He shrugged. “Okay, if you’re sure. Why don’t you give them a hand up top for now? Mike and I are going to inspect the building for any recent leaks or damage we might not know about. When we’re done, you can help us look below for material to make a new boat or raft. Cool?”
It was. I told them about the water damage I’d noticed in the stairwell the night before, thanked Sarah and Anna for breakfast, and then grabbed my raincoat and went up to the roof.
I don’t remember how or when Juan became the leader of the group. It just sort of happened. Maybe it was because he’d been a Baltimore city cop, or just the way he carried himself, his calm air of self-assuredness. But he was smart, fair, and we rarely argued with him. Occasionally, Taz, Ducky, and Lashawn gave him a hard time, or Nate would get a little haughty, but that was it. I’d always gotten the impression there might be a history between Juan, Taz, Ducky, and Lashawn predating the rain, but I’d never had the nerve to ask. Maybe Juan had busted them at one time for drug dealing or something. Jimmy had suggested that one time and Louis had given him shit about thinking all black people were drug dealers simply because of the color of their skin, but that was bullshit. Taz and Ducky proudly bragged about their street cred all the time. They were proud of dealing drugs.
Anyway, they had new jobs now. We all did. Lee and Mindy taught the kids in the makeshift school. Anna helped them out and gave Sarah a hand preparing our meals. Jimmy and I usually had salvage duty, switching off with Mike and Nate when the need arose. Salty was in charge of fishing, helped by Louis and Christian. Taz, Ducky, Lashawn, and Lori did odd chores where needed. And of course, we all took turns on guard duty.
I walked out onto the roof, blinking as a gust of cold rain blew into my face. Salty and Nate stood at opposite sides of the roof, holding deep sea rods and carefully watching their lines for a bite.
Taz and Ducky were feeding the birds.
The Alka-Seltzer had been Salty’s idea, one he’d suggested when Juan stressed that we needed to save ammunition to defend ourselves from the Satanists and couldn’t use it all up shooting seagulls. Our initial skepticism at Salty’s solution vanished when we saw the results.
Taz and Ducky stood in the middle of the roof, the rain beating down on their heads, while a large flock of seagulls circled above. Their slim white and gray bodies glided gracefully out over the water and then back to where the two men stood.
The guys threw a mixture of fish guts and other food scraps into the air, and the shrieking gulls darted forward, snatching the morsels before they came back down. Once they had the birds’ attention, they tossed up a handful of Alka-Seltzer tablets. The birds lunged for these, too, gobbling them up as quickly as Taz and Ducky could throw them.
Then they let nature take its course.
“Rats wit’ fucking wings, yo!” Ducky said to me as I walked toward them. “What’s up, playa?”
“Figured I’d give you guys a hand,” I said. “How’s it going?”
Ducky threw another handful of tablets into the air.
“Here comes the boom.” Taz leered, watching intently. “Ka-blam!”
According to Salty, a bird’s digestive system was different than a human being’s. Since it couldn’t burp or fart, the Alka-Seltzer sat in its stomach, fizzing away, until the gas and foam built up to the point where it had nowhere to go. The bird’s stomach would then expand beyond its limits and pop.
There was no explosion of blood and feathers, nothing so gruesome. The seagulls faltered, becoming so bloated that they could no longer fly, and then plummeted to the roof, foaming at the beak and making a horrible sound. At this point, Taz and Ducky stomped on their heads with their boots, ending the creatures’ struggles.
It was quick and easy, and it was much easier to find Alka-Seltzer in the ruins than it was bullets (one of the buildings still above water had a pharmacy inside) and simpler to kill the birds by feeding them the stuff than trying to get a bead on a moving target. We’d tried Salty’s method on the occasional duck and goose as well, when we saw them passing through, and it worked just the same.
When it was over, nine carcasses lay on the wet roof.
“Nice shooting,” I said. “Look’s like we got enough for a couple days.”
“Yeah,” Taz pulled out his pocketknife and began gutting the kills. “Gonna get these things cleaned up, then take ’em down to Anna and Sarah. Now if you could find some motherfucking barbecue sauce or some hot sauce while you’re out scavenging shit, we could have ourselves a real dinner!”
The rest of the gulls had flown away, screeching their displeasure. I knew from experience that they’d be back within minutes.
Hands shoved into his pockets, Ducky moved towards the door.
“Yo, Ducky,” Taz called. “Where you going, playa?”
The smaller man jumped, his shoulders jerking. He turned and smiled, but his eyes were nervous.
“Just figured I’d go see what Lashawn and Lori are up to. See if they need some help.”
“Man, fuck that. They’re okay. You need to help me clean these seagulls, dog.”
“I’m getting wet, Taz!”
“You ain’t been dry since this shit started. Go on, with your punk ass self. Kevin can help me instead.”
Ducky vanished down the stairwell. The wind slammed the door shut behind him. I wondered how many minutes it would be before he and Lashawn were engaged in a quickie, frantically screwing before Taz finished his task and came to look for them. For a moment, I considered going to find Lori and engaging in a quickie ourselves, but I decided against it. The last thing I wanted to do was scare her off.
Instead, I helped Taz field dress the birds, slicing them open and pulling out their insides. Steam billowed from the wounds. We dropped the guts into a slop bucket, already half full with rainwater in the brief time we’d been outside. They would be recycled, either as fish bait or fertilizer for my garden. Later on, Sarah and Ann would remove the feathers and finish the preparations. Salty was an expert at fly-tying, so the feathers would then be recycled into fishing lures.
“Nasty job,” I commented, wiping the sticky blood from my hands. Steam rose from the gutted carcass at my feet.
Taz shrugged and slid his knife through a bird’s belly. “I don’t mind. The blood keeps my hands warm.”
“I never thought of it that way,” I admitted. “But it makes sense.”
“I hate the cold. Never did like it. Winter always sucked ass. But you notice something?”
“What?”
“It’s like, August and shit, at least according to my calendar. But it’s fucking cold. Colder than it should be in the summer, you know? Why you think that is?”
I shrugged. “I guess the clouds are blocking out the sun.”
“Gonna be a rough fucking winter, if that’s the case, yo. We need to start thinking about ways to keep warm. Course, now that you and Lori are knocking boots, you shouldn’t have any problems.”
“Jesus Christ! You know about that too?”
He laughed. “Shit, dude, the whole damn building knows about it. Ya’ll made enough noise last night. Sounded like a porno movie.”
I sighed and shook my head. My ears burned.
Still chuckling, Taz took the gutbucket and the cleaned birds inside. After he was gone, I crossed over to Salty’s side of the roof. The end of his fishing rod drooped sullenly over the railing, droplets of water rolling off it. I noticed he wasn’t watching the line. Instead, he stared out to sea. His eyes had a lost, faraway look, and he was standing in a puddle. Water seeped over the tops of his boots, but he didn’t seem to care.
“Any bites?” I asked.
He shrugged. “A few nibbles. Got one sea bass, but it had the White Fuzz growing on it, so I had to cut the line. Later in the day, it’ll be better. Fish aren’t hungry right now.”