“What was up with that guy, why was he being such a dick?” Jerry slurred as he kicked his head back and hurled two more painkillers down his throat.
The birds were all gone the following morning.
THE FIVE FATHOMS
(Day 2-after the storm-cont’d)
Gathering around a car that’s been set ablaze, like a band of lost souls—a committee of five engaged in heated debates—and each arguing over irrational nonsense. Jerry and I hung back at a distance like curious spectators at an underground cockfight.
“It’s God’s will. This is what he wanted,” claimed the eccentric bohemian with the spacey eyes, armed with a cat.
“Shaddap, you crazy fruitcake!” the crazed man in his late-forties yelled—his clothes smeared with dirt, and tie pulled loose from his neck. He was agonizing over the tree that was driven through his storefront by the storm.
“It’s people like you who are going to burn in HELL, Mr. Wambeck—you’ll see. That’s karma for ya’,” the woman warned him, firmly stroking the mild and content Mr. Whiskers in her arms.
“You and your eighteen cats are going to burn in hell, you freak,” Wambeck vehemently struck back.
“Everyone, just please calm down, okay. We have to get help,” said a younger woman appearing out of the darkness, clearly shaken and shivering, followed by a younger man on foot; both wet from the rain.
“Get help? Get help? No one’s helping us! I can’t even go home—they set up roadblocks everywhere. I have a wife and two kids at home I have to get to,” Mr. Wambeck’s words sounded more panicked than before.
“Mrs. Wambeck must be one lucky gal,” Tulip, the cat lady snickered, dramatically rolling her eyes to the back of her head.
“It’s a goddamn conspiracy!” a white-bearded man shouted from his mobility scooter.
“Are you out of your mind? What does a conspiracy have to do with this?!” cried Mr. Wambeck, shaking his arms in the air like a crazed monkey.
“Katrina and 9/11 were conspiracies and you know it! It’s ‘Nam all over again!” the old man on wheels once again shouting, and jabbing his finger at all of them.
Wambeck fumed. “You know, you and crazy cat lady over here really need to…piss off!”
“Fuck off, Wambeck!” Bearded man said—giving it right back to him.
“Oh, come on, this isn’t helping us, guys,” the young girl pleaded, warming herself near the licking flames of the vehicle.
“This is the second coming—the lord has ri—…” Tulip, the crazy cat-lady began—again. Mr. Wambeck spun on his heels with thick veins bulging from his neck.
“Okay, I’ve just about had enough of your mumbo jumbo bullshit, Tulip. If you’re not going to shut yer’ mouth and help, then get back on your spaceship and go back to Crazy-Lady-Land!”
“Hey, don’t talk to her like that. You need to relax. Right now, we all need a voice of reason,” the young girl argued.
“Voice of reason? I guess no one noticed the giant tree that turned my store into a sang’wich over here!” said Wambeck, pointing to the rubble and pieces of awning that once read— “ARNOLD WAMBECK’S SHOE REPAIR”
F-14 fighter jets shot through the sky overhead in unison—four of them, headed North.
“It’s the goddamn Chinese, I knew it!” the bearded man claimed.
“The what!” the younger man laughed aloud.
“The Chinese,” the elderly man replied, offended by the younger man making a mockery of his theory about those ‘danged Chinese people.
“No way, Scooter, this is germ warfare, baby. Those Al-Qaeda fuckers are setting this shit off big time. We’re in deep shit now. They’re trying to 86 our asses, man,” the young man countered with his own brilliant theory of the virus.
“Bah! …Malarkey!” Scooter scoffed.
“You think?” Wambeck said, “And you, old man—you need to lay off the hooch.”
“What are we going to do? I’m not supposed to be here. I’m not even from New York,” the young woman fussed, desperately punching her phone with her thumb.
“Dude, check it out. That chick’s pretty cute,” Jerry whispered, nudging me with his elbow. “You think that’s her boyfriend?”
“Stop,” I said, but I was thinking the same of our damsel in distress as the rain soaked through her blouse.
“I don’t know, man, but there are people out here that are seriously tripping out—people eating people and running around like something out of a movie. What is this, a zoo? Is this a zoo party or somethin’?” the young man snickered.
“I saw that too,” acknowledging the younger woman.
“The end is here, baby, 2012. Hold onto your motherfuckin’ heads—BOOYA!” the young man shouted, illustrating his head exploding with his hands and awkward enthusiasm.
“What in the blue hell…are you high, son?” Scooter asked.
“For Pete’s sake—you know, I feel so much safer now that you’re all so goddamned useless. Is this the best we can do? Can someone please start using their brains around here for once?” Wambeck said, kicking debris out of his way.
“Does anyone have a cell phone I can use? My battery is low,” the young frazzled woman asked.
“In case you didn’t get the memo, princess—we have been radio silenced,” Mr. Wambeck informed her.
“What—What does that mean? Radio what?” she whimpered.
“It means no one’s calling daddy…for a long time. We’re off the grid, doll,” Wambeck said before turning his attention to us.
“Hey! You two—you guys are just standing around. Take a picture while you’re at it, why don’chya!” he said with his tie twisting in the wind.
“Actually…you should…uhhh,” Jerry began stepping away—but it was a little too late, for Jerry could not have warned Arnold Wambeck sooner.
The falling tree limbs impaled and crushed Wambeck dead on the sidewalk with the weight of a falling piano before he even knew what hit him.
“Oh, come on, man—not again!” the young man shouted, holding his hands over his head.
The princess screamed and threw up on the kid next to her while he did his best impression of a mime in shock. Scooter burned rubber and took off down the street. Tulip, the crazy cat-lady just stood there staring.
THE BALLAD OF DEADGAR
(Day 10-after the storm)
“Why do you call him that?” I asked, scolding Jerry as he soldered away at my living room window while sparks and light flew wildly at his face.
“Edgar? Look at him. He’s like a giant pimple with feet—Hey, Hematoma-boy,” Jerry called to Edgar.
“Yes, I know, but I can’t have you freaking him out because I need him, we need him, so stop being a dick.”
“On the contrary, I don’t need him for anything other than to go away before he gets us both sick,” Jerry claimed, before aiming the blowtorch back at my window.
“Okay, I agree, he’s not easy on the eyes, but the Deviants won’t touch him.”
“I wouldn’t either. He looks like a pizza with skin cancer,” he replied.
“Stop it. He can hear you, you know?”
“I don’t care. He still owes me fifteen bucks. Hey, Deadgar, where’re those fifteen bucks you owe me, ya’ mooch?” Jerry yelled.
“Hey, I said, stop it. Let it go. That was a long time ago.”
“I don’t care. Get rid of his scurvy ass. I still need to eat later.”
I agreed with Jerry about Edgar Bunk. It looked like Edgar had a bad reaction to something that left his body riddled with infected boils and repulsing pockets of blisters. He was beyond the help of antibiotics and Neosporin, so I paid him with painkillers to keep him ticking. His head and neck were bulbous and his arms and legs were long, scrawny, and peeling skin.
His stomach pushed out from beneath his ribs like a basketball bursting at the seams and, at times, he looked to be in a pain that he once described as “constantly being set on fire.”
Pockets was Edgar’s
street name because he was a career thief, picked pockets, and sold stuff that fell off the back of trucks. When he came around I used him to skulk through the neighborhood since he knew its inner dealings better than most and could get things, including information.
I admit Edgar wasn’t as stealthy as he probably once was and might’ve lost a step in his slink and hustle, because sometimes he wouldn’t return for days, and sometimes with nothing at all.
Edgar had a difficult time speaking through the sores sitting inside his mouth, so he spoke slowly. His tongue, sickening to look at and horribly fat, slid across his lips like a charred caterpillar and between gaps where teeth used to be.
“How are you feeling today, Edgar—better?” I asked.
“Uggghhnngggh, I can’thh thcratch my inthiides.”
“Okay, maybe it’s better you don’t speak, just nod yes or no, okay? I know you’re in a lot of pain so we’ll make this quick, and you can have your medicine, deal?”
“Why don’t we do the kid a favor and put him out of his misery?” Jerry yelled from behind me.
“Jesus, Jerry.”
“Look at him, Charlie. He’s a walking waste dump. He’s going to die anyway. Jesus Christ, I think he just shit his pants!” Jerry turned away, heaving in disgust.
“Okay, Edgar, where were we? Have you heard anything about a secure passage out of the circle yet? How about food?”
“Nuhhh,” he answered.
“Okay, well, here are your treats then. Come back if you hear anything, alright. You come to me first and I’ll take care of you.”
“Yuhhh.”
After rewarding Edgar with some pain relievers, I watched as he shuffled off, never to return, leaving behind a lingering odor of the runs and decay.
I often think of what might have happened to him, why he never came back, or why he looked like a leper. He wasn’t ill-tempered and he wasn’t a Deviant. I don’t know what he was.
XXX
VALLEY OF THE VAGRANTS
Sunday, January 26th, 2014
The commune at Bowne Park looked more like a concentration camp, surrounded by steel fencing crowned with barbed wire and long railroad nails. Armed civilians in jogging suits carefully monitored every movement from their watchtowers. They cornered us a block away from the watchdogs at the entrances, greeting us with guns to the back of our heads while shoving us to the ground, taking cues from those very, very low budget action flicks.
“Get down to the ground, motherfuckers, or we’ll blow your motherfucking heads off!”—or something to that effect. I found it a bit over the top, but I was concerned for Jane, who wasn’t responding well to children pointing their guns at our heads.
The kids couldn’t have been any older than 14 or 15 years old and needed to cut down on the energy drinks and video games before they accidentally killed someone.
An older man with the face of a constipated hawk, gray hair and glasses, pushed through the circle of rug rats and ordered them to help our asses up. He was dressed in civilian clothing, but walked with the confidence of the cock that ruled the roost. He introduced himself as Bryce, the administrator of the compound’s activities.
Bryce apologized for the young men’s ambush but told us the hoarders had been trying to sneak into the communes to steal resources—hence the caution. I understood their stance. It’s become seemingly impossible to defend ourselves from the Deviants and also have to worry about the intrusion of others, but what’s up with the soldier of fortune shit?
“Are you seeking shelter?” Bryce asked.
“No, we’re looking for a boy, my son, he’s 8, 7 years old, brown hair, this tall, maybe this tall,” I answered.
Bryce took a brief moment to process the information through his mental database, or maybe not. “Hmm, sorry, doesn’t ring a bell, but again, we have many orphans here on the compound. You’re more than welcome to come inside and take a look around. We might’ve picked him up on the last run this morning,” he said, ordering the watchmen to clear a path for us.
Bryce escorted us through the reinforced fence and into the encampment where tents, cots, and barracks, all made from corrugated metal scraps, blanketed most of the park’s claustrophobic confines.
Some of the lurkers and have-nots met us with sad faces and suspicion as we hiked our way through the path of the commune. A gang of dirty children played ball in the icy mud—some without coats and others without shoes. Most of them were without the supervision or company of an adult, and none of them were Dusty.
Bryce briefed Jane and me on the makeshift colony, but seemed underwhelmed with the lack of camaraderie among certain groups there. “We do what we can for them. No one’s ever happy,” he said pushing further through the trail of vagabonds.
“How about you kick them out and see how they like it on the outside?” I added.
What is happy these days?
Shantytown was far from being the Four Seasons and unfortunately only a cut above a prison yard. It wasn’t like in the movies where everyone pitched in together to churn butter and chop lumber on the prairie. There were no sing-a-longs and marshmallows by the campfire at night. Hope was a flickering flame slowly dying on a pile of embers we called home.
I was disappointed to see segregation still existed after what we’ve been through with the fallout. The human fence within the fences you can say. I’d hate to be the guy who tells the riffraff that Deviants do not discriminate. Deviants care about what your principles are just as much as you care about what fried chicken thinks before you eat it. The disease will kill you whether you are a Doctor with a PHD or homeless, eating crap out of the garbage to survive.
The Deviants will snack on babies and come back for seconds. Get over yourself. Just being alive is the luxury now.
While walking, a filthy man in a suit approached me, possibly a banker or trader who was looking to score some nose candy while trying to uphold his profile among those other people. You know, the other people who were also homeless and cramped his style.
“Hey, chief, I don’t want to be presumptuous or anything, but you think you could tell me where I might find some…?”directing my eyes to his nose with the tip of his finger. Yeah, I know where it goes, buddy.
When Bryce caught wind of my friend in need, he offered to shove his boot up into the man’s ass, sending him swiftly on his way.
“We all have needs, Charlie—some more selfish than others. Damn junkies. There is no place for those types here,” Bryce said while giving his soldiers orders with a simple motion of his eyes.
I’ve seen enough movies to know that the look meant someone was going to get their backside handed to them.
There’s nothing like a good old fashioned beat down to work off that teenage angst, and the soldiers quickly took off after Mr. Suit.
Frankly, I didn’t give a shit about the real estate or the politics, but I wasn’t going to leave any stone unturned to find Dusty.
Bryce told us he was a retired police officer from the 109th precinct who endured the initial fights with the Deviants, and one of the first responders to help begin building the commune when the evacuations began. He was a crusader who arranged for buses and jalopies to transport drifters from one commune to the other through the safe zones.
A sense of civil unrest loomed as rations and supplies were quickly depleting. I felt Bryce was losing control over and confidence of the people. I don’t blame them. He lives in a nice tent guarded by his own little personal army while everyone else lives in shit.
Upon entering the command center, a miniature circus tent erected in the back of the compound, Bryce appeared uneasy at times speaking about the Deviants, whom he typically referred to as those things out there. I asked him what he knew about the roadblocks, and his body language and mood changed almost immediately, so much that the air in the tent changed with him. He was pensive about the eye in the sky and the border patrol.
It may have been a slap in the face for a dedicated police office
r to receive the cold shoulder from military monkeys like everyone else had, but—Bryce soon began to elaborate on something I almost wish he hadn’t.
Bryce paused, and before continuing, sat on a large trunk that mysteriously stood in the middle of the tent. The Deviants and hoarders were a fraction of our worries, he warned us, his words becoming low and cryptic. What I saw from my window and occasional strolls in the ‘hood was a drop in the toilet bowl according to Bryce. The Trinity did not limit itself to humans. It affected everything from humans, to small and large animals, plants, and my favorite—the insect world.
“It’s in the water now,” he said, “and we haven’t gotten the worst of it yet.
Bryce jokingly compared our world to the Land of the Lost, but I didn’t find much humor in it as the idea sent an uncomfortable chill up my spine. Did he mean giant insects? Killer fern? Dinosaurs?
Bryce sat on the trunk that was draped with a heavy fabric, drumming his fingers against the chest, and with eeriness in his voice, he asked us if we wanted to see something.
He didn’t give us time to respond as he pulled the fabric off and unbolted the latches, tossing the lid open.
Jane turned away and covered her eyes as Bryce stood over the trunk looking like a kid who morbidly wanted to show off his dead hamster. “Come here, you have to see this!” he said, waving me over.
Fuck it. What could be so bad? I’ve buried people and chopped people up, so this couldn’t be that much worse, right?—Wrong.
When I slowly inched over to the trunk to look inside, my throat and chest tightened in an instant snap, like someone had put my lungs in a kung fu grip.
“Hey, are you okay?” Bryce asked placing his hand on my shoulder, but I couldn’t breathe. There was a goddamn giant water bug on its back, four pointy legs up in the air, and it was looking straight at me!
The air escaped me, and the floor vanished as I tried turning my head away from the bug’s beady eyes and crooked antennas. I imagined the creature attaching itself to my body as my heart palpitated and throat closed, cold beads of sweat formed on my face.
I'M NOT DEAD: The Journals of Charles Dudley Vol.1 Page 12