Will McIntosh - Soft Apocalypse

It was a stripped-down car, little more than seats on an axle, pulled by a whining, barking pack of dogs. A cardboard “Taxi” sign was taped to the front.

“No way,” Deirdre said.

It made sense, really. There were plenty of dogs. Hell, they were all over, like big rats. We watched as the taxi rolled out of sight.

“You walked over here alone?” I asked.

Deirdre looked at me like I was an idiot.

“It’s just that the streets are so dangerous,” I said.

“Yeah? And?”

I shrugged. She had a point. People seemed way more willing to take risks now than when I was a kid. Maybe it was because we didn’t expect to live as long as our parents did.

Was that it? Did we think: Why not risk it, I’ll probably be dead soon anyway? Yeah, we did. When I was a kid I was sure I’d live to ninety, maybe a hundred. I’d been adjusting that estimate downward ever since. Now I figured that unless things got better, I’d be lucky to reach fifty.

“What do you want to do?” I asked.

Deirdre shrugged. “Surprise me.”

Surprise Deirdre? Shit. Maybe we could walk a tight-rope between the Hilton and the Saint John the Baptist Church belfry. Or dynamite the Savannah Bridge and watch it crash into the river. She’d like that. I was tempted to suggest a restaurant.

I glanced at Deirdre: she had an eager, hyper look on her face. It was becoming apparent that Deirdre was a woman of many moods, and that they cycled through her quickly and unexpectedly.

Surprise Deirdre. I took her hand, headed down East Jones and through Troup Square, trying to think.

Someone had wrapped a length of electrical cord down a busted out lamppost in the square, like Christmas garland only colorless. I’d almost forgotten about Christmas. It was soon; I wasn’t sure exactly what the date was. Somewhere in the teens. In keeping with the Christmas theme, the big marble statue of John Wesley that sat atop his tomb in the center of the square had been spray painted red and green, except for his face, which was painted black. At least I thought it was his tomb. I’d never actually read the brass plaque embedded in the concrete below the statue.

Tombs. Now, that was something Deirdre might like.

“Come on.” I took Deirdre’s hand and drew her down Abercorn.

“Hmmm,” Deirdre cooed as we crossed Liberty and walked toward the locked gates of Colonial Park Cemetery.

She ignored my attempt to boost her and scrabbled over the fence. I gripped the rough, rusty iron and climbed in after her. White headstones glowed vaguely in the tree-canopied darkness, chipped and crooked like giant teeth. Crepe myrtle, barkless and shiny, twisted toward the sky.

Deirdre stepped over a fallen lamppost, headed toward the concrete wall that marked the far end of the cemetery. I followed, wrapped my hands around her waist when I caught up to her. She was staring up at the rows of lost tombstones, mounted along the wall.

“What’re those doing up there?” she asked.

“Soldiers came through here during the Civil War, pulled them out of the ground and tossed them around. The residents didn’t know which went where, so they couldn’t put them back.”

“I don’t know why people care so much about dead bodies anyway. What’s the difference where someone is once they’re dead?”

I slid my palms up her sides, wrapped them over her breasts. She looked back at me over her shoulders, smiling. “You want to fuck me in a graveyard?” She scanned the graveyard as I slid my hands under her shirt.

“This way,” she said, taking my hand and leading me over a low fence enclosing two rows of concrete tombs that looked like coffins set aside to be buried later. There were eight of them in the little family plot. One of them was much smaller than the rest—suitable for a four-or five-year-old child. Deirdre chose that one.

I strolled down York Street toward Deirdre’s condo, enjoying the cool weather, my hand in my pocket holding my pay. I loved the feel of the thickish wad of cash in my pocket. Six hundred forty dollars—not a bad week’s pay. I wouldn’t be moving into the gated district any time soon, and Deirdre probably made ten times what I did, but still, it was nice to be making enough that I could buy a newspaper if I wanted.

I wanted to think that my improved fortunes were part of a larger economic recovery, but it was hard to tell. To me, things seemed a little better, but there were still plenty of homeless, and the stock market just kept sinking. If the government knew what the unemployment rate was, they weren’t saying, but on the news an economist had estimated it was close to sixty percent. Angling my face toward the sun, I decided I would stop fretting and be glad I wasn’t one of them. Things were going well, all things considered, and I should appreciate it. Deirdre and I were at a point in our relationship that it was assumed we’d see each other every day, and I was catching glimpses of a softer woman underneath the edgy, intense exterior.

I paused beside a huge Sanitation Department dumpster that sat abandoned on the corner, shaded by a live oak. There were two guys staring up at Deirdre’s condo from across the street—a short old guy with the remnant of what must have been a prodigious beer gut when French fries were cheap, and a short younger guy who looked disturbingly like a gnome.

The gnome spotted me approaching, gestured me over.

“Feast your eyes,” he whispered.

Deirdre was gardening on her terrace, completely naked. Her nipples brushed the dark soil as she filled in a hole, patting the earth vigorously, her immense satisfaction easy to read on her face.

“Yeah, I’ve seen her naked before,” I said.

The gnome looked at me, confused. “She’s done this before?”

“No, that’s my girlfriend.”

“Shiiit,” he said, grinning. “You’re lucky.”

“I know,” I said. I got a better grip on the plastic bag that contained my photo album and headed for the door, fishing Deirdre’s key out of my pocket.

“Honey, I’m home,” I called.

Deirdre lifted her head, peered at me through the sliding glass door. She got up, brushed her knees and ass, opened the door. “No you’re not. Your home is on Jones Street.” She pressed up against me, gave me a tongue-first kiss.

“You must have missed the tone I was going for. It was meant to be ironic. Well, not exactly ironic, or sarcastic exactly. But it was meant to have a tone.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” she said, smiling.

“I don’t know,” I said. I headed toward the terrace. The two guys were still standing across the street. The gnome waved. I waved back. “So what are you planting?”

“Peppers. Hot ones—all sorts. I love peppers.”

“Ah. No tomatoes? No spinach?”

“Nope. Just peppers. I don’t like all those other vegetables.” She curled her lip as if eating vegetables was comparable to licking mold off the shower curtain. “Who were you waving to?”

“The two guys who were watching you from across the street. Nice guys. They weren’t jerking off or anything. Very polite about it.”

“Really?” Deirdre said, moving to the glass door to see. She laughed. “They were watching me? I didn’t even notice.”

The gnome waved again, tentatively. Deirdre waved back. We moved away from the window.

“You coming to the concert tonight?” Deirdre asked.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” I said.

“Cool.” She turned on her 3-D TV, threw herself onto the couch, propped one leg on the coffee table, the other on the couch.

“You don’t have a concert tomorrow, right? Everyone’s planning to go to the beach.”

“Right. Who’s everyone?”

“Colin, Jeannie, Ange, Cortez,” I ticked off. “You up for it?”