Commune: Book Two (Commune Series 2) Page 20

  “Hey, can I give you a hand, Fred?”

  “You mean can you stop laughing long enough to help me up? Yes, please.”

  He took one of my hands in both of his and pulled me around to at least a kneeling position; I made it up the rest of the way after that. My back popped in all the right places as I got up and I groaned happily. I hadn’t been able to take deep, real chest-expanding breaths in weeks but I was beginning to feel like everything might be settling back into its right place that morning.

  I pulled a deep stretch and held it just long enough for a muscle in my back to cramp up before shaking everything out and groaning happily. Tensing everything up like that woke my bladder up as well, so I said, “Just a minute, boys. Gotta see a man about a horse,” and went down the hallway to find the bathroom.

  Using the facilities was its own little treat as well, being as how the toilet was clean and all. I finished up my business, flushed, and enjoyed the sound of working, running water for a moment before walking back out to return to the kitchen.

  The only complaint I can really come up with from that morning was how tight and uncomfortable those damned shorts were. I was grateful to have something clean to wear but I couldn’t do much more than shuffle around without danger of detaching something important or busting loose. I began to shift my balls around with my right hand while scratching my ass with my left as I came through the entry way to the dining area and said, “So what’s a man have to do around here to get some breakfast?”

  I was met with Amanda staring back at me while I just stood there like an idiot holding my boys and Gibs started laughing so hard from his spot by the sink that, if anyone in that house was still asleep, they had sure woken the fuck up by that point.

  She very kindly kept from commenting on the situation or looking below my chest but she also didn’t bother hiding a smile as she said, “Well, you need to help set the tables up outside and drag the burner out to start.”

  I let everything drop and looked for some better place to put my hands, placing them on my hips first and then deciding that crossing my arms in front of me was better.

  “’Scuse me. Yeah, I can do that. I’ll just get some shoes on and get at it.”

  “Wash your hands first, okay?” she giggled, and both Gibs and Tom started rolling again. “I’ll go grab you guys a few things.”

  She walked out of the room and that asshole Tom called out after her, “Yeah, I think we’ve grabbed enough things of our own, thanks!” That one even made me laugh.

  I shot Tom a “Dick…” and dug my shoes out from under the corner of my mattress after I pulled the plug to let all the air out. I folded the thing up as tight as I could get it (they never get as tight as they were when you first opened the box) and slid it under the table before sitting down in a chair to put my shoes on. Standing up and yawning, I stretched one last time, loving the ability to do it right, and started walking towards the door in that tired, early morning slide-step you do when you’re still trying to get your day going.

  “Oh, damn, are you going outside like that?” asked Gibs.

  “Ain’t got anything that’ll fit me except my jeans from before, and I can’t bring myself to put them on now that I’m clean.”

  “Huh. Good point. We’ll look into getting you squared away. There has to be some sort of Big Ass Hombre clothing store around town.”

  “Appreciate it,” I said and went through the front door.

  Once outside, I stepped off the porch and walked around to the side of the house where I’d stacked the tables from the night before, grabbed one in each hand, and walked them back out to where I’d first seen them set up last night. I got them positioned and was just about to go looking for the propane camping grill when I heard the unmistakable sound of metal barbell plates clanging together coming from the direction of the garage. I noticed then that the roll-up door was open; I walked toward it to see what was up.

  When the opening came into view, I saw for the first time just how big that garage really was. It’ll fool you at first because it’s hard to see how far back it goes from all the trees wrapped around it; when you see inside, you see all the way back. That building is deep and tall. All us folks could have probably lived in there, if it hadn’t been full of a bunch of shit already. There was a large Ford off to the side and what looked like a whole garage shop deep in the back. The floor around the center was stacked full of piles of what looked to me like all the food in the world, although we found out later that it wasn’t nearly as much as we would have liked. Along the right wall, I saw Jake standing with his hands on his hips staring intently at Wang, who had a barbell up on his shoulders loaded with what looked like some decent warm-up weight for his size. He took a deep breath, squatted down low, and came up again, slowing down only a little at the midpoint. Jake helped him walk it back in to the rack after that. I waited until Wang had the weight off his back before saying anything.

  “Looking good, there, young man!” I called as I walked in to join them.

  Wang looked at me and smiled but said nothing; he was breathing heavy and sweating.

  “I was just teaching him how to squat. He’s actually pretty good; it didn’t take long at all for him to get the movement pattern down,” said Jake.

  “Yeah, I saw,” I agreed. “Straight bar path and the plates didn’t spin on the way up.”

  Jake’s eyebrows rose. “Are you a lifter?”

  “Not so much anymore. I played ball in high school – defensive tackle – so I know my way around a barbell.”

  “Oh, nice,” Jake said. “Well, the rack is here and you’re welcome to it any time. I recommend everyone use it if they can.”

  “Thanks but I’d better get this clothing situation taken care of first. I’m indecent enough already without squatting down and sticking my ass out,” I said.

  Jake nodded. “Yes, there is that. I’m going to head out today and start looking for long term shelter solutions for you guys; I’ll keep my eye out for some clothing for you. What’s your size in pants?”

  “Forty inch waist, thirty-four inch length.”

  He blinked for a minute and then said, “Well…we’ll see what’s out there.”

  “You think that’s bad? Try keeping him fed. It’s like trying to bury a Buick in sand with a teaspoon,” said Wang.

  I started laughing and slapped my gut, which was a lot smaller these days than I was used to it being. “On second thought, better make that a thirty-eight inch waist. I’m not as thick as I once was.”

  “Very well,” Jake agreed.

  “Hey, listen,” I said, “where did you guys stash the grill? Amanda asked me to set it up so we can get some breakfast going.”

  “It’s in a closet in the house. Come on with me and I’ll show you.”

  “Hey, I’m going to stay here and do some more,” said Wang.

  “Nope,” Jake said. “You got your three sets of five. Don’t overdo it or you’ll screw everything up.”

  “Screw what up? You mean I’ll hurt myself?”

  “No, no. I have a book that explains all of this. I’ll show you. It covers everything.”

  Jake led us both back to the house and dug the grill out from the closet under the stairs for me and then took Wang back to the library. Amanda was back in the dining area, now, talking to Gibs. I could see that she had laid out a whole selection of plastic cups, toothbrushes, and toothpaste for everyone on the table. My mouth hung open at the sight of this and I almost dropped the grill at my feet to go grab one of each and put it all to use. With our recent water shortage and lack of supplies, caring for our teeth had been reduced mainly to rubbing over them with a corner of our shirts, which were already nasty as hell. Clean toothbrushes and full tubes of toothpaste looked like a stack of gold to me.

  Amanda came over to me with a big bag of Krusteaz pancake mix under one arm and a gallon jug of water in the other. “You get the tables out?” she asked.

  I said I had and she nodd
ed at me all businesslike. She called back behind herself as she stepped around me, “Bring the skillet and that other stuff when you can, Gibs, okay?”

  “Roger,” he said from the back.

  She had the door propped open and was waiting for me. I sighed and made a note to come back for a toothbrush as soon as I could get away. We both went outside and started laying everything out at the table. As soon as she put her stuff down, she turned and ran back to the house.

  Amanda’s like that. She’s always rushing everywhere, like Gibs, except Gibs refuses to run unless there’s some sort of life or death situation. Gibs just walks twice as fast as everyone else. Amanda jogs or runs, though. It’s funny for me to watch her when she works with Jake, who never rushes anything. The more time he takes, the more carefully he moves, the more agitated and twitchy she gets. She doesn’t seem to get mad behind it; I think it might be unconscious. It sure is funny as hell to watch, though.

  She had already returned with plates, forks, and syrup when I was just finishing with getting the mini-propane tank screwed on. Gibs came stomping out behind her carrying a big iron skillet along with a plastic bowl containing a bottle of oil, a big wooden spoon, and a spatula.

  Other folks started to emerge from the house as she bustled around the table laying things out and called their good-mornings to us from the porch. Amanda thrust a bowl full of watered pancake mix into my hands, passed me the wooden spoon, and said, “If you get going on that I’ll go grab us some new potatoes.” That sounded fine to me and I went to work.

  “So who was the last person to use the toilet?” Oscar called down from the porch. He was holding the pitchers from the bathroom in his hands; the pitchers I hadn’t filled, actually.

  “Shit, that was me, man. Sorry ‘bout that.”

  Oscar grinned and said, “It’s cool, buddy. Just keep working on breakfast and we’ll call it even.” As he came down the steps to go find the rain barrels, he asked, “Whatcha mixing up over there?”

  “Pancakes, young man!”

  “Awe, yeah, white boy tortillas,” he laughed as he disappeared around the side.

  Amanda came back with a large pot filled with several unopened cans of potatoes. “How’s that going?”

  “Getting there,” I said, “but it’s still lumpy as all hell. Gimme a bit and we’ll be good.”

  The next few minutes passed in silence as we worked together, Amanda hopping around underfoot like a hummingbird and me just shambling around, like I do, trying not to step on her. Gibs had one of those old-school metal coffee percolators going on the grill by this time; we didn’t want to start the potatoes before the pancakes since they would be ready way too soon if we did. We began to smell the coffee right as the batter was finally starting to come into line; the aroma hit me so hard that I almost wanted to cry. I’m not exaggerating here, either. I actually teared up a little. When Gibs put a full cup in front of me, the best I could manage was to choke out a “Thanks” before handing the bowl over to Amanda.

  Amanda set the bowl down and started spreading a touch of oil on the skillet. As she prepared to get the pancakes going, she said, “Guys, I’m sure there’s a graceful way to bring this up and I’m sure Jake would have been able to do it if he had been out here instead of me, but I’m what you’re stuck with, so you’re going to get ‘blunt’ rather than ‘finesse’.”

  Gibs and I both looked at each other over the rims of our cups with the same wide-eyed expression. Gibs said, “Oh, Christ. This isn’t where you tell us about the weekly blood sacrifice, is it?”

  “No,” she laughed. Amanda is one of those with an honest, hang-it-all-out laugh; it put me at ease. “What I was about to say is that we need to get an idea of everyone’s skillset. There are a lot of jobs around here that need to be done; more now that so many people are here. Some of you will come with skills and knowledge that’ll be useful to all of us. In some cases, those skills might define what you’re expected to do around here.”

  “Job interviews?” I asked. “I haven’t done one of those since I was a kid.”

  “No, not job interviews,” she said. “You guys are all with us whether you’re a bunch of geniuses or…not so much geniuses. But the point is, what if one of you were, like, a dentist or a doctor or something? That would be a good thing to know, right?”

  “She’s got a point,” Gibs said quietly before taking a sip of coffee.

  “On that subject,” Amanda continued, “Gibs? Jake was hoping he could talk to you, if you have a minute.”

  “Well, okay then,” said Gibs. “I saw him head inside with Wang. I’ll go catch up with him.” He saluted both of us with his coffee cup and went off towards the cabin.

  “So how about you, big guy?” Amanda asked.

  “Been a welder now, oh, fifteen years.”

  “Really?” she said, sounding pleased. “What kind?”

  “Mostly construction stuff, fabrication, all that kind of thing. Had my own truck rig and such; did quite a lot of business in the greater Wichita area.”

  “Kansas, huh?”

  “Yes, ma’am, born and raised,” I said.

  “So I get what welding is,” she said, “but describe fabrication to me.”

  “Oh, hell, that’s just a fancy way to say that I made stuff that you couldn’t easily buy already made. Say someone needs a wrought iron fence put up on their property but they wanted a special gate on it that was a little bit fancier than what you can get from the big name manufacturers? Or even, say someone needed a custom built rolling rack to fit a specific dimension so they could load it with stuff and roll it around on a shop floor? It’s basically using my skills as a welder to make some one-off thing to fulfill a specific purpose.”

  “Sounds like a creative job,” Amanda said.

  “Yeah, it was,” I agreed. “I really enjoyed it; I was good at it too. Before that, I was a forklift operator but that’s pretty mindless work. I wasn’t going anywhere with that and got tired of answering to some warehouse boss, so at twenty nine I decided it was time for a change and went to school.”

  I finished my coffee and thought for a moment. “I don’t really see how this helps us right now, though. We don’t have a rig out here; don’t have the power to run it…”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” said Amanda. “From what you’re saying, it sounds like you know how to do more than just stick two pieces of metal together. Have you seen the shop?”

  “What shop?” Oscar interrupted as he came over to join us. Amanda had gotten a good little stack of pancakes lined up on the side of the table under a towel and was starting to heat up a couple of cans of potatoes on the side. “You got some guero tortillas ready to go, yet?”

  “Under the towel,” Amanda pointed with her chin.

  “You want a plate, Oscar?” I asked.

  “Nah, bro, I’m good,” he said as he lifted one of the pancakes out from under the cloth, rolled it up just like the tortilla he suggested it was, and bit the end of. His eyes crossed as he groaned. “Oh, holy shit, man. That’s really tasty.”

  “Don’t you want any syrup?” asked Amanda. She was laughing at Oscar’s expression, which was pretty comical, honestly.

  “Nah, it wouldn’t be right without butter.”

  “Oh, hell yes,” Amanda nodded. “I miss butter so much. If I could find any that was still good I think I’d just eat a few spoonfuls of it without anything else.”

  I could see I was with my kind of people and began to laugh out loud. Pointing at them both, I said, “You two are talking my language now! Either of you ever had deep fried butter?”

  Oscar hopped in place, pointed back at me, and nodded happily. He put his hand out and bumped fists with me.

  “Holy crap, no. It’s probably delicious but I don’t think my thighs could have taken it,” said Amanda. “I’d just have to cut out the middle man and rub it directly on my legs.”

  We all stood around laughing at Amanda as she pantomimed the act of spreading butter over he
r thighs, twisting her face all around and sticking her tongue out.

  After we got some control of ourselves, Oscar tried again: “So what was that about a shop?”

  “It’s in the back of the garage,” she said. “There’s a whole workshop back there with all kinds of tools and stuff. I don’t know how half of them work but it sounds like Fred might.”

  “Well, so would Oscar,” I said, nodding at him. “He was in construction too, right.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed, “I was a foreman at the end, there. Mostly did a lot of warehouses and stuff but I used to go and work for residential outfits building homes when the work slowed down.”

  He crammed the last of the pancake into his mouth and, still chewing, asked, “’s it cool if I go over and check it out?”

  “Sure,” Amanda said. “Don’t try to run anything, though. I think we have to switch the batteries over before you do.”

  “Hey, that reminds me of something I was thinking about this morning,” Oscar said after he swallowed. “You said your friend Billy had this place custom built, right?”

  “That’s right,” she said.

  “So maybe you know. I get that this place is sitting on a septic tank, right?”

  “If you say so.”

  “Okay, cool, but, um, where’s the water coming from?”

  “Sorry?” Amanda asked.

  “You’re, like, a single house out in the middle of nowhere,” said Oscar. “There’s no way the city runs water all the way out here just for this one place, so where did the water come from that used to fill the toilets back up after they were flushed? I mean before we had to fill the tanks manually? This place is basically off the grid. I remember Jake even mentioned all the power comes from either solar or a propane generator, right?”

  “Yes, that’s right,” Amanda said, almost to herself.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “I was just thinking about something Billy told us once,” she said. “Would they have run electricity out here?”