City of orange, p.6
City of Orange, page 6
The obscure word reveals no meaning. There they stand, like little spirits frozen in place. He can’t remember if they are good omens or bad. All he knows is that they mean someone has been here. Only an intelligent creature with specific intent can make their presence known in such a manner.
But what the intent is, he has no idea.
You have no idea, says the dead crow, what you’re getting yourself into.
The air around him falls silent.
There are so many of them. The cairns. He takes the tiniest sip of water, maintains a vigilant gaze.
Then one of the rocks falls. It tumbles down and disturbs the stack and sends a small group of stones sliding. Into one cairn and another the stones collide, sending a cryptic message in their mute language.
Time to go, time to go. He turns and hurries away.
Thirteen
It’s _____________ , he said.
_______? said Byron. I’ve seen her in the teachers’ lounge. She’s hot!
I know, he said.
Okay, well, dibs for you. So you’re into Black girls.
Dude.
Or she likes Asian dudes?
Can you stop talking about race for one second? You’re obsessed with race.
Why do you think we’re here? said Byron. When it goes down, it will be precisely because of race. I don’t want the Rahowa, you don’t want the Rahowa, but Karen and Kevin sure as hell do, so we have to be ready.
He changed the subject fast. Byron could go on literally for an hour about the impending racial holy war. Two if he’d been drinking.
I’m gonna ask her out for coffee, he said. You looking for the tent spikes?
Byron took the spikes. If coffee is the custom, then fine. I would personally start with a series of questions, just make sure she’s not some kinda cannibal. I need the mallet.
That’s a low bar. Anyway that’s what meeting for coffee is . . . for. Mallet.
People need any kind of excuse, I suppose, said Byron.
That’s great, best friend! I’m so happy for you, best friend!
I’m sorry, I’m happy for you. She seems super nice.
One time I caught her all alone in the lounge making her coffee creamer scream for help while she was squeezing it empty, he said.
And she’s funny? said Byron. Nice.
Have mercy, Queen Caffeine! The brown lake burns! Then she saw me and got all shy. It was the hottest thing ever.
Funny woman, hot woman, said Byron. He stood, slipped the mallet into a belt loop that wasn’t there, and watched it fall to the soft grass with a thud. See how I angle the stakes inward?
She definitely keeps her funny side a secret, he said. That’s why I asked her out for coffee. To hear more of that funny.
Ask her many many questions, though, said Byron.
I will.
Then give me the full debrief.
Full debrief was my nickname in prison, he said.
Byron laughed in his guttering way. That’s a new one.
I’ve been working on some material for the kids. Aaah—
A bug had been crawling on his arm, and he flailed it away. What the hell was that? Did you see that?
That’s an earwig, dude, chill, said Byron. Earwigs are very common.
Like crawl into my ear and eat my brain?
That’s a myth, said Byron.
Can’t we just read about plants at home, indoors?
We learn best using all our senses, said Byron. Like, what’s that plant right there? Touch it, smell it.
He did as Byron said, plucked a strand from a giant nearby fluffy pincushion, snapped it, held the open end to his nose. A shrub? he said. Chaparral something?
It’s actually a grass, said Byron. Deer grass. You’re gonna learn all about the local flora and fauna, what’s edible, what’s poisonous, what’s good for wounds et alia. What’s this tree we’re under?
He looked up and admired the little white flowers dotting the foliage. I know this one. Dogwood.
Very good! Extra jerky for the Boy Scout.
Are the leaves medicinal?
No, said Byron. Leaves are inedible, thing is useless to us. But—hear that? Home to birds, which you can eat. Also insects, which you can eat.
Isn’t that just all trees in general?
That’s a bushtit call. These trees are full of bushtits.
Kehehehe! He laughed into his knees. Kehehehe!
Byron’s eyebrows fell flat. Jesus, look at this grown-ass man here. This grown-ass man just turned five years old, happy birthday.
Bushtits is what a virgin says to his first naked woman, he said.
It took a second, but soon Byron exploded through his nose so hard he had to wipe it. Two grown-ass men giggling in a park on a lovely late afternoon.
You are the worst student ever, said Byron, glancing at his armored multifunction orienteering wristwatch. Canteen time. Eat! Hydrate!
Byron opened his ruck and took out a flat plastic packet. He followed suit, opening his own ruck. He ripped one open and tore off a strip of jerky with his teeth.
Whoa whoa whoa, said Byron. First you absolutely must say out loud that you’re gonna eat (a) what type of ration and (b) how many remain in your possession. If this were real we’d have to stay on the same page to avoid making harder decisions further on down the line.
Harder decisions, he said, chewing.
Let’s just say people have killed each other over someone else’s last piece of jerky.
He spoke through his food. I am eating beef jerky, he said, and I have twelve remaining rations in my possession. Sir captain major Byron sir.
Shut up.
You shut up.
Shut up more.
We got incoming, said Byron, suddenly alert.
He straightened his posture and watched as two women jogged by. ’Lo, ladies.
The ladies said nothing and continued their pace far along the dirt path.
Whoever put blondes in yoga pants, said Byron, give ’em a Nobel Peace Prize. Nobel Piece of Ass Prize, right?
I’m gonna choke. Stop.
They totally checked me out.
Because you said hi.
You could tell they’re into Black guys.
So you’re Black today, he said.
I’ll be whatever it takes! You know Asian guys don’t get any respect. They have excellent walking form. Jesus hang-gliding in heaven!
Look at ’em go.
Whatever, you’re dying to be a kept man, said Byron.
He smiled. I’m a faller-in-lover, so what. He folded the whole sheet of jerky into his mouth. Byron frowned at this, but wound up eating all of his, too.
Then Byron’s wristwatch beeped. Byron startled at it. How long did we put in for?
This part of Griffith closes at dusk, so I got six hours.
Can you please double-check? They ticket around here.
He nodded. Sure, he said, and began walking the hundred steps to the car.
Get the extra propane, too! called Byron. Our survival depends on it!
Fourteen
The glint seems to grow no closer.
He travels up and down gentle rolling hills of cracked dirt dotted evenly by neat brushes. Sagebrush? Some other brush? Something about the roots of desert plants spreading out, not down, naturally creating for each plant its own circle of personal space? He can’t remember, and it’s too hot to care.
About an hour ago he thought he could bear the heat of the day, but now he feels the penalty for having left while the sun was at its peak. He tries not to trudge his feet. He likes his sneakers too much for that. But they keep wanting to trudge. They get heavier with every step.
He daydreams about being back in the shelter and fashioning a smart hat out of cardboard. If only he’d thought of that, before getting scared off by a bunch of random rocks falling. Superstitious dipshit! He would’ve taken a piece of cardboard, torn it neatly to its middle, then slid it over to form a shallow cone like those hats you see (saw?) in Asia.
Is that racist? Conical hats were in every damn stereotype on TV. Can you be racist against yourself when you are one of the few people left on the planet? Does it matter? Does the concept of Asia even still exist?
You’re obsessed with race, he’d said to Byron. Much later, long after he married _______, she would tell him: All of America is obsessed with race. We can’t not be obsessed with race.
His foot drags a long flat line. A hat would be nice, sweetie.
That’s what he called her.
Sweetie.
After what feels like another long hour his shirt sags with large ovals of sweat. He sips carefully from his bottle and gasps so hard a rattlesnake pauses with alarm. He looks down. He’d drunk half of his to-go cup in one swig.
Behind him, the infinite cinder-block wall of Arroyo Plato Villa Estates has become just a pink ripple in the heat.
Ahead, the glint grows no closer.
I’m a chump chasing a mirage, he thinks. I’m a walking cartoon cliché in a cartoon desert. Bring in the one-armed cactus and singing cow skull.
He shields his eyes and squints for a good long moment. Everything around him dead hot and dead silent.
He can see a black rectangle shape fluctuating next to the light. A scraggly tree, another tree, a heavy pill shape. A trapezoid.
A car?
A trapezoid atop another trapezoid atop two sunken circles.
A car!
He wants to run. But a million thoughts stop him. What if the same people who had smashed his head in now live in that structure? What if the glint he follows is a lure, and he’s just a clueless little guppy headed toward the maw of a stonefish, too hypnotized to know any better?
He stands frozen, melting in the relentless sun for five minutes. Six. A drop of sweat runs down the center channel of his back and pools between his buttocks. He glances back. Maybe the bad guys live back in the houses he just left. He looks over to the Dead Lands. Maybe they live somewhere in there. He has no idea. He’s not a ding-dang tracker. He can’t read the ding-dang land.
He would turn back, if not for that confounding car up ahead. He can drive that thing, yeah. Swerve around debris and outrun attackers. Gun it south—he doesn’t know much, but he at least knows his house is south. Windows rolled up tight and AC blasting. To-go cup finally in a cup holder where it would fit just right. Maybe even music!
And his girls will still be there. Alive, as it turns out! She’ll come running out, hysterical, with the tiny one in her arms, and he’ll take them both and propel them far away from the ruined city.
He discovers he is jogging now. Probably sending up a little plume of dust for all the world to see.
But whatever, world—a car!
Legs burning. The bright dot grows closer. It’s the side mirror! There’s also a propane tank and bicycles rusted solid and the world’s most heartbreaking plastic kids’ playset bleached paper thin from the years. There is a disgusting barbecue and a big pile of chicken wire and garbage cans tipped this way and that.
Closer now. He’s settled into a steady pace and can now allow himself to realize what a bizarre anomaly this building is. A square two-story condo with crumbling stucco and plastic Spanish tile on top, like something found among a million other low-end generic condos among the business parks and strip malls, except this one has been plucked by the hand of a mischievous god and dropped here in the middle of nowhere. Nestled in a nameless valley created by two low hills as if it were the ill-fated result of a bad real estate tip. There are trees—all dying, obviously imported from some verdant otherland, but at least they provide shade while they still stand. What kind are they? All he knows is that they are not dogwoods.
Now he can see the shattered plate windowpanes, and the poor illegible graffiti, and the hanging front door sprayed with a big red X. The X means what—abandoned? Looted? Infected? A hex to keep bad spirits out?
How’s that working out for you?
He slows. Because now he’s close enough to tell the car’s tires had gone flat—all of them.
Wunderbar.
He gathers himself, regroups. There might be a pump. At the very least there might be something useful here.
When he reaches the house, he rests his hands on his knees and breathes hard. The tire rubber has split with age. The car windows are gone except for a starred windshield and cratered back plate. Rearview mirror gone, stereo gone, steering wheel gone. All the seats have been taken out as well, probably for their valuable leather. Without thinking, he kicks the driver’s-side door, and the hollow pok is swallowed up by the flat landscape.
He glances at the jagged windows of the condo. Nothing stirs, no shadows come running.
The car’s side mirror is intact. For a moment he’s tempted to see what his own face looks like. But no way. He feels a familiar dread, like he did when having to check out a dark cellar full of telltale rat pellets or a maybe an online video with the blurred warning: extremely graphic content ahead. He always left the cellar alone, left the video unclicked.
He leaves the car and its mirror.
He steers clear of the world’s saddest children’s playset, because the closer he gets to it the more he can picture her on it in another time and space where the set is brand-new, perhaps in a toy store with its shelves divided into blue for boys and pink for girls.
See what happened just there?
This is exactly the kind of bullshit he’s afraid of.
Still.
He’s come all this way, and already the sun is beginning its descent behind him, dyeing the south faces of everything orange. The front door hangs open on a single twisted hinge. Inside, he can discern something bright blue tipped with bright yellow. A hand tool of some kind. Be dumb not to check it out.
So he steps past the big red X—no magic force-field hex—and goes in.
Fifteen
His feet snap broken glass as he lets his eyes adjust. He stands in the open doorway where a dry breeze exhales a constant breath. A breeze is good. He sets down his bucket and billows his shirt. Maybe the shower faucets work.
Man, a shower.
The room—what would be the living room—is empty. There are bricks and crushed cans and thousand-year-old cigarette butts and—looking closer now—a bent syringe. Soot from a small fire blackens one wall; into the soot someone had written kek skwad with a fat drunken finger.
Your squad lost, he says. Everyone lost. No more keks from you.
On the ruptured kitchen counter sits a microwave with its keypad peeled off. Next to it is a closed refrigerator—no way is he opening that fear vault—and next to that is a sink filled with more broken glass. Not even a trace of septic smell there. He checks below, and yep: it’s hooked up to real pipes. But what are the pipes hooked up to?
He tries the sink faucet, half expecting dust to come puffing out. It gives nothing.
Every cabinet and drawer has been opened and upturned. Forks, spoons, a stupid slotted spatula. He has no use for those things.
Finally his eyes come to rest upon the blue-and-yellow object he spotted earlier. It’s heavy and iron like a crowbar, but shorter. A prybar? Is that the term?
He hefts it. Hopefully it’s not coated with a virus or anything. But whatever, he’s handled cans and a wine opener by this point, and he is still alive and prancing around dung county here. The prybar has a good weight to it, and when he gives it a swing he can picture the condo as it once was—everything intact, ready to be destroyed all over again.
Crowbars were often the default weapon in video games. Is this a video game? He wants to smash a toaster to see if it’ll give up a rotating heart or a green mushroom or ammo or some kind of goodie.
He continues exploring with ginger steps.
There is a horrible bathroom full of mirror shards—hell no—and a rotting closet. There is a family room with an exploded couch and a fireplace with a large shattered television hung above it. Carpet gone stiff with dried muck.
There is nothing else, so he heads up the dark staircase. He has to hold the handrail. The steps can give way at any moment.
But they don’t, and now he finds himself in a small hallway blooming with mildew. In one room, a warped desk and luggage gone fuzzy with organic matter. Another holds a simple mountain of old clothing, half of it children’s. He flinches at the sight. Hell no. Run away. To another bedroom—guest room?—which has a dresser and nightstand flanking a sagging queen-size bed stripped of its bedsheets holding a purple sleeping bag with a corpse.
He drops the prybar and picks it right back up.
A dead body.
The thing has gone so dry and black that he can’t tell if it is a man or a woman. So crisp, no flies bother with it. It is bald. Does that mean anything? If he were to lift it, it would probably weigh only twenty-five pounds.
He bends over and spews a quick shot of watered-down chili with beans onto the impossibly filthy carpet. Everything in his stomach, not much.
Goddammit, he mutters, and spits and spits.
He has ventured out of a perfectly hidden, perfectly adequate shelter, put himself at the mercy of the elements and human-un-kind, to find but a single prybar and now a body.
Dead man high five!
He knows he should unzip the cursed sleeping bag—the person might very well still be clutching a go bag hidden within—but he cannot, never ever. This makes him a very bad survivalist, and he can see Byron frowning upon him. Wishes he can, anyway.
Is the whole world like this now? Are the cities even worse?
Of course they’re worse. So much worse! Millions of bodies as tough and dry as beef jerky.
Without thinking, he fishes out his spear. Is this real? He probes the sleeping bag. It sounds like a sleeping bag sounds.
