by Al Ewing
Accidents happened.
"Give us a try. See what you think." smiled the Doc.
Cade almost smiled back. "A test drive?"
Clearly chuckled - a warm, fatherly sound. "Sure, why not. Give us a test drive, Cade. I'll let you wander around rather than give you a tour - let you take it all in without my input - but you can ask me any questions that come to mind, and I'll send someone to find you if there's something I want you to see, or experience, or... well." He grew contemplative for a moment. "What I'm trying to say is... I really don't want you to join our community unless you want to. If you feel like it, you can walk out of here tomorrow - right now - and head back where you came from or keep moving south, find somewhere that fits you. But what I do want you to do, at least for the time you're here, is try to be happy. Because I really don't think you're a happy man. Am I wrong?"
Cade didn't say anything. Cade was a lot of things, but happy wasn't one of them. In fact, even content would be pushing it.
Clearly waited for a response, then smiled, gently lifting his hand off Cade's shoulder. "Well, I'm rambling. But... do you think you can do that, Cade? I'd consider it a personal favour. Just... let yourself be happy for a little while."
Cade looked at Clearly for a long time. Then he nodded.
"I can do that."
And out of the corner of his eye, Cade saw Fuel-Air, laughing fit to burst as the maggots crawled over his shrivelled skin and in and out of empty eye-sockets. Laughing like he knew the biggest joke in the world. And maybe he did at that.
Fuel-Air knew it was Cade's second lie of the day.
Chapter Seventeen
The Ritual
Cade ended up going to the ballgame.
Kezar Stadium wasn't one of the bigger stadiums in the state, but for all that it was a pretty impressive place to have a softball game. The stands could have held a good eight or nine thousand, even with the wear and tear of the bad times, but they were all but empty. Most people watching the game sat around or even inside the diamond itself, laughing as the foam ball sailed over their heads, cheering and catcalling as a grinning, joking Castro Street refugee, all muscle and tan and chewing gum, pitched a lazy, easy shot to an older woman in granny glasses and tight jeans and bad co-ordination, who swung her bat gamely but missed the ball all the same, face flushed with laughter. There was no competition to it - just folks having fun on a sunny day. The clowning kid had already struck a couple of batters out, and Cade guessed he was feeling bad about it - shooting that cocky grin one more time, he tossed the ball to someone in the crowd, flashed peace signs and sauntered off to hit on one of the batters. He was replaced by a burly type, a biker, all frayed denim and unwashed hair, who high-fived him on the way to the pitcher's mound to the cheers of the crowd. There weren't really teams as such as far as Cade could see - just people wanting to play.
Then again, Cade guessed that they hadn't really put a baseball league together just yet. That was the kind of thing Cade would term a luxury. He sat back and watched the game, shaking his head slightly. By now the biker was pitching some harder balls - hard as a foam ball could travel, anyway - and the laughing woman in glasses swung her plastic bat, full breasts bouncing in time with the swing, almost toppling over. The ball sailed past the bat - strike two.
Cade felt light-headed, like he was dreaming. It was surreal. It was like he'd fallen asleep in that van and everything since he'd stepped out of it had been an illusion. It was like the Wonderful Land Of Oz. Like being in Technicolor.
The woman in the tight jeans struck out for the third time, and Cade felt his eye drawn to her ass as she bounced off the diamond to the good-natured claps and wolf-whistles of the crowd. She laughed and shook a finger at one of the crowd. Cade wondered how easy it'd be to get hold of her for a drink later. If they drank here at all.
Fuck, dog, how come everybody here's a hottie? What's up with that?
Cade sighed. He didn't look round.
I'm serious, dog. Nobody older than mid-forties, mostly young folks but no kids to get in the way, no fatties, even... Shit, this is fuckapalooza right here, bitch. It's fuckin' poon paradise. Come on, don't tell me you weren't thinking of bouncing a quarter off that ass. I'd bounce my life fuckin' savings off that.
Cade shook his head, watching a man in taped glasses with close-cropped hair and a T-Shirt reading I BRAKE FOR CHRIST pick up the bat and stride out purposefully to the plate. One of the Pastor's people, maybe. One of the converts to Doc Clearly's way of thinking.
Shit, what's up with you? This is valuable information here, bitch. Valuable motherfuckin' information about the amount of poon-tang you could get, dog. Pay fuckin' attention.
"Ain't in the mood." said Cade. He wasn't. He felt tired, suddenly - a tiredness that crept through his muscles and sat in his bones and refused to go away. All of a sudden he didn't know what the hell he'd been doing. He could have come straight here at the beginning of it, right after the bad times, taken the Duchess and Woody and set up here where they all belonged, with people who smiled and laughed and played softball and ate good and all the rest. He wasn't fool enough to ever think he could be a part of this, not the way he was. But he could find a place on the outskirts, like he had in Muir Beach. Things could be like they were before the bad times.
Fuckin' pussy. You want a white picket fence too? That the reward for a dog-killer these days?
Cade lowered his head. There was a part of him that was right there with Fuel-Air, part of him that knew right in his tired bones that things wouldn't ever be like they had been again and maybe he didn't deserve them to be, and there wasn't any sense wishing otherwise. Part of him that felt sick to his bones.
Cade hadn't been a man who felt things like that before Fuel-Air had shown up.
Damn, but he was tired.
"Is this seat taken?"
Cade looked to his left, half-expecting to see Fuel-Air, maggots and all. Instead there was a blonde girl of about seventeen wearing a contrite smile and some kind of poncho - it was hand-woven, with a poorly-rendered caricature of Deputy Dawg. Cade figured she'd made it herself. She was looking down at his shirt, and Cade was suddenly glad he'd taken the time to pick a fresh one up - there'd been a box of them, free to all comers, and he'd grabbed one at random.
It was white, with the words HUG ME - I HAD A HARD DAY and some kind of cabbage patch kid staring winsomely out from the region of his right nipple.
Cade wasn't a man troubled overmuch by fashion.
"Sorry. Bad joke." she smiled, looking down at the ground. "You looked kind of, um, lonely. Well, I guess you would because you're sitting up here on your own, but, um - I mean you looked kind of down as well. I thought I'd say hi. See if you needed anything." She blushed. "Doc Clearly said you might need something, not that he sent me to..." She shook her head, giggling. "I'm making a real mess of this, aren't I?"
"It's okay. Just figuring things." said Cade, half-shrugging. He didn't much want to talk about it, but he didn't much want to make her feel bad either. She was already worried he was thinking she'd been pimped out to him by the Doc, by the sound of it. Wasn't any mileage in making her feel any more embarrassed.
"Um, my name's Cassie, by the way. Short of Cassiopeia - like the star? My dad was kind of into astronomy and Mom figured it'd be a good name. Sorry. Don't know why I'm telling you that." She laughed, a little bashful.
"Cade." said Cade. He didn't figure there was much he needed to add on top of that. There wasn't any sense in making small talk - asking where her folks were now or if she had any other family. If she had any other family, they were dead. Where her folks were now was in the ground pushing up tomato plants, or laying on some street corner, or in the belly of a cannibal. Wasn't any getting around that.
Small talk wasn't Cade's thing anyway.
She smiled, and looked at his palms, starting at the wounds. "Oh gosh. Are your hands okay? God, nobody here did that, did they?"
Cade looked at her, wondering if she'd
been told about the Pastor. He guessed there was no reason why she would've been - it wasn't going to make anyone sleep any better.
Every time someone mentioned the wounds in his hands, he was reminded of them - he was trying not to think too hard about them, himself. They were itching like crazy still - a constant, painful throb that was never far from the back of his mind. He shook his head, opening and closing them slowly, feeling the brutal rush of fire crackling through his nerves to the base of his skull.
She blinked. "Wow, you're kind of intense. You know what? You should definitely come to the happening later. After the TV show, I mean. The Doc was totally right. It'd really help you." She smiled, looking out at the softball game, and Cade noticed she had a livid scratch running down the back of one hand.
The batting team had stolen a couple of bases while they'd been talking - Cade noted without real surprise that the Castro refugee from before was now running from second to third base. He wondered how they even knew if any team had won or lost. Maybe there was no winning and losing here. Maybe Doc Clearly didn't believe in it.
Cade felt that dreamlike, light-headed feeling again. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. He turned to look at the girl, wondering if he'd heard right before. "TV show?" Maybe they'd rigged up a generator with some old DVDs.
"Well, it's not real TV." she said, looking down, embarrassed. "I mean, we've got electricity, but it's kind of precious. We need it for important stuff, like the hydroponics and the Doc's lab. But we kind of get together and, uh..." She shrugged, suddenly embarrassed, and clammed up.
Cade wasn't a man who felt much sympathy for people or for beasts, but he did feel a twinge of something for this girl. She was reaching out, as best she could, trying to bring him into the community. Probably out of a request from Doc Clearly, but still. He figured he should do better than he was doing.
Plus maybe then you can nail her, right, dog? Shit, fuck her for my sake, man. I ain't getting none lookin' like this.
Cade winced, but didn't acknowledge Fuel-Air - didn't even look at him. Instead, he looked over at the girl and nodded. "I'm listening."
She smiled sheepishly. "We get together and act out the old shows. Mostly comedy shows. Last week was Frasier." She giggled. "Oh wow! 'I'm listening.' You'd make a really wild Frasier, you know? You'd be like the most intense Frasier ever." She had the giggles now, and it took her a minute to calm them down. "'I'm listening'. I can totally see it! You should talk to Rob and see if he's got a part for you."
Cade blinked. He didn't have much to say to that, either. Amateur dramatics weren't really his line.
Over their heads, the sun shone down, warm and kind. Down on the baseball diamond, the kid from Castro street had stolen home and into the arms of the guy he'd been hitting on. The woman in the tight jeans was sharing a flask of coffee or tea with a bearded man roughly her age, flirting and joking. Cade remembered the kids in the van, describing Love. A love shared by a whole community.
Cade was a fool to think there would be teams. He glanced over at the girl, who was looking shyly at him, evaluating him. He hoped she was just being friendly. It wasn't like he'd made the Duchess any promises - Cade wasn't the promising type - but she was too young for his tastes by a good twenty years.
Fuckin' MILF hunter. Shit, you got no taste at all, motherfucker.
Almost as if she'd heard Fuel-Air speak, she flushed, and her eyes darted away from Cade's to the softball game. She didn't speak for a few long seconds, and Cade could see her turning her thoughts over. "You know, I think it's better that way. The TV shows. Doing them like a play, I mean, with us. I think if we hooked up a, a..." She groped for the word. "DVD player. I don't think I could take that. Seeing how it used to be, I mean."
Cade didn't speak.
"But when people are acting it out... it's different. Like an escape. Does that make sense?" She smiled, blushing again, and looking down at her bare feet, twisting them together and rubbing one on top of the other. Her big toenail was bruised black. "You don't talk much, do you?"
Cade shook his head, and the girl laughed. "I can't work out if you like me or not. Are you coming tonight? It's at the old movie house on Haight Street - everybody's going to go."
Cade twitched an eyebrow. "Everybody?"
The girl nodded. "All of us. Everybody crams in. There's even people on the street outside, so make sure you get there early if you want a seat. I mean, I'll save you a seat. If you want." She blushed again, fidgeted, then stood. "You'll be there?"
Hell with it, thought Cade, and nodded. The girl beamed, and walked off, turning and waving at him.
Cade turned and looked at the seat on the other side. Fuel-Air was there, rotting and flyblown, grinning his skeleton grin. Didn't know you had it in you, dog.
Cade shook his head and shrugged. Below, the ball game was starting to drift apart, with only a few die-hards still playing until they, too, gave up on it. There'd been no whistle, no signal, but everyone had decided that it was time to stop. Eventually, only the Castro boy and his new friend were left, kissing lazily under the stands.
Cade stood up. That feeling of unreality was stronger, now that the initial shock of seeing people even halfway normal had worn off. It was starting to occur to him that he didn't know the rules around here. These people had found their own rhythm, and their own system, and it didn't include him. Not yet. Maybe it never would.
Cade made his way down from the stands, figuring he'd slip out without disturbing the two kids. Castro Street broke off long enough to shout to him. "Hey, man! You going to the show later? It's Rules Of Engagement tonight!"
Cade turned. On the one hand, he needed to get to know these people. On the other hand, it was Rules Of Engagement that night. He thought about it.
"Might be busy."
The young kid laughed, disbelieving. He had a shallow cut on his forehead that Cade hadn't seen from up in the stands. "Busy doing what? The whole community's gonna be there. You've gotta be there. Nobody's not going to be there. What, you want to miss your treats?" He snickered.
Cade narrowed his eyes. The batter spoke up. "He's right, bud. Gotta be there. You new?"
Cade nodded, and the batter gave a dry chuckle. "Seriously, you never been before? Aw, man, no spoilers, but you need to be at this thing. Trust me, man. You will love it." he grinned, showing a gap where two of his front teeth had once been, then went back to frenching the Castro Street kid. Cade stared for a second, then went on his way.
He figured he could sit through an episode of Rules Of Engagement if he had to.
"Too bad. It must be, uh, really hard." said the girl on the stage, lowering her eyes as if willing herself to remember the lines.
It was a girl of about twenty-three, with dark hair, and she looked quite a lot like the original actress - Cade figured that must have been why she got the part. But the delivery was stilted and wooden, even by the standards of a crappy sitcom, and Cade got the feeling that most of the audience were laughing from sympathy. Cade had never watched more than about ten minutes of this show - he didn't have much time for the tube at the best of times, and by all accounts this'd been a failure even by the low standards of the idiot box. Cade wondered why they'd decided to bring it back this way. Maybe there was something about it that people related to, even after the bad times. Or maybe anything better would just remind folks about what they'd lost.
"That's what she would've said," sighed a man of about forty, the one actor in the bunch, although he looked nothing like David Spade had - he had short hair, glasses and a heavy paunch. Nevertheless, Cassie started giggling on Cade's left and wouldn't stop, and the whole of the movie house erupted into a long burst of applause.
Easily pleased, Cade figured.
The place was packed - in a lot of the seats, people were sitting on each other's laps. The aisles were filled with people sitting cross-legged - even the sides of the stage had people sitting on them, occasionally getting in the way of the actors as they made their way o
n and off. Cade suddenly wondered if it was true, if everybody in the whole damned community liked old sitcoms so much that they'd come in here.
He scanned the crowd. There was nobody there Cade could have called old - the oldest person he'd met in the town was Clearly himself, and he wasn't yet fifty. And no kids. Not a single one.
He'd seen about a dozen in the Pastor's territory. The law of averages said he should be seeing the same here. It nagged him.
"Wasn't that awesome?"
Cade turned to look at Cassie and shrugged. There wasn't much more to say. He made a move to get up from his seat and she put a hand on his shoulder, gently. "Don't get up yet, silly. It's time for Doctor Clearly to hand out the treats."
Cade's eyes narrowed. The kid from Castro street had mentioned treats.
People were passing plastic bags filled with pills along the aisles - black pills and white pills. Everybody took two, one of each colour, then passed the bag along. Cassie took her two, smiling brightly, then passed the bag expectantly along to Cade. Cade met her eyes for a second, then gingerly reached out. To his right, a rail-thin man in a cheap suit and tie growled "Don't bogart 'em, mac, pass 'em down the line."
