299 Days: The Community

by Tate, Glen

Drew said, “We could just park a few blocks away and walk in. We’ll have to haul our stuff, but at least we’ll be in there.” Wes pulled out of the line and looked for street parking nearby. He found some about two blocks away. He was glad he didn’t have his AR in the truck because he would have to leave it in there when he went into the store. He had the AK underfolder concealed beneath his hunting shirt so he didn’t need an AR.

  “I’ve got the cash, so let’s go,” Drew said. They got out of the truck and walked toward the grocery store. The crowd got bigger as they approached the entrance. People were antsy, and some were arguing. A fight broke out as they got to the entrance. Two women were pushing each other and arguing over something. Bystanders pulled them apart. This was going to be an interesting trip to the grocery store.

  One police officer stood inside the store at the entrance. He was a young guy and looked very tired. He seemed oblivious to the women fighting, and appeared useless, but he was there to make people think things were still OK. Wes walked right past him with an illegally concealed rifle. Those kinds of laws seemed so quaint right now.

  They noticed large swaths of shelves were empty. There were still some things, especially things that wouldn’t keep long. The junk food was wiped out, though. People thought they could get by long on chips and cookies?

  John pulled out the list, “Beans and rice.” He headed toward the aisle they were on. He knew where they would be because this was his usual grocery store. They were pushing their way, politely, through the crowds choking each aisle. The beans and rice in five pound bags were cleaned out. There were some one-pound bags left. John started grabbing as many as he could.

  “Hey! There’s a limit!” a voice yelled out.

  They turned around and there was a store clerk.

  “No more than five of any item,” he said angrily. He looked tired. He’d been in arguments for the past twenty-four hours with customers.

  “Oh, sorry,” said John. He put back all but five of the packages of beans.

  John looked at his list. “Flour and mixes.” He headed over toward that aisle.

  Same thing. Large packages of flour and biscuit mix were gone. A few one-pound packages were left. John started looking at his list. “OK, gentlemen, looks like we’re not getting the staples here. We’ll get the other things, like syrup.” They got pasta sauces, jams, and lots of canned food. They were careful to limit things to five of each.

  While they were getting canned beans in the Mexican food aisle, a woman was arguing with the clerk. “I’m getting five of the low-fat refried beans and five of the regular beans,” she yelled.

  “They’re the same item, refried beans,” the clerk said.

  “No, they’re not. They’re different!” she shouted.

  “I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” the clerk said. He held his hand up as some kind of signal. There was probably someone upstairs watching the aisles with the one-way glass to spot shoplifters. Pretty soon, some checkers came up to the woman.

  “OK, OK, I’ll only get five cans of beans,” she said, obviously frightened and embarrassed. This kind of confrontation would have been amazing a week ago but seemed pretty normal now.

  John ran out of the items on his list that were still available. He started to put things in that he thought people would want, and things that would store for a long time.

  A clerk came up, looked in his cart at all the things, and said, “You know we have a $200 limit, right?”

  Oh crap. They probably had $350 worth of food in their two carts.

  Drew said sternly, which was a little out of character for him, “No, we didn’t. Was there some sign we missed?”

  The clerk just glared at him and walked off.

  “Let’s get out of here with our $200 of stuff,” John said. “I’ve got an idea.”

  “We split up into three sets of shoppers so we have three limits?” Wes asked.

  “Won’t work,” the clerk standing next to them said. “We know you three are together.” Next time, if there was a next time, they would come in separately.

  In the checkout line, the checker said, “You know about the surcharge, right?”

  “Nope,” John said.

  “Everything is double what the shelves say,” the checker, who was nearly falling asleep, said.

  “I’ll remember that when this is over and I need to find a new grocery store,” John said. The checker rolled her eyes. She’d heard that all morning.

  They checked out and, once they got to the $200 limit, John said to the checker, “You guys can reshelf the rest.” She looked up and said sarcastically, “Thanks.”

  “Stick your hand out,” she said to all three of them.

  “Why?” Drew asked.

  She had an ink stamp. “We need to stamp your hand to show you’ve been in here today. Only one trip per day.”

  They stuck their hands out and got stamped with a red star. “How appropriate,” Wes muttered. But then again, the grocery store was free enterprise. If they said one trip a day, then it was one trip a day. Wes couldn’t resist asking. “Is this store policy or some government requirement?”

  The clerk just stared at him and starting ringing up the next customer. She didn’t care and was exhausted. Politics really didn’t matter. Getting through her shift and getting back home with some food for her kids did.

  John pushed the cart of food they picked out but couldn’t buy off to the side. Wes and Drew hated to leave all that food in the cart for re-shelving, but John seemed to know what he was doing.

  They left with one overflowing shopping cart, walking by the cop who looked like he would pass out soon.

  How to get that cart of food out to the truck? Wes couldn’t bring the truck up to the entrance because the parking lot was jammed. They’d have to make a few trips.

  Wes grabbed a plastic bag in his left hand. “I’d take two bags, but,” he pointed to his chest where the AK was, “I need to have one hand free.” John and Drew understood.

  “I’ll stay behind with the goodies,” John said. He had a revolver so he’d be OK. Drew grabbed two plastic bags and followed Wes.

  Wes took the lead in the walk out to the truck. This was where they were most likely to be robbed. A pair of shifty looking young men were watching them, paying particular attention to Drew, an older guy with his hands full. Wes sensed what was going on, lifted his hunting shirt partway to show his pistol (but not his AK), and shouted, “Someone else.” The pair seemed to understand and moved along.

  God, the situation was getting worse, Wes thought. The milk runs back in Pow’s neighborhood just yesterday were nowhere as dangerous as this one. Things had really gone downhill in just twenty-four hours.

  The long walk to the truck with two bags of heavy groceries was starting to wind Drew. He never did things like this in his retirement. Well, former retirement. Drew realized that he had a job now: surviving. Easy things like going to the grocery store were no longer easy. He’d have to work for things like food, but he was so glad he was with his family and could be there to help them. He started to ponder how much things had changed and wondered what life would be like in the next days or however long this went on. But his main goal was to get all the food into the truck and get out alive.

  Wes was briskly walking without any trouble. He was scanning all around, especially to the rear. He knew that was the most likely avenue of attack. He could feel that he was walking much more confidently than the average person. He had an AK-47 and a pistol, which helped increase confidence. He knew that bad guys would sense who was confident and who was scared, and they targeted the scared.

  They got to the truck and Wes put his bag in the cab. He motioned for Drew to do the same. It was crowded, but it wouldn’t make sense to leave the bags in the bed where anyone could steal them.

  “Let’s go try to get a little closer to John,” Wes said. “You can go and lead him back to where we are. I’ll follow you and keep my hands free,” Wes said patting h
is AK. “I’ve got you covered, Drew.” Drew had never had anyone say that to him. At least, not in reference to being covered in a gun sense.

  They moved as close as they could, which was a block from the parking lot. Drew got out and went over to the store entrance to get John. Between the two of them, they got all the bags of groceries in their hands. They were glad to see Wes coming up behind them. They noticed how much more confidently Wes moved compared to everyone else in the parking lot.

  They got to the truck. Wes motioned for them to put the bags in the bed. Wes moved the bags in the cab to the bed.

  John said, “I know where we can get some staples, but we might not be too welcome.” He pointed a direction for Wes to drive. Off they went.

  They went about six blocks to a rundown part of town. Wes looked around and didn’t see a grocery store. “Where’s the grocery store?”

  John smiled.

  Chapter 85

  Trouble at the Tienda

  (May 8)

  John pointed to a Mexican tienda, a neighborhood store about the size of a convenience store.

  “There?” Wes said. “Do they even sell to people like us?” Wes had a bad feeling about this.

  John nodded, “Yeah, I buy stuff here all the time. The best tortillas in the world.”

  Drew motioned that he’d stay with the truck. He was tired and had the least shooting experience, by far.

  John and Wes went in. For the first time in this whole ordeal, they were scared. When they walked in, everyone stopped talking. The other customers, all young Latino men, stared at them. The Latinos weren’t gangsters, just young men.

  John said, “Hi. You guys open?” The store owner just looked at him. John pointed over at the fifty-pound sacks of red beans and the twenty-five pound sacks of rice. “How much are those?”

  “We’re closed,” said the store owner in a thick Mexican accent. He looked mean.

  “We have cash,” John said.

  That seemed to insult the store owner. He raised up his hand and the young men started walking toward John and Wes.

  Wes instantly drew his pistol with his right hand. With his left hand, he quickly undid the two buttons on his hunting shirt, just as he’d practiced a few times before they left. There was his AK. Out for the whole world to see. Which was the point.

  This stopped the young men cold, and they instinctively put their hands up. None of them were armed. John fumbled for his revolver and clumsily pointed it at the store owner.

  It was silent for a few seconds.

  Wes finally said, “I think it’s time for us to go. Sorry to have troubled you, señor.” Wes was sincere. He realized that the beans and rice in that store were for the store owner’s family and friends. Maybe those young men were a gang, although they didn’t look like gangsters. In the past few days, “gang” had come to mean a group of people connected in some way protecting themselves. Neck tattoos, baggy pants, and gold teeth were no longer a prerequisite. Hell, Wes and John were part of a “gang” now. Who were the well-armed ethnic outsiders in the tienda? John and Wes.

  Everyone was still silent. Wes was walking backwards very slowly and deliberately, keeping his pistol on the young men. Everyone in the room could tell that Wes knew what he was doing. John was in shock and walking backwards, too. Wes felt enormous relief when he went out the door and back onto the street.

  Wes covered the door as he yelled to John, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Drew had been scanning the area and saw Wes and John walking out of the store with their guns out. What was going on?

  Wes and John jumped in the truck and took off.

  “What happened?” Drew asked.

  John looked down, obviously embarrassed. “I went to the wrong store.”

  “We need to be out of this part of town,” Wes said. “They’ll be looking for us. We didn’t make any friends today.”

  Wes was pissed at John, but when he thought about it, he shouldn’t have been. John had not foreseen that the Mexican store would only sell to Mexicans, but he should have realized it. Wes had a feeling not to go in there and should have listened to his gut. Having a pistol and an AK probably made him feel invincible, so he wasn’t trusting his intuition. He wouldn’t do that again. Wes felt like he was making mistakes. He knew what happened when mistakes were made in an environment like this.

  They had failed. They didn’t very much get anything on their list. They had to draw guns and now people were out probably trying to kill them. Great. At least they had some cash left over.

  Wes got on the CB. “Limit of $200 on groceries. We have cash left over. We’ll be staying out of the Mexican part of town. Anyone need us to go get something?”

  Chapter 86

  Hardware Store

  (May 8)

  “You could try the hardware store for some gas cans,” John said. He pointed the direction to the hardware store.

  Wes was silent. He was trying not to be pissed at John because they’d be working and living together and needed to be on good terms. Wes lightened up and started to chat with John and Drew as they headed to the hardware store.

  On the way, they saw some graffiti. “Don’t Tread on Me” was in yellow spray-paint on the wall of city hall. Interesting.

  They found the hardware store. Wes said, “I’ll stay in the truck with the stuff.” John and Drew went into the store.

  Drew asked where the gas cans were. The clerk laughed and said, “We sold out two days ago.” Drew and John decided to get all the miscellaneous things they could think of. Things were pretty picked over, but there were still some items. They got duct tape, rope, nails, screws, nuts and bolts. They found some Coleman fuel and some small propane canisters. There were a few packs of batteries left; they got an assortment of every kind they could think of. They didn’t have a list, so they were just guessing what they might need.

  John found some work gloves. He put as many pairs as he could into the cart. “You can never have enough gloves,” he said to Drew. “These could save your hands and you’ll need them.”

  They went to the checkout line, which was pretty long. They paid for their things. No surcharge there, probably because all the good stuff was gone. They had a little money left over, but not much. It was weird: money didn’t have the same feel it used to. The things in the store were much more valuable than the money.

  The hardware store was near the sporting goods store where Mark and Scotty were. They saw Mark’s truck in the parking lot. John and Drew dropped off their hardware store items in the truck and told Wes they’d go over to the sporting goods store to see Mark and Scotty.

  Wes was glad to be in the truck, with the AK and scanning for the Mexicans who might be looking for them. Then again, he thought, why would they want to find someone with an AK? All the Mexicans were doing was kicking some people out of their store; that’s not the kind of thing to go hunting people down over. Oh well, even if no one was looking for them, Wes would continue to scan the area for threats. This town was on the brink of being a warzone. Wes could feel it. He was listening to his intuition this time. Bare shelves, no cops, and plenty of sleep-deprived, scared, hungry people who had never run out of anything. This was going to be ugly. But not in Pierce Point. Hopefully.

  John and Drew went over to the sporting goods store. It was one of the last local sporting goods stores around. The nearest Wal-Mart was one town away.

  The camping and hunting sections of the sporting goods store was picked over. There were plenty of basketballs and golf clubs left, though.

  Mark and Scotty had a cart full of fishing gear and crab pots,. Mark had plenty of these things, but he’d need more now that he’d be a full-time fisherman and hunter.

  John saw Mark and asked, “Do they have any .280 Winchester?” That was ammunition for a hunting rifle John had. It was an obscure caliber.

  Mark smiled, “Yeah, three boxes of it. There’s a one-box limit for the common calibers. But yours is an oddball caliber,
so we could have all we wanted. It looks like those boxes of .280 have been on the shelf for a couple years from the dust.”

  Scotty was excited about what he found. “Hey,” he said excitedly, “I got ten boxes of .357 Sig. That’s an oddball caliber, for sure.” Bobby had an extra Glock 22 in .40. He switched to 9mm so he didn’t use it much or keep much .40 ammo. But about a year ago, he got a replacement barrel for it in .357 Sig for a hundred bucks from Lonewolf Distributors. It took .40 magazines, which he had. Now, with the .357 Sig replacement barrel, he had a .357 Sig and ten boxes of ammo for his .40 Glock he no longer used. Pretty cool. Scotty thought Bobby was crazy to get an extra barrel in some weird caliber, but now he saw why.

  “We could only get one box of the normal stuff,” Mark said. “30-06, 30-30, .270. Oh, and shotgun shells. Forget about it. They’re all gone.” That made sense. Everyone and their dog had a 12 gauge, so those shells would fly off the shelves.

  Mark and Scotty’s cart had Coleman stoves and lanterns. Mark pointed to some little packages in the cart, “Best find of all is the water purification tabs. Pure gold.”

  They paid and left. It was 11:45 a.m. They headed back to the rendezvous point.

  The two trucks and the Hummer gathered and those who still needed to, gassed up. They told each other what they got and what they didn’t, and heard the quick version of the Mexican tienda story. Lisa was horrified. She had no idea Wes was carrying an “assault rifle.” They didn’t have time to be chatting. They needed to get out of town and get back to the safety of Pierce Point.

  As they were leaving, there was a disturbance between two gas station customers. They started punching each other. A customer nearby drew a handgun. That stopped the fight. Everyone was on edge. They guy drawing the handgun ran away, leaving his car there.

  “Time to boogie,” Pow said. “That guy’ll be back for his car.” They were glad to be on the road back to Pierce Point.

  On the ride back, Lisa could not stop thinking about how different things were. Fights, “surcharges” at stores, limits on purchases, people with guns, money not being worth much. And chickens. Lisa hated chickens. They were noisy and stupid. Yet, somehow, she had gone from being a respected physician to an amateur chicken farmer in twenty-four hours.