Rivers

by Michael Farris Smith

  The man turned and shouted to the black woman behind the grill. “Four breakfasts. All of it on all of them.” Then he asked what they were drinking and he shouted that out too and then resumed his place in the doorway along with the humming and the tapping.

  “God knows you’ve earned a breakfast,” Cohen said to Evan and the boy nodded.

  Cohen stood up, took off his coat, and set it on the seat next to Mariposa. Then he reached into his pocket and took out the folded money. “Might as well see what we got.” He unfolded the money and began to count the hundred-dollar bills. When he was done, he said, “Thirteen hundred.”

  “Damn,” said Evan.

  “Damn like good or damn like bad?” asked Cohen.

  “Damn like good. Right?”

  Cohen shook his head. “Damn like bad. We got this and we got the truck and everything in it, though. But we’re back in the real world now where it costs money to breathe.”

  “Not me. Watch this,” Brisco said and he huffed and puffed as if trying to put out a fire.

  “It’s enough,” Mariposa said.

  “Not really. It’s more than nothing. But less than something,” Cohen said. I could fix that, he started to add, but he stopped.

  At the doorway, two men holding bottles in brown paper bags tried to come in but the man told them to go on and he poked at them with the stick. They backed off and walked on by, looking longingly into the café as if the mere sight of food might ease their hunger.

  It wasn’t long before the food arrived. Plates of eggs and grits and bacon and sausage. Toast with butter and jelly and biscuits with gravy and sliced tomatoes. There was no more talking for some time.

  When Cohen was done, he stood up and walked to the doorway and lit a cigarette. He asked the man if he wanted one but he said no and then Cohen asked if there was such a thing as a hotel around here.

  “Where you coming here from, anyway?” the man asked.

  “Down there. Kinda expected something different at the Line.”

  “The Line?” the man said and huffed. “That’s turning into an old wives’ tale.”

  “That’s what I keep hearing.”

  “You better keep on going then,” the man said. “That Line is bullshit. See those cop cars over there?” He pointed the pool stick. “Been sitting there for about a year. Go look at ’em. Windows busted out. Gutted. Same way with anything else that was supposed to mean something. Been more than a year since we had anything to hold on to.”

  “How much farther to where it all starts?”

  The man shrugged. “I got no idea. Everywhere I know about is like this. Probably as far up as Tennessee, I guess. On the east side. West side is washed out.”

  “What you mean, washed out?”

  “Damn, man. You need to get educated if you plan on getting anywhere with that crew. Go look over there at the end of the counter. There’s a newspaper about two months old but it’ll do.”

  Cohen crossed the café and sat down on a bar stool at the end of the counter. He picked up the newspaper and unfolded it. It was a national newspaper, and the front-page articles spoke to the weather, boundary issues, relief issues, banking issues. The legend at the bottom said WEATHER 16A. It also said BOUNDARIES 16A.

  Cohen found 16A to be the back page. Across the top half of the page was a map of the United States that provided regional weather information. Across the bottom half of the page was another United States map, the boundary map. “Good Lord,” he said.

  A blue-shaded area split the country and covered all the states bordering the east and west sides of the Mississippi River. Across the blue-shaded area was written THE FLOODLANDS. Texas and the southeast region, above the Line, were red, up to Tennessee and North Carolina. SERVICES AND SECURITY LIMITED covered the red region. The Line was a thick black line that appeared to be in its original place ninety miles inland. Maroon covered the region below the Line and read ACCESS FORBIDDEN. On either side of THE FLOODLANDS, the northeast and the west, the map was green, and across both of these regions was written SERVICES AND SECURITY UNLIMITED.

  Cohen laid the newspaper on the counter. His mouth was open some as he turned and looked blankly at the man in the doorway, at the riffraff milling about on the sidewalk.

  He had no idea what to do.

  “Don’t look too spiffy, does it,” said the black woman working the grill.

  He didn’t register her.

  “Hey,” she said loudly.

  Cohen shook his head some and turned to her.

  “I said it don’t look too spiffy,” she said again and she pointed her spatula at the newspaper.

  Cohen closed his mouth. Shook his head.

  Then he got up and walked back over to the big man in the doorway.

  A woman with a blanket draped over her head and shoulders came along. She held out a shaking hand and said, “Got dollar? Got dollar?”

  “No dollar. Go on,” the man said. “Can’t buy a damn stick of gum with a dollar.”

  She went on. There was a clap of thunder and a snap of lightning and some of them out on the sidewalk applauded and cheered. The man turned and saw Cohen behind him and said, “You educated now?”

  “Yeah. More than I’d like.”

  The thunder roared again and again they cheered.

  “They do this all day, I’m guessing,” Cohen said.

  “All day and all night. Sidewalks never get still. They crawl in and out of these building like goddamn rats. Starting to grow little rats now. It’s a crying damn shame. Used to sit right here in this spot every morning and read the paper. Drink my coffee. Say hey to whoever. By the way, I’m Big Jim.”

  The two men shook hands and Cohen lit a cigarette. They stood there watching the rain, watching the others. When Cohen was done, he tossed the butt out on the sidewalk. A bent-over old man reached down and picked it up and tried to smoke it.

  “Get the hell out of here,” Big Jim yelled and the old man looked at him without care but shuffled away.

  Big Jim folded his arms and looked at Cohen. Then he looked over at their table. “I got two rooms upstairs. Second floor. I live up on the third so you probably don’t have nothing to worry about. Best you’re gonna get.”

  “How much?”

  “Hundred.”

  “A hundred what?”

  “Dollars.”

  “For both?”

  “For one.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Fine. Both. How long you planning on being here?”

  Cohen looked out at the rain. Imagined someplace where the sun was shining on the sidewalk. “At a hundred dollars a night not very damn long.”

  Cohen walked back to the table and sat down. The plates were empty and they sat slumped in the booth. The three of them seemed to have changed color with their full bellies as if they had ingested some magical potion for happiness.

  “We’re gonna stay upstairs tonight,” Cohen said. “Got two rooms. The café man lives up on top so everything will be fine.”

  “And we go tomorrow?” Mariposa asked.

  Cohen heard her but didn’t answer. He repeated the question in his head with the emphasis on the word “we.” And we go tomorrow? Yes, he thought. We.

  “Won’t be going nowhere tomorrow, by the looks of it,” Evan said.

  “We’ll see what the storms do first.”

  The woman came over and refilled their coffee mugs.

  Evan said, “You think the others made it to the hospital?”

  “They will. Eventually. Gonna take a while,” Cohen said. “They seemed serious about getting them there.” He thought about Kris getting into the black vehicle, about the guard telling him it was a hundred miles to a safe place. He wondered what that meant for the Line. Or if there was such a thing anymore.

  “Think that baby is okay?” Evan asked.

  “I bet he’s fine,” Cohen said. “I hope so.”

  Evan sat up straight. Put his elbows on the table. “Only seems fair that he wou
ld be,” he said.

  The others nodded. And then they sat quietly for a while. Brisco laid his head in his brother’s lap, his feet hanging out of the end of the booth. Mariposa leaned against Cohen’s shoulder and closed her eyes.

  Outside they moved along the sidewalks, looking in at those lucky enough to have a seat in a dry café and money to spend once they were inside. Big Jim shooed them away like flies. The man with the tattooed neck walked by, stopped when he noticed Cohen in the window. He grinned and pointed at him and he pointed at Mariposa and then he clapped his hands softly and nodded. Cohen, trying not to wake the girl, slowly stuck his hand into his coat that lay on the seat, took hold of a pistol, and he raised it and showed it to the man. The man threw back his head and laughed, and then he grabbed at his crotch and walked on.

  Then Charlie walked into the café.

  39

  “DAMN. I FIGURED YOU WERE dead,” Cohen said as he met him inside the doorway. He shook hands with his old friend.

  Charlie’s face and eyes looked tired and he smelled like a wet dog. “Pretty damn close. Looks like you finally wised up,” he answered. “Where you sitting?”

  Cohen pointed at the booth where Mariposa and Evan and Brisco napped.

  “Where’d you find them?” Charlie asked.

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. I wouldn’t believe it neither if I didn’t see it all myself.”

  “That’s a lot of mouths to feed.”

  “Come on,” Cohen said. “Let’s sit down.”

  Charlie took a chair and slid it to the end of the table and sat down. Cohen touched shoulders and woke the others and introduced everybody. Charlie shook Evan’s hand. He looked curiously at Mariposa, and then at Cohen, and then at Mariposa again.

  “What the hell happened?” Cohen said.

  Charlie waved to the girl waiting tables and told her to bring him some coffee. His hands were dirty and there was a scrape across his cheek and mud on the elbows of his coat. “I tell you what happened. Ever since that backhoe got spotted, every time I rode it out of the back of the U-Haul, the damn Indians started popping out from everywhere. Especially them crazy-ass army boys or Line patrol or whatever they are. They came from everywhere but me and another boy somehow managed to drive that backhoe back up in the truck and haul ass while they were busy killing each other. Shot my U-Haul full of holes.”

  “I still can’t believe you’re running around digging blind on a ten-mile stretch of beach.”

  “I ain’t no more. Lost damn near all my boys. All but one laying up there waiting to die.”

  “Up where?”

  “Across the square over there. I got a top floor where I come and go.”

  The girl brought Charlie’s coffee and set it on the table.

  “Looks like y’all are trying to get fat,” Charlie said as he took in the empty plates and cups on the table.

  “It’s been a while,” Cohen said. “You want something?”

  Charlie sipped his coffee, then he stood up. “Come over here, Cohen. Let’s me and you talk.” Cohen got up from the booth and Charlie nodded to the others. Cohen followed Charlie over to the counter and they sat on bar stools.

  “What you got going on?” Charlie asked.

  “I got nothing going on. We had to haul ass out of there, too. Think the same boys that got after you got after us. We hit a couple of them and then ran out of Gulfport. Ended up here just a little while ago but it wasn’t easy.”

  “It never is. You staying?”

  “No longer than we have to.”

  The girl passed with the coffeepot and refilled Charlie’s cup.

  “We?”

  Cohen nodded.

  “You know about this storm coming, huh?” Charlie asked.

  “Like I know about all the rest.”

  “Nah. Not like the rest. That’s what the word is.”

  “We’ve been down here too long to get worried.”

  “Maybe. But I was listening to the radio and they kept on like this one is bigger than hell. A real monster.” Charlie took another sip of coffee, then said, “You’re right. I ain’t worried. I gotta go see about that boy up there. Where you gonna be?”

  “Staying here. Man said he’s got rooms upstairs.”

  “That’s good. Don’t run off. I might need some help.”

  “I might, too.”

  Charlie set down the cup and he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a wad of cash. “Here. Let me pay for that food.” He held the money out, but Cohen pushed his hand away.

  “Save your favors for helping me out with supplies and gas. I don’t plan on being here but for a day or two.”

  Charlie put the money back into his coat and he stood up. “I’m right across there,” he said, pointing out of the café door. “Top floor, middle building. Stairway is in back. But don’t sneak up on me.” He took out a cigarette and turned up the collar of his coat, then he walked out of the café and onto the crowded sidewalk. Cohen watched him walk, thought he had a limp. Thought he looked old and worn. More than usual.

  He moved from the counter back over to the booth and asked if they were ready to go upstairs. Outside there was thunder and then more thunder. More lightning. More applause from the crowds on the sidewalk in their satisfaction of the storm. As if it gave them what they desired.

  THE TWO ROOMS WERE MUCH the same. Off-white walls with mismatched furniture, end tables and dressers and headboards that looked as if they had been gathered at yard sales. Scratched hardwood floors, discolored here and there, and windows that looked across the square. In each room, a chair and small table sat next to the windows, and on each table was a short stack of several-year-old magazines. A small glass chandelier hung from each ceiling. The bathroom separated the rooms, with its claw-foot tub and its sink that had streaked orange from the years of the dripping faucet and its diamond-shaped ceramic tile. A bookshelf next to the sink, with candles and matches on the top shelf and toilet paper and towels on the bottom.

  Brisco ran to a bed and jumped up and down and Mariposa headed into the bathroom and turned on the faucet. The water came out copper-colored but after a minute ran clear and she washed her face. She walked into the other bedroom, took off her coat, and fell back on the bed.

  Cohen and Evan went out to the truck and they took what was important and returned to the rooms, staying off the square and sneaking around and behind buildings and knocking on the back door of the café until the big man let them in. They brought the guns and ammunition and bags of clothes and the big man only nodded at the rifles and shotgun when Cohen said I gotta keep them somewhere. Once they were all upstairs again, Cohen slid the rifles and shotgun underneath the bed in the room that he and Mariposa would share. He stashed the boxes of shells in the bottom drawer of the dresser and then he handed one of the two pistols to Evan.

  “I don’t want it,” Evan said.

  “You need to keep it. Hide it somewhere.”

  “What for?”

  “Jesus, Evan. You know what for. For whatever the hell comes along.”

  “Unload it,” Evan said.

  “It don’t work if it’s not loaded. You don’t have to sleep with it, just hide it in there somewhere. Take it,” Cohen said and he pushed it on the boy. Evan took it and went into the other room where Brisco had discovered the television.

  “Go hide it for him,” Mariposa said when Evan was gone.

  “If I hide it for him, he won’t know where it is.” Cohen put the other pistol in the top drawer of the dresser. “You see where this is?” he asked her. She nodded.

  He walked to the window and pushed back the curtain. He looked out at the rain, at the people across the square. He thought about the guard at the Line warning about the monster that was coming, thought about Charlie’s mention of the same thing. Maybe we haven’t seen it all.

  “What do you think?” Mariposa said.

  Cohen closed the curtain. Sat down in the chair next to the window. “I think we
’re dry. We’re safe. I think we won’t be here long.”

  Mariposa walked into the bathroom and closed the door to the adjoining room. Then she came back into their room and began to undress.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  She let the dirty, damp clothes fall in a pile and said, “I think I’m going to be clean. And then I think I’m going to sleep in a bed.”

  THE FIRST NIGHT HE DREAMED of children. He dreamed of babies on their backs, their mouths open and bodies relaxed in innocent slumber. He dreamed of early walkers, wobbly and unsure, knocking against coffee tables and doorways and dropping flat on their bottoms and then getting up and going again. He dreamed of big kids riding horses and playing freeze tag and fishing from the bank and he dreamed of teaching a girl to ride a bicycle without the training wheels and the trust she put in him to make sure that she didn’t fall. The children of his dreams were both girls and boys, sometimes blond and sometimes dark-haired, sometimes loud and rambunctious and sometimes tender and mild. The children of his dreams were never wet and never cold and they had shadows because they had sunshine. He woke several times in the night and each time he hurried back to sleep, trying to catch up with the little bodies and voices running through his mind.

  HIS RESTLESSNESS KEPT HER AWAKE and then her mind began to spin and she couldn’t sleep. She got out of bed and put on her jeans and sweatshirt and walked to the window. She was unsure of the time, though it was still the middle of the night. The rain fell hard and she saw only blurry images of bodies out under the awning. Some standing, some sprawled out, orange tips of cigarettes dots in the dark. She closed the curtain and walked quietly to the door, eased it open and slipped through, and went downstairs to the café.

  The café was dark. Chairs were upturned on tables and the lights were off in the seating area, but the storage room light glowed through the square window of the swinging door. Along the counter, coffee mugs and hard plastic glasses were lined in rows and spatulas and tongs sat in a silver bowl on the grill top. Condensation fogged the windows and the café was thick with humidity.

  Mariposa walked to a booth along the wall in the darkest corner, and she sat down facing the café windows.