“Probably too many people ran out of food. Is that all they had to say?”
Anna shrugged. “Just the usual warnings about staying away from each other. Of course, you still went out. Way to go. Mom of the Year. When I went out, you guys pitched a hairy fit and — ”
“I went out for seeds to feed us, Anna. Not to make out.”
“Mom!”
Jack sighed. “Turn on the television again. I want to watch a movie or something. I want a story where everything works out well in the end.”
“SpongeBob Squarepants?” Anna suggested as she touched the power button.
The sudden blast of an alarm from the television jarred them and hurt Jaimie’s ears. A loud red and white tone filled the room and Jaimie jumped from his chair. His Latin dictionary fell to the floor, clapping shut. He tasted copper coming out of the television. He felt like his clothes were made of sandpaper.
Jack snatched the remote up and turned the volume down. “This is the Emergency Alert System,” a man’s voice said. It repeated that message three times.
“They’ve been testing that thing all my life,” Theo said. “We know! We know! They used to call it the Emergency Broadcast System. About time we got our tax money’s worth.”
Jack and Anna went white and Theo’s smile faded. Jaimie suspected he had tried to make a joke but no one laughed. Jaimie felt sorry for his father. Jaimie didn’t understand jokes, either.
“The Office of Public Health and the Office of Public Safety, in coordination with the Emergency Services Bureau is declaring a health emergency in your area. The World Health Organization has declared the Sutr Virus a level six emergency. For public health and your safety, you are required to stay in your homes and avoid contact with others. Do not travel unless absolutely necessary.”
The family sat and watched the screen, though it was just a red field with the same white words crawling across the bottom of the screen: Martial Law Declared.
There were a lot of new rules: a curfew of six o’clock in the evening was declared. No one was to gather in public groups for any reason. Trucks would come through the cities with supplies for people who needed them but they encouraged all citizens to “use what supplies you have on hand first.”
Jaimie looked up the word quarantine. He thought the word beautiful. The q tasted sugary and uaran struck Jaimie as the essence of a ripe avocado. Best of all, the word ended with –tine, the sound of a little silver bell.
The message started to repeat so Anna switched channels. On a Canadian news network feed, three men and two women talked about nuclear missiles in Pakistan. In a small box at the bottom of the screen, a line of people seemed to be waiting for something but it wasn’t clear for what. The family had seen similar pictures of people waiting in lines when they were covering the outbreak in India. However, these new pictures were mostly fat, white people.
The Weather Channel was working and predicting a rainstorm and unseasonably warm temperatures.
Unseasonably. So close to unreasonably, Jaimie thought.
All the other channels broadcast the same repeated message. Theo took the remote and switched to Netflix. He selected a black and white movie with an actor Jaimie recognized: Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. The credits said James but Jaimie knew everyone called him Jimmy. Theo watched his movies many times so Jaimie had seen them all. Rear Window and Vertigo were his favorites.
The family was still watching the movie when someone knocked on their front door. Theo answered and found Mrs. Bendham looking at the shattered screen door propped up on the porch.
Jaimie looked out from behind his mother. Jack pushed him behind her gently. Their neighbor had been crying. Her eyes were red and her face was gray.
“Could you come see Al?”
“What’s going on?”
“I thought he was getting better. His fever broke and he was getting crankier, so I was sure he was getting better.”
“What do you want me to do, exactly?” Theo asked.
“I don’t know. Just look at him and tell me what you think I should do. I tried calling an ambulance last night, but the lines were so busy. Around five this morning, I got up and called again. I got a dispatcher and they said they’d send someone. That was this morning. Now it’s dark.”
The quaver in her voice was back. “The dispatcher said she’d put me on her list. I’ve waited all day. I don’t know what to do.”
Theo looked back at his family. Jack shook her head. He shrugged his shoulders and said he’d get his jacket. He grabbed a winter scarf from the front closet and wrapped it around his mouth and nose.
It was Jack’s turn to pace, but she didn’t have long to wait. Her husband returned in a few minutes, looking pale. Theo went straight to the kitchen sink and washed his hands with the bright yellow soap they used for washing dishes.
“She said he got quiet and fell asleep around ten last night. Before she went to bed, she put her hand on his forehead and decided his fever had broken.”
His father washed his hands in a way Jaimie hadn’t seen. Put the words savage and urgent together. That would define it well. Somebody should make up one word for that idea, he thought. Savurgency, maybe.
His father stood at the sink a long time, scrubbing his hands as the family watched and waited for him to say more. He flicked his wet hands at the sink instead of using a hand towel and turned to face them. “She thought his fever broke but I think that was when he started to go cold. Al’s dead.”
“Oh, Theo,” Jack said.
“Yeah,” he nodded, grim and gray, as if seeing Mr. Bendham’s body had depleted him in some way. “I’ve mostly seen dead bodies at funerals. I never saw death like that before.”
Anna shrank back. Jack stepped forward and gave her husband a hug.
“I’ve only seen a couple of dead bodies, when I was a little girl and that time in Paris,” Jack said. “We’ve been lucky, haven’t we?”
She moved to the coffeemaker. Despite the late hour, Jack pulled out the used filter and grind from that morning. Keeping her hands busy seemed to soothe her and allowed Jack to talk and remember.
“One Sunday, I was leaving a church service with my parents when I saw a man standing at the top of the stairs. That was the shortest route to the parking lot, but he was blocking the way. He asked us to go out through the front of the church. He stood there with his hands behind his back. I remember thinking that he was just another man from church, but the way he stood, made him seem official somehow. My father pulled me by the shoulder to spin me back toward the other exit, but not before I saw the old woman lying at the bottom of the stairs. I caught her in a single glance, but one peek is all it takes for something like that.”
“What happened to her?” Anna asked.
“I don’t know exactly, honey. I remember she was wearing a long dress, white with a purple design on it…you know, kind of an old lady dress. And she wore a hat. Must have been one of those deals where it was pinned to her hair because the hat was still on. She must have fallen down the stairs. God knows. Maybe she had a heart attack or a stroke on the stairs first, or maybe after she hit the landing. Funny, I can still see those white old lady stockings and the surprised look frozen on her face. Frozen! I could have done without that.”
“Didn’t they call an ambulance or something?” Anna asked.
“That’s kind of the weird thing. That poor, old woman was alone at the bottom of the stairs. That seemed really wrong to me — still does. We shouldn’t die alone. My mother told me when I was little that people who die alone come back to haunt us. I know that surprised face still haunts me in odd moments.”
Jack opened the coffee can. and The rich aroma of the brown beans wafted out. Jaimie thought he’d like to drink coffee when he grew old enough, but he wasn’t sure how old he would have to be. His mother had never made coffee at night. Jaimie guessed that’s what people do when the old man next door dies.
“What did they do?”
“Oh, nothing much. It turned out my friend’s sister just got the wind knocked out of her. She was really okay. When she got her breath back, she started crying. They comforted her. I remember we formed a circle around her, everyone reaching with one hand stretched into the center to touch her head and let her know she was okay, not alone…loved. That’s the way things are supposed to be. Somebody gets hurt or needs help and the more people standing close by, the better.
“But I remember thinking that here was this little old lady, surprised to be suddenly dead at the bottom of the stairs with her legs bent at crazy angles. There was no one near her, just this old guy giving us a smile and asking us to use the other way out. Sometimes when someone dies, no one is around. That’s what God is for, so we’re never alone.”
“Sounds like God is an Orwellian voyeuristic dictator.” As soon as he blurted it, Theo backed away a step, his lips bunched tight.
Regret tastes like a sour green apple, Jaimie thought.
Anna’s eyes were wet and glassy.
Jack cleared her throat and did not look at her husband. “I asked my Mom what happened to the old lady and she said not to worry about it. It was a big church. Every month the pastor included death announcements about some elderly people.”
“That was supposed to make it better? Did that make you feel better?” Anna asked. “That ‘every month’ thing bugs me, like the more numbers there were, each loss was, I don’t know—“
“Diluted,” Theo said.
Anna nodded. “Yeah, like, to God, we’re mere statistics.”
Jack poured water into the coffeemaker. She seemed to think a long time before answering. She pulled down the sugar bowl from the cupboard, some spoons out of a drawer and five mugs.
“The pastor never called it a death notice. He said Mrs. So-and-so went on to glory last week, or passed on to be with Jesus or was off to receive her eternal reward. Something like that.”
“Sounds comforting. Too good to be true, in fact.” Theo couldn’t seem to restrain himself.
“Well,” Jack smiled. “Comfort was where the focus was. Ought to be. God knows us each by name and He knows what He’s doing. Look at the images we’ve seen from the Hubble telescope. Look at the symmetry in a flower. There’s a plan and we’re each God’s child.”
Anna turned to her father, who seemed to study the floor. “Where do you think we go when we die, Dad?”
“Down,” he said. “About six feet…but I don’t think about this stuff much, Anna. I was brought up in the church, too. We all were back then. I remember I was probably as old as Jaimie is now before I stopped worrying about burning in hell.”
Anna’s eyes were wide and her face serious. “How’d you stop worrying?”
“I just stopped thinking about it,” he said. “I figured that if I spent my life worrying about death, I wouldn’t have much of a life. That’s worked out just fine.”
“Till now,” Jack said.
“Still.”
Jaimie spotted a little electrical arc spark between them. His mother poured the coffee and handed Theo two mugs. “Go back. Ring Mrs. Bendham’s bell, and leave the mug on her front step. I think we can spare a couple cupcakes, don’t you?”
“It must be genetic,” Theo said. “Anybody dies and, since there’s nothing else to do, people bring food. Must be the comfort of the sugar and a dopamine reward for the brain to offset the grief.”
An annoyed look swept over Jack’s face. Jaimie did not read her facial expression. Such nuances often escaped him. However, he saw the scarlet flare of anger that reached her corona.
Theo shrugged and nodded his assent and took the coffee to Mrs. Bendham.
“If nobody comes by tomorrow…we’ll dig a grave in her backyard.”
“Mom!”
“Take it easy, Anna. It’s supposed to be warm over the next few days. We can’t just leave him in the house. That’s not safe.”
Anna looked shaky. “What about the police or a funeral home or…?”
“I’d say from what we know, the authorities are really busy right now. Don’t worry about this. This is all going to blow over. In the meantime, we’re going to have to take care of more things for ourselves. Just for a while.”
That was Jack’s mother’s fourth lie, but Jaimie thought she believed that one.
For a moment, Jaimie thought Anna was going to cry but a rancid puce around the twist of her mouth told him it was repulsion that washed over her in waves.
His mother must have sensed it, too, because she seemed anxious to calm Anna, to act as if all this was normal. “Have a coffee, Anna. It’s decaf. Relax a little and uh, gather your thoughts. Then I want you and Jaimie to gather up every bucket, pail, bowl and receptacle in the house. You guys have showers tonight and, after we’re all done in there, we’ll fill the bathtub.”
“What are we doing? Are we getting ready for a tornado or the flu pandemic?”
“We’ll wash every bucket and bowl really clean,” she said. “It’ll rain tonight. That’s a couple of blessings. We’ll save the water in case we need it later and…the ground will be soft in the morning, if we need it.”
Theo returned and leaned forward to give his wife a kiss on the cheek. “All this time I thought you were wasting time praying. I guess you were using the time to think.”
“You’re confused, heathen. They’re the same thing.” She moved to her husband’s side, wrapped an arm around him and gave him a squeeze. “Rough weather ahead, Theo. Things are changing fast. Maybe you’ll rethink a few of these issues before things go back on smooth and easy autopilot.”
“Highly doubtful,” he said. “Pray all you want, but when it comes to it, I’m betting you’ll take whatever vaccine the government has for us instead of a prayer.”
“The first thing we have to assume under the circumstances is that the government is too busy to be of much help. Or they’re somewhere else looking after their own families. If there’s no vaccine to look forward to anytime soon, prayer may be all that we have left to rely on for now.”
“Well, then God help us,” Theo said, “…or the Buddha or Vishnu or whatever. I won’t be too picky.”
Jaimie turned back to the living room to look up the word heathen, but his mother told him to wait. “Have a bath after Anna’s done her shower, Jaimie.” She handed him the last mug of steaming coffee. His first.
He held the hot cup between his palms, enjoying the aroma. When he tasted it, he was disappointed. Its smell was nutty but the taste was acidic and he burned his tongue. He made a face and his mother laughed.
Jack’s look of confidence and reassurance broke when the sound of air raid sirens rose in the far distance. The howl strengthened and ebbed, but did not stop, like a wolf that never ran out of breath.
Roast together: Ugly, Good and Bad
The morning the Spencers were going to bury Al Bendham, an unexpected emissary arrived at dawn with terrible news. Douglas Oliver lived across the street from the Spencers with his dog, a German Shepherd named Steve. Though his two-storey house faced their own, the Spencers’ interaction with him had been limited to exchanging waves as he drove his green Mercedes in and out of his garage.
Oliver’s backyard was fenced in so they never saw him walking his big dog, either. Sometimes Steve barked late at night and they heard Oliver yelling the dog’s name, swearing at him to be quiet.
Jaimie enjoyed listening to him. Born in Australia, Oliver
sometimes did strange, unexpected things with vowels.
When they did see Oliver, it was in the warmer months when he practiced putting in his side yard. He said he wasn’t welcome in his old church so golf was his new church. Jaimie thought golf was a strange religion, though no stranger than the others. Theo said Mr. Oliver tried to convert him once when he borrowed a crosscut saw from the old man.
“You interested in golf?” Oliver had asked.
Theo said no. Oliver told him about his golf game, anyway. Jaimie didn’t understand the story. It started out with a ball you addressed and hit with a club. Then Oliver got a bird and Jaimie lost the thread entirely. Jaimie couldn’t understand why anyone would chase a ball with a club when they could stay inside and read a dictionary.
When Oliver finished his story, he looked at Theo so expectantly, Jaimie guessed he was waiting for applause like they did with Show and Tell at school. Jaimie clapped, which made the old man laugh.
Theo grinned, thanked the neighbor for the saw and explained that he was an atheist when it came to golf (and just about everything else). “The only time I played, I got a hole-in-one, but that clown’s mouth was pretty wide.”
Jaimie didn’t understand the mystery of the clown mouth, either. The discomfort of bafflement was small compared to the effort it took to speak. If people knew how much he didn’t understand, Jaimie was certain they’d think he was stupid. Staying mute was the most intelligent course.
That cordial exchange between neighbors was the most anyone in the Spencer family had spoken to Douglas Oliver until he rapped on their front door to give them news of the plague.
The Spencer family was already up. Anna said it was all the coffee she drank the night before. “Decaffeinated doesn’t mean no caffeine. It just means less, right? Besides, those sirens kept me up till three. What was the point of that?”
“I suspect,” Theo said, “that they let the air raid sirens go to make sure everyone turned on a computer or TV or radio so they knew what was going on. When the National Guard starts arresting people out past curfew, they don’t want to have to give the ‘Ignorance of martial law is no excuse speech.’”
This Plague of Days (Omnibus): Seasons 1-3 Page 9