I explained to Mitch all about the archetypes and monomyths and the professor's theories on the two of us. When I was finished, Mitch shook his head, laughing softly.
"Well, if that don't beat all. I'm the warrior, huh? I'll take that, I guess. Better than being the trickster. But he's right, Lamar. In those kid's eyes, you're a hero. They look up to you. After all the bad shit that's happened to them, you're the best person they could have come across." "But I don't know shit about kids. I'm impatient with them. I curse too much. I'm not a parental figure."
"Too bad, buddy, because you've got the job whether you want it or not. I think you'll be okay. Take it from me. There's no instruction manual that comes with kids. You do your best and try not to fuck up and realize that you probably will anyway. You're their hero. Try to live up to that."
His voice cracked, and I realized that he was crying. Tears dripped down into his beard. "Mitch?" I was shocked. "What's wrong, man?" "I… Do you remember our first morning onboard? When we were eating breakfast in the galley? You asked me why I'd gone from Towson down into the city, and I told you I didn't want to talk about it."
"Yeah." I nodded, thinking back. "I remember." "Well, the truth is, I was looking for my son, Mickey. We always called him Mick. Mitch and Mick-our little family joke. My wife and I got divorced when he was fourteen. I was on the road a lot. Had a sales route at the time-copiers and fax machines for businesses. I did something stupid. Had a one night stand with this girl in New York City-a client of mine. Beautiful girl. She made me feel young again. Even so, I felt guilty about it afterward. Swore 1 wouldn't do it again and figured my wife would never find out. But I gave the girl my e-mail address and we chatted online a lot, and my wife found the e-mails. Some of them referenced that night. Yeah, I know-I'm a dumb ass.
Anyway, we split up and my son blamed me. He had a hard time with it. A few years later, he got into drugs and dropped out of school. I lost all contact with him. When they declared martial law, I called my ex-wife. I hadn't talked to her in about six months, but it was the end of the world, you know? I was worried about him-about them both. My ex-wife answered. She was worried sick. Turned out she hadn't seen or heard from Mick in months. All she knew was that he was dating this girl named Frankie. She was a prostitute and a heroin addict, and she'd gotten Mick addicted, too. One of my ex-wife's co-workers had apparently seen him and his girlfriend. They were sleeping on the streets down in Fells Point."
"So you went looking for him?" "Yeah, 1 did." Mitch sighed. "It was a stupid thing to do, but love makes us dumb sometimes. There was no way he could have been alive. I knew that, deep down inside. But I had to do it anyway, because I'm his father and that's part of it. When you become a parent, you have all these dreams. Maybe your kid will be a quarterback for the Ravens someday, or maybe he'll win the Nobel Peace Prize. My dream was a little simpler than that. I just wanted grandkids. Don't guess I'll ever have one now. But you have these dreams and you'll do anything to help your child achieve them, and sometimes, you do this even if your dreams aren't your kid's desires. You help your kids out. That's what you're supposed to do. But I wasn't there to help Mick, so I had to make up for it, even if he was dead. I had to see it through."
"You could have been killed."
"And I almost was-many, many times. Started out okay. Blew away most of my neighbors-they'd all been infected. But then, once I'd taken care of them, 1 was home free. My car had a full tank of gas and I had plenty of ammo. Fucking Rambo, right? At first, I stuck to York Road, but believe it or not, it was more congested than Interstate Eighty-three, so I switched to the highway. I made it as far as Television Hill before the fucking car overheated. Then I grabbed my guns out of the trunk and went on foot. Understand me, Lamar. I had to see it through to the end, but I expected to die every second of every minute. Those things were everywhere. The deeper 1 went into the city, the worse it got. I'd been in the city for two days before I ran across you and the kids."
"Jesus…" I was stunned. "Two whole days? How did you make it?"
"Determination. I went there looking for my son and I intended to find him."
"Did you?"
"No." He paused, taking a deep breath. "No, I never did. But I found you guys instead and that's enough for me. I tried. In my heart, I know that and I've made peace with it. I tried to find Mick. I made the effort, and Mick would have appreciated that. It would have been important to him. Nothing else matters. And that's why Tasha and Malik look up to you so much-because they see you trying. So the professor is right, Lamar. You're their hero."
"But I'm not a hero," I snapped. "I'm a fraud, man. A fucking poseur. I'm everything people assume that I am when they first see the color of my skin or find out where I'm from."
"What are you talking about? Is this because you couldn't shoot the preacher?"
"I'm not talking about the preacher. I'm talking about before all of this shit. I did a bad thing, Mitch. A real bad thing."
"What? Were you a drug dealer or something?"
"See?" I pointed a finger at him. "That's exactly what I'm talking about. I'm black and from the ghetto, and when I tell you that I did something bad, you fucking automatically assume it must have been drug related. I must have committed some type of crime."
"Hey," Mitch said, "that's got nothing to do with it. You said you did something bad. Of course I'm gonna assume it's a crime."
"Because I'm black."
"Oh, bullshit."
"No, it's not bullshit, Mitch. You just can't see it from where you're sitting."
He sighed. "Then prove me wrong. Go ahead and tell me what it was."
"That's the thing. I have no right to get pissed off at you, because in the end, I contributed to that bullshit. I became what I hated. See, I lived in the city and shit, but I always felt like an outsider. Not just because I'm gay, but because I didn't do drugs, or sell them, or do any of the other crazy shit that so many people were into. The thug life isn't just something you see in rap videos. So many people emulate it, because it's all they know. It's a way out. A way to fight back. I never wanted to be a part of that."
Mitch nodded silently, encouraging me to continue. I was surprised by the sudden swelling of rage inside me.
"I had a good job in White Marsh, working on the assembly line at the Ford plant. Paid my bills on time, wasn't in too much debt. Didn't have much to show for it all, but I figured good things would come, right? And then I got laid off. They closed the plant down. Opened a new one in China, and shipped our jobs over there. I got on unemployment, but that didn't amount to shit. Couldn't find a job anywhere. Either I wasn't qualified enough or I was too qualified. Shit, I couldn't even get a job in fast food. Every month the stack of past-due bills got higher and I got deeper into shit. Then the phone calls started. Bill collectors. Fucking locusts is what they are. They'd call all hours of the day, even on the weekends. Even on Sunday. I was about to lose everything. And all I could think was 'Why me?' I'd done everything right. You used to see these politicians on
TV,
saying that black folks needed to work harder-needed to better ourselves and our communities. Well, that's exactly what the hell I was trying to do. And you know what I got for it? I got fucked."
"And that's why you feel like a fraud? Shit, Lamar, it wasn't your fault."
"No, maybe it wasn't my fault. But it sure as hell was a few days later when I took what little money I still had and bought a pistol. And it was definitely my fault when I decided to get even with Ford by robbing one of their dealerships."
"Oh, shit…"
"Exactly. I woke up one morning and the bill collectors were calling before I'd even got out of bed. I walked into the Ford dealership with the gun stuffed in my waistband and my shirt pulled down over it. A salesman came over to help me and 1 told him I wanted to take one of the cars for a test drive. We went out. He was sitting beside me, talking about all the different features and shit. When he told me to turn around, instead, I pulled into an old industrial complex."
"And then what?"
"I robbed him at gunpoint. I was so nervous I thought I'd puke. I think the salesman actually took it better than me. I remember at one point, he was having trouble getting his wallet out of his pants and he apologized. And all I kept thinking was that it should be me who was apologizing, not him. I took all his money, and then I drove us to an ATM and made him empty out his account. When we were finished, I bailed. I was sick for the next three days. Oh, I was out of debt-temporarily, at least. I paid my past-due mortgage and made sure the bank wouldn't foreclose. But the guilt was crushing me, man. I couldn't eat. Couldn't sleep. Figured the cops would kick down my front door at any second. But they never did. And in some ways, that was worse, because that meant I still had to live with the guilt in silence. I'd become everything 1 hated. And then I was broke again. I was still dealing with all that when Hamelin's Revenge came along. I've been focused on staying alive ever since. But I can't forget about what happened. It's right there, in the past. I can't change it and I can't forget about it. The kids and you and the professor-you all think I'm somebody that I'm not. I ain't no hero. I'm a fucking loser."
He shook his head. "You're a damn fool is what you are."
"Excuse me?"
Mitch grinned. "Don't you see, Lamar? None of that matters now. The past is just that-the past. It's as dead as those things in the streets. We've left it behind. Everyone makes mistakes. That's what molds us. But it doesn't matter who we were or what we did before all of this happened. We're still alive! When the rest of the world is fucking
dying,
we're still here. The only thing that matters now is how we respond and who we become. You know, that preacher back at the rescue station may have been insane, but he was right about one thing."
"What's that?"
"We really are born again. I'm not talking about in any religious sense. We've got a second chance to reinvent ourselves, to become someone different. The professor is right. We're on a quest-all of us. So stop worrying about the past and start thinking about the future. The past is dead."
"So are the zombies," I said. "But that doesn't stop them from coming back and biting us in the ass. What kind of future can we possibly look forward to? Living on the run? Hiding out every time we go to the mainland? That's not living. That's existing."
"It's enough for me. And the same goes for you. Otherwise, you'd walk out on the flight deck right now and jump into the ocean. You're a fighter, same as me-you do it because you don't know what else to do. And now you're fighting for those kids, whether you'll admit to it or not. So suck it up and be a hero. Hell, who knows? We live through this and civilization makes a comeback, then maybe they'll have mythology about us in five thousand years. We'll be history."
I shrugged. "Maybe we already are."
"That's not what I meant," Mitch said, smiling, "and you know it."
His smile grew broader. After a moment, I returned it. We crept back into the compartment and, with the lights out, crawled into our racks. Tasha and Malik didn't stir. The ship gently rolled from side to side, creaking and groaning. Steam pipes along the wall ticked. My stomach grumbled.
"Good night," Mitch whispered.
"Night."
I lay back in my rack and stared at nothing. I thought about the past. Maybe Mitch was right. Maybe it didn't exist anymore. Maybe that version of Lamar Reed was as dead as the city he'd left behind when he sailed out to sea. The future waited right over the horizon, and when the sun came up tomorrow morning, it would rise on the first day of the rest of our lives. I wondered how long those lives would be.
Chapter Nine
The chief had been right about the weather. The next morning we woke to cold rain. A storm had blown in overnight. Massive gray and black clouds swallowed the horizon, obscuring the lines between sea and sky. Thunder boomed across the water. Dime-sized drops of rain pelted the decks. The waves grew larger and the ship tilted like a carnival amusement ride. Most of us hadn't developed our sea legs yet and every time the
Spratling
took a particularly hard roll, we ran into the bulkheads. At breakfast, which consisted of fish we'd caught the day before, we had to hold on to our trays tightly, or else they'd slide down the table and crash into each other. Even those of us who hadn't struggled with seasickness before now looked queasy.
The weather suited the crew's mood. But by noon, the clouds had cleared and the rain stopped. The ocean grew calm, flat like glass, the waves barely cresting. The sun shined down and the ternperature climbed again. Seagulls circled the ship, hoping for a handout. Old habits died hard, I guess. There were a million meals walking around on shore for them.
According to the chief, we were still on course for the oil drilling platform. Mitch, Basil, Professor Williams, and I had spent the morning performing other duties below deck. I also spent some time with Tasha and Malik. My late-night conversations with Mitch and the professor kept running through my mind, and I decided to try to live up to whatever the kids wanted me to be. Once the storm had passed, we met up on the flight deck, got out our deep-sea rods and tackle gear, and began the day's fishing. Tran and Nick had saved the guts and heads from yesterday's catch in a bucket so that we could use them for bait. We lined up along the railing with the bait bucket between us and cast our lines. The professor had found a floppy-brimmed hat somewhere onboard and he wore it to keep the sun off his head. He looked like a geriatric Gilligan. Basil was quiet and sullen. He didn't say anything about his mutinous thoughts regarding our destination, and the three of us didn't let on that we knew. Instead, Mitch and the professor traded jokes back and forth, and I laughed. Basil pretty much ignored us, standing off by himself farther down the deck.