Eupocalypse Box Set

by Peri Dwyer Worrell

  XIV. Just Another Breakdown

  After their usual breakfast picnic, Ryan and Lori were ready to start their days. Lori worked evenings at the hospital, sticking patients for labs, and Ryan, mornings at the Sears tire shop. This morning ritual, coffee and sausage biscuits on the beach, was their one time to be together for sure. They didn’t see much of each other, and once you figured in the loss of their food stamps and subsidized Lifeline phone they actually made a little less money, but their schedule meant one of them could always be with Missy so they didn’t have to put her in daycare. But it meant they sure depended on the old truck. When it wouldn’t start after he’d cranked it five or six times, Ryan popped the hood. The primitive engine was clean as a whistle. He’d just replaced the distributor cap his last day off, Tuesday, so he figured he must have left one of the connectors loose, causing one of the plug wires to fall off.

  No, the sparkplug wires were firmly on each plug where it sat in its cylinder in the classic V8 engine block. The battery terminals sparked when he tested them by bridging them with a quick tap of his screwdriver. He traced each spark plug wire back to the distributor, then began to flip the clips off the distributor cap. There was something sticky on the plastic of the cap, and he wiped it off on his frayed jeans. He gripped the cap and then recoiled, as if burned…the cap collapsed in his hand as though made of clay!

  “What the Hell?” He exclaimed.

  “What is it, honey?” Lori asked, tossing her bleach-blond pony tail and looking back over her shoulder. She was still half-in, half-out of the king cab, where she'd just buckled Missy in, her hand lingering on Missy's soft afro puff.

  “I ain’t never seen nothing like this before,” he said. The cap was still firm at its base, so he pulled it free. On the inside, it looked like cottage cheese. Some of the contacts were coated with soupy plastic, and others were sunken. Too far away from the rotor to make contact, for sure. Lori’d walked around the truck and now pressed her cheek against his upper arm as she peered inside, furrowing her brow.

  “What the heck happened to that?” She asked.

  “I don’t know honey. But the truck ain’t starting until I get a new distributor cap. Can you call your mom to pick us up? She can take you home and me to the parts store in Galveston. Shit, I’ll have to call in to work! There goes my overtime! Sorry, baby! I know you were looking forward to having that new microwave.”

  XV.

  Fully Upright and Locked

  At the Atlanta airport, tempers were frayed.

  Long lines of people waited to receive scrawled paper vouchers for meals from harried ticket clerks who were helpless without their computers. Tim, hung over from his prior night’s partying with Sam’s old school friends in “Hot-lanta,” stopped next to one such line and listened to an expensively-coiffed and bejeweled woman in her 30s raise her voice. “What do you mean you can’t accommodate me? Do you know who I am?”

  Tim murmured, “She doesn’t know who she is? Why is she wasting everybody’s time?” A geeky blue-haired teenage girl standing in the line heard him. She turned around giggling, and he cut her dead with his trademark disdainful eye-roll.

  The monitors showing arrivals and departures had been exhibiting multicolored confetti for quite some time. Suddenly, the power to the displays was abruptly cut; they all went black. The overhead lights went out, but the big windows of the concourse admitted daylight. A flight attendant zipping down the corridor, pulling her rolling travel case, staggered as the plastic handle on the case broke cleanly in half. The case rolled towards Tim, who pretended not to see it and lifted his foot as though pulling up his sock, kicking it and sending it somersaulting. The flight attendant limped after it awkwardly on a busted heel, gripping the useless handle. It made Tim feel better for a moment.

  Tim spun and glided towards the exit, glad now he’d been checking luggage and so hadn’t returned his rental car before checking in at the kiosk. If he’d done things in the usual order, he’d be stuck here with all these idiots. He could still retrieve the car from short-term parking and drive to Miami, worry about his suitcase later. He’d picked up some Adderal from one of Sam’s buddies last night, so he should have no problem at all making the drive straight through.

  XVI.

  Moving Out.

  A leisurely day’s drive, around New Orleans, through Mobile and Pensacola, and along the straightest and most tedious stretch of Interstate in the southeast, finally delivered DD back to Tallahassee. The lush greenery, which had so enchanted her when she first moved there, now looked more like a patina of green decay, covering the corruption and backbiting that underlay the political and academic scene. She’d stayed long enough to see what went on behind the Spanish-moss curtain, and that was really, really long enough. Then, she’d stayed longer.

  She exited the freeway onto Monroe street, passing the cheap motels, dilapidated half-vacant shopping malls, and tattoo parlors. She approached the downtown, the Capitol neighborhood, with its older retail buildings, lavishly renovated into offices of law firms and lobbyists. The offices were interspersed with gleaming luxury condo buildings and hotels, inhabited during the feverish few months of the legislative session by lobbyists, State of Florida legislators, and the call girls (and boys), caterers, and drug dealers who tended their recreational needs. The buildings were nearly vacant the rest of the year, mocking the homeless people who trundled their goods down the street beneath their windows.

  She turned right onto Tennessee street, passed a few blocks north of the Capitol building (its erect towering shape flanked by the rounded domes of the two legislative houses, giving rise to decades of smirky jokes about the Governor’s hard-on) before reaching “the strip” of college bars and the vomit-flecked sidewalks in front of them. She continued past the University, turned right, and headed up one of the slight inclines Floridians call “hills” into the slightly more upscale fringes of the student ghetto, where the faculty lived.

  Her house was a 70s modern with a timbered, vaulted living room, walled on two sides in glass, and a stone fireplace. She noted, with approval, that the realtor’s sign was on the lawn as they’d agreed. The sign proclaimed, “MUST SEE INSIDE!” The interior was impressive; DD had systematically, gradually remodelled the entire place and redecorated with the finest materials over the years. Amrencorp had provided a generous relocation allowance, which meant she was in no hurry to sell and could hold out for a good price as long as necessary, even until next August’s crop of new academic arrivals. Everything was packed up in boxes, sheets of Styrofoam, and bubble-wrap for the movers, except for two suitcases in the master bedroom. The bed was still made; she was leaving the big king four-poster behind, along with a few other items, to help in staging the house (and also because there was no room for it in her sleek-but-small new Houston apartment). She plopped down on the big bed for a few minutes’ contemplation. The thumb drive in her pocket poked her hip and she pulled it out. It was sticky. She pinched it and it deformed, like stiff clay or putty. Odd. I wonder what happened to it? I'll have to check and see if it still works. Later, when I turn on my computer. She set it down on top of a box.

  She’d lived in this house for 15 years, since her one marriage had ended in divorce, and its lights, smells, and sounds were beyond familiar to her. She'd picked the colors of the paint, the granite for the counters, the shape of the moldings, the material of the drapes. She glanced at her hands, trying to remember which nail she'd lost when doing the tiles. The garden would probably turn up the occasional Lego or Barbie limb, from her grown daughter Jessica’s childhood, for seasons to come. Thanks, old home. You were a good home. I’ll miss you.

  Before she knew it, the sun had set and it was starting to get dark. The dusk weighed on her emotions. Thinking of Jessica had transported her mind down a melancholy path. Lord, give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. She closed her eyes and sank into meditatio
n, repeating the serenity prayer over and over until she felt the burden lift lightly off her shoulders like angel wings.

  Her eyes popped open. She was done with her day; it was time to relax. She stripped and stepped into the bathroom. A single bar of soap and a bottle of cheap dollar-store shampoo remained, but all her other toiletries were in her car, and she didn’t feel like getting dressed and going out to get them. I can skip the skin and body care regimen just this once. Just get clean. She turned on the hot water. She brushed out her shoulder-length deep-auburn hair and stepped in. She luxuriated in a nice, leisurely shower, purring a hum which turned into an aimless song. At long last, she toweled off and put on an oversized T-shirt which hung to her knees.

  She ordered one last meal of Chinese food delivered from her favorite place, Emerald River. While she waited for dinner, she combed out her hair. When the doorbell rang with the food delivery, she opened the door and quickly grabbed the brown paper bag. “Keep the change,” she said, over-tipping the elderly Asian man who brought it. There was a stack of boxes next to the bed, and she laid out the white cardboard cartons on top. She slid her legs under the covers and settled herself in with a book, for a final cozy night in her customary, private cocoon.

  XVII.

  You Have the Right

  Tim was feeling the Adderal, enjoying the way it carries you when you get tired and everything is vivid and crisp on the broken-glass edge of the drug. After the long drive down I-75, through the eternally under-construction portion between Macon and Valdosta, he was exulting in cruising the rental convertible with the top down, on the sunny oceanside highway towards his mother’s house in Neptune Beach. One last visit before heading out to Texas and a raise. Not only that, but the Amrencorp purchasing system, judging by what he’d learned from his remote probing, was apparently even more vulnerable than the one at FCU!

  He shook his head. Why people created such insecure systems in the first place was beyond him. At FCU, over his years of service, he’d unearthed several people less adept than himself trying clumsily to skim or pad their expenses. That was, of course, a chance for some petty blackmail, killing two birds with one stone as he acquired small favors from others while he protected his own personal watering hole. He’d been doing FCU a favor, as he saw it, by maintaining full attentiveness to their areas of vulnerability, and guarding against some outsider wreaking real havoc in the college’s finances! Now he was going to perform a similar, unrequested but vital, protective service for his new employer Amrencorp (keeping a well-deserved fee for himself, of course).

  He looked in the rearview mirror and saw flashing lights. He glanced at his speedometer: 68 in a 35. He chuckled. High spirits! He grimaced at the thought of the speeding fine and pulled over, quickly smoothing his wind-ruffled hair.

  The cop walked up to the passenger side of the convertible. Tim kept his hands on the steering wheel.

  “Do you know why I pulled you over?”

  “No, sir,” Tim lied. “Why?”

  “How fast were you going?”

  “My speedometer said 35.”

  The cop didn’t even dignify that with an answer. “License, registration, and insurance please.”

  “Reaching into my pocket for my wallet, Sir.”

  The cop took the proffered cards and walked back to his car. “Asshole,” muttered Tim under his breath, once he was out of earshot.

  After a few minutes, the cop walked back up to Tim’s car door. Tim brusquely held his hand out for his papers, glancing away, but the cop swiftly snapped a handcuff on his wrist instead. “Tim Schneider, you’re under arrest. Get out of the car.”

  “What? What for? For speeding? That’s ridiculous!” Tim shrilled.

  “There’s a warrant for your arrest. Get out of the car!”

  “On what charge?” Tim demanded.

  “Grand Theft. I'm not going to tell you again.”

  “You must have the wrong Tim Schneider,” he began, but the cop stepped back, opening the car door, and yanked the handcuff chain hard enough to make Tim emit a strangled scream as he was dragged out, belly down on the asphalt and gravel shoulder, losing a loafer and scraping his shin badly on the car doorsill. His face was ground into the pavement by the force of the cop’s boot on his neck as he handcuffed his hands together behind his back.

  He was yanked upright and put in the back of the police cruiser, the cop’s hand on his head, just like on TV. There was a second cop, who recited the Miranda warning, also just like on TV. Tim sat in sullen silence, staring daggers at the police through the mesh partition, as the cop car pulled off the shoulder. Tim looked down and saw black oily smears on the front of his expensive new designer T-shirt. Someone must have just happened to have an oil leak in their car, right over where the asshole cop threw him down. Great! Blood would wash out with the right cleaning products. This looked like it would stain permanently.

  XVIII.

  Spaß und Spiele

  Susan watched the Germans gyrate on the dance floor. One thing she’d learned in dealing with the company’s German subsidiary was that the stereotype of the Germans as strait-laced and repressed was only half-true; when they cut loose, they cut all the way loose. She’d switched to tonic water early in the evening and was babysitting six men as they got sloppier and sloppier.

  They’d started out at some authentic local clubs playing blues and zydeco, and the foreigners had professed to be delighted, but soon enough they seemed uncomfortable with the glances their increasingly-loud German conversation was earning. They made their way to the Hard Rock Cafe™, where they could have a safely-familiar international experience.

  Susan dabbed some lipstick on and smoothed her hot-pink sequined size-18 tank top. Gunther wobbled over and flung himself on the bench next to her, lifted his beer towards his buddies, and hooted. He turned to Susan and high-fived her. Susan grinned and slapped back, hooting along.

  Friedrich and Joseph wandered obliquely towards them, and Susan surreptitiously checked her phone. Eleven forty-five. She took a breath to shout out a suggestion that they make their way back to their hotel rooms, but at that moment, the music stopped. In the ensuing silence everyone froze, awkward in the strobe lights. Murmured conversations began; a headphone-wearing tech sprinted across the suddenly-quiet dance floor and disappeared into the bowels of the bar.

  The four other Germans drifted over, muttering amongst themselves too fast and soft for Susan to pick up.

  “Well,” she said, “looks like the party’s over for tonight!”

  “Oh, let’s wait a few more minutes,” Friedrich said. “I’m sure they’ll get the music going again!” Susan stifled a sigh. Friedrich and Joseph had been flirting with two college girls since they got here, and the girls disappeared into the ladies’ room when the music stopped.

  The other four, though, had no such prospects, and were more than ready to leave. They persuaded Friedrich and Joseph. Susan summoned an Uber and they headed out the front door. Just as they cleared the entrance, a cracking crash startled them. Gunther dived for the ground.

  “Ha! I keep telling you the US is not guns everywhere like you think!” said Joseph.

  “No, see, the sign fell!” Friedrich pointed at the plastic front panel from the Hard Rock™ sign over the door, which had shattered on striking the ground.

  “Uber’s here!” called Susan, waving her phone, “Jacob, in white Honda minivan.” They stepped over the plastic shards and headed for the white minivan that had pulled into the parking lot. Susan felt her dressy heel stick to the sidewalk, “Damn inconsiderate!” she grumbled. “Gum on the sidewalk.”

  Waiting for her charges to load into the van, she turned to glance at the naked fluorescent lights where the plastic panel had fallen. The lights flickered and winked out; the whole building had gone dark. “We left just in time!” she said.

  Their Uber driver, a dark-bearded man, wheeled out of the lot. “I’m going to go up Bienville to get on the freeway. I-10 is blocked up t
hrough the Quarter here because of some kind of breakdown.” They wove their way along the picturesque, gritty streets, and Susan couldn’t help noticing that there were a number of cars pulled over or parked with their hoods up, and a number of lighted signs with holes in their panels, several buildings whose power seemed to have gone out.

  “How random,” she said. “All these power outages, but it’s not a whole neighborhood, just one here and one there…”

  But then they were pulling onto the freeway, driving in the left lane because the right lane and shoulder were sprinkled with broken-down vehicles, and a few in the left lane too.

  Just as they crossed the 17th-street Canal, the van hiccupped. Susan caught the driver’s eye in the rearview mirror. Two little lines sprouted between his eyebrows. “I just filled up before I picked y’all up,” he said.

  The van’s engine coughed, chugged, quit. Susan gasped. The driver struggled with the suddenly-dead power brakes and steering, managed to coast to a stop diagonally, half-on the shoulder. The Germans were buzzing gutturally among themselves in the back.