We Are Unprepared (12 page)

ELEVEN

I ONLY INTENDED
to close my eyes for a few minutes, to let the beer warm my brain and let Pia go to bed inside. But I must have drifted off for over an hour because my back was aching from the porch swing and my nose as frigid as the air when I startled awake to the sound of a distant screen door. It was the slow, cautious closing of someone who didn't want to be found. It would have been inaudible to anyone else, but I had heard the distinct screech of August's back screen door so many times by then that I caught it on the first note. It was the dead of night in December and August was taking off into the woods.

I jumped up and off the porch, realizing that I couldn't see my footing and would need to go just slow enough not to fall. I didn't yell for August. I wanted to catch him quietly before we woke parents and wives and the rest of the world.

It took a moment to find the head of the footpath that connected our houses and I started to panic as I waved my arms ahead of me in the dark. Finally, there was a gap and I dived through it, running with arms out and night eyes wide-open. I saw a flash of something ahead and ran faster. When I emerged from the woods, a small body ten feet ahead stopped, sensing my presence.

“Ash?” August whispered, frightened.

“Yeah, it's me, buddy.” I walked to him now and grabbed his backpack, then his head for a quick hug. “What are you doing? This is so dangerous. You know you can't do this anymore. Why are you out here?”

“I needed to check on my fort, to make sure it's still good in case one of the animals needs it for hibernation.”

August said this calmly, as if it was the most obvious explanation for his behavior, but I searched his eyes for a deeper answer. If one existed, he couldn't seem to access it. So I walked him back to my house with one hand safely on his blue backpack. He may not have been escaping something horrific, but he was left alone to follow the whims of his imagination right out the back door and into the dark woods at night—undetected—and that was horrific enough. What if I hadn't been outside to hear him? I couldn't entertain the fantasies of how that night might have ended.

I led August through the front door and into the living room, where he made himself comfortable on the couch. He talked sleepily to me about the structural weaknesses of his fort that needed to be bolstered while I assembled a peanut butter sandwich in the kitchen. Apparently, there was still a patch of the fort roof that needed evergreen boughs for cover and the pine needle bed hadn't been completed... Something about a secret door...

When I returned moments later with the sandwich, he was already slumped over, asleep.

I sat down in front of the couch on the oval rug with once-bright woven rings of color. It wasn't soft beneath me, but I didn't want to leave. I didn't want to be an inch farther from August's small body than I needed to be. So I sat and thought about what was ahead. Tomorrow, I would feed him breakfast and make sure his parents took him to school, but I wouldn't tell the social worker about this. Her response couldn't be predicted, and I needed more time to convince Pia that we should take August. I needed just enough time, I figured, to explain to her how frightened I had been seeing his dark shape almost disappear into the cold woods. Surely she would be moved by this. The events of that evening seemed proof to me that August didn't just need
anyone
to rescue him from his negligent home, he needed someone who knew the sound of his feet on fallen leaves in the dark, someone who understood what pulled him into the woods and which animals were his friends. I was that person and I needed him, too.

I stretched out on the woven rug, my head on the sweatshirt that August had shed minutes before. With one hand around an ankle that hung over the couch, I slept.

TWELVE

WALKING THROUGH THE
halls of the Isole courthouse to meet the Subcommittee in Salty's office made me feel like a young intern, self-consciously pretending to believe that I fit in. That feeling was probably the result of the nagging guilt I felt about my real job, which I wasn't devoting nearly enough hours of the day to. It was six o'clock in the evening on the first Wednesday of January and there was almost no one left in the courthouse. In Salty's large but modest office I first saw Peg at the table, wearing neutral colors and a warm smile. Beside her sat Bill and Bob, the other two secret recruits for the Subcommittee. Bill was an accountant (and the town treasurer); Bob owned the outdoor sporting goods store on Main Street. I gathered that they had been best friends for most of their lives, starting careers, raising children and taking vacations together. I hadn't had a male friendship like that since college, before Pia and I started dating. It looked a little goofy—the way Bill and Bob seemed to anticipate each other's thoughts—but I envied them. Both wore “work flannels”—a category of dress that I had only recently discovered, which involved the same flannel shirts and rugged boots that one might wear on the weekend, but neatly pressed and free of visible wear.

The five of us sat around a circular table in Salty's austere office, drinking decaf coffee from a pot in the corner. Salty was the unofficial leader of our gang, but Peg seemed to have all the answers. In the eight years she'd lived in Isole, she had learned everyone's name and developed a comprehensive understanding of municipal operations. “I've been joining the natives for years,” she said in her Irish brogue. Peg was a botanist; she was supposed to be studying the plants, but it seemed that she had been studying the people all along.

We moved through each issue with great efficiency. Isole Public High School was to be the emergency shelter when The Storm came, with the post office serving as backup. Both buildings would have generators installed and boarding for the windows cut within the week. As treasurer, Bill could authorize spending with town money, and since we decided at the outset that we would consult with no one about how to spend it, decisions were made quickly. We would ask for permission (or forgiveness) later. It was undemocratic and satisfyingly productive.

“Next up,” Peg said, “the flood runoff plan. The snow from the last storm is starting to melt and the ground is only frozen a few inches down, so we need to act fast if we're going to get in before the next storm. Let's take a look at the plan and divide up the outreach.”

She spread a large map out in front of us that showed the current path of the Isole Creek and the runoff routes that would need to be created to divert water away from downtown and toward an uninhabitable marsh on the edge of Isole. Along the runoff routes, tiny cartoon houses had been drawn with the surnames of the families that lived there scrawled above—those were the people whose consent we needed.

The five of us were quiet as we read the names, most of which I didn't recognize.

“This should be no problem,” Salty said, making a pencil checkmark beside a house that was apparently occupied by reasonable people. “I'll give Carl a call tonight and get his permission...and the Girards...and the LeChamps...and the Kellys...they will all understand.”

Salty stepped back and circled several more houses.

“These are the people I'm anticipating we may have some problems with,” he said. “I think we need to pay them a visit and make a strong case that the town is counting on them. I don't know how this is going to go.”

“Ash, you've met a few of these characters,” Peg said.

“I have?”

“Yes, this guy—” she pointed to a house that sat at the intersection of Isole Creek and a runoff route “—he's one of your wife's prepper friends.”

I had no idea how Peg knew about Pia's hobbies or the preppers, but I was beginning to realize that secrets were meaningless in a town of our size.

She went on, “He's kind of the ringleader.”

I knew who she was talking about immediately. “Crow?”

“Yes, Crow,” she said. “Just our luck that his shack sits right on this lot. He's not going to go for this.”

“And to be fair,” Salty interjected, “we need a pretty significant chunk of his backyard to get this done. It's not a small ask. So yeah, he'll make a stink.”

“Bob and I will take this stretch here,” Bill said, pointing to another prong along the drainage route. “They all fall between our two houses and we know almost everybody.”

“Good, perfect,” Peg said, tapping her finger nervously on the map. “Let's get as many people as we can in the next forty-eight hours. That way, we'll be ready when the warm front comes through. Salty, do you want to take some of these houses on the east side, near your farm? I'll take Crow and some of these other challenging ones. Ash, you're coming with me.”

“Now?”

“Yes, now!” Peg laughed. “It's not going to get any easier.”

With our respective assignments, everyone piled into their cars in the parking lot of the courthouse and drove in separate directions. I sat in the passenger seat of Peg's Subaru and listened as she explained the legality of the project.

“We could probably force this endeavor through with an eminent domain argument,” she said as we pulled onto the main road. “Certainly the town or state can make a strong case to that end and that was the state's original plan. But it would be so adversarial and costly...it would probably take years to go through the condemnation proceedings. Plus that could involve compensation to the property owners that Isole doesn't have to spend. It's just not an option right now, not with The Storm pressing down on us. If this runoff plan is going to do any good, we need to get it done fast. And getting everyone's consent is the only other legal way to make that happen. If you had asked me six months ago, I would have told you that this would be fairly easy to do. The people of Isole are reasonable. But I'm not so sure now; everyone's wary of their neighbors all of a sudden. We have different ideas about how we're supposed to be preparing for this disaster...and what our responsibility to the land is.”

“I never really thought about that. What do
you
think our responsibility to the land is?” I asked.

Peg turned off the main road and onto a bumpy dirt one that was as black as pitch, even with the snow cover.

“I think it's to remember that we're just temporary tenants,” she said. “The land can't ever really belong to any of us, so our actions should consider a future when we're not here.”

I thought about this point as the woods closed in around us.

“This is it,” Peg said and turned off the engine.

It was so dark when the headlights went off that I couldn't tell whether we were in a driveway or just a treeless ditch on the side of the road. We both got out and took a moment to let our eyes adjust in the cold night. Through a wall of pine, I could see a sagging trailer illuminated by several naked lightbulbs that hung from the edge of the roof. There were two cars parked in front that appeared to be disintegrating into the earth and the handle of a push mower stuck out through the snow nearby. Crow's country existence bore little resemblance to my own: it was isolated and run-down, with none of the middle-class signifiers like ski racks and greenhouses that decorated my road. Crow was poor. A dog barked from inside a shed behind the trailer and I felt myself jump as I realized that I had no idea what my role was to be on this visit. I may have been a native Vermonter, but I was surely an outsider here.

“Just hang back at the beginning and I will get things started,” Peg said, sensing my hesitation. “He's actually kind of a lovable guy.”

We walked through the deep, melting snow until we were close enough to see into two small front windows that had been partially obscured by threadbare towels. It was light inside, but I didn't see any other signs of life.

“What do you want?” someone yelled from the side of the house.

I jerked my head to the left and jumped like a dope.

The man I had met earlier that fall at the prepper meeting was standing beside the house with a large shovel in one hand and a headlamp glowing above his eyes. He looked just as I remembered him, wearing the same faded denim vest over a hooded sweatshirt. Shaggy graying hair fell around his thin face.

“Hi, Crow!” Peg yelled cheerfully. “It's me, Peg. I was hoping we could have a few minutes of your time.”

“And who's that?” he asked, pointing the rusting metal shovel in my direction. I was grateful that he didn't recognize me from our first brief meeting.

“This is Ash. He's a friend of mine helping out with some town matters. This is a friendly visit, Crow. Can we come in?”

“All right, all right,” Crow said, stepping past us to unlock the front door and watch closely as we entered. “Shoes off!”

We tugged off our winter boots and draped our coats on a nearby rocking chair. The space was small, with only enough room for a ratty couch and two chairs. To our right was a kitchen the size of a bathroom, which led to a bathroom the size of a closet. The decor was tattered, but not dirty. The floors were well swept and the surfaces almost shiny. I noticed a stack of overstuffed cardboard boxes in the corner that were all neatly labeled in marker—books, tools, extension cords. There was a very particular order to the cramped space.

Crow took a seat at the edge of one of the chairs and looked at us expectantly.

“Well, get on with it,” he said.

Peg snapped into gear, swiftly laying a small map of the plans out on the coffee table and launching into an overview of the devastation the flood would wreak. I don't think she was exaggerating, but it was clear that she was describing a worst-case scenario, with a focus on Crow's property and little mention of the threat to downtown or even his neighbors. He sat still, listening without interruption, but not encouraging her in any way. When Peg finally took a breath, Crow jumped in.

“Let me spare you, Peg.” He put one hand up as a stop signal. “This isn't going to happen, not on my property. You can dig as many holes as you want in the Fabers' land next door, but there's no way in hell that I'm going to let a group of strangers, beholden to God knows who, come onto my property and start tearing it up. Not gonna happen.”

Peg nodded. She had been ready for this reaction. “I totally understand, Crow. Really, I do. But if I could just—”

“Does ownership mean nothing to you people?” he asked, louder than before.

“Oh, c'mon, Crow. I'm not ‘you people,'” she said. “You know that. And I'm telling you that this is as straightforward as it sounds. There are no political motives in this. Your little house will be floating down the Isole Creek if you don't do anything! Lot of good ownership will do you then.”

Peg was more heated than I had ever seen her, but I was impressed by her ability to not be intimidated by Crow. I hadn't spoken a word yet.

“Oh, I'm not so attached to this place,” Crow said, looking around his home. A smile crept across his face. “You wanna see something cool?”

I didn't want to see something cool, which I imagined could only involve taxidermy, combat scars or an arsenal.

“Sure,” Peg said, recognizing an opportunity to recalibrate her approach.

“This way.” Crow motioned for us to follow as he opened the front door.

We tugged on our boots and coats and went back into the dark night where Crow would have been invisible up ahead if his headlamp had not illuminated the path. It occurred to me that if he wanted to kill us, it would have been a fairly easy job. There were no houses within shouting distance and nothing for us to run to. We were entirely at his mercy. I thought about what a strange twist of fate it would be for Pia if I died at the hands of her friend Crow. At least I would be vindicated for calling him crazy.

“It's just up here!” Crow yelled from up ahead as he approached the shed I had heard the dog bark from before.

“Jesus Christ,” I whispered to Peg, “he's taking us to his shed. Should we be following him?”

“It's fine...probably,” Peg said, with less confidence than before.

The wind blew against my face and I became aware of the sweat that was accumulating on my forehead. I could hear trees rustle around me, but it was so cloudy that even their silhouettes against the sky were missing that night. I could smell the sweet, festive scent of balsam fir and thought I saw white spruce pinecones littered at my feet. It comforted me to be able to piece together my surroundings and made the dark seem less foreboding. Crow lived deep in the boreal forest, which was always dark. The canopy of evergreen above kept light out all year long. And aside from some twinflower and wintergreen, little could grow through the decomposing pine needles on the moist, acidic floor. If I hadn't been so scared, I would have appreciated the beauty of it all.

We met Crow at the door to the shed, where he wrestled with a key and a heavy-duty padlock. Peg and I exchanged a glance of shared panic. But if we were considering abandoning this plan, it was too late because the lock opened easily and Crow pulled the wooden door back with ease. The dog we heard earlier slipped past us and ran toward the house.

Before us was not the interior of Crow's murder shed, but a wall of sheet metal that followed the interior curves of the shed itself, leaving only a few inches between the two structures. It was a shelter inside a shelter. Crow dragged his fingers along a jagged edge of the metal until he found a latch that held a small combination lock. We watched as he entered a set of numbers and then opened the door to the interior shelter.

“Welcome to my backup plan,” he proclaimed.

A light flickered on and our eyes took a moment to adjust to what we were looking at. In the space that couldn't have been more than eighty square feet, there was a living room–like area with an old couch and a chair set up around a milk-crate coffee table. A large camp stove was open nearby next to a bucket that attached to a water pump system, which I gathered served as a kitchen. In the corner of the makeshift kitchen, a curtain hung, behind which I could see part of a tiny camp toilet. There were no windows, but a framed watercolor painting of a man in a canoe hung above the little couch. It was like a dollhouse or, more accurately, a clubhouse for a young boy. I couldn't believe the ingenuity that had gone into it.