Desperate Times (4 page)

“That’s okay, honey, that’s why I left it
there for you. You’re driving? Where are you headed? Are you headed
back home? We’ll be back in an hour. I picked you up a bunch of
stuff. I hope I got the right kinds. I know I got enough. The guy
at the cash register looked at me like I was nuts.”

“I’m just driving, okay? I don’t know where
I’m going. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m just… I’m just driving.
You scared me this morning, Jimmy. I’ve never seen you mad like
that. You were out of control. Now you want me to run away? I don’t
know if I can do that. I’m just trying to figure things out.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I
don’t know. It’s just been a bad morning. The last thing I expected
to see was that creep sitting at our table this morning. I guess I
lost it. You know I’m not like that. You know that, right?”

“I know.”

“Okay, so you’ll meet me back at the trailer?
Bill went to pick up some lunch. Do you want us to pick something
up for you on our way back?”

No, I’m fine,” Paula said with a hitch in her
voice, sniffling into the telephone.

“Are you coming home?” Jimmy asked, his eyes
closed and teeth clenched.

“I don’t know. I’m still thinking about
everything. If I’m not there when you get back, call me. Okay? I
promise to have it figured out by then. I’m sorry, Jimmy. I just
need a little time. I’ve got to go now. Call me?”

“Come home, Paula. Okay? Everything is going
to be all right. You’ll see. I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she said quietly. I’ve got
to go. Bye, Jimmy.”

“Paula?”

Jimmy waited for a second, but he knew that
the line had gone dead. He closed his phone and dropped it into his
pocket. He ran his hands down his face, feeling as if he’d been
kicked. From across the lot he could see Bill making his way back
to the truck, bag in hand. Jimmy turned away, feeling his eyes blur
as one hot tear fell from the bridge of his nose. He was a jumble
of emotions—angry, sad, confused, and frightened. He fought to
regain his composure, squeezing his eyes shut and taking deep
breaths. He looked up to the sky and then down to the bank sign
which now read twelve noon on the button and a balmy, eighty-four
degrees. When his eyes dropped further, he noticed that there was a
commotion brewing in the bank parking lot.

“What the hell?” Jimmy said out loud.

There were angry shouts coming from the front
of the bank and it seemed that all of the car horns in the long
line at the drive-through had begun to roar in unison. A police
siren wailed in the distance. Jimmy watched as the blinds were
pulled over the large windows from inside the bank.

“What’s going on?” asked Bill, slightly
winded, having jogged the last hundred feet of the parking lot.

“I’m not sure,” said Jimmy. “I think there
might be a run on the bank.”

The horns died away as people began to climb
from their gridlocked vehicles. Jimmy watched as they raced to the
front of the darkened bank. Jimmy grimaced as he watched a young
man dressed in a business suit beat at one of the tall windows with
a tire iron.

“Get in the truck, Bill.”

Jimmy’s cell phone began to ring. He quickly
removed it from his pocket, nearly dropping it as he folded it
open.

“Paula?” he shouted into the phone, still
watching the scene unfold at the bank.

“No,” answered a familiar voice. “It’s me,
Ken. Where are you at, Jimmy? Are you all right?”

“We’re okay here. I just finished up at the
mall. There are a lot of people here; the mall’s packed. I’m just
glad I don’t have to stop at the bank. It looks like it just
closed
.”

“Listen kid,” said Ken. “Get out of there and
do it now. Do you hear me? Have you seen the news? Its bad, real
bad. They just announced an emergency bank holiday. Things are
really a mess out east. They’re rioting. Things aren’t much better
in Minneapolis. The lid’s about to blow on this thing, and we have
to get moving. Have you packed yet?”

“No, not yet,” answered Jimmy over the howl
of police sirens.

”Well, get moving and grab what you can as
fast as you can. We’re ready to go. We’re just waiting on you.”

“I’m on my way, I’ve just got to swing home
first,” answered Jimmy, feeling yet another surge of adrenaline. He
snapped his phone shut and stuffed it back into his shirt pocket.
He jumped up into the cab of the Mack next to Bill, who was staring
with wild-eyed amazement at the ruckus outside the bank. The police
had arrived, but there were so many cars in the parking lot that
they had to park on the street. One cruiser was joined by another
and the men inside looked as if they didn’t know what to do. They
began to order people to clear the premises with the help of a
loudspeaker from the relative safety of their squad cars. Jimmy
didn’t wait around to see the rest. He exited the parking lot into
the slow moving traffic of Division Street. Jimmy wondered about
this; it was as if everyone had left work at once, and he supposed
that maybe they had.

“That was crazy,” said Bill between bites of
his sandwich, a glob of yellow mustard hung from his chin. “Did you
see that guy with the tire iron? That looked like fun. I always
wanted to do something like that. He looked pretty pissed off.”

“Right,” replied Jimmy, reaching for the dial
on the radio. He scanned the channels on the AM and found the news
station WCCO out of Minneapolis. He turned up the volume and began
to listen, holding his hand up to quiet Bill.

“
And conditions out east have continued to
deteriorate. New York Governor John Greenway has called for a state
of emergency. Riots have broken out in all seven of the boroughs,
while the George Washington Bridge remains blocked by the truck
embargo. National Guard troops have taken up positions inside the
city, and there are reports of looters being shot. Wall Street has
suspended trading for the day. In Washington, President Moore has
called for emergency sessions in both the House and Senate to try
and stop the bleeding in the banking crisis.”

Jimmy had heard enough. He turned the radio
off as two State Patrol cruisers roared past in the bright
sunshine. He lit up a Camel and cracked his window a few inches,
the warm air hissing inside as it invaded the cab. Bill had
returned his attention to his lunch and attacked his food like a
hungry bear. Jimmy wondered about Bill and what he’d do after he
and Paula left for the Dahlgrens’.
If Paula even decided to
go,
he thought bitterly. At least she had options, unlike Bill
who had no one and would have to ride this out from inside his
trailer. He felt sorry for him and wished there was something he
could do. Bill did have his good points. He had a good heart and
was always there if you needed him. Still, the bottom line was that
Ken Dahlgren hadn’t offered refuge to Bill. He couldn’t just bring
Bill along like a stray dog. Besides, Bill had a knack for getting
under your skin. He’d drive everyone crazy in less than a week.

“Look!” exclaimed Bill in a shrill voice,
pointing out the windshield with his soda bottle. “It’s gone up
again!”

Jimmy’s heart felt as if it’d skipped a beat.
He braked hard, expecting to run head-on into a school bus, or
worse. He quickly checked his mirrors and exhaled loudly. His eyes
finally followed Bill’s pointing finger to the sign above the
highway. He blinked hard, unable to believe what his eyes were
telling him: twenty dollars a gallon. The price of fuel had doubled
in the two hours they’d been in town. On a large sheet of cardboard
was a hand painted sign, which read simply:
CASH ONLY!
Jimmy
swallowed hard and signaled his turn. He hated the thought of
paying so much for fuel, yet it was now or maybe never. He stubbed
out his cigarette and turned the Mack onto the service road. There
was a long line of cars waiting at the gas pumps, the drivers
gripping their steering wheels tightly while waiting their turn.
Jimmy passed the cars and headed to the diesel pumps, which
thankfully were open on his side. A huge John Deere tractor
occupied the pump on the other side. An old man dressed in blue
work clothes and muddy rubber boots stood pumping fuel into the
gleaming green and yellow tractor. Jimmy set the brakes and shut
off the engine.

“I’ve got to use the bathroom,” Bill
said.

“Have at it,” replied Jimmy. “I’m going to
top off here. I don’t want to risk driving into Crown to find out
that the Co-Op is out of fuel. You want anything?”

“I’m good, thanks. I’ll be right out.”

“Okay,” said Jimmy as he got out of the
truck. He closed the door and was greeted by the strong aroma of
diesel. He smiled and nodded to the old man at the side of the
tractor.

“Crazy, ain’t it?” asked the
stoop-shouldered, white haired farmer who looked to be well into
his eighties.

Jimmy nodded as he twisted the cap off the
hundred gallon saddle tank. “We passed by here a couple of hours
ago, and the price has doubled since then. Who knows? By this time
tomorrow twenty bucks a gallon might be a bargain.”

The old man spat tobacco and rubbed spittle
off his chin. “By this time tomorrow there ain’t gonna be any fuel.
I got that straight from the horse’s mouth. Lonnie Briggs, the
fella that runs this store, told me so himself. He said the last
tanker came through this morning and the driver told him that the
refinery’s shuttin’ down today. Just like everything else.”

“No kidding?” asked Jimmy, glancing at the
farmer’s weathered hands.

“Yup, we’re headed down a tough road, son, a
damn tough road. My family and me, we’re luckier than most. I saw
this coming over a year ago. I got most of my kids and grandkids up
at the farm, all except that damn fool daughter of mine in
California,” he said, shaking his head sadly. “Yup, we’ve been
putting up food for the past year. I’ve got over a hundred head of
beef and my barn’s full of hay. I’m ready for whatever comes. Looks
like whatever it is, it’s here now.”

“I can’t argue that,” said Jimmy.

The farmer finished topping off the big tank
on his tractor and replaced the nozzle on the hook of the pump. He
nodded to Jimmy and ambled his way inside the crowded station.
Jimmy returned his attention to his own humming fuel pump, shocked
that it already read over six hundred dollars. He knew that he had
about a thousand left in the envelope, but he hadn’t planned on
spending it all on fuel. Thankfully, it clicked off at just under
seven hundred dollars. Jimmy shook his head and walked toward the
station. Halfway there he stopped, turned around and returned to
the Mack to retrieve the keys and lock the door. Yesterday, he
never would’ve thought of such a thing.

He loaded up on chewing gum, buying an entire
display box and half a box of candy bars. He noticed that others
were doing the same and that many of the shelves were already bare.
After standing in line for nearly ten minutes, Jimmy was finally
able to pay for his fuel and purchases. The old gal at the counter
stuffed the cash into the drop safe. She thanked him politely
without looking up, not bothering to offer to bag his purchases.
Jimmy felt for her, wondering if she was as worried as everyone
else. If she was, she certainly wasn’t letting on.

Jimmy squinted in the bright sunshine,
wishing like hell that his sunglasses weren’t broken. He could see
Bill was standing next to the John Deere, giving the farmer an
earful. He shook his head and smiled.

“C’mon, Bill, we’ve got to put it in the
wind!” Jimmy shouted, waving his arm in a wide arc. “Let’s go!”

Bill nodded, still talking as he did so,
unable to stop without finishing what he’d started. Jimmy rolled
his eyes and noticed a battered cargo van ease out of the lineup at
the pump, giving up its place in line. The void was quickly filled
by the Chevy behind it. The van looped around and headed over to
the diesel pumps, the driver apparently unaware that there were no
gasoline pumps at this island.

“Come on, Bill. Let’s get the show on the
road!”

“I’ll be right there, Jimmy. Go on and get
in!”

Jimmy shook his head and unlocked the driver
door. He hopped up into the warm truck, reached across the cab and
snapped the passenger door lock open. He inserted the key into the
ignition and started up the Mack, the engine catching instantly
with a quick puff of blue smoke. A moment later, Bill was hopping
up into the cab, slamming the door shut behind him.

“Nice guy,” Bill said. “Did he tell you that
he’s got his whole family living with him at his farm? Could you
imagine that—only one bathroom? That’s what he said: twenty-three
people and only one bathroom. That’s crazy, man. Crazy.”

Jimmy nodded, noticing that the van had
stopped in front of the Mack. Two men had stepped out and were
approaching both sides of the truck. One wore a white shirt and had
a cowboy hat angled low over his eyes. He was tall and broad in the
shoulders and was rapidly approaching Jimmy’s side of the truck.
The other was short and thin and wore a dirty flannel shirt with
the sleeves cut off, exposing black tattoos on thin, rust-colored
arms. The way he looked back and forth in the parking lot gave
Jimmy a bad feeling. He quickly reached for the button to the air
brakes, but was too late. The one in the cowboy hat had already
jumped up on the fuel tank. In one hand he held the chrome mirror
bracket and in the other was a pearl handled stiletto. He smiled at
Jimmy as if the two were old friends.