Amy Brashear - The Incredible True Story of the Making of the Eve of Destruction

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The main goal is to survive a nuclear attack. Please follow your local authorities’ instructions.

By five o’clock, Jennings’s Hardware was officially out of white paint. God help you if you painted your house any color other than white.

“Did you at least save any for us?” Mom asked.

“Of course. But we don’t really need it. There’s not going to be a nuclear war,” Dennis said.

“But what if there is?” I asked.

“We’ll just do what the government tells us.”

Right. Of course, the government wouldn’t lie to us. That only happened in books like 1984.

“Seriously, what if it does happen?” I asked again.

“We’ll survive,” he said.

Adult reassurances ranked even higher on the bullshit-o-meter than those of the US government.

“Why don’t we just paint ourselves white?” Mom asked. “To deflect the blast, do you think?”

“Government wants us racist even in death,” I said, mostly to myself.

“Harharhar,” Dennis said dryly. But then he started laughing for real.

“So, Dennis, who’s going to paint these interior walls?” I asked cautiously, knowing full well that Terrence and I would be stuck with the rest of the town anti-flashing the inside of our homes so white we’d need to wear sunglasses just to sit in our living rooms.

“Oh, you know who,” Dennis said with a wink.

Terrence was still at his mom’s and would be until Monday. So it was just Dennis, Mom, and me for the night, making brownies for the Welcome to Griffin Flat party. Nothing says “southern hospitality” like hundreds of calories. Dennis and I were taking turns licking the bowls. That was, until I got a call from Max telling me to get to his land, or the Woods. (Everyone in town called that area on Crow Mountain the Woods. Max, though, called it his land.) There had been an invasion.

Mom was against my going.

“No, today is family time,” she said, pouring brownie batter in an 8x8 glass pan.

“Family time? Terrence is with his mom. Can’t you just pretend I’m with Dad?”

Mom laughed. “When’s the last time you were with your dad?”

“Edna,” Dennis warned in a gentle voice.

Mom sighed. She opened the oven, put the brownies in, and set the timer for twenty minutes. And she sighed again, cracking eggs over the bowl to mix another batch of brownies. And she sighed again, wiping her hands on a rag. We were a family—Mom and I and Granny—we were a family that sighed when angry.

“Dad would let me go,” I said, unable to keep from poking the bear with a stick.

“Of course your dad would. He would want to be the good guy.”

“Dad is the good guy.”

She whirled to face me and opened her mouth, but Dennis touched her lower back before she could start talking. I had to hand it to the guy: he was like some sort of pacifist puppeteer when it came to my mother.

She could have taken my comment in many awful directions, all of which probably would have been true. But the immutable facts remained: she was the one who cheated. And she was the one who wanted the marriage to end. She was the one who filed divorce papers. She was the one who married Dennis not long after the papers were signed. She was the bad guy in my eyes. But I couldn’t say that. I would have been the bad guy for pointing it out.

“Terrence is probably at the party,” I pointed out, for all our sakes. “His mom probably let him go,” I added unfairly, licking the leftover batter in the mixing bowl with my finger.

“Don’t start—”

“Start what?” I feigned innocence and went for another dip.

That did the trick. “Go… go to your party,” Mom grunted. She stomped over to her purse and dug for her keys. “Here,” she said, throwing them at me.

I smiled as I changed into some black leggings, an oversized light-pink sweater, and a pair of hot-pink Keds. I kept smiling as I put my hair in a side ponytail and grabbed my black backpack. I was smiling still as I waltzed out the door, waving to Mom and Dennis.

They looked like they felt sorry for me more than anything else.

Now, Max’s land was really his grandfather’s land. Of course, Max gets his grandfather’s land when his grandfather dies, but that’s another story. The place was up on Crow Mountain. It was too far to ride my bike. People had been coming out here since the 1960s. Meaning people like my mom, which was kind of weird if you thought about it—since there was a ton of drinking and sex. Lots of unplanned pregnancies were conceived here. Probably followed by vomiting and dry heaving. Ahh… memories.

Max’s grandfather was a bootlegger. During Prohibition he was the area’s biggest supplier of moonshine. (Commonly overlooked bit of Griffin Flat trivia: moonshine is the reason why our high school mascot is called the Shiners.) He made it in this cave on his land. It was dry and open. But the cave was like a small factory. He had this huge distiller. Even after Prohibition he continued making moonshine. Max’s dad continued the family tradition, even though it was so illegal. Max’s grandfather made the best illegal but tasty stuff. Max’s dad kept it in an underground shelter that his parents built during the brink of the Cold War. Back during the Cuban missile crisis. Back when we were almost annihilated by the Russians. Again . But everyone bought from him, even my grandfather, and Pops. There were quite a bit of “accidents” that occurred around here. When caught, a lot of men and a few women decided to make a break for it and run. And within a hundred feet of the cave is a drop. Watch your step, ’cause it will be your last.

Everyone from high school was here.

It wasn’t really saying a lot: Griffin Flat High School wasn’t that big, and neither was my class. I pulled up right behind Kevin Barnes’s beat-up old truck, got out of my car, locked it. An unlocked car equaled the perfect place to do the nasty. Many parties ago, after an incident that happened that one does not speak of, someone created a sign and nailed it on an old oak tree.

“Laura,” Max yelled, running toward me, “I have been waiting for you.”

“Are you drunk?” I asked.

“Nooooooo, honestly, I’m not. It’s soda.”

“Max—Max—Max—Max—Max—Max—Max…” the crowd chanted.

Max turned to the crowd, raised his cup in the air, and then proceeded to chug.

“Max—Max—Max—Max—Max—Max—Max…” the crowd chanted again.

Max stuck out his tongue, shook his head, crushed his cup with his left hand, and threw it to the ground. “Yeah, boy.”

The crowd cheered and went back to their drinks.

“What?” I asked, laughing.

“We all just formed a cult—and I’m their leader. Does this mean I should go to the store and pick up some Kool-Aid?”

“Don’t drink the Kool-Aid. Wait—” I said. “You’re the leader?”