Crashed: The Death Of The Dollar (4 page)

"Oh my God, Mike. You're telling me you're a virgin? You must think we're sick for what we used to do."

"No, no, I don't. I don't judge anyone. Actually, I really admire how y'all chose to give it all up. I have a lot of respect for you both."

"So me and Stacy are the only two women you've ever seen naked?" Jessica said, laughing. "I would have never changed clothes in front of you if I'd known you were straight."

"Um, I've seen Taylor too. Kind of like with you, she's changed and showered in front of me a few times, just 'cause it was convenient. Lucky for me I guess, every time I've seen you I had on loose fitting pants, or was half under water at the reservoir, so you couldn't tell anything."

Jessica just laughed and blushed. They were quiet for a few minutes before Jessica spoke up. "You know, Mike, you need to get past this. You're still young and might find someone you want to marry one day. How would you deal with that?"

His demeanor finally lightened up some and he chuckled. "Sure, now that our country's collapsing, the hermit in the mountains will find a bride!" Mike laughed harder. "You know, what would I even need a wife for?"

She hesitated for a moment. "I guess you're right. You've actually got that type of companionship with all of us, except for the intimacy." They both laughed more at the thought. "But I still think you need to get past this fear. If nothing else, then you could truly say nothing scares you, and all
five
people who know you would believe it."

“
Yeah, well, I'd never be willing to go get married anyways,” he stated.

“
Why not? What if you found that perfect woman you want to spend the rest of your life with?”

“
Then I'll spend the rest of my life with her. But I don't need some damn license involving the government in our relationship to do that,” he answered.

"So you all have thought I was gay all this time?" he asked, laughing again.

"Stacy's not sure. I've told her you were several times, but she's kinda insecure so part of her thinks you ran off because she's not attractive anymore. I don't know if Taylor has ever thought about it or would care. I'm certain Brad's never thought about it. Me, yeah, I thought you were totally gay. I told Stacy she better learn to accept being single because the only man around didn't like women."

A few minutes passed as they sat quietly, enjoying the peacefulness of the mountains. "Well, I probably need to head home." Jessica started to get up, but paused. She turned to Mike and kissed him on the lips. "There, now you can't say you don't know what it's like to be kissed," she said, as she smiled real big. He froze up, with a long blank stare on his face. "Good night, Mike,"  she said softly, as she started her walk home.

"Hey, Jess," he said. "Don't say any -"

"No," she replied shaking her head. "You'll tell them when you're ready."

Chapter 3

Friends Become Family

Almost a month had passed and life went on perfectly as normal. Mike's birthday, his real birthday, was sincerely being celebrated for the first time in his life. He was sitting on his porch having a glass of warm mint tea when the others showed up.

"Good morning birthday boy!" Taylor said excitedly. She went inside to get herself some tea, refill his glass, and returned to join him.

Jessica told them all that breakfast would be ready in about twenty minutes. She was cooking some eggs, cubed goat meat, and biscuits. Stacy went straight to Mike's room and gathered up his old, torn clothes. She was intent on mending what she could, and making something else out of what was too damaged to fix.

"Where's Brad?" he asked Taylor.

"He's up checking on the animals in the pasture. That's his birthday present to you. He's taking over all the chores on the farm today."

Mike kinda chuckled. "Nine years old, and that boy works like he's in his twenties. Let's not tell him I already made the rounds this morning."

He looked inside at Jessica cooking. Every day of the last few weeks he had thought about that quick kiss. He wanted it to happen again, but couldn't bring himself to say anything. He didn't know if he should say anything. He liked how things were, and didn't want any weirdness between them, or between the others if they found out.

He got up and walked over to a spot near the edge of the canyon where he liked to stand. Taylor followed along, mostly out of habit. He stood there looking down between the mountains. It was such a clear day he could see his reservoir glistening in the distance. As she wrapped her arms around him, Taylor said "I'm sorry I don't really have anything special to do for you or give you for your birthday."

Mike smiled. "But you are," He put his arm around her and hugged her tight.

"What do you mean?"

He gave her an abbreviated version of what he had told Jessica a few weeks ago. "You sitting here hugging me," he paused. "I can't think of anything more special I could ask for."

Off to the side they saw Brad coming towards them, speeding down on his bike. "Does he sleep with that bike too?" Mike asked jokingly.

"Hey, we're missing a goat," Brad said in a panicked voice, trying to catch his breath.

"Slow down, son. From where?"

He kept goats in three separate areas. Alpine goats, for milk, in a small pasture behind the barn. Boers, for meat, out with the sheep and cattle. And a weaning pen to separate kids from their does.

"There's a wether missing from the weaning pen."

"Just one? Any signs of blood or anything?"

"Nope. Just the little runt Alpine is gone. I can't find him."

"Well, we can try to look around more later. But if there's no blood or anything, I'd guess a bird got him. Maybe a hawk, or I've been seeing a few golden eagles around lately. As big as he was getting, an eagle would be more likely. It happens, kid."

After breakfast Taylor cleaned the table and dishes while Brad took some table scraps to the chickens and went to empty the compost bucket. Mike was standing by the canyon again when Stacy came up from behind him, pressed her body firmly against his and kissed him. He froze again for a moment, then he heard Jessica giggling.

"Sorry, I told her to," Jessica said as she walked up and kissed him too. "Happy birthday."

Stacy laughed and added "Happy birthday to the best, grumpy, reclusive, bastard, of a neighbor we could ask for."

"Wow! Um, okay. So...," Mike was on cloud nine and at a total loss for words.

"Okay, so today is all your day to do anything you want," Jessica told him.

"Yeah, today is yours. But tonight, we've got something planned for you," Stacy added, as they both grinned.

"Wait, what?"

"Don't worry about that," Jessica said.

"So what is the birthday boy going to do today?" Stacy asked.

"I think I'll put some holes in those targets down there. Then maybe we can all enjoy an afternoon swim at the reservoir."

Down the canyon, beside his mountain, Mike had set up a target practice range. Shooting and reading were his favorite ways of passing the time. He had targets set up starting at one-hundred yards, all the way out to a mile. He was very consistent out to a thousand yards, but beyond that his hit percentage went down sharply at the one-mile range.

Since he was celebrating his birthday today, he decided to pull out his home built .50 caliber. He had taken a partially finished AR-15 lower receiver, machined it himself, and paired it with a modified kit to give him such a strong caliber rifle for a fraction of the cost of the popular Barrett rifles he was too cheap to buy. He also decided to get out his old .270 as well. It was his first rifle, so it would always be sentimental to him. It didn't have the power for the long range shooting he wanted to do, but he enjoyed using it out to the six-hundred yard target. He had fun spending his time shooting, and even landed a few hits on his one mile target.

After a good lunch of elk stew Jessica cooked up, and an apple pie from Taylor, Mike asked the others to join him for a swim at the reservoir. They were all having a great afternoon. Stacy and Brad left as it started getting closer to diner time. Brad wanted to grill some goat meat for dinner, and she'd agreed to supervise him and cook some fried potatoes on the side. The others decided to swim for another hour, and then get out to dry off in the late afternoon sun.

As they laid there, Taylor spoke up and asked, “What's happening in the rest of the world? You guys are still listening to the news, right?” Jessica and Mike had been monitoring the ongoing events as best they could.

“Well,” said Jessica, “the president has ordered that the government take over just about everything. All banking, food, fuel and medical care was nationalized in the first week. Pretty much all businesses, housing, and everything else was nationalized about a week ago."

Mike added, “A lot of farmers are still told they own their farms, but they can only farm what they're told to, and they're not paid for selling it anymore. They just don't have to pay for anything, and are provided food and power and allowed to continue living in their homes. It sounds like it's the same for all businesses. And if they try to do things their own way or get paid for what they're doing, the government completely takes it from them. It's gotten harder to follow though because the news has stopped reporting on any of it. I'm guessing the government took over the news too. Most of what we're hearing is from Amateur Radio, and I'm sure the government is trying to locate their signals to shut them down.”

“
Well, that doesn't sound too bad,” quipped Taylor. “People get to have their homes, food, work. What's wrong -”

Mike cut her off somewhat angrily, “There's a lot wrong with -”

“Okay, I think we need to get dressed and head home,” Jessica interjected. The tone in her voice making clear that she wanted the conversation dropped.

After dinner, Taylor asked Mike if they could talk for a little bit. She wanted to understand what was happening, and why. “Hey, sorry I made you mad earlier. I just don't understand all this stuff. How did all this happen?” She sat down beside him as he started to explain.

“
I wasn't mad at you. Just mad at the situation. I know I avoid society, but I still care about my country. There was really only two options once we reached this point. Complete tyranny, or total anarchy. Both suck. Americans like the simplicity of order and structure, so tyranny just came naturally.”

“
Yeah, but why did it all change? I mean, obviously most people would never have wanted this. But it's all out of their control,” she asked.

“
Well, basically we became a nation of spoiled brats. Everyone felt like they deserved certain things just because they were Americans, so they voted for people who would promise to give them what they wanted. 'Give me liberty, or give me death,' turned into 'Give me a check, I'll give you my vote.'”

“
Like what? What did people think they deserved?”

“
It started with wages, retirement and food back in the 1930's. The Great Depression was bad, and poverty was horrid. At first, the cost of guaranteeing these things caused the Great Depression to drag out longer, but when the government started spending what was needed to fight World War II, people were able to really get to work producing things. For a long time, and even still today, people are taught that it was the laws promising things that made the economy strong again. But it was the war, the needs of the war, that saved the economy then.”

Mike continued, “After the war, people had jobs, factories were producing goods that people wanted and needed. And everyone felt they deserved more. Minimum wages increased, making it more expensive to hire workers. Medical care for certain groups of people was the next big thing the government guaranteed. They had to pay for it of course, which meant more taxes, again making everything companies were producing cost more. And all the while, the government was steadily borrowing more and more money. And they had to borrow, because if they taxed everyone enough to cover the costs of the guarantees, people would have voted differently.

“To help cover the borrowing, the Federal Reserve had to create more money. You've seen at the farmer's market how, if there's too much of something, and not enough people wanting it, it gets cheaper. Not worth as much. Well, the same applies to money.

“So the government would look at everything starting to get more expensive, and decide to raise the minimum wage. That would raise the prices of everything, including things the government needed. To pay the extra costs, the government had to borrow and print more, again increasing the costs of everything until they had to raise the minimum wages again. This isn't easy to explain in simple terms. Is it making sense?”

“I think so,” Taylor responded. “Basically the government created a cycle where things had to keep getting more and more expensive.”

“Yep,” said Mike. “It kept going to the point that we shifted from a production economy, to a consumer and service economy. We'd been somewhat of a consumer economy for a long time, but produced most of the goods here. That started to change because the cost for making things here got more expensive than people were willing to pay for them. Other countries, especially China, started producing things way cheaper. So for the last few decades, a lot of our economy revolved around the selling of goods made in other countries, or providing services. Not that sales and services are bad at all, but when the balance with production is lost, after a while, it becomes an economy that can't support itself anymore. That's what's happened.”

“
Damn, this all sounds so complicated.”

Mike laughed, knowing he was giving a simplified picture of how things worked. “It is. Our economy is probably the most complex man-made thing in history. There's a ton of other factors that have contributed to our total economic crash here too. Over-regulation of many industries certainly played a role. Allowing businesses to have too much influence through lobbyists in what government does to favor them. And our federal debt. We did that to ourselves, largely to cover the promises. I'd guess it's passed $20 trillion by now. That hurt us more than anything. And of course China basically declaring economic war on us like two decades ago, and us -”

“
Wait, what?” Taylor interjected. “China declared war on us? I don't remember that war.”

“
Economic war Taylor. Not bombs and battles. Back after the first Gulf War, before you were born, China saw just how fast we defeated Iraq. And at the time, Iraq had one of the more formidable armies. We beat them in a matter of weeks. China's People's Liberation Army published a book called 'Unrestricted Warfare.' It was a manual of sorts for using the economic path we were on, as well as other things, to ultimately defeat the U.S. and replace us as the world's superpower. And we pretty much played right into their hands. It's almost like we used the book as a guide for our policies to help them defeat us. It took time, but their culture is a lot more patient than our fast-food society.”

“
So China put out a book about how they planned to defeat us, and we didn't do anything about it?”

“
Not really. Like I said, we practically helped them. My fear is that they're not done trying to destroy us yet. We'll see. Anyways, knowing all this is part of why I built this ranch the way I did. I wanted to be alone and secluded, and to know that I'd be okay if any of this ever actually happened. Y'all kind of screwed up my 'alone and secluded' part of that,” he said with a smirk “but while everyone else is pretty much functioning as a government owned slave, we're sitting here free to grow what we want, hunt when we want, run this ranch how we want, and spend our time how we choose to spend it.”