When he was done, he had Kirk go in and roll out all the pads and sleeping bags. Dad tossed in our duffle bags and directed Kirk to line them up at the head end of the sleeping bags. We understood from previous camping that those were our pillows. Dad dug out a little LED lantern and had Kirk hang it from a loop in the top of the tent. We were itching to get in the new tent and rummage around, but Dad had other ideas. He took us up to the school building in two groups and had us use the restroom. He said it might get really crowed later on. Cars were still trickling into the schoolyard as the evening progressed. When he had us all back at the car, he gathered us around.
“Ok, kids. First thing…” He handed each of us a little Maglite flashlight, each in a different color. Mine was silver. Each light had a little belt pouch made out of black cloth. Dad said, “These are your lights. You keep them with you wherever you go from now on, no matter what. You can keep them in your pocket, you can use the belt holder, or you can hold it in your hand, but you will not leave them anywhere. Ok? And by the way, I know each of your colors, so if I see your light sitting alone somewhere, I’ll know who broke the rules.”
This was serious. Gifts in our family usually came with fun and joy; this came with a threat from our mild mannered father. It had the aspect of a church service, all solemn and serious. We were struck by the tone and took it seriously. He continued, “And these are your knives.” Dad handed Kirk and me a small belt knife. We could barely resist the male urge to pull them out and start cutting something. Lucy got a black Gerber folding knife, and Tommy got a traditional little three-blade folding pocket knife. It was small, but real, and as his first real knife, Tommy took it with great seriousness. Dad said, “The same rules apply. These knives are not toys; they are tools. If I see you messing around with them, you will lose yours. Keep them with you at all times. If you are wearing clothes, these knives are with you. If not, they better be where you can reach them.” We thought it was getting a little overboard at that point, but hey, we got knives! We didn’t realize how important those rules would become.
Mom took Tommy into the tent and lay with him while Dad continued his talk. “Things are ok right now, understand? But…” He looked at all of us in turn, “They could get bad. We’ll talk more about what that means soon, but for right now, you should know that we hit China very hard. China had a lot of short range weapons they used against some of our friends, like Japan. North Korea, which is a friend of China, sort of, is trying to fight us and their enemies in South Korea at the same time. Our friends in Israel, in the Middle East, caught wind of some of their enemies planning to attack them, so they did what is called a pre-emptive strike, which means they hit first with nuclear weapons. The entire Middle East is a wasteland now. Most of our oil comes from that part of the world, so at the very least, gas is going to get very expensive, and very hard to find. People in our country are going to get upset.”
We must have looked confused, because he said, “Listen guys, I know it doesn’t make much sense right now, and that’s not even all of it. Maybe we can find a map so I can show you where all these places are. For now, don’t worry, we’ll be ok. I know it’s early for you guys, but I’d like to try and get some sleep. I think it’s going to be a long day tomorrow.”
We were dumbfounded. Kirk was always the no-nonsense one, so when he stood up and went straight to the tent, Lucy and I gave Dad a quick hug and followed. When we were all in our sleeping bags, and Tommy was sound asleep, my Mom switched the little lantern off, and went outside. She zipped up the screen door, but left the solid cloth door open. We watched for a while as Mom and Dad took everything off the roof of the car, and locked it in the back. Then they got in the front seat, turned on the radio, and started talking. I remember wondering where they we going to sleep as I drifted off to sleep myself.
I woke up confused about where I was, but as soon as I saw my brothers, I relaxed and then it all came back. The next thought was about where my parents were. Someone had zipped up the door panel, and I could only see the early light filtered through yellow cloth, which made it seem sunny, but when I unzipped the door, I realized it was very early, and the sun wasn’t even up yet. My movement woke up Kirk and he followed me out of the tent. Mom and dad were lying on the front seats of the station wagon, which were folded back as far as the seats would go. At least my mom was. My dad was still tuning the old chrome knobs on the two radios to pick up as much news as possible. The back of the wagon was packed to the ceiling, which made me think for a moment that Tommy and me were going to be left here, traded for goats or something, but then I saw that the back seat was clear now, so the plan was probably to pack us all into the back seat. Dodged a bullet there, I guess.
My dad must have seen us moving around. I saw him turn his face to us, and the look on his face, red eyes, dark circles, and something else in his eyes, was a sight I could never forget. Then it changed back to his dad face. He reached down, cranked the window a few turns and quietly said, “Mornin’ boys. Sleep alright?”
Kirk replied, “Yes, Dad. Don’t you and mom have a tent?”
“Yes, son. We’ve got one, but right now, the important thing is to figure out what’s going on, and to keep an eye on you guys.”
“Oh, ok…” Kirk looked around, trying to decide what to do next.
Dad got out of the car, trying not to wake up Mom, but as soon as the door latch clicked she looked over at us too.
Dad gave her a sheepish look. “Sorry, hon. I was trying to be quiet.”
“I know, but who can sleep in a car anyway?”
“Good point. Maybe we’ll do better tonight.”
They were both out now, and stretching some obvious kinks out of their backs. Lucy crawled out of the tent, looking like sleeping on the ground was her least favorite activity ever invented. It still is, far as I know.
“Beth, could you take Lucy up to the school? The boys and I will guard the car until you get back. Lucy, don’t forget your flashlight and knife,” Dad said with a stern look. Lucy rolled her eyes and climbed back into the tent. We had enough time to see that Mom and Dad were both wearing a couple of new pouches on their belts. It wasn’t a do-as-I-say thing, then. Lucy came out again with a light in one hand and a folded knife in the other and made a dramatic show of stuffing them both into her blue jean pockets. She and Mom started winding their way up to the building in the faintly drifting morning mist.
As soon as they were gone, Dad said, “Ok boys, we’ve got a job to do. Anyone need to go number two?” Bathroom talk was way off our normal list of topics, so I doubt we would have admitted it even if we did, but we both shook our heads and hoped that Tommy would agree. Dad pulled a big pair of pliers out of the toolbox he kept in the car, and walked to the post on the very corner of the fence. He looked around, told us to stand behind him, then squatted down and started cutting the chain links of the back fence wire as close to the post as he could. Kirk and I looked at each other. Dad kept cutting until he was about four feet off the ground. Then he pulled some come coat hanger wire out of the toolbox, and bent it to make a clip. He tried the clip on the bottom of the fence he had just cut, and then made a few adjustments. When he was happy with his results, he pulled the clip off again, and held the wire open for us.
“Let’s go, boys.”
We ducked through the opening and into the heavy brush on the other side. Dad took his belt knife and cut some of the brush in a way that we didn’t understand, but when he was done, it still looked like impenetrable brush, but we could walk through to a tiny clearing about ten feet from the fence. Looking back, we could barely see the schoolyard, and Dad seemed satisfied.
“Ok, guys. This looks like a good spot.” He faced away from us, and started to urinate on a convenient bush. We looked at each other again, trying to understand this latest bonding ritual, and followed suit. After we were all zipped up, he led us back through the fence, clipped the bottom of the wire so that it looked more or less normal, and walked back out to the small open space behind our car.
“Good job, boys.”
Kirk asked, in his usual direct way, “Why did you cut the fence?”
“Escape hatch. If we need to get out of here, we won’t have time to cut through the fence, so we’re doing it now, while everyone is still asleep. I clipped it at the bottom so hopefully no one will notice.”
Kirk was not satisfied. “Why would we need to escape? Won’t we just drive out the way we came in?”
Dad paused for a long few seconds and replied, “That’s tough one to answer, since we really don’t know what will happen, but it’s better to play it safe, don’t you think?”
“I guess…” was Kirk’s answer. He clearly couldn’t imagine such a problem. I couldn’t either.
“Anyway, we’ve tested it, and we won’t use it again unless we need to. Ok?”
Tommy crawled out of the tent before we could answer, and immediately asked Dad where Mom had gone.
“She’ll be back in a minute, bud.”
Right on cue, Mom and Lucy showed up. Mom said, “Honey, they’ve got a TV set up in the front hall. You might want to go watch for a few minutes.”
“Ok. I’ll take Tommy for a potty break. Can you scrounge up some breakfast?”
The word “breakfast” immediately set my mouth watering, and I remembered that we hadn’t had any dinner last night. You can only go so long on convenience store hotdogs.
“Ok. I think I can find something.”
Dad and Tommy headed for the school, and Mom stood there with her finger on her lower lip, lost in thought. Then she opened the back of the car and started digging around. Kirk and Lucy and I started looking around, but Mom quickly told us to stay close. We took that as an excuse to go sit in the tent and to talk about the situation. The problem was, none of us understood any of it. On a normal Saturday morning, we would be in front of the TV, watching cartoons and thinking about how we could talk our parents out of all the cool toys we saw on the commercials. Even today, we expected to be sitting in front of our cousins’ TV, doing pretty much the same thing. Here we were, in a tent in schoolyard, half way between home and who knows where, trying to decode the mystery of the world in a whole new way.
By the time Dad made it back with Tommy, we were well into a game that involved calling each other the worst names we thought we could get away with, and Mom had come up with a breakfast of oatmeal cooked on a camp stove, bananas and some kind of granola bars. Dad shrugged and figured it was better not to comment. We munched on our breakfast as Dad told my mother his assessment of what he had seen on TV.
“…and the people in cities have figured out that they are not allowed to leave. The president has declared martial law in a bunch of them where people are rioting and looting. I never expected that to happen so fast. I guess they think they are big fat targets for whatever missiles come our way. He also publically announced the shutdown of the entire interstate system until further notice, but he said that he expected things to be back to normal in two to three days. He said that we have won the war with China already, and the surviving government has agreed to terms, so that’s good, I guess.”
“The downside is that Mexicans have taken the opportunity to pour over the border and they are fighting with people in the Southwest and Texas. I wouldn’t want to pick a fight in Texas… Anyway, FEMA says that they have mobilized shipments to the problem areas, but no one can claim that they have seen any aid arrive. It’s a mess.”
Mom asked, “Do we know what they are going to do with us here?”
“No one is saying. People were sleeping on the floor last night, and they are feeding the people with food from the cafeteria. No telling how long that will last, and no telling how long people will be that uncomfortable without getting really angry. Now that people are getting up, they are mostly sitting on the floor against the walls, and trying to get close to the televisions. The line at the bathroom is getting long and the mood is already pretty bad in there. The guard folks keep saying that supplies are coming, but nothing about how long this will go on. I’d say we need to be pretty low-key about the fact that we have food though.”
“Ok, so what do we do?” Mom was getting wound up. “And by the way, how are we going to pay for all the stuff we charged at Wal-Mart?”
Dad just looked at her and quietly said, “If we need it, it won’t matter.”
Dad spent the rest of the morning going through the giant pile of stuff they had bought, and packing it into six backpacks. We could almost tell which pack was ours just by the size. By the time he was done, the tent was down, the sleeping bags were packed, and the packs themselves were leaning up against the back side of the station wagon. The car itself was basically empty. Then, Dad put the full packs back into the car, keeping them low so that from a short distance, the car still looked empty.
He rolled up all the windows except for the driver’s, and told us to settle on the grass. He switched the both radios on and sat with us on the ground. “Nothing to do but wait,” he said. That being the case, I fell asleep until Dad told us to move out of the sun. The morning mist had cleared away, and we were baking in the clear May sunshine.
The radio was talking about mop-up operations in China by US Marines, and my Dad was scribbling something on the same pad my mom had used. She was standing in the shade fifty feet away, leaning against the fence and talking on her phone with an attitude that looked very agitated from our own shady spot.