“Kid, you’re dreaming,” Bill yelled even though everyone was close at hand.
Bill was really pissing Jeff off, and he had only been around the man a few hours.
“Of course I am.” Jeff didn’t turn around all the way, but the tone of his voice and the half expression told everyone the kid obviously had a plan. “I am going to do it myself. Just wait here. I’ll be back.”
“I gotta see this.” Ron was following Jeff.
“Me too.” Sal followed Ron.
“Careful, guys,” Mary said, genuine fear in her eyes. She was looking at Sal, who was oblivious to her, but Bill noticed and headed back up to the roof with an expression of rage on his face.
§
At the van, Jeff pulled a steel cable from the bag with a hook on the end and looped it around a lamp pole and hooked the cable to itself. He walked to the van and pulled another cable and hook from his bag and attached it to one of the van’s towing hooks. He popped the hood and clamped a red and black wire to the battery. He reached in the bag and an electronic whirring started. A small winch rose from the bag as it pulled the two steel cables taut. In seconds, the van was pulled from the edge of the hole. Sal and Ron were smiling, impressed.
“OK, let’s get the van emptied so we can get going.” Jeff started packing his gear.
“Looks like you have been busy,” Sal said, giving Jeff a pat on the back.
“You are awesome kid.” Ron smiled.
“That was nothing.” Jeff smiled; it was nice to be appreciated. “Oh, and be sure to ask Bill about the giant hole that almost killed the two of you.”
Ron looked at Jeff in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
Jeff shrugged. “You have to ask Bill.”
“Bill had something to do with that hole? Does he know how it got there?”
“Yeah, he sure does, but you have to ask him. We aren’t on speaking terms.”
Ron wondered where the giant hole had come from. Maybe Bill had seen what happened, how it got there. Sal looked at Ron and raised an eyebrow. Sal suspected Bill had more to do with it than seeing how it happened.
They drove the van back up the ramp. Bill was nowhere in sight. They unloaded all the construction supplies on the top floor. The very top they called the roof, and to them the top floor was the highest floor that was covered. Soon they were cruising across the mammoth parking lot.
“Why did you tell us to ask Bill about the hole?” It was twenty minutes later, and Ron was in the driver’s seat and Jeff in the rear.
Jeff looked out the window, a look of disgust on his face. “He had some idea about digging out the storm drain to create an underground road for cars. I tried to explain to him how sewer systems worked, but I’m a kid, what do I know? I looked at the drain, and it’s a feeder for a large cistern under the lot. I tried to explain that the sewer grate he wanted to dig out was right on top of that cistern, a very large chamber that allowed a massive amount of water to be taken in by the system in case of a flash flood or heavy rain. The cistern probably holds runoff from the highways, parking lots, and the airport tarmac too. But again, what do I know? I just grew up around here and explored half the sewers in San Jose with my UE group.”
“UE?” Ron asked.
“Urban explorers. We used to go into all these abandoned places and walk through miles of sewer tunnels, whatever we could think of.”
“So Bill tried to dig the drain out to make an underground road?” Sal looked a bit confused. “He really thought that was a good idea?”
“Apparently. I thought he should wait until you two returned to talk about it, but he said he didn’t need anyone’s permission.”
Neither Ron nor Sal liked the sound of this. Ron knew Bill could be cynical and cranky, but it had never been a problem. He hoped it wouldn’t be one now. He would have to talk to him later.
“The worst thing was that he almost lost the backhoe in the hole. It all started collapsing, and the backhoe was sliding down. He barely got it out.”
“The worst thing,” Sal said, “is that we still have two big ramps leading right up to our living space. Why didn’t he take care of that first?”
“Ahhh shit,” Ron said. The van screeched as it made a tight, fast U-turn. “I think I know what’s wrong with Bill. We have to get back there right now.”
19.
Fats could barely walk, and Jeeter was hungover, bad. The two dragged themselves into the home improvement store, pulled the cushions off several pieces of lawn furniture, took too many sleeping pills, washed them down with a few large gulps of burning-good booze, and dropped into a deep, unhealthy sleep.
Banjo and his brothers always partied hard, but lately Jeeter seemed to have a death wish. He’d been so fucked up since the world up and died that he was barely functional. He was crapping himself, forgetting everything, and was just out of it. Well, all of those symptoms were Banjo’s fault, to be true, but it was a necessity just now.
Jeeter had been a whack job since he and Banjo met almost twenty years earlier, when they were fifteen, and back then that made him fun. He was prone to fits of darkness, crazy highs, and rage. He had a hair-trigger temper, except when it came to Banjo and Fats, until very recently when he had socked Banjo hard in the mouth. Jeeter started fights for no reason and with anyone: a group of soldiers, a defenseless nerd, even the cops—Banjo was the only one who could ever talk him down. He was impossible to be around for most folks and would be dead or in an institution if not for Banjo.
And Jeeter was superstitious, super superstitious. He had all these crazy notions and habits—some things he’d done since forever and some lasted only a day or two. He always tapped his bottle three times on the table before every sip. He refused to sleep without his boots on. He had to have his aviator shades on all the time, always. Several times he’d lost them and couldn’t relax until he got another pair. He never wore a helmet to ride but insisted that Banjo did. Jeeter was the reason he wore his helmet. If Banjo took it off, Jeeter wouldn’t leave him alone, so he just got used to wearing it all the time. Jeeter insisted Fats needed pills and was constantly giving him different colors and sizes of pills at odd times of the day. Many times Banjo could swear the pills were just Mentos and Tic Tacs.
Banjo had always been the even one, the caretaker. Jeeter, when he was stable, was a great leader and decision maker. But those days had been dwindling, and when the world hit the skids they ended altogether. But no matter, Banjo knew the notion of leaders was out the window now, but out of respect he would call his friend leader for the remainder of their time together.
So the caretaker Banjo had to protect Jeeter and Fats from themselves. His solution was to keep them doped up. If he didn’t, Jeeter would get all amped up and get himself, and anyone around him, killed. This last time, in addition to the regular doping, Banjo had given his brothers a little extra dash to make them sleep a little longer, just until he got the new digs sorted out.
His two brothers were in deep slumber and would be out for days most likely, which was good. He had shit to do, and until his brothers were up and kicking rocks, he had to put vengeance on hold.
With his brothers safely tucked away, Banjo started on his plan to build his version of a post-apocalyptic utopia, or as he called it Titty City. He started by walking, in search of a new set of wheels. After that he would gather other staples of existence. He swung Old Crow as he walked down the street, every so often putting him to use and smashing some deadheads.
He walked for hours, dodging the dead when there were too many to take down. He found food and took note of several liquor stores. Once he saw a small group of people, eight of them, a family maybe. They were across the street and walking into a space between buildings. He didn’t bother with them; he was on a mission.
He saw the silhouettes of several people on a roof. It looked like they were watching him. Behind them, a puffy column of thick gray smoke rose upward, getting wider and thinner, disappearing into the clear blue of the empty sky. He smelled wood smoke and roasting meat. His stomach was rattling and cursing him. Give me food, asshole! It jabbed him a few times, but he kept on walking. Fuck you, stomach.
He saw many faces in the thousands of windows he passed, some living, most dead.
Walking down the street like a civilian, he was able to hear and see much, but he could give a shit about what he heard and saw. He preferred to roar down the big slab on his iron mule, blowing thunder from cut-down pipes, rattling windows, and scaring all who were witness. Those days would return, but now he was walking, feet burning, stomach twisting, and his mood going from bad to worse, but not stopping—the stakes were too high.
He was searching for the essentials of a good time, the ingredients for fun, and for Banjo fun was tit fun. He missed the dancers, strippers, naughty waitresses, and just plain old whores. Surely some of them survived somewhere, and he knew the first somewhere he was going to check after he found a bus or truck or shuttle van—something that could hold a lot of bitches. He didn’t need to pay strippers or whores anymore, or wrestle an unwilling woman down. He was going to build his own harem.
§
Three hours later, the sun was low in the sky and Banjo was beyond hungry but not close to stopping his quest for pussy. He found a tour bus parked on the street. It was locked, but that wasn’t a problem. Old Crow popped the door open with barely a twitch from Banjo. He hotwired the bus and drove it into the courtyard of a large apartment building. The bus blocked the entrance to the courtyard, as it scraped the walls on both sides. The other entrances to this complex were all locked gates. No deadheads would be coming in here.
He pulled the bus up far enough so that he could open the door. He started kicking in doors and quickly sweeping apartments, leaving the empty ones, killing the dead inside some of them, until he hit his first apartment with living occupants inside.
A brown man charged Banjo with a kitchen knife.
Is this a Mexican? Fuck if he ain’t black or white; he’s Mexican,
Banjo thought and chuckled at himself as he brought Old Crow down on the man’s upheld arm. The fool was trying to block the blow but only succeeded in getting his arm snapped in two. He went down screaming. Banjo heard female screams coming from farther in the apartment. He silenced the brown guy with a firm tap from Old Crow right on his noggin. The female screams intensified. Banjo was getting excited. He walked into a small living room.
“Shut up!” he barked.
A woman sat on a sofa, clutching two children. Banjo looked disgusted. “Fat Mexican bitch,” he rumbled. He turned to walk away when one of the kids, a little boy no more than eight, rushed him. He smiled as the mother screamed and lunged for him. He put a boot to the kid’s gut and walked out thinking,
Shit, I ain’t no kid killer, unless I have to be. I ain’t evil.
Eight more doors until he finished the first building. There were several more buildings, each full of apartments. Banjo had to rest. He leaned on the balcony of the third floor of building number one. This shit could take forever. Oh well, he had no place better to be. Jeeter and Fats were still in a deep slumber. He continued on.
In the third building, when the sun was dropping low and the shadows were starting to make his work difficult, he found an open door. The people there must have run when they heard him coming. He walked into the apartment. It smelled like that shit Indians were always putting in their food. He walked down a hallway that led to a small living room, same as the others he had walked for what seemed a hundred times in the past few hours.
He found an old man slumped over in a chair, a hammer embedded in the top of his head, fresh blood still running down his face and pooling in his lap. Apparently, the family knew they had to leave but couldn’t take the old man with them and didn’t want to leave him to the stranger kicking in doors and bashing in heads. It looked like it had happened quickly and from behind.
Banjo stomped out of the apartment, disappointed. All this work and shit to show for it. He stopped on the balcony. It was too dark to continue on, so he stepped back in and flipped the deadbolt on the door. He laid Old Crow on the kitchen counter and lit a smoke. He opened the balcony door all the way to air the place out. He dragged the old man to the balcony and tossed him over the edge, along with some of the shit that seemed to be the source of the Indian smell. He plopped on the sofa, put his dented helmet to his face, and slept like a babe.
Banjo woke with cold metal pressed against his throat. It felt like the blade of a knife, so he didn’t move. After a few moments, he realized it was the edge of his helmet, still over his face. He pulled it away, blinking at the light.
He went out the front door and looked around. So many more apartment buildings. It seemed futile to keep checking them like this. He could spend days doing this, only to come up with fat Mexicans and smelly Indians. He walked back through the courtyard of the apartment building, swinging Old Crow, itching to use him on something.
He started the bus and backed it out of the tight space, crushing several of the dead in the process. Banjo swung the bus wide, taking out mailboxes, plants, and several more corpses. He pulled forward and aimed the behemoth in the direction of his favorite strip club.
Pop’s was a huge building, visible for miles. It was set back from the highway on a large plot of land, accessible by the service road. There was plenty of parking all the way around it, and there were always a few cars in the lot at any given time of the day. It was evident that there had been an attempt to class up the giant cinderblock building. But even with the deep red paint job, small trees in massive concrete planters, and a set of multi-paneled double doors, it was still a giant cinderblock monstrosity with all the class of a whore in a cheap rabbit-fur jacket. The windows and doors all had bars on them, as much to keep people in as out. It was a dark, dirty, remote building—the perfect strip club for the man who wanted pretty women, cheap drinks, and a dark hole to enjoy them in.