Winds of Change by Jason Brannon Read Free Book Online Page A

is stuffing your face. That sort of attitude is the reason
you’re such a whale to begin with.”
    “You shut your mouth, fag,” Kenneth retorted,
his blubbery cheeks turning red from rage and embarrassment. “I
still get more girls than you do.”
    “Shut up, the both of you,” Jesse Weaver
roared. “Show your mother a little respect. She ain’t doing so
good, and the last thing she needs is to listen to you two
yammering on and on about nothing.”
    Of course, the fact that Kenneth was hungry
brought up a whole new set of problems that nobody had considered
yet. The only source of food and water in the entire store was the
snack and beverage machines in the break room.
    “But I’m hungry, Dad,” Kenneth whined.
    “Get what you need if it will keep your trap
shut,” Jesse said. “Just smash the glass.”
    Steven, Chuck, and I all looked at each
other. We knew that this approach would never work. The only
question was which one of us was going to speak up. Chuck didn't
seem nervous at all about confrontation.
    "Hold on just a second," he said, running
over to Mr. Weaver. "We've got to be rational about this. Those
machines are the only source of food we've got. Who knows how long
we'll be trapped in here?"
    Jesse Weaver spit on Chuck's shoes and
crossed his tattooed arms. "Are you telling me that my boy can't
have something to eat?"
    I could tell that he was itching for a fight,
and I knew that Chuck wouldn't back down. That's why I stepped
between them.
    "Nobody's telling you anything," I said, "but
Chuck's right. We've got to ration this food and plan for the
worst."
    Jesse Weaver took a step forward. We were
close enough that our chests were touching.
    "Ain't no need of that," Pete, the plumber,
said. "Your boy don't deserve to eat any more than the rest of
us."
    I think everyone was a little surprised at
that, but I, for one, was relieved that Pete was on our side. He
was a big, burly plumber who did physical labor for a living. Jesse
Weaver knew that as well as I did and seemed in no mood to face him
in a physical confrontation.
    "At least let me get a drink for Vera," he
said irritably. “She’s not doing too hot.”
    Thankfully, the snack vendor had been in
earlier that day and filled up the machines. There were plenty of
sodas, sandwiches, chips, candy bars, and the like. Plenty, of
course, if we were going on a picnic or having an afternoon snack.
But each piece of food was like a grain of sand in an hourglass.
Eventually the food would run out and so would our time on earth.
Maybe it would have been easier for all of us to run outside and
surrender ourselves to the fury of the wind.
    As I looked at the cooler I realized that
there were certain things that would spoil if allowed to sit there.
Granted, we needed to preserve our food supply. But the food would
do no one any good if it ruined. I borrowed Pete’s sledgehammer
long enough to smash the glass front of the machine.
    “Go ahead and get a sandwich, Kenneth,” I
told the boy. “Everybody should go ahead and eat. This may be the
last time your stomachs are full for a while. Enjoy it. That stuff
won’t keep for long. We may as well go ahead and eat while it’s
still good.”
    As any overweight person can attest, eating
is a comfort, a solace during troubled times. We were a group in
sore need of comfort. The majority of the sandwiches were gone
within the hour, leaving the candy bars, chips, and drinks for
later.
    Typical of any kind of cafeteria we all sat
in our own subdivided groups. Chuck, Steven, Pete, and I sat
together. The Richards’ and Leland Kennedy sat together. And, of
course, the Weavers sat in a corner all by themselves.
    “What are we going to do?” Steven asked
around a mouthful of ham sandwich. Even in the glow emitted by the
work lights, I could tell that Chuck was looking to me as well for
answers.
    “How should I know?” I replied. “It’s not
like I’m skilled in crisis situations involving speaking in
tongues,