When you move to your new neighborhood, be sure to spend a few nights observing your new neighbors quietly. Sit out on the stoop, or on the porch, or in your front window. Smoke your Cools and drink some whiskey. Have a beer. Thumb through a stack of discarded magazines. Case the folks. See if you can tell who keeps a gun in a beside table, who stockpiles rice and dried beans in the basement, who will know how to handle an ax when the time comes. These are the people you will be surrounded by when Armageddon happens. These are the people who will be your tribe when the shit hits the fan.
Take a few weeks to feel them out, your new neighbors, your once and future tribe. Find out who is given to easy temper over minor issues. Hope that it is not the person who owns the gun, although the odds are good that it will be. Find out who has a sick or elderly family member, who is attached to a cat or some other type of useless, inedible animal. Find out who exhibits true calm in the eye of a storm. This person will be your leader when the time comes (most likely, yes, it will be you). Find out where the smallest children are living, and pay your respects to their mothers. They are the ones who will come out all rage at the end, protecting their little ones like bears protecting their cubs. These mothers are the people who will be the most likely to fuck your shit up. Tip the brim of your ball cap to them now, and be sure to smile.
Take walks. Take a lot of walks, morning, noon, and night. Figure out the boundaries of your neighborhood. Find the natural barriers. Where is the tall fence with the razor wire at the top? Where is the concrete ditch, deep with dark water? Where are the back alleys, the dead ends, the easy places to lure and trap men and rats? Locate the tallest building, find the best vantage point. Where is the window that will provide you with the best shot, a chance at seeing without being seen? Where is the pane that will reflect the night like an empty eye, shielding you from view?
As you walk, observe the others who are walking. Take note of anyone who looks up, who nods or smiles or meets your eye. Find out who is a morning person, who is up before dawn, who sleeps until noon, who is up all night. Find the dealer and check his routine out, but keep your distance. Right now, he is dangerous, a young lion in the midst of a herd of easy gazelle. But when his shit runs out, he will be the first one to go, the first one to make a move that will get him killed. You want to know his routine because when the end comes, you want to be as far away from this asshole as possible.
Think up a rating system to help you keep track of useful people, the ones you will want in your inner circle. Give the chica who leaves her pad every night in scrubs a high rating. She will know how to stitch your ass back together after a fight, and where to find the good antibiotics. Give her bonus points too, because she is hot. You can work on her first, when the time comes to repopulate the world. Give the old guy behind the counter at the liquor store a high rating too. He gives you a tough-as-shit look every time you walk into his joint, and you know that even with twenty years on you, he is an old warrior who could easily take you in a fight. Give a high rating to the kid with the nervous eyes and the sparse mustache. He can lift a stereo in broad daylight, slip a wallet right out of man’s front pocket. Give him a high number, but remind yourself that you will need to keep an eye on him. He can’t be trusted, any more than you can.
Now you know your neighborhood. You know who will be the hunted and who will be doing the hunting, when the time comes. You know your people, and you can visualize your hunting ground. You can relax just a little now. Enjoy the petroleum and fire fed sunsets. Listen to the sirens and the helicopters and the horns in the distance, to the noise of the end of the world building. Smoke your Cools and sip your beer and slide your Jack down, easy. Know that the end will come soon enough and that when it does, you will be the one on top.
