Houston, 2030: The Year Zero

by Mike McKay

  Chapter 26

  Mark opened his eyes: he was in a bed. Sun shone through a broken window with no trace of glass. The lower part of the window frame was patched with recycled cartons and duct tape. The walls, used to be off-white, now displayed a zebra-like pattern of yellowish and blackish stains from many years of use. He tried to move and discovered his neck was in a spinal collar, while his right arm – in a plaster and protruded at an odd angle from under the bed sheet.

  He felt no pain, and was in absolutely peaceful and optimistic mood. The sun was so wonderfully bright, and the sky – so outlandishly blue. Fresh air came through so marvelously broken window into a room with these funny yellow and black stains on the wall. The bed mattress was soft and comfy. Mark was floating in the air! Even the disinfection smelled flowers.

  Yet, a memory on the back of his mind did not let Mark to remain in-peace. Something about Frederick Stolz and his gasoline plant. Oh, it was raining like hell, and Mark was shooting into a shiny metal stick at the end of a clothes line… Unpleasant… Forget it, Mark, a voice in the head suggested. Relax. Enjoy your air-soft bed, the sun, and the zebra walls.

  But the other part of his brain started fighting, pushing to the surface the rain and wind, and the Weaver stance, and the shotgun with Minié balls, and the leaking eyes between blackened fingers… Suddenly, Mark remembered the entire thing. Samantha! Is she OK? He was pretty sure with little effort he could fly above the bed – out the broken window and into the blue sky. How do I navigate? Never mind, we figure it out, the head voice said.

  “Mark? Mark!” Clarice's voice, not one in his head. Mark turned his entire body to the left, struggling in the collar. A sheet of dirty plastic film separated two beds from the hospital ward. Clarice sat at the second bed, dressed in mens pajamas, with both her hands supporting her pregnant tummy. Little Davy half-sat, half-lay on grayish pillows, dragging Thomas The Tank Engine over a wrinkled bed sheet.

  “Mark! Finally! Thanks God!”

  “Hi, Clarice…” Mark squeezed out in a desperate half-whisper, “is Samantha OK? And everybody else?”

  “Oh, Sammy is fine. They patched her and released right away. Just a little acid burn. Mister Stolz and his Marty – also fine. Sammy said: not a scratch!”

  It meant at least some of Mark's memory was true. Relax, relax, the voice in the head started again. No worries. “Wait a moment, Clarice. Where am I? Is it a hospital?”

  “Hospital! What else?”

  “Why is Davy here?”

  “A little polio…”

  “A little what?”

  “Polio,” she said matter-of-factly, as if her son had a little cold.

  A little polio, the no-worries part of Mark's brain said. A common childhood infection with ninety-seven percent survival rate, nothing to worry about. But the other, ever-worrying part of the brain kept coming with a question. “Will Davy be… paralyzed?” Mark finally ejected the dreaded word.

  “His hands are not affected. The doctor said, the legs may still get better…” She lifted the bed sheet, and Mark saw the toddler's legs were stretched on the bed and did not move.

  “I'm sorry, Clarice.”

  “Actually, he's lucky. Mary and Billy brought Davy to the hospital just before the floods… He was on a ventilator for a whole day. Not everybody got a ventilator! First came, first served!”

  So lucky, the no-worries part of the brain said. To fight polio, we have modern technology: an Iron Lung. Some kids get polio and can't walk. To be expected. No big deal. “Will he walk at all?” the other part of the brain asked.

  “The doctor said, we will only know in about three weeks… Well, the other day, the rehab nurse was here. She said like this: you must hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.”

  “For the worst?”

  “If the legs stay paralyzed, the muscles will tighten little-by-little, so the knees twist, permanently. Most likely – a wheelchair…”

  The no-worries part of Mark's head took the initiative: “It's OK, Clarice. We find Davy a skateboard! Kate Bowen said, a skate is much better than a wheelchair.”

  Clarice gave Mark a perplexed look.

  “How long… have I been here?” The ever-worry part of Mark asked. Why Clarice looks at me like I'm crazy, he wondered. Just a little multiple personalities disorder. Not even a full-blown psychosis.

  “Do you remember anything at all?”

  “Nope. The last I remember was at the bloody gasoline plant…”

  He tried to concentrate. Apparently, he did not have a total amnesia. The memory preserved several disjointed episodes, but not in any obvious chronological order, and – exceptionally odd. Mark somehow knew this hospital ward had sixteen beds. He saw the whole room, or rather a small hall. Judging from few remaining pieces of expensive designer furniture, before the Meltdown this building was not a hospital, but a posh office.

  In one episode, Mary ran along the aisle between the beds, flapping her wings in the air. Yes, instead of arms, she had wings, like a giant crane bird. Clarice rolled behind Mary in the form of a record-breaking Swiss cheese. She knew that Mary has no crane-flying experience and tried preventing her mother-in-law from taking off and smashing her head on those ceiling panels.

  Then, Mark remembered how a gigantic cuttlefish swam through the ward, from bed to bed. The cuttlefish was light-purple, with several red spots and looked very professional with a stethoscope draped over its slimy body. The creature navigated to Mark's bed, raised an X-ray with one of its tentacles and said reassuringly, “Boo-boo-boo!”, released a cloud of black ink and swam to the door.

  Yet another memory episode, in which Mark, Chief Medical Examiner Alan Moss, and an unknown deputy went along Beaumont Highway in a Zodiac inflatable boat. Every so often, the outboard engine sneezed and stopped, so the deputy cursed and pulled its cord to restart. He explained Alan about the wasted O-rings and how water mixes with engine oil. Alan did not pay attention to the deputy, but talked only to Mark. A total nonsense: how he was always happy to see Mark in the morgue, but only as a visitor, and by no means – as a client.

  Mark closed his eyes and concentrated more. There was an episode, which he could not clearly cut into either a hallucination or the reality. Mark was in an operation theater, under a bright lamp and with an oxygen tube plastered to his nose. “Should we give him a mask?” somebody asked. The voice was strange: devoid of its higher frequencies and coming slowly, as from a tape recorder with flat batteries.

  “Na-ah… He'll be OK,” another male voice said. A man in surgical scrubs bent over the table and pulled down Mark's eyelid. Every faster move left a color trail in the air.

  “Frankly, I'm impressed. What do you use?” The first voice again.

  “RPBP number five.”

  “Never heard about. What the hell is that?”

  “You're behind modern medicine, colleague!”

  “On the goddamn Dumpster, no wonder we're behind. Do we have time to read?” Oh, this is a surgeon from the Dumpster, Mark concluded. How do they call them? Chainsaws?

  “He's pulling your leg, Roger.” Now a female voice, but also from a slowed-down tape. “RPBP stands for Red Pill, Blue Pill! The number five is their latest blend.”

  “You mean, a designer drug?”

  “Yep! Our local stuff. Still, better than Morphine from our emergency reserves, vintage of 1992. Unlike French wines, Morphine doesn't get any better with age. Only – more and more expensive.”

  “Do you know what is actually in this blend?”

  “That's a trade secret. But the maker has all the dosage charts at his website, very professional. We never had problems with its quality. All top-notch.”

  “Addictive?”

  “You betcha!” The male voice replied instead, “but so is the Morphine. We can't complain. Yesterday, I was extracting a ten-inch splinter. Heavily septic, as you may imag
ine. So I am doing my thing, and my patient explains me the difference between a hippo and a giraffe! I ask him: any pain? And he says: we're on safari, doctor! A little pain is OK. Happy – like a cucumber.”

  “I should tell my boss about this wonder drug. Don't forget to give me the contacts for this Red Pill, Blue Pill fellow.”

  On the Dumpster, there are so many unhappy soldiers: crying, yelling, swearing. It would be so much nicer to give the wounded this RPBP number five instead of – whatever they're currently using. So your patients are cucumber-happy, while you chop their arms and legs.

  “Appreciate your help, Roger,” the second voice said. “Without you – we would be totally screwed today.”

  “To be frank, colleague, I didn't want to come at all. Imagine: in three bloody years, I got myself a proper leave. The problem with a forty-hour shore pass: first you sleep for twenty hours, and then you drink for twenty hours. Whack! You find yourself back on board, sailing south, with a headache, and nothing to talk about.”

  “Presumably, this time, you have plenty to tell.”

  “Yeah, right! Ended up going from hospital to hospital and helping with the surgery. As if I have not amputated enough arms and legs at the Dumpster.”

  “Circus tigers can't live in the wild, colleague. They only know how to jump through fire hoops.”

  Along with the medics' chit-chat, a complex activity was going on at Mark's right side. A guy in purple surgical scrubs, his shoulders moving constantly up and down. A second guy appeared, holding a boat motor starting cord, with a shiny handle at the end. Ah, they had to start their little surgical chainsaw! Why the hell there were no Barney and Friends on their scrubs? No good.

  The chainsaw did not want to start. The guy in dull, no-Barney, scrubs pulled and pulled the shiny handle. The other poured, presumably gas. “More?” he asked once in a while.

  “More!” the first said.

  “The O-rings are wasted,” Mark said, “your engine oil is contaminated with water.”

  “What water?” The man in no-Barney scrubs asked.

  How stupid of me. A chainsaw is not a boat motor! The problem must be in poor-quality, diluted with nobody knows what, bootlegged gas!

  “Next time, you'd better buy the gas from Frederick Stolz,” Mark informed the hapless surgeons.

  “A friend of yours?”

  “Yes. An excellent guy. He is a Ph.D. Invented a detonator for booby traps. Has his own petrochemical plant: the Syntegas. My daughter Samantha is a Chief Technologist! They make the best petrol in town.”

  “Do you feel… anything?” the first doctor asked.

  “That damn collar. A bit tight.”

  “It can be fixed,” the second doctor assured Mark. He made a swift motion with his hand. The latex glove was smeared with blood. Did he cut his finger while starting the motor? “Give him another five cc, IV push.”

  “Gentlemen, I am sorry to inform you,” Mark said, “your scrubs are boring! Get yourself Barney and Friends instead.”

  The surgeons looked at each other and nodded. Mark understood they had a consensus. This operation, they manage somehow, but for the next one, – their dull no-Barney scrubs had to go.

  Suddenly, something snapped in the chainsaw. Oh-oh, now we're in trouble. But the surgeons understood few things about chainsaw maintenance. After dumping broken parts into a plastic bucket under the table, they started filing and patching. Satisfied with the fix, the first said: “OK, looks excellent. Let's close it.”

  “Did – you – fix – it, – gentlemen?” Mark asked. After the nurse applied a syringe to a silicone port in his IV drip, everything was even slower.

  “You – did – very – well,” the doctor talked slower too, and his boring, no-Barney scrubs left dull purple rainbows in the air. “Look, I'm real sorry we had to amputate, but nothing else could be done.”

  Had to amputate? – Mark thought. Of course! The first doctor came from the Dumpster. A chainsaw with a chainsaw! So funny! Mark tried to move, but could not feel arms and legs. They made me a Quad, Mark realized. Perfectly. Stumped. Will they give me a Purple Heart? For an FBI agent – unlikely. But who needs those Purple Hearts anymore? Only sissies, who can't show real battle scars…

  The sun shone on a pavement, making Mark's piece of recycled cardboard pleasantly warm. He looked down. A little red bucket between the leg stumps. It was his.

  A woman appeared from the fog: barefoot and in dirty evening dress. She took a bamboo pole from her shoulder and lowered two heavy baskets on the pavement in front of his carton.

  “At your usual spot, Mark?”

  “How are you, Rosalind? Did those youngsters bother you again?”

  “No, thanks God! Last night, – all quiet. Here is your dollar.” The donation dropped into Mark's bucket.

  “Thank you so much, ma'am. You're always so kind.”

  “Why did'ya give him a dollar?” Cart wheels squeaked on the dirty pavement. “Quads are useless. Pay me sixty-lah!”

  “Shut up,” Mark said to the Malaymerican coolie with golf umbrella.

  The lunch lady and the rude boy disappeared in the fog.

  “Change for Vets! Change for Vets!” Mark shouted. “Ladies and Gentlemen! A moment of attention. I have neither arms nor legs.” No, it can't be right. Too pompous. How about this? “Change for Vets, folks! I haven't no arms. I haven't no legs! How are my new double negatives, hey? Change for Vets!”

  A pair of shiny shoes and a picture-perfect blue skirt materialized. One shoe touched Mark's donation bucket to align it with the cardboard edge.

  “I need to make a photo of your daughter, Mark! Where is Pam sitting today?” Miss Johnson, the Salvation Way poster lady, held a camera. “Two SWC records in one week, imagine! Tonight, a portrait of our new cash machine will be on the Collector of the Month board!”

  Mark turned his head and saw a line of vets: Michael, Samantha, Pamela, and Patrick. Placed at precise five-yards intervals, and each outfitted with a second-hand uniform, a piece of cardboard to sit upon, and a genuine, with a serial number, donation bucket. Perfectly. Stumped.

  “Mark! Mark! Mark?”

  Mark opened his eyes. Clarice was over his bed, her face worried. “You just drifted off,” she said.

  “Must be the wonder drug in my IV. Still working its magic.”

  “The doctor ordered to reduce the drip this morning.”

  “Is his name – Roger?”

  “Who's? Doctor's? No, he is, I think, Justin.”

  “Oh, what a stupid dream…” Now the no-worries part of Mark's brain had somewhat weakened, and the other part, ever-worrying but acute, – was slowly taking over. The bed was not air-soft anymore, the stains on the wall looked ugly, and Mark felt his body. He lifted his left hand and investigated its condition. Few scratches here and there, painted with Iodine, a broken nail, but nothing serious. He tried to move his toes. The feet pleasantly responded. “Why am I in the collar?”

  “You have a tiny crack in the fourth vertebra, plus a slight concussion. The Police guys said, you broke a coffee table with your head.”

  “I guess, I did. Great then, nothing serious. Just a broken arm…”

  “A broken arm?” Clarice's eyes opened wide. “No, Mark, you had an operation. You don't remember nothing, do you?”

  “What operation?” Mark twisted and stared at his right arm. The shoulder responded with a jolt of sharp pain. What he took for the heavily plastered arm was an above-elbow stump, generously wrapped in gauze and stretched amongst pipes and rods. No surprise. The bloody Minié ball! The hole had been larger than his palm. He was not too upset either. After being a Quad in his dream, having his two legs and one arm back – felt like an unexpected Christmas present. “I see… How long have I been – like this?”

  “Four days. Well, you were asleep. Most of the time, anyway.”

  “
Was I talking nonsense?”

  “A bit about a cuttlefish. A lot about chainsaw maintenance. Bad O-rings, wrong gas. Also, you wanted to see somebody called Barney. Who is it – a witness?”

  “No, Clarice. Barney is a T-Rex. Friendly, purple, and huggable. Can I have a sip of water?”

  Clarice reached for a glass with a drinking straw.

  Mark took a sip. The water was warm and smelt of disinfectants, but for Mark it tasted like the best Champagne. “You said, Samantha had an acid burn.”

  “Nothing serious.”

  “Really nothing serious?” If Davy just had ‘little polio,’ ‘nothing serious’ could mean anything!

  “Really, Mark. She is back to the gas plant, fixing those bombs, or whatever. Mister Stolz can't pay no money, but everybody agreed to work no-pay, just to get the production going. Our neighborhood is all-right. Only polio, no cholera.”

  “Cholera?”

  “They said on the radio. Everybody must wash hands and boil water! The school is on quarantine. Ricky and Pam are helping at home. They cleaned the garage. Now planting veggies and digging through the house. Ricky found this Thomas Engine yesterday.”

  “Wait! Digging through the house, you said?”

  “Maybe, I shouldn't tell you this. The house collapsed! Only the garage is standing. Do you still want the whole story?”

  “Hence you've started.”

  “After you called the second time, the flood started coming in. We moved upstairs. Then: ka-boom! The kitchen exploded! Grandpa David said: next time, listen to the electricity man.”

  After the grid was disconnected, they modified the house wiring. Back then, the electrician suggested the hybrid car battery should be on the second floor, and not under the kitchen, but Mark did not want the ugly box in the upstairs bedrooms. Not a smart decision in hindsight. “The battery blew up, did it?”

  “Yeah! So, we had no light, and no TV. Then, the phone had no signal, but we had Ricky's emergency radio. We took turns with its crank and listened to weather updates. In the morning, I went to check downstairs…”

  “And?”

  “The water was about waist-high. The wall panels – all broke off. But I thought: the wind stopped, now the flood must come down too, we just need to wait it over. We had food upstairs, and I fixed breakfast from the jars. Then, we heard: creak, creak! And the floor started moving. So I said: everybody to the roof! We broke the window above the garage and got out. Pam wanted to go back for the blankets and plastic film, but I said: forget it!”

  Mark imagined Clarice, with her seven-months tummy, climbing through the window. “Did the house collapse?”

  “Yeah. But the garage was OK, lucky us! We hadn't no blankets! And no water! Ricky decided to climb down to get from the flood, but I said: don't even think about! The backyard latrines, and the canal, and the harmless Simpson-Kaufman fertilizer, you know… I told Ricky: take your T-shirt off and collect the rain from the roof.”

  “A very smart move, Clarice! I'm sure, cholera is around because people drank contaminated water.” Thanks God, William married this girl. She was simple-minded, not too educated, and in-hurry to make babies, but without her, half of the family would be dead by now.

  “I'm thinking: so good, they didn't give Billy his compensation money! We would spend it all on the stupid renovation, and other such things, like I wanted. Our money are very safe in Pentagon, right?”

  “Right. In the Pentagon, your money is very safe…” Clarice could find a silver lining in any cloud, Mark thought. “How are the neighbors?”

  “The Levins lost part of the roof, but kinda OK. The Kongs don't have no house: gone completely, even the garage. Missis Levin let two rooms to the Kongs, no-pay. The other houses on our street – all different. Some broke, some – still standing.”

  Mark closed his eyes and imagined how their cul-de-sac would look like. Not right now, but let's say, in one-year time. The strips would take apart the piles of rubble, and shacks would be constructed instead. The endless rows of vegetable beds would be restored, no doubts. Top priority, or they would have no food. Their battery blew up. Too bad. Likely, their solar panels were also beyond repair. Well, they needed to learn how to live without electricity. The TVs and computers were gone, anyway. The nights – even darker than now: only the stars and the Moon. The stinky West Canal instead of the Submariner's Shower. Four bricks instead of a stove, with processed cow dung…

  What he saw in his mental picture, looked still marginally better than the Indomerican part of GRS, but slightly worse than South Mesa. How should we call our brand-new slum? Perhaps, West Canal Slum.

  Arthur was the wrong name. They should call the hurricane Equalizer, like the famous Colt's gun. One week ago, it was all in comparison. Social gradation. Classes. My house, in a ‘good neighborhood,’ is larger and way more comfortable than your shack in a ‘slum.’ You go wash yourself in a dirty pond, and I take almost-warm showers, even if we have to bring water from the Reservoir one mile away. I work for a federal agency, and you dig stinky garbage at the 'Fill. Your kids are landfill maggots, dressed in rags and permanently barefoot. My kids – go to school, in reasonably new second-hand camo, and have shoes, even if refuse to put those ugly tire sandals on. I am an upper-middle-class, and you're – whatever…

  But now, after the hurricane, we became all the same. We live in identical slums and cook our chowder on identical dung. The Year Zero had arrived. Welcome to the United Slums of America!