at least finish it on a civil note.
Jeffrey looked over at the clock and then smiled. “This is the latest we’ve been up in a long time.”
“When we were first dating, we used to stay up this late all the time. Do you know how mad my father used to get when I’d come home late? You’re going to be exhausted for work tomorrow morning.”
“Who cares? Let’s stay up all night.”
She giggled a little, then kissed him.
And they did stay up all night. They talked about the types of people they had been when they were young and dumb. They talked about how they were the only couple they knew who had stayed together after high school, made it through college, and gotten married. All of the other couples had seemed so intent on spending the rest of their lives together too, but they all fell apart the way young romance is bound to do.
“We must have done something right,” she said.
Jeffrey kissed her forehead, then her mouth. “I don’t know how you’ve put up with me all these years.”
They talked about the vacations they had gone on in the years prior to Galen being born. There was the honeymoon to Tunisia, the vacation with her sister and her sister’s husband to the Caribbean, the backpacking trip to hike part of the Oregon trail. Eventually, they got so sleepy that it was tough to keep their eyes open.
The last thought Jeffrey had as he fell asleep was that everything was going to be fine Nothing could defeat them. Not a dwindling city. Not the lost hope of grandchildren. Not the unknown. Definitely not a couple of guys spouting fear on TV. Everything really would be OK. And then he fell asleep.
**
Whenever there was a possible fork in his path, he stayed to the right, close to the sand and the water. The roads were mostly intact, but in some parts they had already deteriorated enough that only the tank would have been able to pass through town; even an SUV would break an axle or have a tire shred apart.
Just outside Keyport he came to a crevice in the road, the size of a swimming pool. The tank dipped into the road until the turret scraped earth as the machine tilted downwards. If the hole were any larger, even the tank would have become stuck. It was easy for a man in a tank to feel invincible, but that one moment was enough for Jeffrey to stop taking his machine for granted. If he abused the capability the tank offered, recklessly putting it in a situation to get stuck, he wouldn’t have any other way to keep traveling, except by foot.
The roads, as a whole, were what he expected after the stories he had heard from people coming down from the north. There were some sections of land that didn’t seem so bad, but then he drove over other parts that gave credence to the fear-mongers saying the caravan from Philadelphia to Washington would never make it.
It seemed like it should be a simple thing to get a line of vehicles from one point to another. General Patton was able to move thousands of vehicles against an entire army. But times were different. A car would, inevitably, break down, a road would be blocked, people would start crying, Blocks had to be fed and changed. You couldn’t very well pull up next to these people and scream at them that they had better follow orders or the Germans would be victorious.
Giant holes in the ground and the constant broken roads along the beach made Jeffrey switch over to the Garden State Parkway. It was in better condition, but was also littered with abandoned cars everywhere. The tank was continually swerving left and right to avoid cars scattered about like marbles.
In a little town called Keasby, he saw a single ribbon of smoke drifting up into the sky. The inferno at the stadium made this tiny string of grey seem trivial. The smoke’s source, whether it was a family with a fire going to stay warm, a grill to prepare dinner in the backyard, the remnants of a house burning to the ground, could not be seen. He sped the tank up to get past the
Jeffrey looked over at the clock and then smiled. “This is the latest we’ve been up in a long time.”
“When we were first dating, we used to stay up this late all the time. Do you know how mad my father used to get when I’d come home late? You’re going to be exhausted for work tomorrow morning.”
“Who cares? Let’s stay up all night.”
She giggled a little, then kissed him.
And they did stay up all night. They talked about the types of people they had been when they were young and dumb. They talked about how they were the only couple they knew who had stayed together after high school, made it through college, and gotten married. All of the other couples had seemed so intent on spending the rest of their lives together too, but they all fell apart the way young romance is bound to do.
“We must have done something right,” she said.
Jeffrey kissed her forehead, then her mouth. “I don’t know how you’ve put up with me all these years.”
They talked about the vacations they had gone on in the years prior to Galen being born. There was the honeymoon to Tunisia, the vacation with her sister and her sister’s husband to the Caribbean, the backpacking trip to hike part of the Oregon trail. Eventually, they got so sleepy that it was tough to keep their eyes open.
The last thought Jeffrey had as he fell asleep was that everything was going to be fine Nothing could defeat them. Not a dwindling city. Not the lost hope of grandchildren. Not the unknown. Definitely not a couple of guys spouting fear on TV. Everything really would be OK. And then he fell asleep.
**
Whenever there was a possible fork in his path, he stayed to the right, close to the sand and the water. The roads were mostly intact, but in some parts they had already deteriorated enough that only the tank would have been able to pass through town; even an SUV would break an axle or have a tire shred apart.
Just outside Keyport he came to a crevice in the road, the size of a swimming pool. The tank dipped into the road until the turret scraped earth as the machine tilted downwards. If the hole were any larger, even the tank would have become stuck. It was easy for a man in a tank to feel invincible, but that one moment was enough for Jeffrey to stop taking his machine for granted. If he abused the capability the tank offered, recklessly putting it in a situation to get stuck, he wouldn’t have any other way to keep traveling, except by foot.
The roads, as a whole, were what he expected after the stories he had heard from people coming down from the north. There were some sections of land that didn’t seem so bad, but then he drove over other parts that gave credence to the fear-mongers saying the caravan from Philadelphia to Washington would never make it.
It seemed like it should be a simple thing to get a line of vehicles from one point to another. General Patton was able to move thousands of vehicles against an entire army. But times were different. A car would, inevitably, break down, a road would be blocked, people would start crying, Blocks had to be fed and changed. You couldn’t very well pull up next to these people and scream at them that they had better follow orders or the Germans would be victorious.
Giant holes in the ground and the constant broken roads along the beach made Jeffrey switch over to the Garden State Parkway. It was in better condition, but was also littered with abandoned cars everywhere. The tank was continually swerving left and right to avoid cars scattered about like marbles.
In a little town called Keasby, he saw a single ribbon of smoke drifting up into the sky. The inferno at the stadium made this tiny string of grey seem trivial. The smoke’s source, whether it was a family with a fire going to stay warm, a grill to prepare dinner in the backyard, the remnants of a house burning to the ground, could not be seen. He sped the tank up to get past the
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