City Living (2 page)

It kept on drifting around the horseshoe of the upper deck until it was in my section. I didn't look at it; I thought it might be less likely to notice me if I pretended I didn't notice it.

“Please, not me. Don't let it choose me,” a man nearby said. I thought it was the same man who'd told me to sit down.

What did he mean, choose him? It was gonna choose someone? I was so confused, and I was so scared my hands and knees were trembling. I turned toward the woman sitting a seat away on my left and whispered, “What's going on?”

Her eyes opened real wide; she gave me a sidewise glance and she shook her head ever so slightly.

The thing shifted its direction and moved right toward me. I'd never been so scared. This was no game; I was sure of that now. It changed directions again, and my knotted shoulders relaxed.

Then it reversed itself and moved right toward me again.

I thought maybe I should pray, but I was too scared to think of any words. The thing just kept coming until it was right in my face, then it stopped. It was so close I could have touched it. I looked at my shoes as its music shook my insides. When I glanced up for just a second I could see that its skin was moving—swirling and crawling and twitching. Tubes snaked out to my left and right. They wrapped around me, curling tighter until I couldn't exhale or I would touch them. It hissed at me furiously; the stink was horrible, like rotten fish and sewer water. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying hard not to scream because I didn't want to make it any angrier than it already was.

Then it was gone. By the time I peeled up one eyelid it was a dozen feet away. My shirt was soaked in black oil, but besides that I was fine. It hadn't even quilled me.

“Lucky,” the woman to my left mouthed.

The thing hovered in front of Babe Ruth. The Babe looked away from it; I guess that was everyone's instinct, to look away. The thing hissed; the Babe scrunched up his face, balled his fists, and jerked back in his chair, but then it floated past him, to the man in the suit sitting next to him. It wrapped itself around the man the way it did to me. It flattened itself out so the tubes looked more like barbed whips. Or maybe it was a trick of the light. One of the tubes lifted high in the air, real slow, then came down hard. The man screamed. The Babe moaned a curse. Another tube lashed the man. I closed my eyes and stuck my fingers in my ears, but I could still hear him screaming. Around me I heard people gasping and Oh-Lording and that-poor-manning. From the relief in their voices I figured it must only choose one person.

The thing didn't kill the man, only whipped him so bad they had to carry him out on a stretcher. Still, I wouldn't have wanted to be him. As I headed down the steps I got to wondering if maybe these weren't my kind of folks. I got along with all kinds of folks, and it never occurred to me that there could be somewhere where I felt out of place, but suddenly I wasn't so sure I belonged in a city.

The lines to get out were longer and slower than the lines to get in. I wanted out of there as quick as I could. I couldn't figure out what that thing
was
. It wasn't any creature I ever seen or read about. It didn't even seem like it had been all there, even when it was there. I kept peering toward the front, trying to figure out what was taking so long, and finally I spotted the holdup. People were going behind a curtain, one by one. After a moment they would come out the other end. I waited my turn, wondering what was behind the curtain, hopping from one foot to the other. Willard had been waiting a long time.

When I got closer I could tell I wasn't going to like whatever was going on behind that curtain. People were groaning, gasping, some downright shouting in pain. As a medical student I had some idea of how much pain it took to squeeze those sounds out of grown men and women, and I was sweating as the line inched along.

When it was finally my turn, I strode on back as if I did it all the time. I didn't want to raise any suspicion. There was a doctor and a nurse on the other side, both dressed in white. The doctor held a long, long, long needle. He held it pointed at the ceiling. There was nothing in it.

“Name and number?” the nurse asked, holding a pen to a clipboard.

“John…Smith,” I said. She looked up when I didn't immediately give her my number. Problem was, I could make up a name, but I didn't know how long the darned number should be. I opened my mouth. “Eight. Six. Four.” I put a lot of space between them, stopping after each one and watching the nurse. “Seven. Six. Seven. Two.”

She nodded. I shut my mouth. The doctor yanked up the back of my shirt and stuck the needle into my lower back, shoving it in, moving it around like he was fishing for something in there. I ground my teeth against the pain, thinking at the same time that I knew just what they was after. The adrenal glands are right on top of the kidneys. That's where he was poking the needle. I leaned and watched the doctor draw the plunger back, filling the syringe with adrenaline.

It all fit together. Being scared stimulated the adrenal glands to make more adrenaline. Scare sixty-two thousand people, you got yourself a whole lot of adrenaline. What I didn't get was what you do with all that adrenaline.

“What happened to
you
?” Willard said when I met him outside the drugstore. I looked down at my shirt. It looked like I'd had a bucket of black paint thrown on me.

I put an arm around Willard's shoulder, as much to steady myself as to be friendly. I was mighty shaken. “Come on, I'll tell you about it while we walk.”

We passed that same newspaper seller. “Here,” I said, handing him the paper. “I'm done with it.”

“Thanks.” He straightened it up, put it back on the stack.

We had crossed Eleventh Avenue, and for the first time I could see it: The tops of trees passed by like we were in a river of leaves and branches. I hurried over to the edge.

It was an awesome sight, standing on the edge, gawking down through the branches at the ground thirty feet below. We passed a brave fellow standing not fifty feet from the city, staring up, his hand shielding his eyes to improve his view. Straight down, the city's stone foundation tore into the Georgia clay, spraying out a steady stream of red dirt and stone and whatnot. We were traveling in a previously traveled track, so there was no risk of flattening anybody's house or town. Not that cities didn't do that on occasion, if they needed to get somewhere and there was no empty way to get there.

“Good golly,” I whispered. The locals were just walking on by, not even looking at the passing countryside. I guess they were used to it by now. Me, I could've stood there all day.

It took two days for New York to reach Chicago, even with the extra adrenaline squeezed out of the residents. I still couldn't figure what to make of that.

I used the time to see the sights of the big city. I got to see way more of New York than I had expected, though mostly we were just marking time, waiting for New York to catch up to Chicago. Rumors flew all over the streets, that Boston was in flames, that Moscow had crossed into the US and attacked Chicago, instead of Chicago attacking Boston. All we knew for sure was that something bad was happening.

When news spread that we was getting close, Willard and me followed a crowd to Inwood Park, which was the front fender of this big ole truck.

The park was brimming with curiosity-seekers; I found space on the low stone edge of the city. We sat and waited, one of us occasionally using the binoculars I'd bought to watch for Chicago as forest and livestock and farmhouses rattled by.

A city woman was standing just a few feet away, her nails painted red, her high-heeled shoes shiny black. She was watching the horizon just like everyone else.

“Afternoon, ma'am,” I said, tipping my hat.

She glanced at me sideways. “Afternoon.”

I offered her the binoculars. “Care to take a look with these?”

She thanked me, and took the binoculars, and that got us to talking about this and that as we waited and watched, watched and waited. Her name was Lois—a big-city name if there ever was one. Eventually I got around to asking Lois about the points and all.

“So what happens if you don't make your points?” I asked. Now that I understood how you got points it opened up a whole slew of mysteries.

She set the binoculars on the wall. “First you lose your electricity, then your water. Then one day you come home and someone else is living in your apartment.” Willard pulled the binoculars over to him by the strap. “It doesn't happen often. Most people want to do their part to keep the city strong.”

I rubbed the spot above my kidney where the needle had sunk in. “It's quite a price.”

Lois gave me one of those looks that said she felt sorry for me because I was an ignorant hick. “When your country was being threatened, weren't you willing to fight and die for it?”

“My daddy did fight and die for it. Died on Atlanta, in France.”

“That's how we feel about New York. I gladly take the needles. Sharing our life fluids joins us to the city.” She waved a hand in the air, looking all dreamy. “If you became a citizen, you'd understand.”

Shouts lit up the park. “Lemme see them specs,” I said to Willard, wiggling my fingers.

Willard went right on looking. “I don't see nothing. What are they shouting about? Wait. I see something.”

We waited, looking from Willard to the open fields and back to Willard. “Well?” I said.

“I see the city, but I can't see nothing but buildings.”

I pulled the binoculars out of his hand and took a look for myself. I couldn't see nothing but buildings, either, but Chicago kept getting closer, and soon I could focus on one street. I could see people walking in the street—but not nearly as many as you'd expect in a big city. There were plenty of cars, parked ass to bumper down both sides of the street, but I couldn't see who'd be driving all those cars. I could see a shoeshine stand with the rags draped on a hook, waiting, but there was no one around it.

As we got even closer, I could take a look at the people up close, and they didn't look right at all. They were walking with their heads down, taking slow, careful steps like they was afraid they might fall down, or step in something they didn't want on their shoes.

New York jerked to a stop. I'd gotten used to the whistling sound the air made when the city was moving, and now it felt deadly still. I offered the binoculars to Lois.

There was an awesome rumbling, like the engine of the world's biggest motorcar coming to life. Lois nearly dropped the binoculars over the wall as Chicago leapt forward, jerking and bouncing. It headed straight for New York.

“Looks like they want to talk,” Willard said.

Lois and me didn't answer. There was something wrong about Chicago. I wanted to get another look at those people walking the streets, but it seemed rude to ask for the binoculars back.

Chicago kept on building steam, adjusting itself a bit to the left or right to make sure it was coming right at us. It reminded me of something. I guess a city can't look angry or crazy, but that's what came into my head—that it was like an angry bull.

“It's gonna run right into us!” Willard said, his hand knifed over his eyes to shade them from the glare.

The honking alarm went on, and this time I didn't need nobody to tell me what to do. I hopped off the wall, helped Lois down, and then planted my behind on solid ground.

New York jerked to life. We waited a nickel's worth, then got back on our feet to watch. New York cut sideways, out of Chicago's path, picking up speed in a hurry. Chicago swerved toward us; it was going to be a close thing.

“Have they lost their minds?” Lois asked, holding her hat so it didn't fly off.

I gritted my teeth; if Chicago hit, it would hit right about where we were standing. It was too late to run—if it hit it would chew up this whole park and more.

People were running anyhow, as Chicago got bigger and bigger, its skyscrapers rising up over our heads. Willard took two steps. He looked at me, his face a big question mark. I shook my head. “Too late.”

New York shifted direction, digging a big curve and kicking up dirt as it wove forward, in the opposite direction from Chicago. The walls of the two cities matched up, sliding by each other like two pirate ships passing on the water. I watched the Chicago street closest to the wall, watched the people on it peering between their fingers like they was watching
Frankenstein
at the movies. They didn't want the cities to collide neither.

“There's someone on the wall,” Lois shouted, pointing.

Sure enough, there was a Chicago man balancing on the wall, his arms spread, his knees bent.

He jumped toward us, feet pedaling the air. It didn't look like he had enough giddyup to make it. I reached out; the man just made the wall and I grabbed hold of one of his hands as he clawed at the bricks. Lois leaned out and grabbed him under one armpit. We pulled him up and over.

“Thank you, thank you,” the man babbled before he even had a chance to brush himself off. “Oh Lord, thank you.” He had a cut on his head, just over his eye, and his hands and arms were scraped bad, but he didn't seem to notice. He turned and leaned his hands on the wall, watching Chicago retreat. “Thank you, Lord.”

“What's going on over there, friend?” I asked, putting a hand on the man's back, trying to calm him. His face was shaking. His hands, too, but I never seen someone so scared that his face shook.

He fixed me with a crazy stare. “Your worst nightmare, that's what.”

“Look out! What are they doing?” Willard said, still watching over the wall. The rest of us joined him. Chicago had turned left, right into the path of a small town.

It plowed right over the town.

“Jesus, Lord,” Willard wailed.

We could hear screams mixed with crunching wood and brick as Chicago mowed down house after house. People ran, but where was there to go? It was a whole city; no one was going to outrun a city.