First Drafts of the Apocalypse

SOME GANG HAD PACKED UP most of the tall aluminum light posts in Seattle, laid them out lengthwise, and were carrying them through the streets on dog-drawn wagons. Now why do you suppose they did that?

Oil? No.

Gunpowder? Yes.

Cannon barrels. The tall standing posts were smooth and hollow and made excellent cannon barrels.

The police had fled. They lived in the suburbs and they had their own families to take care of.

Things weren't that bad during the first few weeks because lots of families had supplies in the basements. Beans, baby-wipes, bottled water. The free-for-alls at the grocery stores during those first few days were amazing, predictable. What you'd expect. The strong do sometimes survive. Fights over cereal and parking lots filled with bodies, dead.

Gangs, naturally came out in muscle, and there was no getting around them. You worked with them or they killed you. Things got real simple real fast.

It was some flubbed government attempt to isolate the Pacific Northwest which, it turns out, wasn't that valuable after all. The Air Force flew off and the Navy sailed away. Bigger flying fish to fry. It was triage. Some wise FEMA director figured we could take care of ourselves.

Well, here is the record of one south Seattle community and how it "took care of itself."

Kenny was a drug baby, now 12, with slurred speech and a useless right arm. None of the gangs touched him. You did not mess with Kenny. Kenny kept it all together.

Kenny became the messenger between the gangs, the hapless rich on the hill above the lake, the basement bourgeoisie, and the heavily armed Muslim contingent at Holly Park.

Kenny's foster dad, Kelly, said, "You don't go to an island to hide out."

Sure enough, the rich Seattleites who fled to their second homes on Whidbey Island right after the bomb, thinking to wait it out in luxury, were now as living as bleached bison skulls of the Mojave.

"Don't go to an island to hide out," Kelly repeated. "Your enemies might take control of the exits, and then where are you? You can't escape. You are their bitch. Even your bitch is their bitch. And that's a bitch, right?"

Kelly, by the way, was in fine fettle since he had been predicting apocalyptic civic disasters since he came back from Vietnam on 100% disability. Now Kelly was in his element-- canned goods and ammo. He had a lot of ammo. Most of it homemade.

"Homemade bullets, just like Grandma used to make," Kelly would say as he cranked down on the jacket press of his machine, now set up at the kitchen dining table.

Posted by Vanderleun at January 25, 2006 9:46 PM