by Mark Tufo
Her voice followed them around the end of the aisle. “Selfish!”
Jaimie knocked a box of steel wool pads from a shelf. When the boy stooped to pick up the boxes, Theo pulled him up and urged him on.
“I see you,” the old woman called. “I seen what you done!”
“Go home!” Theo yelled back. He wanted to sound commanding. Instead he felt weak, yelling at a sick, old woman. He wasn’t sure she was wrong. Maybe he was taking too much.
In the next aisle, the old woman shuffled around the end, still watching. To Jaimie’s eyes, she looked less like a witch and more like a seething black mass, a swarm of black insects. Jaimie recognized the word he saw as he gazed at her. It was an ominous word that had sharp edges at the ends but was soft in the middle. He had often turned to the Ws to look at the word, to feel its danger. The word was “wraith”. That word tasted of bitter almonds.
Before he closed the dictionary, Jaimie looked at different words that made him feel safe and to wash away the sour almonds: “Gesture” tasted of fresh sprouts; “pastoral” tasted the way grass looks; “cheery” was a brave, golden color that tasted of orange sorbet.
* * *
They waited in line a long time. Behind Jaimie, a scared Asian woman with bright, glassy eyes held a baby in her arms. She cooed to her child in a sing-song language Jaimie couldn’t understand, though he understood her colors. The sugary sweetness she used with the baby covered her lemony fear.
There was only one cashier here, too. He looked like a manager. He was an older man with wispy hair that looked like it needed combing. He looked tired and harassed.
In front of Theo, a burly man in a big camouflage coat stood very straight. Many people spoke in an excited staccato, voices full of chaos, but the big man grinned through his red bushy beard as he watched the crowd. He was a blob of red and blue in a sea of yellow fear. It occurred to Jaimie that the man was enjoying himself.
The man must have felt Jaimie’s stare because he looked down at the boy for a moment before giving Theo a smile. “Never think you’d ever see anything like it, eh?”
Theo shook his head. “Nope. Sure didn’t.”
“I did!” the man bragged. “Saw this coming a mile away.”
Theo gave him an encouraging nod, glad of the distraction.
“Remember that huge power outage a few years ago? The gas pumps didn’t work. I lost everything in my freezer, including twenty pounds of moose meat I’d shot the previous fall. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I drive for a living. I couldn’t work and I hate warm beer.”
“I remember,” Theo said. “Our power was out for three days and it was really hot. We slept in the basement and by the third night we were laying on top of the sheets as the heat settled on us. It felt like a wool blanket on a hot August night. We opened all the windows, but there wasn’t a breath of wind.”
“Yup, no air conditioning. The power was out for eight days up where I live. I had a lot of time to sit in the dark in my underwear and think. I decided I’d be ready to take care of things myself if anything happened again, hurricane, tornado, pestilence, whatever.” His colors came far out from his body and Jaimie stepped back a little, feeling overwhelmed.
“You know why we gotta take care of ourselves, mister? ’Cuz nobody’s coming. Like Obama said way back, we’re the crazy fools we been waiting for!” His laugh shook his belly.
Theo smiled with half his mouth.
Jaimie hadn’t seen his father talk with other men much at all. Theo watched the stranger, his chin close to his chest but his body faced to the side, away from the big man in camouflage.
“Things are getting kind of crazy around here. Looks like you were right to get ready. What did you do to prepare?” His father sounded casual, but his colors took on a thin feel that told Jaimie his father’s interest was serious.
“Got two kinds of generators. That’s where I started. It kind of grew from there. I was raised in the woods, so I already knew a bunch of what I had to know, but the deeper I got into self-sustainability…well, the deeper I went.”
The line advanced a few steps. “I knew people when I was a kid who had an old house with a bomb shelter built in,” Theo said. “That sounds fancy, but to lock yourself away in there would be kind of like hiding away in a small root cellar or something.”
“Yeah, all that duck and cover bull — ” The big man glanced at Jaimie and leaned closer to Theo, his voice low. “Survivalism gets a bad rap. The movement has been full of a lot of wackos and their macho racist bull. It was a good idea that was hijacked by a bunch of guys with a military fetish who get a little too excited about pictures in gun magazines, if you know what I mean. You listen to me on this ’cuz I’ve given it a lot of thought, I kid you not. They’d have been better off learning how to can their own beans and jar their own jellies instead of stocking up on more and more guns. Can’t eat a machine gun and there’s not much left of the bird if that’s how you shoot it. The green movement has gotten more into the nature appreciation part. That’s what sustainability is about. We’re in for a long storm, friend. You can bet on that.” The man stood straight again and looked around, as if, too late, to make sure no one had heard him.
“You really think it’s going to be that bad?”
“Look around you.” The stranger gestured to the crowd. “We’re always nine meals away from anarchy. Grocery stores don’t have more than three days of supplies on their shelves thanks to just-in-time delivery. I’ve been a trucker since I was twenty. I know all about just-in-time. Nobody keeps anything stored away anymore. Nobody’s putting stuff away for the winter. Not like a couple generations back. People are softer now and used to so many conveniences. I don’t think they’ll handle it so well as our grandparents or even our parents could have.”
Theo nodded, encouraging him, and the man’s colors enveloped them again. The bearded man smiled broadly, glad of an audience.
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 t
hink 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…”