“He’s already in the scavenger camps. He said he’d be in the Mission Viejo one for the next hour or two.”
“Ah,” I said, wolfing down stew. “How come you aren’t with him?”
“Well, Hanker, you know how it is. First of all, I had to stay here and help cook. But even if I could’ve gone, I can’t keep up with Steve for an entire night. You know what that’s like. I mean I could do it, but I wouldn’t have any fun at it. Besides, I think he likes being away from me at these things.”
“Nah.”
She shrugged. “I’m going to go hunt him down in a bit.”
“How’d it go at the seed exchange?”
“Pretty good. Not like in the spring, but I did get a good packet of barley seed. That was a coup—everyone’s interested in this barley ’cause it’s doing so well in Talega, so the trading was hot, but our good elote did the trick. I’m going to plant that whole upper field with this stuff next week, and see how it does. I hope it’s not too late.”
“Your crew’ll be busy.”
“They’re always busy.”
“True.” I finished the stew. “I guess I’ll go look for Steve.”
“It shouldn’t be hard to find him.” She laughed. “Just go for the biggest noise. I’ll see you over there.”
Among the new town camps on the south side of the park it was dark and quiet, except for the eerie, piercing cries of the Trabuco peacocks, protesting their cages. Small fires here and there made the trees above them flicker and dance with reflected light, and voices floated from the dark shapes blocking off the tiny flames.
In the northern half of the park it was different. Bonfires roared in three clearings, making the colored awnings flap in the branches. Lanterns casting a mean white glare hung from the trees. I stepped onto the promenade and was shoved in the back by a large woman in an orange dress. “Sorry, boy.” I walked over to the Mission Viejo camp. A jar flew past me, spilling liquid and smashing against a tree. The bright plastic colors of scavenged clothing wavered in the firelight, and every scavenger, man, woman and child, had gotten out their full collection of jewelry; they wore gold and silver necklaces, earrings, nose rings, ankle, belly, and wrist bracelets, and all of it studded with gems winking red and blue and green. They were beautiful.
The Viejo camp had tables set end to end in long rows. The benches lining them were jammed with people drinking and talking and listening to the jazz band at one end of the camp. I stood and looked for a while, not seeing anyone I knew. Then Nicolin deliberately struck me in the arm, and with a grin said, “Let’s go hassle the old man, see he’s over with Doc and the rest of the antiques.”
Tom was set up at the end table with a few other survivors from the old time: Doc Costa, Leonard Sarowitz from Hemet, and George something from Cristianitos. The four of them were a familiar sight at swap meets, and were often joined by Odd Roger and other survivors old enough to remember what the old time was like. Tom was the senior member of this group by a long shot. He saw us and made a spot on the bench beside him. We had a drink from Leonard’s jar; I gagged and sent half my swallow down my shirt. This put the four ancients in hysterics. Old Leonard’s gums were as clear of teeth as a babe’s.
“Is Fergie here?” Doc asked George, getting back to their conversation.
George shook his head. “He went west.”
“Ah. Too bad.”
“You know how fast this boy is?” Tom said, slapping me on the shoulder. Leonard shook his head, frowning. “Once I threw him a pitch and he hit a line drive past my ear—I turned around and saw the ball hit him in the ass as he slid into second.”
The others laughed, but Leonard shook his head again. “Don’t you distract me! You’re trying to distract me!”
“What do you mean?”
“The point is—I was just telling him this, boys, and you should hear it too—the point is, if Eliot had fought back like an American, we wouldn’t be in this fix right now.”
“What fix is that?” Tom asked. “I’m doing okay as far as I can tell.”
“Don’t be facetious,” Doc put in.
“Back at it again, I see,” Steve observed, rolling his eyes and going for the jar.
“Why, I don’t doubt we would be the strongest nation on Earth again, by God,” Leonard went on.
“Now wait a second,” Tom said. “There aren’t enough Americans left alive to add up to a nation at all, much less the strongest on Earth. And what good would it do if we had blown the rest of the world into the same fix?”
Doc was so outraged he cut Leonard off and answered for him: “What good would it do?” he said. “It would mean there wouldn’t be any God damned Chinese boating off the coast, watching us all the time and bombing every attempt we make to rebuild! That’s what good it would do. That coward Eliot put America in a hole for good. We’re the bottom of the world now, Tom Barnard, we’re bears in the pit.”
“Raarrrr,” Steve growled, and took another drink. I took the next one.
“We were goners as soon as the bombs went off,” Tom said. “Makes no difference what happened to the rest of the world. If Eliot had decided to push the button, that just would’ve killed more people and wrecked more countries. It wouldn’t have done a thing for us. Besides, it wasn’t the Russians or the Chinese that planted the bombs—”
“You don’t think,” Doc said.
“You know it wasn’t! It was the God damned South Africans.”
“The French!” George cried. “It was the French!”
“It was the Vietnamese,” Leonard said.
“No it wasn’t,” Tom replied. “That poor country didn’t even own a firecracker when we were done with it. And Eliot probably wasn’t the man who decided not to retaliate, either. He probably died in the first moments of the day, like everyone else. It was some general in a plane who made the decision, you can bet your wooden teeth. And quite a surprise it must have been, too, even to him. Especially to him. Makes me wonder who he was.”
Doc said, “Whoever it was, he was a coward and a traitor.”
“He was a decent human being,” said Tom. “If we had struck back at Russia and China, we’d be criminals and murderers. Anyway if we had done that the Russians would’ve sent their whole stockpile over here to answer ours, and then there wouldn’t be a single damn ant left alive on North America today.”
“Ants would still be alive,” George said. Steve and I bent our heads to the table, giggling and pushing our fingers in each others’ sides—“pushing the button,” as the old men said. Tom was giving us a mean look, so we straightened up and drank some more to calm ourselves.
“—over five thousand nuclear blasts and survived,” Doc was saying. Every meet the number went up. “We could have taken a few more. Our enemies deserved a few of them too, that’s all I’m saying.” Even though they had this argument every time they joined the other antiques, almost, Doc was still getting angry at Tom. Bitterly he cried, “If Eliot had pushed the button we’d all be in the same boat, and then we’d have a chance to rebuild. They won’t let us rebuild, God damn it!”
“We are rebuilding, Ernest,” Tom said jovially, trying to put the fun back in their argument. He waved at the surrounding scene.
“Get serious,” Doc said. “I mean back to the way we were.”
“I wouldn’t want that,” said Tom. “They’d likely blow us up again.”