Commune: Book Two (Commune Series 2)

by Joshua Gayou

  “Oh, man,” I smiled. “There’s more where that came from.”

  She shook her head and asked, “What’s up?”

  “Jake asked me to get you. I want to head into the city and he told me to take you with me.”

  She looked back at the girls and chewed her lip, almost certainly wondering what to do with her kid. I didn’t realize it at the time but Jeff must have been in earshot because he spoke out from behind us.

  “I can keep an eye on them, if that’s what you’re worried about. Jake is taking some of the others out in the Dodge to go looking for food and stuff and I think Gibs and Fred are going to start digging those pits. I don’t have much to do right now.”

  “Okay, that works,” Amanda said. “Thanks.” She looked back at the girls, “You all pay attention to what Jeff says, okay?”

  They nodded and Lizzy mumbled a “yes ma’am”.

  “Lizzy, come over here,” Amanda said. She took the girl over to the other side of the porch and whispered to her a while. I couldn’t tell what she was saying but she looked serious as a heart attack, so I looked away to give them their privacy.

  As I waited, I looked over at my little girl and said, “Like Amanda says, okay Mijita? Do as you’re told.”

  You know how you have those situations in your life where you wish more than anything in the world that you could go back and just change one decision? Even having nightmares where you’re screaming at yourself to do something different?

  Yeah.

  16 – Pissing Match

  Gibs

  That first week was a flurry of activity. Everyone had taken Jake’s little speech about food to heart and it was clear they were all moving at full blast to make up the difference. If the snow was likely to come in October, we only had a little over a month to get ready.

  Every day, people divided into two basic groups: scavengers and builders. The scavengers would head out into the city in one or more of the gas vehicles, taking along an armed guard; either Jake, Amanda, or myself. In the case of the Jeep, it was almost always a two-man team so that the rear seats could be folded down for more storage space. With the Dodge, there was a whole truck bed available, so four or five people usually made the trip there. Because of this, we found that the truck was always going out for bulk supplies (mostly food and such) while the Jeep went out for harder to find specialty items.

  Poor Oscar often found himself torn between duties. He and Fred knew more about building things (or at least, building things the right way rather than just slapping any old shit together) than the rest of us combined but they were both also very strong and could lug heavy things around all day long. Additionally, Oscar usually had to go out to find stuff that he needed to build with. Sometimes he could just tell the rest of us what was required, but he was often afraid he either wouldn’t explain the needed items well enough or that we’d misunderstand and end up wasting gas getting the wrong items. You could tell it frustrated the hell out of him because it ended up taking him twice as long to finish a lot of projects.

  Fred and I had the shit holes dug and ready on day one but, not surprisingly, no one was really in a rush to start using them because they were just a couple of holes out in the middle of nowhere. Most everyone else was out in the city, except for George and Barbara, looking for food and other stuff, so I couldn’t tell Oscar the work was done and that it was time to get going on the outhouses. He was out working on the shelter problem, anyway, so I figured it would be a while before the pits were put to active use, which was actually a little galling. Why the hell had I jumped in so quick to dig a couple of shit pits, making myself all sweaty and dirty, if they weren’t going into service for a few days?

  Walking up to the edge of one of them, I unzipped and relieved myself.

  “Oh, you’re just gonna whip your stuff out and get busy, ain’tcha?” Fred said, mildly disgusted.

  “I’m testing my handiwork, man.”

  “That’s just nasty. Can’t just be pulling out your dick like that. At least turn away or something.”

  “Hell, it’s not like I give a damn,” I said, shaking off. “I lost all those barriers a long time ago.” I packed it away, pulled out some wet wipes from a bag we’d kept by our water bottles, and wiped off my hands. “You know what it’s like doing a piss test in the Marines?”

  Fred shook his head.

  I walked over to him and stood shoulder to shoulder, then leaned my head close to his and looked down his front. I whispered, “An observer is there, standing close by just like I am now, to watch you fill the bottle. He could almost put his arm around your shoulders…” I said, as I started to creep my left arm around him and rest my palm against his back.

  “Hey, get the fuck off me, man!” he erupted through nervous laughter.

  I laughed as well and said, “Sorry, man. You just get used to it. I got out of the habit for a long time, what with all the civilized behavior I was exposed to when I left the Marines, but it’s one of those skills you can always fall back to, like riding a bike.”

  I went over to grab the shovel, waters, and other stuff to walk back to the house. “We’ll need to put some plywood over these to keep them from filling in and keep people from falling in. Would you grab the pick?” I turned and was mildly surprised to see Fred, with his back to me, pissing into the hole next to the one I’d just used.

  “No, man. That’s the lady’s room,” I said.

  His shoulders started to shake as he laughed and he said, “Hey, kiss my ass, Gibs.”

  “This ain’t one of those gender identity things, is it? Do I need to dig a third hole or something?”

  He laughed hard at that but then turned and said, “Alright, man, that’ll do.” He said it amiably enough and his smile was genuine but I could detect just a hint of an edge underneath his voice, like he was getting ready to start taking offense if I didn’t lay off.

  “Hey, no problem, man. No offense, okay?”

  He flapped his arms at me as he walked back in my direction, as though I was being silly, and said, “Hey, it’s cool, man. We all are just fucking around here.”

  He slapped me on the shoulder, hard enough to jerk the top of my body to the side, and squeezed my arm. He then deliberately pulled the pack of wipes out of my hand, removed a few of them, and began to wash his hands, all while smiling at me in good natured fashion.

  “The fuck was that?” I said, voice low.

  He pulled a confused expression and said, “What, man?”

  “Don’t pull that innocent cunt look with me like a what-the-fuck grenade just went off in your face. You know good and goddamned fucking well what’s going on here. How far do you want to escalate this, Fred?”

  I didn’t realize it at the time but I had taken a few steps towards him. He backed up a couple of paces, putting his heels on the edge of one of the pits. I’d dropped the bottles of water but was still holding the shovel. Belatedly, I dropped that too.

  “Hey, Gibs, look-” he said.

  “It’s too late to pretend you didn’t mean anything, Daisy. We both know perfectly well how I feel about proper sanitation. You’re counting on me not calling out that you just purposefully rubbed your fucking mitt all over me before washing your hands…some fucking moronic dominance horseshit. Only now here I am in your face, and you look about as vicious to me as a bowl of Ovaltine.”

  He stayed quiet a moment while he considered me and I began to wonder what would happen next. I’d gotten the worst of my annoyance off my chest and was just remembering the fact that I was only really up to Fred’s chin and he probably outweighed me by eighty pounds. I was beginning to wonder if I wouldn’t just be better off shoving him into the hole and running off for a bazooka.

  Finally, Fred sighed and slowly picked a water bottle up off the ground. Uncapping it, he dumped the entire thing over his hands and washed them thoroughly. He held one hand out to me and said, “Look, sometimes things piss me off and I take it the wrong way. We’re both asshole
s. Do over?”

  I considered for a moment just how much of an asshole I wanted to be but decided ultimately that he was sincere. I took his hand and nodded. “I’ll tone the ribbing down.”

  Right about the time Fred and I were wrapping up our little pissing match, Oscar and Amanda were returning to the valley from the day’s first excursion. They rolled up in the jeep just as we were dragging a plywood sheet out of the garage.

  “Hey, any luck, you guys?” called Fred as they climbed out of the Jeep. In answer, Amanda walked around to the back to open the rear door, exposing row on row of clothing stacked up as high as the seatbacks.

  “We found a few things for you guys while we were out scouting for campers,” Amanda said. “I’m pretty sure we found some clothes that will fit you, big guy.”

  “Oh, thank you, Jesus,” Fred said. “You have no idea how much more uncomfortable these shorts are after digging in the dirt for the last few hours.” He looked at me and asked, “Okay with you if I change right quick?”

  “Nah, get after it,” I said. “I can get someone else to drag this with me.”

  Fred’s voice thundered out through the field as he advised the others to get their butts over to help unload the jeep. Those people who weren’t out with Jake looking for food, such as Alish, Barbara, Jeff, and all of the kids, spilled out from various nearby areas to help unload. Meanwhile, Oscar had run up to grab the other end of the plywood sheet and nodded to me to get moving.

  “Thanks,” I said as I started walking. “These things are heavier than they look.”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Oscar. “Especially this three quarter stuff. A full sheet of this is both heavy and awkward.”

  We humped the sheet of plywood across the field for a while, maybe thirty or forty seconds, before the silence started making me feel all twitchy, so I said, “How’s the search for trailers going?”

  “Good and bad. Good in that we already found two today. Bad because one of them is just a teardrop camper. It’ll only sleep three people…cramped.”

  “Oh, well, it’s a start anyway,” I said. “The main thing is beds and shelter.”

  “That’s a part of it,” Oscar agreed, “but I gotta get people spread out into their own space, too. We can’t keep being crammed on top of each other like we are. People will start tearing each other’s heads off otherwise.”

  I thought of Fred and muttered, “No shit.”

  We approached the holes and laid the sheet over them, taking care to ensure that both were sufficiently covered. I said, “We’ll have to build little houses over these. The critical factor is that the floor have a good seal all away around the hole and also that the box we end up sitting on has a lid that seals up tight as well. If any part of the pit is left open this whole area’ll get completely overrun with flies.”

  “No problem, man,” he said. “I know how it can be done. It’ll take maybe a couple of days to do the whole thing once I have all the material up here.”

  I said, “You’re going to be a busy guy for the next forever, I think. You just let the rest of us know how we can help. You and Fred don’t have to remain as the only guys who know how to build shit. We can get you set up with, well, apprentices, I guess. Greg and Alan both have a couple of strong backs on them…trust me, I know.”

  “Hey, let me ask you something,” Oscar said. The tone of his voice told me something was bugging him so I gave him my full attention. “What’s your take on Amanda and Jake?”

  “Oh, well, they seem okay, so far. Jake can be kind of a weirdo, but then, I think anyone who survives what we all have comes out a little touched, if you know what I’m saying.”

  “Naw, man. I mean Jake and Amanda…together.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Uh…hadn’t given it much thought, really.”

  Oscar looked back in the direction of the cabin, silently getting into his own head.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I just kind of assumed they were together, you know? Like, every so often she’ll put a hand on his shoulder or his arm and leave it there just a little longer than normal, right?”

  “I guess,” I said. “I don’t know if that means anything. Some people are just more touchy-feely than others.”

  “Yeah, come on, you know what I mean. Plus, does Amanda seem like the touchy-feely type to you?”

  “Huh. You do have a point there,” I said. Piss her off enough and Amanda seemed a lot more like she could be the shooty-stabby type, honestly.

  “She asked me to help her build a house for her and Lizzy while we were out alone today,” Oscar said, still looking at the cabin. “She was…um…really serious. ‘Serious’ isn’t the right word, actually, but I’m having trouble thinking of one that fits.”

  “Insistent?”

  He snapped his fingers and pointed at me. “There you go. She was insistent.”

  “You don’t think Jake’s putting hands on her, do you?”

  “Nah,” Oscar said. “I don’t get that feeling from her. We knew women back in the barrio that used to get smacked around by their husbands. Amanda doesn’t act like them at all.”

  “Well, shit. Maybe she just wants her own place, man. Did you ask her?”

  “Not about that, no.”

  “But you did ask her something? What was it?”

  “Never mind,” Oscar said.

  Amanda asked me to head back out with her and Oscar to retrieve the two campers; to provide another set of hands, eyes, and cover. I told her I was happy to do so, and she spent the next few minutes waiting by the truck while I retrieved my rifle and scavenged rig. She and Oscar both were already wearing some sort of sleek, black, lightweight body armor that appeared to have taken a beating in its service life. They had been wearing this stuff when they made their first excursion that morning.

  They had stumbled upon an RV park located in the rough center of Jackson south of the 191. The thing was right in the middle of the city, right next to a bar and library; surrounded by parking lots and businesses. I wondered about the kind of people who would come to camp at such a location given the fact that Jackson itself was sitting ass-to-shoulders with both Yellowstone and the Grand Teton national parks. I suppose they must have charged more affordable rates, but honestly, why come to this area with an RV just to park it by the fucking drug store?

  The park itself had been mostly emptied out by the time we got to it; nearly all of the stalls were vacant and many of the trailers that were still there had been trashed, gutted, or rendered otherwise unusable. There were two exceptions; one little teardrop trailer and a much larger RV truck. Jake was still out with Wang and the others in the Dodge collecting food, so the three of us (Oscar, Amanda, and me) decided to throw a couple of filled gas cans into the Ford and head out to retrieve Oscar’s first score.

  We took a detour on the way, driving further north to an Ace Hardware store, where Oscar lost his goddamned mind and ran around grabbing everything in sight. He wanted to start by loading the truck bed up with a shit ton of lumber, which I only talked him out of by explaining it would be better for us to come back with the trailer because it could hold a lot more. He agreed and instead spent the next hour and a half hauling armloads of whatever tools had been spared from looting outside to throw in the bed. He also lined up several five gallon buckets and proceeded to fill them with box after box of nails and screws of all sizes; not putting the whole box in, of course, but opening the boxes and dumping their contents into the buckets. By the time we were done, the truck looked like it was loaded with enough shit to build a housing tract. I was just rubbing a knot in my back when Oscar scurried back to the passenger side of the truck cab, jumped in, and slapped his hand on the outside door panel.

  “Andale!”

  “Jesus Christ, alright, Speedy,” I said as I eased up into the back seat. “Keep your sombrero on.”

  “Racist…” said Oscar.

  “Oh, hell, there he goes again,” I said.

  “I don’t know if I’
d call that racist,” Amanda said to Oscar as she got the truck moving. “You are moving pretty fast.”

  “C’mon, I know the dude’s not racist,” Oscar laughed.

  “You missed it, Amanda,” I said. “He got me with that early on when we first met. I made some stupid comment or other-“

  “It wasn’t that stupid, man,” said Oscar.

  “-and he ribbed me a bit.”

  Amanda smiled. “What did you say?”

  “He asked me if I spoke ‘Mexican’,” Oscar said.

  “Oh, shit,” laughed Amanda.

  “So right away, the little jerk launches into a whole routine,” I said. “Why I gotta be a Mexican? Why is it all the brown people south of the border only come from Mexico with you people? So I start trying to smooth things over and tell him, ‘oh, man, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to assume, where did your family originate from,’ and all that.”

  “I told him we came from Mexico,” Oscar hooted. “He got all pissed off. Fuckin’ priceless.”

  “Hey,” I said to Oscar. “Language, man.”

  Amanda scoffed from behind the wheel. “Gibs, we talked about this already. I absolve you of any need to watch your language around me. It’s fine. I don’t care.”

  “Huh,” I grunted. “Well, fair enough, I guess.”

  We circled back down the 191 to return to the RV park. As we drove onto the premises, I had a nasty thought and asked, “Hey, did you guys check out these campers you found? We’re not gonna have to clear out bodies, are we?”

  “Both abandoned,” Oscar assured me. “We’re good.”

  The RV and camper were located at different ends of the park, so they dropped me off at the RV along with my rifle and the gas cans. I decided to pour only one five gallon can into the tank, reasoning that I could always add in more along the way if I needed to. I doubted that I’d burn five gallons’ worth of gas on the way back but I wasn’t entirely sure. No matter; I didn’t want to put in all ten gallons only to have to siphon out what I didn’t use when we got the RV parked back at home. Wherever we parked it back in the valley was likely to be permanent.