The Journal: Ash Fall (23 page)

I scanned each of our carts, and satisfied
that we were well under our limited funds, we headed for the
checkout.

My cart came to three hundred eighty dollars,
and there wasn’t that much there. Eric paid three hundred fifty
dollars, even after selecting a tempting mega-bag of potato chips
that was kept behind the counter.

“Do we still want to go to the hardware
store, Mom?” Eric asked me when we were loading everything into the
back of the small car, taking up most of the room.

“I’d like to, however, we can’t leave the car
unguarded,” I said. “Let me think a moment…”

I mulled over the situation as Eric drove
across the highway to the other store.

“Stop back here, away from the other cars,” I
said, “and let me drive. I’ll drop you off at the front, and I’ll
keep moving to be less of a target and so no one can see in the
back.” I gave him the remainder of my cash. He was in the store
only a few minutes and I pulled up to the curb for him to get in,
then I got in motion again.

“Nothing. There are no batteries of any kind
or any size available. Period.”“It was just a chance, Eric. We’ll
manage.” I thought of losing power again, and that battery operated
lamp sitting dark on Anna’s desk at the township hall.

CHAPTER 24

July 13

The day began on a glorious note. The sky was
sapphire blue without a single cloud, and the golden sun shone,
almost too brightly. Although the thermometer read eighty-five
degrees, the light breeze coming down from the north brought a
coolness that made the day spectacular.

“Allex, can you pick me up? I’m packed and
ready to leave here,” John announced.

“I’ll be there within a half hour,” I replied
jubilantly. He was coming home, and this time to stay. I hoped.

* * *

“This is all you have, John? One duffle bag
and two boxes?”

“I always travel light,” he replied. “There
have been times when we would leave on rotation, only to get notice
while at home that we were being moved or laid off and someone else
would be sent to pack up what we had left behind. Many of us got
used to staying semi-packed, even if we were in one location for
two or three years,” he explained. “That happened to me while I was
working in Alaska. I was there for five years and had settled in.
Then wham! We were sent somewhere else while I was in Indiana with
Christine. They shipped me twelve boxes, ten of which I would have
left behind if I had known.”

“It doesn’t matter. We’ll find or make
anything else you might need.” I couldn’t help but be enthused; not
only was he coming to stay, he would also now be out of danger.

“Is all your paperwork done?” I asked,
knowing how important it was to him to leave on a good note with
this company that had treated him so well.

“Yes. It isn’t unusual for someone to resign
after a mining accident, so the home office was one step ahead of
me. My final paycheck and my bonus were already processed and just
waiting for a key stroke to be deposited in my account, although I
did insist that half of my bonus was in cash. It’s all done, Allex.
I’m officially unemployed,” John said with such enthusiasm that it
made me laugh. “Oh, and Simon will be by later for me to sign my
final disclosure papers.”

* * *

“Is John around?” Simon asked, stepping down
from the Green Way van.

“He’s across the road talking with my son,
I’ll call him,” I said.

“Not just yet, Allexa, there’s something I
need to discuss with you first, and I’d rather do it privately. It
will be your choice to share it with John or not.” Simon had a very
strange look on his face, almost embarrassed.

“Okay, Simon. What is it?” We sat down at the
weathering picnic table.

“This is for you,” he said, sliding an
envelope toward me.

“What is it?” I asked, picking it up.

“It’s a letter, from Sven. And yes, I’ve read
it; it was part of our agreement. I have letters on file from most
of the men, including John, whose letter will now be destroyed. One
of Green Way’s most valuable assets in their employees is the lack
of family ties.

“I don’t know how well you knew Sven. He came
to the States after both of his parents died in an automobile
accident. He was an only child; there are no siblings. He never
married, and had no children. He was a brilliant electrician and
Green Way recruited him quickly. Even though Sven enjoyed his work
and liked his teammates, he was also very alone. Each new place we
would send him, he would find a person he liked, someone that he
could talk to. Someone who was kind to him or treated him like a
friend and made him feel a little less lonely. You were that person
for him here. It explains it all in the letter: he felt you
genuinely liked him as a person and that meant everything to him…
so he made you his beneficiary.” At that Simon handed me another
envelope, this one with a check window.

“Are you saying Sven left me his life
insurance?” I whispered.

“Open it,” Simon said with a smile.

I tore the flap and gasped. I had never seen
a check for a million dollars before, and it had my name on it.

“I do need you to sign this agreement that
you won’t sue the mine for anything beyond this.” He handed me a
pen and a clipboard. I scanned the agreement quickly, and absently
signed where he indicated.

I was having just a bit of a problem
breathing when I saw John cutting across Eric’s lawn, coming this
way.

“I think I’ll keep this for a surprise,” I
said, and folded the two envelopes, tucking them into my back
pocket.

“Simon!” John greeted his friend and now
former boss. “I didn’t see you pull in, or I would have come back
sooner.”

“Not a problem, John. I was having a pleasant
chat with Allexa,” Simon stood to shake John’s offered hand. He
shifted the sheets on the clipboard, turning the one I had just
signed face down, and offering the same pen to John, who quickly
scribbled his name. Simon then handed John a very thick
envelope.

“We’re all going to miss you, John. You were
the best foreman Green Way has ever had,” he said sincerely,
adding, “Good luck to you, to both of you.”

John turned to me as Simon backed the big
white and green van out of the driveway and said, “I think we
should celebrate!”

“I agree. What would you like to do, John?
This is your ‘freedom’ day.”

“It’s still early. I say we go into Marquette
and buy some steaks, no matter how much they cost! And maybe even
find a bottle of champagne while we’re at it.” He laughed and gave
me a fierce bear-hug. I’d never seen him so happy. It was like the
weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders.

* * *

The shelves at Mack’s were just as lean and
empty as they were the last time I was there and that same cloying
rotten scent hung over the fresh food like a sticky cloud. We
wandered the vacant aisles quietly, John’s jubilant mood somewhat
subdued, until we came to the meat counter.

Fresh steaks were being stocked behind the
polished glass while we watched. My mouth actually started to
water. I hadn’t had a beef steak in many months and the sight of
the juicy red meat made me hungry.

“How much are those?” John asked the butcher.
I was shocked that the prices had gone up yet again when he told
us.

“I’ll take all of them!” John said with
gusto, and laughed.

The butcher wrapped the fifteen steaks and
personally carried them to the front to a waiting cashier, where
John paid with eight one hundred dollar bills.

My mind did a quick calculation. Meat was now
forty-five dollars per pound! Inflation was out of control and
spiraling higher with every passing hour.

“Where’s Marie?” I asked the cashier,
wondering where my friend was.

“She hasn’t been here in more than a month,
just stopped showing up,” the young blonde woman replied with a
shrug.

John stopped just before the automatic doors
opened, and turned back to the wide-eyed cashier. “Wine! Do you
carry wine?”

“All alcohol is now controlled by the State.
The only place it’s available is over on Washington,” she replied,
eyeing John warily. No one spent money like this anymore. No one
had money like this anymore.

We stepped out into the warm afternoon air,
John carrying the heavy package. I scanned the parking lot, and
withdrew my Kel Tec from its hiding place under my left arm when I
saw one person in the distance, leaning casually against a car.
Holding the 9mm automatic pointed skyward, I walked a half of a
step in front of John until we reached the car. He set the meat in
the back seat in a cooler we had brought, and got in behind the
wheel, locking his door. I walked around to the passenger side,
opened the door, slid in quickly, locking my side, and holstering
my gun.

I smiled at John and said, “I got to be your
bodyguard for a change!”

Just then the first attack came; someone
tried to open the locked doors. I heard pounding on the windows as
John slammed the car into gear and peeled out of the near empty
parking lot. I looked back and saw four people stomping around
where the car had just been. They must have been waiting for
us.

Our humanity was cycling through phases. The
first was and likely would always be denial of whatever the
circumstances were. No matter how obvious the situation may be,
nearly everyone tried to justify the undesirable away, ignoring
what was right in front of them. The next phase was panic, when
there was a rush to get everything possible, whether it was food,
water or a flat screen TV, there was mass buying and inevitably the
digression to stealing. That was what had happened last fall after
the earthquakes. When all the supplies were finally gone, people
settled into an acceptance because they had no choice. When a
recovery of sorts began with the return of electricity and the
minor restocking of grocery shelves, there was rejoicing that all
was well again, shutting out the fact that it was not all well
again; they were just being spoon-fed what would keep them calm and
compliant. The next step was also inevitable: the anger that
normalcy was being denied them, and that anger resulted in
violence, as we witnessed today.

* * *

The State controlled store was the same one
we had been to before, only with different guards, older, wiser
ones. We submitted our ID, and were patted down. The guard found my
holster, though I had wisely left my weapon in the car again.

“You didn’t think I would be foolish enough
to bring it in, did you?” I said calmly as he blocked our way.
“We’re here to buy, nothing else.”

He did a quick check on my emergency
management ID, letting us in when the counter man recognized us,
likely from the large graft John had left before.

We selected four bottles of relatively
inexpensive champagne that now cost fifty dollars per bottle. With
the hundred dollar bill that disappeared into the proprietor’s
pocket, and two fifties that found their way to the guards, this
was getting to be a mind boggling shopping trip!

Locked in the car once more, we both broke
into a nervous laugh.

“Oh, let’s not do this again,” I hiccupped
nervously, putting my Kel Tec back in the leather holster.

“Deal!” John agreed.

* * *

“So how do you want to celebrate, John?” I
asked, putting the steaks and the champagne in the refrigerator. It
was the last of our “on” days for power; tomorrow started three
days of “off”. I’d been making ice to help keep things cool during
those no electricity times. I just hoped it was enough to keep
everything from spoiling.

“Tonight, I’d like just the two of us, Allex,
and tomorrow I’d like to have a small party,” he replied, slipping
his arms around my waist. “Let’s stick one of those bottles in the
freezer to chill it down fast.”

“Who would you like to invite tomorrow?”

“I’d like the boys to join us, of course, and
Bob and Kathy, and Guy and Dawn.”

“Guy and Dawn went downstate to see Guy’s
sister and won’t be back for another week or two,” I informed him.
Inviting Bob and Kathy was no surprise to me as John had gotten
quite fond of those two. “A small party is good!” Then something
occurred to me. “Tomorrow is also Jacob’s birthday. Is a double
celebration okay with you?”

“Of course it is. I just want to share some
time with our friends and family.” He looked thoughtful before
going on. “Is there anything I can do for a present for Jacob?”

* * *

For dinner, we grilled two of the steaks and
ate dinner by candlelight on the newly sheltered deck, sipping
champagne well into the balmy night.

“Next year we screen in this area!” John said
when the mosquitoes started swarming and we had to move inside.

Sometime around midnight the power went out
as scheduled. We were asleep long before it happened.

CHAPTER 25

July 14

“You know what would have gone really good
with those wonderful steaks last night, John? Fresh mushrooms!” I
exclaimed.

“I doubt if the grocery has any, Allex,” he
laughed.

“Maybe not, but it’s the right season, and I
know where we can pick all the wild ones we want,” I replied,
visions of luscious golden orange Chanterelles fried in butter
dancing across my mind.

With Eric, Emilee, John and I crowded into
the car, Chivas curled up in the hatch with our picking buckets, we
set off. The first stop was to Bob and Kathy to see if they wanted
to go with us on our foraging jaunt. In the years past, Kathy and I
had always done this together.

“I’m really not much of a mushroom picker,”
Bob said, declining our invitation. “Kath is the gatherer. I’ve a
few things to do around here anyway. We both would be delighted to
join you for dinner tonight.”