Fallout (10 page)

“Mr. Porter?” Janet says from the bunk where she's sitting next to Mom. “She needs to be turned or she'll get bedsores.”

“Now?” Dad asks.

“The sooner the better, sir.”

One of Mr. McGovern's eyebrows dips. “And you know this because?”

“I was studying to be a nurse, sir.”

“You? Where?” Mr. McGovern sounds a little mean.

“Long Island College Hospital of Nursing, sir.”

“Never heard of it,” Mr. McGovern says dismissively.

For a moment, everyone goes still. I wish I could ask Mr. McGovern why he said that. Then the moment passes, and Dad helps Janet turn Mom onto her side.

That's when we all smell it.

As if the mildew and pee odors aren't bad enough, now there's this. I feel embarrassed for Mom and try not to watch while Dad and Janet remove her soiled clothes and the sheet she was lying on. It all goes into the big refuse can. Dad relents about using water for something other than drinking. For a sponge and towels, Janet tears off the bottom part of her robe. After the rags are used, they also go into the can.

When they're finished, Mom is lying on her side with her bare bottom and legs exposed. Dad takes the sheet from the upper bunk and tears it in half. He and Janet tuck it around Mom, who is as still and quiet as before.

My stomach growls, but I know we need to ration the food, so I keep quiet. Ronnie, me, and Sparky, who's now wearing a little loincloth Janet made for him, have played about a thousand games of checkers. Dad comes over and suggests we switch to Parcheesi. He makes the slightest gesture with his head toward Paula, so I say, “Want to play, Paula?”

With his back to her so she can't see, Dad smiles and nods.

We four kids play Parcheesi, but all I think about is food. Since it's impossible to tell whether it's day or night, people climb into the bunks when they're tired, but now it's more like we take long naps rather than sleep for one extended period. Mr. McGovern snores. Sparky grinds his teeth. Mrs. Shaw talks in her sleep. Once she said, “Ronnie, stop that right now!” and another time it was, “I hate this.”

But no one sleeps for long; hunger keeps waking us.

“Is it time to eat, Herr Kapitän?” Mr. McGovern asks.

Sparky looks up curiously. “What's that mean, Dad?”

“He's making a joke,” Dad says.

“Well?” Mr. McGovern doesn't sound like he's making a joke.

Dad points at the remaining cans on the shelf. “I only stored enough food for four. Now we're ten. At this rate, we'll use it all up by the end of the first week.”

“And you're the one who decides when we eat?” asks Mr. McGovern.

“It's my family's food,” Dad points out.

“Maybe it was . . . before what happened,” Mr. McGovern says. “But now that we're all in this together, shouldn't it belong to all of us?”

Dad and Mr. McGovern face each other.

“You know,” Dad grumbles, “none of us would be alive right now if it wasn't for me. Did it ever occur to you to utter two very simple words like ‘thank you'?”

Paula's dad glares. “Thank you, Richard. However, don't forget that if you'd had your way, the rest of us would be dead.”

Dad narrows his eyes. “Yes, I tried to keep people out, but only to protect my family. It was horrible and something that's going to haunt me for a long time. But how was I supposed to know how many people were up there? What was I supposed to do? Let everyone in? How'd you like it if there were twenty people in here right now? Or thirty? You might as well be up there.”

“I think I'd rather die than know I was responsible for the deaths of others,” Mrs. Shaw says.

I've never seen Dad argue or fight with our neighbors before. Except for the disagreements my parents sometimes had, I'm not sure I ever saw grown-ups get cross with one another before.

Now Dad turns to Mr. Shaw. “You want to tell her or should I?”

Mr. Shaw gazes up at the ceiling and lets out a long breath. “Steph, after I got you and Ronnie down here, I . . . ” He trails off and lowers his head.

“He helped me keep the others out,” Dad finishes for him. “I couldn't have done it without him.”

Once he'd gone around the room with a yardstick and knocked the pencils out of the ceiling, Mr. Kasman made all the boys stay in for lunch detention.

“What was the point of that?” he asked us.

No one answered.

“Ronnie?” By now Mr. Kasman had figured out who the likely ringleader was.

“It was interesting,” Ronnie said.

“How?”

“Just to see if you could do it.”

“It appears that most of you figured out you could do it.”

“But then we had to figure out if we could keep doing it.” Ronnie grinned.

“Was it worth missing recess?”

No one answered.

“Scott?”

I answered honestly. “Well, uh, just this once, yeah.”

A couple of guys chuckled. Even Mr. Kasman smirked as if, deep down inside, he understood. Maybe it was good that we had a man teacher, because I had a feeling a woman teacher would never understand. “Okay, but this is the last time, right?”

“Does that mean we can go outside?” asked Ronnie.

“No, it means you'll stay here today, and if it ever happens again, you'll get a week of lunch detentions.”

“So we just have to sit here?” asked Freak O' Nature. We'd never had lunch detention before.

“We can talk,” said Mr. Kasman. That was strange. Most teachers didn't want to talk to us. They just wanted us to do our work and be quiet. Maybe Mr. Kasman was too new to know that yet.

Ronnie whispered something to Puddin' Belly, who raised his hand. “Are you a beatnik, Mr. Kasman?”

“What's a beatnik?” Mr. Kasman asked.

“They live in Greenwich Village and listen to jazz,” said Eric Flom.

Dickie Keller raised his hand. “They play bongos and read poetry.”

“And snap their fingers and say ‘Cool, man, cool,'” said Freak O' Nature.

“How many of your parents listen to jazz?” Mr. Kasman asked.

A few hands went up around the room.

“Are they beatniks?” our teacher asked.

The kids who'd raised their hands shook their heads.

“Who knows what the word
stereotype
means?”

Silence. If Paula had been there, she probably would have known, but it was only us guys.

Mr. Kasman opened the dictionary. “To stereotype means ‘to characterize someone, usually in a negative or unfair way. To make a generalization about them.' So saying that all beatniks listen to jazz and read poetry would be a generalization, but not necessarily in a negative way. But saying that all Russians are evil would be stereotyping them in a pejorative way.” Gazing out at a small sea of blank faces he added, “
Pejorative
means negative or unfair.”

“But the Russians
are
evil,” said Ronnie.

“Dirty Commies,” Freak O' Nature said in a low tough-guy voice.

“Why are they dirty?” Mr. Kasman asked.

“They don't believe in God,” said Eric Flom. “And the Russian people are starving because the Communists spend all their money on missiles and bombs.”

“They take away your freedom,” said Dickie Keller. “You can't vote and there's no freedom of speech and you'll get sent to Siberia if you say something the leaders don't like.”

“Why?” asked our teacher.

Everyone went quiet.

“Well, come on,” Mr. Kasman said. “Why would they do all those things?”

Dickie raised his arm halfway. “Because . . . they're evil?”

“What if they just have different beliefs?” our teacher asked. “Communism is based on the ideas of a philosopher named Karl Marx, who believed that if all people were equal and were treated equally, they would live in a state of Utopia.”

Mr. Kasman must have sensed our confusion because he said, “It's not a state like Rhode Island. It's a state of mind. Marx believed that if no one has more than anyone else and no one is better than anyone else, then everyone will be equally happy.”

I raised my hand. “You mean, if no one has anything, then they don't have more than anyone else?”

“In a way.”

“What's so great about that?” asked Ronnie.

“Marx thought it was great. I'm not sure I do.”

I raised my hand again. “If everyone's equal, who settles arguments?”

A smile grew on Mr. Kasman's lips. “That . . . is a very good question, Scott. There would still be a ruler and a government, and the government would make those decisions.”

“But then everyone wouldn't really be equal,” I said.

“Right!” Mr. Kasman seemed pleased I'd figured that out.

I'd been right in class before, but I'm not sure a teacher had ever said so with as much praise. It felt good, and for the first time, I began to understand why Paula raised her hand so much.

Too bad Mom wasn't there to see it.

If no one moves or speaks, the loudest sound is the grumbling of our stomachs. That, along with being trapped down here, makes everyone moody and irritable.

“At least give us more to drink,” Mr. Shaw says to Dad. “I'd rather have Tang in my stomach than nothing at all.”

“What if we run out of water?” Dad replies.

“I told you that won't happen,” says Mr. McGovern.

“And I told
you
that we can't know for sure,” Dad shoots back sharply.

It seems like Paula's dad doubts almost everything my dad says. Just like he doubted Janet was going to college to learn to be a nurse. Is it because Mr. McGovern teaches college himself? The tension between Dad and the other adults is always just below the surface. When it comes out, Ronnie and I share perplexed looks. Everything is so strange. Our parents getting angry at one another. Mom lying mutely on the bunk. The sadness of Paula being here without her mom and brother.

And wondering all the while what has become of the world on the other side of the trapdoor.

“This was a mistake,” Mr. Shaw mutters. “It's over. All we're doing is postponing the inevitable.”

“Don't talk that way,” Dad says.

“Don't tell me how to talk,” Mr. Shaw snaps back.

“Steven, the children.” Mrs. Shaw puts a hand on her husband's knee. I wonder if Mr. Shaw will snap at her, too, but he doesn't. What would they be saying if we kids weren't here?

There's still nothing on the radio except bent sound and static.

Mrs. Shaw smirks. “Is there something you don't want to miss, Richard?”

“We're supposed to listen to the Civil Defense channels,” Dad replies. “They're supposed to tell us what to do.”

“Aren't we doing what we're supposed to do?” Mrs. Shaw asks ironically.

“It
would
be nice to think that someone else has survived,” Mr. McGovern adds.

“They have,” Dad says. “Lots of people built shelters.”

“Lots,” Mrs. Shaw echoes, like she's laughing at him.

We hear a soft, low groan. Dad squats down close to Mom. “Gwen?”

She doesn't answer.

He tries her name again and again and touches her face gently, but she doesn't respond. Then he hangs his head.

“She hasn't had anything to drink,” Janet says.

Dad nods.

“Is she going to be okay?” Sparky asks anxiously.

“I hope so,” Dad answers, but his heart isn't in it.

It doesn't feel as chilly in the shelter as before. Maybe because of our combined body heat or maybe we're just getting used to the chill. But when Dad cranks the ventilator, Mrs. Shaw complains that it's cold.

“Who builds a bomb shelter and doesn't put warm clothes in it?” she asks in a tone Mom sometimes used when the silverware at a restaurant looked dirty.

The question looms over us in the dank, dim air. I brace myself for Dad to get angry, but he doesn't.