A waved a hand at him in a ‘shoo’ manner.
Like clockwork, Craig’s voice came over the radio. Introduced by a hiss of static. “Cycle one. Hourly report. May twelfth. Anyone there? Over.”
Davy fluttered his lips. “Boring.”
“Shh.” I instructed.
After Craig’s thirty-second wait, he called again. “Cycle two. Hourly report. May Twelfth. Anyone there? Over.”
For the first time, there was a response. A crackling broke up the clear transmission, followed by a few dots of un-interpretable words. Then the male voice, deep, and sounding no less than totally aggravated, blasted through. “Yeah… I’m here.”
Before we could say it in our enthusiasm, Craig did.
“Burke!” Craig squealed.
We all raced to the radio as if we wouldn’t have been able to hear it any other way. Holding Matty, I huddled closer with my family. Our faces glued to the speaker, waiting to hear with anticipation what Burke had to say.
Boy were we surprised.
“Yeah, it’s me.” Burke’s voice broke up a little here and there. “Is Jo with you?” Despite the fact that Burke had made a connection with a familiar voice, he still sounded disgusted. “If she’s listening, tell her I’m fuckin’ pissed at her. Goddamn piece of on-line auction bargain radio shit she had me buy. For days—“
Static.
“Burke?” Craig called out.
A crackle, static, then Burke came back. “Son of—bitch. Goddamn. Fuckin radio.” The static began to overwhelm Burke’s transmission. “I finally get—work—son of a—hold on—let me—beat—thing.”
There was a brief moment of silence then when Burke returned, he sounded crystal clear. “There.” He said. “Better. Just had to fuckin beat it a little more.” He let out a heavy breath that caused a distortion sound. “Now. Where were we?”
“You were bitching about Jo.” Craig replied. "She’s not with me. But she’s listening from her house.”
“Oh, really?” Burke asked with sarcasm. “Is that so? Hey Jo? Jo! Jo. Pick up the microphone. Jo. Jo!”
Sam extended the microphone to me. “Wanna talk?”
There was no debate, nor hesitation on my part on what to do. “No.” I shook my head at it. “I’ll just… I’ll just listen.”
8. Awaiting Burke
Burke didn’t follow the rules. Not one bit. He was insistent to talk to me, and after an hour of continuous bantering, calling my name, telling childhood secrets over the airwaves in some sort of blackmail attempt, I gave in. But not without bartering first. Burke was trapped in his basement, something blocked his escape and only someone from outside could help dig him out. I told him I would only send over Sam, if he promised not to yell. Burke promised. Sam left.
“Stay on this radio until I know he’s here,” Burke told me, still sounding agitated.
“I’m not understanding this hostility, Burke. It’s not my fault you got the dejected radio.”
“No. It’s not. I apologize.”
Somehow I didn’t buy his sincerity, but I acted as if I did. “Thank you. Now, why the anger? Maybe you’re just worried about Hebba.”
Silence.
“Burke? Burke you there?”
“I’m here.”
“You didn’t say anything.”
“What do you want me to say? Of course I’m fuckin’ worried, but that’s not why I’m pissed off. I’m hungry, Jo. I’ve been living off of a can of spaghetti and a bottle of Jack for five days.”
“So you’re drunk.”
“What? No! I said I was hungry.”
“Burke, that’s not my fault.”
“You don’t think?”
“Um… hardly.” I chuckled. “How is it my fault? You bought and made rations.”
Burke growled. He literally growled. “Jo! I bought those cases of beef jerky and canned meat because you and I made a pact. We were gonna split up our rations.”
“Yeah, and I told you I’d give you dehydrated fruit and split pea soup. That was one of the reasons I made so much split pea soup. What’s the problem?”
“Where are my rations?”
“Here.”
“Exactly. I have no goddamn rations in my basement!”
Thinking, ‘shit’, I tried to cover. “But still, Burke. You live five blocks away. I taught you enough to know after a couple of days you could have made it over here.”
Burke sounded eerily calm. “Yes, I could have.” Then he lost it. “If I wasn’t trapped!”
“You know!” I barked, “I’m turning this off. I’m not gonna waste my battery energy to listen to you bitch.”
“You’re right. You’re right. I’ll wait until I get there.”
“Thank you.” I took a moment to calm down. “Burke, you of all people surprise me that you didn’t hear the warning. You’re always watching television or listening to the radio.”
“I know. I was watching TV in the game room too. But I worked night turn and fell asleep right on the couch. I didn’t know it happened until I woke up and half my house had crumbled down around me.”
“You… you slept through a nuclear explosion?”
“Yeah. How do you like that? Don’t it figure though? I always was a heavy sleeper.”
Unable to help it, I laughed. It was something funny that I needed to hear. More than he knew, Burke’s voice was also something I needed to hear. Despite how much he griped at me, I gained an incredible extra sense of security knowing that Burke was still alive and would be with us soon.
‘SOS’ was the only thing that Davy knew how to send. He got his Morse code contraption up and running, and sent signals out in fifteen-minute intervals. SOS. SOS. I was impressed at my son’s initiative, and even more so impressed at his teaching Simon Morse code. Of course all Simone sent out was ‘SSS’, but it was cute.
We awaited Burke’s arrival like he was a long lost relative. It was taking an exuberant amount of time. The last radio broadcast I received from Burke was a call of assurance that they were making progress. It had been three hours and I worried about Sam. Once again, he was at it. Once again he was outside. How much more would his body take? I reviewed the handbook I had purchased on how to survive a nuclear war, and researched the topic of radiation sickness. According to the book, for all intents and purposes, Sam should have already been sick. He wasn’t. Other than the cough, he exhibited no illness. Not even fatigue. I started to believe that it was his persistence to push on, and resistance to stop that halted anything from invading his body. By the grace of God, Sam was protected and was remarkably beating the odds.
I thought that Dan would have gone with Sam to help and speed things along. But Dan didn’t offer and Sam didn’t push. Both seemed rather content in having Dan stay in the shelter. Dan did have one thing in his favor. He had no problem eating the ‘disgusting’ shelter food everyone else wanted to avoid. Like the ‘Red Hot Pickled Sausages.’ Quaint little red things, wrapped in airtight packages. I bought them bulk because they were cheap, they were meat, and they had a shelf life of forever. Sour and gross tasting, Dan consumed them in a slow savoring manner as if they were a delicacy. He even chomped on dehydrated split pea soup as a snack.
Matty’s small daily dose of words were unexpectedly about Dan. She whispered to me that she didn’t like him. Dan overheard and felt compelled to try to convince my daughter he wasn’t all that bad. Simon listened intently, and kept trying to interject by saying, ‘But I like you, Dan. I like you.’
It amazed me, it did. A closed in area, extreme circumstances, apart from the occasional bouts of tension, we were doing extraordinarily well in the shelter. No doubt, things would soon take an interesting turn. Which direction that was—good, bad, smooth, rough—remained unclear. But it was certain, one way or another, things would change.