Reboot

It was getting a bit colder I thought; the sky was overcast more often, though it was still quite bright, as if the clouds themselves were a source of pale light, like looking at cold snow on a bright day. So we covered up, put on warmer clothes and we were ok. As long as it didn’t get worse, we’d be fine.

Richard Dickie was a teenager who came in with the Dugar family. They’d taken him along out of Hawaii because he was hanging out near their boat and saved his life.

The Hawaiian Islands were one of the first targets obviously. But the Dugars were at the right place at the right time and quick to leave, they’d grabbed Richard because he was there and sped off in time in their fishing yacht. They’d decided to head west instead of the mainland because they’d figured the U.S. would be destroyed.

He was fourteen years old and very active. Tall for his age, lanky, droopy, but a happy kid. His body looped like the letter “C” ending at a mop of greasy straight black hair that hid his face. He liked to wear dark clothing, studs, nose ring. Pale boy. He didn’t get sunburns funny enough. At first, I’d supposed he might have liked heavy metal music. I was wrong. He liked jazz. He was a musician and shit out of luck. What does a sax player do without a sax? I hoped he’d learn the guitar because we had a couple of those.

He loved to climb and swim and run around like any teen, but he was clumsy. On one of his adventures, he fell out of a nice tall ebony tree, landed as awkwardly as possible, going out of his way to hit every branch on the way down like a bad joke and broke his leg, his thigh bone. The bone was sticking out through the skin; a compound fracture. We had no nurses or doctors. No one had any experience with this kind of thing, so we did what they do in the movies. We started by getting him drunk. It’s what they did before anesthetics, right? Doesn’t work very well though.

“What have we got?” I asked Bob.

“Vodka and fruit juices.” He looked at me questioningly, as if I knew more about this stuff.

“Ok, but light on the juice. We need him relatively empty. Don’t want him to throw up. We have plenty of aspirin left don’t we?”

“Nope. Ran out last week when Evelyne had a tooth ache.”

I gave a premixed bottle to Richard and he started drinking it very quickly. I had to slow him down. He was pale and panicky. Eyes wide open in fear. I didn’t want to kill him so I stopped pouring after about 30% of the bottle was gone. Just enough so that he started flirting with the girls around him.

His friends and, well, just about everybody was watching us of course. Mable was telling the children to go somewhere else, but I intervened.

“Mable, they should see this I think.”

“Why, Robert, for God’s sakes? They don’t have to see this. They’re just kids!”

“Well, to learn how to fix a broken limb for one, since we don’t have doctors. And to learn to be more careful, don’t you think?” I was careful to use the word “learn”, twice, to get Mable to agree with me, which she eventually did.

“OK, he’s good and zonked. Bob, Mack, please hold him and I’ll pull on the leg to set the bone,” I said. “Put a stick in his mouth.”

“Ok.”

Everyone agreed that it was the thing to do. Mable had a bunch of kids around her looking terrified.

In the movies, it seemed pretty easy. In real life, it sucks. When a bone breaks, the muscles and tendons around it tighten up and compress. That’s why you have to pull on the leg to get the bone back in its original place. But then if you don’t splint it correctly, it can pop back out again as the muscles exert pressure. So it’s not as easy as you might think and we found that out the hard way. Luckily, when the bone popped back in its crooked state, Richard fainted. It was easier after that. I could pull harder.

The second time around, we got the splint ready before we pulled on the leg and quickly put it into place nice and tight. But was the bone set correctly or a bit off? How can you possibly know this? We poured a lot of vodka on the wound and Mable sewed the wound shut.

We lifted him up and put him to bed.

When he woke up, which was too soon, he was in a lot of pain. He took it pretty well, considering. He didn’t scream.

The upside was that after that, we didn’t have to tell the other kids to be careful.

Mable came to see me afterwards, gave me a hug and said she was proud of me. That was great. Thanks Mable. She gave magnificent hugs. Wrapped you up completely. Your head disappeared completely between her gigantic breasts. Every conceivable gap is filled with her. When she stopped and walked off, I felt numb and oddly relaxed.

____________

By the time we had finished the Hall, there were over a hundred and fifty inhabitants on Tetepare. Germans, Chinese, Japanese, Swedes, French, Americans, Australians and New Zealanders, Filipinos, islanders from the neighborhood and Canadians. We all spoke English, except for Maja, but she was learning.

It was time we had our first “official” general meeting. People looked naturally to Bob Jameson for counsel. He had a calm demeanor, non-threatening, and people gravitated toward him because of his fluffy paternal qualities so he naturally opened the meeting. He ambled up the step to the dais that we’d put in front and then he held out his hands for quiet. I was standing next to him, lower, on the floor.

“Hello!” In that deep voice and he smiled. And that was it; he had them. They clapped and cheered. They cheered louder and louder. Hands rising high up in the air as the noise amplified. I think the sound of the cheers made them happy and they didn’t want it to end. It was the first time and it felt good.

“I’d like to start by saying that, well, welcome to yer all.” They laughed. He looked a bit uncomfortable and nervous.

“The first thing we’d..” He looked at me to show everyone who the “we” was. Though everyone knew that already so the natural response was another group smile. “We’d like to talk about is our plans for different projects that we have in mind. We want your advice and opinions of course, so if you have any, come see us after.. um. I think Robert here will do a better job at this than I will, so, you all know him, Robert?” He looked at me pleadingly. I smiled and took his place. Everyone erupted in cheers. Surprised the heck out of me. I actually took a step back. Bob, clapped my leg a couple of times.

“Thanks. Thank you. Wow.” My turn to be uncomfortable.

“Ok, the first thing that we intend to build is a farm. Basically, green walls.” I made a drawing on the blackboard. The chalk squeaked and a child said ‘Ack’. I continued, “we’ll need your help and more importantly, your seeds if you have any. We need all of them. OK? Don’t worry, we’ll take good care of them and they will multiply.” I smiled and continued… “Since we might be here awhile, we should think long term and that means food production. Ok. Next, I’d like us all to acknowledge this fantastic Hall. We all worked hard on this thing, together as a group. It’s our first project and I think we did a great job.”

Here they all clapped and cheered again.

“Some of you have already begun building your own shelters. That’s wonderful. For those of you still sleeping in your boats, nothing wrong with that. You can join us over here whenever you want. Next, we think we should be careful with the pig population. There’s plenty of food here, but the pigs are limited. We’ll have to corral them and keep up their numbers. We think” - I looked at Bob to show who “we” was; everyone laughed-” that we can slaughter one pig every couple of months, but no more. Everybody ok with that?”

No one argued against it.

“Ok, that’s our first rule ladies and gentlemen, so rule #1: Careful with the pigs.” I smiled and clapped my hands. People joined in happily.

“I’d like to introduce you to Mr. um.. well, just Mack really, who will discuss how to build small huts in this type of terrain. He’s actually a pretty nice guy. It’s not true what they say about him. He’s available anytime if people need help. George?” He squinted at me because he didn’t like to be called George.

After Mack gave his talk, complete with drawings and puppets, we ended the meeting with a dinner.

Stan took out his guitar and played very well. People danced. People drank.

A lot.

Richard hopped around on his good leg. After three days, the pain had gone down to an acceptable level and now after ten days he was fine with crutches. There was no infection and he was happy. He started hanging around with Stan because of the guitar. I was hoping he wouldn’t have a limp for the rest of his days. We’d know soon enough. He practiced with Stan as often as he could and when they played for us, he impressed me. Easy chords, but clean. Very good for such a short apprenticeship I thought.

Oliver had really outdone himself and put together a wonderful buffet with the help of a few volunteers. There was grouper, lobster, an octopus, a couple of turtles, crabs, snapper, flounder, sole, even an eel or two. Apparently, we could eat kelp. So that was new for most of us. Oliver tested different ways of preparing it.

Others had caught us a few birds.

I tried snake for the first time. Tastes like chicken. I asked Oliver if it was poisonous. He said yes and walked off.

People would come sit with me for a bit before moving on. We’d talk about past, present and future, safety, going back home, staying here. I felt like a camp counselor.

People needed to let loose a little bit. But it was a solemn party, more passing out than climbing trees, and more tears than laughter. We sang softly around the campfire.

There were the obvious discussion topics:

“We mustn’t forget that there is a war on. We may have to defend ourselves.”

“Why would they come here?”

“Same reason we chose this place.”

“Who started the war?”

“We heard Iran used a virus in the U.S.”

“I heard it was North Korea.”

“Israel”…

“Where do you think it’s safe to be?”

“Winds are westerly back home…Oregon is where I’d go.”

“South. I’d head south.”

“Yeah. Mexico.”

“North, north…Canada.”

“How could God allow this?”

“This pretty much proves that there is no God.”

“Why? What about Noah? God has experience in destroying the world.” That one was snarky. Must’ve been Mack.

“But this is the work of just a few people. How could God only represent a few people?”

“He has a temper, maybe.”

We discussed defense. Some of us had guns. We made a list:

3 spear guns,

1 shotgun,

2 bows and arrows, 1 crossbow,

Quite a few hunting knives,

4 rifles, 4 handguns, 3 sling shots.

A few dozen bullets

A bunch of flare guns

It wasn’t much. Especially if we had to defend our new home against determined

invaders. It would have to do for now.

But it was a problem that was a constant concern for me.