Holding Their Own: A Story of Survival (19 page)

The irony of the whole situation was not lost on Terri. Bishop’s words at the first meeting had helped pull everyone together. Now his words had pushed everyone apart.

Time to leave

Bishop and Terri made a light lunch and were eating on the back porch. It seemed like every meal these days was light. Bishop guessed he had lost at least 10 pounds.
Not such a bad thing,
he mused. They sat and ate in silence, each knowing that a difficult conversation was ahead, and both wanting to avoid it. It was Terri who finally manned up and began to speak.

“Do you think we should head for
West Texas?”

“I don’t see where we have any option. I have listened to that broadcast se
veral times, and maybe I’m over-analyzing it, but I don’t like it at all.”

“What’s bothering you about it?”

“The Army would have received orders to establish order and protect as many citizens as possible. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to realize that means taking over the cities. The denser the population, the more ‘established order’ bang they get for their buck. I just don’t see how they can do it nationwide without a very heavy boot heel on the population’s throat.”

“I don’t get it?”

“There are about 2.5 million soldiers in the military, if you count the Reserves and National Guard. Sixty percent of those are Air Force and Navy. That leaves about one million ground troops, if everyone shows up. I don’t know how many of our guys stationed overseas got back home before it all fell apart, but normally about 200,000 of those ground troops are in Korea, Japan, Germany and other locations.”

“So, I still don’t get where you are going with
all this.”

“Let’s assume that they were brought back
home, and there are one million men available to the Pentagon. The top 10 metropolitan areas have over 60 million people. That is a ratio of 60 to 1 even if they don’t use any men to control their own bases and forts. They don’t have enough people to ‘establish order,’ and it is clear in that broadcast.”

“How is it clear?
I didn’t hear that,” she stated, clearly now intrigued.

“Did you notice they established their checkpoints at the inner loop, not the outer loop where many more people live? The broadcast also said that city and state
employees were now part of the federal government and under the command of the military. That means cops, firemen, teachers, and meter maids. There is no way the Army wants to be involved with a bunch of undisciplined, untrained city workers. They would only do that if they were desperate for manpower.”

“So you
don’t think there will be any ‘established order?’”

“Oh, they will establish order all right. They will make people toe the line or kill them. A dead person is an orderly person, after all. Remember the part about looters being shot, and citizens being ordered to remain inside of their homes? The military will use the same tactics they use on new recruits. Idle minds are dangerous minds, so they will make everyone work like dogs, doing whatever menial task they can think of. Exhausted people don’t cause as much trouble as energetic ones.”

“You make them sound horrible – almost like invaders.”

“Well, in a way, that is not far from the truth. I actually feel sorry for the Army. Can you imagine the problems associated with executing their orders? The officers will be judged on how many people they feed and keep alive, not how many people are happy. They are being handed millions of unwashed, hungry and sick people who have little hope in the future. They don’t have the training or resources to accomplish this mission. Their bigger problem will be the demoralizing of their own troops. Can you imagine worrying about your family back in Bumfuck, Iowa while you are being ordered to shoot fellow Americans caught stealing food?”

“Wow, Bishop, you have a dark mind. So we should pack up and ‘Head West, young man?’”

Bishop thought about this for a minute before he responded.

“Terri, when we go, we will technically be criminals and open game for any military or law enforcement that still exists. Given bandits and a desperate population, we would have to worry about every other human being between here and there. That is over 600 miles of very dangerous travel.”

“Wouldn’t we have the same problem here?”

“Yes, and it could be much, much worse. It has been just over 30 days since the stores were emptied. Many people are probably still hiding and using up what food they have, but it has got to be running out. Hell, we were better prepared than most, and we are running low. There are four million people in greater Houston. If even half go to the Army, that leaves two million desperate souls looking for food.”

Terri digested Bishop’s reasoning for a little bit and asked, “How would we eat in
West Texas?”

“There are deer and jack rabbit in the area. We have some food in that self-storage bin we rented. I know enough about the local plants that we can probably make it. We will never get fat, but we won’t starve,” Bishop said half
-smiling. “Don’t worry babe. My dad had a great recipe for cactus bread.”

She thought some more about what
he had said. Going out to the ranch had been fun the first few times. It had been something different to do and a new place to explore. After a while, it had gotten old, and they hadn’t gone last fall. She finally decided that Bishop was probably right, and really, it didn’t matter to her as long as they were together.

She went over and sat next to him. They hugged each other for several minutes. She finally smiled and said, “Bonnie and Clyde it is! Let’s be on the dodge together, Clyde.”

Bishop surprised her and just looked down. He got up and paced around a little bit. She knew enough to just let him stew. He finally stopped and looked at her with very serious eyes and said, “Terri, we have big problems with this trip. We don’t have enough gas to make it. We will need to scavenge on the way, and if we can’t find any, we could end up stranded and walking through the middle of nowhere. We really
are
going to be Bonnie and Clyde.”

Terri just smiled and said, “I have seen pictures of Clyde. Your ass is much nicer than his. Let’s get going.”

The Packing of Memories

Bishop liked to joke about his old beat-up, Texas pickup truck,” but in reality it was a very nice vehicle. A late model 4x4, it had four doors, leather seats, and most of the conveniences found in a luxury car. It even had a sunroof. The backseat had more room than most sedans, but that meant the bed was not that large.

Terri and he
pulled the camper top out of the garage and installed it over the bed. It provided extra waterproof storage and also served to block the contents of the bed from view.

They started loading the truck, which proved a difficult task. Because of the hurricanes, they had made a list years ago about what to
take if they had to bug out. That list had been compiled with the belief that they would eventually return to, at worst, a wind-damaged home.

Now they were bugging out
and may never return. After a few terse confrontations over what was being stacked by the back door, they decided they would gather everything up and then go through it together.

Many items were easy to include, such as the few boxes of food that remained and a bag of outdoor clothing. As they were gathering
their belongings, they couldn’t help but think about years of desert living without being able to replace anything. During a break, Terri’s mind drifted back to sitting in Sunday school, wearing an itchy starched pinafore and tight, black patent shoes. She couldn’t help but draw a parallel between their situation and Exodus’ account of Moses and the Israelites.
Are we going to depend on manna from the sky?
 

One of the harshest disagreements started over shoes. Bishop packed two pairs of athletic
sneakers, a pair of good hiking boots and a pair of combat boots. Terri started it all by teasing him, “You are worse than any woman I know. Look at all of those shoes. We aren’t going on vacation; we are going into the middle-of-nowhere to survive.”

Bishop took her teasing way too serious
ly and reached into her bag and pulled out three boxes of maxi-pads. He held them up and said, “I like a fresh girl as much as anyone, but do you really need five years’ worth of hygiene products?”

“Yes
, I do. Given your attitude, I plan on being on the rag 24x7 for a very long time,” she retorted.

“I’m glad you warned me, although lately, I probably wouldn’t have noticed any difference.”

And so it went most of the morning.

Bishop tried to take special care in the order that he loaded the truck, but it was hopeless. Every time he thought he had it worked out, his mind would create some potential situation where he needed quick access to something now buried in the back. In the end, he decided to just get as much in there as he could and deal with it all later.

He went in the back door and found Terri sitting on the floor crying. In her lap were several family photographs she had taken off the walls. She looked up, sniffed and said, “I don’t suppose these should go, should they? They would take up a lot of room and probably get broken anyway.”

“I left room for them Terri. They are important, and I want to take them. You should grab our wedding album and all of the paperwork in the lockbox as well.”

“Oh Bishop, you are just being nice to me. They are not practical and won’t help us survive one single bit.”

“Baby, I disagree. We are going to need hope, now more than ever. We have to believe that things will get better and that one day life will return to normal. We need a connection to our past, no matter how bad things get. If you don’t pack them, I will.”

Terri smiled, stood and they hugged for a few minutes. After that, the packing went smoothly.

The Trash

One of the most serious problems facing the council was trash. It was the smell of all of the garbage that caused the issue. After a few days sitting out in the hot Texas sun, the odor became unpleasant to say the least. Normally, trucks would remove the offending waste twice a week. When the trucks stopped coming, the smelly bags had piled up, and the stench was overwhelming. Someone had joked about the odor affecting home values in the neighborhood, but not many laughed.

At first, the council’s solution was to burn the garbage. The smell of the fires from downtown Houston drifted their way on occasion
, and everyone thought the addition of burning the neighborhood’s rubbish would go unnoticed by any nearby predators. It was also common to see house fires in the distance. The combination of candles, abandoned homes, and the absence of any fire departments made plumes of smoke on the horizon a common sight. The smoke from a smaller blaze wouldn’t draw any attention.

This seemed like a reasonable method until one evening the trash pit fire almost got out of control
. The lack of rain had created an almost perfect environment for brush fires in the surrounding dry vegetation. A strong breeze quickly spread the flames, and the fire soon had the potential to burn down the entire neighborhood. Only a heroic effort by several people forming a bucket line and the water from a nearby pool saved the day.

So the council
decreed that burying the smelly bags of trash was a better solution. Bishop’s wheelbarrow was one of the few in the neighborhood, so it had become common to “barrow it” for trash removal.

Taking out the garbage quickly became one of Bishop’s least glamorous jobs
. He had to find which neighbor had borrowed the wheelbarrow, retrieve it, fill it with his own bags, and push it down the street to the dumpsite. Of course, the accompanying shovel was bound and determined to fall out several times during the trip, normally banging into his leg as it fell. Everyone was responsible for digging his own hole, and in the dry, hard soil, that was backbreaking work. The elderly residents had no chance of excavating any holes, so it became a courtesy to dig out a little more in order to create a place for their trash. With heat over 100 degrees and a rifle in hand, taking out the trash was a multi-hour, pain-in-the-ass chore that had to be done every few days.

As Bishop was removing the last of the garbage from the house, he told himself this was one part of their current situation he wouldn’t miss. He looked down at his hands and realized how callused they had become.
It’s no wonder
, he thought,
it seems like we are always digging a grave or holes for trash. Mom always said if I didn’t pay attention in school, I would end up working as a ditch digger – little did she know.

Terri decided to join Bishop as he pushed the wheelbarrow up the street one last time. She knew he was dreading digging the hole, and decided she would go along to lend moral support. More importantly, she wanted to see their street one last time.

As they walked together, Terri thought about how some aspects of this new life were not all bad. Clothes, strung across makeshift lines, billowed in the breeze, and she loved the smell and feel of sun-dried laundry. Children played outside, and they seemed to form closer relationships than before. She had to smile as two bicycles went flying past pulling wagons in what the kids called chariot races. Were it not for the fact that the nearby babysitter was carrying a rifle, it would have been a scene right out of 1930s small town America. The babysitters had weapons because the parents were concerned about kidnappers taking the children and holding them for ransoms of food - or worse. It had been agreed that the armed supervisors would stay vigilant, but as concealed as possible.