Chapter 4, All is Not Well

Chapter Four

           

 Charlotte Fox was not one to panic, she was one to prepare. She usually thought a week ahead and had her grocery shopping all done for the week’s meals, she never let the gas tanks in the vehicles go below half full, bought batteries whenever they were on sale, rotated four jugs of Poland Springs water just in case. In case of what?

            “We have town water here, dear.” John would tease her. “Even when the power goes out, we’ll have water. It’s going to get cold after a few hours, but we can still flush the toilet.”

            Charlotte’s angst sprung from the days they had lived in a winter rental out in the woods of Eastham when they first married. Whenever a storm threatened, she’d learned to fill the bathtub with water. When the power went out down there, the pump to the well stopped working. Thus her normal preparedness: the battery buying, the candle hoarding, the extra toilet paper down in the basement on the shelf, along with the sani-wipes, the dog food  and the canned goods you could eat right from the can if it ever came to that, and the garbage bags. Come on hurricanes, I’m ready, she thought proudly. She had stopped just short of ordering one of those barrels full of necessaries from Costco that are designed for long sieges of. . . disaster.

            But she was not prepared at all for what she saw on the television when she clicked it on that afternoon of October 16. A national emergency warning system blared out in a robotic voice, “Do not leave your homes. Shelter in place. Do not leave your home. Shelter in place.” There was the old fashioned color bars, the blaring warning, one two three, and then, “Do not leave your home, Shelter in place, this is an emergency warning,” over and over again.

            “What the hell?” Charlotte never cursed, but this was an emergency. There had been absolutely nothing on the marine weather to indicate any kind of storm. There could not be a hurricane around the corner. Had the Russian hackers made it into the American cable television system? Of course they could have. Or was there really an actual emergency? Had terrorists attacked Washington? Whatever it was, she’d be darned if she was going to “shelter in place.” John was still out on the water, she hadn’t even heard from him yet, the kids were not home from school, and her old house was not the most reliable bomb shelter. She ran back outside and crossed the street to Frieda Newcomb’s house. Frieda was sure to know what was up.

A retired biochemist in her early seventies, Frieda was involved in “Every leftist cause known to man that benefits women,” as Frieda liked to proclaim. Non- GMO, anti-war, anti-nukes, save the polar bears, pro-wind farm, pro-conservation, pro-choice (let women make up their own damned minds if they are ready to have a baby- we are not incubators- thank you very much), anti-chemical, anti-gun and anti-Republican, especially with Mr. Trump on the stump, Frieda was tapped into every organization Charlotte had never heard of, and spent the first two hours of every day reading updates from every one of them.

            “There’s nothing in the newspapers,” she would say, on a typical day’s rant. Coffee with Frieda meant that Charlotte didn’t have to talk at all after the initial greeting.

 “Nothing. They don’t even report anymore, they just get the story from the Associated Press, and then copy and paste. And the AP? They are full of themselves. Have you read an article lately? Full of opinion. In every sentence, through word choice and insinuation. Where are the unbiased journalists? There’s only a few good reporters out there now. Just a few. They should be made saints. Sanctified. Where’s the Catholic Church on that one? 

“Or at least knighted, like Queen Elizabeth did for Elton John. But what do you do for a woman? They don’t knight women, do they? They only dame us. Like Dame Judy Dench. What kind of hogwash is that?

“It’s downright dangerous to be a reporter these days. The corporations have them by the short hairs. Thanks, Supreme Court, for Citizen’s United. A corporation is a person, my ass. And my ass ain’t so grand, these days. Neither is the Supreme Court.”

Charlotte was amused and occasionally horrified with what came out of Frieda’s mouth, but she learned a lot. Frieda had spent most of her working life standing up in a sanitized lab, not talking much to anyone, just measuring and recording data. She was definitely making up for lost time, even if a little rough around the edges in her conversational style. Lately Standing Rock had been a big theme. Charlotte always signed the on-line petitions that Frieda eMailed to her: No more gas pipeline, Save our Water! Stand with the Native Americans, get a clue! The corporations are going to do us all in, and destroy the Missouri River watershed. President Obama, come to your senses. (Clean water was the most important thing, wasn’t it?) But if John knew, he’d have a cow. He was a Republican, although the Republicans never did John a bit of good. But John’s father had been one, and his grandfather, and probably all the way back to good old Abe Lincoln. So, that was that. But John also needed clean water, so Charlotte signed the petitions on his behalf, as well as for herself and the kids. It was the least she could do.

Frieda opened her front door before Charlotte could knock.

“It’s happening!” she shouted into her cell phone. “We knew it would. No one would listen. Not the Governor, not the NRC! Especially the NRC, they should all be beheaded. They would be beheaded in most countries! They have caused this, they have allowed it, they have ruined us!” Frieda waved Charlotte into the living room as she continued to shout into her phone.

“What? What is it?” Charlotte tried a question, but knew she wasn’t being heard. Frieda’s house phone rang now, and Frieda snatched it up, and continued right on, both phones to her ears. “No, we are all out of time, it’s over. The Pilgrim Nuclear Station is on fire. On fire!”  she screamed.

Charlotte felt herself go woozy. She knew a little about this. She had heard from her daughter all about the dangers of nuclear power, they were studying it at school, and the freshmen had  written personal letters to Senators Warren and Markey and Representative Keating on the stand they had taken in “shutting Pilgrim down.” Charlotte had been asked to check Darlene’s grammar. From that, she knew that the aging  nuclear reactor was to shut down in two years, but not yet. And she knew the power station had so many safety issues that had been allowed to persist by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that it made her sick. She didn’t want to think about it.

“I don’t know the cause,” Frieda was shrieking. "Who cares about the cause? The fact is, it’s on fire, and it’s not going to go out for days. They can't put that out! Do you know how hot that is? And we are supposed to take this lying down? The damned bridges are already closed. We are already trapped here on the Cape." There was a short pause. Frieda's eyes rolled to the ceiling, and she took a deep breath. 

“Duct tape? Don’t make me laugh. I don’t have any duct tape. I could never tape this house up anyway. Too many windows. I’d need a hundred rolls. That is ludicrous. We have been sacrificed. We are the human sacrifices to the Entergy shareholders. I am furious.

“What? Of course I’ve been active! I was just up at the state house last week! Yes, we were all up there in the state house trying to get the governor to write a letter on our behalf to the NRC. Shut the fucker down! But nooooooo. And now, game's over. Nice work, Gov. On your watch. Where are you now?  How far away from Plymouth have you gone? Boston isn’t even safe. The radiation is blowing all over hell, it’s coming this way now, but the wind will change before that fire is out. We might as well bend over and kiss our asses good-bye.”

Charlotte swayed back and forth and grabbed the back of the couch. Then she blacked out.