Renewal

By J.F. Perkins

Copyright 2011 J.F. Perkins

Kindle Edition

Website/Blog: http://www.jfperkins.com

Renewal

Terry pedaled slowly, weaving through the broken patches of tar-and-chip and deep mud holes of yellow clay. He had once heard his pappy talking about driving down these old Coffee County roads in a 1991 Trans Am, usually at incredibly high speeds, to hear him tell it. Terry tried to imagine it, but kids of his generation didn’t dream of cars. He felt lucky enough to have a bicycle. His bike was handed down twice before he got it as a graduation gift. He was the third generation to own it, but only the second to ride it.

The idea of trying to wash all of the clay mud was forcing Terry to choose his path carefully, but he was beginning to feel the pressure of time. The sun was getting high and hot. He wasn’t too thrilled with the thought of camping out in the wilds of the county at night. Even though the population had been thinned out considerably during the Breakdown, there were still plenty of folks tucked out in the sticks who had not been seen in town for years and typically thought the crisis was still underway. Those people usually shot first, then stole anything they could find on a body.

He finally wobbled over the crest of the rise, and with a long view of the curving descent, abandoned himself to the thrill of a ragged downhill run to the Duck River. About halfway down, through bump and speed blurred vision, Terry saw a problem. The center of the bridge was gone. Two seconds later, he was sure and pulled his fingers into the brake levers. That was when he discovered the second problem. Slippery clay mud makes for lousy braking. When he was sure he would disappear through the missing span of the bridge, his front tire grabbed an island of surviving pavement, the bike slowed drastically as the rear wheel came up and over. He splashed through the next puddle and slid to a stop on his back while his tools burst from his old Rubbermaid tote, scattering far and wide. He heard a faint grinding sound and tilted his head up to watch his brand new tape measure skittering down the concrete bridge, only to stop 3 inches short of the gap.

His first thought was relief; his second, anything but. His brand new Reclamation Corps uniform was covered in a slimy, orange-tan mud that smelled vaguely of fish… and possibly goat. Terry got up, found his hat, also covered in mud, and began the process of gathering all his tools. The truth was, they weren’t even his yet. The tools, along with the uniform, came as part of his recent graduation from the reclamation engineering school at Manchester University. They called it a university, because frankly, no one had the energy or resources to care what they called it. Terry always thought it was a lofty name for a former storefront converted to a school with about three courses of study, all involving how to extract food from the ground.

In his case, Terry and about three other guys in the county were tasked with finding all the old farm fields that had been built into subdivisions way back in the 1990’s and figuring out how to turn them back into farms. The county had a couple of civil engineers as well, but judging by the roads, and the average age of the engineers in question, they spent most of their time trying to get a cool breeze to come through the county office windows. Anyway, building roads was no longer a big deal. If you could walk it, bike it, or get a goat wagon down it, that was good enough. The real money, outside of farming a piece of land you owned, was in reclamation. The only people with money were willing to figure out ways to expand their farms, not to spend money on smooth roads.

Terry was out on his first solo trip, and it would take at least a handful of successful returns before he could pay off his gear and the certification fee. He was thinking about how much crap he would take if he came home covered in mud, since he was pretty sure this trip had been hand-picked by the older guys to serve as his initiation. He wiped his tools on a rag to clean off the major clumps and placed each one back in the tote in turn. He lifted the old bicycle out of its own mud hole with a slight slurping sound and set about tying the tote back on the rack. The bailing twine had broken in two places and he was forced to join them together with anchor knots he had learn from pappy. By the time that was done, the hot spring sun had turned his mud coating into a stiff, crumbly brick veneer. He pushed the bike onto the bridge and left a trail of ragged globs of clay on the concrete.

He could see that someone had put a plank across the gap in the bridge, and after he picked up his tape measure from the scorched edge, stood for a long time trying to decide exactly how stupid it would be to try to walk across it. One look down to the river below, which was about 4 inches deep, and his command of math failed him. He was sure he intended to try and calculate the ability for a two-inch thick plank, roughly ten inches wide, to span a fifteen foot gap over a thirty foot drop into shallow water, but the numbers would not come. Eventually, he decided this was another challenge he could not fail to meet, if he wanted to pass his initiation, and decided to cross on some irrelevant aspect of faith.

In his fear, Terry was almost surprised to find himself on the other side. Not a problem. The north side of the river had a dirt path access to the water. He decided to clean himself up, and when he reached the far end of the bridge, he leaned the bike against a large limestone boulder and skidded his way down to the water. The hot May midday and a coat of mud had Terry convinced that the entire world was sweltering hot. When he removed his boots and socks and stuck his billfold in the left one, he found out the truth. The water was cold! He flopped down in the shallows and rolled around on the smooth river rocks underneath. Soon, he stood up shivering and decided that was as clean as he would get without a mild case of hypothermia. He dribbled streams of water as he splashed out of the river, took a quick look into the trees, and carried his boots up the short hill to his bike. He wanted to get moving quickly, due to the schedule he was trying to keep, and due to the fact that his entire generation was raised from birth to think like predators and prey. Sitting in the bottom of a tight valley made him itch with an imaginary target circled on his back. He threw his boots on top of the tote and walked barefoot up the hill.

At the top, he was no longer dripping. Terry was just miserably wet. He wrung his wool socks out and put them back on, along with his boots. He got remounted the bike and pedaled on, up Powers Bridge Road. Before long, he was passing an old school on his left. The sign was gone, like every other sign in the world, but his map told him it was once an elementary school. Now it was just a burned husk of ragged cinder block walls, the original brick cladding piled around the foundation. The rusting playground, ironically, still stood in relatively good shape off to the side. The road right at the entrance was devoid of pavement and blackened between scraggly weeds. He knew that meant that cars had once burned there, and they burned so hot that the ground underneath was just now recovering. He wondered if anyone knew the story of Hickerson Elementary. Maybe he could find it in the library, but there were literally thousands of battles fought in Coffee County after the whole country collapsed and there was no guarantee that this one would be a fight that was big enough to be recorded.

Terry started pedaling again as the hills near the river gave way to huge, flat fields, clearly operating as farm or pasture land when things went bad, but not in use today. It was still too far from town to make it feasible, he guessed. If this was too far, then it was sure bet he was being sent on a wild goose chase into the wilderness, since he still had a couple of miles to go. Of course, it could be that the land was just played out, and without nice petroleum-based fertilizers or enough manure-making animals left to cover it, there was not much to do except to wait for the fields to recover.

He was making good time when he made the left turn onto Blanton Chapel Road. He kept looking to his right, expecting to see a field full of 20th century disposable houses any time now. He passed a few that looked like the right style, but nothing that matched the description the office had given him. When he had gone a half mile, and started back down into another creek valley, he knew he had missed it. The only possibility was the field with three houses, or the completely overgrown one next to it. He needed a better fix.

Part of Terry’s education was surveying, which was done in the old way, the way they did it before lasers and GPS. GPS had been gone for 35 years, when the Chinese decided to take out any satellites they could target. America made them pay for it, but it turned out to be one of the last effective jobs of the US Military. They took out the satellites, we nuked them back to the Great Wall, or at least that’s how it was always told. After that, and a whole lot of nuclear war in the Middle East, oil was mostly gone. America used the last of its own reserves to bring home anyone they could, to be deployed in the fight to maintain order in the states. Before long, it turned into an army with no fuel and no bullets, and a whole lot of panicking civilians with plenty of ammo. At that point, the soldiers just dissolved into whatever safe escape they could find. No one to this day would say much about grandparents in the military. In the end, the powers-that-were turned our own army against us. Even though most people understood they were just following orders, no one could shake the sense that those soldiers just should have known better.

Terry pulled out the local survey from an ancient leather binder in his box, and went searching for a nearby iron pin. He hacked his way across an overgrown ditch with a machete until he found a corner post that was still standing, despite the fact that the wire had dissolved long ago. He dug into the heavy grass around the base of the post until he found a bit of white plastic ribbon held under a metal pin. His sweat dripped on the ground while he caught his breath and realized how lucky he was lucky to find the pin so fast. He knew RE’s that had spent two days doing what he just did in 10 minutes, and plenty who never found the pin at all. Survey pins made decent weapons in a pinch and a good source of metal any time. The only reason they were still in the ground was that they were hard to find, unlike old metal road signs which became everything from primitive blades and arrowheads, to shingles and shutters on plywood huts. His own grandmother, bless her soul, had used one to roll biscuit dough when he was little.

With the pin located, Terry knew exactly where he was, and walked 100 yards back down the road to the place he had seen before. He rounded the row of thorny Osage orange trees that had grown up to replace the fence that was once there, and he saw immediately that everything was wrong.

First, the grass was cropped close to the ground, almost like someone was keeping it mowed. Second, the entire layout of the place was wrong. There was supposed to be an entrance road leading to a square drive crammed full of houses. Except for a patch of gravel over an old drain tile, there was no sign of any pavement at all. Instead of twenty-one houses, there were exactly three. Terry was a rookie, but he couldn’t help feeling stupid for missing the details on his first pass. That’s when he saw the man with the shotgun rounding the corner of the closest house.

Terry was unarmed, except for an old stainless Gerber belt knife. His first instinct was to run, but the man was too close, so close that Terry would get shot in the back just trying to mount the bike. Then he thought, wait a second, he was here on official business, and that ought to count for something, so he squared his shoulders and waited for the man to arrive.

The man could see that Terry was unarmed and moved his twelve-gauge from pointing to port arms. Terry breathed a quiet sigh of relief, thankful that this wasn’t a shoot first bandit. He held up his hand and said, “Hello, sir,” in what he hoped was a friendly but official way.

The man replied aggressively. “What do you want?”

Terry suddenly felt outmatched by forty pounds, at least twenty years, and of course by the shotgun. “Well, sir,” he stammered just a bit, “I work for the Reclamation Corps, and I was sent out to survey this land for, uh, reclamation, you see.”

The man turned his head without taking his eyes off of Terry, indicating the land behind him. “Looks pretty reclaimed to me.”

“Well, sir, the survey requests come from the legal land owner, so I guess whoever owns this land doesn’t know that.”

The man shrugged and said, “Me and mine have been here for over 11 years. I figure we own it now.” He waggled the end of the shotgun to emphasize the point.

Terry began to feel the embarrassment of a twenty year old sent back home with his tail between his legs and pulled himself up to his full six feet. “Sir, it’s my job to survey and report, and I intend to do just that.”

The man smiled a little, a tiny show of respect for the boy, and said, “Alright then. I don’t have any shells for this thing anyway. Why don’t you come up to the house, and I’ll show you around. My name is Bill, by the way.”

Terry relaxed and stuck his hand out. “Terry Shelton, sir.”

Bill gave his hand a single pump, and turned toward the houses. Terry shoved his bike across the ditch and followed across the grass. They walked into the shade of the first house, and Bill showed Terry where to park his bike. They kept going until Bill mounted the porch steps on the back of the middle house. The northern exposure kept it pleasantly shaded. Bill whistled and people appeared from three different doorways at once. Terry had another burst of nerves as he found himself surrounded by three more men, mostly in their forties, and four women, roughly the same age. The women looked older than the men on average, but Terry knew that was just how things worked these days. He definitely felt like a little kid among all these adults.

Bill set about introductions, “This is my wife, Aggie. Aggie, this is our local Reclamation Engineer, Terry…” Aggie was lean with long gray hair and deeply tanned skin. She wore the same jeans and cotton work shirt as everyone else.  Terry shook her hand and looked her right in the eye. She looked back with considerably more force of presence, and Terry quickly looked away. Bill introduced everyone else in rapid fire sequence, but Terry couldn’t remember any of it. He did pick up on the fact that they were all related. The entire group was built around a set of siblings, he decided, but he failed to absorb the details.

Bill continued, “Our young friend here has been sent out to survey this land for reclamation.” This brought a chuckle from some members of the group. Terry blushed bright red as he realized that he was the butt of some kind of joke.

Bill slapped him lightly on the shoulder. “It’s ok, son. It’s just that every time we see some kind of ‘official’ out this way, it’s always trouble and never any help.”

Aggie saved him. “It looks like you had a hard trip, Terry. How about some sassafras tea?”

“That would be great, ma’am.”

Aggie stepped through the back door and the rest of the group went about their business, throwing light greetings over their shoulders as they dispersed. Bill smiled and waved toward an old aluminum chair with reeds where the nylon used to be. “Have a seat, Terry. Take a load off.”

Terry settled into the chair and couldn’t help but sigh as his legs relaxed.

“How was the Powers Bridge Road?”

“Well, sir. It’s pretty rough since the rain. Lots of mud.”

“I can see that,” Bill replied, looking Terry over with another smile.

“And the bridge has a big gap in it. No one told me.”

“Been that way for years. We keep it that way for a variety of reasons. I’m betting you are just out of school, right?”

“Yessir.” Terry looked at his hands.

“So, they’re messing with you, huh?”

“I reckon so, sir. I mean, the bridge is pretty close to town, and I’m sure somebody has been out here before now.”

“Yeah, they’ve been here. But those were tougher times. It’s been a while since we had any real problems out here. The bridge has been that way since ’22. Apparently there were two groups of real assholes on either side of the river. The ones on the other side were getting pounded, so they blew the bridge and scattered. They were still assholes and mostly ended up dead. The ones on this side were a real problem for our folks, but they were mopped up inside of a year. Once they were gone, the last of the other group set up shop on the other side. Still there as far as we know. We heard their place is a real cesspit.”

“Well, it did smell pretty bad when I came over the hill. I thought it was just pigs or something.”

“Long pig, maybe,” Bill said with a grim look in his eye.

Terry’s eyes got wide. “People still do that?”

“Unfortunately, they do. Do me a favor. Drop the plank in the river on your way back. They won’t make trouble in a stand up fight, but they have been known to sneak across the river at night in search of easy prey. Luckily, easy prey we are not.”

“I thought you said you didn’t have shells, sir.”

“We don’t, but we do have a good supply of rifle ammunition, among other things. We got a young fella who could hit you a half mile away. He’s been upstairs watching you since you passed the woods by the old school.”

Terry was surprised again. “Really? I never noticed anyone.”

“That’s the way we like it. We always keep watch, and if we see anyone, the whole place shuts down.”

Terry mulled it over as Aggie came out with a wooden tray, three cups, and a pitcher of tea. She leaned over and poured for them. Terry found her distracting. For one thing, she smelled clean. For another, her lean torso was less than a foot in front of his eyes. Not much else to look at for the moment. He realized in startled surprise that he had never thought of a woman his mother’s age as attractive before. As soon as the thought entered his mind, he looked down at his hands again and waited for her to finish.

Aggie sat in the chair opposite him, with Bill in the middle. She asked, “So, Terry, where are you from?”

“Well, ma’am, we have a few acres out in the scrubland near the old high school. It’s not much for farming, but it’s not bad for goats and chickens.”

“Why did you become a reclamation engineer?”

“My daddy is always talking about rebuilding. I’ve been hearing it my whole life. I figured this was a good way to help it along.”

Aggie paused for moment. “Yes, I guess you’re right. Rebuilding is important.”

“Yes, ma’am… My pappy was always talking about what it was like before the Breakdown, and it seems like they had it pretty good. He died when I was little, something about blood sugar. Granny was around until a few years back. She just got pneumonia and coughed herself to death one night.”

Aggie leaned across and put her hand on his knee. “I’m sorry, Terry. It’s always hard to lose family.”

Terry gathered his thoughts and said, “Yes ma’am. Thank you.”

“We don’t hear much out here. How is the rebuilding going?” Aggie asked casually, seemingly polite conversation with no substance.

“Well, it definitely better than it was. We can almost always find food now, and people seem to be getting along for the most part. In town, it’s mostly quiet. The sheriff and his boys do a pretty good job of keeping the troublemakers out.”

Bill chimed in. “How about fuel?”

“There is some for farm equipment, but it’s strictly rationed by the county. The trains get theirs from the state, but it’s still pretty rare to see one come through. The interstate is still too dangerous outside of town. We’re mostly on our own.”

“I see. Same old… Well, if you’re ready let me give you that tour I promised you.” Bill got up and walked to the door. “I’m going to make a big mistake by starting with the punchline.” He reached his hand inside and flipped his hand upwards. The entire kitchen filled with light - electric light.

“Holy sh… crap, sir! You have power!” Terry found his cup swinging on one finger and set it down quickly.

Bill laughed loudly. “That’s always good for a laugh, don’t you think, Aggie?”

Aggie snorted and said, “Drama queen.”

“What can I say? I like to be the center of attention.”

Aggie was still chuckling as she gathered up the cups on the tray and went back inside. “Have fun, boys.”

“Let’s go, Terry.” Bill walked to the fence line that was once the back of the sub-division. Terry hopped down the steps and followed him. They stopped at a big wooden gate and looked across another grass field behind the fence.

Bill started his tour by talking. “My folks were from Nashville. They were taking us to visit our family down in South Georgia when it hit the fan. They said that when it became clear that things were getting bad, they wanted us to go for a visit while we still could. My dad had an old station wagon from the 1970’s with a brand new GPS on the dashboard. He was an engineer and loved gadgets of all kinds, which didn’t make sense with the station wagon, an antique even then. That was 2012. When we asked him why we couldn’t have one of the cool SUVs that our friends had, he always said, ‘First rule of engineering, boys… If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ We always rolled our eyes at that. He probably said it ten times a day. Turns out, he was right.”

Terry didn’t know what to say, but he knew this was important to Bill.

Bill kept going. “My dad had been selling my mom on how great that GPS was, all the way from Nashville. She probably just thought of it as another one of Dad’s useless toys. My brother, Tom, and I were in the rumble seat way in the back, so we couldn’t see what was going on. We were too busy trying to get truckers to honk their air horns anyway. We were coming up the long hill from the Beech Grove exit when Dad started grumbling. The thing wasn’t working right. He pushed a bunch of buttons on the screen and gave it the old engineer slap. All it did was read, ‘Seeking satellites.’ Dad pulled off at the next exit, up here at Busy Corner, to do some trouble shooting and fill up the tank with twelve dollar gas while he was at it. Busy Corner was actually busy that day, and we weren’t the only ones with GPS troubles. By the time he finished putting gas in the car, it was clear that everyone with a GPS was trying to get it to work and everyone with a fancy cell phone was just as puzzled.

No one knew what was going on at that point, but I think Dad was getting the idea. He did something he hadn’t done in 10 years. He turned on the old CB radio under the dash, and listened to the chatter. It was full of truckers who had lost their GPS as well. Dad was torn, he told me later, about whether to keep going, but I guess he decided to go on since we piled back in the car and headed east. We made it all the way to the Tullahoma AEDC exit before we hit a road block of Air Force vehicles from the base. I remember thinking how cool it was to see all those camo Humvees with the big guns mounted on top. The traffic was light so we waited to see what they would say. The Air Force guys told us that there was a major blockage on the road ahead, and that we should go back to Manchester to wait until the highway was cleared. Dad took him at face value and headed back to the fast food and motel strip near the Wal-Mart. We pulled into the McDonald’s right off the exit, my dad handed her some cash and asked her to bring him something to the car. The rest of us went inside while dad stayed outside, trying to listen to the two radios at once.

We were waiting in line, except for my older brother, Kirk. He was in the restroom. Apparently, McDonald’s was the stop of choice for blockaded motorists since we were hearing a lot of chatter about roadblocks and GPS from the people in line with us. We were still behind some lady who seemed to be ordering for an entire office building when my dad rushed in and told us to forget it and to get back in the car. He had a wild look about him we had never seen before. As much as we loved McDonald’s, it never even occurred to us to argue. We left with a bunch of people watching us. Dad grabbed Kirk out of the restroom and practically dragged him to the car. He was probably just playing with the hot air hand dryer anyway.

Dad gave a quick look over his shoulder, maybe looking for traffic, maybe counting us kids… I was never sure, and he made a squealing turn out of the parking lot. Back in the rumble seat I remember people coming out of the McDonald’s as we left. Maybe they thought we knew what was going on. Dad floored it for the quarter mile trip to the Wal-Mart just across the overpass. He hung a hard right into the parking lot, found the first decent parking space, and jolted us to a stop.

Dad turned to mom and ordered, “Beth, you’re with me.” He looked back at us with a hard glare and said, “Nobody even think about getting out of this car. Lucy, you’re in charge until we get back.” Lucy is the oldest.

It seemed like they were in there for only about twenty minutes, but they came back with four full carts of stuff. We had no idea what was going on. We were pretty sure Dad had lost his mind. He threw a bunch of squishy cloth and bags in the back with Tom and me. He filled the backseat floorboard with cans of food and bottles of water, and more cloth stuff between - and on - Kirk and Lucy. He threw a few boxes at us in back and told us to hold on to them. Then we could hear him thumping around on the roof. He cracked open a blue plastic tarp and tied it to the roof too. Mom was saying something, but mostly it looked like she was upset and trying to stay out of the way.

They got back in the car and buckled up. My dad started the car and quickly got back on the interstate, heading west towards home. We made it back to Busy Corner before we shuddered to a squealing stop behind a line of cars and trucks. They were being held by another blockade of military vehicles, and as we sat there, it looked like everyone ahead wanted to have their own personal argument with the soldiers. All of the vehicles were being forced to exit the highway. We finally got to the front, and a young Hispanic soldier leaned towards my dad’s half-rolled-down window.

“Sir, please exit here.”

“Why?” Dad asked tightly.

“Sir, there has been a major accident ahead, and we are diverting traffic until the emergency crews can get it cleared.” The soldier’s eyes scanned our car while Tommy and I were peeking over the back seat. He seemed to make some kind of connection about the time my dad snapped.

“Bullshit!” My dad practically sprayed the word on the soldier.

To his credit, the soldier was smarter than average. He looked back at us kids and gestured for my dad to listen closer. The soldier was talking quietly in dad’s ear for a few seconds. My dad nodded, thanked the soldier and quietly drove up the ramp. We found ourselves back at the same gas station where we had filled up less than 90 minutes earlier.

Dad told us to wait, and slid out of the car. He talked to a couple by the pumps for a minute, and then marched across the parking lot to a group of people sitting on the hoods of their cars in the shade. They were all shrugging and waving arms in the direction of the highway. Dad nodded a few times and then walked into the store. He talked to the clerk, more shrugging, watched the TV up in the corner for a couple of minutes, and then disappeared behind a rack up against the front window.

Kirk was the first one of us to say anything. “Mom, what is going on? What’s all this stuff? What is Dad doing? Why can’t we get through?”

Mom was in lockdown mode. “Kirk, I can’t tell you much of anything. I’m hoping your father knows what’s happening. We’ll just have to wait and see.” The phrase “wait and see” was always code for “forget it.”

You could hear the exasperated breath from all of us. Those were the words of a parent keeping us in the dark. Lucy said, “Mom,” in that long, whiny, three syllable way that only teenage girls from the South can pronounce. Lucy looked about to continue, but realized that it was hopeless for the moment, and snapped her open mouth shut.

Dad came out of the store with three bags. One was full of convenience store hot dogs and probably 300 packets of ketchup and mustard, another full of little bags of chips, and a third full of cold drinks. We saw dad pull some disposable lighters, some batteries, and a map out of the chip bag before he announced, “Time for a picnic.” He pulled the wagon over to the shady area with the other groups, and got out. He dropped the tailgate on the back of the car, dug Tommy and me out of the pile, and told Kirk and Lucy to sit there. Tommy and I were jealous since they were taking our seat with the cup holders, until Dad lifted us up onto the roof, and we realized that cup holders were not everything. He handed us all a hotdog, chips, and a drink, and then he and mom got back in the front seat. We could hear them murmuring to each other but we were completely distracted by the food, the long line of cars on the interstate, and the weird combination of fear and excitement in the air.

Eventually, Dad got out and brought the rest of the food with him. Kirk and I happily took a second hot dog. We munched while Dad grimly watched the highway. Nobody had the courage to ask any questions. We could hear Mom talking on her cell phone, but could only make out a few words.

I remember looking up when a siren chirped, and I saw a red pickup truck with huge tires drive past the roadblock in the grass median between the two strips of asphalt. I got excited, thinking I was going to see a TV-style police chase. All that happened was a soldier leaned in a Humvee window for a second. The truck was out of sight down the hill in seconds, but soon we heard a loud burst from a machine gun, and a couple of minutes later, the red pickup was back with a gun mounted Humvee following him up the eastbound exit ramp. The truck pulled into our parking lot – it’s great to be a kid; we were there for all of twenty minutes and we already thought of it as ours – and the crowd around us began to cheer. A skinny guy with a wispy beard and no shirt got out and started yelling and flipping the bird at the Humvee. A soldier in full battle gear jumped out and made the guy get on the ground. Two more soldiers joined in and pointed their rifles at the man on the ground.

They checked his ID, and the first soldier told him loudly, “Mr. Jenkins. If you try anything like that again, I have about 80 soldiers who would be happy to fill that pretty truck with 50-caliber bullet holes.” The soldiers got back in the Humvee and they drove back down the ramp in the wrong direction. At eleven, I can tell you, the fact that they drove onto the interstate using the off ramp made a big impression. I think that’s when I knew something big was happening. As I watched the truck guy picking little bits of gravel out of his chest, I began to wonder what it might be.”

Terry had to shake his head back to reality when he realized that Bill had stopped talking. He had never heard a firsthand account of the beginning of the Breakdown, and he was fully absorbed in the tale. “Wow. That’s amazing, sir.”

“Call me Bill, ok? I’m not sure why I’m telling you this story. I don’t think I’ve even thought about it for years.”

“Well, sir… uh, Bill. I’d appreciate it if you would keep going.”

Bill took a deep breath, and said, “Ok, it’s not much of a tour, but if you really want to hear it…”

“Definitely.”

“Two hours later, every parking lot at busy Corner was crammed full of cars, trucks, RVs, and motorcycles. We had seen a few try to use the secondary roads to get around the road block, but they always came back with a sheriff’s deputy following them. Our car was buried in the lot behind at least six or seven cars, so we weren’t leaving any time soon. Tommy was napping in the back seat. He was only seven at the time. Mom always called him her happy little accident. I never knew what that meant until much later. My parents came around back and walked us over to the narrow strip of grass by the trees. By that time, we were totally familiar with the territory and the people around us. Everyone had grown tired of socializing and swapping stories and lots of folks were following Tommy’s lead, taking naps in their cars, or wherever they could find a quiet patch of shade. The end result was that we had enough space to talk without being overheard.

Dad pulled us in close and said, “Listen, Tommy doesn’t need to know this yet. Agreed?” We all nodded, knowing we were finally about to get some answers.

“Here’s what I know. You guys know about satellites?” We nodded again.

“Ok, well the Chinese launched a bunch of missiles to shoot down our satellites. They got a lot of them, ones that we use for military communications, phone and TV, taking pictures of the planet, and the ones that make my brand new dang GPS work. All of these satellites are very important to us. They make it possible to do a lot of the stuff we have to do every day. You guys with me so far?”

More nodding.

“Our leaders seem to have taken the Chinese attack very seriously, and we have shot back. We shot down their satellites first, and then launched a full-scale nuclear attack on China itself. We are sure that we got all their satellites, but we are not sure if they have nuclear missiles they can fire back at us. If they do, they will attack as many cities and military bases as they can. Any place they hit with a nuclear missile is gone, ok? Even if anything is left, people will get sick and die if they are too close, and nobody will be able to move back into those areas for a very long time.”

Lucy spoke up. “So, Daddy, does that mean we killed a lot of Chinese?”

“I’m sorry, honey, but yes. Millions probably.”

Lucy was quiet for a minute, and then said, “But Daddy, I thought you and Mom said that people are way more important than stuff, like satellites.”

“That’s true. I still say that, but the reason is that we didn’t know why they shot our satellites. They could have just been trying to take over the satellite business, or they could have been doing it to blind us so we wouldn’t see their missiles coming until too late. I’m sure our leaders thought that it was safer for America if they made sure that couldn’t happen. Either way, terrible things are happening right now.”

“Why can’t we just go home?” Mom asked.

“Well, the soldier I talked to told me that they were blocking the freeways off in case they needed to move the Army around. He also said that no city is safe until we know what’s really happening, and that was a good point. If Nashville is a target for nuclear missile, we don’t want to be anywhere close. I kinda doubt that, but there’s another reason. If people get too upset about what might happen, they will do all kinds of crazy stuff. People might panic. If that happens, it’s much safer out here in the country, just because there are less people. You can’t tell that right now though.” Dad looked around at the crowd.

Lucy was chewing her lower lip, which she always does when she’s worried. Kirk looked like he was ready to go fight the Chinese himself if he could join the Army at age 13. I wasn’t really too concerned myself. I understood from everyone else that this was bad, but for me, it was just an adventure on the side of the highway.

About that time, two patrol cars pulled up in the middle of the road. Four deputies got out and one switched on a megaphone. “Folks, sorry for the inconvenience today, but we have been told to take steps to ensure your safety. We’d like to ask anyone who can move their vehicle at this point to please drive right up here,” he pointed to the west, “To North Elementary. It’s right up there. We’d also like to remind you, for your safety, to make no attempt to drive anywhere else. We are setting up the school as a temporary shelter, and the shelter will be able to accommodate your needs. We hope to resolve the situation and get everyone on their way as soon as possible. Thank you for your cooperation.”

Two of the deputies, one on each side of the road, began directing traffic and the cars slowly filtered out of the parking lot. Another deputy was on the radio. After about half of the cars were gone, he waved at Deputy Megaphone, who picked up his loudspeaker. “Folks, we just a got a report that North Coffee is full. The rest of you good folks are asked to follow the military truck down there…“ He pointed the other way. “…to Hickerson Elementary. It’s a little farther down the road, but will be as well stocked as the other shelter very soon. Please proceed carefully. Thank you again for your cooperation.”

With fewer cars remaining, the lots were draining rapidly. Dad sent us back to our seats, where we had to burrow under all the stuff from Wal-Mart. He started the car and eased out into the long line heading down Highway 41. After a few minutes, we took a right, and then shortly, another left. Next thing we knew, somebody in an orange vest was waving us into the school parking lot. We followed the cars in front of us to a parking space on the grass, all the way into the back corner of the fenced school yard. Since we were trained from birth to despise sloppy parking, I remember thinking what a lousy parking job Dad did, but I quickly realized he was one step ahead of the crowd again. He left almost a full space between the station wagon and the back fence, and left the car sticking out so that there was at least a ten foot gap in front of the car.

“We were lucky. This is the best spot in the whole place,” Dad announced. We were baffled, of course. How could we possibly park any farther from the playground we had seen on the way in? “Let’s just wait a few minutes.”

When our corner of the yard was full and traffic was directed to another area, Dad started the car again and painstakingly turned it around, so that the back of the station wagon was facing the fence. Since no one was watching, he took the opportunity to cheat even more space on the fence-facing sides of the car. Mom watched him in wonder, until he told her, “No way they have cots and stuff here yet. I wanted more room to camp. And if we need to make a quick getaway, we’re facing in the right direction.” Mom still looked confused, and decided to compensate by rolling her eyes at him. He was kind of famous in our house for doing things that made no sense to the rest of us.

Dad said, “Kirk, you come with me. Everyone else, stay in the car. If anyone comes close, lock the doors and talk to them through a crack in the window, ok?”

A ragged chorus of agreement from the rest of us, except for Tommy, who was awake, but he still looked bleary-eyed and confused.

“Beth, try the radio and see if you can learn anything. We’re going to go see what the deal is, and we’ll be back as quick as we can.”

It was late in the day, the sun had just set, and we were beginning to wonder about the things kids do. Where’s dinner? Where do we sleep? Where can we get some TV or video games around here? Stuff like that…

We listened to the radio, hearing news that we didn’t understand about the Chinese, the North Koreans, Iran, Israel, the Middle East. Mom was taking notes on a little yellow pad, preparing for the details my Dad would surely want to know. People were out and walking around, but no one came close to us in the back corner. Thinking back, I imagine that what my dad saw as the best place to park, they saw as the darkest and scariest corner, the wild outback of the schoolyard, and maybe most importantly, the farthest from the restrooms and the unconscious feeling of security that indoor facilities provide. It was peaceful sitting as a family, windows down, an evening breeze stirring the few insects that had emerged early in the season, listening to the crispy murmur of the radio. We did not know it was the last peaceful evening we would have for years.

Dad and Kirk came back to the car. Mom pushed the lock switch and the electric locks chunked heavily. Dad waited until Kirk had burrowed into the backseat, watching the roaming people in the field before he got in himself. He first looked at my mother and held her eyes for a beat longer than normal, shook his head just a bit, and then he turned to all of us and made another big announcement, “Well gang. Looks like we’re going to camp out here tonight.” He smiled like it was another good time family adventure, but we already knew better.

As twilight settled in, Dad pulled a bundle out from under the tarp on the roof and starting assembling a big green and yellow tent. There was a fair amount of fumbling, grumbling and what my mom called ‘no-words’ being said, but Mom held the flashlight patiently and pretty soon, the tent was up. That’s when we understood that no matter how much we had heard our father complaining about people who could not park straight, he was always thinking about the next step. The tent fit between the side of the car and the back fence with about 3 feet to spare. Dad leaned in on Kirk and Lucy and pulled out some rolled up bundles. He tossed them into the tent, one by one until we counted eight bundles. Then he came around to the back, where Tommy and I were, and pulled our normal gym-bag luggage out from under our feet, and threw them on the grass. We thought the whole deal was weird. We had been camping before, but we thought of camping as a gravel patch in a state park with a picnic table, fire ring, water tap, and an electric outlet for each campsite.

When he was done, he had Kirk go in and roll out all the pads and sleeping bags. Dad tossed in our duffle bags and directed Kirk to line them up at the head end of the sleeping bags. We understood from previous camping that those were our pillows. Dad dug out a little LED lantern and had Kirk hang it from a loop in the top of the tent. We were itching to get in the new tent and rummage around, but Dad had other ideas. He took us up to the school building in two groups and had us use the restroom. He said it might get really crowed later on. Cars were still trickling into the schoolyard as the evening progressed. When he had us all back at the car, he gathered us around.

“Ok, kids. First thing…” He handed each of us a little Maglite flashlight, each in a different color. Mine was silver. Each light had a little belt pouch made out of black cloth. Dad said, “These are your lights. You keep them with you wherever you go from now on, no matter what. You can keep them in your pocket, you can use the belt holder, or you can hold it in your hand, but you will not leave them anywhere. Ok? And by the way, I know each of your colors, so if I see your light sitting alone somewhere, I’ll know who broke the rules.”

This was serious. Gifts in our family usually came with fun and joy; this came with a threat from our mild mannered father. It had the aspect of a church service, all solemn and serious. We were struck by the tone and took it seriously. He continued, “And these are your knives.” Dad handed Kirk and me a small belt knife. We could barely resist the male urge to pull them out and start cutting something. Lucy got a black Gerber folding knife, and Tommy got a traditional little three-blade folding pocket knife. It was small, but real, and as his first real knife, Tommy took it with great seriousness. Dad said, “The same rules apply. These knives are not toys; they are tools. If I see you messing around with them, you will lose yours. Keep them with you at all times. If you are wearing clothes, these knives are with you. If not, they better be where you can reach them.” We thought it was getting a little overboard at that point, but hey, we got knives! We didn’t realize how important those rules would become.

Mom took Tommy into the tent and lay with him while Dad continued his talk. “Things are ok right now, understand? But…” He looked at all of us in turn, “They could get bad. We’ll talk more about what that means soon, but for right now, you should know that we hit China very hard. China had a lot of short range weapons they used against some of our friends, like Japan. North Korea, which is a friend of China, sort of, is trying to fight us and their enemies in South Korea at the same time. Our friends in Israel, in the Middle East, caught wind of some of their enemies planning to attack them, so they did what is called a pre-emptive strike, which means they hit first with nuclear weapons. The entire Middle East is a wasteland now. Most of our oil comes from that part of the world, so at the very least, gas is going to get very expensive, and very hard to find. People in our country are going to get upset.”

We must have looked confused, because he said, “Listen guys, I know it doesn’t make much sense right now, and that’s not even all of it. Maybe we can find a map so I can show you where all these places are. For now, don’t worry, we’ll be ok. I know it’s early for you guys, but I’d like to try and get some sleep. I think it’s going to be a long day tomorrow.”

We were dumbfounded. Kirk was always the no-nonsense one, so when he stood up and went straight to the tent, Lucy and I gave Dad a quick hug and followed. When we were all in our sleeping bags, and Tommy was sound asleep, my Mom switched the little lantern off, and went outside. She zipped up the screen door, but left the solid cloth door open. We watched for a while as Mom and Dad took everything off the roof of the car, and locked it in the back. Then they got in the front seat, turned on the radio, and started talking. I remember wondering where they we going to sleep as I drifted off to sleep myself.

I woke up confused about where I was, but as soon as I saw my brothers, I relaxed and then it all came back. The next thought was about where my parents were. Someone had zipped up the door panel, and I could only see the early light filtered through yellow cloth, which made it seem sunny, but when I unzipped the door, I realized it was very early, and the sun wasn’t even up yet. My movement woke up Kirk and he followed me out of the tent. Mom and dad were lying on the front seats of the station wagon, which were folded back as far as the seats would go. At least my mom was. My dad was still tuning the old chrome knobs on the two radios to pick up as much news as possible. The back of the wagon was packed to the ceiling, which made me think for a moment that Tommy and me were going to be left here, traded for goats or something, but then I saw that the back seat was clear now, so the plan was probably to pack us all into the back seat. Dodged a bullet there, I guess.

My dad must have seen us moving around. I saw him turn his face to us, and the look on his face, red eyes, dark circles, and something else in his eyes, was a sight I could never forget. Then it changed back to his dad face. He reached down, cranked the window a few turns and quietly said, “Mornin’ boys. Sleep alright?”

Kirk replied, “Yes, Dad. Don’t you and mom have a tent?”

“Yes, son. We’ve got one, but right now, the important thing is to figure out what’s going on, and to keep an eye on you guys.”

“Oh, ok…” Kirk looked around, trying to decide what to do next.

Dad got out of the car, trying not to wake up Mom, but as soon as the door latch clicked she looked over at us too.

Dad gave her a sheepish look. “Sorry, hon. I was trying to be quiet.”

“I know, but who can sleep in a car anyway?”

“Good point. Maybe we’ll do better tonight.”

They were both out now, and stretching some obvious kinks out of their backs. Lucy crawled out of the tent, looking like sleeping on the ground was her least favorite activity ever invented. It still is, far as I know.

“Beth, could you take Lucy up to the school? The boys and I will guard the car until you get back. Lucy, don’t forget your flashlight and knife,” Dad said with a stern look. Lucy rolled her eyes and climbed back into the tent. We had enough time to see that Mom and Dad were both wearing a couple of new pouches on their belts. It wasn’t a do-as-I-say thing, then. Lucy came out again with a light in one hand and a folded knife in the other and made a dramatic show of stuffing them both into her blue jean pockets. She and Mom started winding their way up to the building in the faintly drifting morning mist.

As soon as they were gone, Dad said, “Ok boys, we’ve got a job to do. Anyone need to go number two?” Bathroom talk was way off our normal list of topics, so I doubt we would have admitted it even if we did, but we both shook our heads and hoped that Tommy would agree. Dad pulled a big pair of pliers out of the toolbox he kept in the car, and walked to the post on the very corner of the fence. He looked around, told us to stand behind him, then squatted down and started cutting the chain links of the back fence wire as close to the post as he could. Kirk and I looked at each other. Dad kept cutting until he was about four feet off the ground. Then he pulled some come coat hanger wire out of the toolbox, and bent it to make a clip. He tried the clip on the bottom of the fence he had just cut, and then made a few adjustments. When he was happy with his results, he pulled the clip off again, and held the wire open for us.

“Let’s go, boys.”

We ducked through the opening and into the heavy brush on the other side. Dad took his belt knife and cut some of the brush in a way that we didn’t understand, but when he was done, it still looked like impenetrable brush, but we could walk through to a tiny clearing about ten feet from the fence. Looking back, we could barely see the schoolyard, and Dad seemed satisfied.

“Ok, guys. This looks like a good spot.” He faced away from us, and started to urinate on a convenient bush. We looked at each other again, trying to understand this latest bonding ritual, and followed suit. After we were all zipped up, he led us back through the fence, clipped the bottom of the wire so that it looked more or less normal, and walked back out to the small open space behind our car.

“Good job, boys.”

Kirk asked, in his usual direct way, “Why did you cut the fence?”

“Escape hatch. If we need to get out of here, we won’t have time to cut through the fence, so we’re doing it now, while everyone is still asleep. I clipped it at the bottom so hopefully no one will notice.”

Kirk was not satisfied. “Why would we need to escape? Won’t we just drive out the way we came in?”

Dad paused for a long few seconds and replied, “That’s tough one to answer, since we really don’t know what will happen, but it’s better to play it safe, don’t you think?”

“I guess…” was Kirk’s answer. He clearly couldn’t imagine such a problem. I couldn’t either.

“Anyway, we’ve tested it, and we won’t use it again unless we need to. Ok?”

Tommy crawled out of the tent before we could answer, and immediately asked Dad where Mom had gone.

“She’ll be back in a minute, bud.”

Right on cue, Mom and Lucy showed up. Mom said, “Honey, they’ve got a TV set up in the front hall. You might want to go watch for a few minutes.”

“Ok. I’ll take Tommy for a potty break. Can you scrounge up some breakfast?”

The word “breakfast” immediately set my mouth watering, and I remembered that we hadn’t had any dinner last night. You can only go so long on convenience store hotdogs.

“Ok. I think I can find something.”

Dad and Tommy headed for the school, and Mom stood there with her finger on her lower lip, lost in thought. Then she opened the back of the car and started digging around. Kirk and Lucy and I started looking around, but Mom quickly told us to stay close. We took that as an excuse to go sit in the tent and to talk about the situation. The problem was, none of us understood any of it. On a normal Saturday morning, we would be in front of the TV, watching cartoons and thinking about how we could talk our parents out of all the cool toys we saw on the commercials. Even today, we expected to be sitting in front of our cousins’ TV, doing pretty much the same thing. Here we were, in a tent in schoolyard, half way between home and who knows where, trying to decode the mystery of the world in a whole new way.

By the time Dad made it back with Tommy, we were well into a game that involved calling each other the worst names we thought we could get away with, and Mom had come up with a breakfast of oatmeal cooked on a camp stove, bananas and some kind of granola bars. Dad shrugged and figured it was better not to comment. We munched on our breakfast as Dad told my mother his assessment of what he had seen on TV.

“…and the people in cities have figured out that they are not allowed to leave. The president has declared martial law in a bunch of them where people are rioting and looting. I never expected that to happen so fast. I guess they think they are big fat targets for whatever missiles come our way. He also publically announced the shutdown of the entire interstate system until further notice, but he said that he expected things to be back to normal in two to three days. He said that we have won the war with China already, and the surviving government has agreed to terms, so that’s good, I guess.”

“The downside is that Mexicans have taken the opportunity to pour over the border and they are fighting with people in the Southwest and Texas. I wouldn’t want to pick a fight in Texas… Anyway, FEMA says that they have mobilized shipments to the problem areas, but no one can claim that they have seen any aid arrive. It’s a mess.”

Mom asked, “Do we know what they are going to do with us here?”

“No one is saying. People were sleeping on the floor last night, and they are feeding the people with food from the cafeteria. No telling how long that will last, and no telling how long people will be that uncomfortable without getting really angry. Now that people are getting up, they are mostly sitting on the floor against the walls, and trying to get close to the televisions. The line at the bathroom is getting long and the mood is already pretty bad in there. The guard folks keep saying that supplies are coming, but nothing about how long this will go on. I’d say we need to be pretty low-key about the fact that we have food though.”

“Ok, so what do we do?” Mom was getting wound up. “And by the way, how are we going to pay for all the stuff we charged at Wal-Mart?”

Dad just looked at her and quietly said, “If we need it, it won’t matter.”

Dad spent the rest of the morning going through the giant pile of stuff they had bought, and packing it into six backpacks. We could almost tell which pack was ours just by the size. By the time he was done, the tent was down, the sleeping bags were packed, and the packs themselves were leaning up against the back side of the station wagon. The car itself was basically empty. Then, Dad put the full packs back into the car, keeping them low so that from a short distance, the car still looked empty.

He rolled up all the windows except for the driver’s, and told us to settle on the grass. He switched the both radios on and sat with us on the ground. “Nothing to do but wait,” he said. That being the case, I fell asleep until Dad told us to move out of the sun. The morning mist had cleared away, and we were baking in the clear May sunshine.

The radio was talking about mop-up operations in China by US Marines, and my Dad was scribbling something on the same pad my mom had used. She was standing in the shade fifty feet away, leaning against the fence and talking on her phone with an attitude that looked very agitated from our own shady spot.

“Who is Mom talking to, Dad?” Lucy asked.

“Probably everyone we know. I told her to let people know where we are, and to tell anyone in cities to get away if they can. They probably think she’s gone crazy. That’s why she’s waving her arm around like that.”

Mom kept calling for a few more minutes, until we heard her say, “Hello? Hello? Louise? Hello?” She pulled the phone from her ear, and looked at the display. She got to her feet, and walked back over. “Signal is gone.” She said.

“Let me see that, Honey.”

Mom handed Dad the phone. He messed around with it for minute, and gave it back to her.

“Not even the hint of a bar,” Dad said. “I wonder what that means.”

The tone of the announcer on the radio changed. Dad jumped up and leaned in the window to turn up the volume. We could hear it clearly as the announcer was saying “…just received reports of a large explosion in Washington D.C. They’re telling us it was a nuclear explosion, and… Wait, our network has lost contact with D.C.” The announcer was silent. Then he started again, “Folks, I don’t know what is happening, but we now have reports of nuclear explosions in D.C., New York, Chicago, and… Where? And Los Angeles!” He was breathless now. “We assume it was a coordinated terrorist attack. We are trying to get more information… The news wire reports claims from multiple groups, and another claim via the internet that this was China’s insurance policy. Now we’re hearing warnings of multiple missile launches from East Asia… North Korea… Northern China… Heading this way.”

The radio continued a string of frantic warnings, but we were no longer listening. A wave of distress rolled across the schoolyard as people ran from the building. Guardsmen got on loudspeakers and tried in vain to keep the crowd calm. People were jumping into their cars, and trying to leave. The gate was closed, but one guy drove his El Camino through it and plowed right into one of the two Humvees parked just outside. Guardsmen scattered and reformed around the other Humvee. It quickly became clear that other cars were planning the same maneuver and the Guard ran across the road to escape the impact. The last Guardsman on the heavy machine gun rolled off the Humvee just in time to avoid a series of cars that crashed into the vehicle, and each other.

“Idiots!” My dad said through clenched teeth. He was trying to watch everything at once.

One of the cars burst into flames right at the gate, and the fire spread quickly. We ducked instinctively, expecting a big fiery explosion. We got the fire, all right, but the TV style explosions we expected turned into deep “whump” sounds as tanks ignited and sprayed fire all over the gate area. The Humvee loudspeaker inside the fence was still yelling for calm, and amazingly, it worked. I guess the sight of people burning to death made a big impact. This wasn’t a TV show anymore.

“The safest place to be is inside the building, people!” The loudspeaker yelled.

Since it was perfectly clear that no one would be getting through the gate, what with the huge fire and all, the majority decided to go back inside, and maybe watch some TV. A couple of guys tried to scale the fence. The Guard soldiers just watched. Thanks to the level of American fitness in those days, they didn’t even make it to the barbed wire across the top. They climbed back down and slunk into the school building. Thinking about the escape hatch, I gained a new understanding of my dad’s brains in those brief, disastrous moments.

Dad was telling us to stay down behind the car. I was wondering why we weren’t in the building if that was the safest place. It never occurred to me that the government might lie to us or give us bad information. The radio announcer was still talking fast. We heard a litany of government pleas to stay in our homes and to seek shelter in the basement if possible. We learned that twenty-nine missiles were in the air, after Navy ships managed to knock down sixteen. We listened as reports described the missile strikes on the West Coast cities and military bases, and the reports of our own second strike heading in the other direction. We learned that Israel was practically bristling with nuclear missiles, firing at targets everywhere, even as they were overrun by Muslims enraged by their first strike. The last thing we heard was that the remaining missiles targeted at us were harmless, clearly off target, heading for space. Then the radio stopped talking. We saw the sunny day get much brighter, and a weird sensation of multiple shadows on the grass.

Our first urge was to look up, but Dad cried, “Don’t look! Whatever you do, don’t look!”

We huddled on the ground expecting, I guess, to be blown to smithereens, but it never happened. The light went back to normal daylight and we never heard a sound. It still seems strange to me that the entire world can end without a sound.

It only lasted for an eternal second or two. We heard a lot of nearby explosions; some like firecrackers and some with deep thundering echoes. They seemed to come from everywhere.

“Transformers,” Dad said.

Then a new swell of panic and outrage came from the school. Schools built in that era were not much for windows. It must have been cave-dark in there when the emergency lighting failed to activate. Dad opened the back door, frantically threw the packs out, ran over to the hole in the fence and shoved them through. He held the wire back as we all scrambled into the brush. Then he went back to the car, and pulled out some guns from under the front seat. We had never known they were there. He tucked two pistols into his belt, and handed the long guns through the fence to Mom.

“Be careful. They’re loaded,” he said, and crawled through himself. He shoved us back into the bushes, and threw the packs in after us. He went back to the fence and clipped the bottom closed, twisting the wire to make it hard to remove. We all huddled in the little clearing while dad strapped packs onto our backs. Mine was much heavier than we had ever taken camping. It took a few steps to get my balance. When we were all loaded, he gave one of the pistols to my mother, and had her put the shotgun on his pack, fastened to some straps and webbing. He kept one pistol in his belt and the rifle in his hands.

Dad led us through the brush until we emerged in rough pasture about 50 yards from the schoolyard fence. He pointed at a patch of woods about 100 yards across the field. “That’s where we’re going. Move as fast you can.” He waited until we had all passed and walked backwards behind us. We were walking fast, and Tommy was right in front of me, trotting along to keep up. We made it to the trees, and as soon as we were in the shadows, Dad turned and jogged in behind us. The woods were not very big, just the top end of a wet-weather drainage down to the river, but Dad seemed satisfied for now. That was good because we were all winded like we had run a mile. In reality, we were probably less than 200 yards from our car.

We could hear the panic in the schoolyard. Dad made sure we stayed behind a rotting log, which was itself behind a row of bushes and cable briar. He was out on the edge of the cover, lying on his stomach with the gun pointed towards the school. We waited and he watched, talking quietly to us the whole time.

“Nobody is coming this way. People don’t seem to think outside of roads and cars. This is about when they realize their cars are gone.”

“What do you mean, gone?” Kirk asked loudly.

“Be quiet, guys. It wouldn’t take much to let people know we are here. And if they know that, they may decide this is a good way to go. Kirk, the cars are still there. They just don’t work anymore. Some of the diesels might, depending on how much electronics they have to control the engine, but our car has a solid state ignition, and the rest of the gas powered cars are probably dead.”

“Why?” Kirk spoke softly this time.

“EMP. Electromagnetic pulse… Somebody just exploded some nukes in space over America. The explosion didn’t reach us, and neither will the radioactive debris, but the pulse fried most everything electronic in the whole country. Car ignitions, phones, radios, computers, everything… If I had to bet, I’d say we did the same thing to them. Bottom line… It’s the end of the world, more or less.”

Lucy was crying. Mom looked stricken, and finally asked, “What about our car?”

“Forget the car, Hon. If we were at home, I could probably get the parts to fix it, but we don’t know anything about this area. It’s at least five miles back to town, and even if we could make it there and find a parts store, they probably won’t sell to strangers, at least not for anything reasonable. We don’t have much cash, and I guarantee no one will take credit cards when the machines that authorize them stop working, which they just did. And think about it. If everyone’s cars are dead, and ours isn’t, we’ll be the easiest target in town. We could never get it out of the schoolyard anyway.”

Now Mom was crying too. “How do we get home?”

“Well, if we had to, we could walk back to Nashville from here. It’s only sixty or seventy miles. There are two problems with that. One is that every single person from here to there is now a potential threat. People will be scared and either trying to defend what’s theirs, or they’ll be the other guys, trying to take it. Every place we pass will have to assume we are looters, and might shoot us before they can find out that we aren’t. And two, I’m sorry to say, is that by the time we get back, we will almost certainly wish that we were somewhere else.”

“Our friends are there, our neighbors…”

“They’re in the same boat. The power is out everywhere. It won’t be back on anytime soon, if ever. The factories are dead; lots of the trucks are dead. If it were just Nashville, then yes, we could expect things to recover, but right now, everyone we know is either trying to buy food at the stores, which will be empty by tonight, or if they are smart, they are trying to get to some place like this in the confusion. No help is coming. If the government still functions, which is doubtful given the bomb in D.C., they may be able to use the military to distribute food in warehouses. But all that does is to extend the time until Nashville runs out by a couple of days. When we had the floods a few years back, everyone pulled together because in the grand scheme of things, it was a small number of people affected, and the rest of the country was fine. Now imagine that flood, but it floods the entire city all at once and every other city at the same time. There will be no one in the entire country who doesn’t need help. Even if there is help to give, who gets it? I’m pretty sure Nashville is way down that list.”

Mom was ready to shoot the messenger. “All right then, Mr. Sunshine. What do we do?”

“For now, we stay out of trouble, and we survive. That’s all we can do.”

And thanks to my Dad, we did.

The sun had already set on Bill and Terry. Terry’s arm was asleep from leaning on the gate. He shook himself back to the present, and saw the tears in Bill’s eyes. Bill snapped back to the moment himself, blinked hard, and turned to Terry.

“Sorry about the long winded speech. I guess I needed to get it out. Anyway, that’s how it started, less than two miles from here – for us, anyway. That was the Breakdown.”

“That’s ok, Bill. I appreciate it.” Terry felt like he had been a part of something religious, the most meaningful church service of his life, except better, and more real.

“Well, sorry, I guess the tour can wait for tomorrow. Come on back to the house. We’ll put you up for the night, get you some dinner.”

“Yes, sir, thank you. It would be a long ride back in the dark.”

“And dangerous… You’re good people, Terry. I couldn’t do that to you. Come on”

Terry sat down to dinner with Bill, Aggie, and one of the men he had met when he first arrived. The table was covered with more food than Terry had seen in one place… well, ever.

“Wow, ma’am! This is unbelievable. So much food.” Terry practically drooled on the plate.

“Aww, Terry, don’t forget that we have power. That means refrigerators. What you are looking at is what we used to call ‘leftovers,’” Aggie said with a smile.

Bill asked, “Do you say grace at your house?”

“No. We’re usually too thankful to say thanks, if you know what I mean.” Terry replied with a hypnotized glaze.

“Know what you mean. We had a lot of hungry years. Dig in. You’re our guest.”

Terry piled two slabs of ham, three different vegetables, and two biscuits on his plate. He sized up the meal and suddenly felt himself blushing.

Aggie smiled again. “Don’t worry. There’s plenty for all of us.”

Terry stuffed food in his mouth for what felt like an hour, but soon enough, he came up for air. “Where are the other folks I met today?”

Bill set down his fork. “Well, now that I’ve tortured you with my story, I’d like to introduce my little brother, Tommy. We call him Tom nowadays. He can still nap through the end of the world.”

Terry stood up, dropping his cloth napkin on the floor, and shook Tommy’s hand. Tom grinned and gave him a few stout pumps, and said, “Bill’s just jealous. He needs a featherbed just to relax.”

Terry laughed at the joke, and sat back down, stretching his hand under the table to retrieve his napkin.

“The truth is, Terry, “Bill began, “We don’t live here. This is the front porch for us. We use it mostly for a guardhouse and a place to meet guests. Everyone else, except our mid-shift guard, is down in the village proper.”

“A village?”

“Yeah. We call it Teeny Town. Lucy’s name stuck.”

“It’s not on the map.”

“That is our intention. We would just as soon not tell too many people.”

“You told me.” Terry paused, thinking through the implications.

“Heh… Yeah, we did. We’re taking the chance that you will respect what we have done, and what we have to say. We’re not going to bury you in the woods. We really hope those days are over.”

“Well, my assignment requires that I go back and report on exactly what I see.”

“Is that your assignment, or one that someone else gave you?”

“It’s my job, my responsibility, sir.”

Bill turned to his brother and said, “I told you he was a good kid.”

Tom just nodded with a mouth full of asparagus.

Bill faced Terry again. “We’ll talk about it more tomorrow.”

They finished dinner among idle chat that Terry noticed left out a lot of details. He figured they were trying to give him some information without risking anything important. Eventually, Bill stood up and set his napkin on the plate. “Well, time for me to get some sleep. Talking wears me out. Aggie will get you set up with a place to sleep, and I’ll come back in the morning.”

Twenty minutes later, Terry was under a wool blanket in an upstairs room. Aggie had shown him the honest to goodness bathroom with the flush toilet and the shower. She had also given him some clothes for the night, and told him she would get his uniform washed by morning. Amazing… Even more amazing was the hug she gave him before she disappeared downstairs. People in Manchester were not inclined to touch. Too many years of disease had made public touching a sort of taboo. Handshakes had eventually come back, but hugs with near strangers… No way. He was a typical young man, in that the feel of her chest on his stayed with him through the shower, and until he finally fell asleep.

Terry woke in the cool gray of predawn. The house was silent, other than an occasional slide and shuffle from the other room. He assumed it came from whoever was on guard duty this morning. His binder full of official forms was still out on his bike, but he had a little notebook that he normally carried in his back pocket. He picked it off of a chair, and slid the charcoal pencil out of the spine, and began to take notes.

May 21, 2049. Found my assigned plot 13-403 without trouble. Discovered it to be inhabited. Everything they taught us was to report this situation and let the county handle it, but I have met them and they have me effectively caught here for now. I guess I’ll learn as much as possible and hope they let me leave.

Terry intended to write more, but he heard a door close downstairs and heavy footsteps across the kitchen floor. He tucked his notebook into the pocket of his borrowed pants and waited to see what might happen. Bill knocked twice on the bedroom door and said, “You up, Terry?”

“Yes, Bill.”

“Ok. Grab your boots and let’s get going.”

“Yes, sir.”

Terry gathered up his boots and other gear and walked down the stairs to the kitchen. Bill was sitting at the table with a hot cup of some kind of tea. He waved Terry to a chair, and got up to pour another cup.

“This is the time of day that my folks would always say, ‘What I wouldn’t give for a cup of coffee right now’.” Bill snorted an aborted attempt at a laugh.

Terry smiled and replied, “Pappy always said that too. Every once in a while, Granny would bite his head clean off for saying it, too.”

Bill set the cup in front of Terry, and took his seat again. Terry took a sip and couldn’t quite identify all the flavors, but it was good, much better than the stuff they made at home.  They sat in silence, apparently both gathering their thoughts.

Finally Bill broke the spell. “You know, when we first settled on this piece of land, everything was still wild, bullets flying, and folks killing each other to keep from starving.”

“I know you said eleven years…” Terry answered.

“Well, we’ve actually lived here for that long, but we’ve been in the area since the Breakdown. We were working on parts of it long before that. We found ways to survive early on, but eventually we wanted something that felt like a real place, a way to make contact with others. We were so tired of starting every conversation with gunshots, and ending most of them with a shovel in the woods.”

“Yeah. When I was ten we had a war with Tullahoma over corn. It was crazy. They had us kids collecting rocks to throw, since only about 100 people had any guns left.”

“Tullahoma is pretty much gone now. It was always lousy for farming. There were a couple of rich maniacs over there who got the idea that they should become the lords of the manner, since it was working for them before the Breakdown. They blew up Normandy Dam to try to flood Shelbyville and conquer the remains. They managed the flood, but Shelbyville had good, well-fed farmers all around, not to mention all those horses. The Tullahoma group was pretty well eaten up before they made it halfway. Who would have thought cavalry would make the difference in the 21st century?”

Bill set his cup down with a solid thump. “Well… I’ve been talking about a tour for too long. How about we go have a look?

Terry took a last long swig from his own cup and carefully placed it on the table. It was an antique, and his family only had a few made from actual ceramic. Most of the dishes at home were made from baked clay, with no real finish. This particular mug had “Breast Cancer Walk-a-thon 2009” written in pink, swoopy letters on it.

Bill got to his feet, set the mugs on the counter, and headed out the door. Outside, it was still cool, with that steamy mist that promised to burn off into another hot day in the South. Terry followed Bill down the steps and turned to check on his bike. It was gone!

“Don’t worry. We just put it in the garage for safe keeping.” Bill watched him closely. At the look of open suspicion on Terry’s face, he added, “We can go check on it if it’ll make you feel better.”

Terry thought about it, and said, “No, that’s ok. I believe you.” He did think that he was being controlled just a little more than was comfortable, but he was in it now. It would either work out, or it wouldn’t.

Bill opened the big gate, and waited for Terry to step through before he closed it again. Bill raised his right hand for a few seconds, and then took it down and started walking. Terry looked around for whoever Bill was signaling, but saw no one.

“This is a just a pasture field. Its main purpose is to create a buffer between our working land and the guard houses, but a few times a year, we let in the livestock to graze here. The land on both sides, we let grow into scrub. It’s hard to see through, much less cross with any kind of force, but if someone tried it, they would find it’s full of little surprises.”

“Surprises?” Terry asked.

“I could tell you, but then it wouldn’t be a surprise, now would it?” Bill answered with an evil grin.

They came to a place where the land began to drop off, and in a few more steps, Terry could see the flat expanse of land below. What he saw almost made him drop to his knees. Every slope above the shelf was scattered with cattle, and goats, and sheep, and even some horses. The fences were built of split rails and recovered barb wire, and in every case, extended only far enough up the slope to guarantee that they couldn’t be seen from a distance. The flat land below was a ring of gardens and small patches of crop field, punctuated by barns and sheds, and inside the ‘crop circle’ was a small, clean, fully functional town. He could see houses, and stores, and even a small church from here. Beyond the town, crop fields extended until the land dropped again, into what looked like a river channel, judging by the heavy trees. Most importantly, there were people, and Terry could tell, even from up on the rim, that they were healthy, and clean, and busy making a community work.

“What do you think?” Bill asked.

On closer inspection, Terry saw two more aspects that pushed the sense of awe he was feeling. The first was that there were wires strung on poles around the entire valley, and the second was that there were extensive and subtle defenses woven in everywhere. Most of the work looked like it had two purposes, as if someone really smart had figured out a way to make defenses that worked when needed, but got out of the way when the fighting was over.

“Amazing.” Terry finally said.

“Yeah, it’s pretty good nowadays. It took a long time to build. Let’s go say hello.”

The men angled to the right to pick up a gravel path that led down into town, and followed it until they passed two large barns on either side of the lane.  The barn was littered with small subtle doors that could only be weapon ports, and one barn supported a massive gate that could be closed against the other to wall off the town. The gate and barns were clad in metal up to about 15 feet, but it was all painted to look like the wood. Terry was beginning to appreciate the thought that had gone into it. As they passed the gate, Terry could see that the fences were much taller than they had appeared and contained enough extra layers of wire and barbs at the bottom to make it very hard to penetrate. From the inside, he could see that the barns also had fighting platforms on the inside slopes of the roofs that provided a clear shot out to the borders of the community land while giving cover with the metal of the barn roofs themselves. Clever… He looked around and saw that there were four more pairs of similar barns all the way around the town.

“Welcome to Teeny Town! You already see how it works, huh?”

“Well, sir… Bill. I see some of it, but from what I do see, I bet I’m missing a lot more.”

“Smart man. Let’s go get a drink.”

Bill and Terry walked through town where men, women, and small children were out and about. They waved sent cheerful greetings to Bill, and waved and said hello to Terry. It was far friendlier and more relaxed than Manchester had ever been in Terry’s lifetime. By now the sun high enough to cast long shadows from the east, and people were gathering into the shady areas under the constant covered porches of the various shops. The buildings seemed to follow a common pattern of stone first stories, made from the dirt-common iron chert rock of the region, and wooden upper stories made from surprisingly well finished lumber. The roofs were mostly corrugated metal, with and occasional asphalt shingle and wood shake roof. The roadway was covered with limestone gravel, river stone, and crushed iron chert of the same kind in the building walls.

Bill was talking the entire time, but it faded in and out for Terry, who was trying to see everything all at once. “…and we salvaged or traded for tools and materials from all over the region. We even set up some pretty good partnerships, which is why I want you to meet someone.”

They stepped up to the broad porch of what could only be a restaurant or bar. They passed the neatly arranged tables and walked through open glass double doors into the deep shadow of the interior. Terry blinked and waited for his eyes to adjust. When he could see again, he saw that the place was mostly empty. Bill held up two fingers to the portly man behind the bar and led Terry to an enclosed booth in the back corner. For the second time this morning, Terry felt his knees wobble.

Sitting at the booth was his boss at the Reclamation Office, Dusty Bearden.

“Well, Mr. Shelton. I see you have managed to find all kinds of trouble since yesterday.” Dusty had a harsh look of anger on his face.

“Sir, uh… well, you see…” Terry stammered, trying to get the Earth to settle under him.

Dusty and Bill both broke up into raucous laughter. It took long seconds for Terry to understand that he was not actually in trouble, and full minutes before the other men stopped laughing and snorting.

Finally, Bill said, “Relax, Terry. This is one of the surprises I was talking about.”

“It’s a surprise, all right.” Terry was angry now. “Does someone want to tell me what’s going on here?”

Dusty took his turn. “Terry, calm down. I’ve known Bill here for… well, since before you were born, and I’ve been a part of his group since before there were houses here. I sent you out here for a reason.”

“What reason?” Terry took a deep breath to calm himself. “What reason?”

Bill said, “Dusty here keeps the county out of our hair.”

Dusty added, “And I do it because, despite all they teach you about honor and duty in the county school, rebuilding works better this way. By the end of the day, you’ll know that too.”

“What do you mean?” Terry looked back and forth at the two men, who were sliding back into the booth opposite him.

Dusty replied, “I could answer that for you, but you’re here because the other thing I do is find smart young people in town, and send them to learn for themselves. I bet you could sit here right now and tell me what’s wrong with what’s going on in town.”

Terry thought for a minute and said, “I know already that these people live much better than we do in town, except for a very few people…”

“Exactly,” Dusty said, “There are a few rich landowners who were smart enough to see how to grab as much for themselves as they could. For everyone else, it’s the minimum it takes to get by, just enough to work for those landowners, so about five families can keep getting richer.”

Bill added, “I know they don’t teach history anymore, but the basic idea is that before the Breakdown, this was a country of opportunity. People could come from all over the world to work hard and make a life for themselves here. Without boring you to tears, the reason the Breakdown happened in the first place was that we lost that idea. We were living to make a few people really rich, and they were working to make it so that all we could do any more was make them rich. They took away our ability to do for ourselves, and when the breakdown happened, we were not prepared.”

Dusty picked up the thread. “I know my family was not prepared for anything. Bill’s brother, Kirk, found me in the woods west of here, eating bark and leaves to survive. Kirk was a scary man at that point, but even he couldn’t stand the pathetic situation I was living in. I knew nothing. My parents knew nothing, and because of it, they and my sister were dead.”

“Dusty came here when we were camping down at the creek, and we could barely feed ourselves, so we sent him to some contacts in town. They raised him, made sure he went to school, and we had him during the summer so that he could get our kind of education too. In exchange, we made sure they had fresh meat from time to time. Now he’s family. He’s my nephew, in fact, married to Lucy’s oldest daughter.”

“So, Bill,” Terry said. “Your entire family survived the Breakdown?”

“Yes. I think you know from my story that I have my dad’s smarts to thank for it. He spent the rest of his years teaching us, and anyone else who would listen, everything he knew about how things worked, and how they were supposed to work. He was serious about the idea of America, how it was meant to be, and because of him, we all grew up to think that way. We believe that anyone who works hard should share in the rewards, and be able to make the best life he can.”

“So, if I agree with what you are telling me, I have to file a false report to keep the county away from here, which means that everything I thought when I left the office is a lie.” Terry said, keeping his eyes cast down towards the table.

The bartender finally showed up with two beers in clay mugs, and slid them onto the old Formica table to join Dusty’s half-empty stein.

Dusty said, “Well, you really have a lot of choices, but none of them are simple. You could decide to protect this place, and file that false report. You could file a complete and honest report and let us deal with the fallout. It will probably happen eventually anyway. You could just fail to go home, and the fact that you disappeared will keep the county looking to safer territory, but that means abandoning your parents. We could pick them up for you, but if we do it any time soon, someone will get curious and come out here to check on you. It was easier for me to cover it up. These people saved my life.”

“But,” Bill said, “It’s your choice. We don’t want to fight if the county decides to take this place, but we are pretty well prepared to do so. The problem is that the county is official, and we are not, so if they want this place and can’t take it themselves, they can always call in the state to help, and that’s more than we can handle. On the other hand, we can’t really ask you to do something you don’t want to do. Dusty told us you were a good man before you came out, and I’ve seen the same thing. This county is short on good people these days, so we’ll live with your decision either way.”

This was a bizarre revelation to Terry. His whole life had been an endless series of people taking from other people, throwing principles out the window for hunger, and having someone tell him that they would do something that was right, even if it cost them, was almost beyond belief. But then, he realized that he was one of those people too, a young man who tried to do what was right even if it made him hungrier the next day. But this… This was the first time that it really became difficult to tell right from wrong. It wasn’t right and wrong. It was both, no matter what he decided.

“Anyway, I keep interrupting the tour. How about we look around a bit more?” Bill looked hard at Terry, trying to see what he was thinking.

“Ok, Bill. I’d like to see it.”

“All right… Dusty, we’re heading down to the creek. We’ll see you at dinner.”

Dusty said, “Ok, gentlemen, see you later. Terry, relax. These are good people.”

Bill and Terry slipped back out into the bright sunshine. Terry had time to wonder how it was so cool inside, when it was getting downright hot out here. They started walking north. People waved but didn’t come over to talk, and soon enough, they had left the town proper, were following the lane past a nice collection of draft horses, and into the corn fields beyond.

“Corn’s easy here, as long as we get enough rain,” Bill was saying. “Wheat doesn’t really like Coffee County, but we manage to get enough for bread, year round. Lucy is still in charge of farming, but her daughter, Sherry, is set to take over any time.”

They finally reached the end of the shelf, and Terry was prepared to look over the edge for the creek Bill had mentioned, but what he saw was a series of dams. Three little lakes stepped down the slope heading east, until the creek disappeared around a bend, about a quarter mile away. Each dam was made from concrete, some exposed steel, and a few heavy timbers, and each one had a race of water flowing out from the base. Terry could hear a low humming sound under the rush of water, and tried to figure out where it was originating.

Bill said, “Here’s the key to the whole thing. Local power. Each of these dams has a hydroelectric generator. We started with really basic systems, car alternators and such, but we eventually found much better - and bigger - equipment. We even have a couple of spares. We make enough power for at least four times the land we have, and we still work hard to use as little as possible. The lines are still pretty exposed and a little makeshift, but the generators themselves are well protected.”

“In town, we have whatever grid power comes. We never know when it will be on. The landowners seem to have power though. We can see the lights from their places at night. There are some windmills, but they are used to pump water, not power.” Terry said thoughtfully.

“Look up in the trees,” Bill pointed, “and you can see the sentries we keep posted around the lakes.”

Terry shaded his eyes and looked, hard. Finally he spotted a tree house across the lake, on the wooded hillside beyond. It was a jumble of lumber and sticks that looked more like a giant squirrel’s nest than a manmade construction. Once he had seen it, he was able to pick out three more within his range of vision. “I see four,” he told Bill.

“There are actually six, but we only man three of them unless there is trouble about,” Bill replied.

“We maintain this patch of woods just for the defensive aspects of being able to hide in the trees, and to keep passersby from being able to see through them, but over the ridge there, we use that land to harvest wood. It comes across the lake right here and we cut it down there.” He pointed to the lowest lake. “The power from that lake is reserved just for our industrial operations, lumber mill, machine shop, workshop, that sort of thing. It’s a little harder to keep safe out here, but it keeps the town quieter.”

Terry was smart enough to be impressed, but he was thinking of new questions by the minute. Before he could ask any of them, Bill spoke again.

“Our biggest hope is that we can get past where we are now. We still have to maintain guards. Too many people are hungry, still, thirty-seven years after the Breakdown. Eventually, we’d like to feed more, but it’s too risky, and the hard truth is that people still have the idea that help is coming. My father gave up that idea as soon as the missiles struck. He knew that any future we have is one we would build with our own hands.”

“You know, Bill, I think you are right. Just now, when you said that, I realized that you are right. All we’ve been doing my entire life is waiting for someone to put it all back together. The entire town of Manchester checks the highway every day, I guess expecting a convoy of food and supplies and building materials to come down the road to fix our lives. We all make do, we eat when we can eat, and fight when we need to fight, and we all try to find some way to work and trade and stay alive, but there is no recovery happening. All that is happening is people holding on, and other people using up the resources to make themselves happier, while the rest of us barely survive.”

“I wasn’t old enough,” Bill replied, “to understand how things really worked. I was eleven when the world broke, but my dad taught us every chance he got, and what he taught us was that, once, this country was built just like we are building our little community, with our hands and the smartest use of resources we can devise. He called it “19th Century Style.” He also taught us that the country had changed, and that too many people were just like the people in Manchester, just getting by while they waited for someone more powerful to give them a hand, that too many people did things that helped no one, made no lives better. He said in the end that we mostly just worked to pass money back and forth, and everyone who had money come across their desk tried to grab as much of it as they could while it passed by.”

They stood in silence for a while, watching the ripples float wilting, late-Spring blossoms around the lake.

Presently, Terry spoke up. “It’s different than I thought, right and wrong.”

“That does happen from time to time. Probably always will.” Bill said.

Bill turned slowly away from the water, back toward Teeny Town, and started walking. Terry took a couple of quick steps to catch up, and strode with a new confidence back towards his future.

###

About the Author

This is my first Kindle title, and I thank you for reading it. The story is my response to the feeling of precariousness in American life right now. I’m not a survivalist and I don’t live in an abandoned missile silo. In fact, I live in a suburb in Washington State with my lovely wife, five dogs (all of whom are rescues and brilliant furry idiots) and two cats that encompass both ends of the cat social scale.

Connect with Me Online

I have a sadly neglected blog at http://www.jfperkins.com but if you bug me enough, I may decide to give it some love. I have another blog related to a fundraising bicycle trip I took with my dog a couple of years ago at http://www.bigdummyproject.com. I am also on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/videojimmy but I’ll be honest. I mostly use it to post pictures of the dogs. I don’t use Twitter, because frankly, I’m way too wordy.