Slow Apocalypse (68 page)

Dave wondered if this would work for them or against them. Three of the family, including himself, were totally useless in their previous professions as comedy writers. Rachel had been a reporter. Gordon was a teacher. Lake Elsinore probably had plenty of them, and even so, school was out for a period hard to determine. Teddy was a social worker. In the current state of things, there would probably be little need of that.

Seven of them were minor children, one of them mentally challenged, though five were teenagers qualified for heavy labor. Two had been stay-at-home mothers.

Only Lisa and Mark had what everyone would agree were valuable skills. Marian, as a military veteran, could probably do police work well.

That seemed to him the sum total of their human assets. Add in the two vehicles, the supplies they had left, and the horse, and it still didn’t look that promising.

He looked at the panel facing him. Momentarily casting himself as a jury consultant, he added it up as one for, one possible, and three probably against.

It didn’t really feel like a hearing. More like a court-martial.

He introduced himself and everyone present. He was about to go on when he was interrupted by Councilwoman Gold.

“Thank you, Mr. Marshall. I’d like to make a short opening statement, so that you know what’s going on here.

“None of us are happy to be sitting in judgement of refugees. We are sympathetic to them, but the sad fact is that we are overwhelmed. They keep flooding south from the cities of the Los Angeles metro area. Everyone from Corona to San Bernardino seems to be heading our way, or has already arrived. Most of these people have nothing.

“I hope you understand that we feel we have to protect ourselves.”

“Yes, ma’am, we do.” But Gold wasn’t finished.

“I think you can understand, then, that we are extremely worried about being attacked. The people in the camps are getting less-than-subsistence rations. So far they have been mostly peaceful—”

“Because they’re too weak and worn-out to stand up for themselves,” Jankowitz put in. Dave tentatively put him into the “for” column, based on the outburst.

“Possibly,” Gold conceded. “I don’t know how to remedy that.”

“By giving them something to do.”

It was easy to see that this wasn’t a new debate. Jankowitz was for “the people,” the great mass of the desperate. Dave felt sure that Gold was not on his side.

“Mr. Marshall,” Ortiz spoke up. “I’d like to know how you and your family feel about the people outside. Not so much the reasons why
you
want to get in, and why we should let you, but how you feel about the others we aren’t letting in.”

Dave was glad they had discussed it. Without knowing how Ortiz felt about the question, he felt he had to follow his own advice and tell the truth.

“Obviously as an outsider I don’t have a vote here on any matter. And we don’t know much about your situation other than what you’ve just told us, so our opinion isn’t formed by much information. We do understand your fear. We’ve felt it many times ourselves. But I can tell you that, much as we want to become a part of your community, we don’t feel that we are special. I will plead our case, but if we are admitted, we will be on the side of those who want to help those who
aren’t
admitted. We all agree that our best bet would be to do everything we can to turn those refugees into allies with work to do, instead of barring the door and letting them get hungrier and angrier every day.”

“Hear, hear,” Jankowitz shouted.

“Stewart,” Gold protested, “we agreed this is not to be a debate, just a hearing to decide what to do with these people.”

“I’m not debating. Just agreeing. You know where I stand.”

Gold frowned at him, but went on with her statement.

“Right or wrong, we have adopted a policy of admitting new members to our community only in exceptional cases. You stand before us today, and we want to get to know you a little better before we make our decision. Now, we know about the horse and the doctor and the engineer, and that’s all to the good.”

Dave noticed the horse came first on the list. Wouldn’t it be something if the damn animal, which he had seen as a necessary evil and a pain in the ass for much of the trip, made a difference in this hearing.

“Don’t forget what they did to the Overlords,” Ortiz put in.

“Yes, I’m sure we’re all relieved about that, though as an officer of the court I can’t entirely approve of taking the law into your own hands. When this is all over and things get back to normal that might have to be investigated.”

Dave saw Edgar Kovacs give her a slightly startled look.
In other words,
Dave thought,
thanks, and you’re under arrest.
He began to wonder if Attorney Gold was in serious denial about how long it might take for things to get back to normal. Was she expecting to be back at work negotiating contracts and divorces and writing wills in the next few weeks?

“Ms. Gold,” Dave said, “I hope you don’t think we’re trigger-happy. We did what we had to do, just as you are doing at your borders. I hope your police officers and volunteers never have to do what we did…but you may. All of us will be haunted for the rest of our lives by that night of killing.”

“I certainly didn’t mean to imply—”

“Yes, Melanie, I think you went a little too far there,” Kovacs said. “I want to personally thank you, all of you, for wiping out those scum. We’ve always been a peaceful town, a good place to live, and I believe deeply in the concept of law and order. But there is very little order now, and law seems to be inadequate to meet the situation.”

Gold was glaring at him. Dave knew he had made an enemy, but he was pretty sure she had been against them from the start. He looked over at Bob, and his friend gave him a tiny nod.

But was Kovacs on their side?

“All right, I apologize,” Gold said, obviously just to regain the floor. Already Dave hated her. “If we can get back to what I wanted to know at the beginning…” She looked around at her colleagues and no one objected. “Fine. Maybe you can all tell us about yourselves. What you have done, what you might bring to this community.”

Dave looked behind him, and saw Teddy step up.

“I’m Teddy Winston. I’m twenty-eight, the youngest of Bob and Emily’s children. I bicycled from San Diego to Los Angeles to join my family, and it was not easy. I am a social worker, with expertise in drug rehabilitation. I can also function as a scrub nurse.” He went on with a few more biographical details. He did not mention that he was gay. Dave had wondered if he would. It was nobody’s business, but might count against them if any of the five were prejudiced.

To Dave’s surprise, Karen decided to go next.

“I’m Dave’s wife, Karen Marshall. This is my daughter, Addison. What I was best at before all this happened was shopping, I’m afraid. Our family was reasonably well-off, and I lost track of what was important in life. I have gotten a new appreciation for real values. I know how to work hard, and I held a lot of different jobs when we were struggling. My wonderful daughter, Addison, is one of the brightest students in her school, and if there’s anything she doesn’t know about horses I can’t imagine what it is. Addison, do you want to say something?”

“No, Mom. You’ve embarrassed me enough.” She gave the panel a small smile. “I just want to say, I’d like to live here.” Dave put his arm around his daughter and held her tightly against him.

Lisa went next. She spoke awkwardly, giving the bare-bones details of her medical education, residency, and practice, listing the hospitals where she had worked. Nigel and Elyse stood by her side. Nigel was quiet, calm, and articulate, mentioning his 4.0 grade point average and his ambition to be an architect.

“Give me a hammer, a saw, a few tools like that and I can build anything. I know how to fix pipes and work with electricity. My dad…” He paused and looked at the floor for a moment. “My dad taught me to be a pretty good fisherman. That’s about it, I guess.”

Elyse put on a brave front, but she didn’t have that many manual skills, other than being a good cook. And, of course, the recent training both siblings had received as hospital orderly, nurse, and even surgeon’s assistant.

Mark spoke confidently for both himself and Rachel, but Dave noticed that Gold was starting to look impatient, and Kovacs seemed to be about to drift off. They were probably as exhausted as his family.

When Mark paused, Gold seemed about to speak up, but was interrupted by Martinez, the restaurant man.

“That’s all very impressive, Mr. Winston,” he said. “I’m sure you could be
very useful to us. But like Melanie said, we already know about your being an engineer, and about the doctor. I’d like to hear from some others. You, for instance, Mr. Marshall. What do you do for a living?”

Here we go, Dave thought. He took a breath, and dived in.

“I’m a writer. In fact, Jenna and Bob and myself are all writers.”

This didn’t get much of a reaction. In fact, Martinez frowned. In Southern California, where everybody has a screenplay they would be happy to show you, writers were thick on the ground. Very few of them had ever had anything published or produced. Even this far from Hollywood, being a writer cut very little ice.

“What did you write?” Jankowitz asked, not sounding very interested.

Jenna spoke up for the first time.

“Me and Bob and Dave, plus two others, Dennis Rossi and Roger Weinburger, wrote
Ants!
” she said. Jenna had never been as ambivalent about the quality of the show as Dave and Bob had been. She had actually liked it.

And a strange thing happened. Melanie Gold smiled.

“You’re kidding me,” Jankowitz said.

“Nope. Every episode.”

“I loved that show,” Martinez said. “We used to watch it as a family, me and my wife and the kids.”

“One of the few you
could
watch with your family,” Kovacs said, nodding.

Jankowitz burst in: “Remember that episode where that scientist’s shrink ray made ’em both the size of termites? And the termites chase ’em through the woodwork, and catch ’em, and take ’em to their queen? And the queen turns out to be—”

“—Queen Latifah!” Kovacs laughed. “And those termite suits, those were crazy, I about busted a gut.”

“Well, we didn’t design the suits,” Bob said modestly.

“But you wrote it. How do you come up with those wild ideas? No kidding, you really are the writers?”

“They wouldn’t dare lie about it,” Martinez said. “I’ve got the whole series at home on DVD. Their names would be in the credits.”

“I assure you we’re not lying,” Dave said, trying to keep a straight face.

“Oh, I didn’t mean anything. Like he said, why would you lie about something so easy to check out? Say, I wonder if you’d mind autographing my DVDs, and I’ll bet my kids would really enjoy…” He trailed off, coughed nervously, and looked down at the table. Dave knew he had just remembered that the
writers and their families were more or less on trial at that moment. It would be a little embarrassing to hunt them down in the refugee camp and ask for an autograph.

The whole panel sobered quickly. It looked to Dave as if none of them were really sure which way their colleagues were going to vote. Gold was no longer smiling, and she had had nothing to say about favorite episodes. He had been thinking that maybe that goofy show might make the difference between admission and refusal, but now he wasn’t so sure.

Dave glanced at Bob, and he was making a hurry-up motion. He thought Bob was right. Let’s wrap this up, there was not much point in more testimonials.

“Ms. Gold, if I may…” Gold gestured for him to go ahead. “I think you all know us well enough now. Though I’m proud of our show”—he cringed inwardly;
liar!
—“and I’m glad you enjoyed it, we all realize that being comedy writers doesn’t really bring a much-needed skill for surviving after this apocalypse. Neither does being a housewife, or a social worker, or a teenager, or a retarded child. But if I may be so bold, neither does being a real-estate agent or a Web designer.”

“Touché!” Jankowitz cried out, cheerfully.

“I guess the only thing I want to emphasize here at the end is that we cleaned out that rat’s nest hanging over your town. We didn’t do it happily, and we didn’t do it for your town, but we
did
do it. I expect to have nightmares about that for many years to come, but there are plenty of other things that have happened lately to give us all nightmares, and there are probably more to come. Officer Lopez told us he expected to have to assault that biker gang soon, and he wasn’t sure they would be successful. We had some luck but we were also alert and prepared. I just ask you to think about that.

“We want to join you, but if you turn us down we will accept that, and do what we have to do. We don’t know yet whether that means moving on to the south, or stopping here in your refugee camp. But I want to say again, I think isolation is a bad thing. I fear that you all may discover that, in a very ugly way, if you try to keep all those people out of your town for much longer. I’m not sure you can do it, against a mob of angry, hungry people. I’m sure you have guns, but remember, so do many of them. I think it’s an untenable position, and once they understand, really
accept
, that the government is unlikely to arrive soon and feed and house them…well, I’m sure you get the picture. I think our only hope is cooperation, all of us pulling together, including the people who have nowhere else to go.

“Thank you.”