Fallout

So I sped up again.

With the cheesecake box tucked into the crook of his arm like a football, Ronnie led the way. On the sidewalk ahead of us was Freak O’ Nature, who’d abandoned his lookout post and was walking home with the transistor radio pressed to his ear. For a moment, I wondered if Ronnie was running after him, angry that Freak O’ Nature had gone AWOL. But he ran right past him and kept going.

As I sprinted past Freak O’ Nature, he asked, “Where’re you going?”

“We got caught!” I gasped.

Ronnie ran another hundred yards and then slowed to a jog. I would have gained on him, but I was winded and slowing as well. Soon we were walking about fifteen yards apart. A stitch had started to cramp in my right side.

“Wait.” I gulped in pain. “She saw us. She called our names.”

But Ronnie kept going — down the sidewalk… across Freak O’ Nature’s front yard… around the side of his house… and into the backyard, where he plopped down under a maple tree. I flopped down opposite him, massaging the stitch in my side.

Neither of us spoke. Ronnie sat staring at the Sara Lee cheesecake box in his lap.

A minute later, Freak O’ Nature joined us, dropping into an Indian-style position.

“Thanks a lot,” Ronnie growled.

“For what?” asked Freak O’ Nature.

“I told you to keep an eye out.”

“I did.”

“For the Lewandowskis.”

“Oh.” Freak O’ Nature mulled this over. “Sorry.”

“She’s probably telling our mothers right now.” I imagined Mrs. Lewandowski on the party line, reporting the incident to both our moms at once. “We’re dead.”

“You could give it back,” suggested Freak O’ Nature.

“No!” Ronnie clutched the box as if it would shoot right back to the freezer if he let go.

“It’s just a stupid cheesecake,” I said.

To end the debate, Ronnie tore open the box and peeled back the round tinfoil lid, revealing the light-brown-rimmed yellow cake inside. I wished I felt hungry, but mostly I felt dread. Getting caught stealing surely qualified as a spankable offense.

Prying the cake out, Ronnie gripped the sides and tried to break off a piece, but in its frozen state, it wouldn’t even bend. He bared his teeth in the effort, then finally smashed the cake against his knee. It broke sort of in half, and he handed the smaller piece to me and kept the larger for himself.

“What about me?” Freak O’ Nature asked.

“You abandoned your post,” Ronnie said.

Freak O’ Nature didn’t reply. He rarely argued with anyone.

The chunk Ronnie had given me bore the indentations of his fingers and was covered with his fingerprints. Ronnie bit into the corner of his piece where the filling met the graham-cracker crust. He held the bite in his mouth for a moment, probably letting the cheesecake soften, and then closed his eyes, a blissful smile appearing on his lips as if to rub in Freak O’ Nature’s loss.

Somehow, despite all the regret I felt about my participation in this terrible crime, and the apprehension about being punished, my appetite crept back. I found a corner of cake free of Ronnie’s fingerprints and took a nibble. The cheesecake was cold and creamy and delicious, and I bit off a little of the nutty brown crust to go along with it. Like a prisoner on death row, I began to savor my last meal.

9

The medical kit is the size of a lunch box, with a red cross on it. Next to it is a green box I’ve seen once before, in Dad’s closet. I know what’s in that box, and finding it here catches me by surprise and makes me uncomfortable. I look away and take the first-aid kit to Dad.

He hands me the flashlight. “Keep it aimed on her.”

I shine the beam at Mom’s face, which is gray with some black-and-blue marks near her ears. As Dad rips open a gauze pad, then gently lifts Mom’s head and presses the pad against the wound, my stomach coils with anxiety. Her hair in back is all dark reddish and stuck together. As if Dad knows what I’m thinking, he says, “It looks bad, but head wounds bleed a lot.”

“Uh-huh.” I agree, mostly because I don’t want him to get mad.

“We’ll just have to wait until she wakes up,” he says, holding the gauze pad in place and pulling a long strip of white tape, which he starts to wrap around her head.

“Mr. Porter?” Janet says.

“Yes?” Dad looks up.

“That’s not the way.”

Their eyes meet for a moment, and then Dad nods and lets her take over.

Janet takes a small pair of scissors from the first-aid kit and begins to cut the hair away from Mom’s wound.

No one speaks. The snip, snip, snip of the scissors is the only sound in this little cement box of a room. Maybe there’s too much to think about. Paula and her dad must be thinking about Mrs. McGovern and Teddy. Is Ronnie thinking about his collie, Leader? What about the rest of our friends and neighbors, teachers, cousins, and grandparents? Did some of them find shelter in basements and tunnels and the other places with those black-and-yellow Civil Defense Fallout Shelter signs?

Maybe some, but not everybody. Not the ones who were on the other side of the trapdoor.