Glen Tate: 299 Days: The Stronghold

Rich said in a loud voice, “If it’s OK with everyone, we’d like to have a meeting now instead of at 7:00.” Everyone seemed OK with that. It had been long enough since Mrs. Roth’s funeral service that it didn’t seem rude to turn the gathering into a business meeting.

Rich told the crowd the sanitized version of his trip into town. He kept it positive. He was proud to announce that they had some medical supplies out there, but that people shouldn’t expect the level of medical supplies they had before the Collapse. He asked Lisa to explain. She did, saying, “We have enough for some surgeries, but we will only use supplies on people who really need them.”

Rich explained about the FCard applications and handed them out. That seemed to brighten up the crowd. A little too much for Grant’s liking.

Grant, realizing the political implications of the FCards, felt compelled to remind people that the government wasn’t taking care of all their needs. “The FCards are nice, but understand that there isn’t enough on them to fully feed you. The FCards are a supplement to what you have or what you can grow or hunt,” he said.

That seemed to bother some people, especially the new faces. They initially thought the FCards were a magical solution. They were disappointed to find out they were not. Good. Better to lower their expectations now rather than have them rioting later.

Rich explained that it was too dangerous for people to go into town and, besides, he had the only armband ID. No one really had gas, either. Rich said a “town run crew” would be formed. They would be the only ones going into town, he said.

“Are you saying we are forbidden from going into town?” someone asked.

“Not at all,” Rich said, correcting himself. He didn’t want to appear to be authoritarian. “Be my guest. Burn up your gas. Try to get through the roadblock without one of these,” he said pointing to his armband. “If you get in, let us know how it went,” Rich said semi-sarcastically, which was unlike him. Later Rich would make sure the guards didn’t let anyone go into town except the town run crew. He needed to maintain the “Marines and contractors” story.

Rich made a mental note to start implying to Bennington and others in town that the Marines and contractors were training off in a separate compound and didn’t mix with the civilians. To further this story, Rich would try to find a piece of land out at Pierce Point that was far away from everyone else and call it the “Training Grounds” or something like that. This would explain why someone from Pierce Point, if they made it into town, might say to the townspeople, “What Marines and contractors?”

Rich explained that people needed to put in their grocery lists to one person who would pool the lists and come up with one big list for the “town run” people to take into town. Two people volunteered to coordinate the grocery lists for the town runs.

It was amazing how much administrative work it took to run things like this, Grant thought. Then again, the volunteers doing it spent about one percent the time the government had spent running every aspect of everyone’s lives. But still, administrative things are part of what it takes to survive when there is no government. It’s not all guns and gardening.

Rich said, “Don’t expect to get anything approaching what you put on your lists. First of all, the store may not have it. Second of all, we can’t spend the gas to go get a particular brand of something you like. When it comes to the FCards, you get what you get. Be glad you got it.”

“After all, those groceries cost you your bank accounts and 401(k)s,” Grant said. It was a little obnoxious on his part, but he felt compelled to remind people that they should not view the FCards as charity from a benevolent government trying to help them. The FCards were the scraps from all the wealth the government had stolen.

“Who goes first on getting their orders placed?” someone asked. Good question.

Grant came up with an answer. “We’ll have a lottery. That’s the only fair way.” He was determined to show that there was no favoritism in anything. That was essential to holding the people together. The slightest rumor of favoritism would tear them apart. “Everyone who has an FCard will get a number and then we’ll draw however many numbers to see whose order gets on the town run.” That seemed to make sense to the crowd.

Even people who didn’t contribute to the community would be eligible for the town-run lottery. This was because people with FCards who didn’t contribute would start to try to go town themselves and would either get shot or would blow the “fifty Marines” story. Grant didn’t want to push the community contributor thing too far; giving out meal cards was probably as far as he could take it without people getting too upset. Grant always had the ability to sense just how far he could take things politically before he had to accommodate the opposition. He had been doing it since he was a kid.

Grant figured that people who won the lottery and got their list submitted to the town run crew would not necessarily keep all the food for themselves. They might share some, but they probably would trade some. That’s fine. In fact, that’s the free market at work. It was amazing how capitalism sprung up everywhere, even in a place where the government supposedly controlled everything.

No government law can override the law of supply and demand. Supply and demand was a natural law, just like the law of gravity. Supply and demand is how the universe was set up to operate, just like gravity. The proof of this was a few feet away from Grant. The government outlawed bribery and the unauthorized selling of medical supplies, but a trunk load of now-illegal guns and ammo got all those medical supplies sitting a few feet from Grant in the locked room of the Grange. That’s all the proof needed to demonstrate the law of supply and demand.

After discussing the details of the FCard lottery and the town run crew, Rich asked, “We have anything else to talk about?”

“Yes,” someone said. “Someone busted into my shed.”

“Yeah, me too,” said another person after the first one said someone had broken into their shed.

“Yep,” said a third person. “They came into my house.”

Oh crap. It’s started, Grant thought. He was amazed that they’d gone two weeks without any crime out there. It was only a matter of time.

Rich, the cop, went into investigator mode. “Where do you guys live?” he asked. They all lived on Frog Lake Road. Right near each other. That’s what Rich feared.

It was the Richardson house. Those were the meth addicts and assorted “friends.” The Richardson house had been a constant problem for years.

“Damned tweakers,” someone said. “Tweakers” was a term for meth addicts. Apparently when they got on a multi-day speed high, they would take apart mechanical things and try to put them back together out of nervous energy. They would “tweak” with things, hence the name.

“What did they take?” Rich asked.

“Tools, generators, chainsaws, some gas cans full of gas,” the second man said. He realized after he said it that it might not be good to tell everyone at the Grange about the things he had. Or used to have. Oh well. He wanted to get them back and this was how to do it.

The third guy, who had them come into his house said, “They got my wife’s jewelry and two of my guns. They left the food, though.”

That figured. Only meth heads would steal things like that but leave the food since they had no appetite.

“Do you have any idea who did it?” Rich asked. He wanted to see if there was evidence that it was someone other than the Richardson tweakers.