Glen Tate: 299 Days: The Collapse

Silence. Nancy decided she needed to save this discussion from going horribly wrong. “Um, Grant, guns are very dangerous,” she said in a condescending tone. “We don’t want them going off in our neighborhood and hurting people.”

Was she serious? Quite a few people nodded with her. Oh, God, these people were hopeless.

Grant felt a debate coming on, one he would surely lose with these people, but he opened his mouth, anyway.

“Nancy,” Grant said as politely as possible, “I don’t know how much experience you have with firearms, but they don’t just go off by themselves. Those of us who are hunters carry guns all day out in the woods and nothing bad ever happens.”

“Oh, so there aren’t any hunting accidents?” she said, very sarcastically. More nodding of heads among the sheeple.

OK, this was a lost cause. Time to prevent too much attention to himself. He didn’t need these idiots knowing he had guns, which they had probably figured out by now, anyway.

“You know, Nancy, you’re right,” Grant said. “It was a crazy idea. I’m here to listen to the neighborhood’s solution. A consensus solution,” he said, amazingly convincingly. “Consensus” was a code word he learned while working for government. It meant everyone would go along with whatever stupid idea the leader came up with.

That was it. He tried. He was out. He would defend his house. He saw Ron Spencer looking at him.

Duh, Grant thought. Forget the weenies. Just get some of the guys together who have guns and do your own secret patrols. You don’t need permission from the collective to take care of yourself.

Grant sat through the excruciating chatter about who would be the “Block Watch Captain” and, for the umpteenth time, the instruction to lock your doors and cars. Grant wondered if the “Block Watch Captains” would get special hats. He seriously wondered if they would.

When the meeting broke up, Grant, Ron, and Len stepped out together. They found a place where no one would see them together… plotting. Plotting against the will of the collective to protect themselves from obvious dangers.

Grant introduced himself to Len, who said, “I’m Len Isaacson. I know Ron from Rotary.” Good. That meant Len wasn’t a government employee.

Ron started it off. “We need to go on some ‘drives’ during the night. Packing, of course. Do you guys have concealed carry pistols?”

Grant and Len nodded.

Great. Now Grant needed to stay up all night patrolling to protect the weenies. Grant was a sheepdog, and the sheep were really stupid. He sighed. That’s what it’s like during a collapse. Pulling guard duty and trying to save dumb shits from themselves.

Don’t be selfish. Help others. This is the kind of thing you are supposed to be doing.

There was the outside thought again. Crystal clear. He hadn’t heard it in a while. He started running the patrol schedule through his mind. They needed more guys.

“You guys know anyone else who will go on ‘drives’ with us?” Grant asked.

Ron said, “Yeah, there’s a guy on Whitman, Dave Burton. He’s a gun guy. Don’t know why he wasn’t here tonight.”

Len thought. “Maybe Chris… what’s his last name? Chris someone on my cul-de-sac. He strikes me as a gun guy. I’ll check with him.”

Grant felt stupid saying this, but, “Let’s keep our ‘drives’ quiet. I don’t need Nancy on my ass about this.” He marveled at how screwed the situation was; he had to keep it secret that he as recruiting a neighborhood patrol to protect them. Most people would be thankful that a group of guys were stepping up to take care of a problem. But not these brainwashed sheeple morons.

Grant wanted out of this place. His mind flashed to all the security he had out the cabin, especially if the Team was out there. But it was too early to jump now. Lisa would never go for it.

Wait for things to get worse. You’ll know when it’s time to leave.

The outside thought was reassuring—to the extent something telling a person that things will get worse is ever reassuring. But it was.

“We’re not just going to have one guy driving around, are we?” Len asked. “What good is that? That’s not a patrol,” Len said. He was right.

Grant had a set of Motorola walkie talkies. They were the cheap low-powered kind he had Manda take with her when she went on bike rides when she was little. They worked fine in the subdivision. Grant described the walkie talkies to Ron and Len.

“We could have one man driving around radio to another designated guy if there’s trouble,” Ron said. “If we have enough guys, we could have two cars patrolling linked with the radios. They could use their horns to signal the rest of us.” A good plan.

“Since we’d be in cars,” Grant said, “the weenies couldn’t see our guns.” Ron and Len knew exactly who Grant meant by the “weenies.”

Grant continued, “We should carry pistols, concealed, so we have them at all times. But we could put a long gun in our car.” Ron and Len nodded. Having a loaded rifle or shotgun in the car within reach was, of course, against the law in Washington State. Oh well. The whole point of this exercise was that there weren’t enough cops around. The worst that would happen if they got caught is that the cop would seize their guns and car. That’s better than not having enough firepower to repel a gang of punks. Besides, they hadn’t seen a cop car within a mile of the neighborhood for weeks. The rules were changing. The old ways were going away. Grant, Ron, and Len were living the new reality.

“One-man patrols and a designated stationary guy, or, better yet, two cars patrolling,” Len said. “With just three guys, that means we need to be patrolling or on backup two out of three nights,” Len said. “I enjoy sleeping. We need more guys.”

They agreed to try to come up with more guys. They would follow up with the two leads they had and try to come up with more.

“Hey, Ron,” Grant said, “Could we meet at your place and organize things there? I’d have the meeting at my house, but I don’t think my wife would understand why I’m out playing ‘cops and robbers’.”

“No problem,” Ron said. “Sherri is cool with guns.”

Grant knew that people needed deadlines and concrete things to do or none of this volunteer stuff would ever get done. “How about we meet back at Ron’s house in a half hour and start planning.” Ron and Len nodded.

Grant walked back to his house. Now, in addition to being a “survivalist,” he had to hide being an armed neighborhood patroller from Lisa. Great. He had to keep secrets about the things he was doing to protect her. Why? Grant realized he was in a pissy, negative mood. He had been for about a month while he was helplessly watching his country being destroyed. He needed to get his head in this game. It was getting pretty serious. Quit whining and start shining. Hey, that rhymed. Pretty good little phrase, he thought. He smiled. Quit whining and start shining. That was his new plan.

Grant walked into his house, still without having formulated a clear excuse for going over to Ron’s in a half hour.

Lisa asked, “Hey, how did the neighborhood meeting go? Are they going to do anything?”

Of course not, Grant wanted to say. He would just tell her that everything was fine.

“Nope,” Grant said. “They’re not going to do anything.” She looked surprised.

“So,” Grant said, “Ron Spencer and Len Isaacson want to talk about getting some guys together and taking some drives around the neighborhood at night to keep an eye on things.” He left out the part about the guns.