Commune: Book Two (Commune Series 2)

by Joshua Gayou

  It turned out people were happy to help with this project, mostly because they knew that Amanda’s cabin was going to end up being a prototype of sorts. Once we figured out the process to build these things, we’d have the main kinks worked out and know how to do the job better and faster, just as we’d seen with the container homes. With this understanding, a lot of folks wanted Amanda’s cabin to succeed so that we could learn what mistakes there were to be made (because we would damned well make them). Basically, a lot of people wanted their own cabins down the line and they knew that in order for that reality to happen, we had to learn how to build them in the first place.

  So, Oscar and Amanda were lining up a block foundation while my tortured ass mixed up batch after batch of mortar. A few hours in and I gave up any hope of actually finishing on that day; resigned instead to just mix the shit either until my arms fell off or some strange evildoer came along and granted me the sweet release of death. At one point, I asked Oscar how much of the stuff he thought we’d actually need to get the foundation laid just so I could gauge how much there was left to do. The son of a bitch said, “Just keep mixing ‘till I’m tired, homes”, and then issued his little Speedy Gonzales giggle while picking up a cinder block with each hand in an effortless pinch grip that made them look like they weighed no more than a couple of pounds. He carried them over to the line he was constructing and laid them into a shallow trench, leaving me to reminisce sadly on a time when my hands could still work that deftly; they had become so cramped and blistered by that point that I doubted my ability to wipe my own ass.

  Oscar called a lunch break towards the middle of the day, right as the morning’s scavenging crew was returning from their excursion. These scavenging activities were broken into shifts between a morning and afternoon crew, which helped to ensure that Housekeeping kept moving forward as well as spread out the limited number of firearms. The Page brothers had gone out that morning with Fred and Monica; they would be followed that day by Wang, Rebecca, Davidson, and Alish.

  There was a bit of a handoff meeting between the two shift teams that happened during this period; the morning crew would eat lunch with the noon crew and discuss what ground had been covered, what they found or who they may have run into, areas that could use some more careful searching, and so on. As they all settled into chairs at a long table outside the garage, Amanda was setting up our own little picnic spot next to her future home, pulling the lid off a cooler loaded with food and drink while Oscar and I made a low table and stools out of cinder blocks and a few sandbags. The fare was decent; crackers just shy of going stale and some canned meat that she’d cooked up early that morning before wrapping it up in tinfoil.

  “I never thought I’d say this,” I said, slapping a slice of meat between two crackers and stuffing the wad into my mouth, “but I’d kill for a fresh salad.”

  “You didn’t like salad?” Amanda asked.

  “No, not before,” I said. “It was pretty much steak, potatoes, and cheese for me. Pasta too, I guess, but all that green stuff wasn’t food. It was the shit my food ate. I never thought I’d miss it.” I turned another cracker-meat sandwich over in my hands, regarding it dubiously, and said, “Damned if I wouldn’t do unspeakable things for a fresh wedge of cold iceberg lettuce smothered in ranch. God forgive me…”

  “I miss tacos,” Oscar said through a mouthful, which surprised a snort out of me.

  “Hah, way to perpetuate the stereotype, fella,” I said while trying to keep from coughing on my cracker.

  Oscar smiled but said, “Hey, bite me, alright? I love it; the white guy who lived off steak and potatoes wants to tell me I’m a stereotype. You doing that on purpose or are you just, like, clueless?”

  I shrugged and nodded. “Fair point.”

  “What I was talking about,” Oscar continued, “were the tacos my wife used to make. She’d bust ‘em out once a month at least. She made everything up fresh that day; the salsa, guacamole, beans, rice, steak…all that. Man, no one made guacamole like my old lady. And then, right before she put it all out on the table, she’d fry the tortillas in oil on the stove. Her tacos were unbeatable. Every time was the best time, man, no lie.”

  “What was your wife like?” Amanda asked. “I think this is the first time I’ve heard you talk about her.”

  Oscar was quiet for a time, not looking at either of us, before he said, “It’s still hard to talk about her, you know? Like, I can talk about things she did but it’s hard to describe her. Who she was. Do you get what I mean? Maybe I’m full of shit…” he trailed off.

  “No,” I shot out, surprising them both. “You’re not full of shit. I think I can speak for Amanda and say we both understand.”

  Amanda nodded, shifting her gaze from me back to Oscar.

  Oscar went quiet again, flipping a cracker between his fingers like it was an edible poker chip. Finally, he heaved a deep sigh and said, “She stayed with me when she had every right – every reason – to ditch my stupid ass and find something better. And she gave me Maria. Everything good about my little girl is because of her mother; I’m too hard and fuckin’ stupid to be responsible for any of that. She…I…” He cleared his throat hard, the sound halfway between a scream and a growl. “…can’t even say her name without…”

  Just like that, Oscar was hunched over and shaking silently, trying to hold in the sobs that I’m sure he was ashamed of, a long life of growing up hard having conditioned him to believe he was embarrassing himself; behaving womanly. He had the heel of his right hand jammed over his mouth, with the fingers of his left hand wrapped around the wrist in a vice grip, and his arm muscles bulged as he fought to stop up his mouth with the palm.

  Amanda positioned herself closer to him, wrapped her arms around him while resting her chin on his shoulder, and began to rock him slowly while he struggled to master himself. As I shifted to get up from my seat, she and I both nodded at each other wordlessly, and I walked a respectful distance away to stand guard, ready to tell anyone who might approach to fuck off.

  I stood that way a few minutes with my back to them, looking out over the valley. The two scavenging crews were still up at the table enjoying their lunch, it seemed, and I wondered idly how much time I had left before I had to wrap my hands around that hateful shovel. Presently, I could hear Amanda and Oscar talking to each other, though their voices were low and guarded. I didn’t move; they’d call me when they were ready. I looked down at the patch of ground I was standing on and toed a clump of grass with my boot.

  A shout erupted from across the field, yanking my attention back up towards the cabin to see a snarl of flailing limbs and a bunch of people skipping around in circles by the picnic table. The sight was so unexpected that it took me several seconds to process what was actually happening. At first, I thought Wang was choking on some food or something, that the surrounding people were freaking out over it, and that Fred was trying to help clear his airway. Pulling a mental double-take, I soon realized what was really going on: Fred had Wang in a bully choke while in the process of fending off Monica and Davidson, who were trying to pull him away, and he looked as though he was about to knock Wang’s whole fucking head off.

  A fraction of a second before this all clicked into place, Davidson’s panicked voice tore through the valley: “GIIIBS!”

  Fred must have outweighed Wang by a good hundred to a hundred and thirty pounds; if he got a hand free enough to take a swing and connect, it would probably be a world-ender. Without waiting to see what Amanda or Oscar were up to, I dug into the ground with both feet like a track runner and launched myself in Fred’s direction, not knowing if I could get there in time but pushing with everything I had despite the uncertainty.

  I was about three quarters of the way there when Fred jerked hard to the side. I don’t know if he swung with his fist or elbow, or even if he swung at all, but the result was that Davidson fell off of him and ran into Alan. Both of them went sprawling into the dirt from the impact and I unders
tood that neither of them would be getting back into the fight in time to provide any further hindrance.

  As I closed the distance, I realized that Fred was shouting into Wang’s face, who only struggled in the larger man’s grip with his teeth bared in a grimace and the whites of his eyes exposed, resembling a terrified horse rearing back from a snake. I’m unable to recall the details of what Fred said exactly but the gist of what I caught during the few remaining steps it took to close the gap told me everything I needed to know about what was happening. In essence, what Fred yelled was, “What you got to say now?”

  So, Wang had been running his mouth again, apparently. Briefly, I contemplated just letting Fred clock the dumb bastard. No sane man wants to step in front of an enraged bull, after all.

  I couldn’t do that, of course, and instead reached out to wrap both of my arms around Fred’s elbow, which was already drawn back to full cock and ready to fire out. I’m sure I yelled a few choice phrases and suggestions into Fred’s ear as well, but I’ll be damned if I can remember what I said anymore. I was so jacked on adrenaline at the time that the details of that exact moment all run together. I can recall that I half expected Fred to drop Wang and redirect at me, which is a big part of what I was trying to do by unloading every insult I could think of at him. Instead of giving me what I hoped for, Fred drew the arm I was trying to hold back across his chest, which pulled me up off my feet, and then drove his elbow back into my chest, which rocketed me through the air square onto my back several feet away. The wind was driven from my lungs completely, leaving me to groan and writhe around on the deck while trying to will every muscle in my torso to unclench. All I could think of was trying to get back onto my feet - or at least to my knees so I could wrap my arms around Fred’s legs for a takedown. I kept telling myself, “Get moving! Breathe later!” and my whole damned nervous system responded with, “Hey, fuck you, guy!”

  The best I had managed was to roll onto my right side so I resigned myself to the reality that Wang was about to get bulldozed and that I’d better start refreshing myself on the battlefield medicine for a caved-in face. Fred’s blow never landed, though. Jake appeared from out of nowhere (I’m sure he heard all the screaming from inside the house and must have come clomping down the stairs of the front porch right around when I was getting my ass handed to me), positioned himself between Fred and Wang, and swung his arm up between them in a vicious arc, his forearm slamming into Fred’s outstretched wrist. Fred’s grip on Wang’s collar was broken utterly and Jake used the opportunity to shove Wang back behind him, who collided into the food table and nearly knocked the whole thing over.

  Now Fred was distracted, alright, and redirected his anger on Jake almost without missing a beat. For his part, Jake was backing away, both hands out in a let’s-be-friends gesture, and saying all the calming things you’re supposed to say in such a situation (assuming you keep company with angry drunks and have experience in dealing with this kind of bullshit).

  Fred wasn’t having any of it, instead opting to throw a haymaker left that was aimed right at Jake’s temple. Jake leaned back away from the swing to let it pass in front of his face, appearing almost bored, and I realized in that moment what kind of experience he must have carried with him. No one just leans away from a punch like that without all kinds of prior practice. Whatever else he’d been through, Jake was used to having people try to get physical with him and he had the means to deal with it. Seeing Fred’s wild movements - his planted stance and utter lack of footwork - compared to Jake’s calm and competent evasion, it occurred to me that Fred was in fairly deep trouble.

  “Fred!” I yelled out. “You’d better cut that shit out before you piss him off!” Other people surrounding the whole goat fuck shouted their agreement, though none of them attempted to jump in between the two men, having seen what happened to me for my troubles. Jake still had his hands up, was still backing up, and was still trying to placate the man.

  Fred either didn’t hear or chose to ignore all of us, instead following up his left hook with another wild overhand right. Jake, who had apparently decided he had enough of the whole experience, slipped low and to the left just under Fred’s fist, close enough that his unruly length of hair was ruffled by its passage. At his lowered position, I was just able to catch a violent twist in Jake’s shoulders, his body appearing to blur as he drove up from his heels with everything he had, sinking a balled up left hand deep into the lower right side of Fred’s gut, at the bottom of his ribcage and directly into his liver.

  Now, I have seen body knockouts on TV in boxing matches and whatnot, but this was the first time I’d ever seen it happen up close. Fred seized over as though someone had swung a sledgehammer into his midsection, ratcheting so quickly that his feet actually left contact with the ground. Let me make this clear, now: he wasn’t lifted off the ground from Jake’s punch – the contraction of his doubling over was so violent that it pulled his feet up off the ground before gravity had a chance to bring him back to Earth. He seemed to hover there in place for the briefest of periods just before we all saw him crash into the dirt hip-first and roll over into a big, tortured ball. I can’t ever recall seeing such a rapid reaction to pain before or since that encounter, not even from a guy taking a kick full-force to the beanbag. Just seeing it happen made me feel queasy. Well…it was either that or I was still recovering from being winded.

  Jake was already crouched by Fred before the rest of us knew what was happening, cradling his head, looking into his eyes, and calling out to see if the man could answer. Fred could only grunt and moan, so Jake let him stay rolled over on his side and began to rub his back aggressively, like he was trying to help the guy get some air back in his lungs. It occurred to me to bitch about the fact that I’d received no such aid but was so disoriented from a lack of air, not to mention having witnessed Jake go from Whoop-ass to Assistance mode so rapidly, that all I could really do was breathe in and out and be thankful for the fact that I had that ability again.

  “Anyone want to tell me what the hell happened out here,” asked Jake, actually sounding annoyed.

  “It was me,” Wang said quickly. “I was talking smack and got him going.”

  “That’s a bunch of bull!” Monica interrupted.

  The rest of us looked at her and Jake asked, “Wang wasn’t talking smack?”

  “No, he was doing that, alright,” she responded. “But you can’t fault him for what Fred did. Runnin’ your mouth isn’t any cause to get manhandled like that.”

  Jake sighed and looked down at Fred, who had stopped moaning but still lay on the ground clutching at his side. Looking up at Wang, Jake asked, “What did you say?”

  Glancing briefly at Fred, Wang said, “They didn’t have a good run this morning. They almost didn’t find any food at all.” He looked away, clearly embarrassed. “I guess they covered a lot of ground and came back hungry. He, uh, he was eating a lot of food. I said, ‘If you found food half as well as you shoveled it in, some of us might have a chance to survive the winter’. Among some other things…”

  “Oh, shit. Bad choice, bro,” whispered Oscar.

  Jake had returned to a standing position, with his hands on his hips, staring at the ground, and shaking his head in little jerking motions like there was something inside his skull that he couldn’t quite understand and hoped he could make go away just by rattling it to death.

  “That is a pretty lousy thing to say,” Jake agreed, “but that didn’t give him the right to attack you, as Monica said.” She nodded angrily in agreement.

  Jake sighed heavily again and said, “Come on, Oscar. Help me get him to his bed. He’ll want to rest a while until his side stops hurting.” As he hunkered down next to Fred to take him by and arm, Jake leaned close and said, “You and I are going to discuss this later, yes?”

  Fred nodded his head as he attempted to roll into a sitting position and grunted, “Yeah, I know.”

  Oscar got Fred’s other side and the two men h
elped the near-crippled giant hobble off to his bed in the larger RV.

  I resisted following them at first, instead looking around to see if anyone else had been hurt. Davidson’s collision looked pretty dramatic and Wang had spent more time getting rag-dolled around than you’d like if you’re interested in leading a productive, healthy life. As I gave them a quick going-over, I heard the hissed and angry conversations of the people left milling around the scene; a small amount of which were directing snark at Wang while the vast majority talked a foul, blue streak about Fred in glorious 5.1 surround sound. I cringed inwardly while I listened, foreseeing an ever increasing gap expanding through the center of the group, with people taking opposing sides and ending in eventual fragmentation.

  Fred had significantly damaged his standing in the community with his little outburst and I saw no easy way back to harmony. People were going to be watching him askance, now, and no amount of apologies or attempts at reconciliation on his part would be able to rectify the whole mess. Worse, if it happened again…or hell, even if it didn’t happen but he got agitated and showed his temper, the other people in the group were apt to call bullshit and demand his removal. I wondered how something like that would shake out. Fred represented a unique combination of skills and abilities. His total dismantling at the hands of Jake notwithstanding, he was a large, powerfully built man who had thus far demonstrated an aptitude with firearms and a willingness to work hard. Additionally, if he was turned out of the group his metalworking and fabrication knowledge would be sorely missed in the challenges ahead.