The Dead and Gone

by Susan Beth Pfeffer

  Alex thought the rules were stringent, but they made sense, and he was relieved that what was called for was so carefully spelled out. He liked rules. Carlos was always trying to get away with something, or at least he used to be like that before enlisting, but Alex found that rules imposed a structure, and he preferred that. He always did better when he knew exactly what was expected of him.

  He wished the flyer hadn't kept referring to bodies, though. He couldn't stand the idea of Mami being nothing more than an anonymous body.

  He pictured Mami then, sitting at the table, working on her homework while her children worked on theirs. How proud they all were when she got her GED. He thought of her at the stove, cooking their dinner. He remembered once when he'd been sick with fever, and Mami had pressed a cold washcloth against his forehead and held his hand until he'd fallen asleep. He envisioned her in church, shushing them while Father Franco gave his sermon.

  For a week he'd refused to think of her, and now he was overwhelmed by a thousand different images. What if he found Mami at Yankee Stadium? What if he didn't?

  He realized then that everybody in line for the 11:30 bus, everybody waiting for whatever bus, was as overwhelmed with thoughts and memories of the people gone from their lives as he was. No wonder no one was talking. The only protection from grief was silence and rules.

  Eventually they began boarding their bus. Number 22, he noted. He gave his name to the bus driver and was handed a card that said 33. He took an aisle seat, next to a heavyset woman who kept squeezing a packet of tissues.

  "You all have your tickets?" the bus driver asked before they began the journey.

  Everyone said yes.

  "And you have the list of rules?"

  "Yes," they all responded.

  "Be sure to follow the instructions," the bus driver cautioned them. "Stay in place once you get there. God go with you."

  Alex looked around the bus. He was the youngest person there, but a few seemed to be in their early twenties. Since only one person from a family was allowed to go, the passengers on the bus were all strangers to each other. Several of them were praying. Others stared straight ahead, or looked out the window. A few had their eyes closed, and a handful were crying.

  Alex stared out the window at the apartments on Riverside Drive as the bus whizzed up the West Side Highway. The buildings looked substantial, unlikely ever to erode. As they drove past Eighty-eighth Street, he resisted the temptation to demand to be let off. He knew what he had to do, what rules he had to follow.

  After a while the bus pulled into its parking space and the people were told to get off in an orderly fashion, making sure to have their tickets in hand and to remember where their bus was located and that its number was 22. Alex got off and displayed his ticket to the officer standing there. From the outside, Yankee Stadium seemed much as it always had. He remembered the half dozen or so times he'd gone to a game with Papi and Carlos, sitting in the bleachers, worrying, shouting, eating, thrilled to be there with his father and big brother. During one game—he was nine or ten—the score was tied in the bottom of the eleventh and one of the Yankees hit a walk-off grand slam. He'd felt like he'd witnessed history, he'd been so excited.

  "Stay in line. Don't wander off," the officer said. "Stand in line. Don't wander off. If you leave your place, you will not be allowed in. Stand in line. Don't wander off."

  Alex stood at attention, as though his posture proved he wasn't the sort who would ever wander off.

  The line inched its way closer to the entrance. Two women walked from the head of the line to the foot, one holding a pot of menthol-scented gel, the other face masks and sickness bags.

  "Rub the gel under your nose," the woman instructed them. "It will help with the odors."

  "Wear your face mask at all times," the other woman said. "Put it on now. Only take it off if you feel the need to vomit. Use the bag, then put the mask back on. Do not leave the bag on the ground, but carry it with you until you leave."

  The menthol smell was strong. People looked strange wearing face masks, like a convention of surgeons had accidentally assembled in front of the ballpark. Alex thought of when Mami had shown them a face mask and told them she'd be expected to wear one as an operating room technician. If she hadn't been ambitious to improve her family's lot, she wouldn't have gotten the training and the hospital in Queens wouldn't have called for her to come in because of an emergency and she wouldn't have taken the 7 train to Queens and Alex wouldn't be standing in front of Yankee Stadium with menthol-scented gel rubbed beneath his nose.

  "Remember to stay in line at all times," a voice over a bullhorn called out. "If you see someone in need of physical assistance, inform the next available officer. Do not leave the line. Leaving the line will result in your ejection. Keep walking. Only leave the line if you can identify the body of the person you're looking for. Look at the person ahead of you in line and the person behind you. Don't ever stray from those people."

  Alex did as he was told and looked at the man ahead of him and the woman behind him. The woman behind him wore sunglasses. The man ahead of him was balding.

  The door opened. "Stay in line! Stay in line!" the officer shouted. Everyone shuffled forward, staying in line. They walked through the entrance, down the corridor, and finally down the flights of stairs that led to the playing field.

  The noise was what attacked him first, a cacophony of screams and sobs. He could make out some cursing, some praying, but mostly the noise was just the sound of agony.

  Then came the smells, unlike anything he'd ever known, a sickening combination of vomit, body odor, and rotting meat. The menthol covered the stench slightly, but still he gagged, and he was relieved that he hadn't eaten all morning. He could taste the smell as he inhaled the scent of decomposing flesh.

  It was a scene unlike any Alex could have imagined. If he looked up, it was Yankee Stadium, filled with empty seats. But if he looked at eye level, it was hell.

  Alex made the sign of the cross and prayed for strength. All around the playing field were corpses, lying head to toe in neat rows with just space enough for one person to walk between. How many bodies were there? Hundreds? Thousands?

  Some of the bodies had clothes on; others were nude. The naked ones were covered with sheets. All their arms were out, their hands prominently displayed, their rings gleaming in the sunlight. Their faces were swollen, many to the point of being unrecognizable. They were covered with flies, millions of flies, their buzzing providing a white-noise background to the screams and the wails. His hell was a fly's heaven, Alex thought.

  "Stay in line! Stay in line! Leaving the line will result in your ejection!"

  Alex longed to be ejected, to be bodily lifted from Yankee Stadium, from the Bronx, from New York, from Earth itself, to be slingshotted into the soothing void of space. He focused instead on looking for the Police Identification Booths. There were dozens of them, with police officers and medical personnel stationed there. He saw priests, also, and people he assumed were ministers and rabbis and Muslim clergy.

  Staying firmly in line, Alex began the death stroll. Most of the bodies couldn't possibly be Mami. They were black or white or Asian. They were too young or too old, too fat or too thin. Their hair was gray or white or blonde, too short or too long. One woman, hardly more than a girl, had green and purple hair. One was chemotherapy bald. Another was pregnant. Their eyes were usually open, and they stared up at the moon that had killed them.

  Sometimes the line stopped short, when someone ahead of them needed to check a face, a body, a piece of jewelry. A scream would pierce the air as a loved one was found. A woman several people behind Alex cried, "Holy Mother of God!" and he assumed she'd found who she'd come to look for, but she stayed in line until they made the next turn, when she went off to the nearest Police Identification Booth.

  Alex felt a sharp sting he was stunned to identify as envy. He hated himself for feeling that way. No matter what, it would be better not to find M
ami there. As long as she was only gone, there was a chance their prayers for her return would be answered. But if she were lying there...

  "Stay in line! Stay in line!"

  Twice Alex saw women he thought might be his mother. Something about the shape of their faces, the tone of their skin, stopped him short. But one woman had a diamond engagement ring, and the other wore a Jewish star pendant. When he looked more carefully at them, he realized they looked nothing like Mami, not really. Mami would laugh if she knew Alex had mistaken a woman with a Jewish star for her. He tried to remember the sound of her laughter, but it was impossible. He told himself he'd hear her laughing again, that it was all right not to be able to remember what the sound of her laughter was like just then.

  By the time he'd finished the march around Yankee Stadium, two other people from his bus had left the line to go to the Police Identification Booths. The rest walked out in the same order they'd come in. They tossed their sickness bags and face masks into the appropriately labeled bins.

  No one spoke as they showed their tickets and boarded bus 22. Eventually the bus pulled out. One woman had left her Bible on her seat, and she picked it up and began reading it, her lips moving silently. A dozen or more people wept. A man mumbled something Alex assumed was Hebrew. One woman laughed hysterically. The woman sitting next to Alex pulled tissue after tissue out of its packet, tearing each one methodically to shreds.

  God save their souls, Alex prayed. God save ours. It was the only prayer he could think of, no matter how inadequate it might be. It offered him no comfort, but he repeated it unceasingly. As long as he prayed he didn't have to think. He didn't have to remember. He didn't have to decide. He didn't have to acknowledge he was entering a world where no one had laid out the rules for him to follow, a world where there might not be any rules left for any of them to follow.

  Chapter 4

  Friday, May 27

  Danny O'Brien dropped a crumpled piece of paper in the first-floor hallway, as the boys began leaving Vincent de Paul for the day.

  "Pick it up," Alex said. "You heard what Father Mulrooney said."

  "You pick it up," Danny said. "I pay tuition to go here." He began to walk off when Chris Flynn came up to them.

  "You heard him," Chris said to Danny. "Pick it up. And then apologize."

  "It's all right," Alex said, bending down to pick up the paper. "I should have done this in the first place." It enraged him to think of Chris fighting his battles for him.

  "I'm sorry," Danny said. "I really am, Morales. Blame it on the moon. It's making me crazy."

  "Forget it," Alex said. He tossed the paper into the nearest wastepaper basket and headed out. He didn't have time to waste with people like Danny O'Brien.

  But the incident continued to bother him that afternoon as he walked to St. Margaret's, and he couldn't get it out of his mind as he waited in the office for a chance to talk to Father Franco. He and Danny were friendly. They were on the debate squad together. He'd even been to Danny's home when they'd worked on a history project together.

  It had to be the moon, Alex thought. It really was driving everyone crazy.

  After an hour's wait, he was allowed in to see Father Franco. The priest looked exhausted, far worse than he had just the week before.

  "I was wondering if you'd heard anything more about Puerto Rico," Alex asked.

  "Not much," Father Franco replied. "Conditions are very, very bad. No one's heard anything about the fishing village your father was in, but from what little I've been able to find out, all the villages and small towns on the northern coast were decimated. I'm sorry. I know you want more specific details, but information is very sketchy. I'll continue to ask. The archdiocese is used to my questions by now."

  "Thank you, Father," Alex said. "Just one more thing, if you don't mind."

  "Of course not," Father Franco said. "How can I help you?"

  Alex didn't want to ask the question and didn't want to hear the answer. "It's about the bodies they've found," he said. "Do you know if all of them have been found yet? Like at Yankee Stadium. Is that all the bodies of women they've found?"

  Father Franco shook his head. "Many bodies haven't been recovered even now," he said. "And my understanding is they keep those poor women at Yankee Stadium only for a couple of days before replacing them with others."

  "So you could go there and look and even if you don't find the person you're looking for, that doesn't mean she's still alive," Alex said.

  "I'm afraid so," Father Franco said.

  "And the ones that don't get identified," Alex said. "Do they bury them anyway?"

  Father Franco looked uncomfortable. "They're forced to cremate them," he said.

  "I didn't think the church approved of cremation," Alex said.

  "These are extraordinary circumstances," Father Franco said. "I'm sure God understands and forgives."

  Alex nodded, willing himself not to picture his mother's body tossed into a pile of corpses in a crematorium. "Thank you, Father," he said, getting up.

  "My prayers are with you," Father Franco said. "You and your whole family."

  How many people was he praying for, Alex thought as he left St. Margaret's. Did he ever have time to pray for himself ?

  Saturday, May 28

  "This place is a mess," Alex said angrily as he surveyed the living room. "Don't you girls know how to pick up after yourselves? And why are you watching TV in the middle of the afternoon? Don't your teachers give you homework?"

  Julie and Bri were sitting on the living room sofa, watching an I Love Lucy rerun. Julie yawned.

  "I'm sorry—," Bri began saying, but Julie punched her in her arm.

  Alex crossed to the TV and turned it off. Julie turned it back on with the remote.

  Alex walked over to Julie and yanked the remote from her. "Get up!" he yelled. "Now! And start cleaning up your mess."

  "I'm not doing anything until you tell us where Mami and Papi are," Julie said. "Neither is Bri. Are you, Bri." It sounded more like a threat than a question.

  Bri looked miserable but she shook her head.

  "What is this, some kind of strike?" Alex asked. "You're teamsters now? Well, that isn't going to work. Stop with the TV and the whining."

  "Who died and made you boss?" Julie said.

  Without even thinking, Alex slapped her hard across her face. Julie cried out in pain, then ran from the living room, Bri racing after her. Julie slammed the bedroom door behind them.

  "Idiota," Alex muttered. He hated it when Papi struck any of them, had vowed he would never do that to any of his children, and now when his sisters needed him the most, he had acted like the worst kind of bully.

  He gave his sisters a couple of minutes to yell and cry and do whatever it was they did in the privacy of their room, and then he knocked on their door. Not waiting for permission, he entered.

  Julie sat on the upper bunk bed, her cheek still red from Alex's hand. Bri stood by her side.

  Alex tried to imagine Papi apologizing but couldn't. Maybe to Mami, but never to one of his children.

  "I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have hit you."

  Julie turned her head away from him.

  "Where are they?" Bri asked. "Why haven't we heard from them?"

  "I don't know," Alex said. "I don't, I swear."

  "Have you even tried to find them?" Julie demanded.

  "Yes, of course," Alex said, shuddering at the memory of the rows of bodies at Yankee Stadium. "They're just gone. I'm not saying they're dead. But I don't think we should count on them ever coming back."

  "No!" Bri cried. "I don't believe that. I won't. I spoke to Papi. He was alive. He said Puerto Rico. I heard him!" She began to weep.

  "Look," Alex said, feeling helpless and alone. "Bri, even if that was Papi, he can't get out of Puerto Rico. Planes aren't flying anymore. And the phones aren't working there. I've tried every day, first thing in the morning and last thing at night, and I can't get through. Maybe you're righ
t and you did talk to Papi, but we can't count on him coming home. Not for a long time."

  "What about Mami?" Julie asked. "Why isn't she home?"

  "The subways flooded that night," Alex said. "I called the hospital days ago, and they didn't know if she was there. I think if she was, she would have called us, but I don't know for sure. I have looked, Julie. I took a bus to Yankee Stadium on Thursday and looked at hundreds of bodies there, but none of them was Mami."

  "Then she must be alive." Bri sobbed.

  "Maybe," Alex said. "But I think she'd call if she was all right."

  "So we're alone," Julie said.

  Alex nodded. "When Carlos calls next, we'll tell him," he said. "Maybe the Marines will let him come home. But until then, it's just the three of us. So we have to pull together. We have to act the way Mami and Papi would expect us to. We have to go to school and keep the place neat and attend Mass. But I swear, I'll never hit you again, Julie. Never."

  Julie turned around to face him. "What's going to become of us?" she asked. "What if social services finds out about us? Can we stay here if Papi isn't here? Do we have enough money? Who's going to take care of us?"

  "We'll take care of ourselves," Alex said. "We've been doing a pretty good job of it up till now. No one cares enough to report us to social services, and I think we can stay here for a while longer before anybody notices. I don't know what we'll do about money, but we still have food. I guess if things get really bad, we'll move in with Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Lorraine." He grabbed a box of tissues and handed it to Bri. "Any more questions?" he asked.

  "I'm sorry about what I said," Julie said. "I just miss them so much."

  "I know," Alex said. "I pray for them all the time." And for us, he thought.

  Bri blew her nose, then tossed the wad of tissues into the wastebasket. " La madre will hear us," she said. She took her rosary beads she kept next to the statue of the Virgin on top of the chest of drawers, then knelt in prayer.

  I'm sorry, Alex mouthed to Julie, but if she saw him, she didn't acknowledge it. He left the room and went into his own.