Alas, Babylon

Dan had evolved a barter system for his services. He charged a gallon of gas, if the patient had it, for house calls. Most families had somehow managed to obtain and conserve a few gallons of gasoline. It was their link with a mobile past, insurance of mobility in some emergency of the future. Sickness and injury were emergencies for which they would gladly dip into their liquid reserve. Dan made little profit. Perhaps half his patients were able and willing to pay with gasoline. Still, he managed to keep the Model-A’s tank nearly full, and on his rounds he was continuously charging batteries. Bill McGovern had instituted a system of rotating the batteries in the car. In turn, the charged batteries powered Admiral Hazzard’s short-wave receiver. Not only was the car transport for Randy’s water-linked enclave of families, it was necessary to maintain their ear to the world outside. Not that the world, any longer, said much.

Dan said, “Sure, Randy, but it’s going to take all morning. I’ve got a bad situation in town.”

“What’s the trouble?”

From downstairs they heard Helen’s voice, “Breakfast!” “Tell you later,” Dan said.

Randy was last to reach the dining room. There was a tall glass of orange juice at his place, and a big pitcher of juice in the center of the table. Whatever else they might lack, there was always citrus. Yet even orange juice would eventually disappear. In late June or early July they would squeeze the last of the Valencias and use the last grapefruit. From then until the new crop of early oranges ripened in October, citrus would be absent from their diet.

He saw that this morning there was a single boiled egg and small portion of broiled fish left over from the night before. “Where’s my other boiled egg?” he said.

“Malachai only brought over eight eggs this morning,” Helen said. “The Henrys have been losing chickens.”

“What do you mean, losing them?”

“They’re being stolen.”

Randy put down his juice. Citrus, fish, and eggs were their staples. A drop in the egg supply was serious. “I’ll bet it’s an inside job,” he said. “I’ll bet that no-good Two-Tone has been swapping hens for liquor.”

Lib spoke. “Malachai thinks it’s wild cats-that is, house cats that have gone wild.”

“That’s not the worst of it,” Helen said. “One of the Henrys’ pigs is missing. They heard it squeal, just once. Preacher thinks a wolf took it. Preacher says he found a wolf track.”

“No wolves in Florida,” Randy said. “No four-legged wolves.” The loss of hens was serious, but the loss of pigs disastrous. The Henry sow had produced a farrow that in a few weeks would add real meat to everybody’s diet. Even now they weighed twelve to fifteen pounds. Each evening, all food scraps from the Bragg, Wechek, and Hazzard households were carried to the Henry place to help feed the pigs and chickens. Every day, Randy had to argue with Helen and Lib to save scraps for Graf. Randy was conscious that the Henrys supplied more than their own share of food for the benefit of all. When Preacher’s corn crop ripened in June, the disparity would be even greater. And it had been Two-Tone, of all people, who had suggested that they grow sugar cane and then had explored the river banks in the Henrys’ leaky, flat bottomed skiff until he had found wild cane. He had sprigged, planted, and cultivated it. Because of the Henrys, they could all look forward, one day, to a breakfast of corn bread, cane syrup, and bacon. He was sure they would find a way to convert the corn to meal, even if they had to grind it between flagstones. “I don’t think we’re doing enough for the Henrys,” Randy said. “We’ll have to give them more help.”

“What kind of help?” Bill McGovern asked.

“At the moment, help them guard the food supply. Keep away the prowlers-cats, wolves, humans, or whatever.”

“Can’t the Henrys do it themselves?” Helen asked. “Don’t they have a gun?”

“They’ve got a gun-an old, beat-up single barrel twelve gauge-but they don’t have time. You can’t expect Preacher and Malachai to work as hard as they do every day and then sit up all night. And I wouldn’t trust Two-Tone. He’d just sleep. Do I hear volunteers?”

“Me!” said Ben Franklin.

Randy’s first impulse was to say no, that this wasn’t a job for a thirteen-year-old boy. Yet Ben was eating as much as a man, or more, and he would have to do a man’s work. “I thought you and Caleb were chopping firewood today?”

“I can chop wood and stand watch too.”

“Better let me take it the first night,” said Bill McGovern. “I wouldn’t want to see anything happen to those pigs.” Bill was thi

Randy had his decision. “All right, Bill, you can take the watch tonight, and we’ll rotate thereafter. I’m sure the Admiral will take a night too.”

“Do I get a night?” Ben Franklin asked. His eyes were pleading.

“You get a night, Ben. I’ll make up a schedule and post it on the bulletin board.” A bulletin board in the hallway, with assignment of duties, had become a necessity. In this new life there was no leisure. If everybody worked as hard as he could until sundown every day, then everybody could eat, although not well. Each day brought a crisis of one kind or another. They faced shortages of the most trivial but necessary items. Who would have had the foresight to buy a supply of needles and thread? Florence Wechek owned a beautiful new sewing machine, electric and useless of course. Florence, Helen, and Ha

Staring down at his plate, he thought of all this.

Lib said, “Randy, finish your fish. And you’d better drink another glass of orange juice. You’ll be hungry before lunch, if Helen and I can put a lunch together.”

“I hate orange juice!” Randy said, and poured himself another glass.

Dan drove. Randy sat beside him. It was warm, and Randy was comfortable in shorts, boat shoes, and a pullover shirt. He carried his pistol holstered at his hip. The pistol had become a weightless part of him now. He had dry-fired it a thousand times until it felt good in his hand, and even used it to kill a rattlesnake in the grove and two moccasins on the dock. Shooting snakes was a waste of ammunition but he was now confident of the pistol’s accuracy and the steadiness of his hand. In Randy’s lap, encased in a paper bag, was the bottle of Scotch he hoped to trade for coffee. They smoked their morning pipes. Randy said, “Dan, what’s this bad situation in town?”

“I haven’t said anything about it,” Dan said, “because I can’t get to the bottom of it and I didn’t want to frighten anybody. I’ve got three serious cases of radiation poisoning.”

“Oh, God!” Randy said, not an exclamation but a prayer. This was the sword that had been hanging over all of them. If a man kept busy enough, if his troubles and problems were immediate and numerous, if he was always hungry, then he could for a time wall off this thing, forget for a time that he lived in what had officially been designated a contaminated zone. He could forget the insidious, the invisible, the implacable enemy, but not forever.