Морин Макхью - Wastelands - The New Apocalypse

Now, cars snaked up and down in both directions as far as the eye could see, bumpers almost locked together. Most of them were coffins with a view, and too many of the windows were open, but the sea air had long ago washed away the odor, accelerating decomposition so that the sight of near-skeletal drivers and passengers was far worse than the smell.

She and Karen grew hushed as they crossed the PCH back toward the pier, past the proud parents of Honor Roll Students and U.S. Marines and those who’d had Babies on Board. The sight of a child’s remains still strapped into a car seat had haunted Nayima’s dreams for two nights, so she never let her eyes wander, focusing on the rusting hoods and bumpers instead. A few of the cars’ windows were spray-painted over, someone’s valiant attempt at neighborhood beautification.

But maybe it was only fitting that they could never escape the dead.

The whitewashed structures lining either side of the Malibu Pier entrance made Nayima think of a Moorish castle, except for a tacky blue sign above that once had glowed in neon.

She surveyed the area, deciding she would do her stand-up act closer to the sidewalk rather than on the pier itself. She would build a stage just far enough away from the road that the corpses in the stalled cars wouldn’t ruin her act, but far enough from the ocean that her voice wouldn’t be washed out in the waves.

So much to think about. So much planning to do.

Working on her own now, Nayima used the sole of her shoe to tack a flyer to a wooden bus bench advertising a law office. She and Karen had found a steady pace together as they walked up and down the highway, so they had posted all but two of the flyers by the time they reached the pier itself. No matter. She would come back and post more flyers the next day.

A sudden motion from the pier shocked her. The Old Man in the Sea was shuffling toward them with a bucket in one knobby hand and a fishing rod over his shoulder. His face was nearly hidden in the tangle of his white hair and wild beard. Nayima wondered if he had any other clothes except his tattered fisherman’s raincoat.

He wasn’t wearing a dust mask, so he slowed when he saw them, changed the angle of his approach through the walkway. Karen followed Nayima’s lead and backed away from him, giving him a wide passage—which turned out to be a good thing, because a mighty stink of unwashed skin and clothes walked with him. He hesitated, as if he wondered if they might try to steal his catch.

Nayima pointed to the sign. “I’m doing a comedy show,” she said. “Right here, in two days. I hope you’ll come.”

He shuffled to the sign on the bus bench and read it a long time, as if it were much longer than a dozen words. Then he turned to look at her, assessing her. From his sour face, he found her unfit for the task.

“George Carlin,” he said.

She’d heard of George Carlin, but she’d never seen his act. “Kind of like that, I guess,” she said. “Except—”

“Richard Pryor,” he interrupted.

She knew Richard Pryor. One of her few memories of her father was when he’d come over three or four times the summer when she was sixteen and, with nothing else to talk about, he’d put on Richard Pryor standup DVDs, turning the volume lower and lower until they could barely hear it because Gram was in the next room. Then he’d gone back to the Philippines, where he was stationed in the Army. Nayima wondered how the Philippines had fared with the plague.

“Pryor’s a lot to live up to, but I’ll do my best,” Nayima said. She remembered Pryor’s routine after he went to the hospital for freebasing, and the one after his heart attack, and wondered what he would have said about the apocalypse.

“She’s very funny,” Karen assured the old man.

He scowled at Nayima, then at Karen, then back at Nayima. Both of them were wearing masks and gloves, but she felt naked, as if he could see the antibodies in their blood. As if he knew what she had done to Kyle.

“More vaccine’s coming,” he said. “Radio said so.”

They both thanked the Lord above. Nayima felt a sting in her eyes as she summoned tears that would look like joy. Her theater classes had not been wasted like Gram had said they would be.

“Did the radio say when?” Nayima said, trying to sound eager instead of terrified.

Nayima did not have a radio; she’d broken it on the way to Malibu. Also, there were no batteries in her apartment—she’d looked—so a radio wouldn’t do her any good.

He shrugged and began walking on with his fish. He swung one stiff leg, his gait uneven. Water from his bucket splashed. His bare feet were gray with grime, toenails blackened.

“Free water!” Nayima called after him. “Tell your…” She almost said friends . “… You know… Other people.”

He kept walking without looking back. “Jerry Seinfeld!” he said, like an epithet.

She would have to bring up her joke game to get this withered old grouch to laugh, especially if he was comparing her to comedy legends. How was that even fair?

“Well, shit,” Karen said, once he was out of earshot. “What happens to… us?”

“I’m not gonna stick around to find out,” Nayima said.

I , not, we .

Not us .

Nayima did not sleep that night.

Karen had said they should leave Malibu by morning, but now Nayima understood the meaning of the phrase The show must go on . While Karen sobbed in the bedroom, Nayima worked by candlelight at the living room table to write flyers, even though she knew she should be writing more jokes. She wanted to prove herself, but there was no point in honing her material if no one would hear about her show. She doubted the old fisherman would tell anyone to come. And if he showed up, he’d be a heckler for sure.

Nayima finished the entire ream of paper: a stack of two-hundred. She hadn’t been so excited about a project since years before the plague. Maybe ever.

By the end of the next day, Malibu was Nayimatown. Her flyers were everywhere; clamped beneath windshield wipers on empty cars, tacked to telephone poles, pinned beneath rocks atop the giant beach boulders. She’d remembered every spot where she’d seen Mister Mom or The Three Stooges or The Brat Pack, where anyone might be likely to go. While she placed the flyers, she ran over her act in her mind. She might not have a notebook one day, so she would need to be able to rely on her memory.

Karen did not hang flyers with her the second day. She was packing.

Nayima was always packed. She wore her world on her back.

On the day of the show, Nayima set out with her backpack before a hint of daylight. She did not want to see the apartment in sunlight, or she might come back. She locked the door and kicked the key down over the railing to the sand below so she would not be tempted to return. The tide would bury the key or sweep it away.

Karen followed her, but neither of them spoke. They were each carrying a plastic crate that would serve as Nayima’s stage, to give her a small height advantage, a touch of grandness. The surf’s music followed them, coaxing tears from Nayima. She would miss the ocean wherever she went next. Karen had a backpack too—with far too much inside. Karen was already breathing hard under the weight of her pack. She would not last. They had been walking for fifteen minutes before Nayima realized her tears might be for Karen.

“Let me take your crate,” Nayima said. “I can carry both.”

She knew Karen had only offered to carry one of the crates to be useful to her. Nayima had sterilized extra water bottles for the audience, so her backpack was much heavier too.