by Eisele, Kimi
A car was stopped in the middle of the road, and Rosie approached warily, willing to risk it for a ride. A young couple was charging a car battery with a solar panel. The woman was tall, with messy blond hair. She wore glasses that made her look smart. The man had a patchy beard.
The woman looked at Rosie and didn’t blink. “Aren’t you a sight? Where are you coming from?”
Rosie closed her eyes, silent.
The woman said, “Well, then, where are you going?”
Rosie looked up but couldn’t form a sound.
“Honey,” the woman said to the man. “Give her some of the venison stew.”
The man dished out a bowl and handed it to Rosie, and she sat down in the dust and gulped down the stew.
“Help me untie this thing,” the man said, fiddling with something on the roof of the car. The woman reached up and loosened a cable.
“Where do you think she’s going?” the man said, loud enough for Rosie to hear.
“I don’t know,” the woman said, annoyed. “She came from that way, so my guess is she’s going our way.” As she said this, she made exaggerated arm gestures, pointing east, then west, like a cheerleader.
The corrido was rising inside Rosie, and she needed to let it out, so before they could speculate any more, she stood and opened her mouth and sang for them.
The man squinted at her, as if not believing her words, and the woman’s face scrunched up like a raisin. But as Rosie continued, they softened, listening attentively.
“Oh. God,” the man said.
“You poor thing,” the woman said, but she didn’t reach out a hand for Rosie’s shoulder or anything. “So it’s over? All the radio broadcasts?”
“Jonathan Blue. What a scam artist,” the man said.
“Try mass murderer,” the woman said. Her words seemed to hang in the air, little three-dimensional objects that Rosie stared at and tried to decipher.
“Do you want something else?” the man asked her.
Rosie shook her head, lying. She felt as if she’d just run for miles and miles from the thing that kept chasing her. She wanted someone’s arms around her.
After the battery was charged, the man laid the panel across the roof of the little car and invited Rosie to get in. The interior smelled foul, a mix of sardines and lemon-scented cleaning detergent. It was so strong that Rosie kept her hand cupped over her nose for the first few miles.
The couple carried on a conversation. “Remember that artist friend of yours who made big sculptures out of ice?” the man said. “I wonder what happened to him?”
“Climate change,” the woman said.
Rosie sat folded up in the back seat, looking out the window, trying not to inhale the smell. Outside, mounds of rock made chunky caramel-colored mountains, and a river swerved toward the highway, its silver surface shining through the tangled green along its banks. Eventually, she slept.
When she woke, they were at a rest stop, and it was nearly dark. A few hundred yards away were two cement buildings and, between them, a row of vending machines, dark and empty. The couple was setting up a tent. “Not safe to drive through the night,” the man said.
“You can sleep in the car,” the woman said. “I wouldn’t go in the restroom if I were you, though. They’re wretched.”
Rosie found a place to pee in the dirt.
In the morning, they drove into the sunrise. Mountains appeared in the distance, and Rosie was sure they were the Sierras. Smelly car and all, maybe this couple would drive over them. Please, oh please.
But when landscape turned from desert to defunct gas stations, chiropractic offices, and pallid casinos, the neon hushed and dark, the man slowed down the car and said, “This is as far as we go.” He stopped next to a park, where servers were dishing out food to a long line of people who looked as disheveled and desperate as Rosie.
“You can find some help here,” the woman said, swiveling around and peering at Rosie from over the top of her glasses. She seemed relieved to be getting rid of her—the sullen teenager in the back.
“They take care of homeless people here,” the man said. “They’ll even give you a tent.”
Before the car pulled away, Rosie caught a glimpse of herself in the car window. The long coat made her look a little Goth, dangerous even. Which seemed like a good thing.
She made her way into the camp and got in the food line behind a woman wearing a tattered red dress. A man in a wool poncho handed Rosie a plate of potatoes, mushy carrots, chicken, and a hard roll.
“Better than Denny’s,” the woman in red said, then joined a group at the base of a tree, eating.
A cinnamon-colored dog approached Rosie, sniffing. Rosie scooped a few fingerfuls of potato from her plate and plopped it on the ground. The dog lapped them up. The food was bland, but Rosie ate it all and let the dog lick the plate. The dog rested its head in her lap, and Rosie petted it in long strokes. She began to sing quietly, only for the dog to hear.
But the people gathered, too. Looking up, Rosie saw how their mouths fell open when they heard the words. When she was finished, they called out questions, but the woman in the red dress came and gathered Rosie in and shushed them. After a while, the dog got up and trotted away, looking for more food, and then Rosie, too, felt like she needed to walk.
When the PBB got to the Gold Mine, the dogs were waiting for them. The same hungry, frightened dogs as before, only more of them now—skinny, mangy, barking dogs, baring teeth.
The riders tossed stale bread, bones, and apple cores to the animals as Flash cut an opening in the fence and climbed through. A few stayed on guard at the entrance while Beatrix, Dragon, Gary, and Frida followed Flash in and made their way toward the center of the dump.
As they crested the hill, Beatrix could see the Gold Mine staff quarters at the eastern edge of the dump—homes craftily made from shipping pallets, scrap metal, barrels, and recycled furniture. Bikes were parked there, and a few T-Rize kids wandered in and out of the structures.
“For fuck’s sake, they’re in my house!” Frida said.
“Not for long,” Gary said.
“Where’s the stuff we need?” Beatrix asked.
Frida pointed to a slab of concrete several hundred feet away from the residences. “We consolidated everything from the service cars and fire trucks over there,” she said.
They watched Charlie make his way to the center. He’d find Diego and he’d say he wanted back in, that it was too boring on the outside. “He’ll believe me. Trust me,” Charlie had said. He’d taken a set of playing cards with him. “Crazy Eights. They all love to play that.”
At the residence area, two boys kicked a soccer ball back and forth. The kids gathered around Charlie, watching him shuffle cards. Once their game was underway, Beatrix, Gary, and Frida headed down the hill. Dragon, Flash, and the others came in from the other side.
The group was young, all under age twelve, it seemed, unarmed and innocent. “These are the babies,” Beatrix whispered. “Where are the rest of them?”
When they realized they were surrounded, two bony girls grabbed on to each other, and another boy hid inside an oversized pullover. A boy with a Mohawk let out a loud warning whistle.
“Who are they? What do they want?” asked one of the girls, latching on to Charlie’s arm.
Charlie feigned anger at the PBB. “What are you doing here? You’re trespassing.”
“Wrong,” Frida said. “We have come to get our homes back.”
“These are our homes now,” Charlie said.
Frida held a stoic face. “We’re also here for some crates left near the shack last week.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Charlie said. “No one knows anything about any crates, right?”
Oh, for crying out loud, Beatrix thought. Let’s just get to it. She slipped off her backpack and pulled out one of the Fair Share chocolate bars. “Hey, kiddos, when was the last time you had something sweet?”
“Wh
at is that?” asked the boy in the pullover, his voice high and small.
“That has to be fake,” barked the girl in sunglasses, moving closer.
“Not fake,” Beatrix said. She tossed a square to Flash, who popped it in his mouth and said, “Mmm!” A dozen pairs of hungry eyes watched him swallow.
“Let me see that,” Charlie demanded.
Beatrix lobbed him a square of the chocolate.
“It’s real alright,” he said, chewing.
“I know where the crates are,” said one of the boys.
“I know where they are, too,” said another.
“I’m the one who knows,” said the girl in sunglasses.
“Give them the chocolate,” Charlie said.
Beatrix tossed the bars to the ground, and the kids swarmed to it like pigeons to bread crumbs.
Gary pulled zip ties from his pocket, lunged for Charlie, and pretended to tie his hands together. The children screamed. The girl in sunglasses put her fingers in her mouth and sounded a loud whistle just as Flash got her and tied her arms behind her back.
Beatrix grabbed the boy in the pullover, startled by how thin and delicate his arm was. “I’m sorry,” she said, tying his wrists.
“Bitch,” the boy said.
“Not that sorry,” Beatrix said.
“Let us go!” a skinny girl shouted. She was tied to her friend, so they both fell to the ground. “Ow!”
“If you two just coordinate a little, you’ll be fine,” Flash said, looking back.
“Hey,” one of them called after him. “I recognize your voice. Who are you?”
“No one,” Flash said.
“Yes, you are! I know your voice,” she said again.
Frida and Dragon pulled out the kids who claimed to know where the crates of car parts were. “Take us there,” Frida said. “Now.”
A loud cry sounded from the top of the hill, and a dozen or more T-Rize kids came running toward them—the big kids now, chains and sticks flying behind them like angry snakes.
Carson lay in the cabin on the cot. It smelled of dust and sweat and urine, some of which was his own. Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw Felix’s open mouth. Speak, Felix, speak. Tell me one of your stories. Any story, Felix. But the mouth never moved.
Outside, a bird squawked. A Steller’s jay. Carson remembered now that he’d driven the truck down the dirt road to the cabin. He had tried to move Felix’s body but was too weak to lift him. Felix was out there still, his body covered with a sleeping bag. Although Carson felt like this was wrong, he also knew it was how Felix would want it. A traveler, he might prefer to stay above ground. But flies would come, and vultures.
He found matches near the woodstove and lit the propane burner, then set the metal bucket of water on to boil. His stomach had held for a few hours now. He had berries somewhere in his pack. Maybe some rice, too.
He opened the door and looked outside. The day had gone gray and damp. Might it rain? Snow? He had no idea what time of day it was. His heart sank. If it snowed, he was doomed.
He wished with all his heart for the radio. He found the windup flashlight in his pack and set it next to the mattress. The water boiled, and while he waited for it to cool, he slept.
He woke drenched in sweat, his stomach hollow. He stared at the creases where the wood in the wall came together. Above him, a single piece of paper had been tacked into one of the slabs. He got to his feet. On the paper was a xeroxed photograph of a man with a long, wispy beard. John Muir. Below the picture, scrawled by hand: The world’s big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.
Good advice, Carson thought. He drank some water from the bucket and went outside. The sun twisted the trees into long, serrated shadows. Once, Carson would have welcomed this solitude. But right this moment, the forest seemed wicked. He was stuck here, alone and weak. To make things worse, into this malady had crept a feeling of failure. His destination receded. He felt too weak to go anywhere. He lay back on the cot and slept.
He woke shivering and afraid. What was it Felix had said? You had to pay attention to what was front of you. You just had to face the horror. He looked outside to a cloudy sky. He couldn’t hole up here forever. Snow would come.
His stomach growled, a good sign. He rummaged in his pack, found the dried berries, and ate a small handful.
He found his notebook and ripped out a blank page, on which he wrote S.O.S. He pulled out the thumbtacks holding John Muir to the wall, then drove the truck down the dirt road to the highway.
At the turnoff, he tacked his sign to a tree. It looked like a puny white square against the immense woods. In the glove box, he found a Sharpie marker—the one Felix’s other passengers had used to sign their monikers—and darkened in the letters. He drew a thick arrow pointing toward the cabin. In the truck cab, he found Felix’s red-and-white checkered shirt and tied its sleeves around the tree below the sign. It looked like a rigid scarecrow crying for help, but it was something.
The trees in front of him blurred, and he propped a hand against the truck to steady himself. He glanced back at the sign. What if this lured only trouble? He had no strength to fight off bandits now. They’d kill him easily and take the truck. But if no one came and he never got his strength back? Either way, he was as good as gone. It was worth the risk.
Back at the cabin, he drifted in and out of sleep for most of the afternoon. Waking, he would forget where he was until he’d hear the whir of the wind in the trees. Often, he believed there was someone there with him, or nearby in an adjoining room. He would hear a cough, a clink, a shuffle. Sometimes it was Felix. Sometimes June.
A series of high-pitched trills came from outside. Nuthatch, Carson thought. Red-breasted probably. The song amplified the forest into a sprawling wilderness. Yet the bird’s immediacy, right there outside, comforted him. He thought of his father, the man who’d taught him how to listen to birds, to pay attention to their calls, to note their markings, to witness their movements to identify them. What did his father know of birds now? Anything? He hoped for his old man’s passing, for a quiet slip into the nothing. He hoped the same for himself.
Several minutes later, he realized that someone stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the twilight outside. He recognized the shape, the twisting, turning hair. He sat up, his heart lifted. Beatrix! She was here! How had she found him?
“I’m in the middle of a revolution,” Beatrix said. “Everything has changed. How are you faring?”
He wanted to go to her, but his legs were like steel planks. He reached his hand out.
“What are we supposed to do with the bodies?” she asked.
Carson nodded, but didn’t know what she was talking about and didn’t understand why she wouldn’t come to him. He reached for her again.
She did not move from the doorway, and her hand kept moving from her forehead to her neck and back to her forehead, as if she were giving herself a strange blessing. Carson wanted to comfort her, touch her, smell her. But he could not get himself up. What bodies?
June’s body? How small it had become after the tea, how hollow. “June?” he had said. But she hadn’t answered. It was if she had left the room.
Beatrix was squinting now, cupping her hand over one of her eyes.
“I’m here,” Carson said, lifting an arm. He waved. They would work around the bodies, he wanted to say, take care of them, remember them, let them go. The body was temporary. The body was not the life. Surely she knew that, didn’t she? No single missing thing was heavier or lighter than any other. There was no magic scale. Felix had said that.
“I’m here,” he whispered again. He brought his hand to his right eye. If she couldn’t see, he would give her his eye. Like Felix had done. Carson would do that for Beatrix. But when he looked back at the doorway to tell her, she, too, had left the room.
There were moments, Beatrix knew, when the only thing to do was accept what was coming at you with resolve. Wit never hurt either. Once, when p
olice fired rubber bullets in her direction at a protest, she’d ducked behind a car: the bullet heading for her belly button had zipped past her ear instead. Another time, when the tear gas came out, she’d quickly pulled from her backpack a mask that Hank had ordered especially for the occasion, and got to work helping others.
She took a deep breath now, planted her feet on the ground, and turned toward the T-Rize children running toward her. They catapulted down the hill, weapons bobbing beside them like awkward extensions of their arms.
“Here comes the future,” Flash said.
“So many of them,” Beatrix said. “We should have saved some scraps. They are hungry, hungry beasts.”
“Hold your ground,” Gary said. “Just get them tied up.”
“They’re armed,” Beatrix said, scanning the ground for a stick, a rock, anything. She glanced at Gary’s belt, the gun there.
A boy wearing a baseball cap lunged for her. She could smell his sour sweat, his dirty hair. He whipped a chain out. Beatrix dropped to the ground and rolled, and the chain smacked the dirt next to her. The beast had shitty aim. On the third swing, Beatrix felt the anger. She reached out and grasped the chain. The boy yanked, and the chain slid through her grasp, ripping her skin. She switched hands and held tight, trying to ignore the sting.
“I’ll drag you,” he said. His eyes peered at her from beneath the rim of his cap.
Beatrix recognized him, the dark hair tucked back in a ponytail. “Diego?”
He didn’t flinch. The chain stayed taut between them.
A fury pulsed through Beatrix. “You know who I am,” she said.
Diego jerked hard on the chain, and Beatrix fell into him. She shoved him hard, knocking him to the ground. He kicked wildly, his boot crashing into her shin.
“You dickhead,” someone said. It was Charlie, who’d grabbed hold of the chain. Diego swung and punched Charlie in the chest. Beatrix lunged for Diego as the chain snapped at her head, grazing her hair. She lost her balance and fell, gravel grinding into her hands.