She watched him closely. She knew he was gay. It was in everything, the way he stood in a long curve with his hips forward at the stove, the way he held his mouth when he called her ‘girl.’ It was in his delicate but deft hand as he flipped the pupusas. It was in the way he didn’t look her up and down or linger anywhere but her face. She knew and she knew him immediately. It was a snap judgment to make, but she had lived and worked with gay men in San Francisco her whole life. Most of her best friends had been gay men, especially since after twenty-five most of her female friends had disappeared down the rabbit hole of marriage and come out mothers on the other side. She relaxed a little and came all the way through the door.
“You don’t look like a looter,” he told her, turning his attention back to the food.
“I’m not. I was sick with whatever the fuck everyone had and woke up at UCSF. Where did everybody go?”
“You were at UCSF, you tell me. The news said everyone was dying, especially the ladies. Some pundit asshole was saying it was an extinction event and all the women would die.”
She leaned against the wall, staring at the food. “It was really contagious. Airborne. It appeared everywhere at once. I knew it was deadly, but there is nobody anywhere. I can’t get over it.”
He switched the gas off and piled pupusas on to paper plates. The plates were the cheap kind, so he stacked up four or five to support the weight of the food. “I’m Joe. My friend Chicken is out getting us water. The water is off everywhere. I can’t believe the fucking gas is still on.” He carried the plates out into the dining room and swept glass and balled-up napkins off the table.
“Might as well sit down, have something to eat.”
She sat opposite him in one of the mismatched chairs. “I’m Karen,” she said as she moved pupusas on to her plate with a plastic fork. He hadn’t offered his hand and neither did she. He went back to the kitchen and came back with four different kinds of hot sauce.
They skipped the rest of the introduction because they both wanted to eat. She was starving, her mouth flooding at the sight of hot food on her plate. She shoveled in huge bites, the melted cheese scalding the roof of her mouth.
She was not Karen. Karen had died a week ago, still wearing her nametag. He wasn’t going to ask for ID. She decided to be Karen for now.
He poured out dots of bright red sauce on to his own pile of food and shoveled just as fast. When they’d both finished a plate full, they slowed down. She took one more, he took two.
She poured green sauce over the pancake-like pupusa in front of her. “I can’t believe this is all still good. All the fresh food I had had gone bad. I think I was at the hospital for ten days, maybe more.”
He talked with his mouth full, but held his right hand in front of his face as he spoke. “Almost everything here was bad. All the meat was rotten and most of the cheese. I used to work here. There’s an old icebox they store the mushrooms and onions and garlic in and it seals tight. I thought it might be ok, but there was wrapped up masa and some cheese in there, too. Still good, ‘cause the cheese is dry. It’s my lucky day. I knew the gas was on, ‘cause we passed a couple gas leaks over on Van Ness.”
“My lucky day, too. I’m alive.” It hurt to swallow, but she meant it.
There was a sound of commotion in the back of the kitchen, and Joe popped up out of his chair.
“Chicken?”
“Joe, help me! I got caught!”
Joe ran to the back and Karen followed. Chicken turned out to be a tall scared-looking black kid, no more than twenty years old. His eyes were huge and rolling and his broad hands seemed to be holding him up in the doorway. His left leg was wrapped in razor wire. It wound in and out of his jeans and the denim was purple with blood in a couple of places.
“Shit,” Joe said as he stared.
Karen pushed him out of the way. She put her shoulder against Chicken’s body and pulled his long muscular arm over her shoulder. Together, they hobbled out of the kitchen out into the dining room. She helped him ease down onto the counter and pull his legs up after him. He reached for his injured leg and she caught his hands.
“Don’t pull, you might make it worse. Let me help you.”
“You a nurse? Who is this chick, Joe?”
“Karen. She just showed up.”
“I am a nurse, I worked at the medical center. I can help you.” She turned to Joe. “There’s a drug store on this block, isn’t there?”
He looked out the door, unsure. “I think so?”
She looked back at Chicken. “Is it safe to go out?”
“Nobody is after me.” He gritted his teeth and looked at his leg.
“Ok. Joe, run to that drug store, and I mean run. Bring me back peroxide, in the brown bottle. You know that, right?”
“I know what peroxide is, Jesus.” He looked more annoyed than scared.
“Okay, peroxide and gauze and an ace bandage. Go quick.”
He was out the door without another word.
She pulled her knife out of her pocket and opened without looking at it. She couldn’t remember if she had cleaned it or not. She decided it didn’t matter and started cutting at Chicken’s jeans. She thought to try to cut the wire out but realized it was a waste and cut the jeans around below the knee. She pulled at the hem and watched him. If the razor wire was caught in his skin, any movement would make him jump. He didn’t, so she pulled straight down.
There was a lot of blood, but the damage wasn’t that bad. He had a few deep cuts in the belly of his calf and one spot in his shin with a long slice of skin taken off, still hanging by a shred at the bottom. She pulled at it decisively and it popped off. Chicken yelped.
“Sorry, something was stuck to you.” In her experience, it was always better not to say that skin was what had been ripped off. “Where were you?”
“I was up in some apartments like a mile away. I was looking for water.”
She pulled his bloody sock and shoe off. “Joe told me. So what happened?”
“I was in this building with a bunch of flats and I was checking each one for bottled water. I got to this one in the middle and the door was open. I went straight for the kitchen and I found some glass bottles of Pellegrino and I started to load them up. This guy came screaming out of the bedroom. He covered in blood and looking real fucked up. He was holding like a shovel or like a little spade or something, I don’t know what it was but he scared the everfucking shit out of me. He block the door so I went out the window. I was hanging off a window ac, trying to drop to the awning underneath. I missed and hit the windowsill and got tangled up in this shit here. I roll down the awning and hit the ground running. Fucking like going to the gym in hell. Ran all the way back.”
Joe came pounding back in the door. “Here, I got it I got it I got it.” He swung a plastic shopping bag on to the counter where it banged. She pulled the peroxide out of it and opened it up.
“He’s ok, Joe,” she said evenly. It looks bad but most of the cuts are superficial. As long as it doesn’t get infected, he’ll be ok.” She poured peroxide over the skinned chunk of shin and he screeched through clenched teeth. Joe came around and grabbed his hand.
“I know it stings, I know.” She poured more over his leg, pushing the calf muscle to one side to make the cuts gap open and poured again. “Just remember, that sting is the shit that wants to kill you dying off. The sting is good. The sting will save you.”
Chicken gripped Joe’s hand tight.
“So you didn’t get any water?”
“No I didn’t get any water, bitch. I got back alive. Fuck.”
“Ok, sorry. Just checking. We’ll get some.”
“I want some new jeans, too. And shoes. And FUCK that hurts.”
“I know, I know. Almost done.” She flushed the cuts again and opened a package of gauze and used it to blot the wounds. Then she unrolled another and started to wrap it tight enough to hold but not too tight to walk in. When it was done up, she wrapped again with the ace bandage and used the tiny teeth in the closure butterflies to hold the whole thing together.