Summer
I didn’t understand a lot of Stuart’s handouts he gave me but I found a couple helpful. One had a simple diagram of what a backyard well should look like and a list of tools I needed. For tools, I knew the first place to look: my grandparent’s shed. It was at the back of their property behind the garage and fairly hidden from the growth of trees. There was an old alley that was hardly accessed on the other side of the fence which opened up to some undeveloped area on the other side. We always referred to this as “grandma’s desert” and I used to play there when I was younger. I could drive down the alley and park my truck, and climb over the old chain link fence to get to the shed. That way, I could avoid both my grandma and my mom who lived with her and wouldn’t have to explain to anyone why I was interested in the shed. Or get a fresh round of mocking. I assumed my grandma hadn’t been to this side of her property since grandpa died. The lock was rusted so I picked up a large rock and broke it. As I was rummaging through what was left of tools, I realized this would make an excellent cover for a well. On my first visit, I tore up the floor and threw any unnecessary tools into the back of my truck to make room inside the shed that was about to become a well.
I found some wire cutters with the tools and cut a hole in the fence so that I wouldn’t have to climb it every time. To keep critters and no-good young neighborhood wanders out I covered the hole with the wood from the floor I just tore out.
As luck would have it, amongst the tools in the shed was what looked like an old post hole digger. It was old and heavy and after only a couple of nights of manually cranking it I had blisters on my hands and didn’t want to touch it any more let alone twist it.
I used my next paycheck to buy a well digging kit which included a cordless electric auger tool. It still wasn’t easy and it probably added some weight to my muscles but compared to the old post hold digger I didn’t complain. Of course, to buy it I drove to the hardware store the next county over. Just to make sure I didn’t run into anyone I knew.
That kit wasn’t exactly cheap so it took a couple more paydays before I could get the pipe and pump and rest of the parts that I needed. By this time, we were in full summer mode which meant the thermometer was consistently high. Driving that pipe into my newly dug hole during the heat of summer was exhausting.
That took care of water but according to the other brochure I also needed to figure out some way to get some food. Stuart’s brochure said the best thing to do was to double your canned food items when you were shopping. For example, instead of buying one can of tuna I should buy two. Easier said than done. With our drought and the south’s unexpected winter, food prices soared. I couldn’t afford one can of tuna let alone two. My circumstances meant I was going to have to get creative.
Luckily, I worked at a grocery store. The parent chain didn’t allow expired food to be donated and had a policy for it to be destroyed. I managed to get myself assigned to that task. Let’s just say, instead of destroying all the expired canned food, a lot of it made its way to my truck in garbage bags while a lot of dirt and grandpa’s old broken tools found their way to the store’s incinerator.
Sure, it was already expired food but it was a start. I didn’t know how soon I would need it so I hastily chose to bulk up my storage. Once I got a better system though, the expired food was slowly replaced with food I bought using Stuart’s method of buying double.
I started watching YouTube videos about preppers and added to my shed. Throughout the summer, my little covert well transformed into more of an emergency bunk. I watched a video about a prepper that built a little stove so I added a little stove. I added a little cot and brought blankets in. Not that anyone in their right mind was using blankets at this time. Thanks to another video, right next to the shed I made a little greenhouse using a couple of old sliding shower doors I had found in the desert off of the alley.
I worked on that shed every day after work from spring and well into summer. One thing I noticed is my frequent visits to the shed made it look like someone was frequently visiting the shed. It was so dry out that I didn’t want any of the dried weeds anywhere near my shed. After all that hard work I’m not sure what I would have done if a careless spark burned it all down. At night, when I was sure my mom and grandma were fast asleep, I used the weeds and built a rough camouflage wall of the dried weeds. Looking from the house, it still looked like nothing but weeds behind the garage. But it was actually just a line of dried weeds that were much closer to the garage than my shed.
Working every day and then working on my shed in the heat of summer left me exhausted and a little cranky. One day in the middle of summer, it was just too hot to work on my shed so I went to the library to enjoy some of its air conditioning. While I stood in the hall waiting to use the restroom, I looked at some of the notices on the community bulleting board. I saw one that said Stuart Gibson would be presenting a class on prepping at the City Hall the tomorrow night. It might be good to go and listen to his presentation to keep me motivated with my project. The heat had started to get to me and I started to doubt what I was even trying to accomplish. My hands were calloused from blisters, my muscles ached, I constantly felt hot and sweaty, and no one else seemed to be putting in this much effort.
His lecture might be what I needed to keep going.
It was still too hot to dig after I left the library and I was so tired of spending all my free time at the shed so I skipped it. Missing one night wouldn’t hurt, right? Except I spent the night doom scrolling and all I could think of was, well, doom.
Most of the posts I read were all about the “Great Drought” we were in. Locals were interviewed and I assume the one writing the post was at a nursing home because every single person interviewed looked like they went to school with Moses. Or, at least, he was their teacher in school. All of them agreed this was a pretty good drought but not nearly as bad as the one in… and this is where they disagreed because they all gave different years. But they had survived that previous drought whenever it was so we will survive this. The only actual piece of advice I learned is to not panic but prepare. I looked at my blistered hands and felt guilty about taking the day off.
More and more articles mentioned Rocky Hudson and the deal he and the other commissioners made about our water rights. Lawyers had been brought in to try and dissolve the deal with the neighboring state. So far, nothing had worked. The more information leaked about the deal the angrier the townspeople were with Rocky. It got so bad that his wife was verbally accosted while getting groceries. She was actually at the store where I work but wouldn’t you know it, I was off working on my shed and missed the whole thing. Coworkers talked about it for days.
After all that scrolling and reading I didn’t feel better about things at all. The next day, I made sure I squeezed in some time at the shed after work. But I couldn’t work long because I wanted to go to the presentation at City Hall. I had some follow up questions for Stuart. I arrived a little late but it didn’t matter. I had my pick of seats. Stuart was in front of the room looking over some of material he brought.
No one introduced him, he just looked up at the clock and realized he should have started minutes ago.
“Hello everyone,” he said and ran his hand over his forehead to push back the one lock of hair he had left near his forehead. He looked like he kept in shape by honest work rather than working out. If I had to guess, I would say he looked about 40 and if I ventured another guess, I’d say he was single.
“Thank you for coming tonight,” his voice was a bit high pitched. He emphasized his words with his left hand and I saw a wedding band on his finger. “If you thought I was going to talk about zombies you probably want to leave now.” He let out a high-pitched wheezy laugh.
A few people from the audience got up and left. I scanned the room and counted 10 of us remaining. The room could hold 125 so it made it feel even more sparse.
He laughed and rolled his eyes. “I am going to talk about prepping for an apocalypse but not a zombie one. This isn’t science fiction.” He emphasized the fic in that statement. “This is real life.”
There weren’t a lot of people in the audience so it didn’t take long for him to notice me. “Ah, a repeater. How’s the well going?”
I slunk in my chair even though I knew there was no chance anyone in this room would recognize me. I gave him a thumbs up.
“This one,” he didn’t seem to notice me trying to hide “asked me how to build a well. How is it going?” He pressed for a specific answer.
I looked around the room and shrugged. “I haven’t started yet,” I lied. I’m not sure why I lied since no one I knew was in the room, it just came out. I had gotten in the habit of being elusive and discreet about the well and prepping in general.
He nodded and looked a little disappointed. “Well,” he forced a polite smile, “glad you are here anyway.”
I could feel my cheeks turn red as one or two in the audience looked at me. I nodded and wished I could sink a little deeper into my seat.
“Let’s get started, shall we?” he asked turning his focus from me. “As you can see by these slides, I have built a well in my backyard. It has become a pretty popular spot for my neighborhood. All are welcome to come and get some water. Just be respectful of the hours I have posted. The neighbors have complained about the noise late at night.”
He then displayed his address on the screen. His actual address I assumed. Which I thought was pretty bold since I couldn’t even admit I was building a well.
The next slide showed the schematics of how he built it and I could tell he envisioned everyone in this room going home and building their own. Which made sense. If his well was as big as mine there was no way it could support everyone in town. More people were going to need to step up and build some wells.
He enthusiastically shared in detail his efforts. As he went on, I wondered if anyone else in the room had a covert well like me or if I was just being paranoid. I started to feel guilty for not disclosing my effort building a well.
But then he moved on to the next slide and talked about other preparation he was making including fuel storage. My guilty feeling soon was replaced by feeling like an idiot. What good would water and food do me without being able to get around? Seems like this was becoming never ending. The more I prepped the more I found I needed to prep.
After the meeting, a couple of people made their way to Stuart to talk to him. Which made me relieved. I could slip out without having to lie anymore to him. When I walked out of the building, it was dark but it hadn’t cooled off any. It was still hot which was unusual. This area didn’t normally stay hot after the sun set. It usually cooled off somewhat. Our summer evenings brought some relief from the day-heat and were pleasant but tonight it was still hot and stifling.
I headed to the shed and wondered how much longer all this was going to last?
ck's days 