by Aiden Bates
Greg has never cried like this before. He is weeping, and weeping purely in a way he never knew was possible for him. This is the kind of crying that has always looked fake to him in movies, and yet here he is, with tears just pouring out of him. The parent ahead of them notices Greg first, probably because he’s still staring at the kid, and Glenn notices second and hands Greg his keys.
“Go wait in the car, I’ll be right out.”
Greg leaves the store and crawls into the back seat of the car, where he ends up sitting between the safety seats for the kids. Thomas is small for his age, they still have him buckled in every day, and what has all that safety and care been for if they all end up obliterated next week? Greg wants to be able to at least value all the good he’s felt and done and seen in this world, but he’s having a hard time being graceful about this. This is unfair and stupid and ugly, and there’s nothing he can do about it.
Glenn returns to the car, packs the trunk first, very calmly, and then gets into the driver’s seat and starts the engine.
“We’re going home, we’re not going to see the kids right now,” Glenn says, checking his face in the rearview mirror. “We both look awful and I don’t want them to be scared right now when we barely know our keisters from our elbows today.”
Greg almost chokes on half a laugh, the word keisters did it. Even on the eve of destruction Glenn doesn’t want to curse, good old Glenda Goldilocks.
Glenn starts to smile too, his eyes connecting with Greg’s through the rearview.
“That’s funny to you, huh? I still make you giggle. Well, we’ll see who’s laughing when you hear my next big idea. You know Kevin’s not the only smart one in the family. We’ll leave the logistics of this nightmare to him, but you leave the human touch to me, so to speak.”
Glenn puts the car in reverse and starts taking them out of the parking lot.
“What are you babbling about right now, Glenn?” Greg asks, pulling himself together and checking his hair in the mirror when Glenn stops using it to see out the back window. He swipes his bangs back into perfect place. Greg would like to think he’s too pretty to die so young, but in a way, this is a bit fitting. Die young and leave a pretty corpse, right? Or at least a pretty legacy, like James Dean. Too bad no one else will be alive to remember any of them though. There’s no silver lining to this cloud at all, as far as Greg can see.
“Buckle up back there,” Glenn says as his traffic light turns green and he refuses to move until everyone’s seatbelt is snapped in (he does the same with his kids). Greg snorts and obeys; why not? He doesn’t want to die any sooner than he has to, after all. He’d rather eat, drink, and be merry, before Sunday, when he dies.
Part II: It’s Our Funeral
7. Sam Accepts the News
While Greg and Glenn go shopping, Sam just takes a walk around the beautiful landscape and believes what’s coming as easily as he could believe it’s going to rain in five minutes even though he’s looking at a clear sky. The people who know stuff know it pretty consistently—meteorologists have access to the weather satellites and know what direction the wind is blowing, and that’s what Kevin knows about international relations and the drifts of governments: he knows when a storm’s coming. Sam just looks around at the charming woods, smells the deep, rich earth under his feet, and touches the scabby feel of tree bark, and appreciates the fact that he can at least take a moment to appreciate all this beauty before he and his fellow humans burn down their own home like idiots.
“You’ll be okay,” Sam says, patting the tree. “How many rings have you got, how many natural disasters have you recorded? Humankind is just another blemish on your kind, don’t worry about it.” The tree appears to remain pretty placid. The leaves came back to Chernobyl long before humans could even send cameras in to record it. The moths evolved in about a second to favor being ash-colored because that was their world as people changed it for a few dozen or so generations, Sam doesn’t know the exact math of it, but he knows the planet will rear up and recover eventually. Mankind isn’t destroying the world, it’s curing itself from the world. It’s almost a mercy if Sam thinks about it like that. It’s at least as fair as someone shooting themselves in the foot instead of shooting someone else, just a global scale of ironic justice. Sam sighs deeply.
“Are you talking to the trees?”
Clarkie has snuck up from the guest garage without Sam noticing. He’s leaning against one of the other trees, practically hanging on the tree as slinky and sultry as if the tree is his date. Clarkie doesn’t know the news that the rest of them just got; should Sam tell him?
“Uh … yeah, the trees, I’m in a very … I’m feeling sort of sentimental for some reason.”
“You told the tree it would be okay. What’s got you worried about the trees?”
Sam shrugs. “Pollution, I guess.” He doesn’t want to tell Clarkie about the end of the world, why worry the kid? Why not just let him live out his last few days in blissful ignorance. Sam can’t un-ring his bell, but he can leave Clarkie out of it, and he wants to. It feels sort of magnanimous.
“Pollution like carbon emissions, or that nuclear war business?”
“You . . .” Sam almost blurts out, You already know! but stops himself. Clarkie’s around the age of a college kid, he’s probably just talking in political platitudes and generalities. Sam remembers when they all tried to care about the environment and the state of world affairs, and all they really did was talk a lot bigger than they ever knew or did. “You’re kidding. You’re funny.”
Clarkie smiles, but he’s not being funny at all.
“You know now, don’t you? All of you figured it out, or Kevin would have figured it out finally, right? Or did Alex leave you a note?”
“What are you … what about Alex?”
“Tell me what you know first,” Clarkie says. “Glenn and Greg looked pretty dramatic when they left, like they both wanted to drive off the side of the mountain, though I’m sure they won’t.” Clarkie steps away from his tree now and stands and faces Sam. “I remember the look in Alex’s eyes when he said goodbye to me on the day he knew he was going to off himself. Your other friends don’t have that look yet.”
“The reason Alex left his job, and why he was so hopeless … he knew it was true too?”
Clarkie nods. “End of the world, and he told me about it a while ago. I was already looking at the end of my own personal world, I guess he just wanted some company. He wasn’t that hopeless though, not until the very end. He was building more than this guest house, he was making plans. I don’t know what made him quit.”
“Maybe he figured out what we know now, that the date has been set.”
Clarkie’s skin drains pale, and though it’s a beautiful, balmy day and he’s wearing a tank top to enjoy it, suddenly he wraps his long, skinny arms around his torso like he’s just caught a chill.
“When? Alex never knew when, at least I don’t think so, I mean he never said he found out or anything when he said … goodbye.”
Sam steps closer to Clarkie. The kid, for all his confident ennui just a minute ago when he knew more than Sam did, looks pretty nervous now that the information is on Sam’s side.
“It’s pretty soon, kiddo,” he says, opening up his arms in case Clarkie collapses, he looks like he might be ready to faint. “Less than a week away. On Sunday is how we heard it. You didn’t know it was that close, did you?”
Clarkie starts shaking his head, and keeps at it, a repetitive movement. He’s watching Sam approach him, but he doesn’t move, until Sam is close enough to wrap his arms around Clarkie, and then the boy slumps against him.
He’s either having a panic attack or he’s trying to gasp back tears. Sam can’t tell and he doesn’t ask, he just squeezes the kid until Clarkie starts to calm down. Then he says, “Hey, let’s go back to your place, okay? Have you got food in there, are you hungry? I can get some food form the other house if you want, I’ll make you something.”
&nb
sp; “I’ve got a little food, nothing good,” Clarkie says. He stands on his own again, takes a few deep breaths, and seems to be calmed by the idea of food, by the practical concerns of still being alive. “I’ve got more whiskey than food, do you want some? I really want some.”
Sam smiles; a kid after his own heart! It’s not hard to see what Alex saw in Clarkie. The others, his more adult friends, couldn’t understand what a guy Alex’s age, at his phase of life, would want with someone so young. To sleep with, sure, but to live with? Please.
Maybe they’d understand it better now: Alex was having a going-out-of-world party to a certain extent, but even with that factored out, Sam still gets wanting to set up house with Clarkie. Regardless of impending doom, this kid’s easy to be around, for Sam at least—everyone else has been moving around Clarkie like he’s been walking among them in a quarantine bubble all weekend. None of the rest of them know what to say to Clarkie, how to talk to him. He was Alex’s friend and now he’s a stranger to them, apparently. Just because they’ve all grown older doesn’t mean they’ve all grown up. Jeff’s the worst of their crew for still being so juvenile, but Sam’s hardly better. The day he put childish things behind him? That day still hasn’t arrived. Good for Kevin and Glenn and Greg for being so stable in the real world and everything, even better for the kids they’re all so interested in, but Sam never stopped feeling like a kid himself enough to be suitably responsible for raising one, that’s why he got the snip: for the good of the world. The good of the world that’s just turned to shit. Oh well.
Clarkie walks with Sam following him, over the gravel driveway and into the little guest garage. It’s one big room, like a studio apartment, with only the bathroom slightly partitioned off—it does have one wall and a door, but a thin wall, and not a real door, more like a stall door in a public bathroom. It doesn’t afford one much privacy, but it works for the space. This would be a good writer’s retreat situation for all the script people Sam knows back in California who always swear they’re writing novels. It would be a good place for a college kid around Clarkie’s age to stay in over the summer, doing some independent study project, or drugs, which is what Sam did with all his free time during the summers in college (and still basically does to this day; different drugs for different reasons, but a familiar habit all the same).
There’s a full-size bed, just big enough for two but not so big it overwhelms the room. The walls are paneled and painted a soft white, the lighting fixtures are installed, there’s a breakfast table on the side of the room that isn’t dominated by the bed and the bathroom (over where the garage door is and can still be raised, should one choose to welcome the outside world into the room), but outside of that a lot of it is still unfinished. The sink has the makings of a counter around it, but it all still remains unbuilt. There are boxes that Sam assumes are appliances, still packed, and certainly the space isn’t ready for them to be unpacked yet. Alex really must have been up to something other than building this place, because not much has been done. Clarkie opens a box that used to contain a microwave (that machine is plugged in on the breakfast table, its cord stretching towards the wall as a tripping hazard). Inside the box now is a stash of booze.
“How’d you end up here with Alex?” Sam asks as he accepts his drink. “What made you believe him, and come stay with him, or was that not the order it happened in?”
Clarkie brings a jug of Jim Beam to the table with two glasses he only barely rinsed at the sink. It doesn’t bother Sam, all things considered. Whiskey’s a pretty good antiseptic anyway, and besides … what’s he worried about, germs? Catching the sniffles? He’s never going back to work, he won’t even bother answering his phone now, what’s the difference?
“I thought he was crazy at first,” Clarkie says, as they both take a sip of straight bourbon—there are no mixers in the box and there’s no fridge out here. “I didn’t care though. Alex seemed harmless and I had worn out my welcome where I was staying before, so if the crazy guy wanted to take care of me for a while, why not let him? He was friendly, he was hot, and he wasn’t even bothering me for sex any more than I bothered him for it. I mean, that’s how we met, we hooked up at a bar. I figured midlife crisis, I’m his boy toy, may I be lucky enough to have the means for boy toys when I’m his age, right? When it’s my turn.” Clarkie takes an even bigger sip now and grimaces a bit. Sweet kid hasn’t quite gotten so degenerate enough that he can comfortably drink liquor straight. Sam has; his next sip goes down smooth. “I guess I don’t have to worry about a mid-life crisis now.”
“Don’t mourn it, they aren’t even that impressive. Even with the world about to end, eh,” Sam says. Clarkie snorts and doubles over. He must have gotten a little bit of whiskey up his nose with that half-laugh. Sam uncrosses his legs and leans closer, wondering if he should pound the kid on the back. But that’s when you’ve got it down your windpipe, not just up in your membranes. Instead he just pats Clarkie on the shoulder. When the kid recovers again and lifts his head up, he lifts himself right into a kiss with Sam.
Sam participates. There is nothing, literally nothing, wrong with kissing this kid in this moment. It’s nothing against Alex, Sam isn’t taking advantage of anyone, Clarkie’s not looking for anything from him above what Sam desperately wants to give and get back: some affection. They kiss for a while before they separate and go back to their drinks. They’re not done with that yet, but they could use some air, a bit of a break.
“What made you believe Alex’s theories?”
Clarkie wets his lips with his drink, doesn’t seem to sip it much at all now, just lifts the liquid to his lips and then licks them. “Because he believed it. And because he wasn’t stupid or crazy, he was building shit based on schematics and then disappearing with them. He was going on runs into town for more than just caulk and tiles, you know, he was building up some bunker or something he found near here, he was asking me how he should tell you guys, not you by name, but his friends, how he should tell you guys what he believed in a way that would make you follow him down a tunnel into a mountain and stay there for a while. Forget your jobs, your schedules, grab what you can’t live without, and come on. He knew he wouldn’t be believed, even though he knew he was right. Kevin and Glenn both told me what his job used to me, what Kevin’s job still is, if anyone could know this was going down, Alex would know. I’d like to think I’m not a chump, I won’t believe just anything anybody tells me, but part of me has always been pessimistic about the world, and human nature. That’s why I’ve never tried so hard to participate in society, it’s a total shit show. It made sense to me that we would blow ourselves up, and after a while it became real to me.”
“Who do you have to tell, what about your friends?”
Clarkie shakes his head. “I’ve got friends, don’t get me wrong, but those idiots don’t want to know this. They’d never thank me for telling them, even if I literally saved them. I would only be saving them to live in a wasteland. Some people don’t care how they live as long as they’re alive, like optimists, right? My friends find ignorance to be blissful, and they’re such good friends of mine that I’m going to let them stay happy.”
Sam smiles. “I bet Alex loved you.”
“I know he loved all of you, he talked about you guys a lot. It was killing him that Kevin and Glenn thought he was a loser, that they were helping their fallen friend out of pity, but it’ll hurt them too, to know what they were doing to Alex without meaning to now. Like I said, he seemed to really love all of us, but, you know. He still left us sooner than he had to.” Clarkie gulps the rest of his drink after that, and holds his hand over his mouth after he does, to keep it from coming back up. Sam finishes his drink too, and Clarkie takes his hand, leads him to the bed.
They go down kissing, and though Sam has just had at least two shots of whiskey in one go, he’s never felt so sober. Not sober as in not under chemical influence (it’s been years since he could say he was sober like that), but somber, serious, sob
er in the sense that he knows exactly what he’s doing. The whole situation is plain, naked, and real. He’s got his wits about him and feels quite solemn. Clarkie meets his gaze the same way the whole time, neither one flirting or coy or pretending to be anyone but himself.
They take their clothes off, and instead of rushing straight into sex, letting the hormones and the need drive the action, they study each other as they go. Clarkie’s hands are all over Sam’s body: the hair on his chest, his west-coast-tanned arms, the feel of his ticklish spots like the ribs under his arms, the skin just above his cock (he has to put his own hand over Clarkie’s there to slow down his feathering touch—he doesn’t want to laugh and ruin the spell). As for Clarkie, Sam’s eyes just rove over him, and once he gets a visual map of this skinny kid, his lips take a journey over the terrain of Clarkie: from his lips and face, down his neck and arm, the skin of his wrist, the buds of his nipples, until his tongue is licking a circle around Clarkie’s belly button, and then his hand starts to slide up Clarkie’s thigh, so he can reach inside of this kid and find a way to make him happy.
Sam wants to make Clarkie happy to be with him, just as happy as Sam is that he wasn’t left alone in the woods, a kindness returned.
8. Jeff Gets a Boyfriend
After a lifetime of chasing love and affection, it makes perfect sense that the whole world is ending right after Jeff finally finds it.
Everyone else gets the news and wanders off, Glenn and Greg to shop, Kevin to plan, Sam literally walked out into the woods—who knows what that’s about. Jeff is left alone and stunned, until he remembers how they got this news, who he was with at the time, and how great that guy is. He decides to take off, too, and get back to Julian. He’s got the whole drive to think about what he’s going to say.
Should he confirm that phone call for Julian, or keep this horrible news to himself?