by Nat Kozinn
“It is? I thought the whole point of the donations was so the alderman could run ads and get his face out there to fix his numbers,” David said.
“I hate to say it, but there are some things money can’t fix. Just a few, but this is one of them. Hauling trash and digging ditches is all those lugs in his district know how to do. Nothing is going to make them forget about Matt betraying the garbage men. Unless he’s using our donations to fix the election, he’s a goner.”
“Why give him money if it’s a losing battle?” David asked.
Before Petey could answer, Ms. Hanson arrived with backup: Alderman Acado.
“Is Petey Downer here boring you? He’s fun when he’s got the right number of drinks in him, but one too many and he gets horribly depressing,” Alderman Acado said. He put his arm on Petey’s shoulder and squeezed hard. “Maybe it’s time to go get a cup of coffee, Pete?”
“Of course, of course. Excuse me. I’m just rambling on here. Don’t pay any attention to me,” Petey said and stumbled off.
After Petey was a short distance away, Alderman Acado turned to David.
“Don’t listen to him. I’m in this to win. I’m going to announce plans for a training program for the displaced workers. That way, the Metro Area saves money and nobody loses their livelihood. All I need are enough donations to get the word out, so let’s go join the rest of the group, and you can help me with that.”
The alderman started to walk away.
“You’re a disgrace,” David said, surprised by the words coming out of his own mouth.
Ms. Hanson tried to step between them, but David was so much taller than the woman that he could speak over her without paying her any mind.
“David!” Ms. Hanson yelled, but he was too far gone.
“What’s that, son? I’ll give you a pass because you’re new to all this, Mr. Boy Scout. With that in mind, maybe you’d be best served by shutting your mouth and watching. This is how things work around here,” the alderman said.
“Is it? Because I did stay in high school long enough to take a class on government, and as I remember, it’s supposed to represent the people who elected you. You’re supposed to vote how they feel, not how the corporations giving you donations want you to vote.”
“Well, if I’m not in office, then I can’t represent anyone’s feelings, Mr. Gilbreth. Maybe you should call it a day,” the alderman said and walked away again.
“That’s enough, David,” Ms. Hanson said.
But David would not let up, even with Ms. Hanson trying her best to get in his way.
“Tell that lie to somebody else. I’m not buying it. You don’t think you’re staying in office, so the only question is what you’re doing with all that money you’re raising,” David said.
The alderman’s eyes widened with rage and his face went flush, but he still spoke in an even tone. He had many years of practice maintaining his composure.
“Are you a detective now? I think you’re the one confused about the nature of his job, Mr. Gilbreth. Did you think Ultracorps hired you to make accusations against its top supporter in Seattle? I don’t think so. I imagine it hired you to smile and nod for the think.Net photographers, but apparently that task is too much for you. I recommend you crawl back down whatever hole it is you emerged from because, without your muscles, you have nothing else to offer this world,” the alderman said and then walked away.
Ms. Hanson stood with her mouth open, unable to come up with anything to say to David. The giant man finally spoke.
“I’ll still get paid for the week, right?”
13
David let out a heavy sigh in front of the door to Alexis’s apartment. It was the relic of a biological process no longer used by his body, but the emotional uses remained. David did not consider himself a proud man, but even he had his limits. This woman spent the better part of four months seducing him with questions about all his former accomplishments and lacing him with platitudes about his service to the Metro Area. Then, as soon as she had sucked every ounce of value from his tales, she turned on him—humiliating David without a second thought, solely to sell more papers.
Now David had to go to her hat in hand. The only thing that kept him from turning around right now was the thought of all the empty stomachs in the Heights if he couldn’t manage to swallow his pride and agree to more interviews. He knocked and waited thirty painful seconds until the door opened.
Alexis opened the door. If she was surprised to see David, she did not indicate it on her face.
“Hello, David,” she said flatly.
“Hi.”
“What can I do for you?”
“I’d like to talk. Can I come in?”
“I guess,” Alexis said and stepped aside to let David enter.
Alexis’s apartment was somehow messier than it had been previously, which was no small achievement. More papers had appeared, and she had managed to find or manufacture more surfaces to place them on. There were now dirty dishes strewn about, too, an acute version of a chronic condition.
“The place looks nice,” David said with a smile.
“It turns out I have even less time to clean when I’m being an actual journalist. Lucky for me, no one ever comes over. Except for you, and that’s only because you want something, and I’ll bet it’s not to apologize for our last meeting.”
“You’re right. I do want something. I was hoping to restart our interviews. I’ve read some of your continuing coverage of me. Interviews about reactions to my interviews. That can’t exactly be moving many papers.”
“Insulting my work while asking for help. That’s you alright. Yes, the coverage is getting pretty tired, but luckily for us, we did a good job of investing in our future, something it seems you failed to do. We’ve got a gossip columnist and hired a cartoonist, and people might even be ready to read my articles about corruption in the Metro Council. Sales didn’t crater like we feared. Maybe people wanted real news again and they just didn’t know it.”
“Well, more sales can’t hurt, right?”
“Sorry, David. You’re fifteen minutes are up. If it’s any consolation, we got more time out of you than I thought we would. It’s a testament to how beloved you are. But we’ve already covered everything anyone cares about. The Younger Gang, the battleship, how you were transformed—those are the things people care about. Hell, we even got a story out of the dam, which is damn surprising for a piece of infrastructure. Then we drummed up some outrage. People got mad. They protested. Now they’re ready to move on. There’s only one thing people might still want to hear about and it’s the one thing you won’t talk about.”
“Carter,” David said, letting out another sigh.
“That’s right. He’s the chip on your shoulder that’s big enough to be seen from space. He’s the missing link in the chain that is the Savior of Seattle.”
“I don’t get it. Lots of ten-year-olds died back then. Hell, they’re still dying now, and no one wants to hear about it. Your readers are just sickos who want to know just because I won’t talk about it. And I still won’t,” David said and tightened his jaw.
“They aren’t sickos. They’re the same as you. They need the same thing you do. They need to face the past. You know why there’s such a buzz about you? Do you know why we were selling out papers even though we were basically just retelling stories from thirty years ago? Even though anyone could look up old articles on think.Net and see basically the same stories? It’s because you’re a symbol for our generation. The Plagues generation. The ones who really lived through the worst of it. You see what’s happening; our time has passed. All of us that are still here are on the downhill of our lives, and the bottom is approaching fast. And that’s a scary thought because for us, keeping moving is what kept us from looking back on the horror we went through. When the Plagues were going, there was no time to face it. Death and despair were everywhere, and the only way to survive was to keep going. Then the Plagues calmed down and we had
to rebuild. We pushed and pushed and pushed to make the world it is now. But we’ve taken the baton as far as we can go. The new generation is moving in whether we’re ready or not. They’re taking the wheel. And when you’re in the passenger seat, you’ve got time to think. And for us, that means facing all those horrors we endured, even if it was thirty years ago. That’s why they’re reading, David—because by telling the ‘true’ story of your heroics, we’re taking off the blinders and reminding everyone of just how horrible it was. How we only needed a savior because we needed to be saved from the worst thing that ever happened to every person who lived through it. We’ve all been carrying the weight of it for so long we forgot it was there. But maybe now we’ve got a chance to drop some of the load. Maybe we can face the truth and be unburdened. But we need someone to show us it’s possible. We need someone to tell us all it’s okay and that it’s time to exhale and maybe let out some tears we’ve all been holding in for three decades. Can you do that, David? Can you do one last thing for the people you already did so much for? Can you show them that no matter how strong you are, how tough you are, it’s okay to open yourself up and try to heal?”
“I thought I wasn’t supposed to give anymore.”
“Doesn’t seem like you’re willing to take that advice to heart.”
David did not say anything. He walked over to the window, but instead of checking out the street below, he looked up. It was a clear day, always a rare treat for Seattle.
“Carter was eight feet behind me when it hit. If he had been one foot in front of me, he’d be here today. I was his older brother; I shouldn’t have let him lag behind me. I should have kept him ahead of me so I knew he was safe.”
“Oh my God,” Alexis said. “Okay, that’s great that you’re talking about it. But at the risk of ruining this whole situation, would you mind going through like normal, like all the other interviews.”
She closed her eyes and braced for the impact of his rejection. But to her surprise, David let out one more massive sigh, walked away from the window, and stood in front of her.
“Where do you want me to start?” he asked.
“If it’s okay, why don’t you tell me about Carter?”
“It’s hard. I don’t want to make him sound like some kind of cliché of a dead kid. But he really was awesome. He was the sweetest kid you ever met. When he was only seven years old, he spent a day or two a week helping out this old lady who lived on our block. She was mean as hell and would always yell at him for missing a spot when he mowed the lawn—for free, by the way. But Carter never let it faze him. He just said she was mean because she had no one to talk to and he was hoping he could help her with that, like he helped clean out the gutters. That’s just who he was. He thought you may as well do whatever you can to help people. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like he was a saint. He still put pretty much every dime he could get his hands on into a pinball machine. And he loved the movies. He must have seen Star Wars twenty times. He kept using his old ticket stub, and they took a long time to catch on. And he could be a little brat, too. Whenever he was mad at me, he’d get in this crawl space you could only get into from his room, and he’d tap on my wall until I lost my mind. My mom had to stop me more than once from taking his door off the hinges so I could drag him out of there. But he had this smile you could not possibly stay mad at for long,” David said and looked off into the distance, trying to see back in time.
Alexis started to say something but stopped herself. She waited until David returned to the present.
“He wanted to be a veterinarian—another cliché, I know. And most kids grow out of it, but with Carter, it really seemed like it would stick. One day, right after the Plagues had really started going, I found him up in his room, crying all by himself. He had been listening to the radio and heard a story about how the zoo was closing, and they were interviewing a zookeeper who was talking about how he wasn’t sure if they could keep the animals fed. Can you imagine that? The radio was basically 24/7 horror stories. Buildings collapsing, parts of the city losing power, riots—none of that got to him, at least not that he showed. But those animals starving to death was a bridge too far. He was just ten years old; he shouldn’t have been forced to think about something like that.”
“I hadn’t ever thought about that. God, those poor animals,” Alexis cried out.
“Wow, you’re laying it on thick,” David said with a roll of his eyes.
“No, I’m serious. I understand where your brother was coming from. He wasn’t alone. Even before the Plagues, any time there was a city under siege somewhere in the world, if it had a zoo, we would run a piece on what was happening to the animals. It gets to everybody. I’m sorry. Please continue.”
“Sure,” David said through squinted eyes. Alexis had never displayed any signs of human emotion before, and it was hard to believe she suddenly started. “Although I’m not sure how much more there is to talk about. I mean, he was a great kid, but ten-year-olds aren’t exactly known for their layers and depth. He never had the chance to grow into the person he was going to be. If only I had been behind him instead of in front…”
“Okay, I know this won’t be easy, but can you talk about that day?”
David’s shoulders sagged so low he looked like he might fold up into himself.
“It was a nice day for February in Seattle, which meant it was only drizzling off and on. That’s why we were outside, even though we weren’t supposed to be. My mom went out to go wait in the relief line. There was no Manna yet, so we’d be lucky to get a bag of rice or beans. Anyway, like I told you when I was talking about my mom, things were starting to get pretty rough out there. People were desperate; robberies and murders were happening every day. But it was as nice of a day as we get in February, and Carter wanted to go outside. He loved to throw around a baseball, but between the rain and the general end of the world, we didn’t get much chance to play. So when he wanted to go out, I couldn’t possibly say no. It’s not like it was Night of the Living Dead outside. We should have been able to throw around a baseball for an hour and stay safe. That’s what I told myself, but it was stupid. We shouldn’t have been outside.”
“Would that have helped?”
“Not necessarily, but maybe we would have been standing differently, and maybe he’d have been on the side of me that was spared, not the one that was burnt to dust.”
“Maybe. So you were outside having a catch. Was there any warning or something like that?”
“None. The bomb just went off. I saw it first. It was just a flash of light. They say it would have blinded us if it had gone off like it was supposed to, but there was something up with the bomb; it went off in two stages. I probably wouldn’t have reacted, but we covered what to do if a bomb went off in school—not that we were still going to school. Anyway, I shouted ‘run’ and turned and ran. I didn’t even look back to see if Carter was following. I just ran. The last time I saw him, I turned my back on him. If I had just let him get ahead of me, he would still be alive.”
“Was there really enough time? Don’t explosions move like lightning?”
“The bomb didn’t land on top of our heads; we were about half a mile away. It would have been close, but if my instinct had been to protect him, like any decent older brother’s instinct should be, then the wave would have hit me before it hit him, and he would have been safe. Freaked out that he saw my body eat a nuclear explosion, but safe.”
“Is that really true? Doesn’t a nuclear explosion cause all sorts of different deadly effects? The explosions, radiation, super-heated air. I can’t say I know all the details, but I also remember the warning about Soviet nukes, and there were a dozen different things that would kill people.”
“It did kill people. The nuke that is. A hundred thousand people that were standing on the wrong side of me were obliterated by the blast, including Cater. But on the other side of me, not a single life was lost. All the heat, the force of the explosion, the radiation, al
l those things you talked about—my body swallowed it all up. My cells somehow pulled in all the energy like a vacuum. The blast in all directions just got pulled into me. I feel bad for the rest of the hundred thousand unlucky people, but I couldn’t have done anything to save them unless I could see the future. But Carter… It’s not like I knew what would happen to the bomb, but if my first move had been what it should have been, if I had protected him like I should have, I would have saved him even if I didn’t know it. There wasn’t anything left of him, not anything they would show us anyway,” David said, somehow continuing to sag even though his posture already seemed as poor as humanly possible.
“You never got to have a funeral?”
“No, we did, but it wasn’t until more than a year later. Remember, I was knocked unconscious. Then there was all the testing and whatnot. It honestly didn’t even occur to me to try to have a funeral. We didn’t have anything to bury, but when mom had her first incident, she had a therapist who told her she needed to face her grief, and part of doing that was saying goodbye to Carter. There was no body, and our house was utterly destroyed by the blast, but he had this friend Billy that lived a couple blocks away in the right direction. He found Carter’s hat in his room and gave it to my mom. It was pretty sweet actually. We took that hat and went to Carbird Park. It wasn’t much of a park at that point; the Plagues had killed all the plants. We went to where the carousel had been. The ride was long gone. I’m sure it was eaten by the Plagues, and if there was any metal left, that was taken by scavengers. But you could still tell where it had been from the dirt. We went right to the center of the circle. I dug a hole and we buried the hat. We talked about how much we missed Carter. I said I was sorry I didn’t protect him. Mom cried. I wanted to but couldn’t. I kept explaining to her that I didn’t make tears anymore because I was ashamed that I couldn’t show my grief. The burial helped Mom, or at least I thought it did at the time. In the long run, I don’t think it mattered. The problem wasn’t that she hadn’t processed the trauma or whatever the therapists would say about it. It was that the trauma happened in the first place. She lost her little baby, and her other son became a person who couldn’t even cry when he wanted to. Much less has broken many people. Her heart was shattered to pieces, the kind of break you can’t fix no matter how much glue you have. She thought she was to blame for some reason.”