Of bomb shelters, hurricanes, and Plum Island

The weather this afternoon here in Lebanon, Indiana has been clear and in the mid 80s. I really feel for those poor suckers living on the East Coast who are waiting to see what kind of dance Irene brings to the party. I hope she’s just a flirt for everyone’s sake and doesn’t try to bust a move on Wall Street.

I stopped by the subway out on Mt. Zion road today to grab a quick sandwich and low and behold, who should I see but Patty, my favorite barista from the coffee shop across the road. She was having a double meat BMT which really surprised me since I’ve always thought she had Vegan written across her forehead.

To be honest, I was more than just a little reluctant to say hello since I’m still a shaky about her showing me her tattoo last week. Our encounter, our transaction to more precise, I tipped her fifty bucks to see her tattoo, got a little too close to my most ardent fantasies, and while part of me was busting out to see her, the more prudent, married man inside me was perched on my shoulder like one of Little Lulu’s angels telling me that I’ve seen all of Miss Patty that I should see.

“Butch!” she calls, “come over here, I have something serious to say to you”. Oh great, now she’s going to tell me that I should forget all about the genetic code of Guatemalan maize that she has tattooed on her leg and thigh. She has a massive file of papers in front of her, more gobbledygook like on her leg (but nowhere near as exciting!), and she pushes it aside as I come over.

I sit down, looking everywhere but at her and sweating like the time I asked Mary Lou Sutcliff to play doctor with me in barn when I was 8. She asks about the boys, about the wife, and about our storm shelter. Hell, it’s really more of a bomb shelter. My farm was once owned by a serious John Bircher and he built one hellacious bomb shelter for when the commies started to rain down death and destruction on us.

“So, Butch, rumor has it that you could hide half of Lebanon out on your farm in that storm shelter, is that right?” She gives me a smile and I suddenly know a game is commencing to start, a game that I never learned to play, a game with uncertain prizes. My daddy always warned me that I should know all the rules before I picked up a deck of cards, and I never really paid much attention to his warnings until this afternoon.

What’s that? A foot? Oh Lord, please tell me that’s a foot, her foot, on my foot. Yes, it’s her bare foot, tapping on my ankle. “Dude, I’ve never seen you this quiet” she says as her toes tap inside the cuff of my pants. “ What’s wrong?”

What’s wrong? We’re sitting in Subway, you’re trying to play footsie with me under the table, you’re half my age, I see the Clergy Connection coming in ,looking all smug and holy, for their Friday afternoon Clergy meeting, and I’m wanting to jump your bones and die at the same time. Of course, I didn’t say any of this. I just sat there.


“Yeah, it’s pretty big, Ray Yeatman had a pretty large family and he made the bomb shelter big enough for his family and the local Birchers. I’m thinking about thirty folks could stay down there the way he’s got it laid out”. I suddenly became a fount of information, transformed from a deaf mute into a motor mouth, telling her everything there is to tell, listing all our canned preserves, pickles, and other veggies that my wife put away this summer while she took care of her dying mother.

Canning became a way for her to see beyond death. She said there was almost someone standing behind her telling her “can everything in sight”. We’ve got more than we’ll eat in three years in my guess.

Patty seemed real pleased when I mentioned the canned food. I added that Jacob Lehman had paid me in canned sausage back in the spring when he didn’t have the ready cash for a ton of hog finisher. “Wow, meat and veggies, lucky you”, she says. Her foot is still busy, and I’m starting to feel luckier than I ought to as her foot explores new territory.

“Stop it, stopitstopitstop!” I say as calmly as I can because the last thing I want to do is have all the Pastors stop their gossip and decide that something sinful was happening right in the Subway. “I don’t know what’s got into you, Patty, but I wish to hell, you would just quit it right now”

Foot drops. Sexy co-ed smile sinks back into the scowl that was on her face when I walked in. “Butch, this hurricane has me scared”. She looks scared too. All the confidence and sassiness that has half the farmers on this side of I-65 drinking a daily latte for first time in their lives has disappeared. She’s scared.

“I know I’m a doomtard” she starts, “but this is different, this is not some ‘death star’ that may or may not destroy earth, this is real, and I’m scared”.

I wanted to ask what a doomtard is, doesn’t sound too complimentary and I was fairly certain it wasn’t a new religion, but I still didn’t know what I was dealing with as I confronted the not so perky Patty for the first time, so I just stayed quiet and hoped she say more.

She didn’t.

“Listen, I’m no expert on hurricanes, but I really don’t think it’s gonna jump across the country and come bother us in Lebanon, so you can just let go of that fear right now”. Well done, I thought, my boys would have bought that and they’re closer in age to Patty than I am. Damn, wish that last thought hadn’t entered my head.

She flipped through that file, looked out the windows at geese heading god know where, and then looked me in the eye and said “Plum Island”.

“Never been there, isn’t that in Disney?” I ask. She doesn’t smile.

“No, as a matter of fact, it is not.” She has the demeanor now of the smart college girl giving a presentation in class. “Plum Island is located on the northeastern tip of Long Island. It is a ‘special’ animal research center run by the USDA and the Department of Home Land Security”.

She sneaks another peek inside her folder, “There are certain experiments taking place there that should never have been approved. Butch, your worst possible nightmares are being incubated at Plum Island, and the hurricane is heading straight for it”.

Well, my worst possible nightmare, I thought at the time, was being caught by wife with Patty’s foot in my lap. Patty started to, as she said, “disabuse me of any nonsense I may be thinking”. She described terrible diseases, zombie diseases that could easily go viral if the hurricane hit the facilities.

“Butch, if it hits, can I come stay in your bomb shelter”. Her phone rang and she jumped up, ran outside and started speaking nonstop into the phone. She ran back in, with all the pastoral eyes now on us, grabbed what I’d started thinking of as her top secret file, kissed me on the forehead and ran out. The last I saw of her this afternoon, it looked as if she was heading north on 65 towards school.

Hope the wife doesn’t ask how my day’s been.