What will it take?”
“A miracle. An alignment of the stars, a million acts of faith, a convergence of events, and a desperate plan carefully orchestrated against all odds … a miracle. What could be simpler?”
They kissed and kissed again. Lightning and thunder like a thousand angry drums, rain descending like waterfalls, their bodies pulled closer and he realized that Maggie would travel with him once more. He was not alone.
She pressed her lips against his and felt the passion of the cause, the power of renewal, the anticipation of battle against unbeatable forces and the irrational sense that somehow they would prevail or at least they would survive to fight again. She drew him in and he followed to a place where no worries or rational thoughts exist. He went inside where there was no storm, no lightning or thunder, no sheets of rain and no howling winds of change.
There was only Maggie. Maggie and John.
Showing posts with label Jack Random. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jack Random. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Saturday, July 17, 2010
CRY FATHER: Chapter Four: The Candidate
The candidate was impatient. This was supposed to be a publicity tour but the media had failed to show. As a first year congressman he had exerted some measure of independence and now he was paying the price. The Democratic Party abandoned him. In so doing they sent a message to all who wished to enter electoral politics: There is no place in the party for anyone who is not a team player. The party leaders gave him one last chance to play ball but when he failed to make amends they cut him loose.
Bob Johnson of Colorado’s seventh district chose to carry on. He was seeking a second term despite the party’s notice that they would actively support his opponent in the primary. He could not afford to squander time or money on a tour that would only be covered by his own home movies on public access television. After two weeks on the stump he was tired and ready to pack it in.
Yet here he was outside an old Anasazi pueblo where his senior advisor and the only man in politics he had ever fully trusted was trying to convince him that he should invest another hour in visiting the Navaho elders gathered in a cave of ancient rock paintings to honor their distinguished visitor. These were Indians for god’s sake. They didn’t even vote. For a moment he suspected his old friend was having him on but the expression on the old timer’s face conveyed an importance beyond what reason would allow.
Gardner McMahon, a short balding redheaded Irish American with an infectious smile and a story for every occasion, was a seasoned veteran in the game of politics and he rarely joked when it came to business. His integrity was unchallenged and he was hardly ever wrong. Of all the congressman’s former advisors and consultants, he alone chose to stay after the party’s declaration.
He explained: “In all my live I have known princes and kings, saints and scientists, poets and priests. In all that time I have met but two or three extraordinary people. I believe you are one of them, my friend, and another sits at a fire circle inside that cave. Believe me when I tell you it is a rare honor to be invited to her circle. Don’t disappoint me.”
So the honorable Robert Johnson, first term congressman from Colorado, walked down a red rock path bordered by tall stone walls toward the light of a distant fire and the chant of Navaho elders to receive their sacred blessing. He was beckoned to his place in the circle as a pipe was passed and his gaze came to rest on the elder woman directly across from him. Her dark probing eyes seem to question his very soul. Her expression seemed contorted, pushing forward, etching deep lines upon her face.
Congressman Johnson had not known such scrutiny since his great grandmother, a Cherokee spirit guide, had spoken to him of many things he did not understand. He was only a child and it was the day of her passing. This elderly woman, the tribe’s spiritual leader, possessed his great grandmother’s eyes and they struck him dumb.
The smell of sweet grass infused the air with mystery and the dancing light of the flames revealed in staggered motion the drawings of hands no longer present on the rich red rock walls. In signs, symbols and renderings the history of the Navaho and the tribes from which they descended were revealed on these walls.
“It is a good day for pilgrimage,” the elder said. “It is a holy day.”
It was in fact the anniversary of the Sand Creek Massacre – an event as horrific as Wounded Knee. A priest turned military commander led his Colorado volunteers to a peaceful camp of Cheyenne where they slaughtered without warning men, women and children as if they were rabid dogs.
A quarter Cherokee and a quarter Navaho, Johnson was aware of native history. His native blood dominated his physical features but his skin color was light. He often reflected that it was the latter feature that enabled him to succeed in a society still dominated by whites. A dark skinned Indian would find too many doors closed to him. Johnson could walk in both worlds. He was not raised in Indian culture but he knew the suffering of the native tribes and carried their sorrow within him.
“It is the day of ending and the day of beginning,” the old woman said. “It is the day we honor the past and dedicate ourselves to the future. It is the day we plow the old crops under and plant new seeds.”
The elders began chanting in their native tongue, swaying as willows in a gentle breeze. The visitor soon joined them though he knew nothing of the language or the ritual in which he was engaged. His interest in his native ancestry had waned in recent years. He had lived the life of a white man, raised by liberal well-intentioned white people who thought it best that their adopted child know only one culture under one flag of loyalty and one version of the truth.
As he chanted the dancing flames took on human form transporting him in time and space to the place where dreams and reality merged. He saw his blood parents giving him up for adoption. His father, half Cherokee, was afflicted with the wind disease. He could not remain in one place. He wandered without direction like a man without roots, without tribe, family or history. He was a thief and a drunk, spending as much time in jail as out. His heart was heavy and clouded but he meant well. He always meant well but his wandering nature was a disease he could not overcome.
His mother, half Navaho, was also addicted to the white man’s firewater. Her heart was true but her sorrows ran too deep, too buried in her soul for her to conquer them. She had lost three children, two in childbirth, one in childhood, and she feared the Great Spirit would take her only surviving child if she did not give him away.
He saw the circumstances of their poverty, felt their hopelessness, and heard their prayers that their only son would find happiness and the means to return to the people to help. They prayed he would neither forsake nor forget the blood that fed his soul.
The elders in the sacred fire circle rejoiced that their lost son had come home. They did not seem to know or believe that he was only a politician on a publicity tour. To them he was a pilgrim and a man who held the promise of redemption. He was a man who could walk in two worlds.
Bob Johnson of Colorado’s seventh district chose to carry on. He was seeking a second term despite the party’s notice that they would actively support his opponent in the primary. He could not afford to squander time or money on a tour that would only be covered by his own home movies on public access television. After two weeks on the stump he was tired and ready to pack it in.
Yet here he was outside an old Anasazi pueblo where his senior advisor and the only man in politics he had ever fully trusted was trying to convince him that he should invest another hour in visiting the Navaho elders gathered in a cave of ancient rock paintings to honor their distinguished visitor. These were Indians for god’s sake. They didn’t even vote. For a moment he suspected his old friend was having him on but the expression on the old timer’s face conveyed an importance beyond what reason would allow.
Gardner McMahon, a short balding redheaded Irish American with an infectious smile and a story for every occasion, was a seasoned veteran in the game of politics and he rarely joked when it came to business. His integrity was unchallenged and he was hardly ever wrong. Of all the congressman’s former advisors and consultants, he alone chose to stay after the party’s declaration.
He explained: “In all my live I have known princes and kings, saints and scientists, poets and priests. In all that time I have met but two or three extraordinary people. I believe you are one of them, my friend, and another sits at a fire circle inside that cave. Believe me when I tell you it is a rare honor to be invited to her circle. Don’t disappoint me.”
So the honorable Robert Johnson, first term congressman from Colorado, walked down a red rock path bordered by tall stone walls toward the light of a distant fire and the chant of Navaho elders to receive their sacred blessing. He was beckoned to his place in the circle as a pipe was passed and his gaze came to rest on the elder woman directly across from him. Her dark probing eyes seem to question his very soul. Her expression seemed contorted, pushing forward, etching deep lines upon her face.
Congressman Johnson had not known such scrutiny since his great grandmother, a Cherokee spirit guide, had spoken to him of many things he did not understand. He was only a child and it was the day of her passing. This elderly woman, the tribe’s spiritual leader, possessed his great grandmother’s eyes and they struck him dumb.
The smell of sweet grass infused the air with mystery and the dancing light of the flames revealed in staggered motion the drawings of hands no longer present on the rich red rock walls. In signs, symbols and renderings the history of the Navaho and the tribes from which they descended were revealed on these walls.
“It is a good day for pilgrimage,” the elder said. “It is a holy day.”
It was in fact the anniversary of the Sand Creek Massacre – an event as horrific as Wounded Knee. A priest turned military commander led his Colorado volunteers to a peaceful camp of Cheyenne where they slaughtered without warning men, women and children as if they were rabid dogs.
A quarter Cherokee and a quarter Navaho, Johnson was aware of native history. His native blood dominated his physical features but his skin color was light. He often reflected that it was the latter feature that enabled him to succeed in a society still dominated by whites. A dark skinned Indian would find too many doors closed to him. Johnson could walk in both worlds. He was not raised in Indian culture but he knew the suffering of the native tribes and carried their sorrow within him.
“It is the day of ending and the day of beginning,” the old woman said. “It is the day we honor the past and dedicate ourselves to the future. It is the day we plow the old crops under and plant new seeds.”
The elders began chanting in their native tongue, swaying as willows in a gentle breeze. The visitor soon joined them though he knew nothing of the language or the ritual in which he was engaged. His interest in his native ancestry had waned in recent years. He had lived the life of a white man, raised by liberal well-intentioned white people who thought it best that their adopted child know only one culture under one flag of loyalty and one version of the truth.
As he chanted the dancing flames took on human form transporting him in time and space to the place where dreams and reality merged. He saw his blood parents giving him up for adoption. His father, half Cherokee, was afflicted with the wind disease. He could not remain in one place. He wandered without direction like a man without roots, without tribe, family or history. He was a thief and a drunk, spending as much time in jail as out. His heart was heavy and clouded but he meant well. He always meant well but his wandering nature was a disease he could not overcome.
His mother, half Navaho, was also addicted to the white man’s firewater. Her heart was true but her sorrows ran too deep, too buried in her soul for her to conquer them. She had lost three children, two in childbirth, one in childhood, and she feared the Great Spirit would take her only surviving child if she did not give him away.
He saw the circumstances of their poverty, felt their hopelessness, and heard their prayers that their only son would find happiness and the means to return to the people to help. They prayed he would neither forsake nor forget the blood that fed his soul.
The elders in the sacred fire circle rejoiced that their lost son had come home. They did not seem to know or believe that he was only a politician on a publicity tour. To them he was a pilgrim and a man who held the promise of redemption. He was a man who could walk in two worlds.
Monday, July 12, 2010
CRY FATHER: Chapter Three: Maggie's Dilemma
Margaret Thomas was at a crossroads. After a four-year absence she had resumed a selective law practice that elevated her profile in the Seattle community above and beyond her substantial resources. Her sabbatical had been a disruption of the life to which she was accustomed and at some level she resented it. She had served a worthy cause with a devotion and competence that inspired those around her and she was proud of what they were able to accomplish for the Native American community but she resented that it was necessary.
Maggie believed that life should be simple. She believed in family and friends. She believed that if you were honest and good you were fulfilling your responsibility to society. She never wanted to be a leader but circumstances thrust that role upon her. She accepted that there were forces beyond control that shaped one’s destiny and those forces had shaped hers. She embraced and devoted all her efforts to the cause.
Now however that she had played her part, now that she had found her soul mate, she wanted nothing more than to return to a normal life. She wanted a family. She wanted children. She wanted to share the joys of life with those she loved most.
Her soul mate had another idea.
She chopped yellow squash and broccoli with a little more force than the task required. John noticed. Tending the pasta in a pot of boiling water, he knew what was bothering her. His writings had turned from the familiar rants on the rights of Native Americans to a scathing indictment of American politics. She knew what he intended.
He poured her a glass of wine and studied her silence from across the dinner table. He felt sympathy and love. She was the constant in his life. She kept him grounded and saved him from his inevitable descents into the lower depths of despair. She alone could reach through the darkness to take his hand. She alone could soothe his unsettled soul. He needed her and in some strange incomprehensible way she needed him.
As he admired her honey brown eyes he felt a familiar twinge of guilt. He was being selfish again. He had no right to ask anything more of Maggie. She had given enough. She had served the cause at his urging. He would not ask her to do so again.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She lifted her glass and flashed a wry grin in her trademark sign of resignation.
“Don’t be.”
It was Maggie being Maggie and it gave him comfort. She had the power. If she chose to use it she could mold him like soft clay but she chose restraint.
“No one knows you better than I do, John. Without a cause you have no life. If I resist now and then it’s only to remind you that I am my own person. I won’t be taken for granted but I know better than to stand in the way.”
John shifted in his chair and sipped his wine, suddenly aware of Maggie’s watchful eyes, studying his silence as he had studied hers only moments ago. She felt that she had disarmed the tension between them but now she realized there was something else. She had given her blessings but it was not enough. Was there a misunderstanding?
“You missed the punch line,” said John.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I’m not the one to lead this cause, Maggie. You are.”
She looked straight through him as she had so often done before. It was the kind of surprise she was accustomed to in her lover but it did not dampen the impact. She sighed and braced for whatever followed.
“I’ve been having dreams,” he said.
She might have known. John was an active dreamer. He walked and talked and acted in his dreams. It was not something he could control. It came and went as it pleased but he believed in his dreams as a Catholic believes in the Holy Trinity or as a Lakota medicine woman believes in the Great Spirit. He believed his dreams were celestial messages meant to shape his destiny and Maggie shared that belief.
“Vivid, recurring and unambiguous dreams,” he continued. “It’s you I see behind the podium. It’s your face on the television screen and your name on the ballot. You’re the candidate.”
She sifted through the memories of all their conversations and discussions regarding politics. The common thread was mutual disgust. Politicians were corrupt, unscrupulous and conniving creatures who fed on the misfortunes of others, who allowed focus groups and pollsters to set their moral compasses, who profited by betraying the people who elected them to office. Even those who began their careers with virtuous intent were swept into the web of corruption. Those who thrived did so by embracing a system that disdained virtue.
Maggie’s distaste for politicians and all things political went beyond abstraction. She blamed politicians for corrupting her father. It was nothing short of miraculous that he had been able to extricate himself from their tangled web to go on with his life.
“Why would I become the very thing I most despise?”
“To prove it’s possible.”
John twirled his pasta in his fork, drank his cabernet and continued consuming his meal as if the topic of conversation was no more complicated than the weather or the next movie they planned to see. Maggie saw through the façade and he knew it. Without passion he was not himself. When he assumed this demeanor there was a purpose. It meant the opposite of what it appeared. If he pretended not to care it was because he cared too much.
“There’s Dennis Kucinich, Barbara Lee and Bernie Sanders,” she replied. “That’s proof enough.”
“They’re Democrats,” he sneered. If anything he despised Democrats even more than Republicans. Republicans were pretty much straightforward about representing the elite with their tax cuts and deregulation and trickle down theories. Democrats pretended to represent the working people but they fed from the same trough of corporate contributions.
“Sanders is an independent,” she corrected him.
“In name only,” he replied.
She smiled and his demeanor shattered. She had him and he knew it. They both admired the congressman from Vermont. A self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist, he was an enigma in American politics. There were rumors he would run for the Senate and they would support him if he did. He had taken some criticism from the left but neither John nor Maggie questioned his integrity. The same was true for Kucinich, the diminutive congressman from Ohio, though he was a loyal Democrat, and Barbara Lee, the congresswoman from California who was the only member of congress to vote against the Gulf War, the Afghan War and the War in Iraq. She was an heroic exception to the rule.
“You’re right,” said John after a moment’s reflection. “We don’t need another symbol. We need a movement and we need you to lead it.”
“Why me? This is your cause, your dream, your bliss. Why not follow it yourself?”
“You know me, Maggie. I couldn’t be elected dogcatcher. I don’t have the name, the standing or the reputation. We don’t need a martyr any more than we need a symbol. We need a winner.”
It was fundamentally true. John was too direct, too outspoken, too driven by the waves of passion to be an effective candidate. He had created a financial empire that rivaled all but Microsoft in the Pacific Northwest but he had gone to great lengths to protect his privacy. Outside his small circle of friends and associates he was unknown. Those who did know him considered him an uncompromised radical.
“Just think about it, Maggie. You know I’m right.”
She felt a surge of anger rising to expression and fought to suppress it. There was truth in what he said but it was not the whole truth. It was the kind of truth that rationalized resignation. It was a quitter’s truth.
“No, I don’t know that you’re right. I know that if you set your mind to it there’s nothing you can’t accomplish. You have to pay the price. You have to take the risk. You have to be willing to compromise and god knows you’re not accustomed to that.”
He threw up his hands in protest and resignation, shaking his head in wonder at the twists and turns in this discussion. It hadn’t gone as he had hoped.
“Alright, Maggie, you win!”
“It’s not about winning!”
“You’re right, you’re right.”
Wine in hand, he walked over to the plate glass windows and gazed out at the Sound. Maggie joined him. It was a calming influence, the waves rolling in from the sea. It was why they had chosen this apartment and they relied on it often.
“But in a way,” he said softly, “it illustrates my point. I sat down to dinner this evening fully prepared to make my case and you tore it to shreds. You’re better at this than I am.”
Maggie smiled and the tension floated away with the Sound. John placed his arm around her shoulders and reflected on his life. It was something like a disease: his causes, his social conscience, his obsessions. Life would be easier if he could only embrace Maggie’s simple values – family, friends and a normal life – but he could not. Still, he would never lose the feeling that he was not worthy of the woman he loved.
“Just think about it,” he mumbled.
“I will.”
They allowed their thoughts and cares to drift away as the jazz station on the radio struck a gentle chord. They sat back down and finished dinner, talking about friends, books, vacations, music, and art – anything but politics. Finally, they settled on a bundle of pillows and blankets before the glow of an open fire and leaned upon their love.
John counted his blessings in the warmth of Maggie’s embrace. She was an exquisitely beautiful woman, the kind men fawned over, the kind that gathered all eyes as she walked into a room. He brushed her hair aside, kissed her gently on the forehead and vowed not to push any further. She was the woman of his dreams and he had no doubt the only companion who could endure his eccentricities.
Maggie guided his lips to hers and returned his affection. She never doubted that they were made for each other no matter the trials they would face. They would face them together. Life was not meant to be easy and with John it never would be. Yet they understood each other as well as any two humans could. Their arms entwined, their lips caressing, their bodies came together in the harmony of slow jazz and they knew that their love would conquer all worries.
Maggie believed that life should be simple. She believed in family and friends. She believed that if you were honest and good you were fulfilling your responsibility to society. She never wanted to be a leader but circumstances thrust that role upon her. She accepted that there were forces beyond control that shaped one’s destiny and those forces had shaped hers. She embraced and devoted all her efforts to the cause.
Now however that she had played her part, now that she had found her soul mate, she wanted nothing more than to return to a normal life. She wanted a family. She wanted children. She wanted to share the joys of life with those she loved most.
Her soul mate had another idea.
She chopped yellow squash and broccoli with a little more force than the task required. John noticed. Tending the pasta in a pot of boiling water, he knew what was bothering her. His writings had turned from the familiar rants on the rights of Native Americans to a scathing indictment of American politics. She knew what he intended.
He poured her a glass of wine and studied her silence from across the dinner table. He felt sympathy and love. She was the constant in his life. She kept him grounded and saved him from his inevitable descents into the lower depths of despair. She alone could reach through the darkness to take his hand. She alone could soothe his unsettled soul. He needed her and in some strange incomprehensible way she needed him.
As he admired her honey brown eyes he felt a familiar twinge of guilt. He was being selfish again. He had no right to ask anything more of Maggie. She had given enough. She had served the cause at his urging. He would not ask her to do so again.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She lifted her glass and flashed a wry grin in her trademark sign of resignation.
“Don’t be.”
It was Maggie being Maggie and it gave him comfort. She had the power. If she chose to use it she could mold him like soft clay but she chose restraint.
“No one knows you better than I do, John. Without a cause you have no life. If I resist now and then it’s only to remind you that I am my own person. I won’t be taken for granted but I know better than to stand in the way.”
John shifted in his chair and sipped his wine, suddenly aware of Maggie’s watchful eyes, studying his silence as he had studied hers only moments ago. She felt that she had disarmed the tension between them but now she realized there was something else. She had given her blessings but it was not enough. Was there a misunderstanding?
“You missed the punch line,” said John.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I’m not the one to lead this cause, Maggie. You are.”
She looked straight through him as she had so often done before. It was the kind of surprise she was accustomed to in her lover but it did not dampen the impact. She sighed and braced for whatever followed.
“I’ve been having dreams,” he said.
She might have known. John was an active dreamer. He walked and talked and acted in his dreams. It was not something he could control. It came and went as it pleased but he believed in his dreams as a Catholic believes in the Holy Trinity or as a Lakota medicine woman believes in the Great Spirit. He believed his dreams were celestial messages meant to shape his destiny and Maggie shared that belief.
“Vivid, recurring and unambiguous dreams,” he continued. “It’s you I see behind the podium. It’s your face on the television screen and your name on the ballot. You’re the candidate.”
She sifted through the memories of all their conversations and discussions regarding politics. The common thread was mutual disgust. Politicians were corrupt, unscrupulous and conniving creatures who fed on the misfortunes of others, who allowed focus groups and pollsters to set their moral compasses, who profited by betraying the people who elected them to office. Even those who began their careers with virtuous intent were swept into the web of corruption. Those who thrived did so by embracing a system that disdained virtue.
Maggie’s distaste for politicians and all things political went beyond abstraction. She blamed politicians for corrupting her father. It was nothing short of miraculous that he had been able to extricate himself from their tangled web to go on with his life.
“Why would I become the very thing I most despise?”
“To prove it’s possible.”
John twirled his pasta in his fork, drank his cabernet and continued consuming his meal as if the topic of conversation was no more complicated than the weather or the next movie they planned to see. Maggie saw through the façade and he knew it. Without passion he was not himself. When he assumed this demeanor there was a purpose. It meant the opposite of what it appeared. If he pretended not to care it was because he cared too much.
“There’s Dennis Kucinich, Barbara Lee and Bernie Sanders,” she replied. “That’s proof enough.”
“They’re Democrats,” he sneered. If anything he despised Democrats even more than Republicans. Republicans were pretty much straightforward about representing the elite with their tax cuts and deregulation and trickle down theories. Democrats pretended to represent the working people but they fed from the same trough of corporate contributions.
“Sanders is an independent,” she corrected him.
“In name only,” he replied.
She smiled and his demeanor shattered. She had him and he knew it. They both admired the congressman from Vermont. A self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist, he was an enigma in American politics. There were rumors he would run for the Senate and they would support him if he did. He had taken some criticism from the left but neither John nor Maggie questioned his integrity. The same was true for Kucinich, the diminutive congressman from Ohio, though he was a loyal Democrat, and Barbara Lee, the congresswoman from California who was the only member of congress to vote against the Gulf War, the Afghan War and the War in Iraq. She was an heroic exception to the rule.
“You’re right,” said John after a moment’s reflection. “We don’t need another symbol. We need a movement and we need you to lead it.”
“Why me? This is your cause, your dream, your bliss. Why not follow it yourself?”
“You know me, Maggie. I couldn’t be elected dogcatcher. I don’t have the name, the standing or the reputation. We don’t need a martyr any more than we need a symbol. We need a winner.”
It was fundamentally true. John was too direct, too outspoken, too driven by the waves of passion to be an effective candidate. He had created a financial empire that rivaled all but Microsoft in the Pacific Northwest but he had gone to great lengths to protect his privacy. Outside his small circle of friends and associates he was unknown. Those who did know him considered him an uncompromised radical.
“Just think about it, Maggie. You know I’m right.”
She felt a surge of anger rising to expression and fought to suppress it. There was truth in what he said but it was not the whole truth. It was the kind of truth that rationalized resignation. It was a quitter’s truth.
“No, I don’t know that you’re right. I know that if you set your mind to it there’s nothing you can’t accomplish. You have to pay the price. You have to take the risk. You have to be willing to compromise and god knows you’re not accustomed to that.”
He threw up his hands in protest and resignation, shaking his head in wonder at the twists and turns in this discussion. It hadn’t gone as he had hoped.
“Alright, Maggie, you win!”
“It’s not about winning!”
“You’re right, you’re right.”
Wine in hand, he walked over to the plate glass windows and gazed out at the Sound. Maggie joined him. It was a calming influence, the waves rolling in from the sea. It was why they had chosen this apartment and they relied on it often.
“But in a way,” he said softly, “it illustrates my point. I sat down to dinner this evening fully prepared to make my case and you tore it to shreds. You’re better at this than I am.”
Maggie smiled and the tension floated away with the Sound. John placed his arm around her shoulders and reflected on his life. It was something like a disease: his causes, his social conscience, his obsessions. Life would be easier if he could only embrace Maggie’s simple values – family, friends and a normal life – but he could not. Still, he would never lose the feeling that he was not worthy of the woman he loved.
“Just think about it,” he mumbled.
“I will.”
They allowed their thoughts and cares to drift away as the jazz station on the radio struck a gentle chord. They sat back down and finished dinner, talking about friends, books, vacations, music, and art – anything but politics. Finally, they settled on a bundle of pillows and blankets before the glow of an open fire and leaned upon their love.
John counted his blessings in the warmth of Maggie’s embrace. She was an exquisitely beautiful woman, the kind men fawned over, the kind that gathered all eyes as she walked into a room. He brushed her hair aside, kissed her gently on the forehead and vowed not to push any further. She was the woman of his dreams and he had no doubt the only companion who could endure his eccentricities.
Maggie guided his lips to hers and returned his affection. She never doubted that they were made for each other no matter the trials they would face. They would face them together. Life was not meant to be easy and with John it never would be. Yet they understood each other as well as any two humans could. Their arms entwined, their lips caressing, their bodies came together in the harmony of slow jazz and they knew that their love would conquer all worries.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Dixieland Freeze (A Christmas Story)
By Jack Random
The storm hit on Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year. The snow turned to rain and the rain turned to ice, covering the sidewalks and roads, collecting on wires, limbs and branches. From behind an open window in the comfort of a warm living room, the beauty was breathtaking.
It sounded like a war zone that first night. The sudden freeze compressed metal, glass and wood, causing transformers to explode like mortars. Electrical wires and water pipes snapped, branches cracked and whole trees lost their grounding.
The initial aesthetic of a winter wonderland was lost in the grim vision of the morning after. The roads were impassable, power was down and panic was gripping the city. The rush to get supplies, food and water was on. Vehicles of every description were abandoned on the roadside, in bogs and ditches, and the usual criminal element was in action, stealing anything that was left unguarded.
That was six weeks ago, before the ice returned to snow and the snow kept falling and falling and falling. I was in the city when the storm hit, consuming my sorrow in a sea of Christmas spirits, toasting my newfound liberty. My divorce was final. I was officially alone – except for the dogs. All I could think about was getting home.
Nashville was ill equipped for snow, no less an ice storm. There were not enough salt trucks, not enough plows, and not enough experience in emergency management. I had to get home while I still could.
Home was in the country ten miles out of town. Looking back, in my little Mercury without chains, it was a borderline miracle I made it. Now, five feet of snow later, I wondered if I made the right choice. In town, at least there was a relief effort and others to share the burden. Then again, I had the dogs to think about.
The outdoor dogs, one resembling a wolf and the other the lone survivor of a litter of three, might have been able to get by but Sadie, a border collie mix with the spirit of a champion, would have been trapped inside. All had suffered some degree of abandonment. It was a common bond and I was determined it would not happen again.
There was no means of communication – no link to the outside world. It was a time for introspection, a time for contemplating the direction of my life, a time to acknowledge failures and rediscover success. It was not a time for delusions or mindless amusement. It was pointless to muse without someone to be amused.
The neighbors were of little value. They stopped by several times in the early going with the latest reports they gleaned from a battery-powered radio: endless theories on global climate change and dire predictions of a new ice age. Scientists were scrambling for explanations to the suddenness of change and its worldwide scope: A tilt in the planet’s axis, a cosmic radiation storm, solar flares, an interaction of industrial pollutants and extraterrestrial elements. As the days wore on, the explanations grew incomprehensible and all but irrelevant. The reports always seemed to end with: We just don’t know.
A back-to-earth couple a little older than me, the neighbors were making plans. In the beginning, it was all about unity and survival in a frozen wilderness but when the chill of reality set in and the prospect of a made-for-TV movie dimmed, they got out while there was still time. They were heading south but beyond that, they had not decided on a destination.
I might have gone with them but I had the dogs to think about and a vision of being stranded somewhere in a sea of snow with no one to hunker down with but them. They were good people, generous and kind enough, but they brought with them a strange mix of Tennessee country and new age communalism. They perceived themselves as some brand of spiritual leaders and I was not of a mind to follow.
In a gesture of goodwill that seemed melodramatic at the time, they left me a .22 rifle, a box of bullets and a couple boxes of canned goods. I was modestly grateful and as the snow continued to fall with each passing day, my sense of gratitude deepened.
The last word I got came from a sheriff on a snowmobile. He said looters had cleaned out all the stores in the city and marauders were beginning to roam the countryside. He asked if I had a gun and left the impression I might have to use it. He told me the law was breaking down, the officers and soldiers disbanding and heading home. When he departed, I had the distinct feeling he would not be back.
A week passed and all was quiet. The sound of a new ice age, it seemed, was silence. It was broken by the crack and thud of falling tree limbs, the howl and yap of prowling dogs abandoned by their caretakers, the whispering wind, the screaming wind and the occasional burst of gunshots.
Every episode of sound was an event that marked the passing of time. In the spaces between, I became aware of how dependent my sense of life was on the constant presence of sound: the hum of electricity, the drone of a refrigerator, the chatter of television, music on a radio, and the measured rhythm of traffic – even on a country road.
I came to realize what silence meant to me – or at least what it had meant before the freeze: Silence was death.
This was a new breed of silence, however, and it required a new definition. How long would it be before I heard the heartbeat of nature, the song of the forest, the rhythmic balance of heaven and earth? How long would it be before I sensed the force of my own being in a world that had always been indifferent? My whole life had been dependent on the perceptions of others – interpersonal relations, data transference, digital transactions, all the artificial creations of the mind, separate and distinct from the world in which I lived.
This was not just an environmental catastrophe. It was an opportunity for self-discovery. It was a chance to find out who we are and why we exist. The meaning of life had long seemed an adolescent exercise, a ritual of aging, a futile pursuit, but now it seemed the only pursuit worthwhile.
It was a world of constant wonder, perpetually transforming itself from one set of rules to another, spawning revelation after revelation, none outliving the moment.
Survival is a powerful instinct. When it comes to the fore, all else subsides. Art and philosophy, defining forces in a civilized world, are confined to idle thought. Time ceases to function on an even continuum. Past and future recede as the moment is dominated by the need for food and shelter.
Dogs were gathering in packs. People were running short of food and letting their dogs fend for themselves. They roamed the countryside, scavenging for scraps in garbage cans and dumps, fighting off rivals to protect territories, hunting for rabbits, squirrels, possums, raccoons and larger prey. The sound of a big kill filled the cold, silent air with horror for miles around.
Gunfire was becoming more frequent. Occasionally, the sound of shots was coupled with the yelp of a dog, telling a tale of the unspeakable and the unimaginable to come. People were now competing with their former companions on the hunt. How long would it be before the companion became the hunted?
I remembered the story of the Donner Party – a tale of desperation and cannibalism – that sent shivers down my spine as a child. I wondered, gazing at my little dog Sadie, if it would come down to that final, dehumanizing act. Better to die, I thought. Better to die and be eaten than to live as a beast. Even a beast will not consume its own kind.
Nearly everyone in the country had dogs and guns. It was not a comforting thought.
Taking stock of my supplies, it was not time to panic. With careful planning, I had enough canned goods to last the winter. Under a spell of paranoia, I buried half under the snow out back – just in case anyone came calling.
It was inevitable. When people ran out of food, they would come with open hands. They would come with guns. They would come with hungry children and grandparents.
What would I do when they came? How could I turn down a neighbor in need? If I welcomed them, how much would they require? How many more would come? How long before there was nothing left?
I had not shot a gun since I was teenager. I shot a jay with a pellet gun and swore I would never shoot at a living thing again. I had kept that promise but now it seemed the world had changed. I could not have envisioned a time when survival might depend on killing.
I began to obsess on the sheriff’s story of marauders. I made a plan. I buried all but a few cans of food. If intruders came, I would head out the back and up the hill to a spot I had cleared with a good view of the house and the road. They would take the few cans of food and leave – or so I hoped. If they didn’t, I would fire a warning shot. If that didn’t work, I would cover the chimney with a wet cloth and smoke them out.
It was my home and a man has a right to defend his home.
It had been snowing now for nine weeks without relief. Most of my time was spent keeping the fire going in the wood-burning stove. I had to maintain a clear path to the woodpile, find and dry a stock of kindling, select books to sacrifice page by page, keep the chute and chimney clear. It was a constant struggle but, without electricity, fire was critical for warmth, cooking and boiling water.
In my free time, I drew up contingency plans. What if the power never came back? What if the storm never broke? What if someone stole my food supply? What if the rescue teams never came?
I was a city boy most of my life. I was not well suited to survival in the wilderness. I could learn but the learning curve under these conditions was cruel. It always came back to escape. I figured my best shot was to find a sled, harness the dogs and head south. Even if we died trying, it would be better than not trying at all.
I could not believe that this frozen horror gripped all of the south. Somewhere the sun still shined, the snow melted, and life returned to something resembling normal.
I was taking my weekly bath, enjoying the liquid warmth while it lasted, when I heard the dogs bark. I knew the difference between barking at deer or other dogs and barking to announce the arrival of humans.
Something about the best-laid plans raced through my mind as I leapt from the tub, pulled on my jeans and raced for the gun, crouching below the window. There was not enough time to dry myself, dress and climb the hill out back.
The barking intensified and a series of images ran through my mind: the dogs circling, bearing their fangs, snapping, a man raising his gun, shooting, and pools of blood in the white snow. My dogs still panting, grasping for air, blood spilling on the snow, dying.
In one motion, I jumped up, flung the door open, knelt, cocked and fired. The dogs scattered and fled as a man threw up his hands and yelled, “Don’t shoot!”
He was an older man with a full, gray beard. Next to him, a woman huddled over two small children in a makeshift sled, their wide eyes peering out of layers of clothing. They were crying and the woman comforted them.
I stared at them in disbelief, lowering my rifle.
“What has gone wrong with my mind?” I thought. Had I come to this: Firing at unarmed people, at children, without even looking? This was supposed to be a time when people pulled together, when the stronger were supposed to protect the weaker, and when the able were supposed to help the needy.
Who was I? What had I become? An irrational and frightened man so bent on protecting his territory that he would fire on a defenseless family.
They stared back at me, puzzled or pleading or both, until the man finally waved and they started moving down the road. I could hear the children’s cries, muffled beneath their blankets, as the snow continued to fall.
“Wait!” I cried.
They stopped and turned toward me, still cautious and mystified, uncertain of the man who had fired at them only moments before.
“I’m sorry!” I yelled. “Please, come on in!”
The dogs came back yapping and I called them inside, putting them in the study until they calmed down. I welcomed the visitors and excused myself to get dried and dressed. When I emerged, they were huddled around the woodstove, warm and comfortable.
“You gave us quite a fright,” said the man.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Well,” said the woman, “I reckon we’ve all been out of sorts lately.”
These were good country folk, strong, hard working and grim visaged, down to earth stock, unlikely to break even under the pressure of a Dixieland freeze.
They sat on the sofa of the living room of my little house, gathering the children in their arms. It was a space that was comfortable for a man and his dogs but was instantly cramped with the addition of visitors.
I felt the sting of second thoughts. This was my chance at salvation but I felt a knot in my gut. The sad truth was I couldn’t stand to be with these people for more than a short evening in the real world – or rather, the old world, the world before the storm.
I listened to their story and it broke my heart to think that it was the story of thousands just like them. They ran out of food. He ran out of bullets for his rifle and shot for his shotgun. They ran out of dry wood, candles and kerosene for their lantern. Then the chimney caught fire, burning furniture, and the roof caved in.
“One dern thing after another,” he said, shaking his head in sorrow.
“The house next door is empty,” I offered.
“Yes, sir,” he replied. “It’s all cleaned out. Ransacked. Windows and furniture all broke and scattered. We was up there before we come here. Surprised you didn’t hear nothing.”
Maybe I had. It was hard to tell. I heard a million sounds during the night, some real and some imagined.
“The children’s hungry, mister,” said the woman. “They’s half froze.”
She bowed her head, as if she asked too much, and reached for the hands of the children, a boy of five or six and his younger sister.
“They’s our grandchildren,” said the man. “They was visitin’ when it all turned bad.”
For the first time in so long I could hardly remember, I began to see things from the eyes of another and it sobered me. I wondered what I would do in this man’s position. I was worried about my dogs. He was responsible for his grandchildren.
It occurred to me that my rifle was in the far corner of the room. The man and his family were between the gun and me.
I asked them to wait while I went outside to get food, half expecting the rifle to be pointed at me when I returned. It was not. I handed over six cans of soup and vegetables and the woman went to work in the kitchen.
I explained that there was probably enough food to last a few weeks if we were careful. I told them I had a box of bullets for the rifle and enough wood to last out the winter. I let the dogs in and introduced them to the folks they had terrorized not a half hour before, explaining that they were in my care.
“I understand,” said the man. “We had to let ours run,” he said with genuine sorrow.
Just the same, I knew it would become an issue if it ever came down to the children or the dogs. It was a bridge we would cross when we came to it.
They introduced themselves as the Coopers. The man was Perry, his wife Lily and the children were Bobby and Tess. Lily emptied the cans into a large pot, which she placed on the woodstove to warm. Perry spoke of the latest news from the outside world. He had linked a shortwave radio to a car battery and tuned to an emergency broadcast out of Atlanta. The news was all bad.
“Remain calm,” he related. “The storm will break. It’ll be over soon. But it ain’t over. Ain’t never going to be over. The Lord has come down upon the children of earth with a wrath of vengeance. Judgment day is upon us.”
“Now, now, papa,” said Lily, stirring the soup.
She passed out bowls and spoons and the Coopers ate in silence, except for the sound of smacking lips.
When they cleaned out their bowls, I asked how far south the storm went. Perry hung his head, took a deep breath, and left little room for hope.
“Snow in Macon, Birmingham, Montgomery. You got to get pert near the Gulf shore before it clears. But the roads blocked. They’s no way out, mister. No way, no how.”
“Well, now, papa,” Lily replied in a soothing voice that comforted the children, “thanks to this young man, we got us a roof over our heads and a belly full of warm food. Don’t sound like the wrath to me. Sounds like a blessing. Praise Jesus.”
“Praise Jesus,” the others echoed.
She smiled and the warmth of her smile was passed from person to person until it seemed even the dogs were smiling. I’m not much for the Jesus crowd but I decided then and there I would not mind spending my last days on earth, if it came to that, with these gentle, kind-hearted people.
When night descended, I insisted that Perry and Lily take the bed and they reluctantly agreed. I took the couch and the children laid out in sleeping bags on the floor with the dogs. It was cozy and we all slept soundly in the silent night. No dogs barking, no gunshots, no traffic, helicopters or airplanes, no electrical drone – only the soft, smoldering fire of the woodstove and dreams of faraway places where the sun still shined.
In the morning, I awakened to the sound of the children playing with the dogs. I sensed something was different – even beyond the presence of visitors. I opened my eyes and blinked instinctively to shield myself from the bright light of the sun streaking through the window.
Bright, unfiltered sunshine for the first time in all these many weeks of snow, ice and bitter cold. I looked outside and smiled from head to toe. It was not snowing. In fact, the snow was visibly melting.
I was about to wake the Coopers when the lights, the refrigerator, the television and radio, everything came on at once.
We gathered in the living room and watched cheerful news people announce in perpetual cycles that the worst was over. The storm had lifted. Power was being restored.
“God bless,” said Lily.
“God bless,” said the children.
The nightmare of endless winter, of relentless white skies and fluttering snowflakes, was finally losing its icy grip and we were among the fortunate, the chosen, the blessed.
We survived.
Jazz. 12.22.06.
Copyright Ray Miller 2006
The storm hit on Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year. The snow turned to rain and the rain turned to ice, covering the sidewalks and roads, collecting on wires, limbs and branches. From behind an open window in the comfort of a warm living room, the beauty was breathtaking.
It sounded like a war zone that first night. The sudden freeze compressed metal, glass and wood, causing transformers to explode like mortars. Electrical wires and water pipes snapped, branches cracked and whole trees lost their grounding.
The initial aesthetic of a winter wonderland was lost in the grim vision of the morning after. The roads were impassable, power was down and panic was gripping the city. The rush to get supplies, food and water was on. Vehicles of every description were abandoned on the roadside, in bogs and ditches, and the usual criminal element was in action, stealing anything that was left unguarded.
That was six weeks ago, before the ice returned to snow and the snow kept falling and falling and falling. I was in the city when the storm hit, consuming my sorrow in a sea of Christmas spirits, toasting my newfound liberty. My divorce was final. I was officially alone – except for the dogs. All I could think about was getting home.
Nashville was ill equipped for snow, no less an ice storm. There were not enough salt trucks, not enough plows, and not enough experience in emergency management. I had to get home while I still could.
Home was in the country ten miles out of town. Looking back, in my little Mercury without chains, it was a borderline miracle I made it. Now, five feet of snow later, I wondered if I made the right choice. In town, at least there was a relief effort and others to share the burden. Then again, I had the dogs to think about.
The outdoor dogs, one resembling a wolf and the other the lone survivor of a litter of three, might have been able to get by but Sadie, a border collie mix with the spirit of a champion, would have been trapped inside. All had suffered some degree of abandonment. It was a common bond and I was determined it would not happen again.
There was no means of communication – no link to the outside world. It was a time for introspection, a time for contemplating the direction of my life, a time to acknowledge failures and rediscover success. It was not a time for delusions or mindless amusement. It was pointless to muse without someone to be amused.
The neighbors were of little value. They stopped by several times in the early going with the latest reports they gleaned from a battery-powered radio: endless theories on global climate change and dire predictions of a new ice age. Scientists were scrambling for explanations to the suddenness of change and its worldwide scope: A tilt in the planet’s axis, a cosmic radiation storm, solar flares, an interaction of industrial pollutants and extraterrestrial elements. As the days wore on, the explanations grew incomprehensible and all but irrelevant. The reports always seemed to end with: We just don’t know.
A back-to-earth couple a little older than me, the neighbors were making plans. In the beginning, it was all about unity and survival in a frozen wilderness but when the chill of reality set in and the prospect of a made-for-TV movie dimmed, they got out while there was still time. They were heading south but beyond that, they had not decided on a destination.
I might have gone with them but I had the dogs to think about and a vision of being stranded somewhere in a sea of snow with no one to hunker down with but them. They were good people, generous and kind enough, but they brought with them a strange mix of Tennessee country and new age communalism. They perceived themselves as some brand of spiritual leaders and I was not of a mind to follow.
In a gesture of goodwill that seemed melodramatic at the time, they left me a .22 rifle, a box of bullets and a couple boxes of canned goods. I was modestly grateful and as the snow continued to fall with each passing day, my sense of gratitude deepened.
The last word I got came from a sheriff on a snowmobile. He said looters had cleaned out all the stores in the city and marauders were beginning to roam the countryside. He asked if I had a gun and left the impression I might have to use it. He told me the law was breaking down, the officers and soldiers disbanding and heading home. When he departed, I had the distinct feeling he would not be back.
A week passed and all was quiet. The sound of a new ice age, it seemed, was silence. It was broken by the crack and thud of falling tree limbs, the howl and yap of prowling dogs abandoned by their caretakers, the whispering wind, the screaming wind and the occasional burst of gunshots.
Every episode of sound was an event that marked the passing of time. In the spaces between, I became aware of how dependent my sense of life was on the constant presence of sound: the hum of electricity, the drone of a refrigerator, the chatter of television, music on a radio, and the measured rhythm of traffic – even on a country road.
I came to realize what silence meant to me – or at least what it had meant before the freeze: Silence was death.
This was a new breed of silence, however, and it required a new definition. How long would it be before I heard the heartbeat of nature, the song of the forest, the rhythmic balance of heaven and earth? How long would it be before I sensed the force of my own being in a world that had always been indifferent? My whole life had been dependent on the perceptions of others – interpersonal relations, data transference, digital transactions, all the artificial creations of the mind, separate and distinct from the world in which I lived.
This was not just an environmental catastrophe. It was an opportunity for self-discovery. It was a chance to find out who we are and why we exist. The meaning of life had long seemed an adolescent exercise, a ritual of aging, a futile pursuit, but now it seemed the only pursuit worthwhile.
It was a world of constant wonder, perpetually transforming itself from one set of rules to another, spawning revelation after revelation, none outliving the moment.
Survival is a powerful instinct. When it comes to the fore, all else subsides. Art and philosophy, defining forces in a civilized world, are confined to idle thought. Time ceases to function on an even continuum. Past and future recede as the moment is dominated by the need for food and shelter.
Dogs were gathering in packs. People were running short of food and letting their dogs fend for themselves. They roamed the countryside, scavenging for scraps in garbage cans and dumps, fighting off rivals to protect territories, hunting for rabbits, squirrels, possums, raccoons and larger prey. The sound of a big kill filled the cold, silent air with horror for miles around.
Gunfire was becoming more frequent. Occasionally, the sound of shots was coupled with the yelp of a dog, telling a tale of the unspeakable and the unimaginable to come. People were now competing with their former companions on the hunt. How long would it be before the companion became the hunted?
I remembered the story of the Donner Party – a tale of desperation and cannibalism – that sent shivers down my spine as a child. I wondered, gazing at my little dog Sadie, if it would come down to that final, dehumanizing act. Better to die, I thought. Better to die and be eaten than to live as a beast. Even a beast will not consume its own kind.
Nearly everyone in the country had dogs and guns. It was not a comforting thought.
Taking stock of my supplies, it was not time to panic. With careful planning, I had enough canned goods to last the winter. Under a spell of paranoia, I buried half under the snow out back – just in case anyone came calling.
It was inevitable. When people ran out of food, they would come with open hands. They would come with guns. They would come with hungry children and grandparents.
What would I do when they came? How could I turn down a neighbor in need? If I welcomed them, how much would they require? How many more would come? How long before there was nothing left?
I had not shot a gun since I was teenager. I shot a jay with a pellet gun and swore I would never shoot at a living thing again. I had kept that promise but now it seemed the world had changed. I could not have envisioned a time when survival might depend on killing.
I began to obsess on the sheriff’s story of marauders. I made a plan. I buried all but a few cans of food. If intruders came, I would head out the back and up the hill to a spot I had cleared with a good view of the house and the road. They would take the few cans of food and leave – or so I hoped. If they didn’t, I would fire a warning shot. If that didn’t work, I would cover the chimney with a wet cloth and smoke them out.
It was my home and a man has a right to defend his home.
It had been snowing now for nine weeks without relief. Most of my time was spent keeping the fire going in the wood-burning stove. I had to maintain a clear path to the woodpile, find and dry a stock of kindling, select books to sacrifice page by page, keep the chute and chimney clear. It was a constant struggle but, without electricity, fire was critical for warmth, cooking and boiling water.
In my free time, I drew up contingency plans. What if the power never came back? What if the storm never broke? What if someone stole my food supply? What if the rescue teams never came?
I was a city boy most of my life. I was not well suited to survival in the wilderness. I could learn but the learning curve under these conditions was cruel. It always came back to escape. I figured my best shot was to find a sled, harness the dogs and head south. Even if we died trying, it would be better than not trying at all.
I could not believe that this frozen horror gripped all of the south. Somewhere the sun still shined, the snow melted, and life returned to something resembling normal.
I was taking my weekly bath, enjoying the liquid warmth while it lasted, when I heard the dogs bark. I knew the difference between barking at deer or other dogs and barking to announce the arrival of humans.
Something about the best-laid plans raced through my mind as I leapt from the tub, pulled on my jeans and raced for the gun, crouching below the window. There was not enough time to dry myself, dress and climb the hill out back.
The barking intensified and a series of images ran through my mind: the dogs circling, bearing their fangs, snapping, a man raising his gun, shooting, and pools of blood in the white snow. My dogs still panting, grasping for air, blood spilling on the snow, dying.
In one motion, I jumped up, flung the door open, knelt, cocked and fired. The dogs scattered and fled as a man threw up his hands and yelled, “Don’t shoot!”
He was an older man with a full, gray beard. Next to him, a woman huddled over two small children in a makeshift sled, their wide eyes peering out of layers of clothing. They were crying and the woman comforted them.
I stared at them in disbelief, lowering my rifle.
“What has gone wrong with my mind?” I thought. Had I come to this: Firing at unarmed people, at children, without even looking? This was supposed to be a time when people pulled together, when the stronger were supposed to protect the weaker, and when the able were supposed to help the needy.
Who was I? What had I become? An irrational and frightened man so bent on protecting his territory that he would fire on a defenseless family.
They stared back at me, puzzled or pleading or both, until the man finally waved and they started moving down the road. I could hear the children’s cries, muffled beneath their blankets, as the snow continued to fall.
“Wait!” I cried.
They stopped and turned toward me, still cautious and mystified, uncertain of the man who had fired at them only moments before.
“I’m sorry!” I yelled. “Please, come on in!”
The dogs came back yapping and I called them inside, putting them in the study until they calmed down. I welcomed the visitors and excused myself to get dried and dressed. When I emerged, they were huddled around the woodstove, warm and comfortable.
“You gave us quite a fright,” said the man.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Well,” said the woman, “I reckon we’ve all been out of sorts lately.”
These were good country folk, strong, hard working and grim visaged, down to earth stock, unlikely to break even under the pressure of a Dixieland freeze.
They sat on the sofa of the living room of my little house, gathering the children in their arms. It was a space that was comfortable for a man and his dogs but was instantly cramped with the addition of visitors.
I felt the sting of second thoughts. This was my chance at salvation but I felt a knot in my gut. The sad truth was I couldn’t stand to be with these people for more than a short evening in the real world – or rather, the old world, the world before the storm.
I listened to their story and it broke my heart to think that it was the story of thousands just like them. They ran out of food. He ran out of bullets for his rifle and shot for his shotgun. They ran out of dry wood, candles and kerosene for their lantern. Then the chimney caught fire, burning furniture, and the roof caved in.
“One dern thing after another,” he said, shaking his head in sorrow.
“The house next door is empty,” I offered.
“Yes, sir,” he replied. “It’s all cleaned out. Ransacked. Windows and furniture all broke and scattered. We was up there before we come here. Surprised you didn’t hear nothing.”
Maybe I had. It was hard to tell. I heard a million sounds during the night, some real and some imagined.
“The children’s hungry, mister,” said the woman. “They’s half froze.”
She bowed her head, as if she asked too much, and reached for the hands of the children, a boy of five or six and his younger sister.
“They’s our grandchildren,” said the man. “They was visitin’ when it all turned bad.”
For the first time in so long I could hardly remember, I began to see things from the eyes of another and it sobered me. I wondered what I would do in this man’s position. I was worried about my dogs. He was responsible for his grandchildren.
It occurred to me that my rifle was in the far corner of the room. The man and his family were between the gun and me.
I asked them to wait while I went outside to get food, half expecting the rifle to be pointed at me when I returned. It was not. I handed over six cans of soup and vegetables and the woman went to work in the kitchen.
I explained that there was probably enough food to last a few weeks if we were careful. I told them I had a box of bullets for the rifle and enough wood to last out the winter. I let the dogs in and introduced them to the folks they had terrorized not a half hour before, explaining that they were in my care.
“I understand,” said the man. “We had to let ours run,” he said with genuine sorrow.
Just the same, I knew it would become an issue if it ever came down to the children or the dogs. It was a bridge we would cross when we came to it.
They introduced themselves as the Coopers. The man was Perry, his wife Lily and the children were Bobby and Tess. Lily emptied the cans into a large pot, which she placed on the woodstove to warm. Perry spoke of the latest news from the outside world. He had linked a shortwave radio to a car battery and tuned to an emergency broadcast out of Atlanta. The news was all bad.
“Remain calm,” he related. “The storm will break. It’ll be over soon. But it ain’t over. Ain’t never going to be over. The Lord has come down upon the children of earth with a wrath of vengeance. Judgment day is upon us.”
“Now, now, papa,” said Lily, stirring the soup.
She passed out bowls and spoons and the Coopers ate in silence, except for the sound of smacking lips.
When they cleaned out their bowls, I asked how far south the storm went. Perry hung his head, took a deep breath, and left little room for hope.
“Snow in Macon, Birmingham, Montgomery. You got to get pert near the Gulf shore before it clears. But the roads blocked. They’s no way out, mister. No way, no how.”
“Well, now, papa,” Lily replied in a soothing voice that comforted the children, “thanks to this young man, we got us a roof over our heads and a belly full of warm food. Don’t sound like the wrath to me. Sounds like a blessing. Praise Jesus.”
“Praise Jesus,” the others echoed.
She smiled and the warmth of her smile was passed from person to person until it seemed even the dogs were smiling. I’m not much for the Jesus crowd but I decided then and there I would not mind spending my last days on earth, if it came to that, with these gentle, kind-hearted people.
When night descended, I insisted that Perry and Lily take the bed and they reluctantly agreed. I took the couch and the children laid out in sleeping bags on the floor with the dogs. It was cozy and we all slept soundly in the silent night. No dogs barking, no gunshots, no traffic, helicopters or airplanes, no electrical drone – only the soft, smoldering fire of the woodstove and dreams of faraway places where the sun still shined.
In the morning, I awakened to the sound of the children playing with the dogs. I sensed something was different – even beyond the presence of visitors. I opened my eyes and blinked instinctively to shield myself from the bright light of the sun streaking through the window.
Bright, unfiltered sunshine for the first time in all these many weeks of snow, ice and bitter cold. I looked outside and smiled from head to toe. It was not snowing. In fact, the snow was visibly melting.
I was about to wake the Coopers when the lights, the refrigerator, the television and radio, everything came on at once.
We gathered in the living room and watched cheerful news people announce in perpetual cycles that the worst was over. The storm had lifted. Power was being restored.
“God bless,” said Lily.
“God bless,” said the children.
The nightmare of endless winter, of relentless white skies and fluttering snowflakes, was finally losing its icy grip and we were among the fortunate, the chosen, the blessed.
We survived.
Jazz. 12.22.06.
Copyright Ray Miller 2006
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Hard Times: Introduction to the Novel by Jack Random
Hard Times tells the story of a man who loses his job and his home in a global economic crisis. Swallowing his pride his family is forced to move in with his wife’s elderly mother. When other family members join them there is neither enough room nor food. Stone faces a dilemma: Would the family be better off without him? His decision to leave leads him to a life on the road where he learns about himself and his fellow beings.
He joins a community under a local bridge and learns that people are not always what they seem. He learns about loyalty and companionship from an abandoned dog. He witnesses the dark side of human nature at a local farm where the boss exploits and abuses his workers. He discovers the virtues of honest labor and the resilience of hard working people under the most trying conditions. He finds a home for him and his family in a community of university students dedicated to creating a self-reliant and earth friendly society.
Stone envisions an alliance of communities trading goods and services, exchanging ideas, and committed to the greater good.
Borrowing conceptually from Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and Aldous Huxley’s Island, Hard Times is about hope and overcoming hardship.
He joins a community under a local bridge and learns that people are not always what they seem. He learns about loyalty and companionship from an abandoned dog. He witnesses the dark side of human nature at a local farm where the boss exploits and abuses his workers. He discovers the virtues of honest labor and the resilience of hard working people under the most trying conditions. He finds a home for him and his family in a community of university students dedicated to creating a self-reliant and earth friendly society.
Stone envisions an alliance of communities trading goods and services, exchanging ideas, and committed to the greater good.
Borrowing conceptually from Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and Aldous Huxley’s Island, Hard Times is about hope and overcoming hardship.
Hard Times: Chapter 1 "Courage"
Part One of Nine: HARD TIMES
A Novel By Jack Random
Crow Dog Press
Turlock, California
Copyright 2009 Ray Miller
Chapter 1: Stone's Story
“Courage”
"We are flawed and tragic beings. Born to an end we do not desire, our primary instinct to avoid that which cannot be avoided."
At first and for a long time people helped. As long as they perceived themselves as outside the victim class, observers at a roadside accident, eyes above the fray, they tossed bones to the needy and felt better. Not the elite of course. Not those who had the most to lose. They were safe inside their gated and guarded cities. Their contribution as far as they were concerned was hiring watchmen at substandard wages or paying a Mexican for lawn care and gardening and maintenance chores around the house.
When hard times came everything changed. Not all at once but gradually. One step at a time. Those who considered themselves above the storm were swept in. The victim class grew like a nasty virus that would not let go. The elite behind their guarded walls paid more for bondable labor until they could no longer spare the extra cash. Guard stations went empty, walls crumbled and the elite were exposed to the multitudes.
It was hard times. Hard times for everyone. No one got a pass. The wealthy became survivors and survivors became homeless and the homeless became vagabonds and vagabonds became desperados and rose up or died. The power of the state broke down. Like a dam with a thousand cracks it crumbled at first break.
Not with a bang but a whimper the end days came.
These were not those times. These were the hard times before the crack when hope still resided in the heart of humankind. Scared and desperate but still beating.
When did it begin?
We were happy or at least we thought we were. We were a model of the American dream. I worked my way up in the construction industry and eventually started my own business as contractor. My wife Madge sold real estate until we had our first child, a darling little boy named Denim. Two years later we had a second child, a sweet little girl named Cheryl Lyn, Charlie for short, and we traded up, bought a new house and took out a loan on the value of our home.
How were we to know it was a bad move? Everyone we knew was doing it and everyone was making money. Stocks come and go, gold rises and falls, but real estate never goes down. It’s a game without losers. Everybody plays; everybody wins. What could go wrong?
Business went bad soon after the crackdown on migrant labor. We hired locally but we couldn’t turn a profit. Madge took a job selling fragrances at the mall but it wasn’t enough. We tapped out our credit cards and took out a second mortgage but we still couldn’t keep up.
Then the housing crash hit and we couldn’t even afford to sell out. We were caught in a trap and there was no way out. I lost my business and we lost our home to foreclosure.
Compared to thousands of others, I guess we were lucky because we had family we could turn to when times were rough. I had relocated from Denver in my college days and never went back. Colorado was close enough when times were good but now it seemed a world removed. We moved in with Madge’s mother. It was a small house but it was paid for. We sold most of our belongings to help with the expenses and set up a living space in a spare bedroom. It was more like an office space or reading room, which is exactly how Grace used it before we moved in.
I kept looking for a job with no success. It seemed I was always two steps behind the curve. I looked in the construction industry but the industry was locked up. No jobs. I looked into retraining programs and government jobs but the waiting lists were too long. By the time I got around to service jobs, counter jockeys and floor sales, it was too late. No one was hiring. Everyone was looking for work.
I can’t tell you how bad it felt. I was raised with a simple notion: If you worked hard and played by the rules you could make it. You might not get rich (that idea was pretty much dead a long time ago) but you’d have a roof over your head, clean water, a warm bed and no one would go hungry.
I was the man so I had the idea it was my responsibility. When it all broke down and I couldn’t take care of my family, it was my fault. Of course it was. You can’t go around blaming politicians or corporations or banks or anyone else. It was a man’s responsibility, a father’s duty and a husband’s job. It was all right for others to find blame where they could but not me. I was better than that. I was raised to be better than that.
Yeah right. Just another lie to put on the list of lies my father told me. Not his fault either. Nobody’s fault. Just the way it was until it wasn’t.
After a while (I don’t remember how many months, maybe half a year), I realized I was dead weight. Madge’s brother Carlin moved in with his wife and their three kids. I was okay with tools but so was he. We were living on an old woman’s retirement checks waiting for food stamps or some kind of assistance. It was a matter of numbers.
Carlin and I enclosed the back porch with found materials, two-by-fours and plywood with rags and newspaper for insulation, just in time for an aunt and uncle to show up with their hands open and their pockets empty. Aunt Mildred and Uncle Bud were more or less on the edge of the family. We rarely saw them at holidays but here they were and the look in their eyes was filled with pleading. I sat on a corner of the sofa in Grace’s cramped living room and watched her try to turn them away. There was no more room and too many mouths to feed but there was nowhere else for the elderly couple to go.
“We’ll make do,” said Grace as they all surrendered to tears.
I’m not the kind of man who turns to crime in desperation (though I have since learned it is less a moral imperative than a cultural choice) so my options were limited.
Late that night I found a quiet corner and wrote a letter to Madge and the kids. Back then it was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do.
Dear Madge, Denim and Charlie:
These are hard times and we are all going to have to make sacrifices. I never would have thought that giving up and moving out could be an act of kindness but here we are. We don’t have enough room and I take more than my share. We don’t have enough food and I need too much just to keep going.
The time has come for me to make a hard choice and I’ve made it. The best thing I can do for my family and loved ones right now is to go away. Carlin can do anything I can around the house and I can count on Denim and Charlie to help out. You’ll have a little more space and one less mouth to feed.
I don’t know how long it will take or what I’ll have to do to survive out there but I’ll come back when it’s all over and times are better. When that time comes I hope you’ll understand what I did and why.
Your loving husband and father,
Stone.
That’s my story. That’s how I came to be under this bridge with almost a hundred others. There’s another hundred or more across the river. We all have a story. Every one of us. And I write them down in little notebooks and on scraps of paper that I find in garbage dumps and alleys. I don’t know why I feel it’s important but I do. It makes me feel more human. It makes me feel like people matter even though the whole world says we don’t.
Bridges used to be mostly for transportation. Now they’re mostly shelters. A man told me that if you wait here long enough and manage to stay alive, you’ll meet everyone you ever knew right here. I thought it was funny in a wry sort of way but after a few more weeks, I came to believe it was true.
How do we survive? This river’s still got some catfish, mud daubers and what not. Everything we catch goes in the pot. There are some wild orchards around here still giving fruit and nuts. We got a makeshift greenhouse for growing vegetables. Everything goes in the pot. You don’t share you get booted out. That’s how I got my spot. Some poor soul got caught hording and he was booted out just as I showed up.
Every month or so a truck shows up with guards, handing out blankets, jackets, flour and dried fruit. Apparently that’s what remains of government service. We know they’re government because the guards carry guns. One of the last effective acts of government was to confiscate all the ammunition. Ironic, isn’t it? The second amendment to the constitution protects the right to own guns but it doesn’t say anything about ammunition.
We make do with what we have. Everyone gets a share. We even have a guest space that people can use for a few days. After that, unless a spot opens up, you have to move on. It’s all pretty orderly. I hear there’ve been a number of attempts to take the place over – thugs, gangsters and bullies – but so far they’ve been beaten back. The camp has its own collection of weapons: clubs, spears, knives, axes, hatchets, garden tools, chains, pipes and crowbars, anything you can think of.
There are camps all over town, in every park, in abandoned buildings and parking lots. The last I heard the malls were off limits but who knows. As a rule they’re a poor place to find what you need to sustain life. No food, no water and all the merchandise, clothes, blankets, generators, batteries, tools and electronics have been cleaned out. They carted everything off in trucks and stored them in remote warehouses to wait for the day when things will have monetary value again.
There’s a couple here named Johnson, Marguerite and Willie. Couples are rare unless they meet up here. Most have been broken apart like mine. I guess that makes them a love story. They couldn’t both stay so the ended up on the streets together. You never see Willie without Marguerite. They go fishing together. They work in the garden together. They eat together and sleep together. Willie damn near killed a man who tried to come between them.
Marguerite was a Mexican immigrant (legal or illegal, nobody cares any more) and Willie was a trucker. She was working as a waitress at a roadside café when Willie stopped for coffee and a piece of pie. Thinking she didn’t speak English, Willie told her she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever laid eyes on after the Grand Canyon. A smile led to an invitation and she hung up her apron and jumped in his cab. That was thirty-six years ago and they’ve never been apart.
Willie and Marguerite, Stone and Madge: two very different stories and both without ends. If I were a praying man, I’d pray that Willie and Marguerite die on the same breath, tangled in each others’ arms, in a warm place many years from now when the harshness of these days are only memories. I’d pray that Stone found his way back to Madge in better times.
I spent a lot of my time wondering about Madge and trying to talk myself into going back but I knew it was a dead end. Without some way to help out I’d end up back on the street waiting for my old spot under the bridge. Maybe someday things will change. That’s what we’re all hoping.
There’s a man over there named Riggs. Got his kid Ronan with him. This ain’t no place for a kid but this kid is tough as nails. Works as hard as anyone out here and never complains. When I asked them how they ended up here, they both shrugged, Ronan after his dad, and Riggs said: Just lucky I guess.
I learned from his friend, someone who knew him before the crash, that he was a single father as long as anyone knew. There were rumors his wife was a drug addict who either overdosed or went back to her old lifestyle. It was obvious Riggs still pined for her.
He was a foreman at the canning plant before it shut down. He had no family in the area and he didn’t believe in government assistance so when they lost the house, he and Ronan took to the streets together. The kid was a free spirit who liked to run and as much as Riggs admired him for it he never let him out of his sight. If Ronan ducked behind a corner or disappeared behind some bushes hunting berries, Riggs would stop whatever he was doing and move to where he could see his kid. No one doubted he would kill or be killed to protect his son and that alone was protection enough in the bridge camp.
Ronan loves sports and games so someone always organizes a game of soccer or stickball after the workday before the sun goes down. He’s a good kid, the kind of kid any parent would be proud of. He’s the only kid in camp so we all look after him.
The fact is we all look after each other. We’ve become a kind of family. The trouble is we all had a family before and we all hope this doesn’t last too long. It’s the one thing that ties us all together: More than anything else we want to go home. We want to go back to a way of life that no longer exists.
Everyone has a story. Everyone had a life before this life. But it’s always a story about the past or the present. No one speaks of a future. There are few hopes and dreams in this camp. We are capable of looking back. We can see what lies in front of us. We take steps to ensure our safety, our warmth, our food supply, whatever. But we don’t talk about our plans. We’re here and that’s as far as it goes.
We’re in the middle of fall. The first days of winter are maybe four weeks away. After that there’s no traveling. It’s hunker down, stay warm and survive.
I’m thinking maybe I should hit the road. Every few days I see family members come down to the camp looking for their fathers. I listen to them talk. I watch them trying to hide their emotions. Children are the worst. They can’t understand. They don’t know what it means for a father to be a burden. It usually works. The father goes back to the family and does whatever he can to be useful. He learns to cook and clean and tries not to eat too much. After a week or two he’s back out on the streets.
I don’t want that to happen to me. I think about it every night, all night, and most of the day. I’m sure Madge understands but the kids are still too young. It’s only a matter of time before Charlie shows up, pleading with her wide beautiful eyes, crying when I resist, arguing when I try to explain. I know I would have to give in but I also know how it would turn out. The hammer of destiny.
If I saw my children going hungry because of me, I know what it would do to me. I’d rather be a bum than a thief. And I’d rather be out here than in some jail. It’s not so easy to get thrown in jail these days anyway. The cops would rather shoot you than give you free shelter and food. They take you out of town and tell you to keep moving. They catch you again they give you a beating and take you ten, twenty miles out. The jails are full. No one gets in unless someone gets out. So much for the zero tolerance three-strikes laws. If it were easy to get locked up, half the population would be there. Maybe more.
So I’m thinking of traveling east, going to Denver to see my folks, to see how things are going there. I tell myself it might be different. Maybe the government is still functioning there. Maybe food and clean water are more plentiful. Maybe I could help. The last I heard everyone was fine – or at least they said they were.
I know I should have called while the lines were still working but I was afraid it would cut off my options. As long as I could believe it might be better, I could keep my spirits up. A traveler needs strength – especially if he has no money.
I hear the roads are jammed with hitchhikers. It’s a basic law of human nature: irrational optimism. It has to be better down the road. Or maybe we’re beyond that. Even if it isn’t better, it’s best to keep moving. As long as we’re moving, we’re alive and that’s all the hope we can get.
I’ve talked to some people who’ve been out there. They all say the same thing: Don’t go. It’s better here than it is out there. It’s dangerous, dirty and shelter is hard to find. But if I’ve got my mind set, they tell me to stay off the main highways as much as possible and don’t take every ride.
There’s a man here named Sugar who traveled from Indiana looking to hook up with his son and daughter-in-law but when he got here they were gone. Scattered like dry leaves in an August wind. He liked to talk about his adventures on the road.
“You develop a sixth sense and you learn to trust it,” he said in a chiseled voice. “Listen to it. If it tells you something’s wrong, something’s wrong. Lots of people out there are looking to take whatever you got.”
He told me there were people in the woods everywhere you went. Set up shelters built of plywood and sheets of tin, tents and corrugated cardboard.
“Most of them will take you in for a night but don’t overstay your welcome. That’s what they’re afraid of. The moment you see that hint of fear and worry, it’s time to move on.”
He told stories of being stranded on desert highways, being surrounded by a pack of wild dogs, no-gooders who shook him down for a roll of postage stamps and abandoned him by the roadside in the middle of god awful nowhere.
“People are good at heart,” he reflected. “I still believe that. But when hard times come something takes hold of them. People that never stole anything in their lives will take your last crumb of bread. It’s a cold world out there, boy. You got to keep your head up and your senses alive.”
I took his advice like it was the gospel truth. He told me places to go and places to avoid. He told me what to pack and what not to bother with. The premium was weight and durability. Dried goods and sardine cans and hard candy were good. Cans of soup and fruit and vegetables were too heavy. “Eat ‘em and leave ‘em,” he said. A pouch for water instead of a canteen. “Got to have water,” he said.
We spent a lot of time talking about weapons or what could be used to defend yourself from desperate humans and hungry beasts. He advised me to get a good strong walking stick. It doesn’t threaten people but it gives them pause if they’ve got a mind to roll you.
“A good knife will serve you but keep it strapped to your leg and out of sight. It’s there if you need it but don’t show no one your hand before it’s played.”
He showed me how to roll your stuff up in a couple of good light-weight blankets, bind them with strips of leather and hang it over your shoulder.
“You’ll want a good hat,” he said. “One with plenty of brim that clings to your head in a strong wind. Can’t say enough about a good hat.”
I spent a lot of time gathering things I thought I’d need, including maps I pulled out of the dumps. Then one day Sugar took stock of all I had and gave me a wink.
“You’re ready,” he said. “As ready as you’ll ever be.”
I shook his hand and set out walking due east the next morning at the crack of dawn. A teenage kid was staking my spot the moment I checked out. I tipped my hat and wished him well. There was a lot fear in his eyes – like he was afraid I’d change my mind.
I almost did. I wasn’t easy leaving behind a place of safety and it occurred to me it might be the dumbest thing I ever did. Once I walked out, there was no turning back.
I got out of town and walked all day on a country road heading more or less east, stopping only when I saw an opportunity for food. I found some berries along a creek bed and some peaches just short of ground rot in an old orchard. I sat down to eat and rest my bones. By the look of the sun there was no more than an hour or so in the day. I figured I walked a good twelve hours at a decent pace, covering thirty miles or more. My legs ached, my feet were sore and my mind was clouded with second thoughts so I decided to call it a day.
All day long I had seen only four vehicles on this road: three of them heading the other way, the other an old Ford pickup. I don’t know if it was the price of gas or the fact that gas at any price was too much but the problem of traffic congestion disappeared. Most gas stations had gone out of business and those that were left were only open a few days a week.
The driver of the Ford, a man maybe a little older than me with a green John Deere cap, slowed down to look me over. It seemed to me he was worried that I was walking in the direction of his home and wanted to be sure I wasn’t a threat. I tipped my hat but I didn’t stick my thumb out. I wasn’t ready for a ride. I wanted time to think without having to deal with other people. In the back of my mind maybe I didn’t want to go too far in case I had a change of heart.
I gathered some wood and kindling for a fire and laid out my blankets. I had an old copy of George Stewart’s Earth Abides (I traded The Grapes of Wrath for it on the grounds that it weighed less) for company but I didn’t feel like reading so I just sat there gazing at the sun sinking in the western sky.
I lit the fire as the sun went down (more for light than warmth) and after a spell I got the feeling someone was watching me. I pulled out my knife and started whittling and kept my walking stick at hand just in case. A while later I heard a whimpering and I realized there was a dog sitting in the dark, keeping its distance, scouting me out, looking for someone to partner with. Dogs and cats, pets of all kinds, had it bad when hard times hit. The pounds and shelters were full and charging fees so people discarded them in the country. It made me mad until I thought it through. What else could they do? If times got worse god forbid people would start eating their animals and the animals would turn on them.
I got on my haunches and made a clicking sound, holding my hand out to call it to me. It moved slowly out of the shadows into the light of the fire and I could see she was a small to medium dog, golden with white patches and floppy ears, maybe a border collie mix. She was not a pup but young and scared. She backed off twice before she came to me, licked my hand and looked me straight in the eyes. We connected and both of us knew we had a partner like it or not.
Growing up the family had a couple of dogs and I had a dog as a younger man, all of them mutts. I like dogs. I admire them. That kind of loyalty might be bred but it’s an amazing thing to behold. A dog will go up against a mountain lion to protect its human. A dog will walk a thousand miles to get back home. A dog will stay with you when you’re sick and run with you in bad weather. There are all kinds of dogs and all kinds of dog people but the best dogs are those that choose you – like this dog chose me.
Now I had a new line of problems to think about: dog problems. Giving her a good name, making sure she got enough to eat and keeping her out of danger. I thought about a leash but that seemed ridiculous under the circumstances. I was not her master, her owner or even her protector. She was a free agent just like me. Any time she wanted to move on, that was her business. I had no say.
It occurred to me as she lay with her head on my lap while I scratched behind her ears that she would keep me warm when the weather got cold. I had no idea how a dog like her would fare in the wild. Probably no better than a city man like me. But maybe I was getting the better end of the deal. She was a good dog and as long as she stayed with me I would never be alone.
I tried to remember the dog’s name in the old Harlan Ellison story A Boy and His Dog without success. In the days before the crash you could look up information like that on the web. Not now. The web was down. There was no one to man the stations for an enterprise that produced nothing of tangible value. I guess that means the age of information is over. Maybe it’s for the best. A dog should find its own name or at least it shouldn’t be saddled with something from the past.
I slept with one eye open most of the night. When I woke up the dog was gone. I figured she must have moved on. But then she came running up with her tail up, bright eyes, smiling like a dog smiles. She had something in her mouth and placed it in my hand. It was a blueberry. That’s a good dog. She had learned to scavenge and saved one for me. I thanked her and pulled out a piece of jerky I’d stowed away. We split it down the middle.
Things were looking up.
My plan was to turn south and I figured it was no more than a few miles down the road. There are no easy ways to cross the Sierras or the Rockies so I decided to cross the desert at Death Valley, follow Route 66 to New Mexico and turn north to Colorado.
That was the plan but in the back of my mind I understood that all things are malleable. I was resolved to remain open to whatever experiences unfolded. My destination was Denver but I had no expectations. In all likelihood I would stay a few days or a week and go my way. I had no intention of imposing on my blood family any more than I had on my married family. Times were hard everywhere and the best I could do was to not add to the burden. If I could help I would do anything I could. If not, I would move on.
I had a dog now and I decided to name her Cinnamon after the Neil Young song. The song always gave me a lift. Walking down the road trying to keep my senses open she jogged before me like she was royalty. She was full of joy and hyped with energy. It must have broken someone’s heart to let her go.
After an hour or so we turned south and kept walking. Another hour and a truck came up behind us and slowed. It was the man who passed me the day before.
“You want a ride?” he said.
“I’ve got a dog,” I replied.
“I noticed.”
I looked him over and decided he was okay. We both jumped in the cab, Cinnamon in the middle. His name was Frank. He was a little fidgety and strange as if unaccustomed to casual conversation – at least with strangers. He explained that he was delivering food packages to town and apologized for not picking me up the day before. I shrugged and said I’d probably have done the same. I hoped it wasn’t true but it probably was. Hard times teach you to be cautious. Everyone wants something. Everyone has an angle. Everyone except my dog and me. He said he had a farm in the country. It was a cooperative with about two dozen people. They grew apples, pears, peaches, almonds and assorted garden vegetables. They were self sufficient he related with a measure of pride.
He asked where I was from and I told him. He asked my story and I gave it to him in abbreviated terms. He nodded and kept looking in the rearview mirror to catch my eyes. I had a vague sense of being interviewed and I wasn’t sure I liked it. He started rambling about the good they were doing, living in harmony off the land, working together in a common enterprise, how food and labor were the only things that mattered now.
I asked if it was a commune and he laughed. It was his land, his farm, his equipment and the people who worked it were working for him. I asked how much he paid and he looked at me like I was out of my mind. They work for food and shelter. No one has money he said. It’s all about surviving in hard times.
Maybe but I didn’t think he was delivering food to town for free. He volunteered that they only got enough money to keep things running: fuel to keep the generators going, clothes, blankets, light bulbs, stuff they couldn’t grow.
We drove on for about forty-five minutes when he pulled over to the side of road.
“This is where I turn off. The farm’s about ten more miles down there,” he explained pointing to the west. If it was a job interview I figured I did all I could to scuttle my prospects but he gave me one more chance.
“You’re welcome to join us,” he offered with a weak smile. Cinnamon was crawling over me to get out the door.
“I appreciate that,” I lied. “We’ll take our chances on the road.”
Maybe I was wrong but I had a bad feeling about the whole venture. These were hard times, sure, but I wasn’t ready for slavery. What else could you call working for food and shelter? Of course, it wasn’t slavery if you were free to leave any time you wanted but I wasn’t willing to take that chance ten miles down the road and neither was Cinnamon.
He pulled a couple of bags of dried pears and another of trail mix and handed them to me like a peace offering. I thanked him most sincerely and he drove off with a nod of his head.
“Good luck, you’ll need it.”
I watched him drive down a one-way road kicking up dust and I had to wonder: I may come to regret that. Cinnamon yelped and started down the road south. I could tell she was thinking what I was thinking. Something wrong about that man.
I started walking but my mind stayed behind on that truck to the farm and the fidgety man who wanted to recruit us. Why? Surely there was no shortage of desperate people willing to work for food and shelter. In fact, there were too many. If he showed up at one of the camps in town looking for volunteers it might start a riot and everyone would know about it. Someone would follow the trail and the location of a critical source of food would be known. If times really got tough, townspeople would converge on the farm and take what they needed. I decided he had to pick up strays – individuals like myself who for whatever reason wandered from the crowds.
I had a desire to turn around, go back and walk down that road just to see for myself what was going on. I weighed the options. If I went back it would take at least two days probably three and the winter would be that much closer. Then again, I had no real expectations of my journey to Colorado. In all likelihood I would find the same situation there as I had at home. I would be a burden on my family. It would be a cold winter in Colorado so it really didn’t matter if I never made it out of California. I had already accomplished my objective. I was out of the way. My wife and children could not find me. Even if I settled on a farm in the country it is unlikely they would track me down.
Just the same, if I went down to the farm and found what I half expected to find, what could I do about it? The authorities (such as they were) would not want to intervene. The farm was providing food. If they were doing so on the backs of slave labor that was just an unfortunate effect of the times. On the other hand, my job if I had one was to tell the story. If I did not go down that road the story might never be told.
I was still hesitant to turn around. There was something in my head about the code of the road, the cardinal law of every pilgrim, journeyman and wandering hobo: Don’t turn back. Whatever happened, whatever went down, I wanted to honor that code. Keep on moving. Keep on keeping on.
My self-imposed dilemma was resolved when we came to a dirt path, a walking path that meandered off in a westward direction. I knelt down and took Cinnamon by the ears: I know you don’t want to go down there, girl. I don’t blame you. But I’ve got to go down there and have a look. You’re free to follow or free to go.
I know she understood. Her tail stopped wagging and she stared into my eyes, trying to change my mind until she realized it was hopeless. I started walking down the path and she stood there on the road for maybe thirty seconds before she trotted up behind me. I knelt down, gave her a good petting and kissed her head. She made her decision: She would stick with me no matter what and for that I would always be grateful.
We spent the day walking through the woods, taking time to hunt for berries and sitting down for snacks from our varied food supply. Finally we came to a clearing: a small valley below the ledge where we were. It was late in the daylight hours and people were still working the gardens and orchards below us. The workers looked tired from the day’s labor but there was nothing remarkable about their appearance. Some were picking fruit or vegetables and putting them in baskets or bags. At the far end of the valley there was a large two-story white wood house and to its side a row of small structures – cabins or shacks – and behind them two large structures that I figured were a barn and a warehouse. Three workers were building a new shack for what I assumed were the workers quarters. Another medium-sized structure I figured was used for drying and packaging. There were workers carrying bags and baskets from the fields out back for processing. A couple of workers were running water from a well to the house. All in all, it looked like a well-planned, well-run operation.
At sunset a woman emerged from the house and rang a bell as all the workers walked from their stations to their living quarters. A while later lights went on in the shacks and the big white house. I could see two generators, one by the house and another by the first shack. About an hour later another bell rang and all the workers went out back for what I assumed was a group meal. Another hour and they were back in their quarters. Another hour and the lights were replaced by flickering candlelight everywhere but the big house. I saw that the workers cabins were segregated by sex with three or four assigned to each one.
I was determined to go down for a closer look. No one was standing guard (an indication no one knew about the place) but several people lingered on the porch of the big house. A couple (probably the man from the truck and his wife) was on the balcony upstairs. Under the light of a half moon, we followed the trail all the way around the fields to the back of the house where the trail ended in a descent to the valley floor.
We took a quick look inside the warehouse where row after row of boxes were neatly stacked, waiting for delivery to needy townspeople. I resisted the temptation to stock up on dry goods. Keenly aware that the time might come, I was not ready to make that leap. I would hold on to my sense of decency as long as I could. We looked in the second building and saw it was divided into two sections, one for drying and packaging, the other with a complete kitchen and tables for serving meals. We moved over to the cabins away from the big house and saw that they were constructed with plywood walls painted in uniform gray. They were definitely not up to the standard of cabins. The walls were thin enough that we could hear the voices of the workers clear enough to understand most of what was said.
I motioned to Cinnamon to be quiet as we settled behind a shack where a man was talking about the segregation rule. He was angry that two willing people were not free to share a bed. He was angry at being confined to a small space shared with others he did not choose. He was angry at the authority held over him by the man who ruled the farm. Another man was trying to talk him down, urging him to be quiet, reminding him that life outside was hard. The man didn’t care. He wanted to leave. He wanted to leave first thing in the morning.
“No one leaves,” the other man said. “You think you can leave. They tell you you can but you can’t. They put you in rehab and the keep you there until you change your mind. The only ones who leave are the ones who can’t carry their weight. Too old or too sick. Too stubborn or feeble. Then they tell you to leave.”
The first man thought about what he said before he offered a final comment: “Ain’t a man alive can keep me here against my will.”
A knock came on the wall, probably a signal, the candle was snuffed and silence.
Almost immediately Cinnamon began to growl. Before I could bolt I was staring at a flashlight. I made out three men silhouetted in the darkness as I slowly stood. A voice ordered me to drop my walking stick and Cinnamon went crazy. She dashed toward them and began a side-to-side maneuver. She was fast and quick as the punch you never saw coming. I knelt back down and called her. I was surprised when she came. She recognized the man with the flashlight before I did. It was the man in the truck that gave us a ride.
“Well, well,” the man began. “Did you change your mind or did you come here to steal some food?”
“Why would I do that?”
I had no need for any more food than I could carry. Any fool would know that but I explained it to him slow and easy. As I was talking, a group of people came up behind me and one of them spoke out as I calmed Cinnamon.
“Let him go,” a man said. It was the same voice we heard talking inside the workers shack, the one who wanted to leave if he couldn’t room with a woman. Two more men and a woman were behind him. Maybe more behind them, I couldn’t tell.
“This man’s trespassing,” the boss man said.
“Call the police,” someone said and everyone behind us laughed. What police was left couldn’t be bothered with something like this. Anything short of a riot got a pass unless it was in the finest of neighborhoods.
I related my situation, told them how the boss man picked us up and asked me to work on the farm and why I turned it down. I explained why I decided to come have a look for myself, because I felt a duty to tell the story.
“No harm, no foul,” the man from the shack said. “You were right about this place,” a woman said. “Ain’t nothing but a slave operation.”
Suddenly the boss man was on his heels, a little concerned with the turn of affairs and the possibility of a workers revolt was staring him in the face. Who knows on which side the two larger men behind him would turn?
“Alright!” the boss man protested. “I’ve told you all a dozen times or more: Every one of you is free to go! But if you go you won’t be welcomed back.”
You could feel the pull of his words. These were hard times and this was a place where they were pretty much guaranteed the two things they needed most: food and shelter.
“Even slaves could couple up,” the workingman said.
“You’ve got a point,” said the boss man. “We’ll talk about it in the morning.”
“This man free to go?”
The boss man nodded and started walking back to the big house. I tipped my hat to the working people and thanked them two or three times.
“I wish we could build a fire and offer up some warm food and drink but that would stir up more trouble than it’s worth,” said the man who spoke up for us.
“I understand,” I said and I did. The last thing I wanted to do was to create a problem for these good people. We shook hands and I started walking out the way we came in with Cinnamon tagging along behind me.
“Fuck it!” the man said.
I turned around and he was waving us back. He introduced himself as Leon and his buddy as Buck. The rest of them threw in with their own names and we followed them to a clearing east of the worker shacks. They gathered wood and lit a fire not for warmth but for the kind of camaraderie a campfire builds. One by one as the fire burned the rest of the workers came out and joined our circle. I told my story and they told me theirs. Half of them had the same story. Too many mouths to feed. Too many bodies to shelter. The other half was forced out. No hard feelings. Just the way it is when the lifeboat is treading water.
We were the outcasts. Every one of us had one thing in common. We were alone when the boss man picked us up and offered us a job. No one knew anyone else at the farm. Every one of them started out alone. Any bonds they made they made after they started working here at the farm.
The work was hard and the days were long but no one was complaining about that. They were worried what would happen if they left the farm. They were worried that the boss man wouldn’t let them leave. Two of them had tried but they were tracked down before they could get to a town or far enough that they weren’t worth tracking. Each related a similar story: They were put in isolation out back of the house. They were sleep deprived and fed a broth with white bread three times a day. A counselor talked to them every waking hour of every day and night. Talked to them about how hard the world outside had become. Talked to them about how lucky they were to have food, shelter, clothing and someone who looked after them. After days and days of this, they couldn’t tell how long, they were weak and tired and too desperate to resist. They promised to be good workers. Loyal workers. True and honest and strong.
Only then did the boss man come in and inform them that they could leave if they still felt the need. Only then did he tell them they were free. They didn’t believe him but they never tried again. Life wasn’t that bad here. That much was true.
Leon’s problem was that he had fallen in love with a woman named Marge. Her problem was that she fell for him. They wanted to shack up together but that was against the rules. The boss man wouldn’t allow couples or alliances that could be used against him. Leon wasn’t serious about leaving the place. He wasn’t about to leave Marge and she wasn’t ready to hit the road with anyone. He just liked to grovel about it and did so every night as Buck would attest.
They brought out some trail mix and canned fruits and made some hot chocolate that we all shared. Someone even had a can of dog food that Cinnamon devoured. They all agreed that things were going to change starting in the morning and they invited us to stay.
I decided to sleep on it and see what developed in the morning. I threw down my blankets and we slept until dawn. By the time we roused the workers were already assembling for their morning meal. Buck came over to invite us along. Maybe it doesn’t seem like much but it was the best breakfast I ever had: fried veggies, hash brown potatoes and a slab of bacon. These were not things we took for granted anymore. Back at the camp we had a lot of oatmeal and trail mix, grains, nuts and dried fruits. Anything that kept was at a premium and anything that didn’t was rare. I don’t know where they got the meat. There were no pigs on the farm, no chickens or cows, so they must have traded for it.
I noticed that some of the men and a few of the women were carrying hardwood walking sticks or lengths of pipe and someone was stationed outside the dining hall. There was a feeling of apprehension but nothing was said. At least nothing I noticed. Buck asked me if I could use a hammer and saw. I said I could and he invited me to work on the construction crew if I was staying. I asked him what was going on and he told me I’d see for myself if I hung out. He said they were not planning on confronting the boss man but they were going to make changes. He gave a wink and introduced me to the foreman of the construction crew, a stout man with a healthy gut and huge hands who went by the name of Joe.
We went about our business, finishing up the shack and starting another when the chimes rang at the end of the workday. That’s when I noticed the first change. Leon grabbed a few of his things and moved in with Marge. The two women who roomed with Marge moved into the new shack and couple of others shifted as well.
They hadn’t asked permission. They just did it and waited to see what would happen. It was the same with me and Cinn. They didn’t ask if we could stay. They just invited us. I stayed for another week and watched a number of changes happen. The workers were taking charge of the work assignments and they were making sounds about opening the books and sharing the profits – if there were any. The boss man made the rounds, a couple of his thugs always in tow, but it was clear things had changed. He made requests but he gave no orders. He just went along with things.
I got all the story I was going to get and that’s what I came to find. We walked out the way we came in and my head was full of thoughts. Had we already arrived at the place where ordinary people would give up their freedom? Was it worth it? When it came down to it, the people had the power to overthrow the masters but they needed some sense of order, they needed an authority figure – especially now when the traditional authorities were no longer around.
We built a small fire off the trail and slept through most of the night. The last thing we wanted was to see the boss man again. I didn’t think he’d follow us but I was not in the mood to take a chance. We were the unwitting catalyst to change so you never know when the desire for irrational revenge will overtake someone. When morning broke we found a different trail, one that ran parallel to the road heading south, and we took it. The next day we were back on the road.
As before the traffic was sparse but I was noticing a trend. The vehicles (mostly trucks and vans that could carry things) were getting older, not newer. I would later ask an auto mechanic about this. He told me someone with a sense of how things worked could repair the older vehicles. The newer vehicles required technological wizardry. No one was going to pay a hundred bucks to hook their car up to a machine so they could tell you you needed a part from a plant in China that no longer existed. The hybrids were popular for a while but once the battery ran dry there was no replacement.
We walked for a couple days, making camp by night off the road without any trouble. On the third day a storm was coming in and the air was noticeably crisper, marking the end of summer and the beginning of autumn. We sought refuge in an abandoned cottage maybe a hundred yards from the road. That was another trend. People were letting go of their homes in the country. It was too difficult to survive out there. It was easier to band together and share the burdens.
We waited the storm out for two days before we got back out on the road. We turned down a ride from a man who was obviously drunk and looking for trouble. He was mad as hell but we just backed off and walked the opposite way until he lost interest and drove on. A little later we took a ride from a couple in a blue van. They were dressed in jeans and work shirts, his plaid and hers khaki. They both had long hair tied back but that no longer carried any cultural meaning. Cutting hair had become an inconvenience that was often ignored.
They were heading for a community called Paradiso they had heard about in the foothills somewhere near Madera. It was squatters land and a group of college students and idealists were trying to create a sustainable and self-sufficient lifestyle with solar energy and environmentally conscious design. They weren’t sure they had enough gas to get there but they were willing to try. Gas was a problem even if you had money. It was rationed and the only gas stations were controlled by the state. They were hard to find and were generally dry three out of every four weeks. There were abandoned vehicles everywhere but almost all of them had been siphoned.
I told them it was my intention to keep on moving but I wouldn’t mind visiting the place to learn their story and pass it on to others.
His name was Holly and hers was Janis and they both thought it was a great idea. They wondered what I had learned thus far so I told them about the bridge camp and the farm cooperative. While I hadn’t come to a rock hard conclusion I was favoring the view that kindness and cooperation were the best means of surviving these times. Those who tried to impose order or authority over large groups of people were fighting a losing battle. As long as the state was weak and could not enforce its will, there was a possibility that thugs and miscreants out for their own gain could take control. It wasn’t happening because the common, decent people were banding together. They were figuring out how to make things work in a lawless society. They were finding a way to establish their own kind of order based on kindness, charity and mutual respect.
I could see conflicting emotions in their expressions even as they nodded and gave encouraging remarks. I realized I was expressing an optimism that was grounded more in hope than fact. There were rumors of communities taken over by gangs and outlaws. Everything was uncertain. The future was a maze of possibilities and at least half of them were dark.
We passed a few solar crawlers on the road – improvised vehicles with solar panels that crawled along in the daylight hours at anywhere from five to fifteen miles per hour. They were becoming more common and I figured it was because there was no longer any time pressures, no deadlines and no destinations that couldn’t wait. That and the gas-rationing situation. Crawling along the road at a snail’s pace on the power of the sun seemed as good a way to pass the time as anything else.
We turned on a two-lane road heading east that became one lane filled with potholes. We crept along like a crawler navigating around the potholes. People had taken to filling holes and repairing roads on their own but this road hadn’t been tended to in a long time.
Janis noticed a flag hanging limp on windless day but there was something odd about it. As we drew nearer we could see it was an old American peace flag but it was hanging upside down. It was a sign of distress. We slowed even more and discussed what it could mean. Holly suggested it might just be a way of the keeping the riff raff out. Janis thought it was more serious. Combined with the state of the road, we decided it probably meant the community had been hit with a serious sickness.
We pulled over to discuss it. Getting sick these days could cost your life. There was a shortage of drugs and medical supplies. The government passed a law requiring doctors and nurses to treat the ill and injured regardless of their ability to pay. It resulted in doctors and nurses going underground. Who could blame them? Once you started treating the needy it never ended.
Janis had some nursing experience and they were both determined to press forward but they couldn’t ask me to go along against my will. I looked at Cinnamon and told them we were in. Whatever hardships lie ahead, I wanted to bear witness, help out if I could, and Cinn was sticking with me for better or worse.
We pressed on for another hour before we came to the place. There was large octagonal structure with a sign reading “Paradiso” carved in wood over double doors. It was obviously a community center where people would gather for meals and evening discussions. There were a handful of cottages surrounding a courtyard and a large windmill at its center. There were signs of other structures down walking paths out of our immediate view.
There was no one to greet us and no one in sight. It was late in the day but the sun was still up. There should have been plenty of activity to close a working day but there was nothing going on. The only sounds were crows feeding on vegetables in the community gardens. There was something definitely wrong.
We knocked on the door of the community center and knocked again. We heard no sign of activity on the other side of the door. We discussed going in and decided we would but Holly gave it one more try. He pounded it firmly like a police officer might do in a former time. (If the police came to your door these days they had no intention of knocking.)
Just as we were going over our options for knocking the doors down or finding another way inside, the door opened a crack and a woman with the eyes of sorrow and fatigue peaked through.
“Can I help you?” she mumbled.
Holly explained why they had come and Janis quickly added that she had nursing experience and if anyone was sick they were willing to help. The woman squinted her eyes and looked each of us over. She signaled someone inside before closing the door behind and asking us to join her at a picnic table not far from where we stood.
Her name was Jo. We would later learn she was in her late twenties but she looked much older with her puffy yellowed eyes and what seemed a greenish tint to her dark skin. She wore moccasins, loose fitted jeans and a cotton work shirt with a quilted shawl over her shoulders. We joined her at the table and she told us the story.
They had three visitors less than two months ago. They knew someone who knew about the place and they just wanted to see what was happening. After a couple days they moved on but they left something behind. One of them had a cough. He said he was recovering from a persistent cold and no one thought much of it at the time but within twenty-four hours several people were sick. Within forty-eight hours most of them were sick and within a week everyone was sick.
That was five weeks ago and things had only gone downhill. At this juncture only she and one other were able to stand long enough to take care of the others. They got word to the local authorities and someone from the Center for Infectious Diseases came out long enough to inform them that the illness was not tuberculosis, as they had feared; it was a persistent and resistant strand of a flu virus. They left some aspirin and some antibiotics but there was little to no hope that they would work.
They were right. They didn’t work. The only things they could do were the normal measures for the flu: try to keep the fever down, lots of fluids, cold compacts, and lots of soup. After a week of suffering almost everyone tried to get up and help care for the others but they almost invariably fell back down. There were only two people caring for twenty-nine others as we spoke and both of them were feeling weak – too weak to go out and tend the garden, which they desperately needed to survive not only the illness but the winter ahead.
If we stayed, she confided, we would certainly get sick. She would give no assurances. Not one had recovered yet and three had already died: a man, a woman and an infant child. They were buried in shallow graves out back. The poor woman cried saying that she did not know what they would do with the next corpse. They did not have the strength even to drag the body out. Despite all this, if we stayed they would be eternally grateful.
“If there is a god,” she said, “god would be grateful, too.”
I admit I was having doubts. I could have used Cinn as an excuse. But Holly and Janis were quick to offer their help in any way they could. They were staying and I was staying, too.
I was a little relieved when Jo suggested that we remain outside to tend the gardens, haul water from the well, and do whatever we could without coming inside. The longer we could remain healthy the better it would be for everyone.
Jo offered us one more out, speaking with a reluctance that revealed the strength of her character. She said they had heard a rumor that this sickness never leaves. Some survive, the rumor said, but they are always sick, always weak, and always struggling with the cough, the fever, the aches and pains.
She coughed into a rag she held in her hand and apologized each time she did. “If I were you I would not stay.”
Fair enough. We all understood. I think Cinnamon understood better than we did. She stayed away from the community room even when we approached and she kept her distance from Jo. She could smell the sickness, maybe even the death it promised.
Jo quietly extended her hand down low and Cinn came to her as if she held an irresistible treat. She rubbed behind her ears with whispers of good girl as only dog lovers can.
“Dogs thank god cannot get the human disease.”
She informed us that the cottages were empty and we could settle there. She told us she would bring us some bread and vegetable stew before nightfall and ambled back to the community room like an old woman too tired to say any more.
“If you decide to stay,” she said, “we’ll work things out in the morning.”
Janis volunteered to help with the evening meal but Jo threw up her hand. She had already explained we could only help if we remained healthy and we could only remain healthy if we remained out of contact with the sick.
We huddled together like lost souls until she reemerged with a tray of food along with everything we needed: silverware, bowls, bread and honey, a covered pot of stew, salt and pepper, plastic glasses and a pitcher of tea. She even brought a can of dog food and a bowl for Cinn. She was as kind as an only child’s grandmother yet she was clearly sick and tired. Her smile was difficult to sustain. She asked if we needed anything else and quietly returned to her duties, caring for those more ill than herself.
It was a virtual feast – even better than breakfast at the farm and as good as any I could remember since hard times came to be. The bread was fresh and home baked. The stew was delicately seasoned and full of fresh vegetables: potatoes, carrots, cabbage, broccoli, sweet corn and radishes, all grown in the gardens and a greenhouse out back. The tea was sweetened with honey. We ate everything before us and Holly wondered if they were trying to entice us to stay.
We talked until the sun went down, leaving us in the light of a half moon, until we were too exhausted to carry on. Holly and Janis were more determined even than before to make this place work. They would make their stand here no matter the cost.
They chose the nearest cottage while Cinn and I chose a place across the courtyard, mindful that the couple would need their privacy and space. The cottage had a thin layer of dust but it was otherwise clean. It was basically one room with a bed, a table and desk, and a small bathroom with a sink and toilet. There was a hot pan, a coffee maker and a row of shelves full of books. There was a lamp, an overhead light and a small room heater. We would later learn that electricity ran on solar arrays mounted on the roofs of each structure and an additional array out back. There were a handful of oil-powered generators for backup.
The bed was soft and comfortable with two pillows, a thick warm quilt and a stack of blankets in the closet. I settled on the bed with a copy of Cormac McCarthy’s post apocalyptic The Road and Cinnamon snuggled close for warmth.
I kept thinking what a beautiful place this really was: Open land with groves of valley oak, plenty of green plant life and fertile soil before the land turns hard and rocky in the foothills to the east. This land had given itself to growing fruits, nuts and vegetables for as long as anyone could recall. It was an ideal place for a group of like-minded people to come together and create a fruitful and sustainable life.
It would require a special breed of people who could bridge the gap between intellectual curiosity and the realities of surviving on and by the land. They would need a deep understanding of human nature and a willingness to work hard and struggle and suffer disappointments and keep working.
McCarthy’s story as only he could tell it was grave and relentless. Humanity was stripped of its human values down to the level of rank survival. A man and his son roamed the barren landscape of ruins searching for food and drinkable water. The social order was gone and what remained was ugly: violence without remorse, killing and cannibalism. I wondered if we would ever reach that place and if so how long it would take. I wondered if I even wanted to survive to live in such despair.
We awoke in the early morning and went outside to find no one waiting. We explored the surroundings with Cinn taking the lead. There was a creek nearby running along the east side of the compound. There were gardens on three sides and an orchard of almond, cherry, olive and apple trees. There was a tool shed and storage directly behind the community building and a large greenhouse next to it.
It was clear they had planned every detail of the community in advance. Everything had a purpose and each element of the plan was placed and plotted for maximum efficiency. These were not hippies on a utopian crusade. They were serious people given to serious thought. The courtyard was an outdoor gathering place and the community building served the same purpose for during the winter months or rainy seasons.
We picked apples, almonds and olives along the way, enjoying the fruit of other people’s labor. When we wondered back to the courtyard we found Holly and Janis waiting along with Jo’s partner in caretaking.
His name was Zar, short for Balthazar (although Jo would later tell us she thought it was short for Zarathustra; Zar had been a philosophy student deep into Nietzsche but he wanted to leave all that behind). He explained that most of the original group had been students at the University of California at Davis when everything went to hell. They lost their funding and could no longer sustain the student life so they banded together to form the community of their dreams, a paradise, a sustainable lifestyle, a life that left the earth unharmed yet fostered all the pleasures of human existence: arts, crafts, science, intellectual pursuit, knowledge, communications. They wanted it all.
It seemed like a good idea at the time and indeed it was but now the sickness consumed them. Every hour of every day came down to surviving the sickness. Zar wanted to talk. He wanted to talk about philosophy, idealism, values, art and literature. He wanted to talk about science or baseball or the weather – anything but what was happening here and now. He wanted to just talk like people used to talk but it wasn’t possible. People were depending on him and now they were depending on us.
“We’re grateful you’re here,” he said. “And we hope you’ll stay but we’ll understand if you don’t. This isn’t your fight.”
We repeated our assurances but the doubt would remain for a long while. It was just too much to ask of outsiders. It was too much to believe that someone in this bold new world would sacrifice their own interests, their own chances of survival, to help people they had never known. Maybe they were protecting themselves from expectations. It was hard enough to keep their spirits up from day to day through the drudgery and struggle, never knowing if the sickness would once again knock them to their knees. Maybe they were protecting themselves from the possibility that we would be stricken. If they were all going to die they did not want the deaths of three more on their shoulders.
Janis pleaded with him to let her inside to care for the sick. In what would be a daily ritual he refused to discuss it. They had made their decision. If it changed they would let her know. Until then we would remain outside. Janis demurred as she always would but she inquired about the situation inside. Zar told her as best he could. The sick were arranged in a circle on beds and cots around the periphery of an open space. The kitchen was separate and isolated by a doorway which they kept closed as much as possible. Janis asked about ventilation and he told her there was a fan to pump the air out in the ceiling. Janis suggested they open the doors as often as possible while the weather still permitted and Zar agreed to discuss it with Jo. From that point forward they would open the doors in the morning, at noon and in the evening when they emerged to bring us food and collect the fruits of our labor.
Zar had jotted down a list of chores that we could build into a routine. They pumped water from the creek to the gardens, the greenhouse and the community building by means of wind and solar power. It was an automated system but it needed maintenance to check for and repair breakdowns and blockages. That would become my primary duty. Janis and Holly would spend most of their time in the gardens, weeding and repairing the wire fences that protected them from scavenging animals. The rest of the time was spent planting and tending plants in the greenhouse. They did not know how long the weather would hold but they would depend on the greenhouse and the foods that were preserved in canning jars and stacked in a storage warehouse out back. We all spent time in the canning process.
We established a routine and the days went by almost unnoticed. The weather began to turn. We depended more and more on the backup generators but we did all we could to minimize our usage. There was an ample supply of candles and sometimes we spent time reforming the wax into new candles.
It was a workable plan. In the morning we shared a breakfast of fruit and nuts or occasionally oatmeal and coffee (a rare commodity in hard times). Around noon and again in the evening, Jo or Zar or sometimes both brought us meals and we supplied them with all the fruits, vegetables, spices and various items they might need. With the cold coming on, we added woodcutting and stacking to our chores. As much as they wanted to avoid burning wood they had not been able to find an option that would keep them warm enough in the winter months. Instead, they had worked on a filtering system to minimize the damage. Anything else would have to wait until spring.
Cinn was growing attached to the place as dogs do. They love to run and explore but they’re wired to find a home and root in. She loved Jo and Zar. It helped that they were the suppliers of food and treats but they loved her too. There were a couple of strays hanging around before the sickness hit but they wondered off in search of more reliable humans.
A week or two into our stay the first of the sleepers awakened and was allowed to come outside. She was young and bright eyed despite the lingering effects of the illness. Her name was Oleander and she had been a student of sociology before “the crash” as she called it. She was genuinely overjoyed to see us. We connected her to the outside world. She wondered as I did what was happening back home. Before the illness hit, they had participated in a communications project, a kind of pony express with bikes and motor scooters and solar crawlers instead of horses, but they had to drop out when they could no longer carry their weight.
We told her what we could, that times were hard everywhere, that people were finding all kinds of ways to adapt but this was the first place we found that was hit by the virus. It was something we all wondered. Was this an isolated sickness or had it spread throughout the valley and beyond? There were fears that it was a kind of modern plague for which society such as it was, was ill equipped to fight.
My thoughts wondered constantly back to my family, my wife and children, with that same fear. I always ran through the possibilities – sending a message, going back either to stay or to visit or just to observe – but I always came to the same conclusion: there was nothing I could do to help. I could only get in the way.
I went to sleep early that night with Cinn snuggled at my side and awakened in the darkened, early hours of the morning with a cold sweat covering my body. I struggled to get up and throw some water on my face but I lost the battle. The next thing I knew I was in the community room on the cot that Oleander had occupied. Suddenly, instead of caretaker I was among the cared for. I would learn firsthand the horrors of this virus that crept into the body and held it hostage for as long as it could.
At first I fought back, refusing to believe that I had fallen victim. Again and again, as Jo or Zar tried to talk me down, I tried to get up but my body refused. The pain was so acute and ran so deep that any movement triggered a cascade of agony. The fever took hold of my mind so that I no longer knew where I was or why or how I got there. Often enough I could not remember who I was. At times I was certain I was being held hostage by people who wanted to enslave me or steal the organs of my body. I was being tortured. I was being held against my will. They were injecting me with drugs that stopped me from moving.
The only thing that could bring me back to earth and reality was the worried gaze of my loyal friend and companion. Cinn was with me all the time. She liked to lay her head and paws on my chest and I never doubted her purpose was to comfort and heal me.
The sickness came in waves, washing over me, drowning me, dragging me through a dark landscape with shadow creatures, yellow eyes and snarling, scowling lips, surrounding me and devouring me. I was blue flame hot and shivering cold. Then, just as I thought I could not bear any more, it would release me, offering a glimpse of wellness before it resumed its punishing march.
I died a thousand agonizing deaths before I finally found my footing. When I did and when I could maintain my balance, Cinn was there, licking my face, welcoming me, and Janis was tending to me. Only a handful of people were still sick. The others had recovered and joined the outside world. I would learn in the next few days that one more had died, an older man who had been a professor to many of the people who formed the community. They were in mourning and would remain so through the winter.
I had missed Christmas but there was good news: They had sent a crawler to my hometown. They found a letter I had written but never sent. They made no contact. They were afraid that if they told my wife how sick I was, she would insist on coming and nursing me. They were afraid their actions would leave my children orphaned. The good news was my family was safe. They were struggling like everyone else but they were safe.
The air seemed fresher, the sunlight brighter and the whole world was a better place. I resolved to go home as soon as I was able. We would work it out. For better or worse, we would work it out.
A Novel By Jack Random
Crow Dog Press
Turlock, California
Copyright 2009 Ray Miller
Chapter 1: Stone's Story
“Courage”
"We are flawed and tragic beings. Born to an end we do not desire, our primary instinct to avoid that which cannot be avoided."
At first and for a long time people helped. As long as they perceived themselves as outside the victim class, observers at a roadside accident, eyes above the fray, they tossed bones to the needy and felt better. Not the elite of course. Not those who had the most to lose. They were safe inside their gated and guarded cities. Their contribution as far as they were concerned was hiring watchmen at substandard wages or paying a Mexican for lawn care and gardening and maintenance chores around the house.
When hard times came everything changed. Not all at once but gradually. One step at a time. Those who considered themselves above the storm were swept in. The victim class grew like a nasty virus that would not let go. The elite behind their guarded walls paid more for bondable labor until they could no longer spare the extra cash. Guard stations went empty, walls crumbled and the elite were exposed to the multitudes.
It was hard times. Hard times for everyone. No one got a pass. The wealthy became survivors and survivors became homeless and the homeless became vagabonds and vagabonds became desperados and rose up or died. The power of the state broke down. Like a dam with a thousand cracks it crumbled at first break.
Not with a bang but a whimper the end days came.
These were not those times. These were the hard times before the crack when hope still resided in the heart of humankind. Scared and desperate but still beating.
When did it begin?
We were happy or at least we thought we were. We were a model of the American dream. I worked my way up in the construction industry and eventually started my own business as contractor. My wife Madge sold real estate until we had our first child, a darling little boy named Denim. Two years later we had a second child, a sweet little girl named Cheryl Lyn, Charlie for short, and we traded up, bought a new house and took out a loan on the value of our home.
How were we to know it was a bad move? Everyone we knew was doing it and everyone was making money. Stocks come and go, gold rises and falls, but real estate never goes down. It’s a game without losers. Everybody plays; everybody wins. What could go wrong?
Business went bad soon after the crackdown on migrant labor. We hired locally but we couldn’t turn a profit. Madge took a job selling fragrances at the mall but it wasn’t enough. We tapped out our credit cards and took out a second mortgage but we still couldn’t keep up.
Then the housing crash hit and we couldn’t even afford to sell out. We were caught in a trap and there was no way out. I lost my business and we lost our home to foreclosure.
Compared to thousands of others, I guess we were lucky because we had family we could turn to when times were rough. I had relocated from Denver in my college days and never went back. Colorado was close enough when times were good but now it seemed a world removed. We moved in with Madge’s mother. It was a small house but it was paid for. We sold most of our belongings to help with the expenses and set up a living space in a spare bedroom. It was more like an office space or reading room, which is exactly how Grace used it before we moved in.
I kept looking for a job with no success. It seemed I was always two steps behind the curve. I looked in the construction industry but the industry was locked up. No jobs. I looked into retraining programs and government jobs but the waiting lists were too long. By the time I got around to service jobs, counter jockeys and floor sales, it was too late. No one was hiring. Everyone was looking for work.
I can’t tell you how bad it felt. I was raised with a simple notion: If you worked hard and played by the rules you could make it. You might not get rich (that idea was pretty much dead a long time ago) but you’d have a roof over your head, clean water, a warm bed and no one would go hungry.
I was the man so I had the idea it was my responsibility. When it all broke down and I couldn’t take care of my family, it was my fault. Of course it was. You can’t go around blaming politicians or corporations or banks or anyone else. It was a man’s responsibility, a father’s duty and a husband’s job. It was all right for others to find blame where they could but not me. I was better than that. I was raised to be better than that.
Yeah right. Just another lie to put on the list of lies my father told me. Not his fault either. Nobody’s fault. Just the way it was until it wasn’t.
After a while (I don’t remember how many months, maybe half a year), I realized I was dead weight. Madge’s brother Carlin moved in with his wife and their three kids. I was okay with tools but so was he. We were living on an old woman’s retirement checks waiting for food stamps or some kind of assistance. It was a matter of numbers.
Carlin and I enclosed the back porch with found materials, two-by-fours and plywood with rags and newspaper for insulation, just in time for an aunt and uncle to show up with their hands open and their pockets empty. Aunt Mildred and Uncle Bud were more or less on the edge of the family. We rarely saw them at holidays but here they were and the look in their eyes was filled with pleading. I sat on a corner of the sofa in Grace’s cramped living room and watched her try to turn them away. There was no more room and too many mouths to feed but there was nowhere else for the elderly couple to go.
“We’ll make do,” said Grace as they all surrendered to tears.
I’m not the kind of man who turns to crime in desperation (though I have since learned it is less a moral imperative than a cultural choice) so my options were limited.
Late that night I found a quiet corner and wrote a letter to Madge and the kids. Back then it was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do.
Dear Madge, Denim and Charlie:
These are hard times and we are all going to have to make sacrifices. I never would have thought that giving up and moving out could be an act of kindness but here we are. We don’t have enough room and I take more than my share. We don’t have enough food and I need too much just to keep going.
The time has come for me to make a hard choice and I’ve made it. The best thing I can do for my family and loved ones right now is to go away. Carlin can do anything I can around the house and I can count on Denim and Charlie to help out. You’ll have a little more space and one less mouth to feed.
I don’t know how long it will take or what I’ll have to do to survive out there but I’ll come back when it’s all over and times are better. When that time comes I hope you’ll understand what I did and why.
Your loving husband and father,
Stone.
That’s my story. That’s how I came to be under this bridge with almost a hundred others. There’s another hundred or more across the river. We all have a story. Every one of us. And I write them down in little notebooks and on scraps of paper that I find in garbage dumps and alleys. I don’t know why I feel it’s important but I do. It makes me feel more human. It makes me feel like people matter even though the whole world says we don’t.
Bridges used to be mostly for transportation. Now they’re mostly shelters. A man told me that if you wait here long enough and manage to stay alive, you’ll meet everyone you ever knew right here. I thought it was funny in a wry sort of way but after a few more weeks, I came to believe it was true.
How do we survive? This river’s still got some catfish, mud daubers and what not. Everything we catch goes in the pot. There are some wild orchards around here still giving fruit and nuts. We got a makeshift greenhouse for growing vegetables. Everything goes in the pot. You don’t share you get booted out. That’s how I got my spot. Some poor soul got caught hording and he was booted out just as I showed up.
Every month or so a truck shows up with guards, handing out blankets, jackets, flour and dried fruit. Apparently that’s what remains of government service. We know they’re government because the guards carry guns. One of the last effective acts of government was to confiscate all the ammunition. Ironic, isn’t it? The second amendment to the constitution protects the right to own guns but it doesn’t say anything about ammunition.
We make do with what we have. Everyone gets a share. We even have a guest space that people can use for a few days. After that, unless a spot opens up, you have to move on. It’s all pretty orderly. I hear there’ve been a number of attempts to take the place over – thugs, gangsters and bullies – but so far they’ve been beaten back. The camp has its own collection of weapons: clubs, spears, knives, axes, hatchets, garden tools, chains, pipes and crowbars, anything you can think of.
There are camps all over town, in every park, in abandoned buildings and parking lots. The last I heard the malls were off limits but who knows. As a rule they’re a poor place to find what you need to sustain life. No food, no water and all the merchandise, clothes, blankets, generators, batteries, tools and electronics have been cleaned out. They carted everything off in trucks and stored them in remote warehouses to wait for the day when things will have monetary value again.
There’s a couple here named Johnson, Marguerite and Willie. Couples are rare unless they meet up here. Most have been broken apart like mine. I guess that makes them a love story. They couldn’t both stay so the ended up on the streets together. You never see Willie without Marguerite. They go fishing together. They work in the garden together. They eat together and sleep together. Willie damn near killed a man who tried to come between them.
Marguerite was a Mexican immigrant (legal or illegal, nobody cares any more) and Willie was a trucker. She was working as a waitress at a roadside café when Willie stopped for coffee and a piece of pie. Thinking she didn’t speak English, Willie told her she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever laid eyes on after the Grand Canyon. A smile led to an invitation and she hung up her apron and jumped in his cab. That was thirty-six years ago and they’ve never been apart.
Willie and Marguerite, Stone and Madge: two very different stories and both without ends. If I were a praying man, I’d pray that Willie and Marguerite die on the same breath, tangled in each others’ arms, in a warm place many years from now when the harshness of these days are only memories. I’d pray that Stone found his way back to Madge in better times.
I spent a lot of my time wondering about Madge and trying to talk myself into going back but I knew it was a dead end. Without some way to help out I’d end up back on the street waiting for my old spot under the bridge. Maybe someday things will change. That’s what we’re all hoping.
There’s a man over there named Riggs. Got his kid Ronan with him. This ain’t no place for a kid but this kid is tough as nails. Works as hard as anyone out here and never complains. When I asked them how they ended up here, they both shrugged, Ronan after his dad, and Riggs said: Just lucky I guess.
I learned from his friend, someone who knew him before the crash, that he was a single father as long as anyone knew. There were rumors his wife was a drug addict who either overdosed or went back to her old lifestyle. It was obvious Riggs still pined for her.
He was a foreman at the canning plant before it shut down. He had no family in the area and he didn’t believe in government assistance so when they lost the house, he and Ronan took to the streets together. The kid was a free spirit who liked to run and as much as Riggs admired him for it he never let him out of his sight. If Ronan ducked behind a corner or disappeared behind some bushes hunting berries, Riggs would stop whatever he was doing and move to where he could see his kid. No one doubted he would kill or be killed to protect his son and that alone was protection enough in the bridge camp.
Ronan loves sports and games so someone always organizes a game of soccer or stickball after the workday before the sun goes down. He’s a good kid, the kind of kid any parent would be proud of. He’s the only kid in camp so we all look after him.
The fact is we all look after each other. We’ve become a kind of family. The trouble is we all had a family before and we all hope this doesn’t last too long. It’s the one thing that ties us all together: More than anything else we want to go home. We want to go back to a way of life that no longer exists.
Everyone has a story. Everyone had a life before this life. But it’s always a story about the past or the present. No one speaks of a future. There are few hopes and dreams in this camp. We are capable of looking back. We can see what lies in front of us. We take steps to ensure our safety, our warmth, our food supply, whatever. But we don’t talk about our plans. We’re here and that’s as far as it goes.
We’re in the middle of fall. The first days of winter are maybe four weeks away. After that there’s no traveling. It’s hunker down, stay warm and survive.
I’m thinking maybe I should hit the road. Every few days I see family members come down to the camp looking for their fathers. I listen to them talk. I watch them trying to hide their emotions. Children are the worst. They can’t understand. They don’t know what it means for a father to be a burden. It usually works. The father goes back to the family and does whatever he can to be useful. He learns to cook and clean and tries not to eat too much. After a week or two he’s back out on the streets.
I don’t want that to happen to me. I think about it every night, all night, and most of the day. I’m sure Madge understands but the kids are still too young. It’s only a matter of time before Charlie shows up, pleading with her wide beautiful eyes, crying when I resist, arguing when I try to explain. I know I would have to give in but I also know how it would turn out. The hammer of destiny.
If I saw my children going hungry because of me, I know what it would do to me. I’d rather be a bum than a thief. And I’d rather be out here than in some jail. It’s not so easy to get thrown in jail these days anyway. The cops would rather shoot you than give you free shelter and food. They take you out of town and tell you to keep moving. They catch you again they give you a beating and take you ten, twenty miles out. The jails are full. No one gets in unless someone gets out. So much for the zero tolerance three-strikes laws. If it were easy to get locked up, half the population would be there. Maybe more.
So I’m thinking of traveling east, going to Denver to see my folks, to see how things are going there. I tell myself it might be different. Maybe the government is still functioning there. Maybe food and clean water are more plentiful. Maybe I could help. The last I heard everyone was fine – or at least they said they were.
I know I should have called while the lines were still working but I was afraid it would cut off my options. As long as I could believe it might be better, I could keep my spirits up. A traveler needs strength – especially if he has no money.
I hear the roads are jammed with hitchhikers. It’s a basic law of human nature: irrational optimism. It has to be better down the road. Or maybe we’re beyond that. Even if it isn’t better, it’s best to keep moving. As long as we’re moving, we’re alive and that’s all the hope we can get.
I’ve talked to some people who’ve been out there. They all say the same thing: Don’t go. It’s better here than it is out there. It’s dangerous, dirty and shelter is hard to find. But if I’ve got my mind set, they tell me to stay off the main highways as much as possible and don’t take every ride.
There’s a man here named Sugar who traveled from Indiana looking to hook up with his son and daughter-in-law but when he got here they were gone. Scattered like dry leaves in an August wind. He liked to talk about his adventures on the road.
“You develop a sixth sense and you learn to trust it,” he said in a chiseled voice. “Listen to it. If it tells you something’s wrong, something’s wrong. Lots of people out there are looking to take whatever you got.”
He told me there were people in the woods everywhere you went. Set up shelters built of plywood and sheets of tin, tents and corrugated cardboard.
“Most of them will take you in for a night but don’t overstay your welcome. That’s what they’re afraid of. The moment you see that hint of fear and worry, it’s time to move on.”
He told stories of being stranded on desert highways, being surrounded by a pack of wild dogs, no-gooders who shook him down for a roll of postage stamps and abandoned him by the roadside in the middle of god awful nowhere.
“People are good at heart,” he reflected. “I still believe that. But when hard times come something takes hold of them. People that never stole anything in their lives will take your last crumb of bread. It’s a cold world out there, boy. You got to keep your head up and your senses alive.”
I took his advice like it was the gospel truth. He told me places to go and places to avoid. He told me what to pack and what not to bother with. The premium was weight and durability. Dried goods and sardine cans and hard candy were good. Cans of soup and fruit and vegetables were too heavy. “Eat ‘em and leave ‘em,” he said. A pouch for water instead of a canteen. “Got to have water,” he said.
We spent a lot of time talking about weapons or what could be used to defend yourself from desperate humans and hungry beasts. He advised me to get a good strong walking stick. It doesn’t threaten people but it gives them pause if they’ve got a mind to roll you.
“A good knife will serve you but keep it strapped to your leg and out of sight. It’s there if you need it but don’t show no one your hand before it’s played.”
He showed me how to roll your stuff up in a couple of good light-weight blankets, bind them with strips of leather and hang it over your shoulder.
“You’ll want a good hat,” he said. “One with plenty of brim that clings to your head in a strong wind. Can’t say enough about a good hat.”
I spent a lot of time gathering things I thought I’d need, including maps I pulled out of the dumps. Then one day Sugar took stock of all I had and gave me a wink.
“You’re ready,” he said. “As ready as you’ll ever be.”
I shook his hand and set out walking due east the next morning at the crack of dawn. A teenage kid was staking my spot the moment I checked out. I tipped my hat and wished him well. There was a lot fear in his eyes – like he was afraid I’d change my mind.
I almost did. I wasn’t easy leaving behind a place of safety and it occurred to me it might be the dumbest thing I ever did. Once I walked out, there was no turning back.
I got out of town and walked all day on a country road heading more or less east, stopping only when I saw an opportunity for food. I found some berries along a creek bed and some peaches just short of ground rot in an old orchard. I sat down to eat and rest my bones. By the look of the sun there was no more than an hour or so in the day. I figured I walked a good twelve hours at a decent pace, covering thirty miles or more. My legs ached, my feet were sore and my mind was clouded with second thoughts so I decided to call it a day.
All day long I had seen only four vehicles on this road: three of them heading the other way, the other an old Ford pickup. I don’t know if it was the price of gas or the fact that gas at any price was too much but the problem of traffic congestion disappeared. Most gas stations had gone out of business and those that were left were only open a few days a week.
The driver of the Ford, a man maybe a little older than me with a green John Deere cap, slowed down to look me over. It seemed to me he was worried that I was walking in the direction of his home and wanted to be sure I wasn’t a threat. I tipped my hat but I didn’t stick my thumb out. I wasn’t ready for a ride. I wanted time to think without having to deal with other people. In the back of my mind maybe I didn’t want to go too far in case I had a change of heart.
I gathered some wood and kindling for a fire and laid out my blankets. I had an old copy of George Stewart’s Earth Abides (I traded The Grapes of Wrath for it on the grounds that it weighed less) for company but I didn’t feel like reading so I just sat there gazing at the sun sinking in the western sky.
I lit the fire as the sun went down (more for light than warmth) and after a spell I got the feeling someone was watching me. I pulled out my knife and started whittling and kept my walking stick at hand just in case. A while later I heard a whimpering and I realized there was a dog sitting in the dark, keeping its distance, scouting me out, looking for someone to partner with. Dogs and cats, pets of all kinds, had it bad when hard times hit. The pounds and shelters were full and charging fees so people discarded them in the country. It made me mad until I thought it through. What else could they do? If times got worse god forbid people would start eating their animals and the animals would turn on them.
I got on my haunches and made a clicking sound, holding my hand out to call it to me. It moved slowly out of the shadows into the light of the fire and I could see she was a small to medium dog, golden with white patches and floppy ears, maybe a border collie mix. She was not a pup but young and scared. She backed off twice before she came to me, licked my hand and looked me straight in the eyes. We connected and both of us knew we had a partner like it or not.
Growing up the family had a couple of dogs and I had a dog as a younger man, all of them mutts. I like dogs. I admire them. That kind of loyalty might be bred but it’s an amazing thing to behold. A dog will go up against a mountain lion to protect its human. A dog will walk a thousand miles to get back home. A dog will stay with you when you’re sick and run with you in bad weather. There are all kinds of dogs and all kinds of dog people but the best dogs are those that choose you – like this dog chose me.
Now I had a new line of problems to think about: dog problems. Giving her a good name, making sure she got enough to eat and keeping her out of danger. I thought about a leash but that seemed ridiculous under the circumstances. I was not her master, her owner or even her protector. She was a free agent just like me. Any time she wanted to move on, that was her business. I had no say.
It occurred to me as she lay with her head on my lap while I scratched behind her ears that she would keep me warm when the weather got cold. I had no idea how a dog like her would fare in the wild. Probably no better than a city man like me. But maybe I was getting the better end of the deal. She was a good dog and as long as she stayed with me I would never be alone.
I tried to remember the dog’s name in the old Harlan Ellison story A Boy and His Dog without success. In the days before the crash you could look up information like that on the web. Not now. The web was down. There was no one to man the stations for an enterprise that produced nothing of tangible value. I guess that means the age of information is over. Maybe it’s for the best. A dog should find its own name or at least it shouldn’t be saddled with something from the past.
I slept with one eye open most of the night. When I woke up the dog was gone. I figured she must have moved on. But then she came running up with her tail up, bright eyes, smiling like a dog smiles. She had something in her mouth and placed it in my hand. It was a blueberry. That’s a good dog. She had learned to scavenge and saved one for me. I thanked her and pulled out a piece of jerky I’d stowed away. We split it down the middle.
Things were looking up.
My plan was to turn south and I figured it was no more than a few miles down the road. There are no easy ways to cross the Sierras or the Rockies so I decided to cross the desert at Death Valley, follow Route 66 to New Mexico and turn north to Colorado.
That was the plan but in the back of my mind I understood that all things are malleable. I was resolved to remain open to whatever experiences unfolded. My destination was Denver but I had no expectations. In all likelihood I would stay a few days or a week and go my way. I had no intention of imposing on my blood family any more than I had on my married family. Times were hard everywhere and the best I could do was to not add to the burden. If I could help I would do anything I could. If not, I would move on.
I had a dog now and I decided to name her Cinnamon after the Neil Young song. The song always gave me a lift. Walking down the road trying to keep my senses open she jogged before me like she was royalty. She was full of joy and hyped with energy. It must have broken someone’s heart to let her go.
After an hour or so we turned south and kept walking. Another hour and a truck came up behind us and slowed. It was the man who passed me the day before.
“You want a ride?” he said.
“I’ve got a dog,” I replied.
“I noticed.”
I looked him over and decided he was okay. We both jumped in the cab, Cinnamon in the middle. His name was Frank. He was a little fidgety and strange as if unaccustomed to casual conversation – at least with strangers. He explained that he was delivering food packages to town and apologized for not picking me up the day before. I shrugged and said I’d probably have done the same. I hoped it wasn’t true but it probably was. Hard times teach you to be cautious. Everyone wants something. Everyone has an angle. Everyone except my dog and me. He said he had a farm in the country. It was a cooperative with about two dozen people. They grew apples, pears, peaches, almonds and assorted garden vegetables. They were self sufficient he related with a measure of pride.
He asked where I was from and I told him. He asked my story and I gave it to him in abbreviated terms. He nodded and kept looking in the rearview mirror to catch my eyes. I had a vague sense of being interviewed and I wasn’t sure I liked it. He started rambling about the good they were doing, living in harmony off the land, working together in a common enterprise, how food and labor were the only things that mattered now.
I asked if it was a commune and he laughed. It was his land, his farm, his equipment and the people who worked it were working for him. I asked how much he paid and he looked at me like I was out of my mind. They work for food and shelter. No one has money he said. It’s all about surviving in hard times.
Maybe but I didn’t think he was delivering food to town for free. He volunteered that they only got enough money to keep things running: fuel to keep the generators going, clothes, blankets, light bulbs, stuff they couldn’t grow.
We drove on for about forty-five minutes when he pulled over to the side of road.
“This is where I turn off. The farm’s about ten more miles down there,” he explained pointing to the west. If it was a job interview I figured I did all I could to scuttle my prospects but he gave me one more chance.
“You’re welcome to join us,” he offered with a weak smile. Cinnamon was crawling over me to get out the door.
“I appreciate that,” I lied. “We’ll take our chances on the road.”
Maybe I was wrong but I had a bad feeling about the whole venture. These were hard times, sure, but I wasn’t ready for slavery. What else could you call working for food and shelter? Of course, it wasn’t slavery if you were free to leave any time you wanted but I wasn’t willing to take that chance ten miles down the road and neither was Cinnamon.
He pulled a couple of bags of dried pears and another of trail mix and handed them to me like a peace offering. I thanked him most sincerely and he drove off with a nod of his head.
“Good luck, you’ll need it.”
I watched him drive down a one-way road kicking up dust and I had to wonder: I may come to regret that. Cinnamon yelped and started down the road south. I could tell she was thinking what I was thinking. Something wrong about that man.
I started walking but my mind stayed behind on that truck to the farm and the fidgety man who wanted to recruit us. Why? Surely there was no shortage of desperate people willing to work for food and shelter. In fact, there were too many. If he showed up at one of the camps in town looking for volunteers it might start a riot and everyone would know about it. Someone would follow the trail and the location of a critical source of food would be known. If times really got tough, townspeople would converge on the farm and take what they needed. I decided he had to pick up strays – individuals like myself who for whatever reason wandered from the crowds.
I had a desire to turn around, go back and walk down that road just to see for myself what was going on. I weighed the options. If I went back it would take at least two days probably three and the winter would be that much closer. Then again, I had no real expectations of my journey to Colorado. In all likelihood I would find the same situation there as I had at home. I would be a burden on my family. It would be a cold winter in Colorado so it really didn’t matter if I never made it out of California. I had already accomplished my objective. I was out of the way. My wife and children could not find me. Even if I settled on a farm in the country it is unlikely they would track me down.
Just the same, if I went down to the farm and found what I half expected to find, what could I do about it? The authorities (such as they were) would not want to intervene. The farm was providing food. If they were doing so on the backs of slave labor that was just an unfortunate effect of the times. On the other hand, my job if I had one was to tell the story. If I did not go down that road the story might never be told.
I was still hesitant to turn around. There was something in my head about the code of the road, the cardinal law of every pilgrim, journeyman and wandering hobo: Don’t turn back. Whatever happened, whatever went down, I wanted to honor that code. Keep on moving. Keep on keeping on.
My self-imposed dilemma was resolved when we came to a dirt path, a walking path that meandered off in a westward direction. I knelt down and took Cinnamon by the ears: I know you don’t want to go down there, girl. I don’t blame you. But I’ve got to go down there and have a look. You’re free to follow or free to go.
I know she understood. Her tail stopped wagging and she stared into my eyes, trying to change my mind until she realized it was hopeless. I started walking down the path and she stood there on the road for maybe thirty seconds before she trotted up behind me. I knelt down, gave her a good petting and kissed her head. She made her decision: She would stick with me no matter what and for that I would always be grateful.
We spent the day walking through the woods, taking time to hunt for berries and sitting down for snacks from our varied food supply. Finally we came to a clearing: a small valley below the ledge where we were. It was late in the daylight hours and people were still working the gardens and orchards below us. The workers looked tired from the day’s labor but there was nothing remarkable about their appearance. Some were picking fruit or vegetables and putting them in baskets or bags. At the far end of the valley there was a large two-story white wood house and to its side a row of small structures – cabins or shacks – and behind them two large structures that I figured were a barn and a warehouse. Three workers were building a new shack for what I assumed were the workers quarters. Another medium-sized structure I figured was used for drying and packaging. There were workers carrying bags and baskets from the fields out back for processing. A couple of workers were running water from a well to the house. All in all, it looked like a well-planned, well-run operation.
At sunset a woman emerged from the house and rang a bell as all the workers walked from their stations to their living quarters. A while later lights went on in the shacks and the big white house. I could see two generators, one by the house and another by the first shack. About an hour later another bell rang and all the workers went out back for what I assumed was a group meal. Another hour and they were back in their quarters. Another hour and the lights were replaced by flickering candlelight everywhere but the big house. I saw that the workers cabins were segregated by sex with three or four assigned to each one.
I was determined to go down for a closer look. No one was standing guard (an indication no one knew about the place) but several people lingered on the porch of the big house. A couple (probably the man from the truck and his wife) was on the balcony upstairs. Under the light of a half moon, we followed the trail all the way around the fields to the back of the house where the trail ended in a descent to the valley floor.
We took a quick look inside the warehouse where row after row of boxes were neatly stacked, waiting for delivery to needy townspeople. I resisted the temptation to stock up on dry goods. Keenly aware that the time might come, I was not ready to make that leap. I would hold on to my sense of decency as long as I could. We looked in the second building and saw it was divided into two sections, one for drying and packaging, the other with a complete kitchen and tables for serving meals. We moved over to the cabins away from the big house and saw that they were constructed with plywood walls painted in uniform gray. They were definitely not up to the standard of cabins. The walls were thin enough that we could hear the voices of the workers clear enough to understand most of what was said.
I motioned to Cinnamon to be quiet as we settled behind a shack where a man was talking about the segregation rule. He was angry that two willing people were not free to share a bed. He was angry at being confined to a small space shared with others he did not choose. He was angry at the authority held over him by the man who ruled the farm. Another man was trying to talk him down, urging him to be quiet, reminding him that life outside was hard. The man didn’t care. He wanted to leave. He wanted to leave first thing in the morning.
“No one leaves,” the other man said. “You think you can leave. They tell you you can but you can’t. They put you in rehab and the keep you there until you change your mind. The only ones who leave are the ones who can’t carry their weight. Too old or too sick. Too stubborn or feeble. Then they tell you to leave.”
The first man thought about what he said before he offered a final comment: “Ain’t a man alive can keep me here against my will.”
A knock came on the wall, probably a signal, the candle was snuffed and silence.
Almost immediately Cinnamon began to growl. Before I could bolt I was staring at a flashlight. I made out three men silhouetted in the darkness as I slowly stood. A voice ordered me to drop my walking stick and Cinnamon went crazy. She dashed toward them and began a side-to-side maneuver. She was fast and quick as the punch you never saw coming. I knelt back down and called her. I was surprised when she came. She recognized the man with the flashlight before I did. It was the man in the truck that gave us a ride.
“Well, well,” the man began. “Did you change your mind or did you come here to steal some food?”
“Why would I do that?”
I had no need for any more food than I could carry. Any fool would know that but I explained it to him slow and easy. As I was talking, a group of people came up behind me and one of them spoke out as I calmed Cinnamon.
“Let him go,” a man said. It was the same voice we heard talking inside the workers shack, the one who wanted to leave if he couldn’t room with a woman. Two more men and a woman were behind him. Maybe more behind them, I couldn’t tell.
“This man’s trespassing,” the boss man said.
“Call the police,” someone said and everyone behind us laughed. What police was left couldn’t be bothered with something like this. Anything short of a riot got a pass unless it was in the finest of neighborhoods.
I related my situation, told them how the boss man picked us up and asked me to work on the farm and why I turned it down. I explained why I decided to come have a look for myself, because I felt a duty to tell the story.
“No harm, no foul,” the man from the shack said. “You were right about this place,” a woman said. “Ain’t nothing but a slave operation.”
Suddenly the boss man was on his heels, a little concerned with the turn of affairs and the possibility of a workers revolt was staring him in the face. Who knows on which side the two larger men behind him would turn?
“Alright!” the boss man protested. “I’ve told you all a dozen times or more: Every one of you is free to go! But if you go you won’t be welcomed back.”
You could feel the pull of his words. These were hard times and this was a place where they were pretty much guaranteed the two things they needed most: food and shelter.
“Even slaves could couple up,” the workingman said.
“You’ve got a point,” said the boss man. “We’ll talk about it in the morning.”
“This man free to go?”
The boss man nodded and started walking back to the big house. I tipped my hat to the working people and thanked them two or three times.
“I wish we could build a fire and offer up some warm food and drink but that would stir up more trouble than it’s worth,” said the man who spoke up for us.
“I understand,” I said and I did. The last thing I wanted to do was to create a problem for these good people. We shook hands and I started walking out the way we came in with Cinnamon tagging along behind me.
“Fuck it!” the man said.
I turned around and he was waving us back. He introduced himself as Leon and his buddy as Buck. The rest of them threw in with their own names and we followed them to a clearing east of the worker shacks. They gathered wood and lit a fire not for warmth but for the kind of camaraderie a campfire builds. One by one as the fire burned the rest of the workers came out and joined our circle. I told my story and they told me theirs. Half of them had the same story. Too many mouths to feed. Too many bodies to shelter. The other half was forced out. No hard feelings. Just the way it is when the lifeboat is treading water.
We were the outcasts. Every one of us had one thing in common. We were alone when the boss man picked us up and offered us a job. No one knew anyone else at the farm. Every one of them started out alone. Any bonds they made they made after they started working here at the farm.
The work was hard and the days were long but no one was complaining about that. They were worried what would happen if they left the farm. They were worried that the boss man wouldn’t let them leave. Two of them had tried but they were tracked down before they could get to a town or far enough that they weren’t worth tracking. Each related a similar story: They were put in isolation out back of the house. They were sleep deprived and fed a broth with white bread three times a day. A counselor talked to them every waking hour of every day and night. Talked to them about how hard the world outside had become. Talked to them about how lucky they were to have food, shelter, clothing and someone who looked after them. After days and days of this, they couldn’t tell how long, they were weak and tired and too desperate to resist. They promised to be good workers. Loyal workers. True and honest and strong.
Only then did the boss man come in and inform them that they could leave if they still felt the need. Only then did he tell them they were free. They didn’t believe him but they never tried again. Life wasn’t that bad here. That much was true.
Leon’s problem was that he had fallen in love with a woman named Marge. Her problem was that she fell for him. They wanted to shack up together but that was against the rules. The boss man wouldn’t allow couples or alliances that could be used against him. Leon wasn’t serious about leaving the place. He wasn’t about to leave Marge and she wasn’t ready to hit the road with anyone. He just liked to grovel about it and did so every night as Buck would attest.
They brought out some trail mix and canned fruits and made some hot chocolate that we all shared. Someone even had a can of dog food that Cinnamon devoured. They all agreed that things were going to change starting in the morning and they invited us to stay.
I decided to sleep on it and see what developed in the morning. I threw down my blankets and we slept until dawn. By the time we roused the workers were already assembling for their morning meal. Buck came over to invite us along. Maybe it doesn’t seem like much but it was the best breakfast I ever had: fried veggies, hash brown potatoes and a slab of bacon. These were not things we took for granted anymore. Back at the camp we had a lot of oatmeal and trail mix, grains, nuts and dried fruits. Anything that kept was at a premium and anything that didn’t was rare. I don’t know where they got the meat. There were no pigs on the farm, no chickens or cows, so they must have traded for it.
I noticed that some of the men and a few of the women were carrying hardwood walking sticks or lengths of pipe and someone was stationed outside the dining hall. There was a feeling of apprehension but nothing was said. At least nothing I noticed. Buck asked me if I could use a hammer and saw. I said I could and he invited me to work on the construction crew if I was staying. I asked him what was going on and he told me I’d see for myself if I hung out. He said they were not planning on confronting the boss man but they were going to make changes. He gave a wink and introduced me to the foreman of the construction crew, a stout man with a healthy gut and huge hands who went by the name of Joe.
We went about our business, finishing up the shack and starting another when the chimes rang at the end of the workday. That’s when I noticed the first change. Leon grabbed a few of his things and moved in with Marge. The two women who roomed with Marge moved into the new shack and couple of others shifted as well.
They hadn’t asked permission. They just did it and waited to see what would happen. It was the same with me and Cinn. They didn’t ask if we could stay. They just invited us. I stayed for another week and watched a number of changes happen. The workers were taking charge of the work assignments and they were making sounds about opening the books and sharing the profits – if there were any. The boss man made the rounds, a couple of his thugs always in tow, but it was clear things had changed. He made requests but he gave no orders. He just went along with things.
I got all the story I was going to get and that’s what I came to find. We walked out the way we came in and my head was full of thoughts. Had we already arrived at the place where ordinary people would give up their freedom? Was it worth it? When it came down to it, the people had the power to overthrow the masters but they needed some sense of order, they needed an authority figure – especially now when the traditional authorities were no longer around.
We built a small fire off the trail and slept through most of the night. The last thing we wanted was to see the boss man again. I didn’t think he’d follow us but I was not in the mood to take a chance. We were the unwitting catalyst to change so you never know when the desire for irrational revenge will overtake someone. When morning broke we found a different trail, one that ran parallel to the road heading south, and we took it. The next day we were back on the road.
As before the traffic was sparse but I was noticing a trend. The vehicles (mostly trucks and vans that could carry things) were getting older, not newer. I would later ask an auto mechanic about this. He told me someone with a sense of how things worked could repair the older vehicles. The newer vehicles required technological wizardry. No one was going to pay a hundred bucks to hook their car up to a machine so they could tell you you needed a part from a plant in China that no longer existed. The hybrids were popular for a while but once the battery ran dry there was no replacement.
We walked for a couple days, making camp by night off the road without any trouble. On the third day a storm was coming in and the air was noticeably crisper, marking the end of summer and the beginning of autumn. We sought refuge in an abandoned cottage maybe a hundred yards from the road. That was another trend. People were letting go of their homes in the country. It was too difficult to survive out there. It was easier to band together and share the burdens.
We waited the storm out for two days before we got back out on the road. We turned down a ride from a man who was obviously drunk and looking for trouble. He was mad as hell but we just backed off and walked the opposite way until he lost interest and drove on. A little later we took a ride from a couple in a blue van. They were dressed in jeans and work shirts, his plaid and hers khaki. They both had long hair tied back but that no longer carried any cultural meaning. Cutting hair had become an inconvenience that was often ignored.
They were heading for a community called Paradiso they had heard about in the foothills somewhere near Madera. It was squatters land and a group of college students and idealists were trying to create a sustainable and self-sufficient lifestyle with solar energy and environmentally conscious design. They weren’t sure they had enough gas to get there but they were willing to try. Gas was a problem even if you had money. It was rationed and the only gas stations were controlled by the state. They were hard to find and were generally dry three out of every four weeks. There were abandoned vehicles everywhere but almost all of them had been siphoned.
I told them it was my intention to keep on moving but I wouldn’t mind visiting the place to learn their story and pass it on to others.
His name was Holly and hers was Janis and they both thought it was a great idea. They wondered what I had learned thus far so I told them about the bridge camp and the farm cooperative. While I hadn’t come to a rock hard conclusion I was favoring the view that kindness and cooperation were the best means of surviving these times. Those who tried to impose order or authority over large groups of people were fighting a losing battle. As long as the state was weak and could not enforce its will, there was a possibility that thugs and miscreants out for their own gain could take control. It wasn’t happening because the common, decent people were banding together. They were figuring out how to make things work in a lawless society. They were finding a way to establish their own kind of order based on kindness, charity and mutual respect.
I could see conflicting emotions in their expressions even as they nodded and gave encouraging remarks. I realized I was expressing an optimism that was grounded more in hope than fact. There were rumors of communities taken over by gangs and outlaws. Everything was uncertain. The future was a maze of possibilities and at least half of them were dark.
We passed a few solar crawlers on the road – improvised vehicles with solar panels that crawled along in the daylight hours at anywhere from five to fifteen miles per hour. They were becoming more common and I figured it was because there was no longer any time pressures, no deadlines and no destinations that couldn’t wait. That and the gas-rationing situation. Crawling along the road at a snail’s pace on the power of the sun seemed as good a way to pass the time as anything else.
We turned on a two-lane road heading east that became one lane filled with potholes. We crept along like a crawler navigating around the potholes. People had taken to filling holes and repairing roads on their own but this road hadn’t been tended to in a long time.
Janis noticed a flag hanging limp on windless day but there was something odd about it. As we drew nearer we could see it was an old American peace flag but it was hanging upside down. It was a sign of distress. We slowed even more and discussed what it could mean. Holly suggested it might just be a way of the keeping the riff raff out. Janis thought it was more serious. Combined with the state of the road, we decided it probably meant the community had been hit with a serious sickness.
We pulled over to discuss it. Getting sick these days could cost your life. There was a shortage of drugs and medical supplies. The government passed a law requiring doctors and nurses to treat the ill and injured regardless of their ability to pay. It resulted in doctors and nurses going underground. Who could blame them? Once you started treating the needy it never ended.
Janis had some nursing experience and they were both determined to press forward but they couldn’t ask me to go along against my will. I looked at Cinnamon and told them we were in. Whatever hardships lie ahead, I wanted to bear witness, help out if I could, and Cinn was sticking with me for better or worse.
We pressed on for another hour before we came to the place. There was large octagonal structure with a sign reading “Paradiso” carved in wood over double doors. It was obviously a community center where people would gather for meals and evening discussions. There were a handful of cottages surrounding a courtyard and a large windmill at its center. There were signs of other structures down walking paths out of our immediate view.
There was no one to greet us and no one in sight. It was late in the day but the sun was still up. There should have been plenty of activity to close a working day but there was nothing going on. The only sounds were crows feeding on vegetables in the community gardens. There was something definitely wrong.
We knocked on the door of the community center and knocked again. We heard no sign of activity on the other side of the door. We discussed going in and decided we would but Holly gave it one more try. He pounded it firmly like a police officer might do in a former time. (If the police came to your door these days they had no intention of knocking.)
Just as we were going over our options for knocking the doors down or finding another way inside, the door opened a crack and a woman with the eyes of sorrow and fatigue peaked through.
“Can I help you?” she mumbled.
Holly explained why they had come and Janis quickly added that she had nursing experience and if anyone was sick they were willing to help. The woman squinted her eyes and looked each of us over. She signaled someone inside before closing the door behind and asking us to join her at a picnic table not far from where we stood.
Her name was Jo. We would later learn she was in her late twenties but she looked much older with her puffy yellowed eyes and what seemed a greenish tint to her dark skin. She wore moccasins, loose fitted jeans and a cotton work shirt with a quilted shawl over her shoulders. We joined her at the table and she told us the story.
They had three visitors less than two months ago. They knew someone who knew about the place and they just wanted to see what was happening. After a couple days they moved on but they left something behind. One of them had a cough. He said he was recovering from a persistent cold and no one thought much of it at the time but within twenty-four hours several people were sick. Within forty-eight hours most of them were sick and within a week everyone was sick.
That was five weeks ago and things had only gone downhill. At this juncture only she and one other were able to stand long enough to take care of the others. They got word to the local authorities and someone from the Center for Infectious Diseases came out long enough to inform them that the illness was not tuberculosis, as they had feared; it was a persistent and resistant strand of a flu virus. They left some aspirin and some antibiotics but there was little to no hope that they would work.
They were right. They didn’t work. The only things they could do were the normal measures for the flu: try to keep the fever down, lots of fluids, cold compacts, and lots of soup. After a week of suffering almost everyone tried to get up and help care for the others but they almost invariably fell back down. There were only two people caring for twenty-nine others as we spoke and both of them were feeling weak – too weak to go out and tend the garden, which they desperately needed to survive not only the illness but the winter ahead.
If we stayed, she confided, we would certainly get sick. She would give no assurances. Not one had recovered yet and three had already died: a man, a woman and an infant child. They were buried in shallow graves out back. The poor woman cried saying that she did not know what they would do with the next corpse. They did not have the strength even to drag the body out. Despite all this, if we stayed they would be eternally grateful.
“If there is a god,” she said, “god would be grateful, too.”
I admit I was having doubts. I could have used Cinn as an excuse. But Holly and Janis were quick to offer their help in any way they could. They were staying and I was staying, too.
I was a little relieved when Jo suggested that we remain outside to tend the gardens, haul water from the well, and do whatever we could without coming inside. The longer we could remain healthy the better it would be for everyone.
Jo offered us one more out, speaking with a reluctance that revealed the strength of her character. She said they had heard a rumor that this sickness never leaves. Some survive, the rumor said, but they are always sick, always weak, and always struggling with the cough, the fever, the aches and pains.
She coughed into a rag she held in her hand and apologized each time she did. “If I were you I would not stay.”
Fair enough. We all understood. I think Cinnamon understood better than we did. She stayed away from the community room even when we approached and she kept her distance from Jo. She could smell the sickness, maybe even the death it promised.
Jo quietly extended her hand down low and Cinn came to her as if she held an irresistible treat. She rubbed behind her ears with whispers of good girl as only dog lovers can.
“Dogs thank god cannot get the human disease.”
She informed us that the cottages were empty and we could settle there. She told us she would bring us some bread and vegetable stew before nightfall and ambled back to the community room like an old woman too tired to say any more.
“If you decide to stay,” she said, “we’ll work things out in the morning.”
Janis volunteered to help with the evening meal but Jo threw up her hand. She had already explained we could only help if we remained healthy and we could only remain healthy if we remained out of contact with the sick.
We huddled together like lost souls until she reemerged with a tray of food along with everything we needed: silverware, bowls, bread and honey, a covered pot of stew, salt and pepper, plastic glasses and a pitcher of tea. She even brought a can of dog food and a bowl for Cinn. She was as kind as an only child’s grandmother yet she was clearly sick and tired. Her smile was difficult to sustain. She asked if we needed anything else and quietly returned to her duties, caring for those more ill than herself.
It was a virtual feast – even better than breakfast at the farm and as good as any I could remember since hard times came to be. The bread was fresh and home baked. The stew was delicately seasoned and full of fresh vegetables: potatoes, carrots, cabbage, broccoli, sweet corn and radishes, all grown in the gardens and a greenhouse out back. The tea was sweetened with honey. We ate everything before us and Holly wondered if they were trying to entice us to stay.
We talked until the sun went down, leaving us in the light of a half moon, until we were too exhausted to carry on. Holly and Janis were more determined even than before to make this place work. They would make their stand here no matter the cost.
They chose the nearest cottage while Cinn and I chose a place across the courtyard, mindful that the couple would need their privacy and space. The cottage had a thin layer of dust but it was otherwise clean. It was basically one room with a bed, a table and desk, and a small bathroom with a sink and toilet. There was a hot pan, a coffee maker and a row of shelves full of books. There was a lamp, an overhead light and a small room heater. We would later learn that electricity ran on solar arrays mounted on the roofs of each structure and an additional array out back. There were a handful of oil-powered generators for backup.
The bed was soft and comfortable with two pillows, a thick warm quilt and a stack of blankets in the closet. I settled on the bed with a copy of Cormac McCarthy’s post apocalyptic The Road and Cinnamon snuggled close for warmth.
I kept thinking what a beautiful place this really was: Open land with groves of valley oak, plenty of green plant life and fertile soil before the land turns hard and rocky in the foothills to the east. This land had given itself to growing fruits, nuts and vegetables for as long as anyone could recall. It was an ideal place for a group of like-minded people to come together and create a fruitful and sustainable life.
It would require a special breed of people who could bridge the gap between intellectual curiosity and the realities of surviving on and by the land. They would need a deep understanding of human nature and a willingness to work hard and struggle and suffer disappointments and keep working.
McCarthy’s story as only he could tell it was grave and relentless. Humanity was stripped of its human values down to the level of rank survival. A man and his son roamed the barren landscape of ruins searching for food and drinkable water. The social order was gone and what remained was ugly: violence without remorse, killing and cannibalism. I wondered if we would ever reach that place and if so how long it would take. I wondered if I even wanted to survive to live in such despair.
We awoke in the early morning and went outside to find no one waiting. We explored the surroundings with Cinn taking the lead. There was a creek nearby running along the east side of the compound. There were gardens on three sides and an orchard of almond, cherry, olive and apple trees. There was a tool shed and storage directly behind the community building and a large greenhouse next to it.
It was clear they had planned every detail of the community in advance. Everything had a purpose and each element of the plan was placed and plotted for maximum efficiency. These were not hippies on a utopian crusade. They were serious people given to serious thought. The courtyard was an outdoor gathering place and the community building served the same purpose for during the winter months or rainy seasons.
We picked apples, almonds and olives along the way, enjoying the fruit of other people’s labor. When we wondered back to the courtyard we found Holly and Janis waiting along with Jo’s partner in caretaking.
His name was Zar, short for Balthazar (although Jo would later tell us she thought it was short for Zarathustra; Zar had been a philosophy student deep into Nietzsche but he wanted to leave all that behind). He explained that most of the original group had been students at the University of California at Davis when everything went to hell. They lost their funding and could no longer sustain the student life so they banded together to form the community of their dreams, a paradise, a sustainable lifestyle, a life that left the earth unharmed yet fostered all the pleasures of human existence: arts, crafts, science, intellectual pursuit, knowledge, communications. They wanted it all.
It seemed like a good idea at the time and indeed it was but now the sickness consumed them. Every hour of every day came down to surviving the sickness. Zar wanted to talk. He wanted to talk about philosophy, idealism, values, art and literature. He wanted to talk about science or baseball or the weather – anything but what was happening here and now. He wanted to just talk like people used to talk but it wasn’t possible. People were depending on him and now they were depending on us.
“We’re grateful you’re here,” he said. “And we hope you’ll stay but we’ll understand if you don’t. This isn’t your fight.”
We repeated our assurances but the doubt would remain for a long while. It was just too much to ask of outsiders. It was too much to believe that someone in this bold new world would sacrifice their own interests, their own chances of survival, to help people they had never known. Maybe they were protecting themselves from expectations. It was hard enough to keep their spirits up from day to day through the drudgery and struggle, never knowing if the sickness would once again knock them to their knees. Maybe they were protecting themselves from the possibility that we would be stricken. If they were all going to die they did not want the deaths of three more on their shoulders.
Janis pleaded with him to let her inside to care for the sick. In what would be a daily ritual he refused to discuss it. They had made their decision. If it changed they would let her know. Until then we would remain outside. Janis demurred as she always would but she inquired about the situation inside. Zar told her as best he could. The sick were arranged in a circle on beds and cots around the periphery of an open space. The kitchen was separate and isolated by a doorway which they kept closed as much as possible. Janis asked about ventilation and he told her there was a fan to pump the air out in the ceiling. Janis suggested they open the doors as often as possible while the weather still permitted and Zar agreed to discuss it with Jo. From that point forward they would open the doors in the morning, at noon and in the evening when they emerged to bring us food and collect the fruits of our labor.
Zar had jotted down a list of chores that we could build into a routine. They pumped water from the creek to the gardens, the greenhouse and the community building by means of wind and solar power. It was an automated system but it needed maintenance to check for and repair breakdowns and blockages. That would become my primary duty. Janis and Holly would spend most of their time in the gardens, weeding and repairing the wire fences that protected them from scavenging animals. The rest of the time was spent planting and tending plants in the greenhouse. They did not know how long the weather would hold but they would depend on the greenhouse and the foods that were preserved in canning jars and stacked in a storage warehouse out back. We all spent time in the canning process.
We established a routine and the days went by almost unnoticed. The weather began to turn. We depended more and more on the backup generators but we did all we could to minimize our usage. There was an ample supply of candles and sometimes we spent time reforming the wax into new candles.
It was a workable plan. In the morning we shared a breakfast of fruit and nuts or occasionally oatmeal and coffee (a rare commodity in hard times). Around noon and again in the evening, Jo or Zar or sometimes both brought us meals and we supplied them with all the fruits, vegetables, spices and various items they might need. With the cold coming on, we added woodcutting and stacking to our chores. As much as they wanted to avoid burning wood they had not been able to find an option that would keep them warm enough in the winter months. Instead, they had worked on a filtering system to minimize the damage. Anything else would have to wait until spring.
Cinn was growing attached to the place as dogs do. They love to run and explore but they’re wired to find a home and root in. She loved Jo and Zar. It helped that they were the suppliers of food and treats but they loved her too. There were a couple of strays hanging around before the sickness hit but they wondered off in search of more reliable humans.
A week or two into our stay the first of the sleepers awakened and was allowed to come outside. She was young and bright eyed despite the lingering effects of the illness. Her name was Oleander and she had been a student of sociology before “the crash” as she called it. She was genuinely overjoyed to see us. We connected her to the outside world. She wondered as I did what was happening back home. Before the illness hit, they had participated in a communications project, a kind of pony express with bikes and motor scooters and solar crawlers instead of horses, but they had to drop out when they could no longer carry their weight.
We told her what we could, that times were hard everywhere, that people were finding all kinds of ways to adapt but this was the first place we found that was hit by the virus. It was something we all wondered. Was this an isolated sickness or had it spread throughout the valley and beyond? There were fears that it was a kind of modern plague for which society such as it was, was ill equipped to fight.
My thoughts wondered constantly back to my family, my wife and children, with that same fear. I always ran through the possibilities – sending a message, going back either to stay or to visit or just to observe – but I always came to the same conclusion: there was nothing I could do to help. I could only get in the way.
I went to sleep early that night with Cinn snuggled at my side and awakened in the darkened, early hours of the morning with a cold sweat covering my body. I struggled to get up and throw some water on my face but I lost the battle. The next thing I knew I was in the community room on the cot that Oleander had occupied. Suddenly, instead of caretaker I was among the cared for. I would learn firsthand the horrors of this virus that crept into the body and held it hostage for as long as it could.
At first I fought back, refusing to believe that I had fallen victim. Again and again, as Jo or Zar tried to talk me down, I tried to get up but my body refused. The pain was so acute and ran so deep that any movement triggered a cascade of agony. The fever took hold of my mind so that I no longer knew where I was or why or how I got there. Often enough I could not remember who I was. At times I was certain I was being held hostage by people who wanted to enslave me or steal the organs of my body. I was being tortured. I was being held against my will. They were injecting me with drugs that stopped me from moving.
The only thing that could bring me back to earth and reality was the worried gaze of my loyal friend and companion. Cinn was with me all the time. She liked to lay her head and paws on my chest and I never doubted her purpose was to comfort and heal me.
The sickness came in waves, washing over me, drowning me, dragging me through a dark landscape with shadow creatures, yellow eyes and snarling, scowling lips, surrounding me and devouring me. I was blue flame hot and shivering cold. Then, just as I thought I could not bear any more, it would release me, offering a glimpse of wellness before it resumed its punishing march.
I died a thousand agonizing deaths before I finally found my footing. When I did and when I could maintain my balance, Cinn was there, licking my face, welcoming me, and Janis was tending to me. Only a handful of people were still sick. The others had recovered and joined the outside world. I would learn in the next few days that one more had died, an older man who had been a professor to many of the people who formed the community. They were in mourning and would remain so through the winter.
I had missed Christmas but there was good news: They had sent a crawler to my hometown. They found a letter I had written but never sent. They made no contact. They were afraid that if they told my wife how sick I was, she would insist on coming and nursing me. They were afraid their actions would leave my children orphaned. The good news was my family was safe. They were struggling like everyone else but they were safe.
The air seemed fresher, the sunlight brighter and the whole world was a better place. I resolved to go home as soon as I was able. We would work it out. For better or worse, we would work it out.
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