by Mic Roland
“I don’t really know for sure. I just thought they were all wrong. I’d look at pictures in catalogs, you know, sandals and flip-flop ads and such. I didn’t have toes like they did. Theirs were pretty. Mine were ugly.”
“I suppose everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but…”
“Oh, it wasn’t just me. Other people said so too.”
“No way. That was just kids being cruel. You know how kids can be.”
“It wasn’t just kids. Mark, my EX-boyfriend, he said so too. He insisted that I wear socks at all times. If I forgot, he used to make little jokes about my ‘freaky toes’ to remind me.”
“Wha?” Martin spun around. He could tell his mouth was hanging open. “Why on earth would anyone say such a thing?”
Susan quickly tucked her left foot behind her right. “I don’t know. I never thought about it. I thought he was right.”
“Oh Geez.” Martin turned away again. “I hope I’m not talking out of bounds, but this Mark guy sounds like a major league jerk.” Martin could feel his face getting hot.
Susan put on her shoe. “We’d better get going,” she said flatly. She took her bag by the handle and started walking. Martin quickly put his shoes on and caught up to her.
She walked with her head down, brow furrowed. Martin was certain he had just insulted her. She liked this Mark enough to have him as a boyfriend, at least at first. Was calling Mark a jerk also calling her foolish for liking him? How was he any different? A pot calling the kettle black.
To take his mind off of feet and jerks, and hopefully take Susan’s mind off the same topics, Martin suggested they drink more water. He cut off hunks of cheese for both of them.
Susan slowly chewed her cheese without saying anything. Again, she had her sad and puzzled expression. The awkward silence was more than Martin could stand.
“You know,” he said. “It seems like I’m always being a jerk to you and having to apologize.”
Susan looked over at him.
“I’m sorry I spouted off back there,” he continued. “I really don’t know this Mark guy, so I had no right to call him a jerk. I mean, you liked him. After all, it’s not like I can talk.”
She continued to look at him with her sad-puzzled look. Perhaps he had been a jerk once too often and the damage could not be repaired with an apology.
“That’s okay,” she finally said. “You were right. Mark is a jerk.”
Martin was not prepared for agreement. “But, he was your…”
“I know, but not anymore. Oh, he was all charming in the beginning. He opened doors for me and sent me flowers. It was really nice.”
“Look, if you’d rather not talk about this…”
“No, it’s okay. I think it helps, actually.” She leaned out to look up the long stretch of Route 28 ahead of them. “It will help pass the time, like you said.”
They gave a gas station and its cloud of would-be buyers a wide berth. People stood in line with gas cans, or leaned against their cars. Very few of them were conversing. Most stood with arms folded and frowns. The scene had the tense air of forced peace, like a school yard brawl broken up by teachers before the kids had settled the score.
“Mark was really nice at first. At least, he seemed nice. I was fairly new in the area, didn’t know many people. He took me to plays and the symphony. We went out to eat in cute little cafés and even did some museums. We went to gallery opening parties, on harbor cruises. City life was really glittery and exciting. Looking back now, I wonder if I was more taken by the glitter than him.”
Martin felt like he was eaves dropping on a phone call.
“Anyhow, after we got serious, I moved in with him. You know, why pay rent on two apartments?”
Martin squirmed. This was far more information than he was entitled to. “You know,” he interrupted. “You really don’t owe me any explanations.”
“Oh, sorry. I’m rambling. What I was trying to get at, was that his true colors came out after I moved in. He started to change. It was little things at first. I thought I was doing stuff wrong to make him upset with me, but it got worse, no matter what I did. You know how sometimes people can seem nice, but really they’re self-centered, impatient and actually kind of mean?”
Martin cringed. Guilty as charged. “I know I’ve been pushing the pace and…”
Susan looked up suddenly. “No wait. I didn’t mean it that way.”
“That’s okay. Seems like I’m always…”
“Oh shoot no! It’s just that every hotel you picked out turned out to be a failure…”
Martin winced.
“Agh!” She covered her mouth with both hands. “That came out all wrong! I meant that even though every time you tried to help, things went really wrong. No no no. That sounded worse. I only wanted to explain how…that you…that I was…I never meant to say that you were…ughh.” Her arms dropped to her side in surrender. She heaved a sigh of resignation.
“I should just shut up. Nothing is coming out right,” she said.
“I know exactly how you feel,” he replied.
They stood in awkward silence. Martin wanted to promise he would not say insensitive things anymore, but realized he seemed to have no control over that.
Susan squared up her shoulders. “What I was trying to explain — and not very well — was that you were right about Mark being a jerk. He is. And, with everything going wrong around us — and none of it your fault — you have always been…well, thoughtful and going out of your way. In fact, I’m the one who’s been the jerk. Here you’ve been trying to get home and I’ve been this huge burden, slowing you down.”
She looked aside and said, mostly to herself, “Why couldn’t I have said it that way the first time?”
Martin took a breath to speak, but Susan raised her hand. “Hold on. I wasn’t quite done. Ahem. For the record, I never once thought you were being a jerk. There. Now I’m done.”
“For the record,” Martin matched her formal tone. “I never once thought you were a burden.”
A small smile eased Susan’s worried expression.
Martin held up one finger. “No wait. There was that one time.”
Susan’s smile evaporated.
“That time you made me carry you over that raging river of crocodiles.”
“What?!”
“That was SOOO unfair.”
“Oh stop it.” She smacked him on the shoulder in mock rage. She had a sparkle in her eyes that Martin liked much better than her sad-puzzled look.
“Next time we come to a raging river of crocodiles,” she said. “I’m going to push you in.”
Martin pretended to write on an invisible note pad. “Note to self: Avoid rivers of crocodiles.”
Susan snatched away his invisible note pad and pretended to tear it up. “That’s just dumb. Why would anyone have to write down something like that?”
“My note pad!” Martin acted shocked.
“Oh, stop whining,” Susan retorted. “Here, you can use mine.” She slapped an invisible pad into his hands.
Martin stared at his hands while they resumed walking. “But…It’s pink.”
Susan pushed him on the shoulder. “Whiner.”
Both of them chuckled.
The sidewalks had more people on them: some had bundles. Martin wondered if they were also refugees from downtown, or local traffic. If they were refugees, were they on their way to outlying hotels? Perhaps they had friends or relatives living nearby? Had they started out in a car, but ran out of gas? He wondered where they were all going.
The traffic along Route 28 had picked up considerably, both in volume and speed. From the way people revved their engines to accelerate in from side streets, there was an air of urgency and impatience. Where were they all coming from, or going to, in such a hurry, Martin wondered. It was rush hour on steroids, but in the middle of the day – and a day in which no one was going to work anyhow.
“You think your wife, Margaret, will be okay with
me staying awhile?”
“Oh sure, she loves having company,” Martin said, but he was thinking, Two hens in a nest. Everything will be painfully ‘fine’. One of Dante’s levels of hell must have been labeled “Fine”.
“Just promise me you won’t rearrange the cupboards. Okay?”
“What? Why would I do that?”
“I have no idea, but it’s against the rules. Just sayin’.”
Martin kept their pace slower than he would have liked. They had a lot of ground to cover but he did not want Susan’s blister to get worse, or for either of them to develop any new ones. Letting her use his walking stick helped, but she still had a noticeable limp. Slow and steady would trump a faster pace and downtime for more repairs.
“What if this outage does last for a month or more? Won’t I be a burden on you…and Margaret? I mean, the stores up your way will run out too, and trucks not delivering, same as down here?”
“I expect you’re right, but don’t worry about it,” he said. “We’ll all be okay.”
“You say that so quickly. I mean, a room with a door is nice and all, but the power’s out and it’s October. It’s getting colder and fuel won’t be delivered. Aren’t you worried?”
“Not too worried, no.”
“I hope you don’t mind my asking all these questions.”
“Nah, go ahead,” said Martin.
“Okay. Why aren’t you worried? I’d like to understand. This whole outage thing has me kind of freaked out inside.”
“You don’t look freaked out,” Martin said.
“Alright, maybe not wild eyes and flailing arms freaked out. More like really worried and stressed: that kind of freaked out. Most of the people we’ve come across, like at La Quinta or Andrew’s or the gas stations, they seem freaked out too. So, why aren’t you?”
“Well, a big reason is that we’ve got the house pretty well set up. That takes a big load of worry off. Margaret likes to keep a deep pantry, and even some boxes of canned goods downstairs, so we easily have three or four months worth of food on hand.”
“Canned goods?” Susan sounded surprised. “In the basement?”
“Sure. Can’t keep it all upstairs. No room. My point was that we’ll be set for food for a good while, so I don’t worry about it. We’ll make it work.”
“Oh…”
Susan did not look as relieved as he thought she would. He wondered if she had an aversion to canned food. Some people are food-fussy that way. This was not a good time to be fussy. They walked awhile in silence. She looked at the ground with little frown wrinkles between her eyebrows. Her pace was slowing down. Martin thought maybe she needed more reassurance.
“It’ll be okay. Really.” Martin said. “Margaret is quite a good cook. You’d never know some of it came from a can.”
Susan did not look reassured. Martin thought a change of topic would help.
“Like I said, our house will be comfortable enough, even with the power out. It’ll just be a little rustic.”
“What? Rustic?” Now Susan looked almost upset.
“Well, yeah, but it won’t be like living in a cave or sleeping in the woods or anything. I just meant that we won’t have all the usual conveniences of on-grid living. But we’ll be okay. We’ve got the wood stove for heat, oil lamps for light. A generator if we need it. I’ve got a hand pump on the well, so water’s no problem.”
His attempts to reassure her were clearly not working very well. Susan walked slower and with her head down. She had more frown wrinkles. He wondered if his own misgivings about how far their food supplies could be stretched, or his growing pessimism about how slowly the grid might be repaired, were somehow leaking out in his tone, or mannerisms. Was he talking peace-and-plenty, but telegraphing worry-and-woe?
After a long quiet stretch, Susan asked slowly, “What about…guns?” Her face had a sort of pleading look as if to silently say, please tell me you don’t have any guns.
“Guns?” The question caught Martin off guard. Based on her reactions to guns thus far, it was about the last question he expected. Given his apparent total lack of skill at reassurance thus far, he fished for some hints to what she meant.
“What do you mean, ‘guns’?“
“You know, like Mrs. Andrew had behind her counter?” she added.
“Oh no. Nothing like that.” He wondered where her line of questioning was leading.
Is she suddenly worried I might be some gun-crazed psycho who fantasizes that he’s secretly a Special Forces Rambo? Did that just occur to her? Now she’s worried that she had agreed to stay with one of those nut jobs who has an arsenal in his closet, snaps a gasket, drives to a shopping mall and starts shooting random strangers? What a mess she must think she’s in — having to chose between a Government Gulag, Hotel FistFight or Mr. Mall Shooter. Poor thing.
He was certainly not the trigger-happy soldier-wannabe type. He wanted to reassure her that he was not some gun nut, but listing off his firearms did not seem like the best way to make that case.
Perhaps a little truth is better than too much truth for the moment, he thought.
“We do keep a small pistol in the nightstand, but just for protection around the house, for like when I’m away on business. That way, Margaret isn’t home alone without some protection.” This part was true, if only a half-truth. He thought that including Margaret would soften the gun ownership image. The little revolver in the nightstand was hardly the bristling black “assault weapon” so infamous in gun-control press conferences. It seemed prudent not to mention his other pistols or long guns just yet.
“Oh.”
Susan still had her look of concentration and worry as she walked slower still. She did not look reassured in the slightest. Martin decided that he should never try a career as a diplomat or hostage negotiator. He would starve and people might die.
They walked in silence for another block. Martin’s mind replayed as much as he could remember, but could not find an obvious faux pas. How could he be so utterly bad at being reassuring?
After a long silence, Susan asked with a careful, deliberate tone, “Martin? Do you think that a comet will strike the Earth sometime soon?”
The absurdity of her question made Martin snort and laugh, but he quickly stifled it. Her expression was gravely serious, like a mother asking a doctor if her son would ever walk again.
“No. I do not think a comet is going to strike the Earth soon. Where did that question come from?”
She stopped and faced him. “Really? You don’t think about comets, even a little bit?”
He squirmed slightly at the pop quiz. Should he be worried about comets? He could not think of a reason why. “Um…No? Should I?”
Susan stared skeptically into his eyes for a long moment, as if waiting for him to admit that he really did think about comets. Finally, her skeptical expression melted into a look of relief. She let out a long sigh. She took a deep breath and launched into an avalanche of words.
“No, you shouldn’t and I can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear you say that. Of course I was all happy, at first, that you offered to take me in. I mean, sure, it’s a long walk, but it had to be better than hotels or shelters, I figured. But then you started telling me about your house being rustic (air quotes) and canned goods stored away and then you said you had a gun, and I started to wonder if you might be one of those Doom People.”
“Doom people?” They resumed walking.
After a deep breath, another verbal avalanche followed. “Yeah. That’s what I call them. I’ve heard about them on NPR: crazy people who think a comet is going to strike the earth, so they plan to hike out into the woods with a backpack full of stuff, to live in ‘rustic’ (again, with air quotes) log cabins and make sausage out of bears or something. They’re convinced that a comet is going to turn everything into chaos, so they plan to stay locked in their cabins, eating canned goods from their basements and shooting zombies from their rooftops.”
“What?�
� Martin felt bizarreness overload.
“It’s true! I saw this show on TV awhile back, about this weird guy and his weird wife. Oh, they were sooo weird. They had a basement full of canned goods and an attic full of machine guns like that lady had back at Andrews and…”
“Oh, you mean Preppers?”
“Yes. That’s the word. Doom Preppers. Doom People. They were so totally nuts. Underground bunkers. Barbed wire. Hidden cameras. Running around in army outfits like they were Special Rangers with machine guns. Afraid of comets, or volcanos, or something, and zombies. What is it with them and zombies? I don’t get that. They gave me the creeps just seeing them on TV. I never ever dreamed that I would actually…someday…”
She lowered her head and avoided eye contact. “…then you said how you had lots of canned goods in your basement, and your house was rustic…and had a gun…so, naturally, I started wondering if you thought…you know, that a comet was…”
“No no no.” Martin stopped to face her. He stooped a bit to look in her downcast eyes. “It’s nothing like that all. We are not ‘doom people.’ I am not worried about any comets. I do not have machine guns in the attic and I certainly do not believe in zombies. We just have our house set up to comfortably withstand winter power outages. They happen almost every year, so we try to be ready. That’s all.”
“But, Doom People have backpacks full of stuff. And you have your bag.” She pointed at his bag with her eyes. “And it’s full of that kind of stuff.”
“Well, yeah, for walking home, not for zombies. Besides, my little first aid things were pretty handy for your blister, weren’t they?”
She responded with a long, reluctant “yeah.”
“Nothing to do with comets or zombies. It’s just stuff for…um…a fifty mile walk home from…” His voice trailed off. He was not helping his own case. Martin also resolved to never try to be his own lawyer. He would get himself Life without parole for a parking ticket.
The worry lines disappeared from her forehead as she smiled slightly. “You think walking fifty miles is kinda crazy too, don’t you.”