by Trevor Zaple
“I TOLD YOU WHAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN YOU LITTLE FUCK!” he screamed, and squeezed the trigger. The long, tapered .30-06 shell shot forward and erased the lower half of the kid’s face, splattering blood and flakes of grey brain over the polished black boots of the shocked police squad as well as Taggert’s stylish patent leather shoes. Within seconds the regular patrons of what was even then Taggert’s stronghold opened fire with their own weapons, cutting the Council’s goon squad down in a hail of mismatched bullets. When the ringing subsided and the haze cleared, there was an awkward silence as the crowd waited for Tagget to say something. He hefted the vintage rifle, lost in thought for a moment, and then turned around to face those who had stood with him.
“You can all stay,” he began, and they laughed uproariously, a mass tension amongst them seeming to melt away. He held up a hand to silence them.
“You can all stay,” he continued, “but you’ll have to be ready to do that again. As many times as necessary. That fat prick who calls himself a mayor can try to push people around all he likes, but now he’ll see what will happen when he tries to push us. He’s an idiot, as far as I can tell, and I know that an idiot will keep doing what doesn’t work because he thinks that it eventually will”.
He hefted the Garand again, feeling it’s ominous weight in his thick hands, and then held it aloft.
“We have to be prepared to show him that it won’t!”
The crowd filled the beer hall with applause and deafening cheers. Taggert grinned from ear to ear.
“Now let’s drink, motherfuckers, like we’ve never drunk before!”
He dove into the crowd and debauchery was the rule of the remainder of the night. As dawn approached and even the hardiest of partiers were finding a place to curl up and crash into sleep, Michael Therin sought out Taggert. Therin had been drinking up the Bollock’s supply of Appleton Jamaican rum, but seemed no worse the wear for it even as five AM was turning to six. He found Taggert sipping a glass of Jamesons on the rocks and studying a gaudy landscape portrait while lounging on one of the couches at the very back of the pub. Taggert looked up as Therin approached and then turned back to his contemplations.
“That was a very strong statement you made earlier,” Therin remarked. Taggert snorted and didn’t reply. Therin found a seat on one of the couches next to Taggert’s.
“We can arm these people, and maybe seek out some others, you know,” he continued, keeping his voice casual. Taggert remained silent.
“The food supply, though,” Therin kept going, getting right to the heart of the matter. “That ‘fat prick of a mayor’ may be an idiot as you say, but he has a point. All we’ve really got around here are frozen food and canned food. Even if we keep the Mayor and the Council from taking it, what’s to stop others from doing it?”
Taggert looked at him then, his gaze steady, and Therin realized that he wasn’t even a little bit drunk. He felt a shiver run down his arms.
“Isn’t that the point?” Taggert murmured, his voice heavy. Therin studied him, trying to glean some sort of meaning from that. Taggert noticed, and his broad, stone-jawed face split open in a humorless grin.
“Don’t worry, Mike,” he assured Therin with a sly tone, “there’s a plan. There’s always a plan”.
Four
“There is no goddamn way we are going down there,” Mark said heatedly, cutting his hand through the air in front of him. Olivia was sitting in a kitchen chair with her arms crossed, looking away from him angrily. Her petulant expression made Mark clench his fists involuntarily. There were a thousand other ways he wanted to say “no”, although most of them would see him thrown off the balcony onto his head.
“We’ve been hiding in here for months, Mark,” Olivia said, and her tone implied that Mark was a drooling idiot. “This is an actual reason to go out! We haven’t had any fun since everything happened!” She gestured to the colorful poster that lay flat on the round table in front of her. “This sounds like it would actually be fun”.
Mark stared down at the poster in question. “FUCK THE MAYOR PARTY” the bold headline read, and below that was a lurid image of the silhouettes of a man and a woman dancing on a glittering dancefloor. Beneath them, in slanting white type, was “Drake Hotel, August 29th. BYOB&G”
“What does the ‘and G’ stand for, anyway,” he asked disagreeably. There was a soft clunk in the kitchen, the sound of a coffee decanter being removed from the percolator.
“It means ‘and guns’” Carlos called out as he started making coffee. Mark scowled.
“Thanks a lot, Carlos,” Olivia complained. A beep from the kitchen indicated that brewing had begun.
“Sorry, hon,” Carlos replied in his easy-going tone. “He did ask”.
“I did ask,” Mark agreed, a trifle spitefully. Olivia sighed heavily.
“So we’re just going to be stuck here, bored, forever?” she asked with despair. Mark rolled his eyes.
“Yeah, I guess we’ll just have to stay safe here, huh,” he mocked her. She slammed her hands down on the table, anger accelerating out of her.
“I don’t want to stay safe here,” she said, frustration making her raise her voice. “I want to go have some fun!”
“You keep saying that,” Mark said, “but I don’t think you’ve really thought this through. You’re seven months pregnant! You need to stay safe!”
“Well I’ll tell you what,” she replied, her voice dangerous. “You’re not my father, my boyfriend, or the fucking police. I don’t care what you do. Stay here, or go take a walk into Lake Ontario. I’m going down there and I’m going to have some fucking fun. I can’t drink but a couple of joints can’t hurt, and at least there’ll be music”.
Mark stared her down, his heart trip-hammering in his chest.
“It’s my child in there too,” he stated pointedly, gesturing at her levitating belly. “I should think I have some stake in this decision”.
“You do,” she said sweetly, “so you can either come along to keep me safe, or you can stay here and not care what happens to me”. She held her belly softly. “To us”.
Mark exhaled explosively. “That’s not fair,” he rumbled. Carlos came out of the kitchen with a steaming cup of coffee; the rich smell filled the apartment. “Tell her that’s not fair,” Mark appealed to him. Carlos shrugged.
“She’s going stir-crazy, man,” he said, blowing on his coffee. “She needs to get out. I don’t blame her, I really want to go too”.
“Well there you go,” Olivia said nastily, “Carlos can come along to protect me”. She looked up at him and winked lasciviously. He returned her look neutrally, sipping carefully at his mug.
“I’m not really into pregnant girls, sorry,” he said with a straight face, “but I’ll still come along with you”. He looked at Mark. “What about you, man? I mean, do you really want to just stay here by yourself? I’d be more worried about you”.
Mark glared at him. “Well, I guess I have to now, don’t I? I’ve been pretty well railroaded into this”.
Carlos shrugged again. “There’s coffee in the kitchen, if you want to wake up a little before we go”.
Thus Mark found himself flanking Olivia along with Carlos as they walked down Queen on a fragrant, humid late-August night. A slight breeze blew fragments of litter and discarded loot in a rattle across the pavement. From somewhere ahead there was a steady, thumping bass note pounding into the air, as well as the occasional shout and scream. The noise did nothing for his peace of mind.
There were a few others heading in the same direction, keeping to themselves but often brandishing liquor bottles; there were large amounts of Bombay Sapphire, Southern Comfort, Jack Daniels, and a whole spectrum of vodkas on display. Several people were smoking joints as they walked, clouds of skunky-smelling smoke billowing behind them. A lot of them seemed like they were already drunk. Several people sang loudly, and mostly off-key, as they reeled down Queen Street. Mark eyed them all tensely, looking to Olivia to see if s
he was having any regrets about what they were doing. To his disgust she had a wide smile plastered across her face, as though they were kids on the way to a carnival. Carlos was not helping; he had already taken out the massive joint he had rolled before they had left and was patting his jacket, searching for one of his plastic lighters. Mark gritted his teeth and felt the tension building hard inside of him.
They passed the darkened facades of the shops along the stretch of Queen that was Parkdale. There had been less looting here, possibly because there were less desirable goods in them. Mark peered into the unbroken shops with more nervousness than the looted ones; the smashed-apart shops had already spread their mysteries out into the opening. The shops with intact windows were dark and only threw back reflections when he looked into them. Anything could be waiting in there. Anything at all. With a shiver he forced himself to concentrate on the path ahead.
They passed by the Cadillac Lounge (with half a Cadillac sticking out of the front of the building and Mark collided with a young Vietnamese man who was dashing out of the entrance to the bar. He spun backward and rammed into the brick wall with painful force. He heard the squeal of a young woman coming out of the bar the instant after.
“Barry!” the squealer said, and she stretched the name out over three syllables. “You’re such a dick!”
The young man—Barry—had stumbled backward and in doing so had nearly lost his balance and gone tumbling into the scattered sidewalk grit. He managed to right himself and dust himself off.
“Hold on Amber, I just ran into someone.” He stepped toward Mark. “Hey buddy, sorry for running into you there”. He held out his hand solicitously and Mark took it, peeling himself off of the wall.
“No problem,” Mark replied, “I was looking somewhere else when I should have been looking ahead”.
Amber, a good-looking blonde with a tight seafoam dress covering a generous body, put a hand to her mouth to cover her giggles. Mark laughed in spite of himself. Barry split his lips open and grinned.
“You guys going to the party at the Drake?” he asked, motioning with his thumb down Queen. “that, uh, ‘Fuck the Mayor party’, or whatever it’s called?”
Olivia nodded emphatically. Mark looked at her hesitantly.
“Yeah, we were going to check it out, it, uh…” he licked lips, “Olivia here wanted to get out”. He chuckled nervously. “She, uh, was getting stir-crazy”.
Barry looked at him oddly. “You alright?” he asked. Olivia rolled her eyes.
“He’s scared that something’s going to happen,” she said with a sneer. “Like there’s going to be a riot or something”. She smiled in such a way as to convey exactly what she thought of such an idea. Barry didn’t smile, but seemed to consider it carefully”.
“That’s not exactly all that far off from what I was thinking,” Barry replied slowly, and Mark couldn’t help himself. He shot a vindictive look at Olivia, whose eyes had frozen in place and her mouth had a definite set of displeasure.
“I knew it,” he said triumphantly. “I’m not crazy, you shouldn’t be out here.”
“Well, now,” Barry protested, “I mean, it’s not like I think it’s definitely going to erupt into chaos and violence”
“HA!” Olivia shouted, her finger thrust toward Mark’s face. “See?”. Barry held up a hand to silence everyone.
“I just think that putting a bunch of people together with a bunch of liquor and no laws is a pretty bad idea to walk into if you’re not sure about what you’re walking into.”
“Could be a bad scene, man,” Carlos agreed. “Wild West kinda scene. People get drunk, people get pissed off, people just start shooting. No police to tell them not to”.
“Absolutely,” Barry said. “But we’re carrying too”. He pulled his jacket aside to reveal a holstered .357 Magnum. Mark gasped.
“Oh, wow,” Carlos admired. “Nice piece, man, where’d you get that?”
Barry grinned. “Our friend Emily scavenged them from nearby. A couple of dudes had quite the collection forming in their basement. We’ve got quite a lot of firepower”.
“Really?” Olivia asked, suddenly interested. Barry nodded.
“Yeah, a couple of gentlemen in a building up at Bloor Street, one of those Ontario Housing buildings. They had Tamil flags hung up in the apartment, so I guess what they were doing wasn’t really a mystery. Emily got a couple of automatics, the usual AK-47s, a backpack full of pistols, some really big calibers. She says there was one of those rocket launchers they have in the movies, that just sit on your shoulder, but she couldn’t have carried that back”.
“Wow,” Olivia marveled, “lucky find”.
“Yeah,” Barry replied. He suddenly focused on Mark. “You guys should probably take one, especially if you’re nervous about safety”. Mark recoiled.
“No, I couldn’t take one,” he demurred. Olivia hit him in the arm.
“What are you saying?” she demanded. She turned to Barry. “Of course we’d take one,” she said soothingly. “Thank you very much for your generous offer”. Barry put a hand to his mouth and the suspicious corners of a snicker came out from behind it. Mark bristled.
“Hey now, this is my decision here, I’m the one it’s being offered to!”
“You need a gun”, Olivia said flatly. “You’re the one worried about protection and safety”.
“You’re not my girlfriend,” he told her spitefully. “You made that very clear”.
Olivia stared at him in absolute fury. “No, but this is yours too”. She put her hands on her stomach. Barry did a double-take.
“You’re pregnant?” he asked incredulously. Amber made an expression of disgust.
“Of course she’s pregnant, Barry,” she said. “Even through the jacket you should be able to see that”.
“Well I didn’t, ok?” he replied defensively. “I don’t notice this kind of thing”. He pointed at Mark. “You need to take a gun, now. I can’t believe she’s crazy enough to want to do this when she’s pregnant, but you need to man up and take one. That’s your kid in there?” he asked intently. Mark nodded. “Well then you’d better take a fucking gun, or I’ll punch you in the teeth”.
Mark grinned nervously, realized that Barry wasn’t joking, and nodded soberly.
“Alright, alright, sorry,” he apologized. “I’ll take a gun. Something light.”
Barry shook his head. “Uh-uh, bro, heavier’s more accurate, and if you’ve never fired a gun you should probably lean that way. Have you ever fired a gun?”
“No, never,” Mark answered. “I’ve never even seen one”. Barry took this in.
“Alright, hold on,” he said, and darted back inside the Cadillac Lounge. Olivia turned her focus to Amber.
“Are you carrying a gun?” she asked. Amber laughed.
“Where am I going to conceal one in this outfit?” she asked, running a hand down her tight green dress. “No, I’ve got a military-grade knife strapped to one thigh”.
Barry returned momentarily with a large, weighty-looking handgun and a small black plastic cylinder. He handed the cylinder to Olivia.
“Hold this,” he said. There was a little red plastic piece that Olivia guessed was a trigger of some kind. Barry turned to Mark.
“This is a .357 like mine,” he said, offering it forward with the grip towards Mark. “It has a big kick, so, uh…” he shrugged, “try not to break your wrist”.
Mark took it. He tried to read Barry’s expression and failed.
“Why are you doing this?” he demanded. Barry shrugged.
“We’re in this together, right? I mean, you seem like nice people, but nice people that found themselves a little unprepared for what they might be walking into,”
Mark shuffled his feet uncomfortably but Barry waved his hand.
“We’ve got more than enough up here, it’s not like Amber and I can shoot three guns at once. Besides, aren’t we supposed to look out for each other?”
Olivia laughed. “You
know, before all of this I would have totally agreed with you. I would have been up in your face about how two-tiered health care and workfare and rejigging Employment Insurance were all terrible social evils designed to separate the wealthy from their responsibility to the poor”.
Amber laughed delightedly and held up a clenched fist. “Fuck yeah, sister!” she exclaimed, “Vive la rouge carre!” Olivia giggled and returned her gesture.
“But does that even hold water anymore?” Mark asked, his expression sober. “I mean, just because we’re still standing in what used to be Toronto, Ontario, Canada, we’re not exactly in the same sort of situation. We’re on our own. It’s not like the government still exists, or at least enough to even matter.”
Barry looked at him without any sort of expression at all. “If you were in my shoes, and I were in yours, what would you do”. Mark stared at him with the look of a man who has exactly what he wants to say on his tongue but knows that it’s not the truth.
“Yeah,” he said finally, “yeah I would”.
Barry laughed. “You see? We’re all normal people. So far”. He lost his smile in a hurry. “I guess we’ll see how well we get along tonight, won’t we?”
“We shouldn’t be going,” Olivia said suddenly, her voice dripping with pained indecision. Barry patted his gun and then pointed at the black cylinder he’d given her.
“That’s dog spray,” he said casually, “but it’ll knock a man down just as well. Careful you aim it the right way—see the nozzle there?—and make sure you spray enough”. Olivia nodded, her eyes very full, and she put it in one of the front pockets of her faded jeans. “Tell you what,” he continued, “I’ll stick around with you guys, you seem like nice people and I’m sure you’ll be fun to hang around with. It’ll be a case of safety in numbers, what do you say?”