House of Gold (20 page)

Buzz called Mel every morning and every evening,
giving her updates, and they marvelled together over how the project was going so smoothly and remaining on the tight schedule. Buzz stayed at the Man's house, visited the Pennys and his other friends at the end of the day, and went to the 6:45 Mass at the Poor Clares every morning.

Things were going so swimmingly that they decided to skip work on Sunday because it wasn't necessary. On Sunday,
he attended Mass with the Man at Saint Phil's, and by appointment, went to Father Dial for his last confession before the millennium. He and the Man spent Sunday with the Mark Johnson family, hanging out with the kids, and talking collapse. On Sunday afternoon, Mark took him to his cabin in Oberlin, and Buzz was impressed with its simplicity and practicality.

Mark took Monday off from work, and
along with the Man, came to the convent early in the morning. Mark had rustled up some scaffolding from his friend, a contractor named Joe Kemp. They all deemed it safer than climbing ladders to the french roof, which, fortunately, had a relatively flat pitch. If all went well today, Buzz would be on the road in time to return to New Hampshire for the Immaculate Conception holy day, his favorite
day of any year.

By noon, they had set up the scaffolding, and had run the power cord for their drills through a window in one of the dormitory rooms, which the Poor Clares called cells. Sister Regina had plugged the cord in a cell wall herself. She taped the other end of the cord to a pole, then lifted the pole out the window to the Man, who was on the roof.

"Excellent weather!" Buzz shouted
to the sister from the private grounds below. It was crisp, around thirty-eight degrees, clear, and sunny. No wind. The best anyone could expect for a Cleveland December.

"Of course!" Sister Regina shouted back down. "We've had thirty-two Poor Clares praying for good weather ever since the panels arrived."

After Mark and the Man installed the fairly elegant aluminum frame designed to hold the
panels on the roof, they spent nearly two hours carefully bringing the panels up the scaffolding, one-by-one. The panels were about forty pounds each, but bulky, constructed of multiple layers of photovoltaic cells sandwiched between glass, with stainless steel frames. If they dropped one and broke it, the entire system would have to be reconfigured.

From the ground, Buzz lifted a panel to Mark,
which Mark then passed up to the Man. Then they all climbed a scaffold level, and repeated the process. Once a panel was on the roof, Mark and the Man secured it to the frame, slowly and carefully. They climbed back down for the next panel.

This is going too well,
Buzz thought, alternately praying Hail Marys and the Saint Michael Prayer under his breath.
Thank you Jesus!

Mark and the Man negotiated
the roof like mountain goats. Buzz, who had always been afraid of heights, was happy to let them do the roof work, though he was itching to see their handiwork.

It was an easy task to wire them all together once the final panel was installed. Because the sun was shining today, each panel would be "live." That is, generating electricity. The voltage was mild. It was the combination of all sixteen
panels working together that made them effective.

The final step would be to turn on the inverter, see if the batteries started charging, and then switch the DC lights on around the monastery to make sure they were working. It was decided, so Buzz could return to Bagpipe sooner, that the Man, a quick study, could show Sister Francesca the rest, and would remain on call if needed to troubleshoot
bugs in the coming weeks.

"How's it going up there?" he called up.

Buzz waved at Sister Regina.

She was monitoring the progress now from the dorm window on the third floor, listening to the sound of footsteps above her on the roof, and taking in this one last chance to hang out with Buzz.

After all, Buzz, if you're right about the bug–if Sam's right–I may never see you again.

Oh, she still loved
him. But no longer with any romantic intentions. Sister Regina had made her final profession of solemn vows more than three years ago. The person attracted to Buzz romantically had been another person, someone called Donna Beck, during the dog years. Buzz was one of those things–maybe the most difficult and important thing–she had given up to possess the Pearl of Great Price, her spouse, Jesus.

Yet he was not a thing; he was flesh and blood. There's a difference, she reflected now, between giving up clothes and cars and careers and giving up a friendship. Her sentiments today were noble. But she felt a pang to see him below, heavier now, but still pulsating with energy. After he recovered from his suicide attempt, she had prayed for years that he would heal enough to be able to marry again,
and she was sure that Mel was God's answer to her prayers.

She felt responsible.

She saw Buzz, but she couldn't see the evil whispering to him, cajoling him.

Take a look, Buzz. Get closer to Donna one last time and take a good look. What could be wrong with that?

Just a little nudge.

Buzz looked up at Donna; she was leaning on her forearms on the ledge of the window, a few yards to the left of
the scaffolding, and he felt an odd longing. This longing was too vague and dusty and old for him to put a conscious finger on it.

Maybe I could climb up to the top scaffold and pull my head over the roof and watch them finish?
he asked himself.
And maybe say boo to Donna, too.

"I'm coming up, you guys!" he called.

Always impetuous, ignoring his fear of heights, he bounded onto the lowest scaffold,
and began to climb the monkey bars to the next levels.

"Better stay there," the Man called down, unseen. "No need to come up here. We'll be done in a few minutes."

"Coming anyway!" Buzz yelled back.

Two minutes later, he was at Sister Regina's level.

"Hey big guy," she called over, beaming.

What a lovely smile.
He burned it into his memory. It was a nice photo: she in the window, happy, filled
with love. He felt good.

"Hey, Sis," he laughed. "One more level."

"Be careful," she cautioned. "It's a long way down."

He glanced below, and yes, she was right. Buzz got that awful, pithy feeling of anxiety known well to all those with the fear of heights, then looked back up with a shaken grin.

"I'm not afraid of heights," he puffed with bravado. "What I'm really afraid of is hitting the ground."

She giggled.
Same old Buzz.

Oh, how she missed his goofiness.

He reached up for the bar on the last level of the scaffold, and pulled himself up into a sitting position on one of three two-by-tens serving as the "floor" of the scaffold.

It was kind of scary up here.

Don't look down.

He stood up, managing to ignore the shakiness he felt in his knees. Vertigo.

Just one peek over the roof, see the
panels, then I'm done,
he told himself.

Instead of climbing up by using the metal bars on either side like a ladder, he would instead just pull his head up over the top by taking hold of the gutter a few inches above his eye level. It looked solid–made of some kind of stone.

Don't grab that!
Buzz's guardian angel shouted through his conscience.

It was too late for angels. Free will could be a
real bummer to angels assigned to guys like Buzz.

"Honey, I'm home!" he shouted to his friends on the roof. He reached up for the old terra-cotta gutter with both hands, and began to pull himself up.

Sister Regina, only a few yards away, heard the cracking sound.

The gutter gave way.

Buzz Woodward, his wife and children eight hundred miles to the east, disoriented by the sickening feeling of the
gutter pulling away from the roof into his hands, reverted to his instinctual sense of balance, and took a step backwards...

...past the two-by-ten, into thin air.

"Mark!" Buzz cried, flailing, the gutter in his left hand now, his right hand reaching for the metal bar to the right.

By an inch the bar was too far away, and it slipped out of his reach, and now he was falling, falling, and his left
ankle caught into a bar on the next level of the scaffold, and his body spun around...

...as Sister screamed...

...and the Man cried out...

...as Buzz hit the back of his head on the next level. Crack! And he spun again...

And he continued his fall, toward the mortal coil, his back toward the ground like a cat without the instinct to right itself, and toward a black dark unconsciousness, into
a rosebush that finally broke the fall, the last image in his mind that of the blue sky spinning like the bottom of a backyard pool, the last sound that of Donna's screams, and his last anguished thought:

Mel! Oh Mel...

PART THREE

The Long Walk

Lead kindly light, amid the encircling gloom Lead Thou me on The night is dark, and I am far from home
John Cardinal Newman

Kathryn: Mr. Cole, do you know why you're here? James: Gotta good memory–have a tough mind.
James Cole to Kathryn Railly,
12 Monkeys

Violence is just–when kindness is vain.
Pierre Coreille

But don't you worry 'bout a thing, Mama, 'cause I'll be standing
in the wings when you check it out–when you get off your trip.
Stevie Wonder,
Don't Worry 'bout a Thing

Suck it up and go.
Al Rotella

People travel to wonder at the heights of the mountiantops, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars– and they pass by themselves without wondering.
Saint Augustine of
Hippo

Chapter Nine

Baby Steps

Buzz Woodward dreamed of a golden house on a golden hill covered with golden barley; a house with many glimmering rooms. It was summertime.

It's made of solid gold!
he exclaimed, excited and happy.

In this dream, his body was far away from the golden wonderhouse, and he was on his hands and knees on a dusty country road. His soul was able to leave his body and float toward
the house, and, hovering in the air, he peered through the crystalline windows into each room. He saw babies resting on shimmering silver blankets, sleeping peacefully.

Newborn babies. Black, and yellow, and white babies. There were icons on the walls–the kind of icons found in Orthodox churches. Virgin and Child icons. The faces on the Madonnas were so peaceful...

He knew the names of the babies.
All of them, their names he knew, as if their names were written on his soul. Alexandra Bradley, Ivan Vostapovich, Travis McCormick, Seth Squires, Jose Ramirez, Lu Won Chi, DeRon Jackson, Hilda Schindler, Jonathan Briggs, Marika Popov, and...

...Mark Woodward, Buzz's own son. Buzz's heart skipped a beat. His Mark was here. The expression on his face was one of perfect serenity.

Markie! Wake up!
It's me, Da Da! My Peanut!

But Markie did not wake up. This alarmed Buzz.

His dream-soul was instantly sucked back into his body, and now the golden house was far away. He was again on his hands and knees, on the dusty country road, and suddenly, pain was infused all over his body, as if he had been lashed thirty-nine times with a cat-o'-nine tails. He screamed.

He was wearing a red-checkered
shirt and khakis, and felt his own blood dripping down his sleeves from the wounds on his back. He heard a voice that sounded like Mark Johnson, deep and strong:

"It's only pain, darlin'."

Where had he heard that before?

I must get to Markie! It's only pain! And where is Packy? Where is Mel? Where is...my other child?

Perhaps they were in the golden house, too, waiting for him?

With great effort,
ignoring his pain, which had now spread into his head, into his joints and bones, he pulled himself up and crawled toward the house.

There was no sound in this dream. Just blue skies and silent breezes.

It seemed to take forever, and his dream-self was vaguely fearful of waking up, but eventually he reached the long driveway, perhaps two hundred dream-yards from the building, and instead of going
down the driveway, he left the road and made an angle toward the house into the barley.

I'm coming, Markie!

Incredibly, even though the pain remained with him, he was becoming...
accustomed to it.
He pressed on, still on his hands and knees, his vision blurry, the barley brushing against his face and forearms. No sounds but his own thoughts, which focused on one objective:

The house of gold.

Finally,
Buzz was at the door. He pulled himself up to a kneeling position, and endured incredible pain when he straightened his back, forcing him to pause and lean his forehead on the warm, golden door.

It
is
made of solid gold!

He reached and knocked, but the door did not open.

He pulled himself up, ignoring the pain in his ankle and the excruciating pain in his head. He gripped the doorknob, opened
it, and...

+  +  +

...opened his eyes in the real world. It was a dark place. He was in a bed, on his back, covered with two blankets and a comforter. His nose was cold. The room was cold. It was a small room, and through the corner of his eye, he saw a sliver of daylight escaping in.

He felt hunger pangs. His mouth was parched. He tried to raise his head, but was met with a throng of pain in
the back of his neck before any actual movement occurred.

He gave up.

He tried to move his head, but felt a strange pain in his face; he saw a pouch hanging from a portable metal stand next to the bed in the bit of light between him and the window. It looked like a coat rack.

There was slender plastic tube leading from the pouch to his...

Nose!

It was not a pleasant feeling.

Feeding tube,
he thought
groggily.

With great effort he turned his head to his right, and saw the outline of a person–man or woman, he could not tell–sitting on a chair in the corner, head nodded down into his or her chest, sleeping.

Where am I?

He tried to croak these words. A groan came out instead.

The person lifted his or her head, and leaned forward.

"Buzz?" It was a woman's voice. Very familiar.

He groaned again.

"Buzz! You're awake. Oh, thank you, Jesus." The woman rushed over to the side of the bed. She was wearing a brown habit.

"Do you recognize me?" she asked, taking his hand with her left, and placing her right hand on his forehead with unmitigated tenderness.

His eyes focused and he saw tears streaming down her cheeks.
You are..?

"Do you know who I am?" the woman repeated.

A look of concern came
to her face. Her white headpiece hid her hair from him. The large forehead, the open, brown eyes...

"I know...you," he croaked, more a breathy whisper than words. "You're my friend, Donna."

She nodded.

"Do you know your name?" she asked.

"Of course," he replied. He grinned, but it felt unnatural. "I'm Buzz Woodward."

The words were coming more easily now.

"Welcome back," she said happily. "Hold
on."

She rose and went to the window, and slowly opened the curtain halfway. He cringed. But he forced his eyes open.

"Do you know what year it is?" she asked.

He tried to form an answer to the question. He couldn't.

"I don't know. What happened to me?"

"You fell. It's the year two thousand, Buzz. It's March."

He saw her hesitate.

"Sam was right. The lights are out," she continued.

Two thousand!
Lights out.

It all came back to him. The solar panels. The climb on the scaffold. The image of the spinning sky on his way down.

He pulled himself away from these disturbing memories, and looked carefully at her. For the first time, he saw that her skin was pallid, her habit loose around her face, and that there were bags under her eyes.

"Donna?" he found his voice, and it sounded far away to
him. She turned to face him.

"How's Mel?"

In the light of day streaming through the window, he saw a worried look dawn on her face.

+  +  +

He had woken up in a small room on the first floor of the monastery. Sister Regina left him and came back in a few minutes with the Man by her side. They removed the feeding tube. After helping Buzz to a sitting position–which caused great pain in his head–she
helped him sip warm sugary water through a straw in a plastic cup.

Over the next few hours, as his mind slowly but surely regained its normal clarity, she told him, in fits and spurts, about the horrible events that had taken place while he was in the coma.

Immediately after his fall, he had been rushed to Fairview Hospital, where it was confirmed that he had a severely bruised ankle and a concussion
that had left him in a coma. Buzz remained in the Critical Care Unit until the day after Christmas. Sam and Mel had flown in from New Hampshire to be by his side.

A great debate had taken place among Sam, Mel, Mark, and the Man over whether or not to try to fly or drive him to the regional hospital in Colebrook, New Hampshire. But all the doctors had insisted that such a trip might kill him. Mel
had gotten hysterical, and only her responsibility for the boys and Sam's pleadings convinced her to return to Bagpipe by rental car, with Sam driving, two days before New Year's.

When the new year arrived, the millennium bug caused the power grid to go down almost immediately across the world, first in Australia and Asia, then India, the Middle East, and Russia, then across Europe, the Atlantic,
and finally, the United States, Canada, and South America, then back across the empty, vast Pacific Ocean.

Cleveland turned frantic in minutes as the reports came in that "Australia has gone black." Something about an embedded chip with the bug, inadvertently overlooked by the engineers, in almost every electrical plant in the world.

The details were fuzzy–lost in the relentless downward spiral
of dire events as things fell apart and the center did not hold.

People abandoned their plans for wild New Year's Eve parties and raided local grocery stores. Grocery store shelves emptied within hours, and riots broke out everywhere–in the cities, suburbs, in rural towns, according to the news reports. The power went off in the Cleveland area three hours after midnight.

Radio announcements from
government officials, broadcasting from stations using back-up generators, had urged the people to remain calm, and reassured them that the power would come back within a week. The banks were closed for a "temporary holiday," and the President himself warned that the National Guard, already deployed in major cities "just in case," would shoot looters on sight. A state of national emergency was
declared, and the president and governors of the states, by authority of executive orders, placed into law since the times of FDR, took authority over fuel, food, and telecommunications, such as they were.

Rumors abounded, including that a nuclear weapon had gone off in India near Bombay. In a move that surprised most citizens, FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Admin-istration, already had
plans in place.

Even so, radio and television broadcasts became spottier and spottier (and without power, televisions were useless); those citizens who did not have heat were encouraged to go to local high schools and elementary schools for temporary shelter.

Most people did not follow these directions; they stayed at home or tried to leave the city. The highways and roads out of town, especially
those heading south, were soon clogged with traffic, even before the National Guard was ordered to close off the main arteries to allow "emergency and relief access." Cars broke down or ran out of gas. Soon it was impossible to drive anywhere beyond the city.

It was cold during the first few days of January, and most citizens chose to stay at home and wait for the power (and water) to come back
on, burning what wood they could get their hands on in their fireplaces, wearing winter coats indoors, and subsisting on the food stored in their own cupboards. After all, most people had a couple weeks worth of rations on hand.

On the Thursday after New Year's, the electricity returned inexplicably–for ten minutes. This caused many fires as appliances came back on and shorted out. The fire departments
were overwhelmed. It was rumored that many fire trucks failed to operate because of the computer bug. With the 911 and phone systems down, it made emergency response all the more improbable. Buildings burned to the ground.

The more immediate problem was what to do with Buzz. Sam and Sister Regina had secured permission from the Mother Abbess (who felt responsible for his suffering) to move him
to the convent, which was done with the help of Mark and the Man. Mark had bribed a worker at the hospital with thousands of dollars in cash given to him by Sam to "supply" the medical devices and feeding pouches that were used to keep him alive. Sister Regina Beck didn't know how these supplies were procured, but then again, she did not ask Mark, either.

Ironically, the solar-electric system
that Buzz had helped set up had been used to refrigerate some of the packets during his down time. Buzz had woken up with less than three days of feeding bags left.

By the end of January, the food and medical supplies at the FEMA shelters had run out. Generators ran out of fuel. National Guardsmen left their posts to go to the aid of their families–and who could blame them? Radio broadcasts stopped.
People everywhere were beginning to starve, and a nasty winter flu, normally controlled by modern medicine, began to race through the population like wildfire.

Four of the older sisters at the convent had already died from pneumonia. Sam had also donated several thousand pounds of wheat to the convent during the previous summer, and word got out quickly to people in the surrounding neighborhoods.
The nuns did not even bother to try to grind the wheat and bake it. They soaked it in cold water, added molasses or honey and distributed it from their garage as a kind of primitive gruel. Those supplies ran out in less than three days.

The Mother Abbess had kept back a small amount of the food for her sisters, but that ran out by mid-February. Some local Catholic families, patrons of the Poor
Clares, and fearful of the collapse, had stored up food in their homes, and despite their own hunger, brought what they could to the nuns. The chapel was packed, night and day, with local pilgrims praying for God to end this strife He had not caused.

The dim DC lights in the convent stayed on and did their job. Two retired priests took up residence in the rooms next to Buzz, along with the Man,
who abandoned his home the day after the lights went out to help care for his friend.

The priests heard confessions for hours on end. They offered Holy Mass for crowds overflowing out of the chapel onto the convent grounds. There was a rumor that a single morsel of hastily-baked Eucharist would feed an adult for a day.

With the unplowed roads blocked with abandoned or wrecked cars, and gasoline
non-existent, an exodus had begun for those with enough energy to walk.

"I'm going to Amish country," was a refrain heard often in the suburbs, referring to the many settlements in the areas to the east and southwest of Cleveland.

Rumors, rumors, rumors. It was not known what happened to these people, or what they found. Sister Regina told Buzz that she suspected they didn't find much. How could
several hundred Amish farmers take care of the needs of tens of thousands of people?

The city folks–those who survived the first wave of rioting–headed for the suburbs, and finding no food there, hunkered down in public buildings that were now useless. Gunshots were heard, mostly at night, everywhere.