Fallout

  “I never said I wasn’t going to,” Dad replies icily. He opens a can of tuna and divides it four ways. Normally I could eat my share in one bite, but I separate it into three parts and savor each one slowly.

  Sparky gets to lick the inside of the can.

  When I finish my three parts, I’m still hungry.

  Sometimes, when it’s quiet for a long time, I think I hear whispers, as if there’s someone else down here. And even though I don’t believe in ghosts, I get scared. If I never imagined the whole world being destroyed, what else have I never imagined? Could there be some kind of invisible radioactive creature on the other side of the shield wall? Invisible Godzilla?

  I look over at Mom, wishing she would wake up so I could tell her about Invisible Godzilla and she could tell me it’s only my imagination. But she just lies there, blank-eyed, so I go over to Janet and hold her hand. If Mr. McGovern and the Shaws say she has to go, I’ll say over my dead body, too.

  When we run out of rags for washing and the toilet, the men tear off their pajama legs at the knees. We’re slowly using up our clothing.

  At times the hunger and the feeling of being cooped up in this chilly, smelly dungeon is so bad, I feel like I can’t spend another minute down here. Would it be worth risking radiation poisoning to go up and see the sun for a few minutes? Could such a short time up there be that bad?

  Dad and Mr. McGovern have an argument over how long we’ve been down here. Dad thinks it’s only been five or six days. Mr. McGovern insists it’s been eight or nine.

  “This is more than a week’s worth of beard,” Mr. McGovern says, brushing the stubble that mats the lower half of his face. The lower half of Dad’s face is similarly darkened, but Mr. Shaw’s is only patchy, and I wonder if he could grow a beard even if he wanted to.

  “Maybe it’s time to check the radiation levels again,” Mrs. Shaw says in her nice voice.

  Dad starts to get to his feet, then stumbles and has to grab the bunk bed.

  “Dad!” Sparky blurts with fright.

  “Sorry, just got a little dizzy.”

  “Hunger,” Mr. McGovern grumbles as if it’s Dad’s fault.

  When Dad picks up the flashlight, Sparky whimpers. Janet presses the side of his head to her bosom and comforts him. “He’ll just be gone for a moment.”

  At the shelf lined with supplies, Dad aims the flashlight beam at the green box as if he’s thinking about what’s inside. Then he takes the Family Radiation Measurement Kit and goes into the corridor on the other side of the shield wall. Once again without the flashlight, it gets darker in the shelter. Then he’s back. “A hundred and sixty roentgens.”

  “Isn’t that much better than before?” Mrs. Shaw asks hopefully.

  Dad nods grimly. “It’s still much too high.”

  There’s nothing on the radio.

  “I guess the good news is you’re not picking up any stations in Russian,” says Mr. McGovern.

  “I’d almost feel better if we did,” mumbles Mr. Shaw. It feels like it’s the first time he’s spoken in days.

  Ronnie scowls at his dad. “Why?”

  “At least we’d know someone was out there,” Mr. Shaw replies.

  Mr. McGovern, who always has to have the last word, mutters, “Better dead than red.”

  “Take cover! We’re under attack!” We were in the middle of learning ratios when Principal Sharp’s voice crackled over the PA system: “Follow your teacher’s instructions! Duck and cover! Duck and cover!”

  Puddin’ Belly Wright ran to the windows. A few weeks earlier, Principal Sharp had told each teacher to select a student to pull down the window shades so we wouldn’t be blinded or burned by the nuclear flash. It sounded like an important job, but Mr. Kasman chose Puddin’ Belly, who now pulled a shade so hard that the whole thing came crashing down.

  “Ahh!” Paula wailed.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Mr. Kasman sputtered.

  Kids dove for the floor.

  “Stop!” Mr. Kasman shouted. “It’s not an attack. It’s just a drill.”

  “But Principal Sharp said —”

  “Be quiet,” our teacher ordered. “Do you hear sirens?”

  We listened. There were no sirens.

  “Why did Principal Sharp say we were under attack?” asked Freak O’ Nature.

  Instead of answering, Mr. Kasman closed his eyes and squeezed the bridge of his nose with his fingertips as if he was getting a headache.

  “Should we still get under our desks?” Ronnie asked.

  Our teacher took his hand away from his face. “Sure, go ahead.” He sounded like he didn’t care.

  It wasn’t easy. Our new desks came with chairs that were attached. We were crawling around on the floor, trying to get under them, when the PA crackled back on. “Uh, there’s been some confusion,” said Principal Sharp. “We are not under attack. I repeat, we are not under attack. This is an air-raid drill. I repeat, this is only a drill. Teachers, escort your students into the hallway and await further instructions.”

  “You heard him,” said Mr. Kasman. “Everyone out to the hall.”

  We wiped our dirty hands on our pants and filed out. Up and down the corridor, kids were pouring from classrooms. Some of the girls were red-eyed and teary, and some boys looked pale and shaken — as if their teachers had believed it was a real attack, too.

  “Students, sit with your backs against lockers, your knees pulled up, and your faces buried in your arms,” Principal Sharp announced over the loudspeaker.

  “Do as he said,” instructed Mr. Kasman.

  “I have ordered you out into the hall because in the event of a nuclear attack, this will protect you from flying glass and flash burns,” Principal Sharp continued. “You will keep your eyes shut and covered to prevent blindness from the flash. No matter where you are, do not look at the blast. Always turn your back to it and look away.”

  “Always,” Mr. Kasman repeated.

  The hunger pangs have gone from sharp to dull but constant. Everyone’s irritable. Ronnie’s winning a game of Parcheesi until Sparky rolls a six and knocks one of his pawns back to the start.

  “Why’d you do that?” Ronnie asks. “You could have used that roll to get your pawn home.”

  “I can do that later,” Sparky replies.

  “Why not now?” Ronnie asks.

  “If I don’t send your pawn back, you’ll win.”

  “No, I won’t,” Ronnie says, which is dumb because he wants to win and getting all your pieces home is how you do it.

  “Sure you will,” I tell him.

  “Maybe not,” Ronnie says. “Maybe I would have slowed down just to make it interesting.”

  “So Sparky did that for you,” I chip in.

  “It wasn’t the right move.”

  “He can make any move he wants,” I tell him.

  “He would have been better off going home.”

  “But then you would have won.”

  “I quit.” Ronnie flips a corner of the board, and pawns go rolling everywhere.

  That ticks me off. “You’re just mad because you thought you were going to win and then Sparky messed you up.”

  “You’re stupid.”

  “I may be stupid, but even my little brother’s smarter than you.”

  “Oh, yeah? Well, your dad’s so dumb, he didn’t put enough food or clothes in here.”

  Silence. Dad winces.

  “Ronnie!” Mrs. Shaw snaps, which is a little surprising because she said the same thing about dad a few days ago.

  “Well, it’s —” Ronnie begins, but doesn’t finish. Not that it matters. Everyone knows he was going to say it’s true.

  I wonder if Dad will get mad, but he bows his head. “He’s right. I could’ve done better. I should have. I mean, what was the point of building this shelter and then leaving the job unfinished?”

  That’s the thing about Dad. Maybe he isn’t as smart as Mr. McGovern or as suave as Mr. Shaw, but when he realizes he?
??s wrong, he admits it. Not a lot of parents do that. Kids, either. Mrs. Shaw must feel bad about being so critical of him because now she says, “You did just fine, Richard. If it wasn’t for you, none of us would be alive.”

  “Whoop-dee-do!” Mr. Shaw goes, like he doesn’t think being alive is so great.

  “Steven!” Mrs. Shaw hushes him, as if instead of being angry at Dad, she’s now angry at him.

  Mr. Shaw goes back into silent mode, but it’s scary to see him act like he’s giving up. What if he’s right?

  When the leaves began to fall, Dad bought a lawn sweeper. It had four long brushes on a rotating drum followed by a leaf catcher. You pushed it across the lawn, which made the drum rotate and the brushes turn, sweeping up leaves into the catcher.

  I had to sweep the whole lawn, which was hard work. But when I’d dumped a few loads at the curb and had a good-size pile, I was allowed to pour gasoline on the leaves and light them. Fires were great entertainment.

  I’d just made a big pile when Freak O’ Nature rode up on his bike and told me not to burn them until he came back. A little later, he returned with Ronnie and a jar filled with crickets. I got the red gasoline can from the garage and sprinkled some on the leaves.

  “That’s all?” Ronnie asked.

  “You don’t need a lot,” I said. “Leaves pretty much burn by themselves.”

  “Put some more on,” Ronnie said, so I did.

  “More,” he urged.

  The leaves glistened and the odor of gasoline was strong in the air. I carried the can far away, then returned, pulling a pack of matches out of my pocket. Normally I’d crouch down and light a few leaves, then wait for the flames to reach the gas. But now there was gas everywhere. It had even started to seep from the leaves and spread onto the street.

  Freak O’ Nature spun the lid off the jar and dumped the crickets onto the pile. Some started to hop away on the street. Others landed on the gasoline-soaked leaves and seemed stunned.

  “Do it!” Ronnie yelled.

  I stood back and tossed a lit match toward the pile, but it went out before it hit the leaves. I lit another and tossed it, but the same thing happened. Meanwhile, more crickets were getting away.

  “Gimme that.” Ronnie grabbed the matches and crouched close to the pile.

  Whoomp!

  I could have sworn that for an instant Ronnie disappeared in the eight-foot-high ball of flames. The initial burst quickly died down; the crackling leaves burning rapidly, turning bright red and then into ashes. Crickets jumped around frantically in the orange and yellow flames before being immolated. A few even managed to launch themselves, burning, to the pavement, where they kicked once or twice, then lay still, tiny carcasses and smoke.

  My friends and I took in the charred devastation. The smoldering heap of gray ash, the wisps of smoke rising like ghosts. All that remained of the crickets were burned carapaces, except for a few dead ones that had managed to hop away before the fire began, only to be poisoned by the gasoline.

  “Just like what could happen to us,” Ronnie said.

  When Dad turns the valves, more water gurgles into the tank. “Looks like you were right,” he tells Mr. McGovern.

  Paula’s father nods like he knew he was right all along.

  “Then no one else survived,” Mr. Shaw mutters.

  “Certainly very few,” Mr. McGovern agrees.

  “How do you know?” asks Mrs. Shaw.

  Mr. McGovern explains how water towers are built to hold about a day’s worth of water for the population they serve. “So, if we’ve been down here nine or ten days . . . ”

  “Or six or seven,” says Dad.

  “Whatever the number,” Mr. McGovern says irritably, “it must mean very few people are using it.”

  Is it day up there? Night? What day of the week? How many more days do we need to stay down here? Sometimes if I think about it too hard, I feel queasy like after a roller-coaster ride. Mr. McGovern says without knowing day from night that we’ve become disoriented.

  Nobody plays games anymore. It takes too much energy. We sit, or lie down, or sleep. Sometimes someone stands up because they can’t sit anymore.

  I think about Tootsie Rolls, Milky Ways, Frosted Flakes, Rice Krispies, Pop-Tarts, Premium Saltines, Oreos, Wise Potato Chips, Fritos, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, milk shakes, hamburgers, Chinese food, spaghetti, pizza, sweet-and-sour meatballs . . .

  My stomach churns and cries. Sometimes drinking water helps, but sometimes it doesn’t. The air is always stuffy. We take turns cranking the ventilator, but no one has the strength to crank it more than three or four times. So there isn’t enough food and barely enough air. But that’s not the scariest part of being down here. The scariest part is the way the grown-ups act.

  “Check the radiation,” Mr. McGovern says. He no longer bothers to ask.

  “I just checked it a few hours ago,” Dad replies.

  “That was yesterday, Richard.”

  “No, Herb, it was today.”

  Mr. Shaw sighs. “What does it matter?”

  “Anything would be better than being down here,” Mr. McGovern says.

  “You can leave anytime you like,” Dad snaps.

  “I’m not the one who should leave.” Mr. McGovern’s eyes seem full of anger and hatred. Is that what he saved his energy for?

  “I told you I won’t have that,” Dad growls.

  “Who made you the commander in chief?” Mr. McGovern turns to Mrs. and Mr. Shaw. “I say we vote on reducing the number of mouths by two. This isn’t arbitrary — it’s a matter of survival. It’s what has to be done if we’re going to stay down here long enough to let the danger subside up there.”

  Janet’s eyes go wide. As if my stomach doesn’t already hurt enough, now it twists and knots even more.

  Is Dad is too tired to argue? When he moves close to the shelves and places his hand near the green box, I feel my heart begin to thump hard and my breaths grow short and fast. He can’t be serious. This can’t be happening.

  But that’s what they said about a war with the Russians in the first place.

  Mr. McGovern finishes his speech. “All those in favor of reducing the number of mouths by two, raise your hands.”

  Dad rests his hand on the green box.

  Mr. McGovern raises his hand and looks at the Shaws.

  Neither of them budges.

  A scowl darkens Mr. McGovern’s face. “Even though we’ll die if we have to go up there too soon?”

  “I told you before,” says Mrs. Shaw. “I’d rather die than be responsible for someone else’s death.”

  “Steven?” Mr. McGovern says.

  Mr. Shaw slowly shakes his head. “Up there, down here. What difference does it make?”

  Despite the duck-and-cover drills and talk about a nuclear war, teachers still had to teach. In current events, Mr. Kasman reminded us that there were other things going on in the world. He wrote “James Meredith” on the board. “Does anyone know who this man is?”

  No one answered.

  “James Meredith recently became the first colored man ever to enroll in the University of Mississippi,” our teacher said.

  Paula’s hand shot up. “They didn’t want to let him in.”

  “That’s right,” said Mr. Kasman.

  Paula grinned proudly, as if to say, See how smart I am? But if she was really so smart, how come she wasn’t in the smart-kid class with Why Can’t You Be Like Johnny?

  “And can you tell us who ‘they’ are, Paula?” Mr. Kasman asked.

  Paula stopped smiling. “Uh, some . . . white people?” she asked more than stated.

  “Yes.” Mr. Kasman nodded, and Paula looked relieved. But not for long. “You’re white, Paula. Would you have been against James Meredith going to the University of Mississippi?”

  Paula’s eyes darted around nervously. “No . . . ”

  “Then why do you think those people in Mississippi were against him going?”

  Paul
a didn’t answer, and no hands went up. Except for school custodians and cleaning ladies, we hardly ever came into contact with Negro people. I thought about Janet and the three men who’d dug the hole in our backyard.

  “Who knows what segregation is?”

  Once again, Paula’s hand shot up. “It’s when white people and Negroes are kept separate.”

  “Why?” asked Mr. Kasman. It was strange the way he asked us questions instead of just telling us stuff. As if he actually wanted to know what we thought. I couldn’t remember a teacher doing that before. Miss Yellnick, my fifth-grade teacher, always acted like the last thing she wanted to know was what we thought. After all, we were kids. How were we supposed to know the answers? But the funny thing was, asking us made us think, whereas half the time when teachers told us stuff, it just went in one ear and out the other.

  “In some parts of the South, there are separate restaurants for whites and Negroes,” said Mr. Kasman. “There are separate water fountains and bathrooms. Negroes have to ride in the back of public buses.”

  “Back of the bus,” Freak O’ Nature rumbled in a deep low voice like the Kingfish’s on the TV show Amos ’n’ Andy. Some kids giggled.

  Mr. Kasman ignored him and waited. You could feel discomfort spread through the classroom. What was he waiting for?

  “Okay.” He seemed to make up his mind. “Here’s part of your homework for tonight. I want each of you to write a page answering this question.” He turned to the blackboard and wrote: “Why would someone be against letting a Negro go to an all-white university? And do you agree or disagree with that position?”

  A bunch of us groaned, but then we always groaned when Mr. Kasman gave us homework.

  That night I wrote:

  I think people who are against letting a Negro go to an all-white university probably think that Negroes shouldn’t go to college because they were once slaves. I think this is wrong because Negroes are not slaves anymore.

  It is wrong for people to be against letting a Negro go to an all-white university because they think that Negroes shouldn’t go to college because they were once slaves. I think those people should think about how they would feel if Negroes had made white people slaves instead of the other way around. I don’t think white people would like it one bit if they wanted to go to an all-Negro college and weren’t allowed. The golden rule says we should do unto others as they would do unto us.