The Days and Months We Were First Born- the Unraveling (2 page)

“Cancer?” I had a sliver of hope. “But Dad
,
isn’t cancer treatable? They have pills for cancer. How the hell is something treatable going to kill you?”

“It’s different, son. The workers told us the thing adapts. Chemo doesn’t work. Surgery doesn’t work. They said the pills will cause the cancer to become stronger—a defense mechanism. They told us the only option was to let it run its course. They told us that will give us the most time.”

“That doesn’t make any goddamn sense! How could this be determined so fast? Who’s to say they won’t find a cure within a couple of days,
like they always do
?
They
always
find a cure!” I said.

My father didn’t share my optimism. I only heard the stressed breathing of a devastated and defeated man. Then he spoke once more.

“Martin. Son. Please…just get tested and get out of the city.”

“Where’s Mom? Please…put Mom on the phone.”

As I waited for my mother’s voice, I heard footsteps, then a stifled conversation. The interlude of twenty seconds felt like an eternity—going back and forth. My body had grown tight with anticipation.

“Martin,” she said.

“Mom...”

It was the only word that escaped. All that anticipation, and now I was frozen.

“Martin, I love you so much, son. I want you to know that I’m proud of you. I’m proud of all of you.” I couldn’t even breathe. “You, and your brother and sisters have been the stars in my sky.”

The phone went dead.

“Mom! Mom!”

Without hesitation, I tried calling them back. I dialed and dialed and dialed again. But I only got the goddamn buzz. The devastating, monotone
,
buzz
.

After seven attempts, I dropped the PCD on the bed. My initial shock had given way. The practical side took over. I wanted to get tested. To find out what the hell this was. I left the room furious with myself, upset that the only thing I could say to my mother was
Mom
.

In the living room Julie was still on the floor, paralyzed in grief.

“Julie? We have to go, Julie.”

She didn’t acknowledge me at all. She was as still as a bag of dirt, staring at the ceiling. I knelt beside her and attempted to pick her up. She was dead weight.

“Julie!” I said. “We have to go and get tested.”

After a few minutes of nudging, yelling, pulling and begging outright, it was evident she wasn’t going anywh
ere. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t even blink.

I conceded, and gently lowered my girlfriend to the floor. Then I raced to the bedroom. I threw on a random T-shirt and stepped into my brown loafers. I didn’t bother to change out of my pajama bottoms. I’m sure my appearance was rather tacky, but who
the fuck
cares
at a moment such as this.

Once I arrived at the front door, I took a last look at Julie. She was right where I had left her: stone still, and in her own devastated world. I thought to try
to rouse her one last time, and then
thought to hell with it. I took a deep breath and left. It was time to face this world. The world that had changed so suddenly.

***

I saw no one in the hallway. No one rode with me in the elevator on the way down. Even the lobby was vacant. If anything, I would have seen the doorman.
He
was nowhere to be found. But once I walked through the front door, once I stepped outside, martial law was right there to greet me.

Organized chaos was everywhere. It was a scene right out of a movie. It was as if the whole of Harlem was on our block. People were in the middle of the street and on the sidewalks, and soldiers were scattered throughout the crowd. The soldiers were clad in fatigues. They had on round, tan-colored helmets. They had automatic weapons in hand. And they were barking through clear masks, telling people where to go. Overhead, two hovercopters were flying south toward midtown. I could hear the whiz of their engines in sharp clarity. I stood just outside the doorway, hesitant to move.

A driverless vehicle with the East American insignia rode south down First Avenue—in the wrong direction. People and soldiers moved out of its way. There was a screen on the vehicle’s side. It displayed:

Everyone in this vicinity is to report to the Zone 7 Health Clinic, located at 2262 Obama Boulevard. Everyone must know their status. Masks will be distributed as you approach the line. Once
you know your status, you should
return home.
Your television will communicate additional information and should be viewed regularly.

The message displayed in Spanish, Korean, and Mandarin Chinese before returning to English.

I was utterly confused. The night before, Julie and I had stayed in. We had planned to go to a restaurant called Knowles Cafe in Times Square, but instead, we ordered Chinese food, had sex, and went to bed early. As I stood there, I thought,
we might have been
secluded last night, but what the fuck is this
?
!

A man walked by on the sidewalk in front of me. I’d say he was in his late forties or early fifties. He had a round, leathery face and a nappy, salt-and-pepper beard. He wore tattered clothing. He had a homemade poster in his hands, and the poster was covered with newspaper cutouts. The man began yelling to anyone who would listen.

“You have turned your back on the Church, and this is what it has come to! You have turned your back on Jesus and he has turned his back on you! Repent! Repent! Your bodies are condemned, but he may have mercy on your souls! Repe…”

A couple of soldiers grabbed the man by his arms. The poster fluttered to the sidewalk as the soldiers dragged him away. The man kicked a
nd screamed with all his might.

One of the soldiers noticed me. He let the others drag the man away and then he approached
, with a hand gently touching his automatic rifle
.

I stood my ground, looking at him wide-eyed, unsure of what he was about to do. He stopped within two meters of where I was standing.

“Sir, you need to come with me,” the soldier said. He was almost a foot taller than I was, his skin was
straight up
ebony, and he was well built under his uniform. His voice was slightly muffled behind his clear mask.

“We need to get you a mask, immediately.”

“Um…ok.” I said.

I walked with the soldier as we weaved our way through the chaos. Some people were plodding around aimlessly in a daze; others were arguing with whomever they could find in a uniform. One lady threw her mask to the ground and yelled, “Fuck the mask! The fuck is this supposed to do?!” I was at the soldier’s side like a sh
y child clinging to his parent.

Eventually, we approached a mobile NHC booth, right in the middle of 124
th
Street, between First and Second Avenues. The soldier went away as I stood before a middle-aged Asian lady—she was on the other side of a glassless window. She had on a gray, full-body suit, and a helmet that reminded me of an upside-down fish bowl.

“Sir, how many masks do you need?” the lady asked.

“Two.” I said.

My throat was dry, and I was already sweating. It was a very hot morning, typical for late July. The lady reached behind her and retrieved two clear masks. She placed one on the counter in front of her and handed me the other.

“Put it to your face,” she said.

I touched my face with the mask and it made a suction sound. I jumped a little. The edges had clung to my jaws, there was a little hiss, and that was it—I was breathing filtered air.

“Now, if you want to take it off, you simply grab both sides and squeeze. Only take it off in private, or when you know the status of everyone in your household. You see that building across the street?” She pointed to an apartment building. It had an arched entranceway that led to a courtyard. “Go there to get tested. Once you know your status, go home and await further instructions. Good luck.”

She handed me the other mask and I was on my way.

I crossed the street, and
people were walking briskly without rhyme or reason. They looked as if they had had their lives ripped right out from under them. There was an animated soldier right in
the middle of it all. C
ompassion
less
, and as loud as he could, he yelled, “Keep it moving! Keep it moving!” There was also a small Black child who clung to her mother as they both sat on the curb. The dau
ghter was crying in loud sobs; the
mother
was trying to comfort her
. The mother was saying, “It’s ok, baby. It’s ok.”

Once in the courtyard
,
I entered the line. There were a few hundred people in front of me, but the line moved swiftly and grew behind me at a steady clip. At the front were two NHC workers, flanked b
y armed soldiers. They were testing people with
breathalyzers
,
just as my father had described.

The guy in front of me turned around. He flashed me a warm smile.

“Hey there, fella. Crazy day, right?”

The guy spoke with a country twang. He was about 5’6”, with a heavily freckled face and sunburned skin. His ha
ir was red, and it contrasted against his dark gray
security guard’s uniform. I assumed he must have moved to New York from somewhere down south.

“Yeah,” I said. “How the hell did this happen so fast?”

“I don’t know
,
fella. I woke up this morning and watched the news like everyone else. All hell has broken loose everywhere. They’re already rioting in some parts of the world.” The Southerner shook his head and let out a little laugh. “Well, at least the soldiers are keeping it in check here.”

I looked at him, dumbfounded by his upbeat attitude. Then I thought,
well, if he watched the news, he has a better idea of what’s going on
.

“What did the news say about this thing? What the hell is it?” I asked.

The Southerner gave me an unbelieving look.

“You don’t know?” he said. I gave him a look that said:
Of course, I don’t fucking know
!
Then he took a deep breath and began.

“Well, it didn’t start this morning; it was just revealed to the public this morning. It’s some kind of man-made virus. It’s air
borne, and at first, it had
spread through exhaled smoke. Cigarette smoke, weed smoke, nutmeg smoke, you name it. Now, they say you can catch it by simply breathing other people’s air.”

I looked at him as if he had an ass for a head and
he
just farted.

“What?” I said.

“Yeah, I know. It’s crazy. The news said it feeds off carbon monoxide in the blood. If you’re a smoker, once it goes active, you’re supposed to die quick. If you’re a non-smoker, you might live a little longer, about a month or so, but you’re still gonna die. The cancer cells generate in the lungs. They restrict your ability to breathe. There’s no cure for the thi…”

“I know,” I said, cutting the guy off.

In New York City alone, a person ran into a cloud of smoke at every turn. Walking on the sidewalk. Being around family and friends. Hanging out in public, period. I had read an article in the
New York E
a few months prior. It stated that there were some 3.5 billion smokers worldwide out of a population of 10 billion humans. My father was a smo
ker, so was my brother
and one of my sisters. I didn’t smoke cigarettes, but damn sure smoked weed on occasion (when I was around my roommates it was unavoidable).
I thought to myself,
i
f this thing spreads through breathing and smoke, it has touched not just everyone in my family, but also virtually everyone on the planet
.

I wiped the sweat from my forehead.

A lady walked by. She had just received her result, and it was not good
. Her face was frozen in a mask of shell shock, and s
he stared ahead as if she were a zombie. She muttered, “It’s the end of the world. The end of the world. The end of the world…” She repeated this over and over as she left the courtyard for the street.

Then my attention turned toward the front. A man was taking the test and we were close enough to see everything. He was instructed to remove his mask and breathe into the funnel. The man hesitated for a moment, and then he did what was asked.

After a few seconds, a red “
Positive”
flashed on the acrylic screen up top.

“We’re sorry, sir. You are positive. Please return home as soon as possible and await further instructions,” the worker said. But the man wasn’t having it.

“Fuck that! Fuck that! You did this. You knew. You’re letting us all
die
.
Goddamn you all to hell!”