A Different Alchemy (8 page)

When they got home she would tell him, “Don’t you see? Everyone is wondering why we would try to have a kid when there was almost no chance he would be regular? I still don’t know how you convinced me.”

That part sent him storming out of the house so he didn’t yell at her. The argument didn’t end there, however. It followed them like an army of termites, hiding behind walls, hiding in dark cracks where it looked like nothing existed, always there, always eating away bit by bit. Sometimes they had the argument twice in one month. Then, as though they had finally exterminated it, it would go away for two years. It always found ways to sneak out again, though.

That night in bed, as the argument became an old memory and everything surrounding them in the room reminded them that they were a married couple of thirty years, they again said they were sorry, both saying they loved the other. If they couldn’t help having the argument, they could at least finish it on a civil note.

Jeffrey looked over at the clock and then smiled. “This is the latest we’ve been up in a long time.”

“When we were first dating, we used to stay up this late all the time. Do you know how mad my father used to get when I’d come home late? You’re going to be exhausted for work tomorrow morning.”

“Who cares? Let’s stay up all night.”

She giggled a little, then kissed him.

And they did stay up all night. They talked about the types of people they had been when they were young and dumb. They talked about how they were the only couple they knew who had stayed together after high school, made it through college, and gotten married. All of the other couples had seemed so intent on spending the rest of their lives together too, but they all fell apart the way young romance is bound to do.

“We must have done something right,” she said.

Jeffrey kissed her forehead, then her mouth. “I don’t know how you’ve put up with me all these years.”

They talked about the vacations they had gone on in the years prior to Galen being born. There was the honeymoon to Tunisia, the vacation with her sister and her sister’s husband to the Caribbean, the backpacking trip to hike part of the Oregon trail. Eventually, they got so sleepy that it was tough to keep their eyes open.

The last thought Jeffrey had as he fell asleep was that everything was going to be fine Nothing could defeat them. Not a dwindling city. Not the lost hope of grandchildren. Not the unknown. Definitely not a couple of guys spouting fear on TV. Everything really would be OK. And then he fell asleep.

**

Whenever there was a possible fork in his path, he stayed to the right, close to the sand and the water. The roads were mostly intact, but in some parts they had already deteriorated enough that only the tank would have been able to pass through town; even an SUV would break an axle or have a tire shred apart.

Just outside Keyport he came to a crevice in the road, the size of a swimming pool. The tank dipped into the road until the turret scraped earth as the machine tilted downwards. If the hole were any larger, even the tank would have become stuck. It was easy for a man in a tank to feel invincible, but that one moment was enough for Jeffrey to stop taking his machine for granted. If he abused the capability the tank offered, recklessly putting it in a situation to get stuck, he wouldn’t have any other way to keep traveling, except by foot.

The roads, as a whole, were what he expected after the stories he had heard from people coming down from the north. There were some sections of land that didn’t seem so bad, but then he drove over other parts that gave credence to the fear-mongers saying the caravan from Philadelphia to Washington would never make it.

It seemed like it should be a simple thing to get a line of vehicles from one point to another. General Patton was able to move thousands of vehicles against an entire army. But times were different. A car would, inevitably, break down, a road would be blocked, people would start crying, Blocks had to be fed and changed. You couldn’t very well pull up next to these people and scream at them that they had better follow orders or the Germans would be victorious.

Giant holes in the ground and the constant broken roads along the beach made Jeffrey switch over to the Garden State Parkway. It was in better condition, but was also littered with abandoned cars everywhere. The tank was continually swerving left and right to avoid cars scattered about like marbles.

In a little town called Keasby, he saw a single ribbon of smoke drifting up into the sky. The inferno at the stadium made this tiny string of grey seem trivial. The smoke’s source, whether it was a family with a fire going to stay warm, a grill to prepare dinner in the backyard, the remnants of a house burning to the ground, could not be seen. He sped the tank up to get past the smoke. Every time he saw something unique, no matter what it was, he imagined Galen being there with him so his son could see it too. But this time, seeing the smoke, he didn’t want to think of his boy.

The first parts of 95 he saw looked like a war zone; the tank fit in nicely. He was only on the highway for a mile before a small caravan of vehicles approached from the north. The line of cars was led by two monster trucks, their wheels as tall as the tank, a body that was jacked up so high the driver needed a ladder to get up and down. Behind the pair of giant trucks was a line of SUVs, the biggest of which looked like a toy compared to the trucks. The main section of vehicles only numbered about thirty. Another ten or so trailed further behind. Jeffrey kept the tank to the side of the road so he wasn’t in their way. As they passed by him, he saw each driver and all of the passengers staring at the tank in confusion. None of them slowed down, though, to ask why a tank was heading north. None of them offered as much as a wave or a smile.

Only the very last car in the procession pulled over to the side of the road. A middle-aged man rolled his window down and stuck his head out.

“I have more than one hundred gold bars in my trunk,” the man said. “I’ll give you half of them in exchange for the tank.”

“What do the gold bars do for me?” Jeffrey asked.

The man looked stunned. “Each bar is one hundred ounces of gold. And you’d have over fifty of them. Do you know how much that’s worth?”

“What does it do for me, though?” Jeffrey said, staring intently at the man.

“Fine, you can have all one hundred bars.”

“What do you think I’ll do with it?”

The man looked at the other SUVs beginning to get away from him, then looked once more at the tank. “Screw yourself,” the man yelled before giving Jeffrey the middle finger and speeding ahead to join the rest of the caravan.

A couple of minutes after the first procession was gone, the second part approached. This group had no monster trucks or SUVs, but consisted of sedans and mini-vans. This next batch of cars zigged and zagged back and forth across the highway, following the lead car’s path to avoid the major potholes. Some of the vehicles were driving on flat tires, the rubber flapping against the ground. It was a matter of time until the tire tore completely off and it was bare metal on concrete. It would be soon after that when the car wouldn’t be able to go further anymore. And by that time the monster trucks and the SUVs would be out of sight and gone.

Unlike the first group, the passengers in these cars stuck their heads out the open windows and stared at the tank as though it were an omen meant to bring them safety. Some of the people waved at him until they saw the tank was continuing past them in the opposite direction without stopping. The friendly waves turned to pleas for help.

One man yelled, “Where are you going?” Another screamed, “Please stop. Please help us.”

But the tank kept going.

Twenty minutes later, between Jersey City and Elizabeth, only two miles in actual traveling distance, Jeffrey came upon a single car broken down on the side of the road. The tags said it was from New York. The front bumper was resting on the ground. Both of the driver’s side tires were flat. The back wheel looked like it might be too bent to put on a spare. Behind the car, connected to its bumper, was a small trailer with luggage and spare tires. A man was standing next to the car, his golden retriever at his side. The man had his hands on top of his head as if pleasantly amused to see a tank roaming around.

Jeffrey thought about his parents and how easy their trip south had been years earlier. This was before the Great De-evolution and the first signs that no new children would grow up to think, create, provide. They had merely stepped on a plane and flown down. Their furniture, their belongings, arrived in a truck three days later. Their story seemed magical now.

Instead of people flying south, planes crashed before they could ever take off, the runways unfit anymore for the giant machines. Instead of people taking cruise liners for a tour of the Caribbean, random men with no sailing experience stole whatever boats they could find, and either ended up back on shore ten minutes later or else they drifted into the middle of the ocean until their urine was brown and they were drinking ocean water as a last resort.

The man said something to his dog which Jeffrey couldn’t hear, then he let out a relieved sigh upon seeing that Jeffrey was wearing khakis and a t-shirt instead of fatigues or gang clothes, was smiling instead of yelling demands.

“Hello,” Jeffrey said softly, as though his voice might have forgotten how to work.

“Thank you for coming back and getting me,” the man said. “We owe you one.”

“I’m not with the people you were traveling with,” Jeffrey said. Hadn’t the man noticed there was no tank in the procession? “No one is coming back from your group. They’re gone.”

The man looked for the tail end of the caravan, but it was no longer in sight. “Who are you with, then?”

“I’m by myself.”

“I’m sure we can catch up to them,” the man said. As if on cue, the dog gave a friendly bark.

“I’m going that way,” Jeffrey said, pointing north.

The other man frowned. “Why are you heading that way? Are you on a special mission?”

You couldn’t very well blame the man—why else would someone with a tank be driving north unless it was part of some covert orders?

“My only special mission is seeing if I can help you. Then I’m back on my way.”

“Are you sure you aren’t with our group?”

“I’m sure.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to join our group?”

“I’m sure.”

There was no point to carrying on that type of conversation. Neither of them would leave feeling any better.

“Where are you coming from?” Jeffrey asked.

“Near Norwalk. About thirty miles outside New York City.”

The man was worse off than Jeffrey first thought. At least let him be from Syracuse and have made tangible progress. He asked how long the man had been traveling.

“Two days.” Then, as if it needed explaining, “The roads are rough. But I’m sure someone will come back for us when they notice we’re missing.”

It was only then that Jeffrey noticed a second figure, motionless, still sitting in the car.

“My daughter,” the man said.

As his eyes adjusted to the sunlight, Jeffrey could see flies all over his daughter’s face, buzzing every which way. A shudder ran through him. Then the smell hit him. Rotting skin. Feces.

“Jesus Christ,” Jeffrey said, taking a step backwards.

“I know what you must think, but it’s not like that. I’m not crazy or anything. I know she must not look too good right now. She passed away right before we left for this drive. But I promised my wife she would get to see our daughter again. I promised her.”

“Where’s your wife?” He had no idea why he was asking.

“She’s already in Baltimore. She’s waiting for us there. Once I get there, we’ll bury Lorrie. But I can’t bury her until my wife gets to see her again. I promised.”

“You’ll never make it.”

“But we have to. I promised my wife.”

Jeffrey walked to the trailer behind the man’s car, took the spare tire off the cart and dropped it next to the flat.

“Listen, we can try to swap out a tire, but I’m not sure it’ll go on. The wheels are bent pretty bad. Even if you do get going again, you won’t make it far. I’d suggest you take the next exit and settle down at the first place you find.”

“Don’t bother changing the tire,” the man said. “I appreciate the help, but two tires are flat and I only have one spare left. But don’t worry, someone will come back for me, I’m sure.”

“You can’t just sit here and wait. You’ll be waiting till you die.”

“But we can’t leave our group.” The man rubbed his dog behind the ear while he spoke. “If we leave the road, they won’t be able to find us. And Lorrie needs to see her mom again.”

“Your group is already gone. You won’t see them again.”

“I’m sure they’ll send someone back for us,” the man said.

The dog did not offer an agreeable bark this time.

“Why would you want to go with them anyway?”

“They said on the radio that everyone in Philly was getting ready to head south to Washington. I figured I would go with them as far as Baltimore and then meet up with my wife.” The man looked off in the distance again. “I just don’t want to get left behind.”