by Valerie Geary
There were five of us before it all fell apart. It started with such a small thing: a bank ran out of money. Its vaults emptied. Its stocks dropped. The economic analysts assured us that this had happened before; there was no need to worry. Even the President smiled and waved at the camera while purchasing his daughter a brand new Mercedes Benz. It’s cyclical. The fundamentals of our economy are strong. It will all come back around again in the end.
Despite these assurances, there were still hushed whispers behind raised hands and clusters of executives gathered behind closed doors. When the second bank announced its failure, people started to shift in their chairs. Still, most of the world acted like the five of us: moving through daily routines without so much as a second glance at the falling stock ticker. We lived in an economy that was indestructible, in a nation that would last forever. We had no fear of tomorrow because in our minds tomorrow would be exactly like yesterday.
When the third bank fell, I called Tony.
“If things keep going this way, I’m not going to have anything left.”
“Money under the mattress, man. That’s the way to go. It’s too late now though.”
He always sounded stoned. I met Tony in college and after graduation, when most circles of friends cracked and splintered apart, we moved with our roommate and best friend, Janice, to Seattle.
“Do you see a lot of return from your mattress?” I asked him.
“Don’t be a fucking prick.”
Kari, my wife of three years, was more sympathetic.
“We’ll be fine. Not all of our money is in the stock market. Think about it this way: we can buy cheap and when the market turns around we’ll be millionaires.”
Kari and I met because of Tony. They worked together for a brief three months in the back office of a personal injury law firm, preparing demands and filing frivolous lawsuits. During those three months they also humped like rabbits. When Tony brought Kari along for one of our late night sushi runs, I couldn’t stop staring. She was exquisite. Soon after, Kari quit the law firm (and Tony) and moved in with me. We were married six months later. As Tony and I smoked cigars in the shadows and watched my new wife swirl on the dance floor encircled by friends and family, he turned to me and said:
“I hit that before you.”
I rolled my eyes, took a long drag and puffed a hoop of smoke into the darkness. “I’m going to be hittin’ that for the rest of my life.”
Kari was far more than just the best fuck I ever had. She was my lifeblood; every morning that I woke up with her breath on my cheek brought me closer to understanding who I was and why I was alive. We were planning for a baby. We had bought all the books, stowed away pockets of money from our paychecks, and even purchased a $5 crib from a garage sale. The crib waited in the spare bedroom.
I kept putting it off. Babies were expensive. And besides, there was still so much time.
On the first day of spring I called in sick. I was about to leave for the golf course when Kari burst through our front door. Her eyes were puffed and red and I feared for just one instant that there had been an attack. Biological warfare; chemicals sprayed into the atmosphere.
“They fired me. Those assholes fucking fired me.”
I held her and rubbed her back.
“They can’t do this to me. I’ll sue their fucking asses.”
“Did they tell you why?”
She shrugged and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.
“Maybe it’s for the best. You’re always saying how bored you are over there.”
“Shut up, Nolan. You’re not helping right now.”
I nodded.
“This is going to ruin everything. Set us back even more.”
I shook my head and frowned. “We’ll be fine.”
Then she stopped crying and stared at me. “What are you doing home anyway?”
“I called in sick. It’s a good day to golf.”
She looked over my shoulder at the set of clubs that leaned against the wall.
I shrugged. “Have you been outside today? I couldn’t pass it up.”
She rolled her eyes.
It shouldn’t have been a big deal. She hated the man she worked for: a high powered estate attorney who was a chauvinist and treated all women like they were three year olds. She would move on, find something better.
“When I get home we’ll make dinner.” I told her. “We’ll drink some wine. We’ll open up the classifieds and see what’s out there. You’ll be fine.”
Everyone suffers a few bumps along their path to wealth. I was working for an advertising firm and had no where to go but up. There was no reason why I shouldn’t have gone golfing that day.
One month later, she was still unemployed. I accused her of being lazy, of not trying hard enough. She tried to tell me that no one was hiring. I didn’t listen. Since I was at work all day, I didn’t hear the phone calls she made. I didn’t see the letters and resumes she sent out. And she threw away the newspaper before I could see that the classifieds were eerily void of help wanted ads. She never gave me a chance.
“You need to get a job.”
“I’m trying.”
“Try harder.”
“God damn it, Nolan. It’s not as easy as it used to be. No one’s hiring.”
“Bull shit.”
What I didn’t realize at the time was that she knew more about what was coming than any of us. She had this ability to sense things in the pit of her soul, to see things and understand their implications. I ignored her when she told me we should buy extra cans of food, extra bottles of water. I laughed at her when she asked me how to use a gun. I rolled my eyes when she told me we should take all of our money out of the bank while there was still time. The final straw came when she told me we should stop trying to have a baby. I refused to talk to her unless it was a necessity: “Lock the front door.” “I need the bathroom.” “Get out of my way.”
She withdrew deep into herself and I became angry, disapproving, and indifferent.
In the middle of May, Tony and I met for coffee before work. As he read the newspaper, I watched a small group of protestors outside the Federal Building. I couldn’t read their signs, but they looked pissed.
“We’re running out of money.”
Tony glanced up at me from behind the paper. Raised eyebrows. Nothing more.
“She needs to find a job. We have a mortgage for Christ’s sake. And all she keeps talking about is the end of the world.”
I took a long drink of black coffee. No sugar. No cream.
“She’s doing the best she can, Nolan.”
“What the hell do you know?”
Tony shrugged and went back to the paper.
“We had planned to go to Europe next month. Now she’s telling me she doesn’t want to go. What the hell does she want from me?”
A tall woman wearing a tight skirt walked up to the front counter and ordered a non fat latte. Tony watched her.
“You couldn’t go to Europe even if you wanted to.”
“Well of course not. We can’t afford it.”
“No. That’s not what I mean.”
The woman walked toward our table and paused just to the side of it. She bent over and adjusted the strap on her shoe. As she straightened she turned and winked at Tony.
He grinned at her, but spoke to me: “I don’t think anyone’s going to Europe anytime soon.”
“What are you talking about?”
He folded the newspaper carefully into thirds. A comfortable brochure size. He slid it across the table. “Government Rationing of Fuel Brings Airlines to a Screeching Halt.” The headline was printed in bold, black letters. The picture showed a runway full of empty airplanes, crooked and skewed.
“What the hell is this?”
Tony shrugged. “We’re out of gas.”
“What does that mean?”
He took a long swig of coffee and then tossed the empty cup toward the garbage can. “Gonna have to start walking to work, I guess.”
I grabbed the paper and squinted at the tiny print. What he was saying wasn’t quite true. There was still plenty of fuel in the reserves, but they could no longer handle the free-for-all access. All non-emergency cross country and international travel had been suspended. Gas stations had been advised to allow only two gallons a week per customer. They were handing out tickets. No ticket. No gas. The President had told the press that he was looking into other fuel sources at this time and he didn’t expect the rationing to last more than a couple weeks.
“I can’t believe this.”
“It’s about to get crazy.”
I tucked the paper in my briefcase and went to work.
Tony left with the woman in the tight skirt.
That day all anyone could talk about was the gas ration and the airlines. Coworkers peered over cubicle walls, their voices tense and high. Men and women on the street spoke quickly into cell phones, their heads bent, their faces scrunched with concern. The news anchor tried to hold his voice steady, but his eyes were full of fear.
When I got home the front door was locked. I turned the key and backed into the house, shaking out my umbrella onto the porch.
“Have you heard about the fuel rationing, babe?”
Silence.
“Isn’t that the craziest thing?”
Nothing. Not even the scrape of a chair against the tile.
“I’ve decided to talk to you again.”
I tried to make my voice sound light. As I loosened my tie and rested the umbrella against the wall, I turned to look into the dining room. Empty. The kitchen was empty as well. The living room: nothing but vacant space. I took the stairs two at a time.
“Kari?”
The door to the spare bedroom was open just a crack and I saw her legs stretched out on the floor. The bright red of her tennis shoes stuck out dramatically against the peach toned carpet.
The room seemed to spin around me as I burst through the door and dropped down next to her face. I had never seen anyone so gray. Her hand still clutched an orange prescription bottle. I plucked it from her tight fingers. Prozac. When had she started taking anti-depressants?
I threw the bottle against the wall where it cracked and bounced back to me. I lifted her limp head into my lap and rocked her for a while. Then I tried to shake her, to wake her up, but her eyes stayed closed. I pushed her away from me and stood to my feet.
On the window sill was an empty container of Tylenol and an empty bottle of wine. Her body lay twisted as though she had taken the pills, drank the wine, stood by the window for a while and then just collapsed into a heap.
“What have you done?” My voice echoed against the walls of the room.
She didn’t answer.
I found a piece of paper, torn from her journal, in the bottom of the crib. I picked it up and read her jerky handwriting: ‘My love: I fear I am not resilient enough to withstand what is coming. I fear I will only make things harder for you. I’m sorry I could not be stronger. ’ I shook my head, crumpled the note and went back downstairs.
As I sat on the couch I held the note in one hand, the phone in the other. I stared down at both, but they just blurred into nothingness and I could see only her ashen face, her purple lips, the dried pool of vomit under her cheek. I tried dialing Tony, but I couldn’t remember the numbers. So I dialed what was most familiar.
“Parker’s Pizza, what can we get ya?”
“I think I killed my wife.”
The teenager on the other side of the phone must have given the police my address. The ambulance and fire truck came too. There were so many screaming sirens and flashing lights that I thought for a second someone famous had died.
I knew they found her body when I heard a muffled shuffling sound and a quiet curse. As I looked up to the ceiling, the officer who had been asking me questions shut his notebook and said: “Is there anyone we can call?” I shook my head and traced the numbers on the phone in the pattern of a cross.
When they brought her down on a gurney, I turned away. I turned away from my wife, my very soul.
After the questions had ceased, after all the information had been taken down, after it was quiet again, I finally remembered Tony’s number. He called Janice, who told Trudee. They said they would come sit with me, but I said I needed to be alone. I sat on the couch until the sun came up. Then I called my boss.
“We can’t give you any sick time right now, Nolan.”
He sounded tired.
“Excuse me?”
“Sick time has been temporarily suspended.”
“Since when?”
“Today.”
“Why?”
“We just can’t afford it anymore.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“If you do not come into work you will be terminated immediately. No severance pay, no extended benefits. Nothing. Am I making myself clear?”
“Perfectly.”
I didn’t go into the office. I mourned my wife.
The four of us who remained discussed it later over hamburgers and milkshakes.
“They won’t let me come back to work.”
Janice leaned into me and stroked my hand. She and Trudee sat close to each other, hip against hip. Since they met four years ago during a yoga class, they had been inseparable. It’s funny: Tony and I never knew Janice was a lesbian until she met Trudee. The two of us had just thought she was another one of those girls who would grow up to be a lonely spinster with too many cats.
“They can’t do that to you.” Janice’s voice was smooth and soft.
“Apparently they can.”
I stirred the melted ice cream in my glass. We were quiet for a while and then Tony leaned his elbows against the table.
“I went to the bank yesterday and they would only let me take out twenty fucking dollars. I have over two thousand mother fuckers in there, but the bastard said I couldn’t have it. I wanted to kick the little cocksucker right in the nuts.”
Trudee shook her head. “It’s a good thing you didn’t. They arrested my neighbor just for yelling at a gas station attendant who wouldn’t give him his full two gallons. They accused him of being a terrorist.”
“What the hell is going on?” Tony slammed his hands down on the table.
The rest of us jumped and shifted in our seats uncomfortably.
When the waitress brought our check, I tried to pay with my credit card. She stood in front of our table and stared at it. Then she shook her head and slid the card back to me.
“I can’t take this.”
“Excuse me?”
“We only take cash now. Cards are no good.”
“What about a debit card? That’s as good as cash.”
The waitress shifted her feet. “Not anymore. Paper money or coins only.”
I felt dizzy, like someone had tipped the world on its side. No one said anything. We managed to scrounge up enough change to pay for our meal and then we left. During those first days, we were still confident that it was all just a phase; a small inconvenience before the triumphant return of normalcy.
Then the riots started. They were small at first: pockets of rebellion that erupted in the dark allies of Seattle, behind strip clubs and seedy bars. They were quelled in a matter of minutes. Then, when people started to realize they no longer had access to their money, they charged the banks. Those disturbances were also put down quietly and without much struggle.
But everything changed on a sunny Saturday afternoon when a mom with four kids fought a young entrepreneur for a sack of potatoes. The reporters dubbed the incident the Safeway Riot. I was there. It wasn’t a riot, it was a massacre.
The shouting started first. A woman’s voice: shrill and terrified. Then a man’s: angry and panicked. It came from the produce section and everyone started to drift in that direction, trying to look nonchalant as though they just wanted to buy a bag of apples.
The woman had four children with her. Two were tucked in the cart: babies, barely old enough to open their eyes. A little girl pressed her face into the woman’s skirt, and a boy stood in front of the cart with his arms crossed against his chest and his feet spread in a wide, threatening stance. The man’s shoes were scuffed and the right elbow of his jacket was torn. The two adults both gripped the same large sack of Russet potatoes.
“I have children, for Christ’s sake!” The woman cried.
“Why should I starve because you overpopulated the planet?”
“They’re children! They need to eat!”
Then they commenced with the pulling and the tugging. The boy tried to kick the man’s shins, but the man just pushed him aside; the boy fell against the produce bin with a loud crack. He sent up a wail so loud that the two adults stopped pulling for just an instant, but neither of them let go of the Russets. The little girl tugged at her mother’s skirt and then she too sent up a scream so shrill I had to cover my ears.
No one in the crowd of onlookers moved to calm the situation. We just stared and wondered when the bag would spill open so we could drop to our knees and scramble for potatoes. A group of people to my right shifted and morphed as they cleared a path for a unit of armed, masked guards. The guards were dressed in dark blue and wore no insignia to tell who they belonged to or who they were protecting. At first we just stared at them and no one spoke. The woman and the man were pulling harder, the children were screaming louder. One of the guards stepped forward and held out his hand.
“Put the bag of potatoes on the ground and step away.”
They didn’t listen. And then the crowd jostled forward and one of the guards near the back was bumped. There was a shuffle, a commotion and then another guard shouted: “He’s got a gun.” Then the shooting started.
The woman in front of me slumped to a heap on the ground, crushing her daughter under her heavy weight. The man was flung backwards, still clutching the sack of potatoes. He fell against a pile of rotting oranges and slid to the ground. The boy just sat down on the floor and his head fell forward against his chest. His arms were still crossed as though he just needed a moment to think, but the puddle of deep crimson forming under him was a clear indication that he would never stand again. The shooting stopped for just an instant, as if the guards had realized their mistake.
And in that moment, as the cries of the two infants filled the store, the crowd rushed forward against the guards. Their arms and fingers stretched toward the sack of potatoes that the dead man still held in his arms. As a heap of writhing, shouting monsters began to take shape, the shooting started again.
I fled, leaving my cart in the aisle; the sound of gunshots echoed behind me. When I got home, I locked all the doors and turned off the lights. I took my handgun out of its safe and set it on the couch cushion next to me, where Kari used to sit when we watched old movies.
When my phone rang, I picked it up, but I didn’t speak.
“Nolan?” It was Tony. “Nolan? What the fuck? Answer me you stupid mother fucker!”
“It’s over, Tony.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“We’re finished.”
“Are you high? Did you have too much to drink again?”
“This is the end, Tony. The fucking end.” I slammed the receiver back into its cradle.
The phone rang again. I ignored it and turned on the television. Breaking news: a bomb hit the Federal Building. Three city blocks had collapsed. Thousands were missing and presumed dead. As I watched the screen, I looked past the reporter to the blurred background of gray ash and crumbling concrete. A woman stumbled from the wreckage. Her hand was pressed against a deep gash in her forehead. Blood pulsed between her fingers and slid into her eyes and down to her mouth. As she drew closer to the camera, I knew that it was Trudee. She and Jancie attended a yoga class near there, every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. Her mouth was open in a silent scream. Janice was not with her.
An hour later, Tony was on my front porch.
“Nolan! Open the fucking door.”
I slid open the deadbolt to let him in. I gripped the gun at my side so tight my fingers ached.
“Shit.” Tony stepped back and almost stumbled down the porch steps. He regained his footing and pushed past me into the house. “Put that thing away, Nolan. It’s just me for fuck’s sake.”
I went back to the couch.
Tony stood behind me for a few minutes as we watched the screen flash from shots of the Federal Building, to the Safeway store, to a group of helicopters touching down in a high school football field.
“Jesus fucking Christ.” Tony whistled through his teeth. “What the hell is going on?”
I turned up the volume.
“Nolan?” Tony’s voice was quiet.
I ignored him.
“Nolan.” Again, but with more force.
I scratched the back of my neck.
“God damn it, Nolan.”
Then he was standing in front of me, blocking the television.
“Listen to me, Nolan. You know that bomb? Down at the Federal Building?”
If I stared between his legs I could still see the reporter’s chin moving up and down.
“Janice and Trudee were down there.”
He waited. When I stayed silent, he sighed.
“They didn’t make it.”
His voice faltered and as he swallowed, I heard his Adam’s apple scratch against his throat.
“Trudee was able to get to a hospital, but it was too late. She’d lost too much blood.”
Another pause. Tony shifted his weight.
“They managed to pull Janice out of the rubble, but she was already dead. Crushed. They said she didn’t feel any pain.” He finished and hung his head, closing his eyes and rubbing his temples.
I stroked the cold metal barrel of the gun. “I know. I saw it on TV.”
Tony looked back up at me. His mouth opened and then closed. Then he shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. When he left, he told me he’d be back tomorrow to make sure I was okay and to start making plans. He didn’t tell me what kind of plans. I didn’t ask.
Late that night, the Governor of Washington stood next to the President of the United States and they declared a state of martial law. It was the only thing they could do. How else could order be re-established? How else could we bring ourselves back around to a state of decadence? They implemented an eight o’clock curfew. People were only allowed to travel during the day. Ration cards were passed out. Guards were stationed at all grocery stores and gas stations. All other businesses were temporarily shut down. Permits were required for any travel outside the defined neighborhood boundaries. Seattle was quarantined. The rest of the nation was safe. The government had everything under control again.
But panic doesn’t need a permit. It started to creep through the invisible lines of safety. Soon the rest of Washington was in chaos. Then Oregon. Then Idaho. Then California. And when it hit California, there was no stopping it.
The looters were the most dangerous. Angry people with nothing to loose. They started breaking into grocery stores, gas stations, banks, schools, churches, houses. Anyplace they could find. Anything they could smash. Anything they could take. The guards were ordered to shoot first and never ask questions. The government was silent.
The first thing I did was board up the windows. Since I couldn’t go down to the hardware store I had to pull up the wood flooring in the kitchen. All night my house was filled with the screech of nails being ripped from their holds and the roaring buzz of my screwdriver. When I finally found the plywood underneath, it was morning. I used everything: sheets of plywood, lengths of hardwood flooring, broken pieces of molding. Every piece of wood I could find was used to cover each piece of exposed glass. I even nailed plywood to the windows on the second story. People will try anything when the end is near.
I pushed the bookshelf behind the front door and tilted the couch on its side against the garage door. Then I pulled the mattress from the bedroom downstairs to the living room and I sat in the middle of it, legs crossed. The electricity was still on, but I kept the lights off. When slim streams of yellow snuck in around the cracks and edges of the boards, I sealed everything with duct tape. The television was the only source of brightness I allowed into the house.
The reporters were trying to make sense of it all. They were asking bystanders, business owners, political analysts, family members, anyone who would speak into their microphone: “Where is the President?” “What do you think should be done to end this crisis?” “How are you protecting your family?”
It was easy to spot those who were most desperate. They opened their eyes too wide and pulled their lips up in a vicious snarl. In their arms they clutched plastic bags of canned goods, non-perishable items, anything that would sustain them until the market turned around, until the riots ended. At gas stations they were found crouching around the hole in the cement, plunging for fuel, pushing and shoving, screaming and cursing. They ran in packs, trampling anything that crossed their path: guards, old women, children, it didn’t matter.
As I watched them, I wondered how long I would be able to stay boarded up in my house. My pantry was not properly stocked. Just a month ago all I had to do was go to the store, smile at the cashier and swipe my credit card. Now all I had was one can of kidney beans, a half sack of rice, a spoonful of peanut butter (if I scraped the edges just right) and a moldy heel of bread.
When Tony knocked on my door for the second time in two days I didn’t answer. I could hear him yelling, though his words were muffled and distant.
“Let me in you God damn prick. The whole world’s gone crazy. We gotta get the fuck out of here.”
Tony continued to pound on my door for over an hour. Still I said nothing. When it was quiet again I knew he had gone. He was not the type of person who would sit with his back against the front door and wait.
When the hunger started, I ate the peanut butter first. Slowly, with just the tip of my finger.
***
They finally shut off the electricity this morning. One minute there was the comforting hum of the static and fuzz from the television (it has been a while since I have seen any real picture, heard any type of reporting). Then there was a loud click and the sigh of everything shutting down. Then silence. Then utter darkness.
I don’t know what’s going on outside anymore. Every once in a while I hear the occasional shattering of glass, a siren, a distant shout. A group of looters tried to break in. It seems like it happened years ago, but I suspect it was only a few days ago, maybe a few hours. They broke the glass and tried to pound away the boards. I shouted at them. I told them I had a gun and I would blow off their fucking heads. They left me alone. Now when the wind shifts, thin trails of choking, bitter smoke seep into the house. The tape can’t hold it back. It smells like fear and death and human hair.
I don’t know how long it’s been. I didn’t think to make scratch marks on the wall with a kitchen knife until it was too late. The beans are gone. The peanut butter empty. There are bugs in the rice. I didn’t save any containers of water and the toilets have run dry.
The gun lies next to me on the mattress. There were five of us before it all fell apart. Tomorrow none will remain.
About the Author
After receiving a Bachelor’s Degree in English from Vanguard University of Southern California, Valerie moved north to Portland, Oregon where she continued writing with the slow-moving tenacity of the undead. When she’s not writing (or throwing the tennis ball for her dog), she is reading any and all books she can get her hands on and watching apocalyptic movies with the curtains closed.
©2008 Valerie Geary
