The car that worked. Stangbangers.com
I awoke in Claire’s arms, or, more poetically, her charms. Her eyelids must have opened the same moment mine did, dewy-eyed and happy. We smiled, inches apart, to a new day, having no idea what that might follow. We kissed, again and again, as if to forget all our problems.
It was the first dreamless night I’d passed in the last ten, deep sleep and I was still in a hazy lethargy which I thoroughly enjoyed. I realized that this was one human pleasure which the wafer denied us, a pleasant sleepy-headed morning fog, like a warm blanket wrapped around me. Or perhaps it was love. I pulled the sheet over our heads to drown the light, and we kissed some more.
I had only the faintest recollection of lovemaking the night before or what possible words preceded or followed it, what was said, what promises to keep. And this was an embarrassment as I didn’t know how to initiate a conversation on such a delicate matter. But perhaps she was in the same stupor that I was in, and we could only look upon each other and what happened in wordless dismay.
This angered me a bit, not remembering, not knowing what to say. I wondered how people had functioned for tens of thousands of years in this kind of mental muddle and make it through life in a half-stupor, a waking dream. I needed to eat another wafer now, pull myself together. And I wanted Claire to join me in this so that we could enjoy more hours as rich as the evening before.
Soon Scout was at our bedside in her pajamas, with her usual morning smile.
“What’s for breakfast?” She chirped.
“Whatever’s in the microwave” was my reply. “Lot’s to do today so we’ll have to eat quick.”
“Step outside for a minute while I put on my bathrobe. I’m going to take a quick shower and get dressed. Then we’ll head downstairs together. Can you keep company with Claire while I’m doing this?’
The shower water was barely lukewarm. “Last of that for a long time” I said to myself. It was a sobering thought.
A half hour later the safe was open, the microwave back on its shelf and its contents spread before me on the kitchen table. Scout was at my side, curiously watching me count and arrange the wafers like a boy would his plastic toy soldiers.
Jaime came in, then Naomi and her mother.
“Well, we’ve fifteen and a half of the newer ones from the envelopes and seventeen from the vials, the older models, I suppose.”
Jaime stepped close and looked at the two rows from the vials.
“Yes, these were the animal prototypes, the ten and twenty thousand chips.”
“Scout and I have already had our little breakfast. I suggest you take yours.”
“But how do you know the war is over?” Jaime said. “They might drop more bombs.”
“Because it’s morning and it’s quiet, and we’re still alive.” I replied. “When you deploy your nuclear arsenal, you’re done. You don’t need to deploy a second round in the same place. Obviously, on this side of the continent, we were only hit by EMPs. Now there may be a land assault on its way, but that’s not going to affect the new chip in my head. In fact, if that’s the case we’re going to need brains more than ever, all of us, so I recommend you eat up.”
I pushed a wafer towards each of them, which they each took and swallowed.
Then Naomi turned to her mother. “Will you try one? It will improve your health.”
“No, no, please don’t bother about me. I’m much too old for changes.”
“But that’s just the point mother. This will make you feel younger and better.”
I could see she was still hesitant.
“Look, Mrs. Hernandez, if you won’t take one try just a little piece.” I took one of the quarters from the piece I’d cut up for Mary and Jane and handed it to her. “It will make you feel better. Please try it for me.”
“Thank you, Roland. You’ve always been so nice to me. I will.”
As she took it I thought to myself, “I hope Claire is this compliant, but I think I’m going to have to do a lot more talking in her case.”
But I was hopeful. I left one out on the kitchen table and with Jaime’s permission put the remainder in the wall safe, giving him the combination in case something should happen to me.
As we returned to the kitchen, Lucille was already looking through our cupboards and refrigerator to fix us a proper breakfast.
“There’s not a lot here” she said. “We’ll have to use up what’s in the refrigerator first because who knows when the power will be back on.”
This brought the full scope of our immediate dilemma strikingly to my mind.
“Yes, we’ve got to get food right away” I said, “and water too. As soon as the tower on the hill is empty the taps go dry. Let’s start filling jugs while we can.”
All of us scrambled into action, taking a cue from the urgency in my voice. Even Scout was a great help. We filled every type of vessel we could find in the kitchen. Then I remembered that I had a large supply of empty wine bottles in the basement. While Jaime and I rushed down to collect armloads at a time, the women filled each one from three different taps. In a short time we had more than fifty bottles full.
“One problem solved” I thought, “and a hundred more to go.”
All this commotion brought Claire to the kitchen, still wet from a cold shower, in my bathrobe, with a very sad look on her face. I walked over to her and we embraced. Then she sat down at the table put her head in her hands and began crying.
“I hope I’m not the cause of all your deaths” she sobbed.
This was a far different Claire from the day before, so confident, so chic and certain.
“No” I replied, “we’re taking positive steps to our futures, trying to survive. We just ate a new wafer this morning. The bombing is over. We’ll be sharp as tacks in a few hours, and we’re trying to pull together, to prepare this house for a long siege. We already have a water supply laid in, and our next objective is food. There’s one more wafer on the table for you. We all hope you’ll take it and join us, to help us get through this time of danger. Crying won’t help.”
“Look at all I’ve done just to get the last one out of my head.” She said sorrowfully. “Now you want me to take another.”
“You know this one’s different, like night and day, no bad side effects, only focus.”
She took the wafer in her hand gingerly and replied: “I’m going to set it aside in your room Roland and think about it for a while. Naomi could you help me find some clothes so that I can help out. What I wore yesterday is dated now.”
Naomi took her by the hand to the back cottage. Jaime and I set out on the mission of finding food. I went to my safe and pulled out a large wad of hundred dollar bills. We went out to the driveway with Naomi’s car keys but it wouldn’t start. The Bentley wouldn’t either. But when Jaime saw the Mustang and its clutch he said: “Hey, we can push start this one. I remember reading about it.”
Sure enough, we rolled it down my driveway to the steep lane, got in, got it rolling, popped the clutch and drove off with a roar, the only car on the street. There was a fancy, overpriced grocery store about a mile away, the only one on this side of town, catering to the rich. We drove there and saw the manager in front of his store making a large sign on a sheet of plywood with white paint. It said, ‘10 X’. Another one beside it said, ‘CASH ONLY.’ We pulled up.
“Are you open?”
“Ya sure, cash only. The debit machines are down. In fact, everything is down.”
“What does ‘10X’ mean?” I asked.
“Look, we don’t know what’s going on, there’s been no news, so for now we’re opening our doors to the public, but we’re charging a higher rate for everything in case things run out. It’s ‘10X’, take it or leave it. Hey, how’d you get that car runnin. None of mine will start?”
“It has to be older and it has to have a clutch. You just push-start it” Jaime yelled out over the roar of the engine.
“Hey, thanks. I didn’t know that” the manager replied. “Park your car and come on in, if you’ve got cash that is.”
Minutes later we had two shopping carts overloaded with mostly canned goods and sacks of potatoes and carrots. Then we hit the meat department for some large roasts and poultry.
The poor teller at the counter, a young girl, was trying to add up the prices on a piece of paper. We were the first customers of the day but at this rate she wouldn’t have us tallied up before day’s end. The manager came in with a sour look for her, glanced at our two bulging carts and said right away: “four thousand dollars.”
I pulled out my fat wad and rolled off the bills. He took them and smiled at me and said: “Come back anytime.”
Then he turned to the girl.
“Look you don’t add anything. Just look at the load, guess what it would have cost yesterday and put a zero on it. We can’t be wasting time here. We’ve got some serious money to make.”
Already there was another small group of people, affluent citizens of the neighborhood, without cars, coming in and politely asking him if they could shop and borrow his carts so they could get their groceries to their nearby homes.
“Sure” he said, with the same big capitalistic smile with which he first addressed us. “That’ll be a four-hundred dollar deposit and you get two hundred in return when you bring em back.”
In a few minutes we were back at the house. I left the car running. As we came in the back door to the kitchen, arms loaded with grocery bags, the women were overjoyed. They ran to the car to help us unload the rest.
“How’d you do it?” Naomi asked.
“The early bird gets the worm” was all I could think to say. Obviously the wafer hadn’t kicked in yet.
But I knew this was an opportunity we had to use. On the first day of this complete blackout people had no idea what was going on. But as soon as they began to realize the severity of the crisis no one was going to be giving up or selling off any food or life sustaining assets, unless at the barrel of a gun.
I went straight to my safe and took out another five thousand dollars and handed it and the remaining roll in my pocket to Jaime.
“Take Naomi and Lucille with you this time; they can make better choices than I can and buy everything you see before the store is flooded with people.”
I heard the car roar down the lane, while Scout and I stacked can after can of food in the pantry. When we finished we went upstairs to check on Claire. We found her in the turret library behind my bedroom, now dressed in some of Naomi’s gardening clothes and staring gloomily at the carpet on the floor, sitting in my reading chair.
Scout was brave enough to approach her first.
“Don’t feel sad” Scout began. “You should see all the groceries we’ve got, and we’re getting more.”
“Oh my poor dear girl” Claire replied, clasping Scouts hands and beginning to cry once again, “I really hope this new world turns out to be a better place for you, with all my heart.”
“Hope is hope. It’s actions that change things.” I broke in, rather abruptly. “Why don’t you eat the wafer and join us. You’re no help to anybody in this state.”
“Maybe I should” she said reluctantly.
“Even if we’re doomed” giving her my final persuasion ”‘we could spend our last few hours like we did last night on the deck.”
She rose and went into the bedroom, to the night table where she’d placed the chip, reluctantly put it in her mouth and swallowed. As she turned to me with the faintest trace of a hopeful smile on her lips and still tearful eyes, she said: “I’m doing this for love of you and Scout.”
