Loneliness, Jaimie thought, tastes like bland, lumpy oatmeal and makes the colors close to the heart turn to gray dust bunnies.
“If you eat it, wear it or use it, it comes by truck and it probably comes across a border. The borders are shut down. Each nation is an island now and when the government can’t help you, each man is an island. Each man is an island, at least when the chips are down and everything’s gone to uh…poop.” He gave Jaimie a kind glance and smiled again, revealing teeth too perfect to be real. “John Donne had it wrong, huh?”
Theo failed to conceal his surprise and the man caught his look. “Poetry isn’t just for city folks, Professor. In fact, a case of beer and reading poetry in the woods go together quite nicely.”
The line advanced another few feet and the man in camouflage seemed to lose his train of thought for a moment. “I didn’t read much before I got into sustainability. I don’t know why. I mean…I read a lot of seed catalogues and fishing magazines before. I was on a sustainability forum and somebody kept talking about Walden, you know?”
“On Walden Pond.”
“Yeah. You know it. Good. Go read it if you haven’t, or read it again. I tell you now, Communism went under. Capitalism went under when we caught on that the brokers and bankers and the politicians were just out for themselves. Thoreau wrote the only manifesto we should pay attention to now.”
Behind them, the baby began to cough. Both men hunched slightly. “Speaking of Donne…” the man said.
“Ask not for whom the bell tolls — ” Theo said.
“Yeah. Don’t,” the man replied. “Nobody likes that answer.”
“I’ve gotta get out of this cesspool and up in isolation. My nearest neighbor up north is like five miles away.”
“Where’s that?” Theo asked.
“North. Just north.”
They smiled at each other, but Jaimie saw some yellow creep into the big man’s aura and his egg of energy took on hard edges.
The baby coughed again. Theo shifted his weight from foot to foot, anxious to leave. “You think we should wear masks?”
The man in camouflage laughed. “Looks like downtown China in here, doesn’t it? Nah. Those masks don’t do you any good. Viruses are small buggers and the masks these folks are wearing might make ’em feel good, but they’re really only good for keeping sawdust out when you’re using a circular saw.”
Theo looked startled. “But they wear masks in the hospitals.”
“I looked into it,” the man said. “Those masks are specially fitted. They use a noxious smoke to test the seal. Even then, as soon as it gets a little wet, say from you breathing through it, it’s no good anymore. I heard of some guys getting fancy gas masks and even Hazmat suits, but you can’t live in them 24/7, so what’s the point? The point is to rely on yourself and get through. It’s not to live in a bubble.”
The man looked Jaimie’s father up and down, and for the first time turned his head to the side. “Can’t say where I’m headed, partner. Nothing personal, but get you and your boy away from the cities. The Sutr virus is just the first wave. When the system can’t clear the dead bodies anymore, the next wave is typhus or cholera or bubonic or whatever else comes with dead bodies unattended to.”
Jaimie watched his father’s cheeks flush. He glanced into the man’s shopping cart and the man followed his gaze. The cart was full of potato chips bags and soda. “My last little luxuries,” the man said. “I suppose I can shave some potatoes and fry up my own chips, but I doubt I’ll be making my own soda after that runs out.”
Eyeing the man’s cases of soda my father said, “I hope this won’t last that long.”
The baby coughed again, and this time it wheezed a long time afterward, like it was trying to catch its breath but that race was already lost. Jaimie looked at the baby. It was a girl judging by her pink blanket. When he looked closely, he could see rivulets of black stretching out over the child’s throat and chest. The baby’s mother was a flare of yellow, but none of the black touched her. The mother was immune, but her immunity had not passed to her baby.
The man in camouflage finally advanced to the cashier. The man behind the counter didn’t look up from the conveyor belt as he pulled the bags of chips across the scanner.
“You still taking credit cards, boss?”
“Yes, sir,” said the cashier.
The man in camouflage winked at my father and smiled even bigger. “Jeez, I think I better haul ass over to the liquor store next,” he said.
He waved at father and son happily as he pushed his cart toward the exit, but he was waiting outside the store as Theo and Jaimie walked to their van, pushing their carts of groceries. “Hey, friend. It was nice talking to you. I was thinking about you and your boy. I want to give you some free advice. Load up while they’re still taking credit cards. Max out everything and fill up because this is the time. Don’t hold back. Who knows? Our numbers might be up and nobody’s coming to collect anyway. Mark my words.”
“Thanks,” Theo said.
“Here’s an even better secret you probably didn’t know. Load up even if it’s not something you can use,” the man said, “Load up! You see that 18-wheeler over there?” It was the only semi in the parking lot. “I was on a big delivery when I got turned back at a roadblock. Guess what that box is full of? Tampons! I’ve got a lifetime supply right there, all sizes. If I ever run out of anything, or if I just want some company, I’ve got something to trade. I’m headed north. Sometime next year things will settle down or they won’t. Either way, I’m gonna come back down here and I’m gonna be the Tampon King.”
“Well…good luck,” Theo replied. “Thanks for the advice.” He stuck out his hand to shake but the man in camouflage pulled back instead and gave a friendly wave.
“Shaking hands. You know, old son, that’s a tradition that started with knights clasping sword hands to show their friendly intentions. Same with the salute, raising up the armored visor to flash a smile at a fellow knight. I think handshaking’s dead, along with lots of people, don’t you?”
The big man gave a cheery salute as he walked toward his truck. Jaimie had a new word for what he saw. If he had trawled through his big dictionaries in alphabetical order, he would have run across the word much sooner. The word was aura.
When the boy squinted, he could see two tiny black dots at the very edge of the big man’s aura. They looked like black wasps, angry but waiting for their time to strike.
Jaimie thought it sad that such a big, friendly man would die along with the tradition of the handshake.
We are all gods in some small way
Theo and Jaimie spent the rest of the morning shopping and only returned home when their van was full. Theo ran back and forth from the house, puffing. The boy had never seen him run. He emptied it as quickly as he could and then took off for supplies twice more.
At the camping store they found tents but they were for cold weather. All the summer tents were gone. The young, blonde woman behind the counter watched Theo try to decide what to buy. She finally walked up and asked what kind of camping he intended to do.
“What do you mean, kind of camping?” he asked.
The blonde woman did not try to conceal her heavy sigh. “Well, there’s back country hiking, but you’re probably thinking of campgrounds with lots of facilities. You know, like camping from your car.”
“Can we make this simple? Which one should I get for four people, two adults and two kids…well, really four adults, I guess.”
“That depends. Where you going and what season are you camping in?”
Jaimie watched confusion cross his father’s face and his jaw hardened. He didn’t know the answers to those questions, but he answered, “Summer. Maybe a long trip, like to the east coast.”
The saleswoman bobbed her head. “All our summer stock is gone and the boss says there’s no way to know when we’ll get restocked. I can sell you a tarp. I still have some of
those.” My father’s mouth curled and Jaimie watched thin heat come off him in a wave that tasted chalky. “A tarp isn’t as dry as a tent but it’s something, and a tent in summer is often too hot, anyway.”
“Give me a winter tent and two tarps,” he said. “Anything else I need?”
When the woman rolled her eyes, he said, “Never mind, I’ll browse some more and figure it out.”
Theo bought a compass, a first aid kit, four cold weather sleeping bags, ponchos, several boxes of waterproof matches, a camp oven, glow sticks, a lantern, gas for the lantern and glow-in-the-dark tent pegs. Jaimie contented himself with exploring the fabric of the carpet while Theo debated about backpacks. His father picked out four huge backpacks first, thought better of it and chose two smaller packs and two big ones.
When he brought his selections to the store’s front counter, the saleswoman cocked an eyebrow at him and asked if there was room for everyone to sleep in the car. “You need mats for under the sleeping bags, too. Without it, it always feels like you’re sleeping on a rock or a lump no matter where you pitch the tent. The air bed is most comfortable, but you need a pump, too. There’s an electric one, which I recommend.”
He went back and got rolled foam sleeping mats and then handed Jaimie four plastic bags, each marked “Survival Kit.” When Theo thought he was finished, the blonde woman stood with her arms crossed, considering the boy with an appraising eye. “You need this,” she said as she pulled a box marked “Portable Toilet” from the wall behind the counter. Theo nodded and asked if she had any other helpful suggestions.
“Leaves of three, let it be. Never wipe your butt with poison oak. It can ruin your whole day and definitely screws up your night.”
Instead of using the cash register the woman used a calculator. When she was done, she said the bill came to $3,400.
Theo hesitated, looking over his purchases. “That can’t be right. I thought it was less.”
“Prices went up recently,” she said.
“You’re gouging me? You can’t do that. You have to go with the prices as marked!”
“Call it an even $2,900, then,” she said.
Theo looked at Jaimie and back at the pile of camping supplies. Without a word, he handed her a credit card.
She took it without hesitating and started putting everything in bags. “Business sure is great recently. A lot of people are discovering the beauty of nature or something.”
“You watch the news?” Theo said.
“Yeah, all that flu pandemic garbage will pass. We’ll probably shut down for a couple weeks. I was going to spend my spring vacation backpacking in Bolivia this year but that’s all screwed up. I’ll head to the Rockies again this year instead. I’d rather deal with snakes than grizzlies, but whatcha gonna do?”
“Bears?” Theo said.
“The biggest.”
He pointed to canisters in plastic behind the counter. “I need bear spray, too.”
“Good idea. $100.”
When he started to hand back his credit card she quickly added, “Cash only.”
Theo dug a crisp $100 bill out of his wallet. She held it up to the light and smiled as she reached under her shirt and tucked the bill into her bra.
She helped Theo and Jaimie carry everything out to the van.
“A couple more epidemics like this and I might take a year off to backpack Australia!” she said.
Theo and Jaimie climbed back in the van and his father sat there a moment, staring at the steering wheel. Jaimie stared at it, too, but he didn’t notice any change in it.
“I knew there were such things as war profiteers,” Theo said. “I guess I hadn’t thought all this through as things go downhill. It didn’t occur to me anyone would try to profit off misery. I also never thought I’d hand over a credit card thinking there was a chance I’d never have to pay the bill. A lot of people are in denial and most everyone else seems to be in a panic. I’m lost here, J. I can’t tell anyone else this, not even your mother…I really don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve felt that way before…taking you and your sister home from the hospital after you were born. I felt this way for a long time before you got your diagnosis. But this? This feels like the first time where not knowing what I’m doing might be deadly important! This might be something I can’t adapt to or fix or…I don’t know…”
Jaimie buckled his seatbelt. When his father didn’t turn the ignition, the boy said “Pickle!”
“Pickle” had been code in the family since Anna was a little girl. One day Jack was to drive Anna somewhere and she called out to the back seat, “Buckled?” before she started the car.
Anna misheard “buckled” and called back, “Pickle!” The mistake stuck.
Theo adjusted his mirror so he could look in Jaimie’s eyes. “You have a nice voice, J. I wish you used it more.”
He said that every time Jaimie spoke.
* * *
On their return, they found Anna and Jack in the kitchen surrounded by bags of groceries, mostly cans, cereal and big boxes of powdered milk. Theo let out a low whistle which Jaimie knew meant he was impressed. “You did well. I couldn’t find any powdered milk.”
Jack looked up from the floor where she had been sorting groceries into piles. “We got out of town and went to a bunch of smaller stores. When I looked at the grocery store and saw the parking lot, I just kept going. The panic buying hasn’t set in so much out in the little towns yet, or there aren’t so many people to drain the shelves. Maybe country people are just more prepared generally and have more stuff on hand.”
Anna stood over her mother. “Mom says everyone else is panic buying but we’re not.”
Theo nodded cautiously.
“This is crazy. School’s closed for quarantine and people aren’t supposed to gather in large groups so the first thing we do is run out with the crowds to get a bunch of stuff?”
Jack and Theo looked at each other. “I needed you with me to help carry everything, Anna,” Jack said, her defenses shooting up in yellow and pink pastels.
Anna crossed her arms. “I hope you guys like powdered milk because I’m not drinking that stuff. I tried it once at summer camp and it was watery and awful.”
“I hope you get to say I told you so, Anna,” Jack said.
“I’m going to,” she said. “I’m bringing it up at all my weddings and your funerals, too.” She smiled, but Jaimie guessed she wasn't really happy.
“All your weddings?” Theo said.
“Don’t be a bonehead, Dad.” Anna began to march out of the kitchen but Theo caught her by the elbow. “Help your Mom put the stuff away, please. Jaimie will help me with the stuff in the van.” There was a hard tone in his voice that was new.
Anna hesitated. She bent to look through the shopping bags and help her mother as if it were her idea.
At the front door, Theo paused and shouted back, “Jack? Did you find duct tape and plastic?”
“Yes!” Jaimie’s mother bellowed, though I still don’t know what we’ll use it for!”
“Me, neither! But the governor recommended it!”
There was no more room in the kitchen cupboards. Theo told Jaimie and Anna to carry everything to the basement. A cold room with shelves for food stood near the furnace room, but Theo insisted they hide all the foodstuffs in another basement room instead. “If anyone asks,” he said, “we don’t have any more food than a few days’ worth. If somebody looks in the logical places, we won’t have much to give up. Everybody got that?”
Jaimie wouldn’t understand that danger until the night the looters came and the Spencers lost everything.
* * *
Jack wanted to sort through all the supplies again and make a list on her clipboard. Instead, Theo had one more family outing planned for that day. They drove to where he worked. It was a small library branch. The libraries had closed and it was dark when they pulled into the empty parking lot.
Theo pulled ke
ys to the big glass doors from his coat pocket and dashed ahead to enter the code so the building alarm wouldn’t sound. “There really haven’t been that many people in lately, except for the computers.”
The smell of stale book glue hung in the air. Theo surveyed the library. “At Hiroshima,” Theo whispered to his wife, “at the moment of the blast, one of the victims was buried under a pile of books. That’s how the Atomic Age began. That metaphor always stuck, you know? I wonder…if this is the beginning of the Plague Age. The experts all say we’re overdue — ”
“Don’t,” Jack said. “We’ll live to find out. Somebody always survives any disaster and we’re taking precautions millions won’t or can’t.” She walked past her husband.
Only Jaimie caught his father’s barely breathed words, “Everybody always thinks they’re the ones who will make it.”
Jaimie squeezed his father’s hand. Without thinking about it, or even knowing he could do such a thing, gave Theo some of his violet energy. He’d watched his father use jumper cables to help start a neighbor’s car once. The energy transfer was like that.
Theo straightened, as if sensing a mild electric current. He broke away and looked at his son, more baffled than shocked. After a moment, he set his jaw as if dismissing a useless thought and went about handing each family member a garbage bag. He gestured toward the stacks. “Anything you want. Load up. It’s a free-for-all tonight. I’ve cracked open the vault. Go wild.”
Anna and Jack headed toward fiction. Jaimie followed his father, watching as he scoured the books. He glimpsed his mother and sister through gaps in the shelves. He could tell by the way they moved that they were browsing aimlessly, letting books of interest reveal themselves.
Theo moved with purpose, searching for particular titles. The yellow that had suffused him all day (miasma was the better word, Jaimie thought) lifted, leaving Theo his usual vibrant blue-green.
The house seemed to belong more to his mother than his father. The public library was his father’s home. Libraries were on the way out and his was a dying profession that would soon degenerate from quaint to irrelevant. However, this was where Theo knew all there was to know.
This Plague of Days (Omnibus): Seasons 1-3 Page 4