Drink for the Thirst to Come Read online

  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.

  Boss must have had a good peek and plink over her. Boss had looked but had not bit. Nor had let his kickers bite. Chris strolled by, didn’t gaze, didn’t sniff. To the far end of the room. He picked and touched at nothing much, fingered stuff he’d no notion what. In the meander he gave kicker Stosh a peek.

  Stosh gave a snort.

  Snort’s good as a nod. Chris shopped some, then wandered back. No care, no goal till there he was at the ’cove where the girl was propped, showing color, style, and self.

  She was not a bit. Might be one who’d do it for love or fun or if you were someone special, like what Jaycee was studying to be back… Enough. Fuck them and Jaycee too.

  “You,” he said.

  She didn’t blink.

  “Where the hell’d you come from, you?”

  “Why, you are charming!” she said, almost a little bunny song.

  Close-to, she wasn’t so young, thirty maybe, hiding age. Like him. Knew how, too. Kept her skills. More amazing, she still had stuff to do it. And now he sniffed, girl had an interesting stink to her. Not bad, not like him, but sweat and something else.

  “You’re a newson, ain’t you? Fresh meat?”

  “Utterly charming man.”

  “You a walk-in? Duster? Where you from?”

  “A place you’ve never been.” The back of his neck quivered with the look she gave him, up-and-down. She let it hang. “I found my way. My own way, yes.” She leaned closer. “Do you have,” her breath was clean, “baths here?”

  Damn near snotted himself. “We do. You don’t.”

  Again the look, the smile. “So your excuse might be…?”

  “We get baths when we get water. You get water when you’re worth your water. You ain’t worth.”

  “‘Worth,’” she smiled the word, “I hear that a lot.”

  “You’re coming with me.”

  “And I would do that because?”

  “Because I say.”

  She looked at the rest of the ’teria. She eyed kicker Stosh, others. Then looked again at Chris. “Are you a father?”

  “What?”

  “Have you ever been a father?” she said.

  “I got a working pair, that’s what you mean!”

  Again, the look that tingled.

  She’s figuring! I tell her she’s coming and she figures! “Look, I say ‘you,’ you come. I get the kicker over—him you’re eyeing—he’ll decide you, toot sweet. I’m jobbing for the Boss; he’s the Daley here. You come with, be part and pick you up some worth maybe, maybe you get that bath and…”

  On “bath” she slipped her butt off the stool and snaked out of the ’cove like a slink, like he’d dipped her from a vendor bin! “Coming?” she said.

  They drew grub and drink, pulled cleaned-out breather silks. Chris dug out a pretty good flashlight, bats, and carry bags.

  “Use up them bats, Harp, and I use up you!” the admin said, handing out the shit.

  Chris nodded. “Give a kid a list and a lock and he grows him kicker’s balls.”

  The girl looked at the admin boy and followed Chris.

  The sun was as up as it got. Long Season might be ending—was ending, Boss’d said—still, clouds were thick and day was barely brighter than old-time Texas winter twilight.

  “Where to, boss?” she said.

  He about decked her, calling him Boss, then figured her ignorant and let it slip.

  “There.” Chris tipped his chin across the miles of pulvered deadland toward the ragged line of crud and masonry, toward the forever bong-bong that was Chicago.

  They weren’t 100 steps Wetward when she put it out there. “And where were you on The Day, Prince Charming?”

  They made another 50, 60 steps into the deadland. “Driving bus,” he said.

  “Sorry, what?”

  He raised his voice above the wind and pulver hiss. “I was driving my bus. Perrytown to Dolph Station.”

  “Oh. Not Chicago. I know Chicago.” She chuckled. “Knew it when.”

  “Most who knew Chicago-that-was are pulver,” he said a dozen steps later. He kicked ground. It rattled like old bone.

  “Right you are, Mr. Driver. Most. Not all. Bet you didn’t know that. There are a few left. Yep.”

  “Okay!”

  “And you? You’re from the south? Yes? Somewhere in Dixie?”

  He’d known her half an hour, best. Already he cherished the memory of silence.

  “Dolph Station. That’s Texas.”

  “Huh,” she started…

  “Nobody hit D.S. Nobody hit Perrytown. I was between them, anyway.” She drew breath. “The Panhandle! ‘No Man’s Land’ old folks called it.”

  “Missed the war?”

  “Maybe.” He’d missed it, hadn’t heard the warnings, hadn’t caught the news, never saw a flash. Maybe something. Maybe the earth jumped, maybe he’d caught a flicker in the sky. Maybe he thought a thunderstorm was coming and kept looking for rain. He liked driving in rain. None came. Time they got to Perrytown, Wave One was over. No more Austin, Houston, Dallas, Galveston, no more much of anything. No TV, radio, no electric anything. Everything had gone silent, “Pulse-Dead” folks said. The Day had come and gone. He’d missed it. “Okay. Never even seen pictures.”

  “So all this,” she spread her arms, “is just hearsay!”

  And she laughed, a real nice laugh, a running brook, close to the heart. She talked too much, said shit made him want to deck her, but her laugh. He hadn’t heard that in a time.

  He kicked some pulver into a little whirly-wind that stirred alongside the path. “Yep. One day maybe I’ll wake and find it ain’t so! So, where were you on The Day?”

  Slipped out. Stupid. Stupid. Everyone asks. But everyone doing don’t make a thing not stupid.

  “Right here.” She pointed down. “I’m a Chicagoan and lived to tell.” There was another laugh. “’Course, I never saw it, either.” Just a giggle, this time. What the hell, he’d heard that giggle a million times, bunnies on the bus. Never understood it.

  “’Course not,” he said.

  “But you? How did you get here? From Gulf…?

  “Dolph.”

  “Dolph, Texas, then?”

  “Dolph Station.”

  The day darkened, the air chilled. From the brightest morning in years, the clouds layered one sheet atop another. Little winds rose here and there, whirligigs of pulver climbed between them and the horizon. Not enough to raise a wraith but distance vanished. Rain coming, snudfall maybe.

  He picked up the pace. “Walked,” he said.

  “Hm.”

  He gutted the urge to smack her and picked up the pace again.

  He could have told her, would have been something to do, walking. Why bother, why talk? The Walk took a year. Before that they’d waited. Waited for the government. Waited for the Long Season to end. Waited for someone to say. Month on month, night and cold, wind eternal from the north raised whole counties of Oklahoma, Colorado, Kansas. The wind rolled them down Dolph Station way. Blowing ice cut like knives, and the dust, forever dust, filled his guts.

  When Chris’d been a kid, Grandpa told of dusters down in ’34. Mutt Harp had seen them.

  Christian Harp saw them now, living mountains of breathing black where God’s blue sky and far horizons ought to be. He saw twister winds descend, bow down, lay on their sides, become miles-long rollers that sucked earth, sand, houses, lives, into the black rising giant, then drove it down, grinding, pulverizing.

  They left no food or power. No cars, trucks, planes or trains. No buses. Gas was done. The wind drifted roadways, runways, railroads under—under forever. Hell, where’s to go anyway? And there was Chris Harp, a roller where nothing rolled, a man without worth.

  After a year, maybe more, t

  here came a lee. A few were left. Some put wind to their backs, headed south toward the Gulf. Fuck that. Chris had
seen the Gulf pissed-off! He and the worthless rest, a hundred, maybe more, headed into the wind, Panhandle to the Chicago Waste, east and north a thousand miles, maybe more.

  They walked another year of Long Season. Nobody knew what but winter had come forever. Along the way there’d been a dozen dusters, dusters that stretched as far as there was of east and west across the night dark plains of No Man’s Land.

  The Walkers knew the storm was always with them, knew there only was one storm, that monster who lived in the earth and waited for the wind to wake it. They hid from the worst and walked in calms between, but even when the beast lay down, there was no stillness, just a dark moan that rolled, and kept rolling until the beastie rose and filled a walker with Himself. Dust pneumonia, they called it, dust cancer, sometimes. Touched by it, you kept going or you didn’t. Most didn’t. No heroes in the walk. How many reached the Wastes? Of the hundred? Five, six? He didn’t know. He didn’t know them. They were just dust on foot, just them that hadn’t dropped. He was one.

  Fuckem all.

  “And?” she asked again.

  “What? Nothing. Winter came and didn’t end. Grub was gone so we walked. Took a year. Most died.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “Apparently.”

  “I see.” She walked. “After Wave One, you walk out of Texas to Chicago?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “And on your way you dined upon?”

  “Thistle. Butter. Rabbit.”

  “Thistle…”

  “What you call tumbleweed. Russian thistle! You never…?”

  “Butter…”

  “Never took roach butter…?

  She swallowed a puke.

  “Rabbit’s rabbit! You never seen a Jack stamp?”

  “Jack?”

  “Rabbit!”

  “A jackrabbit stamp?”

  “Pede. Stampede!”

  “Bunnies on the run? A fearsome sight I’d bet.”

  What she don’t know, he thought.

  Chris and the girl pointed noses toward the bong-bongs. They crossed from Center turf into the deadlands. Funny, he thought, just this morning, I thought to find that bong-bong’s reason…

  The air was clear enough so that jagged stump of the Monadnock and a few other buildings marked the Heath and Hollows on a hazy horizon. Señor Temoco, he’d find them, sure.