Following the dog, I walk around the huge farm table and stop short, in front of the oven. An uncooked pan of brownies sits on the stovetop. He lies down, paws extended, whining, his nose buried under a crumpled pair of jeans and a brown wool sweater. From the pile, between his teeth, he gently lifts a gray slipper, wrinkled striped sock still tucked into the toes, and he rises to his feet. As he turns toward me, a puff of white powder wafts into the air, swirls around his paws and clings to the fur on his nose and his red limbs.
I scream, and yank him away by the collar. He sneezes, drops the slipper, and shakes all over like he just went for a swim, his tags jingling. I step away as white powder drifts between us and across the linoleum, like flour patted, baking bread.
“No! C’mere, boy.” Rising nausea fills my throat, my stomach seizing. They were people. Now, like my parents: dust. I scan the room for a landline telephone and see nothing. A cell phone rests on the counter and I pick it up, try 911 while holding his collar. Like at my parents’ house, the phone rings and rings. Shaking now—again—I try a few more numbers, and get only voicemail or ringing. It strikes me that I keep attempting the same thing, with the same effect, and that exacerbates my helplessness. Why should making calls from a neighbor’s house be any different than from my parents? It wouldn’t.
The dog and I stare at each other. I’ve got him by the collar, and he sits down, pawing my leg and whining.
“Do you need to go out? God, you poor thing.” He barks and wags his tail. Still trembling, I follow him to the back kitchen door, open it and let him bound out into the snow, realizing too late that I maybe should have leashed him.
But, no. Quickly finished, he bounces through the snow back inside, just as the kitchen goes eerily quiet. I wonder what’s different and realize the refrigerator has stopped running. The digital clock on the stove is black.
I run into the living room, dog at my hip. The lamps are off, so I’m pretty sure the electricity is out. Stepping toward a lamp to give the switch a futile try, I notice another clothing pile on the braided rug. No, two piles. I step closer, holding the dog’s collar again, and see navy blue sweatpants and a sweatshirt. And, footy pajamas, yellow and white striped, tiny. The now recognizable, pasty white powder piles. The loss of children, possibly many, multiplies the event’s cost in an exponential equation I can’t comprehend, and can’t face. But my artist’s mind gives me no choice, conjuring images of a child at play, and then, folding down on itself. Dad disintegrating, too, his last thought worry over what was happening to his child.
“Damnit.” Unable to endure another second, I run down the hallway, leaving a stunned dog behind. Then I’m out of the house, stumbling down the porch stairs into the front yard’s deep snow. It’s a blinding sun-brightened tundra. Fierce wind pings my cheeks with drifting, icy flakes. Gigantic, ancient maples in the front yard shake loose a new blizzard. I can’t escape white powder.
It was the wind, I think about the power outage, taxing a snow laden branch until it broke. I’ll need to get the generator going. I take the road this time, running, shambling, tripping through the nearly three feet of fresh snow, clutching the red parka closed, feeling crazed. As I jog through the drifts, my fingers and cheeks numbing, I feel sharp pangs in my lungs. It’s too cold for this kind of thing. Then I have the sudden thought, how many people are dead?
The question numbs my mind with countless possibilities. Without an answer, I can’t think of anything else until I find myself standing in front of a familiar street-side mailbox.
Broken from my trance-like state, I head around the house to the back door, still following my mother’s rules about wet boots. I’ll leave them by the door, on the mat, where they can dry without soaking the hard wood floors.
In the back yard, Sylvia greets me with her plaintive mooing. Her voice is muffled, but resounds from the barn.
I want to shout to her again, to tell her I’ll be right there. But she’s a cow. She won’t understand a word of it, and it won’t make me feel any better. So what’s the point?
After quickly confirming that the power is out here, too, I retrieve a pair of gloves and trundle the generator out of the barn, struggling with it in the deep snow. Each heave moves it only a foot, and my shoulders ache by the time I reach the back of the house, where the generator’s power runs inside and to the breaker box. Knowing I’m close to the right spot, I stop, turn around and look for the hookup. It’s nowhere in sight, buried beneath several feet of snow.
A thousand curses flit in and out of my brain, clogging the freeway of self-expression with so much angst that I fail to verbalize it. Instead, I get a shovel from the barn and dig. At first, with tired, slow hands. Then with the crazed frenzy of a lunatic. And finally, when the small gray outlet box emerges, I heave with the slow, steady pull of a New Englander at work, ignoring the pain, doing what needs doing.
With the outlet box exposed, I turn to the generator and grunt. It’s now several feet above the outlet. Logistically, it’s not a big deal, because the cable that attaches the generator to the house is ten feet long. But the generator runs hot. The snow beneath it will melt. Inside an hour of running, it could be submerged in a puddle of melt water.
Why am I bothering? I wonder. The wood stove will heat the living room. I can put the food outside.
A hot shower, I think, and feel the sweat dripping inside my clothes. A long, hot shower.
Digging resumes.
Snow cleared, cable connected, I attach the large propane tank, stationed beside the electric hook up, to the generator and twist the valve open. After making sure all the switches and knobs are in their starting positions, I yank the starter cord. With a cough, the generator roars to life. It’s used several times a year and is always reliable. I picture my next steps, inside the house, to the basement and the circuit breakers which will direct the flow of electricity into the house from the power grid to the generator.
No, not the basement.
I make it part way before stopping in the kitchen, listening to Sylvia moo and the generator hum, hesitating at the top of the cellar stairs. I run my fingers through my hair, rub my temples. Delay action however I can.
Locked in place at the top of the basement stairs, I can smell the air that is still cooler than the first floor. It smells of the sweet things canned by my parents, and of oil, but not of them. Of their remains.
I need to do this.
To know that it will work. I’m not just living now. I’m not simply existing. It’s not even about surviving. It’s about growing a life. Protecting that life. And that means taking care of myself. As rugged as I can be, and have been, the life inside me is fragile. If I’m going to stay healthy, I need to be rested, and clean. And that means power.
I run down the cellar stairs, straight to the gray metal box on the wall. The small door opens with a clang. Hand written instructions for the generator’s operation are taped inside, my father’s scribble, but I don’t need them. I’ve done this before. After shutting off the main breaker and all the rest, I switch the incoming line from the main, to the generator. Then, one by one, I turn the necessary breakers back on—fridge, stove, water pump, water heater, kitchen, living room, bed room. I leave off the rest of the house, including the washer, dryer and microwave. But, is it working? To find out, I switch on the basement breaker. The lights shine bright. A loud buzz spins me around, a scream on my lips, my heart pounding. The pod is on again, buzzing at me, pulling my eyes toward the limp forms on the floor.
I run from the basement, skirting around my parents and dashing up the staircase, hands on the steps like I did when I was a kid. At the top of the stairs, I’m desperate for something normal. For something I know. I head into the bathroom, close the door, drop my pants and sit on the toilet.
When I’m done, and calmer, I turn toward the bathroom mirror, but stop. I know what I’ll see. Black bangs with a single blue streak, wet and stuck to my forehead. My father’s brown eyes, ringed and swollen from
crying. Red cheeks and a redder parka, which I’m still wearing. I’ll look pitiful. My image will suck away my lingering strength.
I grip the sides of the sink, staring down at the drain, listening to Sylvia’s bellow. “You’re okay. Stop being such a pussy. Now go take care of that stupid cow.” I storm out of the bathroom, wet socks leaving damp, rule-breaking footprints through the house, into the kitchen.
Then I scream.
8
AUGUST
A wave of searing air almost sends me back into Claire’s apartment, but the ring of fire reaching around the parking lot leaves little doubt that the building will soon be ablaze. I hurry to my SUV’s driver’s side door, yank it open and climb inside. With the door ajar, I put the still open and overflowing backpack in the passenger’s seat and wedge the milk in next to it.
I glance in the rearview. Not for any good reason. It’s just habit. But the reflection makes me shout. Flames roil over the parking lot, consuming vehicles just thirty feet behind me. They quickly catch fire, their tires billowing dark black smoke. A gust of wind forces the flames toward me.
With another shout, I reach for the door, feel the heat cooking my skin, and yank it closed. With shaking, nervous fingers, I turn the key and the engine shrieks at me. It’s not going to start! I think, consumed by panic as the fire threatens to turn me into dust as well. I turn the key again and am greeted by the same grating sound.
This makes no sense! The Highlander is only a year old and is in perfect condition. My muscles tense as I prepare to turn the key again, but then I catch sight of the dash. The numbers glow orange. I tap the gas pedal with my foot. The RPM needle snaps up.
I left it running!
Shifting the big vehicle into drive, I realize I’ll have to do a U-turn through the flames to leave the lot. So I shift into reverse, twist around in my seat and hit the gas.
I’ve never been much of a driver. Sure, my record is spotless. I’ve never been in an accident. But that has less to do with my skills and everything to do with my hyper defensive driving style. I never speed. Never drive closer than a hundred feet behind another vehicle. I even use my turn signals when no one else is on the road. So when I hit 20 mph in reverse, I’m breaking all kinds of new ground.
But I barely notice. A wall of violent orange races across the parking lot, consuming vehicles. Looking back, I groan as the security building catches fire. The heat is so intense that the time between first contact and being engulfed is just seconds.
At the far end of the lot, in front of Claire’s apartment, the first cars that caught fire explode. Fiery debris leaps across the macadam and lands in the wood chips, bushes and Claire’s living room, sailing straight through the broken windows.
“Goodbye, baby,” I whisper as the building’s façade blooms brightly.
Then I’m looking back, gritting my teeth and aiming for the gate, which has bounced back into a closed position and is partially concealed by flames. I squint as the SUV’s rear end approaches the gates. Despite the ease with which I plowed through them the first time, I tense in dread expectation of the impact. Violence of any sort is out of character for me.
Once again, the gates, struck by my goliath vehicle, burst open like the eager arms of a grandmother’s embrace, but not without cost. The rear windshield cracks in a spider-web pattern and then folds inward. Smoke slides over the ceiling, a living thing seeking me out, showing the way for the flames that will surely follow.
But then I’m through the blaze, in the street and barreling toward a storefront. I slam the brakes, partly because I don’t want to crash into the store, partly because the store is also on fire. In fact, I’m surrounded by flames on three sides.
I speed forward, swerving around empty vehicles and racing against the fast moving, wind-driven flames. For a moment, it seems like the fire will win, that it will overtake and consume me. But when I hit 40 mph, I break free from the inferno—and nearly crash headlong into a commuter bus jutting into the road. I swerve hard to the right, grinding the Highlander’s pristine gray side against the bus, losing my side mirror in the process.
When the road ahead opens up, I slow and check the rear view. A wall of flame, like some giant, glowing sandworm from the Dune movie slides across the cityscape.
Phoenix is going to burn. The whole city.
So I don’t bother staying, and I don’t look back again. I didn’t find Claire’s remains or say goodbye, but retrieving the photo and her hat at least gives me something to remember her by. Something to hold on to. It’s a little bit pitiful, but this Red Sox hat is just about the last thing in the world I really care about.
I leave the city the same way I came, tracing my steps back through the empty streets and sidewalks, dodging wrecks and that lone spraying fire hydrant that won’t be able to stop the city from turning to ash. Back on Route 60, I put on my blinker, pull to the shoulder and stop. I realize I could have just stopped in the middle of the freeway—there’s no one else around, maybe anywhere. But I’m not in a rush to disregard all my safe driving habits in a single day.
Free of the city and the threat of burning, I reach for the box resting atop the open backpack. I open the SUV door, step out into the warm late morning sun, only vaguely aware of the white powder filling every crack in the pavement, and climb onto the vehicle’s roof via the severely scratched up hood. I sit down cross-legged, like some kind of Australian aboriginal guru. All I need is a bullroarer and a loincloth. While I don’t have any of that, I do have a box of melting ice cream sandwiches.
It’s only been fifteen minutes since I left Claire’s but the sandwiches have about five more minutes before they reach an inedible sludgy state. As I watch a column of widening smoke rise up over the city, chased by licks of bright orange, I drown my sorrow in a hundred grams of sugar. The first two bars help. A surge of energy spins my mood in a less depressed direction. The third bar undoes all that progress. My stomach twists. Not from the junk food. I could live on it. It’s the reality of what I’m seeing.
The north end of Phoenix is on fire. I can’t see the flames, but the amount of smoke drifting off to the west says it all. I’m south of the black cloud, but if the wind shifts, the air will quickly become impossible to breathe.
But it’s not even the city’s destruction that has me feeling sick. It’s the emptiness. An American city is being destroyed, and I’m the only one here to see it. Millions of people are dead, including my daughter. My ex-wife, too, probably, and the silverback and their children. Not to mention the millions of people I don’t know. The families. The children. The babies born yesterday, only to be dust today.
What happened?
What the fuck happened?
How is any of this even possible?
I’ve spent a lifetime studying the world and the vast space beyond it, and all of my scientific knowledge and degrees are no help.
My eyes sting, trying to weep, but there’s nothing left. I’m not dehydrated, I’m just...empty.
Like the city.
Like...how far does this extend?
Has this happened everywhere?
I was so consumed with the idea of finding Claire that I haven’t considered the scope of this tragedy. The lack of help, of planes in the air, or helicopters arriving from outside the event radius, suggests this is bigger than Phoenix.
But how much bigger?
I toss the half-eaten ice cream sandwich to the roadside. The box follows it. Then I’m tossing two wrapped and uneaten sandwiches into the scrub brush just beyond the guard rail. I shake the drippings from my fingers and slide over the SUV’s side. My ankles and knees grind when I land, the pain reminding me that I belong in an office chair, not racing through cities or leaping from the roofs of cars. Not that I leapt. It was more of a controlled slide and a three foot drop. Even more pitiful.
Back in the Highlander, I open a bottle of water and down it, hoping the liquid will help dilute the sugary sludge settling in my gut. Once again, my ris
ing despair is being held at bay by direction. The next step is simple: make a phone call.
I don’t have any other family left, but I do have colleagues all around the world, working in laboratories, at telescopes and at various space agencies—in the U.S., Europe, Japan and Russia. If one of them answers, I’ll know this is local, and that, at least, will be some comfort.
I pick up my phone and scroll through my contacts and tap on a name, starting with a U.S. colleague in New York. “C’mon, Tyson, pick up.” My leg shakes back and forth. Each ring increases my desperation. On the fourth ring, I get his voicemail. Tyson’s voice is deep and cheerful, as always, but his chipper message frustrates me. I hang up and open my contact list. I decide to go intercontinental, dialing Victor Danshov, an astrophysicist with Roscosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency. We spent a summer together at the Very Large Array in New Mexico, searching for pulsars. We were young, and did more drinking than hard science, but our friendship lasted through the years since. After a moment’s delay, the call connects and rings. Six rings and an answering machine. Victor’s heavy Russian message is impossible for me to understand. His English isn’t much better. But the message is clear. No one is home. Maybe not even alive.
As Victor’s voice continues, it’s suddenly cut short. I pull the phone away from my ear and look at the screen.
Dead.
Like everyone else.
Don’t go there, I think. The dark thought is what I fear, but I’m still not sure it’s true. How could such a thing happen? My scientific mind quickly posits a theory: something exotic, some kind of radiation, slipped through Earth’s magnetic field. Something we don’t fully understand yet. Dark matter, for example. What happens when a planet moves through a dense patch of the stuff? Not this, I think, knowing that my monitoring equipment would have detected such an occurrence, and I would have been equally affected, even under-ground. The one thing of which I’m sure, is that I’m going to figure out what caused the people of Phoenix—and my daughter—to turn to dust. An image of Claire’s birth comes to mind. The first time I held her. Impossible fragility. My girl is gone... My head lowers to the steering wheel. I just want to sleep. To pretend it’s not real.
The Distance Page 5