The Shelter

by Peter Foley

  There’s also food at this place, but it doesn’t seem like much, judging by our first meal. There’s lots of other people here too, maybe hundreds. A very pregnant girl gave birth as soon as we arrived. It was the wife of the man I’m going to kill. He works here as the cook. I hope breakfast is nice.

  22

  Hope is a good breakfast

  Unfortunately, for the hungry people of Salvation, breakfast is not nice, as Drew, running his fork through it, observes, “This is shit.”

  “It’s supposed to be edible,” Tom scoops some heavy yellowish gray slush off his plate with a fork, “but would it hurt to have some bacon for breakfast?” He lifts the fork to his eyes for close observation. Once inspected he finally takes a bite, then, after a thought, he swallows. “It’s obviously made from a powder mix, and it’s very buttery, but really not that bad. At least it’s not watery gruel.”

  Drew lowers his head to the plate in front of him. “It smells kind of odd,” he sneers. “Screw it, I’m too hungry not to eat.”

  “Wash it down with coffee and you won’t notice.” Tom is eating heartily, having discovered this method of tolerating the food.

  “Hey, Tom.” Drew breaks into a childish grin. “Look, here comes some more people, watch them. When they go to the kitchen’s serving hatch, watch their faces when they see what the food’s like!”

  Next into the room come two old men and two old women, walking in pairs as husbands and wives. They amble their way to the serving hatch. They pick up a bare white plate and hand it to Sid, who takes up a silver ladle in one of his tattooed hands and holds the plate in the other. In one scooping motion, he fishes out a large heap of slop from a deep silver tray and drops it on the plate. Each diner inspects their breakfast before looking around the room to see that, yes, indeed, for everyone it’s the same. Then, for a brief moment, a moment that could be easily missed, their mouths crinkle, their chin shrinks and their eyes widen with an expression of exaggerated displeasure.

  “Ha! Priceless! Aww, bless them!” Tom says. “Here comes another. Wow, look at her.”

  “Who?” Drew follows Tom’s eyes to the serving hatch. “Yeah, that’s Hazel.”

  “You know her?”

  “I met her yesterday. She’s nice.”

  “She’s more than nice, Drew.” Tom has fixed his eyes on Hazel. “More than nice.”

  “Calm down.”

  Hazel, once again, is wearing her glistening wet hair slicked back and draped over one shoulder. Drew watches Tom look over Hazel’s pencil skirt and her fitted blouse as she leans into the serving hatch for idle chitchat with Sid.

  “Right. Thumb war it is then.” Tom turns his head away from Hazel and flicks a thumb and a raised brow at Drew.

  “For what?” Drew rests his chin in the palm of his hand and rubs his silvery fuzz.

  “For Hazel. This is how it is. She’s nice, I like her and it’s obvious you do, so we thumb war for the right to ask her out. The loser isn’t allowed to, you know, get in the way. It’s the only honorable thing to do to avoid complications with things like this.” Tom waves his fork in the air with the grace of an orchestra conductor.

  “Obvious?” Drew says, with more than a hint of surprise in both his eyes and his voice.

  “Yes, obvious. Therefore, thumb war.” Tom has ceased waving his fork and digs it into the mush piled on his plate.

  “I’m not sure that’s how these things work, Tom.” Drew moves his rubbing hand from his cheek to the back of his neck.

  “So, you do like her? You don’t deny it. I rest my case, your honor. Thumb war!” Tom says. He takes an emphatic bite of cold sludge from his fork and shows the silvery utensil to Drew once, as if it were the concluding piece of evidence in his investigation.

  “Yeah, she’s good looking, but…” Drew moves his hand back to his chin.

  “But nothing,” Tom says, charging his words. “Thumb war!”

  “Oh, Tom.”

  “Oh, nothing. Thumb war! You’re running scared, that’s what this is.”

  “Righto, young one, brace yourself for a right thumb-kicking.” Drew reaches out his hand across the table, which is eagerly taken with force by Tom.

  “One, two–” Tom begins.

  “No, no. It’s my turn,” interrupts Drew. “A-one, two, three, four, I declare a thumb–”

  “That’s cheating!”

  Drew attacks with a tensed thumb and goes for a surprise pin.

  “I should have seen that coming, with the stakes being as high as they are.” Tom pushes his tongue out of the side of his mouth and clamps it with his lips as he forces Drew’s surprise attack away with a side swipe of his large stubby thumb.

  “It’ll do you no good, Tom. And! Here… it… is…” Drew leans forward, lifting off his chair to gain a height advantage he presses down Tom’s wiggling thumb for a certain, outright, yet controversial, victory.

  “The winner and new undisputed world champion – Drew Samuel!” Drew announces his victory with too much satisfaction. “Taught you a lesson that time, didn’t I, son?” He lifts his thumb into the air.

  “We’ll have a rematch. You cheated. Such a dirty player…” Tom says, shaking the defeat out of his hand.

  “Over here, Hazel. Sit with us.” Drew waves both hands in the air.

  Hazel strides over to the free seat beside Drew. “Morning.”

  “Hi. My name’s Tom.”

  “Hi, Tom. Quite a banquet we have for breakfast, isn’t it?”

  “It could be worse I suppose, I’m not sure how, but it could be,” Tom says, cheerily. “Did you sleep well?”

  Listening to Hazel’s response, Drew starts to form a question in his mind, but before its full shape emerges all the loudspeakers on the wall come to life with a thud, then a crackle, then a whine. Finally, the amplified voice of the Pastor is thrown into every corner of every room.

  “Morning, Salvation. I trust this morning finds you in good health. I bring glad tidings and genuine love to all within the sound of my voice. Today is a momentous day, it’s the beginning of our new lives and the breaking of a new dawn. The devastation outside is total. The destruction is unprecedented, you wouldn’t believe it. It’s much worse than anyone expected, and the hurricane is still at its work, but here in Salvation we can, together, live well and live long. We will have a special sermon tonight at seven. Until then please get to know one another in a spirit of kindness and gratitude. That is all.”

  “Right then, Pops. I’m going to hit the books,” Tom says. “hurricane or no hurricane, a man has to have discipline. I’ve got my future to get ready for. Hazel, it was nice meeting you.” Tom stands and takes his plate, as Hazel looks down at her breakfast he flashes a thumb at Drew and mouths the word “rematch”. Shrugging it off, Drew finds his conversation.

  “I’ve been thinking about what you said, or what I said, I suppose, about love, hopes and dreams. Do you remember?”

  “I do.” Hazel sneers at the mush on her plate.

  “I was speaking to Tom last night, he’s an orphan, you know?”

  “Aww,” she says, lowering her fork, “poor guy…”

  “Yeah, Tom’s great. Point is, I don’t have it that bad really, and maybe I’ve become a little cynical in my old age.”

  “Okay, old man.” She prods her plate. “I can’t blame you for being cynical, look at the place we’re in, and we’re stuck in here. Maybe being cynical is normal when things aren’t great, it’s like a warning sign.” Hazel pulls her phone from her skirt pocket, lays it down beside her breakfast and, disengaging her fork hand, she prods the screen.

  “Maybe,” Drew says, watching her stare at her phone, “but I think being cynical becomes a habit and that can’t be good, can it?”

  “Then change it,” Hazel says, not looking up from her phone. “How old are you? Thirties? If you don’t like being cynical there’s plenty of time to change.” She shakes her head and swipes her phone with a tut.

  “I suppose a
ll we have is time in here, while we wait for the hurricane to pass.” Drew gazes into the middle distance and rests his chin back on his rubbing hand. “We’re rich in time here, we have time to waste, time to share, we can make it or spend it.”

  “Time makes cowards of us all,” Hazel says, half listening. She purses her lips at her phone.

  “I think that was ‘fatigue’,” Drew says. “Time makes us bolder.”

  Hazel looks up sideways from her phone. “Do you think that’s true?”

  “It seems unlikely to me. How can time make you bolder if it wears you away with fatigue? Time always wins, it sees everybody dead.”

  “Time is a weapon?”

  “Maybe it’s simply this; time destroys all things,” he says, waving his fork like a magic wand.

  Hazel waves away his magic with a dismissive hand. “I think we’ll find out what time does for ourselves over the next few days. I don’t like this place at all. The people, the Pastor, this food, it all gives me the creeps.”

  “Yeah, that Pastor-guy, he’s not right. He’s definitely bilking these people out of something, I’ll bet.”

  “Bilking?”

  “Yeah, it’s a word. It’ll get you top points in Scrabble.”

  “Scrabble?”

  “Yeah, the board game.”

  “What’s a board game?”

  “What are you doing? Are you daft?”

  “Daft?”

  “Forget it,” Drew says, conceding everything.

  “I will. I’m desperate to forget all of this and fast forward my life by two or three days. The hurricane will be over then, and I can leave and I’ll never have to see any of these people ever again.”

  “Ah,” Drew says, breaking in with rhythm, “now, that’s something I know you can’t do with time unfortunately, it’s one of the universe’s built-in limitations, no fast forwarding, or rewinding, or pausing. If I could rewind… hmm, what would I do? Actually, no, I wouldn’t rewind, that would be awful, to have to relive everything again. I’d fast forward instead, yeah, right to the end and see how it all turns out, then I’d rewind back to here. I think I’d lead a happier life that way. There would be no mysteries about the end. I think that’s where all anxiety comes from, the fear of death. If I go forward and see that I die aged a hundred on a nice bed at home surrounded by a loving family, that’ll be fine for me.”

  “But what if you don’t see that? What if you see that you’ll die tonight? The victim of a murder, and you’ll be alone and nobody sees you? Nobody sees your pain?”

  “Wow.” Drew slumps like a kite on a calm day. “I think I’d do things differently in the time that I’ve got left, I’d make the most of it.”

  “Oh, I know what that means, it means you’d have one last fuck, doesn’t it?” Hazel says, gingerly lifting her fork to her lips.

  “Yeah, I do. What’s wrong with that? And what else can be done with so little time in this place? Falling in love would be pointless, I don’t have time to write a novel or win a Nobel prize or score the winning goal in the World Cup final or figure out what the world sees in Kim Kardashian. Of all the things on the bucket list, having more sex is probably the only practical thing I have time for. I could use the time to have sex, then write my will.”

  “So, who are you going to sex-up?” Hazel says, brimming with the gossipy silliness of the Wolf and Cellar’s sunny Sunday afternoons.

  “I’d probably ask for volunteers,” considers Drew, “then, to narrow down the field from that presumably large pool of people I’d draw a few names out of a hat to decide the lucky winners.”

  “Winners? Plural?”

  “I’m about to have a bloody death, so I might as well. Oh, I’m going to miss everything so much. Sex, obviously, breakfast veggie burritos, music, my couch, trees, books and the smell of old words, the sounds of clinking change in my pocket, the sun, cherry blossoms, birdsong, being alive, I’ll miss it all.”

  “In that case you better make today count. What are your plans?” Hazel returns her gaze to her phone and tuts once more.

  “I think that’s my problem, I never really have plans. But I can change that.” He looks around the room. “Today, I’ll mostly be… er… playing dominoes, I suppose – with you!” Sensing a refusal, Drew continues, “Come on, I’m about to die and all you’re doing is staring at your phone. It’ll do you no good, we’re in a bunker, the walls are so thick you’ll never get a signal in here, and if you did who are you going to call? And what can they do in a hurricane? Save your battery for when the hurricane’s passed. Come and help me live life to the fullest, by playing the crap out of those dominoes over there.”

  And so the day passes, first with dominoes, then with cards, then with some talk of DJ’ing and some government science, then more food; soup, “Delicious Hat Soup” according to Drew’s reading of the handwritten menu on the wall, but after tasting, Hazel determined its flavor was actually tomato. Later, when the day was assumed to move into the early evening, and after another meal of rice, peas and carrots, and another speaker announcement by the Pastor, the band arranged themselves behind their instruments and played as they had done the night before, with similar bluesy popular mellow standards from a bygone era.

  “Come on, you can’t die without a last dance. Let’s dance.” Hazel turns to Drew with a broad smile and mischief in her eyes.

  “Let’s dance? Put on your red shoes and dance the blues? Who do you think you are? David Bowie? I can’t dance. I don’t know how to,” Drew says, but with Hazel’s unrelenting expression of defiance, he quickly caves. “Okay, fine, just don’t make fun of me.”

  “No promises. Come on, I love this song,” Hazel says, walking onto the small undefined dance floor in front of the band.

  “What song is it?” Drew asks.

  “‘When a Man Loves a Woman’, probably one of the most famous songs ever. Some DJ you are. I’m beginning to doubt your credentials.”

  “I’m more of a dub-step kind of guy.”

  “Well, Mr. Dub-step, if you’re going to die tonight one last dance is only fair. Now, hold my hands and move your feet slowly, like this. No, not like that. Ha, you have no co-ordination at all! Come on co-ordo-boy, watch me and follow my lead.”

  And so it is. Dancing, hand in hand, Drew finds his step, and after many hours of conversation, food, laughter and time, the light of a bond suggests itself. For the first time in as long as he could remember, Drew finds himself face to face with something that absorbs him completely, no fractures in his mind appear, no obscure memories, no interruptions, just dancing with Hazel, looking into her eyes and her looking into his.

  “Do you feel that?” Hazel asks.

  “Yeah. I think I do.”

  “Creepy, isn’t it?”

  “Creepy? That’s harsh. I thought we were having a nice time.”

  “I don’t mean the dancing, I mean them, everyone, look around.”

  Drew looks. The crowded room, which a moment earlier was rich in dancing and joviality, is now poor in both. The packed room is flooded by stares and all rivers flow towards Drew and Hazel.

  “I don’t think they like me,” Hazel says, halting their dance and leading Drew to a chair.

  “I don’t think it’s you, I think it’s me,” Drew whispers.

  “You mean, for hitting that guy with your car?”

  “Maybe. Very likely. I wonder what happened to him.”

  23

  There is no part of my life, upon which I can look back without pain

  Stephen, our unfortunate friend, lies crumpled inside Salvation’s humble but reasonably equipped medical bay. The facility has three hospital beds, each surrounded by a suite of instruments and apparatus. Aside from the equipment, the room itself looks very much like any other inside Salvation; a small concrete box with loudspeakers mounted on the walls. The temperature’s warm and there’s a strong sharp smell of isopropyl alcohol which has caused Stephen to wake from his uncomfortable slumber. For the fir
st time since his arrival, he’s drifted into consciousness. Someone inside the room notices and speaks.

  “Don’t worry, Father’s going to take care of you very soon. In the meantime, make sure that you’re comfortable. How’s your pain?”

  Stephen tries to open his eyes, but the light stings. From behind firmly closed lids he responds, “It’s fine, honestly, I think I got off pretty lucky… all things considered. I just had my bell rung pretty hard. Where am I exactly? Has the hurricane passed yet? How long was I out for?”

  Stephen’s head hasn’t felt this bad since his very first hangover. At age fourteen, he discovered that drinking a whole bottle of whiskey in thirty minutes was a bad idea. He can still, with clarity, remember the swirling feeling he had the next day when he got up to pitch in his junior league baseball game. Surrounded by the smell of whiskey, he tried to keep it together on the mound with deep slow breaths, but the day was baking hot and breathing made the sickness worse. He pulled his cap down as far as he could and swung his arm. The pitch was not a good one, not only did he nearly throw out his shoulder but the ball bounced in front of the batter and Stephen puked over his shoes. The coach wasn’t happy but the crowd and the players on both teams thought it was the funniest thing they’d ever seen.

  Worse than the public vomiting was the headache, it felt like a rhythmic lightning strike to the head, the kind that causes the brain to fire out SOS signals and swirl into deep oblivion.

  Now, lying in this hospital bed, Stephen has the same energy-sapping headache. He tries to open his eyes again but the lights hanging from the ceiling still hurt. His bed is comfortable, and some kind soul has pushed a space heater to his bedside next to his legs and he can feel its warmth.

  “You’ve been out cold all night.”

  “Did anybody get my boots? I lost ’em in the mud out there when that car hit me,” he says, rubbing his forehead.