by A.R. Wise
Tony decided our best course of action was to go off road, down the embankment, over the ditch, through a community garden, across the bike path, over a curb, and finally onto another road. I didn’t have the wherewithal to count the number of times this trip sent me airborne, but I’m pretty sure the total was in the quarter million range. I was holding onto a yelping German Shephard and trying to keep from flying out of the back of the truck, all while Otis flailed his giant arms around like he got called up on The Price is Right. The litany of curses that escaped us would make Richard Pryor ask for a modicum of decency.
“Slow down,” I shouted through the window at Tony as he started to race down the road. “You’re going to get us all killed.”
“I’m saving our lives,” he said with both hands gripping the steering wheel and a look of determination that was eerily similar to elation. Despite the hellish environment we’d been plunged into, I’m fairly certain he was enjoying this.
Otis looked over the cab at the road ahead and saw the route Tony was planning to take. He got down beside me, our backs pressed to the front end of the bed, and said, “Oh Lord, we’re gonna die. This fucking Mexican’s going to end us.”
“Just hold on,” I said, which was an admittedly useless statement. Otis was already doing everything he could to keep himself wedged in. We both had our shoulders down so that they were under the small lip along the truck’s bed, and we had our feet pressed against the wheel wells so that we could push with all our might to keep our backs against the metal. I had the added responsibility of holding onto Beaver’s harness as the dog crouched beside me.
“Hold on,” I repeated my useless instruction again.
“I am holding…” Otis didn’t get to finish his angry declaration. The truck swerved to avoid something in the road ahead, and all three of us in the back made a pathetic noise as we tried to keep from sliding to the side. Even Beaver was moaning as he gazed at me with wide, expectant eyes, as if I somehow had the power to stop this and he was confounded why I wouldn’t. It was as if I’d taken him with me on a roller coaster and he was contemplating why humans might enjoy such idiotic escapades.
I thought about screaming at Tony to slow down, but then I heard gunshots nearby.
Pop.
Pop.
Pop.
I despise the sound of gunfire. It unsettles me, nearly as much as the sight of otherworldly jellyfish parasite monsters slithering their way out of freshly dead corpses. I ducked lower in the bed of the truck to avoid the gunfire.
We buffeted around in the bed with every slight swerve. Otis continued to curse Tony. He used a slew of creative terms for Tony’s heritage. Everyone reacts to stress differently, and apparently Otis reacts to it by shouting out the most offensively racist things he can come up with.
“Where’s this jumping bean hopping off to?” asked Otis.
“His apartment, I think. He’s got family.”
“Bunch of illegals?”
“Man, you get racist when you’re scared,” I said.
“Shut the hell up. You don’t get to call me racist. That’s not how it works.”
“Not how what works?” I asked. It was a pointless conversation to be having given our current situation, but we continued it anyhow. What else were we going to do back there?
“How society works,” said Otis. “I get to be racist. Our wetback driver gets to be racist. We earned it. You get to keep your mouth shut.”
“Oh, is that how it works?”
“Yeah, that’s how it works.”
The truck’s tires squealed as Tony made another sharp turn. Otis and I were shoulder to shoulder, with our backs pressed to the front of the truck’s bed and our feet pushing on opposite wheel wells to help keep us in place. Beaver was on my right side, and he was trying to tuck his nose under my leg.
I understandably assumed our attempt at reconciling the cultural racial divide had been stymied for the time being. I was surprised when Otis said, “Tony knows.”
“Tony knows what?” I asked.
“He knows about the race thing. He knows. Ask him, if we make it out of this alive. Ask him and he’ll tell you. We’ve got a pact with the Mexicans. They hate us, and we hate them, and you honkey motherfuckers get hated on by us both.”
“Do you really want to have this debate right here, right now?”
“I don’t need you calling me racist,” he said. “I get to be racist all I want, and so does Tony. But not you. So help me God, if I ever hear you get racist I’ll knock your head clean off and…”
“Is this really the time and place?” I asked, exasperated.
“You don’t get to call me racist,” he said.
“How’s that fair?”
“How’s that fair?” he repeated the question as if it was offensive.
Tony must’ve reached a clear road, because he stopped driving like a maniac. Well, he was still speeding like a maniac, but at least now he was doing it in a straight line. Otis took the opportunity to continue his point. I chalked it up to his need to focus on something other than the situation at hand, sort of like when I was considering how to deal with my car insurance agent after the gas station caught on fire.
“I’ll tell you how it’s fair. Because we know how to keep racism civil, man. It’s all in good fun. You white folks just screw it all up, with your lynching, and cross burning, and serial killing. You take it too far.”
“Serial killing?”
“Yeah, serial killing. Look at you, man. All you white guys get that look in your eyes. That shady, creepy, soul-killing look like you’re waiting for a reason to string a brother up.”
“You’ve got issues that I’m not even going to try and solve right now,” I said. “How about we focus on how the world’s gone to hell instead of whether or not you’re racist. All right?”
He muttered something under his breath. I think he was saying that I was the one who was the racist, but I didn’t ask him to speak up. At that point I was just happy the debate was over.
Tony got us to his apartment complex safe and sound, if by ‘safe and sound’ you mean ‘beaten and terrified.’ Both Otis and I were scratched up and bruised from the journey, and poor Beaver was still trying to force his way underneath me any way he could as we pulled into the parking lot at Tony’s apartment complex.
“Thank God,” said Otis as he tried to stand up only to discover that the trip had caused a sense of vertigo that nearly sent him falling back down again. After he steadied himself, he offered me a hand up. “You lost your driving privileges,” he said to Tony as our driver got out of the truck.
“What’re you bitching about?” asked Tony. “You’re alive, aren’t you?”
“I’m not so sure,” said Otis.
“Who was shooting back there?” I asked.
“The cops,” said Tony. “I didn’t stick around to see what they were shooting at.”
“Probably a couple hoodies with their hands up,” said Otis, and I wondered if ‘hoodies’ was a popular slang term now. It was hard to keep up with the constantly evolving vernacular of my diverse co-workers. Tony and Otis had exposed me to hundreds of descriptors I’d never heard before, and I struggled to keep them all straight.
I was going to try and help Beaver out of the truck, but he leapt over the side without any assistance. He sniffed the air, and walked back and forth beside the truck as if patrolling the area as he waited for me to get down.
“You guys coming with me or what?” asked Tony. “We can check the TV to see what’s going on.”
“Yeah, all right,” said Otis.
Tony looked at me. “Dave? What about you?”
I glanced at the entrance to the apartment complex. I hadn’t been here in months. “Is Gabby here?”
“I hope so,” said Tony. “I’ve been trying to call her, but I couldn’t get through.”
“Maybe I should take off.”
“Why? Because of Gabby? Are you serious? Shit, man, you need to
get over yourself. Gabby doesn’t care whether you live or die no more.”
“That’s what I’m worried about,” I said, but begrudgingly followed.
The complex was in disarray. I could hear families screaming and crying from wherever they were hiding. My sense of dread deepened. During our trip here, I’d been placated by the hope that we’d escaped the epicenter of whatever madness had engulfed our town, but now I was beginning to worry that we were still in the thick of it. At this point, I wasn’t aware that this was a world-wide event. I had no concept of how bad things really were.
“Is it here too?” I asked, giving vague reference to an event I couldn’t give a name.
“The jellyfish?” asked Tony. “Yeah, man. It’s everywhere.”
“What do you mean everywhere?” asked Otis. “How do you know?”
“I heard it on the radio in the truck,” said Tony. “Those things are everywhere.”
“Everywhere? Like everywhere everywhere?” I asked with all the deft linguistic skill of a five-year-old.
“Everywhere,” said Tony, gesticulating his point by using both hands to make a circle. “All around the world.”
“Holy shit,” said Otis and I simultaneously.
We walked through a short passage that led to the complex’s interior courtyard. Tony and his grandmother both had apartments here, and most of the residents were also Mexican, which was why this area had been dubbed Little Mexico. It was in a high crime area, as evidenced by the bars on all the windows. The apartment complex formed a square, with a parking lot on the exterior and a courtyard in the center. There were two stories of apartments, each with doors facing the courtyard. The construction style was similar to our previous place of employment. It was adobe style, with beige, stucco walls that were more common in New Mexico than Colorado, but had gained popularity here recently.
In the center of the courtyard was an impressively large playground that’d seen better days. It was designed like a pirate ship that’d been split in two, with a suspension bridge between platforms and a slide on either side. The playground was in a sand pit, but the rest of the courtyard was supposed to be grassy. Unfortunately, the recent drought had forced the owners of the property to shut off the sprinkler system. Now whatever grass managed to survive was brown, and there was a solitary, dead tree that needed to be cut down and dragged away.
The bars on all the windows, and the playground in the center of the courtyard, made Little Mexico feel like a toddler penitentiary. That thought brought to mind a bunch of streetwise kids in orange jumpsuits, slinging coke behind the guards’ backs and shanking tattletales.
Tony continued relaying the information he’d heard on the radio on our trip here. “They got the governor. Right during a press conference a tentacle popped out of his face.”
“So this is like some biblical end times stuff?” asked Otis.
“There aren’t any jellyfish in my King James,” said Tony as we neared his apartment. Then he slapped Otis on the shoulder and said, “Dude, didn’t the bible say not to eat shellfish and shit? Maybe this has something to do with that.”
“Motherfucker,” said Otis. “I’m not planning on frying up any calamari. They’re the ones eating us. Remember?”
“Yeah, but you never know,” said Tony. “Hey, speaking of calamari, I heard most of those are pig assholes.”
“What?” I asked, dumbfounded by the direction the conversation had taken.
“For real, man,” said Tony. “Most of the calamari people eat at restaurants are actually fried up pig buttholes. Swear to God, man.”
“Motherfucker, would you…” Otis was so annoyed that he started stuttering a little. “Would… Would you… Would you open the damn door? Talking about pig assholes. I swear to God. You two have lost your damn minds.”
We got to Tony’s apartment. He started to put his key in the lock when the door swung violently open. A gun barrel emerged, pointed straight at Tony.
The three of us screamed in ignoble fright as Gabby stood in the doorway holding a pistol with both hands and commanding us to get back. “I’ll shoot,” she said. “Get back.”
“Gabby, Jesus Christ girl, it’s me,” said Tony.
“I don’t care if it’s you or not,” said Gabby. “How do I know you’re not one of those… those things?”
“Do I look like a walking octopus to you?” asked Tony. “Now quit pointing my pellet gun at me and let us in.” He pushed the pistol away and walked in past her. Otis followed, leaving Beaver and me standing face to face with my ex-girlfriend.
“What’re you doing here?” she asked with more than a slight hint of hostility as she looked me up and down. “And why do you have a dog?”
Tony hadn’t mentioned that Gabby was pregnant, a fact that was now on full display as I stared down at her massive belly. She was a petite girl, but it looked like she was packing a thirty-pound baby in there.
I stuttered an attempt to say, ‘Hello,’ all while staring right at her belly. No greeting managed to escape my lips.
She snapped her fingers at me and said, “Hello, psycho. You going to answer me or what?”
“Stop giving him a hard time,” said Tony as he took his sister by the arm to pull her out of my way.
I somehow managed to form a semi-intelligible response, “It’s good see, Gabby.” It wasn’t a well-crafted sentence, but it was better than nothing.
She let out a long, exasperated sigh that expressed more in one brief second than an entire diatribe of angry rants could. Without going into too much detail, let’s just say I understood she didn’t want me there, but wasn’t going to force me to leave either. She was also ever-so-slightly amused by my fumbled attempt at forming words, and she enjoyed my discomfort. She might’ve even started to crack a smile before turning away from me.
It took a world-wide apocalypse for the two of us to reach even a tentative reconciliation, but I’d take what I could get.
Gabby was the prettiest girl I’d ever tricked into dating me. We’d been good together, as long as you buy into the old saying that opposites attract. She’d been the fire to my ice, and that sort of relationship doesn’t usually end well for the ice. However, we still had a hell of a time while it lasted. If I was the marrying type, I would’ve put a ring on her, but that ship had sailed. Although, instead of saying that the ship had sailed, it was probably a more apt comparison to say that the ship had exploded in a maelstrom and the fragments got sucked down to the bottom of the ocean.
“Where’s Jerry?” asked Tony as he looked around the apartment.
“He’s at Mimi’s,” said Gabby in reference to their grandmother.
“Why’re you here instead of with them?” asked Tony, and his tone had an edge of accusation that even I picked up on.
“Excuse me?” asked Gabby, just as annoyed with her brother as he was with her. “I came here to get this,” she held up the gun. “I’m trying to be smart. I’m trying to save our family, pendejo. Mimi and Jerry want to come over here instead of staying at her place.”
“All right, all right,” said Tony as he walked over to the large, flat screen television and turned it on. “Why do they want to be here?”
“Because something happened to that Garcia guy,” said Gabby.
“Who?” asked Tony.
“Her neighbor. What’s his name? El gordo.” She held out her hands to mime a stomach even larger than her own. “I think he turned into one of those… those things. Whatever they are. We can hear him bashing around there in his apartment, knocking things over and…”
“He turned?” asked Tony, suddenly terrified. “You sure?”
“I didn’t see him or nothing, but he’s banging around in there like he’s lost his damn mind. Scratching at the walls and shit.”
Tony looked at me, and then Otis, his eyes wide as he said, “We’ve got to get them out of there.”
“Who?” asked Gabby. “Mr. Garcia?”
“No, Mimi and Jerry.”
“No they’re not,” said Tony. “We watched one of those things burrow through a ceiling.” He grabbed the pellet gun from his sister. “Otis, come help me get them. Dave, you stay here with Gabby.”
“No,” I said a little quicker than was appropriate. “I’ll go with you. Otis, you stay here.”
No one objected, so I followed Tony out. Beaver tried to follow, but I told him to stay, and then closed the door behind me. As soon as we were outside I asked, “Why didn’t you tell me Gabby was pregnant?”
“She asked me not to,” said Tony as if it wasn’t something he was concerned about, which was understandable given the circumstance.
Their grandmother lived across the courtyard, past the playground. Tony ran there before I had the chance to ask him anything else. I started doing the math in my head in an attempt to count the months since Gabby and I broke up. I hate to admit it, but I counted the months on my fingers as I jogged across the courtyard. It’s not that I’m an idiot (although I’m admittedly terrible at math), but the stress of the situation was messing with my concentration.
I nearly tripped over a prairie dog mound. The lack of landscaping maintenance had allowed the pests to sneak in and dig into the courtyard, and there were several holes here now. I recovered from my near fall, and then ran to catch up to Tony while recounting the months since Gabby and I had been together.
My heart raced as I looked at the eight fingers I was holding up. “Eight months,” I said under my breath. It’d been eight months since the last time Gabby and I had sex.
I felt the color drain from my face.
Tony banged on his grandmother’s door and said, “Mimi, it’s me. Open up. Jerry, are you there? Jerry, open up.” He didn’t get any response. All he could hear coming from the apartment was the television set blaring.
I tugged on the back of Tony’s shirt and asked, “Is that my…”
He ignored me, and continued to pound on the door.
“Tony.” I pulled at his shoulder to command his attention.
He turned and asked in frustration, “What?”
I pointed back towards his apartment and asked, “Is that my baby?”
His expression morphed from annoyance to compassion, and then back to annoyance. He shook his head and said, “I don’t know, man. Take it up with Gabby. Right now we need to focus. We’ve got to get them out of here. Watch out.” He moved me aside and took a few steps back. Tony displayed a level of strength I didn’t know he had as he kicked the door open, easily busting the deadbolt and sending splinters of wood shooting through his grandmother’s modest apartment.
His brave, heroic entrance was met with the terrified shriek of his wheelchair-bound, nearly deaf grandmother. She’d been sitting in front of the television, trying to listen with the volume turned up nearly as loud as it could go. She hadn’t heard her grandson pounding on the door, and was shocked when he busted his way into her apartment.
I’d met Mimi several times while dating Gabby, and she’d always been nice to me. However, she was well-known for her foul mouth, and she didn’t spare our delicate ears as we broke into her apartment.
Her eyes were wide and her hands held high as she stared at the splintered frame and broken door. When she saw it was her grandson who’d broken in, she asked, “What the fuck is wrong with you?” The rest of what she said was in Spanish, and certainly foul.
5 – Samurai Amateur Hour
