Commune: Book Two (Commune Series 2)

by Joshua Gayou

  It was a nasty problem that needed patching fast. Unfortunately, community trust isn’t a thing that you get back with a “sorry” and a gift fruitcake. Like all worthwhile aspects of a relationship, trust required time and consistency. We needed time and consistency out of a guy with a volatile temper. Fuck me with a stick.

  I excused myself from the group with a whispered comment to Amanda to come get me if any of them looked like grabbing torches and pitchforks. Dusting off my hands, I made the long walk to the camper trailer that Jake had led the other men to, and stood outside the door wondering if I should enter. Not wanting to barge in, I decided to take a seat in one of the camp chairs that were setup outside just under a green, fold-down awning that extended from the side of the RV. I didn’t have to wait for very long before the door swung open and Oscar hopped out.

  Noticing my presence, he shut the door and said, “Hey, Gibs.” His voice was solemn, as though he was still shaken by the events of the afternoon.

  I hooked a thumb at the camper behind me and said, “Everything okay in there?”

  “Yeah. Well, kind of. Fred’s getting told right now.”

  “Oh?” I asked with raised eyebrows. “Getting told what, exactly?”

  Oscar scratched his forearm, no doubt a nervous tick, and said, “I don’t wanna go into details. Seemed kind of private, you know?”

  I scoffed. “Be general, then.”

  Sighing, Oscar said, “Basically, Jake said this was Fred’s one free major fuck up. Next time he does something like this, he’ll be driven out to the edge of town and left there.”

  “Huh,” I nodded and directed my view forward. I looked down at my fingernails, which were dirty underneath with grime from that morning’s work, and noticed a blister had risen along the pad of my thumb. I bit it so that it would dry out faster, spit out a hunk of skin, and asked, “You alright, Oscar?”

  “I think so. Yeah. I’m gonna go get back to work on that foundation.” He seemed fidgety, which made me worried. I was worried for all of us.

  “Go ahead, man. I’ll be back out there with you shortly. I need to speak with Jake.”

  “Right on,” he said and headed off to meet up with Amanda. They appeared to chat between themselves as well as with some of the others before separating off from the pack to stack more cinder blocks. I knew they had enough mortar to work with for now but I’d need to get back over there soon to mix up a new batch. I crossed an ankle over my knee and watched the noon crew load up into the Dodge, rifle team shrugging into borrowed vests and adjusting themselves as they stepped up into the back seat. I focused on ignoring the stinging throb growing in my thumb, which worked about as well as you’d expect.

  The RV door opened again, after which I heard Jake’s voice from my left. “Gibs…”

  “Jake…” I greeted him back.

  He came around and sat down to my right in another chair but said nothing further. I quickly realized that he knew I had things to get off my chest and was waiting for me to begin. I was still organizing my thoughts, and so delayed by saying, “Fred okay? You can kill a guy by gut-shotting him like that, you know. Rupture his liver.”

  I detected nodding from the corner of my eye and looked over in his direction. Jake sat straight in his chair, feet flat on the ground, with each hand rested lightly on an armrest. He looked as though he’d been arranged. “I’m aware but he’s too big for me to catch him a good shot on the chin. Too much reach. Besides, I dislike headshots. You have to shake someone’s brain for a knockout. There’s too much danger of doing serious damage with that, if all you’re trying to do is control a person. Then, too, you can break a hand if you’re not careful.”

  “So he is or he isn’t okay?”

  “Oh, he’ll be fine. He stated that the pain was getting better a moment ago. He’ll be up and around not long from now. He’ll have a hell of a bruise for the next few days.”

  “We have to deal with this, you know,” I said. “This won’t be the last time it happens if we don’t.”

  Jake sighed; a deep, heavy thing that made me exhausted just to hear it. “I know. If we could just get out ahead of this…this fucking food situation, I suspect a lot of this would work itself out.”

  I was semi-shocked to hear him say “fucking”. It wasn’t a term he dropped liberally. Recovering quickly, I said, “We’ve got to do something about the morale in general around here. We’ve all been going balls-out for weeks now, with no end in sight, and the most critical factor (food) isn’t improving the way we need it to. People are run down and starting to feel like their efforts are futile. It’s important…no, fuck that. It’s imperative that we do something to pick ‘em back up.”

  “It’s imperative that we get more food,” Jake countered. “These people aren’t fools, Gibs. No matter what…team building…” he said the term with pronounced disgust ”exercise we concoct to distract them, the situation doesn’t change. Starvation is an inescapable danger.”

  “I understand what you’re saying…and you’re wrong,” I said. I met his quizzical gaze head on. “I’m not suggesting we fall into each other’s arms or hold a fucking group enema. There just needs to be some sort of effort taken to lighten things up. It could be as simple as handing out pieces of chocolate for tasks well accomplished.”

  He leaned away from me and pulled a disturbed expression. “You mean like doggy treats? That’s a little insulting, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, Christ, you don’t pat them on the head and ask, ‘who’s a good boy,’ Jake. Do you know what some people would do for a fucking Snickers at this point? Do you have any idea? I could tell you what I’d do but I don’t want to lower your opinion of me. Trust me: it would work.”

  “Huh,” said Jake.

  “The main thing is,” I continued, “whatever we do needs to come along with a recovery plan. Like you said, we’re not dumbasses around here. They need to know that we have some new ideas to get through the winter. What we’re doing right now clearly isn’t getting the job done.”

  “Agree,” he said simply.

  We sat quietly for a while, watching as Amanda and Oscar slapped more blocks into place in the dirt. A giggle flitted our way over the field signaling that George was about to begin an afternoon lesson with the kids; they were beginning to arrange themselves on the front porch of Jake’s cabin in a loose circle around the older man, who lowered himself into a wooden chair.

  “Let me chew on it awhile,” Jake said as he rose to his feet.

  “Don’t chew on it too long,” I said to his retreating back. “This is only going to get worse if we don’t square it away.”

  He turned back to me, pushed his hair behind an ear, and said, “No. I’ve heard you loud and clear. I may have some ideas, and I’ll definitely run them by you soon, but just give me a bit to work out a few details.”

  24 – Barn Dance

  Gibs

  It took Jake about two days to get those few details worked out. I don’t know if that’s because some of that time included reading or he had a little preparation to do in order to get things setup; maybe he was just waiting for things to cool off a bit after Fred’s big blowup. The logistics were finalized a day after the fight, definitely, because he and I met that evening to hammer out particulars. He gave me a week to plan – get my shit together – which was more than I felt like I needed or wanted, but which was probably a good idea in the long run. Once I had a target, I wanted to go execute. Jake insisted on the extra time for planning. I’ll admit he was right.

  Two days after Fred had been buffaloed, I was finishing off an afternoon training session with a handful of folks including Amanda, Rebecca, Wang, Edgar, and Alan. Experience demonstrated I’d be better off keeping the Page brothers separated as it cut out any impulses for buffoonery. I had Edgar along because, like Jeff, he didn’t seem to be developing any aptitude at all so I was banking on the hope that keeping him around some of the better performers like Amanda and Wang would benefit his progress to
some degree. I had yet to see if there’d be any payoff in that regard.

  I’d had them working targets at three hundred yards that afternoon, followed by cleaning their weapons, and then some room clearing drills in Oscar’s place. Despite the fact that the container had a fairly simple two-room layout, I was happy with everyone’s progress overall and was looking forward to getting multiple teams going at once, coordinating their movement between different structures over the radios. Seemed like every time I had them out they were getting better; taking on new skills or improving existing ones. I’ll admit to some degree of satisfaction in the process.

  We’d wrapped up for the day and were just filing out of Oscar’s house, discussing what we’d done, how it had gone, and who needed to tighten up, when Jake’s answer to improving morale began to make itself apparent. It had been timed perfectly, just when my group was finishing up as well as when the final scavenging team had returned for the day and were busy washing up (but before they’d had a chance to begin unloading the truck).

  As we stood around in a loose circle chatting, the sound of talking and laughter came from behind us, back in the direction of the garage. It sounded off somehow, as though it was filtered, and the voices came from people I didn’t recognize. The sound was jarring and there was only enough time for Amanda to say, “Hey, what is that?” before the funky, laidback sound of a bass guitar line accompanied by clapping and what I suspect must have been a cowbell rolled out across the field.

  We turned in unison to regard the garage, which had its rollup door opened all the way, and saw the muted glow of the overhead LEDs shining from within as well as the edge of a picnic table just poking out through the door, bisecting the opening. From our left, folks from the scavenging team were slowly walking up the path as though they were sleepwalking while others still came foggily from the campers on the opposite side of the field, southwest of the cabin.

  From some thirty yards away, I heard Otis say, “Hey, is that-?”

  Before he could finish, a falsetto, ghostly voice echoed out from the garage. I didn’t understand what that voice said at the time because the quality of the music as it issued from the garage was too distant and distorted but I learned later from Fred that the song’s opening lines were, “I used to go out to parties, and stand around…”

  It turned out that Jake’s solution to a group morale problem was to rub some Marvin Gaye on it…which, I suppose, is not such a bad idea at all.

  “That’s right!” Otis shouted, unable to contain his laughter. “Got to Give It Up!”

  People were moving faster towards the garage, now, and I had to remind my group that they were still carrying rifles and that they needed to continue practicing some kind of muzzle awareness, despite the fact that none of them had seated mags. They all listened with one ear, moving towards the garage as though called by hypnosis. It was like trying to get a group of kids to wash their hands before diving into a birthday cake.

  Whether planned or not, everyone arrived at the garage door at about the same moment, so we all saw the same thing at once. A folding table loaded with a variety of food had been set up close to the open rollup door. The Super Duty was absent, having been parked around the side of the garage earlier that day, and it appeared as though the palletized provisions had been moved upstairs to clear out floor space. The trailer that was usually connected to the Ford by virtue of a ball hitch was centered to the rear of the garage. Another of our folding tables had been setup on the trailer - on the table was one of those large boombox CD players; it appeared as though the unit’s speakers had been detached or otherwise removed and there were two larger cabinet speakers (standing about as high as a man’s knee) set on the floor to either side of the trailer with red and black speaker wire leading back to the player. An orange extension cord ran from the back of the folding table to the solar battery array in the back of the shop. Jake was up on the trailer, too, sitting in a folding chair behind the table. As soon as we came in, he waved at us and shouted something, though we couldn’t understand what he was saying due to the volume of the music. I looked back over my shoulder and saw a line of adult faces all reduced to a state of childhood wonder. A few of those faces had wet eyes and glistening cheeks.

  Jake had stepped down from the trailer and was approaching us still talking, his voice barely understandable with the music blasting in the background. I shook my head at him vigorously and closed the distance. Wrapping my hand around the back of his neck, I put my mouth close to his ear and shouted, “Okay, try again!”

  Rather than leaning in for just me to hear, he ratcheted his voice up as loud as it would go and hollered, “This is going to be a pretty pathetic dance party if none of you guys actually dance!”

  The sound of screaming laughter erupted from behind me, made small by the overpowering thump-thump of the music, and I stood rooted in place, bemused, as several people including Monica, her daughter Rose, Rebecca, Otis, Maria, and Amanda all filed out to the center of the floor. They began moving at a walk, like normal people, but something happened to them as they came closer to the center of the floor. Their spines went loose while their hips wobbled around under them. Their knees bent, lowering their centers of gravity, and never quite straightened up again, while arms extended out, fingers snapped, and eyes closed. I had just been working with some of these people only a few minutes ago, helping to refine their skills in small arms and fire team tactics (in other words, we were all practicing getting better at shooting people we didn’t like) and now here they were, shaking their asses like a bunch of teenagers.

  More people followed these brave trailblazers out onto the floor before I knew what was happening. Otis’s son Ben had Lizzy by the hands and they both bounced around happily. George kept a death-grip on his cane with one hand while holding onto Barbara’s fingertips with his other; both of them executing a subdued and refined adaptation of what looked to me like an old-fashioned Two Step, made only slightly ungainly by George’s bad knee. Only a few people hung back on the sidelines, including Jeff and Davidson. Fred was nowhere in sight, probably still keeping to himself in embarrassment for his earlier display.

  Looking at Jake, who smiled mildly at the group of dancing, laughing people, I shouted, “You sneaky, cagey fuck!”

  He snorted but the sound was lost to the music; a visceral beat that you could feel through the souls of your boots. He leaned closer to me so he wouldn’t have to yell as much and said, “They look happy, don’t they?”

  I jerked my head at the table and said, “How much of the food did you lay out for this?”

  He shrugged and said, “More than we could spare but not so much that it’ll hurt immediately. We should still be okay by the time you get back.”

  I grimaced and said, “You know, we’re fucked if I don’t find anything, right?”

  In answer, he pinned me with one of his trademark Jake stares and said, “Sure, but this isn’t going to make it any worse. We need to get their minds off of food right now. The best way to get peoples’ minds off food is to fill their bellies.”

  I shrugged, not disagreeing with him but not fully subscribing to the idea, either. To me, the whole thing felt like a hell of a gamble. I’d had a day to think about the plan (well, less than a day, I suppose) since we’d finished working out the details the previous night and, no matter how many times I rolled it over in my head, the whole thing felt like one hell of a Hail Mary pass.

  Jake heaved his shoulders in an exaggerated sigh and waved me over to a position towards the rear of the shop just removed from the impromptu DJ table he’d built for himself. Around the side of the trailer was a tarp draped over some sort of box. He pulled the tarp off to reveal an electric box cooler, which he opened and leaned into while I stood behind him, dumbfounded. He straightened up holding a beer bottle, which he slipped under an opener screwed into the side of a nearby work bench, and popped the cap off onto the concrete floor. He held it out to me and said, “Have a drink,” though
I couldn’t hear a damned thing because we were right next to a speaker; I had to read his lips.

  Hesitantly, I reached out to take the bottle. It was ice cold to the touch. My expression must have been pretty comical because it caused Jake to smile and I shouted, “How the fuck?”

  He shook his head, exasperated, and pointed at the bottle insistently. I put it to my lips and tilted it back, my perception of the world narrowing down to a pinpoint as I felt shockingly cold lager carrying the smallest of ice crystals roll over my tongue and swirl in the back of my mouth, beginning at once to foam. I swallowed hard, gulping it all down and burping almost immediately after, causing my eyes to water. Before I realized what was happening, I was chugging again and Jake had his hand out to try and slow me down. I looked down at the bottle and saw it only had one swallow left swishing around in the bottom. Breathing heavily, I pulled the bottle back to my lips fast enough that the rim clacked painfully against my teeth but I didn’t care. I had that ice cold, sweet-yet-bitter liquid rolling over my tongue again; all other concerns could just fucking wait.

  I pulled the emptied bottle away from my lips, making a hollow popping sound from the suction, and growled out a satisfied, “Ahhh!”

  “You alright?” Jake shouted into my ear.

  I held the empty bottle out to him and yelled, “Again!”

  He rolled his eyes and retrieved another from the cooler. The initial song seemed to be ending by the time he put the second bottle in my hand, so he jumped up onto the trailer and killed playback just as the final notes were dying in the air. The noise in the garage suddenly took on a hyperreal quality, as that otherworldly music was replaced by the much more familiar chattering and laughter of voices I recognized. Many people retained their position on the dance floor (which was really just a cleared out space on the concrete) and clapped loudly, shouting for more.