The Bridge

People like to ask me, "Hey, you were in the Army, right? What was Iraq like? Ya ever shoot anybody?"

Yeah, I was in the Army. Yes, I went to Iraq. I was even on the front lines. I shot my rifle plenty but I have no idea where every bullet went. The army spent over $500,000 and 15 months preparing me for Iraq. They taught me how to shoot, move, communicate, kill, and survive on three continents but every time people ask me about Iraq, I tell them that it's a horrible place. They say, "Is it really that bad over there?" I always tell them the same story.

The Army is a great place to find out who you are but the lessons can be painful. From the moment you get off the bus, someone starts yelling at you and they do not stop until you retire or die. The drill sergeants do their best to teach you how to follow orders; in fact they like to tell you all the terrible things that can happen if you don’t. Then they tell you about “illegal orders.” That’s when someone who outranks you orders you to break the law or commit a war crime. They like to tell you about all the terrible things that can happen if you follow an illegal order. I remember getting frustrated.

“They can arrest me for doing what they told me to do! If I refuse to follow an order and it turns out to be legit, they can arrest me for that too!”

What they are preparing you for are the times when there is no right thing to do. They are preparing you for a place that constantly challenges the neat black and white of right and wrong; a place where human life is worth only slightly more than gasoline and less than a gun. You have to do what you’re told; even if it makes you a bad person. That's what it was like in Iraq.

After my unit had some success in Balad, we were redeployed to Samarra. Samarra was a particularly seweresque city. The riots had just been subdued and the people were now under U.S. military control. I'm using the word "control" loosely. Basically, there was no control. It just meant a curfew. Every man, woman, and child had to be inside their homes by 6pm, or 1800 military time. Anyone found outside of their home or attempting to enter or leave the city could be shot on sight. Shoot first; ask questions in the daylight.

Our job, aside from patrolling the city, was to guard the 3 roads into town. I was in charge of guarding the road to the west which led to a bridge. The Samarra Bridge, despite being only 2 lanes wide, was very long. On the far side was a desert wasteland. On my side was a short road leading to the city only bending around my Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle, or "Brad" for short. The Brad is a bit like a small tank and routinely carries enough firepower to level a neighborhood.

Usually, there would be 3 of us: Staff Sergeant Buchan, the Bradley Commander, Specialist Soto, the Gunner, and me, Private First Class Taillefer, the driver. Due to the fact that we were on 12-hour guard duty instead of running missions, Sergeant Buchan stayed at the base making life terrible for the guys who had to clean. Two soldiers are the minimum for such a long shift, so Soto and I were on our own.

We walk through deep mud and thick smoke until we reached our post, a lone Brad in the middle of the desert facing a bridge to nowhere. When we arrive, I take off my helmet and use it to knock loudly on the troop door in the back. Two of my friends have been waiting for us. They drop the loading ramp on the back of the vehicle and climb out.

“You’re late,” Engleman complains.

“You should be watching the bridge instead of the clock,” I shoot back.

Up 'till now, the works been easy. All we had to do was sit around and watch people drive over a bridge. Then, at 1730, half an hour before curfew, we would announce that we were closing the bridge. At 1800, we moved barbed wire into the road. Then, we'd just kick back until dawn when our relief would show up. Every few hours I would take a turn watching the bridge and let Soto take a break. Normally during our respective breaks, I would be reading cheap donated paperbacks, and Soto would sleep. Every so often Soto would interrupt my novel to tell me a story or talk about life back home. Every so often I would start the engine to keep the batteries charged and count the hours before we could head back. We take our positions and prepare for a long night.

1630… My eyes are blurry and tired. I need a break from my romance novel. I tell Soto that I'm going to take a shift for awhile. Cars race across the bridge; especially military vehicles which don't have to obey any kind of speed limit. Civilians slow down to navigate the serpentine roadblock in front of the Brad's main gun. Adults stare straight ahead unblinking. Small, smiling faces would wave and inside my hatch, under ten inches of armor, looking through bulletproof periscopes, I would smile and wave back.

1730… I radio the TOC, or tactical operations center, and tell them that the bridge will be closing soon. I radio observation post “blue” and describe the last vehicle in line to cross the bridge, a little light blue sedan.

The cars cross the bridge and he radios back, “Roger that O.P. Green, I've got a big yellow bongo truck followed by a little blue sedan. Last vehicle received. Bridge is closed, out.” I open a bag of chips and relax a bit knowing that the worst part of the shift is over; nothing to do now but sit tight and wait for our replacements.

1750… I’m seeing things. I must be seeing things because there's a car approaching the bridge from the far side. This shouldn't be happening. It shouldn't even be possible. The only cars on the road should be military. Why didn't the last checkpoint stop them? Unless they avoided the checkpoint altogether.

I start yelling at my gunner, “Soto! Soto, you up?”

Soto sounds sleepy, “Tally, what’s going on?”

The great thing about the U.S. military is, when something goes wrong, everyone turns in to an alert, level headed professional.

“I've got a vehicle headed toward the bridge.”

Soto doesn't hesitate for a second. The main gun whirs to life and trains the barrel on the little car tracking it automatically with a press of a button while Soto calls the TOC in his usual swarthy Puerto Rican accent,

“Roughrider TOC, this is O.P. Green, over.”

A second later, the radio crackles to life spraying some loud mouth radio operator all over the inside of our headsets, “O.P. Green, this is Roughrider TOC. Go ahead, over.” I turn down my volume.

Soto explains the situation to the radio operator as quickly, calmly, and specifically as he can so that no time is wasted. As he speaks, I watch the rising plume of dust that follows the little car to our position. I'm not listening to the radio. I'm trying to see how many people are in the car but it's still so far away.

The voice on the other end is no longer the radio operator, but the Lieutenant himself, “DO NOT LET THAT VEHICLE PAST YOU, OVER!” The order is spoken so loudly and clearly that there is no mistaking it and there is no arguing.

Soto replies, “Request permission for a warning shot, over.” A tense moment passes...

“O.P. Green, request denied, over.”

Soto keys the internal vehicle radio and asks, "Well, Tally, what should I do?"

I was always the safe one. I was the one that kept us out of trouble. I wanted to go home. But I didn't know what to say at first.

“We’ll light him up 100 meters before he touches the bridge; that way we don’t accidentally blow it up, that should give us enough time to score a hit.”

We both know that a single round from the main gun will turn that car into an empty taco shell. I watch the tiny car grow larger. Soto dials up a high explosive round and trains the gun between the car and the bridge. My eyes stop blinking. I take a long breath and hold it.

The car stops just before Soto squeezes the trigger. A man gets out of the driver’s seat with his hands so high above his head; he looks like a child asking his mother to pick him up. He walks this way, with his hands up, taking giant awkward steps toward the bridge. I get my binoculars and begin a visual inspection for weapons while Soto Radios the TOC again. The man wears the basic Iraqi man's uniform. A man dress, brown flip-flops, and darkly tanned skin. He starts walking over the bridge. By now, Soto has explained everything to the TOC, and we're waiting for a response.

“O.P. Green, find out what he wants and send him away. He is not to enter this city. Is that understood? Over.”

“Roger that, over.” Soto sounds pleased to receive an order that doesn't include shooting the man.

We both sit and stare at him as he makes his way over the bridge. It seems to take hours to get halfway. As he walks, arms still pressed to the clear desert sky, we take a few minutes to come up with a plan. We agree that I should be the one to engage him. Soto would keep the main gun trained on his car and operate the radio. I load my rifle, turn off the engine and open my hatch.

The sun and wind and sand blasts my eyes and for a moment, it feels as if I have been asleep for a very long time. My eyes gradually adjust, I carefully lower my boots to the ground, and compose myself. I wait for the man to enter earshot before I raise my weapon. I tell him to stop.

“AWGFU!” I yelled. The man, hands still high above his head, stops so suddenly he almost falls over. I take a step forward and ask, “Aan-dek Is-lah?”

He responds in English, “No! No weapons!”

I lower my rifle and verify, “You speak English?”

Sweat pours from the man's face and he says, “Yes, English- no weapon!”

I am relieved because that's all the Arabic I know. I calmly insist, “The city is closed. You can’t come here. You have to go back.”

The man begins to explain, “We come from hospital in next town. Americans shoot my daughter. She dies today. I go home now.” He points to the city behind me. Soto has started calling the TOC as a woman holding a small child gets out of the car and starts walking across the bridge.

I nervously wait for Soto to finish talking on the radio. I keep a tight grip on my rifle and shift my gaze so that I can keep an eye on the man and his wife and the baby in her arms. The woman crosses the bridge in what seems like seconds and now I hold the entire family at gunpoint as I wait for Soto to receive further instructions. The man explains the situation to his wife in Arabic. She starts to sob uncontrollably. She hands him the child just in time to fall to the ground screaming and begging in my general direction in a language I do not understand. I’m getting anxious.

I start to speak loudly to the man, practically yelling over the sobs of his wife, "You should go back to your car and drive back to the hospital. They will let you sleep there. You can come back tomorrow. If you try to enter the city tonight, we will shoot you."

The man is shaking his head before I'm finished talking, "We cannot! If we return to the hospital, the guards there will shoot us!" I know the man is right. Soto is still on the radio negotiating an escort to take them home. My eyes meet Soto's but they're filled with sorrow. He lowers the radio and shakes his head. The man begs me, "We sleep in the car?" Soto relays the question on to the radio.

He shakes his head and looks back at me, “TOC says if they park on the side of a road, they’ll be blown up by any convoy that passes.” The baby in the man's arms begins to cry.

I remember a story that I had heard about an American tourist that gave a family twenty American dollars to sleep in their house overnight until U.S. forces could arrive. I think to myself that there’s a nearby village where they may be able to hide and an idea starts to form. I check my pockets, but it's been months since I've needed money. I ask Soto if he has any money, but he only shakes his head once more.

I tell the man, “Here’s what you’re gonna do: You’re gonna get in your car and drive to the nearest village and you’re gonna tell them that you need to stay with them tonight or the Americans are gonna kill you. Do you understand?”

Over his crying wife, and the screaming child in his arms, the man says, “They are not my tribe; they will kill us or American soldiers will shoot us as we drive.” I look at Soto for help, but he looks back with a lost look in his eyes and closes himself in to his hatch. The TOC had given up. Soto had given up... I gave up.

I point my rifle at the family and yell as ferociously as I can, “Walk away! Get outta here!” The woman begins to howl in anguish as if someone has stabbed her in the back. “Walk Away!” I shout again, but it's not the roar I wanted. The words catch in my throat and I fight back tears as I make my way around the track to my hatch. The man walks back to his wife, still in a heap on the hot sand in the twilight sun. He helps her to her feet and without looking back, they make their way across the bridge once more, weeping the entire way.

I drop into the driver's seat and slam my hatch closed. It's now 1830, if they tried to drive anywhere their car would be destroyed. If they tried to walk they would be shot. Even the baby knew that much. Through my periscope I watch the man start his car, turn around, and drive away. I turn off my reading light and watch the sunset.

Soto and I spent the rest of that guard shift in silence. I did not read. He did not sleep. We looked out into the darkness hoping for a sign that they were okay, but it never came. Soto and I sat together on guard shift numerous times. We were always waiting for the day when the Fedayeen would try to take back the city, or the day when we would have to protect each other from some crazed Jihadi with with a suicide bomb, or the day when we'd meet our first real Taliban, but it never came. Just a mourning family trying to get home.

Soto and I never talked about what happened. We were just being good soldiers. We did as we were told. Not long after that, I left the military. I swore I would never have to carry out orders like that again. Soto died during his second tour of Iraq. Sometimes I still think about him and whether he would have handled it differently if he had been the one on the ground. I still have nightmares about that family. I never asked any of their names but I remember their faces so clearly.

They try to prepare you as best they can. The drill sergeants did their best to teach me how to follow orders; in fact they liked to tell me all the terrible things that could happen if I didn’t. But they never mentioned the terrible things that could happen if I did. I learned a lot about myself in the Army. I just wish the lessons hadn't been so painful.

Part III: Burning Man: A Full body Salute to Madness, Identity, and the American Dream

“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”
-Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

We were somewhere outside of Reno when the drugs began to wear off and return what was left of our sanity to our tattered minds and withered bodies. I had been told by a close friend and emotional confidant that many things in my life were in danger of setting me on an inescapable course that could make me into one of the things that I hated most, a zombie.

I can clearly remember as a boy, lying to my mother that my schoolwork was too hard. I remember a doctor, some greasy, ratfink, manipulative, lying, bastard of a quack, telling my mother that he could “cure” my bad grades with a pill. I remember my mother telling him (right in front of me, mind you) “I don’t want a zombie for a son.” Finally, I remember her begrudgingly giving me the pills. To her credit, she only gave them to me on school days, before and after class (for homework), never over the summer, and only for 4 years until I got into sixth grade and told her I didn’t need them anymore.

Zombies are mindless drones capable of thought only in quick bursts and only for very basic things such as cold or hunger or fatigue. They can readily be seen in any typical office building wearing ridiculous neckpieces that serve no purpose and drinking bland coffee out of a mug and making small talk about the weather and the showings on local or cable television the night before.

To be a zombie, as my mother knew, was not acceptable behavior for a young man, such as myself, who had never taken seriously the word of any of the ridiculous forefathers who had handed him this world of cyclical violence, lies, and dead-end roads. There was only one thing to do: in the words of some long forgotten poet, “Buy the ticket, take the ride.”

So I left… I left everything behind and wandered into the desert in search of answers; some kind of vision quest which would lead me to a new evolution of being like Jesus did, so I packed a suitcase full of temptation and turned west. What I had not realized at the time was that the answers were for later. No, this trip was about finding the questions.

When I arrived in the desert the landscape was like nothing on Earth or even imaginable by man; not possibly one man you understand, but possibly by all of mankind. There was most notably, the sand which was thin, alkaline, and omnipresent. It possessed a chemical composition which could eat away at your flesh. So much so, that your sweaty feet could not help but act like a magnet for the dust and the skin between your toes would turn green like the terminals on a car battery and so people would walk around and pour cool vinegar on your tired feet. The sand stretched out far in every direction and the wind would often blow it around in to your nose or eyes if you let it. Whiteout conditions were common and did little to stop the joyous atmosphere around me. No, all the sandstorms did was add to the disorienting nature of it all. Disoriented I was, but not lost.

Secondly, there was the art. Huge, shining beacons to creativity, freedom, happiness, imagination, and at least a partial disregard for safety. “Safety Third,” as they say and leave you wondering what comes first and second. Don’t let me be misunderstood, the whole event could probably be called one of the safest gatherings of over 50,000 people ever, if it weren’t for the god forsaken heat during the day, which makes going nude a totally viable (and socially acceptable) thing to do.

As I hung over 30 feet in the air above the hard desert floor from a huge phallic misshapen metal sculpture, I had to ask myself a number of questions: 1. Why would someone build this thing? 2. What was it supposed to be? And 3. What would happen to me if I fell? To the good people of this fabulous desert oasis, the answers to these questions didn’t really matter; after all, safety third.

This brings me to the final and possibly most important element to the Burning Man experience: the people, oh god, the people. Every kind of person is already there. You can’t begin to possibly imagine with whom you could come in contact. A pot smoking, behavioral psychologist that drinks white wine straight from the bottle? Or possibly a mushroom eating, radiologist from the bay area who rides a motorized skateboard? Or maybe a polyamorous, nudist, fireman whose wife was recently diagnosed with cancer?
Perhaps you’re thinking, “I could never strike up a conversation with those people.” Luckily, you don’t have to. Those people think of each other like family. No need for money, either. People share the way children would. Remember when you were a kid and you opened up a box of cookies in a crowd. Everyone reached inside the box and took one. And you felt special to be the one holding the box. That’s everyday over there.

Now it’s all over. Another Burning Man done and in the can. “See ya next year, Charlie!” We all dust ourselves off, try to focus our vision, and steady our hands as we got behind the wheel and started the long drive back to wherever we call home. Burning Man doesn’t exist in the real world; only for those seven days in the sand. My travelling companion is asleep and I’m left to ponder the surreal series of events which have transpired in the last week, but really, over the course of the last year.

My sister once said, “Burning Man is the place where you can do your favorite thing all day long with other people, no matter what it is.” Sometimes I’m in the room when someone asks her about Burning Man. All she can ever say is, “Dude… It’s crazy.” I always need to be careful around these people. It is a logical train of thought to realize that it IS crazy. Sometimes they figure out that the people they’re talking to voluntarily lived in the desert for a week. They always seem to get a very strange, distrustful look in their eyes. It’s always around this time that my sister tells them I’m going to be a writer… “My brother’s a writer,” she says, “you should hear him read something he’s written, it’s so crazy,” she says, “he’s amazing.” And sometimes, when I’m feeling overly sentimental, a tear runs down my face… and I say, “I’m going to start writing more.” My sister knows that’s a big decision for me. I figure, if you're going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you're going to be locked up.

Part II: A Tangled Tale: Poems on Burning Man

"O Oysters, come and walk with us!"
The Walrus did beseech.
"A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
Along the briny beach
-Lewis Carroll

Harveywood

The pixie and the paladin both made quite a pair;
with sword and shield and long curly hair.
On white horseback they rode swiftly to town
Kicking dust as they went but never touching the ground.
Waiving and singing to the townsfolk with glee
‘til they arrived at the church and the priestess and her tea.
The church bell sat quiet and still while they sang
until the knight with sword sounded a “CLANG!”

They rang it and waited until someone cried,
"Paladin and pixie! Here you'll reside!"
"Welcome to Harveywood!” out called the Priestess.
Her kindness was something that left them both speechless.
“Where is home?” asked the Pixie, “we both need some rest.”
The priestess replied, “Where you are now; and surely you jest!
This is the place that you’ve wanted to be
going to sleep is a crime here, you see.”

“If you must go to bed, then give me no hassle;
Nay, go lie down in your elegant castle.”
“We have no castle, as you can plainly see,
new to this land, is this pixie and me.”
“We have not a castle, or a house, or a shack.
We had only food and elixir to pack.”
“Well now you are here and it’s a castle you'll need;
just open your heart and I’ll plant the seed.”

The castle sprang forth with a sudden blast of light;
it stood on a path that was just to the right.
“Where is our castle, where I’m to be crowned?”
She said, “If you can tell time, then it can be found.
Your castle’s not where, but rather it’s when;
If you want somewhere to live, then inquire within.

The Castle of Fate

“Follow close,” said the knight to the pixie, “The treasure map’s true!”
“Do not ride too fast,” said the pixie to the knight, “or I cannot follow you.”
“If you want not to follow, you shouldn’t embark
because where we are going is out in the dark.”
The pixie got scared and flew closer still
The pixie got hurt after taking a spill.
Out in the darkness, where few would conspire,
tall in the night, stood a castle and spire!

They approached the castle which was covered in flowers
It sat in the dark, surrounded by towers.
The guard came and asked, “Do you mean us harm?”
“No,” said the knight, “our only weapon is charm!”
“Then you may enter, but ‘fore I lower the gate,
pause and ponder on the castle of fate!”
“That sounds like a warning we just can’t abide;
fate’s something from which we never shall hide.”

The guard demanded the fates be given such center:
“give what you want and then you may enter.”
The paladin answered: a confused savant,
“I want what you have, but don’t have what you want!”
The guard demanded the fates be given their due.
The knight emptied his pockets till his face had turned blue.
“I gave what I had; how much more can I give?”
“Give up what you want ‘less all you want is to live.”
And it trickled through his head
like water through a sieve.

They entered the castle on a cloud of pure white
so they peeked for a place they could sleep for the night.
“The palace is full. We must sleep in the basement.”
They smoked, and drank, and away the night went
But out in the darkness, just in his view,
the knight saw a light and that’s when he knew!
“Someone’s approaching, that’s all I can see.
I can see him, but he can’t see me!”

The Song of the Mermaid

The Paladin and the Pixie danced hand in hand.
They kissed and swore they’d never leave the sand.
Just then, a school of fish passed disturbingly near
and the Paladin thought, “Fish in the desert seem especially queer.”
The Pixie spoke up, “Let’s go for a swim.”
and jumped right in, as if the knight was dim.
The Paladin was close behind; “water sounds good to me!”
But there’s a problem with a knight in the water, you see…

When he jumped in, his armor dragged him down.
The water, which once was blue, got thick and turned brown.
He kicked and swam and tried to breathe water.
But the more he struggled the more he would falter.
When he reached the bottom he tried to march, as soldiers often do,
and realized that water is something you just can’t march through.
A mermaid stopped and stared and began to sing
filling the knights ears with a soft hypnotic ring.

The mermaid and the paladin paraded across the land.
They stopped and ate atop the salty sand.
Her fish peeked in to find they weren’t alone
and begged the mermaid that she might take them all home.
“I cannot leave a brave knight so dire;
on the ocean floor in the muck and the mire.”
So they met on the beach where no one would be
And said their goodbyes where no one would see.

The paladin stood with no sense of grace
And the mermaid kissed him just once on the face.
“I’ll think of you always,” said the mermaid to the knight
“I’ll think of you most when you’re farthest from sight.”
The cold water took him, the knight, just then
and transported him back to a time before sin.
The song of the siren left a mark on his mind.
His night with the mermaid had left the knight blind.

Part I: An Ideal Husband

OR... Why it’s Not Only Zombies That Lose Their Minds: a short story in 3 parts

“Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.”
-Oscar Wilde

“What’s one thing you’d like to do before you die?”

“Why? Are you dying?” Kathryn instantly snaps on one of her famously suspicious looks back at Laurent.

“No, I was just thinking that I’m starting to feel a bit long in the tooth, you see. You know what they say, ‘One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation.’ I don’t want to die without any scars… I feel like my life is an empty stage.”

Kathryn is incredulous, “Without any scars? You must have plenty of scars! You were in the army! Of course you think your life is too boring; you once told me you felt most at home on some far flung battlefield.”

Laurent grins broadly, “That is exactly what I mean! There is no battle; no more adventures.”

Kathryn says nothing. She only smiles and pulls from under the table a small box that sat as innocently on the floor as a church mouse and now sits between them in the spacious, bohemian, downtown apartment. The walls are oak and covered with streams of red fabric and only interrupted by the occasional framed mirror or print from some long forgotten painter. She takes out a stack of snapshots and finally pauses on a particular series of images.

“Do you see that?” Kathryn taps the photograph lightly. On the back, blue handwriting reads: “Burning Man.” The first photo in her hand contains two life size diesel trucks bent backwards like contortionists. One truck is stuck to the middle of the other and they both tower above a crowd of eclectically dressed and most likely, drug addled miscreants in the middle of a barren desert. He takes the photos and turns to the next. It contains a huge bus that has been outfitted to look like the ship of a pirate complete with two huge masts grasping tightly to billowing white sails and loaded with scantily clad women in pink cowboy hats.

“What exactly am I to glean from these images, Kathryn? Perhaps some newfound respect for a tribe that makes art of rubbish?” Laurent stares at the photos searching for evidence of tampering; feebly looking for a logical explanation for the odd assortment of images collected in such a tiny box.

“These were all taken at Burning Man; it’s a seven day social experiment in the desert outside of Reno, Nevada. Over fifty-thousand people travel to a dried up basin that was once a lake and take with them all the provisions they’ll need: food, water, shelter, spirits, and of course, proper apparel for the balls that you will surely be attending… everything.”

Laurent’s face seemed to fill with concern as she spoke. She took his hand, gave him a reassuring smile and continued.

“They live there and have a weeklong festival among gargantuan, intricate, art installations that are so amazing, they say your mind is left with no alternative but to be changed forever. They use a gift economy, which means nothing is bought or sold on the premises. If you need something, you just ask; if you have extra, you share; everyone there is like family.” Kathryn’s face beams with excitement as she does her best to describe the event.

“It sounds absurd…” Laurent turns his head sideways, still staring at the photograph, as if it will help to unravel why people would subject themselves to the torments of living in a wasteland for days with no reasonable place to freshen one’s self.

“You wanted to try something new. If you want to become a writer, you need to experience things worth writing about!” Kathryn’s smile begins to fade.

Laurent shrugs, “I do want to try new things; I almost died in the war. I just don’t want nude photographs of myself floating about town.”

Kathryn laughs, “Then don’t take any! Why did you even ask me? You can wear your little sweater vest if you want.”

She gestures down at his outfit. He looks down at his tan pants and light blue dress shirt. Around his neck he wears a loosened red necktie and a red and blue plaid sweater vest; both were gifts from his paramour. He raises his head slightly to ensure Kathryn fully receives his obvious look of derision.

Laurent takes a deep breath and lowers his voice, no longer in jest, “The only thing is… morality, like art, means drawing a line someplace. I don’t want my future employer finding out I went to some lewd desert party and thinking that I’m some kind of deviant psychopath.”

Kathryn matches his tone but not his viewpoint, “It’s more than a party… It’ll change the way you look at everything. It’s a spiritual event for many people; maybe that’s just what you need.”

“I hardly think a bunch of tree people in funny outfits will change my outlook on life,” he said snidely.

“They have to wear funny outfits! If you want to tell people the truth, you have to make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you!” The corners of Laurent’s mouth rise slightly. “You could use a laugh, I think.”

“I must be off. Dinner it would seem, cannot go on without me.”

“Sounds fun,” her tone is sarcastic but also tinted with true empathy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Laurent walks through the door of the Kobayashi mansion and sits down at a table near the center. The ball room is crowded and although he is late he can quickly tell that he is the first to arrive. He takes a sip from the glass of water in front of him and checks the time with a server girl.

“Who is she?” Carly is behind him and cracks the question above his head like a whip
Carly walks around the table and sits across from Laurent. She sets her handbag on the table between them and folds her hands in front of her, sitting perfectly erect in her seat. She wears an elegant black skirt, white, sleeveless blouse, and perfect dark red lipstick that shows off little more than an over abundance of time. Her dark hair and olive skin belie the fact that she was raised in one of the poorest shires the kingdom has known.

“Well?” The impatience in her tone is palpable.

“I was simply checking the time. How has your day been?”

“My day? Just fantastic! What do you think; I’ve spent all day at what I laughingly call my place of employment. A topic on which I feel I could instruct compared to you… I tried to call you twice.” She begins bouncing her leg on the ball of her foot; creating a soft clacking sound as the heel of her shoe makes contact with the hard, wooden floor. Laurent looks around the room but it seems not to bother anyone else.

“I told you, I was in the theatre with my sister. There are no calls at the theatre. I thought you knew that. Is that not why you tried me at Kathryn’s apartment in the city?”

Carly’s face twitches slightly at the mention of her name, “Right. Kathryn… How is she?”

“She’s well, I suppose.” Laurent slid into his seat. Storm clouds were forming.

“On what did the two of you speak?”

"On a couch I suppose."

As she waits for a serious response, her face deteriorates to a disapproving glare.

“We were talking about things we would like to do before we die.” Laurent smiles warmly as if to communicate the poignant relevance of the subject matter.

Carly’s jaw drops with the same disgust as if someone had just sneezed and reached for her dress to wipe their nose, “We never speak on those topics…”

A tense moment passes... Carly fills out the cards sitting in front of them. Laurent, sensing a line has been crossed, tries to remedy the situation.

“Okay, you are right. What would you like to do before you pass?”

“Kids and estate by 30, account manager by 35, retired by 50, with over $500,000 in the bank.”

Laurent rolled his eyes, “Yes, dear you have told me your 20 year plan before, but that is not exactly what I had meant… Do you not have anything you wanted to do before you got old?”

“You think I’m getting old?!” her jaw drops again.

Laurent sighs, “Forget the entire affair, I suppose that I’m simply trying to carve out my own 20 year plan.”

She dismissively waives away the thought, “Darling, I have plans for both of us.”

The table becomes a vacuum; a graveyard with a single slow tumble weed as another tense moment of silence passes between them. The server arrives just in time. Carly hands her their guest cards containing what they’ll be having for dinner.

“Thank you, I’ll make sure they get this right out.” Laurent cranes his neck to see what she has ordered for them but the server briskly turns and bustles off to the kitchen.

End of the Road

            The dirty gray pickup truck lumbers along the highway. The day is almost over and the last hour of daylight forces the men inside to don their sunglasses and adjust the sun visor. The air is still as warm as summer but the wind howls and wails around them to signal that fall has arrived. Inside, Billy takes a big bite of beef jerky and continues to talk in spite of the food in his mouth.

            “Yeah, I figure that in the event of societal collapse the first people who are gonna get killed are the ones that panic, ya know? That’s why when the panic begins, ya gotta already be out of the city.” The pine trees whiz by the passenger window. The bed of the truck is an assortment of black plastic trunks, duffel bags, coolers, tarps and olive drab canvas. In the back seat sits a small boy appearing to be interested in the conversation. After a short silence Larry takes a long drink from the canteen in his hand and starts to respond.

            “It seems a little arrogant to think that on principle alone, you’re going to outrun the legions of people trying to flee the city. What makes you so special? You watch the news? You’ve read a book or two?”

            Billy scowls, “More than a book or two… What do you think then? Try to escape at the same time as everybody else?”

            “Of course not, the trick is to be prepared for the panic. Be prepared to fortify your own home with goods from the local hardware stores or neighbor’s houses that have been abandoned. Then, scatter clothing and useless possessions around the front yard to give the appearance that it has already been looted. Park the car facing out in the garage and start packing for the eventual time when you’ll have to abandon your own home.” Larry finishes talking and takes another swig from the canteen, for a moment the only sound that can be heard is the engine roaring along the asphalt.

            Billy asks, “How is that different from what I said?”

            “Because you think you’re somehow going to know information before everyone else.”

            “And you’re saying they won’t give us accurate information? That sounds like them.” Billy takes a bite from his beef jerky and shakes his head in disapproval.

            “No, what I’m saying Billy, is that they’re going to tell you to stay in your homes, to stay calm, and that everything will be taken care of for you. Then, when "the powers that be" realize the severity of the situation, they won’t be able to help anyone. Even if they try to evacuate, there won’t be enough time, and even the people who run will likely die trying to make it out. That’s why I say to stay home… at least until the panic is over.”

The boy finally speaks up, “Larry, Where are we?”

“We’re going to the forest, buddy! You wanted to see the forest, right?”

The boy squints to look out the window, “Yeah. How much longer until we get there?”

“We’re already here,” Larry gives a reassuring smile and the boy quiets down for a moment.

Billy nearly chokes as he swallows a large chunk of preserved cow flesh. Larry looks away and tries not to let on that it bothers him. Larry digs deep in his pocket and retrieves a pack of menthol cigarettes and a lighter. From the pack he pulls his last cigarette, places it in his mouth, and takes a long slow drag. He replaces the lighter in his pocket and opens the pack once more, as if to search for any cigarettes he may have missed.

Through a thick cloud of smoke he mumbles to himself, “Shoulda planned better.” He throws the empty pack to his feet and cracks the passenger window.

Larry takes the cigarette from his mouth and returns to his conversation with Billy, “So, where were you planning to go?”

Billy looks slightly surprised by the question but quickly has an answer, “Oh, um, my aunt. She’s got a cabin in Utah. I figured what I would do is pack up Isabella and my little girl and head up to stay with her. It’s kinda far out of town so I think it’s pretty safe.”

“Pretty safe? Does she have a generator?”

“I think so,” Billy scratches his head as he thinks over the question.

“You think so? How much land is it on? Can she see neighbors? Are there any gun stores in town? How does she get her water, from the city or a private well? How long would it take you to get there if the roads are closed? Are there any other routes you could take? Is the area prone to natural disasters like floods? Is it above the freeze line? You should make a list of questions for next time you’re up there.”

“Yeah… Yeah, that’s a good idea!” and a long silence passes between them.

Larry gives a proud self congratulatory smile and says, “That’s the only kind I have!”

Billy continues to think to himself for a moment before speaking again.

“What about you? Where are you going?”

The pickup leans around a mountain curve and they zoom past a vehicle broken down on the side of the road.

Larry says, “See that? No food, no water, they didn’t even have tools. Who goes out on the road with no tools? What if something happened?”

Billy feels bad for the family stranded on the side of the road now almost a mile behind them. “Maybe they just don’t have any use for tools. Maybe they wouldn’t know what to do with the tools even if they had brought them along. Not everyone knows how to fix a car, ya know.”

            “And whose fault is that? They brought their laptops, their DVDs, their footballs and Frisbees, they brought their bathing suits and night gowns and all their money, but they never learned how to turn a wrench or swing a hammer?”

A tense moment of silence sits still in the pickup truck as it zooms through the cool mountain air.

“I don’t want to live in a world where jewels are worth more than tools,” Larry says coldly. Billy takes his eyes off the road to look Larry in the face. Behind his sunglasses, Larry’s eyes are closed. He thinks of the multitude of hours he’d spent working on cars with his father on the side of his childhood home. He feels the heft of a flashlight in his hand as he searches for a 7/16” socket wrench or a nut which had gotten lost while along the way. In a flash, he’s returned.

“In any case, back to what you were saying. I’d head to this little cabin I know in Show Low. I’ve got forty acres up there and if I can, I’ll build a house on that land before the panic. Even if I can’t though, I know an old man with a little cabin of his own. He’s completely off the grid up there. Has his own well with fresh water, his own big generator that would power just about anything, and great big underground fuel tank from before there were roads in the area. To this day in fact, you can only get there if you can manage to follow the little signs he’s put up in the middle of the desert.”

“Wow. How did you meet that guy?” Billy suddenly looks away from the road at Larry many times, as if to see if he’s telling the truth.

The boy turns to look at Larry as he begins to speak. “He’s my neighbor. He owns the twenty acres next to mine. Says he was in the Army like me, except he fought in World War II. He told me that he and his brother graded the roads themselves back when they were young men. That man must be eighty years old but I swear Billy, that guy still carries an old revolver around everywhere he goes and still works full days to keep his lands working for him. I suppose if I ever end up on that land, the air and water might be really bad. People may start to turn on one another. I may not be able to count on his help.”

Billy grimly nods his head in agreement. The last sliver of sunlight slowly fades away and both men remove their sunglasses. Larry folds his visor up and Billy decides to do the same.

“When are we going to be in the forest?” the boy asked again.

“Don’t you see the trees,” Larry asked in response.

“Yeah?”

“That’s the forest!”

Billy impatiently returned to conversation, “So you were in the army, right? So you must know something about guns?”

“Yeah, of course I do. I was a rifleman.”

“Okay, so I don’t have a lot of money but I think I might need a weapon to protect my family when everything falls apart. What do you think I should try to get?”

“It really depends on what you think you’re going to need it for. For example, I chose an M4 carbine battle rifle- like what I carried in the service. The ammunition would be fairly common for that caliber of weapon and it’s the preferred choice for shooting zombies at medium range… plus parts are easy to find.”

Billy’s face was suddenly filled with surprise and concern, “Zombies? You did all this planning because you think it’s going to be zombies? Doesn’t it seem more likely that it’ll be governmental collapse, or famine, or some super disease, or nuclear war, or some kind of 9-11 style terrorist attack, or some chemical they’re putting in the food?”

“They? Who are they, Billy? What do you think it’s gonna be?”

Billy got a very serious look on his face and even slowed the truck slightly to add to the gravity of what he had to say, “The Illuminati.”

“The Illuminati? Like from that Dan Brown book? You’re saying that they are controlling everything and they’re going to cause a collapse anyway? Why would they do that?”

“They’re doing everything behind the scenes: the stock market crash, the housing market, you name it! They need to crash the system to regain control. The governments are becoming too big and powerful; the Illuminati need to crash the system to gain total control. You never know who might be working for the Illuminati and you never know what means they may use in order to enact their plans for control. The Illuminati utilize technological resources to control the world flow of information. They want you gone? You disappear. They put you on the most wanted list, the cops take you away, and you’re never heard from again… Zombies are just crazy.”

The Ranch

The car hits a bump and the kids wake up. The four weary travelers pull into a long semicircular driveway and the car stops in front of four stuccoed pillars. Behind the pillars is an illuminated chandelier shining its light upon a dark, wooden door with inlaid stained glass windows so large that it seems to have been made for a giant. The white sedan’s engine shuts off and all four doors lackadaisically pop open. The driver, his wife, and his two young children have returned home. They exit the vehicle and stretch their legs, now stiff from a long car ride. The air is warm and still and beyond the sounds of the driver removing suitcases from the trunk, the sounds of the Arizona desert paint vivid scenes in the darkness. 

The engine ticks with heat from the long trip. Crickets chirp loud and long and an unseen rabbit scurries into a nearby bush making just enough of a fuss to startle a dove that had been nesting in the tree. The dove coos angrily and perches itself on top of the clay tile roof two stories above the desert floor. In the distance, coyotes yip and howl at some fresh kill. The prey is probably no bigger than a rabbit or a pack rat, but the sounds reverberate to the very hearts of the entire family and without a single spoken word they all pause from unloading the car and try to gauge the distance from the pack of hungry snapping teeth to themselves.

             “They got something huh,” the driver mumbles to his son.

            “Yeah. Sounds like five or six of ‘em,” the boy says and picks up a big black duffel bag. He slams the door closes with his hip and waddles toward the door with the heavy piece of luggage. The family closes the car doors one at a time and they shuffle to the door behind the boy who stares at the lock until his father approaches with the keys. The lock clicks and the door swings open. The children trudge up the stairs and drop their bags in dark rooms. The bedroom ceiling fans of three separate rooms spin to life and the bulbs cast long beams of light into the dark hallway. The family undresses, turns out the warm incandescent lights and slip into bed. The house is dark and only the sound of a faint television set can be heard in the hallway accompanied by pale blue light that creeps out from under the master bedroom door.

            Hours later, sunlight invades the house and the children are woken by their mother.

            “Come on! You need to get to school! The bus will be here soon,” the mother gives the same message to both closed doors from the opposite end of the hall. Her shoes clack loudly on the hard wood floor as she walks. She knocks loudly on both doors and inside the quiet rooms the children stir from their beds. The girl is twelve years old and most of the room’s décor is functional. The closet is small but filled with clothing that lines the walls. A shoe rack has been fixed to the door and the remaining space is barely enough to constitute a child’s hiding place; a role which it took on at least once every time the siblings played “hide and go seek.” After her shower, she goes to the tight, fabric encased filing cabinet of a closet, removes a preselected matching outfit, gets dressed, and goes downstairs to pack her bag. Her brother is still upstairs.

“John, your son fell asleep in the shower again,” the mother bellows up the stairs.

Pounding on the door, John shouts through the crack.

 “You’re gonna miss the bus… and stop wasting water! Martha, I told him.”

John returns to the master bedroom which is filled with cigarette smoke and the incessant chatter of the finance channel. Talking heads gossip about the price of blue chips and triple Q’s. The boy snaps to life and stumbles out of the shower which sits in the corner of his own bedroom. He slips in a puddle of water and crashes to the floor. The thud is heard straight to the kitchen on the floor below.

Martha, who spends most of her morning shouting at various family members hardly even glances upward before asking, “Are you ok!?”

The shower has leaked ever since the boy and his father installed it the year before and early morning slips have become commonplace. No noise comes from the bedroom.

“Larry! Are you ok?” his mother shouts again.

“I’m okay,” the boy dazedly shouts from a cracked bedroom door.

“Good, then hurry up,” she scolds and returns to the business of the morning: breakfast, phone calls, get the kids ready for school, feed the dog, get to the office on time. The smell of scrambled eggs and ham has filled the house and does far more to hurry the fourteen year old boy than the shrill call of his mother. Larry’s room is filled with posters purchased from trendy novelty stores at the mall. Every inch of paint has been covered by brightly colored paper with bold print that reads, “Rage Against the Machine,” or “Fight Club,” or “Have a Nice Day,” complete with a yellow smiley face suffering from an apparent point blank gunshot wound between the eyes. Covering the wall opposite the messy queen size bed are more posters; these posters are all filled with scantily clad women in revealing poses. One poster reads, “Double scoop: $1” and underneath stands a woman covered in melting ice cream as she struggles to maintain control of the cone in her hand. Others show women sprawled on the hoods of sports cars from far off European countries. The television shows a blue super hero with green hair as he does battle to save the environment. Larry is easily distracted by the cartoon and joins the rest of his family downstairs with just enough time for a glass of juice that tastes bitter against the minty flavor of his toothpaste.

The huge door swings open and the children step into the warm fall air. Today is the first day of school and the younger child is excited at the prospect of starting a new year with her friends.

Martha shouts for the final time of the morning as the kids walk across the street to the bus stop, “Jezzette: have fun, make lots of friends. Larry: be good and take care of your sister!”

Across the street, the siblings stand alone. They wave as their father pulls his white service truck out from the far side of the house. Gripped in his teeth is a lit cigarette butt and his eye squints to keep the smoke out behind prescription glasses that he only uses to drive despite repeated requests from his doctor. He flashes his children a look that is half smile and half growl and waves as though he were Miss America being driven on the back of a red convertible in a parade. John makes the turn off of 59^th Place and speeds up considerably on Dynamite Road. As he passes, the sound of talk radio fills the air followed quickly by the scent of coffee and burning tobacco.

The children stand wordlessly and minutes later their mother can be seen locking the front door and getting into the white Cadillac in which they had ridden mere hours earlier. She pulls slowly to the corner and pauses to wave enthusiastically at her children who wave back somewhat apathetically. She turns in the opposite direction as her husband and the kids are alone. The children stand in a patch of desert by an old telephone pole and stare at their own home. The trees are manicured and the front yard has been filled with decorative red lava rock pebbles. The paint is white and fresh and in the backyard is a pool house complete with its own bathroom, changing room, shower, and media center. The water is cool and blue and the sod around the pool house is wet and green. Behind the backyard, in the final third of the property, sits an old barn which had previously been used to keep horses. Since then, the barn had been divided in two; one half has been converted to a shop room filled with exotic tools to fix a multitude of machines, the other half sat empty except for several rolls of roofing and a few buckets of tar to be one day laid on the flat roof of the pool house.

A long yellow bus with a jarringly loud engine comes to a stop in front of the telephone pole and the siblings, still tired from a long night and a busy morning, take their time to find separate, empty seats on the loud vehicle filled with loud children. The house is prominently located on the street and most of the kids on the bus know this home; they call it “The White House.” To the family that lived within its walls, however, the house became known as “The Ranch;” a throwback to a time when livestock lived in the barn and horses were a viable means of transportation.  The house is located prominently on a busy street in the small desert community and with a population just over 2,500 people most everyone recognized it. Many people use the house to tell when they were halfway between Tatum and Scottsdale Roads. The bus pulls away and Larry takes a final look to see his Rottweiler, Heidi jumping frantically in the backyard as if to give the children a full body wave goodbye.

Ten years have passed. Martha and Jezzette sit at the dining room table as Larry walks down the stairs. The smell of fresh bacon and eggs sit in the air but Jezzette has already cleaned the pan that was used during the cooking process. They casually converse over their breakfast as Larry pours himself a glass of orange juice.

“Hey honey, you want some breakfast?” Martha asked the man in the kitchen.

“No thanks, I’m running late,” Larry told his mother.

“What are you doing today,” Martha asked.

“I’ve gotta go to the ranch. I think there are some papers I need from before the Army.”

“Oh! In that case, take your father some half and half. We’re divorced and I’m still doing his shopping somehow,” Martha replied.

Jezzette spoke suddenly with a mouth full of ketchup and egg, “Be careful if you go over there, that place went to shit after you left.”

The car hits a bump and Larry knows he’s home. The white sedan’s engine shuts off and the door lackadaisically pops open. Larry takes a moment to survey the building in which he spent his formative years. The paint is peeling showing the tan color underneath that hasn’t been seen since there were cattle in the barn. The red lava rock is mostly gone and tree that once sat in the front yard has been blown over in some recent storm. The semicircular driveway has weeds that have sprouted from the cracks around each brick in the path creating a field of grass in which you could still play basketball.

The lock clicks and the door swings open. Crickets chirp loud and long and an unseen rabbit scurries out the doggy door making just enough of a fuss to startle Larry. He walks through the living room which is now filled with parts for every appliance from a garage door opener to a can opener. Larry walks along paths that have been cleared away just enough to allow passage to the other rooms on the ground floor. He makes his way to the kitchen and puts the small jug of half and half in the refrigerator. In the sink are over a dozen coffee mugs, some with coffee so old that it has formed a hard brown crust in the bottoms of each of the glasses.

Larry walks back through the maze of parts and old furniture and starts his trudge up the dark stairs. The house is dark except for the sunlight that creeps out from the cracks under the bedroom doors and only the sound of a television set can be heard from the master bedroom. Larry turns the knob and walks into the only room which appears to be inhabited. The bed is messy and piles of clothing are scattered around the room as though someone had been sorting them, though Larry can find no discernable order. The ashtray is teeming with butts and another half dozen coffee mugs are scattered throughout the room. The television is tuned to an infomercial with the volume uncomfortably high. Larry finds a note under the obnoxious man selling exercise equipment. It reads:

“Boy- put my half and half in the fridge and leave the TV on so people think someone’s home.”

            Larry exits the master bedroom, closes the door behind himself, and starts down the hall. The hardwood flooring is beginning to splinter and it has become so warped that the only sound Larry’s steps made was an eerie creaking. Larry pokes his head in the door where his sister used to sleep. The room is filled with clothing and shoes in big piles and against the wall is a stack of boxes marked, “Goodwill.”   

Larry returns to his old room to find that the walls are bare and white. The tiny thumb tack holes which used to litter the walls have been filled with some thick paint that was used to cover the matte blue walls that were once so ugly they needed to be covered by rock bands, movie posters, and lewd women. The room is empty except for a black filing cabinet. Larry opens the top drawer, removes the only remaining file from a cabinet which once held the birth certificates, medical records, speeding tickets, and bank statements for the entire family.

The huge door swings open and Larry steps into the hot summer air. He lights a cigarette and walks to the bus stop at which he stood every morning for almost five years of his life. Larry turns around to face the Ranch. A neighbor driving a white pickup truck nods his head as he turns onto Dynamite Road and Larry waves back somewhat apathetically. The trees that have survived are over grown. The pool house has dirty windows which make it hard to tell that the pool had been drained some time ago and the sod is dry and brown. Heidi had long ago died of a cancerous tumor which slowly took her ability to walk. The barn had been divided in two; one half has been converted to a shop room which now sat empty, most of the tools having been sold during the divorce to pay bills, the other half was filled with old broken air conditioners, water heaters, stoves, washing machines, several rolls of roofing, and a couple buckets of tar which were never used to fix the roof of the pool house.

The house is prominently located on the street and most of the kids Larry went to school with know this home; they call it “The White House.” To Larry and the rest of his family, however, the house became known as “The Ranch;” since now it was filled with the wildlife that used to surround it. The house is located prominently on a busy street in a growing desert community and with a population of almost 4,000 people Larry feels embarrassed that people know it’s his house. Larry takes a final look at the house to see his old window. Larry holds up his hand and waves softly to give his childhood a silent wave goodbye.