Standoff (326 hits)
Category: UberMadness! EntryLabels: Ubermadness_IV
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Submitted by Jack McCallum (View user info) at 2007-02-20 11:11:09 EST
This post was an official UberMadness! entry. Click here to view the original matchup.
DAY ONE
I got up at 6am this morning to do my usual Saturday chores and walk the dogs. My shower was a pain in the ass because the water pressure was low. It fluctuates, so I didn't sweat it.
It was so quiet I could hear the dogs' nails ticking on the asphalt. A lot of people here are unemployed. They stay up late and sleep late.
When I got back to the house I went to fill the dog's water bowls and the water was just a trickle. I figured I better ask the neighbors if their water pressure was low as well. If it was just my pipes I'd have to call a plumber. I put a big bucket under the bath faucet and let it fill, just in case the water was going to be out for a while.
I crossed the street and listened a moment. I could hear Glen Phillips's little boy laughing at something, and figured the family was up. I knocked on his door and he confirmed that his water was off too.
Heading back to my place I saw Miguel Cruz standing on his porch. He lived next door, on the north side. He might have been an illegal, but I didn't care. He didn't speak a lot of English and my Spanish was shit, but he was a good guy with a nice family. On my south side I had some poor white trash assholes.
"Hola, Miguel," I said. "Um, tienes agua en su casa?"
"No, jefe" he said.
My name is Jeff. I think he started calling me 'chief' as a joke, and the name stuck. He rattled off a string of words.
"Uh huh," I said. "Well, shit."
Miguel nodded, and I went inside.
The bucket in the tub was full and the trickle from the faucet was like a stream of piss from an old man with prostrate trouble. I grabbed another bucket, figuring what the hell.
I turned on the TV to channel 3, the local NBC affiliate, and realized the problem was bigger than I had thought.
There was a live shot of guys wearing hazmat suits standing on a concrete wall in front of a body of water.
"...water shutdown on orders from the Governor who is working closely with Bay Area county health departments and the State Water Resources Control Board. You are watching investigators from the Centers for Disease Control, who are conducting water quality tests at the Hetch Hetchy Water Reservoir in Yosemite National Park. Although the CDC has not yet issued a statement—"
I switched to channel 4, KRON, and saw a disheveled Arnold Schwarzenegger giving a press conference.
"I can assure all Californians that this water shortage is temporary and we are already putting emergency plans into action to make sure no one goes without water."
Ah-shu-ah. Kelly-fuah-nyins.
Arnold was talking a lot but he wasn't really saying anything.
I heard a gurgling hiss and went into the bathroom. The last of the water was now in that second bucket and it was three quarters full. I turned off the tap.
I went into my second bedroom. I had my computer set up there, and used the rest of the space for bulk storage. When you have two young pit bull mixes, you need a lot of food on hand.
I sat down at my laptop and clicked on the link for sfgate.com weather info.
People in the northeast may have been freezing their asses off, but the five-day forecast for the San Francisco Bay area showed anticipated daily temperatures in the high seventies.
Schwarzenegger had said 'temporary.' Even if temporary was a few days, that was a few days without baths or showers or drinking water. Toilets wouldn't flush either.
I looked over my shoulder.
Along one wall beside a pile of fifty-pound bags of Science Diet dry dog food, there were three stacks of paper cartons, each stack four feet high. Each plastic wrapped carton held 35 bottles of Crystal Geyser Spring water, and I had a few more cartons in the kitchen.
I decided to get a few chores done. Doing the laundry was out, but I had a little work to do on my '72 Impala. We were the same age, and sometimes I thought the car was in better shape than I was.
As I worked the day got hotter. Whenever I wanted a drink of water I left the driveway and went inside.
Miguel rolled by in his Dodge Caravan, and came back a few hours later. He went into his house and I heard him and his wife yelling. When he came out on his porch to light up a smoke I joined him.
"Caliente," I said.
"Si," he replied. He looked pissed.
"Everything okay?"
"The store," he said, in halting English. "No agua."
"Sold out?" He gave me a nod. "Jesus, that was fast."
"Si, an they say, no more. Governemente say, no more."
Glen crossed the street. "You guys talking about the stores? You hear that shit? Schwarzenegger has redirected all water shipments to some central depot for distribution. They aren't saying where it is, and they aren't saying how we can get at it."
Miguel caught my eye and gave me a look, like he knew a lot of bad shit was coming down the road.
I kicked back for the rest of the evening, drinking a few cold beers and flipping through the channels. No one was saying much. The local coverage was vague and confused, but Fox News made it seem like the end of the world. Every once in a while I heard someone yelling outside. That night I pissed and shit but didn't flush it. I have two bathrooms. Two toilets. Two flushes before I have to resort to buckets or a hole in the back yard.
I started writing this stuff down. Who knows? Things could get interesting.
DAY TWO
By 9am Sunday morning it was already 65 degrees. I checked the weather forecast online. All the numbers were revised, bumped higher. I walked the dogs down a road that gave me a nice view of the hills rising over the East Bay. I saw a truck moving up a distant road toward Linda Vista Estates, one of those gated communities of million dollar homes that always seemed to fill quickly no matter how bad the economy is doing. The truck was red, and I could see the logo from where I was standing. It was a delivery truck from Arrowhead.
When I got back to the house I looked up the number for Arrowhead and called them. The phone was answered right away. It was not quite 10am on a Sunday morning.
"Hi, I'd like to arrange a delivery, please."
I'm sorry, sir," a young woman said, "but due to the current water shortage you have to go through the Office of Emergency Services. If they approve an order, we can process it. Would you like that number?"
I said sure, and wrote it down. I dialed, and waited on hold for five minutes. When I finally got a response I brusque voice asked where I lived. I gave the man my address.
After a pause the man said, "I'm sorry sir, but due to the state of emergency declared by the Governor last night, we are holding all water shipments."
I hung up the phone, smoked a cigarette, and then called back.
This time when I was asked for my address I told the man I lived up on the hill in Linda Vista. I gave him a random number and the name of the main street in that community.
"We can arrange that, sir," the man said after a moment, "but you must understand that with conditions as they are, the cost will be considerable."
I hung up the phone.
I live in a mobile home park, in a doublewide bigger than any apartment I ever rented. It's cheap, and comfortable. Down the road in one direction are nice neighborhoods. Single family homes and apartment buildings in clean and safe developments. Head in the other direction and you hit low-income housing. Not quite the projects, but it seems to be heading there. Unlike most of the residents in Sunnyside Park I moved here by choice, not in desperation. I have a good job in the city, managing inventory at a Jiffy Lube warehouse. A lot of the guys around here are on disability, most of them scammers. And there are a lot of Latinos like Miguel. Miguel is one of the lucky ones. He was able to get enough cash together to replace his old mobile with one of those big modular homes. My place isn't paradise, but it isn't the low rent hellhole you'd expect, either.
Was it really possible that only one day into this crisis, things had already deteriorated to the point where only the wealthy could get water?
There was a knock on the kitchen door. It was Glen.
"Hey man," he said. He looked like he hadn't gotten much sleep.
"Glen."
"Listen, I hate to have to ask, but Saturday morning is when we do our regular shopping time and by the time I hit the stores they were cleaned out. Do you have any water? Just a bottle or two? All I got at home is a few colas and toilet water, man."
"I might be able to spare a few bottles," I said.
"Thanks, man. " Glen looked uneasy. Embarrassed. "My little boy is thirsty."
I opened the fridge, glad that the door blocked his view of all those chilled bottles, and grabbed two.
"Here," I said. "Go easy on it. It's going to be a hot day."
"Sure," he said. "Thanks, man. I appreciate this."
When he left I went to my living room window. I watched Glen pause in the shadows of his carport and open one of the bottles. He drank half of it in seconds.
He opened his door and I heard distant voices. His wife asked if he got any water and he said yes. I heard his boy ask for some and then he closed his door.
I spent the day indoors watching the news, but I didn't learn much. People were hitting the stores and clearing out anything close to water, juice drinks, clear sodas, and lots of beer. There was speculation that the government was going to start stockpiling those items as well. In Hunters Point, one of San Francisco's less desirable neighborhoods, two men had been shot by the SFPD. It was rumored that they had broken into a supermarket and were trying to steal water.
There were over two million people without water, in San Francisco, San Mateo and Alameda counties.
I went out on the porch for a smoke. The poor white trash next door was living it up. I could hear one of them calling for 'another beer, fool.' Down the street I could hear someone singing and laughing. Drinking booze to quench your thirst was a bad idea. It would dehydrate you, and if the situation deteriorated the last thing we would need is a bunch of belligerent drunks.
A lot of driveways were empty. People were probably away for the day, going to wherever the water was.
Before I went to bed I drained half of the water out of each toilet tank to completely fill that second bucket. Drinking water for the dogs was more important than some stewing piss and shit.
DAY THREE
I went in to work Monday morning, and had the radio on as I sat at my computer and filled orders. A lot of people were staying home, since the toilets in businesses didn't work. People who did come to work discovered that there were vending machines full of bottled water. Fistfights were breaking out all over the city, and there were a lot of people in the emergency rooms, cut by broken glass when they tried to break into machines.
Local government agencies were advising people to stay home if they could.
At lunch my boss told me that he would be closing up shop until the water was running again.
He spoke softly. "You okay for water?"
"For now," I said.
He looked around and then whispered, "You know I live out in the boonies, up in Mendo huh? I got a spring. I got water, and if things get worse I'm gonna protect it. I got a gun."
"You gotta do what you gotta do, Tran."
My boss had been one of the Vietnamese Boat People. He'd been through hard times and worked his ass off to provide for his family. He wasn't going to cause any shit, but he wouldn't take any either.
Before I left the shop Tran told me to be careful. "There's a story linked on the Drudge Report. Says that this crisis is spreading to surrounding counties. Sonoma, Santa Clara, San Joaquin, Yolo, all over. Sacramento too. Let's see what Arnold does now that the state capitol is getting fucked, huh?
I got home around two in the afternoon and it was hot.
I went inside and filled the dogs' water bowls, and then went into the second bedroom. I had to do a count.
I order groceries from Safeway sometimes. I do most of my grocery shopping myself, but sometimes I don't feel like screwing around with cases of water and beer and soda so I do big delivery orders and for ten bucks they bring it to my door.
A few weekends back I got an order early on a Saturday. I thought I ordered just a few cases of Crystal Geyser, the ones with thirty-five bottles in them. I must have fucked up, because the guy brought thirty-five cases. That's over a thousand bottles of spring water. I decided to just take the delivery and not send any back. I wouldn't have to order any for months, so I just stacked it in the bedroom.
I'd only gone through a few cases. I still had about a thousand bottles left.
So far none of my neighbors had said anything. They were used to hearing the truck pull up every few weeks, and I was hoping no one had seen all that water going into my house.
I drove to the supermarket to pick up some canned goods, but anything with water in it was long gone, from soups to vegetables and fruit. The display cases in the produce section were almost empty, and the prices were three times what they had been a week ago. I considered getting things like sardines or pickles, some of the few things packed in water that were still available, but then realized the salt in them would just make me thirsty. I ended up buying condensed soups and canned meats. I had plenty of water to add to them. I bought a lot of Wonder Bread too. Wonder Bread was shit, but it could sit in your fridge for a long time before getting moldy.
I started thinking that I should stay in the neighborhood and avoid any more extended shopping trips, just in case.
Later, while I was home watching the news and eating a couple of canned ham sandwiches, I heard some noise down the street. I pulled on my sneakers and went outside, wondering when we would hear what had happened to the water supply. Some reports said it was infested with a new kind of cryptosporidium that survived the chemical treatments in the water processing plants and that it could kill you in twenty-four hours. Some reports said the water supply had been poisoned.
Ed Felder and Carlos Dominguez were standing in the street holding an inflatable kiddies swimming pool. Under their feet the street was dark with splashes of water. Ed and Carlos were shouting at each other.
Old Anna Guerra was on her front stairs. She crossed herself.
"Hey Anna," I said. "What's all this?"
"Meester Felder's sweeming pool. Eet ees full of water. Carlos want to take eet."
"Holy Christ."
Carlos pulled on the pool again and I heard water sloshing around. The thought of drinking it made my stomach roll.
Ed stood his ground. He was an old white haired guy who lived with his thirty-something kid, Frankie. Frankie was sitting on the porch cheering on the old man. I could see Frankie's wife and kids looking out the window.
"Fuck that wetback, old man!"
Ed looked back at his son and laughed out loud.
I bought Ed a beer once in the bar around the corner and said I had heard he was in Vietnam. I was just trying to introduce myself, be friendly. He poured the beer on the floor and told me to stick the glass up my ass. I didn't have any hard feelings. He'd been over there. I had not.
Carlos's wife ran out onto the street. I didn't know her name. She always had her long dark hair tied back in a ponytail. She grabbed the plastic pool on Carlos's end and both of then started pulling Ed across the street.
Ed was wearing a loose flannel shirt and blue jeans. He reached back, flipped up the tail of his shirt, and then he was holding a gun. He shot Carlos in the chest. The young guy fell flat on his back. Up on her porch, Anna screamed and ran inside her house. I took a backward step. Ed grinned at Carlos's wife, and then shot her. The bullet hit her in the throat and she fell on her side, a pool of blood spreading around here. One end of the pool dropped to the street and the water ran onto the warm asphalt. Water and blood mingled in the gutter.
Ed tucked the gun back in his pants and let go of the pool. He looked up and down the street and saw me.
"Nobody fucks with me today," he said. Then he went into his house.
I went and checked on Carlos and his wife. They were dead. I knocked on Anna's door and asked if she had called 911. She had. I asked if Carlos had any kids. Anna said no.
Twenty minutes later the cops showed up and took Ed away.
I began to wonder where I could get a gun without having to wait.
DAY FOUR
People were beginning to get desperate.
On TV, President Bush declared a state of emergency for most of northern California, and Schwarzenegger repeatedly denied that he would use the National Guard to keep the peace. Arnold also asked that people stay in their own areas and offered assurance that things would be back to normal very soon. Some talking heads wondered if he could declare Martial Law. I did a little reading online and the opinion seemed to be that only the President could declare Martial Law, but some sites said the Director of FEMA could as well. We had not heard a single word from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The local economy was getting hit hard. Bars and restaurants were almost empty, and most businesses had closed down. Movie theaters were doing okay, selling canned and bottled drinks, but their supplies of soda were running out.
Hundreds of schools were closed.
Violence was spreading like a wave. People were drinking way too much booze, or getting sick from drinking stagnant water. People were breaking into houses to steal water. There were shootings and stabbings and beatings. I heard one report that people were siphoning water out of car radiators, which was crazy. Anti-freeze in a cold climate is an engine coolant in a warm one, and either way that shit would kill you fast.
It was raining hard down in Los Angeles. A Pacific storm headed for us had slipped to the south.
I was surprised that more people didn't have at least a few days supply of water on hand. Living in California you hear about the threat of earthquakes all the time. City, county and state agencies are always advising people to have emergency kits on hand for the big one, including at least seventy-two hours worth of food and water. I guess it was one of those things people always intend to do soon and never get around to getting done.
There was a rumor going around that cops, paramedics and firefighters were being paid in bottled water.
A woman in a Chanel suit was in tears because her spa was losing business. Boo-fucking-hoo, babe. I turned off the TV.
There was a noise in the back yard. My dogs came trotting into the room from their usual resting place on hot days, the cool linoleum in the kitchen. Rip gave a little woof. Tear lowered her head and silently bared her teeth like she had done before chasing off some asshole's German Shepard that snapped at me one day while I was out walking my pits.
I kept all the blinds drawn to keep out the sun and keep the room cool. I looked past the edge of the blind and saw three black kids creeping toward my house. They were kids, but they were big.
I went into the spare bedroom and rooted through a cardboard box. I found what I was looking for, an old deadbolt I had replaced a few months back. I went to the window, and shouted, "Hey!"
The kids froze, looking around.
I racked the deadbolt back and forth in the metal housing.
"Now I'm loaded for bear, motherfuckers!"
I guess the deadbolt sounded enough like a gun being cocked because the kids turned and ran.
I felt weird being home on a Tuesday with nothing to do. When I walked the dogs I saw a flyer taped to a lamppost announcing a weeklong flea market. It was on a field near the local high school. I had a few bucks in my pocket so I went over there for a quick look, and something to do. In twenty minutes I was walking down aisles of tables and stalls filled mostly with crap. A lot of the people I saw looked messed up, almost like they had bad hangovers. In the relentless heat two women and one man collapsed while I was there. They fainted and hit the dirt.
People smelled bad now. No one was washing.
There was a growing crowd around one table and I heard people shouting 'thief' and 'fuck you!' I went over and saw a table filled with bottles of that Aquafina shit. I never understood why people bought that garbage, since it was just filtered water. Unless it says spring water on the bottle, it is most likely expensive tap water. There was an old guy behind the table. On either side were three huge guys who had to be his sons. They all had big jaws and small eyes. The younger guys were holding baseball bats. The older guy was holding a huge wad of small bills.
The 500ml bottles were selling for ten dollars each.
At another table I picked up a CB radio for ten bucks, and then went home.
There were a lot of quiet homes and empty driveways in the park. People might have been staying with friends and neighbors in areas that had water, or they might have left packed up and hit the road, modern day Oakies fleeing the drought.
Frankie Felder was on his porch. When he saw me looking at him he grinned.
As I was walking in to my driveway I saw Miguel and his wife each carrying a big plastic bucket into their house. The buckets were sealed, and heavy. Written on the buckets in black marker was 'sangre de res.'
Miguel saw me looking at him and seemed embarrassed. I gave him a nod and went inside.
I got my Bantam Spanish / English dictionary and leafed through it.
Miguel had been carrying buckets of cow blood.
I had to take a crap, so I got a plastic bag, one of the ones that come in a roll and are made for small wastebaskets. I set the bag inside the now dry toilet. When I put the seat down it held the bag in place. When I was done I tied off the bag and threw it in the trash just like I dumped all of the dog shit I had to pick up. I pissed in mason jars. In the evening I went out to a bare patch in my back yard and emptied the jars. There were a few anthills out there. Maybe I'd get some benefit from what was happening and kill the ants.
It amazed me to realize that aside from a lack of water, life went on. There were fewer cars on the road since the owners couldn't refill the radiators, but the garbage was still picked up on schedule, TV and radio were still broadcasting (although two local stations were now just carrying network feeds and no local programming), and I could still surf the net.
I dicked around with the CB radio and soon enough I was hearing truckers within a radius of a few miles. They were guiding each other around trouble spots in the road.
"Remember fellas," one gruff voiced trucker said, "They ain't roadblocks, they're detours."
Fell asleep early, listening to the crackle and chatter on the CB.
DAY FIVE
I spent a lot of time on the net now. I stayed up late, while it was cool, and tried to sleep late into the morning aside from a quick run with the dogs. I always had the CB on, and the truckers were saying things were far worse than I was hearing on TV.
Legitimate online news sources gave you the impression things weren't that bad, so I had started reading the news at a half dozen new websites that had been created in the last few days. According to drystate.net there had already been over a hundred deaths related to the water shortage, and the National Guard was in San Francisco. I hadn't heard any of that on the news. Dyingofthirst.com actually had a body count running and pictures of gun toting men in military uniforms at the intersection of Van Ness and O'Farrell.
At dyingground.com there was a report that people were being prevented from leaving the affected counties. Now there were suspicions that whatever had tainted the water might be carried by people, like a disease. They also had interviews with local farmers who were losing both crops and livestock at a terrible rate. Huge numbers of people were getting sick from drinking sea water from San Francisco Bay and the Pacific.
All of the sites I visited expressed concerns that the food supply would be hit next. There aren't many foods made without the use of water, which meant food would have to start coming into the area from farther away.
I clicked on the link to the Drudge Report. It was still down after he had posted a story claiming a similar water crisis was just beginning in East Texas. Some sites said that the orders to censor the news had come from the White House.
I finally went to bed around 2am, lowering the blinds and opening the windows. I got up four hours later to walk the dogs. The bedroom was cool now, and as I was pulling on a pair of sweatpants I saw a cat in my backyard. Even though the heat would be back it was still February, and the nights cooled down a lot. The cat was licking dew off of blades of grass and the leaves of plants. It disappeared from view and I went into the kitchen. From that window I could see the cat licking dew off of the front bumper of my car.
"Clever little shit," I said.
DAY SIX
I'd gone back to bed after walking the dogs, and went I got up later I went into the kitchen to make a small, strong instant coffee with a little bottled water. I looked out the window and saw Miguel on his porch.
I went out into my driveway. "Hey buddy, you okay?"
He looked at me and I was rocked by his appearance. He looked weak and worn down, and he was breathing fast.
"My sons," he said. His accent was heavy, and his voice was soft and raw. "It is bad. I try to go far away to get water, but Federales stopped me on the road. This is why I bought the sangre. Jus' in case."
I guess I could have easily gone back in the house and let Miguel deal with things on his own, but he was a good guy and the thought of his wife and kids dying because this country couldn't get its shit together was too much for me. We can airlift food and medical supplies into countries half a world away in times of need and get a big 'fuck you America in return,' but we couldn't get some water across the state line?
I was drinking eight bottles of water a day, and the dogs were drinking another four each. A lot of people would have thought I was crazy giving them any water, but I never gave much of a damn what others thought. I'd had Rip and Tear since they were pups. I wasn't going to abandon them now.
I had enough water to last two months, and if this went on much longer there was going to be complete anarchy.
I walked down to the end of my driveway, looking up and down the street. It was deserted. "Miguel, wait by your back door."
I went into the house and came out with a case of water wrapped in a blanket. Miguel opened his door and let me in. When I uncovered the case of water he didn't say anything. He just grabbed two bottles and went down the hall.
"Slowly, Miguel," I said.
I went back home.
I spent some time setting empty water bottles in their cardboard cases. There was no way I was going to throw them in the trash or recycling.
A few hours later I went into the kitchen for a bottle of water. I looked out the window and saw someone at the end of my driveway. I went outside and saw Frankie Felder standing there.
"Hey Frankie. What's up?"
Felder stared at me. He looked thin, feverish, pissed off.
"Frankie?"
"I don't see you going out much," he said. "Except to walk your dogs. You got healthy dogs."
I shrugged.
"See, everyone else is scrambling around looking for water. Not you, though. You look nice and healthy. Plump. And your dogs are full of energy. In all this heat."
I saw a curtain move at Glen's place. He was watching and listening from his front room.
"What's your point, Frankie?"
"I was in your back yard. The ground back there is damp with piss."
I began to wonder if Frankie was packing a gun like his dad had done.
"Takes a lot of piss to soak the ground enough that it stays damp in this heat."
He steeped really close to me. His lips were dry and cracked and his breath smelled like rot. "I hardly piss at all, you know that? If you aren't drinking, you aren't pissing."
"Go home, Frankie." I wanted to tell him to fuck off, but I didn't want to get shot.
He turned and took a few steps, and then looked over his shoulder.
"You got one day," he said quietly. "It's either give or take. Your choice."
I spent the rest of the night trying to figure out where I could get a gun and kicking myself for not having done it earlier.
At one point I noticed a red glow in the sky and could actually see a high column of smoke illuminated by flames hidden from sight. One or more of the low income houses down the road was burning like hell.
When I took the dogs out for their last piss of the night I saw the glow of a cigarette on Frankie's porch down the street. I took the dogs behind the house and let them piss in the back yard.
Before I went to bed I looked out the window. I could still see a column of smoke that seemed to dance in the light of fires below. I heard the occasional distant shout, but didn't hear any sirens.
DAY SEVEN
I heard something tapping on my window at 5am. I got up and looked outside. Miguel was standing out there in the dark. I went out back and asked him what he was doing. For a moment he was quiet, and we watched the flickering glow from down the road.
"Come, to mi casa."
I went into his house. It was dark, but I could see his wife and kids sitting on the couch. His wife was holding a bottle of water. She raised it and said, "Gracias." Her name was Rosita.
Miguel opened his mouth, and then looked at his oldest boy and started speaking Spanish. Victor and Javier were nine and ten years old. They went to a local school and spoke perfect English. I always called them Vic and Jay when I saw them. They seemed to get a laugh out of it.
"My dad couldn't sleep last night," Victor said. "He was here, by the window, all night. He saw Glen and Frankie and a few other men going up and down the street and into each other's houses. Whenever they went by they looked at your house."
Miguel was still speaking rapid fire Spanish and I was glad that his son was translating.
"My dad thinks that those men are going to try to take your water. He says he doesn't want to see you get hurt."
Javier said, "The old man shot somebody," and his mom shushed him.
"My dad has an idea," Victor said. "He says that to be safe you should come to our house. There is an extra room for you and your dogs. We can share the water and..."
Victor paused. Miguel repeated himself and Victor said, "We can share the water and defend ourselves."
Miguel left the room and came back a moment later carry a long wooden box with rope handles. He set it on the floor and lifted the lid. An old bolt-action rifle was wrapped in burlap. Miguel opened three other burlap bundles to reveal three revolvers. The metal was pitted and stained with age.
"Those belonged to my grandfather," Victor said.
Miguel pointed at the street and said. "Fahk those guys, jefe."
I thought about my place. It was comfortable, but it was just a mobile. The doors and windows were as flimsy as hell. Christ, even the walls were thin.
"Okay," I said.
We spent the rest of the day moving stuff from my place to Miguel's. I put the dogs in the bedroom I'd be using and told them to stay put. We got the water done first. We took a break to eat, a stew with pork in it, heavy on the peppers and onions. I thought it was going to blow my head off and when I said it was hot Miguel's sons laughed at the look on my face. By the time we were carrying the last few bags of dog food and cardboard boxes of canned goods between the homes a group of men had gathered on the street. Frankie Felder was there, and Glen, along with a couple of other guys. They all looked like hell, and they were all watching us closely. They stood there in the street, in the heat, until sundown. No one said a thing until Frankie called out to me.
"Time's up, water boy."
There were two streetlights on our part of the street. Frankie pulled out his pistol and shot both of them. The men on the street faded into the darkness.
DAY EIGHT
The dogs were letting out little barks and yips. I sat up in bed and heard the faint sound of breaking glass. It was still night, or early morning. I went out to the living room, feeling my way through the dark in my neighbor's house. Miguel was standing at the window, looking through the blinds to one side. He was holding his rifle. He saw me and said, "I'm sorry, my friend."
I looked out and saw that my front windows had been smashed in. My front room lit up as if the TV was on, and then I saw an orange tongue of flame.
"You've got to be kidding me," I said.
Miguel and I stood and watched my house burn.
There was no point in calling 911. The line was always busy.
The men gathered in the street again. There were more of them now.
"Fuck," I said. "There's gotta be twenty guys out there."
Most of them had guns. I saw a few baseball bats, and an axe. One guy had a rake. A goddamned rake. I nearly laughed when I saw that.
One of them shouted, "Bring out the water!"
Without saying anything Miguel moved the blind aside and held his rifle up for the men on the street to see.
The men frowned and mumbled to each other.
The fire torched my living room and half my kitchen and then died out. My bedroom and the spare bedroom still appeared intact.
The men stood out on the street all day. Sometimes just a few of them, sometimes all of them. A few of them held up umbrellas for shade. At noon some of their wives brought them sandwiches and the men shared a few cans of beer.
I'd brought my laptop with me, and since the router in my spare bedroom was still working I did some wireless surfing. Some men had tried to hijack a big water truck under Army escort in downtown San Jose and shooting broke out. There were over a dozen dead in minutes, and when one of the hijackers got behind the wheel and drove away from the gun battle he lost control of the truck and rolled it into a McDonalds on East San Carlos Street. The tanker truck ruptured and most of the water went down the drain. Violence was still spreading across San Jose.
Schwarzenegger was pelted with balloons full of piss thrown by student protestors when he visited a Sacramento hospital full of people dying of dehydration.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper offered to airlift bottled water to northern California, stating that the air force could start delivering relief immediately. Just as the plan was being put into action it was suspended when Liberals began accusing Conservative Harper of cozying up to the United States once again and using international aid as a tool to strengthen his own political future.
Miguel's boys spent a lot of time down on the floor, bored out of their minds. I let them play some of the games on my laptop. Miguel wanted them down and out of the way in case there was any shooting.
We heard a noise from the back of the house and Miguel down the hall. I heard a couple of muffled thuds and a scream. Miguel came back wiping blood off of the butt of his rifle. He did a little pantomime, and I got it right away. Someone had jimmied open a window back there and reached inside. Miguel had smashed the man's fingers with the rifle butt.
We went to the window and peered through the blinds. It was twilight now. The men on the street were in a huddle. The huddle broke up, and one of them was holding a glass bottle full of pink liquid. A wet rag was jammed in the mouth of the bottle.
"Molotov," Miguel said. "Soap. Gas."
If they were thinking of burning us out, they weren't thinking things through.
The man holding the bottle flicked a Zippo lighter and held the rag over the flame.
I opened the window a crack and shouted through the blinds. "Hey, you fucking morons! Any water we have in here is in plastic bottles! Think about it!"
Glen Phillips reached out and pulled the rag out of the bottle just as it began to burn. Frankie Felder pushed both men aside, raised a long hunting rifle to his shoulder, and fired once.
I felt something go through me and burn my chest and back as if I had been stabbed with a red hot knitting needle, and there was a duller, harder hit to my upper body and my own blood sprayed up into my face as I reeled backward and fell against the couch.
Miguel stuck the barrel of his own rifle through the hole in the window and fired back once. I heard the round strike something metal and the men outside broke into raucous laughter.
I looked down and saw blood on my shirt. I could hear Javier crying, and Victor quietly said, "Shit."
Miguel's wife appeared with a handful of dishtowels. She ripped open my shirt. I was going to make a crack to Miguel, tell him that I had that effect on women, when I stated coughing instead. I didn't taste any blood and hoped that was a good sign. Rosita started speaking Spanish and Victor translated from the other side of the couch.
"The bullet went through you. It broke up one of your ribs. That's gross. My mom is going to stop the bleeding."
Rosita stuffed a small wad of cloth into the hole in my chest.
My stomach flipped over and everything went black and when I opened my eyes again I was wearing only my underwear and Rosita was behind me, wrapping strips of torn up bath towel around my chest like bandages. My shirt and pants were lying nearby, and there was puke all over them.
I wanted to ask if they had tried to call for help again, but I passed out.
DAY NINE
Every time I opened my eyes I saw Miguel or Victor at the window. Rosita took care of me the best she could. Little Javier made sure my laptop was always plugged in and charged up.
Someone had let my dogs out of the room and they were curled up beside me. Tear kept sniffing at my bandages.
I spent a lot of time on the floor, lying flat or propped against the couch. Rosita forced me to drink what seemed like an ocean's worth of water. I didn't have any appetite.
On dyingground.com there was a new link called 'Atrocities.' The page featured hazy pictures taken with cell phone cameras. Soldiers shooting civilians on Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco. A group suicide leap from the Golden Gate Bridge, the falling bodies mere colored specks, like confetti. A man had been selling what he called 'desalinization processors' to make sea water potable. When people realized the devices were just water filters with a bit of silver paint on them they burned down his house and hung him from a tree in his yard. That was a grim series of photos. A picture of Schwarzenegger getting out of the back seat of a limo, holding a half liter bottle of water in his hand. And dead bodies. Bodies in the streets, in emergency rooms, in cars parked by the side of the road.
Jesus Christ. It was just water. How could things fall so far, so fast?
I couldn't see them, but I could hear the men out in the street. Some of them were raving, either drunk or delirious.
Late in the afternoon my internet connection was cut off. Ten minutes later, the lights went out all over the park.
My laptop battery was probably good for an hour or two. It was a few years old.
DAY TEN
Well, I took a few minutes to go over what I had written earlier and cleaned it up.
I don't feel very good.
Miguel says there aren't as many men outside now, but he is afraid they will get desperate.
I'm going to get some sleep.
DAY ELEVEN
I really don't feel good. I think I'm getting a fever or something. I'm cold and I don't feel like writing. Everything is dead and shit and those motherfuckers are still outside.
DAY TWELVE
The boys let the dogs out the back door for a pee. Someone shot at them. Rip is dead. He was my dog. Tear is with me now. She is sad. So am I. Going to sleep.
DAY THIRTEEN
Only three men outside now. Frankie, Glen, and some other guy with dreads. Rosita helped me stand up and take a look. They look really fucked up.
My bandages smell bad and most of the time I feel sick and chilled.
Something exploded a few blocks away, like there were bombs being dropped. It shook the house and scared the shit out of all of us.
I think I'll try and eat some soup.
DAY FOURTEEN
I'm outside in the street, leaning against the wheel of a car.
The men on the street tried to burn us out after all. There were only two of them left. They started fires on either end of the house. I was helped to my feet, and as we came out someone shot Miguel in the knee. Victor shot Glen right in the eye with one of the old pistols and then burst into tears. The guy with the dreads grabbed me by the throat and Tear jumped on him. I heard him screaming for quite a while.
When Miguel dragged me up against this car he whispered, "You got a good fucking dog."
We sat and stood in the street, hearing pops and hisses as water bottles burst open or melted down. Miguel's knee looked bad.
Javier was a little hero. Somehow he had salvaged two bottles of water. And my laptop.
We all turned when we heard a gun being cocked.
Frankie was standing there, holding an automatic pistol with both hands. His hands were shaking and the gun was waving all over the place. His mouth was so dry it was nothing but a raw red rim of cracked flesh. He couldn't speak.
I raised one arm and pointed at Miguel's burning home. "You fucking dick," I said. I was exhausted.
Frankie fired a single shot, and everything started getting dark.
"Fuck," I said. "Miguel, I'm dying."
Miguel limped closer, looked down at me, and frowned.
I was scared. "Everything is getting dark, man."
Miguel started to laugh.
"Is going to rain, jefe," he said.
I looked up. Dark clouds were scudding across the sky, and then the rain came, heavy drops thudding on the roofs of cars and hissing as they struck the street.
Frankie wandered away.
DAY EIGHTEEN
Only a few mins left on laptop battery.
Been raining 4 days straight.
Miguel & family packed into ruins of my house.
The rain is cool. Fresh.
Stret outside paved with pots & pans & buckets catching rain. I listen to the rain & sleep.
No appetite.
Nat'l Guard truck drove through park a while ago, moving fast. Recorded msg coming from speakers told us - crisis is almost over - President & Governor apologized to the people of N. Cal - order being restored.
I think my wounds are infected.
Water and power have not yet come back on.
Shutting down my laptop, saving this stuff.
I hope I make it through this.
User Reviews
Submitted by FALLEN (user info) at 2007-11-07 16:48:26 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
WTF
I READ ALL OF THAT.
"Kicker of all ass(+2)"
indeed.
Submitted by NapalmFace (user info) at 2007-09-18 13:05:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Nyrea (user info) at 2007-09-18 11:41:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
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Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2007-06-04 22:40:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
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