by James Kiehle
Nations destroyed.
People turned to ash and dust.
23. The Water
Perched on the cot in her closet-sized cabin on board the Oahu Queen, chin resting on the porthole frame, Judy looked out at the endless expanse of blue sea and thought back to hours before and how miraculously it happened that she was safe with her daughter, sailing back to the mainland, apparently bound for LA or San Francisco.
The price of passage? Well, was ‘blow job’ one word or two?
Iris was off to “gobble as many crescent roles as I can before I puke,” with Arnold Lind, her new play-and-roommate, happily sharing the Lind family’s large cabin, having a fold-out to herself. She was almost gleeful, more like the pre-war Iris, the bouncy teen she was before their vacation from hell lurched her towards this post-adolescent, pre-adult state.
Nervously waiting like all others for the bombs to fall worldwide, Judy was feeling selfish. Her mind’s eye, always backward as a mirror, reflected her self-image and public facade as a living incarnation of the good girl, the moral heroine, but in subtext, the play was more complicated. In her mind’s eye she saw Katie Holmes playing a dual role—part apple pie, part vixen.
Philosophic now that a buzz of liquor was spinning her mood towards remorseful, Judy thought of the Bible, and asked herself, simply put, could she play Salome to Lind’s acquiescent Herrod? And what of John the Baptist? Maybe Judy was more the devious Herodias, demanding John’s head on a lance—in this case, safe passage—with husband Russ falling as the unknowing victim to her dance of veils?
And where was Russ in this possible future? Blown to kingdom come?
She took another sip of Scotch. The good stuff burned all the way down.
Judy’s ceaseless, nagging wonder: If alive, is Russ having an affair?
If so, the dalliance would definitely be with the iconic dowager beauty queen and coworker, Maggie Chapin, late of LA as retired Trophy Wife. Older than Judy by decades, Maggie’s face was not sagging shar-pei skin but surgically perfected in a way that made her eyes look exotic. Worse, Maggie was already beautiful, elegant, and strong, a mix that proved an aphrodisiac to Russ.
There was evidence, circumstantial but telling, that Russell’s interest was not purely professional. Exhibit A: a snapshot on his inadvertently left-open laptop email. There was Ms. Chapin’s mug and more from a washed out Playboy-wannabe magazine scan, already looking maturely hot back in the what, seventies, eighties?—hard to say. Maggie in all her glorious glory, not posed on a red satin background ala Marilyn Monroe in the buff, but spread-eagled on a shag rug wearing only an expression that implied that ‘Your wallet isn’t big enough.’
And beneath the inserted shot, a timeless query to Judy’s husband: THINK I’VE GONE DOWNHILL? XOX. MAGGIE.
Judy was floored. Outraged. Furious. So unnerved by this episode that she never brought it up, pretended she didn’t see the reality, afraid she might explode and end the marriage.
But on another level, Judy had never seen such a perfectly outrageous body. Boobs at the Dolly Parton in Nine-to-Five level, Maggie’s blushing, smirking, vertical smile framed in the lace triangle of her sky-blue crotchless panties. You didn’t have to be Doctor Sigmund fucking Freud or even Larry Flynt to know Russ would give his balls to get his tongue spelunking in that heavenly mouth. In fact, and this was the most shameful part of all, Judy would kill to get in a few licks herself.
Still, maybe Judy should have seen it coming. At parties, Russ followed Maggie around like a dog, his puppy eyes glued to her titillating peaks and valleys, with Judy rendered instantly invisible.
Had she been a heartless bitch, Judy would’ve sought revenge, but played her jealousy cards close to her chest, always polite, always friendly when Maggie and she came face to face. And really, aside from the picture and note, there was no real proof that Russ had ever strayed. With anybody.
When would he even have the time unless during their annual vacations? Like now.
Sure, their lovemaking had become as spotty as a snow leopard, true of many marriages, but Russ did try. He used compliments with backhanded consequences, heartily approving of Judy’s hair as it shifted from near black to near silver, secretly enhanced to accentuate the chrome appeal of her hair to his presumed fetish. To aid that, Judy was trying to abandon her semi-virginal persona and follow in the sensual footsteps of one Mommy Dearest.
But question one: Was Russ still faithful?
Question two: Could she be?
It was confusing, yet clear as Dasani.
Back at the dock, waiting for an answer on whether they’d get on the ship, and qualifying the offer of oral sex for sanctuary and passage, Judy stubbornly said to Roger Lind, “I may resist.”
Lind’s amusement was genuine, his bright smile grew.
“I’ll take my chances,” Lind said. “Besides, resistance is kinda hot.”
•
Russ gassed up at the Arco, anxiously waited with a line of others for the attendants to fill his tank. In Oregon, the law prevented folks from pumping their own gas, and even though it seemed this rule could be suspended, everyone went about their business as usual, if with extreme anxiety. Horns blared. Folks hollered. Two men got into a loud argument, which no one tried to stop.
“You cut in line, you prick,” one said.
“I ought to piss in your god-damned tank.”
Russ rolled up his window and turned on the air; sweating as he cried. It seemed every ounce of moisture in his body was primed to be expelled. Across the street, a near riot as drug-hungry hordes ransacked a pharmacy; the police merely watched the melee, not anxious to get involved.
Russ tried Judy’s phone. Nothing. No tone.
He knew his wife would never answer. Oahu had been ground zero.
Not much hope.
Russ blindly snaked out of town, using the back streets, avoiding the congestion of the main roads until he finally reached the highway. More people were coming into Bend than leaving and he managed to flee the area fairly quickly. He followed a line of vehicles packed high with personal belongings or towing U-Haul trailers and passed yet another drugstore where looting was taking place with a small crowd anxious to get their hands on any drug available.
Russell didn’t know where he was going or why, and felt a staggering paralysis. His beautiful wife, his amazing daughter—vaporized. He took little comfort in knowing that their deaths were quick; his sadness made the simple act of breathing difficult.
On the radio, more bad news. Nuclear warheads reportedly annihilated San Diego, Seattle, and Los Angeles. The San Francisco Bay area had evidently been spared as the rockets missed their targets and exploded at sea. Few in that region were killed, though the flashes blinded some San Franciscans.
Worse, reports confirmed that the Russians had decided to weigh in on the side of the Chinese and their ICBM’s were conceivably available, too.
Holocaust was a near-certainty.
•
Nate Ballentine, waiting for Leo Tabor to come out of the bank, called his wife. It took a few rings but when he reached Sallie, she was out back, loading up the car.
“Thank God, you’re alright,” she said. “Phones are pretty hit and miss. The TV just went out too. Did you hear about the meteor? The Chinese think we bombed them. Did we bomb them, Nate?”
“Does it matter, honey? It’s like dominoes and right now they’re falling like Jews in Auschwitz. Listen, did you make it to the bank?”
“I didn’t,” Sallie said. “I had too much to do. Can you stop on the way home? How long will you be?”
“An hour at most. How much do we need?”
“Clean it out. With savings, we have maybe a grand.”
Nate, checking to see if his boss was finished, said, “You called your mother? She’s okay with us camping there?”
“Yeah, she’s fine with it, she just asked for some help with grocery money. Apparently the stores at the beach still have stuff and things, at least
for now. We’ll stop at Fred Meyer’s when you get here. But the car is loaded up. Too bad we can’t take the limo, too,” Sallie laughed.
Nate noticed Tabor coming back. “I’ll be home soon. I see Leo is coming. Gotta go.”
“Who’s Leo?” Sallie asked as he clicked off the phone.
Tabor hopped in the back, shaking his head.
“Crazy in there,” he said, slamming the door. “It was all I could do just to meet the manager, get to use the john. Speed. I’ll cover any tickets.”
After a short, fast drive, they parked at the marina and Leo reached in his breast pocket.
“Nate, I want you to keep this for me,” he said, passing a thick white envelope over the front seat and pressed it into his driver’s hands.
Nate looked at it, puzzled. “What’s this?”
“Take care of your family, buy some steaks or guns or something,” Leo said, then opened the door to leave, grabbing his bag. Distracted, Nate counted the money inside.
“Leo, Jesus, there must be a twenty thousand dollars here.”
“Only if I got short-changed,” Tabor laughed. “Should be thirty-two, total. This was all the cash they could spare in case there’s a run on the bank. And there will be, I guarantee it.”
“Sir, Leo— the limo—what do I do with it?” Nate asked. “Back to the garage?”
Tabor waved him off, “Oh, I don’t need this gas-guzzling beast any more. You keep it.”
•
Rebecca drove deep into the forest, amazed by the size and grandeur of the trees. She couldn’t remember the last time she was so close to nature. And with no top on the Jeep, she smelled the rich woodsy aromas and her lungs were filled with the freshest air ever.
Even less traffic now, but then it thinned more and she discovered that she’d somehow turned off 217 and was on some road to nowhere. She stopped the Jeep and got out, reached in her purse and pulled out her iPhone. She studied the calls that had come in since she’d shut it off a few days before.
She answered no one.
Rebecca used the map app, saw where she was, and turned it off again.
Leaning against the door, staring into space, she made a decision that she would become a different, better, person. Catching her reflection in the side mirror, Rebecca realized that she was smiling, but not for effect, but personal joy. A vagabond life felt like the right thing to do.
Freedom.
She lifted her arms and twirled in a field. She laughed in the dandelions and grass, then fell down, sat with her arms hugging her knees and cried until her shoulders softened and her tear ducts were drained; then she smiled again, her lunacy not yet complete.
On the plus side: There was a beautiful sky above her. She had money in her wallet, could take this time to forget who she was, maybe to read, get a job as a hotel maid, or be an intern on a TV show. Something with food.
She laughed wholeheartedly. Any man who might have seen it would have fallen in love. The laugh and smile were a deadly combination. She stood up and saluted the mountain as the sun began to set. “Thanks, mountain!”
She saluted herself. A new start. Fresh air.
And one last name: The Freedom Smile.
Rebecca drove back the way she’d come, hoping to reconnect with the highway leading to the hotel. After awhile, she found 217 again and eventually managed to sneak back in between fast-moving vehicles, then saw a sign.
Temple Mountain, 26 Miles.
For a long while, she followed the main road, flanked front and back by other vehicles, lights now on, twilight closing in. She pulled off when she saw a campground sign, having to pee like a greyhound.
She drove up a long, unpaved road. Dust followed her in a streaming brown cloud. Other cars and SUVs and trucks were parked in a circle of gravel. Some people were sitting on the grass, one was crying, some were in cars, talking, others were probably walking around.
The place looked safe, and there was a toilet.
She hopped out of the Jeep, having to go NOW, even leaving her purse behind, then dashed for the small green building, holding back her imminent golden flood.
A few relieved minutes later, while she washed her face with icy water, the dark sky suddenly turned a brilliant white—her entire field of vision was bleached—as a massive explosion nearly deafened her.
Her body flew across the room, her head smacked into a wall.
Rebecca later remembered none of this.
•
Leo Tabor boarded his smallest boat, Minx, walked around it for a bit and noticed things that needed fixing. Leo liked to tinker and recalled his days as a journeyman electrician, this before he dabbled in the stock market, then branched out, made a killing in gold, lining his pockets as he later bought companies, playing real-life Monopoly. If Leo Tabor gave 200k away every day, he’d be broke in a couple of lifetimes. Compound interest was a killer.
He laughed at that. As it was, he already gave a third of his money to charity.
Leo dropped below and checked for a change of clothes and food, then cracked open a Bud tall boy and drank it slowly on the front deck, watching other boats cruise by, most exceeding the posted limit easily.
Leo steered into a lane and watched the sun begin to set as he motored up the channel, then joined the Columbia where he fought the swift current, other vessels, and occasional debris as he powered upriver, destination unknown. Maybe The Dalles. Maybe Spokane. Maybe Hell.
Leo tried to use the phone at twilight, to call his kids and say goodbye, tell them he loved them, but there was no connection; it was as if his charged phone just ran out of power.
Above him, darkening blue sky, high clouds edged in gold; across the water, on shore, no scenes of people in fear or panic. No people at all. As he stared at the shoreline where evening lights glowed, Leo thought there was no clue of the ravages to come, giving a false impression that this was a typical day in the northwest corner of the United States, at an hour when families might normally gather and discuss the day; dining and drinking, laughing at jokes, toasting friends and relatives, just an average day in the life of an American. The same as in Taipei and London and Moscow and all cities, towns, villages and settlements around the globe. No doubt there were some blissfully ignorant people, but not around here.
Leo glided on the water, a captain, brave, and unemotional. There was a breeze but the water seemed remarkably calm and the boat handled like a champion. Once at Bonneville dam, Tabor happily discovered the locks were still operating and after a wait until nightfall, Minx was allowed to rise up and navigate past the eastern side of Mt. Hood, then on to Hood River. He was almost to The Dalles when suddenly his boat conked out and all the lights on shore turned off.
Leo was surrounded by darkness but standing under a canopy of the brightest sky he’d ever seen. There were constellations and planets and stars he had never known existed, so white with the sprinkles of light that it almost seemed like day. The moon was in the first phase, looming like a bright curved Persian blade over hard mountain silhouettes.
In this moment of silence, Leo felt a sudden and profound appreciation for how small he was— but then entire sky flashed white and the blast that followed almost capsized him.
The atomic bomb struck with blinding fury. Leo’s legs seemed to buckle, then he lurched backward, fell into an almost fetal position, curled up, and shook in fear. His eyes blinked fast as he tried to adjust to the after-blinding light and saw a grey haze cover a darker world.
Then far away, a still-developing storm-like cloud rose higher and higher, lit from within by fires raging in a chain-reaction of colliding molecules.
Leo knew that Portland was a glassy parking lot and everyone in it had melted like lava.
He stopped shaking, got a grip, and reached for the beer.
Then the second bomb hit.
Much closer.
•
As night fell, cars were using their lights and Russ Perry had to swerve hard as he nearly collided with a st
ring of vehicles racing on the wrong side of the two-lane highway, trying to pass the slower ones, already going at least seventy-five. Perry assumed these people escaped from Portland and Salem, likely targets, and as the cars slipped into his lane, Russ rode the shoulder, kicking up stones and dust but managing to avoid a wreck.
He finally pulled off the road, choosing to stop at a scenic viewpoint near the junction of routes 197 and 97 once he realized that the traffic jam made driving nearly impossible. Russ removed the key and stumbled out of his van. He looked dazedly at the eastern horizon, now eerie in the fading light and shadows.
The high desert was stark. Framed from above by a glorious dark, cloudless sky, Perry stared at the expanse without noticing anything. He stood at the edge of the long plain and heard only the rush of traffic and a light wind that brushed against scattered desert foliage.
Suddenly, a whine high above him. Something moving out of the corner of his eye. Russ looked up with still-trembling hands covering the light of the crescent moon and saw a rocket or missile on a steep trajectory, leaving a smoky trail as it streaked across the darkening sky. Perry assumed the missile was part of the American response but he felt no pleasure in knowing that millions of Chinese were victims, too. It would never bring back his family or the maybe billions of others probably blown all to hell.
Russ pulled out the phone and tried to use it. The signal was still down. Calling anyone was useless. He almost tossed the thing into the sand.
Then, looking aimlessly towards the south at the endless high grass, Perry felt a painful sting of light flash behind him. Another flash, farther off, and then a third one, farther still. Russ dropped the phone, covered his eyes with his forearm and began to shake, feeling lightheaded and terrified.
He finally lowered his arm and blinked hard many times, seeing large brown spots drifting in front of his eyes. He slowly turned and watched as three immense clouds developed to the northwest; smoke and dust lifted high into the stratosphere. Mushroom clouds, like those he’d seen in pictures, towered in the sky like steroid-laced thunderheads on a hot August day.
