by A. American
It was a clear, warm morning. It would be a hot day for certain. But on the river, it was cooler; and the boat racing down the river provided plenty of cooling breeze. I stood, holding onto the handrail as I guided the boat. The river was empty this morning, save the birds and occasional gator that would immediately submerge at the sight or sound of our boat.
I saw Sarge pour the last of his coffee from the thermos into a cup. He took a sip and offered it to Dad, who gladly accepted it and took a long drink. It made me smile. I wondered how Dad’s arrival would affect Sarge’s coffee stores. The two of them easily drank a pot a day, each. I was sure it would prove interesting to say the least.
Sarge took out his radio and made a call. I couldn’t hear him over the motor, but I guessed he was calling the guys to tell them we were on our way. I didn’t much care one way or another. I was enjoying the novelty of the river. Of being in a boat speeding down the slow-moving trail of black water.
Holding the tiller under my arm, I took a pinch from the can in my pocket, then gave it to my dad. He opened it and looked in, it was nearly empty, one pinch left. He closed it and went to hand it back, but I waved him off, telling him to take it. He did, the last pinch of Cope as far as I knew even existed and dropped the empty can in the bottom of the boat.
Then Danny took a can out and opened it. He put a pinch in too and smiled as he showed it was nearly half full. I gave him the finger; the bastard had been taking from mine when he had his own the whole time! He laughed and put the can back in his pocket.
When we got to Lake Beresford, I knew we were almost to the ramp. A sense of both relief and sadness came over me. Relief that we were nearly back but also a lament that we would leave the river and I didn’t know if we’d ever see it again. I could only imagine how Mom and Dad were feeling. Dad knew the river better than I did by a long shot. He knew where we were and where we were going.
As we passed Mud Lake and the bridge over the river came into view, I slowed the boat. There were a few houses along the river here and people were out in skiffs, Jon boats, canoes and kayaks, tending lines, nets or just fishing. All in pursuit of their breakfast.
Pointing to the east side of the river, Danny asked, “What are they doing?”
I looked over to see two men wading in the brown water at the shore. One was dragging a small Jon boat on a lead behind him. Both men rooted around in the mud and from time to time would reach down and pull the large root of a pond lily up and toss it in the boat.
“Looks like they’re harvesting the roots,” I replied.
“You can’t eat that shit,” Dad replied.
“No. you can’t,” Mom echoed. “We tried, there’s no way you can make that edible.”
“Well,” I replied, “you can. You just have to process the shit out of it. Takes a lot of soaking and water changes.”
“Say what you want,” Dad replied, “I don’t think there’s any way to make it edible.” He shook his head and shivered, “stuff’s horrible.”
“Luckily, we don’t have to worry about trying to eat that kind of trash,” Sarge offered. “We’ve got plenty of food. And none of it comes from the bottom of a nasty river.”
“Hey now, leave my river alone,” Dad said with a chuckle.
Sarge smiled. “I know how you feel. I lived on the equally nasty Suwannee and miss it terribly.”
Passing under the highway bridge, the trucks weren’t there yet. I pointed the boat towards the ramp and Danny caught the pole and tied us off. Mom and Dad got out and we followed them up the dock to the overgrown grass lining the seawall. Two old black men sat there with cane poles in hand, their light lines disappearing into the murk of the river.
“Doing any good?” Dad asked.
One of the old men tilted a bucket to show one small catfish. “Not much this mornin’.”
“It’s getting harder.”
“Yes sir, it is.”
The other man looked down at the boat. “That’s a nice boat. Where’d you get the gas, ain’t no gas anywhere.”
“We had some saved up,” I said.
“Y’all waiting on something?”
“Our ride,” Sarge said as he plucked the mic from the plate carrier. He called Ted, who replied immediately that they were a few minutes out.
“You got trucks too?”
Sarge nodded. “We work for the government.”
The first man laughed. “Government! What government? Ain’t no government.”
“There still is some. They’re trying to get things sorted. But there’s a lot that needs to be done.”
Presently, the trucks rumbled over the drawbridge, garnering the attention of the two men fishing. One of them looked up at Sarge and commented, “You wasn’t shittin’ when you said you worked for the government, were you?”
The two big trucks swung around into the parking lot. Ted lined the trailer up on the ramp and Mike parked the other one and got out. Then the passenger door opened and a young lady stepped out. Sarge gave him the stink eye and walked quickly over to him. He looked at Crystal and asked, “What the hell is she doing here?”
Mike shrugged, “She wanted to go for a ride.”
“This ain’t your daddy’s car to take out to try and get a little stink finger in.”
Mike patted him on the shoulder. “Relax. We’re just here to pick you guys up. Nothing’s going on. They’re going to come over and hang out with us today and maybe stay the night.”
“They?”
Mike pointed at Janet. “She came too.”
Sarge shook his head and leaned in close to Mike. “You two fuckers better not do anything to stir up shit between us and Dave. I’ll be the first to lead you at the end of a shotgun to your wedding.”
“Look, Top, I promise you. We’re not up to anything like that. I like her, and I think Ted and Janet are getting on really well too. You have Miss Kay—” Sarge cut him off.
“Watch what you’re about to say.”
“Calm down, would ya? Listen for a minute. I know you think I’m just a wild ass, but I want what you, Thad, Morgan and Aric have. I want someone around, to be with someone. And, so does Ted. This is for real.”
Sarge looked at Crystal. She was standing with Ted. “I’m calling bullshit.” He looked at Mike. “But I couldn’t think of anything better than you two boys settling down.” He looked at Ted again, “But until I see it,” he looked back at Mike, “I’m calling bullshit.”
Mike smiled and quickly wrapped the old man up in a hug. “Thanks, Dad!”
Sarge slapped him in the side of the head, “Get off me, you damn idjit!”
Mike laughed and ran off towards Ted. I introduced him to Mom and Dad and he in turn introduced Crystal. We were chatting for a moment when Sarge shouted, “Let’s get this scow loaded and get the hell out of here!”
We quickly loaded the boat and I was strapping it down when Dad walked up. “What kind of situation have you gotten into?”
Removing the plug from the boat, I replied, “What do you mean?”
“All this,” he replied, indicating the trucks. “Where the hell did all this come from? What exactly are you doing? I mean, how in the hell did you get all this shit?”
I stood and leaned on the gunnel of the boat. “Some of it we took from the DHS. Some of it the Army gave to us. Remember, I told you we’ve been working with the DOD. The old man there, he’s been promoted to Colonel. We were working with the local National Guard unit; I told you what happened to them. But during all this, we’ve acquired a lot of gear, food and other supplies. We’ve been trying to support the community, helping who we could.” I shrugged, “Just living.”
“Looks like you’ve done alright.”
“Come on, let’s go home.”
I got in a truck with Mom and Dad. Ted was driving, and Janet was there as well. Mom and Janet chatted, the excitement of someone new to talk to taking hold of them. Dad sat looking out the window as we rumbled over the bridge. When we turned onto 42
, the trucks sped up. After a couple of miles, Mom sat back in her seat. She didn’t look too good.
“You feeling alright?” I asked.
“I suddenly don’t feel so well.”
“Hey Ted, slow down a little. I think Mom’s getting a little car sick.”
“I feel it too,” Dad said. “We haven’t moved this fast in almost a year. Kind of an overload.”
Ted called Mike on the radio and told him to slow down some and why. Both trucks slowed to about thirty. Dad suggested Mom not look out the windows. She leaned back against the side of the truck and closed her eyes. “I think I’ll just rest a little,” she said.
We didn’t talk much for the rest of the ride. Though, Ted and Janet chatted some. I was eager to get Mom and Dad home so they could relax and, more importantly, to get them a good meal. Left to my thoughts, I began considering where they would stay. I knew they wouldn’t want a large place. I hadn’t given this much thought and probably should have had something set up beforehand for them. But then, they may find a place they prefer, and any work done would simply have been wasted.
But we had time, now. Plenty of it. I sat with my back against the bulkhead of the truck and looked at Mom. She was rocking with the rhythm of the truck and her color looked a little better. Aside from being thin, she looked good. They both did. Their skin was now a dark mahogany from so many hours spent in the sun. Even in the Before, they spent most of their time on the river and current events dictated they spend even more trying to eke out a living.
It made me feel better to know that their lives were about to get a lot easier. At the same time though, I felt a sense of failure, of having let them down for so long. The fact that it took me nearly a year to get to them weighed on me. It was tempered with the fact they were both well and sitting in the truck with me. I couldn’t imagine any other outcome to this expedition. The alternative was just unthinkable.
When we turned onto highway nineteen, Dad sat up and looked out the windows again. The market was bustling with activity and he commented on it.
“What’s going on over there?” He asked.
“One of the local markets where traders go to try and sell their wares. There’s a couple of them. This one, one in Umatilla and there used to be one in Eustis,” I replied.
“How is Eustis now?”
I shook my head. “Gone, for the most part.”
He sat back. “Still good to see people out like that. We never left the subdivision. There was nothing close you could walk to and paddling a boat into Lake Monroe was a hell of job and dangerous.”
Mom sat up at the comment, “We lost a friend who tried. He left one day to try and go to Sanford. He never came back. No one knows what happened to him.”
“You won’t have to worry about that sort of thing anymore,” Ted said over his shoulder.
Janet turned in her seat, “It’s mostly quiet around here now. These guys have pretty much dealt with everything that’s been thrown at them.”
“Quiet for now,” I sighed. “Subject to change without notice.”
“Ah, come on, Morgan,” Ted countered. “We’re finally on the downhill slide, man.”
“I’m not worried about the slide,” I said, “but what’s at the bottom of it.”
Ted looked back over his shoulder at Dad. “He always been like this?”
Dad smiled. “Reality is a bitch.”
“Yeah,” I replied, “and I live in Realville.”
“We all do,” Dad added.
As the trucks slowed and navigated around the burned-out wrecks in the road in front of the turn to the neighborhood, Dad asked, “What the hell happened here?”
“Just DHS wrecks. Some lessons gotta be learned the hard way,” Ted answered.
Mom looked at the rusted hulk of one of the MRAPs and asked, “You did this?”
“We did,” I replied.
“They were government trucks?” I nodded that they were. “What were they doing? I mean, why did you have to do that to them?”
“Because they were shooting the hell out of us. Trust me, they weren’t here offering relief.”
“No, they weren’t,” Ted added. Then he asked, “Did you tell them about the camp?”
“No, but there’s plenty of time for that,” I replied as we rolled down the road towards the bunker.
“We passed your house,” Mom said.
“We don’t live there anymore. Those same government helpers who manned the burned out trucks you just saw on the road up there trashed our house. We had to move.”
“Where do you live now?” Dad asked.
“Next to Danny. We all congregate at Danny’s house most of the time anyway, so it puts us closer.”
The two trucks parked at the end of Sarge’s street, near the bunker and we all climbed out. Sarge walked up to Dad and asked, “Well, what do you think?”
Dad looked at the bunker and the Guardsmen standing around it. “Things that bad?”
Sarge looked over his shoulder at the bunker, “Not anymore. We had a rough time for a bit. But I think that’s all behind us now.”
“Where are Mel and the girls?” Mom asked.
“Come on,” I said, “let’s walk down to the house.”
“Morgan, I’ll catch up later. I need to go check on our prisoner,” Sarge said.
“You need any help, boss?” Mike asked.
Sarge glowered at him. “Hell no, I don’t need your help!”
“You have a prisoner?” Mom asked.
I nodded. “It’s a Russian Colonel. We’re holding him until Eglin can send someone to get him.”
“You better hurry with that,” Wallner said. He was sitting in a chair under the tarp at the rear of the bunker. “Dalton kicked the shit out of him.”
“Why?” I asked.
He shrugged, “I wasn’t there. Just heard about it. I guess Ivan said something that made him mad. Bert said Dalton never said a word, just kicked the crap out of him.”
“He probably deserved it,” I said. “Either way, I really don’t care.”
We turned and started down the road towards the house. Mom and Dad were looking around and Mom asked, “How many people are here?”
“We have about seven houses occupied and many others available. So, you guys can choose the one you like. We’ve got around, thirty-ish, I think.”
“Between the National Guard guys that we have and us, plus the two prisoners, it adds up quick.”
“What exactly happened to your house?” Dad asked.
I told him the story of us getting tangled up with the DHS and how we were forced out and had to go live on the river for a while. How we then managed to overthrow the camp setup at the bombing range and were then able to move back.
“When we got back, we found they’d destroyed our house. Just ridiculous vandalism really. What bothered me the most was the fact that they knew where I lived. They didn’t bother any of the unoccupied houses. Did a number on Danny’s house too, but not as bad.”
“It’s hard to imagine that our government would do this kind of crap, considering what the country has been through,” Dad said.
“Oh, it was all for our own good of course. They were rounding people up and moving them to camps where they could get medical treatment, food and shelter. What they didn’t tell people was that it was Hotel California. You could check in, but you couldn’t check out. They were splitting up families; even in the camps, men were separated from women and kids. Naturally, this led to all manner of trouble, sex crimes committed by the staff, physical abuse. We finally had to do something.”
“So,” Mom started, “you and your friends just attacked the camp? Weren’t there a lot of government people there? How’d you do it?”
“Well, this little group is pretty skilled. We have some special forces types here and that is the sort of thing they did all over the world. Don’t get me wrong, it was tough. But we managed to succeed.” I looked at Dad and said, “You know what the craziest thing
was? Some of the people locked up there were upset when we took it over and freed them. They didn’t know how to act when there wasn’t someone around making their decisions for them. It was nuts.”
“The evil you know versus the unknown,” Dad replied. “Once they adapted to the new conditions there, they resisted the change, even if it meant freedom.”
“Exactly. I couldn’t wrap my head around it.”
We were approaching my gate, but I pointed to Danny’s and said we should go there, figuring Mel and the girls would be there. As we passed the gate, the dogs came trotting out. We stopped the truck and got out. Dad knelt down. He’d always had a soft spot for dogs, so we waited while he scratched and petted them.
“Where’d this guy come from?” Dad asked, scratching Drake behind the ears.
“We found him. He seems to like it here and he’s really smart,” I replied.
“Didn’t you have a little female too? Like this one here?” Mom asked, pointing at Meat Head.
“We did,” I replied. “She’s dead though.”
“What happened?” Mom asked.
Without looking up, I simply replied, “She died.”
Dad looked up but said nothing. He rubbed Meat Head’s ears and stood up. We walked through Danny’s gate and I half expected to see people sitting on the porch. But the chairs were empty. Danny went up onto the porch and in through the door. We followed him in and I saw Mel and Kay standing in the kitchen. Mel’s face immediately lit up and she rushed over. I hugged her and gave her a kiss. Then turned to Mom and Dad.
“Well, here they are,” I said.
She gave Mom a long hug as the two said words I couldn’t make out. Then she hugged Dad. When the greetings were over, Kay looked at Mom and Dad and said, “You two look like you could use a cold drink and something to eat!”
Mom and Dad sat at the counter and Kay poured them a glass of tea. As she set them down, Dad asked, “Do you have any coffee?”
“We sure do!” Kay responded and quickly poured him a cup.
Ignoring the tea, Dad took to the coffee. He drained the cup quickly and Kay refilled it. “Take it easy now,” Kay said as he sipped on the second one.