A New Day in America (10 page)

“You can die right now, if you prefer.”

The doctor declined. Nos left him sprawled on the foot of the bridge. As he drove off, Nos wondered if he would change his mind and take the long plunge to the Henry Hudson River.

Bells chime from down the road in a steady rhythm. Nos fixes his sights toward the sound. A monkish chant follows. Five raggedy men in dirty white robes with frayed hems holding sticks and bibles.

Nos walks toward the windmill garage holding Naomi’s hand. Dust follows their footsteps. The chanting missionaries come closer. One holds a crude cross with a white banner with a red image of a flaming chalice—three brush strokes: a circle, a candle, and a flame inside. A haggard man calls out to everyone and no one.

“God has a plan. And the Bible unfolds that wonderful plan through the message of prophecy.”

The missionary’s feverous eyes find Nos.

“God sent Jesus into this world to be our savior, and Christ has returned to unfold the wonderful plan of eternity for my life and your life. As long as we’re cooperating with God by accepting Jesus Christ as our lord and savior.”

The missionary offers his hand to Nos. Nos reluctantly takes it. They stink like locker room and rotten onion.
Why are the messiest people the first to offer advice?

“Have you yet accepted Christ as your lord and savior?”

“So this is God’s plan?” asks Nos, part entertained. The missionary grips his hand.

“Of course, my brother. And we live for a reason, like Noah in His wrathful floods.” The missionary covers their interlocked hands with his other as his faithful look on. “My purpose is to spread the Word of the Revelation, the Word that saves souls. You have survived the fires, the famine, and the disease, therefore
you
are here for a reason, brother. Have you yet discovered purpose?”

Nos glances to Naomi, who looks bored.

“Ah yes, your daughter. He has not forgotten her either. It is not too late for her. Do not despair, child. It is only too late for the non-believers who defied God’s plan before that day of sweet judgment. Those souls are lost to eternal fire.”

Yvette
, thinks Nos
. Joachim. Mikey
.

“And those who are sick with the mark of Cain are so cursed by the worst of His Wrath.”

The rash
, thinks Nos.
He’s worked this out rather neatly
.

“The sick are cursed?” asks Nos.

“None are innocent. God tells us so. To be born is to sin. God is here, with us, showing the way. Yet it is not too late for any of us. You may escape Hell yet.”

Nos looks around and shakes his head.
Hell
. “I think we got that covered.”

Nos and Naomi walk on, hand in hand, as the missionary cries fire and brimstone.

Sick
. It was her sickness, her runny nose on Black Friday one year ago that saved Naomi’s life. Yvette’s hysteria.
She’s sick. She can’t go. She’s sick
. Being sick saved her life and now being sick would take it.
Cursed, says the preacher
.

Maybe so
.

Nos knocks on the garage door beside the RICE $10 sign. A voice calls from a second story window.

“Yes?”

“Looking for food,” Nos calls.

“Got money?” asks the voice from on high.

Nos holds out a fold of twenties, though he can only guess what paper money is really worth these days.
Probably different for everyone, depending on what they need
.

The garage slowly cranks open. The ground floor is a wide-open workshop with tools scattered about. A generator hums and several drum cans burn fires below various pots. A Suburban with its hood open stands in the corner. An enormous pale man is bent to the engine with his crack smiling at his guests. A stairway climbs to the second level where they likely sleep and shower, and a large crucifix dangles from the ceiling. A gangly teen sits at the second level by the window, holding a rifle. He nods to the larger man.

The pale man turns and wipes the grease from his fingers with the stained rag on his shoulder. His hair and cheeks are red and his white tank top is sweated through. There’s a gap in the teeth of his welcoming grin.

“McGinnis,” he says, offering his hand. Nos takes it—workman’s hands, nails short and dirty, stout palm. Good shake.

“Nos Greene. This is Naomi.”

“Nos, huh? Pleased to meet you. Hungry?”

“You guessed it.”

“Well we don’t got no stew today, but there’s some good clean water and rice as always, and we got some beans.”

“Sounds perfect.”

Nos chats up McGinnis for a bit, telling him how things are in New York and hearing rumor of the rest of the country.

“Haven’t moved about much at all,” McGinnis says. “Just workin’ on this here garage. I was a mechanic, so I just keep doing what I do.”

“People come through here?”

“Some. Mostly local.”

“Safe enough?”

“Not even sure what that means anymore. Minute you start thinkin’ it’s safe is when it aint.”

“Got that right.” Nos nods and looks about the garage. He sees a first aid kit with a red cross.

“There was a supply drop in Central Park,” Nos tells the mechanic. “Inoculations and such.”

“Yep, there’s a set-up just like that in Lincoln Field. Got my shot months ago, been holdin’ up ever since.”

“You heard of the Chef?” Nos asks.

“The Chef? What, my cookin’ not good enough?”

“It’s fine,” says Nos. “Just a man I’m looking for.”

On the second floor there is a makeshift shower heated by a barrel fire below. McGinnis offers a shower and a night’s sleep for a few more dollars.

Others come. A group of three pale tatted up men with thin lips and hard, stupid mouths. They talk to each other like a backward family where everyone thinks everyone else is dumber than they are.
In this case, they’re all correct
. They barely acknowledge Nos and Nay, and when they do, they sneer and mutter to one another. Their daddy comes—a heavyset gray man with gray skin like ash and tatted sleeves. They huddle on the opposite side of the garage as McGinnis gets back to work.

The garage door cranks open and lets in the sunlight outlined by a tall silhouette and three dogs. The door closes and Nos sees a woman in the garage light—hood pulled over her head, mouth almost smirking. Three long leather dog leashes are wrapped around her extended wrist, and the dogs pull forward with hulking muscular shoulders and powerful jaws—well-fed, pure-bred, red-nose pit bulls. When she sits and drops the three leashes, the dogs sit as well, sturdy and alert.

The family twitches at her entrance, like she and the dogs are a puzzle to be solved: the curious fact that she had managed to keep three one hundred pound dogs well fed while able bodied-men starved. The family’s dumb eyes rake her like a pinup.

One of the boys offers a hello and two dogs snarl and growl where they sit.

“Easy, Killah,” she says.

“That’s some beasts there,” the boy says as his cheek goes red. “I advise a muzzle.”

“I advise the same,” she replies.

Nos stands and the three dogs turn to him. They sniff and the one dog who didn’t growl before growls now, but the other two wag their tails and open their mouths and show their teeth like a smile. The third has a different growl than the others—it’s warmer and almost a whine.

“Strange,” says the woman.

She eats her bowl of rice, and the four men head out and call to her and snicker. After a few minutes she removes her hood.

Her skin is like dusk. She looks young, as though she hit twenty-two and never aged a day. She turns to Nos. Her head is held high, her chin pointing at him before it lowers and she stares, squinting to read him. A scar slices down the break of her cheek.

“Nice coat,” she says.

His navy trench coat is filthy. “Thanks.”

She is smiling crooked to the other side. The smile is like a soft left jab—it is
alive
, and it paradoxically gives the impression she would wear it both to and in the grave.

“I was being sarcastic,” she says.

The tail of a tattoo creeps up her neck the way Naomi’s red rash is beginning to shape. Her breasts are strapped down though irrepressible, pulling her camo shirt away from her stomach, and in between, her heart seems to be visibly pulsing, as though hers beats closer to the surface than other people.

“Beautiful,” says Nos.

“Save it.”

“I meant the dogs,” he says.

She smiles, pauses, and laughs. “Got me.”

“What are their names?”

“Killah, Face, and Ghost.”

“Are you serious?”

She nods.

“Ghostface Killah?”

“My ex-boyfriend was a Wu-Tang fanatic.”

“Hmm.”

“He was an idiot.”

“And you?”

“I’m not an idiot.”

“I meant your name.”

“Leila. You?”

“This is Naomi. I’m Nos,” he says.

She raises an eyebrow. “Nos? What kind of name is that?”

“Nostradamus,” he says, reminding him of all the times he’s fielded questions about his name in more social days.

“Are
you
serious?”

“I am.”

“Were your parents conspiracy nuts?”

“No. My mother has a family tradition where when a baby is born, the youngest child gets to name it. My sister—she was four—saw something about Nostradamus on TV and just liked the name.”

“Hmm. I thought
nosotros
. Spanish for ‘we.’”

He looks at Nay.

“Yeah. ‘We.’ What my wife used to say.”

Nos is with Yvette when he sleeps, because in sleep he is most aware of her absence. He awakes, startled at the sound of gunfire. He opens his eyes and there isn’t a sound.

Nos lies on a cot in the dusty garage. His feet hang off of the end onto the floor. Naomi is huddled on the cot beside him. Leila is on the other cot with the three dogs sprawled across her and each other, wherever they can fit. They seem by far the most comfortable creatures out of anyone. Yet moments before he was certain he was being shot at.

Leila rustles and the dogs spring awake. Killah and Face sniff at Nos and he pets them and their tails wag. Ghost hovers back by Leila, glancing askew at the games. Killah and Face snarl and bite at Nos’ hands, and he pushes them here and there and kneels in a crouch and shadowboxes—short jabs, feints, fakes, body hooks. They would be vicious in a real fight. A man should be able to take out one dog, but he’s not sure he could take all three. The dogs focus on his hands like the jaws of a rival and try to catch him, until he lets them win and falls back and they climb on top. Nay giggles and scratches all the bellies she can get.

Leila packs up and puts on her boots, and the dogs know playtime is over.

“Heading out?” asks Nos.

“Moving on,” she says.

Naomi turns to Leila with a start, as though she suddenly realizes this is temporary. Nay and Leila had hardly exchanged a word, had almost regarded one another as dangerous, though not like the other dangers around. Leila smiles at Nay—a different smile than the smirk Nos already regards as a trademark of the woman—softer.

“Where you heading?” he asks.

“West.”

“Hm. Us, too.”

“How far?”

“San Francisco, by way of Indiana. I have a brother out there. So I hope. You?”

She shrugs. “They say San Francisco is something like a real city somehow.”

“Believe it when I see it.”

“Yeah. Still, worth getting out of these wastelands. You got wheels?”

“A few, yeah.”

Leila presses her face into her palm, covering her mouth as if to suspend time long enough to think clearly about something. She strokes the end of her scar with the tip of her finger.

“Say we caravan up,
Nosotros
?”

Naomi brightens, though Nos can tell she’s trying to hide it. He feels wired to her little heartbeat to where he could guess its rate. The heartbeat that depends on the treatment vials in his case. The most valuable thing in the world. What if Leila is sick? Or she has a loved one with the disease? Nos is tempted by the offer, but they can’t afford mercy, or trust.

Yvette
, he thinks. He knows. Dead or not, it’s not right.

“Thanks,” he says. “We best make our own way.”

Leila glances above Nos’ head like she observes some visible puppet strings. She then looks at Naomi.

“No
nosotros
,” she says to herself.

It’s odd that Nay is no longer scared of dogs. They terrified her that night she was alone in the van and Pa was so sick and it was just her and the starving creatures. But she knows now that she can stand up to them and even though these three are way bigger and way scarier, they don’t frighten her one bit. She thinks about how hard times probably are for them and how they really want to play, but are always on guard instead, showing teeth and growling and staring like gargoyles
.

The lady is all dressed and set to leave with her dogs and she seems to hesitate and wait for Pa, but he tells her something about letting Nay sleep a little longer. Nay doesn’t understand because she isn’t tired and even if she was, she wouldn’t say anything, and even if she did Pa would keep them moving anyway. The lady says OK and drops the three leashes as though she didn’t quite mean to, and that is strange because it seems like she never does anything she doesn’t mean to. Pa takes her hand, and it’s like both their hands go soft when they touch. Like all their hardness is gone for a moment and they look at each other like they’re going to need that hardness, and it’s a problem that they’re standing there, losing it. Pa is holding her hand longer than he should. He’s holding it almost like how he touches Nay, but different, too. He never touches anyone like that
.

Still, Nay doesn’t understand why they’re saying goodbye. She’s thinking about her mom and seeing that soft touch and she envies it for a moment. Then the lady picks her up and holds her to her chest and it’s soft and full. Like Mom. The lady kisses Nay’s cheek and squeezes, and Nay finds her hands draped on the lady’s shoulders. It all fits so perfect. When she leaves it’s just her and Pa, and the room is very empty
.