Staggering into the living room, I see Polly and Cody. They stand there watching me like I was the lead character in private drama playing out just for them. Jane slams the door shut and stomps across the room.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into you! You didn’t have to push me.”
No one offers to help. No one makes a move at all. Except for Jane and she’s too busy pacing around the living room and wagging her finger while she prattles on and on about how she won’t tolerate domestic violence in any way shape or form. Please. All I did was let myself into my own home. Is it my fault that she wouldn’t get out of the way?
Fuck ’em. I made it this far on my own. I guess a few more steps to the kitchen won’t really matter.
Cody is standing by the coffee table and he’s looking at me like I’m some kind of trained monkey. One who might be dangerous or perhaps just mildly amusing. As I pass the worthless twit, he sniffs several times and wrinkles his nose as he begins fanning his hand in front of his face.
“My God, man, you smell like an outhouse.”
All the frustration of the morning bubbles over like an unattended kettle. I slam the boxes of supplies down onto the coffee table, throw them really, and there’s a sharp crack as the cheap wood gives out. The yin-yang design splinters into half a dozen pieces as coffee mugs and saucers crash to the ground.
“Well maybe next time, you’d like to go get the fuckin’ supplies! Maybe you’d like to waste half your day being told that if you step outside the precious yellow line you’ll end up with a damn bullet in your head! Son of bitch!”
I’m all up in his face, spraying spittle with each word and Cody’s trying to back away but I’ve got the lapels of his shirt in a vice-like grip. His eyes dart about the room and he winces with each word.
“They would have shot me! DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT?”
I feel hands pulling me backward, yanking me away as my name is repeated again and again; but as quickly as the anger flared up, it’s gone and I’m simply tired, scared, and frustrated beyond belief. I let his shirt slip through my fingers as the girls pull me away and then fall to my knees in the center of the floor.
“They would have shot me.”
My voice is small and weak now and the tears start streaming down my face. My body hitches with sobs and snot bubbles from my nose and I smell like piss and there’s an old man lying in a dumpster somewhere with the rats and maggots and trash. And all I can do is rock back and forth, repeating over and over: stay within the yellow lines, stay within the yellow lines….
I wake up on the couch with an afghan thrown across me and a bolster pillow beneath my head. Every muscle in my body is sore and I’ve got a headache that feels like there’s a cluster of fingertips pressing behind my left eye. It’s dark outside now and I can hear the others in the kitchen.
“Zax is not a word, Cody.”
“It is too, Jane. Check the dictionary. It’s a tool commonly used in slate roofing. It’s also a triple-letter score. Which, if I’m not mistaken puts me in the lead.”
“Hey there, sleepyhead.”
It’s Polly’s voice. She’s leaning in the doorway that leads down the hall, a half grin across her face.
“How you feeling?”
This evening she’s in jeans and a t-shirt that says Life Begins At The End Of Your Comfort Zone. Her left arm jingles with bangles and it might be just my imagination but I think there’s something different in the way she’s looking at me. Almost like she’s truly seeing me for the first time.
“Better.” I mumble as I sit up. “Sore.”
“You kind of freaked everyone out a bit earlier. At first Jane was pretty pissed, but when you started crying… well, none of us really knew what to do, you know?”
We look at each other from across the room and I pull the cover tightly around me as I take a slow breath through my nose. Polly takes a few steps and her voice drops to a near whisper.
“It was bad out there, wasn’t it?”
I nod silently.
“There was blood on your shirt when we started taking your clothes off for you. After you passed out. Or fell asleep. Or whatever that was.”
I close my eyes and can clearly see the box coming down on the back of the old man’s head.
“It wasn’t yours, was it?”
I shake my head slowly.
“You need to talk about it?”
I shake my head again.
“How ’bout coffee? Nothing fancy. Just straight-up old fashioned black coffee?”
I nod and she leans forward and kisses my forehead. She smells so clean and fresh, so lovely.
“I’ll be right back, okay? You just stay right here.”
Someone has cleaned up the mess I made. Hard to believe that the coffee table I shelled out so much for shattered so damn easily. I really liked that table, too. It’s a shame, really.
I hear whispering from the kitchen now. No more arguments over words and tiles and scores; and I’m sure I’m the big topic of discussion. Crazy Richard.
The funny thing, though, is I don’t really regret it. Killing the old man, I mean. We needed those supplies worse than he did. There’s no doubt in my mind about that. Let’s face it, the writing’s on the wall and it’s a lot easier to read than that gang graffiti in the alley . The military don’t threaten to shoot civilians for simply stepping out of line. Not unless the shit’s about to really hit the fan. An old guy like him? He’d never be able to survive what’s coming down the pike. The young, the old, the sick, and frail… they’ll all fall flat on their faces into a river of blood while the strong use their bodies as stepping stones.
Yesterday, I probably would have been among those who couldn’t bear the weight and responsibility of survival. But I’m a different man than the one who walked out that door with his little ration card in one hand and his worries in the other. Sure… I’m still afraid. Change is always scary and I’d be a fool not to be a little wary. But there’s a difference between a healthy fear and paralyzing terror. And I know now that I can do whatever it takes to survive.
Change is good….
I’m lying in bed with Jane and she’s flipping through the pages of a magazine. We haven’t said a word to each other for nearly the past hour, but it’s not an angry silence. It’s more like we’ve simply ran out of things to say. She’s content to be lost in her world of gossip and fashion and I pretend to be engrossed in whatever book this is in my hands. But I’m really thinking about Polly. To be extremely specific, I’m thinking about Polly and her t-shirts.
I’ve never really been one to believe in all that mystical mumbo-jumbo. The way I see it, most of it can simply be explained away by the power of suggestion and the weakness of the human mind. The need to believe in something greater. That there’s some Master Plan behind this shipwreck we call life and we’re not all just bobbing along on our lifeboats and hoping to be saved. But now I’m starting to wonder.
See, I’m noticing patterns here. Patterns which seem to be a bit more than mere coincidence.
The night that the streets outside exploded with violence. What was it her shirt said that evening? Well behaved women rarely make history. Yeah, that was it. And we’re living through history right now, aren’t we? Things are changing out there and I get the feeling that the momentum has built too rapidly for anyone to ever dream of stopping it now. The military and police, the people in authority… they’re just going through the motions, trying to maintain an illusion of control for as long as humanly possible. So yeah, this is history in the making. And the well behaved women? Well, let’s just say they won’t fare well in all of this. It will be the wildcats who come out on top, the ones who aren’t afraid to make their own rules, to get their hands a little dirty, to fight and struggle and claw their way back up to the top of the food chain. Is Jane that type of woman?