Stranger

Twenty-three

“What did you have to go upsetting the kid for?” Zak’s bald head turned pink. He glared at me. And with those eyes that had no eyebrows, no eyelashes, there was a snakelike quality to his looks. To top it all off, the angry way he locked his eyes onto me made me think of a rattlesnake getting ready to strike.

“I didn’t intend to upset Boy. I was only talking to him.”

“About what?”

“I asked him if he knew anything about these hives.”

“What did you have to cross-examine the kid about it for? Why didn’t you ask me or Tony or Michaela? Why interrogate a little kid?”

We were standing arguing in the barn. Michaela stood with her arms ’round Boy while he hid his face in her chest. He might have been crying, but I couldn’t tell.

“I’m sorry,” I said, but my tone was angry rather than remorseful.

“You should be sorry.” Michaela’s expression was pretty ferocious, too. “Dear God, Valdiva, don’t you think we’ve all been pushed to the edge here? We’re hanging on by our fingernails above an almighty crevasse. We don’t need you blundering ’round pounding questions at us.”

“But you said that if I got you the food, you’d tell me-”

“Tell you about the hive? Yes, I will, but when we’re ready.” Then she added in a way that was stiff and formal-sounding, “And thank you for the food. Just in case you think we haven’t been grateful enough.”

I shook my head. “I didn’t know I was gonna upset the kid. Like I said, I was just talking to him.”

Zak shot me a suddenly shrewd look. “Why’re you so fascinated with the hive?”

I shrugged. “Just curious, I suppose. I’ve never seen anything like it before.” The moment I spoke the words I felt those cold spider feet across my back. I’ve never seen anything like it before. Why did that sentence feel like a lie in my mouth? And why was I so curious about the hive? OK, it was bizarre. Something completely alien. But when I thought about the hive it worked its way under my skin. It became an itch I wanted to scratch. I don’t know why, but I wanted to find out more. Maybe deep down I was getting obsessive about it. Unhealthily obsessive at that.

Ben stood by the tractor while this fiery scene played itself out. His hands trembled, his face the picture of unhappiness. You could tell he didn’t want to be here with a gang of strangers. He didn’t like their straggly hair. He detested their worn-out clothes. He despised the gaunt faces hardened by hunger and daily battles for survival. Old Ben, my buddy of nine months, hated everything; was scared of everything. All he craved right now was to be home in Sullivan.

Michaela looked at me. She seemed calmer. “We’ll talk about the Hive when we’ve finished establishing the camp. People need to eat and rest first. You get to learn what your priorities-Greg? Where are you going?”

I was pissed. But was I pissed at them? Or at the little kid who ran back blabbing like he was going to tell his mom because I’d played rough with him? Or was I pissed at myself for maybe lacking tact? Maybe I thought that when I delivered food to this bunch they’d sit down to explain what the hive was. So was I pissed at not getting the answers I expected? Because there was something about the hive. It was more than the shock-and disgust-of seeing that repulsive thing. There was something else I just couldn’t put my finger on. Like seeing a face in a crowd that you’re sure you’ve seen before. You find yourself ransacking your memory for a name. It bugs you. You keep thinking about it. Oh, hell, Valdiva, go do something useful.

I walked uphill from the barn through blazing sun-light. Passed the striped pajamas that skeleton boy was wearing. Then I kicked the crap out of the fence. I was telling myself I was procuring a little more firewood. The truth? I poured my anger and frustrations into that fence through the steel toe cap of my boot. Pow! A paling burst into splinters. Crash! A post snapped in two. Crack! A railing busted to hell.

Anger roared through my blood. Why did the nice bastards of Sullivan murder Lynne? Why did they have to be so fucking brutal they crushed the life out of her? Why did the whole town participate? Why did they keep their smiling heads stuck in the goddam sand? Why did they pretend that they could keep their little isolated society running like it always had forever? Didn’t they know that somewhere down the line, in ten or twenty years, the gasoline would run out? And sure as hell they’d run out of canned food long before then, or it would eventually spoil in the tins. They were like Adolf Hitler in his bunker way back, when he sent orders to armies that no longer existed and the Russians were overrunning Berlin. Sullivan shut out the inevitable. They were like people suffering from terminal cancer who were saving for a retirement condo they’d never live to see.

I kicked the fence so hard sparks flew from my boot where it struck a nail.

And I knew I was angry because I’d gotten Ben into this. He should be at home writing stories for the newspaper while listening to his Jimi Hendrix albums.

“Are you planning on knocking every fence down, or do you intend to stop when you reach Wyoming?”

I looked up to see Zak watching me. He wore a pistol pushed into the belt of his pants.

“Valdiva, it’s not a good idea to go off by yourself without a gun.”

“It’s not a good idea to shove the gun into your pants like that. You might blow your dick off.”

“It hasn’t happened yet.”

“Yet.”

He watched me, his hairless head looking as shiny as a pool ball in the sun. “You must be angrier at us than we thought.”

“I’m not angry. I’m collecting more firewood.”

“What are you going to do? Roast a cow?”

“Might as well get a good supply.”

“Rule number one: prioritize. Don’t do work that isn’t absolutely necessary.”

“Don’t worry, I’m learning fast.”

His unwavering stare fixed on me. “Valdiva, you’ve got plenty to learn. This world out here’s completely different from that island. This world is never safe. There’s never enough food. There are no certainties.” He shrugged. “With the exception of hunger and death. If we see one hornet there’s sure to be more of them. So we move on.”

“It looks quiet enough ’round here.”

“Take my word for it, they’ll come. It’s like they can smell us.”

I began gathering the wood into a neat pile I could carry. “You should find yourself an island. There are plenty in the lakes ’round here.”

“But they don’t have big stores of food. We’ve got to keep moving from place to place to find supplies.”

“Nomads, eh?”

“We’re not nomads for fun, you know? We’re dog-tired, but we’ve got to keep moving. Finding food. Finding fuel. Looking for fresh water. Running from the crazy guys.” He smiled. “So there’s no wonder we’re grouchy. It must feel like you’re walking on eggshells when you’re with us.”

I didn’t answer but collected the wood, then used the skeleton’s stripy PJ pants to tie the wood into a bundle. Zak watched me for a while, then said, “We might look like a bunch of misfits, but we’re close. Probably closer than most families get in a whole life-time. So if one of us is hurt we all feel hurt. Boy’s endured tough stuff. We get protective over him. We really care about each other, but that might seem dopey to you. But to risk repeating myself, I’m closer to these people than my own family. And as a family we Samuels were pretty close. Even if I did give my mother and father a hard time. My father ran a health insurance business in Canada, so we lived in Toronto most of the year. Thing is, my parents wanted me so much to become a rabbi, so they sent me to Hebrew school in New York. From the age of eleven I was flying back and forth on my own. I did well academically, but I wanted to be a stand-up comic. That’s what I loved doing. I loved to make people laugh. When I was sixteen I’d sneak off to a little comedy bar just off Broadway where you could put your name down for a five-minute spot on stage. They called it the Kamikaze because you had to be suicidal to stand there in front of a bunch of New Yorkers and try to make them laugh. Boy, they could give you heat if you sucked. So what I’d do is this.” He bunched his fist, then put it into his pocket. “I’d say, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I have very funny jokes for you tonight. You must laugh because I have a cute little puppy in my coat pocket. If you don’t laugh I will squeeze its throat with my hand. Right, this is joke number one. Yesterday, I went to see my doctor. I told him I keep thinking I’m a moth. The doctor said, So why did you come to see me, then? I replied, I couldn’t help myself. I saw your light in the window.’ Then I’d glare at the audience with a real look of irritation. ‘I don’t hear you laughing,’ I’d say. ‘Listen, I warned you, didn’t I?’ Then I’d pretend to squeeze the imaginary puppy in my pocket and make these crying puppy sounds, you know like a ventriloquist? Without moving my lips? Well, the puppy in the pocket routine worked like a charm. I got loads of laughs and bookings, but then it all went bad. Some construction workers came in for a beer but left their sense of humor back home. They got really angry and started yelling that I shouldn’t be hurting the puppy in my pocket. That’s when I got cute and told them that if they didn’t stop heckling me I’d squeeze the goddam puppy until its eyes popped.”

I found myself smiling. “What then?”

“They ran up on the stage to free the puppy… my beautiful, fluffy, imaginary puppy. ‘It’s not real, it’s not real,’ I screamed at them. Really screamed, because they were big guys, with stronger muscles in their eye-lids than I’d got in my entire body. And they’re yelling, ‘You’ve got a puppy in your coat because we hear it yelping in pain.’ I decided it was a good time to leave. As they grabbed me by the coat I slipped out of it and ran as hard as I could. It was a month before I went back. I never used the puppy routine again.” He grinned. “No, sir. I used an imaginary kitten instead.”

I found myself laughing. Zak joined in with the kind of chuckle that makes you want to laugh even more.

Then, wiping his eyes, he said, “Let me give you a hand with that firewood. The food should be ready anyway and I’m starving. So, Greg? Are you going to come quietly?” He bunched his fist in his pocket. “Or do I have to torture this cute little puppy?” Without moving his lips he made pained, whiney sounds in the back of his throat.

I couldn’t keep the grin from my face. “OK, OK, I’m coming.”

Chatting easily now, we carried the firewood down to the barn. Things had lightened up down there. Tony had lit a fire. The sun shone in a perfect sky. Michaela and Boy threw a Frisbee to one another, and I saw Michaela call to Ben to join in. He caught the Frisbee and spun it back to Boy. When Boy easily plucked it out of the air his laughter carried across the field.

Michaela must have worked her magic to cheer up the kid. That image of a few carefree moments stayed with me. It wasn’t always going to be like that. You know as well as I do, when life starts to look nice and easy that’s the time you really should start to worry.