Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Prologue
Conflicted Home
A. AMERICAN
Conflicted Home
Copyright © 2017 by Angery American Enterprises Inc. All rights reserved.
First Edition: December 2017
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of Angery American Enterprises Inc.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.
Chapter 1
We stood for a long time and watched as the mushroom cloud climbed above the horizon. It was evil, malicious, malignant even. Being one that grew up in a time when the Berlin wall fell, I could remember what the tail end of the Cold War felt like. It was a constant fear of this very image. A mushroom cloud rising over an American city.
Little Bit came up and gripped my hand tightly. I looked down at her as she stared wide-eyed at the spectacle. She had no frame of reference for what she was looking at. But even this little girl could sense the horror she was witnessing. It didn’t help that there were others in the park positively losing their minds.
When the cloud first became visible, some people panicked. Many began screaming about fallout. Others thought it was simply the first salvo in a full nuclear exchange, became terror-stricken, and ran, screaming. This was something I never understood, screaming. What good does that do? It was something I always talked to my girls about. Not screaming per se, but also crying.
When something happened that would scare them, and they would cry, even at an early age, I would tell them to stop crying. I would ask them, what good does crying do? It may sound harsh, but I wanted my girls to keep their heads when others were shitting themselves. I wanted them to maybe have that couple of seconds or minutes that could make the difference between life and death. And while I often felt these lessons were falling on deaf ears, it looked as though they may actually be listening.
My family stood silent as we watched what unfolded before us. We hugged one another a little tighter. But each was left to their own thoughts. I looked at my girls and my heart sank. This was something I could do nothing about. Tampa was a long way off, but the winds could certainly carry fallout this far. But hopefully, the way the converging sea breezes worked over the peninsula would prevent it. Hope is all we have now. But I’ll never say that to anyone.
“What are we going to do?” Mel asked.
I looked down at Little Bit. She was looking up at me. Scanning my girls’ faces, they were all waiting for an answer. I shrugged and tried to keep a stalwart outward appearance. “There’s nothing for us to worry about. It’s very far away from us.”
“What about fallout?” Taylor asked.
I looked at Thad, who was standing close by. He too appeared to be waiting on good news. But what could I say? Tell them the truth? No. Instead, I decided to lie. “I don’t think we need to worry about it. The Gulf breeze should keep it away from us.” And it was a bold-face lie that was laid bare on Thad’s face. But he didn’t counter my statement. Nor did he try to bolster it.
In the Florida summer, a unique weather phenomenon takes place. The Gulf is a large warm soup bowl of water that warms during the day. Rising water vapor climbs high into the atmosphere. The westerly breezes carry it inland where it meets with equally warm moist air moving westward from the east coast over the center of the state. When these air masses collide, it creates intense thunderstorms. And it was these winds I was thinking about when I lied to my wife and daughters.
Sarge’s voice pulled me out of my mental stupor. “I was going to give this to you in the hospital. I had some smart-ass comments I was going to say.” He paused and looked west. “But nothing seems very funny right now.” He held a small silver revolver out. “Here.”
I took the small short-barreled pistol from him. It was a ridiculous looking thing. Hammerless, it sported mother-of-pearl grips. Holding it in my hand, I examined it, turning it over and over. After a moment, I said, “Looks like a damn pimp gun.” I opened the action, breaking the pistol over and looked into the cylinder. There were two live rounds and three spent. Shaking my head, I said, “I can’t believe this thing almost killed me.”
In an attempt to be humorous, the old man replied, “Could’a been worse. Could’a been a Hi-Point,” and he smiled.
I grunted as I tucked the little revolver into my pocket. “Yeah, I guess.”
Sarge turned back to the west again. He stared for a long time at the cloud that was now very plainly visible even at this distance. Mel pressed in close to me. Little Bit did as well. I put my arm around each of them and looked at Lee Ann and Taylor. Lee Ann was standing off a little from everyone. It pained my heart because I could imagine what was going through her head.
She’d come a long way since that day on the side of the river so long ago. She was harder. But maybe that was for the better. It was a different world now. And for better or worse, she was adapting quickly to it. Her sister, however, was a different story.
When I first came home, I thought she was handling things way better than her sister.
