Step Zero by Stu Jenks (Pages 1-9)
[Pages from the uncorrected proof. To purchase the limited edition hardbound edition of this novel go to The Stu Store at Squareup.com. To purchase the ebook, go to those places where ebooks are sold.]
Captain Peter Carlyle “Trey” Saum III
Tuesday, January 6th, 2060: 6:14 p.m.
Second Marine Division, US Expeditionary Forces
Ghawar Oil Fields, Saudi Arabia
“Hey, Trey, you coming to the poker game?”
“No,” I say. “I’m going to stay here and catch up on my mail.”
“Suit yourself,” says Captain Singletary. Singletary walks out of my tent. Good man, Single.
I look down at a photograph of Martha, Arthur and me. Nice black and white one. I prefer black and white pictures. Don’t care for the 3-Ds most of my troops carry around. Probably has something to do with my damned dad. He liked black and whites too.
Martha’s so beautiful, and look at Arthur. Look at that smile, tooth missing in the front. I smile. I’m so ready to rotate out of this fucking sand box, but I don’t know. I hear they are thinking of extending the Second Division’s tour another six months. Assholes.
I see a flash of light on the back wall of the tent. What the hell is that? I turn to look out and I’m blinded. I feel hot. I look back to the photo in my hands, but I can’t see it. It feels like the picture’s burning. I don’t understand.
Then I do.
Shit.
I’ve been afraid of this.
I love you Arthur.
I love you Martha.
I love y’all.
Peter Saum, Jr.
Friday, Valentine’s Day, 2076: 11:11 p.m.
Near Artie and Georgia’s House
Armory Park Neighborhood
Tucson, Arizona
My name is Peter Saum. I’m an angel. Or a ghost. An angel ghost. It’s hard to explain.
Anyway, I’m dead. Died on the day after Christmas, 2030. I was 76.
Now being an angel ghost has its limitations. I can’t really do anything more than observe and send some of the Love of the Ancestors to my descendants. And of course, I can always shine the Light of God Goddess All There Is on anyone I please. We angel ghosts are kind of like magnifying glasses when it comes to the Light of GGATI. But mostly we just watch and send love to people.
We don’t have to stay angels. We can, at any time, be born again as humans. We choose to be angels and we choose to be humans. We mostly stay angels to help out our family and friends. They taught us in Angel School that the Love and Light we shine on people has a very powerful effect, though it’s hard for us to see at times.
There are two other choices as well. We can travel the universes and visit other peoples or we can simply go to The Great Big Sea. I’ve done my share of traveling but I’ve rarely considered The GBS, even though billions have gone there before me.
I’ve stayed an angel ghost for these 45 years because I was a shitty dad to my son, Trey, and I think if I’m good to my grandson Artie I’ll eventually find forgiveness for what I did and didn’t do with Trey.
I look over at Artie and his girlfriend Georgia’s house. All the lights are out. A lone calico cat with a crooked tail stares at me from the porch of the house.
I just checked on Artie and Georgia a few minutes ago. They were asleep, feet entwined, bodies spooning. Artie on the outside, Georgia on the inside of the spoon. My guess is they had sex before I arrived. I don’t watch that, of course, but I know that they have wonderful, powerful sex from what they tell their friends. A lot of people have great sex now. One of the good changes in the world in 2076.
I didn’t stay long tonight. Just a brief look. They were so damned cute.
Artie’s thinking about something. Something big. I don’t know exactly what, but I have this feeling that something’s going to happen. I’m going to spend a little more time with my grandson in the coming days and weeks. He might need an extra bit of Love and Light.
I can’t read thoughts. No angel ghost can. God Goddess All There Is can. Listening is what He She It does. Does a good job of it, too. I can’t predict the future or travel to the past, but I can be anywhere I want in the present.
The calico jumps off Artie’s front porch and runs up to me.
“Meeeoow!” she yells.
“Hey, Cat,” I say.
I’m invisible to everyone except cats. Cats love and hate us angel ghosts. They’re cats. I forget what Georgia’s cat’s name is. I just call her ‘Cat.’ She always gives me that Robert Di Niro, Taxi Driver, “You talkin’ to me?” look.
“What?” I say to Cat.
“Meow,” she says.
“Yeah, Meow,” I say.
I miss my Trey tonight.
Everything changed on January 6th, 2060, Epiphany in the Christian calendar.
The United States and the European Union had been occupying most of the Middle East since 2054. They called it “The Oil Wars” but very little fighting had occurred in five years. Sure, the Saudi Royal Family’s mass assassinations started the whole thing, but after that it was just a couple hundred thousand troops from the West, stationed around oil reserves, insuring the continued flow of crude to Europe and to the U.S.A.
On January 6th at 6:16 p.m. Riyadh time, 10:16 a.m, Tucson time, a nuclear device was detonated in the Ghawar oil fields on the Arabian Peninsula. Two minutes later another bomb ignited in the Ahwaz fields in Iran. Five minutes after that, a bomb in Kirkuk, Iraq. Then bomb four in Zakum, United Arab Emirates, bomb five in Fahud, Omar, bomb six in Dukhan, Qatar. And the last bomb, bomb number seven, in Burgan oil complex in Kuwait.
All seven bombs detonated within a period of fifteen minutes.
In those few minutes most of the world’s oil reserves were irradiated, and much of the Arab world became a plane of glass.
The seven bombs—called the Seven Sisters by the European Muslim extremists who took credit for the bombings—were not large nuclear devices. They were old Soviet Union bombs that had been found a few years before in an underground bunker in Uzbekistan. All seven were the size of foot lockers.
The blast radii of the bombs were relatively small. It was the radiation that killed the oil. And the people.
An estimated 50,000 people died the first day. Millions in the coming weeks. Billions after that.
All of America and much of the world stayed close to their TVs for days after the Epiphany Bombings, hungry for news of just how bad it was. Most Americans didn’t go to work for a week.
The price of crude oil jumped from USD $200 per barrel to USD $500 a barrel in a day and never looked back. Price at the pump went from $12.00 a gallon on January 5th, 2060, the day before the Epiphany Bombings, to over $5,000 for a gallon of gasoline in the summer of 2060.
The New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ closed for three days, reopened, and lost 50% of their value in the next five days. They never recovered.
The price of food skyrocketed. Most food in America was produced with the help of tractors and other machinery and shipped by trucks. By the time the U.S. Congress voted in price controls it was already too late.
By Christmas of 2060 the world economy had been completely leveled.
The television news kept us in touch with the world outside Tucson. After the first six months many people just stopped watching TV altogether, while others never left the house, perpetually glued to the tube.
Attendance at churches grew. Drinking and drug use increased. Robberies and thefts escalated. Many died from malnutrition, both in the U.S. and worldwide. More died of suicide, murder, and drug and alcohol overdoses.
By the summer of 2061 everyone was hungry. An estimated three billion people had died worldwide. Many didn’t think it could get worse.
Then it did.
On the night of August 15th, 2061, the U.S. power grid failed.
All analog electric clocks in America read 8:20 for the next forty-one days and nights. Digital clocks went blank, along with everything else.
The lights came back on in Tucson at 11:17 a.m., September 26th, 2061.
Many didn’t even notice the power was back on.
Most of the country died in those forty-one days and nights. Americans didn’t do well without lights, TV or power.
The population of the United States went from 440 million at the start of 2060 to under 55 million by the end of 2061, roughly the same as it was in 1880. World population dropped to under a billion.
We angel ghosts saw it all, everything that happened during the 41 Nights. We don’t like to talk about it. No one does, human or angel ghost.
I’m just grateful that Artie, Georgia, Martha, and Char survived.
Trey didn’t. Trey died on the first day.
Artie was seven years old when his daddy died. He was living with his mother Martha here in Tucson when the world changed.
I haven’t seen Trey over here on my side of things at all. Maybe he went right back to being a human after he died, or maybe he’s a drop in The Great Big Sea. I don’t know. I would love to talk with him or see who he is today. I would love to feel some forgiveness. I know it’s supposed to come from within and all that, and I know God Goddess All There Is loves me no matter what, but I still feel so much shame and guilt.
Though I’m an angel ghost, it doesn’t mean I don’t feel shitty from time to time. A lot of the time.
I feel pretty crappy right now.
I know my son’s dying wasn’t my fault, but what I did or didn’t do before his death and before mine is my responsibility. It is my fault.
I wish I could tell him how sorry I am. I wish I could make it right between us, but I can’t. He’s dead. Traveling or reborn or swimming. Maybe I can partially make it right by being here for my grandson, Artie, and for his family, for his loved ones, for his friends. It’s all I can think to do.
I could really use a good cry. I cried easily while I lived. Not now. Angel ghosts can’t cry. Not much anyway. When we cry it’s always a surprise.
Guess I’ll have to go back to being human in order to get the gift of tears on a regular basis.
I look down at my feet and Cat’s still there, rubbing up against my ghost leg.
“Hey, Cat,” I say.
“Meow,” she says.
I hear the front door of Artie’s house creak open. Out walks my grandson, ukelele in hand. He has a hard time sleeping. He sits on the three steps that lead to the front sidewalk. He tunes his uke and begins to sing. I know this song. A song of war from when I was alive.
“Well I recall his parting words,” he sings softly. “Must I accept his fate or take myself far from this place? I thought I heard a black bell toll. A little bird did sing. Man has no choice when he wants everything.”
“We'll rise above the scarlet tide,” he sings, “that trickles down through the mountain, and separates the widow from the bride.”
A glow begins where my heart used to beat. Where God Goddess All There Is comes through me. I don’t need to send Love and Light. It just happens.
“Man goes beyond his own decision,” Artie sings. “Gets caught up in the mechanism of swindlers who act like kings, and brokers who break everything. The dark of night was swiftly fading, close to the dawn of day. Why would I want him just to lose him again?”
I sing the chorus with Artie this time, harmonizing with his lovely voice. He doesn’t hear me but I hear him.
“We'll rise above the scarlet tide,” we both sing, “that trickles down through the mountain, and separates the widow from the bride. We’ll rise above the scarlet tide, that trickles down through the mountain, and separates the widow from the bride.”
Cat rubs my leg again.
“Meow,” I say to her.
She doesn’t meow. Just rubs my leg again.
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