The Second Intelligent Species: The Cyclical Earth (22 page)

Time was immeasurable. No sun to differentiate morning from night, no moon to keep track of the months. Although one cycle was ever present.

The birth of Maria’s baby came. The child was white, proving that the animal who had raped her at the hospital was Caucasian, at least the one raping her at the moment of conception.

Maria and Jorge had become a couple as had Sarah and Pete. Sarah failed with Adam and Megan, but Eve eventually became hers. Tara and Beth were inseparable. She wouldn’t leave her side.

Marcos seemed to be content belonging to no one, however he was my constant shadow. I was more of a mentor than a father.

A few days after Maria’s baby was born, she and Jorge came up to me, he put his hand on my shoulder. “Nick… Maria and I would be honored if you would join us at the baptism we’re having in
three days. We would like you and Beth to be the baby’s godparents.”

I hadn’t had many religious friends. Beth frightened them all away. I wasn’t sure what being a godparent entailed. “Well, I’ll talk to Beth, but I’ve got to warn you, she’s not all that big on religious traditions. I’ll talk to her.”

I could never get her to go to any symbolic ritual pertaining to any religion. She was a devout atheist. Her science was her religion. Everything could be explained by mathematics and physics. She believed that man created God. Until it was proven to her, she wasn’t into “blind faith.” I’ve never seen her pray, not even when we were looking for her son and grandchildren.

“What’s the baby’s name?” I asked.

Holding the baby to her breast, Maria answered. “We’re not going to name him until his baptism. I want you to hold him when he is cleansed of his original sin. Jorge and I have seen enough baptisms we can do the service by heart. Even though a priest isn’t going to be there, I know God will be beside us.”

The firelight gave us a clear view of this new addition to our group as he suckled. Shame no longer existed. We were family. I was witnessing the beginning of the next generation: the first generation of the new world. As I watched I thought, why should mothers have hidden their breast
when they fed their children? At what point did we as a civilization decide that breastfeeding was something that needs to be hidden? Adults eat in public, why can’t our children? That was one thing we could change today.

I snapped out of deep thought again to answer Maria. “Yes I’m sure we would both be proud to be your child’s godparents.”

“Do you have any suggestions for names, Nick?” Maria asked.

“No.” Naming babies wasn’t one of my things. “I’ll think about it, and I’ll ask his godmother-to-be.”

“Thank you, Nick.” Jorge shook my hand, brandishing his signature smile.

“As long as you don’t name him George, anything’s okay,” I said, smirking.

They both laughed then went back to adoring their new child.

I went over to Beth who was reading the remains of a magazine to Tara on the other side of the fire.

I tried to come up with a way to ask Beth about going to a baptism without wakening demons. If I could convince her that this was the happiest I’d seen anyone since the event took place, perhaps she’d consider their request. Jorge and Maria had everything to live for. They had a
son to care for, and they had their God. How could that be so bad?

I intentionally interrupted Beth while she was reading. “They remind me of the Amish we had around our town; some of the happiest people I’ve ever met.”

“Who’s that?” Beth asked.

“Jorge and Maria. They remind me of the Amish. I wonder if they made it.”

“They’re right over there, what’s wrong with you?” Her attention was split between Tara and me. Tara was getting more than her share, as usual.

“No, the Amish. I wonder if they made it. If they did, I’m sure they’ll continue to survive. They were taught the old ways. They also taught their children discipline, religion, and how to work. What did we teach our children? Readin’, writin’ and ’rithmetic. Who taught their kids about finding water or catching rats? Nobody, that’s who. Who taught our children? Society educated our children with contractors. Facts were memorized. Test results proved that the system worked. Survival skills and morals were not on the curriculum. Did we teach problem solving, survival skills, or even ethics?” I paused to take a breath or two. I hadn’t planned to get as worked up as I had.

“What does religion have to do with the ability to survive?”

Now I had all of Beth’s attention. “Well I’ve been talking to George and Maria. They’re very religious you know.”

“Yea…and…?” I could tell the old Beth was still around.

“They want us to be the baby’s godparents.” I paused before daring to speak again. “At the baby’s baptism.”

“Oh, so we’re going to start that again. Why should we continue to believe in those old ancient myths and stories, when many of them have been proven to have been distorted and manipulated to control the population? Most of the bloodiest wars have been fought in the name of religion. Let’s face it, we are just another species going extinct. There is no God!”

I knew I had opened up Pandora’s Box. I was sure the others could hear, but I wasn‘t going to be overpowered by her this time. This time was different. Speaking one notch below yelling I said, “We’ve had these discussions before, and you know how I feel. Maria and Jorge are happy. Is that a bad thing? If their faith makes this place more bearable then so be it. That’s their business. Tolerate it and move on. Not everybody believed what N.A.S.A said to be true all the time either. Looks to me like they dropped the ball on this one, didn’t they?” I knew that, in her opinion, I had just blasphemed.

The crackling fire was the only sound, not even the children dared speak.

“Will you be there with me at the baby’s baptism?”

“Might as well,” she said with a sigh. “Science just took a ten-thousand-year backwards step. Baptism huh…? Is there going to be a witchdoctor with a bone through her nose?”

Beth went to the baptism and performed just as Maria and Jorge wanted her to. Beth and I promised to take care of Emanuel should anything happen to the both of them.

To celebrate we roasted a large beaver. Turning it on a spit over an open fire, the meal took on a luau type atmosphere.

Jorge and Maria led everyone in the Lord’s Prayer. Everyone except Beth.

We each had gifts for the baby. Marcos scavenged until he found some cloth durable enough to be used as diapers. Pete and Sarah worked together to make a pack to carry the baby while we were between shelters. Pete gathered and dried the reeds, and Sarah wove them into a pack. Beth went to the baptism, and I felt I had given enough being the godfather.

Chapter 32

Mentoring a New
Apprentice.

Beavers and opossums were our main source of food. We seldom needed to eat rats anymore. We continued to follow the swamps. By following the water, we came upon many culverts—too small for shelter, but excellent places to hang snares. Occasionally we would find one big enough to spend a night or two.

One time we stumbled across a railroad trestle made of old fashioned concrete, back when they still had railroads. As old as it was, it had withstood the earthquake.

Water ran through one side of the arched shelter, but the other side was high and dry. The wind was perfect so a fire could be built and the smoke would drift away from the sleeping area.

We still had a lot of supplies and could have kept moving for a couple of more days, but the trestle just said home, at least for a few days. We weren’t heading anywhere fast anyways.

We set up camp. The girls started supper: more opossum stew.

Pete and Jorge were gathering railroad ties from the old tracks above. Buried in earth, the bottom half was unburned. The ties were easily found without a lot of walking. We decided that the two youngest men would tackle the duty of bringing them down the hill. Actually getting them down was the easy part. The hill was so steep, they would roll all the way to the bottom. The breeze blowing through would take out the thick smoke of the creosote-laden ties.

Getting to the top was easier for them than it was for me, so Marcos and I gathered our traps and started looking for signs of animals.

We weren’t far from the others when I noticed a couple of freshwater clam shells near a pool. They didn’t look like they had been there all that long and they were all opened.

First of all that meant there were clams out in deeper water that we could eat. We hadn’t had any luck fishing. Clams and crayfish were all we’d been able to eat that came from the water. Even though I still had the fishing line, fishing was a waste of time. I spent a lot of valuable time waiting for a bite.

Secondly it meant that there was a raccoon nearby. I hadn’t thought that any of them had survived, but apparently at least one had; and I knew
how to catch him. I just hoped he wasn’t the last of the species. I would hate to be known as the man who ate the last raccoon.

I instructed my young apprentice, “Marcos, take the torch and look for a trail next to the river’s edge. The ground will be matted down along a path. You will see tracks in the mud at the water’s edge.” He could bend down better than I could.

“Are these some tracks?” Marcos asked, pointing to the mud.

“Tell me what they look like; I can’t bend over ’cause my back is killing me.” I could get a pill from Beth when I got back.

“They have five fingers and look like a little hand,” he said, kneeling and bending with his head mere inches from the tracks.

“Do they look like they have a thumb?” I asked.

“No they look like they are all spaced about the same distance apart.”

“No thumb on one, but not on the other?” I asked reassuring myself, and teaching Marcos the difference between a raccoon track and an opossum track.

“No, they’re both about the same. What are they from, another possum?” He was intrigued by tracking. For a city boy, woodsmanship came easy.

“No, I think we have a coon living off these clams in this pool. Wanna catch him?”

“Can ya eat ’em? What do they look like?”

I couldn’t believe he didn’t know what a raccoon was. I loved to teach about wildlife. I used to take Beth up to the woods all the time. “Well, they’re about the size of a fat cat or a small dog. They have black around their eyes. They look like a bandit, you know, a bank robber, a thief. And that’s what they are. That’s how you catch them. If they’re around, put out a little food with a lot of smell, and you’ll catch them. They like shiny things too. I used to place a piece of aluminum foil on the trap pan when I trapped. That’s what we’re going to do tonight. As for eating one, I never did, but a Native American fellow that I used to work with said they taste good but are greasy. I caught many when I was a trapper and can attest to the greasy part. When I used to skin them the fat was slimy. I was never hungry enough to eat one.”

Although there wasn’t any moonlight, I knew that any type of shiny metal would draw its attention. I showed Marcos how to set the trap at the end of the path that had been worn down. He placed a steel trap, one of many we found on somebody’s garage floor, one half inch below the water’s surface.

I had never used this type of set before because we had never encountered raccoons until now. They lived mostly in trees, and I was sure most of them perished.

Aluminum foil is what I used to use to wrap around the trap pan. The pan is where you would put the cheese on a mousetrap. It’s a trigger. The aluminum foil would draw the raccoon’s curiosity, he would reach out with his hand, and snap! We would have supper and maybe a coonskin hat for Marcos.

Any aluminum foil that we had was used so many times in the fire to cook that the entire luster had gone.

I needed something that would draw the attention of an animal with the keenest of senses, something that shined even in the dimmest light, something with flash.

There was only one thing I could think of. Beth was reluctant to give them up, but when I assured her that she would get them back, she loaned me her diamonds to use as bait.

I’d caught one cunning animal with them, so I figured I could catch another.

Chapter 33

Therapy