by D. J. Molles
ROCKY RIVER BRIDGE
A Grower’s War Prequel Story
The two boys slipped out the back door while Grandpa Clarence napped. A bottle of cheap whiskey sat on the table by his chair. They went quietly, sneakily. But Grandpa Clarence wouldn’t have cared. He was always trying to shove them outdoors anyway.
He would mumble at them, “Chaps’re s’posed to be outside getting dirty.” Then he would squint and aim a palsied finger at them. “You ain’t no fuckin’ urbys. You’re growers. Have some self-respect.”
No, their drunken grandfather wouldn’t have cared. But sneaking out made everything more exciting. It made what they were doing more illicit.
Outside, the sun was as hot as it was going to get that summer. Their little house was surrounded by the cornfields. The rich green stalks were over their heads now. Roy led the way and Walter followed—the older, and then the younger.
Eight and ten, that summer.
Young for the trouble they would soon find themselves.
But kids grow up fast in the middle of a war.
Roy had the longer legs, and Walter had to press his own pace to keep up. And, of course, he also had to act like it wasn’t tiring.
They hit the cornfields at a sprint and kept going straight through, heading for the woods, slipping through the narrow rows and carefully jumping the hydroponics lines and dodging the regulator posts.
School was out, they were free, and they had just over two hours before Pops’ pickup came down the narrow gravel drive to their front door.
Roy had something planned. Walter could see it in his eyes. And he was wearing a backpack, which Walter could only interpret as being a bad thing, since it was out of the norm. So Walter was both excited about its contents and a little terrified.
Just inside the woods, the two brothers stopped.
Walter’s heart was pounding and his lungs felt ragged. He was already pouring sweat in the heat and stifling humidity. The shade of the woods made it only marginally more bearable.
Roy grabbed a tree branch and swung himself up easily to get a look at their house over the tops of the corn. Just to make sure that they weren’t being followed. A needless precaution, but it engendered the excitement of doing something they weren’t supposed to be doing.
Looking over your shoulder is what makes the stolen bread sweeter.
Roy hopped down, brushing loose bits of bark from his tans.
He wore his with the overall straps down around his waist, like the cool kids.
Walter wore his the same to copy him, but he thought it was incredibly uncomfortable. He had to keep hitching up his tans to keep them from falling off his ass.
“What’s in the backpack?” Walter finally asked, breathlessly.
He was unable to keep his eyes off of it. He was trying to see if there was a bulge, or something that might give him a clue as to what was inside. He wanted to know. But it was Roy. So in a way, he kind of didn’t.
Roy didn’t look at him. That big-brotherly way of looking over a younger sibling, like the minor annoyance that they are. “Nothin’. Don’t worry about it. C’mon.”
They continued at a slower pace this time, making their way through the strip of woods that ran toward the highway.
As they neared the highway they could hear the cars going by every once in a while. The roar of a couple big diesels. The whisper of a couple small solars. They were heading east just then but then Roy peeled a right and started heading through another field, parallel to the highway.
“Where we going?” Walter groan-whispered.
“God, just shut up for once.”
About halfway across the field, Walter heard a sound different from that of the passing cars. Roy heard it too.
They both looked up into the sky at the same moment, searching the blue-white haze.
“Shit,” Roy said.
The sound grew rapidly.
“Low-fliers,” Roy said, matter-of-factly, as though he was well-versed in all things military. But to his younger brother, he was an expert. So Walter stared at the sky in frightened wonder.
Roy decided to hit the dirt rather than making a run for the trees. “Get down!”
Walter followed his big brother’s example and got down.
The two of them shimmied out of the row space and into the corn stalks to better hide themselves.
Walter’s heart felt like it was about to explode. “Roy!” he whispered to him, the nerves in his voice now undeniable, as well as a very significant feeling that he was close to peeing his pants.
Walter was huddled against his brother’s feet, so he earned himself a kick. “Shut up!”
Walter punched back, but half-heartedly, just to show that he wasn’t going to take it.
Though he was.
The rotor noise became sharp and overpowering. They watched the green stalks and leaves start to writhe, just a few yards ahead of them, and encroaching quickly.
Roy had been right. They were flying very low.
They usually weren’t so low that the downdraft would disturb the fields.
Roy and Walter simultaneously poked their heads out from under the little canopy of corn leaves and looked up at the sky as the gunships roared over them. It was terrifyingly loud. The corn around them shook and bent almost to the point that it should have broken. The downdraft kicked up dust from between the rows and the two brothers squinted against it.
One…two…three, Walter counted. Three gunships.
And then they were gone, leaving a settling pall of dust all around them, and a few corn stalks tilted just a bit more than they should have been. The sound of the rotors faded fast, and then it was gone. Back to just the sound of cars on the highway.
Walter looked at his older brother.
Roy was still looking up at the sky. He looked scared.
That wasn’t what Walter wanted to see on his big brother’s face, but then Roy squirmed out from underneath the plants and dusted himself off again, letting out an impressive string of swears that would get his hide tanned if Pops had been around to hear it.
“That was close,” Walter said.
Roy finally looked at him, acknowledging his existence, but only to observe the fact that Walter’s feet were fidgeting and he looked like he was about to beat a retreat. Roy had managed to stow his own scared expression. Now it was time to act tough.
“You fucking scared?” he laughed, but his laugh was a little too forced. “If you’re gonna go cryin’ to Grandpa Clarence, do it now. But you’ll never see what I got in my backpack. And I’ll never tell you. I’ll be a damn legend, and you’ll never know why. Unless you wanna be a legend with me.”
“I’m fine,” Walter shot back, trying to sound convincing. “I just hit my knee when I dropped down, that’s all.” He kicked at one of the hydroponics lines, as though it had been the culprit, and muttered, “Piece of shit.”
“Aigh’,” Roy said, hitching his backpack up again. “Let’s go then.”
They continued on through the cornfield.
Walter noticed something else as they alternately jogged and walked: Roy kept on checking his watch. It was a new watch that he’d got for his birthday a few weeks ago, so maybe he was just showing off. When he first got it he spent the night sending voice texts on it to his other friends from school. When Walter had tried to eavesdrop, Roy would throw something at him.
It was a cheap toy, but their family didn’t have much money.
By that time in the hike, Walter had a feeling that he knew where they were going. They were tracing along the side of the highway, just out of view of the road. But they were going south. And
south meant the river.
Sure enough, after maybe another mile in the cornfields, they dipped into another section of woods that started to slope downwards and then Walter could hear the steady movement of the Rocky River, and he could see glimpses of the bridge through the trees.
He was out of control with excitement and nerves. He worked hard to keep it under wraps.
This was where the older kids like Roy went to hangout sometimes, to get away from cranky grandparents and boring summer days while their parents were at work, trying to make just enough money to keep the family afloat.
Walter followed Roy down a steep embankment to a well-worn path that led under the bridge. The substructure of the bridge was covered in graffiti. The municipal maintenance no longer made any attempt to cover it up. These were the Agrarian Districts, the hotbed of the nation’s woes, and excessive bridge graffiti was the least of the government’s problems.
Under the bridge, it felt significantly cooler. There was a steady breeze coming in off the water, and the shaded cement felt almost chilly. They were surrounded by red clay, and from the red clay, sprouting like old artifacts from other geological ages, there were beer cans and liquor bottles, and a good carpet of cigarette butts.
Roy stepped up to one of the cement pillars, the water just coming up to the base of it. He pointed to a crudely spray-painted penis with a large set of hairy balls attached. Along the shaft of the penis was painstakingly written, FUCK THE COAX. Roy pointed proudly to this bit of artwork. “I did that one.”
He laughed.
Walter answered with a laugh of his own.
Penises are high comedy at eight years old, especially when they’re drawn in public places. But the caption worried him a bit. What if someone sees it? What if one of the other kids saw Roy draw it and what if their parents are loyalists?
But in all likelihood, all the other kids that came down here to hang out were from that silent majority that did not actively collaborate with the resistance, but they sure as hell weren’t loyal to the Fed or the CoAx.
Still, he tended to worry about these things.
Maybe he felt like he had to worry. Like he had to be the conscientious one, because Roy was so devil-may-care.
It was a difficult balance to strike, to walk the line between being the voice of reason and also being badass enough to hang with your older brother.
Safely underneath the bridge, Roy finally slung the backpack from his shoulders.
Walter stood with his hands together in rapt anticipation. Of course, Roy could see this, so he left the bookbag where it was. To increase the drama.
Instead, he fished into the cargo pocket of his tans. He seemed to take hold of something, but then left his hand in his pocket while he took a furtive look around.
No one upstream.
No one downstream.
You didn’t really have to worry about fishers anymore. Pops said Grandpa Clarence used to take him fishing there. He also claimed that the water used to be a kind of dark, greenish brown, rather than the ruddy orange-ish color it was at that moment. Pops said that was because of the runoff from the hydroponics.
Walter had once asked him if they could still fish in the Rocky River and he said, “Ayuh. If you wanna eat nuclear catfish.”
Satisfied that they were alone, Roy pulled his hand out of his pocket. He was holding something in his palm. He opened his hand with a smile, very proud of himself.
Walter stared, slightly disappointed. “A cigarette?”
“Ain’t no fuckin’ cigarette,” Roy said. “It’s weed.”
“Oh.”
He held it up between his thumb and forefinger. A prized possession for a ten-year-old. This was some high-school stuff. “Got it from Meredith,” he said. “Her dad works at the grow shop.”
“Damn,” Walter said, trying to sound mature. “She must like you.”
Roy shrugged, and it wasn’t lost on his brother that there was a fleeting expression of hope on his face. “Well…I had to pay for it.”
“How much did you pay for it?”
“Don’t worry about it. God, you ask a lot of questions.” He produced a lighter and lit it. It was a factory-rolled cigarette, not a joint cobbled out of tissue paper. He took a drag, eyes squinted against the smoke rising off the tip, looking just as cool as he could. He tried to inhale the drag, but ended up coughing it out. He stifled his coughs as best he could. Took another drag to show he wasn’t shaken, then offered it to Walter.
They’d been down this road before.
Last year, Roy had raided Grandpa Clarence’s cigarette stash. One for each of them. They’d snuck off into the woods and they’d lit them up, hacking and coughing and dizzy.
Not only was it a miserable experience for Walter, but despite all of the attempts they made to cover their tracks—the delicate way they put the pack of cigarettes back just so, and the airing out of their clothes, even rubbing dirt and grass on themselves to get the smell off—when they walked in the house again, it was like they had signs on their heads.
Also, Grandpa Clarence kept a good count on his cigarettes.
He’d whipped them both. Then when Pops got home, they were whipped again.
All while suffering through the nauseous aftertaste that clung to Walter’s tongue for the rest of the day, and even into the morning.
So, when Roy offered him the joint, he took a step back, hands raised.
“No, no,” Walter said. “Pops is gonna whoop you good.”
Roy shrugged, went back to looking cool. “Whatever. Fuckin’ pussy.”
“You’re the one bein’ an idiot. You know you ain’t gonna get that smell out.”
Roy shook his head. “I’ll take a dip in the river.”
“Pops says you’ll grow a third eye.”
“Pssh.” Roy rolled his eyes. “He’s pullin’ your leg.”
Walter looked doubtfully at the orange water. “Whatever. Don’t cry to me.” He kicked red clay. “Besides, Meredith prolly won’t like you with three eyes.”
He fully expected some sort of physical retaliation for this comment, but Roy was distracted with his watch again. He was staring at it, and Walter could see by the way he was opening his eyes real wide, and then squinting them down again, that he was starting to feel the weed.
“You aigh’?” Walter asked.
Roy blinked rapidly. “Ayuh. I’m fine.”
Then he pinched the cherry off his smoke and stuck it behind his ear. He turned to go to his backpack, seemed a little loopy, but regained his balance.
Walter was watching him attentively now, seeing if he was actually going to open the backpack, or if he was just playing with him again.
He bent to the backpack.
Walter hurried forward.
He unzipped the main compartment. “Virgil just texted. Said there’s a squad coming through. Two guntrucks and a personnel carrier.”
Walter would never be able to quite put into words how his heart dropped in that moment. Just hearing those words come out of his brother’s mouth sent an explosion of fear through him and he would always remember, quite clearly, the way his vision sparkled and narrowed down to a pinpoint.
“What…what are you gonna do?” he stammered.
Roy delved his hand into the backpack and came out holding a clear plastic bottle with some suspicious liquid in it. A small vial of some other suspicious liquid was taped to the side.
Just the sight of it made Walter shake his head.
“Roy, this is a bad idea,” he muttered nervously. “You shouldn’t do this.”
“Oh, relax you fuckin’ pussy!” Roy’s face was irritated for a second. “It’s not a fuckin’ bomb, you dumbass. It ain’t gonna blow nobody up.”
“It’s not? Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.” He sloshed the contents and looked at it, admiringly. “Little bit of soil conditioner, little bit of regulator cleaner.” He tapped the vial on the side. “Then you just add this bleach. And it exp
lodes. Makes a bigass boom. But it won’t hurt anyone.” Roy busted out smiling. “Virgil said he made one. Tossed it under one of the patrols. He said the Chicom in the bunch fucking pissed his pants!”
None of this was making Walter feel any better.
Roy had basically just told him that it was going to explode, but supposedly wasn’t going to hurt anyone. The objective, of course, to see if you could get one of the Chinese troops to piss his pants. Although Walter was sure that Roy would have thought it equally funny if one of the Russians, or even the Fed troops pissed their pants.
Walter’s chances for protest were suddenly ripped away.
From their spot under the bridge he could hear the distinct rumble of the patrol, coming down the highway. The vehicles were muffled to not be overly loud, but they had powerful engines that sounded very different from the big diesel trucks that ran down these roads. Anyone who grew up in the Districts could pick them out a mile away.
Just like Roy and Walter did in that moment.
“Shit, that’s them,” Roy said. Then he hurriedly started to unscrew the bottle top.
“I still don’t think this is smart,” Walter said, trying to sound stern and failing miserably.
Roy looked up at him, and in that moment he was just another angry youth. Angry with the way things had shaped up for his family. Angry for the families of his friends. Angry that their fathers worked in the dirt all day and had nothing to show for it. Angry that their mothers came home late at night, worn to the bone. And also, hugely, deeply offended that the Russians and the Chinese were here. Had been invited here, no less.
Of course, those were just the simple things that an eight and ten-year-old could wrap their young brains around.
“Walt,” Roy called him by name because he was pissed. “You wanna go, go now.”
Then he bent to his task as the patrol neared the other end of the bridge. Their engines were louder now, coming through the trees, and Walter was staring up at the opposite end of the bridge, waiting for the sound of their tires to hit that first metal support.
Working quickly, almost like he’d done it before, Roy pulled the cap off the vial and simply dropped it into the bottle. Then he put the bottle top back on and twisted it down tight. Then he began to shake it vigorously as he stood and sprinted, up the hill to the side of the bridge as it met the highway on the other side.
