by Ryan Schow
Now this.
Now Xavier losing Giselle.
There’s a light knock on the door followed by the sounds of Xavier coming in. The good looking black man who usually bore untold measures of strength, surety and boundless vitality now looks like a man who’s had his soul ripped violently from his body and is a bonafide member of the walking dead.
I go to him, pull him into a heartfelt embrace. Xavier loses it right then. I don’t let go and my friend just cries. It’s a very surreal moment because both of us are men’s men, the kind of guys who don’t show much emotion, other than dogged determination, and sometimes, agitation, or in my case, rage.
Adeline starts to come downstairs, sees what’s happening, then stops. She knows a man like Xavier only cries openly for one reason—the worst reason. Adeline has to decide to either go back upstairs and hide from this, or face it head on.
Xavier glances up at her and now she has no choice but to come down.
He steps out of my embrace, wipes his eyes and tries not to look embarrassed as she comes and wraps him in her arms.
So the woman still has a heart…
Brooklyn sits on the couch, looking at the TV numbly, her knowing eyes wet, her body still. She likes Giselle. She’s always liked Giselle. We all did. Mostly we like Xavier more with her around because anyone who knew him before her could plainly see she made him a much better man.
“I’m going to make you some tea,” Adeline says. Sadly, he nods his head—eyes red, wet and wounded.
Now she’s made her escape.
As I look at Xavier, as I try to figure out what to say—because no one really ever knows what to say in a situation like this—he cuts me off and says, “Did you…do what you said you were going to do last night?”
He’s talking about me ending the short and felonious reign of one Paco Loco, a.k.a. The Crazy Chicken.
I give a single, earnest nod.
“How?”
“Grenade,” I say. “Cleaned the scene with the Glock.”
“Any issues?”
“Not for me,” I tell him.
“How’d it feel?” he asks, his voice gravely, his eyes unable to meet mine. He asks me this profound question—the same question I’ve been asking myself—but he asks it like he doesn’t care what the answer will be. He just has to keep himself talking so he can hold all the emotion at bay.
“It felt like Christmas morning,” I say, unwilling to lie.
“That’s what I want, Fire,” he says, looking up at me and not only holding my eyes, but flat out clamping onto them with the gravest, most serious look I’ve ever seen. “I need to put all this…emotion somewhere. Might as well do what you did.”
“You don’t want to bite down on that rage, X. Trust me. You think it will help, but man, that crap will only end up haunting you.”
“I’m already haunted,” he says, lost, his eyes fallen again.
“You dropping code?” I ask him, which is my way of asking if he’s lost it.
“It’s more like 5150,” my old friend says.
“Let’s go talk outside,” I tell him. I don’t want Brooklyn listening in on this, even though I’ve been honest with her up until now. “You want breakfast? I have to eat.”
“Naw. Thanks though. Just bring yours. It’s all good, brother.”
Outside, I get my breakfast down in no time and Xavier breaks out a cigar, clips the end and lights it. He stopped smoking years ago, so this is a bit disturbing, especially after how hard he worked to quit.
“When did you start that?” I ask.
He takes a hearty draw, blows it out, then turns and says, “I need to get all this rabid energy out of me, Fire, or I’m going to crack.”
“You’re already cracking.”
He looks away, takes a few breaths, then says, “I suppose you’d know.”
“I would,” I tell him. “I do.”
He turns those super intense eyes on me again and I get the message loud and clear. He’s on the train to crazy town. He’s a weapon and he needs to point himself at something, someone. That’s the look that says he’s doing this with or without me.
“This place is going to burn, X. These drones, they aren’t letting up. Downtown is a crater. The whole place has been eviscerated.”
“We can come back from this,” I say. Then: “The city I mean.”
“Chicago’s not coming back from this,” he says. “Besides, I hate this city.”
“You love it, too.”
“I do.”
“So you want to make hay while the sun’s shining then?” I say. “Is that it? Is that your big alternative to grieving?”
“We mop up who and what we know. Go out in a blaze of glory.”
“Who do we know?” I ask.
“Stop acting like an idiot,” he tells me, slapping the flat of his hand on the back railing. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. All the scumbags that brought their drugs, their guns, their prostitutes and their stolen kids here—we go on the killing spree to end all killing sprees. And we take out everyone, Fire. I mean everyone.”
“This isn’t you, X.”
“It is now.”
“You’re going to get us killed,” I say to him. “I know you don’t care about yourself right now, and I don’t blame you, but brother, I got kids.”
“You sure?” he asks, zeroing in on me.
“Adeline’s ghosting out. I know that. But I still have Orlando—”
“Where is that kid?”
“At a friend’s house,” I answer. “And I still got Brooklyn.”
“How is she?”
“She’s got Dimas blood running through her veins.”
“Still, she went through something horrible, and even if she’s doing fine now, when it finally hits her—along with all of this—she’s going to need support, stability, someone to make her feel safe. Her mother is best for that. Not you.”
“That’s cold.”
“It’s the truth, though.”
“She dealt with a lot, X,” I say, “but none of that’s the same as a dead dad.”
“What do they say when your right arm hurts?”
“Once I hit you in your left arm,” I say with a weak smile, “you’ll stop complaining about the right.”
“If you die, it’ll suck, but it will also take her mind off those boys.”
“Man, you’ve lost your mind.”
He’s right, though. If I was dead, Brooklyn would be thinking more about me and less about her attack. And if I was dead, Adeline could move on without the drama or the pushback. Even though I’m giving her neither.
I look down at my knuckles. They’re scabbing over, but so is my heart. So is my will to keep doing all this.
Maybe I’m just like this city, maybe I’m on a downward trajectory.
If I say yes to this, I’ll be giving away the last shreds of decency. I will be no different than the people I’ve come to despise, to claim to preside over.
“Alright then,” I say. “If we do this, we need to really do this.”
“I’ll call Ryan—”
“SAC Wright?” I ask.
“Do you know another Ryan?” he says, still morose. “Besides, it was his suggestion anyway. I think he was inspired by what you did.”
“That’s scary.”
“This is a brand new world, Fire.”
“I know.”
“Where’s Orlando?”
“Westchester.”
“Ryan’s right by there,” Xavier says. “He can pick him up on the way in. I just need the address.”
“It’s his girlfriend’s grandmother’s place, and those two are joined at the hip these days I’m told, so if he wants to bring her, that’s fine.”
“Ryan will work it out,” he says.
“I’ll have Adeline text you the address. She’ll be happy to have him back home. Not that he’ll be present anyway. Brooklyn says him and his boo are head over heels.”
I see him t
hinking about this and realize my mistake. I’m going on about first love and he had it but now lost it. And me? It’s been so damn long since I felt the deep, tumbling love—that reckless abandon for a woman—that now I almost resent it in others.
But Xavier doesn’t. Orlando doesn’t.
“Look, I’m sorry X. I just…you can’t imagine what it’s like seeing Adeline knowing she’s got nothing but resentment left for me. She was my everything once upon a time, and now she’s some other guy’s obsession.”
“I’m sorry, bro,” he says with so little emotion he seems to match me.
We are two men left alive long enough to act as wrecking balls just before exiting this earth in a onslaught of fury and destruction. It’s selfish, sure, and not smart. But at this point, if there’s anything left in me, it’s the knowledge that I can put all this rage, resentment, bitter disappointment and pain to a good cause.
Xavier turns and dials a number. It’s SAC Wright. After a minute’s conversation, he hangs up and says, “Ryan says he’s got a guy over at Westchester PD. He says there are a few weapons left in the armory, so we won’t be going in light. He’s glad you’re on board.”
“I got some stuff here, too,” I say. He looks at me, surprised, his eyebrow cocked. “Just a few things I requisitioned along the way for a rainy day.”
Xavier shakes his head, then takes another draw from the cigar. Blowing out the smoke, he says, “Today is that rainy day, Fire.”
Now that I know we’re going to do this, my stomach drops and I think about my family, how they used to be mine. How they’re not mine anymore.
“Dad?” Brooklyn says, popping her head out on to the back deck. “There’s someone knocking at the front door. It’s a guy, I think.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
As Xavier and I are walking to the front door, the knocking continues. Cautiously I open the front door, see a halfway good looking kid standing there.
“Hi,” the twenty-something says, “I’m Draven Alexander. From next door. My wheelchair bound grandmother is the lady that’s always got the cops coming over.”
“It’s because she’s always sitting out on the porch with a gun,” Brooklyn says, stepping around Xavier, but not me. “It scares people.”
“I’m really sorry about that,” he says. “I try to tell her—”
“We don’t mind,” Brooklyn interrupts. “No one in this family is scared of a gun.”
“Brooklyn…” I say as a warning. Then, to Draven: “What can I do for you, Draven?”
“We have a problem, but judging by the way you look, I’d venture to say you’re aware of it already.”
“I am.”
“Are you okay?” he says, breaking stride.
“We’ll be fine,” I say. “But you’re right, we do have a problem.”
“If this city continues to take the beating it’s taking, we’re going to have to scale down our version of reality and pull together as a community.”
“I think you’re overreacting, son,” I say.
“If you think I’m overreacting, then answer me this. Where is the military? Where is the President? We have a cold front moving in over the next few days, and if these drones keep hitting this hard, we run the risk of losing power. Can you imagine this city? We’re already in a weakened state. If we lose power and have to deal with below zero temperatures, can you even fathom the death toll?”
Okay, I admit I’ve been a bit shortsighted. So much of what I’ve done these last eight months is take my life moment by moment. Most days, I couldn’t tell you what day it was, and I didn’t always care about the time. Now, facing an attack of monumental proportion, I confess, I’ve been living the same way: minute by minute, one crisis at a time.
If you caught a glimpse into what I’m thinking right now, you’d see something like this: 1) Get this kid off my porch, 2) get some sleep, 3) get ready for war and 4) go kill everything in sight with absolute reckless abandon. Now start on item number 1.
But Draven’s got a point.
“I’ve got some things to take care of now,” I tell him, “but if you want to come in for a second, we’re letting out the heat.”
He thanks me, steps inside and formally introduces himself to Xavier and Brooklyn. I like that we’ve finally met our neighbor, but honestly, I don’t like strangers in my house.
“So what are you suggesting?” Xavier asks.
“Right now, nothing,” Draven says. “But how much do you know about this thing?”
“We’ve been in the middle of it, as you can tell.”
“Were you working when it happened?” he asks, looking first and Xavier, then at me.
“Yes.”
“What do you do for a living?”
I can tell that’s what he’s wanting to know. He wants to know who this ruffian is who hasn’t been home for eight months, then comes home with a beat to hell Barney-mobile and a body that’s been pummeled to a pulp…
“Xavier and I work for The Department of Homeland Security. We’re DEA.”
Slowly he starts to nod, like suddenly it all makes sense.
“I work at home,” Draven says. “And my grandmother…she’s, well, she has her own idea on how things should run.”
“Her name’s Eudora, right?” I say. “Eudora Alexander?” I already know who his grandmother is. Everyone on this block knows who the woman is.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“I was sad to hear about your grandfather. I just started with Chicago PD back then and I followed the case all the way to its conclusion.”
“Then you know she’s not a fan of law enforcement. Especially the feds.”
“Can’t say I blame her,” I tell him. “She and your grandfather got railroaded. It was wrong. It was a constitutional travesty, actually.”
“Yeah, well, if anything, the woman knows a ton about living off the grid, about survival, and about home defense and property fortification.”
“I don’t know about your grandparents,” Brooklyn tells him.
“They lived off the grid on a hundred and twenty acres in Northern California, just south of the Oregon border,” he says. “Their property bordered environmentally protected land where some of their cows used to graze. There was a dispute with the Bureau of Land Management, who escalated things so badly that the FBI was forced to pay them a visit. My grandfather was a die hard patriot. He loved his life, his liberty and his privacy. In his mind, he’d done nothing wrong. So when he answered his front door with his rifle in hand, the FBI took it as a threat.”
“Did they shoot your grandfather?” Brooklyn asks. I turn and fire her a disapproving look. Kids these days, they just say what’s on their mind. No tact at all.
“They killed him,” Draven answers, almost like it wasn’t a big deal. Then again, he was not much older than Brooklyn, so maybe he was part of the “say-anything” generation. “And my grandmother, she tried to drag his body inside and was shot in the back for it. That’s why she’s in a wheelchair.”
“And that’s why she has no problem having her shotgun around?” Brooklyn asks. “Because the cops don’t dare stir up the past?”
“I think it’s her way of not admitting how badly her life turned out. Her husband was killed, then she was taken from her life and thrown in jail in her state for about a year before the feds finally admitted fault. By then she had to sell the property. Medical treatments and her attorneys took everything she had. Now she lives with me because she can’t afford to live on her own.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Brooklyn says, her sympathy genuine.
Taking in her body language, I’m sure she doesn’t have a thing for him. She’s just an inquisitive child. And a dog after a bone, if need be. The entire world just shrinks away and she goes into single-minded focus until she gets what she wants.
She would have made a great detective.
“Yeah, well if she took anything from her marriage to my grandfather,” Draven says, “it was
self-sufficiency. Since all this started, she’s been talking about this being the end of civilization, and as much as I’ve been dismissing her, I’m starting to think she’s got some good points.”
“No military response, no Presidential response, failing emergency services and all that,” Xavier says, like he’s been seeing the same thing, too.
“Do you know who’s doing this?” I ask.
Adeline brings Xavier the hot tea she promised and introduces herself to Draven. “I’ve got more water, Draven,” she offers. “Would you like a cup as well?”
Draven thanked her, then said no. Then: “I think I might know who’s doing this. But you’re not going to understand. Or maybe you will, I don’t know. I could be wrong. I hope I am, but I don’t think so.”
He spends the next ten minutes filling the four of us in on his conversations with Carver, his experiences with The Silver Queen, and what he saw yesterday after both of them left—the drone shooting up the Gremlin.
“So a drone flew through here and blew up a car?” Adeline asks, physically disturbed.
“Yeah. The people died. That was when emergency services were still operating. After my call from Carver, I drove around the neighborhood, moving out as far as four blocks. That’s when I found evidence of other small scale attacks.”
“What do you mean, ‘small scale attacks?’” I ask.
“Guns, not missiles or bombs.”
“Bombs?” Brooklyn asks. “They have bombs?”
“The Reaper drones are carrying the new BG-38 bombs. Five hundred pounds. If they drop just one of those things downtown, which it looks like they may do, you’re talking about the end of downtown Chicago. Massive loss of life. The end of this city as we know it for generations to come.”
Talk about humbling.
“So what is your grandmother thinking?” I ask.
“We need to find out who lives in this neighborhood right now, enough to get people on the same page if we run into a SHTF scenario.”
“I think we’re already there,” Xavier says.
“We have power. And running water. Our cars still work, we still have the grid and we’re not sitting in the middle of a winter freeze. But how much more of this can we take without a national response?”