Book part 5

NOTE: I've decided not to post it ALL, because it's just waaaaay too long. So the posts that follow will present excerpts as I work through it, editing it.

If you want the whole thing for your leisure hours, email or facebook me, and I'll send it in pieces as it gets done.

***********************************************




A quick scene now out of time, a different mind, Adam and Chloe are just kids, not even ten probably, in a movie theatre sitting on either side of their mother. They're both sleeping, but their mother, Lillian, is wide awake and staring at the screen, enraptured in whatever is happening there invisibly to us. Not sure why that scene is here except to remind you of the kids who these young people once were, and of the people they will one day be when they all wake up and suddenly, surprisingly and without much warning, find themselves to have become their parents.
If we fast-forwarded into the future, we might see Adam as the parent now, a child on each side of him sleeping on a couch as he sits engrossed in the same movie, his mother now so many years in the grave, just across the river and a little southeast of Meridian as the song says.





The cooks lounge around outside the dining tent, right next to the steps that lead into the kitchen trailer, and they're smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee. As they watch and smoke, watch and sip, people race up the hill towards the vans, gear dragging along behind them, or race from the vans back down to the dining tent, having forgotten something or other. The early folks already have their seats in the vans, or were standing outside the vans with the engines running, stereos going, heaters pumping full blast, doors open. Some of these around-the-van-people, those who aren't looking for something or stuffing gear in the half open back door, were just hanging around, hanging out smoking, talking. Alain and Francois walk slowly up the hill towards the vans, smoking and sipping.
Adam's lunch, which is four ham sandwiches on white bread, without condiment or garnish of any sort, and small three apples, is stuffed now into his woefully inadequate backpack which is too small, too flimsy, and not even remotely waterproof. By ten a.m. it will be soaked right through, as will his sandwiches, and by the end of the next shift it will be in tatters, the straps duct-taped together, a giant hole in the bottom of it, all the seams and zippers and hooks busting off and breaking apart but for now, at least, it's good enough. But barely. His water is in an old plastic four litre milk jug that will last a few more days before he has to scramble for a replacement. His feet are wet.
Hey buddy, Feral says to him, loping up the hill and looking as if this were his backyard and he were going to have a picnic. How's it going?
Meh, Adam says. Not very good, but I'll survive I think. Maybe.
You THINK, eh? He THINKS Wolf Boy, Feral says, turning towards the dog, which Adam had failed to notice up until now. He THINKS he'll survive, Feral repeats. He's not sure, though. Well, if you think you may not survive Adam, please be sure to let me know, so that Wolf Boy here can eat your remains.
Adam laughs weakly. Glad to help out any way I can.
Now listen here, kiddo. This is only Day TWO. There's lots of Days left. Day One probably was one of the worst days of your fairly short life. Day Two will probably be worse. And don't even get me started on Day Three. Wooooo-eeeeeee... It's gonna pretty much kill ya buddy. But after that, soon enough, they'll get easier. Trust me.
Yeah, so they tell me. Guess I'll believe it when I see it.
You hear that, Wolf Boy? He says he'll believe it when he sees it. But, um, how blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have still believed it, eh? Y'know?
What?, Adam says.
You'll get through, kiddo. Trust me.
Okay. Guess so.
Feral giggles then like a crazy person, shakes his hair to get some of the rain out, and then tucks it into his hood. They're at the vans now and Feral says yep, gotta work buddy and is off to stuffing people's gear into the back of the van, off to organizing, a quick chat with Roxie about stuff.
Some of the rookies stand around aimlessly, Magda, and Lyn among them having a quiet conversation, leaning up against the van. Adam looks at her for half a second, at Lyn, wanting to start a conversation, but having no clue what to say. He looks away.
You smoke, right?, she says to him. Got a smoke?.
He nods, says um, yeah, yeah, sure, and digs nervously, quickly, into his backpack for his cigarettes. The pack is soaking wet. Absolutely soaking wet. He groans. Oh, man, he says. Oh no. They're useless. Sorry.
Ah, no worries lad, Feral says, arriving back just then. Today's a good day to quit.
Adam says: The worst day to quit, you mean.
Just then, Doug and Hank arrive, Doug having noted this whole interaction. I have smokes, he says, and reaches into his fancy, rubberized, waterproof backpack, whips out a pack of cigarettes. He gives Lyn a handful and then lights one for her gallantly, nodding and winking as he does.
Thanks, she says half-heartedly, his charm already having begun to wear a bit thin on her.
No worries sweetie, he says. And then that was it. His charm was now gone, entirely and without faint hope of return.
As Doug goes around to the back of the van to stuff his gear in, thinking that he's done quite well in setting himself up with a girl on party night, Lyn looks at the eight or ten cigarettes in her hand. Here, she says, and gives half of them to Adam, and he says thanks but so quietly and looking at the ground that she isn't quite sure and says uh, you're welcome, no problem buddy and Magda sees this whole interaction, smiles to herself.
The areas around the vans is busy and active now. Dogs chase each other, a few of the more rambunctious guys push and shove and wrestle despite the rain, hoping to impress the ladies. Sal strides up the hill, cigarette dangling from his lips, a map in one hand, and he's squinting at it while talking into the radio that's in his other hand. He's talking to Padre, of course, who is somewhere far away already, having left camp half an hour before most people were even up for breakfast.
Sal hops into his truck, which is running, and takes off, music-sound muted behind mud-muddied windows.
Roxie jumps behind the wheel of her van, the other crew bosses behind the wheels of theirs, the doors all slam shut, everybody's in, and they're off. Another day.