by David Sachs
“Can’t hurt me,” he managed.
“Is that a challenge?” the Commander said. “Huh. You Navy?”
“Once,” London said.
“You look like one. Even with a broken spine you got a rod up your ass. I was Navy. I hate uniforms. Navy. Cops. Guards. You don’t get to give orders anymore, Captain. We killed a lot of uniforms today. You can watch us kill more. That’ll hurt, won’t it?”
“I’ll be dead,” London said.
The man sounded educated, London thought. He’d probably been an officer himself; he had that look, if not as much as London did. How could this help?
The Commander hated this beaten man who still acted like he was in charge.
“You’re right,” the Commander said.
He shot Captain London twice in the chest and watched him take his last breath.
13
Travis and Gerry pulled Norman’s body into the bedroom, into the walk-in closet, while Corrina sat with Vera at the table. In the closet, they tossed aside the precisely placed men’s and women’s shoes to lay the body. Crisp ironed pants and shirts hung above Norman.
“He knew,” Vera said. “He knew what they’d do. But he would not stand by while they touched me. He was a real man, a man of honor.”
She had a Russian accent, dimmed from many years in America, socializing little with other immigrants. When Travis and Gerry came back into the living room, she was already staring at them.
Occasionally they heard screams from outside, gunshots. They sat around the table and did not talk. Corrina tried to hold Darren close but he pushed away and sat upright in his chair. The windows and patio doors showed night had fallen. The room was dark, only the chandelier above the table created a circle of light that they sat in. They each had retreated into themselves.
There had been a day during his mission in Sudan when Travis had led a Red Cross unit to set up a new refugee camp by a small village. By the time they arrived, the village had been wiped out by raiders. There were only bodies, dozens of bodies lying scattered between the thatch huts as flies licked at them and dust blew over them.
The bodies had to be cleared out before the camp could be set up. The message had already been sent across the countryside that this village would be the location of the camp, so they cleared the bodies and cleaned the site. He looked across at Darren and wished that the son would never see with his eyes what his father dreamt of.
“It was my first time returning home,” Vera said, breaking the silence. “I was born in St. Petersburg. Leningrad. I have not been home since I was a child. Norman was my only family now. He was taking me to visit my home. But I have no home now. I hardly exist, I suppose.”
“We’ll take care of you,” Corrina said. “We’re going to get through this. I’m sure the ship has radioed for help.”
Vera looked at her with contempt, tears still wet on her face. She spoke slowly: “Do you really think anyone will come for us? With half the world in chaos? You think they’ll worry about us?”
“There are other ships out here,” Gerry said. “Dozens of ships from New York alone, and they’ll be nearby because they would probably all be following the same instructions as the Festival. Someone will help us. Even if those ships for some reason can’t help us, there’re thousands of people on this ship. Each one of them has friends and relatives looking for them. There will be help, Vera. Eventually.”
“You are a fool,” Vera said. “Where is Norman?”
“The closet,” Gerry said.
“What? What are you talking about? Where is he? Norman!”
“Vera,” Travis said. “Vera, Norman is dead.”
Vera did not answer. She turned and fought the tears.
Travis nodded at Corrina. Vera had some form of dementia. Norman had been scared she would forget where the purse was. That’s why he tried to go.
“It’s okay, Vera,” Corrina said. “We’ll take care of you.”
The lights went out. The alarm stopped.
There was screaming from all around them, no gunfire then, only screaming.
“I’ll open the drapes, maybe there will be some light from outside,” Travis said.
He stumbled to the balcony doors and pulled the floor length drapes back. Only the most vague outline of the sliding door was visible. Travis struggled to find the latch and slide the glass pane back. It was a dark night; the clouds above stood out as a dull grey glow in the blackness.
Even that tiny amount of light helped, and Travis could begin to make out shapes in the cabin as his eyes adjusted and he looked back in.
“The lights are out all over the ship. I can see a few emergency lights way above us, but that’s it. I can make out the Navy ship, they have a few lights on. I can only see the very back of it. We’d better pass the night here,” Travis said.
14
The ship had several theaters. The largest, the Royal Theater, boasted 800 luxury seats and a 1500-square foot stage, fronted by a small orchestra pit. This was the second destination Captain London had herded the refugees from the West Side pier in New York. The Goldings were among the last flooding through the six double doors at the top of the Theater.
When the Navy ship had borne upon the Festival, Lee and Jessica Golding had been on the deck. In the chaos that followed, their cabin was not an option for escape. It lay just stern of the intersection of the two ships. They could see from the crash that they were homeless. Lee had watched that ship come in right up until it tore through, and the men came over the sides.
As the torrent of refugees returning tapered off, individuals or small groups still continued to join them in the Theater. When the gunshots became louder, closer, and more frequent, Jessica Golding shut the door nearest her. Lee followed her lead and looked around for something to barricade the doors with. The seats were permanently installed, but there were drapes on the walls, hanging from six-foot wrought-iron rods. He grabbed at a drape and pulled hard, snapping the fixture holding the rod. The rod came loose, and Lee quickly slid the drape off. He brought the rod to the door. It fit through the double door handles but with its length it was difficult to angle it in. Lee Golding’s action and intensity began building a panic in the room. Others came and helped, wedging the rod against the wall, forcing it into the depression the door was set in. Around the upper ring of the Theater and down in the lower corners, the struggle was repeated as groups of three or four men frantically pushed and struggled to fit the rods across the door handles.
Lee ran onto the stage to lock the door that led out through the backstage area and dressing rooms. In the hall there he saw the man-mountain with whom he had shared the escape from New York. The grey giant was alone in the hall, still searching for a place to hide.
“My room is gone,” Adam Melville said.
“Come in here, you’ll be safe,” Lee said. “I need to lock this door.”
They walked back out to the stage. When they emerged, the room was quiet. Jessica walked to the front and sat with Lee on the stage stairs. Adam found himself a seat near the front row. The seats were enormous luxury loungers, but he was still wedged between the armrests.
They waited.
It had been just hours ago that they’d watched New York recede, feeling that though the world was ending, they were safe. Safest seats in the house. When Adam had left the deck that afternoon, he’d had a flash about that wrestler, Lee Golding. A bad feeling. He had been troubled by this thought, and determined that he would keep an eye out for the other big man. And now Lee Golding had saved him.
It was not long before there was a noise at the door to stage right.
The wave of absolute quiet spread through the room, pushed on by the noise of the shaking and banging of that door.
Lee rose from his seat and stood by the side aisle, peering around the end of the stage.
Gunfire tore through the door, tearing into the angled floor of the aisle. Those by that side of the Theater screamed and rushed out of the path.
The door shook from the other side. The curtain rod, it could be seen by all, was only just barely wedged across the two handles. The five and a half feet of rod to one side of the handles was loose, and drooped to the floor. The doors shook, and then one handle snapped free of the curtain rod and the door swung open.
Enter the pirates: two men in orange prison jumpsuits.
Lee stepped back, blocking Jessica Golding behind him as the two men came into view of the full Theater. One of the men had a rifle: a Navy M16A3, demonstrated in fully-automatic mode by the gun bursts at the door. He wore a tactical vest over his jumpsuit and a Navy officer’s cap, tipped awkwardly.
“Well, well,” the man without the gun said. “the motherload of the mothership.”
“You got money. We got bullets,” the gunman said to the room. “Let’s make a deal.”
“This could take a while,” the man without the gun said, surveying the hundreds of faces.
“OK. We need a volunteer.”
Lee Golding stepped forward.
“What do you want?”
“Wait, I know you,” the man with the gun said. “Wow. I’m gonna make the Mighty Lee Golding my butler.”
Lee was pressed into service as their surrogate mugger. The gunman and the gunman’s partner would follow him up the aisle, and Lee would collect the money. For his collection, they quickly took the largest handbag from a woman near the front and dumped its contents. Lee took the bag, with the men behind him, and started his tour with Adam Melville.
“How did you ever get that ship?” Adam asked the invaders as he stood, and put his hands to his pockets.
The man without the gun’s face went queer, his eyes opened wide.
“God, man, God! The guards and staff bolted early, so by the time that ship with no crew came for us, there was just the last few sucker-guards. God set it all up!”
The man spoke so flamboyantly, he was like a man possessed, or it seemed to Lee, like a pro wrestler challenging him in an arena somewhere.
“Then,” he continued, “we had our own Navy guy to drive the boat: that’s God’s hand! And now the Mighty Lee Golding is my valet. Well, we’re getting years of bad karma reversed today.”
They had known, even in Sing Sing, what was happening around them. They knew that when the main body of guards evacuated, they were almost surely to drown in their cells. When the evacuation of prisoners finally came, the unexpected success of their uprising and of stealing the ship had driven them into a frenzy. Killing the guards and all but a few of the ship’s crew had set a new tone for all of them in this very new world. If they were violent before, they were free now.
Adam took his wallet out and passed it to Lee. Lee looked back at the men.
“Just the cash and cards,” the gunman said.
“You all been living the high life too long,” the ranting man continued, “and your own chickens are coming home to roost. Today is the Day of Big Payback, when ying becomes yang, and the hardest luck crew gets dealt a flush.”
He was high, Lee thought, and he found himself wondering how they got drugs in prison, and what drugs they had. Lee took out money and three credit cards and dropped them in the bag.
“Now frisk him,” the man with the gun said.
“What?” Lee said.
“Frisk him!” the man with the gun said, straightening the gun towards Lee and Adam.
“What for?” Lee said.
“’Cause it’s funny to me,” the man without the gun said.
The Mighty Lee Golding turned and put his arms around Adam Melville. He began to pat him around, like in the movies. His arms struggled to reach around the bulk of the other.
“Don’t forget his crotch, check it.”
Lee patted down Adam’s crotch, the insides of his thighs. His huge paws with the class ring and wedding ring went up patting Adam 's chest, and under his armpits which were wet, and the shirt dark, with sweat.
“He’s clean,” Lee said. He looked at Adam with a little nervous laugh.
“Next.”
Lee took money, jewelry and credit cards up the line. There were hundreds of refugees to rob, and they passed their things quickly through Lee Golding’s hands.
Two thirds of the way up the first aisle, Lee saw the muzzle of the gun close by his head, moving loosely. He turned and grabbed the gunman’s arm. The two crashed into the wall. The second of the pair was a few steps below on the aisle, and was immediately up the stairs onto Lee’s back. Lee had an iron grip on the wrist below which the gun was held, and he cracked it against the wall while pressing his weight right into the man. He scarcely noticed the second on his back, before Adam tore the gunman from Lee with one hand, pulling the gun away from him with the other. The Mighty Lee Golding, the Alabama Assassin, shook his man like a rag doll, cracking the gunless man’s back on the railing along the wall. The other swung away from Adam and began to run towards the door he’d come through. Adam lifted the gun with both hands and fired several rounds in one quick squeeze. The sound shocked his ears. The man in the orange jumpsuit fell to the floor.
Lee had his man on the floor and was throwing his enormous fist into the gunman’s face until the gunman was no threat. Lee caught his breath and came to his feet.
Adam stood before him in the aisle, staring at the dead man, the arm with the gun limp by his side. Lee came to him and took the gun, and Adam didn’t respond. Lee pointed it at the groaning, broken man on the floor and fired.
The echo dissipated from the air, and the quiet now in the Theater, whose acoustics were renowned, was such that the panting of Lee and Adam could be heard across the room. Lee put his hand on Adam’s shoulder. Adam walked away from him, past the dead man, and collapsed in a seat.
Lee held the gun in the air. The rush, the adrenaline, heartbeat, serotonin, and all the eyes on him, were something he’d not felt in so many years since he’d left the ring. He was high with the rush. He leaned back and laughed his stage laugh. He made a V with his fingers and wagged his tongue through it.
“Golding gonna getcha!” he yelled.
The crowd roared in a cheer. He looked at Jessica and winked.
Lee left the handbag he’d used on the floor for those robbed to reclaim their things. Only Adam stayed in his seat.
Lee was down on the dead man, checking his tactical vest.
“Motherload from the mothership,” he said.
The whole Theater must be able to hear his heart beat, he thought. Let ‘em.
The pockets were full, all of them, with ammo clips. Eight 30-round magazines in all. Lee unclipped the vest from the dead man, blood and all, and threw it on over one shoulder. For a moment he tried getting the other arm through, but it needed adjusting to fit so he left it hanging from the one shoulder and returned to the front, to Jessica.
Adam tried to keep himself from vomiting. The sudden threat taken suddenly away, he felt disgust from the sick opportunism of the prisoners, the fear, the roar of the gunfire, the bloody death. He killed a man.
The main lights went out. The alarm stopped. Only the emergency lights along the floor were visible, twinkling like stars below them, and they were above heaven.
15
Some length of time after the lights went out, the ship moved. It began as a shudder, then the floors shifted beneath them in Vera and Norman’s luxury berth, and they felt the ship tilt to one side. The floor came up at a tremendous angle, and they all tumbled off their chairs, rolling over each other into the wall.
“The Navy ship’s separating,” Gerry said.
They stayed pressed against the wall, and then felt the room begin to spin slowly, as the Navy ship tried to reverse away, and the Festival clung to it.
“Momma?” Darren called in the dark.
“I’m here,” she said.
With a shudder, it stopped. There was an echo of metal tearing, and the ship began to right herself. It stopped short of coming back to level, but straightened enough that they could stand.
&nb
sp; “They’re gone,” Gerry said. “They must be gone.”
“Will the lights come back?” Darren asked.
“I’m sure they have a back-up system,” Travis said. “They’ll fix it. And we’ll be off this ship soon anyways, li’l bud, we’ll be off soon.”
Travis went out on the balcony and verified that the Navy ship had separated, still visible but moving away. He could now hardly make out the dark stern of the Festival, but he could see that its lines were bent and broken.
“I’ll take a look down the hall,” Gerry said, “and see if there’re lights anywhere.”
Gerry walked towards the cabin foyer, bouncing off the wall, and then tripping over a chair. Finally, the group heard the door as Gerry exited. They felt, each of them, that there were no guarantees of return when someone left a room.
The hallway was dark except for a dim track of emergency lighting along the wall, an inch above the floor. Gerry heard crying from many places. He began to walk forward. He didn’t know what he was hoping to find, other than light.
Gerry Adamson was a strong man with a soft personality. He’d grown up poor in New York, his mom a single mother in and out of jobs, in and out of drunken uselessness. Gerry had raised himself. He’d raised himself to be mean, until a teacher took the time to explain where his road was leading.
Young Gerry was smart and mature out of necessity, so he listened. It was a surprise to those who knew him back then that he went on to become a teacher; a surprise that he’d had the inclination and a surprise that he’d had the discipline and ability. At the same time, those who knew him as an adult, as a lover of poetry and a gentle man, good with kids, would not have guessed at his rough boyhood.
He was soft spoken, although not quiet – he loved to talk, about art and ideas.
Poetry was one of the links between the two Gerry Adamsons – it was poetry that had allowed him to escape meanness and find meaning. His own first book of poetry had sold well in New York. But it could never make a career for him.