by Brad Manuel
Sal stuffed a few of the useless things he kept in the room into a small backpack. He slung the pack and went downstairs by the fire. Bernie was waiting. Sal had been in his room for an hour. His drug induced haze made it almost impossible for him to judge time.
“I put some pictures, some clothes in this pack. I’ll leave it here for tomorrow.” Sal made a big deal. “I want to take a car up to my old neighborhood in the morning, say goodbye, ya know, the right way. Just like you are doin’ your last service. I gotta say goodbye.”
Bernie nodded. “I know it’s tough, Sal, but we have to say goodbye to our old lives. We have to move on.” She put her hand on his shoulder affectionately, empathizing with his grief.
“She bought it.” Sal thought to himself. “She bought it hook, line, and sinka’.”
They continued small talk as they left the seminary. Bernie’s thoughts were elsewhere as she sat in the passenger’s seat of the car Sal kept for his runs around the city. There was a hint of cigarette smell, a residue from the only bad habit Sal was forced to quit after the rapture. He detested stale cigarettes, and went cold turkey rather than use stale packs. He relied on his pills to get him through the nicotine detox.
“So, these people, they seem nice?” Sal drove too fast across 22nd street.
“Yes.” Bernie was furious with herself for not driving. Sal was probably a bad driver when he was sober, but she had never seen him sober, so she could not be sure. Bernie was sure that he was a horrible driver while stoned. She grasped the handle by the window tightly, digging her left hand into the seat leather.
“They seem like they wanna take care of the three little ones?” Sal believed asking about the kids was his best way to win Bernie. He could never remember the children’s names, and she knew it. His question had the opposite effect.
“Wendy, Bridget, and Cameron? Yes, they have young children the same age, it’s a perfect fit.”
Sal took a hard left turn up 5th Ave faster than needed. They were not in a hurry. Bernie heard the tires squeal and the car fishtailed out of control.
“Yeah, the kids, I know their names, the kids.” He pushed down on the accelerator. Sal loved driving fast in the city. He loved being able to do what he wanted to do. He did not have to listen to anyone anymore. Sal was in charge of Sal. He never had freedom. His father was a tough bastard who made Sal follow rules, slapping him around to keep him in line. When Sal moved out after high school, believing it was his time to shine, he ended up working construction to pay his bills. Do this, nail that, work this Saturday, stay until 10pm, don’t talk back or I’ll fire you. He started his own business, but then it was the customers that bossed him around, or the banks that held liens on his house, car, and business.
Sal’s business failed two years before the rapture. He owed money to everyone under the sun. His oldest daughter’s braces had not been adjusted in five months because he was six months late on the bill. He could not get the damn orthodontist to take them off of her. His car, a ten year old piece of crap, was repossessed. His son, a little too much like him, was suspended from public school. Sal was paying to have him in private school so he would not miss a grade, except Sal could not pay the tuition bill. His son sat at home playing video games all day. Sal was facing his third driving under the influence and possession charge, which meant lawyer fees, fines and court costs. Sal’s wife was an alcoholic who enjoyed shopping and opening store credit cards. Sal, a drug addict himself, did not know how to stop her.
Like a fire that burns down a forest so new trees can grow, the rapture destroyed all the good and the bad from Sal’s life. It took his family, but it took away his yoke. It took away civilization, but it took away the burdens that shackled him. Sal was free. He drove too fast through the streets of New York City because that is what Sal wanted to do, and no one told Sal what he could and could not do anymore.
The BMW screeched to a stop short of the RV’s at 59th and 5th. Jamie and Peter sat in their chairs eating soup for lunch. A small fire burned in a pit at their feet. Hubba was on a bed in between them. He sat up and barked.
“That’s Sal.” Jamie told Peter. “He must have come back.” There was no joy in the woman’s voice. Jamie was disappointed. She wanted to leave Sal behind.
“Well, let’s meet this young man.” Peter put his hands on each armrest and pushed himself up. He was tall, taller than Sal and the other men in the group. As he aged, his knees and hips tended to get sore quickly. Despite his fantastic physical shape, he needed leverage to stand.
Peter towered over most people. Sal was big, but not tall. Peter had at least four inches on the dirty drug addict. As the men shook hands for the first time, Peter did so from a position of strength. Sal was immediately irritated. Peter looked like the banker that told Sal he was in pre-foreclosure.
Sal had many faces, and today’s face was one of friendliness and thanks.
“Very nice to meet ya, Peter. Sal Torvale,” Sal gripped the man’s hand tightly. “Bernie told me a little bit about ya.” Sal grinned, almost purred to the older man.
“Jamie, how are ya? It must be great to have found someone yer own age.” He went in for a hug with the woman, but she sat back down as he leaned towards her. Sal was high. The pills he popped in his room at the Seminary were kicking in. He was clueless to the fact that bringing attention to Jamie’s age was rude.
“I’m afraid it’s just us here, Sal. The rest of our group went to see the sights.” Peter pointed to the RV. “There is some soup on the stove if either of you are hungry. I hope you do not mind, I’m going to eat mine while it is still hot. I know it’s 50 out today, but that will cool ham and potato pretty quickly.” Peter sat down next to Jamie and picked up his soup.
“Soup sounds wonderful. I’m a bottomless pit when I come up here. I need to fill up from all those months of being empty.” Bernie pointed towards the other trailer. “Over there?”
“Right in there hon, there are bowls in a sleeve next to the pot with spoons in a box.” Jamie looked at Sal. “Sal, there are chairs in the trailer, be a dear and grab a couple. You two can join us.”
Sal squinted his eyes. He did not take orders from the old woman, but he was in a peculiar spot. He needed to keep a friendly façade with Peter. Jamie had not asked him for favors in months, knowing he would ignore her. Sal, high and irrational, believed she was trying to get him to show his true spots, or worse, was taking advantage of the situation.
“I’m not very hungry right now. I think I’ll take a walk around the camp. It’s been a while since I’ve been to the park, and this will be my last time. If Bernie is hungry, she should have all the soup.” Sal turned his not getting the chairs into a magnanimous gesture. “I’m going to stretch my legs a bit.”
“I’ll get Bernie a chair.” Peter pushed himself up again. “She can use mine. I’ll grab another.”
Sal turned angry. The tall man who looked like the asshole banker who took Sal’s house, was now showing him up. And who the hell was Jamie to give Sal orders anyway? This was really her fault. He hated that old woman. She was bossy and had a mouth on her. She needed to learn some respect.
Sal stormed off without saying another word. He flipped up the hood to his sweatshirt to hide this face, twisted in anger. “Just keep it cool, Sal, just be cool.” He thought to himself. Sal wore work boots, the same boots he wore for three years. He loved the boots, the leather was broken in and comfortable. He had jeans, a maroon t-shirt with a faded, stretched out collar, and a dark tan sweatshirt. Unlike the others in the New York group, Sal kept the same clothes he had before the rapture. He had a new car, but the same comfortable clothes, the same drug habit, and the same angry attitude.
Sal did not want to wander in the park. It was early, and walking the ten or fifteen blocks to his apartment was his idea all along. He would take a nap, pack up his things for the next day, and return to the RV’s later. He did not like Peter, and had never liked Jamie. Spending four hours talking to those tw
o, or listening to them talk was not high on Sal’s list of things to do. By the time Bernie came out of the RV with a bowl of soup and glass of punch, Sal was a few hundred yards away, walking towards the upper west side.
“Where is Sal going?” Bernie asked, confused as to why he was leaving.
“I bet he’s going to his apartment. That son of a bitch, I hope he gets high and passes out, and we leave him here. He’s worthless, worse than that, he’s a drag on the group.” Jamie spat venom.
“Apartment, what are you talking about?” Bernie sat down, soup in hand.
“Antonio, he’s a good kid, he and I talk sometimes when everyone else is asleep. He puts up a tough front, but he’s lonely, he misses his family, his friends, anyway, he opens up to me, and he followed Sal a few months ago.” Jamie took a sip of water. “And that bastard has an apartment on the upper west side, some old brownstone. He has fire, and food, and that’s where he’s been going. We thought he was scavenging for drugs, but he has drugs. He goes off to be comfortable while we are starving. While those little angels are starving, while he saw Ahmed dropping down to weighing nothing, and probably damaging his kidneys from giving his food to the rest of us, that son of a bitch, Sal.” Jamie let out a cry as tears rolled down her face. “That son of a bitch was letting us all die. Have you noticed he hasn’t lost much weight? He’s still a big strong guy. The rest of us are withering away, and he stays fat and burly. I say we call him out on it and leave him to fend for himself. He doesn’t want to help us in our hours of need? He can try to survive on his own forever.”
“He had an apartment? That can’t be true. He didn’t do that, Jamie, he didn’t. No one could do that.” Bernie put her hand on Jamie’s leg. “Antonio made that up. Sal isn’t a bad person. He’s just mixed up. The drugs have control of him, but he’s not bad. Antonio is playing with your emotions, trying to turn you against…”
Jamie cut her off, “My god, Bernie, do you even hear yourself? Who feeds the kids when he can? Who stayed with us even when he begged us to move to Queens. Who always stayed between Avery and Sal? Antonio is the good one. He tries to act tough, but he’s just a kid. You think Sal showing up for one of your services every other month and saying ‘amen’ to you means he’s a good person? That he’s seeking redemption? He’s a conman, Bernie. He’s a lousy, stinking, conman, and his time is up.”
Peter remained quiet. When Peter was young his father described a loud and obnoxious man by saying, “What’s on his mind is on his tongue.” The comment so affected Peter he became the opposite, seldom giving his opinion without first considering the consequences. Peter led by example as a pilot, father, and husband. The new world was different. It required him to be vocal. He was one of 25 people left in the world, and an important member of the group. It was time to step forward.
“Bernie,” he said calmly. “I know you are having a hard time believing Jamie or I guess really, Antonio. Let me ask you this, what if it’s true? What if Sal has been keeping a life with heat, food, water, and drugs, and he’s been keeping it separate from the group? What would you suggest?” He looked at her as a friend.
“I can’t believe it.” Bernie replied. “I can’t believe anyone would do that to others. If it’s true, well, it means he’s betrayed us, betrayed us every second of everyday.” She lowered her head. “I don’t know what it means if it’s true. I hate to think what the group would want to do to him.” She lifted her head and looked towards Jamie. “My god, all those nights the girls cried themselves to sleep in hunger pains? All those tears Cameron cried? All the times I averted my eyes as Avery was getting dressed, her body like an extreme anorexic’s, and I was ashamed I couldn’t feed her? All that time, Sal had food? What kind of person is he? It can’t be true, because if it is, that man is a monster.”
Bernie set down the soup, disgusted. Peter picked the bowl up and offered it to her. “Eat. You don’t look much like a sumo wrestler yourself. You need to finish this soup and get another bowl. I’m afraid you are going to blow away.”
Bernie blushed, her chocolate brown cheeks turning a light shade of red. “You’re right.” She took the bowl from Peter and continued to eat. “You are a quiet man, Peter, but when you do speak? You know what to say.”
“I would enjoy attending your service tomorrow morning. I have missed my faith, and appreciate your leadership in my search to reconnect with it.” Peter smiled at the woman. “There are decisions that we must make about Sal, and we’ll make them as a group. It will not be one person’s burden. You are taking too much on yourself. Please realize, there are more of us to carry the water.” Peter grabbed Jamie’s hand after he said it. “Both of you, understand, we’re a family now, or a tribe as Emily likes to call us. We have individual decisions to make, but we can also grow stronger as a group.”
“You sound like a televangelist.” Jamie told him, lightening the mood. “If you try to talk both me and Bernie into marrying you right now, the answer is no.” Jamie gave a loud laugh at her own joke.
Bernie let a warm smile creep across her face, she loved the old woman. Jamie made everything seem better. She found humor all around her. “I am going to say no, too.”
Peter blushed. “For the record, I did not ask either one of you, let alone both of you. When you tell this story to the other women, I never asked.”
“You were about to. I could tell.” Jamie snickered.
“You are welcome at my service tomorrow morning, Peter. I would enjoy your attendance.” Bernie continued to eat as she spoke. “We can reconnect to our faith together.” She took a last spoonful of soup and stood, “but right now I am going to continue my reconnection with food. May I get anyone else more soup? I put another can on the stove. It should be warm.”
“Just bring out the pot, we’ll all take more.” Jamie was trying to put weight back on after the long winter of starvation.
When Bernie went into the trailer, Jamie turned to Peter. “I’m an old woman, I’ve seen a lot in my life. I’ll tell you this, whether Sal comes with us or not, his time with this group is limited. He can’t keep himself under control long enough to function. He’ll run out of drugs, or walk off during chores, and we’ll have to make a hard decision. Feed a man that won’t do anything, or make it so we don’t have to feed him anymore.” She looked at Peter with all the seriousness of a heart attack. “It would be best if he passed out and we left him. If there is still a God in heaven, Sal Torvale is on a drug binge right now. Better we leave him, knowing he has food and will live and die by his own hand, than having to kill him down the road.”
“Jamie, we’re not going to kill anyone.” Peter tried to console her. “You’re exaggerating,”
Peter hoped she was wrong, but he knew hard decisions were on the horizon.
With the Sal conversation behind them, Peter, Jamie, and Bernie enjoyed the afternoon. They had no responsibilities. They ate, sat, and talked for hours. Jamie asked her friend, “Bernie, you’ve been walking around like a ghost for half a year, and now you are happy and fun. Are you drunk?”
Bernie shook her head. “I have been living in the past, living with my grief for too long. You are right, Peter and his friends arriving was a sign, a sign that life must gone on. Sitting in my chapel praying that my daughter and husband are still alive is selfish and dumb.”
“You had a daughter?” Peter asked her. “What was her name?”
“We named her Sarah. We loved her above all other children. That was our religious family joke.” Bernie beamed when she spoke about Sarah, her soccer team, her choir recitals, her math and science grades. She had pride and love in the memories.
“My oldest daughter was named Sarah.” Peter told them. “She had five children, bless her heart. I managed to have two, and I thought that was tough. Two kids of my own, and we ended up with eight grandchildren. Can you believe that?” Peter chuckled. “You’d think I raised my kids Catholic or Mormon, not Episcopalian.”
“I had 13 grandchildren. My da
ughter was also named Sarah, my second child, the only girl among three brothers. She was the strongest. I spoke to each one of them before they died. I could not visit them, spread across the country like they were, but we spoke on the phone. Each one of them would ask me, ‘Mom, are you sick yet? You’re going to beat it, Mom.’ And I would tell them they were crazy.”
“I didn’t know you had a daughter named Sarah.” Bernie said to Jamie. “Funny we had daughters with the same name. We should start a club. It’s going to be a pretty small club.” She chuckled.
The church van rolled up at 4:30pm. Sal had not returned.
Bernie could hear singing from the van “and we’re too busy singing, to put anybody down…”
Antonio was in the front seat. He was smiling, but his hand was on his forehead. He wore a baseball cap, and shook his head back and forth. Kelly was laughing in the driver’s seat, as was the second row of Ahmed, Todd, and Emily.
The door slid open and Avery jumped out. “I have to get out of here before they start singing again. They are making up songs, ridiculous songs, and claiming they are real.” She pleaded to Bernie to make the singing stop.
“That’s not made up, that’s the Monkees’ theme song.” Bernie tried to explain.
“Oh my god, you’re in on it too. Oh my god.” Avery walked away to find solace with Jamie and Peter.
The younger kids were laughing and talking. Wendy, Bridget, and Casey sang their new song “Hey, hey we’re monkeys, and people say we’re monkeys so long, but we’re too busy singing, to be monkeys.” They laughed.
“Avery!” The children yelled after singing. “Can you play hopscotch?” The girls ran to the chalk drawn grid and started looking for rocks to use on the squares.
Jay walked to Peter and told him about “the island where all the new Americans had to go, and how there was luggage stacked up, and shoes all around, and signatures, and hospital rooms.” Peter nodded as the young boy told him of the day’s adventures.
