The End of America

by Pete Thorsen

  “I would certainly agree on all that. The first parts are only natural. The food part I never really thought about but I could maybe understand that with the way the country’s situation is going. Do you pool all the food together?”

  “We would only if things were bad for a long time and some of us were running out. At that point we would all pool the food and try to stretch it out for all of us. Otherwise, no, we would each only buy what we would want to eat and it would be just yours. We only want you to be prepared so if things go bad you don’t sponge off the rest of us.

  If you decide to do this I would suggest getting a carport and solar panels like the rest of us because it makes life much better but it is totally optional and it would be done on your own dime if you decide on it. Carport and solar might run three or four thousand dollars total. I already have the water and sewer lines in and stubbed out.”

  “Yes, I think I’d like to do it. It is quite pretty here and that seems like one heck of a deal. Do we go into town and get an agreement wrote up and notarized?”

  “Nope. We shake hands on the deal and it is done.”

  The guys all talked some more and Joe asked a bunch of questions which he felt were honestly answered and then Gus and him shook on the deal and it was done. The guys all suggested that Joe might want to try to buy some kind of a vehicle instead of just his cycle to use for trips to town and such.

  All three guys offered to help him with that and help him setup the carport and solar which Joe had said he would do right away. The three also said they would like to keep any deliveries to the spot where Joe had first met Gus. That was the mailing address for all three of them.

  Gus gave Joe a ride back to his motor home and gave him the address to the ramshackle place. Then showed him where the mailbox was located about two miles back towards town. Joe said he would be back in a couple days after he bought some stuff and checked on a few things in town.

  Gus told him that no one stayed at this place and he was only there when Joe came because the realtor who was a friend of his had told him Joe was coming. They bid each other goodbye and Joe was on his way.

  The other guys had given him a list of things he might want to get and suggested places where he might find them. Joe had checked at his new ‘home’ while he was there and he did get a cell signal there so his phone and internet should both work out there.

  The water there was perfectly good to drink and the rest all drank it but Joe did want to pick up a simple water filter pitcher to use. When he stopped for the night he went online and looked what four wheel drive vehicles were for sale in the area. He called on a couple of the vehicles and set up a time to look at them the next day.

  Chapter Nine

  Jason was able to qualify for food stamps, Medicaid, and he got a free cell phone. He really liked his new life of leisure. And he wasn’t alone as when he went down to sign up for the free stuff the place was packed with people signing up besides just him. He also found out many other spots where they gave out free food like churches and food pantries, some of those places would also pay a bill or two for you also.

  He knew all those other people signing up for the free stuff could easily get jobs because on the news they said unemployment had gone down yet again. But he certainly did not blame those other people if they wanted to take it easy and not work for a little while.

  After all everyone deserved a vacation sometime. Jason was somewhat surprised when he saw that his pants were fitting tighter and he saw he was getting a belly. He decided that soon he would have to start an exercise program but he was not in any big hurry to do so.

  Chapter Ten

  The next morning Joe drove to the large Walmart in the nearby town which being a smaller town Joe was surprised they even had one. He parked in their lot and unloaded his cycle which he used to go look at the two rigs he had called about the previous night. The first one was too rough and he wasn’t interested but an old guy owned the second one and after looking it over well they came to an agreement on the price and Joe bought it from the gentleman.

  Joe noticed it had marks on the front bumper and Joe asked if he had the tow bar that was once used on it. He did and Joe bought that also and the old guy even helped Joe install the tow bar because the bolts and everything were already on it. The rig also had a receiver hitch on the back which would be perfect Joe thought. Joe said he would pick it up later and after payment the man gave Joe the already notarized title and directions to the DMV to change it over to his name.

  Joe decided to change his driver’s license over to get the Arizona title in his name and a new plate but everything went very smooth and surprisingly quickly. Joe walked out with a new license plate for his ‘new’ jeep and a new driver’s license.

  His next stop was an insurance agent with the same company he had now on his two vehicles. For now he left the insurance alone on his other two and just got minimum insurance on the jeep. With that done it was back to his motor home and he drove it over and hooked the jeep up behind with the motorcycle on the back of the jeep. This worked fine for the little bit of driving he had to do before going back to his new home.

  His next stop was Home Depot where he ordered a steel carport to be delivered to the ramshackle address. Gus assured him they could use a trailer he had to get it out where they would set it up. He also bought the things he needed for the semi-permanent water and sewer hookup on the motor home. Then back to Walmart where he bought a bunch of food and few other items before heading back home.

  Arriving home the next morning the three other guys helped him unhook the jeep and get the motor home situated just right for the water and sewer hookups. Having done it three times already they had made the list of the correct items for Joe and they had him hooked up in no time.

  Over the next few weeks Joe was actually pretty busy. The other guys clued him in about Long Term Storage food and Joe found out he could get it through Walmart and ordered quite a bunch of it that he had delivered to a UPS store that he bought a PO Box at.

  He also had solar panels and charge controllers delivered there because it was easier for the delivery drivers to find and reduced traffic out on their little road. Gus said it was good ‘operational security’ also. Joe bought additional deep cycle batteries locally to add to the two that were already in his motor home.

  One of the guys found a used hundred gallon gas tank at a yard sale which he bought and all four guys split the cost of the tank and the gas to fill it. They buried it themselves and added stabilizer to the fuel inside so it would last awhile. The guys went to yard sales and flea markets in the local towns whenever they happened to be in town for other things and bought all the propane tanks they could which they had filled before bringing them out to place.

  Joe found out the one building was mainly a storage shed for them to all use and it had a shop area for doing projects. Pete had satellite TV in his RV and they often got together to watch the news there. The news continued to get much worse and all four guys upped their food storage, ammunition purchases, and Joe continued to buy gold and mostly silver locally.

  After one of their daily ‘brainstorming’ sessions the guys decided to buy as many books as they could find. They figured at some point they would do their best to seal off the little road that led to their place and would just wait things out. At that point a lot of reading material just might be pretty darned nice to have on hand.

  In the remaining time they bought a large number of books and Joe and Pete each bought an inexpensive Kindle reader and downloaded a huge number of free books that were offered from time to time.

  When Joe’s car port was delivered they wasted no time getting it put together and that project went quite smooth. Joe laid patio blocks in an area on each side of his car port and bought a retractable awning for the south side. After he got a patio table and a few chairs it was turned into a nice area to relax. But it was hard to relax with the stream of bad news that was a constant on the news channels. />
  The money train at the federal level was running out of steam and heading for very dangerous waters. And many of the states were in as bad as or worse shape than the federal government. Four states made cuts to welfare and Medicaid on the same day (obviously they talked to each other to coordinate). This caused riots in several cities.

  Then in one of the cities three black men were found dead from police action after the riots and the police department said the actions of their officers were justified. This caused riots in many cities throughout the country. Within two weeks all the riots led to fourteen more people to be shot and killed by the police in different cities. These people all happened to be black and again the officers were vindicated.

  Then there was a day where all the EBT cards that people on food stamps used to get their food were all denied for a single day. The news said it was just a ‘glitch’ and that was maybe very true because they worked normally the following day. But on the day when they did not work there were a great many altercations in stores throughout the whole country.

  Two people ended up dead after being shot by the local police. These two people happened to be black and the shootings were again called justified. Ten days later all the EBT cards were denied again and this time it lasted for two days. There were maybe not so many altercations on the first day but on the second day the number went way up.

  Again there were four deaths on the second day that were from police actions in different cities. The four that were killed happened to be black and again the police actions were deemed justified.

  From then on the ‘race riots’ continued almost daily in many large cities in the United States. Three Governors called out the State National Guard units in their respective states to help the police restore order in the larger cities. The units were issued many non-lethal ‘weapons’ to use against the rioters.

  They were also issued standard live ammunition. Naturally at some point the tear gas and other non-lethal weapons failed to stop the rioters at one location and one of the National Guard units opened up with live standard rounds. Twenty six rioters died on scene and thirty seven were sent to area hospitals where three more died. Of the twenty nine dead only one was white.

  The riots intensified in many areas. Then two more states made cuts to welfare and Medicaid and that just added more fuel to the fire. To make matters worse cities were going broke and cutting way back on police and fire departments. Several ambulance companies went broke and some cities had no ambulances at all.

  So far everything was really mainly just affecting the poor in the Untied States until Congress passed and the President immediately signed into law the “Retirement Safe Guard Act”. To safe guard all the retirement accounts in the United States the government took them over. All retirement accounts, 401 accounts, all types of IRA accounts, private and government retirement accounts, every single account that had anything to do with ‘retirement’.

  At the same time capital controls were put in place limiting cash withdrawals at banks in both regular and ‘retirement’ accounts to a maximum of five hundred dollars per week. This was totally unprecedented and very likely illegal in this country (at least in the eyes of many citizens).

  Thousands went to Washington DC to protest and Congress and the White House were silent. Calls, emails, and faxes inundated all members of Congress but none received any replies. There were no news conferences or news releases. The total lack of any replies infuriated just about everyone. It was very plain that Congress and the President were ‘in hiding’.

  The stock market that had been falling for the last three weeks went into freefall. The markets closed for a two hour ‘cooling off’ period. When the markets reopened they continued to fall. The markets then closed early for the day. Later in the evening it was reported that the markets would remain closed for ‘an extended period’ by order of the President.

  Banks were very busy with everyone taking out money and there was a police presence at most every bank to maintain order. In the first week there were many attempts to rob armored bank vehicles, some were successful and some were not. The armed robbery attempts continued and seemed to increase as people got more desperate.

  Unemployment went way up and naturally welfare, food stamps, and Medicaid followed. Then just about every state put a freeze on new welfare and Medicaid applications. Children were allowed on but no adults. Then cuts to existing payments were made as the states ran out of money.

  Then Congress passed bills limiting, cutting back, and/or eliminating a huge number of government programs. It was very plain to see that the United States was entering into some very dark days due to being broke. The Federal government was broke; the states were broke as were cities, towns, and counties. There was no money; there was only debt.

  People in the cities rioted like never before. Stores were looted, everything was smashed or burned. Whole cities were on fire and the police were totally overwhelmed. When the police started openly killing rioters and looters the rioters fought back, often with their own guns. Many police and rioters both were killed.

  Even in the cities that had some National Guard units in place were overwhelmed. Many cities burned with no one even fighting the fires. There was no law at all in many cities except for the very strong or very well armed. There were rolling blackouts throughout the United States. The United States was rapidly becoming a third world country.

  Chapter Eleven

  The stupid idiots were rioting! How was that helping them? Jason just sat up in his little apartment and enjoyed his time off work. He had to go buy some larger pants and shirts. So he was a little bigger, it was no big deal. He knew he could lose the weight anytime he wanted but he was in no hurry to do so.

  The stupid riots were troubling though it wasn’t bad when they were in another city or even in his city if they were far enough away from him. Last night he heard quite a bit of shooting even though he had the windows all shut.

  He never looked out to see if he could see how close they were because he was afraid. He did not blame the police for shooting some of them, they were asking for it by rioting. The police should be shooting many more of them.

  Yesterday the power was off most of the day. With the power off Jason had nothing to do because the TV and his video games would not work. Time just dragged on all day waiting for the power to come back on. By the time it came back on the soda pop in the refrigerator was barely even cold anymore.

  Jason was terrified when the riots were on his street and the police were shooting and cars were burning right on his street! It lasted all night and even the next day it was very smoky outside. What is wrong with the police? Can’t they stop some simple rioters? That’s what they were paid for, isn’t it? What, did they run out of bullets or something?

  He did not know what to do. The power was out and had been for three days now this time. He was afraid to even look out his windows because the last time he looked out it looked just like the pictures from foreign countries that had been through a war. Jason could see people wandering around in the street below and every window and door at ground level was smashed.

  You could walk in or out of any business anytime day or night but even though he never went to check Jason knew everything of any value had already been looted and he knew that included food and water. His apartment smelled awful and he knew it was the whole building not just his place.

  He was eating all his food without cooking it now because he had no way to heat anything without the power being on. Where was the government to take care of him? Looking out across the city he could see fires burning everywhere and it was obvious that no one was fighting the fires. He could hear gun shots day and night now but there were no sirens anymore and Jason thought there were likely no police left at all. He could see many dead bodies lying out in the street that had been there for more than two days now.

  If the police were helpless why didn’t the Army come and get things in order? That is what we had the Army
for was to protect the citizens. That would certainly include right here and not just in some other country.

  Jason had moved a bunch of things in front of his door to block it so no one could get in. He had the windows open to try to get some fresh air but the air outside was smoky and stunk almost as bad as it did in his apartment. Where was the government? When were they coming to help? Jason spent about half the time just crying now.

  Chapter Twelve

  Ronald Winston was Joe’s son and a chip off the old block. He looked like his dad and thought like his dad. Like his sister, his parents had put him through college and after graduation he had found a good job and had kept the same job ever since. He had met his now wife Ann and it was only two years after they were married that their son Hal was born.

  Ron knew how lucky he was to have a perfect life and perfect family. His sister Emily and her husband Ike lived only on the other side of town about twenty five miles away and the two families did a lot together. The only dark spot in Ron’s life was when his mom had passed away but Ron took solace from the fact that she loved them all and she got to see her kids grow up and prosper.

  But Ron was very worried about his perfect little world. He was completely convinced that the United States was awfully close to going over a fiscal cliff and Ron thought it would be very, very bad for everyone when that happened.

  He was not alone in this line of thought with all in the family thinking the same thing. The only problem was that none of them knew when it would happen. It could be a week or a year or possibly even ten years away before the whole bottom fell out of everything.