“Good hands? Who the hell are you, Partridge?”
“I’m still the same person. Have faith in me.”
Pressia shakes her head.
“I’ll find you at Lyda’s. We’ll talk then. I can explain, Pressia. I can.”
Iralene wraps her arm in his. “Beckley has to give the toast,” she says.
Beckley raises his eyebrows.
“Just go,” Partridge says.
Beckley starts to escort Pressia away, but Iralene says, “Wait! Beckley’s supposed to deliver the toast!”
Pressia walks on a few more paces but then whips around. She can’t help it. She’s furious. “I stood up for you,” Pressia says, her voice shaking. “But they were right all along. You’re weak.”
“Don’t say that.” Partridge rushes toward her now. He says in a low voice, “Your grandfather, Pressia—I found him. I’m bringing him back.”
“What are you talking about?”
The crowd is pressing in. Iralene has his arm. “Don’t make a scene.”
“No, no. We wouldn’t want a scene, would we?” Pressia says.
“I can explain,” he says, but she can tell he’s not sure. In fact, his eyes are wide, and she knows he’s terrified.
B
eyond the strip mall, El Capitan sees a row of toppled columns, lying in front of a large pile of rubble.
He begins to climb it. With each step, he feels the bruises from Helmud’s jabs. His brother kicked his ass. So what? He deserved the beating. Plus, it feels right to be a little battered—it matches how he feels inside: punched, worn out, done.
“Check it,” he says to Helmud halfheartedly.
Helmud runs his hands over the tape, the square box. “Check?” Helmud says, more question than answer.
El Capitan knows the tape’s coming loose—too much fighting, too much sweat—but the bacterium’s in place, more or less. “Good enough.”
He sees a hole at the top of the rubble. He shouts, “Come out! Come out! Whoever you are!” He wishes he had a rifle to shoot off the air. He’d like to give whoever might be down there the impression that he’s trigger-happy. His guns are defining, and to be honest, he needs them back. He feels like he’s lost all sense of himself—direction and purpose. He’s just here—with Helmud.
His brother can’t leave him alone. He hates him and he needs him and he hates himself for needing him.
El Capitan calls again, but still no response. He steps back and waits a little while.
Just when he thinks it’s empty, there are some scuffling noises. A man’s head appears from a hole not far away. “El Capitan?” he says, blinking into the pale light. He spots Helmud over El Capitan’s shoulder. They must look pretty beaten up, but this guy looks a little banged up too—and blanched. He seems scared of El Capitan. His fear feeds El Capitan, who sometimes misses being feared.
“Who are you?”
“Name’s Gorse,” he says.
“I know that name,” El Capitan says. “Fandra’s brother?”
He hesitates then nods and looks past El Capitan and to either side of him. Gorse’s fusings must lie beneath his coat, which bunches on one shoulder. His hands have a sheen to them as if he had reached into a fire to pull something out. “I heard you were in the city—with Bradwell.” Evidently he’d feel a little safer if Bradwell were here.
“He’s meeting me. He picked this place. Thought it’d be safe and good to get out of the weather. How many down there?”
Gorse raises his eyebrows. “Just two of us.”
“Mind if we wait for Bradwell with you?”
Gorse isn’t sure. He glances below and then back at El Capitan.
“I’ve got good news for you, Gorse,” El Capitan says.
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“Fandra.”
“What about her?” He squints at El Capitan suspiciously.
“She’s alive. She survived out there, barely, and she got picked up by survivors out at Crazy John-Johns. She’s okay.”
“You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?”
“I saw her myself,” El Capitan says. “Long blond hair. She saved our asses out there.”
“Saved our asses,” Helmud says.
“You don’t have to take our word for it.” El Capitan says. “Bradwell’s coming, like I said. You can ask him yourself.”
Gorse glances at El Capitan and Helmud, and then something behind them seems to catch his eye. “Don’t have to wait,” he says.
El Capitan turns. Bradwell is climbing the rubble. Bradwell sees Gorse and shouts. “Hey, Gorse! Did you hear the news?”
El Capitan looks back at Gorse. “See? I told you he’d confirm.”
Gorse must want to hear it for himself. He plays dumb. “The news? What news?”
“Your sister. We saw her out by the amusement park. She’s fine, Gorse. She made it after all.”
Gorse goes still. His eyes shine with tears. He clears his throat, excuses himself, and disappears down the hole.
“And?” El Capitan says to Bradwell.
“I found Pressia. I said what I had to say. I let her go.”
El Capitan isn’t sure what this means. He told her that he loved her? What did she say? He decides he doesn’t want to know. Why punish himself with details?
“What the hell happened to you two? You look like hell,” Bradwell says.
“We fell.”
“Down a flight of stairs?” Bradwell says.
“Yeah,” El Capitan says, “something like that.”
“Something,” Helmud says, “
like
that.”
Gorse reappears, his eyes red rimmed. He’s been crying. He rubs his face roughly. “Fandra. Alive? You sure of it?”
“Sure of it,” Bradwell says.
Gorse lets out a loud shout of joy. “Well, we’ve got to celebrate, then! We’ve got some top-notch stuff down here, from before the still exploded.”
“Yes,” El Capitan says. When was the last time he had something to drink? He’d love to get drunk. Ripsnorting drunk.
“I don’t know,” Bradwell says.
“Don’t,” Helmud says. He doesn’t like it when El Capitan drinks.
“What don’t you know?” El Capitan says to Bradwell. “There’s nothing we can do now—not for ourselves, not for Pressia. We can’t do anything until we hear from her. We may as well celebrate something while there’s still something to celebrate.” El Capitan turns to Gorse and says, “Let me make this simple: Hell yes!”
“Hell,” Helmud says nervously. “Yes.”
* * *
“To the mothers,” El Capitan shouts, raising the bottle, “who scare the hell out of me!” He’s already toasted the Dusts, the Beasts, the dead, the living, the boars, the creatures in the fog… He takes a long swig. It burns his throat, warms his chest. He and Helmud are sitting on the floor of the bank vault with Bradwell and Gorse and one other guy who’s passed out and curled up in the corner. The two-foot-thick circular vault door is permanently open, pinched by the buckled ceiling. The metal walls are lined with small rectangular drawers—all of which have been broken into and cleaned out. Most of the drawers themselves are gone. It’s cozy in here. Feels safe, secure. Smells like metal. El Capitan likes it.
As he passes the bottle on to Bradwell, Helmud reaches out and tries to grab it. “You’re getting your share,” El Capitan says. “It’s in the blood.” He laughs loudly. He knows Helmud doesn’t want a drink. He wants to take the bottle away from El Capitan. He doesn’t like to get drunk—and they both surely are now. El Capitan forgot how much he missed liquor—the way it softens the world, mutes noise, sets the world to blur. Old Ingership used to give him booze from time to time. He’s glad the man’s dead, but he misses the liquor.
“Your share, your share, your share,” Helmud mutters, arms slumped and head bobbing over one shoulder. He’s scolding El Capitan for taking too much.
“Shut up, Helmud!” El Capitan says. “We’re celebrating here. Right, Bradwell? Tell him. Right?”
“Right,” Bradwell says, handing the bottle to Gorse.
“Right!” Gorse shouts, taking a drink. El Capitan keeps a close watch over the bottle, trying to gauge if he’ll get the last swig or not.
He wishes Pressia were here, though he doesn’t want to bring up her name—not in front of Bradwell. He doesn’t want to know what happened between them when Bradwell ran after her in the rain. El Capitan likes to think of her now—with this nice drunk on. All of the pain is blunted. He can imagine a future with her—the two of them, or even the three of them, counting Helmud. And it’s good.
And then, like a switch got flipped, El Capitan thinks of the dead boy caught in the trap. Why now? He rubs his forehead. “Don’t. Don’t,” he mutters, but then there are more faces of the dead, flashing through his mind. Their faces are a blur. What happened to him in that crypt? That’s when it started. Why does he feel so sick about it all now? Jesus. He almost prayed to God or that statue of the saint for forgiveness. If he had done that, what would have happened to him? He’d have to admit it was wrong. It wasn’t wrong. Look—he’s alive! Helmud’s alive on his back!
“Why do they scare you?” Bradwell asks El Capitan.
“God and that saint?” El Capitan asks.
“What? No,” Bradwell says. “The mothers. You said the mothers scare the hell out of you.”
“You’re not scared of them?” El Capitan shoots back.
“I didn’t say that. I was just wondering why they scare you.”
El Capitan leans into the middle of the circle. “They seem good and nice and, well, they’re mothers. They used to organize potlucks and talk about curtains, and now they’ll kill you as soon as they look at you.”
“You’re one to talk,” Gorse says.
“Yeah, but I never prided myself on nurturing the young minds of tomorrow by picking out the best private school and driving to it in the best minivan.”
“We were all innocent once upon a time, though,” Bradwell says. “You were technically once a kid, right, El Capitan? I mean, shit—didn’t you once have a name other than El Capitan, or is that on your baptismal record?”
“Don’t remember it,” El Capitan says. Walden. Walden was his name.
“You don’t
remember
it?” Gorse says. “Your own name?”
“Helmud!” Bradwell says. “What was your brother’s name before it was El Capitan?”
“He doesn’t know,” El Capitan says. “Don’t make fun of him!”
El Capitan can feel his brother’s head jerk up behind him. “Don’t make fun,” Helmud says.
“I’m not making fun, Helmud. I’m just saying you might remember El Capitan’s name from your childhood together. I mean, it’s in there, deep down. Your mother used to call you into the house when you were little, right? She called, ‘Helmud!’ and then she said another name. What was it?”
Helmud bobbles some more. Is he remembering? Is there some pinprick of light illuminating the dark corner of his memory?
“Don’t bother him with this shit. He doesn’t remember and neither do I. My old name’s dead. I’m El Capitan.”
“What about your last name?” Gorse asks.
“Croll,” El Capitan says quietly. “My father was Sergeant Warret B. Croll. Croll.”
Bradwell scoots closer to El Capitan. He reaches out and holds Helmud’s cheeks in his hands. “When your mother was angry, maybe she called you all by your full names. Moms do that. What did she call El Capitan when she was mad at him?”
“Leave him alone!” El Capitan shouts, pulling backward so his brother’s face slips from Bradwell’s hands. El Capitan stands up. Helmud feels incredibly heavy on his back and sends El Capitan crashing into the wall of empty safety deposit boxes. El Capitan’s head knocks into the metal—a sharp knock. He lets himself slide down to the floor again. He touches his head—no blood.
“What the hell, Cap!” Bradwell says. “We were just messing around!”
“You shouldn’t have let Pressia go in by herself,” El Capitan shouts. “If she dies, it’s your fault. You know that!”
Helmud is propping him up. “Your fault!” he shouts at his brother.
“What?” Bradwell shouts. “You let her go as much as I did!”
“Easy now,” Gorse says, hands in the air.
El Capitan can barely see Bradwell and Gorse. They’re dim and flickering images in his eyes. He glances at the guy in the corner and hates him—suddenly and for no apparent reason. “You shouldn’t have let her go at all.”
“Cap,” Bradwell says, “you know I didn’t have a choice. You know that…”
El Capitan closes his eyes and the ground beneath him feels like it’s loose and spinning. “If she dies,” he says, opening his eyes again, blinking, “the blood is on your hands.”
“Who the hell do you think you are?” Bradwell shouts, his huge wings flaring at his back.
El Capitan doesn’t even brace for a blow. In fact, he hopes Bradwell attacks him. “We should tear each other up!” he shouts. “Kill each other. Get it all over with already!”
“You sure about that?” Bradwell says.
But then El Capitan hears scuffling and Gorse’s voice. “Let him sleep it off.”
Bradwell’s voice is rough. “I’m not afraid she’s going to die. She’s too tough for that. You know what you’re not thinking of yet, Cap? You’re not worried that she’ll like it—that she’ll choose the Dome over either of us.”
Bradwell’s words sink in slowly, and El Capitan realizes he’s right. Bradwell could always see all the possibilities before El Capitan could. What if she loves it in the Dome? What if she’s gone…not dead, but gone all the same? He can’t think of anything to say—nothing at all. He feels like he’s going to start crying. Damn it. Tears slip from his eyes.
Then he feels a hand on his head. It pushes the hair from his forehead gently, softly. The hand pets his head like he’s a little kid, sweaty from playing in the woods. A voice says, “Waldy. Waldy, Waldy, Waldy.” This is what his mother called him when he was little. Waldy. Short for Walden. “Waldy, Waldy.” Helmud remembers. Helmud pets his head the way their mother did once upon a time when they were innocent, once upon a time when El Capitan was Waldy.
“I couldn’t save her,” he says to Helmud. He means not only their mother but Pressia too.
Helmud wraps his arms around El Capitan, holds him tight. El Capitan draws in air and pushes it out. Helmud keeps holding him. El Capitan covers his eyes with his hands. He’s crying. “I’m sorry.” He whispers, “Forgive me. Forgive me.” He’s sorry not just for his mother’s death, but for all of them. “Forgive me.” The boy in the trap, the Death Sprees, the pens of kids out in the cold. He killed people. He was the cause of death and suffering…