Behind the Song

by K. M. Walton

  Cassie crawled to her feet, her ear still ringing. Her jeans had popped their button and a new rip had appeared along the right knee. But that didn’t matter much now.

  Her eyes narrowed, sizing him up. Michael was roughly the same height and weight as her, and she guessed she could take him in a fair fight. Then he reached into his pocket and withdrew a knife—a ragged piece of metal with a bundle of gauze and black electrical tape wrapped around it for a handle.

  “I’ll use this if I have to,” he said. “But I’d rather not. So go.”

  Cassie did as she was told. There was no one left to ask for help, even if she wanted to risk it.

  • • •

  After the hydroponic fields, they climbed through a labyrinth of dark passageways before reaching a tunnel with train tracks that were overlaid with ribbons of cable. Stretching off into the darkness was an infinity of loading docks lit by dim sulfur lights.

  “What am I supposed to tell my parents later?” Cassie said. “It’s already so late.”

  “You can tell them the truth,” Michael answered. “They already know who you are. And you’re protecting them as much as you are yourself.”

  “Speaking of,” she said. “Since you planned this out. Did you bring, uh…any other kind of protection?”

  Michael’s face wrinkled, then he laughed. “What? Like condoms? Don’t worry about that,” he said. “I’ll be careful. And if not, who cares? Sooner or later we’re going to have kids anyway. You and I are in this for good, Cassie. For life.”

  Cassie walked faster. They passed dozens of identical loading docks before she stopped. “Here we are,” she said, and banged her fist against a metal roll-up gateway—large enough for a truck. Beside it was a smaller steel door with a single square window. “My family leases this space from the Republic with three other families from our ward. So we have the code. It’s a good place to be alone when you need it. I used to come down here and read. Before we sold all the books.”

  She lifted the lid on a security console, revealing a chrome handle and a numeric keypad that fluttered to life with a sickly green glow when she touched it. Cassie’s finger tapped out four low tones on the buttons, and something inside the door hissed, then clicked. Michael pulled up the metal latch and shoved it open into oily nothingness. Cassie reached inside and flicked on a light.

  The storage room was a giant tomb with a segmented iron wall on the far side and concrete dividers separating it from the other units. It was huge, and high, and echoed with their footsteps as they walked inside. “They cram us into tiny living spaces, but these auditoriums are just sitting down here?” Michael said.

  “This tunnel is one of the earliest parts of Joshua Tree. Part of a missile silo the government built decades ago. The Republic used it to haul out debris during the colony’s construction—before we recycled everything. They also did decontamination in these rooms.”

  “People?” Michael asked.

  Cassie shook her head. “People weren’t rare. Metal and other building materials—that’s what they were saving, mainly.”

  The concrete ground gritted beneath their feet. The boy and the girl were both breathing hard, but for very different reasons. “All right,” he said. “Why don’t you take off your clothes for me?”

  Cassie pulled one arm into her sleeve, then the other and peeled her shirt off over her head. Michael stared at the girl standing before him in her tattered gray bra.

  “I can’t believe I’m finally going to…you know. Do it,” he said, tugging off his own shirt and rolling it into a ball.

  “No other choice now,” she said.

  Michael’s face pinched. “It would be nice if you wanted it, too. Just saying.”

  Cassie lowered her head. She watched as he pulled off his shoes and squirmed out of his jeans. His new jeans. He tossed them into the dust.

  Her fingers undid the zipper on her too-tight jeans with the now-missing button. She wriggled out of them, then draped them over her arm. “I’m going to turn off the light,” she said.

  “No. Leave the light on,” Michael said. “I want to look at you.”

  She paused, then walked toward him. He cupped his hands over his nakedness as she drew near, but Cassie brushed past him to scoop up his discarded clothes. “You should be nicer to these things,” she said, slapping the dirt and sand from the fabrics. “We’re given so little.”

  She folded the clothes as she walked. “There may be a blanket in one of those boxes in the corner, if you want to lie down on something,” she said. “That will make it…easier. I’ll place our things over by the door.”

  The naked boy tiptoed across the grit-covered floor and began prying open the little cityscape of cardboard containers. “Already taking good care of the laundry,” he said. “You’re gonna make a fine wife, Daisy Girl, you know that?”

  Her answer was the sound of the metal door slamming shut.

  Michael Ulmer spun around. He was alone in the storage room.

  He bolted toward the door, his fists thudding against the window just as he heard the familiar hiss and click of its lock. On the other side of the glass, Cassie stood in her underwear with her finger still touching the last numeral on the keypad.

  Michael jerked on the door handle, but it wouldn’t budge. Shadows of the wires embedded in the window crisscrossed his face. He began roaring as Cassie pulled on her jeans and shirt. His clothes were still in a neat pile at her feet.

  “Open up, goddamn it, or I’ll see you and your mother and father butchered,” he said, spittle flecking the glass. “I’ll laugh when they send you out into that wasteland.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” she said, raising one eyebrow.

  “Yeah, I doubt they’ll even bother to banish you. You’ll be lined up against a wall and shot. The whole colony will watch. I can’t wait to see your little face hit the ground. I’ll laugh. You hear me?”

  Cassie nodded. “I do hear you,” she said, and smiled. “Which means you can hear me.” She stepped closer to the door, almost nose to nose with the boy on the other side. “My parents and I planned for this day, the time when we might be found out. After the Republic put the Koslows on trial, we knew loyalty officers wouldn’t show much mercy if they ever uncovered us. They’d blame us for what they did to that innocent young family. Just like they blamed us—me—for the hell on earth unleashed by the madman they put in charge.”

  Her finger traced the wires in the glass between them. “Just like you,” she said. “Blaming me right now because you’re locked in that room. But I didn’t put you there. You did. I gave you many chances to stop this. That’s more than you gave me.”

  The boy hammered the glass. He kicked the door. Cassie let him tire out.

  “We knew, someday, somehow, someone might figure it out,” she said. “We mapped escape routes. My father even managed to steal three biohazard suits from the sanitation department, in case we had to make a run for it outside. We traded all the belongings we used to keep in that storage room—the same one you’re standing in right now—to get a broken-down motorcycle we’ve stashed in segments throughout the colony. We had a plan: if anyone ever found out—we’d run. We’d hide. We’d survive.”

  Michael Ulmer shook his head. “You’ll never last out there. The stragglers will rip you to shreds.”

  Cassie snorted. “But at least we’d have a chance.” Her eyes met his. “I’ve come to realize that people inside here can be just as inhuman. Haven’t you?”

  “The air will burn your skin. You’ll get sick. And if you live, by some crazy miracle, you’ll turn into one of them…those twisted things scavenging for…”

  “Maybe,” she interrupted. “It’s definitely a risk. But Mom and Dad researched other underground shelters, far from here. Independent tribes, separate from the Republic. Nothing as elaborate and safe as the colonies like thi
s, but they’re out there. They might welcome us.”

  “You won’t have time,” he said. “When I’m not in the dorm tomorrow, people will miss me. I’m gonna beat on this door and scream and make so much noise. Someone will hear, maybe not right away, but within hours. First they’ll find me—and then we’ll find you.” His fist smacked the window again as punctuation. “Go ahead and try to run. The Republic has the colony sealed up tight. Nothing gets in or out.”

  Cassie smiled at him, sadly. “No, Michael,” she said. “I guess you don’t understand me. We’re prepared to run—if we have to. And yeah, you can’t just waltz out of the colony. Which is why we figured out where several exit points might be.” She tapped the glass, pointing to the segmented metal wall. “Like this room.”

  Cassie walked back to the control panel and lifted the lid, tapping in a different code this time. She looked at the boy in the window. “They might miss you,” she said. “But nobody is going to find you.”

  She turned the chrome handle and the storage room filled with swirling orange light. The segmented wall groaned and began to fold inward and rumble upward. Outside, the armored door retracted into the top of the exit port.

  Michael Ulmer squealed as the cold air and rain swung tentacles of dust into the room. A cyclone of papers and photographs erupted from the cardboard boxes against the walls. Cassie watched the boy’s eyes bulge as he clung to his breath. Finally his lungs heaved in the toxic air. The open sores of his acne-crusted cheeks began to sizzle.

  Toxins stirred up by the monsoons made the air so much more caustic than usual. She wondered how the stragglers ever developed a tolerance for it: poisoned air and water, blighted land, freezing temperatures.

  A crazy, high-pitched laugh rose from the other side of the door. “I’m going to run,” said the thing that was once a teenage boy named Michael Ulmer said. His sore-blossomed face vanished and reappeared in the flashing orange warning lights. “I’m gonna run out of here and knock on the windows of Covington Square or some other place where there are people, and I’m gonna tell them! I’m going to tell them everything, Daisy Girl. Even if they don’t let me back in! I’m going to drag you out here with me…”

  “Shhh,” she said. “Shhhh…” But the boy kept making noise.

  Behind him, in the narrow octagonal opening of the loading bay, shapes emerged from the storm—just pencil sketches amid the waves of rain and windowblown sand. The figures approached so slowly, so hesitantly, they hardly seemed to be moving at all.

  When they saw the room held only a scrawny, naked boy, they began to move faster.

  Cassie held Michael Ulmer’s jeans out in front of her. They were a size too large, but that would feel so good. Relaxed fit. That’s what they’d called it once upon a time. Plus, she now had a new T-shirt for her mother—big enough for her growing baby belly, too. And the shoes might fit her father. She’d have to explain the jeans to Mia and Abigail with a convincing story, of course. And she’d also have to tell them about refusing to go with that weird boy who vanished after trying to talk her into exploring dangerous, abandoned parts of the colony. But that would be okay. The little girl from the Daisy ad had gotten good at make-believe over the years. She really was a good liar.

  Cassie flapped the jeans once and held them against her legs. “Thanks for these, by the way,” she said. But Michael Ulmer wasn’t watching her anymore. He had his back against the glass.

  Cassie peeked through the window over his shoulder and saw more stick figures in the storm. Dozens of them. Most were tall and spindly, but she could make out quite a few small ones, too. The rumors were true: The stragglers were reproducing.

  She guessed Michael Ulmer had about ten seconds.

  “Please…” the boy whimpered. His tears and runny nose smeared the glass. “Please let me back in. I’ll never tell anyone, I promise, I promise, I’m sorry, sorrr-eeee PLEEEEASE…”

  “Nine…eight…seven,” Cassie Roberts said.

  She closed her eyes, hugging her new jeans. She found the plastic daisy in one pocket and began pulling off the remaining petals. “Six…six…five…four…”

  A chorus of screams from the other side of the door drowned out the rest.

  Author photo

  © Christopher Boyer

  Anthony Breznican was born and raised in Western Pennsylvania and graduated from the University of Pittsburgh. He has worked as a reporter for The Arizona Republic, Associated Press, and USA Today, and is currently the senior staff writer assigned to Star Wars and Marvel for Entertainment Weekly. His debut novel, Brutal Youth, was published in 2014. Visit anthonybreznican.com and follow him on Twitter @breznican.

  “COLD BEVERAGE”: THE SONG I WROTE THAT CHANGED MY LIFE

  A PERSONAL ESSAY

  By G. Love

  “Cold Beverage” is twenty-three years old. I play it almost every night, and I will be completely honest: I love it every time. I love the music. I love the lyrics. I can’t believe how much people still love to jam to it. It always blows my mind.

  —G. Love

  Early Summer 1993. I drove a 1963 Dodge Dart. Push-button transmission. Distressed, but not chipped, black paint with plenty of clean chrome. Red vinyl dashboard. Red, black, and white Naugahyde seat covers. People would tell me, “Keep her oil changed and she will run forever.” It had that famous American Mopar engine, the Slant 6 I think it was.

  It would run forever.

  The ’63 Dart was a beater and a classic in one breath. I got her for $1,500 cash in Braintree, Massachusetts. She was my baby. I named her Miss Eloise after my great old Aunt Eloise. Eloise Klinges lived to ninety-two, and she was as wise as her years. She was stubborn, opinionated, and the boss lady for sure. I was young boy when I knew her, but her legend and legacy would surely live on in our family.

  To me, the naming of people, things, and ideas has always been a knee-jerk, immediate reaction. Everything needs a name, every person needs a nickname. I’m the namer. It’s just my thing, I give the names.

  When I looked at the old, beautiful 1963 Dodge Dart that would be my first car there was only one name, dear old Miss Eloise.

  G. Love and his dog Katie with Miss Eloise

  The night I got Miss Eloise, I took the train to Braintree, and the seller picked me up at the station. I wrote a check for $1,500 and drove her back to Jamaica Plains with no tags. I know you’re not supposed to drive a car without tags, but think about it: how was I supposed to get it home?!

  I got her home all right, and the first thing I did was call Heather. Some of the guys called her “Leather Heather,” I guess because she was all rock and roll. Heather was a pretty girl in the neighborhood. She dressed cool in black, and I maybe had a couple dates with her or hangs. I can’t remember really. She was around. We were all trying to come up. She was into musicians, she was part of our scene, and she was a cool girl.

  When I picked up Heather for a cruise, I said, “Step inside my ride for a little maiden voyage.” I figured Miss Eloise would be good luck, and indeed I was off to a good start. Heather was impressed. We parked and had some fun breaking in the new ride. We made out and we scored and we were happy as can be in the 1963. We had a little rock-and-roll community and we were all in it together…

  I needed this new ride. Things with the band were starting to happen, and I had to get my amp, guitars, PA, and microphones to the gigs. I had graduated from street musician to bar musician and things were rolling. And now, with my car, I was rolling too.

  Spring came hot and heavy, and then summer heated up quick. Wouldn’t you know, my brakes went out. There I was sitting in the repair shop up on Washington Street on the Brookline/Allston/Brighton border.

  There was a musician friend of mine, this cat Washtub Robbie. Robbie was an older cat who had played washtub bass with blues legend Spider John Koerner and a host of others. He used to help me fix up my guitars. He was
a legend of the Boston folk, blues, and roots scene, and he took me under his wing back in 1993. Whenever I saw him he always had something cool to look at, an old guitar or amp, an antique knickknack, a glass of rye. This time, though, he had a Xeroxed mag about vintage guitars and girls. Not in a sleazy way, kind of a rockabilly way.

  Guitars and girls. Perfect.

  As I waited for my car, I perused the mag and two words popped out like a neon sign off of the white paper: Cold Beverage. I don’t even remember the sentence before it but I remember those words. You know how sometimes words hit you in a certain way? These two words got me. I remember it clear as day.

  I said out loud, “I like cold beverages.”

  And then, while my brakes were getting fixed, I wrote a rap about how much I liked cold beverages. Since I had nothing to write on I used the magazine and wrote all around the edges of it. I wrote three verses in that service station.

  Miss Eloise was eventually done, and I drove her home to my new spot on Oak View Terrace above the Irish bar, the Shamrock, in Brighton Center.

  It was a five-bedroom shithole above the Shamrock, and I was lucky enough to live there—that place was a big part of my last year in Boston. I had the front room of the attic. My rapping partner, Jasper, named it the “Blues Room” on account of the low light that would come out of the high window. In the summer it would heat up real good and smell like pizza from the Greek pizza shop across the street. Their exhaust fan would blow out scents of hot dough, sauce, and cheese night and day. I wrote this song on our demo Back in the Day called “It’s So Hot” about the feeling of that room.

  There was a little five-square-foot deck on the floor below my room, and I wrote many a song out there that summer. Sitting in the pizza heat, drinking cheap lemonade, sweating, and writing lyrics. Those were the days.