The fire trucks, which had been rolled out over a month ago to make room for the emergency supplies stockpiled inside, were still in place, still motionless, no longer sparkling, somewhat dusty. Horses were tethered to the bumper of one of them.
The crowd stood around expectantly and many, seeing him approach, stepped back slightly, nodding greetings respectfully.
All were showing signs of the effects after thirty-five days. Faces were thinner, pinched on some. Clothing in general was dirty, sweat stained; hair, greasy, many of the men beginning to sport beards. And all of them stank. He wondered if this was indeed how people really smelled a hundred years ago, the scent of a crowd of unwashed bodies, or was it that thirty-six days ago people were used to sterility, terrified if their deodorant failed and they “offended,” nearly all taking a shower at least once a day, many twice a day in the summer?
Was this now normal? Was this how Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln smelled, so normal that it just was no longer really noticed?
Tom appeared at the door of the police wing of the building, grinning.
“It works!”
A ragged cheer went up from the crowd, which then gradually began
to drift apart, though many pressed up to the doorway and windows to look into the conference room as if what was inside was some sort of miracle.
John edged his way through and into the building. “We’ll start in a few minutes, but for right now, let’s enjoy this,” Tom replied.
John stepped into the conference room and had to smile at the sight of the old crank phone attached to the wall.
“Yes, yes, I hear you!” Charlie shouted, earphone in one hand, bending over slightly to shout into the speaker.
“Yes, I understand. It works; now keep setting up the wire. Yes, over and out here. Good-bye.”
He hung up and turned to face the gathering.
“We got a phone system.”
There was a round of applause picked up by those gathered outside.
John looked at the contraption, salvaged from an antique store, as he suggested, a comparable phone now set up in the police station in Swannanoa. It had taken the work of a dozen linemen, older employees of the phone company, several of them refugees allowed in through the gap.
Fiber-optics, modern wiring systems, were out. They had to find old-fashioned copper wire, a hard task, but bits and pieces were salvaged from a variety of sources, a golden find an old abandoned telephone or telegraph line of several miles along the railroad tracks. The wire had to be carefully spliced together, then strung on glass or ceramic insulators, most made out of soda bottles.
It was the first line, the goal now to run it into Asheville. Remarkably, an old-style switchboard had been found in the basement of the granddaughter of a phone operator from the twenties. When the system had been junked back in the fifties, apparently the old lady had her board toted home as a keepsake. A couple of the elderly phone company workers were now trying to remember how to rig it up, an actual switchboard that could handle dozens of phones.
There were other accomplishments. One of the junkyards in Swannanoa had successfully gotten a tractor- trailer diesel from the early sixties running. That had triggered intense debate as to who would get it, the fire department finally winning out, and on a flatbed were now attached hoses, ladders, and gear. They had even figured out how to use the engine as a power takeoff to run a water pump.
Fire had become a frightful hazard. Those who still had food were cooking with wood, and home fires and brush fires were commonplace. The community still had water pressure for those places lower than 2500-foot altitude, the height of the face of the reservoir dam. But above that, it was hauling buckets, and the potential of house fires turning into out-of-control forest fires kept everyone worried.
Between the two communities there were now over a hundred vehicles running and more coming online every day. Several mechanics had learned to bypass and yank out the electronics, especially on cars that only had minimal dependence on them, slap on some old replacements, and get the engines to turn over again.
A moped shop had become highly successful at getting their relatively simple machines running again, along with older motorcycles.
There were so many vehicles running now that a salvaged generator had been hooked up at Smiley’s and the gas from Hamid’s belowground tanks was flowing again.
Smiley’s had become something of the old “general store.” There was precious little to sell, other than his legendary horde of cigarettes, which were now doled out one at a time in exchange for a dead squirrel, old silver coins, or whatever might capture Hamid’s fancy.
John almost regretted his sense of fair play that first day. He should have purchased a dozen cartons. He was down to five packs and rationing himself to no more than five cigarettes a day now.
“OK, everybody, time for the meeting, so let’s clear the room,” Charlie announced.
Those who had gathered to gaze at the phone reluctantly left the room. Charlie closed the windows and dropped the Venetian blinds.
It was the usual group. Charlie, Bob, Kate, Doc Kellor, and John. Carl and Mike from Swannanoa came down from their end if there was something directly related to them at the moment but today were caught up with a forest fire up along Haw Creek that was threatening to turn into a real inferno.
A ritual John had insisted on was now enacted, the group turning to face an American flag in the corner of the room and recite the Pledge of
Allegiance, and then Kate led them in a brief prayer before Charlie announced the meeting was now in order.
“I hate to jump the gun on the agenda, but I’ve got something important,” John said.
“What?”
“Outside news.”
“Well, for God’s sake, man, why didn’t you say something when you came in?” Charlie asked.
“Everyone was excited about the phone, and well, frankly, some of it isn’t all that good.”
“Go on; tell us,” Kate said.
“There’s a station on the radio now. Voice of America.”
“Wow. When?” Kate cried.
“I was driving last night, fiddling with the dial on the car, and it came in clear as day.”
“The radio?” Charlie shouted. “Tell us about it. My God, we got radio again!
“The old radio in the Edsel. I don’t know, I was just fooling with the dial and suddenly it came in loud and clear, frequency at the old Civil Defense band. We sat there listening to it for a half hour or so, then atmospheric skip and it faded.”
“We?” Kate asked.
He didn’t reply. Makala had come down to join them for a meal and check on Jennifer and he was just driving her back to the conference center, which was now the nursing home and isolation ward for incoming refugees who were allowed to stay.
“So what the hell is going on?” Tom asked.
“They’re broadcasting off the aircraft carrier
“They said that help is on the way. Kept repeating that every five minutes. Said the nation is still under martial law.”
“No news there,” Kate said.
“What kind of help?” Tom asked.
“Didn’t say, other than relief supplies are coming from Britain, Australia, and India and China.”
“India and China?” Charlie asked.
“Yes, struck me as strange. That earlier report about a weapon detonated over the western Pacific.”
“Who we fighting?” Tom asked.
“Didn’t say. Just that allied forces are fighting, in Iran, Iraq, Korea. Good news is that Charleston,
