Hard Favored Rage

by Don Shift

  David tossed and turned in the hammock. The conversation he needed to have with his father was keeping him awake. Brooke had been whispering to him to say something for the last two days. An hour of fitful dozing later, he gave up the effort and went looking for his wife.

  Brooke was in the bedroom folding clean underwear. David picked up a pair of his boxer shorts and sniffed it.

  “Yuck. Smells like chlorine.”

  “That’s because we had to wash them in the pool water and your father has put enough tablets in the water to bleach a blue whale.”

  “Explains why they’re faded.”

  “Are you going to say something to him?”

  “I will this afternoon when he wakes up.”

  “Good. I’m really tired of having to poop after you to save water on flushing.” She had a point. Hauling water in from the pool to flush the toilet required two trips. Bagging soiled toilet paper was another headache. It went into the garbage can that got wheeled down to a vacant lot five blocks away to be dumped in a pile with everyone else’s trash. The stench permeated the neighborhood. “The smell around here is enough to drive anyone mad.”

  “People will get desperate soon. I’d bet anything that there will be a mass migration up to the lakes in a week if not already. People will camp by the shore until they die from starvation or waterborne illness. Radiators will be punctured, sprinkler lines will be ripped up, and aquariums will be drained. People are dying of thirst and will kill over a bottle of water.”

  Brooke thought this over for a moment. “Why can’t they drink pool water?”

  “Oh, they will. The problem with chlorine and pool chemicals is that they become toxic over time. A small sip here and there isn’t bad but drinking heavily treated water for weeks and months will poison you. Once the chemicals run out without the pool man coming twice a week, the water will stagnate and fill with algae. That’s why my dad keeps dumping it in. Plus there just isn’t enough for everybody.”

  “Guess we won’t be swimming anymore this summer.”

  “The Sibley’s have a pool and enough solar power to light up the block. If Dad will ever let us go, we can swim.” Brooke laughed at the absurdity. “Except I think he believes we can ride this out.” David explained his father’s water strategy.

  Living off pool water wasn’t feasible for long for most people, chemicals aside. Heat, in the form of evaporation, was now a mortal enemy. From May through October, every day would be a war with the thermometer and sun. In January, only a few inches of water, or several hundred gallons, would be lost to evaporation. From spring through fall, that would increase to an average around five or six inches, over one thousand gallons, disappearing into the air. In a year, the entire pool would evaporate without any outside help.

  To combat the evanescent nature of water, Mr. Palmer had three main countermeasures. The first was a special bubble cover, thicker than the usual thin blue cut-to-size ones sold at home improvement stores. This cover was twice as thick and impregnated with a silver, reflective Mylar coating like that of a space blanket that not only reflected the sunlight but served as insulation. In ordinary times, it was what helped keep his pool at a balmy 80°, delighting both his wife and the occasional guests. The second was insulating floating foam panels six inches thick.

  Finally, the catchment system that diverted the rainwater which would be otherwise lost down the rain gutters could more than replace the evaporated water. Mr. Palmer installed it when water rates when up during the drought and the city offered a rebate on the system. The math was simple: 1 cubic foot of rainwater equaled 7.48 gallons. The area of the roof used for catchment was about 2500 square feet of Spanish-style tile, which unfortunately has the worst coefficient of collection at about .9. So 2000sqft multiplied by 1.3 feet of rain (15.5 inches was the yearly average) times the coefficient of .9 meant 2,340 cubic feet, or roughly 17,500 gallons of water.

  Mr. Palmer estimated that the evaporation loss in a year would be about 15,000 gallons. His insulation system was ‘guaranteed’ by the manufacturer to reduce water loss by up to 50%. Between savings and replenishment he figured it would even out each year. Four people consuming an extreme of five gallons of water a day could be rounded up to 8,000 gallons a year as well. He figured that in two years, the situation would have stabilized enough for the authorities to resume water delivery or to allow them finally to bug out for greener pastures.

  David went to see his father shortly after he woke from his nap.

  “Dad, we can’t stay here. We need to move in with Carlie and her in-laws.”

  “No we don’t, Dave.” He was incredulous. “We’ve got plenty of food and water to weather the storm. The guns too.”

  “The two of us can’t keep watch forever. We stay up half the night and nap during the day. What happens when we can’t sleep or there is a lot of work to do? Two men aren’t enough.”

  “Kyle’s offer to move into his ranch was a very nice gesture, but we are just fine right here.”

  “Dad, you’re being irrational. Is your pride keeping you from moving?”

  “I worked hard for years to pay for this house. I’m not just going to up and abandon it a minute before I have to. We’ll leave when it gets bad enough.”

  “You ever read Jack London; ‘To Build a Fire’? The guy falls into a stream in the Arctic and is like, I got this, I got this, but can’t get a fire started. He freezes to death.” His father wasn’t swayed. “When was the last time you and mom saw Carlie? End of July?”

  “I talked to her on the radio last night. Now enough. I just woke up.”

  David gave up.

  As darkness fell, Mr. Palmer began to draw the blinds. His wife hadn’t noticed the thick black curtains hanging alongside the French doors until her husband closed them.

  “Where did those come from?”

  “I replaced them while you were napping. We need to black out the house at night now. Follow me around. I want to show you how to close up for the night.”

  In the kitchen, he lifted a piece of foam board into the window frame. The window side was covered in thin black cloth and the edges had a ring of thick felt.

  “See the felt on the edges? That keeps light from leaking out through the gaps.” She nodded, wondering why all of this was necessary. Mr. Palmer did this in all of the rooms. “The unused bedrooms we keep closed off. We will not be going in them at night unless absolutely necessary and the doors will be kept shut.”

  “Why is all this necessary? Are they really going to see our lights?”

  He stopped and looked at his wife. “The world outside is dark and the human eye is attuned for light. In the dark, especially on a cloudy, moonless night, the slightest glow or flash of light will attract attention like a firefly. We don’t want to attract the wrong attention.”

  “With everybody coming by for water, they can see some of what we have already.”

  “Sweetheart, I understand that. Our neighbors know we have solar panels. Half of the houses do, but they don’t know I fixed the charge controller so we could have some electricity. Even if they don’t know and come begging to use it, I don’t want some roaming opportunist targeting our house.”

  David and Brooke came into the room. “Mom, you remember that story I showed you from Venezuela where the mob broke into that house and killed the old lady because they saw her cat in the window?” If the woman could keep a cat, she must have had extra food, the crowd assumed. Plus they could eat the cat.

  “Son, that’s a very big extreme.”

  “Not for people reduced to eating zoo animals. People are walking miles and miles every day just for drinking water. What if they find out we’ve got three fifty-five-gallon drums of drinking water in the garage? Dad, you haven’t been to the well since this started. People might get suspicious.”

  “He’s got a point, honey,” Mr. Palmer said.

  “Mrs. Dombrowski fell down the stairs and broke her neck because she couldn’t see in the dark. We
can’t recharge some batteries for her?”

  “In theory, but a lot could go wrong. People wanting more—jealousy. You have to understand everyone has been reduced to living in the 15th Century.”

  “Don’t you feel that you have a duty to these people? They’re your neighbors. They’re practically hopeless and we have power to spare.”

  “We don’t owe them anything, Mom.”

  Mrs. Palmer scoffed at him. “I raised you to always do the right thing.”

  “I got bit by a psycho doing the right thing. We’re not a friggin’ charity, Mom!” David shouted. Mrs. Palmer was taken aback, her eyes wide in surprise.

  “David!” his father yelled.

  “Sorry, Mom, Dad, I didn’t mean to snap like that.”

  “Boys, we can help these people. I think you have a duty to,” Brooke interjected.

  Both men groaned. The women were ganging up on them. Normally fairly cynical women, this was a surprise. The stress of the situation and the suffering around them was playing on their nurturing nature.

  “How many tampons did you carry in your purse?” David asked Brooke.

  “One.”

  “Would you give your last one to another woman on her period?”

  “Well maybe, if I could get another.”

  “But you can’t. Would you still share it?” She shook her head.

  “That’s what Dad and I are getting at. We cannot replace what we have, not at any cost. We have enough food and supplies to last a year to a year and a half. Open it up to the entire neighborhood and it’s enough for a week. You know the story of the Little Red Hen?”

  “Yes Dave.”

  “The Little Red Hen is going to bake bread and solicits help from all her friends, but none of them want to help. Of course, when the bread is done, they all want some, but they get nothing. No contribution, no reward. Now what contribution are the neighbors going to give us? They had ample warning and time to prepare for disaster—any disaster—and yet I doubt none did. We’re not their parents.”

  “Aren’t you being a little dramatic?”

  “Just you wait and see.” David walked out of the room.

  Mr. Palmer finished the light and sound discipline drill with his wife. All lights used outside must be red filtered, to preserve night vision and cut down on the chance of observation. Inside, no light must leak outside.

  Dinner was awkward and quiet. The meal was a simple one of rice and beans, a complete protein that happened to store for very long periods with no more precautions than an air-tight bucket. In a time when people were going hungry, it was important to cook without creating the obvious sent of food wafting through the air. The odor would be the same as advertising that there was electricity, and in later months food, inside the house.

  Mr. Palmer took the first shift to sleep. David had offered to relieve one of the neighbors manning the roadblock at the end of the street. He owned the only pair of true night vision goggles in the family, paid for by selling his classic, semi-restored 1969 step-side Chevy pickup for $10,000. With a laser attached to his rifle he had a secret weapon. Once again, operational security kept the wonder-gun inside the house.

  His father didn’t have that kind of money, even a fraction of that, for a surplus monocular for a couple thousand. Instead, he bought a pair of kids’ toy night vision goggles. Each of the eyetubes used a cheap infrared digital camera sensor wired to some infrared LED’s. He bypassed the LED’s with a simple switch and made them long-range with two infrared hunting flashlights wired up to the headset. It was all powered by a bank of three six-volt lantern batteries worn in a belt pouch.

  Joining the men on watch, David walked out wearing his dad’s hodgepodge contraption. A couple of the neighbors had cheap first-generation Russian night vision. Though they had not spent the money the deputy did, they were acutely aware that predators hunted in the darkness.

  “What is that, one of those hats you drink beer out of?” a curious neighbor asked.

  “It’s my dad’s night vision setup.”

  A flashlight lit it up. “Wow. That’s elaborate and heavy enough to break your neck.”

  “Or electrocute him.”

  “Hey, Jurassic Park; let us know when you see the T-rex, okay?”

  David had to laugh because he knew he looked absurd.

  The four of them stood at the north end of the street. On the south end were two more men. The men would mix and switch places every so often, their numbers dwindling through the night. David had suggested shifts, but that worked out as he and his father keeping watch from their home and occasionally joining the late-night walker Renato Baptiste on his sojourns around the block. The other men justified turning in around midnight as it seemed to quiet down by then.

  David and Renato protested, stating that the perfect time to act was in the wee hours, when alertness is at its lowest ebb. After a lively debate, it was decided that the threat was greatest earlier on when people were still aware and active, not from the “super-looters” that David predicted. Any major threat, they reasoned, would leave them time to quickly muster a defense and counterattack. Besides, a random guard schedule would be unpredictable.

  The Palmers argued back that any competent force would simply snipe anyone who came tearing out their front door with a gun and thus decimate the handful of men committed to defending the street. This was viewed as unlikely. The threats were individual burglars or small crews of two to four, not some invading force that would have the ability to occupy the street like a military unit. The Palmers were accused of being unrealistic.

  And let’s see whose door you come knocking on when the Mongols show up down the street, David thought, but did not say. A half-assed defense was better than no defense at all, if only marginally so. Time would tell and time was what David needed to prevail on his father’s sense of judgement.

  In a better prepared location, Sam and Tyler kept their own watch. A soft beeping caused Tyler to look up and see that one of the motion detectors was flashing an alert. He set his graphic novel down (his father called them “comic books”) and kicked Sam, who was dozing on the couch between patrols. “Get up. Intruder alarm.”

  Sam grunted.

  Tyler tapped gently at his father’s bedroom door next, causing Kaiser, the family German shepherd, to give a hushed woof.

  “What is it?” Mr. Sibley said groggily.

  “Intruder alarm, west fence by the road.”

  The elder Sibley jumped out of bed and noisily started to get dressed. Kaiser, sensing the excitement, was whining. “Is Sam up?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Go get your brother. Your mom will man the desk. You two patrol and secure the house, Sam and I will investigate the breach.”

  “Copy.”

  Moments later, Sam and Mr. Sibley were creeping slowly through the orange orchard navigating by night vision devices. Kaiser led the way, tugging at his 20-foot lead, silent as a church mouse. All three slowed down as they reached the fence, even the dog taking his time to creep only after stopping to listen and sniff the air. Following the least bit of scent, he helped the men home in.

  Sibley held his hand up in a closed fist, signaling Sam to stop. Both took a knee and Kaiser followed suit by laying down. They listened. The night, heavy with fog, was perfectly still except for the rustling of leaves. There came the distinct sound of someone tugging at an orange as it bent the tree limb, the snap of the stem, and then the rustle as the branch and other oranges all brushed against each other. Someone was stealing fruit.

  Creeping around the last row, a very faint light showed up. Sibley couldn’t even see the light with his naked eye. Over the course of five minutes, only moving during the time the tree was making noise from the picking, the two men and dog crept steadily closer. At last, they could see a teenage male with a very tiny red light putting oranges into cloth carriers. Out on the road was a bike and a repurposed yellow child’s trailer, heavily laden, with stolen produce.

  W
hen the intruder was about 30 feet away, Sibley turned on his visible laser and put the green dot on the intruder’s chest. “Don’t frigging move.” The teenager jumped and dropped the container of oranges he had just lifted, backing up several feet before looking down the laser’s beam at the black figure. “Hands up. Is anyone else with you?”

  The boy shook his head. “No. No. Just me. Don’t shoot me, please.”

  “Why shouldn’t I?” Sibley threatened.

  “I’m just gathering food for my family, okay?”

  “You’re stealing.”

  “They’re starving.”

  “Not my problem.”

  The teen made a scoffing noise. “You don’t care if my family starves? They have a right to eat.”

  “So does mine. And I have a right to do what I want with my crops. What’s your name?”

  “Jose.”

  “How’d you get in here?”

  “I cut the fence.”

  “You cut my fence?”

  “Relax, it was by a pole, so it won’t be that hard to re-attach.”

  “Yeah, but I’ve got to re-attach it.” Sibley moved forward but kept his rifle and the laser aimed at Jose’s chest. “Turn around. Keep your hands up. Sam, search him.”

  Sam slung his rifle across his back, spread the kid’s legs, and patted him down, finding a small .22 semiautomatic in a hoodie pocket. “Just this.”

  “What are you carrying a gun for?”

  “Man, are you serious?” Jose replied.

  “It was s rhetorical question,” Sibley said. “Kneel down.”

  “What?”

  “Kneel. Hínquese.” To emphasize his point, he jammed his suppressor into Jose’s back.

  “Okay, okay. Don’t shoot me.”

  Sibley was silent for a moment. “How old are you?”