The Last Barbecue
By John Arendt
July 7, 1964
Last night I dreamed about the barbecue and the taste of fresh strawberries once again. It was the same dream I have had for the past 10 nights. At least I think it has been 10 nights. I may have lost track.
Once again, the dream seemed just as real as the day it actually happened, but dream or awake, it no longer matters......
It was just another Friday evening in late June in the Winnipeg neighbourhood of East Kildonan. It had been sweltering all day, but the temperature had began to drop, just a little. I was with my neighbours, Frank and Katie, in their back yard as their two young sons, Kenneth and David, played in the sandbox.
Peggy and I were supposed to be there together to celebrate the end of the school year. I had no more teaching assignments until September. But Peggy was not with me this evening. She had left in the middle of June to spend a few days at her parents' farm near Altona. I knew the temporary separation would soon become permanent.
As we waited for the Hibachi to warm up, Frank showed me how his garden was growing, taking special care to point out the strawberry patch. He picked the ripest, reddest berry I had seen and handed it to me. For reasons I did not know, I recalled Peggy telling me strawberries were heart-shaped, something I had not noticed before. I held onto the berry for a moment, looking at its shape and remembering moments with Peggy, during happier times.
Frank and I strolled back to the barbecue, where he began grilling some hamburgers and a few hot dog wieners. From an open window across the back alley, we could hear Peter Fast’s oldest boy playing a Beatles album loud enough for us to make out the words...
“Oh I can’t sleep at night since you’ve been gone. I never weep at night. I can’t go on.”
The screen door slammed as Katie brought a big bowl of potato salad and a pitcher of lemonade to the picnic table.
“Guess we’re ready to eat,” Frank said as he dished the burgers and wieners onto a serving plate. “Boys, dinner's ready,” he called.
Kenneth and David raced to the table and sat down before the rest of us had reached it. We folded our hands and closed our eyes as the boys recited the short rhyming German prayer they said at every meal.
“I wish Peggy could be with us,” Katie said as we ate.
“Maybe next weekend,” I said, knowing it would not happen.
Mercifully, Katie did not ask why Peggy had gone to her parents, but she probably knew the reason, which was more than I knew. Frank asked me about the summer school courses I would be taking.
“You’ve got to be close to finished your B.A. by now,” he said.
I shook my head. “I’ve still have the summer and one more year of night classes.”
“What are you taking this summer?”
“Accounting and Political Science,” I answer.
“I hear Accounting’s supposed to be a bear, but Poly Sci should be good. American-Soviet relations.”
Frank appeared to think for a moment.
“One of these days, someone’s going to slip up, and it’s not going to matter if it’s the Soviets or the Americans,” he said. “Whatever happens then is going to make that Cuban incident a couple of years back look like a picnic.”
I nodded but said nothing. He and I had often talked about the stalemate between the two superpowers. I wondered how long an uneasy tension could continue.
Later that evening, after Katie had tucked the boys into bed, the three of us stayed up and talked until dark, snacking on fresh strawberries from the garden and sipping lemonade.
That happened on the evening of June 26. I have dreamed about it every night since then and each night, the dream is just as real as when we spent that evening together. It was the last time I saw Frank and Katie and their family, the last time I smelled hamburgers grilling on a barbecue, the last time I held a freshly picked strawberry and the last time I felt the warmth of a summer evening.
It was the last time because everything changed the next morning. I was in my driveway, washing the Plymouth, when I heard the rising and falling siren. It was the Take Cover signal, a sound I had hoped I would never hear, a sound heralding an imminent nuclear attack. I remembered thinking if Winnipeg was in danger, the rest of Canada and the United States must also be under attack — if they had not been wiped out by now. I ran next door to Frank and Katie's house, rang the doorbell several times, but realized they were not home. I should have known because their car was not in the driveway.
I darted back home and ran downstairs, glad I had installed a basement fallout shelter, even though at the time Peggy thought it was a waste of money. A few minutes after I was inside the shelter, I felt the whole house shudder and shake. That was when I knew the worst had happened.
I had built the shelter a few years ago, in the summer of 1961, when the Emergency Measures Organization was urging Canadians to prepare for a nuclear war. Government loans were available and the few dollars a month to repay the $500 loan seemed a small price for the safety and peace of mind it provided.
***
The shelter, in a windowless portion of the basement, is much more spartan than the rest of the bungalow. The furnishings consist of an old metal frame bed, a cheap table and two chairs, a wall with shelves of canned foods and jugs of water and a couple of metal garbage cans with a stack of plastic bags beside them. There is a small portable toilet in one corner and nearby a wash basin which I can empty down a floor drain. Inside, with the door shut, this concrete, brick and steel fallout shelter is little more than a crypt or a tomb in which I have been buried alive.
Each day I turn on a battery-powered radio for a few minutes, hoping to hear the All Clear message. And each day I hear nothing but static. I do not know if the radio is faulty or if the transmitters have been destroyed.
To pass the time, I play more games of solitaire by flashlight, lamp light and candle light than I think possible and I have already read the few books in here. Twice.
The fallout shelter is design to keep Peggy and me safe for two weeks — the time recommended in the Emergency Measures Organization literature. Alone, I should be able to stay here for a month, provided I can keep my sanity. But right now, sanity is in short supply. I feel restless. The shelter seems cavernous, but at the same time the walls are closing in.
I take refuge in my dreams and each night I dream about the barbecue and heart-shaped strawberries. Sometimes, I dream about Peggy, but they are nothing more than dreams. Each morning — I think it is morning — I wake to the reality of this self-imposed prison cell and serve another day of my sentence.
I often have thoughts of Frank and Katie and their boys and I constantly think of Peggy. They might have died from the blast or from the fallout, unless by some miracle they found a shelter in time. Right now I would give anything for another chance with Peggy. A lonely, desolate existence has now replaced the uneasy tension between Peggy and me. The loneliness is much worse.
Whenever, I hear the All Clear message on the radio or when I run out food, I must leave the shelter. My sentence may be over then, or just beginning.
I do not know what I will find when I step outside. All I know is I cannot go back to the world of barbecues and strawberries on a warm June evening.
When I leave here, I will enter an unknown world outside. And, I must face it alone.