Biohazard

5

All I wanted after that was to be alone, to brood and break down in private with a bottle of whiskey in one hand, but Bill Hermes found me and wouldn’t let that happen.

“She’s dead now,” he said. “Shelly’s gone and she’s at peace. Don’t profane her memory by destroying yourself.”

Sage advice. I knew it made perfect sense just as I knew I would not follow it. All I wanted now was destruction, cool white oblivion. Maybe Bill sensed that too, because he boiled water on his woodstove and drew a bath and made me clean up. And when that was done, he made me some food. It was canned like everything else these days, but at least it was something to put in my stomach.

As I ate, picking at corned beef hash and powdered eggs, he watched me. Watched me very closely. He pulled a Winston out of a crumpled red pack, snapped off the filter and lit up, blowing smoke out of his nostrils. And never once did he take his eyes off of me.

“Well, go ahead, Bill,” I said. “You got something to say, so say it.”

He chuckled. “I’m thinking it’s time you pack up your old kit bag and move on. Nothing here for you now. City’s getting worse by the day. Get out. Get out into the country where a man has a chance.”

“We lived here. This was our neighborhood.”

“That’s all past now, son. Nothing but memories. Get out for chrissake. Get out now.”

“You coming?”

“For what? Ain’t nothing out there for me. I’m too damn old to start again.”

I set my fork down. “Nothing here but memories for you, too, Bill.”

“When you get my age,” he said, blowing out a cloud of smoke, “there ain’t much else.”

He turned away and looked out the curtains to the streets below. Just shook his head. “Goddamn cesspool, Rick. That’s what. Been wanting to get out for a long time. Would’ve, too, if Ellen hadn’t loved it here so much. She grew up two streets away. Even after she passed…I don’t know…something held me.”

“Something’s holding me, too.”

“Bullshit.” Bill coughed into his hand and for maybe the first time, I noticed how blotchy his face looked. A funny yellow sheen to it. “Bullshit, I say. You need to go before it gets worse. Right goddamn now, Rick. I’m too old to go with you. You pull an old tree up by the roots, its dies. But a young one…you can replant it and it’ll bear leaf. You following me?”

I was. “I’ll think it over.”

Bill looked like he was about to read me the riot act, but then the wind went out of him and he broke into a coughing fit. The cigarette fell from his fingers and he held himself up by the countertop.

I was on my feet. “Bill…”

He waved me away. “I’m all right. Just old. Just smoking too much for too long. That’s all.”

But I wasn’t believing that. The coughing. The weakness. The blotchy face. No, this was something else entirely. And he had it good.

“Rick, get the hell out,” he said, pulling himself up, standing erect with great exertion that left him gasping. “Ellen and I…oh, Jesus in heaven…we loved you and Shelly to death. Never had kids of our own. Always thought if we did, they might be like you two. So do an old man a favor and get out of the city.”

“Bill, I…”

“Please, Rick.”

There was no doubt about it at all then: Bill Hermes had radiation sickness.

A week later he was dead.