ONE

 

January, 2014

 

My father was an astronaut I think.

I can’t be sure because I was only eight when they all died, and there is no one I knew back then that survived who could tell me if it was true. But I’m pretty sure he was. He worked in Marysville where we lived, and left each morning to go to his job at Cape Canaveral, somewhere outside of the city. I remember hearing that name one day and I asked him what Cape Canaveral was. He told me that’s where they launch rocket ships from, and that he was going to go there. Each day when he left to fly someplace he took his lunchbox with him, and my mother always kissed him goodbye at the front door, telling him to have a safe trip.

Munster, the boy I met after everything went to pieces just before Christmas, told me I was an idiot; that Cape Canaveral was in Florida, not California, and that my father had probably been on his way to the nutty farm, which Munster said is where I should be. I kicked him in the shins when he said that because I’m not crazy, and neither was my father. He said, too, that my father could never have been an astronaut because he wasn’t smart enough, and he bet Daddy never even flew a little plane, let alone a rocket ship. That he probably worked in a gas station because astronauts don’t need lunch boxes, and their kids don’t live in ghettos and wear crappy clothes.

I cried when he said that to me, and that made him feel bad because he apologized.

 

                                                       *

 

I met Munster when I was going up and down the street a couple of months ago, knocking on the James’ front door, and the Raineys’s, and the Horvat’s. Every one of our neighbors that I knew, and lots I had never ever met. No one would answer because they were all dead, even Jason Mark James who was in my grade at school, and lived four doors away. I didn’t want to think about him or his parents or little sister dead inside their house, and I began to cry. I went and sat down on their porch swing and put my hands over my face. I didn’t know what to do, and that scared me very much. I couldn’t call anyone because the phones didn’t work anymore, and neither did the TV or the computer. But then I thought maybe it was just our phone and TV and computer that didn’t work anymore. Maybe the James’ phone was still working, and so I jumped off the swing and wiped the tears out of my eyes. Somebody’s voice stopped me.

“Hi.”

           That’s what Munster first said to me, and I didn’t know whether to run away or jump up and down and clap my hands. He wasn’t carrying a gun or a knife or an axe, and that made me feel safer. I wasn’t alone anymore. He told me his name, and he hadn’t said I was stupid or crazy yet, so we became friends.

Munster told me not to bother trying to get into the James’ house because he’d already broken in. They were all curled up together on their couch, he said, not breathing or moving, and he said, too, that he’d tried their phone and TV, but didn’t bother with the computer. Nothing worked.

“If you don’t believe me,” he said, “I’ll show you the busted window in the back where I threw a brick through and then went in.”

I told him I believed him and then asked where he lived. I lived four doors up, and I pointed.

 

                                                           *

 

I slept at his house starting that night because he had lots of candles and a lighter and I wouldn’t have to cry and be so afraid at night anymore. I slept in his room. I didn’t want to fall asleep all by myself ever again, but I slept on the floor because girls don’t sleep with boys, at least until they get married, and I didn’t like Munster enough yet to get married to him. So I slept on the floor beside his bed with lots of blankets, and a candle sitting on a shoebox close to my head, but not too close. I was so happy to have a friend again, and someone who I could sleep in the same room with. Besides, his mother and father weren’t in the house, and it wasn’t spooky like my house. And it didn’t smell bad. He’d taken his mother and father out into the backyard three weeks ago and dug a grave for them, he said. I asked him if he’d help me dig a grave for my parents the next day, but he said no. So I curled up and went to sleep and dreamed Daddy and Momma were still alive.

Me and Munster spent the next day and the next day and the next walking around the neighborhood where we both lived, looking for anything alive, and I didn’t cry so much, being with him. Munster threw more rocks through more windows a lot, and he went inside and then unlocked the front doors for me. Sometimes I’d go in, but I didn’t like the smell, so sometimes I wouldn’t go in. He took things a lot and brought them back to his house, and my house, now. I guess that was okay because the people were dead and weren’t alive anymore.

I thought I saw a dog down in the ravine near my house. It might have been a coyote, though, because there are lots of them around here—or there used to be—and they creep around at night and eat cats that get out of their owners’ houses. If it was a dog I think it would have been happy to see us, so it must have been a coyote because they don’t like humans.

Yesterday I asked Munster why his parents named him that.

“That’s a funny name,” I said.

“It ain’t my real name. I changed it when I met you.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t like the name my mom and dad gave me.”

“What did you used to be? Maybe I’d like it,” I said to him.

“It was Francis. Francis Moreno Gardella. The kids at school made fun of my name, even though I ask ‘em to call me Frank, not Francis, which sounds like a girl’s name. My friends called me Frank, but the older guys wouldn’t. Harry Podruski is…was…in fourth grade, and I hated him. He called me Francine and sometimes he hit me if I told him to shut up. I’m glad he’s dead.”

“Maybe he isn’t dead,” I said.

“Ha! If he isn’t, then he will be if I see him ‘cuz I found a gun, and I’ll shoot him, just like I would if I saw that coyote.”

That made me sad. I wouldn’t shoot the coyote, and I sure wouldn’t shoot Harry Podruski because that would be murder. I told Munster that.

We didn’t see anyone, not even the coyote again, and so we went back home each afternoon after walking around all day and sometimes breaking into dead people’s houses. At night we played Scrabble, which I wasn’t very good at because I don’t know how to spell that many words, and I wouldn’t cheat like Munster did by looking in the dictionary. So we started playing Monopoly, but he cheated in that game too.

That’s how we lived until the food at our house ran out.

 

                                                           *

It was raining. We were standing outside a gas station under the big awning. Each of us had a plastic bag filled with potato chips and candy bars and a few cans of Coke, but there wasn’t any lightning or thunder. It was one of those mini-mart stores, six blocks or so away from Munster’s and my house. I don’t remember the name, but after we went inside I saw the guy who ran it lying behind the counter, his feet anyway, and there was another guy and a woman lying on our side. They smelled and there were flies all over them. Munster told me not to eat any of the sandwiches in the cooler because there was no electricity and the mayonnaise and meat in them were probably rotten, and it’d make me sicker than a dog. So, I didn’t. But we filled a few bags with stuff we liked that wasn’t meat, and didn’t have mayonnaise in it, and then we left.

It was starting to get dark and I didn’t want to walk anywhere in the rain because I didn’t bring an umbrella or even a raincoat. Munster said we couldn’t stay in the store because the flies had germs all over them and they’d spread them on us. We’d get sick and keel over like those dead people, so we’d have to go back home and hope the flies didn’t follow us.

“Is that what killed everyone?” I asked.

“Prob’ly not, but those people are all rotten and filled with germs, and the flies eat ‘em,” he said.

“What do you think killed everyone then if it wasn’t germy flies?”

He told me he didn’t know, but that it didn’t matter a bit anyway. Everyone except us was just dead. That’s all he knew for sure.

“I don’t think everyone is dead,” I said.

“You’re crazy as hell.

“No I’m not. And don’t cuss at me. We aren’t dead, so everyone isn’t dead. I want to go over to my aunt’s house, Munster. Maybe she’s alive. Can we go there?”

             It started raining harder and I could hear the drops of rain banging on the metal awning above us. It sounded like hail, but I didn’t see any. It was really noisy and it made me scared. Munster looked out at the big parking lot where the gas pumps were and then took out a pack of cigarettes he’d stoled. He’d stoled a lighter, too, but I guessed since the guy who ran the store was dead that it was okay to take whatever we wanted. Except cigarettes because they’ll kill you just like germy flies. Daddy told me that, and so did Momma. But Munster lit one anyway, and I could see he was thinking, and that he wasn’t going to answer my question. So I asked him again.            “Can we go?”

           “Go where?”

           Munster blew out a puff of smoke when he answered me, and he coughed. I knew that the cigarette would make him sick, maybe not as sick as those people inside who died, maybe from fly germs, but if he kept smoking them he would die just as dead. I didn’t tell him that because I was afraid he’d get mad at me, so I just answered his question.

            “I want to go to Aunt Marjorie’s house. Can we go?”

            “We can’t go anywhere until this fuckin’ rain stops.”

            He used that word a lot. I told him that it wasn’t nice, that my parents said I shouldn’t use it one day when they were still alive and I’d asked them what it meant. I kind of knew. It’s just a word lots of grownups and teenagers use. It’s called an adjective, like stupid rain or dumbass rain, but they said not to use it because words sometimes have lots of other meanings. So I didn’t use it.

            I told Munster he shouldn’t use it either a long time ago, but he said it was okay because him and me were the only ones who’d hear it, and if I didn’t like it I could plug my ears.

            “How can I plug my ears because by the time I do, you’ve already said it!”

He laughed. He knew I was right. That didn’t stop him, though. Anyway, no one will care if he uses that word because they’re all dead. He won’t get his mouth washed out with soap or have to go sit on the couch and not be able to use his iPad because of using that word, either.

            Munster is twelve. He’s four years older than me, and he has a funny nose that looks like a Persian kitten’s sort of. It’s squished in at the bottom. I like cats. He has scraggly hair, too, and it’s blonde. It’s scraggly because he can’t go to a hair cutter anymore, and I told him I couldn’t do it because I’ve never cut anyone’s hair, and that if I tried to on his I’d probably ruin it. Munster told me he didn’t care. It could grow down to his you-know-what. He’s taller than me.

            We waited outside the mini-mart for a long time, and finally the rain stopped.

            “Can we go, Munster? Please?”

            He was looking out at the gas pumps where a bunch of cars stood, thinking again I knew. But he answered me.

            “Sure. Follow me.”

            He jumped off the curb into a puddle of water and walked over to one of the cars where there wasn’t a dead body inside or lying right next to it. I ran after him and tried not to step in any of the puddles, so I zigzagged. He opened the door and got in, but he didn’t close the door. One whole side of the car had a big orange flame on it that somebody had painted, and I think that’s why he went to that car. The people that owned it were probably the ones lying dead on the floor back in the store.

            “You can’t drive this car,” I said to him when I got there.

            “Why not?” he answered.

“Because you’re not old enough and you don’t know how. And you don’t have a license.”

            He looked out at me and laughed. He raised his right hand and jingled the keys.

            “This here’s the only license I need.” He was talking about the keys.

            I didn’t say anything. I still keep thinking there are things we can’t do because if we do them we’ll get in trouble. But I didn’t want to get in if he got the flame-car started. If I did we might crash into a pole or something out on the street.

            The flame-car started right up. He pulled the door shut and looked out at me smiling. I ran around the back end and opened the door on the other side. There was a big orange flame on my side, too. After I’d got in I prayed to God to protect us. I don’t like to be in pain. I had a broken arm three years ago when I fell off a swing at the park, and it hurt. If we ran into a pole I imagined having two broken arms and no doctor to fix them or give me pills to make the pain go away. That’s why I prayed. But if we got killed somehow, like if he ran off the side of the bridge into the river, then there wouldn’t be a single person left for God to listen to, and it only made sense that God wouldn’t want that.

            I put my seat belt on and crossed my legs on the seat. If we ran into something I knew my legs wouldn’t get snapped in two when the engine came through the front.

            “Are you sure you can drive, Munster?” I asked him. He was looking down at the gear thing. He had his right hand on it, and his thumb on the lock button of the handle. His legs were stretched out and his foot just barely made it to the gas pedal.

            “Yeah. I used to watch my dad do it all the time.”

            He squirmed around, stretching his chest and neck up so that his eyes could look over the steering wheel.

“I wish I was fourteen. I can barely see over the damn wheel…Hey, look in the backseat and see if there’s a pillow or a box or somethin’ I can put under my butt.”

            “Quit cussing.”

            I took off my seatbelt and looked in the back. There was a green jacket, some crumpled up paper bags, and a whole bunch of beer bottles, but there wasn’t anything that Munster could use to make him taller. That’s when it hit me that back in the store there must be something. I turned around really quick and opened the door again, and then I jumped out and ran across the wet parking lot.

            “Where you goin’?” he shouted. But I didn’t answer.

            I didn’t zigzag this time. I ran right through a puddle of water and my feet got wet, but I didn’t care because if I could find a pillow or a box or something not too tall for Munster, I wouldn’t have to walk anywhere else. I might get killed if he crashed, but I wouldn’t have to walk, and so it wouldn’t matter if my feet were all wet.

            I stopped inside the door and looked up and down the aisle where we got the candy bars, but there was nothing there but more candy bars and things like that. So I ran over to the counter where the man who ran the store was lying, and he was still there. There were little boxes and lots of papers on the shelves behind it, but no pillow or anything tall enough for Munster, so I hopped over the man and went to a big heavy steel door that wasn’t almost closed, and I opened it wider. It was very dark inside because there were no windows and the lights didn’t work anymore because—well, I wasn’t sure why all the electricity that went to the lights was gone. It was just dark.

            I saw a bunch of folded up clothes on a shelf a little ways in, though, and I knew they would work. They were white and about the same height as a big pillow. I pushed the door open all the way and ran to the shelf where I started pulling them out, and I shouldn’t have pushed the door so hard because it bounced off something behind it and then it swung shut and I heard the click, and it got very dark. That scared me. The door clicking shut, and especially the dark.

            There wasn’t a single sound at first. It was quiet. I walked very carefully back to where I thought the door was and hoped I wouldn’t trip on something, but then I thought that was silly because I hadn’t tripped on anything when I first came in, and that was only a few seconds ago.

            That’s when I heard a grown-up’s voice, and then I was very scared, more scared than I ever remember being before. It sounded like whoever said, “Hey” was really close, right on the other side of the tall shelves I had just been at. I wondered if he’d come out, and if he did, if he’d catch me and eat me or just beat me with a pipe or stab me or something horrible.

            I saw that on TV once when Daddy didn’t know I was in the room and the TV was on. That was before him and Momma died. He was watching a movie and a monster was eating all the people on a spaceship. It jumped out from behind things and had a little mouth with teeth that came out of its big mouth with bigger teeth. The people screamed and cried. I watched the little mouth come out at the people, like it was on a stick, but then you couldn’t see anymore, but you could hear the people scream.

            I wasn’t thinking that in the dark room, but I was thinking that the man behind the big shelf had a mouth like the monster’s. That’s all.           

            I found the door and I opened it very quickly because I was very scared. I didn’t want him to catch me, and so I ran and jumped over the man on the floor and the flies and almost slipped, but I didn’t. Just my heel a little. I ran outside, right through the water puddles again, but I didn’t care. I knew he was right behind me.

To be continued...

Impressum

Texte: Patrick Sean Lee (c), 2012
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 01.10.2012

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Widmung:
First, to Pammy. You inspire me. To my grandchildren who speak from a very different and delightful world. To Antonin Dvorak, who isn't really dead.