The End Games (14 page)

Dang, she’s so cool.

Dang, don’t think that.

Dang, why?

Because of on account of this being
the most horrible time
to get a crush on a girl.

Oh. Right. Daaaang.

“So,” Michael called to Captain Jopek over the grumbling engine, “where to?”

The captain must not have heard, though; he slid closed the panel, cutting Michael
off.

Patrick pointed double-finger guns toward the captain’s now-unseeable head. “That
guy,” he said, “is a
grump
.”

Bobbie laughed. Patrick grinned back, delighted, like he had when she laughed in the
cafeteria, and this time he did not nervously look away.

“A grump who saved your ass,” Hank said to Patrick.

My God, my man,
Michael thought,
will you shut
up
?
“Hey sorry, but remember the ‘keep it PG’ thing?”

Hank bristled. “Uh, sure do, big guy,” he said, in a defensive,
and-what-about-it?
tone.

Just let it go,
Michael told himself. But something about the condescending way Hank spoke wouldn’t
let him.

He shot Hank a glare. He felt his pulse speed and found himself inexplicably looking
forward to the quick
yes-yes
challenge of making a comeback to whatever BS Hank was going to say.

Hank just scoffed dismissively, smirking slightly, like Michael wasn’t worth the time.
“
Any
way.”

Hank produced a crisp detailed city map from his jacket, then spread it over the sheet-covered
gurney, saying, “Let’s talk objectives, people. First thing, Search. After Captain’s
aerial patrol last night, we can cross off Liberty and Jerry West Avenues downtown
as possible hiding places for any survivors still in the city. . . .”

But Michael didn’t quite hear. His face was flushing, his attempt to give a little
fight frustrated.

An image shimmered into his mind:
Hank wearing a sports uniform
. Soccer, probably, and he bet Hank was very good. There was no uniform right now,
of course.
But the world’s full of uniforms waiting to be picked up again,
Michael thought. He suddenly remembered the first day of high school. He’d tried
to sit with THE COOL KIDS, then, just sliding down his tray and sighing, like,
Gawd, another year of microwaved sewage, huh?
Theory being, they would
definitely not remember
his Middle School Wimpy Kid years. But mid-sigh, there Cool Kids sat, staring.
Oh, balls,
thought Michael, and the moment hangs; and then Bobby “B. O.” Oliveto burps chocolate
milk and draws laughter so Michael thinks maybe the moment could go just amazingly
well until Caleb Rakestraw smiles with the same cold command he uses to bellow plays
as JV QB. “Raise your hand,” he says. “Raise your hand high if you want Faris to leave.”
Well, landslide. People at nearby tables noticed, nudged the news, and Michael stood,
thinking:
No, you don’t get to start over. You get to be you forever, sorry
.

Is
that
what it means for things to be “normal” again?
Michael thought now.

Dude . . . no,
he told himself.
Just think of everything you fought through. You’re not that “you” anymore.

Hank looked up now, saw that Michael was not enthralled by his “briefing.” Hank offered
that expression again:
I’m not so sure I like your face
.

Fair enough,
Michael thought.
That makes us even.

Battlelines:

As the Hummer left the bridge and entered the modest, grimy skyline (
coal dust
, Michael thought), gutters began glittering with spent bullet casings; skidmarks
striped the road more and more. Hank continued talking, but Michael watched through
the rear windows . . . and let Charleston’s recent past echo to him.

The side streets had been armored with barbed wire and sandbags and staggered gun
posts, as if the designers of the Safe Zone had sealed off all possible approaches
of attack, save two or three main roads. Probably strategically smart, except for
one fact: in the end, when the Bellows laid their mysterious siege to the city, the
defenses sucked. The gun posts were toppled, the sandbags burst; bodies by the dozens
spilled over the “protective” barbed wire, onto the sidewalks and even onto this main
road itself, like ooze escaping from some cataclysmic wound. On his own long battle
to Charleston, Michael had seen hundreds of walking corpses, of course. And the bodies
here, which the captain now maneuvered around, were truly dead and no threat. But
looking at the corpses, a cavity in Michael’s chest ached. He’d imagined finding platoons
of soldiers, many times. Just not inanimate: not decomposing.

The tragedy was just, like, relentless.

The green, sour dead–smell penetrated even the strongbox of the Hummer.
A mass grave,
Michael thought.
That’s what the Safe Zone is. That’s
all
it is.
He remembered the grave markers on the lawn of the Coalmount meeting hall, and pictured
thousands of spears, pounded into crosses, spanning across Charleston.

The Hummer stopped, jerking Michael forward against his seat harness.

A sign outside their window read:

BUSTED KNUCKLE GARAGE

BEST PLACE IN TOWN TO TAKE A LEAK!!!

Hank folded his map into his pocket.

The rear double doors of the Hummer opened, letting bitter winter light flood in.
The world outside was a shapeless, cruel white.

“Okay, you apes, welcome to Disneyland!” Jopek said good-naturedly. “Hope you brought
your mouse hats. Now somebody get me a snow cone and I don’t mean yellow.”

“—lloooowwwww—”
The calls of Bellows, hundreds of them, emanated from buildings along the road, from
within alley Dumpsters, from underneath manholes.

“Rapido, amigos,”
Hank said as the captain disappeared around the side of the Hummer.

“I love it when you speak French,” Holly said dreamily.

Michael unfastened Patrick from his safety harness. As they stepped down out of the
Hummer and into the street, Michael noticed that Bobbie was struggling with her own
harness, her small, arthritic hands slipping on the security clips.

Before he could help her, though, Patrick climbed back inside the Hummer, undid her
clasps himself, and helped lift the harness over her shoulders.

Bobbie looked him straight in the eye. “Patrick, thank you
very
much,” she said. “That is
very
kind of you.” She spoke with a sweet, but not condescending, tone, like she was used
to dealing with kids.

“Booyah,” Patrick said, and flexed his muscles.

He always says that to Mom when he opens the door for her,
Michael thought. And the ache in his chest expanded.

The Busted Knuckle Garage stood in the corner parking lot of a flat downtown street.
Three raised garage doors, plastered with WVU stickers, led inside. Within were cars,
within were shadows, within were patches on the ground that were either oil or blood.

Michael glanced around for the captain . . . and what he saw made a little breath
of happiness rise inside him. The captain was straddling the double-yellow line dead
center in the war-torn street, strapping on the last of his arsenal: a bulletproof
(or bite-proof) Kevlar vest; a combat knife held to his wrist by three Velcro strips;
a pistol on his ankle. Compared to the chaos around him, the captain looked strangely
right
.

“‘Reach fer the skyyyyy,’”
Michael whispered to Bub in his Old West sheriff’s voice. Bub giggled.

The captain’s gaze snapped up to Michael. His eyes were narrowed.

“I miss somethin’?” he said.

“Just: nice equipment.”

The captain nodded, looking pleased. “I’ll tell you what: it’s my duty, that’s all.
This stop won’t take too long. Not too many folks dumb enough to try ridin’ this out
at a mechanic’s.”

“Not even in West Virginia?” Hank joked.

The captain ignored that. “Could still be some hidin’, afraid to come out. Gotta check;
standard operatin’ procedure. Henry, why don’t you check my oil while we’re here?”

“Do you want any help looking?” Michael asked the captain.

The moment the sentence was out of his mouth, he was surprised he’d said it.
I thought you didn’t
want
to “play The Game anymore.”

The captain cocked his head. “Help? Uh, nah, Private, I didn’t bring y’all to come
in with me: just brought you to keep you close to yer captain, nice and safe. You
have yourself some lunch.”

“O-oh. Right, yeah, of course
.
”

The captain turned, strolled into the garage, and casually shouted, “This is Captain
Jopek of the United States Army! If you’re healthy, say the first three letters of
the alphabet!”

“Ay. Bee,” Patrick said softly, to himself. He paused, trying to remember. “Ay, bee,
dee, gee . . .”

Watch out for holes under the cars, where the mechanics change your oil
, Michael almost called out. But the captain disappeared through a door in a brick
wall inside, and was gone.

“Now, how does lunch sound?” Bobbie opened the shoulder bag she’d been carrying and
pulled out a large Tupperware container, which was steamed white. “I think you might
like some goulash.”

“Miss Bobbie,” Holly said, “that looks lovely.”

A
picnic
? Out here?
Michael thought.
Seriously, no offense, Miss Bobbie, but this kinda isn’t the place for a Martha Stewart
moment
.

Patrick looked up to Michael:
Am I allowed to have some?
Michael nodded vaguely, then said, “I’m gonna see if Hank needs any help.”

He went to the front of the car. Hank was pouring oil from a plastic container into
the engine. Hank said, not looking up from the engine: “Nope.”

O
-kay,
Michael thought.

Bobbie and Holly sat on the rear fender of the Hummer, Patrick between them. Bobbie
had her eyes closed, and seemed to be whispering.
Praying before she eats
, Michael realized. Her old-fashioned-ness and cheeriness seemed so oddly out of place.

Holly scooted over, offering him a space. But he found himself shaking his head. “Actually,
thanks, I’m not hungry,” he mumbled, and walked out into the street, feeling a little
numb.

What’s the matter with you, Michael?
he thought.
You wanted to get here. And now you
are
here.

But what am I supposed to
do
now?

Why do you have to “do” anything?

He shook his head at himself, looked across the road. Sealed-off parking lot; a Super
Walmart past that.
So you want to play a game, Michael,
his mind hissed.
Okay: guess how many Friday nights Ron dropped you off at Walmart.

Guess how many Friday nights he came home reeking like popcorn and sweat and beer—like
he’d rolled in the trash under the high school football bleachers instead of sitting
on them? How many Friday nights did he take you and Patrick to Walmart so he could
have his parties with the buddies he only liked when he had alcohol in his blood?
Michael and his brother would wander the night fluorescently, playing the demo PlayStation
3, eating Oreos, drinking Game Fuels. Michael pretended, of course—pretended it wasn’t
stealing, pretended this was normal and kind of awesome, actually; so the make-believe
was Patrick’s real life, and the happiness Patrick felt was real, and that was the
only thing that could ever make Michael feel something good. And so when he was asked
first by a cashier and then a manager, were they okay, he was not pretending when
he said, “Hunnert percent, good buddy.” And Patrick loved that—giggled inside his
hoodie—but even still they had to duck suspicion, so when the manager went away, they
did, too, to the bathroom handicapped stall, where after playing Hot Hands, for a
couple hours, they slept. In peace.

Which never lasts.

Guess how many nights?

(“A lot” doesn’t count as a guess.)

No guesses?

Huh. How ’bout instead of a game, I tell you a story.

So there’s this little kid, right, and he thinks his mom is awesome. The strongest,
best person on Earth, in his humble opinion. And the mom and the kid are so close
that they’re each other’s entire world; the kid doesn’t even really want any friends.
But they’re poor, and sometimes the kid can tell his mom is lonely, and he fantasizes
a lot about someone coming into their lives and lifting away that sadness in Mom that
is becoming harder and harder to soothe with a joke. And then—stay with me, this is
where the story gets good—then
a Someone actually does come into their lives
. Name o’ Ron, this fella, and he’s got muscles and this sense of humor that always
feels wonderfully/scarily on the edge of becoming too dirty for a kid to hear. At
first, Ron is magical. Like one time when the kid—Michael, let’s call him—is in fourth
grade and gets an earache, Ron blows a gentle puff of pipe smoke into his ear, and
the pain evaporates. But Ron’s best magic? Taking away that little bit of fear that
always seemed to hang behind Mom’s eyes. Then he and Mom get married. Michael takes
Ron’s last name, and he thinks,
This is who I am now; I’m this man’s son; he’s going to take care of us.
This man, who builds houses for a living, builds a home for all of them. This man
pats Mom on the butt in front of Michael sometimes, and Michael, of course, groans,
but every time he sees Mom smile, it’s like feeling the sun on his back. Soon little
cross-stitches hang on the walls of their house:
FAMILY IS THE BEGINNING, MIDDLE, AND END.