Matthew Tysz - The Last City of America

“It shouldn’t have to be this way.”

Adam turned and paid close attention. Yes! The groundhog was out. He laughed. “You really hate our system that much, huh?”

“You can do what you want with our food, that’s not what I’m talking about,” Morgan looked to the sky. “It shouldn’t have to be that we suffer for it.”

“I know that, Morgan. I’d love to change things. I think about it all the time.” Adam got in front of him, walking backwards. “But the way I see it, there’s always gonna be something stopping you from being happy. You have to let yourself—”

“People shouldn’t have to risk a bullet just to keep from starving.” Morgan’s feet crunched loudly into gravel.

“I know that. But if you’re smart, you can—”

“And all anybody on this island does about it is drop to their knees and figure out how to deal with it. Like the cowards they are.”

Adam scratched the back of his neck, walked forward again. “Well… to be honest with you, Morgan, it sounds like you’re just looking for things to be angry about.”

Morgan turned his head to him, and gave him a kinda scary look. Adam had seen eyes glow, almost catch fire out of the ugliest rage. But he had never seen eyes darken. Morgan stopped. “I’ll trust your father to do what’s right with that food. I hope he enjoys his coffee.” He turned to his building, his hands in his pockets.

Adam frowned, suddenly feeling like shit. If Morgan didn’t hate him before, he did now. Tomorrow, Adam would get up early to make sure Morgan didn’t leave without him for the LIM. That would set them straight for sure.

He leapt up the stoop and into his building. He held a smile, as he always did when he came home from the LIM. In the kitchen, his father hugged him. Then his mother. They were always so relieved to see him. Adam always made a point taking as little time at the LIM as he could, including the walk to and from. His parents were the hardest-working people he knew, but when he was at the LIM, they shut down. When they finally recovered, he told them everything that happened, as he always did.

“He’s something else, that kid,” said his father. “I’m glad he has your back, but make sure you protect him also, son. I lost enough friends to that place.”

Adam assured his father that he knew what he was doing, and his father said he knew, just that he worried. Adam said he knew. “How are the crops?”

“The land around here is a lot richer than we thought.” Dad left the table, crossed the kitchen. He reached over his wife into the cupboard for some cookies. “It may be enough to build an entire farm. So long as the city never finds out about it, we may be able to support ourselves… and once your mother learns how to cook, we’ll really be in business.”

Adam’s mother threw a radish at her husband’s head.

“You see?” his father smiled. “The poor woman can’t even hit the pot.”

“I hit the pot, alright,” his mother laughed.

Adam smiled. “I’m asking cause… I’m gonna go back to the LIM tomorrow.”

The smiles were gone, and Adam felt bad again. “Morgan suggested it.”

Adam’s father touched his wife on the shoulder, and she continued cooking. “Three days in a row, Adam… I’m not sure if your mother and I want you going that often.”

“I know, dad, but I’m always gonna go eventually… might as well get better at it…”

“Dennis already volunteered to go… bring him with you, okay?”

“Okay, dad.”

Adam’s father walked out of the room. Adam sat at the table, thinking. The water on the stove began to boil. His mother finished peeling an onion and came to him. Her hands always smelled like something when she put her arm around him. Today, it was gonna be onions. “I understand you, Adam,” she almost whispered. She did that when she wanted to be heard. “But you can’t make this an everyday routine. It’s not only about the risk, it’s about us too, your father especially. He can’t take it every day. Go tomorrow and do what I taught you: keep your head down, be polite, give them what they want, take what you need, run home.”

“I will, mom. I always do.”

Mom smiled, took her arm away. “So how’s Maggie?”

Adam smiled back. “She’s good, I guess.” He never felt comfortable talking to his mother about Maggie, but mom never cared. Over time, he had sort of gotten used to it. Maybe he’d open up more once the relationship climbed out of the silly crush it was.

“You need to talk to her about your feelings. I know she’ll listen.”

“I know, mom.”

“Have you thought about what we discussed the other day?”

Adam’s mind went silent. Mom had a way of bringing up the most difficult topics like it was nothing. He’d rather talk to her about Maggie than talk to anyone about this. His parents hadn’t told him until recently—they didn’t want to get his hopes up.

There was one way for a shadowpastor to leave his labor and become a skytaker. One way, and it was more or less subjective: genes.

“You’re a handsome man, Adam,” his mother said. “You’re strong, and you’re healthy. If you go to the admissions office and appeal to them with Maggie, I know they’ll let you stay. In the cities, there are courthouses to process marriage. I know your father would prefer a church. Maybe they still have those. Manhattan has everything.”

“It won’t matter if I’ve got Hephaestus, mom.”

“…There are ways of checking, Adam.”

Adam still remembered how nervous Maggie became waiting for her cycles to begin, terrified that the virus had taken her motherhood away from her. He remembered comforting her through it, and how overjoyed they both were when it finally happened. Now, more than ten years later, it was Adam’s turn. And he couldn’t do it. And there were other problems…

“I don’t know if I’d wanna go anyway, mom,” he understated.

“I know, honey, but you can’t risk your life here if there’s more for you elsewhere. And there is.” She got up and returned to her cooking.

Adam looked up above the sink at a framed picture his father had taken years ago. It was a black-and-white of their street in the evening. It was his favorite. He looked back down and sighed.

Mom still just couldn’t get it. He didn’t want more.

He was growing to dislike that stupid rock climber by the day.

Morgan sat on his bed. The gun he had taken from the guard he knocked out was sitting in his desk drawer. The shiny one he got from Rick was in his hands. Until today, Morgan’s earliest memory was enjoying the trip with his mother through Manhattan, out onto Long Island. Now, it was walking into the bathroom late one night as his father’s head exploded.

It was places like the LIM that made his father shoot himself. That and cowardice.

And in these memories of his, Adam’s words stuck in his head like a sinus infection.

“You’re looking for things to be angry about.”

Morgan’s eyes were motionless at the metal in his hands. His father’s death, his contempt for Adam Velys and his hatred of the LIM all shown in the reflection of a gun; a life spent kicked around among herds of useless cowards who accepted their place as slaves.

How was it possible to not want more?

Knocking at the door.

Morgan put the gun in his desk. “Come in.” He was expecting his mother. She probably found out through Adam that he planned on going to the LIM a third time, and had come to beg him not to.

The door opened. It was Maggie Blake. Morgan stood.

She was wearing an aqua blouse with yellow flowers, her hair in little pig tails. “Hey there, Mr. Morgan.” She shut the door behind her. “How are you?”