Charlie, before the chip. projects.aljezeera.com
“Jaime” I said, “things seem to be falling in place and working out surprisingly well. Let’s visit this friend of yours while we’re on a roll.”
I turned to the others, “Jaime and I have one more errand to run today and the sooner, the better. We have a plan to get a radio and find out what’s going on. If you women can help the Abbotts lock their front gates, tally up all our resources, water the plants or whatever else needs to be done, imagining our two houses to be one big castle under siege, you’ll be helping us all get through this.”
I went and kissed Claire.
“Take good care” she said, “you’re all I have.”
We pushed the car out the driveway and in an instant were winding down the hills of North Berkeley. It was now past noon and I saw a different sign at our local grocery store. It now read ‘30X’, and beside it was another sign in large letters, ‘Gold and Jewelry traded for cash.’ This was capitalism at its worst, at its stark naked, price gouging best. The manager must be making a killing. On the roof of the store I saw two men with rifles and another beside the jewelry sign, and a large metal box. Things were starting to get serious. We continued driving to an address above college avenue, where all the fraternities and sororities lay.
“Why would your friend want to live in this neighborhood, in this crazy crowd?” I asked Jaime.
“Rent control” he said. “He’s been living in the same three-story apartment for ages and he pays practically nothing. They gave him this dungeon for pennies, and he loves it. You’ll see.”
As we were driving I noticed more people on the streets, mostly students, wondering what the heck was going on. They were collecting on corners of and as we drove by they would point to us, like children in wonder. Some were standing in front of their cars with the hoods up. As we passed, they would give us a look like ‘what the hell’ and then turn back to their vehicles in redoubled confusion. We were driving more slowly now and came to a corner with a garage where two mechanics were checking out a vehicle, right across the sidewalk. I slowed while Jaime yelled out, “it’s the starter. You can push start any old car with a clutch.”
‘Thanks’ they both yelled as we passed.
We reached our destination. I made a U-turn on the narrow street to point our car downhill. We entered the front door of an aging three-story structure and went down a narrow staircase to a single door.
After a quick knock a man in his early fifties with long frizzy hair and a bushy beard, wearing army fatigues and a tiger stripe tee shirt answered the door. It was Charlie.
“Hey Jaime, how you doin, haven’t seen you in a while.”
He invited us into his dim, stuffy room. A little light entered through one small basement window. It had a bed, a long work table with one chair, a counter with a sink, a small kitchen setup and a bathroom behind that. I noticed he had a distinct limp. He resumed his seat at the table and waved us to sit at the only other place available, on the unmade bed.
‘Last of the pre-computer generation,’ I thought to myself.
“Have you heard any news?” was Jaime’s first question after introductions.
“Power’s out” was his brief reply.
“No, I mean the bigger picture, why is it out, what’s going on in the world?”
“Well the power went out last night and I’ve been looking at my unit since first light. Seems like some of the components are fried. I’ve been trying to build an inverter too, so I could run it off a car battery. I’m almost done but I’m missing a few pieces. I had to use my gas soldering iron for the board.”
His desk was littered with electronics parts beside the ham set, and on the shelves beside it there were stacks more.
“What about yesterday evening?” Jaime continued.
“Oh ya, there was all kinds of wild talk about some kind of massive computer attack, cell phones going down and radio stations and cars stopping in the middle of streets. But old Bessy here kept working, right until the light went out.”
“We’ve been hit with an EMP strike.” I said. “But we desperately need to have a working radio to we know what’s going on in the country.”
“Well if that’s the case this one is fried.” he replied.
“What about an older one that doesn’t have integrated circuits, could you build us one of those? We have a large house in the hills above campus and lots of room. We have a generator too and a good supply of food. We think this thing is going to last a long time and that we’re at war and we’d like you to join forces with us, up there. We can loot any electronics stores you want and get all the parts you need if you could build us a new radio.”
“You don’t need a new one, you need a really old one, without transistors and I’ve got just the ticket in my closet.”
He walked to its door and reverentially took out a large cardboard box and rather rudely pushed his newer unit aside, with his elbow, to make room for it. He unveiled to us a beautiful, oak box, with black and gold dials and a glass plate covering a green template of frequencies.
“This was my father’s first unit. He let me use it when I was just a boy. It’s from the fifties, all vacuum tubes. It’ll still work if we can plug it in.”
“Terrific” I exclaimed. “Will you bring it and come with us for a few days? We have a car outside that’s working and I’ll pay you anything you want.”
He seemed reluctant, like any hermit in his den.
“Do you have any pot up there?” he finally said.
“No but I might be able to find some” I replied. “Wait, I have something for you far better than that.”
“What could be better than weed?” he pondered out loud.
“A wafer” I replied.
“Oh, I don’t do acid anymore. It started messing with my head.”
“No this isn’t L.S.D. It’s far better. It sharpens and focuses the mind, makes you a genius. It was just invented. In fact it’s what this whole war is about. Jaime can tell you all about it as he was in on the project. We’ll give you a tab if you come with us.”
“Better than acid” he pondered again.
He looked at Jaime squarely in the face. Jaime nodded. Then he agreed.
It took us over half an hour to pack up all the boxes of electronic parts and tools he wanted to take with him. Then he showed us two rifles in bags, stashed in the back of his closet, a canister of ammunition and a handgun from a drawer.
“I don’t go anywhere without these fellows.” He said.
“Fine” I replied, “they might come in handy. But let’s wrap them up in one of your army jackets here. I don’t want anyone on the street seeing us with guns.”
We made three loads to the car and filled the trunk. A crowd was beginning to accumulate around us. I feared our time was running out when Charlie said: “Someone’s got to go to the roof to get my antenna. Nothing will work without it.”
Jaime helped him back as he limped into the building while I stood by the car to guard its precious contents. But these were college students, easily the most gullible beings on the planet. I wasn’t worried.
“How’re you gonna get that thing started?” One young man said.
“Just wait another minute and I’ll show you.”
“We’ve been trying to get our cars started all morning and nothing works” he continued, “and where are you going with all that gear?”
“Up on the hill. We have a special research project going on up there” I replied, spinning out a long fabrication about radio signals recently detected in space and how it might have something to do with our present predicament.
Jaime and Charlie were now making their way back to the car. Jaime had the roll of wire in his arms. They got in, top down, I turned the wheels from the curb, let loose the emergency brake and as we started rolling, popped the clutch. The engine roared to life and we sped down the hill.
“It’s just the starter” Jaime yelled back turning his head to the crowd. “Any old standard will work.”
As I looked in the rear view mirror I saw two of the youths racing up the hill in the opposite direction. I suppose they knew the whereabouts of such a car or had friends they wanted to tell. I thought to myself that at this rate the streets might soon be busy with traffic again.
We made it safely home. We passed another car coming down the hill near our house. It had a young couple in it and they waved as we sped by. As we pulled into the driveway Charlie remarked: “Wow, nice digs.”
This time we closed the front gates and locked them up with our new chains. We introduced Charlie to the others and gave him the grand tour. He seemed a little uncomfortable with the high ceilings and rich decor of the upper rooms. But when we showed him the den in the basement, he told us right away: “This is my kind of place.”
So we brought all his gear down there, except for the handgun and ammo which I locked in the library safe. Next, we visited the Abbotts and showed him the workshop and generator. He went straight to work on it, cleaning it up and had it running smoothly on some fresh gasoline in half an hour. We figured that maybe the aluminum shell of the camper protected the windings from the blast.
Then the three of us dragged it to my house and down the stairs. The one thing I told them we had to ensure was that no one besides the Abbotts knew we had it. We parked it in the laundry room in a large, wooden crate, placing blankets around the box to muffle the sound, running a metal hose from a vacuum cleaner into the exhaust port for the dryer. This was next to the electrical panel for the house where we could tie in any circuit we wanted. But it was strictly for the radio, I reiterated. We weren’t going to be blazing the lights at night for all the world to see, attracting hordes of people who would soon be craving a generator, and do anything to get it, like moths drawn to a flame. We hooked it to just one circuit which powered a few plugs and a single light at the far end of the basement where Charlie would set up the radio. We carried down two tables and a chair. The long couch beside it would be his bed, he told us.
While he was setting up his gear with everyone’s help, the girls getting him bedding, moving furniture and clearing the area and Jaime helping him unpack his boxes, while Scout stood by and watched the curious stranger, I made good on my promise and went upstairs and took out one of the twenty k wafers from the safe. I noticed that he’d glanced several times at my father’s old bar, not ten feet away and at its mirrored wall of glass shelves filled with rows of bottles of rare whiskeys and rums.
I set the chip on the bar and said: “Pour yourself a drink and take this. All of us here have.”
He limped over to the inside of the bar and after carefully examining the bottles and remarking how old some were and how expensive they must be, he decanted a small amount of tequila into a shot glass and held up the wafer to view it in the dim light.
“It sure looks like acid to me” he muttered.
“Oh well, here goes, bottoms up” he said in his gravelly voice. Then he placed it on his tongue and chased it down.
“Great” I said. ‘You’re one of us now, part of the family. Make yourself free of anything in this house.”
He glanced back at the rows of bottles behind him, then again at the two tables with all his radio gear spread out and the couch piled high with pillows with bedding.
“I think I’m going to love it here. If I could imagine a heaven it would look just like this.”
