One Man's Opus: A Survival and Preparedness Story Read online

  “You’re buying his… I mean sure, Uncle Bud. You sure?”

  “Oh yeah, he won’t be needing it any more. That is, if you still want it,” Bud asked, turning to me.

  “I do,” I told him.

  Steve and I ended up taking the quad back out there. I described what I wanted to use it for, and where I was thinking of parking my motorhome.

  “You want power to it?” Steve asked.

  “Yeah, that would be nice, but will they send wire back this far?”

  “They will for the right price,” he told me. “Just watch out for the local building inspector. He’s a real prick, a big city boy.”

  “Well, what do I have to do to get power brought out here, other than cost?”

  “Got to have an outbuilding. Only rule they got about that. Other than that? Usual DNR setback requirements from the water, but you’d be fine if you put up a shed or something here.”

  I liked that idea. It would add to expense, but I didn’t have to do it all at once.

  “With the heavy equipment, does your company also do landscaping and driveways and stuff?” I asked.

  “You wanting to put a driveway all the way back here?” he asked, an eyebrow raised.

  “No, but it’d be nice to have a gravel pad to park on, so the motorhome doesn't sink in. Maybe a thirty by forty area? That way there’s enough room for the shed to sit on it, too?”

  “Tell you what…” Steve said, scratching his chin, “…You let me take down that tree there and that one over there, and I’ll cover the equipment and fuel costs. I’ll do the clearing myself.”

  “Your boss won’t mind?” I asked, figuring he was cutting himself a deal.

  “Naw. He’ll be glad to see somebody doing something with this spot. When Mike died, it almost killed Sarge.”

  That’s what had happened to his son… my instincts about treading softly around the issue were right.

  “How long has it been?” I asked.

  “A while now,” he said, and swatted at a mosquito.

  I pulled a small tube out of my shirt pocket and handed it to him. He smiled and sprayed the concentrated DEET all over his neck and his hands to rub into his skin. He gave it back to me.

  “You going to buy it?” he asked. “I can get started today, but if I’m going to take these trees down, it’d be better with the crane truck and equipment already here.”

  “Yeah, I just have to go write a check to your uncle.”

  “Okay, I’ll fire up the stuff and let my brother know we got us a new job.”

  I paid Sarge half down on the asking price with the other half to be paid over the course of a year. Whatever, I was going to pay him the other six thousand in a couple of months regardless. The deal was too good to pass up. We wrote out a simple contract that may or may not have been legally binding, but he gave me a quit claim deed to the property. I was on my way into town when I passed an Amish workshop that had sheds out on the road frontage. I made a mental note to hit it on the way back and went into town.

  It took some looking, but I found the county registrar of deeds at a courthouse the same size as my local Starbucks. For a couple of dollars, the deed transfer was filed and, for a couple bucks more, I got myself copies. All in all, a good day. I asked the clerk where a local company was to buy gravel, and she pulled out her phone book. She couldn’t remember the number because it was back out on the main road a couple of miles. I told her I could find it and that was it.

  I was running on adrenaline, so when I pulled into the gravel yard, I didn’t flinch. Inside was full of guys who had on Carhartt bibs and heavy work boots. For a minute I thought they were all waiting to be helped so I got in line.

  “You need a hand with something, mister?” a graying man asked me in front of me.

  “I was here to see about getting a load or two of gravel,” I told him.

  “Jeff!” he called and the men parted. “Sorry about that,” he said, “drivers meeting.” Then he turned back to the counter. “Time to make some money. This fella needs some customer service.”

  The men grinned and the clean cut guy my age behind the counter turned a little red in the face as he finished talking to the drivers. “Okay, we’ll go over the new schedules later. I’ll radio you with any changes.”

  The men broke up and started walking out the back door as I got to the counter.

  “How can I help you?” he asked me.

  “I need enough gravel for a thirty-by-forty pad. About three feet deep according to the guy with the dozer.”

  “Got your own company to do the landscaping?”

  “Yeah, Bud Lowell’s nephew Steve works for them, they do logging, too.”

  “Oh yeah, Atwood. We work with them a lot. How do you know the old Sarge?” he asked.

  “I just bought some land from him.”

  “Oh. Oh! I know where you are. Shame about Mike. I’m glad the old man’s decided to do something.”

  “Oh yeah? What happened? Do you mind me asking?” I figured it was safe, since he’d brought it up.

  “He killed himself. Something about a girl. Pretty tragic. Tore the old man up pretty bad. He quit coming into town, well, unless you count the diner,” he told me.

  Ouch.

  “Oh, wow, yeah he never told me, I just… it’s a small town and everyone seems to know everyone. I heard little bits here and there but didn’t know…”

  “Don’t worry, he would come around to tell you sooner or later. His wife is a little older than him, and she ends up sick more often than not, so he tries to stay in as good a shape as he can to take care of her. He doesn't talk about it much for that reason. Don’t want to upset himself or his wife.”

  “That makes sense.”

  I watched as he scribbled some numbers down on a pad and then nodded to himself.

  “Okay, you’re going to need two and a half loads. You can pay by check if you want, or I finally got myself a credit card reader.”

  “You take debit?” I asked.

  He smiled and pushed the tablet towards me, showing me the price.

  I walked through the parking lot that had the sheds. I could hear hammers banging away at a new project and marveled at the building in front of me. It technically was a shed, but it looked like a small cabin. It was sixteen feet across, and twenty feet deep, with four feet of that being a small covered porch. The interior was completely bare.

  “Can I help you?” a man asked.

  I turned to look at him. He was a little older than me but was dressed in street clothing. Then I remembered; the Amish often work with English, and this guy must have been one of their salesmen.

  “I just got some property up here, and I’m having a pad put in for my motorhome. I was told that if I wanted power I had to have an outbuilding. I was looking at something smaller, but this caught my attention.”

  “Wouldn’t need a motorhome if you had this thing, would you?” he asked me, grinning.

  “What do these cabin sheds run?” asked him.

  “They start out at $8500,” he told me.

  I blanched and shook my head. “I like it, but not that much,” I said with a grin. “How much for a ten by twelve?”

  “Could get you one of those, stick built, for about seven fifty. Delivery another one fifty.”

  “Do you set it on site for that?” I asked him.

  “I could if I can get the machine back there. I have to take it off the flatbed with a tough tracks forklift. As long as there’s clearance, I can do it.”

  “Great. I have a dozer clearing out enough room for a motorhome to get back there, so I’m sure a shed will fit.”

  “Sounds like it should. If for some reason we can’t or get stuck, though, you’re responsible for the towing fees.”

  “You take a check?” I asked, smiling.

  6

  I’d been home for eight weeks, and the riots were sweeping the nation. The new Republican contender for president was turning heads and making Liberals everywhere scream in protest. I continued to try to ignore politics, but the crazy protests and riots that were happening all over the country were starting to bug me. What it did, though, was force me to really get my game face on. I took the motorhome out for its maiden voyage to an RV shop and had the propane system pressure checked and then filled. I had one soft hose that needed to be replaced to the fridge done up, but if things went well, I’d have electric soon enough at the Getaway, as I’d started calling the property.

  I’d mailed Bud $3,000 for payment, so I was now 75% paid off on what essentially was a handshake agreement. He’d taken his quad back there and seen the work that had been accomplished and was happy to report that everything looked good. I’d gone up there once with the van after the shed had been delivered, to take rough measurements and call an electrician and the electrical company. Steve’s company had already dug a trench to bury a line, and the electrician had run the wire through the conduit and was waiting for the electric company to do a hookup, and for the building inspector to give it his blessing since it was a new drop.

  I kept going to the grocery store, filling up the motorhome with long-term storage foods. I’d ordered a stack of one gallon Mylar bags, oxygen absorbers and a large impulse sealer from Amazon and was planning on spending some time up there filling some of the twenty Rubbermaid totes that Tina had given me from our first unit clean out together. She’d also given me the antenna tower, and I’d ordered a weBoost wireless range extender. It was all the rage on the RV forums and it was the best rated on Amazon.

  “Hey, bro, you coming to the protest?” Al asked, interrupting me.

  “What?” I asked him.

  “That Republican douche bag is coming to Flint. Me and some of the guys were gonna go up there with the protest group,” Al told me.

  “No thanks, protests mean a lot of people. Not interested.”

  “Okay, but if you change your mind… I mean, he’s a threat to American Society. Nothing would be more righteous than seeing him knocked out of the running. I can’t believe a racist misogynist piece of—”

  “Dude, working here,” I cut in.

  “Oh, yeah. Well, if you change your mind…”

  “I won’t.”

  He shut the door, and I put my headphones on and fired up brain.fm. It was a website that a writer friend had recommended to me. It was almost the perfect white noise and was relaxing. I started and stopped about four times before getting going again, and then gave up in frustration. Maybe a change of pace would work. That, plus I had to answer the door; there was someone knocking.

  I opened it up, expecting a sheepish Al to have locked himself out, but instead, it was UPS with boxes. I signed and headed back in. I dug into them and found my weBoost had showed up, along with a hand crank radio that would also plug in, charge by solar, and charge my cell phone. It was twenty bucks, and I had a gift card from Amazon Associates from affiliate income. I’d splurged, because it had a NOAA setting that would also broadcast AM/FM and emergency channels, and didn’t rely on cell service in case my weBoost was shit.

  “This is cool,” I said to myself and decided to take it all with me.

  I grabbed my keys and left, heading to the mini-storage. Tina was talking to somebody at the counter, so I let myself in. Since going to the burger joint she’d been a little more quiet and standoffish, so I figured I’d done what I always do around girls, and turned her off somehow. She didn’t seem angry with me, so I figured I’d give it time and then apologize. She was still friendly to me, but… different. The one who wasn’t different, though, was Opus. When I unlocked the gate and drove my van in, I left my door open as I went back to shut and lock the gate. Getting back in, I found him sitting on the passenger seat. He’d snuck in while my back was turned.

  “Hey fella, want a ride?” I asked him.

  He let out a bark. After that, it was to the motorhome. I unloaded my van of the groceries I’d gotten that week, and the electronics I’d bought, and set up my laptop to work. Opus had followed me in, so I left the door open. It was early July, so it was hot in there, so I cranked a window open and started a small tabletop box fan and started writing.

  I really got into the flow of words and lost track of time. I noticed it finally when I had to pee. I stood, every joint and ligament in my body popping, and headed back to the bathroom. I passed a sleeping Opus who was on the mat in front of my side entrance door. After I was done, I used hand sanitizer and walked out to find Tina sitting across from my laptop, with two paper plates piled with sandwiches and chips.

  “Hey,” I said, surprised.

  “Hey yourself,” she shot back and gave me a grin.

  “Does this mean I’m forgiven?” I asked her, sitting down.

  “Forgiven? For what?” she asked, her nose scrunching up and her head tilting sideways.

  “I don’t know. I figured I did something or said something that upset you. You don’t call as much, and you’ve been quiet around me lately.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that. You didn’t do anything, so no apologies or forgiveness needed. I made tomato and cucumber sandwiches with red vinegar and swiss cheese.”

  My stomach rumbled audibly, and Opus looked up from his nap. I picked it up and dug in; it was heavenly. We sat and ate in silence for a while. Finally, I broke off a corner of cheese from my last bite and offered it to the dog. Opus licked it off my finger and looked at me with big eyes, begging for more. I ate the last piece and pet the top of his head, messing with his ears before turning to see Tina beaming a smile at me. When she saw me notice, her face blanked out a bit.

  “So, you ever going to take this beast out?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I think I’m heading out tomorrow. The building inspector is going to be there, and it would get me out of town for the Fourth of July weekend. What are you doing for the holiday?”

  “Me? Oh, nothing really. The mini-storage is closed.”

  The words were falling out of my mouth before I realized I was asking.

  “Want to head up north with me? I’ve got the room here, and I could show you where Casa de Carpenter is.”

  “I… I don’t know. I’m not sure that’d be a good…”

  “You could drive separate if you want, that way you could come back whenever. There’s the table here that folds into the bed, the couch, or you could have the back bedroom if you wanted.”

  “It’s not that, I mean—”

  “If you don’t want to, that’s okay. I just figured that…”

  “Rick, I don’t think that’d be a good idea,” she said, finishing her thought.

  “How come?” I asked.

  “It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just that… You know what? Sure. I will. What time you pulling out?”

  “He’s going to be there by 11 a.m., so I’d like to leave here by say… 7 a.m., that way I can get the beast back there. Is it okay if I leave my van here while I’m gone, by the way?”

  “Your van?” She laughed. “Yeah, that’s fine.”

  “Great. Thanks for dinner by the way. This was great.”

  She gave me a funny look and stood. “I’m going to close up.”

  “Yeah, I’m gonna go, too. I’m going to hit Home Depot on the way home before I come back tomorrow.”

  She gave me a wave and whistled for Opus. I locked up and hopped in my van. I figured I’d grab four bags of Quikrete to raise the antenna tower while I was there. I headed to Home Depot to pick that up and a spade shovel. While I thought about it, I had limited tools in my van, and I may or may not have what I needed to put the tower together.

  I was making a mental list when I pulled into the parking lot and headed straight to the tool crib, the area in the home improvement big box store I usually tried to avoid. Being ahead of a holiday weekend, the store was busy, even with it being an hour from closing. I picked up a basic handset of sockets in both SAE & metric, a drill motor with a couple of accessory packs for both drilling, and driving fasteners. Then I spent a good ten minutes buying various screws for outdoor use. If I had to put that tower up and brace it until the cement dried, I’d rather have something I could cobble together.

  Last stop was building materials. I piled the bags in. I’d forgotten how heavy the stuff was. I’d really gotten out of shape in the last few years since I’d started writing full time. It wasn’t that I was in poor physical condition, but more like I had gotten out of the habit of doing anything strenuous. I still watched my diet, but my exercise usually consisted of carrying groceries and helping Tina clean out units. I didn’t do any of that consistently, though, and for the rest of this summer, I decided to add health to my focus.

  I was almost running late. It was 6:55, and by the time I unhooked the power cord and unloaded the van I would be late. I was surprised to see both Opus and Tina at the gate, waiting. She pulled the gate open and I drove through and stopped, rolling down my window. Even in the morning, the heat was a real thing, and the humidity outside smacked me in the face.

  “Sorry I’m running behind, I stayed up too late packing,” I admitted.

  “Hey, I have a change of plans,” Tina said, walking around the front of the van after locking the gate behind me and hopping in.

  “What’s going on?” I asked as Opus jumped up on her lap and she pulled the door closed.

  I started toward the barn and motorhome.

  “My girlfriend from college called. Her mom had a heart attack yesterday. I was wanting to go visit with her…”

  “Oh, okay. I hope her mom’s doing okay?” I said, knowing of all the reasons in the world, that one was definitely on the list of good reasons to blow off hanging out with me.

  “I have a favor to ask?”

  “Go ahead,” I told her, “whatever you need.”

  “Any chance you can watch Opus for me? We’re going to be at the hospital most of the time, and when we’re not there we’ll be at her house, and her husband is allergic.”

  “Sure, I don’t mind. You don’t mind, do you, buddy?” I asked.