Surviving Home

by Angery American

  “Stump Knocker, we have you in sight, looks like there is a clearing about half a click ahead of you that we can get into if you want us to.”

  “Roger that, Raven two-two, see if you can fit and we’ll rendezvous there!”

  “Roger, Raven’s inbound.”

  Lewis slapped the roof of the truck and leaned around to the driver’s door and told Doc to look for the clearing. As he was talking, the Black Hawk roared overhead.

  A clearing opened up on the left side of the road and Doc pulled off. As the Black Hawk flared for a landing, the other orbited the LZ to provide cover.

  Everyone bailed out of the truck before it came to complete stop and were getting their gear together. Sarge was handing Pelican cases out to be loaded up. Captain Lewis looked at Sarge and said, “We don’t need any of that, let’s get aboard!” He shouted above the roar of the Black Hawk.

  “We may not need it, but I do. It’s going!” Sarge made sure all of his radios as well as all of their weapons were loaded up and asked for an incendiary grenade. No one had one.

  Lewis asked, “What do you want it for?”

  Sarge pointed at the truck, “Burn it.”

  They all hopped into the Black Hawk and it lifted off, The crew chief was scanning the tree line for threats, swinging the GE minigun back and forth as he did. Sarge tapped the gunner on the shoulder.

  Pointing down at the truck Sarge keyed the mic for the intercom and said, “Burn it.” The gunner looked at Captain Lewis, who nodded, and the gunner lined up on the old Dodge and fired a short burst, missing the truck but quickly adjusted his aim and rounds began pouring into the truck. The other gunner, seeing the stream of red tracers spewing out of the other ship, began to fire on it as well. It wasn’t long before the truck was burning, the sheer number of rounds hitting it setting it on fire.

  Sarge sat there looking out the open door at the fireworks. It was a bittersweet moment for him. On the one side the damn DHS wasn’t going to get his beloved old Dodge, but on the other side he was losing it.

  Ted kicked Sarge’s boot, and when he looked over Ted nodded out the door. Off the starboard side of the Black Hawk they could see the two Apaches come up in formation with them. Sarge looked back at Ted and smiled, and Ted gave him a thumbs up.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Running with a weapon slung around your neck is a pain in the ass. I am not an Airborne Ranger, and I don’t want to be one. I had just rounded the corner onto my road when I saw an ATV start heading my way from the barricade. It was quickly gaining speed and I could see it was Reggie. He came past me in a blur, not even waving. I had to stop and stare at him; there was a person laying across the seat in front him, and while I couldn’t see the head as it was hanging off the other side, what I did see was that the feet were bound.

  I stood there looking at him as he sped down the road, slowing just enough to negotiate the corner onto his road. What the fuck is that all about? I wondered. At the moment, though, I had other shit to do and headed for the house. As I came in the gate, Meathead met me and followed me back to the shop. I was pretty out of breath when I jerked the door open. Jeff jumped and let out a howl, shaking his thumb then sticking it in his mouth and dropping the soldering iron he had in his other hand.

  He looked at me with his thumb still in his mouth. “I booned ma tum.”

  “Sorry about that,” I replied, still breathing hard.

  He watched me as I crossed the shop and started to pull cartons from the shelves. I grabbed the two packages of Ensure then started looking for other stuff to take them. I was thinking high calorie and high protein. Grabbing an empty box, I threw a jar of peanut butter in, a few cans of sardines in tomato sauce (the big ones), a few cans of beans, a couple cans of spinach, canned corn, green beans, a couple packs of spaghetti noodles and two cans of sauce. All of this stuff I had a lot of, thank God for Aldi’s and Save-A-Lot.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I heard Jeff say, his thumb now out of his mouth.

  “One of our neighbors has a daughter that is starving to death and he’s too damn proud to ask for help.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Oh, need any help?”

  “Naw, how’s that going?”

  Jeff looked back at the bench. “It’s almost done. It should work fine; it was easy.”

  “I’m going back over and drop this off, then I have other shit to do. I’ll be back later.”

  “Cool, I’ll be in here probably; that laptop needs some work. Do you even know what a disk cleanup is, or how to defrag a hard drive?”

  I looked at him kind of wide eyed. “You mean you can do that?”

  Jeff pressed his lips together and gave the finger. I took my box out and put it on the cart. Meathead was sniffing the box, and I pushed him with my knee, “Get out of there, nosey.” That made me think and I looked at the box. While you couldn’t see into it unless you were standing over it, someone might be out walking around and it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to start wondering what was so heavy in the box that I needed a cart. I pulled it over to the woodshed and piled on wood to cover the box. It didn’t take much and I’d leave that with Tom too. At the gate I had to push Meathead back in and close it behind me to keep him from following.

  At Tom’s house I pulled the cart up close to the porch and carried the box inside. I took out the Ensure and handed it to Tom’s wife. “Take these and mix ‘em with water half and half for a couple of days. Don’t give her too much at a time, take it slow at first.” She nodded and carried the case into the kitchen. I followed her with the box and set it on a small table. Tom came in and looked into the box. He started setting the items out on the table. Tom’s wife came over and watched as he unloaded the box, and both of them started to tear up.

  Once everything was unloaded, Tom looked up at me. “I don’t know what to say. There is no way I can repay you for this.”

  “It isn’t much, but it’s all I can do. I can’t give you any more, understand?”

  He nodded and looked at the table again. Tom’s wife left the kitchen with a cup of the Ensure for Rene. Tom and I followed her back to the room and stood in the hall watching as Rene slowly sipped the mixture. I caught Taylor’s eye and motioned for her to come out. She came out into the hall and we walked out into the living room. “I’ve got some stuff I need to do. You want to hang out here while I do it or do you want to come down to Danny’s with me?”

  Without hesitation she replied, “I want to stay here.”

  “Okay, stay here until I come get you. Don’t walk home alone and don’t talk about how things are at home, got it?” She nodded and I continued, “If anyone asks anything, we are just as hungry as they are and things are just as bleak, got it?” Again, she nodded.

  I gave her a kiss on the top of her head. “Alright, I’ll be back later.” She turned and headed back into Rene’s room.

  I didn’t see anyone else on the way to Danny’s. The quiet gave me time to think about Reggie and what the hell he was up to this morning, who was on the ATV and why.

  I opened Danny’s door as I knocked on it. They were sitting at the bar in the kitchen eating oatmeal for breakfast. “What up?” I called out as I came through the door.

  “Hey man, what’s up?” Danny asked.

  “Wanted to see if we could press your carpenter skills into service.”

  He stuck a spoonful of goo in his mouth. “Sure, what do we need to build?”

  “A set of stocks.”

  Bobby looked over, “A set of what?”

  “Stocks, you know, like from the Middle Ages.” I mimicked the position, holding my hands up near my ears.

  “What in the hell do we need that for?”

  “Last night a kid was caught stealing chickens. The people called Mark over and wanted him to shoot the kid, naturally
Mark wouldn’t do it, but what else can we do? Then Mark mentioned it as a joke and I said it was a good idea, so, here I am.”

  “Makes sense; we need something other than execution. Let me finish this and we’ll see what we can do.”

  We found enough 4x4’s and 2x6’s at Danny’s to put something together, but neither of us knew the first thing about building stocks. We leaned against the bench under the covered parking area and sketched some ideas out on a scrap piece of paper. After several variations and still no real idea of how to go about it, Danny said, “I wish the damn Internet was still up, then we’d know what the damn things are supposed to look like.”

  “If the Internet was still up we wouldn’t need ‘em,” I replied.

  Danny let out a little laugh and shook his head. The sound of a four-wheeler coming up the road caught our attention. Hearing them wasn’t really anything remarkable these days, there were enough of them on our street alone, but it was coming up fast. We looked out towards the road and saw Reggie hauling ass on the other side of Danny’s fence. He stopped at the gate and hopped off. We walked out towards him as he came jogging up.

  When he got to us he stopped and leaned over, resting his palms on his knees and heaving.

  “You gonna make it?” I asked.

  Reggie turned his head enough to see me and gave me the finger, and Danny laughed.

  “There’s someone at the barricade asking for you,” he said.

  “Who is it?”

  Reggie finally straightened up. “Some big-ass black dude.”

  Thad sat in the truck weighing his options. After all, this was his destination whether the men at the barricade knew it or not. The two men, one was really a boy not more than fifteen, looked at him nervously. Both had rifles and while they weren’t pointed at him, they certainly weren’t welcoming. Thad opened the door and slowly stepped out, making sure he kept his hands where they could see them. The two of them immediately stepped back behind the log structure and clutched their rifles a little tighter. Once Thad was out of the truck one of them called out, “What can we do for you?”

  With his hands still where they could see them Thad replied, “Is this where Morgan Carter lives?” The two men shared an uncertain glance and whispered between themselves. As they were talking, Thad heard a four-wheeler. The two men looked over their shoulders as another man, much larger than these two, pulled up on a quad. The big fella sat there for a minute looking at Thad. He climbed off the machine and walked over to his companions and they spoke in low whispers for a minute. As they did the big guy would look over at Thad, neither with aggression or invitation. Thad started to wonder if had the wrong street.

  After a few moments of the hushed conversation the big guy walked out towards the road, “You looking for Morgan?”

  “Yeah,” Thad replied.

  “You a friend of his?”

  “Yes I am. Is he still here?”

  The big fella looked Thad over for a second. “You mind waiting here for a minute or two?”

  “Not a bit, I’ll be right here,” Thad said and sat on the hood, resting his feet on the front bumper of the Scout.

  The big guy whispered a few words to the other two then climbed up on his quad and raced away. Thad sat there as the other two watched him. Thad listened as the ATV went a short distance and stopped. After a brief pause, it started up again and he listened as it faded away. Morgan, your ass better be here, Thad thought.

  Reggie took me to the barricade and there was Thad sitting on the hood of an old SUV of some kind, made long before the term SUV was ever thought of.

  He saw us coming and stepped down off the hood. A surge of happiness ran through me. I hadn’t seen him in a while and it was damn good to see him. Reggie stopped at the barricade and I climbed off before he could. Reggie said, “You know this guy?” motioning at Thad. The other two guys at the barricade looked at me expectantly, and then Danny pulled up and shut his Polaris down.

  I looked at Thad. “Naw, never seen him before.”

  Thad smiled. “Nice to see you too.”

  We met just in front of the barricade and shook hands, he had that ever-present smile on his face, but there was something lurking under it too, something dark.

  “Damn I’m glad to see you,” I said, then looked past him at the old truck. “Is Anita and your son in there?” Not seeing anyone I looked back at him; his face said it all. “Come on, let’s go up to the house. Leave the truck there for now.”

  I asked one of the guys to pull the truck in behind the barricade, then introduced Thad to everyone. Reggie was still giving him a bit of the stink eye, so I said, “You guys heard about when I got shot in the head, right? Thad’s the one who carried me out.” That cleared the air, and Reggie stepped over to shake Thad’s hand.

  Danny rode beside us as we walked to the house. I didn’t pry into what had happened and Thad wasn’t offering. He mainly told me about how it had been when he was trying to get home, about a block being dropped on him from an overpass and killing a man who had shot at him in front of the man’s son. Thad told us about how the boy had walked over and kicked his old man in the ribs, then spit on him as he lay there dying. Apparently the guy hadn’t been a good father or husband. He told us about some raccoons that had got in the back of the truck and had scared the shit out of him. By then we were at the gate and I opened it so Danny could go through.

  As Danny pulled through the gate, Meathead came running up, his tail wagging, and then he saw Thad. I’d never seen a dog do a double take then backpedal, but he did just that, all the while barking his ass off. Thad smiled and said, “I think your dog’s a racist. He got a hood and shit like that?”

  “He used to, but I got tired of washing the sheets. Never mind him, I think he’s retarded.”

  “Him or his owner,” Thad said. Danny laughed and I had to smile.

  I said, “Hey, I resemble that remark.”

  Mel was in the kitchen when we got to the house. “Hey, babe, this is Thad, he’s the guy I told you about.”

  Mel leaned against the counter looking at him. “Well, you’re not the little blonde that shot him in the head.”

  Thad smiled. “No ma’am, I’m the big black one that drug his ass out.”

  She smiled and walked over him. She said, “Well, thank you for getting him home,” and reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck. He had to lean over so she could hug him.

  She said, “Thad, would you like some coffee?”

  “Oh yes, ma’am, if it isn’t any trouble.”

  Mel poured coffee as Thad, Danny and I sat down at the table. She carried his cup over and set it in front of him and he thanked her. Danny and I looked at her expectantly.

  Pointing at Danny she said, “You don’t drink coffee,” then at me, “and you know where the tea pitcher is.” Thad let out a laugh.

  In my best Rodney Dangerfield voice, which was horrible, I replied, “No respect.”

  Mel walked back to the island and crossed her arms, “Oh, you want respect, I’ll give you some respect.” Thad and Danny smiled.

  I said, “Honey, cant you wait? We have guests.”

  She snatched a scrub sponge off the island and threw it at me as her face turned several shades of red, then left the room. Danny, Thad and I sat and talked for a bit about his adventures. He told us about his trip home and encounters he had had, the block, the tricycle and some thugs chasing him down in an old Ford. Neither of us pressed him for details.

  He ended it with a description of greeting his family in the driveway of his house; after that he was done talking.

  To me, Danny said, “Damn man, sounds like you had an easy trip home.” Thad looked up and I nodded.

  “Hate to say it buddy, but I didn’t have nearly the trouble you did. One little encounter with some
good ole boys that tried to shoot down a couple of helicopters, but didn’t work out real well for them. Then I ran into some hippies in the woods, but they didn’t bother me none. I knew your trip to Tampa would be worse than mine, but I had no idea it’d be that bad.”

  Thad let out a grunt. “The trip home wasn’t shit compared to what happened after I got there.” He took a sip of his coffee and looked out the sliding glass door. “Morgan, you know there’s a dude in your shop?”

  “Oh crap, I forgot all about him. Let’s go outside and I’ll introduce you to Jeff.”

  As we were standing up, a ruckus erupted in the back of the house. In a blur of flailing arms and shouts, they boiled out of Taylor’s room.

  “It’s my turn!”

  “No you just had it!”

  “I haven’t used…”

  The argument came to an abrupt stop when they noticed Thad. They stood there for a moment staring at him, then looked at me, not sure what to think.

  “Hi,” Thad said and waved at them. Danny whispered in his ear, a big smile spread across his face.

  Thad looked at the girls and said, “I think it’s my turn,” and held out his hand for the iPad.

  Suddenly, none of them wanted it. The two big girls let go of it instantly, leaving Little Bit holding it. She looked down at it, then at Thad, then tried to hand it to one of her sisters only to find they had both vacated the kitchen. Looking back and seeing they were gone, she quickly set it on the island and headed for the bedroom, shouting a muffled, “You left me!” as the door slammed shut. I doubled over laughing, Danny immediately followed my lead and Thad started that deep bass belly laugh of his.

  We were still laughing when we went out the slider onto the deck. The door to the shop was open and Jeff looked up. I introduced Jeff and Thad and told him a little about the walk home.