Blackout: Still Surviving

by Boyd Craven III

  “Really?” I asked her. “I knew it was getting worse, but I thought it was mostly arthritis?”

  “Mostly is,” Grandma shot back, “but it all started somewhere.”

  I realized when she was talking about ‘what men do’, it had to have been an old business disagreement or a sale gone bad. No wonder Grandpa liked to keep a shotgun handy. He’d told me stories of double-crosses, people trying to rob him blind… until he’d started dealing with a cutout man like Lester. So this must have happened a long, long time ago. Before my mom was born?

  “I see,” I told her. “Grandpa go under easy?”

  “Yes, you’d think he was perfectly lucid until they asked him to count down from ten. He restarted, then started humming the ABC loudly before the drugs knocked him out.”

  “You worried?” I asked her.

  “No, it's you I worry about,” Grandma said. “Your grandpa and I have our own thing with Jesus, and when it’s time, it’s time. But… Grandpa said he’s got lots of years left and came into this world kicking and screaming, bathed in somebody else's blood. He plans to go out the same way.”

  “Wow, that’s incredibly graphic,” Jessica said.

  “He’s what you kids would call ‘Old School’,” she said, using her fingers to make air quotes.

  “Yeah, he’s pretty hardcore,” I told Jessica. “But Grandpa is pretty awesome. He’s got rough edges, but that’s just to run people off, so they don’t see he’s got a big heart.”

  “You got that right,” Grandma said, leaning in, bumping me with her shoulder.

  Our attention was diverted when the doors swung open at the far end, the one the doctors entered and exited from.

  “Carpenter?” the doctor said, a clipboard in his hand.

  “Got to go, nice talk,” Jessica said, standing and walking in the direction her mother was already headed.

  They spoke quietly to the doc, then he held the door open for both of them. Jessica and her mother looked back and gave polite waves, which we both returned.

  “She’s nice, I like her,” Grandma told me.

  “Yeah, me too, but she’s got a boyfriend.”

  “For now,” Grandma said, patting my knee.

  I took a long drink of my coffee. I considered how things had gone lately. I used to hate Lance’s guts, but if it hadn’t been his money and need for something we could make - namely our moonshine - Grandpa wouldn’t have been able to afford the deductible to have surgery. Sure, we could have filled out applications and gotten on a waiting list for extra benefits, but he didn’t have that kind of time to wait. Lance had treated me like none of the fights, some pretty ugly ones in our past, had even mattered to him before. Maybe the long-held grudge should be let go?

  The power completely went out. I sat there in absolute disbelief for half a second, and then the emergency lights came back on.

  “What was that?” Grandma asked.

  “Power outage?” I asked her, and the main lights came back on.

  “Must have been a blip,” Grandma said, as the TV that had been momentarily silenced came back on.

  We both sat there a while, silent. Despite worrying about Grandma, my mind was drawn back to the present situation. I had some more money to come up with, and even though I had half of this week’s shipment already on hand, I still was planning on taking a couple days off to take care of Grandpa. I’d do the heavy lifting as Grandma was going to have her hands full, especially with the world’s oldest and biggest baby. I’d had a lady friend in college tell me once about man flu, how when a guy got sick it’s the worst thing ever. I’d like to hope I wasn’t like that, but I could tell you Grandpa was 100%.

  I’d do what I could do to make her life easier so she could deal with Grandpa while he healed up. He’d been a ton of help the two weeks before with me, mostly watching the stills while I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off, but he had to admit, for what I had rigged up it worked well. For what I was doing though, I knew I should have a big Boca or a hillbilly flute with a larger boiler to run more at once, but I didn’t have the time or funds to build a Boca or buy a flute. With the kind of money that was coming in now, I could consider that, but I couldn’t tear down something large and stationary like that in a hurry. Local LEOs looked the other way, but the feds? They’d love to make guys like me spend time in the barrel.

  “Flagg?” a doctor called about an hour later.

  “You ready?” I said, getting to my feet and offering Grandma my arm so she could pull herself up.

  “Yes, my feet were going numb from all this sitting. Plus, it’s cold in here,” she said, rubbing her arms.

  “Let’s go see how Grandpa did.”

  8

  Grandpa was nauseated by the aftereffects of the medicine and would have to stay in the hospital overnight, but the surgery went well, and he’d only pinched one nurse’s butt. She was still giving him mean looks, but he claimed he was still out of it on the drugs and thought it was Grandma’s. I wasn’t sure if Grandma was buying it, but I could sort of see how that could have happened. Not that I was excusing his behavior, but I’d grown up hearing about things like that.

  I went to the deli and bought food because Grandpa was impatient despite feeling sick, and the three of us had a late lunch, early dinner together. There was a baseball game on, the Tigers and Blue Jays. Instead of listening to the game on the radio in the barn, he was entranced to be watching it happen in front of him on TV. The nurse came in and saw he was eating tomato soup and the world’s most pathetic looking grilled cheese and almost came unglued.

  “If you throw that up, you can bust open your stitches,” she told him angrily.

  “Ain’t got no stitches in my mouth, throat or guts,” Grandpa grumped back at her, taking a defiant bite of the grilled cheese.

  “If you throw up, you can get the… Oh, just stop,” she said frustrated. “We haven’t even gone over his timetables with you guys yet.”

  “You folks made me fast before surgery. My stomach thinks my throat’s been cut,” Grandpa complained, putting his sandwich down.

  “I didn’t, please don’t blame me—”

  “How long should he wait to finish his food?” I asked her, trying to soothe things over.

  “At least another hour,” she said.

  I grabbed Grandpa’s table and pulled it back. He started to protest, but I pointed the finger at him like I was aiming a gun. He opened his mouth and then closed it, turning his head to the side, arms crossed.

  “I’m surprised he’s so spry. You had to cut him open in three or four areas,” Grandma told her.

  “The surgeon noted that he was in excellent physical shape, better than anyone else his age he’s ever operated on.”

  “That’s the farm life for you,” Grandpa said, looking at me angrily.

  “Well, he said whatever you’re doing, keep on keeping on. Usually, surgery on someone your age carries much greater risk, but in your case, he said you’d be up and cursing out the lot of us very soon.”

  “If you’re going to let me keep on keeping on, why don’t you do your tests, check my pressure, and let me get some rest?”

  She sighed, probably used to cranky patients. Hopefully, he wouldn’t be her worst. She checked his blood pressure, oxygen saturation, pulse then headed out without another word.

  “You really gonna make me wait to finish my soup?” Grandpa asked.

  “Naw,” I told him, “but first,” I said pulling his half-full flask out of my pocket.

  His eyes gleamed, and he gave me a sly grin and a nod. I handed it to him, and he took a quick slug and capped it, handing it back to me. I leaned over and put it in Grandma’s purse. She gave me half a frown, but I gave her a one armed hug and pushed Grandpa’s food back to him.

  “If you’re good for now, I’m going to head back to the homestead. Raider’s been alone for a while now, and I don’t want him chewing everything up.”

  “Damn dog,” Grandpa said to nobody
in particular, “better not chew up anything important.”

  “I got him bedded down in the barn while I’m gone, plus I think he’s got puppy teeth coming out or something. I’m going to ask the vet.”

  “Just be lucky… oh hell,” he said, putting a hand over his mouth.

  For a second I almost thought he was going to lose it, but I wasn’t going to rush and get a bedpan that was on the edge of the table when he could reach it himself. He held up one finger as if to tell us to wait, then burped.

  “I feel better. Yeah, you should go make sure your mutt hasn’t chewed holes in the stall doors or something.”

  “You just want to explain to Grandma how you got the nurse and her rear end all mixed up.”

  “He doesn’t want you to hear him crying like a little girl,” Grandma snapped back.

  I burst into laughter, nearly spilling my tall cup of coffee. Grandpa shook his head and pointed at me and then made a motion across the throat with his finger.

  “Yeah, yeah, I love you too Grandpa. Grandma, I’ll see you later on?” I asked her.

  “I might stay the night,” she said softly.

  I wasn’t going to argue, it was something she’d said she was probably going to do anyway.

  “Ok, Grandma, call me on my cell if you need me to come back up tonight, and call me as soon as the doc comes back first thing in the morning so I don’t—”

  “Worry yourself into an early grave. This isn’t our first rodeo boy,” Grandpa said.

  I pulled into the homestead, and my heart started racing. Raider was standing in the open doorway of the barn, sitting as if to block it. I knew I had closed him in and I’d latched it from the outside. He backed up into the barn a little bit as I drove in, probably a little too fast, and parked it in front of it.

  “What is it, boy?” I asked him.

  He whined and ran up to me, jumping up to put his paws on me in a puppy hug. For a young pup, he was big and filling out fast. It really made me think he’d been underfed or been at the end of being sick when I’d first gotten him, but I could feel the solid mass he’d put on, most of it muscle.

  “Who let you out?” I asked him, fearing the worst.

  He made another anxious sound, and I decided I might not want to go in there unarmed.

  “Stay boy,” I told him, and he sat down in the doorway.

  I headed back to the house. The door was locked like we’d left it that morning, and when I opened the door, I reached up over the jam and pulled down Grandpa’s go-to gun. It was a Mossberg knockoff. It was a pistol grip, pump action shotgun with enough of a stock on the back to shoulder up and use it for hunting. Neither of us liked to shoot it because, other than the barrel and action, the stock and foregrips were all composite materials, and it kicked like a mule in comparison to the Mossberg I’d got as a kid.

  Still, the lightweight was why he’d got it if he was going to keep carrying it. The gun that didn’t kick like a mule, and used his hand loaded buckshot, was heavy as sin. I didn’t bother getting my gun out, Grandpa’s were loaded and ready to go. I got it down and racked the slide back halfway, making sure it had one in the chamber. It did, so I closed it and put it on safe before heading back out.

  I could hear the hot smell of my Datsun, and the engine made a ticking sound as the metal cooled. I heard loud barking and rushed inside the barn. I hit the large switch going through, the one we rarely used because using the big overhead lights made the electric meter spin almost visibly. I saw Raider almost immediately. He was on the far side of the barn, paws up on an old stack of washing machines. Crouched on top of that was a young guy in his early twenties.

  I took the safety off the shotgun, shouldered it and walked towards him slowly.

  “Who are you?” I asked him.

  “Call the dog off, man,” he yelled over Raider’s barks.

  They were huge sounds. He’d barked before to answer me or get my attention, and these weren’t that kind of barks. He was using his entire diaphragm. I could almost feel it. He wasn’t just upset, he was pissed. I looked at the stalls, thankful to see they were all locked still. The one we ran our still in couldn’t be seen into from up high in the barn, as we’d long ago used old sheets to cover it to keep flying and biting insects out of there.

  “Who are you?” I repeated.

  “Marshall Crawford, sir,” he said softly, his eyes as wide as the bore of the twelve gauge as I got closer to him and stopped just far enough away that he couldn’t reach out and swat the end.

  “Marshall Crawford, how did you come to find yourself in my barn, of all places?” I asked him, fibbing a bit about ownership.

  “I… my cousin sent me. Said he couldn’t get you on the phone. I knocked on the door and heard the dog barking, so I came out here. I couldn’t hear over the barking, so I cracked the barn…” he broke off, big sobs finally breaking free for a moment, and I waited, I had time.

  “…I thought it’d be locked up. He chased me all over the farm, and I ran back in here and jumped from the tractor to the top of this pile. He won’t let me get down none, and I have to piss awful bad.”

  “Who’s your cousin?” I asked him.

  “Lance, sir, Lance Warcastle.”

  I cursed and then motioned for him to get down. He hesitated to look at the very fierce Raider.

  “Calm boy, easy. Sit and stay in a good un, ya hear me?” I told Raider, using my left hand to pet him.

  He calmed visibly with that and then sat down. “Now it’s safe. I can’t get the leash on him, but he’s never bit nobody before, and I don’t think he’ll start now that I’ve told him not to,” I told Marshall honestly.

  He got down slowly, eying Raider suspiciously, “I’m sorry, I thought maybe somebody was in here.”

  “Where’s your vehicle?” I asked him.

  He looked to the side before answering, “I parked it up the road.”

  “How come?” I asked him.

  “Didn’t look like nobody was home,” he admitted after a minute.

  “You see how this looks, don’t you? You know why Lance wanted to get in touch with me?” I asked, the shotgun barrel traveling up slowly, his eyes never leaving the bore.

  He nodded. “He said he wanted to talk to you about your Friday deliveries.”

  I nodded. “And you thought maybe you’d sneak in here, get you a little something for yourself since you didn’t see me here?”

  He looked at his shoes. “I’m not a thief,” he said softly, then his eyes met mine.

  “Well good,” I said, putting the shotgun on safe and threw the sling on my shoulder. “Westley, people call me Wes.”

  My whole demeanor changed, I did it on purpose. From the threatening growl and how I talked to Raider to now a nice friendly guy with my hand outstretched, offering to shake… He took it, and I pulled him close, surprising him.

  “It’s not here. You think I’d be so stupid to have anything here?” I asked him.

  “I can see it’s not here,” he said softly. “I just got trapped by the damned dog.”

  “You got curious, thinking he was locked up with my still, my supplies, and my moonshine.”

  He nodded.

  “You’re wrong,” I lied, the growl coming out harsh, making my voice hurt, my hand squeezing his. “Other than your cousin, nobody else knows where you are.”

  I let the words sink in, and when he wasn’t grimacing in pain, the realization of my words kicked in.

  “I promise, I was just curious, I ain’t never seen a setup, just those cheap things on Amazon.”

  I let his hand go and shoved him back gently. He stumbled, losing his footing. Raider advanced on him, growling, his hair standing on end.

  “Easy, stay,” I told him.

  Raider stopped, but a rumble still emitted from deep within him.

  “I swear, I was just curious. I’m not a thief, I wasn’t going to steal anything.”

  “I hope you ain’t lying to me,” I cautioned.

&n
bsp; I thought about it; it was dark when he came in, he probably didn’t notice the horse stalls, but if he did, he’d notice that they all had shiny new locks on them. That might make somebody curious, and if he already knew I was skirting the law by making shine, how shady or bloodthirsty did he think I really was? If he’d been watching the TV shows, everybody is happy go lucky, but Grandpa had told me tales that usually had two arguments, half a dozen fist fights and guns drawn. For me, this was a first, minus the fist fight, but the young guy might have put up a fight if he hadn’t been terrified of the dog.

  “I’m not, I swear.”

  “You know what farms have a lot of?” I asked him.

  “No..oo..oooo,” he stuttered.

  “Fertilizer, fuel oil, dynamite, and quicklime,” I said, pointing off to the side where the doors were closed, “Best remember that. In a business like ours, it’s better to lose the barn than bring the feds snooping. You dig my meaning, kid?”

  “I do… Gosh, I had… I didn’t even go near those.”

  “You’re lucky then. Grandpa doesn’t mess around,” I told him. “Now go take a piss around the side of the barn. You try to run I’ll gun you down and feed you to the pigs.” I didn’t have pigs, yet.

  “I… yes, sir,” he said.

  I pulled my phone out and put the battery in it and turned it on. Marshall walked to the far corner by the tall weeds outside the barn and let loose. He really had to go, but he was finishing as I hit send on a number I had saved as a just in case.

  “Hello?” Lance said.

  “Lance, found your cousin poking around in my barn. He ain’t hurt but my dog almost got him, and he about pissed himself when he almost had to suck start my 12-gauge.”

  “He… you… what is going on?” he shouted, angrily.

  “I found your cousin trespassing, looking for something he shouldn’t want to come find. He parked a bit away and walked in.”