Desperate Times (15 page)

“What?” Jimmy asked.

Ken hunkered down next to Jimmy and sipped at
his beer. His face was smudged with dirt and his checkered shirt
was soiled. “She told me that I didn’t have the right to build a
wall. That it spoiled her view of the lake. Can you believe
it?”

“Crazy,” Jimmy said.

“Damn right. I told her as much. She doesn’t
believe we need a wall. She thinks that this will all be over in a
week or so and then she pretty much told me that I’m going to look
like an idiot when this is over. I don’t know; do you think we’re
going too far with this?”

“No, no I don’t. Maybe if they’d been at the
rest area with us, they’d think differently.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I just needed someone to
remind me.”

“Did she say anything about how things are
out there?” Jimmy asked. “I counted at least twenty cars that
headed into her place today. Someone has to know something.”

Ken took another swig of beer. “She did.
Sally says that things are pretty bad in the cities. Everything’s
closed. There’s been rioting and looting. She didn’t say where. She
was just over to complain about the wall. She even brought along a
few big boys to make her point.”

“What’d they say?”

“Not much, they just stood around looking
stupid. I had Glen posted down by the road with his Mossberg. I
told them about last night and asked them if they wanted to see the
graves. They didn’t. That seemed to shut her up, at least for now.
I also told her that we’re going to keep an armed man down there,
twenty-four hours a day until we know it’s safe.”

Jimmy nodded. He knew they were doing the
right thing. Even with his sore muscles and aching back, he could
hardly wait for morning so they could get started again. He slugged
down the rest of his beer and crushed the can. The beer had revived
him and he stood up. “I’m headed down to the lake to get cleaned
up. You look like you should do the same thing.”

“I would,” said Ken, who stood and stretched.
“But I’ve got a shower and I aim to use it.”

Jimmy cocked his fists back and threw an
exaggerated left hook in Ken’s direction. “Enjoy it.”

“I will,” said Ken with a laugh. “You bet I
will.”

Jimmy ate alone. He arrived last in line
after everyone had fixed their plates. He felt much better after
braving the cold water with a bar of soap and bottle of shampoo. He
changed into fresh jeans and carefully pulled on a clean shirt.
There was a little fresh blood on his bandage, but that was to be
expected. He had worked hard today and he knew the healing process
would be slow.

He took a seat at the empty table on the deck
at the front of the house. He picked at his food and ate slowly as
he admired the humble beginnings of Ken’s wall. He wanted to be
alone and had chosen this spot so he could do just that. He had
seen Bill eating alone in the back. He didn’t know what Bill had
done with himself all afternoon and discovered that he didn’t
really care.

Cindy had been sitting at a table with Rita
and two other girls roughly the same age as Cindy. The four of them
laughed as they ate and seemed to be getting along like old
friends. It was good to see her laugh and Jimmy thanked God for
Rita Lopez. Cindy had taken her parent’s divorce hard. The fact
that she’d continued to remain on the Honor Roll at school was a
small miracle in itself.

Julie was sitting with Brenda and a group of
young men at a picnic table at the far end of the back yard. The
women sat with their backs to him and Jimmy had fixed his plate
quickly, hoping to be out of there before she noticed him. The plan
seemed to have worked.

Jimmy wondered about Paula, but he had to
fight to keep Julie from invading those thoughts. Every time he
thought about Paula and how she was, Julie’s face would appear in
his mind. In fact, he’d thought of little else as he’d worked and
it’d bothered him. He wanted to be mad at Julie but had no reason
to be. She had done nothing more than be friendly to him and they
did have a history together. She had been there when his parents
had died in the accident. She had helped him pick up the pieces of
his shattered life. They’d continued dating for a few years after
that. But time and circumstance had allowed them to drift apart.
She’d called him one day all those years ago, some two weeks after
they’d last spoken. She asked him if he minded if she dated someone
else. He had told her that he didn’t. He had minded, but deep
inside he knew he was incapable of continuing on with a
relationship. He had loved her enough to let her go.

Jimmy wished that Paula had invited him to
stay with her parents. That pill was getting harder to swallow by
the minute. He wondered why that was. He knew her parents didn’t
care for him, simply because they didn’t approve of his station in
life. Still, if Paula had loved him, wouldn’t she have insisted
that he come along? He had asked her to come along to Ken’s place;
he’d practically begged her to join them. Couldn’t she have done
the same? She hadn’t even had the decency to pick up the telephone
and call him to inform him of her decision. If he hadn’t called and
harassed Carl, he wouldn’t even know where she was right now. That
stung.

And, as if by magic, here was Julie: pregnant
Julie. That was another twist. Pregnant or not, she was a beautiful
woman and absolutely alone in the world. Jimmy shook his head.
There she was again, creeping back into his thoughts. He was
powerless to stop her from doing that. Looking back, he’d wondered
why he’d let her go. They might be married by now, perhaps even
have a family of their own. He knew that he’d loved her; the timing
had just been all wrong. He had been really messed up by the
accident and remained that way for a long time.

Jimmy chewed his food slowly and stared down
at the calm water of the lake. From Sally’s, he could hear music
and the cheers of what must be a volleyball game in progress.
Despite of everything that had happened, they seemed to be having a
great time. The thought made him think of the old fable about the
three little pigs.

He would think of that fable more often as
the days passed.

Executive Order 10997: All electrical powers,
fuels, and minerals will become property of the federal
government.

That night Jimmy would sleep in his own tent.
He set it up on the other side of Bill’s, staking out a nice flat
spot underneath the protective limbs of an elm. He worked alone and
made several trips down to the Mack before he was satisfied. His
dome tent was tall enough to stand in and Jimmy hung his Coleman
lantern in its usual spot at the peak. He inflated his air
mattress, unrolled his sleeping bag and tossed his pillow at the
head of the bed. He stowed his two duffel bags of clothes in the
far corner away from the door and unfolded a small table and placed
his portable CD player on top of that. He chose some Pink Floyd and
played it softly while he unpacked his gear.

It was after eight when he finished. He
walked over and joined a large group at the fire pit. They sat in a
circle exchanging stories and roasting marshmallows over a roaring
fire as the sun began to sink behind the trees. Julie dragged a
chair next to his and the two of them chatted about things of
little importance until the sky was nearly dark. Jimmy was dog
tired; he yawned and excused himself from the dwindling group.

He walked to his tent and turned. There was
Julie, following along.

“Hey,” she said, giving Jimmy a seductive
smile. “No kiss goodnight?”

Jimmy looked over her shoulder and noticed
that half of the group was staring at them from out of the
firelight. He shook his head and smiled. “Julie…” he said.

“Stop, okay?” she said in a voice just above
a whisper. “Don’t worry about it. I understand. I’m just going to
say this. I’m yours if you want me. I can wait. I still love you,
Jimmy. I know it’s been a long time and that you probably don’t
want to hear that. But it’s the truth. Just think about it… That’s
not too much to ask, is it? Now, get some sleep and I’ll see you in
the morning,” Julie gave him her best smile before turning and
slowly walking away.

Jimmy watched her walk back to the fire.
There was something seductive in the way she moved and he couldn’t
take his eyes off her. He wanted to have a reason to be angry with
her. It’d make things much simpler. She was following him around
like a puppy dog and everyone had noticed. Still, the two of them
were alone and Jimmy knew she must be frightened. The worst part of
it was that he found himself looking for her when she wasn’t
around. He had actually thought about kissing her just then. It was
almost as if the years hadn’t passed and the two had been
transported back into time. He was starting to see all of those
special little qualities that had drawn him to her in the first
place. She was hard not to look at and he’d even felt a little stab
of jealousy when he’d seen other men admiring her. Jimmy tried to
push those thoughts aside; but it was her face, not Paula’s, that
he pictured in his mind just before he fell asleep.

The next day passed quickly; work on the wall
continued at a back-breaking pace. The weather was nearly a repeat
of the days before. Patty served sandwiches and lemonade for lunch
after Ken had given a short speech. Today’s topic had been
separating burnable items from the trash. Many of the group stared
longingly at the campers over at the Birkland Place. The party
never seemed to stop. They filled their pleasure boats with coolers
of beer and spent the day on the water. They played softball,
horseshoes, bocce ball, and volleyball. Many of Ken’s people seemed
most jealous of those who merely sat in the shade with a paperback.
Sally’s group outnumbered their own by at least four or five
times.

No more cars had rolled into Sally’s
revitalized resort since yesterday afternoon. This caused much
speculation about conditions on the outside. Cell phones were as
dead as they had been on the first day, yet everyone seemed to keep
checking their own as if they’d suddenly find a rogue signal. The
phone in the house wasn’t working either; Jimmy checked it nearly
every time he entered the kitchen.

And the work continued. The teams still had
their moments of levity and their progress was inspiring if nothing
else. By the time Ken halted work for the day, the budding wall was
nearly half completed. And while it was no work of art, it was
sturdy and functional.

Jimmy’s muscles burned and he wanted nothing
more than to get cleaned up, have a bite to eat and fall into bed.
He changed into his swim trunks, grabbed his towel and walked down
to the lake. He waded in and scrubbed the pine sap and sweat from
his aching limbs. He washed his hair and towel dried. He hadn’t
seen Julie since lunch when she’d complained that she hadn’t been
feeling well. Bill went about being himself. Jimmy could see that
he wasn’t fitting in and that by excluding himself from the heavy
work; Bill had also excluded himself from the social circle.

Dinner that evening was spaghetti and garlic
bread. Jimmy got in line and shuffled into the hot kitchen. Patty
was there and she looked tired. She dished him up a big plate and
looked over his shoulder as if he’d forgotten to bring someone
along. Jimmy smiled and shook his head. He was glad Julie wasn’t
with him; he just wanted to eat and relax. Jimmy followed the line
out through the front of the house and onto the deck. He walked
down to the wall and took a seat on the tailgate of a pickup truck
and began to eat. Patty had made a good sauce and Jimmy found that
he was quite hungry. He ate his spaghetti alone and munched on the
garlic toast, finishing his dinner until his plate was clean. He
then lit up a cigarette and smoked it slowly.

Jimmy wondered what was going on in the
outside world. He was mad at the people whose greed had caused the
current crisis. He was furious that the government had failed to
recognize what was happening and had stood idly by without trying
to stop it. He also felt helpless to do anything about it; that
sense of helplessness made him all the more angry that Paula had
abandoned him.

A breeze had kicked up out of the west and
the temperature suddenly began to drop. Dark clouds were beginning
to appear and thunder clapped in the distance. They were going to
get a storm and it would be upon them soon. Tired as they were,
everyone began to ready their campsites for the approaching squall.
Jimmy quickly gathered tools and put them in the single-stall
tuck-under garage.

Ken ushered everyone into the basement. There
was barely enough room as the old furnace occupied much of the
space, arms of ancient ductwork reached out like tentacles up to
the ceiling. Outside the sky had grown dark and thunder boomed
overhead. Jimmy jogged inside the garage with the last of the tools
just as the first raindrops began to fall. He couldn’t believe how
fast the storm had fallen upon them. He stood next to Ken and they
watched as the sky opened up and the wind rocked the trees. The
garage had filled up with the curious; they took turns at the open
door and stared out into the black clouds.

“There are still boats out there,” Ken
growled, pointing toward the lake.

Jimmy could see that the lake had become an
angry mass of whitecaps. The fishing boats tied at the dock were
rolling and crashing with the waves. Farther out across that
boiling water were at least two boats attempting to make it back to
shore. “They would’ve been better off riding it out from the other
side of the lake,” Jimmy said.