Drink for the Thirst to Come (2 page)

No-
no, not his business, them
bongs.
Still he wondered, in day, night, wind, or none,
bong-bong, bong-bong.

Even in light the Icehouse was a black mass, bomb-baked brick swiped gray with pulver. A bob-wire path led, there to the Center. The Boss decreed it: a path of prongs to keep you straight in deep dark, in swirling dust or driving snow. This morning, even poles and wire threw down shadow. They made a choppy lane a hundred yards to the Center. Chris could barely see it now, in the pitch, but it was out there, more char-black brick, more sheet tin, more gray, the forever dust here at world’s-end.

Ditch that, duster,
he told himself. He gripped a bob to punish him.
Best not plink upon that “World’s End” shit, Harp!
The prong dug flesh down to the blood!
Boss hears discouraging word, spies an eye in downcast plinks, and Boss will lunch upon said eye and
that
for him who spoke or plinked it.

A sudden wind from the Wet raised a wraith. A little’n. Vaporized steel, pulverized brick, flour-fine cement, wee shards of beast- and folk-bone raised from the earth, twisted skyward, caught light, reared three, four hundred feet—who could tell? Dusted wind caught hollows in downed walls and busted buildings; it sheared over sheet tin corners to raise a reedy howl. The Icehouse faded. The Center was gone. The wraith matured from pup to wolf like/that. Out of the moan came a crackle. The Boss’s bob-wire fence flickered. Starry static snapped electric blue on every prong and post. Chris wrapped his face in a breathing silk, drew cleaner breath. He dropped his static chain down his leg to trail and drain electric fire into the dust.

And here comes Lenny.

And there Lenny came, limping, leading with his shoulder, head, and elbow, out of the wraith. And there Lenny went, gimping the other way from breakfast, mumbling.

Lenny had smoke again. What was it about that old Kicker? Son of a bitch could flop in a can of turd and come up smoking! Lenny’d been somewhere, not here, two days back. Doing Boss bidding, something Chris would not ask about and did not need to know, no sir. Anyways, since he’s back, Lenny’s worth is up, up, up. Up with the Boss, up with the Kickmen and the Bits—even soft and fragrant Bits glommed onto gimpy Len, begged to suck him dry or be just
his own
Little Bit for the night. With
everyone
, Lenny’s worth is through the clouds.

Now, he’s shoving wind
, Chris realized. “How’s morning thistle, Len?” Chris hollered against the wind, letting pulver flake sneak by his silk, suck up his nose, scour his eyes.

Lenny swatted the question back at Chris and put his ass to the wind. “I ain’t ate!”

A Boss job, sure
. “What! Haven’t had your breakfast, Len?” Chris shouted.

Lenny shuffled sidewise, plinkage filled with mumbles and murder. “Fuck no, ain’t ate yet.”

Enough. The man’s doing for the Boss. Son of a bitch’ll be back with more weed and…
“Hey, Len. Len, I gottcher back,” Chris called above the moan.

Lenny’s limp. Good and faithful kicker he once was, Lenny took a bolt from the Wet. Who knew? From a Niggertown kink, from ’Tweeners, from somedamnone, but he took it for the Boss! Good Lenny. Boss himself dug it out of Lenny’s thigh, first chance he had! Chris helped a little. He’d flopped across, held down the big lug’s bottom parts so Len would not disgrace himself in jumps and kicks, not jolt the procedure or the Boss.

A good kicker before that bolt, Lenny’d snap a neck like/that! One windmill twirl from standing still and
crack
! A thing to see!

The bolt was rusted rebar, probably shot from a leaf-spring cross’. Not dangerous eventually. Might have been a poison bolt or one soaked in sick but it healed. Still, his left leg, his kicking leg, was fucked. So Lenny now cannot kick. He is slow coming when called and is certainly not the kicker he was. Being too damn dumb to admin others, his worth is seriously shit-lined. So now the presh is on. “Deliver or get you gone!” the Boss might have said. “Thanks for taking that bolt, old Len, just the same…”

But he sure could dip that smoke! And smoke was
worth
!

“I’ll dip grunts for you, okay Len? Be back soon, yeah?” Without waiting for a “sure-sure” or “fuck y’self,” Chris dodged the slanting shove of the wraith wind and grabbed the Gimper’s tin, forgetting—

…a
whack-crack
static shot and—

…Chris was down hard. His drag-chain saved him the worst of it, but a
snap-slap
arced from Lenny’s plate to Chris’s mitt, walloped like the old kicker might have done himself and Chris, who should have known, was down. An old Dust-Walker like him!

Lenny leaned against the wind and appreciated the moment. He laughed and laughed. He shook his paw—he’d caught a clout of static, too—but Chris’s flop was just that damn funny and worth a tingling mitt.

Rising from the dirt, Chris joined, laughed at his own damnself.
Better,
Chris figured,
take a clout offering a worthy thing.
And he’d pry smoke from the old kicker. Sure.

Then Lenny stopped and stared.
He’s thinking, ‘What’s this? He gets my thistle, saves me space, and what’s it cost me?’
Chris almost smelled Lenny’s brain working.

“Nice,” Lenny said, not looking at Chris, his stare fixed on the rising beauty of morning.

Len’s looking at light and don’t mind hunger,
Chris realized
.
Chris peeked. Sun-up was making dustbows, the color refracted from particulates wilding in the air. It was all so damn pretty!
Old Lenny!
Then it was done. Strands of wispy gray hair whipped Lenny’s face and he was off, a galloping limp.
Boss work
.

“Sure-sure.” The wind tossed Lenny’s words to Chris. “I’m over the Jordan! Back in no time!”

Chris waved Lenny’s tin above his head.

The Jordan? What the hell’s the Boss doing with the old stadium, now taboo, off limits, stay out, this means you? Well, huh?

Chris dug another bob into his hand.
None of your business,
he told himself.

Another couple tons of pulverized city kicked high and hung ’round whilst sunbeams split the clouds. A couple strakes of light reddened, then goldened the Goddamn air. Shit, it
was
damn near pretty. Until you wanted to breathe.

Chris snugged silk across his nose.
Yeah. The Long Season
was
ending
.

The Boiler ladled out the grunts. “Salt your thistle, Dusty,” he said. “Sparse picking so we’re stretchin’ with don’t-ask-won’t tell!” Paste gray tumbleweed stew hit Chris’s tin like mealy buckshot.

“Cheer up, brother. See the light?” Chris slinked his smiley words by the Boiler’s shaking head. “Season’s ending. Boss says.”

“Feed me Boss stuff. Moveit!” The line growled with late snoozers and the shiftless. “C’mon, c’mon. Next!” Boiler yelled.

Chris lay down Lenny’s tray. “For Len.”

The Boiler squeezed his eye on Chris. The line grumbled all the way downsteps into the World.

“Hear it, brother!” Chris leaned near the Boiler’s ear stump. “Lenny’s on a run.” He pitched his voice just so. “Jordan’s House!” as though he knew what! “Time he’s back,” he waggled his thumb at the growlers, “this’ll be done-’fer.”

“Yeah?” Boiler said.

“Yeah. So?”

“You getting suck, ain’t you, Harp?”

“I hope to and that’s honest!”

The eye squinted. “You let the Boss to know I’m serving twice-to-one here and tomorrow you go beg. Tomorrow and tomorrow forever-more you beg!” A slop of stew hit Lenny’s tin. “And I take some suck sticks.” He held up a three-fingered hand. “For risk.”

“Three sticks. Done.”

“Full hand’s
five
!” Boiler yelled.

“Five then! Absolute!”

“And because I’m so pretty!” The Boiler opened mouth and laughed.

Burnups who’d got better were not pretty: flash-flesh, scarred white, bald, a wee black hole where once an eye had peeped. Laughing made it worse. Least he could cook. Saved Boiler from turning ’Tweener.

Chris found a sit to eat his tumbleweed upon. The thistle needed salt indeed, more salt. Never salt enough.

“You.” The Boss voice came over the bent necks in the Round Room where Chris ate. Not a shout. No need. “You,” meant Chris, meant now.

Goddamn!
Chris downed his spoon and scurried, let his breakfast to the tender care of Whitey, the One-eyed Kid from the rack above him. Whitey’d care for, touch neither his nor Lenny’s grub, not for himself nor give anyone else taste, touch, or smell. Whitey needed worth.

“Yeah, Boss?” Chris twitched. His body wanted to get doing, doing whatever.

“You need some work, my man.”

He surely did and glad to have it too. Chris was middle pole. Stuck. Another twitch would help.

“Got you a task. Think you’re up for it.”

“I’m up.”

“Didn’t ask, Duster. You’re going to the Wet. You get yourself out to the Heath and Hollows and see a man. Señor Temoco. He’ll have something for you.

“Yes.”

“Wait! The something will be a box.”

“A box.”

“Small box.” The Boss showed him. A foot by a foot by a foot.

“Mm.”

“You’ll be careful with that box.”

“Yeah.”

“You’ll not open, bounce, drop, or break it.”

“No I won’t!”

“Wait! Cripes. You’ll bear it back like it holds a Boomer. A big bad Boomer!

Chris smiled.

“You’ll treat it like your only pair of balls.”

“Mm.”

“’Cause it will be.”

“Yes.”

“You’ll need trade for this box. You draw you some goods.”

The Boss and Chris let that hang dust.

“Yes. Okay. Mm.”
Sees me sweat, feels me shake, knows I’m…

“What’s done with the goods, here to there, that’s your lookout.”

“Yes!”

“Just… Cripes, I’ll nail your dick to a wall you start hauling before I give you leave! Just make sure the goods is fresh upon delivery. It’s for sure Señor Temoco will want fresh for this most valuable box.”

“Yep.”

“And how will you know Señor Temoco?”

“I’ll.” He was nodding but that was all Chris had. Some eye passed between the Boss and Chris.
Cripes. He’s having fun.

“You will know Señor Temoco by his bearing.”

“His bearing. Yes.” This time he waited. The Boss’s look? Could have been friendly, might have been a smile, could have been pity, never could tell. You also never took for granted. And the Boss never pitied, so that was out.

“And you’ll do what when you get the… what is it again?”

“Box. This big. I bring it to you.”

“And you look.”

“Hell I do. I treat it like my nuts.”

“And you wonder what it is?”

Chris blinked twice. “You’ll tell me if I need to know.”

“Okay, Duster. Haul.”

Chris lit out, spring-shot past his bench in the round room.
Cripes, cripes, cripes.
There was Whitey and what was left of morning grunts, his and Lenny’s.
Cripes.

“You grip that grub, Whitey.” He gave the kid a plinking eye. “You give it all to Lenny and you let him know it’s thanks to me he’s eating. Got it?”

“Yeah!” the Kid said. “From you. And you…?”

“Are working Boss stuff.”

And Chris was down the torch-lit stairwell, tallow-black smoke spinning in the suck, rising to the busted roof.

…to the Vendateria. Early.
Good.

The Girl stood out.

Vendors lazed, looking, scratching. A couple kickers leaned by the door, giving little heed—slinky pricks! There were newsons come from here and there looking to make a name. There were oldsters and Eustaces looking to ramp their worth, hold on a few more. They milled, filled the ’coves and looked plain miserable. The air was full of sweat and need.

When the place had been just the City of Chicago Office of Emergency Management Center, the Vendateria was a long low room at the far end of the first level of the pie-shaped building, the spot for soda pop and candy, machines dispensing goods and change. There were sofas to lounge on, alcoves where to sack out through long shifts, when snows, floods, riots were managed there.

That crap went crash on The Day. On The Day, the Center fried and died like the City. Now the Vendateria was a grotto off the main floor, the machines stripped and long gone but the place still vended. Newsons gathered there, women, Bits and boys, whoever the hell, those who’d been traded off by little Daleys of the ’hoods, folks who’d wandered in from north or south, from West or Wet. An occasional kink from Niggertown showed, or those who’d just dragged it in from the far Dust like Chris (
Christ, what was it, four years gone?
). They all showed there, wanting.

Chris could about tell for looking, from where a newson hailed. Didn’t matter, newsons were for sale, for use, for gathering worth. They were grabbing root like everyone.

The ’teria was for goods too. The left-outs. Whatever crossed the border, after the Boss and his kickers, admin boys, and special bits had dips, what was left was left-out for vending. But, hell, after The Day, everything had some worth—in the dipping or the vending—and everyone needed worth.

The Girl was fresh. That alone was worth. Third alcove in, there she was. Sitting. Calm. Waiting. Like someone had told her, just go there and wait. Chris couldn’t peg her. Not out of Wrigley or the Heaths and Hollows, not from the ’burbs, surely not from Niggertown. Didn’t look like from anyplace he’d seen except Dolph Station, Texas, day before The Day. First, she was damn-near plump.
Where’s a girl get her plump these days?
It gave Chris pause.

Then the threads. She was wrapped in style, good stuff and mostly clean, tough wearing but nice. She looked, cripes, like the bunnies on the bus back in old Dolph Station. Pretty girls, the ones who rode, same times, to Perrytown Mondays-through, busy, white wires trailing to pretty little ears, pretty faces stuck in the news, pretty shoes in jimmy bags and sneaks on pretty feet. His bus, the street, the town, not good enough for pretty shoes and
Cripes!
He was stroking the busted cell in his jacket pocket.