“Sounds great,” Chip said.
“Don’t let this out,” Grant said. “I don’t advertise that I have this place.”
“Why might that be?” Chip asked. “This wouldn’t be a hideout, would it?” He was grinning.
That Sunday, Chip drove up in his truck. “This is perfect,” he said to Grant. “How cool. Very nice.” That was music to Grant’s ears.
“Let me give you the tour,” Grant said.
Chip motioned to the back of the truck. “I need to get my friends inside.” Chip pulled out two cases of beer. “They don’t like the warm air. They need to be somewhere cooler.”
This was going to be a good day.
They brought the beer inside. Chip looked around. “This place is nice. A guy could live here year round no problem.”
“Yep,” Grant said with a big smile.
Grant opened a beer for Chip and one for himself. He looked Chip right in the eyes and said, “Can you keep a secret?”
Chip looked back at him very seriously and whispered, “You’re gay, too?” And then laughed.
“No, something even more socially frowned upon,” Grant said.
“I’m a ‘survivalist.’”
“No shit,” Chip said, pretending to be serious. “You mean all those ARs, AK, and Glocks. All the stories about how corrupt the government is. All your excitement about having a ‘bug out location?’” Chip faked surprise and said, “You are a survivalist? Who saw that coming?” He laughed. “So let’s see the stash, Bunker Boy.”
Grant showed him the food in the storage shed. “Impressive,” Chip said. “I recognize some of those cases of MREs. I’ll get you some more when Special Forces Ted comes by. I like to see that they have a nice home like this.”
Grant showed Chip the basement and took him down to the beach. They sat in the chairs on the bulkhead and drank beer. Grant brought down a half rack in an iced cooler. They peed off the bulkhead into the water. “That’s livin’,” Grant said. Chip nodded and concentrated on relieving himself.
After they were good and buzzed, Grant decided it was time to have “the conversation” with Chip. It would be the short version, since Chip already knew what was going on.
“Chip, when the shit hits the fan,” Grant started to say.
“I’m coming here,” Chip said, finishing Grant’s sentence. “I’ll bring all the food and gear I can. Done.”
That was easy.
“I will have a special role for you and this place,” Grant said. He pointed back up toward the cabin. “You know that unfinished basement. It could store a lot of stuff. If they ever try to outlaw guns and you ‘lose’ some of yours, you could keep them here.”
“Way ahead of you partner,” Chip said. “Already thought of that when you showed it to me. All I need is a spare key.”
“There’s one under that big rock,” Grant said pointing to a rock near the bulkhead.
“Roger that,” Chip said. He paused, realizing the implications of what they were saying. He didn’t want to dwell on it. He didn’t want to acknowledge to himself how serious this was. He wanted to think things would be OK and Grant’s cabin would just be a place to sit on the beach and drink beer, not a hideout when shit hit the fan.
Chapter 33
Conditions Worsen
That summer, things changed quickly. In just a few days, everything that had been building suddenly erupted.
As bad as things were in Washington State, they were worse in California. Their spending was totally out of control. The state had so much debt that it couldn’t possibly pay it back.
Finally, reality caught up with the utopians running California. When their latest bond issue didn’t sell, it was time, finally, to make cuts.
A third of state employees were laid off. Half of the prisoners were released. They tried to limit the releases to “non-violent” criminals. But many of them went on horrific rampages. Of course, gun ownership was restricted in California, so the criminals didn’t have to worry much about decent people stopping them. Too many Californians found out that the ban on magazines holding more than ten rounds was a real problem when four gang bangers were busting down their front door. Those extra few rounds would have come in handy.
There weren’t many police around, either. Many had been laid off. It was a summer of crime and disbelief in California. Most people were so oblivious in California that they had no idea what was coming.
One of the biggest shocks was when the welfare payments stopped coming. With the massive budget cuts, many people lost welfare all together and those who still got it had much less on their prepaid debit cards. The well-organized welfare groups started massive protests, and many turned violent. Push-and-shoving kind of violence, maybe a few broken windows at government buildings. That was all (in the beginning).
Grant was glued to the TV watching the California protests. Everything was playing out exactly like he thought it would, which scared him because that meant he knew what else was coming.
It was happening so fast and people were so glued to the TV. Many went to work one day and so much happened by the time they got home that they felt like they couldn’t keep up with the all the new events.
Grant didn’t even try to talk to Lisa about all this. She might get mad at him again for being an alarmist. Besides, he didn’t want to “overreact” and lose credibility with her. The California crisis was the elephant in the room in the Matson household. Grant would turn off the TV when Lisa was around. He didn’t want her to know how closely he was following it.
He could watch all the TV he wanted at WAB. No one was getting any work done there. People at the office just stood in front of the TV in Tom’s office. They were in shock. While they knew the spending was unsustainable, they still couldn’t believe a collapse appeared to be happening. WAB people didn’t want to say out loud what they feared. It was weird. It was the biggest news since 9/11, but no one was talking about it much. They were trying to appear calm. They weren’t doing anything to prepare; they were just sitting there in shock.
Watching the news at WAB, Grant looked at crowds of welfare protestors on TV. Quite a few of the protesters were minorities. Many of them seemed to be here illegally. Some people were tempted to make this a racial thing.
But the racists were wrong. Grant thought about the whole country, not just California. He realized that just about everyone, including whites was dependent on the government one way or the other. Contractors needed government projects. People of all colors were on “disability” and didn’t work. Accountants, most of whom were white, made a living by navigating clients through the bizarre maze of the state tax laws. Engineers were hired to prepare useless environmental impact statements for every little construction or home remodeling project. Farmers collected subsidies. And on, and on, and on.
Not only were the racists wrong, they were part of the problem. The government benefitted by having everyone divided. It wasn’t a conspiracy; it was simple politics. Racists, of all colors, fit right into the agenda of dividing people. When the Mexicans were mad at the whites, and the whites were mad at the blacks, who hated the Asians, everyone became distracted by their racial grievances. The color of a person’s skin was so much easier to focus on rather than complex things like baseline budgeting or unfunded pension liabilities. It was much easier for one group to say to their people, “Hate those other people.” Politicians and fear mongers could use hate to motivate people to keep fighting each other. It wasn’t just white racists, of course. Mexican and black racists very effectively stirred up hate against whites. By fighting each other, people weren’t looking at the big picture. They were overlooking the out-of-control spending and taking the easy way out of everything. When things got hard, there were new government programs, and new cushy government jobs. People were taking the easy way out so much that they nearly quit being Americans. It was almost like the country decided it didn’t want to be America anymore.