And in the Dark They Are Born, Part 11
"Silence."
CHAPTER 15
FOUR BUILDINGS POPULATE the west side of the town’s lone dirt road. Marked in white paint on rotting plywood, feet above fruit pallets serving as doors, from north to south: McPHERSON’s PUB, McPHERSON’s HARDWARE, McPHERSON’s CLOTHING and McPHERSON’s ACCOUNTING, all constructed with bricks of varying color—dark red specked white, yellow-chipped blue, a green one here, an orange one there.
Between each building are narrow, two-foot-wide alleys cluttered with step-ladders and five-gallon buckets half-filled with what Vitri, drawing closer and closer, hand on his pistol’s grip, confirms to be mortar. The road itself, though it dead-ends with cattails and tree stumps twelve feet after McPHERSON’s ACCOUNTING, houses nothing. No debris, no gutted vehicles, no bodies, nothing but dirt, the occasional divot from which a boulder has been removed.
Walking alongside the fronts of each building, Vitri passes windows of all shapes and sizes—some tall, skinny and towering, some squared just larger than a postage stamp, others as long as his hand but as wide as he is tall. All are intact. Smeared, yes, with fingerprints, the sporadic palm, but clear and glared enough by the sun that Vitri has to press his face to the glass to peer in.
Barstools of varying heights are scattered within the pub, turbulently surrounding the mismatched café tables anterior to a bar of brick-supported plywood. Atop the shelves behind the bar are mason jars filled with clear and amber liquids. There is a four-spout tap.
The hardware store has hammers on hooks, cardboard shelves bowing beneath various tool belts, power drills and handsaws. A drill press seems to guard the door.
Inside McPHERSON’s CLOTHING are separate displays of laceless sneakers and boots, dilapidated sandals. The two mannequins toward the back sport faded ball caps whose brands are illegible. Draped over their necks and shoulders are silk scarves and faux leather belts.
The east side of the road is scant in comparison, one modest brick building appearing lonely but somehow stout, equipped with a thick glass door and accompanying windows to its right and left. McPHERSON’s THEATRE, its sign declares and toward its doors walks Reyn.
Vitri watches her stop and gawk at the posters hanging in each window. Citizen Kane. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Action stills. A black and white Orson Welles gripping a podium. An armed Jimmy Stewart. He watches her resume her stride, and though he cannot pinpoint what triggers it, something in Vitri shifts. The whole thing shifts. Replaced is the river with the distant cityscape of Waco. Gone is the gravel; beneath him is asphalt. Beside him is his truck. The theatre is reduced to a one-story schoolhouse, the glass doors of which capture a fogged reflection of his son’s curious face. One month ago. The last time the two of them were alone.
“He asks about you,” his wife had said the night before, bundling herself in a quilt before lying on her and Vitri’s bed, beside their sleeping son. “About where you go.”
“What do you tell him?” Vitri asked, situating his own makeshift bed on the carpet.
“I tell him what you tell me.” She then rolled to her stomach. Laid her cheek on the pillow with no apparent intent to respond.
Vitri sat on the foot-end of the bed. He placed his hand on her covered calf. Contemplated telling her what he’d done that day after she yanked her leg away. That, like many other days, he’d driven to the junkyard and, as quietly as he could, switched out the half-filled excrement drums for emptier barrels and five-gallon pails. That, as he scooped out canned peas with his fingers, he watched the sad Brazos flow around a Geo Metro impaled by the sharp edge of a downed log. That at dusk and from a distance he watched a single file line of people enter a church. That within moments the church was aflame. That the only person that exited was a woman that flung herself to the ground and rolled.
“Which is?”
“Nothing,” Vitri’s wife said. “I tell him you do nothing. Just like we do nothing.”
“You can’t tell him that.”
Vitri’s wife rolled back over, her eyes barely visible in the dark. “What else would you call it?”
“Surviving, that’s what I’d call it.”
“No. You wait, Vitri.” She said this with an ease that signaled to Vitri that she’d ran the thought through her mind over, and over, and over. “That’s what you do. You wait for the world to tilt back to normal. You wait for people you know to return.” She rolled back over. “You just do it in a different part of town than we do.”
Vitri began tallying the hours he’d spent in thought, the afternoons at Cameron Park, sitting amongst the tall grass and weeds, feet from where he’d proposed to her, the mornings he’d attempt to siphon gas from the same cars on the same streets, in case gallons had magically appeared overnight, how he’d sit on the curb after one or two and feel sorry for himself, pity evolving to guilt, guilt evolving to worry, worry to—
He woke his son early the next morning. Staved off his own anxiety as he led his son to the truck and did his best to demonstrate how he wanted him to lay on the floor, tucked beneath the glove compartment. Drove to the rural schoolhouse, something Vitri justified was both new and familiar to the boy. Felt pride in how his son, despite the amount of dust, treated each and every abandoned object with respect—the reams of paper, the books, the calculators, the rulers, the chalkboards.
And Vitri felt joy, in how, on the drive home, his son, tucked beneath the glove compartment, giggled at each pothole Vitri rumbled over with the S10. And Vitri laughed, and Vitri swerved, and the boy giggled harder, and Vitri laughed harder, and they both seemed to, just for a moment, forget all that had—
Vitri is forced to re-enter the present when Reyn tugs at the doors of the theatre, causing its locks to rattle, its glass to jiggle. She tries again, and again, and again, leaning her weight back, back so far.
Stop, he thinks. You’re being too loud. Stop. He wills his legs to move. Walks across the road, to her. Fifteen feet away. Ten. Eight.
“Hey!” a voice from behind Vitri. A man’s voice but cracking, low to high, bass to tenor. It’s a voice that hasn’t been stretched this far in some time. “Take your hand off our fucking door!” Footsteps follow the voice, gravel embedded between treads.
Vitri grips the 9mm as he turns, slowing only when he sees that it not just one man, but two, fifteen feet apart and walking toward the theatre, arms outstretched, pistols aimed. One is auburn-bearded and in a loose white tank and blue jeans, the other clean-shaven and wearing camoflauged cargo pants and a black baseball cap. Behind them, the door to McPHERSON’s ACCOUNTING is open.
Reyn continues to tug.
“Tell her to stop,” the black baseball cap says, voice deep, heavy, and smooth, rolling off his tongue with the subtlest of southern drawls.
Vitri reaches out to Reyn. Taps her on the shoulder. She turns around and, upon seeing the two men, juts her arms into the sky. Two, Vitri thinks. Two bullets left in the 9mm. Maybe three. Enough, he thinks, enough if well-placed.
The two men stop in the middle of the road, twenty feet away.
“Toss out the boom stick,” the bearded man says. “Toss it on the ground or, we shit you not, we will shoot.”
There is no hesitation. Vitri tosses the 9mm to the dirt. Looks at Reyn. Her hands are still in the air. Her eyes are fastened to the ground.
“Smart man,” the bearded one says. Later, Vitri will look at the man’s thick head of hair and think of high tide, it looking like some rust-colored wave crashing on his right ear. He keeps his pistol aimed as he closes the gap between he and the black-capped man. The tattoos on his shoulders have faded to grey and are crisped over by peeling skin.
The man in the black cap shoves his silver pistol in his hip holster. Approaches Vitri. His eyes are two hazel stones dropped in a still pond, wrinkles rippling down his cheeks. “What color are you?” he asks, grabbing Vitri’s scarf. His hand smells of shaving cream. There is a nick along his upper lip seeping red.
“What color?” Vitri asks.
“Yeah, motherfucker, what color are you?” The bearded man presses the barrel of his pistol to Vitri’s temple.
“Aggression’s the obvious answer, isn’t it?” The man says to his partner. He takes off his black cap. Squints into the sun. Rubs his hand over his thinning scalp. Puts his hat back on. “Jesus, back off a little, would ya? They’re complying.” he says to the bearded man. “Pick up his gun.” Seeing that his partner has obeyed, he then reaches out his hand. “What’s in the backpack?”
Vitri slowly slides the backpack from his shoulders. “I carry the weapons,” he says. Without looking at Reyn, he adds, “She carries the food.”
The man in the black cap unzips Vitri’s backpack and inserts his hand. “You’re the armory,” he says to Vitri, “and she’s the diner. That’s cute.”
The bearded man shoves Vitri’s pistol in his waistband. Stares at Reyn. “Bullshit,” he says. Steps toward her. “Give me that fuckin’ bag.”
“What did I just say?” the man in the black cap says. “Calm. The fuck. Down.” He shoves Vitri’s toothbrush into the front pocket of his cargo pants, returns the backpack to Vitri, then proceeds to graze his hands over all of Vitri’s pockets, the only sound that of paper crumpling. “Just pat her ass down.” He finds Vitri’s folded knife. Places that into a different pocket. “You heard the man—they ain’t masked—so stop being so damn disrespectful.”
Crouched to Reyn and ignorant of his partner’s shaking head, the bearded man pats down Reyn’s shoulders and torso, hips and legs. He points at the bruise on her cheek. “He do that to you, sweetheart?”
“Her name’s Jane,” Vitri says.
“I asked her, not you,” the bearded man says. His smile is ear-to-ear, but crooked, the right side of his face dominant, the left less flexible.
“She can’t respond,” Vitri says. “Didn’t hear you either.” He nods at Reyn. “Deaf mute.”
The bearded man stops. Backs away. Looks at Reyn as if she were a defective toy to be boxed up and shipped back to its manufacturer.
“Daughter?” the man in the black cap asks.
Vitri nods.
“Who did that to her face?”
“Two masked men.”
The man in the black cap nods. Crosses his arms. Anchors his weight to his heels. “Color?”
“Red.”
“They can do a number,” the bearded man says. “Still. Pretty girl.”
“What’s your name?” the man in the black cap asks.
“Pete.”
“And where are you two headed, Pete?”
“Florida.”
The man in the black cap goes to talk, but cannot find the words. He opens his mouth. Two of his teeth have decayed to grey. Closes his mouth without a sound. He turns to the bearded man. “Hear that?”
“I heard ‘em.” The bearded man spits on the gravel.
“Florida’s gone, Pete,” the bearded man says, who introduced himself as Ogden moments ago. He leans over a map of North America he has unfolded atop the metal desk on the southern side of McPHERSON’S ACCOUNTING. From panhandle to gulf, a large black X signifies the state’s demise. The Great Lakes are shaded in. A third of Canada. The northern three-quarters of Mexico. All of the northeastern seaboard.
“Gone?” Vitri says.
Ogden straightens his back. Folds his arms. Shakes his head. “You ever see pictures of the drill they supposedly used to dice up that asteroid?”
Vitri nods. Recalls the covers of magazines, video clips of newscasters climbing into a space simulator. Remembers how absurd he thought the ensuing panic was, the urgency to buy products that, if an asteroid of that magnitude did hit, the consumers wouldn’t be alive to use. Remembers comparing it at the time to the Y2K scare he lived through as a kid. Thinks now, albeit briefly, of how much his eyes had aged from one to the next.
“They wheeled that motherfucker in, lined her up at the border and let her rip. Never seen so much goddamn dirt chewed up in my life. Piles of it,” Ogden says. “Mountains of the shit.”
Vitri, flanking the map, looks at Bass, the man in the black cap, who sits in a leather office chair behind an identical metal desk. “You both saw this?” Vitri asks, careful of how much disbelief he reveals in his tone.
Bass nods at Ogden.
Ogden points at a small tattoo halfway up his forearm, the two ascending jets faded with time and sun, more like ravens than jets at all. “Air National Guard,” he says. His voice slips into imitating a superior’s orders. “’Gear up. Report to route whatever-the-fuck.’ That’s all we did: patrol the goddamn roads with our rifles, redirect the curious, send them on their concerned way.” He pauses. “We heard the drill, sure—fuckin’ thing sounded like it had the power of a thousand chainsaws. Shook the whole fucking earth. But none of us thought anything of it until we saw those mountains of dirt, until they told us to move north, to new roads. See, they hauled that shit miles north of the border. Dumped it all. Created some kind o’ wall. After a while, we didn’t hear it anymore. Couldn’t leave, though. God no, we couldn’t leave. ‘Stay put,’ they said. ‘Job ain’t over.’ So we stayed.”
Vitri glances at Reyn, who stands alone near the western wall, peering down the narrow hallway that leads south. He watches her gaze at the magazine clippings stapled to the walls. Centerfolds of long-legged brunettes, snippets of petite blondes with perky breasts. She leans down to inspect the three plastic crates on the hardwood floor, one overflowing with canned goods, another with syringes, some empty, some not, looking just like those he’d pulled out of her backpack following her beating from the red-masked men, those he’d emptied into the trashcan fire. The last crate contains a pile of assorted masks. Leather, plastic, even metal. Red and yellow, green and blue.
“Martinez was the one that saw the drilling from the air,” Ogden says. “Watched its pieces pulled across the gulf. ‘Tugboats the size of Connecticut,’ he said.”
“Martinez was a pilot,” Bass says. “Is a pilot.” He grabs a jar of Vaseline from the windowsill and sets it in the top drawer of his desk, then fiddles with the loose back of his chair. He waits for something from Vitri, for anything, a nod, a question, a laugh. “You think I can’t see ‘bullshit’ written all over your face, Pete?”
“I,” Vitri starts, throat noosed by the words he hopes can justify his expression, “I just—how long ago did this happen, the drilling?”
Ogden scratches his bearded chin as if it will help him articulate what his memories are whispering. “Eight months, maybe nine. Me and Martinez, well me and Martinez—”
“Where is he anyway?” Bass asks. He stands. Adjusts his belt. “Should be here by now.”
“Martinez ain’t no marathoner,” Ogden says. “You know that.” He adjusts his posture as if he were intending to elaborate upon the story of Florida.
“Well, we can’t finish that cellar without him, can we?”
Vitri thinks of the planes. Of cargo being dropped. Of chemicals. Of this Martinez at the controls.
“He’ll be back soon, Bass.”
Bass, looking out the open front door as if Martinez will suddenly appear, says: “Soon isn’t good enough when you’re behind schedule.” His tone shifts, from one of authority to one of anger, to jealousy even, at the notion that Ogden has had the floor for so long. “One day we’re having our shit stolen by those blue fuckers, the next we’re—”
“That was one goddamn time,” Ogden interrupts. He shuts his eyes momentarily. “One time.”
Bass looks at Vitri. “This bastard,” he says, “one day, hmm, a month or two ago, decides it’s in our best interest to start trading with those kids—you’ve seen ‘em, right? Boys, blue masks? Four or five of ‘em just across the river?”
Vitri shakes his head.
“No shit?” Bass looks at Ogden, who, seeming to know where this is going, leans against the nearest wall and crosses his arms. Go on with it, his posture says. Get it out of your system. “Well, one day, when me and Martinez are gone lugging gas God knows where, all of ‘em come here.” He points toward Reyn, toward the narrow hallway. “Because Ogden’s lazy ass is napping in the back room, they startle him when they pound on the door. Boosh-boosh, boosh-boosh, boosh-boosh. And Ogden, as he tells it, says he got up, rifle in hand, ready to blast whoever the fuck was there. But when he opens the door, there they are, carrots in hand. Radishes. Even goddamn broccoli.”
Vitri nods, though he, having not heard a person verbally go to these lengths since Hammer, processes little. Slow down, he thinks, overwhelmed by the voices, the words, the rapidity, the rambling, the conjuring of pointless memories. Wonders what it is that drives a person to open up to a stranger, whether it’s a desire to fill the silence, or if they think the feeling of isolation can be hidden behind mountains of words. Because he can see loneliness in both Ogden and Bass. He can hear it. They’ve heard these words before; they’ve spoken these words before; these words are at once what keeps them feeling lonely and what makes them feel loved.
“And Ogden sees no problem with it. Thinks, ‘Hmm, those veggies look pretty damn tasty,’ and, I mean, I can’t fault him for that. Not at all. They were good. And eating these days is a crapshoot. But as Ogden’s doing all this, as he’s handing the kids some chunks of wood, some nails, whatever, the smallest little bastard’s across the street, climbing in and out of the goddamn theatre and—”
“—Stealing reels,” Ogden interjects. “Armfuls of those silver cans.”
“So,” Bass continues, annoyed, “It takes five minutes or so for Ogden to realize it’s going on at all. When he does, off go the three that were standing in front of him, just bounding down the shore there, tiptoeing across that river on that support we spent three weeks on.”
“I got his ass though, didn’t I?” Ogden says to Bass. He looks at Vitri. “Snatched up the little fucker, brought him back here.”
“Cut his arm off.” Bass straightens his right arm and motions his left hand as if it were a cleaver, slicing where ulna meets radius. “Wasn’t very clean either.”
“Didn’t need to be,” Ogden says.
Vitri looks at Reyn. Wishes she’d stop touching those masks.
Silence.
“He died then, the boy?” Vitri asks. He feels like he is at the store again, behind the counter, letting customers talk, stoking their conversational fire with questions he doesn’t need the answer to.
“I see him every now and then,” Ogden says. “He just does his own thing, really. All of them do. Wander around, grow their food, dig their holes—”
“These ones wouldn’t hurt a fly if it landed in their palm,” Bass says. He nods to Reyn. “Not at all like the savages that did that number to her face.”
“Savages,” Ogden says. “That’s what those reds are. Fucking savages.”
“Yes, yes they are,” Bass says. “Good to have for war, though. Kicking the shit out of the yellows as we speak.”
“Yeah?” Vitri asks.
Bass nods. “You bet.”
In silence, the three men watch Reyn by the crates. Until Reyn notices their gaze and stands.
“Marines and SEALs locked down the internationals,” Ogden says from behind the McPHERSON’s PUB bar. He carries over two mason jars—one of dark beer, one of light—and sets them in front of Reyn and Vitri. “Us? We were posted at local airports. Sometimes regional.”
“Thank you,” Vitri says to Bass. Then, to Ogden: “Why airports?”
“The blackout, as I’m sure you noticed, threw everyone into a tizzy,” Bass says. He watches Ogden step back behind the bar and grab two shot glasses and a bottle of bourbon. “Sounds like you were one of the smart ones and stayed home, but, for the first few weeks or so, wave after wave of people would drive to the airports. New Orleans, Orlando, Birmingham, wherever the fuck else, there they’d be, assuming they could barter for a flight, that, with as little as a few dollars that would become worthless within hours, they’d be able to bribe some pilot into taking them out of the country.” After Ogden sits down, Bass grabs the bottle of bourbon and pours himself a shot. Downs it. “And, well, there Ogden would be.”
“Orders were simple: protect the airport.” Ogden follows suit, takes a shot. “If people drove up, were civil in asking us questions, we’d tell them to fuck off and go on their merry way. And they would. Nobody really put up a fight. But if they came in numbers, if they approached aggressively, orders were to take them out. Neutralize them.”
“And if they somehow broke through the lines,” Bass says, “if they reached an aircraft with someone competent enough to fly the damn thing, that’s where Martinez would come in.”
“He’d circle all day. Make his rounds. Refuel. Make his rounds, refuel.”
Vitri sips the dark beer. Flat, homemade, bitter. Thinks only of Carmen, at sea, treading water after leaping from the edge of a floating landmass. Pictures her somehow escaping the state before the drilling. He nudges the other mason jar toward Reyn. “Did you ever—?”
“Kill anyone?” Ogden says. He pours another shot. “No. Like I said, people were pretty civil about it all. Then again, word spreads, you know? People tend to wise up once they see or hear one or two go down.”
“None of this happened in—” Bass pauses. “Where are you two from?”
Vitri looks at Reyn. She sniffs her beer, rotates her glass. Sniffs it some more. “San Antonio.”
“Nothing of the sort there?”
“If there was, we didn’t see it. Certainly didn’t see anyone digging up the border.”
“It’ll happen,” Bass says. He downs another shot. “You just wait. It’ll happen. Louisiana’s next and I assume they’ll just keep working their way west, treating the land like it’s a fucking jigsaw puzzle.” He pours more bourbon.
Ogden starts laughing, but not at Bass. “First drink with the old man?” he says, referring to Reyn’s scrunched face.
Vitri forces a smile, though it pains him to see how hard Reyn is trying to keep the beer in her mouth. “This is a first, that’s for sure.”
“How old is young Jane anyway?” Ogden asks. His crooked smile reappears.
Vitri doesn’t know. He realizes he has never asked. Refuses to look at Reyn. Has to be fifteen. “Sixteen,” he says, more for himself than anyone else at the table. Because it hits him in a painful way, what he did last night. What he’s done to this girl, this kid. He looks down. Sips his beer.
“Only kid?”
Vitri nods.
“And deaf to boot?”
Vitri nods.
“Jesus,” Ogden says. “Got yourself a pretty little wife though, I suppose?”
Don’t fucking go there. “I did, yeah,” Vitri says. He stares into the mason jar. Pictures her lying in that shallow hole, entry wound just above her ear. Don’t fucking go there. Hair stained red, coyotes’ teeth stained red, all stained red.
“How’d she go?” Bass asks.
Vitri fidgets in his chair. Bullet. Scratches his neck. Suicide. Announces as confidently as he can, “Savages. Unmasked. But savages.”
“Fuckin’ savages,” Ogden says.
“Savages,” Bass says.
They all take a drink. Even Reyn, though her reaction is delayed.
Silence.
Vitri watches Ogden lift his right arm and scratch his armpit. Inches beneath the clump of auburn-colored hair are small groupings of scars, all pink and no wider than a pen’s point. He clears his throat. “This is great, guys. Really, thank you,” he says. He watches Ogden and Bass nod their responses. “I think that what you guys have done here is beautiful. Beautiful work. I guess what I’m not understanding is, well, I imagine this has taken a long time. Gathering the materials, raising the walls with only three men—”
“Gonna be a while before we get it just right, too,” Bass says. “River has to dry up a bit more but, when it does, we’re heading north. We’re heading east. We’re expanding.”
“Bridges,” Ogden says. “Gazebos.”
“Have us some plans for a restaurant, a grocery store, even a hotel.” Bass doesn’t bother pouring himself another shot. Swigs from the bottle instead. “I’m being rude, though. Before I cut you off, it sounded like you were going to ask us a question.” Bass doesn’t bother to look at Ogden. Ask me, his stare says. Ask me. “What’s your question, Pete?”
“Why?” Vitri says. “Why do it?”
Despite his low, heavy voice, Bass’s cackle is piercing.
Ogden has no reaction.
“I’m sorry,” Bass says. “Before I answer that,” he says, leaning forward, “can I ask you a few questions?”
After sipping from his beer, Vitri works to mirror Bass. Shoulders hunched, leaning forward. “Sure.”
“Just looking at you,” Bass says, “my guess would be that you’re somewhere in your thirties. Upper thirties, mid-to-upper. But how old are you?”
“Forty-two.”
“And what was it you did before this lovely continent of ours turned to shit? Did you sit in a cubicle and crunch numbers, populate the fuck out of a spreadsheet? Were you one of those ‘prompt engineers’? One of them ‘social media specialists’?”
“I owned and operated a store.”
“What kind of store?” Bass asks, eyebrows narrowed, upset that he was off in his assessment. When Vitri points to the scarf on his neck, Bass smiles. “Still sporting your own brand, huh? Now that’s dedication.” He raises his shot glass to Ogden, though Ogden pays little attention, eyes flickering at Reyn every few seconds. “You build the store from the ground up then?”
Vitri shakes his head. “Parents did. Passed it down to me when they’d had enough.”
“Sounds about right,” Bass says. His tone says he has rediscovered comfort, a comfort that comes with a correct assessment. “See, and my guess is that you had yourself a small staff, if any staff at all, and that, by the end of the day, by closing time, you, exhausted Pete, were ready to tap out, throw in the towel. You were ready to have that fucking store demolished, am I right? I mean, just how much time were you able to devote to little Jane over there? An hour on Sundays? Maybe two?”
“Still wish I’d had more,” Vitri says.
“And how about your pretty wife? How many times you fuck her each week?”
Silence.
“Never enough, right?” Bass takes another swig from the bottle. “And that’s my point. Don’t go feeling bad about it, because that was me, too.” Another swig. “I don’t do it often, Pete, and I don’t do it for many, but I’m going to let you in on something, something a little more on the personal side. See, for nine years I worked construction. Had this shit boss named Thompson that paid me what he deemed I was worth to tweak strip malls, to build China Woks and Red Woks and Blue Woks and any kind of Wok you can think of. I built chicken shacks, and I built massage parlors, and, well, I built whatever else I was told to build.”
Vitri notices Bass’s hands then, dirt-crusted calluses along each palm, a festered blood blister on the stretch of skin between his right thumb and index finger, a large grey oval needing only a pin prick to burst red.
“By year nine, I was pretty damn good. Had lived beneath that line they call poverty all my life so I appreciated my raises, the one-percents and the two-percents, the small handouts that keep the desperate coming back. Still enjoyed some aspects of the job, too. Enough not to tell Thompson to fuck off and quit, at least. Well, one day, I get one of these handouts. Unexpectedly, no less. Just some Tuesday or Wednesday, Thompson drives out to the strip mall me and my crew were at, finds me, and says, ‘You can cut out early today. You deserve it.’ And, you know what? I did deserve it. I took that money, I got in my truck and I went home, thinking that, hey, tonight we’ll celebrate a bit. I’ll take my wife and boys out to dinner and a movie. Didn’t even matter where we ate, or what we saw. Didn’t make the slightest of fucking differences to me.” Bass sighs. “So I go home, to the two-bed-two-bath we could afford, and what do you think I find when I get there?” Bass pauses. Refuses to blink. “I walk in and I see two men fucking my wife. Right there, on the living room sofa. And I go numb. I mean, I go can’t-even-shut-the-door-behind-me numb. I just watch. But then, to my left, I hear a voice—I hear my youngest whisper, ‘Dad.’ So I look, and there, beside him is his brother. Both are just standing in the hallway, seeing all this. So I go ballistic. I take the ball-point hammer from my tool belt and beam one of the guys in the back of the head. The other one pulls out of my wife and proceeds to beat the hell out of me. In front of my cheating wife, in front of my sons, still hard, boner swinging all over the damn place.” Bass’s stare becomes distant, the memory still vivid, the wound still open.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Vitri offers.
Bass waves off Vitri’s apology. “No need. Past is the past, right?” He leans in. “That doesn’t mean that I didn’t spend months trying to find the why. That’s what we do, isn’t it, try to find the why? Even if it isn’t there, that’s what we look for, omitting the when, the what and the how. Pointless. Dog chasing their tail kind of shit. But, with my wife, there was a why. There was a reason why she did what she did. There was a reason why she won custody. There was a reason why she moved to Missouri.” Bass pauses. The reason is routine.”
“Routine?”
“Routine,” Ogden says.
“My routine,” Bass says. “For nine years, I’d be up and gone by six to some job site, never to be seen by or heard from until seven, even eight on some nights. Did I have to do that? Did I have to work those hours? No. Hell no. I could’ve shortened it by at least a few, told her to find some work, enrolled the boys in a day care. But did I? Nope. I wanted her to watch the kids. I wanted to be the bread-winner. I wanted to be the lone supporter of the family. Just like my dad. Just like his dad. Blah fucking blah.” Another swig from the bottle. “So what was she supposed to do? Cook all damn day? Call her friends while they were at work? No. Not a chance. Took me a while to realize that. Took getting fired. Took telling my lawyer I couldn’t afford him. Took several hours spent alone. But, when I did, I started my own business. Worked whenever I wanted to, whenever I needed to, whenever I felt like it. World started going under. Last phone call I made was to Ogden.”
“Came here as soon as I could,” Ogden says.
“Yes, yes, you did,” Bass says. He punctuates his gratitude with a swig from the bottle, which, between the two of them, is half-gone.
Unlike before, Vitri is not lost in this conversation. He just doesn’t know what to say. His question hasn’t been directly answered, but he doesn’t know how to ask it again. He watches Bass’s hand briefly. How he bounces his index and middle fingers on the table makes it seem that he is craving a cigarette.
“I’ll tell you what, though,” Bass says to Vitri, “that whole thing, that whole fucking mess made me a better person. You want to know why? You want to know that why? Huh, Pete, do you?” When Vitri still utters nothing, Bass leans in closer. “Ask me how.”
“How did it make you a better person?”
“It taught me just how malleable we are. Torqued to fit a scheme some fucker thought up from his gravestone, until we don’t know how to take a step back and examine the big picture, until we blindly accept that mediocrity.” Bass leans back. Crosses his arms. “We’re resistant only when our routines are challenged. Which makes for quite the cluster fuck in a time of crisis. ‘The world’s gone to shit,’ we say, looking back fondly on those long ass drives to work, that shitty gas station coffee we sipped. But, really, so fucking what if the world’s gone to shit? So fucking what?” Bass takes one last sip from the bottle of bourbon, then plugs the opening with its stray cork. “It doesn’t for one second mean that your life has to go to shit along with it. Know what I’m saying?”
I don’t. “I do,” Vitri says, eyes on the cork, hoping it means that this will soon be over, that in moments Bass will rise from the table, then Ogden, and send he and Reyn on their way. “I really do.”
“I’m glad you do,” Bass says. “But I don’t believe I’ve given a proper answer to your question. You asked me why, why we’re doing this, you asked what the fucking point was. And though I can only speak for myself here, the answer is quite simple: as an assimilating man of a confused society, I had everything taken from me. My home, my wife, my children, my livelihood. Just gone, like snow in June.” Bass leans forward. “You just wait. Soon enough we’ll be out to sea, sold to goddamn Spain, Sweden, Japan, whatever other country that’s been salivating since our plug was pulled. What will we have when we’re being pulled through the waves? This is what we’ll have. This. We’re taking home with us.”
Ogden breaks the silence: “Bass always says, ‘Turn the world upside-down and you give the wounded man an opportunity—to shape what’s left into whatever he wants.”
Bass smiles at his own words being repeated back to him.
Vitri looks from Bass to his beer, from his beer to Reyn, who stares at the ceiling.
“Boy should’ve run for mayor,” Ogden says.
Ogden locks the pub after Vitri, Reyn and Bass walk out to the road. The sky is clear, the sun high, looping toward night. Bass leads them all toward McPHERSON’S ACCOUNTING once more, where Reyn and Vitri’s few belongings remain.
“If I were you two,” Bass begins, without turning to acknowledge them, “I’d turn right around. Head northwest. They say Seattle hasn’t been touched yet.”
“Seattle? Really?” I’m not going to Seattle. Not for a second. I’m not going west. Whether Reyn comes along or not, he’ll walk north, if only to allow Ogden and Bass to believe they’d made an impact, and then he’ll turn east. Somehow, he’ll cross the river, and, somehow, he’ll cross into Florida, and, somehow, he’ll find Carmen. He’ll do it. Over an hour of wasted words won’t alter his aim.
“Really,” Bass says, then stops. Turns around. “You two go on ahead. We’ll be right there.” He steps to the side and waves Reyn and Vitri forward.
Which strikes Vitri as odd only after they have passed, when he looks back to see Ogden and Bass, halted, and whispering, words unintelligible from a dozen feet away. Vitri stops. Reyn continues, looks back at Vitri once she reaches the door.
More whispers.
As politely as he can, Vitri clears his throat, then says, “We’re hoping to cover some ground before sundown.”
More whispers. More. And then, as slowly as their voices heighten, Ogden and Bass start walking.
“I just think she’s getting a little antsy is all,” Vitri says. “Not used to this.”
“Oh, I don’t think Jane looks antsy at all,” Ogden says, continuing toward Reyn.
“Before you two do take off,” Bass says, “me and Ogden here have a proposal.”
Vitri’s mind jolts from one possibility to the next, from Bass asking he and Reyn to stay and run one of the stores, to Bass enlisting their help for the construction of that gazebo.
“What would that be?” Vitri asks.
Ogden steps closer to Reyn; Bass steps closer to Vitri.
“It’s important to note, Pete,” Bass says, “that what we want from you is going to happen whether you accept the proposal or not. The reason we’re proposing anything is, well, we were just talking, and you seem like a good man, Pete, a smart man, a man who understands trade.” When all Bass receives from Vitri is a squint, he continues, “What I mean to say is that, despite all that’s happened to this here land, Ogden and I still believe that there’s a time and a place that civility must be maintained. And this is just such a time. We believe that a father’s consent is important.”
“Bottom line is that neither me or Bass here have been able to take our eyes off your daughter.”
Bass glares at Ogden. “What he means is that, well, women don’t come through here very often.”
“And when they do, they’re always two days from death,” Ogden says.
“Would you shut the fuck up, please?” Bass says. “You’re making a goddamn fool of yourself.” He returns his eyes to Vitri. “It’s also important for you to know, Pete, that we have no intentions of harming your daughter. There will be no violence. You will find no new bruises on her body. You have my word.”
Silence.
Vitri stares at Bass. His eyes shift from Bass to Reyn, from Reyn to Ogden. Back to Reyn. You won’t.
“What do you say, Pete?” Bass circles. Places himself between Vitri and Reyn.
Silence.
Ogden sighs. “Come on,” he says beneath his breath.
You won’t. “You won’t hurt her?” Vitri asks.
“Swear to God.”
Vitri crosses his arms. “And what did you say about trade?”
“Jesus Christ,” Ogden says.
“It’s his fucking daughter, you asshole,” Bass says. “It takes time to accept such a thing.”
“Well if he’d been bending his cousin over a goddamn office chair for months, I’m sure he’d be a little anxious too.”
Fury then consumes Bass’s body. His eyes widen as he turns to Ogden. He steps toward him. Swings with a closed right fist. Strikes him in the throat with enough force to send him to the ground. His gasps for air are obstructed by two quick strikes to his chest. Bass pushes himself off of the ground. Stares at a frightened Reyn. Turns to Vitri.
“Trade, yeah, trade,” Bass says. Ogden’s gasping quiets. He rolls to his side and pushes himself to his feet. “We can do that. Food, weapons, you name it. Name your price.”
Vitri looks at Reyn. You won’t. “What kinds of weapons?”
“Name it.”
You won’t. “Rifles?”
Ogden nods.
“Available for trade?” Bass says. “Two M4s, one Springfield.”
“I’ll take the two M4s,” Vitri says. “And ammo. Enough for Seattle.”
Bass turns to Ogden. They nod at one another. “Deal,” Ogden says. He extends a hand, which is not met by Vitri.
“One other condition,” Vitri says.
Bass retracts his hand. “What’s that?”
“I get to watch.” Vitri waits for the confusion to take shape in both of their faces. “You gave me your word that she wouldn’t be hurt. But I don’t believe you. Not for a fucking second. I need to see it for myself.”
“You don’t want to watch, Pete,” Bass says.
“We won’t hurt her, but it’ll be painful for you,” Ogden struggles to say.
“You don’t think I’ve endured pain?”
“Didn’t say that,” Bass says. He pulls the pistol from his holster. “Didn’t say that at all. What I’m saying is that you’re not going to watch. You’re not going to step foot in that fucking building. You’re going to stand out here, we’re going to lock that door, and you’re going to wait until we’re done. And when we are done, we’ll give you those weapons.” Bass steps toward Reyn. “Is that clear?”
Vitri remains still. Fuck you. “Then bring her backpack out here.”
“What?”
“Bring her fucking backpack out here then,” Vitri says. “If I can’t come in, if I can’t be by her side, I at least have to tell her—write to her—what’s going on. Otherwise she’s going to fight. I can promise you that. She’s going to bite, and she’s going to dig, and she’s going to claw.”
Silence.
Stares. Skepticism. Unsure footsteps.
Ogden, to Bass: “What difference does it make? Just give him the fuckin’ backpack.”
“You searched hers, right?”
Ogden nods.
No you didn’t.
“You’re sure?”
“All that was in there was food,” Ogden says. “He’s the armory, she’s the diner. Remember?”
At that, Bass steps past Reyn and enters the building alone, footsteps creaking across the hardwood. “Give him the backpacks then,” he says.
Ogden follows.
Vitri walks to Reyn. Does not crouch. Can barely look at her.
When Ogden emerges once more from the building, he is shirtless. A thin tribal tattoo wraps from oblique to oblique. The rest is partitioned off by tan-lines, bare and white. In his hand is a backpack.
“Hurry up,” he says as he hands it over.
Vitri drops the backpack to the ground, then unzips the largest pocket. He pulls out the notebook. Uncaps a pen. Writes. Caps the pen, shoves it into his pocket. Hands the notebook to Reyn.
She only reads it once. And, as if she were expecting it, as if she knew all along she was to be dispensable, Reyn, without so much as a glance at Vitri, drops the notebook on the ground and leads Ogden past Bass and into McPHERSON’s ACCOUNTING.
“That’s a good girl,” Ogden says.
From the doorframe, Bass nods at Vitri, then shuts the door behind him. Locks it.
Vitri crouches to grab the notebook. Because he knows Bass is watching him from the window, he places it into the backpack as slowly as possible, as dramatically as possible. He looks to the sky as if answers are to be found there. He waits. And he listens.
“You take her clothes off,” he hears Bass say.
Ogden: “I get to go first then.”
A belt buckle clangs off of the hardwood floor.
“Like hell you do.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
Boots are taken off, flung toward a wall.
“Because you told that shithead out there that you fuck me in the ass, that’s why.”
At that, Vitri re-ties the scarf around his nose and mouth, then reaches back into Reyn’s backpack. Finds the sickle. Sets it aside. Locates the .22 pistol. Racks it. Stands. Turns to the door of McPHERSON’s ACCOUNTING. Takes a deep breath.
Listen to Part 11 Author Commentary
Peek behind the scenes of Part 11 with author Garrett Francis.