Jacqueline Druga-Marchetti - Dust

The basement was intact, and so was the cold cellar that would be our home continuously for at least a few days until the radiation dropped enough to venture into the actual basement. The basement would give us room to walk, move and not feel so cramped. Freedom to go topside or aboveground was hindered by my knowledge that radiation would drop to tolerable levels. The human body could only take and repair so much, stand only a limited amount of exposure. Two weeks was always the theoretical safety frame I had learned.

After finishing the basement windows, I examined the ceiling for structure problems. Not that I would know if there were any, but common sense told me since nothing looked as if it were crumbling, we were fine. What lay above our heads was not my concern at that time.

Davy had lit the emergency light. Small, round, battery operated. It was one of many I had purchased from a discount store. I never intended the life of those lights to last very long, one per day was what I figured.

They worked, that was a good sign. Something that always stuck in my head was the Electro-Magnetic-Pulse effect, or EMP. The theory that anything that was running when the bombs fell, would cease and never run again. So Davy had an idea, one he took upon himself to implement. About six months earlier, Davy had dug a small hole in the dirt floor of the cold cellar, and he buried our batteries. Sealed in plastic bags, he pulled out what was needed and covered the rest up with loose dirt.

I watched him put a battery in the back of an alarm clock. He showed it to Simon, “So we know what time it is.” He winked. “Hey, Mom, what time do you have?” he asked as he prepared to set the clock.

I glanced to my watch. “Shit.” I brought it to my ear. “It stopped.”

“It stopped?”

“Yeah, at Ten-fourteen.”

“Good thing we buried the batteries, huh?” He smiled.

“Good thing.”

“How long you think it’s been?”

“No more than twenty minutes.” I answered.

“Thanks.” As if he were showing a toy, Davy set that clock in front of Simon.

Simon.

He had finally calmed down, stopped crying and probably assumed it was some sort of game Davy was playing with him. Davy always teased Simon, and I guess in the three-year-old mind, this was just another one of Davy’s tricks to make him cry.

“Done.” Davy set the clock on a small box. “See, Simon, now we know the time.” Brushing off his hands, Davy stood up. “Mom, can we sit on the mattress?”

I only nodded.

Davy grabbed the mattress we had used for shielding us and laid it on the floor. “Is this OK here, or do you want me to put this somewhere?”

“No.” I shook my head. “That’ll be fine.”

“Maybe me and Simon can organize in here. Something to do.” Davy said. “You wanna do that, Simon, huh? After we take a rest?”

Simon excited, nodded his head.

“We’ll help out Aunt Jo, that way it won’t be so dirty.”

“It’s dirty,” Simon said.

“Yeah.” Davy made a crinkled face. “Let’s take a rest first, OK?”

Taking Simon’s hand, Davy led him to the mattress. Both boys sat, and Simon seemed to mimic Davy, leaning against the wall, crossing his feet at the ankles and closing his eyes, right after Davy did.

I sat across from them on an old folded winter coat. All I could do at that moment was watch them. They were perched upon one of three mattresses I went out and bought at a discount store. A two hundred dollar expense my husband Sam didn’t bat an eye at. Of course Sam didn’t say too much about what I bought, or did regarding our little survival world. He went along with it, no matter how outlandish or expensive. Labeling everything as something you never know if you would need.

Who would have thought the need would be there. I certainly didn’t, despite what I did. I peered around the small cold cellar. A dark, dingy room that I used mainly for storing my supplies. Sure, I said it would be the immediate protective shelter, but I never prepped it. My boxes of food, supplies, and water took up so much space we barely had room to sit. I hadn’t a true clue on what all I had. Davy’s post-rest reorganization plan would be a much needed activity. Not only to give us space, but to give us something to do. I had spent so much time planning, creating checklists, schedules, and charting what we would do in the days and weeks following the attack, I forgot to plan what we would do in the immediate. How crucial the ‘immediate’ was.

Time stood still. The shock of what happened left my body with a tremendous inability to move. My mind wouldn’t think. My body ached in the painful silence of the aftermath. The brass balls I displayed on my sleeve rolled off somewhere in the confusion of what happened. All that I expected myself to be, all that I projected, I wasn’t. Truth be known, even more than feeling scared, at that moment, I felt totally useless.

“Hold it steady,” I instructed Davy, who aimed the flashlight for my benefit.

“I am.”

“I know.” On my knees I fiddled with the yellow tin box I purchased from an auction at a really cheap price. A steal I bragged about. My affordable Geiger counter. But at that moment I wondered if I only paid for a box with some neat little gadgets. To my right was a brochure. I lifted it.

“Aunt Jo?” Simon called.

From the pages, I glanced to Simon who lay belly-down on the mattress. “Yes?”

“Can I have one more?”

“Um… sure.” I knew he was referring to the beef jerky. I had given him only one to hold him over while he colored.

“Should he have one more?” Davy asked.

“Yes, we have plenty. I’m positive of that. Why don’t you get it for him, please?”

“OK.” Davy took a step away.

“The light. The light. Don’t move the flashlight.” I snapped.

“Mom, I can’t go get Simon beef jerky and hold the flashlight on you.”

I grumbled softly. “You’re right.” I looked to Simon, “Simon, give us a few minutes. Finish coloring.”

“OK.” Simon returned to his book.

The battle with the Geiger counter was growing tiresome. I pulled and pulled the top. “Fuck. How do you get this thing open to put the batteries in?”

“Isn’t it in the manual?” Davy questioned.

“How to put the batteries inside is on page three. How to open it…” I grabbed the manual. “Is nowhere to be found.”

“Maybe you should have read the manual before.”

“I should have. I didn’t.”

“Why?”

“Christ, Davy, I don’t know. Maybe because I didn’t think we needed to.” It was pointless to argue with Davy; my mind was on that box. Finally, I succeeded. “Ah. There.”

“Was all you needed to do was flip that latch?” Davy pointed.

The glance I gave said more than any words.

“Just asking.”

“Hold the light steady.” I grabbed the battery from the baggie.

“Will it work?” Davy asked.

“I hope.”

“We never tested it.”

“I know.”

“We should have tested it,” Davy said.

I looked up at him. He had to be kidding. “How were we supposed to test it, Davy? It measures radiation.”

Davy shrugged. “I don’t know. An X-Ray place or something. Because you know, what if it doesn’t work and it tells us the wrong thing.”

I closed the lid to the Geiger counter. “You know what? Forget it. We’ll do it later.”

“Why?”

“Because we don’t need to measure right now.”

“How come? Don’t we want to know what the levels are?”

“They’re high.” I stood up.

“But what if…”

“Davy.” I barked. “It doesn’t make a difference what the levels are, we aren’t fuckin’ going out there anyhow.”