Yes, it was dark, obviously. I laughed at my fears. I stepped off the bottom step, and to my left, something moved. I had the flashlight in my left hand because I’d been holding the railing with my right one on the way down. Of course, I dropped it, and it fell on my toe, bounced off, lit the ceiling, and went out. Something brushed my face, and I screamed, as they say, like a little girl. I forgot I had two wrenches in my back pocket and stood there clutching the railing, grateful I hadn’t fallen on my face in—whatever had moved. Was it inching closer? What was it?
A light bounced off the railing and onto the floor. Steps thudded down behind me, and something soft pushed into me, almost knocking me over into the thing. Done screaming, too scared now to squeak, I saw the light from another flashlight come over my shoulder and rest on a moving mass of mice and rats and bugs, crawling over and devouring what had once been a person. At least, I presumed it had been because it had a hand with a ring on it.
Finn’s voice quivered behind me. “Now in a role playing game, that would come alive, and we’d have to fight it to get the ring and…”
I said, “No, thanks, I’m out of here! Thank you for saving me!” Luckily for what bit of ego I had left, I remembered I was the adult and turned Finn around to go upstairs ahead of me. But he wouldn’t let me do it.
“I have the flashlight. You go ahead. Age before beauty, you know,” he finished that more quietly. We got upstairs without incident, and Finn just shut the door firmly behind me.
“We’re still having pizza right? The oven’s almost up to temperature!” He smiled sweetly at me. “There’s beer in the fridge, and it’s still cold, too. You’d like a cold beer, wouldn’t you? To settle your nerves? Because, fuck me sideways, I sure would.”
We ended up sitting at the kitchen table, which I noticed was from the fifties and probably worth a fortune by now. Finn stuffed some dish towels in the crack beneath the basement door to make me feel better, got out some beer, and popped the pizza in the oven. It hadn’t occurred to me that people might have gas ovens, since my house had been updated to all electric years ago. What else had I probably overlooked?
When Burk came in, following the aroma of the pizza cooking, he washed up, grabbed a beer, and joined us. I told him about the radios in the cars, and he got excited and wanted to go get them right then. Finn made him wait and eat with us first.
Afterward, Finn went into the garage with Burk, and I, being no smarter than an hour before, went upstairs to check out the bedrooms. I wished I hadn’t. One was full of toys, and I felt like a thief taking some small cars for the boy at the church, but I said a feeble promise to the child who had owned them that they would give another child pleasure. And then I took the clothes, just piles of little boy shorts and shirts, shoes…knowing in my brain, if not in my heart, they would be put to much better use at the church than here.
After that, I couldn’t take it anymore, and as soon as the kids were ready, their hands stuffed with radio parts and more food and beer, we left to walk home before it got dark. I hoped we’d never have to go there again.
That night, after we had all gone to bed, Burk came to my room.
In the dusty light of morning, he was gone, and I was left to wonder if I had only dreamed of his love or if it had been real.
Chapter 12
In the morning, we heard the church bells ring. I have no idea how far those things could reach, but maybe the wind was just right.
Finn looked like a light bulb went off over his head. “Let’s go down to the college and see if the cheerleaders’ megaphones are still there. And Burk, could a traffic cone be used for a megaphone? And what about police cars? They have loudspeakers or something, don’t they? Boy, my brain is firing on all cylinders today. And here I thought my IQ would drop when I became a man.”
“What?” I asked, bewildered.
“Little gender joke there.” Burk smiled. “Very little.” He reached over and rubbed his knuckles on Finn’s head.
“Ow, fuck you, quit it!”
“Well, bro, that’s what boys do!”
Finn rolled his eyes, but he smiled. “I wonder if Starbucks is open?” He sighed.
Burk wasn’t finished. He took Finn’s arm and started making him slap himself in the face. He was gentle, but it must have been annoying as hell. “Stop hitting yourself!” He laughed happily. Finn kneed him in the groin, but he blocked it and spun away, now behind Finn, holding him tightly.
“I give!” Finn laughed, knowing he was beat. “Uncle! And say,” he added as Burk let him go, “can you teach me that?”
The streets were clogged with cars. There hadn’t been that many on the way to the cathedral, but walking down Broadway, it was totally different. There were even bodies just lying in the streets or slumped in the cars. There were stray cats and even a few stray dogs. None of them looked happy but all were fat. Then we saw the rats. They were everywhere. I took a quick look at the three of us, and we all had long pants on.
“Pull your socks up over your pant legs,” I said quietly, as if the rats and their fleas could hear us.
As soon as we came to the drug store, we all ducked inside, closing the door behind us, though it didn’t help much.
“It feels safer in here.” Finn shrugged, trying to look cool. “I know, I know, I’m shaking. I’m sorry to be such a wuss. Let’s get some Off, some giant economy-size bug repellent. Is there rat repellent?”
“Cats on leashes,” Burk said, waving a bunch of them. “That’ll work. Who’s the genius now, Finn?”
“Antibiotics, anyone? They’re on special today, all you can carry, free!” said a voice behind the pharmacy counter.
All three of us jumped and turned to look, with Finn actually sidling behind Burk for safety. I think I personally was happy to just see he was human. He was a tall man, dark skin, dark curly hair, receding, unshaven.
“Happy to meet you. My name is Tetra. It wasn’t always, but you know, new times, new identities. Not that I’m hiding an interesting or notorious past, just an ordinary, but completely gone, one. I don’t really know who I am now. What do you keep? What do you take with you on a journey to a destination you don’t know, and never planned on going to anyhow? These?” He held up a handful of drugs. “Or even better, these.” In his other hand, he held two squirt guns. “They’re full of bug spray,” he said with a half-baked smile. “You’ll want to watch out for fleas and ticks as well.”
Finn walked closer. “I saw a guy burying people. He said he’d move into their house and then bury them.”
“He’s not necessarily waiting until they are dead,” Tetra said quietly. “So watch out for him. It’s no wonder we’re not all crazy now. Did you hear bells? Is that the cathedral? Or am I crazy now, too?”
Burk kept the cat leashes and also filled his pack with flea powders and sprays. He then walked up to the counter with some squirt guns and said, “So what you using in these?”
The talk went to poisons. What ran into my possibly-crazy mind was that old song about poisoning pigeons in the park, and it made me shudder. Instead, I thought back over last night, deciding Burk’s visit had indeed been real. In fact, I hoped he’d do it again.
I’d never thought I’d fall in love again at my age, oh, possibly if another balding old fart came along, but Burk? It was too good to be true. Not even because of the age or his good looks, but the fact that he saw in me something worthwhile, even though there were Phil and Finn around, both younger and better looking. There was depth to Burk, as well as so much knowledge and ability and kindness. By now, he had a plastic bag full of loaded squirt guns and was smiling, eager to go on a killing spree.
“So much quieter than machine guns,” he said. “And so much more readily available. I should have kept mine.”
“You should have thought of that before the plague, genius,” Finn said. “Daddy-o, the costume shop is right next door. Do you think what’s his face, I mean, Burk here, and I could go? Just for a minute?”
Tetra said to me, “It should be safe. Let the children go. It’s certainly the right time to pretend to be someone else, somewhere else.”
They went. They dropped their bags and ran off like two ten-year-olds. Maybe they’d hit the candy aisle on the way in, but for a minute, I felt all the tension leave me. The stress of raising, well, keeping two other people safe and fed, was getting to me. I must be getting old; except, there was last night. So, not too old. I turned to Tetra.
“So tell me about yourself. I’m Bruce. I used to be some high muckety-muck for some important company. I think I did important things, or something. And all I got were these stupid scars here and here!” My leg had healed up, and that was the important part. I scarcely remembered being overseas, seeing to business, talking to important people, and I certainly didn’t miss it.
“I used to play the harp in the biggest music halls of the East Coast, if I remember right. I used to wear a tuxedo those nights. Then there was a disagreement among the other musicians, most of whom were poofs, not that I care. I was emotional enough myself to be one. Who cares now? Love is love. Anyhow, I left, took my harp, and went to the south Texas coast, where I was from, and played on the beach until a bad storm came. I was left without a home, without a harp, but luckily or not, with my life intact. So now I’m here, and I’m someone else. This is my costume; I don’t need to go next door. I just need to not wear a tux.”
“My boys want to make megaphones to reach out to other survivors. And there’s a guy at the church, St. Mark’s, the cathedral, who wants to hold a service for everyone, all religions. My older boy, Burk, fixed the bells so they could be rung by hand again. He is amazing.”
“Cute, too, huh? Both of them. Look like their mother, huh?” Tetra laughed. “I’ll show up to the church at some time. Maybe I can help out. I know there’re a few people around here still. They’re all afraid to come out, so sometimes I take them bags of food or whatever. The second-hand book store is okay, though some asshole tried to set fire to it. The cat they had died. And I shot the bastard fire bug. The whole neighborhood could have gone up. Mind you, I’ll deny ever saying that, but it’s the truth.”
“Maybe nothing is the truth anymore. Or at least,” I added, “the truth has changed.”
The boys came back just then, well, one gangster and one old-fashioned cowboy, complete with guns. I supposed they were my boys.
Tetra reached over the counter. “Hey, cowboy, take this. It’s real. You use this if you need to; no second thoughts. The times they have changed. You need it, you use it. You stay alive.”
Finn nodded.
“See you at church,” our new friend said, nodding. “I hope they have a harp. I’ll pluck that mother like a chicken.”
* * * *
Outside, the gangster hugged me. “I missed you. I didn’t know if we could trust that man or not. Are you okay?”
My heart smiled in response. It was a stupid time to fall in love with someone half my age, but how in hell could I not? Not to mention, it was the only time we had.
We hit the bookstore and then roamed through the abandoned Starbucks, which looked like a tornado had hit it. An unexploded bomb (I knew this from movies) lay just behind the counter, half covered in boxes of coffee and spilled pastries. We left in a hurry, with Finn taking a few boxes of tea with him.
The college had been hit in several places, and it looked like there had been a fire as well, but it hadn’t spread to the neighborhood. Many of the buildings nearby, except my favorite old restaurant, were built of concrete, which had helped. Crumbled walls and fallen ceilings were one thing; wooden buildings that could spread city-wide fires were quite another.
We crossed a field and entered the college grounds though an open gate. When we came to the gymnasium, we went through an open door and found ourselves inside the boys’ dressing room. It had been ransacked, and we found two dead boys, both shot in the head. We left in a hurry and walked into the gym itself. The big room was open to the sky, which was clear and almost glazed with white sunshine. No sign of clouds at all. We went into the offices and the storage room, which had been blitzed.
“Found them!” Finn cried, digging through piles of towels and shoes and hockey sticks. “Six megaphones! I have no idea what to do with them, but someone will figure it out.”
Burk swelled with pride. “That would be me, of course.”
Finn swung them at him, but he laughed and stepped back out of reach.
“We can’t carry anything more,” I said, starting to worry. I didn’t want us to get careless.
“There’s a cart here, under these—oh, shit—bodies. And—rats.” Burk pulled out his squirt guns, and Finn did the same, only one was real. Between shooting liquid poison and two bullets before they stopped, it was quite noisy and shocking. “Congratulations,” said Burk seriously, putting his hand on Finn’s shoulder. “You just killed your first dead body.”
Chapter 13
We got the cart cleared, piled our bags and things in it, and started off back up the hill toward home. It took all three of us to pull it, but at least we didn’t see another soul. I thought.
At the last turn before our street, I saw someone standing on a porch. It was a small person, maybe a child, maybe an old woman sitting down. I waved to the kids to wait and walked up to the porch, my hands clear at my sides. I knew Burk had his real gun out, waiting, just in case. I had no fear, and as I got closer, I saw it was a child, maybe around ten years old. A girl.
“Mister, do you have any food? I’m hungry, and my mom won’t wake up.”
It was then I realized she had Downs. I didn’t want to scare her. “Would you like my boy to come up and help you? I don’t want you to be scared of me. I know I’m a stranger.”
“I know stranger danger, but I’m hungry. And Mom won’t wake up to yell at me. Can I come home with you? Our house smells bad. I don’t like it.” She started to cry.
Finn came up, keeping his real gun out. He took the child’s hand, and they went inside. Then minutes passed before they came back out, Finn with some sacks of food, and the child with a bag of clothes and two old Cabbage Patch dolls.
“I have to take my babies,” she said.
Finn said, “This is Miranda. She can ride in the cart. Would you like that?”
Miranda said, “My babies would like that very much.” Burk lifted her up, and she settled in. Finn handed her a bag of cookies and got a huge grin in response.
Burk and I pulled. She hadn’t added much weight. Finn walked alongside like a true gunslinger, keeping an eye out for bad guys and an eye on our passenger, who was, sort of, singing.
Back at the house, I automatically pulled my key ring out and pressed the garage door opener. It didn’t open. I stared at it, back at the key ring, and said, “Right. I meant to do that.” I manhandled the door open, and we hauled the cart in, even though there was barely room.
Miranda climbed down, her dolls under one arm, and said, “This is like a stable for cars. I like horses better. Do you have a horse?”
“If I do, it’s up in the attic. It’s small, but your babies could use it. Also, there’s my sister’s old dollhouse up there. I’ll get it for you later.” I thought I saw Great-Grandma’s old wind-up Victrola up there, too. And old 78 RPM records.
Finn would have his music, live at the church, and here as well. Which reminded me, I had no idea when anyone’s birthday was. Heck, I didn’t even know today’s date. I knew it was Friday, the first full week in May, and that was it. Did it matter?
After we dragged everything upstairs, Miranda stood in the living room, looking around. “You don’t have any people sleeping here who won’t wake up,” she said. “That’s nice. Oh, look, kitties! We had a dog, but he died.”
Dear God, I thought, give me the strength to endure my blessings. I thought about Tetra before he was Tetra, playing his harp on the beach. It made me smile. All of us had to play the instrument we were handed, so to speak, or the cards we w
ere dealt. So far, so good. But I had to wonder what else, like my garage door opener, I wasn’t using when I still could. Who knows? Finn took Miranda upstairs, Burk went to fix some lunch, and I went up to the attic.
I hadn’t been up here in years. Decades maybe. When my mother had died, I’d brought up a few boxes of her things I intended to keep, that I just couldn’t part with. I realized now that some of her things might be of use to the old lady at the church. I dragged the boxes out and put them by the door. Then I found my sister’s old doll house and a box of her old toys. And I found the old Victrola and the box of records. There was a huge pile by the door now. I had to take a break from sitting in the sun-warmed, airless attic, watching dust motes hover and fall and swirl, upset from my movements.
I sat and looked through a carton of my father’s old belt buckles he had collected over the years and pulled out two for myself and one for Burk. There was a box with old Catholic missals in it and several of the 1928 prayer books from my parents’ days at the cathedral. And underneath them all, I found two rosaries, a yarmulke, and a copy of the Mikra, the Hebrew Bible, apparently, in Hebrew with an English translation included. What relative had owned this? What did I not know about my family? Well, they hadn’t known I was gay, so we were even. It almost brought tears to my eyes, how things sometimes came full circle, and I felt that the old woman at the church was, to a real extent, a member of my own family; both this new one, and my biological one.
So many different kinds of love in the world. At least the plague hadn’t taken that away from us at all. And just thinking of love, the door opened, and Burk came in.
The Great Silence Page 6