“Well it doesn’t!” snapped the director. “And don’t talk to me about the Constitution. You sound like some maniac—like one of those Tea Party people from a few years ago. The residents of W don’t have any rights except the ones we give them. And the prohibition on firearms is clear. It was your job to make them understand that.”
“Yes, sir,” she stopped shaking and looked directly at him. And for just a moment, Kris felt a little defiance of her own. She had dreaded this meeting and this moment more than anyone could imagine, but now that she was here sitting in this office about to be terminated, she could not help but think that, actually, Jim was in the right—more so than the director. He and his pals did have a Constitutional right to bear arms no matter what this pompous little bureaucrat said.
“We can’t allow insubordination. The rules must be followed. We have a legal right to expel your parents and all of the other offenders, but we don’t want images of homeless seniors who have been removed from Smart Seniors communities making their way to the internet, so we are not going to do that. And as for you, your employment should be terminated today, right now, for your part in all of this. But Pat tells me that you have potential, and so we are going to allow you to stay. However, violations of this kind cannot go unpunished.
“Every household involved will be fined thirty days worth of credits. Your own credit allowance will be cut in half for thirty days. You will not be allowed any transit usage on weekends—you will be confined to your community. And next time you will make sure that the seniors do understand that we have rules, not just suggestions, and those rules trump whatever supposed rights these people perceive they are entitled to.”
“Thirty days!” Kris was stunned—so stunned that she pushed aside her own punishment at the horror of what had been ordered. “Thirty consecutive days?”
Scott nodded.
“But, sir, that would mean no food, no water, no electricity, no…no medication. For thirty days? That’s a death sentence! What…what are they supposed to do?”
“They will do what others in similar situations do. They will do whatever they have to. They will beg food from their neighbors. They will eat out of the dining hall dumpster if they have to and drink what’s left in half empty water bottles. Maybe, since they love guns so much, they can find out if it really is possible to ‘eat lead.’ But they and everyone else will learn to follow the rules. And as the stories spread, you will find that it is much easier to persuade new residents to give up their weapons.”
“Sir, please. Can’t you reconsider?”
“I have considered. Consider this—if I evict them all as I should, they’ll be living on the street and eating out of dumpsters for the rest of their short, miserable lives. So you can tell your father and the rest of that band of troublemakers that this is a little taste of what they can look forward to as a permanent gig if they decide to cause any more problems. Now get out of my office before my generosity runs out, and I decide to make it sixty or ninety days.”
Kris stood and walked out with Pat Kilmer on her heels. Kilmer was fairly gloating as she looked at the obvious distress on Kris’ face. Kris saw now that Pat had been waiting for this moment ever since the incident with Eva Brinks.
“And just think, you get to be the lucky one to break the news, since you are the community liaison. After all, that’s what you signed up for.”
“No,” Kris shook her head and returned Pat’s triumphant expression with a disgusted one. “I didn’t sign up for anything even similar to this.”
“Actually, this is exactly what you signed up for—you and that bunch of breathing corpses out there in W. All of you signed up to have the government take responsibility for you, pay you, house you, protect you and feed you. You just thought you could have all of that and still make all of your own choices and decisions and live exactly the way you wanted to. But it doesn’t work that way, does it Kris?” And then Kilmer smiled that little smile of hers that said, “I’m so glad I’m getting to witness this moment.” Just then the elevator doors opened, and she vanished through them.
Kris ran down the hall to the stairs and did not stop running until she reached the first floor and was out of the building. As soon as she was outside, she dialed her mobile phone. “Keith, I really need your help.”
By the time that Kris was ready to leave work, Keith had completed the eight hour drive from the Lincoln National Forest to Scottsdale, Arizona. She never doubted for a moment that he would come—underneath that tattooed, hairy exterior still beat a warm and generous heart. His little black jeep was sitting outside her building parked at a meter when she exited.
“Thanks very much for coming, Keith….” But he brushed her words aside as was often his way. The two made a little small talk as they drove to the Super Center to buy water, groceries and supplies. Since the units had no cooking facilities Kris and Keith could not default to staples of large bags of rice and beans. Instead they had to purchase canned fruits and vegetables and packaged meal bars that did not require either heat or refrigeration. As Keith put two of each item in his shopping cart, Kris reminded him, “There are six couples involved in this, Keith. We have to get supplies for all them.”
“I didn’t realize that we had to feed the entire cell block,” he quipped as he multiplied his purchases. Into Kris’ cart went twelve five gallon jugs of water which would provide drinking and washing water for a week. She thought that although they were purchasing sixty gallons of water, each couple would have to ration very carefully so as not to run out before he and she could bring more supplies in seven days. She looked for matches—which she located—and kerosene lamps, which she did not. Finally she found a small lamp that boasted that it was ‘perfect’ for campsites. The store stocked four of these, and she added some cheap candles so that the households would have some light—again if they used it sparingly.
When they got to the register, Keith pulled cash out of his wallet to pay for all of the purchases. “I wish so much that I could pay for part of this. I know it sounds crazy, but I don’t get paid in money—just credits to use in the community.” She had not told him that her own credits had been cut in half for the next month—she would have barely enough to live on herself.
He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it,” as he peeled off bills and handed them to the bored cashier.
Ten minutes later, the Jeep was loaded, and they were on their way to W.
“You know, I don’t usually agree with the old man—about anything—but in this particular case he’s right. For the Feds to cut off their food, water, electricity…everything because he owns a gun—that’s ridiculous. That’s what’s wrong with this country—the government is completely out of control, and nobody does anything about it. Whatever happened to the Constitution? Did you ask that moron you work for whether he ever heard of the second amendment?”
Kris groaned inwardly. Keith had no obligation whatsoever to drive a sixteen hour round trip for four weeks to deliver supplies, and she had no one else to turn to in this awful situation, but she did not want to rehash the argument she had had with her father. “Honestly, I am not defending what Scott did—it’s indefensible, but I did tell Dad this before he ever went to live there. And the community has signs all over it saying that you can’t bring a gun onto the property. I agree that the punishment is unbelievable, but part of this is Dad’s fault, too.”
“Yeah, part of it is—the part where he agreed to go live there in the first place. I haven’t been in a history class in a while, but the way I remember the Constitution, it doesn’t say people have the right to bear arms unless they live in a particular zip code or if they live in a two-story building, or if all of the neighbors are old. We keep getting pushed around more and more in this country, and when our rights get taken away we say, ‘Well that’s just how it is.’ Meanwhile the Feds are totally out of control.
“My buddy Jessie has this website—TruthTrakker. I help him with research sometimes. Ther
e is so much crap going on in this country right now, and nobody is exposing it. His motto is, ‘We don’t just search for the truth; we track it down and drag it out into the light.’ Remember that oil spill that supposedly released toxins into the water—that was such a lie. The Feds poisoned those people,” apparently Keith had no memory of having had this exact conversation with his sister in the middle of the night over the telephone a few months before. “Over two hundred thousand people have completely disappeared—presumed dead—and you know what? There are no bodies. Jessie first told me that the affected patients and the corpses had disappeared, and I didn’t think he could possibly be right, so I drove to Alabama myself and asked some of the residents, and it’s true. The EPA said that the bodies were contaminated, and they could not be buried there or they would poison the groundwater. And they said that they needed to relocate the people who were dying to a place where they could get better medical treatment where they couldn’t infect anybody else. Only the EPA initially said that an infected person couldn’t infect anybody else. So what’s up with that? The Feds removed all of these people; nobody knows where. What do you think about that?”
Keith had mostly kept his eyes on the road during this strange exchange, but periodically he would peek at his sister out of the corner of his eyes to gauge her reaction. “I don’t know what to think about that. Maybe as they studied the illness more they determined that an infected person could transmit it to an uninfected one. Maybe they cremated the bodies to contain the toxins.”
“Jessie thinks they moved the bodies to a military base so they could do autopsies and study the effects of the poisons. Then the government buried them in mass graves in the Nevada desert. And the ones who lived are in FEMA military camps. Thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of Americans who have just vanished are now in labor camps on military bases. Jessie has a small plane, and he flies over the desert looking for signs of them. You need to check out his website. This guy finds out about all kinds of stuff—the CIA would kill him, only they can’t find him.”
He darted one of those quick glances at her as he said the last part, which definitely signaled that his words were meant to elicit a response. “Why can’t they find him?” she asked.
“Because he doesn’t exist. Jessie’s so far off the grid that he doesn’t even have a Social Security number.”
“Everybody has a Social Security number, Keith. You can’t work without one.”
“Not Jessie. His parents were radical hippies. They lived in a little trailer in Oregon and grew their own food and sold jewelry and…mood-enhancing substances. When Jessie was born, they never registered his birth. He doesn’t have a birth certificate or a Social Security number. He’s like a ghost. He has routed his website through so many servers that nobody can find out where to pull the plug.”
“If he’s so off the radar how does he stay alive? And how did you meet him?”
“I was doing a story on this bunch of people in Oregon who were being driven off their own land because the zoning ordinances did not allow trailers,” Keith responded, ignoring the first question. “I drove up to the general area and just started knocking on trailer doors. I came to Jessie’s trailer and knocked on it, and he opened the door and we started talking. We’ve been friends ever since.”
They were just pulling up to the gates of W—Division 1. Kris scanned her palm into the security system at the front of the gate, and it opened for them. Keith drove into the community down the tiny narrow street to the building where his parents lived.
“It’s on the first floor,” she told him as she got out of the Jeep. “I was able to at least get that for them since Dad has so much trouble with his knee.”
Keith stayed with the Jeep and its precious load of supplies while she opened the main door to the building and knocked on her parents’ unit door. Jim opened it, and when he saw her, he slammed it shut in her face.
“Open the door, Dad. Keith is here with me.” This time Janine opened it. “Please let me in.” Janine stepped aside and allowed her to enter. All six of the affected couples were inside; twelve little chairs had been crowded into a circle in the center of the room. The room was so small that Kris would have said that it was not possible to fit twelve chairs into it, and yet there they were. Each couple must have carried over the two from their own unit.
From the bitter looks on the faces of the residents, Kris surmised that they must have gotten word of their fate; although Pat had taunted her that she would be the one to tell them since she was the community liaison, truly bad news never seems to have a shortage of messengers, and, apparently, someone had gotten there ahead of her. On each face she saw anger, hurt, and betrayal, but the wounded expression on her mother’s face was the most upsetting to her.
“First of all, I take it that you have already heard about the director’s decision. I want you to know that it was not my decision; I did everything that I could do, and as hard as this is to believe, this situation could actually be much worse.” That last comment brought murmurs of bitter scoffing and derision which Kris ignored.
“My brother Keith was kind enough to drive down here from New Mexico, and we have brought you some supplies to get you through the week. It’s enough food and water so that you can get by until we come back—we will come back every Thursday until this is over. Keith is outside with the supplies. Maybe some of you men could go out and help him bring in the water….”
The six men filed out of the room and out the door to help Keith with the jugs of water, and the women followed to bring in the food. Nobody said anything to Kris as they passed her.
They returned just as silently with jugs and food, and Kris distributed the items equally among the couples except for the lamps and candles. She passed out additional candles to the two couples who did not get lamps and reminded everyone that she could only get four lamps, and she would try to buy two more next week.
“Your credits have been suspended for thirty days. You’ll have to ration carefully—especially the water. But if you are very frugal with these items, you won’t run out of food or water before next week.”
Kris recognized Todd Roberts and his wife Patti. Todd had been a full-time pastor and, she suspected, a part-time rabble rouser before moving to W where he had become a full-time rabble rouser and part-time pastor. She knew from his belligerent attitude that he was up to his neck in this illegal weapons’ mess. He was a physically large, big-mouthed man who never stopped talking or pushing the limits, and right about now she wished that she had the strength to punch him right in the mouth and knock him flat on his back in front of everyone. Todd was encouraging everyone to be seated. “We all need to take our seats. We had set aside this meeting tonight to pray and seek the Lord’s help—to ask Him to save us. But He sent us help before we even had a chance to meet together to ask. So now we need to thank Him for His kindness and for seeing this terrible situation and meeting our need.”
Keith was standing by the door, but now he spoke up. “You know what guys; I’ve got a much better idea. Why don’t you all sit around in a circle and thank Keith instead. From where I’m standing, Keith is the one who showed up, after driving his car five hundred miles one way with gas at $25.00 a gallon, to come down here and buy you sixty gallons of water that cost almost as much as the gas and enough crackers and cheese and granola bars to keep all of you alive. And it’s Keith who will be back next week for ‘Save Mom and Dad and their friends’ lives—the sequel.’ God left you here to rot—this is Hell, and all of you are in it. And no amount of sitting around and praying is going to change that.” With that, he turned and walked out, with Kris following closely behind.
“Keith…” she started weakly but when she saw the disgusted look on his face, she changed her mind. “I know you have a really long drive back. I think I need to stay for a while; I’ll take the commuter train back to my community.” Keith nodded and headed for the Jeep. “And Keith, really, thank you. I could never have done this without
you.”
He nodded again. “See you next Thursday,” was his parting comment as he started the Jeep and headed back down the street and out the gates of W.
The prayers of thanks were concluding as Kris returned to the unit and took a seat quietly on the floor with her back against the wall as the prayer meeting/Bible study got underway.
Todd began to speak:
“Out of respect for the different Christian traditions represented in this room, we agreed that we would open each of our Bible studies with the Apostles’ Creed,” he passed around the sheets of paper he had printed out. Kris reached over and picked up one of sheets and skimmed through it. She had learned the words to this in a song that Rich Mullins had recorded—when she was much younger she had owned a cassette tape that included “Creed”. And as the group began to repeat it in unison, the old melody played in her head:
“We believe in God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ, his only Son our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried. He descended into Hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of God the Father almighty. We believe that He is coming again to judge the living and dead.
“We believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and everlasting life. Amen.”
The Bible study had started, but Kris’ mind was still on the song. She had first heard “Creed” when she was twenty years old in a Campus Crusade for Christ meeting. The music had touched her so much that she had bought the tape and listened to it until she wore it completely out. She could still remember the chorus:
W: The Planner, The Chosen Page 20