ELLIOT
NOVEMBER 2020
Elliot’s first call of the day was a welfare check on East 147th Street. A pair of sisters in California hadn’t heard from their mother in a few days and she wasn’t answering the phone. He mounted the steps of the red-brick building and visited the super, who occupied a glass-fronted office just inside the entryway. She was ensconced behind a wraparound desk and appeared to be playing computer solitaire. A typed sign on her door said KNOCK FOR EMERGENCY.
Elliot pushed it open without knocking. “Hello, ma’am. I noticed the outside lock is broken.”
The super turned away from the game on her screen and shrugged. Elliot could see her noting his uniform. “Doesn’t seem to make much difference,” she said, with what seemed like an effort at politeness. “I used to buzz in everyone who rang, anyway.” She rolled back a few inches in her desk chair. “People aren’t really missing the human touch these days.”
Elliot showed her his badge. “We received a call about apartment 4A. Can I have the key?”
She produced it from a drawer and prodded it across the desk to him, using a piece of plastic tubing she seemed to keep for this purpose. She wouldn’t meet his eyes. He wondered if she suspected what might be awaiting him on the fourth floor.
Elliot mounted the stairs without passing any other tenants. It was not so different from his own building: seemingly rent-controlled, and unrenovated since the 1970s.
He began to smell the slightly sweet, putrid odour as he was unlocking the door, and he braced himself for a dash inside. Protocol required a hazmat team, but only once he had eyes on the deceased and could call it in.
* * *
—
The delicate duty of death notification was passed along to officers in California, but Elliot waited at the precinct for the call he knew would come from the sisters, for the details they both needed and dreaded to hear.
At home later that evening, he discarded his mask and gloves, showered and changed, then turned on the television and tried to erase from his mind what he had seen in the apartment, as well as the raw guilt and grief of the woman’s daughters. He had listened as they told him about their mother, a retired math teacher who was planning to move out to the West Coast.
“She loved the city,” the older daughter had told him. “Broadway, galleries. Even her crazy neighbours. If it wasn’t for ARAMIS, she might never have agreed to leave.”
“She’d already bought her ticket,” said the younger one. Her voice sounded hoarse. “Nine more days and she would have been with us. Just nine days.”
Elliot had said, “I’m sure she knew how much you loved her.” But he thought about the time between phone calls and emails, the space between messages so much larger than the space between two people in the same room. Communication technology lashed people together, but there was no substitute for being there.
When a commercial came on, Elliot muted the TV and read a new email from Sarah: Hi Ell. Owen has been looking at the forecasts and says the warm fall is a good thing for lowering transmission rates. A small mercy, I guess.
The note went on, but reading it left him more depressed than before. For all the writing Sarah did for her job, her particular voice—caring, teasing, yet determinedly sincere—was often hard to discern in her brief emails, and Noah was only present via the occasional photo. And Elliot suspected he was doing an even worse job with his own messages. But there was no way around it. Sarah had explained that the boat’s satellite phone couldn’t handle Skype, and they were rationing their minutes for internet access and weather forecasts.
The daily emails at least assured him their boat was still afloat, but Elliot had a hard time mustering enthusiasm for his side of the correspondence. It sometimes felt more like a duty to discharge than a lifeline to the person in the world who understood him best. He hoped he would learn to adjust.
He jumped when he heard a knock at his door. It was late and he wasn’t expecting anyone. Elliot got to his feet silently. He’d added an old-fashioned barricade: a quick job, with brackets and a sturdy piece of plywood. He didn’t have much worth stealing, but he’d seen enough on the job to know how little that mattered. Just last week, Johnny’s place on the first floor had been robbed by someone who was probably disappointed to have found only a thirty-year-old television and an array of collapsible walkers, which they had nevertheless stolen. Johnny had been beside himself until Elliot had installed a barricade for him, too. With each passing day, the ARAMIS crisis created more tension between those with resources and those without.
There were people who prowled at night, in defiance of the curfew—scavengers poking through the trash looking for still-edible food, supplies, things to sell. A risky proposition, given the amount of contaminated items being jettisoned according to ARAMIS protocol. But the creepers were solitary and non-violent, so the police ignored them. They were the least of their problems. Meanwhile, the tourism industry had collapsed, and a segment of unscrupulous hotel owners were advertising rooms as affordable refuges from infected neighbours, but without offering any additional protection against the contamination risks that came with living in close quarters: shared door handles, elevators, stairwells, ventilation systems.
The peephole revealed a man at the door, an older gentleman with a long white beard, wearing a crumpled tweed suit beneath an open camel overcoat. The beard was cartoonish, but also highly distinctive. No matter where or when, Elliot would always recognize him: Keelan Gibbs, his mother’s old rival.
He opened the door. “Hello, Professor Gibbs. What are you doing here? It’s nearly curfew.”
“Elliot.” Keelan squinted at him. It had been a long time since they’d seen each other. “I’ve been looking for my daughter,” he said. “I thought I knew where she lived, but I guess she moved without telling me.”
“And you thought I might know?”
“You used to be married to my daughter’s wife, yes?”
Elliot waited for the usual pain to come and was pleased when it didn’t arrive. He’d almost forgotten the connection between Julia and Keelan. At one point it had angered him that Dory had taken up with someone linked to his family in a tangential way, as though it were not enough to disrupt a man’s life by divorcing him—she had to remain in it, ever after, as a permanent reminder of his failure.
“I’m sorry, Professor Gibbs, but I don’t have Dory’s address,” he said. “I’ve sort of made a point of not knowing it, since the divorce.” He knew he could always reach out via Sarah if necessary.
“I see.” The old man seemed to sag. The professor had a rolling suitcase and was leaning his weight on its fully extended handle. Elliot wondered how far he had walked. “Then I’m out of ideas. How absolutely absurd. It took me a week to get everything ready. I even turned around once when I was already on the highway! I thought I needed more supplies, in case things took a turn. And now I’m finally here and I have to head right back to Lansdowne.”
“Why don’t you come in, Professor?” He held the door open.
Keelan stepped inside, staring as Elliot secured the latch, the deadbolt, and finally barred them inside with the piece of wood. “I got your address from Information.”
Elliot was surprised that the professor would remember so much about him, including that he lived in the city.
“It’s funny what you remember,” said Keelan, as though he had read his thoughts. “When I went to Julia’s place and she wasn’t there, I started to feel like I was in a bad dream. Then I went to a hotel and tried to be very methodical about it.” He scanned the apartment in an idle way as he twitched the handle of his suitcase. Elliot saw it through Keelan’s eyes and felt a moment’s self-consciousness about its bachelor barrenness: couch, table, desk, bed—everything unadorned and visible from the door. “Of course, I checked for an address for her and for Dory, but there’s nothing listed.
Then I went to Dory’s publishing house, but it was closed. And I couldn’t for the life of me remember Julia’s company, if she ever had one. I think she works from home.” Keelan sighed and pulled at his beard. “I spent so long getting everything in order only to forget the most important thing of all.”
“Would you like to sit down?” said Elliot. He led them a few paces further inside. “Did you try calling her?”
“Yes, of course.” The professor sat down heavily on Elliot’s couch. “No answer. But Dory hates me. Maybe she’s telling Julia not to pick up.”
That sounded harsh even for his ex, but Elliot preferred not to weigh in. He went to the kitchen and poured a glass of water for the professor.
“Thanks,” said Keelan. His hand shook as he accepted it. “I don’t mean to make Dory the villain in this.”
“Don’t worry,” said Elliot. “Dory’s not exactly my favourite person.”
“Mine either,” said Keelan, glancing up quickly. “Don’t repeat that.”
“To who?” said Elliot. He sat down in his desk chair and wheeled it over to face the professor. “Seriously, Dory and I don’t talk.”
The professor drained the glass of water and set it down on the coffee table. “There seems to be a lot of that going around.”
“I saw Julia a couple of months ago,” said Elliot. “She came to see me.”
“She’s okay?”
“She was then.” Since Julia’s visit, Elliot had thought back to their earlier encounters, as children and teenagers thrown together every so often at their parents’ departmental gatherings. At nine or ten, watching a movie in someone’s basement as the adults mingled upstairs, Julia had covered her eyes during a scary part and fallen asleep that way, a slip of elbows and knees in the couch corner. Another year: hanging out in Elliot’s backyard during a summer barbeque, they’d counted fireflies after the sun went down. That time, Julia had been a goth with dyed jet black hair and black lipstick, and Elliot’s mother had quizzed her about nihilism and French existentialism and the ideological basis for her extreme style. Julia had said that, contrary to the usual reports, her choices were all meaningless. He remembered laughing at his mother’s expression of surprise.
“And she’s pregnant?”
Elliot raised an eyebrow, wondering why the older man sounded so unsure. “Not anymore. She would have already had the baby. I think she said she was due in mid-October.”
Keelan blinked. Beads of water clung here and there to his beard. “So where are they?”
“I don’t know,” said Elliot. “But I can email her.” He looked at Keelan. “Did you try that already?” If Julia was truly choosing to ignore her father, Elliot didn’t want to be the one engineering an unwanted reunion.
“No, I didn’t bring my computer.” Keelan seemed upset that Elliot could not simply point him in their direction. “There was one at the hotel, but my password notebook is at home and nobody there could help me.”
“Don’t worry,” said Elliot. He rolled back to the computer and typed a short message. Hi Julia. Your dad is with me and wants to see you. Can you tell me your address? Thanks, Elliot. It sounded so ordinary, so civil, after Julia’s cryptic last messages to him. “Okay, sent. Now we wait.”
“More waiting,” said Keelan. Then he yawned without bothering to cover his mouth. “I thought I’d be with my daughter by now.”
The traffic sounds had quieted, and Elliot checked the time. “It’s after curfew, Professor. But you can stay here. The couch is a pullout.”
“Is my car going to be okay on the street?”
“Should be.” Elliot wondered why Keelan had bothered to bring his suitcase up if he had come by car. Unless he had foreseen their whole exchange, right down to the invitation. Maybe the old man really was a genius.
“So you and Dory don’t get along either,” said Keelan. He slid his arms out of his overcoat and unbuttoned his suit jacket. “She’s not an easy woman.”
Elliot shrugged. “It’s never fun to get dumped. That’s all.”
“You’re a diplomatic young man.” With a grunt of effort, Keelan bent over to untie his shoelaces, then placed them underneath the side table. “Did you see me on television?”
“I did,” said Elliot. “But I don’t watch much news besides the headlines.”
“I don’t blame you. All the commentary—it’s intolerable stuff, really.” Keelan shook his head, but Elliot thought there might be a smile behind the beard. “They’ve been having me on as an expert. Ethics for End Times, you know. The Survivalist’s Code.”
Elliot remembered Gretchen complaining about the books when they were first published. “Sensational,” she’d said, and it had not been a compliment.
“I think it’s smart to consider how people might actually behave in a disaster,” said Elliot. “There’s no reason to think we’ll just helplessly stand by while terrible things are happening all around us.”
“You’ve read them?”
He hadn’t really, only skimmed parts, but the professor sounded so pleased that Elliot nodded.
Keelan used the bathroom while Elliot pulled out the couch and made it up with a clean set of sheets. As soon as it was ready, the older man sank down onto it fully clothed and pulled the covers up to his chin.
“Goodnight, Professor.” Elliot turned out the overhead light and began tugging down the blinds.
Keelan rolled over onto his side. “Do you think they miss us?”
Elliot thought it an odd question. The wrong question. After all, Julia and Dory had chosen to sideline them. Or maybe he and Keelan had not made enough of an effort to remain in their lives. Perhaps they were all at fault. But the professor seemed to be waiting for his answer.
“Probably,” said Elliot. But all he could think was, Why should they?
* * *
In the morning, Elliot came to with tensed muscles and an unsettling awareness of someone moving about in his apartment. He jolted awake and threw off the sheets.
“Professor Gibbs?” he said, switching on the light. The older man was stumbling around the room, grappling at every piece of furniture in his path. “Keelan?”
The professor’s eyes were confused and feverish. “Do I know you? What is this place?”
“It’s my apartment. I’m Elliot. You know my parents.” This was met with only a blink. “Frank Bailey and Gretchen Howe, from the department. From Lansdowne.”
The professor opened and closed his mouth, then screwed up his face and shook his head. “My mind has been very strange this trip, very scattered. The city…”
Elliot backed away as Keelan began babbling, realizing with a sinking horror that neither of them had been wearing personal protective equipment the night before. Elliot usually relied on a stash he kept in a gym bag in his car. Now he rummaged in the closet until he found the last package of Shillelagh Precaution Kits Sarah had given him. He put on a set, cursing himself for not doing it as soon as the man arrived. It had been so long since anyone had visited him at home that Elliot had forgotten the very basics of the new normal.
Keelan was now wide-eyed, panicking. He jerked his head from the floor to the ceiling and back again, and from corner to corner of the room, as if looking for a problem, the source of his concern.
“What’s happening to me?” he said, in a faint, pleading voice. The older man’s vulnerability was almost more jarring than his dishevelled appearance. Keelan was famous at the university for the fastidiousness of his three-piece suits and his immaculate beard. Now his dress shirt, half-unbuttoned, was streaked dark with sweat, and his frown lines were deep and pronounced, like fissures in the earth. His light blue eyes were glazed and uncomprehending.
Elliot knew there was no point in calling the health line or waiting for a screening unit. There were a few early ARAMIS symptoms that were becoming well-known via the media: paleness
, excessive sweating, disorientation, glassy eyes. Keelan seemed to be exhibiting all of them as he gripped the kitchen counter.
Elliot eased him into a chair and gently put a face mask on him. But the flimsy nitrile gloves would not go on. Though weakened, Keelan was still an outsize figure: tall, with a core built like a marble plinth designed to hold his colossal chest and head. His hands were huge. Though the gloves would probably stretch to fit, the task required delicate manipulation, and Keelan was mumbling and swiping the air in front of him with his fingers as if to brush something away from the sides of his face. Elliot dug around at the bottom of his dresser until he found a gift Sarah had picked up for him: gigantic hand-sewn mittens she’d purchased directly from an artisan but which were far too large and ostentatious for him to ever wear. He eased the sealskin mitts onto the professor’s hands like flippers.
“We have to take you to the hospital,” said Elliot. He shouldered his knapsack and extracted a set of car keys from the pocket of Keelan’s camel coat. Though the professor was still sweating, Elliot knew the fever would progress to chills soon enough, so he wrangled him into the coat even though it meant starting over with the mitts. Keelan moaned in protest but could do nothing to stop him.
Somehow they got downstairs, with Elliot holding Keelan’s arm over his shoulders and looping his own arm around the professor’s waist. On the street, cabs hissed by in the rain. Elliot had a momentary urge to hail one—it would be the fastest way to get to the hospital—but even if one agreed to take them, it would be too risky for the driver.
“Where’s your car?” he asked. Elliot had parked his own car eight blocks away, in a spot where he wouldn’t need to move it. Keelan was silent and blotchy, his mouth puckered, just concentrating on breathing.
Between a bus stop and two loading zones, there was nothing parked along the block, so Elliot moved them slowly towards the corner, their clothes soddening with each step. A crowd was gathered on the sidewalk, and he could hear raised voices. These days, any group of people seen together in public was a startling sight.
Songs for the End of the World Page 31
