Autumn in the City of Angels

by Kirby Howell

  She surprised me by handing me the white plastic wand. I took it and she stooped to adjust my feather boa.

  “How old is your brother, Rissi?” I asked.

  “He’s thirty-seven.” She said confidently.

  “Uh... okay.” I said, confused. Wow, I thought, what an age gap.

  The door squeaked suddenly as it swung open. I gasped in surprise and leapt to my feet.

  “Ben!” Rissi squealed and dashed to the dark-haired teenage boy in the doorway. She jumped up on him, catching him around the waist.

  While she squeaked out every detail she knew about me, I studied him carefully and decided almost immediately this wasn’t the boy who rescued me four weeks ago. The way he hunched his shoulders forward whispered of a lack of social confidence, while the boy who rescued me showed concrete confidence and displayed a vein of charm despite our dire situation. I suddenly realized what it was that set my rescuer apart from any of the other boys my age. He didn’t act like a teenager. The boy staring awkwardly at me now was definitely a teenager.

  I suddenly felt self-conscious with the feather boa trailing halfway to the floor and the plastic tiara perched on my head. I wondered when I’d last washed my hair. I placed the wand and the tiara on the seat of the armchair and started to unwind the boa from around my neck. I had trouble getting it untangled from around me. I doubt it would have come off in a hurricane.

  Judging by the precautions these two had been taking against “the bad people,” I felt fairly confident they weren’t with The Front. They were probably like me, alone and doing the best they could. I tucked my hair behind my ears and stuck out my hand. “I’m Autumn. Like Rissi said... um... I live here.”

  The boy shook my hand briefly, his brown eyes not leaving my own. He had a round face, dark curly hair and glasses. He certainly wasn’t thirty-seven. He looked no older than me. Why wasn’t he saying anything? Did he think I was part of The Front? I remembered Sam, and how benign she’d seemed. I suppose it would have been easy for Ben to think I was like her, so I tried to ease his mind.

  I looked around and said the first thing that came to mind, “Where’d you find the powdered milk? That must be nice.” I gestured to the box.

  Rissi stared at me, then Ben, her smile widening. When Ben didn’t say anything, she jumped up and down, pulling on his arm. This seemed to wake him up.

  “Uh, yeah. Rissi likes cereal.” Ben said flatly. He cleared his throat. “Um, she’s also off by twenty years. I’m seventeen. She’s seven.” His voice trailed off.

  I nodded. “I’m so sorry about your door. I didn’t think anyone else was living here. I’ve been up in our apartment for the past two and a half months, and I’m about out of food. I was looking for the janitor’s keys so I could get into some of the other apartments.”

  Ben pulled out a fat key ring from his pocket. The ring was so full, the keys stuck out like spokes on a bicycle wheel. “That’s what we’ve been doing,” he said, then eyed me a little closer. Suddenly I saw a dawn of recognition, “You’re Adara O’Neal’s daughter, aren’t you?”

  Hearing her name suddenly shocked me like static electricity, and the familiar pain twisted in my chest. Her red curly hair and laughing eyes shimmered in front of me for a moment. I shook my head slightly to clear it. At least I knew why he was staring now. That used to happen sometimes. Best to pretend like they’re not, my mother always said. Graceful, gracious and grateful was her mantra when dealing with the public.

  “That’s me. Have we met?”

  “No, I’ve just seen you around here before... you know... before...”

  “Oh! You lived here too?”

  Ben exhaled sharply and looked around sarcastically. “Here? Yeah right. My dad was the janitor. I helped him after school, so I’d see you sometimes. Marissa and I live here now, though.” He patted her on the back when he said her name.

  “So that’s how you knew about the keys.”

  Ben nodded. “We thought we were the only ones left in the building. We’ve been all over it, gathering food and supplies. We didn’t have access to your penthouse though, because of the high security. Jeez, you’ve really been up there all this time by yourself? Bet you’ve been going crazy.” I couldn’t help but start to smile at how fast Ben was warming and how his rambling sentences seemed to be all connected into one thought.

  “Yeah, I go a little nutty some days. I’m glad I ran into you. It’ll be nice to have some company again.” My voice cut off there, and I stopped my thoughts from wandering to my parents again. I swallowed and looked at Rissi, who was staring at me, grinning. I suddenly noticed how her brown curly hair hung lank in messy pigtails. Her shirt had a stain down the front, and her hands were dirty. She wore rubber flip flops, and her feet were dirty, too.

  I opened my mouth to ask if they wanted to come up for a swim/bath in my pool but Ben said, “Well, I just cleared 1824 so you can come up with us to look around if you like. Hey, Rissi, guess what they have? Something you were just saying this morning you wanted...”

  Rissi’s huge brown eyes lit up, and she squealed something unintelligible.

  Ben laughed, and I said, “What was that?”

  “Marshmallows.”

  I marveled at how Ben and Rissi had been getting along so well, so close to me, practically underneath my nose, all this time.

  Ben waved for us to follow him, and we walked out to the elevator. He pushed the “up” button with a long, thin finger. I nervously glanced behind me at the wall of windows leading to the street as the elevator opened.

  “Don’t worry. They’re not around today.”

  I was taken aback by his assuredness. “How do you know?”

  “I overheard one of the guys talking on a walkie talkie. Something about his group leaving to go help with some underground project, but they’ll be back tonight.”

  I stared at him, shocked. “How did you overhear them?"

  He shrugged, and I noticed his t-shirt was a tad too small for his frame. “Spying. We’ve only been in this building for about three weeks. We tried to stay at our house in Palms as long as we could, but we ran out of food. We moved to another apartment complex in Santa Monica but The Front raided it. It was all I could do to keep us hidden. Hopped around to a couple different places since, always trying to keep ahead of their looting. When we found this place, I thought I’d make it look like they’d already raided it, hoped it’d confuse them.”

  I raised my eyebrows, impressed and asked, “Has it worked?”

  Ben grimaced. “So far, but Karl hasn’t been with them. Don’t know if it would fool him.”

  I started at the name. “You know Karl?”

  He shrugged. “Not personally. He’s a real creep. I’ve only heard him on the radio.”

  I nodded and briefly told him about my short visit with them, editing out the part about the boy in the alley.

  “I bet it’s like listening to World War II propaganda back in the day. At first it sounds pretty good, but then it gets creepy, fast. They say we need to unite to survive, that we can rebuild together. But then they talk about how we have to reform our ways for a better community and strip away our own wants and needs... serve them and stuff. It’s pretty crazy.” Ben’s voice was bitter, and his eyes hardened. “But I’ve seen what they do. I’m not buying their crap.”

  An image of the olive-skinned boy in the dirty t-shirt and Karl, handsome head bowed as he dug through the boy’s bag, flashed through my head. “I don’t like them either,” I said. Ben looked at me and we both understood.

  The elevator arrived on the eighteenth floor, and we stepped into the hallway, where Ben guided us to the left. We passed doors with flat brass numbers fastened to them. When we reached the door labeled “1824,” Rissi opened the unlocked door and ran right in. Ben held the door open for me, and I followed her. I heard her shouting with joy from deeper in the apartment. I smiled. She must have found the marshmallows.

  My earlier worry about the inhabitan
ts of these apartments resurfaced as Rissi reappeared with a fistful of giant marshmallows. She ran by, her mouth crammed full, yelling what sounded like, “Chubby Bunny!” and then disappeared again through an open doorway into what I guessed was a bedroom. I heard Ben opening cabinets in the kitchen, so I walked toward the noise.

  Ben was stacking canned food onto the counter. He had already piled a couple bags of chips and some bottled water and soda next to them. He pulled open the refrigerator and immediately picked up a familiar bright pink bottle of Pepto-Bismol. He put it on the counter with the other items and continued poking around the refrigerator, sniffing items here and there. I could almost imagine this was his own place, and that he’d just gotten home and was digging up a snack.

  “Um, Ben?”

  There was a pause, and then I heard his muffled reply from the back of the fridge. “Yeah?”

  “So, is that your machete down in the lobby office?”

  He reappeared holding a jar of applesauce and some extremely moldy cheese. “Yup. Gotta have something, and until I can get my hands on a gun, that’ll have to do.”

  My wide eyes must have given me away, because he said, “Autumn, you’ve seen what Karl and The Front are doing. They’re taking people by force. I’m not about to let that happen to us.”

  I nodded. “Of course.” I hoped he’d never have to resort to using it. Watching him inspect the cheese, he didn’t seem the type to know how to handle a gun, let alone a machete. He had such a gentle look about him, and I was willing to bet he knew more about computers than handling weapons.

  “What did you mean when you said you ‘cleared’ this apartment?” I asked, thinking I probably already knew the answer.

  “Well, I can’t let Rissi just run into these apartments, not knowing what’s behind all the closed doors.” He tossed the cheese back into the fridge. It landed with a soft thump on the shelf. “These people didn’t just go up in a puff of smoke when they died, you know?”

  My eyes widened slightly. He’d not only used the same phrase I thought not half an hour ago, but he’d talked so casually about it.

  “So... so you go in the apartments first and...” My voice trailed off.

  “Clear them.” He finished for me and began bagging his groceries. “...Rissi knows the rule about closed doors.”

  I turned my back to him suddenly, realizing what he must go through every day just so Rissi could come with him. Seeing dead bodies, moving them, touching them, hiding them. I took a deep breath and bit my lip hard. There was a closed door just beyond the living room.

  Knowing they used to be alive and just like me with thoughts and fears and passions is what scared me most about dead bodies. I’d only seen one dead body in my life. Well, two now, counting the boy in the street.

  My granddaddy died a couple of years ago, and I’d walked with my dad to the front of the church to say goodbye at his casket. I watched as my dad bent down and kissed his dead father’s forehead and slipped something in the breast pocket of the jacket. I stepped forward and my granddaddy’s face came into view. He looked like a wax figure of himself. His skin was stretched and thick. His lips looked swollen. My breath caught in my throat, and I was terrified to move closer. Without thinking, I stepped back and stumbled on my dad’s shoe. Caught off guard, he wasn’t able to catch me, and I fell in front of everyone. I didn’t care, though. I stood up and walked quietly to the back of the church. For the rest of the service, I wasn’t able to tear my eyes away from the white tip of my granddaddy’s nose that peeped out of his casket.

  I asked my dad later what he put in his dad’s pocket. “A letter,” he said. “Telling him what a good dad he was, and that I’d always try to be as good to you as he was to me.” My dad wasn’t crying or even tearing up when he told me this, so I also tried not to cry.

  “You all right?” Ben’s voice tore me from the memory. I nodded and drifted into the living room. I found a shelf of DVDs and only half-heartedly looked through the titles. I traced my fingertip against the cases and pulled one out, pretending to look at the front. I guess I didn’t want Ben to realize how much the idea of dead bodies scared me. The only thing he knew about me was that I’d survived by myself for the past two and a half months. I liked the idea of looking tough in someone else’s eyes.

  Of course, I wasn’t tough. I was anything but. “It’s all in the eyes,” I heard my mother saying to me, “you may not be able to control your true emotions boiling inside you, but you can control your body, and your eyes are the key. Control your eyes, and you’ll fool everyone.”

  A voice at my side made me jump. It was Ben. I gritted my teeth. So much for being tough.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” He apologized. “I just was asking if you needed anything you’d like to look for.”

  “Um... just food, right now. I’m running pretty low. Water, too.”

  “You can look through what Rissi and I have and take what you need. And hey, we’re neighbors, so you know, maybe we can be friends or something.” Ben gave a lopsided half smile, and he adjusted his glasses.

  I chucked and said, “Of course.”

  “That’s a great movie,” he said, indicated the DVD I held.

  I looked down at it and realized I was holding A New Hope, the very first Star Wars movie. I must have picked it up unconsciously. I grinned and said, “I grew up watching these with my dad.”

  He laughed and said, “Me too. Empire’s my favorite. Irving Kershner was a genius.”

  “Totally!” I exclaimed and laughed. “Maybe we could have a Star Wars marathon one night.”

  “That would be awesome,” he agreed and tapped the case in my hands. “You should take it.”

  I smiled at him, and he strode back into the hallway, calling Rissi’s name. I stared down at the DVD then slid it back onto the shelf. It felt wrong taking something that wasn’t essential for me to live another day. This movie had been purchased by someone who might still be in this apartment, concealed behind one of the closed doors Rissi knew not to open.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Over the next several months we became a team. I worked with Ben and Rissi to find supplies and organize us so life resembled something relatively ordinary. We entertained each other and tried to forget the violence we saw happening in the streets below.

  I asked Ben and Rissi to move in with me only one week after meeting the siblings, when Rissi showed me the hiding place in her apartment for when the “bad people came.” It was another grate in the wall, just like one in the office.

  “When the bad people come?” I’d asked Ben while we were busy sorting through bottles of cough syrup and other medications we’d accumulated.

  He looked up at me with his eyebrows raised. “This is a huge building, Autumn. Over three hundred units. That’s a big draw, aside from the fact this place was pretty expensive. Karl’s raiders have stuck to the first five floors or so, but they’ve wandered up higher before. That’s why Rissi has her hiding spots.”

  I immediately saw how safe and separated I was. How much extra space I had. How well it would work to have us all in one, big, safe spot.

  They moved in that very day. Ben’s face turned cherry red behind his glasses when I suggested it. But his embarrassment disappeared when Rissi exploded into exclamations about a never-ending slumber party.

  I decided to let Rissi have my room. I knew she’d like the brightly striped comforter and yellow bean bag chair. I even found some of my childhood toys and put them on shelves around the room. I moved my clothes, books, journals and music into my parent’s room, where I would sleep from now on.

  I took a deep breath as I turned to look at my old bedroom once more before Ben and Rissi arrived with their things. I crossed the room and plucked a frame off my windowsill. It contained a picture of me when I was ten, sandwiched between my parents on a ride at the small amusement park at the end of the Santa Monica Pier. I was sticking my tongue out at the camera, and my parents were kissing ab
ove me. My dad was clad in his standard green college sweatshirt and jeans, and my mother’s vibrant red curly hair was blowing in the sea breeze. I felt the familiar ache in my stomach as I looked at my parents’ faces. The flush on my mother’s cheeks. How my dad’s large hand rested on my shoulder, even as he kissed my mother.

  I touched the glass where his hand touched my shoulder and allowed myself five seconds of self-pity, and then I raised my head and closed the door to my old bedroom.

  Ben moved into my dad’s office, where there was a pullout couch. I cleared off the desk for him to use, not looking at the papers and blueprints I tucked away in boxes. I actually felt a bit better after the desk was clean, and I’d moved a few more framed pictures of my family to my new bedroom.

  Ben and Rissi both seemed very impressed with the apartment, especially the rooftop terrace. “You can see practically the whole city from up here!” Ben exclaimed when he saw it and immediately climbed onto the orange cushioned ottoman, picked up my binoculars and pressed them against his glasses. “Wow, this is great!”

  I was pleased to have the company.

  Together, we worked on our systems of bathing, washing clothes and dishes, gathering and organizing supplies, and cooking. I became proficient in the kitchen after finding a gold mine of cookbooks on one of our scouts through the apartments below. Baking and cooking with the barest of ingredients became a game to me, and items like bread and pasta appeared on the table again for meals. Ben was incredibly smart and constantly rigging up new gadgets. His latest was the shower. He cut the bottom out of an empty Sparkletts’ jug and attached the nozzle from a watering can to the neck with duct tape. He hung it upside down over the bathtub using a mesh bag we’d found full of soccer balls. Aside from not being able to control the temperature, it was perfect.

  I discovered Ben to be a bottomless source of information. He was like a living, breathing Google search engine. One evening, I turned on a lamp to read a book to Rissi and commented about how lucky we were to still have power from the Hoover Dam. To my surprise, Ben launched into a lecture on the reservoir and turbines and the dam’s history that would have rivaled any of my high school teachers’ lessons. Rissi only rolled her eyes and began to read the book herself while I politely tried to pay attention to her brother.