Rebel Yell - Part 1

Clay started the day like he started any other day. He took his morning paper from his front porch and began to read. Today was not an ordinary day in his mind, though. The results were in from what he considered an historic government bill. As he does with all items he feels are historic, after reading it, he begins to clip it from the paper and place it into his book. "House Bans Possession of 2 Weeks Supply of Rationing" is the headline he slaps on a new page. 
 

His scrap book was started in 2009, the same year he started his emergency food supply. The same year he began to prepare for what he thought could be the worst.

In the beginning, it was easy to justify, as well. They lived in Florida, and had always been told to have an emergency food supply in case of hurricanes. But with the ball rolling, it became a habit to put away a can or two from every shopping trip. He remembers the cases of food growing as he continued to paste story after story of his nation descending from its glory days. 
 

The story in his scrap book started in 2009. Back then, the world economy was in a deep crisis. Some banks had failed, others had lost so much value in their holdings that they could no longer legally lend money. This prompted a world-wide reaction of local governments taking their steps to get a handle on the situation.

In America, a series of stimulus plans were enacted to kick start the economy to recovery, and a rule that forced the banks to lend based on the market value of their holdings was removed. All this caused a temporary small recovery of the economy but this gave way to stagnation and then a gradual decline back to near where it had started. All this time, the banks lent as if they were at the peak of the recovery.

Then the black year started.

The scrap book tells of that year's passing of the government budget. The budget, like so many before it, was the largest recorded in history, increasing operations in the Middle East, continuing local economic stimulus, expansion of domestic security, and an increase in government programs across the board. In addition, the budget introduced some large tax cuts, reducing the already dwindling government income. But very shortly after this passed, a stark reality was hitting the nation: a severe drought cycle had hit. Some media had blamed global warming, others insisted it was just a climate anomaly. Whatever the cause, it was clear that the years crops for every state south of Wyoming were failing. Farmers began to default on their loans.

The government enacted the Emergency Farming Recovery Act, designed to inject cash into the mega-farms and the individual farmers. But the government was having trouble funding the act. The large budgetary measure combined with the drought had foreign investors cautious in buying American. Many felt that it would resort to printing money as it had to fund some of the earlier recovery packages of the late 2000s, and this would cause inflation to outpace their bond rate. It was also a shock that the administration had cut taxes as they did. The international community looked at it as if we didn't want to pay for our own problems. With the drought isolated to the United States and Mexico, other economies suddenly appeared more stable and investors had their dollars flee to areas that were growing.

Then, a major bank began to falter. Almost 1/10th of the US wealth was held by this bank, which had leverages all of it's holdings to the maximum of the recovery peak. While some banks had acted prudently, this one had placed a major bet on the recovery and with the farmer defaults, it was starting to crack. More emergency legislation was passed to give the bank more time and get the private sector to buy the farming loans, but no one answered that call. The government then passed more legislation to buy up the farms loans in the hopes to hold them until the drought was over.

All of this was no longer funded by the government bond market and inflation had started to push up the cost of everything. Food was already sky rocketting as a commodity, but all the imports suddenly became out of the reach of an average American. Meanwhile, the inflation accelerated the foreign pullout from the government bonds.

Some Americans too began to pull their money out and place it onto the foreign market. This prompted the government to place tariffs on foreign bond trading. The tariffs were to help offset the loss of when local money was used abroad. The slogan for the bill was "We're in this together." Hidden in the the bill were new tariffs for food exports, as the northern farm industry in the North had started to sell outside of the U.S. to stable dollars. The reaction from the international community was harsh, prompting fines from the World Trade Organization and the loss of any final confidence in our recovery.

Retailers in America began to feel the pressure like never before. Credit had collapsed for consumers, but at the same time prices of imports were spinning up wildly. Some of the biggest chains started to bankrupt. Then suddenly, the biggest chain of them all, built on the very idea of Americans buying cheap foriegn goods in high volume, announce it was to miss critical interest payments. This sent a shock-wave into the banking system that had lent them the money for their massive expansions in the 90s and 2000s.

Job failure nationwide had accelerated, blowing past the 20% metric most economists held as the indicator of a Great Depression. People out of work and unable to provide for themselves lead to a resurgence in mortgage defaults. With the banks over lent and getting hit on all sides, the government passed more legislation. Now, however, they're only option was to print new money with the intent of nationalizing what was left of the banks. With the government in control of all the liens, the bill also called for a suspension of all foreclosures. All people had a right to the home they were currently living in. The measure passed almost unanimously, as constituents were desperate at this point for any relief.

The drought continued into the next year. There were several articles about average people unable to eat. Their shelter was provided, but the food supply was drastically affected, and it had become impossible to use the foreign market to buy goods. American money had become almost meaningless in both foreign and domestic trade. Nearly 1/10th of the population had died of starvation.

With the no end in sight, the government set up a food distribution system. The nationalization of the banks as well as the EFRA bill had given them control over the 95% of the farms that had some form os financing. All people within the United States had to register to receive rations of food. At the same time, they put out a program that would buy any spare food you may have at current market value using the very American dollars that were under tremendous inflationary pressure.

The man remembers this time clearly. After much discussion, he and his wife decided to register. They had four person-years of food stored... well, actually by then they only had three. And they didn't know how long they would have to wait it out. So they decided to register for their rationing to preserve their stores. They decided not to sell anything because the money they were given today would not be able to buy anything tomorrow. In addition, there were times when the food banks would be empty because the distribution had stopped working. A few articles talked about people dying from this, but there seemed to be no real solution.

Then there were news reports about a group in North Carolina. The food supply had become cut off to the region for a month. The area was stricken with death, but it had become apparent that this group of 50 or so people was still thriving. Local authorities did an investigation, and it was found that they had a large food supply stored on their property. The local police went to claim it under eminent domain laws and the group refused. The result was a standoff with the FBI that ended in the group being killed in a fire that also destroyed most of the food.

Articles talked about the the group as rebels and malcontents. They claimed the group was also extorting other locals near them with their food for both profit and sexually perverse acts. They claimed the stores of food had been amassed under the distribution program through an organized syndicate of food claims in exchange for illicit drugs. The government used them as an example of how the actions of the selfish benefit no one. They organized around this new bill.

There was no doubt in Clay's mind that this had now made him and his wife outlaws. The bill reclassified all food as a Schedule 4 controlled substance and limited possession of more than 2 weeks as evidence of racketeering. Because in these times access to food was a matter of live or death, the death penalty along with the repossessions of all belongings under the RICO act was the expected sentence. That he was suddenly in mortal legal peril made him sick to his stomach. But from reading the news reports, it was a day he had been expecting for a while now.

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A few months had passed and summer was rolling around again. Like the last 4 years, it was clear there was to be a drought. Clay and his wife had survived the last few months. Twice the food supply to the region had been cut off. Taking head of the North Carolina story, they had applied for emergency relocation, and packed a week's worth of rations to take with them. Both times, the supply was resolved and they were able to return to their home.

Today started like any other day. Clay grabbed his paper from his porch, but this time took a minute to look at the dark bands in the sky. He went into his kitchen to sit and read the news. Like everyone else in his state, if not the country, he had been tracking a storm heading for Florida. The front page splashed the headline "Hurricane Beatrice Now Category 5." This was a sharp increase from the 3 it was when he went to bed last night. The path of the hurricane had changed too: it was heading straight for his city.

Other parts of the country had been hit with several others in the last little while. Even the south end of Florida has been hit hard, but up until now, Clay had been spared.

Going by what had occurred in the past, the terrifying weather pattern had changed in the last few years. They would come in stronger, more intense. Loaded with humidity from the ocean, they would dump several feet of water in the first 100 or so miles from the coast, but after that, the rain would stop. The winds would intensify, almost fed by the same heat in the land that was causing the crops to fail. Eventually, the hurricane would move far enough north to chill, precipitate, and dissipate. Sometimes the northern states would get water, but increasingly this last step would just hit Canada.

So Clay knew he was in trouble. His house sat a full 7 feet above sea level, and a lot of his food stores had been buried to hide it from an inspection when he was here or looters when he was gone. When a category 3 hit south of him last year, whole cities were scrapped because of flooding. With this as a category 5, he know he had to leave. But this time he knew he had to take his food with him, as it was likely he and his wife would not be able to return. The governor would declare the city condemned. The paper agreed, detailing that people should take all of their belongings as they would not be approved for return travel. It went on to say that government inventories of abandoned homes were high and that FEMA would give them a permanent residence in a northern state and detailed evacuation routes and how to apply for the home swap.

"Today's the day, Sharon," he said to his wife as she reconstituted powdered eggs and milk into an omelet. "After breakfast, we'll load the truck."

With his hunger sated, he went into his den. Six large storage bins sat there loaded with food. The top layer in each had been shuffled around into the emptied bins and loaded with mundane household items: papers, clothing, cookware, cups, plates, utensils, and some knickknacks. Clay had tapped some sap out of his trees and then poured it on the bottom-most layer of this facade, in the hopes that anyone searching through would grab a handful of sap and become discouraged. This was all he could think to do. He loaded each bin one by one onto a dolly and rolled them to his truck. He then threw on a few other items he knew he needed: his generator, an empty gas can, a bike, tarps, propane grill and a cylinder of propane.

They didn't take any furniture, no appliances, and no clothes beyond the few in the facade. In the cabin, they had some government issued food and their aged laptops. He didn't want to appear to have too many things with him. He had been through this before when the food supply was cut. There would be a checkpoint at the border with agents from Homeland Security, DEA, and the Food and Drug Administration. They would be looking at what you had packed and if there was too much, it would serve as probable cause for smuggling and they would flag you to pull over for inspection. With the paper telling everyone to pack all their belongings, and with the number of people being evacuated at such short notice, Clay hoped the bar would be raised in how much "stuff" they would consider normal. After loading the truck, he and his wife threw a tarp over everything to hide what was back there from prying eyes and then lifted their fiberglass bed cover and locked it onto the back.

While the local commerce and economy allowed for gas stations, it was rare to be able to buy enough fuel to leave the state. For that, you needed to go to a gas dispensary and have reason for travel. Clay had his evacuation plan approved two days ago, and was not concerned about this part.

The dispensaries were just outside of town, to the north and to the west. Clay's evacuation plan had him heading east to I-75 and then to Atlanta. They stopped as a local gas station to fuel up enough to get to the dispensary, and started heading west.

As Clay and Sharon drove near the dispensary, traffic began to slow and then stop. With this many people, it took them hours to make it to the final leg of the line. Once everyone was funneled into a single line, he started cutting his engine to save gas, which had already started to indicate an empty fuel tank. He repeated this cycle off turning on the truck, moving forward, and then cutting the engine over and over as he counted his position in the trail of cars snaking behind the building where he knew the pumps to be. As he turned the final corner, he saw that something was very wrong. The people in front of them near the pumps were off loading items from their vehicles as ushers carried them over to a large pile of appliances, furniture, bags, and even food. A set of police officers were standing by one of the piles of food sharing a box of crackers.

"I'm going to go and check it out," Clay said. "Be careful," Sharon responded. Clay nodded as he exited the car. Instantly, a police officer came out of nowhere. "Back in the car, sir!" Clay spun around, "I was just-"

"Back in the car, sir." The officer repeated, putting his hand down to his tazer. "Yes, of course," Clay acknowledged and sat back down.

"What the hell is going on?" Sharon whispered. "I don't know, but those cops have taken notice of us." Clay said tilting his head to the group by the food. "What are we going to do?" Sharon implored. "Well, if we try to run, they'll likely chase us down and even if we get away, which we won't, we can't make it more than few miles with the gas we have. We've got to just play it cool and act like I just made a mistake getting out. It doesn't look like they are searching people, but something is definitely strange."

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Finally, they had made it to near the front of the queue. The driver of the car in front of them didn't do too much. He had pulled to the booth, talked a little bit with the person inside, handed him what looked like travel papers, took them back, and then pulled away from the booth and up to the gas pumps. Clay cranked his car up and pulled forward to the booth. As he did this, two of the officers from the pile started walking toward them.

"Names?" the booth operator inquired while looking at a tablet computer. Inside Clay cringed because he knew he wasn't actually asking his name, he was checking his story. The RFID chips in their driver's licenses had already transmitted their national identity to the operator and now they had to answer all the details of their life correctly or risk being searched. "Clay Auger" he said. 

"Sharon Auger" his wife replied.

"Do you reside together?"

"Yes" Clay responded, taking over the conversation from there.

"Address?" Clay gave the address quickly so as to give no hint of an impression that he is anything other than who and what he said he is.

"Good. Your and your wife's weight?"

This question was odd to Clay. How would they know what to compare that to? But he and Sharon responded.

"Travel papers?" the operator asked after keying in their responses. Thank god, Clay thought as he reached to the seat beside him and passed the papers. The booth operator scaned the bar-code at the top and then pressed something on this tablet screen. "You're overweight."

"I'm sorry?" Clay was confused with this.

"You only have a regular priority travel pass, but your vehicle has 500 pounds of cargo. You only get 200 pounds each. You need to cut it down," he responded and indicated to the ushers.

Crap, Clay thought, but managed to say, "Ok."

"Let's take a look, shall we? Exit the vehicle." Clay got out and said "I think some of the stuff in the back can go." He opened the bed-top and tailgate and pulled back the tarp.

"Wow, living well are we?" joked the operator but this comment made Clay cringe inside. "How so?" "Well, a generator, and a barbecue, most people would have hawked this stuff by now."

Clay realized in that moment just how out of touch he was with his neighbors. He and Sharon had cut themselves off from other people as a means of self preservation. They didn't want to let slip that they had all of the things they did, even before the passage of the law. A wrong word somewhere could make them a target for robbery or worse.

But where he thought these items would be commonplace, they were not and set him apart as an anomaly among what really amounted to be a crowd of refugees. "Uh, well, those are my heaviest things. What kind of credit do I get for them?"

"No credit, all this stuff is considered abandoned. FEMA is claiming it, will inventory it, and will redistribute the useful items. Who knows, you might get it back." Clay could detect some sarcasm in the operator's voice, but it wasn't malicious. It was more the statement from a man who has said the same thing thousands of times before and knew he didn't mean it.

"Ok, let's take them down" Clay said. "Sorry, sir, I can't help you with that. Just get it onto the ground here and they will take it." Clay wrestled the generator down. He felt like just pulling it out to smash on the ground, but was afraid of the scene it may cause. The gas grill was much easier, but cumbersome. He pulled the items over to where the ushers were already waiting with a cart. They loaded them onto the cart and stood there.

"Sir, I need you to stand back in the yellow lines," the operator called out pointing to the ground. Ah ha, Clay thought, they must be weighing the truck against it's factory listing, and taking into account the weights they stated in the questioning. He stepped back by his truck, and tried to think light thoughts. The operator hit a few keys, and said "you're still 20lbs over."

Clay looked at the propane canister. He had saved it for a long time. Without a grill, it was limited in direct use, but propane was a powerful bargaining item. The gas can didn't weight much so that was out. The bike... if he ran out of gas, the bike would be useful, and it too could be bartered. Then there was the boxes of food. Was there a way to open them and take out some of the stuff on top without having someone pry too much? The ushers were just over his shoulder waiting, the operator off to the side on the outside of the yellow lines. The two cops from the pile were now standing in front of his truck. Even the guy in the car behind him was anxiously studying everything he was doing. No, no, not the food bins. Food was a powerful barter item too, not as rare as propane, but still effective. He would need to dump the canister.

After putting it beyond the line. He stood up and looked at the operator. "That did it. Please get back into the vehicle." Clay did so and began to relax as he watched the ushers cart away his stuff. Finally, they can get out of there.

"Okay, now please wait here with these officers instruct you." One of the two cops walked to the car window. "Ok, sir, I'm going to need you to put both hands on the steering wheel. Ma'am, please lean forward and place both hands on the dashboard." "What's this about, officer?" Clay inquired. "Sir! Both hands on the steering wheel, now!" was his response with a stern look. Clay complied. The second officer un-clipped his firearm and placed his hand on it. "Do not move. If you do, it may endanger you as we will not be sure of your intentions." And with that he reaches inside and pulls the keys out of the ignition. What the hell is this, Clay thinks, as he looks over at his wife bent forward to reach the dash.

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The barking was sudden and ferocious. It sounded like a rabid animal had suddenly sprung loose around the corner on the other side of the booth. Then, just as suddenly, it stopped. A third cop emerged with a Labrador Retriever on a chain. The dog began sniffing the front of the truck. The officer continued along the passenger side slowly, letting the dog put its nose into the wheel-wells. It continued sniffing at a frantic pace as they continued toward the back.

That's when the dog started to bark. Clay's heart sank. He had heard about cops faking drug seizures from citizens in order to repossess their cars and any other items they had with them. They obviously had this dog trained to bark on command. Based on our throw away items, they must have raised some interest.

But he looked up and the cop with his hand on his weapon was not looking at him. He was looking past him. He glanced in his rear-view mirror and saw the dog on the hood of the car behind him barking continuously and pulling on his chain. Clay switched his eyes to his side mirror to see the boy in that car jump out and start to run.

The roar of the shot was deafening. The pops heard in a lifetime of action movies did nothing to prepare Clay to have a firearm discharge outside his open window right by his head. The mirror had become too limiting, and Clay spun his head to see the kid fall forward to the ground where he was blocked from view by his vehicle. "Sir, get your hands back on the steering wheel!" the second officer announced as he spun his gun towards Clay's head. "Yes sir!" Clay blurted grabbing for the wheel. A few police officers moved out of the corner of Clay's eyes but he didn't dare look back.

The first officer emerged from behind, shouting "Did you know him? Did you come together?" "No, sir" Clay responded. "Wait here!" the officer ordered, before storming into the main building. The second officer holstered his weapon and followed the first, but was instantly replaced with a fourth cop. The one with the dog resumed moving around the truck, and with no reaction from the dog, he walked back to the building.

They sat there for a long time. Some officers had moved the car behind them over to the pile of seized items and started searching inside. Eventually, one of them seemed to have something of interest and went back to the building while the rest of the cops went back to the food pile. Other cops were directing people out of their lane into other lanes. The position was natural for him, but Sharon was starting to feel strained. "Sir, my wife is very uncomfortable," Clay called to the new officer.

"Just sit there. We'll get to the bottom of this soon."

"Can she at least remove her seat belt?"

The officer thought about this for a few seconds. He was sizing Clay up, trying to judge if this was some kind of trick. Eventually, his mind came up with an idea: "No, but I can do it."

He signaled for another officer to back him up. He opened the side door and kept a hand on his weapon. He reached over, and unbuckled the belt. "Thank you" Sharon said.

Just as all this happened the first officer emerged. "What is going on here?" he said to the officer helping them.

"She was uncomfortable, I was just-"

"Never mind." He waived snapping out of his authoritarian mode, "Thank you, sir. We had to be sure you weren't with the person behind you," he said holding out the truck keys. Clay took them. "You can sit back. Wait for your operator." The booth operator appeared and entered his booth. He stamped the travel papers and handed them back, saying "Pump 14, have a nice day, sir."

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They pressed on after getting their allotment of gas. The pump operator warned them not to stray too much from their evacuation route. "FEMA needs to conserve gas, so you only will have enough to go a few miles here or there. If you ask me, you'll want to just keep going because you never know what to expect."

Road travel was slow. Even with both sides of the highway opened in the direction of the evacuation, it was stop and go for a parts of the way almost like moderate rush hour traffic. After being on the road for several hours, Sharon needed to take a break, so they pulled off to a rest area along the way to stretch their legs and perform the various other necessities of travel.

They had never seen a rest stop so full. Clay pulled up to the first set of parking spots near the bathrooms, but they were all taken. He sat a little dazed looking at what to do when a security officer approached him. Clay lowered the window.

"Keep it moving, you're backing up traffic," the officer indicated over his shoulder. Indeed, the cars had already started to back up to the off-ramp they had taken there. "What should I do?" Clay asked. "Go around there to the auxiliary parking." This was the answer he expected. Clay didn't want to use the auxiliary parking because it was less well guarded. This many people can be a dangerous thing: leaving a vehicle alone could be inviting trouble but then walking to and from the bathrooms alone could had its risks. Still, he didn't have a choice, and so he moved his foot from the brake to the gas and pulled around. Once there, he coasted in the lanes a little until a spot opened up that was at least within sight of the building and the single guard they had out there.

"Okay, I'll wait here while you go first," Clay said. "Can't you come with me?" Sharon asked. "I need to watch our stuff. They only have the one guard for this whole area, there's no telling what someone might do. Look, just walk straight to the guard there and then stay on the path. As long as you can see the guards, they can see you and you'll be okay. Don't come back unless, he's there though. Got it?"

"Yes. God I wish it hadn't come to this."

"I have a jar in the back seat you could try," Clay said.

"Thanks, but I don't think it's up for the job. I have some more substantial work to do," Sharon quipped. With that, she got out and followed the path that Clay had laid out.

Clay sat watching her make her way to the ladies room when all of a sudden someone banged on his window. "Hey, motherfucker! You took my spot!"

Clay spun around, there was a young man there in his early twenties. He reminded him in some ways of the kid who ran from the car a few hours earlier. That image of him falling to the ground stuck in Clays mind for a second, but it was jarred out by the guy hitting his window again. "Hey, motherfucker, I'm talking to you."

Clay was frozen. He wasn't sure what to do here. If he apologized, it would feed into this guy thinking he had been wronged. If he ignored him, then it looked like things would just keep escalating. "I didn't take your spot" he called back. The person looked like he was getting angry.

"Get back to you vehicle." The guard was approaching with his tazer out, and then lifting his radio to say something. Two guards began to jog from the building.

"Hey, no problem, man. My friend and I were just having a little discussion," the man said putting his hands up and walking away from the window. "No worries." He walked away and the guard walked back to where he was standing while talking into the radio again. The two guards had reached him and they all started talking a little, with the first pointing over at Clay a few times, and then back into the crowd of vehicles. After a minute, the two started walking back to the building, and the original guard began walking down one of the aisles.

Clay tuned his radio around to find a station with something familiar. He stopped on a station halfway through Don McLean's "American Pie." Clay sang the refrains poorly along with him. It's a song he likes, but one from a prior generation, so he flubs over many of the words. Still, it added something to his sitting there. As the station rolled over to Brown Eyed Girl, Clay started to look agsin for his wife.

He didn't see her, nor the guard. But in scanning around, he saw a middle aged man had started to stand near his vehicle and was watching him. He had feared this. The first guy called attention to the fact that Clay was there. The fact that he was there would then attract other people. And anyone attracted to a person sitting in their car waiting was not likely to have good intentions. With the momentary eye contact made, the man started walking towards Clay. What now, he thought.

"Excuse me, sir" the man said through the window. "Please go away, I don't have anything," Clay called out to the man, hoping to preempt the conversation. "Please sir, I have a little girl." This statement caught Clay a little off guard because it wasn't a request for something. Usually people were more direct than this, and he wasn't sure where this was going. "We're out of gas. Someone robbed us when we were in the bathroom. They must have siphoned it out or something."

"I can't help. I only have enough gas to get to the next checkpoint."

"She is very hungry, sir. We can't get to a food bank. We've been stranded here for days."

Clay was struggling inside. He knew if he gave this man food, then it would become an open invitation for everyone. There was no way to really know this man actually had a child with him, but if he did, then she probably didn't understand and definitely didn't deserve the fate she was in. Still, she was this man's responsibility and there was no way to confirm she existed without leaving the car and following him, and that in and of itself was dangerous. Even if this guy was on the up and up, he didn't know where his "friend" from earlier was. "Talk to the guard," he offered knowing it wasn't helpful.

"I've been here for days and you think I haven't talked to the guards. Please," the man started crying, "please, she's very hungry. We both are very hungry. We'll do anything, anything. Did I mention she's a girl?" He looked up to gauge Clays reaction.

The last sentence rang in Clays ears. What the... What did he just say? What did he mean by that? No, wait, I don't want to know, What the fuck? What the FUCK? "Get away from my car or I'll get the guard." Clay exploded while reaching for the large gauge wrench he keeps under his seat as an inconspicuous weapon.

It wasn't needed, the man took off with a start. For a second, Clay felt like dashing after him. He felt like following him to his car and beating the man and delivering the girl to the guards. But then he checked himself. First, the guards would not take very kindly to him beating another man in their parking lot. Second, he didn't really know what was out there beyond those cars. Maybe it was his plan to get him over there all along. He need to wait for Sharon. And where the hell was Sharon anyway?

He turned around and saw her walking up with one of the guards from the building. He walked her to the truck and stood back as she got in. "Thanks" she called out.

"I don't know where that other guard has gone to, so I had to ask one from over there to walk me."

"Good thinking, Sharon. Give me a minute." Clay jumped out and called to the guard, "Hey." The guard stopped.

"Hey, thanks for helping my wife. I wanted to report something. There was a man here claiming he had a little girl with him and he was begging for food. When I told him to go away, he, well, he implied something about his daughter, like, that I could use her or something. I yelled at him to go away and he ran off that way."

"You didn't leave the vehicle, did you? Follow him in any way?"

"No" Clay said.

"It's a good thing. We've had a lot of that up an down the highway. They mostly target heavier vehicles, like your truck. They try and get you away from it, and when you go, they drill out you gas tank."

"What?"

"Yup, take it all. Pretty much all you can do then is wait for the bus. We'll radio for a seat for you, but you can't take any of your stuff. You should check just to make sure."

Clay started to look under the vehicle and the guard stopped him. "Just turn the car on and look at how much gas you have."

"Yes, of course. Thanks."

Clay entered the car and turned the key. He watched the needle sit on empty for a second, but then climb up to what looked like the right level.

"Don't you want to go, dear" Sharon asked.

"I think I'll stick with the jar," he responded.

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They approached the Georgia border. Again traffic slowed and then stopped. They were several miles away and it seemed like everything had completely stopped. He began to shut off his engine again, even in the multiple lanes. Running out of gas out here would be a lot more inconvenient than the occasional person cutting in front of him. But even that concern never came to anything: once people noticed him starting his truck to move and then shutting it down, the idea started spreading like wildfire. Soon, when stopped the cars were silent all around until you could hear a wave of engines starting in front of you, signaling you would soon be able to move forward a space.

"This is taking too long. There is something holding us up and I need to see what is going on. I don't want to be blindsided like at the dispensary." Clay eventually announced.

"What are you thinking?" Sharon said.

"I'm thinking of taking the bike up to the head of the line to see what is going on. It should only take me a half hour to get up there."

"What about me?"

"You need to stay with the truck and keep it moving forward."

She looked at him incredulously. "You can't be serious."

"I know, I don't like it either. But you know what can happen if they look in those bins back there. Unless you want to try to unload it, we can't risk going further. Look, the last exit is coming up in 3 miles." he points to a roadside travel sign, "I need to know if we need to take that exit and the only way to know is by going up there."

"What if you're not back by then?"

"We've only been moving 1 mile in an hour, but if it comes to that, pull off the highway into the emergency area and wait. If I'm not back by 5 o'clock, that's 6 hours, take the exit to the first social club on the right." Social clubs had replaced restaurants. Without food, restaurants had become impossible to run traditionally. Instead, they had become places where you could bring your rations and have them prepared for you. This gave you the same feeling as if you were going to an old restaurant. The other difference is that it is traditional for your preparer and server to take a small portion of your food for themselves instead of monetary payment. They wouldn't take much and certainly not more than they needed, because if they did they would lose customers and could be accused of food hoarding. They were popular for dating, as restaurants were in the past, but also just for people who wanted to get out and not prepare or eat food alone.

The plan wasn't ideal, but neither was rolling their car up to a checkpoint on the hope they were waving through people with their amount of stuff. Sharon had as much invested in their food supply as Clay. It was her insistence that they started saving food up, and several times in the past it has gotten them through some tough times. Plus, she just didn't like feeling beholden to the government. She felt the food handouts were a method of control, and she didn't feel the supply chain issues were random.