Rooting for the Apocalypse (1)

Chapter 1: Rotten Summer

Drama ensues when Athena invites her dirtbag boyfriend on her dysfunctional family’s vacation.

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This is a rotten summer. The heat gets into everything. It’s not a dry heat, like the desert. This is a wet, hot, stinking city heat. You take a shower and never get dry, pores picking up where the faucet left off. Your clothes stick, and your fingers stick, and the sheets stick, and cling as you roll around in the hot, wet, dark, heat of the night. The sheets stain yellow from the sweat.

My bedroom is the size of a trailer. It barely fits the bed, a twin (would you really put twins in this?), and I have to scooch around the side pressing my back against the wall to get to the head of it. The ceiling is high and there are two windows that bring in light and smog and the neighbors’ conversations. Kristy is thinking of buying a grill. She’s concerned about a rash on her vulva. Their voices echo in my brain.

I sleep with my head reversed — over by the foot of the bed rather than the head of it. My little fan is propped up on a tower of dirty clothes and books and this arrangement allows me to blast air into my face. With the door open and the windows open and four or five gin sodas, it’s enough to feign sleep, though no one really sleeps in the summers here. With the door open, I can hear my roommate in crystal definition. Zak argues with his occasional girlfriend, clunking down the stairs at five a.m. for plan b, forgetting his keys, banging on the front door until I go down to let him in.

This morning I wake up cold. A freak thunderstorm has blown in. Yet it is bright; at first I think Zak has come into my room mistaking it for his again and turned on the lights. The sun rises through the storm. The air shimmers gold. My room in gold, the whole city in gold. Lightning crackles through the bright clouds. I watch until it is gone, the clouds a haze, the sun lost in the haze. The heat is back again.

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Zak is playing video games when I make my way downstairs. He’s naked except for a dish towel. Dark circles hang around his eyes. I can tell he hasn’t slept all night. His mustache wilts in the humidity.

Do you know where the nearest gun store is? I ask.

His gaze doesn’t waver from the screen. He says, You aren’t killing the neighbors.

I’m going to wound them, lightly. So they know I mean business.

Don’t be a buzzkill. Remember when we were young and partied all night and got drunk and yelled and shit. We were loud as shit and no one ever killed our buzz.

They’re older than we are. I know because they won’t shut up about how old they all are now.

Just chill.

I’m going to knock on their door and ask to be invited to the next party. Since I’m already basically there anyway.

Not a terrible idea.

I’ll ask if you can come too.

I make coffee. I pour the coffee over ice. The ice melts. I drink.

Charlie runs down the stairs, black paws a pitter-patter. He rams my leg and nuzzles as though his life depends on it, which it does. I go to the kitchen, three steps away in a row home, and scoop some cat food into Charlie’s bowl. He rams the scoop as I feed him, knocking some pellets back into the bag.

You little shit, I say affectionately. Your greed is causing you to miss out.

He doesn’t care. He’s eating. His black fur sticks to my sweaty legs. It looks like I gave up halfway through turning into a werewolf.

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The pills are starting to kick in. I slide into the service line at the supermarket thinking it will be faster, but the woman in front of me is three hundred years old and eighty-three cents short on her carton of menthols. The frozen pizza clutched in my hand is melting with my brain. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. What a funny word. I’m getting to the point where checking out will become impossible. The woman in front of me swells and sags.

I fumble for a dollar in my wallet and say, Here.

Thank you so much, sweetie, the woman says.

She pays and tries to give me the change. I shake my head, batting away her words with the shaking of my head, harder now, faster now, am I bobbing and thrashing? She shuffles away. I shuffle forwards.

Just this? the clerk asks.

Don’t forget your wallet, I say to myself and also out loud.

I worry that if my irises get too big, the clerk will try to crawl inside them.

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Damn, the supermarket makes a good pizza.

Pizza, I say. You’re my only friend.

I know that, Mr. Pizza Box says in reply. I grab Mr. Pizza Box and tap out a beat with one of the empty paper towel rolls on the kitchen counter. I sing, Pizza, pizza, pizza for my baby. Eat it all cuz I ain’t got no money.

I smack Charlie’s food bag for some bass. Charlie patters down the stairs and prances next to me, fore-paws outstretched to god.

Yeah, cat, get into it! I sing. Pizza, pizza, pizza for my honey! Buy it all cuz I ain’t got no mo-ney. I have a cat, and his name is Char-lie.

The front door opens. Zak strides in shirtless, hefting his fixie. His abs glisten with sweat.

Oh, I see what’s going on, he says. He drops the bike and creeps forward, clapping his hands in rhythm.

Pizza, pizza —

— pizza for my baby.

Buy it all —

— cuz I ain’t got no money.

I have a cat —

— and his name is Charlie.

Meeeeooooww!

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At night, the city is a lamplit leviathan. I zip through her bowels on my rusty beach cruiser. Car horns and crushing subway rumbles wane to a whisper in my ear, the whisper of air turned to speed, air turned to cool, coolness on my skin, a refugee threatened by the ache of my tired legs. A six-pack of pounders rattles in the wicker basket on the front of my bike.

Faster, I say to myself. I go faster.

Faster! I yell. Who cares? Just another drunk on a bike. The sidewalks are deserted save for the shambling ghosts of the homeless.

FASTER! I scream, and the scream continues beyond the word, a primal need. It feels like cumming.

I hit a trolley track. In a second, the bike reposes in twisted nonsense. I roll gracefully to the curb, arms and legs outstretched as though diving. Headlights illuminate me, star of the show, fame at last. A window rolls down.

Holy shit, are you okay? a voice calls.

I find that I am able to stand.

Yeah, I say.

Holy shit, the voice repeats. You lucky fuck.

The car pulls away.

I brush the grime and glass off my clothes and out of my skin. A minus-sign gash divides each of my knees, trickling blood.

Ya fuckin’ politicians, I say to my knees. Crying yer crocodile tears.

I drag myself to the kludge that was once my bike and toss the lock around my neck like a medal. The sixer of pounders has scattered, some cans fugitives in the tall grass of abandoned lots where I dare not follow, others slain against the asphalt, gurgling their life’s blood and my night’s enjoyment into the air. It’s hot, so hot, except for my knees and shins, where the caking blood feels brisk. A lone surviving can nestles in the basket.

The can tab snaps open like breaking a neck. Foam bubbles over the rim, over my hands. I chug the survivor and toss his carcass. I sit on the curb. The niplettes of the stone press raw dog against my hairy ass. My pants have blown out.

A man in a tunic made of a blanket pushes a train of bicycles my way. It looks like three and a half bicycles lashed together with bungees and rope, laden with makeshift saddlebags of trash. As he grows closer, I discern the shit inveighed from his haywire jaws is directed against me.

Get the fuck out of the way! he yells. His voice is penetratingly shrill, honed from years of negotiating the milieu of an overpass.

I’m not in the way, I say. Not even close.

I’m not in the way! he shrieks back. Not even close!

What?

WHAT?

Fuck you!

FUUUUUUUCK YOOOOOOOU!

His scream echoes. I shut up. The creature pushes his caravan past.

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