Tribe

by R. D. Zimmerman

  “Come on, let's go. It scares me.”

  “But it's so great.”

  “Todd, I want to get home,” she urged in a desperate voice that he knew only too well.

  “Todd, I'm going home tomorrow and then off to Europe” she said, locking the door of her room. “Who knows when we'll see each other again. If ever.”

  “But aren't you worried?” he asked almost desperately. “I mean, isn't it a bit dangerous?”

  “No, it's all part of a cycle, and it's okay. For a few days now I can't get pregnant. I'm not fertile.”

  He didn't quite understand it, this timing stuff All he knew was that on the way up here she'd said she wanted to do it, to make love. It was her farewell present to him, to them. This was what he wanted, wasn't it? Sure, he'd said, nodding, feeling that as a guy he couldn't really respond otherwise and at the same time trying desperately not to let her see his fear.

  Now he watched slender Janice as she lit a candle and turned off the overhead light. Next she thumbed through some records, found a Carly Simon one, and put on the very same song that they'd danced to downstairs. Then she was next to him, kissing the side of his neck, rubbing his thigh. He reached out, his movements awkward, stilted. Oh, shit. Would he be able to do it? What if he couldn't even get hard?

  “Todd, what is it? What's the matter?”

  “I'm…I'm just nervous, that's all.” Unable to stop himself, he started shaking.

  Ever gentle, Janice ran one hand down his back and asked, “Are you cold or is it something else?”

  If only he could tell her. This past week since Greg had died had just been so horrible. He clenched his eyelids shut, felt his eyes swell up. Oh, Jesus, was he going to start crying right here, right now? No, don't. You…you can't. He just wanted to tell her. Tell her everything that had happened that night. How he'd been about—could she forgive him?—to do it again with Pat. How he'd run downstairs and out back. How he'd looked up and…

  “Todd?” asked Janice softly.

  He had to say something, but all he could manage was a different truth, albeit a very revealing one, and with a nervous laugh he said, “I…I haven't done it before. I'm…I'm a virgin.”

  “Oh.” She lifted his hand and kissed it. “You know, there's a lot going on in that thick skull of yours.”

  “No kidding.” He tried to manage a grin. “What about you? Have you done it?”

  “Actually I have,” she said with a slight nod. “But you know what, I think we're an awful lot alike.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” she said as she reached for the top button of her blouse. “Listen, I don't care if we don't do it. Let's just get naked and get under the blankets. It's so cold outside.

  And before Todd knew it, they had in fact stripped away their clothing and were lying naked in her bed, their warm bodies pressed close to each other. He was amazed at how smooth she felt, so soft and pure. He took it all in, the gentle sculpt of her back, her long thin arms.

  “You're a nice guy, Todd,” she volunteered.

  Unable to say anything, he squeezed her tightly, pressing his firm chest against her soft one. If he was so nice why had he had sex with another guy and why hadn't he told the police just what he might or might not have seen that night Greg had died?

  He knew that tone, feared it, and he pressed on the gas. Glancing at her, he saw that her eyes were still misty with tears. What the hell was all this about? Janice had never been one to let something smolder.

  “Come on, out with it,” said Todd, wearing a puffy beige down jacket. “I haven't seen you this upset in years, if ever.”

  “Like I said, I'll tell you when we get home.”

  “But it's about the baby?”

  She hesitated. “Yes, Todd, it's about the baby.”

  The thunder seemed to have ripped open the sky and the snow was now falling so thickly that he couldn't see even a half block ahead. There weren't that many cars out, mainly four-wheel-drive vehicles like Todd's, and everyone slowed to a near crawl. It still took a major storm to shut things down— last year a twelve-inch snowfall had only slowed things for a morning—and Todd wondered if this would be it, the storm of the year. He guessed that almost ten inches had fallen so far, so this would have to keep up all night to really affect things.

  “Oh, shit,” moaned Janice. “It's going to take forever to get home.”

  “We'll get there.”

  “We should never have gone out.”

  “Janice, you haven't been away from that baby in five days.”

  “Oh, I hope Jeff knows how to handle her.”

  “Of course he does. That old queen's great with kids. He's the perfect grandmother. I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that he's cooing some lullaby in her ear even as we speak.”

  “I doubt it. He mentioned he had to rehearse a new piece for the drag show at the Gay Times,” she said, referring to the huge bar downtown where Jeff performed. “He's probably got my stereo cranked so loud that Ribka can't even get to sleep.”

  “Dear God, Janice, just chill, would you? We'll get there.” He eyed her. “You don't have a new lover, do you?”

  “What?”

  “You know, a girlfriend? Like a girlfriend with a baby that she happened to dump on you for a while?”

  “Hardly.”

  “So what is this, a mid-life crisis?”

  “Who knows.” She scraped away some of the ice on the side window and stared out. “I mean, all of a sudden everything's coming into focus. For the first time I'm seeing everything I did wrong. And now I'm wondering what I've ever done right.”

  “Yup, that's it—a full-blown mid-life crisis.” Todd laughed. “Which means I'm going to have some company.”

  When Michael died, Todd had realized for the first time that his own career ambitions weren't so much based on working toward a goal as they were on proving something. That's what had driven him in his television work—trying to show himself that everyone liked him even though he was gay.

  He felt something on his thigh, looked down, saw Janice's gloved hand resting there. Placing his right hand on top of hers, he squeezed.

  He said, “It's going to be okay.”

  But for the immediate future at least, he was speaking too quickly. Just as he was approaching the intersection of Hennepin and West 28th Street, a small car appeared out of nowhere and ran the stoplight.

  “Todd!” screamed Janice.

  “Oh, shit!”

  Clutching the steering wheel, he furiously pumped the brakes. The Cherokee fishtailed on the slick road, and Todd steered to the left and then the right to compensate. But it was to little avail, and Todd watched his Cherokee close in on the other car as if in slow motion. It flashed through his mind: Mazda. He was going to smash directly into the driver's door of that little two-door Mazda. Reflexively Todd wrenched the steering wheel to the right.

  “Hang on!” he shouted to Janice.

  His large vehicle swerved to the side, somehow missing the Mazda but in turn steering directly toward a parked car. Todd oversteered a second time, and then he found himself shooting onto the sidewalk and into a large snowbank, which his Cherokee hit with a deep, forceful thud.

  8

  Zeb had been waiting for something like this, a storm that would change everyone's pattern. Work here at the hospital had been too hectic to accomplish what he needed to, but all afternoon things had been slowing down, the talk about nothing other than the snow, which was getting deeper, deeper, deeper. There were fewer visitors as well, fewer deliveries, even fewer doctors and nurses. He'd guessed that would happen, but hadn't expected the dramatically lower number of patients being admitted today. He just hadn't thought about it, never realizing how a major storm could prevent so many people from becoming ill enough to go to the hospital. Then again, he was sure there'd be a compensating surge tomorrow or the next day when everyone was mobile again. And his boss would probably have him cleaning the main entrances all day long.

/>   So if he was actually going to steal any of it, tonight was his best chance. Or so he hoped.

  He'd never had to fend for himself like this, certainly not at The Congregation nor at his mother's, so he'd never known how complicated all this reality stuff could be. Those stupid zombies at The Congregation had taken care of everything— work, food, religious education, even clothing and that dumb-ass music. Before that he'd lived with his mom until he was eighteen, and she'd always seen to it that he ate well, had clean clothes, and studied. Yeah, that was her. Always grumbling at him, always pushing the books. Now he saw how dumb he'd been to leave her to join his father at The Congregation. Really dumb. For starters, if he were still living with his mom he wouldn't be in this mess. He'd probably just be going to college and dating. He'd just be normal.

  Instead, a little over three years ago he'd come home from school and asked that one stupid question that had changed his entire life.

  “Hey, Mom,” he'd called from his room where he sat working on a biology report, “what blood type are you?”

  “Uh…” she'd pondered from the kitchen, having no idea of the ramifications. “O. Yeah, that's what it is, O.”

  So that was what he'd written. He recorded his blood type, his mother's, and said his father's was unknown. And thought that was the end of it. But, no, two days later the biology teacher pulled out his report and told him in front of the entire class that Zeb and his mother couldn't have such radically different blood types and still be genetically related.

  One of the kids next to him elbowed Zeb and asked, “Hey, moron, maybe you're an adopted extraterrestrial creature. Maybe we should call you Marty the Martian.”

  So when he'd come from school Zeb had tossed his backpack on the kitchen floor and said, “Gee, Mom, thanks for making me look like a complete idiot in front of the entire class. Either you don't know your own blood type or…or, I don't know, I'm adopted or something.”

  Which was how that delicate subject was finally and crudely opened. She just started crying, and Zeb stared at his mother wondering what in the hell was going on.

  “I've just been so afraid of losing you,” she sobbed over and over again. “I love you so much.”

  Of course she couldn't hold back the truth. Not any longer. Yes, she loved him more than anything in the entire world, yes, she'd give her own life for his, but, no, she hadn't given him life. And Zeb had listened to the woman he'd always thought to be his real mother explain that she had a congenital problem in her uterus and had had a hysterectomy when she was a teenager.

  Zeb was too stunned to be angry, too shocked to cry, and he'd asked, “Does…does that mean Dad's not my real father either?”

  Martha, who had refused to speak of Zeb's father ever since they'd fled The Congregation seven years earlier, tearfully disappeared into her bedroom.

  Emerging several minutes later, she handed Zeb a good-size file, mumbling, “It's all in here.”

  Not sure how much he really wanted to know, Zeb hesitantly accepted the papers. Then it was his turn to disappear, and he went into his bedroom, where he stayed up most of the night. The following morning he and a friend skipped school and went in search of some dope, only the guy they bought the joints from wasn't some down-and-out dealer but an undercover cop. When the police made it clear that Zeb and his pal were going to be made an example of, Zeb declared them all fucking idiots. His mother. His teachers. The cops. And just as soon as he was released to his mother—his “fake” mother, he called her—he ran away in search of his real parents.

  He pushed the wide dust mop up one side of the long corridor, then down the other. Up one side, down the other. Now that he was a father himself, now that he had fled The Congregation just like his own mother had, he saw how complicated it really was, this parenting stuff. He understood, too, just how far a parent would go, what you'd do for your own kid.

  After the first two or three passes the floor was perfectly clean, yet still he continued, hoping no one would notice. When he reached the far end he paused and stood there, his broad, lean figure clothed in the blue janitorial uniform, his short dark hair covered by a hair cap. He glanced to his left, saw a nurse coming toward him, which in turn spurred him down the hall one more time. Within a few steps he passed a nurses' station, which was surprisingly empty—short of staff, were they?—and then a door that was marked with the initials M.S. What lay in the room beyond was the primary reason he'd taken the job at Edina Hospital here in one of Minneapolis's suburbs. Now if only he could get in.

  As he passed yet again down the corridor he wondered when he'd be missed, when one of his bosses would wonder where he was. At best he had another fifteen minutes. Earlier he'd tried with no luck to locate a key. He knew they'd be closely guarded, but he hoped he might get his hands on one. After all, they'd given him a couple of passkeys already, and certainly that room needed to be cleaned at some point. But by whom? Perhaps he'd have to work here for a month or two before they trusted him. On the other hand, he didn't have that much time. The drugs he'd already stolen had been purely by chance, a few things he'd noticed on a passing cart and then swiped, but the drugs behind that locked door, well, they were the good ones, as expensive as hell.

  “Nice and quiet in here tonight, isn't it?” said a pleasant voice.

  Zeb looked up, saw a nurse with short red hair and a round face moving quickly toward him, and replied, “Yeah, it's kind of dead.”

  “Say now, you can't use a four-letter word like that in a hospital.” She laughed, her teeth flashing brightly. “You must be new here. I haven't seen you before.”

  “I just started this week.”

  “Welcome aboard. My name's Brenda.”

  “I'm Zeb.”

  “Well, Zeb, there's gotta be a couple of miles of corridor in this joint, so I'm sure they're keeping you busy.”

  “Yeah.”

  Trying to look just that, he kept moving on, but stopped suddenly when he saw her taking out her keys. Shit, he thought. This was his chance. She was unlocking that room. How the hell was he going to do this?

  Suddenly the words were spilling too eagerly out of his mouth, as he said, “Hey, I'm supposed to clean in there. “In…in that room.”

  She stopped at the door, eyed him. “Do you have a key? All the meds are in here, you know. No one gets in here without authorization and a key.”

  Zeb lifted out the two keys he'd been given. “I thought one of these was supposed to work.”

  “No offense,” said Brenda, “but I doubt it. If you're new I don't think they'd just give you a key for this room.”

  “Oh, well…well, maybe I got the rooms mixed up.”

  “Yeah, probably,” she said, unlocking the door and swinging it open. “But come on, you can take a couple of swipes in here with the mop. God knows the last time it was cleaned, probably months ago.”

  “Great. Thanks.”

  Pushing his large dust mop, Zeb swung around, going directly for the doorway and following both his good luck and her into the chamber. It was a small room, maybe eight by six, lined on either side with towering shelves of bottles and small packages, medicine all of it. While Zeb knew he'd hit the proverbial gold mine, he scanned the entire situation and realized immediately that getting in here was only the first battle. The stuff, he saw, was so valuable that every pill, every drop of medication, was stored in a locked case, the front of each a metal grille. Zeb pushed the broom to the end of the chamber, glanced side to side. Shit. What now? Behind him Brenda was opening one of the cases, reaching in, taking out a small bottle. And then, to his horror, he realized that she realized he was looking at her.

  She grinned and said, “One of my patients is having a coughing fit. This codeine stuff ought to calm him down.”

  “Oh, right…right.”

  He plowed the dust mop forward, while out of the corner of his eye he watched as she shut and locked the cabinet door. He bent forward, pretended to pick at something on the floor. He moved forwa
rd a bit, used the dust mop to scrub at some imaginary spot. Glancing up, he saw Brenda standing by the door and staring at him.

  “You're right,” said Zeb, “this place hasn't been cleaned in months. It's filthy. I mean, look at all the dust.”

  She said nothing, merely grinned, her round face animated, her red hair thick and bouncy.

  “You'd better get that medicine to your patient. Don't let me slow you down,” he continued. “I'll just pull the door shut behind me.”

  “That's okay. I'll wait. You need a key to lock the door.”

  “Well,” said Zeb, thinking as fast as he could, “just leave me your key. I'll lock up and bring it to you when I'm done.”

  “What are you trying to do, silly, get me fired?” She stared at him with a soft smile. “I don't mind waiting.”

  “But…”

  “Say, do you want to get a cup of coffee?”

  Oh, shit, thought Zeb. He hadn't stopped to think that this thirty-something woman might have her own agenda. She was kind of cute. But she was too old for him and…and…He saw her standing against the closed door. He felt the thick handle of the broom in his hand. The drugs were right there, everything he wanted ready for the taking. In his mind he saw himself ripping the keys from her, shoving her down, helping himself to exactly what he'd come for.

  “No, I can't. Not tonight,” he said, shaking his head and starting to push the mop again. “My shift's almost over and…and I gotta be someplace.”

  “Oh, well,” said Brenda, still smiling, “maybe some other time.”

  “Sure.”

  Zeb then pushed his small pile of dust and dirt toward the door, which Brenda held open. Stepping into the hallway, he turned to the right as she locked up behind him.

  “Bye,” called Brenda with a wink. “Don't work too hard.”

  “Don't worry, I won't.”

  He kept pushing his broom, working his way to the end of the corridor, then turning at the first corner. Crap, what was he supposed to do now? How was he going to do this? Tonight the place was so deserted that he'd been sure it was the perfect opportunity. Even the nurses' station was empty.