The Young World

by Chris Weitz

  “That’s not what I meant,” I say.

  “I don’t need the bed,” Kath says, unwholeheartedly.

  “Keep it, princess,” says Donna. She makes a point of lying down with her head on her pack, pulling a tapestry over herself.

  I lie down on the floor, too, despite the fact that I wouldn’t mind a soft mattress. Something tells me it wouldn’t be a good idea.

  I remember lying next to Donna in the hotel and strike the thought from my mind.

  In the end, it’s Brainbox who sleeps next to Kath. He just walks up and lies down, and when she says, “Uh. Can I help you?” he says, “Yes, please face away from me.”

  It takes a long time to get to sleep.

  CHAPTER 32

  THIS IS JUST LIKE From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, but with more killing.

  And more jealousy. Really I should go looking for another place to sleep, except part of me thinks that if I leave the room, Peter will leave, too, and then Brainbox will leave, and then Jefferson will have sex with that Kath chick.

  Probably he already has. Jefferson sort of wandered off acting all pensive a while ago, and then New Girl was like, “I’m going to the bathroom,” and neither of them came back for a while. Then they, like, pulled the old “come back into the room at different times” gag that I’ve only seen about a million times at parties. Like, you try to act all casual but you can’t help but check if the other person made a suitably ninja-like infiltration.

  I’m super pissed off that Jefferson would sneak around like that. Then again, maybe I’m just a sore loser. Like, I had my chance. Then again again, I’m pretty sure this chick is a sociopath. Or, I don’t know, some kind of escaped-sex-slave-nympho psycho. And I wouldn’t want Jefferson to be mixed up with her even if I didn’t have feelings for him.

  Have feelings for him. That sounds like “have cancer.”

  Uuuuuugghh. Why?

  See, this just proves that there is really no point getting involved with people. I mean, friends are fine. Friends don’t have to be exclusive. So, like, it’s not a zero-sum game.

  I don’t actually know what zero-sum game means. I just vaguely remember it from sociology as being sort of a bummer. I do remember what negative bias is, which is basically that you mind losing something more than you enjoy having it.

  But can you lose something you never had?

  I guess so. That’s a bitch.

  Why should I still care about him anyway? I mean, it’s pretty obvious that he’s got a thing for Sexy McSexerson.

  Maybe I’m not sexy enough.

  Maybe we should have had sex.

  Maybe I’m scared.

  It’s less scary for boys. Like, if something goes wrong, it’s usually the girl holding the bag. Or the baby or whatever.

  Also, if you’re a dude and you sleep around a lot, basically people think you’re a stud. If you’re a girl, you’re a slut. Totally unfair.

  It’s weird. I always felt this mix of power and helplessness. Like, I could tell that I had some sort of hold over boys—even over men, like, much older men, because I had something they wanted. That was the power part. But then there was the bigger thing, the helplessness, which was that the whole game seemed rigged against you if you were a girl; like, people just made snap judgments about you based on how attractive you were, and the whole of society was basically urging you to be sexier, lose more weight, act like this, say that. Basically so that more people wanted to have sex with you. That was, like, the economic model of being a girl. Except the more sex you had, the less you were valued. How messed up is that?

  Which was just the way it was Before, I guess. I suppose I should have been pretty stoked about the apocalypse. Like, for one thing, now you couldn’t have babies. For another, there were no authority figures around to judge you. And there weren’t any ads or magazines or movies with hot chicks in them making you feel inadequate.

  Still, it was surprising how many old attitudes kind of stuck around. Even in my own head. Like—Kath? Part of me just thinks, Total slut. Those ideas were contagious. They made me hate myself and my own judgments.

  Anyway I guess I kind of opted out of the whole game. Just—too much trouble.

  Which is not to say Jefferson is your typical dude. I mean, he’s almost too evolved. Like, maybe if he hadn’t been Mr. Super-understanding Sensitive Guy, maybe he would have just grabbed me and kissed me at the library instead of making a PowerPoint presentation.

  I don’t know. I’m crazy.

  Normally I could talk to Peter about this kind of thing, but we’ve been too busy being hunted down by various predators.

  These are the thoughts I cycle through as I try to fall asleep. Jefferson is over there on the floor, like, ten feet away, but he might as well be in another country. What’s-Her-Face is, I’m sure, sleeping it off up there in the fancy bed. Me? I’m trying to get comfortable under an ancient carpet.

  I take Pooh out of the bag and hug him tight.

  Around dawn, we break our way out of the park side of the museum and head north. We figure that now that the polar bear is dead, we’re, like, the apex predators or whatever, so it’s less tense than before. Except I keep searching my brain trying to remember if there were any other carnivores in the zoo. Pumas? Ocelots? Killer monkeys? What’s next?

  We come to a big-ass lake surrounded by fencing, which I guess was a reservoir. The water level is low, and the surface is carpeted with green algae. I think of filling my canteen despite the pond scum, but then I see that a bunch of bodies have collected on the edge. They’re bloated and floating, and crows are hanging out on them taking occasional pecks.

  The curve of the reservoir pushes us out toward Fifth Avenue. We decide it’s better to risk going close to the border of Uptown than to circle around the other side and run up against who knows what. Still, it makes me think about what we’re going to find once we get north of the park.

  Confession? I’ve never been to Harlem.

  Like, I know we were supposed to live in a post-racial society? What with Obama getting elected and everything. But even though I only lived about ten miles from a—I guess you would call it an African American neighborhood, it might as well have been an island. Like, in theory, everything was cool. I mean, I believe in equality, and you would never hear anything racist or whatever at my school. But that doesn’t mean we knew a lot of black people. There were, like, five black kids at our school, and they tended just to hang out with each other, which I guess is what I would do under the circumstances. And kids don’t really bother to reach out and Embrace Difference that much. Social life is gnarly enough without doing stuff that’s actually challenging to your preconceptions.

  So there’s a sort of unstated unease as we get closer and closer to the north edge of the park. I find myself pulling up next to Peter. I mean, I know it’s kind of lame, but he’s African American, or African Apocalyptic American, or whatever, and I’m sort of hoping he’ll reassure me that we won’t get arrested and put on trial for slavery or something.

  Me: “So…” But then I can’t figure out what to say after that.

  Peter looks at me and raises an eyebrow.

  Peter: “Is this the part where we talk about Harlem?”

  Me: “What? No. Actually, yes.”

  Peter: “Uh-huh. So let me guess. You want me to make you feel safer about being white?”

  Me: “Yup.” I mean, he’s got me pegged; there’s no point pretending.

  Peter: “Look, girl, I don’t have, like, Brother ESP or anything. The fuck am I supposed to know what people are gonna do to us?”

  Me: (I’m drowning here.) “I just thought… maybe… your perspective or something…”

  Peter: “Okay, here’s some perspective. Probably? People are pissed off. Excuse me. Brothers be pissed off.” He’s kind of annoyed with me.

  Me: “Okay, I totally get it.” We keep walking for a bit. Then I ask, “Uh, why?”

  Peter: “Because give
n the way things go, probably white kids have decided that the world ended because of something black folks did.”

  Me: “Oh. I don’t think that.”

  Peter: “Gosh, thanks!”

  Me: “The way the Moles talked about it? There’s like some kind of race war going on. It’s only… I’m kind of tired of getting shot at.”

  Peter smiles, his mood lightening a little.

  Peter: “Don’t worry. I’ll just speak jive to them, and everything will be all right.”

  Me: “Look, I’m sorry. I’m just scared, that’s all.”

  Peter: “Girl, ain’t no brother want to grab your bony ass.”

  Me: “You know that’s not what I mean. Jeez.”

  Peter: (Shakes his head.) “I don’t know, okay? I can’t speak for anybody else. You think I was, like, in the mainstream? A gay brother going to the homo school? For all I know, they’re gonna burn me at the stake.”

  Me: “Yeah. Good point.” I think for a while. “Well, why don’t you just butch it up a little?”

  Peter laughs. I think I’m back in his good graces.

  And I remember that, while I’m feeling all sorry for myself because Jefferson seems more interested in Tits McGee, Peter maybe has it worse. Like, everything was cool back at the Square. There were plenty of gay kids, and nobody really cared how you acted, as long as you pulled your weight. But out here? It seemed like society or whatever was just as likely to backslide as move forward.

  When all this is over and the world is saved, I’ve got to get him a boyfriend.

  At the top of the reservoir, a channel cuts through the park where cars used to cross from east to west. As we let ourselves down, a pack of wild dogs scatter. They’ve been chewing on some bodies that, judging by the relative lack of smell, are pretty recently dead. There’re shell casings all around them, but no guns. It looks like it was an ambush, so we’re quick about getting out of the clear and into the trees on the other side again.

  I can still make out the bright collars on some of the dogs, and I remember how hard we tried to redomesticate them down at the Square. The problem was, by this point the dogs were too busy living off corpses and getting hunted for meat. What bothered me most was the ones that were puppies when their masters died. I’d try to catch them so that I could cut the collars off, but they didn’t trust me; they’d run just out of reach. And their breathing got more and more restricted as they got bigger, until they suffocated.

  Maybe that’s, like, a metaphor for the kids who were too accustomed to the way things were. I don’t know.

  We come to the northeast corner of the park. Here, in the elbow of the walls, there’s row upon row of plantings that look like they’ve been abandoned. The stalks of the plants are yellow, and the dirt is dry.

  We shimmy up to the exit. Still the same blocky limestone running all the way up Fifth. Over the edge of the walls, an abandoned public square, trashed cars, debris.

  Jefferson starts across the street, trying to look casual but totally looking tense. The rest of us follow and get away from the open space as soon as we can and into the channel of street between the buildings. Street signs say we’re leaving Duke Ellington Circle and heading down Tito Puente Way.

  The plan is to strike east for the river. It’s only a little more than a mile, the shortest path through unknown territory before we hit FDR Drive. There, if the way is clear, we can head straight up to the Triborough Bridge and over to Queens and Long Island.

  After that, who knows?

  It’s nothing but dreary redbrick mid-rises for the first couple of blocks. Down the north-south streets, you can see rows of old-fashioned five-story walk-ups with shops on the ground floors. The little general stores they called bodegas in some parts of the city, all smashed up and burned out.

  I think we’re going to make it out easy by the time we see the first people on the street. A bunch of girls about my age just hanging out and talking on a stoop.

  I almost said “a bunch of black girls,” and maybe I should have said so to be clear or something, but they’re just girls, really. To call them black just means that I’m thinking about them as different from me. Like, we’re all going off what we imagine is “normal.” To me, I’m just a girl. To them, I’d be a “white girl.” Language trips you up. You can’t ever say exactly what you mean, and every time you try, you actually end up saying something about yourself.

  Anyhoo, it looks weirdly peaceful and natural, like something Before, and suddenly I wonder if we’re the people to be afraid of, spattered in mud and blood and loaded up with guns and knives.

  But then I notice the AK across the lap of one of the girls. There’s something weird about the sheen of the metal parts, but the girl stares me down, and I have to stop looking.

  We just keep walking, neither friendly nor hostile, and they don’t stop us. And I figure maybe we can just make our way peacefully to FDR Drive. But when we pass them, they get up and follow. I see one of them say something into a walkie.

  We walk another block, picking up company as we go along, and by the time we’ve gone five blocks, we’re in a crowd of about a hundred kids. They seem more, like, curious than hostile. Like, What are these fools doing here?

  Then I notice that everybody has a gun. Some of them AKs, some of them pistols, some of them these weird guns I’ve never seen before. A few of the guns look normal, but a lot of them have a glossy look, like they were made out of plastic or something.

  It gets so crowded that we couldn’t run even if we wanted to. I don’t think we’d get ten feet. Still, nobody is making a move. They’re just keeping pace.

  And then I hear a sound that I haven’t heard in two years. A fractured WHOOP WHOOP, offensive to the ears. For a moment, totally illogically, I think, Oh! We’re out of danger!

  That makes no sense, of course, and when the cop cars round the corner and pull up, it’s not police who get out but some tough-looking kids, shaven-headed and cold-eyed. The crowd parts for them, and they walk up to us, machine guns at the ready.

  Huge dude: “Well? What you waiting for? Assume the position, motherfuckers.”

  We’re marched over to the cars and bent over, our legs kicked apart, and the kids from the cop cars take our bags away and start frisking us.

  They take my clasp knife and my belt with all the clips and carabiners. They handcuff all of us. Then they shove us into the patrol cars the way they used to do on TV—jamming us in with a hand on one arm, the other on the head to keep from banging it on the roof. The whole protecting your head thing is kind of a ritual, since from what I can tell, they aren’t too concerned about our well-being. I figure it’s just a style thing, like, We’re the cops now, and we’re gonna act like it.

  I’m stuck in the back with New Girl, who pushes as far away from me as possible. She has a weird look, her focus kind of floating off into space.

  Me: “What’s wrong with you?”

  McGee: “Nothing. Getting ready.”

  Me: “For what?”

  She refocuses on me. “Oh, it’s never happened to you, has it? You’re lucky, then.”

  Me: “What’s never happened?”

  McGee: “Oh my God. You’re a virgin.”

  I think she means something really bad is about to happen to us. My heart starts floating up into my throat, choking me.

  I’d been imagining a cold cell, maybe a bullet to the head or the more cost-effective knife across the throat. Not that.

  I look at the back of our captors’ shaved heads through the metal grille that divides the front seats from the back. We’re rolling north, I think, but all of that is hazy. Instead, I’m fixated on the pink scar on the back of the driver’s head where the shape of the skull juts out. Beneath it, the skin folds a couple of times before his neck reaches his shoulders.

  And I’m afraid.

  And she looks at my face and laughs.

  But they don’t take us to a back alley or a prison or anything. They take us to a pretty red br
ownstone with flower beds in front.

  A girl with one of those shiny guns and a gigantic dude with a suitably gigantic machine gun—a Maremont M60E3, part of my brain tells me—are smiling and talking on the stoop. They break off their conversation as the cars pull up.

  We’re handed out of the cars and led up the steps of the brownstone.

  Birds sing. A sleek gray cat rises from its sunny spot and caresses its way past my ankles as we climb the stairs.

  They deposit us in a little parlor to the left of the door, leaving us alone to find seats on the puffy old-fashioned chair and couches.

  Kid with a scar: “Don’t mess the place up, y’all, or there’ll be hell to pay.”

  I can see what he means. The room is, like, immaculate. Clean rugs, old pictures on the wall—new pictures on the wall—somebody must have a printer and a supply of electricity. Polished wooden side tables. A grandfather clock lazily ticking off the seconds.

  And a bowl full of apples.

  I doubt they can be real, so I lean over to sniff them.

  McGee: “What’re you doing?”

  Me: “They’re real!”

  McGee: “Who gives a crap?”

  But I can see wheels turning in Jefferson’s head.

  Jefferson: “Let me do the talking.”

  Me: “Uh, how about no?”

  After a couple of minutes, which I spend imagining nom-nomming those apples, a girl comes from upstairs and says, like we have an appointment or something, “He’s ready for you.”

  The stairs are narrow and steep, and I stumble on the way because my hands are still cuffed behind my back. The guard with the scar actually hoists me back up, shrugs, and smiles.

  We’re led down a corridor into a back room that has a big window looking down on a garden with a tree in bloom.

  Behind a desk, in front of a window, a handsome black kid sits. He’s a little less than medium height—but he feels compact, not short. His hair is neatly buzzed, his clothes are clean and pressed—a soft black leather jacket over a crisp white shirt, khakis with sharp creases, shiny brown leather boots. I think, He irons his clothes? He shaves with a razor?