Colonel extracts a pack of Marlboros and opens it. He removes a cigarette and places it between my lips. He takes a lighter from his pocket and opens it—the distinctive noise of a Zippo. I don’t know how I know this but I do.
“We don’t have to worry about cancer anymore.” Colonel hands me the pack of cigarettes and the lighter. “Keep them.”
The smoke tastes like wisdom and bravery. This is what it feels like to be one of Colonel’s men.
I tell myself I’ll only smoke one cigarette a day, because nobody makes them anymore. When I run out, maybe Colonel will give me another pack, or maybe he’ll decide I’m not the Indian boy who knows all about religion after all. I’m the boy with the cute butt his men won’t stop looking at—and occasionally touching.
As far as I can tell all Colonel’s men are named Bubba except for me.
“They’re interchangeable Raj, like Jesus’ disciples.” He winks at me and touches the tip of my nose with a finger. A spark of static electricity jumps between us. “Bubba, bring Raj that six shooter.”
I can’t tell who Colonel is talking to, but the Bubbas know. One of them hands him a pistol in a Western holster. This Bubba might be one of the Flashlight Men, or the one who fetched the carton of cigarettes. They look as indistinguishable as a litter of wolf pups or a troop of clowns.
Colonel straps the pistol around my waist.
“Boys with pistols don’t look so sweet.” He lets me take a sip of Scotch from his personal bottle. I smile, even though it’s like swallowing gasoline.
“The Bubbas like girls better than boys, but they use them up kind of fast.” He slips his pinky ring onto my little finger to remind his men whose property I am.
“Raj is off limits,” he tells them. “At least for now.”
“At least for now?” I don’t like the sound of that, but Colonel tells me it’s all part of a complex strategy I’ll understand later on. He doesn’t say I’ll like it.
“Best not to think on it too much,” he says. “Maybe we’ll find a girl along the way. A nice young one, to remind the boys.” Colonel runs a hand through my hair and licks his fingertips, like I’m a piece of chocolate cake he’s saving for later.
“Remind them of what?” I ask, mainly to get his mind off chocolate.
“That you’re not a girl, Raj. Sometimes the Bubbas need reminding.”
• • •
Ten cigarette days since Buy For Less, and I’m still wearing Colonel’s pinky ring.
The Bubbas say, “Look, Raj and Colonel are going steady,” but not when Colonel can hear them.
I count the bullets in my gun, where all of them can see—enough to kill six Bubbas if they come for me. I’ve never fired a weapon in my life and I don’t practice with this one because Colonel says I shouldn’t.
“If the men see what a bad shot you are, the pistol won’t discourage them.”
So I just count my bullets to remind them how wrong things can go if they think about my butt too much.
Every night, we sleep in the National Guard Armory where the 44th Medical Evacuation Hospital used to train. There’s medicine, and M-16 rifles with lots of ammunition. There are Meals, Ready to Eat, and tents and a chain link fence with razor wire coiled on top.
Most important, there is gasoline. Not enough for Jeeps, but plenty for four-wheelers.
Every day, the Bubbas drive through Oklahoma City, wherever Colonel tells them. They stop when Colonel gives the sign, sometimes at houses, sometimes at stores. Sometimes he tells them what to look for, but mostly he just says to go inside.
I ask, “How do you pick the houses?” because what Colonel does seems like magic.
I’m crowded between a Bubba and Colonel in the front seat of a four-wheeler, so I can’t pull away when he leans his lips too close to my ear and whispers, “There’s always something, Raj.”
A drop of saliva pops out of his mouth when he says my name. I want to wipe it off, but he’s watching me so I just let it dry.
He raises his right hand and sticks his pinky finger in the air—the one that used to wear my ruby ring—and the Bubbas all pull over and kill their engines. I’m hoping that’s all they’ll kill today.
Colonel points at a brick house with no broken windows and tells his men, “This one.”
There’s a scuffle to see which Bubba will go inside. The baldheaded one with the Nazi tattoos wins this time by using a stun gun. He looks at Colonel for approval and then backs through the door.
Inside, a woman screams. She screams the same thing over and over, but nobody outside can understand.
The outside Bubbas smile and trade buddy punches. Then there’s a gunshot. Followed by two more. Followed by three more after that.
Six bullets, the same as in in the pistol Colonel gave me. I put my hand on the pistol grip, because the Bubbas are all nodding their heads and smiling like someone just announced the electricity is coming on again. They look at each other, and they look at the front door. At least they aren’t looking at me.
I feel ashamed that I’m not worried about the gunshots and the screams, but relieved it wasn’t me screaming—at least not yet.
Colonel puts a hand on my shoulder. “It happens like this sometimes.”
I want to ask him, “What happens?” but I don’t really want to know, so I just sit beside Colonel and hope the screams are enough to remind the Bubbas that I’m not a girl.
Five minutes later the Nazi Bubba comes out carrying a little girl, who’s holding a stuffed animal in her arms. He whoops like a violent weather alert. He tosses the little girl into the air so high it looks like she might reach escape velocity but she pauses in mid-flight and falls into his arms again.
Maybe she’s four years old or maybe she’s five. It’s hard to tell, because the terror on her face subtracts at least a year. She opens her mouth into a perfect capital “O”. It looks like she’s screaming, but if she is it’s in a frequency Bengali-Okie boys can’t hear.
The Bubbas collect in a broken circle around their Nazi partner. They look at the little girl the way they’ve looked at me ever since I came out of the Buy For Less.
I feel like a door has opened letting in sunshine and fresh air as the Bubbas turn their attention toward her. Relief crowds out everything else in my mind. I try hard to feel sorry for this little girl, but I can’t quite manage.
“It will come,” Colonel tells me, understanding what’s going on inside my mind the same way he knows what’s inside buildings as we drive past on four-wheelers.
He walks over to the Bubba circle and extends his arms. The Nazi doesn’t want to give her up, but Colonel moves so close he can’t refuse.
“Her name is Mary,” he says.
The little girl nods her head like an antique bobble-head doll, and doesn’t stop until Colonel tells the Bubbas, “Mary Magdalene.”
They know all about Mary Magdalene. The Bubbas step away from Colonel mumbling an unintelligible mix of curse words and biblical wisdom.
Colonel turns to me and says, “Everybody got religion when New Flu spread around the world, even people who shouldn’t.”
The Bubbas all ask for the girl at once. They say, “Please.”
They promise to take turns, like little boys asking their father for a BB gun.
“Not yet,” Colonel tells them. “Take care of her Raj.” He sits her in my lap. “This is your lucky day.”
Now I have a pistol, a half-pack of cigarettes, a Zippo lighter, a ruby ring, and a little girl—all presents from Colonel.
• • •
On the day I smoke my fifteenth cigarette one of the Bubbas finds a cache of drugs.
Colonel looks unhappy when he sees what’s in the big cardboard box with “KITCHEN WARES” written on the side in black Sharpie letters.
“This is trouble, Raj,” Colonel tells me. “Keep Mary and your pistol close.”
The box has bags of marijuana inside, pressed into solid blocks like the freeze dried vacuum-sealed coffee m
y mother bought when the stores were open. A dozen baggies full of pills are wedged between the blocks.
“Weed is fine,” Colonel tells the Bubbas. “Smoke all the weed you want, just don’t take the pills.”
According to Colonel, the little blue tablets with the word SKY pressed into them are ecstasy. They evaporate among the Bubbas more quickly than twenty-five-year-old Scotch. No one knows where they went.
“Beats me Colonel.”
“Ain’t seen ’em.”
“Not a clue.”
The Bubbas all look at their feet and tell the same lie. The drugs have more power over them than Colonel, so he pretends he doesn’t care.
I’m holding Mary in my arms, wondering what I’ll do if trouble starts.
Colonel runs a hand through Mary’s hair. “Pretty little girl.”
He takes turns looking at me and Mary like he’s making a decision.
“Let’s go!” Colonel walks to the four-wheelers, and all the Bubbas follow. They all know he’s the boss, even if they won’t give up their ecstasy.
He keeps us busy collecting, and tells me to hold Mary so the Bubbas can’t get a good look at her.
“Ecstasy makes the Bubbas remember what they want.” Colonel runs his hand through Mary’s hair again and smells his fingers. I put my hand on my six-shooter in case he’s remembering too.
Nothing unusual happens for a while. At least nothing more unusual than everything that’s happened since civilization disappeared. Colonel keeps on finding things. The Bubbas keep on following orders. There might be a little more shoving and grumbling than usual, but it’s hard to tell while I’m holding a little girl who never talks.
I hold her, and she holds a stuffed animal that might be a mouse with floppy ears or a dog with whiskers, or something that lives in factories in China where stuffed animals used to come from.
“NNNNNAAA!” It’s not a word, but it’s the closest thing to a word Mary’s said since we collected her. She’s looking over my shoulder, and wrapping her arms around me so her stuffed animal is pressing into my neck.
I turn around just in time to step away from a dirty hand reaching for us. Black grease highlights every fingernail and every crease in every finger, like a graffiti hand that’s somehow been drawn on the end of a Bubba’s arm. The fingers close into a fist, as if it’s holding an invisible rope that’s connected to me and Mary.
“Let me have the little girl.”
The Bubba’s voice trembles like knuckles running over a washboard. His eyes fill up with big black pupils that completely swallow the irises. Full of hallucinations. Full of desire. Full of unrequited Bubba-love.
“Pretty, pretty, pretty.” The hand reaches out and pulls at the air again.
“Three times too pretty for you. Go away.” I make a fist of my own and hold it so he can see the pinky ring Colonel gave me.
The Bubba’s smile might look friendly except for the missing front tooth, and the stream of tobacco-stained drool running down his chin.
Mary squeezes her arms around my neck so tight, I can barely say the word, “Asshole!”
I draw my pistol and point it at the Bubba’s chest.
“You won’t shoot,” he tells me. “There’s no end of shooting once you start.” He gestures at the other Bubbas who are moving our direction now, along with Colonel, who’s not doing anything to help.
“You won’t shoot,” the Bubba says again, like a Jedi warrior tricking a stormtrooper with a weak mind.
He takes a giant step forward, like ecstasy has distorted the distance between us. So instead of shooting, I stomp on the foot that’s already reached too far.
The instep crumbles like a sand castle, and the Bubba howls like a champion pig caller and tries to keep his balance while he hops around on his good foot.
Mary makes her “NNNAAA!” sound again, which blends perfectly with the Bubba-noise. I take a graceful step forward like a mediocre soccer player from Brazil whose been hired by the Texas Rangers to kick field goals. My foot connects with a part of the Bubba that’s so soft it makes me cringe.
He falls onto the ground and cries until bubbles of mucous mix with the tobacco juice on his chin. He tries to get up, but his legs aren’t taking orders from his brain.
“Let’s move out,” Colonel says.
The Bubbas load boxes into the four-wheelers and we ride off without their partner with the broken foot and the swollen testicles.
“What will he do now?” I ask Colonel.
He doesn’t tell me, and I don’t ask again.
• • •
Colonel says we can’t leave the 44th Medical Evacuation compound for three days.
“One for the Father. One for the Son. One for the Holy Ghost.”
He makes all his most important orders sound like messages from God. He’s not sure how much ecstasy the Bubbas found, but he’s pretty sure they’ll use it up in three days.
“You and Mary lie doggo.” Colonel says that’s an expression he read in a science fiction book a long time ago when people thought we’d live on the moon and travel to the stars.
He tries to post a guard or two to keep the Bubbas used to following orders. He warns them about heavily armed lesbian bands who roam the city looking for men who steal little girls. But the Bubbas are too stoned to be afraid, so he locks the gates and tells me to find a place to hide.
“Take Mary with you,” he says, like I could go anywhere without her. Mary holds onto me the way baby chimps hold onto their mothers when they swing through the trees. She won’t let go even when she eats.
Having a little girl like Mary means always having a little hand on you, even at the most private moments. It means never doing anything without a pair of terrified eyes following every change in expression. It means never lying down without an arm across your chest and a sweaty little body pressed against you.
There are only twelve Bubbas, but ecstasy won’t let them sleep and I have to. I take Mary into the enlisted men’s quarters, because Colonel says it’s too ugly for anyone on ecstasy.
“Men on ecstasy like bright colors, pretty girls, and boys who look like pretty girls,” Colonel says. “They don’t like cots lined up in a large room with walls the color of body bags.”
But Colonel forgot that everything looks the same in the dark.
I start to say a prayer, because Colonel is right about everybody getting religion when the world comes to an end.
It starts with, “Now I lay me down to sleep,” but it’s mostly about dying before I wake and that makes Mary nervous.
“NNNAAA.”
“Just in case,” I whisper to Mary. “Just in case there is a God and he’s keeping score, you know?”
“NNNAAA,” is all Mary has to say about God.
“Help us, please.” I look at the ceiling of the enlisted men’s quarters so God will know I’m talking to him. “Please, please, please—and thank you.” I can’t think of anything more to say. If there’s a God he’ll know what to do without being told, and if there’s not. . . “Just get us out of here, OK?”
I don’t remember to say, “Amen,” and it’s too late, because the front door of the enlisted men’s quarters swings open and Bubbas stumble in.
The full moon fills up one of the impossibly small windows in the southern wall. There’s plenty of light but it makes everything look like shades of silver. The Bubbas turn their flashlights on and point them in all directions, like a game of German Spotlight. Bright circles of light land on plumped pillows and flat matrasses. They dance across Bubba-faces. Some of the men call out “Raj,” and some call out, “Mary,” as if we’re playing Marco Polo. They whistle and cluck their tongues as if we are a pair of puppies who can be tricked with funny sounds.
We roll onto the cement floor, more quietly than Bubba-footsteps, and crawl under one cot after another until we are as far away from Bubbas as the room will let us go. That’s against a wall, which cuts off one route of escape, so I crawl back into the center of
the enlisted men’s quarters with Mary sheltered between my arms.
I wonder how loud prayers have to be to catch God’s attention, because I suddenly remember The Lord’s Prayer and it might work better than Now I lay me down to sleep.
But it’s too late for prayers. The Bubbas bump into each other and shout curses that are part sexual perversion and part racial slander. They trip over cots and roll onto the floor, but they’ve forgotten how to crawl, or how to search under things, and after a while, they forget about me and Mary too.
Then the shooting starts. Muzzle flashes light the Bubbas up like mannequins in a county fair horror ride, where ticket holders are told to keep their hands and arms inside the car for their own safety.
Mary and I huddle under a cot and try not to watch, but there is so much noise and so many flashes and so much screaming that finally I run toward the door with Mary clinging to my back.
I can’t help thinking maybe she will shield me from the bullets. Maybe the little girl will save my life by losing hers. I hate thinking that so much I snatch her around in front of me so I’ll die first. Even though things still won’t work out for Mary, I can’t let it happen the other way around.
Bullets whiz around us. They ricochet off of things like sound effects in a gunfight movie, which makes me remember I have a gun, and maybe it’s time to start shooting back.
Twenty paces from the enlisted men’s quarters, I stop and kneel. I push Mary behind me. I draw my pistol and hold it in a double-handed grip, like I’ve seen policemen do on television back when laws and science looked so promising.
A Bubba stands framed in the doorway of the building, illuminated by the insane silver light of the full moon, turning into a werewolf inside—where it really matters.
“Put your fingers in your ears,” I tell Mary, as a black mist of blood covers the Bubba’s face and floats over his body. He slides down the doorframe as if he is exhausted from a hard day of rape and pillage.
“NNNAAA!” Mary says. She pats my back with her tiny hands.
“Thanks,” I say, “But it wasn’t me.” The muzzle of my pistol hasn’t flashed. No explosion in the cylinder. No fingertip-size lead projectile flew out the barrel. I hadn’t found the trigger.
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