Alan nodded at Mike’s hopeful platitudes but wasn’t buying. And anyway, according to the news, New York wasn’t alone in this predicament. This was global.
“I tried to load up on reserves,” Mike continued, “but it was pretty picked over at D’ag’s and Food Emporium. I don’t get why Food City closed up so soon. What’s that all about?”
“Maybe ’cause it’s not a chain,” Alan posited. “The owners probably just took what they needed and booked.”
“Maybe,” Mike allowed. “Still, I think we’re pretty well stocked. I think if we pushed it we could go a month, but that’s not gonna happen.” Mike smiled without conviction and looked to Alan for reassurance. “We’ll be fine. London during the Blitz and so on. We’ll be okay,” Mike nattered.
Alan closed his eyes and drifted inward, Tammy’s face imprinted in the darkness behind his eyelids. Phone service had been spotty at best and it wounded him that she and he had parted badly. Right after the Costco trip they’d had a nasty public fight and after he’d finished hiking his half of the supplies up to his apartment she’d screeched, “Don’t thank me all at once you fuckin’ prick! Aw, your arms hurt, your poor, delicate, artist’s arms! Aw, you got a fuckin’ callous on your precious digits?! You’ll be fuckin’ glad I’m ‘an alarmist,’ you asshole! Mark my fuckin’ words!” She’d slammed into her Honda CR-V and sped off, and though they’d since made up via Instant Messenger, that was the last he’d heard from her. Land lines were tied up or nonoperational. Cell service? History. And now the Internet was iffy, too.
Even though Tammy had stocked up equally, Alan wished she’d stayed, not because of that but because she was on the ground floor of a private house in Bay Ridge. He thought of the Three Little Pigs, he residing in the brick house, she in the wood. At least it wasn’t straw. He suspected he’d never hear her voice again.
Tammy’s face rippled away, replaced by Ellen’s. Alan wasn’t sure why but he always went for tart women (as opposed to women who were tarts). Ellen, whose serial hallway flirtatiousness-especially since she’d had the baby-always seemed seasoned with a smidgen of sarcasm, was close to Alan’s ideal, at least physically. At the moment, convinced he’d never know the touch of a woman again, Alan resented Mike. He resumed hammering, then stopped, sighed, and gave Mike’s arm a gentle squeeze.
“I’m taking you into my confidence, Mike. I’m serious, no fucking around.”
“Okay.”
“Seriously, Mike. This is life or death stuff here.”
“I know, I know. This is super serious.”
“This isn’t just fortification, Mike. We’re sealing ourselves into our crypt. The cavalry isn’t coming for us.”
“Sure they are.”
Alan looked deep into Mike’s worried, wearied, eyes. People with kids had to think positive. “No, Mike, they’re not. This is it.”
“You artistic types are so gloom and doom,” Mike said without judgment. “I don’t roll like that. It’s a disaster, granted, but people rally. Maybe we batten down the hatches and wait, but-”
“Fine, Mike, cling to your illusion, but,” and here Alan lowered the volume to a barely audible whisper, “I’ve got plenty of supplies. Tammy and I bought a buttload.”
“Yeah, Ellen mentioned you were stocked up.”
“Not so loud,” Alan hissed. “I don’t want to become the Sally Struthers to 1620’s starving children. I’m offering-so long as we keep it on the QT-you and Ellen some of my stuff. Water, canned goods, whatever. You’ve got a kid to feed. But it’s between us. I don’t want the others to know. I can’t feed everyone.”
Conspiratorial, Mike nodded and then threw his arms around Alan, his voice cracking. “We’re fucked, aren’t we?” He began to sob and Alan, ensnared by the other man’s limbs, mourned the death of Mike’s optimism. He thought about his last exchange with his mother-and it was a last exchange, with her Luddite tendencies and shunning computers and the Internet even when Alan had offered both so she could be more connected. She of the landline and rotary kitchen phone. There’s one sound no child ever wants to hear and that’s the sound of a frightened parent. His mother’s final words to him, choked and perforated by little intakes of air, trying so hard not to cry, to be strong for her boy, were, “I’m all out of turkey. I’m almost out of food and I’m afraid.”
I’m afraid.
Those two words made it all real for Alan. Not the news. Not the panic on the street. Alan wanted to comfort her but it was impossible. He couldn’t get to her. A lifelong mama’s boy and he was trapped, travel between boroughs prohibited. In that moment his insides turned to liquid.
“Mom,” he’d begun.
The line went wild, wailed electronically, died.
He’d held the receiver like it was a totem imbued with the essence of his mother. It had held her voice, a voice he’d never hear again. Why hadn’t he gone to her at the onset? Or brought her here? Because he’d been dumb enough to think this would pass, too. He didn’t recradle the handset. He just held it and stared at it.
The thought of his mom, alone and terrified.
His mom, the rock. The tough lady.
Yeah, Alan thought now, eyes stinging and wet, we are so fucked.
Karl and Dabney lay on the tarp, the rock pile untouched. Both were admiring the crowd below, awaiting the return of Mona, both psyched to see her do her Moses thang. Between them were a couple of empty cans, one from cling peach slices in light syrup, and the other string beans. Both men were happy and felt a sort of father-and-son companionability. Dabney rolled onto his side and belched, the gassy reflux sweetened by the aftertaste of peaches. In direct response, Karl let out a melodious fart and both men laughed. Their spirits were fine and low comedy wasn’t beneath them.
“Did you like Blazing Saddles?” Karl asked.
“Why, ’cause it had a black sheriff?”
“No, because it had farting. That scene by the campfire, all those cowboys eating beans and letting off.”
“Oh, yeah. That.” Dabney chuckled, feeling foolish for having thought this was some well-intentioned attempt at ebony and ivory racial bonding. But this was nothing to do with the late, great, Cleavon Little. It just had to do with passing gas, something everyone could enjoy, race immaterial. Why was he feeling so stuck on race? The only races that mattered now were humans versus zombies. Skin color was passé.
But he still wondered how it would be if his van had made it home.
He lived in a project, a honeycomb of ten thirteen and fourteen story buildings. All manner of mayhem likely went down there. Even when things were normal it was no great pleasure. Project rats-the human kind, not the rodent kind-whose idea of fun was pissing and setting small fires in the elevators and stairwells. Graffiti. Litter. Noise on top of noise. Every time his wife went out after hours he was nervous that she might not come home or would get molested or what have you-no matter how many times she assured him that other men didn’t lust for her the way he did.
Dabney reached over and ruffled Karl’s hair.
“What’d you do that for?” Karl asked, his face suddenly confused.
“Never ruffled a white boy’s hair before.”
“You’re not getting all funny on me now, are you, Dabney?”
Dabney laughed. “Not if you and I were the last two folks on Earth, son. I’m just missing my own boys and they didn’t exactly have the kind of hair you could ruffle. I figured I’d see what a white daddy might feel. Greasy, but not so bad.”
“You had sons?”
“Two, plus a girl. Both boys grown, left home. I like to think maybe Johnny, my eldest, might be alive-he left the city. A while before my van crashed I spoke to my youngest, my girl, on my cell phone one last time before the signal went dead. Like everything else.” Silence hung between the two men, neither articulating the thought that Dabney’s offspring were likely dead, too. “Yeah, well. At any rate, I hope that Mona comes back soon.”