How to Find Peace at the End of the World Read online

  I shake myself dry and go in look of appropriate attire. It’s balmy here in Texas, even in the middle of winter. But that doesn’t mean it won’t get colder as I go north. I decide that dressing in layers is the best way to go. T-shirt, long sleeve flannel. Thermal tights and then jeans. I pack all the skiing clothes from our trip up to Colorado that I had missed the previous day. I grab a few jackets and my heavy coat. Can’t have enough, really.

  After I am done, after everything from yesterday is packed up, I survey my work. I survey the street. I am hesitant. The grasp that this place has on reality, on being a real thing already seems tenuous, like I am the only spectator, the last thumbtack holding it on the board. What happens when I leave this place again? Will it simply disappear?

  I take my time getting behind the wheel of the Beast. I take my time starting the engine up. I take my time shifting into first and edge the Beast down the street. I stop for longer than I need to at the stop sign, which now is any stop at all, really. I stop and I look in the oversized rear view mirror. I look and feel myself tearing up. C’mon man, pull it together. I take out the phone, turn it on. I call Amy. “You’ve reached the voicemail of Amy Seager, junior partner specializing in-” I feel like going back for the rest of it. I feel like being the ultimate example of one of those people you see on TV, a hoarder. I feel like finding an eighteen wheeler and moving my whole neighborhood with me. A fleet of 18 wheelers a hundred deep chained one to the next: move not just my street but my whole neighborhood. Everything. Surround myself. C’mon, c’mon, this is not the way a man should think. A man should now be striking out, not so much as a glance in the rear view. What is this? Tears? Get on with it Cholo. Get on with it cabron. You can’t afford this. Get on with it, or just get out of your truck and put it in neutral and lie down on the very street and let the back dualie wheels run over you. Might as well if you don’t go right now. Hit the gas motherfucker. Fucking pussy. ALRIGHT! FUCK! Yay for motherfucking pep talks.

  I wipe a flannel sleeve across my eyes as I pick up speed. The nondescript houses begin passing with greater frequency. I find I can do it, I can ignore stop signs, blow through intersections. A few minutes later I’m at the main intersection with the Wally World and the strip mall. I stop in the mostly empty Wal-Mart lot. I break down. Yes, I admit, I break down. You’d do the same in my situation, non-existent omnipresent reader. You’d do the same if you were down here and not up there. I break down for a good five minutes thinking of Disney and National Lampoon and Amy and then wipe a sleeve that comes away smeared with snot. I get out huffing air and walk towards Wally World.

  I am on a mission. There are tick marks left on this checklist. There are grocery carts all around, still full of plastic bags of groceries spoiling in the sun. There’s a car with its trunk still open, front door still open. There’s a flash of colored pattern that catches my eye. I go in to take a better look, to convince myself everything is OK. It’s what I thought: a car seat, empty. I look closer: the harness is still buckled in. The scene progresses before my vision: the woman putting her child into the child seat, buckling him, a golden haired boy, in, and going back to attend to the groceries, just a few random things she’s picked up before dropping him at day care. Halfway through she hears a cry that stops her dead. Her hand pauses on the plastic bag handle. Then, she, and the little flagging arm that peeks from the side of the car carrier simply disappear, as if being erased by the pink end of a giant pencil. I shudder. No time to think of these things right now Dan. I keep walking. The lights are on. The doors still eerily open. The interior is antiseptic: like walking into Wally world at 2 AM because you’ve had a late night smoking and playing games with your online friends and you’re feeling the munchies come on.

  But then the aisles are also comforting in a way. I am suddenly confronted with a world of choices and they soon squeeze out almost any room I have in my mind for grief or doubt. I am, for a brief moment, just another Western shopper again.

  I’ve amended the list I made yesterday. I want to take some fresh food with me so I want to grab one or more of those fridges that kids use in their dorm rooms. I think I can fit it into the foot well of the passenger seat of the beast and maybe even power it with one of those converter things, which I need to get here, too. I had contemplated briefly yesterday whether or not I should just find an RV and take that with me up to Dallas. You know, travel and stop in comfort and all that, but I think the way before me is going to get hairy. It might be a terrain in which thirty three inch tires and a ten thousand dollar suspension system would come in handy. Mini fridge on a converter it is.

  In fact, I forget the groceries for a while and wander, cart-less, to the appliance section of the store, looking for the mini-fridges. I am delighted to find that they make mini-freezers too.

  I go back outside to the parking lot on remembering something in the back of the truck I’d noticed yesterday. I open the truck gate and climb onto the bed skirting around all the shit I already have on there. On the back of the cab I find the diamond steel plated box between the two tool boxes on either side of it. On the bottom of the plated box are a row of those covers you see on the outside of houses that go over electrical outlets. There’s lettering on covers. Some of the covers read “Gen” and others read “Alt.” It’s a power console. Under the diamond plate steel must be a power generator. The plugs marked alt must be a direct line to the Beast’s alternator. I examine the outside of the steel case and locate a keyhole. The Beast’s key works and the front panel opens up in two pieces. Inside is a bright red gasoline generator. The clear gas reservoir indicates that it’s three quarters full. I push the starter button and yank the cord and the generator whines to life. I cheer and my triumph echoes through the empty parking lot. I feel self-conscious for no particular reason and turn the generator off again,

  I put grocery shopping aside for a while. I pick out a mini-fridge and a mini-freezer and load them up and wheel them outside on the flatbed car. I de-box them outside and toss the boxes aside. I plug in the two tiny appliances and restart the generator. I can barely tell but they boxes shudder to life under my hands. I open the doors and the little lights come on. They hum to life. Yes. Then I turn off the generator. I plug the fridges into the outlets marked alt and get off the truck bed. I start he car and go back and check on the fridges. They’re on and humming again. I take the bungee cord I’d found in Wally world and lash the fridges down tight as I can. Then I jam the other stuff against them so they won’t shift around too much. Wait a second, what am I doing? That’s going to start a fire or something. I stand there and consider for a few moments how I’m going to mount the boxes. Then I head back inside. I return with all sorts of hardware, brackets and pieces of lumber, and power tools too. I’ve always been sort of handy with tools and in no time I have a stand that will keep the vents on the boxes clear so they can hum along while I drive.

  This modification done, I get back to the more important task: I walk through the food aisles looking for things that will last. I stop by the produce section, all the rows and rows of bright orbs stacked atop one another. In a few weeks they won’t be anything more than pools of mold. I grab a few bags of apples and oranges. Bananas. Kiwis. No pineapples. Hate pineapples. Unopened cases of berries. Carrots. Celery, even the celery will no longer be of this supermarket world (probably should stock up on peanut butter, too). All the things I might not have an easy way to get very soon. I think I need more carts. I get two more and lash them to the first with belts from the clothing section.

  Bread. Need some bread. What lasts the best? Croissants? Or those radioactive white, calcium enriched rolls you can get in the bagged bread aisle? I go with a mix of all of them, not really knowing what I’ll get sick of.

  The freezer aisle stumps me. Most of the stuff is still frozen solid. Heck, the doors haven’t even been opened in hours. I won’t be able to handle very much, of course. The freezer is a luxury but it aint all that large.

  I wonder
if the Beast’s bank of four regular sized car batteries that my boss had one day popped the hood to proudly show me, can handle the draw from two mini appliances. Look at me. Planning like this thing is going to be long term. Hours hence, when I get to Dallas I’ll be sitting down to a hot meal I bet. I shake the thought away.

  I swing towards the back of the store to the drinks section. I’d already loaded up on bottled water the day before. I eye the racks of “fresh squeezed” orange and apple juice in their stay fresh containers. I grab a couple of those, too.

  I pass over all the other aisles, all the various stuffs of conspicuous consumption and I find, even in the state of puzzlement and...remorse...that I’m drawn to these little baubles. I remember telling Amy my need for a new blender very recently. I remember spending a now seemingly embarrassing fifteen minutes talking over the phone about it, actually. A blender. Now my eyes caress it before I have a chance to scoff and shake my head. I begin walking through the rest of the store, my eyes flowing past all of the errata, all of the flotsam of human civilization, for something I might need. I have to laugh, actually, running against all that social conditioning. New microwave. Bean bag chair. Papa-san. Fishing poles. Golf clubs. All things I had ear marked in my other life as needs. All things that now cause another reflexive twinge. All here for the taking. You’d wanted it, right? No, not really. I push the cart on. In the automotive section I grab a few more batteries before I realize I have no ideas whether the ones I have are even sufficient for the Beast. I leave my cart and walk outside, pop the hood, take note of the batteries. Back inside I grab four of them and twelve cans of Fix-a-flat while I’m at it.

  I hop over the counter of the pharmacy. Some antibiotics that I know about, some pain killers, some modafinil, some bandages. I really don’t know what the hell I’m doing so I take some OTC stuff too. I swing by the center back section and grab some boots and rain slicks. I pass the guns. Guns. I’ve always liked guns. It’s just that I’ve always also been kind of intimidated by them. I grab a couple of shotguns, because I hear shooting them is fun, and since I can’t find the key to the handgun counter, I take one of the batteries and throw it at the case from afar. I retrieve the battery, none the worse for wear and take a few revolvers and handguns and boxes of ammunition accordingly.

  With these in hand I go back out of the store. I can feel the doubts and the raw emotions of the morning fading. I feel that hopelessness and fatalism evaporate as I walk out into the unnaturally bright winter morning. Instead, in my core I feel the sogginess replaced by a steel resolve and an itch to get these things in my hands loaded and shooting. I park the carts beside the Beast and don’t even bother loading the contents. Instead, I sit on the tailgate of the truck and read the little gun care, loading and shooting guide sponsored by the NRA that I had also grabbed. Quickly bored, I toss it aside and simply take the box of nine mil ammo and begin loading the cartridge of one of the handguns. A few of the rounds fall out before I realize I am loading the shells into the wrong caliber gun. I retrieve the book and read a few more passages. Confidence bolstered again I pick up the right caliber handgun and begin loading the nine mil shells. I put the cartridge into the handle and try to slap it in to the gun like I’ve seen in so many movies and TV shows but it falls back out into my lap before I can do it. I grab the cartridge again and ease it into the gun. Who knew being a badass was in actuality so complicated?

  I raise the gun and extend my arm and take aim at the windshield of the Dodge Charger in the next parking aisle over. I center an imaginary dot in the center of the windshield in the groove of the gun’s sights and pull the trigger. Click. I put the gun down carefully and pick the book back up and examine it a bit more. Then I pick the gun up again and attempt to cock it. Attempt one is limp and the top part of the gun snaps back and nips the tip of my finger. Oww. I go slow with attempt two, wary of shooting the tip of my foot off. I stop in the middle of attempt two realizing that remaining seated Indian style on the back of a pickup truck while cocking a loaded gun is probably grounds for losing your bad-ass license or something, in addition to being a good way to shoot your own balls off. I stand up and give it another go and this time the gun cocks successfully. I take aim at the Charger’s windshield again and pull the trigger.

  Woo. I am not prepared. There’s a lot more kick on the gun than I had suspected and I miss the top of the car altogether. Downwind, at the edge of the parking lot, the side of the clock gable of a bank building shatters into a million pieces. I cock the gun again and take aim for the center of the Charger’s window. I pull the trigger and the gun snaps back again and it’s as if things go in slow motion: the car window seems to spiderweb with veins over its surface and a depression turns into a black hole, the drawn representation of a singularity as the entire surface collapses into tiny shards. I woop and holler until my throat is hoarse. I take the gun back up and empty the clip into the cars in the parking lot. Twelve more shots and half the cars in the lot have smashed windows and the car alarms are going again. Crap.

  But worth it. Easily.

  I take some shells and load up the shotgun next. I make sure to rest the stock against my shoulder and pull the trigger. I almost lose my balance and go flying backwards. I don’t hit a damn thing, that’s for sure. I decide that leaning forward while I aim down the gun is a better bet and it is. I and spend a good hour peppering the hoods of the alarm blaring cars from a distance until they shut off. The Ram is the toughest, and by my count takes fifteen shots before it’ll shut up.

  I make sure everything is unloaded before I wrap it all up in a canvas bag from the store. I put it all in the small seats at the back of the Beast’s cab. Before leaving to go back into the store I double back. I take two revolvers out of canvas bag and load them up again. I stow one away in the driver side door pocket of the Beast and I tuck the other into the waistband of my pants, making sure the safety is on before I do. Feeling better I head back inside to finish up.

  11:30 AM. I’m all packed up and ready to hit the road. I’ve vowed to myself that I won’t let some misplaced sense of attachment keep me to any particular place or thing. Well, that is, of course, except for Amy. To get to Dallas and to get back to my fiancée, that’s my only goal now.

  I had found the Beast actually had interior accommodations for plugs, well, except for the ground plug, so I went back into Wally world and got a pair of wire clippers. Then I swung back around and picked up a little college dorm room microwave and snipped the ground off. Then I hooked the microwave up to the interior outlet and turned the engine over. I’d said a little prayer before, of course. The Beast started, no problem. The microwave did not spark into flames. I patted it where it rested: for all the frozen items I’d had stocked in my minis: Hotpockets and Bagel Bites galore. I have resolved, of course, not to use it until I am stopped and the other appliances are unplugged, of course, lest I become a walking irradiator.

  So, I’m back on the road again. I take the overpass bridge to the other side of the freeway and merge. Less than half a mile down the road I come upon my first major obstacle. An overturned eighteen wheeler, of course. The trailer has smashed into the side of the HOV lane and lays in two pieces like a broken egg, ripped cardboard boxes and smashed washers or dryers lay across the highway. I would actually have had a little room had the cars following the tractor trailer also crashed into it and come to a rest. Naturally, they were funneled down into the side of the highway farthest from the concrete barriers and created a little wall against the concrete barriers on the other side of the freeway. I back track and decide to begin taking the feeder roads to avoid situations like that, and to be able to make use of both the straight-thrus and the exits and bridges and underpasses in case there is a snag on either side. I get on and make good time, screaming down the feeders at eighty miles an hour. I probably get in a good six miles, taking alternately the feeder roads and the bridge intersections. Then the construction starts.

  Morning rush hour. 7:35, yesterday
. Construction on the 45, 610 intersection has funneled traffic into three lanes. The other lanes are stripped of their concrete covering, just a mush of mud and a tangle of sharp rebar. The feeders are non-existent and the ramps onto 610 are equally clogged, as is 610. The cars are jammed up against each other, as if a thousand brakes were released all at once and all the cars idled into each other, which is more and more likely what happened, as much as it bothers me to admit. There were gaps here and there where people put things into park. Who puts their car into park on a busy freeway?

  I consider my options for a moment. I could go the six miles back down the highway the way I came from and take the Beltway all the way around until I meet 45 again on the north side of the city. But then, the beltway isn’t going to be much better. Actually, it’s probably going to be like a deathtrap. Well not a death trap, but I have this fuzzy feeling that I’ll be even more likely to encounter clogs on the toll road, especially with both sides strictly bracketed by thick walls of concrete. It doesn’t have the wide open grass median, which I had been counting on, that is, until reaching this intersection where neither feeder nor open grass are available.

  I note that the stopped cars look almost like a shaggy multicolored carpet thrown over the freeway, a carpet that while having very long and tough hairs and giant gaps, may very well be navigated by a bug, a Beast, with legs as long and spindly as mine. I back the Beast up, fully intending to make a Big Foot run, like the ones I remember from the Monster Truck nights my dad used to take me to up in Topeka. Far enough away, my eye zooms in one particular area where a car has smashed into another and has created something that seems almost like a ramp.