Ill Wind (28 page)

He considered waiting until morning and getting off to a fresh start. But that didn’t feel right—he could travel through the afternoon, into the night, keep away from people or traffic.

Besides, he had always wanted to ride off into the sunset.

Chapter 34

Jackson Harris sat across from his wife Daphne at an old Formica dinette table in the kitchen, trying to digest the phone conversation he’d just had. Sure, it would be easy to just pack up a few things and run out to Altamont and stay with Doog—but then what would they do? Harris and his wife had obligations to their group of people, the kids they had taken to state parks, the volunteer army that had worked so hard on Angel Island, Daphne’s church group, his own inner-city cleanup work. He couldn’t just abandon all that.

Running away didn’t seem feasible. He looked at Daphne. She had pulled her frizzy hair back with a blue hairband, and her strain-tightened face looked more angular in the uncertain light.

He could still taste the onions and spices from the quick meal of canned vegetarian chili he had warmed in an old pan on the gas stove. They had about a week’s worth of canned soup, beans, and vegetables in the pantry. Many of the grocery stores had already been looted.

“We can’t stay here, Daph,” he mumbled. “No way.” Overhead, the lights flickered,
then
stayed on.

“All right,” said Daphne, straightening up and managing the no-nonsense expression she did so well. “But how we gonna keep ourselves afloat and help as many folks as we can?”

All afternoon, he and Daphne had taken turns attempting to make calls from the phone hanging on the kitchen wall, begging favors, trying to borrow supplies, but panic and confusion had spread faster than the plague. Phone service was intermittent, and it probably wouldn’t last much longer. The city of Oakland had started to break down, not just automobiles, but random items made of plastic. Though the plastic-eating phase had not yet struck their home, the Harris’s own battered Pinto had not coughed to life for days, and their neighbors were similarly trapped.

It could only get worse.

The BART trains had stopped running, and the bus system ground to a halt. Traffic on the streets was less than a third of what he was used to seeingl; a few vehicles still managed to chug along, but they would probably succumb to the petroplague before long. Police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks couldn’t respond to emergency calls.

Harris rapped an old pencil on the side of the table in a nervous, sporadic drumbeat. “We can round up some people and head out to the Altamont commune. Doog won’t mind so long as we work.”

Daphne snorted. “Doog and work don’t belong in the same sentence!” She had no quarrel with Doog’s politics, but Daphne resented him for not sticking with the battle in the inner city.

Doog and a group of aging hippies had fled into the isolated hills between Livermore and Tracy years ago when they saw their John-Lennon world fading into yuppie-dom. When “liberal” became a dirty word, Doog had just shaken his head at Harris. “Man,” he said, “has the world gone off the deep end, or what?”

Harris flipped the pencil down on the table and met Daphne’s gaze. “Doog is doing just fine out there, Daph. He’s only 40 miles away. He’s got the aqueduct for water and windmills for power. They grow most of their own food. They’ve been living off the land for years. You got a better place in mind?”

Daphne shrugged. Sweat glistened on her cheeks. She had not put on makeup that morning, but Harris didn’t think she had ever looked more beautiful. “Okay, it’s a good enough spot to hide out for a while. I got no desire to be here to defend our home when the mob comes through.”

Harris grabbed her hand and squeezed. “This is going to be a hell of a lot worse than the Rodney King riots. It’s not just a public temper tantrum. People are going to be starving before long, and they won’t have soup kitchens. Come winter, they’ll chop up anything that burns just to stay warm. If we want to save any of our people, we got to go someplace else, and soon.”

“Rats leaving a sinking ship,” Daphne muttered.

“Pilgrims heading for the
promised land
,” he corrected.

#

Three buses sat in different states of decrepitude in the parking lot of the Holy Grace Baptist Church. Rusted cans and junk-food wrappers littered the chain-link fence against the
red-brick
church building. Two basketball hoops sat unused on either end of the lot; it had been years since a chain-net had graced either hoop, and the painted court lines had long since worn off the pavement. Despite the security fence, gang graffiti was spray-painted in black and bright blue on the sides of the buses.

The Reverend Timothy Rudge handed Daphne Harris the keys to the vehicles. He was a stocky man with strange spindly arms and legs, dressed in worn jeans and a maroon sweatshirt. He pursed his full lips. “I haven’t gone anywhere for days. They might not work, you know.”

“They probably won’t,” Daphne said, clutching the keys. “But one of them just might, and we only need one. That plague is spreading, but it can’t eat everything at once. We might get lucky.” She paused and looked at his face, weatherbeaten from years of preaching on the streets. “Sure you won’t come along?”

He shook his head. “Somebody has to stay behind. Might as well be me. You and
Jackson been
working with these people on your wilderness experience programs. You know what they can do if they let themselves believe in it. They deserve a chance.”

Reverend Rudge turned wearily and watched Jackson sweating as he pulled another load of blankets and supplies from the church shelter. Daphne rattled the keys in her hand. “What about you, Reverend? If things get bad—”

“When things get bad around here, we’ll call the congregation to the church. Make a stand.”

“You’ll never be able to protect yourselves,” Daphne said, a lump in her throat.

“We can try. We just may be able to keep an island of stability here downtown. Have faith.”

“I hope so,” she said, knowing as she spoke that her words were false. From the reverend’s fatalistic expression, she knew he understood it too. She turned away, unable to look at him any longer.

She went to the newest of the three buses and climbed into the bucket seat. Daphne had driven this bus often when they took their volunteer groups. She tensed in a combination of hope and dread as she jingled through the key ring to find the proper key. Her fingers were slick with sweat as she jammed the key into the ignition and twisted hard, as if to show the vehicle
who
was boss.

But the engine refused to turn over. She tried four times, without success. Jackson stood in the parking lot, watching her. He shrugged and pointed to the next vehicle. Sighing, Daphne climbed out and went to the second bus, an older model with two broken windows.

Jackson continued to haul supplies for the trip. Volunteers from the Harris’s recent crusades gathered in the church, people who were willing to work for a cause, people who didn’t have anything else to lose in their daily lives. Of course, if none of the buses started, the whole expedition would never happen. Daphne couldn’t allow herself to admit that possibility.

The second bus protested, but Daphne gritted her teeth and kept grinding the starter. The engine finally coughed to life and rumbled like a tiger with a
stomach ache
. Blue-black diesel exhaust, already smelling foul from the first attacks of the petroplague, spat out the rear. She raised her fist in the air, and Jackson set down his paper grocery bags on the pavement and mirrored the gesture.

#

“Okay, everybody! Get the stuff on board the bus,” Jackson Harris shouted. “We got to drive out past Livermore, and we don’t know if this bus is gonna last. I hope you’re all wearing walking shoes.”

“Yeah, right, Jackson!” said Lindie, a whip-thin single mother with five children. “We bought two hundred-dollar Nikes with the leftovers from my check this month!” Harris felt abashed, knowing she’d probably had enough trouble just finding shoelaces for all her kids.

A young couple walked to the bus: the large-eyed boy sixteen years old, the tired-looking girl no more than fifteen and very pregnant. They had been sticking together, trying to scrape together enough money to eat. The offer of leaving downtown Oakland to live out in the country seemed like paradise to them.

Denyse, a pouty thirteen-year-old girl, boarded alone, mastering a haughty expression. Harris had a high opinion of her; she was intelligent and headstrong—but her mother was a hooker, and Denyse would probably end up on the same dead-end path unless someone rescued her.

The group of refugees included two vacant-eyed homeless men, Clint and Albert, who had given up on a system that had no interest in giving them another chance; now they looked on Jackson Harris as if he just might be as good as his word.

A short fourteen-year-old boy hung on the other side of the chainlink fence and snickered, as if trying to look bigger. “Hey, fuck this boyscout trip!”

Harris crossed his arms over his chest and walked up against the fence, staring the kid down. Harley acted as if he’d always wanted to be in a gang, but had never actually joined. Instead, he tried to look tough, making loudmouthed comments but backing off whenever he was challenged. Harris had seen it happen a dozen times before.

“Suits me fine, Harley. We don’t want chicken-shits along. We need real tough dudes, not hot air and stuffed jackets.”

Harley bristled. “Who you talking about? I’m guarding my turf!”

“Look at yourself, man. There ain’t gonna be any of your turf left in a month, and we’re going to be sitting warm and happy out by the windmills.” He made a gesture of dismissal at the young man and turned away. “Anybody too stupid to see the change coming
is bound to get stomped
on.”

Harris had managed to get the kid to come help them on Angel Island, putting him to work on the charcoal grills cooking hot dogs and hamburgers. Before that, Harley had complained about a “stupid road trip” to Yosemite National Park, which Harris and Daphne and the Reverend Rudge had also staged—but the kid had spent most of the day staring slack-jawed at the towering granite rock walls and the gushing waterfalls.

Now their eyes met, and Harris smiled at him. He knew Harley wouldn’t survive another week as the turmoil exploded in Oakland and all around the Bay Area.

“And what would I want with you boyscouts, huh?” Harley sneered. “Go out and mow some cracker’s lawn?”

“No,” Harris shook his head, grinning. “They got cows for that. Think you wanna be a cowboy?”

“Bullshit!”

“Yeah, and cow shit. Probably horse shit, too. We got it all. But it’s
gonna
be hard work, not for dumb fucks. You better stay here, Harley.” He walked back to the bus. “Go ahead and guard your turf.”

The young man postured and scowled at Harris. “I know what you’re trying to do, man! You’re crazy!”

Harris shrugged. “I been called crazy by white people before—but I usually pull it off anyway. Just remember that.”

He brought the last box of supplies, a grease-stained, ragged cardboard box, and climbed aboard the bus. Daphne gave him a quick kiss,
then
yanked the bus door shut, as if this would be another one of their day-trips to a state park. Harris looked out the broken side window to see Harley standing by the chain-link fence, a troubled expression on his face.

Then the bus shuddered and died.

The people on the bus gave a simultaneous groan, and Daphne struck the horn with her fist in frustration. It peeped weakly. Reverend Rudge stood at the door of his church, hanging his head. He kneaded his thin hands in front of his waist. Lindie, the woman with five kids, said, “We can’t walk all that way!”

Harris stood up. “Hey, let’s try the last bus before we all start bitching! And if it starts, you need to haul ass and get the supplies transferred. We could have gone five miles in the last few minutes we sat here in the parking lot.”

Daphne opened the bus door and swung down, keys in hand. She did not look optimistic about the third vehicle, which sagged on weak suspension. Bullet holes scarred its olive-painted sides, and a great spiderweb crack blazed across the windshield. It had only one wiper blade—in front of the driver’s seat, luckily—but the other had been snapped off.

Bumping each other, the passengers piled out, kids laughing or crying or punching each other. The grown-ups carried grocery bags, boxes, blankets,
pillows
. Harris grabbed a second load, setting up a fire-brigade line from one bus to the other. He looked up and paused. Harley had left his heckler’s spot at the fence and began to help.

“Holy shit, look who’s got a brain after all,”
Harris
said.

“Fuck you, man.”

When Daphne turned the key in the ignition, the engine chugged,
then
miraculously caught; it sounded as if it had a few more miles left in it. “Come on!” Daphne shouted. She hauled back on the lever that swung the door shut even before Harris had climbed the steps. She jammed her foot on the clutch and fought with the stick, ramming it into first gear. The bus lurched forward.

Harris held onto the bar, expecting to hear the bus stall out, but the engine kept up its chugging, indigestion sound. Harris and Daphne both waved at the Reverend Rudge through the cracked windshield.