Commune: Book Two (Commune Series 2)

by Joshua Gayou

  Jake put his hands up and waved them all quiet. When the commotion died down enough, he said, “Well, I guess I’d like to thank everyone for coming to my little party…”

  Everyone in the room instantly broke into cheering laughter and Oscar split the air with one of his ear-shattering whistles. Jake patiently waited for everyone to calm down again before continuing.

  “That’s much appreciated, everyone, but you don’t have me to thank for this. It was all Gibs’s idea.”

  “Alright Gibs!” shouted Otis, which fired everyone up again. I took a sip off my second beer, resolving to take it easy this time around, and resigned myself to the possibility that we’d all be here for a while.

  “I want to apologize to you all,” Jake continued. Many people stopped cheering at that and several shushing hisses filtered out from the group as everyone took the hint that the topic was about to become serious. “We’ve all been working so hard to get ready for this winter; it’s been such a concern on my mind, as I’m sure it has been on yours, that I think I forgot one of the most important components of human existence: being connected. Everyone has been working together so well and we just haven’t taken the time to sit back and enjoy that success; that so many people from such diverse walks of life could all be dumped together in the midst of unimaginable tragedy and commit themselves to each other’s survival. I forgot that people sometimes need time to unwind and for that, I’m sorry. I’ll do better.”

  For a moment, Jake stopped speaking and looked around. He seemed to be taking a head count as his eyes passed over each person. After a bit, he apparently found what he was looking for, as he called Wang up to the trailer and leaned down to whisper in his ear. When he finished, he stood back up again but kept his attention fixed on Wang, eyebrows raised and hopeful.

  Wang rubbed his chin while his other hand rested on his hip, looking as though he was trying to settle on an important decision for which he liked neither option. Finally, he nodded to himself, looked back up at Jake, and said, “Yeah. You’re right. I’ll go.”

  “Thank you, Wang,” Jake said as the other trotted out of the garage exit. As Wang left, Jake addressed himself to the rest of the group. “Diverse walks of life, indeed. We have teachers among us, and blue collar folk who made things of beauty and utility with their own hands. Folks from academia, who bent their minds to complex, important social issues and concerns relevant to our times. Men and women of both thinking and action. Men and women who defended our society with their lives,” he looked at Monica and me as he said this, “along with men and women who enjoyed the security such sacrifice afforded and contributed back to the machine, thus paying back into the system in their own ways.

  “The way I see it, the chief difference between then and now is that before, most of us never would have known each other because we lived in a world where people could easily wall themselves off, if that was their desire. They could…well, they could live behind a screen.” He seemed to falter for a moment. He looked down at his hands, picking at his nails a moment uncertainly. Just before it became uncomfortable, there was movement over by the door, which caused Jake to look up and nod. He said, “Ah, here we are. Thanks for joining us.”

  At the front of the garage, Fred entered uneasily, partially led by Wang, who stayed at his side. The rest of the people (men, women, and children) all went deathly silent and regarded the two as they moved across the floor, hardly daring to breathe. I realized I was breathing shallowly myself, wondering what the hell would come next.

  Before anyone could speak, Fred said, “Need to apologize to you people. I, uh…well, there just ain’t no excuse for what I did. Guess I’ve had a way for a long time now. Got me in trouble some…” he trailed off, looking down at his feet. Without looking up again, he said, “I’m just sorry, is all. Don’t know what else to say.”

  The room remained silent; silent enough that I could hear the low hum of no-sound leaking out from the speakers. I looked from face to face, seeing uncertainty and maybe a little anger in some places.

  Wang was the first to speak up. “I’m good with it. Fred and I have talked, and I’m over it. And, I apologized to him as well, because I was being an insensitive prick.” He rested his hand on Fred’s shoulder, having to reach high up to do so. Fred seemed to straighten up a little from that simple point of contact. “I probably could have used a few more beatings growing up,” Wang continued. “But all that aside, I forgive Fred. And, seeing how I had the worst of it, it seems it won’t kill the rest of you to do the same.” He said the last part defiantly, almost daring anyone to tell him he was wrong.

  They were silent a bit longer, a silence eventually broken by a grunt. We looked towards the source, which turned out to be Davidson. “Come on, guys, he looks miserable. I’m good with it.”

  “Yeah, let’s call it squashed,” Oscar agreed, clearly wanting to put the uncomfortable moment behind us all and get back to the partying.

  Fred looked up across the crowd to me, almost ignoring everyone else. “Gibs, I gave you a hell of a shot. You alright with this, too?”

  I laughed. “I’ve had worse, big boy. Come over here and get yourself a cold one.”

  “Whoa, cold one?” called George. “Since when do we have cold beer?”

  “Had the jenny running,” Jake said. “Let’s everyone get a drink, huh? Think we should have a toast or something.”

  Everyone lined up temporarily by the cold box and grabbed a drink of their choice (the choices being beer, wine coolers, waters, or soda) and returned to their general positions in front of the makeshift stage. I noticed that Fred was now mingled in among them, absent the uncomfortable gap in space that would have been there only a moment before. Certain of the people continued to eye him suspiciously, though, and held themselves out on the edges; people like Edgar, Monica, and Alish. The kids stayed well away from him too, I noticed.

  As I had suspected; everyone may have agreed to let him back in but it was on a probationary basis at best. Fred had some hard work ahead of him before he came close to enjoying anything like unconditional trust.

  Holding his own beer, Jake continued his speech. “This proves my point. We’re different but we pull together. We have disagreements, and yet we put them aside. This is the reason we’re going to survive. It won’t be the guns or the food we find or the shelters we build or even the new things we learn. It all starts with a basic ability to see the kind of world we want to have and then create it. This world of ours has been reset back to zero…” he trailed off and looked down at his own beer, which he spun idly in his hands. He cleared his throat, “Erm, back to zero. Whatever happened before now…it just doesn’t matter anymore. However things used to be done, whatever responsibilities we used to have. Whomever you may have…have wronged once upon a time. It’s over now. Gone. All that matters now is what this world could be. It can and will be whatever we decide to make it.”

  He held his beer out to the crowd. We all responded by hoisting our drinks up into the air, aimed back in Jake’s direction. “It’s whatever we decide it is,” he said, and drank.

  There were disjointed calls of agreement from the group, ranging from “hear, hear” to “hell yes”, and everyone took a drink; even the children, who had their own sodas or waters.

  “There’s plenty of food and drink,” Jake said, gesturing out to both the table and the cooler. “Some of you may have concerns about the extravagance of the food I’ve put out but I’m here to tell you we have a plan we’re working on; have been working on for the last couple of days.”

  People looked at Jake inquisitively, their attention fully paid to the shaggy, hulking caveman as he stood up on the trailer. “You see, this get together doubles as a going away party of sorts. Gibs and I have been doing some planning – there are places out there, places some of us have been to, that I believe have the things we need. I’m talking about food, medical supplies, ammunition…all of the things we’re short on. It’s a long drive, stret
ching from here down to Vegas, but we can make it quickly. Gibs and I did some math and we figure the trip can be done in the Ford without any stops to refuel. It has the hundred gallon reserve tank in the bed, for one thing. That plus another fifty-five gallon drum of diesel will cover way more than is needed to do the whole trip. I’ve asked Gibs to select a team to go with him; the purpose being both to watch each other’s backs but also so that they can drive around the clock all the way through. With a little luck, they can be back to us within a few short days.”

  People in the crowd started to mutter and I saw uncertain glances being traded back and forth. Heads came close together as people whispered among each other.

  “You folks are doing a lot of chattering out there,” I said. “If anyone has a problem, now is the time to sound off.”

  Edgar stepped forward from the group to answer. “It’s just that some of us are a little confused, Jake. Or, maybe concerned is the right word. Yes: concerned. We’ve been scrambling to get enough food laid by for the winter. Despite the slow progress, we are actually making progress. I just don’t see how diverting four people for a long distance trip improves our situation. Those are people we could have out looking for food.”

  “They will be out looking for food,” Jake insisted. “Just a little further away than we’d all like.”

  “Oh, you know what I mean,” Edgar said. “You’re targeting…what? Three or four days for this trip?”

  “I’d like to see no more than three.”

  “Okay, three,” said Edgar. “For the distance you’re suggesting, that’s three days consisting mostly of driving. They won’t be out gathering anything for most of their time away. They’ll be playing Travel Bingo.”

  I moved forward to speak up but was stopped at a subtle gesture from Jake; a slight straightening of his left index finger in my direction from a hand held immobile at his side. It was expertly done; the signal to me was loud and clear though I don’t think anyone else noticed it.

  “There is a difference, here,” said Jake. “All of the local searching we’ve been doing has run according to chance. While we’ve done our best to proceed methodically, our ability to be successful is still governed by whether we stumble onto useful resources. Gibs is travelling to places which have demonstrated high yield in the past.”

  “And what was our last known status of any of those locations?” Edgar asked.

  Jake was silent a moment before answering. It was only a momentary beat but it was noticed. “I’d guess three to four months ago, is that right Otis? Was that when you went through?”

  “I couldn’t call it for certain,” said Otis. “Tend to lose track of dates these days. But…oh, sure, call it that.”

  “How’d the tent city look when you passed through?”

  “Relatively good shape,” Otis said. “Some things was fallin’ apart, as you’d expect, but there was still plenty to be had. Least, they was, anyway. Packed up as much as we could carry and didn’t even scratch the top.”

  Jake looked expectantly at Edgar, who only shrugged and said, “A lot can happen in four months, Jake.”

  “Indeed. A lot can happen in only three days, as well.”

  “Yes, but you can’t say what will happen,” Edgar shot back. I winced, wondering how Jake would respond. Looking around at the faces in the room, I saw a lot of people on the fence. I contemplated what might happen if people just outright said “No” to the plan. Would Jake override them? What would happen if he did? Would that signal the beginning of the first cracks leading to the eventual breakdown?

  In response, Jake slumped, took a deep breath, and let it out. He walked to the edge of the trailer, where he hopped off the side, and then returned to the front of it to sit on the wheel fender. He looked smaller in that position. Deflated.

  He took a swig from his bottle and said, “No, I can’t. But bear with me a moment, please, while I share some thoughts. When you all came here, we determined there was enough food to last us all for about a month and a half, remember? Well, we’re now breaking onto the edge of winter; we can expect the snows to start any time this month. We’ve all been out every day, gathering as much food and supplies as we possibly can. Would any of you say you haven’t been pushing to the fullest extent possible to get us prepared for what’s coming?”

  Several heads shook emphatically, with a few spoken negatives to go along.

  “Right. We’ve all been busting our tails. And how far has it gotten us? We’ve made progress, certainly, but we only have enough right now to get us halfway into December.” He lifted up the hand holding his beer bottle, index and middle fingers extended, and pointed at Edgar. “And no one is more aware of that than you, Edgar. You’ve been keeping a tally of the total stockpiled calories every day, so you should know exactly where we’re at. Am I wrong?”

  Heaving a sigh, Edgar said, “No. That’s correct.”

  “Thank you. And may I assume that you’ve also projected how much more we’re likely to get before the snows hit and we’re stuck up here for the season, given our performance thus far?”

  To his credit, Edgar met Jake’s gaze solidly as he nodded. “I have. It isn’t good.”

  “Not good,” Jake agreed and took a drink. Everyone in the room was deathly quiet. The happy atmosphere from only a few moments ago was completely extinguished by this point.

  He let the silence hang a while, not looking at anybody or anything, just sitting on the fender regarding the floor. Some of us began to shift around. I caught Barbara’s eye; thought I saw a tear. I wondered just what in the blue fuck Jake thought he was doing.

  Finally, he looked up and said, “You guys are asking me for a guarantee that this works out and I simply can’t give you one. The best I have for you is that what we’re doing right now isn’t getting the job done. We have some pretty good data that suggests it won’t get the job done no matter how hard we push. We need a big payout. This is the best way I can think of to make that happen. If they don’t find anything, we’re just back to where we started anyway. If they do find something, though…”

  “You’re suggesting the only risk is lost time,” Edgar said. “You forget we were all chased from Colorado under fire. That two of us didn’t make it out of Colorado at all. There’s an additional risk right there. Gibs and his team may not come back at all.”

  Jake’s demeanor went all cold, then, as he stapled Edgar to the deck with those shark’s eyes of his. His body language died completely, as though someone had cut the puppet strings, and he said, “I’m not forgetting anything, Mr. Muller.” Edgar took a step back at the sound of his surname and the people surrounding him moved away reflexively. I hate to say that the temperature in the room dropped because it’s a goddamned cliché but, if I’m being faithful to what happened, the temperature did seem to take a hit. Rebecca folded her arms, for one thing, and the fact that I wasn’t distracted by the movement of her chest is a testament to just how tense the exchange had made everyone.

  Then Jake took another pull of his beer and just like that, it was over. People could breathe again; could hear and produce sound again. Jake held out a hand and said, “We understand the risks. Gibs certainly does. That’s why he’s taking time to prepare. We’re going to mitigate the risks as best we can. I’m sorry, I simply don’t have the power to eliminate the danger from your lives. But I’d like you to consider the following…”

  He stood and walked out into the crowd, standing among us. He looked from face to face as he said, “When it comes to risk, your whole life is a gamble. A coin toss. Every day, you’re faced with decisions you have to make and if you choose wrong, you could die. You can’t know what the outcome will be but you toss the coin anyway. You gamble. And, as we all know, when you gamble long enough you’ll eventually lose.”

  He rotated slowly in place until his gaze settled on Edgar. “The problem is we were all thrown into the game against our will. We play simply by existing. You don’t get to opt out; you’re flipping
the coin just by being here. Failing to make a decision is still a decision. Failure to take a risk is still, essentially, a risk. The only way to get out of the game is to die. Paradoxically, the penalty for gambling poorly is also death.”

  Edgar had shrunken somehow. He’d pulled back into himself and, though he still met Jake’s gaze, his head was pulled to the side, as though he couldn’t stand to meet his look full on.

  Jake’s hand rose from his side and rested on Edgar’s shoulder. Softly, he said, “Under such circumstances, the only sane, reasonable choice is to flip the coin and bet for a win. You bet on hope, Edgar. You choose to take the risk. You do so because either choice is a risk in the end, be it heads or tails. If it’s true that there really is no way to back out of playing, you make the hopeful bet that has some chance of paying out, remote though it may be.”

  Jake withdrew his hand from Edgar’s shoulder and stuffed it into his front pocket. When he pulled it out, there was a dull, silver flash reflected from the overhead light as he popped his thumb. A quarter tumbled through the air, rang as it hit the concrete, and rolled only a few inches before landing on its side. During this time, Jake’s eyes remained locked on Edgar’s, who didn’t move a muscle.

  “What do you say, Edgar? Do you need to look at that coin for an empty promise? Or do you bet on hope? What will you take: risk or death?”

  Without looking down at the coin, Edgar raised his drink to his mouth with a steady hand, took a deep pull, and said in a clear voice, “Risk.”

  I took that as my own personal cue to vault up to the CD player on the table and start thumbing through the CD’s that had been spread out over the surface. “I thought we were supposed to be having a party here,” I bawled. “Somebody needs to fire the damned DJ!”

  This was met with explosive laughter from the crowd. I soon gave up trying to find the perfect artist or song, settling instead on a random dance mix that appeared to cover the whole gamut from pop to R&B and Motown. I dropped it into the tray, hit the play button, and twirled a hand at everybody on the floor in a get-your-asses-moving gesture. As the beat started to float out over the crowd (some kind of thumpy hip-hop song I’d never heard of and couldn’t name if my life depended on it), they all began to move again, slowly getting back into their groove while deciding that everything was probably okay, or at least that it would all be okay for this night. They were safe right now and they looked like cutting loose.