Expatriates Page 4

  —T. Grady Gallant, On Valor’s Side

  Tavares, Florida—October, the First Year

  While the store was closed, José Valentin went to work installing a buzzer-activated latch on the front door, similar to those that had long been used at jewelry stores and some pawnshops in Orlando and Miami. He did all this work as Jake stood guard behind him with the L. C. Smith double-barrel shotgun he’d inherited from his grandfather.

  As José was testing the completed door latch, he said, “You know, boss, you really need a couple of better long guns. That blunderbuss and your .30-30 just won’t cut it when Schumer hits the fan.”

  Jake nodded. “I suppose you’re right. What do you recommend?”

  “Instead of that side-by-side, you should get something like a Saiga shotgun with a detachable magazine. And instead of your .30-30 cowboy gun, you should have an AR-10 or maybe an FAL if you can find one. Marichal can hook you up, but they won’t come cheap these days.”

  “Prices are all relative, José. If you put it in terms of, say . . . the value of the lives of my wife and son—”

  Valentin interrupted. “Ehhhh-xactly.”

  After his discussion with José, Jake made a series of trades with Marichal. In all, Jake traded 110 ounces of silver in 10-ounce and 50-ounce bars—his entire hoard that he’d accumulated since 2001—plus a promissory note for another hundred ounces of silver. In exchange he received two of Marichal’s most valuable and irreplaceable guns: a Russian-made Saiga-12 shotgun with six spare plastic 10-round magazines and a LAR-8 variant of the AR-10 with nine 20-round steel FN FAL magazines. The Rock River Arms LAR-8 was designed to accept either FN FAL or L1A1 magazines.

  A new sign outside the door announced: LIMIT: TWO CUSTOMERS IN STORE AT A TIME. THANKS FOR YOUR PATIENCE. The Altmillers also erected an inexpensive fabric gazebo awning in front of the store, where customers could queue in the shade before entering the store to do business.

  As one of the few functioning businesses left in town, setting up the gazebo had the unintended consequence of creating a place of barter for customers as they waited. This eventually spilled out into the paved parking lot in front of the store, turning it into a six-day-a week bazaar. By the time customers reached the head of the line, they had traded for the silver coins they would need to make purchases inside.

  One important change before Altmiller’s Hardware reopened was that Jake hired Tomas Marichal as a full-time security guard. He was paid three dollars per day in pre-1965 coinage, or his choice of store merchandise at cost, in barter. He was also provided display counter space to sell his own extra guns, which he priced at what first seemed to be exorbitantly high prices. For example, a run-of-the-mill DPMS brand M4gery with iron sights and five spare magazines was priced at $350 in silver coin. Even with his high asking prices, though, Marichal gradually sold most of his AR-15, AR-10, and SIG556 rifles.

  Tomas Marichal was an imposing figure at six feet two inches and a muscular 230 pounds. In his new role, he became a fixture at the store. In essence, Tomas was on duty twenty-four hours a day. He slept on a folding bed in the back of the store, and he was encouraged to be armed at all times. He took this seriously, opting to carry both an M4gery carbine and a Glock Model 23 pistol everywhere he went, with three spare magazines for each in belt pouches.

  Jake and Janelle habitually carried guns as well. They both had SIG P250 pistols in Blade-Tech hip holsters—his chambered in .45 ACP, and hers in .40 S&W. Jake also kept his loaded Saiga-12 shotgun behind the store’s front counter at all times and the RRA LAR-8 by his bedside.

  To avoid setting any patterns that could be exploited, Tomas was encouraged to take his breaks for meals and errands at sporadic, unpredictable times. He often took advantage of Janelle’s home-cooked meals, which the Altmillers provided to encourage Tomas to stay in the store as much as possible. His meals were usually brought to him by Lance, who idolized Marichal. The boy called him “our store’s soldier.”

  Both the two-customer limit and the silver coin pricing were unpopular at first, but these practices were soon emulated by many other local businesses after word came that several stores in Orlando and Leesburg had either been looted or had their entire inventory sell out in a matter of days.

  Since the Altmiller’s Hardware building had been built in the late 1940s, it had pre-air-conditioning architecture, with spacious screened windows. Even better, it had a raised pagoda center section roofline that provided exceptionally good natural light and ventilation. While ventilation wasn’t a big issue at the onset of the Crunch in October, by the following July, many other businesses had to shut down or relocate. Their almost windowless architecture turned them into humid saunas in the post-grid power era. Worst of all were the tilt-up slab buildings that had become popular in the 1980s and beyond. These relied heavily on fluorescent lighting and air-conditioning since they had few, if any windows. With rolling blackouts and the eventual failure of the power grid, these buildings became little more than unbearably hot, humid, dark caves. Jake was thankful for both his store’s architecture and its PV panels. As part of the Old Florida—both culturally and architecturally—Jake and his family were far better prepared for the Crunch than most.

  7

  SOLDADOS

  “Shortly before World War I, the German Kaiser was the guest of the Swiss government to observe military maneuvers. The Kaiser asked a Swiss militiaman: ‘You are 500,000 and you shoot well, but if we attack with 1,000,000 men what will you do?’ The soldier replied: ‘We will shoot twice and go home.’”

  —Historian Stephen P. Halbrook, as quoted by Bill Buppert in ZeroGov: Limited Government, Unicorns and Other Mythological Creatures

  Tavares, Florida—November, the First Year

  Rumors began to circulate about Cuban raiders in the Florida Keys and on both the east and west coasts of the Florida peninsula. The concern was that they would start to loot inland regions. There was even talk of a full-scale Cuban invasion. When Janelle brought up these concerns in the store one day, Valentin immediately dismissed the rumors. “The Cuban army couldn’t fight their way out of a paper bag.”

  Valentin, however, later admitted to Jake, “Papa Fidel may be dead, but they’re still a bunch of commies down there. I have no doubt that they’ll come and loot in Florida, if they have the chance.”

  Surrounded by three large lakes, Tavares effectively sat on a peninsula. The economy of the region was dominated by theme parks. There was not just the Walt Disney World resort, which included four theme parks, two water parks, and huge resort facilities, but also the two Universal Studios parks, SeaWorld, and many minor spin-off tourist traps in greater Orlando. They all had brought throngs of visitors year-round. The local saying was, “Directly or indirectly, everyone works for the Mouse.” Or more derisively, “for the Rat.” Even before the Crunch started in earnest, Disney World tourism dropped to nil, and everyone felt the pinch.

  In Tavares, the locals were nervous, but they felt comfortably isolated by the lakes, which eliminated several potential avenues of approach. The town conscripted a levy of armed men to man the roadblocks. Each man between ages eighteen and sixty was expected to do an eight-hour guard duty shift five days of each month. There were very few exceptions made—only those with chronic health conditions were excused, but even these men were expected to pay the daily wages in silver for substitutes to stand duty during their assigned shifts.

  Eventually, the roadblock levy rules were liberalized, allowing more substitutions. A few men served as substitutes for three or even four others, which provided a way to make a decent living just by standing guard duty. These men soon went by the nickname Suntanned Soldados, given the many long hours they spent manning the roadblocks. A few men tried to claim noncombatant status because of their religious objection to being armed, but they were told to report for duty anyway and serve as unarmed “runners” or as medics.

 
The men at the roadblocks were in constant radio contact with the police department. It was initially the police, bolstered by more than a dozen recent combat veterans, who formed the Quick Reaction Teams (QRTs). They would be called up anytime a sizable force of looters was spotted. The attrition rate at the roadblocks was low, but on the QRTs it was surprisingly high. They lost an average of one man a week—either killed or wounded so badly that they couldn’t return to duty. By the end of the first year, there had been a complete turnover; only two of the pre-Crunch police officers were still with the force.

  The Lake County Sheriff Department’s heaviest weapon was a Barrett semiauto .50 BMG rifle. Lake County had a National Guard armory in Eustis. The 2nd Battalion, 124th Infantry Regiment at the Eustis Armory had several .50 caliber M2 Browning heavy machine guns, and its anti-tank unit had TOW missile systems that could be mounted on up-armored Humvees. These weapons, however, were essentially worthless because no ammunition was kept on site. All of it was stored in bunkers at an Ammunition Supply Point (ASP) eighty miles away at the Camp Blanding Joint Training Center near the town of Starke. The Eustis National Guard Armory also had sections of 81 mm and 60 mm mortars, but it was the same story: mortar tubes, but no mortar bombs. Only their M16s, M4s, and M240 light machine guns were put to use, but only with very limited ammunition that was scrounged up locally. The 5.56 and 7.62 NATO ammo that they needed for these was in very short supply and traded as if it were gold.

  —

  Up until the 1970s, Tavares had been a somewhat distinct community with its own identity. But Tavares and all of the area along U.S. 441 from Orlando to Ocala and along U.S. 27 from Clermont to Ocala became known as Greater Suburbia. Most of the region became a continuous commercial retail strip. It was as if Central Florida transitioned from a collection of towns into an amorphous shopping experience. The sense of community was lost, and only the extremes of the Crunch brought part of that back in a defensive instinct. Tavares as “town” concept was restored only as a protective community to delineate “us” from “them,” with the “them” meaning the riffraff in Orlando. Once this concept crystallized, the roadblocks went up.

  Tavares became a law-and-order stronghold for several reasons. Not only did the lake-dominated geography limit avenues of approach, but Tavares was the county seat and had a rather imposing Justice Center (with county jail and courthouse). The Lake County Sheriff’s Department headquarters were also in town.

  When the Crunch set in, the local citizens were already quite well armed and most of them believed strongly in the right to keep and bear arms. As a base of operations, the police, National Guard, and local citizens groups were able to maintain law and order and create a relatively stable and free community where a barter economy developed.

  The local economy was enhanced by the chain of lakes and other area lakes because water transportation—mostly rowboat and small sailboat—connected the cities of Tavares, Mount Dora, Eustis, Leesburg, and the communities of Howey-in-the-Hills, Astatula, and those near the Ocklawaha River.

  It was the scarcity in the region that dictated the roadblocks. There was no longer any significant agriculture nearby, so the citizens had to scramble to become self-sufficient. Most of the large citrus groves had been killed by the freezes in the 1980s and replaced by residential developments. The small groves that remained and the backyard trees became threatened by disease—greening and canker—which killed some trees.

  Most of the “muck” farms—wetland converted to vegetable farms—near Zellwood and Apopka reverted to swamp because of environmental regulations. After the Crunch, however, this process was quickly reversed.

  By the early 2000s, there was very little commercial cattle production in the area—just a few hobby farms and ranchettes. Immediately after the Crunch, all of the heifer calves were saved for breeding stock, but it was an agonizingly slow process to build up production. Anyone with a dairy cow was considered rich. Heifer calves were pampered and closely guarded. Their asking prices were enormous—as much as two ounces of gold. The local lakes and rivers provided fish, turtles, and alligators, but within two years they were fished out. By that time, however, gardening had begun to flourish, as had raising chickens, rabbits, ducks, and pigs.

  The population of Florida was dominated by retirees. Largely because of untreated chronic health conditions and starvation, the state’s population dropped thirty-five percent in the first twenty-four months following the Crunch. The Great Die-Off had begun.

  8

  FOSSICKERS

  “The people are immensely likable—cheerful, extrovert, quick-witted, and unfailingly obliging. Their cities are safe and clean and nearly always built on water. They have a society that is prosperous, well ordered, and instinctively egalitarian. The food is excellent. The beer is cold. The sun nearly always shines. There is coffee on every corner. . . . Life doesn’t get much better than this.”

  —Bill Bryson, In a Sunburned Country

  Casuarina, Northern Australia—November, One Year Before the Crunch

  Chuck’s first Christmas in Australia gave him some culture shock. Since Christmas came at midsummer, the holiday mainly revolved around swimming pool parties and barbeques. Instead of citrus and fruitcakes, the fruit most often served with holiday meals was mangoes. There was some turkey served at Christmas, but prawns and crayfish predominated. There was a lot to like about Australia, but it took some adjustment.

  Although he missed his home, Chuck took infrequent vacation trips to see his family in Texas. Part of his reluctance to travel was his frustration with the U.S. government’s TSA agents, who made his life miserable. Because he worked regularly with explosives, all of his clothing, belts, wristwatch band, and even the exterior of his luggage were perennially contaminated by trace amounts of dBX and PETN—the explosive filling used in detonating cord. The legions of blue-gloved “Scope and Grope” TSA drones were endlessly swabbing pieces of passenger luggage and running the swabs through their spectroscopic scanners. It all got worse in 2012 when the TSA fielded their Picosecond Programmable Laser scanners. These scanners were particularly sensitive. And, instead of scanning just a few random swabs, they were able to scan the clothing of everyone who walked by.

  Many times Chuck missed his scheduled flight because he was shunted off to TSA back rooms for “interview” interrogations and secondary searches. He would often be left to sit by himself for what seemed like ages. He would mumble to himself, “Two by two, hands of blue,” and watch the minutes tick by on his wristwatch. The process was always agonizing.

  Invariably, the TSA agents would seem hesitant, consult among themselves, and then push his case up the chain of command. A senior TSA agent would then personally interview Chuck, who would again have to explain the nature of his work. He’d then be released as “free to go,” but without any apology.

  Chuck lived in a one-bedroom leased cottage in Casuarina. He had originally looked in the nicer adjoining suburb of Tiwi, but he couldn’t find a cottage in his price range. He didn’t need much space because he had brought just a few possessions with him from the United States. These were mostly boxes of books, clothes, and a couple of guitars. Even though it was a long drive from most of his job sites, he chose the town because it had good shopping and a seven-screen cinema. He was not much interested in shopping personally, but he knew that shopping malls and movie theaters attracted young women. The shopping malls, he reasoned, were his best chance of meeting a potential spouse, since it drew shoppers from as far away as 125 miles. Of course, once he met Ava, his proximity to the malls no longer seemed very important.

  The evening after their first meeting, Chuck lay anxiously in bed, thinking about what Ava had said to him. Finally, realizing that he would get no sleep, he turned on his bedside light. Normally when he had trouble sleeping, he would get out his twelve-string guitar and play familiar tunes or improvisations until he felt sleepy. But tonight what she ha
d said was hounding him. He dug through one of the boxes of books that he’d had shipped from his parents’ home in Texas but had never unpacked, and found his dusty Bible.

  “Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,” he recited, as he turned to the book of John. He began to read. At first he tried to remember exactly what Ava had said, as if it was a note jotted down in one of his college lectures. “Personal Savior” was what she had said. But then he just got into reading. Chuck recognized John 3:16. Yes, I believe in Jesus, he thought. I’m smart enough to see that none of us would be here if it wasn’t for God making us. But moving on to the next verse, he saw that there was more. It said that whoever did not believe would be condemned. He pondered the word condemned. That has to be something more than just being mistaken—condemned to Hell? he wondered. He came to chapter six and was perplexed by Jesus’ bizarre sermon about his body being bread. That story had confused him in Sunday school, and it was not any clearer now. But as he read the rest of the book, it began to come into focus. Jesus was the good shepherd. He really was born on Earth to die for sinners.

  Over the next few days, Chuck kept reading. He raced through the book of Acts, amazed by Paul’s conversion. He reached Romans, and everything fell into place. He would later learn to love Paul’s epistles for their depth and brilliant insight. Paul spelled out in concrete terms what Chuck had been trying to understand. He was a sinner. This sin was much more than the porn that he’d watched until he got his life straightened out during his freshman year of college. He realized that his indifference was a dishonor to his Creator. He prayed quite simply, “God, Lord, I’ve been going the wrong way, ignoring everything you’ve done. I’ve only been interested in my plans, and not cared at all that you made me. I’ve been your enemy! Thank you for showing me that. Thank you for dying for me. That’s insane! But I need it. I need you to forgive me and save me.”