Fallout

  Or what if we find water and stay down here for two weeks, and when we get out, we’re the only ones left around here? Dad said we’d have to rebuild. But how could just the nine of us — ten if Mom gets better — do that? We’d need a lot more people.

  What if Dad wasn’t only talking about rebuilding things like houses and roads, but the human race as well? If Mom gets better, she could have some more babies. And so could Mrs. Shaw. And Janet, who is pretty and slim and a little younger than both Mom and Mrs. Shaw, so maybe she could have a bunch. But that still wouldn’t be very many. Could Paula have babies? Maybe not right away, but soon? Like in a couple of years?

  Then it hits me. If Paula is going to have babies someday, it’s going to have to be with Ronnie or me.

  How’s that going to work? I don’t feel like I’m ready to have babies with anyone, but Ronnie probably can’t wait. If it was up to him, he’d probably want to start before we even get out of the shelter. There’s no doubt in my mind that when it’s time for Paula to have babies, Ronnie will be the father. He’s stronger and a better athlete and better-looking. I won’t stand a chance, which is kind of okay because I never really cared that much for Paula anyway.

  But once Ronnie and Paula start having babies, there’ll be no one left for me.

  I hear a rustle below and peek over the edge. Dad’s leaning over Mom’s bunk, but I can’t see what he’s doing. After a while, he stands up to check on Sparky and me. Our eyes meet and his nose wrinkles. I point at Sparky. Dad nods and then he’s still for a moment. His eyes slide away toward the water tank. Is he thinking that if there’s no water to drink, then there’s none for washing pee-soaked pajamas?

  Early in July, big sheets of blueprints appeared on our dining-room table. A few days later, Sparky and I followed Dad around the backyard with two men who hammered short wooden stakes into the grass and tied a string that outlined the rectangular boundary where the new addition to our house would go — a new playroom and a bedroom for me.

  The next morning, three men with pickaxes, shovels, and a wheelbarrow began digging inside the staked-off area.

  By the afternoon, the hole was knee-deep and the size of big kiddie pool. Sparky and I stood on the other side of the string and watched; the men, who were Negroes and wore overalls, stole glances at us. Overalls were not an item of clothing that hung in my father’s closet nor, I was pretty certain, in the closets of any of my friends’ fathers. Under the overalls the men wore dingy T-shirts with small holes and tears in them.

  Each man had his own way of digging. The tall, wiry one with long, sinewy arms slammed the heel of his boot against the top of the shovel to drive the blade down into the soil. Then he would arch back and use his whole body to leverage the dirt into the wheelbarrow. The paunchy man with thick undefined arms would lean against the shovel and wiggle the blade back and forth into the dirt. Then he would jam the handle against his hip and, without moving his feet, swivel toward the wheelbarrow. The third man had broad shoulders that narrowed down to his waist, and muscular arms. He looked like a dark version of the muscle builders in the magazines Dad sometimes read and was strong enough to thrust his shovel straight into the dirt, then bend his knees and toss shovelfuls into the wheelbarrow. Hardly any dirt missed.

  Within a few days, the men had dug as deep as their thighs, and the rectangular hole reached to the string on all three sides. Beneath the dark brown topsoil was a layer of lighter soil mixed with sand, and below that appeared to be grayish clay. They used the pickaxes now as well as shovels, and the work went more slowly as they heaved shovelfuls of dirt and clay up onto a canvas tarp at the rim of the hole. It seemed strange that they would be digging so deep for rooms that were supposed to be above the ground.

  “Maybe it’s an indoor swimming pool,” Sparky said.

  Could that be it? Were they not only building an addition but a surprise swimming pool as well? Having our own pool would be a thousand times better than the pool at the country club. Not only because we’d be able to swim anytime we wanted but because we could have just our friends over instead of sharing with everyone. We could float on rafts, which weren’t allowed at the club pool, and private pools had lights, so we could even swim at night.

  But the best thing about having our own pool would be doing all the cannonballs we wanted! My friends and I had spent a considerable amount of time the previous summer perfecting cannonballs off the diving board at the club pool. The perfect cannonball resulted in a spoutlike splash of water that rocketed straight upward from the point of entry, sometimes even splashing against the bottom of the diving board. Unfortunately, sometimes our splashes veered off at an angle and sprayed the ladies who sunned on the lounges. When that happened, they’d complain to the lifeguards and cannonballs would be banned for the rest of the day.

  Seeking confirmation, Sparky and I raced into the house, where we found Mom sitting at the kitchen table, smoking a cigarette. That was strange. Usually she only smoked on weekend nights when she and Dad had people over for dinner. And when she sat at the kitchen table, she always read a magazine. But it was the middle of the afternoon, there was no magazine, and her gaze slanted up and away into the smoky air.

  “Are we getting an indoor swimming pool?” Sparky asked.

  Mom scowled and crushed the cigarette out in the ashtray. “What makes you think that?”

  “The hole they’re digging.”

  “Your father didn’t tell you? It’s a bomb shelter.”

  “What’s that?” asked Sparky.

  “A place where we can hide in case the Commies drop the H-bomb on us,” I said.

  “Why?” Sparky was filled with disappointment.

  “You’ll have to ask your father,” Mom said.

  Drained of excitement, Sparky and I wandered into the den to wait for Dad to come home from work. The den had a white shag carpet, a white L-shaped couch, and walls covered with whitewashed knotty pine. Dad had made some of the furniture himself using the big DeWalt table saw in the garage. Sparky and I lay down on the carpet. White shag provided excellent ground cover for the wars I staged with my plastic army men, who, hidden in the long white strands, could sneak to within inches of each other before opening fire. The one absolute rule was no eating in the den. Once crumbs got into the shag, they were gone for good unless you went through the long white fibers with a magnifying glass and tweezers. Getting caught eating in the den was almost an automatic spanking.

  “Maybe we can get Dad to change his mind,” Sparky said.

  “Maybe,” I said, although I had my doubts. I’d learned a little about nuclear war from duck-and-cover air-raid drills at school, but most of what I knew about the Russians came from the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show on TV. Rocky the flying squirrel and his pal Bullwinkle J. Moose were often called upon to foil the sinister plots of Boris Badenov and his girlfriend, Natasha Fatale, who had foreign accents and were no-good spies from a no-good country clearly like Russia.

  Americans were a good, peace-loving people. We had a handsome president with a pretty wife, and we wanted to live freely and play baseball and enjoy life. Russia had an ugly leader who most likely wasn’t even married and only wanted to destroy America. The Russian people lived in fear of their leaders and probably weren’t allowed to play sports.

  So it would be too bad if we weren’t getting a swimming pool, but maybe a bomb shelter wasn’t such a bad thing, either.

  Sparky and I have no dry clothes to change into, so we sit naked on the lower bunk with a blanket around our shoulders. I feel proud of my little brother for not making a fuss about wetting himself. After a while everyone is awake again, and Dad cranks the ventilator to get more fresh air in the shelter. Janet sits on the edge of Mom’s bunk and feels her pulse. People stretch and move around. They glance at Mom and at Sparky and me pressed close together, but no one says anything. Paula wrinkles her nose like she can smell what Sparky did, but then whispers to her father, who speaks in a hushed tone to Dad. They may be w
hispering for Paula’s sake, but everyone knows what they’re talking about. Dad gestures at a bucket with a toilet seat on top of it.

  “Won’t it fill up quickly?” Mrs. Shaw asks.

  Dad points at the big metal garbage can next to the toilet bucket. “It goes in here.”

  Paula starts to cry again. Mr. McGovern hugs her. “It’s okay, honey. Everyone’s going to have to use it sooner or later.”

  With her legs squeezed together, Paula leans against him and sobs. I feel bad for her. Maybe everyone will have to use the toilet bucket, but I wouldn’t want to be the first, either.

  “For Pete’s sake,” Mrs. Shaw grumbles. I watch in amazement as she pulls up her robe and sits down on the toilet seat. “Don’t look,” she says, annoyed.

  I quickly turn away and hear the hard rattle as her pee strikes the bottom of the empty bucket. Soon it becomes a dribble and then stops. Mrs. Shaw focuses on Dad. “Toilet paper?”

  Dad goes to a shelf and gets a roll. “I only stocked enough for four people.”

  “How could I forget?” Mrs. Shaw snorts. The soft sound of tissue tearing is followed by the rustle of clothes. Then in a gentle voice she says to Paula, “Okay, honey, it’s your turn.”

  Paula sniffs.

  “Go on,” her father says softly.

  “Noooo,” Paula wails, as if she’s in agony. You can’t help feeling bad for her. Dad starts to crank the ventilator again. Only this time it’s for the noise.

  “Come on, honey,” Mrs. Shaw says. “I’ll make sure they don’t look.”

  Ronnie glances at me and smirks. But he’s being a jerk. Mrs. Shaw stands in front of Paula, and the rest of us look away. When Paula’s finished, she comes out from behind Mrs. Shaw with her head bowed and goes back to her dad, eyes downcast.

  “Anyone else?” Mrs. Shaw asks. I have to go and now that some of the others have, I figure what’s the big deal and maybe it will make Paula feel better. So I say me.

  “Well, aren’t you the brave one?” Mrs. Shaw says, and I’m not sure whether she means it or is being sarcastic. Since all Sparky and I have to cover us is the blanket, he has to get up with me. Like a four-legged creature, we shuffle over to the toilet bucket. Once again Mrs. Shaw blocks the view and Dad cranks the ventilator. I really do have to go, but I can’t with Sparky standing next to me and all these people around. It’s as if everything down there is blocked, and in an instant I go from the proud feeling of being brave to feeling completely embarrassed, because even with the ventilator going, the others will be able to tell that nothing is happening. That’s when Mrs. Shaw whispers, “Think about waterfalls and garden hoses.”

  The next thing I know, pee splashes into the bucket, where it mixes with Paula’s and Mrs. Shaw’s, and I wonder why it was so hard to go before.

  Janet goes next, and then one by one, the fathers pee in the bucket, only Dad doesn’t crank the ventilator for them. After a while, the only one who hasn’t gone is Ronnie. I glance at him, but instead of a smirk, his face is scrunched up as if he’s in agony.

  Mr. Shaw squeezes his arm. “You better go.”

  “Shut up,” he grunts.

  A jolt jumps through me like an electric charge. I’ve never heard a kid say that to a parent or any grown-up. I wait for Mr. or Mrs. Shaw to scold him, but there’s only silence until Ronnie lets out a low moan as if his bladder is about to explode.

  A moment later, when I hear a gurgle, I assume Ronnie is going in his pajamas. But Dad quickly looks up at the water tank, and his eyebrows practically leap off his head. It’s the sound of running water!

  Maybe it’s the relief of knowing we have water or the sound of it sloshing through the pipes, but Ronnie races to the toilet bucket and goes.

  When Dad came home from work, Sparky and I followed him into his and Mom’s bedroom, where he took off his suit, shirt, and tie, removed his brown leather shoes and placed shoe trees in them. Then he unsnapped the elastic garters around his calves that held up his long, thin socks, and put on dungarees, a gray Fruit of the Loom sweatshirt, white wool socks, and old tennis sneakers.

  “Are we getting a bomb shelter?” I asked.

  “I’ll tell you at dinner,” he said, and headed outside. In the summer, Dad often did yard work before dinner. Sparky and I followed him into the backyard, where he stopped to look at the hole.

  “How deep will it get?” I asked.

  “Pretty deep,” Dad said.

  “Sure would make a good pool,” said Sparky.

  “Yes, it would,” said Dad.

  “A pool would be fun,” Sparky said.

  “We need a shelter more than we need a pool.”

  “Couldn’t it be a shelter and a pool?” Sparky asked.

  Just then, Mom called us in. During dinner, Dad told Sparky how there was a chance we might go to war with the Russians.

  “Why don’t they like us?” my brother asked. “Did we do something bad to them?”

  “They don’t agree with our form of government.”

  “What’s that?”

  Dad tried to explain, but it was hard to go from what a democracy was to why the Russians would want to blow us to smithereens.

  “If the Russians win, will we be their prisoners?” I asked.

  “Not necessarily,” Dad said. “A lot of people think that if there’s a war, neither side can win.” He must have seen the confused expressions on our faces, because he added, “Both sides have so many bombs that there’s a good chance we’ll destroy so much of each other’s countries that no one will be able to claim victory.”

  That didn’t make sense. Why would anyone go to war if they knew ahead of time that neither side could win? Thus far in the conversation, Mom had remained quiet. Now she slowly shook her head. “Mutually assured destruction. It’s ridiculous.”

  Dad leveled his gaze at her. “I agree, but it’s a possibility.”

  “Don’t scare them,” Mom said, a bit harshly. The “them” she was referring to was Sparky and me.

  “They asked why we’re building a shelter —” Dad began to reply.

  “Not a shelter, a bomb shelter,” Mom interjected. “And we’re not building it — you are.”

  They stared at each other. Then Mom got up and hurried out of the room. Dad let out a sigh. “Finish your dinner, boys.” He left to go find Mom.

  As water races through the pipes and into the tank, I hear someone’s throat catch and see Mrs. Shaw hug her husband with relief.

  “There was probably an obstruction in the line,” says Mr. McGovern. “The water pressure must have forced it loose.”

  Dad takes a glass from a shelf and fills it, then sniffs tentatively before taking a sip. He grimaces.

  “What’s wrong?” Mr. Shaw asks. Dad hands him the glass, and Ronnie’s dad tries a little, then spits it at the drain in the middle of the floor and wipes his mouth. “Achh! It’s awful.”

  “You didn’t rinse the system when it was installed?” Mr. McGovern’s question sounds critical.

  Dad doesn’t answer.

  “Is that bad?” Mrs. Shaw asks with alarm, directing the question to Mr. McGovern. “Will it hurt us?”

  Mr. McGovern pauses thoughtfully. “I don’t think so. It won’t taste good, but we won’t have to drink it forever.”

  Mrs. Shaw takes the glass from her husband and sips. Her face goes hard. “Well, at least we can wash our hands.”

  Dad gazes up at the water tank. “Maybe we shouldn’t. I’m worried about using it for anything except drinking.”

  “You don’t think there’ll be more if this runs out?” Mr. Shaw asks.

  Dad shrugs. “I don’t know.”

  “Actually,” Mr. McGovern begins, then pauses as if he wants to make sure everyone is listening. “Given the circumstances, I suspect we’ll have all the water we’ll need.”

  This comment is met with silence. The grown-ups share the kind of meaningful look that makes kids nervous.

  “Why?” Paula looks anxiously at her f
ather, who lets out a reluctant sigh like he doesn’t want to give the answer.

  But he does. “Because, honey, there probably isn’t anyone else left to use it.”

  Paula begins to sob again.

  Dad pours just enough water into a bowl so that we can wash our hands. Then he uses a corner of a towel to gently wipe Mom’s face. Sparky and I huddle under the blanket. The sour odor of urine from our wet pajamas mixes with the damp mildew smell of the shelter. I would ask Dad if he’d wash our pajamas, but I know what his answer will be.

  He does make a pitcher of Tang. There are only four glasses, so each family shares and Janet gets one for herself. Even with the Tang, the bitter metallic taste from the pipes comes through. By now everyone’s a little hungry, and we eat Spam on the bread and broken crackers Mom brought from the kitchen. The Spam tastes spicy and salty, and everyone drinks more Tang. But Dad’s being careful. Whether on crackers or bread, we each have about half a sandwich’s worth of food and maybe a cupful to drink.

  “Herb thinks the water won’t be a problem,” Mrs. Shaw reminds Dad.

  Sitting beside Mom, Dad says, “I don’t know how anyone could be certain.”

  Mr. McGovern exhales noisily, as if he’s dealing with an idiot. “It’s a gravity-fed system, Richard. It doesn’t depend on electricity or any other kind of power.”

  “Willing to bet your life on that?” Dad asks sharply, as if he’s getting annoyed with Mr. McGovern’s attitude. Mr. McGovern exchanges a look with Mr. and Mrs. Shaw, but no one says anything more.

  Sparky wriggles under the scratchy blanket. “What about our pajamas?”

  Dad shakes his head. “I don’t think so, Edward. They won’t dry down here, and this could be all the water we’ll get.”