299 Days VIII: The War (11 page)

The third house was Scott Baker. He was not a government employee. He worked for some
insurance company before the Collapse. Scott was taking maximum advantage of the situation
for his personal gain. He volunteered with the FCorps to spy on his neighbors. At
first, no one knew he was doing it. People would talk freely to him about politics
and how awful things were. Scott would nod and sympathize. Those who talked to him
started to get visits from Carlos and Rex. It took a while for them to figure out
it was Scott who ratted them out. A few weeks before Christmas Eve, with his cover
blown, Scott quit trying to pretend he wasn’t a spy. He started going around with
Carlos and Rex to talk to people. Scott was handsomely rewarded for his work. He had
plenty of FCard credits. He got government gas, which he sold to people in the neighborhood.

There were more people in the neighborhood who Ron suspected of being Loyalists working
with the “Carlos cabal” as they called them. But Ron didn’t have proof. His instructions
from Matt Collins were very clear: only clearly established Loyalists got tagged.
Carlos, Rex, and Scott certainly qualified.

The actual tagging of the houses was anti-climactic. Ron left the house with his can
of black spray paint. He was careful to take the route as far from the street lights
as possible to stay out of the light. Ron was getting good at this. He went out a
few times a month and painted Patriot graffiti messages in his area with yellow spray
paint.

There were no guards to worry about anymore. After the looters were shot and Grant
left the neighborhood, the FCorps took over guard duties. They were pathetic. Soon,
they no longer were guarding and—to everyone’s surprise—there were no break-ins. How
could the FCorps pull that off? Was this a government success?

Nope. It turns out that the FCorps in Ron’s neighborhood, and surrounding ones, made
a deal with the gangs. Under the direction of the police, the gangs divided Olympia
into sections, one gang running each area. The FCorps would pay the gangs to make
sure the neighborhoods of government officials, like the Cedars where Ron lived, were
left alone. The gangs were given free rein to kill all amateur competitors in their
sector, and they did. Ruthlessly.

The FCorps paid the gangs by allowing them to sell “gang gas,” guns, and anything
thing else they wanted. So the apparent government “success” of some safe neighborhoods
was achieved by the government simply buying off some very bad people.

Ron went to the farthest house first and then worked his way back toward his house.
The first house was Scott Baker’s. Second was Carlos’s, then Rex’s. There. That was
it. Now he waited for the Patriots to come in to liberate his neighborhood.

It wouldn’t be long.

(December 24 - 25)

Jim Q. couldn’t believe what he was hearing. It was his cousin saying, “The cow has
two heads,” in their language, which was code for the big operation starting on New
Year’s Day. The time had come after months of planning. It was really going to happen.
Jim Q. was simultaneously excited and scared.

“My uncle has a brown mustache,” Jim Q. replied to his cousin through the radio. This
meant that the 17th had confirmed that it would be moving out at midnight on New Year’s
Day.

Jim Q. hoped he’d see his cousin at their people’s New Year celebration of Kha b-Nisan,
which was on April 1st. He hoped that the ordeal would all be over by then and they
could have their usual family feast. Hopefully.

Jim Q. went and told Ted and Sap who both figured it would be New Year’s Day when
Lt. Col. Hammond had said the name of the operation was “Tet,” which was the Vietnamese
New Year’s Day.

Grant wasn’t at the Marion Farm because it was Christmas Eve and the plan was for
him to spend Christmas Eve with his family and come out to Marion Farm on Christmas
Day for dinner. Grant wanted to spend more time with the unit, but he had an obligation
to his family. Ted understood and wished he could be with his kids and grandkids on
Christmas. Not this year. Maybe next year.

Thinking of how Grant should spend quality time with his family led Ted to make a
decision. Against all military protocol, he decided not to tell him about New Year’s
Day until after Grant got a stress-free Christmas Eve with his family. Grant could
start worrying about the mission on Christmas Day, when he came out to Marion Farm.
Ted smiled. At least one family would have a good Christmas Eve this year.

Indeed, Grant’s Christmas Eve was fantastic. He had become really good at “compartmentalizing”
information. He could put an imaginary box around bad news or worry in his brain and
forget about it for a while to have a good time. Then, when the good times were over,
he could unpack the bad news and address it. He could turn the worry switch on and
off.

Grant had to do that a lot during the Collapse. He had to pretend, for example, not
to know that he would be leaving his family soon while he played with his kids and
spent time with his wife. He was lying to them the whole time, but, somewhat sadly,
he could compartmentalize it. It was a survival skill.

One thing Grant had to compartmentalize was how hard of a time Manda was having after
shooting Randy Greene. She was still having nightmares. She would get depressed for
a day or two. Sometimes she wouldn’t talk to anyone and then she’d be okay. She wasn’t
the same spunky girl who had come to the cabin that spring. Grant felt like he’d lost
a part of his daughter.

Manda was in a great mood on Christmas Eve, though. She had been looking forward to
Christmas for so long. She really wanted the “normal” feelings of Christmas. She was
fine with some differences this year, like having Christmas at the cabin instead of
their home in Olympia, but she wanted to feel like things weren’t entirely different
now. She could handle mostly different, but not entirely.

The Matsons had a big Christmas Eve dinner, which was a new tradition. They’d have
a big Christmas family dinner, too, but the Christmas Eve dinner was for friends to
come over and visit. Everyone brought food.

The Morrells were the first to arrive. Mary Anne brought a boom box, several CDs of
Christmas music, and some cookies. They played Christmas music for hours. It was magical
listening to songs they all remembered. Grant had the wood stove going and it put
out a tremendous amount of heat. It was warm, bright, and joyous in the Matson cabin.

Jordan arrived next with his parents who came for a short while before leaving. It
had the feel of the first of many Matson Christmas gatherings with the Sparks’ family.

Next to come over was the Team and the Team Chicks, Gideon, and Chip and his new girlfriend,
Liz. She was very nice, and cute as a button. She was a gregarious brunette divorcee
with three teenage sons. Chip saw her at the Grange and was too shy to strike up a
conversation, which was strange given that he could talk to anyone, but he knew he
really wanted to be with her and that scared him. Life was hard enough during the
Collapse; Chip didn’t want a broken heart on top of everything. However, he underestimated
what a catch he was. Liz was attracted to him and realized her boys needed a good
man like him as a role model. She asked him out at the Thanksgiving dinner and they’d
been together ever since. At the Christmas Eve dinner, he was acting like a puppy
dog in love.

Grant realized that the Team, Gideon, Chip, and Liz had one thing in common: they
didn’t have a family out there, but now they did.

The last guests to arrive were Tammy and Missy. It was one of the only times Tammy
had been out of the house, except to visit Mark in the mental ward and go to work.
She really needed to see some smiles. She needed to know that life was going on as
normal somewhere. Maybe there wasn’t any joy in her dark, dreary, and nearly empty
house, but there was somewhere else. Tammy needed to see that, while her son was missing
and her husband and daughter were mentally gone, she still had a family, her Pierce
Point family. She forgot about a lot of the negativity in her life for those few hours
at the Matson Christmas cabin.

The stockings were up. They were the ones they made for this year, not their normal
ones, because their normal ones were back at their abandoned house in Olympia. But,
even though they were different than the usual ones, just hanging them made it a “real”
Christmas. Christmas would continue; no Collapse could stop it.

Best of all, they had a Christmas tree. There were plenty of small evergreens growing
all around Pierce Point. In fact, one of the houses in Pierce Point was actually a
small Christmas tree farm and they decided to give away free Christmas trees, mainly
because no one had any money to buy them.

Grant didn’t get a tree from the tree farmer. Instead, he, Manda, and Cole went out
a week earlier and cut their own tree on a nearby vacant lot. They hauled it home,
which was a lot of work without a truck. Grant remembered past Christmases when they’d
strap the tree to the roof of his Acura. It looked so pathetically suburban, a tree
on top of an Acura.

Cutting their own tree this year was glorious, it was a memory that would last forever.
They even had hot cider when they got back. Cole couldn’t stop talking about it, which
was the best part of the experience for Grant.

Everyone ate and ate at the Christmas Eve party. They hadn’t been full in … well,
since Thanksgiving. Before Thanksgiving, they’d gone all summer and fall without ever
being full, which made feeling full a very big deal.

They tasted foods they had forgotten existed, like sweet pickles. Mary Anne brought
some over that she’d canned. Who would get excited about sweet pickles? Anyone who
hadn’t had sugar in a month. They saved the pickle juice to make tuna sandwiches.
They had plenty of canned tuna. They lacked mayonnaise, but tuna and sweet pickle
juice had become a delicacy. Even for people like Lisa who hadn’t liked tuna before.
Now—after cornbread, beans, and rice every day—it tasted like the Mahi-Mahi she had
at a fancy restaurant in Maui when the family went on vacation.

Chip and Liz capped off the day with some homemade wine. Liz had made it out of wild
strawberries and huckleberries. It was amazing, so sweet and flavorful. Grant had
never tasted fruit so flavorful. The adults quickly became tipsy as they made their
way through several gallons.

It was dark—the sun started setting at 4:30 p.m. in late December this far north—and
people were heading home. Grant was exhausted, full and half drunk. He fell asleep
on the couch a little after 7:00 p.m. The kids went to bed a little while later. Then
Lisa, who was drunk on wine, dragged Grant into bed. He wasn’t too tired for what
came next.

Lisa got up in the middle of the night and put the presents out. She always did that;
Grant slept too soundly, so she had always done it. This year was no exception. On
Christmas morning, the kids got up early, as usual. They came down to find their presents
by the woodstove. Grant was wearing one of his “World’s Best Dad” t-shirts that the
kids had given him for a Father’s Day gift when they were little. For a split second,
he thought about what a lie that shirt was. He was leaving for war very soon and had
been lying to them. He didn’t deserve to wear that shirt. Then, just as quickly, the
bad thoughts vanished and the compartmentalization kicked in. He was Grant, the good
father, again.

Manda exploded with joy when she opened her present, a new dress. Eileen and Mary
Anne had been secretly making it for her. She loved it. It wasn’t the flashy kind
of prom dress she had always dreamed about it, but it was great, and nicely made.
Nothing was ever fancy out there at Pierce Point, just practical. It was nice to have
something fancy for a change.

Cole went crazy with joy, too. He got two new games for his handheld game player.
Grant got them by sending some .22 ammo with Rich on one of his grocery runs into
town. Rich got the games from a guy selling them at one of the garage sales in town.
They weren’t at people’s houses like in the past, but in the parking lot of the grocery
store where the Blue Ribbon Boys maintained order. That was the only safe place where
sellers knew they wouldn’t be robbed. Commissioner Winters got a cut of all the sales
in the crime-free parking lot.

On that same run into town, Rich got Grant some soap and perfume, which cost a half
a brick of .22. Grant thought he got ripped off, but he wanted Lisa to have a great
Christmas. He wanted her to have “normal,” chick things. He wanted to make her feel
beautiful and pampered. It was so important to Grant that he didn’t mind getting ripped
off. Besides, he had plenty of .22 ammo.

Lisa got Grant a wonderful gift: a nice Swiss Army knife. It was beautiful, new in
the box. Lisa had no idea how much it was worth. Neither did the patient she treated
who gave her the knife as payment. Grant was thrilled. It felt so amazing to have
something new in his hand, something fancier than it had to be. He knew he would have
that knife with him at all times in the coming days, perhaps, the rest of his life.
It was a real keepsake.

Manda and Cole made Grant a heart-shaped clump of glued clam shells. Grant almost
cried. It was genuine and meaningful. Grant would treasure that for the rest of his
life.

Drew and Eileen got the kids a bracelet for Manda and a nice pocket knife for Cole.
Drew was using that stash of pre-Collapse cash and having people go into town to get
things. By now, the cash was almost worthless, but it still bought trinkets.