Escaping

Jim stood in the doorway, his head against the jamb. He looked exasperated. Karen wasn’t eating. She had stopped crying. She had stopped combing her hair or brushing her teeth, or washing. She just sat numb. He didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t safe here anymore.

Outside the streets were rubble, broken down vehicles, piles of trash, overturned jeeps. Some windows were boarded up, some just broken. Doors were missing or broken. No children were in sight, although you could hear wailing and crying occasionally if you went out. Sometimes a person would dash into the street. If voices were heard, the person would start running. All the gates to the parking garage in the next block were broken off. Everywhere there was the smell of death—dead animals, dead plants, dead people—mixed with smoke and dust and strange chemical smells.

The walls in his apartment were riddled with bullet holes. One of those stray bullets had struck his four year old daughter about three weeks earlier, killing her. It was the following day that Karen had ventured out with her two year old son, to get him away from the horror scene, thinking the danger was only from the gangs in her building, but they had met more violence. A paramilitary group had gone down the street in what looked like an army truck. The guys all had crew cuts and tattoos. They were muscular and tough. They were ordering everyone off the street.

Karen was hustling with young Corey towards their apartment building. This sturdy white man jumped off the truck yelling, “When we say “Get inside’, we mean get inside now. He grabbed the boy from her hand and sung him back against the truck. He hit with a thud and slid hard to the ground. All the men jumped up. Even the slinger looked horrified. The boy lay lifeless on the ground.

Karen rushed to him, but his face was crushed in, his breathing had stopped, and his shoulder was broken. She gently checked for a pulse and tried to breath into his mouth, but his nose was broken. It was too late.

“I guess I don’t know my own strength." He shrugged it off, and resumed his macho stance. "Well, that’s a casualty of war. Everyone, off the streets!” He jumped back onto the truck.

The other men started jeering the few people left outside, so that everyone jumped back inside. Only Karen was out, when the men drove off.

Now almost three weeks later, they had buried both their children. The city was in ruins. The grocery stores were shut down. One bridge was out. Power had gone off a week earlier. Phones had been down even longer, as had radio and TV. There were no newspapers, no internet, and no news. Gangs were looting and vying for dominance. Resistance groups were trying to take over. Turmoil was the rule of the day. The city was not safe. Jim no longer had a job. Money was no good any way in the current atmosphere. It was time to take action.

Karen would be no help to him. He would have to do it all. If he wanted to protect her, the mother of his late children, he would be responsible for their survival. They couldn’t survive here, like this.

He started packing. First, he packed a bag for her, socks, sweatshirts with winter coming, jeans, shoes. He packed toiletries for them both, first aid, medicines. He’d have to leave all photos, books, jewelry, party clothes, toys, and baby things. He packed some essential clothing and boots for himself. Then her folded some blankets and two pillows and tucked inside a clear trash bag. He pulled out all the canned goods that he could, tomatoes, soups, beans, vegetables, broth, canned milk, and a can opener. He packed two bowls, two cups, two plates, two sets of utensils, one frying pan, one pot, one big pot, and some cooking utensils. He wrapped the breakables with kitchen towels and dish cloths.

He would have to take the truck and leave Karen’s car. It broke his heart to leave it, but he had no choice. He might come back some day. No, only if there’s an immediate restoration of law and order. By the time he got back the car would be destroyed or stolen. Once he had some boxes ready, he started making trips discreetly down the staircase to the parking garage on the first floor. He loaded the truck neatly and went back for more. He got all of the boxes and the bags down into the camper body with the ones they would need first or daily at the most convenient location.

He had enough room, so he found the two sleeping bags, his camp stove, a lantern, all the flash lights and batteries that he could, and his tool box. He then started a box for supplies that might come in handy: toilet paper, tissues, matches, trash bags, bath soap, extra toothpaste and brushes, and laundry detergent. To this he added sneakers for them both, winter coats, and extra pillowcases. Since he was leaving everything behind in desperation, he decided a few books wouldn’t hurt. He picked out The Hobbit, The Bible, and The Virginian. For Karen, he grabbed Shakespeare, Wordsworth, and Huckleberry Finn. No reason to leave everything they valued.

He tucked everything into the camper body. He always kept a few vitals there, like work gloves, a short shovel, a broom (for snow), window scrapers, a first aid kit, jumper cables, and pliers, and various screwdrivers. It occurred to him that he should take their cell phones and I pad, just in case the system went back up. Well, they would need power, too, so he added the charges, just in case.

He had been working diligently for hours, but Karen had barely moved. Maybe she had gone to the toilet while he was out. She never asked what he was doing. He got her some water, and coaxed her to eat some fruit. She obliged but slowly and sparingly.

He went back to work. There was still some room, so he packed some coffee and tea bags, sugar, and oatmeal. He found some rice in a plastic container, some instant potatoes, garlic cloves, and some spices. He put all the fruit he could find into bags that would go on the floor at Karen’s feet. They wouldn’t give up fresh food right away.

He then went into the bedroom, and packed some more jeans, shirts, and underwear for himself, and sweatpants. For Karen, he found some more things, including pajamas, that might make life a little nicer for her, if they had the chance. He took one picture of the children and hid it so Karen wouldn’t see it in the boxes. He remembered her sapphire earrings and necklace, and thought they might be worth something to her one day, so he searched until he found them, and put them in with the clothing. The final items were stocking caps, gloves, and scarves.

He tied fishing rods on top the truck, and squeezed in a tackle box tarp, and net. He had rolled up an expensive rug. It might serve as a cover or a bed or a tent wall. There was room, so why not? Once everything was packed into the truck, he went to Karen.

“Honey, we’ve got to go. We can’t live here anymore. It’s too dangerous. We should have gone a long time ago, but we had no idea how things would get. We’re going to leave right now. Do you understand me?”

She nodded her head, but didn’t move.

“It’s going to be a long drive. Go to the bathroom. You can wear what you have on. We’ll grab your purse. I’ve already put all our bank papers in it. Just in case.”

She got up and complied. She must have sensed what he was doing from all his movements all day. She washed her hands and dried them. She was a fanatic about hand hygiene.

“Yikes. I forgot the hand sanitizer. He grabbed two big bottles, and some disinfectant, and put them in a plastic bag.

“We’ll put these behind the seat of the truck.”

“You have the hatchet?”

These were a lot of words from Karen these days. It frightened Jim just a little.

“Yes. And my hand gun, your tennis racket, a baseball bat, glove, ball, my bow and arrows, and a hunting rifle. Should I pack the soccer ball?”

“No, weapons are fine. I won’t let anyone hurt another child.”

Her face remained blank.

Jim shivered just a little. His sweet, demure wife was evolving. At least she wasn’t wailing or constantly sobbing any more.

He put a windbreaker on her and one on himself. They walked down the stairs to the garage with Jim’s hands full and his back pack bulging, Karen carrying her purse and an afghan. They would get in the truck with its full tank of gas and a reserve tank and leave this building, leave this city, probably forever. If they survived this day, they would probably sleep in the truck overnight. But if they didn’t survive, it wasn’t because Jim wasn’t trying to save them both.