The Solitary Man’s Refuge (18 page)

“He has a pretty good library for such a small
space, if you don’t mind, I want to borrow that book of his
on herbalist recipes he has in those blue binders. He
mentioned it to me the last time we visited and I forgot to
take it with me.” Amy said, rising and going directly to the
section of books she was curious about.

Amy perused the bookshelves with interest and also
smiled to herself at the thought of her and her husband
having a picture or two they had taken for Donald to put in
one of his books listed. She wanted to show her newfound
friends a particular chapter to where Donald had added
their photography work into one of his stories.

“I wonder where all of Donald’s books he had
written were, they weren’t on either one of the
bookshelves? Now where were those distinctive black and
green covers she had become so accustomed to seeing
over the years as sort of his hallmark? Ah, there they are
on his dresser next to his bed. They were post apocalyptic
adventure stories, but he had managed to record a lot of
survival tricks and tips in them that she thought needed to
be remembered.

There was a nicely framed picture on the wall over
the books she noticed that said, “Dare to Dream”.

“
Well, Donald, you certainly have managed to do
just that.” Amy mused as she selected the book with their
photography in it and went to show it to Cat.

“Guess who is coming down the road right now”
Michael called from the open front door while pointing his
finger towards the far driveway.

“Hot damn! Don has made it home!” Bubba said as
everyone tried to crowd out the door simultaneously.

Donald drove in the far driveway and parked in
back of the motor home. He got out of the truck wearing a
world record Cheshire cat grin and hollered hey to
LowBuck and exchanged hugs and handshakes with the
group in free for all welcome to one another.

“You all come around to help me with a chorus of
“It’s the end of the world as we know it!” Donald said,
singing the song lyric a bit off key and still wearing the
same silly grin.

“You know it, man. Good to see ya! I take it you
didn’t have any trouble on the road?” Bubba said equally
happy that this day was turning out so well.

“No, but I might have brought some with me. Tell
Harley to quit checking out my truck. I have some baby
chicks and some rabbits in the backseat that have been
noisy as hell all the way here and I would sort of like to
keep them in one piece for a while.” Donald said as Harley
put his paws up on the trucks window to get a look at its
occupants.

“Harley, you get down from there right now! I bet he
don’t know what to make of them birds, he has never seen
a chicken before.” Bubba said chasing Harley away from
the window and then having a look at them for himself.

“Where are you going to put those yard birds?”
Michael asked peeking in the opposite window.

“ Dunno off hand, in the garage for now, I guess, is
as good of a place as any. We need to build a coop or a
hutch or something for them. I got some scrap lumber and
wire around here that should be just enough to do the job.
Maybe you and LowBuck won’t mind doing that little
project for the group while I go into town and check on my
mom and Janice.” Donald said just happy to be off the
road for a minute and the possibility of getting away from
that incessant “cheep cheeping” for a while.

“Sure, I can knock something together. When are
you leaving and when are you coming back, anyway?”
Bubba asked him.

“Well, it will be getting dark in an hour or so and I
don’t care to try driving around at night if I don’t have to
these days. Besides, we have got lots of things to discuss
before I take off so I guess I will leave very early tomorrow
morning. “When” I am coming back here is going to
depend on several things. My Mom probably will not want
to leave until I start throwing a fit about it. I am not worried
about the first week or two of this shit. Most everyone is
used to a week or two without power from living with the
hurricanes. There will be some ice available for a bit and
maybe some groceries for a while here and there. You all
try to see what you can accumulate in town. How are you
set for cash? I got about $300 put away here you can use
and I know Mom has some cash put away at her house.”
Donald said, accepting the offer of a hot beer from Cat.

“We got about $400 in green cash ourselves, I will
get with Michael and we can do a laundry list of things will
try to get on a store run if we can.” Bubba said, sitting
down at the table.

“I am going to try to make it back here ASAP but I
guess you can figure three weeks as my limit. I don’t care
to be moving around much in desperate times as people
start to really feel some pressure and weigh options.” Don
said.

“I think it’s going to depend on when everybody
figures out why the power’s out. When or how do you think
the government is going to tell us about the solar storms
effects?” Cat asked.

“That’s a good question. They are going to try the
emergency broadcast network for one thing on AM radio,
whether anyone has a working radio or not to receive
news or instructions is another matter entirely. They could
use patrol car PA systems or mega phones if they still
operate or since vehicles seem to be working, the post
office could deliver notifications. They will find some way
though because they want to announce dusk to dawn
curfew eventually, I bet. The President can impose travel
restrictions if he wants to but I doubt he will for some time.
Mostly all government is going to go shelter in place
somewhere for a while and not do too much for its citizens.
The Emergency Managers will be having conniptions
because there is no plan for something like this or the
manpower and materials except maybe if they can use
something like the plan of feeding 5 million people for a
month they developed for the Madrid earthquake scenario.
No communications or very limited communications was
not built into that plan much though, as a contributing
factor. I give it about six weeks before things start really
becoming unglued and the major cities start to burn. The
food riots will start just as soon as somebody doesn’t think
the government will give them a happy meal on time.”
Donald said, glad he wasn’t going to be manning a desk in
some Emergency Operations Center (EOC) this go round.

“Yea, the idiots will probably burn down LA and the
crips and bloods and whatever other gangs they got over
there are going to have a field day whacking each other in
turf wars and looting every store in sight.” Bubba said
disgustedly.
“How many folks do you think will be stealing

electronics?” guffawed Michael who made a bug-eyed face
that got everyone snickering.

“Most likely about half of them fools will be!”
Donald said, laughing at a mental picture of people hauling
away worthless TV’s and stereos just about any way they
could.

“That was funny as hell!” Cat said, grinning at her
own mental picture of people running down the street
whooping and hollering with stacks of shiny DVDs clutched
to their chests.

“Besides making something for those chickens
and rabbits to live in, you got any other projects to work
on?” Bubba asked.

“Well, I got a couple extra 4 x 4’s you might be able
to use to build us some kind of outdoor kitchen shelter.
You are going to have to cut some tree limbs to rig a tarp,
though. I don’t have enough lumber to do anything else.”
Donald said and wandered around to the back of the
house to decide where they were going to put it.

“Might sound crazy at the moment, but I got a
bunch of sand bags you can start filling if you get bored.”
Donald said as they walked to the spot he thought the
cook shelter should go.

“Don’t sound crazy but it does sound like a lot of
work. Might just wait on that little chore until you get home
for that. ” Bubba said, laughing.

“I also got some cinder blocks we can fill with sand
and maybe put under the windows too for added
protection. Doubt we need to go to that much trouble but
we are going to have lots of time on our hands and I can
make some ballistic defenses if need be that just look like
planters.” Donald said, wondering if he was going a bit
overboard with security by fortifying the house or as he
saw it, just being extra cautious in case there turned out to
be a real need for it.

“Sounds like you have given your home security
some serious thoughts. I guess it should be reasonably
calm around here for a while at least, so we can work on
that project later.” Bubba said and went back to discussing
building the outdoor kitchen and the rain collection system
it would have utilizing the shelters roof as a collector.

19
Mom’s House

Janice drove towards Betty’s house steadily fuming
about how stubborn her mother was being about bugging
out. Her mom thought that since she lived close to an Air
Force base and also in a good neighborhood, it might be
safer to stay where she was at and was totally ignoring her
two daughter’s pleas for her to leave. Her sister Susan
was working on her still, but it looked like Janice had the
reluctant mother problem now and not Donald.

Too bad Betty can’t call and talk to her. Maybe
someone from her own generation could help convince her
of her stupidity in wanting to stay in the city. Well, she
shouldn’t be saying she was stupid, but there was no way
that continuing to live there when she had lots of relatives
in the country willing to take her in made any sense
whatsoever in Janice’s opinion.

Her sister Susan had said she would get up with her
later on in the day, but was going to go by her own house
and empty out her fridge first. They were to do some more
plotting and scheming on their own on the subject and try
to dream up some way to convince their mom to leave the
city, with force if needed later on, if they ended up having
to do so.

“
Shit! This is all I need at the moment. Change of
plans I guess. Maybe Susan and I should move a bunch of
preps over to our Mom’s? Her mom had plenty of food in
her pantry for a while so maybe adding to it wasn’t such a
good idea. It would be better for her to see herself slowly
running out food than have a stockpile of it delivered to her
doorstep, if she had any hopes of dissuading her.
Hopefully, they could wear her down in a few days.”
Janice thought, as she pulled into the driveway of
Donald’s Moms’ house.

“Hi! Thanks for coming back. I have been busy
since you left, come and see.” Betty said and led her to
the enclosed back porch to show her boxes and
pillowcases filled with canned goods and other nonperishable foodstuffs.

“Wow, you have been busy. What’s that over there?
Is it your bug out bag? Donald is going to be so proud of
you when he gets here!” Janice said and gave her a hug.

“I hope so; I am worn out from doing all of that. I
guess we will cook up some chicken, if that’s all right with
you. How did your Mom take the bad news?” Betty said,
settling down into a chair.

“Well, disbelief at first, then anger and now she is
being stubborn about moving to the country with my sister,
Susan. She will come around eventually.” Janice said,
hoping she would.

“I bet she does, she is probably in a state of shock
right now that something like this has actually occurred
and she will come around once she has had time to think
about it more.” Betty said, trying to comfort her.

“I guess so, but it’s very frustrating that she doesn’t
see that leaving the city is her best option. I am going to go
get the barbecue fired up. You have any kind of special
seasoning you want to use?” Janice asked.

“Donald usually does most of the cooking, so he
has all kind of spices and rubs we can try. I haven’t packed
them up yet, they are still on the shelf in the pantry.” Betty
advised.

“Well, speak of the Devil, that sounds like Don’s
truck pulling in.” And she and Janice rushed to greet him
with open arms and big smile.

After having greeted his Mom and Janice and
making some small talk about his happy homecoming,
Donald began to explain his plans for staying in the city
longer than he anticipated at first.

“I don’t think we will be leaving for a little while. I
am in sort of watch and wait mode. Kind of a morbid
fascination thing, you might say, to sit here and
contemplate and watch for when I think the next shoe may
drop. Folks who live here on the hurricane prone Gulf
coast are more resilient to long power outages than say
folks in the Midwest who do not have that type of weather
threat. People who have been through hurricanes before
have community experience as well as a disaster culture
generational wisdom to draw upon during these times of
hardship in order to survive.

Most of the people in this city have been through at
least three hurricanes in their lifetime, so they are mentally
prepared for living under adverse conditions like we are
currently now experiencing. Only problem is, we would
normally have access to several places or stores that had
power as recovery was going on or the few places that had
emergency generators operating while waiting to get our
own personal power back on in 2 weeks or more.

Garbage probably will still get picked up even if it’s
every 2-3 weeks versus twice a week for a while. A lot of
those government buildings downtown have emergency
generators so there will still be people going to work and
government is functioning. Hell, probably sneaking their
families into the cafeterias, too. They are probably going to
have food for a while. Lots of security guards will be
around those places, too. Those assholes from TSA will
not have anything better to do at the airports since civilian
air travel is basically null and void for sometime to come.
Maybe not though, they will come up with something
eventually to move all those displaced people stuck in the
airports. No radio communications means no flying, none
at all. And I bet it was a bitch to get all those planes landed
safely on an airfield without a flight controller in charge of
traffic. I bet there were some tragic accidents around here
on tarmacs.