Mark Tufo - A Plague Upon Your Family

The smiles around the kitchen table, as we devoured first that sheet and then another sheet of cookies with the surprisingly good taste of gummy bears mixed in, renewed my faith. My faith in what? God, humanity, survival, just plain old cookies, I wasn’t sure, but I wasn’t going to question it. If I didn’t have another ultimate destination in mind I could have seen myself spending the rest of my days in this loving household. And then it struck me, why should I drag my family still another 1500 hundred miles across the country. And for what? There was no guarantee that any of my family survived. Carol survived though and if she could do it, then so could they. But she’s in rural North Dakota, not much happened here when everybody was alive. Yeah and my family is in rural Maine. If I could Google it, I’d bet the populations were similar.

Not knowing what had happened to my family weighed heavily but the thought of exposing my immediate family into even more danger to satisfy my curiosity was not an option.

I grabbed Tracy’s hand and took her in to the living room.

“I think we should just stay here Trace.”

Her look questioned me, but I could see the excitement beyond “Are you sure Mike. I know how much you want to get back home.”

“I think maybe we are home.”

She hugged me fiercely, her leg crushing into my pilfered bottle of Viagra stashed in my pants pocket.

“You happy to see me Mike?” She asked with a smile.

“I sure as hell could be.” I answered her. She smacked me. We headed back into the kitchen. Her first and then me after some slight man parts adjusting. At least the momentary estrogen flood hadn’t completely emasculated me.

After a bunch more laughing and eating I went out to the porch. I would like to say that I had to loosen my belt because of the meal. These last few weeks stripped any fat reserves I had stored. I looked down the yard at the minivan wondering how many trips was it going to take to get everything up here. I also wasn’t thrilled with the prospect of leaving it down there either. It looked too much like an invitation.

I heard a burst of merriment as Carol opened up the door to join me on the porch.

“I can’t tell you what a wonderful thing you’ve done here Mike.” She said.

“We had to come and see if you were alright mom.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about, and I think you know it.” I wanted to protest, it might have rang hollow though. “I mean bringing my daughter and my grandkids to me, alive and safe.” I started to speak. “Hush, I know what you’re going to say. But most people didn’t feel like it was what they had to do Mike. A good number of folks turned their guns on their kin rather than stand and fight.” I looked at her in bewilderment. “No Mike you didn’t HAVE to do anything but you did. You know when Tracy first married you, I wondered what the hell she saw in you.”

“Don’t hold back on my account.”

“Oh I won’t. To be fair, you’re a looker but I wasn’t sure of your character.”

“Holy shit Carol is this a pep talk?”

“Hush I’m not done talking yet.”

“Can you at least bust open that bottle of Jeff?” I asked her

From somewhere deep inside the house I heard Tommy yell ‘Jack’.

“You always seemed nuttier than a pecan pie to me.”

“Oh this is just getting better and better.” I took a long pull from the Daniels that she handed me.

“But when Nicole was born and I saw how you were with her. I thought I might have made a mistake about you.”

“Great.” I took another swig.

“Now stop! That’s not an easy thing for me to admit. You know Tracy is my only child and I damn near lost her at childbirth. So I only wanted what was best for her and at the time I didn’t think that was you. But I watched you with Nicole. She stripped away your East coast sarcasm and your ill temper towards the world. You loved her like no other ever could. The father’s pride that beamed in your eyes every time you held her, that alone made me realize my error. I’ve seen you with all your kids Mike and I know that you would do whatever it took to make sure that each and every one of them was safe. And for that Mike I’m sorry that I ever doubted you. But if you take one more swig off my bottle like the last one, I’m taking it all back.”

I handed her the bottle back, I had actually taken a fair hit against the contents. I felt a little bad but it was rapidly becoming covered over with the warm tingly feeling of a buzz.

“What are you two doing out here?” Tracy asked, donning her coat.

“Reminiscing.” I told her.

“Reminiscing huh? How much of that paint thinner have you had Mike?” My wife asked me.

“More than he should have.” Carol said, holding the bottle up.

“We gots to get that minivan off the road.”

“Gots huh? I don’t think you should be driving anything, Mike.” Tracy said.

“Aw it’s not like he’s going to get a DUI. Loosen up girl.” My mother-in-law said between swigs.

“Mom! Don’t encourage him.”

“You still got that tractor Carol?”

“Actually had it running about a month or so ago to plow the driveway. Don’t really have a desire much now to go out. “Though if you hadn’t brought this whiskey I might’ve been changing my mind soon.”

CHAPTER 22

Now the question was, did I want to plow the driveway and let any old schmoe have a direct route up or did I want to drag the minivan and all its contents up here. If I dragged it up here and something happened where we needed to get out again we were screwed. Plow the driveway it was then. If anybody came a knockin we’d deal with it at that point. Not like this was I-95 to begin with. I went back into the house and put on everything and anything that I thought would stave off the frigid cold. Whisky glow was only going to get me so far. And yes I know that alcohol doesn’t really warm you up. It does the opposite in fact by thinning your blood. It just makes you FEEL warmer. I had bundled up near to the point of becoming a beach ball with appendages and was three steps down the porch before I realized I had forgotten something. Now I know this was the safest I’ve felt in weeks but still I marched back in pretending to ignore my wife’s questioning gaze and grabbed my nine-millimeter.

The barn, where the tractor was located, was about 100 yards or so from the house. I encountered six death blotches between the house and the barn. I shook my head in marvelment of how Carol had survived. Had she slept? It wasn’t like she could post a guard. She didn’t have a dog anymore. Bastion had died I think two summers ago, struck by the tractor. Tracy had cried for near on a week. Her father had got that coon hound the day he found out he had cancer. He often told people that on his worst days of getting chemo, it was the tail wagging, tongue-licking Bastion that helped him get through the day. Even on his deathbed he had told Carol that the dog had probably given them an extra half of year together. Carol loved that dog, if only for the fact that it had given her and her beloved husband extra time.

It was two years after Everett’s death that she had hired a handyman to get rid of some trash from the back acreage. Something Everett had been promising for close on 15 years. It was more of an inside joke that Everett had never gotten around to it than a point of contention. When the man had come running up to the household with a broken bloody bundle in his arms, Carol had intrinsically known what he carried. She had wept nearly as many tears for the mangy Bastion as she had for her husband. Another link to him was gone. She buried Bastion alongside her husband in the family cemetery.