The Dead and Gone

by Susan Beth Pfeffer

  Friday, June 24

  Alex made a point of going to St. Margaret's that morning, after dropping Julie at school. He'd been avoiding reading the bulletin board there, figuring he was following events carefully enough with his nightly radio reports. But if the evacuation of Queens could slip up on him like that, he needed to pay closer attention.

  Sure enough, the Archdiocese had sent out an information sheet about Queens. It was dated a week before, and it listed all the times and places for people to board buses that would take them to an evacuation center in Binghamton, New York. From there they could make their own arrangements.

  Father Franco walked over to the bulletin board, armed with new information. Alex said hello.

  "How are things going?" Father Franco asked.

  "Pretty good," Alex said. "My sister and I will both be in school this summer." He didn't bother asking Father Franco if he'd heard anything more about Puerto Rico, or even about Bri. There was no point.

  "I'll let you be the first to know," Father Franco said. "We just got the news this morning. Starting next Friday, July first, there's going to be a food distribution at Morse Elementary School, on West Eighty-fourth Street."

  "You're kidding," Alex said.

  Father Franco grinned. "Priests don't kid," he said. "We learn not to in our first year of seminary. It's going to be once a week, and every person in line gets one bag of free food. See for yourself."

  Alex read the flyer. The distribution center opened at 9:00 AM, Fridays only. He'd miss Friday Mass at Vincent de Paul, but he could still do his work and get to school in time for lunch.

  "How much food in a bag?" he asked. "Do you know?"

  Father Franco shook his head. "My guess is not enough for a week's worth of meals," he said. "But any food is a blessing these days."

  "And the limit is one bag per person," Alex said. "So Julie can come along and get a bag, also."

  "It's set up that way so families can get food for everyone," he said. "You should definitely bring Julie with you."

  A bag of food each, plus five days' worth of lunches. They wouldn't get fat as kittens, but at least they wouldn't starve.

  Wednesday, June 29

  The ten people Alex had to check up on lived in four different buildings between Amsterdam and West End Avenues and two on Eighty-sixth Street and two on Eighty-seventh. He was relieved none lived in his building, where he figured the fewer people knowing he and Julie were still there, the better.

  The job wasn't too onerous—except for the fact that in one building the woman he needed to look in on lived on the eleventh floor and in another on the sixteenth, with electricity a novelty before noon. The people had all signed up and if they were startled or nervous because he was Puerto Rican and they weren't, they hid it well. Mostly they seemed pleased that anyone cared enough to climb all those flights of stairs. Alex made sure they were okay, asked if they needed anything in particular, and then had them sign the sheet showing he'd actually been there. It was tiresome having to smile and act interested, especially if they were chatty, but that was a small price to pay for a meal.

  Julie, it turned out, loved gardening and she talked about nothing else. There was some concern because things were being planted late in the season, but most of the vegetables had gotten a head start in a greenhouse: string beans, corn, tomatoes, squash, zucchini, cabbage, potatoes, broccoli. Holes to be dug, fertilizer to be spread, plants gently bedded, watered, weeded. Marigolds to keep rats away. Sunlight, no matter how hot the day was, to be celebrated.

  "And we'll get some of it," Julie said for the third time in three days. "Can you imagine? Real vegetables."

  Alex couldn't imagine. He didn't even mind hearing about it day after day. It gave him something else to think about besides what kinds of food would be in the bag of groceries he and Julie would each be given on Friday.

  He could see that Julie had lost weight, but he never asked her if she was hungry, and if she was, she didn't whine about it. Actually, she was whining considerably less than she had when things were normal. He guessed he had the moon to thank for that.

  Thursday, June 30

  Alex walked Julie to school, then raced back home. It made no sense, he knew, to sit by a phone that hardly ever worked, waiting for a phone call that wasn't going to be made, from a mother who was almost certainly long dead.

  But that was what he did, just in case. Just in case on the last day that Queens, New York, existed, Mami might call her family to let them know she was still alive. He was glad he hadn't told Julie, since she would have insisted on staying home as well. This way at least she'd have lunch.

  It was hard being alone in the apartment staring at an unringing phone, haunted by the food in the kitchen, which he wouldn't allow himself to touch, haunted even more by the image of his mother drowning in the subway that very first night.

  He tried reading. He tried praying. He tried push-ups. He tried counting the cans of soup. He listened to the radio, using up the twenty-dollar batteries. The world was coming to an end. Well, that was nothing new.

  In spite of the excruciating boredom, it physically hurt to leave the apartment, but he had to get Julie. The day was hot and sunny. The waning quarter moon seemed larger than the sun. At least it wasn't a full moon, he thought. Alex had really learned to hate full moons.

  Julie's topic of the day was insecticides, their uses and history. Apparently Sister Rita, who was in charge of the garden project, felt the girls should learn as many different things as possible about the food chain. Alex was just relieved Sister Rita hadn't gotten to recipes. It was hard enough hearing all the talk about vegetables when he'd eaten lunch. But today, even moths and aphids sounded appetizing.

  As soon as they got back, Alex picked up the phone to see if by some miracle Mami had left a message.

  "What did you do that for?" Julie asked.

  "Because I felt like it," he snapped.

  Julie looked at him. "You're really weird, you know that?" she said.

  Alex nodded. "Yeah, I know," he said. "It comes from living with you."

  Julie smiled. "Well, I guess I'm good for something, then," she said. She went into her bedroom, leaving Alex alone in the living room with a phone that he continued to stare at, a phone that stared back at him.

  Chapter 7

  Friday, July 1

  Alex slept on the sofa just in case the phone rang.

  At a quarter to seven he gave up and got dressed before waking Julie. She would sleep until noon if she had her way, and she inevitably woke up cranky. He hoped the bags of food would include cereal. They were on the verge of running out, even though all he allowed either of them to eat was half a cup's worth.

  That morning, though, Julie was too excited to eat, and her excitement proved contagious. It wasn't like Alex had really expected Mami to call, he told himself. Food was important. They raced through their morning rituals, and left the apartment by seven-thirty. They'd be at Morse well before eight. It would be boring standing on line for over an hour, but they needed to be among the first, since they had to take the food back home and then Alex had to walk Julie to Central Park, make his rounds, and get to school before lunch.

  They walked down Amsterdam Avenue, figuring they'd turn east on Eighty-fourth. Julie speculated about what food they'd be given.

  "Nothing'll be as good as fresh vegetables," she said. "But that's going to have to wait."

  "Anything'll be good," Alex replied. "But yeah, your vegetables will be the best."

  "I wonder what Bri's growing," Julie said. "Her birthday's tomorrow. Can we call her?"

  "We're not supposed to," Alex said. "No calls from home for the first month."

  "If she was here, we'd get three bags," Julie said.

  "But one of those bags would be for her," Alex replied. "So there wouldn't be more food for us, anyway."

  "Wow!" Julie said. "Look at that line."

  Alex had no choice but to look. From Eighty-fourth down to Eight
y-third was a solid row of people.

  "Do you think they're all here for the food?" Julie asked.

  "There's a cop," Alex said. "Let's ask."

  The cop was standing on the corner of Eighty-fourth and Amsterdam, bullhorn in hand. "Keep in line! Keep in line!"

  Alex remembered Yankee Stadium and started to shake. He told himself this was a completely different situation, and willed himself to calm down and ask the cop where the end of the line was for the food giveaway.

  "Eighty-second," the cop replied. "That's what I heard fifteen minutes ago."

  "Come on, hurry," Alex said to Julie. They ran to Eighty-second, but it was clear the end of the line began south of that.

  "How can there be so many people?" Julie asked as they finally located the end of the line on Eighty-first and Columbus.

  "I guess everybody from the Upper West Side is here," Alex said. It certainly seemed that way. Unlike the line at Yankee Stadium, whole families stood in single file, some with little children tethered to their mothers to keep them from wandering off. Occasionally a cop strolled by and saw to it that there was no cutting ahead.

  Julie stood immediately in front of Alex. "How long do you think this'll take?" she asked. "They're expecting me at the garden."

  "How should I know?" Alex replied. It had never occurred to him there'd be so many people there. But even as they stood, the line grew longer, until it curved around Eighty-first Street. It was only slightly comforting to know they were no longer the last people in the line.

  Most of the people kept quiet, although some of the children cried and yelled. The sun beat down on them, and Alex guessed the temperature was close to ninety. He saw an old woman faint and heard the panic from the family she was with. Eventually a man carried her off while his wife and their children stayed on line.

  At nine o'clock everyone got excited, waiting for movement to begin, but nothing happened. There was no way of knowing if the distribution had begun three blocks north of them, and no one was willing to leave in order to scout ahead and report on what was happening.

  Finally, at close to ten o'clock, the shuffling forward began. It took another hour before Alex and Julie reached Eighty-second Street. By then, the quiet orderly line had grown angry. Men and women screamed and cursed. The cops yelled into their bullhorns for order, which only fed the anger of the crowd.

  At eleven o'clock one of the cops yelled through his bullhorn, "Everyone south of Eighty-fourth Street, go home! Everyone south of Eighty-fourth Street, go home. There's no more food! Go home! Go home!"

  "What the hell do you mean there's no more food?" a man screamed, and rammed into the nearest cop. Soon hundreds of people were stampeding, swinging wildly, not caring who they hit in their hunger and their rage.

  Alex grabbed Julie. "Hold on!" he yelled, terrified that she'd get carried off by the mob.

  Julie clutched his arm.

  "Run!" Alex screamed. The two ran in tandem, trying desperately to weave their way through the chaos. Someone or something cut his face, and he could taste blood in his mouth. He pushed and pulled alongside Julie. Then he saw a baby being trampled. Almost in spite of himself, he bent down, trying to save the child, and as soon as he did, he lost Julie.

  "Julie!" Alex screamed. It was impossible to see her now. He prayed that she was where he thought she was, and threw himself into the mob.

  "Grab my hand!" he yelled to her.

  Julie reached out, but she was too short to reach him. Alex pushed an elderly man onto the street. He could feel the man's fingers crunch under his shoe as he grabbed Julie. Holding on to her as tightly as he could, he used her almost as a battering ram, making a path through the mob until they could run freely toward Central Park.

  Julie was trembling, "It's okay," Alex said, giving her a hug. "We're safe now."

  "Your face," Julie said. "It's all bloody."

  "It's nothing," Alex said, running his fingers over the cut. "Are you all right?"

  Julie nodded, but he could see she was badly shaken. She had the makings of a bad bruise on her right cheek, where someone must have elbowed her. Alex heard gunshots to their west. They were lucky they'd escaped when they did.

  "I'll take you home," he said. "We should be okay on Central Park West."

  "No," Julie said. "Take me to the garden. They're expecting me."

  Alex looked at his watch. There was still time to get Julie there before they returned to school. If he didn't, she wouldn't get fed, and now there were no bags of food to fantasize about and only their limited supplies at home. "All right," he said. "But we'd better hurry."

  They raced through the park, and found Julie's classmates hard at work weeding. She went to Sister Rita, who put her arms around her and held her close.

  "I've got to get to Vincent de Paul," Alex said, uncertain whether he was telling the nun or Julie or if either of them cared. He went back to Central Park West, then walked south to the school, arriving there just before lunchtime.

  But Father Mulrooney stopped him on the way to the cafeteria. "Where do you think you're going, Mr. Morales?" he asked.

  "It's lunchtime," Alex said. "Oh, do you mean the cut? I'll take care of that when I get home. Right now I just want to eat."

  "I'm sure you do," Father Mulrooney said. "But you haven't handed in your sheets for the past two days. What makes you think you're entitled to lunch?"

  "Maybe I'm not entitled," Alex said. "But I'm hungry and I need to eat."

  "You know the rules," Father Mulrooney said. "No work, no food. If you're that hungry, go home and eat there. Don't bother to return on Tuesday unless you have done your visiting and have the signed sheet to prove it. Now go, Mr. Morales, and spend the holiday weekend contemplating the virtues of obedience."

  Alex longed to pick up the priest and throw him across the hallway. He felt the other kids staring at him, almost willing him to do so.

  "Go," Father Mulrooney said.

  Alex stood still for a moment. If he did anything but leave, he'd be kicked out of Vincent de Paul. Forget college, which most likely no longer existed. Forget graduating, which had lost any meaning. No Vincent de Paul meant no lunch five days a week. No lunch five days a week meant certain starvation.

  "Excuse me, Father," Alex said, and did as he was told.

  Saturday, July 2

  "I'm calling Bri," Alex declared. "The hell with the rules."

  Julie stared at him like he was a stranger. Maybe it was the cut on his cheek, he thought. It made him look like a pirate.

  He picked up the phone only to find it was dead. That figured. But it wasn't like he had anything else to do. So for the rest of the day, at fifteen-minute intervals, he picked up the phone to see if it was working.

  At four-fifteen, he got a dial tone. He pressed the numbers carefully, and was rewarded by the sound of a ringing telephone on the other end.

  "Notburga Farms."

  "Hello, this is Alex Morales," Alex said. "My sister Briana Morales is staying with you."

  "Yes," the woman on the other end said. Alex pictured a nun like Sister Rita, warm and caring.

  "Today's Bri's birthday," Alex said. "My sister Julie and I are calling to wish her a happy birthday."

  "I'm sorry," the woman said. "But none of the girls are allowed calls from their families for another week. You'll receive a schedule in the mail telling you when you may call."

  "But it's her birthday!" Alex protested. "We won't stay on long. Just wish her a happy birthday and hang up, I promise."

  "I'm sorry," the woman said. "But the rules are for the good of all the girls. We can't make any exceptions."

  Alex heard the click as he was hung up on. Julie looked at him.

  "She wouldn't let me talk to her," he said. "¡Maldita monja!"

  Julie's jaw dropped. Then she giggled.

  Alex was too angry to laugh. He could hear Father Mulrooney telling him to contemplate the virtues of obedience. He raised his hand to smack Julie into silence, then real
ized what he was about to do and stormed out of the apartment, not stopping until he reached Eighty-fourth and Columbus, where, standing in front of Morse, he screamed curses at the empty building.

  Sunday, July 3

  At Mass Father Franco instructed the parishioners to boil all their drinking water. Cases of cholera had begun to appear in the city.

  "That includes the water you use for brushing your teeth," he reminded them. "And whenever you're going outside don't forget to put on insect repellent to ward off West Nile virus."

  "Sister Rita always has us put on insect repellent before we go to the garden," Julie said somewhat smugly. "That's the rule."

  "Good," Alex said, too hungry and too angry to care.

  Tuesday, July 5

  Alex returned to school with the ten signatures proving he'd made his morning calls. It had been a long, miserable weekend, not improved any with Monday being the Fourth of July.

  There was very little food left. If he didn't get any on Friday at Morse, he had two choices: either to go without eating all weekend or without supper the following week. Otherwise, there'd be no food for Julie.

  He never should have made that vow to Bri. He should have let Uncle Jimmy take Julie. He had little chance of surviving with her around, and if he died, what would become of her anyway?

  But he was stuck with her, at least until he could find someplace that would take her in. Maybe the sisters at Holy Angels knew of something. If he could talk to one of them without Julie finding out, he would ask.

  He took the list of signatures to Father Mulrooney's office. "Here they are, Father," he said.

  Father Mulrooney barely looked at them. "Very well," he said. "I trust you spent the weekend in contemplation, Mr. Morales."

  "I thought about a lot of things," Alex replied, trying to keep the anger out of his voice. "Including the virtue of compassion."

  "Do you feel I showed insufficient compassion?" Father Mulrooney asked.

  To hell with him and his damn eyebrows, Alex thought. "Yes, Father, that's exactly what I felt," he replied.