The Ridiculously Simple Survival Book Read online

  “What’s up, Bert? I see that this little apocalypse hasn’t interfered with your beer drinking any. You got another neighborly one those cans of suds for a friend?” Joe asked good naturedly, having a seat in a plastic lawn chair opposite the small roughly homemade wooden cocktail table Bert had decorated with cigarette burns over the years from his ‘partying on the porch’ as he called it.

  “What do you mean this hell on earth hasn’t curbed my beer enjoyment none? I got to drink these things hot and what’s worse this isn’t even my brand I am sipping on at the moment. Now then Joe, you been complaining about me sitting out here for years drinking in public and if I give you one then I got to hear you whine about the same thing so what’s the future in that?” Bert said with put on perturbed hesitation to hand him one before smiling and handing it over. Joe would complain he wasn’t setting a good example for the kids but also invariably sat down and told him the wife had sent him over and not to be playing his radio too loud or something and have one with him once he complied and turned it down.

  “Thanks Bert, I don’t care if it is hot or what brand it is, I want it! I haven’t drunk me a beer nor had myself a shot of whiskey in eight weeks and that is not because I had a choice in the matter or the good wife disagreed.” Joe said before trying to hide his involuntary grimace at his first taste of hot beer in he didn’t know how long as it hit his palate causing him to mumble something about it ‘takes some getting used to” gutturally before taking another less hefty swig to get his voice back.

  “Are you going out scavenging? What’s the empty sack for?” Bert asked lighting up a roll-your-own style cigarette he was reduced to smoking because of the price of them cancer sticks these days.

  “Yea, I kind of figured I would go scrounging around a bit today but I will be damned if I know where I might be able to find something to bring home. Either everything I can come up with to go look for around here has already been looted to hell and back or it isn’t a safe place to go around at all with all the yahoo vigilante groups around that want to play police their own way.” Joe said worriedly.

  “I got a proposition for you to consider, Joe, and although we have never been what I would call anything more than casual acquaintances, we have always been friendly enough with each other over the years. The way I see it is that we have seen and spoken to each other enough over the years to form and share opinions and my opinion is that we could work together maybe to try a new way to survive this mess we are in.” Bert said regarding the younger man.

  “I can work with you, Bert, uh that is if you don’t want to do anything too off the wall. What is it you have in mind, buddy, you are thinking you need help with? If it’s about that crazy man at the end of the road, count me out. Count me out right now! I have been avoiding getting anywhere near his place like the plague and have been going to the pond or Miss Finley’s up the road for water. I am telling you, I don’t want nothing to do with him at all and won’t change my mind.” Joe said referring to Mr. Jessup who owned the corner house with the swimming pool on the end of the cul-de-sac.

  This was where the neighborhood used to draw water from at the beginning of the disaster before the A-hole started demanding food or money trade for the precious liquid. All the natural fresh water was pretty much located further inland except for a couple of small ponds in the less developed areas, as far as Joe knew.

  It was bad enough that they lived inland from the beach on a coastal peninsula when the city water across the bridge had finally quit having water service, but to be denied access to any kind of freshwater nearby at all was tantamount to a death sentence.

  The neighbors had gathered together in protest when Jessup had first announced his pool water was no longer free for the taking for the community stranded here. The lots owners’ announcement came to everyone as quite a shock one day when he informed them that he now wanted something for it in trade if you wanted any kind of access to it. After him not budging an inch on that demand or him heeding the neighbor’s protests and begging to please be allowed access to his pool for drinking purposes, it was a revelation that caused more than one person to say they would have shot the man dead if they had owned a gun.

  That was the problem that was his control, no one else had a gun on this unprepared formerly liberally minded anti-gun street and the pool owner Jessup did. Well, that wasn’t entirely true: Bert owned a pistol, Joe knew. He carried an old .38 police service revolver that he kept tucked visibly in his waistband ever since the poo had hit the fan about 9 weeks ago.

  Joe already knew that Bert wouldn’t trade anything for it; he had tried. He had also asked about any other guns at all for trade he knew of from him a couple months ago. Joe had nothing weapon wise himself but a hammer and a butcher knife to defend himself and his family with. He looked kind of silly he thought with a carpenters hammer stuck through his belt but took satisfaction in having something and wore it religiously.

  Joe had never been a “gun person”; he hadn’t been raised around them and the few he had ever actually touched had belonged to someone’s grandfather when he was a kid who had scrupulously watched him at the bequest of a friend to allow him the honor of seeing and holding a firearm.

  It continued to get his goat that his own kids were not allowed to have any toy guns by their mom and that he had to tolerate the batty old woman that lived next to them who was constantly peeking out her window and pointing a toy gun at him threateningly. Of course, the first time she had pointed that pistol at him he didn’t know it wasn’t real! What an unexpected surprise that encounter was!

  He had liked to have crapped his pants then but she had explained to him later in a calmer more rational moment that that was her security system. Hear a noise, peek out the window carrying that real looking plastic gun. Well, he had to admit that was probably a better deterrent than he had himself without one. After she had told him that bit of peculiar wisdom, he had wondered what he would do if someone ever peeked in his window or something. Shake his hammer at them? He thought not. That would just tell what kind of character that was nosing about that this formerly flabby man hadn’t anything else to defend his home with.

  Wave a kitchen knife around and act crazy is all he had come up with and that hadn’t done a hell of a lot of good when he spied two teenagers trying to lure a cat into a sack awhile back. They had just waved their knives back at him and acted crazier than he was and it was at that moment he had found himself running back in mortal fear to the safety of his house.

  His wife was a bit whacky and paranoid about guns which didn’t improve his chances of ever being invited to anybody’s house in the past that was an outdoorsman or sportsman. Especially of they were the type to mount a fish or deer head on the wall. He had his accounting department buddy types to hang out with that were just flat out of their element and interest zone when it came to most things outdoorsy. A calamity to them would be an air conditioner not working properly, nothing like this grid down situation they all found themselves in now.

  They were the type of people that came to the beach to say they lived at the beach but you never saw them out doing anything beachy except maybe riding a golf cart on a manicured golf course in winter if required by a rich client.

  “Joe, right now you need my old sorry butt and I need you. Now you might think you don’t need an old man like me but you would be wrong. Dead wrong in that way of thinking and I will explain to you what I mean here in a minute. You are probably thinking that I would be more of a hindrance than a help to you but hear me out, son. Boy, you don’t know dog doo doo about surviving grid down and I do. I am not talking about what’s in those little books some authors write on the subject of volunteering to help out a neighbor after a flood or something; I am talking about brutal tooth and claw survival in the streets. I am too old to get out and do for myself and you’re too dumb to live long by yourself foraging in this concrete jungle, if you don’t mind me saying the truth so bluntly. I want you to take me with y
ou to look for food and I can protect you or if you don’t like that idea leave me here to guard your family and carry me something back to eat. Your choice!” Bert said with a little knowing smirk on his face waiting for the spluttering objections that he knew would be forthcoming.

  “I can’t take you with me for obvious reasons, you’re slow as molasses and as for you hanging out with my family, and I don’t think that would be such a good idea, Bert. No offense but all you do is sit around and guzzle beer, you have probably been doing it longer sitting in that same place than my youngest kid has been alive.” Joe replied with his own dig against the defensive capability remark the old man had said.

  “That might be true but me sitting around here all day gives me time to think and you, my sissified friend, aren’t thinking clearly. You might not think much of me but I think I am the only slim chance you got to survive this apocalypse. I don’t want to prove it to you but I bet this old man could probably whip your butt in a bar fight!” Bert said reaching for another can of suds.

  “You don’t want to try that. Well, besides having a pistol, what else do you have to offer? Does that thing even shoot? Can you even see the sights?” Joe said eying the old .38 special antiquated looking Police model revolver and its holster now sitting next to Bert and wondering if that old man’s steely stare meant he might take a swing at him for his insults. Bert didn’t seem the kind to be trifled with very much.

  “It shoots better than you want to know, boy. That’s the thing, Joe, here you are worried about me being some kind of bad influence on your family and you are going off leaving them with no protection at all. To my mind that kind of thinking makes you more of an embarrassment to be around than me lounging on your front porch drinking a beer with a .38 pistol in my waistband! You ain’t even thought about checking on any of the old people around here. Now before you get all high and mighty saying you had to look out for your family first, let me tell you every one of your family members could have maybe helped or took the time to consider one of the old retirees around here and try to help them out just a little bit.” Bert said huffily with a slight growl in Joe’s direction that he wasn’t thinking about being belittled for his age or his fists today.

  Joe eyed the man for a moment; both mad at himself and mad at Bert for berating him. “We haven’t had any raiders around here; Mary and the kids will be all right for a while.” Joe said hesitantly considering the old man’s proposition in a new light.

  “Maybe so, Joe, more than likely maybe not. What happens to them if you go get your butt shot or stabbed where you’re going? Where is it that you are thinking about going to anyway? Seems to me you are not cut out for not getting caught pilfering or looting. I saw you hauling ass home with your tail tucked between your legs the other day, by the way. What in the world was that all about, anyway? Who was after you?” Bert asked regarding him curiously with a bit of evident disdain.

  “That was the end of the close call I had over by the apartments you saw, I guess. I got chased by some tough guys wanting my stuff. I had a pillow case with nothing in it at all but some toilet paper and a couple other small things in it and I guess they thought it was food and wanted some and maybe my head it seemed.” Joe said with a shiver remembering that he had run like he never had run before in his life and had just dropped the pillowcase and hauled boogie when confronted.

  “So, Joe, are you somehow thinking that you are now ready to face them and going to try your luck to fight them off if you happen to bump into them again? Is that why you got that kitchen knife stuck in that crappy makeshift sheath you got on your belt? Like I said, you’re a greenhorn and you’re going to die needlessly unless you smarten up some. At least, your cherry butt needs to think about getting yourself a long sharp stick and making yourself a spear. Pretend you’re a badger or something else mean, at least act like you are something to be scared of! Use a big stick as a walking staff and act like you’re not scared to use it effectively. A spear if you haven’t thought about it yet will beat a knife anytime. Keep folks away from you with its length, jab at them to make an attacker think twice about attacking you! Hell, threaten, cuss, act crazy like you will throw a brick at someone and they will think twice about coming at you. The idea is to get away to fight another day if you can and folks will look around for easier prey. Avoid folks and if you have to, make them keep their distance away from you anyway you can, including throwing a brick at their knee or head to end a fight quicker if you can.” Bert replied.

  “What is it you want for offering to keep an eye on my family? We don’t have any food to share with you as you probably already know.” Joe said willing to listen to him further now.

  “How do I know what you got and what you don’t have? You have so far pretty much stayed holed up in that house except for gathering some firewood and going out for water once in a while. You must have something over there to eat or you wouldn’t have lasted this long but don’t worry, I don’t want any food from your house. I may want a share of whatever it is you are thinking about going after, though, that is if we can get into agreement on some things. Seems to me if you ain’t got nothing to guard at home other than the safety and wellbeing of your family, I should come along with you to be sure you come back with something other than cuts and bruises if you make it back at all.” Bert said as he stood up from his lawn chair and shoved the pistol and its holster back inside his waistband.

  “Bert, I don’t have anywhere particular place in mind to search for supplies at. You got any ideas? I was hoping to maybe find someone fishing or scavenge what’s left of a store, maybe.” Joe said miserably not knowing what it was he was going to do but willing to try most anything.

  “Are you thinking of taking your car with you or are you walking today? Your car does work, doesn’t it, Joe?” Bert asked thinking that it was an odd thing about cars these days, some worked, some didn’t after the computer system got hacked and of course you were stuck with having only what you had left in your gas tank the day the power went off.

  “I was going to walk around the neighborhood some and then park the car and explore. Moving cars draw attention, as you know.” Joe said still uncomfortable about dealing with Bert but glad that he had someone to talk to about the daily struggles of getting by these days.

  “We have got us some advantages around here thankfully with us being a vacation and retirement spot in that pretty much anybody that could or wanted to have already left from here and moved inland or gone home to whatever state they came from, but there are still plenty of locals about. You might know that anything even closely associated with food has already been picked clean but we might be able to possibly, with a bit of thought, find something. You ain’t fooling me none, boy, I know you are thinking about going out and breaking and entering or robbing someone. Now that we got that fact out in the open, tell me where is it that you’re thinking about going thieving at?” Bert said like it was the most natural thing in the world to be considering talking about.

  “Now Bert, what’s wrong with you, man? I ain’t going out to be robbing anybody! Now I might have been thinking of breaking into a house if it looked empty but I am not trying to hurt or take anything away from nobody! Jeeez, Bert! What kind of a man do you think I am? Is that what you yourself have been doing? I bet it has! You have probably been going around pulling that antique pistol of yours and robbing folks!” Joe said hotly but soon mentally flinching at the look he got back from a man with the gun he had just hollered at.

  “See, Joe, I told you that you don’t know your butt from a hole in the ground! I am going to forget that you said I was a robber and clue you in on just how it is that I am actually getting by before you get yourself killed breaking in on somebody. I don’t want to end up having to look out for your family all by myself and if you had been more of a community member than a danged old hermit you would know most everybody on this cul-de-sac is dead, has moved on, never came home or is barely getting by and living in fear of that crazy
bastard with the pool on the end. I tell you what; I don’t think that he is long for this world, by the way. I saw him the other day and he was looking sickly, sort of like death warmed over. Now as for me, you are right, I have been getting supplies from those houses up and down the block. Some of it was willed to me you might say for doing little favors for folks. Some of my pilfering I split with them because they told me a neighbor wasn’t home and I broke in for us, sort of mutual aid you could call it. Thing is right now I don’t have a whole lot of food left. But I think I have in mind a pretty good means for us to maybe get some more.” Bert said as he started nervously pacing about like he wasn’t sure how to approach the subject.

  “I talk to people, Bert, I am not a hermit! I just don’t go out of my way to do it very often. To be honest with you, I feel sorry about me not being able to help anybody and it hurts me too much to listen to them begging for food. Plus, Bert, you and I knew day one when the government finally admitted that help wasn’t forth coming who was the most likely to be dying soon around here.” Joe said feeling troubled about his being so reclusive but still thinking that he had done the right thing by keeping his family gathered and shutting their doors and keeping them locked.

  “Well, Joe, I guess it’s not for me to say what’s right or wrong with your own conscience or situation. I am sorry if I hurt your feelings but I have got my own hard feelings against you for not pitching in and trying to help the other neighbors more. I have had to dig outdoor privies for those too feeble to do it for themselves. Drag dead bodies out of houses, hold dying hands, fetch water, attempt to talk folks out of suicide, be threatened and now put up with your worrying about letting an old man who you think likes his beer a bit too much in your house to protect his family! You’re a piece of work, Joe, let me tell you.” Bert said huffily before resuming his aimless wandering around the carport and seemed to building up to something more than he wanted to say.