Ceremony of Flies (12 page)

They are friendly—friends.

The four.

I truly did not expect this.

Truly.

I have to rethink my expectations of people. I thought I was a good judge. Maybe I’m not.

They are costumed superheroes without capes; they each have their color. The red rider is fierce, fierce the way dogs in a dogfight are. Her face is hard and sharp with a scar from chin to cheek. She expels words like they’re bullets while she heaves Rex onto her bike. The black rider is as thin as any holocaust survivor. His ragged pants remind me of a cartoon I liked as a kid,
The Christmas Carole
. The black rider looks like the children
Want
or
Woe
that hide in the cloak of Christmas Future. He lifts Baldy the dog onto his bike. The dog is as thin as the black rider. He looks starved to the point that he resembles a purse with bones. He doesn’t look like a living thing. Now that I think about it, I don’t think I fed him even once…except the ice cream. I am going to cry. I am crying. It doesn’t matter now. The white rider wears a vest with a blood red X painted or stitched on his chest. His arms, pocked and mangled by scars, carry Harvey gently like he’s broken, like I broke him. Flies swarm around them. Around us all. I can’t describe the color of the rider who hoists me onto his bike. I can’t pin down the name of it. It’s watery like champagne, not green, not gray. It’s pale. That’s not a color.

I ride on the bike of an indescribable color. It feels like riding a horse. I know it isn’t, but the bumps feel like gallops. I think I may have faded in and out for a while as I cling to the rider. Time moves fast, slow, fast again.

They saved us—are saving us—as much as that’s still possible. I trust them. I have no other choice. I can see the limp bodies of Baldy and Harvey and Rex draped over the other riders. I wonder where they are taking us. I wonder about this for as long as I can.

The Salton Sea

Located directly on the San Andreas Fault in California’s Coachella Valley, the Salton Sea is a shallow, saline, endorheicEndorheic basin. Created in 1905 when a flood overwhelmed the California Development Company’s efforts to divert the Colorado River, the Salton Sea is the largest lake in California. Although it varies depending on rainfall and runoff, the sea is approximately 525 square miles. The salinity of the lake, at 44 grams per liter, is greater than the Pacific Ocean. Because it has no outlet, salinity increases 1 percent per year.

In the 1950s, the resort towns of Salton City, Desert Shores and Bombay Beach enjoyed an influx of visitors. In less than a decade, fertilizer runoff and increasing salinity produced ideal conditions for algae bloom. The elevated bacterial levels caused by the bloom resulted in perennial fish and wildlife die-off. The combination of summer temperatures that often reach 120 degrees, foul smells of algae die-off detectable for hundreds of miles, and a series of floods that destroyed most of the tourist attractions encouraged people to find other recreational waters. The towns on the shore of the Salton Sea became and remain ghost towns.

13

Once I tried to cook a whole fish in foil on the grill. The fish was expensive. I went to a fish market to buy it. The guy behind the counter wrapped it in white waxy paper. I bought all sorts of special herbs and a whole case of champagne. I stole a credit card. It was the first time I ever did. I wanted to make a special celebration dinner for Joey’s birthday because he was having a really bad go of things. At the time, I’m pretty sure I convinced myself I was planning a party. I was going to call up everyone we went to school with and invite them over. But honestly I think I knew all along it was only ever going to be just us two. There was no way we could ever go back there. Not after what Joey did. Our friends were dead to us. That old life was gone for good. In retrospect, buying the case of champagne was probably where I made my first mistake. The second was drinking it with an Oxy chaser. I can’t reliably recount what happened that weekend. But the next day that I can remember was after Joey was gone. That day I lifted the cover on the grill. The fish I bought for us looked up at me with milky maggot-filled eyes.

I smell that very same smell now. I’m afraid to open my eyes because I have no idea where I could possibly be and the smell is not a good sign. My head is resting on someone’s chest. If I had to guess, I would say I’m lying on Rex’s chest. I want to hold on as tight as I can because I know him. If I think too much about it, I’m going to come to the conclusion that I don’t know Rex, not really. I hold on tight and try my best not to think. That never does work. But I try. I concentrate on the buzz around my head.

I wish Joey hadn’t cut himself that one last time while I was passed out. If I’d been a better friend, a better person, I’d have been there for him.

I miss him.

Maybe Joey did the right thing. He was going to go to jail. He killed that son-of-a bitch and it was just a matter of time before he got caught. Jail would have most certainly killed him. He was small, fragile. There was no other way to escape.

Flies.

The tickle of tiny legs on me make me want to thrash and flail.

But I don’t.

Outside I hear a voice. Not a conversation, just a single voice. I must be inside because the voice sounds like it’s on the other side of a window. But inside where? I still don’t want to look.

The voice belongs to the red rider. The woman. She sounds like she’s giving a speech. It’s familiar, like something I should have learned in school. Joan of Arc, maybe? Shakespeare?

She says something about unjust wars and mutual destruction. Her words sound ominous. Even if she’s only screwing around, it does not sound good.

“Rex, are you awake?”

“That I am, Kitty.”

The knot inside me loosens up a little. I love Rex. And maybe that’s just the desperation stirring my emotions like a blender on high, but I do. I love him like he’s the last man on earth.

Fuck. I hope that’s not the case.

“Where are we, Rex?”

“Sounds like we’re in church. That wouldn’t be the worst thing.” Rex’s voice is croaky and muffled. “I could use a prayer.”

Rex sounds like he’s talking with a sock in his mouth. I don’t want to look, but I can’t just lie here like some kind of girly bitch cringing in fear.

I open my eyes. I purposely don’t look at Rex’s face. This is not a church. It could be the belly of a whale though. We’re lying on some rotted old mattress. It’s mostly made up of brown coils of wire with tufts of cotton that look like it needs to be ginned clinging to the wires. It’s covered here and there by scraps of stiff, piss-yellow fabric. It’s on the floor of the rusted and shattered remains of one of those ’50s-style campers that always appear on postcards for sale along Route 66. What the fuck happened to this thing? It’s not burned, but it’s decimated. Its crippled rib spines are covered with a tarp. The sun shining through the gaps in the tarp falls on some sparkling, ganglious growths. Salt. Salt is encrusted on everything.

“You okay?” Rex asks me. He does not sound good.

“Yeah, I think so,” I say. I turn my head so I can see him. It takes everything I’ve got. His face is swollen twice as big as it should be. His eyes are hidden behind mounds of purplish swollen flesh. His lips are cracked and caked with rust-brown blood. The boils on his neck and chest and cheek have burst. White snakes of pus ooze from him.

I scream just a little and pull away. I’m proud of myself for not screaming more. Not pus, maggots. The tiny white worms curl and uncurl into themselves. It is seriously the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen, but for some reason it doesn’t seem like it’s part of Rex.
He
doesn’t disgust me. It’s not his fault.

It’s mine.

Fuck.

This is seriously bad. Is it even possible to get better once you’ve got maggots?

“I’m going to help you, Rex. I am, somehow.”

“Thanks, Kitty. I appreciate that.”

“Can you get up?” I ask as I push myself to my knees. I feel shaky. Maybe I’m going to pass out. But I don’t. I grab Rex’s arm and lift him. His flesh feels spongy and damp. But he’s getting up. He’s getting up on unsteady legs. The wound on his face weeps down his cheek. He can stand, though, as long as he leans on me.

“Hey, Kitty.”

“Yeah?”

“You know that voice inside that tells you what’s right and what’s wrong?”

We shuffle across the uneven floor to the metal door. A scrap of red and white gingham is taped over the window with a strip of salty duct tape. Even in its better days this camper probably wasn’t all that great.

“No, Rex. No, I do not.” The door screeches like a raccoon when I kick it open. Somehow we make it down the metal steps without falling.

Rex doesn’t look any better in direct light. He looks worse in fact. Much, much worse.

Salt-covered weeds crunch under my feet. Rex leans against me, heavy as a wet sandbag. All around us there are weird lumps of campers and building and piles of wood. They’re spaced out like this place used to be a neighborhood.

It’s not a neighborhood now.

“Everyone hears the voice,” Rex says. He’s not breathing right. It’s shallow and coming in little gasps. “That’s what makes you human.”

We’re at the beach. But it’s like no beach I’ve ever seen. The water spreads as far as I can see. Water, that’s what we need. That’s what Rex needs. But this water looks thick, jellylike. It has a reddish tinge that reminds me of blood. The waves, what passes for waves, wiggle like Jell-O shooters. Along the shore, from the last crumbled building to the edge of the water, lies a blanket of decay. Fish, birds, creatures that climbed out of the ooze and never fully formed lay in a thick decaying blanket. Is it the ocean? Did we ride that far? Has something unimaginably horrible happened in the world while I slept?

The riders sit around a fire in the skeleton of a boat that looks like it may never have been seaworthy.

“We now hold out to you wars which contain the glorious reward of martyrdom, which will retain that title of praise now and forever.” The red rider stands on the ledge of the crumbling boat. She looks like a warrior. She is war.

Fuck.

I get it now.

“You got to listen to that voice now, Kitty. You’ve got to do what it says. That’s God telling you what to do.”

I stumble toward the riders. Curls of black smoke rise from their fire like phantoms. Which culture told fortunes with smoke? It makes sense that they’d do that. There seems to be meaning in the shapes and billows of black as it moves through the gray air.

“I don’t have that voice, Rex. I just don’t have it.”

His body sags. Grows heavier.

“I’m really sorry.”

Rex stumbles. I grab his arm and hold it tight.

“Kitty, you remember how I told you I got a second chance?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t think I did.”

“You’re going to be fine, Rex. We’re going to get you some help.”

“I want to tell you something before the next part starts.”

Rex clutches me and makes me stop.

“What is it, Rex?”

The air is as hot as the inside of an oven. It’s too hot for a fire but still the riders lounge around theirs inside the broken-down boat.

“I shot that old woman when I stole her boy’s car. Left her on the floor of her house.”

My mouth falls open. Of all the things I’ve seen and done, why would this be shocking?

“I stepped over her for two weeks until I couldn’t stand to look at her no more. I’m sorry for that.”

“The picture in your suitcase?”

“That’s her.”

The nasty water laps at the shore—and everything is encrusted and sparkling with salt. I liked the Rex I used to know better. But I
love
this Rex. The real one. He gave me his truth.

I look down at the shirt that I’m wearing, Rex’s shirt. It’s tattered and not as white as it was. I lock onto the monogramed
B
. “What’s your real name?”

He can’t be a Bill or a Bob. Maybe Bronson, Broderick, Bruce?

“That’s not my shirt,” he says.

Baldy, the world’s ugliest dog, crouches on the rocky beach. He’s opening his mouth like he would if he were yapping, but only a croak comes out. He’s wiggling and squirming to get to the water—going crazy.

Harvey, a tiny silhouette of Harvey, is served up on the white-hot plate of the setting sun. He’s in the water. He’s on the water. He’s walking on water!

My insides seize up. A voice in my head shrieks,
Save the boy
!

14