by Russ Watts
My wife, the drama queen. Jesus. “You need me to come home?”
“No, no! We need this job! What’s going on? Have you interviewed yet?”
“No. It turns out the boss is sick, too.”
“Oh, no!”
“He wasn’t as bad off as you were, from what I heard. Maybe he’ll have his ‘eye of the hurricane’’ episode. Frankly, I think you’re just depressed and freaked out from being sick. Drink lots of water, get something to eat. For all you know you’ve beaten this thing already.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I know I’m right. Just take it easy. We’ll get through this.”
“I know. We always have.” A pause. “I love you, honey.”
“I love you, Claire.”
And so the scales of the evening are balanced, and I settle into my room feeling like the asshole I really am.
“Honestly, sir, I’m not sure what to do with you,” Giselle says the next day. “I tried booking you a flight out but nothing’s going to Colorado Springs.”
“So how about Denver?”
“First thing I thought of when I couldn’t get the Springs. The earliest flight I can get into Denver is Monday. Even that’s not guaranteed. A lot of people are either sick or taking off to look after their sick. No telling what it’ll look like then.”
“Fine,” I say. “I’ll take it.”
“Oh, no worries, I’ve got you booked! I’m just saying there are no guarantees. Rob sounded really bad over the phone. I know my mother is suffering. How long has your wife been sick?”
“Since Tuesday,” I say. “She woke up with it.”
“Just like my mother yesterday. God, it’s like she’s at death’s door! And they say the hospitals are already strained past capacity, what with their own people sick!”
“I could get back to Colorado Springs in the rental car.”
“My God, that’s an all-day drive!”
“Nothing I can’t handle.”
“I’ll need to check if I can get away with letting you do that. I’m sorry. Most people here are out, too. I’ll give you a call by five, all right?”
I tell her to do what she has to do, keep me posted, etc. There’s not much to do after heading out, though. The Kansas City Museum is closed. I spend the day driving around, listening to local commercial radio stations. According to the DJs, everybody’s sick. Drink plenty of fluids, sleep it off! Here’s a little “Peace of Mind” by Boston….
I end up eating at the bar at the steakhouse. Everyone is pleasant and chatty but I’m the only customer they have and they no doubt feel obliged. I get a growler of draft to go. I’m walking out the door when I realize Giselle was supposed to call me. I check my phone. No messages. No missed calls.
Shit.
I call Claire. It rings for a while before kicking over to voicemail so I know her phone is charged. I leave a message telling her I love her, I’ll be home soon.
3.
I’m not supposed to hear anything outside the windows of this state-of-the-art executive suite, and I’m sure that’s what wakes me up. At 6:30 on a Friday morning in early May not one school bus chuffs down the street. Not one street sweeper, not one garbage truck hissing and banging along the curb. No commuters on their way to their 7 a.m. shift start. No cabs. No downtown joggers or dog-walkers.
I switch on the TV. Stefani Dunham of Cable Morning News talks of the unusual quiet in the Middle East, mostly due to the flu that’s taken the world by storm.
She narrates the latest video of a deer wandering through the automatic doors of a supermarket, but her voice is weirdly uninflected. Her head cheerleader swagger died sometime in the night. Her hair-and-makeup crew apparently didn’t show either. She actually looks beautiful. Her just-brushed-into-place hair, the dark crescents beneath her eyes betray a humanity I never expected a woman of her position to possess.
My phone chirps. Finally:
We took Mom to the hospital but it was full. She’s very sick. Don’t know what else to do. I have to go into work. Hope you feel okay and that you come home soon.
The time stamp shows this was sent hours ago. I’m only now getting this.
According to the Stefani Dunham of Cable Morning News the top story is the strain on services nationwide due to the Mayday Malaise. Hospitals are full of patients, but the hospitals can’t provide adequate care because one-third to one-half of the hospital staff is sick, too. Without techs to maintain the servers and towers, cell phone service has crashed in some areas. There were storms in Georgia and the Carolinas that knocked out power two nights ago. That power is likely to stay out because too few people feel well enough to fix things. And then the unaffected people have to take off from work to take care of their sick relatives.
“And while we wait for this thing to run its course,” Stefani says, “it turns out that for some people the illness is just getting worse. This is just for some people, though, the numbers are inconclusive. We’re not in the business of spreading rumors. Count on our team to keep you updated with the latest.” She coughs primly into a handkerchief just as they cut to commercials.
Normally you’d hear an exclamation point after that last sentence. That’s because—normally—Stefani! Dunham! of Cable! Morning! News! is fully invested in what she’s selling.
I power up my laptop. We still have Internet service, but the pages are slow to load. From the UK’s Guardian to the Kremlin’s own Russia Today, the columnists are mocking “the ’Mayday Malaise,’ as the American news outlets frivolously and dismissively label it” (the Germans seem particularly pissed about “the U.S.’s non-response to the crisis”).
According to the foreign press the infection isn’t viral, it’s bacterial—and resistant to antibiotics. Russia Today and Politiken DK report rumors that a pharmaceutical company brewed this up to contain it with its specially targeted (and patented) regime of medications. Of course, nothing can be proved.
Oh, and one more thing they’re not mentioning in the U.S. information bubble:
You can go fast.
You can go slow.
You can go easy—the way our Ms. Dunham seems to be going—then all-of-a-sudden hard. Or just go hard and die hard all the way.
Some have been known to go into remission. Like Claire. This article even uses the eye-of-the-hurricane metaphor. “And like the far side of the hurricane eyewall, Round Two of the disease comes on even fiercer than the first.”
However it plays out, no one gets better from this. That’s why the English, those masters of gallows humor, dubbed it the Final Flu. It’s the last thing you’re ever sick of.
I pull out my phone and dial her cell. Nothing. Whatever connectivity delivered Sibyl’s message to me late is down again already. I dial the land line. Ring, click. I do this again, three, maybe four more times on both.
“As brief as the remissions are, the relapses are brutally—some say ‘mercifully’—short-lived. As are the patients.” I think of Sybil’s text. Claire.
Claire....
I’m flashing on our first Thanksgiving, eating on the quilt she spread on the floor of our unfurnished apartment. The Christmases with her parents. The Christmases we did on our own, accompanied by bright and happy Sibyl, then Jack.
I think of the greeting cards Claire would leave for me to find in the morning, for no special occasion at all. Just to tell me how “grateful” she was for me. For what? I always meant to write her a long letter for Mother’s Day, letting her know all the things I noticed that I thought made us so much richer than most people with actual “disposable” income. We know how these stories always end, don’t we?
I clap my laptop shut, look up at the TV. Stefani Dunham is still reading from her teleprompter. She doesn’t sniffle or cough. I’m guessing she’s in her remission stage.
What’s really intriguing are the implications raised by the logical follow-up: What makes a multi-million dollar diva like Stefani Dunham, Queen of All Cable News, go on televisi
on, read straight-faced from the teleprompter, and pretend she hasn’t heard her own personal two-minute warning?
My hot, damp pity party dries to cold, arid terror. Something is going down. The kind of something no mere citizen can do anything about but get home to the children as fast as humanly possible and brace for what’s next.
I couldn’t afford to kiss Claire goodbye before I left. I can’t afford to mourn her now that she’s gone. Sibyl and Jack are counting on me to know what to do—and to be there to do it. If I could drive out of here this instant I could make Colorado Springs before nightfall. I’d have to push it on the speed limit. Which might not be a problem. Then again, if I wreck, that’s it. Better hope I die instantly….
So I won’t wreck. I’ve got to get home! But I can’t leave without checking in one last time with the company, at least see who’s paying for what, if anything. The office opens at eight.
I shower, dress, and pack out quickly. I take the stairs on the north end of the hall. It’s fifteen flights down but the effort tempers my anxiety. More to the point, it lets me out by the back door to the parking garage. I don’t want the desk people to see me carrying my luggage out.
It’s just another job interview! I can do this!
I walk around the hotel. It’s so quiet I can all but hear the damp, hot sunlight pressing down upon the concrete. I’m so relieved to feel the air conditioning as I come in through the front door.
The dining area off the lobby is pitch-dark to my sun-adjusted eyes. “Sorry,” says the girl behind the front desk. “The entire kitchen staff is out.”
“Huh.” Not that I’m particularly surprised.
“I know they’re not all sick, either! Only one out of three got this, right?”
“I suppose the rest are home taking care of their people,” I say.
“Must be nice. The way I see it, I don’t work, I don’t get paid! God knows where those people are getting their money!”
“Well, did someone at least pick up some doughnuts and brew some coffee?”
“As a matter of fact, I did, thank you very much! Would you like some?”
“If it’s not too much trouble.”
“Oh, not at all! You have no idea how good it is to have someone to talk to!”
From Angie I learn there are a dozen or so flu patients booked here in the hotel because the airlines—on orders from Homeland Security, via the TSA—are refusing to transport obviously sick people. “Talk about closing the barn door when the horses are already out!” says Angie.
A very pale and irritable looking woman wearing a prominent MANAGER tag comes in. “I don’t like leaving my little boy at home the way he is but the show must go on, right?”
“Don’t put yourself out on my account.”
“Oh! Sorry! Sorry! I didn’t mean it like that! This is just going to be a really hard day. We don’t have a kitchen staff and now there’s no one here to clean the rooms! It might be a couple of days on that, and for that we do apologize!”
“It’s all right. Look, I’m going out to find some breakfast. Good meeting you all—and good luck!”
“Let us know what you find open,” says Angie.
I nod, wave, and set off into the quiet city.
4.
The more I think about it, the less sense it makes. Cell phone towers are designed to run on full automatic. The landline system, also designed for low-to-no-maintenance, works on batteries. Even if the lines were overwhelmed by chatty survivors you wouldn’t get a dial tone, let alone a ring on the other end. Just dead air.
Then again, if four years of sporadic “customer care” temp gigs have taught me anything, it’s that modern civilization runs on duct tape and good intentions. There’s also the simple fact that too many people are either sick or taking care of their sick to do the most basic upkeep, let alone full-on relay station repair.
I’ve got to find some breakfast to help me kill time on top of hunger while waiting for the office to open. I’m already three blocks from the hotel when I catch sight of the OPEN sign beyond the blinking DON’T CROSS light I’m ignoring.
I pause in the middle and take in the full 360 degrees. Except for a lone mutt sniffing along the walk on one side, a couple of raccoons having at a trash basket on the other, there’s no movement for as far as I can see. Not a soul in the street.
The door of the glass-fronted diner is open. There’s a guy behind the counter. He’s waving me in. God help me, I’m probably going to regret this.
“Just so you know,” he says as I walk up to the counter. “We’re all you’re going to find open for miles.”
“So what’s that mean? You’re charging a hundred bucks for a cup of coffee?”
“You paying it?”
“No.”
“Wait, wait! Don’t worry about it!” I turn back around. “Credit card machine probably doesn’t work anyway,” he says.
“I was going to use one of these,” I say, pulling the voucher from my pocket.
“Whoa!” he says. “You’re a guest of theirs? Sure, whatever you want! Just give me a few minutes to scare it up.”
After ten minutes or so my patience is rewarded with a heaping plate of eggs, bacon, hash browns, and grits, along with a smaller plate topped with biscuits, with options for jam or gravy. The cook/proprietor busies himself in his kitchen, giving me space to eat. Which I greatly appreciate.
He takes my plate after I’m finished. “Don’t think much in the way of business is getting done today,” he says, watching me try my cell.
I listen for the ring-click. The man’s comment strikes me as strange until I remember I’m wearing a suit. “We’ll find a way to make it happen,” I say, thumbing off the phone.
“Too late for my daughter,” he says.
“What?”
“This morning. She…she couldn’t breathe.”
“How long was she sick?”
“She went to bed right as rain Saturday night! Woke up with sniffles and a cough on Sunday, went to church, no big deal. Yesterday she got really bad, but that’s the way it is sometimes, right? You get a little sick, then you get real sick…and she….” He squeezes his eyes shut. He shakes a little, then opens his eyes. Looking at nothing and no one in particular he says, “She couldn’t breathe.”
I get up from my seat. “My wife went to bed feeling just fine Saturday night,” I tell him. “She woke up a little sick Sunday. She was too sick to drive me to the airport yesterday. It’s her I can’t get on the damned phone because everyone else is dying, too, and shit’s falling apart.”
“I’m sorry,” the man says. “I just needed to tell somebody. Must be hard being so far away and nothing you can do….”
I take a deep breath, wrap it tightly about the rage I feel at this fool. “Ask yourself this,” I say quietly. “Would your daughter want you to give up?”
“No. No, of course not. “
“Good. So where’s your wife? Shouldn’t you be making funeral arrangements?”
“Look around you! You think even the funeral homes are open?”
Shit. Hadn’t thought of that. “So what are we supposed to do with our… deceased?”
“They said…the man said we should clean her up as best we can. Then wait for the announcement.”
“Announcement?”
“They’re picking up the bodies. They’ll be doing…mass burials. In the city parks. They’ll have a service.”
“Huh. Usually they burn the bodies in situations like this.”
“No! No! We’ll bury them in the temporary place until we can put them in individual plots with their families. When things get back to normal!”
Normal. Right. I sign the voucher and slide it across the counter. He begins choking and weeping as he puts it under the tray in his register. “Sorry for your loss,” I say. I turn and I’m out the open door and crossing the empty street to the far corner.
The manager has already left for home when I return the hotel. Angie’s family
is out of state; she has nothing better to do than mind the fort. Still, she’s irritated with the manager for leaving her alone so Angie lets me use the office land line to call my house. Dial tone. Ring. Click. Dial tone. That’s all. I do this three more times, then once more “just to be sure” before giving up.
“That’s funny,” says Angie. “I haven’t had any problems calling locally.”
The only person I could think to call locally would be Giselle. If she’s there. Anyway, I need to talk to someone face-to-face, see what I can salvage from this. I thank Angie and walk away towards rear doors of the lobby leading to the garage.
“Where are you going?” she calls out after me.
“Gotta check one more thing,” I say.
“You’re coming back, right?”
“Of course!”
“Please don’t leave without saying g—without checking out, okay?”
I smile. “Wouldn’t dream of it, Angie.”
“Seriously. You need to come back.”
“This won’t take long.”
The look on her face makes me feel even worse for lying to her. But if whoever’s left at the office can check me out of the hotel from her desk while clearing me to leave with the rental, then I’m going straight out on the road. I’m sorry you’re afraid, Angie. But I’ve got two people 600 miles away I need to do that being-afraid stuff with. And 600 miles is one long mother of a drive….
I almost miss seeing the only other car on the road. It’s going so fast on I-70 east it’s there and gone. Warp Factor Fuck the Police. I smile for the sheer give-a-shit ballsiness of this guy.
Then I realize what it means and the bottom falls out of my stomach.
There are all of three cars on my level in the parking garage. The door is unlocked. I take the elevator to my floor. Breathe. Breathe….
The doors open on a darkened lobby.
“Who—what?” I hear Giselle say as I come out of the shadows. “You’re still here?”
As with Stefani Dunham, something has aged my Hot Librarian by ten years overnight. The sweat glistens on her pale, not-so-apple cheeks where the rims of her glasses rest. “Nice to see you, too, Giselle.”