by Ginger Booth
She sat up and loaded a fresh dozen books onto her tablet. She picked a couple novels that featured boot camp and military service. She liked to read at night. The tablet did double duty, serving as both entertainment and lighting. Her apartment building supplied a recharging station on the ground floor, for phones and tablets and flashlights, but no Internet. She tucked the tablet back in her waist pack.
She’d have to think about the Army. Right now it was time for her showdown against LaTisha. She wiped her Internet history and logged out.
“Five,” Guzman sang out from the front of the assembly.
Ava rose from the first row and held up her ‘5’ card to Guzman, granting her the next turn to speak her issue. She turned to face the other voters, a small crowd tonight, only a couple hundred, most of them old and hostile as usual. Ava gulped, but then spoke out clearly and with authority, just as she had as queen bee in White Supreme.
“Ava Panic, or Pawic,” she identified herself. “I ask that my crew boss, LaTisha, be fired from the salvage crews. She endangered the lives of my crew during the building implosions. She ordered me to take us in, beyond the warning tape, before all the charges were blown. I told her no. But one of the younger kids, Jelly, obeyed her and ran toward a building about to blow up.
“This isn’t the first time. LaTisha hates us. She tries to dock our pay, day after day. She’s supposed to supervise, and train the day-workers in from the gangs. But I do all the work. She’s a danger to us, not a supervisor.”
Ava looked around the room, hoping but not really expecting to see any kids who could corroborate her story. They hadn’t come. Her eyes paused on Samantha, the librarian. She hung onto LaTisha’s arm and caught Ava’s eye, shaking her head in entreaty.
No way, Samantha, Ava thought. I meant I’d back you for yourself, not for LaTisha. She hadn’t realized the old librarian and her crew boss were friends.
Ava jutted out her chin and held up her phone. “I have names of other kids who witnessed this. And Larry,” she pointed to him, “got to Jelly before I could. Larry’s the kind of supervisor we need. Not LaTisha.”
Larry stood. “Jelly ran toward the NYU library before it blew, like Panic said. I didn’t hear LaTisha order him in. I wasn’t nearby. But it was Panic who ran after the kid to save him. Not LaTisha. And day after day, the police have to authorize her crew’s lunch because LaTisha docked them. Those kids hate their crew boss, and she hates them. That much I can vouch for. I believe Panic. And I think LaTisha is unfit to supervise that crew.”
Ava nodded curt gratitude to Larry. He went further out on a limb for her than she expected. Her eyes flew wide as two ‘losers’ from her team, the friends Songkram and Tyrone, slipped into the back of the room. They must have been lurking just outside. Tyrone shyly rose his hand.
Ava turned to Guzman at the front of the room. “Guzman, these two guys are on my crew.”
“They’re not voters!” LaTisha yelled out.
“They’re witnesses,” Ava insisted. At Guzman’s nod, she turned back. “Go ahead, Tyrone.”
“Yeah, like Panic said,” he mumbled.
“Speak up, son, and identify yourself,” Guzman encouraged.
“Huh?”
“Say your name, Tyrone,” Ava explained. “And talk louder.”
“Uh, yeah. I’m Tyrone. He’s Songkram, but his English is bad. We’re on Panic’s crew. Like she said. LaTisha ordered us in to clean before the all-clear. Panic told her to stuff it. Then LaTisha pinched Jelly. She ordered him to go in or she’d pinch him again. She pinches really hard with those sick long nails. Panic didn’t see, because we were all dancing around and cheering like fools. But Jelly obeyed LaTisha. He could have got hurt bad. It’s not right.”
“How old is this Jelly?” Guzman asked.
Tyrone and Songkram shrugged.
“Jelly is twelve,” Ava supplied. “And gone zombie. Not all there, in the head.”
LaTisha called out, “And you should have been watching him, instead of dancing around like a fool, ho!”
“No crosstalk!” Guzman ordered before Ava could retort. “LaTisha, that’s twice you’ve spoken out of turn. Be silent, or leave the room.”
LaTisha huffed back in her chair. Samantha draped a consoling arm around her shoulders and shot a hurt look at Ava. Ava scowled at her.
“Does anyone else back this accusation?” Guzman asked. “Remember, the ask is that LaTisha be removed as a salvage crew supervisor, for endangering a child under her supervision.”
Chatty Cop from the lunchroom stood. “Randy Hone. Yeah, every day LaTisha docks the kids’ lunches. We have to break up a ruckus to get the kids fed. Getting old. It’s petty and it’s mean. LaTisha’s crew hates her. That’s all I can say.” He sat.
Quiet Cop rose from across the room. “Victoria Palmer. I’m Randy’s partner. I can vouch for all that. I watch her kids like a hawk. One of these days I bet they’ll jump her in the cafeteria, they get so mad.” She sat again promptly.
“Anybody else? Is LaTisha’s team making quota?” he asked the lead bean counter.
The man rose. These days he wore jeans and sweatshirts, but somehow one could still see the ghost of a Wall Street suit on him. Maybe it was the accent. “Dennis Horner. LaTisha’s crew performance is low, but consistent with the team composition. Her crew has kids under sixteen, low-functioning like this Jelly boy. Plus a revolving door of gang kids in for the day. It’s usually Panic who reports in for the team, not LaTisha. Seems like Panic trains the gang visitors, too. That’s not how it’s supposed to work, but.”
“Thanks, Dennis. If we remove LaTisha from salvage, can inventory take her?” Guzman asked.
“No, sir. Inventory has an issue with this worker.”
“Elaborate, please.”
“LaTisha used to salvage residential. She pilfered too much, basically.”
“There’s a death penalty for looting, Dennis,” Guzman reminded him.
The lead bean counter shrugged a so-so. “Everybody does it, Guzman. It’s a matter of degree. We decided to just shift her to commercial salvage and herding the gang – uh, temporary workers.”
Everyone nodded a fair-enough. If you ran across a bit of extra food, you ate it. They were all hungry, all the time, with reflexes built up during the Starve.
Guzman studied his knuckles, lips pressed in a line. “What did LaTisha steal?”
Dennis admitted, “A case of Cheerios went missing. Seventy boxes of cereal.”
Guzman narrowed his eyes dangerously. “That’s not a matter of degree,” Guzman ruled, voicing what they all thought. That was no hungry reflex. Cereal boxes were bulky. Stealing and hiding all that would take cunning and planning. “How long ago was this?”
“Few weeks, I guess, from when we caught on. Panic’s crew used to work for Ra’id.”
Who couldn’t keep his hands off the girls. Ra’id was the second supervisor Ava got canned. LaTisha would be number three, if this worked.
“Alright, I’m going to table this, pending investigation,” Guzman said. “Dennis, Victoria, Randy. Panic, you and your two friends back there. I want you to go search LaTisha’s apartment and report back to me tonight.”
“Don’t I get to respond?” LaTisha shrieked, swaying to her feet. The woman still shook her booty when she moved. Her body hadn’t caught on to the fact she had no fat left there, or anywhere else. “That little ho –!” She let loose a stream of profanity, raining insults down on Ava, ornate long fingernails clawing forth in counter-accusation.
“Hold her!” Guzman ordered the on-duty militia. They extracted apartment keys and an address, then dragged LaTisha away to cool her heels in the community center jail.
Dennis of the phantom Wall Street suit gathered his citizen’s committee, and they set off into the dark.
The rain had mutated into a nervy thunder-snow while Ava was inside the community center. At least that cleared the kids off the streets.
5
Inte
resting fact: Houston Street in Manhattan was pronounced how-stun, not hue-stun like the city in Texas.
Ava wasn’t sure what she expected in LaTisha’s apartment. A better life than the kids got, she supposed. The supervisor’s place was certainly bigger than Ava’s, with a couple bathrooms and bedrooms and a kitchen, though it was supposed to have no more power or gas or heat than Ava’s compact studio. Ava had a handy fire escape outside her window overlooking Sullivan Street, that she used as a balcony. A fourth-floor walk-up, she had no one above her. Like most old people, LaTisha grabbed a second-floor apartment for less climbing. Ava liked her own spare place much better.
There was no shortage of vacant real estate in Soho Village. After all, they worked full time at its salvage and demolition. People could claim whatever they wanted, if the plumbing worked. The sanitation crews were strict about that. No living in structures without indoor toilets. Inside the ville, at least. The gangs by the river lived in completely dead buildings. A strict gang like hers would use the storm sewers as latrines. Other blocks reeked.
But LaTisha was a hoarder, that was clear. There was so much stuff in there that it dazzled Ava’s eyes. The tottering piles refused to coalesce into individual items. The place smelled moldy.
“Panic, have you and the boys ever done residential inventory?” Dennis Horner asked. He was the ville chief of Inventory, their only real for-profit industry. Dennis was up there with Guzman in the local power structure. The off-duty militia pair had already split off into the bedrooms. Ava hung back by the door with her crew mates Songkram and Tyrone, peering in disgust, zooming their pocket flashlights around at random.
Ava shook her head. “Library. Lecture halls. Just NYU buildings. Metal reclaim, mostly.”
Dennis nodded in disappointment. His flashlight traced an extension cord. He reached over and turned on a floor light, dazzling their eyes.
“That’s a lot of plugs,” Tyrone observed, when he could see again. The extension cord had two sockets, into which LaTisha plugged two power surge strips with over ten sockets each. All of them had something plugged in.
“That’s a fire hazard and rationing violation, for starters,” Dennis commented. He snapped a photo on his phone. Now that they could see, he frowned at the blackout-quality window coverings. LaTisha could have the entire place lit like noon and no one outside would see. One of the outlets fed another extension cord that wandered toward the bedrooms.
“Victoria, Randy!” he called. “Check out the extension cord. You can probably turn the lights on.”
He turned back to Ava and company. “This place is a death trap. I’ll take the living room. Tyrone, you’re with me. Ava and…”
“Songkram,” the boy supplied.
“Songkram,” Dennis repeated as best he could. “Check the closets and kitchen. What you’re looking for is food hoarding. Especially cereal boxes. The rest of this junk is just junk, mostly. Who cares. But check for false spaces. You know, something that’s bigger on the outside than the inside. And call me about any interesting electronics. Like stuff that belongs in a hospital, not a kitchen.”
“Got it,” Ava agreed.
Another extension cord fed another floor-lamp in the kitchen. She turned it on and gazed around. Yikes. LaTisha actually cooked in here. After all the building fires during the Starve, and the power rationing they were supposed to obey, her neighbors would be livid if they knew.
“Electric griddle, in recent use,” she called out to Dennis. “Space heater.” None of them had heat, dammit, only enough to keep the pipes from freezing. Except LaTisha, who stole it.
“OK. Find what she’s cooking,” Dennis called back. “We confiscate any food.”
With the usual hand-signals and pidgin English – Ava worked with Songkram every day – she split the kitchen between them. They started rifling cabinets, pantry, and appliances. Soon they started a pile on the tiny kitchen table and chairs. Pancake mixes and syrup and jam. Something called guava paste. Colorful fruit-shaped marzipan candies. Powdered milk. Shelf-stable milk. Wax-coated gouda cheeses. Back in the gangs, rifling this place would have been party time!
“Bingo!” Ava said, pulling out a single box of Cheerios, partially eaten, from under the sink. There weren’t any unopened boxes under there, though, just rat poison, denture wash, dish washing liquid, and a sponge. She started to stand up, then remembered what Dennis said. Spaces that weren’t the same size on the inside and outside. That cabinet was only half as deep as the sink and counter above it.
Ava sat on the grungy floor and studied the space more carefully with her flashlight. There was a finger-sized hole at top left of the wooden back. The pipes had to be behind there. She swept the cleaning junk out with her arm, then pried away the false cabinet back.
“Dennis?” she called. “Come see.” When he arrived and squatted to look, she explained, “I wanted you to see the hiding space before I dismantle it.”
Dennis, mouth hanging open slightly, took in the survivalist can cache, and plastic containers full of rice. There must have been ten pounds of rice in there. Canned beef stew. Tuna. Ham. Dehydrated onions and potatoes. Corned beef hash.
“You did right, Panic,” he finally remembered to comment. He pulled out his phone and took more photos. “Don’t eat anything. I know it’s hard. Songkram? You understand? No eating.”
Songkram peered into the cabinet, then rose to the balls of his feet. He spat into the sink.
“Does he understand, Panic?” Dennis asked uneasily.
“He’s pissed off, Dennis,” Ava translated the obvious. “I am, too.”
Dennis sighed. “Can’t blame you.” He stood creakily, while Ava popped up from the floor without a twinge. “OK, leave the kitchen and check the closets. We’re still looking for –”
“Bingo, boss!” Randy called from a bedroom. “Twenty boxes of Cheerios, at least.” His voice and steps came toward them until he hung his head around the kitchen doorway. “Dennis, she runs a refrigerator back there. Champagne in it.”
Dennis nodded. “She’s gonna die. Let’s go. I’ll have a trusted team come tomorrow and collect everything.”
“Dennis?” Ava asked. “May I take a box of Cheerios for Jelly? Like restitution, for LaTisha risking his life.”
“Panic, it’s not restitution unless it’s hers to give,” Randy opined. “LaTisha had no right to this stuff.”
“Maybe,” Dennis cautioned. “It’s possible it was hers.”
They considered that. No, it wasn’t possible, they concluded.
Dennis picked up one of the cheeses. “Off the record, Ava. Give Jelly this.”
She nodded her thanks and stowed the cheese in her waist pack. Songkram nabbed another gouda and stuffed it in his pants pocket, too. Dennis opened his mouth to object, but thought better of it.
As they trailed down the stairs, Dennis’ conscience seemed to get the better of him. “Gang, if you stole any of what LaTisha stole? I better not hear about it.”
Ava considered how her nasty boss endangered Jelly’s life, docked their meager lunches, then came home to bright lights, heat, and a hoard of food. Ava had taken a cheese for herself as well as Jelly. Big deal. She felt confident that everyone in the group – except maybe Dennis – had swiped a little something to eat.
No one answered him.
The following day was one frustration after the next. In the morning, Ava brought along the pretty red gouda for Jelly. But he didn’t show up for work. That was unlike him.
Who did show up was their new supervisor, LaTisha’s replacement, Bhagyaraj. Or maybe Das. Possibly Mukherjee. Twenty-one kids stood before him in Washington Square in their work coveralls, mouths hanging open, as the fifties-ish Hindu man animatedly harangued them about something. Ava couldn’t follow a word of it through his thick accent.
Cavey leaned forward to whisper in her ear. “Panic, what’s his name?”
“Das,” Ava decided. She couldn’t pronounce the other possibilities.
> Apparently Das didn’t like her talking out of turn. He wheeled on her and shrieked, waving a hand inside her personal boundary, spittle flying. Ava backed up onto Cavey’s toe by accident. Fortunately, the older girl let it slide for once.
The other salvage crews were all geared up and deployed, while Ava’s crew still stood mystified. Larry, the crew chief who helped Ava at the meeting last night, looked pointedly at his phone, telling her to watch the time. She shrugged back at him. He wandered over to investigate.
“How are we getting along here?” Larry asked Das with a smile. The smile strained into a frown as Das responded in melodramatic depth. Larry held up a hand to halt the torrent of gibberish and spittle. “Uh, Panic, do you understand what he’s saying?”
“I’m not even sure what his name is. Das?” She didn’t know the man. He wasn’t a voter. Voters had to pass an English fluency test.
“This won’t work,” Larry concluded. He called over a little Hindu girl from his own crew, maybe a 13-year-old. But she didn’t want to leave her crew without her best friend, an even smaller Indian girl. Tyrone and Songkram eagerly stepped forward and volunteered to swap with them, onto Larry’s crew.
Great. After last night, Ava hoped she’d finally started to bond a little with Tyrone and Songkram, maybe even a hope of friendship someday. But she couldn’t blame them. She’d rather work for Larry, too. The deserted third wheel of their loser trio, Ricochet, would be impossible today. She also had seven random gang visitors assigned to her team, three of whom didn’t speak, English or otherwise, and nine kids under 16. Eight, with Jelly missing.
The new young translators eventually extracted their assignment, to go into the newly blasted heaps of buildings and ‘level’ them. Ava couldn’t picture any way to get this team of the untrained and untrainable to do that safely. She barely understood Das’ instructions herself. The girls only understood Hindi, not the task.
Ava appealed to Larry again. He found a team extracting wires from the walls of a burned-out building on 8th Street, and arranged an assignment swap. That, Ava could teach twenty people to do. Das looked rather dejected, though. She decided she could address his happiness after he stopped flapping hands in her face and spitting at her. She was still negotiating with the little translators to convey that requirement. They didn’t want to tell him.
