Thinking: Dangerous, bright petals bent about some knobbed, half-rotted root. “Ugly thing,” he told it, not them. “Hope I don’t need you.”
“Hope you don’t either,” one said above. “I guess you can give it to somebody else when you leave.”
“Yeah.” He stood up. “Sure.”
“If he leaves,” another said, gave another laugh.
“Hey, we better get going.”
“I heard a car. We’re probably gonna have to wait long enough anyway. We might as well start.”
South: “He didn’t make it sound like we were gonna get any rides.”
“Let’s just get going. Hey, so long!”
“So long.” Their beams swept by. “And thanks.” Artichokes? But he could not remember where the word had come from to ring so brightly.
He raised the orchid after them.
Caged in blades, his gnarled hand was silhouetted with river glitter stretching between the bridge struts. Watching them go, he felt the vaguest flutter of desire. Only one of their flashlights was on. Then one of them blocked that. They were footsteps on metal plates; some laughter drifting back; rustlings…
He walked again, holding his hand from his side.
This parched evening seasons the night with remembrances of rain. Very few suspect the existence of this city. It is as if not only the media but the laws of perspective themselves have redesigned knowledge and perception to pass it by. Rumor says there is practically no power here. Neither television cameras nor on-the-spot broadcasts function: that such a catastrophe as this should be opaque, and therefore dull, to the electric nation! It is a city of inner discordances and retinal distortions.
3
Beyond the bridge-mouth, pavement shattered.
One live street lamp lit five dead ones—two with broken globes. Climbing a ten-foot, tilted, asphalt slab that jerked once under him, rumbling like a live thing, he saw pebbles roll off the edge, heard them clink on fugitive plumbing, then splash somewhere in darkness…He recalled the cave and vaulted to a more solid stretch, whose cracks were mortared with nubby grass.
No lights in any near buildings; but down those waterfront streets, beyond the veils of smoke—was that fire? Already used to the smell, he had to breathe deeply to notice it. The sky was all haze. Buildings jabbed up into it and disappeared.
Light?
At the mouth of a four-foot alley, he spent ten minutes exploring—just because the lamp worked. Across the street he could make out concrete steps, a loading porch under an awning, doors. A truck had overturned at the block’s end. Nearer, three cars, windows rimmed with smashed glass, squatted on skewed hubs, like frogs gone marvelously blind.
His bare foot was calloused enough for gravel and glass. But ash kept working between his foot and his remaining sandal to grind like finest sand, work its way under, and silt itself with his sweat. His heel was almost sore.
By the gate at the alley’s end, he found a pile of empty cans, a stack of newspaper still wire-bound, bricks set up as a fireplace with an arrangement of pipes over it. Beside it was an army messpan, insides caked with dead mold. Something by his moving foot crinkled.
He reached down. One of the orchid’s petals snagged; he picked up a package of—bread? The wrapper was twisted closed. Back under the street lamp, he balanced it on his fingers, through the blades, and opened the cellophane.
He had wondered about food.
He had wondered about sleep.
But he knew the paralysis of wonder.
The first slice had a tenpenny nailhead of muzzy green in the corner; the second and third, the same. The nail, he thought, was through the loaf. The top slice was dry on one side. Nothing else was wrong—except the green vein; and it was only that penicillium stuff. He could eat around it.
I’m not hungry.
He replaced the slices, folded the cellophane, carried it back, and wedged it behind the stacked papers.
As he returned to the lamp, a can clattered from his sandal, defining the silence. He wandered away through it, gazing up for some hint of the hazed-out moon—
Breaking glass brought his eyes to street level.
He was afraid, and he was curious; but fear had been so constant, it was a dull and lazy emotion, now; the curiosity was alive:
He sprinted to the nearest wall, moved along it rehearsing his apprehensions of all terrible that might happen. He passed a doorway, noted it for ducking, and kept on to the corner. Voices now. And more glass.
He peered around the building edge.
Three people vaulted from a shattered display window to join two waiting. Barking, a dog followed them to the sidewalk. One man wanted to climb back in; did. Two others took off down the block.
The dog circled, loped his way—
He pulled back, free hand grinding the brick.
The dog, crouched and dancing ten feet off, barked, barked, barked again.
Dim light slathered canine tongue and teeth. Its eyes (he swallowed, hard) were glistening red, without white or pupil, smooth as crimson glass.
The man came back out the window. One in the group turned and shouted: “Muriel!” (It could have been a woman.) The dog wheeled and fled after.
Another street lamp, blocks down, gave them momentary silhouette.
As he stepped from the wall, his breath unraveled the silence, shocked him as much as if someone had called his…name? Pondering, he crossed the street toward the corner of the loading porch. On the tracks under the awning, four and six-foot butcher hooks swung gently—though there was no wind. In fact, he reflected, it would take a pretty hefty wind to start them swinging—
“Hey!”
Hands, free and flowered, jumped to protect his face. He whirled, crouching.
“You down there!”
He looked up, with hunched shoulders.
Smoke rolled about the building top, eight stories above.
“What you doing, huh?”
He lowered his hands.
The voice was rasp rough, sounded near drunk.
He called: “Nothing!” and wished his heart would still. “Just walking around.”
Behind scarves of smoke, someone stood at the cornice. “What you been up to this evening?”
“Nothing, I said.” He took a breath: “I just got here, over the bridge. About a half hour ago.”
“Where’d you get the orchid?”
“Huh?” He raised his hand again. The street lamp dribbled light down a blade. “This?”
“Yeah.”
“Some women gave it to me. When I was crossing the bridge.”
“I saw you looking around the corner at the hubbub. I couldn’t tell from up here—was it scorpions?”
“Huh?”
“I said, was it scorpions?”
“It was a bunch of people trying to break into a store, I think. They had a dog with them.”
After silence, gravelly laughter grew. “You really haven’t been here long, kid…?”
“I—” and realized the repetition—“just got here.”
“You out to go exploring by yourself? Or you want company for a bit.”
The guy’s eyes, he reflected, must be awfully good. “Company…I guess.”
“I’ll be there in a minute.”
He didn’t see the figure go; there was too much smoke. And after he’d watched several doorways for several minutes, he figured the man had changed his mind.
“Here you go,” from the one he’d set aside for ducking.
“Name is Loufer. Tak Loufer. You know what that means, Loufer? Red Wolf; or Fire Wolf.”
“Or Iron Wolf.” He squinted. “Hello.”
“Iron Wolf? Well, yeah…” The man emerged, dim on the top step. “Don’t know if I like that one so much. Red Wolf. That’s my favorite.” He was a very big man.
He came down two more steps: his engineer’s boots, hitting the boards, sounded like dropped sandbags. Wrinkled black jeans were half stuffed into the boot tops. The worn cycle jacket was scarred with zippers. Gold stubble on chin and jaw snagged the street light. Chest and belly, bare between flapping zipper teeth, were a tangle of brass hair. The fingers were massive, matted—“What’s your name?”—but clean, with neat and cared-for nails.
“Um…well, I’ll tell you: I don’t know.” It sounded funny, so he laughed. “I don’t know.”
Loufer stopped, a step above the sidewalk, and laughed too. “Why the hell don’t you?” The visor of his leather cap blocked his upper face with shadow.