~
It's been three weeks. I thought Cammy would never talk again. I believed she wouldn't, right up until she did yesterday.
I just kept us moving. Different places in the city. Not staying in any one place for more than a day. Walking days, seeking refuge at night. The zombies smell us, you know. They can smell us for miles. So at night it's been strong places. Strong places where they can't get in and then hope like hell that these were not some of the new breed, the ones that don't seem to have a need to avoid the day, and that they would be gone in the morning.
I started carrying a radio the other day. Clips on the belt. FM. Picks up a lot of talk during the day. There's a place that a lot of the people I hear from have heard about. Down south somewhere. Nobody seems to know exactly where it is. But others swear they have talked to the people that founded this place. A city... Somewhere down south. I had heard of something like that when it was Donita and me back in New York. But the word I keep hearing is that it is a safe place. That it is open to everyone.
So that is where I had been thinking about getting us to. Three days ago we got a truck, it's still just me and Cammy, but it feels safer.
I have been thinking about this place. I don't know who these people are. If they even exist, I only know the whole world is fucked up. I have come to understand that even if I get us as far South as I can, we wont make it for long. There are only two of us that can fight. The dead are getting smarter. And that is not just my point of view. It's on the radio. They all say it.
L.A. and New York both are barely hanging on. Both! Barely hanging on! Nearly over run! We're right here. I see it every day. The people talking aren't exaggerating at all. If the big cities are truly falling apart, and people can't make it banded together, how can we make it alone?
No. I'm heading for this place. I'm hoping it's real. Today on the radio I caught someone talking and it sounded like he was talking about the same place I have heard about. Too far away to hear me. Skip. You can never tell where it's coming from. I'm just hoping it's true. That I didn't just imagine it to assuage my mind.
Meantime I am trying to keep us alive. Find strong places to stay through the nights. There are strong places. Places you can find if you give it some thought. Stairwells in highrise buildings. Steel and concrete. They can't get through those doors. Deep freezers in grocery stores. Heavy steel doors. The vehicles if we have to and we have had to. They can't get in there to get us either. A little fire at night if I can, because they are afraid of fire. It's one constant, so far. The Zombies don't like the smell of smoke.
Canned stuff to eat. Christ, we'll be eating canned shit until we die. Get up the next day and push on. Get moving again. And that is what I've done. Kept us moving. Kept us safe. And she has come willingly, although silently, like a big, semi animated puppet. And then yesterday she was sitting beside me, silent as she had been since the thing with Madison, and she spoke.
“I don't like beans, Bear. I just don't... Maybe we could find something different tonight?” She had lifted her voice at the end and made it into a question. I was winding my way through the middle of an abandoned car and a wrecked, burned out truck. Months old. I looked over at her. She smiled, tentative at first, but then it lit up her face. I had to laugh. I had, had so much pent up inside me.
“The beans are a bit much then?” I asked.
“A bit,” she agreed.
I bought the truck to a dead stop for a second not knowing what to say.
“You could say, 'Welcome back,'” she said softly.
“Welcome back,” I repeated every bit as quietly. “Welcome back...”
THE END BEGINS
ONE
April 31st
New York: Harlem
9:00 pm
Donita made her way down the sidewalk. It was icy, and so she was careful where she stepped. Bear walked beside her. He seemed to have no trouble walking on the sidewalk, ice or not. He had lessened his stride to stay beside her as they walked.
“Okay?” he asked now.
Donita laughed. “Damn slippery,” she said. Almost as soon as she said it she felt her right foot take off on some black ice ridged up against a subway vent. Almost as quick as that happened Bear had her elbow, holding her safely.
“Donita,” Bear told her. “You got to be careful... The baby.” He sounded reverent.
“I know about the baby, baby,” She laughed. “And I am being careful. This damn sidewalk is not cooperating. Why doesn't Harlem have heated sidewalks like some of those places over off Park?”
“Ha,” Bear told her. “We ain't getting no heated sidewalks ever. Are you kidding?”
“Hey,” Donita told him. “We got Bill Clinton over here.”
“Uh huh. And he can fall and crack his white ass too, cause he ain't got no heated sidewalks either.” He shook his head and laughed. It was funny to see a man as big as Bear laugh, or shake his head, or really anything. He was the sort of man you looked at and saw violent things coming from. Nearly three hundred pounds, over six feet, and muscular from a ten year stint in prison. And he had that way of looking at someone, any someone, but men in particular, that made them walk away from him. With women it did something else, and Donita watched out for that too, but Bear had no eyes for any other woman. She was it and she knew it; didn't have to question it.
“The day Harlem gets heated sidewalks is the day that they'll put another black man in the white house.”
“Baby we got that,” Donita told him. She had reached a section of walk that was shoveled and clear of ice both. A rarity after a heavy snow fall.
“And did he get us heated sidewalks?” Bear asked. He looked at her google eyed and she had to laugh.
Owning a car in New York was a tough proposition, Bear thought. They didn't have one, but it would be nice. That way Donita could drive home from work instead of the subway, and a long walk through a bad neighborhood.
Bear's job was steel work. He was picked up every morning and dropped off again. For him a car or a truck would be a luxury. To her it was really a necessity. A necessity he was trying to work out, but it was tough to do.
First you had to be able to afford to buy a car. Then you had to pay nearly as much for insurance as you did for the car. Then you had to pay for a place to park it. If you were stupid enough to leave it on the street it would be towed, stripped, stolen, or get so many parking tickets it wouldn't be worth owning. So you needed a parking place, and that would set you back five times what the shit box car you had managed to buy had cost you. Bear knew, he had checked into it. He sighed now thinking about it.
“Stop worrying about a car,” Donita told him.
“I wasn't,” Bear told her.”
“Oh, so you're going to start lying to me now?” Donita asked him.
“No,” Bear admitted. “Just pisses me off. I see these people that are on welfare driving a Cadillac and I got to say, what the fuck! I mean we work hard. We really do. I don't like seeing you have to walk.”
Donita laughed. “Baby, it's a handful of blocks.”
“Uh huh, and you nearly bust your ass walking them,” Bear said.
She laughed again.
“Oh, that's funny that you might slip and bust your ass?”
“No,” She giggled. “Bear, God forbid the sidewalk that slapped my ass. I believe you would kill it, but I'm never gonna hit that sidewalk because you're always going to be there to catch me.”
“Huh,” Bear said. He laughed a little.
“Well, you will be and I know it. So it doesn't matter,” Donita said. “And besides, I like this... I like this walk every evening with you.” She slipped her arm further through Bear's own, and huddled closer to him. “And it keeps my ass nice and firm,” she whispered as she leaned closer to him. She laughed and Bear broke into laughter with her. A skinny kid in a hoody, passing by them shrunk away from them, his eyes suddenly startled wide.
“Hey it's just laughing, cousin. Ain't gonna rob
you.” Bear told him.
“Baby,” Donita said.
“I know... I know,” Bear told her. He left off and turned away from the kid who seemed about to break into a run.
“Sometimes it isn't about black and white,” Donita told him. “Sometimes it's about you're a very big man and when a man as big as you does something as simple as laugh a little loud it scares people.”
“Well that's funny because it's been about black and white for as long as I can remember,” Bear told her.
“Baby?” She waited until he looked down at her.
“It's true... Now stop... This is something I enjoy. Don't spoil it.” She held his eyes until he smiled at her.
Their combined laughter faded into the gray of the evening as they moved off down the street.
March 1st 12:06 am.
L.A.
Billy Jingo & Beth
Billy knocked back the tequila and waved off Beth as she motioned to the back bar for another. She came over smiling.
“A man that knows when to quit. I like that,” Beth said.
Billy laughed. “A recently acquired habit, I assure you. Shit will bite you if you don't set your limits,” He smiled at her, hesitated and then spoke again. “So it's almost over for tonight... Thought you would be singing?” He raised his voice at the end to make it into a question. He knew it was what she wanted. He had heard her sing, there wasn't an act in the place that could hang with her. She was it, except something wasn't clicking between her and Jimmy, or maybe it went all the way up the ladder to Harry. Whatever it was Billy was curious about it.
“Curiosity killed the cat,” Beth said with a wide smile as if reading his thoughts.
“Damn,” Billy said. “It's as if...”
“I read your thoughts?” She laughed. “It's been written all over your face since you came in. I saw you looking at the stage, back at me, back to the stage. It's not hard to figure it out.”
“Hey, it's not like I'm some wacko fan, Beth. I just think you are way to good for...”
“If you say it I'll smack you stupid,” Beth told him. Her eyes were slitted, narrowed and focused. Her right hand had doubled into a fist. Billy had no doubt she meant what she said.
“Peace,” Billy said.
“Not that it really matters,” Beth said with a sigh. “Jimmy knows, and that means Harry knows, and they don't care... That's not it. I'd feel for the lame ass that came in here if I was doing a set and had anything to say about my time on the streets... We've all been there... At least the interesting ones.”
Billy nodded. “So what is it?”
Beth shrugged. “I don't know, but I'm hoping Harry will be around later on and I...”
“Hey... Baby, what the fuck with the drink?” A big guy, belly straining at the buttons of his shirt. He smiled, but the smile was no more than a rough semblance of a smile. Billy tried to burn him with his eyes, but Beth reached nearly into his face and said. “So you're done here?”
Her eyes said don't, he didn't, but he would have liked to say something to the guy. Instead, he nodded a yes and picked up the change she had laid on the bar. She was talking to the fat guy before he got his change in his pocket.
“See that big guy over by the door,” she asked nicely.
Billy watched the fat guy turn to the door and then back to Beth. “Yeah?” The guy said. There was a sarcastic edge to his voice that made Billy slow down. He wanted to see the outcome.
Don, the big guy on the door had that bouncer six sense and looked over at Beth and shrugged as if to ask if there was a problem. She rolled her eyes, and Don left the door and headed for the bar.
“I told you no more,” Beth told the guy.
“And I said I don't take no orders from no bitch,” The fat guy said. He puffed up, but a line of sweat trickled from under his too black hair and streaked his forehead with whatever he had sprayed on his hair to get the color. He swiped at it angrily. And began to bluster a little more when Don's heavy hand fell on his shoulder.
“And I missed my workout today,” Don told him as he easily spun him around, “unless you're it?” Don finished.
“This is a private matter,” The fat guy told him, but there was a quiver in his voice that Billy heard clearly.
“Tried to grab Jill's breast when she went past him. Jill laughed it off, said he'd been a perfect gentleman all the rest of the night. I said cool, a little fuck up, he's had too much to drink and so I cut him off.”
Gentleman was a code word for a creep that had been hanging around getting way too friendly with the dancers.
“That so,” Don asked. He had stepped back to give himself some room just in case things took a physical turn.
The guy noted the movement and then he set his empty glass on the bar and put his hands in front of him, palms up. “No interest in trouble at all,” he told Don.
Don nodded at the door. “Time to go home and sleep it off, I think,” Don told him.
Billy watched the guy walk to the door and leave. He looked back to see Don and Beth looking at him.
“You know, this guy is becoming a pain in the ass,” Beth told Don.
“Ha, ha,” Billy said.
“Beat it Jingo. Leave the honey alone. It's off limits. In other words you ain't getting none of it.” Billy watched the cloud come over Beth just that fast. She had been teasing, Don probably knew that, but Don had a thing for her and he hated Billy who sometimes did small things for Harry. He didn't wait for Billy to leave, but headed back to the door, opened it quickly and looked out into the lot.
“Probably making sure the guy ain't fucking up his car,” Billy said under his breath.
“Sorry, Billy. I keep forgetting Don isn't human,” Beth told him. That made Billy laugh.
“Anyway, I'll see you around. I'll be late tonight.”
Billy nodded. “Good luck, Beth.” He turned and walked to the door at the other end of the club. The one that let out onto the front sidewalk.