L Akers - Fight Like a Man

Still, he didn’t want to get involved. He needed to run his errands and get on the road to the farm. The longer he waited, the worse his leg was going to be hurting him, and it was going to be a long ride. He slowly shook his head. He wasn’t sticking around.

Tucker put his hand on Jake’s shoulder. “Look, I saw you limping. You really going to ride that bike all the way to town to get your part? You’ll be miserable. You won’t make it there and back before dark tonight.”

Jake nodded miserably. “I know.”

“I’ll make you a deal. If you stick around a little while—an hour at the most—and help me herd these cats, I’ll let you borrow my four-wheeler ATV to go get your part.”

Oh hell yeah.

Jake was in. He needed more than a part, but both stops were near each other. He really didn’t want to pedal that far. “You talked me into it.”

He stepped off his bike and faced the crowd, crossing his arms. “Okay, what all have y’all done so far? Assuming the power isn’t coming on for a while. Have you stocked up the water and cooked all your food?”

Nothing but blank stares answered him.

He nodded and did some quick thinking through the waves of his worsening headache. He wasn’t up for a nasty debate, as their neighborhood meetings usually devolved into. He’d give them the quick and dirty version and then be on his way.

“First thing, leave Tucker’s pool alone. Y’all got more water than you think you do at your own houses. Maybe even enough to last until the power comes back on. So, if you haven’t already done it, drain your pipes. Use any pot or pan or container you have and fill them up. There’s somewhere around sixty houses in Tullymore, right? With sixty, having at least one water heater each that can be drained, that’s a fifty-gallon heater x 60 houses = 3,000 gallons of available drinking water. The city has already treated it with chemicals in their process, so it should stay good for a pretty long while. The main supply lines from under the houses can also be taken loose and all the water sitting in the lines throughout the house could be caught in buckets, jars, bottles or anything that will hold it. I would have to think that there would be at least four or five more gallons in a typical house in just the pipes alone. Be careful with it. If the power doesn’t come back on, you’re going to need every drop. When you’re done with all that, turn off the main water and sewer connections at the street.”

Paul, the neighborhood lawyer, yelled over the crowd, “Why would we do that? We won’t know when it’s on then, and we’ll just have to turn it back on again when the power comes back on.”

Jake could see no one else knew where he was going with this. He gave an internal sigh—at least he hoped it was internal—at the lack of basic understanding of how city waste and water worked. “If you don’t turn it off at the road, when the pipes at the water plant clog up because the shit-choppers stop chopping, all that shitty water is gonna reverse and come back this way. Your toilets, your sinks, your tubs… will all be overflowing with sewage. Soon, you won’t be able to live with the stink, assuming you could stop the waves of waste flowing across your floors. Just turn them off.”

He looked back over the crowd for any further arguments. That’s what he thought. Everyone was a big man until faced with shit. Literally.

“Once your lines are shut down, you can’t use your toilets, not even if you add your own water. So, you’ll need to dig your own hole in the ground and make an outhouse. Get a five-gallon bucket and cut the bottom out, put it over the hole. You can probably take your toilet seat off and use it on the bucket rim for comfort. Or you could also use cut-down pool noodles, the Styrofoam floatie-kind, if you have them.

But if the power stays out too long, I’d suggest a community latrine—actually two. One for the ladies, and one for the men. Dig a long, narrow, ditch-like pit, maybe twenty feet long. If you want to make it comfortable for those that aren’t used to squatting, then find some two by four lumber and build a sturdy narrow bench over it. Hang a coffee can on a tree or a post to keep your toilet paper dry and bugs out of it. Lots of people around here probably have lime for their yards; you can sprinkle that over the sh—er—waste, when it gets too smelly. You can nail or staple some sheets or something up for a privacy screen. If you don’t have lime, you can sprinkle the ashes from a fireplace, or fire pit on it to help with the smell—and the flies.”

Curt, the HOA president, nudged the HOA secretary, Christie. “You getting all this?”

She nodded as she continued to furiously scribble on a notepad.

Jake had their full attention now. Most of this was common sense and he felt sure there was someone in this community who knew all this and much more. They just hadn’t spoke up yet.

“I’m not saying this is gonna last a long while, but like my brother-in-law says, better to be prepared. With that in mind, don’t put your latrines near any gardens anyone might have, or might put in the future. Make sure the latrine is downhill from the gardens, or potential garden spots, and especially from any water source, if you find one.”

He doubted that would happen. He wasn’t aware of any creek or pond nearby.

“You need to start rationing water and food now. This neighborhood has enough people in it to either trade with each other, or simply band together and work as one big team. We have a doctor here. You never know when you or families may need one. Put him in charge of health and accidents. Pitch in to give him some supplies. I doubt the hospitals are open.”

Jake looked around at the crowd, trying to remember what everyone else did for a living. He felt confident there were skills here that could help, but he just couldn’t remember them right now. If this kept on though, they’d discover who could do what eventually. Until then, everyone just needed to pitch in.

“You’ve got strong men and boys. Some can do the latrine digging and someone’s gonna have to re-cover them up when they get too full and dig another. Going to need a lot of cooks for this many people, too, if you band together as a community, which I think you should if the power is not on in a week.

If that happens, y’all need to designate one family that you trust to hold and inventory all the food. Someone else can work with them to plan meals for the community. Help each other. Form teams. Food team to cook. Laundry team. Firewood chopping team. Water treatment and carry team—you can use pool shock or chlorine to treat water for drinking or cooking with. Or Bleach. Or you can boil it.

If you all work together and share the food and water, I’d make it a rule that if you don’t work, you don’t eat. Because you’re going to find there’s work to do all the time. Unless you’re physically unable to work at all. And the doctor needs to be the final word on that. I think most everyone can do something, though. Also, one of the most important things that needs to be done right now is to designate a security team. If all hell is breaking loose in town, it’ll be coming this way soon. Y’all asked for my opinion and I’m going to tell you, Tucker is your guy for that. Not only is he a martial arts specialist, but he’s smart, he knows how to shoot and fight, and he has his own guns. Let him pick his own team. Let him train them. If you want to keep what food you have, and keep this community safe, then give all your guns and ammo to the team to protect you.

If the power comes back on, everyone agrees to give it all back and go back to their regular lives. I truly hope it goes that way soon. Until then, maybe put someone in charge of all the teams. Or put together a board to share that responsibility, a small group that can vote on big issues.”