Agoraphobia

Day 25 (The Kohn Family)

We left at the crack of dawn to rescue all four members of the Kohn family.

According to Uncle Peter Leslie Kohn was an exceptionally bright twelve-year-old Girl Scout. "She's the type of kid you know could really make something of herself one day." testified Uncle Peter on the drive over.

We eased into a parking spot in front of Leslie's house. The lawn's spiky grass was littered with broken bottles, cigarette butts, and tumbleweed trash. Torn shades hung limp in dirty windows, and paint blistered from window trim. A disheveled and forlorn couch, missing its cushions, sat in the front yard. The white trash version of a porch swing.

Uncle Peter knocked, and the door swung open. "Where have you been the last four days!?" barked Leslie's father. Ted had hairy arms and a face dominated by a large nose, sloping forehead, overbite, and perpetual five-o'clock shadow. The uncharitable truth was he looked like an oversized rat. He was wearing a wife-beater t-shirt that had turned yellow with age. "We're out of water, and none of us have had a bath in three days!"

"You've been taking baths?"

"What of it?"

"There's a water shortage. People are dying of thirst."

"So?"

Uncle Peter's jaw tightened. "May we come in?"

Ted said nothing, but stepped out of the doorway to let us through. The living room was completely lacking in homey adornments. No family photos. No kid drawings. No houseplants. No books. No knickknacks. The main features were a couch, a large TV, and a coffee table with an overflowing ashtray in the center. The once white walls had turned sickly yellow from cigarette smoke.

Thelma and her eighteen-year-old son, Steve, sat on the couch with cigarettes hanging from their lips.

Evidently Leslie, who was sitting on the floor, brushing her long, black hair, was the only person in her house who didn't consider tobacco to be a major food group.

"Hello, everyone," smiled Uncle Peter. "I'll get right to the point. We have established a refugee camp at the Elwood's farm in Belleville. I'm inviting you four to come."

"Refugee camp?" asked Steve. He didn't speak the words, so much as let them plop from his big mouth. "What's a refugee?" Steve had a drill sergeant's haircut and a face that looked like he had run the hundred-yard dash in a ninety-yard gym.

Leslie spoke up: "A refugee is a person who's been displaced by a disaster or—"

"I wasn't asking you, Turd!" snapped her brother.

"No need for that," frowned Uncle Peter. "Leslie is quite right. We—"

"When we get the water?" asked Leslie's mother, her voice as screechy and unpleasant as fingernails on a chalkboard. You could tell Thelma was once an attractive woman. But substance abuse had prematurely aged her.

"We should have plenty of water at the farm as soon as—"

"No. When we get water working here?"

"Your plumbing? That's not likely to ever to be fixed. Nor will I be delivering water anymore."

"We can't leave. We've tried," sneered Ted, plopping down on the couch between his wife and son. The three of them looked like they should've been wearing orange jumpsuits and ankle monitors.

"I know. We will have to 'transplant' you. We'll need to carry each of you to the truck and drive you all to the farm. The trip won't be pleasant, but better than staying here."