Red: The Adventure Begins

by Darrell Maloney

  Bonnie grazed freely. Red trusted her not to wander far, and she seemed to know where the property lines ran. Because she almost never crossed them.

  And since she wasn’t corralled, she tended to come running every time she saw Red emerge from the house or pull into the driveway.

  To that regard, she was not unlike a family dog.

  And she was just as faithful to her owner.

  "Oh, great," Red said. "Now Bonnie's going to want an apple before we leave. And I don’t have one."

  Russell said, "Nah. She just wants her photo taken too. You know women. A camera comes out and they're ready to pose. Well, all women except you, that is."

  "How would you like to go to the office with a black eye?"

  "I withdraw my statement, your honor."

  Russell took several photos of Red standing next to Bonnie, a pink rose in Red's hair and a forlorn look on Bonnie's face.

  "I'm sorry, girl. I'll bring you some apple when we get back from church, I promise."

  She scratched the Morgan behind her ears. Red knew just the right spot.

  Chapter 25

  A few days after she and Bonnie had their photo taken together, Russell dropped by the hardware store.

  Red caught him before his feet left the doormat.

  "What are you doing here? Your first day of spring break and you come down here so I have to look at you? I thought you were going to sleep in."

  Russell looked around for Rusty.

  "Sleeping is way overrated. Why lay around all day with your eyes closed when there's a great big world out there to experience?"

  He looked at Red's face.

  "And besides, why would I sleep when I could come down here and see the most wonderful person in the world?"

  Red blushed and said, "Oh, how sweet."

  Russell probably should have left it at that, but he was the kind of guy who liked poking bears with sticks occasionally.

  He looked around again and asked, "So... where is he?"

  Red had been had. She balled up her fist and waved it in his direction.

  Then Butch walked in from the back room.

  "Well, thank you, Russell. What a nice thing for you to say. I never knew you were sweet on me, but I can't really blame you. I am quite a catch, after all."

  Butch walked around the counter, grabbed Russell in a big bear hug, then puckered up and planted a kiss on his son-in-law's cheek.

  "I love you too, Russell. But I'll have you know that I don't put out unless you buy me dinner and drinks first."

  "Um... okay. That's nice to know. I'll keep that in mind the next time your daughter has a headache."

  Red shook her head and said, "That's gonna start happening quite often if you two keep up this foolishness."

  "Oh, honey, we're just playin'. Right, Butch?"

  "We are?"

  Just then the lights flickered a couple of times and went out. The ceiling fan overhead stopped working and Patsy Cline's Crazy went unfinished on the store's sound system.

  Butch spoke for everyone when he uttered a single word: "Damnit!"

  Rusty came out of Butch's office and made use of his limited vocabulary.

  "TV off."

  Russell picked him up and told him, "I guess the power's out, son. What were you watching?"

  "PungeBob."

  "Well, I'm sure the TV will be working soon."

  "Don't be so sure," Butch said. "The last time the power went out was six months ago when you guys were back east visiting your brother. It took them two full days to get things running again. I had to do everything manually, figuring math on scratch paper and looking through old receipt logs to find out how much things cost. That's why I've had Vincent back there putting price labels on all the shelves in the warehouse."

  Red added, "It's always been like this. It's one of the few bad things about living in a small town. Instead of a big power company with lots of trucks and repairmen, we have a county electric coop. The power is cheap, but they've got a small budget and very few workers. They usually have to contract out with an electrician to find the source of the blackout and fix it."

  Russell grew up in the big city, so this was new to him.

  "So, what do we do while we wait?"

  "There's not much to do. So everybody generally just gathers in the town square and socializes. If it takes too long, we usually have a town barbeque on Main Street. The meat in our freezers starts going bad after a couple of days anyway, so we might as well eat it. Come on. Let's go find out what the latest local gossip is."

  Butch said, "You guys go on. I'm going to call the coop to see if anybody down there knows what's going on and how long we'll be in the dark."

  Chapter 26

  Just as Red had predicted, people from the local businesses locked their doors and began to gather at the town square.

  The square was, as its name implied, a two square block park, with a small courthouse in the center. An even smaller jail was attached to the courthouse. The jail hadn't had more than one resident since 1976, when a car full of drunken and rowdy college kids decided to paint graffiti along the storefronts at two a.m. Mostly it was used as a holding cell for drunks to sleep off a night of boozing, or to hold an occasional miscreant until a friend or relative came to bail him out.

  "Oh, boy! Squirrels!"

  Rusty loved squirrels.

  Not to hunt. His parents would wait a couple of years to teach him that particular skill.

  And not to eat.

  Neither Red nor Russell was particularly fond of squirrel meat. They'd had it the past, but didn't go out of their way to add it to the family menu.

  No, Rusty loved squirrels because they were fast.

  He wouldn't have known what to do with one if he ever caught it, but he enjoyed chasing them nonetheless.

  "Be careful, young man," his mother called after him. "Don't you go near the street."

  "Okay."

  Red sat on a picnic table under the courthouse pavilion.

  Already seated at the table were two old friends.

  "Hi Sarah. Hi Jessika. Do you remember my husband Russell?"

  "Yep. We never forget a handsome face."

  Sarah wasn't a shy girl by any means.

  Jessika kept her in check.

  "You'd better behave yourself, girl. I heard a rumor... and it was just a rumor, mind you. But I heard a rumor that a girl once made a pass at Red's man and was never heard from again."

  "I'm not afraid of Red. I can run faster than she can."

  Russell said, "That reminds me of an old joke. What's the fastest living thing in the world?"

  Sarah shot back without hesitation, "Everybody knows that. The cheetah."

  Russell said, "Nope. Whatever the cheetah is chasing."

  All three of the girls just looked at him.

  None of them cracked a smile.

  None of them said a word.

  “Wow,” he said. “Tough crowd.”

  Still nothing.

  He said, “Excuse me, ladies. I think I see Tony and the boys over there. I’m gonna mosey over and see how they’re doing.”

  He backed away slowly, as though he expected to be pelted with rotten tomatoes at any moment.

  As soon as Russell was out of earshot, Red asked her friends, “Was that mean of us?”

  Jessika shot back. “Who cares? He’s a husband. They expect to be abused. And it worked. He left. And now the gossip can begin.”

  Chapter 27

  Russell got comfortable with some of his guy friends and talked about the upcoming baseball season.

  Red and her girlfriends talked about which of the women in Blanco were pregnant, and who the likely suspects were.

  Jessika said, “I wonder where Ron is. He said he’d call me after he went to the bathroom. And that was half an hour ago.”

  Red tried to help.

  “What did he have for lunch? If he had the green chili enchiladas at Julio’s Taqueria he may be in there awhile.�
��

  “Unnecessary ugly vision, thank you very much.”

  Jessika looked at her phone.

  “Damn it, my phone’s dead. That’s why I haven’t heard from him.”

  “Did you drop it again?”

  “No.”

  “Did it fall in the toilet again?”

  “No. That only happened that one time, thank God.”

  “Did it go through the washer in your jeans again?”

  “Not in the last couple of weeks. And this is a new phone, too. Seriously, guys, I didn’t break it. I must have forgotten to charge it again.”

  Sarah looked at Red and said, “Fancy that.”

  Jessika forgot to charge her phone at least once a week.

  “Hey, can I borrow one of yours so I can call Ron?”

  Red said, “I’m sorry, sweetie. I left mine on the counter at the hardware store.”

  Sarah pulled hers out.

  “That’s odd. Mine is dead too.”

  Jessika pounced.

  “All right, now, smartass. I guess I’m not the only one who forgets to plug their phone in occasionally.”

  “No, that’s really strange. It was working just a little while ago. I was texting back and forth with my mom.”

  “I heard that constant texting runs a battery down ten times faster than talking.”

  “Really? Where did you hear that?”

  “On the internet.”

  “I see. And if it was on the internet, it just has to be true, huh?”

  “Oh, will you two stop arguing? You sound like a couple of spoiled brats.”

  “So? You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  Sarah looked up to see a Southwest Airlines 737 fly directly over their heads.

  Rusty saw it too, and stopped chasing squirrels long enough to watch it and say, “Oooohhh, pretty.”

  The jet was painted in bright blue, red and gold. It was indeed a pretty sight. And it piqued Sara’s interest.

  “Hey, what would happen if the power ever went out at the airport? Without power at the control tower, none of their radars would work. And how would the air traffic controllers talk to the pilots if their radios weren’t working?”

  Jessika said, “Why don’t you ask the expert? Here he comes now.”

  Butch had just stepped out of the hardware store and into the street.

  He looked around, saw Red and the girls sitting at the picnic table, and headed over to join them.

  “Hello. How are the three most beautifulest ladies in all of south central Texas?”

  Jessika said, “Well, number one, I don’t think that’s a real word. And number two, one of us is your daughter, and she’s okay. But she’s not in the same league as Sarah and I…”

  Red said, “Hey…”

  “And number three, flattery will get you nowhere. Neither Sarah nor I are into old guys.”

  Sarah said, “Hey, speak for yourself. I like all men. Even those with one foot in the grave. As long as their life insurance is paid up.”

  She looked at Butch and batted her eyelashes.

  “You do have life insurance, don’t you, Butch?”

  “Hey, get your claws out of my father, you…”

  Butch was enjoying the banter.

  “Well, I guess technically I am older than you two. But you’re about twenty five, right Jess?”

  “Close. Twenty four.”

  Butch turned to Sarah and asked, “And you, beautiful, are about twenty six?”

  “Nope. Twenty five.”

  “Now, I know I’ve been out of school for a while, me being so old and all. But if I remember my basic math, twenty four and twenty five equals forty nine. And that’s the same age I am. So technically I am too old for each one of you. But if we became a threesome, it would work out perfectly.”

  “A threesome as in…”

  “Yep.”

  “Why, Butch. I never knew you were a dirty old man.”

  “Well, now you know.”

  Red put her fingers in her ears.

  “I don’t want to hear this! La la la la la…”

  Sarah looked at her friend and asked Butch, “Should we change the subject?”

  “Probably.”

  Sarah reached up and pulled Red’s fingers away from her ears.

  “Subject officially changed.”

  Sarah turned to Butch and said, “Hey, we were talking about you just before you walked up. Remember when you used to fly airplanes with the Wright brothers?”

  “Ouch. I flew a little later than that, thank you very much.”

  “Yeah, whatever. Anyway, I was wondering what would happen if the power ever went out at Austin-Bergstrom Airport. How would the air traffic controllers control the airplanes without their radar? And how would they communicate with the pilots without their radios?”

  “Oh, that would never happen. All airports have a secondary power source. If the municipal power goes out at an airport, everything automatically switches over to generator power. A lot of the equipment has its own battery backup as well.

  “And just in case it ever did happen, pilots are trained to divert to other airports if possible, if the airport they’re landing at goes black or they lose comm or their glide slope. There are alarms on board each aircraft to warn them about possible collisions with other aircraft, so if it ever did happen, the aircraft would peel off and await further instructions. Or they would divert to another airport and land there instead.

  “Oh, I couldn’t call the electrical coop because my cell phone isn’t working for some reason.”

  He took Red’s phone out of his pocket and handed it to her.

  “Yours isn’t working either.”

  Chapter 28

  The following afternoon Red got antsy and took Rusty for a walk.

  She knocked on Butch’s door to see if he wanted to go along.

  But there was no answer.

  “Where do you think he is, little man?” she asked Rusty.

  Rusty threw up his hands and replied, “I no knowwww.”

  Red loved the way he stretched out the last word of his sentences.

  “I’ll bet he’s at the hardware store. Wanna go and see?”

  “Sureeeee.”

  She pushed his stroller up the middle of Main Street, in the middle of the afternoon. And there wasn’t a car in sight that was running.

  And sure enough, the doors to the hardware store were wide open.

  She heard Butch in the back, cursing.

  “Coming in, Dad. Please don’t teach my son any words he can’t say in Sunday school.”

  “Hi, honey. Feel your way back here to the back. Go slow. It’s dark in here.”

  “No duh.”

  She felt her way along the counter and into the back of the store, where a small warehouse stocked spare parts and merchandise.

  “Whatcha doin’, Dad?”

  “Well, it dawned on me earlier that it’s really stupid for a hardware store, of all places, to be without power. I mean, this is the only building in town with generators on the shelf. I have six of them in stock.

  “So I thought I’d come in, use one to bring back limited power to the store, and then run a floor fan and a TV out to the sidewalk.

  “When people happen by and ask me how I got power to run the floor fan and the TV, I’ll point out that the lights and refrigerator in the store are on too.

  “Then I’ll offer them a cold soda pop and try to sell them their own generator.

  “If I sell the first five, I’ll sell the one I’m using as a slightly used demo. Twenty dollars off, and I’ll still come out ahead.”

  “Not a bad plan.”

  “Hey, I’m not just handsome, witty and charming. I’m also a marketing genius. There’s only one problem.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I can’t get the damn thing started. It has fuel, but no spark. Doesn’t Russell know a little bit about small engines? Maybe he can help me figure it out.”

  �
�He went fishing with Tony and the guys. He said there’s no sense wasting a perfectly good spring break just because the power is out and the cell towers aren’t working.”

  “Rats. Well, since I can’t sell generators, maybe I’ll drive up to the lake and join them.”

  “They all walked.”

  “I’m too old to walk. And I need my air conditioning when I go fishing.”

  Red had a worried look on her face.

  And Red never worried about anything.

  “Dad, I don’t like this. This isn’t just a typical blackout. This is something worse. Much worse.”

  “Now, honey, don’t jump to conclusions. It’s only been a little more than a day. We’ve had blackouts that lasted longer than this before.

  “Look at it like an unearned vacation. We didn’t ask for it, but it’s here. Let’s take a day off and go fishing. Heck, we can’t do anything here anyway.”

  But Red was adamant.

  “No, Dad. You aren’t listening. Haven’t you noticed we haven’t had any traffic since the power went out? I mean, none. In a day and a half we haven’t had a single car roll into town. You know why? Because the cars are all dead, that’s why.

  “Bonnie and I rode up to the highway this morning. I wanted to see if I could find which transformer blew, and whether they had a crew out there replacing it.

  “What I found instead were abandoned cars, as far as the eye could see, in either direction. Many of them had their hoods up, like their owners had been trying to get them running again.

  “There are people up on the highway just wandering around, not knowing what to do. People sleeping in their cars. People in shock.

  “Dad, what in the world could possibly cause all the cars to stop working at precisely the same time all the power went out?”

  Her father’s face suddenly turned ashen.

  He stumbled over his words.

  “A nuclear blast at high altitude could have caused it. But only a few countries have the capability of doing that. And they have no reason to. It would harm them as much as us.

  “There’s only one other thing I know of that could cause such chaos.”

  He didn’t want to go on.

  But she needed to know.

  “One of the things pilots study is the affect the other planets and sun can have on our own planet. How their gravitational pulls can affect our compasses and such.