B Farmer - Descent

I exhaled a giant gulp of air. The cloud of frozen particulates clearly showed it was too cold in what essentially was an enclosed, thinly insulated lean-to to be comfortable, and probably too cold to be safe for that matter.

He ignored my show. “Why would they be scared? Not exactly the first time the power has been down.”

“You don’t reckon ’ese people ain’t got electric watches and tablets? Surely ya don’t thank we as dumb as ol’ Tit does, do ya? With ’em all dyin at once, and everybody talkin ’bout it, ya lucky people ain’t beatin on ol’ Faux’s door over ’ere lookin for answers.”

“Yeah, there are a few things down… It’s probably just static electricity or something like that, and you know I don’t think like Titouan does. I love you dick heads. Besides, if I were like Titouan, I would’ve asked you what the hell an electric watch was.”

I had heard Avery talking about static electricity causing issues with working on electronics, especially in the Arctic. He said it was something about how cold and dry the air was. I knew Sam probably wouldn’t buy it, but I honestly didn’t know what else to say. The truth was off limits because I wasn’t even sure at that point what the actual truth was. I knew on one hand the failure of the generators and almost all our electronics for no good reason. On the other hand, there was the nuclear EMP option. I decided to not concentrate on the potential causes because I didn’t want to go crazy. Instead, I concentrated on the main event: we were screwed.

Sam gave me exactly the look I’d expected from him. The look of him knowing damn well I was full of shit. We went all the way back to my first weeks in Texas after leaving Indiana. I was pretty much penniless and living in a single-room dive when we met. You know, the kind of dive you pay by the week and one where you share a bathroom with however many other people lived there. Anyway, Sam lived there too. He had started working for Miley Construction Company two days before I had. Yes, the same Miley who owns the Patch – the one percenters own all kinds of shit. The point being, he knew me from way back.

“You don’t have a clue ’bout what the fuck ya just said, do ya? Ya probably heard Faux talkin ’bout it.”

“Yeah, I gotta say, it did sound better when he said it.”

Sam moved his chair closer to the heater before saying, “Since we done ’liminated static electricity, what else does ’at leave?”

Sam had a knack of wading through the bull shit. “We’re not exactly sure. Avery does have at least one theory about what possibly could’ve happened.”

“Yeah, what might ’at be? Little gray men turn our lights out – dittle our buttholes when we was sleepin?”

“Only your butthole,” I said.

“Seriously, what does Avery think? I gotta know, son.”

I said the following in rapid succession, “He thinks someone exploded a nuke in space and that was supposed to have caused our stuff to go tits up.”

Sam stared at the floor for a few moments shaking his head. Through a single open eye and with a cocked head and a shit-eating grin, he said, “I guess the nuke created the static ’lectricity you was talkin ’bout too?”

It wasn’t so much I believed what Avery said. It was more about feeling inadequate and helpless about not knowing what else to believe. We were helpless in the damn middle of the Arctic, for Christ’s sake. Yes, I was at the mercy of a highly flawed theory, but I knew my own limits. The fact of the matter was, and this still sounds ridiculous, I couldn’t come up with a better explanation for what had happened. Shit normally doesn’t stop working like we saw during that period. I didn’t reply because I didn’t know anything that would satisfy him. Maybe I shrugged. I don’t remember.

“Holy hell and nervous Mother Mary. Ya don’t buy ’at shit, do ya?”

“Honestly, I don’t know what the hell to buy or believe at this point.”

I was more than ready to change the subject. A dark mood was sweeping over me, and I needed to get a grip on it. I needed to keep moving. I couldn’t sit there and dwell on things that were simply out of my control. I had to concentrate on those things I could, and hope Titouan wouldn’t try to get in my way as I trudged through them.

“The reason I came over here, besides being worried about you being in here, is I need to know when the next supply truck is due?”

I could tell he wasn’t ready to leave the conversation, but he acquiesced. He wheeled his chair back over to his desk and shuffled through some paperwork. “Looks like next Wednesday.”

“Five damn days, Sam? You have to be kidding me.”

“Son, thangs are fixin ta get whole lot worse. Are you sure you can’t get ’em generators runnin?”

“Pretty damn positive. I assume you’re going to give me more bad news?”

“’Member when you asked me to check on the kerosene? Well, I did. We might have ’nough for a couple days if we stretch it out. Maybe. None of ’em stooges at corporate imagined us ever needin ta heat ’is place with just kerosene.”

“We should’ve stayed in East Texas.”

He nodded in agreement and then asked, “What’s the plan?”

“Round up all the kerosene you have and put it under lock and key. I’ll put Jack in charge of making sure it’s used most efficiently. Then bring this heater over to the commons. You don’t know it yet, but you have to come to Barrow with me.”

“I got yer back, son.”

“If that’s the case, you want to go over to the Commons and tell everybody how screwed they are?”

He patted me on the back. “Nah, but if ’ey start beatin ya up or somethin, I’ll call the police.”

“I feel better already.”

The structure of authority is durable when things go as planned. Add some chaos into the situation and see how quickly authority erodes. After a few months working construction, Miley must’ve seen something in me. That or I was the only sucker who would do it. He made me his closer. When the performance of an operation was below Miley’s high expectations, I would go in and try to meet them. If I couldn’t, we closed it down and let everyone go. I’m not especially proud of those days, but if I’m gleaning something positive out of them, it would be the insight I gained from people in those types of situations.

In almost every instance, employees assumed I was there to close the operation down, and no matter how much I explained how that was the last resort, they didn’t buy it. Everyone hated me because I was the big, mean closer, and they sure as hell weren’t going to put forth any more effort than they had to. That would make my job too easy, and, most importantly, they would gain nothing from it. They would take long breaks, slack off instead of working, and essentially lay down. Hell, some of them would go ahead and quit, leaving me with empty positions I couldn’t fill because no one wanted to board an already sinking ship. It was essentially a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts.

When I got to the Commons, Titouan was locked outside. He was getting a small taste of what I went through, and I wasn’t in the same league of asshole as he was. Everyone was already upset that I had been demoted. Those most displeased by this turn of events were the loyal, senior workers who worked with me in East Texas. Couple that anger they had from his unexpected ascension with supply shortages, horrible work environment, and, at that point, a complete power outage, and what you had was a bonafide shitty situation for everyone involved.

You’re probably thinking, well, if they were loyal to you, then it makes sense they would treat Titouan like dirt. I was their friend, no doubt about that. Most of them had a family and kids, though. They wouldn’t give up their paycheck out of loyalty to me, and I wouldn’t have wanted them to. Loyalty wasn’t the problem.