We Can Save Us All

by Adam Nemett

  “‘Is it impossible to combine the hardiness of savages with the intellectualness of the civilized man?’”

  “That’s your response?”

  “That’s my response.”

  Mathias snatched the bottle from David’s palm and, with a graceful hook shot, catapulted it end over end toward the middle of the cul-de-sac. It exploded dead center, splattering glass and froth across the snow-dusted pavement.

  “The answer is yes,” said Mathias. “Yes, it is possible.”

  It was then that David became aware of the next-door neighbor, a mustached middle-ager in a teal Miami Dolphins jacket. He was boarding up his windows. The guy looked at them, brow furrowed. David assumed they were in very big trouble.

  Then the neighbor called out to Mathias, “That wasn’t the good stuff, was it?”

  “No, that was horse piss,” Mathias yelled back. “I’ve got a box of good stuff all packed up for you, Fred. No worries!” With that, Fred went back to hammering.

  “That’s Fred,” Mathias said. “Fred’s the best.”

  “Sixteen inches,” Lee relayed from his phone, and walked inside.

  “What about the glass?” David asked.

  “He’s really just the best.”

  Lee poked his head back outside and yelled, “No, two feet. They’re closing schools.”

  “They always overestimate snowstorms,” David offered. “People go crazy for no reason.”

  Mathias looked taken aback. “Have you seen the weather lately? People have every reason to go crazy, yet somehow remain sane. It pays to be prepared. This place loses power if you sneeze wrong. I love it to death, but it’s a bit dumb.” He waved his axe around and said, “Nobody makes triangle-shaped plywood!”

  “Can I case the joint?” David asked.

  “First we need to batten down the hatches.” From his kangaroo pouch Mathias pulled a printed list and a softball-sized wad of cash. He plucked off some bills. “You’re new, so you’re on grocery duty. Here’s our list. And get the usual apocalyptic provisions, too. Water, batteries, canned soup, gasoline, pet immunization records, puzzles, whatever it is you like to eat and drink.”

  “Is this another koan?”

  “No, this time I’m hazing you.” The clump of twenties and a set of car keys dropped to David’s hand. Mathias gave directions to the fancy supermarket up the street.

  “Go,” he said. “It’s gonna get seriously dangerous to drive within an hour. We’ll get you acclimated when you get back. You’ll enjoy living here.”

  “Even though it’s dumb?”

  “Dumb and wonderful,” Mathias said.

  “Why did you pick this house?” David wondered aloud.

  “It’s not a house,” Mathias said. “It is The Egg.”

  ii.

  Blizzards hit fast. Something about warm air from the south meeting arctic air from the north. Two opposites form an offshore phenomenon. Then, powers combined, they attack.

  “The Great White Death lasted seven weeks in 1949,” said NPR. “To save livestock, the air force dropped tons of hay, but nearly a million head of cattle perished nonetheless.”

  Scare tactics, David thought. That was a different century, before Doppler. Now, they just love to freak us out, make us go shopping. Impending doom is the best advertising.

  The Egg had two vehicles: a beige GMC Savana cargo van they called the “Rock-it-to-the-MaxMobile” and the 1992 Buick Roadmaster he’d arrived in, named “Christopher Walken.” For this errand, his inaugural solo mission, David took the MaxMobile.

  He liked riding up high, surveying his new town, but couldn’t help conjuring images of his hometown—Pikesville, Maryland—wrecked by the fall weather. The record storm surge of Hurricane Jamie had leveled the shore and didn’t spare the mid-Atlantic mainland, either, from Philadelphia to Richmond. Pikesville suffered 80 mph winds and heavy rains. Roofs ripped from houses. Trees and power lines down everywhere. Two dozen dead. David didn’t know any of the deceased personally, but his little sister Beth’s sixth grade science teacher lost both her boys, two and four years old, when the woman’s SUV stalled in floodwaters. She tried to swim them to safety but lost her grip on her sons. To watch them float away like that, David couldn’t even imagine.

  The news went crazy for Hurricane Jamie. Waiting in University Medical Center for his parents to collect him, nursing the psychological wounds of his first semester, David stayed glued to the tube. He consumed cable news footage of pummeled gas stations, evacuees living in repurposed school gymnasiums, floating cars clustering in the flood like the last Cheerios in a cereal bowl.

  When he left campus and arrived back home, he drove around his old, familiar town and saw how Hurricane Jamie had worn away at the fabric of Pikesville, once situated into manicured rows of street, sidewalk, lawn, house. Now everything spilled into everything else. Driveways were full of waterlogged cardboard, exploded sandbags in the street, remnants of flooded basements and attics tossed into the public space not to be quickly and quietly disposed of, but as a testimony, as if to say, Look at this mess, would you?

  As he’d driven past his old high school, noticing government vehicles parked in its otherwise empty lot, David heard on the radio that Hostess Brands Inc. was going bankrupt. He thought of how Twinkies, legend had it, contained so many preservatives they could survive the apocalypse. Now even Twinkies were going extinct?

  David decided to buy all the Hostess stuff he could find. Maybe he’d eat a thousand Twinkies before heading back to school, catalyzing a physical transformation to see what emotional, psychological, and spiritual powers might come along with it.

  Or else he’d just become a fat guy.

  — Ø —

  David blinked himself back to the present moment.

  Turning into the parking lot of the upscale Pennington Quality Market a mile from The Egg, David saw the citizens who made this town tick: moms in Lexuses and lawyers in minivans. Another upper-middle-class bubble like Pikesville.

  David wondered if any crime occurred in a burg like this. Maybe he’d have an opportunity to thwart would-be attackers, become a local hero. David saw a grandmother load cans into her Cadillac. He kept an eye out lest someone try to swipe her purse.

  The grocery list blew in the wind as David jogged through a parking lot teeming with beeps. The printout, with Mathias’s handwritten edits, read like this:

  PQM LIST OF DESTINY

  Mathias:

  4 lbs of lean, grass-fed shoulder roast

  (beef or deer/caribou/moose if they have it!)

  1 Giant Fucking Thing of Salsa (Hot!)

  Blueberries

  Winston Lights (3 cartons!)

  Kitten faces (JK! LOL!)

  Owen:

  16 Lemons, Organic Grade B Maple Syrup, Cayenne Pepper, Girly Beer

  Lee:

  Mama Celeste Pizzas, big ole slab o’ ribs, blue cheese, tissues, cheddar cheese, cottage cheese, yogurt, tight slutty vagina, turkey jerky, whatever else I eat

  Fu:

  Fresh nutmeg (NOT powder)

  Arugula

  Bouillon cubes

  Arborio rice

  Kools (NOT Newports; 2 cartons)

  Pork butt (from butcher; NOT packaged!)

  Sriracha (2 btls.)

  Cremini mushrooms

  Mountain Dew (1 case)

  Lop chong (Chinese-style sausage; chorizo okay)

  Large tail-on shrimp (2 or 4 lbs.)

  All the tofu they have

  Raw, unfiltered apple cider vinegar (with the “Mother”)

  Dry white wine (NOT for drinking!)

  Saffron

  Mathias’s hundred bucks would maybe be fine for this list but definitely not enough when you factored in his “apocalyptic provisions.” Luckily, David had his parents’ credit card. As much as he’d usually downplay this convenient fact, even to his own ego, he was thankful to be carrying plastic at a time like this. There’d be a threshold where his parents would notice and inquir
e (the credit wasn’t limitless, just unknown). But what if he really had only a hundred dollars? Like to his name. For those without a safety net, life must involve so much more math.

  David entered the automatic doors of the supermarket with a mighty whoosh. Two massive product pyramids of bottled water and toilet paper stood by the entrance area like those guardian lion statues in front of Chinese restaurants. It was clear from the surrounding detritus that these stacks had been picked over and replenished, and stock girls were once again doing their best to accommodate the last-minute crush of shoppers stocking up. David realized he was stepping into battle, some kind of suburban ritual he’d been sheltered from during fall semester dorm living. Pre-storm supermarkets show the American veneer cracking, something animal peeking through.

  David checked off pretty much everything on Mathias’s list and was surprised that, with a few odd exceptions, it didn’t include any of the usual storm stockpiling items. So David took it upon himself to grab what he could. He got water. He got one of almost every over-the-counter drug. He got peanut butter and jelly, and the bread was all gone so he got matzo, the unleavened apocalyptic carb of his forebears. And porn! If they lost internet, they’d need a substitute. David headed to the magazine aisle and picked two choice items, skipping the usual Playboy and Penthouse for sluttier-looking stuff with pouty girls suffocating beneath magazine plastic. Mustard, honey, Parmalat, candles, Chinese checkers, cartons of Kools. Asking a dreadlocked employee where to find organic grade B maple syrup felt absurd amid this bare-necessity spectacle, but the guy knew just what he was talking about and led him to a wall of Vermont-y jugs. Fu’s saffron was insanely expensive. David made the executive decision to remove it from his cart.

  When he finally found a spot at the end of a long checkout line, it was wild to see what this homogenous horde had in their carts, what they deemed vital and life-affirming at a time like this. Trail mix and antifreeze struck David as practical, and he shook his head, wishing he’d thought of that. Other goods were more curious: a priest with a cart comprising only coffee beans, as if this were the last time in history one could buy such a thing. Maybe he was stockpiling, preparing to barter. What was David forgetting? What could he not survive without if the End really came?

  Before he could hide the skin mags between two boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios, the cashier began scanning them. Holding up Hustler, she said, “This is gross.” Swiping Swank across the laser, she said, “This one’s actually pretty hot, though.”

  Embarrassed, he glanced down at the waxed floor, and there he saw her. Blink.

  This was happening more and more, this side effect of the pills. Owen had warned him about it back when they shared a dorm. Visual memories piling up on the present moment. Owen called it “superimposition.”

  David was trying to get used to it, and the simplest thing, he found, was to let the mental detours happen and try to think of it as a different kind of remembering…

  — Ø —

  Two weeks ago, back home, he’d shopped methodically at the Pikesville Giant, comforted by the fact that he knew his family’s favorites. David enjoyed the aisles of color, the waxed floors reflecting fluorescence. Say what you will about capitalist imperialism, David considered, but they don’t enjoy such bounty in Tajikistan.

  Once the cart grew heavy, David used it as a dogsled, one foot on the lower rail and the other propelling him swiftly forward. He mushed to frozen foods, a space-aged flight deck. Two rows of frosted cases lay before him, each freezer door lit with vertical tubes.

  There, he saw her, ponytailed, holding two tubs of ice cream.

  He’d like to think of it as fate, that they’d find each other on winter break there in the frozen food section of the Pikesville Giant, that perhaps they’d been betrothed from the beginning and this synchronicity was another crease in their love’s unfolding. But it’s possible that aisle eleven was not predestined. Her parents lived nearby, and on that Monday maybe she just wanted ice cream.

  David saw her neck before the rest of her. He recognized that light fuzz beneath a mane of dark blond wetness drying on her shoulders and jumped off his cart, letting it roll into oblivion, catching his balance behind Haley Roth.

  Haley had graduated from McDonogh, a private high school near Pikesville, but even among public school kids like David, she’d been the area’s best drug slinger, known for her daddy’s bottomless bottles of pharmaceuticals as well as her formidable breasts. Between these two commodities—boobs and pills—the high school nickname committee had dubbed her the “Racketeer.” She tried her best to shrug off the snide comments, the double standard. She was smart and popular, had good parents and a bright future. Haley Roth knew who she was and realized if she were a man she’d be the Fucking Man. So why change?

  That’s how she used to feel.

  Without thinking, David crept up behind her and placed his palms over her eyes. Guess who? No sooner had his palms touched Haley’s brow than her body recoiled in knee-jerk reflex and she flung her elbow directly into his chest.

  “Oof,” he said.

  “Oow,” she said.

  She caught him sharply. He doubled over while Haley clutched her arm. David now understood that guess who? was probably the very worst thing you could do to a girl who’d been through what she’d been through. David realized they had something in common: a disastrous first semester had sent them both back home to lick their wounds.

  “I almost maced you in the fucking freezer aisle,” she hissed, rubbing her elbow.

  Straight from the gym, Haley wore a white V-neck over a black sports bra. Her pulled-back hair was a mess of sweat and flyaways. She was small like David, with intense eyebrows and perpetually glazed-looking eyes, like she was always stoned, and maybe she was. Dimples framed her insanely perfect teeth, and her tanned skin shone with that charmed smoothness David envied, given his early battles with acne. But there was a sunkenness to her eyes now, and he thought her head looked oddly big, or else her neck was tiny. In fact, her whole body seemed scrawnier than he recalled. He wanted to hug her, ask if she was okay, but he worried he might break her in half.

  “Sorry if I stink,” Haley said, sniffing her pits. “It’s day ten of my twenty-one-day Fat Blast.”

  “You really don’t need to blast any fat,” David said, catching his breath.

  They shared a silence. She smiled less than he remembered from back in high school, which he imagined was a side effect of strange men telling her to smile more.

  David wondered if she knew he’d gotten kicked out of the dorms the prior week. Maybe they were on the same team. The Princeton Lepers. He reached for what to say next.

  “What should I get?” she finally asked. “I’ve been staring at these two flavors for like an hour. I need someone else to make the decision for me.”

  She needed him. He took the tubs and spun them and tried to look cool but almost dropped the Breyers on his foot. He knew he was being awkward, trying to keep things light amid darkness.

  “I’d go rocky road over crème caramel,” he replied. “More stuff going on.”

  “Fine, great. Sold,” she said, exasperated. He wondered how long she’d actually been standing there and why. She stared off at something behind him and snorted a giggle.

  “How’s, um, your break so far?” David asked, trying to make eye contact and failing.

  “It’s great, um, really nice to be home.”

  “Me, too,” he lied.

  “Actually? No, it’s bizarro. The weather sucks and I apparently don’t want to talk to anyone.”

  “Me, too!” he admitted. “I keep making excuses. Like ‘Sorry we keep missing each other!’”

  “Ships in the night!” she said.

  “Rowboats in the morning,” he said. She cocked an eyebrow. He prayed she didn’t remember. “Yeah,” he recovered. “I’m trying to go back to campus early.”

  “Not me. Maybe I’ll go to art school? Like one of those people who goes to art schoo
l.”

  “No, you should stay!” It flew out of David without thinking. A genuine plea. He suddenly realized he meant it, that he very much wanted her to stay. Don’t lepers need colonies? She glanced through him again, gaze distant. “I’ll stay if you stay?” he said. Like a question or a deal.

  “Are they gonna let you back in the dorms?” So she had heard. Wait, what had she heard?

  “I’m, um, looking for an apartment,” he admitted. “Off-campus.”

  “I know of a place in Pennington,” Haley said. “I was gonna take it myself, but it’s all dudes.”

  “Wait,” said David. “You mean Owen’s place in Pennington? Is it called, uh, The Egg?”

  “I don’t know any Owen, but yeah, it’s this guy’s place. The Egg. Ask your pal Owen.”

  “I’m pissed at him right now. I met this guy Mathias and he was building this hot tub and—”

  “Yeah, that’s the guy. Rather brilliant. And hot as shit, too.”

  David felt himself redden. Mathias was weird looking, wasn’t he?

  “He seems dangerous,” David countered.

  “Well,” she said. “He’s the one who ID’d my guy. And he teaches self-defense at Jadwin Gym on Thursdays. Druggies like you and me are more dangerous than Mathias.”

  He was about to ask a million questions when Haley opened the freezer door between them and began tracing lines into the frost. David thought they were hieroglyphics, but once she dropped that @ symbol he realized he was looking at a backward email address: hr1237@princeton.edu.

  “I had to change my email,” she whispered. “Holler if you need supplies.”

  “I can actually use a bag to get me through Reading Period and exams. Can’t tell—is that an S?”

  “Is that your shopping cart?” She pointed to the end of the aisle.

  When he’d jumped off it, David’s cart had smacked into a far-off freezer case so hard that it cracked the glass. A Lactaid-colored pool had formed beneath the wheels. Two teenage employees with red aprons were leaning on mops, their palms upturned like, Look at this mess, would you?