need all the amenities they'd always thought they'd needed in order to survive. She wondered how some of the other, older people in town were getting along. Her family, at least, had had a head start -- she had always made food from scratch and over the years had implemented many of the independent natural living suggestions she'd learned from _Mother Earth News_ -- but adjusting might be a little more difficult for some of the other residents of Willis.
The reason for these constant outages was obvious: the mailman wanted to break down their resistance, to make sure they knew that nothing could be relied upon, nothing was safe. The security blanket of civilization was one that he could rip off at will, exposing their helpless nakedness, and doing so was something he clearly enjoyed. Exactly how he accomplished the blackouts, how he brought about the cessation of water and gas and phone service, was still not known. She and Doug had talked to people at the offices of each of the respective utilities until they were blue in the face, but the answers they received were vague and inconclusive, having something to do with fines and penalties, work orders and correspondence.
Paperwork that had gotten fouled up through the mail.
According to a representative for the town's department of water and power, it could not provide services because _its_ water and electricity had been cut off at the source -- the Salt River Project in Phoenix. The project had said, alternately, that the department had not paid its bills and that its quota of services had already been provided. Cited as proof were invoices received through the mail.
But the representative assured Doug and Tritia that the problems would soon be solved, and water and electricity restored.
The man at the phone company, the same manager Doug had talked to before, was even less specific and promised nothing.
It was ironic that the people who were probably having the least difficulty adapting to these circumstances were the ones living on the outskirts of the town, those who normally lived in the most primitive conditions. Now, with their wells and septic tanks and butane generators, their lives were going on as normal, while the rest of them ate cold food and took cold showers and lit candles for light.
'I hope this doesn't last all night,' Tritia said.
Doug took a bite of his tortilla crepe. 'It probably will.'
Billy dropped his fork, and it fell loudly onto his plate. He had hardly eaten anything, had merely cut up and smeared and played with his food.
Tritia fixed him with a no-nonsense stare. 'Finish eating your dinner,'
she said.
Billy groaned. 'I don't --'
A rock crashed through one of the front windows, glass shattering explosively, muffled not at all by the closed curtains. There was the sound of another rock hitting hard against the outside wall.
'Fucker!' someone yelled angrily. The voice was that of an adult male, not a child, not a teenager.
Doug quickly pushed back his chair, knocking it over as he scrambled around the table toward the front door.
'Don't!' Tritia yelled. Her face was white with fear.
Billy, too, looked scared, and Doug could feel his own heart pounding within his chest, but he rushed to the door anyway.
Another rock hit.
'Fucker!'
And then there was the sound of flying gravel, a pickup peeling out and speeding away.
Doug pulled open the door and ran onto the porch in time to see the taillights of a truck disappearing between the trees. There was still a cloud of dust in the drive. He looked down. At his feet on the porch were several rocks approximately the size of softballs. Although only one had hit the window, two of the others had hit the wall and had been thrown with enough strength to make small splintered indentations in the wooden front of the A-frame. How the hell had someone been able to drive close enough to the house to throw rocks this size and not be heard?
From down the road in the silent forest, he heard the sound of triumphant whooping and hollering, growing fainter as the .truck sped farther away.
'What was it?' Tritia stood in the doorway, trembling, holding Billy's shoulders.
'Idont know.'
'Why?'
'Why do the Nelsons think we killed their dog? Why did Todd think I was persecuting him?' Doug looked at his son. 'You don't know who did this, do you?'
Billy shook his head, still frightened.
'I didn't think so. Come on. Let's go inside.' He herded Tritia and Billy through the door, then closed and locked it behind him. Tomorrow, he'd have to find someone to replace the window. He glanced around the front of the living room. In the candlelight broken shards and bits of glass glittered on the chair and part of the couch. They would have to rearrange the furniture in case something like this happened again. He didn't want Tritia or Billy hit by a rock or cut by a stray piece of glass.
His muscles were still tight, knotted. Although he wanted to know who had thrown the rocks, who had been in the truck, he found himself strangelyunangry with the men involved. He was beginning to see the people of Willis as either victims or puppets, manipulated by the controlling will of the mailman. It was the mailman he blamed for everything, from the deaths of dogs and people to racial attacks to utility failures, and that worried him a little. His attitude seemed too close to that of classic paranoia for him to feel entirely comfortable with it. But, farfetched as it sounded, he knew it was the truth. He was not ascribing an omnipotence to the mailman he did not possess; he was merely recognizing an existing situation. He would not be at all surprised to learn that the mailman had orchestrated everything to occur in such a manner that it would engender within him exactly the sort of doubts he was harboring now. He shook his head. He really was getting paranoid.
Tritia was already clearing the dinner dishes. They had not finished, but no one felt like eating right now. Doug walked over to help her. Even Billy took his plate to the kitchen, though he normally would not be caught dead voluntarily doing any sort of labor connected with the family.
A car drove by on the road, stereo blasting, and all three of them tensed as they waited to hear whether it would turn into their drive. The car continued down the road, the sounds of the engine and stereo fading. They looked at one another silently, then continued to clear the dishes.
The curtain covering the broken window blew inward with the light night breeze.
41
After breakfast, Doug called around trying to find someone who would replace the window. Harmon's carried the glass, but there was no one available to do the installation. IfHobie were here, he would have known how to install the window, but Doug was not even willing to attempt it. Aside from the simplest and most necessary household chores, he was incompetent at manual labor. The shed was one thing -- it was designed for construction by people like himself and came with simple step-by-step instructions -- but the window was something else. He called several handymen listed in the phone book, but two did not answer and one refused to perform the work. The only man who would even consider doing the job said the labor would cost $150, and he would not be able to get to it for another two weeks.
Doug was tempted to just board the damn thing up and hang a picture of a window in front of it.
He made some more calls, then went back to the original handyman, whose price had now gone up to $175, apparently as punishment for daring to shop around and try to find someone else.
He hung up the phone and felt Tritia 's hand on his shoulder. He turned around. She was dressed in jeans and a nice blouse, and her purse was over her shoulder. 'Do you have the keys?' she asked.
'Where're you going?'
'Irene's. I'm worried about her. I try to call and there's never any answer, and after what happened toHobie . . .' Her voice trailed off, not needing to finish the sentence.
Doug pulled the keys from his pocket. 'I'll go with you.'
'I think it's better if I go alone. She's not really up to seeing people right now. I don't even know if she'll see me. You just stay here with Billy.'
Doug's eyes met hers, and she saw worry in them, concern. 'It's dangerous out there.'
