Leaving
Chapter 1
Marathon, Texas
As G.L. rises from his chair, the well worn wood of the frame cracks from the pressure of his palms. He walks over to the window, pulls up the dust covered blinds and then opens the window, allowing the cool morning air to circulate through the house.
A spider scampers quickly into the deep recesses of its web, waiting for the threat to pass. Above it, a potential meal, a fly, moves from pane to pane, aware of the man, but unaware of the danger below.
The man is keenly aware of both, and considers smashing the fly but decides to give the potential drama a chance to play itself out. Staring out the window, he ponders the reality that everything is a meal for something. Even him. That when the end comes, and it will, he’d be a meal for buzzards, beetles, perhaps even a coyote scavenging for gristle, flesh and bones in a shallow grave.
Dull sunlight and particles of dust dance in the plane of light connecting the window and dining room, but quickly evaporate into nothingness just before connecting to the china cabinet. Like the chair, it’s an ancient piece, a remnant of days long past, in another town, another place.
Outside, the morning air is murky, heavy, filled with dust and the faint smell of smoke and what seems to be oil. But there’s not much oil. It’s been more or less gone for years, gone from a land where it once was in abundance. Now, years beyond the glory of Spindletop and the shame of Borga, the only things remaining are the houses, their contents and a few hearty souls that understand how to live in place with the land.
Outside, the early Texas sun caresses a varied landscape occupied my many, conquered by none. And by noon, at 4000 feet, the sun boils. Before the oppressive heat takes hold, perfectly evolved inhabitants withdraw to the safety of the shade. Night loving Prairie rattlesnakes find shelter under the wooden porch. Whip-tail lizards maneuver through patches of Rabbitbrush, cholla and blooming Desert philox to find respite under rocks or around the barn. A Western Screech owl makes use of the scraggly but viable piñon on the north side of the house. Smaller birds, mostly Scrub jays and an occasional wren, frolic in the sagebrush.
Here, far from a place he once escaped, he’s safe. An ugly, uninviting world devoid of the things he loves, a polyestrene soaked world filled with shrill sounds. He doesn’t hear the sirens, the gunfire, the explosions, the cries of motherless children and the whimpers of hungry, ownerless, flea infested dogs. He’s removed from the smell of urine in stairwells and piles of garbage. From hoards of militarized police that feast on the fear of the weak and the small cadre of powerful men that rule what was once called civilization.
A screened door slaps in the wind. In a few moments, he’ll walk through that door, perhaps for the last time, saddle his horse, load some supplies on a pack horse and head east through a harsh land to follow a compulsion. Duty. There’s fear, but not crushing, self-defeating fear. A rational fear of sorts. Simply an acknowledgment of what lies ahead.
A glass half full of Makers Mark sits on the table next to his great-grandfather’s chair. He reaches for it, takes a healthy drink and sets it back on the table. As the whiskey burns his throat and slides downward, his mind races back to his first home, then to elementary school, high school, college, lost lovers, jobs, friends and debts. His wife and children, his dogs and cats. The birds that used to frolic in his garden.
His whole life summarized in 30 seconds.
He thinks to himself “this all there is?” “Yes,” he concludes. It’s all just a blur. A brief fleeting moment, summarized by 30 seconds of self absorbed thought. Maybe some folks don’t even get 30 seconds. Some perhaps more.
Life is a bunch of interactions, some good, some bad, some neutral, and then at the end it replays like a tape in fast forward until the tape flies off the reels and flops around like a black snake. And that’s it. Your brain is like a blank tee-vee screen. It’s all black and finished.
He takes another drink and closes his eyes.
Next to the chair is a Winchester rifle, lever action, Model 94 .30-.30 that belonged to his dad. A cherished Colt SAA, nickle-plated .45 with a 7-1/2 inch barrel, just like the one Henry Fonda used in Once Upon A Time In The West. El Paso Leather company rig. Beautiful and deadly but an outdated tool from a time long past.
He’s uncomfortable around guns, but his instinct tells him to keep them close. When he leaves, he’ll carry full clips, with a round in the chamber. But these are for the Glock, which while not having the sentimental value of the Colt, it’s simpler, more efficient. The Colt, grand in its day, attracts too much attention from thieves. The Glock sends a simple but sufficient message to would be assailants.
Finally, he stands again, slips the Glock into a concealment holster and slides the rifle over his shoulder. He starts for the door when he realizes he forgot to eat.
Breakfast, most important meal of the day. Yes, much has changed, but not breakfast. A hearty breakfast is good for the stomach and for the spirit.
It’s now five years after the crash, the major meltdown everyone knew was coming, but conveniently ignored. Precipitated by several mini-crashes and shots across the bow. The system was like a giant heart. The economy was the left atrium, the major repository of its life giving substance, money. From there, it flowed to the left atrium, the financial system, pouring into left ventricle via the aorta. But the blood flow was interrupted after the aorta gave out, thanks in no small part to overindulgence. A bad diet that consisted of too much fossil fuel, killing vital areas of left atrium.
Resuscitation attempts failed and the growth economy was dead. The Wall Street tycoons were history. So were hedge funds and PPO’s. The only private equity available was sweat equity and much to his liking, livery stables once again outnumbered car dealerships. So did bike shops.
Oh, there was oil. But it was pricey, and folks don’t burn it on Sunday afternoon drives. You’d see a truck here and there running up to Alpine for supplies, but it’s like being back in 1905 where you were liable to see as many horses as Fords.
His wife, Alison, stares at him, unhappy over his plans and especially the guns. His plans to leave the safety of their home, the comfortable life they’d carved out of chaos. Her pursed lips, cracked from the aridity of the desert air, don’t move an inch. She wants him to feel the full measure of her displeasure, and she points it at him like a bayonet. Her eyes are full of feeling, yet they’re also empty, cold and unrelenting.
She turns her back to him and refocuses on the iron skillet where she was cooking the eggs.
He comes up behind her, placing his arms around her waste, and then his head upon her shoulder, nudging up close to her neck so he could feel her head next to his own. Like he’d done thousands of times before.
His hand drops upon her apron where he can feel the dustiness of flour and finally, her hand touches his.
The biscuits are perfect as usual, and the bacon is good and crisp. Thick with just the right amount of smoke, ten times better than the packaged crap they’d bought at grocers years back. The eggs are better, too. Straight from the yard. The only thing missing is orange juice, but it’s too expensive and not readily available this far out. Once gasoline topped ten bucks per gallon, stuff what wasn’t local became a luxury.
Except for whiskey and beer, odd exceptions that always seemed to make it through, at least as far as Alpine and even to the Gage Hotel bar or The French Grocer right there in town. There’s still chocolate and cheese, necessities as far as they are concerned, and even a few bottles of wine.
The only real problem is Homeland Security and various private security firms which hold the cities in a tight vice. The cities are prisons and the people within them are living under what more or less amounts to self imposed sentences. Too many people too unprepared for a predictable and avoidable end to it all. Some fled and found refuge in small towns, but there was chaos in small towns as well. Places like Willits, California were prepared, but once the word got out that you could find food and work, a deluge of people converged on such places which often lead to violence. Strangers were viewed with suspicion.
Seems people had finally learned that a given area could only support so many humans, so population and far reaching resource extraction laws were implemented locally. There was only so much housing, and if you wanted to establish residence, it had to be approved by a review board. It was hard but it was fair.
And now, after all the trouble of getting out and establishing a decent, fair life, a dream life even, G.L. was going back. Back into the belly of the beast. The prison of concrete and steel with its massive edifices of broken power, towering ghosts of the Age of Oil, the final Gilded Age.
Sitting at the table he ponders these things and asks himself “why me?” Why is it incumbent upon me to take action? No one else seems to be doing anything.
His mind races back to the 1930′s when the German people did nothing. Back to 2007 when the American people did nothing and what inaction had ultimately meant to the country.
He ponders inaction and responsibility, only if it’s action to help a friend, not save a country. Countries can’t be saved. In fact, the best way to save this one, if such a thing is possible, is to continue to allow it to fail. The best way to insure failure? Remain here, live sensibly and make the power seekers irrelevant.
He changes his mind and decides to stay, but then he quickly changes it again. He goes back and forth between “stay” and “go” until a soft voice breaks his concentration and settles it.
“Your breakfast is ready, honey.”