Charlize Hull
Mechanic/General Store Owner
Charlize, 32, lives at the junction of I-15 and Highway 161, a crossroads between Primm, Goodsprings, and Sloan. She and her wife Jamie, 35, run a small mechanic shop with a general store out of an old skydiving shack. "Though we're more of a 'you want it, we'll find it' store, at this point," she says with a grin. She and Jamie are sitting in front of the campfire outside their trailers down the road, Nuka-Colas in hand and the sunset painting everything a pleasant orange.
I met Jamie, oh, about...what is it, fifteen years ago, now? Back when I was seventeen, I was dumb enough to believe all that stuff the NCR sells to its kids about civic duty and whatnot. Enlisted soon as I got through with high school. Figured, hell, what else was I gonna do? And I figured I "owed the country" or some nonsense. What I thought I owed them, I don't know, but I had that idea stuck in my head all through my last year of school.
The place I was assigned to was horrible, but the work actually wasn't too bad—got stuck out in some backwater nowhere base, where the Army ships all its junked big equipment to be fixed or scrapped. Mostly trucks that someone somewhere's under the impression we can get running or salvage something from, but we did get one or two vertibirds while I was there. Things were massive, beautiful. But it was mostly just busy work—stripping cars for salvage, trying to get some of the better-looking trucks to actually run. Pointless, but I learned a helluva lot about machines and repairs, so I can't say it was all bad.
Anyway, Jamie had set up a repair shop not too far out from the base. Kinda similar to what we've got here, yeah? [Jamie nods.] Part repair shop, part general store and bar, part "there's no other place you're gonna go to blow your caps, so stop dawdling and come in already." It was a nice little place and the closest thing to the outside world most of us soldiers were gonna get that far out from any town or settlement. Most folks spent a good part of their weekends out there, NCOs and COs and enlisted alike. I remember I was practically sneaking away every free second I got to go see her. I think eventually I actually worked up the nerve to say more than "hey," and stuff started rolling from there. We got to really know each other when she started paying me under the table to help her repair a bunch of equipment she had stowed in some shed behind her house. [Laughs.] Good days.
After a few years, my contract with the Army ran out, and I sure as hell wasn't going to stay on another two or three years. It was interesting work, sure, but I learned all I was gonna learn after about a year and a half, and anyway, twelve hour days of taking apart rusty old cars that could blow up if you look at 'em wrong isn't my idea of a good job. Pay was shit, too, and I was through with all that nationalism nonsense, so there wasn't any reason to stay on. I packed up my bag, walked fifteen minutes, and moved in with Jamie the day I got my discharge papers formalized.
For a while I helped her run the shop, and that was nice. Got to see the friends I made at the base on a regular basis, and most of my days were spent tinkering around with equipment so we could sell or barter it for supplies and food. Eventually, though, NCR closed down the base. Apparently it was costing the Army too much money for what it was producing. Which I say is bullshit, 'cause I know for a fact we were cranking out more helpful salvage and more of it than any other place in the NCR, but hey, what're you gonna do? Army politics and all that nonsense. So Jamie and I packed up shop, piled everything onto our backs and the brahmin, and decided to head out east, see if we could find something interesting out here.
So we've been out this way, oh, about ten years now. We didn't settle here right away—first landed in a small town called Nipton, right by the border. I think the main reason we stopped there was because we were getting tired of walking and it looked like there were a fair number of people passing through on a regular basis. Sure wasn't 'cause we liked the town. Place was too quiet, almost...dead. People in town barely talked to one another, and there were only maybe five or ten of 'em that stayed any length of time. But it was too close to the Outpost—anyone that needed supplies or repair were already taken care of by the time they got to Nipton. We didn't stay long there, maybe a month or two. Personally, I was glad to leave. Place gave me the creeps.
Then we bounced around a few more places. Novac was alright, but too slow, and there was already someone set up there that kept giving us the evil eye whenever we passed him. Then Nelson, but it wasn't much better. After maybe a year we ended up here at this skydiving shack, and we've been here ever since. Not many other people are willing to try and scrounge together somewhere to live, either, which cuts out competition. All in all, it's nice—good, secure, and we see enough traffic to keep us afloat.
...Well, not so much nowadays. Seems like the traders and travelers coming through are getting fewer by the week...but it'll probably pick up once the summer's over. No one likes to travel in the heat.
I figure we've finally found the perfect place, where we're far enough from everything to turn a profit. Some of the more seasoned caravans just walk on by, because they know how to make a bottle of water last a lot longer than it should, but most of the less-experienced travelers stop in. We sell a lot of supplies and do a good number of repairs. You wouldn't believe the condition some of these tourists let their guns get into. Can't say I don't get a good laugh out of selling them one of our fixed up pistols because there's no way I could fix their hunks of scrap metal, but still. Mojave ain't a good place to be walking around with a crap gun. Lot of those people were lucky they didn't run into trouble—some of the stories I've heard...
I'd say the toughest part of living out here is getting supplies. We're nearly four hours out from Primm, and neither of us feel comfortable taking the brahmin out on our own to go pick stuff up. But without water and food and such, we'd lose most of our sales. And starve. We make a supply run about once a week or so, and it's hell. I hate it, especially in the summer. Now that it's hot, we have to drag ourselves out of bed early, get all covered up, and set off down the road well before the sun comes up, and then we usually get stuck in Primm until it cools down after sunset. The Long 15's okay, but it's not a road I want to be walking on after it's dark, and Primm's not near interesting enough to stay there all day anyway, even with the casino. We mostly just end up sitting in the shade at a burned out gas station for hours, arguing over card games. Boring, and we lose a whole day's worth of trade—though recently we've been taking the leftover supplies and selling them on our way to town.
We've been trying to cut down on supply runs by just buying supplies from some of the traders that pass through, but they're hell to bargain with. Crazy prices. I mean, yeah, I don't mind taking some stuff off their hands if we're only low in a few things—Nuka, or Cram—but trying to buy in bulk from them? Highway robbery. [Laughs.] Pun intended.
We've been trying to work out a good deal with one of the old caravaneers that passes through here like clockwork, see if he could pick up a round of supplies and drop them off here and we pay him for it, but the price is just that much out of our range. We're not poor, but we're not raking in the caps. We have to eat too, but it's getting harder and harder to make the trip to Primm. It's tough. That's our biggest worry out here—not Vipers or nightstalkers or crazy people running through and shooting us up, but getting supplies.
But it could be a lot worse, and we're happy. That's all I can really ask for, I think.
Charlize looks over at Jamie, and the two smile at each other. "To you, beautiful," Jamie says, holding her half-empty soda up for a toast. Charlize clinks her bottle against her wife's and they laugh.