Морин Макхью - Wastelands - The New Apocalypse

“One dried apple and a shirt,” he says decisively.

Jessica pulls up the picture board and there it is: one apple (which really means any fruit) and a shirt drawn on it. Luis is dead-on. I move to clap him on the back, but I can feel the heat baking off him and I think better of it.

This carnival had a plinko game when we found it. That was how I knew we should start it all up again. I took one look at this thing, the rat shit piled up in the bottom, and I felt everything roll into place like a jackpot. People were getting sick, and there were no doctors. People were antsy, fighting over salvage. I don’t have any other skills, and the girls worked their whole lives at being pretty. Together, we talked about our odds of survival. Asked if we were any good to our fellow man, if we could save anyone. Even ourselves. If we should run. That stupid plinko game was the answer. We could give the people something to root for as the world goes dark. We could keep from getting killed for meat, probably. Most of these folks still recognized me from TV. I could use that to keep some order. I could make sure the show would go on.

The old carnival was a dump, but the girls helped me get it into shape. Drag the bleachers away from the dead animals and rip the chain out of the ferris wheel so we can spin it by hand. Everything needed work. I wanted torches but we never got any. We just start at midday to beat the dark.

The plinko still works. The rats moved on to richer gnawing and we replaced the chits with a stack of coasters Jessica found in a bar and grill. We have to keep a close eye on those. Everyone takes a shine to them.

Angie’s coaster gets caught twice. According to the rules, she’s allowed to pound the plinko with one fist. She does it both times, but takes one of the smallest prizes. She gets a bag of plantain chips. She pockets them at once and looks up at the rearing height of the wheel. Tomtom drops their coaster and takes a fat crow, shot this morning as it ate from our scraps. That’s Flo—she’s got the good eye. Not bad for a model who could barely make toast before we left L.A. There’s two more crows hanging up in our place to eat tonight when it’s just the three of us and the fire. Luis takes the middle prize: a little salted fish. He pockets it with the same look that Angie had; careful, but still hoping to win big.

The wheel looms. We walk up to it and crane our necks back to look up. One day it’ll surely come down. By then I hope we are long gone from this cracked asphalt. Luis spins first. The wheel is too big to be spun by one person. People would have freaked out in the old days, but I solved it easy. Jessica and Flo go around to the other side and assist. If it’s a kid or an old person, they help a lot. A little if it’s an adult in good shape.

I peer through the rusty buckets that people used to ride in and see they already know. Luis will need a lot of help.

The wheel is the only place where we kept numbers. We couldn’t agree on adding up food and clothes to any kind of standard, so we just painted on the same wheel from memory. The colors are off, but it looks pretty good.

The girls help Luis with a big shove and the wheel is turning slowly against its own rust, coming down from the flat gray sky, creaking as it comes to rest against the pointer we made out of an old wedge of sponge to land on 85.

“Come on down” used to be something only the host would say, but things change. The audience chants it now as the big wheel rolls forward and down, forward and down. Come on down. Come on down . You’d think these people would have had enough uncertainty in their lives, but they yell for more. They’re bundled from the cold. Red in the cheeks. Begging for the next thing that comes down to be good news. If not for them, for somebody. Sometimes just seeing it is enough.

Angie can barely reach up and I see her elbows are crabbed with arthritis. The girls are ready and the wheel comes down down down to rest at 55. Angie risks a second spin and wipes out, landing on 75 this time. She goes back into the crowd, lip quivering in time with the rest of her. My chest aches to watch her go. We used to give folks like that a consolation prize but I’ve got almost nothing to console with anymore. I can maybe slip her one of those cans of potatoes when it starts to get dark.

Tomtom reaches up mightily, showing off hard muscles in a brown belly. They pull the wheel hard and the creak goes high, shrieky, the wheel moving almost as fast as it did when it ran. The showgirls stand back. The crowd claps and claps and then explodes when Tomtom pulls a perfect 100, painted in that funny glowing green.

The wheel is far away from the stands, so we walk back over toward the bleachers for the showcase round.

The hush is on now. This is what they really came for. Jessica saunters up with the case slung around her neck. She holds one hand hidden behind it, and they know that’s where the gun is. They act better when they don’t see it and we don’t mention it. But it has to be there.

Flo pulls around the corner in the car and they absolutely lose their shit. We haven’t put a running car in the showcase for months now. We’re all going to have to convoy South, and nobody wants to be left on foot. The night never ends here and the wind is getting colder. There are only a handful of running cars, and only one or two people who can work on them. It’s a long way to the equator, where things are supposed to be better. Please, sponsors, deliver the showcase of a better place. I’ve told them it’s better, and they believe me. They have to. I bring them luck.

But Jessica opens her case and there’s dead silence as people whip back the other way to see a full and pristine med kit. Luis licks his dry lips with a dry tongue.

It’s time.

I wheel the mic in front of Tomtom, who gets to choose whether they’ll go first on the kit or pass on that and try for the car. It’s a sorry thing, without any remaining windows and four bald tires threatening to birth their belts at any moment. Tomtom thinks for a long minute while the crowd frets. So do I.

I knew before anybody knew, because I could see it in the prizes. No more flights to Italy or Thailand, then no more flights to anywhere. Train trips to New Orleans pitched with great romance as we pretended nothing was wrong.

Then I saw it in the audience. Two or three folks in uniform in the stands, then twenty. Then everyone.

Then none.

At the end, we hit record numbers of people lined up outside. Prizes were all forms of escape. Boats stayed in the running long after cars dropped out. For a while, they were the most popular item. Boats gave people ideas. Freedom still seemed possible, if only you could navigate those concrete rivers to the sea.

They talked to the newsroom people, and I thought they’d take us off the air or just leave us alone, but they didn’t. They told us the job was more important than ever. Us daytime shows made sure people felt normal. More and more of them were staying home from work, and they couldn’t get streaming after we lost the net and the phones went down. All they had was TV. Local affiliates were still carrying the good stuff—us and the soaps—and we held out.

Until the very end.

Tomtom picks the car and Flo honks the horn. Car sounds like it has the flu, but the crowd loves it anyway. I can see some folks at the edges consider their odds of taking it from her. Jessica stands up straight, eyes like a predator. The kit bumps against the muzzle of the gun. Nobody makes a break for it.

Tomtom faces the car with their hips pushed out, one hand stroking a stubbly chin. “A live cow. No, ten bullets and a live cow.”

Tomtom takes the car.

Luis’ eyes are too bright. He’s staring and staring at the case. That look isn’t new. I used to see it all the time. People who didn’t just want to win—they had to. It’s why you get famous in this job. Me and Mack and Pat and Alex and Monty. Because we could make something more than dreams come true. We could make life go on. That’s what they came to see today, and every day since this sorry business began. And now, a word from our sponsors.