Commune: Book Two (Commune Series 2) Page 21

  Oscar shrugged. “I doubt it, really. There ain’t nothing out here. You see any power lines running to the house?”

  “Huh,” she said quietly.

  “City isn’t just gonna run electrical out to nowhere, even if there is a house. You’d have to get a bunch of people living out here for them to do that. I don’t even know if this area’s considered part of Jackson.”

  “You look like somethings bothering you, girl,” I said.

  “Yeah, it kind of is,” she said. “Billy used to talk about this place like it ran off the power grid. I remember: he even said that a grid failure would knock his power out and he had wanted to install solar on the main cabin before the plague hit.”

  Oscar raised his eyebrows and took a deep breath. He blew it out through his lips like a horse and said, “I don’t know about any of that, but that place there,” he pointed at the cabin, “was never on no city grid.”

  14 – Interviews, Three

  Gibs

  “I’d like to talk about your time as a Marine, if that’s okay.”

  We’d ended up in the library/office at the back of the house; it was where I found Jake when I came in looking for him. He’d been back there talking with Wang and he gave him a book which many of us on the compound would eventually become familiar with. Mark Rippetoe’s Starting Strength became a kind of combination bible-manual-safety guide that everyone had to read if they wanted to utilize the weights in the garage. Wang had the big, blue book tucked under his arm as he left the room.

  We were sitting by the small fireplace in a couple of well-worn Windsor chairs that were surprisingly comfortable despite their spindly, wooden construction. You could lean into them and have your back supported just the way you wanted to, without the chair trying to slump you over and spill you back out onto the floor. I held my coffee cup in one hand and concentrated on not jackhammering my leg around like a little kid. Jake never moved, or at least, he never moved more than he had to. He just sat in his chair with his hands rested in his lap as though he’d forgotten them. He always looked like he was sitting for a painting.

  “What do you want to know?” I asked.

  “Mostly what you did while you were in, when you got out, experiences, and so on. Oh, and tell me if we’re going somewhere in the discussion that you don’t like, please. I don’t intend for this to be adversarial.”

  “I don’t think it’ll be a problem,” I said. “There isn’t anything I did that I’m ashamed of.”

  A strange expression seemed to pass over Jake’s face but disappeared so fast that I assumed I’d only imagined it.

  “So, let’s see,” I said. “I enlisted when I was eighteen years old (just out of high school) and went to boot camp at Parris Island. I was in Platoon 3120, 3rd Recruit Battalion, and graduated on January 7th, 1994…”

  “Yes?” Jake asked.

  “Oh, nothing. I was just thinking about my SDI…that’s Senior Drill Instructor. Staff Sergeant MacBride.”

  I must have been quiet for a while because Jake asked, “Are you alright?”

  His voice made me jump. “Yeah, fine. My mom died just before I enlisted so when I graduated, there wasn’t really anyone there to see it except my uncle (her brother). It was good of him to show up since we’d never been that close. I think he came more for his sister than he did for me, though. He shook my hand, told me Mom would have been proud, and that was his obligation satisfied as far as he was concerned. He got in his truck and went home.

  “Anyway, we could have ten days of leave, if we wanted them, before reporting for SOI, and I had just made up my mind that I didn’t want any of it. I’m standing around in a crowd of newly minted Marines hugging their mothers and fathers, sticking out like a bleeding asshole, when SSgt MacBride puts his eyes on me from across the way. He started walking in my direction and I internally groaned as I braced myself for one last parting shit sandwich.

  “’Private Gibson, where are your family?’ he says. ‘Haven’t any left, sir!’ I said back.”

  I finished my coffee and put the cup down on a table. I hadn’t thought about this in years.

  “He instructed me to meet him down at the Brig & Brew later that day (that was a local bar and grill on the Island). When I did, the man sat down and had a beer with me.”

  “He sounds like a hell of a person,” Jake said quietly.

  “He was a motherfucker!” I said. “He was the absolute eye of the shit storm, I kid you not. The other hats just kind of swirled around this guy, sucked the evil out of him to recharge their own fucked up batteries, and then fluttered out again to bury us all in shit. All it took was a sideways look from that son of a bitch, and the kill hat would enthusiastically smoke the whole fucking platoon. No shit. Satan wore a campaign cover.”

  “But…he took you out for a beer,” Jake said.

  “Yeah. He took me out for a beer,” I agreed. “I just don’t want you getting the wrong idea about the guy. It wasn’t like some movie. The guy wasn’t a secretly cuddly father figure who actually loved all the recruits and desperately wanted us to succeed. Every one of us found ourselves pinned to the deck under his boot heel.”

  Jake nodded, seemingly accepting what I said, so I continued. “Anyway, after that I went on to SOI, that’s School of Infantry, and trained my primary MOS: 0311 Rifelman.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jake interrupted, “MOS?”

  “Sorry. ‘Military Occupational Specialty’. Everyone gets a job in the service, see? We don’t just spend all day oiling rifles, marching in formation, and doing a bunch of pushups. There’s shit to do and all sorts of different specialties to pursue. You could be an admin guy, you could go work in intelligence, you could go work in comms…shit, you could even be a mechanic, okay?”

  “I see.”

  “So for me, I wanted to go Infantry and that’s what I got. That ended up being a predictable run, if not routine. You deploy for a stretch, come home, keep current on training, head out again. After a while you get used to shuffling around a bit. Then 9/11 happened and things got special. I went to both Iraq and Afghanistan more times than I care to remember.”

  “I remember seeing it on TV,” Jake said. “It must have been rough.”

  “You get used to it,” I said. “I was good at what I did, kept my head down, and did my job. I promoted when I was supposed to promote, and ended at Staff Sergeant, MOS 0369 Infantry Unit Leader before I left.”

  Jake sat up and leaned forward. “Why did you leave, if you don’t mind?”

  I considered his question, trying to find the best way to condense my reasons down into a salient point. Finally, I said, “Mandatory Fun Day.”

  “What?”

  “They were these fucking events that everyone had to show up for. Could have been anything; barbeque, bowling, family fun day, you name it. As a Staff Sergeant, it was even my job to organize a few, though I mostly kept them to barbeques where everyone understood they could leave in fifteen minutes if they wanted. The ones that finally did it for me were these balls that they’d hold. These were formal affairs that everyone had to show up to, married, dating, or single. The event was formal, so you showed up in your dress uniform. Regs require that you get all your medals mounted for this, by the way. Well, not only do you have to pay for that, you have to buy the medals, ribbons, and mounts as well.”

  Jake pulled a confused look and said, “You’re talking about medals you’re awarded?”

  “That’s right. You pay for everything, and some of those fuckers were pricy. I think the one that pissed me off the most was the Purple Heart. It was something like fifty bucks. Think about that for a second, okay? Say you pulled a Gump and took a round to the ass; you have to pay for the privilege of owning the medal that commemorates that proud event.”

  “Uh, I’m sorry if I’m missing the point,” Jake said, “but that doesn’t sound like such a big thing, really. You buy the medal once and then you’re good, no?”

  “You know how much a PFC mak
es, Jake? Call it about thirty-nine grand a year, including drill and hazard pay, okay? That’s an E2. I took every dollar those men and women had to spend on such shit as a personal insult. I can think of at least two occasions where I ended up helping one of my Marines pay for his getup because he’d fucked up his pay, albeit usually at a titty bar, if I’m being fair. Even so, they were humiliated to ask for my help both times, though I told them it was fine, and they always paid me back.”

  I could tell I was winding up for a rant at this point and didn’t care. I restrained myself from standing up out of my chair and pacing around the room.

  “It’s never a single thing that makes that one final straw for you…until it is. It’s a bunch of little things added up over time. Bureaucracy had totally taken over, and everyone was more worried about perception than they were reality. By the time I left, it was just fine to skate along at the bare minimum so long as the Power Point slides were up to snuff. So long as the platoon had a nice collective tick mark next to the sexual harassment training box. On those occasions that we screwed something up, we weren’t supposed to acknowledge it for fear that it might look bad. Do you know how hard it is to learn from a fuck up if you can’t even say that you fucked up?”

  Jake shook his head and spread his hands out helplessly.

  “Pretty fucking hard. They tell you at the Infantry Unit Leader’s course that the most important role of a leader is to get your guys to suck it the fuck up when they want to give in. It’s the leader that says, ‘Bullshit, job’s not done, so just grab the closest goat and keep on fucking’. And if you’re good, if your respected, your guys will absolutely take ahold of that goat and reach for the closest bottle of lube. They tell you that, and yet in the normal day to day life you don’t actually see enough leaders doing that. Everyone above a certain level is getting all political and shit. They’re chasing a bunch of meaningless paperwork while the big-deal shit, the most important of all shit, slips right through the cracks.”

  “I think you’re describing most organizations, really,” Jake said.

  I sighed and collected my thoughts. “Jake, when you have that kind of group think in other organizations, profits drop, stocks go to shit, and maybe workers take a pay cut. In the Corps, that shit results in dead Marines. Look, as a Staff Sergeant, one of my jobs, maybe my most important job, was to mentor my Marines. I worked with them every day, worked on their weaknesses, helped them line up their career tracks. I even helped them with their family shit when they needed me. A lot of these guys were working second jobs waiting tables to help make ends meet or pay for college, by the way. These people were my family. I’ve been married twice; both times it didn’t last, either because of my charming personality or theirs. Wives walk out on you. My boys in the pit were always there. They looked to me to help guide them in an organization in which (it seemed clear to me) the priority was placed on appearances rather than the wellbeing of its people. And maybe it was always like this from the time that I enlisted and I was just too young and stupid to see it; maybe we all are. But I had to get out in the end. I couldn’t keep looking my family in the face and believe what I was telling them anymore. They deserved better than bullshit. Better than me.”

  I’d run out of things to say and stopped talking entirely. I was looking up at one of the bookshelves and reading off the titles, many of which I was mildly entertained to note had been on the Commandant’s List not so long ago.

  Jake said, “I don’t think I believe that. I don’t think your Marines would have either.”

  “Beg pardon?” I asked, mildly annoyed.

  “I mean, I believe you felt as you say, certainly. But I also think you sell yourself short. If you were supremely confident in your abilities as a leader or mentor, I think I’d have an easier time believing that you were bullshit.”

  “Well, have it your way,” I said, not interested in arguing the point.

  “Given everything you’ve just shared with me,” Jake continued, “I’m not entirely sure how to bring up my next point.”

  “The best way is usually to just spit it the hell out.”

  “So it is,” Jake agreed. “What is your assessment of the people here?”

  “What, here right now? They seem to be pretty decent to me…even Edgar has his good points if I’m being fair.”

  Jake smiled and asked, “What do you think of them in a fight?”

  “Oh,” I said. I raised my shoulders and let them drop. “Like trying to herd autistic kittens for the most part. I went shoulder to shoulder with Davidson and he wasn’t too bad but that was close in and ugly; mostly a bunch of spray ‘n pray. Oscar’s good too. Keeps his head on. I don’t think we’d have made it out of Denver without him driving if you want to know the truth.”

  Jake adjusted his position in the chair; crossed a leg over his knee. “So, two people that you rate as ‘kind of good’ and the rest are new born kittens with birth defects. What do you think it would take to make them competent riflemen?”

  Looking back on our discussion, it’s easy for me to see now that Jake was leading things in this direction. Without the benefit of hindsight, the question caught me flatfooted.

  “You mean, like, turn them into Marines?”

  “Well, perhaps not full Marines but approximating a Marine’s competency? Someone who knows how to fight in a group and coordinate attacks. You’ll have to excuse me; I don’t know the appropriate terminology.”

  “I think I get what you’re asking,” I said. “You’re talking about fire teams and infantry tactics.”

  “Okay, sure. How about it?”

  I gave it some honest consideration before answering. “I really won’t know until I get some time with them. I think everyone here should be able to handle a weapon; that’s just basic. People like George and Barbara shouldn’t go much further than that, though. They’re not able bodied. The younger people though…maybe.”

  “And is that a role you’d be willing to take on here with us?”

  He was looking at me intently; either trying to gauge my reaction or I had a dick growing out of my ear. When I didn’t answer he said, “Do you think Denver would have gone differently if you’d had more competent people in the fight?”

  “Fuck’s sake,” I said.

  15 – Shelters and Shitters

  Oscar

  What you have to understand is that back in those early days, no one was actually pointing fingers at people and saying, “Okay, you’re gonna be in charge of building…and You? You’re gonna be in charge of farming,” and the like. There was just a list of things that had to get done and, once everybody got an idea of what we all could do, people jumped in based on what they knew. After a while, the same people kept taking on the same kinds of jobs and everybody just kinda fell into their roles.

  On our first day there, Jake and Amanda were already laying all the groundwork. They were talking to each of us, either on our own or in little groups, and figuring out backgrounds; strengths and weaknesses, you know? It was crazy because everyone had their own idea about what was going on. People who Jake had talked to were convinced that he was just being friendly and bullshitting with them; dude was smooth, like. He could just rap with you a while and get whatever he needed out of you. Amanda came right at you, all direct and everything. The people she talked to knew what was up immediately because she told them. Different people had different ideas about this; some of them appreciated Amanda just coming out and saying, “Look, everyone has a job around here. There ain’t no free rides, sabes?” On the other hand, Jake’s method put a lot of people at ease. He creeped out a few of us when we first met him (it took Barbara a long time to get used to him) and being able to talk to him like that convinced a lot of people that the dude was just the quiet type.

  For me, all I knew was that I was relieved that Maria had a place to sleep and a full belly. I would have put up with a lot of shit just for that and, honestly, Jake and Amanda are cool. Gibs is the man and I think we would
have probably found a place on our own eventually but we won the fucking Lottery when Jake found us, no lie.

  Right off the bat, we had a little powwow out in the garage by the white board, where Jake started listing off all these projects we had to get going on. I should probably make it clear here that they had a stack of three or four different white boards that they used to keep track of various projects. They had some pegs setup on the right-inner wall of the building that they could just throw a board on and get to work. Jake was sitting down on a shop stool while Amanda wrote for him at the board, which was a good thing. Jake’s writing looks like some kinda jacked up Chinese.

  So Jake starts describing all the stuff we need to do, and by that time everyone’s got it figured out if they hadn’t before.

  He goes, “We have a list of items we need to get going on immediately so that we can be in a good position when the snows come, which could be as early as October around here. When it does, the roads may become impassable unless we can find and operate a snow plow or some similar tool, so we’ll need to have the ability to hunker down here in the bowl for long periods of time if we’re forced to do so.

  “We have four major areas to tackle: provisions, shelter, sanitation, and supplies. There’s a lot more than that, of course, but these are the main items that we need to get moving on immediately, listed in order of importance.”

  He had our complete attention by that point; we all wanted to know how we were going to handle these things. Some of us had gone in a few circles arguing the issue. Why were we sticking in the valley when there were whole tracts of housing outside of the mountains in easy to reach areas? The valley only had the one house and a garage, so there were already a lot of areas that we had to play catch-up on. What we kept coming back to was the reliable water supply (both the well and the seasonal stream that ran through the area on the northeast side) and the seclusion. Denver was still fresh on everyone’s minds.

  Jake continued: “First, provisions. The food we have laid aside may look like a lot, and it is. It’s enough to sustain three people for about eight months. Now, please don’t get me wrong, we’re happy to have you all with us, but that same amount of food will only carry nineteen people a little over a month. Before you arrived, the plan was to coast out the winter on our existing food stores and then work on a subsistence farming solution as soon as spring came. The winter would have essentially been used to lay out our plans and prepare for that first crop. At the same time, we were going to begin scavenging again as soon as the roads opened back up. The idea was to supplement our scavenging with our first crops (we were looking at beets and potatoes to start) and see what percentage of our meals came from which source. Based on that, we would have known how much more we had to ramp up farming for the following season. This is critical data that we have to collect because, as you surely all know, the food that’s just lying around is going to run out, probably sooner than we’d all like. If we’re not ready for when that time comes, things are going to get really hard; a lot harder than anyone realizes. Things have been really easy so far because everything we need is basically just out there for the taking. This cannot and will not last.”