Cole came running up and said, “Hi, Dad. How was your day?”
“Great talkin’, little buddy,” Grant said to Cole. They had been working on getting him to say social things to people to start a conversation. Cole wanted to talk to people; it was just hard for him.
“So, how was your day?” Cole asked again. Grant had never heard him say that sentence before. It was one of the best things in the world, hearing a new sentence from Cole.
“Oh, it was fine,” Grant said and looked at Lisa. “A little stressful, but it turned out OK,” he said, as nonchalantly as possible.
“Good, Dad. I had a good day,” Cole said.
“What did you do today?” Grant asked. This was part of the asking social questions thing they did with Cole.
“I helped Manda clean up the house and I went down to the beach with her and Missy. We picked up some oysters. They’re a shellfish and live in the ocean. They have pearls in them. Some of them. We brought them back and Grandma cooked them on the barbeque. They tasted weird. I had spaghetti for lunch. Then we helped Mrs. Morrell with some plants and made jars of food in her kitchen. Then I read some books to Sissy. We helped Grandma with dinner. We made biscuits and brought them to the Colson’s where we had a dinner with everyone. I’m tired.”
Grant was stunned. That was the best talking he’d ever heard from Cole. Being out there without the bustle of their old suburban daily life was helping him relax and learn. He got to spend all day with his sister and grandparents, which was good for him, too.
“Awesome, little buddy,” was all Grant could say. Lisa was sniffling after hearing all of Cole’s good talking. It was happy crying.
“Are you OK, Mom?” Cole asked, as he came over to hug her.
Lisa broke down crying as all the pent up emotions from that evening came pouring out.
“Yes, honey,” Lisa said, “I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m with all of you,” she said in between sobs. She looked at Grant as if to say, “This is where you belong.” Grant looked at her and nodded.
This might be the end of my gun fighting, Grant thought. He felt like this—in the cabin and with his family—was where he belonged.
Chapter 144
Outside the Walls of Camp Murray…
(June 1, year one of the Collapse)
Jeanie Thompson was being watched. She could feel it. She was in prison. Well, a prison of sorts. Most people in the state would die to have it as good as she did there at Camp Murray; totally secure, completely supplied with luxuries, and surrounded by all the important people.
But, it was a prison for her. She couldn’t leave. Theoretically, she could resign and leave the protection of Camp Murray, which had become the acting state capitol behind the protection of a massive Army base. However, she was dead if she left. Who would want to leave Camp Murray and enter the chaos and deprivation outside the barbed wire and machine gun nests?
She had been on the state’s elite political communications team, and had been a key advisor to the State Auditor, who was apparently going to be the next governor. She had been getting briefings on the most sensitive topics and been giving interviews to the media. Jeanie was an insider.
All of this was even more amazing given that Jeanie was a Republican in this thoroughly liberal state government. But, she had told herself, she was exceptionally good at her job and the government was fair and didn’t have any political litmus test.
She was wrong. She was indeed good at her job, but the part about litmus test wasn’t true. She was friends with some people who the government didn’t like; some POIs, like Grant Matson and her other friends from the Washington Association of Business. She made the mistake of being Facebook friends with them and that’s how the police determined that she was a threat to the security of the state. She had been had been quietly reassigned jobs when they found out who her friends were.
Now she was relegated to giving tours of Camp Murray to groups of VIPs. “VIPs” was a stretch. They were mostly city council members, Freedom Corps mid-level managers, and corporate people who were working for the government. She would “brief” them on the propaganda of the day. “Everything is going great. We’re getting food out to every corner of the state. The Recovery has started. The Crisis is just temporary. Normal life will return soon.” That was the “briefing.” It was the same slop she’d been dishing up to the media, except now her audience was a handful of political hacks instead of a TV audience.
Jeanie suspected her cell phone and computer were being monitored. There always seemed to be someone around her. Her new roommate at Camp Murray’s women’s quarters seemed very interested in everything about her.
“Terrorists.” That’s what they called Grant Matson and people like him. They also called them “Teabaggers,” “militia,” and “rednecks.” She had started using those terms, too. No more. Silently, to her herself, she would start using the correct term, “Patriot” – just not out loud, as that would surely get her in trouble.
What had happened to her in the past month or so? She was a “conservative.” She was one of the few of her kind who actually could get some positive things done in state government. Her boss, the State Auditor, was a “reformer” who was going to reverse the course of the state from corruption and spending to fairness and fiscal sanity. Then, when everyone told him he could be the next governor, he started to pull back on all that “reform” talk. He quickly began talking about “governing” and running the state more efficiently. Running the mammoth government. Better. Getting more done with the same resources. And getting “more done” meant more government.
Well, her boss got his wish. It was widely known in Camp Murray, but not outside it, that the Governor had suffered a nervous breakdown and would resign soon. As the unofficial successor to the Governor, State Auditor Rick Menlow was now surrounded by guards, received top secret briefings, and held meetings where people came to beg him for food, fuel, medicine, and security. He would dispense life-saving supplies to the groveling visitors with the wave of a hand and have people kiss his hand. He had it made. What could be better for a politician?
How did Menlow go from being the brash reformer to this? Incrementally, Jeanie realized. One little compromise after another. He agreed to an expansion of government power for a “good cause,” like helping some group that would result in votes for the Republicans. When the Republicans got enough votes, they assured themselves, they could start changing things. They couldn’t change things without the votes, so they needed to expand government, just temporarily, of course, to get the votes. Then they’d swing into action and…cut all that government they just expanded? If they got votes for expanding government, how could they keep those votes if they cut it? Who had thought this could work?
The inherent inconsistency with this logic was that expanding government to get the votes meant that government was now bigger when you tried to use the power you won with those votes to then cut government. You grew the beast in order to have more power to slay the beast. Beasts didn’t work that way.
The only way to limit the size of government was not to grow it in the first place. Once it grows, it can’t be trimmed back voluntarily. It would take some big, awful event to forcibly cut it back, which is what was going on outside the walls of Camp Murray.
So, who believed that the vote-gathering method would work? Jeanie, that’s who. She was an extremely intelligent, young, energetic, and beautiful firebrand who was going to save the world. Now look at her. She was basically in a prison where her job was to lie to people all day.