The House Down the Street
By
Nigel Dueller
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PUBLISHED BY:
The House Down the Street
Copyright © 2013 by Nigel Dueller
Steve could see Sally through the binoculars. He waved. She waved. Sally in the house down the street. A house very similar to his family’s: three stories, three car garage and a quarter acre lot. Covered in protective glass. How could they hold a grudge considering how things had become? At least his family had made entreaties. The grudge had been going on longer than he had been alive.
****
Steve’s grandpa (deceased) had already started the process when the news hit. Replicators had been on the market for a day and while those few who could afford them were still trying to decode the instructions the doomsday clock struck midnight and the missiles were let loose. With his half legit/half black market replicator Grandpa Jones was just finishing.
He started making glass shield tiles right away.
Jones the Survivalist, Noah Jones, Madman Jones – quite a few nicknames. He had never met the man but lore made Steve’s grandfather out to be remarkable. Visionary and crazy, practical and idiosyncratic. But overall, he was prepared. The nuclear threat was a chronic disease, supposedly in remission since the end of The Cold War, but to Grandpa Jones the threat was always very real. He got his replicator making glass shield tiles. While others were just figuring out how put water, or sand, or mud in and get a peanut butter and jelly sandwich out – “Put the dirt in the ‘cater and don’t wait till later/your sammy is ready to go!” – Jones was putting in dirt and getting out tiles.
Half a block away, Wayne Wochowski had started right away too. His shields going up as fast as Grandpa Jones. Wayne dug from the same strategic place, shoring up the broadening basement walls just as Grandpa Jones did. They weren’t in a race to get the most attention but if they had it would have been a dead heat that finished in a tie. And Steve wasn’t too surprised to find out that what he grew to suspect was true, that Wayne Wochowski and Grandpa Jones had been friends. Both now dead but grandfather dying much earlier and much more hatefully.
And then the falling out and the shunning. The taunts and the attacks. Now twenty, Steve still didn’t know what caused the whole thing. First friendship then the steel door in the connecting tunnel being sealed. The Jones’ then going out of their way to communicate and interact with other local survivors, the Wochowski’s developing their own network of allies. Indeed, Steve’s wife was due to arrive via special and rare transport in a couple of weeks, the logistics complicated, dangerous and embarrassing.
Soon Sally Wochowski would be lost to him forever.
Their relationship had started early. Despite the pretenses of ignoring each other, the Jones and Wochowskis intimately knew each other’s business. E-mails were sent expecting to be intercepted and the tones were always hyperbolic and full of incendiary braggadocio. Steve was told to be proud because he was born before Sally, confirmatory pictures of baby Steve sent out on not-so-private social networks. Then Sally being born and praise and taunts ensuing because girls are more of a blessing. Steve was twelve when he fell in love, the transgression almost exciting as the emotions. Now he was twenty and the coded exchanges, the hours sitting in their rooms looking across the gulf between their houses was to end.
He would think about it at times. Walking away from the steel door after standing silently on his side, Sally on the other. They would each knock and he wondered what it would be like to override the door. In his room he would look across the distance and consider breaking some of the shield, running down the radiated block.
Should I do it? – his encoded text read. He was asking if he should override the door: breaking the glass shield in a fit of romanticism and at the same time killing himself and his family was a short-lived fantasy.
No. I’m sorry, no. We have to live on. I might move, marry into one of our friend’s families. And she was right. There was no other way. The feud still had too many legs. Steve’s and Sally’s parents were adamant.
****
“She’ll be here soon,” Steve’s mother said. “Stevie? Aren’t you excited?”
Distracted, Steve brought his attention to focus. “Yes, Mom.”
“Well, don’t get stressed. I know it is strange. Your father and I didn’t have to go through this. But it will be okay.”
Okay. His mother’s comment added fuel to his daydream. What would it have been like before most everyone met nuclear annihilation? He and Sally . . .
“Too bad we can’t just hook you up with Sally Wochowski,” his mother said. His thoughts snapped back to the present. “That would be convenient. Too bad.”
She really didn’t know.
“Yeah, too bad,” he said.
Two weeks to go.
****
The caravan would wind to their house. The Wochowski’s didn’t respond to the Jones’ e-mail which meant that it was okay for traffic to cross along the street in front of their house. The Transfer would occur. Carmen Lampley would be left. The caravan would leave. Existing tunnels did not go that far. The Jones’ had a few long tunnels, but none as far away the environs of St. Paul. None of Carmen’s family would stay behind, just her. She would move through a series of recently constructed rooms, extreme precaution for her safety and the safety of those inside. The safety of mankind – mankind’s continued existence – relied on such precaution.
****
And dark days ensued, those few with replicators or with already prepared structures the only ones surviving . . . Lessons from his youth went through Steve’s head as they often did. He walked to the steel tunnel door. His father was away and it was close to midnight, his mother sleeping. Steve knocked on the door and Sally knocked back. He then sat, his back leaning against the door, Sally doing the same on the other side.
I wanna do it. He typed and hit send. He imagined what it would be like to open the door.
I think that way sometimes 2. Sally replied.
He had typed up: I think about it all the time. . when he received another text from Sally. It read: Just too dangerous.
Steve started a new text. But worth it. He hit send
****
One week to go. Steve’s father was back. He had been at a Men’s Meeting and had also brought back some more dirt for the replicator. They mostly maintained parts for and knowledge of replicators at the Men’s Meetings. And talked. Steve’s father never told him much. But he was in a talkative mood today.
He called Steve up from work. Steve was making more glass shields to shore up the basement. Created with little sliding parts and tracks, the glass shield tiles could be made in a way that would expand outward. This to block radiation, push it back. Besides shoring up the basement Steve was about to complete a separate room, meant for him and the soon to arrive Carmen. He would have finished it by now but he just couldn’t stay motivated. Did his father know?
“Stevie,” his father smiled. He sat at the kitchen table, a book in front of him. He kicked a chair out for Steve. “Just wanted to chat.”
Steve sat. He could read nothing from his father’s demeanor. Just wanted to chat. About what?
“Just got back from a meeting.” His father looked into the distance as though he could see through the house and over miles of wasteland. His smile fell away quick but returned as he met Steve’s eyes. “A lot going on. A lot of talk. And a lot going on here.”
Steve’s father looked at him, his gaze going between focused and distant. His father’s mouth moved from smile to rictus to nothing. He looked like he might throw
up. Never before had Steve seen his father like this. He was serious for a time after some meetings, said he didn’t like people that much in the first place. Perhaps he carried some traits of his father, Grandpa Jones. Crazy Jones, Solitary Jones.
Steve didn’t know what to think. The gravity of the situation pulled at his stomach.
“I love her! Oh, I don’t love her,” Steve said. If his father was trying to scare him it had worked. A week to go before Carmen arrived, the one he didn’t love. And Sally . . . Maybe this was the only way. To be honest.
“I mean . . .” Steve began to explain.
“I know what you mean and who you mean.”
“I . . .I” Steve couldn’t find any words.
“Steve.” His father interrupted. “Please be quiet.” Calm seemed to have returned to him.
“I know about you and Sally . . . Sally Wochowski. Sure there was talk of that at the Meeting. But hold on a sec. There is other talk. There might be more war. And more shit’s gonna be slung than the last time Jeremiah Wochowski got it in his head to catapult a stone at our house. Those people. Wayne Wochowski killed your grandfather.”
Steve felt anger well up in him. And confusion. Of the many thoughts and emotions he felt, held up against the idea of war, the main thing he felt was that it would be over between him and Sally. Whatever the circumstance – maybe his grandpa was already sick or maybe Wayne Wochowski accidently got his Grandpa caught outside – whatever it was Steve knew it wouldn’t work between him and Sally. Sally was right. She knew the true depth of emotions that was at the heart of their families’ dispute. He would text her back, U were right, and then not talk to her again.
“How was he killed?” Steve asked.
“He . . . oh, I shouldn’t have told you.” Now his father seemed confused. “You could probably tell anyhow. But that doesn’t matter now.”
“Doesn’t matter?”
“No. Its old news, it doesn’t matter anymore. Look, Carmen will be here soon. She is a good kid from a good family. And with the way things are going. . . Damn those Wochowskis. I think it is time to end that.”
“Hey, I’ll stop texting her,” Steve said. “I’ll forget.”
“No,” his father said. “It is time to end the feud. If war comes we need as many allies as we can get. I want you to marry Carmen and Sally both.”
Steve was shocked. Happy and uncertain. As another wave on the tide a war rolled forward Steve thought of only one thing. Not too early and not too late he would open up that subterranean steel door.
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