A Different Alchemy (17 page)

But then there were times when man’s arrogance ruined his capacity for creation. That was how the Mall of America was built. There was no practical reason to build a mall that large. And it was how this godforsaken airport was put in the middle of untainted beach and marsh.

The airport was no LAX or LaGuardia; it was small, the kind found in every Caribbean country, but it was still out of place. It had a single runway, a single hangar, and a few small auxiliary buildings. A prop plane, one tire missing, sat at the corner of a road leading to the runway.

But then the airport did something else than simply irritate him. It made him gasp: a tiny plume of smoke began coming from one of the building’s vents.

There were actual people. Living, breathing people.

It was possible they might try to take his tank, but their location was the absolute worst possible choice if their intention was to rob and plunder. Out here in the wilderness, surrounded by water, these weren’t people who survived through theft and brutality. But if the fear of violence wasn’t keeping him from approaching the airport, what was? After miles and miles of not seeing a new face, of having no one to talk to, he thought he might be happy to run into someone. Instead, he found himself looking behind him, at the path that had brought him here.

A line of people filtered out of the building to stare at his armored machine. Most were smiling. Two were even waving. A little grey-haired man immediately approached as soon as Jeffrey opened the tank’s hatch.

“A visitor!” the man said. “Welcome.”

He walked right up to the tank, put one hand on it, and with the other arm reached out to shake Jeffrey’s hand. The only thing Jeffrey could manage was a simple hello.

In total, there were eight people in the group, all slightly younger than the man shaking Jeffrey’s hand, but all older than Jeffrey. A husband and wife, holding hands, stood at the end of the line. Both had completely grey hair and were covered in wrinkles.

The old man asked what brought Jeffrey to them.

“Just always wanted to see what Cape Cod was like,” Jeffrey said, feeling dumb as he voiced the words. It was amazing how quickly the ability to be personable vanished when you were alone all the time.

He asked the same of them and one of the women stepped forward to say, “We all just kind of ended up here.” She pointed to the married couple before adding, “Only Jeff and Lucy knew each other before we formed into our own little group here.”

One of the men asked where Jeffrey was from. A lie seemed easier than the truth. Less painful. He had no idea if the people out here stayed in touch with the outside world.

“Philadelphia,” he said, the memory of the place making him look to the southwest to see if smoke clouds were still rising into the air.

One of the women gave a sigh of anguish. One of the men said everything would be OK and patted Jeffrey on his shoulder.

“Have you been keeping up on what’s been happening?” one of the other men asked.

“I haven’t heard anything. I left after it happened.”

“They were turned around when they got to Washington. Nobody there wanted the Philadelphians living with them after what they did. But the caravan had trouble making it back to Pennsylvania. Some of the people refused to attempt the drive back after how long it took to get to Washington, so they found places in the suburbs around D.C. People there say that if you stay up at night you can see folks trying to sneak into Washington to be around other people. They weren’t wanted there, but they can’t stand being alone, so they try to sneak in and hope people ignore the new faces. Only a quarter of everyone who left Philadelphia ended up making it back safely. Some stayed outside Washington. Some just disappeared. Some simply passed away.”

“Are you hungry?” one of them asked when there was silence.

“Would you like to come inside?” another said.

“Are you tired? Have you been traveling long?” yet another asked.

He found himself being led away from the tank and into the airport without being able to consider whether or not it was safe to leave the machine where it was.

Only the old man stayed by Jeffrey’s side when they entered the building. They walked by a series of offices that had been converted into bedrooms, with sheets hung across the windows for privacy. They walked by the old office break-room, converted into a real kitchen with two refrigerators, two ovens, and two government-issued food processors. The old man explained that everyone had ended up here after being unhappy with the constant uncertainty of moving south.

“The important thing is to be happy,” the man said. “That means different things for different people. For us, it meant peace of mind in knowing where we would be spending each night.” As they continued walking, the old man said, “That uncertainty of never knowing where you’ll end up drives some people crazy. What’s the point of always wanting to go to the next place, always wanting to pack up and head south, if you’re always worried while you’re doing it? Your final years should be spent enjoying yourself. We didn’t work our entire lives just to be slaves to the Great De-evolution.”

“So what do you do here?” Jeffrey asked as they passed by the only shower in the entire building.

“Just that. We enjoy ourselves. Some of us go for walks every day. Some of us enjoy reading books or watching movies. We have a pretty good selection of both that we’ve built up from trips to the nearby towns.”

Jeffrey looked around. “I don’t mean this to be rude, but it doesn’t sound like much.”

The wrinkled skin hanging off the old man’s throat jiggled when he laughed. “What else do you need?”

Jeffrey didn’t have an answer; the old man wouldn’t understand what he was talking about if he mentioned Galen’s name.

For dinner, everyone sat around a large metal cafeteria table. Some of the bowls scattered around the table had food produced from the food processors, and some contained real fish or vegetables. The last time he ate this much food had been his last meal with Katherine, with Galen sitting beside him. As much as he tried not to let that thought ruin his dinner, he found himself caught up in memories of his boy rather than participating in the conversation going on around him.

When everyone said goodnight and walked to their office/bedroom for the evening, part of Jeffrey thought about sleeping outside in his tank. Instead, one of the women pointed him to a bedroom no one else was using.

He had no idea what he was supposed to do when he woke up the next morning. One of the women was already at the cafeteria table reading a book when he left his room.

She pointed out the window to the beach. “Most of them are already on walks,” she said.

He went a mile down the beach without seeing anyone else, then sat down and watched the water and the birds. The old man was waiting for him when Jeffrey got back to the airport.

The two of them walked south along the same road the tank had arrived on. After a while they veered off and walked by some small ponds.

Jeffrey said, “Doesn’t it worry you that winter is almost here?”

The old man smiled, which made him appear even more feeble and decrepit. “We’ll be fine. We were here last winter and we got by. This winter will be no different.”

“What if something happens? What if you have an emergency of some kind and need help?”

The old man seemed confused. “There aren’t any hospitals down south either. What does it matter if we are near a hundred people or a thousand people? We have everything we need.”

A giant fish came to the surface of one of the ponds before sneaking back underwater again.

“Good water for fishing,” the old man said.

But all Jeffrey could think of was how unfair it was that this fish got stuck in a small pond when the entire ocean was on the other side of the sand. Instead of knowing the entire world, it would only ever experience this little pond. It could have gotten lost in the Atlantic, tested the colder waters up north, done anything. Instead, it was trapped, nothing special or distinct about any of it, nothing unique about its life. Somehow, even that made him think of Galen.

“That fish would die if it was in the ocean,” the old man said, as if knowing what Jeffrey had been thinking. “It would either get washed ashore by waves or a larger fish would eat it. It has a reason for being exactly where it is.”

Jeffrey continued on without saying anything else.

There was nothing he would have changed about the day or about the people or the food. And yet, when everyone went to bed that second night, he waited an hour for everyone to fall asleep before creeping to the front door and pushing it open. He made his way back to the tank and climbed inside.

As soon as the tank’s engine was roaring, he started away from the airport, back toward where he had come. When he got about five miles away, far enough that they would no longer be able to hear the engine or find him the next morning, he turned the motor off and went to sleep inside the metal cave. And in the morning, as the sun started to come up, he continued on the path away from the airport.

They were nice people, he told himself, but he wasn’t like them. But when he tried to think of what was different between them and himself, he couldn’t think of an answer. All he could think about was Galen and the fire and how Katherine could let that happen. He thought about the way the old man spoke of the fish and if he could someday believe that what the old man had been saying was somehow true.

Chapter 12

The skeleton was in the middle of his routine again: “And no one is talking about how many people are going to get sick due to our close proximity to all of the Blocks. Why isn’t anyone mentioning that more and more people are getting sick every day? If we take the Blocks with us, we’ll all be zombies by the time we get to Washington!”

The next station was at least closer to providing actual news: “Everyone has heard the announcement by now: the city council, along with the Mayor, have agreed that everyone will relocate to Washington one week from today. No additional information on the migration has been provided at this time. Various rallies and protests have already been scheduled for the days leading up to the move.”

Instead of calming nerves by announcing a date, Jeffrey knew how people worked—the short timeframe would only add to the general anxiety.

All around the world, people were either going away quietly or were actually celebrating their ends. There were only a handful of countries in the world—Venezuela, Turkey, and Japan—that joined the United States in still having a city they called their capital. Everyone thought New Zealand’s government was crazy at first when they announced they would be holding a farewell celebration. The day-long party was a chance for the politicians and their people to have one last holiday before the New Zealand government officially disbanded. It was such a success, a week-long party was held in Buenos Aires when the Argentinian government was ready to close its doors.

In contrast, one day there was a government of Mozambique, and the next day there wasn’t. The parliament building was empty and no one ever saw the politicians again. They simply disappeared. The same thing happened in Indonesia, where the people burned down the capital building in frustration at their politicians abandoning them in the middle of the night.

North Korea, of course, was too secretive to let the outside world know what their plans were. As if anyone cared. They would neither confirm nor deny if they were still a government, if they had plans to disband, and if so, if they would celebrate the end. The dictator there was too busy trying to convince everyone else that North Korean scientists had found a cure for the Blocks. No one had believed him the first time he said it, but month after month he kept insisting they would be the only country left after everyone else was extinct. No one paid him any attention.

Jeffrey turned to Katherine. “Promise me you won’t take Galen to any of those rallies.” When she started to laugh his comment away, he added, “I’m serious. Promise me. I don’t want my boy around those people.”

“Are we ready for the move?” Katherine asked.

He looked around them. Their dinner plates had been purchased the year before Galen was born, but there would be other plates wherever they went. TVs would be available in any house they went to. They were things that were a part of their lives, but nothing more in the end than a series of objects. They weren’t things that needed to be put in the trunk of their car and transported south.

“We’re ready,” he said. “We don’t need any of this.”

“I don’t want anyone else using our plates when we’re gone.”

“We aren’t burning the house down,” he said. She only stared at him. “Don’t even think about it. This house and everything in it might be someone else’s salvation.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m serious,” he said. “What if a straggler comes down from New England or Canada and needs a place to live? They would have everything they need here. Let them use our plates. Let them sleep in our beds. Let them live their lives as best they can.”

He imagined his grandfather smiling down on him from whatever afterlife he had passed into. It was he who had slapped Jeffrey’s wrist when, as a five year-old boy, he had stomped on a large spider.

“That thing had a life,” his grandfather had said while Jeffrey rubbed his sore wrist and tried to keep the tears back. “Same as you have a life. Respect that.”

These days, when he thought about his grandfather’s gruffness that day, he found himself thinking back to all of the other dumb things he had done through his life. The collection of stupidity, of dumb acts built up over the years, made him feel fortunate to still be alive, to have a family at all.

There was the time he had just gotten his learner’s permit to drive and thought he was good enough, as a fifteen year-old brat, to drive the family car the way his father did. It only took him five minutes, not even three miles away from the house, to wrap the sedan around a telephone pole.

There was a time in college when his friends got drunk and all took turns jumping from one dorm building to another. They were only two-story buildings, and only eight feet apart, but he should have known better. The first three boys all made the jump successfully, but when Jeffrey took his running start, one of his friends acted like he was going to trip him and Jeffrey stumbled off the edge of the roof and landed in the shrubbery next to the pavement. His supposed friends, all drunk, stared down at the ground in horror. All but one of them ended up running back to their rooms. The final kid was the only one nice enough to call campus security. Jeffrey had a concussion, a broken arm, and a dislocated shoulder. If he had landed one foot to the right, on bare concrete, the doctor thought he might have died.

His life seemed filled with these moments. They hadn’t stopped just because the Great De-evolution started or because he became a father. Only three years earlier he had accepted a dare from one of the other men at Fort Dix to call Royal Canadian Air Force bases and tell them that an F-14 had mistakenly been dispatched to firebomb their base and no one could re-establish comms with the plane. Everyone on base should evacuate immediately. Jeffrey only accepted the dare because he thought every base would be abandoned. But on the sixth call, as the men began to lose their interest in the game, a man with a thick French accent answered and Jeffrey gave him the message. The man had probably been at the base by himself after everyone else left for warmer climates. Maybe his family was living on base with him. The sheer panic in his voice made Jeffrey want to confess it was only a joke, but one of the other men hung up the phone before anything else could be said. The poor man had just been minding his own business, hadn’t deserved to fear for his life like that. No one did.

After each episode Jeffrey was left realizing how unprepared he was for the realities of life. He was a normal guy, just as likely to crash into a tree as anyone else, just as likely to ruin his liver, just as likely to do something else foolhardy that would leave him breathing out of a tube. He wasn’t the rock of stability he wanted to be. Not for himself and not for Katherine. The world was a harsh place. It had been when he was a teenager and when he was a young man, and it still was now. It was only by sheer luck that he was able to get through it all.

Like he knew it would, the mayor’s migration announcement spurred a new round of protests and celebrations. Some people were excited. Others resented needing to go in the same caravan as thousands of Blocks. It was difficult, sometimes, to tell which groups were which and if people yelling outside the mayor’s office were holding a demonstration or a party.

Katherine said, “I talked to my father today. He sounded worse than usual.”

They looked out at their backyard. There was nothing to see except grass and a privacy fence. There were no signs that a child had been raised there. No rusty swing-set. No tire hanging from a tree. No tree house.

“Everything will be all right,” he said.

Katherine sighed and put her head against his shoulder. “Every day that goes by is another day he’s less capable of making the journey.”

He kissed the top of her head. His own parents gave him constant updates on the amount of people funneling down into Florida. California, Texas, and Florida were the only states where the population still remained constant, the daily arrivals from the north off-setting the daily obituaries.

Through it all, Katherine’s father’s health molded her priorities. Why would she want to take care of a son who had no idea she existed, felt no pain, suffered no loneliness, when she had a father who clearly needed help? What mattered to her, what she knew and saw, was that one person she loved sat quietly without complaining while the other tried to show a brave face but often failed to do so.

After work the next day, instead of going directly home, he drove to his mother and father-in-law’s house. Even on his approach, he became alarmed. No one had taken the time to mow their lawn in weeks. The grass came up past his shins.

His mother-in-law ushered Jeffrey inside. She didn’t ask why he was showing up unannounced, just closed the front door behind him and said it was nice to see him again. Alan, Katherine’s father, was sitting in the living room. An old-fashioned record player offered classical music. The only time Jeffrey thought about classical music was when he visited Katherine’s parents. But those times always reminded him how wonderful it was. It made him wish the world could go back to the way it had been when he was a child and there wasn’t a single worry in life.

Katherine’s father smiled in greeting. Neither of them said anything, however, until the music was done. Jeffrey had no idea who he was listening to, just that he liked it.

“How are you doing these days? How is my daughter doing? How is my grandson?” Alan said after the first piece of music was done and before the next one started.

“Galen is good. The doctor says he’s in perfect health.”

Katherine’s father let his eyes close when he spoke. “Katherine’s mother and I were always worried about her when she was growing up. Even when she didn’t need us to worry about her. We couldn’t help it; she was our daughter. We were her parents. Just like Galen is your son.”

Neither of them said anything for a while. The three of them listened to the sounds of piano coming from the turntable. Even more amazing than telescopes that could see far away planets or medical devices that could see torn ligaments was the fact that a pair of human hands could build a piano and then make it produce those noises.

After the next piece came to an end, Alan said, “What brings you here? You’re a nice kid and all, but I never see you here by yourself unless my daughter is upset for one reason or another.”

“We didn’t have an argument.”

The man smiled with his mouth, but not with his eyes. “Let me guess: she’s worried about her mother and me. I’m not surprised. Look at us: we’re old.” He laughed. “That has to be an alarming thing to see—your parents becoming old people. I guess this is a good time to tell you that we won’t be going to Washington with you when the relocation happens.”

Katherine’s mother nodded in agreement.

Jeffrey asked all of the expected questions, but his father-in-law waited until the next piece of music was over before he started up again.

“What are we going to do down in Washington? Live in a place next door to you and Katherine? And when everyone in Washington picks up, are we all going to head down to North Carolina together? Or Florida? What then?” Katherine’s father waved his hands around the room. “This is our home. We have too many memories here. You don’t care about that stuff yet, you’re still young,”—he laughed—“fairly young, so you don’t care about those things. But you will. You’re still too busy living your life to know the importance of the memories you’ve built around yourself. Katherine’s mother and I don’t need to go to Washington. I don’t even like Washington. Too many snotty people.”

“When you get to be our age,” Katherine’s mother said, “you kind of regain that sense of invincibility you had when you were a kid, except you know how vulnerable you are and you just don’t care.”

Her husband added: “I grew up listening to my grandfather tell stories about how much the Great Depression affected him. He was never the same afterwards. It haunted him for the rest of his life. He saw people starving in the streets, people throwing themselves out of high-rise windows. By the time World War II started, he wasn’t affected by it the way everyone else was. It drove my mother insane because, to her, it was the end of the world. It always infuriated her that my grandparents took it all with a grain of salt. It was the same way for me, being a kid in the ‘seventies. All the riots, the protests. Every night there was more footage on the news of the police beating protestors and of body bags being unloaded from giant cargo planes on their way back from Nam. I hadn’t lived through the things my grandparents had lived through, so for me, I thought it was the end of the world. My grandfather just smiled at me. I was scared when I was young so that now I can be brave. Brave isn’t the right word. I’m not brave, I’m just not afraid. We have everything we need right here.”

Jeffrey said, “Katherine will never leave without you.”

“She’ll have to.”

“Help her move on,” Katherine’s mother said. “Don’t let her focus on what’s here and what she’s leaving behind. Help her focus on what’s still to come. That’s what’s important.”

**

He spent the day doing nothing but watching the waves come in and then go back out again. He was staring at the water but he was thinking about Galen’s burned corpse rotting in the abandoned city. His boy, his only son, would never be buried or even tossed in a yellow body bag. The charred remains would be rained on, eaten by flies, snowed on, picked apart by crows, until there was nothing left but bone.

After turning the final page of
The Awakening
, he thought it perfectly reasonable to want to walk out into the water and simply disappear into its depths. Each wave beckoned him before retreating back into the ocean. God help him if he read
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
while he was in a similar mood.