“Doctor can go screw himself. I’ll take the bacon.”
Winston was actually disappointed. He decided to drench the sweetened cereal with water before he sat back down next to May. The cereal instantly turned soggy and he regretted adding the water. Still, he powered through the mush and ate it knowing that there must be no food waste whatsoever, especially given their new predicament.
The day dragged on without much excitement until the port-a-potties arrived mid-morning. Winston had been standing at his post — in the corner that was kitty-corner to the house and the driveway, which gave him a superior viewing position relative to the activity happening outside — when a Russian Ural light cargo truck backed into the driveway with six of the electric blue contraptions. He watched a half-dozen soldiers systematically offload the portable toilets and set them up along the outside wall of the house, just opposite the barn. Meanwhile, May finished reading The Postman and was now on to Post Office by Charles Bukowski.
Winston peered out of the slits for hours on end, watching soldiers come and go. By the time twilight came, the confines of the apartment had become boring, repetitive, redundant, and tedious. May looked out the slits several times over the course of the day, but she didn’t quite understand what Winston got out of the voyeurism. He was plotting and scheming, thinking, two, three, four weeks ahead, knowing that at some point, he might have to leave the relative safety of the apartment to scavenge for food and water if the PLA remained on their property. He watched his enemy’s habits and studied their schedules. Winston was learning.
It’s a beautiful thing when two people can communicate nonverbally, and after such a long period of time together, May and Winston had the art of nonverbal communication down to a science. Verbal communication became secondary, and these skills were critical now more than ever. In fact, they spoke many languages together — facial expressions, minute body and eye movements, breathing and grunting, and of course, bedroom and lovemaking languages, which were probably the most important of them all — a shift of the head, a nod, a wink, a tap, a nibble, a tug, a smile, a frown, an eyebrow raised, a breath, an mmm — all were used at some point during their stay in the apartment — even in the dark. It had probably been twenty-five years since Winston last asked May, verbally, to scratch his back, but even as they both sat, listening to the commotion around them, Winston leaned toward May and dipped his back. Her hand instantly moved under his shirt and scratched his itchy spots. A less-familiar couple may have already given up their position to the enemy by speaking too loudly or even by speaking at all.
May whispered, “I’m nervous that I haven’t, you know… gone.”
“It’ll come. Our bodies jes’ gotta calm down.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“You wan’ me ta sneak inside an’ get them Fleet enemas we left under the bathroom sink?”
May shook her head in mock disgust. “Go to sleep.”
“I love ya, May.”
“I love you too, Winston.”
As soon as Winston closed his eyes, a faint scratching sound came from outside the door. Both May’s and his eyes popped open as they trembled with fear, their hearts racing and wondering what made the noise. Scratching again, then the soft and distinct purr of a precocious feline.
“Amadeus,” May whispered.
“Son-of-a-bitch, that cat’s gonna get us killed,” Winston said, standing.
A large flashlight lay next to the door. He turned it on, keeping the beam aimed at the wall, creating just enough light for him to see in the blackened room. He peered out of the slits — two Middle-Eastern sentries were posted at the back porch, near Med’s head (Winston wondered if it stunk and why they kept it there). There was no way to know if any other soldiers were in the barn, but gauging by Amadeus’ presence, Winston had to assume that the barn was clear. Amadeus meowed. Winston remembered that he had tossed the cat’s water bowl in the barn on the first day. He filled a small plastic container with food and grabbed a bottle of water, and set them by the door.
“I don’t wanna see him,” May said.
Winston nodded, and then slowly opened the apartment door. The light from the apartment was just bright enough that he could see into the main area of the barn. It was in disarray, with its contents strewn about — bins of Christmas decorations scattered and shattered, empty cardboard boxes littered the floor, and garden tools tossed about. Winston turned off the flashlight, picked up the food and water, stepped out of the apartment, and quickly closed the door behind him. This was the closest he had been to the enemy since they invaded his property and he was nervous, especially since his only weapon — the small-caliber .22 rifle — remained inside the apartment. Amadeus curled around his feet as Winston let his eyes adjust to the room. The open barn door let the moonlight spill in, with just enough light for Winston to make out a clear path along the outside wall of the barn and find a safe, inconspicuous place to set up Amadeus’ bowls. The cat was ravenous, which concerned Winston, because this — this meowing at their hiding spot in the middle of the night — was clearly a problem. It just couldn’t continue to happen. He decided that, as long as the nights were like this, with few enemy soldiers milling about, he’d attempt to feed the cat. If he could just close that barn door, Amadeus wouldn’t be a liability. Winston stroked Amadeus as he crunched on his food and then returned to the apartment, hoping the cat would go away when he was satisfied. Winston didn’t want to cause Amadeus any harm, but he would if it became a choice — he would always choose May. This sentiment he kept to himself.
“How is he? How does he look?” May asked as Winston lay back in bed.
“He’s jes’ fine.”
“I’m worried about him, Winston. What if one of the soldiers finds him and kills him?”
“Then that was his fate, May. Nothin’ we can do about it.”
She didn’t like to hear that, but she knew it was true — there was nothing they could do about an old tomcat roaming the property. His life was in his own hands now. May wouldn’t have liked to know that Winston was thinking how easy it would be to snap the cat’s neck in order to preserve themselves. Nevertheless, the Sparrows huddled under the covers and listened to the ambient sounds of war off in the distance, and to the two Russian soldiers’ low conversation. Their eloquent monotone phrases lulled Winston to sleep.
Julie
As sunrise approached, so too did a new cacophony. Several large Russian troop transporters pulled alongside the road, and a bevy of soldiers offloaded into the driveway and lined up in three long rows, their commanding officers hurling orders. May had been awake for an hour or so and was reading under a battery-operated LED light. She didn’t bother to look out any of the slits, but Winston took extreme interest in the events going on outside. He got up, used the facilities, and handed May a package of Pop-Tarts.
“Did you go?” Winston asked.
May shook her head.
Winston returned to his place at the slits, his hands digging into the box of Count Chocula. He would finish the box this morning (leaving them many meals short). May was nearly finished reading Post Office. She didn’t care for it too much, Bukowski being a brute with the English language — and women.
The new soldiers were a collection of the three invading nations, with no single country maintaining a military advantage over the other, though there were far fewer Middle-Eastern soldiers as compared to the Russian and North Korean troops. However, they appeared to be equals with matching ranks and positions. Winston was fascinated by the military display as he crunched loudly on the cereal, as if watching Saturday morning television, and he lost count when the number of soldiers passed sixty. It was their third day in the apartment, and for the first time since the enemy had arrived and appropriated their home, he saw the three generals. They emerged from the back porch and strode to their respective subordinates — the officers in charge of the troops — and Winston heard the generals addressing them in English, though he couldn’t quite make out what they were saying. After approximately ten minutes, the generals returned inside while the officers addressed their troops in their native tongues for a moment and released them. Winston comprehended the generals’ directives when one of the troop carriers backed up to the barn’s big doors and a half-dozen soldiers began removing the barn’s contents, tossing his and May’s possessions haphazardly into the rear of the trucks like garbage. Winston spied Amadeus’ food and water bowls in the truck and felt bad for the cat, but only for a moment. Though he made observation slits directly into the barn, he was too afraid to look through them for fear of being seen.