by Kurt Gepner
"I know," Hank said. His voice was despondent. He was using a hand axe to make kindling. The chopping block was an eight-inch thick slab of maple that had been employed as such for about ten years.
"It’s like you’re on a rampage. Like you’ve got a mission to make everybody mad, or something," Evie said. "And what you said to that boy… He’s just been orphaned. And you're treating him like..." Her jaw levered a few times as she searched for words. "Like it's tough shit. Like he needs to just move on."
"You may not see it yet, Evie, but all of the rules have changed. He does need to move on, because there's no crisis counselor around to help him work through his feelings." Hank's tone had filled with disgust and harshness, but he calmed himself. "Besides, you saw… he was going to be a problem," Hank defended. "How would you have handled it?"
"I don’t know," Evie retorted. Thrusting her fingers out in angry quote marks she said, "You ‘handled’ it without me." Her wrath began to boil.
"It needed to be handled right away, Evie." The blade of the hand axe bit deeply into the chopping block and Hank faced his wife. "I’ve let him use my shop and do projects around here since him and Jeremy started chumming around. I’ve seen what he’s like. All you’ve done is fed him cookies."
"So that gives you the right to throw him out on the street?" She kept her voice low, and dangerous.
"I’m not throwing him out!" Hank growled back.
"You may as well have," she accused.
"We’ll see," Hank said and began stacking the kindling on the wadded paper inside the furnace.
"What is wrong with you? You’ve been acting like the biggest horse’s ass since you got back from your heist, last night." Evie was half pleading with him for understanding and half attacking him.
"I’m afraid," Hank admitted.
"We’re all afraid, Hank, but we’re not all getting in each other’s face," Evie said.
Hank took a box of stick-matches from a shelf and scratched one across the cement floor until it flared to life. As he touched the flame to different spots on the paper, Evie kept talking. "I’m not even sure I know you, right now. The Hank I know wouldn’t have thrown out Candice. She apologized and offered her hand. You just spat on it and tossed her out like some heartless bastard. It was the right thing to do, but it wasn’t the Hank I know."
Hank grabbed a few thicker pieces of kindling and poked them into the crackling fire. It quickly consumed its fuel. "So what is it? Why have you been such an ass?"
Hank stopped feeding the fire and looked at his wife. "Evie," he began. It took him a moment longer to find his voice. "You know, I’m trying to save your life, but it’s like you’re fighting me on it." Evie frowned and opened her mouth to speak, but Hank held up a hand to say that he hadn’t finished his thought. "Everybody has said ‘okay’ to the idea of heading up to the mountains, but nobody wants to go and you’re beating the drums of descent loudest of all."
Evie laughed nervously, because she knew it was true. Although she had agreed to leave, she had been subtly expressing her doubt about the plan all morning. "What do you expect?" she asked defensively. "We’ve got it made right here."
Hank smiled and pointed at her, nodding in agreement. "Yeah," he said, "we do."
Knowing her husband much better than any other living person, Evie knew he was not really agreeing with her. "But?" She said to prompt his rebuttal.
"But it won’t last," he said with a defeated sigh.
"Okay, Hank, why do you think that?" She offered him the opportunity to convince her.
"What time is it?" Hank asked. Evie shrugged and shook her head. He supplied her with the answer. "The time on the clock was ten-fifteen, when we came out here."
"What’s your point?" She snarled at him, because she hated when he asked a question already knowing its answer.
Hank silently counted his fingers and then said, "It’s almost twenty hours since the… the… event. Have you heard a jet fly over, or anything that suggests that someone is coming to save us?"
Evie shook her head at the ceiling. "We’ve already been through this, Hank. You’ve made your point."
"No I haven’t!" Evie gave him a look that said, ‘I won’t take your attitude, so watch it!’ Hank gnawed on his bottom lip before going on. "Evie, if I had made my point, everybody would be scrambling to get the hell out of here."
She frowned. "Why?"
"Let me put it to you in the form of a question," he said. "What wouldn’t you do for your grandchildren?"
"You know the answer to that," she said, crossing her arms and cocking her head to the side.
"I do, but I want you to realize that there are a lot of parents and grandparents out there. You are not the only one who would do anything for their young." Hank could see the ramifications churning in her mind. He went on. "In a big disaster, like a hurricane or earthquake, there’re usually a number of casualties and a lot of supplies to scrounge from. And even though the authorities may botch the emergency relief, it usually doesn’t take long before people are being rescued and fed and organized.
"In this case there are very few casualties because people could just run out into the rain. But most of the supplies, not just food but clothes and blankets, have been burned up." Hank gave her a pointed look and put it in simple business terms. "There is a finite supply of everything and a vast demand, with no network for distribution."
Finishing the thought, Evie said, "So those who have nothing will seek to meet their needs through any means, while those who have something will be forced to defend it in an equal fashion." Her eyes sparkled with a mixture of terror and Eureka, as the scope of her situation finally crystallized in her mind.
Hank gave her a nod. "Well put."
"So," Evie went on, "Why don’t we just gather up what we’ve got and get the hell out of Dodge?"
Hank snapped his fingers and pointed at his wife. "That," he said with an ardent pitch, "is a brilliant idea!" Then he shook his head and let his shoulders slump. "But I can’t seem to get folks on the same page. They’re just grumbling and dragging their heels." He gave his wife a sidelong glance.
With a smile, Evie wrapped her arms around her husband and seductively said, "If you promise to bring my bed, I’ll get everybody on the same page."
Hank chuckled and pushed away from his wife. "What?" he asked, surprised and confused.
"My bed," Evie said with wide eyes. "I have a bad back and it’s the only bed that’s ever helped. I’m not leaving without it."
"What if it had burned up with the house?" He asked.
"It didn’t," she stated matter-of-factly. "Now promise me that my bed comes with us and I’ll promise to get everybody as worked up about the move as you are."
Hank boggled at his wife. "Promise me, damn it!" Evie stomped her foot.
"You’re serious?" He knew she was, but was finding it hard to believe.
"I’m serious," she confirmed.
Mystified, Hank shook his head, but said, "Okay. By hook or by crook, your bed will come with us."
Evie smiled and patted her husband on the chest. "Good man." She nodded to the furnace. "Your fire’s out," she said with a laugh. "Now quit being such an ass," she ordered and left him to rekindle it.
It took only a few minutes to re-stoke the fire and coax a worthy blaze in the furnace. The fan got the flames extremely hot and required a fairly constant feed of fuel. It would take about an hour to get the water up to boil, once the fire was burning like an incinerator. After that the batteries would be fully charged in just a couple hours. Hank fumed at the waste of time. He needed to be doing other things, but they needed power. Running the lights last night and cooking for more than twenty people had severely taxed the batteries and he didn’t want to be caught in a fix with dead batteries.
Why is it always so hard to get people to see what’s obvious? Hank pondered. I’ve spelled it out in plain language and they nod like a bunch of bobble heads, but they don’t see what’s right in fron
t of them.
The fire was growing to an intensity that consumed a split piece of wood every few minutes. Hank let his mind wander to the days of river boats and what it might have been like to keep those fires fed. He thought he recalled the statistic that they burned four cords of wood a day. That was enough to keep his house warm all winter. He wasn’t long in his reverie when little Patty came into the oven-hot chamber.
"Evie said I could help you," Patty said innocently. Her new friend, Amanda, silently trailed her. Amanda was cleaned up and wearing a summer dress that Hank recognized as having once belonged to one of his daughters. Her wide-set eyes regarded him with a little fear.
Hank swallowed and thought to himself, If we don’t put responsibility on our children, they won’t be ready to face the world. Hank smiled at the young girls. "Actually," he said, "I have something very important for you to do. But only if you’re dedicated. Are you up to doing something very important?"
Patty, who was ten, nodded readily. Amanda scrunched her head into her shoulders and looked at her feet. "Okay," Hank said to Patty, conspiratorially, "This furnace is making heat that runs a steam engine. You know, like the old-time trains?" Patty nodded her understanding. "The steam engine runs the generator, which charges the batteries that power the lights and other things in the house. Does that make sense?"
Patty giggled and said that she understood. Amanda listened attentively, but averted her eyes if Hank looked directly at her. He went on. "Okay, then. I need to do a bunch of other things, so I don’t have time to feed the fire. Do you think you can keep this fire roaring?"
"Yes," she said with a giggle. Hank felt a deep trepidation at the idea of leaving a giggling, ten-year-old girl in charge of the power supply for the house and his shop.
He smiled and looked her in the eyes. "I’m serious, now. Are you sure you can keep this thing going?"
Patty giggled again, instilling no confidence in Hank. She clumsily took up a chunk of wood and threw it in the furnace. Hank showed her how to use the wrought iron poker to arrange the wood. She threw in another piece and shoved it around with the poker. "I’m a Camp Fire girl," she said, bristling with pride. "I know how to keep a fire going. I want to help."
Scruffing her hair, Hank said, "Okay, Patty. You do your thing. It really is a lot of help." Looking directly at the other girl, he said, "I expect you to help her and work hard." Amanda gasped at being addressed and shrank behind Patty. Hank didn’t push it.
Patty beamed at his gratitude. Hank left her and Amanda to do their work and walked along the side of the house up to the front porch, where he heard some commotion.
CHAPTER FIVE
A bedraggled man and woman were huddled over one of the children in Bertel’s care, smothering him with hugs and kisses and tears. Hank thought the boy’s name was Jimmy. A small cluster of men and women stood at his fence, as rugged and dirty as the pair on his porch but grinning and laughing with relief as they watched the reunion.
On the porch, near where Hank stood, Bertel was comforting and calming a little girl who was crying for her mommy. The reunion of her playmate with his parents had jarred loose her insulation of adaptability and for the moment she was keenly aware of what she was missing. Hank heard Bertel saying, "Tut, tut, tut, Nickie. They still love you. It’ll be all right."
From the bench that wrapped around the base of the cherry tree, even Brody was giving sober attention to the display. When he saw Hank watching him from the side gate, however, he deftly pulled a cloak of apathy over his visage of despair. Brody kicked a pile of leaves and tromped over to the back patio. He threw himself into one of the chairs that he had helped Hank to build last summer. There, all alone, he let his tears flow.
Evie opened the front door and beckoned to the two parents and the knot of people in the street. "Come in, come in," she said with a cheerfulness that seemed out of sync with the whole world. "Are you hungry?" With fluttering hospitality, Evie ushered the new arrivals into the dining room. Hank tried to catch her eye, horrified by what she was doing. She either ignored him or did not see his expression. He wasn’t sure which.
The disheveled band of wayfarers filed into the house, expressing their gratitude all the way. They were streaked with soot and grime and sweat. Seven strangers, four women and three men, all but one dressed in black slacks with vests over shirts of differing colors. The woman not dressed like the others looked to be in her late to mid-twenties and wore grey sweat pants, a pair of pink Nikes, an equally pink camisole and a tan wool coat.
They were all given seats around the dining room table, except one man, whom Evie guided into the kitchen. She placed a chair where Salvador had been patched up several hours earlier and ordered him to sit in it. Theresa was called to duty and proceeded to stitch closed a deep laceration that oozed above his left brow. The man had acted completely unaware of it, but was glad to have it tended to.
The guests were given water and rags with which to scrub their faces and necks, while Evie prepared some oatmeal. As they waited, Evie insisted on making introductions before allowing her guests to be pelted with questions. After naming everyone in her group, she started setting bowls of piping-hot oatmeal on the table and asked the strangers their names.
Sarah and Tom Pernell were the couple who had fussed over Jimmy and they were easily in their fifties. She was a dusty blonde woman with a ruddy complexion and cheerful blue eyes. His lined hawkish face was fairer than Sarah’s, but Tom’s dark eyes looked as if they could swing between joy and fury in less than a blink. His face seemed to have missed a razor by three days, but his short, thinning hair was well groomed.
The pair were actually Jimmy’s aunt and uncle and Bertel had been their daycare provider for the past three years, since they had taken custody of their nephew. For twenty-three years they had lived in the Rosebud neighborhood, just six blocks away, on the other side of I-5.
Bertel received a continual gush of gratitude from Sarah and Tom for keeping their nephew safe. Of course, the older woman rejected every shred of it saying, "Oh, tisk. I’ve done nothing more than my job." But the German woman couldn’t mask her posture, nor the bubbles in her voice. She clearly glowed with the praise they paid her.
The man being stitched in the kitchen was the oldest among the group, being somewhere in his late sixties, and the others treated him with deference. He carried some girth on his medium frame, but he moved with ease and an extreme awareness of body. His weary grin gleamed brightly against his dark-chocolate skin and the short, salted goatee framing his full-lipped mouth matched his tightly groomed hair.
Introducing himself as Silas Jones, he offered a warm handshake to everybody in reach speaking with a gritty, resonant, baritone voice, "Oh it’s so good to see a friendly face. How are you? Thank you so much for having us in." On his right hand he wore a gold army ring; its emerald glinted innocuously. Around his left wrist a wide gold Rolex sparkled brightly. He was a pit boss at the Sunset Saloon, a casino about fifteen miles North of Vancouver, in La Center, Washington.
The woman in pink tennis shoes was the most removed member of the group. Andrea McDarcy was a somewhat plump woman with a squared face and mousey blonde hair held back with a black clip. Her car had died on the overpass where she met the others. It was where she had taken shelter from the rain. Andrea had been driving home from visiting her mother in Seattle. Since they had a common destination and safety in numbers, she joined the group.
The group at large had agreed to head straight to Bertel’s, because Sarah and Tom were the only ones among them with a child to care for. Andrea would have left them along the way, but her apartment had collapsed in on itself. She told her hosts that the sight of her destroyed home had upset her, but Evie could tell that there was more to her sullen demeanor than the recent trauma she had experienced. Andrea tried to be friendly with everybody, but could only manage a light moroseness.
In contrast to her somber traveling companion, Phim Pham Xuan, a longhaired woman of Asian anc
estry, was a storm of giddiness. She was practically maniacal. Her high-pitched laughter and piggy snorts punctuated any comment that held even the barest sliver of humor. Phim, as she preferred to be addressed, worked as a bartender at the Phoenix Pheather Casino, or had until her shift started at two-thirty, yesterday. Her boss had just taken her into the office because he was about to give her the boot. Then everything went crazy. She finished her story through fits of laughter. "I’m still employed, but I have no more job!" she said with a frightening excess of glee.
Sitting very close to Phim was a woman whose close shaved neck and cropped-top hair gave her a decidedly masculine appearance that was only reinforced by the fit of her clothing. After she had cleaned up and got a bowl of oatmeal in her belly, she seemed to loosen the restraint she had placed on her lips. Jessie Kressal told her hosts that she was a pit boss, like Silas, and that she and Phim lived together. "Yes," she said, holding up a hand as if swearing testimony, "we’re that way." This drew a shriek of laughter from Phim, who leaned into her girlfriend and kissed her reddening round cheek.
The youngest among them was a man in his mid-twenties. His cropped, black hair was too short to be mussed and his fresh, dark eyes danced around the room, lingering on Lexi’s furtive smile. TJ Wilson was a dealer and croupier at the Sunset Saloon. He was one of those rare people who not only enjoyed his job, but it was also his hobby. "I like people," he said with a white-toothed smile. "And I’ve always been really good with cards. You know, doing tricks and stuff. And I love to see how people act when they win. It just seems natural to work at a casino."