The Aardvark Protocol Chapters 1-3
The firs three chapter of the book I've been working on for 2 years
The Aardvark Protocol
By: Dan Donohue
Chapter 1
“Goddamnit! Clara, we can’t keep letting that dumb ass buy all our water!”
Vincent Clark’s bellowing voice shook the old wooden frame of the Tabor General Store, which had creaked and quivered over thirty years from his outbursts. Standing in the back storage room, he slammed his hands down on the empty shelf where ten large cases of water were supposed to be. His wife, Clara, stood nearby, her arms crossed over her stained apron as she patiently waited for the storm of Vincent’s anger to quell.
The Tabor General Store was the beating heart at the center of the town of Marion. It used to be the only place in town to buy groceries, until Wessons opened with its neat shelves and fluorescent lights. The Tabor General store could have turned into a kitschy relic were it not for the resolve of the people of Marion to patronise it as often as possible. A small vacation town on the south coast of Massachusetts, Marion was known primarily for sailing in the summer and binge drinking in the winter. In the spring, its harbor would fill with boats, their sales stark white, their hulls bobbing like huge seagulls. Crime and danger were so rare that children of vacationing families would walk unchaperoned up and down the sidewalks, to the beaches and parks, practicing the autonomy that would not be theirs in the real world for years to come. Parents warned their children to behave and be polite and respect Marion, instead of warning them about kidnappers. Marion offered their children so much safety it was as if the focus of their protective instincts shifted from their children to the town itself.
Marion’s population usually ballooned to over a thousand during the summer, but now, during the fall, it had shrunk to around 150. Those 150 were referred to as ‘townsfolk’, lovingly or pejoratively, depending on who was speaking. Marion in autumn was marked by a sense of relief. The seasonal residents, who would barrel down the quiet sleepy streets in expensive SUVs, were now gone. The rich and obviously unfaithful husbands would take their unsatisfied and more secretively unfaithful wives to Florida and elsewhere. White smoke escaped from the chimneys of the still occupied homes like a collective exhale, and nuzzled in the middle of it all was the Tabor General Store.
Generations of townsfolk had daily walked up its three stone steps and through the big blue front door. Fathers, who a couple decades ago had come in to buy candy with a dollar they’d stolen from their grandmas’ purses, now brought their own sons in and told them about how, “when we were kids, young men had respect.”
The floorboards of the general store were ancient and slightly warped, groaning and crying in unanswered protest to even the lightest of foot falls. It contained a small deli and four aisles of cereals, canned goods, and housewares. In the middle was a cash register so old it looked like a prop in a corny western movie. This ancient behemoth which seemed like it could have been coal powered was usually manned by a sullen teenager who took each customer’s request as an imposition, joylessly yanking the ancient lever to ring up purchases before returning to their phone. Every year or so, Vince took out a help wanted ad in the local newspaper, and every year some pimple-faced kid would answer it, work until they got the notion they were worth more than the $5.25 an hour he offered, and quit. No one was at that register now, and Vincent’s voice echoed and boomed unimpeded through the empty store.
“I mean, how are we supposed to live like this?!” Vincent loved yelling like this; the feeling after a tantrum was orgasmic to him. The veins in his neck would bulge and pulsate, forcing blood into the pale skin of his face, turning all of it thermometer-red except his upper lip which was covered by his mustache. He was like an oil well lit ablaze in this mood, ejecting gobs of fire which rained down on everyone around him. Clara was desensitized to these outbursts, and began to relish them for the peace and tranquility that would follow.
“Come on now, honey, it’s not worth the trouble. You know Arthur isn’t right in the head. He gets so upset if we don’t have what he needs--we might as well just let him keep spending his money and not bother him,” Clara said. Her voice had a soothing, buttery tone that came from a deep part of her developed to placate the Vincent’s ego, its notes learned and conditioned to seem as natural as a bird song.
“86 cases! In a week! We’re not going to have bottled water for three days--three goddamn days! How does that make us look? A general store with no water! What’s more ‘general’ than fucking water!?” Vincent shouted, but the rage in his voice began to waver, anger sputtering into exasperation.
“Well, maybe he’ll be done for a while,” Clara offered.
“He does this three times a year! He thinks he’s getting ready for the apocalypse! Yesterday, he told me, ‘When the power grid goes, I’ll sell you some of these back’! Three times a year he buys all the fucking cases we have, drinks them all himself, and comes back to buy them again!”
“Oh hush, honey. Now, you know I don’t like it when you swear like that. I’ll drive out to Walmart tomorrow and buy some more water to hold us over. Everything’s going to be just fine,” Clara said, gently touching his arm like she had hundreds of times before, and he took his big, deep breath right on cue. They had been performing and perfecting this dance of anger to de-escalation ever since Vincent took over the Tabor General Store following the death of his father. Clara, at the time having only an English degree and a failing embroidery business, decided to join the Clark family tradition.
It had been thirty years now, and at sixty-two Clara still spent her free time embroidering little lobsters and anchors on women’s shirts that she displayed proudly on a table near the entrance of the store. Vincent, who liked the store to be as utilitarian as possible, tolerated this whimsical endeavor of his wife, though he would often walk through the big front door in the morning and sigh at the sight of a little blue fish on a little white crop top.
She reached her arms around him and held him there in the back room, in a way she hadn’t in a long time. She felt his stomach, which had grown steadily through the passing years, push against her breasts. Vincent suddenly forgot what he was so angry about, and he wrapped his arms around her. Sex for them was a relic from the early decades of their love, packed away in some crawl space of memory and covered by bills and deaths and time. Here in this moment, pressed together, holding each other tightly, they were both made a little wistful for lustier days gone bye.
Vincent remembered that closing time was almost upon them. They had let the girl who worked the register go home early. Maybe this back room was as good a place as any to stoke a fire that had a few more embers burning than they had thought. He looked down at her, rubbing her shoulders, his hands gliding downward, gently remembering her body, when--
“Hello! Sorry to bother, but the sign outside says you’re still open--is that accurate?”
The words came piercing through the air at the same time the bell attached to the door issued its mocking ring, and the floorboards croaked at the arrival of Vincent’s nightmare.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Vincent said, looking down at Clara as the red hue spread upward from his neck to his face like an invading army.
Before Clara could soothe him, Vincent was already storming his way towards the shop floor. Arthur didn’t look up when Vincent approached. He was too busy comparing two gas cans: one plastic, the other metal with a yellow funnel. Arthur’s veiny, muscled hands held the cans as he speculated. His frame was very slight, and the muscles he acquired from a few years of following tactical exercise videos bulged unnaturally from his frail skeleton. The fluorescent lights shone bright and harsh, so that Vincent could see Arthur’s scalp through his perpetually tight crew cut. The Marine Corps bulldog tattoo on Arthur’s arm was also visible just below the sleeve of his constrictive t-shirt.
For a moment, Vincent considered charging him. He reckoned he could get there and deliver a swift knee to Arthur’s temple before he had time to look up from the gas cans, a blow that could collapse Arthur’s skull and hopefully damage the part of his brain that allowed him to agitate Vincent as much as he did. He decided against this, and simply said, through gritted teeth, “Can I help you, Arthur?”
“Well, perhaps you can, sir, but I don’t know if you would know the answer. Plastic or metal--which would be best for holding gas a year or more without disintegrating or contaminating the fuel?” Arthur spoke with a sort of snide, clipped rapidity that Vincent loathed. Vincent wanted to tell him that of course he did not know that answer, because he wasn’t some weird freak who had all day to research fuel containers while he paraded around town playing G.I. Joe, but again he decided to air on the side of restraint.
“I don’t know,” Vincent replied.
“Could you look it up? I would, but I’m challenging myself to be without my phone for a full week. I still have a few days left, but let me tell you, it’s energizing like you wouldn’t believe. I finally feel like I’m paying attention to the world around me, like I’m feeling and hearing and tasting in a way I never have before. I’m even listening to people better--isn’t that amazing? Isn’t it crazy how little we actually listen to one another these days?”
Vincent wasn’t listening to Arthur. His eyes were drifting to the cash register, which sat above a small shelf that housed a .45 automatic pistol that, if aimed properly, would blow Arthur’s head clean off and leave his lifeless body in still silence. This thought washed Vincent in a great wave of comfort. He noticed Arthur had stopped talking and was looking for him to respond, so he decided to change the subject. “Arthur, why would you get that Marine Corps tattoo? You never served.”
Arthur grinned. He was not taken off guard by Vincent’s probing question. Like any natural disaster or tactical situation, Arthur had prepared for this thousands of times. “Vincent,” he began, “Do you love our military? Do you like your freedom?”
“Forget about it,” said Vincent, “I’m sorry I asked--how ‘bout you get the metal gas can? We’re about to close.”
Arthur sighed. He was upset that Vincent had blown him off like that. He was prepared with a speech that was at least three minutes long. First, he would passionately articulate the importance of civilian duty in ancient Sparta. Then, he would talk about the men and women who were left back home to run the factories while the bravest soldiers who ever lived went to exterminate the Nazi scum in WWII. Finally, he would speak about the brave podcasters and radio hosts who were too old to serve but nevertheless spread the message of necessary deployment into the Middle East. Arthur was proud to be in the ranks of such indispensable and humble heroes.
He would then reassure Vincent that he never claimed to be in the Marines. He had wanted to join, desperately, but his calling was to stay home to prepare for the horrors that were sure to come. God himself had spoken to Arthur and, as everyone knows, God and the Marines are best friends. If only the store were open for a little longer, Arthur could explain all of this, but he understood that someone with a civilian life like Vincent couldn’t stand to stay one minute past their designated “quitting time.” No, Vincent would have to go home with his soft wife into his soft house and eat soft, sugary civilian food. These were the sheep Arthur needed to protect. “Sure, sorry, the time slipped away from me. I’ll get both--try ‘em both out and see what works,” Arthur replied.
Vincent nodded and shuffled behind the ancient cash register. He had to press down so hard on the old buttons that his finger hurt, but that was the way it had been for a long time and he saw no reason to change it. He was so focused on working the buttons, he didn’t notice Clara coming out of the storage room.
“Well hello, Arthur. My, you look well!” Clara said like a doting mother.
Arthur looked at Clara and smiled. “Mrs. Clark, how are you?”
“Oh, I’m ok. My niece Abby just finished medical school, so hopefully she can start paying back those student loans.”
“Medical school, that’s wonderful! We’re going to need a lot of doctors in the months ahead! We need to keep blood in the good guys while we take blood out of the bad guys!” Arthur replied enthusiastically.
Vincent rolled his eyes. Clara knew she would have to move this conversation along. “Sure, dear. Well, I’ll tell Abby you said hello!” Clara smiled.
Vincent grabbed the receipt and jabbed it an inch away from Arthur’s chest. Arthur took it as he turned and headed for the door. Arthur’s truck was double parked in two handicapped spaces as a way to encourage the afflicted to exercise more by forcing them to a further spot. He looked back at the general store, and saw Vincent and Clara talking by the register through one of the old glass windows. I hope they make it through whatever is coming--they’ve always loved me, those two, he thought as he hoisted himself into his lifted Bronco and drove off.
It took about fifteen minutes for Arthur to reach his home, which was located in the outskirts of Marion. He did not turn on the radio, though he wanted to several times. He needed to keep his mind stoic, serene, impenetrable. It was why he devoted the first hour of each morning to deep Zen meditation, why he would refuse to watch anything on the TV--which he considered the refuge and breeding ground of “Judeo-Muslim propaganda”--and it was why he referred to Sunday as “ice day,” when he would submerge himself into a large bath of ice for increasing increments of time based on how much pain he could take.
He would try to keep the bath at 36 degrees, though it had once dipped to 33, and he lost a pinky toe to frostbite. He had learned to calibrate the tub since then to avoid such accidents. He pressed his four-toed foot against the accelerator and wound up the dirt road back home. The rev of the engine awoke something in him: he was 29, after all, and still virile. He’d had such a busy day, he had almost no time to service his more carnal needs. He grinned, knowing that as his day came to a close, he would be able to do just that.
