The Last Tribe (37 page)

John motioned to Kelly.  “Maybe I
can convince Antonio to have dinner with us.  If not, I will leave him the
supplies.”

“That’s not a great idea.”  She
said.  “I’ll put the supplies in Bernie’s room before we go.  Please do not
mention them to Antonio.”

John gave her an odd look. 

“You’ll understand when you meet
him.”  Kelly told him over her shoulder.

Kelly led John towards a door
marked “stairs.”  They went up one flight and opened a door into a hallway. 
Glow in the dark stickers of big stars, little stars, planets, moons, and
alphabet letters covered the walls.  The stickers gave off a faint green glow
that illuminated the dark hall.

“I like the stickers.”  John said
looking around.  “What a great idea.  Did it keep the hall lit all night?”

“Can you believe it was Meredith’s
idea?  She is the young girl with Avery.  She had these stickers when she was
growing up, used them as night lights in her bottom bunk bed.  We went up to
FAO Schwartz and found these things.  Yes, it worked pretty well.”  Kelly
walked down the hall and pointed towards the doors. “This is the bedroom area. 
The fireplace was set up to heat most of the room.  Some sort of green heating
option, using a central fireplace to heat the rest of the building. It is a
radiator system.  Water tanks sit on either side of the chimney, they heat up,
the water flows through the pipes, heats up the rooms.   It did an okay job,
but the rooms were still pretty cold during the winter.  Now that the coldest
nights are behind us, the rooms are tolerable.  Antonio stays in his room most
of the time, comes down for meals when he runs out of food.”

“He has his own food?”  John
asked.  “It seems like everyone shares.”

“Not Antonio, not with us anyway. 
He takes, but doesn’t give to the group, unless it benefits him.”  She pointed
to a room.  “He’s a good kid, but he can’t get out of his old mindset.  I’ve
seen him care for the little ones.  He sneaks them food, not the adults, but
the three little kids and Meredith?  They always end up with a cereal bar
during the day.  I saw the little boy, Cameron, fall on the ice.  Antonio was
the first one to him.  Came out of nowhere.  He was gentle and talked him
through the tears.  As soon as Bernie showed up?  Tough guy came back.  Anyway,
I don’t know if he’ll come up to your camp.”

“Well, the only way to find out is
to ask, right?”  John knocked on the door.

“You the guy from the Suburban?” 
He heard someone yell from the other side.

“Yes.”  John replied loudly.

“Where did you take everyone?” 

“Up to dinner.  We have hot food
and supplies.  We invited everyone, no strings, no questions, just come and
eat.” 

The door opened.  A boy stood in
the frame.  He wore jeans, a white t-shirt, an unbuttoned flannel shirt, and
black high-tops.  He had a black bandana on his head.  He was trying to grow
facial hair.  The hair was not cooperating.  John stared at the perfect
stereo-type of an inner-city gang member.

“How come you didn’t wait for me?” 
The boy said defiantly when there was no cause for defiance.

“You were told we were downstairs,
you didn’t come, and you missed the first boat up to 59
^th
and
Fifth.  I’m here now.  If you would like to come up with us, we are taking a
separate car.”

The boy laughed.  “You people, New
York is dead and you still want to stay at the Plaza.  Unbelievable.  Suckers
then, suckers now.”

“Let me get off on the right foot. 
My name is John Dixon.  I have my family with me and 10 other people.  I came
up from South Carolina, met my brother and his family in North Carolina, met
the woman downstairs in Richmond, and met five more people in D.C.  We are here
to meet more survivors.  What is your name?”  John stuck his hand out.

Antonio looked at his hand but did
not take it.  “My name is Antonio Pais.  I grew up in the Bronx.  I can take
care of myself, but thank you for the dinner offer.  If you leave me alone,
I’ll leave you alone.  I want my cut of whatever came out of that truck and is
sitting on the curb.”  He looked at Kelly.  “You can give it to me now, or I’ll
take it when you are gone.  I might do both.”  He kept his eyes on Kelly.  “If
you give me my share now, I won’t tell Sal about the food.”

Solange walked down the hallway. 
Antonio scanned her with his eyes, his head moving up and down.  He let out a
whistle.  “Now that’s what I am talking about.”  He said something in Spanish
to Solange.  She stopped, squinted her eyes at him, and smiled.

“I am only interested in men, not
little boys.  I would be more likely to change your diaper than kiss you.”  She
stood by John and Kelly.  “I speak English.  It is not polite to speak another
language when they do not understand.” 

Antonio spoke in Spanish, looking
at John and Kelly as he said something.  Solange did not acknowledge him.

“Okay then.”  John said.  “Antonio,
if you would like to join us for dinner, we’re leaving.  If you want to stay
here, that works too.  From your comments, I guess we’ll put the supplies back
in my car.  The group can bring them when they return from dinner.”  He walked
down the hall.  He stopped and turned around.  “It was nice to meet you
Antonio.  We’ll be loading the car.  You have five minutes before we leave.  I
will tell you, my brother is a very good cook.  You will regret your decision
not to come.  There really are no strings.  Come up, eat the food, don’t talk
to us, I don’t care.  We are sharing food.  No agenda.”  John walked away.

Solange reached into her backpack
and took out a bottle of water.  She flipped it to Antonio before turning and
following John. 

Kelly looked at the young man.  “I
hope you come with us Tony.  I know you have food, but a hot meal?  None of us
have had that in a while.  I had two bowls of chili and a few corn muffins.  Think
about it.  We’ll be outside.”  She followed the other two down the hall.

Antonio stood in his doorway
waiting for them to get to the stairs.  When the door closed behind Kelly, he
turned to his room and shut the door.  He went to his single bed, lifting the
sheet that blocked the underneath.  He had several boxes of food, energy bars,
breakfast bars, breakfast drinks.  Most of the boxes were empty or almost
empty.  His supplies were low.  Empty cereal boxes were pushed behind his
dwindling food.

He sat on his bed and thought about
his options.  If he stayed, Sal might come back.  Antonio did not like being
alone with Sal.  If he went, he would get a hot meal.  He looked out the
window, the people were almost done loading.  Antonio jumped off his bed and
ran downstairs.  He made it to the SUV as the last door shut.  He held up his
hands for them to wait.

Kelly opened the back door.

“I’ll take that dinner, but you
better not try anything funny.”  Antonio said, using his best tough voice.

“Not even a knock knock joke.” 
John said in reply.  Kelly shut the door and they pulled away towards dinner.

They were a few blocks east on 22
^nd
when Kelly began to talk again.  “You have to tell me the story of the dog. 
Hubba is it?  I haven’t seen a canine or feline in half a year.  How is it you
have a dog?”

Antonio sat in his own row behind
Kelly and looked out the window in an obvious effort to appear disinterested. 
When Kelly mentioned a dog, he looked towards John and Solange.  “You have a
dog?”  He asked.  Antonio loved dogs.  He had three dogs in his apartment in
the Bronx.  While his friends bought Rottweilers and Dobermans, Antonio picked
up strays from the SPCA.  His gang nickname was ‘Mutt.’

Solange saw the first spark of
interest from Antonio.  “We do have a dog.  John’s sister in law rescued it
from a house in Raleigh.  It was left behind, and lived in its own filth with
no food or water for months.  Like all of us, the dog is a survivor.”

“He looks great now.”  Kelly
replied.  “I can’t wait to check him over.”

Antonio gave a simple, “that’s
cool,” and went back to staring out the window.  Instead of a sneer, he had a
faint smile on his face.  Solange could see his mood brighten as she continued
to talk about Hubba.

“He smells up the RV.  Something
about the breed, he has horrible gas, but he is a good dog.  He is very friendly
with the kids, sleeps most of the time.  He loves to have his belly rubbed.” 
Solange crinkled up her nose when she talked about Hubba’s gas. 

“Bulldogs know how to make it
funky, that’s for sure.”  Kelly spread her arms across the back of her bench
seat. 

“How long did you stay in your
building?  You know, waiting for the world to end?”  John asked Kelly. 

“I had enough food for five weeks. 
God, if I knew how horrible this winter would be, that food would have
stretched for twenty weeks.”  She wore a wry grin and shook her head.

“I filled bathtubs in every
apartment, assuming the water was going to run out at some point.  I saw this
movie about zombies taking over London, and this father and daughter had plenty
of food, but they ran out of water, and it didn’t rain, so they had to leave
their safe apartment.”

“28 Days”  John replied.  “I love
that movie.”

“Yeah, well, I learned from that
one, make sure you have water.  I filled all the bathtubs.  I watched the smoke
rise from the other side of the park.  I heard the gunfights at the
Metropolitan.  I stayed low in my penthouse, but no one ever came.  Two weeks
after the fires and firefight, I didn’t see anyone on the streets.  There were
no cars.  There were no sounds.  I would hear an occasional airplane, but that
was maybe once every other day.  I decided to go outside, walk around.  I went
down the stairs and out the front door.  There was a big black ‘X’ painted
right on my building’s door.  My building was marked as dead.  No one was going
to bother me if I stayed there, but my food would not hold out.”  Kelly looked
out the window at the buildings.

“You see all these buildings?  They
probably have food in them, but the food is behind these dead bolted steel
reinforced apartment doors, and you can’t even get into the buildings without
smashing some triple pane wire sewn glass.  Then you get into the apartments
and there really isn’t much food.  A box of pasta or some cans of soup or my
favorite is a box of cake mix.  That’s all I could find when I finally got into
places.  New Yorkers weren’t big on pantries or stockpiles.  The bodegas were
everyone’s pantries, and they sold out in the second week of the panic.  Food
is not easy to come by.  I’m not the strongest person, but even someone who has
strength, like Antonio,” Kelly motioned with a flick of her head towards the
boy.  “He expends more energy getting into places to look for food than what he
gains in the food he can find.” 

Antonio looked forward and nodded. 
“Manhattan was a horrible place to stay.  I kept telling everyone, we need to
go to Queens and go to neighborhoods.  We need to find places we can get into
by breaking windows, not smashing through metal doors, but then it snowed, and
we got stuck.  I kept telling you, didn’t I Kelly?”

Kelly nodded.  “He did, and we
should have listened, but we were scared, and we had the kids by then.  Bernie
had this great place with a fireplace, radiant heat, and she had some food
stored, and we thought we had enough, but we didn’t have close to enough, so
here we are.”

They were almost to the park.  
Antonio looked out the front window.  He could see the tables and fire pits. 
He saw the kids, girls, Ahmed, Bernie, and Jamie eating off plates.  He saw
cups and pitchers of something white.

“Holy shit.”  He said.  “You have
milk?  How the hell do you have milk?”

“My brother has goats.”  John was
excited to hear Antonio warming to the dog and milk aspects of his group.

“Damn, I told you we should have
left Manhattan, Kelly.  I told you.”  He leaned forward in his row, his head
sticking over Kelly’s seat.  He licked his lips, almost visibly drooling. 
“Damn, we should have left Manhattan.  Milk?  I’d drink monkey milk right now.”

They exited the van.  Todd walked
towards John and Solange.  “Everyone is eating well, that’s for sure.”  He
turned to Antonio, his hand outstretched.  “Hi, Todd Dixon.” 

Antonio looked at Todd’s hand and
did not take it.  “I’m here for the food, fool.  I’m not here to make friends. 
Where’s my plate, and I want some milk.”  The boy’s chest was puffed out.  He
stood as tall as he could.

“Everything is over there.”  Todd
replied, pointing to the buffet style table of food. 

“Wow, everyone else in the group
has been so friendly.”  Todd told John and Solange.

Antonio stopped and turned back
around.  “What did you say?”

Todd turned to Antonio.  “I said
the rest of your group is friendly.  You are not.  Am I wrong in that
statement?”  There was a pause in the table conversation as Antonio looked at
Todd, moving his eyes up and down.  He looked at John, standing behind Todd,
then over at Peter and Matt at the table.  Antonio realized his situation, his
weak position.  He backed off.

“Whatever, fool, just give me my
damn food.”  Antonio turned back to the table and piled pasta on a plate.  He
poured himself a glass of milk, drank it, and poured another glass.  He found
an end seat at the table next to a fire, and sat to eat.

Everyone was silent, nervous
Antonio spoiled their dinner invitation.  John dismissed the tension and walked
to the table.  “I’m glad you came to meet us.  Everyone enjoying the food? 
Thank you for coming.”

The first person to speak was
Avery, the young woman who John judged to be between 17 and 21 years in age. 
She was so thin it was hard for John to be accurate with her age.  “I’ve used
up most of my faith and hope over the last six months, but I can honestly say
this is the best meal I have ever had in my life.  You have come into our lives
when we needed it most.  Thank you.  Thanks to all of you.  Meredith and I will
come to New Hampshire with you.  We can’t stay here anymore.  We won’t.”  She
turned to Bernie.  “I’m sorry, Bernie, but faith hasn’t fed us.  Hope hasn’t
fed us.  I need to go with these people.”