Soon after, Johnny told her. “It’s like chatter. I don’t know, I can’t describe it. I think it’s an ear infection.” And so, Sarah saved up a bunch of stuff from tricks to barter for some medicated eardrops. No change. He tried to push it out of his mind.
Two streets over in the Annex, their old friend Su Ling was living in the attic of an old Victorian with whatever girlfriend of the week she had at the time. They used to go over for dinner sometimes, pool their food together and have a feast. Well, a meal.
One night over something that was almost borscht, Su Ling said she was leaving. “It’s time. It’s just death here.”
“But what’s out there? You gonna farm or some butch shit?” Johnny laughed.
“I’ve never even been out of the city since The Crash,” Sarah said, picking at a beet with her fork. “What’s even out there?”
“I have to. It’s not right here—” Su Ling tried to explain.
Her girlfriend cut in, “She thinks she’s going psychic. She hears—”
“Marla!” Su Ling snapped. “I just. I hear this, like, talking in my ears. It’s worse in some parts of the city. It’s like city noise. I gotta get out of here, and get some fresh air. It’ll be quiet in the country.”
A full minute passed before Johnny opened his mouth and let it spill out that he heard it, too. But there was no relief in sharing, all it did was unnerve the four of them further.
Su Ling left a week later with her pretty girlfriend in tow.
◄ ►
Derrick is usually easy. He is quick, relatively clean, and polite. Skinny, white hipster boy with manners, a seemingly unending supply of canned food, and the faintest hint of a paunch coming in as he hovers around 30. He gives her four cans of beans and a mason jar of moonshine for the date when she gets to the collective house.
Sarah’s pulling her best post-apocalyptic Amy Winehouse – hair up in a messy bouffant, floral print retro dress that’s damn near mint condition, except for the small tear in the seam just under her armpit that she really needs to fix up before it rips further, and beat-up burgundy cowboy boots.
The date goes quickly. Rub, tug, blow, repeat, and it’s over. She gets up and goes over to the gold-framed mirror on the wall of his room, one long crack down the middle of it, cutting her face in two.
“You ever been outside?” she asks, fixing her hair in the mirror’s reflection.
“Like out of the city?” he says, still lying there in the afterglow.
“Yeah, some place rural. The country or something.”
“My buddy and I went out to this farm in, like, Aurora,” he says. “It was a pretty sweet set-up, but it’s way too much work. The city’s harder, I guess, but you don’t have to get up at dawn here and work in the sun. My back!” He laughs, and she can see him through the mirror, rubbing his stomach.
“You’re just a city boy at heart, huh?”
“Not cut out for working. I’m the first to admit I’m a trustfund baby.” His voice darkens only a little. “Or I was. Anyway, I like the city better. Make some booze to trade, and I can get up whenever I want.”
◄ ►
The roof of their building is covered in gravel and plastic bins full of abandoned attempts at rooftop gardening. Neither of them have green thumbs, no natural inclination to keep things alive except each other, so it’s all dead and dried out, growing weeds instead of tomatoes. Johnny passes Sarah the mason jar, wipes the booze from his mouth with his other hand.
She takes a sip of the bitter drink and watches the patch of sunset light slowly moving across his brown skin. Johnny’s dirty white tank top is off, tucked into the waist of his jeans, and he’s leaning against the raised ledge, resting his head on folded arms. In that moment Sarah can see beyond the drama, the craziness, the pain, and all the wretched processing to the beautiful boy she took home one night, so many years ago. This forever, she thinks. And she drinks more of her trick’s moonshine.
“All right,” she says, and coughs for a second. “All right, I’m in. We can try it.”
“Try what?” Johnny asks, letting one arm droop down over the ledge.
“Let’s leave the city. Let’s go outside. I’m in. I’m with you.”
Johnny turns to her and, slowly, a big smile spreads across his face. She can’t remember the last time she’s seen his eyes so bright and alive. They kiss and laugh. He runs his fingers through her hair, presses his forehead against hers.
“It’s going to be so great!” he says, beaming at her. “We’ll get fresh food! We’ll grow things or pick berries or something! We can go anywhere. Anywhere! No more worrying about getting mugged or burglars or anything. I’ll get a bow and arrows and we can hunt for our food.”
“No more tricks,” she chimes in.
“No more tricks! And it’ll be so quiet out there.”
They stay up there, future-dreaming together until it starts to get too cold and too dark out, and they have to retreat to their basement hideout.
◄ ►
The darkness is complete. Without streetlights, the headlights of passing cars, the tiny glow of digital alarm clocks, and the reassurance of a smartphone lighting up periodically to let you know who’s liked something on Instagram, it is total. And on a cloudy night, there isn’t even the light of the moon and stars. So, when Sarah opens her eyes there is no meaningful difference besides the feeling of air on her exposed eyes.
The dark used to terrify her, even into her young adulthood, even before it became so thick after The Crash. Now, just a mild sense of unease creeps through her body. It’s just the night. And she puts one arm around the warm body beside hers, around her Johnny, the muscles on his body feeling as tightly coiled as ever.
She makes a list in her head as she waits to fall back asleep. They’ve spent two weeks pulling it all together – the tins of food and bottles of water from her eight regulars, a compass and sleeping bag Johnny bartered some books for, and the not too beat-up backpacks Jetta gave her as a goingaway present at her last pumping session.
Beneath her arm, Johnny’s chest rises and falls. She can’t see it, but she can feel it.
This city has been everything to her. This city gave her life, an escape from the terrors of small-town queerdom. Access to doctors who took her seriously, or seriously enough that she could get what she needed. A chance at something like happiness. Shelter through the whole ordeal of The Crash, and enough work to keep her alive and well. And this beautiful boy under her arm.
And for him, for his madness or his gift, however you want to frame it, but for him regardless, she will give up this city.
Tomorrow, they leave.
BROWN WAVE
Christine Ottoni
The dark stink of brownwater rises up off the river. It settles around the buildings at the edge of the lake. Light glows in the east, hanging low beyond the clouds in the sky.
The slumtop smells the river first. The concrete lodging towers sit at the edge of town where there is a bend in the river. The stink hits the windows and fills the empty halls. It presses up against doors, pries at cracks in the walls.
Richard and Eli live on the top floor in a corner room. Richard sits on their bed and rests his hand on his brother’s sleeping shoulder.
Brownwater is muck today, Richard says. Eli opens his eyes.
C’mon, Richard says. Breakfast and school.
They have always lived in the slumtop. Or at least since Eli was very young. He can’t remember being anywhere else. Eli sits up in bed, stretches his arms over his head and yawns. He looks out the window toward the factory where Richard works. The great black building is farther down the river at the opposite end of town. Smokestacks reach up into the mist.
Richard puts on his blue jumpsuit and rubber boots. A pot of beans is cooking on the stovetop, rattling, uneven on the element. Steam rises into the damp air. Eli is hungry.
He kicks off the thin blanket and moves to the foot of the bed, reaching for the chest of clothes. The
floor is too cold for sockless feet. Eli stays on the bed while he gets dressed. A pair of pants and a sweatshirt. He puts on thick socks and tucks his pants into them. He swings his feet onto the floor.
They eat quickly and take their backpacks down from the row of hooks by the door. Richard helps the boy into his slip jacket and boots. He locks the room and they leave the slum-top. Eli runs ahead down the open concrete stairwell, the slap of his boots echoing to the floors below. Outside, the grey mist falls around them. Richard pulls Eli’s hood tight over his head. When the hood slips back, the wet air stings at his eyes. Eli tucks his face down into his collar. They walk.
The school is at the centre of town. Eli and Richard follow the main road and pass by the ground houses. They have high concrete walls and gravel lawns sprayed with bright green paint. The kids from the ground houses walk to school on their own. Their slip jackets shine blue and yellow, slick with wet. Richard straightens his back and leads Eli by the hand.
At school, kids run across the compound out of the rain. They duck into the class buildings, metal cubicles arranged by form across the pavement.
Bye, Eli, Richard says.
Bye, Richard, Eli says. He hikes his backpack up higher on his shoulders and heads toward his class with the others. Eli is the only one in his class building who lives in the slum-top. He sits at the front of the class by Miss Riley’s desk. The other kids leave him alone, mostly.
Once, at lunch, a girl named Violet gave him some of her chocolate milk.
You’ve never had it? she said.
Eli shook his head.
She pushed the little plastic package toward him and he took a sip. It was too rich. The dark brown liquid coated his throat and tongue. It left his mouth thick.
Everyone says your parents died in the flood, Violet said. She took a gulp of the chocolate milk. She smiled at the boy.
In the class building the students sit at their desks, face the front of the room. Miss Riley pulls a stack of coloured paper out of the supply closet. Usually, the students are allowed one piece each a week. They use the paper right down to the little strips. But today Miss Riley puts all the coloured paper on her desk and then turns to the chalkboard. She draws a shape, a long oval with a triangle on top and two bits splitting on the end.
This is a fish, she says. Today we are going to make fish cut-outs. She is smiling at the class but Eli thinks she is sad. Her voice is soft.
She chooses a red piece of paper and makes her cut-out with one long swipe of the scissors. The excess paper curls to the floor. She helps the students make their fish, as many as they want, and they tape them up on the classroom windows. The grey light from outside bleeds through the colours, lighting them up.
After school, Richard is waiting for Eli. He holds his hand out for the boy and Eli takes it. They walk back together through the mist to the slumtop.
The rain turns hot that night. Steam rises off puddles on the streets below. Richard tells Eli to stay away from the window; it never closes all the way tight. Little drops bounce and fizz onto the sill, slip onto the floor of their room.
Eli tells Richard about the fish and the paper and how Miss Riley seemed sad all day.
So it’s called fish? Richard says. He likes to hear about school. They are sitting on the floor, across from each other over the chest. They are eating zip-packet beans and carrots. Richard got them at the factory for his lunch ration. He always brings food home for Eli. He tears away the airtight plastic and scoops the food into the pot so he can heat it up. They eat from tin mugs.
I liked Miss Riley when I was little, Richard says.
Eli uses his hand to swipe the last bit of beans from his mug. He licks his fingers.
In the morning it’s raining harder. Richard drops Eli off at school and heads to the factory. The rain beats down, fierce pellets against his hunched shoulders.
The compound is quiet, empty. Eli doesn’t see any other kids. They must be inside the class buildings already, out of the rain. Eli crosses the compound to his class. The door is locked. The lights are off. He can see the fish cut-outs still taped up to the windows. Miss Riley should be there at the front of the room.
Eli walks home, back up to the slumtop. He peels off his slip jacket and rain boots, leaving them to dry by the door. He sits at the window, waiting for Richard to come home, watching the little white houses below. He can see grown-ups packing up their cars, piling boxes and bags into the trunks and on top of the roofs. He wonders where they are going.
When Richard gets home it is dark outside. The clouds are thick over the town. He looks worried.
No kids at school, Richard says.
I came home, Eli says.
At night they wake up to the sound of the flood horn. They can hear the water coming. The surge roars in between the bellows of the horn. They sit up under the window and see the wave come, crushing over the ground houses. The water is like chocolate. Heavy, deep and brown.
The horn stops. It is quiet. Eli pushes himself against Richard’s side.
We’ll stay here, Richard says. He gets up from the window and checks the lock. He pushes the chest in front of the door.
They stay awake in the slumtop until the clouds turn grey with light again. Richard tells Eli to stay back, away from the window. They sit in the damp room, drinking hot water from mugs while Richard crouches, one hand on the windowsill, staring at the town.
Eli lies on the bed. He sleeps and dreams of the brown wave. He sees Violet, clawing through mud water. She smiles and chocolate milk runs down her nose, drips from the corner of her mouth.
Eli wakes up and he can hear people shouting outside. Loud pops and broken glass. Richard sits at the window.
It’s okay, he tells Eli.
They wait in the slumtop. One night, when Richard is asleep, Eli looks out the window. But all the lights in the houses are off and he can’t see if the water is still there.
Will the water stay below? Eli asks Richard in the morning.
No, no, Richard says. It’ll wash out.
Richard tries to be careful with the zip packets. He counts them, sets aside what they are allowed to have each day, but it’s not enough. Eli can see Richard is not eating. His hands shake as he passes mugs of food to the boy.
We gotta leave, Richard says.
Where’ll we go? Eli says.
High ground.
They put all of their things into the backpacks. Sweaters, socks and mugs. They put on their slip jackets and boots and Richard pushes the chest away from the door. He steps out into the hall, holds his arm in front of Eli.
If I say Go, Richard says, you gotta come right back here and lock this door. Be quiet and hide under the bed. Okay?
Okay, Eli says.
They move through the slumtop. Every door is open and the rooms are empty. The wind groans in the halls.
At the bottom they cross through the ground houses. All the windows are broken, the green pebbled lawns washed away. Pools of still blackwater have formed around the houses.
Where is everyone? Eli asks.
Hold my hand, Richard says.
Eli thinks of the flood horn, what happens if it bellows while they are on the ground.
They pass a house. There is a figure lying on its side in the entranceway. Eli stops to look, his hand pulling on Richard’s.
It’s a man. His upper body is inside the house, his legs are hanging out onto the front stoop. Black pants cling to his legs like dead skin slipping from bone. His feet are bare, the soles wrinkled and blue.
Don’t look, Richard says. He pulls on the boy’s hand. Keep walking.
They head up the north road. Eli can see trees, dark pine tops, rising past the edge of the last houses. This is the farthest he has ever been from the slumtop. Mud sucks at his boots with each step.
The road slopes upwards in a hill and they struggle to get their footing on the washed-out ground. Pine trees line the road, bent and broken, dripping damp. Eli and Richard step over b
ranches stripped off the trees by wind and water.
The ground levels off. Ahead they can see the mud road twisting forward into the forest. Eli pauses at the top of the hill.
Richard puts his hand on Eli’s shoulder.
Keep walking, he says.
Eli’s boots are heavy; clumps of earth cake on top of his feet, weighing him down. They walk again, making slow time, lifting their legs high to avoid puddles and sticks. Eli’s legs ache from the effort.
I’m hungry, he says.
We can’t stop, Richard says.
Eli takes a step over a puddle but loses his footing and slides into the blackwater. His leg sinks in up to his knee, his boot fills with water. He struggles.
Richard! he cries. Two strong hands are under his armpits, lifting him up. He is free. The air is cool around his foot.
The blackwater puddle lies flat. His boot is lost, devoured.
Richard helps Eli pull off his sock and roll his pant leg up to avoid the wet. He takes off his backpack and straps it frontwards over his chest. He lifts the boy up onto his back. Eli remembers when he was little and Richard would piggy-back him across town. Richard used to be so big. But Eli feels his limbs are longer now. His legs dangle awkwardly at Richard’s hips. He wonders if he will ever be as big as Richard.
Richard walks and Eli closes his eyes. He dreams of the great, brown wave. He wants to reach his hands toward it, run it through his fingers, slipping warm past his hands. He wants to know how the brownwater feels.
He wakes up. It’s raining again. His other boot is gone, slipped off and lost somewhere along the road.
They stop to rest and Eli gets down from Richard’s back. He balances on his bare foot, holding onto Richard for support. He pulls off his other sock, puts it in his pocket and settles his foot into the mud.
Richard and the boy squat under a tree. They are on the edge of the dead woods. Nothing grows there, Richard told Eli once. It’s all old growth, cracking and falling over. Spiked branches reach high over their heads, doing little to shelter them from the rain.
Richard bends down and laces his hands together, stitching his fingers up in a tight cup. He dips his hands into the blackwater and scoops it up. The puddle ripples softly. He lifts his hands to his mouth and then the boy’s. It tastes like rotting wood.
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