without a breakfast did make his stomach feel a bit jumpy.
“You mind if I borrow the monster, go downtown, and see what is going on?”
“No,” and she smiled. “The Mustang, though, that’s still a different story.”
As he drove past the interstate all the cars were exactly where they had been the night before. The road was empty, except for a lone trucker, sitting in his cab, door open, puffing on a cigar, the driver waving to John. It was the guy from the night before, and the sight of him was a reassurance.
John felt a bit of relief, fearful that something ugly might have indeed happened down here during the night, but all was quiet, no sign of any problems.
Coming up State Street, he passed the elementary school. The front door was propped open, and for a second he wondered if indeed school was open today but then realized that all the school buses were still parked in the lot. There was a hand-lettered sign out front: “Emergency Shelter.”
Pete’s Barbecue House, the restaurant across the street, had volunteered their big outdoor grill, the kind used at festivals and fairs, and there was Pete, set up in front of the school, wearing his absurd pink apron and pink chef’s hat with a smiling pig painted on it, a couple of kettles on the grill, a line formed for coffee and barbecue for breakfast. Typical of Pete, always there for the town.
John honked and Pete looked up in surprise, as did those on the line, and Pete waved.
The light up ahead was off and John had to slow down, half a dozen cars blocking the road. It forced him to swing over to the eastbound side and he came to a stop first, looking both ways. It felt absurd doing it. Of course there was no traffic in sight other than all the stalled cars at the intersection. He weaved around, turned right, and pulled into Smiley’s convenience store, got out of the car, and walked in.
“Hey, Hamid, how are you?”
Hamid had proven to be a fascinating addition to the town. He was Pakistani, married to a local girl, and purchased the store a few months before 9/11. Two days after “that day” the FBI had shown up and arrested him, claiming that there was a report that he had made a statement in support of the attack and would love to help out if anything was tried locally.
The arrest, to John’s delight, had triggered a firestorm. The town turned out, rallied support, harassed the daylights out of the district’s congressman to investigate, and finally Hamid had returned, a block party being held for him.
On the morning after his return, a huge hand-lettered sign was plastered across the window of his store. “I am proud to be an American.… God bless all of you, my friends.”
Hamid was behind the counter; in fact, John suspected he damn near lived in his store.
“Crazy out there,” Hamid said. “I had to stay here all night. People coming in from the highway. It’s been nuts.”
“How about a couple of cartons of Camel Lights?” John said. Hamid shook his head.
John rattled off several more brands until finally he got a hit with Kool Lights.
“Still got three cartons.”
“I’ll take ’em.”
John pulled out his wallet and started to draw out his bank card. “John, that’s down, you know.”
“Oh yeah.”
He pulled out some cash, fifty dollars, still twenty dollars short. “Just pay me later today; I know you’re good for it.” He hesitated before taking the cartons.
“Hey, look, Hamid, I think I gotta tell you this first. You’ve always been a good guy to me. I’m not even sure about giving you money at the moment. Things might be a whole lot worse than it looks right now.”
Hamid looked at him quizzically.
“What do you mean, John?”
He pointed to the money on the counter.
“I mean that.”
“The money?” And he laughed. “Maybe in my old country, but here, American money? You’re kidding?”
“Just that I felt I had to tell you, the price of cigarettes might be a whole helluva lot more than twenty three bucks a carton in a few days.”
Hamid took it in and, smiling, he pushed the cartons across to John.
“Thanks, John, I see your point, but take them, my friend.”
John breathed a sigh of relief. At the moment he’d have emptied his wallet for one pack, but now he could take them without feeling guilty.
“Thanks, Hamid.”
John took the cartons and looked around the store. Nearly all the beer was gone, most of the soda as well. Munchies, chips, pork rinds, all gone. Hamid laughed.
“Best night of business I’ve ever done. Must have a couple thousand in cash here.”
“Hamid, do yourself a favor.”
“What?”
“Take down the rest of your cigarettes and stash them.”
“Why?”
“Just call it an investment, a hedge on inflation.”
Hamid shook his head. “Can’t do that. Maybe for strangers from the highway, but my friends here?”
John smiled.
“Just a friendly suggestion, Hamid. Stash them away; from now on, if you want to sell them to friends, do so just one pack at a time.”
Leaving Hamid, who as soon as John was out the door began to pull the cartons off the display rack, he drove another block to the center of town, again weaving around the stalled cars, and turned up Montreat Road, usually the route of his daily commute to the college. The fire station and police station were on his right and there was a moderate-size crowd there, all looking in his direction. He pulled in, got out of his car, this time locking it and pocketing the keys.
“Hey, John, how the hell did you get that old beast rolling?”
It was Charlie Fuller, the town’s director of public safety, which made him head of both the fire department and the police department. He was also a long-standing member of their Civil War Roundtable and often John’s chief antagonist when it came to debates about the Constitutional justice of the Southern cause.
John looked around at the open parking area. All the fire engines were hangared inside the building along with the ambulance.
“Anything moving here?” he asked.
Charlie shook his head.
“Nothing. It’s been a difficult night.”
“How so?”
“Somewhere around a dozen dead, for starters.”
“What?”
“Heart attacks mostly. One overweight out-of-shape guy walked in from the highway and collapsed right here, right where we’re standing. I have no ambulance, nothing. We got Doc Kellor over, but the guy was already gone.”
Charlie hesitated.
“Three dead up at the nursing home. Tyler’s ok, though,” he added quickly. “At least last I heard.
“Folks have been walking in, or riding bikes in, reports of accidents, and that fire up on Craggy.”
“Yeah, I saw it.”
“Someone said it was a plane, a large one, going in.” John didn’t say anything.
“John, all my communication links are down. Everything, landline phone, radio. I have not heard a word from Asheville and I’m in the dark.”
“What I figured.”
There was the sound of a rattling engine, a sound he could instantly recognize, and around the corner an old Volkswagen van appeared, driven by Jim Bartlett, John’s neighbor from down the street.
Jim pulled up by John’s Edsel and got out. The sight of Jim always cracked John up; it was as if he had
