Dust (4 page)

***

To complete his entire mission of aiding to power up the radio, Davy took a good three hours from search to finish. He unearthed the brand new Sears car battery and tried his best to clean it up. I ceased picking on Davy about it, for two reasons. One, it just wasn’t worth getting mad about. And two, how boring the day would have been if Davy found that battery right away.

Unlike the Geiger counter I had learned about the radio beforehand. How to hook it up, tune in, send out. We were ready. Only problem, no one was there. It was dead silence. Static. A few times we thought we caught a peep of words, but it was a wishful thinking imagination. Somehow I thought the airwaves would be buzzing, but they weren’t. A good portion of the day was spent listening, waiting hoping. We veered way off the original plan of turning the radio on for a few minutes every half an hour. But it was the first day we had communications up and running. We allotted some hopeful listening time. After reluctantly admitting defeat, we turned it off to reserve battery power.

We made it through another day. That was so important, I also believed the radio would play a huge part in getting us through many more. In which capacity, I didn’t know. Perhaps an eventual information source or something to look forward to.

Everything was one step at a time. Everything. Even facing the ‘tomorrow’ was taken one step at a time. I faced it with a certain amount of dread. And in the quiet of the shelter—Davy and Simon asleep—I wondered would the next day be different or would it be the same. A repeat of another day without knowing, another day without Matty, another day ... without.

4. The List
 

Time is more than something that passes. It can be a gift, an enemy, but time is also an illusion. You see it as one thing, but it always is another. The peacefulness of a moment in time can mask the tragedy that builds behind the wall of the silence. Too much time on your hands is a killer, because it leaves you too much time to think.

I began to examine what ‘time’ meant to me, almost immediately in that shelter. H.G. Wells, and his often praised and sometimes mimicked novel, ‘The Time Machine’, drew forefront. Ironically, one of several novels I brought was that particular book. The story came to mind not because it gave an essence of the future, but because it made me wonder. What if I had a chance to go back? If I were allowed to tell myself one thing to help me prepare, what would it be? As odd as it sounded, I would forewarn myself about time.

Intelligently I gathered all the real ‘survival’ supplies. I did have that base covered. Although I was pretty certain, that as weeks and even months passed I would be kicking myself for forgetting some things. And yes, I packed books, notepads, pens, and so forth for activities, but I truly believe no amount of stored activities could pass the amount of time we had on our hands.

The first few days, by a long shot were the worst. Stuck somewhere between a stage of shock and fear, I was left with little ambition to do anything. Sure there were long-range things that could be put in motion, but if I did them too soon, then I’d have nothing left to do later on. It was a catch twenty-two situation.

Davy and Simon suffered less than I did in the ‘time’ department. Davy had completed the counting of rations early the third morning, and wanted to get on to menu planning. I gave him the go ahead. Of course he did tell me he was rationing the split pea soup sparingly. Explaining to me that he didn’t want us three to enjoy it all when a chance existed others would arrive. They, as Davy put it, deserved to be greeted with an abundance of a delicacy such as split pea soup.

How I envied Davy those first three days. His spirits were kept impeccably high, other than my griping, he had no complaints, and he kept busy. He was more grateful to be alive than despondent over what had occurred. So much was to be learned from Davy. Simon was a project Davy took under his wing and he used his three-year old cousin as a security blanket, a focus. The focus kept him sane, normal, despite the circumstances.

Drawing or sketching was something I contemplated doing. By no means was I a spectacular artist, but it was an occasional craft I was above average in performing. The artistic utensils were in the shelter—I thought to store them. However, art required some inspiration to create. Like Davy, I needed a focus. Then I found one.

I can’t take all the credit, because the idea was conceived while I eavesdropped on a Davy and Simon conversation. They said the word ‘list’ and it simply clicked in me.

My focus. My list.

Although Davy responded to my idea with a pacifying nod and, ‘ah, you do that, Mom’, I knew it was the thing to do. Never did I imagine how far that one, little focusing project would take me, or go.

No matter if it was considered slightly demented, or even morbid, I knew it wasn’t, because I knew the reasons for it. The list not only made me focus, it made me focus on what was most important in my life—the people I loved.

I started with an untouched notebook. A clean slate. Then, after seeking out a solitary corner, I pulled out another one of those emergency lights, and I began.

For years everyone in my close-knit group of friends always said, ‘We’re coming to your house, Jo, if it happens.’ I guess in the back of my mind I counted on that. I grew accustomed to the fact that somehow, we’d all be together if it ever happened. Burke’s cabin up north, which set on two acres of land, was our post-war home. We’d meet there or at my home. That was the plan. Either way, it never dawned on any of us, that perhaps one or more would not make it. Death became a realistic thought in the aftermath.

The notebook would forever be dedicated to my list and my list only. My children and blood family were excluded, because a part of me felt it not ‘right’ to add them. Aside from myself, there were eight people. Eight people who comprised the ‘I’ll be there’ group. Those individuals were my primary focus.

The intention of the notebook was simple. The first page would be my ‘track’ sheet. On that I would place their names and their discovered fate as well. On the sequential pages I would remember them as vividly as I could. Details of their lives, our relationship. I suppose it was my way of assuring, that if God forbid they were taken from us, they would never be forgotten. Giving immeasurable value to a cheap dollar notebook in the form of a memorial of immortality etched on its pages.

Allow me to explain why I chose to keep my family from gracing my notebook. Two words best described the objective of my list—life and death. Were my friends alive or had they been killed? It was something my mind didn’t wonder about when it came to my immediate family. Of them ... I knew.

Simon and Davy were well and fine. There was no reason to include Matty. I was certain, without a shadow of a doubt, that my daughter was alive. My heart screamed of her survival and ached with impatience to bring her home. That would be done soon enough. My mother’s inclusion would be preposterous since she left this earth to be with my father some years before, and that left my brother and his wife—Simon’s parents. Having known of their pre-bomb whereabouts, I was sadly confident of their destiny. They were starting their future, signing mortgage papers, twelve miles away, right smack center of ... ground zero.

I could pray all I wanted for my brother’s return, but a part of me knew. I just knew.

What started out as a simple list, a list of names and memories, grew into more. Never would I have imagined that notebook would ultimately turn into a diary of destiny. A solace I would seek and find when needed, adding entries as time moved on.

How clean the opening page of the ‘I’ll be there’ notebook appeared. In my best printing, perpendicular to the blue margin line, I listed the names.

Sam Collins

Tammy Smithton

Mona Youlak

Rod Singer

Donald Burke

Hebba Burke

Craig Roman

Nicky Wocheskowski

They weren’t placed in any particular order of importance; I just jotted the names down as I thought of them. I even gave that exact disclaimer at the bottom of the first page—I guess more so for generations to come. I didn’t want them to think I liked one more than the other, because if I did place the names in a likeability order, surely Hebba would have been at the very bottom.

Who were these people?

When I first met Sam Collins, I teased him often about his name sounding like some exotic drink. He was young and immature; I was a few years older and thought I was mature. Davy was four at the time Sam first started coming around, and I was pregnant with Matty. It’s hard to pin point how long Sam and I were together, since we frequently separated. Never for long. The words ‘good guy’ and ‘Sam’ were often found in the same sentence. Everyone liked Sam. A little slow at times, but truly a ‘heart’ thinker. I put in the notebook that I was positive Sam was alive, because just like our history, we were never apart for long. I was certain the bombs caused no exception to that rule.

There wasn’t much to say about Tammy. In an essence she should have been included on the family side of the issue. We knew each other since childhood. A mother herself, Tammy projected a tough exterior, never had an easy life, and was one of those people I believed prayed for the end of the world so she could start over without debt. Truth be known, Tammy was a softy and scared a lot easier than she let on.

Mona. I honestly knew and believed as I wrote about her in the notebook, that if it wasn’t for her, we might have died. She forever will get credit for saving my life. We connected in a weird way, psychically. To me it made perfect sense and only went to figure, that she’d be the one to call me about the bombs, because Mona more than anyone, would know I was clueless and wouldn’t be watching TV. Of all the people she could have called, with insistence she called me. That alone says a lot about Mona.

Rod was a lot like Mona, but never gave himself any credit. Just like he proclaimed he’d never be a survivor. He stated he had no survivor skills and about the only thing he’d be perfect at doing, was keeping the bomb shelter clean. I hesitated a lot when I wrote about Rod in the notebook. Debating his fate like a see saw in my mind. I made no bones about the fact that I swore he and I were soul mates, and as I wrote about him, I searched my soul for clues. Where was Rod? My soul passed on answering.

Don Burke, or as we all just called him, ‘Burke’. A big and burly guy I had known for so long, I couldn’t remember a time in my life when he wasn’t there. A heart as big as his body, but he had a temper that killed any good decision-making he made. He blamed a lot of errors in his life on choices made in anger. If that was really the excuse, then Burke must have truly been in a fit of outrage when he made the judgment call on marrying Hebba.

Hebba. For a woman I thought very little of, she was the center of a lot of writing when it came to her in that notebook. ‘Loud mouth, foul, obnoxious, drunk’ is how I believe I started the ‘Hebba page’. Sober, Hebba was ... OK. But put a drink in her hand and there wasn’t a person within ten feet of her that didn’t want to take her life. No exaggeration. I would be lying if I didn’t say when I wrote about her in that notebook, I actually contemplated whether or not I wanted her to be alive.

The final two were Craig and Nicky, a couple who at the time of the bombs stood a slim chance of being anywhere near each other. These two were complete opposites. Nicky, she was a decade older than Craig in years. But in appearances and attitude, Craig had her beat by a long shot. I don’t know how ‘Sweet Nicky’ put up with Craig. If it were possible for him to be anything more than serious, I would have to say anal. Craig was anal. It was his ‘anal’ quality that assured me that of everyone on my list; Craig stood the highest chance of being alive.

End of the list.

End of the day.

Writing in the notebook withered away the hours, and I finished just as the battery operated light died out. Composing served its purpose. It focused me enough to lift my spirits a tad and make me think clearer. Approaching the third night in the dark shelter seemed more tolerable. All of us were definitely more at ease, and the initiative to light my homemade ‘sterno stove’ finally fell upon me. Using an old tin peculator, I brewed two cups of coffee while dinner cooked. We wound down the evening with a story read by Davy, and our bellies were filled with the first hot meal we had in days—split pea soup.