by J. K. Wise
“Did you talk to your mom?” she asks.
“Did you talk to your dad?” I ask back.
“Yeah. He lied at first, but then...” Her voice trails off, and I feel the rage taking me over again.
“Well, I walked in on them in our kitchen,” I growl, losing the battle to keep my cool. “Are you at your house?”
“No, I can’t be there. I tried to go with Corrina to her aunt’s place on the southside, but everything is crazy, and now I’m at a shelter downtown.”
“What? Where are you?”
“In a tent by McKale Center.”
I know where she’s at. I saw a thing on the news the other night about all the people who lost their houses who are living in shelters on campus. Just thinking about her alone downtown makes me shake from somewhere deep inside. I lean back and press my weight into my hand without thinking, and the pain flames up.
“Shit!” I grimace.
I hear her gasp on the other end of the line. “It’s not that bad. I don’t want to be at home…”
“No, it’s my hand…”
But she cuts me off. “I’m sorry I called. I just wanted you to know about them if you didn’t know already.”
I start to ask her where I can find her, but before I can get the words out, she apologizes again and hangs up.
“Shit!” I say again.
“Let me guess,” Robbins says. “ Melanie?”
I drink the rest of my beer in one swig. “I’ve got to go. I’ll take you back to your place,” I say, picking up the almost melted ice pack. Underneath, the swelling in my hand is little better, but the color is still scary.
“Yeah, right. You can’t drive with that hand. Let me drive you home.” He stands and throws the bottles one at a time into a metal drum a few feet away. Their glass clangs against the metal like a gong, jarringly loud in the silence of the desert.
“I’m not going home. I’m going downtown to get Mel.”
“Well, then, that’s where I’ll take you.”
I want to argue with him, but I don’t think I can drive myself. We take off towards the car, circling off of the dirty path to make way for another dustdevil that whips up in front of us.
Robbins drives fast on the freeway, but closer to downtown, it gets harder to navigate through the construction. A lot of the streets are blocked off with yellow caution tape. It’s almost night, and a lot of the street lights aren’t working. I’m looking for a small, white-haired girl in a dark, broken city, and the only thing I have to go on is that she’s somewhere in a tent.
Groups of scary-looking people stand at the entrances to alleys and in the doorways of high-rise buildings. Only a few lights are on in the windows. Everything lies in the piles where they fell. My mood turns red and ugly. A slideshow in my mind, pictures I can’t get rid of:
The night of the quake.
Melanie’s dirty face when I pulled her out of the Jeep.
Mom’s hand on Mr. Stillman’s collar as they stood in the kitchen.
What is wrong with me? I have to remind myself to breathe.
“Wow.” I keep my eyes forward as Robbins drives a few feet away from some guys who eye the Mercedes, checking us out.
“Yep,” he says, “War zone.”
On the night of the quake, everything was oozing, screaming, burning. Now, it’s grey piles of ash and bricks. The danger is in the shadows.
“Where are we going?” he asks.
“Near McKale.” I’ve been to a bunch of basketball games at the Center. It’s right in the middle of the college campus. “Turn here,” I point with my good hand.
Melanie is down here somewhere in the rubble and ashes. Is she scared? She seems afraid of nothing and afraid of everything all at once. But she doesn’t seem scared of me. She never has.
Her hand reaching to catch me if I fall.
Her eyes closed as she slept in the chair in my room.
Chris parks the car next to the Will’s fraternity house. When we walk through the opening between two brick buildings and see the large grassy mall, I’m blown away. It looks like that scene in Titanic after the ship finally goes under, but without the water. Thousands of people are sitting in groups on the grass or sleeping under blankets. There’s a constant stream of people in and out of a huge white tent. A temporary fence circles the huge, shattered McKale Arena, and steel beams are crumpled and exposed on one side where the ceiling fell down and destroyed the façade.
“So where is she?” Chris asks. All I can do is shake my head.
“I don’t know. She said she was next to McKale. That’s all I know.” I text her, but the phone says no service.
“Well,this is the place then. Let’s go find her.”
I swear, I could kiss Robbins right now for not being an asshole or asking questions about what we’re doing down here.
We start by walking through the mass of people of the lawn. Then we check out the tent that’s as big as a mall. We search for hours. No Melanie, but I won’t give up.
Chris sits down on a bench. “Maybe she went home.”
“No way,” I answer. “And I’m not going home either. You can take the car back if you want.”
“Naw, I’m not leaving your ass behind. But we’ve got to sleep a little, dude. Everyone else is.”
He’s right. Most of the crowd is asleep now, either on the grass or on a cot inside the tent. “Ok. But I’m not sleeping out here. Let’s see if Will’s in his place. Come on. It’s right around the corner…
Chapter 23
Shelter
I shouldn’t have called Jared. I don’t know why I did. I wanted to hear his voice, but now I feel even more alone. Inside the huge relief tent, most people have settled down to sleep. I walk around the perimeter, half-looking for an empty cot, but I already know there’s no way I can sleep in here with all of these strangers. I ask a woman in a Red Cross vest for another blanket, and I walk out into the night.
The university buildings are dark shadows across the grassy mall. Some of them are circled with yellow caution tape, but I find one that is intact and climb the limestone stairs and check the doors. They’re locked, so I settle against a wide pillar on the landing. The grass would probably be more comfortable than these hard steps, but up on this perch, at least I know no one can sneak up behind me. I sit on one blanket and wrap the other one around me.
I don’t know how to get back to Corrina, but in the morning, I’ll find someone who can point me in the right direction. I know one thing; It was a mistake to try to call Mom and Dad. My stomach twists and I feel panicky when I think about walking up to my front door. I don’t have anything to say to them. Lies and cheating. I hate it. The problem is, I don’t have any money or even an ID. I have to find a way to get to Corrina tomorrow.
I fade in and out of some kind of sleep, first leaning against the building, and then, eventually, curling up into the corner.
The sky looks like it is getting lighter over the Catalina Mountains when I sit up and see four trucks pull up at the end of the grassy mall. They turn off their headlights before they make the final turn where the relief tent looms. A few police are stationed near the entrance to the tent, but no one is watching where the trucks park in a line, idling. Men climb silently out of the trucks’ flatbeds and make their way between makeshift tents and the huddled group of people asleep on the grass. They spread out, ducking down to pick up backpacks and bags that sit unprotected. I can see the men more clearly with each moment as the early morning light slowly creeps over the tops of the surrounding buildings.
I climb quietly down the stone steps and stay close
to the building, trying to stay invisible. Clos-er, clos-er. I slow my breath and make an effort not to look in the direction of the thieves. There must be at least twenty of them. The tent obscures my view of the field, and I cross the last few feet toward the security guards.
“Hey! Hey!” I yell at the guards as I run the last twenty yards to the entrance. “There are men in trucks. They’re taking people’s stuff!” The officers frown and start to walk around the football-field sized tent. I hear shouts. At first, it’s only one voice, and then, everything erupts.
I turn the corner just as the sun breaks fully onto the huge field. Men run with their arms full of bags toward the trucks. Their drivers have already begun to pull out of the drive.
The security guys are running now. I’ve seen too many times lately how ugly happens, like growing waves from a pebble dropped into a pool. The people in the field are awake now. They swarm around the trucks, the sunlight backlighting their heads like misguided angels. The thieves fight back. They swing at anyone who gets close enough hit. One truck surges forward, and a man from the crowd jumps onto the hood while others bang on the windows.
One guy slams one of the men over and over in the face. The tires squeal as the trucks drive into the crowd and onto the grass with people hanging off of them. As the trucks speeds away, people fall off the sides of them, and some of them take off running as fast as they can, chased by the angry victims of their theft. Across the grass, a man slams a kid’s face into the side of a truck. I can’t look away from the red and purple smudges where half of his face should be. One of his eyes is lower than his nose.
Someone grabs my arm. I pull away and yell, but then I recognize him as the guy who gave me a blanket and recognized me from the news story. He leads me and a group of other kids away from the crowd of people surging forward and back. The number of people swells and multiplies, and the noise accelerates. I hold the back of my hand over my eyes. It is so bright and so dark. Covering my ears doesn’t help block out the awful sounds.
“Melanie, right? I’m Adam. Come on,” he urges again, and because I don’t have anywhere else to go, I follow him around a brick wall. A circle of kids are talking over each other.
“We can’t call the police. They won’t do anything,” one guy says, talking fast and looking over his shoulder.
“We need to get out of here.”
“And go where?” someone asks. “I can’t get home yet. There aren’t any flights, and the news said that busses wouldn’t start service until at least two more days,” a college-aged girl says.
“Anywhere else. This is out-of-control,” says a girl I saw last night on the lawn.
“Everything is out-of-control,” I say.
Some of the kids turn to face me. “Yeah?”
I don’t want to say any more. I want to run away. But they are facing me, waiting for me to talk. “Down by the river, on the bridge of the Santa Cruz. It was crazy there, like a mob. The police wouldn’t let my friend cross the wash to get to her house. People were pushing cars over. I ran away before I got crushed. And at the Safeway by my house…”
“The thing on the news? Tell them,” Adam says, nodding to the rest of the circle. I start to tell them about the grocery store mob, but another loud surge crashes behind the wall where we stand.
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” he says.
We run as a group, some holding hands toward a crushed house across the street. There should be a fence or caution tape or something, but instead, the crooked front doors gape open. We circle the ruined building, stepping over the open gaps in the concrete and climbing over piles of the roof that settled along the side of the huge house. Some college-looking guys are standing around the open door with sleep still in their eyes.
“What’s the noise. What’s going on at the camp?” one of them asks. Then he sees me. “Wait, you’re Melanie Stillman, right?”
How do people know me suddenly? “What? Did you see me on the news too?”
“I graduated from Northside last year. You’re the hot-shit swimmer who won State. I remember you from school. And I saw your picture in the paper.”
Everyone is staring at me, and I don’t know where to look. Behind us, the sirens are multiplying.
“I haven’t won State. Not yet. Next week.” State, the swim meet that seemed important even half a day ago. Out on the street, loud voices are shouting into the roar with some kind of amplified megaphone. The Northside guy looks away from me,
“Hey, you all had better come inside. I don’t know what’s going on, but it doesn’t sound good.”
I have nowhere else to go. I follow the others into the large house. It’s dark inside. I glance into the open rooms we walk down the hallway. Some of the walls are gone, and there are big cracks in the floor and ceiling. Everything is clean, though.
“This is Theta Chi. I’m Will,” our guide says.
“Is it even safe in here?” one of the girls asks.
Outside, an explosion blasts like a rocket. We jump, and a few of us scream.
Will looks up at the ceiling. “Safe enough, I guess. We’ve been living here okay since the quake. But you’re welcome to go back out there.”
Another blast followed by a ricochet of loud pops echoes through the windowless hallway. I hold my breath. I’m far out of my bubble now.
“Inside is good for me,” says Adam.
I don’t know what a Theta Chi is, but for now, I’m happy to have a roof and a wall to rest against.
Chapter 24
Return to the Scene
Robbins is snoring across the room from me. Every time I move, this half-inflated air mattress squeaks. I lie as still as I can, hoping I can fall asleep for at least an hour. When the pale blue light dawns through the window, I give up the fight. My hand hurts like hell, a sharp reminder of why I’m here. I don’t have anywhere else to go.
Ice is probably an impossibility. Will told me that the Theta Chi building is running on a generator, but it only powers one part of the big house. I wander through the dark and sleepy halls and stop in front of the common bathroom. This is where I made the decision to stay and party instead of leaving to meet Stina at Reynolds place. Down the hall is where I followed the blond girl into Will’s room and opened a beer while she sat on my lap. Where I saw the beam crack into her head.
Blood dark on the carpet.
Beam of light through the dust.
Pulling Alec off Melanie in the Jeep.
Mom reaching up to Mr. Stillman in the kitchen.
All of the disasters that will never leave me.
My stomach churns and twists. I run into the bathroom, heaving. There’s nothing in my stomach to lose. I haven’t eaten for two days. Lying on the dirty tile floor, I count the days since the earthquake. Thirteen days. How could the world have spun so quickly away from normal? Days, minutes, seconds. It’s all the same when there’s nowhere to be and no one waiting for you when you get there.
I sit up quickly from the floor. I do have somewhere to be, and Melanie is waiting for me when I get there. I just don’t know where there is. Time to find out.
On my way back to wake up Robbins, I fight against glancing over my shoulder to Will’s old room, and I lose the fight. There’s nothing to see. Plastic wrap hangs down in the hall, perfectly still. No breeze in here. It almost feels like there isn’t any air at all. Maybe that’s why I can’t catch my breath.
Will and his frat brothers did a good job of cleaning out the rest of the damage. It’s a shell of a house, and less than twenty of the guys are still living here without electricity or water. Will says it’s better than what a lot of people have around here. I asked him why he didn’
t go live with his parents up by Northside. He wouldn’t look at me, and when he changed the subject, I imagined the worst. Shit. I’m such a bastard for running away from my fucked-up family. Mom may be a liar, but she’s alive.
My stomach is growling like crazy. I don’t know where Will is, but there has to be food around here somewhere. Outside, there’s construction or an accident or something, because the crashing and exploding and siren sounds are worse than the night of the quake. Then, there’s screaming too, and I hurry up down the hallway to see get outside and see what’s going on.
Will is laughing around the corner with some girls. What can they possibly find to be laugh about? Outside, there’s another loud crash, louder than I’ve heard since we came down here, and whoever is around the corner screams. I run a few steps, and when I turn the corner, I see an impossible sight.
Melanie.
Without thinking, I take a step toward her, ready to put my arms around her and hold her until she holds me back. But when she looks up, her face stops me. Her usual absent look is gone. She is tense and taut, not in a bubble a mile away underwater somewhere.
Will lifts his chin and looks over. “Hey, man, I didn’t think that you would be up this early. There’s coffee in the kitchen.” He looks over to the group where Mel stands. “Coffee?”
Will is so close to her. His hip touches her arm. Their closeness, his invasion of her space, shoots through me like an attack. I move three steps closer to them, squaring off to Melanie whose eyes are on me.
“What are you doing here?” she asks. It’s only been a few days since I’ve seen her, but her voice is different, almost haunted instead of dreamy.
“You guys know each other?” Will asks.
“Yeah. What is she doing here?” My voice sounds rough and ugly. The words don’t even feel like they belong to me.