The Decameron Project

by The New York Times

  “Listen. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before. We are stuck in the canyon between 8:48 and 8:49. This happens during birth, sometimes. And fear shuts everything down.”

  The bus seemed to be patiently waiting to be smashed into the railing.

  Fatima explained how she turned breech babies around. She wanted them to try her techniques on the 19. “Danny, I want you to stand at the back of the bus. Humberto, don’t strain your neck like that, let me reposition you.…”

  Fatima insisted on safety. They spaced themselves out, up and down the bus. The important thing, Fatima said, was to sing. An old trick, she explained, for speeding up a birth. “It opens up the mouth, the throat… everything.” She drew an S in the air, pointing from her lips up to the stars. “Something is jammed. I don’t understand why this happened. But I know how to restart a stalled labor.”

  What else could they do? The Last Bus Club followed her instructions. They chanted with her. Two shallow breaths, one exhalation from the diaphragm. They sang, the wordless song of animals, a mounting pressure you could feel in the charged and slippery air. The bridge began to subtly vibrate; a few bars of the song later, to moan. People’s lungs and arms were on fire, but the bus would not budge. Danny and Humberto and Ben and Marla and Yvonne and Valerie and Fatima and the Juliets exhaled as one, heaving against it. Fatima smiled and pointed. Almost imperceptibly, the tires began to roll.

  Push! Push!

  A shower of sparks. Little orange mohawks of fire on the blue treads.

  Fatima turned to Danny and Yvonne:

  “Why don’t you two get back into the ambulance?”

  “I don’t want to die!” Danny screamed.

  “Put the vehicle in reverse,” Fatima said gently.

  She and Yvonne exchanged a glance. “Long night,” Yvonne mouthed.

  Later, there would be plenty of time for disagreement; half of them would maintain that Time would have simply thawed on its own; their actions had nothing to do with it. Others felt certain that a muscular, united effort had saved them. Although which muscles had done it? The singing, or the pushing?

  “Everybody back in your seats! Just as you were!” It was Marla, an orchid lover, who made the suggestion. “Estivation” was a word for petals and sepals arranged in tight symmetry inside a bud. They would channel the energy of a flower pushing through soil. The Last Bus Club sang together in the back of the bus, as if this were a school field trip at a Dantean rest stop. Valerie tipped her head back and howled. At last, the master key caused the engine to roar to life.

  And then the tires squealed and rolled, a stomach-churning acceleration. The fog parted, revealing moving water. A hawk crossed the sky. A star fell. The ambulance reversed and sped off toward the next emergency. Newborn shadows congealed on the river. One of these began to swim, a little sluggishly, after the 19. Onboard, the teenage lovers were still singing, elated, very off-key. Minnows passing under the bridge crossed the flattened hulk of the reflected bus.

  Valerie sped down Burnside under a moon that flashed like cellophane. The clock clicked over to 8:49. Omens hide in the weave of a day, a life, waiting to be recollected. Val remembered the tiny bicycle. Somewhere, a child was sleeping, red blood circulating in her body and nowhere near the road.

  It felt almost like a numb foot coming awake.

  As she drove, constellations of moments began to kaleidoscope through Val’s body, painful and sharp—her mother lying on the floor, the white knife of Teak’s birth, Freddie laughing tears over scalding coffee, the smell of smoldering rubber, her years coiling like circuitry. Now she could see by the real lights of her city: the haloed lobbies of the condominiums, the skeletal boats in the harbor. Tent camps and vacant hotels, butterflied around the river. The world they’d left was the one they returned to: trembling, rain-wet, lush, trashed, alive.

  On the other side of the bridge, would they all stay in touch? Send one another holiday cards? Form a text group? Not likely. Already, Valerie could sense them segregating again. Hourly and salary. Southeast and Northwest. People with jobs and homes and destinations, and people like Ben. Some would forget as soon as they crossed the river, while others would be permanently haunted. And yet they’d shared a nightmare. A miraculous escape. Valerie braked, waiting on the light. She’d see Ben on her route tomorrow, on his endless carousel ride from Gateway to Mount Scott. Maybe they could talk about it, from behind their masks. The light turned green. Already, she was beginning to doubt it.

  o sea view? For nine hundred quid a week? TripAdvisor’s gonna hear ’bout this.”

  She snorts. “On the plus side, Your Majesty, you’ve got your penthouse all to yourself. Jacuzzi. Sauna. Minibar.” She taps in the code, swipes her card, and the LED goes green. “Home away from home.” Bolts clunk and the door opens. Bog-standard 8-by-14-foot cell. Shitter. Desk. Chair. Locker. Dirty windows. Seen better. Seen worse.

  The door shuts behind me—revealing the bunk bed with some bastard lying on the top. He’s an Arab, Indian, Asian, something. He’s as not pleased to see me as I’m not pleased to see him. I bang on the door. “Oy! Guard! This cell’s occupied!”

  No joy.

  “Guard!”

  Daft bloody moo’s moved on.

  Today’s outlook: heavy cloud, all day.

  Dump my bag on my bed. “Great.” I look at the Asian bloke. He ain’t got that Rottweiler glint, but yer don’t take nothing for granted. I’m guessing he’s Muslim. “Just came from Wandsworth,” I tell him. “I’m s’posed to be in quarantine. One to a cell. My cellmate had the virus.”

  “I tested positive,” Asian Bloke says, “at Belmarsh.”

  Belmarsh is a Cat A prison. I’m thinking, Terrorism?

  “No,” Asian Bloke says. “I’m not an ISIS sympathizer. No, I don’t pray toward Mecca. No, I don’t have four wives and ten kids.”

  Can’t deny I was thinking it. “Yer don’t look ill.”

  “I’m asymptomatic.” He clocks. I ain’t sure what that means. “I’ve got the antibodies, so I don’t get sick, but I have the virus, and I can pass it on. You really shouldn’t have been put in here.”

  Voilà. Classic Ministry of Justice fuck-up. There’s an emergency call button, so I press the CALL button.

  “I was told the guards here cut the wires,” Asian Bloke says. “Anything for a quiet life.”

  I believe it. “Prob’ly too late by now, anyway. Virus-wise.”

  He lights up a roll-up. “You may be right.”

  “Happy fucking birthday to me.”

  Water chunders down a pipe.

  “Is it your birthday?” he asks.

  “Just an expression.”

  * * *

  Day 2. Pogo Hoggins, who I was banged up with at Wandsworth, snored like a Harrier jump jet. Zam the Asian Bloke’s a silent sleeper, and I wake in OK nick. When the floor-hatch is slid open for the breakfast tray, I’m ready on my knees to get the porter’s attention. “Oy, mate.”

  A weary-as-hell, “What?”

  “First off, there’s two of us banged up in here.”

  I see a Nike trainer, a shin, and a trolley wheel. “Not according to my printout.” Big Black Geezer, by the sound of it.

  Zam joins me at the gap. “Your printout’s wrong, as you can hear. And we’re supposed to be in isolation, in single cells.”

  Big Black Geezer shuts the hatch with his foot. It sticks for long enough for me to ask for a second breakfast box.

  “Yeah, nice try.” The hatch slams shut.

  “You eat it,” Zam says. “I’m not hungry.”

  The box has a pig on it, with a speech bubble saying, “Two succulent pork sausages!” “What, ’cause yer can’t eat pork?”

  “I eat very little. It’s one of my superpowers.”

  So I wolf down the single sausage. It ain’t succulent, and it ain’t pork. I offer Zam the crackers and out-of-date yogurt. Once again, he says no. Don’t need to be told twice.

  Today’s outlook: c
loudy, with bright patches.

  The telly’s a knackered box of junk, but today it gives a bit o’ Channel 5. The Ricki Pickett Show. Must be a repeat: Everyone’s packed into the studio, breathing in one another’s germs. Today’s show’s called My Mum Cradle-Snatched My Boyfriend. Used to watch Ricki Pickett with Kylie when she was pregnant with Gem. Used to find all them snarling whinging sad sacks tearing chunks out of each other funny. Not now. Even the saddest, poorest, and sorriest have got what I ain’t. They don’t even know it.

  * * *

  Day 3. Feel rough. Nasty cough. I asked Big Black Geezer for the doctor. Said he’d put me on the list, but he still gave us only one breakfast and one lunch box. Zam told me to eat it. Said I’d need to keep my strength up. Ain’t been out of our cell once. No exercise yard. No shower. Thought quarantine’d be a doss, but it’s bad as solitary. The telly gave us half an hour of ITV news. Prime Minister Spaffer Bumblefuck says, “Stay alert!” President Very Stable Genius says, “Drink bleach!” Half of America still reckons he’s God’s Gift. What a place. There was a bit about how the stars are coping with lockdown. Didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Then the telly conked out. Did a few press-ups, but my cough came back. Ain’t only air I’m gasping for. I’ll ask Big Black Geezer to hook me up with spice. Double bubble on tic but needs must. Lunch was powdered oxtail soup. Foxtail soup, more like. Drank it down and saw this rat on the edge of the sink. Big brown bastard. Could chew yer toe off. “See Mr. Rat? Acts like he owns the place.”

  “He does,” Zam said, “in several senses.”

  Chucked my trainer at it. Missed.

  Only when I got up did Mr. Rat scuttle off down a hole under the bog. I stuffed some pages of the Daily Mail in to block it off.

  All the excitement wore me out.

  Shut my eyes and slid downhill.

  Today’s outlook: overcast; rain later.

  Thought ’bout Gemma, the last time Kylie brought her to Wandsworth. She was five then. She’s seven now. On the outside, time’s fast and slow. Inside, it’s slow. Lethally. Gem brought her new My Little Pony to Wandsworth Kylie got her for her birthday and told her was from me. Actually it was a Fake My Little Pony from a pound shop, but Gem didn’t mind. She named it Blueberry Dash. She said it was basically a good pony but a bit naughty ’cause it peed in the bath.

  “The things they come out with, eh?” Zam said.

  * * *

  Day 4. The quack said, “Mr. Wilcox, I’m Dr. Wong.”

  Saw Chinese eyes above his mask. My throat hurt, but it was an open goal: “I’d rather have Dr. Right.”

  “If I had a tenner every time I heard that, I’d be in my mansion in the Cayman Islands.” He seemed all right. Took my temperature with an ear gizmo. Took my pulse. Took a swab from up my nostril. “The testing’s still woefully haphazard, but I’d say you have it.”

  “So is it off to a clinic full of pretty nurses?”

  “Half the pretty nurses are off sick, and the clinic is full. As is the overspill ward. As long as you’re merely uncomfortable, you’re best off roughing it out here. Believe me.”

  Outlook: unsettled for the rest of the day.

  My hearing was weird. When Zam asked ’bout the special Covid hospital in East London, his voice sounded far-off.

  “They’re not admitting prisoners,” Dr. Wong told me.

  Pissed me off, that. “Are they afraid I’ll nick my own ventilator and flog it on eBay? Or is it that us guests of Her Majesty’s hospitality don’t deserve to live as much as everyone else?”

  Dr. Wong shrugged. We both knew the answer. Give me six Paracetamol, six Ventolin, and a tiny bottle of codeine.

  Zam said he’d make sure I followed the instructions.

  “Good luck,” Dr. Wong said. “I’ll drop in soon.”

  Then me and Zam were on our own again.

  Water chunders down a pipe.

  Stay alert. Drink bleach.

  * * *

  Six fat sausages, sizzling in the pan. Tell Kylie ’bout my wacko prison nightmare. ’Bout Laverty’s flat, prison, Zam, her and Gemma and Steven. God it felt so real. Kylie laughed. “Poor Lukey.… I don’t know any Stevens.” Then I’m walking Gem to school up Gilbert’s End. Light greens, lush greens. Sunshine on my face. Horses running across the fringes like in Red Dead Redemption. Tell Gem how I went to Saint Gabriel’s school, too, once upon a time. The year I stayed with my uncle Ross and aunt Dawn right here, in Black Swan Green. Mr. Pratley’s still the headmaster. Ain’t aged a day. He thanks me for accepting his invitation. I tell him how Saint Gabriel’s is the only school I went to where it weren’t Bully or Be Bullied. Next up, I’m in my old classroom. Here’s my cousins Robbie and Em. Plus Joey Drinkwater. Sakura Yew. “It’s been thirty years since the coronavirus changed our world,” Mr. Pratley says, “but Luke recalls it as if it were yesterday. Isn’t that right, Luke?” All eyes on me. So the virus is now a history lesson. So I’m fifty-five. Time flies on the outside. Then I see him. At the back. Arms folded. He’s Him, I’m Me. No-name terms, us two. Gunshot wound in his neck’s opening and closing like some underwater valve-mouth off David Attenborough. I know his face better than I know my own. Fixed. Knowing. Sad. Silent. That’s the face he had bleeding out on Laverty’s sofa. Half his throat was missing. It was his shooter. We was fumbling for it. Bang. Wish to fuck it hadn’t happened. But if wishes was horses, beggars would ride. I wake up. Sick as a dog. Sorry as hell. Three years before the parole board even look at my paperwork. Day 5 of quarantine. Storms closing in. Thunder. Why do I have to wake up? Why? Day after day after day. Can’t do this no more. Just bloody can’t.

  * * *

  Day 6. I think. Gales. Stabs of lightning. My body’s a body bag. Stuffed with pain, hot gravel, and me. Three steps to the shitter and I’m done. It hurts. Breathing hurts. Not breathing hurts. Everything bloody hurts. It’s night, not day. Night 7. Night 8? Zam says I’m dehydrated. He makes me drink water. Zam must use the shitter when I’m sleeping. Tactful. Pogo Hoggins shat morning, noon, and night. Mr. Rat got to the breakfast box before me. Ate his way inside and nicked the sausage. I ain’t hungry but still. Could die in here and nobody’d know till the pandemic’s over. Mr. Rat would know. Mr. Rat and his hungry friends. If I died here, what’ll Gem remember of me? Skinny skinhead skull in prison PJs, blubbing at her picture of Mummy, Daddy, Gemma, and Blueberry Dash. Give it a few years, even that’ll fade. I’ll be a name. A face on a phone that gets deleted one day. A skeleton in the cupboard. The family offender. Drugs and manslaughter. Nice. Gem’s future pictures of her family’ll be her, her mother, Steven, and baby brother. Not “half brother.” “Brother.” And yer know what?

  “What?” Zam pours my codeine. “Drink.”

  I swallow it. “It’s best for Gem she forgets me.”

  “How do you figure that out?”

  “Who’s feeding her? Clothing her? Keeping her warm in winter? Buying her her My Little Pony Magic Castle? Model Citizen Steven. Project Manager Steven. Business Studies Steven.”

  “Is that so, Self-Pity Studies Luke?”

  “I’d belt yer one if I could lift my arm.”

  “Consider me belted. But doesn’t Gemma get a say?”

  “Next time she sees me, I’ll be over thirty.”

  “Ancient.” Zam’s older. Can’t tell his age.

  “If, if I’m lucky, I’ll be working in an Amazon slave mine. Most likely, I’ll be begging outside Tesco’s until I end up back here. Why’d Gemma—or any daughter—want to say, ‘He’s my dad’? How can I compete with Steven?”

  “Don’t. Concentrate on being Luke.”

  “Luke’s an addict homeless loser sad sack.”

  “Luke’s a lot of things. Be the best of them.”

  “Yer sound like an X Factor judge.”

  “Is that a good thing or bad thing?”

  “It’s an easy thing. Yer talk proper, Zam. Yer’ve got a bank account. Education. People. Safety nets. When yer get out, yer’ll have opt
ions. When I get out, I’ll have my twenty-eight-quid discharge grant, and…” Shut my eyes. Here’s Laverty’s flat. Here’s the bloke who’ll always be dead. Dead. ’Cause of me.

  “What we’ve done isn’t who we are, Luke.”

  My brain’s a featherweight stuck in a cage with the Hulk. He just keeps pummeling. “What are you, Zam? A fucking vicar?”

  Never heard him laugh till now.

  * * *

  “Morning, Mr. Wilcox.” Chinese eyes. A mask.

  Fever’s lifted. “Dr. Right.”

  “Caymans, here we come. Still here?”

  Today’s outlook: brighter patches, dry. “Ain’t dead yet. Feel OK. Thanks to Nurse Zam.”

  “Good. Who’s Sam?”

  “Zam. With a zed.” I point to the bunk above.

  “Are we talking… a higher power? Or the prison governor?”

  I’m baffled, he’s baffled. “No. Zam. My celly.”

  “A cellmate? In here? During quarantine?”

  “Bit late now for the shock ’n’ horror, Doc. Yer met him last time. Asian bloke.” I call up: “Zam! Reveal yerself.”

  Zam keeps shtum. Dr. Wong looks stumped. “I wouldn’t have tolerated two inmates in one cell on the quarantine wing.”

  “ ’Fraid yer bloody did tolerate it, Doc.”

  “I would have noticed a third person in here. There’s not exactly a wealth of hiding places.”

  Water chunders down a toilet pipe.

  I call up to Zam, “Zam, will yer just tell him?”

  My cellmate doesn’t reply. Asleep? A windup?

  Dr. Wong looks worried. “Luke, have you had access to drugs of a more recreational nature than the ones I prescribed? I shan’t tell the guards. But as your doctor, I need to know.”

  “This ain’t funny, Zam.…” So I get up and stand up and find Zam’s empty bed with no sheets or nothing.

  hey need each other. Like to be around each other. Like to touch each other.

  They search for things: