Chapter 6

"Sean!" Bryan exclaimed. "What's going on?"

"Just listen," Sean said. "This is important and I need you to do me a favor." Without pausing for affirmation Sean began. "Today the Federal Reserve is being dissolved. By the time that the announcement comes on the evening news tonight any American dollar will be absolutely worthless, not even worth the paper it's printed on." He stopped momentarily for breath.

"The plan is to replace the dollars with some kind of universal North American currency, which we haven't seen yet, and which is much more valuable intrinsically than the dollars they are replacing. The plan calls for one 'Amero' for every seven US Treasury notes. The main problem with that is that any loans taken out in dollars are going to be honored in 'Ameros.' So if you make one hundred dollars a day now, you will make about fourteen 'Ameros.' And if you have a four hundred dollar car payment a month, your car payment is now going to be four hundred 'Ameros.' See the obvious problem?"

Without waiting for the answer to his rhetorical question he continued. "We were called in overnight by the bank board and told to deal with our assets as best we could but we couldn't tell anyone. We are threatened with termination and prison time, so I am in a phone booth in a part of town where no one knows me."

"Call my mom and tell her what is going on. Tell her I said to take the operating account and any other spare dollar she has and pay the rest of the farm note off, 'cause it gets seven times bigger tomorrow. I suggest you do the same."

"Oh and there is going to be an emergency 'bank holiday' imposed over the next week or so, however long it takes to convert the currency. Spend everything you have before six tonight and you should be ok."

"This isn't a joke," Bryan said almost questioningly. "This is the real thing?"

"Bet your ass." Sean said. "I've gotta go before anyone misses me. Good luck brother! Hope to see you soon!" With that the phone clicked dead.

Sean was a bank loan officer. He had been one of Bryan's closest friends in school, and their friendship had seemingly endured the tests of time. Bryan knew without a shadow of a doubt that if Sean had said it, then it was true.

Bryan stood there in stunned silence, staring at the now inert receiver in his hand. The room seemed to spin for a moment. Bryan sat down on a nearby bench and let out a huge sigh. Amy stood in the doorway questioningly looking to him for further direction. Her eyes clouded when she saw the stunned look upon his face, and a frown crossed her tiny mouth.

"Daddy?" she asked questioningly.

Bryan didn't answer; his mind was stuck in a whirlwind of possibilities and impending doom. His heart was pounding, the room seemed to be spinning, and the tiny amount of background noise from the refrigerator seemed to be deafening. His jaw set, he looked up at her, the frown, the eyes filled with concern filled his mind. A voice within him seemed to say "You cannot become paralyzed with fear; you must act, and act quickly."

He shook his head, drew a deep breath and all at once the pressure was gone. Left behind was a deep sense of relief and purpose. And within seconds a plan was beginning to form within his mind.

The shopping list he had printed the night before was folded and tucked into his shirt pocket. He plucked it out, unfolded and read it quickly. His eyes shot up to Amy, who was still standing there before him wondering what to do.

"Honey," he said. "Go play in your room for a little bit. Daddy has something he needs to go do before we leave."

She gave him a crooked smile which seemed to say that she wasn't sure what to think but was still worried, she said "Ok Daddy." She strode off in the direction of her room, looking over her shoulder in question as she went.

Bryan quickly and purposefully strode to the pantry, shutting the door behind him. The door had a latch that closed from the inside and kept kids from accidentally noticing someone going in and finding an empty room. He had always felt that having the kids aware of such a secret was a possible disaster. Secret passageways were the type of things he would have spoken of as a kid and no matter how innocently the secret wouldn't have remained a secret for very long.

Through the secondary store-room, to the packing room, then unlocking the big door to the main storage room he went. He started up the computer near the door and sat impatiently until it loaded, physically feeling the seconds go by with each heart beat.

At last the computer loaded completely and the database sat before him, waiting for his input. He made one change by changing the amount of stored food time from forty-six weeks to one hundred fifty-six; three years. Then as the database updated, he accessed a spreadsheet of additional information that he had compiled. He hit print and three pages spewed out to him. The database finished tabulating the requirements and he printed that as well.

Eleven pages in hand, he closed the doors leading his way out, finding himself back in the kitchen. He had stuffed the pages into a spiral notebook with a pen shoved into the spiral. Tucking that under his arm he raced out to the truck.

He started the vehicle bypassed the normal warm-up procedures in lieu of haste and drove it over to the metal building which housed most of his tools. He backed up to the door, hit the garage door opener that was clipped to his sun visor, and backed up to the twenty foot box trailer parked just inside.

A bit of wiggling and estimating and he had lined up with the hitch, attached it to the truck, tested his lights and was pulling out the door. He hit the button to close the door and watched to make sure that it closed behind him without catching and opening back up. Once outside in the sunlight, he walked around the trailer testing the pressure in the tires. Once satisfied that the trailer was road-worthy, he drove back up in front of the house.

He left the motor running and stepped in through the kitchen entryway. He walked all the way back to the master suite and into the office alcove. He opened the wall safe with a practiced hand and took out all of the cash envelopes stored within. He jammed them into his inner coat pocket and then grabbed the checkbook for his business account.

He sat down at the computer nearest him and quickly ordered a few things on his wish list from websites that he frequented. He paid the extra fees for expedited processing and shipping, which hopefully would get what he had ordered in the mail before things went awry after close of business.

With almost everything in hand that he felt he needed, he walked over to the kids' side of the house to find Amy. She wasn't difficult to locate, lying in the middle of the floor in the commons on a beanbag chair looking at a book. He noticed with amusement that one of her boots was off but the other not and her sock had the picture of a monkey on it.

Amy was so intent on her book that she didn't hear him approach. Despite the stress of the moment he reached down and tickled her, prompting a stream of giggles from her. He smiled at the little lady, and she grinned back.

"Get your boot on so we can go," he said.

"Where are we going dad?" she asked innocently as she tried to pull the boot onto her foot.

"I think we are gonna go to the city today." He said. "I need to do some serious shopping."

Amy's face brightened. "I like shopping!" she said.

To hasten things along Bryan helped her get her boot on and let her run in the house to get to the truck, which was still running in the driveway.

Once inside and strapped in he headed toward town to fill up on fuel and head to the nearest city in the region.

Bryan pulled the truck and trailer up to a fuel pump at the local convenience store and turned the pump on. The truck had a huge fuel tank and it was nearly half full as it was, but Bryan decided to top it off anyway. The price wasn't anything to sneeze at, but it wasn't multiplied by a factor of seven yet either.

Letting the pump run, he went inside to get something to drink for he and Amy. He grabbed a few drinks, some snacks for he and the girl and sat down in his seat with the door open. He unwrapped and handed a stick of beef jerky to Amy who gladly grabbed up the salty snack.

Over his shoulder he heard a voice. "How's it going ... house husband?" Turning, he found himself face to face with an old acquaintance.

Brad Jenkins was an old classmate of Bryan's. Brad had been the captain of the football team and captain of the basketball team. He had also been a major pain in Bryan's ass for four years of high school. Brad was a couple of inches taller than Bryan, a shock of blonde hair sticking out of his baseball cap.

Bryan smiled, knowing that this particular moment had been coming for many years. Bryan stood up, looking the man in the eye. Though he was shorter, Bryan stood with hands unclenched, a sign of lack of concern for the larger man. The arrogant grin on Brads face was just beginning to fade at the realization that he did not intimidate Bryan anymore when Bryan began to smile.

"Brad," Bryan said, as if speaking to a child. "I run three businesses from the house. I own everything free and clear. I make enough that my wife, the one that I 'keep the house' for, doesn't even have to work. And to top it all off, my wife who wants for nothing comes home to me every night." He stopped at that, letting the words sink in for a moment before continuing.

"And Brad, if you want to belittle my success based on the fact that I answer to no one but myself, you really need to rethink your argument." He smiled and glared at the taller man. "Besides, it's clear from what you say at the bar when you're buzzed that you would give just about anything to sleep with my wife."

Brad, finding himself completely stunned, began to sputter. "I uh," he began. "I didn't mean it that way, err, uh..."

"It's ok Brad." Bryan said with a smile. "If I were you I would be jealous of the gig I've got too." Behind Brad, the pump handle clicked. "Now if you will excuse me, I have business to attend to."

Stepping around Brad, he pulled the fuel nozzle from the tank and holstered it back into the pump. The pump spit out his receipt and he tore it off in the process of closing the fuel cap. He slipped behind the wheel, closed his door and nodded to the stunned man with a smile before pulling away from the pump.

Bryan chuckled as he drove, thinking of how he had put down his childhood bully with a smile on his face. Years of being the butt of all of Brad's jokes had poured into just a few sentences and he simply hoped that it cut him as hard as it had Bryan twenty years before.

Pushing the moment from his mind he focused on the situation at hand. He began to organize the process of the hours ahead into a sequence.

He faltered out of his concentration with a start. Grabbing his phone from his pocket, he dialed a number from memory that he hadn't called in years.

Sean's mother answered.

"Diane," he began, not sure where to begin. "I got a call from Sean this morning. He wanted me to pass on a message because he couldn't."

Bryan explained as much as he could to the woman. She asked a few questions, nearly all of which he did not know the answer. She thanked him, saying that she valued the advice that Sean had sent along as much as Bryan did, and that she would act upon it.

Bryan shut off the phone, and looked back at Amy who was singing to herself in the back seat. She was totally calm, totally blissfully ignorant. She didn't have a care in the entire world. Bryan clenched his teeth with determination. He vowed to himself that she would never go hungry, never be stricken with the worries of the world until she was old enough to change them. That determination in mind, he went back to strategizing the rest of the day.

Nearly two hours later the truck pulled into the busy parking lot. The bulk warehouse store before them contained a large portion of the list that Bryan had in his hand. He grabbed a cart, planted Amy in the basket and they went inside to fill the contents of their list.

One hour later he had the truck backed up to the loading dock in back while four men loaded the trailer with cases of bulk food, bags of wheat and rice, salt and sugar. Cases of canned meats, fruits, and vegetables were stacked to the ceiling. There were spices by the pound, soap and cleaning supplies by the bucket.

When Bryan had finished identifying the bulk of his order he had located a store manager and with the help of four stockers and a forklift he had the front of the trailer loaded down in no time.

Before shutting the back door, he frowned at the front of the trailer. Nearly two thirds of the trailers volume was filled and he had another nine pages to go. Flipping through the list there were some things which took quite a lot of volume.

He looked around for a solution, but none showed themselves. He looked at his watch. It was 10:45 AM. There wasn't time to make a second load today and get everything on the list. He resolved to begin marking things off the list and get the most important items.

Amy was standing next to him eyeing the piles of food in the trailer. She began to hum quietly as Bryan began crossing things off the list.

Bryan felt a tug on his pant leg. Looking down he found Amy pointing to an orange sign in the distance. "What does that say?" she asked. He squinted to read the words.

"Secure storage," he read aloud. The light bulb in his head was comically slow in coming on, but when it did he grabbed up the little girl and kissed her on the cheek. "I have a great idea," he said.

Thirty minutes later he was cursing himself for being so efficient. He had unloaded about half of the bulk of the trailer when his back began to throb from the heavy lifting. He ignored it for the moment, pushing through to get the trailer unloaded and get to the next stop. The storage unit was about ten times as large as the trailer. He just prayed that he could get everything hauled home in a timely fashion.