by John Inman
And a desperate love for the man at his side.
More than a minute passed before Joe heard the two fools talking again, farther away this time. They were heading down the hill toward the footbridge. Joe could hear their feet scuffing across the dry ground. A tiny avalanche of pebbles scuttled down the trail in front of them. By the way they were cursing the darkness, Joe knew they either didn’t have a light with them, or they were afraid to use it.
Sensing it was safe to move on now, Joe tugged Ned out onto the trail, and as quietly as they could, they resumed their trek uphill.
He was astonished to hear Ned softly crying at his side.
“What is it?” Joe asked. “What’s wrong?” He didn’t let them slacken their pace but continued urging Ned up the hill, hoping to get as far away from the idiots with the guns as they could possibly get. “Why are you crying, Ned? We’re away. We’re safe.”
Ned sniffed and remained silent for a moment. Then he reached out and tucked his hand in Joe’s coat pocket again. “Back there, Joe. I suddenly saw you. In my head. You were dead on the trail with a bullet in your heart. I saw it as clear as day. Like it was really real.”
Joe slipped his free hand into the same coat pocket and scooped Ned’s fingers into his fist. “I’m all right. It was just your imagination.”
“I know. But the anger I felt—the anger I feel now—it’s not imagination. It’s still bubbling around inside me. Jesus, Joe, when we were hiding back there in the bushes, I started feeling like all these other crazy fuckers. I wanted to lash out. I wanted to inflict pain. I’ve never felt such hatred in my life. It—it scared me. It still scares me. I don’t want to be like that, Joe. I don’t want to be like they are.”
Joe caressed Ned’s fingers. He tried to speak softly because they were still moving through utter darkness and could stumble onto people at any time. But he had to comfort Ned too. The hurt in Ned’s voice was breaking Joe’s heart.
“You’ll never be like them. You’re the sweetest, gentlest person I know. You only felt that way because you were afraid for me. And I love you for that. But I’m not dead, Ned. I’m not lying on the trail back there with a bullet in my heart. I’m walking right here beside you. And every ounce of love inside me is directed at no one on this planet but you. You’re all I care about. And I know you feel the same way about me. And I can’t begin to tell you what that means to me.”
“Really?” Ned quietly asked.
“Really. And I understand why you got so mad back there. I understand it because I felt the same way. You’re not one of these evil pricks running around shooting innocent people you don’t even know. You’re you, Ned. You’re good. And that’s why I want to get you out of the city. I want to get you away from all this violence and stash you away somewhere safe where I can claim all that sexy goodness just for me.”
“You really think I’m sexy?”
At that, Joe finally laughed. “Don’t play innocent with me. You know damn well I think you’re sexy. So stop milking me for compliments. Otherwise, I may have to spank you later.”
“Ooh,” Ned cooed beside him. Then he snorted up some snot and chuckled. Apparently the crying spell was over.
Smiling now, Joe led them on up the trail. Toward the sound of battle in the distance. The air was still growing warmer. The temperature could best be described as cool now instead of cold. The breeze had picked up too, but Joe barely noticed it. His thoughts were centered solely on the battle before them and the man at his side.
He loosened the woolen scarf around his neck and dropped it on the trail behind him. He was burning up wearing it, and if he needed it later, tough. He wasn’t about to lug it around. Joe heard the rustle of fabric as Ned removed his scarf too.
“What’s happening with the weather?” Ned softly asked.
“I don’t know. It’s getting warmer.”
“Let’s hope it stays that way.”
A clatter of thunder rippled over their heads, like stones skipping across a lake.
“Stun grenades again,” Joe whispered. And suddenly the darkness seemed to open up around them. The ground leveled out. The air turned warmer still, and Joe knew instinctively they had emerged from the shadows beneath the pines. They were at the end of the trail. He could feel the dewy lawn beneath his feet. The smell of old cut grass filled the air. The bocce courts would be just ahead. Tiny still bodies littered the ground, and Joe remembered the birds that had fallen from the sky earlier.
“Watch your step,” he ordered. “We’re off the trail, and there are dead birds everywhere.”
“I know. Poor things.” Ned tensed beside him. “I don’t hear anyone close, do you?”
“No.”
As if he had his own internal GPS mapping out the world around him, Joe reached a hand through the shadows and touched a cool strip of metal as if he knew it would be there all along. It was the children’s slide in the tiny playground not three blocks from their apartment building. Sixth Avenue would be up ahead, and along that street to the north, lost now in utter darkness, Mr. Wong’s deli would be just around the corner.
“Playground,” Ned whispered, figuring it out on his own before Joe had a chance to tell him.
Joe turned to face a shimmer of light on the southern horizon. It was feeble now and came only in flashes. The fires that had been burning downtown were apparently extinguished. The continued eruption of gunfire told him the fighting had not yet stopped, although it seemed more scattered now, less intense.
Joe’s thoughts went back to Mr. Wong’s deli and the small pile of cold ashes that would be scattered in front of it. The ashes that had once been a human being before he or she was set afire by a laughing mob and pushed from the top of the building in flames. Joe could still hear the screams in his head.
Ned gently pawed at Joe’s arm. “I wonder if the deli is still standing. If it is, I suppose there’s nothing left inside.”
“I suppose not,” Joe said.
“Do you think Mr. Wong and Bobby got home all right?”
“I hope so.”
Ned stood close. Joe suspected all the memories of what had happened earlier were crashing in on Ned, even as they were crashing in on him. The burning body, the woman on the bridge, the poor young man eaten by lions—all of it. Somehow being back on their home turf brought it all back.
Suddenly Joe longed to see his apartment. To breathe in its familiar smells. Just to know if it was still there. To remember it for what it had always been. A haven when he was alone. Then morphing into a love nest after he was lucky enough to lure Ned into his bed. Maybe they should hide there. But what would be the point? All they could do would be to cower in the darkness and wait for it all to end.
And what if it doesn’t end? What if this nightmare just goes on and on?
Once again Joe turned his gaze to the southern horizon. To downtown. Toward the battle he could hear raging. To where he was sure he could find the answers to all the questions he wanted to ask.
A blinking red light high in the sky snagged his attention. By the way the light hovered and swooped, Joe knew it was a helicopter. Maybe the same helicopter they had seen as they crossed the freeway—what was it—two days before? Only then did he hear the distant thump of rotors pulsing on the air.
Joe stuffed the flashlight into his pocket. He didn’t dare use it.
“Let’s run,” he whispered, his mind made up. Crouching low, his hand clamped tightly over Ned’s, he sprinted as silently as possible across the long sloping lawns of the park with Ned at his side, headed for the sounds in the distance. The gunfire. The stun grenades. The throb of the helicopter hovering over distant rooftops.
They ran like madmen—squarely toward the fighting.
NED INSTINCTIVELY understood by the feel of the air that space had opened up around them again. Then he knew why. They were crossing the overpass on Sixth Avenue that led toward the city center. The sound of gunshots ahead was louder now. Too loud. It frightened Ned. His bac
k ached from running doubled over, crouching through the shadows. He was scared and jumpy and out of breath, and if that wasn’t bad enough, he was also sweating buckets, even in the cold, and he suddenly had to pee.
The air was thick with the acrid stench of the fires that had burned there earlier. Ned’s eyes teared up against the fumes as they raced across the overpass.
Gunfire grew louder.
“It’s close now,” he said, his voice a terrified whisper. “The fighting. It’s close.”
Joe squeezed his hand but didn’t slow his pace. “I know. Keep your eyes peeled.”
Against what? It was so dark Ned could peel his eyeballs like bananas and he still wouldn’t be able to see anything. Suddenly he found himself wishing he had a shotgun like the one Joe carried. Then, just as quickly, he was glad he didn’t.
In a normal world, it would have been midmorning. Not that the realization made much difference now. The reality of the situation was they were heading into a gunfight blind as bats and probably outnumbered and most assuredly outgunned. On top of all that, they had no idea where, up ahead, the good guys were, or in which direction they were shooting. In Ned’s opinion, the most obvious outcome would be for them to stumble into a crossfire and get blown apart by both sides.
He was about to grab Joe by the scruff of his neck and drag him to a stop when Joe beat him to the punch, suddenly dropping to his knees and pulling Ned down beside him.
“Cops!” Joe whispered. “Right there!”
Joe was right. Up ahead Ned spotted a twinkling array of red and blue squad-car lights. They were less than a block away, but it might as well have been a hundred miles. The cars were cordoning off one of the side streets. Ned wasn’t sure, but he thought he could see policemen leaning over the fenders of the cars, aiming their guns at something in front of them. Only then did Ned hear the voices and cries coming from somewhere around the corner.
“Looters!” Joe hissed.
“How do you know?”
“What else would they be shooting at?”
Ned wasn’t having fun. “Crazy people? Armed assholes? Maniacs? Arsonists?”
Joe glowered. “Or looters. Exactly. We need to get to the cops.”
“And if the maniacs are shooting back? Won’t that put us in the line of fire?”
“Hmm,” Joe muttered. “You may have a point.”
Ned peered around, trying to figure out exactly where they were. Suddenly he knew. The police cars were blocking Broadway, the main drag through downtown. He and Joe were on Sixth Avenue, of course. He had known that all along. But now he could see how far they’d come. One block more would put them squarely in the city’s heart. Smack in the middle of the war zone.
They worked their way forward a little more, hugging the edge of a building, then dropped flat again when the scream of turbine engines erupted directly above their heads. Ned’s heart shot up into his throat. A blasting wind filled his eyes with dust. Litter swirled through the air. Ned’s clothes flapped around him like he was standing in a tornado. A spotlight caught them in its crosshairs, stabbing down from the sky, pinning them to the ground and scaring the hell out of Ned even more.
As quickly as it came, the helicopter passed on. It swooped low along the city street toward the cops, its broad rotors whapping the air, its spotlight shooting off here and there, cleaving the darkness. Ned was left breathless and terrified, but relieved the spotlight was no longer aimed directly at them. He could hear Joe panting in relief as well.
“Holy Christ,” Ned gasped. “They could have shot us!”
“Police helicopter,” Joe explained, still trying to catch his breath. “They’re the good guys.”
“Great. And what do you suppose we look like to them? More looters, maybe? Just two more armed assholes?”
Hidden in the darkness, Joe’s groping hand sought his. He clamped on to it like a drowning man grabbing a life raft.
“Don’t worry,” Joe said. “You’re safe. I’m here.”
Ned dug a pound of imaginary ear wax out of his ear. “I’m sorry. Did you say safe? You’ve dragged us into the middle of World War III. How safe do you think that makes us?”
Joe coughed up an incongruous chuckle. “You sound a little distraught.”
The smile in Joe’s voice was the last thing Ned expected to hear, and it pissed him off. “Distraught? Really? Gee, I wonder why.”
“So now you’re saying you don’t trust me anymore?”
Ned’s anger dissolved like sugar in a cup of coffee. “No,” he said quietly, giving in, giving up. “I’m not saying that. I trust you, Joe. I’m sorry. I’m in the middle of a minor nervous breakdown here. Bear with me.” He sucked in a deep breath and stroked Joe’s hand like he might have stroked a cat. He suddenly expelled enough air to fill a dirigible. “There,” he said, “I’m better now.”
“You’re crazy, you know that?” Scattered around inside the sarcasm, Ned thought he detected a dash of irony in Joe’s words, as if he was reluctantly admitting the craziest person present wasn’t Ned at all, but himself, and Joe damn well knew it.
Grudgingly, Ned bit back a smile and said, “Thanks.”
The gentle moment was lost when a spray of bullets scored the surface of the building they were cowering against. Windows splintered directly above their heads. Shards of glass sprinkled down on top of them. Chips of concrete, like buckshot, zinged about their heads and bounced along the sidewalk at their feet.
“Move!” Joe bellowed. He yanked Ned to his feet and all but shoved him into a vestibule up ahead. They hunkered down in the back corner by a pair of glass doors, as far from the street as they could get. Another spray of gunfire splattered across the building’s facade, gouging out chips of rock and sending debris flying everywhere. It was impossible to tell from which direction the bullets came. Or even who was shooting at them, the cops or the wacko fucking civilians.
Ned hooked his fingers in Joe’s collar and dragged him close. “Great idea, snotwad! Heading straight into a gunfight! Painting targets on our backs and pissing off all the weirdos just so we can chat with a few cops. That’s assuming we stay alive long enough to do it! This was your big plan, Joe? This was the best you could come up with?”
Joe laughed, wiggling out of Ned’s grasp. “Wow, your forgiveness didn’t last long.”
“No,” Ned grudgingly sniped, fighting against a grin in spite of himself. “It didn’t, did it?”
Out of the darkness, Joe asked, “Where do you think we should go from here?”
Massively uncomforted, Ned snapped, “Vegas?”
Joe faked a pout in his voice. “You’re being sarcastic again.”
“You’re right,” Ned said. “I’m sorry. How about Disneyland? It’s always nice this time of year. I love Mickey and his big funny ears. Goofy’s a hoot too. And best of all, they never shoot at the tourists!”
“Oh be quiet.”
Another spray of gunfire sent chips of concrete zipping through the air. A few of them peppered Ned’s shoes and he tried to burrow his way deeper into the doorway, like a gopher.
Then a rock the size of a doorknob flew at them. It clipped Ned on the elbow and he howled like a banshee.
“What is it?” Joe cried. “Are you shot?”
Ned rubbed his arm, flexed his fingers, tried not to howl again. “Somebody chucked a rock at me!”
“What?”
“A rock! Somebody’s throwing rocks.”
“In the middle of a gunfight?”
Still hissing and cursing and tap-dancing around on his knees from the pain in his crazy bone, Ned angrily snatched the flashlight out of Joe’s pocket and aimed it onto the street.
“Don’t do that!” Joe cried, trying to grab the flashlight out of Ned’s hand, but Ned kept it away from him long enough for the flashlight beam to illuminate a little kid, a boy maybe ten years old. He was standing in the middle of the street with a newspaper pouch slung over his shoulder, and by the way it hung heavy on the kid,
Ned knew the pouch was filled with rocks. Ammo. He had another rock in his hand, and he was about to let it go right at them.
“Stop that!” Ned bellowed.
The boy was so surprised he dropped the rock. He squinted into the flashlight’s glare and had the good grace to look embarrassed at having been caught. If there hadn’t been gunfire chipping away at the plaster over their heads, Ned might have actually snickered at the kid’s guilty expression.
As it was, he was too mad for his good humor to get much of a foothold. He wrenched himself out of Joe’s grasp, and with the pain in his elbow thrumming all the way up to his neck, he hurled himself straight at the kid.
“No!” Joe cried behind him, but Ned didn’t slow down.
As he raced across the street, the boy’s eyes grew bigger and bigger. The little brat was reaching into his shoulder pouch to grab another rock, when Ned barreled into him, knocking them both to the ground.
Gunfire sprayed the street not two feet away from their heads.
Ned switched off the flashlight, grabbed a fistful of the kid’s coat, and dragged him back to the doorway where Joe was screaming, “Are you fucking crazy!”
“He cussed!” the kid yelled, pointing an accusatory finger at Joe while still trying to extricate himself from Ned’s clutches. “He said the F-word. I heard him. And you tackled me! That’s child abuse!”
Ned growled. “Yeah, well you’d bring out the F-word in anybody, you little shit!” He hurled the boy into the farthest corner of the doorway, narrowly missing Joe when he did. Ned flung himself across the still-struggling boy in an attempt to shelter him from the gunshots that were ricocheting along the street. As an afterthought, he dragged Joe into his protection as well.
The three of them lay tangled together, breathless, pissed off, waiting for the shooters to move on to another target and let them be. When the bullets finally stopping pinging around the doorway they cowered in, Ned allowed himself a sigh of relief. Then he got mad all over again.
He pulled back and glared at the boy. He switched on the flashlight so he could see exactly who it was he was mad at. “Are you crazy?” he screamed. “What are you doing out here in the middle of all this? What’s your name? Where are your folks? And why are you chucking rocks at us?”