“Ha!” Foster laughed. “Man, you’re old school. Elephant man? Brad Pitt? Plus, you know if you’re gonna go old school, then I’d rather be compared with a younger Denzel Washington. How’s that?”
“A young black man helping an old blind Jewish woman make her way across a war torn America,” Judith said as she shook her head. “Isn’t that just the perfect tag for a movie of the week on Lifetime?”
Rosemary laughed. “It’ll have the happy ending, too. I’ll let you guys go. If you get lost down here, anyone can help. Good luck.” She left the room.
“Shall we?” Foster gave a squeeze to her hand.
“We shall.” Judith slid from the examining table. “Then after we get something in our bellies, we need to talk,” she said seriously. “I need to talk to you.”
Foster muttered, “Sure.” He didn’t know what Judith needed or wanted to talk to him about. Probably wanted to tell him thanks, but she didn’t need him hanging around her anymore since they were safe and there were others that could do it. He liked hanging around Judith. She was good people. He hoped that wasn’t the case, but he would understand if it was. It would be par for the course. Every grown up he actually did like being around always seemed to leave him.
Tyler was hanging out in the refugee registration area. Actually, it was the library and they had school there in the back. Not that Tyler went to school, he didn’t. But he liked to listen in, and he was trying to find out about that rock. It was his personal puzzle.
The refugee center was pretty fun, especially when people wandered in. Rick was a funny guy who gave every refugee a hard time. He joked and Tyler got a kick out of that.
A lot of people had come through over the last day or two, especially after George got word out and sent men east to search out others. A lot of towns on the coast were burned out and people had no homes.
George also was preparing the grade school a mile up the road to house people.
It was temporary, he said, until the war was over. Something they all hoped wouldn’t take long.
Tyler ducked behind the bookshelf when he heard Rick’s voice. He was joking with someone. “Because we have to know who is here. Don’t you want the government to know you’re alive?”
“Don’t think the government really gives a shit about us,” the man said. “Do you?”
“Oh, heck yeah. But we do need your names. We’re keeping track of everyone that comes through here or stays here, just in case.”
“In case of what?” the woman asked.
“In case someone, someday, comes a looking for you,” Rick replied. “Just humor us. What else do you have to do?”
Tyler couldn’t hear the whispered conversation between the man and the woman, so he peeked.
When he did, he gasped.
Had he not recognized the woman, he wouldn’t have known the man. He had grown a beard, probably from not shaving, and wore a baseball cap. But the woman’s hair was pulled back tight and he could see her face. She had worn her hair like that on the train and after the wreck.
The man, Ben, was the one who had helped Harry look for his father on the train.
He helped Harry with his dad.
Tyler would never forget that.
He wanted to jump out and say, ‘Hey guys!’ but he didn’t. He remembered Harry had asked them all to stick together and those two had just left. And despite what he said in the car, Harry had looked mad at them for leaving. They went their own way on that bridge.
So out of respect for Harry, he wasn’t going to say anything until he talked to him.
“Oh my God. Look who it is!” Lana screamed out brightly.
Tyler jumped.
Busted.
“Tyler.” Ben smiled.
Tyler took a step, opened his mouth, and fearful that Harry would get mad at him for talking to them, took off running.
Confused, Lana looked at Ben. “That was Tyler, wasn’t it?”
“I’m positive it was.”
Then they both noticed Rick was shaking his head.
“What?” Ben asked.
“Man.” Rick held a clipboard, shaking his head. “First you arrive without a gun to protect yourself, then you insult my grammar and then you scare away our young. You two are O for three.” He handed them the clipboard. “See if you can do this.”
“Harry!”
Tyler ran from the library via the safe route.
He went down to the basement, out the back door, in the basement door of Della’s Diner, up to the diner, out that door, around the corner to the newly erected scaffolding and ran down that block. There at the end was a school bus, back door open. He ran through that into the back door of The Tap.
There were a lot of safe routes set up. Scaffolds, buses, one basement to another, all provided the safety of minimal street exposure during the daylight, just in case.
Then again, the men on the rooftops kept an eye out and would alert them if any planes were coming so some did not bother taking the longer, safer routes.
But Tyler always took the safe route.
Harry was supposed to be at The Tap, but Buzz told him he was at George’s old car garage. That was another two blocks through the alley. Tyler ran, staying close to the buildings.
“Harry!” Tyler called out as he raced in the shop.
“What in the world are you screaming about?” Harry said. “Shut the door.”
“Sorry.” Tyler shut the door.
“Why are you running the streets? I thought you were eavesdropping on school and looking up that piece of rock.”
“I was and…” Tyler looked around the garage; it was lit up, windows blackened. Four other men, including George, were at a table. They wore gloves and had metal things in front of them. Some looked as if they were measuring a black substance. “What you guy, doing? Can I help?”
“No, you cannot help,” Harry told him. “And we’re making explosives. So just in case George’s old hands start trembling, you might want to get out of here.”
“Whoa, cool. In case the enemy shows up?” Tyler asked.
“Exactly.”
“Whoa, that’s cool.”
“Tyler.” Harry tilted his head. “You ran in here screaming. What’s up?”
“Oh. You remember that guy, Ben from the train and his wife?”
“They were the ones that left us on the bridge,” Harry said. “Yes, I remember.”
“I knew you were mad about that.” Tyler nodded. “You didn’t say, but you looked it.”
“I wasn’t happy.”
“Are you holding a grudge?”
“No. Why are you bringing them up?”
“They’re here, signing in at the refugee center.”
Harry stood up straight and his head cocked back. He laid his hand on Tyler’s back. “Then I should be the welcome wagon. Let’s go.”
“You gonna yell at them, Harry?” Tyler asked, with rattling excitement. “Are you?”
“Tyler…”
“They left us, Harry. They made me cry.”
“Now who’s the one holding the grudge?” Harry shook his head. “Let’s go.” He gave a pat to Tyler’s backside and left the garage with the boy, informing George he’d be back.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
They gave Brendan a change of clothes, jacket and personal hygiene products, and then told him he couldn’t go home.
Not that Brendan wanted to, considering he lived just inside Brooklyn. But he had nowhere else to go.
They asked if he had family or friends, and while he did have a brother in Seattle, Brendan simply said he had no one. That way he could stay and see what was going on.
They had moved farther east to a former Home Depot warehouse which was being used as a base of some sorts for the US military. He’d stay there at least for a few days to talk to them, not that he had heard anything important while in New York, but he had seen a lot.