He looks at me, still only halfway conscious. The moment is ripe for some sly remark, but we’re both beyond that kind of thing now.
“Rain?” he asks.
“Plane,” I tell him.
“Hmm. Even better.” Then he rolls over on his side, coughing, but that’s fine. He can cough as much as he wants now!
I look to the fire that still rages, but for the moment is at bay. Garrett now lies face up and sprawled out on the boulder, looking to the hazy blue sky. We could die happy now, our thirst finally quenched. But maybe we won’t be dying today.
Kelton sits up. He’s sucking on his sleeve, getting all the water he can from it, and I decide to do the same to my sleeve.
Meanwhile, I watch as the plane returns to the lake, skimming water from its surface, filling up for a second run.
PART SIX
A NEW NORMAL
* * *
SNAPSHOT: DISNEYLAND, 8:57 A.M., SATURDAY, JUNE 25TH
Main Street has been washed clean of wildfire ash, the Haunted Mansion has been cleared of vagrants, and the green phalluses spray-painted on the beloved character mural have been scrubbed off.
It’s been almost two weeks since the Tap-Out officially ended, and it’s taken that long to get things up and running again—not just here, but all over Southern California. But the Magic Kingdom is at the forefront of the effort to restore life as we knew it.
With so many “cast members” not returning, there are a lot of new hirees—including an eighteen-year-old ticket taker at the front gate whose mother forced him to take a summer job. The recent catastrophe cost the family a fortune in insurance deductibles. Everyone is expected to contribute.
“It will be fun,” she said.
But it hasn’t been. Instead, it’s kind of been like finding out that the Tooth Fairy doesn’t exist, or catching Santa smoking cigarettes in the Macy’s parking lot. Perhaps it’s because the entire park has looked practically post-apocalyptic. No character costumes, no electrical parade, no jazz band in New Orleans Square. And no guests. This has been the longest closure since the park was built. There was simply too much damage to repair, too much infrastructure to rebuild. Not just here, but everywhere. There was looting here, but not as much as one might think. People didn’t care about clothing, or technology. There was only one thing they were looking for. Food concessions were torn apart searching for that one thing. The one remaining water feature in the park—a fountain in Tomorrowland—had become a Mecca for lost souls, who drank the chlorinated water until it was gone. The spin doctors in the corporate offices are planning to rebrand it the Fountain of Life.
The big news being pushed is that nobody died in the park. That’s saying a lot. There’s probably no other geographic area as large that can make that claim.
Tons of people are being heralded as heroes all over Southern California. Like the power plant manager who quelled a riot in Huntington Beach, and the mysterious good Samaritan in Tustin who saved a whole bunch of people at a nursing home, then disappeared. The ticket taker would like to say he himself was a hero, but he didn’t do much of anything beyond survive. That was hard enough.
8:58 a.m.
He stands at his spot at the turnstiles, counting down the minutes until Disneyland opens up again, marking the first official day of normalcy. On the other side of the Emerald Gates, the lines wind out of sight, and he realizes why people are here. Why they need to be here.
More than two hundred thousand souls perished during humanity’s hiatus. The highest fatality count from any non-war event in the history of the nation. Yet even that number somehow feels remarkably low, and the fact that it isn’t higher is a miracle—or at least, that’s what people have been reaching for. The silver lining. Why else would so many need to be in the one place where magic still exists? Where hope is eternal? Where dreams never die?
The clock strikes nine.
The music fades in, right on cue—enchanting the crowd—and then the sparkling Emerald Gates open, welcoming humanity back to the Happiest Place on Earth.
* * *
56) Alyssa
Soapy sponge, wet washcloth, dry towel, repeat.
A pounding at the bathroom door.
“Alyssa, come on already!” says Garrett. “I gotta take a dump!”
Soapy sponge, wet washcloth, dry towel, repeat.
“Use the downstairs bathroom!”
“I can’t! Dad’s in there!”
The sponge, the washcloth, the towel. One arm, one leg at a time. I will get clean. It will just take a little effort.
Garrett pounds again. “What are you even doing in there?”
“I’m taking a shower.”
“I don’t hear the shower running.”
“Then you’re deaf.”
He’s not deaf. The shower is not on. But there’s a sponge for soaping, a washcloth for rinsing, and a towel for drying. I stand in the shower and reach over to the sink, which is half filled with warm water, like a basin in the days before homes had running water. With the water heater finally replaced, we don’t have to boil water to warm it anymore. And with our neighborhood’s water turned on for two days a week, it means we can shower. I know that. But I just can’t do it. I can’t bring myself to spray my body and watch it flow down the drain. Maybe another day. But not today. Today it’s a sponge, a washcloth, and a towel. I’m happy with that. More than happy, I’m satisfied.
“We’ll be leaving soon,” I call out to Garrett. “Are you ready to go?”
“I’m ready to use the bathroom!”
The crisis officially ended two weeks ago—just a day after Kelton, Garrett, and I were air-lifted out of the forest and dropped off at Lake Arrowhead, where the entire community had become one massive evacuation center. But only for the people who managed to get there, which wasn’t easy. We were treated for smoke inhalation. My lungs hurt for a week. They’re better now.
I dry my hair, put on a robe, and let Garrett into the bathroom, where he starts taking care of business even before I completely vacate. Typical. And yet nothing feels typical anymore. There’s a new “normal,” because our lives are punctuated by weird air pockets of the surreal.
Like when we went back to Costco. The shelves were restocked as if nothing ever happened, with a stupid sign out front that said YES, WE HAVE WATER!
But even though the store is the same, people are not. Since the return of life as we knew it, I’ve found there are four kinds of people now, all easy to spot—especially in the aisles of Costco.
There are the oblivious ones, who go about their lives like the Tap-Out was a dream that waking life has completely washed away. Maybe they got out before it got bad, or maybe they just exist in a constant state of denial. I find them hard to relate to. It’s like talking to aliens pretending to be human.
Then there are the ones like us, who lived through it and are still facing the PTSD of it all. They linger in the aisles, marveling at the sheer magnitude of products and the organization it took to get it all here, no longer taking anything for granted, and guarding their carts as if their lives depended on it.
Then there are the fulfilled ones. The people who found something in themselves they didn’t know was there. Heroes in the rough. Now they talk to strangers, look for opportunities to help. They’ve discovered they can truly be of use, and don’t want that to stop just because the crisis is over. I admire them. The Tap-Out left them with a calling they didn’t have before.
And finally there are the shadows. These are ones who move through the aisles silently, avoiding eye contact, afraid at every step that someone will recognize them and accuse them of whatever horrible, unspeakable thing they did to survive. The ones who can’t look at others because they can’t face themselves.
It’s the same at school. We all went back a couple of days ago. Even though school would have ended by now, they have to finish the year. “Healthy closure,” they said. Because a water-zombie apocalypse is not truly over until kids g
o back to school.
Three teachers had perished—two beloved, the third not so much, but everyone cried for him, even so. Thirty-eight students were lost—including the school’s star running back and the girl voted Most Likely to Succeed. But those weren’t the only empty chairs. There were dozens upon dozens who simply hadn’t come back, and might never come back. My friend Sofía, for one. Who knows if I’ll ever see her again.
And the shadows were there, too. Kids who are wraiths of their former selves. Hali Hartling, for instance—who kicked hard, lived large, and was always at the top of the social pyramid. Now she moves quietly through the hallways, and I suspect has completely lost her edge on the soccer field. I suppose I could have become a shadow, because I did plenty of things I am not proud of, but I made the choice to wear it not as a brand of shame, but as a badge of honor. If I’m scarred, then they’re war wounds, and I will not cower from them.
When it comes down to it, there’s nothing “normal” about our new environment, and I wonder if life will ever be the same. Will we ever be able to put the past behind us? Will the shadows find redemption? Will all the fulfilled heroes go back to their less altruistic selves? And will I ever stop having nightmares about my parents?
It doesn’t help that the truth was almost as awful as a night terror.
Mom got knocked out during the riot at the beach. She collapsed, out cold against the hot sand. The crowd was savage. She was trampled, three of her ribs were broken. Her left lung was punctured, and she suffered a grade three concussion. She was lucky that there were still paramedics around to bring her to a hospital, or else she would have died.
Dad was arrested because he was fighting to get to Mom, and it got bundled with all the rest of the violent behavior of the mob.
Turns out they both ended up in the perfect places. The hospital was a high-priority location, so it got the first water deliveries, and county jail, being a government facility, never had its water shut off like all the municipal water districts had. Funny that jail was one of the safest places to be. It was hard on Dad, though—not knowing what happened to us, or to Mom, not to mention whatever craziness went on in there. He won’t talk about it. I don’t blame him.
They both got home before we did, and suffered their own hell waiting to find out what had become of us. But we finally got in touch with them, and they met us where the buses bringing people back from Arrowhead dropped everyone off.
It’s a moment I replay over and over again in my mind, although the memory registers more viscerally than visually. The feeling of the memory. Maybe because my eyes were too blurred by tears to see much of anything. The feeling of home in the smell of my mother’s shirt as I cried into her shoulder. The sense of safety brought by the touch of my father’s hand when he rubbed my back to comfort me, just as he did when I was little. The blanket of comfort that was carried by their voices—voices I thought I might never hear again. We all just stood there in a parking lot—I don’t even remember where—holding each other until nearly everyone else had left. I wasn’t even embarrassed. I could have stood there and held them till the end of time.
Uncle Basil’s back with us, too. Alive and well, just as we told ourselves he would be. We’re determined to start calling him Uncle Herb more, although he has his own ideas about that.
“Call me Uncle Sage,” he told us, “because I feel a whole lot wiser than before.”
I’m sorry to say that Daphne didn’t make it. He still tears up when he talks about it. I really think they loved each other. But our uncle, who had been wallowing in his misfortune for so long after losing his farm up north, isn’t wallowing anymore. He’s found a second wind in life, selling, of all things, ÁguaViva. He’s even doing a commercial for them. ÁguaViva saved my life. Talk about turning lemons into lemonade.
I join my mom in the living room to watch the news. It’s a press conference. It seems every five minutes there’s another press conference.
“The governor of Arizona just resigned,” Mom tells me. No surprise there. Everyone who had a part in shutting off the flow of the Colorado River into California is facing criminal prosecution. Officials are being indicted on everything from criminal negligence to conspiracy to commit murder.
“And,” Mom says, “they finally found the good Samaritan who saved all those people in that nursing home.”
“There were lots of good Samaritans,” I point out, thinking of the Water Angel, and the pilot who dropped water on our fire, and that rabbi and the priest who both led thousands of people on a pilgrimage to the promised land of Big Bear Lake just before fires closed in behind them, blocking the way for others.
“Yes, well, there can never be too many good-deed-doers,” Mom says.
I glance at her to see that she’s taken the bandage off her forehead. Seven stitches. They don’t look as bad as I thought they would.
At the sound of running water, I glance into the kitchen. Garrett has come downstairs and is filling Kingston’s water bowl. He does this every day now—something he never did when Kingston was actually here. Now he sets it outside every morning with food. Some days he goes off alone, riding his bike in the hills, looking for our dog.
“He’ll come back,” Garrett says. “When he thinks it’s safe, he’ll come back.”
I want to believe that. I want to believe that maybe someone else found him and has given him a new home. Dad offered to get us a new dog. “A rescue,” he said. “Maybe a dog whose owner died in the Tap-Out, and needs a family like ours.”
But Garrett won’t have it. As if taking in a new dog is some sort of admission that Kingston’s gone for good.
After Garrett fills up the bowl, he turns off the water. But then turns it on again, watching the faucet, watching the water flow down the drain. Then he turns it off. Then turns it on. Then turns it off, then on, over and over. I should be mad that he’s wasting water—after all, we still have all the same restrictions as before. No watering lawns. No frivolous use. But I’m not mad at Garrett, because I know this is not about him intentionally wasting water. It’s that he’s mesmerized by it. Not by the water itself, but by the sheer power to be able to make it flow, and make it stop with the simple flick of the wrist.
He catches me watching him and looks away, a bit red-faced, caught in his private, guilty moment.
“Ready to go?” I ask him.
“I’ve thought about it,” Garrett says, “and I decided I’m not gonna go.”
“You sure?” I ask him. “You might regret it later.”
“Yeah, I might,” he admits, “but I’m sure.”
He leaves so he doesn’t have to talk about it anymore. I’m not going to pressure him. If he doesn’t want to come, he doesn’t have to. So it will just be me and Kelton.
And a few minutes later, Kelton arrives, barging in unannounced, which has become a fairly normal occurrence. He’s actually been crashing on the couch here some nights. He’s got his reasons, and they’re all good ones. I don’t mind him around.
“Turn on the TV!” Kelton insists.
“Already on,” I point out.
“You’ve gotta see this!” He grabs the remote and switches around until he lands on a different news station . . . and on the screen is a face I thought I’d never see again.
We’re looking at none other than Henry Not-Roycroft, being interviewed by a reporter. Henry, larger than life on my TV. I always thought “jaw dropping” was figurative—but my jaw actually does drop.
“Oh, look,” says my mom, “this is what I was talking about—that’s the good Samaritan.”
The caption reads Henry Groyne.
“Groyne? His last name is Groyne?”
Henry speaks proudly. “I just did what anyone would do.”
“Not everyone would run into a burning building with nothing but a towel over his head to rescue people,” says the reporter.
“That was in Tustin!” I yell at the TV. “He was nowhere near Tustin!”
“Shush!
” Mom says. “I want to hear this.”
On screen Henry shrugs, like he hasn’t just taken credit for something he couldn’t possibly have done. “In this life, you see what must be accomplished, weigh your options, and then embrace the opportunity.”
“But why did you wait so long to come forward?”
“It’s not about me. It’s about the people I saved.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” I shout.
“It gets worse,” says Kelton, who must have already seen this on another station.
Now the report cuts back to the studio, where the anchor smiles for the camera and says, “Henry is an eighth grader at Access Alternative Middle School, proving that you’re never too young to be a hero!”
“What? He’s a WHAT? He’s in eighth grade?”
“He does look a bit old for his age, though,” Mom says, cheerfully oblivious.
There isn’t even a word for how utterly speechless I feel. “He said he was driving since he was thirteen. . . .”
“Yeah,” says Kelton, “which was, like, three months ago.”
My mom looks at us as if we just arrived from Mars. “What are you two talking about?”
And since neither of us wants to spiral down the rabbit hole of this particular madness, we excuse ourselves and go outside.
Kelton and I grumble and moan about it, trying to filter our whole experience with Henry through this new lens, and decide it’s not worth it. So we end up laughing about it, and choose to move on.
And pretty soon, Kelton will be moving on too, one way or another. There’s a big FOR SALE sign on Kelton’s lawn—a lawn that you can actually see now, since the security gate was rammed down during the not-so-neighborly neighbor attack.
Dry Page 31
