Breakers Page 7

  Walt walked to the bed, pulled the comforter away from Vanessa, and shuddered, groaning. Half-dried blood weighed down the sheets, clinging to her cheeks and pooling around her neck, a stinking, chunky flow of red and phlegm and chunks like ground beef. He reached for her mucky chin. It was slick and room-temperature. Her mouth sagged open without resistance. Her bruised tongue oozed, sluglike, past her lips. Her glassy eyes stared through a question they couldn't form.

  He called 911, sat on the floor, and cried. They'd take her away this night, wouldn't they? Would his last sight of her be at her funeral? Would her parents even invite him? He struggled to his feet, lurched to the bed. Paled by sickness, crusted with blood and spittle, her beauty hadn't been completely masked and erased—the lines of her cheekbones were graceful as ever, her lips soft and wide, her nose small and straight and freckled. He would never see or touch or hold her again. Numbly, he reached forward, palmed her heavy left breast, and squeezed.

  He raced for the bathroom and heaved until the paramedics buzzed up.

  They asked him quiet questions and he gave them clipped answers, replying even when they asked if he'd tried to get her in to see a doctor.

  "Just like that," he said. "She was fine. I left. She died."

  The paramedic pressed his fist to his forehead. "She's not the first. Girlfriend?"

  "We'd turned things around. We had a future."

  "Hey, kid, you still got one. Hang on."

  Walt didn't see much point to that. He didn't see much point to anything. The paramedics left with her body. He got drunk and called her parents. He couldn't remember falling asleep.

  Time became strange. He spent his days glued to his computer, combing the news for NYC death toll updates: dozens, then hundreds, soon thousands. The trajectory was mirrored around the nation, the world. Governments advised people to stay indoors, wash their hands, and handle their own food. Wash their hands! Three-quarters of the country was sick and they were telling people Remember: soap exists. Face in his hands, Walt laughed. He was glad they were dying. They deserved it. This was what everyone deserved.

  Walt threw out the comforter. The sheets. Hauled the mattress to the curb and slept on the couch. He got a temporary debit card so he could drink Jim Beam straight from the bottle like the worst of cliches. He didn't care.

  His parents called to ask him to come back to Long Island. He said no. Unless they floated off in one of their balloons, there was nowhere they could go where people weren't barfing up blood.

  He'd never been religious. Not past 7, anyway, when he'd asked God for a bike. A couple weeks later, at the Unitarian church his parents brought him to, Walt left Sunday School and saw the feathery pulp of a baby bird ground into the sidewalk by strollers and well-shined shoes. No one else bothered to look down. He never got his bike. Instead, he believed in the goodness of man, their natural rights and inherent dignity.

  With Vanessa's body somewhere under a hospital, Walt watched the LA riots with a smile. He nodded in satisfaction at the twelve-fatality trampling in the London tubes. The reverend Frank Phillips preached on TV about Revelations. Two days later, his cough forced him off a live broadcast mid-sermon. Walt set up a Google Alert for his obituary.

  Four days after Vanessa's death, he decided to hunt down his mugger and stab him to death before the plague could get him.

  A cold spring wind blew off the bay. Sunlight glittered like ice. Uptown was supposedly a ghost town, but the Village was still reasonably populated with its native artists, transgenders, college students, and professionals who imagined they were still cool, unaware the entire neighborhood hadn't been for at least a decade. Walt crossed the narrow streets with no particular pattern, jiggling the butterfly knife in his pocket. He knew there was no real chance the man with the shaved head would be in the coffee shops or cafes (the ones that were still open, anyway), but checked regardless, nauseated by the smells of espresso and fried plantains and kung pao. On the sidewalks, people lifted their surgical masks to talk quietly on their cells. Others hurried past, coughing into their fists, driving oncoming pedestrians to the other side of the street. Walt walked until his toes blistered, until his nose numbed in the wind, until the sun went down, then he bought a new pint and walked until he couldn't. He sat on the stoop where the man had sat and leaned against the iron rail that lined the stairs.

  He woke sometime before sunrise, stiff, hungover, colder than stone. He dragged himself home and slept on the couch deep into the afternoon. The apartment still smelled like blood and the gritty blue cleaning powder he'd used to scrub it out.

  He put down some water, whiskey, and toast. Before he'd managed to dress, he heard chanting in the street. A clump of protesters marched north, parkbound, clapping gloved hands, waving signs that said "VACCINES KILL" and "WHERE'S THE CURE?" and "SICK CROPS, SICK PEOPLE."

  Walt brought his coat, a bottle, the knife. Washington Square swelled with students, middle-aged women in glasses, gray-haired men in corduroy vests. The drug dealers retreated to the shadowy, tree-thick corner, hands in the pockets of their black hoodies. Walt circled the fringes, hunting for bald white heads. A woman with a frizzy ponytail descended to the center of the dry fountain, propped up a picture, and lit a candle. Notes and photos appeared as if conjured. Walt smelled wax, incense. The standard protest sights: a bearded kid slapping his bongos, 2-4-6-8 anti-government cheers, short-haired 50-year-old women yelling into megaphones. A squad car rolled to a stop alongside the arch on the north entrance of the park. An officer swung his legs out the door, leaned against the car, and muttered into his radio.

  The crowd chanted, made speeches, told anecdotes about crowded hospitals and delayed appointments and insurance discrimination. People poured into the park by twos and fours, clogging the concrete around the fountain. On the south edge, a column of kids in red and black filed into the park, circled A's painted on their signs and sweatshirts and masked faces. They carried plastic shields and black batons. The cop near the arch grimaced and leaned into his car. Back by the swing sets, a man with a shaved head flagged down a college kid and bummed a cigarette.

  The mugger lit up, squinted, spat smoke between his teeth. Walt walked over, hand in his pocket.

  "Hey."

  The man closed one eye. "What's up?"

  "How was the curry?"

  The man cocked his head, confused, then grinned slowly. "Tasty, man. I gotta go back to that place."

  Three more squad cars joined the first up by the arch. Inside his pocket, Walt unfolded his knife. "My girlfriend died."

  The grin seeped from the mugger's eyes. "Yeah, well, she's not the only one."

  "If you hadn't stopped me, I might have gotten home in time."

  "To do what? Suck the poison out? Cast a spell? I lifted your wallet, not your fucking medical license."

  On the south side of the park, a man barked like a drill sergeant. The anarchists formed four orderly lines. Some belted riot masks under their chins while others raised transparent shields. Sirens squealed up on 5th Avenue.

  "Maybe I'd have seen her."

  The anarchists jogged forward in formation. Protesters shouted, deserting the square, shoving onlookers into the fountain. Someone screamed. By the arch, two mounted police clopped behind a knot of NYPD holding tasers and batons.

  "She died," the man with the shaved head said. "Ain't nothing worse than your girl dying on you. But if you're trying to blame me for that, you need to get yourself some fucking grief counseling."

  Wordlessly, the anarchists broke into a sprint. The outnumbered cops held their ground. The two mounted units trotted forward. The front line of red-and-black anarchists raised their riot shields above their heads, the curved plastic tonking under the horsemen's batons. The second line of anarchists rushed forward, surrounding the horses, and yanked the two cops out of their stirrups. Their own batons rose and fell. Sirens yowled over the screams. The horses reared. A kid in black collapsed, convulsing. From the arch, a policeman charged for
the downed mounties, pistol drawn, emptying his clip into the anarchists beating the two downed cops.

  Walt lunged forward, slashing at the mugger's face. The man shouted and threw up his hands. The knife cut a deep red line across his fingers. He swore, stumbling back a half step, then crouched low with his hands extended. Walt jabbed for his ribs. The mugger grabbed his wrist, folded it, wrenched away the knife. Walt smelled the man's sweat, heard the whuff of his breath. A bright point of pain burst through Walt's gut. Two more followed. The man drew back. Walt collapsed. Metal clattered on the concrete. Walt moaned, dry-mouthed, wet-handed.

  "You fucking idiot," the mugger said. He turned and ran. Walt rolled on his back and clutched his stomach and thought: I want this. A bearded face poked into the narrowing tunnel of his vision. Words he couldn't understand. He saw Vanessa smiling, lying on her back in a field in Central Park.