Since Tomorrow

by Morgan Nyberg

  SINCE TOMORROW

  a novel

  MORGAN NYBERG

  Copyright Morgan Nyberg 2011

  Some features of Greater Vancouver have been altered, removed or exaggerated.

  ALSO BY Morgan Nyberg:

  Novels

  Mr Millennium

  El Dorado Shuffle

  For children

  Galahad Schwartz and the Cockroach Army

  Bad Day in Gladland

  Poetry

  The Crazy Horse Suite

  Since Tomorrow

  1

  They stopped – the three wagons and their drivers, the guards, the four dogs - at the cusp of the bridge. Already the noise of the market reached them. Shouts. Shrieking. The workhorse that was harnessed to the lead wagon turned its head and looked back at the driver. Noor said to it “No, we’re goin’. You know damn well we’re goin’.” She set her mouth and twitched the reins and gripped the handbrake. They started down the long slope of Frost’s Bridge.

  Dunsmuir, Airport and Lansdowne were guarding the Town end of the bridge with three dogs. Lansdowne was requesting a little toll from an old man who had a plastic basin full of knobby carrots. Noor stopped the wagon. “Aren’t you Jacob?” she said to the man.

  “That’s me. I know you, Noor. I know your grampa.” He did not have any teeth.

  The guards hauled the dogs out of the way and the other wagons passed. These wagons were smaller, and each was pulled by a Holstein steer.

  “You’re from South, aren’t you?” Noor said.

  “I was a long time ago, but I moved across. Too hard to get into Town, tradin’ to cross on the raft every time. I’m this side of the South Arm now.”

  “Alone?”

  He nodded.

  She said “Come to Frost’s. We’ll make a place for you.”

  He waited, then said “I can’t think of any reason not to. Except that I’m too stupid and I’m too stubborn.” He produced a squeaking laugh. “Tell your grampa you saw me.”

  Noor smiled and said to Lansdowne “Let him pass.”

  At the foot of the bridge they swung left and hooked back toward the river. They followed a wide trail between a few decrepit three-storey apartment buildings, among overgrown foundations, among humped ruins covered by blackberry and across the weedy asphalt remains of streets. There was a smell of human excrement. Town smell. A few people ran or limped toward the Frost wagons, flourishing their loot.

  The market sprawled along the bank of the river, nothing but a mess of people hollering at one another and waving lengths of electrical wiring or a sleeve of a red coat or a rusty can of forty-year-old soup or whatever else they had managed to strip from the corpse of the city. The guards took a tighter grip on the leashes of the dogs, who added their nervous whines and yelps to the general melee. The party found a place for the wagons at the lip of the riverbank.

  The boat of the Park Crew was tied at the river’s edge with a load of cordwood. Noor gazed across the river as she filled a bucket with spuds. In the water near the far bank stood two high piles of stones. On the bank itself lay Daniel Charlie’s half-built water wheel. Beyond rose the concrete storeys of her home, “the domicile” as her grandfather called it, leaning toward the river at a dangerous slant. Between the market and Frost’s Farm the late morning tide surged up the north arm of the river.

  The crowd was forced to stay back a few paces on account of the dogs. People carved out personal space with curses and slashing elbows while still managing to advertise a shoelace or a six-inch bolt complete with nut, or even some Town-grown vegetables, calling in their ragged Town voices “Lookit. Lookit what I got.” The drivers, Marpole and Hastings, each beckoned someone forward and set to haggling. The owner of the six-inch bolt went away with thirty potatoes.

  Noor held the bucket with her left hand and with her right took the leash of Puppy from one of the guards and headed cautiously into the throng. She let the bucket rest against the sword in her belt, so as not to injure those she passed. Behind her a one-legged woman with a crutch made from a chunk of black plastic pipe bartered an eight-foot length of eaves-trough and went away with enough food for two weeks.

  Lookit. Lookit what I got.

  Ten feet of garden hose bought a week of root starch.

  A dozen matches bought a month’s worth.

  Now there was something new for Noor to smell: the dull stench of bodies long unwashed. Puppy lifted her head, snuffing it in keenly. They wore ponchos of rough grey wool and nothing else, these Town people, if they were lucky enough to have come by the wool. Or they wore patchwork robes of whatever could be stitched, tied or pinned together: bits of wool, bits of old shirts, bigger bits of black, white or transparent polyethylene. If they wore shoes the shoes were makeshift, poly wraparound, every variety of bendable plastic, sponge rubber. They leaned over the dog and shouted “Lookit. Lookit here.” A dirty sheet of foolscap. The handle of a table knife. Styrofoam cups beyond counting, some of them whole. A wizened and scabbed apple.

  Noor stopped, allowed the apple to be placed in her bucket, allowed three potatoes to be removed, nodded, went on. Noor’s sandals were tire tread soles with leather straps. Her top was a patched and colourless flannel shirt with no sleeves, her bottom shapeless canvas trousers secured at the waist with yellow nylon twine. A way opened for the tall woman and the animal. Someone held up a shard of mirror. Lookit. For a second Noor saw what these others saw. Hair dark and tied back. Eyes green. Cinnamon skin. A long neck. The calm and imperious features of an Arab princess.

  She traded for a pair of large hard zucchini, then traded the zucchini and some spuds for a thin book, Principles of War by Carl von Clausewitz. It was almost intact, missing only the back cover and part of the front one. The deck of the bridge was above her now. Nearby, screams erupted and there was a thrashing of plastic, and two women grappled and bit and spat and rolled among feet on the hard-packed earth. The hair on Puppy’s back stood on end. Noor stepped away.

  A man was selling fire-makers. He sat cross-legged behind a tidy pile of his devices. He was prosperous enough to own a sword, the uneven blade of which he rested on his pyramid of merchandise. When people squatted down to trade he generally shook his head. He was maybe fifty, bearded and long-haired like the other men, but cleaner. He wore a leather bomber jacket, whole, mostly colourless but still black across the shoulders, and trousers made from varicoloured cloth. Noor had not seen him before. She said “How’s business?”

  “If someone would come up with somethin’ worth tradin’ for it would be fine. Could you use a fire-maker?”

  “We make our own. Come and visit us. We’re the other side of the bridge. Tell the guards you’re a friend of Noor’s.”

  “I will. My name is Kits.” He scratched Puppy behind the ear. The dog licked his hand.

  Noor went on. She saw Town Ranch trading their wool. She saw Wing in the distance, with guards and a wagon. Suddenly Puppy growled. The bucket was jerked from Noor’s grip. She gave a cry, stumbled sideways and let go of the leash. When she found her balance she drew her sword but the thief was already on his back, with Puppy’s forepaws on his chest, and her bared teeth and curled lip four inches from his eyes, which he closed carefully.

  The bucket had spilled, but no one tried to snatch the rolling potatoes. Noor gathered them as Puppy continued to snarl into the face of the thief. She found the book but could not spot the apple. A boy came forward with it. “Thanks” said Noor. “What’s your name?” The boy said nothing. “Who’s your dad? Which side of the bridge do you live on?” He started to back away. “Here” she said. “You keep it.” The boy ran off to find a safe place to eat the apple.

  “Enough now, Puppy.” Noor pulled the dog off the man’s chest, b
ut Puppy continued to glare at him, not blinking, still. The man opened his eyes, waited, scraped away on his back, slow as a snail. “Don’t come back here again” said Noor. He got up and ran. People kicked out at him as he dodged through the crowd. If they were holding something hard, a plastic bowl, a car aerial, they tried to hit him with it.

  Lookit.

  A half-panel of crushed drywall. Five empty tin cans with no labels. A Christmas tree ornament – this was a shock, the simple splendour of it almost painful in all the drabness. Noor acquired it.

  She made her way to old Wing’s party. He had only one wagon, with potatoes and carrots.

  Wing said “That’s a good dog. Which one is that?”

  “This is Puppy. Yeah, she’s a good dog. Sit, Puppy.” The dog sat. Noor patted its shoulder.

  Wing said “The Parts Gang are puttin’ together a new wagon for me. It’s on a big car chassis, Chrysler or somethin’. A bit heavy for a steer. When you going to have a colt for me?”

  “Soon as we find a stallion. You seen anybody tradin’ for a stallion?”

  “No, but I seen a woman tryin’ to trade the best part of a tricycle.” Noor and Wing laughed, but the guards did not.

  “Your men don’t know what a tricycle is” she said. “I had one when I was a kid. My dad made it from bits and pieces.”

  “Yeah, Steveston was good at things like that. Speakin’ of tricycles and stuff, it looks like our friends have got themselves some new toys.”

  “The Skag Crew?”

  Wing tilted the white wisp of his beard toward the area under the bridge. Noor spotted the skagger right away even though the only signs of his allegiance were a pair of hard eyes and the fact that he was not frantically trying to barter. “What is that he’s got?” she asked.

  “It’s a crossbow. Made from a leaf of an old car spring. I saw some others too. The Parts Gang must’ve put them together for them. I can’t see a skagger havin’ enough brains to build one of them things.”

  People came forward to barter. A roll of nylon fishing line, brown and brittle. A warped two-by-four with a single bent and rusted nail.

  Noor wandered off. A young man in a plastic poncho leaned over the dog and waggled something in front of her face. He did not bother saying Lookit, but just smiled a sly and toothless smile. It was a lens from a magnifying glass. Faces and shapes swam in the glass as he twisted it. She took it to examine. It was three inches across, perfect except for a small chip at the edge. Soon, with only the von Clausewitz, the Christmas bauble and the lens in the bottom of her bucket she moved forward to deal with Skagger Langley.

  He stood near the Frost wagons, watching the transactions with his big guard, Freeway. “You want to deal for skag you better save some of them spuds” said Langley. “You got any meat?” He was thin, clean-shaven and short-haired. His had a pointed nose and receding chin. The skin of his face was scaly and blotched red. He scratched at it habitually. He wore a pair of blue jeans and a black T-shirt with words on it. Pink Floyd. His eyes were like Noor’s - they gave away nothing. He wore real boots and had a pair of unused black leather shoes draped over a shoulder by the laces.

  Noor said “What’ll you take for the shoes?”

  “They’re for me” he said. He had a high-pitched voice that had a whine to it.

  “They’re not your size. They’re too big for you and they’re too small for your fat-ass guard.”

  The guard, Freeway, wore a long wool poncho and cut-off rubber boots. He and the dog were trying to stare each other down. Puppy’s lip quivered slightly. As did Freeway’s.

  “Got any meat?” said Langley again.

  “No meat. What’ll you take for the shoes?”

  “You don’t want shoes. You want skag.”

  Noor said “Don’t tell me what I want. I know what I want.” They both looked away. They both spat. Freeway and Puppy continued their eyeball combat until Noor turned to Freeway and said “Would you like to hold her?” She offered him the leash. Freeway stepped back, smiled weakly and shook his head. Langley stepped between Freeway and the dog and punched Freeway in the face. Noor pulled Puppy back. Blood streamed from Freeway’s nose, and tears ran down his cheeks, but he did not move. Puppy barked at Langley.

  Langley looked at the river for a minute, until his face became less red and the dog stopped barking. Then he said “You need skag for your medic.”

  “You got big ears.”

  “I’ll take all the spuds you got left.”

  “I’ll give you half a wagon.”

  They were quiet again for a while, watching the transactions at the wagons. A sewing needle earned a month of food.

  “One wagon” said Langley. “The big one.”

  “Throw in the shoes.”

  “You deliver.”

  “Deliver?”

  “Deliver the spuds.”

  “Give me the skag now. And the shoes. We’ll deliver.”

  “When? I got a hungry crew.”

  “In a few days. The workers are busy harvestin’. Grampa will be visitin’ the squatters.”

  “Everybody busy makin’ the world a better place. Hey, why don’t you bring the spuds? You never seen my house. I got stuff you ain’t even dreamed about.” He reached to touch her arm. She drew it away. His face reddened again and his eyes narrowed. He gave a little snort and an ugly smile. ‘Well then, maybe I’ll just have to come to your place. I hear you got a nice farm. I like farms.” He pulled a plastic bag from his jeans pocket. It was half full of dark flakes and powder, a couple of ounces. He tossed it to Noor.

  “Don’t burn me, Noor” he said. “I don’t care who your granddaddy is.”

  She stepped forward through the semicircle of guards and dogs and told Marpole not to trade the produce in her wagon. The pair of shoes looped through the air past her shoulder and landed on the heaped potatoes. Soon she saw Langley and Freeway make their way down the riverbank to the Park boat to trade for cordwood.

  When she turned away from the river a woman was trying to come forward. The woman appeared to have nothing to trade. She was carrying a baby. It was wrapped in blue poly. “Please.” she wailed. “She’s going to die.”

  Noor motioned her up to her wagon.

  “She’s going to die” the woman said again, more quietly. She had a torn wool poncho but no shoes. The skin of her face was flabby and yellow. Her eyes were yellow too. Most of her lank brown hair had fallen out. The baby was thin. Its eyes were half open, but there was little life in them. It did not move or make any kind of sound. It did not look at Noor or at anything else. “Are you tryin’ to trade your child? We don’t trade for children.”

  “No” said the woman. “Just take her. She’ll die if you don’t.” Her cheeks were wet.

  Just then there was a yell from down the riverbank, and Noor looked away from the woman. Langley’s guard, Freeway, was pointing up toward the part of the market that was near the bridge. Noor heard the word jacket. Langley and Freeway hustled up the bank and bulled into the crowd. In a minute there were shouts. Noor saw a skagger pushing through the crowd, with his crossbow held above his head. Further away she caught a glimpse of a raised sword. They were converging toward Langley and Freeway. Noor saw people rushing away from that point. There were more shouts. The Frost dogs all started barking. There was a man’s scream.

  A few seconds later Freeway stepped back into view on the riverbank and stumbled down it. He was dragging a man’s body toward the water. Langley emerged from the crowd and walked part way down the bank. Freeway had his right hand wrapped around the man’s hair braid. The body, naked from the waist up, showed no resistance nor any kind of movement. It left a sketchy trail of red on the rocks and on the shards of culvert scattered on the bank. It was the man who had the fire makers, Kits.

  Freeway took a wrist and an ankle and heaved the body into the river. It floated at the river’s edge for a while. Then the current slowly took control, and the racing grey-brown tide claimed Kits’ body. It
bobbed upriver, gaining speed, and soon appeared to be nothing but a peeled scrap of driftwood.

  Noor looked away. The woman had gone. The child was lying on the mound of potatoes in her wagon, beside the shoes. Noor carefully picked her up. There was hardly any weight to her. She held the child close. She put her face against her.

  “Let’s go home” she said. Her voice was quiet and broken and she had to repeat the order.

  Behind her, on the riverbank, Langley stood facing the market in his new black leather jacket, his arms spread wide in victory.

  2

  The sun sat half a hand’s breadth above the horizon. It appeared to have paused in its descent. An old man sat on a workhorse, plodding southwest along the River Trail. In front of him sat a boy.

  The man had a mass of curly white hair and a white beard. He wore canvas trousers and a patched and sleeveless pullover shirt. On his feet were a pair of shiny black leather shoes with square toes. He wore wire-rim glasses, the lenses of which were crazed with scratches. Behind the lenses blue eyes caught a little of the weak light of the sun. The boy had on a poncho and patched blue sweatpants with a green stripe but was shoeless. He held the reins of yellow twine loosely in his right hand and leaned back against the old man.

  Frost gazed at the sun. It was going down after all. “Will it come up again?” he said.