Soft Apocalypse

by Will McIntosh

  Over in produce, the Hispanic guy threw a pear at the security guy, who was still doubled over. Blood was dripping onto the linoleum from between his fingers. The Hispanic guy grabbed another pear from an enormous pyramid of them and hurled it toward the registers. He grabbed another and took a bite.

  The Jumpy-Jump whipped items from his cart at the checkout girl behind his register. She was ducked down, hands covering her face, screaming.

  There were things flying everywhere.

  A shot rang out, then screams, then angry shouts and more shots. The Jumpy-Jump ducked behind a rack of impulse items, pulled a pistol with a silencer, and squeezed off a shot.

  A security guard ran from the back of the store, his gun pointed in the air. A fat guy threw a TV, box and all, at him. It missed, crashed into a clothing rack, and spewed ugly v-necked shirts into the aisle. The Jumpy-Jump shot the guard in the chest.

  “Let’s go!” I said to Deirdre.

  “Are you kidding?” she said. She was laughing like this was a Three Stooges film.

  The management guy was down; four or five people stood over him, their fists rising and falling. The price-change girl was down too. At first I thought her head was splattered with pink bits of brain, then I realized it was watermelon.

  It occurred to me that the mob might kill all of the employees.

  “Stay here,” I said to Deirdre.

  She shrugged. “Whatever.” She licked at the white creme center of an Oreo she’d pulled from the shelf of impulse items.

  I crawled along the front of the checkout aisle. “Hey,” I said to the checkout girl huddled on the floor below her register, “lose the vest!” I pantomimed pulling it over her head. She nodded, pulled off the blue employee vest and flung it toward the rest rooms. I ran along the registers and told the other checkout people.

  By the time I got back to Deirdre, the shooting was over—people were either looting or smashing things, and no authority types were around to stop them. A beer-bellied guy in hunting fatigues, running toward the sporting goods department, slipped in a puddle of blood and fell on his ass.

  The big crane game by the entrance crashed to the floor, spilling stuffed animals and cheap watches. The tweenaged girls who’d tipped it dove to retrieve their prizes. There were old people, mothers with kids, you name it, all filling shopping carts.

  “Come on,” Deirdre said, tugging me toward the free stuff. I ran to get a shopping cart.

  We took our ill-gotten booty to Deirdre’s place—a penthouse condo in one of the historic houses on Gaston, with high ceilings and a big old chandelier. High on the adrenaline of having started a riot, she wasted no time in introducing me to the world of sex with Deirdre.

  She liked it fast, furious, and violent, just like her music, just like her life. It was filthy, and I loved it, because she loved it, and I was with a rock star that hundreds of guys wanted to be with, and that was so cool.

  Yes, she had started the riot, and yes, people had died. But (I reasoned as I ran my hands over her body) she’d only thrown apples, which was playful, really. Others had turned it violent.

  Afterward, I lay there panting, one arm wrapped across Deirdre’s lightly freckled shoulders.

  “Go home,” Deirdre muttered into her pillow. “I hate sleeping with someone in the bed.” The sweat on her pale white neck hadn’t even dried yet.

  I gathered up my wrinkled clothes and pulled them on (except my socks, because I could only find one and didn’t dare dig around in the blankets), took a long last look at Deirdre—one leg straight, one bent, her back rising and falling with easy, even breaths—and headed home.

  “Put the damned phone away,” Colin said, shouting from the roof. “This is gonna turn into Sophia all over again.”

  “Deirdre’s not married,” I called up to him, but I stuffed the phone into my jeans pocket, and picked up the shovel.

  She hadn’t returned my call. I could barely see the dirt in front of me, what with flashbacks of the night before last dancing before me.

  I heard Jeannie shout something to Colin.

  “Jeannie heard on the radio that Wal-Mart isn’t reopening for weeks,” Colin said. “People are squatting in the building, and the company has to fly in a security force to take the store back before it can restock.”

  “Maybe this will boost business at the convenience store,” I said. “We may actually profit from Deirdre’s stunt.” I finished filling the big plastic bucket, motioned to Colin. He hauled it up, grunting with the effort as the bucket danced and swung at the end of the rope.

  It was getting dark; a couple more bucketsful and we’d have to call it quits.

  “Oh. That’s just lovely. And here I thought the Jumpy-Jumps were responsible for digging all the holes I keep tripping in.”

  Deirdre was leaned up against a light post. Her outfit was reminiscent of an S&M dominatrix: black and red, plenty of leather, plenty of straps. No mask. Deirdre never wore a mask. She strutted over on spiked heels, took in the excavation with hands on hips.

  Suddenly I felt all filthy and sweaty. I’m not a macho enough guy for manual labor to make me seem manly. Clean and scrubbed is a much better look for me.

  “Now, you’ve just got to be Deirdre,” Colin called down.

  Deirdre looked up, shielding her eyes. “And you’ve got to be someone I don’t know.”

  Colin laughed.

  “What are you doing up there?”

  “We’re making a vegetable garden,” Colin said. “Some young hoodlums went and ruined the Wal-Mart, so now we have to grow our own food, someplace where others can’t get at it.” Although that meant no longer spreading the solar blanket up there to offset our energy bills.

  Deirdre pressed a finger to her lips and grinned. She turned to me. “You want to come out and play, or do you want to stay in your sandbox?”

  “Give me five minutes,” I said, leaning the shovel against the porch railing.

  “You kids have a good time, but don’t stay out too late,” Colin called after me as I trotted into the house.

  I pulled off my clothes and jumped into the shower. The icy water made me gasp. I was busting inside. Deirdre had come to find me! I wasn’t boring!

  I was dried and dressed in moments, knowing that Deirdre probably wasn’t good at waiting.

  “I’ve got a show at midnight,” she said as we started walking. “We’ve got—”

  We both gawked at what had come around the corner.

  It was a stripped-down car, little more than seats on an axle, pulled by a whining, barking pack of dogs. A cardboard “Taxi” sign was taped to the front.

  “No way,” Deirdre said.

  It made sense, really. There were plenty of dogs. Hell, they were all over, like big rats. We watched as the taxi rolled out of sight.

  “You walked over here alone?” I asked.

  Deirdre looked at me like I was an idiot.

  “It’s just that the streets are so dangerous,” I said.

  “Yeah? And?”

  I shrugged. She had a point. People seemed way more willing to take risks now than when I was a kid. Maybe it was because we didn’t expect to live as long as our parents did.

  Was that it? Did we think: Why not risk it, I’ll probably be dead soon anyway? Yeah, we did. When I was a kid I was sure I’d live to ninety, maybe a hundred. I’d been adjusting that estimate downward ever since. Now I figured that unless things got better, I’d be lucky to reach fifty.

  “What do you want to do?” I asked.

  Deirdre shrugged. “Surprise me.”

  Surprise Deirdre? Shit. Maybe we could walk a tight-rope between the Hilton and the Saint John the Baptist Church belfry. Or dynamite the Savannah Bridge and watch it crash into the river. She’d like that. I was tempted to suggest a restaurant.

  I glanced at Deirdre: she had an eager, hyper look on her face. It was becoming apparent that Deirdre was a woman of many moods, and that they cycled through her quickly and unexpectedly.
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br />   Surprise Deirdre. I took her hand, headed down East Jones and through Troup Square, trying to think.

  Someone had wrapped a length of electrical cord down a busted out lamppost in the square, like Christmas garland only colorless. I’d almost forgotten about Christmas. It was soon; I wasn’t sure exactly what the date was. Somewhere in the teens. In keeping with the Christmas theme, the big marble statue of John Wesley that sat atop his tomb in the center of the square had been spray painted red and green, except for his face, which was painted black. At least I thought it was his tomb. I’d never actually read the brass plaque embedded in the concrete below the statue.

  Tombs. Now, that was something Deirdre might like.

  “Come on.” I took Deirdre’s hand and drew her down Abercorn.

  “Hmmm,” Deirdre cooed as we crossed Liberty and walked toward the locked gates of Colonial Park Cemetery.

  She ignored my attempt to boost her and scrabbled over the fence. I gripped the rough, rusty iron and climbed in after her. White headstones glowed vaguely in the tree-canopied darkness, chipped and crooked like giant teeth. Crepe myrtle, barkless and shiny, twisted toward the sky.

  Deirdre stepped over a fallen lamppost, headed toward the concrete wall that marked the far end of the cemetery. I followed, wrapped my hands around her waist when I caught up to her. She was staring up at the rows of lost tombstones, mounted along the wall.

  “What’re those doing up there?” she asked.

  “Soldiers came through here during the Civil War, pulled them out of the ground and tossed them around. The residents didn’t know which went where, so they couldn’t put them back.”

  “I don’t know why people care so much about dead bodies anyway. What’s the difference where someone is once they’re dead?”

  I slid my palms up her sides, wrapped them over her breasts. She looked back at me over her shoulders, smiling. “You want to fuck me in a graveyard?” She scanned the graveyard as I slid my hands under her shirt.

  “This way,” she said, taking my hand and leading me over a low fence enclosing two rows of concrete tombs that looked like coffins set aside to be buried later. There were eight of them in the little family plot. One of them was much smaller than the rest—suitable for a four-or five-year-old child. Deirdre chose that one.

  I strolled down York Street toward Deirdre’s condo, enjoying the cool weather, my hand in my pocket holding my pay. I loved the feel of the thickish wad of cash in my pocket. Six hundred forty dollars—not a bad week’s pay. I wouldn’t be moving into the gated district any time soon, and Deirdre probably made ten times what I did, but still, it was nice to be making enough that I could buy a newspaper if I wanted.

  I wanted to think that my improved fortunes were part of a larger economic recovery, but it was hard to tell. To me, things seemed a little better, but there were still plenty of homeless, and the stock market just kept sinking. If the government knew what the unemployment rate was, they weren’t saying, but on the news an economist had estimated it was close to sixty percent. Angling my face toward the sun, I decided I would stop fretting and be glad I wasn’t one of them. Things were going well, all things considered, and I should appreciate it. Deirdre and I were at a point in our relationship that it was assumed we’d see each other every day, and I was catching glimpses of a softer woman underneath the edgy, intense exterior.

  I paused beside a huge Sanitation Department dumpster that sat abandoned on the corner, shaded by a live oak. There were two guys staring up at Deirdre’s condo from across the street—a short old guy with the remnant of what must have been a prodigious beer gut when French fries were cheap, and a short younger guy who looked disturbingly like a gnome.

  The gnome spotted me approaching, gestured me over.

  “Feast your eyes,” he whispered.

  Deirdre was gardening on her terrace, completely naked. Her nipples brushed the dark soil as she filled in a hole, patting the earth vigorously, her immense satisfaction easy to read on her face.

  “Yeah, I’ve seen her naked before,” I said.

  The gnome looked at me, confused. “She’s done this before?”

  “No, that’s my girlfriend.”

  “Shiiit,” he said, grinning. “You’re lucky.”

  “I know,” I said. I got a better grip on the plastic bag that contained my photo album and headed for the door, fishing Deirdre’s key out of my pocket.

  “Honey, I’m home,” I called.

  Deirdre lifted her head, peered at me through the sliding glass door. She got up, brushed her knees and ass, opened the door. “No you’re not. Your home is on Jones Street.” She pressed up against me, gave me a tongue-first kiss.

  “You must have missed the tone I was going for. It was meant to be ironic. Well, not exactly ironic, or sarcastic exactly. But it was meant to have a tone.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” she said, smiling.

  “I don’t know,” I said. I headed toward the terrace. The two guys were still standing across the street. The gnome waved. I waved back. “So what are you planting?”

  “Peppers. Hot ones—all sorts. I love peppers.”

  “Ah. No tomatoes? No spinach?”

  “Nope. Just peppers. I don’t like all those other vegetables.” She curled her lip as if eating vegetables was comparable to licking mold off the shower curtain. “Who were you waving to?”

  “The two guys who were watching you from across the street. Nice guys. They weren’t jerking off or anything. Very polite about it.”

  “Really?” Deirdre said, moving to the glass door to see. She laughed. “They were watching me? I didn’t even notice.”

  The gnome waved again, tentatively. Deirdre waved back. We moved away from the window.

  “You coming to the concert tonight?” Deirdre asked.

  “Wouldn’t miss it,” I said.

  “Cool.” She turned on her 3-D TV, threw herself onto the couch, propped one leg on the coffee table, the other on the couch.

  “You don’t have a concert tomorrow, right? Everyone’s planning to go to the beach.”

  “Right. Who’s everyone?”

  “Colin, Jeannie, Ange, Cortez,” I ticked off. “You up for it?”

  “Sure,” she said, though she didn’t sound enthused. Deirdre didn’t seem to like hanging out with my friends, and, though she knew lots of people, she didn’t seem to have many friends of her own.

  I held up the plastic bag. “Remember when I said I’d show you my childhood photos? Want to see?”

  Deirdre took one of the albums, started flipping through the pages. I was excited about showing them to her. To me it was like catching someone up on where you’d been, who you were.

  “Do you have any?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Nope.”

  I waited for her to elaborate, but that was evidently her answer in its entirety. “How come?”

  She sighed impatiently. “Because I don’t want to remember my god damned fucking childhood.” She closed the album. “Maybe I’ll look at these later?” She retrieved the remote, flipped through the channels.

  “Okay. No problem.” Deirdre hadn’t told me anything about her childhood; now it was clear why. I stashed my albums under the couch, adding one more item to my mental list of things I should be grateful for.

  At the concert that night tingles ran down my spine as I watched Deirdre perform her dark magic. Afterward people surrounded her, asked her to hang out.

  “Nah,” Deirdre said, pressing close to me. The sensation was exquisite. “Come on.” She splayed her fingers low for me. I laced mine between hers. Her palm was cool and soft and full of promises.

  We headed toward her apartment.

  “Razors, Deirdre! You cut to the bone,” a kid called out as we passed. It was the kid with the lamp black around his eyes. He didn’t recognize me.

  Most of Deirdre’s audience was so young. Most weren’t even old enough to remember what the parking meters lining
the street were for, or what the rusty signs meant.

  No Parking this side

  Saturday 12:01 -4:00 a.m.

  Sweep Zone

  The street surely could use a good sweep.

  We climbed the steps to Deirdre’s apartment. I stood behind her, my arms wrapped around her waist, looking down on the top of her head as she unlocked the door.

  “Want to hear something?” Deirdre said, kicking off her shoes and pulling a CD from a long shelf.

  “Sure. Is it a new song?”

  “Nope.” She popped it into the player.

  “Savannah 911: What’s your emergency?” said a woman’s voice.

  “Is that real?” I asked. Deirdre shushed me, nodding.

  “Someone just broke in here… they stabbed me and my kids, my little boys,” another woman said. It was real. No one could fake the anguish and adrenaline in that tone.

  “Who? Who did it?” the 911 operator said.

  “My little boy is dying.”

  “Hang on, hang on, hang on,” the operator said.

  “I have a whole collection of them,” Deirdre said. A vein in her neck, running over a stretched tendon, pulsed. “They’re not easy to get.”

  “Oh my god, my babies are dying.”

  I should have told her to turn it off. I should have sprung from the bed, stabbed at the buttons on the CD player until the voices went silent, but I didn’t want Deirdre to think I was… what? Weak. Uncool.

  Deirdre unbuttoned her shirt. I leaned in and kissed the soft skin plumping at her cleavage.

  “He’s dead. Oh, no. Oh, no. My babies are dead,” said the woman.

  Deirdre’s lip was curled. “I don’t ride bikes.”

  “Well, we can’t walk,” I said. “The beach is ten miles; everyone else would be heading home by the time we got there.”

  Her fists were clenched on her hips, one knee bent. “Then go, I don’t care.” Of course she didn’t mean it. If I left her and went with my friends, she wouldn’t talk to me for days. I looked up into the branches overhead, feeling trapped. It was so rare that we did anything fun. I didn’t want to miss it.

  “Well, how else can we get there?” I asked.