2017:
I am fourteen years old. I'm depressed because Stacey Kunitz laughed in my face when I asked her to go to the movies with me. At fourteen, that's enough to send your whole world into a tailspin. I am doing what movies have taught a young boy he should do when a girl has broken his heart; I am laying flat on my stomach on my bed listening to sad songs. But the songs don't quite capture the essence of my young love and I think that maybe I'm doing it wrong.
I feel someone sit on the bed beside me and I risk a peek. It's Kiley, my sister, and she is seventeen, old enough and wise enough to have seen it all, done it all, and to have lived with the heartbreak I now feel.
"This music sucks," she says. "It's all wrong."
I sigh at her dramatically.
"Listen," she says. "He's singing the words, but he doesn't feel it. He's never felt it. This is too sterile."
I feel her get up. Hear my radio get turned off. There's a moment when I hear the clicking of tapes being traded out and then the music comes back. But this music is new. There is emotion to it, real honest-to-god emotion. I can't help but sit up.
"They'll never let a night like tonight go to waste," he sings, "and let me tell you something: neither will you."
"I'm leaving," Kiley says. "Tonight."
"What?" Stacey Kunitz disappears. "Why?"
"You know why," she says.
"Can I go?"
She ruffles my hair. "That would rock," she says. "But no. I don't know what I'm doing or where I'm going. I just know I have to leave. You'll be fine."
"Bullshit," I say.
"You've got to take care of Lucas," she says. "He's your baby brother."
"I'm your baby brother," I say.
She kisses me on the top of the head. "Keep the tape," she says. And then she just walks the fuck right out of my life.
I am sixteen years old and still reveling in the art of driving myself around. Granted, most times I couldn't tell you whose car I'm in. I've gotten very good at finding one right when I need it the most. I am sixteen, and the less time I spend at home, the better. Lucas is fourteen, and I am subjecting him to Meat Loaf blasting from the speakers. He is riding shotgun.
"A wasted youth is better, by far," I sing along, "than a wise and productive old age."
We park outside of a Wawa. I take my tape with me; borrowed cars have an expiration date.
As we're walking in, I swear I see Kiley walking out. She's a little taller, her hair's a little shorter, and she's got huge movie star sunglasses on, but I swear it's her. I yell for her. She never even turns around. She climbs into the passanger seat of a blue Camero, some douchy motherfucker behind the wheel, and they drive off tires squealing. The cashier comes running out the door after them, screaming obscenities.
"What happened?" I ask.
The cashier waves me off. "Bad checks," she says. "I didn't check the names like I should." Then she adds "fuck!"
"What was the name?" I ask.
The cashier studies me, no doubt wondering whether or not to tell me. "J. Steinman," she says. "But it's probably a fake name. It's sure as shit a fake check."
Just then a squad car arrives, showing an interest in the license plate of my borrowed car. The cashier hustles over, waving the bogus check in the air like a flag. She'll provide just enough confusion that Lucas and I can wander off unnoticed. My sister to the rescue yet again.
I'm seventeen years old in the back of Tricia Montello's car. The mantra in the back of my head: "we're gonna go all the way tonight, we're gonna go all the way tonight, tonight." My hand is down her pants. Her hand is down mine. My wrist hurts where her waistband is digging in, but I power through like a champ. I am godlike in this moment. There's a knock at the window and a flashlight beam in my face. I panic and bolt. Tricia yells "ow!" when her hand is pulled awkwardly and seemingly painfully from my jeans. I feel bad: the poor girl is terrified and topless and now in pain, alone in the back of an empty car. Not so bad that I stop running, mind you. I never saw who was at the window: I had always assumed it was the cops. But in my memory, I always see a blue Camaro, the only other car in the otherwise empty parking lot.
Two months later, word gets around that Tricia Montello's ex-boyfriend has AIDS. Tricia is devastated. Tricia has it. They've been broken up six months now, so that's how long she's had it. Do the math.
I'm not religious, but there is one thing I believe with pure religious fervor: my big sister has never stopped looking out for me. That is the one thing in the world that I hold onto. She is the closest thing to an angel for me.
I'm thirty-two, and there is a riot in Wachovia. Second period, Flyers v. Bruins, the score is 3-2, and the lights go out. Emergency lights pop on. The players skate lazy circles, trying to figure out what's going on. The P.A. announces that there's an emergency and that everyone should file out of the arena in an orderly fashion. Through the buzzing silence, we hear the sound of chaos erupting outside. The general consensus seems to be "fuck orderly," and now there's a mob stomping exitward. I stay in my seat, out of the thick flow of traffic. People are screaming, crying, I see people go down underfoot and I don't see them come back up. The players are gone, back to the locker room I assume. Lucas is beside me, insisting that we go. But I can't. I can't guarantee his safety in that mob. I have one job in this world, and that's to look after my baby brother. I have to be his Kiley. So we wait for the mob to pass.
We find out later that an already panic-stricken police force opened fire on the newly panic-stricken hockey enthusiasts as they fled the building. The cops still weren't sure what was going on, so seeing thousands of people headed their way must have looked terribly threatening. The numbers overwhelmed them in the end, but between the bullets and the stampede there were thousands of people killed or injured. We would surely have been statistics if we had gone with the crowd. Probably.
Those first days were the worst. We just didn't know. More people died due to misinformation than were killed by zombies. People thought it was viral, so if you sneezed in the wrong company, you died hard. People thought it was a terrorist attack, so god help you if you looked remotely Middle Eastern. People thought it was religious and it was back to Catholic v. Protestant for awhile. People thought it was a government conspiracy and then you did see domestic terrorism in action. Eventually, when there was no one around left to blame, people admitted that they didn't know what it was. By then the concept of population density seemed like a joke. The whole country was wiped off the map.
Those first days, we'd get news reports. This thing was worldwide. It may have started in France. Then it originated in Africa. Then Eastern Europe. The UN was investigating. The WHO was working on a cure. England may have turned a corner, they were finalizing a vaccine. Then...nothing. The press is dead. Planes won't fly. Ships won't sail.
I am thirty-two years old, and I'm afraid of monsters. But while the whole world goes to hell around me, I hold tight to my brother. He's all I've got. I'm all he's got.
Until we run into Gigi of course.
I got Guillermo’s story out of him over drinks a few nights after I had met him. I had been a pretty wild child – I prefer to think of myself as precocious – but I was purely amateur when compared with Guillermo.
He had been doing hard time in a New Mexico prison. Gang related. Something to do with dealing meth and killing folks. He was vague about that part. He had been in for a couple of years, and had put a few of his fellow prisoners in either the hospital or the morgue. He says that being a big guy made him a big target and that it was either them or him. I prefer not to argue with him.
Then one day he gets called to the cafeteria. It’s empty except for himself, the warden, and some guy in a black suit. The warden and the black suit proceed to have a conversation about Guillermo as though he’s not in the room. Envelopes slide across the table, smiles are exchanged, and Guillermo finds himself working for a biotech company. The guy in the black suit arranges for Guillermo to “die” in prison. In reality, Guillermo is going to play knee-buster for a lobbyist who believes that those that can’t be bribed can be threatened. Guillermo is whisked away from New Mexico to the bright lights of Washington and he is damned good at his job. He’s very persuasive.
And then the outbreak breaks out. Washington is all chaos. Guillermo puts in a quick resignation and slips out the back door. He winds up in Philadelphia. He meets us. We become fast friends. We form a motorcycle gang and wander the post-apocalyptic wasteland, eventually running into a beautiful woman and a man who may either be the second-coming, the anti-Christ, or just a damned good charlatan.
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