A New Day in America (29 page)

He mouths something, muffled.

“OK,” says Jaz, taking off the gag.

“I’m
not the Chef
!” he spits out. “I’m
Art
. The Chef is my father, please, stop! I’ll help you. Please!”

“Speak your mind.”

“The drugs, the money—everything is at a compound in the hills. My dad has it guarded, but I can slip in and shut the generators. I can tell you where
everything
is.”

“Is there a cure?” Nos demands.

“By the fucking kilo.”

“No, a
real
cure. I need a cure for the disease.”

“Nasty virus, isn’t it? Daddy calls it the Braun Virus.” He says
daddy
with barely concealed contempt. He has the affect of a spoiled party kid. Even bound and tortured, Art speaks with an air of superiority. “Daddy named it after himself since he thinks he’s the first to figure it out,” says Art, spitting blood on himself. “Ghastly thought. How sick are you?”

“Not me. My daughter.”

“Where’s she?”

“Lost.”

“You sure the fanatics haven’t gotten her? They have a thing about the sick. You know, like Jesus said. ‘Murder the sick.’”

“Has your father figured out a cure?”

“There
is
treatment. I can tell you exactly where. I don’t know about a cure, only that he’s been working on it. He thinks it can outsell the other cure.” He snorts. “I have my doubts.”

Nos needs to rest. He lets the dogs in with him. Killah jumps up onto the bed, and Nos doesn’t have the strength to shove him off. Killah curls up between Nos’ legs and rests his mouth on Nos’ knee, tongue licking his moist nose. Nos swears he’s smiling. He’s warm and Nos falls asleep.

Leila nudges him, sitting close to the bed.

“We have to get out of here,” she says with urgency.

“I know,” says Nos, groggy. “I’ve overstayed.”

“No, we have to get out of San Francisco. The Revelation is coming.”

“And go where? They’re everywhere.”

“Asia. Boats are leaving every day. People have been lining up for weeks. Jaz knows a ship. He tells me less and less, since you showed. Still, long as you pay, he’s willing to let you ride the ship.”

“You know I can’t leave without her.”

Leila nods, knowing it was coming.

“You’ll die,” she says. “We don’t know about her,” she pleads. “We don’t know anything. She could be…”

“More than likely.”

“So you would stay?”

“It’s only right.”

“You can’t—just throw your life away.”

“What choice is there?” he asks.

Their words are mere whispers. This conversation has run unspoken in his mind for two days. They each know what the other will say before they say it, but they say it anyway, like actors rehearsing a script.

Leila looks down.

“You’re selfish,” she says.

“Selfish?”

Leila surprises him. This isn’t part of the script. She’s supposed to understand. She’s supposed to leave him be.

“You think I don’t know? I haven’t felt that pain? You’re the only one?”

Nos is quiet.

“If she’s gone—
if
—then you are still here. You’ve survived, and there’s a reason.”

“I’ve survived for her. That’s the only reason.”

“No. Not if she’s gone. Then you find a new reason.”

He wants to say there is no new reason. No such thing. Impossible
. Yvette, Mikey, Joachim, then Naomi. There can’t be a reason. Not with them watching and waiting
.

“I’m supposed to be…with my family.”

“And if they’re gone?”

“But I feel them. Waiting.”

“And if there is no one waiting, only the dead and gone, you would go, too? For what?”

“They must be somewhere.”

“You sound like those fanatics.”

“That saved you.”

“That hunted you. That would kill her for being sick. No, if all we have is right here, what we can see and touch, then you’re alive, and that’s enough.”

“Enough for what?”

“Enough reason to find a new reason.”

He wants to look in her eyes and tell her there can be no new reason.
Impossible
. He wants to tell her. But he can’t. He can’t look at her and say it.

Jaz opens the door without knocking. Smoke rises from a burning cigar at his fingers. He sees them, close enough to whisper. He squints and glares. The sound of his breathing fills the room.

***

Naomi can’t believe her eyes. The three wavy river lines. Just the way she drew them. There are arrows at the end. She is shivering then sweating, shivering then sweating. All day the streets have looked blurry. Now, as though sudden clarity through a fog, it’s the wavy river lines on a piece of paper blowing through the street. She holds the paper and traces the lines
.

Pa
.

She keeps walking and sees more. They are taped to lampposts and abandoned bus stops. The papers wave in the wind. The arrows lead to more signs and more signs. She walks on along the arrows. At times she loses the trail in the disorienting streets and walks around the blocks and finds them again. People avoid her. The shaking, sweating, hooded little girl
.

A kid is walking with her. His hood is up, too. He’s older than her. She thinks he’s following her. Then he passes her. Then he drops back behind. Then they walk even
.

“You following those signs, girl?” he says in a young rasp
.

“Un-huh. I’m looking for my pa.”

“Me, too,” says the boy. He’s skinny, but not as skinny as her. “Is your pa a Decepticon?”

“Nope.”

“Mine is,” he says. He sounds like he isn’t afraid of anything. He squints in the streets. Or maybe his eyes are just slits and always look like that. He walks and bops like the streets belong to him
.

They keep walking. They keep the same pace. It’s like they’re walking together, then not, then are
.

“I’ma find my pops,” he says. “I’m Luke. Calls me Skywalker.”

“I’m Naomi.”

Then they walk together
.

And they hear it. A slow, methodical gallop off in the distance. Feels like an earthquake
.

“Fuck is that?”

Naomi wants to hurry. She walks faster. So does Luke
.

They see a house along a row of houses on top of a hill. The road then goes way down. Four men lean and sit on a porch, looking around, but looking like they’re not looking around. Two huge U-Haul trucks stand outside the house
.

“I recognize them,” says Luke
.

He walks up to the porch. The four men watch. Naomi waits at the stairs
.

“You Decepticons?” he announces
.

“Nah, kid, keep it moving,” says one with a wave of his hand. He looks familiar to Nay
.

The rumble keeps getting louder. The four men look in the distance down the hill
.

“I’m looking for my pops. Styles Carson. Ya’ll know Styles Carson.”

“Yeah, man, Styles dead,” says another. “Dead two days. Your pops gone, kid. Keep it moving,” he orders, eyes off toward the noise
.

“Well, maybe I can stick around,” he says, all confidence and rasp
.

“Nah,” says the first one, standing and showing the butt of his big shiny gun sticking from his waist. “What we gon’ do with a punk like you?”

“Kiss my ass, motherfucker,” says the kid
.

“What?” they all look away from the sound for the first time
.

“Just me and you, motherfucker. I’ll put trademarks round your fuckin’ eye.”

The porch door opens. They all turn. It’s that big burly black man that liked her drawing and said she could be a tattooer. Jaz. He doesn’t see Nay. He gazes off toward the sound. Another man comes out. He’s pale, bloody, and creepy. He limps and squints in the sun. There’s something wrong with his finger, like her Uncle Tommy
.

Jaz keeps looking toward the sound
.

“Shit!” says Jaz. He turns to the pale fat man. “Now, yo. We gotta do this shit now,” he sounds frantic. “It’s them. Stormtroopers.”

“Fuck.”

As Jaz turns to go back inside, he sees her. Naomi wants to smile, but she won’t until he does
.

“Oh shit,” he says. “
This
one.”

Jaz stands in the bedroom doorway, his massive silhouette outlined by hallway light. And then another small shape appears beside his leg. She steps into the bedroom, a spry, hooded cherub. Her face brightens, and the hood falls off her head. She bounces up and into the bed.
Didn’t die
.

He can’t believe it.

Nay. It’s her. She’s home
.

They hug and they stay like that.
She’s back
—twice as skinny and pale and green and sticky with sweat. Nos inhales as if he could smell where she’s been, what she’s been through. She made it, on her own. Maybe he isn’t the generator that keeps her fuse alive.
I wasn’t even there, and yet she keeps on breathing
.

Nay touches the tube that runs through his rib and the stitching that holds it in place.

“You’re hurt,” she says.

“And you?”

“Sick, Pa,” she says, sucking back through her nose.

He takes off her sweatshirt, wet on the inside, and then takes off her T-shirt, completely soaked through. He gasps. The rash is maybe three times as large as the last time he saw it.
It’s eating her alive
.
And I have nothing to treat her
.

“I hate to break up the party,” Jaz announces, his tone like anything but. “But we’re rolling out.”

“Now?” asks Leila.

“Stormtroopers on the move, yeah, right now.”

Nos gets up, and the dogs spring to their feet. He tucks the puss-filled canister attached to his lung into his waistband. He holds Naomi by the hand, and they walk out to the porch. They hear the brash march of soldiers. Nos walks out to the edge of the hill and sees it.

The army
.

Revelation Guard Corps fill every winding street and alleyway by the hundreds, roads invisible beneath the mass of tan camo uniforms and flaming chalice flags.

Decepticons pour from the neighborhood with assault rifles and climb into the U-Haul trucks. Jaz is strapped up like a mercenary with a flak jacket and a grenade belt. Art is shaking, like he isn’t just scared, but a touch palsied. They climb in the U-Haul, and Jaz takes the wheel.

Leila goes up to the window.

“The pier?” she asks.

“Docking Bay 13,” says Jaz, like he can’t be bothered. “Meet you there.”

“You’re not coming?”

“We’ll be there. Got to go handle something.” He turns to Nos. “Thanks for the tip on the Chef. We’ll see what we can bag, and I’ll hit you off. Finder’s fee.”

“I’m coming,” says Nos.

“No room. Plus, you’re too banged up to be any use.”

“The Chef,” Nos says. “I need him.”

“Forget the Chef,” Jaz responds. “Chef’s dead.”

He starts up the truck and backs away and pulls off.

Leila leads the way to the NYPD van. Nos catches up.

“They’re going to rob the Chef. Going to kill the only guy I know of who might be able to cure Naomi,” Nos growls.

“I don’t care what they do—as long as we make it to the boat.”

“Leila—we can’t get on a boat without treatment.”

Leila opens the van door and then pauses.

“Look, what can I tell you?”

Naomi looks weaker and weaker, like she’s having trouble standing.

The pain throbs in his ribs. He doesn’t know if he’s up to it. It’ll be utter chaos. But there’s no choice. He eyes the Suzuki in the back of the van
. No choice
.

“Grab me some bandages from the back.”

Leila fishes out a roll of tape and a handful of gauze.

He grabs the canister in his waistband. He wraps the tube around his fist. He closes his eyes. Holds his breath.

The anxiety before is always worse than the pain after
.

Nos rips out the bloody tube.

He bellows with pain. The tube drips with blood.
Christ, that’s a new agony
.

This time, the pain after is far worse.

“You’re fucking crazy,” Leila says, cleaning his bloody wound and taping it up with gauze.

“Take her to the dock,” he grunts. “I’ll meet you there.”

She wants to protest but knows it’s no use.

“Make fucking sure you come back.”

“Take care of her, I’ll be in touch on the Motorola,” says Nos, cupping her hand. “She doesn’t have much time.”

“Docking Bay 13,” says Leila, taking Naomi’s hand now. “The ship is called The Ana Maria. Huge ship, powder blue. You can’t miss it.” She grips his forearm. “
Don’t
miss it.”

He bends and kisses Nay. Her eyes are fluttering closed. Her eyes barely follow what’s going on now. Her knees shake.

No time. No time at all
.

The U-Haul trucks go barreling up the winding Berkeley Hills. The trucks roar and disappear and reappear from the cover of trees. Nos rides after them, just far enough away so they won’t notice. The massive trucks have to slow to take the narrow turns. They make an easy tail.

They stop outside the gates of a huge estate at the top of the hills. Nos pulls over off the road, leaves the bike, and follows up to the house in a crouch, holding the AUG. The night darkens. He’s glad.
Easier to stay out of sight
. Pain stabs him in the chest.

He gets a good view of the estate. Seems quiet, until he checks the thermal scope. Men are on patrol everywhere, likely hired guns.

Art limps up to the house. The trucks wait. Nos bides his time. He wonders if Art will follow through and cut the generator. Even if he doesn’t, there are enough Decepticons to take the house, regardless, and plug him for his troubles.

The lights of the house shut off. He followed through.