Copyright © 2006, Kenneth E. Baker
Published by Whiskey Creek Press LLC

Reviews For REMNANTS OF LOVE by Kenneth E. Baker

Remnants of Love by Kenneth Baker is more a social commentary, a Postman-styled “what if” story detailing what could happen if the American economy collapsed. Well-crafted and fast-paced, Remnants follows several main characters and the struggles and trials that they go through, hitting all of the highs and lows of human nature. This book also explores the cyclical ebb and flow of the back-story of society, with its most telling lines (for this reviewer) being: “Humans have a tragic way of repeating history. All the history books show this. I've always said that if humanity is destroyed, we will do it to ourselves.”

Reviewed by: Michelle Fallen Angels review 4 Angels

The old man grumbled as he got out of bed. He slipped on a pair of shoes and made his way from the house to an outhouse located almost a hundred feet off to the side of the house. “Only thing the old times were good for. You didn't have to leave the house to take a crap,” he mumbled.

He unlatched the door of the outhouse and picked up a six-foot stick leaning beside the door. He stuck the stick inside and rapped it against the floor and walls. When nothing slithered out the door, he put the stick back in its place. A few years ago the old man had found it prudent to be careful when the weather turned warm because a lot of snakes came out of the mountains. Early last year, he remembered going to the out­house and walking right in. To him, the incident seemed like it had hap­pened only moments ago. Without looking around, he dropped his pants and sat down. For some reason, a large timber rattler had decided to go to sleep on the seat. As soon as his flesh hit the snake, it opened its mouth to strike. Luckily for the old man, only two inches of the snake's head stuck out from where his rear end pinned it to the seat. Needless to say, the old man didn't have any trouble having a bowel movement.

There he sat with the snake pinned under him. The other part of the snake had fallen through the toilet hole. He heard its tail sloshing around in the urine and crap below the toilet seat. He looked down and saw the rattler had its jaws spread wide. “ Sure got myself into a pickle,” he thought. He knew if he lifted his weight, the rattler would strike him on the rear end. That wasn't the way he wanted to leave the world, not by being bitten on the ass by a damned snake. He saw drops of venom drip from the inch long fangs.

After sitting there for over an hour, his legs went to sleep. He could no longer feel his feet. “Things don't look good for you, old man,” he said to himself.

He hadn't lived eighty-six years to let a little thing like a snake ruin his day. He looked up at the roof and said, “Maw, look at the perdickiment your man has gotten hisself into. All those years I beat this place so you could use it and now I am the one who is caught. There just ain't no justice, Maw.” He shook his head and looked down at the rattler.

He wiggled his feet to get a little feeling back in them. He knew when he moved, he would need all the quickness his old body could give him. He leaned forward and took the roll of toilet paper off the roller. There was about a third of a roll of paper left. He pushed the flat side of the roll down on the rattlesnak­e's head. Although old, he still had plenty of strength in his arms. He eased his rear end off the seat and the snake. The rattl­esn­ake's tail went wild down in the hole, splashing and thumping on the bottom of the seat. It took all his strength to stand on his numb legs. Sharp needle-like pains shot up and down his legs as the blood began circulating again. The roll of toilet paper slipped a little on the snake's head. Only a quarter of the roll pinned it now. As he eased his legs back a little, they became entangled in his pants which were down around his ankles.

“Oh, doggie! Oh doggie! What am I gonna do now, Maw?”

The rattlesnake's head was about half the size of his wrist. The roll of paper slipped a little more. Now, almost half the snake's head was out from under the roll.

“Of all the times, not to bring my gun with me,” he mumbled. “Maw, you always told me that after you passed away I would probably get killed with my pants down around my ankles. You told me I was still a randy old devil.” He paused for a few minutes, then looked up. “Maw, this is your doing isn't it? I swear, I never touched the Widow Roberts. All right, damn it, I might have pecked her on the cheek, but that's all.”

He knew he didn't have long before the rattlesnake was free. “Martha Jean Baker! If this is your doing, I don't think it's funny,” he yelled as the rattlesnake popped free. His heart raced in his chest. He threw his weight backwards and fell out the door. He watched in terror as the rattlesnake's head came a foot up out of the hole. Slowly, the rattlesnake slid down the hole until he heard a splash.

He scrabbled around and slammed the lid over the hole. Through the boards on the floor he heard the snake thrashing around. Grunting in pain, he got to his feet. He reached down, pulled up his pants and buckled his belt. He was giddy with relief. As feeling returned to his legs, he did a little shuffle step and looked up. “Martha Jean, I did do a little more than kiss the Widow Roberts. Yes sir-ree, I had me a good time, Martha Jean. Now how do you like that?”

The lid on the toilet flipped up and two feet of the snake's body came out of the hole. He jumped back in shock. “Damn it, Martha Jean! Give me a break! You were gone three year before I went to the Widow Roberts. I am only human. I have needs. To tell the truth, she wasn't that good. Your loving made her look like a piker, Martha Jean.”

He breathed a sigh of relief when the rattlesnake fell back in the hole. Going outside, he picked up a big rock, carried it in, and placed it on the lid. “Let me see you get out now, you devil,” he said.

Yes, he remembered the incident and didn't want it to happen again. After using the outhouse, he walked out to the spring located against the bank behind his house. He took down the dipper hanging there and dipped it into the cold water. The water was the coldest in the area. He picked up an old toothbrush. Half the bristles were gone. Reaching into a tin cup sitting on the ledge, he pulled out his false teeth. He held them under a stream of water pouring from a pipe stuck in the bank and brushed the teeth with the toothbrush. Rinsing them off, he put them in his mouth.

He glanced up at the sun. Not yet nine o'clock and it was past ninety degrees. He headed for his house to put on a pair of short pants. In the bedroom, he lifted his dead wife's picture off the dresser. “I miss you, Martha Jean. Things just aren't the same without you. Honey, the Widow Jackson invited me over to dinner tonight. Now, I don't care for the woman, but she does make a mean casserole. I thought I would tell you so you wouldn't get your panties in an uproar. Just dinner and home, that's all it will be.” He looked at her picture. “Now Martha Jean, don't give me that look. Helen Lou Jackson always reminded me of the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz. You know that. Hell, Martha Jean, you know I can't cook. Anytime I can get a good meal I'll take it. Even if it takes looking at Helen's ugly face. Good, I thought you would understand, Honeybun.” He kissed the picture and put it back on the dresser.

He walked out to the porch and took a ball cap off a hook by the door. He placed the ball cap on his bald head. Down the mountain, he heard hammering. “Guess, I better get down there before the danged fool hurts himself,” he said.

He went to the gate and opened it. One of his six Chow dogs came to the gate and whined. “You can't go this time, Kubla. The last time you went with me where Norville was pounding, he hit you on the paw. Remember that, boy? You limped around for a month. Maybe tomorrow I'll take you and your kids across the mountain. How about that?”

The large blond Chow cocked its head to the side as if it knew what the old man was saying. It stood there for a minute then walked back to the shade tree where it lay during the day.

The old man walked down what used to be a dirt road leading up the mountain to his house. Now there was only a path through the weeds where the road had been. At a bend in the path, he saw that the ditch which diverted water off the path had filled up with dirt. Yesterday's rain must have washed the dirt from up the mountain. He would have to bring a shovel down and clean it out.

At the bottom of the hill, he saw Norville on the roof of his house. “Damned old fool couldn't wait until I came down. Had to get up on the house and show me up. Serve him right if he fell and broke his damned leg, the old fool.”

Walking into the yard, he looked up and yelled, “Old man, watch that you don't fall and break something. I'm not a doctor.”

Norville took off his thick glasses and wiped sweat from his face. His thin bony body was perched on the peak of the roof. “Bout time you got out of bed, young man. Thought I was going to have to fix this leak by myself.”

“Young man, my ass. You know damned well I am only a year younger than you, Norville Huff. That's what happens when you get old as you are. I swear, I think you're in your third child­hood. Lord knows, you went through the second one a few years back. If Audrey were here to see you acting like a fool, she would just shake her head. Now be careful, damn it!”

“My, my, but aren't we testy this morning. What put a burr up your ass, Kenny? Say, you didn't go over to the Widow Roberts last night, did you?”

Kenny climbed the ladder to the roof and scooted up next to Norville. “No, I wasn't over to the Widow Robert’s last night. For your information, I walked down to the Widow Jackson’s and we played rummy until ten. Then I went home.”

“God, how can you stand to be around that mule-faced woman?” Norville shivered at the thought. “I'll bet Connie is turning over in her grave. Damn it, don't you have any pride at all?”

“You can keep your pride, old man. Pride doesn't put good food in your belly. Besides, Martha Jean understands.”

“I swear you confuse the shit out of me sometimes. Your wife's name was Connie, not Martha Jean. You know, I have trouble remembering names. Where did this Martha Jean name come from anyway, you senile old fool?”

Kenny got a far away look in his eyes, then, he said, “That was my pet name for her years ago, back when we were young.”

“Well, youngster. Let's get this roof patched before we melt. I swear, it gets hotter every day,” Norville said as he wiped sweat from his forehead.

Together they spread out the tar paper and tacked it down. Norville pulled up a rope with a bucket of tar tied to the end of it. After spreading the tar around, they climbed off the roof. Norville went to the broken-down garage and uncapped a large jar of gunk which he spread on his hands to remove the tar. He wiped his hands and made room for Kenny to use the gunk. They wiped their hands on an old piece of cloth and walked out to the front porch of Norville's house. Norville sat down in a porch rocker while Kenny took a seat on the porch swing. Neither of them said anything for awhile.

“Going to have to cut the weeds soon. This damned rain and hot weather makes them grow so fast you can practically see them doing it. Lordy, it would be nice to see a car on that old road again,” Norville said. He indicated the weed-grown stretch of asphalt running in front of his house.

Kenny took his cap off and scratched his bald head. “What's it been now, twenty years since the last car went down that road? Been a long time, I know.”

“April 22nd, 2016, at one thirty-five in the afternoon. One of those new fangled Fords. As I remember it, the two kids driving it were drunk as skunks. Probably stole the damned thing anyway. They staggered up to the door and demanded food. I never seen a woman lose her temper so fast. Audrey laid into them and gave them an ear full. Danged fool ended up giving them something to eat, anyway. That's what done her in, you know. Too damned kind hearted for her own good,” Norville said in a low voice.

“Yeah, she was a mighty good woman. I remember the two of you used to fight like cats and dogs all the time. The day those two bums killed her for no reason was the first and only time I ever saw you cry. I only wish we had caught the sons-a-bitches. It just wasn't right. Audrey was such a good, kind hearted woman,” Kenny said in a heated voice.

Down the road around the bend, they heard a woman's voice singing. The sound was horrendous. It sounded like someone scraping long fingernails across a blackboard.

“Tell me, Kenny, do you have to put up with that racket when you go to the Widow Roberts' house?” Norville asked.

“Absolutely not, we got an agreement. She sings. I leave. What on earth gave her the idea she could sing? Lordy, when she starts singing, my ears want to climb back in my head. If she comes around the bend, I'm going inside. I don't feel like dealing with her now.”

“Anyone who could sit down and eat with the slab-faced Widow Jackson and keep the food down shouldn't be afraid of the kindly Widow Roberts,” Norville said with a chuckle.

“I'm not afraid of her, damn it. I just don't like the way she is always kissing and pawing me when I get near her. T'aint right for a growed woman to fawn over a man like that,” Kenny said, in an agitated voice.

“Hee, hee, hee, I do believe the woman has you spooked.”

“Keep it up and I'll go home. I don't have to listen to any ribbing from you.”

“Take it easy, you old coot. Man can't have any fun with you at all. How ‘bout us walking down to the store to see what they are trading today?” Norville asked.

“Can't. I have to clean out the ditch on the road before the water washes out my path,” Kenny answered.

“Why in hell don't you move in with me? Someday you're going to break your neck coming down that rough path. I've got plenty of room.”

“I wouldn't get a decent night's sleep. You snore loud enough to wake the dead. No, thank you. I'll stay on my hill and take care of my dogs. Besides, when I stayed with you the winter we got the big snow, all you wanted to do was argue. I swear, Norville, I don't believe anyone could live with you. How Audrey done it, I'll never know. Bless her heart.”

“I don't argue and you know it. I express opinions, that's what I do. You are the contrary one, always having to have your way,” Norville said in a heated voice.

“You're right, Norville. You got opinions. As a matter of fact, I don't believe there is anything you don't have an opinion on. Shit, if I said it was dark at midnight, you would have to say, `In my opinion, it is pretty light outside.'“

“That's your problem, Kenny. With me the glass is always half full, you, on the other hand, think the glass is half empty.”

Kenny gave Norville an open-mouthed stare. “Now, what the hell is that supposed to mean?” he asked.

“If I have to explain it, you wouldn't understand it anyway.” Norville said with a smile on his face.

Kenny shook his head, not wanting to let Norville get under his skin this early in the morning. “The Widow Roberts said they had a little trouble in Delbarton the other day, something about some men coming over from Kentucky and stealing part of the crops from the farmers' gardens. Did you hear anything about it?”

“It was all the talk down at the store last night. The Delbarton farmers are mad. Can't say as I blame them. They grow just enough to carry them through the winter. This will put a crimp in their eating this winter. Some of them want to go across the river and steal food from the farmers there. Hope they don't. We don't need another food war like we had ten years ago. Just get what few people we have left killed and accomplish nothing.”

“If this weather don't cool off, all of us are going to starve in the next couple of years,” Kenny said.

“Speaking of heat, how is your brother-in-law doing up at Charleston? After the severe heat stroke he had last summer I thought he was supposed to come down this spring.”

Kenny scratched his head and put his cap back on. He looked down at the curve toward where the horrible singing was coming from. Turning back to Norville, he said, “I doubt Rusty will be able to come down. Since they made him county peace officer last fall, he keeps on the go all the time. Last message I got from him said some of General James Johnson's people were moving into Hunting­ton. Rusty is trying to form a militia to counter them if they come his way.”

“What in tarnation is a seventy-five year old man doing with a lawman's job? Hell, the last time I saw Rusty, he had a hard time getting around, what with his arthritis and all.”

“As you know, he was a state trooper until everything went under and the officials disbanded the State Police back in 2018. That's all he knows how to do. Besides, Kanawha County has fewer than five thousand people in it now. Almost all of them are farmers. Rusty couldn't grow cow shit even if you gave him a cow and a bale of hay. In order for him and Janice to eat, he spends his time policing the county. Until now, there was not much for him to do. I thought I might mosey up that way before winter.”

Kenny waited for Norville to say something, and when he didn't, he looked over at him. Norville's head lay back against the padded back of the rocker. Kenny worried about Norville. In the last year he tended to fall asleep more and more often during the day. He was afraid his friend was starting the slow downhill slide that came with someone being so old.

Kenny swung his legs up in the porch swing and adjusted the pillow under his head until it felt comfortable. Although he and Norville argued all the time, their friendship was such that if one should die, the other would be lost. Kenny had no living relatives that he knew of. He had lost track of his two brothers and two sisters twenty years ago. He doubted they were still alive. Fifteen years ago, he made the five-week trek down to Charlotte to find out what had happened to his daughter and son. After a month of checking, he discovered that his daughter had been killed in the food riots of 2015. He couldn't hear anything about his son Kenny Jr. By now, he figured Kenny Jr. was dead, or else he would have contacted him over the years. Thinking back, he wished he had gotten to know his children better, too late for that now.

Kenny wished the Widow Roberts would stop her screeching, so he could take a nap himself. Unable to sleep, he thought back to when he was a young man in his forties. Back then, he worked for the telephone company. After thirty years with it, he retired when he was fifty-three. All his life, he had been pretty much of a loner. In all the time he had lived there, not more than a half dozen people knew who he was. During his working years, he could be found in one of two places, either at work or at home. All in all, he wasn't a sociable person. He was of the opinion that people were trouble. All they wanted to do was tell you about their problems or try and cut another person down. Now, Kenny didn't abide those kind of things. Not that he didn't have opinions about people, he had lots of opin­ions, but he kept them to himself. A long, long time ago he realized that no matter what he said nothing would change, so he kept to himself as much as he could. Over the years, he came to find that he liked a life of solitude. As a matter of fact, from his forties on, he grew to accept this as a way of life and he was comfortable living that way. At eighty-six, he had accom­plished all the things he wanted to do in life. He had built his own home with little help. He was the most proud, however, of the novels he had written during the past thirty-five years. Too bad everything had gone to hell about the time he started making a name for himself in the writing profession.

Kenny shook his head. His life-long habit of not worrying about things he couldn't change and changing those he could had stood him in good stead. He was content with his life. Oh, he had a few regrets, but he made a choice and lived with it. To his way of thinking, that was what life was all about, choices. Whether good or bad, you made them and learned to live with them.

He had seen it coming long before the country had collapsed. The few people he told about what he thought had scoffed at him, so he sat back and watched. Year after year his predictions came true and the country slid into chaos. During those years, he prepared well. He made his home on the mountain into a fortress for the tough times to come. Tough times did come and neighbor turned against neighbor when food became scarce. People were known to kill each other over a can of soup.

Long before things went bad, Kenny had buried caches of canned food all over the mountain. He made food purchases and buried them in several thick garbage bags to keep out the moisture. Because of his location on the mountain, very few people bothered him. In one way, he was lucky. When it all started, it was spring and his house could not be seen from the road. That summer not a day went by that he didn't hear shots down in the valley. He remembered dressing all in black on dark nights and going off his mountain to check on things. The first half dozen times, he came across several bodies and a few burned houses.

Five months later, when winter rolled around, things settled down. One day he made his way down Pigeon Creek toward Delbarton. Of over a thousand families living in that stretch, fewer than a quarter of them had survived. It didn't surprise him that the survi­vors were the people with plenty of guns in their house­hold and the will to use them. After that trek, he went back to his moun­tain and spent the winter with his wife and dogs.

The next spring he made the trip to Delbarton again. This time, his wife Connie went with him. Both of them were heavily armed. They found fewer than fifty families still living in the area. Kenny learned that most of the people had moved to William­son where living conditions were still a little better.

The town of Delbarton was deserted. It was not much of a town to begin with since there were only five buildings in it. Litter lay up and down the street. Someone had a hell of a good time tearing up the insides of the buildings and throwing parts of them into the street.

Near noon, they decided to make the six-mile trip back up Pigeon Creek to their home. Near where Route 65 ran into Route 52 at the foot of Buffalo Mountain, they heard the sounds of a big truck coming down the mountain. Being cautious, they stepped off the road and hid behind a store. A few minutes later, they saw a big flatbed truck come around the last turn on the mountain. In the back of the truck stood a bunch of men with guns.

Kenny shoved Connie further back behind the store. He didn't like the looks of the men. At the bottom of the mountain, the truck turned right and headed up Pigeon Creek. As Kenny watched the truck go out of sight, he saw that the men were drinking.

Traffic on the road had almost ceased, so a truck full of armed men was something to worry about. They had no choice but to follow the truck because it went in the same direction they had to go. Since the road wasn't being used much, the weeds were begin­ning to overrun it. As they approached Airport Bottom, they heard gun shots ahead of them. Rounding a turn, they saw the flat-bed truck stopped in the road at the end of a straight stretch.

They crept off the road and faded back against the mountain. Slowly they made their way forward. All at once, a flurry of gunshots sounded ahead of them. Kenny took them further back in the woods. Near a point where the mountain sloped down to a hollow, the ground on the Pigeon Creek side of the mountain was clear.

From the edge of the woods, they saw where all the shooting was coming from. The men in the truck were attacking the McCleary family. They were the last family Kenny and his wife had talked to before they got to Delbarton. There were seven people in the family, four men and three women. They saw three people lying at the front of the house. They were obviously dead. As they watched, one of the McCleary women leaned halfway out of the window from which she was firing. All Kenny and his wife could do was watch the McCle­arys being slaughtered. Finally, the last McCleary woman ran out of the house at the men with her gun blazing. Although bullet riddled before she took a dozen paces, she took out four of the men before collapsing in a heap.

All told, the McClearys had killed or wounded ten of the men. The remaining men backed the truck up to the house and loaded up everything of value. Once they had everything, they pulled back on the road. They headed back toward Delbart­on leaving their dead behind on the ground.

Kenny and Connie made their way off the mountain and crossed to the McCleary house. While Connie checked to see if any of the McClearys were still alive, Kenny checked the men who had at­tacked them. One of the men was only slightly wounded and was coming around. Kenny placed his foot on the man's chest and stuck his rifle against it. Turning his head, he pulled the trigger. He felt the man jerk under his foot. Without looking at the body, he checked the rest of the men. They were all dead.

He met Connie coming from the house. She shook her head and they walked back to the road. Connie looked at Kenny's face and slipped her arm in his. Kenny would never forget the words she spoke to him that day. She said, “Don't let it bother you. What chance did they give the McClearys? He was nothing but a killer. He would have killed us just as easily. From now on, it's a dog-eat-dog world. What justice there is, is up to us. I know you were never a bleeding-heart liberal to begin with. Both of us are going to have to develop thick skins if we want to live through this. If it helps, think of him as a rattlesnake that you put out of its misery.”

Those were the words they lived by from then on. From then until now, Kenny had been forced to kill five men and Connie had killed two, all of whom had been trying to kill them.

As he lay on the swing, Kenny felt his eyes closing. At last, the Widow Roberts had quit her screeching. Just as he drifted off to sleep, Kenny thought of his wife. In his dreams, he was a young man again. Connie and he were camping in the Blue Ridge Moun­tains. Along the winding mountain road, they shared moments of bliss enjoying each other as much as they enjoyed the magnificent scenery. Kenny smiled in his sleep, his lined face looked twenty years younger.

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