There was barely enough room for Semper Fi to squeeze through the cars. He almost scraped her trailer on a building. Then he was past and he rumbled down the block to the next intersection. Ben had a long way to go to get out of the city. He was down by the bay, near the aquarium and Waterfront Park. He needed to get to 90 east. Either he got on Interstate 5 and took 5 to where it merged with 90, or he stuck to the back streets. He figured the interstate would be jammed with people fleeing the city, so the back streets it was.
Not five blocks later he regretted his decision. Fourth Avenue was bumper to bumper and the overflow was spilling into the side arteries as everyone and their grandmother sought to bypass the jam. Since he didn’t care to be boxed in, he wheeled into an alley and barreled down it. A Dumpster blocked his way, but Semper Fi knocked it aside with careless ease.
At the next street Ben turned. He wasn’t sure which one he was on but he was heading in the right direction. Now and then he glimpsed the bridge.
Ben switched on the radio to the all-news station. The announcer was saying something about a nuclear strike on San Diego. Ben only caught the tail end of the story. Then came an account of the Vatican going up in radioactive dust. China supposedly had declared war on the West.
Ben shook his head. He’d known it would come to something like this. The human race was that stupid. He wouldn’t put it past homo sapiens to totally wipe themselves out.
A stop sign necessitated tromping on the brakes. Ben craned his neck to scan the next street—and his passenger door abruptly flung open. Instantly, Ben had a Double Eagle in his hand. He pointed it, but didn’t shoot. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
The girl looked to be all of sixteen. She wore scruffy clothes—scruffy by Ben’s standards, but then he was old school—and had pink streaks in her black hair. She wore a nose ring and at least ten earrings in one ear. Her eyes weren’t blue and they weren’t green but some sort of in-between. “I need a lift.”
“Not with me.”
“Come on, mister. I don’t own wheels, and I want out before it gets really bad.”
“No. Slam the door on your way down.”
“No, yourself.” Incredibly, the girl climbed in. She shut the door and clasped her hands on her lap.
“Ready when you are.”
“The hell,” Ben said. He didn’t know whether to laugh or be mad. “Don’t your ears work? Get your scrawny white ass out of my rig, and I mean now.”
“You better get going or we’ll get stuck here when it hits the fan.” She smiled and held out a hand. “I’m Space, by the way.”
“Space?” Ben repeated, despite himself.
“Yeah, I know. My real name is Geraldine, but I hate it. It’s bogus. My great-grandmother or someone had it so my mom decided to honor her by giving me the name. Lame, lame, lame. Anyway, when I was little, I was into stars and stuff. You know, astronomy. I liked it so much, my dad used to tease me and called me Spacey and somehow that got shortened to Space and here I am and here we are and you’re wasting time.”
“The hell,” Ben said again.
“Are you catching flies? You really need to get your act together. If you want me out you’ll have to throw me out, and I promise I’ll scream and kick.” Space reached out and tapped the Double Eagle.
“And either use this or stop waving it in my face. You look silly.” To Ben’s amazement, he lowered the pistol. “Listen, girl. I’m serious. I can’t take you with me.”
“Why not?” Space gazed about the cab. “It’s not as if you don’t have the room. Hell, this is the Ritz compared to some of the boxes I’ve slept in.”
“Boxes?”
“Why do you repeat everything I say? Yeah, boxes. I live on the street a lot. And when you have no money and you don’t want to sleep in the gutter, you find a box and crawl in. Boxes are everywhere. The big ones are comfortable enough, but the small ones are cramped. And some stink. And when it rains, well, a box ain’t for shit, know what I mean?”
“Damn, girl.”
“Can you please get this monster going? If a missile hits we’ll be fried and I so don’t want to go out as a piece of toast.”
“Where are your parents?”
Space sighed in exasperation. “I just told you I live on the street. Do you think if I had parents they’d let me do that?”
“Everyone has parents,” Ben persisted. “Either they’re dead or you’re a runaway or they threw you out because they couldn’t take the motormouth.”
Space had a nice grin. “Okay. You got me there. I run off at the mouth a lot. But it’s me, you know? I start talking and I can’t stop. There are worse things. Like starting to drink and you can’t stop. Or taking drugs and you can’t stop. Not that I haven’t never drank or never taken drugs, but I can stop both of them with no problem.”
Ben set the pistol down, close to his leg. “I must be nuts.”
“You’re taking me, then?” Space beamed and clapped and bounced up and down. “Super. I wasn’t sure if you’d be nice or if you’d be a perv. But I had to take the chance, you know.” Ben shifted into motion. He kept telling himself that if he had any sense he would throw her out. “Listen. I’ll take you as far as the city limits. After that you’re on your own.”
“Where are you headed?”
“I’m on a run. I have a delivery to make in Minnesota.”
“Isn’t that a city somewhere?”
“It’s a state. You’re thinking of Minneapolis, which is a city in Minnesota. Right next to St. Paul. They call them the Twin Cities.”
“Minnesota?” Space rolled it on her tongue as if tasting it. “Are the people there nice?”
“If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, you can forget it.” Space looked at him. “You’re nice. You’re trying to act all tough, but you’re giving me a lift out of Seattle out of the goodness of your heart.”
“Girl, I don’t know why in hell I’m doing this.” Ben was sincere. Ordinarily, he would open the door and give her a push. “I don’t like people much.”
“All people? Or just white folks?”
Ben and Semper Fi’s gears growled at the same time. “Don’t even try to lay that on me. I’m no bigot. I don’t hate whites just because they’re white. Although a lot of them hate me because I’m not.” He came to another intersection and wheeled to the left. “When I say I don’t like people, I mean all people. Black, white, red, yellow, polka-dot, you name it.”
“That’s harsh. You got a reason or is it you were born a grump and just got worse as you turned antique?”
“I’m thirty-four, girl. That’s hardly antique.”
“It’s more than twice as old as me,” Space said. Suddenly she pointed. “Look out!” Ben had taken his eyes off the street. He glanced ahead, swore, and hit the brakes, hard. Another traffic jam took up most of the next block. A policeman was moving among the vehicles, gesturing and giving orders, apparently trying to get everything moving.
“Looks like we’ll be stuck here for a while.”
“Not if I can help it.”
Another alley offered a way out. When the cop turned and started back the other way, Ben wasted no time in taking advantage of it. But he had barely nosed the truck in when he had to hit the brakes again. This time there wasn’t just one Dumpster; there were five.
“God doesn’t like you.”
Ben didn’t care if there were twenty. “God helps those who help themselves,” he retorted, and gave her a demonstration of why Semper Fi was the next best thing to a bulldozer. All the Dumpsters were on wheels, so it was easy enough. The first pushed the second and they pushed the third, but the fourth spun and lodged against a wall. An extra tamp on the gas pedal, a loud crunch, and Semper Fi was out of the alley with Dumpsters rolling every which way.