"Can't they read?" she asks, and lights a cigarette, blows smoke and shakes her head. Sure they can read, but they also don't care what Mimi Hanrahan wants or doesn't want. They drop their old things off just to be rid of them, because they can.
The fact of it is, Mimi could very well just have it all hauled away without even looking at it first, if she wanted to, but she can't bring herself to do that either. She just hates to take the chance, because sometimes Meena does find some things that are worth something in those bags and boxes. Mimi doesn't want to think she might be missing out on anything of value. Which leaves it up to Meena to sort through the stuff and see what's there. She wears thick leather work gloves when she does this, just in case of needles or razor blades or what have you.
Maybe because Meena's not there today Mimi will decide she ought to fire her. "Well, fuck her then," she'll say to anybody who's around to hear it. She'll make a big show of writing Meena off her list. Finger drawn across the throat. "Last cut. Finito. Kaput."
But then soon enough she'll realize how much more difficult everything is for her without Meena there to take care of the details and the dirty work.
"It's a charity job anyway," that's what Josef Krejci told his daughter. Sure not something that Meena needs to keep her going. Not by a long shot. Does she do it for the money? "No." And Mimi doesn't really need her either, does she? When Meena tried to insist, he argued, "Well, if she needs you, then why not pay you more?"
But he was wrong. Mimi does too need her. She does. Meena's voice piped higher, shrill with threatened conviction when she tried to explain this to him, but still he would not see.
Just what exactly did she think she was doing working at a job like that, in the White Elephant Shop, in Bohemietown? Knowing as she must have just how such a thing would be a humiliation to him. In these, his later years in life. He'd come so far himself—from a humble birth in one of the poorest white neighborhoods in Linwood, all the way across the river to Wellington Heights, where he made something of himself, where he became a successful businessman and a respected member of the community—and now here was Meena, his daughter, retracing his steps back across the bridge to the other side of the river. On purpose, she did this. If she was trying to get back at him for something, if it was anything he did to anger her, then please, couldn't she just get beyond it?
But it wasn't about him, Meena answered back. It was about her.
His frown was deep, and it was plain to her that he didn't believe it. "Whatever it is that has made you so mad at me, Meena," he said, "you're old enough now to have gotten over it, I think". And then he turned away.
Probably so. How could she argue with him about that? Old enough. Yes.
Meena has done her best to eat some of the food on her plate, and she thinks the result is satisfactory. She's managed to put away half the hamburger and a few bites of some salad. The Coke has settled her stomach and dimmed her headache some.
She has even offered to help clean up, but Will won't have it. He wants to show her his shelter. He's halfway across the yard, and he's calling out to her: "Libbie, come on now. You're going to love this." He's grinning and has one arm extended out toward her. She crosses the skirt of dandelion-spattered grass toward him, but she can't figure out where they're going. She sees no shelter here. And then at the school bus, he stops. Reaches out and yanks the door open. It screams on rusted hinges.
"Here, take a look."
He pulls her closer, stands back, waits while she peers inside. There are no seats, and the interior of the bus is like a big empty room, furnished with a gathering of molded plastic chairs, a pair of cots, metal shelves stocked with bottled water and canned food. Daylight is prismed by the shattered windshield, casting shadow and bringing glimmer both at once.
Will nudges her inside ahead of him, and then heaves himself up after her, pulling the door shut behind them. His bulk crowds the small space, and his smell is warm—salty, sweaty, meaty, smoky. Meena has no choice but to get out of the way, turn and sink into one of the plastic chairs.
"Wow," she says, knowing that her speechlessness will please him.
"Ingenious, isn't it?"
She looks around, nodding, admiring. "Yes. Sure is."
He spreads his arms, to encompass the big picture, and between the buttons of his shirt, his belly button winks.
"See," Will says, "we're completely on our own here. We have everything we need. Our own electric generator by way of an automotive engine—I've added an extra twelve-volt battery there under the hood, and with an inverter we can run an entire household full of appliances off it, if that's what we want to do. I've got the plans to install a solar panel, too. That's next. Then we'll be able to keep the batteries charged, even after all the gas supplies get too expensive or run out. I can boil water from the creek, or use bleach to purify melted snow, if I have to. I've got a stove, I've got wood, and even if I do run out of packaged food, still there's wild game all around here. Deer, elk. Even bear. And, once I get some tires on this thing, then the whole shebang will also be mobile. We'll be able to go wherever we want to. We can show up where we're needed. Anytime."
Meena shifts in her chair. She eyes the cans and bottles on the shelves. "But why? What is it for?"
"I told you. End of days. Bad times coming."
Meena looks at him. "How do you know that?" she asks.
He shrugs. "Signs, Libbie, signs. Israel's return to power, rampant immorality, famines, violence, wars."
"But what if you're wrong?"
His smile is patient now, and smug. "I'm not. Believe me, I'm not. It's all right there in the Bible. They said this would happen, and now it is. Just look around. Earthquakes, fires, hurricanes, floods. Libbie, honey, I'm not making this stuff up." He leans closer. "It's all around us. And it's real."
His eyes are searching hers, and her face feels scorched by the close attention.
Holly is at the door. Sunlight shafts in.
"Sorry, Will," she says. "I hate to spoil your party, but I gotta go. Libbie, you still want that ride?"
Meena stands. "Yes, thank you. And thank you for the food. It's been very nice to meet you both. I... I wish you both the best of luck."
"Our pleasure, Libbie, our pleasure," Will says. He takes her hand between his own and holds it for a moment, as he holds her with his gaze, both serious and entreating. "And when the end comes, now you remember us, all right? If you can find your way back here again, we'll keep you safe. I promise."
She is embarrassed by this, too, but she manages to pull herself away. "Thank you. Thanks. I don't know how to thank you." In the yard she picks up her suitcase, backs awkwardly away, and follows Holly to the yellow pickup.
On the narrow road, the chassis rocks along the shale. On the radio an evangelist rants about sacrifice and salvation. Holly taps the steering wheel with her hand, then reaches forward and shuts the radio off. She turns to Meena, her look serious, the metal in her face glinting. "He's crazy, okay. You don't have to say it, I already know."
"Well, but it's so beautiful here. Even so."
Holly nods. "Sure, if you like trees and a whole lot of nothing going on, that is."
"If that's how you feel, why do you stay?"
She snorts. "Where else am I going to go?"
"Wherever you want to, I guess."
"California?"
"Why not?"
"Well, for one thing, I don't have any way to get there. For another, I'm flat broke. And besides that, if I'm not here, who'll take care of Will?"
"Does he need taking care of?"
She snorts again. "He thinks he knows what he's doing, but he doesn't. You heard him. He's got all these crazy ideas. Somebody's got to keep him real. Might as well be me, I guess. There sure isn't anybody else to do it."
The Jetta has been moved and is parked outside the Grizzly Grill across the street from the gas station. Sunlight twinkles on its chrome.
Holly pulls the truck up alongside it and turn
s to Meena. "Well it was very nice to meet you Libbie," she says. "You have a nice trip, okay? Say hi to California for me."
Meena has climbed down from the truck and turned to get her suitcase from the back when Holly says, "The license plates on your car are from Iowa."
Meena freezes for a moment, then shrugs. "It's not my car."
Holly frowns, waits to hear more.
"It belongs to my father." Meena clears her throat, and goes on. "He's dead."
This is the first time she's said it out loud.
Tears well up, and now she's crying again, helplessly. Holly scrambles down and takes Meena in her thin arms, holds her. Whispers, "Libbie, it's all right. I'm sorry. Don't cry. Oh Libbie honey, please, please don't cry."
After a while, Meena shakes herself free. "Thank you," she says. And then, "I guess I'd better go."
Not until she's pulled out onto the road will Meena realize she's going the wrong way, away from the main highway instead of back toward it. A glance in the rearview mirror shows Holly standing by the yellow truck, hands on her hips, watching. Shaking her head.
And then it will be the Wal-Mart where she pulls in to turn around that gets Meena thinking about those four or five convicts who escaped from that prison down in Texas a while ago. They were able to get hold of some weapons somehow, and they overcame their guards, changed into uniforms, and rode out in disguise through the front gates, driving a sheriff's van into freedom right under the noses of their jailers. Or anyway, it was something like that. Then there was a car waiting for them in the local Wal-Mart parking lot. It had been left there by a sympathetic relative, and sometime in the middle of the night they broke into the store and helped themselves to clean clothes and toiletries, cigarettes and snack foods, shoes and hats and hair dye. Everything was going along according to plan until the night watchman happened to catch them in the act and they had to kill him, which upped the ante so high that pretty soon they were back in jail again and on death row in Texas.
But during those few weeks before they were caught those boys were on the run and their story got told over and over again, in regular reports on the nightly news. At first it was thought that they'd headed down toward Mexico, and then a while later they were reported sighted in California. Another rumor had it that they were in Oklahoma, or maybe it was Arizona, but when they finally were found it was in a trailer park near Colorado Springs, where they'd been posing as a group of church-going, law-abiding Bible thumpers, friendly young men who were wholly sincere-seeming to the folks who came into contact with them during that time.
The night the men were caught, Meena happened to be watching the news with her father, they were eating supper together on trays set up in front of the TV set and waiting for "Jeopardy" to come on. Joe Krejci liked to play along with that show, and he was pretty good at it, Meena had to admit, considering how old he was. She was waiting for the news to be over so she could go clean up the kitchen and then slip out the back door for a minute to smoke a cigarette, knowing that her father would be so engrossed in the game that he wouldn't get up to see what she was doing, even though she'd sworn to him that she had quit. But then the story came on saying that the fugitives had been apprehended, and so Meena stayed put where she was and watched.
They were saying that one of the men had already killed himself. He blew his own brains out in the bathroom of a motel as soon as he was sure the game was over, but the other two were either more cowardly or more courageous than that, depending on how you wanted to look at it, and they surrendered. They came out with their hands up—one shirtless with his big belly hanging out over his belt and the other one wearing a bandana on his head like a gypsy. They both had neatly trimmed goatees that made them seem stylish, especially with the bleached hair and tattooed shoulders. The one in the bandana wore wire-rimmed glasses that made him seem smart when he was explaining later about the inhumane conditions they'd been forced to live under while they were in jail. It was hard to remember that these two men were both hardened criminals, a danger to themselves and a menace to everybody else. Both men were filmed telling reporters that they'd rather die than go back to prison for the rest of their lives, and if they'd had the chance they would have put their guns to their own heads, too, just as their friend had done. But now they'd be happy to let the state do that dirty work for them, if that's what everybody wanted.
Josef Krejci said that was just bragging and when push came to shove they'd know they didn't mean it, not really. "Nobody wants to die," he said, and Meena didn't disagree. Now it occurs to her that he was probably only talking about himself.
Just those few weeks of freedom that those men had, when nobody knew who they really were, that had made the whole thing seem worth it, they said. Even what happened to the night watchman, though they were sorry about that, it was unavoidable, he'd put himself in the way of harm and they'd had no choice but to shoot him if they wanted to be free. Which they did. In the worst way.
It was all worth it, they insisted, and Meena thought she understood what they meant then, and she thinks maybe she also has a little bit of understanding of it now even more.
Because here she is at the Wal-Mart herself, stocking up on her own sorts of necessities, including an expensive box of hair color: Golden Honey Blonde.
He'll be buried in the Bohemie Cemetery, Meena thinks, between Matka and my mother, his mother and his wife. There's a space there for Meena, too, a plot that he bought her for her birthday when she turned twenty-one. When Meena mentioned this fact once, at first Mimi thought it was funny but then after she thought about it for a while, she got mad.
"Who gives a cemetery plot to someone on their birthday?" Mimi wanted to know.
Meena appreciated her friend's outrage, but she also knew that her father didn't mean it like that. "A cemetery plot costs a lot of money," Meena explained. "It's like a piece of real estate in a way, an investment."
Mimi studied her nails. "You're full of shit," she said.
"You don't understand," Meena said. "How could you? And anyway, that was a long time ago."
But Mimi just looked at her and shook her head. She lit two cigarettes, one for Meena and one for herself, then shook her head again. They were sitting on stools behind the counter at The White Elephant, taking a break from sorting through a box of winter sweaters, checking them for moth holes before they were folded for display. It had been snowing all morning, and so hardly anyone had come in to buy anything, which made Mimi cranky, but Meena didn't mind it when they had the place to themselves, cozy and warm and all lit up in the middle of the day. She was handling a dove gray cashmere cardigan with white pearl buttons and an embroidered collar and cropped sleeves. It made her think of Christmas and it reminded her of Mrs. Grandon; it looked like something she would have worn.
"You've got that right," Mimi said. "I don't understand a man who could think ahead for his daughter like that. And if you want to know the truth, I hope I never do."
Which made Meena want to explain and make Mimi see the situation, how much she and her father depended upon each other, because between them that was all they had and all that they could do. There just wasn't anybody else. Not Meena's mother. Not Matka. Just Josef and Meena. He looked after her and she looked after him.
"He's a wonderful man," Meena said to Mimi. "He's really brilliant. I admire him. I do."
But Mimi just rolled her eyes. "Okay, Meena, whatever you say." She crushed out her cigarette and heaved herself up to her feet and went back to work on the sweaters again.
Meena wasn't angry. She could see that Mimi just didn't understand. But, how could she? Mimi Hanrahan was just some Rompot trash who'd never even had a father. What would someone like that know about a daughter's true devotion to her dad?
When he had to sell his grocery store, that was a time that just about broke Josef Krejci's heart. But there wasn't any way around it because the bigger Hawkeye store up on Vernon Boulevard had moved in and taken away all his business, and he was
losing money every day, whether he stayed open or was closed. The land itself was still worth something though, and so Joe Krejci made arrangements to sell the lot to a developer who had no interest in groceries but planned to bring in a bulldozer, raze the structure, and put up some apartment units in its place.
At that time, Joe had been keeping up with what little trade he still had from day to day, but he'd let the inventories run way low in order to keep down the cost of operations, only stocking up on those things that he could be certain he could sell. That meant that when it came time to close Krejci's doors for good, there wasn't much left worth salvaging or selling, and so he decided that instead he'd just give it all away. Let the Hawkeye—with their fluorescent lights and their twenty-four hour service, with their bagboys and cashiers and checkout stands, with all their specials and discounts and coupons—let them suffer one night of weakened business then. They deserved it, he said, if anybody did.
Cans of tuna, soup, and Spam, bags of beans and rice, powdered potatoes, onions, carrots, corn, loaves of old bread starting to go stale. It wasn't much, but it was something.
Give it away to who? Meena asked.
"To whoever needs it," he answered, grinning. He opened his arms, a generous man exposing the full breadth of his most expansive self. "To anyone and everyone who comes."
He printed some flyers—"Free Food! Krejci's! 7:00 pm!"—and tacked them up on phone poles. He hired a polka band to set up in the parking lot and play. He strung up lanterns and twinkle lights—to make it festive, he said. Make it seem more like a party, more like a celebration than a loss.
No sense in crying over what was already gone, that was Josef Krejci's philosophy. By which he meant the past, Meena thought. The way things used to be for him, when he was young and his wife was still alive and they still had hope for their future and for their lives in it together. Before Meena came along.
The Minor Apocalypse of Meena Krejci Page 16