During Jeremy’s first MAG Maneuvers weekend, a gathering for practice and learning, of organization and team building, Mary crapped on someone’s tarp while they were trying to rig a dining tent. Jeremy was embarrassed, said he was sorry, meant it, but still the apology left others alienated by his failure to control his dog. Many thought the dog should not even be there. Some cracked how the mutt would be the first protein eaten when the regular meat had been consumed.
“That’s just fucking cruel,” sputtered Jeremy, his eyes glaring and watering with anger.
“And you’ll do what about it?” came the retort. Jeremy turned his back on the group that had gathered, said nothing more, and wandered off on his own.
When he found his cousins, Walt and Martha, he asked them why everyone seemed so angry with him. “What do they want? Mary’s a sweet dog.”
“Mostly, they want no dogs. Dogs eat food. Then, if there must be dogs, they want working dogs. Great Pyrenees, Australian collies, Border collies, Beligian Mallinois, dogs that can protect and round up a herd of cattle, goats, sheep...you know.”
“Working dogs? Like they get paid?”
“Yeah, just like you’ll get paid as a member of the MAG.”
“I get paid?”
“No, numb nuts. You have a place to sleep, food on the table, and a group of folks who help protect each other from the unregulated militias that will swarm through the countryside after SHTF stealing whatever supplies other people have. That much will be like the world before Doomsday, those with the most firepower will have more than anyone else.”
“But our government will defend us, right?”
“You shittin’ me? Haven’t you already seen that our government is the biggest thief of all? It has the military, the branch of government with the largest unlimited budget in history and no accountability. It has the biggest bunkers, the largest warehouses, taxing power and the key to printing all the money it wants. Congress is the most exclusive club of corruption in the country. Makes the mafia looks like the Girl Scouts or the Methodist Women’s Bridge Club.”
Jeremy plopped his butt onto a nearby stump, his chin on his palms and his eyes dissecting the blades of grass on the ground at his feet. He understood that he was confused by what had just passed, but he could not sort the reasons for it. He avoided looking at anyone near him, even his cousins. He wanted to fit into the MAG. He wanted to contribute. But he could not stitch the pieces together, and no one seemed to want to guide him. The sun had dropped into the forest, dusk seeping across the land. Jeremy wanted to disappear into the bunkhouse tent, fall asleep and try this whole Prepper thing tomorrow.
He rose from the stump and turned toward the long wall tent where the bunks for the single members were packed side by side two feet apart. He felt a tap on his shoulder and pivoted to face a seductive and shapely auburn-haired woman his age who asked where he was going. “I’m heading for my bunk. Tired. Head filled with too much from my first day here.”
“But the sun is barely behind the ridge. Earl is stoking the fire, and people are just about to begin the fun part of being here.”
“Wha’dya mean?”
“Well, we party, silly. Beer, pot, whiskey, whatever you prefer. We dance and sing and....”
“And what?” asked Jeremy.
“Well, if you meet someone you like, you might decide to...you know....”
“No. Decide what?” Jeremy was not coy, just dense.
“Maybe spend the night keeping each other warm. Or whatever.”
“Whatever?”
“Yeah, you know.”
“I do?”
“You’re old enough that you should.”
Mary nosed against Jeremy’s hand as he cogitated on what the young woman had said. He asked, “What’s your name?”
“Chastity.”
“No shit.” Jeremy was dense but not totally stupid.
“No, really. That’s my name.”
“Guess I’ll stick around for a while and see how the party goes.”
Chastity grabbed his hand and headed toward the bonfire. “What’s your dog’s name?”
“Mary.”
“Odd name for a dog, isn’t it?” she probed.
“Makes sense to me. Short for Mary the Merry Mutt,” Jeremy replied without emotion or irony.
Chastity laughed a small laugh and declared, “You’re kind of strange, aren’t you?” without looking at Jeremy’s face.
Jeremy chuckled in response, taking no offense, accepting Chastity’s opinion, and said, “Guess so.” Chastity already made him more comfortable, so Jeremy clutched her hand tighter and kept pace with her walk toward the fire where it looked like the entire MAG had gathered, bottles and joints circulating quickly through the crowd.
Fire and music livened the spirits of all the community as they chatted, drank, danced and sang around the ecstatic flames. Once most had lost track of time, alone or in pairs, they retired to their tents. Like a few other singles, Jeremy and Chastity slipped into the shadows outside the glimmer of the dying fire, found a blanket in the back of his truck and embraced on the dark side of the trunk of a large oak where night was deepest. After an immeasurable release of passion, they fell asleep in each others arms, clothes scattered around the edges of the blanket amid the roots of the old oak. The chill of night brought their bodies closer together unconsciously until fog settled over the surrounding field as dawn scraped the horizon behind the woods. When Jeremy turned onto his right side, he saw that Mary had curled up against his back and smiled to see that she wanted to keep him warm. Chastity snored undisturbed.
The encampment rose quietly as one, then two, then several of the group slipped out of their tents, hangovers hovering, and started to light fires. Even with hot coals hiding among the ashes, all who tried failed to revive the sleeping embers. Skill one for a survivalist, and everyone needed remedial training. Eventually, Evan, one of the lead organizers, rolled from his hammock and walked purposefully toward the fire pit in bare feet as he tucked his shirt into his pants. He wanted coffee, and he wanted it immediately.
In a voice that ignored the number of hangovers as well as the number of members still asleep, Evan began instruction. “Folks, gather round, grab a seat. This fire should be raging by now.” He plunged his open hand into the ashes and confirmed warm embers underneath. “Easiest fire in the world to start is last night’s fire because it never went out. Even if it doesn’t show any flames, it is alive and just needs a breath of encouragement. Unless there’s been a big rain overnight, the ashes insulate the embers and preserve plenty that stay hot enough to ignite dry tinder. Now, someone hand me a fist of tinder, good dry grass or dead weeds or whatever.”
The first hand extended from the group clasped a small sheaf of green grass plucked from the ground beside the fire ring. Evan received the sheaf, and his expression soured. “OK. Everyone come over here to me. C’mon now, gather ‘round. Y’all need to see this clearly.” He displayed the fist of grass. “Feel this grass, and tell me what you notice about it.” Hands reached for his hand like a riot of octopi competing for a fish. “Don’t be bashful. Wha’dya notice about this healthy bunch of grass?”
“It’s green.”
“True. What else?”
“It’s damp. Dew.”
“Hot damn, now we’re learnin’. Right you are. Your name?”
“Angela.”
“Angela, angel, you eat first this morning. Be sure you step to the front of the line when we begin serving breakfast. Angela’s right. This grass is soaking wet with dew and green to boot. Show of hands. Who thinks this is good firestarting material?” The tentative hands that began to rise quickly dropped when they saw that few others were raising their hands. “Now, someone bring me some good tinder. Some dead matter so dry it’s about to light itself just by rubbing it together.”
“Can you do that? Light a fire that way?”
“Hell no.”
A young teenager ventured forward with both hands wrapped around a large clump of dead reeds he had pulled from the edge of the field. “Sir, will this work?”
“Damn right. Fine stuff, son. What’s your name?”
“Paul.”
“Paul, you’ve earned the second place in line. I’ll mention to all of you that, although we expect the older children to be hands on and contribute to the work of the MAG, we expect the adults to take the lead, to be teachers of skills and leaders by example. This young man, Paul, has just shamed a whole passel of you older folks who should know the critical basics of fire starting.”
With his palm hovering over the ashes, Evan felt for a hot spot, then brushed aside the top layer, breathed on the buried embers to make them glow red and hot, then placed the tinder over the embers and concentrated his breath to make the embers ignite the reeds. A couple of good blows, and smoke rose. Another couple of blows, and the reeds burst into flames. “Hand me the smallest kindling still lying around this fire ring.” Hands came from all directions and Evan organized the kindling by size as he received the twigs and branches. Then he placed the smallest onto the flaming tinder and blew some more air onto the new fire. “Who has the coffee pots? They filled?” Evan braced the pots on some sticks over the flames and stepped away from the heat. “Anyone doesn’t have their drinking cup ready ought to go get it. This water’ll boil in a few minutes. Anyone still feeling the chill of the damp morning should edge up here and warm yourself. There won’t always be an invitation. Take care of yourself. Not selfishly. Keep an eye for others who might need your help. But care for yourself and stay healthy so that you can always render assistance whenever it might be needed.” In his mind, Evan commented “Here endeth the lesson,” echoing a line Sean Connery delivered in his deep gruff Scottish brogue in some old movie, the name of which Evan no longer remembered.
With drooping eyelids, Jeremy and Chastity wanted to continue sleeping but suddenly realized that most of the camp was stirring and they had not yet pulled their clothes back on. From a distance, they looked covered by a blanket over two cats fighting as they tried to preserve their modesty and find missing pieces of clothing. Chastity laughed, her right arm reaching through one arm of her blouse and her bra strap dangling from her left shoulder. Jeremy blushed when he whispered happily, “Oh shit.”
Mary ran ahead, anticipating food, smelling the coffee, freshly opened bread, bacon and a cluster of jams and preserves. Eventually fully attired, Chastity and Jeremy followed along holding hands. Chastity enjoyed the attention of the waking group of people gathering around the fire. Jeremy wanted to feel proud and manly about his new amour, but something in him hesitated. As they arrived at the fire, others were suggesting they needed mugs for their coffee or tea. They looked at each other and realized they had not spent the night in their assigned tent. Jeremy offered to retrieve the mugs. He left the fireside calling “Mary” and looking through the crowd for his dog. When he entered the tent, he saw that other couples had scrunched two to a single bunk and had not yet risen. Self-conscious, he ambled along the central aisle until he found his bunk and dug his mug from his duffle. There were too many sexual partners waking in the tent for him to linger, so he decided he would share his mug with Chastity or borrow one.
Jeremy exited the tent into the noisy melee of hungry MAG members clustering around the fire and the food tables, pouring hot water into their mugs, scooping spoonsful of sugar and fake cream, pilfering slices of soft bread to soak up the night’s alcohol, and setting bagels onto coals to toast. Jeremy found Chastity talking to another guy and tapped her shoulder. She did not bat an eyelash when she turned to face him. “Hey, Jeremy, this is Robby. We’ve known each other since grade school. Used to date. Robby, Jeremy.” Jeremy instantly wanted to punch Robby. He did not think he knew why, but he did. The familiarity and carnal affection that Chastity transmitted communicated to Jeremy as clearly as if she had told their entire sexual history, that she and Robby remained “close” and occasionally involved. If Jeremy contracted any kind of STD, he had no doubt that Robby would be a likely source. Nevertheless, like any man wanting to preserve the romance of the previous evening and the possibility of a second act, Jeremy said nothing and only smiled politely. He decided he would kick Robby’s ass later if it made sense.
Evan used a dinner knife to bang on a large pot to attract the crowd’s attention. “Listen up, please. For those of you who missed the fire starting demonstration earlier, there will be another exercise after breakfast. Unless you can start a fire first time every time, be sure to attend. I think some of your fellow members will vouch for the importance of polishing your skills. Weather. Rain is forecast for tonight, so we need volunteers to set up eating tarps as well as a couple to shield the cook fire. See me or Lester for assignments. Any questions.”
“When will you open the shooting range?”
“Yeah, and when will we learn hand to hand combat?”
“Not until everyone can light a fire from scratch.” Evan knew there were always a few prospects who were more eager to shoot and fight than learn essential survival skills. Sometimes they were small town cops, sometimes military wannabes, most often just loud-mouthed tough guys unduly impresssed with themselves. Mostly, they assumed that the MAG would pay for their ammo and tech toys, body armor and night vision. Not the sharpest tools in the MAG shed, they missed the notion that the MAG’s only source of funding was the members themselves. The problematic issue with people who focused on the violence of the MAG rather than the survival skills was that they tended to fit better with the militias in the area. Militias often planned to acquire their supplies from MAGs and other well-stocked preppers. Evan would privately sort out the two misfits later.
As the day progressed, Jeremy and Chastity stayed together and worked their way around the broad circle of organized skills training. Like many survival preppers, the training was basically designed around the 10 Cs. Cutting tool (knife and ax or saw), Combustion (fire starting materials), Cover (clothing and tent or tarp), Container (water bottle), Cordage (paracord and bankline), Cotton bandana (or shemagh), Cargo tape (duct tape), Compass (and map), Cloth (sailing needle and thread), and Candling device (any source of light). The idea behind the 10 Cs, many of which were stretched to meet the “C” requirement, was purely mnemonics. The first five were the most crucial; the rest simply useful. Thus, it did not matter too much in what order the members learned the skills. That was good because Jeremy was already confusing the order of the 10 Cs and worrying that he would fail if he could not keep them straight. Chastity assured him that the order did not matter, and only the first five were important for the present. Jeremy visibly relaxed and gave Chastity’s hand a gentle squeeze. He was certain he could remember five, but he was confused that Condom was not one of the key Cs as a container for carrying water in addition to its designed function.
With repetition, they would quickly realize the priority of the 10Cs by learning the magic of 3. Three seconds to panic, three minutes to survive without air, three hours to survive without appropriate cover (clothing and/or shelter to protect against hypothermia which could kill a person in less than fifteen minutes in subfreezing water), three days to survive without water, and three weeks to survive without food. The number one concern was always water. With only three days to survive without water, a suvivalist needed to identify a source ASAP. A container provided the easiest and most failsafe means of obtainting potable water. With a container and the ability to ignite a fire, a person could boil the nastiest water available and render it sterile from all types of contaminants including viruses. Sterility did not mean that the water would taste good. Of course, there are other ways to filter and sanitize water that are easier, but fire and boiling is the most primitive and relies on the least technology.
Jeremy leaned toward Chastity and confessed he doubted that he could survive three weeks without food. She explained that he would find himself seriously disabled in a much shorter time frame as his body consumed its own protein (muscle) in the absence of an outside source. When he gave her a quizzical stare, she replied, “Yep, you’ll start eating yourself within the first few days. Better carry a spare belt.” Jeremy nodded, adding “spare belt” to his mental list of key items without thinking how he might shorten his own belt if he really needed a smaller one and began to search for a way to make the belt another in the list of Cs. He wished he had a notebook and pen; he would remember to bring one next time. Chastity shook her head. Her new beau was no genius.
“How many of these training weekends you been to?” Jeremy asked Chastity.
“A few.”
“They all like this?”
“Pretty much. Why?”
“Can you start a fire from embers?”
“You bet.”
“How’d you learn?”
“Watch, listen, practice.” Jeremy’s expression was thick with confusion. So Chastity continued. “You read much?”
“Not really.”
“Well, you should. Ernest Hemingway wrote a book titled To Have and Have Not. Ever hear of it?”
“Nope.”
“Hemingway?”
“Nope.”
“Jeremy, you’re starting to sound like a ‘nope dope’.”
“Huh?”
“A person for whom too many of their answers are ‘No’.”
“Can’t help it. Just bein’ honest.”
“OK. Follow along. Hemingway wrote this book, To Have and Have Not, that was made into a movie. The stars were Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart. In real life, they got married, but that’s later. There’s a famous scene in the movie when Slim, Bacall’s character, asks Steve, Bogart’s character, if he knows how to whistle. She tells him ‘You just put your lips together and blow.’ And that is how you start a fire from embers. In fact, it’s a useful skill when trying to ignite any flame.”
“You whistle?” Jeremy had trouble keeping up with Chastity’s lengthy logic.
“No, silly....Well, yes and no. ‘You put your lips together and blow.’”
“They started a fire like that in the book?”
Chastity cocked her head sideways. Jeremy could see that her face said “No.”
“In the movie?” He tried again, dense but determined to make an impression, not thinking that he had already made an impression, just not the one he wanted to make.
“Never mind. I’ll show you how to do it later. Let’s see if we can find a snack.” Chastity grabbed Jeremy’s hand and tried to pretend the preceding five minutes had never happened while they walked back to the main fire ring and newly erected kitchen tarp. Jeremy’s confusion persisted, and his mind filled with questions that he wanted to ask, but he was too embarrassed to reveal how little he knew. It never crossed his thoughts that Chastity already recognized how little Jeremy knew, so he was hiding nothing from her.
They approached the kitchen tarp and heard a commotion beyond. “Stupid bitch! Get that fucking’ dog out of here.” Jeremy immediately sensed that Mary had pissed off someone else, and he trotted in the direction of the noise. The guy who was yelling saw Jeremy nearing and spat, “Your bitch?”
“You mean, is that my dog? Yep, her name’s Mary.”
“I don’ give a shit what her name is or isn’t. She squatted and peed on my sleeping bag.”
“On your bunk bed?”
“No, dumbass, right here.” He pointed to the ground beside him at the back of a dining tarp.
“Well, why’d you leave the bag there?”
“What fuckin’ differ’nce that make? She peed on it.”
“Shouldna left it where it could be mistaken for grass or ground, a place to pee. Dogs don’ know from nothin’ but whether they can pee on it or not.”
“You some kinda wiseass?”
“No, but it seems to me that leaving your sleeping bag on the ground was not a good idea.”
“Who asked you, smartass?”
“By yellin’ at my dog, I ‘spose you did. I wouldna left my blanket or sleeping bag where no animal might crap or pee on it. But you did. So, who’s a dumbass?”
The angry redneck was not any bigger than Jeremy, but he was pissed, felt stupid, and he drew a long bladed knife from his belt. “How ’bout I carve you a new asshole?”
Jeremy backed away, hands raised in surrender, “How ’bout you don’t?” Just then Evan walked up and stepped between the two. He recognized the loud mouthed redneck as one of the two who had been anxious to spend time on a firing range or learning man to man combat techniques. He had known from the outset that they were not survival oriented, just physically aggressive.
“I can’t say I’m surprised it’s you over here yelling about a dog messing on your gear when you should know better than to leave it on the ground. You need to care for your equipment if you expect it to care for you. Time for you and your comrade to split, I think. You two are not a good fit for this group.”
“Now?”
“Yep, now.”
“But the sun’s just going down.”
“Scared of the dark, big guy?”
“Who put you in charge?”
“Most of the folks who came this weekend.” The troublemaker suddenly realized that a group had surrounded the tent, each person armed casually with a weapon, whether pistol, rifle, bat or slingshot. Any one of the weapons could deliver a lot of pain, and some could do more. The troublemaker backed away, his knife extended but his pace hastening toward his truck across the field. He left his sleeping gear behind as he hailed his friend, then parted with, “We’ll be back, wimps.”