Love in the Time of Fridges
Page 1
CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
EPIGRAPH
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PROLOGUE
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
PART TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
CHAPTER SIXTY
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
CHAPTER SEVENTY
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE
PART THREE
CHAPTER EIGHTY
CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE
CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO
CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE
CHAPTER NINETY
CHAPTER NINETY-ONE
CHAPTER NINETY-TWO
CHAPTER NINETY-THREE
CHAPTER NINETY-FOUR
CHAPTER NINETY-FIVE
CHAPTER NINETY-SIX
CHAPTER NINETY-SEVEN
CHAPTER NINETY-EIGHT
CHAPTER NINETY-NINE
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND ONE
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TWO
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND THREE
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FOUR
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND SIX
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND SEVEN
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHT
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND NINE
EPILOGUE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALSO BY TIM SCOTT
COPYRIGHT
To all those who are coming home.
“Tribe follows tribe, and nation follows nation, like the waves of the sea. It is the order of nature, and regret is useless.”
—Chief Seattle, from a speech reputedly made in Seattle in 1854 (as printed in the Seattle Sunday Star on October 29, 1887, in a column by Dr. Henry A. Smith)
“Quoth the raven, ‘Nevermore.’”
—Edgar Allan Poe, from “The Raven,” first published in 1845
acknowledgments
A huge thanks to Anne Groell, Josh Pasternak, and everyone who has worked on this book for their enormous patience, dedication, and boundless enthusiasm.
And to fridges everywhere for their inspiration, and for keeping the beers cold.
PROLOGUE
The drone carried on the breeze.
She scanned the top of the hill and just made out the slits of light as they huddled together.
The rest of the park seemed deserted, nestled in this forgotten backwater, still clinging desperately to the idea it was a park rather than a derelict piece of waste ground. But she sensed it would lose that battle soon. New Seattle had other things on its mind.
She quickened her pace. It wasn’t a safe place to be after dark.
Or probably before dark.
Or even at a time between the two, when it seemed light enough to see, but you kept tripping over things. Or banging your knee on carelessly dumped bed frames and other bits of shapeless metal. She hurried across the long uncared-for grass as a thick, dewdrop-sweet smell of rain brought the brooding promise of an approaching storm. And the wind herded the litter in circles.
Now she heard them more clearly, speaking in their own language, which consisted entirely of humming. And she could see they looked battered, as though they had seen their fair share of lettuces, mayonnaise, and cartons of milk. As though they had each been through the ceremony of having the remnants of a meal carefully sealed in plastic wrap and placed neatly on their top shelves, and then, inevitably, tossed in the garbage a week later when it had gone bad.
A snap of lightning shattered the horizon and silhouetted their awkward, bulky shapes. Ravens were gathered in a leafless tree above them, perhaps hoping for scraps if they opened their doors too far, but she guessed they would barely have any food between them.
Now they saw her, and they all closed their doors so that their lights went out, and hunkered together trying to blend in. As much as six-foot-tall white objects can blend in against a grassy hill.
Which, actually, is not at all.
When she was close enough to almost touch them, she knelt down and began talking, still half expecting them to bolt with their trademark shuffle, pedaling their little feet and waving their tiny arms. But she was pleased to see that they gradually opened their doors, just a little—throwing out a slit of light—and she knew she was winning their confidence.
Not because she had a pint of milk—although now she wished she had brought them something—but because she offered freedom. They were all desperate to avoid the Fridge Details that roamed the city hunting them down, sending them to compounds in the desert. They longed to go to a place where electrical goods had certain rights, such as complimentary yogurt.
That’s why they dreamed of going to Mexico.
And now, she was giving them a chance.
Lightning snapped and the storm prepared to engulf the city.
PART ONE
chapter one
ONE DAY LATER
I didn’t know her then.
Not when she stepped into the tiny drongle and sat down, soaked through, her slim lips mouthing a faint curse, her brown eyes a stark echo o
f someone I had once known.
The drongle had just clattered under the concrete snarl of New Seattle’s main gate, carrying me back into a city that I had not seen for eight years.
My life had gone missing since I had last been here, mislaid among too many motels, too many bad memories, and a never-ending succession of nights fogged with the bittersweet taste of mojitos. I stared out at the gleaming city lights star-bursting through the rain.
I had tried to close the door on all that had happened here. But that door had never quite shut, and the past had seeped out in a deathly trickle, contaminating my life.
And now I was back, watching the city slump by, pretending these awkward, unfamiliar buildings were my home. We passed a new city sign that shone with garish insincerity in the rain:
WELCOME!
New Seattle Welcomes Visitors*1
A billboard with a huge list of exclusions rose up behind it and I caught the words real estate agents somewhere near the bottom. They were resented in a lot of places now, and actually hunted down in Texas by bounty hunters, because the residents had lost patience after being randomly sent inappropriate house details time after time.
The drongle juddered to a halt and the sign loomed over us. It seemed unlikely anyone had ever actually read all that small print, however much it constituted part of the legal agreement to enter this city. It would have probably ranked as the dullest half hour of my life, and I had once talked to a man at a party who was a real fan of scat singing.
I tilted my head as we passed by and saw a bird sitting on the top, motionless, staring down, and the image sat frozen in my mind as we shuddered on through the streets. When it faded I saw the girl was wrapped in her own thoughts, and her deep brown eyes appeared lost in an alleyway of her past.
A Health and Safety sign rose up behind her, filling the drongle dome with a screaming green light.
“New Seattle Health and Safety asks you to stay safe! Be careful of apple pie filling! It’s absurdly hot! A strong Health and Safety Department means a strong city!”
I had seen a handful of these signs already and I had read somewhere that the H and S Department wielded the political power behind the machinations of the west coast of America now, and especially in New Seattle. The department had become so powerful it even had an army and had invaded Denmark a few years before. It claimed the war was necessary to settle an international disagreement over the use of hard hats. Eventually, after it had taken over most of Copenhagen, a protracted truce was agreed. Health and Safety published several Venn diagrams to prove that more people wore bright reflective clothing in Denmark than they had previously and this, they claimed, meant victory. So they left.
Although two thousand people died in the fighting, nobody cared too much. It was a long way away, and wars in other people’s countries don’t really count. Except to some life-shattered veterans who probably walked through the crowds in the mall on a Saturday afternoon drunkenly telling a story in snatches that no one wanted to hear.
The drongle rattled to a halt behind a line of others in the splattering rain, and I felt a prick of frustration. I had been in this city less than fifteen minutes and I was already about to be hassled at a police checkpoint.
The girl’s eyes came back and looked around.
“Thank you for traveling today,” said the drongle. “Your lucky color is blue. Your lucky artist who died miserably is Toulouse-Lautrec. Please take the receipt that is being printed. It may contain traces of nuts, so if you are allergic to nuts, use the gloves provided.” A sheaf of paper spewed out, along with some gloves, from a small slot, but neither the girl nor myself made any move for them.
We just sat with leashed-up frustration without exchanging a word as the rain teemed down, smattering the roof with a heavy thumping cry, as though the gods were not just angry, but insane.
Welcome home, I thought, trying to believe the cops would just wave us through with a glare. The minutes passed until finally they crisscrossed the translucent dome with flashlights before hauling open the door, their black ponchos reflecting silver streaks in the lights.
“Out of the car, please,” said a voice.
“What’s the problem, Officer?” I said, really not in the mood to be hassled by a bunch of rookies.
“No problem. Just step out of the drongle, please, both of you.”
So we got out and stood waiting in the teeming rain as they hassled the people in the drongle ahead amid a flurry of don’t-fuck-with-me faces. It seemed some hoods had pulled off a downtown robbery and these cops were trawling for evidence from anyone they could find. And right now, that was me.
The rain pattered and slapped on everything it could find, and above us another huge New Seattle Health and Safety sign flashed in the wet. “Beware! Treading on small toy building blocks when only wearing socks really hurts.”
“You just in?” said a different cop with a flashlight walking over.
“Yeah, that’s right.” I tried to sound polite, but the brightness in my voice got lost in the storm.
Eventually, another cop trudged over with the rain sliding off his poncho in rivulets and gathering on the peak of his cap in a long line of playful drops.
I had a feed on the back of my neck like everyone else. He plugged in, and a twist of looping wire spooled from the jack plug to his Handheld Feed Reader.
I felt a cold jolt in my neck.
“You showed up as only just in. We tracked your drongle. We like to check out strangers,” said the first cop.
“I’m not a stranger. I was born here. I lived here until eight years ago.”
“Registered in New York State,” said the cop scrolling through my details on his handheld. The system saved cutting through a lot of crap. Sometimes people had their profiles altered on their feed, but if you knew what you were looking for, you could usually tell.
“What’s your business?” The first cop shone the flashlight in my face, and I squinted into the glare.
“I’m looking up an old friend, Gabe Numan.”
“Old friend, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Hey! He’s an ex–New Seattle cop,” said the one still scrolling through my details on the screen. “Huckleberry Lindbergh.”
“That right?”
“Yeah. Once upon a time,” I confirmed.
“Kicked out?”
“I left for my own reasons.”
“Couldn’t hack it?”
“No, I just left.”
“Sure. You left. Let’s hear his mood.”
The mood program played a few bars of music that was meant to represent your mood. For some reason mine played something classical—a heavy, brooding piece that might have been banged out by a Russian composer after a night on the vodka. It sounded melancholy in the rain.
“I don’t like that. That doesn’t sound right. What kind of mood is that?” said the cop with the flashlight. “Take him off to Head Hack Central—and the girl, too. If there’s one group of people you can’t trust, it’s cops who got kicked out. They hold a grudge.”
“Hey!” cried the woman. “We’re not together. I’m not with this guy!”
That was the first time I noticed the fire in her eyes. Even through the snapping drops of rain, I could see it burn.
“Hey, calm down, lady,” said the cop, pocketing his flashlight. “If you’ve nothing to hide, you’ll be out within the hour. Just routine. Normally we use the street booths, but they’re all broken around here. Now get a red tag and some cuffs on these two and get them in a drongle.”
Welcome home, Huck, I thought. Welcome home.
chapter
TWO
My hands were cuffed and a thin red collar snapped onto my neck. They did the same to the girl. It wasn’t comfortable. Then we were herded into a four-man cop drongle and, after I kicked up a commotion, they retrieved my bag and threw it in after me.
An officer stooped inside, pulled the hood shut with a grinding crack, and sat with h
is legs apart, chewing gum and treating the world with enough disinterest to power a small country.
As the drongle rattled away into the night, the hard, wet seats felt cold and soulless. Several tiny screens flickered into life, and the image of a small man with short, neat hair and overlarge eyebrows appeared. For a moment, his words ran out of sync with his mouth, and then the two fused together.
“Hi, I’m Dan Cicero, mayor of New Seattle. You might have heard of me. People call me the Mayor of Safety.” He pulled an overly serious expression that played havoc with his eyebrows. Neither seemed to know which way to go. “We have a zero-tolerance policy on danger in this city. If you feel scared—or even nervous about anything—call our slightly-on-edge help line, where a counselor will be happy to talk to you about nice things like pet rabbits.” His eyebrows returned to their default setting, then the left one began to head off. “New Seattle Health and Safety is the finest in the world. And certainly a lot better than anything they have in Chicago. Their safety mascot is a piece of crap. An absolute piece of high-end crap. So enjoy your visit.”
“New Seattle Health and Safety,” sang a close harmony group as pictures of the city were splayed across the screen. “Stay safe! Watch out! Stay safe! Watch out for that—”
Then the drawn-out sound of a long, tortuous crash.
And the mayor’s face again.
“And remember, please don’t die for no reason. I mean, what’s the point? Right?” Then the screen flickered, went black, and those last words hung in the air mocking me, daring me to stir up my anger.
“Don’t die for no reason? Why does he say that?”
“It’s just a slogan,” said the cop.
“A slogan? Sometimes people do die for no reason. Isn’t that obvious?”
“If you say so.”
The noise of the drongle wheels crunched over the conversation.
I closed my eyes trying to breathe away the anger provoked by that absurd slogan. But the more I pushed it away the more it came back. And the more the memories waited in line in my head.
Another back-wrenching jolt and I looked up.
The woman was quiet. Her features had a soft warmth, but her dark eyes were wrapped up with thoughts I couldn’t begin to read. Maybe she saw bad memories running like reels of film in her mind. Maybe she was a prisoner of the past as well.