‘How’s Kadylak?’
‘That is no concern of yours.’
‘What time is it?’
‘Time to leave, Limone. Right now. This minute. Go.’
I walk the halls. Clomp clomp clomp go the feet, squelch, squelch, squelch go the thighs, bounce, bounce, bounce goes the ass.
I find him hunched over a pay phone. I watch his back, the heaving ribs. He is choking in his language, trying to explain something he cannot understand. He bangs his forehead into the phone box, talking more loudly. His frustration at being unable to explain what he cannot understand causes him to shout and then, abruptly, slam the receiver into its cradle. He clutches the phone box as though he has been shot. I grab him from behind, hold him steady, press my forehead between his shoulder blades. He takes my hand and holds it over his eyes. His tears heat my palm then tickle my wrist. Against my other hand his heart punishes his ribs. We are the last humans on Earth.
‘Are you using the phone?’ demands a short man in short pants and wearing a golfer’s cap. ‘If you don’t mind, I need to use the phone.’
I take my palm away from Mr. Paluska’s eyes, slide it down his arm and grip his hand. He moves slowly, as though tranked, moaning softly. We shuffle along the wall, making room for the people with life purpose.
‘I have to get my wife,’ he mutters.
‘Where’s your van?’
He’s forgotten what parking level it’s on, has confused the letters and numbers. He keeps covering his eyes and gasping as though he can’t breathe.
‘What colour is it?’ I ask.
‘White. No rear windows.’
‘Licence plate?’
He stares at an exit sign.
‘Can you remember any of it?’
He looks back at me. ‘What happen to your face?’
‘I fell down. Can you remember any of your plate numbers?’
‘KWR 395.’
‘Okay. You wait here.’ I prop him against a humming machine room. ‘Promise me you’ll wait here.’ He nods and the slug’s meaty thighs move fast. I scale stairs, dash across parking spaces. My eyes, with laser precision, scour licence numbers. My armpits soak my T-shirt and I worry that I smell bad. Then it’s there, a dirty white van. I run back to him. He has slid to the floor, is staring up at a caged fluorescent. ‘I found it,’ I shout, expecting him to jump to his feet. ‘I found the van, we should get your wife.’
He grabs my hand and pulls me down beside him. He puts his arm around me and talks softly into my ear. ‘She told me …“The man in the black coat is back.” She told me, “It’s okay, Papa, I go with him.”’ He starts gasping again. ‘She told me, “It’s okay, Papa.” She told me she so tired.’ I pull his head to my chest and stroke his hair.
‘So tired,’ he says.
He wraps his arms around my waist and holds tight. It’s just us, at the end of the world. I brace myself against his sobs. He pulls me onto his lap and grips me harder. Straddling him, I feel the pain in his chest, the warmth of his breath, the heat of his groin. He rocks me gently and I want to stay here forever. The last humans on Earth.
But then other humans rush from level B to level C. Car doors slam, engines start up and drive out. Engines drive in and shut down. Car doors slam. Bodies rush from level B to level A.
‘I have to get my wife.’
‘Okay.’
I get off him but he won’t let go of my hand as we climb like the wounded to level D.
‘She told me it’s…okay,’ he says, opening the passenger door for me. ‘She so tired.’ I don’t release his hand. I slide it under my T-shirt and hold it against my breast. He looks at me, trying to understand. I feel my nipple hardening.
‘Don’t leave me,’ I say, understanding finally that Kadylak is gone and that he is all I have and that I want him to fuck me to death.
He climbs in after me and guides me between the seats to the rear. He lays me down among the paint cans and rags. He pulls up my shirt and caresses my breasts, sees the bruises. ‘What’s this?’
‘An accident. When I fell down.’
‘Do you hurt?’
‘No.’ I pull his head back down to my breasts and he gently sucks on my nipples. I pull off his shirt and run my tongue over him. He tastes of salt and paint solvent. He moves up to my lips and I want to share his breath, his life. The last people on Earth. His hand is down my pants and I can hear slippery sounds as he moves his fingers in and out. I unzip his jeans and reach for him, massaging his testicles. It is his sperm that made Kadylak. In seconds I’m up and over him, guiding his penis into me, denying the pain, wanting only that he ejaculate into me, stop this need, fill this void. But he won’t fit and I’m afraid I’m too small, too virginal but he rolls me onto my back and begins to push and it feels as though I’m being ripped apart but I see Kadylak in his eyes. Then he comes, causing my head to bump paint cans but I don’t care, I want him inside with the blood, his blood. Kadylak’s blood. He lies over me and we breathe as one.
‘You not come,’ he says.
‘That’s alright.’
He slides his mouth down my body and sees the blood. ‘No,’ he says.
‘It’s alright,’ I say.
‘First time?’
‘It’s alright.’
‘My God,’ he says, pulling away from me.
‘It’s okay,’ I say. ‘I wanted it.’
‘This is not right,’ he says and I know it isn’t. We are not the last humans on Earth.
He pulls up his jeans. He is leaving me. ‘I am so sorry,’ he says.
‘Don’t be sorry, please don’t be sorry.’ I think of clinging to him but it never works. I’ve seen Zippy cling to Damian, Drew cling to Damian. Scarlett cling to Rhett. It never works.
He climbs into the driver’s seat and starts the engine.
29
I don’t need to see her dead. They wash and shroud them, tie their hands and feet like chickens, wrap them in plastic before sending them to the morgue.
I wrote down my number for him. He’ll never call. I am no longer an ally, just another person to fear. I watched him drive away, wanted to run after him. Just another heroine pining for some guy.
Zippy doesn’t see me at first because she’s busy opening and closing doors on an entertainment unit she’s pitching to a big-haired couple. They don’t seem too interested, keep glancing around for something with more wow factor. Zippy follows their gaze, which leads her to me. This time she doesn’t jump up and down like a game-show winner. She holds up a finger and mouths, ‘I’ll just be a minute,’ but I know she’ll be licking the big-haired couple’s boots till they gag. I flop on a grotesque easy chair and keep an eye out for the ape. Pop music blares from the unit, that song by that guy who needs a haircut, louder and louder, about how am I supposed to live without you? And I start trying to figure out how I’m supposed to live without Kadylak. I plug my ears and start singing, ‘O-klahoma, where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plains. Where the wavin’ wheat can sure smell sweet, when the wind comes right behind the rain.’ The big-haired couple look at me like I’m off my nut and head for the door with Zippy in tow. She seems pretty desperate, flapping her hands around. Maybe the ape only pays her on commission.
Somebody prods my shoulder. It’s the ape, of course. ‘What do you think you’re doing, young lady?’
‘I’m waiting for Zippy.’
‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed but she’s busy right now. Why don’t you come back when she’s done her shift?’
‘I need to talk to her now.’ I try not to stare at his unibrow. There’s no question he’s hairy all over. I wait for him to start pounding his chest.
‘Well, I hate to break it to you,’ he says, ‘but working people don’t get to socialize when they’re working.’
‘I just need to talk to her for a second.’
Zippy scuttles our way, all a-flutter. ‘I’ll take care of it, Lloyd.’
‘You better,’ he warns.
‘Can I stay at your place?’
‘What? Why? Did she throw you out?’
‘No, I just need a change. Please, I won’t be any bother.’
‘Shouldn’t you be in school?’
‘I’m a bit feverish.’ This always works. She’s fever-phobic.
She feels my forehead. ‘You do feel a bit warm.’
‘Zippy!’ the ape bellows.
‘I’m just getting her my keys,’ she says, scrambling behind the cash and digging around in her handbag.
‘What’re you giving her keys for?’ he demands, no doubt worried he’s going to have to shag her with me around.
I start singing, ‘O-klahoma, every night my honeylamb and I sit alone and talk, and watch a hawk makin’ lazy circles in the sky …’
‘Can it,’ the ape says.
She bustles back and hands me the keys.
‘Don’t tell Damian about this,’ I say, knowing she will. ‘If you tell Damian, I’ll never speak to you again.’
‘Don’t talk like that, honeybunch, of course I won’t tell him.’
I exit belting it like the singer who needs a haircut, ‘And when we say hay-a-yippy-i-o-ay, we’re only sayin’, you’re doing fine Oklaho-ma, ok!’
Her building is subsidized, meaning all kinds of rejects live there. The place stinks of fried food and rotten carpet. In the elevator a hundred-year-old man breathes poisonous breath in my direction. It takes him six hours to figure out which button to press. I offer to help but he must be deaf. I feel for the guy, being ancient and all that, but I’m pissed at him for being alive when Kadylak is dead.
I don’t know what the Paluskas will do with her body; it’s a few thousand bucks no matter how you disappear it. What happens to her corpse if they can’t pay up? Don’t want to think about it. I dig around in Zippy’s fridge for some processed food, find those crumpets with holes in them. When I was little I used to fill the holes with butter. Zippy leaves her butter out so it gets nice and goopy. Drew keeps hers in the fridge, or anyway used to, before the peanut butter diet.
I lie down to eat because I don’t want more of his semen dribbling out of me. I put pillows under my ass and pull my knees into my chest to help his sperm swim up my tubes. Our baby will look like him and Kadylak. Our baby will show no trace of the Witch or the Slug. Our baby will grow healthy and strong and never have cancer. I’ll take her with me wherever I go. We’ll never be parted. I’ll teach her how to read and make soap. We’ll travel around the world discovering exotic ingredients for our special bars, which we’ll sell in the markets. We’ll learn about different places and cultures by living in them. I’ll be the most important person in her life and she’ll be the most important in mine.
The phone rings and I know it’s the Slug and he’s probably sent the cops after me. It rings twenty-six times. I wipe buttery fingers on her bedspread that’s got the ape’s excretions all over it.
Zippy’s shaking me. ‘You should go home now, Limone, or she’ll be worried about you and I’ll get into trouble. You know they think I’m a bad influence.’
‘Did you tell him?’
‘Of course not.’ I know she’s lying, she always goes crying to Damian. No doubt he instructed her to turn me in, probably said he’d washed his hands of me. He always washes his hands of people when they get out of line. I consider telling her that he lied to her all those years – before he washed his hands of her – that he bumped uglies with an unusually passionate bureaucrat and out I popped. But she doesn’t deserve more torment.
‘Who are those people?’ I ask, noticing blobby types in the living room ripping open chip packets.
‘We’re having a prayer meeting. You can’t stay here.’
‘Why not? I won’t bother you. I’ll be totally quiet.’
‘I don’t want you singing or anything, Limone.’
‘Cross my heart.’
She sits on the bed and pats my hand. ‘Jesus would watch over you, baby, if you’d only let Him.’
‘Maybe if I listen in on the prayer meeting, I’ll feel Him and let Him watch over me. I’m still a little feverish so I think I should stay in bed.’ Sperm can survive forty-eight hours. I don’t want to disturb it.
‘Promise me you won’t sing, honeybunch, it’s so embarrassing when you sing.’
‘Cross my heart. Can you bring me some juice and chips?’
I can’t make out what they’re saying. It’s almost spooky. They hold their hands above each other’s heads, I guess to heal each other or something. Every twenty minutes one of them keels over in a fit of Jesus fever. They all huddle around the forgiven until he or she can stand up, then they start praying again until the next sinner keels over. Must sound pretty strange in the apartment below. All that believing works up a sweat, it’s starting to smell like a locker room in here.
I eat chips, drink juice, keeping my pelvis elevated. I have a life purpose.
‘What did you think?’ she asks after the last blobby type departs.
‘Awesome.’
‘Could you feel Him?’
‘Definitely.’
‘He’ll forgive you, baby, if you forgive yourself.’
She brews chicken soup from a package and grills some cheese sandwiches. This used to be my favourite meal.
‘Maybe you can come to the next one,’ she says.
‘What?’
‘Prayer meeting.’
‘I’ll have to check my calendar.’
‘You have to demonstrate your devotion, Limone. He can’t be deceived. And He knows there is not one human on Earth who has never sinned. His wish is that we all come to repentance and stop rebelling against the truth.’
‘What about Mars? Is there not one Martian on Mars who has never sinned?’
‘You can make as much fun as you want.’
‘Seriously, does He oversee the whole universe or just Earth?’ I shove more grilled cheese in my mouth.
‘If you let him,’ Zippy says, ‘He will help you to be obedient by giving you the power to become a true witness and follower.’
I stick my fingers into the pickle jar and wriggle out a cornichon.
‘There is no other name among men,’ she says, ‘whereby we can be saved.’
‘Are you eating?’ I ask.
‘Jesus will free you if you let Him,’ she says. ‘He’ll help you overcome every wicked habit that you can’t conquer on your own. Promise you’ll come?’
‘Where?’
‘To the next prayer meeting.’
‘I’ll try. Drew’s in pretty rough shape these days. I don’t like to leave her alone too long.’
‘I thought you said you needed a change.’
‘Right, well, I just meant for a night or two.’
‘You felt Jesus calling you, baby, that’s why you needed a change.’
‘Maybe that was it.’ I suck up more noodles.
‘I was so lonely before I let Jesus in,’ she confides. ‘You’re so lonely, honeybunch, I can see that.’
‘I’d kind of like to just be with you for a bit, no offence to Jesus.’
‘He’s watching us, baby. He’s all around us.’
It’s worse than when she was on drugs. On drugs it was just the two of us. Who wants Jesus hanging around?
We watch a movie about grand theft auto. Nick Cage skulks around in faded denim. He’s tired of being a car thief and wants to live the quiet life in Monterey. But his associates say, ‘Just one more time, boss, it’s the Big One, it’ll set us up for life.’ So old Nick has to chase the dollar and neck with Angelina who’s also in faded denim. I keep getting distracted by his rug. Is America ever going to be ready for a bald Nick Cage?
The commercials are bursting with perfect people and children and I start thinking about Kadylak again, the fact that I can’t touch her, smell her, hold her. That she’s gone. My only f
riend. A lung-stiffening panic sets in and I start sweating and hyperventilating and I know this can’t be good for conception. I try to think about the baby, that she’ll have Kadylak’s eyes and she’ll look at me the way she did and I’ll be able to hold her whenever I feel like it.
‘What’s wrong, honeybunch?’
‘Nothing.’
‘It’s Jesus, isn’t it? Don’t fight Him, baby.’
‘It’s not Jesus, for fuck’s sake, would you shut up about Jesus?’
She pulls away like I’ve slapped her. I’ve hurt her, I didn’t mean to hurt her.
Nick Cage drives a stolen Ferrari at high speed over a bridge.
‘It’s just I want it to be you and me again,’ I say. ‘Like the old days. Why can’t it just be you and me?’
‘That’s very selfish, Limone.’
A chopper shot reveals that the bridge is blocked by traffic and that Nick is going to have to stop speeding and get nabbed by the lapd.
‘I am grateful for what He has done for me, Limone. And you should be too.’
‘He hasn’t done shit for me. My best friend died today. He killed my best friend. So you can take Jesus and shove Him up your ass.’
Nick guns his engine and drives up over the cars in front of him. Cops scurry out of their cruisers, shaking their heads in disbelief. Zippy closes her eyes and starts talking to Jesus.
She lets me sleep beside her on the bed. We used to do this. She’s always talked gibberish in her sleep, sounding anxious and afraid. I used to pat her shoulder till she settled down. I don’t tonight. Let Jesus do it.
I’m woken by voices in the living room. At first I think she’s talking to her Saviour again but then I hear the ape. He’s got her bent over the sofa so he can do her up the backside.
‘Stop that!’ I shout.
‘What the fuck … ?’
‘What kind of sick pervert are you!’ I scream because I need to scream at somebody. I start kicking him the way I kicked Bonehead and company. The ape, with his plumbing dangling, starts swinging at me. I grab an umbrella and aim it at his eyeball while he’s yanking up his pants. ‘That is one ugly set of jewels,’ I tell him. ‘Now get out before she calls the cops.’
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