by Nova
Ninja was still learning. I stopped, but he kept moving a few more paces while watching them. You didn’t want to be bunched up, especially if one of them had an automatic weapon. The guy who called out, whoever he was, held up his hands. “We’re cool. You’re the guy that lives up in that motel and feeds the niñas at the shelter.”
I said, “Yeah, that’s me. Who are you?”
“That’s what we need to talk about. C’mon,” he used his head to indicate the empty storefront behind him, “Come into my casa and let’s talk.”
I didn’t sense anything out of the ordinary. On the surface it didn’t look like a great idea, but I wasn’t getting any feeling that it was a bad idea. I hesitated for second, long enough to do another scan of the area, including the rooftops. Playing games online had taught me about looking up. I started walking toward him. Out of the corner of my eye I saw that Ninja was pacing me, but keeping his distance.
“So, what’s your name?” I asked as I approached him.
“José.”
Of course, I thought. I stopped about four paces from him. “What can I do for you, José?”
“Please, come inside, it is not good for many people to stand together on the street.”
He turned and walked into the store. We didn’t bother with the door as there was no need to. There wasn’t one. His men stayed close to him, while Ninja stepped away from me and kept his back to the store’s wall. It was colder inside the storefront.
“José, you need to get a fire barrel in here.”
“Yes, we tried that before. It burned the place down.” He shrugged.
“Yep, there always something, isn’t there. So . . .”
“We hear that you may need workers—we have workers. We can also help you in other ways.”
Well, someone has been running their mouth too much, I thought, and whoever it is has been outside the perimeter. Interesting.
“So, José, how could you help us?”
“Besides working as laborers? Some of us have skills that you may need. Also, there is that abandoned housing development two blocks from here. We are going to stay there—at least for now. Burners have been through here. We could discourage them. There will be others, also, and we can discourage them, too.”
“I see. Of course you will be doing this out of the kindness of your heart . . .”
José and his buddies thought that was funny. I didn’t say anything—I just stared at them. José stopped laughing first. He must have seen the look on my face. Somewhere nearby, a baby began crying. It was quickly hushed, as I only heard it for a brief moment.
“No, please, Gardener. We do not laugh at you. It has been a hard trip for us. Some of us didn’t make it. Many times we have met those along the way who wanted something for nothing. No, we will work for food and silver. Perhaps you have things to trade us in exchange for our labor? We are not a threat to you and your people. You could end up with far worse neighbors.”
Funny, but I was hearing both a plea and a threat in this conversation. “So how many people are you?” For the first time he looked evasive.
“Oh, we are about forty people.”
Then one of his men decided to join the conversation: “We are strong. It would be best for you to listen to José carefully, cowboy.” His face was pockmarked, and his broken nose and broad shoulders spoke silently of enjoying a brawl. The way he said cowboy as he leaned in toward me made it sound like it was lower than a banker. That was not a friendly thing to say. He had just finished and the word cowboy hung there between us. His eyes began to sparkle as he enjoyed his macho moment of support for his leader.
I drew, brought the Ruger up, and then whipped the barrel down and across his face. It hit right below the cheekbone and above the jawline, removing any teeth he still had on that side of his mouth. I simultaneously felt and heard the crunch as I stepped back a pace to give myself room to work. I noted the sound of Ninja racking his shotgun slide, and out of the corner of my eye I saw him bring it to bear on José.
The only noise came from whoever the hell it was that I had just whacked. He was beginning to wail in pain from his new place on the floor. José and his men froze in place. José was the first one to speak: “Jesus, you are fast.”
I looked down on his man, who was holding his face and cursing between sobs. “You must not have learned manners on your way here. That’s for sure. I wouldn’t let him sit on the floor too long. It’s dirty and he could get a nasty infection.”
José sighed. “This is not working out like I planned.”
“Yeah, I know the feeling. If I see more than two of your people armed and on my side of the perimeter, I will kill them. Then I will come back here and kill every single one of you. You understand?”
He nodded his head. “Yes, yes. I understand.”
“José, lose the asshole and come by and talk with me and Max. All is not lost, yet.”
“Gardener . . . ah, okay. Under the oak tree, perhaps?”
“Sure.”
I started backing up until I was where the windows had been once. I let Ninja step over the sill and out onto the sidewalk. Then I followed. We both walked like crabs until we had a hundred paces between us and them. “You did real good in there, Ninja,” I told him as we put some distance between us and them.
“You know, Gardener, it’s like a game in some ways, but a lot more intense.”
“Oh yeah, it gets even more intense when you lose, too. So what do you think about them?”
He thought for a couple beats. “He sure knows a lot about us for someone I have never seen before.”
“You think they can be trusted?”
He shook his head. “Nobody can be trusted. Not when you have something they want.”
We backtracked a bit. I wanted to take a look at the area that faced the Fed Zone. I didn’t want to go deep into it—we claimed it, but in name only now. Where I was headed was a huge condo complex that was still close to 40 percent occupied the last time I checked. Next to it was a narrow park, then a concrete plant. Farther down was a large oil and gas storage facility. I had noticed previously that the oil and gas place had excellent private security. I planned on us going as far as the condo complex and then turning back.
Ninja and I paused in a doorway and waited to see if José or any of his friends were following. After about ten minutes we continued on. I preferred being on foot for this kind of work. Bicycles let you cover more ground, but it was awkward to dismount in a hurry, especially if someone was shooting at you. Using one of the patrol cars left over from the city days would have been even faster, but it isolated you from the flow of the neighborhood. Plus, I liked poking through the buildings. I felt you needed to get a feel for the area, which may have been static architecturally, but was anything but that in mood and in the changes people brought to it as they passed through.
We had just walked in the back door of what had been a hot tub store that faced onto Route 50 and were headed out the front when we spotted them: two army Humvees, each one painted in a woodlands pattern. Each had a gunner up on the machine gun. Ninja saw them and said, “Model 1025, I think, with the .50 caliber. We could use a few of those.”
“What the hell are they doing out of the Zone?”
I was really talking to myself, but Ninja answered anyway, “Beats me. I only see them going by when they are doing convoy duty.”
“Let’s head back now,” I told him. “There’s just been too much excitement for me today.”
He laughed, but I had a sense of foreboding. I knew, without knowing how I knew, that those Humvees were not going to keep rolling down Route 50 today. I wanted to get back to the market as quickly as possible. From there I could respond in any direction if we had to. We moved pretty quickly. We could have been faster but I wanted to do it as discreetly as possible. We went in one building and right past a couple who were having sex on the floor on top of an old rug they had dragged in from somewhere. I didn’t hesitate. We kept going, a
nd I don’t think they even noticed us passing through.
“I know her!” Ninja told me as we crossed the street.
I replied, “That’s nice; I think he does too.”
We kept moving. We made it back in twenty minutes or so based on the sun. I eased up before we came out into the open before the market, and I was glad I did. The Humvees were just leaving. We waited until they were out of sight before walking over to the market. Everyone was gathered in a knot, clamoring about the poster the soldier boys had put up. They also had left a stack of handouts, one of which was thrust at me by the apple vendor.
“What do you think of it, Gardener?” someone yelled.
“Let me read it first.”
I read the poster and then the handout to make sure they matched. They did:
FELLOW CITIZENS OF AMERICA!
The government has not forsaken you in these most difficult of times!
The president understands that many of you feel abandoned, that no one cares about your needs, your wants, and your dreams!
You are wrong! Help is on the way.
As a country we will return to our position of prominence.
As a people, we will once again be able to choose from overwhelming abundance. Work will be made available for those who want to work. Medical care for those who need it will soon be available: not just for the rich, but for YOU!—the proud people of this neighborhood and this great country!
Food distribution will begin Thursday, September 17, at
0900 outside the Fairfax City Shelter. Please bring a valid form of U.S. identification.
Huh, nine days from now, I thought. I heard all kinds of questions as the people pressed to ask what I thought or to tell me and everyone else what they thought.
I ended up yelling, “All right! All right, goddamn it! I don’t know, but I will find out and let you know. Right now, all I can say is if the government is looking for you, then I wouldn’t show up to collect food.”
I should have kept my mouth shut about that. It just stirred them up again. “Okay! Okay! I’ll find out,” and I began walking toward the motel.
Once we got away from the crowd, Ninja asked me, “What do you think, Gardener?”
“I think something stinks,” was my reply.
CHAPTER THIRTY
TIN FOIL HAT
I got back to the motel, and no one was able to find Max. I found Night down in the basement inventorying food with Carol. “Do you know about the poster and the food giveaway next week at the shelter?”
Carol looked stunned.
Night stopped and put her hands on her hips. “What are you talking about?” I handed her the flyer, and she and Carol read it together. Night asked her, “Did you know about this?”
Carol shook her head an emphatic no: “This is news to me. I wonder when they were going to let me know. Sorry, Night, I got to run now. I need to make a few calls and find out what is up.” She hugged Night, waved good-bye to me, and was gone.
“So what do you think, Night?”
“It sounds good, but I think the hook is in the identification requirement.”
Later that night, when we talked it over with Max, we all agreed that the identification requirement was what was driving this. Max felt it was just a cover for a census. What he told us made sense: “They want to know how many people are still here. At the same time they will be running a search for warrants when you present your ID. When they get a hit, they can remove some of the more troublesome elements. Based on how many people turn out, they can get an idea of what they are going to need to distribute this winter.”
I thought that sounded good, almost too good. I also told them about my meeting with José. I didn’t see any reason to mention the pistol-whipping part of it. Max listened to my story all the way to the end. “We are going to see more of this. How many people do you think this area can really support, even if we get the grain?”
I shrugged.
“Not a hell of a lot,” Night replied glumly. I guess I looked puzzled. “You want to explain it to him, Max?”
“Think of it this way, Gardener. Once we’ve eaten all the food from the grocery stores, all the squirrels and deer, all that is edible, including the neighbor’s cat, how many acres will you need to feed someone?”
“You won’t be able to feed anyone,” I replied.
“That’s a lot of hungry people isn’t it?” Max said. “I wonder if anyone really has a clue about how bad this winter could be.”
I thought about it for a minute or so. “Damn, it is going to be like an invasion of the zombies out there by spring. And we’ve got food . . .” I let my sentence trail off as I realized the implications. “We better hope the government feeds people, or it is going to be totally insane out here.”
“Yeah. No shit,” Max replied. “We may have to move sooner than we planned.”
I looked at his face. For the first time I saw how worried he really was. Night had the same look. I thought about it and decided I was not going to worry about it. If I had to, I would kill every sonofabitch that got in the way of our bugging out of here. When we went to bed later, all Night wanted me to do was hold her. It wasn’t what I wanted to do, but I had enough sense to keep my mouth shut and do it. I held her until she quit crying and went to sleep. I lay there for a bit, thinking about our future. Funny thing was—I couldn’t see one.
The day of the big food giveaway we went on alert at the motel. This was going to pull in an unknown number of people from the surrounding area. We didn’t want anyone, or groups of anyone, raiding us or even being able to scout us. Max had everyone who was staying behind make up a pack with food, ammo, and a set of clothes. From now on we were to keep it handy. He also told everyone where we were to meet if we had to run for it.
“Why?” Ninja asked me.
I explained to him: “Because Max knows that we have no chance in hell against the army. If they want to come in here, we are going to let them.”
He got indignant. “We can hold our ground against anyone—”
“Really?” I cut him off. “You think you know more than Max? Because I am sure he has plenty of time for you to tell him how much you know.” I changed my tone. “Look, I don’t know myself, but we saw those Humvees. With .50 caliber machine guns they can stand off and chew us to pieces. Don’t forget, they probably have gunships too. Hell, who knows what they have,” I added darkly.
I had a small day pack with me. I opened it up and showed him what Max had given me: a pair of Zeiss binoculars. “If you’re good, I’ll let you polish them.”
“Wow, Gardener, you really are my hero.”
“I know. I get that all the time.”
The plan was to send a couple of people down to get food only after we had watched for a bit. That was a job for me and Ninja. We set up on the second floor of an empty townhouse that had a great sight line, and there was already a decent-sized line forming. The army was using the parking lot and part of the service road in front of the shelter. They had a semi parked so it made a wall that was anchored to the shelter. Where the cab was, they had pulled in a Humvee with a mounted gun. Two more made up a triangle. Inside the triangle you began the processing next to a vehicle that looked an awful lot like a communications truck. A couple of paddy wagons with no markings had also pulled in.
On the other side of that was a U-Haul truck backed into the screening point. What it looked like was an entrance to a concert. You walked up, showed your ID, had it checked, and then you were scanned at a table labeled Weapons Check. If all that went okay, you walked up the ramp into the trailer and got your food. Then you walked out the other side. It made sense to me—but at the same time it didn’t.
I handed the glasses to Ninja and asked him to take a look. “What did you see?” He didn’t register what I had seen. “You don’t see anything, oh, not quite right?” He shook his head. Well, it was almost show time, so we would find out soon enough.
Word was that this was taking p
lace throughout all of Northern Virginia that fell outside the Zone. The Humvees had been by again the previous Monday, back with more posters and flyers. This time the poster was in color and was very well done, with better grammar. Emblazoned across the top was Tent Cities Are Not for Tourists! It extolled the virtues of living in a government “village,” where food, shelter, and security were available for all U.S. citizens. As it said, “You will come to visit, but you will never want to leave!”
It was interesting to see all the posters plastered up on the sides of buildings, at the market, just about anywhere they thought people might see them. That, combined with the food distribution, made me feel as if someone in power knew what they were doing. It was reassuring to know that the federal government still had enough resources and skill to pull off something like this. I didn’t believe life in a tent city was half as good as they claimed, but at least those who had no resources or brains had a place to go where they wouldn’t be underfoot.
When I say word was, I mean a combination of gossip and FM radio. The FM band had two stations that began operating in coordination with the food distribution announcements. They broadcast news, specialized programming, and a lot of bad country music. The news content was 100 percent feel good. The specialized programming offered such tidbits as “How long to boil water for drinking,” “The dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning,” and my favorite, “Squirrel: Is it edible?”
I hadn’t listened to a lot of radio lately. I did listen to it more now than when I was on the Internet or watching television, far more. Night and I would turn it on at night in the misguided belief that it would cover the noise we made. I never sat down and surfed the FM or AM band. I took whatever the radio was tuned to and listened to that. Stations had disappeared and reappeared frequently over the months. After hearing about the new government stations, I did turn on our battery-powered radio and scan the dial. The FM band seemed about the same, maybe more religious programming and country music. What was interesting was the AM dial. What had once been almost exclusively ethnic programming, especially Latin American, was now silence or static.