Pod

by Stephen Wallenfels

  Richie says, “And you’re not worth the mess.”

  His hand moves in a blur. I blink my eyes. The knife is gone.

  The mother moves to the end of the line.

  Aunt Janet walks back to the couch, her body stiff like she’s frozen from the waist up, and sits. She picks up the magazine, but her eyes stay locked on Richie.

  Richie starts whistling a snappy tune, those snakeskin boots tapping to the beat.

  DAY 18: PROSSER, WASHINGTON

  The Sighting

  It’s who-knows-what o’clock in the afternoon. I’m lying on my bed watching this amazing show: Dutch licking his balls. It’s been going on for at least half an hour. His nut sack should be the cleanest thing in the house by now. I think it’s something he does to calm his nerves—the canine version of meditation. Close my eyes and it sounds like waves lapping against the shore.

  Thinking about meditation gets me thinking about Mom and her yoga classes. Yoga is one of her favorite things to do. Which leads me to a stupid fight we had last month. She needed the Camry for yoga class and I needed it to meet Alex for a movie at the mall. I asked her if she could miss a class, just this once. She said no—“especially not today.” There was something strange in the way she said it—like that class on that day was a matter of life and death. She’d been acting a little nervous and teary, so I knew it was a pointless battle. But I yelled something stupid anyway, like, “It’s only freaking stretching class, you can do that at home!” I wound up taking the bus and missing the first twenty minutes of the movie. I didn’t talk to her for three days. And the movie sucked.

  That gets me thinking about Alex and how he’s not the best movie buddy because popcorn—a food he can’t resist—turns him into a gas factory. A noxious cloud starts to form within minutes of his first mouthful and stays with him the whole time. But that’s good in a way since I’m pretty much immune. People within a four-seat radius usually move, which guarantees that I get a clear shot of the movie and an armrest all to myself.

  Anyway, in the middle of this licking and nostalgia I have an episode. It’s over in five seconds. The tingling doesn’t bother me, but that moment of blackness—something about it gives me the willies. But after the flash, now there’s a feeling I could get used to. I’m trying to hold on to that when I notice my bedroom is getting lighter—fast. The fog, a constant lurking presence for two days, is finally leaving. Actually, “dissolving” is a better word, like salt in hot water after a couple of stirs. All those freaky gray swirls with the mini–lightning bolts—gone in less than a minute. If I hadn’t looked up I would have missed it. The sun is shining in a cloudless blue, POD-stained sky. But when I think about it, the salt isn’t really gone, right? You can’t see it, but you can taste it. So I’m wondering if the POD commander finally decided, Hey, it’s time to pick up a spoon and stir the cup.

  Then it hits me—no fog, so I can see across the street! I jump out of bed and sprint downstairs.

  Amanda is at the window, waiting for me. Her hair is pulled back in a tight ponytail, and she’s wearing the same purple UW sweatshirt, only it looks different, like it’s two sizes bigger. For just a second I wonder if my clothes, which feel a little saggy, look like that on me. She presses her message to the window.

  Amanda: IM 15 2day

  Her birthday is close to mine. Very cool. What else do we have in common? The fog is gone and now this. I’m feeling some good karma despite the crashed bike in the cul-de-sac and the POD commander above her apartment taking notes. I post my reply.

  Me: happy bday 2U.

  She smiles, but the smile is missing something—like, the happy part? Then she blows me a kiss … and leaves! Her message is still up. Eventually it falls. I wait.

  And wait.

  And wait.

  And wait.

  She doesn’t come back. All those days with the fog, all that time wondering if I’ll ever see her again, and then this? “IM 15 2day”! She blew me a kiss, sure, but what the hell? It’s her birthday! Then I think, Oh, yeah, it’s her birthday—like when Dad forgot about my birthday and I sat in the Camry and thought about backing it out of the garage while he counted food packets in the kitchen. Now I understand her smile.

  I’m restless and jittery so I wander the house, opening and closing doors, sliding from room to room like the ghost that I am. Dad is asleep and snoring on the couch in the living room. Dutch is finished meditating. He’s curled up on the rug by my bed. The bathrooms are historic relics with useless porcelain thrones. The linen closet has towels folded in perfect rectangles and stacked in parallel, color-coordinated columns, waiting for showers that will never be. The house is quiet and calm except for the snoring man. A warm spring sun is streaming in through windows and skylights.

  I should feel at peace, but I don’t. My skin crawls, like there’s a nest of earwigs under my skin. It’s quiet, yeah, but like they say in the movies right before the bog monster attacks, maybe it’s a little too quiet. So I keep on moving. As I walk I notice a hole in my left sock. One of my toenails is poking through. If Alex saw this he’d say, “Dude, bust out the clippers before you kill someone.”

  We’re running out of stuff. Little things like Q-tips and roll-on deodorant. And big things, like toilet paper today, and yesterday when we used up the last of the fuel for the camping stove. Now if we want hot food we’ll have to heat it in the fireplace using furniture for wood. Dad put the sledgehammer to the bed frame and dresser in the guest room. The pieces are stacked up in the living room, ready to go.

  I open the pantry door and—what the hell? My eyes bug out, not because of how little is left, but because of how it looks. There are four shelves, and each shelf has one, two, three, yup, four cans, except the bottom shelf, which has two cans, one small jar of pickled artichoke hearts, and a plastic container of pizza sauce. Four envelopes of powdered milk lean at an angle against the back wall. The containers are in the exact geographical center of each shelf, lined up tallest to shortest, like little marines at the can academy. There’s another layer of order here, too, but it takes me a few moments to figure it out. The labels are all rotated just a touch, like maybe ten degrees, clockwise. Then I spot a sheet of notebook paper taped to the inside of the door. It has rows and columns of neatly written entries detailing dates and quantities used down to the quarter ounce.

  This isn’t a pantry anymore, it’s a food shrine.

  The urge is irresistible. I switch a can of kidney beans on the left side of the top shelf with a smaller can of creamed corn in a middle position on the bottom shelf. I rotate the pizza sauce counterclockwise ten degrees, then close the door and move on.

  The kitchen is a tale of two stories. We used to have a relatively “normal” kitchen. A little on the messy side, but clean enough. Sometimes we’d leave dishes in the sink from one meal to the next. Now it literally shines. I see my distorted reflection in the metal sink. The countertops are bare and white. I slide my hand along the top of the center island. Smooth as polished stone. No crumbs, no dust. My fingers have a faint scent of disinfectant.

  Water is the other story here. I thought we had more. A lot more, actually. The miscellaneous containers and bins are empty. There are eight baggies left; the others leaked. Someone, a.k.a. me, blew it by not sealing them well enough. But the bathtub is full. Dad figures if we’re careful that should last us at least a month, maybe two. We had a déjà vu moment about that, with me saying, That’s great, we’ll have water but no food.

  He said, We’ve been careless about consuming our resources and that has to stop.

  I said, Why bother?

  He said, Because we have to.

  I said, What’s the point?

  He said, Because the alternative is unacceptable.

  Blah, blah, blah.

  And then there’s the ball-licker. That’s a train wreck waiting to happen. Dutch’s food bag is two days from bingo. Then what? We’ve been letting him out on the long rope, hoping he’ll drink from the
swamp. But he doesn’t understand the concept. From his perspective, water magically appears in the empty bowl on the rubber mat. He nudges it with his nose, stares at me with those liquid brown eyes, then sits in the dead grass by the door and waits for the magic to happen. But Dad says he doesn’t get any more water, not even from the toilet, which is essentially empty. He says when “the dog” gets thirsty enough he’ll figure out what to do. Right. And he’ll start catching rabbits, too, maybe even bring us a squirrel.

  I stand by the patio door and squint out into the sun. The birds are chirping like crazy, flying around, chasing each other, enjoying their freedom. I figure the hell with it and open the door. Warm air flows in, maybe somewhere in the low sixties. Definitely nice for this time of year. It’s tempting to just step outside, feel grass beneath my feet …

  I take a deep, grateful breath. I’m tired of being cooped up in a house with two adult males and a dog, all of whom need showers and deodorant. The air smells good. Not perfect—there’s still an alien fog aftertaste, but it’s just barely there. I mean, if I didn’t know about the fog and took a whiff, I’d wonder if a thunderstorm passed through.

  There’s movement in the tall bushes bordering our yard. Whatever it is, it’s really shaking the branches. I’m thinking a big dog, like a Great Dane, or a Shetland pony. Then it walks out onto the grass and I can’t believe what I’m seeing. A deer—a full-grown, honest-to-God, Bambi-shaped deer. And then another one comes out, bigger and with horns—excuse me, antlers. They’re munching on branches, chewing a cud, whatever it is they do. Two deer close enough for me to see the hair in their noses. This is an absolute first in our neighborhood. I want to yell to Dad, but for some bizarre reason I’m afraid I’ll scare them. So I watch the happy couple, ears twitching in the sun, slowly graze their way up around the swamp and over a small hill and disappear. A short while later, looking through the binoculars, I spot them walking into the shadow of a POD.

  On that note I hear a cough and a groan from the living room. Dad’s waking up. Good. We have something to talk about.

  He’s sitting on the couch, rubbing his eyes and yawning when I come in. I’m still not used to seeing all that hair on his face. I have a pathetic dusting of teen fuzz. He’s turning into the Beardman from Alcatraz.

  I sit on the coffee table facing him and say, “Have a nice nap?”

  “Not really. This couch is bad for my back.”

  “You notice anything different?”

  He looks around. His eyes go from bleary to focused. “The fog is gone.”

  “Score one for the dadster.”

  “When did that happen?”

  I look at my wrist where a watch used to be. “Uh, two thirty-seven?”

  He frowns.

  “About an hour ago,” I say. “It just … dissolved.”

  I get a nod, like that makes perfect sense. Then he says, with a flash of panic, “What’s that smell? Is the door open?”

  “For the past half hour,” I say. “The BO in here is more toxic than alien death fog.”

  Dad gets up. I follow him into the family room. He stands in front of the door, takes a careful whiff. “Ozone,” he says.

  “That’s the fog smell?”

  “It happens when unstable free oxygen molecules, or two O’s, recombine with molecular oxygen, or O2, to make ozone, which is O3.”

  “Wow. I just love it when you talk chemistry to me. I wish you’d do it more.”

  Still looking out the door, he says, “So what have you been up to?”

  He’s using a “wink-wink” tone that means he wants to know if I communicated with my special friend. That’s a place I don’t go with him.

  “Guess what I saw while you were snoring?” Asking this question gives me a fluttery feeling, like it’s better left unasked. I don’t know why.

  “Mr. Conrad?”

  “Nope.”

  “Somebody get zapped?”

  “Nope.”

  “I’m running out of options here.” He snaps his fingers. “I know! The fog cleared and you saw Elvis!”

  “Even more amazing,” I say, and point to the field. “Two deer, right there. They walked up and over the hill.”

  “Deer? In our backyard?”

  “Bambi and her stud.”

  “That close?”

  “Yup. Not ten feet from where we’re standing.”

  He shakes his head, blows out a disappointed sigh. “That’s too bad.”

  “Why?” I ask, wondering how this can possibly be a bad thing.

  “One of those deer could feed us for a month.”

  And there you have it, folks. I see Bambi. He sees deer cutlets frying in a pan.

  That’s why I didn’t want to tell him.

  DAY 18: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

  The Introduction

  I’m standing on the ladder and spying through a dusty vent with my good eye. My other eye, the one with the patch, sends spikes of white-hot pain stabbing into my head every time I touch it or I bump it by accident. Which is exactly what happens every time my legs cramp from standing on tiptoe. This is my second day in the hotel and I have no idea where Cassie is, or even if she’s alive. Richie went into the restaurant about an hour ago. He’s probably having a sandwich and a beer.

  Mom would scream like a boiling monkey if she knew what I was doing and why, but here I am anyway. She didn’t call me Crazy Megs for nothing. I’ll give it one more day, just one, then it’s back to the garage for me. Back to the smashed-up cars and moldy crumbs and stinking bloaters.

  The door to the restaurant opens. Two men walk into the lobby, one behind the other. The first one is Richie. Still wearing the hoodie. I wonder what’s up with that. From what I can see, he looks as mean as ever. The other man I’ve never seen before. He’s at least a head taller than Richie and has wide shoulders and a big, square face. While everyone else looks ratty and tired, he seems like he’s fresh out of the shower with his black hair slicked back. He’s wearing tan slacks, a white shirt, and a blue sport jacket. There’s some kind of logo on the jacket so maybe it’s a uniform. He could be a soap opera star, or the ex-con who sold Mom our piece-of-crap Nova. Whoever he is, when he walks into the center of the lobby the rooms falls so quiet you could hear a mouse breathe.

  He raises his arm and says, “I apologize, but certain unfortunate events require that I intrude on your day. I’ve been informed that two bottles of medicinal alcohol and some aspirin were stolen from one of my staff. This is truly disappointing. Those items were being used to improve the comfort of guests in need. When someone steals from one of us, they steal from all of us.”

  He moves in a slow circle while he talks, pausing to look at individual faces, like he’s in a wax museum and they’re the statues on display. Sometimes he smiles, sometimes he doesn’t. Once or twice when his jacket opens I see a flash of brown under his arm. I’m thinking it’s a holster and gun.

  “Only one person is in charge of who gets what and when, and that person is me. There are zero exceptions to this rule.” His voice picks up an edge that startles me. I bump my bad eye and instantly feel jolts of scorching pain. My good eye starts to water.

  The man takes a deep breath, lets it out slow, and says, “As director of security in this hotel, it’s my job to maintain safety and order. We must catch this thief and deal swiftly with the problem. I’m offering one bottle of water and five cigarettes to the person who turns the thief in. Your cooperation will be strictly confidential. If I don’t have an answer by this time tomorrow morning we will skip a water day. I assure you that would be very bad for the folks up on floor ten. If I don’t have an answer in two days, well—we don’t want to see that happen, do we, Mr. Smith?” He turns to Richie.

  Richie, underneath that hood, smiles like a wolf and says, “No, sir, Mr. Hendricks. We sure don’t.”

  “Good. Now if you will all excuse me, I need to get back to my appointments. Mrs. Solomon is having problems with her ankles.”

  M
r. Hendricks raises his arm and waves to the group like this is no big deal, but everyone knows it is. I see that flash of brown again. Definitely a holster and gun. He walks into the restaurant and closes the door.

  It takes a few moments for air to come back into the room, a few more minutes for people to start whispering and nodding in clumps of two or three. Richie and Hacker return to their posts. A line forms in front of me. They used to talk. Now they just stare straight ahead, silent and still.

  I look across the lobby and out the windows. It’s a sunny day.

  No one seems to notice except me. The fog is gone.

  DAY 19: PROSSER, WASHINGTON

  Final Answer

  I’m sitting at my post in front of the living room window, binoculars in hand, waiting for her to grace me with a visit. I’m like Dutch in the old days. He’d wait right here, muzzle resting on the windowsill, for me to come home from school. In fact, there’s a permanent drool stain in the wood. I’m pathetic, I know, but what can I say? It’s not like this place is a hub of activity. I already checked out the pantry. The cans are back in their appropriate rows, minus the niblet corn and the pickled artichokes we had for breakfast this morning.

  A thought comes to me, and it isn’t the first time for this one. Why is the bike still there?

  I mean, the POD commander deleted everything else—cars, trucks, planes, you name it. But the bike— it’s still there. Is it some kind of reminder, to make sure I don’t forget who’s in charge? If so, then it’s working like a freaking stroke of genius. I can’t look out this window without seeing Jamie disappear, not ten steps from where I’m sitting. But then a hairy pair of arms kept me from helping her. Because of him I’ll be seeing Jamie, her wide-eyed mix of hope and fear and—

  “You up for some Scrabble?”