Debbie said, You going to work on your painting?
Calum shook his head.
If you want to talk about it, I’m here. Right? Calum?
Yeah.
Was it an initiation or something?
The Room’s timbers groaned, waves glipped and swished against its stilts. Calum watched the lake.
Well should we get going? said Debbie. When does this thing start?
Dark. When it’s dark.
And what is it exactly? I know you explained sort of but. .
I saw you got blackedup. There’s still paint on the front windows.
Yeah. I mean, a little frustrating because we have kids here and, I don’t know. .
You don’t think you deserve it.
I don’t know. Do you think I deserve it?
Calum pulled his hood up again. It’s getting dark, he said.
Sure, let’s go then, said Debbie. Put the benches up for me?
In the bathroom she washed sparkles and marker from her hands, locked her office. When she came back Calum was still standing at the window, staring at the lake.
You’re not going to write about this for TV, right?
Calum, no. I told you. You don’t trust me?
This is just to see. You want to know what’s going on out there, what we’re doing, well you can come see. But it’s not for anyone else, right?
Sure. Wait, what do you mean?
You can come but it’s not. . He trailed off. It’s just, it’s for us.
Oh.
He flipped his hood up and moved past Debbie, toward the door. Grab a flashlight, we should go, he said.
And Debbie went after him, trying to feel trusted, trying to feel good.
AT FIRST WHEN THE pickup and trailer pulled into Street’s Milk & Things, Pop assumed he’d only have to disappoint hopeful patrons of Mr. Ademus. In the doorway he held up his arms in a gesture meant to convey: Sold out, apologizations! But out stepped two men in the khaki uniforms of the NFLM, one carrying a briefcase, the other with a Citypass lanyard around his neck, both with terrific moustaches. At last the birds fly home to roast, said Pop.
He locked eyes with each of the men in turn, closed the door, turned the sign around so NOT OPEN faced out. The men looked at the NOT OPEN sign, at the proprietor posed defiantly behind it, one of them knocked, the other gestured at the pickup. Pop didn’t move. From the briefcase papers were produced and pressed to the glass. At last Pop addressed them as per their nametags: Bygone with yous, Misters Walters and Reed!
The Helpers exchanged words. Walters tore off a crinkly carbon copy, rolled it into a tube, and wedged it in the doorhandle. Then they got back in the pickup and pulled around behind the store. Pop’s breathing shallowed, a vein throbbed in his throat. Finally he threw the door open and in socked feet went waddling after the two men.
With Walters waving him along, Reed was reversing into the clearing. The trailer slid underneath the houseboat with a clang.
That’s my home! screamed Pop. What is your strategization?
It’s condemned, said Walters. We’re just picking it up. You’ve got a problem, go through the proper channels. We gave you the paperwork.
Just doing our job, called Reed from the cab.
Pop wailed, Injust, degenerational, vandalistic, totalitary! Unsuppositionant, predominary, predilicted, no, reprehensitory, no, unfoundational, no, declensionive, no, anti-popularly, no, not fair, not fair, not fuggin fug fuggin fair.
Meanwhile Walters secured his houseboat on the trailer, strapped it down, locked everything into place. Listen, he said, smoothing his moustache with thumb and forefinger, just check the paperwork. There are processes for this sort of thing.
Processes? roared Pop. I’ll tell you a processional thing or two. If it didn’t mean defiliating the hollowed ground of my establishment I’d process my foot through your cranial lobe right now, both of yous, evil ones!
Walters nodded at Pop’s stockinged feet. Would you now?
This is my home, Pop said. He fell to his knees. My home. A quartered century hencefrom. Whereupon am I supposed to sleep?
Reed honked the horn.
Read the paperwork, said Walters, and hopped into the cab.
Pop knelt in the gravel, watched the pickup pull onto Topside Drive, houseboat swinging behind atop the trailer, slid into traffic — and just like that his house was gone.
AS REED PILOTED them west toward the dump, Walters opened his briefcase and took out a packet of Redapples. He offered one to his partner. No, sir, said Reed, quit those things years ago.
Smart, said Walters, unrolled his window, lit the cigarette, took a long, deep drag, and blew smoke into the oncoming traffic. On the shoulder, someone had painted over the Guardian Bridge turnoff sign with a solid black rectangle.
Look at that, said Walters. Those fuggers are getting bold, coming this far east.
Try blacking out the Temple though, said Reed, and they’ll see what’s coming.
Or, you know, they won’t.
Won’t?
See what’s coming, sighed Walters. Hence the surprise, Reed, of whatever what is.
In the sideview mirror Reed checked the trailer. It rolled along steadily behind the pickup, a boxy shadow back there in the purple evening. From the cupholder he took a walkie-talkie, confirmed the seizure and signed off: D-Squad, Good lookin out.
Poor guy, said Walters between drags. You got to feel sorry for him.
Reed merged onto Lowell Overpass. How do you mean?
Oh, he’s a total applehead. I mean, what’s he doing, living in a parking lot? It’s amazing it took this long to get him out of there. Still though, he said. Still. .
Enh, said Reed. You heard the HG’s: this weekend’s supposed to go smooth, no hiccups. Who knows what trouble that guy might have had planned. What did Magurk call him? A genital wart on the dong of the city.
Walters ashed out the window, inhaled, blew smoke into traffic.
You think too much, Walters.
So what? We’re just doing our job?
Exactly. We’re just doing our job.
DURING THE DAY THE ZONE was a storybook of wonders: why did that person have a parrot on her shoulder? What was happening down that alleyway with three men arguing around a dolly heaped with copper? This litter of thousands of orange paper dots — who, how, when, what? But in the cold, still night with the only life her own jammering heart and the cloudpuffs of her breath, Debbie’s curiosity shrivelled. You bundled against the cold. You were wary. Any shadow could morph into a thief slinking at you with a blade.
After sunset the Zone always felt a little chillier, the air a little thinner, than the rest of the city. It didn’t help that the breakwater subdued the tides, or the lack of lights in the old stockyards cast the western side of F Street in gloom, or that UOT and Blackacres emptied at dusk: the soup kitchen and shelters and Golden Barrel began to admit their nocturnal clienteles, the shops lowered their shutters, families withdrew into their houses for the night. The only people out would be patrols of Helpers, whistling cheerfully as they strolled the streets, clubs hidden in their pantlegs. At night anything could happen here, and often it did: instead of a place of stories, it became a place where stories happened to you.
Following Calum up F toward Whitehall, Debbie talked unceasingly, if only to distract from their footfalls, calling out to be chased.
So you’re really in with these folks now, huh?