I’m screaming to the metal garage door to open up and save us. I’m screaming to anyone behind it. I’m screaming to God.
KK fires into the door. It dents, rips a little. She does it again.
The Chucks come at us from both sides of the street. The closest one’s a stone’s throw away.
I’m pounding. I’m begging to be let in. I’m praying fox-hole pleas about righting wrongs, getting sober, being a good person, giving money to the poor, never jerking off again, curing cancer.
KK unloads the rest of her gun and the hole grows to the size of a fist.
Typewriter faces the wave of demented motherfuckers. He hollers and shoots into the encroaching crowd. KK has both hands inside of the hole she’s created. She tries to pry it open. It’s futile. I pound with my fist and my head and scream.
And I start reciting the Serenity Prayer. I’m not sure where it comes from but I’m saying God, grant me the serenity as Typewriter fires and pumps and KK presses her bloodied hands in the hole; I’m chanting to accept the things I cannot change, and I quit slamming the wall and turn to aim my gun and it shakes like a motherfucker as I fire into the crowd screaming the courage to change the things I can and I put the barrel in my mouth and the final verse is inside my head—and the wisdom to know the difference.
I’m about to pull the trigger when I hear KK holler.
She’s running toward an open door, yelling for us to come.
Some teenager with the worst meth-picked face I’ve ever seen holds the door.
Typewriter!
He turns, sees the door, and starts sprinting.
I aim over his shoulder and drop two Chucks a foot behind him. I run backward, firing into open mouths. Somebody grabs me and shoves me inside. Then the metal door slams shut and it’s pitch black.
12:44 PM
The kid stands over me. He’s skinny as fuck. His face is the unfortunate combination of severe acne and busy fingers. He points a snub-nosed revolver at me. Tells me to strip.
What the fuck? Typewriter says.
You too, he says. The gun swings in the other direction. All of you.
Dude…
Need to see if you’re bit. If you’re infected.
His hand trembles. I wonder if he’s ever held a gun before last week. I tell him we’re fine.
We’ve got rules here, he says.
We?
Yeah, we.
How many—
Stop. You need to strip.
You said we, how many?
Chase, KK says. She’s taken off her shirt. Her nipples are Jolly Ranchers. She kicks off her shorts and I tell her she doesn’t need to do this. The kid points the gun at me and it’s shaking even more.
Jesus, Chase, just take off your fucking clothes, KK says.
She’s naked. The kid stares at her, motions for her to spin around. She does. He seems to have a hard time studying her, glancing down at the cement, then at her, like he’s embarrassed.
Okay, he says.
I strip. He asks what’s on my stomach and I tell him cuts from glass and he seems satisfied with this answer.
Typewriter’s next. His pasty body is blotched with cuts, scabs. The kid doesn’t notice the healed scoop missing from the back of his leg.
The kid lowers his gun.
The Chucks howl from behind the metal garage door. A few hands poke through the hole KK made. He says, Sorry about the search, gotta, you know?
I have my pants back on and I stick out my hand and tell him Chase and he tells me Maddie. KK and Typewriter introduce themselves. I tell him thanks for saving us and he nods like it was nothing and motions for us to follow him up the stairs. It’s weird being here. I’m remembering being sixteen, fuck, probably Maddie’s age, handcuffed, arrested, being brought up this very staircase.
How many of you are there?
Three, including me.
How?
Maddie laughs. He says, I was here, locked up on some Mickey Mouse shit. Had court Monday. The others showed up together the next day.
How are you… I mean, for dope?
Cooking in here, he says.
Typewriter gives a hell yeah and I smile and so does KK and Maddie laughs and we walk up another flight. He says, Don’t get too excited. It’s pretty ratty crank. Plus, only one shot a day.
That’s cool, that’s totally cool, Typewriter says.
For sure, I say.
Maddie presses against a red door. It’s the booking station—a small room with a few desks, some computers, interrogation rooms off to one side.
Still have power? I ask.
Yup.
I’m remembering pressing my fingers into ink, then sitting in the room and some detective in a short-sleeve button-down asking where I got the pills and mushrooms. Asking if I grew them, Got an operation in your basement, don’t ya? Don’t ya? I’d watched his mustache. It seemed to grow in audible slithers.
I hear laughter. My testicles shrink into my hip flexors.
The fuck? I say.
Maddie shakes his head, staring at a detention room. He’s like, It’s fine man, just a kid who turned, was handcuffed to the table in there.
Fuck that, KK says.
I’ll kill the motherfucker right now, Type says.
I put my arm out and Type tells me to get the fuck off him and Maddie looks uncomfortable. I’m not trying to have our entrance be Type blasting Chucks, Maddie thinking we’re psycho. Just let it be, I say.
KK gives me a look and I’m not sure if it’s fuck this or fuck you. I interpret it as her saying she’s not trying to be around a single laugh, so I ask Maddie if we’re sleeping somewhere else.
He picks at his face and says, Yeah, yeah, for sure. Down the hall.
KK lets me take her hand.
Maddie leads us to a control room of sorts. It’s nothing but monitors, all of them security-camera footage. Some artsy-type guy with thick black-rimmed glasses, probably late thirties, sits at a swiveling chair. When he turns to shake our hands, I notice he’s missing his right ear, just a small river valley of scar tissue surrounding a tiny cavern.
He introduces himself as Randy. He speaks in a British accent. You were mighty lucky. Mighty lucky, he says.
I just keep telling them thanks. I figure this is all I’m good for. I look at one of the screens. It’s a feed from just outside the garage. Hundreds of walking dead smash the door. I ask if he can rewind it, just to see how close we were to…
Stop, KK says.
Randy stands. The inside of his left arm’s beat to shit, bruised to the point of black. I think one of his veins is abscessed. He says, Sorry, bud, no rewinding function, that must have happened somewhere else. Just live feeds.
I nod.
He slaps my back and says, Mighty lucky.
I smile. KK tries to. Typewriter holds his gun.
Shall we? Randy says.
They lead us back into the hallway. Things smell like industrial cleaner, something lemony, and ammonia. I’m dying to see the operation. I’m hoping it’s big and sheets of crystal are being broken up right this second.
Can’t believe anyone could make it this long out there, Randy says.
Can’t either, KK responds.
We all laugh because we’re nervous and relieved.
My prayers have been answered. Life inside secure walls. A controlled intake of dope. Electricity. Us being safe. Then I’m wondering about the third person—maybe it’s Cheng’s friend, the guy who said this was where he was headed. I realize when I showed up, Cheng got killed, just like the Albino, and everywhere I go, people die. I decide to keep this thought tabled.
We walk into a cafeteria. I smell shit being cooked. Rectangular tables with attached round seats span the large room. Metal mesh covers the line of windows separating wall and ceiling.
Maddie calls into the kitchen—Derrick.
I can hear the banging of pots.
Hey, mate, come out here for a second, Randy says.
I gl
ance between KK and Typewriter and Maddie. A big motherfucker steps into view. He’s got to be over six five and has a shaved head. It’s obvious he’s one of those speed freaks who shoots shit only to lift more weight. He’s wearing a white apron over a bare chest and his arms are bigger than my thighs. He stares at us. There’s some sort of tattoo on his neck, a set of praying hands maybe. The tension is palpable.
Chase, I say, and this is KK, this is Typewriter.
He crosses his arms over his impressive man tits. It’s some Shark-Jet standoff and we’re all waiting for an introduction, which I realize isn’t coming.
Maddie looks at the floor.
Mr. Clean shakes his head and walks back into the kitchen.
That went well, Randy says.
Again, we give some uncomfortable laughs.
We leave the kitchen. Randy’s telling us Derrick is the alpha type, survival of the fittest, paranoid about diminishing supplies, but a good guy once you get to know him.
Yeah, yeah, for sure, I say.
We head farther down the hall. A set of heavy-duty doors is propped open under a green painted C.
Welcome home, Maddie says.
It’s a common room with round tables and a hanging TV and white linoleum. There’re probably eight rooms—cells, I guess—built into the walls. It’s juvie, the exact same setup I’d been in, only I was in block A. We’re saying how nice it is, how perfect. We walk around like it’s an open house. I peek into a cell and see a single thin mattress and an aluminum toilet. I ask if the water works and Maddie says, Thank fucking God.
KK studies a bookshelf. I join her. It’s nothing but Bibles and AA Big Books. There’s a stack of board games. KK turns to me. Her dimples show. She grabs my pinky and squeezes and I want it to be more.
Pick a room, Randy says.
Typewriter says, That far one taken?
Maddie shakes his head. Go ahead and shotgun that shit, he says.
I’m wondering where that big motherfucker Derrick sleeps. I’m not trying to be his neighbor. KK walks to the room next to Typewriter’s and I follow. I’m not sure if we’re sharing a room or where we actually stand. She pokes her head inside and says, Guess this one’s me, and that answers that. I go into the cell next to her. I’m thinking about my cell as a teenager, how I was tripping and so scared, more of my parents than anything. My black roommate was in for stealing cars and complained how it wasn’t fair because rich honkies were ignorant to park in his neighborhood—fucking stupid, thinking their shit’s safe—and I’d agreed, embarrassed because he was describing me.
I sit on the mattress. There’s even a sheet. I rub my temples. The pressure’s still there. It’s burrowing into my sinuses. I can’t stop hearing that baby’s coos. I need sleep or scante. I think about this room having been occupied a week before. Some kid had no doubt lay down in this locked cell to the chorus of shouts and cusses from his cell mates, tossed and turned, worried about his upcoming court date or maybe his sentence, thinking about everything unfair in the world—parents and race and money and drugs and the education system and getting caught just doing what he had to—and maybe sleep finally came, restful, all consuming, and, him being sober, unending.
Then I wonder what the fuck Maddie did when he woke up and nobody else did. How did he unlock his cell? Where were the kids who reanimated?
I may ask him but right now I don’t care, not really. I’m tired and I lie down, kick off my shoes. I can’t remember the last time I’ve slept. I yell that I’m closing my eyes for a minute. Typewriter yells that he’s about to bomb out the bathroom. Our hosts laugh. KK shouts that she’s taking a nap too. I take off my clothes. I have no boxers. I climb under the paper-thin sheet. It’s cold, but good cold, a toe-in-summer-lake-water cold, relaxing.
6:39 PM
I’m rocking an orange jumpsuit with RAMSEY COUNTY J.D.C. stenciled in white across my shoulder blades. Type and KK are too. We’re sitting in the common room with the others eating rice. It’s the best food I’ve ever tasted. I eat what has to be close to a pound. We drink water. I can’t get enough. Derrick’s put on a shirt. I’m grateful for this. He doesn’t talk and I want to be like, Give me a fucking break man, like sorry we crashed your private party, sorry the fucking world ended, sorry you were the last safe place in the city. But I don’t. I spoon steaming rice into my mouth and it’s thick in my throat and thicker in my stomach.
We finish.
KK thanks them again.
Thank Maddie here, British Randy says.
Right.
Serious, this bloke right here let us in. All of us.
I remember my questions about what he did the previous Monday. I ask what happened.
People’s smiles fade. Derrick pushes his bowl to the center of the table. It’s definitely praying hands tattooed on his neck.
Sorry, I didn’t mean…
It’s cool, Maddie says. He rubs his buzzed head.
KK stands and collects the cafeteria trays.
Maddie says, I was in the detox holding cell. I got out after a day.
I’m nodding, not really knowing what the fuck is so bad about that. We’ve been through a hell of a lot worse, me, KK, and Typewriter—killed who knows how many Chucks, my mom, KK killed Jared, that cooing baby—and I’m waiting for more and then it comes.
I wasn’t alone, he says.
Randy rubs Maddie’s shoulder. Maddie starts picking at a scab on his forehead. I was arrested with my younger brother, he says.
Then I get it. I picture a smaller version of Maddie turning, giggling, him probably not having enough scante in his system to make it through the night. I picture Maddie having no idea what the hell was happening, an attack, a what the fuck, a punch, and then him realizing that it was for real, that little Danny or Johnny wasn’t normal, wasn’t human anymore and was going to kill him. I picture Maddie’s hands around his younger brother’s throat, and I know a kid like Maddie isn’t a killer, just an addict, and I’m seeing him as me.
Had to deal with a few guards too, Maddie says.
Jesus, KK says. She’s standing behind him. I can tell she wants to console him, to tell him she understands.
Cell block C was closed, something about the AC being broken. So that’s where I went. Had an eight ball cornholed, got me through until these two showed up.
Randy nods. I stare into the hole on the side of his head. Randy says, Every other block is full.
Full?
Of them.
Bro, Typewriter says.
Not shit we can do, Derrick says.
Got earplugs, though, Maddie offers.
KK drops the trays and I’m up quick. I’m at her side, my hands on her shoulders. She bites the hell out of her lower lip.
It’s completely safe, Randy says. If they haven’t gotten out yet, they won’t. They’ll starve soon, anyway.
Fuck me, Typewriter says.
They’re locked in here. With us, KK says.
I’m like, We’re safe. We’re good. I wrap my arms around her. She’s rigid, everything flexed. Her big nose presses against my cheek.
Typewriter cleans up the dropped trays.
KK says that we need to go, that it’s not safe here, that she can’t fucking do it anymore.
Baby, we’re good. I pull her tighter. I realize I called her baby. I tell her this is everything we’ve been searching for.
She whispers, This is a fucking death trap.
Who wants to get their asses kicked at Monopoly? Randy asks.
Fuck that, Derrick says. He stands and I’m shielding KK from him and we make eyes and there’s nothing about this motherfucker I like and he says, Morning dose at seven.
I want KK to believe me, to return to how she was ten minutes before, grateful to have warm food and shelter. I tell her she can be on my team.
You good?
She nods.
We sit at the table and Randy sets up Monopoly. Maddie calls the top hat. Typewriter says to stay off the wheelbarrow. KK’
s the dog. I’m the iron. I haven’t played this game since I was a kid, but I remember the rules, the strategy, the idea that you have to spend money early to make money later. I pick up a railroad. We’re rolling the dice, buying things with fake money, building empires. We’re barely talking; immersing ourselves in the game is easier. Baltic Avenue, Atlantic Avenue, Electric Company, Community Chest. KK smiles when she lands on Park Place and buys it. Things are better. Go directly to jail, do not pass go. We can relate to that. Everyone holds their money in their hands. I guess old habits die hard. It’s pleasant. Maybe we started playing because it seemed ironic, but really we love it, the idea of taking over the world. Everyone does. It’s as American as cheerleaders and missionary sex. Strangling the competition, the American way. Randy catches me staring at his missing ear and I feel like a dick. His hand goes up reflexively to shield it. I roll the dice. He says, Few years back.
What’s up?
My ear.
I’m not sure—
He laughs. He says, It was one of those moments.
I know what moments he’s talking about.
Knew cleaving off the old ear was the only way to stop.
He tries to smile and KK takes his hand. He says, Obviously didn’t work. Guess I should be thankful for that fact, otherwise I’d be dead.
KK says, We’ve all been there.
Don’t see you missing an ear, Randy says, like it’s a joke. We’re silent. KK speaks the truth—each of us has had those moments when all you want is your life before you took your first hit, and you want this so badly you cut off your own ear, burn your stomach, or just keep upping and upping your intake, moving from snorting to smoking to shooting.
It’s bad out there, huh? Maddie asks.
Typewriter shrugs. Tells him it’s more of the same.
For reals, KK says.
Chase?
I look at Maddie. He’s staring like I hold some answer he needs to hear. I say, Yeah, it’s pretty fucking bad.
I move seven spaces to Oriental Avenue and buy it.
Is everyone turned?
No. Not everyone. I’d say the majority didn’t make it through the first night.
Maddie fingers an infected cyst. He’s probably wondering about his family and, like me, wishing them a peaceful death, together, sleeping.
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