Free State Of Dodge

by Javan Bonds

  Linda held up one finger for him to wait as she leaned back inside, said something to someone Redstone presumed was the mayor, and obviously received a reply from him, because she came back to the door and spoke at a much lower level than before. “He’ll be right out, as soon as he gets some clothes on.” She disappeared inside again, and Redstone leaned back in his seat to relax as he waited for the mayor.

  Fat ass is probably eating all of the honey buns he has left, Redstone mused. The mayor, while not morbidly obese, was a round man in his early sixties. He had one of those handkerchiefs in his pocket, the same as every other old guy, and used it to dab the perspiration that constantly accumulated where his hairline would have been forty years ago. Redstone inwardly laughed at this line of thought. He was baffled that the mayor could sweat even in the dead of winter.

  Redstone came back from his thoughts as the screen door slammed behind the mayor, who was tucking in his shirt as he moved and was not really running but was walking fast. Redstone looked at him and smiled; he was probably getting out of breath from this exertion. As the mayor drew nearer, Redstone could see he was not excited to see him, making his own smile disappear. “What the hell is wrong with you? You couldn’t just have come to the door? Now everybody in a mile is awake!”

  I don’t give a rat’s ass. “Oh, sorry,” Redstone said without much sincerity.

  “Why are you here, anyway?” The mayor asked.

  “Some military guys showed up yesterday afternoon with food and stuff, and they wanted me and you to be at town hall this morning.”

  The mayor angrily said, “They’re here? Why didn’t you tell me yesterday?”

  Redstone shrugged his shoulders, groaned, and said, “I was tired. It wouldn’t have made any difference anyway.”

  “Well, that’s not the point. Let me go put some good clothes on, and I’ll ride up there with you.” The mayor turned and made his way back to his house while Redstone was thinking it was pointless for him to wear a coat and tie because he would be dripping with sweat before they made it to town hall and would have to take the coat off and loosen the tie.

  It took less time than expected, because he was still wearing the jeans he had on, had slung a tie around his neck, and had thrown on a sport coat. He walked around the front of the truck to the passenger side, and when he opened the door to take a seat, he said, “Do you know how hard it is to wash clothes without a washing machine? Our generator ran out of gas a couple of days ago.”

  Redstone didn’t really know how hard it was. His family had been taking all of their clothes over to the Pikes’ and using their solar-powered washing machine. But just to make the mayor feel as if he wasn’t alone, Redstone agreed. “Yeah, I hear you, man.”

  As the mayor settled into his seat and Redstone cranked the truck and pulled forward into the driveway to turn around, the mayor said, “Tell me a little bit more about these guys before I meet them.”

  Redstone had spoken only to the leader of this group and wasn’t even sure how many National Guardsman there actually were. But there were enough to drive one eighteen-wheeler and two Humvees.

  As the truck came to rest in the handicapped parking spot at town hall, both men opened their truck doors, and their conversation continued without pause as they moved.

  “Yeah, but not everybody will be too happy to hand over their guns. This guardsman will need to explain it better to me, or I can’t support him on that,” the mayor said as he reached into his pocket for the handkerchief, with which he wiped his forehead.

  “We can ask him about it when we get in there. I forgot to take notes last night…” Redstone trailed off and made a visible effort not to end the sentence with “because I was so tired from being at work all day every day—unlike you, you lazy piece of crotchety shit.”

  They grew silent as they made their way to the front door, Redstone now dwelling on the origin of the word crotchety. When he reached the top of the steps, he noticed the door was ajar—something he would’ve gotten in trouble for if he had tried a week ago. These guys probably weren’t worried about burglars, with their M16s and all. Redstone silently pushed the door open, with the mayor following as he entered the building.

  Just as he came to the entrance of Bobbie Jo’s office, Sherman said in a resonating, friendly tone,

  “Gentlemen! It’s good to see you.

  Please come in.”

  Redstone turned to see Sherman sitting at Bobbie Jo’s desk with a smile across his face, seeming much more cheerful than yesterday. Maybe this guy wasn’t such a dick.

  Maybe he had just been tired from being on the road. Redstone nodded and walked into the room, with the mayor following and coming up beside him.

  “And this must be the mayor! I saw the two of you coming through the windows and was glad to see that you could both make it.” Sherman pushed the rolling chair back, stood, and began walking in their direction, looking at the mayor and extending his hand as he neared. “What is your name again, sir? It is an honor to meet you.”

  The mayor automatically extended his hand and answered, “Webb Cobb. What about you?”

  Sherman proudly responded, “Sergeant First Class Abraham Samuel Sherman.” Of all the assumed names he had had, this was his favorite, because it honored three heroes of the United States.

  The two men exchanged further formalities as Redstone walked to his office, retrieved the folding chairs from within, returned, placed them in front of Bobbie Jo’s desk, and sat in one. The mayor and Sherman continued talking as they walked to their designated seats, and, as Sherman walked around the desk and sat in the office chair, the mayor started questioning.

  “So how many men are under your command?”

  Sherman answered without any hesitation, “Six men under my command.”

  Sherman wanted to shoot these fucking yokels and just get it over with. The only reason he was having a conversation with this pitiful excuse for a mayor was orders. Everything went back to orders. If it were up to him, he would have just napalmed the whole damn county or gone door to door and simply executed everyone, but orders were orders. His commanders wanted him to be cordial and win the hearts and minds of the natives, but he hated all these people as nothing more than savages clinging to their guns and religion. He had been ordered to put on a smile and appear to be the ambassador of goodwill from the federal government, but he didn’t understand why the hell it even mattered. He and the rest of his group had slept on their cots in the other room, but when he had heard a vehicle, he had begrudgingly risen to investigate while his men continued getting the rest he should have been getting. His hopes of the vehicle being some other hillbilly going from dirt farm to dirt farm were dashed against the rocks when he saw the redneck police truck crossing the highway.

  “So what all did y’all bring in the trucks?” The mayor asked, interrupting Sherman’s thoughts of how to torture the two retards in front of him.

  Motherfucker, is he really going to ask stupid questions like this all day? What the hell does it matter, old man? “I will have Sergeant Alvarez let you inspect the cargo when you are ready. Without going over each item, we basically brought food, water, and a few generators.” He thought pawning these two morons off on the other guys would be perfect revenge for getting more sleep than he had.

  “Water won’t be a big problem. There are plenty of streams,” the mayor helpfully supplied with a smile.

  Oh, of course it won’t, you dumb fuck, and I’m surprised you people had running water to begin with! “OK, well, having extra won’t hurt,” Sherman said through a forced smile.

  After what felt akin to hours of the expected questions, “What’s the news from the government?”,“What’s going on in other states?”,”When will the power be back on?” And everything else the mayor could manage to babble out—the mayor went to the subject Sherman had been preparing for all day.

  “Redstone told me something about martial law…?” The mayor left the sentence hanging, hoping S
herman would pick up and explain.

  Even though this idiot’s consent was not needed, he figured it would be reasonable to keep this leader among rednecks on his side, because he didn’t want to cover up how he had killed an entire town of pissed-off inbreds. “Yes sir. We briefly discussed that, and I had planned to fill you in today—”

  The mayor angrily stood, wiped his forehead with the already-soaked handkerchief, and asked him in an accusing tone, “Are you planning to confiscate firearms?”

  The mayor did not seem to be finished, but Sherman started speaking before the mayor could take another breath. “Actually, no sir, that is not the plan. I intended to initiate a gun buyback program where citizens can bring their firearms to exchange for federal vouchers.”

  As the mayor slowly sat back down and became less hostile, he stated, “Well, that is more civilized, but I doubt there will be too many people who will be willing to give you their guns.”

  Sherman was almost offended that these bumfuck hillbillies thought they were above complying with the federal government, and though he tried to cover his irritation, it still leaked out as he said, “I am sincerely sorry, but I am just following orders. We will have to make this mandatory, as it is in several other communities.” Hell, he wasn’t certain there were other military units stationed in other communities in Alabama, but he hoped the mayor would not feel his town had been treated differently from any other, and that would put him at ease. It was offensive but not surprising that these Mayberry fools would not rightfully bow to their leaders, but they would not feel so brave after a few skirmishes with his men: M4s versus bolt-action .30-30s always win.

  “I had expected as much,” Sherman began. “And that will be OK initially, but if ever this becomes a problem, we will have to confiscate most weapons.” He made sure to add emphasis on the word if, but he was going to make sure violence would be a problem.

  After a few more minutes of angry accusations by the mayor answered with calm statements by the SFC, the mayor seemed to gradually calm down and see the reason in Sherman’s explanations. To conclude this pissing contest, Sherman offered, “I don’t know about you, but I like to come to all of my decisions over a glass of whiskey. It’s considered contraband, but I enjoy bringing my personal bottle with me on assignments. After you finish looking over the supplies today, you will have had time to think about it and come to the same conclusion about these temporary laws, and we can talk about it over drinks.”

  ◆◆◆

  Even though Jeff would tell him Sherman was “a totalitarian fascist who works for a freedom-hating autocratic bureaucracy,” he was happy as hell that he wasn’t required to do anything. He was hoping these guys would stick around for a while, so he could catch up on his sleep. Since he had come in and brought the folding chairs from his office, he had done absolutely nothing but sit back and listen; he had not spoken during the entire conversation between Webb and Sherman, though he wanted to interject a few times when he found something they said funny. But his input really was not required. Although taking mental notes took some effort, it was a piece of ice-cream cake on a summer day compared to the shit he had been putting up with for the past week. Mmm, ice-cream cake.

  Jerked from his ice-cream cake thoughts by realizing he didn’t smell Reese’s Cups, he inquired, “Oh, by the way, where’s Bobbie Jo?”

  Sherman quickly responded, “Frankly, she was irritating the hell out of me, so I let her know that her services would not need required in the foreseeable future.”

  Redstone nodded, completely understanding the irritation, and wished he could have been the one to tell her to go the hell away.

  He silently followed the mayor as Sergeant Alvarez led them out of the town hall’s back door. When they stepped onto the small cement square that was the back porch, they immediately entered the trailer that was backed up against the porch, the trailer being only a few inches taller. Alvarez casually walked to it and pushed in a normal-size door that had been cut into the big one. Redstone made an “aha” noise, as if this had been choreographed. Alvarez stood inside the door and motioned for the two to enter.

  The mayor entered first, wanting to appear as though he knew exactly what this was and hoping Redstone would ask the same basic questions he did not have answers for. Webb could hear computers running and static and muted voices from some of the radio receivers. A bank of screens that were obviously security around the truck pointed in several directions, and there were other things one expected to only see in movies.

  “This is an MCU! A mobile command unit. I’ve seen these in movies.” Redstone exclaimed.

  Well, shit. Kids watch too much damn TV these days, but at least now I don’t have to ask Webb thought.

  The sergeant agreed. “You got it. We can power this thing almost completely with solar panels, twenty-four hours a day, and we have an open line to FEMA.”

  The three men made their way from one end of the trailer to the other, and the mayor was grateful he did not have to ask any questions—Redstone happily explained in detail almost everything they passed, as if he were a kid going to the museum for the second time and letting all of his friends know he was experienced. And the very few things Redstone could not describe, the sergeant answered as unspoken questions. As they neared the far wall, they stopped at a pair of man-sized cages.

  “I don’t remember those from the movies. Are those jail cells?” Redstone asked, dipping his head in that direction but looking at the sergeant.

  “Oh, yeah, I almost forgot about those. Those are just built into every MCU, but I don’t think we’ll be using them.”

  “There are no jail cells in town hall, so if for some reason we do need to arrest someone, will we be able to use these?” Webb asked the first words he had uttered since entering the trailer.

  The sergeant responded, “I don’t see why not. That’s what they’re for, anyway.”

  Satisfied with everything they had seen so far, the mayor and the other two men walked out of the MCU wordlessly except for a few oohs and ahs from Redstone whenever they passed something that looked interesting.

  Going through the store of medical supplies, food, water, and anything else the military might find essential in a disaster area took several hours. For some reason their tour guide felt the need to explain what was in every kind of MRE, how the water was being stored, and the use of every piece of triage equipment. They walked along the side of the MCU and up the steps, through the back door of town hall, still being led by Alvarez, and made their way to the far end of the short hallway to enter Bobbie Jo’s office, where Sherman sat at the desk with his briefcase laptop in front of him.

  Without taking his eyes from the screen, he greeted them. “Gentlemen, did you find everything to your liking?”

  Before the mayor could speak, the sergeant said, “Sir, the mayor has informed me there are no detention cells within this building and has requested to use the ones installed in the MCU if the need arises.”

  Sherman said as he closed his laptop, “I had noticed there were none here earlier, and I do not see why we cannot use what we have. It’s almost a guarantee that not everyone will follow martial law, and some will need to be detained.” He looked directly at the mayor, as if to ask if he understood, and the mayor nodded his head almost imperceptibly. With this agreement Sherman stood, motioning to the bottle of expensive whiskey and the two accompanying Dixie cups, and the mayor began to walk forward.

  The sergeant leaned over to whisper in Redstone’s ear, as if on cue, “Come on. I’ll show you some of our guns and shit. We even got crates of grenades!”

  Redstone was suspicious, noticing that Sergeant Alvarez had become more friendly and casual. But he wasn’t going to complain, because the sergeant had just offered to show him machine guns!

  He turned and followed the sergeant to another room as the mayor sat down on one of the folding chairs that were still in front of the desk.

  As he settled, Sherman began. “So I�
��m guessing you’ve decided to support our temporary actions?”

  “I suppose so. You don’t really need my support anyway.”

  I know we don’t, you stupid old inbred, Sherman thought. “Well, it’s not really a matter of needing. If I can gain your support, it just makes it that much easier to gain the support of everyone else.”

  The mayor almost felt that Sherman was being sincere but also felt he was just humoring him. Sherman leaned over the desk and poured three fingers into each cup.

  The mayor asked, “Can I at least keep my shotgun?”

  Sherman smiled and verified, “I think we can allow federal employees to keep firearms.”

  The mayor nodded thankfully as he grasped the cup of whiskey. Sherman stood up, raised his Dixie cup, and said, “A toast to cooperation!”

  The mayor stood as he spoke and raised his cup to tap against the other. Both men drank, sat down, and continued to sip and discuss what exactly would keep the community safe.

  CHAPTER 15

  July 16

  SHERMAN COULD NOT believe how shitty this town was. Even Mayberry had jail cells! The sheriff or whatever the hell he was didn’t even have a real office. Sherman walked around town hall finding almost none of what should have been in a real police station and looked to the clock, figuring Alvarez was almost done giving the stupid yokels their pointless tour, so he made it back to the secretary’s desk and opened his laptop to at least appear he had been busy. As usual, his timing was almost precise; less than five minutes later, the back door opened, and Alvarez walked forward to present himself with the other two idiots in tow. After a few short words among the group of men, the sergeant whispered to the skinny hillbilly, who excitedly followed him out of the room, leaving Sherman and the mayor alone. The mayor immediately noticed the bottle of whiskey, which Sherman had strategically placed on the desk next to two scavenged plastic cups. Both men smiled as he sat down.