Life During Wartime, Part 2

I flick out the squat blade of my knife and go to work on the tip of the pencil– the carbon tip ground flush with wood shaft. Sadie’s radio hums with static, just audible, and I take the chance to collect my thoughts. I’d decided to start a record of the War, and it took time to remember just how it all started. Memories just three years old became vague, and the haze of the ten-year-faded recollections of pre-war made them downright oneiric. I concentrate on shaving wood from lead, and start sharpening the tip. I’d had a little cheap plastic sharpener, but left it at the last safehouse. I’m writing so much, I’ve got an indentation on along the tip of my middle finger, and a callous at the base of my thumb. My index finger moves reflexively to that callous now.

Sadie– not her real name– thinks I’m crazy for wasting time on writing this all down. Henry, she says, nobody’s gonna care how this started. At the end, they’ll just want it ended. You got too much mass with those notebooks anyhow. What good are notebooks? I tell her that we’ll need to remember what we left behind so we can know what we’re getting into. Maybe make it better so this doesn’t happen again. Besides, we don’t know what started it, we won’t know what’ll end it.

Henry Lee isn’t my real name, either. Don’t even know my real name most of the time; easier that way. Got some border papers, couple passports. All fake.  Different names.

Mind’s strayed too far, so I secure the pencil inside the browning Mead Composition and slip them into my bag. As I stand, I catch my reflection in the miraculously intact mirror on the back wall of what must have been a dining room in the apartment: Hair cropped nearly to the roots. Changed my hairstyle so many times I’ve forgotten what I looked like. Wire glasses framing deep-set, brown, heavily bagged eyes over a wide, broken and set nose. Clean-shaven; a miracle. Fullish, split-chapped lips. Sunken, high-boned cheeks. Deep lines over it all. The trip of twenty-two to thirty-two seems to have taken twenty years. My t-shirt is a gratuitous depiction of Jesus on the Cross, crown of thorns and nail holes gushing blood. Crusaders own Northern Alabama now. It’s usually a good idea to dress like them. Jeans are faded Levis, shoes are thin-soled Chuck Taylors. I stick to the walls as I move to the kitchen. Well away from the windows. Can’t stand by the windows, somebody’ll see you in here. We chose the apartment because it was on the ground floor at the back of the complex, and faced the retention wall. Also, the gas tank was still holding. We’d cut the line to the utilities meter when we arrived a couple hours previous. The tenants were years gone, anyway. The whole of South Huntsville was cleared either in the first Crusade attacks or in the evacuations after the EMP hit. That was what, three, four years ago? I’m pretty sure it was three.

I turn on the smallest eye on the stove range and set a Lodge pan on it– a happy remnant of the condo’s owners. Pull a plastic sack from my messenger bag and pull out an onion, some mushrooms, and some chili peppers. Last house had a garden, and mushrooms are easy to come by here. I find a sealed can of Crisco in the pantry, and melt down a couple tablespoons worth as I chop up the onion; lamenting for the hundredth time my long-lost chef’s knife. Eyes streaming, I toss the onion into the pan and start on the hot peppers and mushrooms. I let it all sauté a while before tossing in the meat; a pair of fresh caught and cleaned squirrels. The rodents are stringy and incredibly gamy, but we need the protein. I cook the shit out of it. Stir it all together, throw in the last of my stale corn meal, and make a sort of stew. We eat out of china bowls with silver forks and our knives, wash it down with thin beer Sadie carries.  Beer’s safer than water. I hoped the onions and spice would cover the squirrel, but it doesn’t. If we have time before we leave, I’ll bury the pan and utensils in the dumpster out front of the condo. Iron’s too heavy to take, and plates too large, to take on the road.

next: The Emp