Friendly Fallout 1953

Dennis

22 Dennis and Ted are sitting in their Jeep when Annie hits the ground. Wearing goggles, they can look directly at the flash. Big one. Yeah. Whiter than white. Good vibes, too. The sound surrounds the dry air before the desert floor begins to shudder underneath them. Ted claps his hands over his ears. Dennis, leaning back in the passenger seat, smiles. He loves the moment of impact, that instant when night turns to day and the whole world trembles. Like an orgasm. A quiver of explosive ecstasy that lasts and lasts and lasts. He loves the rumble that grows into a windswept roar. He relishes the swirling clouds of color that soon shape themselves into characteristic mushroom and stem. Different every time. Every time the same. He remembers a night at Camp Lejeune, a dozen years ago, when a gunnery sergeant kicked the raw recruits out of their barracks to feel a hurricane blow through. Most of the boys despised the storm, and the sergeant too. Not Dennis. He stood in the wind for hours, legs spraddled, arms akimbo, pushing his body against the omnipotence of the gale. So loud his eardrums almost burst, the gusts buffeted him from side to side. The rest of his boot camp platoon soon sought shelter. In a foxhole. Behind a tree. Dennis didn’t budge. Now the ex-marine wishes he could stand in the storm of an atomic bomb. Dead center. Feel the power. Head-on. Foolish notion, of course. The front seat of his government Jeep is as close as he’ll ever get. He watches the black and purple cloud bulging in front of his eyes. A whirling dervish of a cloud, boiling red, twisting higher and higher. Pulling the dirt of the desert into the sky. Mustard yellow and chocolate brown. A nasty one. A real beaut. We’ll measure a lot of dust today. The counters’ll be clicking, that’s for sure. How soon should we get started? Dennis Dennis 23 Blake said to wait a while. Let the dust settle. Maybe half an hour. Let the big cloud start to drift. Dennis reaches for his pipe and tamps in some fresh tobacco. Might as well relax. Ted climbs out of the Jeep. He leans against the hood, watching the sun rise behind the mountains to the east. He thinks they’re called the Spotted Range. Apt name, all khaki colored. Hardly a smidgen of green. Still smoking his pipe, Dennis joins him. His eyes stay focused on the cloud. It’s starting to break apart. Four planes fly close to the largest plume, darting just to the edge of the color and then veering away. Dennis wishes he was up there too. Close. He wonders what the pilots feel. He thinks he knows. He’s jealous. He points out the planes to Ted. A c-47, two b-29s, and one b-25. Guys must be taking cloud samples, flying so neighborly. See anything else? No. Too much dust. Anything of the tower? Not likely. What about the houses? I thought I got a glimpse of one of ’em. Hard to tell. I can’t wait to get out there. Me neither. Dennis relights his pipe. Ted waters a nearby bitterbrush. I wish we had more coffee. Thermos empty? Yeah. Ted spots a trail of dust angling alongside the playa from the north. Another Jeep. Their vehicle is parked on the southwestern edge of Yucca Flat. He watches the other Jeep come toward them. Time yet? Maybe so. The oncoming Jeep flashes its headlights, then turns sharply toward the empty desert. Are we supposed to follow? For a ways. They’re going out toward the trenches. We’re assigned the houses. So they get the live ones and we get the dummies. 24 F R I E N D LY F A L L o u T 1953 Something like that. I bet the baby dolls got knocked around pretty good. Guys in the trenches probably got jolted too. Ever want to be out there with them? Yeah. For sure. The two men climb back in the Jeep. Ted folds his lanky frame behind the steering wheel. Engaging the clutch, he starts the engine. The Jeep coughs. As Dennis settles in his seat, he stares straight ahead. He thinks he might see one of the houses silhouetted in the sand. They park where...