by John O'Brien
The bolts all safely thrown, Carey and Jill turned to assess each other.
“I’m Carey,” he said extending his hand, thinking, She’s pretty, thinking, It’s not her fault.
“I’m Jill.” She took his hand, shaking it almost gleefully, thinking, He’s sober.
“Fenton,” said Fenton, who had been observing this unexpected arrival and now crossed the room with his hand extended, forgetting about the Glock.
Carey, who had become more than a little gun-shy during the preceding week, zeroed in on Fenton’s readied automatic. “Jesus don’t shoot!” he screamed, throwing his back against the door. “Jesus can’t you see I’m white!” he said. Jesus, he thought. Shoot. Shoot now.
Day7
Rudd regretted, as he watched the channel-span of Emergency Broadcast Stay Tuned screens with underscoring sound loop, that he had turned off the television the night before. The spotty in-studio rumor reports of nationwide mayhem had gotten to him, and when home video of a concentration-camp-style holding pen on the Las Vegas strip was cued up he simply couldn’t take it anymore and snapped off the power, aiming the remote and thinking bang. Osmond, who had been fairly engrossed in the report, looked hurt but said nothing in response to Rudd’s challenging stare. Well he’d better keep his mouth shut, thought Rudd, Miles too. Fucking rapists. Once in college, as a kid, Rudd had made some moves on a drunk girl who was passed out. Rudd was drunk too, and the girl moaned harshly and brushed him off long before anything really happened. Innocent by fact, he had later wondered how far he would have gone with that girl, but stopped wondering when he couldn’t come up with an answer, or even a rationalization, that he liked. That was a drunk kid; Miles and Osmond were grown men. But then Jill, drunk or sober, was of the age of consent as well, and though he didn’t know the details of what went down Rudd was pretty sure that she was complicitous in the wrong that was done.
Rudd shut off the television, then thought better of it and turned it back on but with the sound muted. How bad can it get before the army takes over? There were, last night, reports of desertions and he had figured: blacks. But guys run home to protect their families—he would if he had one-maybe leaving only hoary generals with fingers hovering menacingly over buttons and re-calibrated targets, wondering, What should I do? He turned his attention to this Carey. The guy was sitting alone in a booth, writing in a spiral notebook he’d found in the back, sipping a diet soda from an otherwise perfectly good beer mug. A journal, Rudd had said under his breath, derisively to Fenton as they watched the man writing yesterday, and indeed he had later heard the guy tell Jill that he always kept a journal. Jill seemed fascinated by him, and even now she watched him from another booth, waiting for a chance to go and sit across from him and resume what had become some sort of perverse intellectual marathon soul-searching apocalyptic conversation. Rudd watched Jill watch Carey. He was, in short, disgusted.
Well fuck this. He poured himself a too strong drink and, trying hard to ignore the demanding Stay Tuned, walked aggressively to Carey’s booth. He felt a modicum of gratification as he saw in his peripheral vision what must have been a disapproving look from Jill. He also felt pressure to do well, to upstage this guy. Stay Tuned.
“How’s it going there, Carey?”
Carey looked up. He seemed frightened. He seemed resentful.
“It’s a journal, right? You’re keeping a journal?” Rudd suddenly wanted to be chummy, might be the best shot at impressing Jill. He took the opposite seat, grinning, “Future history, right? Ever see that movie, War of the Worlds? The guy’s talking into a tape-I think it’s a tape, he’s a reporter but things are so bad that there’s no more station to broadcast from-talking on tape and he says he’s doing it for future history, if there is any.”
Carey put down his pen. His journal was sort of like that scene. “Yeah, I saw it. Then the other guy, the scientist-was it Gene Barry? -he overhears and says something about it to the woman.” He was swept up in the recollection, and his face softened wistfully. Carey loved it when fiction touched reality, or more precisely, presaged it. “Now all we need is for the bad guys to catch colds and die.” But as he said this his face darkened slightly, though Rudd was nodding in agreement. “I don’t really mean that of course.” Tony’s. He wondered if this place itself harbored some kind of virus, something left over from the Reagan years that shifted people who came here to the right. It would be like that Star Trek with the bad space, “The Tholian Web,” was it? Always as a kid, he and his brothers, even his dad, watched all the Star Trek reruns.
“No, you’re right,” said Rudd. “That would be great, have them all drop dead in mid sneeze.” He sensed that Carey wasn’t with him and felt it was time for a declaration. After all, the only way to do any of this was to stand up straight. That’s why he was Rudd. That’s why he was in charge. “At least that way I wouldn’t have to shoot any more of the motherfuckers,” he said and he swallowed deeply of his scotch.
Carey wasn’t sure how to take this. He wanted it to be a joke, but he’d heard enough tantamount references during the short time he’d been here to believe that it was probably true. Rudd probably was a murderer; probably all of them were. All these guns. What were they doing with these guns? It was as if they’d been waiting for something like this to happen. The Hunt, some bad TV movie from his youth. Carey was tempted to ask Rudd if he remembered it, but he was nothing like this man. Rudd, murderers, all of them. Not Jill though, he was sure.
“Trouble on the television, I guess,” he said, pointing.
Rudd winced. Lefty was ducking the subject: no surprise here. “Yeah, looks like they’re taking a break. Nap or something. Off the air for a while.”
“I’d say it’s a little worse than that,” said Carey, falling into lecture mode on his face, like he was sitting in some coffee house chastising some poor media pawn on how to listen to what the network news didn’t report more carefully than to what it did. But it wasn’t so bad, maybe this murderer could stand a lecture. “That shit doesn’t go on screen unless things are really grim.” He liked the sound of that, and it appeared to make the murderer a little edgy. Carey sat back, self-satisfied, and folded his arms. So much for bad space.
Catch this monkey, thought Rudd as he stifled a laugh with his glass. “Nah,” he swiped the air dismissively. “What: it is is a military order, something like that. Stop the spread of information while they regain control.” Be back on the golf course next week, he almost added. Well maybe.
“What, the Guard?” said Carey. “Hey, man, I’ve been out there. I’m telling you, you see Guard transports deserted, burned, overturned. Three blocks over on Carrington there’s a dead Guardsman lying in the middle of the street. Naked.” He could feel his language change. At first he’d intended to tone it down a bit and try to blend-this was Tony’s-but now he was ready to roll with it, ready to piss these dinosaurs off. Carey began work on some damage control. Maybe he did serve a purpose here after all. “It’s not like that anymore, man. There’s no army out there. And even if there were, there are no targets, nothing you can drop a bomb on or fire a missile at. Don’t you guys watch TV in here-I mean didn’t you when it was on? The fucking White House is the Black House.”
Rudd felt a jolt of laughter, said, “How did you know–”
“I’m not fucking joking! It’s painted right across the front: Black House. It was one of the first things to go, a mob materialized and stormed the gates before the Marines knew what hit ‘em. They said it was something like twenty thousand people, most of them armed. An irresistible force!” He looked around. Really going now, talking fast, he could keep a room silent for hours when he got like this, had. “Coffee, is there any coffee made?” He spotted Jill, almost asked her for some but didn’t want to lose his momentum. Be nice to find a worthy opponent, but not here, not likely. “The president was out, they said. They also said that nobody ever saw the mob coming, but let me ask you: That mob had been coming for years, how could they
not have seen it?”
Rudd looked at the man transformed, waiting for him to respond. Okay, Lefty, but one step at a time. “How did you know that he was a Guardsman? If he was naked, how do you know? That’s what I was gonna ask before the lecture came down.” It occurred to him that he was getting pretty drunk, but his glass was empty now. “Jill, could I trouble you,” he said, holding up his glass, having grave doubts about whether this was a good play. The Black House, he thought. What a load of shit.
“And coffee. I need some coffee,” bellowed Carey, startling Rudd and forgetting where he was, whom he was with.
After a beat spent with her lip curled up to make it clear that this was a one-time favor, Jill padded off to get the drinks. “I’ll have to make some coffee,” she said over her shoulder, but then regretted it, making it sound like the coffee was the real problem. But if not that then what? The scotch? At this late date?
“You said he was naked,” reminded Rudd.
Carey stared at the man and wondered if his own talents weren’t being squandered here. “Green,” he said matter-of-factly, a detail. “He was tagged Green. They spray-painted it across his chest the way they do.”
Rudd grunted and nodded. He’d be goddamned if he was going to let this twirp get the better of him just because he wasn’t up to the minute on the latest pre-teen gang member rules of etiquette. “Poor guy,” he said, thinking, I wonder if he was black. Would the paint show up? Green. Son of a bitch. Maybe we should have paid closer attention to the TV. He suddenly felt a need for information, Stay Tuned burning at his back. “What else has been going on out there?”
Hooked like a fish, thought Carey, and Where’s my fucking coffee. He looked around for Jill, but saw Tony’s instead and remembered for the umpteenth time exactly where he was. And Jesus, talking to a murderer. If I tell him what’s going on out there will he let me see his gun? Jesus. Just ask Jill later.
Some hours after the predictably irresolute conclusion of his conversation with Carey, Rudd sat at the bar with Fenton. The television was off now, the men, including Rudd, finally drunk enough to not care much when he shut it down. In fact he had not gotten the chastising reaction that he’d been almost counting on, and was disappointed enough to give the remote a sloppy underhanded toss behind the bar, where it clattered and cracked to the floor. “Show’s over,” he’d said, but again no reaction. Now he was feeling desperate and close to Fenton, and trying hard to gauge the curve of their relationship. He asked himself: Why would I rather be with Fenton than anybody else here? He asked himself: Would I? He asked himself: Would I give my life for his? He asked himself: Would I give my life for Jill’s? Dunno, Yes, Dunno, Think so. There was either an incongruity to be puzzled out in there or another drink. B.
“So,” began Fenton, “were you able to bring him around? He gonna go outside and kick some ass tonight?” He smiled broadly, stroking their alliance and smelling of scotch.
For a moment Rudd thought he detected a false note-not irony exactly, more like acting-but then he realized that his friend was merely drunk, drunk as he was probably. Well good; he’d always felt their relationship could use a little lubrication. “Fucking little geek,” he sneered. He reached for the bottle of J&B and splashed some into both their glasses. Outside a gunfight began, making him realize how relatively quiet it had been this day. “Now he’s safe and warm with us to protect him so he’s getting brave. Getting to be an asshole, in fact. You should hear him; guy sounds like he’s running for office on the Bleeding Heart ticket. But you remember how he came in here-hell, I don’t have to tell you, you’re the one who found him. He was pissing himself to get away from his constituency.” Funny: again with the false note, only this time from himself. Yet this was him. Was Rudd.
To Fenton the gunfire outside sounded good, like a call to action. “We should go out there,” he said, nodding to the shuttered and sealed front door. “I think of how it’s been since things started, all the time we’ve spent in here, and I gotta tell you: the best so far was that run. I was scared to death, absolutely, but it was a thrill. I know for you too, right?”
“Sure.”
Simply put, it was. Then came the thing with Jill. Rudd felt a stirring there, not so much better or more exciting than the shoot-out in the street as it was … well, deeper, or more permanent. No, it was more provocative. The thing in the street was paper thin. Okay, say there’s a moral question for a guy like this Carey, a guy sitting and watching, but being in it was far different, and far more enlightening. Out there as he was squeezing off rounds and watching bodies fall the moral quandaries peeled away thin and whole like onionskins. Pinch, lift a little corner, and wham: a whole level falls off. A shroud. Those bullets rained like a shower, and Rudd was clean and one with the new world, the world now. Fenton too. He was there.
But Jill was more of a hint at a lesson not yet learned, and Fenton was not there, thank Christ. That thing with Osmond and Miles-Fenton had told him when he’d come up from dry-storage asking for Jill, who was in the restroom by then, and wondering out loud who the fuck Carey was and how he got in-was more of a statement than an action. Rudd certainly wasn’t Oprah, but he knew enough about women, and about himself, to recognize that Jill hurt. What worried him was his complicity. If she was hurting herself with those two goons, was she also hurting herself with him? He thought a lot about that, Carey’s presence only complicating matters though he couldn’t say exactly how. Being with her alone downstairs he could’ve sworn that it was working, working the way it was supposed to work. He was sure that she came to him because she wanted to be there. So maybe he was worse than just not-Oprah; maybe he was Geraldo. But back then, back there, when he was working hard to be with her, he felt like Phil. He really did want to be there with her, so why did he feel like a bad guy? Jesus, at least he’d have stopped if he’d known better, more than could be said for Osmond or Miles. Clearly more.
Carey, watching Rudd and Fenton over Jill’s shoulder from across the room, was certain they were discussing him. He could hardly blame them. He’d shredded Rudd and sent him scurrying from their conversation licking his wounds. On the other hand, these guys were so pickled that he doubted if anybody noticed or remembered. He had grave concerns about being here. Now that he had a fuller perspective on the difference between Inside and Outside he wondered: was it all that bad? He could split, make it to the Franklin shelter, probably find some friends. There was work to be done out there, would be plenty more as the weeks passed. So what was he doing in here, a place destined to be fire-bombed at any moment. Sitting here, locked in here with these men, no matter how he felt or who he was, to the outside world he was declaring his loyalties, and the firebomb wasn’t going to pause and tap him on the shoulder, warn him to slip away.
Jill said to Carey, “I still can’t believe you were out there all that time. You’re so lucky to be alive. That you made it in here, it’s a miracle really.”
Fenton said to Rudd, “Sure? Is that the best you can do? We really should go back out there. Sounds like you could use the diversion too.”
Carey said to Jill, “I really only came in for a break until things cool off some out there. It’s not that terrible. They have shelters. I might go to one, or maybe just back out to see what’s going on, especially now with the television off. Sitting in here, how are we even supposed to know … well, know. I mean what was the plan? Stay here forever? Until the liquor runs out?”
Rudd said to Fenton, “You might be right. We could use a little information anyway, especially now that I fucked up the remote and we can’t Stay-fucking-Tuned. Do you suppose there’s anywhere on this street we could find more scotch? I know the liquor store has probably been licked clean, but let’s face it: this stuff isn’t gonna last forever.”
“Okay, thanks,” said Fenton. “How should we do it? What should we do?”
It was thus that Rudd came to fully grasp his position, what he had become and where he stood. Heretofore his authority had e
xisted largely in his perception; it was what he wanted. But now Fenton had asked permission to do something and thanked him for granting that permission. It felt like more than he had bargained for-though of course it was exactly what he had bargained for-and he couldn’t help but resent Fenton for folding so easily before such a patently unqualified buffoon as himself. Suddenly the voice inside his head grew loud, painfully so, and Rudd wondered if this was what cabin fever was. Maybe, though he’d never taken it seriously, it being one of those quasi-conditions, anecdotal and bearing the smack of an old wives’ tale. Once when younger he’d stepped into the ashes of his great-grandfather’s barn, a recent victim of arson. They looked hospitable enough, those ashes, but they burned the hell out of his sockless, sneakered foot, and he screamed to wake the countryside. Great-grandma, calmed by prodigious age and bearing encyclopedic knowledge on how to respond to any likely farm or kitchen emergency, stripped off the smoldering shoe and immediately applied a salve of butter, this being an immutable part of her erudition. Mom made to object-Rudd saw her, knew the look-but decided GG’s waning authority here might be worth a foot or two of preservation. From here he could see, she salted that scream with purpose, Mom did, the deferential bitch.
Rudd hated almost everything he thought and said, the screams and voices in his head. What was wrong with Fenton that he couldn’t see through such a thin veil of power. This whole world was full of bad guys winning by default; then it passes through reality and becomes history and everybody proceeds from there. The thing that had bugged him for years still festered, threatening always to make him ever more reckless: you get what you ask for. This made no sense, this going outside for a walk. There was no booze out there, and if there were any new information they wouldn’t be told to Stay Tuned; now that machine wouldn’t be shut down long because of some damn riot, not with all those ten-, fifteen-, thirty-, and sixty-second spots flitting through oblivion. Best stay here and wait it out, play the booze by ear-there was still plenty of stock down in dry-storage, not to mention all this liqueur shit up here for display, Miles’s Choice for now ‘cause he knew it rankled, but still it would stave off the DTs if the time came. Rudd thought about the times that would come, opportunities even, what with so much to sort out, all that unfulfilled TV advertising revenue, for instance. And banks, think of the banks, the data-storage vaults and magnetic media that were worth their weight in gold now. Those tapes full of ones and zeros would define the fortunes of tomorrow. Might be a good time, it occurred to him, to make the jump and buy a controlling interest in Hollydale.