Fallout (6 page)

Back home, Sparky was taking a bath. While Mom served Dad and me a slightly cold dinner, she asked how it had gone and Dad said fine, and then she left to make sure Sparky washed behind his ears.

My brother went to bed at eight, but I was allowed to stay up until eight thirty. A small reading lamp on my night table provided just enough light to read
MAD
magazine or its inferior imitator,
Cracked.
After I was in bed, Mom and then Dad would come in and kiss me good night.

That night when Dad came in, I whispered, “What'll happen if the Russians drop the bomb?”

He thought for a moment, and the wrinkles near his eyes deepened. “It'll be the end, I'm afraid.”

“Of everything?”

He seemed to hesitate, then nodded. It made me wonder if he thought that since I was now old enough not to be spanked, I was also old enough to hear the truth.

“We'll all be killed?” I asked.

“Well, some people are building bomb shelters. They say that if you can stay belowground and away from the radiation for two weeks, you can probably survive.”

“Should we have one?” I asked.

“I've been thinking about it.”

It seemed odd that he'd only be “thinking” when it could save our lives.

As if Dad could read my mind, he said, “They're expensive, Scott, and a lot of people think that because we've reached the point of mutually assured destruction, war no longer makes sense.” He sighed. “The problem is, wars almost never make sense — but that never stopped anyone before.”

My eyes open and it takes a moment to remember where I am, but the sounds of the others breathing in their sleep quickly reminds me. I yawn and stretch, then become aware of dampness around my middle — and the unmistakable smell of urine. My body goes rigid. I've wet the bed, something I haven't done in years. And not only that, but I've done it in front of Ronnie and Paula . . .

Forget about perishing in a nuclear war; I could die from shame right now — unless I can keep it a secret. If I can somehow get Dad's attention without the others noticing, maybe he can help me figure a way out of this mess. I inch toward the edge of the bunk and look over in the dim light, where my eyes immediately meet Mr. McGovern's. He's sitting against the wall with Paula's head on his thigh while she sleeps. Against the other wall, Mr. and Mrs. Shaw lean into each other with their eyes closed. Janet sits with her head tilted down, her chin on her chest. Dad's directly below me, his head also tilted down. Lying on her back on her bunk, Mom doesn't look like she's moved at all. I inch away from the edge until I feel Sparky behind me.

Wait
. . . I touch the front of my pajamas. They're dry.
It was Sparky, not me!
I feel a moment of relief, but then turmoil returns. How can I let the others know it wasn't me without humiliating him?

There's nothing to do except wait for Dad to wake up, but it's chilly on the wet mattress. I curl up for warmth and still shiver. Meanwhile, unwanted thoughts invade my mind: What will happen to us without water? The grown-ups will probably decide that one of them will go out and look for it, even though it may mean getting radiation sickness. What if the water they find is full of radiation and makes us sick, too?

Or what if we find water and stay down here for two weeks, and when we get out, we're the only ones left around here? Dad said we'd have to rebuild. But how could just the nine of us — ten if Mom gets better — do that? We'd need a lot more people.

What if Dad wasn't only talking about rebuilding things like houses and roads, but the human race as well? If Mom gets better, she could have some more babies. And so could Mrs. Shaw. And Janet, who is pretty and slim and a little younger than both Mom and Mrs. Shaw, so maybe she could have a bunch. But that still wouldn't be very many. Could Paula have babies? Maybe not right away, but soon? Like in a couple of years?

Then it hits me. If Paula is going to have babies someday, it's going to have to be with Ronnie or me.

How's
that
going to work? I don't feel like I'm ready to have babies with anyone, but Ronnie probably can't wait. If it was up to him, he'd probably want to start before we even get out of the shelter. There's no doubt in my mind that when it's time for Paula to have babies, Ronnie will be the father. He's stronger and a better athlete and better-looking. I won't stand a chance, which is kind of okay because I never really cared that much for Paula anyway.

But once Ronnie and Paula start having babies, there'll be no one left for me.

I hear a rustle below and peek over the edge. Dad's leaning over Mom's bunk, but I can't see what he's doing. After a while, he stands up to check on Sparky and me. Our eyes meet and his nose wrinkles. I point at Sparky. Dad nods and then he's still for a moment. His eyes slide away toward the water tank. Is he thinking that if there's no water to drink, then there's none for washing pee-soaked pajamas?

Early in July, big sheets of blueprints appeared on our dining-room table. A few days later, Sparky and I followed Dad around the backyard with two men who hammered short wooden stakes into the grass and tied a string that outlined the rectangular boundary where the new addition to our house would go — a new playroom and a bedroom for me.

The next morning, three men with pickaxes, shovels, and a wheelbarrow began digging inside the staked-off area.

By the afternoon, the hole was knee-deep and the size of big kiddie pool. Sparky and I stood on the other side of the string and watched; the men, who were Negroes and wore overalls, stole glances at us. Overalls were not an item of clothing that hung in my father's closet nor, I was pretty certain, in the closets of any of my friends' fathers. Under the overalls the men wore dingy T-shirts with small holes and tears in them.

Each man had his own way of digging. The tall, wiry one with long, sinewy arms slammed the heel of his boot against the top of the shovel to drive the blade down into the soil. Then he would arch back and use his whole body to leverage the dirt into the wheelbarrow. The paunchy man with thick undefined arms would lean against the shovel and wiggle the blade back and forth into the dirt. Then he would jam the handle against his hip and, without moving his feet, swivel toward the wheelbarrow. The third man had broad shoulders that narrowed down to his waist, and muscular arms. He looked like a dark version of the muscle builders in the magazines Dad sometimes read and was strong enough to thrust his shovel straight into the dirt, then bend his knees and toss shovelfuls into the wheelbarrow. Hardly any dirt missed.

Within a few days, the men had dug as deep as their thighs, and the rectangular hole reached to the string on all three sides. Beneath the dark brown topsoil was a layer of lighter soil mixed with sand, and below that appeared to be grayish clay. They used the pickaxes now as well as shovels, and the work went more slowly as they heaved shovelfuls of dirt and clay up onto a canvas tarp at the rim of the hole. It seemed strange that they would be digging so deep for rooms that were supposed to be above the ground.

“Maybe it's an indoor swimming pool,” Sparky said.

Could
that
be it? Were they not only building an addition but a surprise swimming pool as well? Having our own pool would be a thousand times better than the pool at the country club. Not only because we'd be able to swim anytime we wanted but because we could have just our friends over instead of sharing with everyone. We could float on rafts, which weren't allowed at the club pool, and private pools had lights, so we could even swim at night.

But the best thing about having our own pool would be doing all the cannonballs we wanted! My friends and I had spent a considerable amount of time the previous summer perfecting cannonballs off the diving board at the club pool. The perfect cannonball resulted in a spoutlike splash of water that rocketed straight upward from the point of entry, sometimes even splashing against the bottom of the diving board. Unfortunately, sometimes our splashes veered off at an angle and sprayed the ladies who sunned on the lounges. When that happened, they'd complain to the lifeguards and cannonballs would be banned for the rest of the day.

Seeking confirmation, Sparky and I raced into the house, where we found Mom sitting at the kitchen table, smoking a cigarette. That was strange. Usually she only smoked on weekend nights when she and Dad had people over for dinner. And when she sat at the kitchen table, she always read a magazine. But it was the middle of the afternoon, there was no magazine, and her gaze slanted up and away into the smoky air.

“Are we getting an indoor swimming pool?” Sparky asked.

Mom scowled and crushed the cigarette out in the ashtray. “What makes you think that?”

“The hole they're digging.”

“Your father didn't tell you? It's a bomb shelter.”

“What's that?” asked Sparky.

“A place where we can hide in case the Commies drop the H-bomb on us,” I said.

“Why?” Sparky was filled with disappointment.

“You'll have to ask your father,” Mom said.

Drained of excitement, Sparky and I wandered into the den to wait for Dad to come home from work. The den had a white shag carpet, a white L-shaped couch, and walls covered with whitewashed knotty pine. Dad had made some of the furniture himself using the big DeWalt table saw in the garage. Sparky and I lay down on the carpet. White shag provided excellent ground cover for the wars I staged with my plastic army men, who, hidden in the long white strands, could sneak to within inches of each other before opening fire. The one absolute rule was no eating in the den. Once crumbs got into the shag, they were gone for good unless you went through the long white fibers with a magnifying glass and tweezers. Getting caught eating in the den was almost an automatic spanking.

“Maybe we can get Dad to change his mind,” Sparky said.

“Maybe,” I said, although I had my doubts. I'd learned a little about nuclear war from duck-and-cover air-raid drills at school, but most of what I knew about the Russians came from the
Rocky and Bullwinkle Show
on TV. Rocky the flying squirrel and his pal Bullwinkle J. Moose were often called upon to foil the sinister plots of Boris Badenov and his girlfriend, Natasha Fatale, who had foreign accents and were no-good spies from a no-good country clearly like Russia.

Americans were a good, peace-loving people. We had a handsome president with a pretty wife, and we wanted to live freely and play baseball and enjoy life. Russia had an ugly leader who most likely wasn't even married and only wanted to destroy America. The Russian people lived in fear of their leaders and probably weren't allowed to play sports.

So it would be too bad if we weren't getting a swimming pool, but maybe a bomb shelter wasn't such a bad thing, either.

Sparky and I have no dry clothes to change into, so we sit naked on the lower bunk with a blanket around our shoulders. I feel proud of my little brother for not making a fuss about wetting himself. After a while everyone is awake again, and Dad cranks the ventilator to get more fresh air in the shelter. Janet sits on the edge of Mom's bunk and feels her pulse. People stretch and move around. They glance at Mom and at Sparky and me pressed close together, but no one says anything. Paula wrinkles her nose like she can smell what Sparky did, but then whispers to her father, who speaks in a hushed tone to Dad. They may be whispering for Paula's sake, but everyone knows what they're talking about. Dad gestures at a bucket with a toilet seat on top of it.