Jackson Ford - Random Sh*t Flying Through the Air

Well, fuck him. I feel a sick a pleasure in imagining him safe, or safer than I am right now, anyway. Stay with the nice soldiers, Nic. I’ll be fine .

Africa, mercifully, says nothing. Doesn’t even look at me.

We head down the plaza steps into the parking lot, dodging small clusters of people. Mothers clutching babies, groups of men in thick jackets smoking cigarettes, kids running everywhere. Like the world’s most fucked-up street festival. But there’s a bit more space to move now, and we make our way out of the stadium grounds, heading for Chinatown. Above us, helicopters buzz back and forth, their rotors audible over the weirdly quiet streets.

It’s hard going. And not just because of the terrain. I can’t stop thinking of Paul. Replaying what happened over and over and over. Trying to find an angle, a way to make it come out different. But it’s like the ending of Game of Thrones . You can wish as much as you want, but it will still suck, and it will suck for all eternity.

I’m comparing Paul’s death to a fucking TV show now? Jesus. I reach up, wipe my face, skin slick under my fingers from the rain. My eyes feel puffy, my eyelids twice their usual size.

I shouldn’t be surprised at the rubble, at the cracked streets and broken buildings. I should be immune by now. But this quake is the gift that keeps on giving, and it’s hard not to feel appalled at the destruction. There are no street lights – no power anywhere, except for Dodger behind us – but the night is lit by a thousand glimmering fires. The rain seems to be keeping most of them under control, but it comes with the fun side effect of chilling us to the bone.

I hug myself as we close in on the freeway, rubbing my upper arms. It looks like the Sunset Boulevard overpass has collapsed, but that’s OK: we can cross the 110, which isn’t elevated. It’ll put us right onto Figueroa. Straight shot to downtown from there.

God, what I wouldn’t give for us to still have the bikes.

We left the stadium at around 9 p.m. – amazingly, the big clock on the scoreboard was still working. I keep checking my phone, more out of habit than anything else – we’ve been on the move for about an hour, although it feels much longer. Africa and I walk in silence, trudging through the rain. There are groups of people on the streets, most of them heading in the direction of the stadium, looking cold and wet and exhausted. I’m a little worried they might try rob us, like the fuckwits from before. Not that it’s going to end well for them – I have reached the point where I give zero fucks about using my powers in public – but I’d prefer not to. It’s a relief that, for the most part, they just ignore us.

It’s not long before we come across our first collapsed skyscraper.

It’s crashed down onto Figueroa, utterly wrecking the buildings around it. Despite the rain, the air is choked with dust – we’re probably a shit-ton of toxic chemicals. And there must be people buried under the rubble, too. That thought is enough to force a long, slow breath out of my lungs, a breath that really wants to be a scream of anger.

This kid. This fucking kid .

Africa and I come to a stop in the middle of the street, staring at the wreckage. Should I help out? See if I can pull parts of the rubble up? But there are already two or three emergency crews clambering over the building like ants, helicopters with spotlights hovering overhead. Plus, I’m not sure we have time. What’s more important? Getting a few people out of the rubble? Or stopping the kid before he causes another earthquake that’s even worse than this one?

“Let’s go around,” I say to Africa. He grunts, but follows me. For the first time, I clock just how quiet he is. He hasn’t said anything since we left the stadium. Not a single word.

Of course, it’s not just the one fallen skyscraper. At least three in the downtown area have collapsed. We keep running up against dead ends, jagged mountains of rubble, clouds of smoke and ash. The third one is the worst. It took a whole block down with it, and we can’t even get close. It’s a shattered mess, cloaked in thick, noxious clouds that the rain does nothing to disperse.

We beat a hasty retreat, back to Grand and 2nd. It’s past 10 p.m. now. Whatever energy the mystery meat sandwiches gave us has long since been used up. I put my hands on my knees, head hanging, trying to make myself think. “OK. OK… if we go back to Westlake, we should be able to go round the damage.”

Africa doesn’t respond.

“We’ll go down on the other side of the 110,” I say. “Through Pico-Union. It’ll take us longer, but—hey, dude. Dude!”

He’s walking away. In the opposite direction from where I told him we should go.

“Uh, Africa? It’s this way, man.”

Africa ignores me, trudging away. Head down, arms tightly folded. What the fuck is he doing?

With a barely suppressed snarl, I take off after him, a stitch digging into my side. “Hello? Earth to Africa?”

He spits something ugly-sounding in Wolof. Then: “Just go. I will be fine.”

“Um, how about no? Where do you think you’re going?”

“Skid Row.”

“Dude, that’s—My way’s a lot faster. You know that, right?”

“I’m not going to the museum. I’m going to Skid Row.”

“What, you’re just going there? Like going, and not coming back? What the fuck are you talking—”

“ Because Jeannette is there! ”

He roars it in my face. It’s an Africa roar, so it’s lucky my feet don’t leave the concrete.

He points a trembling finger. “She is there. I go to her, and I find her. I don’t care where you go, come with, what you do. But I am going to find her.”

“Wait a second. Jeannette’s in Skid Row? You’re not homeless any more, what the hell’s she doing there?”

“Oh ya.” His expression turns bitter, almost contemptuous. “You say I’m not homeless. But I am always homeless man to you. We can live in big house and have all the money but we always be homeless, yaaw ?”

“That makes no sense.”

“You wanna know why Jeannette is in Skid Row?” He’s not looking at me now, his gaze somewhere down one of the darkened, ruined streets. “She is an addict. She take meth. She smoke weed. Even when we have nice apartment, even when I have this job, she not get clean. She keep going back there to find a fix. I say to her, why? I tell her I can help her, I love her, that she must not do these things to herself. Ce n’est pas important .

“And she is like every addict there is. She thinks she is in control. She thinks she can quit when she want, or that she can just go away from me and come back. I am going to find her, and you cannot stop me.”

Jesus.

Why the hell didn’t we know about this? I’ve seen Africa pretty much every day – we all have. And not once does it come up that his girlfriend, the love of his life, was still a drug addict? Not a single time? And when did I even see Jeannette last?

I’ve met her exactly once, long before Africa came to work for us. A skeletal woman with terrified eyes, stick-thin and angry. I just kind of assumed that once Africa came to work for us… I thought she would…

And suddenly, I’ve had enough. Selfish as it is – and it is very selfish, the kind of impulse I normally run a mile from – we’ve got a lot of shit to deal with right now. I do not need to add Africa’s relationship problems into the mix. Not when the earthquake kid is still out there.

And you know what else? I don’t believe him. How many insane, made-up stories has he told us? All that bullshit about working secret service for Obama and smuggling gold in France, when he was probably nothing more than a homeless dude with an overactive imagination.