A New Day in America

by Theo Black Gangi

  Nos smiles. “You’ve got an interesting way of looking at things. I’m sure you voiced your complaint to the general?” he asks with a drip of sarcasm.

  “Why, on the rare instance when the good general joined me for a sip of the good stuff, I told him he absolutely made the right call. I’ve always been a lucid drunk.”

  “And a world class bullshit artist.”

  “Good to have someone around who knows me. My roommate got nabbed with me and didn’t make it back.” Tommy gazes off for a moment.

  “Whether it’s talent or luck, you survived.”

  “We both did. I should have figured. You survived Afghanistan, of course you’d survive America. I’m glad you’re alive,” Tommy says. The words linger in the air for a moment.

  “Likewise,” Nos says through a heavy sigh.

  “Glad you’re fucking alive,” Tommy says again, like he realizes how much he means it. He sits up on his bed with a moan. He stops trying to squint, bracing himself. “Is anyone else?”

  “Naomi,” says Nos.

  “The little one. That’s good,” says Tommy, waiting.

  Nos bites his lip. Better get it out. The anxiety before is always worse than the pain after.

  “Your parents didn’t make it.”

  Tommy nods.

  “The disease took them,” says Nos, deciding that Tommy doesn’t need to know the gruesome truth of their father’s suicide. “Yvette, Jay, and Mikey all died the day New York blew.”

  Tommy lets out a sniff as tears well in his eyes and tumble down his busted cheeks.

  Nos can’t resist a guilty pang of relief. Naomi is alive. Thank God, Naomi is alive.

  Chapter 13

  Frames

  As Leila and Naomi file in, the room feels very small. Leila shakes Tommy’s hand, and he tries extra hard to get a good look at her.

  “I have to get some glasses,” he says as he shakes her hand. “Naomi, I haven’t seen you since you were a baby. How are you, sweetheart?”

  Naomi shrugs. “So-so.”

  “That makes sense,” Tommy considers. “I appreciate your honesty. Some people think you should always say ‘I’m good’ when they ask ‘how’re you doing?’”

  “Then why do they ask?” chirps Naomi.

  “Because people secretly love being lied to,” Tommy responds.

  Leila chuckles. “I see you’re a natural with children.”

  “I admit I don’t have much experience. My brother is more the father type.”

  I had a wife and two boys who might disagree.

  “I had just the right amount of family,” Tommy remarks wistfully. “Never thought to add to it.”

  “Always a risky proposition,” offers Leila.

  “Yeah,” Tommy says with as bright a smile as his swollen mouth will allow. He swings his feet off his bed and to the floor. “Let’s go,” he says.

  “You need to lie down,” says Leila. “I saw a picture of you earlier. You don’t look a bit like yourself.”

  “Did I look good?”

  Leila grins, hard to read. Charming her already. He works quick.

  “Just so you know,” says Tommy, “I can’t see your expression. So I’m going to assume you’re smiling at me.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Lost and found. I need some glasses. There are some things I’d like to have a better look at.”

  The blind man leads the way around the base. Nos is sure they are getting lost, but Tommy won’t admit it. “So what if I can’t see?” he quips. “That’s only one aspect of navigation.”

  The base is banging with the noise of repair. Men are hard at work digging through rubble, reinforcing the walls and patrolling the outside. Gurneys carry bodies to the infirmary or load them onto trucks piled with the dead. Four flatbed trucks are filled to the gills, with the raiders and military separated. Gunfire erupts as they find a raider hidden in some random corner. Folks who see Tommy call out to him, ‘Luck Lefty’ and ‘Tommy Nine.’ Tommy nods and smiles, most of the time not seeing just who they are.

  “Tommy Nine?” he asks.

  “Word of your doings got around base. How you told the warlord you’re a lefty, then shot him in the face. Not for nothing, putting a hole through that scumbag’s head is just about the best thing you’ve ever done.”

  “Low bar. You’ve been spreading the word?”

  “Actually, no.”

  “So how does anyone know about the ‘lefty’ line?”

  Nos has been wondering the same thing. “Good question. Far as I know, you, me, and the Tooth Fairy were the only ones there.”

  “Doubt he’s bragging about it.”

  Even the guys brand new to the base know about Tommy Nine. Men with the yellow bandanas tied around their arms are everywhere. Nos recognizes the symbol as the flaming chalice that he saw on the missionaries back in Philly. First they saved Leila, and now they’ve saved all of us. That’s two I owe them. The soldiers with the chalice seem to fill half of the base, considering how many they lost in the attack. They eye Naomi closely where her rash peeks up out of her shirt.

  “They find his body?” asks Tommy.

  “Tooth Fairy?”

  “His name was Ishmael,” Tommy grunts. “I’d like to see that fucker’s head on a bayonet.”

  “Can’t say as I blame you.”

  “You know what happened?” Tommy lowers his voice. “How the hell we survived?”

  “These boys showed up in the nick of time,” says Nos.

  “Who? U.S. military?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Navy? Marines?”

  “None of the above. They call themselves the ‘Revelation Party.’”

  “Weird. From where?”

  “It’s not clear. They say they’d been tracking the Tooth Fairy and his militia for weeks.”

  “Ishmael,” Tommy corrects.

  “Ishmael. They saw what was going down and mobilized from Fort Campbell out of Kentucky.”

  “Lucky.”

  “Lucky as hell,” says Nos.

  “Lucky Lefty!” a voice calls as they cross the courtyard. A big man in a clean uniform smiles wide at Tommy. He wears mirrored Ray-Bans in the shape of goggles that reflect the sun like a dark rainbow. His muscles are unnaturally huge, and he chews hard on whatever’s in his mouth like an old hayseed. He beams with the confidence of a lit bulb. Special Ops. No one else can get away with such blatant arrogance.

  “Laws,” says Tommy, taking the big man’s hand in his.

  “Never thought you had it in you,” he says as they hug.

  “This is my brother, Nos. Nos, Johnny Lawlor.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” says Nos, extending his hand.

  “We’ve met,” Lawlor replies as they shake. He takes off his sunglasses, and Nos recognizes him right away.

  “So we have,” says Nos. “At about four hundred yards.” The same blue eyes he saw peering through a sniper sight behind the brush on the battlefield.

  “And a hair trigger from blowing each other’s heads off.”

  “Glad you didn’t shoot,” says Nos.

  “As am I. Didn’t know if you’d take me for a friendly.”

  “You were hard to spot.”

  “For everybody else.”

  “Lucky, I guess.”

  “Right. Lucky.” Lawlor’s eyes fall on Leila and then Naomi. “You know I heard of you?” he tells Nos. “From Afghanistan, all those years ago.”

  Afghanistan. The name still gets under Nos’ skin. His dubious claim to fame. “You were there?”

  “Was in New York, actually. Me and a couple of my Delta buddies checked in on your family, lit a few candles, said a few prayers.”

  Nos isn’t surprised. Delta Force: a brotherhood forged in blood and all that. When Nos went missing in action in the Afghan Kush, fifty-plus Delta and Navy boys held a vigil for weeks at his home. Likewise for everyone of his team in Nebraska, Oklahoma, and North Carolina. They would come by
every day, bring food, barbeque, and wait for news. He’d seen the pictures.

  “Appreciate it,” says Nos. “This is Leila, and my daughter, Naomi.”

  Lawlor takes Naomi’s hand and crouches to her eye level, looking hard at her. Nos worries that he sees her rash. The pinkish bumps have drawn unwelcome attention, as far as he’s concerned. The way people react to sickness is so visceral, it’s hard to tell if they are sympathetic or disgusted or scared. Frightened people can’t be trusted. He can feel the eyes on the base look and then pretend like they look away. Lawlor, however, makes it perfectly clear that he’s looking.

  “What’s this?” he says, reaching toward her neck.

  He pulls out the chain that Naomi wears around her neck. The small vial with tiny flakes of shrapnel rests in Lawlor’s meaty palm.

  “That’s my shake,” says Naomi.

  Lawlor gives the vial a soft rustle and hears the shhh noise.

  Naomi smiles, like she almost always does at the sound.

  “How precious,” he says, standing. “Tommy, you got a clear enough head to get yer ass beat at poker and not cry about it?” he asks, walking away.

  “Clear enough to clean you out.”

  “Tonight then,” calls Lawlor.

  “Well, he sure liked your necklace,” Leila says to Naomi.

  “I think he was looking at something else,” says Nos.

  Tommy rummages through a cardboard box full of eyeglasses, trying each one on and immediately setting them aside.

  “Hundreds of people gone,” he mutters, “and not one of them has eyesight as jacked up as mine.”

  “Keep looking,” says Leila.

  “So Nos, what took you so long to visit?” asks Tommy.

  “Stuck it out back in Brooklyn. Sheltered in place.”

  “So why’d you leave?”

  “Ran out of food,” he says, thinking of the rash on Naomi’s neck. “The disease hit you hard out here?”

  “Very hard.” Tommy tries on another wire-framed pair and then tosses it back down on the table with the others. “One day every third person just woke up with that rash. Dead within days. Tried to quarantine, but the rash spread too quickly. We were lucky, being on base. Had gas masks handy. Then there was a supply drop. Tons of inoculations. Still, about two-thirds of the base was wiped out.”

  Supply drop. The thought of the New York inoculation operation makes Nos itch. “You know anything about the disease?”

  “Deadly. Untreatable, incurable. Strain seems to have weakened somewhat, takes longer to kill, and some folks who have it are still alive. But in the end, it’s all the same.”

  All the same. Dust.

  “Ah-ha!” Tommy wears a pair of bright red lady glasses that curve up at the corners. He blinks. “I can see!”

  “Can you see yourself?” asks Leila.

  Tommy takes off his lady glasses and looks at them and then puts them back on. He sighs.

  “You look like Ms. Kezepas,” says Nos.

  “Third grade?

  “Second.”

  “Nine fingers and old lady glasses,” says Tommy. “If I were religious, I would think that God is teaching me humility.”

  “And since you’re not, what do you think?” asks Leila.

  Tommy smiles at Leila, finally able to see her properly. “I think—” he begins, and looks to Nos and then Naomi. “That…” he trails off, examining the little girl closely. “Oh, no,” he says, his face stricken.

  The rash.

  Chapter 14

  Secrets

  “Please, you can’t let anyone know what’s in this case,” Nos tells Tommy. They are back at quarters, this time in Nos’ room. The door is closed. Leila’s dogs sit and look at Tommy, Leila, Naomi, and Nos as though trying to figure out what’s going on. They can feel the nervous quiet in the air. Everyone else’s attention is fixed on the suitcase.

  “Of course,” says Tommy.

  “I mean it, I know how you get.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Talkative.”

  “Talkative?”

  “How did the Tooth Fairy know every goddamn thing about this base?” Nos demands, half smirking.

  “Easy, bro. He cut off my fuckin’ finger.”

  “Troop health, munitions storage, fuel supply—you might as well have given him the blueprints. You’re supposed to be trained to keep your fucking mouth shut.”

  “Sorry we’re not all super-special fucknuts like you,” Tommy snaps. “Tommy Greene, pleased to meet you. Card player. Base hobbit. Friend to orphans, stray dogs, and hookers. You hear the word ‘hero’ in there?”

  “And lost causes,” says Nos. “You used to say ‘lost causes,’ not orphans.”

  “Well, fuck lost causes,” Tommy growls. He then looks at Naomi and collects himself. “Sorry,” he says to her.

  Maybe he’s sorry for saying ‘fuck.’ Or maybe he’s sorry because she’s the biggest lost cause there is.

  “A lost cause is the only cause I got left,” says Nos. He leans in close, so only Tommy can hear. “Now I don’t care if they cut your fucking cock off,” he whispers, holding up the briefcase. “You don’t tell anybody about this case.”

  “Still the bully,” says Tommy. “You want my lunch money, too?”

  “Still talking. That’s your problem, you talk too much.”

  “Everyone has their strength.”

  “And every strength is also a weakness. You realize, that toothless bastard, Ishmael or whatever you call him, could have shot you dead? But you had to tell him you’re a lefty, didn’t you? You should have caught a bullet right in your flapping lips.”

  “He cut off my finger,” Tommy begins, his face growing cold sober. “He took me and my friend, Ace. My roommate. My wingman. We were stripped naked and tied up. Two mouths,” he said. “And one bite. So who bites? A man came between us and cut our binds. Then he dropped the knife between the two of us. Ace is a fighter. Was. He would have torn me apart. But I saw a pistol sticking out of the guy’s belt, the one standing right there. Right by my right hand. Ace hesitated. You know, cuz we’re buddies. I grabbed the gun and banged a bullet between my buddy’s eyes.

  “When they bound us up, I was cracking jokes. Talking too much, as you say. Ishmael, or the Tooth Fairy, whatever you call him, asked why I cracked so many jokes. I said it was a defense mechanism. He said he saw my defense mechanism, and there wasn’t nothing funny about it. Said I was too dangerous to have around their camp with my trigger finger intact. So they hacked it off with a cleaver and seared it shut with a branding iron. Yeah, they beat me for days until I told them everything I knew about the base. But I had to let that bastard know that he didn’t beat me. That I played him. I wanted the last thought in his mind to be that I won.”

  Nos sits beside Tommy on the bed and gives his shoulder a squeeze. “An impossible situation,” says Nos. One life or another. A proposition of equal value. Still, some would throw themselves on a grenade for their friends.

  Tommy tries to read his brother’s expression. “I know,” he says. “I’m a shit.”

  “Just cuz you’re not an angel doesn’t make you a devil.”

  Tommy shrugs. “At least I kept my mouth shut about it,” says Tommy.

  “Until now,” says Nos.

  “And I’ll keep my mouth shut about that briefcase. You’re the last family I got left.”

  Nos nods. This isn’t the same kid I knew. Something changed. Or something is changing. End of the world, you can’t go back.

  Nos opens the briefcase. Tommy’s eyes scan the rows of vials. Nos puts on a pair of latex gloves. He takes one vial out and fills a needle.

  “Naomi, come here hon.”

  Knowing what’s coming, Naomi rolls up her sleeve.

  “What is it?” asks Tommy.

  “Treatment,” says Nos.

  “There’s no such thing.”

  “There is. As far as I know, this briefcase is all there is in the world.”

/>   “Is it a cure?”

  “No,” says Nos. “But it will keep her alive.”

  “Until?”

  “Until it runs out,” he says as he pricks his daughter’s arm with the needle and plunges forty milliliters in.

  Chapter 15

  Laws

  The auditorium is packed with all base personnel with any non-essential duty. The wounded are in wheelchairs in the aisle with IVs in their arms. Revelation soldiers are intermingled with base troops. The crowd is quiet as a briefing for a dangerous mission.

  Three men are on the stage—General Westbrook, the Chaplin, and Colonel Peters, a stout balding man in a standard uniform sporting the Revelation’s flaming chalice on each arm.

  Peters has the floor. The room is spellbound.

  “There are hundreds more militias like the one we just defeated. They hoard food and resources as thousands of Americans either join their lawless butchery or starve. Yes, Americans chosen by God to survive the curse of the disease now find themselves dying of famine. For these heathenish militias, starvation works. Hunger turns our citizens into the slaves of warlords.

  “We must fight back. We must hit first. We must restore the rule of law. We are the country’s last hope. We are better trained. They are outgunned. We are outmanned. They are outclassed. I know which side I’d rather be on. Oo-rah.”

  Hoots and oo-rahs rise from the crowd.

  Nos watches Westbrook sitting in his chair onstage. In other words, no more hiding on base. If Westbrook takes Peters’ words as offense, he doesn’t show it.

  “In partnership with General Westbrook, Fort Dan will be rebuilt. Stronger and better suited to task. We will leave a contingent on base to lend a hand. I ask that those of you who wish to join our mission and meet the enemy head on to sign up. I’m calling all able-bodied men to serve their country.”

  Peters picks up a clipboard with a blank sheet and holds it up.

  “There’s not a moment to waste. You may ask, why not stick with the Army or Marines or wherever your past allegiance may be. You may ask, why the new symbol? We have formed the Revelation Guard Corps for unity and righteousness. All creeds now join as one. Loyalty, duty, respect, selflessness, honor, integrity, and personal courage unite us all. Our armed forces can no longer operate under divisions of any sort. Our symbol is the flaming chalice for the fires we will set to our enemies. The message to these militias is ‘don’t even think about it.’ Don’t even think about hoarding our grain and corn, we will crush you. Don’t even think about murdering Americans for trying to eat a loaf of bread, we will burn you alive. Don’t even think about it.”